Where Heero Yuy was neat and clean, Duo was a slob -- leaving his paperwork on the kitchen table, his clothes strewn all over the floor of their apartment, he dumped towels everywhere once he finished his shower, he often had to race the very last minute to get his mission reports done, running around Preventers' HeadQuarters like a headless chicken.

He was always on time, of course. His paperwork had "excellent" and "neat" printed all over them, and everyone spoke in high regard about him. The posterboy for the Preventers organization, Lady Une's highest esteemed agent.. and that hated "Perfect Soldier" label, one he disliked personally, but it was something it couldn't be helped; efficiency was drilled into his very core. The way he handled missions was the way how he was raised -- with the same efficiency.

It didn't matter that Duo was his opposite. They were the same as soldiers, and equals as partners. No matter how much of a mess the apartment was, Duo could find his car keys faster than Heero, despite him keeping them always on the same spot -- there was some order to all the klutter that was only apparent for the American, but it never failed him. Duo never complained when picking up after himself when Heero had told him for the umpteenth time to, and he said he needed the stress to achieve his goals. A bored Duo was a lazy, annoying Duo; he needed to use his abundant energy to run around -- and pick up on gossip on the office, so he kept Heero perfectly up to date of everything going on -- even if it was at the last minute.

Maybe that was why he loved him so much, Heero mused. He couldn't imagine Duo being efficient -- in fact, it scared him. Duo's 'flying by the seat of his pants' approach sometimes worked better than the most meticulous plans, and he was adept and intelligent enough to adjust his mission to literally the last second. A steel-toed boot in the hallway? A shirt draped nonchalantly over the chair? That meant he was either in the shower or getting ready for bed... and that meant an excellent opportunity to ravish the man he loved, the only person that suffered through his own anti-social bouts when he had only attention for his mission or his laptop, who laughed with him, who cried with him, who went through the same wars as him... and the only one who understood him even better than Heero did himself.

Opposites attract, indeed. And that was for the better.