"I'm sure he'll be fine." Quatre patted Heero on the shoulder, leaving the Japanese pilot still staring out of the hangar doors, and ambled back into the control room, stretching. They had been fortunate enough to have received an offer from Sally of a safe place to stay while Howard and the Maguanacs gave their Gundams a check-over, and pleasantly surprised to discover that the rebel base was small but comfortably equipped. Apparently, it had been an old dry-dock facility for nuclear submarines, abandoned when the south Asian coastlines shifted a few decades back, and recently taken over by Sally's group.
Quatre paused in the control-room door, looking back out at the dark silhouettes of the kneeling Gundams with a special smile for Sandrock. Sighing as he realised that Heero was still standing on the catwalk staring out at the dark clouds racing overhead, he slipped back into his seat and picked up the headphones again, setting the radar sweeps running and tuning in to this week's emergency frequency.
Static. Biting his lip, Quatre wondered where on Earth Duo had got to. All four of the other pilots had arrived by now, and Duo had been expected that morning. Since it was now edging towards a stormy evening, Heero probably had a right to be somewhat concerned. His and Duo's relationship was� strange. Quatre couldn't quite figure out whether his Japanese and American colleagues were lovers, or even if they really liked each other. They were intimate, though, with an ease of communication between them that sometimes astonished the rest of the pilots, used to taciturnity from Heero.
They were probably more than friends, Quatre thought to himself. The way they looked at each other sometimes � he could feel that they cared about each other. The way they worked together on missions was almost unbelievable; they seemed to know each other's moves to the last second. Quatre counted it a privilege to be able to watch them.
There was a slightly louder crackle among the hissing mess of static in Quatre's ears, and he shot upright with a gasp, fingers darting over the boards and attempting to home in on the signal. North-east, somewhere on the southern fringes of the storm� was it just electro-static induction? Or something more?
Quatre narrowed his eyes and toggled the switch. "Come in Shinigami, do you read?"
A louder hiss and crackle. Quatre thought he could almost make out words in it that time; it had a speech-like cadence.
"Shinigami, this is the Surgery; do you copy?"
Crackle�fizz� "�ite Knight� s is Shini� m on approach cou�"
"Shit." Quatre pounded vainly on the console. "Shinigami, we copy you; come in at your leisure. Repeat, approach at your leisure; we have you covered. Over."
"�ger� ad stat� king u� ver�"
After a few moments of blinking, Quatre shrugged. Nothing he could do about the weather, unfortunately. "You're breaking up, Shinigami. White Knight signing off." He flipped the radio back onto the monitoring frequency and tilted his head at the radar sweeps in puzzlement; a Deathscythe-shaped blob was rapidly approaching the base. Why has Duo come out of stealth mode already?
Yawning, he made his way back out to the catwalks. In his absence Trowa and Wu Fei had joined Heero and a mostly-silent conversation was going on as they all three stared out at the rapidly approaching storm.
"Duo's on his way in." Quatre leaned against a spare patch of railing, smiling for Trowa. It had been a while since they had last had a chance to be together. He cocked his head, just able to pick out the whine of incoming suit engines through the wail of the wind. "Here he comes now." He patted Heero on the back reassuringly, and they all watched the black speck on the horizon grow rapidly into the sleek black form of the stealth suit.
Deathsycthe landed rather jarringly just outside in the main compound, and Quatre could feel Heero's frown of concern; Duo was normally a better pilot than that. He narrowed his eyes in puzzlement; as the Gundam 'walked' in to the hangar he was almost sure he could see blue-white energies crawling across it�
"He must have come through the storm," Trowa murmured as Deathscythe backed into the single remaining maintenance bay and knelt, bringing the cockpit hatch to a level with the catwalk. Quatre blinked in astonishment as sparks arced between the black gundanium and the surrounding metal walls with sharp cracks.
Heero was already moving towards Duo's suit, but as a particularly large spark snapped between the cockpit hatch and the catwalk railing he drew to a halt, waiting at the edge of the bay. Quatre couldn't help but be slightly amused as the Japanese boy glared furiously at the crackling, sparking machine.
That amusement turned to outright hilarity as the cockpit hatch opened and Duo stomped out of his Gundam. The American boy wore an irritated expression the match of Heero's own, and his hair� His hair, usually so neatly braided, was crackling with static, standing out from his head like a halo. It looked hilarious, but by the way he tugged at his braid Duo didn't seem to see the funny side.
By this time Trowa, Wu Fei and Quatre had caught up with Heero, who was wearing a blank expression that didn't seem to mollify Deathscythe's pilot in the slightest. "Static?" he enquired blandly, though even Trowa was grinning, and Wu Fei was al but paralysed with silent laughter.
"Yeah, laugh it up," Duo muttered between his teeth. "It feels like my skin's about to come off. Fucking storms," he complained, reaching for the handrail.
A fat, sizzling spark jumped between his fingers and the metal.
"OW!! Shit!" Duo snatching his hand back, fanning it furiously. "Guys, take my advice and never fly through an electrical storm. I must have got struck by lightening a half dozen times; it fried the hyper jammers and half the com systems."
Heero's eyes narrowed. "You're not injured?"
"Nah, I'm fine." Duo waved his hand. "Well, apart from this fucking static anyway." He glared at the handrail as if it was conducting electricity to spite him.
"Well, that's easy to deal with." Quatre raised his eyebrows at the evil smirk that had appeared on Heero's face, then laughed out loud as the Japanese pilot, with one hand on the bare metal of the railing, reached for Duo and yanked him into what looked to be a fairly passionate kiss.
Sparks flew, and most of Duo's hair ceased imitating a startled cat.
Duo struggled furiously against his boyfriend's grip, finally gathering enough air to shout: "FUCKING OUCH!!" At the top of his lungs. Heero didn't seem particularly affected, but Quatre thought he saw a smile lurking behind his eyes.
"Baka." Duo smacked Heero in the back of the head.
Wu Fei by this point was all but choking on laughter. The words "Maxwell and "hedgehog" could be heard somewhere among his wheezing breaths. Trowa pounded him helpfully on the back.
"Hn." Heero smirked at Duo, tugging him gently into another kiss by his somewhat abused braid. "You're just a live wire."
Quatre joined Wu Fei in a hysteria-induced collapse.