Author's note: Many thanks for the reviews. I'm happy to see some familiar names! -Swordy
A Night to Remember
Part 2 – Heero Delegates.
The rest of the meal passed uneventfully apart from the odd glances Maria cast at Heero whenever she came to their table. After settling the bill, the four friends left the restaurant relieved to find that the rain had temporarily ceased. The streets had gotten considerably fuller since they'd entered the restaurant and trying to find a cab looked like an impossible mission. Noting they were near Bond Street tube station, Quatre suggested that they made their way to Leicester Square that way. Recalling there was something on his task list relating to the London Underground rail system, Heero fished the piece of paper out of his pocket as they walked.
9. Busk on the London underground.
'Yeah right' Heero's internal voice muttered inside his head as he recalled just how lousy a singer he was. At one of the schools they had been temporarily enrolled at during the first war, he had been required to befriend the son of an OZ commander in order to extract information from the family home. The boy in question was a member of the school choir and duly, Heero had enlisted himself so that they had something in common. The music teacher Miss Jameson had been so horrified by the Japanese boy's lack of vocal talent that she'd insisted that he mime if he was so determined to be part of the choir. He was that good. Therefore, to save himself from untold humiliation he would have to delegate the task to… he did a quick eeny, meeny, myny mo… Trowa.
Heero smiled as he fell into stride with the tall European who looked at him, bemused.
"Choosing what task to do next?" Trowa asked, smiling at Heero through his thick bangs.
"Something like that," Heero replied cryptically, unable to resist a smile as the other remain unaware of his fate. "Actually, I've decided to delegate the next one to you."
Trowa looked only mildly surprised. "Are you sure?" he asked, "because you can only delegate one task to each of us."
Heero nodded, resolutely determined. "Yes, I know but there's no way I'm doing this one," he said, pointing to the list before they descended the stairs at the entrance to Bond Street tube station. Wufei and Quatre who had walked on ahead disappeared from view briefly to buy tickets from the machine, but when they returned, they quickly came to see what Heero and Trowa were discussing.
"Heero wants me to do the busking task," Trowa explained in response to their inquisitive expressions.
Wufei and Quatre nodded despite looking mildly disappointed that Heero wasn't doing that one himself. Since they had all shared school placements during the wars, they'd been privy to Heero's vocal talents, or lack of them, and had decided on the task to exploit them. They'd reasoned that he may delegate that particular task, but it hadn't stopped them hoping that he'd find worse duties to give them, leaving himself to the singing one.
"Fair enough," Wufei said with a shrug. "Rules are rules."
They made their way through the turnstiles, putting their tickets into the slot that automatically opened the gates for them before they descended further into the cavernous underground rail system. The four friends followed the steady stream of commuters down the escalator and through a series of draughty tunnels as they headed for the correct platform. For a moment Heero thought Trowa was going to conveniently forget about his designated task until a violin-playing busker came into view. The man, in his mid-twenties, was playing a lively Irish ditty on a battered-looking instrument as a wiry terrier-type dog looked on from its comfy position on the man's screwed up jacket.
Aside from his faithful pet, no one appeared to be paying much attention to the man, despite his obvious talent. Seeing the musician, Trowa strode on ahead and engaged the man, who promptly stopped playing. Out of earshot, the three friends could only wonder at what Trowa was saying to him as the man first frowned, then smiled and nodded. They watched as Trowa cleared his throat before the violinist began to play. All three instantly recognised the tune before Trowa started to sing. Even Heero, who was not a particular fan of opera, knew the tune 'Nessan Dorma' from when he had sat through match after match with Duo during the football World Cup several years ago when the song had been the official anthem.
The echoing chambers of the tube system gave perfect resonance to Trowa's already excellent tenor voice and before long, the world-weary commuters were starting to take notice of this clearly talented, yet unconventional busker. Heero noted a group of Japanese tourists behind him and couldn't help but overhear their discussions as to whether Trowa must be someone famous and should they get his autograph when he'd finished? From their position a few feet away, the three friends watched as people started to root in their pockets for money and before long, the busker's upturned cap was filled with loose change and even a few bank notes.
As the song drew to its climactic close, an appreciative burst of applause broke out before people resumed their journeys. The real busker tried to get Trowa to take some of the money they had jointly earned, but the dark haired ex-pilot wouldn't hear of it. Instead he simply thanked the man as he stroked the entertainer's resting canine companion before turning to rejoin his friends.
"That was fantastic!" Quatre gushed, unable to prevent himself from flinging his arms around his handsome partner's neck.
The other two looked on, equally impressed before Heero retrieved his list and ticked off the appropriate task. "Did me proud there," he said, smiling at Trowa who laughed in response.
"Glad you think so," he replied modestly as they started off towards the platform.
On the journey to Leicester Square, Heero managed to fulfil a couple more of the slightly easier tasks after they started up a conversation with a group of tourists from Australia and New Zealand, sat near them on the tube. The group, travelling to celebrate their final exams at university were quite interested when they learnt of Heero's tasks and before long, a pair of knickers, some condoms and an impromptu conga around the carriage had helped satisfied three more of the evening's requirements.
As they disembarked, feeling ever more in the party spirit, Heero decided it was time to delegate another task. He had already contemplated how much earache Relena would give him if he got a tattoo, so he had quickly decided that that would be a task he would delegate, but now he was presented with a problem. Wufei already had a tattoo - a symbol of his clan, which made the task a little less daring should he give it to the Chinese man. Trowa had already done a task leaving… Quatre, the last person on earth that would get a tattoo voluntarily. That said, Heero thought to himself as he glanced across at the innocent-looking blond, if Quatre refused then surely he could too. The others, having encountered Relena many times during the wars, would understand just how badly she would kill him if he went home with any non-God given adornment.
"Uh-oh," he heard Trowa say as he turned to see the others regarding him cautiously. "Methinks Mr Yuy's about to delegate another task."
Heero smiled in response to Trowa's perceptiveness as he nodded acquiescently. "You're right, and this time it's for Quatre."
The diminutive blond glanced at the others nervously before he spoke. "Which one do you want me to do?"
Heero smiled. "You have to get a tattoo."
Wufei's eyes went wide with surprise at Heero's choice. "Quatre?" he said in disbelief, "the man who could make it into the Guinness Book of Records for the world's lowest pain threshold?"
Quatre shot Wufei a glare of annoyance before he turned to Trowa, who merely shrugged and smiled. They had discussed the possibility of Heero delegating certain tasks and had all agreed to live with the consequences. Mind you, Quatre thought, that had been after they'd finished off several bottles of wine as they'd drawn up the list. Now, with slightly less alcohol inside him, it didn't seem such a good idea…
"Fair enough," he said, not sounding entirely sure as they began to scan the streets for a suitable establishment. Away from Leicester Square, amongst the back streets there was no shortage of places to go to have tattoos and piercings, and after studying the credentials of several of the smarter-looking parlours they settled on one entitled 'Rays'. It looked clean and Ray displayed his many awards and health and safety documentation in the shop window. They didn't have to drag Quatre into the shop, but as he heard the steady buzz of the needle, they almost had to prevent him from leaving.
After a couple of minutes where the four friends were alone in the shop as they studied the endless designs on offer, the drone of the needle stopped and Ray himself appeared, wearing a large grin and most of the tattoos he offered to do on every visible inch of flesh.
"Sorry 'bout that," he said, wiping his hands on his jeans as he glanced at the four smartly dressed men before him. "Now what can I do for you?"
Trowa nudged Quatre gently in the ribs as the blond continued to gawp at the man's heavily decorated skin. "I er… want to get a tattoo," he said, doing his best impression of someone who very much didn't want one at all. "But if you're too busy…" he trailed off hopefully.
To Quatre's dismay, Ray shook his head. "Actually I'm pretty quiet at the moment. In fact, I was just doing myself another design when you came in but I can finish it later." He raised his arm to show them, but it was difficult to distinguish new from old, he had so many. The four friends smiled politely.
"Well if you want to choose a design, give me a shout and we'll get started," he said, still grinning as he disappeared into the back room of the shop. The buzzing needle sound started up shortly after.
For the next ten minutes or so, the four men surveyed the rows of designs, pointing certain ones out to Quatre in the hope that he would see something he liked.
"Oh this is hopeless!" he exclaimed eventually, throwing his hands up in despair as he finished looking at the last wall of designs.
"Why don't you just get 'Trowa' tattooed across your forehead?" Wufei laughed, glancing at Heero and Trowa who both started to chuckle.
The scathing look on Quatre's face was instantly replaced by an expression of thoughtfulness. "You know," he said as the others stopped laughing, "that's not a bad idea."
His friends exchanged dubious glanced as they watched Quatre poke his head around the door at the rear of the shop and have a quick conversation with Ray. The proprietor then came into the front and located a pad and a pen from under the counter before handing it silently to Quatre, who went to sit on one of the sofas as the others looked on curiously. As soon as Quatre put pen to paper, his friends realised what he was doing. In no time at all he had produced the word 'Trowa' written neatly in Arabic script, which he then handed to Ray, who disappeared in the back room to reproduce the design as a transfer. Whilst he was gone, Quatre shrugged at the others before smiling shyly at Trowa. "I hope it'll look okay," he said, barely finishing the sentence before Ray reappeared and beckoned him into the back.
"Trowa?" Quatre said, suddenly looking nervous.
The blond needn't have worried however as Trowa was already at his side. "Are you two waiting here?" the taller young man asked his remaining companions who nodded simultaneously.
With the two of them alone in the front of the shop, Heero and Wufei started to idly browse through the rows of designs on offer. Heero saw one he liked very much and was staring at it so hard he didn't hear Wufei approaching behind him.
"Why don't you get it done?"
Heero spun to face him. "Huh?"
"That tattoo," Wufei said, pointing at the design, "It'd look good on you."
Heero shrugged, his gaze moving to the floor and staying there. "Relena hates them," he said simply.
Wufei smiled as Heero glanced up in time to catch the gesture of support. "I'm sure she'd love anything on you," the Chinese man replied, trying to keep the conversation lighthearted as he sensed trouble in his friend's voice.
"Yeah… probably," Heero answered vaguely, sweeping a hand through his unruly brown hair.
During the brief conversation, the now familiar sound of the needle had started up, shortly followed by a muffled yelp of surprise. The two at the front of the shop exchanged glances before they set off laughing, trying desperately to prevent the sound from reaching the blond young man in the next room, who would no doubt not appreciate their amusement.
Approximately twenty minutes later, Quatre and Trowa emerged, the former looking considerably paler than the latter. The blond was nursing an area on the inside of his left forearm covered with gauze that indicated to the two men outside the chosen location for his new piece of body art. After settling up with Ray, who was well used to customers leaving his shop a whiter shade of pale, they emerged onto the bustling London streets.
"Let's have a look then," Wufei said cheerfully, turning to look at Quatre.
The blond shot him a pained look. "Drink first, look later," he muttered through gritted teeth as the others fought down smirks. As they set off walking, Heero referred back to the increasingly dog-eared piece of paper to see how many more tasks he had to complete. He was relieved to see that some of the worst, in his opinion, had been tackled but there were still others that caused him consternation. The fact that Quatre had gone through with getting a tattoo meant that the forfeits for non-completion must be much, much worse than the tasks themselves. Still, he always had one more task that he could delegate to Wufei…
The problem was, which one remaining task did he deem too awful to do himself? He wasn't sure he could think of a way to 'be impulsive' but he didn't particularly relish the thought of having to kiss a barperson, and declaring his undying love to someone? Well, that was pretty much unthinkable too. Looking up from his list to tell Wufei that he had decided which task he could do, Heero realised that he had lost sight of all three of his companions.
"Great," he muttered, turning his head back and forth as he tried to pick them out in the heavy crowds. To make matters worse, the rain had started to fall again and soon all faces were obscured by a variety of multicoloured umbrellas that jostled with each other for room on the busy pavements. After a moment of standing in the rain, he decided to continue his search from under the cover of a nearby shop, reasoning it was better to stay put and let them come back to find him. Five minutes passed and then ten. The rain eased a little and just as he was contemplating leaving his shelter to look again for his absent friends they reappeared, Quatre leading the way, his almost white-blond hair like a beacon of light in the growing darkness.
"Heero!" he cried, relief visible on his boyish features, "Thank Allah, we thought we'd lost you!"
Heero offered them a sheepish smile before explaining how he'd got left behind whilst reading his task list. As he spoke, Heero couldn't help but notice that unlike Trowa and Quatre who were smiling broadly, Wufei seemed to have adopted a much darker expression, a scowl in fact, which was joined on his face by a flash of colour on his cheeks, indicating that he had been blushing recently. Before Heero could question the Chinese man's stormy expression, Trowa and Quatre, who appeared to have forgotten about his sore arm, burst out into a fit of laughter. Evidently something had happened during their period of separation.
"Oh give it a rest, you two," Wufei muttered darkly, glaring at each man in turn, but his rebuke did little to deter his companions, who had now reached full-blown hysterics. People were starting to look at the group of young men as they passed, curious as to what they were laughing at, although none was more curious than Heero, who stared at each of his friends in turn, waiting for an explanation.
Trowa was first to speak as Quatre fought for breath, his eyes watering badly from laughing so hard. "Wufei's just completed another one of your tasks," the tall European man chuckled, regaining a little composure despite a broad grin still splitting his handsome face.
Heero looked puzzled as he dug the list out of his pocket to scan which tasks hadn't been completed yet. As he studied the paper, Trowa proceeded to explain how they had quickly realised that Heero was missing and had started to search Leicester Square for him. Apparently, Wufei had seen someone, "He did look like you Heero," the Chinese man interjected at this point, and had rushed over as the person was walking away. In his haste, Trowa explained trying not to start laughing all over again, Wufei had tripped and fallen and ended up tackling the man round the legs, who then very embarrassingly turned out not to be Heero. The incident had been witnessed in its entirety by a passing policeman who had rushed over thinking Wufei was trying to mug the Japanese tourist of his hideously expensive camera, and promptly pinned him to the ground.
Only the intervention of his companions had prevented Wufei from been hauled off to the nearest police station to spend the night in the cells. The tourist had been placated when the three young men had explained Wufei's actions in broken Japanese and the policeman had been satisfied that no harm had been intended. Trowa and Quatre, once they knew Wufei wasn't in danger of being arrested, had seen the funny side instantly, unlike Wufei who continued to scowl during the retelling. Heero laughed and couldn't help but agree to write off the 'get the attention of a police officer' task as Wufei's delegated duty. Judging by the look on Wufei's face, Heero reasoned that the Chinese man would probably refuse whatever task Heero chose for him to do anyway.
The only problem now was that all of the remaining tasks had to be completed by Heero himself. Strictly speaking, he didn't have to do them, but he knew that when the others said there would be forfeits imposed for incomplete tasks, then the alternative didn't bear thinking about. Put simply, if Quatre was willing to get a tattoo rather than take a forfeit then it was safe to assume that whatever they had chosen would be pretty extreme.
Looking at his watch, Heero realised he had approximately seven hours left to complete the remaining tasks, but before he could begin to worry about them, Wufei's voice broke into his thoughts. "Come on, I need a drink," he said grumpily, glancing at the others almost challenging them to disagree.
Keen to reignite their friend's good mood, the four companions headed for the nearest bar; a Mexican themed pub named 'Chiquitos'. The interior of the pub was a mish-mash of greens and orange, the brightness of which made up for the dim lighting. At the back of the main room a large screen displayed video after video of Latin artists, the songs blaring out through the speakers, contributing to the lively atmosphere within the popular meeting place. Once inside, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei went to find a table as Heero headed for the bar. Despite the remaining tasks playing on his mind, he was enjoying himself considerably and as he waited to be served, he couldn't help but smile at some of the evening's events. This night would certainly remain in his memory long after the ink on his marriage certificate was dry.
As he continued to daydream, unconcerned by the lengthy wait to be served, his eyes caught on a movement further up the bar. Instantly focussing, he couldn't suppress a gasp of surprise as an all too familiar figure stood just several feet away, expertly pulling a pint of beer. Dressed in dark coloured trousers and a loose black shirt, open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves, Duo Maxwell, the owner of the longest hair and most striking eyes Heero had ever seen, worked oblivious to the fact that his ex-lover and three of his closest friends were currently patrons of his place of employment.
TBC…
