Moments of Haven Part 97
Beer and Skittles
"Ready to do this?"
Heero answered with his usual firmness, though it did suffer a second or two of silence first. "Aa."
"Okay, then." Duo held his fist out. "Let's do this."
His partner dutifully tapped the outstretched knuckles with his own fist, and then they parted ways.
*****
Heero installed himself along the edge of the room, found a comfortable position on the floor, and waited. They trickled in gradually, sometimes alone, more often in pairs or trios. Certain sections of the Preventers building had a summer camp air about them. Agents from all over had gathered at this local headquarters and others for a month of learning, training, and interdepartmental exchange. They had tightly packed schedules for much of the work day, designed to keep them busy and useful.
The close quarters combat seminar was in the afternoon, early enough for the agents to still have the energy necessary for such exertions, but late enough for lunch not to weigh an agent down and present a risk. The agents milled about in the center of the room, some more friendly than others, offering introductions and handshakes. Others more competitive than their classmates, offering cool nods and measuring stares. Some curious about the silent kid in the corner watching them from beneath the cover of his bangs. No way he was taking the class, too. Maybe he was just an intern, keeping an eye on the stack of paperwork next to him, waiting for the instructor to arrive. Maybe someone had convinced the instructor to let their son watch the class.
The 'kid' in question glanced up to the clock on the wall for confirmation, then rose to his feet. The agents paid him little attention until he stopped on the edge of the mats, in a place that could conceivably be labeled the 'front' of the class. Heero waited until he had caught the notice of enough of them before announcing quietly, "It's time."
The crowd's murmur softened, but didn't stop altogether. Not quite yet. Was the kid going to give them a message from the instructor? What kind of way was this to start a class? Showing up late, or maybe not showing up at all.
"Welcome to the CQC seminar. I am Special Agent Yuy. I will be your instructor for this course."
A number of blinks greeted him, along with a couple of incredulous looks, a snort from someone near the back. And one person brave enough to actually speak. "You?"
Heero met his look steadily. "Yes."
"How old are you?"
"If you're in the habit of judging people by their appearances, then it's no wonder you need to take this class." Oh, good job, Yuy. Close quarters combat was carried out with one's body, not one's words. Let's try not to be so insulting next time, yes?
Someone let out a soft hiss in appreciation of the jab. Someone else decided to phrase the first question a little more diplomatically. "How much experience do you have?"
"With CQC? Plenty. With teaching? None. I'm sure this will be an educational experience for us all. If anyone has any issues with my methods, please feel free to bring them up after class. I'm sure we'll all find out just how qualified we are to be here shortly. According to your files, all of you have completed at least sixty hours of CQC training with the Preventers. Some of you may consider this to be a continuation of those studies. Some of you may consider this nothing more than a refresher course. Agent Johnson. What category do you fall into?"
There was a pause as the agent considered her answer, and then there was a secondary pause as she stopped to wonder why the strange and strangely cute instructor knew her name and could pick her out of a crowd. Granted, a small crowd of only eighteen, but still a crowd. Apparently, he hadn't been joking when he said he'd studied their files.
"Sir." Another brief pause. She was no youngling herself, despite her lack of seniority. It was just habit kicking in from her time with the Alliance forces, she supposed, though it could have been the way SA Yuy presented himself. "Continuation."
Heero nodded once before moving on to his next target, going from left to right. "Alphand?"
*****
Duo performed a quick head count before taking his place at the front of the room. "Okay, kids, settle down. I assume you're all here for the Field Improv class? Yes? Good. I'm Special Agent Maxwell. I'll be leading this class." He paused expectantly, waiting for some sort of doubt to be expressed verbally, but all he got was facial expression, body language, and a whisper from the back. "Yup, me. Hey, I may be young, and I may be stupid, but I know how to worm my way out of a sticky situation. You got a problem with that, take it up with the wackos that put me in charge of this class."
Again, he waited for some form of objection before continuing. "So anyway, we all know why we're here, right? And why improv skills are so necessary? So we'll skip the boring intro and just jump right into things. Let's start off with a little story time. It's mid-afternoon, and you've just infiltrated an enemy base. Just so happens to be an office building. Company's just a front for some illegal activities. You get caught as you're creeping down a hallway. Agent McClelland. What do you do?"
McClelland wasn't prepared to answer, though he felt that probably wasn't the right thing to say. And why did this young hotshot know his name? "Uhh... pretend I'm the pizza guy?"
"Are you carrying a pizza with you?"
"Um. No."
Duo mimed shooting him with his fingers. "Bang. You're dead. And carrying a pizza's a bad idea, anyway. Too easy to smell. Agent Samson?"
Samson was a little bit faster about figuring out the game. "Who finds me?"
"Two guys. No visible weapons. Say they look like Bronte and Mathew over there."
"What kind of business in this?"
"Accounting."
McClelland looked disgruntled as he muttered to the agent next to him. "I didn't know we were allowed to ask questions."
Duo deliberately didn't throw him a withering look, but he did answer a question in his direction. "This is field improv. There are no rules."
*****
"Still in one piece, I see."
Heero snorted and held the door open for him as they left the building.
Duo judged him a little too quiet and bumped shoulders with him on the way to the car. "Hey, wasn't that bad, was it?"
"No." It almost sounded like a sigh, if one twisted it in a few directions and listened to it upside down.
"So you're just being broody for fun."
"I'm not brooding."
Duo shrugged. That was his usual answer, and somehow, it usually lacked conviction. To Duo, anyway. "Well, then, whatever it is on your mind, you're not sharing. Stop being so stingy and give."
"How was your class?"
Ah, so it was going to be one of these days, was it? "All talk, today. No boom. So how fun could it have really been?"
"What did you cover?"
"Starting at the bottom, of course. You read my 'syllabus'." His nose wrinkled in distaste. The administrators had required that they write up formal outlines of their courses. Duo would gladly have given it only a token effort, but Heero had made sure he toed the line. The irony of doing paperwork for an imrpov class seemed to be lost on everyone but him. "Talking your way out of something. We'll move on to diversionary tactics soon enough. That should be more interesting. I guess some of it sort of goes hand in hand with your seminar, about using what's available as a weapon and stuff."
"Hm."
And here Duo had been so gracious about leaving him an opening, too. Fine, he'd prod some more. "So? What about you?"
"You've read my syllabus, too."
He'd forgotten how goddamn stubborn Yuy could be sometimes. "So, unarmed non-lethal combat this week, right?"
"Aa."
"So, did you get lethal today by accident or something?"
Heero threw him a startled, though sidelong glance, before fixing his eyes back on the walkway in front of them. "Obviously not."
"Didja think lethal today, then?"
"Of course."
Thinking was okay. Doing was not. Of course Heero would think lethal. He would see opportunities for the take down, and then he wouldn't take them. Nothing wrong with that. Or at least, nothing out of the ordinarily wrong about that. That may have accounted for just a tiny bit of Heero's mood, but not the majority of it. "Any problems with the students? I got the expected amount of crap from them. Not too bad, I guess, since we just spent this session talking. Maybe when I start talking about the hundred and one ways of making napalm varations, then I might get into a little more trouble."
"You'll do fine."
They arrived at their destination and boarded their vehicle. It was Duo's turn to drive. He waited for them both to get settled before he started up again. "Come on, Yuy, stop being such a hardass about things and spit it out."
Heero stared out the window for a few seconds before shrugging uncomfortably. "I don't know. It's nothing in particular."
"Kids didn't give you any shit?"
"I got the expected amount from them. We started from the bottom. A bit of lecturing on the fundamentals, and then practice. Holds and escapes. I proved I knew what I was doing. I'm sure there's still at least one person that has his doubts, but it's not a problem." He smiled briefly. "One person that complained I was too short."
"Ha. I didn't know bad guys had to meet height requirements."
"It's okay. There's someone else in the class that's not too much taller than I am. I think he appreciates someone that can give him sharper insight into how to take better advantage of his size."
"Cool. Still waiting for the problem to come up, though."
"I told you, there was no problem." He ran a finger idly over the dashboard, seeing dust there. "Just... I don't know. Maybe it just made me nostalgic or something."
Nostalgia? Right. Only Yuy could get nostalgic about CQC. "Huh. That's right. You know, I've never thought much about who musta taught you stuff. Odin couldn't have taught you everything since you were so little then." He snickered. "Oh man, tell me Doc J's not some sort of secret ninja dude."
Heero rolled his eyes. "Of course not. There were plenty of other people on base that taught me things. It's hard for a mad scientist to build a weapon of mass destruction, and train the person that will use it, all by himself."
"That's... really kind of weird." His brow furrowed as he thought about it. "Well, not really, I guess. But that you have good memories of that time. Okay, I guess I do, too, but... I dunno."
Heero smiled ruefully. "Doesn't seem like we should, does it?"
"No, not really... Sure, it wasn't beer and skittles all the time, but--"
"What?" Heero looked at him, puzzled. "Beer and... skittles?"
Duo blinked. "Uh, yeah, you know, beer, and, uh... skittles? Well, 'beer' I get... look, I don't know. Sweeper guys have weird sayings, okay? In any case, it wasn't like all of back then was warm and fuzzy. So it's okay to have a moment here and there that was good, right?" He paused to think about it some more. "Great, now you have me all weirded out, too."
"You asked me to share."
"Yeah, well, how many times do I have to tell you to stop listening to me?"
"But I like listening to you."
Duo made an exasperated sound. "You've got poor taste, Yuy."
"So do you."
They looked at each other, each suppressing private smiles, before Duo shook his head and started the jeep's engine. "So really, tell me how your class went."
OWARI
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