---------------------
 X'mas AC198 Part IV
~ A Moment of Haven ~
---------------------
	"...I'm telling ya, first lesson?  The wires are never 
color-coded.  Start there, and there'll be... What the heck are they 
watching?"  Zeroing in on the sound coming from the television in the 
other room, Duo led the way through the door and blinked at the screen.  
"Reality TV?  That stuff will rot your brains, guys."

	"We're not watching it," Heero refuted calmly, though he 
certainly changed the channel promptly.

	"Yeah, you were."  Followed by Quatre and Wufei, he fully 
entered the room and moved next to the sofa.

	Heero tossed the remote control to Trowa in order to focus his 
attention on their visitors.  "We were flipping past it when the sad 
spectacle of utter humiliation captured our attention."

	"Yeah, so you were watching it."

	For just a brief second.  Or three.  "We're looking for this 
other show they said was going to be on.  We're just not familiar with 
the channels around here...."  His eyes flickered over to the monitor 
and he nodded in satisfaction.  "See, there it is."

	Duo waited out the opening ditty to get to the program's title.  
"Ooh, penguins.  A Love Story.  Move over."  He swung himself over the 
arm of the sofa and squeezed himself in between the side and Heero.  
Trowa slid over to the other end to accommodate him, but when Heero 
started to move towards the center, Duo stopped him from straying too 
far by innocently draping one arm over the back of the sofa, putting his 
hand quite coincidentally near Heero's far shoulder.  It left him a 
little in Heero's lap, but hey, he was just being nice in not making 
Heero sit on the border between two cushions.  Never mind that there 
were enough cushions for each of them.

	Sensing that their previous discussion had come to an end, 
Quatre took up occupancy on the wide chaise on the other side of the 
sectional.  "You want to watch a show on penguins?"

	Though Duo hadn't been the first to express that desire, he 
answered the question.  "Eh, heh, yeah, we are kind of pathetic, aren't 
we?"  He looked toward Trowa for a response to being included, but then 
remembered his particular affinity for animals and decided there would 
be no agreement there.  Instead he turned toward Wufei, who had selected 
yet another chair in the room.  "Heero and me, we're kind of hooked on 
these nature channel things."

	"There are worse things to be hooked on," Trowa observed mildly.

	"Earth hosts such diversity, too," Heero chimed in, not a bit 
defensive.  "You don't have to worry about running out of programs to 
watch."

	It was a practical approach to the matter, one that Duo did not 
particularly endorse himself.  "Ooh, you know what I really like are the 
underwater ones.  All those sea creatures?  It's kind of creepy, 
actually, that there's so much stuff out there lurking beneath the 
surface.  And it's all so cool looking, too."

	"It's not really so surprising that early man came up with so 
many stories about sea monsters."

	Again, a logical statement where no logic was needed.  "Giant 
squid!  I wonder if those things really exist."

	"You're fond of those squid, aren't you."  The matter of 
cephalopods had come up before, if Heero recalled correctly.

	"I'm still waiting for them to catch a vampire squid."  He 
gestured expansively with his free hand while penguins glided on their 
bellies down slides of ice.  "Then my life will be complete."

	The sentiment drew Quatre's attention away from the screen.  
"Vampire squid?"

	Duo nodded enthusiastically.  "Yeah, we learned about them at 
this aquarium where we went.  They've got, like, spikes and glowy things 
and stuff, but they've never held one in captivity."

	Heero nudged him with an elbow.  "I thought you would have 
supported their freedom."

	"Well, yeah, maybe..."  His expression fell for a moment before 
he worked it out.  "But they don't have to hold the squid for long.  
Just long enough for me to see it.  Then they can let it go again."

	"What is it about squid that you like so much?" Quatre asked.  
They weren't exactly cute and fluffy, nor sleek and deadly.

	Fortunately for the squid, Duo didn't hold that against them.  
"What's there not to like?  They're like heads, and tentacles, and 
that's it.  Ooooh."  He wiggled his fingers around in simulation, right 
next to Heero's face.

	Heero batted the fingers again.  "You don't even like calamari, 
Duo."

	"Eww, I didn't say anything about swallowing the tentacles.  
That's just icky."  Though come to think of it, he didn't think he'd 
ever seen Heero eating calamari, either.  "But they're really smart, you 
know?  Squid can find their way around pretty well, or maybe that was 
octopussies.  Pi?  Octopi.  And they can use their suckers to pry shells 
apart and everything."  His versatile hand morphed into the facsimile of 
a sucker, and it latched onto Heero's shoulder with a bright sound 
effect.  "Fwshoomp~!"

	"Stop that."  The command was unamused, though tolerant.

	The sucker became a ring of fingers that moved up to the angle 
of Heero's neck, and Duo put his lips to that ring and inhaled loudly 
with his mouth.  He paused for a second before applying suction again, 
and then with a huff tried a third time.  "You know, I think it works 
better when squid do it."

	"Yeah, I'll bet."

	Duo winked sidelong at him, perhaps promising him some suction 
some other time, this time without the immediary of his makeshift straw.

                              ************

	They settled down for a while, watching the progress of the 
penguins as they crossed the icy landscape on the way to their mating 
grounds.  They spoke quietly to each other of normal things teenaged 
boys would talk of to each other, of nature and its many wonders, of 
instincts and herd mentalities, of journeys, and how much it would hurt 
to slide along an ice floe on one's belly.

	And when the penguins arrived at their breeding grounds, that 
large expanse of pristinely white and smooth land, Heero had to go and 
muse on deeper matters.  "I always felt bad."

	Duo, naturally being the one most responsive to Heero, 
questioned first.  "Hm?"  More space had been cleared on the sofa with 
Trowa sliding over some more, but Duo was still squished comfortably 
close by Heero's side.

	"When Zechs and I were fighting down there.  It looked like that 
at first."  He pointed his chin in the television's direction.  "And 
then... it didn't."

	"There wasn't, like, a flock of penguins that you guys were 
stepping all over or something, was there?"  Duo's voice conveyed some 
sense of horror as he drew away slightly.

	"Of course not!"

	Trowa's shoulders shook in amusement as Heero responded to the 
allegations, and they kept shaking while the others stared at him and he 
finally spoke.  "I'm thinking of how the Federation could have used 
footage of a penguin massacre to feed their propaganda machine."

	Duo cracked up loudly.  "God, that would be terrible!  We'd be 
even worse than evil murdering terrorists!  Worse than baby killers!"

	"We'd be penguin killers!" Quatre crowed, laughing himself.

	Wufei observed the others with a slightly lifted brow, but Heero 
stared at the television with a faintly haunted expression.  "What if 
that was their breeding ground?" he said softly to himself.  "What if 
they made that long trip all the way out there, just to find that some 
giant robots had come along and stomped it all to pieces?"

	"That'd be a surreal life!" Duo chortled, but he blinked it away 
into incredulity when he looked over and saw Heero's wide eyes.  "Oh, 
come on, Heero.  You think it's just penguins?  You going to start 
feeling bad for the ants and stuff, too?  Fingers coming out of nowhere 
to squish 'em dead?"

	"How would you like it if you were just minding your own 
business, living your life, and suddenly giant metal gods descend from 
the heavens to wreak havoc on your life and home?"

	"Well, I think I'd jump into my giant metal god and blow the 
shit out out of *their* homes!"  Goddammit, did he just prove Heero's 
point?  "Fuck.  Come on, baby, don't be like that.  As long as there 
weren't any penguins there at the time, maybe... I dunno, maybe it'd be 
like an avalanche just happened or the ice shifted and cracked it all up 
or something.  Maybe this kind of thing happens in real life anyway, and 
you were just one more thing that happened!  Sheesh, talk about 
overthinking."

	Heero watched fixedly as the oblivious penguins on the screen 
preened and pranced and courted each other.  "What if they were 
watching!?" he hissed with quiet horror.  "They could have been looking 
over some ridge or something, watching!"

	"Shit, Heero, what, you think they lie on their bellies with 
binoculars and do recon or something?  What the hell would they be doing 
watching you over some ridge?"

	Trowa nudged Heero in the side and provided the practical 
reassurance that Duo could not.  "We were too far from the ocean at that 
time of year for it to have been the same place."

	"Besides," Duo groused, "It's just ice.  Give it a week or so, 
and it'd probably fix itself right up, good as new."

	Heero made some sound of discontent, but said nothing further, 
and eventually his passion simmered down to a crease on his forehead and 
something that could be labeled as a pout, if one were liberal with 
one's labels.  It was probably more of a frown, though.

	Wufei watched the discussion with an internal shake of his head.  
Clearly Yuy's association with Maxwell had caused the man to lose a few 
marbles.

                              ************

	The ending credits began to roll, along with the only cuts that 
could be considered outtakes in a documentary.  "Okay, I think penguins 
rank pretty high now, right up there next to squid."

	They were sleek, and the little ones were cute and fluffy, 
thought Quatre.  "But no tentacles.  Or suckers."

	"Well, yeah, but..."  Duo struggled to find something awesome 
about the mighty emperor penguin that wouldn't make him sound like a 
little girl.  Something that would hopefully make the others forget 
about the way he had found himself almost cuddling with Heero when the 
screen had showed two penguins bonding gently with each other, rubbing 
their heads together.  Something that would hopefully make the others 
forget about the way he had almost whimpered in sympathy when that one 
penguin egg did not survive its brief contact with the frozen earth.  
"Hell, could you go four months without eating?  And fight your way back 
over a hundred klicks just to get back to the water?  I didn't think 
so."

	"The little ones are cute and fluffy, too."  When Duo looked 
like he was going to mock him, Quatre threw him a challenging glare, 
just daring Duo to try and deny their cute fluffiness.

	Duo backed down.

	"They're certainly patient creatures," Wufei opined.

	"Yeah, I know," Duo answered, jumping on the digression.  "When 
they're all just standing there balancing an egg on their feet, what do 
you think they do for fun?"

	"You'd make a terrible father."

	"Hey!"

	Heero patted Duo's thigh to soothe the outrage.  "Penguin 
father.  A terrible penguin father."

	That did little to calm his ruffled feathers.  Heero was 
supposed to support his causes.  What else was this love thing good for?  
"What are you trying to say?"

	"If you were balancing an egg on your feet, what would you do 
for fun?"

	"Same thing all the penguins do!"

	"And what's that?"

	"I don't know.  The penguins won't tell me.  It's like this 
super secret penguin guy thing that they don't tell outsiders.  Duh.  If 
they do tell you and you're not one of them yet, that means they're 
about to kill you.  Do you want me dead, Heero?  Is that what you're 
saying?"

	Heero chose the most prudent course and said nothing.

	"Must be an interesting party," Trowa spoke suddenly.  "Once all 
the women are away."

	Duo paused in his poking of his finger against Heero's shoulder.  
"We're so lucky none of us have girlfriends.  They'd probably make us 
bring them up here to meet everyone or something, and then we'd be 
screwed."

	"Maybe so long as there was more than one," Quatre suggested.  
He had a lot more experience with large flocks of females.  "Maybe 
they'd spend all of their time together and leave us to our own 
devices."

	"Yeah, right," Duo snorted.  "Girls don't do that."

	"And what would you know about girls?" Quatre shot back 
pointedly.

	He glanced somewhat guiltily at Heero, then shrugged.  Perhaps 
Quatre had a point there, but he still needed to defend his honor.  
"Enough to get me a boyfriend."  He stuck his tongue out triumphantly in 
Quatre's direction.

	"How did you two guys get together, anyway?"  Quatre was sure it 
was something that had been burning on all of their minds, so he took 
the opportunity to ask.

	Duo glanced left, then right, before feinting.  "Hey, it was in 
the news or something, wasn't it?  That there seem to be a lot of gay 
penguins around?"

	Trowa nodded, responding to the literal question, but Wufei 
puzzled over the metaphorical meaning instead.  "You decided to emulate 
the sexual behavior of gay penguins?"

	That could have been answered with another raspberry, but Duo 
chose the more mature route instead.  "Once a year?  Are you freakin' 
kidding me?"

	Heero hid a smile next to Duo's skin as he whispered into his 
ear.  "Penguins are monogamous."

	Duo elbowed him lightly in the gut.  "Yeah, once a year."  Once 
a season.  Whatever.  Long enough for them to bring an egg, and then a 
hatchling into the world, and maybe standing there, nurturing that 
precious, fragile thing they had created together against all the trials 
and tribulations the world had to throw at them, maybe that was like a 
short eternity all its own.  "'Course, how often would you really want 
to whip it out in that kind of weather?  Talk about a case of blue 
balls."

	"There's a reason they have no external genitalia," Trowa said 
dryly.

	Being the strategist that he was, Quatre knew a fake when he saw 
one.  "So, how did you guys get together, anyway?"

	Sensing that there would be no more distractions allowed, Duo 
stalled instead.  "Um, er... heh.  Well.  Interesting story behind 
that."

	"Not really," Heero inserted.

	"Well, yeah, not really, I guess.  I mean, if you think you guys 
were surprised, hell, think about it from our end."

	Quatre laughed, thinking about it from his own end.  "That must 
have been fun."

	"Heh."  The guy had no idea.  "So you see, we've got this 
neighbor, and she sort of adopted us as her pet cause or something.  In 
the beginning, she was trying to hook us up with chicks around the 
neighborhood, you know, just trying to be helpful or something.  We 
managed to put a stop to that eventually.  But I guess she was just 
storing it all up for later or something, 'cuz next thing you know, 
she's busting out this theory that me and Heero should be together."

	"More or less," Heero muttered.

	Duo knocked their knees together and continued weaving his tale, 
only there really wasn't much more to it.  "So, you know, we talked 
about her crazy theory for a little while... and that was that."

	"What was that?" Quatre probed.

	"That."  He shrugged nonchalantly.  "Heero and me.  We just 
figured maybe we'd give it a go.  But not because she thought it was a 
good idea.  Let me make that clear."

	"Very important," Heero murmured for everybody's edification.

	Hmpf, a relationship couldn't last for eight months on five 
sentences.  Quatre didn't have much time in his own life for 
relationships, but he was pretty sure about that much.  "That's it?"

	Duo nodded.  "That's it."

	"Liar."

	"What?  The story was so short, how could I have possibly stuck 
a lie in there?"

	"It was so short!"  That was the point.

	"Aw, come on, you think this was some sort of long-winded, 
angsty, epic, life-altering scouring of our souls?  No.  We just thought 
we'd do it."

	Quatre turned to who seemed like the more reasonable of the 
pair.  "Heero."

	Content to stay out of this discussion, Heero had hoped no one 
would notice his half of the story.  "Um.  Yeah, what he said."

	He received a glare for his troubles.  "Well, you're no help."

	"Not much more of the story to tell."  Not much more he wanted 
to tell, anyway.

	Duo got back into the game.  "What do you think we are, Q, 
penguins?  Trekking across a hundred klicks of frozen wasteland to croon 
love songs at each other?  Hell no.  Heero's got a terrible singing 
voice."

	"I can dance."

	Perhaps he didn't really hear that, Duo thought, but judging by 
everyone else's looks, he probably did.  He turned to give Heero a 
steady stare.  "Uh, yeah."  Favoring Heero's knee with a patronizing 
pat, he returned his attention to the others.  "Lucky for him, he's got 
other things going for him."

	Quatre pounced on the opening.  "Like...?"

	"Things."

	"And you think those things are irrelevant to this story?"

	"Completely.  You asked 'how', not 'why'."

	"Alright, then.  Why?"

	Duo smirked.  It edged cautiously toward a leer, but his lips 
weren't yet accustomed to pulling one out on demand.  "I don't think I'm 
at liberty to tell you 'why'."

	He didn't think he knew the answer to that question, anyway.



-------
march of the penguins is an awesome movie.  go watch it.



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last modified : 4/1/2006 23:39:59 PST