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"Woooooooo!"
Heero and Quatre watched on as Duo launched himself off of a ski slope before zooming down the mountain. Duo's braid streamed out behind him as he flew through the air like a meteor's tail.
"It's really incredible how quickly he picked it up," Quatre said, and Heero could hear the shaking in his voice when he spoke up from behind his mirrored snow visor. Even bundled up in the best ski suit money could buy, Quatre had a harder time with the cold than the rest of them.
It wasn't that incredible to Heero, but he didn't say so. Since the wars ended and he and Duo had moved in together, as much for comfort and security as for anything else, he'd watched Duo learn and take on more various tasks and responsibilities than he thought possible. From helping secure their postwar housing to fixing a leak under the kitchen sink, he was starting to think there wasn't much Duo couldn't figure out how to do once he set his mind to it.
"I'm going to see if I can catch him," Heero said, shifting on his own skis.
"Good luck," Quatre said, laughing. "I think I'm about frozen through. I'm almost ready to meet up with Trowa and Wufei back at the ski lounge and settle down in front of a hot fire. You guys want to meet us there?"
"Yeah," Heero said, and then pushed his own ski visors down over his face before pushing off, skiing downhill in the direction Duo had headed.
Heero could feel the brisk icy temperature of the wind against his face as he skiied, but not on much of it. He had a scarf wrapped around the front of his face, and between the visor and the scarf, there wasn't much skin to see. The cold exacerbated some of his old injuries, making his bones ache deeply. But seeing his friends relaxing and playing together--at peace--was worth the silent suffering.
They'd been out on the slopes all day, and Heero was sympathetic to Quatre crying off. He felt half-frozen through himself. But the temptation to watch Duo at play was too great, and so he was willing to stay out as long as Duo was.
He flew down the slope, seeing Duo as a distant figure now further down, bending low to his skis to catch speed and catch up. Something about the speed and weightless feel of it reminded him inexplicably of Wing, of being in the cockpit again, and he felt strange tears prick his eyes under his visor, blinking them away as he moved.
Sometimes it was just like that. It was easy for everything they'd done to come up on him sideways sometimes, catch him off his guard. He didn't have his guard up as often these days. Most days, he considered that a blessing.
Heero saw where Duo had come to a stop further down the slope and was posted up waiting for him. He tried to ski smoothly up to the former Deathscythe pilot and playfully flash him with a spray of snow from his skis, but he misjudged and flopped to a sudden stop in the snow, causing a small cloud of it to come billowing up around him as he fell.
He had been going pretty fast when he was approaching Duo, and the sudden impact of the ground half knocked the wind out of him. But the first thing he was aware of when he caught his breath was Duo's bright laughter over him.
"Oh my God you should have seen your face! I can't believe I wasn't recording on my phone for that!"
"Hn," Heero said, still face-down in the snow. He started to struggle upright and saw where Duo was holding a hand down to him, grinning. Duo's irridescent rainbow visor was pushed up onto his forehead and his amethyst eyes sparkled mischievously down at Heero.
"C'mon, hot shot."
Heero grabbed Duo's hand and allowed Duo to pull him to his feet. But Duo kept pulling until Heero stumbled forward a bit and had to brace himself against Duo's chest, holding his upper arms for balance, his nose inches from Duo's.
"Hi," Duo whispered, grinning.
"Hey," Heero replied. Feeling his face growing hot even though it had just been pushed into the snow.
Before Heero could think or say anything else, Duo was leaning into him, kissing him under the cold blue sky, unmindful at all of any of the other people out on the ski slopes around them. Compared to the chill of Heero's face, Duo's lips were very warm.
Heero wrapped his arms around Duo's neck and drew him even closer, breaking the kiss to rest his forehead against Duo's gently. He closed his eyes, momentarily overcome. There was no way for him to articulate his happiness.
Luckily, Duo was articulate enough for the both of them.
"Goddamn, I love you," Duo whispered, withdrawing to give Heero a final kiss on the forehead before he drew back, smiling.
"Ditto," Heero said. Only a little breathless.
"Where's Quatre?" Duo asked, moving to sling one arm companionably around Heero's shoulders.
"He gave up and went back to the lodge," Heero said. "Too cold."
"And what about for you?" Duo said, watching Heero's face carefully. "How are the bones?"
Heero gave him a small, slanted smile in return. "I'll survive."
"Ah, I know what that means," Duo said, dropping his arm. "Starting to hurt, huh? Don't lie," he added, his tone playfully warning.
"A little," Heero admitted.
"Well then it sounds like we need to head back to the lodge too," Duo said, grabbing his ski poles from where he'd planted them in the snow before pulling Heero up. "Time to get you some painkillers, a hot drink, and a hot fire. I think we've had enough snow and ice for one day."
Heero's first instinct was to tell Duo that he was fine, that there was no need to make a fuss over him. But the picture of coziness that Duo painted was too tempting to resist. Just the idea of a fire made him want to yawn, and his joints ached. Ten-year-old injuries sent phantom bolts of pain through him, always when he least expected it.
"Sounds good," he said instead. Meaning it.
"C'mon then," Duo said, sliding forward on his skis in the direction on the lodge. "Last one there is a rotten egg!"
Heero quickly picked up his ski poles and pushed off behind Duo, following him in. They met the ski valet near the entrance of the lodge to offload their skis and ski suits, then walked together into the lodge to head to the common room.
As Heero suspected, Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei were already posted up near one of the common room's large fireplaces. Wufei was sitting in a large, plush leather armchair, reading a book. Quatre and Trowa were sitting on a loveseat together across from him, talking quietly amongst themselves. But they looked up and smiled when they saw Heero and Duo walk up.
"Hey, you guys finally get tired of the cold?" Quatre said, clutching a cup of hot coffee in his hands. Trowa had his own mug of coffee on the coffee table. Wufei looked up at them, looking as sleepy and contented as a cat.
"We've been out there since nine, I think we got our money's worth," Duo said, flopping down on a couch closest to the fire. Heero followed him, feeling love swell in his chest as Duo immediately pulled a thick fuzzy blanket off the back of the couch and pulled it over the both of them together.
"Do you two want a drink?" Wufei said, placing a tasseled bookmark in his book and setting it on the arm of the chair. "I need one."
"Aw, such a doll," Duo said, fluttering his eyelashes at Wufei playfully. "Can you grab me a hot mulled cider? What about you, Heero?"
"Hot cocoa, no marshmallows," Heero said. "Please."
Wufei nodded and headed for the hot drink bar on the other side of the lodge's lounging area. Duo leaned into Heero and pulled the blanket up to his own chin, grinning. He took one of Heero's cold-stiffened hands in both of his and blew into it, warming Heero's skin with his breath. Heero closed his eyes, listening to the sound of wood knots popping in the fire, and when he opened them again he found Trowa and Quatre watching them with amusement.
"What?" Heero said.
Trowa shook his head a little, smiling. "Nothing." He turned back towards the fire. Heero saw that Quatre was leaning into Trowa's shoulder, radiating happiness. Not just at Trowa's easy intimacy with him, Heero thought. But at all of them together now in the aftermath, alive and happy. Just hanging out, as Duo would say.
Duo swapped hands, taking Heero's other hand from under the covers and blowing on it. Meeting Heero's eyes with a lingering look when Heero met his gaze over his cupped palms.
"Better?" Duo said, rubbing Heero's hand gently in both of his.
Heero nodded, smiling when Duo didn't drop his hand but instead moved it beneath the blanket, interlacing his fingers there. Linked and hidden.
"Did you guys have fun today?" Quatre asked, watching them.
"Man, we had an absolute blast," Duo replied. "Thanks a lot for the invite. I still can't get over the snow out there."
I'm more a fan of the fire, Heero thought. After some of the hypothermia experiments performed on him in the labs, he would be happy not to be cold again for the rest of his life. He squeezed Duo's hand in his a little, and felt Duo's answering squeeze in return. With the heat of the fire and the blanket over him, the ache in his bones and muscles and joints had faded a little. He thought with some Advil and a hot drink and a rub-down from Duo in their rooms, he might get it to dim to a dull roar, unimportant. Pain was something that he could ignore. But ignoring it was easier in war than in peace.
"What about you, Heero?" Trowa asked, startling Heero out of his memories. He looked up to find Trowa watching him with a knowing expression. Heero still did that sometimes, fall into the middle distance where his bloodied past lay unburied, just beyond the quiet years that followed.
"It was fun," Heero said.
"Well I hope you guys didn't get too tired, because we still have another week here," Quatre said.
"Nah," Duo replied, throwing an arm around Heero's shoulders. "I think once we get some good sleep tonight, we'll be ready to go in the morning again."
"Good. Maybe we can even talk Wufei into coming out there," Quatre said.
"I heard that," Wufei said dryly as he walked back up with the drink holder in his hands. He sat it on the coffee table before passing the cocoa to Heero and the cider to Duo before taking a mug of cocoa with marshmallows for himself.
"It wouldn't kill you to try skiing while we're at an actual ski lodge," Trowa pointed out.
"I came to spend time with you," Wufei said before he sat his drink on the coffee table and picked his book back up, giving Trowa a pointed look. "I prefer to do that when we're not racing down the side of a mountain at fifty miles an hour in below freezing temperatures."
"What if I challenged you to a race?" Duo asked slyly, sipping his cider. "Wouldn't you be honor-bound to accept?"
Wufei gave him a look. "I don't think you understand how that works."
"Oh well," Duo said dramatically, leaning into Heero with a sigh. "Guess we'll never figure out if 'Fei could get away from me in a high speed pursuit if I really decided to come after him."
Wufei scowled at him. "Obviously I would beat you in a skiing race, Maxwell."
Duo shrugged. "Ain't obvious to me."
"I'd like to see you prove it," Heero said, taking a few swallows of his hot cocoa before putting it on the table. His quiet, joking words caused all of them to look up at him in mild surprise.
Wufei watched his face for a few moments, his expression strangely wistful, before he cracked a rare smile. "Since you're so desperate to see Maxwell humiliated in the field, I have no choice but to accept."
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Duo said in Heero's ear, but the squeeze he gave Heero's clothed thigh under the blanket told Heero that he wasn't genuinely irritated.
"Whatever side gets Wufei on skis," Heero said. As the others argued good-naturedly about the prospect, trying to settle on rules of engagement for the race, Heero found his gaze drawn back to the fire. For so much of his life, fire had meant death and destruction, the world tearing itself asunder. Things gone wrong.
Duo had changed it for him. With Duo, fire meant passion. It was being looked at with a love so intense it felt like it scorched his soul and also that he could never live without it again. The warmth of being loved unconditionally.
Surrendering himself to the cozy heat of the fire, already thinking about the sensation of Duo's healing touch on his broken body later in the privacy of their bed, Heero closed his eyes.