10-Mar-2001

Category: Songfic (for GWML archival purposes, though, this is a romance)
Pairing: 1+2/2+1
Warnings: Shounen-ai, probable OOC-ness, occasional bad language.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys (Sunrise and the Sotsu Agency do, and Bandai gets a piece of the pie too), nor do I intend to infringe upon the rights of those who do. "Light Up My Room" belongs to Barenaked Ladies, and can be found on their album Stunt.
Notes: I don't know anything much about atmospheric science, so don't try to regulate your colony's weather based on what you read here. ^_~ Nor do I have any particular canonical basis for the premise that an L2 colony might have a water shortage--it's just a cliche I found useful. Anyway, this is a sort of sequel to 'Falling for the First Time' (not part of the Complicated continuum), and is set after EW. It's also *cringe* an appallingly late birthday present for Joriel, who deserves all good things. ^__^

(apologies to the OAFmlers, who saw this earlier in the week....)

/denotes thoughts; // denotes lyrics

Over Everything by Lilias

//A hydro-field cuts through my neighborhood
Somehow that always just made me feel good
I can put a spare bulb in my hand
And light up my yard//

"Try it now."

The hydraulics wheezed, the engine whined in protest, but the massive crane reluctantly bent its huge arm to lift a cube of crushed metal from the ground. It raised and lowered twice, experimentally, and then a triumphant face poked itself through the cab's open window. "That's done it, all right--look at 'er go! You've got the touch, boss!"

"I've got a screwdriver and a clue, Dalrymple," Duo observed dryly, swinging down from the cab roof to land on one of its caterpillar treads. "Deadly combination--you oughtta try it sometime."

A guffaw rang out from the far side of the scrapyard. "Nah, he can
only hold one thing at a time!"

General laughter came from the machine shed and the garage, as the salvage yard's other workers whole-heartedly agreed with that assessment of poor Dalrymple's cognitive abilities. Another voice called from the direction of the office. "Didja ever give the boss that message, Dal? Or was that the bolt that broke the mecha's back?"

Dalrymple reddened, then admitted sheepishly, "Aw, hell. I did forget. And I even wrote it down, so I'd be sure to remember--see?" There were indeed letters and numbers scrawled in marker on the back of his rather grubby paw--but they were so blurred by sweat and dust that they might as well have been hieroglyphics.

"Good one, Dal." Duo shook his head, but his expression held more good-natured resignation than actual disappointment. "Do you remember what it was about?"

"Lemme think." He tipped his greasy cap to the back of his head, assuming a ruminative posture. "It was some guy--"

At someone's hoot of "That narrows it right down!" Dalrymple waved a hand dismissively.

"No, it was. Give me a minute. Some guy--not a customer. Wanted to know if this was Duo Maxwell's place, and I said yes. And then wanted to know if you'd be here today, and I said yes. And then said he'd be coming by, and I said fine." He grinned triumphantly. "So you didn't need the message after all, because he should be here pretty soon, and then you'll know who it was and why he was calling, right?"

"Right." Duo twirled the screwdriver around the back of his hand, considering. /Couldn't be Quatre--he knows very well that this is my place, and anyway he never calls before he comes over. Which rules out Trowa, too./ "He didn't leave a name?"

"Nope. No name. At least I don't remember one." Dal looked distressed.

Duo tweaked the bill of the big man's cap. "Hey, no harm done--we'll find out soon enough, huh?" Dropping the screwdriver back into his toolbox, he headed thoughtfully off to the rear of the yard to check on the previous day's shipment. He did his best to put the mystery firmly out of his mind--after all, he reasoned, it was probably just another damn reporter. By late afternoon, he was whistling over a pile of dented sheet metal and scorched mecha remains, all his concentration focused on the latest parts request.

Which was why he almost gave himself a concussion--straightening so quickly that he whacked his head sharply on a defunct Leo's chest panel--when Meyers came trotting between the heaps of scrap to tell him that 'some guy' had finally shown up, and was waiting outside the office. "Man," Meyers repeated more than once as she waited for him to finish and follow, shaking her head. "I mean--man."

"You planning to start making sense?" Duo managed not to snap, rubbing his head as he retrieved his clipboard and headed back toward the office.

"It's just--man. He's cute. Like scary cute."

Duo snorted, eyes on the ground while he navigated the last few piles of twisted metal. /Great. Some random cute guy is leeching away my employees' ability to think, or at least speak, and--/ And then he looked up. "You've got to be kidding me. No fucking way."

It was Heero, of all people. Heero Yuy, big as life--every hair out of place, as usual, wearing faded blue jeans and an even more faded windbreaker. And leaning against Duo's very own office door as comfortably as if he dropped by the L2 cluster every day. By his feet sat a battered duffel bag of uncertain hue, though it might once have been red.

Duo continued forward almost hesitantly at first, then broke into an entirely unconscious run. Heero straightened up as he approached, answering Duo's delighted grin with a glimmer of a smile. He didn't get a chance to speak, though, as Duo skidded to a halt in front of him and began deluging him with questions: "When did you get in? How long are you staying? What the holy hell are you doing here?" The clipboard in his hands kept him from throwing both arms around Heero, but just barely.

Especially when Heero's smile spilled over enough to light the rest of his face. "Came to see what you've been up to--it's been a while."

"Damn straight." Duo shook his head again. "Man--where've you been all this time? I mean--geez." He rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "God, I sound like Meyers." But she was right, though 'scary cute' was something of an understatement. There never had been quite enough words--in any language--to capture the intensity, the terrifying perfection of his--his what, exactly? Idol? Cautionary example? Best friend? After all, they'd never quite gotten around to being more, had they?

Left to himself, Duo had imagined this moment a thousand times--had outlined all the clever things he was going to say, the satisfying responses he would finally wring out of the frustratingly opaque object of his obsession. But now that the moment had finally arrived, he stood there gaping like an idiot: barely remembering to blink while he drank in the sight of Heero, and feeling for all the world like a desert traveler who'd just been handed a glass of water. Downright pitiful.

He hadn't felt this turned around since--since the five of them had said goodbye to their gundams, and each other, and gone their separate ways. Since he'd watched Heero walk away. Fortunately, long-lost war buddies were supposed to gaze nostalgically at one another, so he had a minute or two to stare to his heart's content. Old war buddies probably weren't supposed to drool, though, so Duo made a valiant attempt at self-control.

Heero had raised a bemused eyebrow, not even trying to keep up with the flood of words. "Meyers?"

"Never mind--just one of these losers." Most of the yard's workers had left for the day, but the few who remained had gathered in a little semicircle by the garage, gawking. Duo waved a hand at them. "Everybody, this is Heero. Heero, this bunch of staring loonies is--well, this is my crew, I guess. Mine and Hilde's. Though we're one big cooperative endeavor--right, guys?"

"Whatever you say, O Mighty Boss-man!" Someone--Meyers again, Duo suspected--caroled from the back of the throng. "Aren't you gonna kiss him hello?" someone else sang out. "Let me get my camera!" a third voice ended on a peal of laughter.

Duo threw them what was supposed to be a threatening grimace. "Ignore the peanut gallery, if you please. You seem to have boggled their tiny minds. Anyway, this is what I've been up to." He gestured grandly to the scrapyard.

"You and Hilde?"

"Yup. See?" Duo pointed to the sign over the office, where remarkably large black letters identified the premises as the home of 'M&S Salvage and Sales: From Destruction to Construction.' "Maxwell and Schbeiker, at your service." He grinned. "She wanted top billing, but I pointed out that'd make us S&M, and then we might be attracting a whole different set of customers--"

"They buy metal too, ne?" Heero slanted him a sideways look from under that windblown thicket of bangs.

Unbelievable--Heero had just made a joke. A mildly suggestive joke, no less. Duo gave in and grinned. "I guess so. But in much smaller quantities. Jesus, it's good to see you."

"You too."

Heero didn't seem in a hurry to speak, or leave, or do much of anything--he just stood there, watching Duo with those unreadable eyes. Those inhumanly beautiful, painfully familiar eyes. Seeing Heero again was definitely scary, and wonderful, all at once. The silence was making Duo nervous, though, so he tapped his clipboard against his leg and tried to think of something to say next. "So. You have time to hang around a little, maybe get some food?"

"Aa. Sure." Heero shouldered his bag, one hand resting easily on its strap.

"Let's hit my place first, so I can at least change--I'm a mess."

The walk wasn't far--it might have been several blocks, if they'd stuck to the sidewalks, but Duo seemed to have no qualms about cutting across parched back yards and rutted driveways. Nor did the people along his route seem to mind; in fact, everyone visible on porches or at windows offered a wave or called a greeting as they passed. Eventually, they stepped over a fatigued-looking wire fence into a back yard lined with neat rows of what looked like sticks-- markers for something? Or some sort of totem? Heero squinted sideways at the odd little formation as he followed Duo up to the screen door of an unremarkable one-story house. It was dark and cool inside, after the harsh combination of captured sunlight and artificial daylight that baked the colony. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, Heero could make out the shapes of a table and two chairs in one room, a low couch and a vidset in the other--and beyond them, doorways presumably leading to the rest of the house.

"So this is where you live?" It was simple, utilitarian; Heero hadn't exactly been expecting a cozy, ruffled nest, but this was hardly where he would have thought Duo would set up housekeeping with the love of his life. Maybe Hilde didn't mind spartan accomodations.

"Yep. Well, when I'm not practically living at work, anyway." Duo motioned for Heero to sit, gesturing vaguely toward his own buttons to indicate that he was about to find clean clothes, and headed off to the next room.

"Where's Hilde?" Heero tried to make the question sound nonchalant.

"Probably already home--she gets off-shift about two hours before me." Duo's voice was muffled by the half-closed door as he changed clothes; Heero found himself trying very hard not to picture anything on the other side of its thin panels.

"She doesn't live here?" He winced at the stupidity of the question-- unless there was another suite hidden in the bathroom, she obviously wasn't here. But he had to be sure.

"Hilde? Good god, no." Returning to the living room in a clean shirt and jeans, Duo appeared genuinely shocked. "Kate and I would have killed each other a long time ago."

"Kate." For some reason, Heero's brain was having trouble processing these bundles of information.

"Her girlfriend. Doesn't approve of--and I quote--'long-haired gun-toting altar boys from hell who almost got Hilde killed. Twice.'" Duo tried to look doleful and long-suffering. "I even brought her flowers as a peace offering; they made her sneeze. And the kitten gave her hives. That's about when Hilde made me stop trying."

Heero didn't answer right away, and it took Duo a minute to figure out that he was laughing, though silently.

"Sure, sure. Laugh it up. Pick on a guy when he's down." But Duo couldn't help smiling. Down? It was funny--he'd never felt so far up in all his life.

"Sorry. If it helps--" Heero actually had to stop and wipe his eyes. "I don't have a problem with altar boys from hell."

"Even gun-toting ones?"

"Especially gun-toting ones." The slate-blue eyes were still warm with humor, but there was something deeper going on in there as well. If he just kept looking for another minute, maybe two, Duo had the feeling he might just be able to figure it out--

//Late at night when the wires in the walls
Sing in tune with the din of the falls
I'm conducting it all while I sleep
To light this whole town//

The phone rang in the kitchen, making them both jump. Duo turned reluctantly to pick it up, shaking his head as if to clear it.

"Hello? Oh, hey--I was just about to call you--" Duo paused, listening, then glanced sideways at Heero. "Yep, they weren't pulling your leg. Mm-hm. Seems to be fine, but I haven't gotten a chance to ask--what? Hilde." The last word was a two-note accusation. "You know me better than that. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you'd take the yard for a couple of days." A pause. "Don't know."

He turned to Heero. "How long can you stay? Not that it matters too much, I mean, Hilde's better at running the yard than me anyway, and she can handle things for however long--" A stream of tinny invective clattered across the phone line; Duo still had the receiver at his ear, and he yanked it away, wincing. He glared at it balefully, then grinned at Heero. "Trust me, the place pretty much runs itself. But if I could let her know about how long--"

"Maybe a week. I don't know yet," Heero said carefully. "But you don't have to take that much time away from work, if it'll be a hassle. And I can always stay somewhere else."

A week--it was hardly any time at all. Still, it was something. Not even dignifying Heero's ridiculous last words with an answer, Duo cautiously lifted the phone again. "You done yelling at me? Fine. You heard? How's a week?" Another long pause--Hilde's voice was audible only as a staccato series of alto tones through the receiver. "I know. I know. And I won't--Hilde, just listen for half a--" He turned away slightly, as if that would make his end of the conversation harder to hear; in the living room, Heero tried not to eavesdrop too obviously. "Oh, real funny. I said I'll--fine. I am not an idiot. Yeah, well, back at ya." He hung up with rather more force than was required, and stood staring at the phone for a moment before turning back to the living room.

Heero regarded him calmly from the couch.

"Hilde says hi." Duo looked painfully embarrassed; Heero hadn't realized a blush could go all the way down a person's neck, but it seemed to be possible.

"Does she."

"Yeah, well, and she says a lot of other things too. She's just--" Duo shook his head ruefully. "She worries about me too much."

"Does she have a reason?"

Duo laughed. "Let's just say I don't have the best track record. And she, well, thinks I'm going to--" He flailed for words, before finishing weakly, "It doesn't matter." /She's afraid I'm going to make a fool of myself over you and end up miserable, again. Knows me a bit too well, that girl./

"Track record." Heero had a momentary mental image of a wide expanse of blacktop stretching to infinity, with a barely visible pace car disappearing in the distance. It made him faintly sick, as if the bottom of his stomach had gone missing.

Duo must have read something of that sensation on his face, because he immediately began backpedaling. "That is, I mean--my record is no record, really. Stalled out before the starting flag, usually." /Great, now I sound desperate and pathetic. But at least it's the truth!/

"Oh." Some recklessly optimistic part of Heero desperately wanted to interpret all of that as a good sign, but it was a little too cryptic for him to be absolutely sure. And one more time, he needed to be sure. Too many questions, and he didn't know where to start asking them, or how to phrase them once he started. /But there are things I need to know--first off, Duo, what exactly was that blush for?/

Duo continued, "So. Anyway. How about you? You never did mention how you scraped together enough time to go floating into space for weeks at a time--are you on vacation or something? Between jobs?" The last he'd heard, Heero was some kind of consultant to the World Nation's anti-terrorist corps. But that had been more than two years ago, and a whole lot could happen in that time--whole wars could be won or lost, lives torn apart and remolded into something new and strange. Two years--two years could be a lifetime.

"I finished up with what I was doing down on Earth--haven't decided yet what to do next."

Finished up? "Weren't you with--"

Heero looked at him blankly, then seemed to understand. "Relena?"

"Uh, yeah." /Earth to Heero--who else do you know, Mr. This-Man-Is-An-Island?/ Duo really, really wished he hadn't asked-- Heero didn't have the wounded look of one who has been dumped, nor even a tinge of dumper's guilt.

In fact, he seemed to be looking inward at a particularly pleasant memory as he considered the question. "Depends what you mean by 'with,' I guess. I was in Sank for a while. They--she needed help getting things set up. And it was good to be building something for a change, instead of blowing it up. You know."

Duo nodded; he had felt the same way about the scrapyard, watching a whole little community take shape out of nothing.

Heero continued rather slowly, as if searching for the right words. "It was a lot of work--more than either of us expected, I think. But somewhere in all of that, it was like she figured out what she wanted. How to be herself. Noin says she 'found her center.'" He looked up, and Duo felt the impact of those eyes like a blow to the chest. "And I guess I found mine."

/And now you're here, and--what the hell does this mean, Heero?/ Duo cleared his throat with some difficulty. "So she's not your, um--"

Heero looked more than a little amused. "No."

"Oh." But Heero didn't seem inclined to expand upon his little explanation--not yet, anyway--so Duo tried to think of something to say that wouldn't give away the crazy happiness spinning in electric spirals through his chest. "Well. So, um, anyway, we need to figure out something to do about dinner." He opened the refrigerator rather mechanically, grabbing for the handle three times before his fingers actually managed the task; he tossed Heero a bottle of water, then continued to stand in the fridge's open door while he peered further inside.

Heero leaned against the counter, as calmly as if he hadn't been making momentous revelations. "Anyplace--I'm not picky."

Concentrating on dinner was helping Duo's motor function considerably. "That's probably a very good thing--there's a distinct shortage of elegant restaurants around here. But if you're still eating like a Zen apprentice, the places I usually go would probably kill you upon entry--arteries instantly clogged, that kind of thing. I'm afraid you're stuck with my cooking skills and--" He fished through the crisper. "--And this eggplant. Ta-da!"

Heero looked dubious.

"Hey, you haven't lived till you've tried my genuine imitation Italian baked oh-bergine," Duo proclaimed, waving the innocent vegetable enticingly. "Grew it myself!"

The dubious look turned downright suspicious. But when the allegedly Italian eggplant appeared to be about to swing into a frenetic can-can, with total disregard for archaic cultural distinctions and its own lack of legs, Heero raised both hands placatingly. "Eggplant is fine. Eating here is fine."

"So--we're fine, then." Duo started laughing.

"Guess so." Heero tried not to laugh, but didn't quite succeed. /This is what I missed--and I almost didn't even figure out that I was missing it. Missing you. Why did I wait so long? I should have made this trip a long time ago, Duo./

A chopping block, two cans of tomatoes, and thirty minutes in the oven later, he had to admit that the eggplant hadn't been a bad idea at all. There weren't even very many dishes to wash, but Heero insisted that washing up was the least he could do to repay the favor of dinner--and Duo knew better than to argue with that glare, even if it was meant lightly. Heero was about to pour the suds from the odd little dishpan into the sink when Duo put both hands protectively over the drain.

"Whoa, whoa--give me that." Duo took the basin out of his hands and carried it outside; Heero followed, wondering.

The dry sticks in the back yard were a garden, as it turned out. Bending over the leathery leaves of some pitifully dusty vegetable, Duo carefully tipped the dishwater onto its roots. The water was gone so fast that even the dark spot didn't last longer than a few seconds.

"That's better--huh, buddy? Will that talk you into producing a bean or two one of these days? You're not earning your keep, y'know." Duo brushed some of the leaves clean--cleaner, anyway--and patted the crown affectionately. "You'll get yours tomorrow," he assured the plant's neighbor, a prickly-looking heap of bushy stems. Then he looked up, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. "They're dry-country hybrids, mostly. All edible, or so I've been told. Your dinner was brought to you by that one over there."

"You can't have food shipped in?"

"Well, I could. The salvage business is doing pretty well." Duo kicked at a clod of dirt, which gave up its shape with a powdery sigh. "But most of the people in this residential block can't afford the shipping on vegetables from one of the ag colonies, let alone from Earth." He shook his head in weary bitterness. "The wars hit this place hard. You notice anything about the people on the way here? Not many left between the ages of twelve and sixty--everyone else got sucked in, one way or another. The Federation, Oz--hell, even the White Fang--everybody showed up here eventually, looking for new recruits. And they paid better than the factories, so everybody went. And most of 'em died. We're what's left."

'We.' Taking in the implications of that inclusive pronoun, Heero looked around the place with new eyes. This wasn't a place to hide out for a while, or even to pause and catch breath. Not for Duo. For him, this seemed to be home--the people of this colony were his family, his new mission, his responsibility and his comfort all at once. It was a very appealing idea--if only Heero hadn't felt firmly excluded from that 'we.'

"Anyway, I've been trying out different things," Duo continued. "This is kind of a test garden, I guess you'd call it. Gave some sprouts to my neighbors, too--anybody on this street with a patch of dirt has got something growing in it, now. We'll get this figured out yet." He looked up, smiling. "Just a matter of time. The lack of water's the biggest problem."

Hands in pockets, Heero looked thoughtfully up along the colony's arched horizon. "This colony has hydro-production capabilities like all the other ones, doesn't it? You can see the tanks from space."

"Yeah."

"So why doesn't it rain?"

Duo snorted. "Not profitable." Heero looked at him sideways, so he elaborated. "We don't have a government, exactly--the colony's owned by a conglomerate, strictly for-profit. And someone figured out a long time ago that they can make a nice pile of credits if they control the water, make people buy it by the gallon instead of dumping it out of the clouds for free. So they diverted most of the H2O from the atmosphere humidifiers, and presto: a nice thirsty colony." One side of his mouth twisted in a cynical smirk. "If we were agricultural, they might let it fall--but this place is strictly for manufacturing, and that doesn't take much water. So it doesn't rain."

"Ever?"

"Well, sometimes. Usually by accident. But it's not totally dry, after all--can't be, with this many people breathing and stuff. So the moisture sometimes has a chance to build up, and we get a drizzle."

"Hm."

Duo had the distinct impression that Heero was plotting something-- that particular narrowing of the eyes meant A Mission--and he had the equally distinct impression that such a course could be big trouble. "Oh, no you don't. Don't even think about it."

"Think what, about what?" Heero didn't feign innocence very well.

"Whatever you're planning over there, forget it. I haven't been able to get the company management to reconsider their position using polite methods--and anything more direct can only cause these people more trouble."

"What have you tried?"

"Well--" Duo looked aggravated. "I tried talking to management, of course--thought maybe I'd spent enough time in diplomatic circles to pick up some skills--" Heero snorted, and Duo sighed in rueful agreement. "Yeah, I know--doomed to failure, that was. Anyway, then I tried less-orthodox tactics. Couldn't make it past their firewall, and ended up earning all of us a restriction on 'net usage as a punishment. Pathetic."

"Hardly," Heero countered swiftly. "They must have a tough security system. Anyway, don't worry--I wouldn't do anything that would make it worse."

Now it was Duo's turn to look dubious; but when Heero's look of thoughtful speculation was split by a yawn that seemed to startle even himself, Duo went back to the role of solicitous host. "You must be wiped out--why don't we get your sleeping space set up, and then you can just relax until whenever you're ready to go to bed."

It sounded like a sensible idea--but once they were back inside, Heero looked downright uncomfortable when Duo dumped his bag inside the only bedroom. "Are you--where will you--"

Whatever Duo gathered from that string of uncertain syllables, it was enough to bring that flood of crimson back up across his face and throat; Heero found himself staring again, momentarily distracted from his own discomfort. "Uh, I was going to sleep out here. You came all this way--and this is the closest thing to a comfortable horizontal surface that I've got. I'll be fine on the couch--really."

Heero shook his head firmly. "You should keep your bed. I'm still used to a different time zone--most of me thinks it's only two in the afternoon. So I'll probably be awake for a while, maybe watch a vid--and I wouldn't want to keep you awake if you were trying to sleep out here." /And if you think I'd get a moment's sleep in your bed--just knowing it's _yours_--you're crazy./ Knowing the danger of those eyes too well, he tried to keep his gaze on something safer--but found himself mesmerized instead by one flyaway wisp of hair that stirred against the pale throat, fixating on the way those long fingers tightened on the door frame until their tips whitened. No safety anywhere, it seemed.

They stood looking at each other in the doorway for a moment, then another. Somewhere outside, in the colony's deepening night, a dog barked; then a tram rattled by along its metal track.

Finally, Duo cleared his throat and spoke. "We-elll--all right. But just till you adjust, okay? Then that couch is mine, buster." He tried to look fierce, but the lopsided smile rather disrupted the effect.

"Okay." Only after Duo had padded off to bed, leaving Heero in possession of the remote control and a stack of old sci-fi vids, did Heero realize he'd just committed to spending more than one night. Accidentally. Sort of. For the first time in a long time, he was almost smiling as he finally went to sleep.

//There's a shopping cart in the ravine
Foam on the creek is like pop and ice cream
A field full of tires that is always on fire
To light my way home//

Duo woke up the next morning with a vague but urgent sense of anticipation--the way he'd felt as a kid, when (by some miraculous transaction known only to Sister Helen) there were going to be doughnuts for breakfast. The way he'd felt as a teenager, before the battles began, waking up to a whole exhilarating day of pushing Deathscythe to its limits. Something good was going to happen today--was already happening, and he'd be immersed in the joy of it as soon as he awakened enough to remember what the heck it was....

It hit him like an electric shock, a warm tingling rush that moved over him in a solid wave--Heero was here. Right in the next room.

Duo was out of bed in a second, tripping over the tumbled sheets in his hurry to get to the door. No sounds were audible from the next room, so he grabbed clothes and ducked into the bathroom for a shower. Still no signs of movement when he came back out, so he took another minute to cram the past days' worth of crumpled clothes into the laundry basket in his closet. Halfway out the door, he came back to smooth out the coverlet and kick a stray shoe back under the bed, refusing even to think about why he might later want this room to be neat. After all, he was just being tidy. Really.

He paused in the living-room doorway for a status check: still quiet. Heero must have stayed up pretty late, if he was still out--and he did seem to be totally asleep, stretched out on the couch with one arm across his stomach and the other thrown over his head. He'd probably lain down in precisely that position the night before; he always did sleep like a corpse. The others had found it profoundly unsettling, the way Heero could fall asleep so suddenly and totally, no matter what their accomodations. And he never moved a muscle, all night--no unnecessary motion marred that perfect rest. His waking was equally efficient: no stretching, no yawning, just the curtain going smoothly up on those big blue eyes, as calmly as you please. Duo smiled, remembering--Wufei had said it was like watching a robot whose switch had been flipped from 'recharge' to 'on.'

Personally, Duo had never found it all that creepy--and had never begrudged Heero those hours of what certainly looked like perfect peace. After all, who knew what nightmares might be writhing just underneath all that eerie calm?

He turned away, smiling, and headed to the kitchen to measure water from a pitcher into the coffee percolator, eventually padding out to his back steps with mug in hand. Later-morning sounds were very different from the ones Duo usually encountered, since he generally left home before the manufactured dawn got a chance to do more than brighten the edges of the metal sky. By eight o'clock, by contrast, the children had all gone off to school, most of their parents were well on their way to work, and he sipped his coffee with no other company than a few curious pigeons and a very fat stray cat.

It felt strange not to be bolting a hasty breakfast in preparation for the mad dash to the yard--having one's own business meant less free time, not more, as he and Hilde had discovered. And usually, Duo was perfectly happy to devote every waking moment (and many sleeping ones) to his work. But this pause in the routine made him think about the other things he could have been making room for in his life--and not just because it was a random day off in the middle of the week, in the middle of their busiest season. The real reason was painfully obvious, and sleeping like a baby on his living-room couch.

Duo turned around slowly, trying to see the place with an outsider's eyes: plexi-frame houses and multi-story residential compounds elbow-to-elbow with shacks built from scrap metal; dust and bits of paper whirling in the street at the urging of the dull, constant breeze. And everywhere, buckets, tubs, pans, jugs with funnels in their necks: dooryards crowded with vessels of every shape and size, ready to catch every drop the sky saw fit to dispense. Just in case.

It was painfully hopeful. It was completely depressing. He couldn't imagine why Heero would ever want to stay in a place like this--and that thought was even more depressing. He pushed a hand through his hair in exasperation. /Not like he's offering to share the rent just yet, idiot. Might as well jump to conclusions, though, since that's all the jumping I'm likely to be doing for a while./ The utter lameness of his own joke made him smile.

"What's funny?"

Duo jumped, spilling coffee all over his feet and the steps. "Jesus jogging on a swimming pool, do you have to do that stealth mode thing?"

Framed in the doorway, Heero considered the question. "No. But it's fun to watch you jump. Didn't burn you, did it?"

"Nah--wasn't that hot." Duo paused to shake coffee droplets off his arm, then his ankle. "You sleep okay?"

"Aa. I might have slept longer, but there's some kind of bar across the middle of that couch--"

"...that makes your spine pray for death. I know. Hey, I tried to make you take the bed, didn't I?"

"You did." Heero flexed his shoulders, wincing. "Next time I won't be polite."

"I'll make it up to you--the bed's all yours tonight, okay?" /And damned if my masochistic mind didn't manage to come up with a great illustration for that one./ Duo knew he was blushing again, and mentally cursed his obnoxiously pale ancestors.

"Are you going to do that every five minutes?"

"What?"

"This." Heero ran one finger along Duo's collarbone, following the spreading crimson down to the neckline of his shirt, then dipping even lower as if checking to see just how far it extended. His voice was almost teasing. "I don't remember you doing that before. Not this much, anyway. Is there a pattern to it, like with the tide? Or is it more like a sundial?"

The blush deepened even farther, and Duo swatted his hand away with an indignant glare. "Very funny. Mocking the host isn't going to improve your chances of getting better in bed, you know. I mean-- getting a better--oh, forget it." He dove past Heero, who was laughing silently again, and escaped into the kitchen.

Heero must have looked sufficiently penitent when he finally ventured back in, because he got only a semi-glare with the mug of coffee Duo handed him. And he made the executive decision not to continue with his teasing, no matter how interested he might be in the mechanics of Duo's capillaries. Instead, he went for a safe topic: "So. What are we doing today?"

"Well--there's not much to see around here, I guess. But I can show you what there is. And--oh, hey!" Duo disappeared into the bedroom, returning with a triumphant grin--and a basketball. "Check this out!"

He tossed the ball across the room to Heero, who caught it easily and gave it a test bounce. "Doesn't seem to be flat."

"Oh, yeah. I fill it up every once in a while--just haven't used it much." He shrugged philosophically. "No time. But I know where there's a court, in the park. We can hit it on the way home."

"You still any good?" There was a dangerous glint in the steel-blue eyes.

"You'll just have to find out, huh?" The battle lines drawn, they crashed out the door and bolted for the park.

By evening, they were back at Duo's house in a state of collapse.

"Man, I used to be able to play ball all day, shoot up Oz all night, and still get an alibi's worth of homework done--I am so not a teenager any more!"

Heero made a noise of agreement, pausing in the doorway for a few more stretches. Even with them, he knew he'd be a tottering wreck in the morning--he was still in better shape than most people, but his daily exercise routine did not usually include hours of manic one-on-one basketball (which grew to be a full-court pick-up game as soon as the circuit-board plant changed shifts), followed by a few more hours of playing tag with assorted small people, and the pushing of even smaller people on swings. He was exhausted, and accepted a bottle of precious water with all the respect it was due.

Leaning back against the counter, Duo grinned over his own bottle. "That was fun, though."

"Aa."

"I can't believe you actually ate hot dogs. They won't have to embalm you when you die, you know. All those preservatives."

"You think three hot dogs will be enough to do it?" They'd actually tasted pretty good--and they were the only edibles being sold within easy reach of the park, so they'd had to do.

"Who knows? But that sauerkraut looked ready to glow in the dark on its own." Duo shook his head. "You'll be lucky to survive the night."

"If death's planning on coming for me, I guess you'd be the first to know, ne?" That was not an innocent glance, whatever Heero would have him believe.

Duo set his water down with a decisive thump. "That's your twelfth innuendo of the day, Yuy. It's getting weird."

"What's weird about it?" Heero screwed the top back on his bottle and replaced it in the refrigerator, folding his arms.

"It's just not you." Despite the uncomfortable feeling that he was babbling, Duo continued bravely on, waving one hand for emphasis. "If it's anyone, it's me. You don't--"

How Heero could move so quickly without hurrying was one of the world's great mysteries--but in the time it took Duo to frame his last few words, Heero was across the room, mouth moving against his as if there were no tomorrow, and as if they had all the time in the world.

This was better than any dream Duo's fevered imagination had ever managed to conjure up. /Nice,/ his brain informed him unnecessarily. /Very, very nice. Not stopping, please? Just a little bit more--/ Knees buckling from sheer pleasure, as well as the surprise of it all, Duo might have sagged right into the sink--but Heero's grip on his waist didn't give him room to slide quite that far.

Relinquishing Duo's mouth to press smaller, rougher kisses against his temple, Heero spoke in a raspy whisper: "I don't do this either, do I? I think--" He took Duo's face between both his hands, pushing the heavy hair back from Duo's closed eyes. "--that maybe more of you rubbed off on me than you realize."

The little pause was enough for some rational thought to filter through, though Duo could have cursed himself for what he was about to say. "Y-you can't." Duo's eyes opened, almost haunted in their intensity, and he pushed off from the counter, out of Heero's loosening embrace.

"Can't what?" Heero looked almost vulnerable, uncomprehending.

"You can't just do things like that, when you don't even know what they mean. When I don't even know why you're here in the first place." Suddenly exhausted, Duo dropped into a chair and leaned his elbows heavily on the table. "It's not fair."

Heero sat down opposite him, frowning as he searched around for the right words. Then his face cleared, remembering something. "I forgot to give you this yesterday. It's--it sort of explains why I needed to be here." He extracted a small metal object from his pocket and pushed it across the table.

"What is this?"

"It's a bolt."

"I can see that." He rubbed his eyes wearily. "Why are you giving me a bolt?"

Heero shifted uncomfortably, evidently wishing an explanation weren't necessary. "It's from Wing. It's a piece that I kept, after--"

"I remember." /After you blew yourself up. I remember that just fine. In fact, I revisit it on a regular basis--it's a mainstay of Duo's REM-o-Matic Nightmare Factory. Sheesh./

But Heero was continuing. "I carried it all the time, for a while --so that even when I was piloting Epyon, and then Zero, I had a little bit of the first Wing with me. It made me feel grounded. Solid. But then I looked at it again, later."

"And?"

"Look at it." He nudged the bit of metal a little farther across the formica.

Picking it up, Duo obediently inspected the bolt. "It's black." Heero watched him steadily. "It's black, like...."

"Like Deathscythe," Heero finished for him. "It's from Deathscythe."

Duo grinned reluctantly at the memory. "And it came attached to one of the parts you swiped, you gundam-scalping son of a--"

But Heero's next words neatly shut his mouth. "It was you I was carrying with me, all along. I should have known--that was why it made me feel solid." Heero looked up to search those startled dark-blue eyes. "I feel like we started something, back then. Maybe more than started. And I want to know how it ends."

"So do I. I think. But I can't just put it all out there again, Heero. It--"

"It still hurts to believe in things?" Compassion was not necessarily something Duo would have expected to find in Heero's eyes--but it made sense that he, of all people, would remember a conversation they'd had on the far side of a war. Two wars, really. And that he, of all people, might understand. Heero exhaled tersely. "It is hard. And I don't know how to fix that for you, not by myself--you have to help me convince you, at least."

"I want to. But I--" Duo stopped, feeling horribly defeated before he began.

"It's all right." Heero tugged on his hair, the familiar gesture somehow reassuring to both of them. "You don't have to decide everything right now." But he looked more than disappointed--more like heartsick--and Duo might have panicked if he hadn't been so terribly, endlessly tired.

"Why don't we--"

"In the morning--"

They spoke simultaneously, then exchanged cautious, weary smiles: sleep now. Worry more later. The couch wasn't even mentioned; they stretched out on opposite sides of Duo's bed, overlapping only where a foot sought out an ankle, or where fingers reached for a wrist. Tiny points of contact, like a lifeline in the dark.

Somewhere in the night, Duo finally fell asleep for a little while-- but he only knew he'd drifted off because Heero seemed to have vanished between one eyeblink and the next.

Suddenly alert, Duo listened for what he hoped he wouldn't hear--and then the front door closed, very quietly. He waited for a long time in the darkness, but no more sounds came.

He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. /Should have known. Shouldn't have thought it would be any different this time./ He squeezed his eyelids shut until stars danced behind them, but they still burned. /And you were about to go out on that limb all over again. When will you learn, anyway? Wanting a thing doesn't make it so. No matter how bad the wanting is./

//There are luxuries we can't afford
But in our house we never get bored
We can dance to the radio station
That plays in our teeth//

When Duo next opened his eyes, they were almost as sore as his throat. Something had dragged him up from sleep--but what? He blinked accusingly at the ceiling again, trying to wake up. Something was definitely happening--there was an odd noise overhead, like many little feet running busily over the shingles, like eager fingers tapping on the glass.

It took a while before Duo figured out what the unfamiliar sound might be, and he wasn't absolutely sure until he sat up enough to look out the window.

Rain. A lot of rain.

Rain dancing on the roof, traipsing down the side of the house in runnels and rivulets and little waterfalls. Rain pooling on the sidewalk, with yet more raindrops leaping like popcorn on the surface of the puddles.

Duo came out onto the front stoop somewhat cautiously. It would stop soon--it always did, as soon as whoever had bumped the switch noticed his mistake.

It didn't stop. Rain followed rain, soaking into the parched dirt and washing dust out of the tired air, to leave only the rain. Falling over everything, in beautiful, impossible silvery streams.

All up and down the street, children and grown-ups and dogs alike came out into the rain--hesitantly at first, staring at one another as if their neighbors had been replaced with total strangers. And then someone gave a whoop of pure joy, and someone else began to dance, and all at once the street was full of waltzing, jitterbugging, tangoing people--slipping on the wet concrete, crashing into one another, and laughing as if heaven had just opened its doors and invited them in.

Duo was still staring, still not quite believing, when purposeful movement at the other end of the street caught at the very edge of his vision.

Heero wasn't hurrying, wasn't pushing people aside--didn't even seem to notice the dancers, in fact. But the crowd parted to let him pass anyway, and his pace never slowed as he came on up the street. As his eyes finally rose, with the inevitability of an old story, and locked with Duo's.

/There should be music playing,/ thought Duo crazily. /Somewhere, somehow, there really ought to be trumpets. A whole damn orchestra..../

Heero reached the foot of the steps and stood looking up at Duo, not quite waiting, but not yet speaking. And all around him, all over him, rain. Rain plastering his hair to his face, making his eyes even more shockingly blue under the wet slashes of his bangs. Rain sliding over his bare shoulders, turning his white shirt transparent, soaking his jeans to a deep indigo. Gathering in little lakes around his boots. The rain he had brought to them, somehow; it seemed like magic, or a miracle.

Except that Duo suddenly knew exactly how this miracle must have happened. "You broke into their engineering systems."

"Aa." He gazed up through the raindrops, blinking as they caught and clung in his eyelashes.

"And tweaked something."

"Tweaked everything, pretty much." Heero looked rather smug.

"You know they'll just reset it, and--"

"Then I'll hack it again."

"But--"

"And again. Until they leave it alone."

Duo wanted to cry. Realizing that his hands were curled into fists at his sides, he forced his fingers to unclench. The rain slid into his open palms like a caress, and he lifted one hand to watch the water stream from his fingertips. This was safe; if he looked at Heero, he would cry. "If they figure out that you did it, they'll--"

"Arrest me? Duo. If the company tries to bring me up on charges, they risk having the whole World Nation find out what's been going on here. And Relena's legal staff would make sure they were shut down for good." Heero tilted his head to one side, making the rain change directions to cross his face. "Doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Anyway, they won't figure out who did it. I was careful."

And 'careful' for Heero was equivalent to the average saboteur's 'super-stealth black op.' But still--

"Why would you do all this? Risk all this?" It was only one of the questions whirling in Duo's mind. /How many worlds can one person save? How can you be real?/

//If you question what I would do
To get over and be with you//

"You have to ask? Duo no baka." On an ordinary person, that would have been only the shadow of a smile; on Heero's face, it was blinding. "This is your home; you care about this place, these people. And you wanted it to rain--they needed it to rain." Heero held out a hand to the downpour, mirroring Duo's posture. "So I figured out how to make it rain."

"For me."

"Why else? You love this colony. I love you." He paused, then said it again as if testing the feel of the words. "I do. I love you. So I had to do something too, to help this place. The rain was only a little thing--I wish I had more to give them. To give you."

"This is definitely not happening. I mean, I figured you were gone for good--again--and then you show up here, and--" Duo laughed shakily, taking in the tumult in the street as he pushed a hand through his dripping hair. "Next thing I know, you'll be asking me to dance."

Heero looked intently up at him as if mulling it over, and then extended his hand in invitation. "Will you?"

Duo took a yearning half-step forward, then stopped, remembering. "Are you staying?"

"As long as you are."

Duo's breath caught in his throat in what was almost a gasp of laughter, and then he was tripping over his own feet all the way down the steps, ending up where he should have been all along--arms around Heero so tight that neither of them could get air, though neither of them objected. His face felt suddenly hot against the cool, rain-wet skin of Heero's shoulder, as equally cool hands moved with incredible gentleness over his hair, his back, his shoulders. And before he had a chance to object, or laugh again, they were moving in a slow circle, right there next to his very own front steps. Right there in the rain. Duo didn't bother to look down, trusting Heero's uncanny grace to keep them from stumbling; it wasn't like watching his shoes would suddenly give him a sense of rhythm, after all.

And besides, he wasn't at all sure that his feet were even touching the ground.

//Lift you up over everything
To light up my room//

"You call this dancing?"

"I never actually did it before, but--sure. I'd call this dancing."

"Just checking."

-end-

Self-indulgent author's notes:
Many thanks to Seraph and Webfire for their explanations of how the colony clusters are positioned, and how they might be lit. You guys are the best! ^__^

The end of this one owes a lot to that beyond-sweet Buffy episode, which ends with Tara and Willow dancing on air....

And what the heck does this song have to do with anything? Well, it always reminds me of having friends over to my house when I was a kid--and suddenly seeing my house and my whole wacky home life (sort of Rube Goldberg meets the Waltons, if that makes any sense) through their eyes. Which made me think about how Duo might feel about sharing his own world with Heero--and, well, that's why you have this fic. In case you were wondering. Hope you liked it!

(:./lilias/overever)