Puzzles

Celesta SunStar

I make no money from this work, and I thought that six years was long enough for sitting and gathering dust. Hope you like it.

'All right, where is he?' Duo thought to himself as he wandered around the second floor of the modest house that Quatre had set aside for the five pilots this time. 'Someone has to tell Q that three floors, an attic, a basement and at least six bathrooms does not a modest house make.' He reflected as he found the southwestern corner study. 'AH HA! Here you are… no, here you're not.'

Heero looked up for a bare fraction of a second to scowl at the unwelcome visitor to his domain. "Get out, Duo." 'Ah yes the wonders of best friendship.'

"No 'Hello', no 'How are you? Your callous treatment cuts me to the heart." Duo dramatically sagged against the doorjamb, and delightedly watched the frown line between Heero's brows deepen a fraction.

"No. Leave." 'Yep, he is truly the master of one-word sentences. But what's he doing this time?'

"Modding a new avatar for WoW again, Heero? I thought 4000 avatars were enough to play in the same game, but guess I was wrong." 'And he hates babbling.' "You should try other hobbies man, like gardening. But come to think of it you would probably start strategic planning of how exactly to use your stash of Super-Soakers and my stash of cherry bombs to get the gophers out of the lawn, which would be a bit hard on the lawn and kinda defeat the purpose, and…" Duo jumped out of the doorway and yanked the door shut in time to intercept the paintball round coming at him. "I guess I'll see you around lunchtime, huh?" he called back through the door and smiled at the second splatter. It was a good thing the paint was water-based. Quatre had objected to bullets in the house last time, so Heero was restricted to paintball guns unless there was an emergency. 'And it's not like those things still don't hurt when they hit you.' Duo left Heero's current domain and thought for a second.

Okay, where to go next. He's not in the library, Northeast study maybe?' But when he bounced into that room after five minutes of searching, he found Quatre instead.

"Man Quatre, this is not a modest house, and why don't you provide maps for your visitors?"

"Have you tried the living room, Duo? It gets some of the best light this time of day. Wufei is probably there."

"Umm, no… how'd you know I was looking for him?"

"I heard the shots earlier, Trowa is out looking at balconies or some such for that sniper job he has in a couple of weeks, the first thing you do in here is complain, and I haven't heard any chases or roars of indignation or lectures since yesterday. Why do like you annoying Heero and Wufei so much?" The aristocratic blonde didn't even look up from his computer as he listed off their friends and fellow pilots. Then he abruptly tapped a key. "Checkmate." And he turned the chair around to face the door.

"Well Heero needs to loosen up, the last time I pinched his butt he said he was going to wax my eyebrows off." 'I love hearing him come up with new threats, and that one was pretty good.'

"Maybe you shouldn't pinch his butt then." Quatre offered smiling. "It only makes him homicidal."

"But I like him grumpy and homicidal, it makes life interesting."

Quatre snorted. "And Wufei," he prompted.

'Come on, you know this already.' "'Cause he's hot when he gets mad." He offered with a roll of his eyes.

"Why don't you just talk to him, Duo?"

"I don't know what he'd think about the fact that I think he's hot." 'Why do I tell Q these things? Oh yeah, he called me on this same subject last year and when I didn't talk about it, he scared me worse then Heero ever could. I'll never look at chocolate cake as harmless ever again.'

"If you'd stop teasing him maybe he'd take you seriously."

"But I'm getting him to want to get his hands on me."

"To maim you, Duo."

"Well yeah, small steps and all that."

Quatre laughed, "Get out of here and go bug your crush."

'Good idea, so… living room huh?'

'Yep there he is, now how to get to him this time. Hey, that Rubix cube I got awhile ago is pretty annoying, maybe he'd like it.' Decision made, Duo tiptoed back to his room.

He bounced into the living room and flung himself down on the couch.

Wufei glanced up when Duo didn't say anything right away but returned to his reading when Duo managed to continue not saying anything. 'If he thinks I want quiet time, he won't say anything until this thing gets on his nerves.' Duo started turning sides randomly.

It took about five minutes for the muffled plastic clacking sound to penetrate Wufei's shell of concentration, but once it did he placed his bookmark and set the book down. 'Not quite annoyed, but hey, whatever works.'

"What do you have there?" Wufei asked from his comfortable overstuffed chair.

Duo sighed again, 'yes, he took the bait,' and started tossing the Rubix Cube up in the air and catching it as it came down. 'I don't think he can tell what it is yet.' "It's an old puzzle game I found in a junk shop a couple of days ago." He answered, still tossing it up and down. "I thought it might be interesting, but I still can't get a handle on it."

"And you are in here with it because..." 'He doesn't want to interrupt my quiet time, how sweet. I wonder if it's the Kool-Aid or the mustard prank he's remembering.'

"Well, Trowa's out, and it's not his sort of thing anyway," Duo answered absentmindedly, still tossing the object and catching it. "Chess is more Quatre's thing, and Heero would end up annoyed and probably shoot it." He chuckled a bit and flashed a grin over to Wufei. "I figured that you wouldn't mind so much, and you'd at least tell me if it did."

"Ah," 'Why does he have to be cute when he's thinking? Let's see, pride is for Trowa, bit of confusion is Quatre, the smirk is for Heero, and the smile… who's the smile for, me or him. Who cares, he's smiling.'

"Want to try? Every time I think I've got a handle on it, it doesn't work." Duo frowned thoughtfully at his toy for a moment, "I know I could look it up, but that's a bit like cheating." Without waiting for an answer he tossed the thing across the room. 'I'll bet he knows how to work the blasted thing.'

Wufei caught it easily, quick reflexes were something of a habit for all the pilots, even before the Super-Soaker strategy battles Heero initiated, and snorted to himself as he saw what he held. This time the plastic clicking came from the other side of the room, while Duo threw his elbow over his eyes as if to catnap. 'Ha! Look at that, he does know how to solve it. And this way I can watch him and he doesn't know it.'

About three minutes later the toy sailed back across the room. Duo caught it, looked at it, blinked, then sat up on the couch. "How did you do that?" 'I mean really, that was fast. I wanted to watch you some more.'

"Rubix Cubes aren't that difficult when you know how," Wufei replied, "I learned how to solve them when I was very young."

'Perfect,' Duo started twisting the sides of the cube around randomly. "Do it again." He grinned as he tossed the cube back to Wufei.

Wufei caught it but only looked at Duo appraisingly, before he rose from the armchair and approached the sofa where Duo had been sprawled out. "Move over." He ordered absently as he handed the toy back to its owner.

"Huh?" 'Well, that was brilliant.'

"It's easier to learn how to solve the cube if you are doing the manipulations rather then just watching."

'So you're going to show me, and sit beside me to do it? Hell yes!' Duo scooted close to where Wufei was sitting. "Okay so what do I do first?"

"You have to pick a color to be on the top." Wufei told Duo as he tapped one of the squares in the center of a side. "I usually use white since it is the brightest of the colors, and the darkest, blue is on the bottom."

"Cool," Duo turned the cube around in his hands, looking at all the sides. He settled the white on top with a mischievous smile and an elbow nudge for his companion. "Okay, now what?"

"Now I tell you about the three types of pieces on a Rubix Cube. There are the center pieces, which do not move, the edge pieces which have two colors and the corners, which have three colors..."

'A lecture, at least I like his lectures.'

"...All right, move the left and right sides up, turn the front face one turn clockwise, left and right sides down. Good, turn the bottom twice, both sides up, front face one turn clockwise, both sides down, and you have a complete cube."

Duo just stared at the perfectly solved cube. 'Wow.' Then he let out a whoop and hugged Wufei hard. Wufei grunted, 'Whoops, that must have been the Cube, do you really have to shove me off? I like this.'

"That's so cool, Fei! It's great!"

"Maxwell, let go please."

"Oh, sorry Wufei." He said to the boy who was coughing a bit as he tried to get his breath back.

"That's alright." Wufei replied as he rose from the sofa, "You play with your toy, and I'll go back to my book. If you have any problems, you can always ask me. There are a couple of turn sets I haven't shown you yet." 'Well I guess this won't be something I'll pick up in a hurry.'

Duo smiled up at the other teen. "Thanks Wufei, but you can call me Duo okay? You're the only one of my friends who doesn't." 'Please call me Duo, well, I don't care what you call me really, but Maxwell always sounds so formal. Or pissed off, pissed off is fun.'

Wufei sighed, "Duo." Then he relaxed a bit. "When you can solve it without help I'll show you a couple of tricks." 'Okay, so I won't pick it up too slowly.'

"Deal."

And the afternoon passed relatively quietly... 'It's too quiet and I'm tired of sitting, So… one pissed off Wufei coming up.'

"NO! Don't take the stickers off! ...Maxwell, get back here!"