Iguana
Rei rang the bell again, because certainly in his experience you just didn't get houses this huge empty. And he'd brought the requested oranges, heaped into a wicker basket with a canteloupe he'd found at the store, because Mystel wasn't fussy about copyright infringement and would like it even if he hadn't thought of it. The battered wind-chime tinkled from the porch roof behind him in an ineffectual breeze which did nothing to lessen the damp heat of the day; he considered ringing the bell a sixth time when the door suddenly swung open.
"Mystel's not here - hsssh, ssh, sssh."
Rei blinked. Brooklyn seemed to be speaking mostly to the enormous dog beside him, which was showing its equally enormous teeth halfheartedly to the visitor.
"Okay, I just - "
"He'll be back in a little while. Shh, Jack, silly..."
"I can - "
"Shhhhh. Good boy."
Rei opted for a neutral smile as the other dropped to his knees to ruffle the dog's thick-furred neck and kiss its nose.
"Good boy Jack yes I love you."
"What was that, babe?"
Rei automatically looked up at the sound of a voice inside the house, and frowned. His suspicions were justified as Hiro appeared in the doorway, missing a shirt but pulling his sunglasses down with one hand as he noticed Rei.
"What's going on here?"
"Rei came to see - " Brooklyn paused to kiss the dog's nose again; it didn't seem opposed to the idea. " - came to see Mystel."
"Mystel's not here," Hiro noted, frowning deliberately at Rei, who declined to react.
"He knows, Sensei, I said - bye, Jack." Rei was obliged to lean back as the dog trotted away past him, smelling damp, to slump into a heap on the porch; Brooklyn stared vaguely after it.
"Mystel's not here," Hiro repeated, more firmly this time and looking definitely at Rei.
"Do you know when he'll be back?"
"No, you'd - "
"Sensei." Brooklyn had staggered upright again and pushed under Hiro's arm, turning to face Rei with his head tilted. "He'll be back soon, they just went to get ice cream. And that kind of candy, the edible...the paper that you can eat, because Mystel said he needed it for...something..."
Rei tried not to stare. Apparently losing track of his sentence halfway, Brooklyn had gazed vacantly at him for a few seconds before hooking both skinny arms around Hiro's opposite shoulder and rubbing his head on the man's side. Hiro wavered.
"H - hey. Not just now, huh?"
"Sensei. I stop now, I stop for a week."
"No, no, not...just now, okay?"
"Not okay. Nn."
His ability to make protracted eye contact failing, Rei glanced away at his fruit basket rather than continuing to watch what he was quite sure was Brooklyn biting Hiro's collarbone.
"You know what, it can wait."
"Yeah," Hiro agreed, attempting to stare him down through the glasses and what had to be pain, by now.
"Hey, no - !"
His retreat down the porch steps cut short, Rei stopped; Brooklyn had turned and was frowning disconsolate and bloody-mouthed in unmistakably his direction.
"He'll be so sad if you go. If you're not here when he gets back. You can wait, right?"
Rei smiled tightly and swung the fruit-basket.
"Well, I can..."
"Yes. Come in the garden, then. We've got lemonade."
The last part he'd muttered into Hiro's chest, and Rei hadn't quite caught it.
"...What?"
"He said we have lemonade," Hiro clarified abruptly, trying to remain still and composed. "Hey. H - ah - hey, Brook, stop it, okay?"
"You can't tell me what to do."
"Shh, stop it," the man repeated, winding a hesitant arm around his accomplice's waist, aware of Rei's eyes on them. He looked up. "You'd better come in."
The pool, Rei had to admit, was quite impressive. Probably Olympic-sized, it stretched across the back of the central wing of the Seibalt mansion, bordered by its own sandstone pavement which after the pool broadened out into the base of the seating area in which he was currently ensconced. And the wicker lounger itself was perfectly acceptable, not to mention the pitcher of lemonade on the stand beside it. No, the only problem Rei could find was Hiro, murmuring at the other end of the seating area to Brooklyn, who had climbed onto the man's lap despite his hissed protestations - something about Rei being there, in fact - and started doing something distinctly suspect to his neck. Hiro had since stopped his desultory attempts to fend the redhead off, and instead resorted to sporadically whispering in his ear. Rei could almost feel his stomach turning. They'd assured him that Mystel would be back soon, or at least Brooklyn had, slurring words and snatching at his arm until he agreed to wait.
In retrospect, it may not have been the wisest choice. Risk the unpredictable wrath of the King of Darkness, or have to face Hiro's eyes flickering to his between kisses. It might as well have been a rock and a hard place. Rei sipped his lemonade and stared at the pool, not the other lounger or the assortment of bottles and cigarette-ends surrounding it, which admittedly went some way to explaining -
"Where're the filters," Brooklyn complained suddenly, loud enough to be heard across the pool itself, let alone the seating area.
"I...don't know."
Rei concentrated on the bizarrely iguana-shaped inflatable bobbing in the pool's faint current, holding his lemonade glass rigidly in one hand.
"Senseiii! Where are they? You don't even roll, you're useless..! Ah."
"I'm sorry."
"It's - mm, okay, mmm."
Still focussing on the drifting, bobbing pool-iguana, all Rei noticed was the sound of a lighter and then a sweet smoke heading his way on the air.
"...Sensei, your lighter's rubbish."
"I'm sorry. Look, can't we - "
"Get me drunk, Sensei, we can do it all night. Whatever you like, you know? Whatever I like."
"Brook, can we - nn - not now. We've got company."
"Fuck him, he doesn't care..."
"No - nnh - I think you're confusing, hey, confusing yourself with other people again...hey, no, c'mon. Sit down, okay?"
"No - "
A breeze nudged the iguana towards Rei's end of the pool, along with another waft of sickly smoke. He ignored the scuffling noises coming from the direction of the other two, and attempted to work out why the iguana had lipstick on.
"No, sit down, just - "
"No, Hi-ro!"
"Don't - "
"Get off me, I'm going to the shower. I don't wanna smell of you, Sensei..."
Rei's focus was stolen from the iguana and its candy-pink lipstick; Brooklyn had lurched up out of whatever Hiro was doing to him, and backed away along the edge of the pool, batting crossly at the man's hands.
"Get off, get away from me Sensei - !"
"You'll fall in the pool, Brook, knock it off - "
"No I won't. Get off me you fuck. Hey Rei, Rei make him stop it..."
Rei looked up, blinking into the sun. The water condensing on his lemonade glass had begun dripping distractingly onto the skin between his thumb and forefinger.
"I don't know quite what he thinks he's doing, honestly."
Hiro snorted at the remark, then again at Brooklyn slapping him in the chest.
"Hey - no, c'mon. You're going to fall in there, don't be - tch - childish."
"I'm not!"
"Children are allowed to be," Rei told the iguana, looking it straight in its lipsticky eye, which Mystel was almost certainly responsible for, and why on earth wasn't he back yet?
"I'm not a children, shut up get off, creep!"
There was an electrical noise, and Hiro stumbled back a few steps, giving up as Brooklyn knocked his reaching hand away and fled in the direction of the open shower by the pool steps. Rei held the iguana's sole gaze firmly, twisting to shake lemonade-glass residue off his own hand.
"...shit. Hey, hey don't fall in!"
Getting no reply but the sound of the shower switching on, Hiro glanced down at Rei.
"...he's not a child."
"I never said that."
"Very funny. How about you mind your own business?"
Rei smiled blandly, nudging the basket of fruit with his foot.
"Can't. I've got to wait for Mystel. And if you will choose to make out right there, Hiro..."
"I didn't choose anything," the man snapped, rubbing his forehead with a fist, "and the age of consent - "
"The age of consent is pretty much not sixteen."
The iguana rotated slowly away, until Rei couldn't look at it any more and turned up towards Hiro, not-quite-glaring against the sun. Across the pool, the shower switched off.
"You don't have any kind of proof. Of anything."
"Yeah, well. I'm sure some can be found, the way you're carrying on."
"Shut up," Hiro hissed, and was beginning to say something else when Brooklyn ploughed dripping into his arms.
"Sensei!"
"Whoah, hey..."
Moving automatically into an embrace, Hiro paused with both arms half-raised as Rei sipped his lemonade just loudly enough to be heard.
"Hey..."
"What?" Staring narrow-eyed up at Hiro, Brooklyn inhaled from the lit joint between his fingers. "I won't put it out on you again, promise."
Hiro shook his head, blinking, and landed his arms decisively. Eyes fixed on Rei, over the top of Brooklyn's head.
"...I...yeah, don't do that, okay?"
"Okay. Hi, Rei."
"Hi there."
The screen door at the back of the house flew open, and Hiro and Rei looked up simultaneously.
"Rei-chaaan! Hi when did you get here? Ee!"
"Mystel, don't - "
Garland's shout broke off into a sigh as Mystel rocketed into the pool fully clothed. He surfaced next to the iguana, and climbing aboard began to paddle it across towards them. Garland made his way resignedly down the steps and deposited a shopping bag full of ice creams on the stand.
"Hi, Rei. Sorry, he didn't tell me you were coming until we'd gone out."
"Sure, it's fine."
"Good, good...you guys want ice cream? There's lemon in here somewhere."
Brooklyn muttered something, and headbutted Hiro's chest in apparent affection; the man rumbled a laugh and whispered into his hair.
"Rei, would you like - "
Looking up, Garland stopped mid-rummage in the shopping bag. Sighed again, and the pleading eyes that should have been Hiro's were his.
"Rei..."
Rei just smiled and nodded.
"I'll take strawberry, thanks."
NOTES:
- ...because apparently, despite how frequently this pairing occurs, relatively few people have noticed how creepy it is.
- Yes, Hiro is a very odd man. You know, if the dressing up like a ninja to jump out of trees and assault teenagers didn't clue you in on that part. o__o what scum.
- Yes, Brooklyn is getting high. He acts like a pothead, and if it looks like a duck, squawks like a duck, and develops wings and flies into the air like a duck...it's probably Brooklyn.
- Rei does not approve of any of this. Poor Rei. You're too decent for these people, man, run for the hills.
- feather-duster reminds readers that everyone in this story is wearing clothes. It just didn't flow with the text to say so. If you insist, you can re-read it with everyone naked, it's probably funnier that way. 8D
- "Sensei" is mockery. You want a nice relationship, Hiro, don't have it with a psychopath.
- Mystel is awesome. Believe it.
- If you, dear reader, would like to know far more than you'd actually like to know about this weird relationship, or BEGA in general, please contact the official feather-duster BEGA Helpline, on MSN, under feather(underscore)duster(underscore)(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk
- and finally, happy extremely-belated birthday, waifu! This Rei here, he's for you. Complete with fruit basket, lemonade, board shorts and MORALS. Lov. 3
- REVIEW AND I LOVE YOU LIKE LEMONADE.