Warning: total silliness, maybe very OOC (yeah yeah), er... thanks to Whizzy-sama to let me borrow her Scuzzy baby. And dun forget: shounen-ai. Seemed to be the running theme of Jejefish's stories nowadays
Moral of the story: never let your muse hear that there's something else than a rubber duck out there. It results in absolute silliness, which I think is quite healthy.
Note: more info on Scuzzy Baby refer to Whizzy-sama's Shrine to Scuzzy Baby http://geocities.com/Tokyo/Villa/6996/scuzzybaby.html
A lone figure sat quietly behind his table, one hand toying the paper on the desk, another ruffling the long honey brown strands of his pet dog. Zechs came in moments later.
"You're not going for your morning bath? It's late already," then a small peck on the forehead.
"Huh? Oh yeah," he lifted himself and scooped his longhaired second and walked out of the room. Alexander, his spaniel scooted behind his two loving masters, with his chew toy in his mouth.
**
Treize toyed aimlessly with the yellow rubber duck as Zechs scrubbed his back, creating throaty moans from the older man, every now and again.
"So, where did that dog come from?" Zechs asked, eyeing the lazing Spaniel suspiciously.
"Oh, Lady Une sent it down to me, like yesterday. 'Said it's for my birthday."
Zechs stared at the dog, which was chewing its scuzzy baby, ignorant of what happened around him. "She's late by three months..." a pause, "Or nine months early."
"I know..." Treize groaned. Squeaking his rubber duck quite aimlessly. The dog lifted its head momentarily and looked quizzically over to the source of the sound, and finding that there's nothing important, went back to his chewing.
"What's his name?"
"Alexander."
"Huh?"
"Alexander."
"AGAIN?!" Zechs exclaimed. "You have this euphoria in naming your pets Alexander, do you? The horse's Alexander, the bird's Alexander, you almost named your hamster Alexander when you found out it's a SHE. I can't believe you."
Treize froze in revelation, "Er... okay. Alex then."
Zechs slapped his forehead, "Don't tell me your last lover's Alex, or Alexander."
Treize blushed slightly. "Actually Alex is my rubber duck."
"Great."
"Okay, I'll name him Rover, happy?"
"Its like 500 out of 501 dogs in this place are called Rover."
"All right. I'll call him Zechs then."
Zechs was about to open his mouth when Treize silenced him with a kiss, "That's final."
"Fine. At least you'll remember me that way."
Treize smiled.
"Lets get out from the water, before you wrinkled much. The last time you're too long in the tub they thought you were Grandpa Khusherenada."
"I remembered that. Come on, Zechs." he urged to the spaniel, who was quite happy being named Zechs.
"I swear I'm going to get mixed up, Treize."
"I'll call you Milliard."
"Sure whatever."
**
Sitting in the sunshine laden drawing room, Treize watched Zechs fed Zechs... er... I mean, Milliard fed Zechs (Treize: I swear I am not making it hard for you!), when his eyes caught something really interesting.
He walked up to where the mutt and his lover (note: I am afraid to use names now) were. And he picked up the scuzzy baby.
"Zechs, what's this called?"
Silence.
"Zechs..."
More silence. The dog eyed his fork-eyebrowed master.
"Zechs, answer me." By this time Milliard's eyeing him as well, head cocked to the one side.
Then, after a few moments, "Ehrm, I mean, Milliard, what's this called."
"Scuzzy baby. Chew toys. Helps to keep canines quiet."
"This is cute."
There was an inward groan of, "not again" from Milliard.
Then Treize walked out from the door, heading to his room, no doubt going to play with it. Hopefully not chewing it.
Zechs, feeling that his toy had been robbed from him, growled and barked and scratched on the door, and when the butler, unknowing as he was walked into the room, Zechs zoomed as fast as his dog legs could take him to 'salvage' his scuzzy baby from the human.
Milliard ran after the dog as fast as he could, trying to prevent a tug-o-war between the dog and Treize.
Then he heard, a bark, and a "Never", another set of growls, and a set of "Shoo. Go away." a string of barks, and "No! Its mine!"
And he stepped into the room, saw Treize on his high desk, waving the canine away. Milliard walked in and pulled the dog into a distance and coo-ed "It's okay. Er... Zechs. I'll get you another one."
**
So the rubber ducky now sat in its glass case, watching silently as its master now played with the scuzzy baby, everywhere, in the tub, on the working table, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, wherever except public functions and *very* private ones. And Zechs the dog had his own scuzzy baby but would hide it, and defend it protectively from his odd human master who seemed to have a similar inclination to scuzzy babies.
And Milliard would bump into Lady Une, and with a low growl reminded her,
"Lady Une, next time you want to give Treize a present, for whatever reason, give him something that had to do with rubber duckies, okay? It's hard as it is already."
**
So, there Treize was, sitting on the carpeted floor with his scuzzy baby and his pet dog with its scuzzy baby, fighting over which scuzzy baby's the best.
"Mine's better than you!"
"Woof woof, arf!!"
"Mine! Yours is a tattered one already."
"HHHHHHAARF!! ARFF!!"
"Mine!"
And Milliard would stand by the doorway, toying with the now redundant rubber duckie contemplating his own fate.
"Hey duckie, would you think I would be redundant one day? Maybe we should form an 'Unused By Treize Already Anonymous' when he does."
<><JejeFish