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Junk Drawer

"What are you looking for?" Athrun called from the kitchen. Heine had been fussing around every bit of the house for a good fifteen minutes.

"Nail clippers," Heine replied.

"Mrowr?" Lucky questioned from beneath Athrun's chair.

"Not for you," Athrun replied, though he was fairly sure he did need to check Lucky's feet at some point in the near future. She'd felt awfully sharp when she'd jumped up on the bed to wake him that morning.

"Mmm?"

"Try the junk drawer?" Athrun suggested quickly. He reached one hand down to pet Lucky while going through the rest of the news on his laptop.

"I was afraid of that." Heine limped into the kitchen and looked from Athrun to Lucky to the far drawer by the back door.

"Why?" Athrun questioned. "I mean... I don't think I've looked in there lately, but..."

Heine frowned and shuffled over. Athrun wanted to ask how Heine was feeling, but he'd already seen Heine add a couple of painkillers to his morning breakfast pill dish. There really wasn't anything to question.

"Because it's full of all the stuff you leave in the kitchen," Heine finally said as he tugged the drawer open. And then, to prove his point, he pulled the drawer free of its cupboard and marched it over to the table.

Already, Athrun had an apology on his lips, because he couldn't even imagine what was in there, but...

"Oh..." The apology vanished in a bit of wonder. There were no less than three partial haro shells, and a full one. There were bits of other critters that he'd blamed Lucky for carrying off. There were diodes and capacitors and resistors and inductors in every size Athrun could imagine. He could save himself at least one shopping trip just by digging through the treasures that...

Heine cleared his throat.

"Did I really leave all that out here?" Athrun questioned. He wasn't supposed to work at the kitchen table and they both knew it. But he did it anyway, while Heine was cooking dinner, so they could talk.

"It's okay as long as there's a pair of nail clippers somewhere," Heine replied.

"Mrrr?" Lucky questioned, not hesitating to jump up and help with the search by promptly sticking her head and one foot in the drawer.

"Oh, I was working on this for Meyrin...." Athrun pulled out the nearly-complete haro after removing Lucky. "I really had wondered where it went. And this one..."

Heine sighed and plucked a pair of nail clippers out of the debris and with one neat little snip, was back to smiling.

He didn't drop them back in. Instead he set them on the far side of table for Lucky to sniff once she was done acting offended at not getting to help Athrun.

"Anything else in there that's not a part of one of your projects?" he asked as he pulled out a chair and sat.

"Not sure." Athrun closed his laptop. The news could wait. Anything really important would have been relayed via Cagalli or Commander Waltfeld. This was... sort of like his birthday, except better because he'd actually be able to finish some things instead of start new ones.

He pulled out a bag of tiny capacitors and held them up to the light. "These have been missing for months. Now I have to remember why I needed pico-farads to start with."

Heine fished out an ink pen and set it beside the nail clippers and Lucky, who immediately sniffed it as well.

Athrun took a sip of his coffee.

"Neither of you care about pico-farads, do you?"

"I have no idea what a pico-ferret is," Heine replied. "Lucky might want to see if it's edible?"

"It isn't," Athrun said. He tried not to sigh. Even Kira tended to get bored quickly when he went on about this stuff for an overly long time. And here Heine had just been brushing it all into a drawer. Of course, that was because Athrun had left it all over. If Heine hadn't...

Athrun knew what his own work-room looked like. He could only imagine the kitchen in the same state.

"I see a key to something," Athrun said quickly, fishing out a small silver key. "Um..."

"It's a luggage key," Heine said as he took it from Athrun and held it up to the light. "Your suitcase when you got here?"

"Might be." Athrun smiled. "Which pile does it go in?"

"Mine." Heine gave it Lucky and scratched her head. "You can carry this one off, Lucky. If he doesn't know where it is, he won't leave."

"I wouldn't leave anyway," Athrun countered with a soft chuckle.

"Not without your pickled ferrets?"

"I think I need more coffee."

"I'll take a mug too. Extra sugar."

Athrun could hear Heine still rummaging as he got up and went to grab Heine's mug. It was on the counter, where it always was. No point in ever putting them away. He did brush it off with the dishtowel, not that he thought the dishtowel had any less cat hair on it that Heine's mug might. They'd both gotten used to finding reminders of Lucky everywhere.

The cat should have been bald several times over, by Athrun's rough calculations.

"Hey, safety pins. I could have used these... And I think this is the missing buckle from Lucky's harness."

"Mrrrorrr"

"Yeah, because it was a brilliant idea to walk a cat on a leash, I know," Heine commented.

Athrun just chuckled.

He'd have to send Kira a message later. It might just say 'pickled ferrets'. And it would be worth it, too.

But for now, he had Heine to fill with caffeine and his junk drawer mess to deal with.

"Find any zener diodes in there?" Athrun asked as he poured Heine's mug roughly half coffee, half sugar.

"Now you're just messing with me."

"Want to know how many zener diodes are used in the average ZAKU?"

"Mrrowr?" Lucky knocked something down onto the floor and when Athrun turned to look, he saw it was just the pen and she was happily trotting off with it.

Heine shrugged. "I get the feeling you're going to tell me."

Athrun shook his head and gave Heine his coffee. "Actually, I'm not. It's more fun if you keep wondering..."

"I don't actually care, though--"

Five hours later, right around when Athrun had finally finished sorting all the bits from the drawer back where they went (interrupted by Kira calling and laughing, reading the rest of the news, and lunch), Heine finally asked.

And wasn't terribly impressed by the answer.