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"Warheads"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Post War, angst, fluff, psychological
issues, lemon Pairings: 2x1 Summary: Duo and Heero try to become more than
comrades in their attempt to be normal young men. They settle down
but find that peacetime is difficult to adjust to and with only each
other to rely on, it is a struggle, especially for Heero. " Warheads "
The weekend was an unremarkable blur. I tried to see Sookie, just to have someone to talk to about all the relationship stuff that had been giving me a hard time, but she was taking care of her grandmother who had just been operated on her heart. The phone-call was a stark reminder of my selfishness. I was so self-centered and preoccupied with anything and everything that revolved around Heero and me that I didn't even know her grandmother had been so sick she was in need of surgery. Making up to her would have to wait, Monday I started at my new job. I didn't have an inkling of what to expect, but I was ashamed to admit - if only to myself - that I was grateful to get out of the apartment. I had been cooped up inside for so long it had felt like my universe had been shrinking and had been reduced to just these walls that I knew so well. It was time to expand this life of mine again. Although Heero would ever remain the precious center and beating heart of my existence, it was good to get away, it was good for the both of us to have a life that extended beyond the reach of the other. When Heero worked as an agent, I didn't like that distance, I wouldn't like it now, but the better and only alternative wasn't reeling him in so close that I was smothering him. I realized that now. Heero sat at the table across from me. For whatever stupid reason, I was nervous, so I couldn't handle more than a single bite of my still warm bagel. Coffee was much more welcome. "You have another session with Nettle today, right?" I asked, for the sole purpose of eliminating the silence. "Yes. Why?" "No reason." Another hot sip. "Although..." "Although...?" I shrugged. "I'm not saying you should, but maybe... maybe you could talk to Nettle about this mission you insist on going on, see what she thinks." "I already know what she thinks. She agrees with you. She recommended not to go." "Well..." I searched for words, trying to reinforce her assessment. "She did study human psychology so... she probably knows best..." Heero looked up at me critically, one of his eyebrows impossibly high. "You never agreed with her before. You don't even like her." "You see, I'm not agreeing with her, she is agreeing with me." I tried to save myself, but it was hopeless judging by the skeptical look in Heero's eyes. "Look, Heero, I know I'm not Nettle's greatest fan but I think that at least regarding this, she is right. If even she thinks this isn't going to be helpful to you in any way, maybe you should reconsider. I mean, isn't that why you are seeing her, so she can help you? We've both been unconvinced, but maybe we should trust her." I was talking out of my ass and it looked like Heero noticed, but finally someone was on my side and I had to take advantage of that. "You should go or you'll be late for work." Heero dryly noted. I rolled my sleeve up and looked at my watch. "Damn. I swear, I wasn't this tardy during the war. Hey, I saw that!" I pointed an accusing finger at him after catching him rolling his eyes at my claim. Une had emailed me with instructions for my first day, such as where to get my assignments and find my overall, other than that and a non-discriminate job description I was heading into the unknown. In spite of leaving a little later than panned, I still managed to catch my train as planned and I used the half hour trip to find myself a new mindset. It was quite a change and I realized I shouldn't have made this step any later in time or it would be even harder to adjust back to a life or structure and goal-oriented work. It's too easy to get used to a bag of potato chips for lunch, watching random video's on your computer. But that is not the life for me. Instead of entering the facility through the front entrance, I followed a path that took me around back. I walked amidst many more worker, my colleagues, dressed in their black overalls. They all headed to a back entry that lead straight into the garage. At the steel gates that protected the staircase down to the workplace, everyone took out their access passes and each individual swiped it in front of a scanner and the revolving metal gate turned just enough for one man to go through. Waiting just off to the side was my friend from before. "Good morning Stan, sorry for the trouble again." I shook his hand. "Not at all. Here is a temporary pass, good for only one entry. You head straight for Garage Administration, it is just to your left, looks like an armory cage. There they will have your permanent employee pass, your overall and your designated coordinator who will give you your assignment." I took the card from the tall, broad man and thanked him for his help. I got in line to enter and slowly shuffled closer. I got up to the gate and reached back to swipe the card. The gate immediately started rotating, startling me a little. I was grateful that even though I was tall and well-built, I wasn't particularly broad, or it would have been uncomfortable squeezing through the opening, I imagined. I headed left and approached the "Garage Administration" a small space stacked with boxes with narrow aisles in between, separated from the rest for the space with tall chain link fencing. There was a small opening for handing out supplies. I waited there for a while, when no one came, I knocked on the vertical pipe that lined the fence, causing the fence to rattle. The sound drew a clerk towards me. "Yes?" "Hi, I'm new here so I don't-" "Name?" He asked impatiently. "Duo Maxwell." His eyes searched a list on his clipboard. "Right. Wait." He left, quickly disappearing out of sight between the high stacks of boxes with short, hurried footsteps. He returned moments later with a black bundle that was my overall and a spare and op top of that a keychain with an employee access card. "Here." He handed me both items through the opening in the fence. "Thanks. I was also told-" "Coordinator is Jett Benson. He's-" I stepped back when the clerk poked his head through the opening and looked to his left. "- right there." I followed his line of sight to where two men were talking to each other, each holding clipboards and leafing through them. "Which one?" I turned back only to find the clerk gone. Oh well, I thought, every workplace is bound to have a character like that, that weird, devoted, don't-bother-me type of guy. Of our group I wondered whether that guy had been Heero or WuFei. I smiled and shook away the thought, approaching the men. "Hi. Jett Benson?" "That's me." Jett was apparently the tall, blonde, handsome one of the two. At first he looked at me with stern eyes but once I identified myself his lips formed a pleasant smile. "Right, welcome to the Preventers. Une told me you have a lot of experience with mechanics and engineering. We can always use skillful people down here. After all, this is the heart of the operation." Jett said glibly as he guided me away. I smiled but didn't say anything, pretty sure everyone said that about his own department. "We have dressing rooms over there, you can use those in a moment. But as you see most men come to work already dressed. Stan I believe had already told you about the grids?" "Yes." "Good. Well, this is the grid you will be working in." We had moved to one of the first marked area's in the vast space. "Firearms, medium to heavy artillery and light equipment. These are mostly projects that can be completed by one mechanic, but there is plenty of work." From what I could tell the grid was indeed heavily occupied, with over twenty men working individually on a variety of smaller equipment, each with his own station of a large worktable and a necessity of tools. For additional, more specific tools I was referred to the closest "tool shed", an enclosed area with what Jett told me to be all the tools I could possibly need. "This is your station." Jett stopped me in front of one of the only remaining empty tables. The tools were neatly arranged and in the center lay a large, long distance rifle with a red folder. "In the folder you'll find a description of the damage and a report of the malfunctioning. Before you hand in weapons you have to test them. There is an indoor shooting range right through there and you are always provided with a pack of the appropriate ammo for testing. Once you deem it fixed you sign the report and you alert me and I'll have someone come pick it up and bring you your next project. All clear?" I must have looked a little dumbfounded, only because I was a little underwhelmed. I looked at all the mechanics around me, sitting or standing at their tables, tinkering away at their "projects" and felt like a tiny part of some of mass production system. I pushed the feeling away, deciding to approach it with an open mind. Jett reminded me that if I needed anything, I could call him and with that and a "Good luck" he left me be. "Alright." I said and I pulled the high chair up to the table and sat down in front of the rifle. I took it into my hands. It felt so familiar, the shape, the weight. I didn't like it but my hands felt complete, like the weapon was an extension of my arm that I had been trying to do without. I put it back down and picked up the paper report. This felt much more alien. I flipped it open and was a little staggered at the amount of information but I dutifully read through the entire report and set to work. The weapon was used in "precision operations" - I knew those to be assassinations from experience - but the settings of the rifle didn't correlate with real life results and this problem had led to several misfires. I started taking the thing apart, becoming determined to solve the problem. I felt like a veritable Sherlock Holmes of mechanic parts. I looked around, wanting to share my thoughts with some of my colleagues, but their tables were several meters away and they were completely focused on their jobs, so I looked back down at my own work. They wouldn't have gotten the reference anyway, Heero is the only other person I knew who was familiar with the name Sherlock Holmes and that was exclusively caused by me. As I took the setting mechanism apart, I realized rather quickly that one of the serrated wheels had come a little loose and I discovered that as I tried to set the rifle to a certain distance the little wheel that was supposed to turn another, didn't always get a good grip, it's teeth slipping. The result being that if you turned the settings wheel - visible and accessible from the outside - six clicks, the internal wheel might miss two of them, so you had actually changed the setting only four clicks. Using my fingers I screwed the wheel on tightly and then reached for an adjustable wrench to secure it. Surely it can't be this easy, I thought to myself. I put everything back together and picked up the rifle and the supplied ammunition, walking it to the back, through the hallway Jett had pointed down. A door at the end of the hall read "Testing area small arms and rifles". A sign made several warnings and requirements. I grabbed the mandatory ear protection and opened the door. I found a large shooting range with several targets at quite a substantial distance. I was all alone. I walked to the back where there were special set-ups for rifles. There were mats on the floor so you could lay down comfortably. I lay down and propped the barrel of the rifle up on it two foldable legs, resting the stock against my shoulder. I exhaled slowly, feeling a rush as memories flooded me, lying there. I don't know why but the particular mission that came to mind, I didn't even get to hold the rifle. It had been with Heero and he had insisted on being the sniper, leaving me the lame job of spotter. It had really pissed me off back then, now it made me smile. I rolled my shoulders, relaxing myself, I armed the rifle with a single bullet of impressive size and moved my finger to the trigger. I made sure to extensively play around with the settings before turning it to the appropriate one for the circumstances, short distance, zero wind, zero elevation. I realized that even if the settings still didn't line up, I would probably easily make this shot, so I would have to mention in the report that they should do long distance tests before sending someone out into the field with it. I was pretty determined to make this a good shot, so I took my time, breathing in and out calmly a few times and then on the exhale... The shot echoed through the concrete space. My spine felt compacted by the backfiring pressure of the rifle against my shoulder. The feeling of the rifle powerfully pushing into my shoulder on release of the bullet was another strong reminder of a past life. I squinted my eyes to look at the target, a black, paper silhouette of a man, now with a hole right through the center of his head. "Ha!" I exclaimed, I felt victorious. But the feeling soon ebbed away. This was it, this was the job. This was as big a rush and sense of accomplishment that I was going to get. It was a leveling experience, mostly disappointing. I walked back to my station and luckily Jett just walked by. I signed the report, made my recommendation about further testing and then some faceless guy in a blue overall took the rifle away and another faceless guy, also in a blue overall, immediately brought me my second project. Jett complimented me on a job well done and then walked away again. I looked at the rifle in front of me with dead eyes, this time an assault rifle. The work got dull long before lunch, so that was a welcome break. Different grids had lunch at different times, to avoid overcrowding of the garage cafeteria, where you had fifteen minutes to eat your provided lunch and then another half hour of break time outside on the terrain. Grid one - my grid - and two lunched earliest. This was as much an advantage as a disadvantage. The first part of the day seemed shorter this way, but the second part of the day, I realized with dread, would only be longer. We stood in line, mostly quiet and were served our lunch which I presumed to be a prison recipe. I sat down at a table with some guys from my grid and said hallo. One of the four looked up and nodded, other than that: no response. I looked down at my lunch and wished I had finished that bagel for breakfast. I looked around and noticed most guys had brought additional food from home, which was actually edible. Une couldn't have included this in her memo? I grumbled. I ate as much as I could before I started to question basic hygiene, but by then we were shooed out of the cafeteria anyway, to make room for the next two grids. We left the cafeteria through double doors leading to a space that bared many resemblances to a schoolyard. The paved area was mostly filled with benches and picnic tables but in the back some space was reserved for whoever was up for a game of basketball with two rusty orange hoops. The "heart of the operation" could sure use some love, I thought to myself. It was painfully clear that only Jett thought of the garage as the heart, to someone who had seen the inside of the main building, as I had, which was all high tech and shiny steel and glossy marble. That angered me a little, but then I remembered the stretching graveyard. Considering none of those headstones paid tribute to a mechanic, I realized poor food and rusty hoops were a small price to pay. But in a way I was still a little angry, resentful maybe, for being shoved into such an underappreciated position. I rolled my eyes at myself. I had only been working there for a few hours and I was already starting to get worked up about it. It was however instantly obvious to me that this is not what I had had in mind. I wanted to be necessary and important. It wasn't the case that I was full of myself - or maybe I was - I just felt like I could do bigger things and be of more importance. Amongst the crowd, I felt invisible and even though I hated myself for thinking so, I felt like I deserved better than this, that I was better than this. Regardless of my soul searching during lunch break, the break inevitably had to end and I had to return to work. My third project of the day was another long distance sniper rifle. Apparently my "team" had a whole load of those coming in today, a crate of them got damaged on their way back from some undisclosed foreign place and the orders were to fix whichever ones were salvageable. When one of the guys in the blue overall brought my neighboring mechanic one of the rifles, I heard him speak for the first time that day. "You'd think they would just trash these and buy new ones." He commented. And the mechanic in front of him turned around in his seat and retorted: "They have to pay for the marble floors with something." I couldn't help but speak my mind. "I'm sorry but isn't it the case that with the strict regulation on the production of weapons nowadays, it's easier to fix slightly damaged weapons than go through all the paperwork and waiting time for purchasing a new batch?" This I knew to be true. Hell, I was bound to learn something with the news channel turned on constantly. The two looked at me momentarily and then both returned to their work with a shake of their heads. Obviously I was not making friends. Still, I felt good about standing up for the agency, the agents and soldiers employed by them did good work and I didn't want that to be defiled because two mechanics didn't understand how it works. And how it works is very unlike what they might see in action comedies. Production of guns is so heavily controlled - for good reason of course - that even with the right paperwork it could take weeks for the order to be cleared and we currently had men and women abroad who needed functional weapons right now, not several weeks from now. It was quicker, more efficient and money saving to transport broken material back to the RUSA with a carrier jet to be repaired and sent back the same way. I glared when I caught one of the two looking at me. Great, I thought to myself, now I'm the suck-up to the Lady upstairs. My focus staid on the job, I wasn't there to make friends anyway. The next few projects were simple matters of replacing firing pins, replacing the scopes that had suffered broken lenses and check if the dimensions of the barrel were uncompromised. "Wow, Duo, you are on a roll." Jett complimented as he waved over another "blue overall". "Thanks, it's not really that hard." "Have you handled rifles before? You sure are swift at taking them apart and reassembling them." I decided not to answer that, merely because it would be hard to explain without lying and it would be difficult to fathom a good lie on short notice. "Anyway, keep up the good work." He patted me on the shoulder and moved on. Okay, I thought, this is nice, appreciation, if a little exaggerated. But then I caught my co-workers staring at me again. I instantly knew what my nickname behind my back would be: Jett's pet. Honestly I couldn't be very bothered, I didn't see myself working here for a long time to come. It might grow on me if I let it, but I don't think I should let something like this grow on me. As I continued my work, I already started mentally writing an email to Une requesting a transfer, perhaps I'd be more suited as a traditional mechanic, lying on my back under a truck or having my head under a hood all day. This job was too reminiscent of a desk job and ultimately no challenge whatsoever. Around 13:00 my eyes kept darting to clock on the wall behind me. Heero should be finished with his session with Nettle and I wondered if he would come down here to visit me. On one hand I hoped he did, it would be nice to briefly enjoy his company. On the other hand, I didn't really want him seeing me like this, hunched over a worktable staring down a barrel with one eye closed, from the opposite end of where I preferred to be. Another rifle passed the inspection and was sent on it's way back to God knows where. I looked at the time and was hit with disappointment. It was 13:40 already and Heero hadn't shown up, making it most probable that he wouldn't. When a blue overall guy came over with another rifle, I started: "Hey, don't you have something else back there?" "I have 14 more of these and another 82 assault rifles." "You're kidding..." "No." I snorted. "Yeah, I figured." "A platoon just came back and all their weapons are up for regular maintenance." I looked at the umpteenth rifle on my rifle. "Great. Thanks." As I skimmed through the report, my mind started to wander to the platoon, wondering where they had been, what their mission had been and whether they had been successful. But as I discovered that the only things wrong with the weapon was some dirt caught in the loading mechanism I wondered why these revered agents and soldiers didn't take better care of their own weapons, considering how valuable and hard to come by they were. I used to baby my rifle. Until of course it got damaged during a particularly bad explosion which was in no way or form my fault. My mind trailed back to that mission with Heero again. His rifle hadn't been stolen and he sure seemed to enjoy reminding me of that fact or as he liked to put it: "I'm not the one who lost his rifle." I don't know why I kept thinking about that mission, it certainly wasn't the most memorable, or spectacular. It was a regular mission, but I suspect I was just being nostalgic, because all I could remember in hindsight, was how much fun it had been, even though at that moment, lying on my stomach in cold mud, it was as far from fun as a party could be. I don't even remember when it was, but I do remember it was one of our last missions together on earth during the initial war. We got teamed up because a sniper mission always required a pair and I happened to be closer to Heero's current location than the others. So I responded to the email sent by G to meet up with Heero and then travel to the target location together. It was funny to think back on how much I dreaded being paired with Heero. I always liked him - especially after he risked his own life to save mine-, but it was so brazenly clear that he was doing his best to dislike me, pointing out every little flaw, that made it hard being around him and for some reason always led to me annoying him. I guess I just figured I might as well give him a reason for disliking me. I never told anyone the story, but if I would in the future, I'd imagine starting it in a certain way, namely: our gazes met from across the room in a smoky bar. The meeting point had been a run down motel with flaking paint on the walls, in Canada. Specifically the meeting point was the parking lot in front of the motel at exactly 11:00, but after an hour of hanging about next to my stolen Chevy truck in an otherwise empty and dull parking lot, it became clear Heero was drastically delayed, so I took the initiative of renting us a room, killing some time showering and trimming my bangs and then going to the bar downstairs where the attractive female bartender refused to serve anything other than a coke. Starting to feel a little hungry when the hour neared dinnertime I ordered some fried appetizers at the bar as the motel didn't have, and wasn't located close to, an actual restaurant. After another unsuccessful attempt to bride and/or charm the bartender into giving me a beer, a short and slim and very pissed off figure entered the bar and his raging blue eyes immediately settled on me. I casually waved him over, feeling a little intimidated - though I would never admit that - when he neared me with stomping footsteps. As he came to stand in front of me I noticed he was drenched, so I asked dumbly: "It's raining?" "Where were you?" Heero demanded to know. His voice was always monotonous but for some reason that exaggerated control only made me take the anger in his eyes more seriously. "What are you talking about?" I reached back and grabbed a snack from the plate I'd been brought. "Chicken-nugget?" I offered. "I've been standing outside for forty minutes." He informed me, his eyes becoming increasingly threatening. "Well, that's your problem." I brushed him off, nibbling on the chicken-nugget myself. "Boy scouts taught you to pack reverse osmosis units but not an umbrella?" I mumbled under my breath. Heero cast a sideway glance to the bartender to scare her off and then continued to me in a more hushed tone: "The email specifically said to meet in the parking lot." "Yeah. It also specifically said to meet at 1100 hours." I said dryly. Heero blinked. "No it didn't." "Uh, yeah it did." "The email said 1700 hours." He sure sounded very convinced that he was right. "Nice try, buddy, but I think I can read." Heero took a deep breath, the tendons in his neck momentarily stood out as he tensed up with what I could only guess was repressed anger. "Fine." He hissed, even though he still believed he was right. "Did you rent a room?" "Oh no, I forg- Of course I did!" I pulled the keycard with wooden moose keychain out of my pocket and dangled it in front of him. "Let's go." I paid with a generous tip and then we left the bar. On our way to the room Heero got his duffel bag out of presumably his stolen vehicle of choice. It took several tries to get the door to open, the keycard had probably been used so often that the magnetic strip had been damaged and it was hard for the lock to read it. I finally managed to open it to a dusty, hillbilly styled room. Everything was brown or made out of robust wood, except for the sheets, which were red and checkered like any lumberjack's flannel shirt is ought to looked like. "Cool." I commented and placed my bag on one of the single beds. I left Heero the bed closest to the window, or as he would call it: "the emergency exit". We had gotten into that discussion way too many times before and even though I was increasingly prepared for it, I kept losing. Heero didn't say anything. He got a clean - dry - set of clothing from his bag and disappeared into the bathroom. "I'll just check and see if we have any further orders." I called through the closed door. I settled down onto my bed, with the pillows propped up behind me for support. My laptop booted up in my lap. Heero quickly emerged, dry again, except for his hair which was still darker than it usually was. I looked again, blinking and noticed that he had brushed his bangs back, out of his face. He looked different, not nicer per se as I had always enjoyed the tousled look to his hair. He just looked... real, if that made any sense. Like a real person whose clothes and hair could change. In my mind I had elevated the guy to some sort of unchangeable super being. I was mistaken, but I liked it. I focused my attention back on my mailbox. "Well I'll be damned." I uttered. Heero looked at me expectantly. "It did say 1700." Heero dropped down on his bed with an unmistakable groan. "I must have mistaken the seven for a one." I squinted and closed in on the screen. "You can hardly blame me, the lettering is damn small... Oh, they sent us the coordinates and a picture of the target." I picked up my laptop and angled the screen towards Heero. "Who is this ugly dude?" Heero glared at me. "Well, the email just says what he is. Apparently he is some sort of engineer who invented this new super laser and he has been communicating with Zechs suspiciously frequently... Awww..." I suddenly exclaimed. "Maybe they're in love." My cheeks suddenly went red. For some reason it felt especially awkward thinking about that with Heero right there. Heero rolled away from me, facing the window. "You sleeping, buddy?" "I wish." He mumbled. I chuckled. "He's supposed to arrive at the provided coordinates at 1900 hours tomorrow, so we should leave in the morning if we want to get there in time to find a nice spot and set up. How much gas do you have left?" "We're taking my truck." "Okay... if you insist..." I didn't argue with him, mine had barely enough left to make it a few miles and we had quite a distance to cover. I shut off my laptop and stuffed it back into my bag. We both used the warm water of the shower gratefully and ate instant noodle soup before getting into bed early. I woke up early in the morning, cracking one open to see what had awoken me. I spotted Heero in just his pants, searching for something - I'm guessing a shirt - in his bag. I noticed deep purple bruises on his back and wondered what stupid, self-destructive thing he had done this time, but I didn't ask. When he started to turn, I closed my eye again and pretended to be sleeping up until the moment he walked over to me and shook me awake. I feigned a yawn then grinned at him hovering over me. He looked a little perplexed but hid it quickly and walked away. I didn't know why, couldn't put my finger on it, but I liked the guy, even though the only things we had in common were violent and there was no sustaining a conversation with him. We left the motel room shortly after, I brought back the key and paid the low price while Heero put the equipment in the back of his truck, covering it with a tarp. The pouring rain that had lasted all night had thankfully stopped and I hoped the drought would last, nothing is worse than stake-out while drenched. Before we left I used an alcoholic wipe, originally intended to clean glasses, to wipe my fingerprints off the wheel and door handles of my stolen truck. They had nothing to compare it with, but it's best not to be in the system at all. I stuffed the wipe in my jeans pocket, I would throw it out later and walked up to Heero's truck. He had chosen one of a more demure color and an older make. I stuck my tongue out at him when I noticed him already sitting in the front seat. I got into the passenger seat, slammed the door shut and questioned: "So you get to drive and you get to shoot." "My car, my rifle." Was his curt response, but with Heero you should consider yourself lucky for getting a response at all. The drive up to the location took several hours but seemed even longer due to the uncomfortable silence between us. Damn Heero for stealing a truck with a broken and unfixable radio. Of course we couldn't drive the car all the way up to the coordinates and park it in front of the estate that we were targeting. As Heero drove I plotted out the best route to take by foot and at my suggestion we parked the car at a roadside diner, away from the majority of the cars, shared the load of the bags and simultaneously worked to rid the inside of the vehicle from our prints and then we headed out into the woods, making sure no one saw us disappearing into the shadows of the tall trees. It was a three hour hike ending with a climb over a relatively steep hill. Occasionally it started raining softly, but each time it thankfully stopped. When we reached the apex of the hill we could faintly spot the shape of the mansion through the trees. It was at the other side, at the foot of the hill, lost in seclusion, with a single private gravel road leading up to it. We started down the hill and found an ideal location about a third of the way down, still at sufficient distance to go completely unnoticed. A landslide a long time ago had gathered earth up against large rocks, creating a level platform that had perfect view of the front of the mansion through a line of trees that completely hid us from sight and offered us some protection from the wind that sheered past the hill. We smeared our faces with dirt and pulled on thick, olive green coats, on top of which we put on our ghillie suits; previously constructed suits of twigs and leaves that were designed to disguise the shape of our bodies and resembled the surrounding nature so we could blend into the environment. Heero set up his rifle, roughly aiming the barrel at the front door through tall blades of grass that would allow it to go undetected. Our two remaining bags we hid in bushes a short distance back up the hill where we could pick them up during our escape. Once we had set up the way we wanted it, we lay down on the ground in the undergrowth on our stomach. Our pockets were stuffed with some additional supplies and equipment; food, water and our hand guns amongst other things. A stake-out mission always starts with a lot of adrenaline, wondering if someone is going to see you while you are setting up, wondering if someone is going to spot you after. But this adrenaline quickly fades. And when rain starts pouring in sheets of water, it's just really annoying. Our clothes were water tight, but drops still managed to seep through the open collar and get your exposed face so wet that it's hard to keep your eyes open with raindrops trailing down your eyelashes. "Where the fuck is he?" I grumbled after we had laid there for four hours and it was long past 19:00. "You're sure the email said 1900, right?" Heero asked, peering at the mansion through the scope of his rifle as he had been diligently for as long as we had been there. I tensed up briefly but then shook my head. I was absolutely sure, I had checked several times. Besides, Heero had checked his email too, he didn't trust me. Maybe, for once, I had given him reason not to. "He's just delayed." "Why are they always delayed when you are waiting to shoot them?" I muttered, picking up my binoculars and looking around the perimeter. Not a sign of life. "Maybe they sent us on a fake mission." Heero ignored me. "I know what you're thinking, "why would they send us on a fake mission?" Why indeed? I don't know, you tell me. Maybe they don't trust us. That's it, isn't it? They don't trust us? They probably think I'm a loose canon and you're-" I looked over at him, "a suicidal hand grenade." I looked through my binoculars again. Still nothing. "Hey, what do you say we trade the rifle for the binoculars every five hours? Keep ourselves on our toes." "No." "Why not? Why do you get to shoot?" I sulked. "Because last time, you shot and you missed." "I did not! I got him both times." "Exactly. You are supposed to kill the target with one shot. In the head. You shot him in the chest first, then in the head." "I did that on purpose..." I muttered, even though it wasn't true. I had been freezing and a shiver had almost caused me to miss the target entirely. Then I boosted: "How quick was that reload though?" "You kill on the first shot, so they don't know where the shot came from. The second shot gives away your position." Heero said as if he was reading it out of an instruction guide. He probably was, he had memorized all the Goddamned instructions and guidelines. I snorted. "They didn't know where we were." "Then how did you get shot?" "They were firing like madmen, they weren't aiming at anything! They just got lucky!" Heero didn't say anything but for some reason I think he thought: lucky indeed. More and more time went by, but still no activity. Heero kept staring through the scope, sometimes I wondered if he could sleep in that position and had been sleeping for several hours. He never responded to me, not even when I started to whistle or threatened to pee in my pants. Finally, I shimmied deeper into the forest to a private bush to relieve myself. When I returned and lay back down I got a squished pack of crackers out of my pocket. We had been there in the cold so long even those tasted good. It wasn't until I thought to myself "hey, the sun is rising" that I realized we had been there all through the night without result and time didn't stop. "This is just ridiculous." I sighed after even more time had passed. "How long have we been lying here, six weeks?" "Nineteen hours." Heero matter-of-factly supplied. "Right, like I said: for-ever! And we're still here, lying in mud that smells like wild boar shit, drenched down to our underwear and socks. So much for water-resistant clothing... You know what, I am writing a very strongly worded letter to the company that made these things." I put the binoculars down and reached into my suit to search my pockets. I pulled out a receipt from yesterday's lunch and a stub of a pencil. "Duo." "I'm writing!" I warned. I turned the receipt over and used the blank side to write. "Duo." "Shhh... I have a really good opening and I don't want to forget it. Ow!" I hissed when Heero's boot suddenly kicked against my shin. Hard. "What?" For the first time in nineteen hours - apparently - Heero turned away from the scope and he did it to dangerously glare at me before turning back again. I got the hint and picked up my binoculars, spotting two identical black cars coming up the road to the mansion. "Finally..." I followed the cars as they made their way up to the house and parked just to the side of it. It became clear rather quickly that the target wasn't arriving quite yet. Emerging from both SUV's were big men in black suits, some of them carrying impressive automatic assault rifles. They had arrived ahead of their detail to secure the location. It was always a matter of guesstimation how far ahead of their clients they would be, but at least their arrival assured us that the target would be showing up at some point in time. Adrenaline kicked in again. You never know for sure if you are hidden well enough. Even though Heero and I could talk as loudly as we wanted and we would still go unheard because of the distance, we both kept quiet. Not unusual for Heero, I admit. I even quieted my breathing, keeping my eyes mainly fixed on the men with the big guns. I tensed up when one of them got a big pair of binoculars out of the back of one of the cars and started scanning the surroundings, paying extra attention to the hill. Luckily, in case the binoculars had thermal imaging like mine had, my body temperature was so low and my suit so thick that even then he probably wouldn't see me. For a moment it seemed like he was looking right at us and my whole body felt electrified, but then he moved on again. When none of the men were looking towards the hill, we allowed ourselves the small movement of readying ourselves for an eminent sweep. I tucked the receipt, pencil and old wrapping of a cracker back into one of my pockets and I placed my binoculars underneath my chest. Heero wasn't idle either, he slowly pulled back the long rifle, tucking it under his body so it would disappear under his body, dressed in the ghillie suit. The guards were heading out into the woods in pairs of two to sweep the surroundings. We had no idea how large their perimeter would be, but in case they would come near us they still wouldn't be able to see us thanks to our disguising suits, unless they would get really close. Two sets of guards headed up the hill and it looked like they would pass on either side of us, one of the pairs would get dangerously close. We lay face down and relaxed our bodies in a comfortable position, you can't wiggle away a cramp in your leg when an armed guard is standing nearby, looking for you. The shape of my gun and the binoculars under my chest wasn't very comfortable, but it was necessary. In case they did spot us, we would have to be able to defend ourselves. We had to rely on sound to detect where they were and were never allowed to lose focus. If they were close we had to know exactly where they were so we could shoot them if necessary. Judging from the sound of rustling leaves and breaking twigs, the closest pair of the two passed us by on Heero's side, only approximately ten yards away from us. "Hey, what's that?" One of them suddenly called out, causing me to tense up. "Relax dude, it's just a deer." "Oh... Damn." "What?" "The deer is looking at me funny." "Maybe because she thought you screamed like a girl and almost shot it for no good reason. Like I did" "... I should shoot you both for that..." "Hey, would you say we're half a mile away from the house?" "And then some." "Cool. Let's head back." Slowly their footfalls became faint again. We both waited a long time before we raised our heads again. I got my binoculars out from under my suit and looked down at the mansion, the first thing I did was count the guards. They were all there and they appeared relaxed, talking to each other. One of them laughed, I think that one guy was telling the deer story. "Boy, are they going to get fired..." I mused, snickering. They proceeded to do an explosives sweep in and around the house. People must really want this engineer dead. The wait then continued. My stomach started to growl so hard I thought that they might be able to hear it all the way down at the house, so I dug out a granola bar. In the past 24 hours I had had way too many of those and it was hard finishing it, but it was the tastiest food we had. I offered Heero one as well, I didn't like eating alone, made the sound of my own chewing seem so loud. He didn't say thanks, he just took it, looking at me only briefly. Dusk drew in, the shadows of the trees grew darker and more ominous. At this point, I prayed that our target would take a little longer to arrive, so we could take advantage of the settling dark for our escape. "Hey, Heero?" "Hn." I put the binoculars down and looked at him, still peering through that scope. I wondered how on earth he hadn't gone cross-eyed yet, but I suppose when you are revered as the Perfect Soldier, your body can defy anything. "Look, I know I complain a lot... and I like getting on your nerves from time to time... but the truth is, I like going on missions with you." He didn't move a single muscle or say a single word in response. "I just wanted to say that..." I trailed off. "I don't even understand it myself, I mean, we don't have fun or anything and we don't talk a lot - well, I do, you don't - but I like being with you." I didn't know where that came from, but I knew it to be true. I didn't expect him to say anything in return, I didn't need him to. I had no intention of befriending him, I knew he would resist me every step of the way, but I wanted him to know that should he ever be interested, for some reason, I really did believe that we could be friends, if we let it happen. "And I guess I owe you an apology. Sorry for shooting you. Twice." He looked at me, he seemed a little surprised. It had been a long time since that day we first met and there had never been an apology for my actions before. I had never been sorry, till that night he saved my life and the words had been stuck in my throat ever since. I smiled at him. "You know Heero, I think that you are actually a really nice guy. You're simply very good at hiding it." The almost kind look on his face that I had been enjoying disappeared as he glared me and he snapped: "Could you please be quiet?" He turned away and looked through the scope again. "Sure thing, buddy." I picked up the binoculars again to resume spying on the house. As the world slowly went dark again, lights came on around the house, giving it a romantic feel, an ideal get-a-way in the woods. If you weren't about to be shot that is. For us the lights just made our job easier, we could see them clearly, but they could not see us. I focused my attention on the gap in the tree line where the gravel road appeared out of the forest. I turned my binoculars to night vision so I could observe. I estimated the hour to be around 21:00 when multiple sets of headlights came up the road and broke through the line of trees. I alerted Heero with a soft calling of his name and turned off the night vision before all the bright lights could blind me. Six headlights, three cars. They approached the mansion and came to a gentle stop right in front of it. The first man to came out, emerged from the first car and looked like another guard. He approached one of the guards at the door, holding an assault rifle to his chest and they conversed shortly. Once it was confirmed that the area had been cleared, the man that had come from the car talked into his sleeve and then all the doors of all the cars opened. Ten guards in formal tuxedo's stepped out, one of which opened the door for our target. The man was becoming of age, he was bald but his thick moustache was grey. Sadly for him, he wouldn't live long enough to see the sunrise again. Luckily for him, he would never know what hit him. "You got him?" I whispered to Heero. "Yes." I moved the vision field of my binoculars away from the man, up to the roof of the house where a flag with the family shield moved in the wind, then I looked back down and studied the rustling leaves of the rose bushes and noticed the ties of the guards moving in the wind. "Wind is 15 miles per hour. Direction... 40 degrees." I heard the ominous clicking as Heero slowly turned the settings of the rifle to adjust for the conditions. "Distance," I looked at the reading inside the view of my binoculars as I aimed it directly at the target, "2755 feet. 2-7-5-5... 2-7-5-7. He's walking up to the house. Bystanders are clear. Fire at will. 2-7-6-1... 2-7-6-4." I kept reading out the distance to Heero as he prepared for the shot. My voice was hushed so as not to disturb him in his concentration. In spite of the relative rough wind, the shot was easy enough for him, I've heard him mention a shot made at over two and a half miles and even though that sounds ridiculously impossible to me, I was inclined to believe him. But a sniper can never get arrogant. He has to make the shot, if he misses, reloading might offer them time to duck for safety and then the mission is a failure. The easier shot was hitting him right in the center of his head. But targets who get shot like that have the tendency to drop straight down and guards can easily deduce the direction of origin of the shot. In ideal conditions we had been taught to go for the temporal shot, either side of the head. This shot oftentimes causes the target to spin on his final decent to the ground and once he is down bystanders often don't remember exactly which way he was standing, making it more difficult to trace the shot. Also, with the size of the bullet we are firing, there is no risk of the target surviving a temporal shot, as is sometimes the case with smaller fire arms thanks to the marvels of modern medicine. They still don't have a cure for a hole in the side of your head the size of a grapefruit. In the view of my binoculars I watched the man, unbeknownst of anything, unbeknownst of his fate, make his way up to the house. I briefly felt sorry for him and for any relatives he may have. He may be up to no good, he was still someone's family, maybe a protective brother, or a doting uncle, maybe even a proud father. As I watched the man, I listened to Heero's breathing, calm and controlled, readying for the shot. It was strange the way my senses, visual and auditory, brought victim and assassin together in a way. It is a strange idea, knowing that the man you see is about to be shot by the man you hear. "Ready to get out of here?" Heero asked softly, indicating he had the shot and was about to take it. "Oh hell yeah..." He breathed in twice more and then the shot echoed down the face of the hill. The powerful recoil of the rifle pressed the stock into Heero's shoulder and I heard him groan right when I saw the bald man's head be covered in blood, flesh exploding outwards and I watched him spin and fall to the ground. The guards all reached for their guns but they had no clear sense of where the bullet had come from, the sound ricocheted off the hill, dispersing into every direction. One of them walked up to the man and checked for a pulse in his throat. When he shakes his head to the others, the kill is officially confirmed and Heero and I slowly crawl back. The guards would come looking for the killer and would surely head in, at least, our general direction, so we had no time to waste. Once we were deep between the trees we dared to stand to our feet and with bowed back we hastily walked back over the hill, stopping briefly to each pick up our own duffel bag, flinging them over our shoulders. As we cleared the top of the hill, I was already feeling victorious. We started making good speed and there was no way the guards would catch up with us as they were probably still combing the undergrowth on the other side. "Nice shot." I complimented between pants. "Which way?" Heero asked, ignoring my comment. "Over here." I lead the way and Heero followed. I had planned out a perfect escape route that would take us through the woods to an abandoned church just outside of a small town. It would be a hike that would last all night, but we had to cover a great distance to avoid being caught by possible road blocks in the aftermath of the assassination. It was a misty dawn, with dew droplets gathering everywhere, when I spotted the shape of the church through the tall trunks of the trees as the forest thinned. We both crouched down and scanned the area, when there was no life to be seen or heard for over ten minutes, we were satisfied that the coast was clear and we made our final approach, entering the old religious building through a creaking side door. Light poured into the chapel through the tall stain glass windows that depicted a multitude of biblical scenes. I looked up in awe, it was beautiful and it reminded me of a better time on L2. Heero was already stripping himself of his ghillie suit. Awe was not in the soldier's repertoire. I turned away as he fully undressed himself and quickly dried himself off with a small towel before dressing in regular civilian clothes. Shame was obviously also lost on him. And why wouldn't it be? He had a great body. I took his lead and also undressed, dried off and got into a simple pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a sweater and a wind jacket on top. I completed the look with a worn baseball cap of an American Football team. We stuffed our military clothes back into the bags and emerged from the church as casual as you please. If anyone caught us at this juncture, we could innocently pretend to be tourists who had traveled down to the remote Canadian woods for some deer hunting - we had to explain Heero's imposing rifle somehow. "Let's find ourselves a car." I said with a grin as we walked into the town. It was still early so there weren't many people out on the street. I had a feeling there never were, the town had a very abandoned feel to it. We snooped around for a few minutes and then found a small parking lot with a few cars. Most of the cars were new and looked like they were regularly used, but parked in the back was an old pick-up truck that looked like it hadn't moved an inch in several years. When I curiously tried the door handle I found that it wasn't even locked, the inside was covered in dust and the vehicle reeked terribly. I poked my head out and looked at Heero with a big smirk. "I think we have a winner." Luckily for me I was already at the driver's side, so there would be no arguing about who would get to drive this time. It's the small things in life. Heero walked around to the passenger side and got in, throwing his bags on the backseat. We used our sleeves to clean most of the dust off the dashboard to avoid suspicion and I hotwired the car, smiling when the engine sputtered to life. The poor thing didn't have much life left in it, but I was confidant in my abilities to fix anything that might get broken along the way. In complete silence I drove us to a small airport, parking the truck all the way in the back so it would go unnoticed for a long time. "So where are you headed?" I asked him. "Can't tell you." He said dutifully. "Right." I looked away. As soon as we got out of the car we were to pretend we never met and each go our own way. Each time we did that, I feared I would never see him again. Hopefully I would be proven wrong again. It are always the quiet ones that grow on you. We got out and grabbed our duffel bags, significantly lighter after we had dumped our ghillie suits and big green coats along the way. Heero's rifle was back in it's bag. "How are you going to get that thing on a plane?" "J sent me the right paperwork." "Ah." Fake paperwork. "So I guess this is goodbye." Heero quirked an eyebrow, he didn't understand my sentiment. He gave me a curt nod as a matter of goodbye and then walked away. I had watched him go and smiled. For some reason, that time, I was sure I would see him again. And I was right. I looked at the rifle on my work table, now fixed. I flipped open the report to the appropriate page and signed it. Another Duo Maxwell mechanical success story, I thought bitterly. Maybe, after all this time, I couldn't fool myself anymore. I couldn't fool myself into thinking that one day this regular existence would satisfy me. I had been able to do so for a long time, but now I stood neck deep in reality. And it stank. The day came to a thankful end. I was one of the few men to make use of the dressing rooms, feeling a little uncomfortable going all the way back home in a black overall that had my name on it. I was eager to get home so the line I had to join to come out the same way as we had gotten in moved horribly slow in my opinion. When I was finally outside, I felt a sense of freedom. That's not good, I noted. After the train ride I ran my way from the station to our apartment building. Not that I was so exuberantly eager to get home, but it was good to get my muscles working after a whole day of uncomfortably sitting on that stool, hunched over the tiny parts of a rifle. I opened the door and I called: "Honey, I'm home!" And Heero unexpectedly emerged from the kitchen, looking a little apologetic. I sniffed the air and scrunched up my face. "What's that smell?" He bit his lip. "I made dinner." My eyebrows raised in surprise. "Oh. Smells great." I lied, it smelled like something had been burnt terribly. "What did you make?" "Chicken and pasta." "Nice." I looked at the dinner table, it was set with plates but there was no food. I also noticed that the pans on the stove were empty, as the microwave appeared to be. "Where is it?" I inquired with a frown. Heero demonstratively stepped his foot on the pedal of the garbage bin, opening the lid. "Oh... Well that's okay. We'll just order something." I tried to console him as he looked terribly displeased with himself. "Heero, it's okay. It was only your first attempt, you'll get better at it. Or not!" I said with a chuckle. "God knows I haven't." "At least you don't burn everything." He grumbled. He released the pedal and the lid slammed shut. "Don't worry about it. I really like that you tried it." I leaned in and kissed him on his cheek. "Nettle told me to do it. She told me to do something "homey", she called it." "Really? Why?" He shrugged. "She said I should try it, to see if it gave me the same sense of accomplishment as when I complete a mission." He pointedly looked at the garbage bin. "I don't feel very accomplished." "Come on, buddy, it's not that bad." I approached him and hugged him but Heero was completely unresponsive. I petted his hair and kissed his brow. I was fully aware of my inadequacy at easing his feelings and self-loathing thoughts, but I was doing the best that I could, hoping that somehow that would be enough. I figured the best strategy to cheer him up was to remind him of a successful mission, so I told him about the mission I had been daydreaming about half of the day. "We were a pretty awesome team, right?" I said, releasing him. "We were successful." He dryly concluded. "Yeah. And we can be successful at anything we want to be. You'll see. It just takes some work. We didn't just magically know how to do those missions, did we? It took time and training. The same goes for cooking." "Right." He looked away, his eyes hooded, he seemed a little upset but didn't let me comment on it. "Let's just order. I'm hungry." "Sure thing buddy." I ran my hand through his hair, causing him to look up at me. I smiled at him, hoping to cheer him up. Heero offered me a small smile in return, but it seemed insincere. I ordered Heero's favorite, he looked like he could use some comfort food, and we had a quiet dinner at the table. Heero politely asked me about my day and I politely lied, claiming it to have been great. I didn't want to tell him the truth, that it had been awful and boring and had me thinking back to violent missions. I didn't want to give him yet another reason to think that those missions were the only things we were capable of. I wanted him to believe that he was free to choose whatever life he wanted, even as I myself started to doubt that.
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