He hadn’t had to see anyone for a week. Under most cases, Duo was a pretty up-kept cleaning looking guy. He took care of himself, smelled nicely, and looked the part of a charming devil. He had it down pact. What most people didn’t realize though was that Duo was in fact, a slob. Oh, people knew that he was messy, one look at his apartment, room, or any desk he’d ever held was a sure sign of a disorganized male. It was only times like now, when he hadn’t been forced to see anyone for an entire week that his true habits came through. The living room was dark, with the exception of the glow from the TV casting an eerie luminosity across the room. Within slender fingers laid a bulky controller, his thumbs idly toying with the buttons as his character on screen jumped around, shooting rotting zombies in the head.

A cigarette hung from his limps lips, the cherry burning brightly as he sucked in a good drag of the noxious fumes. His arm jerked lightly as a zombie jumped out from a building, forcing his reflexes to kick in as he jammed a few buttons to stay alive. The erratic motions of his body forced the end of his cancer stick to flutter down, a ball of ash landing against his bare chest. “Aww man. Thanks a lot Mr. Zombie.” One hand was released from the joypad, letting his palm brush the offending bit ash away. The cigarette itself was deposited into an ashtray that looked like it had needed to be dumped days earlier. Duo seemed unconcerned with the mess around him. Rows and rows of soda and energy drink cans lined any flat surface that he could feasible reach. A place was cleared on the coffee table to rest on his legs, bare toes wiggling as he came across another horde of undead.

A bag of chips lay open next to him, followed by a few empty ones that signaled his diet for the past week. Take out was tipped over on the table, empty, the chop sticks still sticking out of top. Ah, yeah. This was the life. There was no one to clean up for, no one to impress. It was just him and his video games. A hand casually lifted, scratching at the small beard he’d managed to grow over the past week, it wasn’t much, but it was obvious that he hadn’t shaved. Then again, why would he take the time to shave when he hadn’t even bothered to shower? His head was pretty much crying to be washed, but he just couldn’t be assed to get up and do it. He was going to take his sweet time, to do absolutely nothing until he was forced to rejoin the world.

Life after the war hadn’t been easy so far for the Deathscythe pilot. Not that it was really easy during the war, but at least then he’d known what he was doing. Most of the time, that is. After the second Eve War… He had tried things, he really had. He’d moved in with Hilde and helped her with her scrap yard, but, it was a hard. Sure, she had switched sides and helped them, but she’d been an Ozzie first. He loved her, but it was purely platonic. None of that had been the breaking point though, nope, it had been his own scars. Not physical, he had plenty of those, but they weren’t nearly as bad as the fuck up his brain had gone through. A person could only take being woken up in the middle of night by screaming before something just snapped. For Hilde and him? It had been when he woken up, grabbed his gun, and started prowling around the yard like he was still in the war. Sometimes, the mind just didn’t remember it was over.

She hadn’t told him to leave or anything, he just… didn’t want to be a bother to her. The sweepers had come next; at least those guys understood the shit that was going on in his head. As time wore on though, he knew he was burden, even though he tried to carry his own weight. He couldn’t do that to these people, weigh on them like that. They deserve more than a beaten up, half crazed soldier. So, he’d found himself a little shit hole to live in, it wasn’t much, but it had four walls and a roof, that was good enough for him. He picked up odd jobs every now and again, and until recently, he’d been volunteering with the Church.

Now this was where the kicker was. He’d been kicked out. Not for being bad, or anything, but because he was using the Church to hide behind? Now what kind of shit was that? Here he was, helping them out for nearly a year, and all of a sudden… he was hiding from the world? That one still irked him. The cross around his neck slid with his movements like a cursed reminder. Who got kicked out of the Church anyhow? That was the last straw, the one that had finally forced him to take Une’s offer seriously. I wasn’t like he was doing anything else with his time. It might be good for him to try his hand at being a Preventer, what was the worst that could happen anyways? If nothing else, the damn lady stopped calling him every week.

And that was it. He would pack up his shit and move to Earth in time to report in for next week. At least he would be working with people he knew. Une had guaranteed him that all of his missions would either be solo or with another Gundam Pilot. As far as he knew, Fei had a partner, which would have left him with Yuy. It was a sweet deal, he knew how Heero worked, hell, he probably knew more about the Perfect Soldier than he knew about himself. Besides, it would be good to see his partner again. Yeah, he saw everybody each year at the little ‘anniversary’ of the war, but that was just because they all tried to hide away on some abandoned roof somewhere to get away from the pictures and the dancing. Duo liked to dance, but that old fogy shit just wasn’t up his alley.

“Man, I wonder if Earth has changed at all in a year. Bet it’ll be glad to see me again.” He was talking to himself, something he did often, a quirk that just kept the silence at bay. At least with Heero again he could sometimes get a response. Besides, that man had the nicest ass. It was a shame he didn’t wear those spandex all the time again. Though, he mused, it still looked pretty good in jeans. A crooked grin was splitting his lips as he thought it over, nails idly scratching at his side. “Man, I might have to throw the towel in and take a shower. I’m getting pretty crusty here. I must smell worse than a homeless man on a farm.” Duo sigh, dropping himself back into the couch haphazardly.

-Heero knocked on the door, I took his post out because too cool for that shit.-

His head jerked up so quickly that he swore he’d have whip lash. The gun was within his palm in seconds, already pointing the barrel at the wooden door when the voice penetrated his apartment. A sigh of relief parted his lips and he let his body sink back within the soft couch for a second That second was all it took for him to fully comprehend what was going on. He jumped up off the couch, the knee of his pacman pajamas smacking into one of his ‘towers’. The pile of cans clattered loudly to the floor, aluminum crashing against aluminum in a very obvious sound. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Uh.. .Coming!” The man stood there for a moment, his head twisted back and forth, braid swinging in succession as the male entered pure panic mode. There was no way he could clean any of this up in the two second it would take Heero to break down the door.

That left only one choice, denial of entry. With as much suave as he could, Duo started towards the door, flipping open the locks and letting it open just a crack. “Hey, ‘Ro, listen. This isn’t the best of times. You see, I uh… Well. I’ve got stuff to do. Yeah.” All those years ago when he had introduced himself as the man who never lied, he’d been perfectly honest. He never outright lied. He didn’t always say the entire truth, and there were times where he just didn’t answer at all, but those were not lies. It was all in the wording. Right now, the wording was very important with Mr. I am so perfectly organized I know when someone has peeked into my bag because one little pen wasn’t six millimeters to the left.

Duo was certain that if Heero could organize the stars in space to range from smallest to largest in a perfectly symmetrical table he would. It was one of the things that made their partnership so interesting. For all intents and purposes, they were complete opposites in every single thing. Duo was loud and enjoyed talking to people, Heero was not. Heero was extremely neat and clean, Duo was not. Duo liked to blow things up, Heero liked to blow himself up. It was a wonder they actually got on at all. The braided pilot could admit that their relationship had been a little rocky. There was the whole shooting thing, the stealing of Gundam parts, and that whole punching him in the gut thing? He was still mad about that. If the man had wanted to change the plan midway through the game, couldn’t he have given a little better warning than ‘Hey, hit me’?

A large grin spread across his lips as he leaned forward to fully capsize the crack in the door. “Besides, buddy, I ain’t required to be anywhere for another week.” One arm came up above his head, his forearm resting against the door frame as if he was trying to take up any possible space. It proved to be his own downfall though. His head turned, catching a wiff of his own rank armpit. Immediately his nose crinkled upwards, his arm dropping as if that would stop whatever he had just sniffed. He accidentally smacked the door with his hand, watching in horror as it swung open to reveal the state of his apartment. One hand came up, pushing to rub at the tip of his nose. “Damn. Alright, alright. That’s pretty bad. I get it.”

There were only a few people who would ever see him in a state like this. Counting on his fingers, he could only count four that would ever or have ever laid eyes on him in such a situation. Standing there in his own stink, like a hobo in crusty week old pajama bottoms. The damage was done now, there was no way to turn back from it. Heero had seen his haven of filth. Slender bar shoulders dropped in defeat, followed by the slow tilting of his head downward. “Damn. I know, I know. Go take a fucking shower. Yeah yeah. I got it. Damn. I had another fucking week yanno. Another week! Guy can’t even get some time to himself without getting all interrupted.”

Duo turned away from the door and started the walk of shame through his living room. He didn’t even pause as he waved one hand in the air in the general direction of a dinky kitchen. “Shit’s in the fridge if ya get thirsty.” He continued down a small hallway to his room. If people thought that living room was bad, his room looked like a hurricane had been through it. Dirty clothes literally stretched from one edge of the room to the other, with a small pile of clean clothes shoved in one corner. He started that way, crouching in the corner as he started lifting up boxers and pants, sniffing them to make sure they hadn’t migrated from one of the other dirty clothes piles around the room. “Ahh, smells clean enough for me!”