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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 "
Heero and I had both been silent since that morning. Usually I would have started up a meaningless conversation just to get some grunts and nods out of him, but I didn't trust my voice with words, afraid of what more stupid things could fall out. I wouldn't call it an epiphany, but my innocent little comment whispered under the spray of the gym's shower, had gotten me thinking. Only it had gotten me thinking about things I didn't want to think about. I was suddenly seeing Heero and our relationship in a different light. The light had been tilted and from this new angle it illuminated aspects of us that had previously been in the dark. Shadows shifted away from aspects that may have better stayed in that dark a little while longer, away from our own - and everybody else's - prying eyes. Maybe those things I had deemed abnormal, weren't abnormal at all, just not relevant to the kind of relationship I had convinced myself that we were in. In hindsight, constantly thinking about him, worrying about him, always looking at him - even when he's in the shower! - and not being able to sleep without him, started looking a lot like a sincere crush. But he's Heero, I told myself with a scoff, Heero is asexual. When I look at him, dressed in clothes I picked out for him or naked as the day he was born, I didn't think about sex. All I thought about was him and how grateful I was to have him with me and how proud I was of both of us for coming this far, in peace time, together. So I didn't understand how the two added up. A crush, if that's what it is, should involve thoughts of sex too, shouldn't it? My confusion and inner qualms were apparent on my face, but Heero was an illiterate in facial expressions. He didn't catch my change in demeanor and my uncommon silence. On one hand I felt comforted by that, I wasn't in any state of mind to be dealing with his "Why?" and "I don't understand". I had a lot of questions I needed to answer for myself first, a lot of things that I had yet to understand. On the other hand, I felt disappointed that he either didn't notice or couldn't be bothered, perhaps even grateful for the rare pause in my incessant speaking. I could reason that my affection - call it a crush, call it whatever - for Heero was only a natural consequence of fighting a war together, being forced to trust each other with our lives, and now exposing ourselves to one another in our most vulnerable state: without missions, without goals, without purpose. A human coping mechanism against loneliness, latching onto the one person that is there and knows you and knows what you have been through. But that sounded so clinical and demeans so much of my feelings to psychological processes that can be reduced to statistics and formulas - if X than Y. I hated being reduced to anything that wasn't me, let alone statistics. Moreover, it was unjust towards Heero, he is my friend and he deserves to have me feel these things such as trust, comradeship and concern, without it being pulled apart and left without meaning. The problem of rejecting the purely post-war, psychological approach, was embracing the concept of a romantic infatuation, maybe even love. After all, I had already come so far as admitting that I love him as a friend. Can someone you love as a friend, really turn into a non threatening infatuation? A crush that will burn brightly like a jet fuel fire but be doused in a matter days? If you love someone as a friend, you can only move up from there, right? Not reduce him to a school girl's puppy love. I put my cup of coffee on the window sill to rub my temples and try to ease away a sudden head ache. I was in my head too much, thinking about it too much, making too big a deal out of it. I felt exhausted and drained, not up for a long day at school, but I had no choice. I refused the idea to call in sick. Gundam pilots don't call in sick, especially when we're not really sick. I smiled as I remembered a certain school infiltration with Heero. We had snuck out of our dorm rooms in the middle of the night to intercept an escorted Ozzie caravan. We couldn't use our Gundams, even my stealthy Deathscythe could be heard from miles away, besides, the mission required more finesse. When the convoy passed a line of trees that had branches reaching over the road, in which we had been hiding, we jumped onto the last truck. With his pocket knife Heero cut open the canvas and jumped in ahead of me. By the time I had moved over and followed him inside, the two soldiers had already been expertly silenced, without the driver ever noticing. We stripped the two soldiers, who had a similar built to ours and donned their uniforms. Using their coms we called in a disturbance and the whole caravan came to a halt. Before anyone could see we dragged the unconscious soldiers out of the truck and hid them in the thicket by the road. All around us Ozzie's started scouring the grounds, anxiously aiming their weapons at every rustle in the trees. Heero and I moved forward, no one even noticed us. In the center of the caravan was an armored SUV. Casually as you please Heero and I opened the doors and slipped inside, flanking the man in the suit in the back of the car. "Is everything alright, soldiers?" The man was peering through the tinted windows, obviously on edge, not threatened by us. "Everything is fine sir." I laid my hand on his shoulder. In a flash quick as lightening, Heero leaned forward and wrapped his arms tightly around the driver's neck. The man struggled to reach for his com to call in the attack, but as his hand reached for his pocket, I heard something snap and the driver went limp. Heero sat back in his seat. The man in between us begged us not to hurt him. I promised him we wouldn't, looking at Heero. "All we want are the codes." I told him in a quiet, non threatening voice. The man had been surprised. "The codes?" He suddenly cackled. "As soon as the soldiers notice what has happened they'll call head quarters and they will change the codes. They will be useless." "Not for approximately four minutes." Heero interjected. "Plenty of time." I said with a smirk, confident in Heero's skills. His laptop we had hidden under a bush along our escape route. Before the codes would be changed Heero would have downloaded all the information necessary to complete our mission: OZ transportation schedules. We expected the organization to be cocky enough not to change the schedules, even after the security breach. Like the man in the suit, they would deem the time frame too short. With trembling hands the man opened the briefcase in his lap. Figuring I was the one in charge, being the talkative one, he turned to me and handed me a small disc. I took the disc from him and authenticated it, keeping the man's attention focused on me as I gave Heero a nod. My partner's hands went for the neck of the unsuspecting man. The man felt nothing, just like the driver hadn't. He did it quick, to uphold our promise. We had no choice but to kill him, it would give us more time to escape and access the OZ database. Unfortunately, as we exited the SUV, soldiers in the back had discovered the undressed soldiers and all of a sudden we were suspiciously young for Ozzies and stood out. Without hesitation they opened fire on us, without verification of our ID, we could have just as easily been real OZ soldiers, but like we knew they wouldn't, they did not care. Bullets grazed us both as we escaped into the forest. OZ soldiers had a lousy aim, being granted the uniform after dangerously minimal training, but one had managed to get lucky. Running behind Heero I saw the back of Heero's uniform get red. That night I plucked the bullet out of his body with a long set of tweezers designed for the purpose. All the while Heero never made a sound, laying flat on his stomach, almost relaxed as I prodded inside the wound. The next day - rather: three hours later, because we had gotten back so late - Heero joined me in class, never complaining, even as the wound was agitated during P.E. During every break that day, we snuck into a restroom stall together and I would redress the still quite heavily bleeding wound, so the blood wouldn't soak through and become visible through his shirt. Even though Heero was injured, I remembered it as an especially successful mission and a good day. I had enjoyed the closeness Heero had allowed me. Though of course he only did so for the sake of future missions. If Heero could go to school with a bleeding bullet wound, I could go to school with a little heartache. Behind me the bedroom door opened and Heero stepped out, dressed to go to work. "Good morning." I said. The past few days my morning greeting had been all I said to him all day. He nodded, which made me happy, because it was more of a return greeting than I had ever gotten. Heero went to work and I went to school. I had the idea that we both dreaded it that day. I did because of my unanswered questions that gnawed at my insides. And Heero probably did because Lady Une had announced a team building day. I smiled at the scowl with which he left. I showered some of my doubts away, feeling comforted under the warm spray and enjoying washing and rinsing my hair. "I swear I was a dog in my previous life." I mused, enjoying my hands, moving with their own will, as they stroked my scalp. I had taken so much time under the shower that I had to hurry getting dressed if I didn't want to be late. I arrived at school just in time for the bell and sat down in mister Ducette's English class. I was surprised to see Sookie wasn't there. In the time that I had known her, she had never been sick and never missed a single class. But of course, we can't all be Gundam pilots and take up our responsibility with bleeding wounds, broken bones and cold fevers. When I headed for the biology lab later that day, someone suddenly latched onto my arm. I had expected to see Sookie, but instead I saw a golden face, wavy, black hair and dark eyes. "Hey... Aiden." I was immediately uncomfortable. "Hi, Duo." She quipped back. "How's your friend, Heero?" It startled me that she brought it up. It had had the appearance that she had been avoiding me ever since we ran into each other at the gym. "He's fine." "Good!" We headed into the biology lab for class and though she normally sat several rows in front of me, she chased away the girl that occupied the table next to mine and sat down there. "I'm having a party next week, do you want to come?" "I don't-" "Please?" She interrupted, leaning in towards me. Her position allowed for an obscene view into her blouse, but I got the impression that that was intentional. "You can bring Heero too. He's hot." She added with a smile. She invited strangers to her own house on the bases of their attractiveness? That didn't seem like a sound selection process. "Heero doesn't really like that sort of thing." I didn't say anything else, I wasn't about to confide in her that he was a social recluse and that I wasn't much better. "Oh?" She drawled and a sultry smile appeared on her lips. "What does he like?" The question seemed innocent enough, but her tone gave it a vulgar insinuation. "He just doesn't like parties. Neither do I actually." I looked away, hoping that that would be the end of it. "No! You have to come," she whined - very Relena-like -, "My parents are gone for the weekend, it will be great!" "Class is starting." I hissed. "Promise me you'll come." She whispered back. I didn't respond. "Promise!" She said louder. "I promise... I'll think about it." I finally answered, knowing it was the only way to get her off my back. How I would eventually fight my way out of going, I didn't know yet. My answer pleased her. With a nod she sat back in her seat and opened her biology text book. "Today," The teacher said, his voice echoing through the sterile room, "We are going to start with the new chapter: Human reproduction. Starting with the human reproductive system. Everyone-" The teacher reached under his desk and slammed two anatomic models down onto the surface.,"- meet mister Penis and misses Vagina." The whole classroom roared with laughter, but I just groaned. Great, I thought, that's not uncomfortable at all. Mister Penis was a model of the erect human "manhood" that could be split through the middle to view the internal structure. Misses Vagina was a model of the female genitals that could be completely dismantled. More laughter sounded when the teacher tilted the female model and the end of her clitoris came off and rolled away, off the desk, across the floor, to, as luck would have it, one of the most loud mouthed jocks in school. He picked the ball up from the floor, proudly held it up in the air and yelled: "I found it!" More hard laughter. The jock turned in his seat and purposefully looked at a girl - one of the cheerleaders - in the back that everybody knew to be his ex-girlfriend and he added with a grin: "And you said I never would." Another roll of laughter drowned out the girl's colorful comeback. The teacher tried to restore order, shouting at the top of his lungs and taking the clitoris form the boy. "Settle down everyone. Settle down. Open your books on page 523 and read the first paragraph while I try to fix... this..." He fumbled with the plastic ball. I didn't have any trouble reading through the material, but all around me I heard childish giggles and whispers. Sometimes it was easy to forget how different I was from the other kids, I looked just like them and seemed to fit in just fine, at other times, like these, it became painfully obvious how much I differed from them, how much I had matured beyond them. A plastic clitoris rolling over the floor doesn't amuse me and the pictures of the naked men, women and children of both sexes, to illustrate the development of secondary sexual organs, didn't make me want to share dirty jokes with my neighbors. It were just bodies. There was nothing funny or weird about it, there was only functionality. I sounded like Heero, but that was how I viewed the human physique. I was able to appreciate it objectively, admire it's functions, it's healing abilities, neither the man nor the women - and thankfully neither the children - brought sex to my mind. Finishing the paragraph and taking notice of the commotion around me, I wondered if that was yet another thing about me "abnormalized" by the war. Though seriously, I wasn't supposed to find these unflattering photographs of not particularly pretty individuals attractive, was I? The class continued, covering all the basics of the human reproductive system. During his speech the teacher got many more uncalled for laughs and chuckles. Every time the words "penis", "vagina" or "intercourse" rolled of his tongue, chaos ensued. When the bell rang and the class was over I didn't take as much time to pack my bag as I usually did, even though, with Sookie apparently absent, I had no one waiting for me in the cafeteria. "Sookie is sick, right?" Aiden asked, standing by my table as the classroom around us drained of it's students. "Yeah, I guess." She quirked an eyebrow. "You don't know?" I shrugged, how was I supposed to? I didn't talk to Sookie outside of school. "Well, you can sit with me." I stood up and flung my bag over my shoulder, gripping at the shoulder strap uneasily. "No, that's fine. Thank you." "Come one, you don't want to sit all alone, do you?" Actually, that was fine by me. "I've got to go to the bathroom." I excused myself and hurried off, practically diving into the men's room, just around the corner. I waited for a few minutes, till the hall grew silent and then I cautiously opened the door and checked to see if the coast was clear. No one was there. I didn't know what it was about Aiden - perhaps her open sexuality - that made me so uncomfortable, but something did. I didn't want to insult her and consequently alienate myself from the entire school community by blatantly blowing her off, but her advances were most unwelcome. I wasn't interested in her that way, which I thought to be pretty obvious, yet it seemed difficult to convey that to her and to convince her that she's not irresistible to everyone - an idea that was overtly stuck in her head. I went outside through a backdoor, bypassing the main hallway that opened up to the cafeteria. As nearly always the case, with the summer months closing in, the weather was good. The sun shone brightly and I figured I might as well have my lunch outside, picking a seat in the grass under a tree in the shade. I didn't care much for the sun, my sensitive skin burned easily, used only to the fluorescent lights of the colonies, which mimicked sunlight but with much less UV radiation. I worked my way through a simple lunch: bread with peanut butter. I loved peanut butter, it was the only food I genuinely had a taste for, but I detested it in combination with jelly. I didn't understand what that was all about, though hesitantly thinking it was an idea sprouted from earthian greed and indecisiveness. Sitting in the silence, watching two guys toss a football back and forth a few yards away from me, I realized I missed Sookie. I wondered how much information I could trust her with. I supposed we really weren't friends until she knew me and I knew her, but to really know me, I would have to tell her about the war and my role in it and what I have done, for no reason other than blind faith in mad scientist. I didn't want to talk about that. That's why it was so much easier to be with Heero. He inherently knew, he had lived my life, maybe an even more gruesome version of it. It was easier, it was. Now it was getting harder, as I struggled to understand my feelings for him. The more I tried to fight it and come up with counter arguments, the more blatantly obvious it became that there was something dysfunctional about our relationship. It was like we were precariously balanced on a scale and a heavy weight had started to tip the scale and we were sliding across the line that separated friendship from something else entirely. I didn't know what "something else entirely" was, I didn't dare to call it love. I had never experienced love and therefore had no guidelines, no comparisons, moreover it could be questioned if both Heero and I were even capable of love. We were damaged people after all. I didn't even know if "something else entirely" was a bad or a good thing, if I should fight it, or embrace it, if it would make us, or break us. I just knew something was happening, something within me shifting towards it. I didn't have many friends, but the intensity of my feelings for Heero shadowed my feelings for Quatre, Trowa, WuFei and Sookie. Everything paled in comparison. That means something, right? I asked myself, so confused. All my efforts to try and figure it out proved to be feckless. I was still as lost as I was after coming to my startling conclusion in the shower at the gym. I wish I had someone to turn to, like Heero sometimes turned to me. Someone to ask "Why?", someone to say to: "I don't understand". Heero - though my only true friend - wasn't that person, he couldn't even figure out the his own demons that were troubling him. I suddenly found myself missing Quatre, though that made me feel like I was betraying Heero. But Quatre always seemed to know what to say and what to do. Always the right thing. I decided I was going to Relena's ball, whether Heero was going or not. Though she still hadn't "cordially invited" me, I trusted she wouldn't embarrass herself by trying to send me away once I was on her doorstep, on the technicality of a missing invitation. After all, that was supposed to be accidental. It was very un-gundam-pilot of me to do, but I skipped school the rest of the day to wander around town. I didn't go back to the apartment until it was time for me to start working on dinner. I had nothing waiting for me at home but daytime television and it was common knowledge that I'd be just setting myself up for disappointment if I went home for that. I found myself a seat in the park by the water and watched an elderly woman feed the ducks leftover bread, she broke it into tiny bits and gingerly threw it into the water, where the birds fought over every piece, making the lady smile. Then five boys playing soccer caught my attention, with their uneven number it didn't seem like they were playing the game in the way it was intended, just kicking the ball around and fighting each other for it, laughter roared out of their small bodies. Beyond them a young couple was sitting in the grass, tenderly kissing each other, they looked like they had also skipped school, but not to ponder their lives, as I was. I felt envious of the kids, the young couple - so shamelessly and openly in love - and even the old woman, because I was never like that and I never would be. War changes people irreversibly, all that I can still have hope for, was acceptance of my differences by both myself and the society. I would always be different from the way they were, are and will be. If they were the standard by which to measure ourselves, I wasn't normal, for I wasn't anything like them. I privately smiled a sad smile. "I'm something
else entirely."
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