Two-Hundred-and-Twenty-Seven
by Veste Notus
Heero couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get to sleep. It had never been a problem for him before. His routine was positively exhausting, and he had a strict schedule to keep. At 0600 hours, he’d wake up with the sun, check for missions, and by 0800 hours, he’d either be on those aforementioned missions or working on maintaining Wing.
He rolled over onto his left side. ‘Maybe I’m too hot…’ he thought to himself as he pushed off the blankets. ‘Nope, still hot.’
Heero got out of bed and trekked across the room to open a window. Feeling the rush of cool air hit he face, he decided that was ‘good enough’, and crept back to his bed.
He rolled over onto his right side. ‘A little cold…’ he thought, pulling the sheets over his shivering body. ‘Still cold…’
Heero sighed aloud. ‘Looks like I’m never gonna get to sleep!’ he thought in monotone. Without pausing to think about why even his *thoughts* were in monotone, Heero cast jealous looks at his partner across the room.
‘Damn baka…’ Heero thought bitterly. He couldn’t get over how easily Duo could drift off to sleep, not to mention *stay* asleep. Heero on the other hand woke up at just about every tiny little nuance of sound. All that soldier training, Heero reasoned, had gotten the better of him.
Heero rolled onto his stomach. ‘I’m never gonna get to sleep…’ he mentally whined. ‘Why? Am angry about something? Guilty of something?’ Heero thought. ‘Well, no more guilty than usual… What the hell’s the matter with me?’
Heero groaned aloud.
“Count sheep, or get out. Those are your two options.”
“Oro?”
Heero mentally kicked himself for forgetting about Duo. Now Duo was awake and it was all *his* fault! ‘Gods! As if I wasn’t feeling guilty before…!’
“One…”
“Duo, what are you doing?” Heero called into the darkness.
“I’m counting sheep for you. C’mon now. Two sheep… Three sheep…”
Heero rolled his eyes. ‘Of all the stupid things…’ Heero nuzzled his head into his pillow in an effort to ignore Duo’s incessant counting.
“Eighty-seven sheep… Eighty-eight sheep…”
The more Duo droned on, the more Duo’s voice seemed to do just that – drone on. Heero never knew how positively *boring* Duo’s voice could be when it was applied to something as mundane as counting sheep.
“Two-hundred-and-twenty-three sheep… Two-hundred-and-twenty-four sheep…”
Heero yawned a long, leisurely yawn as Duo continued counting. He knew Duo wouldn’t stop counting, just like he wouldn’t stop singing the ‘song that gets on everybody’s nerves’. But he had to admit, Duo’s sheep counting was putting him to sleep quite efficiently…
A sudden gust of wind tearing through the open window reawakened the semi-conscious Japanese boy.
“K’SO!” he yelled in a whisper.
“You awake again, Hee-chan?” Duo ventured to ask, concern dripping from his voice like hot candle wax.
“Hai.”
Heero heard the squeaking of bedsprings, indicating Duo’s movement. The soft padding of Duo’s feet on the carpeted floor reaffirmed Heero’s suspicion.
“Where are you going?” he asked curiously. He even went so far as to sit up in bed to hear the response.
“No where. Every where. I can’t sleep.” came the distracted, wistful reply.
Heero couldn’t take it anymore.
“If you can’t sleep because I woke you up, than I’m never gonna get some sleep, so take me with you, baka!” he shouted in all his sleepy anger and frustration.
Heero felt a cool hand on his shoulder.
“Fine. Come with me.” And with that, the cool hand ghosted down Heero’s bicep and faded into the night, leaving the path of flesh it touched simply tingling with sensation.
The sound of the door opening brought Heero back to the here-and-now. He pulled himself off the bed and, giving one last glance to his bed, followed Duo out the door.
They walked down the stairs of the safehouse and into the kitchen, where Duo proceeded to drink milk straight out of the carton.
“That’s disgusting. People are going to use that after you, yanno that?” Heero lectured, crinkling his nose slightly at the sloppy act.
“Yeah… But what could be sweeter than an indirect kiss from Duo Maxwell?” Duo slurred out, still quite foggy from previously being asleep.
“I don’t know.” Heero answered without thinking. Luckily he caught himself without missing a beat. “That is to say, I don’t understand your logic.”
Duo laughed and took a generous gulp of milk. He brought his head far back, revealing a nice, slender neckline that trailed down to a glimpse of a well-toned chest behind a gray, sleeveless muscle-shirt.
Heero gulped. ‘Since when have I started looking at Duo in that way?’ he asked himself. ‘I must be either really tired, or really...’
“You okay, Hee-chan?” Duo called from over his carton. Heero nodded dumbly, still absorbed in the sight of Duo Maxwell, the beauty of whom he, until recently, had ignored for absolutely no clear, logical reason.
“Pretty…” was all Heero could say.
“E-excuse me, Heero??”
Heero snapped out of his trance. “Hn. Nothing, baka.” He stomped over to Duo and, blushing slightly, grasped the carton of milk out of Duo’s hand. “Save some for the rest of us…” he said before imitating Duo’s maneuver and drinking deeply from the carton.
An indirect kiss from a carton of milk…
Heero threw the empty carton onto the counter with a soft thud and a loud gasp for air.
“Wow. You sure polished that off good, Hee-kun!” Duo said with an exaggerated whistle.
“Yeah, well…” Heero blushed. He didn’t want to disclose how eager he was to taste Duo’s ‘indirect kiss’ on the pseudo-cardboard carton.
“…”
“…”
“Ya wanna go back upstairs? You know… count sheep… try to find a way to fall asleep and all that?” Duo asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Yeah, sure…”
They soundlessly walked upstairs, and hopped into bed even more silently. Heero stared at the ceiling for a while. It looked the same, but not. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, like so many things in his young life.
“Two-hundred-and-twenty-five sheep… two-hundred-and-twenty-six sheep…”
Heero yawned again.
“Aren’t you tired, Duo?” he finally asked.
“Why do you wanna know?”
Heero considered this. Why *did* he want to know.
“Just curious is all. Is that okay?”
A long pause followed. “I don’t want to keep you awake, Heero. I just wanna look over you and make sure you’re okay…” Heero processed Duo’s statement and gradually grew more indignant.
“Are you calling me weak, that I can’t look after myself?” he demanded. Duo waved his hands in apology from across the room.
“N-no! By no means! I just… err…”
“‘Err’ what, Duo?” Heero growled impatiently.
“I JUST WANNA MAKE SURE YOU’RE OKAY!!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!” Duo screamed back. In an instant, Heero was all over him, having lunged at him before he could finish the sentence.
“You aren’t supposed to care about me!” he whispered harshly. “I’m not supposed to exist! I’m not supposed to have friends, be an insomniac, or want to touch your hair! Don’t you get it?! I’m a Perfect Soldier! I’m supposed to take care of myself and the mission! That’s all! Stop getting in the way of that!!!”
Duo stopped struggling beneath Heero. The Japanese boy’s hands held his wrists down tightly while Heero used his bodyweight to straddle Duo and pin him to his own bed. If they were lovers, Duo would have probably thought this horribly erotic. ‘It’s funny how similar sex and threats can be… love and hate…’ he thought to himself. Suddenly, another thought struck him.
“You want to touch my hair?” he asked, much in the same tone he would ask ‘you’re really a pink elephant from Pluto who dispenses M&Ms from your earlobes?’.
Heero’s grip of Duo’s wrists faltered, but even so, Duo did not wretch himself free. Instead, he merely repeated his question, slower and softer this time.
“You want to touch my hair?”
Heero sighed and slid off Duo and stepped off his bed.
“Gomen” he whispered roughly before retreating to his own bed.
“For what? Touch my hair, Heero. Please.” Duo said seriously, his eyes grabbing Heero’s attention in the darkness.
Four tentative fingers and a thumb slowly crawled their way to Duo’s chestnut tresses.
“Soft…” Heero swooned, closing his eyes and reveling in the silky texture of Duo’s long, gorgeous hair.
“Good… Now touch me…” Duo whispered softly.
Heero obeyed with even more cautious fingers, slowly rounding them over Duo’s shoulders and following the muscle-line downward, resting right at the small of Duo’s back.
Duo moved gracefully into the embrace. Feeling Duo’s responsiveness, Heero bent his neck slightly and buried his face in Duo’s enchanting hair.
“Care to count sheep with me?” Heero asked, still nuzzling the nape of Duo’s neck.
“Delighted to, love.”
And with that, the two collapsed into Duo’s bed, limbs intertwined, as were both their hearts and their fates… and soon to be their mouths…
“Two-hundred-and-twenty-seven sheep…” Heero whispered, before claiming the loud mouth that had caused him so many headaches along with so many smiles.
‘That’s how many sheep it took to count for me to figure out that I love you…’
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