Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ True North ❯ True North, Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

True North

Chapter 4

Pairing: 2x1

Category: AU

Warning: sap, OC kid

Gundam Wing copyright Bandai, Sunrise, and Sotsu Agency. "One Week" copyright Barenaked Ladies. "Eien no Rhapsody" copyright Midori Saiha/Ringo Zaidan.

Thanks to Diamroyal for beta-reads, letting me know what a sunrise looks like, and educating me properly on coffee use.

Even though it was the beginning of his two day vacation, Duo Maxwell was wide awake at a quarter to five. It was still dark outside, but the birds were chirping already. And as much as he tried to close his eyes and go back to sleep, he just couldn't. Being an early riser had finally become second nature after all these years. He sighed, remembering the old times when the idea of getting up at six was painful to hear.

He turned over on his side to look at Heero, who was sound asleep, breaths deep and even, with that relaxed expression that made Duo's heart turn over in his chest. Just watching Heero sleep gave Duo a slow, spreading sense of calm that felt like it would last forever if such things were possible. Duo liked that feeling; it told him that all was right in the world.

But even though he felt that all was right with the world, he /still/ couldn't go back to sleep. It was dark and quiet except for the birds, but here he was, lying in bed, with his body refusing to let him go off to dreamland for another hour or so.

"All right, all right, dammit, I'm up," Duo grumbled, sliding his legs over the edge of the bed. He tiptoed barefoot out of the bedroom and down the hall for a shower; if he had to be awake at this hour, even on his first day off, at least he'd try and feel good awake. So first, the shower. Then he could go down and watch the sun rise with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

<That doesn't sound so bad,> Duo thought. The smell of soap and the sound of running water did a lot to lift his mood. He /still/ had quite a while before the sun rose, but he looked a lot more forward to it than going back to bed now.

Okay, so maybe getting up early wasn't such a bad thing after all. If he felt tired later on, he could always take a nap. But as Duo stepped inside the shower, he figured that he wouldn't be doing that either today.

This day was too good to spend fast asleep.

******

After he'd gotten dressed in an old pair of jeans and a worn T-shirt with the words, "Gotta go, my village just called. They're missing their idiot." in black letters across the chest, Duo went downstairs, whistling tunelessly. He unfolded the laptop in his hands until it was no longer the size of a deck of cards and put it on the kitchen table. It beeped softly, starting itself up while Duo went into the kitchen to make himself some coffee.

Lately, Duo had been making do with the coffee at the labs, which, in his opinion, tasted like ass. Whoever was in charge of the coffee maker was probably new on the job; Lady Une had had coffee making down to an exact science when she was there in 196.

There were two bags of coffee grounds he had; one was the brand he bought at the supermarket every so often. That was in the cupboard. The other, still unopened and located in the freezer, was the signature blend from an expensive café in L2 that he'd gotten when he was on a business trip. He'd saved it for special occasions, deeming it too precious for everyday use.

Today, he went over to the freezer, opening the door and pulling the bag of coffee out from its place on the door shelf, grinning from ear to ear. This /was/ a special occasion, because now he could enjoy every sip going down. It was only until Thursday, when he had to back to work, but he had time, and it was going to be a pleasant change from chugging down the coffee at work so the taste didn't have time to register. As he tore it open, Duo inhaled the intense, smooth aroma, and sighed happily. He chuckled quietly to himself, going to the coffee maker next to the stove. With a small plastic scoop and a fresh filter ready, he dumped the coffee grounds in and went back to his laptop, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

He would read the news while he waited. That was all he was doing today with his computer; no checking email or doing anything else that was in any way work related. After all, he could come back in two days and then deal with whatever there was waiting for him in his inbox.

The clock on his laptop read 5:35. Good. He could look over the front page of the online newspaper until the coffee finished brewing. The weather forecast looked great for today; clear skies, no chance of rain, and a high of seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Right now it was sixty degrees, perfect for a morning in early September, with fifty-five minutes until the sun rose.

There was a follow-up story on the murders of three young women. They'd been found in that one park near Moira's old elementary school four days ago, their bodies so mutilated that they were only identified through their jewelry. Today's report said that the police had found a cleaver buried in the woods about a mile off from the park, and that the bloodstains on the blade matched that of the victims. Given that the victims had been around the ages of seventeen to twenty, he was afraid for Moira and her friend Audrey. Even though these murders had taken place in broad daylight, he was going to set an earlier curfew for Moira until they'd found the culprit.

He'd started reading another story about Earth's possible changes to colonial policies when the coffee maker let out three short whistles, signaling that the coffee was done brewing.

"All right!" Duo went to the cupboard, taking out a large black coffee mug. He could taste the coffee already, just by feeling the shiny glaze under his fingers. In fact, it was a near goddamned miracle that he wasn't drooling on himself.

"It's been too /long/," he groaned melodramatically. The coffee maker sensed the mug as Duo slid it underneath. He smiled as the dark liquid trickled down into the bottom of the cup; the smell was heavenly. This cup was going to take a long time to finish, because what was inside was meant to be savored.

Duo took a small sip and rolled his eyes back with pleasure. "Almost better than sex," he moaned. The coffee was just as good as he'd remembered it was in that L2 café; rich, nutty and intense, while still butter-smooth.

If he was lucky, he'd be able to watch that sunrise while having another fresh mugful.

******

An hour later, the sky was no longer an inky black, but a pearly blue-gray. As he walked out onto the porch with a refilled mug of coffee in one hand, Duo saw the trees slowly melting into sight from the shadows. Their leaves rustled quietly in the darkness, as if welcoming Duo into this intimate moment.

He took a long, deep drink of his coffee, shoulders sagging in relief as its warmth flooded him from the inside, branching to the tips of his fingers and toes. The air was cool, but not so bad that Duo had to go back inside and pull on a sweatshirt. The coffee had taken care of that. He thought about waking Heero up and bringing him down to see this for just a second, but he nixed the idea. Heero was sleeping very soundly upstairs, for one thing, and assuming Duo could even get him down, they'd probably miss most of the sunrise.

There'd be other times for them to watch a sunrise, Duo thought, gazing at the lightening sky. Now he could see the houses across from his own coming into view, and the ground shimmering with fat dewdrops on the grass in his front lawn. It was almost full daylight, with the faintest glow of pink at the horizon.

Gradually, the sky shed the blue-gray for a warm pink, the color of ripe peaches. The horizon had some orange creeping up, blending seamlessly into the pink, while the outermost edges of the sky were tinged with deep reds and purples. As the pink spread further out, Duo saw some yellow over the horizon.

"Beautiful," he murmured in awe. At work, he'd either seen the sky turn lighter or the sun already up, but he'd never seen the sky all decked out like this, pinks, oranges, reds and purples all spread out before him as the sky was growing /brighter/. It was paler and more delicate than a sunset, but it was just as gorgeous.

All too soon the sun appeared, its harsh light so dazzling that Duo had to shade his eyes with one hand. The spectrum of colors in the sky slowly vanished, like watercolors reduced to a mere wash, only to be replaced with blue, white, and the sun's white-yellow light above.

"Just like that, huh?" Duo asked nobody in particular. "Guess the show's over then." He took another sip of his coffee and padded inside the house. Moira would be awake in another half-hour or so, and Duo wanted to get started on making some breakfast for her that didn't consist solely of Vietnamese coffee and cereal.

******

"Mmmf. This is /terrific/." Moira shoved another forkful of her last pancake in her mouth. Her plate currently was empty, but she'd had two of them before this last one, large, fluffy, golden-brown disks that she'd soaked in maple syrup and cherries, before that last bite.

"Easy there, kiddo," Duo laughed. "What happened to you being so depressed about your summer ending so fast?" He took the syrup jug and drizzled it over his own plate, which held a stack of three pancakes.

"Well," Moira said, chewing thoughtfully, "yeah, it /does/ suck. And I'm still not happy about it. But, Dad, you made pancakes! There's no better way to start your first day of college than pancakes!"

"Speaking of your first day, what's with the getup?" Duo asked.

Moira was wearing a denim skirt with a striped polo shirt and both sides of the collar, much to Duo's relief, were down this time. But he swore that there was a glimmer of lip gloss on her lips right now.

"Huh?" She blinked at him, confused.

"The makeup. And the skirt. You almost never wear skirts." He tugged at the hem of Moira's skirt, which fell to mid-thigh. She hissed and slapped his hand away.

"I need to look a little more grown up, that's all," she replied, taking her plate, leaving the table, and putting it into the dishwasher. "I'm in the big house now, remember?"

Duo snorted, taking a bite of his pancakes. "Well, I suppose wearing your collar properly is a start. Still, once you're in college, nobody really gives a damn what you wear. The ones who do aren't worth your time."

"...oh." Moira patted her mouth with a napkin. Duo got up from his seat and pecked her on the cheek. She'd even put on perfume; his nostrils were assaulted with the clean, crisp scent of citrus, herbs, and the faintest hint of rose.

"I think you better get going, sweetie. When's your first class?" he asked. Moira grimaced, rubbing sticky syrup residue off her face. "Sorry," he said, grinning sheepishly. She shook her head.

"It's okay," she said, looking at her watch. "Yeah, I gotta jet. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to be late." She looked up at Duo hopefully. "Uh...I know I haven't done this for a while, but can I...?" At Duo's puzzled expression, Moira mimed pulling something with one hand.

"Oh," he sighed, turning around so she could grab his ponytail. "Gently, okay? You don't want your old man going bald because you're in desperate need of luck." /This/ time, Moira listened, because Duo could barely feel her hands tugging his hair.

"Thanks!" she chirped, throwing her arms around Duo and kissing him on the cheek. "Gotta go. Bye!" She shouldered her bag and ran out the door, her flip-flops slapping the wooden floor as she left.

"Have a nice day at school, honey. Drive safely," Duo called out after her.

******

Duo poured the pancake batter into the frying pan, singing to himself as he did so. "...it's been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said `you're crazy'..."

After Moira had sped off to school ten minutes earlier, he'd heard the toilet flushing upstairs. Heero was awake, and, judging by the sounds of water running above Duo's head, still getting ready for the day. That gave Duo enough time to make a stack of three pancakes, and currently, he was on the second one.

He waited until bubbles had appeared in the pale batter, and then expertly flipped it over with his spatula. The other side was a nice gold already, with the beginnings of lacy edges. He hadn't made pancakes in a while, but he hadn't messed up with the first batch either.

"I am the pancake master," he intoned solemnly to the sizzling pan. "I /am/ the pancake master. I am /the/ pancake master. I am the pancake /master/. Huh, that last one didn't sound right." He lifted the pancake, flipped it over, and grinned. "There we go," he chuckled, moving it to the plate with one waiting pancake already on it.

"That is one damn fine pancake, if I say so myself," he muttered. He poured in more batter, chanting, "I am the pancake master. I /am/ the pancake master. I am /the/ pancake master. I am the pancake /master/." Bubbles started to pop around the edges, and he flipped it over.

"/I/ am the pancake master. I /am/ the pancake master/ I am /the/ pancake master. I am the pancake /master/." He got louder. "/I/ am the pancake master. I /AM/ the pancake master. I am /THE/ pancake master. I am the pancake /MASTER/. I. Am the pancake. Master."

He triumphantly flipped the last pancake onto the plate and held it up with both hands, yelling, "I /am/! The pancake! /MASTER/!"

Someone coughed behind him. He turned around only to be confronted by a fully dressed Heero staring at him with raised eyebrows. The plate nearly fell onto the floor, but he caught it just in time before it could shatter.

"So, uh, how long have you been standing there?" he asked, handing the plate over. Heero took it, smirking.

"Two minutes ago," he said.

"So you heard..."

"The whole thing," Heero finished, that goddamn smirk still on his face. If it had been on anyone else, Duo would have had to fight the temptation to beat the shit out of him or her. "You have a fork?"

"I'll get one for you." Duo turned the stove off and put the dirty pan and bowl in the dishwasher. The counter still had some batter drippings on its surface, but he could wipe them up later, when he turned the dishwasher on. He slid the drawer at the end of the counter open, taking out a fork and knife and handing them both to Heero, who nodded his thanks before he went to sit at the table.

"Coffee?" Duo asked, getting out another mug, this time a steely gray.

"Sure."

******

After breakfast, the two of them went for a walk. The weather outside was still pretty balmy for September, Duo thought; no need for a jacket today.

In fact, the few neighbors he did see in their yards were still in T-shirts. It probably wouldn't look like autumn until later in the month at the very earliest, when the air got cooler, the leaves started changing colors, and /then/ he'd have to drag the jacket out.

At least this year he got to enjoy a day or two to himself until then. He liked summer a great deal, so not being able to spend much time outside this year didn't make him too happy. This would hardly make up for it, but there was always next time, which was over ten depressing ten months away.

Duo stopped on the sidewalk and glanced over his shoulder. Heero was lagging a few yards behind him, taking time to gaze at the trees that lined the roads with wide eyes. Given that they'd been small, twiggy things sixty-five years ago, the fact that one had grown large enough to provide a mother and her toddlers shade in their front yard was probably mind-boggling. Heero would have seen them before since he'd been revived; after all, Duo didn't expect him to stay cooped up in the house all day, but he still didn't see what would have made the trees so interesting.

Heero hadn't returned to work at the labs right away for two reasons: one, he was recovering, and two, there had been many scientific advances while he'd been in coldsleep, and it was going to be a while before he was able to learn them all. As soon as he'd gained some strength back, Duo had given him his laptop to use while he was at work. Heero used it often to do research. When he wasn't with the laptop, he'd gone to the library, returning with a huge stack of scientific journals every time and poring over them with intense concentration. Duo had found him more than once in bed with an old issue of /Biotech Journal/ open in his hands. Once Heero relearned everything, then it was just a matter of retaking the certification exam. Duo would have to look up the dates when he had time.

He caught Heero's eye after a few minutes of standing around. "There's that park we used to go to, not too far from here," he called out, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Wanna check it out? We can sit down for a bit."

Heero's eyes narrowed. "Is it that park where those murders took place? About four days ago?"

Duo shook his head. "Nope. Thataway, remember?" He nodded to his left. "It's gotten a lot nicer anyway, and if you really want to gawk at the plants, that's the best place I know for it."

"I was /not/ gawking," Heero muttered, walking closer to Duo and then past him. Duo had to smile; he sensed a little indignance in Heero's voice, which meant that of course, he'd been gawking, he just didn't want to admit it.

Not that Duo blamed him, of course.

******

There was a nature trail right at the park's entrance; a narrow dirt path with a wooden bridge over a pond about three quarters through, lined heavily with leafy bushes and trees. Normally, it took about twenty minutes to go there and back, but with Duo and Heero, an hour passed by and they still weren't done.

There was a shady grove of ash trees not too far from where the bridge was; they were currently sidetracked there, Duo sitting on one of the iron benches that were scattered here and there within the vast park while Heero was exploring the whole place, going up to each individual tree and placing a hand on the trunk, feeling the smooth bark. From the way he examined every branch and twig, it was as if he'd never seen ash trees before.

"I /have/, but last time I was here, they weren't so big," Heero said irritably. Duo blinked. He hadn't realized that he'd said that out loud.

"It's not a bad thing," he replied. "Just an observation I was making." Duo couldn't even begin to imagine what Heero had been through within the past three to four months or so; that was hardly enough time to adjust to a world that had, to him, advanced so much that it had probably turned itself inside out and upside down. Duo tapped the bench thoughtfully; these hadn't been here when Heero was around, instead, the benches had been made of brightly painted wood.

He waited until Heero was done checking out the trees and was coming to sit down next to him on the bench. "So, what did you think?" he asked.

"It's so different. Like everything else here," Heero murmured. He was still staring at the grove, marveling at how thick the canopy of leaves was.

"How are you adjusting? Is it going okay?" Duo asked. "I haven't been around to really check that, so I just wanna know."

Heero didn't answer for a long time, but kept looking up at the leafy canopy through half-closed eyes, sunlight and shadows dappling his bare forearms and the crisp white cloth of his shirt. Just as Duo opened his mouth to say that there wasn't any need for an answer right away, Heero said, "It's slower than I thought it could be. There's so many changes to absorb. More than I anticipated, and in places I didn't even think there'd be any."

"Like?"

"Like you." Heero looked Duo right in the eye, a corner of his mouth curling up in a smirk that Duo found unsettling, because he didn't know why the hell Heero was so amused.

"Well," he said mildly, "I guess I /would/ have changed in fifteen years. So what's so funny about it?" He glanced at his watch. It read 12:30. They'd have to think about getting lunch sometime within the next hour or he wasn't going to be very happy.

Heero cocked his head at Duo, the smirk still on his face, but his eyes deep in thought, dark pools of blue in the noontime sun. If he really listened, Duo thought, he could hear the whirr and click of the gears turning in his head.

Finally, Heero said, "You've grown up. That's the biggest part. You're definitely the guy I met, but not exactly the same." He paused, counting off unknown items with one hand. "There are some little things, too. Like this morning. I didn't see you put any cream or sugar in your coffee."

Duo shrugged, crossing his arms and shifting his torso to see Heero more comfortably. "Eh. The caffeine hits faster if I drink it black. I've been drinking it like that for a while now, probably for...thirteen years now? Somewhere around there."

"You never got up so early either. Especially when you didn't have to go work. Today, I was the last one up."

"I can't really say much about that." Duo shook his head. "To me, it's been like that since forever. I couldn't sleep in today."

"Why did you cut your hair?" The smirk had disappeared from Heero's face. Instead, he looked concerned, his eyebrows knitting together in worry.

"Oh. This." Duo reached over his shoulder and pulled his ponytail around, combing out the tangles with his fingers. "I cut it off when I went back to AC 246. The entire thing. I couldn't stand seeing it anymore."

"Why?"

Duo sighed. "It reminded me of you. You'd always said that you'd liked how long my hair was. And every time I saw it in the mirror after I went back, it was too much for me to handle. Because then I'd have to remember you were gone, and when that happened, I just got so pulled /down/," here, he punctuated the word with a pull of both his hands, "that I couldn't eat, sleep, hell, even /move/. So one day, I cut off the entire thing and tossed it in the trash." He leaned both elbows onto the back of the bench, looking down at his jeans. "At least there wasn't anything to knock over beakers at the labs anymore. You hated that," he joked feebly.

"You shouldn't have cut it off." Heero looked at him in disbelief. "I wouldn't have wanted that."

"No," said Duo, "you wouldn't have. But I had to move on somehow. And hair grows back. I had Moira to learn that from, you know. All those haircuts and I wondered if the scissors were dull."

"You idiot," Heero said sadly, taking Duo's ponytail and stroking the ends. Duo smiled, grasping the other's hand and kissing the fingertips.

"Yeah, but I'm /your/ idiot," he said. "And I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."

******

"Oh, that was very, very nice," Duo said. He stretched his bare arms and leaned back against the pillow.

"Good to see that you've been faithful." Heero nuzzled his face into Duo's shoulder, tightening his arms around Duo's waist under the sheets.

They were lying in bed, sweaty, sticky and spent from having sex. Long overdue sex, Duo thought. The last time they'd done it, it'd been after that storm last month, and Moira had been sleeping so soundly that they could carry on without waking her up. Even then, they'd been discreet about it. Now it was only the two of them, and they didn't have to worry about anyone disturbing them, especially after Duo made sure to screen any incoming calls.

"It's not hard. After you, nobody was all that sexually attractive," Duo said lightly, closing his eyes. They had some time before they'd need to think about getting dinner on the table. After leaving the park, the two of them had stopped to get sandwiches at the local deli, and then spent some time shopping for groceries. He wanted to give Moira a break this time; most of the time she was in charge of cooking for the both of them now for the past two years, especially since Relena had taken the care to teach her over the summer.

"You couldn't have gone without sex for fifteen years. I know you couldn't." He felt Heero lazily tracing patterns on his bare chest with his fingers, meandering here and there.

"I didn't have the /time/," Duo said, cracking open an eye. "Unless it was with this," he held up his right hand and waggled the fingers in front of Heero's nose, "and some lube. Believe me, working at the labs and keeping up with a kid at the same time knocks sex down a few notches on the priority list."

Heero drew concentric circles on Duo's chest, the largest one barely touching the edges of his nipples. "Yeah, it would," he said. "But you never tried to date anyone else?"

"Hell no." This time Duo opened both eyes. "I almost did. I started to lose hope of ever getting the disease cured a few years back. Nothing was working, and time was running out. So I started looking around for people, just in case." He paused, collecting his thoughts. "But when I told Moira, she looked real puzzled for a few seconds and asked, `what about Papa when he comes here?'"

He looked down at Heero's fingers drawing squiggles on his skin; they reminded him of those lessons he'd had at school about sound waves, how the unseen lines moved up and down in round curves. "That's when I remembered you saying that you'd wait for me to come. When that happened, I decided to suck it up and keep trying. And here you are."

Heero nodded. He didn't say anything, but he stopped drawing, moving his hand upwards and around Duo's neck, pulled his head down, and gave him a slow kiss that started at the corner of his mouth; one that grew so intense that Duo found himself gasping for breath when they broke away.

"Wow," he said, looking down at Heero. "I'm going to be tasting you for the rest of the day."

Heero licked his lips with a satisfied smile. "Good," he purred.

******

Moira cocked an eyebrow at Duo. "You look real happy," she said, sliding her bag off her shoulder and hanging it over a chair.

"That I am, sweetie, that I am." He concentrated on the onion he was chopping. Mincing it was easy, but if you weren't careful, the knife could slip. He had a nasty scar on his fingers from the last time that had happened. "How was the first day of college?"

"Eh." Moira opened her bag, taking out a few sheets of paper. "Syllabi, intro to the classes, and then they let us go. But I got to see where I'll be working in the labs, and my supervisor's pretty cool. Her name's Dina Solotski."

"How many hours do they expect to have you put in at work?" Duo gave the onion one final chop and tossed it into the bowl with the growing pile of vegetables and chicken he had in there.

Moira's eyes scanned the sheets. "Um...nine to five. Minus classes." The muffled strains of "Rock With Me" by the Shippers started playing, and she reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone. "Hello? Yeah...Oh, wow, you're with Dina too?... No, I didn't know, they had us come in alphabetically, I guess. That's so cool! So, you want to organize a study group, then? I heard from Kate that Nagra was a tough professor...yeah, that'd be great. Okay!"

Duo watched her out of the corner of his eye as he squeezed some limes into the bowl. Moira was turning out to be a very pretty girl, really beginning to grow into her body, losing some of the clumsiness she'd had in the past two years. Sure, she was on the skinny side, without much of a chest to speak of, but give her some time and she'd be breaking hearts left and right. Just like her papa.

"Who was that?" he asked, as she closed her cell phone with a snap.

"Oh, that was someone who sat next to me in one of my lectures today," she said airily, putting the phone in her pocket.

"Does this someone have a name?"

"Ethan Barnes." Moira smiled in a way that Duo had seen ladies in TV shows do before when an especially cute guy was in their midst. "He's real nice," she said, pushing back a wayward strand of hair that was escaping from the messy bun she'd pinned up.

"Oh?" Duo grinned. "Does that mean I get to show him the special album that I've been compiling all these years?"

Moira's eyes widened so much that Duo could see the whites all around. "You /wouldn't/," she hissed.

"Honey, I've been saving the disk we have of your play in second grade just for when you bring your boyfriends over," he said.

"Ha! That's nothing," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "It was only me dressing up as a banana in `The Rainbow Connection'."

"I know. That's only a prelude to your third grade play. Don't you remember the Fairy Fiasco?" Duo sprinkled some salt and pepper onto the beef, grinning when Moira squeaked. "I still have to show that to Papa, you know. And no, I'm not telling you where the disk is. Why don't you get your bag upstairs? Then you can help me make the soup."

Moira glared at him. "I'll find it somehow," she said grimly, turning on her heel and going upstairs.

"Don't forget to wash your hands!" Duo called after her. He heard her phone ringing again, this time with Flowers for Kendall's "Sunrise On My Doorstep," Audrey's signature ringtone. Moira answered with a short, "Yo," as she went up the stairs, voice drifting down the hall as she reached the second floor.

Duo gave the marinated meat a few flips with his spatula, so that it was all coated evenly. He hadn't made this in a while, so he hoped it'd still taste okay, like the pancakes did. If not, he had the soup to save it all, as soon as Moira got done washing her hands.

There was a loud shout from upstairs, followed by hurried squeals of "sorry" over and over, followed by Moira's footsteps pattering into her room. All right, so maybe dinner would have to wait a little longer.

******

Duo suppressed a chuckle as Moira wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I'm not watching /that/," she said, rising from her spot on the floor.

"Too bad. You don't know what you're missing," he sang out.

"/That/" was a documentary on the techniques used to combat HIV dating from its precolony days to the present. Since the pretty redhead on the television screen was talking about how the patients reacted to the introduction of integrase into their bodies, Duo guessed that the documentary hadn't really begun, since that had happened in the early 2000s before the switch to the AC system.

He watched Moira shove both hands into the pockets of her skirt and slink off, presumably to watch something else on her computer. Duo shuddered; for someone so smart, it couldn't be /that/ entertaining to watch a girl scream obscenities at passing cars, pour water on herself, and run around punching men in the balls for an hour every Tuesday. Her phone rang with Audrey's ringtone, and he heard her answer as she headed into the foyer.

"That's the sixth time she's been on the phone tonight." He felt Heero plop down next to him on the couch, then shift to throw his legs over Duo's knees.

"I guess she made some new friends. She and Audrey are comparing notes right now," he answered, wiggling a little to get comfortable. Heero was still skinny, even after the growth spurt, but there was more of him taking up space, and the extra height and weight took some getting used to even now. "Oof. I think I liked it better when you were small."

Heero kicked him. "What are you watching?" he asked.

"Something on the progress of AIDS medication. They're going straight from the beginning. Right now it's at integrase," Duo said, rubbing his injured thigh. "Ow. Your kicks are nasty."

Heero didn't say anything, but settled back onto the cushions to watch. The narrator had moved on to talk about the effects of AZT and integrase used in a combination for AIDS patients, with the television displaying rows of pill bottles.

"That's a familiar sight." Duo waved at the screen. "Except, minus a bottle or so." During the gene therapy Heero had had, there were so many bottles that they couldn't see half the counter for a month.

"Think you're funny, don't you?" Heero said, not turning away from the screen. "At least I'm seeing them on television and not here."

"Yeah, that's a hell of a lot better, isn't it?" Duo put his feet up on the coffee table, stretching his arms.

This first day off had been pretty damned good.

******

The clock on the nightstand read 11:57. Again, like this morning, Duo was having trouble falling asleep. Unlike this morning, though, Heero was still sitting up in bed with the lights on, reading yet another science journal from the huge stack he had beside the bed.

"Hey, you gonna finish up soon? I wanna sleep."

Heero didn't answer, but flipped another page and continued reading.

"Oh, come on." Duo turned over, pushing the pillow back. "You can read it tomorrow."

"Then let me finish this article," Heero muttered. "There's going to be a lecture about it at the convention next month."

Duo groaned, turning back around and mashing his face into the pillow. He couldn't sleep unless it was dark. "That's not for a while!"

"There's more I need to look at. I'm almost done."

"Heero, it's midnight! Unless," Duo rose up and leaned over so his mouth was right next to Heero's ear, "you're still going to be up and about after reading all those, and then /maybe/ I wouldn't mind." He slid an arm around the other man's shoulders. "We could do something /fun/."

The next thing he knew, he'd gotten a sharp whack across the nose with the science journal and a shove towards his side of the bed.

"Good /night/, Duo." Heero's tone was pointed, turning off the light and rolling over.

Duo rubbed his nose and smiled to himself in the dark. /Now/ he could sleep, and hopefully this time he wouldn't have to get up until seven in the morning.

He really needed to get more days off.