|
"The Heist "Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, male/male pairings, language Pairings: 1x2x1 Summary: Duo's planning a robbery, considering a reality TV show, and falling for the man who can lock him up for good. Can his friends help him? Can he help himself? A/N: This story takes place in a universe more
like ours today, where the colonies exist on land, not in space, and
where the world is on the cusp of change. Thanks goes to Waterlily
for her tireless editing and thoughtful suggestions throughout. "The Heist " Chapter Eight - Tricks of the Trade A/N: This is a little short, but it ended where it felt right. I promise the next chapter will make up for it! Duo waited until the cycle came to a complete stop at the curb before stepping out of the shadows. The motor purred. He strode up to Heero and took the helmet he offered with a clipped, "Hi," for greeting. "Where to?" Maybe Heero questioned his abruptness, and maybe he was just as wary of Duo's "private place" proposal, but from where Duo stood the guard didn't seem to be exploding with excitement. "Circus?" Duo felt hesitant now that Heero was here. What is Trowa was right and this would mark the beginning of the end for them? "Climb on." "Nothing to lose, then," Duo said too low to be heard over the roar of the engine. He wouldn't let his nerves get to him. Obviously, Heero wanted something or he wouldn't have come, and the same could be said of him, too. Without a fortuneteller, there was no way to predict the future. Just live through it. Couples came and went all the time. There was no telling. "If one more corny cliché comes to mind, I might puke," Duo muttered into the wind. They entered the circus property and were stopped at the gate. Duo gave the man on duty Trowa's name. The uniformed guard placed a call, Duo guessed to Trowa. "Barton says you're cool. You know where you're going?" the guard asked. "Yep!" Duo waved and they slowly putted over the gravel path. Heero cut the motor when they reached the living quarters, and they walked on either side of the motorcycle. "This place is huge. I never thought about the number of people it takes to keep a circus going." "It's like a separate village inside Sanc," Duo agreed. "A very, very strange one. Here's the place." Now that they were there, just the two of them, standing at the door to Trowa's caravan, he'd run out of small talk. Heero didn't seem to have an endless supply either. While Duo fumbled in his pocket for the spare keys, Heero looked over the mobile home. "Compact. Is this your friend's home?" "Yeah, fuck!" Where had he put Trowa's keys? He tested the door handle, making sure it actually was locked. It was. "Gimme a moment here." He felt for the thin wire tool in his braid, found it, and picked the lock in seconds. "There we go." Heero didn't move. "That's breaking and entering." Strike one. "Not if he said we could stay here. It's... more of an emergency key." He hadn't convinced Heero. "Okay, I'll call him and you can ask, if that will make you feel better." "Not knowing how easily you broke in would make me feel better," Heero grumbled but he did listen in to Duo's call. "Did I forget to give you the key?" Trowa asked. "No, you gave it to me, I remember that, but I can't find it now," Duo said. "Huh. Sorry. Tell your law-abiding friend there you're clear to go in." "You tell him," Duo said and handed the phone over to Heero. "It's okay," Trowa told him. "Be nice and give the guy a break, officer." "I'm not a law enforcement officer," Heero told him. "Then stop acting like an asshole," Trowa retorted and hung up. Heero returned the phone to Duo. "He said to have a nice day." Duo smiled. "He did? Huh. Let's go in, then, okay? I mean, I'm game if you are. Um, you want to, don't you?" God, he felt so insecure! For a second, he wanted Heero to say "no, let's go back." He felt that unsure. But instead, Heero snapped out of his serious mood immediately and smiled. "Yes." After that rough beginning, Duo looked forward to a smooth move onto the bed and into some action, and Heero seemed ready to fall into that plan nicely. He flipped on the light switch and a dim bulb glowed a sulfurous hue and then continued to flicker intermittently. "Light is unimportant," Heero said, graciously. As the two moved to embrace, Duo tripped over something soft on the floor and landed on his rear with a shout. "What's all over the place?" he yelled. "Trowa's not a neatnik, but he puts his clothes away." Heero picked up a sock, studying it closely a moment, probably to identify it. "He has an odd method of organizing his clothes. Look over here. He's failed to put anything in a drawer, and he doesn't bother to sort his socks into pairs or organize them apart from his shirts at all." Duo shook his head. "It's not like him." "Maybe," Heero continued, undeterred by Duo's doubts, "that way he can always find some socks to wear, not matching, but look in any place and there one is?" "Heh," Duo forced himself to chuckle at the weak joke. First the key then the light and now the mess. Trowa's hosting skills were suspect, at best. "Not places so much as piles, I'd say." He pushed aside a few roughly stacked piles to make a path to the bed-turned-couch. He thought Trowa could have at least picked up a little more and would it have killed him to fix up the bed for him? Duo wasn't so sure he knew how to work the mechanics. "Yes, piles are a correct way to describe the way he organizes his clothes." Duo fell onto the couch with Heero right behind him. "Cozy place," Heero commented. "Yeah, I don't get it. He usually keeps things neat here and I don't get why it's so crowded with crap." "I like how the light makes your hair look," Heero said softly. "Oh? Thanks." He heard the shuffling of Heero's feet, and something else. "I betcher wondering why I brought you here?" "I may have figured it out." Heero smiled. "I have a few ideas of my own." "Huh?" Duo turned his head just so and Heero's hand caught his chin. He sat poised, ready to make a move if Heero thought better and tried to let go or back away. But Heero did no such things. He brought their lips together, light and hesitant. Duo closed his eyes and remained still, waiting for more, so Heero kissed him more, boldly pushing his tongue past Duo's teeth and caressing. Duo started forgetting where they were and all the little annoyances, when there was a knock on the door. He jumped a foot and nearly knocked Heero's teeth out. "Ahhh! " A woman's voice called from outside the caravan. "Hello? Are you there?" Heero looked from the door to Duo. Duo leaped a pile of junk and unlatched the door. He opened it to see a familiar face. "Cathy?" "Trowa told me you might be here tonight with a ... friend." "And you wanna meet him?" Duo knew she was curious but he hadn't suspected her to be so nosy. "I'd love to!" As she stepped inside the crowded caravan, Duo noticed that she was toting a heavy cauldron. "Can I carry that for you?" he asked. "Oh, yes, thank you, Duo. I brought you some soup, you know, in case you missed dinner." Duo shuddered, recalling other wretched soups of hers he and Trowa had forced down. "Thanks. I'll leave it on the stove for later." Heero bowed, it was easier than trying to reach around Duo, and said hello. Duo did the quick introductions and maneuvered Trowa's sister back outside-all in under a minute. As he closed the door, he got a whiff of something awful just as Heero coughed and dropped the lid down onto the soup pot. "My God!" Heero coughed some more. "She's trying to poison us!" "No, but you'd think so," Duo said. "There's a fan over the stove someplace. If I could see better-" "D-Don't move!" Heero whispered hoarsely. He had an arm wrapped around Duo's waist. "Shhh... Lower your arm slowly and step back when I do." Duo clamped his mouth shut, with trouble, and did as he was told. He didn't ordinarily snap to and follow orders, but there was an element of urgency in the guard's voice made him obey without question. "There," Heero pointed up above the pot. Coiled around the exhaust fan was a gold and black snake. Its tongue flicked out. Duo stared at it. "Never knew Tro' kept a pet." Duo caught a glint of metal, determined it was a gun, that Heero had come packing, and caught his breath. "Don't shoot!" "I'm shooting it... not you!" "No shooting at all! Fuck, 'Ro! It'll put a hole in the wall here. Geez... You broughta gun along? On a...a... date?" Sort of a date. "I always carry a gun." "You didn't the first time I brought you here." "It wasn't night." Then he smiled adding, "and maybe I felt there was a threat this time?" "Put it away. Not necessary. Look, little snaky goes in here." He motioned toward an aquarium. "See? When I shoved a pile, I musta knocked the lid loose." Duo reached up and grabbed the snake behind its head. He heard a hiss, but it was behind him. He snapped shut the cover and turned around to see Heero gaping at him. "What's wrong?" But then, he thought, what hasn't gone wrong might take less time to discuss. "You touched it!" "The snake? Yeah." "It could have been poisonous! You might have been bitten!" "No way. Trowa wouldn't keep a dangerous snake in a cabin this small-" Duo's confident remark was cut off by a drawn-out, pitiful squeak. "Oh, boy-" "Cover it up!" Heero shouted, throwing a t-shirt at the aquarium as he squeezed shut his eyes. All the color fled Duo's face as he watched the reptile's fangs pump poison into a tiny grey mouse. "Huh. I guess the snake was dangerous. " Duo flipped over a little name tag attached to the outside of the glass. "Oh. Sorry, Squeaky." "Squeaky? Trowa has...had a pet mouse?" Heero asked. "Guess so." "You don't think that woman brought in the snake with the soup?" Heero asked. "Poison us one way or the other? God, I don't think so, but, man..." Duo shook his head. "This isn't working out like I'd planned at all." Heero smiled though. "Your plan wasn't to lure me here and kill me?" From Heero's expression Duo could tell Heero was joking and he laughed, breaking the tension. "Heh, heh, that would be pretty stupid of me. Such a waste of hot manhood. " Duo wrapped his arms around Heero and kissed him hard. Their rough cheeks scraped together like sandpaper, but the heat from the other man, the male scent charged his libido. He ground his hips into Heero's to let him know how aroused he was and felt the other man's hardness along his thigh. "That's not your gun, is it?" Duo asked with a sly smile. "No," was the brief reply. "Door locked?" "Yeah, animals secured, hatches closed," Duo said mimicking the same light tone Heero had used. "Gimme a second to get us a little more room here." He removed the couch cushions, yanked at the frame, with no results unless he counted the scrape to his knuckles. He crawled under the framework and pounded a little, but, again, to no avail. "Need a hand?" Heero asked. "Something's stuck. I've never really seen it in action, but I know this turns into a bed." He worked at it a little more before standing in a huff, braid grey with dust bunnies, and the couch stubbornly still a couch. Heero handed him a cushion. "We'll make the best of it." "Ugh." "It's not worse than my cot in the barracks," Heero said, now smoothing his hands over Duo's back and shoulders, easing the tight muscles with his strong fingers. "Oh... that feels nice," Duo said. They sank onto the couch, Duo mostly on the bottom with his posterior to the back and Heero mostly on top and balanced close to the outer edge. "See? We fit." Heero's lips silenced any argument to the contrary Duo might have come up with. Duo felt the blood rush to his face as his mind took that comment in a different way, fitting them even more perfectly. A warm hand worked its way under his shirt, and let in cool air. Goosebumps blossomed over his skin and he shivered. When Heero chuckled low and rumbly, Duo felt it all the way to his groin. He either had to speed things up or explode with need. There didn't seem to me any middle ground! He located a shirt button and began unbuttoning from the bottom up. As fresh skin was revealed, he investigated the new territory. It didn't take him long to have Heero sitting up, ripping the shirt off. "Oh," Duo moaned at the sight of that hard chest and expanse of honey-hued skin. With effort, he sat up enough to pull his arms loose and help Heero remove his shirt. His interest lay in tasting that skin, running his tongue over the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and discovering all the other man's sensitive places. Heero didn't seem to mind the passionate attack on his body. Either that or he was very good at hiding his feelings. The two men tussled to gain ground and position, but there was no winner or loser. It was all for the good. Duo found himself crushed into the cushions, his mouth free to gurgle encouragement as Heero's lips worked magic on first one nipple and then the other. His bucking and squirming for more contact got the message through because Heero began on his jeans zipper. Finally! Heero trembled, then shivered, and then stopped his advances. "I feel a draft. I don't remember leaving a window open, do you?" Duo felt lucky to remember his own name. "No." "Just a minute. I'll get that fan, then." Heero started to get up. "Duo, I won't be long. Let me go." "I'm not holding on to-!" No, Duo wasn't holding him, but an appendage had snared a hank of Heero's hair! "Then, what the-?" Heero batted away at the tough, grey skin. "What the fuck is it?" he shouted. Duo lit from the couch and hammered on what he could see. "It ain't a snake!" "It spit on me!" Heero cried out. The elephant pulled its trunk back out through the window and trumpeted its annoyance. "Jesus Christ!" Duo yelled. Adding to the substantial Pachydermata horn section, were hysterical shrieks, which Duo likened to that of a wild banshee, but turned out to be those of a primate. The nimble-fingered monkey deemed a closed but not padlocked window was as good an invitation to open and enter as any, and dashed into the caravan. "The FUCK!" Heero ducked as it leaped over his head to the table. "Trowa knows how to have a good time here, I suppose. Do you think it wants the soup?" "Who knows-? God, don't let it open the snake cage! Get rid of it!" Duo hollered at the monkey. The animal screamed furiously when Heero thwarted its attempts to free Squeaky-eater. Heero opened the door and hauled the stinky soup pot outside and carried it some distance away. The monkey scrambled after him and hopped onto the lid the moment Heero turned away. "Enjoy," Heero said. "Better you than me." Duo had the window closed and secured and was standing backlit in the doorway with his disheveled braid over a shoulder by the time Heero returned. "I am so sorry," he said, and then added in a low grumble, "to quote a friend." Heero smiled and shrugged. "Life is exciting when I'm with you." Duo peered out from under his bangs. "Do you really want to try again?" "Well, yeah." Heero took Duo's hand and hopped up the steps and back inside. "I'm a little concerned about what's coming next, though. Things are getting bigger each time." Duo smiled and played along. "Yeah, next could be a whole troop of clowns." Heero froze, shirt in hand. "I hate clowns." He sounded intense, so Duo put on his sweetest smile. "Ah, yeah, well, I was just kidding," Duo said, softly, like he was gentling a cornered rat, something he'd had plenty of experience doing. "You're going?" Well, of course he is, you fool! "On the way in, we passed a motel with a vacancy sign." Heero smiled and offered Duo a shirt to put on. "My treat?" "Sure." "Don't feel bad," Heero told him as they closed and locked the door to the caravan. "I don't blame you and it was hot, up to a point." "And which point was that?" Duo grumbled. "Before or after the wild animal invasion? 'Cause during I was too busy trying not to piss my pants to notice the hot part." A warm arm rubbed across his shoulders. "You make me hot all the time," Heero said. He pulled them hip to hip and leaned over for a kiss. It felt so good to be held and desired and kissed and... "I'll need both hands to hold this." Heero let him go to take the weight of his bike and straighten it. "Steady there!" "I'm okay," Duo assured him, and he was as long as he could lean on Heero a little. He'd heard the term "weak in the knees," but to actually have his legs go all rubbery? This was a first. So he leaned and Heero supported and the two men slowly walked the motorcycle to the roadway. Duo's head was spinning, a little from the caravan fiasco, but mostly from the man at his side and the kiss. Could not overlook the kiss. And the feeling of Heero's strong hands on his sides, over his ribs, down to his hip bones. He wanted to chew over that one comment, the one that contributed to his joints turning to jelly: "You make me hot all the time." Better yet, he should print it and tack it over his bed at home and drool. As a result, he didn't register another voice coming on the scene on a crash course. It was Heero who stopped. "Isn't that your friend? What's he wearing?" "Hey!" Trowa called. "A workout suit." Duo answered the question and shook his head at the greeting. He recognized Trowa's voice first and then the man even though he was in his flying trapeze costume, tight and revealing. "And Quatre misses it all," he muttered to himself. "You're leaving?" Trowa asked when he drew near. Duo barricaded his way with a dark expression and annoyed folded-arm stance. "I don't wanna start with you." Trowa held out his hands. "What's the hurry?" He looked innocent as a baby lambkins. "Oh, I don't know... maybe, getting the hell outta this zoo where we can get some peace and quiet?" Duo snapped. "Where have you been?" Heero asked the circus guy, sounding like a cop. "I have friends to bunk with," Trowa answered him, nebulously but calmly. "Something wrong?" One thing Duo had developed in his line of work was the ability to read a lot about a person with just a glance or two. This time Duo caught a glimmer in his friend's visible eye. A glint of something secret, a guilt worthy of hiding behind his long bangs that made Duo doubt Trowa's blameworthiness. Could it have been Trowa's doing, this spoiling of Heero and Duo's "first time" together? After all the warm fuzzies Duo had felt for his friend earlier, he wondered if this might test the friendship. He listened as Heero mentioned the high point. Trowa nodded, "Yeah, it's just a normal night at the circus. I'll go track down the loose animals now." "It is?" Heero said. "Duo, it's possible that because he lives here, he might not realize what an effect it would have visitors." "It's never been like this when I've been here," Duo pointed out. "Remember the time you were dancing and the caravan started to roll away?" Trowa asked. "Oh, yeah, well. It can be more fun than a barrel of... forget it." Duo started to hunt in his pockets for the key to return, but then remembered having to break in. Oh, no... He just figured out that Trowa must have used a slight of hand to take away the key and not really have given it to him. "Hey!" "-and I apologize about the mouse," Heero was in the middle of saying. "A casualty?" Duo held up a hand before Trowa could reply. "There's no Squeaky. There never was a Squeaky, was there? No, I never knew you to keep vermin for pets. Not when you could play with the big cats." "Squeaky is a boa constrictor. I was taking care of it until its owner was back in town. Did it finally eat that mouse?" "Duo, calm down." Heero patted his back. "It means we aren't responsible for harming a pet." "What if I'm responsible for strangling a damned clown?" Duo glared at Trowa with his hands in tight fists. "I coulda died! I just grabbed it and stuffed it in the cage!" Trowa shook his head. "Boas are not poisonous, Duo." It was the supercilious tone used that got to Duo the most. Heero seemed more interested in the animal than the incident, though. "They're not?" Trowa launched into a comparative morphology and snake behavior lesson. Heero seemed very attentive to it, while Duo was seething. Trowa hadn't admitted being behind any of the tricks, but Duo knew he was. He didn't even want to hear his lame excuses. Duo wanted to kill him right there and then! But what the hell was happening now? Heero was laughing and slapping Trowa on the back like they were dear old friends. "Yeah, it was fun. C'mon, Duo. Let's get on with our plans for the night." Duo shot Trowa a warning sneer, but the man just smiled serenely back. There wasn't time to deal with him. Heero had an expectant look. "Duo?" Heero called again. There was an upside and that was that Heero still wanted him and wanted to treat him to a nice time. Trowa, well, his problem with him he would settle out later. He felt a lot better about introducing him to his enemy in the past, Zechs Merquise, AKA the Prince of Sanc. He deserved to be shocked after setting snakes, his sister, monkeys, and elephants on him... and his damned dirty laundry! "One sec!" He stopped in the middle of the roadway and sent a message to his prospective "team", giving them a time and place for the big meeting the next day. And then made a show of shutting off his phone. "I'm all set." Oh, yeah, Duo Maxwell was back in business!
|
