Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ Dissonance ( Chapter 39 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 39/?

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Warnings: AU, yaoi, coarse language, violence, angst, cliffhangers, red herrings, mention of various vices, random bits of useless knowledge, occasionally explicit sex.

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: None for GW, and I'm now quite convinced almost nada 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.

Archived at:
http://www.atsui.org
http://www.gundam-wing-diaries.150m.com/gw /Mookie/gwmookie.htm

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

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Chapter 39 - Dissonance

Heero produced a towel from seemingly nowhere, and cleaned them up as best he could. Once he headed to the nearest bathroom, Duo pulled up his jeans and fastened them. He plopped himself on the loveseat, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Other than the obvious, of course.

What game was Heero playing? He had been wearing that same smile most of the morning, and although Duo found it incredibly attractive, he also found it rather suggestive, in that it seemed as though Heero knew something he did not.

He wasn't sure which of them was holding the upper hand anymore, but the day wasn't quite half over yet. He was going to charge ahead with his plans for the day, no matter that Heero's unexpected activity seemed to make anything he could come up with pale in comparison.

Besides, could they really spend an entire day breaking new ground, sexually?

It was very tempting to find out the answer to that question by putting it to the test, but Duo was not going to be swayed by a pair of bedroom eyes and lean hips. Not to mention a tight ass, and hair just begging to be touched...

~~~~~

Wufei smiled at his wife's light-hearted insult, then frowned.

"Maybe I should turn on the cell phone," he said.

She studied the expression on his face, and measured it against what he'd said earlier.

"You're worried about him," she announced.

"Ridiculous," he scoffed. "I worry about his ability to make sound judgements lately, that's all."

"Hmmm." She got up and brought their dishes to the sink. She rinsed them off and returned to the table, standing behind her husband and placing her hands on his shoulders.

She kneaded the muscles there as she spoke.

"Do you know what we are right now?"

"I'm afraid to ask."

She flicked a finger against his ear. "We're that disgustingly happy couple."

"Meaning?"

She laughed, a sound that made his heart soar. "Meaning that we want everyone to find bliss with the right person, merely because we are so in love, we can't imagine anyone else NOT being in love right along with us."

"Ridiculous."

"You said that already, Chang, and you know I'm right."

He thought about it. Meiran usually seemed to have her finger on the pulse of what was going on around her, but he just couldn't see it. However, he'd known her long enough to realize that she was rarely far off in her estimation. Perhaps he couldn't see it because he was one half of this 'disgustingly happy couple,' as Meiran so eloquently put it.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

~~~~~

Heero returned to find Duo looking as composed as ever. He admired Maxwell's ability to rebound quickly from the unexpected.

"I have to hand it to you, Heero," Duo said, cringing internally as Heero's wide-eyed look of mock innocence let him know what he thought of that choice of words. "You seem to have things all figured out."

Heero shrugged, a gesture that was rapidly becoming...endearing.

"I, on the other hand, tend to be one who flies by the seat of his pants," Duo paused, reminding himself that it wouldn't kill him to follow through on his plan. "I need to leave for a while, but I would very much like it if you were here when I returned."

Heero was momentarily stunned. It was the first time, other than the night Duo wanted to make it 'good' for him, that he'd phrased things in such a way that their business arrangement wasn't immediately brought to mind. It sounded like a request.

What had happened to his plans of getting Duo to break their contract? His own behavior so far today had done precious little to push Duo away. Instead, it seemed all he'd done was attempt to draw the man closer.

He actually felt a twinge of disappointment at Duo's words, but managed to keep it from showing on his face. He waited for Duo to elaborate, but the longhaired man didn't seem inclined to enlighten him further.

Duo gave him a long look that seemed as if he were studying Heero's features, then walked toward the door. He pocketed the keycard on his way out. After the door closed behind him, he walked to the elevator and leaned his forehead against the wall. You can do this, he told himself. Whatever you do, don't give in to that urge to turn right around and open that door again.

You wanted to spend a day as close to 'normal' as you could get, after all.

Despite his little pep talk to himself, he was relieved when the elevator reached the penthouse floor and he was taken just a little bit further from the temptation that beckoned from behind that closed door.

~~~~~

"You and I have never had what you would think of as a normal relationship, you realize," Meiran told her husband.

"I would have said we were almost disgustingly normal."

"Ah! See? Almost disgustingly normal! No one in your line of business has a marriage like that. Therefore its very normalcy is...abnormal."

"Abnormal."

"Unusual, to say the least. No one marries their high school sweetheart anymore, let alone their childhood sweetheart! Wufei, think of it! We're the exception, not the rule! We're still married; we still understand each other," she gave him a very pointed look to suggest that would have been a lot easier if he'd told her much earlier what he'd confessed last night.

"Defeated the odds, you mean."

"Exactly! You and Duo do the same thing, you know."

"So you think things with Peacecraft will work in our favor."

She waved her hand impatiently. "Forget Milliardo Peacecraft. I mean the way you and Duo work together. You two really are very different, and yet you make those differences work for you.

"But at the same time, you aren't so different that you can't possibly work together. Your common traits help cement your working relationship, but your differences keep it from growing stagnant."

Wufei thought perhaps he might never grow tired of hearing Meiran wax philosophical, but he knew that he'd be ready to climb the walls if he didn't rein in her thoughts. Still, she had an amazingly keen observational skills, and seemed to know when two people were right for each other.

"Hilde and Duo were different," he pointed out.

Why the hell was Meiran grinning?

"Ah, but what did they have in common?"

"They are both very driven. They both enjoy physical activity when they're not working. They both have little patience for fools, and are both incredibly opinionated."

She was still wearing that big smile on her face.

"Now what?" he bristled.

"You tell me."

"About what, Hilde and Duo?"

She nodded, the smile not wavering once.

"She never really understood Duo," he said without thinking, then looked surprised to hear the words spill from his lips.

"Bingo."

"Do...do YOU understand Duo?" Despite the fact that he had long gotten over his insane jealousy of Duo where Meiran was involved, he still harbored a tiny bit of discomfort at the thought that his wife spent time thinking about another man.

"I think I do a little," she said easily, wrapping her arms around his chest and pressing her cheek against his. "Never the way I understand you, of course."

And understand him, she did. He had needed that physical assurance just now. It was a ridiculous thing, for him to worry about Meiran and Duo, but still, the feel of Meiran's arms around him and her soft breath against his face did so much to drive home how irrational his jealousy was.

"Did you know that Hilde accused Duo of being gay?" she breathed in his ear.

"What?"

She didn't answer, but Wufei was busy mulling things over in his head. How could he have been so blind? Why else would Duo be escorting Heero to all these functions? He'd been so convinced that Heero was a spy for Milliardo Peacecraft, he'd not given thought to any other possibility. Even when Duo had told him that Heero was nothing more than a whore, all it had done was fuel Wufei's fury, had made him replay Meiran's angry words the day she'd called him the same.

It seemed Meiran wasn't the only one he had taken for granted.

He had been so blinded by his own thoughts he really hadn't registered Duo's words as fact, and therefore hadn't considered that Heero might, in truth, be exactly what Duo said he was.

"I have to go out for a while," he said.

"Don't do anything stupid," she replied, giving him a kiss on the top of his head before releasing him.

"Trust me," he said, standing up and pulling her into a full embrace.

"I do," she murmured against his chest. "But I still don't want you to do anything stupid."

He laughed softly, then squeezed her tightly before walking to the door of the apartment. He plucked his key ring off a peg on the wall and removed one. Her eyes lit up as he handed it to her

"Speaking of doing something stupid," he gave a sigh of long suffering. "Try to bring it back in one piece, alright?"

"Of course. We haven't christened the backseat yet, remember?"

"Meiran?"

"Yes?"

"There is no backseat."

~~~~~

Milliardo Peacecraft sat across from Treize Khushrenada at a small table in a secluded corner of the restaurant. He felt that perhaps the setting gave them the appearance of being involved in some sort of shady dealings. At the rate he was going, he'd have willingly sold his soul to the devil just to insure his sister was well provided for, and to keep the Peacecraft name from being dragged through the mud in the process.

A bottle of uncorked Sauvignon Blanc was in a wire basket suspended on the edge of the table.

"Duke Dermail," Treize began without preamble. "Is, for the most part, an ambitious man. Not completely without scruples, but he tends to ignore them when he has a goal in mind. Although I doubt he would be the driving force behind an illegal scheme, he would have no compunction about participating in one, either. For Dermail, the ends justify the means."

Did that fit with what Relena had told him about the whole scapegoat issue?

He fought off the waves of jealousy and rage he got when he imagined Heero seated with his sister, involved in a discussion of hallucinogens and date rape drugs. If he'd caught them together where there weren't other people around to serve as witnesses, he'd have enjoyed nothing better than tearing the man apart with his bare hands. And enjoy it, he would. He spared only a parting thought to the man's iron grip on his arm. The fight would be even more satisfying if he had to work at it.

"Dermail also operates with a sense of underlying desperation," Treize continued. "He was, quite understandably, upset when I assumed control of Zodiac. I assume he envisioned himself as monarch of his empire, and it was a crushing blow to his ego to be removed from his position."

Khushrenada had his fingers steepled under his chin and appeared to be choosing his next words carefully.

"Not that long ago, Dermail was enjoying a similar position, this time in charge of a company called Wizard Industries. They had many diverse interests, similar to Peacecraft, and that was his downfall. He made a few hasty decisions in an attempt to make a profit quickly, and as I'm sure you realize, high payoffs are but one of many potential outcomes, but large insurmountable losses usually make up the bulk of them.

"Maxwell-Chang came along at the right time and purchased a very large share in the company. Dermail was satisfied, as he still had controlling interest in the company, with fifty-five percent of the stocks under his thumb, or so he assumed. He held fifty, and his granddaughter held five."

He took a sip of his wine and savored it before continuing.

"Then he managed to get himself mired in a rather unpleasant situation with a group of businessmen that some suspected had Mafia ties. Desperate to keep all his body parts, he parted with enough stocks to reduce him to a mere forty-seven percent. He was, however, confident that his granddaughter's contribution would still keep the controlling interest under his belt."

"So what happened?"

"Have you met Dorothy Catalonia?"

He'd met the young lady briefly, but Relena had really spent the most time with her. He'd hardly spare the girl a second thought now if not for his sister's hurried explanation, during which she'd alluded to Dorothy's cat-and-mouse comments.

"You might say that."

"She is a bit of a puppet master," Treize commented. "She has a knack for unnerving her opponents, stepping back and viewing the chaos she's caused, and then manipulating those who are most vulnerable. Dermail was a smart man when he engaged her as his assistant."

"But...?"

"Ah, yes," Treize seemed in no hurry to get to the point, but Milliardo was getting more out of him than he'd expected. Sometimes the man imparted a wealth of knowledge in his allegories, if one took the time to absorb them all for analysis at a later date.

"Dorothy tends to get bored easily. She likes to see conflict; she thrives on it. She prefers to be on almost equal footing with her adversaries, although she is not foolish enough to give away too much of any advantage she holds.

"However, she and her grandfather should have spent less time on their own schemes and communicated with each other. Dorothy's five percent, with Dermail's forty-seven, would have given them the majority of interest in Wizard.

"Had Dorothy not taken more than half her shares and cashed them in to invest in a company she saw as both a challenge and a sure thing."

"How much did she invest?"

"She was left with only two percent of Wizard's stocks."

Leaving them with a combined total of forty-nine percent. Which would still be a controlling interest, unless a single individual or entity managed to acquire all of the remaining shares.

"Maxwell-Chang," he said.

"Yes. Duo Maxwell had been courting some of the wives of half the stockholders. When things started to look rather bleak for Wizard, most likely due to backlash with his second-hand deals with the syndicate, many of the them panicked, eager to sell their shares before the market price continued to drop."

He swirled his glass and took another sip.

Duo Maxwell. Between that man and his smug, cold attitude, and Heero, who, coincidentally, had been Maxwell's companion at dinner that night, Milliardo was surprised his head didn't implode with all the anger he felt. He tried to keep his suspicions separate from the facts at hand.

"What do you know about them as far as their ethics are concerned?"

Treize actually gained a look of fondness in his features.

"Duo Maxwell is a driven young man, one who would make an excellent poker player, as he is very good at bluffing, and gives very little away other than what he chooses to.

"His partner, on the other hand, is a straightforward young man. Wufei Chang pulls no punches either, but his intents are almost always apparent up front, and he has little tolerance for dirty tricks. He leaves those up to his partner."

"Would you say that Chang is the type to lie to your face?" Milliardo asked.

Treize actually looked almost shocked. "No. I would not say that at all. Chang prides himself on his ability to triumph without resorting to underhanded schemes."

"Then how would you explain his partnership with Maxwell?"

"I am in no position to speculate on what makes two people compatible," Treize said, tilting his wineglass and examining it. He took another sip and set the glass down.

"So would you enter into a business arrangement with Maxwell-Chang?"

Treize chuckled softly. "I fear that I would never be given the opportunity. However, if I were to have the opportunity to meet with Wufei Chang directly, I would be less worried about what his partner was up to."

It seemed as if Treize put a lot of stock in Chang, for some reason. He doubted he'd get more from his friend than that.

Milliardo had been given the opportunity to meet with Wufei Chang and his wife. So whom should he believe? Maxwell, with his hints and implied threats, or Chang, who laid it all on the table?

Treize hadn't said so, but he got the distinct impression that getting involved with Maxwell-Chang could prove full of surprises. It had certainly been true so far. Perhaps not all surprises were undesirable.

He refused to make a decision without having as much information available as possible.

Their lunch arrived just before Treize began filling him in on what he'd found on the third company.

~~~~~

Sally Po looked up as her partner returned and powered down the second computer in their shared office.

"Going somewhere?" she asked.

"I spoke to Une."

'Lady' Une, as some of the men called her behind her back, due to her almost aristocratic bearing, was their deputy administrator. Lately she'd decided that she wanted to personally approve any interstate travel.

"I'm going to LA. I'll be back on Monday."

"Be careful," Sally said.

Her dark-haired partner looked up and met her eyes, then gave a smile of weariness.

"I will do my best to refrain from getting caught up in the lure of all that Hollywood has to offer."

And that told Sally all she needed to know about the reason for the impromptu trip to Los Angeles.

tbc

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Dissonance - Harsh, discordant, and lack of harmony...OR...a chord that sounds incomplete until it resolves itself on a harmonious chord.