lavandarlizard2 | *get away from me, you damn rodents!*

*shakes Guinea Pigs into hoard of angry hamsters; ignores ensuing mayhem*

Ya ever have one of those days... >.<

It took almost three hours for the bodies to be cleaned up and carted away. Somebody got yelled at for not backing the first guy up properly. Someone else got a reaming for not teaching the next two *not* to go bounding into a situation blind, and look where the hell they ended up. And the fourth guy, who had only been wounded, endured a fairly snarky lecture about waiting for the goddamn backup, if you please! Finally, though, a heavy vehicle backed into the alley, doors squeaked open and clunked closed and the meat wagon pulled away. High-powered torches fanned the area, searching for any over-looked clues. Again, someone lifted the lid on the dumpster, but by then the rats knew their parts cold. They squeaked and hissed angrily and the lid dropped again with a sharp curse.

Duo sighed soundlessly and waited another thirty minutes before pulling himself free of the muck and garbage and cracking the lid of the dumpster.

“Okay, Relena; we can go now.”

She answered with a faint whimper and began struggling out of the mass of filth. Duo helped her climb out, then hauled himself over the rim of their hiding place to land as quietly as possible on his good leg. Relena made a futile attempt to clean up while he tested his injured leg.

The red hot wave of pain that shot straight to his brain and back again and dimmed his vision alarmingly confirmed that Shinigami would not be ghosting anywhere for at least a week.

One of these days, Murphy... One of these days.

“Relena...” She looked up, swallowing. “I can’t walk on this leg; you’re gonna have to help me.”

She frowned, opened her mouth; shut it again. “Okay,” she said finally.

She had, of course, no clue as to how to help, but he didn’t waste the brain cells reflecting on that; just showed her what to do and warned her that she was going to be supporting part of his weight. It took a few false tries before she was comfortable with Duo’s arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist. She kept trying to put space between them, though, as if the idea of their bodies touching creeped her out. Duo just sighed and she finally adjusted to the necessary contact. They staggered off looking like a pair of drunks.

They wandered, seemingly at random, through the back alleys for some time before Relena spoke again.

“What are we doing?” she hissed. “Why aren’t we getting away from here?”

“We are, babe; we are. We’re just avoiding the patrols.”

“Patrols? What patrols?” She pulled away from him suddenly. He wobbled at the loss of stability, tried to catch himself with his injured leg and wound up on the ground panting open-mouthed to keep from screaming. “I don’t see any soldiers!” she snapped in a harsh whisper. “I don’t hear any *patrols*! You’re trying to scare me; you’re lying to me! Heero wouldn’t –“

“No,” he cut her off wearily, rubbing at the agonizing pain in his knee. “Heero wouldn’t,” he agreed softly. “Heero wouldn’t have gotten hurt, Heero wouldn’t have made you hide in a rat-infested dumpster, and Heero wouldn’t need your help to get the both of you out of this. But I’m not Heero. I’m just me, and I *don’t fuckin’ lie*, so don’t you ever say that to me again, goddammit.” His intensity was not lost on her, dense though she might be.

She sniffed. Her chin puckered. Her lower lip trembled.

“Relena... There is a patrol going door to door two streets over; I can hear them. We are following the teams as they clear the streets and neighborhoods. We can’t afford to run into anyone. I can’t fight; I only have so much ammunition and four knives. If we get caught, we are dead.” He sighed heavily and began getting vertical again. “I’m sorry about this; really I am, but let’s don’t forget why this is happening. C’mon, so we can get going again.” He was done arguing about this. If she wouldn’t cooperate, he would just have to get himself back to Deathscythe any way he could.

She glared at the ground for a long minute, delicate little hands clenched into tight fists. How it galled her to take orders from this... barbarian. But she wanted to see Heero... She *had* to see Heero! He would understand. He would... he would...

She took a deep breath and stepped up to draw Duo’s arm across her shoulders. She didn’t even shudder this time.