fic - good cleaning fun [haven]
Title: Good Cleaning Fun
Series: Moments of Haven
Summary: Duo gets his way in a number of things.
Good Cleaning Fun
A Moment of Haven
Heero stood back and just watched for a few peaceful seconds before interrupting. "We'll need to be scheduling our annual visit to HQ soon."
Duo set the bolt he had been cleaning down in the arrangement of parts around him. "Man, that time of year already, huh? Hey, that means Relena's birthday is coming up, right?"
"She'll be in Sanq this year, she said."
"Bummer. Hey, we can still visit Wufei, right? See if he's gotten off his lazy backside and found himself that nice new apartment he wanted."
"With luck, we'll get there just in time to do a lot of heavy lifting," Heero predicted dryly. "Unless he didn't call us to help out when he was moving."
Duo picked out the next washer in his sights and began cleaning the grime off of it. "We should visit Lena anyway, since we're over there and all. It's just a short train ride, right?"
He gave that the consideration it deserved while watching his partner. "Hm, yes, I think we could make it happen, but we'll have to see what her schedule is like. There's no point in trekking out there if she'll be holed up in meetings all day and all night."
"We should go out there anyway. I've never really been. You can show me the sights."
"It's not as if I did a lot of sight-seeing while I was there, Duo."
"But you can pretend." Duo smiled impishly before setting the washer aside and starting in on the panel the bolt and washer had been holding. "You can show me around to all the places that kinda seem awesome and maybe some places that don't and bullshit your way through some history for me. It'll be grand. And then since we're already in town, you know Relena's gonna make the time for us even if she didn't have any to begin with. She'd feel terrible if we were so close by and she didn't even see us at all."
"You want to go and deliberately guilt-trip her into seeing us?"
"Only if she can't find a time she's free to see us, and it wouldn't be guilt-tripping! It'd be doing her a favor. If she's so busy that she can't find even an hour, day or night, to take some time to herself and hang out with old friends, then she is way too busy."
"I suppose." Heero leaned against the workbench and mentally reassembled the tiller, slowly parsing out the meaning behind Duo's little groupings of parts on the floor. "How's this coming?"
Duo looked up briefly, just to confirm what Heero was talking about. "Oh, not bad. Not bad at all. Aside from the obvious, found one stripped screw and two missing washers, and maybe your average amount of sloppiness. Someone obviously took this thing apart before trying to fix it or something, and did an okay job putting it back together again, but at least there's nothing stupid enough going on here that I need to order anything more than I already did."
"Good to hear. Do you think you can get it up and running before we take off?"
"Yeah, sure, not a problem. This ol' girl'll be better than ever in no time, once her parts get in. You wanna plant and run?"
Heero's mouth tilted in a small half-smile. "No, I want to till and run. I remember some of the information saying you should do all of your prep first, give it a good water, and then let it sit for a bit before proceeding. It seems like a good idea to let it sit for a bit while we're out of town."
"Watched dirt never... uh... turns into soil?" Duo chuckled at his own lame joke. "Yeah, I guess it's faintly possible I might get a little twitchy during the whole waiting process. Faintly. Tiny, tiny little chance there."
"Positively infinitesimal," Heero agreed. "I shudder to think how practically non-existent that possibility will be when it comes to the waiting after we get everything planted."
"I am not going to be out there every day with a ruler."
"I suggested no such thing."
"Just you wait and see. You're playing cool cucumber now, but I bet you're going to be even worse than me after we really get started."
"We'll see." It was a bet Heero was fairly certain he would win. Even allowing for a little bit of excitement on his part, there was no way that Duo would be any less excited. And even if he did get to fussing a little bit, and he was man enough to admit that it was possible that he might get to it just the tiniest bit, he'd at least try to be subtle about it, whereas he knew Duo wasn't quite the type to try to hide it.
"Okay, I just lost a screw. I know it was here a second ago."
Heero blinked, then smirked. "I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere."
"Shut up, Yuy."
He moved in and pulled the screw in question out from right behind Duo's foot. "Here."
"Ah, thanks." Duo took it and held it up for his inspection. "It'll never get that shiny pristine finish back, but at least it looks cared-for now, right?" He started putting some of the pieces back together again, the parts he wouldn't be touching anymore to perform the rest of the repairs.
"It looks more promising now than it did in the store."
Duo shot him a look. "Is that because you don't have any vision or imagination, or is that just you not having faith in my judgment?"
Heero returned the look steadily. "It was a simple statement of fact. The tiller looks better now, now that you've had your hands on it, than it did when we picked it up."
"I haven't even fixed anything yet."
"You've cleaned it up. Given it some love and attention. Sometimes, that's all that's needed." He picked up a wrench to hold a nut in place so Duo could tighten the bolt. "Did I... offend you? When I expressed my doubts about this?"
Duo twiddled the driver in his hand for a few seconds before shrugging and meeting Heero's eyes. "Nah, not really. I mean, it was a pretty civil exchange and all that, and you had your reasons, and they weren't stupid." He smiled a little at the eyeroll he got. "Guess I just got a little, I dunno, protective? Just 'cuz something's not all shiny and pretty and new, doesn't mean it's not worth anything."
"I definitely have faith in you in that regard, Duo. In your ability to take something that's not all shiny and pretty and new... and see the value hidden within."
He blinked, then smiled, then chuckled. "Did you just get all mushy on me, Yuy?"
Heero leaned over to peck his cheek. "I deny everything."
"Oh, well, in that case..." His eyes dropped briefly to his work before returning to Heero's face. "You aren't half bad at that yourself, I guess."
"Sometimes the oldest tools are the most reliable."
A smirk crept into the corner of Duo's smile. "I think I've got some reliable old tools on me that aren't all shiny and pretty and new, but could use a bit of love and attention."
Heero snorted, but couldn't quite stop his gaze from flickering down to the crotch of Duo's shorts. "Maybe not new, but hardly much-used now, right?"
"Well, if you're going to put it that way, no, I'm still kind of taking them out of the packaging." He had an image of them unwrapping presents. He knew for a fact that Heero was the kind that carefully sliced through tape and removed the paper methodically, folding it up neatly before setting it aside. He himself tended in that direction as well, though maybe more with a mind to preservation than tidiness. "But I'm sure they could only benefit from some good cleaning fun. Maybe you could prove to me you do have vision and imagination, hmmm?"
The amusement was evident on Heero's face. "Later. You wouldn't want the tiller to get jealous, now would you?"
"I'm sure I'm almost done here." And indeed he was. There was no sense in putting everything back together if he was just going to take it apart again, and none of those repairs he had to make were only surface-deep. He went back to quickly assembling what he wanted to assemble. "Can we name her?"
Heero watched Duo's hands moving with such admirable surety for a few seconds before the question registered. "The tiller?"
"Yeah." Duo took the time to flash him a grin. "I've got every intention of making sure she lasts well past the season."
He thought back over his arguments against naming things and decided that none of them applied here. "Very well. What would you like to name her?"
"Hmm." Duo finished what he had planned to do and put his tools back in their box. "You name her."
"Me? This was your idea."
"I know, and it's my idea that you name her." He grabbed a tube of hand cleaner and set to removing the grease and grime from his hands.
"My vision and imagination only go so far, Duo. The last time I named something, I only came up with a rather unimaginative 'Fido'."
"'Fido' may not be very imaginative, but it is incredibly appropriate, and the cactus wears it well. I wouldn't have Fido named anything else. So come on, give me a name."
Heero made a few incomprehensible noises as he struggled to comply with Duo's request. Coming up with something completely out of the blue was beyond him, so he tried to go over the tiller's attributes, hoping something there would strike a chord with him. Unfortunately, the tiller didn't have as many attributes as he would have liked.
Duo snickered at Heero's expression as he wiped his hands clean, freeing him to invade Heero's personal space without making a mess. Heero disapproved of messes, and Duo disapproved of a Heero pre-occupied with his disappoval. "You're thinking way too hard about this, Yuy."
"You asked for a name," he said defensively. "And clearly you're not going to let me off the hook until I come up with something. That's a lot of pressure, you know."
"Pressure? You think well under pressure, don't you?" Duo slid a hand under the hem of Heero's shirt.
Heero reflexively backed up a step, bringing Duo with him. "I don't think that's going to help me any, Duo."
Duo nibbled his earlobe. "I'm trying to distract you from the pressure."
He tilted his head to one side as Duo nipped his way down his neck, encouraging this distraction, and adding to it with his own hands on Duo's body. Maybe if Duo got too distracted by this distraction, he'd forget about this name thing.
"So...," Duo mumbled into their kisses. "How about that name?"
It wasn't Heero's lucky day today, it seemed. Perhaps he could pretend he was far too distracted for such silly things. He pressed his assault.
Duo met it evenly, and seized control with a well-placed squeeze of his hand and all the right licks. "Name?"
'Ah... Duo..."
"Yes, that's my name. Now what's the tiller's name?"
"I can't... You can't expect me... to... uh..."
"Come on," he coaxed, his fingers moving to tease a lot more than just a name out of Heero. "What should we name the tiller?"
This was completely unfair. Not completely undesireable, but still completely unfair. Heero rallied his concentration, determined not to let Duo win this game, but he'd been having trouble coming up with anything even before Duo decided to get frisky with him, and that whole distraction thing was nonsense anyway since clearly Duo was simply applying all sorts of other pressure now. Pressure squared, even, since he made it known that he wasn't letting all that lovely pressure go anywhere until Heero coughed up a name.
Duo wasn't quite sure which thing in particular Heero groaned about, but he lapped it up anyway, most pleased that Heero was allowing him to play this little game. He cooed his question again in a stream of warm moist air into Heero's ear.
"Uh... Duo... I'm not... not good at this... you know that."
Duo kissed him in non-apology. "I'm not asking for the most brilliant name in the world, Heero."
"'But... aah... oh, for... what do you... how about...?"
"Yes?" he all but purred, upping the pressure.
"Uhhh... God, Duo, I don't know!"
"Give me a name," he ordered with a squeeze.
"Ah... Tilly!"
Duo paused and stared at him for a few good seconds before he broke down in laughter.
Heero pouted for a few good seconds before turning the tables and getting his revenge.
back to previous part
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Series: Moments of Haven
Summary: Duo gets his way in a number of things.
Good Cleaning Fun
A Moment of Haven
Heero stood back and just watched for a few peaceful seconds before interrupting. "We'll need to be scheduling our annual visit to HQ soon."
Duo set the bolt he had been cleaning down in the arrangement of parts around him. "Man, that time of year already, huh? Hey, that means Relena's birthday is coming up, right?"
"She'll be in Sanq this year, she said."
"Bummer. Hey, we can still visit Wufei, right? See if he's gotten off his lazy backside and found himself that nice new apartment he wanted."
"With luck, we'll get there just in time to do a lot of heavy lifting," Heero predicted dryly. "Unless he didn't call us to help out when he was moving."
Duo picked out the next washer in his sights and began cleaning the grime off of it. "We should visit Lena anyway, since we're over there and all. It's just a short train ride, right?"
He gave that the consideration it deserved while watching his partner. "Hm, yes, I think we could make it happen, but we'll have to see what her schedule is like. There's no point in trekking out there if she'll be holed up in meetings all day and all night."
"We should go out there anyway. I've never really been. You can show me the sights."
"It's not as if I did a lot of sight-seeing while I was there, Duo."
"But you can pretend." Duo smiled impishly before setting the washer aside and starting in on the panel the bolt and washer had been holding. "You can show me around to all the places that kinda seem awesome and maybe some places that don't and bullshit your way through some history for me. It'll be grand. And then since we're already in town, you know Relena's gonna make the time for us even if she didn't have any to begin with. She'd feel terrible if we were so close by and she didn't even see us at all."
"You want to go and deliberately guilt-trip her into seeing us?"
"Only if she can't find a time she's free to see us, and it wouldn't be guilt-tripping! It'd be doing her a favor. If she's so busy that she can't find even an hour, day or night, to take some time to herself and hang out with old friends, then she is way too busy."
"I suppose." Heero leaned against the workbench and mentally reassembled the tiller, slowly parsing out the meaning behind Duo's little groupings of parts on the floor. "How's this coming?"
Duo looked up briefly, just to confirm what Heero was talking about. "Oh, not bad. Not bad at all. Aside from the obvious, found one stripped screw and two missing washers, and maybe your average amount of sloppiness. Someone obviously took this thing apart before trying to fix it or something, and did an okay job putting it back together again, but at least there's nothing stupid enough going on here that I need to order anything more than I already did."
"Good to hear. Do you think you can get it up and running before we take off?"
"Yeah, sure, not a problem. This ol' girl'll be better than ever in no time, once her parts get in. You wanna plant and run?"
Heero's mouth tilted in a small half-smile. "No, I want to till and run. I remember some of the information saying you should do all of your prep first, give it a good water, and then let it sit for a bit before proceeding. It seems like a good idea to let it sit for a bit while we're out of town."
"Watched dirt never... uh... turns into soil?" Duo chuckled at his own lame joke. "Yeah, I guess it's faintly possible I might get a little twitchy during the whole waiting process. Faintly. Tiny, tiny little chance there."
"Positively infinitesimal," Heero agreed. "I shudder to think how practically non-existent that possibility will be when it comes to the waiting after we get everything planted."
"I am not going to be out there every day with a ruler."
"I suggested no such thing."
"Just you wait and see. You're playing cool cucumber now, but I bet you're going to be even worse than me after we really get started."
"We'll see." It was a bet Heero was fairly certain he would win. Even allowing for a little bit of excitement on his part, there was no way that Duo would be any less excited. And even if he did get to fussing a little bit, and he was man enough to admit that it was possible that he might get to it just the tiniest bit, he'd at least try to be subtle about it, whereas he knew Duo wasn't quite the type to try to hide it.
"Okay, I just lost a screw. I know it was here a second ago."
Heero blinked, then smirked. "I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere."
"Shut up, Yuy."
He moved in and pulled the screw in question out from right behind Duo's foot. "Here."
"Ah, thanks." Duo took it and held it up for his inspection. "It'll never get that shiny pristine finish back, but at least it looks cared-for now, right?" He started putting some of the pieces back together again, the parts he wouldn't be touching anymore to perform the rest of the repairs.
"It looks more promising now than it did in the store."
Duo shot him a look. "Is that because you don't have any vision or imagination, or is that just you not having faith in my judgment?"
Heero returned the look steadily. "It was a simple statement of fact. The tiller looks better now, now that you've had your hands on it, than it did when we picked it up."
"I haven't even fixed anything yet."
"You've cleaned it up. Given it some love and attention. Sometimes, that's all that's needed." He picked up a wrench to hold a nut in place so Duo could tighten the bolt. "Did I... offend you? When I expressed my doubts about this?"
Duo twiddled the driver in his hand for a few seconds before shrugging and meeting Heero's eyes. "Nah, not really. I mean, it was a pretty civil exchange and all that, and you had your reasons, and they weren't stupid." He smiled a little at the eyeroll he got. "Guess I just got a little, I dunno, protective? Just 'cuz something's not all shiny and pretty and new, doesn't mean it's not worth anything."
"I definitely have faith in you in that regard, Duo. In your ability to take something that's not all shiny and pretty and new... and see the value hidden within."
He blinked, then smiled, then chuckled. "Did you just get all mushy on me, Yuy?"
Heero leaned over to peck his cheek. "I deny everything."
"Oh, well, in that case..." His eyes dropped briefly to his work before returning to Heero's face. "You aren't half bad at that yourself, I guess."
"Sometimes the oldest tools are the most reliable."
A smirk crept into the corner of Duo's smile. "I think I've got some reliable old tools on me that aren't all shiny and pretty and new, but could use a bit of love and attention."
Heero snorted, but couldn't quite stop his gaze from flickering down to the crotch of Duo's shorts. "Maybe not new, but hardly much-used now, right?"
"Well, if you're going to put it that way, no, I'm still kind of taking them out of the packaging." He had an image of them unwrapping presents. He knew for a fact that Heero was the kind that carefully sliced through tape and removed the paper methodically, folding it up neatly before setting it aside. He himself tended in that direction as well, though maybe more with a mind to preservation than tidiness. "But I'm sure they could only benefit from some good cleaning fun. Maybe you could prove to me you do have vision and imagination, hmmm?"
The amusement was evident on Heero's face. "Later. You wouldn't want the tiller to get jealous, now would you?"
"I'm sure I'm almost done here." And indeed he was. There was no sense in putting everything back together if he was just going to take it apart again, and none of those repairs he had to make were only surface-deep. He went back to quickly assembling what he wanted to assemble. "Can we name her?"
Heero watched Duo's hands moving with such admirable surety for a few seconds before the question registered. "The tiller?"
"Yeah." Duo took the time to flash him a grin. "I've got every intention of making sure she lasts well past the season."
He thought back over his arguments against naming things and decided that none of them applied here. "Very well. What would you like to name her?"
"Hmm." Duo finished what he had planned to do and put his tools back in their box. "You name her."
"Me? This was your idea."
"I know, and it's my idea that you name her." He grabbed a tube of hand cleaner and set to removing the grease and grime from his hands.
"My vision and imagination only go so far, Duo. The last time I named something, I only came up with a rather unimaginative 'Fido'."
"'Fido' may not be very imaginative, but it is incredibly appropriate, and the cactus wears it well. I wouldn't have Fido named anything else. So come on, give me a name."
Heero made a few incomprehensible noises as he struggled to comply with Duo's request. Coming up with something completely out of the blue was beyond him, so he tried to go over the tiller's attributes, hoping something there would strike a chord with him. Unfortunately, the tiller didn't have as many attributes as he would have liked.
Duo snickered at Heero's expression as he wiped his hands clean, freeing him to invade Heero's personal space without making a mess. Heero disapproved of messes, and Duo disapproved of a Heero pre-occupied with his disappoval. "You're thinking way too hard about this, Yuy."
"You asked for a name," he said defensively. "And clearly you're not going to let me off the hook until I come up with something. That's a lot of pressure, you know."
"Pressure? You think well under pressure, don't you?" Duo slid a hand under the hem of Heero's shirt.
Heero reflexively backed up a step, bringing Duo with him. "I don't think that's going to help me any, Duo."
Duo nibbled his earlobe. "I'm trying to distract you from the pressure."
He tilted his head to one side as Duo nipped his way down his neck, encouraging this distraction, and adding to it with his own hands on Duo's body. Maybe if Duo got too distracted by this distraction, he'd forget about this name thing.
"So...," Duo mumbled into their kisses. "How about that name?"
It wasn't Heero's lucky day today, it seemed. Perhaps he could pretend he was far too distracted for such silly things. He pressed his assault.
Duo met it evenly, and seized control with a well-placed squeeze of his hand and all the right licks. "Name?"
'Ah... Duo..."
"Yes, that's my name. Now what's the tiller's name?"
"I can't... You can't expect me... to... uh..."
"Come on," he coaxed, his fingers moving to tease a lot more than just a name out of Heero. "What should we name the tiller?"
This was completely unfair. Not completely undesireable, but still completely unfair. Heero rallied his concentration, determined not to let Duo win this game, but he'd been having trouble coming up with anything even before Duo decided to get frisky with him, and that whole distraction thing was nonsense anyway since clearly Duo was simply applying all sorts of other pressure now. Pressure squared, even, since he made it known that he wasn't letting all that lovely pressure go anywhere until Heero coughed up a name.
Duo wasn't quite sure which thing in particular Heero groaned about, but he lapped it up anyway, most pleased that Heero was allowing him to play this little game. He cooed his question again in a stream of warm moist air into Heero's ear.
"Uh... Duo... I'm not... not good at this... you know that."
Duo kissed him in non-apology. "I'm not asking for the most brilliant name in the world, Heero."
"'But... aah... oh, for... what do you... how about...?"
"Yes?" he all but purred, upping the pressure.
"Uhhh... God, Duo, I don't know!"
"Give me a name," he ordered with a squeeze.
"Ah... Tilly!"
Duo paused and stared at him for a few good seconds before he broke down in laughter.
Heero pouted for a few good seconds before turning the tables and getting his revenge.
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