the kitten fic, in full
Oct. 16th, 2004 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikkenekoTitle: Sucker for a Stray
Pairing: 1+2
Warnings: Sap, fluff, angst, silliness
Author's notes: I'm a bad girl. I'm a very very bad girl and I know it. x_X Those of you who know why will know it. All I can say is I'm very, very sorry, but once the plot bunny got in my head it wouldn't leave me alone.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story. Everything in it belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, Square Enix, or my older sister. *sigh*
This part of the city was an old one, an irregular warren. Some of that was just its age; it had been built before the days of wide, fast ground transportation, more for walking than anything else. The streets wound around each other, met and split again, disappeared and reappeared without any regular patterns. The buildings, built of gray stone or dusty brick, often grew into each other with organic shapes, connected by passageways in the basement or walkways along the roofs. The relatively good parts of inner-city residentia melded without warning into the dangerous slums, and only the residents themselves knew the boundaries.
And then where the old shops and tenements melted into the old warehouse district, much of which had suffered from bombing strikes or citizen riots -- well, that was truly the no-man's land. A few people could vanish into that part of the city for days and never be found, not even if hundreds of men were poured into the search.
The Gundam Pilots knew this. OZ also knew this, which was why they had filled the district with guards here, to try and find and stop them before they could reach safety. Duo and Heero flitted through the honeycomb streets, nearly silent as they moved and alert to the slightest sound.
A raised voice from around the far corner alerted them, and Duo and Heero immediately darted down a side alley. Heero caught his partner's eye, and jerked a finger upwards. Duo nodded, grimly, and checked his gun for readiness. There was no need for words between them, or any more signals.
Heero sprang easily up and caught himself on the fire escape, making only the faintest of hollow echoes as he climbed it rapidly, staying out of sight behind the brick outcrop of the building. On the street, Duo tucked himself into the crevice between two buildings, and waited, every muscle tense, poised for action.
The sound of voices floated to them from the street beyond; several of them, loud, adult, and male. Almost certainly soldiers, Heero gauged from the military snap to them. They came down the street towards the alley at a slow pace, and Heero tensed, braced for action. From up here, he could get a good angle on them; if Duo made himself seen below, to distract or act as bait to draw them out, Heero was pretty sure he could get them all before they had a chance to respond.
Still. Heero's brow knitted slightly as the tactical possibilities played out in his mind. Part of him felt uneasy about this Duo-in-the-line-of-fire thing. It was the logical choice -- Duo was faster than him, harder to track in his black clothing, with the motion of the braid to confuse the enemy's sight, and had the best choice of avoiding bullets -- but still. He wasn't as durable as Heero. Perhaps he should have...
He cut off that line of thought with a quick shake of his head. He knew Duo would kick his ass if he even caught Heero entertaining the thought that Duo was somehow weaker than he was, or that he needed to be protected.
The voices were right outside the mouth of the alley now, and Heero tensed. He glanced down, instinctively checking his partner's position, and saw... nothing.
Heero blinked. What the heck? He knew Duo was good at hiding, but he had a bird's-eye view here. Unless Duo had somehow been --
The voices, and marching footsteps were passing by without stopping. Heero's adrenaline levels eased, some, although his training kept him tense and poised until the footsteps and voices were completely gone. Only then did he allow himself to move, uncurling from his protected spot and grabbing hold of the escape rail, sliding down. He landed easily after three stories, and immediately began looking around for his partner. Where had that fool --
"All clear," Duo said breathlessly from beside his elbow, and Heero almost shot him as he spun around. "Whoa, buddy!" Duo's reflexes were good, and he jumped backwards out of reach. A small squeak accompanied his movements.
"Where were you?" Heero said, lowering the barrel of his gun and allowing exasperation to creep into his tone. "You weren't at your station --"
"Oh -- I was just checking out something I heard further back in the alley," Duo said, shrugging carelessly. "You wouldn't have heard it, from up there."
"Find anything?" Heero's mind went into overdrive. "Trap? Enemy soldiers? Mines? Security --"
"Naw. Just an old alley cat." Duo rocked back on his heels, braid swinging, grin easy. "Are we gonna get going, Heero? Another patrol might come by at any time."
"I know," Heero said sharply, and tried to pull himself together. He was fine, Duo was fine, the soldiers had not seen a thing out of the ordinary, so there was no reason for his heart to beat this way. "Let's go."
Duo took the lead this time, Heero covering from behind. Duo's braid swung as he ran, and Heero found his eyes drawn to it despite himself. It seemed like it ought to have been impractical, he meditated, but it had its uses. It was a shockingly distinctive feature which stayed in the mind; but it eclipsed all other features in an observer's eye, and could be tucked up and concealed. When in motion, it was an effective foil; it drew the attacker's eye and confused him as to where the target was. And having seen how many small bits of metal and machinery he could hide in it, he knew it was also an effective storage container.
Those pants were the same, he thought, finding his eye wandering lower. True, they were bulkier than his own skin-tight shorts, but it didn't seem to hinder his motion any -- odd, he hadn't thought Duo had been carrying that much equipment before. He frowned in puzzlement. Maybe his partner had picked something up since then.
Duo stopped at a corner, glancing around it, then turned and motioned Heero forward. As he came close to his partner, he heard an odd chirping noise coming from Duo's pocket. He frowned again. "Duo, what's that noise?" he said.
Duo froze, and squeaked; which while an interesting sound nevertheless didn't have the same tone as the previous one. "Er, nothing!" he said, and laughed nervously. "Hey. Look, we've got about a hundred feet of that clear rubble field before we're in the warehouse district. How d'you want to cross it?"
"There's not enough cover for stealth; a fast dash, with a variant pattern, would be the optimal --" As his partner shifted, crouching to prepare for a sprint, the noise came again. It was a high-pitched sound, almost like a machine beeping. "Duo, you didn't pick up any trackers or bombs, did you?" he demanded.
"Nooo..." Duo shifted back and forth. "I'll -- look, I'll show you once we're safe, okay?" he muttered, face turning red. Before Heero could press any further, he looked around the corner again.
"Looks all clear, buddy," he said. "I'll give three, and let's go."
Heero growled slightly, but subsided. Duo wouldn't do anything that would put them in danger, he knew *that* perfectly well. Perhaps Duo had left something and this was a timer, although he couldn't fathom why. Well, he'd get it out of his partner soon enough.
Heero Yuy was famous by now, on Earth as well as in the Colonies, as the boy without fear. The sort of person who could face down insurmountable odds, or unimaginable horrors to complete his mission; the boy who would walk unflinchingly into death if so ordered, without a single change of expression on his face.
That same expression was on his face now, but it was cracking. The corner of his mouth wobbled, and one eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Duo," he said, low and warning. "This is..."
"A cat." Duo hugged the... thing protectively. "What's the matter? You've never seen a cat before?"
"A kitten." Heero stared at the ball of fuzz that Duo was cradling protectively in his lap. "You picked up a kitten. You picked up a kitten off the street and brought it to our safehouse."
"Well, yeah!" Duo said defensively. "It was raining, and the poor girl was shivering! What else was I supposed to do?" He raised his hands, and bent his head down to examine the little bundle of white and orange fluff more closely. His face softened, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Heero did not like that smile. Or rather, he did like it. In fact, he liked it very much. What he did not like was seeing that smile, and the accompanying soft look, directed at any other living thing. "Duo, have you lost your mind?" he said, and made it come out sounding almost conversational. "We're in an unsecured location here. Bringing an unknown --"
"Ah, c'mon!" Duo scoffed. "You think she's a double agent for Oz or something? Have a heart, Heero! She hasn't got an owner, or a mother. She hasn't got anyone." The soft look darkened into something else entirely, and Heero decided instantly that he didn't like that look either, not directed at him or at anyone. "She's all alone. We can take care of her, right? I mean, it's no big deal."
"Absolutely not!" Heero snapped. His palm itched for his gun, so he folded his arms over his chest and scowled. "Send it back where you got it!"
"Why the hell not?" Duo's brows drew down into an answering glare. "It's not like she's gonna tell anyone where we are, you know!"
Heero groped around for a reason that sounded at least vaguely logical. Something better than 'I don't like the way you smile at it.' "Our supplies are limited," he said at last. "We can't afford to waste them on --"
"For God's sake, Heero, she's the size of my fist!" Duo thrust out his hands, kitten cupped carefully between them, to demonstrate the difference in scale. Heero found himself staring almost nose-to-nose with cloudy blue, slit-pupiled eyes that glared back at him with equal malevolence. "She's not gonna eat so much that would make a difference between life or death here! Speaking of which, do we have any milk in our supplies?" he added, glancing around.
Heero growled. The kitten puffed up a little, at the hostile sound, and Duo gave Heero a fierce scowl in return. Heero felt the growl abruptly leak out of him. "We are not," he informed Duo testily, "in a position to take care of any pets. It's just an animal, Duo! Put it back on the street, where it belongs."
He'd said something wrong. He knew that even as Duo's head snapped up to glare at him, but he didn't have a clue just what. "She's just a baby, Heero!" Duo protested with some heat. "She'll starve if she's left alone."
"If she's meant to die, then she'll die," Heero said, getting exasperated by Duo's latest flare of illogic. "What difference does it make? She's just a stray. There are hundreds of mongrels like her on the streets every day. If she doesn't even belong to a family, then what does it matter if she dies or not?"
His attempt at reason had the desired effect; Duo flared into a full rage. "Heero Yuy, you bastard!" he snarled, climbing to his feet and coming nose to nose with his partner. "Just because she doesn't have a family, or a home, she doesn't deserve to live, is that it? She doesn't deserve a second chance?"
"Whether she deserves it or not, we are not in a position to care for a cat," Heero said, trying to remain reasonable. "It will make no difference in the long run if you feed her for just one day."
Duo was clearly not in the mood to be reasonable. "It's always gotta be about cold practicalities, doesn't it? Freakin' machine! It's too much to ask of you, huh? Just a little hint of compassion, or of kindness!"
Heero jerked a little, as though struck by Duo's words. "If it's kindness you want," he shot back, stung, "it would be kinder to kill her ourselves, rather than let her starve when we leave!"
"I bet you'd love to do that!" Duo shouted at him. "KIlling kittens and puppies is all in a day's work for you, isn't it? No, something you do in your spare time for fun! You lay a freakin' hand on her, Yuy, and I'll kill you, do you understand? I swear I'll kill you!"
Heero stood, rooted to the spot, as Duo whirled around and stormed off, too upset even to realize how tightly he was clutching the kitten.
~~~
"Niisan..."
Was someone talking to him? No, it couldn't be. He wasn't anyone's big brother.
"Niisan, are you lost?"
He opened his eyes and sat up. The white puppy grinned up at him from the grass, wagging its tail in unconditional happiness. The girl, too, was beaming at him, like they had no idea he was a killer. He opened his mouth to tell them this.
"I've been lost all my life," he said instead.
The girl laughed. The puppy laughed, too, with a high-pitched yip, and wriggled around in the grass, asking him to come play. He was soft, and warm to the touch, buzzing with energy...
...wet, white fur matted now with wet ashes. Cold. He picked the puppy up and cradled it to his chest, soft and limp and cold.
Children died. Young animals did too, with no-one to protect them. That was just reality, wasn't it? That wasn't heartlessness.
Was it?
~~~
Heero cleared his throat. Duo ignored him, pointedly. He was crouched in a clear spot on the floor, their ration bags open next to him, a variety of supplies scattered on the floor around them. In the center, the kitten crunched busily away at some shredded, dried meat.
"You can feed her," Heero announced. Duo shot him an extremely sardonic glance, and turned back to shredding bits of meat into the bowl.
"And it would be dangerous to go out to return her while there are still patrols about," Heero continued, feeling very foolish. "But when we leave she'll have to go back anyway."
Duo snorted. "Thanks so much for your gracious permission, Yuy," he said sarcastically.
"I..." Heero stood, shifting from foot to foot. "I wasn't planning to hurt her," he muttered.
Duo looked at him, hard, and seemed to see something that relaxed him. "Well, good," he said brusquely. "Because then I really would have had to kick your ass. Isn't that right, Callie?" he said in a high, silly voice to the kitten. The kitten purred louder in response.
"Callie?" Heero was floored.
"Yeah." The grin was starting to come back to Duo's face. "She's a calico kitten, right? That's what the orange and black patches are. So it's Callie for short, see?"
"How original," Heero said flatly. He was getting a slightly queasy feeling in his stomach.
"Ah, c'mon. If I'd left the naming to you, you would probably have just ended up calling her Neko or Spot or something lame," Duo said, mouth quirking up in a grin. "And that wouldn't suit you at all, eh, Callie-chan? Nope, not one bit!"
Heero rather thought Duo was giving him too much credit in the naming department, since to his mind the kitten was rapidly becoming That Thing and seemed unlikely to come up with anything better. Heero shook his head and went to set up his laptop, leaving Duo to coo over the kitten. He was getting a bad feeling about this.
His feeling turned out to be entirely right. Once the small beast had eaten its fill, and Duo's fussing had rendered it warm and dry, its fear began to fade and natural inquisitiveness took over. Everywhere Heero went in their safehouse, he had to carefully watch his step; between the time when he picked up one foot, and the time when he put it down, That Thing had jumped in the way.
Several times only Heero's enhanced and combat-honed reflexes saved him from either falling on his face or making kitten jelly. Of course, Duo always happened to be watching whenever Heero came too close to stepping on his precious kitten, and would warn him off with a baleful Shinigami glare that made even Heero cringe. At last he gave up and retreated to the corner he'd set up the generator in, and hooked up his laptop.
The moment he settled down, of course, That Thing lost all interest in exploring, and wandered over to wreak havoc on Duo's ankle. Duo, of course, found this entirely amusing, and his laughter filled Heero's ears as he dropped right down onto the dusty floor of the warehouse to play with the kitten. That sound made Heero's skin burn; how the hell was he supposed to concentrate on work while Duo was laughing like that? It was a sound he'd never heard before, warm and rich and full of life; certainly nothing like the tense, edged laughter he used to bleed off stress in the middle of a battle.
It was enormously distracting. Every time Heero thought he was getting somewhere, Duo's laughter filled his ears, and distracted him again. He sneaked a glance over his shoulder; Duo was lying on his stomach, black-clad legs crossed at the ankle, supporting his chin with his hands as he dragged his braid back and forth for That Thing's enjoyment. He immediately cursed himself for looking, and turned away, but the image of Duo sprawled gracefully on his stomach wouldn't leave him, no matter how intently he stared at the screen.
After an interminable time, Duo reluctantly tore himself away from the game, and announced that he was going to go scout for trouble. Heero only grunted an acknowledgment, pretending to be completely absorbed in his work. His ears picked up every small detail of Duo's movement around the room, as he geared himself up to go out; only once he vanished out the back door, leaving Heero alone again, could he truly relax.
Finally. Peace and quiet. His concentration returned to him, and his hands flew over the keyboard, worming through security programs, hunting down the information he needed. Their next target was a munitions supply factory a hundred miles to the south of this city; it was important to gather precise information on the number and deployment of troops in and around this city, and the target. According to one brief, but highly encrypted notice, the base was expecting a visit from some higher-ranking officers sometime in the next few days. That could be good or bad, depending on how they worked it. The timing would be --
Heero felt a tugging at his right ankle.
He looked down. A pair of wide, innocent, cloudy blue eyes looked back up at him. That Thing blinked, and sat back on its haunches, spindly tail whipping in the dust behind it.
"I'm not Duo," he told it, intently aware of how foolish he felt, talking to an animal. "Go amuse yourself."
The kitten had apparently decided that he was the most amusing thing in the building at the moment. Heero turned back to his work, and a moment later what felt like a dozen needles hit the unprotected skin of his leg. He jumped, swallowed an exclamation, and looked down to find That Thing wrapped around his calf, digging in with front claws and chewing at him with enthusiasm.
"You --" Heero bit off the exclamation. Duo would kill him if he squished the beast. He reached down, wrapped a hand around a spindly chest, and tugged.
He was startled by how light and fragile the kitten's bones felt in his hand. The creature seemed completely unaware of its own vulnerability, however; it redoubled its attack on his leg, digging and kicking with back paws too. Heero muttered a curse and attempted to peel its claws out of his leg; obligingly, it switched its attack to his hand instead.
Several minutes, a dozen scratches, and a good deal of cursing later, Heero had managed to extract the beast from his leg. He thought dark, murderous thoughts for a minute, then took a deep breath and attempted to refocus his attention. In the newscasts lately, there was some mention of the movements of pilots 03 and 04. They were nearby, it seemed; perhaps they would be called in to assist on this mission as well? He called up the secure email drop, and began to work his way through the encryption programs.
A blur of black, white and orange landed on his keyboard out of nowhere. Pink paws scattered over the keys as it walked across the keyboard, then turned around and walked back. Heero's curse was considerably louder this time as his windows flickered and vanished.
That Thing stopped in the middle of his laptop keyboard, settled onto its haunches and curled its tail around them, and blinked at him.
Duo will kill me if I kill it, Heero told himself. Duo will kill me if I kill it and it's definitely not worth abandoning the mission just because of a cat.
Repeating that mantra, he gathered the tiny horror into his hands, and placed it back on the floor.
Five seconds later it was back.
Heero glared at the thing. It stared innocently back, then shifted around and began to wash one leg. Heero watched his screen going crazy, as buttons were pressed randomly, and speculated on the possibility of a new development in Oz technology that would allow for the production of specially trained hacker infiltration cats. It seemed a slightly inefficient option, and thus unlikely. He placed the kitten on the floor.
Kitten on the keyboard again.
Maybe more efficient than it seemed. At least in terms of destroying his sanity and thus his capability as a pilot.
He scooped the kitten onto the floor again, and leveled his best Death Glare at it. "You," he told it, "stay on the floor. I have to work, understand? Important work. I'm not going to play with you, nor is my computer a place to play."
The beast mewed inquisitively up at him. Heero growled in exasperation. "Stay on the floor!" he said.
Perhaps animals could understand tone after all, because the kitten yawned, stretched, and wandered away again. Heero turned back to his screen, and blew out a breath. Maybe now he could get some work done.
Painstakingly, he was able to undo the damage that the kitten romp had done to his files. As an afterthought, he added a password-protected lock to his computer's active state, so that the kitten would not be able to damage anything if he left it unsupervised. Feeling slightly more secure, he turned back to the problem of coordinating a possible attack with pilots 03 and 04.
He called up a new message window, and after making sure to encode it with the highest security, he began relaying the details of his and 02's positioning, their current status, the information he'd gathered on the next target, and listed out several detailed proposals for a joint attack. He added at the end a request for clarification and response, and went to send it.
Before his hand could quite hit the "enter" key, his screen went black.
He stared at it for a minute, then tilted his gaze downwards to find That Thing happily occupied with chewing on his power cables, the socket of which was several inches from the generator.
Solemnly, he stood, pulled out his gun, and pointed it at the enemy. "I will kill you," he promised.
The demon, of course, thought this was a grand new game, and attacked the end of the gun barrel with great abandon.
Of course, that was the moment that Duo walked back in.
Hours later and Heero was still cringing from the blistering tirade Duo had unleashed on him. His voice was more dangerous than most high-caliber firearms, Heero thought with a certain traumatized respect. He'd never before truly understood Duo's habit of turning his comm on open during battle and talking to the enemy as he fought them, assuming it to be a trivial and personalized quirk. Now he knew, though. He pitied the fool OZ officer who stepped on a kitten in Duo's presence.
In the abstract, that was. At the moment he was too busy feeling sorry for himself. Duo had ended his tirade by confiscating all the blankets in their stash, ordering Heero onto guard detail until dawn, and then stomped off to go sleep. With the kitten.
There was surely no less dignified an act for a Gundam Pilot than sitting here clutching his gun, glaring off into the darkness and trying not to shift on the uncomfortable pile of timbers that served as his perch, and thinking resentful thoughts towards a baby cat. But... it wasn't fair, damn it. When he and Duo were out on missions together, if it so happened that they found a secure location that didn't conveniently supply beds, it was only logical that they would share the blankets. It was a practical arrangement, after all, one that allowed them both maximum use of their supplies. Heero had even, very secretly, come to look forward to it.
Now That Thing had the blankets with Duo. Heero scowled, and fingered the handle of his gun.
In the darkness -- not fully dark, not this far into the city, but dark enough -- the rain still pattered down, filling the air with damp. Heero told himself that it was nowhere near cold enough to impair bodily equilibrium, and repressed a shiver.
He caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, and whipped his head around to the inside of the warehouse to track it. Unfortunately, he was looking too far up, and the ball of fur hit his lap before he could react.
Heero narrowly avoided shouting a curse out loud, and even more narrowly avoided shooting the thing off his lap. Fortunately, he did neither, and within a few seconds the kitten had settled itself determinedly into his lap, rumbling like a Vernier engine.
Slowly, Heero edged back from panic mode, and glared at the beast. "What are you doing?" he demanded of it. "You were sleeping with the idiot. So, go sleep with him."
The kitten ignored him. That purr really was uncannily loud for a creature that small, Heero thought bemusedly. She hunkered down on his legs, seeming to almost fold her spine in half as she flipped her tail around her legs. Her small paws kneaded furiously, and Heero jumped as the claws punctured his spandex and, necessarily, his skin.
"Get off," he said, annoyed. He tried to push the beast away, but her claws immediately came all the way out, and dug in with determination; when he grabbed her middle and tried to pull her off, her front legs and trunk almost doubling in length; but she refused to let go.
"Gah!" he said disgustedly, and let go. She immediately returned to normal kitten-length, and resumed purring. He poked her shoulder, and chin, trying to shove her off of him; enthusiastically, she butter her head against his finger and rubbed up against his hand, arching her thin spine against his palm.
It really was astonishing the configurations she could twist her backbone into, Heero observed with some fascination. It was like her skeletal system was made of rubber, or at least cartilage, and not bone at all. Come to think of it, that could explain the highly efficient weight ratio as well, and the astonishing resilience. Perhaps the doctors should have taken that into consideration, rather than the high-density calcium they'd used to enhance his own bones. But then, of course, there would naturally be a penalty to strength capability; no matter how strong the muscles, if they didn't have a strong frame to brace against... This design was very light and compact, Heero mused, but not capable of standing up to heavy tasks.
Heero blinked, and realized that he'd been sitting here, hand stroking over the kitten's fur, for a good three and a half minutes without even thinking about it. She'd stopped twisting around on his lap, and was now draped over his knee, gone limp and warm; the rumbling persisted, though, as did the rhythmic kneading of the claws, in and out. It didn't seem quite so irritating now, though. In fact, there was almost something...
Hn. Well.
Heero had heard that animals had extraordinary sensory abilities, that they could sense approaching danger and even earthquakes, some of the time. As long as he was standing watch, there was no reason to throw away a set of extended senses that way. It was just for this one night, wasn't it?
He kept one hand on his gun, and the other lightly rubbing the kitten's ears, as he looked off again into the dark and the rain.
"01 to 02. We are now past the point of communications blackout. Do you read me? Over."
"02 to 01. Loud and clear, buddy. What's your position like? Over."
"Approaching the target from the south, at approximately 35 kilometers per hour. Have yet to meet any serious resistance. Over."
"Serious? Define 'serious.' Over."
"No mobile suits, and no ground patrols armed with threat-grade weaponry. What about on your side? Over."
"A couple of mobile suits, but they were no match for the God of Death, of course! Coming in from the north side now; they never saw me coming, heh. Over."
"Roger that. We should be within visual range of the target within just a few minutes. Make sure none of your opponents manage to get a warning out. Over."
"Heh, not likely. At what point were we supposed to rendez-vous with 03 and 04? Over."
"Contingent on how much resistance they encounter from their position, but they are to provide backup only. They are not expected -- Duo, what was that noise?"
"Uh, what noise? Over."
"That noise. That noise just now. Over."
"I didn't hear any noise, buddy. Hey, we'd better --"
"Duo. Your Gundam is meowing. Why is your Gundam meowing? Over."
"Don't know what you're talking about, buddy. I think -- Hey! Oops, Callie-chan, get back there! Aaahhh..."
"DUO!" A vidscreen popped up, bringing visual to the channel. Heero looked... well, about the same as always; somewhere between dyspeptic and murderous. "You brought that cat along on a mission? Are you out of your mind?!"
"Hey, Heero, no big deal, right?" Duo defended, though his credibility was somewhat undermined by his trying to fumble around the cockpit and collect his errant charge. "Just a second -- let me get her back in her place and she'll stay out of trouble --" Quick reflexes and a lucky snatch gained him a handful of squirming black-and-orange. "Gotcha!"
A shrill alarm sounded nearly simultaneously in the two cockpits. Heero's attention snapped to the readouts, and Duo swore under his breath. "Damn, they were set up for us!" he whispered, as a convoy of red dots appeared on their screens, headed out from the base.
Another com channel crackled to life, broadcasting on an open band. "Gundam Pilots!" called the new voice, all too familiar. Heero growled to his breath and activated the visuals, allowing the image of the tall, platinum blond Oz officers to flicker to life in his cockpit. "Desist in your mission and stand down. You are outnumbered here!"
"That may be so, but you're way outclassed, blondie!" Duo snarled, wrestling with the kitten. The alarm had spooked it, and just trying to hold onto it was like wrestling a snake. "Calm down, Callie-chan, you'll be fine, okay?" he told her soothingly.
"What?" Zechs said, sounding slightly startled. He gathered his nerve, and returned to his script. "Despite the legendary power of the Gundams, there are only two of you, and you are at a disadvantage. Even if we all die here today, we can still prevent you from accomplishing your mission!"
"There is no way you can keep us from accomplishing our mission," Heero snapped. "Duo, what the hell were you thinking? You were supposed to leave her behind!"
"That's what you said, Yuy! I never agreed!" Duo shot back. "I wasn't just gonna leave her to starve again!"
"How is this better? Bringing a loose animal into the middle of a firefight!" Heero said explosively. "Of all the idiotic, sentimental --"
"If you don't mind --" Zechs cut in, attempting to regain control of the situation.
"We mind!" Heero and Duo yelled back in unison. Heero added, "We'll cut through you and your forces if we have to, Merquise, so don't stand in our way unless you want to die. Duo, you agreed you'd find somewhere to leave her!
Duo returned his attention to the problem of containing the cat. "I only agreed on the condition that I leave her with someone, and we haven't met anyone, thanks to you and your communications blackout --"
"I propose an alternative!" Zechs interrupted, overriding the conversation. Both pilots snapped fulminating glares at him, but he flinched, but he was not the pilot of Tallgeese for nothing. He cleared his throat and continued. "Duel with me, Heero Yuy. I challenge you to fair combat between our mechs, without involving any of my men."
"Fine, but you agreed to give her to the first person we met," Heero growled. "We don't have time to fool around with sentimental idiots. Speaking of which, what are your terms, Merquise? What do you propose to do when I win?"
"When I win," Zechs said coldly, "you agree to stand yourself and your partner down, and leave without causing any more damage to our troops or our facilities."
"Fine. I agree."
"Idiot!" Duo hissed. "We could have taken him. Sit still, girl!"
"If you should win," Zechs continued, "I will evacuate the base of personnel and order my troops to stand by and not interfere while you carry out your mission."
"02? 01? What's going on?" A new voice broke into the channel, a light anxious tenor. "Have you been cornered by OZ troops? Stand by, 03 and I are on our way --"
"You will not, this is a duel between men --"
"04! -- Where have you been -- Ow, watch those claws --"
"Fine," Heero snapped. "And if I win, you have to take care of the cat."
There was a moment of dead air.
"...what?" Zechs sounded entirely at a loss.
"What?" Quatre echoed with a confused air.
"WHAT?!" Duo screeched, causing a wash of feedback over the comm systems. "Yuy, you traitor--"
"What cat?" Quatre said plaintively, and another viewscreen popped up in Duo's cockpit. "Ooh, she's cute!"
"That's ridic --" Zechs began
"Those are the terms of the duel, Lightning Count!" Heero said, overriding the others' protests. "Take them, or leave them and fight all four of us!"
"I accept," Zechs said, through gritted teeth. "Very well. Let us fight, Heero Yuy."
Heero didn't wait for any more challenges, launching his Gundam towards the other fighting suit. He threw himself into the air to give his charge momentum, and Zechs, after an instant's hesitation, leapt backwards to avoid his attack. His weaker fighting suit couldn't stand up to a battering from the Gundanium very long, and they both knew it. Tallgeese reached for its beam saber, but Wing barreled in close, keeping the range too short to be effective.
The two mechs crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. For a moment, the embattled suits vanished from view; then Wing suddenly burst out of the dust cloud, climbing rapidly away from the engagement. Tallgeese followed its flight with a tightly-aimed arc of missile fire, forcing Wing to twist and dodge in the air to evade it. Explosions rocked the battlefield, filling the air with fire and dust; sparks leapt forth as the mechs crashed into each other again.
"Calico, isn't she?" Quatre was saying, leaning in towards his vidscreen to try and get a good look. "Oh -- she's so tiny! When did you find her, Duo? She can't be more than six weeks old!"
"Kick his ass, Blondie! Don't let him give away my baby!" Duo yelled over the com. He clutched the kitten fiercely in his hands; it was staring with a great deal of wide-eyed interest at the flashing vidscreens. "You'd better win! Wait a moment, the mission. Kick his ass, Heero! No, gah, you can't win either. You both suck, eat shit and die!"
Quatre made ktch-ktch noises at the kitten, who pricked her ears forward in response. "Duo, you can't be cheering for Zechs," he remembered to protest. Eventually.
"He wants to give my baby to that rat bastard!" Duo was ranting, hands clenching on the mecha controls. "No way! No how! He's an OZ goon, for God's sake! He probably adopts kittens from shelters and dissects them for a hobby!"
"Come on now, Duo," Quatre tried to placate him. "Be fair. He's a soldier, not a politician."
Duo and Quatre were diverted by a sudden shrill, high alarm. "We've got company," Quatre exclaimed with dismay.
"Shit!" Duo said, doing a double take at the mess of bogeys coming down on them from the north. "Reinforcements! We've got to get out of here, now!"
"What?" Zechs' voice came over their coms, filled with unfeigned shock. "Bastige!"
"You're telling us?" Duo demanded.
"What is Colonel Bastige doing here?" Zechs said. "I specifically informed him that I would be covering this post!"
"Obviously he didn't listen," Heero growled. He yanked on his controls, disengaging Wing from Tallgeese with a jerk.
"Shit, the mission!" Duo hissed. "Our target!"
"No need to panic," Trowa's voice came unexpectedly over their lines. "I already took care of it."
"Huh?" Duo turned his sensors towards the military plant. Sure enough, it was a pile of military rubble. "Damn, 03, when did you have time to do that?"
"Nobody was watching."
"This is an outrage!" Zechs' screen flickered into being. His mouth was set in a grim line below his helmet. "We agreed to terms --"
"The terms of the duel stated only that neither 02 nor your men would interfere," Heero pointed out. "03 and 04 were not included in the terms. Besides, OZ soldiers are also interfering. We will have to call this one a draw, Lightning Count. Consider yourself lucky to escape with the lives of all of your men."
He cut the comm over Zechs' incoherent curses.
"Wow," Quatre said admiringly. "Owned."
Three vidscreens flicked on; three pilots stared at Quatre.
"What?"
Outside, the world prepared for war. The Gundams, newly repaired, and upgraded, were loaded onto the backs of the Maguanac transports. Intelligence as to the enemy's movements was gathered, heads put together, new plans and strategies drawn.
Inside, Duo petted his kitten.
"I'm sure Rashid will take good care of her," Heero offered from the other side of the room, behind the shield of his laptop lid. Duo snorted and shifted carefully on the bed, moving slowly despite the fact that the feline on his lap was dead to the world and completely insensible to any motion he might make.
"I bet he will," Duo said, tone wistful. "Better than Zechs would, that's for sure. Honestly, Yuy, what were you thinking?"
Heero blushed and ducked his head behind the screen. Duo had to chuckle at his expression; the fearsome Heero Yuy, blushing? That really was too cute. "I still don't think he would have done anything bad to her," he protested. "He would have taken care of her, even if he didn't want to."
"Would it be fair to her to give her to someone who didn't want her?" Duo pushed himself to a sitting position in order to face Heero. "It's not enough to just feed and clothe a baby, Heero. You've got to be willing to love it, or it won't grow up right. Besides," he added, looking down at the sleeping kitten with a softer expression. "If you really love your baby, then no matter what happens, you won't abandon them."
Heero didn't answer, ducking his head and typing at his keyboard. He was typing nonsense, but it made a good cover. Duo sighed, scritching the furry ears.
"I'm really going to miss you, girl," he told the kitten fondly. "But Heero's right, you know. I'm not in a position to take care of pets. Rashid'll be a better owner for you. Maybe sometime after the war, I'll come and see you again, but until then, be a good girl, ne?"
Heero very much doubted that last bit. However, he didn't think that it would be very diplomatic to say so. Instead, he chewed on his lip a moment, then decided to go ahead and ask the question that had been nagging at him. "If you knew you couldn't keep her," he said, somewhat accusingly, "and you knew it would hurt to let her go, then why did you pick her up in the first place?"
In his lap, the kitten suddenly sneezed herself awake, showering Duo's hand with a generous dose of kitten snot. She then yawned, stretched to an impossible length, turned herself over, and went right back into somnolence.
Duo chuckled, wiping his hand off on a corner of the blanket. "I dunno, Heero," he said. "I guess I'm just a sucker for anything that's lost or abandoned. I don't want to do anything more than pick them up and hug them and comfort them."
Heero looked up at that, and stopped even pretending to type.
"I guess I just believe in second chances," Duo said pensively. "When I was little, a couple of people gave me some, even when I didn't deserve them. If they hadn't, I would be here. I just wish I could give that same chance to everybody."
"Would you be willing to give me one?" Heero whispered. Duo looked up at him sharply, and Heero bit his tongue, realizing he'd said that last again.
"Heero?" Duo said slowly. Heero winced, and looked away. Duo straightened up, and put out a hand, beckoning to him. "Heero, come over here," he said gently.
"Why can't you come here instead?" Heero said, putting annoyance in his tone to cover up nervousness. His heart was beginning to beat very fast.
"I've got a cat on my lap," Duo pointed out reasonably. He made a come-here gesture, like he was pulling in a rope, and Heero found himself out of his chair and crossing the room before he even thought about what his legs were doing.
"I guess I could pick you up," Duo murmured. He got a grip on Heero's arm that not even Wing's pilot could easily break, and pulled him down onto the bed to sit beside him. "The question is, will I get to keep you?"
"I don't know," Heero said. He sounded subdued, but breathless. "I could try."
"Hmmm. Guess it's worth a shot, then." Duo's lips quirked into a grin, and Heero felt a thrill shoot through his chest. "Just one thing I wanna know, then."
"What's that?"
"How are you at purring?"
It turned out to be a good thing that the kitten could sleep through anything.
~fin~
Pairing: 1+2
Warnings: Sap, fluff, angst, silliness
Author's notes: I'm a bad girl. I'm a very very bad girl and I know it. x_X Those of you who know why will know it. All I can say is I'm very, very sorry, but once the plot bunny got in my head it wouldn't leave me alone.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story. Everything in it belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, Square Enix, or my older sister. *sigh*
This part of the city was an old one, an irregular warren. Some of that was just its age; it had been built before the days of wide, fast ground transportation, more for walking than anything else. The streets wound around each other, met and split again, disappeared and reappeared without any regular patterns. The buildings, built of gray stone or dusty brick, often grew into each other with organic shapes, connected by passageways in the basement or walkways along the roofs. The relatively good parts of inner-city residentia melded without warning into the dangerous slums, and only the residents themselves knew the boundaries.
And then where the old shops and tenements melted into the old warehouse district, much of which had suffered from bombing strikes or citizen riots -- well, that was truly the no-man's land. A few people could vanish into that part of the city for days and never be found, not even if hundreds of men were poured into the search.
The Gundam Pilots knew this. OZ also knew this, which was why they had filled the district with guards here, to try and find and stop them before they could reach safety. Duo and Heero flitted through the honeycomb streets, nearly silent as they moved and alert to the slightest sound.
A raised voice from around the far corner alerted them, and Duo and Heero immediately darted down a side alley. Heero caught his partner's eye, and jerked a finger upwards. Duo nodded, grimly, and checked his gun for readiness. There was no need for words between them, or any more signals.
Heero sprang easily up and caught himself on the fire escape, making only the faintest of hollow echoes as he climbed it rapidly, staying out of sight behind the brick outcrop of the building. On the street, Duo tucked himself into the crevice between two buildings, and waited, every muscle tense, poised for action.
The sound of voices floated to them from the street beyond; several of them, loud, adult, and male. Almost certainly soldiers, Heero gauged from the military snap to them. They came down the street towards the alley at a slow pace, and Heero tensed, braced for action. From up here, he could get a good angle on them; if Duo made himself seen below, to distract or act as bait to draw them out, Heero was pretty sure he could get them all before they had a chance to respond.
Still. Heero's brow knitted slightly as the tactical possibilities played out in his mind. Part of him felt uneasy about this Duo-in-the-line-of-fire thing. It was the logical choice -- Duo was faster than him, harder to track in his black clothing, with the motion of the braid to confuse the enemy's sight, and had the best choice of avoiding bullets -- but still. He wasn't as durable as Heero. Perhaps he should have...
He cut off that line of thought with a quick shake of his head. He knew Duo would kick his ass if he even caught Heero entertaining the thought that Duo was somehow weaker than he was, or that he needed to be protected.
The voices were right outside the mouth of the alley now, and Heero tensed. He glanced down, instinctively checking his partner's position, and saw... nothing.
Heero blinked. What the heck? He knew Duo was good at hiding, but he had a bird's-eye view here. Unless Duo had somehow been --
The voices, and marching footsteps were passing by without stopping. Heero's adrenaline levels eased, some, although his training kept him tense and poised until the footsteps and voices were completely gone. Only then did he allow himself to move, uncurling from his protected spot and grabbing hold of the escape rail, sliding down. He landed easily after three stories, and immediately began looking around for his partner. Where had that fool --
"All clear," Duo said breathlessly from beside his elbow, and Heero almost shot him as he spun around. "Whoa, buddy!" Duo's reflexes were good, and he jumped backwards out of reach. A small squeak accompanied his movements.
"Where were you?" Heero said, lowering the barrel of his gun and allowing exasperation to creep into his tone. "You weren't at your station --"
"Oh -- I was just checking out something I heard further back in the alley," Duo said, shrugging carelessly. "You wouldn't have heard it, from up there."
"Find anything?" Heero's mind went into overdrive. "Trap? Enemy soldiers? Mines? Security --"
"Naw. Just an old alley cat." Duo rocked back on his heels, braid swinging, grin easy. "Are we gonna get going, Heero? Another patrol might come by at any time."
"I know," Heero said sharply, and tried to pull himself together. He was fine, Duo was fine, the soldiers had not seen a thing out of the ordinary, so there was no reason for his heart to beat this way. "Let's go."
Duo took the lead this time, Heero covering from behind. Duo's braid swung as he ran, and Heero found his eyes drawn to it despite himself. It seemed like it ought to have been impractical, he meditated, but it had its uses. It was a shockingly distinctive feature which stayed in the mind; but it eclipsed all other features in an observer's eye, and could be tucked up and concealed. When in motion, it was an effective foil; it drew the attacker's eye and confused him as to where the target was. And having seen how many small bits of metal and machinery he could hide in it, he knew it was also an effective storage container.
Those pants were the same, he thought, finding his eye wandering lower. True, they were bulkier than his own skin-tight shorts, but it didn't seem to hinder his motion any -- odd, he hadn't thought Duo had been carrying that much equipment before. He frowned in puzzlement. Maybe his partner had picked something up since then.
Duo stopped at a corner, glancing around it, then turned and motioned Heero forward. As he came close to his partner, he heard an odd chirping noise coming from Duo's pocket. He frowned again. "Duo, what's that noise?" he said.
Duo froze, and squeaked; which while an interesting sound nevertheless didn't have the same tone as the previous one. "Er, nothing!" he said, and laughed nervously. "Hey. Look, we've got about a hundred feet of that clear rubble field before we're in the warehouse district. How d'you want to cross it?"
"There's not enough cover for stealth; a fast dash, with a variant pattern, would be the optimal --" As his partner shifted, crouching to prepare for a sprint, the noise came again. It was a high-pitched sound, almost like a machine beeping. "Duo, you didn't pick up any trackers or bombs, did you?" he demanded.
"Nooo..." Duo shifted back and forth. "I'll -- look, I'll show you once we're safe, okay?" he muttered, face turning red. Before Heero could press any further, he looked around the corner again.
"Looks all clear, buddy," he said. "I'll give three, and let's go."
Heero growled slightly, but subsided. Duo wouldn't do anything that would put them in danger, he knew *that* perfectly well. Perhaps Duo had left something and this was a timer, although he couldn't fathom why. Well, he'd get it out of his partner soon enough.
Heero Yuy was famous by now, on Earth as well as in the Colonies, as the boy without fear. The sort of person who could face down insurmountable odds, or unimaginable horrors to complete his mission; the boy who would walk unflinchingly into death if so ordered, without a single change of expression on his face.
That same expression was on his face now, but it was cracking. The corner of his mouth wobbled, and one eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Duo," he said, low and warning. "This is..."
"A cat." Duo hugged the... thing protectively. "What's the matter? You've never seen a cat before?"
"A kitten." Heero stared at the ball of fuzz that Duo was cradling protectively in his lap. "You picked up a kitten. You picked up a kitten off the street and brought it to our safehouse."
"Well, yeah!" Duo said defensively. "It was raining, and the poor girl was shivering! What else was I supposed to do?" He raised his hands, and bent his head down to examine the little bundle of white and orange fluff more closely. His face softened, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Heero did not like that smile. Or rather, he did like it. In fact, he liked it very much. What he did not like was seeing that smile, and the accompanying soft look, directed at any other living thing. "Duo, have you lost your mind?" he said, and made it come out sounding almost conversational. "We're in an unsecured location here. Bringing an unknown --"
"Ah, c'mon!" Duo scoffed. "You think she's a double agent for Oz or something? Have a heart, Heero! She hasn't got an owner, or a mother. She hasn't got anyone." The soft look darkened into something else entirely, and Heero decided instantly that he didn't like that look either, not directed at him or at anyone. "She's all alone. We can take care of her, right? I mean, it's no big deal."
"Absolutely not!" Heero snapped. His palm itched for his gun, so he folded his arms over his chest and scowled. "Send it back where you got it!"
"Why the hell not?" Duo's brows drew down into an answering glare. "It's not like she's gonna tell anyone where we are, you know!"
Heero groped around for a reason that sounded at least vaguely logical. Something better than 'I don't like the way you smile at it.' "Our supplies are limited," he said at last. "We can't afford to waste them on --"
"For God's sake, Heero, she's the size of my fist!" Duo thrust out his hands, kitten cupped carefully between them, to demonstrate the difference in scale. Heero found himself staring almost nose-to-nose with cloudy blue, slit-pupiled eyes that glared back at him with equal malevolence. "She's not gonna eat so much that would make a difference between life or death here! Speaking of which, do we have any milk in our supplies?" he added, glancing around.
Heero growled. The kitten puffed up a little, at the hostile sound, and Duo gave Heero a fierce scowl in return. Heero felt the growl abruptly leak out of him. "We are not," he informed Duo testily, "in a position to take care of any pets. It's just an animal, Duo! Put it back on the street, where it belongs."
He'd said something wrong. He knew that even as Duo's head snapped up to glare at him, but he didn't have a clue just what. "She's just a baby, Heero!" Duo protested with some heat. "She'll starve if she's left alone."
"If she's meant to die, then she'll die," Heero said, getting exasperated by Duo's latest flare of illogic. "What difference does it make? She's just a stray. There are hundreds of mongrels like her on the streets every day. If she doesn't even belong to a family, then what does it matter if she dies or not?"
His attempt at reason had the desired effect; Duo flared into a full rage. "Heero Yuy, you bastard!" he snarled, climbing to his feet and coming nose to nose with his partner. "Just because she doesn't have a family, or a home, she doesn't deserve to live, is that it? She doesn't deserve a second chance?"
"Whether she deserves it or not, we are not in a position to care for a cat," Heero said, trying to remain reasonable. "It will make no difference in the long run if you feed her for just one day."
Duo was clearly not in the mood to be reasonable. "It's always gotta be about cold practicalities, doesn't it? Freakin' machine! It's too much to ask of you, huh? Just a little hint of compassion, or of kindness!"
Heero jerked a little, as though struck by Duo's words. "If it's kindness you want," he shot back, stung, "it would be kinder to kill her ourselves, rather than let her starve when we leave!"
"I bet you'd love to do that!" Duo shouted at him. "KIlling kittens and puppies is all in a day's work for you, isn't it? No, something you do in your spare time for fun! You lay a freakin' hand on her, Yuy, and I'll kill you, do you understand? I swear I'll kill you!"
Heero stood, rooted to the spot, as Duo whirled around and stormed off, too upset even to realize how tightly he was clutching the kitten.
~~~
"Niisan..."
Was someone talking to him? No, it couldn't be. He wasn't anyone's big brother.
"Niisan, are you lost?"
He opened his eyes and sat up. The white puppy grinned up at him from the grass, wagging its tail in unconditional happiness. The girl, too, was beaming at him, like they had no idea he was a killer. He opened his mouth to tell them this.
"I've been lost all my life," he said instead.
The girl laughed. The puppy laughed, too, with a high-pitched yip, and wriggled around in the grass, asking him to come play. He was soft, and warm to the touch, buzzing with energy...
...wet, white fur matted now with wet ashes. Cold. He picked the puppy up and cradled it to his chest, soft and limp and cold.
Children died. Young animals did too, with no-one to protect them. That was just reality, wasn't it? That wasn't heartlessness.
Was it?
~~~
Heero cleared his throat. Duo ignored him, pointedly. He was crouched in a clear spot on the floor, their ration bags open next to him, a variety of supplies scattered on the floor around them. In the center, the kitten crunched busily away at some shredded, dried meat.
"You can feed her," Heero announced. Duo shot him an extremely sardonic glance, and turned back to shredding bits of meat into the bowl.
"And it would be dangerous to go out to return her while there are still patrols about," Heero continued, feeling very foolish. "But when we leave she'll have to go back anyway."
Duo snorted. "Thanks so much for your gracious permission, Yuy," he said sarcastically.
"I..." Heero stood, shifting from foot to foot. "I wasn't planning to hurt her," he muttered.
Duo looked at him, hard, and seemed to see something that relaxed him. "Well, good," he said brusquely. "Because then I really would have had to kick your ass. Isn't that right, Callie?" he said in a high, silly voice to the kitten. The kitten purred louder in response.
"Callie?" Heero was floored.
"Yeah." The grin was starting to come back to Duo's face. "She's a calico kitten, right? That's what the orange and black patches are. So it's Callie for short, see?"
"How original," Heero said flatly. He was getting a slightly queasy feeling in his stomach.
"Ah, c'mon. If I'd left the naming to you, you would probably have just ended up calling her Neko or Spot or something lame," Duo said, mouth quirking up in a grin. "And that wouldn't suit you at all, eh, Callie-chan? Nope, not one bit!"
Heero rather thought Duo was giving him too much credit in the naming department, since to his mind the kitten was rapidly becoming That Thing and seemed unlikely to come up with anything better. Heero shook his head and went to set up his laptop, leaving Duo to coo over the kitten. He was getting a bad feeling about this.
His feeling turned out to be entirely right. Once the small beast had eaten its fill, and Duo's fussing had rendered it warm and dry, its fear began to fade and natural inquisitiveness took over. Everywhere Heero went in their safehouse, he had to carefully watch his step; between the time when he picked up one foot, and the time when he put it down, That Thing had jumped in the way.
Several times only Heero's enhanced and combat-honed reflexes saved him from either falling on his face or making kitten jelly. Of course, Duo always happened to be watching whenever Heero came too close to stepping on his precious kitten, and would warn him off with a baleful Shinigami glare that made even Heero cringe. At last he gave up and retreated to the corner he'd set up the generator in, and hooked up his laptop.
The moment he settled down, of course, That Thing lost all interest in exploring, and wandered over to wreak havoc on Duo's ankle. Duo, of course, found this entirely amusing, and his laughter filled Heero's ears as he dropped right down onto the dusty floor of the warehouse to play with the kitten. That sound made Heero's skin burn; how the hell was he supposed to concentrate on work while Duo was laughing like that? It was a sound he'd never heard before, warm and rich and full of life; certainly nothing like the tense, edged laughter he used to bleed off stress in the middle of a battle.
It was enormously distracting. Every time Heero thought he was getting somewhere, Duo's laughter filled his ears, and distracted him again. He sneaked a glance over his shoulder; Duo was lying on his stomach, black-clad legs crossed at the ankle, supporting his chin with his hands as he dragged his braid back and forth for That Thing's enjoyment. He immediately cursed himself for looking, and turned away, but the image of Duo sprawled gracefully on his stomach wouldn't leave him, no matter how intently he stared at the screen.
After an interminable time, Duo reluctantly tore himself away from the game, and announced that he was going to go scout for trouble. Heero only grunted an acknowledgment, pretending to be completely absorbed in his work. His ears picked up every small detail of Duo's movement around the room, as he geared himself up to go out; only once he vanished out the back door, leaving Heero alone again, could he truly relax.
Finally. Peace and quiet. His concentration returned to him, and his hands flew over the keyboard, worming through security programs, hunting down the information he needed. Their next target was a munitions supply factory a hundred miles to the south of this city; it was important to gather precise information on the number and deployment of troops in and around this city, and the target. According to one brief, but highly encrypted notice, the base was expecting a visit from some higher-ranking officers sometime in the next few days. That could be good or bad, depending on how they worked it. The timing would be --
Heero felt a tugging at his right ankle.
He looked down. A pair of wide, innocent, cloudy blue eyes looked back up at him. That Thing blinked, and sat back on its haunches, spindly tail whipping in the dust behind it.
"I'm not Duo," he told it, intently aware of how foolish he felt, talking to an animal. "Go amuse yourself."
The kitten had apparently decided that he was the most amusing thing in the building at the moment. Heero turned back to his work, and a moment later what felt like a dozen needles hit the unprotected skin of his leg. He jumped, swallowed an exclamation, and looked down to find That Thing wrapped around his calf, digging in with front claws and chewing at him with enthusiasm.
"You --" Heero bit off the exclamation. Duo would kill him if he squished the beast. He reached down, wrapped a hand around a spindly chest, and tugged.
He was startled by how light and fragile the kitten's bones felt in his hand. The creature seemed completely unaware of its own vulnerability, however; it redoubled its attack on his leg, digging and kicking with back paws too. Heero muttered a curse and attempted to peel its claws out of his leg; obligingly, it switched its attack to his hand instead.
Several minutes, a dozen scratches, and a good deal of cursing later, Heero had managed to extract the beast from his leg. He thought dark, murderous thoughts for a minute, then took a deep breath and attempted to refocus his attention. In the newscasts lately, there was some mention of the movements of pilots 03 and 04. They were nearby, it seemed; perhaps they would be called in to assist on this mission as well? He called up the secure email drop, and began to work his way through the encryption programs.
A blur of black, white and orange landed on his keyboard out of nowhere. Pink paws scattered over the keys as it walked across the keyboard, then turned around and walked back. Heero's curse was considerably louder this time as his windows flickered and vanished.
That Thing stopped in the middle of his laptop keyboard, settled onto its haunches and curled its tail around them, and blinked at him.
Duo will kill me if I kill it, Heero told himself. Duo will kill me if I kill it and it's definitely not worth abandoning the mission just because of a cat.
Repeating that mantra, he gathered the tiny horror into his hands, and placed it back on the floor.
Five seconds later it was back.
Heero glared at the thing. It stared innocently back, then shifted around and began to wash one leg. Heero watched his screen going crazy, as buttons were pressed randomly, and speculated on the possibility of a new development in Oz technology that would allow for the production of specially trained hacker infiltration cats. It seemed a slightly inefficient option, and thus unlikely. He placed the kitten on the floor.
Kitten on the keyboard again.
Maybe more efficient than it seemed. At least in terms of destroying his sanity and thus his capability as a pilot.
He scooped the kitten onto the floor again, and leveled his best Death Glare at it. "You," he told it, "stay on the floor. I have to work, understand? Important work. I'm not going to play with you, nor is my computer a place to play."
The beast mewed inquisitively up at him. Heero growled in exasperation. "Stay on the floor!" he said.
Perhaps animals could understand tone after all, because the kitten yawned, stretched, and wandered away again. Heero turned back to his screen, and blew out a breath. Maybe now he could get some work done.
Painstakingly, he was able to undo the damage that the kitten romp had done to his files. As an afterthought, he added a password-protected lock to his computer's active state, so that the kitten would not be able to damage anything if he left it unsupervised. Feeling slightly more secure, he turned back to the problem of coordinating a possible attack with pilots 03 and 04.
He called up a new message window, and after making sure to encode it with the highest security, he began relaying the details of his and 02's positioning, their current status, the information he'd gathered on the next target, and listed out several detailed proposals for a joint attack. He added at the end a request for clarification and response, and went to send it.
Before his hand could quite hit the "enter" key, his screen went black.
He stared at it for a minute, then tilted his gaze downwards to find That Thing happily occupied with chewing on his power cables, the socket of which was several inches from the generator.
Solemnly, he stood, pulled out his gun, and pointed it at the enemy. "I will kill you," he promised.
The demon, of course, thought this was a grand new game, and attacked the end of the gun barrel with great abandon.
Of course, that was the moment that Duo walked back in.
Hours later and Heero was still cringing from the blistering tirade Duo had unleashed on him. His voice was more dangerous than most high-caliber firearms, Heero thought with a certain traumatized respect. He'd never before truly understood Duo's habit of turning his comm on open during battle and talking to the enemy as he fought them, assuming it to be a trivial and personalized quirk. Now he knew, though. He pitied the fool OZ officer who stepped on a kitten in Duo's presence.
In the abstract, that was. At the moment he was too busy feeling sorry for himself. Duo had ended his tirade by confiscating all the blankets in their stash, ordering Heero onto guard detail until dawn, and then stomped off to go sleep. With the kitten.
There was surely no less dignified an act for a Gundam Pilot than sitting here clutching his gun, glaring off into the darkness and trying not to shift on the uncomfortable pile of timbers that served as his perch, and thinking resentful thoughts towards a baby cat. But... it wasn't fair, damn it. When he and Duo were out on missions together, if it so happened that they found a secure location that didn't conveniently supply beds, it was only logical that they would share the blankets. It was a practical arrangement, after all, one that allowed them both maximum use of their supplies. Heero had even, very secretly, come to look forward to it.
Now That Thing had the blankets with Duo. Heero scowled, and fingered the handle of his gun.
In the darkness -- not fully dark, not this far into the city, but dark enough -- the rain still pattered down, filling the air with damp. Heero told himself that it was nowhere near cold enough to impair bodily equilibrium, and repressed a shiver.
He caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, and whipped his head around to the inside of the warehouse to track it. Unfortunately, he was looking too far up, and the ball of fur hit his lap before he could react.
Heero narrowly avoided shouting a curse out loud, and even more narrowly avoided shooting the thing off his lap. Fortunately, he did neither, and within a few seconds the kitten had settled itself determinedly into his lap, rumbling like a Vernier engine.
Slowly, Heero edged back from panic mode, and glared at the beast. "What are you doing?" he demanded of it. "You were sleeping with the idiot. So, go sleep with him."
The kitten ignored him. That purr really was uncannily loud for a creature that small, Heero thought bemusedly. She hunkered down on his legs, seeming to almost fold her spine in half as she flipped her tail around her legs. Her small paws kneaded furiously, and Heero jumped as the claws punctured his spandex and, necessarily, his skin.
"Get off," he said, annoyed. He tried to push the beast away, but her claws immediately came all the way out, and dug in with determination; when he grabbed her middle and tried to pull her off, her front legs and trunk almost doubling in length; but she refused to let go.
"Gah!" he said disgustedly, and let go. She immediately returned to normal kitten-length, and resumed purring. He poked her shoulder, and chin, trying to shove her off of him; enthusiastically, she butter her head against his finger and rubbed up against his hand, arching her thin spine against his palm.
It really was astonishing the configurations she could twist her backbone into, Heero observed with some fascination. It was like her skeletal system was made of rubber, or at least cartilage, and not bone at all. Come to think of it, that could explain the highly efficient weight ratio as well, and the astonishing resilience. Perhaps the doctors should have taken that into consideration, rather than the high-density calcium they'd used to enhance his own bones. But then, of course, there would naturally be a penalty to strength capability; no matter how strong the muscles, if they didn't have a strong frame to brace against... This design was very light and compact, Heero mused, but not capable of standing up to heavy tasks.
Heero blinked, and realized that he'd been sitting here, hand stroking over the kitten's fur, for a good three and a half minutes without even thinking about it. She'd stopped twisting around on his lap, and was now draped over his knee, gone limp and warm; the rumbling persisted, though, as did the rhythmic kneading of the claws, in and out. It didn't seem quite so irritating now, though. In fact, there was almost something...
Hn. Well.
Heero had heard that animals had extraordinary sensory abilities, that they could sense approaching danger and even earthquakes, some of the time. As long as he was standing watch, there was no reason to throw away a set of extended senses that way. It was just for this one night, wasn't it?
He kept one hand on his gun, and the other lightly rubbing the kitten's ears, as he looked off again into the dark and the rain.
"01 to 02. We are now past the point of communications blackout. Do you read me? Over."
"02 to 01. Loud and clear, buddy. What's your position like? Over."
"Approaching the target from the south, at approximately 35 kilometers per hour. Have yet to meet any serious resistance. Over."
"Serious? Define 'serious.' Over."
"No mobile suits, and no ground patrols armed with threat-grade weaponry. What about on your side? Over."
"A couple of mobile suits, but they were no match for the God of Death, of course! Coming in from the north side now; they never saw me coming, heh. Over."
"Roger that. We should be within visual range of the target within just a few minutes. Make sure none of your opponents manage to get a warning out. Over."
"Heh, not likely. At what point were we supposed to rendez-vous with 03 and 04? Over."
"Contingent on how much resistance they encounter from their position, but they are to provide backup only. They are not expected -- Duo, what was that noise?"
"Uh, what noise? Over."
"That noise. That noise just now. Over."
"I didn't hear any noise, buddy. Hey, we'd better --"
"Duo. Your Gundam is meowing. Why is your Gundam meowing? Over."
"Don't know what you're talking about, buddy. I think -- Hey! Oops, Callie-chan, get back there! Aaahhh..."
"DUO!" A vidscreen popped up, bringing visual to the channel. Heero looked... well, about the same as always; somewhere between dyspeptic and murderous. "You brought that cat along on a mission? Are you out of your mind?!"
"Hey, Heero, no big deal, right?" Duo defended, though his credibility was somewhat undermined by his trying to fumble around the cockpit and collect his errant charge. "Just a second -- let me get her back in her place and she'll stay out of trouble --" Quick reflexes and a lucky snatch gained him a handful of squirming black-and-orange. "Gotcha!"
A shrill alarm sounded nearly simultaneously in the two cockpits. Heero's attention snapped to the readouts, and Duo swore under his breath. "Damn, they were set up for us!" he whispered, as a convoy of red dots appeared on their screens, headed out from the base.
Another com channel crackled to life, broadcasting on an open band. "Gundam Pilots!" called the new voice, all too familiar. Heero growled to his breath and activated the visuals, allowing the image of the tall, platinum blond Oz officers to flicker to life in his cockpit. "Desist in your mission and stand down. You are outnumbered here!"
"That may be so, but you're way outclassed, blondie!" Duo snarled, wrestling with the kitten. The alarm had spooked it, and just trying to hold onto it was like wrestling a snake. "Calm down, Callie-chan, you'll be fine, okay?" he told her soothingly.
"What?" Zechs said, sounding slightly startled. He gathered his nerve, and returned to his script. "Despite the legendary power of the Gundams, there are only two of you, and you are at a disadvantage. Even if we all die here today, we can still prevent you from accomplishing your mission!"
"There is no way you can keep us from accomplishing our mission," Heero snapped. "Duo, what the hell were you thinking? You were supposed to leave her behind!"
"That's what you said, Yuy! I never agreed!" Duo shot back. "I wasn't just gonna leave her to starve again!"
"How is this better? Bringing a loose animal into the middle of a firefight!" Heero said explosively. "Of all the idiotic, sentimental --"
"If you don't mind --" Zechs cut in, attempting to regain control of the situation.
"We mind!" Heero and Duo yelled back in unison. Heero added, "We'll cut through you and your forces if we have to, Merquise, so don't stand in our way unless you want to die. Duo, you agreed you'd find somewhere to leave her!
Duo returned his attention to the problem of containing the cat. "I only agreed on the condition that I leave her with someone, and we haven't met anyone, thanks to you and your communications blackout --"
"I propose an alternative!" Zechs interrupted, overriding the conversation. Both pilots snapped fulminating glares at him, but he flinched, but he was not the pilot of Tallgeese for nothing. He cleared his throat and continued. "Duel with me, Heero Yuy. I challenge you to fair combat between our mechs, without involving any of my men."
"Fine, but you agreed to give her to the first person we met," Heero growled. "We don't have time to fool around with sentimental idiots. Speaking of which, what are your terms, Merquise? What do you propose to do when I win?"
"When I win," Zechs said coldly, "you agree to stand yourself and your partner down, and leave without causing any more damage to our troops or our facilities."
"Fine. I agree."
"Idiot!" Duo hissed. "We could have taken him. Sit still, girl!"
"If you should win," Zechs continued, "I will evacuate the base of personnel and order my troops to stand by and not interfere while you carry out your mission."
"02? 01? What's going on?" A new voice broke into the channel, a light anxious tenor. "Have you been cornered by OZ troops? Stand by, 03 and I are on our way --"
"You will not, this is a duel between men --"
"04! -- Where have you been -- Ow, watch those claws --"
"Fine," Heero snapped. "And if I win, you have to take care of the cat."
There was a moment of dead air.
"...what?" Zechs sounded entirely at a loss.
"What?" Quatre echoed with a confused air.
"WHAT?!" Duo screeched, causing a wash of feedback over the comm systems. "Yuy, you traitor--"
"What cat?" Quatre said plaintively, and another viewscreen popped up in Duo's cockpit. "Ooh, she's cute!"
"That's ridic --" Zechs began
"Those are the terms of the duel, Lightning Count!" Heero said, overriding the others' protests. "Take them, or leave them and fight all four of us!"
"I accept," Zechs said, through gritted teeth. "Very well. Let us fight, Heero Yuy."
Heero didn't wait for any more challenges, launching his Gundam towards the other fighting suit. He threw himself into the air to give his charge momentum, and Zechs, after an instant's hesitation, leapt backwards to avoid his attack. His weaker fighting suit couldn't stand up to a battering from the Gundanium very long, and they both knew it. Tallgeese reached for its beam saber, but Wing barreled in close, keeping the range too short to be effective.
The two mechs crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. For a moment, the embattled suits vanished from view; then Wing suddenly burst out of the dust cloud, climbing rapidly away from the engagement. Tallgeese followed its flight with a tightly-aimed arc of missile fire, forcing Wing to twist and dodge in the air to evade it. Explosions rocked the battlefield, filling the air with fire and dust; sparks leapt forth as the mechs crashed into each other again.
"Calico, isn't she?" Quatre was saying, leaning in towards his vidscreen to try and get a good look. "Oh -- she's so tiny! When did you find her, Duo? She can't be more than six weeks old!"
"Kick his ass, Blondie! Don't let him give away my baby!" Duo yelled over the com. He clutched the kitten fiercely in his hands; it was staring with a great deal of wide-eyed interest at the flashing vidscreens. "You'd better win! Wait a moment, the mission. Kick his ass, Heero! No, gah, you can't win either. You both suck, eat shit and die!"
Quatre made ktch-ktch noises at the kitten, who pricked her ears forward in response. "Duo, you can't be cheering for Zechs," he remembered to protest. Eventually.
"He wants to give my baby to that rat bastard!" Duo was ranting, hands clenching on the mecha controls. "No way! No how! He's an OZ goon, for God's sake! He probably adopts kittens from shelters and dissects them for a hobby!"
"Come on now, Duo," Quatre tried to placate him. "Be fair. He's a soldier, not a politician."
Duo and Quatre were diverted by a sudden shrill, high alarm. "We've got company," Quatre exclaimed with dismay.
"Shit!" Duo said, doing a double take at the mess of bogeys coming down on them from the north. "Reinforcements! We've got to get out of here, now!"
"What?" Zechs' voice came over their coms, filled with unfeigned shock. "Bastige!"
"You're telling us?" Duo demanded.
"What is Colonel Bastige doing here?" Zechs said. "I specifically informed him that I would be covering this post!"
"Obviously he didn't listen," Heero growled. He yanked on his controls, disengaging Wing from Tallgeese with a jerk.
"Shit, the mission!" Duo hissed. "Our target!"
"No need to panic," Trowa's voice came unexpectedly over their lines. "I already took care of it."
"Huh?" Duo turned his sensors towards the military plant. Sure enough, it was a pile of military rubble. "Damn, 03, when did you have time to do that?"
"Nobody was watching."
"This is an outrage!" Zechs' screen flickered into being. His mouth was set in a grim line below his helmet. "We agreed to terms --"
"The terms of the duel stated only that neither 02 nor your men would interfere," Heero pointed out. "03 and 04 were not included in the terms. Besides, OZ soldiers are also interfering. We will have to call this one a draw, Lightning Count. Consider yourself lucky to escape with the lives of all of your men."
He cut the comm over Zechs' incoherent curses.
"Wow," Quatre said admiringly. "Owned."
Three vidscreens flicked on; three pilots stared at Quatre.
"What?"
Outside, the world prepared for war. The Gundams, newly repaired, and upgraded, were loaded onto the backs of the Maguanac transports. Intelligence as to the enemy's movements was gathered, heads put together, new plans and strategies drawn.
Inside, Duo petted his kitten.
"I'm sure Rashid will take good care of her," Heero offered from the other side of the room, behind the shield of his laptop lid. Duo snorted and shifted carefully on the bed, moving slowly despite the fact that the feline on his lap was dead to the world and completely insensible to any motion he might make.
"I bet he will," Duo said, tone wistful. "Better than Zechs would, that's for sure. Honestly, Yuy, what were you thinking?"
Heero blushed and ducked his head behind the screen. Duo had to chuckle at his expression; the fearsome Heero Yuy, blushing? That really was too cute. "I still don't think he would have done anything bad to her," he protested. "He would have taken care of her, even if he didn't want to."
"Would it be fair to her to give her to someone who didn't want her?" Duo pushed himself to a sitting position in order to face Heero. "It's not enough to just feed and clothe a baby, Heero. You've got to be willing to love it, or it won't grow up right. Besides," he added, looking down at the sleeping kitten with a softer expression. "If you really love your baby, then no matter what happens, you won't abandon them."
Heero didn't answer, ducking his head and typing at his keyboard. He was typing nonsense, but it made a good cover. Duo sighed, scritching the furry ears.
"I'm really going to miss you, girl," he told the kitten fondly. "But Heero's right, you know. I'm not in a position to take care of pets. Rashid'll be a better owner for you. Maybe sometime after the war, I'll come and see you again, but until then, be a good girl, ne?"
Heero very much doubted that last bit. However, he didn't think that it would be very diplomatic to say so. Instead, he chewed on his lip a moment, then decided to go ahead and ask the question that had been nagging at him. "If you knew you couldn't keep her," he said, somewhat accusingly, "and you knew it would hurt to let her go, then why did you pick her up in the first place?"
In his lap, the kitten suddenly sneezed herself awake, showering Duo's hand with a generous dose of kitten snot. She then yawned, stretched to an impossible length, turned herself over, and went right back into somnolence.
Duo chuckled, wiping his hand off on a corner of the blanket. "I dunno, Heero," he said. "I guess I'm just a sucker for anything that's lost or abandoned. I don't want to do anything more than pick them up and hug them and comfort them."
Heero looked up at that, and stopped even pretending to type.
"I guess I just believe in second chances," Duo said pensively. "When I was little, a couple of people gave me some, even when I didn't deserve them. If they hadn't, I would be here. I just wish I could give that same chance to everybody."
"Would you be willing to give me one?" Heero whispered. Duo looked up at him sharply, and Heero bit his tongue, realizing he'd said that last again.
"Heero?" Duo said slowly. Heero winced, and looked away. Duo straightened up, and put out a hand, beckoning to him. "Heero, come over here," he said gently.
"Why can't you come here instead?" Heero said, putting annoyance in his tone to cover up nervousness. His heart was beginning to beat very fast.
"I've got a cat on my lap," Duo pointed out reasonably. He made a come-here gesture, like he was pulling in a rope, and Heero found himself out of his chair and crossing the room before he even thought about what his legs were doing.
"I guess I could pick you up," Duo murmured. He got a grip on Heero's arm that not even Wing's pilot could easily break, and pulled him down onto the bed to sit beside him. "The question is, will I get to keep you?"
"I don't know," Heero said. He sounded subdued, but breathless. "I could try."
"Hmmm. Guess it's worth a shot, then." Duo's lips quirked into a grin, and Heero felt a thrill shoot through his chest. "Just one thing I wanna know, then."
"What's that?"
"How are you at purring?"
It turned out to be a good thing that the kitten could sleep through anything.
~fin~