--------------------- Brussel Sprouts ~ A Moment of Haven ~ --------------------- A little morning tea and toast, and Wufei would be on his way. He inhaled deeply of his brew, and fancied he was taking in the fresh suburban air. "This town is most appropriately named." Duo didn't take his eyes off the toaster. He wanted to be ready to pounce. "Yeah, Heero's a big softie that way." "This location had many things going for it," Heero answered calmly, watching Duo watching the toaster. "I thought perhaps it was a good sign if the civilians here thought of the town in the same way we did." Duo made a disdainful sound. "And what, the guys in Brussels all think of their town as a brussel sprout or something?" "Brussel sprouts are nutritious. They're good for you." The response made Duo tear his eyes from the toaster just long enough to roll them in Heero's direction. "You're so grasping at straws." "So are you." The toast popped out of its cozy little nest with a cheerful ding. Duo snatched the slices up before they even had time to settle on the springs and dropped them on two waiting plates. "Would you say Brussels has been good for you?" "Difficult to say," Wufei answered, accepting a plate with a nod. "There were a lot of things tied up in my move there." "Hmm, true enough." He handed the other plate off to Heero, who could apply honey to the toast much more meticulously than he could ever want to. "Well, if you end up moving somewhere else, I guess we'll find out, then." Wufei took his first bite of toast contemplatively, wondering if the town had been good for the two of them, or simply each other. They'd fared decently well while at the school. Perhaps it had only been the end of the war that had introduced peace to their lives. "I've thought about Old Brussels." "Yeah?" Duo reclaimed the toast from Heero and sawed it in half. "I don't think we usually go out that way much farther than Lena's." Heero elbowed him lightly when he absently licked the honey off the knife. It wasn't a communal knife, but they had company, and manners were to be observed. "There were plans to revitalize sections of Old Brussels, weren't there?" Wufei picked a crumb off the corner of his crust. "They're still under discussion. I think we'll have to wait and see what they end up with. Some of their ideas seem sound, while others..." Seemed like typical government stuff to Duo. "Sounded like they were trying too hard, if you ask me." "There are a lot of lobbies that are pushing for keeping the historic character of the place." "Which way do you want them to go?" Heero asked. An interesting question. Wufei took a moment to ponder it. "I think I'd like to see them preserve its historic value, while doing what they have to do to update it and make it more relevant in today's society." Duo brushed a bread crumb from the corner of his mouth after popping the last corner of his toast in. "Sounds simple, Wufei, but let's hear a plan, yeah? What does that all mean?" The idea of moving to Old Brussels had only occurred to him the previous night. He hadn't had much time to give it the thought it required. "It's been a while since I've gone down there myself. But I think a lot of the character would be ruined if they succeed in opening some of the large, retail spaces they are discussing. There are already many storefronts on the streets there. Small, local stores that keep the neighborhood going, or that serve niche markets. Some advertising, perhaps, and a facelift on some of the buildings. I remember thinking that 'old' should mean historic, not tired." He paused to take a sip of his tea. "I miss living somewhere with history." Duo flicked a crumb irritably toward the center of the table. "Ugh, I lived somewhere with history, thanks. The kind of history that makes a place tired, the people tired, and lots of it. I kind of prefer a clean start." Heero tapped his elbow against Duo's. "History will always be there, no matter how far you try to run from it." The response only made Duo pensively rotate his cup a half turn on the table top before drinking from it. "Yeah, I guess." After a second, he blinked his mood away and started up in a new direction. "What about the area around the university? It's an interesting mix of old-school and trendy out there. And, you know, access to the school and stuff, if you wanted it." "Yes, that is another possibility." One Wufei had considered before, never quite coming to a solid conclusion. "Maybe you could work in a night class or something?" Also something he had considered before. He gave it yet another moment of consideration now before answering, studying it in the light of this place and the ideas it had brought forth. "I feel that one should devote one's life to study, not merely dabble in it." "It's not all or nothing," Heero pointed out reasonably. "Whoa." Duo leveled an impressed look at him. "Coming from Mr. Dedication himself." Heero only gave him a sidelong glance of dubious glarehood before continuing his thought. "One can be devoted to study, even if one's attention is not completely devoted to study." Another sip of his tea bought Wufei some time. "I suppose that's true." Satisfied with the concession, Heero moved on. "I should follow up with Relena on that, see how she was doing in that course she was auditing." Duo leaned back in his chair, stretching slightly. "I never got the point behind auditing a class. If you don't need the credits, why not just buy the book and read it on your own?" Heero had read a good number of books on his own, but he still understood the other side of the fence. "Some subjects benefit from open discussion. And especially when you're auditing a class because you aren't sure you can allocate that much time to it. In that case, it may be difficult to stick to a studying schedule on your own. It helps to have someone or something assist in keeping you on track." "Hey, that'd be pretty cool, yeah?" Duo turned to Wufei with a grin. "If you and Relena could take the same classes. Then you could be like study buddies or something." For some reason, this caught Heero's fancy. "There's an interesting idea." "Actually, ha, you could just get yourself assigned to bodyguard duty during her classes and then you could be there and not even have to pay school fees or anything. You could just happen to learn since you were sitting there anyway. Man, it must be boring for her guards to hang around all that time. Well, not that they're not used to it, I guess. It's not like the Senate floor is all that exciting, either. Not that my attention ever strayed while we were guarding her. Nope, no sirree, one hundred percent focused on the princess' safety. Absolutely." He nodded piously, glancing at his partner out of the corner of his eye to make sure his devotion was being noted. Heero snorted and let there be a significant pause before replying. "She tells me it's easier when we're the ones assigned to her." "I think she means me." He wagged his finger at himself just to make it clear whom he was talking about. "She was probably just throwing you in there to make you feel better, because we all know what a stickler you can be for the rules when it comes to this stuff." "I have no desire to negatively affect her quality of life." "Trust me, babe, if or when she brings a boy home, your glaring is totally going to affect her quality of life in a really negative way.' Heero answered with all the serene self-assurance of someone completely convinced of his righteousness. "If he's right for her, he'll withstand my glaring. My glaring will only weed out the unworthy, thus improving her quality of life." Duo pinched his cheek. "You are so adorable." Heero shook the offending fingers off and glared at him. He grinned for a few seconds before turning back to their guest. "Hey, since you and Lena are both in the same town, you guys should totally hang out with each other once in a while. I mean, not like romantically, 'cuz then Heero would have to castrate you first, but, you know, just like buddies. I'm sure you two could find a lot to talk about." "I believe that Relena already has someone like that." All things considered, Wufei was happy to divert the risk of castration to another party. Heero pinned him with a laser-beam look, but his tone was mild. "Really?" "She was seen in the company of Quatre Winner, while he was in town." Heero's look turned into one just as intense, but in a different way. "Really. I think I'm about due to call her. Maybe Quatre, too." "You are so adorable." Duo patted the top of his head fondly. "I get it when we're talking about some stranger dude, but you'd think that you'd be more trusting when it came to one of us. Though okay, yeah, I get your point about Quatre. But hey, it was the holidays, man. People get more stressed during the holidays. Like you said, maybe he just had to let it all out, and maybe he's the Q-ball we all know and love again. It's not like he needs to trade on her good name to move up in the world." "I think he's still due for a phone call." "What if they start comparing notes?" "Is Quatre still in town?" he asked Wufei. "No." He nodded confidently. "Then I see no occasion for them to be comparing notes." "The more you stifle her, the more she will rebel," Wufei counseled quietly. Heero seemed a bit nonplussed for a moment. "I... don't think I've crossed that line. But... I don't think I know where it is, either." Duo bumped their knees together lightly underneath the table. "She gives you signs, man. Just pay attention once in a while, and stop assuming that you're right." A protest was prepared and almost delivered, but he paused again for a few more seconds of silent consternation. Duo rolled his eyes. "Okay, Heero, I know this protection gig runs in your blood or something, but really, seriously, save your strength for the things that actually need worrying about." "There are lot of things that need worrying about." "Yeah, but most of those things already have people worrying about them. No one ever said you had to worry about each and every one of them personally." "I'm very selective about the things I worry about," Heero retorted defensively. "For instance, I don't worry about most of the things you worry about." Thinking about those things made him grimace briefly before he rallied back with firm resolve. "Okay, that's a good step one. You accept that I got all of my shit covered. Now find someone else and trust that they've got all of their shit covered, too, and cross them off your to-do list." When Heero frowned, Duo turned back to Wufei. "Hey, you got anything good you're worrying about? Something you can save Heero the trouble of worrying about?" "I have my own concerns, Maxwell," he answered blandly. "I assure the both of you, I would like to keep them for my own." "Fair enough. So--" "Right now," Heero cut in, "I'm sure Wufei is concerned about making his flight on time, should this conversation persist any longer, so let's clean up and save the rest for later, okay?" Duo sighed discontentedly. He couldn't argue the timing. "Fine. So long as you start worrying about how ballistic I'm going to go on your ass if you try to duck out on the rest." _________________________________________ This piece of fiction is the intellectual property of the little turnip that could. The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property of someone else. The author can be con- tacted at jchew at myrealbox.com. This has been an entirely automated message. http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html last modified : 7/6/2008 03:09:36 PST