Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ The High Window ( Chapter 44 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 44/?

~~~~~~~

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

~~~~~

Chapter 44 - The High Window

Wufei entered the apartment quietly, suspecting that Meiran had arrived home before him. She'd not been waiting long, he hoped, although it had been a couple hours since he'd left her with the key to the Enzo.

She grinned at him from the sofa as he shrugged off his jacket and hung it up. "Drives like a wet dream," she said. "I'm sure you know what that's like, right?"

He grunted in reply and tried to make his way to the bathroom before she said anything else.

"In a hurry?" she asked.

It was the second time he'd been asked that question, and for the second time, he wanted to say yes. Instead, he asked, "why?"

She got up from the couch and met him in the hallway. "Maybe I just missed you," she said, running her hands up his arms and lacing them together behind his neck. She leaned forward to kiss him, but before their lips met, her eyes narrowed. She kept her left hand behind his head and used the right one to tilt his face first one way, then the other, before tightening the fingers at the nape of his neck and using them to steer him into the kitchen.

She examined his left cheek, then slapped him on the back of the head. Hard.

"What the hell, Meiran?"

"I told you not to do anything stupid!"

"What makes you think I did anything-" he paused. He knew damn well what she was talking about, and even if he wanted to lie and say he'd walked into a door, she'd point out that THAT had been a stupid thing to do.

He'd hoped against hope that there wasn't going to be a bruise, or at least there wouldn't be one until the next day, but apparently his initial assessment had been correct. He wondered if that had been visible while he was speaking with Montague. He didn't recall noticing any discoloration when he was in the washroom, and there had been a small mirror over the sink.

She pulled the tie from his ponytail and ran her fingers through his hair, then leaned her forehead against his.

"I've always told you I was smarter than you," she said teasingly.

"You're not mad?" he asked, not caring that it was as good as an admission of guilt. He'd never been able to put anything past her.

"I'm not happy with you," she said. "But I did tell you I trusted you. You'll dig your own hole, I'm sure, but I'll try to keep a rope nearby you're done. Our lives would be pretty damn boring if you were as perfect as you think you are."

He didn't bother defending himself. He'd never thought himself as perfect, and she knew it, but they'd learned long ago that it was easy for anyone who didn't really know him to form that opinion.

"Know what?" she asked, sitting on his lap. "I don't want to know. Don't tell me what you did. I know you did something, and I know whatever it was, it was something sneaky, because you have that guilty look about you. It's not your style, Wufei, and I am pretty sure you're conscience will do a better job than I can." She tucked some of his hair behind his left ear and planted a light kiss on the bruise, then stood up.

She walked to the freezer and removed the ice tray. "Make yourself useful, Chang," she said, "and get a washcloth."

He did as he was told, removing one from the linen closet outside the bathroom. He avoided stepping through that doorway and looking at his face in the mirror.

When he returned to the kitchen, she beckoned him over. As he handed the washcloth to her, she leaned her head back slightly, then slammed her skull into his forehead.

He wanted to tell her that he could not believe she'd just headbutted him, but he'd known Meiran for years, and nothing she did surprised him for very long.

"Just because I trust you," she said, taking the washcloth from one hand as he rubbed his head with the other. "Doesn't mean that I am not still mad at you," she said, finally answering his earlier question. She wrapped the ice in the washcloth and handed it back to him. She leaned forward and he cringed slightly.

She smiled and kissed him softly on the hand that was covering his wounded forehead, then on the ear. While her lips were there, she murmured, "you make it both so very easy to be angry with you, and almost impossible to stay that way."

As soon as she drew away, he held the impromptu ice pack to his now throbbing head, wondering if she'd given it to him for that reason. He wouldn't put it past her.

She was looking at his left cheekbone and obviously trying to hold in a laugh.

"What?" he growled.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," she said. She had a look of unabashed amusement on her face, and he suspected that he wouldn't find it nearly as entertaining, whatever 'it' was.

He thought he was probably getting off with an extremely light sentence.

~~~~~

Heero felt frantic. He needed to put things to rights, and obviously any sexual overtures he might make would only worsen the situation.

Duo was staring at a third bottle of beer, not wanting it any more than he'd wanted the second one. How had things gone so wrong, so fast? He had to stop expecting so much. He'd already gotten far more than he'd imagined when he'd made his proposition to Heero.

But you want more than even that, don't you?

Yes. No. Yes! I don't know! I don't know what I want!

And that's why things didn't work out with Hilde, either.

This is nothing like what I had - or didn't have - with Hilde.

That's right. That's dead to nuts, right on the money, correctomundo. In fact, it can't even compare to that so-called relationship with Hilde.

And you know exactly what you want. You just won't admit it.

As Heero watched a series of emotions flit across Duo's face, he felt his fledgling sense of panic threaten to overwhelm him. He pounced on the first object he saw on the table that could prove to be a distraction. He fumbled with the box flap and then shook the playing cards into his left hand. He nearly dropped the cards to the floor in the process.

All he could think was, Duo reminded him, in some small ways, of Kitty. That gave him the courage to attempt something like this. Duo had the guts to go out and buy all these things, in the hopes of having a day not bound by rules; the least he could do was gird his loins and take a chance. No rules, right?

"Duo?"

Duo wanted to snap at Heero, tell him to go fuck himself, but he couldn't. Instead, he simply turned his gaze to the other man, who was rapidly shuffling cards like a Vegas dealer. He formed a bridge and let the cards waterfall into his waiting fingers before rifling the cards again and starting over.

He knew that Heero was asking him a subtle question, and Duo wished he would just spit it out.

"Fine, Heero, but you pick. I don't care what we play." And he didn't. But so help him, if Heero said 'strip poker,' Duo would throw him out the door so fast his head would spin. He just wasn't in the mood right now.

"Fifty-two pickup?" Heero asked.

"Fine," Duo said, relieved that those dreaded words had not been uttered. Then what Heero had actually said registered, and he realized what he'd just agreed to.

Approximately forty of the fifty-two cards managed to hit him in the face as Heero turned the cards toward him and let them fly.

He stared at Heero in disbelief, and you could hear a pin drop. Or at least the last couple of playing cards that drifted to the floor.

Then he started laughing.

"C'mon," he said, pointing at the TV with his beer. "Let's watch that movie instead."

Heero let Duo move to the loveseat first, taking a few moments to allow himself to regulate his breathing, and then followed. He glanced at the fallen cards, then cast a parting glimpse out the nearest set of balcony doors as if seeking some sort of reassurance or inspiration, before taking a seat next to Duo.

~~~~~

Quatre thought his heart would stop beating when Trowa introduced him to Catherine. How had Trowa found out?

Iria, you idiot. Trowa talked to Iria all the time.

He had a pounding headache, being taken by surprise had wounded his pride, and on top of all that, of all times for him to feel this way, he was incredibly horny. Apparently liquor amplified more than his erratic sense of empathy, something that was usually limited to people he was close to. Either that or someone in the bar was feeling amorous and the feeling was seeping into the edges of Quatre's being. Quid pro quo, eh? His mind was still a bit fuzzy, but he would certainly be sure to get his own pound of flesh after this. As soon as he got a handle on the other things that were making him feel a bit off balance.

Fortunately he didn't have to figure out any type of retaliation immediately, because it seemed that an introduction was all that Trowa had intended. His sister got up from the table. Trowa headed for the bar immediately, but Catherine waited until Quatre was standing as well. Part of his mind was chastising him for not standing when she'd arrived. A gentleman stands in a lady's presence until she is seated, Almira's voice nagged.

Catherine held out her hand, and he stared at it for an uncomfortable moment before accepting it in a handshake.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Quatre. Any friend of Trowa's is a friend of mine."

This time the way she said Trowa's name, with a slight accent on the first syllable, sounded less grating on his ears.

"The pleasure was mine," he said automatically, squeezing her hand firmly but gently and then releasing it.

Catherine returned to her seat at the bar, the one closest to where Trowa had flipped up the trapdoor in the counter when he'd told her he wanted to introduce her to someone.

She'd noticed the young blond's arrival, because Trowa's eyes had followed him from the moment he'd walked through the door. She wouldn't have noticed if she weren't seated close to Trowa, because his impossibly long bangs effectively hid his eyes from sight when he chose to. She used to tease him about it when they were younger, telling him that he'd had his hair trained to act as a shield.

Trowa was actually her half-brother. Their father was married to Catherine's mother, although they hadn't been at the time Catherine was born. Leander Bloom hadn't known he had a son until Trowa was approximately three, and then it was only a name on some papers, informing him that the mother of one Trowa Barton was recently deceased. As the other parent named on Trowa's birth certificate, he had the option of accepting his paternal rights, and assuming responsibility for the child, or he could challenge the documents via a paternity test, or several other options, although none were all that different from the first two.

Cardea Bloom, naturally, hadn't been pleased to find out her husband had fathered another child, even if they'd only been on-again, off-again at the time she'd gotten pregnant with Catherine. He'd insisted that it had been during one of the "off" periods in their relationship that he'd gotten involved, briefly, with Lisa Barton.

Her parents had both been given permission to meet Trowa, who had just been placed with a foster family. It had taken Catherine's mother just one look at the quiet little boy with 'such sad green eyes, like a weeping willow, especially with that hair' to decide that Trowa was going home with them.

Catherine had wished her hair was as straight as Trowa's, but she took after her mother, with her unmanageably curly hair. She should get it all cut off for her job, but she hated the way she looked with short hair. She'd tried that look in college, and it had been a disaster.

When Trowa had enlisted, it had been even more of a shock to see him with his hair cropped close to his head. By the time he'd been selected for the newly formed Special Forces, he'd become quite broad in the chest and shoulders.

She was pleased that he'd managed to maintain his physique. She felt that he was showing them that he might be down and out, but he still had control over his own self.

Of course, he hadn't yet told her the entire story, but she was able to draw conclusions she was reasonably sure were correct from what he'd said about GHB. If she weren't, she was in the wrong line of work.

It was bad enough what had been done to him by his peers, but now what was Trowa thinking?

"He's young," she said.

"So am I."

She had no response for that. He was right. She tended to forget that, because he hadn't gone to college like she had, so by the time he was on his way home, he was still younger than she'd been when she enrolled in the Academy. He'd always been such a serious boy, too, despite her best efforts. Some of her fondest memories were times when she'd managed to get her little brother to giggle, and then, when he got older, to chuckle softly, and finally, she settled for a smile or two.

Which was why she'd been so shocked to hear him laugh the other day. What had she said to make him laugh? It was pretty raunchy, she remembered that. She glanced over at the blond, who had seated himself at the table again. He looked like he was on a slow burn as his eyes started roaming, sizing up the patrons of the bar.

Article 125. That was it. She'd said something about having sex with a sheep.

Well, she wasn't about to play that card again.

She was not comfortable with the looks Trowa kept shooting toward the table in the corner, though. She was off duty, but she didn't want to have to wage an internal war, her sense of upholding the law versus her loyalty to her brother.

She got up and became engaged in a friendly dart competition, to help her keep her wits about her. If not for her job, she would have collected quite a few dollars, but that would have constituted gambling. She'd been sorely tempted, however, just because she knew damn well that the guys had no idea she was incredibly accurate. They should see her with a couple of Silver Wings.

She glanced at Trowa again, whose eyes were again riveted on Quatre as the blond started to make his way over to a group of what looked like college students. She should have taken Chapman up on that offer to spend the evening behind the plated glass window at the station, at the rate things were going so far this evening.

She threw her third dart with a bit more force than needed upon seeing her brother once again flipped the trapdoor open.

'Trowa,' she thought, 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

~~~~~

Duo was seated on the loveseat to Heero's left. His back was against the armrest and he had both knees drawn against his chest as they watched the movie. Heero was surprised that he hadn't assumed his normal movie watching position on the floor in front of the television, and eventually he felt it was safe to say so.

Duo glanced over at him. "I only watch the classic stuff that way. When I was a kid, I'd get too involved in the plot and had to be practically on top of the TV as if it would bring me closer to the action. Now it's become an ingrained habit. I just can't watch it any other way."

"But you're able to watch other movies seated as you are now."

"Weird, isn't it? I don't know, maybe I don't usually find too many movies that I think need that much concentration."

Heero reached out a tentative hand and touched Duo's right ankle.

Duo stared at that hand, and Heero felt a bit awkward.

"Are you familiar with reflexology?" he blurted.

"That's that foot massage thing that corrects all that ails ya, right?" Duo asked. "Yeah, I've heard of it. Hilde would swear by it. I think she was really going to the spa for pedicures, but didn't want to admit it."

"It's similar to acupressure, or shiatsu," Heero said, running his hand over the top of Duo's foot and gently drawing it toward him, straightening Duo's leg as he did so.

It took little prompting to get Duo to stretch his other leg alongside it, across Heero's lap. Heero removed Duo's socks and simply rested one hand back on top of Duo's feet, letting his thumb trace lazy circles on the ankle closest to him.

Duo said nothing, just let Heero's hands grow bolder. Eventually the thumbs were working several spots on the soles of his foot, and if Hilde had actually been going for reflexology and not a pedicure, as he'd suspected, he could now understand why she'd been so gung-ho about it. He felt he might be enjoying it just a little too much.

"Ever see Pulp Fiction?" he asked Heero.

"No, but I've-"

"If you say you've read the book, I'll kick you," Duo warned, pulling his foot away slightly as if preparing to do so, but not so much that Heero would think he was telling him to stop.

"I wasn't going to say I read THE book," Heero said, "just that I've read pulp fiction, as in the genre. Like Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe."

Duo laughed. "You read that stuff? Marlowe, eh? I don't suppose you saw the movie?"

Heero shook his head, and turned his attention to Duo's other foot.

"Your taste in books sounds suspiciously like my taste in movies," Duo commented. Then Heero's fingers grazed one particular spot on his instep that made him arch his back and bite his lip.

Heero paused and took in the sight of Duo's head thrown back slightly. He glanced at Duo's foot again. He'd never have imagined having a foot fetish, but if touching Duo like that made him react that way, then he'd gladly use his mouth as well as his hands, just to try to get Duo to moan for him.

He'd found he really liked that sound. Even thinking about hearing it was making him hard.

Something Duo found out unexpectedly when the foot still nestled in Heero's lap came to rest right on Heero's crotch.

The next thing Heero knew, Duo had both feet tucked under him and his attention was on the movie.

"As I was saying," he said, as if he hadn't just looked like he was close to ecstasy. "There's this scene in Pulp Fiction where they are discussing foot rubs and whether or not it's considered cheating."

Heero was no longer plagued by an erection, after Duo's horrifying response. He said nothing, keeping his eyes focused on the images flitting across the television screen. He wondered if perhaps he should be the one watching TV from the floor this time. At least the distance between them would be physical that way.

"And one insists a foot massage is innocent, but he wouldn't want another GUY to do it, thereby contradicting his stance that a foot rub means nothing. You can tell he finds it would be too creepy to rub another guy's feet."

Heero had forgotten that Duo was still coming to terms with his sexuality. He'd already been well on the road to accepting his own, thanks to Quatre, but it hadn't been until he'd had sex with Duo, repeatedly, that he'd concluded that there was a reason why he'd never been comfortable having sex with women.

It didn't make any sense, because Duo had gone down on him once, and had shoved his dick in both Heero's ass and mouth on several occasions, and yet it seemed he found a foot massage was something to be ashamed of. Maybe Duo found it too intimate, the way he found shaking hands and kissing.

He supposed it was a good thing he hadn't given in to that impulse to suck on each of Duo's toes, and to run his tongue in between them.

It wasn't that he thought Duo had pretty feet, although they were well formed. It was Duo's responses that drove him wild. Because they were both men, Heero could better relate to what Duo was feeling in certain parts of his anatomy, and therefore he suspected it made it that much more intense, knowing exactly how Duo felt.

Not exactly, he corrected himself, because each person had different erogenous zones, although there were some areas that were almost guaranteed to elicit a pleasurable reaction, and not everyone found the same things arousing. However, he knew what it felt like to have his balls fondled, and he could only imagine how it would feel if a lover were to take one of them in his mouth. He could relate to that on a much deeper level than he could to a woman's reaction to clitoral stimulation.

Heero had always assumed that everyone had a ridiculous expression on their face when they climaxed. He'd had few orgasms of his own, in addition to the times he'd taken his needs into his own hands, but he'd been told by two different girls that he looked 'funny' at that critical moment.

It wasn't the sort of thing a guy wanted to hear, even if it were true. He hadn't taken it to heart, not like he had with the kissing fiasco, because he'd known the girls had been nervous during the act and were grasping at straws to lighten the awkwardness of the situation after they'd managed to attain orgasm as well. Heero didn't know if it were due to embarrassment on their parts because they hadn't seen any other sexual partners looking like he apparently had, or if they were surprised because they hadn't reached a climax during any other sexual encounters, which was his preference. Maybe he didn't do it all the time or with every girl he'd ever been with. As if there had been that many. He could count them on the fingers of one hand, exactly.

He hadn't always been watching Duo's face in the instant right after Duo's body tensed in warning, but he had found himself becoming addicted to everything there was about an aroused Duo. His moans, the way his body writhed, even the way Duo thrust into him, as if he had no control over his pelvis. And yes, the expression on Duo's face when he was watching. He didn't find it funny at all, just immensely satisfying that he'd been the one to cause it.

At first he'd chalked it up to being in control and being able to elicit such responses from Duo, but then Duo had made him come. The first time, he'd been ashamed and disbelieving, but it quickly became something he craved almost as much as Duo's own release. Quite simply put, he craved Duo.

It was why he found it so important, the idea of today being a 'day off' for the both of them.

It was why he didn't want the day to end. Although everything that would come to pass, starting with tomorrow, wasn't necessarily bad, he knew that he was in way over his head.

But as he also knew, there were much worse ways to die than by drowning.

tbc

~~~~~

About the names - with few exceptions, I actually choose original character names for a reason. Even Nadia and Janet had names that were rather...inspired! Leander means "man of lions" - heh. Cardea - "goddess of protecting the home." And Lisa Barton - well, I confess, I ripped that off from the dubbed version of Endless Waltz, because it stuck in my head as being in disagreement with the name Leia Barton from the Episode Zero graphic novel (which I still grumble about, because I'd have much rather seen the entire manga translated instead of having little end notes for each character. Cheap bastards).

Silver Wings - a brand of throwing knives. You can see a pic of 'em here: http://coolgadget.net/2pisiwithset.html

Marlowe - based on the novel The Little Sister, was a 1969 film starring James Garner as Philip Marlowe, private detective. The Big Sleep, published in 1939, introduced Marlowe to the public, and was, coincidentally, set in Los Angeles. It was later made into the 1946 movie of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart in the lead role.

The High Window - published in 1942. I thought the title was fitting, considering Heero's penchant for the balcony. Oh, did I neglect to mention it was also the title of a Philip Marlowe novel?

pulp fiction - a genre of novels sometimes described as "cheap paperbacks with colorful covers, overflowing with even more colorful prose." The word "pulp" referred to the low quality paper that was used for the text, despite the flashy covers. There were many genres that fell into the "pulp" family, including science fiction, mystery, suspense, western, and adventure. Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft join Chandler and Hammett as alums of the pulp era. A nice intro to pulp magazines can be found here: http://www.vintagelibrary.com/df.cfm?id=32

Remember the scene, those of you who saw the movie Pulp Fiction, where Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) discuss the rumor that their boss, Marsellus Wallace, had some schmuck thrown off a balcony for daring to give his wife a foot massage? Jules maintains it didn't mean anything, and Vincent insists the guy should have known better than to put his hands on their boss' wife in a "familiar manner." Jules disagrees that it can even be considered in the "same ballpark" as oral sex, as Vincent claims, until his partner asks if he would ever give a guy a foot massage, even egging him on by telling him he's been on his feet all day and could use one. Vincent maintains that every foot massage he'd ever given a woman meant "something" even if they like it didn't, which was what was "so cool about it." He added, "there's a sensuous thing going on." There ya go. Yet another pop culture reference, circa 1994.