Puzzles

-Celesta SunStar

Disclaimer: No, I do not own any of the characters in this story. I do however, own a Rubix Cube, and yes, I can solve it without cheating.

Since I had Wufei's side I thought I should add it. Wufei isn't an active plotter like Duo, so he is quieter in some things. Very few differences between chapters.

Wufei was using one of the better lamps in the living room of the current safe house. The print in one of his favorite books was starting to fade, and he really didn't want to court eyestrain. It was already bad enough that he needed reading glasses. However, the relative peace was disturbed when Duo walked into the room and threw himself down on the sofa with a sigh. Wufei glanced up when Duo didn't say anything right away but returned to his reading when Duo did not indicate that he wanted to talk. It was a rare occurrence when Duo wanted to be physically with people but alone in his thoughts. When he did he would usually search out Trowa, or Wufei when Trowa was busy.

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. If he tried to ignore it, it would get annoying exceedingly fast.

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

Duo sighed again and started tossing the whatever-it-was up in the air and catching it as it came down. Wufei only made out a kind of multicolored cubic shape from the spinning object. "It's an old puzzle game I found in a junk shop a couple of missions ago." Duo answered, still tossing the thing. "I thought it might be interesting, but I still can't get a handle on it."

"And you are in here with it because..." Wufei asked gently in the hope that Duo wouldn't get irritated when he wanted quiet time. When Duo did get irritated the life of the irritator generally became not worth living for a week or two. Kool-Aid and Jell-O was not pleasant to shower with and Wufei still hadn't figured out how Duo had managed to replace the toothpaste with extra-hot mustard last month.

"Well, Tro'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," Wufei wasn't sure if he agreed or not, but Duo was expecting some sort of response.

"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.

Wufei caught it easily, quick reflexes were something of a habit for all the pilots, 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.

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?"

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

Duo blinked again and thought for a second, then he started twisting the sides of the cube around randomly. "Do it again." He grinned a challenge 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?"

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

Light dawned on Duo's face, and a wide grin stayed there as 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..."

"...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. Then he let out a whoop and impulsively hugged Wufei hard. Wufei grunted when a hard plastic corner dug into his shoulder blade and tried to free his arms to shove the overly exuberant teenager off.

"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 Maxwell." 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."

Duo smiled up at the not quite annoyed sounding teen. "Thanks Wufei, but call me Duo okay? You're the only one of my friends who doesn't."

Wufei sighed, "Duo." Then he relaxed a bit. "When you can solve it without help I'll show you a couple of tricks."

"Deal."

And the afternoon passed relatively quietly...

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

Fin