warnings: drunk!Relena is actually kind of cute…
Chapter 15: Look-
Once Heero was gone, I felt oddly bereft. I had been running after treasures for as long as I could remember... I had dug them up from mud and dirt, had tricked and cheated people to get them and crossed whole oceans trying to find them—but I hadn't been able to recognize a real treasure when it fell right into my arms and socked me on the chin. Figuratively speaking. Since I have committed myself to tell the complete and unadulterated truth (from which I haven't deviated so much as a hair's-breadth in my narrative— pirate's honour!) I will admit that after Heero left me standing in the rain I may have almost felt like bursting into tears… but of course I didn't. Being a pirate, there was only one acceptable way to solve this emotional predicament… which was getting drunk. But first things first— and in that case that meant Relena.
Trudging back to the distillery through torrents of rain, I found the door wide open. Dim light from inside reflected off the wet cobblestones leading up to the ramshackle hut and I quickened my steps to get out of the cold, wondering if Relena had left right after getting back into her clothes… but when I got inside, I noticed she was still there.
She had made herself comfortable on a wooden crate, with her feet propped up on a small keg, and was helping herself to our newly distilled rum. I cringed inwardly. Some of that stuff hadn't been tested yet.
"Mishhter Maxwell, there you are again," she exclaimed when she saw me, slurring her words. "Didn't think you'd come back sho shoon."
"Oh, well…"
"You know what? You're like thish glass of r-rum!" She waved her glass for emphasis, spilling a good deal of rum all over herself. "Sh-sh-shee-through. Transhparent!"
She paused—possibly for dramatic effect but maybe just to regain her train of thought—, hiccupped and then declared: "You're in love with Heero!"
The rum must have made her uncharacteristically perceptive or maybe it was just too bloody obvious.
"Well, I don' care," she continued. "R-really. Everyone'sh in love with him, every-every-everyone. Poor s-sh-od, he'sh never goin' to love you back, you know? No nay never! Never. Never. Never. Ne—"
"Ok, I think I get it."
She harrumphed. "And I'll have you know that I'm alsho very e-e-eligible."
"If you say so, Miss Relena." Never argue with a drunk. One of my guiding principles. Play cards with them! Much more profitable...
"Yep, very e-eligible. You wouldn't believe how eligible I am!"
That was actually true, I didn't believe her. And I really didn't want to start discussing Relena's love life. My own was depressing enough.
"Look, Miss Relena, why don't we call it a night," I suggested politely. "I could use a drink and I'm sure you could use some sleep. Let me just have another quick look at your back and—
"—and shee the coordinatesh?"
Huh?
"You know, I'm not shtupid. I can put two and two together– it's three, by the way— 'damn thoshe coordinatesh,' you shaid. When you r-rushed out after your da-a-rling Heero. 'Damn thoshe coordinatesh.' I remember." She proudly tapped her finger against her forehead.
Damn. This whole mess about being unhappily in love must have gotten to me more than I had realized or Wufei had been right all along and I really was a cursed blabbermouth.
"Miss Relena—"
"Mishhter Maxwell, don't mesh around with me! I'm far too shmart." She nodded gravely and hiccupped again.
Even drunk as she was, there was no way I could tell her everything… Relena wasn't like her brother (to be fair, no one I had ever met was, but that's beside the point), she wasn't as honourable and selfless or as trustworthy. Clueing her in was a really, really bad idea…
"I want fifty pershhhent."
"Huh?"
"Fifty persh— oh bugger, half of everything!"
"B-but— we already split by four!"
When I saw her eyebrow twitch knowingly, I realized I had been tricked.
"Sho… you really are after shomething. Intereshting." She smirked drunkenly. Damn the woman.
"Miss, let me remind you of our agreement! We'll take you with us when we leave the island. You can go to Europe and marry your duke or king or whatever. That's what you want, right?"
"It'sh the tattoo, ishn't it?"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ha!"
"What about Europe? Court life, noblemen… the newest fashions? You'd look amazing in those flouncy Parisian dresses!"
"Oh, I'm shure I would."
"So?"
"Sho… I've got to shink about it."
"What's there to think about?!"
Relena smirked, then from one moment to the next her face turned alarmingly green and she looked as if she was going to be sick. While I was torn between getting a bucket and throttling her out of sheer frustration, she slurred in a small voice: "I shink… I shh-ould lie down…"
I had the sinking feeling that there was no reasoning with a drunk Relena... even sober she was a handful. Maybe a tactical retreat would be advisable. And, I reminded myself, what did she even know? Hardly anything. Just that somewhere in this whole mess something valuable might be gained. It could probably wait until tomorrow, couldn't it?
"All right, Miss," I sighed. "We'll speak about this tomorrow."
After some cajoling, I managed to pry her away from the rum and brought her back to the inn. As soon as they saw her, the barmaids started to fuss over her and I was more than glad to get her off my hands. Then, I got knee-walking drunk and won another small fortune of tin buttons. I was still incredibly unlucky in love and as a consequence won every single game I joined that night. When I ran out of people to play against, I stumbled into bed, fully intending to see Relena first thing in the morning…
At the break of dawn, my sleep was rudely and prematurely interrupted by someone slapping my cheek. As I slowly came awake, I became aware of shouting and all kinds of noisy, confused sounds— angry and excited voices babbling all at once, people stomping up and down the stairs, pounding on doors, knocking over furniture and generally creating havoc. It was nothing like the usual early-morning tumult in the busy tavern... The Sailor's Inn seemed to have descended into chaos.
The slapping intensified and I cracked open one eye to see Wufei's disgruntled face hovering over me.
"Stop that noice, Wu. 's far too early…"
"Get up, Duo! Something is going on. It sounds like they're taking apart the house."
At that moment, the commotion reached our hallway. Someone very angry and very determined started to pound against the door to our room.
"Open the door! Or we'll break it down and break a few bones while we're at it," a deep, rough voice boomed from outside. Our door shook and creaked under the violent onslaught.
Wufei moved to his feet. "We'd better open before—"
But the old rickety door had already yielded to the last blow and collapsed with a loud thud. Two huge men, armed with guns and knives and glowering fiercely, loomed in the doorway.
"We're here to search the rooms," the smaller of the two informed us gruffly. "Don't try to get in our way. You'll regret it."
Wufei and I looked at each other, then back up at the two men and slowly raised our hands.
"By all means…"
"Go ahead…"
The two pushed aside the sad remains of what had once been our door, squeezed themselves into our tiny room and started to go through our clothes, our kitbags and the wooden crate that masqueraded as our wardrobe. Finally, they lifted the straw mattress on our bed and peered beneath it. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, except for some extraordinarily shabby clothes, the smaller thug said to his companion: "She's not here either."
"Oh no… Boss won't be pleased to hear that!"
"You're looking for a woman," I blurted out without thinking.
"In our room," Wufei asked, scandalized.
"In a kitbag?"
They obviously weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
"Who are you looking for," I asked boldly, forgetting for a moment that they had just threatened to beat us up if we didn't cooperate.
"That's none of your business," the smaller fellow snapped and resumed his glowering.
"Maybe we've seen her? I mean, before she got lost."
"Oh. Well…" He seemed to think about it for a moment. Then he said: "It's the Boss's daughter. She's been missing since last night."
"Relena," Wufei asked to clarify.
"But—" Just as I was about to argue that Relena couldn't possibly be missing, that she must be in her bed sleeping off her hang-over, someone started shouting down below on the street.
"Hey-Ho!"
Wufei and I rushed to the window and looked outside. It was one of the dockers from the harbour, gesturing excitedly and shouting at the top of his lungs: "The Tallgeese! The Tallgeese has set sail!"
I looked at Wufei, grabbed his shirtsleeve and – sidestepping the two thugs – dragged him out of the room and downstairs.
The barroom was crammed with people who had been driven from their rooms by the same unfriendly twosome that had destroyed our door. Now they were standing on tip-toes and craning their heads to see what the commotion was all about. Sawdown stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by his bawling barmaids, who wept, inconsolable, into their aprons. The docker had just made his way to him and repeated his message in a breathless voice.
"Do you know what course she took?"
"S-south-south-west… They're sailing with the wind."
A murmur arose from the gathered men.
"The Tallgeese? That's Merquise's ship," someone said and someone else: "He still owes me a bottle of rum!"
I scanned the room, hoping to see Heero somewhere, but only spotted Quatre and Trowa some feet away from us in the crowd.
"What's going on here," I asked the old pirate standing next to me.
"Seems like Relena's missing. Abducted, they say, but why anyone would want to do that I really don't know…" He shrugged and grinned a mostly toothless grin.
The excited whispers went on for some minutes until Sawdown silenced the room with a sweep of his hand. "Where's Zechs Merquise," he demanded, voice tight with barely suppressed anger.
"I played cards with him yesterday!"
"Yeah, me too. Lost a small fortune…"
"I saw him at Mrs. P's Place."
"He's really popular with the ladies, isn't he?"
"Must be that mask—it's quite fetching."
"Really?! What about my eye-patch then?"
The crowd erupted into laughter.
"Well, I'll be damned! That scoundrel stole my daughter!" Sawdown's voice boomed through the room and everyone fell silent.
A skinny old pirate, still a little drunk from the night before, piped up: „Man, you're lucky someone took her off your hands!"
"Yeah… she's not exactly pretty," another pirate supplied, between snickers.
"One more word and I cut out your vile tongues," Sawdown snapped. "You're talking about my daughter." He sighed deeply. "And you should have seen her mother..."
Someone started to laugh again but was quickly hushed by his neighbour.
"Gentlemen," Sawdown resumed after glaring at the crowd. "That rascal has robbed my poor, innocent daughter! And I as her doting father am not abandoning her to her fate—a truly horrible fate… I'm sure we all know what I'm talking about here… Alas, as you well know I'm just a simple businessman, I have neither the ability nor the means to go after them and bring her back myself like I want to. And let's not forget I have another child, Heero, you all know how dear he's to me— if I go after my daughter and leave him here alone with his… admirers, let's face it… that's even worse than letting her go off with Zechs! So, I need the help of my dear loyal costumers— who is willing to commit himself, his ship and his crew to reuniting this poor distraught father with his beloved child?"
For a moment, he looked expectantly at the gathered pirates. Everyone was very silent.
"Well, you wouldn't have to do it without recompense of course… If you bring her back in one piece, you may have everything I own. The Inn, the sugarcane fields and— the distillery with every drop of rum that's inside!"
Well, that certainly got him the attention of the assembled whether they actually owned a ship or not. Thoughts of barrels upon barrels of rum put a sparkle in their eyes and had them licking their lips in anticipation. Several pirate captains began to stroke their beards thoughtfully.
Suddenly, my mind was racing, trying to piece together wayward puzzle pieces into the complete picture that had so far eluded us. In my mind's eye, I saw my old friend Jack, laughing and telling stories about a thief who had deceived his friends, I thought about Sawdown and Zechs, his loyal customer, I saw Zechs threatening Heero near the docks, urging him to reveal some secret and then Relena almost swooning as she took his arm and sauntered back with him to the Inn. Relena, who knew about the coordinates and had boasted only yesterday that she was more eligible than I could imagine… Relena, who had disappeared, and so had Zechs.
I grabbed Trowa's arm and forcefully yanked it up into the air so anyone could see. "Mr. Sawdown! The Heavyarms is at your service."
"W-what the hell," Trowa exclaimed, trying to free his arm from my grip. Wufei and Quatre stared at me as if I'd lost my mind, which of course I hadn't.
„Trust me," I hissed.
Wufei rolled his eyes. „That's what he always says!"
"You have a ship?" Sawdown turned around and frowned.
"Oh, yes. We have the fastest ship you could possibly get your hands on on this frog-infested island." Some of the gathered pirates grumbled noisily in protest.
"When can you set sail? Do you even have a crew?"
Actually, we didn't. Our crew had disbanded to parts unknown as soon as we'd arrived on the island.
„Course we hav-ouch!" Quatre hit me on the shin.
„Well…" Sawdown looked around the room, waiting to see if anyone else was willing to risk his ship and his life to save another man's daughter. No one did. "See to it that your ship is ready to set sail by afternoon. As for the rest of you sorry lot— Get back to your rooms! All of you! The show is over!"
As soon as Sawdown stopped talking, excited chatter rose up all over the room; everyone was trying to find out more about the whole story or worried loudly about the Inn and their regular supply of rum.
"Duo, I think you have some explaining to do," said Trowa, as we watched the hustle and bustle of arriving and departing pirates.
"Relena has the coordinates."
"She—what," Quatre gasped out. Wufei and Trowa looked equally surprised.
"They are tattooed on her shoulder, just like Heero's map is tattooed on his back. And before you ask, I didn't get the chance to look at them probably... You have no idea what I had to do to even get a small glimpse... It was horrible, trust me."
"So Relena knows about the treasure," Trowa asked, matter-of-factly.
"Well… she didn't. She wasn't aware that her tattoo had any deeper meaning at all, but—due to unfortunate circumstances—Relena might have gotten an idea of just how valuable her tattoo really is… yesterday."
"Oh, please say you didn't actually tell her," Quatre cut in.
"I didn't actually tell her."
"Are you lying?"
"M-maybe?"
I knew there was no way around telling them the whole story now. So I told them everything—from that strange morning in Relena's bed when I had noticed her tattoo to yesterday's tryst in the distillery. Well, almost everything… I didn't tell them about how I had more or less ravished Heero in an alley or my surprising declaration of love or the kissing that happened afterwards and that, in my lovesick, muddled mind, was quickly becoming The Kiss, the most perfect, pure and passionate kiss in the history of kisses. The only kiss I'd shared with anyone that had ever been worth anything. When I was finished, Quatre's eye was twitching, Wufei was blushing furiously and Trowa thoughtfully rubbed at his eye-patch.
"So Duo made out with Relena and now we know that she actually has the coordinates of the island where the treasure is buried," Quatre summed up my story.
"I-I didn't make out with her!"
"Correct" Trowa replied, ignoring me. "But Heero still has the map with the exact directions of where to start digging. His map is pretty detailed— the treasure lies buried in a valley, near a brook—but the location of the island itself is too undefined to actually give us a clue where it is. That's what Relena's coordinates are for."
"I didn't make out with her!"
"You woke up in bed together and you asked her if you could see her naked," Quatre said, a little too smugly.
"Well, yes, to—"
"To see her tattoo... We know." It was glaringly obvious they didn't and I sighed in frustration.
"What about Zechs," Trowa asked, steering the conversation out of the gutter and back to the issue at hand.
"Relena must have told him," I replied. "He was very friendly towards her yesterday and we all know how desperate that girl is. He was trying the same thing with Heero, without much success of course. I always thought he just wanted to woo him like everyone else, but he was after the treasure, I'm sure of it now."
Quatre's eyebrows wrinkled thoughtfully. "We're lucky Relena doesn't know about Heero's map or Zechs might have tried to take him as well."
"You're right, we better keep a very close eye on him from now on," I agreed and then something occurred to me. "Where is Heero anyway? Has anyone seen him this morning?"
And when my friends shook their heads, I felt an odd shiver of premonition run down my spine.