Warnings: language, blood drinking, hetero-situations, violence, blood

Chapter 4

It wasn't difficult to sneak past the hall monitor and make my way into the moonlit night. I had chosen a school just on the borders of a small city this time so I wouldn't have to risk feeding in such a confined location as a boarding school. I wasn't familiar with this city, but the light pollution seemed greater in an area to the south, so I headed that direction.

It didn't take me long to reach the city's nightlife district. The bass from the clubs thrummed the artificial heartbeat of the city. The Hunger burned within me.

I wandered the district for awhile, familiarising myself with the more populated establishments. It was as I was making my second pass that my prey came to me.

"Hey, cutie!" I turned at the call to see two girls standing behind me. One had artfully wavy blonde hair that flowed past her shoulders and was wearing a metallic pink dress that barely reached mid-thigh and looked like it had been painted on. It had a large flower-shaped cut out centered on her upper hip that spanned from her navel to her back. The other girl had vaguely Asian features and short black hair styled in an asymmetrical cut that only reached her ear on the left but swept past her chin on the right. She was wearing a black dress that had fabric straps designed like a collar and more straps crisscrossing across her collar bones. Just above her breasts the straps connected with fabric that billowed downward, drooping to just above her navel, granting the bare minimum of modesty.

The one wearing metallic pink continued to address me. "Looks like you're here by yourself. It'd be such a shame for a cutie like you to be lonely." Her companion simply giggled.

"You may accompany me if you wish," I said before turning and starting to head off. I could hear the two girls following me. I lead them to an alley I had noted on my first pass through the district. I had figured the girls would hesitate on following me into the dim, deserted space, but they continued. Their giggling increased the deeper into the alley we went.

They even followed me around a corner of the alley, ending up in a location where not even a random passerby could chance seeing us. I turned to them and saw that the one with short black hair was just behind me and coming closer. She actually pressed her body against mine, pinning me against the wall and latched her lips onto mine. In my surprise I barely even heard the blonde giggle and mutter, "I've never fucked someone in an alley before." She then continued a bit louder, "Hey! Aiko! Don't hog the hottie!"

The girl kissing me backed off and I decided to stop this before the blonde could make her move. "Hey," I called lightly, but it was enough to cause both girls to make eye contact with me. I felt the slight surge of power as I invoked a glamour, "You will be still and quiet." Their eyes glazed over and they both simply stood there staring at me.

I made a quick glance around, to double check there were no witnesses before closing the distance between the short-haired girl and myself once again. My fangs pierced the delicate skin just above the swatch of cloth shaped like a collar. I drank of her life. Her pulse thrummed a steady beat against my lips as the city's pulse thrummed in the air around me.

I stopped before the point of causing her to lose consciousness and then moved onto the blonde. When I was finished, I stepped back enough to make eye contact with both girls at once. I once again invoked a glamour. "You will go back to where we met, and you will forget ever meeting me."

I watched as both girls quietly shambled off, back towards the main road. I found myself in a state of introspection. The Hunger's demand had been silenced, so why didn't I feel sated?

I was in my dorm room researching nearby OZ locations in preparation for my next mission when I heard the door open. I glanced up to note that it was only Duo. He had been acting like we were friends, and it had only gotten worse when we did a mission together. That is, if by together you mean we both knew we were going after the same target, both showed up at roughly the same time, and both completed the mission. He had even tried to make a game of it.

Duo fell backwards onto my bed before rolling onto his stomach to face me, chin propped up by his palms. "Did I mention how much of a dick move that was, pretending like you were gonna shoot me instead of just ya know, warnin' me 'bout the Leo behind me?" My eyes flicked to him before settling back on my laptop screen. The words were antagonistic but his tone and expression were both what I could only call "deviously amused".

I pretended to ignore him, and as usual, he pretended to ignore me pretending to ignore him. "Woulda never guessed Mr. Anti-Social had a sense of humor though. You should definitely use it more often."

He rolled onto his back again. His braid slid off the bed, making a light thwump noise on the carpeted floor. "Have the b-ball guys been buggin' ya too? They keep tryin' ta get me to join the team. Been having trouble brushing 'em off. Can't exactly say 'Sorry, I'm only gonna be in this school 'til I've wiped out too many ozzies in the area, then I gotta skedaddle.'" He chuckled. "Could ya imagine having to call in to miss practice? 'Sorry, guys. Can't make it today. Gotta go all "IT'S A GUNDAM!" on some ozzie ass.'"

"Duo, you're not even making sense." I almost winced when I remembered I was suppose to be pretending to ignore him.

"Ah, come on. Don't tell me you haven't noticed that people who are all yellin' 'bout there bein' a Gundam are generally the first to get creamed." He grinned jovially but his eyes had a slightly evil glint in them. I merely rolled my eyes and then internally chided myself for once again giving him some form of response.

Duo had been once again demonstrating his ability to carry on a mostly one-sided conversation for hours on end while I did my best to be oblivious towards him until I finally noticed that he was being unusually quiet. I glanced up from my computer screen and saw he seemed to be asleep on my bed. He had rolled onto his side and slightly curled inward. His braid still hung half off the bed.

I stood and walked the few paces to the bed. Sure enough, he had fallen asleep. Can't the guy go sleep in his own bed? I was just about to turn back to my desk when my eyes slid from his sleeping face to a few inches lower. His head was rested flat against the bed, making his neck stretch in an almost invitation.

I felt an influx of something. It was almost like the Hunger, and yet not. This was more of an urge whereas the Hunger was a demand. I had fed just the night before. I didn't expect the Hunger to return for at least a week or two at the earliest. So what was this feeling?

I knelt by the bed. I moved my face near that alluring expanse of skin. I paused for only a moment to really consider what I was doing, this would be the first time I would feed without the demand of the Hunger. Then I caught the scent and my mind lost that train of thought. My face was a mere inch from Duo's throat and I breathed deep. I nearly melted at the alluring aroma and I felt a spike of the strange feeling that was similar to and yet not Hunger. I could only assume it wasn't the Hunger but Duo himself that was causing this urge.

I opened my mouth and once again sank my fangs into his tender flesh. His nose wrinkled and I felt a thread of either fear or excitement, I wasn't entirely sure, at the prospect of him waking and my being discovered until my fang's natural analgesic kicked in and his face relaxed once again. When the first drops of crimson liquid hit my tongue I nearly moaned. A more luscious taste I had never before experienced. I must have been too far under the effects of the Hunger the first time to notice, but I had no such distraction this time. I took my time and drank slowly, savoring every moment. The exquisite taste of the flowing liquid on my tongue while my nostrils filled with Duo's tantalizing scent. I was in heaven.

I forced myself to stop long before I truly wanted to and caressed the puncture marks with my tongue to induce healing. I couldn't help myself and found myself nuzzling Duo's neck to get one last experience with his captivating fragrance. It was that action that eventually awoke him. I quickly jumped to my feet, putting distance between us. He turned his upper half to face me and blinked a sleepy-eyed look at me. "Ro?"

I decided to try to act natural until I knew exactly what he was aware of. "You are going to get cold if you sleep like that."

"Oh… k…" He yawned whiled using one foot and then the other to kick his boots off his feet. I gave an internal sigh of relief. It seemed I had no explanations I had to come up with.

I helped him manoeuver the blanket from underneath him and pulled it up to cover him. He mumbled a quiet "Night, Ro" before curling back up to fall asleep. I shook my head at the now blanket pile with just a braid tip sticking out as I headed back to sit at my desk.

I watched him sleep while in quiet contemplation. The sun reached her rosy fingers over the horizon and I had yet to figure out just what the hell that new urge was.

I heard a sound emit from my computer. The noise awoke Duo and he shot upright in the bed, then groaned and laid back down. "Did we have a wild party last night that I forgot about?"

A few key presses later and I was reviewing the new mission I had received. It didn't need to be carried out right away, so I had ample time to prepare. I was just about to close the window when I saw the additional information at the bottom. 'Pilot 02 assigned same mission. Cooperation suggested. - J'

"We have a mission."

Duo turned startled eyes my way. "We?"

"Stay in bed. I'll get you some food and then we can review the mission."

"Breakfast in bed! Ah, Heero, you certainly know how to treat a guy!" He shot me a wink. With my back facing him, I rolled my eyes and left the room.

When I returned, I discovered that Duo had ignored my command to stay in bed. He was on my bed at that moment, but he was sitting cross-legged with his laptop, which hadn't been in the room before, sitting in front of him.

I dropped the plastic bag of food on the bed next to him and placed the drink on the nightstand. "Fuck yeah! Food!" He started digging through the bag and pulled out the white styrofoam container. He paused upon opening it. "What the hell is this?" He eyed the food distrustfully and poked at it with his plastic fork.

"Sausage and spinach quiche."

"What the fuck's a quiche?"

"A type of baked egg dish."

"So you got me sausage and eggs and slimy green stuff all mixed up? Couldn't you just get me regular sausage and eggs?"

"Spinach is not 'slimy'."

He took the cup from the nightstand, lifted the travel lid and peeked inside. He followed that with a tentative sip of the beverage. "Hey! OJ!" He sent a smile my way and said in a kidding tone, "Seems you can do at least one thing normal."

He went back to the quiche and started to pick the spinach out of it.¹ "Duo, eat the spinach too."

"Fiiiine. But if I die it's your fault." He took a bite. "Oh! Thish ish acshually good." He took another bite and turned back to his laptop. "Sho, thish misshion ish for a shupply warehoushe."

"Duo, be quiet and eat." I brought up the mission specs on my own computer. The target was a storage warehouse where OZ staged supply shipments before sending them to their bases located on the colonies. The mission consisted of two phases. Phase 1 - Break into the base, locate the non-networked computer that stored the shipping manifests, and download the list of OZ shipping destinations to be compared to a list of currently known OZ bases. Phase 2 - Destroy the location, thus hampering OZ's ability to get supplies to their bases in space.

I muttered a quiet, "Mission accepted."

It was a few hours later when Duo stood from the bed and stretched. "Heero, buddy, it's a warm, sunny Saturday morning. We should go out and catch some rays." He waited a moment for a response I wasn't going to give him. "Ya don't gotta be social or anything. You can even bring your laptop and keep staring some more at that floorplan I'm sure you had every detail memorised two hours ago, but ya gotta put in some outdoorsy facetime or the other students will think you're weird, and weird would mean you stand out. Ya don't wanna stand out now do ya?"

I contemplated his argument. I was lacking the knowledge of teenage humans to be able to refute his statement, so I grunted an assent, shut and picked up my laptop, and prepared to follow him out.

"Alright!"

Duo, to his delight, had discovered there were three guys over at the courts more than willing to let another join in and quickly started up a friendly 2 on 2 game of basketball. I sat on a grassy slope nearby, keeping the basketball courts in my line of sight.

I lifted the laptop lid but didn't return to reviewing the mission right away. Instead I took a moment to observe my new mission partner.

Duo was… Duo was unlike any human I had ever met before. He had an exuberance, a vibrancy of life that was unusual even for a human. I watched as he laughed and joked with the other students he was playing with. Students who, for all I knew, he had just met.

I watched as his braid slithered and danced behind him, almost as if it had a life of its own. I laughed quietly to myself at the thought. Duo had such an abundance of life he was even granting life to inanimate objects.

Duo caught me watching him and gave me an animated wave before focusing back on the game.

It took us a few days to prepare, but we were as ready as we were going to get. I tried to imitate a casual stroll as I headed to the wooded section of the school grounds. Duo followed quietly behind me.

The acres of dense woods were a major selling point for the school. The school had been established long before the local town grew into a city and the combination of large tracts of natural scenery with the nearness of city life was something not many boarding schools could claim. Of course, if they knew how much the dense foliage helped hide a Gundam, thus increasing the chance that 'evil terrorist' Gundam pilots would become part of their student base, they would probably rethink the pros of keeping the wooded lands.

It didn't take us long to get to the motorcycle that Duo had 'acquired' for us two days prior. I pulled back the camouflage tarp and tossed him a helmet before pulling on my own. I sat on the bike and started up the engine as he clambered on behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist for stability as I shifted gears and went full throttle.

Duo was jumping off the motorcycle before I even had it fully stopped and running to the camouflaged lump that was Deathscythe. He began Deathscythe's startup as I made my way over to Wing to do the same. Duo gently wrapped Deathscythe's Gundanium fingers around the motorcycle. We were going to need it later. I moved the lever to trigger Wing's shift from a mobile suit to flight mode. Duo used Deathscythe's free hand to grab onto Wing's 'foot' and activated the Hyper Jammers to hide Deathscythe and reduce our overall visibility. I entered in the coordinates for the OZ supply warehouse and we set off.

We landed miles away from the base to prevent detection. We both scrambled from our Gundams and once again mounted the motorcycle to trek the last few miles to the base. We paused in the underbrush just outside the base's perimeter fence. Duo handed me a slim pair of binoculars.

I had previously hacked into the base's computers and now Duo and I were aided with the knowledge of the guard changes, routes, and relative circuit frequencies. We just needed to find out exactly where they were on their circuits at that moment so we could judge the best time to enter the base.

I whispered quietly to Duo, "Prepare to enter on my mark." He nodded and I waited for the guard on the route we had labeled Route C to make another pass. I saw the OZ uniformed man round a corner and scan his pass-key to enter a door and continue on his guard route. I noted the angle of the outside camera. "Mark."

Duo burst into action, quickly cutting through the chain-link fence enough so the two of us could squeeze through. We made a half-crouched running dash to the side of a building and plastered ourselves against it, waiting for the camera to finish its pan and face away from the door again.

When the door was once again in a surveillance blind spot, Duo pulled an object from his backpack. It was a small black box. Attached to the box by a twisted band of wires was a thin plastic card with a magnetic strip. He activated the box and ran the card through the pass-key scanner. A red light lit up on the top of the box and he stared at it fixedly.

I kept my eyes trained to the camera, ready to warn him if we needed to back off. I started a quiet countdown. "10...9...8-"

"Got it!" My eyes flicked to him and I saw the light on the box was now green, and he quickly slid the card through the reader. The door gave off a quiet click and we both rushed through the opening.

I took point and started to lead us as Duo followed behind me. I kept a mental countdown for the guard rotations as we quietly slipped through the halls. Just about halfway to our destination I held up my closed fist signalling for Duo to stop. I then pointed to a door to our left and he quietly obeyed, slipping past the door. I squeezed into the small supply closet with him and quietly shut the door behind us.

For minutes the only sound that could be heard was our muted breaths in the dark closet but eventually I heard the sharp staccato of boots on the hard linoleum floor as a guard made his rounds. The noise slowly faded as the guard passed and I once again took point as we continued to our destination.

When we reached the database room, Duo quickly split off, heading to the computer while I stayed by the door. He had originally argued this part of the plan with me, saying that if a guard did happen to pass by while we were in the room that he would have the better chance of thinking on his feet and trying to talk the guard into believing he was meant to be there. Or failing that, he believed he was better at distracting the guard from what was going on in the room and leading him on a chase, thus allowing me to complete the mission. While I didn't have any doubts he would be better at those tasks than me, I had a different plan to deal with any unfortunate guards. I simply couldn't tell him though.

I faintly heard approaching footsteps and glanced back at Duo. He had already located the information pertaining to OZ's bases, but the file copy was going to take too long. The guard would have to be dealt with.

I quietly slipped out of the room and moved to stand just out of line of sight around a turn in the hallway. The guard rounded the corner and let out a startled "What the-" before the glamour hit. His eyes glazed over and his face adopted a blank expression.

"You will continue on your guard route and you will not notice or remember anything out of the ordinary happening."

The guard continued his path down the hallway, passing the database door without any acknowledgment of it being open and occupied. I silently reentered the room to check on Duo's progress.

Just a few minutes after I sent the guard on his way, Duo finished with copying the information. According to my mental countdown, if we left just then, we'd be able to make the whole distance without having to dodge any guards.

We were just nearing the supply closet we hid in earlier when the door suddenly swung open and surprised us. A man and woman both froze in startlement at the unexpected sight of two boys in the base. The analytical part of my brain had enough time to note their flushed appearances and rumpled uniforms before I responded to the threat.

Two gunshots rang out, my own followed by Duo's not even a second later. The man slumped to the ground with two bullet holes in his forehead. Unfortunately the woman was just slightly farther back in the closet, giving neither Duo nor I a good shot. She quickly jumped back even more into the small cover provided by the wall. Duo and I both sprinted forward but we were too late. The woman had already grabbed a walkie talkie and radioed in the presence of intruders.

Duo already knew what to do and we simultaneously turned to start a headlong sprint to the exit.

We could hear the stampeding echoes of incoming guards as we neared the exit. Duo barreled into the door, hitting the door release bar, and dove into a crouch just outside the door. He quickly sighted down his pistol. I growled to myself slightly. He should have let me take point, but now was not the time to argue. He motioned me forward, though I was already following him through the door anyways. He stood and we turned and started to sprint toward where the gap in the fence was located.

We were just short of the fence when the Leos arrived. One already aiming a launcher in our direction. My eyes widened when it actually fired. My brain quickly calculated the trajectory. It would be off slightly, the explosion not necessarily being fatal, but it would still be a risk. It was then that I felt something slam into me, knocking me to the ground.

Bits of rock, dirt and other shrapnel shot through the air as the world exploded. It was mere seconds before the chaos settled, leaving behind a thick dust in the air and a resounding ringing noise in my ear.

I felt pinned beneath something and looked to see what it was. Duo. Duo had covered me with his own body for protection. Why? I shook my head, trying to gather my thoughts. Now was not the time.

I quickly eyed Duo's body. I didn't see any injuries. I gripped his shoulders and shook him gently. He looked up at me, blinking groggily. His eyes seemed out of focus. Concussion? There was a cut just over his left eye that was already bleeding profusely as head wounds were wont to do. I feared a distracting spike of Hunger but luckily it remained dormant.

Duo tried to stand on his own but wobbled precariously until I caught him. He mumbled out a slightly slurred, "I got this, Ro. You go on ahead."

I just situated one of his arms over my shoulders so I could help support him.

"Ro, I'm just gonna slow ya down."

I didn't have time for this. I turned my head toward him and invoked a glamour. "Shut up and let me help you."

He complied with a grumbled, "Sure. Fine. Whatever." I nearly dropped him. The glamour didn't take hold? Focus. Think about it later. I supported him as we quickly made the rest of the way to the fence through the cover of the agitated dust.

One of the Leos was broadcasting a rant about damn Privates who attack their own damn bases while I helped him navigate through the hole in the fence. We made our way to the motorcycle and slipped into the forest once again.

-x-

~Omake Theater~

I faintly heard approaching footsteps and glanced back at Duo. He had already located the information pertaining to OZ's bases, but the file copy was going to take too long. The guard would have to be dealt with.

The guard rounded the corner and let out a startled, "What the!" He quickly jogged over and noticed Duo in the database room. "Hey! I don't recognise you! Let me see your identification."

I waved my hand. "You don't need to see our identification."

He mumbled a quiet, "I don't need to see your identification."

I waved my hand again. "These aren't the Gundam pilots you're looking for."

"These aren't the Gundam pilots we're looking for."

"Move along."

The guard shuffled off quietly down the hallway.

-x-

-Author's Note-

The best part about purposely setting out to write clichéd tripe is I can make it as clichéd as I want. :D

[1] I would like to clarify that Duo isn't being picky per se. He just has a distrust of food he doesn't recognise, especially food the color of mold. I can't imagine someone who spent years living on the streets would be picky about food, but they would probably be wary about things that could make them sick. So, in my head, things like blue cheese would freak him out. (Or it could just be my extremely picky self bleeding into the characters with a thin veneer of rationalization on top. *shrug*)

Back to having real dialogue! ^-^ (Well, as dialogue-y as Heero can be :P) The last chapter I was trying to make as close as possible to the episodes that any dialogue probably would have been direct quotes, and I felt that was a bit overkill. (Though, the things Duo says to Heero get a slant towards the ironic when placed in this context. "Why don't you give up and stop pretending to be human?" "Well excuse me for being a mere mortal!" :3)

The New Edwards fiasco has already happened "offscreen". I personally just don't like that entire plot line (how did Wufei know it was a trick when Mr. Perfect Soldier, who I'm sure researches missions religiously, didn't?) so don't expect much, if any, mention of it. Pretty sure the whole point of it was just to show Heero's actually a human on the inside with real human feelings even if he is a really awkward and weird one, which can be shown other ways as well.

Timeline: Episode 9