Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell ❯ Recompense ( Chapter 64 )

The Edulcoration of Duo Maxwell - 64/?

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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, enough footnotes to choke an army of horses.

Spoilers: Nah

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.

Pairings to date: 2x1x2, 3+4, 4x3, 5+M/5xM, 9+6, past 2xH, past 4x1

Archived at:
http://www.atsui.org
http://sweetlysour.net
http://theforsa kenwk.com
http://www.gundam-wing-diaries.150m.com

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

~~~~~

Chapter 64 - Recompense

"I'm not a perfect person. There's many things I wish I didn't do, but I continue learning..." The Reason, Hoobastank

~~~~~

"Zodiac," Duo repeated, dumbfounded.

"Yes." Wufei's eyes met his, meaning they were really fixed on the video camera. Duo couldn't look away at first. When he did, he glanced at Meiran, who seemed both pleased and proud at the suggestion.

He'd obviously missed something.

"No."

That response came from Milliardo Peacecraft.

Quatre Winner, who was looking at Wufei speculatively, turned his eyes to the habitually argumentative executive in their midst.

"Would you care to elaborate on your reasons for refusing to consider Zodiac as a potential candidate?"

Quatre himself was quite curious, considering the suggested corporation was not one of the bidders. He thought it best to address Milliardo's concerns before putting Wufei on the spot.

"No, I would not."

Quatre glanced at Duo, who was sitting in a conference room by himself, watching the rest of them on a television screen much like the one his image was displayed on.

His expression, Quatre decided, was definitely intrigued.

"In that case," Quatre said carefully, "perhaps you'll allow me to present what I know about Zodiac."

He looked around the room briefly. Meiran's eyes were sparkling with excitement, Milliardo's expression was closed off, Wufei's was proud and defiant. Duo had propped his chin on his folded hands and was waiting. He gave a slight nod to Quatre.

"Zodiac was founded by Duke Dermail," he began, "who, coincidentally, is on Romefeller's board of directors. Since he stepped down at Zodiac and Treize Khushrenada took over the reins, the stocks have shown a rather consistent market value, after an impressive-"

"Winner," Milliardo said tiredly. "You're focusing too much on the financial part of the picture."

"I see," Quatre said. "Should I review the ethics demonstrated by Zodiac, compared to the known business practices and environmental concerns of the others?"

"Zodiac is ISO14000 certified," Duo supplied helpfully. "I believe they are one of the few who voluntarily pursued that."

Quatre nodded. "I believe so."

Wufei and Milliardo seemed to have a silent battle of wills going on, one that seemed to amuse Meiran. She caught Quatre looking at her and winked at him, then gave him a nod of encouragement.

"Gentlemen," he said. "It seems that we are making more of this issue than we need to."

All eyes were on him, and he spoke unwaveringly, gaining courage from what he was about to say.

"We need to remember that the reason we created Sanquhar was to move forward, to look to the future. Dwelling on what has happened in the past is fruitless. All we can do is use our past experiences, positive and negative, to make an informed assessment of those whose paths intersect ours now and in the future.

"The monetary value of the pharmaceutical division aside, as that aspect is the easiest to look at objectively, we should consider whether we make a stronger ally by offering it to Zodiac, or a stronger enemy of Romefeller by doing the same. I personally would prefer knowing that I did not hand over the tools for warfare, metaphorically speaking, to someone with a thirst for power that overcomes good sense.

"So the question is, from what we know of Zodiac, or Treize Khushrenada, or Duke Dermail and Romefeller, or any of these others who have expressed an interest, how do we know if we're doing the right thing?"

No one said anything for a while. Milliardo got up and walked to the window, turning his back on everyone else.

Wufei said quietly, "I believe that Khushrenada is the most likely to use the acquisition wisely."

"Do you fear repercussions from Dermail as a result?"

"I do not," Duo said quietly. "Fear is the bastard child of a lack of information and mistrust."

Meiran had moved to stand next to Wufei, the back of her hand brushing his in a silent show of support. Now was the time to let her husband demonstrate his ability to move forward; if Wufei trusted Treize Khushrenada, then so did she. The fact that he'd volunteered Khushrenada's name had made her heart swell with pride.

Milliardo Peacecraft could feel the tic in his jaw from keeping his teeth clamped tightly. He thought of his breakfast meeting with Dorothy Catalonia and of the way Treize had offered to lend legal support when he had his meeting scheduled with Romefeller.

"We should offer it to Zodiac," he said, keeping his back to the room, "but they may have no need for it."

"They don't need it," Duo's voice came over the speakerphone, and Quatre turned to the television again to see the look of steely determination on his face. "But that doesn't mean they might not want it anyway."

~~~~~

Quatre took a deep breath before getting out of the car. He could do this. As Meiran had told him, all the while looking disappointed that he'd missed the symbolism of her words, sometimes it was appropriate to wear a painted smile. Then she'd all but patted him on the shoulder as she assured him that she was confident that Quatre would know when he needed to conceal his battle scars and when to let someone see them and tend to them.

Then for some reason she started laughing, and he knew there was some sort of private joke behind her words, but he didn't dare ask for clarification.

He'd never hidden anything from Trowa, and he realized almost too late that the reverse was true as well. In fact, he was sure that he was one of the few people that Trowa was open with.

It made him feel guilty, the way he'd been receptive to everything except what Trowa was offering him.

He could feel the perspiration trickle down his neck and under his collar. He should have worn something more casual, but he'd wanted to look - he wasn't sure. Professional, competent, altogether different from what he'd been when Trowa...when Trowa...

When Trowa had gotten to know him. When Trowa had learned to respect him. When Trowa had given him the honor of considering him a best friend.

He supposed it didn't much matter, as he didn't want to spare any time to change his clothes, even if he'd had anything else to wear. He'd excused himself after the Sanq meeting and driven here at once.

Where it all began.

He got out of the car and started walking.

~~~~~

"Lucrezia Noin," Treize said, taking her hand in a firm handshake. "It has been a while."

"Yes," she agreed. "I appreciate your taking the time out of your day to see me."

"Always a pleasure." He waved a hand to indicate it was of no bother, and gestured to a chair.

"I assume you know that I'm not here for personal reasons, really," she said, taking a seat.

He sat behind his desk and picked up a paperweight, giving the appearance of examining it carefully, watching her expression over the object in his hands as he did so.

"You asked if I would mind giving you my opinion of Duke Dermail. This is not as a favor to a friend?"

Noin had always had a great amount of respect for Treize, back when she and Zechs first got involved. He'd always been the perfect gentleman, yet never treated her like a damsel in distress. He struck just the right balance, and Noin never wondered why he was so good at his job. He knew how to play an audience.

She wondered if she were going to be played as well.

"Duke Dermail has a granddaughter. You are aware of this?"

"Yes. Dorothy Catalonia."

"Would you say, from the information you possess, that Dermail and Miss Catalonia are on good terms?"

"There's no information that would lead me to the contrary."

Treize ran his fingers over the paperweight. "Have you spoken with Milliardo lately?"

She'd known he was going to play her like a fiddle, and he was in control of how long each note was held, but she managed to avoid sighing before responding. "Our paths crossed a couple of months ago."

"Do you ever plan on having children, Lucrezia?"

Treize had never used her first name, not since he'd realized she preferred to be addressed by her surname instead, a quirk she'd picked up in the military. The fact that he did so now meant he either wanted to exert his knowledge of that pet peeve, which would gain him little, or that he wanted to impress upon her the importance of what he was asking.

"I think it's appropriate to be married first," she said cautiously.

"So then you do plan to have children."

"I...I suppose, perhaps. I don't know. My job...I enjoy what I do, Treize. I cannot see myself raising a child with the hours I keep, nor can I see myself staying at home to become June Cleaver. There is more to raising a child than a single night of reckless passion." She clamped her lips together. The only person with whom she could even think of discussing such a thing, without being emotionally involved, that is, was working undercover on the opposite coast. The only person with whom she might possibly consider having this discussion with was right here in Los Angeles, and she wasn't sure she'd ever be ready to hear his views on the subject.

The last thing she needed was Zechs attempting to convert her into the Happy Homemaker. Not all women wanted to have children, and she had no desire to be thought of as little more than a broodmare.

"Do you suppose being a parent is the only way that someone feels loyalty for another human being?"

"Of course not." She'd lay down her life for Yuy if need be. She'd do the same for Zechs, no matter how much of an arrogant prick he was.

"Loyalty often must be earned," Treize said, nodding sagely. "What about responsibility?"

"Responsibility?"

"Do you suppose that one must be a parent to feel responsible for the well-being of another? Not as partners," he clarified. "As someone who relies on you as their primary caregiver, as their role model."

She thought of Zechs and Relena, and shook her head. "No."

Treize set the paperweight down, deliberately turning it so the side that had been away from Noin was now facing her.

Inside the smooth marble was a small photograph of a young girl. She was smiling, looking both precociously smug and genuinely happy. She thought an expression like that would be right at home on her partner's face.

"My daughter, Mariemeia," he said. He offered no other explanation, just looked at her expectantly.

Dermail and Dorothy. Zechs and Relena. Treize and Mariemeia.

She stood up, and he followed suit. She extended her hand.

"Thank you for your time, Treize."

As she reached the door, he said quietly, "remember what I told you, Lucrezia, about loyalty."

"I will," she said, and with that, she slipped out into the lobby. She could hear the phone ringing in his office as she closed the door behind her.

~~~~~

The seller was damned careful, much to Heero's dismay. He was going to need to be just a little more patient. He had to maintain the facade they'd created for him. He didn't want to be just a witness to a deal; that could too easily be dismissed. He needed to have it offered to him, if he wanted any audio that would be admissible in court.

Recorded transactions were always damned tricky in the first place, and Heero sometimes tired of the laws that often seemed determined to let guilty men walk free, and the lawyers who cheerfully allowed them to.

He impatiently hit the button on his monitor. He had an appointment with Hunter that had to be scheduled earlier than usual in order to accommodate his new assignment, and he didn't want to be late. He despised tardiness in others, and he didn't want the doctor to read anything into his actions should he arrive after his scheduled time.

Hunter was ready to see him immediately, and Heero only briefly lamented the loss of time to gather his thoughts before striding into the room. There was nothing he could do about it now, and sometimes it was the waiting that was the hardest part.

As he expressed to the psychologist when asked how his investigation was going.

"Do you consider yourself a patient man, Heero?"

"I consider myself capable of exercising patience when the situation calls for it."

Hunter nodded. Heero thought that he could perhaps write a program that could do the same thing. Spew a few questions from a list, make the appropriate acknowledgements, and in general, let Heero type in his own responses and draw his own conclusions. Or maybe something that used voice input, just so the computer could better mimic a human audience. It could even use the varying wavelengths of his voice pattern and extrapolate from there.

He'd definitely spent far too much time trying to look for signs of evasion or guilt in the last few recordings he'd listened to.

"I'd like to try something different today, Heero."

Sometimes Heero almost suspected the doctor could read his mind, because today he was expected to write a letter.

"It can be to anyone, about anything. I think you need to take your thoughts and make sense of them."

Heero looked skeptical. Hunter said, quietly, "no one, Heero, will ever read it. Not I, not the person you write it to. When you're done, if you choose, you can destroy it. But I believe this exercise is necessary." He chose his next words carefully. "I need to justify the end of our sessions somehow, Agent Yuy. Work with me."

The reward of freedom, freedom from having his thoughts and feelings analyzed, was enough to gain Heero's agreement.

Before Hunter left him alone in the room, he paused in the doorway. "No video surveillance will be used without your prior authorization," he said, then closed the door behind him.

Heero looked at the stack of white paper on the desk near him, and the selection of writing implements. Pens, pencils, felt tip markers.

He stood up, took the few steps needed to reach the desk, and ran a hand over the back of the chair before seating himself. He slid a sheet of paper from the stack and picked up a pencil.

He'd barely placed the tip on the paper when he frowned, set the pencil back down, and mulled over the selection of pens available. He selected a vibrant color, something that looked as though it would easily glide across the paper, and wrote his first word.

Duo.

~~~~~

Quatre knew he really shouldn't be here, at least not for another couple of months, when he'd be old enough to enter legally. The last thing he wanted was to cause Trowa more grief than he already had.

He squared his shoulders, put his hand on the knob, and opened the door, which was unlocked, despite the fact that he knew for a fact the bar was closed until later that evening.

He didn't know why he'd expected the interior to look different. It was exactly as he'd remembered it. His gaze took in the fact that the place was empty, as he'd expected. Thankfully this was not one of the days the bar opened early for breakfast.

He slowly turned his head toward the bar, and saw Trowa sitting on the counter, his palms flat on either side of him, his fingers gripping the curved edge slightly.

"Lock the door," Trowa said. "Please."

He fumbled a few times as he reached for the doorknob, then turned and locked it. When he turned back around, Trowa was standing not three feet from the door.

"I don't usually come here early anymore," he said. "But this week I thought perhaps I should."

Their proximity felt a bit stifling, and Quatre licked his lips nervously. Trowa nodded again and walked behind the bar, filling two glasses with ice and placing them on the counter.

His thumb activated the button on the water nozzle, and a light mist of water covered his hand as the spray hit the ice cubes. He replaced the water hose and slid one glass to the edge of the bar before taking a sip from his own.

Quatre picked up the glass and was tempted to hold it against his forehead in an effort to calm his racing heartbeat. Trowa said nothing, simply waited, and sipped.

Each time he swallowed, Quatre's eyes watched his Adam's apple bob, watched Trowa's lips as they pulled away from the rim of the glass. This was Trowa, for god's sake, what the hell was the problem?

"Trowa, I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said, making eye contact briefly before studying the contents of the glass in his hand. "I wanted to apologize."

He took a deep breath. "I am sorry for...a lot of things. For saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, and in general, being blind to a lot of things."

Trowa continued to sip at his water, letting Quatre have the floor.

"And...I thought a lot about that day, and what you told me on the phone." Another glance at the brunet showed he was listening intently, although a casual observer might not get that impression. But Quatre was not a casual observer.

Trowa was just as nervous, he realized. It gave him the courage to drain his water in one gulp and slam the glass on the countertop.

He walked around to the other side of the bar and removed the water from Trowa's hand, setting it down just as firmly.

"When I told my father I was gay," he said, "I had this whole speech prepared in my head, and in the end, I just blurted it out. When I went home to Henderson, I had a completely different speech prepared for my family, and again, all my carefully prepared words went out the window and I spoke from the heart instead."

Quatre placed one hand along Trowa's jaw line, and pressed their foreheads together. This was the feeling of coming home, he acknowledged. It had never been the bar or the patrons. It had always been right in front of him the whole time.

"I love you, Trowa," he said, then leaned in and kissed him.

He swallowed the breath Trowa had been holding, and deepened their kiss with all the pent up passion he'd been keeping in check since the first and only time he'd slept with Heero.

This time Heero was not going to come between them, intentionally or otherwise. His feelings for the two men could not compare, as he'd hinted to Heero on the phone the other day, and then Trowa moaned his name and his former roommate was the last thing on his mind.

Kissing was definitely much more intimate than sex, and kissing Trowa was unlike anything he'd ever shared with another living soul.

There was more between them than sex, and far more between them than simple friendship.

Trowa's hands were in his hair, and he was returning the kiss wildly, his breathing jagged and his tongue wrapped around Quatre's as much as was possible.

"Quatre," he said between breaths. "Quatre."

Trowa couldn't manage more than that, because every time he managed to get that much out, those lips were still there, still tempting as ever, and they were his, damn it. Not Heero's, not anyone else's.

He groaned Quatre's name several more times, his hands alternating between fisting themselves in the blond hair and running down Quatre's spine. When he felt a pair of hands cup his buttocks and pull him forward, he tilted his head back and allowed his neck to be ravaged by an overeager mouth.

"Trowa," Quatre whispered huskily. "Trowa, I love you. God, I was so blind, Trowa."

The jacket was slipped off Quatre's shoulders and it fell to his elbows. He removed one hand at a time from Trowa's hips, letting it drop to the floor.

"I want you, Quatre," Trowa said against the pulse of his neck. "I've always wanted you."

There was no place soft and even remotely comfortable in the entire bar, but Quatre was afraid to deny Trowa this. He'd withheld so much already. If he thought about it too much, he'd tense up, and that wouldn't help matters.

"Trowa," he said, his voice thick. He didn't know what his pleading tone was trying to convey, but the thought of withholding anything from Trowa at this point was incomprehensible.

His shirt was unbuttoned between kisses, and the brush of Trowa's bangs against his bare skin brought forth a bevy of goose bumps.

The hair continued to tease his skin as more flesh was revealed, the shirt untucked, the pants unfastened. Quatre leaned back against the bar, noting thankfully that the tap handles were a good foot away and not digging into his spine.

Trowa's breath was at his groin, and Quatre arched his back as his semi-erect member was engulfed. He swelled in Trowa's mouth, and his fingers buried themselves into the brown locks. He could feel a slight crunch beneath his fingers as they clutched desperately, convulsively, in Trowa's hair. His hips bucked as his lover sucked and laved and teased.

"Trowa..." Quatre's voice was slightly garbled. Trowa acknowledged the warning with a low humming noise, and if he minded the tug to his scalp, he didn't stop until Quatre's body slumped a bit, sated, then he allowed Quatre's softening cock to slip from his lips.

Quatre was still leaning against the bar, wincing slightly as Trowa used the water nozzle to spray inside his mouth, rinsing and then spitting.

Before he could determine how he felt about that, Trowa's mouth met his again, and Quatre could feel the warmth contrasting with the cold water, as well as the lust and barely contained hunger, before Trowa reluctantly pulled back. He wrapped his arms around Quatre and rested his chin on the blond's shoulder.

"Quatre," he sighed, his heartbeat erratic. Quatre's arms came up behind him, his fingertips digging into Trowa's shoulders. Several deep breaths later, Trowa had managed to get both his heart rate and his raging hard-on under control.

"I'm sorry, Quatre," he said, his voice muffled by the expensive shirt half hanging off the other man. "I didn't mean to do that." He looked into Quatre's eyes and removed one arm enough to tuck some of the mussed blond hair behind one ear. "It's not just about the sex - it's never been just about the sex, and I don't view you as a possession, despite my rather proprietary actions. It's just that I've waited so long...I feel like I want to sample it all."

Quatre's mind quickly processed everything, slotting actions and words into their places.

"Maybe I don't always want to be a dog traveling with good men," he murmured, his eyes taking in every feature of Trowa's face, from the shape of his brows to the depths of emotion in his eyes to that surprisingly eager mouth. He moved his hand to trace his fingers along one cheekbone, down to the chin, and along the jaw until he reached Trowa's ear.

He frowned as Trowa started to laugh softly.

"What?"

"It tastes horrible," Trowa said, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

Quatre stared at him in disbelief, then his lips curled up and his laughter joined Trowa's. "It does, doesn't it?" he chuckled. "The trick is to avoid contact with your taste buds."

"Mmm," Trowa said as he nuzzled Quatre's neck, just below his earlobe. "Perhaps I'll have to learn to deep throat, then."

Quatre just laughed harder.

tbc

~~~~~

ISO14000 - the International Organization for Standards is better known for ISO9000, a series of quality standards, but ISO14000 is a set of standards applied to environmental management.

In case you've forgotten the Arabic proverb Quatre is referring to: "A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot; a dog traveling with good men becomes a rational being."

Proud Member of SDHE, damn it.