Work Text:
Beneath: The Gentleness of Sheep
by duointherain
disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing
Note: This happened before the previous start of Beneath
Gif link: https://media.giphy.com/media/XxvUPRjABpLO5LFrhE/giphy.gif
The hotel room was paid for. Trowa wasn’t saying how he got the money. Duo didn’t really care. Trowa wasn’t bleeding and that was enough. It wasn’t quite enough for Quatre. Quatre had always had refined tastes.
When Duo got back to the room, they were both looking like they weren’t talking to each other. Quatre still hadn’t touched the tea that Trowa made him three hours before when Duo had gone out. That was probably because it was bought with the money that Trowa had come back with. Honestly, Duo just didn’t care what Trowa had smelled like as long as it wasn’t death or shit. Duo was particularly against either of those smells. Sex was something he wasn’t even sure he knew what it smelled like. Like, did Quatre actually sniff cum? If so, why? Why did he care that Trowa smelled like sex? It didn’t hurt the taller pilot. He came home with money. They had a place to sleep. Trowa had given Duo two meal packets. As far as Duo could figure smelling like sex was smelling like money which meant food and that was okay by him.
Duo quietly shut the door and watched both his friend while they didn’t talk to each other for a while. “So!”
“Yes, Duo,” Quatre said, looking up, his small book in his hands, elegant and probably a little cultish or something.
“I got us enough money to keep the room for two more weeks, food, and they servos you needed, course they kinda need a bit of repair, but well, we can do that.”
Quatre smiled, his lips pretty and pink, hair perfect, collar unbuttoned in the most refined of ways. Sweet as a honey and butter biscuit, he purred, “Did you suck a stranger’s dick to get it?”
“Uh,” Duo said, nose wrinkling and twisting his mouth. The visual of him sucking someone’s dick was probably the grossest thing he could imagine. Why would anyone do that? He’d never been that thirsty, not even in the plague. “Naw, I’m gonna watch some guys sheep for a week. He paid in advance though. All I gotta do is walk around with’em and make sure no wild dogs eat them.”
“By wild dogs, you mean wolves,” Trowa said, neither as refined nor as restrained as Quatre. “Duo’s going to be a shepherd.”
“Better than a prostitute,” Quatre snapped, mean-mugging Trowa. “I told you I’d have money in two days. We could have just kept walking around. We had options.”
Trowa pointed at Duo with his whole hand. “The kid would have starved. Is that what you wanted? Don’t be such a fucking prude.”
“Langauge,” Quatre snapped, opening his book back up, though he did look over the top of his book at Duo, sigh, like a long prolonged heavy sigh, before finally picking up the tea that Trowa had made for him. “I know you always make good decisions, Trowa. I just, I just want to protect you.”
“I’m fine,” Trowa said, moving from the chair far across the bed, to the bed, closer to Quatre, so their knees touched.
Duo was sure that all meant stuff, probably important stuff. Weird stuff. He was glad Wufei and Heero didn’t act like that. Confusing stuff. “Uh, yeah, so I’m gonna go out and spend time with the sheep now. I’ll message you the location of the servos. I’ll be back to sleep. Maybe I’ll catch a wild dog, you know? It might be small and it can go around with me. Maybe I can teach it to do stuff.”
“Duo,” Quatre said firmly, one eye twitching. “You may not adopt a wolf. Trust me on this. They like to be free and they not only eat sheep, but they’ll eat people. If you want a dog, when we have brought own the government and made a way for peace, I’ll buy you a nice friendly dog from a good breeder.”
“Yeah, thanks. I wanna find mine though. So! Here’s the money I got,” Duo said, dropping money on the bed. “Do useful stuff. I’ll be back tomorrow. Apparently the sheep, and sheep are like big fluffy cotton balls and dogs, real nice and all. I met one! But they get scared of the dogs a night. You’d think they’d be okay with dogs, even though they have different kinds of hair, but I guess I’m a human and other humans scare the shit out of me sometimes. I gotta keep’em company so they don’t get scared. Can you believe someone’s giving us money for that?”
Quatre’s upper lip disappeared between his teeth for a moment as he tried to figure out just exactly how Duo saw the world and what might be useful or appropriate to say. His friend wasn’t exactly ‘properly socialized’. “Very well,” he said at last.
“Duo,” Trowa said, brows drawn down. His fingers massaged his forehead for a moment as he tried to sort out priorities. They were three, five if you counted all of them, insurgents against a multi-world power groups and they were all probably going to die, so he just didn’t think he really had the time or resources to explain to his very immature coconspirator about Earth life forms or that it wasn’t going to be that easy if someone was going to pay that much money. It was probably a trap. Duo was probably going to get killed. He puffed out his cheek with all the words he wasn’t going to be able to say. Either that or Duo was going to kill a bunch of fuckers. That’s how it usually went with his kind of childish long-haired friend. He’d long since accepted that his friend was the god of death, his own or others, either way. “Be safe.”
“Thanks!” Duo said, grabbing up his couple of meal packs, snatching back another couple bills from the money. “See ya all tomorrow. It’ll be better if you don’t piss Q off anymore.”
“Probably true,” Trowa agreed.
“Duo, this person did show you how to take care of sheep and you do trust them, yes?”
“Oh yeah, the sheep was so cute and fluffy! He’s Howard’s family so it’s all good. Bai!”
“Bai,” Quatre said, waving as Duo ran back out the door.
Duo didn’t mention he’d also stolen a car, but you know, some things are best not disclosed. As he jumped into the driver’s seat, the sheep in the back seat bleated loudly. Now the car smelled like shit, but at least it wasn’t his.
<><><>
The forest of sheep was about ten miles out of town. By the time he and the sheep got there, he was sure he loved sheep. After the war, he was going to have a home for sheep.
He found the pen with a whole bunch more sheep in it and a long thick stick with a curved end. There was also a letter with his name on it that told him to take the sheep down the path, across the road, down to the pasture by the lake, then bring them back in the morning. Easy Peasy.
The sheep that he’d brought back with him in the car rubbed against his leg and he scratched it’s black little head. This is what life was all about!
He opened the gate and they were out! He had to run to keep up with them. They knew where they were going! He followed them at a good jog, along the path, the big stick on his shoulder.
Things went sideways when they got to the road. Some of them tried to go down the road when he wanted them to stay on the path and cross the road. They seemed to understand plain English about as well as Trowa and Quatre did if you spoke too fast, meaning they were doing their own thing and English was definitely not their first language.
Then things went downhill. They were suddenly around him and from behind one of those little heads hit him right in the butt. Pavement hit him, ripped up his hands, and sheep are a lot scarier if you aren’t taller than they are. What was worse, the ring leader kept hitting him with his head, so it was hard to get up!
Finally they rest of the sheep got across the road and Duo had rolled onto his hands and knees, had just gotten up onto his knees, furious and confused when the ring leader, with a running start got him right between the shoulder blades and this time it wasn’t his hands on the pavement.
<><>
An hour later, he stormed into the hotel room, found Trowa and Quatre napping while their clothes dried, and grabbed a pistol he’d hidden in a new hole behind a painting. He checked to make sure he had ammunition, jaw tight, one eye glaring.
Quatre’s mouth dropped open. “Duo! Is everything okay?”
“Yeah! I know why the stupid wolves are mad at the damn sheep now. If I wasn’t getting paid, I’d let them have’em. Dumb fuckers!” He tucked his pistol away and stomped out with two black eyes, one swollen shut, a broken nose, and no more plans to own sheep.