Colony Day

"Hurry your ass up, Yuy! If we're late to that party Une'll have our heads on a damn platter." Duo called, standing in front of the small mirror that hung in the bathroom and rebraiding his hair for the third time that night. Still pulling on his traditional green tank top, Heero poked his head into the room and glared at his best friend. In return, said best friend merely stuck his tongue out in a childish gesture and quickly twisted on a hair tie before running out of the tiny bathroom and chasing Heero down the hall and into the main room of their apartment. The dark haired boy was sitting on the couch in the middle of the room, pulling on a pair of worn, white sneakers [Duo had celebrated the day the former Wing pilot threw out the old, ratty, yellow ones, two years back].

"I don't see why we have to go to this party, can't we just celebrate at home like we have the past few years?" Duo groused moodily, flinging himself onto the decrepit couch beside his best friend. Heero looked up from his shoes and raised an eyebrow, allowing the ghost of a grin to flash across his face for an instant.

"Because "Une'll have our heads on a damn platter" if we don't?" he quoted, earning a dark glare from his roommate. "Preventors is hosting the celebrations this year, she wants all of us to be there. Now, c'mon, Maxwell. We're going to miss our bus." Heero said, standing up and offering a hand to his best friend. Sighing, Duo accepted it and pulled himself up off the couch. Looking over Heero with an appraising eye, he grinned.

"You look pretty celebratory there, 'Ro." Duo teased, taking in the loose, faded tank top; aged jeans that looked as if they had been washed one time too many; and grey ball cap sitting precariously upon Heero's untamed crop of hair. In Duo's modest opinion, his friend looked more like a delinquint than a Preventors agent. Heero snorted.

"I could say the same about you." He said, gesturing at his friend's entirely black outfit. A black cap, quite similar to Heero's, was pulled down over dark eyes, and he was garbed in a black t-shirt and matching black jeans. While Duo was normally the shorter of the pair, the combat boots he wore gave him an extra half an inch on his best friend. "I thought you'd given up wearing all this black, Duo." Duo winked.

"Can't ya see, 'Ro, I'm mournin' for the youth of today." He said, a wide grin on his face. Shaking his head at his friend's attempt at humor, Heero turned walked towards the front door of their apartment. Still chuckling softly, Duo ran and caught up, slinging an arm around the other boy's neck.

"Alright, alright, flyboy, I'm coming. They better have good food."

+~+~+

"Well. This is fucking lovely, isn't it?" Duo hissed sarcastically as a bright bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, an echo of thunder following it only moments later. "At this rate they won't need the fireworks." Heero smirked at his friend and handed him a rather soggy hotdog.

"I thought you liked the rain." Heero said, cocking his head and looking up into the damp face of his best friend. The braided boy took a vicious bite out of the hotdog.

"I do like the rain." He snarled, his tone a contradiction to his words. "I don't like looking like a drowned rat." Duo lifted his waterlogged braid and waved it in Heero's face pointedly, before turning on his heel and stalking out across the park towards the children's play area.

"If you don't want to stand out in the rain, why don't we just go back to the shelter?" Heero questioned logically, following his partner in a way that would have to be described as demurely. He didn't bother to run and catch up, if Duo wanted his presence he would slow down and wait. As if on cue the braided boy paused, turning his head to look back and his friend, and shrugged noncommittally.

"It's too crowded." He murmured once Heero caught up with him, staring blankly ahead at the rusted swingset. "Everyone's actin' all weird, I don't wanna have to deal with it." Heero had to agree with that statement, their friends had been acting in a fashion that was rather out of the ordinary.

The two boys had ended up arriving at the party a grand total of four minutes and twenty-three seconds late [Heero had kept count, ignoring Duo's comments that the twenty-three seconds was a bit anal retentive]; but the way Une had acted upon their arrival, you would've thought they'd missed her wedding. The woman was normally reasonably good tempered, often amused by Duo's smartass comments, but it seemed that the stress of organizing the Sanq chapter of the Colony Day Celebrations had taken its toll and converted her back to her wartime, Commander self. After sharply reprimanding both boys for their tardiness, and Duo for his sharp tongue, she sent them off to run one of the various refreshmant stands that lay scattered around the park. Heero was immensely pleased that they were in charge of the chili booth, seeing as the "steaming bowls of goodness" had quickly soothed Duo's temper.

Five minutes and a bowl of chili later, both boys were feeling much more relaxed and were chatting amiably. Their discussion, however, was interrupted by an excited Quatre running up to see two of his old war companions for the first time in months, followed by an amused looking Trowa. Seeing Quatre and Trowa caused Duo to brighten considerably, the two lived together on L4 and were much too busy with WEI and the Preventors, respectively, to spend time visiting. Duo and Quatre had quickly picked up an easy conversation, the Arabian was one of Duo's closest and most trusted friends, and by far, the most missed. Trowa and Heero found themselves engaging in small talk about work and Preventor's details, to the great amusement of the other two boys. After a few moments of pleasant conversation, Duo had offered to let both Trowa and Quatre stay at the apartment. Sharing a knowing look with Trowa, Quatre politely declined, telling Duo that he and Trowa had booked a hotel, and that he was sure that Duo and Heero would rather "celebrate together" without interruption. Duo and Heero had both looked completely baffled at this comment, and only a short while later, hand in hand, Trowa and Quatre had left.

Wufei was the next to pass by the booth, which was a difficulty in and of itself. After the Mariemeia Incident, Duo had been furious with the Chinese boy for not only betraying all of them in a sense, but for harming his best friend as well. It was during the year of peace between the two wars that Heero and Duo had become close friends, relying heavily on each other throughout the trials of everyday living, and seeing his closest friend being harmed by another that he considered a friend was almost unforgivable. Though Wufei and Duo had forged a tentative friendship in the peacetime following the second war, it was nowhere near as strong as the bonds he had forged with the other pilots; and even after five years Wufei had still not fully regained the braided boy's trust and respect.

As he passed the booth, Wufei had come across the two friends bickering good naturedly about the assets of the chili they were serving. To be more accurate, Duo had been cheerfully extolling the virtues of chili, and Heero had been giving him exasperated looks that were tempered with amusement, Quatre's strange remark and Une's temper forgotten. Wufei had snorted at the friendly argument before ordering a bowl of the chili for himself, much to Duo's delight. The braided boy began to glorify the merits of the chili to a new subject, sticking his tongue out at the boy behind him and laughing at the glare he got in return. Not generally being in much contact at all with either Duo or Heero, Wufei could not see the faint hint of humor in the stoic boy's expression, and he sighed heavily.

"You'd think you two could manage to get along after living together for six years. I swear, you two are like oil and water." He said, tone bordering on exasperated. He then turned to Heero. "Yuy, what you look like a delinquint." Duo's proverbial hackles rose at this comment, and the atmosphere managed to become more tense without Wufei's notice. Like Trowa and Quatre, he only stayed for a few more moments, before leaving an irritable Duo and resigned Heero in his wake.

The last, and by far most perplexing, of their friends to stop by was Relena. She squealed excitedly upon seeing them, flinging her arms around both boys and pecking them affectionately on the cheek in a sisterly manner that would make one think she hadn't seen them in years. Both boys brightened at her arrival, Relena was one of their closest friends and the one they most often, seeing as she was the only one to live in Sanq also. Standing in her knee length party dress with her hair pulled up in an elaborate twist, both boys thought she looked lovely. Duo was the one to tell her this, of course, ruffling her ever so neatly done hair and teasing her fondly. The girl had laughed at his compliment, blushing faintly and delivering a remark that left both boys feeling completely and utterly bewildered.

"Now, Duo, you don't want to make Heero jealous, do you?" Relena had chided, her lips turned up in amusement for a few moments before she caught the deer-in-headlights looks residing on both boy's faces. Confusion had danced across her expression too he remembered, for a moment, before she completely changed the subject. The Vice Foreign Minister stayed around to talk to them for about ten more minutes before someone else across the park caught her attention, and she turned away with a smile, promising Heero and Duo that she would visit soon. Shortly after that it had begun to rain, and so there they were. Soaked through to the bone and staring aimlessly at children's park equipment.

Duo nudged his shoulder lightly, quirking a slight smile, before walking over to the old swingset. Raising an eyebrow expectantly at his best friend, he took a seat on one of the drenched pieces of rubber and kicked his legs experimentally. Heero raised his eyebrow in concern, striding over to the thoroughly soaked boy.

"It's not safe to be around this much metal in a thunderstorm." He rebuked, but Duo just shrugged, a tired grin on his face.

"We'll be fine. Now, sit down, Yuy." Knowing that Duo's mind was made up, and would be unalterable in the mood he was in now, Heero gave in and took a seat on the swing beside Duo. A genuinely pleased grin appeared on the other boy's face, and without any further ado he began to make use of the piece of equipment, humming to himself.

"Cigarettes and chocolate milk, these are just a few of my cravings..." He sang softly, and Heero couldn't help but smile at the boy singing and swinging beside him. With each kick he swang higher, his sopping wet braid trailing behind him as his black cap flew off his head and sailed across the dark sky. Sitting unmoving in his own swing, Heero stared up at his friend and wondered at Relena's earlier remark. What reason did he have to be jealous? Swinging as high into the sky as he could reach, Duo released the metals chains, the only things that were holding him down in his seat; and he was gliding through the air with ease and grace. And suddenly, as suddenly as the flash of lightning that darted across the night sky, Heero understood.

Duo landed gracefully on the his feet, a few yards away, before turning and sprinting back towards the swings with a delighted grin on his face. He dropped back onto the swing besides Heero's and turned to his best friend, he eyes wide and dark in the moonlight. And Heero felt like he was looking at the boy beside him through someone else's eyes; noticing for the first time the light smattering of freckles across the other boy's nose, the faint scar that made it's way over his forehead, the slight upturn in those lips, and it seemed that some unknown force was pulling him forward until his own lips were pressed against Duo's.

They sat like that for a moment, unmoving, and their lips rested innocently against each other until someone, neither could tell who, sighed softly. And then it was like someone had pushed 'play', and their lips were working against each other and their tongues were twining and exploring places that they had never dreamed of exploring before that moment, and time suddenly ceased to exist. They broke apart what could have been seconds or hours later, one of Heero's hands cupping Duo's face and the other twined tightly around his waist. Duo sat in a similar position, the fingers of one hand tangled in Heero's hair and his other resting innocently on the short-haired boy's shoulder. Their foreheads rested against each other and they breathed in and out heavily for a few moments, breath mingling on each other's lips until Duo finally spoke.

"Why in the hell did you do that?" He asked softly, his voice sounding a bit too disgruntled for someone who had been so actively participating in the offensive activity only minutes before. Heero shrugged slightly, tightening the arm that was still coiled around Duo's waist.

"It felt right." He murmured matter of factly, and Duo couldn't stop his lips from turning up slightly in a miniscule smile at the classically short and to the point, Heero-esque, answer.

"It did, didn't it?" He breathed softly, uncertainly, not bothering to pull away from the loose embrace he was snared in. Duo had never thought of the boy sitting next to him in any other role than best buddy, partner, and confidante; and he was surprised at the unexpected realization that it almost seemed natural for Heero to fall into the role of "lover" as well. He pulled his fingers from Heero's hair, brushing the dark bangs that were falling into the other boy's face hesitantly, and he felt the hand that had been cupping his cheek fall down and join its partner at his waist. And as completely bizarre as it was, it felt... nice.

"Happy Colony Day," Duo finally said, breaking the comfortable silence between them with a smile on his lips. Heero's lips quirked up into an almost invisible smile, a smile that would go by unnoticed to anyone else besides his best friend, before returning the sentiment and leaning in to try that kissing thing again. And sitting outside on the swingset on Colony Day, his lips pressed fervently against Heero's, soaking wet and the rain still falling around them with no intention of stopping any time soon, Duo thought that this celebration was the best idea Preventors had come up with in a long time.