GWML--here's the little thing I mentioned I was working on earlier. C&C
always welcome.

Note: KnM had one too many Dr Peppers before writing this. Standard fic
disclaimers apply--basically, don't sue me cause it ain't my fault and the
boys ain't mine, and we're all happy little yaoi hentais.

Warnings: Spontaneous combustion, gratuitous use of the word "weenie."
Relena bashing.


--
Katsu no Miko
A Wufei no Seishi
Duo's Grand Inquisitor and Head Torturer
Keeper of Duo's Stake and Mallet?? Duo's Browning .40 Hi-Power III???
(Or maybe) Keeper of Duo's angst???? (future generations will decide)
AND: Keeper of Ad's Sanity! (*snicker* What sanity?)

"Erst wenn die Wolken schlafen gehen/kann man uns am Himmel sehen/
wir haben Angst und sind allein.../Gott weiss ich wil kein Engel sein..."
(~Ramms+ein~)








Pyractomena Borealis Part II



The hot dog cart, which had been peacefully sitting not three meters away
from me, exploded in a giant fireball.

My first reaction was completely automatic. I threw myself back from the
explosion even as the heat of it washed over me, hit thr ground, rolled,
and scrambled away, staying as low as I could. I've been told before that
it looks kind of...well...cockroachy, but hey, any soldier worth his salt
knows to get away from an explosion as quickly as possible and to stay low
to avoid shrapnel. Better Duo the giant cockroach than Duo the human
pincushion that can't get through a metal detector even when naked. I was
behind the ice cream cart in less time than it took to blink.

The nice vendor lady was just standing there, staring at the flames. I
grabbed her and threw her to the ground, just in case. The moment she hit
the ground, she started screaming. It was like a signal. Everyone else
started to scream, too. Damn civilians. I mean, geeze, it was just a
flipping hot dog cart, for god's sake. Never mind that hot dogs are
normally not that combustive. At least it wasn't anything bigger.

Well, I guess it was kind of a compliment to us Gundam Pilots that the
civilians were so untouched by war that something so mild would freak them
out.

The ice cream girl was screaming even more loudly, and when I glanced over
at her, she was staring at me, not the merrily burning remains of the hot
dog cart. I had my knives out. Oh. I guess it was a good thing that I
hadn't brought my gun. God only knows what she would have done then. Passed
out or something, probably. As I shifted my grip on my knives and she
screamed even more loudly, I really wished she would pass out. I didn't
need a headache.

Something hit the bright white and red umbrella that was over head with a
soft, hollow thump. I looked up, ignoring the screaming girl in favor of
ascertaining if there was a new threat. Little bits of flaming hot dog were
raining down around the general area of the explosion, causing yet more
havoc among the civilians.

I'll admit it, my next reaction to the entire thing was a lot less than
professional. In fact, it was down right juvenile. As I watched the flaming
weenie bits falling majestically from the sky, I could only think of one
word to describe the whole situation.

"COOL!"

Ok, I guess you would've had to have been there.

My arms were grabbed roughly and I was spun around. One of my knives flew
out of my hand and skittered under the ice cream cart in a silver arc, but
I kept a firm hold on the other one, and it was pressed against the
grabber's throat even before my eyes had finished refocusing. I found
myself looking into a pair of intense blue eyes. Heero.

I quickly pulled the knife back, and his eyes narrowed slightly, flicking
downward to look at the silver blade for a moment. I looked down as well.

There was a faint red sheen on the edge of the blade, and blood was welling
up on Heero's throat in a thin line.

My eyes widened and I dropped the knife. "Oh shit, man, I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to..." I started babbling incoherently. I couldn't tell if he was
angry or not, but I was damn upset. It was just a little nick, but I'd done
it to Heero.

Heero gave me a firm shake that set my teeth rattling. "Stop apologizing,"
he said, "It's a good reaction. It'll keep you alive."

I shut up mid-word. He kept his iron grip on my arms, and I suddenly became
aware of just how close he was. Heero was abruptly the focus of my world,
the screaming girl and the crowd and the fire suddenly retreating until all
that was left for me was him and the pressure of his hands on my arms.
Blood was still welling slowly from the shallow cut I had made on his
throat. It was fascinating. The cool power inside me, the thing that lets
me wake the dead up, stirred sleepily in the place it normally hid in
during the day, deep in my gut.

I reached forward, and Heero relaxed his grip on my arms enough to let me
do so. His eyes were mirrors; I couldn't see what was going on in his head,
but that was no change. I barely touched the line of blood on his neck with
my fingertips, and his eyes widened at that, his breath suddenly catching
in his throat. I quickly pulled my hand back. There was blood on the tips
of my fingers, and for one freaky, irrational moment, I wanted to lick it
off, then lean forward and lap the blood from his neck, because he was
MINE, and press him back against the ground until--

"HEERO!" came a shrill cry.

I shook my head and quickly wiped my fingers off on my pants. Black's great
for not showing blood stains. I felt utterly disgusted with myself. What
the hell was that? I wasn't a freaking vampire or something, for god's
sake. Heero wasn't...Heero wasn't...

Damnit. I pulled my arms out of Heero's grasp and sat back on my heels,
still scrubbing my fingers on my pants as Relena appeared on the scene and
latched firmly on to Heero's arm.

"Heero, are you ok? What was that?" she was babbling, and she was doing it
even faster than me, which was a major achievement. But hey, you win some,
you lose some. She'd never beat me where it counted. All I had to do was
check down the front of my pants and keep telling myself that...

If only. Who the hell knew which way Heero was bent? If any. Maybe his idea
of sex was binary fission or something.

I felt around under the cart until I found the knife I had dropped. That
went into one of the wrist sheathes. The other knife was still laying on
the grass with Heero's blood on it. I didn't really want to pick it up, but
I did anyway. That got wiped off on my pants as well. I've lost count of
the number of sheathes I've ruined by putting a dirty blade back in them.
This was only a little blood, but all it took was a teeny bit to gum up the
works and make it impossible to draw the knife.

"Heero! What happened to your neck?" Relena explained. "You're bleeding!"
Hoo boy. There were people running around, having hysterics and afflicted
with third degree weenie-burns, and she was acting like a tiny little cut
was the end of the world. Never mind that I'd been acting like that too.
THAT was a different matter entirely. Yeah.

"What happened?" There was a white paper napkin blowing along the ground,
presumably an escapee from the mini inferno still going on just a few
meters away. Relena grabbed the napkin and tried to blot at the cut on
Heero's throat. Heero easily fended her off and shot me an unreadable
glare. "Did HE do this??" Relena demanded, shooting me a glare as well, but
hers was eminently readable. I know the fires of hell when I see them.
Either that, or it was flames reflected from the weenie cart. Not sure
which.

Damn, I was just stepping on everyone's toes...

Heero transferred his glare to Relena. "Go home." he said, effectively
ignoring her question. Thank you, Heero. I didn't want to deal with a
pissed off Relena.

"What? Why? I don't want to leave you when you're hurt!"

Needed a reason...I glanced at Heero. He wasn't talking, apparently, so I
jumped in. "Too dangerous, Ojou-san." I inserted myself deftly between her
and Heero, intercepting the napkin she was still attempting to attack
Heero's neck with. Sometimes I am just too smooth. "Leave the exploding,"
somehow I managed to keep a straight face, "hot dog carts to the
professionals. We wouldn't want you to get hurt or anything like that.
Right, Heero?"

Heero blinked. Good enough for me.

"What?" Relena stopped. "Was that aimed at me?"

Not a chance in hell. Even if you ignored the fact that she was nowhere
near it when it exploded, explosions are simply too unreliable to be an
assassination tool when they're that small. Not that I was going to tell
her that. I smiled and nodded. "You're the most visible person there. It
must have been for you." I've found out from long time experience that
flattery is one of the most effective means of manipulation around.

That gave her pause. "One of the war mongers?" she said incredulously. "You
think someone's trying to kill me?"

I wanted to say 'there's a line forming right now' but I didn't. See? I'm
getting better at controlling my mouth. Instead, I nodded. "Anyone that
doesn't want peace is going to be after you. It's not safe for you to be
here."

"Go home." Heero said again.

Relena bit her lip and looked over my shoulder at Heero. "But..."

"This is no place for you. Go home." Heero said again.

Relena nodded reluctantly. I love how she listens to Heero's one word, rude
responses, and acts like I don't exist...and I'm a hell of a lot nicer than
Heero. As much as I like him, he's a taciturn little SOB at the best of
times. "I understand, you're worried about me." Relena smiled.

Yeah. Real worried about her. If she stuck around much longer, I might just
give in to temptation and kill her.

"I'll come and find you again! I'm sorry that our afternoon was ruined. I
know you must be upset." she said, standing up.

"Go. Now." I made a shooing motion. "You know how Heero hates long
goodbyes." Oooh, I was going to pay for that one. I could feel his glare
boring into my back.

"Goodbye, Heero..." she slowly backed away, then turned reluctantly and
kept walking. Thank God.

As soon as Relena was out of earshot, Heero grabbed my arms again and
jerked me around to face him. We were almost nose to nose. He glared at me.
Oh shit. "Sorry, I was just trying to get her to go away, please don't kill
me...er...what?"

Heero slowly raised one of his eyebrows, his look, if anything, increasing
in its crustiness. "Leave the exploding hot dog carts," he said, his
slightly nasal voice incredulous, or at least as incredulous as it get for
him, "to the professionals?"

I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. "Sorry, man, it was the best I
could come up with at the time, you know?"

Heero actually smiled...well...smirked as I kept laughing. I wished that
he'd do that more often. That little smirk of his is pretty damn sexy.

Abruptly, the smirk disappeared and his hands tightened, his fingers
digging into my upper arms. I stopped laughing and did my best not to
wince. "Are you alright?" he asked.

I nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "Perfectly fine. It takes a little more
than a couple exploding wieners to hurt me. I mean come on, man!"

His eyes narrowed. "Did you...?"

"Of course not!" I said indignantly. "Give me SOME credit! If I wanted to
cause havoc, I could do a lot better job than this!"

"Sorry." he muttered.

"Heero?"

"Aa?"

"I can't feel my arms."

He got the hint and let go. I sat back quickly on my heels and rubbed my
upper arms, trying to restore a little blood flow. I had a feeling that I
was going to have bruises there tomorrow. "Geeze, what's gotten in to you?"
I muttered. It just wasn't like Heero to grab me like that. It was kind of
disconcerting, when I thought about it. Then again, maybe it meant that he
was worried. That was a nice prospect.

I glanced over the ice cream cart for a moment. The fire was still going. A
quick check around revealed that the vendor lady from this cart had split a
while back...funny, I hadn't noticed. It had probably been when I was
dealing with Relena, so understandable. I popped up to my feet and opened
the little freeze doors on the top of the ice cream cart. "Ne, Heero, what
do you want? Looks like there's plenty of everything left?"

He was standing next to me almost instantly, peering down into the depths
of the little freezer. Cool air washed out of it, and it felt good. My
shirt was starting to stick to my body, I was so sweaty. The situation
wasn't helped, of course, by the fire.

"What are you doing?" Heero asked.

"Getting some ice cream. What does it look like?" I found the metal ice
cream server and helped myself to a double scoop of espresso and chocolate
on a waffle cone. Yum. "I lost my other cone when that," I gestured toward
the flaming wreck, "exploded."

"Hn." Heero commented. "Do they have any cookie dough?"

"Lemme check. Yep." I plopped a couple scoops of ice cream in a cone and
handed it to him. We stood there for a minute and licked at our ice cream,
watching the little wreck flame away. It was kind of pretty, in a weird
way. But then again, considering that we're Gundam Pilots, nothing is too
weird. This was like nothing. Later, I knew, I'd go over the entire scene
mentally, and try to figure out what the hell happened, and let my
suspicious imagination have free reign with the entire scenario. But for
now, I was content to just stand in the melting heat next to Heero and eat
my ice cream and watch someone's livelihood go merrily up in flames. Simple
pleasures are the best kind.

I could hear sirens in the distance. Sounded like the fire trucks were
finally coming. "Man, took them long enough, didn't it."

Heero checked his watch. "Aa."

I nibbled on my waffle cone. "What's this world coming to?" I asked
everyone in general.

"HEY! What the hell do you kids think you're doing?" A voice demanded
loudly. As one, Heero and I turned. A very angry, very large man was
storming toward us. I had a feeling that he was the guy that owned the ice
cream cart.

"Sounds like they're playing our waltz, ne?"

"Aa."

We took off running, ice cream cones still in hand.

***

Later that night, after I'd taken a nice long, COOL shower to wash all the
sweat off of my body, I cam out of the bathroom to discover that the room
had been turned inside out. Heero was sitting on the floor with every gun
in our arsenal arrayed on the floor around him. He was cleaning and loading
all of them.

I didn't have to ask why. I already knew. As non chalantly as we'd played
it this afternoon, exploding things weren't standard fare for us when we
were off the job. So I straightened the mattress back on my bed and sat
down, toweling my hair off. I had to carefully cross my legs at the ankles
to keep from flashing; the towel I had wrapped around my waist was way too
short, and I didn't think Heero would really care if I flashed--though God
only knows that I hoped that he would care, in the voyeuristic sense--a
guy's still got to have a few manners. I watched him fiddle with the guns
for a couple minutes before I finally got tired of the silence. "Well?" I
said.

"Aa?"

"It wasn't an explosive device. The way it went up wasn't right."

"I've come to the same conclusion."

"So...it could have been something natural." I offered, combing my fingers
through my wet, clinging hair to get the worst knots out.

"It could have been. The internal gas tank in the cart might have been
leaking."

"But you don't think that's what it was."

"No." Heero set the gun he was working on to the side for a moment and
glanced back at me. He raised his eyebrow slightly. My turn to say
something again.

"You don't think it was natural, at all."

"Aa."

"I don't think it was either." I crossed my arms across my still damp
chest. "I don't know what it was, but I don't like it. I have a bad feeling
about this entire thing."

"So do I."

"I already mentioned it to Quatre and Wufei and Trowa. They're all on
alert." I sighed. "So much for relative normalcy."

The only answer I got was the crisp metallic sound of a clip shooting home.






***Lemme explain my characterization of Relena in this fic real quickly.
Since everything is from Duo's perspective, it's all colored by what he
thinks and feels about each person; so therefore, Quatre is a bit more of a
little brother type than I'd normally write him, and Relena is...well...you
saw...because Duo isn't fond of Relena, she'll come out worse than normal.
^^ So don't kill me.


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