Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ Tangled Webs ( Chapter 43 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 43/?

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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. Don't own Scrabble, neither! (Yes, I know, double negative. I still don't own it. Unless you count the board game I bought earlier today just to...well, you'll see.)

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

~~~~~

Chapter 43 - Tangled Webs

"I'm here to see Darryl Montague," Wufei informed the uniformed officer behind the plate glass window.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"He's expecting me," Wufei replied. "My name is Wufei Chang."

The officer picked up a phone and spoke into it, then placed it on the receiver.

"I'll buzz you in," he said. "Wait until it starts buzzing, then open it before it stops. Once you're inside, go to the main desk and ask for Montague."

Just then, a vibrant young woman with curly auburn hair opened the door from the other side and waved to the officer behind the window.

"See ya, Chapman," she said.

"Where the hell are you going, Bloom? Aren't you on duty this weekend?"

"Hell, no," she said with an exaggerated shudder. "I only came in to relieve Manning for a few hours. I originally had the entire weekend off."

"You're welcome to come back here and let me take the rest of the day off," Chapman grinned at her.

"Nice try, but I promised my brother I was going to stop by to see him tonight."

She noticed Wufei standing there. "Is he helping you?" she asked.

"Oh, sorry!" Chapman said. "I'll buzz you in."

Wufei nodded and gripped the seal of the plastic bag harder. He waited for the door to buzz, as he'd been instructed, then pulled open the heavy steel door and entered.

~~~~~

The first thing Duo and Heero did was played a few video games on the computer. At one point, using the wireless adapter, the two of them entered into an internet competition, acting as a two-man team in an old fashioned shoot-em-up game involving high-speed car chases. Duo sat at the desk, and Heero was using the edge of the same desk, his computer screen at right angles to Duo's.

It didn't take long for them to adapt to each other's style. Duo tended to toy with their competition, whereas Heero seemed to quickly assess the situation and acted almost impulsively at times, which would have surprised Duo if not for Heero's behavior earlier in the day.

Duo felt like he was back in high school, except he couldn't remember having this much fun back then. When he'd played video games in those days, it had been on occasions when he'd skipped school and snuck into the arcades, picking the lock on one of the coin boxes to acquire a handful of tokens for himself and his so-called friends. Even though a home computer version of a popular arcade game couldn't compare, lacking the realistic controls and the surround sound and imaging, Duo couldn't compare the companionship he felt here in the suite with any afternoon spent at the local video arcade.

He came very close to whooping with joy when their 'names' came up as the winners. There were a few grudging congratulations from their opponents, and an invitation for another round, but there were other activities planned for the day besides computer games. Duo asked Heero if he wanted to play again, anyway, and was pleased when Heero shook his head no. Then he worried that maybe Heero hadn't enjoyed the game.

He shook his head. No, that wasn't possible. He'd caught Heero getting into it a few times. That had been one of the advantages of Heero's being set up adjacent to where he was sitting. He'd expected Heero to use the table as his station, because the wireless adapter allowed him to connect to the internet from anywhere in the suite, but Heero had moved a chair to the end of the desk and placed the docking station there. Duo was certainly not going to point out that they'd be a bit crowded. Actually, it hadn't been much of a problem, because they weren't side by side.

Heero had looked a bit smug when his mouse cuff allowed a bit more dexterity than Duo's touch pad, but Duo got his turn to look triumphant when Heero ran out of ammo at a rather crucial point. Heero had looked almost shocked, as if such a thing were inconceivable. Duo had a hard time not laughing in his face at that one.

For a moment, he'd remembered Heero's rifle shooting earlier in the week, and wondered just how much experience Heero had with guns. He'd quickly tamped the thought down. Right now he wanted to learn more about Heero than what he'd done or hadn't done in the past.

"You choose next," Duo said after they'd disconnected from the gaming site.

Heero looked surprised, but then he glanced over at the table and back at Duo.

"Verbatim et litteratim," he said.

"I don't know Latin," Duo confessed.

"Word for word, and letter for letter," Heero translated.

This time Duo looked over at the table. "Couldn't you have just SAID you wanted to play Scrabble, you geek?" he asked, missing the tiny smile that appeared on Heero's face at the lighthearted insult.

Kitty would have liked Duo, Heero decided. She would have liked him a lot.

~~~~~

"Bishop tells me you need some assistance in determining someone's innocence," Montague said to Wufei.

"Innocence would be the desirable outcome," Wufei said, "but first I need to know who the prints belong to."

Montague studied Wufei's face, but Wufei had always managed to maintain a facade of calm in the courtroom, and this was really no different. The only time he'd allowed himself to show his feelings was when he was alone with his client. He'd even managed to keep his composure after the case he lost to Khushrenada.

"Any other prints that you know of on this?" the towheaded detective asked, holding the plastic bag and its contents up to the light.

"Mine," Wufei said. "Near the bottom of the bottle. Any prints on the label might be a bit smudged."

"Better if I can get them off the plastic, because it's smoother," Montague said. "But I'll warn ya, dusting doesn't work as well on flexible surfaces. Too bad it wasn't a glass bottle."

Wufei had considered that, but he'd also figured it would be a lot harder to smuggle a glass bottle out of the suite. And there was that little bit of distrust he'd had of handing Heero something he could knock him out with. That had been before he'd found out that a glass bottle was the least of his worries.

"I'll need your prints as well," Montague added. Wufei nodded. He'd expected that. His heart sank a bit at the possibility that the prints might not be easily lifted from the plastic.

He washed his hands in the little washroom indicated after he'd given his prints to the detective. Just as he was rejoining the other man, Montague cursed at his computer.

"What's wrong?" Wufei asked.

Montague pointed at the screen, where a dozen sheep were falling from the top of the screen to the bottom, slowly covering the lower desktop images as the process repeated.

"Are you in a hurry?" he asked Wufei.

Wufei was, but for personal reasons. "I don't need the information immediately."

"I want to take my time with this," he said, gesturing to the bottle which was now supported upside down on what looked like a plastic rod. "And then I will need to run the prints against yours, then take the unknown prints and run them through the electronic database. That's assuming I am able to lift any from this."

Wufei nodded. "I appreciate any assistance you are able to provide."

"Ah, Sid and I go way back," Montague said, waving to show it was no big deal. "You got a local number I can reach you at?"

Wufei was ready to give him his cell phone number, then realized that it had a New York area code.

This was exactly why he didn't deal well with subterfuge. 'Creative nonfiction' was more Duo's style. He sighed internally and gave the detective the number to the apartment. It was only a matter of time before Meiran found out, anyway.

"I'll call ya when I have something."

"Please contact me even if you are unable to get the prints, just so I know that avenue has been closed."

"You got it. Next time you see Sid, remind him that he owes me a favor." He noticed Wufei's alarmed look and laughed. "Not for this one. It's actually nice to have an excuse to use the ol' fingerprint kit. I still get a little thrill out of seeing something appear after I dust an object. It's a little more sophisticated than the cocoa powder and Scotch tape I used as a kid, but some things just never grow old, I guess."

"I cannot express to you enough my gratitude-"

"Listen, Chang, get the hell out of here before you make me gag. I'll call ya," he said, waving the number Wufei had scribbled down for him.

Wufei left, then pulled out his cell phone to arrange for a taxi to pick him up. He would use that time to decide whether to tell his wife what he'd done before he had any information or after he found out who the prints belonged to.

Either way, she was probably going to have something to say about it.

He sighed. He hoped the cab driver that was assigned to his call took his sweet time getting there.

~~~~~

Quatre stared at the entrance doors to the bar on Hollywood Boulevard. If he squinted at them, he could get them to look more like one door. He hoped he didn't look like an idiot by trying to reach for a nonexistent doorknob on the window.

He was relieved that the doors resolved themselves into a single entranceway as he drew closer, and he gripped the knob securely before taking a deep breath and walking in.

His heart fell to his feet when he realized That Woman was sitting near the bar again. At least this time she wasn't wearing her uniform.

Part of him wanted to leave, and part of him wanted to walk right up and sit at the bar, as he had done every morning for the past few months.

Then Heero had taken that job, and That Woman had appeared out of nowhere, and Iria kept calling...

As if on cue, the phone rang. He heaved a sigh of relief when he heard Trowa rattled off the bar's hours of operation. He'd known it couldn't be Iria, but for some reason he feared it was anyway. There hadn't been a single time when she'd called that he hadn't known who was on the other end before Trowa lifted the phone off the receiver.

Trowa finally acknowledged his presence by making eye contact, and he frowned.

Quatre stiffened. What was his problem? He'd organized the damn pretzels the best he could before he left, and he hadn't been rude to That Woman.

Trowa said something to her and left his station behind the bar to lead Quatre over to a table off to the side, which was still empty even though the place was filling up fast.

"What is she doing here?" Quatre asked accusingly.

"You're drunk," Trowa hissed. "Are you out of your mind coming here in that condition?"

Out of my mind, Quatre thought. Out of my mind, out of my mind, out of my mind...a singsong voice kept chanting. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead for a moment, then opened them and met Trowa's glare steadily.

"Thank you for the Bulleit," he said evenly. Trowa cursed under his breath, but Quatre wasn't about to give him any quarter. He'd only done what Trowa had wanted him to do. He'd taken the bottle back to the apartment and then he drank it. He knew what he was drinking, just like Trowa wanted him to. Bulleit Bourbon. Frontier whiskey. Liquid courage.

"How do you know That Woman?" Quatre rephrased his earlier question. He knew he was being stubborn, but she was yet another thing unraveling the very fabric of what he considered to be his home.

He looked around. What was really home to him? This bar? Or the people in it? He closed his eyes again. This week had been hell. He hadn't realized how much he'd come to rely on Heero's dry manner around people and Trowa's quiet acceptance of their lifestyles.

This time when he opened his eyes, he realized he'd been left alone at the table, and he felt the snub right through his heart. Trowa was speaking with That Woman at the bar. Then he turned and walked right back to where he'd left Quatre sitting.

And the woman was with him.

Quatre wanted to bolt, terrified that she was there to arrest him. She could get him on several counts. Trowa wouldn't go so far as to turn him in, he was sure of it. Wasn't he?

Trowa gestured for the woman to sit down across from Quatre, and then he stood there with his arms crossed. His eyes bored into the blond man's head.

Quatre wanted to ask what he was looking at, but knew better than to press his luck at this point.

"I suppose it's only fair, Quatre," Trowa said quietly. "Quid pro quo."

Quatre stared at him blankly but managed to avoid gaping like a fish out of water.

"You might have some idea as to what was going on if you had the guts to speak with Iria," he continued. "But I guess I gave you far too much credit. I thought you were..." Trowa trailed off, and looked away for a moment.

"I know why she's been calling you so often, Quatre, and you'd know, too, if you didn't ask me to push her off with excuses. Couple of reasons, actually, but it's not my place to tell you. She wants you to call her back, even if it's collect, but I'm sure that's nothing she hasn't told you before, back when you used to accept her phone calls."

Quatre shook his head. He wasn't sure if he was disagreeing with all or part of what Trowa had said, or trying to deny that Trowa had somehow figured out everything. Just because he said he knew why she was calling didn't mean he knew why Quatre had left in the first place. It was no secret that he was gay, by any means, but still, the idea that Trowa would look at him and realize the whole truth...but then, he'd often suspected that Trowa knew more than he let on. His head was still pounding despite the six ibuprofen tablets he'd taken earlier.

"So, Quatre," Trowa began again. "In a sense, I've made the acquaintance of your sister, and I've certainly spoken to her more lately than you have. Tit for tat."

Trowa moved to stand behind That Woman. "Quatre," he said, "this is my sister, Catherine Bloom. She just transferred from the Kern County Sheriff's Department to the LAPD. And Catherine," he continued, looking at his sister. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. Quatre Raberba..." he paused, and his eyes bored right into Quatre's over her head. "...Winner."

~~~~~

"Want to make it more challenging?" Heero asked with that lazy smile of his.

Duo swallowed, wondering whether he was referring to the rules of the board game or the outcome. Either way seemed pretty appealing, though, if Heero's behavior so far today was any indication.

"I love a challenge," he said confidently.

"Nine-tile Scrabble," Heero said, selecting his tile and waiting for Duo to do the same to determine who would go first. "And we don't limit ourselves to the dictionary."

"You mean slang counts?"

"I mean any word that can be verified as an actual word using two separate web sites. That would open the doors to specialized medical terms, financial buzz words, and words that just aren't used by the general populace."

"As long as they are single words and not phrases," Duo agreed, mainly because he wanted to see what kinds of words Heero might pull out of his hat.

"Now the Bingo bonus," Heero added, showing his tile. It was an E. "Occurs when seven tiles are used to form or modify a word. In nine-tile Scrabble, as you might guess, you get 'Bingo' when at least seven tiles are used, but you don't have to use seven tiles exactly, nor do you need to use all of your tiles."

Duo showed his letter. It was a blank, meaning he got the first turn. "So using seven, eight, or nine in a turn gets you 'Bingo.' Yeah, like that's going to happen, but all right."

They returned their tiles to the main pile and Heero mixed them up again while Duo got up and pulled two beers out of the cubic refrigerator.

"Gotta love twist off caps," he said, removing both caps and handing one bottle to Heero before sitting down again. Heero randomly selected nine tiles and then started arranging them on his tray.

He'd been really worried about the beer, after Heero's comment that first night that he didn't drink, but Heero calmly took a sip and set the bottle down, then rearranged the tiles a few times while Duo mulled over his own.

This game could tell him a lot about Heero, he'd decided when he'd chosen it, more so than any other games. He'd wanted to allow foreign phrases, too, to see how many Heero might be able to come up with, but that had seemed far too contrived a plan. He hadn't lied when he said he wanted to have a lazy day.

Actually, he'd said he was looking forward to living the simple life for a change, but it seemed a ridiculous thing to say, considering that they were sitting in the middle of a luxury penthouse suite in Beverly Hills. It was about as far removed from 'simple' as one could get.

He was going to miss it here, though. It seemed as though everything he'd believed about himself had come into question here, but he'd also found that he was truly enjoying himself for the first time in what must have been a very long time.

He'd spent a good part of the week wondering who Heero was, but it seemed he was finding more about who he was as a result.

It was a frightening thought, so he pushed it aside. He could not let self-analysis interfere with his last day with Heero.

That thought made him feel suddenly like an inmate on death row, or a patient in a terminal cancer ward.

Heero's hand touched one of his briefly, and he nearly jumped, so absorbed was he in that sudden bout of melancholy.

"Hands off, buddy," he said, covering his tiles protectively. "I take my Scrabble very seriously."

Heero looked at him skeptically, but Duo would swear that he'd really wanted to believe what he'd just been told.

"Your turn," he finally said.

"Damn straight," Duo replied, adopting an air of deep thought.

He had nothing to work with. Could he possibly have any more E's? They were the most commonly used letter in the alphabet, but they did him no good without the consonants to go with them. Besides, they were only worth one point each.

He chose a four-letter word and placed two letters to the left of the star and one to the right.

C-R-O-P. "Eight points," he said, jotting down his total on the score sheet.

"Hmm," Heero responded, shuffling his tiles around. He frowned at them, then shuffled them again.

It was obvious Heero was one of those competitive types. Either that or he was determined to distract Duo with the way his tongue stuck out of the corner of his lip, just slightly. He probably wouldn't have noticed, had his eyes not been fixed on Heero's mouth in the first place. Suddenly the lips twitched slightly, and Duo's gaze moved to Heero's eyes, which had a wicked gleam in them.

That did not bode well.

"I'm using a blank," he said, "as an L."

Why he was announcing it now, Duo had no idea, and he was surprised that Heero would use such a versatile tile this early in the game.

Until Heero started laying down tiles. A lot of them.

To the left of CROP, he placed an M, right on the double letter square, then an A. To the right, he added an H, then another A, then an L, also on a double letter square, and then the blank tile. The blank was followed by a U, and the last square, the triple word square, was covered by an S.

"Is that even a word?" Duo blurted out, mentally replacing the blank tile with the letter Heero had stated at the beginning of his turn.

"Are you issuing a challenge?" Heero asked, quirking his eyebrow in that familiar gesture.

Duo was sure Heero would be able to find at least FIVE web sites that referenced the word.

"Does it mean what I think it means?"

"An abnormally large penis," Heero stated calmly. His expression would have seemed blank if not for the glimmer of humor in those eyes.

"Shit," Duo said, a bit in awe.

Heero seemed to delight in tallying up his score. "Double points for the M, and for the L," he said. "Zero for the blank, of course, but I get all eight points from the original 'crop' as well." Duo listened to him sum the total, and then triple the twenty-four points to seventy-two, for the triple word bonus.

"And the Bingo bonus for using eight tiles in one turn," Heero said.

One hundred twenty-two points in a single turn, and a word that he hadn't known existed. It was an impressive start.

Unfortunately, Duo couldn't do better than BRUISED using the U in macrophallus for a total of eighteen points with two triple letter bonuses. Heero retaliated with ORGY and two double letter bonuses.

So that's how Heero wanted to play. That was fine with him.

He was pleased to see he had the letters to spell GROPED using the D in bruised, and Heero opted to exchange a few tiles on his third turn. That left Duo with LOX using the O in groped, and he was pleased to get rid of the infernal X, as well as earning a double word bonus. Not that he had much chance of competing with Heero's triple-word-and-Bingo-bonus opening move.

Then Heero had that satisfied look again. "This time the blank is the letter P."

"How the hell did you manage to get the only two blank tiles with three turns?" Duo fumed.

As if to prove a point, Heero carefully placed an A under the M of macrophallus, then an R, then the blank tile. L, O, and T completed his word, and of course he'd managed to get yet another double word bonus.

M-A-R-P-L-O-T. He'd heard the word before, he was pretty sure. It was just difficult to "see" the word with the blank in place of the letter.

Finally he remembered what it meant. The name was pretty suggestive of its meaning.

"The best laid plans of mice and men," Heero said.

Duo snorted. "Yeah, laid to ruin by a buttinsky."

Heero frowned slightly, as if a thought had occurred to him, then the crease between his brows cleared up.

"Sometimes the person causing plans to go astray doesn't do so by meddling, but by his mere presence," he said simply, but did not elaborate.

Duo wasn't sure if Heero was trying to tell him something or was deliberately trying to psych him out, but he decided to check his tiles to see if he could come up with any other suggestive words for Heero's enjoyment.

He really shouldn't have watched Heero take a long swig from the bottle, though, because as soon as Heero noticed that Duo's eyes were on him, he stuck his tongue in the bottleneck as he drank.

Only the fact that Heero had already brought him to orgasm three times so far that day kept him from sweeping the board and the tiles to the floor and launching himself across the table at Heero.

The idea DID still seem to hold a certain appeal, though. Two could play the act-on-one's-hormonal-impulses game. To grab Heero, place one hand behind his head, in that impossibly thick hair...the other against the flat planes of his chest...and then to capture that wicked tongue between his lips and suck on it...he felt his pants grow a bit tight at the visual image.

Then he remembered the whole kissing rule was still in play, and the next time he took a sip from his own bottle, it tasted sour.

"Duo?"

"Yuck," Duo said, grimacing as he held the bottle out. "I wonder why they call this the King of Beers. It's pretty awful."

Heero's brows furrowed once again, and he realized he shouldn't have teased Duo like that. Somehow he'd upset him. Was Duo already regretting doing the hanging out with a buddy type of thing?

They both lost interest after that, but they continued it anyway. Neither of them went out of their way to find suggestive words for the duration of the game, but they did both finish off two beers before the last tile was played.

Heero won, but he sure as hell didn't feel like he'd gained much of a victory.

tbc