Mr. Tangerine Speedo
Chapter Two: Thinking About Treize Khushrenada's Penis
by Muffie
I was pretty sure that, with the element of surprise and a little pre-planning, I could take Heero. Really, it was just a matter of not getting hit and, as fast as Heero was, I was faster. Flexibility didn't hurt, either. I could feasibly knock Duo out cold, and then get a few solid hits on Heero before he could process the fact that I'd knocked Duo out cold without his permission and retaliate. With those two out of the way, I could make sure that elephantine seducer of innocents, Nicholas, understood that hurting Quatre was a death sentence. The kind of death sentence where you started a very painful dying process right away and didn't finish for a few years.
The downside was that Heero had put himself between Duo and me, and he didn't look like he planned on letting me anywhere near the hairy menace. To make matters slightly worse, Heero had apparently appointed himself chaperone. My chaperone. I was rather offended that he thought I needed a chaperone. I wouldn't hurt this Nicholas pervert. At least not in front of witnesses. I would think that Heero, of all people, would understand and appreciate my restraint. "Heero, I'm not going to kill your pet."
"Pet? I don't have a pet."
I pointed to Duo. "Your pet fur ball. It yaps. It sheds. It drools. It humps your leg. Sound familiar?"
"Hey, now!" Duo yelped. Hn. Woof woof.
Heero huffed indignantly, or the Heero equivalent thereof, and wrapped the end of Duo's braid in his fist. "Of course you're not going to kill Duo. You're having a lunch date with Relena."
I refrained from snorting ala Duo. "Miss Relena, would you know this Nicholas person that Quatre is meeting?"
Heero's toy poodle pouted at me. "Geez, Tro, you got a one track mind to go with your one visible eyeball? Quatre will be fine."
This from the man who permitted my Quatre to run around in a speedo? A speedo, I might add, that's about the same color as his body so he looks naked. In public. Where just any Tom, Dick, and Hentai can get masturbation material? I'm sure I was staring at him incredulously.
Duo shrank down on himself. "Damn, you been taking how to be a psycho lessons from Une or something? Anyway, it's not like Relena would invite rapists to her country house party, you know."
"Duo, I don't think you're helping," Relena said. She gave me a tiny little smile and then put Duo firmly between me and her. "Let's just go sit on the balcony and have some lunch, okay?"
I crossed my arms over my chest and continued to stare incredulously at Duo. Where was a gatling gun when you needed one? "I don't suppose you realize that Quatre is innocent? That he doesn't understand that most of these men want to steal his virginity and make a quick cred?"
"Quatre? Innocent?" Duo blinked at me, then grinned.
That did it. The braided Pekinese just thought that I put him through hell when I blew up Deathscythe. Quatre was innocence personified. He was everything that was kind and good in humanity. Duo would admit that if I had to wrap every centimeter of his braid in electrical tape. If that didn't work, I'm sure Wufei would be more than happy to hold him down while I introduced the sticky side of duct tape to his pubes.
"Hey Heero, Tro here thinks that Quatre is innocent!"
"Shut up, Master. We should go to the balcony and have lunch " Heero glared at me. "Now."
I returned Heero's glare. If he thought, for one moment, that I could be distracted from either my mission or torturing Duo, then he was as insane as his pouting Pomeranian.
Relena smiled quietly up at me, her eyes growing wide and soft like Cathy's. "Please, Trowa?"
Dammit.
If nothing else, I should be able to locate Quatre from the balcony's position. If I couldn't find him, then Dorothy with whom I would very much like to have...words. I took the arm Relena offered and let her lead me to higher ground. Heero the Bastard grunted in satisfaction, collected Duo, and not only didn't go to the balcony for lunch, but marched his little 'I have a mission!' goose step directly to Wufei. Heart of Space or not, I was going to strangle him with his pet pain in the ass's braid for deserting me.
"So, Trowa, how do you like the party so far?"
"It's nice, Relena. Tell me about this Nicholas."
She sighed. "You're going to be stubborn about this, aren't you?"
Stubborn wasn't quite the word I'd use. Reasonable, conscientious, and friend were all better choices.
"Nicholas is a few years older than Quatre, four, I believe. He's recently gotten his MBA from Oxford and he's taking over the family business from his mother."
Hn. A college puke. "Has he ever killed anyone?"
She blinked up at me sidelong. "If I say no, would you consider that a bad thing?"
I gave her the look that deserved.
Her face wrinkled, like Cathy's did whenever she thought I hadn't eaten enough of my dinner. "You never know, Duo would. Wufei would."
"What did he do during the wars?"
Relena crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. "Well."
"He was Romefellar?"
"Well, no."
"Oz."
"Um. No."
"Alliance?"
She sighed. "Student."
A civilian. He had gone to school during the war.
Relena glared up at me. "Don't look at me like that. There is nothing wrong with having been a civilian. I was a civilian."
"Did he go around asking people to kill him, too?"
If Relena had been Cathy, I'd be hiding all of her knives. "I was merely proving my dedication to my cause." She waved a hand over her head. "You don't really want to date me, do you?"
I shook my head.
"You're gay, too, aren't you?" She glared at me. "Why do all of you have to be gay?"
I could almost hear Duo snickering now, who needed gaydar when you had Relena?
"If it makes you feel any better, Chang is pretty desperate to make everyone think he's straight," a Quatre-less Dorothy said, sweeping onto the balcony and seating herself. She did not have Quatre with her.
"Where is Quatre?"
"Are you still obsessing, Barton? I thought you weren't gay?"
"I am not gay." There wouldn't be a jury in the entire United Earth Sphere that would convict me for torturing that woman. I'd probably get a medal and a Sphere wide holiday named after me for it. "Quatre. Where is he?"
"Well, Wufei is kind of cute," Relena said, sitting next to the Catalonia witch.
"He's very sexy in a pouty bad boy way," Dorothy agreed with a sly grin in Relena's direction. "Chang's quite the catch if you're into closeted Asians with bad attitudes."
Hn. Females. I took up a position by the railing and started a visual sweep of the area. If he wasn't where I could see him, I would get the information out of Dorothy.
"Heero does not have a bad attitude!" Relena sounded annoyed enough to torture Dorothy for me.
"He's such a virgin, too. I'm surprised he knows what he wants." Dorothy smirked toward the pool, where Heero was arguing with Wufei.
Relena's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Well, isn't it obvious? Heero has practically no sexual experience." Dorothy waved her fingers in his direction. "I bet he has never seen a naked woman before."
Wufei yanked his shirt off and hit Heero in the face with it. Duo smacked himself in the forehead before following Heero up the stairs. I caught a tangerine colored flash of Quatre's speedo above his comfortably crossed and completely nude legs. His rippling abs and chiseled chest were out in the open where anyone, particularly that perverted college puke, could develop lengthy, realistic wet dreams and if that Nicholas didn't wipe that leer off of his face, he wouldn't have a face left to leer with. Fully automatic guns were my specialty during the wars and I would be more than happy to demonstrate that fact on the perve--
"Barton, your date is sitting at the table," Heero informed me, then tried to yank Wufei's shirt over Relena's head. I would have glared at him for that stupid comment, but that Nicholas creature was leaning toward my Quatre with nefarious designs on that sweet, innocent flesh.
Duo flopped on his ass next to Dorothy. "You tell twinkletoes over there about this Nicholas guy yet? He's about to have a nervous breakdown. You can tell 'cause his bang is starting to stand straight up."
Quatre laughed at something that Nicholas creature said, then pushed his hand away. Good. Quatre hadn't lost all of his common sense when Duo and Dorothy corrupted him into misplacing his modesty.
"But Barton's little panic attacks are just so adorable." Did that woman have any expressions other than a smirk? "Nicholas is a gentleman. He's an old friend of the family."
That was supposed to recommend the man? I refused to give that woman the satisfaction of a good glare. "Your family tried to take over the Earth Sphere."
Dorothy sniffed. "Grandfather was a little eccentric."
Relena stuck her bottom lip out and pouted at Heero. "You think I'm ugly."
I gave Dorothy a narrow-eyed look. "Another member of your family decided that war was bad, so he started one just to prove it."
The smirk was back. "Cousin Treize's nose was rather small as well."
Quatre's tender virginity was in the hands of a perverted megalomaniac.
"Aaaah! Dammit you spawn of the devil, now you got me thinking about Treize Khushrenada's penis! I'm scarred for life!" There's nothing quite like Duo yelling Treize Khushrenada's penis at the top of his lungs to shut everyone up.
Relena chose that moment to start to cry. Heero immediately followed the time honored tradition all males use when dealing with women's tears: blind panic. It really wasn't his finest hour. "No, Relena, I think you're very pretty! Really!"
"You're gay because of me, aren't you?" Relena wailed. The upshot was that Duo was too busy gawking at her to be thinking about Treize Khushrenada's penis at full volume.
Heero shook his head, sending his bangs flopping around wildly. "No, Relena, it's not like that at all!"
She sniffled, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands. "It's all right, Heero. I understand. I'll be fine. It's something of a blow to discover that your charms as a woman are enough to drive normal men to homosexuality, but I will be all right. I will."
"Relena--"
That son of a bitch put his filthy paws on Quatre's thigh. Right where his fingers could brush up against the tangerine speedo. And Quatre didn't deck him. Not only did he not deck that asshole, he encouraged him! He laughed and tilted his head! My Quatre was flirting with that creature who was laying hands on his sweet, innocent flesh! Obviously, someone needed to take Quatre aside and explain proper dating protocol to him. And dress him appropriately. It was probably too late to go shopping for the weekend, but Wufei undoubtedly had something far more befitting a man of Quatre's gentle nature. Quatre would look quite attractive in Wufei's loose pants and long over tunic.
"Aargh!" Duo yelled. He rounded on Heero before almost throwing himself over the railing next to me. "I can't believe you did it!"
Did what? Oh boy. And I'd thought Heero had been self-destructive during the wars. I barely refrained from shaking my head. Only an idiotic masochist would feel up Relena Peacecraft--under her bikini top no less--in front of Duo Maxwell. Duo's trapeze isn't exactly firmly tied to his big top, if you get my meaning.
"Master, it's not what you think!"
Duo's finger stabbed toward them with all of the precision of Cathy's knives. "Oh, you don't have your hands on Miss Pink's boobies? I'm imagining things? Maybe you're doing a little hands on reminiscing about Wing? Is that it? Trying to fly your gundam, Heero?"
You would think that Heero would have the sense to get his hands out of Relena's top instead of sitting there turning various shades of red.
Hn. Best friend or not, Heero was on his own this time. I had a big-nosed pervert to put the fear of gundam into and then I had to appropriate Wufei's change of clothing. My Quatre was probably mortified to be out in public in such revealing swimwear.
"It's not like that at all, Mas--"
"Perfect slave my ass!" Duo bellowed. By now, everyone around the pool was staring at us. Quatre's mouth had dropped open; though, that Nicholas pervert was too startled by Heero's yapping pet to take advantage. I hid behind my bangs and pretended not to know any of them. "Perfect nincompoop is more like it!"
Heero yanked his hand out of Relena's bikini like he'd been burned. "But Mas--"
"You touched her boob!" Duo's finger twitched to Relena. "This is all your fault," he howled, then jumped off the balcony, shrieking something that would have come in handy the last time Cathy's knife had missed during a show.
"Duo!" Heero rushed to the railing.
After the last few minutes, no one would ever believe that these two idiots had helped us win two wars against overwhelming odds.
Relena squared her shoulders and swiped at her cheeks. "It's okay. It's okay if you think that I'm not attractive. It will hurt for a little bit, but I'll be okay. I'll be just fine. I am a Peacecraft and we are strong." She sniffled again. "Be honest, Heero. You don't find me attractive, do you?"
Heero paused in the act of jumping after Duo to blink apologetically at her. "No, I don't."
"I knew it," she whispered. She stood and sucked in a breath, then let it go. "You think I'm ugly!"
The Zero System must have fried his brain. Either that or too much sex short circuited whatever sense Heero ever had. My money was on Zero.
Heero climbed off of the railing and faced her. "No! You're pret--"
She ignored him. "Trowa, you'd better not date me."
Maybe I should jump off the balcony. Even if I would temporarily lose sight of Quatre.
She shook her head. "No, don't stay near me. I'll make you gay."
Heero took a step toward her. "Rel--"
"I'm sorry!" Relena wiped at her eyes again and bolted down the stairs.
"Relena!" Heero chased after her.
Dorothy smirked and sipped at her drink. "Do you ever feel like you're in the midst of a bad soap opera, Barton?"
I gave her a narrow look. "You instigated the whole thing."
"Do you have any idea what would happen to me if I were to weave another beautiful tapestry of battle?" She smiled almost sadly, like a blonde grasshopper, and lifted her glass in a silent toast. "I had to find something to do with my time."
"Instead of orchestrating a war, you ruin relationships."
She laughed at that. "Silly boy, I help people. Ruining things? That wouldn't be half so interesting."
"What gives you the right to mess with people?"
"Absolutely nothing." She swirled the last swallow of wine in her glass, then drank it down. "I can't remember if I told Quatre that Nicholas becomes quite the octopus when he's had a bit too much to drink. Hmm. Ah well." She smirked. "It's just you and me, Trowa darling. Care to prove to me that your nose doesn't accurately reflect the size of your penis? You did say it was myth."
"You set Quatre up with a sexual predator?" I didn't yell, but I did have the satisfaction of wiping that smirk off of her face. "You delivered gentle, innocent Quatre into the hands of a bastard like that? You're lucky I don't have the time to kill you right now."
"Quatre? Innocent? Are we talking about the same--"
I jumped off of the balcony before she could expose me to any more ridiculous justifications for her evil plot to ruin Quatre's life. That Nicholas was a dead man if he'd touched a single hair on my Quatre's body. If he'd even thought about it, well, let's just say that Colonel Une at her worst would be awed by the torture that pervert would enjoy.
Son of a bitch! Quatre wasn't where I'd last seen him. My heart started working again when I located the sexual predator still in his chair, pouting into his drink. Time for a little mission revision. First, interro--find out what he did with Quatre. Second, explain the protocol for breaking off this travesty of Dorothy's without hurting Quatre's feelings. Use a knife if he's stubborn about it.
I slid into Quatre's chair. "Nicholas, is it?"
The sexual predator glared at me. "Who are you?"
"Quatre's friend." I pulled one of my smaller knives--all right, it was Cathy's and I borrowed it without asking, but that's not important--and started cleaning my fingernails with it. Cliched, but highly effective when dealing with civilian pukes.
The sexual predator snorted and tossed back his drink like a shot of whiskey. It was pink and the glass was curvy. It had an umbrella in it. Could this guy be any more of a loser? Quatre deserved better than this. He deserved a man who could take care of him, protect him, cherish him. Nicholas didn't measure up. He slammed the glass down and tried to glare at my knife. "Another one. Do all of his friends belong in a sanitarium, or is it just the two of you?"
I couldn't decide if he was brave or stupid. "Where is Quatre?"
He snorted again then stared manfully at his fruity drink. Fruity should be taken in every sense of the word. "He left with that insane friend of his."
I slammed the point of my knife into the table before I cut him with it. "You let Quatre leave with a lunatic?"
The sexual predator's face blanched into the exact color of the underbelly of a trout. "Let? There was not let to it. I couldn't stop him! That maniac popped up out of no where, threatened me, then dragged Quatre off! What was I supposed to do, pull a knife on him?"
It took all of my willpower not to intimately acquaint my knife with his spleen. "You should have stopped him!"
"I couldn't get a word in, that maniac wouldn't stop talking! He threatened me! With a tro! I don't even know what a tro is!"
I relaxed my grip on the knife. "Did this maniac happen to have a long braid?"
"Yes!"
Wonderful. Duo was off corrupting Quatre again. I made a mental note to have a discussion with Heero about keeping his long-haired fur ball on a leash. I pulled the knife out of the table and tested the tip with my thumb. Just for the fun of it, I tried out one of Heero's 'I'm in the middle of battle and I'm having fun' grins on the pervert. He turned an odd shade of yellow. "I'm Tro."
If Duo had done anything more to my sweet Quatre I'd...I'd...I'd turn him over to Cathy, that's what I'd do.
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