![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cloneness
edit: previous entry here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/97439.html#cutid1
the previous entry is.. still on my first page, look for it on your own, i'm too tired to put up a link. =__=;;; chapter ain't complete, but me. Need. Bed. Now.
Nitenite everyone.
(AND GIMME FEEDBACK.)
The entry to the cache was hidden behind lots of rubble, behind a large stretch of mildly unstable ground, and all in one rather tricky. There was a whole wall that had started to fall, and was somehow balanced over another wall -- one they had to walk against if they wanted to go through.
"The floor is damaged," Heero commented quietly as he pointed at a few planks, "so when you walk through here, this wall shakes too. There's a good chance it can fall."
Duo grimaced. "From here, it just looks like way more trouble than it's worth." Of course if scavengers like him knew what there was hidden after that corridor, they might change their minds and try harder, but hopefully by then him and Heero would be long gone with the whole loot.
"I've found one path that worked; it probably still does. It will be tricky. We have to be slow and careful."
Duo nodded in agreement. "Fine, fine..." It wasn't just the corridor; it was the whole building, really. Scratch that, the whole block. A bomb had hit in the middle apparently, and the houses were leaning on each other like so many dominoes. It was unnerving and a little surreal to walk in between walls that tilted on the side and seemed to hold together by pure force of habit.
They started to make their way across the creaking floorboards, avoiding some that looked fine to Duo and putting their full weight on some he wouldn't have let a bird land on. Somehow, nothing more than a few groans of dry, abused wood happened.
Then Heero pushed an old plank fallen from the roof away from the wall, revealing a door half-buried under the rubble.
Duo cursed quietly. "It's dark as hell in here."
Heero blinked at him in that way that meant Duo had said something he was finding weird again. "Not so dark."
"Well, I ain't a bat," the man grouched. Stupid superior eyesight.
"Bats don't see, they hear by sonar," the Soldier informed him.
"Oh, shut up. So I don't know nothin' 'bout bats. Screw you. I think it's damn dark in here an' that's the end of it."
"If you don't want to come in, I can get the supplies out. And you'll give me my gun back," he finished with a scowl.
Duo grunted and gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh yeah, an' what's to stop ya from goin' in there, armin' yourself an'decidin' it'd be easier to kill me an' take your gun back? No way, buddy. I wanna see what's in there."
The clone snorted. "I could have killed you dozens of times already."
"Yeah? An' what stopped ya?" the braided man asked as he picked his way through the dark carefully.
"We have a deal."
Duo looked at Heero's faint outline through the dark. "Yeah? And?"
"That's what stopped me."
Annoyed by the hint of scolding in his voice, Duo couldn’t help but mutter, "Almost sounds like you got morals." But he knew he was being unfair. Heero was trying. He looked around as his eyes adjusted, hoping for a way to change the conversation. "So where's the shit supposed to be?"
Heero went to a pile of bricks and began to move it aside, uncovering a hole in the floor. Duo watched, a bit awed, as the other man moved some obviously heavy looking rubble. Apparently there wasn't any need to propose his help.
The clone knelt and plunged his arm in the dark hole, feeling around for a few seconds before he pulled a gun out by the barrel. He put it down on the floor and resumed his search.
Duo whistled as he crouched, looking at the gun. It looked like it might still work, too. He didn't pick it up to check though. Despite everything they'd talked about on the way here, neither of them really trusted the other entirely yet and he was quite sure the clone wouldn't appreciate being bent over a hole while Duo was holding a weapon.
"How'd ya find this place?" he asked to make the tension drop.
"Odin," the Soldier replied shortly as he dumped two other handguns beside the first.
"I thought he was dead," Duo commented absently, staring at the weapons.
A shotgun made its appearance, followed by an unopened box of bullets. Duo moved closer, and after sitting cross-legged so that none of his moves could be considered potentially aggressive, started helping him haul stuff out, examining it.
"He mailed me some information... before he died. He knew of caches like this all over the country."
"All over...?" Duo repeated, amazed. "That's a good thing to know..." he whispered. His hand caressed a gun reverently, checking it over.
"Not telling you where the others are. Anyway, most are too far away. Two have been looted already."
It really didn't matter; this was already a treasure he hadn't been counting on. "... I can keep my kids safe with this..."
Heero frowned at him, but it was more plain disagreement than flat-out annoyance. "You don't have six hands and you can't be in six places. Armed or not, you're still the only adult."
"Yeah, but this is lucky enough. I've got a gun of my own but I've only used it once... Hard to find rounds for it. And I might be the only adult, but it's better than nothing."
"My gun, now," Heero interrupted him. He reached out, and waited, palm up. The scavenger gave him a long look, then handed over his gun. It promptly disappeared in his holster, which relieved Duo of some faint but persistent worry that he'd read the clone all wrong.
"... I don't got the extra ammo on me," he explained in a faintly apologizing tone. "I hid it."
Heero didn't comment, merely started loading his pack with a few boxes of ammo. Duo started to put the guns carefully in his own pack, making sure to keep one loaded at his belt. He decided to carry the shotgun, though; it was a lot more imposing and anyway it wouldn't fit.
"Is there any other stuff in here that might be useful?"
Heero hesitated, then nodded. He moved to the other side of the room, lowering his head not to knock it on the bent wall, and pulled a small, rusted metal duct loose.
Duo gasped when he saw that the clone was pulling metal cans out of the hole. He touched one of the cans hesitantly, as if it would go away if he pounced on it, then picked it up, squinting at it in the dim light.
Heero blinked at him. "Duo?"
"This..." The scavenger was aware that his tone was as awed as if he'd witnessed a unicorn bounding merrily through the city, but he couldn't help it. "... This is... food... right?"
The clone nodded, puzzled, and glanced at the can. "Pineapples."
"Oh my god... I can't even remember the last time... food... _real_ food..."
Heero's lips stretched into a tiny smile.
"Pineapples," Duo repeated, testing the word. "Sounds... delicious."
"We have to verify if it's still good. It can have been contaminated -- turned bad. You can't give it all to the children right away without checking. If they are ill, I doubt anyone will know what to do."
"Right," the scavenger murmured, even as he gave the can yet another starved look. "Can't make anyone sick. That's a death sentence..."
The clone checked that the hole was empty, then crawled back, pushing the cans at Duo. A few rolled away and the braided man grabbed them quickly before they wandered on unsafe parts of the floor.
"Let's not stay here too long," the clone commented as he frowned at the half-rotten planks under them.
Duo nodded and tried to shake the astonishment off to make a plan. "We'll haul everything out, then we can find a safe place and go through this. Maybe... this isn't so far... I bet I can come back here if I have to..."
"I can carry it," replied the clone, showing his pack. "There's space. And we can use a shirt as bag."
Duo blinked owlishly at his comrade. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll be great."
He grinned suddenly, feeling happier than he had in a while. "Real food." Still grinning cheerfully, he helped Heero to fill his bag with the cans. But as predicted, it didn’t all fit, and even after he pushed a few cans in the empty spaces between the guns, there were still some left on the floor. Heero seemed to think about it for a second, then pulled Duo's shirt off his back. He knotted the sleeves and neck holes and filled it.
Duo hesitated, then leaned forward to touch Heero's forearm. "If I gotta take off my shirt, too, I will. Ya don't understand how much this means, buddy."
"I think that'll be enough," the clone replied neutrally, glancing at the hand on his arm. "One of us needs to have both hands free and you carry the shotgun."
Duo nodded absently as he stared at the bulging bag. "I just... some of my kids ain't never seen REAL food. They think rat is a gourmet meal... that ain't right."
Heero blinked. "It's just food that might have turned bad. It won't last. And rat is more tasty than military rations."
"Well, I'd welcome military rations if they were around. At least they're healthy. And... If it's bad, it's bad. I can hope for one can to be worth it, though. I want my kids to know more than that."
The clone nodded, though it was clear that he didn't really understand. He glanced in the hole a last time, then straightened up. "I think that's everything."
"Yeah, an' it'll be heavy... we'll be slow goin'. I think I know some good places to stop though, an' lighten the load. I can always come back."
Heero shrugged. "It isn't that heavy," he commented as he picked up his pack.
Duo groaned as he put his own on. "Not to ya, but I'm just a mere mortal."
"If you take sentry, I can carry your pack. We'll go faster."
The scavenger blinked. "Are ya sure? Okay... but if ya get tired, I can take it back."
"I can always drop them to take my gun if we are attacked. I will try not to, though. I won't get tired," he added in a lower tone; it sounded a little like a promise.
Well, the cynical part of Duo's brain commented. He won't run fast with all that shit on his back. I can shoot him down before he disappears. He grudgingly handed Heero the pack, but took out another gun and loaded it, just in case the shotgun didn't work.
"Yeah, whatever. Everyone gets tired sometimes."
Heero didn't reply, busy securing his pack. He threw Duo's over his shoulder and the t-shirt under his left arm, and signaled for Duo to walk out of the basement room first.
The scavenger was glad he'd paid attention on the way in; he only had to be corrected once in all the time they needed to exit the building. He waited a second, looking around to make sure no one was watching them, then called Heero quietly and made his way in the street carefully, looking around with the shot gun ready. He made sure to stay undercover or in the shadows as they left the tilted block silently.
"... I didn't see no one around," he whispered once they were far enough. "It ain't far from here to a place we can go to rest. 'sides, walking in this heat ain't gonna be cool."
The clone gave him a puzzled look that, he could guess, meant that of course walking in the heat wouldn't be "cool". Duo was too busy watching their surroundings warily, on a heightened state of alert, to bother explaining. The guns were already worth protecting, but you killed for food a lot easier than you killed for weapons.
He kept on leading, past the top-less gutter that had been a street, past a pile of twisted, rusted tubes that had been a playground, until they had left the area entirely for a place where the buildings were more completely knocked down. There weren't streets there, just big piles of bricks and rubble and sometimes, the odd wall still up and no way to know which way to it the inside of the building used to be. It was hard not to twist your ankles and fall, but it also meant that no one could get them by surprise. Running on that ground was tricky business, and noisy to boot.
As soon as they were clear of rubble-land, Duo searched for a hiding place. It was too hot to keep walking; he was sweating like a pig and he could see that even Heero's forehead was glistening with sweat. They needed to drink and rest a little, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to get rid of the rusted guns and sort through the cans to make sure they wouldn't bother carrying back something that had rotten inside. He eyed the houses they were walking past critically and finally chose one for them to hide out in. Heero followed in silence.
It looked to have been a store, or something like that. It was dark inside, but the wide windows would let them see incoming strangers. "This is a good place for now."
"Why are we stopping?" questioned the clone even as he put the shirt down.
"Didn't I tell ya?" the scavenger asked, wiping out his forehead. "We gotta see if any of this food is good. An' it's the hottest part 'o the day. You can walk forever, but I'd pass out an' be worthless."
He sat down against a wall and rubbed his hands together, eager to start going through the food. "Alright! Let's go!"
Heero blinked, apparently surprised by his outburst, but put Duo's pack down without question. He opened his own pack to pull the cans out.
Forgetting to drink a little first, Duo eagerly reached into the shirt, lining the cans up in a row, then sat back, just looking at them. He didn't remember seeing something so comforting in a long, long time.
The clone blinked. "Aren't you going to verify if they're still airtight?"
"Well... yeah... but... lemme just look, okay? It's... been a long, long time... since I've seen this much food in one place."
"...oh."
Duo cursed himself for being sappy. It was just food. He shook his head. "Okay, let's see if any of this is good anymore."
+
Heero started to check for dates and holes in the tin, and saw Duo do the same, but he was slower about his, his lips moving as he sounded out some of the words under his breath. Heero listened to his voice, wondering at his weird reactions. It was food, yes, but it wouldn't last forever. He didn't understand why that seemed so special to the man.
"Hey..."
Heero looked up; the braided man was frowning. It made him feel wary.
"... H-how long has it been?"
"Since what?"
"Since the war. I... don't know the date anymore." Duo was staring at a can. There was probably a use-by date.
"The war started ten years ago. It ended about five years ago. We're in 2133, around July or August. I'm not sure anymore."
The scavenger blinked up slowly. He looked... stunned. A bit like he'd just caught a glancing blow at his head, which had left him disoriented. "Ended... five years ago?"
Heero nodded patiently.
"B-but... when ya said the war ended, I thought you meant one, two years ago! How... how can it be over for six years an' we're all still fuckin' livin' like this?!"
As usual, Heero chose his words carefully, not sure about what would trigger the other man. "... There hasn't been a new government to help people out yet. The bunkers where the officials hid were the first to be hit."
There was no response, and he wondered if he'd heard. "... Duo?" he prompted finally, puzzled by his silence.
He was staring at the cans, hands clenched into fists.
"Duo?"
"Six years... " the scavenger whispered, his voice strangely harsh. "Six damn years an' people still can't do anythin' better than this..."
"If they're all that bad off, it isn't surprising," the clone commented.
The longhaired man punched his fist into the ground, startling Heero into reaching for his gun. "That ain't the point!" he growled. Heero stayed tense; he didn't know how to deal with anger, especially the irrational kind.
"Even if we're all bad off, why ain't people tryin' to work together instead o' attackin' each other like animals?! All these fuckin' gangs... if there were any decent people, they musta all died in the war!"
Heero frowned. "There is no society to help them to survive. No one to fall back on. It's normal that they want to make sure of their own survival first."
"Yeah? Well what about creatin' your own society? If people weren't so damn selfish, we could all get along! Society starts when people pull their heads outta their asses and realize they ain't the only ones around!"
The clone didn't answer. He wasn't sure what he could say to calm him down. Luckily Duo seemed to bring himself under control on his own.
"Sorry, man... I shouldn't o' snapped at ya."
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/97439.html#cutid1
the previous entry is.. still on my first page, look for it on your own, i'm too tired to put up a link. =__=;;; chapter ain't complete, but me. Need. Bed. Now.
Nitenite everyone.
(AND GIMME FEEDBACK.)
The entry to the cache was hidden behind lots of rubble, behind a large stretch of mildly unstable ground, and all in one rather tricky. There was a whole wall that had started to fall, and was somehow balanced over another wall -- one they had to walk against if they wanted to go through.
"The floor is damaged," Heero commented quietly as he pointed at a few planks, "so when you walk through here, this wall shakes too. There's a good chance it can fall."
Duo grimaced. "From here, it just looks like way more trouble than it's worth." Of course if scavengers like him knew what there was hidden after that corridor, they might change their minds and try harder, but hopefully by then him and Heero would be long gone with the whole loot.
"I've found one path that worked; it probably still does. It will be tricky. We have to be slow and careful."
Duo nodded in agreement. "Fine, fine..." It wasn't just the corridor; it was the whole building, really. Scratch that, the whole block. A bomb had hit in the middle apparently, and the houses were leaning on each other like so many dominoes. It was unnerving and a little surreal to walk in between walls that tilted on the side and seemed to hold together by pure force of habit.
They started to make their way across the creaking floorboards, avoiding some that looked fine to Duo and putting their full weight on some he wouldn't have let a bird land on. Somehow, nothing more than a few groans of dry, abused wood happened.
Then Heero pushed an old plank fallen from the roof away from the wall, revealing a door half-buried under the rubble.
Duo cursed quietly. "It's dark as hell in here."
Heero blinked at him in that way that meant Duo had said something he was finding weird again. "Not so dark."
"Well, I ain't a bat," the man grouched. Stupid superior eyesight.
"Bats don't see, they hear by sonar," the Soldier informed him.
"Oh, shut up. So I don't know nothin' 'bout bats. Screw you. I think it's damn dark in here an' that's the end of it."
"If you don't want to come in, I can get the supplies out. And you'll give me my gun back," he finished with a scowl.
Duo grunted and gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh yeah, an' what's to stop ya from goin' in there, armin' yourself an'decidin' it'd be easier to kill me an' take your gun back? No way, buddy. I wanna see what's in there."
The clone snorted. "I could have killed you dozens of times already."
"Yeah? An' what stopped ya?" the braided man asked as he picked his way through the dark carefully.
"We have a deal."
Duo looked at Heero's faint outline through the dark. "Yeah? And?"
"That's what stopped me."
Annoyed by the hint of scolding in his voice, Duo couldn’t help but mutter, "Almost sounds like you got morals." But he knew he was being unfair. Heero was trying. He looked around as his eyes adjusted, hoping for a way to change the conversation. "So where's the shit supposed to be?"
Heero went to a pile of bricks and began to move it aside, uncovering a hole in the floor. Duo watched, a bit awed, as the other man moved some obviously heavy looking rubble. Apparently there wasn't any need to propose his help.
The clone knelt and plunged his arm in the dark hole, feeling around for a few seconds before he pulled a gun out by the barrel. He put it down on the floor and resumed his search.
Duo whistled as he crouched, looking at the gun. It looked like it might still work, too. He didn't pick it up to check though. Despite everything they'd talked about on the way here, neither of them really trusted the other entirely yet and he was quite sure the clone wouldn't appreciate being bent over a hole while Duo was holding a weapon.
"How'd ya find this place?" he asked to make the tension drop.
"Odin," the Soldier replied shortly as he dumped two other handguns beside the first.
"I thought he was dead," Duo commented absently, staring at the weapons.
A shotgun made its appearance, followed by an unopened box of bullets. Duo moved closer, and after sitting cross-legged so that none of his moves could be considered potentially aggressive, started helping him haul stuff out, examining it.
"He mailed me some information... before he died. He knew of caches like this all over the country."
"All over...?" Duo repeated, amazed. "That's a good thing to know..." he whispered. His hand caressed a gun reverently, checking it over.
"Not telling you where the others are. Anyway, most are too far away. Two have been looted already."
It really didn't matter; this was already a treasure he hadn't been counting on. "... I can keep my kids safe with this..."
Heero frowned at him, but it was more plain disagreement than flat-out annoyance. "You don't have six hands and you can't be in six places. Armed or not, you're still the only adult."
"Yeah, but this is lucky enough. I've got a gun of my own but I've only used it once... Hard to find rounds for it. And I might be the only adult, but it's better than nothing."
"My gun, now," Heero interrupted him. He reached out, and waited, palm up. The scavenger gave him a long look, then handed over his gun. It promptly disappeared in his holster, which relieved Duo of some faint but persistent worry that he'd read the clone all wrong.
"... I don't got the extra ammo on me," he explained in a faintly apologizing tone. "I hid it."
Heero didn't comment, merely started loading his pack with a few boxes of ammo. Duo started to put the guns carefully in his own pack, making sure to keep one loaded at his belt. He decided to carry the shotgun, though; it was a lot more imposing and anyway it wouldn't fit.
"Is there any other stuff in here that might be useful?"
Heero hesitated, then nodded. He moved to the other side of the room, lowering his head not to knock it on the bent wall, and pulled a small, rusted metal duct loose.
Duo gasped when he saw that the clone was pulling metal cans out of the hole. He touched one of the cans hesitantly, as if it would go away if he pounced on it, then picked it up, squinting at it in the dim light.
Heero blinked at him. "Duo?"
"This..." The scavenger was aware that his tone was as awed as if he'd witnessed a unicorn bounding merrily through the city, but he couldn't help it. "... This is... food... right?"
The clone nodded, puzzled, and glanced at the can. "Pineapples."
"Oh my god... I can't even remember the last time... food... _real_ food..."
Heero's lips stretched into a tiny smile.
"Pineapples," Duo repeated, testing the word. "Sounds... delicious."
"We have to verify if it's still good. It can have been contaminated -- turned bad. You can't give it all to the children right away without checking. If they are ill, I doubt anyone will know what to do."
"Right," the scavenger murmured, even as he gave the can yet another starved look. "Can't make anyone sick. That's a death sentence..."
The clone checked that the hole was empty, then crawled back, pushing the cans at Duo. A few rolled away and the braided man grabbed them quickly before they wandered on unsafe parts of the floor.
"Let's not stay here too long," the clone commented as he frowned at the half-rotten planks under them.
Duo nodded and tried to shake the astonishment off to make a plan. "We'll haul everything out, then we can find a safe place and go through this. Maybe... this isn't so far... I bet I can come back here if I have to..."
"I can carry it," replied the clone, showing his pack. "There's space. And we can use a shirt as bag."
Duo blinked owlishly at his comrade. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll be great."
He grinned suddenly, feeling happier than he had in a while. "Real food." Still grinning cheerfully, he helped Heero to fill his bag with the cans. But as predicted, it didn’t all fit, and even after he pushed a few cans in the empty spaces between the guns, there were still some left on the floor. Heero seemed to think about it for a second, then pulled Duo's shirt off his back. He knotted the sleeves and neck holes and filled it.
Duo hesitated, then leaned forward to touch Heero's forearm. "If I gotta take off my shirt, too, I will. Ya don't understand how much this means, buddy."
"I think that'll be enough," the clone replied neutrally, glancing at the hand on his arm. "One of us needs to have both hands free and you carry the shotgun."
Duo nodded absently as he stared at the bulging bag. "I just... some of my kids ain't never seen REAL food. They think rat is a gourmet meal... that ain't right."
Heero blinked. "It's just food that might have turned bad. It won't last. And rat is more tasty than military rations."
"Well, I'd welcome military rations if they were around. At least they're healthy. And... If it's bad, it's bad. I can hope for one can to be worth it, though. I want my kids to know more than that."
The clone nodded, though it was clear that he didn't really understand. He glanced in the hole a last time, then straightened up. "I think that's everything."
"Yeah, an' it'll be heavy... we'll be slow goin'. I think I know some good places to stop though, an' lighten the load. I can always come back."
Heero shrugged. "It isn't that heavy," he commented as he picked up his pack.
Duo groaned as he put his own on. "Not to ya, but I'm just a mere mortal."
"If you take sentry, I can carry your pack. We'll go faster."
The scavenger blinked. "Are ya sure? Okay... but if ya get tired, I can take it back."
"I can always drop them to take my gun if we are attacked. I will try not to, though. I won't get tired," he added in a lower tone; it sounded a little like a promise.
Well, the cynical part of Duo's brain commented. He won't run fast with all that shit on his back. I can shoot him down before he disappears. He grudgingly handed Heero the pack, but took out another gun and loaded it, just in case the shotgun didn't work.
"Yeah, whatever. Everyone gets tired sometimes."
Heero didn't reply, busy securing his pack. He threw Duo's over his shoulder and the t-shirt under his left arm, and signaled for Duo to walk out of the basement room first.
The scavenger was glad he'd paid attention on the way in; he only had to be corrected once in all the time they needed to exit the building. He waited a second, looking around to make sure no one was watching them, then called Heero quietly and made his way in the street carefully, looking around with the shot gun ready. He made sure to stay undercover or in the shadows as they left the tilted block silently.
"... I didn't see no one around," he whispered once they were far enough. "It ain't far from here to a place we can go to rest. 'sides, walking in this heat ain't gonna be cool."
The clone gave him a puzzled look that, he could guess, meant that of course walking in the heat wouldn't be "cool". Duo was too busy watching their surroundings warily, on a heightened state of alert, to bother explaining. The guns were already worth protecting, but you killed for food a lot easier than you killed for weapons.
He kept on leading, past the top-less gutter that had been a street, past a pile of twisted, rusted tubes that had been a playground, until they had left the area entirely for a place where the buildings were more completely knocked down. There weren't streets there, just big piles of bricks and rubble and sometimes, the odd wall still up and no way to know which way to it the inside of the building used to be. It was hard not to twist your ankles and fall, but it also meant that no one could get them by surprise. Running on that ground was tricky business, and noisy to boot.
As soon as they were clear of rubble-land, Duo searched for a hiding place. It was too hot to keep walking; he was sweating like a pig and he could see that even Heero's forehead was glistening with sweat. They needed to drink and rest a little, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to get rid of the rusted guns and sort through the cans to make sure they wouldn't bother carrying back something that had rotten inside. He eyed the houses they were walking past critically and finally chose one for them to hide out in. Heero followed in silence.
It looked to have been a store, or something like that. It was dark inside, but the wide windows would let them see incoming strangers. "This is a good place for now."
"Why are we stopping?" questioned the clone even as he put the shirt down.
"Didn't I tell ya?" the scavenger asked, wiping out his forehead. "We gotta see if any of this food is good. An' it's the hottest part 'o the day. You can walk forever, but I'd pass out an' be worthless."
He sat down against a wall and rubbed his hands together, eager to start going through the food. "Alright! Let's go!"
Heero blinked, apparently surprised by his outburst, but put Duo's pack down without question. He opened his own pack to pull the cans out.
Forgetting to drink a little first, Duo eagerly reached into the shirt, lining the cans up in a row, then sat back, just looking at them. He didn't remember seeing something so comforting in a long, long time.
The clone blinked. "Aren't you going to verify if they're still airtight?"
"Well... yeah... but... lemme just look, okay? It's... been a long, long time... since I've seen this much food in one place."
"...oh."
Duo cursed himself for being sappy. It was just food. He shook his head. "Okay, let's see if any of this is good anymore."
+
Heero started to check for dates and holes in the tin, and saw Duo do the same, but he was slower about his, his lips moving as he sounded out some of the words under his breath. Heero listened to his voice, wondering at his weird reactions. It was food, yes, but it wouldn't last forever. He didn't understand why that seemed so special to the man.
"Hey..."
Heero looked up; the braided man was frowning. It made him feel wary.
"... H-how long has it been?"
"Since what?"
"Since the war. I... don't know the date anymore." Duo was staring at a can. There was probably a use-by date.
"The war started ten years ago. It ended about five years ago. We're in 2133, around July or August. I'm not sure anymore."
The scavenger blinked up slowly. He looked... stunned. A bit like he'd just caught a glancing blow at his head, which had left him disoriented. "Ended... five years ago?"
Heero nodded patiently.
"B-but... when ya said the war ended, I thought you meant one, two years ago! How... how can it be over for six years an' we're all still fuckin' livin' like this?!"
As usual, Heero chose his words carefully, not sure about what would trigger the other man. "... There hasn't been a new government to help people out yet. The bunkers where the officials hid were the first to be hit."
There was no response, and he wondered if he'd heard. "... Duo?" he prompted finally, puzzled by his silence.
He was staring at the cans, hands clenched into fists.
"Duo?"
"Six years... " the scavenger whispered, his voice strangely harsh. "Six damn years an' people still can't do anythin' better than this..."
"If they're all that bad off, it isn't surprising," the clone commented.
The longhaired man punched his fist into the ground, startling Heero into reaching for his gun. "That ain't the point!" he growled. Heero stayed tense; he didn't know how to deal with anger, especially the irrational kind.
"Even if we're all bad off, why ain't people tryin' to work together instead o' attackin' each other like animals?! All these fuckin' gangs... if there were any decent people, they musta all died in the war!"
Heero frowned. "There is no society to help them to survive. No one to fall back on. It's normal that they want to make sure of their own survival first."
"Yeah? Well what about creatin' your own society? If people weren't so damn selfish, we could all get along! Society starts when people pull their heads outta their asses and realize they ain't the only ones around!"
The clone didn't answer. He wasn't sure what he could say to calm him down. Luckily Duo seemed to bring himself under control on his own.
"Sorry, man... I shouldn't o' snapped at ya."