fic - holes [haven]
Title: Holes
Series: Moments of Haven
Summary: Digging holes isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.
Note: Wherein we make use of merula31's 'mug'.
Holes
A Moment of Haven
Duo slipped off his sandals before going into the kitchen through the back door. "That dirt..." He paused for dramatic effect. "...is hard as fuck."
It took a moment for Heero to pull himself out of the article comparing the merits and applications of various lemon species. "Do I want to know how hard a fuck is?"
A snicker at this point was only natural as Duo shuffled across the floor and leaned over to unfurl a lazy smirk right in front of Heero's face. "That depends... how hard do you want it?"
Heero toyed with the end of the braid that had slipped over Duo's shoulder, pondering his response for just a few seconds before pulling Duo in for a kiss he felt amply demonstrated what he wanted to convey.
Duo's smirk came back just as soon as it was able, a bit less lazy this time around. He twisted it into an exaggeratedly measuring look before grinning. "Yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure that can be arranged." He stole one more quick kiss before straightening and hiking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the yard. "But I'm pretty sure the dirt out back was harder."
Leaning back in his seat at the kitchen table, Heero looked his partner over head to toe. "So... all that flexing of your manly muscles earlier was just for show?"
"Well, yeah," he answered with a wink. "Wasn't that kind of me? Giving you just cause to ogle me and all."
"Can you really imagine me 'ogling' you, Maxwell?"
He tried to picture Heero with a leer, eyebrows wagging suggestively. "No. Not really. But I did catch your eye, at least, even if you weren't ogling."
"Spare me the posing next time, and I'll be able to eye you without being embarrassed for you at the same time."
"Pbfft. Are you saying you don't love me for my body?"
"Yes."
"And, uh, you don't love me for my ability to dig holes, right?"
"I generally admire your ability to dig a hole for yourself, but no, I don't love you for it."
"Okay, now you definitely have to go out there and try your hand at that dirt, 'cuz obviously the effort killed some of my brain cells or something. You're totally kicking my ass here."
Heero got out of his chair and pecked him on the cheek on the way to the fridge. He pulled out the mug of lemon iced tea he'd put inside earlier and handed it over. "Here, see if this will cool off your processors any, and then you can show me this dirt of yours."
Duo made a sound of satisfaction as he held the chilled ceramic scant millimeters from his cheek. "You're the best. Come on." He led the way outside to the spot of dirt he'd staked out earlier and pointed accusingly at the ground. It showed signs of having been disturbed, but it went no farther than a small divot perhaps six centimeters deep. "Check that out."
Taking up the shovel, Heero prodded the dirt experimentally before jabbing sharply at it. He succeeded in moving a little bit of dust around. Shifting his grip on the shovel, he raised his hands overhead before smashing the pointed spade into the small depression. The tip penetrated a whole centimeter into the ground. He stared at it, a bit nonplussed. "Hm. Maybe that's why we don't get many weeds back here."
Duo snorted. "So in the battle of dirt versus pilot... it seems we're oh-for-two here."
"A pickaxe might do the trick." He exerted the infinitesimal force needed to extract his shovel from the ground and poked at it again.
"Yeah, I thought about that... but even if we did finally manage to dig a hole big enough for Henry... I can't imagine his roots would get very far in that crap. Might as well just keep him in his pot in that case. It'd probably be kinder than mocking him with what he can't have."
"I have noticed... all those sites we've been visiting always talk about 'soil'."
"I don't think we have 'soil', let alone 'loam', like some sites I've seen talking about. I had to look up what loam was, for chrissakes."
"Do you think this is 'sandy' or 'clay'?"
"Is there such a thing as 'rock-like'?"
"I'm not even going to take a guess on whether it's acidic or not."
"Think we're just screwed?"
Heero studied the earth for a moment. "What if we watered it? Maybe that'll make it easier." He went inside and came back out with a cup of water. After clearing what loose dirt he could from their little dent in the ground, he knelt and carefully poured some water in to fill it. He waited patiently for the water to soak in so he could apply some more. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.
"You think that's what they call 'bad drainage'?"
Heero made a sound of agreement and stood. "This may require some more research."
Duo sighed as they headed back inside. "I sort of thought we'd be able to get a little farther than this before running into trouble."
"It isn't trouble until we find out that there's nothing we can do about it."
"Okay, fine." He plopped down next to Heero at the kitchen table and looked at what was still sitting on the laptop's screen. "Wanna grow a lemon tree?"
Heero shrugged, tapping his finger against the mug Duo had set down on the table. "We use lemons." He took the opportunity to sample the iced tea he had so generously prepared for his partner.
"That we do. Well, we'll see. You wanna do the honors?" he asked, stealing his drink back. "I've found that search engines don't really respond well to swear words."
"You don't say." Heero drummed his fingers over the keyboard lightly as he considered possible search terms. He decided to try the obvious first.
Duo watched as the engine tried to auto-complete the phrase for them. "'Hard dirty'...? You really going to go with 'hard dirt'? We're going to end up with all these porn sites or something."
Heero shrugged and pressed enter. "What's life without a little adventure?"
Duo chuckled. "Hey, what do you know? That actually kind of worked."
Skimming over the article listings quickly, he selected a Q&A site with the topic 'My whole backyard is very hard dirt!' to start with. From there, he picked up some alternate search terms and ended up at 'How to fix compacted soil'. A few page-downs later, and he had a short summary of steps. "Soil additives and machinery."
Duo hit the page-up and pointed back to an earlier sentence. "Plants with strong roots. Those sound kind of awesome. We should find some of those. Could save us a lot of trouble if we just plant things that don't mind compacted soil. Though I'm gonna bet they're only really weird plants we aren't interested in planting." He scrolled to the bottom of the article to see if there were any links that conveniently pointed him to a list, but found something else instead.
"We are not getting pigs, Duo." As a punishment, he took another swallow of Duo's drink.
Duo elbowed him, and after the mug was set back on the surface of the table, he reclaimed it. "Of course not. But when you find a link that says 'How to till soil with pigs', come on, you gotta click it. Oh, look at that pig. He actually looks kind of cute. Hm, two pot-bellied pigs can till up a nine square meter area in about a month. Man, whose idea was this? That would take forever."
"'Step six: Wait,'" Heero read.
"'Step ten: Reward your pigs.' Aww, that's kind of cute. In a 'I'm still totally not waiting that long' kind of way."
Heero glanced in the direction of their proto-hole. "I wonder if the water's soaked in yet."
"It'd probably take as long as the pigs if you wanted to water the whole damn thing before digging. Let's go with machinery. I like machinery." He commandeered the laptop for links to rototillers.
Heero let him do as he pleased, gaze wandering back to the yard again. He laughed softly. "Pigs?"
Grinning, Duo bumped shoulders with him, though he kept his focus on what he was doing. "My mental images of that are probably more amusing than yours, but yeah, right? 'What's life without a little adventure,' you said?"
"A 'little' adventure, I said. I have a feeling pigs would be a pretty big adventure."
Duo paused for a moment to stare off into middle space. "What would we do with the pigs when they were done tilling the yard? Eat them? That'd be a terrible way to reward your pigs!"
"I think I've said this before, Duo. I'm all for growing our own food, but I absolutely draw the line at raising our own livestock."
"Yeah, don't worry, I'm totally on board with you on that one. Wait. Would eating our veggies be like... eating Henry?"
"I think I've also said something before about not naming the plants."
"But I can talk to them, right? I mean, plants are supposed to respond well to talking."
Heero shook his head fondly. "As long as you don't address them by name, I guess you can talk to them." Since Duo was distracted and the path was clear, he reached over again to sneak a sip of the iced tea. The mug was halfway to his lips when he realized it was empty. He stood and went to the refrigerator for a refill.
Duo suppressed a smile behind his back. "You could just get your own cup, you know."
He shrugged, putting the pitcher back and shutting the door behind him. "But this way, it's like researching and kissing at the same time."
Oh, sweet efficiency. Duo rolled his eyes. "Small hole in your theory, babe. Wrong side of the cup. I've been using my left hand."
He blinked at the mug before turning it around. "Alright, so it's been like researching and sharing germs at the same time."
"Lovely."
Meeting Duo's eyes over the rim, he put his lips where Duo's had been and sipped.
back to previous part
on to next part
Series: Moments of Haven
Summary: Digging holes isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.
Note: Wherein we make use of merula31's 'mug'.
Holes
A Moment of Haven
Duo slipped off his sandals before going into the kitchen through the back door. "That dirt..." He paused for dramatic effect. "...is hard as fuck."
It took a moment for Heero to pull himself out of the article comparing the merits and applications of various lemon species. "Do I want to know how hard a fuck is?"
A snicker at this point was only natural as Duo shuffled across the floor and leaned over to unfurl a lazy smirk right in front of Heero's face. "That depends... how hard do you want it?"
Heero toyed with the end of the braid that had slipped over Duo's shoulder, pondering his response for just a few seconds before pulling Duo in for a kiss he felt amply demonstrated what he wanted to convey.
Duo's smirk came back just as soon as it was able, a bit less lazy this time around. He twisted it into an exaggeratedly measuring look before grinning. "Yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure that can be arranged." He stole one more quick kiss before straightening and hiking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the yard. "But I'm pretty sure the dirt out back was harder."
Leaning back in his seat at the kitchen table, Heero looked his partner over head to toe. "So... all that flexing of your manly muscles earlier was just for show?"
"Well, yeah," he answered with a wink. "Wasn't that kind of me? Giving you just cause to ogle me and all."
"Can you really imagine me 'ogling' you, Maxwell?"
He tried to picture Heero with a leer, eyebrows wagging suggestively. "No. Not really. But I did catch your eye, at least, even if you weren't ogling."
"Spare me the posing next time, and I'll be able to eye you without being embarrassed for you at the same time."
"Pbfft. Are you saying you don't love me for my body?"
"Yes."
"And, uh, you don't love me for my ability to dig holes, right?"
"I generally admire your ability to dig a hole for yourself, but no, I don't love you for it."
"Okay, now you definitely have to go out there and try your hand at that dirt, 'cuz obviously the effort killed some of my brain cells or something. You're totally kicking my ass here."
Heero got out of his chair and pecked him on the cheek on the way to the fridge. He pulled out the mug of lemon iced tea he'd put inside earlier and handed it over. "Here, see if this will cool off your processors any, and then you can show me this dirt of yours."
Duo made a sound of satisfaction as he held the chilled ceramic scant millimeters from his cheek. "You're the best. Come on." He led the way outside to the spot of dirt he'd staked out earlier and pointed accusingly at the ground. It showed signs of having been disturbed, but it went no farther than a small divot perhaps six centimeters deep. "Check that out."
Taking up the shovel, Heero prodded the dirt experimentally before jabbing sharply at it. He succeeded in moving a little bit of dust around. Shifting his grip on the shovel, he raised his hands overhead before smashing the pointed spade into the small depression. The tip penetrated a whole centimeter into the ground. He stared at it, a bit nonplussed. "Hm. Maybe that's why we don't get many weeds back here."
Duo snorted. "So in the battle of dirt versus pilot... it seems we're oh-for-two here."
"A pickaxe might do the trick." He exerted the infinitesimal force needed to extract his shovel from the ground and poked at it again.
"Yeah, I thought about that... but even if we did finally manage to dig a hole big enough for Henry... I can't imagine his roots would get very far in that crap. Might as well just keep him in his pot in that case. It'd probably be kinder than mocking him with what he can't have."
"I have noticed... all those sites we've been visiting always talk about 'soil'."
"I don't think we have 'soil', let alone 'loam', like some sites I've seen talking about. I had to look up what loam was, for chrissakes."
"Do you think this is 'sandy' or 'clay'?"
"Is there such a thing as 'rock-like'?"
"I'm not even going to take a guess on whether it's acidic or not."
"Think we're just screwed?"
Heero studied the earth for a moment. "What if we watered it? Maybe that'll make it easier." He went inside and came back out with a cup of water. After clearing what loose dirt he could from their little dent in the ground, he knelt and carefully poured some water in to fill it. He waited patiently for the water to soak in so he could apply some more. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.
"You think that's what they call 'bad drainage'?"
Heero made a sound of agreement and stood. "This may require some more research."
Duo sighed as they headed back inside. "I sort of thought we'd be able to get a little farther than this before running into trouble."
"It isn't trouble until we find out that there's nothing we can do about it."
"Okay, fine." He plopped down next to Heero at the kitchen table and looked at what was still sitting on the laptop's screen. "Wanna grow a lemon tree?"
Heero shrugged, tapping his finger against the mug Duo had set down on the table. "We use lemons." He took the opportunity to sample the iced tea he had so generously prepared for his partner.
"That we do. Well, we'll see. You wanna do the honors?" he asked, stealing his drink back. "I've found that search engines don't really respond well to swear words."
"You don't say." Heero drummed his fingers over the keyboard lightly as he considered possible search terms. He decided to try the obvious first.
Duo watched as the engine tried to auto-complete the phrase for them. "'Hard dirty'...? You really going to go with 'hard dirt'? We're going to end up with all these porn sites or something."
Heero shrugged and pressed enter. "What's life without a little adventure?"
Duo chuckled. "Hey, what do you know? That actually kind of worked."
Skimming over the article listings quickly, he selected a Q&A site with the topic 'My whole backyard is very hard dirt!' to start with. From there, he picked up some alternate search terms and ended up at 'How to fix compacted soil'. A few page-downs later, and he had a short summary of steps. "Soil additives and machinery."
Duo hit the page-up and pointed back to an earlier sentence. "Plants with strong roots. Those sound kind of awesome. We should find some of those. Could save us a lot of trouble if we just plant things that don't mind compacted soil. Though I'm gonna bet they're only really weird plants we aren't interested in planting." He scrolled to the bottom of the article to see if there were any links that conveniently pointed him to a list, but found something else instead.
"We are not getting pigs, Duo." As a punishment, he took another swallow of Duo's drink.
Duo elbowed him, and after the mug was set back on the surface of the table, he reclaimed it. "Of course not. But when you find a link that says 'How to till soil with pigs', come on, you gotta click it. Oh, look at that pig. He actually looks kind of cute. Hm, two pot-bellied pigs can till up a nine square meter area in about a month. Man, whose idea was this? That would take forever."
"'Step six: Wait,'" Heero read.
"'Step ten: Reward your pigs.' Aww, that's kind of cute. In a 'I'm still totally not waiting that long' kind of way."
Heero glanced in the direction of their proto-hole. "I wonder if the water's soaked in yet."
"It'd probably take as long as the pigs if you wanted to water the whole damn thing before digging. Let's go with machinery. I like machinery." He commandeered the laptop for links to rototillers.
Heero let him do as he pleased, gaze wandering back to the yard again. He laughed softly. "Pigs?"
Grinning, Duo bumped shoulders with him, though he kept his focus on what he was doing. "My mental images of that are probably more amusing than yours, but yeah, right? 'What's life without a little adventure,' you said?"
"A 'little' adventure, I said. I have a feeling pigs would be a pretty big adventure."
Duo paused for a moment to stare off into middle space. "What would we do with the pigs when they were done tilling the yard? Eat them? That'd be a terrible way to reward your pigs!"
"I think I've said this before, Duo. I'm all for growing our own food, but I absolutely draw the line at raising our own livestock."
"Yeah, don't worry, I'm totally on board with you on that one. Wait. Would eating our veggies be like... eating Henry?"
"I think I've also said something before about not naming the plants."
"But I can talk to them, right? I mean, plants are supposed to respond well to talking."
Heero shook his head fondly. "As long as you don't address them by name, I guess you can talk to them." Since Duo was distracted and the path was clear, he reached over again to sneak a sip of the iced tea. The mug was halfway to his lips when he realized it was empty. He stood and went to the refrigerator for a refill.
Duo suppressed a smile behind his back. "You could just get your own cup, you know."
He shrugged, putting the pitcher back and shutting the door behind him. "But this way, it's like researching and kissing at the same time."
Oh, sweet efficiency. Duo rolled his eyes. "Small hole in your theory, babe. Wrong side of the cup. I've been using my left hand."
He blinked at the mug before turning it around. "Alright, so it's been like researching and sharing germs at the same time."
"Lovely."
Meeting Duo's eyes over the rim, he put his lips where Duo's had been and sipped.
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