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"Recycled Valentine "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: 1x2, 3x4 Summary: A Valentine's Day themed romance encompassing all the young men Thanks to Waterlily for all the editing and humor
to keep me going "Recycled Valentine " Chapter 4 A/N: Duo's house really exists. When I first wrote this story, I pictured it from a memory of 15 years. Recently, though, I visited the lovely gentleman who still lives in the house of wood, and it's a little changed. The view is terrific out the huge picture windows, with deer, raccoons, squirrels and a wide assortment of birds for entertainment. Some of the fruit trees have been replaced by giant hanging bells and the barn is dustier and filled with tuba parts. A couple parcels have been sold, so the lot is a little smaller, but the same air of Hobbit house on a hill still exists. After returning to Heero's house, neither young man seemed in a hurry to part. "I really have next to nothing left of my route today," the recycler said. "After dropping the rig back at the lot, I'm free to meet you anyplace." Heero had no ready idea to suggest. The weather wasn't good for the outdoor activities that interested him, like rock climbing and hunting, and he rarely did anything in the city besides eat, and they had just eaten. There was only so much eating out he could do. Sensing this lack of ideas, possibly, Duo took up the initiative. "Well, you could show me where you work; that is, if you wanna hang out some more? It's okay if you've changed you mind. After all-" "No! I mean yes. I haven't changed my mind and that's a good idea." Not very exciting, but it put them in his personal territory where he'd have an advantage, have something to talk about. "Okay. I don't go uptown everyday like you so it's kinda a treat for me. I wasn't sure you'd want to spend time around work on a day off. This is a day off for you, isn't it?" "I arranged to be out of the office all day, and I only work there and I haven't done any sightseeing." "All right then, I'll take this baby back to the company lot, and then should I meet ya at your office place?" "Parking's difficult. I'll meet you at your lot and take you there." "Ah, that's a bit out of your way." "No problem. I have time." "Okay. How about you meet me outside the main gate in an hour?" An hour was good. Heero had some investigative work to do before meeting with Duo again. Duo gave him directions and told him where to park. "I'll run out to your car." Heero stood in his doorway watching Duo drive away, missing his company already. One hour, minus commute time, would give him plenty of time to check into his FACEBOOK account and see what all the excitement was about. His own information was just as uninteresting as he'd hoped. Brief and to the point. The picture his friend had used made him look a little less severe than he might have wanted, but it, too was allowable, which was a good thing because he hadn't wanted to start a fight with Quatre over what had been a blameless, well-meaning intention. Trowa's entry was a bit jazzier with more pictures, but not of him, and more work-related links. Now there was a man who didn't give away much, either. It didn't worry him that Trowa might be using his best friend to climb the social ladder. The man was self-made, confident and capable, and ran a reputable business. He could use whatever help Quatre wanted to give him. And he loved dogs. Perfect. Quatre and dogs shared many personality features: eagerness to please, soulful eyes, faithful devotion, appealing charm, a sharp bite. Well, not that exactly. And there is was! Duo Maxwell the- what?! He was another thing altogether, and it wasn't just your run-of-the-mill trash handler. What the hell?! Heero slammed shut the laptop and jammed his arms into his coat sleeves. Time to meet the real Duo Maxwell. He circled the lot, passing a fleet of trucks plastered with the trash collection logo, until he spied a line of pale green trucks like Duo drove with the "three-R" logo emblazoned along the side panels. Printed on the side was Reuse, Recycle, Restore orbiting the Earth sphere on a crooked path to include the Lagrange points. Just as Duo had stated on his page, the recycling business was a spin-off of the larger sanitation establishment and shared the property. He also noticed what he hadn't paid attention to before: a small URL for Maxwell's Recycling and Demolition website. Oh, yeah. Hiding right out in the open. How did that get past him? That irritated Heero a little more than he'd admit to. Heero drove by the recycle trucks until he found a small, low building that looked like it could contain the office, and pulled up alongside. His quarry stood inside, backed up to the window, gesticulating as he talked on the phone. He analyzed his feelings and didn't like the conclusion: Duo had avoided telling him what his real job was, he'd misrepresented himself, and Heero didn't like deception. He studied the man and pushed down his feelings, which threatened to take over and cause him to forget it all and just go for the man no matter what. With a determined effort, he decided to get the next scene over with and stepped in without knocking. He did open the door carefully, quietly, slowly, and signaled "hello" with a tiny wave when Duo turned his way. "-right, that's the next few shifts while Blake is in the hospital. Thanks, man. No..." Duo sucked in his breath at the sight of his intruder, startled, but finished his call. "...that's it for now. See you Monday then. Bye." Duo spun on a heel for the face-off. "You're early and aren't very good at following instructions. I have a few more calls to make." He waved at an empty chair and the coffee machine to the side. "Relax, help yourself if you want." Heero barely made out his next words, which sounded like: "We'll have to work on the following orders thing- could be fun." But then Duo was already focusing on the next call, so with a stiff nod of acceptance Heero picked a worn Roadster magazine from the top of a pile and sat. He listened in to an order re-fill and billing correction, another employee shift adjustment, and a lengthy discussion of services, which had to be a selling job. The guy worked hard and Heero admired that. He ran a good shop, so why had Duo not told him he was in charge from the start? Not that he told him much of anything, but he'd let Heero assume a lot. What was the lowly loader worker pretense all about? Duo wasn't fitting into the mold Heero had made for him. He didn't like being wrong, or feeling resentful, but he couldn't get past it. The heat had dissipated from his anger by the time Duo set down the receiver. Heero was left with an annoying hurt over trust issues. Duo perched on the corner of his desk, arms folded over his chest. "Well? What brought you by an hour early? You looked pissed at me." "I went on FACEBOOK and found out what you really do for a living. You lied to me." "Uh, uh. We've known each other for like 5 hours and had how much time to talk about ourselves? Think about it, chum, before you start with the accusations." "You accused me of using the invitation as a kind of- of charity action." Duo's blush proved his guilt, in Heero's mind. "Yeah, that was a little over the top, I admit, but I wasn't expecting you to jam a palace party summons at me before trading names and maybe going out for some coffee." "It was an invitation," Heero corrected. He acknowledged, inwardly, that the other man had a good point. Still. "On nice paper." "The best," Duo said. "The point I'm making is that you looked me up, knew what I did, but you didn't give me clue that you were the manager of this place. You left me thinking you drove a truck for the recycler, and that's it." Heero found it took a lot to rile Mr. Maxwell. It was as if he half expected everything to explode eventually, and took it in stride. Skipping over the defense, he dove right to the meat of the matter, another analogy that brought to mind dogs and made Heero wonder if he had a dog complex. There had been a sad encounter with a dead puppy when he'd been a kid, and he wondered if that may have started it. A finger poking his chest jolted him back to present company, company that looked damned handsome when he was a little worked up. "Oh, I get it. Your problem is that I had already learned about you, while you hadn't even got past company security to learn my name. Heh, heh... It's okay for you to play spy and look into other people's secrets but not for anyone else?" "Not just any one." Heero considered him very special and was ready to drop the entire argument. Duo wasn't letting it evolve into anything important either. From his cocky grin, Heero decided he'd caught the intentional complement. "Oh, that's better. Heh, heh... I wasn't hiding from you. It was all out in the open, if you'd looked." "I couldn't look you up because I didn't know your name." Weak, Heero, very weak. "Not my fault that I'm a social networking marvel and you are...not. Anyway, I just wanted to do a little previewing myself before walking into an unknown situation or something." "Wait, 'situation' you say? Had you been expecting me to ask you out this morning?" "Sorta. Quat-" "Winner!" Heero slapped a hand over his face to cover his grimace. "I knew he had a hand in all of this. He can't keep his grubby paws out of my life." Heero was keeping to the puppy dog analogy when it came to his best friend. "So, he put you up to all of this?" "Hold on!" Duo backed away a few steps, his hands fending off a possible impending attack. "I don't know what you mean by 'all of this'. All he did was suggest your company as a client. I eliminated your company as a recycling fit for me, but followed up on the owner to FACEBOOK." "Oh." Not so bad, his networking, blond, tycoon-for-a-friend was. "And so that's when you learned about me." "Where I read up on you, right. And that's the truth. I may run and hide, but I don't lie." Right. In Heero's mind, Duo's explanation wasn't so bad and it all the elements fit together neatly. No one was at fault here except his own paranoia. "I believe you." Heero let a smile spread to his face. "Sorry for any misunderstandings." "Cool. Glad for that. Wanna know more? For you, I'm an open book." "All right. I'm curious now how a Sweeper orphan became a manager of all of Sanc's recycling in five years?" "Really?" He may have sounded puzzled, possibly by the sudden change of topic, but he looked pleased by Heero's interest. "Better get comfortable. It'll take a few minutes to tell." Both men settled themselves on the couch, turned toward one another, knees nearly touching. "I won't lie, the first few days I was lost. I stayed at a homeless shelter until I found a job washing dishes and sweeping floors. A week later while taking out the garbage, I met the waste management driver and found out there were openings. I applied and during the interview told them about my background in salvage work and how people were tossing out perfectly re-usable items that could be re-fabricated. When I told them about the money that could be made, they became more interested." Duo snickered a little, and Heero joined in with a chuckle of his own, but thought the fact was more sad than funny. He resolved then and there to make Duo's life a better one, and with him in it! "Anyway, I got the job as a truck dispatcher first, not the best use of my skills, so I also hung out with the sorters, separating large items like refrigerators from the rest, and improved their productivity by measurable amounts, which got me more notice. About that time, Howard, my boss back at the Sweepers must have regretted my loss or the law got on him for ditching an underage kid, in any case he sent me my back wages and severance package, which amounted to a tidy sum. After a year of working for the waste management folks, I'd accumulated a hefty back account and went to them again with my proposal and the money to back it up." "So you started this recycling business?" "Pretty much. It's grown considerably since the start, but it's mine, only partly subsidized by the big company." The phone interrupted them. "See why I wanted to meet you at your car? As long as I'm here, I gotta answer." "Go ahead," Heero said. He enjoyed watching this Duo at work and found he could learn a lot about the man just by listening in on his calls. Duo continued to direct, control, hire, fire, praise, berate, curse, and occasionally comfort with kind words a crew of tough men, drivers, loaders, who made their money from their strength and their sweat. They worked hard and lived hard. Duo did more than schedule recycling trucks. Heero recognized that he was his counterpart, the office manager, the one in charge, responsible for every aspect of his business like Heero. A perfect match. A man who could understand him, or possibly could grow to understand and sympathize... emphasize... fall into bed with him... "Hey, 'Ro. I need to go see my bookkeep in the next room. You can follow or stay in here, whatever you want." Heero followed him into the small neighboring room which was wall-to-wall cabinets and bookcases and desks and tables. At one of the desks sat a small man with a computer and a stack of files. Duo leaned over the shoulder of the bookkeeper. Heero pushed a pile of files to the side and hitched up on a table corner. While he waited, he learned that Duo also solicited and reviewed bids on new equipment as well as the jobs themselves. Hard work, maybe, but Duo appeared to thrive on it. He jumped to his feet. "Done! C'mon, let's get outta here while we can." Duo stared expectantly at Heero, but Heero was in no rush to leave. "You like your job," Heero said. "Sure I do. Get your rear in gear, sweetheart." Duo gently directed him out into the main office with a shove to the small of his back. "Who wouldn't wanna negotiate contracts and hafta deal with the unions and slog through all the sewer-clogging city, state, and federal paperwork required, including environmental reports? You ever gotta deal with those?" "Yes. I hate it and contract out for an office worker to do it most of the time." "Good idea! I outta do that, too, to make life better right? Still, that leaves the rest. What's not to love in a world of bribery, petty crooks, thugs on the take, and the smiling lads with their knives up their sleeves for a living?" "It's a big job with stress and tension." "Yep." Duo cuffed him lightly on the arm. "Bet you get tired of dealing with a lot of hardnoses in your line of work." Heero acknowledged the truth of that with a nod. "But you love it." "Oh, yeah, because it's alive!" Alive with a vitality that Heero thought kept him alert and steaming hot, or was that smoking hot? He deliberated for a moment. The more Heero thought about the steaming part, the more excited he felt. Desire flooded his senses. He wanted to put his hands on the other man, transfer his passion to action. But, exactly how was he going to make the next move, Heero wondered? He could be direct, if he knew how achieve direct without becoming overly clinical. Quatre had told him he came off cold when approaching a new situation. He wanted Duo to see him as warm. Not too hot, but definitely not cold. Warm. Initiating a physical contact- a kiss to start! - shouldn't be as difficult as he was making it! It wasn't as if Duo was a particularly elusive character. Not a subtle character, or sly. His best features hit all Heero's "must have" marks: very sexually attractive, toned and having a nice body, good looking and manly without being either too pretty or too muscular ; smart, but not an intellectual; ambitious, rather than driven; self-confident but not arrogant; enticing not flirtatious. It wasn't that Duo was confusing or mysterious. He was too wonderful a find for Heero to go andrush into a sexual encounter and ruin a good thing, even if Heero figured out what and how. Too soon? Too soon! What was he going to do with all the need building up inside? He realized after a few moments that neither of them had said anything and were staring into one another's eyes. Duo's looked glazed and then he blinked, possibly noticing how they'd become completely fixated on one another. Duo was the one to break the silence. "Ah, you wanting to kiss as much as me, or am I reading this all wrong?" he asked with a wicked lick of his lips. "I could look at that software problem you mentioned to your bookkeeper," Heero said loftily. "Say wha-?" Heero blushed. "Joking." Duo closed the distance between them and their mouths met in a tingling, supple grind of teeth, lips, and tongue. His fingers tangled in Heero's hair. Nothing had felt so good, so important. Heero pressed harder to deepen the contact and secured Duo in place at his shoulder and waist. He didn't want to let go. Their lips merged into one organ. He felt a wiry arm slink around his waist, and his body reacted naturally to the arousal of his passions. Duo must have felt it, too, but instead of letting nature take its course, Heero felt a gentle push, cool air, and Duo parted from him. "Ummm nice," Duo mumbled, smacking his lips. "I think I need that candy now." "Candy? Why candy?" Heero asked. "It's a little soon, but if it's food you require-?" "Not yet, and I can't believe I just said no to food, but I was thinking about something else. Just pondering ... wondering if your kisses are sweeter than candy." His eyes twinkled and he chuckled playfully. "Wine." "Wine, Heero?" "The song goes 'kisses sweeter than wine'." "We-ell, you, me and a bottle of wine- not today. Keep that in mind for our next date, okay?" Heero's mind raced to a fast finish, filling in a few drinking and kissing details and lingering on the hot, naked finale. Heero made a quick determination of the distance to the couch. Had they still been in landing distance of the couch, Heero might, just might have launched them in that direction. He smiled, contemplating a pleasant outcome to that rash move, rash because he'd never done anything so aggressive like that before. "C'mon," Duo pulled him out the door. "It ain't that comfortable, believe me." Duo had already led them outside and was locking his office door, by the time Heero realized that the other man had practically read his mind and that he'd possibly had "encounters" on that couch, in that office. That made him a little sad. He was alerted to the other man watching him by another light thump to his arm. "Stop that. I didn't mean it to sound that way. I'm not-! I don't mess around at work, for one thing, and I don't, well, anyway, the fact of the matter is, I've slept on that couch from time to time and it's hard and unforgiving. All right?" "Yes." Heero couldn't stop the heat of embarrassment from coloring his cheeks. "Sorry." "Don't be. It's flattering to be desired, you know. Let's go." "But-" Heero left his argument hanging in the air. There were times when he could relinquish control, not many, but around Duo Maxwell he felt compelled to acquiesce to his judgment. The man had demonstrated that he could be tough as nails when it came to business deals, and wasn't afraid to face issues head on or go for what he wanted with a little encouragement. He admired Duo's wisdom in the matter of tempering desire with caution, and decided that the other man probably had experience to backup all his smarts. "Since you are calling the shots," Heero said once they'd settled into his car. "You can choose our music for the ride." "Cool." Duo busied himself, scrolling through the playlist until settling on a simple shuffle of Heero's male vocalists. But music wasn't enough. Heero wanted to listen to Duo talk. That shouldn't be too difficult to make happen, he thought, smiling. "So, turning a page in your open book, why were you driving one of your workers' routes in my neighborhood? That wasn't a one-time occurrence." "Can't fool you! Heh, heh... I wondered how long it would take for you to get to that." "My paranoia peeking through..." "I wouldn't go as far as calling it paranoia. Being careful is a survival skill." Heero nodded, accepting Duo's assessment. It wasn't going to let him out of replying to his question, though. "So? Are you going to answer me?" Duo preened a little, straightening stray hair from his face and flipping that long, long braid of hair to his back. "You'll have to wait for that story. I've been promised a tour of your business and...candy." Book closed. At this point, Heero suspected he'd learn more if he backed off and allowed Duo to control the rest of their day. "Candy? Oh, yes." Heero could blame Quatre for dropping that hint, too, bless his soul. "I stored it in my office. I haven't thought how to get rid of it." Duo swung an arm over the backrest and leaned close. "You've come to the right guy. If there's anything I know, it's how to process what's in excess and unwanted." Hero smiled, but he was still troubled by Duo's reticence to answer him. "Aw, don't pout," Duo said and then bowed close, dipped in, and pecked his cheek bone, leaving a wet spot. "Man, it's hard to keep up a mysterious persona around you and make myself a little more interesting than I really am." "You are fascinating enough." Duo sat quietly a few moments while Heero kept his eyes on the road, weaving through the dense traffic. "Okay. Actually, it was about time you asked. It's pretty simple. One of my guys needed time off on a regular basis-his wife needed cancer treatments. I juggled the schedule for a while, but then I had to fire another guy and got short-handed. I'd looked into your company, like I'd said, and recognized your name from the FACEBOOK encounter on a route listing. You were a customer! I thought the timing was just too good. The stars were aligned or something, so I took a bit of the route by your house." "Just to see me?" "Just to see you." "On a whim? No clue that I was ... gay... or single or..." Heero caught the facial change out of the corner of his eye. "You had a clue." "Well, yeah." "Winner." "Ah, yeah. I called him. He didn't approach me, so don't go blaming your bud, okay? I just called to find out if he'd ever met the head of your company. That's when he told me that you and he were good friends and that you were a workaholic, but a great guy. That's it! Um, he may have mentioned the 'single' bit too. You're smiling?" "I'm relieved. I couldn't figure out how you learned so much about me from my FACEBOOK site. I looked it over and there was no hint of personality or sexual orientation, nothing to entice you to look further." Heero let his smile widen. "I always considered my observational skills to be exceptional." "Oh, ho! And you just couldn't take me being better at you at something?" "Does that make me a jerk?" Heero asked, momentarily concerned. "Naw, it makes you an alpha male. 'S'okay with me." He sat back, arms up over the head rest, eyes closed. Like a wolf pup submitting totally to the pack's alpha wolf. Heero frowned, chastising his inner thoughts with more, harsher, critical inner thoughts. Stop with the dog parallels! Limit those to Q. "Here we are." Heero swept his card and the gated entry opened to him. He turned into his allotted space, and parked. "Would you like to begin at my office or end there?" "End there." The production facilities fascinated Duo. "Love machinery," he repeated. After an hour of intense examination, Heero actually had to lure him away with candy promises. ...Candy... Duo stood munching on an Almond Joy mini candy bar, his third, while gazing out Heero's office window. "Like the view?" "Yeah." "You can see the Sanc Palace." "Yep." Things were not right. Heero didn't need Quatre to tell him Duo had undergone a mood change. He could have used him to explain what he'd done wrong, though. Still, without his emphatic friend to enlighten him about his social mistakes, he would have to storm ahead, risk a cold front, and go with that over-used, direct approach. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It's the glamorous digs, man; it's harshing my mellow." Duo's lingo confused him. "You have mellow?" Heero asked and searched his memory for a connection. "Has this something to do with the candy?" "Nooo. It's bringing down my good mood." Heero felt the temperature fall about twenty degrees. Duo pointed out the window. "Thinking about that place and the fancy-ass party. Just a little intimidating that's all." "We should leave then," Heero said. "I'd rather not think too much about it either." He held out the red bag of candy. "Ah, no more for now. Thanks." Heero's arm dropped, but then he offered the bag again. "It's for you. You don't have to eat it now, just take it home." Remembering what Quatre had told him he appended, "Give it to your truckers." "You could do that yourself." Heero shook his head. "Quatre talked me into bonuses as well." "Oh, well, okay. I'll give this out for Valentine's then. Heh, heh... what I don't eat. Thanks." They left the office and entered the elevator for the ride to the parking garage below. "If I get fat, it'll be your fault." Heero glanced over. Duo was staring at him rather than averting his eyes to watch the floor numbers tick by. "From what I've seen, a few pounds wouldn't hurt you." Heero cringed at the sound of his own words. "Ah, not that you need them. I meant to say that they wouldn't look bad on you." "Chill, 'Ro, heh, heh. I'm not a girl." Absolutely not! Still, he patted his flat stomach, and that teased a smile from Heero, while Duo's chuckling warmed his soul the rest of the way to the garage. He wanted to bundle the man in a blanket and hide him away in his bedroom. Nothing cold about that move. The sudden urgency of that desire struck him. He wasn't an impulsive person, and yet Duo's presence seemed to put wild ideas into his head. He wanted to take immediate action, whisk the man away, bury his face in his chest and draw in his fragrance, and that was only the beginning. He enjoyed an active sex life in his head. "So, I gotta go into work tomorrow, making up for today, and I've put off everything else, so I gotta do that tonight-laundry," he emphasized with a hand gesture showing the pile was over his head. "I understand." Sadly, Heero did. Their lovely day was coming to an end. "I'll take you home or is your car at your office?" "No car. I bus about. A ride home would be excellent." Heero liked this sign of trust. Now they'd both know about the other one's lodgings. "Directions?" Duo lived in the hills above town in the opposite direction from Heero's route home. It was a new drive for Heero and took about twenty minutes from the heart of the city center. "I had no idea there were homes here." "You don't get out much, do you?" "I really haven't." "So turn at the next left and following the road to the first driveway." Heero parked and let Duo decide the whether or not to invite him in. "Wanna quick tour, and I do mean quick, 'cause I wasn't lying about lots to do?" "Yes." The outside of the house was cedar shake and looked small. That was deceptive. The house burrowed back into a long narrow lot that twisted and turned with rooms growing off the main hallway like offshoots of a tree. Heero said the first thing that came to mind. "Tree house." "That's what I thought when I first saw the place," Duo said cheerfully. "Wood floors and ceilings and paneling on a lot of the walls. The realtor told me the man that built this had been in the timber business all his life and knew trees, and his woods, apparently. He just cleared the land here and built the house out of the fir he chopped down." Duo named the rooms as they passed doors, some open enough peek at stacks of books and magazines, boxes of parts for motor vehicles, and one room appeared to be an electronic play room. "Yeah, I'm a hobbyist, ah, I like to tinker with things, build stuff, which isn't a surprise, right?" "You have access to cheap materials," Heero noted. He paused in front of one door, expecting Duo to open it, but Duo sped ahead. "Nope. Not that one." He flashed a grin over his shoulder. "When you see my bedroom, it'll be clean 'cause I'll be wanting to impress you." Not "if", but "when". Heero did not miss that. "If everything works out!" Duo added. He was ten steps ahead. Literally and figuratively. Not that Heero hadn't been fantasizing wildly all day, but Duo seemed to have thought about the steps leading them into bed. Heero admired and appreciated Duo's frankness. "Best thing about the kitchen is the view. Pretty, huh?" "Yes. But so's this granite counter." And so are you. "The kitchen got modernized along the way, but not by me," Duo said. "Great, isn't it? Too bad I can't cook worth a shit." "I can." Heero would cook more if he had a place like this, a view like this one had, and someone to cook for. "I'm no gourmet, but I enjoy it when I have a chance. Weekends." "Cool. I've never, ever touched this oven." "Convection." "Or this freezer thing." "Subzero... nice pantry." "There's a wine storage thingee and all kinds of shit I don't use." Heero's gaze turned from the sexy kitchen appointments to the even sexier man who owned them. Duo glowed in his home, as if he were a part of the rich wood hues. He took a moment to really study Duo and imagined what he'd look like with his hair loose, how it would feel. Duo was on the move again. "One more thing to show you then I gotta kick you out." Heero smiled, imagining Duo removing clothes, and this time more than just his heart swelled. "You might have to." "Heh, heh... I have a crowbar out in the barn!" There was a barn! Past rows of trees, short ones, probably fruit bearing, shrubs and prickly vines Duo was calling his "berry patch", stood a large structure with barn-like dimensions. "That's the workshop and tons of storage that really sold me on the place. The house part was nothing like what I thought I was looking for when I started my search, but it suits me. Go on in; take a look around. I know you're dying to." "Thanks." What a workshop it was, too! "You rebuild motorcycles!" Duo ran a hand affectionately over a worn leather seat. "Yep. This baby is my current flame, er, fixer-upper." They talked a little longer about his "hog hobby". Despite his threats, Duo didn't seem to have the heart to do any kicking out. He wasn't begging for Heero to stay either, so before he wore out his welcome, Heero said good bye and left with the promise of calling soon for a real date. That night Duo called him. "Hey, Duo here." "Hello, Duo. Is everything all right?" "Yeah, yeah! Fine. I just wanted to, ah, thank you for making the day turn out a whole lot better than I'd imagined, what with the clothes shopping, which by the way I entirely spaced out about and left the tux in your car in the back seat." "Tux-?" Heero had forgotten his tuxedo too. He never forgot things like that! "You forgot too? Man, I feel better knowing it wasn't just me being an air head." Heero never thought of himself as an air head. Distracted by Duo, yes. "Anyway, I liked meeting your friends. They seem like a nice gang to hang out with." "Oh, that's... good." "Yeah, so thanks again and see you soon." "Tomorrow." "No can do. The next day for lunch?" "Yes." Duo laughed. "Don'tcha wanna check your schedule first?" "Lunch, the day after tomorrow. Check. I'll pick you up-" he stopped to listen to Duo laugh. "You are teasing me." "Just a little." "I've been told I can be cold. I don't want you to think that I am." "Cold? Hot as all fuck, yeah, but not cold. You're a little reserved, but that's cool by me. Helps throttle me in, heh, heh." "That's good to hear." And Heero meant it. "You are... a pretty interesting guy, 'Ro. I was thinking, if you don't mind me messing with the lunch plans-?" "I don't mind. Change away." "Okay. So, I'll take the bus and meet you in town, somewhere you can walk to. Save gas." "All right." "Right, then. G'night." "Good night and thank you for... the nice day." "Right backatcher, bud."
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