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WHO: Duo Maxwell & Heero Yuy
WHERE: Heero's apartment
WHEN: Evening of 4/13 ~~(hi, backdating)~~
SUMMARY: Duo talks Heero into having a pizza night.
FORMAT: Paragraph.

It had been easier than Duo expected to talk Heero into a dinner-night — which is to say that Duo hadn't expected Heero would agree to it at all. He hadn't pushed for details, just making sure Heero knew to hold off on dinner Tuesday night, and making the command decision of what they were eating himself.

Pizza seemed a safe enough choice. Figuring out what toppings had been more of an adventure, but he had finally settled for one cheese pizza, one pepperoni, and one meat-lovers. It wasn't like he wouldn't eat it leftover, and he didn't particularly want to let Heero use the wrong choice of food as a reason to shut the door in his face. He'd run out to a nearby store for the pizza (he didn't have anything else to do, so why pay for delivery?), and then headed to Heero's apartment. He knocked twice, before calling out, "Hey, man, open up. I didn't get any drinks, but I come bearing food!"

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Heero was having trouble determining what it was that Duo wanted. Was something important occurring that Duo needed to inform him of? Heero couldn't tell. Even with listening in on the communicator, he only ever learned so much. Though, whatever it was, Duo didn't make it sound too urgent. Well, aside from insisting that he not eat that night, which was a bit confusing.

Heero went to answer the knock at the door and rolled his eyes when Duo shouted. "No need to yell," he said as he unlocked and opened the door, standing aside so Duo could enter. He raised an eyebrow at the pizza. That explained why Duo didn't want him to eat, but did he really expect for the two of them to get through three whole pizzas? Just what was going on here?

"Got to make sure you don't have any excuse to ignore me," Duo explained. He headed in, but waited just past the doorway, looking around curiously. He hadn't gotten to see Heero's place yet, so now was as good a time as any to see how the guy kept things. "Where should I put these?"

Heero shrugged. "Table's fine." He paused, then added the intelligent observation of, "That's a lot of pizza."

"It won't go bad," Duo said, heading for the table. "Besides, better more than less."

Heero shook his head. "Pizza will go bad quickly, but whatever."

He started for the kitchen, trying to figure out what the proper way to deal with this was. Duo was a friend, sure, but he still didn't know the nature of this visit or how he should approach this. Of course, to voice these concerns out loud would probably get him snapped at by Duo, so he would simply have to figure it out for himself.

"If you let it go bad, sure, but the whole point of pizza is eating it." Duo sets the boxes down and pulls the meatlover pizza to the top, snagging a piece for himself. He held it with just the tips of his fingers — walk to get it or not, it was still really hot. "You did remember to wait on dinner, right?"

"Yes, I did," Heero said, sounding at least slightly agitated. Why would he forget something as simple as that?

He emerged from the kitchen with two plates and two sodas, placing them on the table beside the pizza boxes before moving a slice to a plate for himself.

"It's that, or water," he told Duo, nodding to the soda can. "I have nothing else."

"Soda and pizza is the way it's supposed to be," Duo declared before taking a bite of his slice. It was mostly cool enough to eat. After quickly chewing and swallowing, he leaned back in his chair. "So what've you been up to?"

"Nothing worth mentioning," Heero admitted, sinking into his own chair. "Listening on the communicator for anything that might mean direct trouble, but otherwise..." He shrugged a shoulder. Truth was, even though he'd been here a while now, he still couldn't find anything more permanent to do. He knew it would be difficult to adjust to civilian life back home, but ending up here just made adjusting that much different. Not to mention infinitely more ridiculous.

He didn't even finish his sentence, just sat there in silence, staring at his pizza slice.

Duo waited a few seconds to make sure Heero wasn't going to suddenly decide to add anything (and to take another bite of pizza). "Sounds like buckets of fun. You do know the communicators work both ways, right?"

Heero rolled his eyes. "I will say things if I feel the need to say them." Simple as that.

"And just how often have you felt the need in the last week, hm?" Duo asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I haven't." Heero glanced at his communicator, sitting there on the table across the room.

Duo shook his head. "I was afraid of that. Let me guess, the only way to get you to say more is for there to be more interesting stuff to respond to?"

"Not necessarily," Heero answered, turning his attention back to his pizza slice. "Whether it's interesting or not has no say in whether I choose to respond. I can be interested and still only listen. I just see no need to respond to people I don't know."

Hopefully Duo wouldn't call out his lack of speaking to the other pilots, too... Oh well, he'd cross that bridge if he had to.

"So you have to know the people to talk to them," Duo said thoughtfully, pulling a piece of sausage off of his slice and setting it on the lid of the open box.

"Or have some need to speak with them, yes," Heero added. He finished off his first slice, eying the other boxes and wondering what else could be there. He had no idea what to expect, after all. That included the kind of food he would have. And probably get left with. ... Great.

"Duo, is there some reason you're even here, or is this just a social visit? You wouldn't say when I asked you beforehand."

Duo finished off his slice before answering, even picking up the sausage he'd previously pulled off and popping it into his mouth. "Wha'," he started, pausing for a quick swallow of soda, "is wrong with social visits?"

"I never said there was anything wrong with them," Heero answered with a shake of his head, "I just... wasn't expecting it."

"Well, it's part social visit, part pizza visit." Duo grabbed another piece, gesturing with it to emphasize his point. "That way it can't be more than half a failure."

Heero raised an eyebrow. "What... would make it a failure?" Was that supposed to be a stab at him, or something? Looks like Heero really needed to work on his social skills, regardless.

"Me putting my foot in my mouth," he said with a shrug. "Like just now, according to the face you're making."

Heero just shook his head. At this rate, Duo could say whatever he wanted and Heero probably still wouldn't catch it. He shrugged, then decided to busy himself with investigating what kind of pizza the other boxes contained.

Duo was content to work his way through his second piece of pizza. After accomplishing that and grabbing another slice, he looked around at the kitchen. "So what do you think of the place?"

Heero looked around the room as well after grabbing a slice of pepperoni pizza.

"You mean, the city?" He shrugged a shoulder. "I still don't fully understand it, which is a problem given how long I've been here."

Duo shook his head. He felt exactly the same way, so he could hardly say much. "I don't think the place wants to be understood."

"The people, perhaps, but I still maintain that a city cannot have 'wants'." Even if there's a crazy computer... thing... whatever going on behind the scenes. "Regardless, my main concern is that even after all this time, I still don't know where to even begin."

As tempting as it was to argue the first point, the second seemed more interesting. "Begin what?"

"Searching. Investigating." Heero could go on, but he figured Duo didn't need a list of synonyms.

"I know it's a long shot," Duo said slowly, leaning back in his chair, "but asking questions might help."

Heero rolled his eyes. "You just want me to speak on the network." He reached for his soda. "I prefer to gather intelligence without letting myself be known."

"And how's that working for you?" Duo asked, laughing.

Heero ignored his laughing, though it was incredibly hard to do so. "Thought I made it clear that it isn't," he all but snapped in response, glaring at the floor like he was trying to burn a hole in it with just the intensity.

Okay, okay, maybe laughing hadn't been the best plan, but really. "Any chance you'd try changing tactics?"

Heero was seriously starting to wonder if Duo was listening to him. "I'm not sure what to change tactics to, Duo."

Finished with his third slice, Duo was forced to resort to fiddling with his soda can. "But talking to people is out."

He considered is words carefully, then sighed and nodded. "For... now. It seems like the best choice."

"Your choice," Duo said, waving a hand. That didn't mean he wouldn't keep pestering, of course.

Heero nodded again, then turned his attention back to his pizza. Maybe that meant the end of that conversation thread...

Just in case, he started his own: "What have you found to do here?" It was something that had been bothering him since he arrived.

"There's a whole city, Heero." Duo shrugged. "Anything that doesn't need a gundam or a colony is completely doable." That didn't mean he'd been spending all that much time doing it, but this was a do-as-I-say,-not-as-I-do situation.

That didn't exactly answer his question. Heero tried again. "Yes, but what do you do?"

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