A/N: So, in my little writing hiatus for the past year I was going through a lot of stuff. Combine my struggles with an insanely busy schedule and I kind of lost my will to write and this idea just stuck with me one night. So this story is a little darker than Exotic Tastes is, was, and probably ever will be, but maybe that's a good thing.
With that being said, I have to warn everyone that this is a very detailed self -harm story. For anyone that is sensitive to that type of material I would strongly recommend not reading this story.
This only has just a smidgen of yaoi, as will anything else that I will ever write and if you take issue with that then I would recommend never reading my stuff because it is incredibly likely that I will offend your delicate sensibilities without an ounce of remorse.
Disclaimer: Just as I do not own the Free boys, I am not fortunate enough to own any of the Gundam Wing boys either, despite the fact that I have been in love with Heero and Duo and they have been my OTP since I was about eleven or twelve years old.
This is also written to the soundtrack of 'Lost in Paradise' by Evanescence for anyone that wants extra insight into the feel of the piece.
Lost in Paradise
It was too much. Too familiar. I will never forget the screams, nearly identical to the ones I hear in my dreams whenever I am just tired enough that I can't fight the memories of the day I lost everything. The smell of charred flesh. Broken bodies all around me. Sister Helen's frail, trembling hand brushing a tear from my ash streaked cheek in a moment of a mother's strength when she should have been at her weakest. Father Maxwell shoving a necklace, his necklace, the cross that he never took off under any circumstances into my hand as he told me to be strong, before his eyes glazed over and the man in my arms was no longer Father Maxwell. He was just a shell of someone I once knew.
They hit a church today. I guess they wanted crush everyone's hope because if God won't protect his own people, why would he bother to protect anyone else? He just left them there to suffocate on the stench of their friends and families as they burned.
I leapt from my gundam and ran straight into the rubble the moment I was able, to search for survivors and pull them to safety. There weren't any. I continued digging through the debris until my hands were bloody and my arms felt like lead. I dropped to my knees, staring blankly at the wisps of smoke trailing up from some of the still burning wooden beams. I was too late…again. And those innocent people paid the price and the bastards that did this were long gone.
"Duo!"
I could hear the others calling after me through my headset as I fled the scene, leaving them to finish the battle, in an effort to escape the memories threatening to overcome me, fighting off the waves of nausea that followed in their wake. They would be pissed at me for abandoning my position, but I didn't care.
When I got to the apartment that Heero had "commandeered" for the sake of the mission I went straight for the tequila and chugged until my eyes watered and my throat burned. It didn't matter. It wouldn't stop the memories.
"Ahhhh!" I screamed as I threw the bottle against wall. It shattered, spraying glass everywhere. A piece ricocheted off the wall and nicked my cheek. "Fuck!" I cursed as I angrily wiped at the blood on my cheek. When I looked down at my hand I let out one last shaky breath and I collapsed to the ground, a sob wrenched from deep in my soul. It wasn't just my blood on my hands. It was Sister Helen's, Father Maxwell's, Solo's, the people in the church today, every innocent that I had ever failed. Their blood was on my hands.
The back of my throat clenched and burned in an effort to hold back my cries, eyes brimming with tears that I refused to let spill over.
"I'm so sorry," my voice escapes in a strangled whisper as I attempt to speak around the lump that had formed in my throat, "I'm so, so sorry." A few stubborn tears track down my cheeks in protest of my reserve to be strong before my resolve crumbles and I'm left a sobbing, angry mess. I'm gasping for breath, unable to calm myself before my eyes focus on a shard of glass near my feet, the same piece that had cut my cheek. I go still, save for the occasional shuddering intake of breath. I know now what I need to do.
Unconsciously my fingers move to caress the faint, white lines climbing up my arm as I continue staring at the glass before moving to pick it up. Its weight is familiar in my hand, though the shape is different from the blade that I usually use. It doesn't matter though, the result will be the same.
I drag the sharpest edge of the glass over an unmarred section of my arm, reveling in the gentle flames that lick at my skin when the shard slides through my flesh, occasionally catching, tearing deeper. With each new cut a dull ache sets into the surrounding area and I watch with morbid fascination at the way that my blood collects along the surface before spilling down my arm and pooling on the floor next to me, as if it were the first time all over again. That blood is my payment for a momentary reprieve before I am shackled in my darkness once again. I sigh at the numbness that settles all the way to my bones the second I feel that fire on my skin. The devastation I was tormented with moments before vanishes leaving a satisfying emptiness in its wake.
Sometimes one is all I need. But today, today I find myself tempted to carve every nightmare into my flesh to ward off the demons fighting for my soul. My skin stains to a faint brick red. I know I'm running out of room and have to begin looking for a new place to mark. I'm still undecided and almost consider starting back at the beginning if it weren't for my obsessive compulsive side telling me that my scars wouldn't be chronological anymore if I did that and I might lose track of who they belonged to. But if I'm honest, I've also been cutting so long that I already can't remember who owns some of the first ones.
I want to lay there and just let myself bleed, but for appearance sake I have to clean and dress my wounds. I won't make any effort to put any healing salve on the marks because I want them to scar. That is the final soothing note, when I fondly run my fingers over the raised white lines, or some of the newer, pink ones almost the way that I would caress a loved one's cheek.
I briefly consider keeping the piece of glass but decide against it and casually drop the bloody shard to the ground. My tears have long since dried, the evidence of my suffering apparent only to those that recognize the empty look in my eyes and dare to look that close because no one knows of my unique arrangement with the darkness in trade for nothingness.
I really should get up but I'm so tired. Maybe I'll just rest here a little longer. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wall with a thud. In my numb state I fail to notice the faint clicking of a lock being unlatched and the sound of a door being swung open.