Disclaimer: I don't own the GW characters – am just borrowing to torment for my amusement

Warnings: Swearing, yaoi, violence, general angst, possible OOCness (ages since I've written fanfiction so may be a little bit rusty)

Pairings: 1x2 , 3x4 a hint of one sided 5+2

A/N: Song for this chapter is Rise Against's The Good Left Undone especially the last few lines if anyone is checking the songs out. Finally some Duo/Heero interaction!

Chapter Six

All Because of You

I always thought I was kinda cool. That I acted in a way that could be considered cool, flippant, nonchalant. The moment I almost fell through Heero's open window was not only not one of my finest moments, it was one of the most embarrassing things I'd done for a long time. And certainly not cool. Once the window opened I inelegantly threw my duffle in the room and then followed it without looking too closely and damn nearly fell into the room in a heap. I was meant to be a sneaky bastard but if I'd been like this in my past career of breaking and entering, I wouldn't have lasted long.

I rose to my feet and straightened up feeling more than a little stupid at my unsuccessful entrance.

Heero snorted which might as well have been hysterical laughing. "There's a door, Duo."

"Yeah, but you know me, always like to make an entrance."

"Your stealth skills have become rusty."

I scratched the back of my head and shrugged. "Guess I'm not as sneaky as I used to be."

He shook his head in a sign of disapproval but I could see a slight quirk of his lips that suggested he found my whole entrance amusing. Being that it had taken all the potential tension out of the situation, I was giving myself a ten out of ten. I wasn't used to making a fool of myself anymore, it made me feel a little like I how used to be – ready to make people laugh. I didn't do that anymore. Or I hadn't until just now.

I looked at him and a smile must have crossed my face. I wanted to laugh now because the Heero in front of me was not the one that I thought about. He looked different, older yeah, but looked, well normal, you know. No spandex, less intense eyes, he'd bulked out more than me since the wars but he was still lean. He was wearing ripped jeans which made my head spin, yeah he was undercover, but shit – ripped jeans, check shirt, grey t shirt, and hell – Converse – he looked like I would dress if I wasn't so attached to the black jeans and t shirt combo.

I must have laughed without realising. "Something funny?" he asked.

"You look… normal."

"What did you expect? It's been over three years," he stated.

"I just didn't think you'd change."

He obviously didn't know what to say to that as he seemed to look at me closely, his eyes searching me in a way that brought me back to being fifteen and feeling weak around him. Shit, I thought I was over this, I thought I was a grown man, I thought after everything, I wouldn't feel so… so vulnerable around him. But he didn't take my bullshit, never believed that the mask I presented to the world was the real me… he was the only person who did understand me. Q was always right, we understood each other even if we never functioned well together.

"Your hairs shorter," he said finally.

"Yeah, it was getting impractical, you know."

"I never thought you'd do that."

I shrugged. "Probably a lot of things I've done that you wouldn't expect."

I looked around the apartment now we were done sizing each other up. It was one room, a bed, a sofa, a kitchenette, a table where his laptop and work was set up. There was nothing that identified it as Heero's place apart from the glowing laptop – the place could've belonged to anyone. I could see a bathroom through an open door off the kitchenette – it was tiny and in a stupid place. Gotta love the design of accommodation in L2.

"It's cozy."

"It's well located and I am able to use the technology of the café below to disguise my own communications with Wufei."

I nodded not really knowing what to say. We were stood, me by the window, him leaning against the small table and I didn't really know what to do or say.

"Do you want coffee?" he asked finally.

"Sure."

"Black?"

I nodded.

He walked over to the kitchenette, got out some chipped mugs and poured cups from a pot. I took my chance to sit on the couch and unzipped the hooded sweatshirt a bit. I'd been travelling for hours and felt gross – I'd get a shower at whichever shitty motel I found to check into after this awkward situation. He handed over the coffee in chipped mugs.

"Thanks."

"Have you eaten?"

"Yeah."

He walked over to the chair at the table and turned the chair towards me. His laptop was open – the screen casting a little green light on his features. It felt very familiar. I took a sip of the coffee. It was decent and strong.

"So… you've been undercover for all this time?" I asked.

"Mainly military based groups full of ex-OZ soldiers."

"Hmm, sort of place I wouldn't fit in."

"I… I thought you were dead."

I shrugged, meeting his eyes. Damn, his eyes. "Naw, nothing can kill Shinigami, you should know that."

A silence descended on the room. I shifted awkwardly and took a sip of the coffee avoiding his glance.

"Do you want to stay? Wufei suggested that you should while you assess the situation."

I think the look of shock must have registered on my face as he was looking at me strangely. "Naw, I'll check into some shitty motel. I'm pretty used to them."

He nodded. I saw something in his eyes that I would like to say was disappointment but damn, maybe I was just being a stupid idiot who thought there was still something there for him after all this time. I shrugged and then thought about a crappy motel room and looked around the cozy apartment. It made sense that I stayed, we could go through everything, share information, and surely it proved that we could work together fine if I stayed.

"I'll stay. Guess it's easier than finding somewhere cheap to stay," I said taking another sip of coffee and avoiding direct eye contact. "Can I take a shower? I've been travelling for hours and I'm kinda gross."

"Yes but run the water first. It tends to come out dirty at first."

I rolled my eyes. "Those are the things I don't miss about here."

I put my coffee cup down and grabbed some clean clothes from my duffle feeling his eyes on me as I walked to the bathroom. He watched me as I shut the door on him. The room was dark, windowless and dirty. I could tell Heero had tried to clean the place up but there were some stains that just didn't seem to go no matter how hard you scrubbed. I took a deep breath and started to run the water and he was right, it was dirty and it was cool. Same old. Always seemed like the water was never hot enough on L2. Especially not in a shitty place in the District.

I undressed and undid my hair letting it fall over my shoulders. I suppose it didn't surprise me that it was the first thing he mentioned about my appearance. He'd always been fascinated why I kept it so long so it made sense that he'd notice it. It had been my defining feature and sometimes I felt a little sick that I'd cut it but it made my undercover work easier. The cool water ran down my body and over the new ink. Suppose these were my defining feature now.

He hadn't seen the ink that now marked my left arm, the intricate linking of images that flowed in blacks and muted colours. It was weird, I hadn't, you know, intended it, but the angels wings, the way they spread over my shoulder, curling around to where the shadowy image of Deathscythe that started on the inside of my arm… it looked more than a lil bit like the wings of the upgraded Wing Zero. The angel itself was a series of thin lines, the body naked but you know, not obviously so, but the wings, the way they looked... I could say it was a way of recognising my Catholic past but the thing was, the angel wasn't about that, I had the goddamn Celtic style cross on my forearm and that to me was the symbolic link I had to that faith. So the angel meant something else. Let's just say, it ain't a love letter to him. Or at least, I don't think it is.

I got out of the shower, dried myself and dressed quickly, throwing on a black tank top and some baggy jeans that sat low on my hips. I rebraided my hair while it was still wet and opened the door to see him sat back at the damned laptop. It reminded me of the last day I'd seen him.

He was still wounded and in that goddamn sterile smelling hospital. I hated hospitals. I thought about bailing but a part of me couldn't so instead, I just stayed, hung around but with Relena and the others there we never got time alone and I was really cool with it. If it was really over this time, if we weren't soldiers and shit, then me and Heero were nothing to each other. Fuck buddies. That was it.

I didn't know what to say to him when he was in that hospital bed. He was so… so lost, I guess. He'd done everything, he'd damn near given everything and he was ready to be dead, I guess. And he wasn't. Quatre had made me go to him, realising I was avoiding him – Q knew me well. He was sat up in the bed on his laptop, I could see the bandages from the various wounds, I was smarting a little from him punching me and bossing me around so I was prepared to be an ass to him. I didn't want a relationship with him, it had already complicated the war for me – made me hurt in ways that I didn't want to ever feel again. I didn't want to feel vulnerable again. And so I said it meant nothing. It was easier that way. But it wasn't. I hadn't expected him to argue with me, try to get out of the hospital bed and grab me by the collar of my shirt. I didn't expect him to kiss me like he did. Like he was trying to find an anchor in a storm or something and I couldn't deal… I pushed him away, physically, making him fall back onto the hospital bed, his laptop falling ominously to the floor. Then I said those words you can't back down from.

"I hate you."

I don't know why I said it. I still don't get it. It was me being a melodramatic little shit but whatever it worked. My big mouth had a habit of getting me into trouble but I was so drained that I couldn't deal with him when I was too busy putting me back together. I left him there, you know, looking lost and hurt. And then Quatre tried – that's Q for you, he always tried. That big old space heart of his always told him we belonged together or some other shit. He always told me we were alike.

"You are the same, Duo," he said gently. "You seem like fire and ice on the surface but underneath that you're both stubborn, reckless, loyal and maybe a little damaged. Talk to him."

I didn't. I ran away. Then he disappeared, checked out of that hospital and went MIA. And Quatre was right to hate me – right to blame me for it. And now Heero was here. In front of me. And I still didn't know what to say. I miss you sounded pathetic. We were too young and damaged then for anything to work. And I was still pretty damaged.

"Thanks 'Ro," I said throwing a towel over a chair, putting my dirty clothes in my duffle before grabbing my hoodie again but he'd looked up. Of course, he had.

His eyes studied my arm, I suppose he'd see the silhouette of the angel, the wings and feathers spreading across the top of my arm like the wings of his Gundam, the silhouette of Deathscythe black apart from the green of the scythe, I self-consciously rubbed my hand over them and then put the sweatshirt back on, zipping it fully as though I was trying to hide my body as much from him. Fuck, he was looking at me very seriously. Even though he damn near always looked serious, he was full on staring at me, his blue eyes then returning back to my face.

"We should discuss the mission."

I thought he was going to say something but hell, if he wasn't going to judge me like 'Fei did, I wasn't going to push it. I grabbed my own duffle bag, bringing out my laptop and set it out on the table opposite him. I ran my fingers through my still damp bangs and then booted the machine up. Heero's machine looked new opposite mine as mine was covered in stickers and pen. I liked making stuff my own, I'd got some stickers about some bands while in Berlin, the tattoo shop I'd got the ink from had stickers so I just put them on the laptop. Considering I'd only just got the thing, I'd made it look pretty old and battered. A part of me knew he was holding his tongue – he surely wanted to call me an idiot or something for messing up a laptop but he didn't. We were both being very careful around each other – we weren't going to fall back into old habits. No teasing and suggestive comments from me and no calling me an idiot and judging me from him. Seemed like we were pretending to be strangers. Worked for me.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He grunted in response and threw a manila envelope across the small table. I opened it as my machine booted up, the identity information presented in the same format as my own were. It listed the basics first, the name, the age which was usually just the actual age you were, and then I saw his past.

"So nice to meet ya, Blaise. I'm Domino. Call me Dom for short."

"I know. Wufei sent me your identity information."

"Huh, you must be his favourite asset. I haven't seen yours."

He scowled at the childishness of my statement but I ignored him and flicked through his file. Blaise was his street name – he was meant to be from Earth, Japan specifically, and had lived a life of computer crime and smuggling. The computer stuff was good as it made sense why a hacker would pick to live above Wired – nice touch, Wufei and team, but the smuggling stuff was what he was trying to interest the L2 criminal community with. Which made me think of my weapon problem or lack thereof.

"'Fei said you'd got in with the local gun runners. I need a coupla pieces – kinda flew commercial."

He nodded and walked over to the kitchen and opened a cupboard. No food in there but he brought out a backpack and walked over with it and dumped it by my feet.

"A few handguns and a flick knife."

I looked in to see a few guns of various calibres along with ammo. I picked up the flick knife and saw it was almost identical to the one I'd had during the war. I flicked it out loving the subtle sound – I'd been known to sit and annoy him by flicking it in and out during missions or just in our shared rooms. He fucking hated it. I'd done it to get his attention and it usually worked at some point. I put the blade away, checked to see if the blade would easily fit in my jeans pocket knowing that I would probably be wearing my usual black skinny jeans on the streets. It would fit and would be easily accessible.

"Thanks, Heero," I said showing my genuine thanks by using his full name. He'd always hated 'Ro but didn't grumble about it much – he knew that he was lucky. The others had ended up with numerous nicknames over the war and he was glad he'd only ended up with the shortened version of his name. Quatre had a particular problem about being called Goggles. Heero had got pissy at me one time saying that his name was short enough already. Granted, it was, but I kinda liked him getting annoyed at me. I knew that I had his attention if I did and somehow it made me understand that he cared.

"It's just a knife," he said dismissively.

I wanted to tease him and say it wasn't just a knife. It was like a romantic gesture to someone like me – I never wanted "I love you" from him, never any of that shit, a bottle of bourbon, some motorcycle parts or a flick knife, and I could be putty in his hands. But damn, I wasn't going to tease him right now. Remember, being neutral, being colleagues. Forget what happened.

I shrugged and began to look at the files uploaded by Wufei. "So the gun runners…they close to this Dallas?"

"No. They provide weapons for him. They've been asked to provide him some C4 and some components to build explosives."

"So they are really serious?"

"I would say so."

"Have you got evidence?"

"I've got some rumours and heresy. I've been providing weapons for the gun runners but they are… reluctant to discuss things with me and what they are for. I've not met Dallas but he's very suspicious of anyone not raised on the streets of L2."

I nodded. "That's gangs for you 'Ro. Everyone's trying to kill you and everyone wants to shop you to the Preventers. It's not paranoia if they are after you."

I flicked up the picture of Dallas on my screen and felt something… oddly familiar about him. I stared at it for some time trying to remember if it was someone I'd lived with at some point in my time on the streets. In Solo's gang kids came and went – Dallas was twenty two so that made him a few years older than me but I couldn't place him. The name wasn't familiar though Dallas sure as hell wouldn't be his real name but most of us had names we'd given ourselves or someone else had given us. I'd been Duo back then.

It could be the church but those kids I remembered… maybe because those particular deaths were on my conscience but shit, Dallas looked familiar. He was wearing typical gang clothes, baggy jeans, a white wife beater, a black bandana obscuring most of his blonde hair. He had numerous tattoos and piercings. I noticed blue eyes staring at me over the screens.

"Something wrong?"

"Just feel like I recognise Dallas. But you know, I knew so many kids and so many of them disappeared or died that I can't place him."

"It would be good if you had some kind of personal connection."

I shrugged. "Don't know, 'Ro. It could be good or bad. He could've been in a rival gang to Solo's and that would stir up shit. Or I could be forgetting some guy who I knew well as a kid."

I stretched out, leaning back on the chair and put my hands behind my head, realising that it raised my top and hoodie exposing my stomach. I had never been as defined as Heero or damn near any of us but my body was still in decent shape. His eyes drifted that way and I didn't know what to think. I should have teased him – I should've said something crude and flirty. Damn near did. But I held my tongue, baby steps. It was bad enough we'd be sharing the cramped quarters for one night without me making something sexual about him looking at my body. He could just be like 'Fei was – checking on my physical and mental health. Or looking at the scar from the knife fight. That would be very Heero. Wouldn't want me passing out or being weak on a mission. Think of it like that, Duo. Mind out of the gutter.

He blinked, realising that I knew he'd been looking at me slightly too intensely and he ran his hand through his messy hair in a nervous gesture I didn't expect. I stopped leaning back and pulled down my top and sweatshirt without looking back at him.

"We should have a meeting with the leader of the gun runners tomorrow," Heero said. "I've contacted Wufei to get us some explosives and equipment."

"'Fei will get you that?"

"He will if we need it for the mission."

"Why can't we just fake it? You know, bullshit them, I'm kinda good at that."

"I can imagine," he said, coolly. Damn, Yuy, way to go making a guy feel low. "But I think only the real materials will get you a meeting with Dallas."

My eyes darted back to the picture on my screen. "You think the gun runners will broker a meeting?"

"If you've got enough C4 to blow up a colony and the skills to construct it."

"Suppose. How long til 'Fei gets something to you?"

"I've contacted him. Two days."

"So you arrange the meeting with the gun runners and I convince them that I'm an explosives guy and then we've got the actual shit for the day I meet with Dallas?"

He nodded.

"Might work," I said, shrugging.

"It might not. I believe Dallas is too cautious to trust you."

"We're fucked either way. Might as well try and get me in before anything goes down."

I yawned, feeling the day of travelling and the emotional upheaval of being face to face with him all too much. Sleep had been a problem for so long that when I did feel dead tired like I did now, I was best to try and get a few hours shut eye before my brain caught up with me. I turned off the images in front of me and switched off my machine.

"I'm beat, 'Ro. Long day and all."

"You can take the bed."

"Naw, I'll take the couch… it's better than some of the dumps I've slept in undercover missions, you know."

I knew it was early but he started to switch off his own machine and got up. "If we sleep now, I will take you out early to the hospital to scout out Dallas' base."

"Sure, sounds awesome."

He passed over a pile of blankets as I moved my duffle and moved around the cushions to create a comfy bed. I took them off him, our hands briefly touching and our eyes meeting. Fuck, don't look at him, asshole. It was making me remember too much stuff and too much shit that had gone on between us.

"Thanks."

He didn't respond as he went to the bathroom leaving me alone. I quickly got out of my jeans and folded them leaving me in my boxers and tank top. I crept under the blankets before he came back in, him wearing a t shirt and a pair of bed shorts. It seemed neither of us wanted to get undressed around each other. It was good. Back to the beginning. Forgot everything we did and pretend it never happened.

"Night," I said turning over so I looked at the couch back rather than into the room and towards him.

I could hear his feet padding quietly as he checked the locks, the windows and then climbed into his own bed.

As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt sleep coming and knew that somehow, after all the years, and all the crappy missions that seemed to haunt me, I was going to sleep pretty soundly. And all because of him.

Damn.