~This story came to me from my second visit to a mental health institute. No, I'm not crazy; and anyone who says so *DIES*!! Mwa hahahahahaaaaa! I'm not going to tell everyone *why* I got put in there...times 2. It's personal...sorta. ^_^ Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing, or any of the sexy bishounen who are in it. (unfortunately) *pout*
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first day there was vague, to say the least. Taking way too many pills would make anyone pass out, ne? Well, I'm only human, so I barely remember the entrance, or being wheeled into my small, two bedded room, but I do remember being flung, rather painfully, in fact, onto the stiff mattress, cracking my skull on the headboard. I didn't care, just fell asleep. I was so tired, it felt like I could sleep for an eternity and still crave more. My sleep that night was fairly weird; the dreams containing things I could never truly temember in the daylight, and the voices that always haunted me, telling me what to do, screaming in my mind, driving me to the point I was at right now: A mental hospital.
In the morning, with the sun shining in my window barely gray yet, but still far too bright for me and my enormous hangover, the first doctor of the day came in.
"Time to take your vitals, sweetie." Vitals? Shit. I hate being woke up in the morning. I need my rest, dammit! What time *was* it, anyway? Far too early for my taste. I groaned something insulting and flipped over, burying my face in the pillow. "Don't be like that, now. Come on. Give me your arm, dearie." I hate cheerful people. Let's just ignore the fact that I tend to be one of the most cheerful people I know, even if it's not very genuine.
Tingles shot up my arm when she had the blood pressure cuff wrapped around my arm and began squeezing the little black ball in her hand, filling the cuff with air and strangling my arm's life away. Geez, this sucked! I fell back into a vague sleep and barely noticed her taking my temperature, pulse, and respirations. She finally left the room, closing the door behind her, and allowing me some more precious sleepy time. I was very grateful for that small amount.
"Duo Maxwell?" Dammit. The light in my room was brighter now and it hurt my eyes when I opened them. "Duo?" And now another squeely voice was calling my name.
"Wha-?" my throat was so dry, I was croaking.
"Duo, my name is Doctor Sheryl Taylor. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm here to talk to you about why you're here. Would you sit up, please?" That woman just made herself at home, sitting down on the empty bed across from me.
I rolled over and was barely able to push myself into a somewhat vertical position. My hair clung to my face and the braid was ragged and nearly undone. My head spun horribly and my eyes wouldn't stay open.
"Duo? Are you okay?" For the first time, I was able to focus my eyes on the tall woman sitting across from me. At least, she was tall compared to my height. She had long brown hair, which was plastered against her head and wound into a bun. Thick, black rimmed glasses sat on a small, rounded nose offset her small features. She looked like a grasshopper or a fly with those huge, round spectacles.
She must have realized I wasn't going to say anything else, save for a small croak, and she handed me a small plastic cup of water. I quickly gulped it down, worshipping the blessed liquid as it cooled my vocal cords and relieved the hoarseness.
"Better?" I nodded. "Duo, do you know why you're here?"
"I tried to kill myself?" That shouldn't have been a question. I knew what I was doing when I swallowed those bottles of pills. I lowered my head and eyed the many scars that decorated my wrists.
"So, you want to tell my what's wrong?"
Such a simple question. Too simple to use for getting me to try and explain the many problems that infested my life. "No."
"No? You really should talk about it It's the only way we can help you here."
Yeah, yeah. "M...too tired." Good excuse. Maybe now she'd go away.
"Okay, I'll try talking to you later." She got up to leave and I fell over on the bed, grunting and moaning from my headache. "Oh, and you'll be getting a roommate in a few minutes."
"N-nani? I don't want a..."
"Sorry, there aren't any other rooms available." Fine...I was too tired to care right now. I could complain later...after I'd had some more sleep and a bottle of aspirin.
"What's your problem?" What? Someone was talking to me again!? Go away! I popped open one eye at the monotonous, slightly nasaly voice. Standing in the doorway, towel, washrag, blanket, and clothing in hand, was a guy about my age. Prussian blue eyes and such a mop of deep brown hair, it looked as if it would never see a brush, decorated his perfectly chiseled facial features. He was very thin, but very muscled. I could see that through his black spandex shorts which clung so suggestively to his thighs. I'd never seen a beatiful boy before, but here was one.
Wait...didn't he say something... "Hn." He furrowed his brow and tossed his things on the dinky bedside table.
"I'm fine! No problems here!" Of course, I plastered my large, infamous smirk on my face, even though my headache worsened with the action.
H was ignoring me now? Going about making his bed. He was such a perfectionist! I watched as he made sure every corned on the sheet was perfectly squared onto the mattress. Not a single wrinkle. He fluffed his pillow and placed it exactly in the middle - at the foot of the bed? Okaaaaay... Then the thin, light blue blanket was placed over the perfectly straightened sheets and tucked neatly under the mattress. This guy was going to be hell to room with. What a little freak. "Hehehe...look who's talkin'!" I told myself.
"Nani?" Shit, did I say that outloud? I quirked an eyebrow at him. He noticed me staring and did the same.
"You put the pillow at the foot of your bed."
"..." He sat down and pulled out a laptop from who knows where. *click click click* He's ignoring me again. Fine. I was, again, too tired to care now, so I rolled over to go back to sleep."
"Heero Yuy."
Okay, so he does want to talk to me. "I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never lie!" At that moment, a large yawn came over me. He stared at me like I was insane. Hmph. Maybe I was insane. After all, I *was* in a mental institute, right? But, he was here too, so who was he to judge me? "What are you in here for, Heero?"
He stopped typing and glared at the keyboard as if it could burst into flames from the heat of his stare. "Destructive tendencies, I suppose."
"Destructive tendencies? Like, blowing shit up?"
"Hai, and myself."
"You blow yourself up?" I had to sit up for this.
"Hai. I try." He'd continued his typing on his laptop. I can't believe they let him keep that in here. He must have snuck it in somehow. Although, how the hell could he do that?
"You try? But you've never succeeded. Why even try, then?" I laughed at myself. I was in here for the same damn reason. What a hypocrite.
"Could you be quiet?" Still typing. Fine. I lay back down and buried my face in the pillow again. God, I needed sleep. My body ached like every bone was broken. Of course, I've never been one to give up easily, so I had to persist.
"I'm here because I...tried to kill myself."
"Hn." At least I got some sort of response.
"I overdosed on lots of different things. Anti-depressants, headache pills, muscle relaxers, some aspirin..."
"I get the idea." He was getting annoyed. This is what I loved: annoying people until they go insane from my babbling. This guy would break soon, no problem.
"Oi, you tried to blow yourself to smithereens. I wouldn't be sounding so high and mighty if I were you." Big grin here. That's it. Seem friendly.
"High and mighty?" He stopped typing and placed his laptop on the bed beside him. "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm not proud of the fact that, for one, I got caught trying to blow a building up again, and two, I failed. So, for your own sake, stay off my bad side and I won't have to kill you."
"Wow...no prob!" I placed my hands up in a defensive way. "No hard feelings. I didn't mean to insult you or anything." One word he said definitely caught my attention: again. He'd been caught before. This guy was definitely nuts. Not someone you'd want to be on the bad side of, even if he hadn't just threatened to kill you. Eek!
"Just be quiet, okay." That wasn't a request.
I gave him a thumbs up and a grin, even though he'd just majorly pissed me off. "You got it!"
"Hn." Then he continued typing and I went back to sleep. Good way to meet a guy, ne?
"Oi, it's time for lunch." Someone was jabbing my arm, very sharply. I winced and slapped at the hand, which grabbed my wrist. "Duo, wake up."
"Hey, I..." I finally opened my eyes and was greeted by fierce prussian blue. "Oh, Heero. Ohayo!"
"Duo no baka. It's 12:30. Lunch." Definitely a conversationalist, this guy.
"N...don wanna..." I pulled the blanket over my head. God, I was acting like a child. And around someone I only just met, too.
"Baka. Get up. You need to eat. You're too skinny." With Heero's 'assistance' I finally pulled myself out of bed. Rather, he dragged me out of the bed, and across the floor, and into the hallway...still in my hospital gown, my ass hanging out the back. I heard a few people laughing at the display; some girls giggling in the back. How emberrassing!
"Dammit, leggo!" I ripped my wrist free and crawled back into the room to clothe myself and regain my dignity after having just exposed myself out the back of my dress. Excellent! They'd brought my clothes to me. I slipped on the black boxers and pants and my shirts. Black and white and priest-like. Something suddenly occured to me then. I searched my neck and chest. It was gone! My cross was gone! I ran out the door and slid on my socked feet down the long corridor of doors to a large, glassed windowed room with many old, gray haired men and women. I grabbed the door handle and tapped on the glass quickly. An old woman came scuffling up and opened the door.
"Yes?"
"My cross! The gold crucifix I wear around my neck. It's gone! Do you...?"
"We've got it in here. You can't have jewelry while you're a patient."
Damn. I plastered my most innocent-looking face on, blinking my wide violet eyes at the troll of a woman before me. "But couldn't you make an exception? That cross is very important to me and if I could just..."
"No. No jewelry. Go eat your lunch" She started pulling on the door, probably to slam it in my face, but I still held the handle tightly.
"But maybe if I could just..."
"Lunch!" She jabbed a finger out, pointing down another hallway. Dammit. I'd just have to steal it back later. Right now, I was hungry, and when my stomach calls, I answer it.
When I got to the cafeteria, everyone was already settled down and trying to eat the substance the hospital claimed was food. I knew I looked like shit warmed over, but I was hungry. Everyone stared at me as I grabbed my tray of crap and headed for a small table. Heero was there, with an seat to his left, and his right, and in front of him. In fact, no one was sitting at the table he was at. They cramped themselves into the tables farthest away from him. I shrugged and plopped myself down in front of him as he glared at me. "Nani? How's the food?"
"You look awful. Didn't you bother to look in the mirror?"
"No. I was in a hurry." He shrugged and picked at his food, scooping up a heap of mashed potatoes and shoving it into his mouth. Meat loaf, yuck!
I spooned some into my mouth and nearly gagged from the taste. How he was eating it was beyond me. I can normally eat anything you set in front of me, but this was just disgusting. It tasted like socks. Dirty, smelly, old gym socks that have never even dreamed of being washed. Regardless of this fact, Heero spooned the greasy clumps into his mouth, swallowing efficiently. He didn't seem to hate the taste, but he didn't seem to mind it much, either. I gave the mashed potatoes a try. They were okay. They'd be a little better if they'd had some gravy on them, of course, but I ate them anyway. Then, there were the vegetables. I watched in shocked horror as Heero picked up every brussel sprout off his styrofoam plate with his spoon and shoved it into his mouth, one by one.
"How can you eat this shit!?" He stopped spooning food into his mouth.
"It doesn't taste that bad. It may taste better to you if you wash out your mouth." He popped the last brussel sprout into his mouth.
"Nani? Wash out my mouth?"
"Charcoal." He jabbed a finger at my chin. K'so! That's when I remembered. At the hospital, they'd given me a charcoal drink. I'd thrown it up everywhere in the room, especially on my own face. I wiped at my chin. My fingers came away with a faint blackness on them. Eww! I was able to muster up an obviously nervous laugh in my obvious emberrassment as I grabbed my tray and headed to my room, dumping the shit-food into a trash can, along with the plastic tray.
When I got to my room, I immediately went to the little bathroom and hesitantly peered in the mirror. Shit. I looked like a piece of shit. Plain and simple. I had black streaks down my chin and neck, and I bared my teeth to see black stains on their pearly whiteness as well. Gross, gross, gross! And my braid! My poor, battered braid. Every free strand was matted and the length of the braid itself was tangled and nearly undone. My violet eyes were red and puffy, making me look like I'd been crying for hours, even though I hadn't cried in years. Boys don't cry. My bangs were stuck to my forehead from the intense sweating I'd been doing the night before. I'd woken up a few times to put a cool washcloth on my face.
Okay. A shower. A shower would fix everything. I grabbed one of the tiny, white towels provided from my bedside table and went down the hall to the shower room. Heero was on his way back from lunch, heading to our room. He smirked as I passed. Jerk! I gave him a big grin, like I didn't give a fuck.
The water felt like a heavenly massage on my skin. I undid my braid and let it slicken against my bare back. Speaking of bare...I looked around the boys' shower room. Each shower head that stuck out from the four walls had only chest high dividers on the left and right, no shower curtains. At least I was the only one in there. For someone who's so commonly being told how hot I am, I certainly can be paranoid about my body.
A tap on my shoulder shocked me out of my train of thought. I turned around to face Heero. Nude, and staring at me. I felt my face get very hot and tried my best not to look down. He must have noticed, because he smirked again. "What's up, Heero?" I tried grinning. I hoped like hell I was pulling it off.
"Taking a shower." He walked into the stall beside mine and turned on the water. Dammit. He stole my hot water. Not that I didn't need a cold shower after that little lovely view I had just received from him. Why was I thinking like that? Ugh! Jerk! This guy's a jerk!
"You scared me." I turned around and started pushing on the shampoo dispenser stuck in the wall between the two of us. I could feel his eyes on my back. It made me squirm a little. I put the first handful of green goop into my hair and continued pushing on the dispenser for my second handful.
"You use a lot of shampoo."
"Hai...so?"
"Hn." My! weren't we talkative today? Such idle chatter.
Hn..."Did you really try to self-destruct?" I couldn't help but admire him for this. This guy had balls. Not like I didn't know that already, given the fact that he'd been naked in front of me only a minute ago.
"Hai."
"How?" I blinked at him a few times. Heero stopped scrubbing at the shampoo in his hair and turned to face me.
"I destroyed a building. With a little girl inside." Heero's eyes took on a distant look of pain. He couldn't be all that bad, if he'd regretted killing a little girl. I still couldn't believe that he'd done that, though. I stopped shampooing my hair and walked towards him, placing my arm on top of the divider between us. "I had some C4 left, so I just set it around my house and pushed the detonator." He quirked an eyebrow. "It hurt like hell."
I couldn't control the laughter that shot out of my mouth. That certainly was unexpected. So, this guy did have a sense of humor, at least! Maybe not. He was staring at me in an odd way. He must not have meant it as a joke. I coughed and stopped my laughter. "So...you blew up your own house?"
"Hai."
"Was there anyone else in it?" Not that I really wanted to know the answer to that.
"Hai." Shit.
"Who?" Sometimes I wish my mouth would just shut the fuck up.
"My...guardian, Odin Lowe. I killed him in the explosion. Bastard deserved it." Heero clenched his fist around the small bar of soap in his hand and it broke into crumbles.
"No one deserves death. Death is awful. I should know."
"Nani?"
"I should know. After all, I *am* Shinigami!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing, or any of the sexy bishounen who are in it. (unfortunately) *pout*
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first day there was vague, to say the least. Taking way too many pills would make anyone pass out, ne? Well, I'm only human, so I barely remember the entrance, or being wheeled into my small, two bedded room, but I do remember being flung, rather painfully, in fact, onto the stiff mattress, cracking my skull on the headboard. I didn't care, just fell asleep. I was so tired, it felt like I could sleep for an eternity and still crave more. My sleep that night was fairly weird; the dreams containing things I could never truly temember in the daylight, and the voices that always haunted me, telling me what to do, screaming in my mind, driving me to the point I was at right now: A mental hospital.
In the morning, with the sun shining in my window barely gray yet, but still far too bright for me and my enormous hangover, the first doctor of the day came in.
"Time to take your vitals, sweetie." Vitals? Shit. I hate being woke up in the morning. I need my rest, dammit! What time *was* it, anyway? Far too early for my taste. I groaned something insulting and flipped over, burying my face in the pillow. "Don't be like that, now. Come on. Give me your arm, dearie." I hate cheerful people. Let's just ignore the fact that I tend to be one of the most cheerful people I know, even if it's not very genuine.
Tingles shot up my arm when she had the blood pressure cuff wrapped around my arm and began squeezing the little black ball in her hand, filling the cuff with air and strangling my arm's life away. Geez, this sucked! I fell back into a vague sleep and barely noticed her taking my temperature, pulse, and respirations. She finally left the room, closing the door behind her, and allowing me some more precious sleepy time. I was very grateful for that small amount.
"Duo Maxwell?" Dammit. The light in my room was brighter now and it hurt my eyes when I opened them. "Duo?" And now another squeely voice was calling my name.
"Wha-?" my throat was so dry, I was croaking.
"Duo, my name is Doctor Sheryl Taylor. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm here to talk to you about why you're here. Would you sit up, please?" That woman just made herself at home, sitting down on the empty bed across from me.
I rolled over and was barely able to push myself into a somewhat vertical position. My hair clung to my face and the braid was ragged and nearly undone. My head spun horribly and my eyes wouldn't stay open.
"Duo? Are you okay?" For the first time, I was able to focus my eyes on the tall woman sitting across from me. At least, she was tall compared to my height. She had long brown hair, which was plastered against her head and wound into a bun. Thick, black rimmed glasses sat on a small, rounded nose offset her small features. She looked like a grasshopper or a fly with those huge, round spectacles.
She must have realized I wasn't going to say anything else, save for a small croak, and she handed me a small plastic cup of water. I quickly gulped it down, worshipping the blessed liquid as it cooled my vocal cords and relieved the hoarseness.
"Better?" I nodded. "Duo, do you know why you're here?"
"I tried to kill myself?" That shouldn't have been a question. I knew what I was doing when I swallowed those bottles of pills. I lowered my head and eyed the many scars that decorated my wrists.
"So, you want to tell my what's wrong?"
Such a simple question. Too simple to use for getting me to try and explain the many problems that infested my life. "No."
"No? You really should talk about it It's the only way we can help you here."
Yeah, yeah. "M...too tired." Good excuse. Maybe now she'd go away.
"Okay, I'll try talking to you later." She got up to leave and I fell over on the bed, grunting and moaning from my headache. "Oh, and you'll be getting a roommate in a few minutes."
"N-nani? I don't want a..."
"Sorry, there aren't any other rooms available." Fine...I was too tired to care right now. I could complain later...after I'd had some more sleep and a bottle of aspirin.
"What's your problem?" What? Someone was talking to me again!? Go away! I popped open one eye at the monotonous, slightly nasaly voice. Standing in the doorway, towel, washrag, blanket, and clothing in hand, was a guy about my age. Prussian blue eyes and such a mop of deep brown hair, it looked as if it would never see a brush, decorated his perfectly chiseled facial features. He was very thin, but very muscled. I could see that through his black spandex shorts which clung so suggestively to his thighs. I'd never seen a beatiful boy before, but here was one.
Wait...didn't he say something... "Hn." He furrowed his brow and tossed his things on the dinky bedside table.
"I'm fine! No problems here!" Of course, I plastered my large, infamous smirk on my face, even though my headache worsened with the action.
H was ignoring me now? Going about making his bed. He was such a perfectionist! I watched as he made sure every corned on the sheet was perfectly squared onto the mattress. Not a single wrinkle. He fluffed his pillow and placed it exactly in the middle - at the foot of the bed? Okaaaaay... Then the thin, light blue blanket was placed over the perfectly straightened sheets and tucked neatly under the mattress. This guy was going to be hell to room with. What a little freak. "Hehehe...look who's talkin'!" I told myself.
"Nani?" Shit, did I say that outloud? I quirked an eyebrow at him. He noticed me staring and did the same.
"You put the pillow at the foot of your bed."
"..." He sat down and pulled out a laptop from who knows where. *click click click* He's ignoring me again. Fine. I was, again, too tired to care now, so I rolled over to go back to sleep."
"Heero Yuy."
Okay, so he does want to talk to me. "I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never lie!" At that moment, a large yawn came over me. He stared at me like I was insane. Hmph. Maybe I was insane. After all, I *was* in a mental institute, right? But, he was here too, so who was he to judge me? "What are you in here for, Heero?"
He stopped typing and glared at the keyboard as if it could burst into flames from the heat of his stare. "Destructive tendencies, I suppose."
"Destructive tendencies? Like, blowing shit up?"
"Hai, and myself."
"You blow yourself up?" I had to sit up for this.
"Hai. I try." He'd continued his typing on his laptop. I can't believe they let him keep that in here. He must have snuck it in somehow. Although, how the hell could he do that?
"You try? But you've never succeeded. Why even try, then?" I laughed at myself. I was in here for the same damn reason. What a hypocrite.
"Could you be quiet?" Still typing. Fine. I lay back down and buried my face in the pillow again. God, I needed sleep. My body ached like every bone was broken. Of course, I've never been one to give up easily, so I had to persist.
"I'm here because I...tried to kill myself."
"Hn." At least I got some sort of response.
"I overdosed on lots of different things. Anti-depressants, headache pills, muscle relaxers, some aspirin..."
"I get the idea." He was getting annoyed. This is what I loved: annoying people until they go insane from my babbling. This guy would break soon, no problem.
"Oi, you tried to blow yourself to smithereens. I wouldn't be sounding so high and mighty if I were you." Big grin here. That's it. Seem friendly.
"High and mighty?" He stopped typing and placed his laptop on the bed beside him. "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm not proud of the fact that, for one, I got caught trying to blow a building up again, and two, I failed. So, for your own sake, stay off my bad side and I won't have to kill you."
"Wow...no prob!" I placed my hands up in a defensive way. "No hard feelings. I didn't mean to insult you or anything." One word he said definitely caught my attention: again. He'd been caught before. This guy was definitely nuts. Not someone you'd want to be on the bad side of, even if he hadn't just threatened to kill you. Eek!
"Just be quiet, okay." That wasn't a request.
I gave him a thumbs up and a grin, even though he'd just majorly pissed me off. "You got it!"
"Hn." Then he continued typing and I went back to sleep. Good way to meet a guy, ne?
"Oi, it's time for lunch." Someone was jabbing my arm, very sharply. I winced and slapped at the hand, which grabbed my wrist. "Duo, wake up."
"Hey, I..." I finally opened my eyes and was greeted by fierce prussian blue. "Oh, Heero. Ohayo!"
"Duo no baka. It's 12:30. Lunch." Definitely a conversationalist, this guy.
"N...don wanna..." I pulled the blanket over my head. God, I was acting like a child. And around someone I only just met, too.
"Baka. Get up. You need to eat. You're too skinny." With Heero's 'assistance' I finally pulled myself out of bed. Rather, he dragged me out of the bed, and across the floor, and into the hallway...still in my hospital gown, my ass hanging out the back. I heard a few people laughing at the display; some girls giggling in the back. How emberrassing!
"Dammit, leggo!" I ripped my wrist free and crawled back into the room to clothe myself and regain my dignity after having just exposed myself out the back of my dress. Excellent! They'd brought my clothes to me. I slipped on the black boxers and pants and my shirts. Black and white and priest-like. Something suddenly occured to me then. I searched my neck and chest. It was gone! My cross was gone! I ran out the door and slid on my socked feet down the long corridor of doors to a large, glassed windowed room with many old, gray haired men and women. I grabbed the door handle and tapped on the glass quickly. An old woman came scuffling up and opened the door.
"Yes?"
"My cross! The gold crucifix I wear around my neck. It's gone! Do you...?"
"We've got it in here. You can't have jewelry while you're a patient."
Damn. I plastered my most innocent-looking face on, blinking my wide violet eyes at the troll of a woman before me. "But couldn't you make an exception? That cross is very important to me and if I could just..."
"No. No jewelry. Go eat your lunch" She started pulling on the door, probably to slam it in my face, but I still held the handle tightly.
"But maybe if I could just..."
"Lunch!" She jabbed a finger out, pointing down another hallway. Dammit. I'd just have to steal it back later. Right now, I was hungry, and when my stomach calls, I answer it.
When I got to the cafeteria, everyone was already settled down and trying to eat the substance the hospital claimed was food. I knew I looked like shit warmed over, but I was hungry. Everyone stared at me as I grabbed my tray of crap and headed for a small table. Heero was there, with an seat to his left, and his right, and in front of him. In fact, no one was sitting at the table he was at. They cramped themselves into the tables farthest away from him. I shrugged and plopped myself down in front of him as he glared at me. "Nani? How's the food?"
"You look awful. Didn't you bother to look in the mirror?"
"No. I was in a hurry." He shrugged and picked at his food, scooping up a heap of mashed potatoes and shoving it into his mouth. Meat loaf, yuck!
I spooned some into my mouth and nearly gagged from the taste. How he was eating it was beyond me. I can normally eat anything you set in front of me, but this was just disgusting. It tasted like socks. Dirty, smelly, old gym socks that have never even dreamed of being washed. Regardless of this fact, Heero spooned the greasy clumps into his mouth, swallowing efficiently. He didn't seem to hate the taste, but he didn't seem to mind it much, either. I gave the mashed potatoes a try. They were okay. They'd be a little better if they'd had some gravy on them, of course, but I ate them anyway. Then, there were the vegetables. I watched in shocked horror as Heero picked up every brussel sprout off his styrofoam plate with his spoon and shoved it into his mouth, one by one.
"How can you eat this shit!?" He stopped spooning food into his mouth.
"It doesn't taste that bad. It may taste better to you if you wash out your mouth." He popped the last brussel sprout into his mouth.
"Nani? Wash out my mouth?"
"Charcoal." He jabbed a finger at my chin. K'so! That's when I remembered. At the hospital, they'd given me a charcoal drink. I'd thrown it up everywhere in the room, especially on my own face. I wiped at my chin. My fingers came away with a faint blackness on them. Eww! I was able to muster up an obviously nervous laugh in my obvious emberrassment as I grabbed my tray and headed to my room, dumping the shit-food into a trash can, along with the plastic tray.
When I got to my room, I immediately went to the little bathroom and hesitantly peered in the mirror. Shit. I looked like a piece of shit. Plain and simple. I had black streaks down my chin and neck, and I bared my teeth to see black stains on their pearly whiteness as well. Gross, gross, gross! And my braid! My poor, battered braid. Every free strand was matted and the length of the braid itself was tangled and nearly undone. My violet eyes were red and puffy, making me look like I'd been crying for hours, even though I hadn't cried in years. Boys don't cry. My bangs were stuck to my forehead from the intense sweating I'd been doing the night before. I'd woken up a few times to put a cool washcloth on my face.
Okay. A shower. A shower would fix everything. I grabbed one of the tiny, white towels provided from my bedside table and went down the hall to the shower room. Heero was on his way back from lunch, heading to our room. He smirked as I passed. Jerk! I gave him a big grin, like I didn't give a fuck.
The water felt like a heavenly massage on my skin. I undid my braid and let it slicken against my bare back. Speaking of bare...I looked around the boys' shower room. Each shower head that stuck out from the four walls had only chest high dividers on the left and right, no shower curtains. At least I was the only one in there. For someone who's so commonly being told how hot I am, I certainly can be paranoid about my body.
A tap on my shoulder shocked me out of my train of thought. I turned around to face Heero. Nude, and staring at me. I felt my face get very hot and tried my best not to look down. He must have noticed, because he smirked again. "What's up, Heero?" I tried grinning. I hoped like hell I was pulling it off.
"Taking a shower." He walked into the stall beside mine and turned on the water. Dammit. He stole my hot water. Not that I didn't need a cold shower after that little lovely view I had just received from him. Why was I thinking like that? Ugh! Jerk! This guy's a jerk!
"You scared me." I turned around and started pushing on the shampoo dispenser stuck in the wall between the two of us. I could feel his eyes on my back. It made me squirm a little. I put the first handful of green goop into my hair and continued pushing on the dispenser for my second handful.
"You use a lot of shampoo."
"Hai...so?"
"Hn." My! weren't we talkative today? Such idle chatter.
Hn..."Did you really try to self-destruct?" I couldn't help but admire him for this. This guy had balls. Not like I didn't know that already, given the fact that he'd been naked in front of me only a minute ago.
"Hai."
"How?" I blinked at him a few times. Heero stopped scrubbing at the shampoo in his hair and turned to face me.
"I destroyed a building. With a little girl inside." Heero's eyes took on a distant look of pain. He couldn't be all that bad, if he'd regretted killing a little girl. I still couldn't believe that he'd done that, though. I stopped shampooing my hair and walked towards him, placing my arm on top of the divider between us. "I had some C4 left, so I just set it around my house and pushed the detonator." He quirked an eyebrow. "It hurt like hell."
I couldn't control the laughter that shot out of my mouth. That certainly was unexpected. So, this guy did have a sense of humor, at least! Maybe not. He was staring at me in an odd way. He must not have meant it as a joke. I coughed and stopped my laughter. "So...you blew up your own house?"
"Hai."
"Was there anyone else in it?" Not that I really wanted to know the answer to that.
"Hai." Shit.
"Who?" Sometimes I wish my mouth would just shut the fuck up.
"My...guardian, Odin Lowe. I killed him in the explosion. Bastard deserved it." Heero clenched his fist around the small bar of soap in his hand and it broke into crumbles.
"No one deserves death. Death is awful. I should know."
"Nani?"
"I should know. After all, I *am* Shinigami!"