Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ Alea Iacta Est ( Chapter 45 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 45/?

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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, excessive use of footnotes.

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 45 - Alea Iacta Est

A young woman with short dark hair turned the page of the magazine in her lap, but she wasn't reading it. Her thoughts were a jumble of past and present.

She wondered if she was making a mistake. Things hadn't ended well between the two of them. Not that they'd ended badly, really, it was just impossible to stop trying to shift the blame in her head.

It was easy to place all of it on his shoulders alone, but to be honest, she carried her own share of what had gone wrong. Maybe if they'd both just worked a little harder, the relationship might not have fizzled away into nothing. As with any argument, things had been said that neither of them meant, but perhaps they'd built them up into things that seemed much bigger than they really were.

Maybe she'd expected too much of him. She'd known how demanding running a business was.

On the other hand, she had needs, too. She had her own job, and she still managed to make time to see him whenever possible. Sometimes it seemed as thought he'd been doing his best to push her away, and eventually she just got tired of trying.

Besides, he didn't seem too concerned when it ended. Angry, perhaps, but not actually upset. Like the biggest hurt was to his pride.

She should have her head examined. She hoped he wouldn't be angry when she showed up unannounced.

They began boarding for her flight, and she picked up her carryon bag. It was too late to do anything about it now.

And if things didn't work out the way she'd hoped, she knew a certain woman of Chinese heritage who had been willing to lend a sympathetic ear on occasion over the past few months, all without interjecting her own opinion.

She just hoped she wouldn't need to take advantage of that. She hated burdening people she considered her friends.

Several hours later, the plane was still sitting in the runway and all passengers had been diverted to other flights. She wondered if it was worth all this hassle. Just her luck that there were some 'unexpected technical difficulties.' She was going to miss the connecting flight for sure, and would be lucky to get there by late morning or early afternoon.

After all this, if he said one thing to piss her off when she got there, she'd stuff as much of that hair of his right in his mouth and hope he choked on it.

~~~~~

When the phone in the apartment rang, Wufei looked at it with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation.

"Expecting someone?" Meiran drawled from where she was reading the latest novel in one of the mystery series she seemed so fond of lately.

He got up from the armchair where he'd been flipping through a book of his own, unable to properly focus on the words in front of him, and answered.

As he'd suspected, it was Montague.

"Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner," the policeman said. "There were a few problems."

"You weren't able to lift the prints?"

"Actually, I got a really nice thumbprint, right above the label. Thought it wouldn't lift properly, with the label so close to it. I wanted to remove the label first, but I didn't want to risk disturbing the prints further. Didn't matter, though, as the majority of the print was intact. However, when I tried to access the database..." he trailed off for a moment, and it sounded to Wufei as if he were covering the mouthpiece to bark an order at one of the other officers in the station.

Wufei remembered the falling sheep on the computer screen and had a sinking feeling that someone had installed some sort of virus or worm that made the database inaccessible. Suddenly he wondered why this was so important to him. What had he hoped to accomplish, anyway?

Then Montague was back.

"Well, I have good news, and some news that isn't bad, but I found it...interesting."

"What's the good news?"

"I got a match, and can give you a name. Heero Yuy. No priors."

That seemed encouraging to Wufei. It was what he'd wanted, right? And at least the man wasn't using an alias, that he knew of. Duo had never introduced his new 'friend' as anything other than just 'Heero,' so maybe he knew nothing more than Duo did.

"The funny thing is," Montague continued, "the guy has no criminal record, because all of us local stations would have access to that database. But Yuy's name was a hyperlink as well, so naturally, I clicked on it."

He paused, and Wufei wanted to reach through the phone to throttle him. What did he think this was, mystery theater? He gave in and gave Montague what the man was apparently waiting for.

"And?"

"And I didn't have the necessary security clearance. For whatever reason, any further information on Yuy is restricted to those employed by the federal government."

~~~~~

Duo picked up the jigsaw puzzle box, squinted at the piece in his hand, and handed it to Heero.

Heero accepted it, took one look at the box, and put it in one of the three piles they'd had sorted so far.

"That looks like water to you? Not tree bark?"

"Water."

"Ya sure?"

"Reasonably so."

Duo continued sorting through his portion of edge pieces and putting together the ones that formed the left edge of the picture. Heero already had the right edge and the top of the puzzle assembled and was working on what looked like a bit of shrubbery.

The bag of Fritos was open and every now and then one of them would reach into the bag and take a few out, followed by a sip from the last bottle of beer, which they were sharing.

"These things are a lot saltier than I remember them being," Duo said, eating two of them and taking a swig.

"Why Fritos?" Heero asked without looking up from the section he was assembling. He picked up the box lid that Duo had set down and frowned. "This looks like a Bird of Paradise," he said, his brows furrowing slightly.

"I got them because they were on sale. Same with the beer. Bird of Paradise? Is that a problem?"

"There is snow on the ground in spots," Heero said. "I don't think these plants bloom in the winter. You really bought them because they were on sale?"

"Well, yeah, isn't that what the average guy does? My mom was a coupon freak," Duo said, realizing what he thought was part of the left side actually fit as part of the ground edge. "I don't think that's snow," he added. "I think it's a puddle, but it's reflecting the clouds overhead."

Heero took another look at the picture on the box. "Hmmm." He finished putting together the pieces forming the Bird of Paradise shrub and pushed it aside, then started sorting through the pieces that they assumed made up the nearby koi pond. "I don't know what other guys did, but the few times I've had beer, we didn't just go out and look for a sale."

He looked up at Duo briefly. "You went in and got cheap beer, sure, but you didn't really comparison shop too much. It made you look too young to buy beer in the first place, like a kid in a candy store, so you had an idea of what you wanted, you went in, and you got it. And we weren't beer snobs, but we didn't always go for the practically generic brand. We had some standards."

Actually, Heero had always been the one to go in and buy the beer during that time he'd been working up north, because everyone else thought it was funny the way he'd get carded every single time. His lack of facial hair always made him look much younger than his peers. It was nice to be such a source of amusement, he thought testily. He rubbed his chin and noted once again how smooth it was, and how unlike Duo's. Sometimes he wondered if he had a testosterone deficiency. Then he peeked at Duo beneath his long lashes and decided that, if he did, it certainly hadn't affected his sex drive.

"So import or domestic, in your vast experience?" Duo said, wanting to laugh at the way Heero had rolled his eyes before lowering his gaze to the puzzle again. "Man, I really need to stop eating these," he added, taking a swallow of beer to wash down another handful of chips.

"When I was in Buffalo," Heero said, "imported meant from Canada, which was practically in our backyard, so it was a big joke to call it that. And we drank Goebel's back then," he put one piece they'd set aside for the pond back into the unsorted pile.

"Joe Bell's?"

"Mmm hmmm. Cheap, but not that bad."

Duo found Heero had rapidly slipped back into his habit of dropping little bits of information as he weren't saying anything that Duo didn't already know.

"When were you in Buffalo?"

"Back when a few people needed my help with something," Heero said, not really answering Duo's question. Duo knew better than to point that out.

Duo was amazed at how quickly Heero's fingers moved, and how adept he was at identifying pieces. He was still trying to fit together two pieces that were obviously mismatched. Finally he got one of the pieces where it belonged and he completed the outside of the puzzle.

"I left all my beer choices to the recommendations from my roommate's older brother," Duo said. "He was the beer connoisseur."

"Meaning he'd had brands from at least five different countries, and of three different alcohol contents."

"Something like that," Duo said. "But he loved the ones with the interesting names. La Guillotine. Delirium Tremens. Arrogant Bastard. Dead Horse. Stuff like that."

"We liked Haffenreffer's Private Stock, too," Heero said suddenly.

"Was it as good as your Joe Bell's?"

"The bottle caps had little rebus style puzzles in them," Heero said.

"Let me guess." Duo leaned forward slightly. "It was the first time you got drunk, because you kept wanting to open another bottle just for the puzzle."

Heero shrugged, an admission of guilt if he ever saw one, and Duo wanted to slap him on the back like they were old pals, maybe tease Heero some more, but he didn't. Not just because Heero was across the table from him and the logistically, he'd need to get up and walk around the table, effectively ruining the mood, but also because he didn't know how long Heero would continue to be this open with him.

He wondered if there was some deep dark reason why Heero didn't drink, or if he was just the type who wanted to be comfortable around someone before he allowed himself a drink. He had point blank refused the champagne that first night, but had consumed two and a half beers over the last couple of hours.

"How are you doing that so fast?" Duo asked, realizing that Heero had the puzzle more than half done.

"While you were busy trying to force two pieces together that were obviously a mismatch," Heero said, "I sifted through the obvious matches, then I started looking at the ones that didn't jump out as fitting anywhere. Sometimes no matter how you turn them, they still aren't the piece you need," he demonstrated with the piece in his hand, turning it this way and that. "But other times, you just have to look at the big picture," and he gestured to the photograph on the box, "and try something you overlooked the first time."

He snapped together two more pieces, then joined them with three more already assembled pieces before attaching them to Duo's now completed left-hand side.

That action, combined with Heero's last words, seemed wrought with meaning, but Duo knew he wasn't ready to analyze that any more than he'd been to accept the foot massage from Heero.

"Hey," Duo said, "there's a moon visible in the sky overhead." He pointed to the picture on the box that was fast being replicated on the table in front of them.

Heero peered at the section he'd just assembled and noticed a faint sphere half-hidden by the cloud cover.

"Hmmm," he agreed.

"Were you born on a Monday?"

This time Heero looked at him. "No, on a Tuesday."

"Oh. I was born on a Thursday. Do you remember how that poem goes?"

"What poem?"

"The one that starts out...Monday's child is full of grace..."

Heero looked at him questioningly, and Duo shrugged. "Moon, Monday, what can I say, my mind makes some weird leaps of logic at times." He was surprised to see a slightly pained look cross Heero's face, just for a second, before that subtle smile teased the corners of his lips instead. God, Heero had a beautiful mouth.

Then Heero recited the poem. "Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace. Wednesday's child is full of woe; Thursday's child has far to go. Friday's child is loving and giving; Saturday's child works hard for a living. But the child that's born on the Sabbath Day, is bonny and blithe, and good and gay."

Duo was glad he was more than well aware that 'gay' meant something entirely different at the time the poem had been written, whenever that had been.

"You have a mind like a steel trap," he commented.

Heero shook his head. "It's just a matter of what appeals to you, or what triggers your recall, and the things that connect events in your memory to other memories you have. Like a continuous chain of things remembered."

"Think a full moon affects people?"

"The moon affects the tides," Heero pointed out. "Perhaps its gravitational pull is responsible for the 'studies' that have pointed to positive correlations between phases of the moon and incidences of crime and mental instability."

Heero seemed to exert a gravitational pull of his own, Duo thought, and the later the hour, the harder it was to resist, which made him double his efforts anew each time he felt the temptation to give in.

He couldn't explain his sudden bout of cold feet, considering that he should be enjoying every minute he had with Heero before they parted ways.

"Even the word 'lunacy' comes from the moon," Heero added, not seeming to realize that he was the only one assembling the jigsaw puzzle by then.

Duo reached for a few more Fritos and just watched Heero work. His hair was in his eyes again, but even the tousled bangs couldn't conceal the vivid blue the way the colored contacts did. Not when Heero would actually look at him, even if for a second.

Heero was well aware of everything Duo said and did. His body had been thrumming with nervous energy since Duo's foot had brushed against his half erect penis earlier.

Duo was distracted, and it hadn't escaped Heero's notice that he seemed shy and virginal all of a sudden, more so than he had that first night.

It bothered Heero. He didn't know what to do other than to remove Duo's clothing and show Duo with his body what the other man had come to mean to him.

It would only be a physical demonstration of attraction, perhaps dangerous in the potential for an ambiguous message being delivered, but Duo seemed to thrive on danger, the same way he did.

Duo hadn't sent him on his way earlier as he'd both hoped and feared he would, and now he had to see this through, until the final curtain call. He reached out and stopped Duo from putting a puzzle piece in his mouth instead of a corn chip.

Duo was slightly startled by the brief contact. "Ever take an astronomy class?" he asked, in what Heero assumed was an attempt to keep a conversation going. 'Gets kind of loud in here when you do nothing more than listen to your own thoughts,' Duo had told him earlier in the week. Obviously he'd been speaking from experience.

"Actually, yes, I did. Another of my UCLA electives," Heero said. "Mount Sierra wasn't big on liberal arts offerings. It's why they have a three year bachelor's program instead of four."

"Tell me three things you remember from that class."

Heero sat back in his chair and thought for a moment.

"One, constellations are nothing more than manmade mnemonic devices for finding certain stars. Two, one of the easiest constellations to find is the Big Dipper, because six of its seven stars are rather bright. And three, Libra is the only constellation of the Zodiac that represents an inanimate object, and it was the Romans who felt the need to symbolize justice with the scales of balance. Which is rather ironic since Libra is composed of the dimmest stars. Although, to be poetic, you could liken it to blind justice."

'Love and justice aren't the only things that are blind,' Meiran's voice echoed in Duo's mind.

"Are you a Libra?"

"I don't follow astrology," Heero said, neatly avoiding something personal once again, like narrowing down when his birthday might be.

"Why not?"

"I don't believe that my fate and personality were determined by the alignment of the stars and other celestial bodies at the moment I was born," Heero replied. It seemed as though most of his attention was back on the jigsaw puzzle.

What do you believe in, then? Duo wondered, although he wasn't sure if that question was meant for Heero or for himself.

Heero heard the question, as Duo hadn't yet realized he'd spoken it aloud. He looked up and gazed into Duo's eyes, seeing two tiny Heeros reflected back at him.

He used to have an answer to that question ready immediately, but after Kitty's death, it had become false, because he no longer held that same firm belief. But looking into Duo's eyes, and having spent the last week with him, he knew he would have no trouble saying it and meaning it, just like he had all those months ago.

"Myself."

~~~~~

"Let me guess," Meiran said as Wufei hung up the phone. "Whatever you did, didn't pan out the way you wanted it to."

"I'm not sure," Wufei said slowly. "I think it did, but..."

"Ah, Chang," she said brightly. "Alea iacta est."

"What?"

"It's Latin," she said, grinning at him.

"I KNOW it's Latin. What does it mean?"

"Not interested in where I picked up Latin from?"

The woman could be maddening at times. "Meiran. Where did you learn Latin?"

"I don't know Latin," she said. "I only know a few Latin phrases. Know who taught them to me?"

"Your bandesh instructor?"

"Funny, Chang. Watch it, or I'll use what I've learned to make sure you're disarmed, and you know how I would hate to deprive myself of such a fine weapon. I have always enjoyed the way you handle your 'sword' in combat."

"I don't know, Meiran," he said tiredly, not in the mood to flirt back.

She remained undeterred. "I'll give you another one. You should be well acquainted with it. Ignoratio elenchi."

A logical fallacy or irrelevant conclusion, Wufei mused with interest. She was right. He had been well acquainted with the term when he was still practicing law. It referred to an argument that was purportedly supposed to prove one thing, but instead proved something completely different and totally irrelevant.

He'd seen it in practice in the courtroom. Fortunately the prosecuting attorneys he'd faced had not been able to get the jury to fall for it, and those were the cases he'd felt best about winning, because it was clear there was little evidence in those situations that could possibly justify finding his clients guilty.

He remembered one prosecutor spending nearly half an hour expounding on the evils of unarmed assault, and how it affected the community, and yet, had no evidence to prove the defendant was guilty of such a heinous crime, as it had been painted by then. He'd been hard pressed to keep from looking smug as the Not Guilty verdict had been read to the courtroom.

"Hilde and I used to spend a lot of time together when you and Duo were working your magic," Meiran said. "I'll bet not even Duo knows she took Latin in college. She taught me quite a few phrases. Alea iacta est," she repeated. "The die is cast."

tbc

~~~~~

Goebel Beer - out of production since 2000. The Goebel Brewing Company was sold to Strohs, which was then taken over by Pabst. Initially, I had pronounced it as "Go-bulls" but all my college chums who drank it by the case (and the cases were very nice wooden crates that worked wonderfully as end tables) pronounced it "Joe Bell's," so I bow to their "superior" knowledge. Kinda moot now that the beer isn't even in existence anymore. From a purely academic standpoint, of course.

La Guillotine Belgian Ale - 9% alcohol by volume. Same brewery (Huyghe Brewery) and same ABV for Delirium Tremens, which is just a gutsy name for a beer.

Arrogant Bastard Ale - Stone Brewing Company, 7.2% ABV.

Dead Horse India Pale Ale - McNeill's Brewery, 5.05% ABV.

Haffenreffer's Private Stock, or "malt liquor with the imported taste" - Miller Brewing Company, 6.87% ABV. There really are little rebus puzzles under the caps. Some say they get easier to solve the more Haff's you quaff, other's say they become something out of Dante's Inferno. Except by then they aren't exactly that eloquent and are rather incapable of making cultural references to their particular circle of hell.

Bandesh - Ancient form of Indian fighting. The principle tenet is to defeat an armed enemy without killing him, upholding the Hindu belief in the sanctity of life. In bandesh competition, the winner is the one who disarms his opponent. "The techniques of bandesh were devised several hundred years ago to permit an armed warrior to use his weapon to immobilize the opponent by means of a joint lock or strangle." (courtesy David Mitchell's The Complete Book of Martial Arts, albeit once removed)