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Tea: Version 1
Quatre beamed at his friends and slowly sipped his tea. Duo was reaching for the sugar bowl to add in another heaping amount to his already half-empty cup, and Trowa looked slightly horrified at the prospects of dealing with a sugar-high Duo for the rest of the afternoon. Wufei wrinkled his nose at his own cup, probably because of the sweetness, but sighed and drank some anyway.
"It's nice to have some time just to relax and enjoy life, don't you think?" Quatre piped up, his voice happy. "We never have the chance to be just normal boys."
Then he frowned slightly. Out of all of them, only Heero had not sampled from his sweetened cup yet. That wasn't good.
"Won't you try some?" Quatre asked the brooding youth, tilting his head quizzically. Heero sighed but since even he couldn't resist Quatre at his most charming, did as asked. His brow furrowed as he licked his lips, slowly sampling the liquid. Something wasn't right . . .
"It tastes different this time, Quatre," Duo said thoughtfully. "Did you do something to it?"
The blonde blinked large blue eyes. "I'm glad you noticed," he said. "Actually, the tea is the same. I just added something new to it."
And suddenly, Duo keeled over, eyes open wide and utterly shocked. No surprise there, considering all the sugar he had added to his tea. Trowa was the next to submit to the potent brew's effects, chest abruptly ceasing in movement as he slumped forward. Wufei leaned heavily against the back of his chair, cup landing with a small chime against the tiled floor of the veranda.
Heero jumped out of his seat, clutching the edge of the table as he suddenly realized what was going on. Then his legs gave out from under him, ending in a soft thud as he landed back in the padded chair.
"It's too late, Heero," Quatre said pleasantly, taking the cup he still held before the Japanese pilot could drop it, or throw it at him in retaliation. "The toxin works very fast once it enters the system. Just relax and try to enjoy it."
"Y-you-" Unfortunately, Heero couldn't get anything else out, as his muscles seemed to lock on him. He glared at the Arabian boy with a mixture of fury, disbelief, and betrayal. Quatre frowned.
"Don't try to fight it, Heero," he chided disapprovingly. "There's enough paralysis powder mixed in to affect even you. Granted, it only lasts a short while, but it'll be enough for the rest of it to take care of you. You'll just make it worse if you try to move."
And with no more than a small sigh of breath, Heero's eyes slipped closed. His grim expression slowly eased into a more normal one. If Quatre didn't know better, he would have assumed that the Wing pilot was merely asleep.
He chuckled. In a way, he was. He just wouldn't get up ever again.
"That's better," Quatre soothed. "It's nice to see you not so intensely focused for once, Heero-kun."
He turned to the rest of the pilots. "I'm sorry, my friends, but this was the only way. Shooting you or destroying you in your Gundams wouldn't have worked; after all, I'm trying to promote peace, like Relena-san says, not destroy it. And we're only obstacles in the way of peace." Setting down his cup and saucer, Quatre reached over to tap the sugar bowl. "That new mixture OZ had in storage was very effective, don't you think?"
He frowned as he didn't get any response, then brightened as he remembered. "Oh, that's right. You're all dead." He beamed sunnily. "At least you got to die painlessly. I'm sure that's much more than what any OZ soldier would grant you, ne? Of course I couldn't hand you over to those dreadful people and take care of you that way. I'd never want my friends to suffer."
And Quatre smiled happily, and finished his tea.
~owari~
Notes: *grimace* I don't know what I was thinking when I started this. I began with the last sentence, along with an image of Quatre smiling rather vapidly at the rest of the pilots, who just happen to be dead. I had another plotline that might suit him better in my head, but this one just got done first. The alternative turned into Version 2.