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Who's Your Daddy?
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By Chris Willmore
Gundam Wing characters and situations copyright Gainax
Entertainment and others. Used without permission.
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Chibi-Quatre hugged his Sandrock plushie tightly and prepared to
go to sleep. He hopped into bed and pulled the blankets up to
his chin, but try as he might he could not rest. He tossed and he
turned and he squashed the poor plushie between his vest and the
mattress so many times that its head was squeezed into the shape
of an eggplant.
Chibi-Quatre was a smart boy. After only half an hour he jumped
right back out of the bed and slid into his sandals. The
Sandrock plushie with the eggplant head was firmly cradled under
his right arm. He needed to find a daddy to tuck him in. Once
he'd been properly tucked in he'd have no problem sleeping.
But where to find a daddy?
Chibi-Quatre had a daddy, long ago, but he'd gone away for good
and he didn't like to think about that. So he'd have to find
another one.
Tip-tap, tip-tap went his sandals on the tiled floors of the
military base. His legs were so short and he was so light that
the pitter- patter of his footsteps sounded just like raindrops
falling against a mobile suit's cockpit.
The hall outside his room had five doors, all numbered. He came
out of the room marked with a '4'.
Chibi-Quatre walked all the way to the beginning of the corridor
and opened door number one.
Inside was Heero and another thing. The other thing was a row of
twenty-four remote-control Wing Gundam toys. Chibi-Quatre
thought they looked suspiciously like dominoes, with how they
were stacked one against the other.
Heero finished setting the last Wing model up then got a very
strange and very scary grin on his face, and picked up one of the
remote controls.
Chibi-Quatre was a brave boy, especially after squeezing the
eggplant- headed Sandrock plushie so tightly that its eyes almost
popped out. He walked up to the scary person and tugged at his
trousers, beneath the knee.
"Will you be my daddy?" asked Chibi-Quatre.
"Wait a sec," answered Heero. Chibi-Quatre noticed that the
scary expression had spread from his smile to his eyes. The
older boy was looking at the row of Gundam models as if they were
something good to eat. His mouth was open and there was a bit of
spittle on the sides of his lips.
Heero pressed a button.
The first Wing Gundam model self-destructed. The one beside to
it exploded next, and then the one next to THAT, and then the one
AFTER, and then Heero started laughing and he went BWAHAHA! and
the Gundams went BOOMBOOMBOOM and Chibi-Quatre was SCARED so he
ran right out of the room and back into the corridor.
Once he'd finished panting, he noticed that the explosions had
turned parts of the Sandrock plushie black.
Maybe Heero wouldn't be such a good daddy, after all.
His heart full of hope for a better outcome, Chibi-Quatre opened
door number two.
There was a forest inside, with big green trees, a broad blue sky
and a yellow sun which could have been smiling. In a small
meadow between the trees there stood a wooden table surrounded by
chairs and covered with a single white table-cloth. There was a
tea set on the table-top. It was pink. It was plastic.
Duo was fiddling with it.
At least, thought Chibi-Quatre, it LOOKED like Duo. Kinda. The
person sitting at the table had long hair and black clothes, but
there wasn't a braid and the clothes were really more of a dress.
Chibi-Quatre hugged his slightly scorched Sandrock plushie
tighter and moved around to get a better look. The might-be-Duo
was jiggling a tea bag up and down, up and down into an open
teapot. He had a big chest.
*poot*
*poot*
Two honeydew melons fell on the grass and rolled right on top of
the tail of an unfortunate squirrel. The might-be-Duo's chest
wasn't big anymore. That was probably a bad thing, though,
because the boy in the dress gave a little yell and started
patting his chest and looking all over and even peeking under the
table. The squirrel was waving a little fist at him and yelling
in squirrel-talk but he didn't listen until the cute little
animal bit him in the ankle. Then he turned and saw Quatre.
"Hi," said Quatre. "I didn't bite your ankle. I think you're
Duo. Your chest fell down on Mr. Squirrel. That's why he's
angry. I think he should eat your chest. Not the flat one, the
big one. Maybe he'll share. Will you be my daddy?"
Duo (for that's who might-be-Duo really was) tried to digest
this. There simply wasn't any stylish way to respond to something
like that. And Duo didn't do anything unless it was stylish. Or
kinky. The two were often interchangeable, but since this is a
cute chibi story, kink was unfortunately out of the question.
Chibi-Quatre sniffed and stared.
Four minutes, a staring contest, a squirrelese apology and a few
strokes of the Deathscythe's scythe later, the four (plushie,
squirrel, chibi, Duo) sat at the table enjoying freshly-cut
slices of honeydew melon.
The charred Sandrock plushie couldn't *really* eat, of course,
because its mouth was stitched on, but Quatre made a big show out
of pretending to feed it melon slices, and carefully wiping with
a napkin the bits of the face-plate that got gooky stuff all over
them.
The squirrel looked bored. She'd been the first one to finish her
slices, but it wasn't polite to leave the table before the others
were done.
Duo looked annoyed. That's because he WAS annoyed. Chibi-Quatre
was using all of his attention to care for the plushie, and
wasn't even sending a small glance in his general direction! Why
wasn't HE being hand-fed juicy slices of dropped bosom? Wasn't
he just as cuddly as any plushie?
This was a Problem. And Problems always managed to send Duo's
mind tramping off in very strange directions. He boarded a train
of thought at 'melons' and passed through 'chest', 'black dress',
'black frock' and 'priest' before finally getting to the final
destination, 'treat others as you would like to be treated (and
maybe they'll treat you that way, too)'. If he wanted to be fed
by Chibi-Quatre, then he would have to feed Chibi-Quatre. But
what?
The look he gave the squirrel sent her scurrying off, since she
had no intention to stay for (or more importantly, *as*) dinner.
Good as the Deathscythe was at slicing fruit, it wasn't
particularly edible. That left only one thing...
Chibi Quatre smelled it, but didn't turn around. The smell was
scary. The smell had chased him all his life, even when no one
else was chasing him, and he knew that if it ever caught up with
him it would-
"Tea?" Duo cradled the back of Chibi-Quatre's head with his left
hand and with his right raised a brim-full cup of Earl Grey to
the super-deformed mobile suit pilot's lips.
Chibi-Quatre flung the cup from himself, screamed and ran away!
(But not before taking his now tea-soaked and melon-stained
charred Sandrock plushie with him.)
That had been close! He huffed and he puffed all the way down to
the main corridor, deciding that Duo wouldn't make a very good
Daddy, though he might be okay as a Mommy. (Chibi-Quatre had a
feeling that mommies had something to do with tea and pink
plastic.)
He sniffed his plushie. The scary smell was mixed with lemon,
charcoal, grass and dirt. Not so bad. And there were no teacups
anywhere in sight, so it was probably safe.
Well... that wasn't exactly true. A pair of giant teacups, twice
his height, appeared in front of him and began to tap-dance a
tango, but Quatre was a SMART chibi and he knew these were
hallucinations. He got them all the time. They were his
friends! He waved at the hallucinations and they waved back,
winking. They'd be back later in another shape. Chibi-Quatre
could hardly wait! When they winked, it always meant the next
time was going to be pretty. The last two winks had shown him
pink flying elephants and yellow tigeroons. So he wasn't all
that sorry when the last tap was tap-tap-tapped and they POOF!
and disappeared.
Two doors left. He walked up to the one marked '3'.
Inside was another hallucination. His friends had been right! It
*was* incredible. Chibi-Quatre laughed and laughed and laughed.
What he saw was this: the Heavyarms was in a dress, and someone
had painted big red lips onto its face-plate and large red
circles on its cheeks. The Gundam's chest was open, and there
were red spots on the tips of the missiles there, too. Trowa was
rubbing his face against them, only it wasn't really Trowa. It
was a hallucination.
Could hallucinations be daddies? wondered Chibi-Quatre. Probably
not. He squatted, laid his plushie on his lap and waited for the
vision to disappear.
He waited a long time. It didn't go away. Trowa continued
rubbing his cheeks and hands all over the chest missiles, and
even kissed the painted lips!
Chibi-Quatre was getting bored. "'Scuse me, Mister
Hallucination," he said, "but could you go? I hafta ask Trowa if
he can be my daddy."
Trowa was startled. He slipped from his perch and fell and
rolled all the way down to the bottom of the mech, and he must
have hit something as he tumbled, because the Heavyarms's chest
began to rumble.
"..."
"Uh-oh."
One of the chest missiles with the red spot on the tip of it
fired, and Quatre ran away! Just as he was going out the door
into the corridor, the missile hit the wall next to him and
exploded, managing to singe the parts of the Sandrock plushie
that had been missed by Heero's exploding models.
Quatre sucked his thumb. If a hallucination of Trowa was so
weird and dangerous, then what would the REAL one be like? He
decided Trowa wouldn't make a very safe daddy. And besides that,
he was fairly sure the Heavyarms would make an awful mommy.
That left only one door: door number five.
Chibi-Quatre stopped and looked at it. It wasn't very promising.
The door looked as cold and menacing as an ordinary wooden door
with glamour shots of Treize stuck up on it with bunny-headed
pins could look.
All right, so maybe it wasn't ALL that cold and menacing, but it
sure was scary, and who knows? People could hurt themselves with
those pins, and by the looks of the blood smeared on some of the
pictures, people HAD.
Chibi-Quatre stepped a bit closer and put his nose to the
photographs.
Oh. It wasn't blood. It was... something he'd seen before, but he
couldn't quite put his finger on...
Chibi-Quatre put his finger on it, then brought a sample to his
lips.
He beamed! It was strawberry syrup!
The little boy bounced up and down, using the Gundam plushie as a
trampoline. 'Yay!' he thought to himself, 'Yay!'. Someone who
liked bunnies and strawberry syrup couldn't be ALL bad, and who
knows? he might even make a good daddy.
With that possibility in mind, Chibi-Quatre grabbed the stuffed
and battered Sandrock and burst through the door at sugar-high
speed (after opening it, of course; property damage isn't nice).
The room beyond the door resembled a stereotypical dojo: rice
paper walls hid the complex's true titanium siding, the floors
where polished wood, beams spanned a tiled roof and in the middle
of it all, Wufei sat in the lotus position on a tatami mat.
He looked very, very cool.
Chibi-Quatre's steps went tip-tap-flop, tip-tap-flop. The flop
was there because the plushie would bounce first up then down
onto the floor as he scurried across the floor. When he was only
a meter or two away from Wufei, he JUMPED into the air and landed
straight in the boy's lap.
Chibi-Quatre put on his best shimmering, sparkling puppy-dog eyes
and looked into the impassive face of the Nataku's pilot.
"Will you be my daddy?" he asked. Someone this cool would surely
know how to tuck him in.
But Wufei didn't answer. Instead, he took the plushie from
Chibi-Quatre's hands and held it up from the tip of a scimitar,
carefully dangling it like he would a spent diaper. He swung and
spun it, examining the tea stains, melon drippings and various
charred bits.
Anger flared within Wufei's chest and threatened to melt down his
heart.
Someone had hurt a plushie.
Someone had to pay.
"Um... Wufei-daddy? Why are you shaking so much?"
Wufei's eyes were closed, downwards-focused and twitching. His
lips curved upwards as they would for a smile, but clenched teeth
showed through and turned the expression into a grimace.
"What... did you do... to the PLUSHIE?"
"Nuttin'." Chibi-Quatre blinked.
"The plushie seeks vengeance."
"Huh?"
Wufei dangled aloft the stuffed Sandrock. It jiggled.
"The plushie demands JUSTICE!"
Before he could ask if he'd taken his medication, Chibi-Quatre
was flat on his stomach and being soundly spanked.
"JUSTICE!"
"Wah!"
"JUSTICE!"
"Wah!"
"JUSTICE!"
"But I didn't..."
*fwump*
Wufei helped the plushie to box Chibi-Quatre's ears as soundly as
a cloth-and-cotton concoction could.
"What you have given, you will receive! JUSTICE!"
"Wah!"
"Can we go next?"
That wasn't Chibi-Quatre's voice. Heero, Duo and Trowa had heard
the noise, and noting that it wasn't the right day for Treize's
once-weekly and twice-Sundayly visit to Wufei, had decided to
find out what was going on.
Trowa even brought his own paddle.
"Silence!" Wufei's eyes were still downard-tilted, closed and
twitching, but this time there was the slightest hint of tears
where the eyelids met. "I must avenge the torture of this poor
and innocent-"
"Chibi?" Asked Chibi-Quatre hopefully while he hiked his baggy
trousers up.
"Plushie," corrected Wufei. Then he spoke very lowly (almost as
low as Duo when he spoke English) and very softly: "This stuffed
Sandrock has been charred, tea-stained, fruit-dripped and
otherwise abused. An innocent plushie has been harmed. It
cannot avenge itself. I will be its champion. Leave us."
"Well... he DID do the melon thing," Duo scratched his head.
"But I was the one who spilled the tea on it."
"My chain of explosions singed it," added Heero.
"..." said Trowa, which meant "I was busy playing with Heavy-chan
when the chibi walked in on us. I accidentally triggered her
missile firing mechanism, and the resulting explosion must have
left a mark or two on the stuffed toy. So you see, I'm just as
much to blame as everyone else, probably more so since the
accident could have killed them. Do I get to be paddled now?"
Wufei's eyes flipped open and grew brighter and larger with each
passing story. So many people to blame... so much JUSTICE to go
around! Once Trowa was done with his speech the Nataku pilot
threw out a cackle and abandoned Wufei to pursue the other three
miscreants.
"JUSTICE!"
"Ow!"
"JUSTICE!"
"Ungh!"
"JUSTICE!"
"..." (Which meant something that is quite out of place in a PG
story like this one.)
"Um..." said Chibi-Quatre, "'Scuse me..." He'd retrieved the
Sandrock and was hugging it tight while rubbing his bottom.
"Could someone tuck me in?"
The four boys froze.
"Tuck you in?" asked one of them. It wasn't Trowa.
Chibi-Quatre nodded, and smiled from ear to ear when he heard the
answer to his question.
Ten minutes and a lullaby later, Chibi-Quatre was tucked into bed
and well on his way to sleep. The other four were seated on the
edges of the mattress.
"Who's your daddy?" asked one of the boys while running his
fingers through the chibi's hair.
"You ALL are," he answered, then squeezed his plushie extra
tightly and went right to sleep.
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THE END
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