Love Is Hell
By spheeris1
Pairing: Dorothy/Relena
Warnings/notes: Short fiction (drabbles), angst, no piece is connected to another and the title is: (1) a GW doujinshi and (2) a Ryan Adams album---the similarities end there
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[Winter]
Pale pretty pink upon your lips, wrapped in cashmere and showered in tiny white snowflakes.
Crystal in moonlight, drifting downward and covering milky skin.
That's you, isn't it? Outside my window...
That's you. I know you, don't I?
I've watched you from the shadows, pushed my way past darkness and into your light.
Stepping into snowdrifts, ice clinging to my calves--come with me, silent and naked--floating on nighttime daydreams.
It's thin over the lake, Relena-sama.
And I hope you crash down, swimming within a watery tundra.
Because I love you.
[Pale]
Relena believes in justice.
And peace, Relena loves peace like others love sex.
It makes her glow, it makes her face open up like a flower, it makes her sigh in ecstasy.
Dorothy knows this because she watches Relena like a hawk circling a field mouse.
At first it was a job.
Then it was fun.
Now it is an obsession.
Watching Relena as Relena watches the sky and the sky looks at no one--where is Relena's reluctant knight tonight?
Is he playing with his best friend, that tangled emotion called guilt?
Dorothy has seen him once or twice. She thought his face next to Relena's completed the picture of absolute pacifism.
Now, Dorothy puts her face in his position.
What is peace without war?
Dorothy asked this question once, only for Relena to calmly shoot it down.
The hawk brought down by a tiny, soft, gray mouse--how pathetic and weak.
Dorothy hates those feelings. And she sees those feelings mirrored in the eyes of Relena's knight--that's why Dorothy can hate him so.
If he has that look, then he can step in...if he ever decided to...if he ever wanted Relena the way Dorothy wants her...
But he doesn't.
And the stars do not answer the Queen of the World, no matter how often she stares longingly.
And Dorothy is so much closer than Relena realizes.
[Revolutions]
Armed to the teeth is what the papers say. Media stays back, behind flimsy barricades of white and orange, cameras flashing.
And everyone on the other-side, in hooded sweatshirts and jeans, sneakers covered in soot, cold hands holding molotov cocktails--they are the ones who will rule the world one day.
Tear gas swirls around like fog and Dorothy, who tore her banquet dress on the way out, thinks that it is beautiful--she is thinking about Earth, the blitz in London circa 1940-something, tin shelters packing humans like sardines--Dorothy breathes in the scent of burning metal like fragrant air.
And a hand grabs her left, a hand grabs her right, and so on and so on...all down the line, defectors of Oz and Gundam pilots, all down the line--a revolution, one of many--turning like a planet on fire.
Military rumbles in and digs up the pavement. Buildings burn down. And orders are shouted, passing judgment and calling for death. Dorothy thinks about Joan of Arc, her hair melting even as she dreamed of righteousness--Dorothy feels a love for her that she would not have felt years ago.
Years ago, she had an idea of peace and war. Of image and reality. But it all fell away with the realization that nothing would change--the world, the colonies--all became stagnant. So, she had to throw herself in the machine of time and pop out a martyr. They all had to.
And so the bullets fly, the soldiers charge, the flash of incandescent light blinds...and Dorothy grips the hand in her left tightly, jerking it to her lips and placing a kiss there...before it is too late and they are all running and killing and dying. Relena looks at her brokenly, the eyes of peace filled with so much love-struck pain.
Dorothy lets her go and tosses a bottle before running down a dark alleyway.
She doesn't look back.
[A Lesson In Bad Love]
What you learned from your parents was not my kind of devotion.
Your father died for the world and so, you think stupidly, that you should do the same.
Standing up there, speaking the words of an adult in your dress of sparkling white.
Standing up there, telling everyone that war is not the answer.
What school taught you about your mind is not my kind of thinking.
Those students idolized you and trailed after you like dogs.
Those teachers would do anything you told them to do.
Did you really think the world was built this way? Are you that naïve, even now?
With the damn world falling apart?
Someone needs to take you aside and show you some reality.
I thought one of your defenders might be able to pull it off…always ignoring you, always wanting to kill you, always running for the stars at the sight of you…
Instead, you just gripped to your blind faith like a priest.
Even those that hate you can't help but stick that title on you: a martyr of the highest.
A beautiful debutante ruler, using shining Gundams for party pendants.
Someone needs to pull you back and let you see, let you really see the world.
Drag you through a sewer or two.
Pimp you out. Sell you for cheap. And leave you to die.
Then you might get it…what everyone is fighting for…it is not peace, Relena.
They are fighting for their moment.
15 minutes of fame is all the rest of us are allowed, unlike yourself.
We are all wanting to shine for a second before the powers that be blow it all to hell.
Someone should have let you in on this little life secret.
Then, when I look into your eyes and tell you I hate you, you'd get it…you would understand that the line between love and hate is so damn thin…
But no, it didn't turn out that way.
You are gorgeously and ridiculously vacant when I break you.
And when I tell you that I am leaving you, your tears topple down--one by one--until you are stained in fairy princess salt and pain.
Someone should have told you not to love girls like me…
[Carnival]
Pretty in pink and silent in blue,
Like girls and boys might do.
But we are women on the run…
We are just trying to find a little fun…
You asked me to go and so I went.
I never claimed to understand what goes on in your brain…it could be the state of the universe or what color lipstick to wear…you are just that scattered.
So, Relena-sama, wants a merry-go-round! She wants to eat sticky sweet cotton-candy and spin about in teacups! She wants to spend the night under the stars at the top of the ferris-wheel…and see the war from another perspective…
How pretty the explosions are from far away and up very high!
Orange and yellow blasts, then swallowed up by the glittering night…
Like fireworks that maim and kill.
'You turn even this into a nightmare…' Relena sighed out as we walked among all the other people.
And it is true. I live to take your dreams and trample them. It is more fun then this place, then shooting down metal ducks to win a gigantic stuff bear.
You take my hand and drag me around, determined to enjoy yourself despite my attitude.
That is why you are the pacifist.
A carnival during the end of the world is the perfect way to enjoy what is left of your time!
And that is why I love war.
If a bomb blew this little section away at this very moment, I would waste my last breath cheering its perfect aim.
'Do you just not like being happy, just a regular happy that does not require death and destruction?' Relena asks me as we sit down in the cart on the ferris-wheel.
And I answer in my usual way, more to bother you and not disappoint that cheeky girl inside myself.
But I start to wonder…have I ever enjoyed a simple (and calm) time in my entire life?
As I child, I was so witty and insolent. It was my way or the highway, so to speak.
Then, as I grew up, I became even more set in my thoughts.
Certain ideals took hold of me and never would let go…or I would not let go of them…thus I am as you see me.
Deceptive. Clever. Lover of battle--whether with body or mind.
Then it hits me. Relena is not trying to make me enjoy her type of happy at all, nor is she trying to change how I view this night…
…she is saying I have become predictable…
While she is watching the stars and grinning, I am in a state of shock.
My moves, always I prided myself on slipping past enemy lines with my false cheer…now they have become as easily visible as the sun during the dawn!
I was so busy trading barbs that I did not see the look in her eyes.
She knows what I will say before I say it!
What an infuriating realization…how lax of me, to let her get to know me that well…or to be around her as much as I have and underestimate her…
All this time, we have been in our own personal war!
Miss Peace has been toying with me and stringing me along, laughing at my easy answers and letting me think I had won somehow!
Well…I don't think so, Relena-sama…not Dorothy Catalonia. She is no easy mark.
Not tonight. Not ever.
'I can show you unpredictable…' I mutter to myself and Relena looks over at me, puzzled.
'Did you say something?'
I plaster a huge smile to my face and grab your hand, holding it tight. You stare at me in utter confusion and my heart just sings out in joy.
'Miss Relena, I do not think I have ever had this much fun in my whole life…I tried to fight it off, of course, but now--now, I want to come here every night until they must leave! And with you…naturally…' And I wink for good measure, just bursting with anticipation at your mass confusion and slow creeping horror.
So, imagine my disbelief when you just lean over and kiss me! On the lips! And pull away as if…as if…that was the whole reason you brought me here in the first place, to get in this spinning circle and sit at the top for what feels like hours…!
Just to kiss me.
Just…to kiss…me…
I cannot help but sigh, yet I do not let go of your hand. I can analyze that later I suppose.
'You win.' I say as the ferris-wheel starts up again.
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TBC
