24-July 2003
revised: 29-Aug-2004
Title: Endless Summer
Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R (precautionary, will be R in later chapters)
Warnings: Language, so far. In later chapters, maybe light violence
and sex. ^_^ Not much to warn about, anyway.
Pairings: 1x2, 3+4, 5+R (hee...) <------- that's all I know, so far...
Genre: AU, Humor/Romance/Action
Archive: If you want it, email me at duffsbrandy @ yahoo.com
Feedback: Please
Notes: Dedicated to 1x2 ML and to Scott McNeil, (Duo's VA) whose
voice (and the conversations about it) are what inspired me to do
this fic. This fic probably won't move very fast, because I'm trying
to work on many projects at once. This one is just a pet project that
begged to be written down. I do not claim to be geographically or
scientifically accurate in this fic. Also, there is a list of slang
used and its meanings down at the bottom of the page, for your
information. Enjoy. ^_^
"Heero."
"Mmm... wake me up when the lull is over."
"Heero, listen to me."
"Mmm?"
"Sit up and take a look at this barney walking down the lineup." Wufei's voice held a little more amusement than usual.
Heero glanced over at his best friend. The Chinese boy was sitting in lotus, facing the waves, black hair slicked back with seawater. He murmured something incoherent and chalked Wufei's unusually good mood up to the fact that the swells were high. Yawning, he threw one darkly tanned arm over his face to block the blazing Hawaiian sun. Offshore, he could hear the waves beginning to pick back up, but he was too comfortable to paddle back out.
His yellow labrador retriever Baka panted beside him. Suddenly, the big dog launched from the sand, racing down the beach barking, black bandana flapping.
Heero ignored him. He was too relaxed to worry about anything at the moment, much less a shubee or his endearingly stupid dog. Living on an island where tourism was responsible for most of the economy, he had already had his eyefull of the shubees, thank you very much. He was just so sick of shaping beautiful surfboards for haoles who were just going to try them once and then hang them up on a wall when they got back to wherever they had come from.
The sun beat down on his bare chest; water was beaded there like water on a duck's back. The Pipeline was relatively uncrowded, being known surfer territory. The waters were rough, and the reefs were dangerous, so almost no one swam there. Heero took a deep breath and swallowed contentedly, smelling the wax of his board, listening to the waves and the sound of the seabirds overhead.
Wufei laughed next to him, catching his undivided attention.
While he wouldn't go as far as to say his friend had no sense of humor at all, whatever it was that had caught a laugh out of Wufei was probably worth a glance.
Heero sat up on his elbows, defined stomach muscles rippling as he squinted and slid his reflective sunglasses down to the end of his nose for a better look.
There was a new surfer down at the end of the shower. He had been making his way over the edge of the dunes when he had obviously lost his footing. Now he lay at the bottom of the dunes in a sprawling, sand-covered heap. All Heero could see was a scattered bag of boards, a backpack, and a long chestnut braid.
Baka had jumped the fallen surfer-in true Baka fashion-and was slobbering love all over him, tail wagging wildly.
"Fresh fish. Make no mistake," Wufei muttered.
"Hn." A smirk almost crossed Heero's face. He scowled instead. "Is that a wahine?"
Wufei snickered. "No."
"You mean that's a guy with that much hair?"
"Yes."
Heero kept watching, intrigued. The guy got up and brushed himself off nonchalantly. It reminded Heero of the way a cat who falls or embarrasses itself will get up and pretend that that was exactly what it had meant to do in the first place. His smirk widened a little.
Baka danced around the boy's feet, front paws coming off the ground in a happy hopping motion as he barked loudly. The long-haired surfer kneeled in the sand and hugged the big dog, patting his sides. The yellow lab wriggled in ecstasy.
Heero whistled sharply, annoyed and not really sure why. Baka's head flew up, and the dog raced back across the beach to his master.
The shubee shaded his eyes and glanced down the shore at them, seeing who it was that had called the dog away from him. When he saw Heero and Wufei, he waved manically before running towards them in his baggy black swim trunks, quiver and backpack bouncing. To Heero, it was a surprise the swim trunks didn't end up around his ankles, they looked so big on him. The three of them were almost the only ones still left on the beach; everyone else had left until the next period of swells.
The boy reached them, gasping. "Man!" he whooped, shading his eyes again as he gazed across the Pipeline. He looked back at the two of them, grinning from ear to ear. "You guys sure had some major waves! I was watchin' 'em on my way in. Too bad it's calmed down now, eh?" His braid wagged behind him like the tail of an overly eager puppy. On his decidedly ragged black bag, Heero could read the words WEST COAST GLIDERS.
"Yeah, too bad," Wufei replied, noncommital, and even without looking, Heero could hear the smirk in his voice. Leaning back in a slow roll, he patted his dog, feeling the lab's big pink tongue slurp between his fingers enthusiastically.
"You a tourist?" the Chinese boy asked.
The long-haired boy had the dignity to be embarrassed, at least. "Well... kinda. A little."
"Aloha. I'm Wufei Chang. Welcome to Oahu," Wufei replied dutifully. Duo held his hand out to him, and Wufei shook it. "And this laconic asshole next to me is Heero Yuy."
The boy laughed. "So, yeah... I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell," he said, holding his hand down to Heero to shake. Heero looked at it, then up at Duo, gazing at the other surfer through his sunglasses. Duo could see his own reflection in them as he looked the Japanese boy over. Heero wasn't wearing anything but a pair of dark blue swim trunks and a great white's tooth, tangled in wire and hung on a gold chain around his neck.
"Hn." Heero didn't take his hand. Instead, he laid against his surfboard again, folding his arms behind his head. "Why don't you head to the other side of the island, or South Shore? You can find some easy bakes to learn on there."
The smile faded from Duo's face. He scowled. "What?"
"You heard me, haole. Hit the road. This is too big for you. The Pipeline is dangerous for amateurs."
Duo snorted. "Fuck you." He threw his bags down on the sand, pulled a black spandex rashguard over his head, grabbed a longboard, and headed towards the water. The swells were beginning to rise again as the wind picked up.
Heero sat up again, pushing his sunglasses up on his forehead, piercing cobalt eyes watching Duo leave.
"Wufei, what in the hell is he doing?"
"Looks like he's hitting the Pipeline."
Heero growled. "Idiot... " He got to his feet, following the boy, whose braid was swishing as he walked like the tail of an indignant cat. He grabbed Duo by the shoulder and whirled him around. "No way, haole. Are you insane, or just stupid? Weren't you listening to me?"
"What? Lay off, dude! Let go!" Duo jerked out of Heero's grasp, looking the other boy over balefully. "I'm not a shubee, and I'm gonna prove it. Just watch me. I'll show you who's a barney... asshole... " He turned his back on Heero and stalked off towards the water.
Wufei stood up and walked over, standing next to Heero. "He's really going out there?"
"Hai. Mainlander moron. He's crazy." The two of them stood there, watching Duo paddle out.
"Think he's going to catch one?"
"I think you need to call the Coast Guard now, before he tries. That way, the flashers can be here by the time he gets ragdolled against the reef." Heero walked back over to where he had left his surfboard, lying back down in the sand and covering his face with his arm again.
"Tell me when he gets hammered. I can't watch. Just remember to tell the Coast Guard when they get up here that we warned him."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duo paddled out furiously, not feeling the warmth of the water around him, not feeling the hard length of the board beneath his chest, not feeling anything but indignation.
The nerve of that guy! Practically called me a kid surfer, for Christ's sake.
... Not a bad looking guy, though.
The day suddenly felt hotter as he remembered the way the water had beaded on the Japanese surfer's chest and stomach. Duo shook his head to clear it of a very, very bad mental picture. No way in hell. He was not going to go there.
Huh. Yeah, right. A good looking guy, and he knows it, too. Arrogant asshole.
Ah, here we go. Prime swellage...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What's he doing, Wufei?"
"I thought you said you couldn't watch."
"I said I couldn't watch. I didn't say I couldn't ask you what the hell he's doing."
"He's... hm. Heero, look up. You've got to see this."
Heero raised up off the sand, gazing out across the Pipeline, where the waves were beginning to swell again. Finally, he spotted Duo.
He was carving. The long-haired boy's board glided across the wave and into the curl of it like a marble over glass. The surfer was crouched down low over the board, one hand gripping the side of it, the other skimming the inside of the barrel, braid flying out behind him like a narrow flag. It was textbook. It was classic. It was perfect. Utopic.
It was-Heero thought grudgingly-too good for a shubee. Or even just a regular surfer.
He had expected Duo to at least get biffed and rolled under, and at worst hurt very badly, even raked across the reefs.
While on the outside Heero feigned nonchalance about the whole thing, on the inside, he mentally prepared himself to jump in after Duo when the boy was thrashed. He wasn't going to just stand by and watch the boy drown just because he was too stupid to realize his own limitations.
His fears, Heero realized, were completely unnecessary. He wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing.
When Duo began to swim back in, Baka ran out to the water, leaping in and paddling out to the boy. Heero could hear Duo laughing all the way from where he was sitting on the beach. He started to whistle Baka back to him, irritated, but ending up telling himself it wasn't worth the trouble.
Next to him, Wufei was smiling a little, watching the long-haired surfer come in. "Looks like we were wrong about the haole, Heero." He looked over at the Japanese boy sitting next to him, who glanced up, then looked straight back at Duo.
"Up to a little competition?" Wufei asked, almost teasing.
Heero didn't answer.
End Part 1
RIPTIONARY: Surfer Terms
haole - (Hawaiian) non-native
barney - amateur surfer
lull - period in between swells
bake - little waves, used to teach people how to surf on
shubee - amateur surfer, particularly a tourist who learns to surf as
a vacation hobby
(:./cyt/endless1)
