20-Oct-2004
Title: By Any Other Name
Author: Natea
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: 1+2
Warnings: Shounen ai.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.
Word count: 5035 words.
Author's Note: I feel like I'm killing a whole flock with one stone here, forget about two measly birds. This is written for Mookie who challenged me on lj, although I'm afraid it grew a lot bigger than a drabble lol, and for Porcelain too, for the shiny shower picture of Heero that I still have yet to pry my eyes away from.
Hugs to both of you.
Sometimes the missions seemed tailor made for them.
A late night telephone call to five different apartments was all it took, and Lady Une had recruited them. They always agreed. Two days later five young men sat in the Preventers meeting room while the major points of the mission were outlined in finer and finer detail.
No repetition was necessary.
Four weeks after that and the same group sat once more in that room, mission debriefing a welcome relief. A general report at first, then individual private discussions. They left the building one at a time, in staggered, measured intervals.
Until eventually, only two were left.
Tailor made missions perhaps, but that didn't mean that they necessarily sat all that well on their shoulders.
Duo folded his arms and sighed as he shifted his position against the wall. He wasn't sure how long he'd been waiting but he'd watched the sunbeams lengthen along the corridor and fade as the twilight approached. From outside he'd heard the car doors slam as the regular nine to five office workers left, shouting goodbyes to each other. That had been a while ago.
Looking out of the window now, while it wasn't quite dark, he was able to pick out the first evening star in the sky. Off on the horizon there was a cloud gathering, grey at top, deepening to a heavy purple black underneath; he noted the likelihood of possible rain that night then disregarded the thought as something insignificant.
Two reflections glinted back at him from the double glazed pane, not glaringly obviously, only visible when he made the effort to look for them. The two images overlapped closely, the face a mess of shapes and shadow out of which four bright eyes stared back at him silently.
He didn't look back and once again resisted the urge to look at his wrist in a vain attempt at telling the time on a non-existent watch.
A distinct change in cadence of the voices from behind the closed door opposite stopped any further thoughts and he straightened his back a little. There was a scrape of chairs followed by a shuffle of feet, and he watched the shifting of light and shadow from underneath the door.
The meeting was finally over.
He hadn't realised just how dark it was until the door opened and the light of the neon flooded its way into his little corner. The outline of a silhouette was framed in the doorway and he grinned at the sight, not as familiar now as it had once been.
For an instant the memory of another time he had been faced with that silhouette came back to him. He remembered the indistinguishable mass in the doorway that had broken apart and dissolved into two separate figures; the light glinting from behind, setting off the russet highlights in that angry mess of hair, bright eyes gleaming at him knowingly. The click of the gun as it was thrown at him along with calm words that promised safety even as they mentioned no such thing.
Back when he had needed saving.
"Heero." Duo pushed himself away from the wall fluidly and dropped his arms to his sides, "You've been a while. Colonel." He added as an afterthought.
Lady Une nodded a greeting to him, not seeming to be at all surprised that he was out there. With a final handshake Heero stepped out of the door and allowed the Preventers commander to close it behind him.
"I told you I would be. You shouldn't have waited."
"Got nothing better to do."
Heero stared at him for a while, looking easily into the eyes that Duo had been unable to meet. "I highly doubt that."
Duo grinned and fell into step beside him. They walked off together without another word.
They took the stairs instead of the elevator, they always did. The locker room was two floors down and on the opposite side of the building and Duo thanked his lucky stars that it was late in the evening and the offices were virtually empty. They cut quite a sight at the best of times... and these were definitely not such times.
They reached the solid wooden door of the locker room without coming into contact with anyone. Heero strode in, giving the door a little extra push on its axis so that it wouldn't slam back into Duo.
"The others have gone?" he asked, taking in the empty room with its rows of gunmetal grey lockers and orange, pine-slatted benches. No sound came from the adjoining shower room and there were no bags or belongings left scattered about so it was a safe assumption to make. Duo shrugged regardless.
"You were a long time." He said, placing the small bottle of remover that Sally Po had given to him down onto the bench and sitting down beside it to unlace his boots.
"Hmm."
"Trowa mentioned meeting up in a couple of days... talk things through."
"Good idea." Heero nodded absently, his back to Duo as he toed his own boots off, not bothering with undoing the laces first. Glancing down Duo was amused to see the white socks had stained a bright blue around the heels and toes.
A blue that currently matched Heero's hair almost perfectly.
It was almost like looking at a picture in monochrome. What should have been shades of brown and green in hair and tank top were now nothing more than varying shades of navy; as if someone had doctored the image. The effect was disconcerting, but at the same time intriguing.
There was more shine to Heero's hair with the new colour. Whether it was down to a conditioning agent in the dye or just the harsh neon lights in the locker room he didn't know. It suited him, Duo decided, looking up at Heero's hair while Heero was removing his socks. Originally it was meant to be more of an electric blue tone but Heero had flat out refused to bleach his hair before the product was applied and so it had deepened.
Under normal indoor lights it was very hard to tell, but under neon and especially in sunlight the blue really fractured into existence, splintering into sapphire and midnight tones that seemed to shift constantly in time with Heero's movements.
Duo decided he liked the colour blue.
Unaware of the scrutiny Heero had continued with his ablutions, opening his locker to grab a waterproof bag and a towel. Leaving the locker door ajar he picked up a bottle similar to the one Duo had and strode off towards the tiled entrance that led to the communal showers.
Duo didn't say a word, but watched the fully clothed man disappear from sight.
Heero was underneath the running shower when Duo walked into the room. Still clothed he stood, head bowed and hands pressed firmly against the white tiled wall in front of him, supporting his weight as he let the water pelt against his neck and shoulders, some bouncing back with the force of the spray.
On anyone else Duo would have called the pose a 'defeatist' one. Heero however, had a knack for taking such a position and making it nameless.
He stood and watched in silence for a while but Heero didn't acknowledge him, the only thing moving was the water, sluicing down his back and turning the navy blue tank top he had been wearing into something more akin to black.
"Hey." The tiles underfoot were gripped to avoid accidents and warm as he padded across the room to the shower next to Heero's. There were no stalls to separate, not even the bare minimum of a slide of metal to divide the room up.
Heero didn't look up but there was a small movement, which could be interpreted as a nod. Satisfied with this, Duo hooked his bottle of shower gel over the pipe that ran the full circumference of the room. It fed the water to each shower and he had purposefully chosen the one that was down flow from Heero's in order to catch the hot spray without enduring too much of the cold from the 'standing water'.
He slammed his hand on the shower button and dodged out of the way quickly. An arm underneath the spray told him when it was fine to continue and he stepped underneath, uncapping the shower gel bottle with a practised hand before soaping up.
Beside him Heero still hadn't moved, not even when the spray from his showerhead stopped with a sputter. It took a full five seconds for Heero to place his hand over the button to restart the sluice.
He didn't press it.
Duo sighed, opened his mouth to speak... then closed it again. Fortunately for him Heero spoke up, straightening his back and pushing back the dripping mass of hair that had fallen forward over his eyes. "You planning on removing that?"
"Removing what?" Duo continued soaping, lathering up his arm as he replied, one brow arched. Purposefully misunderstanding. "I'm not the one still dressed here."
Heero snorted in answer and pulled the tank top out from the waist band of his jeans, pulling the sopping wet material over his head, not without a little difficulty, and letting it drop to the floor by his feet with a wet smack. Duo smirked as the overhead light caught on the flash of metal now revealed.
Heero glared back at him in challenge, the nipple ring catching the light as he turned to face Duo a little more.
"Well, it's a start I guess." Duo admitted. Reaching across with a grin and a soapy arm he slammed his hand down on the shower button, restarting the powerful flow. It caught Heero fully in the face and he stepped back, eyes closed to protect them.
And in that one vulnerable moment Duo let his eyes linger, his boyish grin fading to gain a more contemplative air.
He hadn't seen Heero in a few months, they had vastly different social circles, which didn't touch often, and when they did it was usually in such places as the supermarket when it was virtually impossible to stop and chat. There had been a few moments of meeting at traffic lights and pedestrian crossings but never anything really substantial.
In fact, if it weren't for the missions that Une frequently called them on, Duo doubted he would have seen Heero ten times in the past year.
And it had been even longer since he had seen quite so much of Heero.
It was plenty of time to take in the slimly defined muscles and sculpted limbs that no longer held the adolescent air of gangliness that had been ever present when Duo had last seen him. He focussed on the powerful shoulders that swept down gracefully into a defined chest and slim waist; watched intently as the water followed a deep path down a collar bone before sluicing off into a shallower, more wide spread flood, over the line of Heero's ribs and abdomen, some sliding to pool for a while in the navel before soaking into the denim waistband of the jeans Heero was still defiantly wearing.
Watching all this in his ill begotten split second Duo was forced to the conclusion that Heero Yuy was growing up.
And how.
There was only one thing missing from the picture, he mused, and that was soon rectified as Heero opened his eyes and glared.
"Fool. I think you got it in my eyes."
"It's only water, quit being a baby. Not my fault you're still wet behind the ears, Yuy..." he grinned, his eyes sparking wickedly, " ...or should I call you Bluey?"
"I'm neither a red head, nor in Australia." Heero countered reasonably before a small frown crinkled his brow. "...I also think that's a female only term."
Duo shrugged, "Fine so Bluey's out. You're just a blunet then." His shower took that moment to finish and he pushed down on the button again impatiently, slamming his hand against it repetitively in a vain attempt at accruing time.
Heero snorted and bent down to pick up the bottle of remover he'd placed by the wall, uncapping it without reading the instructions and immediately applying the viscous liquid to his hair. It was pungent and Heero wrinkled his nose as he scrubbed it well in, massaging it into the scalp.
"Are you going to remove that?" He asked again.
Duo grinned, "Maybe... maybe not. I might just happen to like it."
"Somehow I doubt that."
Duo shrugged and grinned. He wiped the covering of steam off the mirror that was attached to the wall between them and took a closer look at the topic of conversation.
The dark green tattoo covered his left cheek with a finely detailed network of lines, resembling filigree work. The main line swept down boldly from his temple, under the curve of his eye, before curling round just short of his nose to branch out over the full cheek.
His hair was a mess, he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a chance to brush it and the braid was beginning to break apart. Fine droplets of water had been caught on the individual strands and along his eyelashes, giving him a spider web in the morning look, damp with dew.
Fresh.
New.
He ignored it.
"Piece of work isn't it?" He murmured, sliding a finger across the fake tattoo.
"Hmm." Heero shook Duo's bottle of remover and held it out to him.
"Thanks."
"You need some help?"
"Nah, I've got it."
Heero snorted and plunged his head under the shower again. The water ran off a bright blue and for an instant it almost looked like ink. Duo watched it flow away as he uncapped his own bottle, musing.
"You're washing the pages clean."
"What?" Heero stopped at the sound of melancholy in the other man's voice and cocked a navy blue eyebrow at him questioningly.
Duo shook his head lightly, "Stupid thing," he said, turning away, "I always thought you were a hard book to read."
"Better than being judged by my cover." Heero returned.
"True." Duo took another look at the watery blue tint draining away, and grinned. "Good job you didn't get it dyed red... it'd look like a blood bath in here now."
Heero ran a hand through his hair and looked at his palm hard.
"Aa."
He placed his hand flat against the white tiled wall for a second, destroying the fine layer of condensation that had settled there, and leaving a blue handprint behind that immediately began to run down in drips towards the floor. At Duo's inquisitive look he shrugged a little.
"Leaving your mark on the world?" Duo asked.
"Maybe."
"Not very permanent." He reached over and ran a finger through one of the pale blue lines that was making its way down.
"Nothing in this life ever is." Heero countered, scrubbing at his hair again. "And maybe I don't want it to be."
"Hmm. Clean slate." Duo sighed suddenly, feeling older than his years proclaimed. "If it were only that easy."
"Some snails have blue blood." Obviously deciding he had washed his hair enough Heero ducked his head under the flow yet again, rinsing off the remover fully. He looked up; watery blue streaks on his face, making his eyes stand out even more than usual. "Octopus too."
"Octopus eh? Now there's a thought." Duo grinned and stooped down to grab the discarded tank top off the floor. "You ever seen one?" He tipped the bottle of remover onto a corner of the top and rubbed the liquid into a lather before scrubbing carefully at the tattoo on his cheek.
"A live one? No." Heero shook his head and picked up his shampoo bottle with a hand that once again left a blue imprint. "But I have eaten one."
"Nice?"
A shrug, "Salty. Rubbery too." He began to lather up his hair briskly and turned back to face his portion of the tiled wall. Undeterred Duo watched on.
"Figures."
"Aye."
They let the silence fall back by mutual consent for a while, the only noise the hiss from the shower heads.
"Tired?"
Resisting the urge to return with 'of what?' Heero tilted his head back, watching a large, grey spider desperately trying to maintain its footing on the condensation covered tiles close to the ceiling. He scanned the ceiling briefly, looking for the place where it had entered, pinpointing the vent in the far corner as a likely candidate. "Constantly," he murmured. The spider slipped and dropped, catching itself about two feet further down after a mad scrabble for a purchase.
As if it was the most natural thing in the world to get undressed whilst actually in the shower Heero undid the fly on his jeans and pushed them down to his ankles before stepping out of them. He picked them up and shook them out as best he could, folding them in half neatly. Then he lay them down just before the main drain in the room, moulding the fabric to form a curve.
The spider lost its footing again and fell. Caught in the water flow it flailed madly, seven legs kicking out crazily as it attempted to save itself from drowning.
"Itsy Bitsy." Heero said softly, crouching down to watch as the spider moved past him with the current of water.
Duo hunkered down on the other side, a smear of green on his cheek now the only thing left from what had originally been an hour's paint job by a professional tattoo artist. "Nothing itsy or bitsy about that guy," he said finally. "Looks like a bit of a bruiser to me, lost a leg in a battle somewhere."
"Could have been a child with an arachnid torturing fetish."
"That too."
The spider continued to thrash and Heero watched, intent. "Do you think there ever comes a time when he gets tired of climbing back up that spout?"
"Probably."
Heero laughed, a sound that held more scorn than joy. "I know I'm tired of it."
"Oh?" Duo looked up, the spider forgotten.
"You wanted to know why I took so long with Commander Une." Heero continued slowly, his eyes either closed or focussed intently on the floor by his feet; Duo was unable to tell. "I was handing in my resignation. This was my final assignment, my final mission."
For the first time he could remember, Duo was unable to respond. Out of all of them he'd never expected Heero to be the one to leave the force. Heero was the one best fitted to the mission... and the mission to him. Like a second skin... he remembered the biker shorts.
The spider continued to struggle but neither of them were watching it now. Duo knelt down properly, feeling the muscles in his calves beginning to protest. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a small voice telling him that anyone walking into the showers at that point was going to think they were stir crazy. He ignored it.
"Spidey's got his scars."
"We all have." Heero said, looking down at the spider and the place where its eighth leg had once been. "Have you ever heard of something called Wasmannian mimicry?"
"No."
Heero nodded. Duo frowned, not too sure about how to take the response. Before he could ask however, Heero had reached forward and scooped the spider out of the small pool, letting the water drain between his fingers.
It didn't move.
"This is where the waves of progress get you." He said, standing up and walking over to the doorway, placing the dead spider just on the other side of the door. "You can drown just as easily in an inch of water as you can in an ocean."
"Sometimes you get a helping hand."
"Sometimes." Heero nodded, "Sometimes you get nothing at all until it's too late."
"C'est la vie." Duo grinned lopsidedly. "Que sera sera...and all that junk. Good theories but they don't work until you put them into action."
The makeshift denim dam was only holding about three inches of water, he figured a lot was just seeping through the material anyway. On his way back to the shower Heero pushed the jeans to one side with a foot and held out a hand to help Duo up.
"Your hair's still slightly blue."
"It'll take more than one wash to get rid of it all."
Duo nodded, shaking off the surreality that had settled on his shoulders. "You need to sort out your eyebrows," he grinned suddenly, "and please tell me your eyelashes aren't blue too."
Heero smirked and Duo laughed.
"Damn, you don't do things by halves that's for sure. Here." He passed over the tank top, "use that to scrub the stuff off."
"Thanks."
"No worries," Duo moved round to Heero's back. "Want a hand with this thing?" He motioned to a large tattoo curved about Heero's shoulder blades and the nape of his neck. Even as he did so he wondered why on earth he bothered, as Heero couldn't see him.
"Please." Heero passed back the tank top, designated official make shift loofah, and reached down for his bottle of shampoo and conditioner while Duo added some fresh dye remover to the piece of fabric.
The shower petered out again as they both began to lather up.
Rubbing Heero's back in slow circles Duo watched the tattoo dye begin to lift off the skin with interest. The faint perfume of a generic brand of shampoo began to float about the area, carried on the steam that was filling the room from chest height and higher. "So what was that about mimicry before?" He asked suddenly, voice echoing in the silence, rebounding off the tiles eerily.
Heero bent his head forward as the cloth moved up towards his neck. "Wasmannian mimicry." he repeated.
Duo glanced forward, noticing Heero's eyes were closed against the shampoo lather. He was completely unconcerned about the fact that there was another soldier inside his personal zone and in one of the most vulnerable positions possible.
The tattoo was gone, but Duo continued the circular motions, catching soapy rivulets as they drew long fingers down Heero's back. The nape of his neck was a place Heero could reach but he made no effort to take over the action as Duo slid the cloth higher.
"It's something that animals do in order to fit in."
"That's it?"
"More or less." Heero shrugged, giving Duo a close up view of the effect on the muscles in his back. "There are some species of spider that have evolved to look like ants in order to live with them. They still have eight legs but they raise the front two up to look like antennae. Some are so similar that even specialists can't tell them apart."
"Smart little things." Duo pondered the thought, letting his arm drop slightly, hovering in the dip between Heero's shoulder blades, along the sensitive line of his spine.
"Maybe, maybe not. They don't do it for a food source, they live in peace in the population... but they always run a risk of being discovered."
Duo 'hmm'ed an agreement. "Ants might not have higher learning centres, but they still have soldiers."
"Yes." Heero turned around suddenly, a move that caused the cloth that Duo was still holding to catch slightly on his arm before sweeping around to his chest, resting over his sternum lightly.
"Is that why you're leaving?"
"Because I don't want to be a spider?" It sounded ridiculous out loud. "...I'm tired of climbing back up that spout when I'm called only to be washed back down again until the next time." Heero shrugged.
Duo was about to speak again when Heero turned back, restarting the shower. He sighed, dropping his hand down to rest by his side.
"Must be a lonely life, being one amongst millions."
Heero didn't reply to that.
"You know," Duo moved back to his own shower head and pressed the button, suddenly aware of the chill in the air, "no matter how hard you try, you'll never be an ant."
"I know. I'm not even sure I want to be one." Heero replied, turning to soak his back and tilting his head under the water. "I just don't want to be a spider anymore, seven legged or not."
"So what do you want to be?"
Heero sighed, giving the matter some obvious thought, "I want to be someone who isn't afraid to use bath products that leave a scent behind." He admitted eventually. Unclipping the nipple ring, he dropped it down the drain. "Someone who isn't wary of identifying marks and voice patterns, someone who doesn't catalogue the escape routes of every room.
"We've been other people in this mission, not normal people but... a lot more normal than we've ever been before. It's... been a learning experience." He caught Duo's gaze, his lashes back to the normal colour again. "I enjoyed that."
Duo nodded, thinking.
"The universities start advertising soon. I might just sign up."
"Computers?"
A shake of the head. "The point of going to school is to learn, not teach."
Duo laughed. If it had been any other person he would have classed that as an arrogant statement. With Heero though, it was a simple fact.
"Heero Yuy, the student." Duo grinned, "Got a good ring to it."
"Aye." Heero nodded.
"Got a good feel to it too, I'll bet."
"It's not an elitist club Duo... try it out for yourself."
Duo looked doubtful. "I don't know. It's not my kinda scene really." He ducked his head under the water in an evasive manoeuvre, remembering too late that he hadn't wanted to wash his hair until he got back to his apartment. Resigning himself to the inevitable he removed the hair tie from the end and let the water soak through. There was a glimmer of amusement in Heero's eyes as he passed over his shampoo bottle that showed he realised Duo's mistake too.
"It has a scent." Duo raised a palmful of the pearly coloured soap to his nose and breathed it in. It smelled... like shampoo, he decided. Flowery but not, generic and artificial, appealing but not overpowering. Not really something he had ever connected to Heero before, but now he wasn't sure he'd ever be able not to link the two.
"It's the first shampoo I've ever used that has." Heero said. "Shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, ordinary soap. All odourless."
"Another point on the learning curve?"
"Aa."
"Seems you like to learn."
Heero shrugged and allowed himself some drip-dry time as his shower clicked off again. "It's not good to stay in one place here;" he tapped the side of his head meaningfully, "for too long. Either you ride that wave of change or you drown in it." He turned to Duo suddenly.
And kissed him.
It was completely unexpected, but not completely unwelcome. After a brief moment of confusion, teeth knocking and lips unsure, they had figured things out. Duo's hands were full of soap as they slid into Heero's hair and grasped hold tightly, his eyes closed against the fall of water as he took a step back underneath the showerhead in surprise. It was the sting of shampoo in his eyes that brought him back to himself, seconds or minutes later.
Heero's face looked flushed, although whether it was from the kiss or the hot water, Duo wasn't sure.
"You going to remove that?" He asked once again.
"One day... perhaps." Duo admitted.
It seemed to be the answer Heero was expecting as he turned away, grabbed his towel off the rail by the door, and began to rub the excess water from his hair, hair that was sticking up wildly from where Duo's fingers had moulded it, wet and pliable.
Partially dry and rucked up in an even more wayward mass, he wrapped the now faintly blue tinged towel around his waist, picked up his soaking wet clothes off the floor and turned to Duo, dark blue eyes shining in the frame of the door.
"Look me up... one day... perhaps." And with that he walked away.
When Duo had finished his shower there was no sign of the other. Apart from a pair of jeans, a top, and an empty bottle of dye remover in the waste bin by the door. Even the spider had recovered and disappeared.
Buttoning up his shirt, Duo watched his reflection in the mirror opposite. His hair loose and dripping dark marks into the light blue cotton, marks that were the same blue as he had seen swirling down the drain. Heero had washed more than the mission from his shoulders that night, he knew.
A clean slate.
He slipped a tie into his hair, close to the nape of his neck, and began to braid the length slowly, pulling it over a shoulder when it got far enough down, savouring the feeling that had become second nature to him over the years. The links were tight and neat, hair smoothed by the water that he could still squeeze out. He finished off with another tie at the bottom and flicked it back over his shoulder carelessly.
His reflection stared back at him, single this time.
He could meet his eyes.
And when he left the room five minutes later his braid had joined the clothing, a single clean swipe of a switchblade all it took.
The End
(:./natea/other)
