Title: Maximum Pulse
Author: Switchblade003 Sanyu-Kumiko (Collaboration)
Chapter: Bar Room Brawls
Status: Complete; open to revision, actual ending subject to co-author's consideration.

The Changs had given him the day off to work on his bike's new paint job.

Wufei had given him a warning look when they'd gotten back to the house earlier that morning, and Hiirou knew that he didn't want his wife knowing about his participation. The Chinese youth had told him about the run-in with the police officer, and he'd even admitted to getting a thrill out of it, but Hiirou had sworn not to breathe a word of it in his wife's presence. Something told the Japanese boy that Meiran would have volunteered for decoy, too.

When he pulled up in front of the garage, he noticed that the main door was closed, and he thought that a bit odd. Stranger still was the fact that the twin rottweilers were roaming the lot freely, where Duo normally tied them up in the back so that they wouldn't eat his clientele. There was a 'Closed' sign on the building, and upon sight of this Hiirou sat back on his motorcycle, frowning. Why would the garage be closed on a Thursday?

Wufei had informed him over a boiling pot of lo mein that today was Duo's birthday, and that he had completely forgotten this year, in lieu of recent events. Now he felt like shit. Hiirou had only known the guy for a month or two, tops, but he still felt the need to at least say 'hi'. Duo had to be twenty-one, today...

He circled the downtown area for more than an hour before it occurred to him that he had absolutely no clue what the mechanic did in his off-time, therefore he had no leads in tracking the American down. "Dammit!"

And just as Hiirou was turning around to head home, a sign on the side of West Gate caught his eye, and he could have slapped himself. The archaic road marker was probably as old as the city itself, but he could still make out the name of the cemetary engraved there. "Rosewood," he murmured to himself.

If today was Duo's birthday, then that meant that Solo was twenty-one, too. Hiirou felt his gut clench up. As morbid as he was certain that Duo could be, somehow he just couldn't entertain the idea of the American having a birthday party with his dead twin brother.

"...I really think Wufei should lighten up, sometimes, bro. You remember how he was..."

When Hiirou finally located his quarry, he found the boy sprawled out on his back beside a headstone. His long hair was drawn up in a sloppy ponytail, and he was dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt. He looked like a normal kid for his age, but somehow Hiirou knew that he wasn't. There was a bottle of whiskey next to him, and a half-eaten cupcake, and atop the tombstone lay another, completely untouched. The scene might have been humorous had it not been for the candid tone of Duo's voice, the way he laughed at dead air as if actually conversing with someone...

Hiirou held a few mutinous tears in check. It wouldn't have hurt as much to witness if Duo had been sobbing, or grieving like any normal person who had lost a relative or loved one. This behavior... Well, it was bizarre, to say the least, but it was also gut-wrenching. For the longest minute of his life, the delivery boy stood in the shadow of a family and tried to think of something to say.

"What the hell're you doin' here?!"

He watched, speechless, as Duo scrambled to his feet, stumbling slightly from mild inebriation, and glared at him. "I... I wanted to say 'Happy Birthday'," was all that he could force out, and he felt very stupid afterwards.

Duo sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I guess you two would have to meet, eventually." He walked over, tugging at Hiirou's arm, and drug him towards the tombstone. "Hiirou, meet Solo," he slurred, gesturing vaguely at the carved grey marble. "Bro, this is that asshole from the restaurant that I was telling you about."

If he hadn't felt so genuinely depressed, Hiirou might have slapped the braided youth for that warranted insult.

"Sit down," Duo ordered, and he complied without thinking. The American took to his bottle again, leaning back against the headstone and sighing heavily. "I'm sure you want to know what happened?" he prodded, and Hiirou nodded. Duo let his head fall back onto the cold marble with a sickening crack, and mindless of the pain he'd just inflicted upon himself, he began to recount the story.

"Remember I told you that Solo used to race? He died in a crash four years ago. He was the best in the desert circuit, until that asshole and his BMW showed up..."

Hiirou frowned. "BMW?"

The smile on Duo's face was both accusatory and hateful. "Yeah. Real arrogant jock. He picked a fight with me at the shop one day, said I fucked his bike up. My brother told him to back off, but I thought I could take him. I challenged him to a race on the two-mile course, but my bike 'broke down' a few days beforehand..."

Maybe it was the fact that Duo was a very honest drunk, or maybe it was the atmosphere, but Hiirou was beginning to see a whole new side of his braided counterpart, and he wasn't entirely sure that he liked it. "I found out later that I had actually messed up the guy's bike. And Solo had sabatoged my Katana on purpose, to keep me out of the race." Hiirou took a moment to realize that he would have done the same thing, and he was growing an appreciation for his friend's late twin. "My brother took up the challenge on my behalf. If he hadn't died that day I would have beaten the shit out of him for it."

The violet eyes facing skyward weren't angry or upset, but more confused than anything. It was almost as if Duo hadn't yet completely accepted what had happened to his brother, like he was waiting for Solo to turn up and tell him it had all been a prank. "There was a big break in the pavement on Highway 17. The fuckin' transportation department paved the road over a fault line or somethin', and every time we have a tremor the stupid thing splits in half, so about ten years ago they condemned the road and built a new one. Apparently, it's the best racing strip in the state."

Duo took a long swig from the bottle in his hand and hissed as the alcohol burned his throat, then continued. "That jerk," he spat, "Knew about the break. Everyone did. It was a fuckin' seven foot-wide trench in the middle of the highway!" The mechanic scrubbed furiously at his eyes with the back of one hand, hard anger and malice lacing his normally smooth tenor. "They got within sight of it, and Solo was winning. I watched it..."

The braided youth bounded to his feet, surprisingly agile for how drunk he must have been, and threw the bottle to the ground. His fists clenched at his sides and Hiirou suddenly regretted inviting this trip down 'memory lane.' "Solo started to slow down. The race was over, and he'd won, but that prick wouldn't settle for being bested by a downtown streetrat like my brother, so he floored it. He gunned his engine, and he made for the break. Solo followed him. He didn't have enough time to get up to speed."

Hiirou almost cringed at the idea. From rough mental calculation he could only imagine the outcome of that event. "That asshole cleared the break. Solo didn't. His back tire clipped the edge and his bike flipped. It landed on top of him." Duo turned to his friend, fists at his sides, fingernails digging in so hard that thin lines of blood ran from their grip, and the tears that flowed from his enraged violet eyes were the kind that only bone-cutting loss could inspire. He was more than sober. "He was gone before the medics got there. And that son-of-a-bitch drove off, left him there to die..."

The agonized amethyst gaze turned away, and Hiirou drew in a shaky breath. He wasn't sure that he was the person to help Duo move past this, but he knew that their current location was definately not the environment for more jovial spirits. "Duo?"

When the youth didn't respond to his name, the delivery boy ground his teeth together in frustration. He had never been very adept at handling his own emotions, let alone other people's... He stood and walked to the boy's side, laying a hand on his shoulder and compelling him to turn around. "C'mon, it's your birthday. I'm sure that your brother would have wanted you to have fun on your twenty-first birthday."

The American sighed, turning to regard him curiously. "I guess." He shook his head, self-deprecatingly, and shrugged. "Let's go somewhere."

Hiirou allowed himself to smile a little. Just this once. "Where?"

A mischevious grin took over the other boy's features. "I know a place."

It had been nearly two hours since their arrival, and after almost ten games of pool, half a dozen beers into Duo, and three into his own system, Hiirou was feeling much... lighter. He was definately buzzed--not enough to shed his inhibitions, but enough to make him stumble every now and again--and the birthday boy was well on his way to having a horrid hangover the next morning. However, his braided friend seemed much more content, now, and that was what mattered.

The bar that Duo had directed him to was an obscure little establishment wedged between the downtown police precinct and the library, and it catered to a very lively crowd. He hadn't been surprised that Duo knew the barkeep, as well as a few of the regulars, and the boy seemed to fit in here. The other patrons were very friendly, and they'd been having fun since their arrival.

Hiirou Yui did not normally participate in 'fun', but he'd allowed an exception tonight, and he made a mental note to remind his mechanic of that the next time he popped off with a smart-assed comment about his being an 'asshole'. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the occassion, or the three empty Triple Black bottles on the side of the pool table, but Hiirou decided that he was having a good time. He sat back on his barstool and watched Duo from across the table as the youth lined up for his shot. The lighting was deplorable, all low-hanging table lamps and emergency exits, and the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that hung in the air did nothing to ease his vision, but Hiirou liked the place. It was yards of cherrywood finish, vintage World War Two paraphenalia, and eighties music filtering through the background noise of clinking glass, laughing patrons, and the occassional clunk of the cue ball bouncing across the hardwood floors.

"Yo, Hiirou."

His glassy Prussian gaze turned to his counterpart, who was still trying to align his shot. It was amusing to no end, because as drunk as the American might have been, he was still winning. The younger of the two held a cigarette between his teeth and arched an eyebrow at his friend. "Eight ball, corner pocket." Hiirou scanned the table, and decided that he was still safe. Duo had the trajectory on the bank all wrong. Sure enough, the cue missed, and the mechanic cursed violently, stalking back to his seat.

The Japanese youth noticed that he was having a hard time not keeping his eyes on Duo. For some reason, he was picking up on things that he otherwise hadn't seen before in his companion, and it was troubling him. He was watching the way the boy lanked around the table, the way he leaned on his pool stick idly, the way he dragged on his cigarettes, and it was unnerving. His solution at first to this stunning realization had been alcohol, but it wasn't working very well. He was almost certain that the other male wasn't trying to hit on him, but with Duo one couldn't be too sure. The boy was sloshed, after all.

Zechs frequented this bar a lot, these days. It was almost as loved as the diner on Ivy Street, and he found himself here every other night. He'd never been a real heavy drinker but the scene was pleasant enough. He parked his Celica out front and locked the car behind him, and he was halfway up the steps when something silver, half-primered, and familiar caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, the cop realized that he was looking at the bike from those damned street races he'd witnessed. He cackled evilly to himself, racing down the stairs, pulling a notebook and pen from his jacket pocket, and copied down the tags.

"Well, Mr. Nevada 8708, I'll be looking you up in my system tomorrow..."

"Would ya look at this, guys! It's the delivery boy!"

Whatever pleasant thoughts had been dancing around in Hiirou's mind shattered like porcelain in the hands of a toddler as a few annoyingly familiar voices cut through the amiable background noise of the bar, and he was sorely tempted to turn around and deck the first person he saw. Instead, Hiirou decided to play the bigger man and feign ignorance.

"Hey, he brought his bitch, too!"

What is with these guys?! Hiirou's tested patience snapped at that last comment, and he stood, hiding his impaired motor abilities with ease, and turned to face the men. It was half of the uptown garage's gang, including the man he'd raced the previous night. The black male was taller than him by at least four inches and outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. He should have been intimidated, but he wasn't. The men could trash-talk him as much as they wanted, but Duo hadn't done anything to warrant this kind of badgering.

"Can I help you?"

Hiirou was feeling a little cocky. As calm and rational a guy as he was most of the time, he really didn't see the point in taking shit off of these jerks, anymore. The garage members all laughed. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember saying anything funny."

Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say. The black guy that he'd shown up last night stepped forward, glaring down at him, and his friends formed a circle around Hiirou. Among their number was Blondie, as well as the asshole redhead that had manhandled his mechanic. "Buddy, you don't want to pick a fight with us."

"And why's that?" Hiirou wasn't going to throw the first punch. He made a promise to himself right then, that any move he made would be out of pure self-defense, but he would try his best to instigate it. He'd been dying to run into these bastards in public, and here was his moment.

"Keep talkin', Rice. You'd better get your little boyfriend and carry your faggot asses to another bar. This place isn't friendly to your type." That was almost clever, he decided. These guys still needed a little refining on the bully act, though. From behind the redhead, he heard the sound of a pool stick hitting the floor, and then Duo was pushing his way through the men, shouting.

"What the hell's goin' on?"

Hiirou sighed. Leave it to the American idiot to present himself as a completely vulnerable target within a group of vultures.

"Keep your hands to yourself, fag," one of the men bellowed, and Duo had the decency to look a bit offended. He pulled his hands in to himself and backed slowly towards Hiirou. They stood back to back in the circle of angry uptowners and assessed their situation.

"They don't look too chipper," Duo drawled, arching an eyebrow at the redhead. Hiirou was slightly grateful that the mechanic was sober enough to make that observation. He stared down Blondie while racking his brain for a way out of this mess.

"Captain Obvious strikes again," he mumbled. "We're fucked, Duo." The garage members traded smug grins as they closed in, and then a loud, commanding voice put the whole bar on pause.

"Break it up, boys! Now!" Hiirou saw a tall man with blonde hair push through their ring of would-be attackers, grabbing two of the men by the backs of their collars and forcibly dispersing them.

"He looks pretty damed familiar..."

Behind him, Duo stumbled and grabbed at his belt, almost pulling Hiirou down with him as he attempted to right himself. When he looked back up from grumbling at the American, the guy who had broken up their 'fanclub' was looming over him.

"You two don't look old enough to be here," was all he said as he drug the two boys from the bar.

"So you're telling me that you weren't trying to start any trouble in there?"

Hiirou was working on his last shred of patience with this police officer. The guy had been interrogating him for the last ten minutes. He'd proven he and Duo's age, convinced the cop that he wasn't going to try to drive home, and then insisted that the men who had confronted him were just a few random guys that he'd had a bad experience with on his delivery runs. The less that the police knew about the tension between him and the uptown garage, the better.

The alcohol had burned out of his system almost completely by now, though it seemed to have gotten the better of his companion, who now lay passed out on the gravel, slumped against his bike. When the officer had taken them outside, he had asked a few questions about the vehicle, and he seemed as if there was something else he was itching to inquire about, but otherwise he seemed more interested in the almost-brawl back in the bar.

Something about his interest in the Hayabasu just didn't sit well with Hiirou, though.

"All right, well if you think you'll be okay, just grab a cab and be on your way. I'll have the owner of the bar put your bike out back. You can pick it up tomorrow, okay?"

Hiirou nodded, turning to the unconscious boy at his feet, and sighed. Hauling the mechanic up, he waited for a taxi to pass by. Tonight hadn't been a total waste, he supposed, and the more he looked at Duo, the more he believed that.

0235AMEST30Oct04

Alternate Ending for Chapter Six

There were at least six guys around them, and the only way to get to the front door of the bar was to go through them. It was a split-second decision, but Hiirou didn't hesitate. He lunged for the redhead, sidestepping a reflexive punch and throwing his elbow up into the underside of the man's chin. His victim shouted in pain, stumbling backwards, and then Blondie was on him. They wrestled around the pool table, throwing punches, ducking and dodging, until the man finally got in a hit, socking Hiirou in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The Japanese youth paused to gain his bearings for a moment before tackling the blonde to the floor.

The entire bar had ceased its activities to watch the fight, and the other garage jerks were preoccupied fighting down a rather fiesty, alcohol-filled Duo as their ex-leader slugged it out with Hiirou. As the delivery boy landed another well-placed punch to the blonde's face, someone stepped forward from the crowd and restrained him from behind, dragging him bodily off of the other male and shoving him towards the front door of the bar.

In the hazy aftermath of his adrenaline rush, he vaguely registered hearing Duo mumble something about 'slow-assed police officers'.

"...The only reason you two aren't spending the night in jail is because I know you didn't start that..."

For some reason his buzz had worn off, and that annoyed Hiirou greatly. He sat outside on the sidewalk of the bar, and as Officer Merquise ranted, he felt like he had as a child being disciplined in Catholic school. Beside him, Duo had passed out minutes ago, and he silently willed his anger at being yelled at singularly towards the braided idiot. When the boy twitched in his sleep, Hiirou was convinced that it was working.

"...I'm calling you a cab, and I'll have the owner of the bar throw that bike of yours behind the building over night. When you've sobered up, you can come pick it up, all right?"

Hiirou looked up when he realized that he'd been addressed, and he nodded. Officer Merquise was giving him an unreadable, look, the kind that sent red flags and whistles going off in his head, and the more paranoid part of his mind wondered for a moment if somehow that police officer had any idea that his bike had been involved in some very illegal activities, recently. Hiirou wasn't the type to take his situations for granted, but it was a big city. The likelihood of this particular officer having seen his bike, and then remembering exact details of its physical appearance at that high a speed... He decided to pass it off as being too paranoid and a little drunk.

The cop sighed, shaking his head, and gestured at Duo. "Is he going to be okay?"

The delivery boy rolled his eyes, standing and hauling the mechanic upright. "He'll be fine. He won't die. Trust me, I've tried." The officer laughed, walking towards his car.

"Okay. Get some rest."

The taxi pulled into the parking lot, and after shoving Duo inside, he gave their address as the restaurant and sat back for the ride.

Zechs couldn't believe his luck. Not only had he gotten the tags off of that bike, but after he'd seen its owner off, he'd meandered around the parking lot, and he was beginning to recognize quite a few of these bikes. There was a blue Ninja, and a black Katana that he could swear that he'd seen tailing the Hayabasu, and they were all in the same damned parking lot!

He sat on the back of his car and tapped his pen against his mouth thoughtfully, notebook in hand. This couldn't have been a coincidence. And that fight in the bar also supported his new convictions; it would stand to reason that the brawl had started over petty testosterone-fueled comments, but the underlying tension there had to have something to do with these street races.

Rival gangs, maybe?

He frowned, and scratched that idea out of his notebook. No, these kids didn't seem like the gang type, although he was certain that the Chinese kid he'd seen the other night hadn't been a criminal... Well, maybe he hadn't been. Maybe...

"No fucking way!"

Zechs jumped off of the tail-end of his Celica, pacing the parking lot. That kid had been a decoy! He'd read about it in the police academy. Nevada and California were notorious for their organized underground, and one of the highest-payout endeavors in the illegal spectrum was racing! The blonde could have slapped himself for missing it this whole time. That would explain the cars peeling through the city, and then the bikes right behind them. They were supposed to lure the cops--him--away from those streets to clear the way for the motorcycles.

He chewed on the end of his pen some more. How many kids were involved in this? Was he looking at something structured, a serious crime ring, or was this just a group of teenagers fucking around? And would he get lucky enough to ctach their next race?

"Shit..."

The only problem was that now he had a shitload more questions than answers, but Zechs was a curious guy. He'd get to the bottom of this. He had definately stumbled onto something big here, and it all came back to that Japanese kid and his Hayabasu.

0444PMEST30Oct04

Sanyu-Kumiko Note: Okay, I don't know what ending I like so, how about a vote??! ;; Help a boy out!