Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, have any relation to Gundam Wing, have no permission from those who created Gundam Wing to write this. This is purely for fun, to waste time, and to make other people happy reading and to spread the joy of slashy literature to all those poor unenlightened Fellow Man out there. I am making no profit from this.

Pairings: 2x1x2, side pairing 3x4

Summary: Heero was perfectly happy as a workaholic recluse, but then Quatre declared War on him and suddenly there's a sugar-high American at his door, messing up the house and showing him that maybe, he hadn't been that happy after all...

Roommate: Unwanted

Chapter Eight: It's All Good

"How is the steak, Heero?"

"The steak is good, Maxwell. How do you find your salad?"

"The salad is good, Heero. So is the soup. It's all good."

"That is good to know, Maxwell. I too find myself enjoying my meal immensely. It is a good meal."

"Really? That's good. I just thought, you know, what with that strained expression…"

"I might say the same of your awkward movements with your utensils, Maxwell. Have you hurt your wrist? You haven't made any headway with your steak at all."

Duo smiled sweetly at Heero, fighting down the grin that was trying to break out at the glitter of suppressed laughter in Heero's attempt at a stoic face. "My wrist is fine, Heero, thank you for your concern."

"Good, good."

"The meat just seems rather… hard, today."

"Does it?" Heero neatly cut another piece of the meat before him and delicate ate it off his fork. "It seems fine to me."

There was a pause. Then Duo couldn't take it anymore, and burst into laughter. He dropped his amazingly malleable knife and fork – it had been such a challenge trying to spear the salad, and trying to use the spoon to drink the soup hadn't been much better either, and the steak was impossible – and gave in to the laughter, letting his forehead thunk down onto the table. "I can't – believe – you kept a – straight face – watching me eat," he managed to say through his laughter.

"The steak almost did me in," Heero agreed, and there was a definite undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

Duo sensed Heero carefully pushing his chair back, and sat up to watch as Heero turned the chair over and peered at it. "Ah," Heero said finally, setting the chair back down, though to one side of the table. "A very careful job. It stands up to being moved around, but when actual weight is placed on it… I hope you're going to replace it, Maxwell."

Duo waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, of course." He grinned suddenly. "I'm amazed you managed to sense it in the first place, but what I'm completely in awe of is how you managed to keep your weight off it for a good twenty minutes. What are you, a robot? A normal person's legs would give out in that position in less than five minutes!"

Heero raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a normal person," he said mildly as he moved over to the row of drawers by the sink.

Duo snorted. "I figured that out ages ago." He reached behind him and snagged the remaining chair in Heero's original set of four from under the protruding counter, and dragged it over to the small table they were eating at.

Heero returned to the table at the same time and dropped a real knife-and-fork pair by Duo's plate, before pulling the chair to his own place at the table and sitting down properly. He gave Duo a tiny smile. "It does feel good to sit, though," he admitted. "The muscle fatigue was starting to pile up."

"So that was strain on your face. I wasn't sure." Duo toasted Heero with his glass of water. "I lost today, so congratulations on your muscles of steel."

Heero's lips twitched. "I don't know, I'd say the switching of the hot and cold faucets was pretty inspired."

"I liked the constant flushing of the toilet while you were bathing, myself."

Heero snorted. "Yeah. I remember. Diarrhoea, my ass."

"Well, my ass."

"Oh, that was bad. That was really bad."

Duo laughed, and set about eating his steak. "Hey, this is pretty good," he said through a mouthful of meat. "Perfectly medium rare. And the mushroom sauce! Is this your lady-killer recipe, Heero? Invite them over and serve it up, and bam! Instant love. They eat your sauce, you eat them."

Heero raised an eyebrow. "Crude, but effective imagery. I don't invite people over for dinner, Maxwell."

"What, not even Quat and Tro-man and Wuffie?"

"Very rarely. We usually meet outside in one of their attempts to get me to socialize." Heero thought for a moment. "In fact, I can't remember the last time I actually cooked for someone."

Duo's grin was wide. "Really? Cool. I'm honoured." He waved a fork at Heero. "I'll make you my knock-out pasta sauce one day."

"Your own lady-killer recipe, I presume?"

"You know it!" Duo winked at him.

More like 'man-killer' recipe, the mental bunny grumbled. And when are we going to get around to eating him, I'd like to know?

Quatre the psycho protective blond! Duo reminded the bunny. There will be no eating of men in this household!

Then rent a hotel room, the bunny suggested.

"Maxwell!"

"Yessir!" Duo jerked to attention, startled. Unfortunately, he was still holding his fork, with the meat speared on it.

The two of them watched in mute silence as the little square of beef sailed gaily across the kitchen and landed with a splat on the number twelve on the clock. They watched it slide down the glass, hit the clock frame, and leap off into a freefall onto the floor, where it went splat again.

"……" Heero's expression was unreadable.

Even if we're not trying to get him to like us, this is going a bit too far! the bunny wailed.

It's your fault, with your distracting talk of eating men! Duo snapped mentally. He coughed lightly, and when Heero turned to stare blankly at him, he gave the other man his prized Yes, I Just Ate The Cookies In The Cookie Jar, But I Was Really Adorable Doing It And I'm Really Adorable Now, Aren't I? smile. "Oops?"

The blank mask cracked a little, and Heero shook his head with a sigh. There was definite amusement in those eyes, though, where a week ago there would only have been irritation and perhaps anger. "Just clean it up, Maxwell."

Duo's heart warmed at the sight, and gave a little thump. Bad heart, bad! "Sure thing, boss-man!" he said cheerfully, and made to salute. Heero seized his wrist before it could get up to shoulder level, and Duo was delighted to hear him laugh a little.

"I was afraid the fork was going to fly next, or that you might stab your eyebrow," he informed Duo, letting his wrist go.

"But Heero, a stabbed eyebrow would be so cool! People would flock to my scar, and I can tell them I got injured bravely fighting off muggers attacking a poor old woman." Duo batted his eyelashes at Heero. "You're already impressed, I can tell!"

"Yes, very," Heero agreed solemnly. "So impressed, in fact, that I would like to offer you the honour of cleaning up my clock."

"Yeah, I'm to clean your clock, alright," Duo said with a faux-evil leer, cracking his knuckles. "What would you like to start with? A broken nose? A split lip?"

Heero gave him a Look.

"Hey, you made the pun, not me," Duo said, grinning madly.

"Just go clean up, will you?" was the exasperated reply.

Duo considered his options, and then decided not to push it. He'd found that he could get Heero to respond, to lighten up, by teasing him a little and keeping at it subtly, but past a certain stage the Japanese man would just get annoyed. "Sure thing," he said, standing up and grabbing some towels.

You know, I'd really like to clean his… clock, the bunny said thoughtfully, with special emphasis.

What? What are you – oh. Ohh. Oh, my. Duo fought back the mental images. Are you trying to get me killed?

It's fun, though, isn't it?

If I go, you go, he thought threateningly as he wiped the clock face. Then his attention was caught by another detail. "Hey – Heero?"

"Yes, Maxwell?" came Heero's voice from behind him, rather too patiently.

"Did someone give you this clock as a present?" Duo asked as he let the towels drop, fiddling with the clock frame.

There was a delay in reply, in which Duo assumed Heero was chewing. "Yes," he said at last. "Why?"

"Oh… nothing." The frame came loose, and Duo triumphantly pulled out what he'd found.

"Nothing?" Heero's voice was suspicious.

"Definitely nothing," Duo agreed absently. He unfolded the piece of paper in his fingers and began to read.

"Maxwell…" There was the scrape of a chair, signalling Heero getting up, but by then Duo wasn't paying attention to him anymore as violet eyes quickly scanned through the lines. "What are you – give me that!"

Duo let him snatch the paper away, partly because he was too stunned to resist, especially after he'd read the last few lines of the note – including the name of the person who had written it. He stared at Heero with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You – that note –"

Heero was glaring furiously at him. "You had no right to read this," he bit out.

"I thought it was – some kind of prank. I mean," Duo swallowed, "If people hide notes around your house it's normally for fun, right?"

"No one would do that in my place. Haven't you learned that by now?"

"I didn't –"

"Feel free to leave this apartment any time you wish to," Heero said coldly. He shoved past Duo, out of the kitchen. A moment later Duo heard the door to the soundproof room slam shut – that door had a distinctive sound, so he could tell.

Well, shit.

"And it was going so well, too," Duo muttered. They'd been pranking each other for the past week, since the Codfish's incident, but the pranks were all light-hearted and pretty harmless, like dyeing Heero's underwear and socks pink or when Heero had put some awful, sour and bitter fruit (at least, Heero claimed it was a fruit, but Duo had vehemently protested the likelihood of any fruit being this inedible) in all his food, and he'd eaten every bit of it because of his pride.

And because, he had to admit, he'd loved seeing the light in Heero's eyes as he'd fought to hold in his laughter. Duo had pulled all his most hilarious faces, and he knew a great many of them.

He'd never regretted being the fun one, the cheerful one, the one undeterred by any harsh comments and snide insults. He bulled forward regardless of anything, and wasn't shy – not about poking into other people's business, even. He'd never regretted living his life the way he did, but this time, he cursed himself for being the way that he'd become.

Stupid, his bunny commented, unusually sombre.

Yes, he thought back. It had been stupid. He'd known Heero was anal about his privacy, hadn't he? The man had even made himself a private space within the already private space of his home, for goodness' sake. Sure, he was learning to take jokes and teasing better, but – he was still learning, still opening up.

Did the note make any difference, though? Duo examined his own feelings, and concluded that it didn't. Whatever had happened in Heero's past was the past, and Heero was still Heero. That didn't change.

No wonder he was like this, though. With a childhood like that, he was surprised Heero wasn't in some mental institution somewhere.

Either way, he wasn't going to leave. He liked Heero, as a person and a friend. The other man was blunt, and unsociable, but that was just how he was, because he knew no other way to be. Duo was teaching him by example, and Heero was proving to a surprisingly apt student. He was also smart, and underneath his cold mask he was quite sensitive when need be, like when they had first met and he had let Duo stay, reacting to that slip in Duo's own façade.

You like him as more than a friend, Duo's bunny pointed out. You're just scared, coward.

Yeah, he was beginning to like Heero as more than a friend. But yeah, he was also scared, and not only for himself, but also for Heero.

If they got together, would Heero be cursed as well? He didn't want that, he didn't want that at all.

For now though – Heero wasn't anywhere near ready for a relationship. That was a problem for another time. Now, all Duo had to concentrate on was their friendship. He would make Heero admit that they were friends if it killed him.

His mind made up, Duo began cleaning the kitchen, wiping the clock and the floor as well as washing the dishes. There was still a bit of food left, but somehow Duo didn't feel hungry anymore. Neither did Heero, he suspected, so he just threw the leftovers away, since there wasn't much.

He'd let Heero cool down, and finish fixing his amplifier, because Heero probably wasn't going to come out of his room any time soon. Anyway, it would be easier to have the talk if they weren't face-to-face. Duo sighed to himself, life was getting more and more complicated.

On the bright side, at least he'd found someone with a shittier personal life than his.

Heero leaned against the door, taking in deep meditative breaths, like he'd been taught. He gripped his emotions tight and reeled them in, until he was calm again, until he could think again.

All he could think, however, was: damn.

No one had ever found out, and then along came Maxwell with his inquisitive nose and loud mouth. The news would be everywhere by morning, and they would come for him, his friends would shun him, and his life would be over –

He was panicking again. He never panicked.

Calming himself down once more, Heero moved to his desk and sat down. He unclenched his fists, and put the crumpled note on the desk, smoothing it out with fingers that shook slightly. He thought he'd found all of them when he had moved; how could he have missed this one, when even an untrained civilian such as Maxwell could find it?

Logically, think logically. Perhaps it was because – yes, that was it. He'd been so focused on finding the impossible places that a note would be that he had missed the most obvious one, like the clock.

Holding the edges of the note down, he read it:

Heero,

I know you will understand the lesson of this note. This will probably be the last one you will find, because you tend to over-think and complicate things. Sometimes the answers are right before you. All you have to do is reach out. There is more than meets the eye to many things, but some of the most important things in life are simpler than they are made out to be.

Remember to practice with the longer blades. They might be harder to wield, but they can kill with one blow, unlike the daggers you favour.

Odin

Gods, Maxwell had read this note. Heero wasted a second hoping that Maxwell was a slow reader and hadn't gotten to the second part of the note, but then he remembered the wide eyes and he knew that it was futile.

Damn.

Why was he so upset at the thought of Maxwell moving out, or hating him, or even fearing him? It wasn't as if he wanted the loud idiot messing up his house and prying into his business. Okay, so the exchange of wits was fun, and it was kind of nice to have someone able to keep up with him, and Maxwell was amusing, and he was smart enough to know when to push and when to back off… but he was still mostly a stranger. It wouldn't make much of a difference if he left. Would it?

He'd miss the idiot American, Heero realised with something approaching amazement. He would actually miss the other man's presence if it was gone. Somehow Maxwell had managed to become… important.

Damn.

They barely knew each other! Surely you couldn't start liking someone without knowing about them? Surely you couldn't be friends just like that?

It was pointless to think about these things. Maxwell would leave, that was a given. He shouldn't waste his time on the other man any longer. He needed to get as much done as he could before Maxwell went to the cops: funds transfer, fake IDs, data transfer…

There was a knock on the door. Or pounding, rather, because for it to even sound like a knock inside the room, it meant that whoever outside would have to be hitting really hard.

Heero reached for the nearest hidden compartment in the wall, which held a gun, if he remembered correctly. He was confused, though. Surely Maxwell couldn't have gotten the cops here that quickly?

Then a voice filtered into the room. "A good evening to you folks in there! This is Duo Maxwell and his infiltrative amplifier, and we are live on air for your pleasure tonight!"

Heero just stared.

"Now, since this is a one-way talk thing, you can't talk back! So you'll just have to listen to me, hmm? Isn't that nice." Maxwell's voice was cheerful. "Okay, to start with – our dear resident grump Heero Yuy is our topic for the evening!"

Resident grump?

"About Heero Yuy. First of all, he is an anal-retentive, unsociable, rude guy who's scared to open up to people. Cliché, I know, but it's true! And, gosh, wouldn't you know it, he's damned secretive to boot."

Heero stood and strode across the room, scowling. He was reaching out to the handle and was about to open the door to give Maxwell a piece of his mind, when:

"But he can keep his secrets, and I'll keep them for him, too. I want to know about his past, sure, but only because I want to know him as he is now. He's as much of an idiot as I am, really; it's just that he doesn't admit it and I don't call him that to his face because it would hurt his poor ickle pride. Oh, oops, I just did. Don't be sad, Heero! We all still love you!"

Torn between laughter and righteous fury, Heero stood frozen.

"Anyway, earlier this evening, Heero said that his lovely, friendly and altogether wonderful roommate could move out whenever he wished to. This, my dear friends, is a Freudian slip. That's a slip of the tongue when you say what you're really thinking about, not what you wanted to say. Heero could have said, Move out now! But he didn't. And so his wonderful roommate is going to stay here as long as he likes, and you can't stop me! Mwahaha."

Maxwell… wasn't leaving? He wasn't afraid?

"And if you try to kick me out of the apartment, Heero, I'll cling onto your leg for dear life and I won't let go! I'll even use my teeth if I have to! I'll bawl my head off, and Mrs King and that old crab Gertrude will come out and start lecturing you on proper behaviour and the indecency of two men living together, and you'll be sorry!"

Heero winced. A painful threat, indeed.

"For what it's worth, I have a past too, you know. And it's not exactly a very nice past. So, again, for what it's worth I'm sorry I found out what I did, because I know I'd hate it if others found out stuff about me. And when you want to talk to me, I'll be here, because that's what friends do, right? But other than that, I'll try not to pry. No promises, though! You know what I'm like!"

Oh, that he did.

"But, you know, you might want to ease up on the death threats. I might really take you at your word."

Only Duo could take this sort of news so lightly. Heero had to laugh. It was relief and happiness all rolled into one, and he was a bit surprised at the happiness, because it had been so long since he'd felt something like it.

"Okay, right, I think I've said enough. Come out, come out, let's go get some supper! And if you don't come out within the next five seconds Mr Amplifier is going to go away, and Mr Lock Pick Set is going to take its place!"

He needed some actual confirmation, though. Taking a deep breath, Heero opened the door. Duo peered up at him from his cross-legged position on the floor. "Hey, Heero. Ice cream sound good?"

"You're really okay with sharing an apartment and being friends with the wanted protégé of the most infamous assassin in this era?" Heero said without preamble.

Duo blinked. "Wow, you sure don't beat around the bush."

"I want an answer."

The American shrugged. "You're you, and Odin is Odin. It's in the past. As long as you're not following in your adoptive father's footsteps now…" He paused, and looked suspiciously up at Heero. "Are you following in –"

"No."

"Then what do you do?" Duo asked interestedly. "Come on, man, spill!"

"I… write."

"You're a writer? Damn, no wonder you never have to go out to work! Just like me, yo, I'm a computer programmer. Working from home, nothing beats that." Duo looked excited. "You have a pen name? What kind of books do you write? Hey, maybe I read one of yours before! Wouldn't that be cool?"

Heero stared at him, baffled. "Is that all you have to say?"

Duo blinked again. "Uh, yeah. Why? I'm not going to ask for your autograph until I know what you write, you know. I may hate your writing, who knows."

Heero started to laugh. He covered his eyes with his hand while he continued to laugh. He'd been hiding for so long, worried that his cover would be blown, planning all sorts of things for this very moment – and then Duo Maxwell had come and messed it all up, and somehow made things okay.

"Uh, Heero, you're scaring me here. Hysterical laughter is the domain of madmen."

The Japanese man held up his other hand to forestall any more comments while he got himself under control, wiping the tears from his eyes – tears of laughter, and of relief. "You're one of a kind, Maxwell," he said finally.

"That's good to know. Killing me would mean the extinction of my species, so don't you dare try it. So… about supper?"

"Ice cream is fine."

Duo grinned. "Cool." He tried to get up, and winced. "Ooh, my legs are asleep. You idiot, why did you take so long to come out?"

"Why did you talk so much?" Heero countered. "In fact, that seems to be a permanent affliction with you." He held out a hand. "Come on."

Duo grasped the offered hand, and let Heero pull him to his feet. "Oh, the pins and needles are going to be hell. Better start walking; it's better than not moving, even if I can't feel my legs. Oh, and – don't you think it's about time you stopped calling me Maxwell? I mean, we just had a heart-to-heart talk and everything." He considered this. "Okay, we had a heart-to-heart radio chat session."

"There was little chatting involved," Heero pointed out.

"That's your fault, not mine."

"No one asked you to sit unmoving like that for the whole time… Duo."

"Yeah, well, I was afraid to move the amplifier once –" Duo paused. Then a huge grin spread over his face, a real grin. Heero wanted to see more of those. "You called me Duo!"

Heero raised an eyebrow, trying to keep a smile off his own face, though he suspected that by now Duo could read the amusement in his eyes. "Did you want me to call you idiot?"

Duo eyed him with a very suspicious grin on his face. Heero began backing away. "Whatever you're planning – ack!" He suddenly found himself trapped in the arms of a hyperactive American, who was hugging the life out of him.

"You can be cute sometimes too, Heero," Duo was babbling happily, and Heero tuned him out. The warmth, and the hidden strength in those arms, made him feel… safe. Normally, someone taller than him being in close quarters would make him paranoid, uneasy, but with Duo, it wasn't so bad.

If he was honest with himself, it actually felt rather good.

"Can't breathe," he interrupted Duo, who hastily let him go. Heero looked up into those unusual eyes, so close to his. They were standing in what some would almost call an embrace. Some emotion flashed across purple eyes, and, never looking away, Heero said softly:

"Your pins and needles killing you yet?"

Duo blinked. Then he leaped away and began hopping around the apartment, yelping. "You just had to remind me, you evil bastard!" he howled.

Heero smirked. "Couldn't let you miss out on the fun." He moved towards the main door, grabbing his keys from the sideboard. "If you're not in the lift by the time it arrives, I'm going to leave for the ice cream parlour without you," he called smugly.

He let the door swing shut on Duo's curses, and only then did he let his smile creep up onto his face. By the time Duo came out, he'd have his expression under control, but for now…

It was a liberating feeling, to have his secret known by someone else and not feel hunted, unsafe. Odin had always said that the only person you could trust was yourself, and even then it wasn't a sure thing, and so Heero had always been wary of trusting others. Somehow, though, even though they didn't know much about each other, he knew without a doubt that Duo wouldn't betray him.

This level of trust was frightening, but it felt good.

Follow your emotions, Odin had said the most often. Other times, though, when he caught Odin staring out the window at night, at nothing in particular, his mentor would tell him, Be happy, as best as you can.

He would be happy, as best as he could. And since Duo seemed to be the source of that happiness nowadays, he would try this friendship thing.

Then he realized that he didn't know much about friendship. Duo was the one trying hard. Shouldn't friendship be a mutual exchange? He could ask Duo, but that seemed odd. Girls would know, wouldn't they? It was time to seek out old acquaintances.

But stepping into the lift and hearing Duo's yells to stop that elevator! Heero had to smile to himself again. Everything else could wait. For now, they were going to get ice cream.

Because this was one way to find happiness.

Sounds like a good ending to the fic, doesn't it? I feel tempted to leave it there.

Progress in the relationship! Heero's past revealed! Hints about Duo's past! You know, speaking of pasts, everyone asked me about Duo's, but no one wondered why Heero would dream of smoke bombs, or keep decomposing animals and explosive liquids in buckets. Personally I thought Heero's hidden past was the more interesting one, but whatever goes. Maybe I didn't make it obvious enough.

There was a moment when I accidentally ctrl-A'd and then space-bar'd the whole document. I had this frozen second when all the words vanished and I was confronted with a blank document. I almost expired on the spot, before my brain kicked in and I undid it and got my chapter back.

It was scary though.

Sorry about the slight OOCness of Heero. I tried to portray a scarred, scared young man who had found a friend without knowing it and then was confronted with the probably of losing that friend just when he realized how important their friendship had become.

And I'm sorry this chapter was more serious and not so amusing. I think most of you have come to see Roommate as a humour fic, but I always meant the humour to lead into more serious matters. Be warned.

Oh, and I did say the girls would come up this chap. Sorry, it ran longer than I thought. Next chap, though. For sure. Though I don't think many of you will actually want the girls to appear.

Yay, two updates in two days for two of the fics that people pester me for the most. Aren't I nice?

Randomly: Everyone asked the same questions about the latest updated Joke chapter, i.e. about Wufei's part in the whole thing. It made me laugh, because for one it's like we all share some common hive mind (I already addressed the issue in what's written of the next chapter) and for another it means that people are really reading seriously and thinking about it. That really makes me happy. Thanks, all!

Ashen Skies
"There will be no eating of men in this household!"