Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine, never has been. It’s really not worth your while to sue me. You might come up with some as-of-yet-unreturned library books, my gross, unwashed, and torn 90-degree-weather work clothes and an obnoxious collection of pennies. Attempts to flame me will probably be countered by hysterical laughter at the silly people who think that they know how the world works better than I do. However, C&C is welcome to [email protected]
Notes: While pointlessly conversing one evening, Kitsune no Miko and I came up with the beginnings of this idea. For a full explanation, email one of us… if you dare. It grew from there and this is the result of our ideas. This fic can be considered the prologue to her fic_______ (should she ever finish AND title it). It can also be a stand-alone fic. In any case, this is the result of two fanfic authors with very different personalities making fics out of the same conversation. Forgive us our sins; we thought it was very amusing. I would like everyone to remember that at this time, Duo and Heero are fifteen, regardless of the fact that they do happen to be two of the most effective terrorists (technically I suppose that’s what they are) the world has ever seen. Thoughts and occasionally an emphasized word are in italics.
Warnings: Fluff, AU (sorta)
Duo sat on the kitchen counter staring at the fridge door. Or more specifically, the note on the fridge door. “Need oil and ammo. Don’t touch stuff.” Huh, what kind of a note is that? Shinigami’s angels, I am sooo bored. Finished maintenance on Deathscythe-Hell last night. House is as clean as it’s going to get. Can’t call Q-man. He’s off on some recon mission. Trowa would just look at me. Fei… nuh uh. Not happening. Not in this lifetime. I swear the guy’s going to be a loner stuck on injustice forever. Duo stared at the fridge a bit longer, momentarily torn between cooking Nah, did plenty of that already. Too much food stored away anyway. and doing the forbidden. Well, Heero is just asking for it, leaving a note like that. Didn’t even say when he’d be back. Hmph.
With that thought in mind, Duo made his way to the room they were currently sharing in the small apartment. There were plenty of things he could touch without worrying about harm heading his way… then again, with Heero, you just could never tell. Well, Duo decided he might as well carry through with his plans, regardless of the possible consequences. Heh, I always did live for the moment.
Starting small, Duo decided to peruse Heero’s drawers. The only things in sight in the top drawer were a couple of tanks tops, some spandex shorts and a pair of jeans. Curious as to how Heero managed to hide a pistol as well as numerous other things in his shorts without any of it showing, [1] Duo quickly and cautiously examined a pair. There was nothing to indicate that Heero could keep things so inconspicuously. Nothing. I swear the guy rips a hole in the time-space continuum to store things in not-space. Reminder to self; find out how he does it. Next! In the second drawer, Duo found some extra discs and batteries for the laptop, as well as the computer itself. He also noted a couple of items that would be handy to have to construct explosives with. Well, that was to be expected. Knowing Heero, Duo next decided to make sure the dimensions inside the drawers matched the dimensions on the outside. Nothing new came to light as they were just ordinary bureau drawers. Damn. Nothing interesting there. Who woulda guessed that Heero’d have everything in plain sight… well plain sight as long as you’ve got the drawers open.
Decidedly not finding anything of particular interest in Heero’s drawers, Duo left the room a bit frustrated. There was only so many times you could watch the reruns of old movies on the television. Especially when they were B rated horror movies. However, that seemed to be the remaining thing left for Duo to do. Well, in all honesty, it was that or the godawful infomercials. Ok, so maybe the ancient horror movies weren’t all that bad. Maybe he could even find something halfway decent like Scream or not so decent like Friday the 13th: The Series. [2]
After channel surfing for twenty minutes, Duo turned the TV off. There just wasn’t anything worth watching. He hadn’t ever counted on being this bored in an apartment during the middle of the afternoon before. It just didn’t happen. Normally he was stuck being bored in some class in yet another boarding school. Or he could be pestering Heero while he was working on his laptop. But nnnooo, he was stuck here, alone in this hell hole-
The laptop! I didn’t even think to see what Heero’s got there. Maybe he’s got solitaire or something else that would be more interesting and better than staring at the wall. Ooh, that’s a funny thought... Heero the solitaire addict. Duo’s thoughts had taken a turn toward the mischievous, and he was well on his way to the small bedroom. Or maybe it’s Heero the hentai… “Yeah right, Duo, get a grip.” He spoke aloud to himself, trying to bring his mind back to reality.
In the room, Duo opened the drawer containing Heero’s laptop. Before removing anything, he took care to notice where everything was. Duo had noticed Heero was especially protective of his laptop recently. Somehow, that just didn’t make much sense. It could be replaced after all. Crazy “perfect” soldier anyway.
Sitting on the bed, Duo opened the laptop and was surprised to discover it was already booting up, as if it had anticipated and responded to Duo’s thoughts. He was not as surprised as he might have been. Duo could never tell what Heero was working on when he stayed up until the early hours of the morning working on the damn thing anyway. There was just a slight whisper of keyboard noise. This must be the reason Heero had been so protective of the laptop; he was working on a program to reduce the amount of time that it would take to boot the computer up in emergency situations.
Happy to have decided what Heero’s most recent obsession was, Duo continued with what he was doing. It took him no longer than thirty seconds to determine that Heero definitely did not have solitaire or any other game on his laptop. There went that idea. Well, there were still programs that could be looked at. Maybe he could even find the programming that made the laptop start booting up as soon as it was open and tweak it for Deathscythe-Hell. Hey, now there was something that would keep him busy for a while.
Duo quickly scanned the programs on Heero’s laptop. “Media naranja” [3] There’s something that looks promising. I didn’t know that Heero knew any Spanish. I’m amazed I remember any of it. The file’s pretty big too. Must be something special. Heero didn’t just give files a Spanish name. Nope, didn’t happen.
His next action was to attempt to open the file seeing as how there was no other way to find out exactly what it was. Duo doubted the file name, even if he could remember what the Spanish meant, would tell him much. Heero may not be as perfect as everyone else thought he was, [4] but he was damn intelligent enough that he wasn’t going to give away his programming by the name he gave it.
As he was musing over the file name, Duo wasn’t paying as much attention to the next few things came onto the screen of the laptop. In fact, he completely missed them because they were intended to be missed unless they were being watched for. Due to this, he also missed some important security Heero had written into the program. Oops. The laptop needed only a few more seconds to process…
“Itai! What in Shinigami’s Hell…?” Saying he was surprised and annoyed would have been the understatement of the week… wait, no, better make that of the month. Heero’s laptop had attempted to firmly close itself onto Duo’s hand. “What the fuck did Heero do to this damn thing?”
He gave himself a moment to calm down. “Ok, now what do I do with this? That, whatever it was, seems to be some sort of built in security and protection system.” It occurred to Duo that there was little or nothing he could do to prevent the laptop from repeating its unexpected behavior. All he could do would be to attempt to erase whatever was left in the system to indicate any activity on the laptop. “Better get to work.”
It quickly became apparent to Duo after removing the battery and restarting the laptop that he could erase all of his activities except the forage into media naranja. Well, he could just hope that Heero wouldn’t notice and do the best he could, right?
After taking care of what he could, Duo shut the laptop down, relieved that he had accomplished as much as he had so quickly. Taking care to replace the laptop exactly as it had been in Heero’s drawer, Duo sighed quietly. There were some days he just wouldn’t be able to win, but that didn’t mean that Shinigami lost either!
[1] Not THOSE you hentai!
[2] Yes, it does exist. While channel surfing one night, I came across an advertisement for it.
[3] Better half
[4] I don’t know the episode number (anime, not manga), but remember when Duo tells all the other pilots that Heero isn’t perfect or something to that effect? I’m going by the assumption that Duo has always known that Heero isn’t as perfect as everyone else thinks he is. Give Duo a little credit for being intelligent every now and then or being able to cook. For the sake of all the lovely Gods and Goddesses, he’s a Gundam pilot and needs to be able to survive on his own… Wufei breaks in, “Down Cerworn. No need to air the injustices that make up your pet peeves to the poor public. Let it go… that’s it.” *Wufei turns to the public* “Gomen minna-san. I couldn’t let you suffer through someone else’s injustice rants.” *winks* “I’m the only one allowed to do that!”