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December 25th
"The hell--?" Duo muttered, staring down at the piece of fruit on his porch. He looked up and down the sidewalk, but didn't see anyone standing around suspiciously. After a moment, he leaned over and picked the pear up, his eyes looking for places where a bomb could have been stuck inside of it.
There was no bomb, but there was a tag attached to the bottom of it. "Sorry, but the partridge got away", was written in decorative calligraphy, leaving no clue by way of handwriting. Duo grinned, took one more look up and down the street, and then stepped back inside his apartment building.
"I'm telling you, someone has an odd sense of humor," Duo grumbled, kicking his legs up and resting them on Wufei's desk. He was careful not to knock over the mug of hot cocoa -- someone kept dumping out all the coffee in the office coffeemaker and replacing it with the sugary concoction -- on the surface of the desk.
"I thought you were the joker?" Wufei asked, ignoring the feet. It wasn't worth Wufei's time to hound him. Pointing out that the floor, and not Wufei's desk, was the place for feet had never worked in the past. He doubted it would work anytime in the near future.
"So did I," Duo said, sounding only amused by having his title displaced. "I tell you, if the pear wasn't odd enough, the dang note would have got me. Know what it reminds me of?"
"Not a clue, Maxwell," Wufei said shaking his head as he perched on the corner of his own desk.
"'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. Freaky holiday song. I tell you, if I end up with twelve people banging on drums in twelve days, someone's going to have hell to pay."
"Understandable. I doubt your neighbors would appreciate the gesture. Especially given where you live," he pointed out, referring to the barrack-like apartment building in which they both lived.
"Some weirdo is leaving fruit on my doorstep, and you're worried about them waking you up, aren't you?" Duo gingerly picked up the mug of cocoa, sniffed it, and then took a small sip. "You know what, Wu? I'm really surprised you're not in line to find the guy who keeps hijacking the coffee."
"It's something to drink," Wufei returned calmly, reaching over to pull his mug out of Duo's reach. He was unfazed by the sudden shift in topic, as Duo tended to switch from one subject to another quite frequently. "You don't seem to mind it, either."
Duo grinned at him. "Wufei, my friend, I just like drinking from your mug. You can give it to me for Christmas."
"Duo, my friend," Wufei returned. "If I gave you my mug for Christmas, you would drink from the replacement and tell me you liked it better because it was new."
"Actually, I'd just use it because it was yours," Duo contradicted, putting his feet down, standing, and moving towards the door. "I have to get back to work. You should, too, Wufei. You really shouldn't sit around on your desk doing nothing all day."
Wufei rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "Aren't you forgetting something?" He gestured to the pear still sitting on the desk where Duo had set it when he'd first come in.
Duo turned and looked at him from the threshhold, violet eyes glinting with mirth. "Keep it. Merry Christmas, 'Fei." And then he was gone, and Wufei was left with a pear to replace the cocoa he'd walked down three hallways to get.
"Thanks, Duo," he said to his empty office. He was smiling, though. He walked around his desk to take his seat. The smile stayed in place as he absently brushed dirt from the desk calendar which covered the surface of his desk. He left the desk suitably cleaned off and picked the pear up gently. After rubbing away a nonexistent spot, he brought it to his mouth and bit into it
He was surprised to have Duo return shortly, a wrapped package in his hand. "Would you believe I almost forgot it was Christmas?" There was a hint of uncertainty in his gaze as he stepped forward to put the gift on Wufei's desk. Wufei put the half-eaten pear down and looked at Duo.
"For me?" He hadn't expected a gift. As far as Wufei had known, Duo hadn't bought a present for anyone, even though he had the year before. They normally exchanged gifts on the same day, but Wufei had received a gift from Winner two days before and another from Barton on the 24th. Duo's gift was right on time. "Thank you," he said softly, carefully picking up the object. It wasn't that heavy and Duo seemed almost anxious as he waited for it to be unwrapped. Instead of making him suffer and wait, Wufei carefully undid the ribbon and then peeled off the tape.
He looked at the gift he had received and smiled at the delicate trace of writing on the front of an old book. It was several decades old, at the least, possibly dating back to the early 120's if Wufei was correct about the style of the binding. "Do you like it?" Wufei looked up to see Duo leaning over his desk, unsure and hopeful.
"It is wonderful, Duo. Thank you." He looked back down, away from the sudden spark of warmth and happiness his approval put in Duo's eyes. He carefully opened the front cover and read the inscription. He closed the book again and set it carefully on the desk. He leaned back to put him farther away from Duo before meeting the brunet's gaze again. "I have nothing to offer you in return."
"It's okay, Wufei," Duo waved aside the apology as if it didn't matter. "Christmas is more my thing than yours, so it's okay. Just don't forget my birthday next year, okay?"
"It's a deal," Wufei assured him, returning the smile Duo sent his way.
"And now I really do have to be getting back to work. I'll see you later, Chang." Duo was gone again, leaving with a wave and a flash of a grin.
Bemused, Wufei picked up the pear again to finish it off, his free hand gently tracing the cover of the book.
December 26th
Somehow, Wufei didn't expect Duo's anonymous giver to actually carry through with giving the braided teen a gift for every day of the twelve days of Christmas. He might have expected Duo to invade his office again if something had happened, but he most surely was not expecting Duo to show up at his apartment before he'd even left for work that morning.
It started with a hard series of knocks on the door. Three, then one, then two. It wasn't a code, really, but Wufei was careful as he walked towards the door. A glance through the peephole showed a winter-wrapped Duo, still recognizable despite the layers of scarf, coat, and hat. Wufei opened the door.
"I'm really trying to be amused," Duo said first thing, not even giving Wufei a chance to greet him. A moment later, as a cage was presented to Wufei, he understood why. Covered as it was by a heavy velvet sheet, Wufei could still hazard a guess as to the contents.
"Doves?"
"Doves," Duo confirmed. He took a step forward, making Wufei take a step back to avoid being hit with the cage. He moved quickly out of the way and let Duo come in fully. The braided teen set the cage on the low end table in front of the couch and then turned to Wufei as he unwound the scarf from around his neck. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold and Wufei frowned at the way Duo was dressed.
"Why were you outside?" It seemed a pertinent question, since Duo lived only three doors down.
Duo frowned as he undid the buttons on his coat. Wufei realized then that Duo's fingers were pink as well, and he moved towards the kitchenette to pour a cup of tea for his friend. When he turned to present it to Duo, who had shed the coat and scarf but kept the hat, Duo grinned at him gratefully. "I was working out this morning. Une wants me to stay a couple of hours later in the evening, at least through the New Year, so I don't have to go in quite as early. Problem is, I still get up at the same time."
"Ah." Wufei nodded in understanding. "And the birds?" he asked as he refilled his own mug and then moved to stand in front of the cage.
"They were waiting for me when I got home," Duo answered. He stepped up beside Wufei, then bent down to pull the sheet up. As soon as light filtered through the gold bars, the doves started cooing softly, in a tired sort of manner that suggested they'd just been woken up. "No note this time, and still no clue who the kidder is. What do you think, Wufei? Someone madly in love with me and too shy to tell me?"
The words, teasing as they were, caused some of the mirth to drain from Wufei and he turned away from the cage. "I can't imagine someone would find this an appropriate way to show their affection, Duo."
Duo frowned and looked over his shoulder at Wufei, then back at the birds. "I don't know, Wufei. I think if it wasn't so creepy and secretive, it'd be kind of sweet."
Wufei snorted. "Kind of sweet to have a stranger giving you presents that are either terribly costly or stolen?"
"Oh, come on, Wufei!" Duo turned, letting some irritation ring through his voice. "People don't steal birds and cages to give away as Christmas presents." The comment about cost was not so easy to argue, though. They both knew that to find such lovely birds and their gilded cage, someone had put forth a hefty sum. And if the gifts were to continue in fashion, then the end amount would be large indeed.
"There are more important things to spend money on, Duo." He stopped and restated what he had said, hoping Duo didn't get offended by the way he'd phrased it the first time. "There are ways to show affection which are less costly and more effective, and causes to which that money would have been more beneficial."
That elicited a shrug as Duo replaced the sheet and stood back up. "True enough, I guess."
Wufei stood for a moment, surprised to see Duo moving towards the door without picking the cage up. "Where are you going now?"
Duo turned the knob and then grinned over his shoulder. "I have to get ready for work, of course. See you later, Wu-baby." He left before Wufei could stop him, leaving the Chinese teen with two doves -- turtle doves, if the giver was going for complete accuracy -- and an unnameable, burning feeling in his chest.
He wasn't jealous, no. Of course not. It was worry for his friend, caused by thinking of the kind of person who would consider a prank a good way to celebrate the holiday season. And of course it was only a prank. Who would send birds to a person like Duo in an attempt to woo him?
December 27th
Duo was expecting more birds on the "third day of Christmas." It would have been in the pattern of the day before. Of course, being three days into twelve, there wasn't really a 'pattern,' a fact he would take into account when he did find his third gift of the season.
At seven in the morning two days after Christmas, he returned to his apartment after his work out, still bundled for the below-zero temperature outside and his trip to the Preventor facilities. At his door was a small cooler, probably no more than a square foot in area, and no taller than that. On the top of the white lid was a picture painted in red of three birds.
His training kicked in before he could open it and he had his coat shed in a matter of seconds as he squatted beside the container, hands cautiously hovering over the lid as he shifted around to look at it from every angle. It took him a minute to be satisfied that there was nothing on the outside which would signal a bomb. However, he was far from satisfied, as the inside of the container was more than big enough to hold enough explosive devices to decimate the block he was on, taking a large chuck of Preventor personnel with him and the buildings.
He heard a door down the hall open and turned his head to see Wufei standing there, apparently on his way to headquarters for his shift. "Hey, Wufei?" The dark head turned toward him. "I think we might have a problem."
Three hours and an evacuation of three buildings later, Duo sat dumbfounded and mortified as he stared at the small Cornish hens they'd finally recovered from the cooler he'd found. Due to his 'scare' and the fact that it had been he and Wufei who had 'dismantled' the suspect package, he had earned himself and his friend the rest of the day off. "I suspect you'll need assistance disposing of that," Une had said seriously, giving nothing away in her expression. There had been a choked quality to her voice, however, which had spoken to Duo clearly of suppressed laughter.
Wufei had even seemed amused, even though he had spent the time with Duo trying to carefully open the cooler in case it exploded. He'd rolled his eyes and left with a quick, "Maxwell, you can finish this up yourself. Just remember the proper disposal methods."
They weren't French, of course, but a hen was a hen, he guessed. There were three, just as the carol went, but Duo was at a loss as to what to do with them. The obvious choice, of course, was to cook and eat them. Even at a pound apiece, there were too many for just Duo to eat, unless that was all he wanted to eat. That would still be pushing it, though. It was a meal meant to share with someone. With a grin, Duo stood up and moved to the phone, calling the only person he could think of who might be able to tell him how to cook the damned fowl.
The doves Wufei had forced him to take back the evening before cooed softly in their cage as he listened to the phone ring through.
Wufei was comfortably relaxed, reading in his favorite, and only, chair when someone knocked on the door. He finished his paragraph, noted the page number, and set the novel aside as he rose. By the time he was five feet from the door, the person on the other side knocked again. The sound was off a little and Wufei frowned just on the other side of the door, hand raised to the knob as he waited. When the sound came again, he realized the difference in sound came from the fact that his visitor was kicking the door with his foot instead of knocking with his hand. Recognizing the sound, he opened the door to see Duo on the other side, as he had half-expected.
"Hey, Wu," the odd note of uncertainty in Duo's voice was most likely due, Wufei noted, to the fact his friend carried a small roasting pan in his hands, purple potholders between his hands and the hot metal. "Can I come in?"
Despite his misgivings, Wufei stepped back and let Duo enter. The braided teen moved to the small table set beneath Wufei's window. He juggled the pan for a moment until he was holding it in one hand. That allowed him to put the freed potholder on the table, and then he very carefully put the pan down on it. A little of the roasting juices spilled onto the table, but he managed the feat rather nicely with only one hand.
Knowing resistance was futile, at least since the situation involved Duo, Wufei moved to retrieve silverware from the kitchenette. "Is there a reason you're gracing me with your present?" he asked as he fetched flatware from a cupboard.
There was a sudden lack of sound behind him, and he could guess the question had frozen Duo in his tracks. Then noise resumed in the form of Duo's footsteps coming closer. Wufei turned and passed the plates, forks, and knives to Duo. Duo's face was creased in a grin as he took the items offered. "Who better to share it with, Wufei?" he said finally, answering Wufei's question and yet not answering it at all.
Wufei let it go with a nod as he turned back to poor a cup of tea for both of them before moving to join Duo at his little table. Duo served them both, setting a small hen on each of their plates, before surrounding it with some of the cooking juices, and then adding a few of the vegetables he'd roasted with the hens. Wufei wielded his silverware carefully, out of practice and never fully comfortable with the utensils after a life spent using chopsticks. With a bite halfway to his mouth, Wufei paused, realizing Duo was staring at him.
"Thanks, Wu," the simple words were infused with a depth of gratitude Wufei couldn't readily find a cause for. It could have been gratitude for helping with the cooler earlier, or for not making a bigger deal out of the situation than he already had. It could have been for opening the door. Not entirely sure what he was being thanked for, he smiled back, leaving the mystery aside at the moment.
He would enjoy Duo's pleasant company and the meal his friend had deigned to share. "Thank you, Duo."