No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

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Part Nine: The Contest

[Author's Notes: Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it? I've been working on the next bit of 'Gone Wylde', and those chapters tend to be very, very long. My apologies, but I absolutely, really, truly MUST finish that story.

Even so, this little bit demanded to be written, and I can only ignore such 'requests' from my Muse for so long.

And thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the kind reviews!

Standard Disclaimer: DC Comics owns the Titans. You know it. I know it. Anyone paying attention knows it. So just remember that all this extraneous, extra-canonical, extra-ridiculous writing is being done purely for the joy of the exercise. Kinda like jogging, only a lot more fun, and without the sweat or the pollution or the threat of dog attacks.]

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{Tuesday, 8:35pm}

"Miss Madge?"

The waitress turned and took the three steps to Garfield Logan's table. "Yeah, Hon, what's the need?"

Beast Boy gestured around to the others at the table: Speedy, Red-X, Cyborg, Mammoth, and Kid Flash. "We wanted to know if we could make some, uh … special orders."

"Ya need a different menu, Hon?"

"Well … Star said you had Tamaranean food here. And Martian food, too."

"Yeah. So? You want a Martian menu? Gotta warn ya, some of those dishes'll give ya the trots."

"No, but … but could we just order, like, off the top of our heads?"

She whipped out her notepad. "I'll see what I can do."

"Well, um … see …" He glanced at his companions, who were all grinning sheepishly. "We've kinda got … well, a bet."

"… A bet?" A frown crept quietly onto her face. "What kind?"

Red-X jumped in. "We all wrote down an order on these sticky-notes." He held up a small yellow square. The others copied him a few seconds later. "And we wanted to know if you could make these dishes."

She held out a hand. "Lemme see 'em." The notes were dutifully passed to her, and she quickly shifted through them. "Yeah, I don't see any problems here."

Kid Flash blanched under his mask, his mouth dropping open. "Seriously? You can make that stew?"

"With the centipedes? Yeah, no worries. If you wanna eat it, we can pretty much make it."

Kid Flash slumped back into his chair, terror and nausea playing tag in his eyes. He fished a ten-spot from an inside pocket, folded it twice and flipped it across the table to a grinning Red-X.

Madge pulled out one of the slips and squinted an eye at it. "Gonna have to substitute somethin' for henbane in this sausage, though. You guys are all human – um, mostly human, that is – and it's toxic to humans." She nodded. "He can use mugwort. That won't taste much different, and it won't kill anybody."

Beast Boy blew a quiet raspberry at Red-X and held out a hand. The thief, grumbling, dropped the ten into it.

"I see that they're numbered," added Madge, who noted these byplays but didn't comment. "That how you want 'em brought out?"

"No," answered Beast Boy, eyeing Kid Flash uneasily. "That's how we keep track of which one is which."

"They all need to come out at the same time," offered Cyborg, who looked nearly as apprehensive as the speedster.

"Okey-doke. No problemo, mis amigos." And she sashayed over to the kitchen entrance.

The various heroes and villains eyed each other warily. Mammoth cleared his throat, a sound reminiscent of a poorly-maintained diesel engine, and asked, "You guys really think this is a good idea?"

Cyborg gave him the eye. "You wanna back out?"

"No! No way, man. Anything you frails can eat, I can eat. But … what if it, y'know, makes ya sick? Bird Brain'll be all over your ass if you can't …"

"Let me worry about that. I've got a titanium stomach. Ain't nothin' you could come up with that would give me a problem."

Mammoth's hand curled into a fist on the table. "We'll see about that, won't we?"

"See about what?"

As one, the boys' heads whipped around to focus on Raven, who was suddenly standing beside their table, her hooded eyes pinning them all to their seats. She surveyed the group and asked, "What do you think, Jinx?"

The pink-haired meta-human stepped out from behind the dark Titan and gave the guys a wry once-over. "I think any plan this bunch could come up with should be avoided on principle."

"No argument there. However, it does make one curious." She took a step toward the table. "What, precisely, are you up to?"

Five sets of eyes turned toward Speedy, who seemed to wither slightly under the stares. He gave Raven an anemic grin and said, "Well … heh-heh … see, uh, me and Mammoth got into a …"

"Mammoth and I."

"… Huh?"

"It's subjective case. You should say 'Mammoth and I' instead of 'me and Mammoth', which would be objective case. But in either usage, Mammoth's name should come first." She waved him on, giving Jinx – who was cracking up over the boys' expressions – the evil eye. "Pray do continue. You and Mammoth got into … something."

"Oh! Right. An argument. Right. We were arguing over who could eat more, and then it got, um, sort of … out of hand."

Raven looked around at the assembled faces with an expression of disapproval. "So the six of you are having an eating contest? How puerile can you get?"

In chorus, they said, "Huh?"

Their deer-in-the-headlights faces sent Jinx into further gales of laughter. Raven shook her head, took her girlfriend by the wrist, and guided her over to a table at the other side of the café.

Beast Boy leaned over to Cyborg and mouthed, "What's 'puerile' mean?"

The big guy shook his head, opened a port on his left arm, and typed for a minute while the rest of the boys waited. He frowned, shot Raven a dirty look (Jinx blew him a kiss) and said, "It means immature or juvenile or infantile."

"Oh, well," said Beast Boy, relaxing somewhat. "She calls me that all the time."

"But she don't call me that!"

"Guess you're just in the right place at the right time."

Cyborg subsided into mumbling, casting dark looks Speedy's way, until they all sat up straight, staring at Benny, who was walking up to them with the sticky-notes in one hand. He leaned against the table and said, "Evenin' boys."

There was a quick round of greetings. Red-X asked, "Is there something wrong?"

"Just wantin' ta make sure you guys didn't write down somethin' wrong." He looked at one of the pieces of paper. "This sauteed buzzard, f'r instance. Number 3, it is. Who ordered it?"

Mammoth's hand went up.

"Yeah. The marinade has dill pickle juice, chocolate chips, kelp, ground sardines, lime jello, capers, oysters, and pineapple salsa." He cocked an eye at the enormous meta-human. "Izzat right?"

"Yes, sir."

He raised an eyebrow, nodded, and said, "And this one. Number 5. Who wants that?"

Red-X raised a finger. "Me."

"Well, I got all the peppers. Just want ta be dead sure you were serious."

"Serious as a heart attack, sir."

"Yeah, well, you just might have one after eatin' this mess." He pulled out another slip. "And Number 1?"

Beast Boy acknowledged ownership.

"Yeah. You know the fermented rutabaga will lose most of the alcohol content during cookin', right?"

"Oh. No, I didn't know that."

"You won't be able to taste any difference, though, around that Limburger-and-catnip stuffing. And you want that on a bed of twenty-year-old kimchee with pickled herring and Hollandaise sauce?"

Gar stole a glance around at the others, who were giving him horrified stares. "Uh … yeah. That's right."

Benny shook his head. "Gonna have to get some bigger exhaust fans for the kitchen." He headed for the back, tossing over his shoulder, "It'll be about half an hour. Oughta get some appetizers." And Madge re-appeared then, ready to take their drink orders.

After she left, Speedy took off his hat, placed six identically-folded pieces of paper into it, and held it out in the middle of the table. In a deafeningly ominous silence, each of the boys pulled one of them out, leaving the last one for Speedy. They looked at him. He looked back. He swallowed nervously, and opened his paper, whereupon a rather melodramatic sheen of sweat covered his face. He whispered, "Dear Lord," and dropped his head to the table. The rest of them quickly opened their own papers, and there followed a series of groans and gasps and swearing.

somewhat later . . . . . . .

"Okay, boys, here's your food." Madge had a huge, round tray that she set down on a nearby table. Significantly, she wore elbow-length rubber gloves, a clothespin on her nose, and goggles over her eyes.

"Okay, who's got Number 1?"

Speedy raised a none-too-steady hand. He had ordered an appetizer of cheese-stuffed jalapenos, and was hoping past hope that they would be able to drown some of the taste of the horrid thing Madge placed in front of him. Mammoth and Cyborg, who were sitting to either side of him, clapped their hands over their mouths and turned watering eyes away.

"Number 2?"

Unhappily, Beast Boy signaled her. She passed him a plate of … well … 'Number 2' is rather what it looked like, though it was really a sort of vegetable sausage made entirely out of various mis-matched rinds. The dark-grayish-brown sauce drenching the thing smelled a great deal like rotting meat. It was actually made of a rare tropical flower that used that smell to attract the flies that pollinated it. Gar fought down his gorge and stared at it the way a condemned man stares at a guillotine.

"Number 3?"

Red-X made a small, dejected motion and received the oddly-marinated gizzards of buzzard. He raised the lower part of his mask, then practically slammed it back in place, gagging audibly.

Madge gave him a sympathetic look and announced, "Number 4?"

Kid Flash sighed and called it over. He had received his own dish back: lutefisk, giant centipedes, and tree grubs baked on a bed of nettles, with a sauce of fermented shark meat. The boys tried valiantly to come up with some alternative for breathing, most of them growing quite purple in the attempt.

"Number 5?"

This one went to Mammoth, who regarded the plate with dread as it came to rest in front of him. A mixture of Caribbean and Indian ultra-hot peppers had been fried in pepper oil, then dredged in powdered pepper. They were served in a tureen of boiled onions and capsaicin extract. Mammoth was certain that the vapor curling up from the dish resolved itself into shadowy little Death's-heads.

"And, Number 6 for you, then." She set a large soup bowl down in front of Cyborg. The green-and-purple sludge that rested there resembled some of Starfire's more unusual attempts at making pudding, only it smelled worse. This dish, the bastard child of a strung-out hippie and a drunk demon (Concolor: Hey, isn't she eating over on the other side of the restaurant? Muse: SMACK!) was the result of combining a stew of okra, arrowroot, pokeweed and hagfish slime with raw pureed tree frogs. He stared at the revolting slop as sweat beaded on his upper lip.

"Good luck, boys. Not that I think it'll help." And Madge made a quick exit.

The six looked at their 'food'. They looked at each other. Cyborg cleared his throat. "Uh … Mammoth? You, uh, wanna trade?"

"I …"

"No!" stated Speedy forcefully. "You eat what you chose. Those are the rules. If you can't eat at least half of it, you cough up a C-note."

Mammoth picked up his fork and gave the death-peppers a few half-hearted stirs. When he pulled it out, the tines were showing signs of pitting and the metal actually gave off a tiny streamer of smoke. He tossed it back into the bowl with a disgusted sigh, pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his belt pack and let it flutter to the table. "I'm tough. But I ain't stupid." He leaned back, pushed his chair a bit farther from the table, and crossed his massive arms. "I do wanna see if the rest of you are stupid, though."

Cyborg leaned over his dish and took a sniff, then jerked back and fought off a gag. Shaking his head and blowing the obnoxious odor out his nose to try to get rid of it, he said, "I'm with Baran. This was a bad idea." And he contributed two fifties to the center of the table.

Red-X's own hundred dollar bill followed a few seconds later. "Don't know why I ever agreed to this," he grumbled. "I don't normally do stupid things."

Beast Boy chuckled. "You wanna see if you can make book on that?"

"Shut up."

Kid Flash sighed in defeat. "Hell, I never really thought they'd even have the damned centipedes. I can't eat bugs!" He pulled a wad of bills out of somewhere, slammed it down onto the table, and vanished in a wash of air.

Mammoth, Cy, and Red-X looked over at Speedy. Red-X said, "This was your idea. You feel like admitting it sucked as bad as the food?"

With a look of absolute determination, the archer picked up his fork and speared the nearly-jellied rutabaga, which promptly erupted in a short squirt of noxious cheese. The fetid combination made everyone else blink and turn away. He brought a tiny bit of the stuff up to his mouth, but his lips (having more presence of mind than his brain) refused to part. After a few wavering seconds he gave up. The fork clattered back onto the plate and a short stack of ten dollar bills plopped down onto the pile of money.

They all looked over at Beast Boy, who was eyeing his 'sausage' with undisguised horror. Speedy said, "Come on. Give it up. You won't be eating that monstrosity any time soon. Just pay up and we'll figure out which charity gets it, since none of us will. Maybe there's a local animal shelter or something."

"Animal shelter?" Beast Boy blinked at him, his eyes going wide. "Animal shelter?"

"It was just a thought. We could give it to the Red Cross. Or the library or …"

The changeling shouted, "Animal shelter!" And then … he grinned.

Cyborg said, "I don't like that grin."

Red-X said, "I don't trust that grin."

Speedy said, "I'm going to regret that grin."

Beast Boy laughed. He tilted his chair back and looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, then nodded. Morphing into a large boar, he quickly dispatched his plate full of food. Then he morphed into a tiny fly and spent a moment cleaning himself off. Finally he morphed back into his resting form, gathered the money into a neat stack, and gave the others an ironic salute. "I may run myself out of the bathroom for a couple of days, but I'd say five hundred bucks makes it worth it. Thanks, gents!"

He trotted over to where Raven and Jinx were sitting, relaxing with after-dinner tea, and said, "Hey, girls! I'm feeling flush. Wanna take in a late movie? My treat, and you pick."

Jinx gave Raven a look and shrugged. "Anything on you wanna see?"

"There's a new drama that just came out last Friday. It's about an autistic woman. I heard it was really good."

"Promise to let me nibble your neck?"

"Always."

The pink-haired girl bounced up from her seat, grabbed Gar's arm, and said, "What are we waiting for? C'mon, girlfriend, do your thing." Whereupon the three vanished in a whirl of black mist.

Mammoth got up. "See you mooks around." And he lumbered out the door.

Cyborg quickly followed him with an abbreviated, "Later."

Red-X smirked at the archer. "You did say you'd spring for the tab on this little contest."

"… Yeah. I did, didn't I? Yet another bad decision."

"Be sure to leave a nice tip. They've got the clean-up job from Hell ahead of 'em." He thumbed a switch on his belt and teleported away.

Speedy surveyed the mess on the table and sighed, pushing himself back. He stood and went over to the bar, pulling out his wallet. Some days it just doesn't pay to chew through the leather straps in the morning.

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[A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this one, although I did have to skip one meal. Just didn't have any appetite, you know?

Also, in case anyone is interested, there is now a follow-up to this chapter: "An Unintended Consequence" which may be found in my list of stories. It needed to be written.

Please leave a comment. I'd like to know how strong are the stomachs of my Wonderful Readers.]