estoria | [ OPEN ] snake charmer

Entry tags:

[ OPEN ] snake charmer

Who:

braidedwonder & Open
When: 7/7 - After exiting ViViD
Where: Apartment Complex, street of Cerealia & market areas
What: Duo bullies Heero in to moving in, and then has to make the apartment actually useable..
Rating/Warning: None? But it's Duo so it could always happen.

[ CLOSED ] FOR HEERO

"Listen, Heero, go pack up Wing and start sleepin' here. It makes no sense for me to have a bedroom I'm not even using anyways.." That's how all of this had started, anyways. At least before they'd gone to collect Heero's small collection of things, and had to carry them from one place to another. Thankfully Heero wasn't as much of a pack rack as he was, and the moving hadn't taken too long but.. the whole getting used to another body in his space might take a little while, again. Thankfully he was used to having Heero around, and he was a quiet roommate, so there wasn't much to bother with when it came to getting annoyed or anything stupid like that. Mostly, he's going to have to get used to having Wing and Deathscythe in one place and one apartment, which meant a little bit of chaos when they had first started settling in. Gundams messing around with each other started out cute -

Until thermal weapons started being used. And then it was a huge risk to life and limb.

Thankfully they'd been easily separated, and their weapons hidden away, and the apartment had settled in to a quiet place once again. At leat until Duo decided that it was dinner time, and -

"Heero? Any preference for dinner?"

[ OPEN ] IN THE STREETS

There's Duo, his backpack slung on his back as usual, filled with some of the things that Heero would let him carry, a box in his arms. They're moving like teenage boys on a mission, at least, but after the whole beach episode everyone seems to be out and about so.. it calls for a few stops and "excuse mes" from time to time. Or just, you know, the occasional bump in to someone if he was too busy trying to navigate around one person for avoiding another -

- So forgive him if he gives you a little jostle, ok?

[ OPEN ] GROCERY SHOPPING

Legitimately fresh fruits and vegetables are still such a novelty to a kid that's used to freeze dried or transported foods that were just.. not quite up to snuff for most people who had never lived on a space colony before. So, after he'd done helping his war buddy unpack and leaves him to get things organized as he wants them - he's back at the grocery stores and markets that he can find along the way, picking up and examining things and probably taking more than a few taste tests until -

Oops - bumping in to someone with a little grunt of surprise, dropping the pomegranate in his hands. "Shit - my bad! You didn't drop anything, did you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It felt strange to have a space that was actually his. He'd done so much moving around during the war, and then staying with Quatre and Trowa, that it almost felt as if the only constant 'home' he had was Wing ZERO's cockpit, and even that wasn't really all that big. But now, he actually has some space to stretch his legs...

...and instead he's just sort of standing there staring blankly at open space and not knowing what to do with himself. It's not as if he has many possessions -just clothes, the Gundam, some books for class, and a few odds and ends he'd picked up- but even that doesn't amount to much. It all feels really, really strange.

At least when Deathscythe and ZERO started with the thermal weapons, it was a nice distraction, but now that everything was taken care of, he's at a loss. And then came the million credit question: dinner?

"No, and unless you want fast food or take-out, I would advise against asking me to provide it."

Duo kinda figured that it might be a bit of a learning curve or.. something for Heero to have his own space, but not necessarily a bad one. A bed instead of a sofa, and an actual room for all of his things is just one step away from a cockpit and a duffel bag filled with everything he owned, and even Duo was at that stage. The place was still pretty bare, even with everything off of their backs in it, but.. it was theirs. And the braided pilot felt a little bit better, security wise, knowing that Heero was there to check everything out with him too.

"I mean I went to the store and was gonna cook ... " He frowns a little, though, at that, looking at all the vegetables, fruits, rice and fiber products he'd bought.

"The meat was real cheap but I felt like that might be a trap. The last time I bought cheap meat back home it was like eatin' shoe leather so.. hopefully you don't mind usual colony vegetable stuff.."

- But then he spots that odd, spikey dragon fruit in the back of their fridge and plucks it up, presenting it for Heero to see.

"Found this at the store and it looked interesting, though. Called a dragon fruit. Wanna try it with me?"

Finally tearing his attention away from the empty space of the room to focus on Duo, he wanders his way into the kitchen area, sidestepping a gundam in the process. As long as it's not field rations or McCERES, he's perfectly content with whatever. Well, except the shoe leather. He's not a goat, after all.

"Quatre tends to stick to fruits, vegetables, tea, and crackers. Trowa is only slightly better when it comes to being able to produce something edible." As for himself, he can reheat things without destroying the place! So long as Duo is marginally better than the three of them, whatever he makes is fine.

But now there's a weird-looking thing being held out to him.

"...That doesn't resemble a dragon." Why would you call it something if it doesn't look like the thing you named it?

Having the gundams around and able to move by themselves was something that Duo was very slowly getting used to. At first he'd thought that maybe it would be a lot cooler than it actually was - particularly when Deathscythe got it in its head to be a little too mischievous like its pilot. Not that Duo expected there to be anything different going on, after all, but he thought that maybe the processors inside the little gundam would put an end to a lot of the foolishness that had already happened while they'd been here.

"Eh, tea.." Duo is a cretin, okay, Heero? "I wanna try my hand at cooking... I dunno if I'll be much good, but... it's worth a shot at learning, right?"

Duo rolls his eyes as Heero plays captain obvious about the fruit, but is quickly setting it on a cutting board and beginning to dissect the fruit from its strange and pokey skin.

"Don't be so literal, Heero. I hear it's good, just gotta get it out of the skin.."

"I had someone offer cooking lessons once... I could see if he'd be willing to teach you, if you want."

While Duo focuses on fruitful mutilation, Heero takes the time to go back to digging through what belongings he has to find something. As often as he skips class, he still does the assigned homework. Sometimes, like when he feels up to bothering. Now is probably a good time, though. At least it'll help with establishing a routine since he just disrupted his by moving.

Eventually, the books are found, and he sets himself up in a small area to work. A few moments later, he's slowly starting to spread out a little bit, because it's starting to sink in that he doesn't need to confine himself to a corner and can use a little more space. And by the time Duo's probably got the fruit peeled and hacked up, the small area he'd picked out has grown and is more like that of any other highschool or college student: all over the floor, with himself lying on his stomach in the middle of it, one arm folded beneath his head, chin resting on his arm while taking notes from a book that's propped up by a pillow.

The braided teen stops in his surgeon-like cutting for long enough to look up at his partner for a moment, face screwed up as if he didn't understand something he'd said. "You didn't take the offer?"

Man, if he'd been any good at balancing the whole 'friend' thing Duo imagined he could've been a little more.. 'assimilated' if that was the word, with a little more promptness. Not that he should have expected Heero to behave any differently - even if he had been out of the war for years and years he would still expect Heero Yuy to just be... Heero Yuy to say the least. So instead he sighs and shakes his head a little, as if indicating that he was disappointed in him, or something, and then - "I got an offer from another guy, too. So maybe we'll see what he end up being able to teach me, if anything, and then revisit the offer."

For the moment he's back to his fruit surgery, eventually cutting up the dragon fruit, a few kiwis and mangos, and, of course, Duo's personal favorite, raspberries. The sweet and yet sour little berries were a mainstay of the pilot's when he had a chance. Carefully arranging two bowls, one for each of them, Duo sets out on a mission to find where Heero's spread out, happy to see that he's finally content to take up more space. Silently, Duo comes in to the room, setting the bowl of fruit down next to Heero within reach, and then taking a seat himself.

He's curious, even if he didn't sign up for this school thing.

"What's the homework now, Heero?"

"I did, but I don't enjoy doing it." It makes sense enough in his head. He can cook some basic things thanks to the interventions of others, but if given the option of eating whatever he makes versus what someone else makes, chances are really high he'll go with the someone else.

He doesn't look up from his notes when Duo walks in, instead still scribbling away. It's not a terribly difficult assignment, but it's still something he needs to focus on... because otherwise, he'd never get through it. Schoolwork is so boring. "Not literature." A thing for which he is grateful, given that the last big assignment he'd had for that class had seen him in the library when everyone was taking on the characteristics of the genre of book they picked up. Leave it to him to pick one that seemed innocent enough but was actually horribly written erotica.

There's a pause as he shifts his pencil to his other hand in order to steal some of the fruit. "However, history according to CERES is not that interesting either."

"Well buddy, you don't enjoy a lot of things, but cookin' is kinda an essential, doncha think?" Duo was aware that this was probably like trying to put a wooden nail in to a brick wall, trying to change Heero's mind on the issue, but oh well. He was a glutton for punishment, kind of, in that he didn't know when to let the dead dog lie, so to speak, when it came to Heero and what he did in his spare time.

Duo makes himself comfortable with a box or two and a pillow - not quite motivated enough to unpack any kind of housewares he might've gotten to make the place a little more homely just yet, and totally negating the sofa that he'd somehow procured in order to sit with Heero on the floor. "That isn't very specific." Duo responds as he's told it's not literature - leaving open an entire catalogue of classes that this could still be for. It almost feels normal to be here like this - kind of reminiscent of being in a safe house and studying that trajectories and goals as compared to the realities on the ground - except this paper work was a whole lot less serious than that.

"Humor me - what's history according to CERES? Mostly interested because a lot of the people here seem to be shocked whenever I mention space."

"Not particularly. I've survived this long without having to do it, so I see little reason to force myself to enjoy it now." Of course, he also doesn't enjoy what passes for fast food and school cafeteria food here, either, but those are things he can't control as opposed to this. Besides, his metabolism was enough that he'd probably burn off whatever he ate in no time anyway, a sort of blessing and curse all at once.

But the question makes him glance up at Duo, just for a moment before returning his focus to his work. "History according to CERES is a lot of propaganda on the achievements of those they consider to be important, while downplaying any negative roles they may have held in order to make those who they want the public to believe are the enemies look far worse by comparison. Basically it's the same as any history class, written by the victors in order to paint themselves in the role as noble benefactors for the public while making the losers appear to be far more abominable than they actually are or were." But there's another point Duo mentioned that needs brought up as well, because he's been here long enough to have formed his own opinion on the matter -in reality though, that had taken all of maybe five minutes when he'd first arrived (opinion on Cerealia upon arrival: FUCKING HATE THIS WHY DO I HAVE TO FISH?!).

"As for the reactions of others to the mention of space, people are intrigued by things they do not understand or have not experienced. Where they might think space is shocking, we might think the abundance of certain food items is shocking. I don't think it's a history thing so much as it is a cultural one that varies between individuals."

Did you get all that, Duo? Because he's not repeating it. He's gotten the majority of his word count in for the day.

"Christ, Heero, and what happens if this place fucks off with all the instant shit?" Highly unlikely in a normal world, but in this place? He wouldn't doubt that at one point it might try to starve them out, or something of the like - which was why he was starting to make a stash of canned things and food that would keep for a little while if they needed it. Or another robot murder fest started up again.

Plucking another piece of dragon fruit from the bowl, Duo takes a bite and hums his appreciation, nodding as if Heero might need to see his approval of the fruit before leaning back on his little leaning tower of lounge support. The braided pilot listens quietly, for once in his life, as Heero explains, carefully chewing at his fruit, but still machining away at what he had in the bowl. After all, this was Duo, there was nothing like 'eating slowly' in his vocabulary or catalogue of leaned behaviors, even being around the others in the war.

"So basically exactly like the war?" Sorry, Heero, but he's fresh out of it so he's gotten to hear a lot of the revisionist history going on. But they hadn't really had the chance to discover these things just yet, have they? For the moment, though, he'll just contemplate what the other boy is saying, head tilted up toward the ceiling. His bare foot begins to tap a little, brain clearly working in over drive as he tries to piece things out a little bit by what he's experienced so far.

"I can say that meat is just as unappealing here as it was back home, so far. Just sayin'..."

"Then you learn to cook or befriend someone who can." See? It's simple! Well, simple for people who have an easy time of making friends. If this ever comes to pass, Heero will have to learn to cook.

He's not terribly interested in the assignment in front of him, but he's skipped class the past few times, so he should probably make sure he at least does his homework. "Like every war that's ever taken place, whether before the construction of the colonies or after... and it depends how it's cooked. If I do it, it's either raw enough that it probably still has its skin on and standing in a field or it's charred enough that you could probably use it as a coal substitute. The unappealing things I'm finding are some of the people. I am not 'obsessed', I am not 'repressed', and I do not 'need help'." Okay, so maybe it's just Kaneda. The guy has is amusing points, but mostly he's a giant ball of insults and attempts to be cool in a manner that goes entirely over Heero's head.

"Good thing you learn fast because you aren't very good at makin' friends." Except maybe with people who are absolute gluttons for punishment like himself, but not everyone was a Duo Maxwell. Plus... they'd been through a lot together, throughout the war. It made sense that, maybe, they were a little bit closer and more trusting of one another than the people they were surrounded with here in this new place.

Duo hums his agreement to Heero's conclusion about war, nodding his head and leaving it at that. What was there left to say, after all? At least until Heero lapses in to a .. kind of rant, and then Duo is blinking, surprised, to hear him speaking so much but.. maybe he'd kind of missed having someone around to listen to him? Sure, he'd been living with Quatre and Trowa, but considering how long he'd been in this place and hadn't seen hyde nor hair of either of them? He wouldn't be surprised if it had been the same for Heero, even living with them.

"You are a little repressed, buddy. But then again, I'm sure I am in one way or another too..." He shrugs, then, not really sure what else to say along with that. "Sounds like you need to give someone a kick in the teeth to shut 'em up, though."

"I don't have any desire to do so." Or at least, not much of one. Lately, he's been finding himself being a little more social with some people, but it's usually because he gets himself into a predicament he doesn't know how to get out of. He pauses in writing to go for more of the fruit, before reaching out to turn the page and continue. "And for the record, no, I'm not."

He's learning things, slowly. Very slowly. Cooking, he's not good at, but he's trying even if he refuses to admit it in front of Duo. Laundry... he hasn't flooded another laundromat yet, so there is that. Even socializing is something he's getting better with, though that's progressing with excruciating slowness. "As for kicking them in the teeth, I don't know that it would help." He doesn't look up, but there's a small sound that could almost be termed a snicker, followed by an almost amused, "He took a giant corndog up his nose without flinching, then tried to attack me afterward. If that didn't faze him, I doubt a kick would."

"Yeah I know..." Of course Heero didn't really have any desire to do so, but then again, blending in kind of relied on being a little more open to playing along with people and things, even if you didn't want to. Or at least that was how Duo had always seen it, whether on the mission or off. To learn and blend meant that things were a little easier, in most times. But then there was Heero and his refusal to make friends, so, never mind - "Yeah you are, Heero. Kinda comes with the territory, you know.."

He mulls over life here so far as Heero talks, humming at the corndog comment.

"A kick from you might crush his face in, if you really wanted to." Listen, what was pity?

"I'm just sayin' you can't go lettin' people walk on you, you know."

"Crushing someone's face in when I only intended to knock out teeth would be counterproductive." Besides, sometimes Kaneda is interesting... like the time the guy challenged him to a race. In laundry carts, with brooms to propel them forward. It was weird, but kind of fun, he supposes.

But right now, he's got history homework, so a lot of what Duo says only gets a shrug in return. Except for that last part. That makes him stop writing and lift his head to look at Duo in mild confusion. "Do I look like a doormat to you?"

Answer very carefully, boy.

"How so? It makes a point either way." Or Duo just has a problem with any kind of implication that someone was going to make a fool out of him. He didn't take those things very well, Heero should know that after the gundam parts incident, even if he did save his ass afterwards. He'd still maintain that Howard convinced him to do it, and nothing else, if anyone asked him about it, though it wasn't really a subject that he would recommend bringing up, either.

He snorts at the fact that it takes the comment about being a doormat to get an actual response out of him - typical.

"Yeah, y'got "WELCOME" across yer forehead and everything..." Duo rolls his eyes, sarcastic even when Heero could probably grab his arm and break it out of retribution. "I'm just sayin' man you can't let some shit just go..."

That earns a sigh and a wrinkled nose in return. "I have no desire to pay someone else's hospital bills or funeral expenses." Well, that and he's really bad at the follow through when it comes to things like death, unless the other happens to be in a mobile suit or it's an accident.

There's a moment's pause after the sarcasm before Heero moves, shifting his weight to one side in order to lift a hand... to rub at his forehead as if trying to feel where the word is written. "There are some things that shouldn't be let go of." Like guilt. Or regret. Or-- okay, maybe both of those things could be released, but he'd feel awkward doing it. It'd be like he was intentionally forgetting those whose lives he'd taken, and he's not sure he wants to do that.

Duo's eyebrows shoot up, as if that's something he hadn't really thought of in the moment, but - then he nods in agreement, popping another piece of fruit in to his mouth. ... And then speaking through said piece of fruit because he's a heathen. "Can't blame you, on that one."

Ok - Heero - you have to forgive him for laughing on this one. Because he's gonna laugh as he checks his forehead, at least by his estimation, shifting to slouch a little further in his spot, one leg crossed over the other. It's an ultimately lazy little pose. "Right. Like when someone's trying to make an ass outta you."

Like you do, Duo?

"If you're still sore over my borrowing a few parts to repair my mobile suit, you're the one who needs to let go." Then again, for Heero, it's been a year since the war ended. He'd never thought to ask Duo what the last thing he remembered was, much like it took forever for him to care enough to ask the others. Duo was Duo, Trowa was Trowa, and Quatre was Quatre. Points in time weren't all that important, really.

Or they weren't unless it was the time Quatre went crazy in ZERO, or the time Trowa had amnesia...

"Borrowing? Fuck you, man." Yes, Duo is still god damn sore about that subject. He'd taken the kid in, saved his gundam, and then just got rammed in the back with a knife - what did Heero expect? He'd learned a lesson from that, sure, but they'd been on better terms since then so there hadn't really been a need to bring it back up. And well, missions, the thought that they'd ended war and then some little snot nosed brat starting another one around Christmas -

The usual shit.

"If we hadn't blown up the suits after Mariemaia then I'd still be hounding you for what you owe me."

That gets his attention, the homework lying on the floor momentarily forgotten. This is something important, as far as he's concerned. "Blown up the suits?" Well, that answers that.

Duo is very much after what he remembers... which is sitting at the bottom of the ocean with ZERO after the fight with Wufei.

"So I assume that was stopped?"

"Uh, yeah?" Duo says it like an alien just asked him in a foreign language, honestly, blue eyes looking quite like he didn't believe Heero as actually asking him that.

"Don't tell me all the dramatics with blowing up the bunker and destroying Wing gave you more brain damage." Honestly he wouldn't be surprised at all if Heero didn't really remember things after all of that, but, you know. He'd seemed pretty fine the last time he'd spoken to him? "Disarmament's already begun and shit, you know."

He falls quiet for a moment, lowering his gaze back to his notes. This is weird, but at least it ended? "The last thing I remember is dropping ZERO into the ocean." He'd asked Wufei how many more times he'd have to kill that little girl and her puppy. He'd angled his gundam toward the water and let it drop straight in to settle on its back. He's not even sure how long he was there before he ended up here, only that it happened.

Then again, he hadn't exactly been with the others, so he wouldn't be too surprised if Duo didn't know about that.

"What is it with you and droppin' your suit in to the ocean?" Really, he didn't understand it. It wasn't something that he'd ever really angled for, during all of that mess, even though Deathscythe had joined Wing at one point, that hadn't really been anything of his doing.

"I didn't even know any a that happened, though.." That's what he gets for not really talking much with Wufei, he guesses.

"It's quiet there." His voice it totally calm and matter-of-fact as he says it, as if it's a completely serious answer he just gave. "And I didn't think you did."

Maybe he should elaborate a little more. After all, the others had picked up their suits together, whereas he'd had Quatre send his to different coordinates and met it in space.

"I ran into Wufei and we fought straight through reentry into the atmosphere. ZERO got damaged at some point in there, but I don't really remember when because there was a lot going on. After that... I asked him a question that I knew he wouldn't be able to answer for me, and retracted ZERO's wings to have it drop into the ocean." A small shrug. "I don't know if he and I are just too different or too similar, but sometimes it feels like oil and water dealing with him."

[ OPEN ] snake charmer

Aw, for me? you shouldn't have! :D

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