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cloneness for sera...
last chapter:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/79848.htm (WTF? it tells me post not found but when i use the arrows to get back a few entries, it's here just fine. W. T. F.)
Duo lifted his chin challengingly, hands on his hips. "I mean it. As long as ya act cool, I can smooth things over. My kids know to trust me. But I don't want to even hear ya raise your voice, or even LOOK at one of 'em funny."
"Why would I do that?" he asked, looking puzzled.
"I dunno. You're the Soldier. Anything might freak 'em out," Duo commented, giving him a dirty look. "One wrong move, buddy, and I'll kill ya before you can blink."
The clone didn't seem overly worried. Duo kept on watching, his annoyance and wariness changing into puzzlement as the Soldier placed the flower inside his pack carefully, checking to make sure that he didn't crush it. It just seemed so unnatural that the killer would take such care of a stupid dried flower... It wasn't even of a rare kind; these small yellow flowers grew just about everywhere.
The clone put the pack on his back, fastening the straps securely, then turned to look at him, waiting. Shaking his head to dispel his thoughts, Duo took a good look around in the street to check that it was empty, and then quickly started to walk through the wreckage, making sure to stay in the shadows. The clone followed, his steps even more silent than Duo's. If not for the way his stare made a shiver go through the scavenger's spine, he wouldn't have been sure he really was following.
He took the long route, making sure to double back so that no one could track them down, and hoping that the clone wouldn't remember how to get to the safe place. With luck he would disorient him enough...
+
Heero wondered why the hell the scavenger was walking so many times past the same areas. Of course, they hadn't used the same street even twice, but the map of the city he was drawing in his head showed clearly that they were only double-tracking again and again. And even if they had been followed-- which he didn't think they were -- they had walked on tar often enough not to leave any tracks. He supposed a skilled stalker would be able to follow for a while, but when the places they crossed didn't even have pebbles or grass or anything that would be disturbed by their walking through... Of course, maybe the longhaired man just couldn't find his way home again because of the darkness, but the idea that such a survivor could get lost in his hometown because of a simple lack of light was so ridiculous he nearly snorted.
Which left as only reason that he didn't want Heero to remember the way.
Which was pretty damn ironic since he had just helped him to complete his map of this area of the city, and that Heero always had a very precise idea of where he was on that map. But he had been told many times that normal humans had inferior mental capabilities.
Space and time awareness were related, he mused as he climbed up a pile of bricks after that swinging braid, and he remembered that his superior officers had needed a watch. No Soldier needed a watch to tell the time. They... just knew. Over time, since it had been so long that Heero hadn't seen a working clock to readjust his perceptions, his own internal sense of time had become a bit less precise, but he could still give the time with only plus or minus five minutes.
It was a leap of logic to assume that because they were less precise with Time than Soldiers were, they would be less precise with Space as well, but it ... just made sense. Why bother with making him take the long way around otherwise? He hadn't even been blindfolded, and even without knowing the town he could still notice their changes of direction using the stars.
Which only proved even more that the man didn't trust him, but that was okay; Heero was already surprised that he trusted him enough to turn his back on him. Th scavenger always made sure to be able to see him from the corner of his eye, but if Heero decided to jump on him and break his neck, it wouldn't help a lot and he had to know it.
Finally, after almost two hours of walking through the ruins, they stopped outside an abandoned building. The walls showed massive fire damage, but were still somehow mostly in one piece, even though the windows were reduced to a few shards of glass. The roof looked to have caved in, filling the ground floor with rubble.
In the narrow alley between the two blocks, a fire escape was bent off the side of the building, still somehow attached at the top and the bottom but the rest of it like a snake twisting on itself. Heero almost dismissed it--up until the point where his hand went for a gun he didn't have anymore because that shape in the darkness at the top of the stairs was someone's shadow.
"Down, boy," the scavenged grunted as he glared at him sharply. He was visibly aware of the presence, and didn't care, so Heero allowed himself to relax minutely. They hadn't been shot yet, so it had to be an ally, right?
The dark shape was now getting up, and jumping over the gap between the stairs' landing and the door. It was smaller than he had expected and Heero understood that this was one of the scavenger's children. He frowned and pulled his hood up, hiding his eyes and most of his face in shadows. He was going to need to control his impulses. He wasn't on an infiltration mission. They were not targets.
His guide walked in the dark alley and went to a crack in the wall, squeezing through it quickly. It looked to be a bit of a tight fit, even though he was thinner than Heero, and the Soldier frowned thoughtfully as he approached the hole. Most adults would have difficulties fitting in here, but the kids could go through easily and that was probably the reason why they had chosen this place.
Heero was still only halfway through the crack when he heard a stampede inside the hiding place and about a dozen shrill voices scream.
"DUO!! Duo! Duo! He's back! You're late! Duo!!"
It was reasonable to assume that Duo was the braided man's name, and the voices sounded young and expressed relief, not aggression, so he didn't have to fear being ambushed. But it was still with a lot of reluctance that he slipped all the way through the crack to emerge inside the building.
The rubble inside was mostly pushed against the windows facing the street they'd come from, which was why it had looked totally full. Half of the upper floor was gone, but he couldn't see the sky anyway; apparently either the second floor or the roof was still blocking the way. It wouldn't be very warm during the winter, but it would stop direct rain at least.
There were kids everywhere.
Well, not really, but that was the impression he got. About a dozen, he judged with a glance, and most of them scrabbling to try and hug Duo. Two of them were standing back and watching from a door leading to another room in which a fire burned. Boys, almost old enough to be considered teenagers.
Heero stayed by the entry, a little overwhelmed, trying not to draw attention to himself. The children were putting so much enthusiasm into greeting the scavenger... The man was laughing and hugging all of them as best he can.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just a little late!" he said in a soothing tone, calming them down. They he straightened up, scanning the room, a little child sitting on his hip. "Where's Cathy? And Milly?"
"They is cookin' in th'other room, Duo," a little girl replied with enthusiasm, bouncing. Her long, honeyed hair bounced on her back along with her and Duo smiled and pat her on the head the way he would have calmed down a hyperactive puppy.
"None of you tried to burn nothin' down, did ya?"
"No, Duo," they replied as one. It should have reminded Heero of the barracks and the other clones, but it didn't, because none of these voices sounded the same nor expressed the same thing.
He caught the two boys in the doorway staring at him, and soon all the kids had fallen silent and turned to watch him too.
"Who's he, Duo?" the same little girl with long hair asked, pointing at him. All the other kids waited, watching him with varying levels of wariness.
Heero saw the scavenger frown a little, then bounce the blond boy on his hip absently. "He's just a visitor, so ya don't gotta be worried. His name is..." He looked at Heero in askance, and the clone remembered that they hadn't bothered to exchange their names.
"Heero," he said, pulling the hood just a little lower. They were all staring at him, backlit by the fire in the other room so that he couldn't see their expressions, and he was... almost nervous.
"Right," the scavenger replied with a decisive nod. "He's Heero, so don't bother him, ya little monsters." Patting heads here and there on the way, he managed to reach the door to the other room and disappeared inside, followed by some of the kids. A few of the older boys stayed, still keeping an eye on him suspiciously.
The little girl was still there. She was, as he noticed, wearing his spare shirt like a dress. There was a length of soft rope around her waist like a belt, but that was all she wore.
And she was still staring at him. And staring. And staring. Heero was starting to feel decidedly unsettled.
And then she bounced toward him, peering at his face under the hood. "I'm Lena."
Heero just stared back, not knowing what he was supposed to do.
"Hey... I'm Lena," the kid repeated, looking surprised at his non-reaction to her revelation.
Heero realized with a sinking feeling that the other man had left him alone with the child. "...Hello," he replied, because he didn't know what else was expected of him. If he was cruel to his children, the man-- Duo would probably shoot him.
"Duo says it's polite to say your name. Why're ya wearin' that funny thing on yer head?"
Heero caught himself glancing around for escape routes. "Because I don't want you to see my face," he explained when he realized that he couldn't run from the child.
"D'ya got a burn? Otto got a burn on his arm and he don't like to let us see it, and he said it hurt lots when he got it but Duo helped him and covered it up an' now it's all shiny an' his hair even grew back 'xcept now it's CURLY... an' now Otto's all big an' he can go do stuff and he steals real good an' can catch rats an' he's real smart."
The Soldier blinked owlishly, overwhelmed by the amount of information she could share in one breath. "Uh. No, I don't have a burn."
The little girl gazed up at him, a finger in her mouth. Heero decided to ignore how unsanitary that was. "Are ya ugly? I think Mei is ugly but Duo says I shouldn't say that to her because it's mean."
Now that was a question he didn't have an answer for. What constituted ugly exactly?
"I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe I'm ugly."
"Oh."
Heero's search for an escape route became more urgent.
"D'ya like rat? Cathy caught it for dinner."
Heero nodded, because he didn't have a preference but agreeing was just easier than explaining that.
And she was STILL staring up at him. "You're tall. Milly says I talk too much. D'ya think I talk too much? Am I botherin' ya? Ya can say. I won't cry cuz I'm a big girl now."
"I don't know if it's too much, but it's a lot," he answered frankly. "You... don't bother me. But I'm not used to children."
"Duo likes kids. Do you not like kids?"
Heero stared at her, trying to formulate an answer. "I don't know if I dislike kids. I'm not used to being around them." He'd just said that. Couldn't she assimilate the information?
"Lotsa people don't like kids an' they're mean an' they hit an' other bad things an' Duo says those are bad people an' we should run away. D'ya run away?"
Heero was starting to ponder the wisdom of giving her detailed replies. She wasn't even listening to them. Her brain was visibly not mature enough yet to take them fully into account. "... Yes. I ran away."
"Mummy an' daddy died. Did your mummy an' daddy die too?"
"No." He would have needed to have them.
"Then why did ya run away?"
Heero stepped toward the room where the other man had disappeared. Why was he letting that kid so close to him? "Because," he answered, knowing that he wasn't really replying, but thinking that maybe there were things a kid shouldn't know, even if he wasn't sure what.
He glanced in over the boys who were still watching him suspiciously. Duo was the youngest kids to a bit of board that apparently served as a table.
"Hey, hey, ya monsters! Eat now!" he called for the ones who were still elsewhere. The two glaring boys -- one dirty blonde and the other with tanned skin and dark, frizzy hair -- turned away, freeing the door, and went to sit at one end of the table, closely followed by Lena. An older boy -- eight, nine year old? -- with white-blond hair helped her to climb on the makeshift bench and she stared expectantly at Duo. The man was overseeing the dishing out of the food, which consisted of rather small portions of rat and what looked like bread, helped by a curly-haired redhead who was bossing the other kids around. Heero observed
Once the kids start eating, Duo stepped away and went to Heero.
"So... Lena sunk her claws in you."
Heero blinked. "She's... talkative. I met someone like her once. Please don't let Lena talk with me again," he added in a calm, controlled voice. He felt anything but calm and controlled about her.
The man frowned, watching him with suspicion. "Why not? You're not gonna hurt her for talkin' your ear off, are ya?"
The Soldier shook his head no slowly.
"... she... reminds me," he managed to whisper. His stomach was twisting and he didn't understand why it was so hard to breathe.
"Reminds you of what?"
"...of the other girl. I don't want to remember."
"Bad memory?" the scavenger asked, his voice softening into a more compassionate and understanding tone.
Heero nodded, just barely. He was glad that the other man seemed to understand, because he didn't --he couldn't have named the reason why Lena's closeness was so ... scary.
Or maybe he could, and just didn't want to-- he stopped thinking about it.
"It's almost time for the monsters to go to bed... Fei, you throw that an' I'll spank you!" Duo suddenly warned without even turning back to the table. The black-haired boy who had been about to clobber the white-blond one put his plate back on the table and scowled unhappily. He was tiny compared to that one, it was a wonder he was bold enough to fight with a visibly older boy.
"You all finish eatin' an' clean up an' it's off to bed!" the braided man ordered as he watched the children. The smallest of them looked about ready to take a nosedive in their plates, but even then they muttered before obeying. Duo started to clear the table, still helped by the curly girl.
Heero stayed standing by the entry, not knowing what he was supposed to do. The braided man noticed and beckoned him closer. "Yo, come sit down. I'm not gonna let ya stand there all night."
The clone approached obediently, sitting on the bench, his back to the wall. He was glad to put a bit of a distance between himself and the chaos in the room. He was starting to feel overwhelmed. The noise, the voices, the closeness of the children scrambling around as they took turns washing their faces and hands at a barrel of water in a corner, picking up things-- plushies and toys, he recognized after a few seconds -- kicking their shoes off in a corner, the older ones pulling blankets and a few pillows out of hidden places...
He wondered how they got anything done. There seemed to be no order at all, no rhyme nor reason to their little trips, the order in which they did things. It had been nothing like that at the base.
He was so busy watching them all warily to make sure that he wouldn't be taken by surprise if one got too close that he needed a few seconds to feel eyes on him. He glanced at Duo to check; sure enough the man was watching him from the corner of his eyes. He would have asked what he was supposed to do now, but the kids were dropping down into little piles here and there, curling up for warmth, and he stood to make sure they were all well tucked in. Each of them received a kiss on the forehead, and Heero watched, wondering at the action. The older boys were wiping their foreheads with exaggerated grimaces of disgust, but the little ones seemed to like it. It was... so confusing.
He waited for Duo to come back and tell him what he was supposed to be doing next. He felt so lost...
The scavenger banked the fire carefully, then went to a corner that was hidden from most of the rest of the room by a screen, pulling a blanket along. "D'ya sleep?" he asked quietly as he passed by the table.
Heero nodded, puzzled. "Of course I sleep."
"Well, now's the time to do it. The kids'll be up early like they always are."
"Where do I sleep?" he asked, just to make sure.
"You're lookin' at it, buddy," Duo replied as he lay down behind the screen, pulling the blanket up.
Heero shrugged and went to sit behind the bench, against the wall. A creaky plank would warn him if someone tried to get to him, and no one could even get a clear view from the door. It was safe enough, he decided as he leaned back and crossed his legs.
Duo sat up again and stared at him. "Whatcha think yer doin'? Ain't ya gonna sleep?"
"... Yes."
"But you're sittin' up."
"I can sleep in a sitting position," Heero answered, puzzled.
The scavenger rolled his eyes and shrugged tiredly. "Whatever," he replied as he settled own to sleep.
After looking around to make sure that no one still moved, Heero closed his eyes. He felt safe in his corner, so in a few seconds, he was asleep.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/79848.htm (WTF? it tells me post not found but when i use the arrows to get back a few entries, it's here just fine. W. T. F.)
Duo lifted his chin challengingly, hands on his hips. "I mean it. As long as ya act cool, I can smooth things over. My kids know to trust me. But I don't want to even hear ya raise your voice, or even LOOK at one of 'em funny."
"Why would I do that?" he asked, looking puzzled.
"I dunno. You're the Soldier. Anything might freak 'em out," Duo commented, giving him a dirty look. "One wrong move, buddy, and I'll kill ya before you can blink."
The clone didn't seem overly worried. Duo kept on watching, his annoyance and wariness changing into puzzlement as the Soldier placed the flower inside his pack carefully, checking to make sure that he didn't crush it. It just seemed so unnatural that the killer would take such care of a stupid dried flower... It wasn't even of a rare kind; these small yellow flowers grew just about everywhere.
The clone put the pack on his back, fastening the straps securely, then turned to look at him, waiting. Shaking his head to dispel his thoughts, Duo took a good look around in the street to check that it was empty, and then quickly started to walk through the wreckage, making sure to stay in the shadows. The clone followed, his steps even more silent than Duo's. If not for the way his stare made a shiver go through the scavenger's spine, he wouldn't have been sure he really was following.
He took the long route, making sure to double back so that no one could track them down, and hoping that the clone wouldn't remember how to get to the safe place. With luck he would disorient him enough...
+
Heero wondered why the hell the scavenger was walking so many times past the same areas. Of course, they hadn't used the same street even twice, but the map of the city he was drawing in his head showed clearly that they were only double-tracking again and again. And even if they had been followed-- which he didn't think they were -- they had walked on tar often enough not to leave any tracks. He supposed a skilled stalker would be able to follow for a while, but when the places they crossed didn't even have pebbles or grass or anything that would be disturbed by their walking through... Of course, maybe the longhaired man just couldn't find his way home again because of the darkness, but the idea that such a survivor could get lost in his hometown because of a simple lack of light was so ridiculous he nearly snorted.
Which left as only reason that he didn't want Heero to remember the way.
Which was pretty damn ironic since he had just helped him to complete his map of this area of the city, and that Heero always had a very precise idea of where he was on that map. But he had been told many times that normal humans had inferior mental capabilities.
Space and time awareness were related, he mused as he climbed up a pile of bricks after that swinging braid, and he remembered that his superior officers had needed a watch. No Soldier needed a watch to tell the time. They... just knew. Over time, since it had been so long that Heero hadn't seen a working clock to readjust his perceptions, his own internal sense of time had become a bit less precise, but he could still give the time with only plus or minus five minutes.
It was a leap of logic to assume that because they were less precise with Time than Soldiers were, they would be less precise with Space as well, but it ... just made sense. Why bother with making him take the long way around otherwise? He hadn't even been blindfolded, and even without knowing the town he could still notice their changes of direction using the stars.
Which only proved even more that the man didn't trust him, but that was okay; Heero was already surprised that he trusted him enough to turn his back on him. Th scavenger always made sure to be able to see him from the corner of his eye, but if Heero decided to jump on him and break his neck, it wouldn't help a lot and he had to know it.
Finally, after almost two hours of walking through the ruins, they stopped outside an abandoned building. The walls showed massive fire damage, but were still somehow mostly in one piece, even though the windows were reduced to a few shards of glass. The roof looked to have caved in, filling the ground floor with rubble.
In the narrow alley between the two blocks, a fire escape was bent off the side of the building, still somehow attached at the top and the bottom but the rest of it like a snake twisting on itself. Heero almost dismissed it--up until the point where his hand went for a gun he didn't have anymore because that shape in the darkness at the top of the stairs was someone's shadow.
"Down, boy," the scavenged grunted as he glared at him sharply. He was visibly aware of the presence, and didn't care, so Heero allowed himself to relax minutely. They hadn't been shot yet, so it had to be an ally, right?
The dark shape was now getting up, and jumping over the gap between the stairs' landing and the door. It was smaller than he had expected and Heero understood that this was one of the scavenger's children. He frowned and pulled his hood up, hiding his eyes and most of his face in shadows. He was going to need to control his impulses. He wasn't on an infiltration mission. They were not targets.
His guide walked in the dark alley and went to a crack in the wall, squeezing through it quickly. It looked to be a bit of a tight fit, even though he was thinner than Heero, and the Soldier frowned thoughtfully as he approached the hole. Most adults would have difficulties fitting in here, but the kids could go through easily and that was probably the reason why they had chosen this place.
Heero was still only halfway through the crack when he heard a stampede inside the hiding place and about a dozen shrill voices scream.
"DUO!! Duo! Duo! He's back! You're late! Duo!!"
It was reasonable to assume that Duo was the braided man's name, and the voices sounded young and expressed relief, not aggression, so he didn't have to fear being ambushed. But it was still with a lot of reluctance that he slipped all the way through the crack to emerge inside the building.
The rubble inside was mostly pushed against the windows facing the street they'd come from, which was why it had looked totally full. Half of the upper floor was gone, but he couldn't see the sky anyway; apparently either the second floor or the roof was still blocking the way. It wouldn't be very warm during the winter, but it would stop direct rain at least.
There were kids everywhere.
Well, not really, but that was the impression he got. About a dozen, he judged with a glance, and most of them scrabbling to try and hug Duo. Two of them were standing back and watching from a door leading to another room in which a fire burned. Boys, almost old enough to be considered teenagers.
Heero stayed by the entry, a little overwhelmed, trying not to draw attention to himself. The children were putting so much enthusiasm into greeting the scavenger... The man was laughing and hugging all of them as best he can.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just a little late!" he said in a soothing tone, calming them down. They he straightened up, scanning the room, a little child sitting on his hip. "Where's Cathy? And Milly?"
"They is cookin' in th'other room, Duo," a little girl replied with enthusiasm, bouncing. Her long, honeyed hair bounced on her back along with her and Duo smiled and pat her on the head the way he would have calmed down a hyperactive puppy.
"None of you tried to burn nothin' down, did ya?"
"No, Duo," they replied as one. It should have reminded Heero of the barracks and the other clones, but it didn't, because none of these voices sounded the same nor expressed the same thing.
He caught the two boys in the doorway staring at him, and soon all the kids had fallen silent and turned to watch him too.
"Who's he, Duo?" the same little girl with long hair asked, pointing at him. All the other kids waited, watching him with varying levels of wariness.
Heero saw the scavenger frown a little, then bounce the blond boy on his hip absently. "He's just a visitor, so ya don't gotta be worried. His name is..." He looked at Heero in askance, and the clone remembered that they hadn't bothered to exchange their names.
"Heero," he said, pulling the hood just a little lower. They were all staring at him, backlit by the fire in the other room so that he couldn't see their expressions, and he was... almost nervous.
"Right," the scavenger replied with a decisive nod. "He's Heero, so don't bother him, ya little monsters." Patting heads here and there on the way, he managed to reach the door to the other room and disappeared inside, followed by some of the kids. A few of the older boys stayed, still keeping an eye on him suspiciously.
The little girl was still there. She was, as he noticed, wearing his spare shirt like a dress. There was a length of soft rope around her waist like a belt, but that was all she wore.
And she was still staring at him. And staring. And staring. Heero was starting to feel decidedly unsettled.
And then she bounced toward him, peering at his face under the hood. "I'm Lena."
Heero just stared back, not knowing what he was supposed to do.
"Hey... I'm Lena," the kid repeated, looking surprised at his non-reaction to her revelation.
Heero realized with a sinking feeling that the other man had left him alone with the child. "...Hello," he replied, because he didn't know what else was expected of him. If he was cruel to his children, the man-- Duo would probably shoot him.
"Duo says it's polite to say your name. Why're ya wearin' that funny thing on yer head?"
Heero caught himself glancing around for escape routes. "Because I don't want you to see my face," he explained when he realized that he couldn't run from the child.
"D'ya got a burn? Otto got a burn on his arm and he don't like to let us see it, and he said it hurt lots when he got it but Duo helped him and covered it up an' now it's all shiny an' his hair even grew back 'xcept now it's CURLY... an' now Otto's all big an' he can go do stuff and he steals real good an' can catch rats an' he's real smart."
The Soldier blinked owlishly, overwhelmed by the amount of information she could share in one breath. "Uh. No, I don't have a burn."
The little girl gazed up at him, a finger in her mouth. Heero decided to ignore how unsanitary that was. "Are ya ugly? I think Mei is ugly but Duo says I shouldn't say that to her because it's mean."
Now that was a question he didn't have an answer for. What constituted ugly exactly?
"I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe I'm ugly."
"Oh."
Heero's search for an escape route became more urgent.
"D'ya like rat? Cathy caught it for dinner."
Heero nodded, because he didn't have a preference but agreeing was just easier than explaining that.
And she was STILL staring up at him. "You're tall. Milly says I talk too much. D'ya think I talk too much? Am I botherin' ya? Ya can say. I won't cry cuz I'm a big girl now."
"I don't know if it's too much, but it's a lot," he answered frankly. "You... don't bother me. But I'm not used to children."
"Duo likes kids. Do you not like kids?"
Heero stared at her, trying to formulate an answer. "I don't know if I dislike kids. I'm not used to being around them." He'd just said that. Couldn't she assimilate the information?
"Lotsa people don't like kids an' they're mean an' they hit an' other bad things an' Duo says those are bad people an' we should run away. D'ya run away?"
Heero was starting to ponder the wisdom of giving her detailed replies. She wasn't even listening to them. Her brain was visibly not mature enough yet to take them fully into account. "... Yes. I ran away."
"Mummy an' daddy died. Did your mummy an' daddy die too?"
"No." He would have needed to have them.
"Then why did ya run away?"
Heero stepped toward the room where the other man had disappeared. Why was he letting that kid so close to him? "Because," he answered, knowing that he wasn't really replying, but thinking that maybe there were things a kid shouldn't know, even if he wasn't sure what.
He glanced in over the boys who were still watching him suspiciously. Duo was the youngest kids to a bit of board that apparently served as a table.
"Hey, hey, ya monsters! Eat now!" he called for the ones who were still elsewhere. The two glaring boys -- one dirty blonde and the other with tanned skin and dark, frizzy hair -- turned away, freeing the door, and went to sit at one end of the table, closely followed by Lena. An older boy -- eight, nine year old? -- with white-blond hair helped her to climb on the makeshift bench and she stared expectantly at Duo. The man was overseeing the dishing out of the food, which consisted of rather small portions of rat and what looked like bread, helped by a curly-haired redhead who was bossing the other kids around. Heero observed
Once the kids start eating, Duo stepped away and went to Heero.
"So... Lena sunk her claws in you."
Heero blinked. "She's... talkative. I met someone like her once. Please don't let Lena talk with me again," he added in a calm, controlled voice. He felt anything but calm and controlled about her.
The man frowned, watching him with suspicion. "Why not? You're not gonna hurt her for talkin' your ear off, are ya?"
The Soldier shook his head no slowly.
"... she... reminds me," he managed to whisper. His stomach was twisting and he didn't understand why it was so hard to breathe.
"Reminds you of what?"
"...of the other girl. I don't want to remember."
"Bad memory?" the scavenger asked, his voice softening into a more compassionate and understanding tone.
Heero nodded, just barely. He was glad that the other man seemed to understand, because he didn't --he couldn't have named the reason why Lena's closeness was so ... scary.
Or maybe he could, and just didn't want to-- he stopped thinking about it.
"It's almost time for the monsters to go to bed... Fei, you throw that an' I'll spank you!" Duo suddenly warned without even turning back to the table. The black-haired boy who had been about to clobber the white-blond one put his plate back on the table and scowled unhappily. He was tiny compared to that one, it was a wonder he was bold enough to fight with a visibly older boy.
"You all finish eatin' an' clean up an' it's off to bed!" the braided man ordered as he watched the children. The smallest of them looked about ready to take a nosedive in their plates, but even then they muttered before obeying. Duo started to clear the table, still helped by the curly girl.
Heero stayed standing by the entry, not knowing what he was supposed to do. The braided man noticed and beckoned him closer. "Yo, come sit down. I'm not gonna let ya stand there all night."
The clone approached obediently, sitting on the bench, his back to the wall. He was glad to put a bit of a distance between himself and the chaos in the room. He was starting to feel overwhelmed. The noise, the voices, the closeness of the children scrambling around as they took turns washing their faces and hands at a barrel of water in a corner, picking up things-- plushies and toys, he recognized after a few seconds -- kicking their shoes off in a corner, the older ones pulling blankets and a few pillows out of hidden places...
He wondered how they got anything done. There seemed to be no order at all, no rhyme nor reason to their little trips, the order in which they did things. It had been nothing like that at the base.
He was so busy watching them all warily to make sure that he wouldn't be taken by surprise if one got too close that he needed a few seconds to feel eyes on him. He glanced at Duo to check; sure enough the man was watching him from the corner of his eyes. He would have asked what he was supposed to do now, but the kids were dropping down into little piles here and there, curling up for warmth, and he stood to make sure they were all well tucked in. Each of them received a kiss on the forehead, and Heero watched, wondering at the action. The older boys were wiping their foreheads with exaggerated grimaces of disgust, but the little ones seemed to like it. It was... so confusing.
He waited for Duo to come back and tell him what he was supposed to be doing next. He felt so lost...
The scavenger banked the fire carefully, then went to a corner that was hidden from most of the rest of the room by a screen, pulling a blanket along. "D'ya sleep?" he asked quietly as he passed by the table.
Heero nodded, puzzled. "Of course I sleep."
"Well, now's the time to do it. The kids'll be up early like they always are."
"Where do I sleep?" he asked, just to make sure.
"You're lookin' at it, buddy," Duo replied as he lay down behind the screen, pulling the blanket up.
Heero shrugged and went to sit behind the bench, against the wall. A creaky plank would warn him if someone tried to get to him, and no one could even get a clear view from the door. It was safe enough, he decided as he leaned back and crossed his legs.
Duo sat up again and stared at him. "Whatcha think yer doin'? Ain't ya gonna sleep?"
"... Yes."
"But you're sittin' up."
"I can sleep in a sitting position," Heero answered, puzzled.
The scavenger rolled his eyes and shrugged tiredly. "Whatever," he replied as he settled own to sleep.
After looking around to make sure that no one still moved, Heero closed his eyes. He felt safe in his corner, so in a few seconds, he was asleep.
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And yeah, Duo will so melt over Heero. XD
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:p
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*dessine d'une main et écrit de l'autre*
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*ba-da-boom-ching*