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?"

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"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."

"Well I guess it would be." And here he'd thought that Heero was just going to leave things right then and there where they were, without explaining anything. That was typically what ended up happening when they had these kinds of discussions. Bits and pieces of stories without a whole lot of big details, things that needed to be patched and filled as they talked and he got more tattered pieces. Today was different, though, apparently. He gets the full story, and then, of course, has to have a little laugh.

"You two are... really similar. And yet different in all the ways that rub each other wrong." At least that's what he's gathered from being around them both from time to time. Wufei was still a bit of a mystery to him, if only because they hadn't spent a lot of time together.

"Similar? I fail to see how. Unlike him, I don't need to go chasing someone's ghost in order to validate my own existence." He doesn't exactly get it, but he's never really spent much time with the other, so it's a little hard to say for certain, and Treize isn't the same as an innocent child, so that can't be a similarity. At least, he doesn't view it that way.

But maybe the conversation should be steered elsewhere. Bring things back around to the here and now, because this is where they are, and this is what they have to deal with. And to prove Duo wrong about his inability to make friends -or at least tolerate people enough to be quasi-passable- he chooses one topic and runs with it. "I flooded the laundromat down the street not too long ago. There was a girl who helped me clean up the mess the first time, and then the guy who needs a kick in the teeth got me out of doing the rest of it." Just a plain, casual tone, as if he were talking about the weather.

He mulled over how exactly to explain to Heero that he wasn't so separate from Wufei as he thought he was, sucking on his teeth. There's not much more to do than to get his thoughts in order, and then explain how in every way they were very much similar men chasing after very similar things, dogs after the very same bone, just different people. He might run his mouth a lot, but Duo wasn't dumb enough to not watch people, gauge them. Heero and Wufei had been the two he'd watched the most, mainly due to their .. rather stand offish personalities. Trowa was quiet.. but Heero and Wufei just, plainly, seemed pretty anti-social.

Which was just more interesting.

At least until Heero tries to change the subject, and then Duo is tutting, waving a finger. "Don't try to change the damn subject, Yuy!"

"You got your own ghosts you're chasin', just like I do, and we all know it. Like we all do. None of us are all that different from one another, but you guys - You and Wu - "

"You're chasing after figuring out who the hell you are. In and out of all of this mess."

"I'm not." Back to the notebook, turning the page to start on the next page of work. "You said I have an inability to 'make friends' as you put it. I was merely stating that there were other people who were willing to provide assistance when it was needed." Okay, so the 'friend' thing is kind of foreign to him, but he's trying. He's just not good at social interactions so he's more awkward than anything else.

But he can't help waving one hand in a dismissive gesture as Duo talks about the similarities. "Unlike him, I am perfectly capable of figuring that out without siding with an enemy because I'm incapable of letting go of the past."

"Bullshit." Duo may just be the only one who could mildly get away with giving Heero so much flack about his lacking social skills, or got away with comparing him to Wufei in any manner. It was kinda of a bonus of knowing Heero so well, but.. also kind of a curse. Some days he wondered if he was maybe a little too open with Heero from time to time.

If that was at all possible.

"People being nice to you and making friends is not the same damn thing, Heero." Insert an eye roll here.

"I mean, fair enough, but you've got your on shit you're still on about from forever ago. Maybe not as obviously, but.."

The statement about not being the same thing earns Duo a look. He knows they aren't, and that at best those people are more of an acquaintance than anything else, but at the same time, because none of this comes easily to him, he's willing to take whatever he can get. "I didn't call them 'friends'. There are few individuals here to whom that designation would apply in the slightest. Very few."

When Duo's words fade off, Heero is silent for a few moments before reaching out to shut the book he was using. "And what shit might that be?" He'll assume a little girl and her puppy, but he's never really broadcast that so the chances of the other knowing it aren't terribly high. It's one of the very few things he knows he's still allowing to bother him.

"Yeah yeah, I'm just sayin'." Duo probably wouldn't even be bold enough to ever declare himself to be Heero's friend in front of him except if he was willing to play it off as a joke. After all, he wasn't going to go around asking to be told any differently, and even though they'd worked together closely for a while now.. let's be honest - he still isn't sure how to gauge Heero from time to time. Gauging any of them was a hard game to play, but the stoic Wing Zero pilot was a completely different basket of games. And really, these days he was too tired to really try to riddle things out with too much intensity - he figured that they might just.. shake out on their own if given the time of day.

"Hell if I know - it isn't like we sit around and talk out our feelings and whatever we did before we touched down on Earth." He's honest, at least, in not pretending to know what goes through Heero's head or what exactly it is that he's lingering on, but - there's a slight hesitation before Duo decides to just say screw it and continue. "But - I just know that none of us had it real easy, and I know that sometimes you get that far off look on your face that I get when I'm getting a little too sucked up in what's already been done."

"As am I." If it were him, Heero probably wouldn't be able to say he'd want to call himself his friend, so Duo has nothing to worry about there. He's awkward, he's socially stupid, he prefers to be on his own, and doesn't really play well with others. It's not that he doesn't try, but more that he really doesn't know how.

The books closed, he pushes them aside and stretches out on the floor, taking a moment to enjoy the space before retreating and sitting up. "There is nothing in my past that warrants mentally rehashing things I can't change." Not that he doesn't do it anyway... "And even if we did, I wouldn't have anything to say."

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