Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ Intersections, Part 2 ( Chapter 20 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 20/?

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Note: This fic was written in response to Nova Una's challenge to the 1x2ML to write a Gundam Wing/Pretty Woman fusion fic with Heero in the Julia Roberts role and Duo in the Richard Gere role.

Warnings: AU, yaoi, coarse language, violence, angst, citrusy situations, suggestive dialog, significant (read that as major, MAJOR) deviation from Pretty Woman script as I see fit. Gratuitous insertion of red herrings throughout.

Spoilers: None for GW, quite a bit for Pretty Woman.

Disclaimer: I don't really need to be Captain Obvious here, do I? No ownership, no money being made, yadda yadda. Written for fun, not profit.

Edulcorate (verb) - To free from harshness (as of attitude); to soften

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Chapter 20 - Intersections, Part 2

Heero heard Duo's footsteps in the hall and noted an unnecessary delay between the cessation of footfalls and the turning of the knob. His lips curled in that cocky smile he'd shown Duo on Hollywood Boulevard.

Showtime.

Duo shut the door quietly behind him and his eyes searched the room for Heero. When he didn't see him right away, he thought perhaps Heero had taken advantage of the fact that Duo had told him he was on his own for the day, and had left the hotel.

He saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and felt an irrational wave of relief. Of course Heero would be on the balcony.

He stood in the doorway, watching Heero look out at the city, his arms leaning forward on the ledge separating the balcony from the fourteen-story drop to the ground below.

His position presented Duo with the view of his jean-clad rear. Duo had seen Heero naked, and had seen him in skin-tight leather, but something about the way the distressed looking denim hugged Heero's backside seemed to redefine him as something far more than just a prostitute. When Heero turned around, it was like getting caught ogling his best friend's ass. Assuming he'd ever had a best friend.

He bravely met Heero's gaze and what he saw made him catch his breath.

Instead of the challenge he'd expected to see in Heero's eyes, he saw something infinitely deeper, something indefinable. A soft smile played about the corners of Heero's lips as he leaned back and rested his butt on the ledge, his hands slipping into his pockets, his thumbs hooking over the corners.

He could have passed for a college kid propping himself up against the exterior of a convenience store.

His hair...Heero's hair was uncovered, and for the first time in their short acquaintance, Duo saw it as it was naturally, not matted down from being under a wig all day, not mussed from sleep. It was wild and unruly, yet alluringly stylish at the same time. Duo knew people who paid big money to achieve the same casual look that came effortlessly to Heero. It seemed perfectly fitting for him, and Duo's fingers itched to run through the thick locks that were gently blowing in the breeze. He'd swear he caught the fragrance of his conditioner wafting his way, but he knew that the distance between them was too great for that to be more than a figment of his imagination, based on the morning he'd stood behind Heero at the laptop.

Duo was confused. This was not what he'd expected.

Heero allowed Duo to stand there, looking perplexed and a little bit hungry, before pushing himself off from the ledge and slowly walking into the suite, his shoulder passing close to Duo's without actually touching. Duo's eyes followed him and then the rest of his body did as well.

"I did as you requested," Heero said, his voice steady, but softer than Duo had ever heard it.

Duo nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet.

"Your sole criterion was for a computer that met my own needs, satisfied my own wants, was exactly what I wanted for myself."

Duo nodded again, feeling an odd pang of jealousy for the computer and then shoving the wayward thought away.

"I don't think you will like it."

Heero was unapologetic. He wasn't gloating, either. He was simply stating a fact. He had seen and used Duo's current laptop, and there again was that word. Laptop.

The portable computer he'd designed was certainly not a 'laptop.'

He picked up a leather tote that obviously contained the components, and without another word, unzipped it. A small device resembling a palm pilot was extracted first, and Heero turned that on and set it aside before reaching into the carrying case again.

His hands moved quickly as each piece was removed and assembled with neat efficiency.

Duo was left gawking at the result.

A magnifying screen was attached to the palm pilot, which was docked into a slim rectangular box about half the size of Duo's laptop in all dimensions. A floppy keyboard was attached to that. It was all spread out, taking up a surprising amount of table space, but it was clear that all the pieces could be used on a much smaller surface.

It had taken Heero a surprisingly short period of time to finish, and when he did so, he shoved his left hand back in his pocket and leaned his right hand on the table, cocking his hip toward Duo slightly as a result.

"What the hell is that?"

"This," Heero said, "is what you told me to build."

To say Duo was surprised was an understatement. It defied everything he pictured in terms of a laptop. There was no way that anyone could comfortably use that in their lap, especially not with that floppy keyboard.

Heero let that thought hang in the air for a moment before he started pointing to each piece and explaining. His facial expression was slightly eager, and his voice less clinical than it had been when he'd explained 'prepping' to Duo the night before.

The keyboard was watertight, durable, and foldable as well. Heero explained that a simple lap tray would prevent it from collapsing if used in the field. The hard drive resided in the slim rectangular dock station, and the palm pilot was actually a high-resolution computer monitor. The magnifier changed the seven-inch screen into a twelve-inch display, and the image was sharp and clear.

It was something Duo would never have the patience to assemble, but Heero had made it look effortless.

"Think you can handle it?" Heero asked, and Duo wondered if he was still referring to the computer.

~~~~~~~

Relena wanted to throw her arms around her brother and lose herself in his embrace when he and the other gentleman finally returned from the study. Milliardo's face was inscrutable, but the other man looked rather pleased.

"Dorothy," he said, his voice that of one used to commanding.

She stood and Relena swore for a moment she was going to curtsy, but she merely bowed her head in acknowledgement before turning to Relena.

"I bend down on my knees in the sunlit morning and kiss your wing, grey and white, gleaming in the sun," she said with that annoying, I-know-something-you-don't-know, smile. She pressed her cheek to Relena's, kissed the air beside it, and pulled her hood back over her head before she and her companion left.

Relena watched them leave, not daring let them out of her sight until the door was closed and latched behind them, then turned to her brother.

"Dermail and I have come to an agreement," he said.

"Dermail," she echoed.

"Duke Dermail. He was the CEO of Zodiac." His head was turned in her direction, but the look of contempt was not directed towards her.

"That is, until Treize took him down."

~~~~~~~

Duo walked over to the computer that Heero had set up and ran his fingers over the bendable keyboard, surprised at how soft it felt.

"It takes some getting used to. Most people don't have the patience to develop the right amount of pressure needed to get it to respond successfully." Heero demonstrated that it was, in fact, possible, by swiftly typing a few sentences into a blank word processing document that he'd opened at some point.

Duo noticed an electronic cuff on Heero's right index finger that covered a good portion of the digit, with a notch at the knuckle, presumably to allow the finger to bend.

Heero noticed Duo's curious glance and raised his hand from the keyboard slightly. He flipped a tiny switch on the cuff with his thumb, and a tiny pinpoint of red glowed from the docking station. Heero tilted his head toward the screen. Duo's eyes flicked to the magnified image, and saw the cursor move as Heero's finger did the same. A small flick of his thumb, and the red light went out. The cursor didn't move.

"This is my own device," Heero said, and Duo detected a tiny bit of pride in his voice. "On hand at all times, easy to maneuver, much more responsive than a touch pad or trackball."

Duo was speechless, so he allowed Heero to show him the software he'd loaded onto the computer. His eyes kept glancing at Heero's hands. Slim, graceful, callused, deceptively strong, amazingly talented hands.

He was surprised to see that Heero had loaded several games onto the computer, but more so at the variety. A combat game, a role-playing game, a computer version of a popular board game, several card games, and Mahjongg.

Heero offered no explanation and Duo didn't question him.

He'd wanted a glimpse into Heero's psyche, but he had underestimated what he'd find. He'd known Heero was complicated, but he hadn't expected this.

He suspected that Heero knew his intent all along, and had deliberately chosen a wide array of software titles that could have come straight from a new release catalogue, telling nothing of the user.

How much of what he saw was Heero, and how much was a deliberate attempt on Heero's part at misleading him?

His eyes met Heero's, and it felt like there was some silent communication between them. He rather hoped there had been, but if so, he wasn't able to decipher the enigmatic look on Heero's face.

He broke eye contact first and reached for his briefcase. He withdrew the brochure Meiran had given him and handed it to Heero, who scanned it briefly without a twitch of emotion on his face.

Then he looked up at Duo, his deep brown eyes almost laughing, and asked, "what do you want me to wear?"

'Nothing at all,' Duo wanted to say first, followed by, 'exactly what you are wearing right now.'

Then he remembered the wardrobe he'd purchased for Heero and managed to keep himself from walking over to Heero and grinding their hips together.

He crooked a finger and beckoned Heero to follow him, then moved to the bedroom.

He hadn't hung up the garment bags that had arrived, and he would swear they'd still been draped over the chair when he left for the office that morning, but he couldn't remember. He suspected that Heero was allowing him the illusion of leading. Seemed as though he were suspecting Heero of a lot of things.

"I didn't look at them," Heero's voice said, much closer than he'd realized. He turned and looked directly into Heero's eyes. They were close enough that their breaths mingled.

"I wouldn't have minded if you had," Duo said, then turned to the closet and unzipped one of the garment bags. He was pleased to see that no wrinkles had been created by the suit's tenure on the chair, and ran a hand down the smooth fabric. It was softer than he'd hoped, and he wondered if he'd be able to keep from touching it, and touching it often, later that evening.

He supposed he should have Heero try it on to insure that it fit properly, but he wanted to postpone seeing Heero in it until they were ready to go.

"Are you familiar with Moses?"

If there was one question Duo did not expect to hear, that was it.

Heero had that slightly amused look again. "Gloria Moses. One of the artists whose work is on exhibition this evening."

Oh. He'd never bothered to actually READ the brochure Meiran had given him, simply accepting that he would go, and only making note of the time printed on the front of the handbill.

"I tend to favor the work of someone like Alatza," he said, and the look on Heero's face seemed to indicate he'd passed some sort of test.

Curiouser and curiouser, a voice in his head laughed.

~~~~~~~

Relena stared hard at her brother, and he finally seemed to take notice.

"Do not second guess me, Relena," he warned.

"Then do not treat me like a little girl!" she demanded, nearly belying those words with a stamping of her foot. She took a deep breath. "Milliardo, I don't trust them."

"You don't even know Dermail."

"How does Dorothy Catalonia fit into all this?"

He reached behind him and gathered his hair into a ponytail, pulling an elastic band from his wrist and tying it back before replying.

"She's his granddaughter. She also serves as a liaison between Romefeller and other companies."

Relena thought she'd suppressed the shudder that ran through her, but Milliardo saw it.

"Don't let those eyebrows intimidate you," he said, a hint of actual amusement entering his voice.

She shook her head. While Dorothy did possess a rather...striking...set of eyebrows, she'd barely noticed them considering the myriad of confusing bits of information that Dorothy had delighted in sharing.

"Milliardo..."

He seemed to think she was going to say something else. "Do you take me for a fool, Relena? I did not sign anything. Nothing will be done without a team of lawyers present. I would not put the company's future at stake by acting on a whim. I told him that we would close the deal tomorrow, at his office, at two o'clock."

He turned and strode out of the room, the haphazard ponytail twitching behind him.

She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she knew she had to think of something. She simply could not let her brother enter into a partnership with Romefeller.

She prayed for inspiration to strike before Milliardo left on the morrow.

~~~~~~~

Duo sat across from Heero at the dining table. The portable computer had been disassembled by Heero and neatly packed into the leather tote with as much ease as it had been put together.

Duo had ordered lunch from room service, and he found himself once again fascinated just watching Heero eat.

"What kind of foods do you normally eat?" he asked.

Heero looked at him rather curiously, and Duo wanted to kick himself for his need to fill the silence once again. It hadn't even been an awkward silence, but a comfortable one. Perhaps that was why he'd felt the need to break it.

And once again, Heero surprised him.

"Diet contributes to the enjoyment of anal sex," he said, then brought a piece of broccoli to his mouth.

Duo almost choked on the water he was drinking. Heero continued as if he hadn't noticed.

"Sufficient fiber is necessary in one's diet to avoid forced evacuations, which will irritate anal tissues."

For a topic that was most certainly not suitable for discussion while dining, if at all amongst even the closest of friends, Heero seemed remarkably at ease.

"Everything introduced into the body has an effect on the body as a whole," he went on, pausing to take a sip of water. "A ripple effect, if you will."

Duo wanted to explore that idea, but it brought up a whole host of other questions that he felt were not going to be answered.

Somehow he suspected Heero knew it, too.

~~~~~~

Business usually picked up right around the time that most people got out of work, so by five o'clock the bar was filling up with a mix of regular patrons, harried businessmen, and tourists.

Trowa was busy tending bar, but that didn't mean he missed the brief exchange between Quatre and a nervous looking young man who was blushing furiously. Quatre tilted his head toward the men's room and then walked past the other man, brushing his fingertips along the nape of his neck as he did so.

Not ten seconds after the restroom door shut behind Quatre, the young man got up and hurried after him.

Trowa frowned. He wished Quatre wouldn't do that here, but on the other hand, he did feel a bit better when he knew where the blond was conducting his business.

Ten minutes later the young man left the bar in a hurry, his face flushed but happy.

Shortly after that, Quatre sauntered out of the bathroom. When he noticed Trowa's gaze on him, he winked, then headed upstairs, most likely to join the poker game Trowa knew was already in progress.

~~~~~~~

Duo was sitting in the armchair, a pair of magnifying glasses perched on his nose as he read the tiny print on the document in front of him. Heero was behind him, rubbing his shoulders.

He forced himself to focus on the text and not on Heero's hands, or whatever reasons were lying behind Heero's sudden change of attitude.

God, Heero's hands felt so damn good, though.

His eyes slid shut and his head drooped forward, the pages in his hand fluttering to the floor.

Heero's hands rested on Duo's shoulders for a moment, then the shorthaired man moved from the back of the chair to the floor in front of Duo. His eyes skimmed some of the pages as he collected them and tried to put them in some semblence of order.

One word caught his eye and he froze. He looked up at Duo, who was dozing lightly, and skimmed the document quickly.

He felt a familiar prickling in the back of his mind.

Maybe it was just his background, making him read too much into an otherwise innocuous business proposal.

He looked up at Duo again.

He knew at that moment that he was going to do something he was probably going to regret, something he'd tried hard not to do for a while now. Trust his gut instinct.

Damn it.

tbc

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The foldable keyboard mentioned can be seen here: http://www.notestation.com/flex_keyboard.htm

The magnifying screen does exist, but I can't find a picture of it. It does attach to the screen. I'm taking liberties, as magnifier is designed for use with larger monitors, but the one I am thinking of is capable of 175% magnification and no loss of image clarity.

Heero's little finger cuff mouse device is not only his invention, it's mine as well.