Warnings: Language.
AN: Day 6, midnight and after. (Edited March 07)
IMPORTANT: Reread or skim ALL past chapters, please! I've revised so much that there are entire new sections to some scenes and things will read much more smoothly if you're aware of what happened.
Admitting the Truth
Groggy realization that something's happened, but just something, so wake up and find out. Anxiety follows, pressing close to my chest, suggesting that perhaps this place of nothingness is better, that the waking world just won't live up to my expectations.
But why?
Anxiety is probably my friend in this case, but cat's and Duo's share curiosity in common.
I focus on myself, trying to assess my state, trying to wake some awareness of my body to give me some clue as to how why when where what. Memory teases me, broken and strange, but I manage to catch enough to piece together and then I check it with the others that are just as vaguely there. Oh god…
I could fall back into unconsciousness, a little voice points out. It's right there. Just give in. Give up. No more problems. Deal with it later.
I want to. I do. But life outside of my body has other plans. Two, in fact. The first is the second and the second is the first but doesn't come first.
Heero.
Heero knows. That remembrance dashes any hope of gently falling back into blessed unconsciousness. Heero knows.
And Heero's right here somewhere. I can hear him breathe. Hear him shift.
"Duo."
Yeah. That. Just. Yeah.
Don't answer. Must answer. Find answers. Give answers.
I shift a hand slowly, groaning at the fierce ache in them I can feel. But I persist. Sometimes being a multiple means you're just persisting from moment to moment.
I manage to get my hand up over my face, or over this face that sometimes is mine. Over my eyes. Light hurts when you come back from the land of nothing. I'm not so out of it not to notice the soft feel of gauze against my forehead when I rest my hand there, not having the energy to keep it lifted up over. And only then do I carefully open my eyes, a mere slit and then almost halfway when I'm not blinding. My hand relaxes slowly. Only the bedside lamp is lit. The rest of the room is darkness and shadows. I wonder what time it is.
"It's midnight. Here, take a drink of water."
Holy fucking shit damn! He's reading my mind!
Don't be ridiculous. You probably had that scrunched up kind of mole looking up at the sunlight face that's just screaming out, what time it, what time it, what time it.
…what the hell are you talking about?
Er. Ara mentally shuffles his feet. Sorry. It's the stress. And I don't feel like dealing with you panicking.
Well. What the hell. I don't feel quite so likely to fly apart now so maybe it worked.
I try and reach for the water but Heero tuts – Heery Yuy actually freakin' tuts. Who the hell tuts? Heero Yuy, apparently – and he pushes my hands away gently, guiding a straw to my mouth. I'm almost pathetically grateful for the cool but not too cold water. After I swallow enough of the blessed liquid my throat doesn't feel quite so much like sandpaper he moves the glass away.
I'm a terrible patient. I know this. While he's distracted with the water I take hold of my stupidity with both hands and give pushing myself up into a sitting position a try. Yeah, you know that pain thing? Whatever the hell I'm feeling right now, it's a fuck of a lot worse.
"Duo." Heero sighs in exasperation and he helps me the rest of the way.
I don't care, though. I feel more me sitting up, feel more in control. And that's saying something. I look down at my bandaged hands. No matter how soft you think gauze is its still damned painful rubbing against raw skin. I don't see any blood beginning to stain the white, though. That's something. I didn't think my hands would ever stop bleeding last time. Be a shame to have to remove the bandages, too. Such a nice job. Better than I ever manage on my own.
Oh, look, more questions to answer. He's changed the bandages on my arms and they're visible for all the world to see. This'll be fun. Thanks ever so, Meyer.
Fuck you, Duo.
I take a slow breath. Meyer sounds so small and weak and I can just see him, huddled in on himself in a corner somewhere, eyes so wide in such a thin little face.
Damn.
"Duo?"
My eyes flick up to Heero, and then I give a little nod of acknowledgement.
He sits back a bit as if to study me, perched at the edge of the bed, expression thoughtful and strange.
Unconsciously Ara seems to seep into my being. My hands flutter up, awkwardly tucking loose strands of hair away from my face, trying to smooth it down a little. My face feels tight and puffy and hot from the crying. Ironic sort of, crying is supposed to make you feel better, but I always feel like shit afterwards.
Either Heero isn't as patient as usual or I've been avoiding longer than I realize. He reaches out to take my hands, just above the wrist, almost the only area from mid-arm down that isn't covered in white of some sort. He draws my hands back to my lap, then lightly touches my chin, lifting my face up so that I'm looking at him. His eyes seem darker in the light, and his mouth is tight though his hands are ever so gentle. He's been… worried.
I swallow and he removes his fingertips from my chin. "Duo, what's going on?"
The tears are pressing against the backs of my eyes now, demanding release, and I sniffle, bringing my left hand up to press against my mouth, up against my nose, and my eyes wander as I force the tears back. Another sniffle and my bottom lip trembles. I hate this. I fucking hate this feeling…
"Do the others know?" I breathe, looking at a spot on the far wall.
"No." He looks in the direction I'm looking, and then focuses back on my face. I can almost feel the heat of his stare. "They dropped me off and left again to exchange the van with a second vehicle they had stowed away. They returned about half an hour after they dropped me off. You… collapsed, or something, after I touched you. I cleaned you up and brought you in here and told them you were sleeping the mission off."
Oh. Good. I guess… not so bad.
Wait, Ara murmurs.
Huh?
Wait. He's leaving stuff out. There's something…
I look back to Heero slowly, studying him through mostly closed eyes.
I get the image in my mind of bloody water and Bailey stirs and shifts uncomfortably as I try and dredge up the last memories I have.
He did something, Bailey murmurs as I dig harder.
What?
You- I didn't- we didn't collapse. He came over and did something. Touched our neck and that's all I remember.
"Duo?"
"Wait."
Heero quiets, watching me closely. I wonder how badly our guard is down, what expressions and changes might be showing on this face.
The floor. It was all wet and there was the bloody water and bloody smudges and…
"Heero? Kitchen?"
He glances away, and then looks back to me. "I told them you broke a glass. I had enough time to get you cleaned up and in bed and I mopped the kitchen down and just told them you broke a glass."
"Oh." I let out a relieved sigh and rub my eyes. Very carefully.
"Now you only have to explain this." He reaches out to touch my hand lightly, lowering it back to my lap. "And this." His fingers brush along the length of the bandage up my arm.
Ara's still worrying in the back of my mind. It's how he handles stress. He analyzes and picks apart things and he's starting to get me jittery.
"What?"
"Duo?"
"No, I-." I can't exactly say, 'not you.'
We only have six glasses.
What?
"They'll notice a broken glass that isn't broken." Ara pulls away after murmuring that, still worrying away, but mind stretches elsewhere now.
"I broke a glass."
That catches everyone's attention. "What?"
"I broke a glass," Heero repeats. "I spilled some juice and dropped a glass, then cleaned it all up properly."
My eyes widen. He really… went to a lot of trouble to keep this private. A lot of trouble.
"You broke a glass?" I murmur.
"I broke a glass. Yes."
"No one's ever broken a glass for me before…"
He gives me an odd look, but I hardly notice. Those damned tears that I managed to push away earlier just won't stop now and I find myself sobbing because Heero broke a glass for me. He spilled some juice and broke a glass and all for me.
His hand touches my back lightly as I hunch forward, sobbing. I'll freak out if he tries to hold me at this point. I don't know how to tell him that. He seems to understand, though. He just rubs my back lightly and I tremble and cry and hate tear ducts and sinuses and just the entire fluids from the face thing in general.
The tears don't last that long. I push them back as quickly as I can, not wanting them to suddenly mutate and become hysterical. I don't have the energy for hysterical.
Heero's hand drops away just before it was about to get uncomfortable. I wonder a moment how he did that until I realize my body was probably starting to tense even before I noticed being uncomfortable. As I sit up straighter Heero silently hands me some tissues and lifts the waste basket up for them. It feels strange, this attention, but also kind of welcome. I got sick of people hovering so much when I was younger – those who know, of course – that people leave me alone now. I'd forgotten that sometimes concern can be nice.
"Duo?"
Oh, yes. That's right. He's waiting for an answer. What was the question?
Bandages.
Right. And I... yeah, don't think I'll be able to explain this one away.
I turn my attention to Heero. "Well."
He waits patiently. I fidget a little. I wonder if this is how it feels to tell someone you're gay…
…It's kind of sad when Ara points out that I'd have a better chance of being accepted this way than if I were gay.
"So…"
"There's also this." Heero taps the journal sitting on the table.
I'd missed seeing it there. I don't know how, but I did. Oh god.
I must have paled. It certainly felt as if all the blood drained from my head and wrapped around my heart, squeezing so that I couldn't breathe. Heero shook his head and nudged the journal a little farther away. "No, I didn't read it, if that's what's bothering you. I wouldn't do that unless I had no choice. As I was bringing you in here I knocked it off the table and it fell. It was open when I picked it up, and while I didn't read it it's kind of hard to miss words jumping out, and even harder to miss five different handwriting styles. There's something not right there." He studies me closely a moment. I can just tell he's getting ready to say something else, something I'm not going to want to deal with right now.
"Out with it," I tell him wearily.
"There's these." He doesn't look in the least apologetic when he leans over and pulls out my medicine bag from the duffel under the table. It's open and he pulls out a pill bottle and gives it a little shake, as if to make his point. And then as if that's not enough he sets that one down on the table and repeats the process until he has all of them there. The yellow of the lamp is casting a sickly glow on the orange bottles, illuminating the pills like little death traps. And then he brings out a single pill and sets it down on top of the bottle that it came from. The Serax I lost that day, I'm sure. Lost it into his bag. That's my kind of life.
"I was wondering where that came from," he explained after a moment.
I sink back into the pillows as best I can and close my eyes, forcing calming breaths into my body.
Now that I'm settling down, that my mind is shifting and moving back into a semblance of normal, I become aware of the things I had not been aware of at first. Heero's weight pulling the side of the bed down, the heat of his body, and the soft sigh of his breath. It slowly dawns on me that the shirt I'm wearing is not my own, but one of Heero's, made of something soft and Prussian like his eyes. A flash of metal catches my attention and I notice the shirt is only buttoned partway up my chest. The cross I normally wear is visible, something it tends not to be for practical purposes.
I look to Heero and then down to the shirt, silently asking a question. He seems like he's going to ignore it and then he relaxes a little, expression losing a bit of its stubborn edge.
"I had no idea the extent of your injuries." He shrugs a little. "To check I had to remove some clothing. And I removed the rest once I settled you in. Be too warm inside with the clothes you were dressed in." He studies me a moment, then seems to decide something. "That's how I found the medications, actually." He picks up one of the bottles, running his fingers over the label though his eyes were a little too unfocused to actually be reading it. "I was looking for a shirt to change you into and this little one was the closest bag. After finding these things and no clothes I decided to just change you into one of my shirts and leave you in your boxers."
"How nice."
"Austin," Heero murmurs, thumbing the childproof side on the bottle. "Austin Maxwell."
I can't help but half smile. It feels odd to be called Austin, even if he's only reading it off the prescription label.
I look away, to that spot on the wall that's not really there. Heero falls silent and allows me to keep mine for the moment. We both seem ready to wait to talk about this. In my case, forever. In Heero's, probably until I need help getting up.
He seems determined, though, to figure me out even if I won't tell him. After not that long at all, really, he reaches out to touch one of my arms, gently taking the wrist and then turning the arm over. There's nothing to see but bandages there, all of the healing cuts and old scars are covered, but he still brushes his thumb lightly along the edge of the new dressing and then up along the side of the arm, where the majority of the cuts are. So gentle, so tender, not what I've come to know at all.
I hope to God Heero doesn't think this is a suicide attempt. Or that those other scars from Meyer were suicide attempts. Both because I don't want Heero to think that of me, and because if he does think it he must think I'm pretty damned retarded or cowardly, trying to kill myself by cutting the side of my arm and just managing to miss the veins.
"Duo." He sighs, then looks up at me. "There is something very big that you're hiding."
"Not very well," I mutter.
"No, I think you've been hiding it too well," he whispers. "Far too well." He brushes along the wrapped arm again. "Self inflicted?" It's a question, but it's also the answer. He knows they very well are.
"Not trying to kill myself," I mutter
I think he finds my touch of defensiveness amusing. He gives me a vague smile. "Hadn't crossed my mind."
"Good." And I'm actually pretty pleased at that.
"I've never quite understood self mutilation…"
I wince. Gods but I hate that term. If I were a cutter I'd stop just so Sandra wouldn't say that to me, but Meyer thinks it's the coolest thing ever and if anything it encourages him to act out.
"Yeah, well…"
"Duo?"
"What's the question?"
He makes a noise of amusement. "I suppose why is the easiest place to start."
Yeah. Easy for him. Not so easy for me. Doubly not easy for me because it's not even really me. But I so don't even want to think about dragging Meyer out here. Poor kid is actually a miserable little ball at the moment.
Could always go textbook on him, Ara suggest helpfully.
I snort internally. He'd just go textbook right back, I bet. And he'd do it better.
Not better than me. Ara sounds smug. I could go textbook at him.
Not better than you, I agree. But no, I don't think that'll get us anywhere.
Your party, then.
And I'll cry if I want to?
Duo Maxwell doesn't cry.
I snort internally again. Someone here sure does, then.
"Duo?"
I sigh. "Sorry. Just- got distracted."
"By?"
What the hell. "The voices in my head."
He smiles faintly. "I'm sure."
"Yup. Always hanging around, talking to me, driving me crazy."
Heero gives me an amused, patient, but definitely waiting look.
"So…"
"Why do you cut yourself, Duo? What's going on?"
I glance at him, then away to a new spot, this one on the blanket. "Well. I don't know." My voice sounds a little shaky and I don't like it, but there's little I can do about it. I decide to try and explain further, but when I open my mouth all that comes out is another, "I don't entirely know."
"Why you do it, or what's going on?"
"Well… mainly the first. I mean, I can tell you the usual thing, right? Someone cuts to express how they hurt, to release the pain, when there's no other options that person can see. When that person is completely hopeless and lost in the face of life. When there's so little else left possible to do."
His expression becomes more serious, concerned. "You feel that way?"
I study my fingernails. They look a little rough. "Not quite."
"Then why?" He touches one of the few scars on the back of my hand, an odd spider web of crisscrossing. Not the single, simple slashes on my arms but obviously deliberate. Hell, Heero's Heero. Maybe he can even tell from the way they look and the angles or whatever that it's self inflicted also.
"These the same thing?" he asks, tracing it oh so gently.
"Sorta kinda," I murmur. I can feel those damned tears trying to come up again. I force them back with a few breaths and I think I'll be able to hold out on them as long as Heero doesn't go breaking any more glasses for me. "Sorta kinda the same, yeah."
He releases that arm and reaches across me to the other. There's less bandaging over here, and the scars that are visible aren't as bad, as rough or as deep appearing. Meyer doesn't have the same kind of control that I do in left hand. Heero traces a few with a slightly rough fingertip, making me bite my lip briefly. I don't get a lot of touch.
He looks up at me. "Definitely not suicide attempts," Heero murmurs. "Why the self mutilation?"
"I don't know," I answer truthfully. And I don't. I've already said the obvious about the pain and helplessness. Whatever reasons Meyer has are his own at this point, though I'm sure Sandra has a better idea than most of us do.
The others are unusually quiet, leaving me on my own to deal with this.
"Duo," he says softly, drawing my name out, chastising lightly.
I can only give a vague shrug.
He seems set to wait, but after a short while he reaches out and picks up the one odd medicine bottle. White instead of sickly orange. He studies the bottle, then looks up at me. "If you're taking Zoloft for that then I'd have to take a guess and say you need a new antidepressant."
Fuck damn. The hell is wrong with me? For some reason that casual, simple comment breaks a gate to my emotions, and I'm fighting back those damned tears again and losing just a little bit more. No sobs, thank god, but I can't stop or hide the tears that try and force themselves out. I'm beginning to feel like a damned waterfall.
I will not cry in front of him. I will not cry in front of him. I will not cry in front of him.
Heero calmly hands me some more tissues. Damned psychotic Boy Scout.
I use them with as much dignity as I can muster and drag in some claming breaths, trying not to suffocate on a lungful of tissue fluff. Seriously, hasn't my day been bad enough? Does God have to try and kill me with tissues now on top of everything else?
Finally there's soft activity in my mind, ranging from discomfort with this situation to anger at Heero that he'd force me into this place of pain. I bite my bottom lip hard and force myself to focus on the present.
Meyer finally makes a real appearance and he seems a little calmer now. He even manages a ghost of a smirk, but that fades away as he murmurs something. Outwardly I glance around, searching, not finding.
"Toby?" I finally whisper, looking up at Heero.
"Pardon?" Heero asks, eyes narrowing slightly.
Oh fuck. Yeah, just what I need, him thinking I'm completely cracked and that I don't even recognize him. Actually… would that get me out of explaining this?
Meyer gives me a hard nudge. Okay, okay, fine.
"The bear," I clarify. "You're Heero. Want Toby. Stuffed, patched, fuzzy."
"Oh. Right." He leans over the other side of the bed and pulls it out from where it seems to have fallen between the mattress and the bed frame.
I take it slowly, trying not to let Meyer's relief wash over me too noticeably. In truth some of that relief is my own. The bear has become pretty damned important to us all, and pretty damned stable in it's utter there and bearness. The familiar weight of it, feel of it, smell of it… though I notice there's a bit more to the smell of it than before, something of Heero as it's something I can smell on the shirt I'm wearing and something I smell on occasion when the wind is right or we're pressed close together.
I look up at him over the top of Toby's head, holding the bear tightly against my chest. "I don't take them often," I tell Heero for explanation, keeping my voice soft and hopefully calm. "The Zoloft, I mean." My voice wavers but doesn't break. Go me.
Heero picks up the first bottle near him thoughtfully, studying it. "Risperdone," I mutter, pressing my cheek to the soft fur of Toby's head. "Blocks out some nerve reception thing, dulls reactions, relaxes the body."
"I know what it is," he informs me, looking a touch amused by my 'some nerve reception thing.' Yeah, well, Ara's the genius. I'm just along for the ride. "So you use it to relax?"
I nod. "Among things."
He gives a nod and I can just tell he's storing the information away until a better time to get more answers out of me. I just hope he doesn't ambush me with it. I, well, we can be pretty unpredictable.
He sets the bottle down and picks up another, studying that one in turn. After a moment he looks up at me. "I'm not actually familiar with this one."
"Anxiety," I answer. "It reduces anxiety." Though sometimes anxiety is your friend, if you'd just pay attention and listen to it when it tells you not to wake up. It knows the Heero is waiting.
Ara hovers a little closer in my mind, seemingly a little worried about me. Bailey's usually the hoverer, but he's sticking to the shadows at the moment.
Heero nods and puts the bottle down, then picks up the next with a small frown. "I am familiar with this. Ambien is… a bit excessive, wouldn't you say? There are much more gentle sleep aids on the market."
"Yeah, well, it's what I've got." Sometimes the market just isn't made for people like us.
He's silent, and it starts to make me nervous as I watch him play with the top of the Ambien bottle.
"All perfectly acceptable to have," I find myself saying. "War is stressful, ya know." This is definitely me, not one of the others. Brain just doesn't appear to be watching the thoughts it's shuffling down to my mouth.
I can see that he doesn't believe what I'm telling him. Hell, I wouldn't either. But he's not about to smash the lie down without something to back himself up with. Yay for predictable. Instead he puts the Ambien down and picks up the journal, something I had forgotten was still sitting there like a coiled snake waiting to strike me when I least expect it.
"I didn't read it," he restates, tossing it onto my lap. "But I most definitely know it's not some sort of 'Dear Diary' type thing."
I look down at the cover, chewing on the inside of my lip until Bailey fusses about it. I whisper at last, "It's personal." And it is.
"Oh." He's silent, thinking. He doesn't seem suspicious, just thoughtful. I never see it coming.
"Austin? Is he the same person that you wanted me to make stop in the kitchen, or is that someone else?"
What the holy fucking hell!
I draw a sharp breath, then try and calm my breathing with slow, deep breaths. Tears again, damn it! And why the hell am I shaking?!
I lean forward slowly against the worn teddy bear, composure crumbling inside and out and slipping through my fingers like sand. I can't even stop the damned whimpering sobs, but I manage to keep them from turning into gushing completely breaking down sobs.
I look up at him through my tears, hating him and loving him for stripping me bare like this, and shake my head slowly at him. "You could never understand," I whisper. "You could never understand."
That doesn't stop him from reaching out to me, though, pulling me against him in a hug I find I strangely desperately seem to need. I was right earlier, though him holding me only manages to break me a little. It doesn't completely undo me like I fear it would have earlier. But the more he holds me the less control I seem to have until I'm just outright sobbing and don't care, don't care at all, and neither does anyone else, just so much not caring and so much sobbing and clinging. This gentle hold gives me permission to be vulnerable, if only for a moment, if only for a night, because someone else will be strong for me. I wrap my arms around him, not caring what he will think come morning, when the sun would cast light on night and not be as kind as darkness, and bury my face against his shoulder, muffling my sobs.
And he lets me sob and grasp and tremble, holding but not trying to make those stupid soothing noises or try to tell me it'll be all right. As the tears begin to slow I give up trying to hold onto some sort of defensive space and I just let him hold me.
"Why don't you tell me about it?" he whispers a while after I've calmed and the tears have stopped falling completely.
There's nothing inside, good or bad, yes or no. Everyone is pretty much letting me decide on this. I'm at once both grateful and irritated. It takes me a couple of deep breaths to decide, and then I pull back slowly.
"Can I get a cup a hot chocolate first?" I ask softly.
"You're not going to run away are you?"
I give him a weak smile and hold up my hands. "Where can I go?"
He nods and gets up, leaving the door partway open to the room. After a moment or so I look around and gather up the blanket covering me, tuck Toby under my chin, and move to the living room couch. It's surprisingly comfy for being a beaten up old thing. Briefly I worry how this will seem, me and a blanket and the bear and Heero and the undeniable tear tracks and…
Ara gently points out that Trowa and Quatre are smart enough to know I wasn't simply 'just stressed and tired' earlier. Quatre, at least, is probably expecting me to have some sort of something tonight. Trowa, too, probably. Maybe even more so than Quatre.
I smile faintly at that. Ara likes Trowa quite a lot, says there's a lot more to the strangely haired person than most people see. Ara's description, of course.
When Heero comes out he's surprised to see me there but allows it just as well – not that I'd have let him move me, but that's another story – and settles next to me. He accepts the blanket half I toss over him and shifts it a little as I arrange and tuck and smooth my half of it. Toby goes on my lap – where he can see everything and feel like he's a part of the conversation, Meyer points out – and I hold the warm cup between my cool hands and stare at the small marshmallows swimming around inside.
"You remembered the marmells," I murmur, looking up at him.
"I fiigured- the what?"
I laugh, relief flooding through me to be temporarily away from all the stress.
"Marmells," I say again, looking back at them. "It's from- when I lived with Father Maxwell. There was a young child there, maybe 4 or 5, and she couldn't say the entire word marshmallows. It kept coming out marmells. And soon everyone was saying it. I guess, well, I guess it's just one of those things you never really lose."
Silence settles between us, strangely heavy and warm as silences go, and he eases closer to me. Or perhaps he's just propping his socked feet up on the coffee table. I place the cup on my knee, balancing it with one hand, and hold out an arm to him. "Could you, the sleeve?"
He nods and slowly begins to unroll the sleeve, securing it at the wrist. It's still big, falling down over my hand and past my fingers a little. It makes me smile. I'm not that much smaller than him so it must be large on him as well. Nightshirt, perhaps. I bring the bunched up sleeve up to my nose and breathe in. Such an interesting scent.
Heero begins to unroll the other cuff. I watch his careful movements, thinking, and then decide to just go for it. Gotta start somewhere, might as well start with the big question of 'what.'
"Have you ever heard of DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder?"
His fingers pause in their work and then continue, much more slowly but no less gently.
"What? That's sort of like amnesia stuff or something?"
"Well, kind of. Maybe fugue amnesia. Weird stuff, by the way." Ara makes a not so polite noise of disbelief. "Not that I've got room to talk," I admit to appease him. "But. Subject at hand. DID is more like Split Personality Disorder. Or more like it is that. Split and Multiple Personality Disorder."
He's quiet enough that I look up from my drink. His movements have stopped, but he still has my wrist in a loose hold. I carefully pull my arm back, steadying my cup with two hands.
"Multiple Personality Disorder?" he says softly, tone asking for me to confirm that as what's going on with me. I won't disappoint now that I'm actually talking.
"Yeah. That in particular. How much do you know about it?"
"Not very much," he admits.
I nod. "That's to be expected. Not many people do know all that much about it, and there are so many unknowns still. It's not as rare as people think though, and from my own studies a person who has it can be in the system for up to 7 years before it's properly identified and treatment can begin. 7 freakin' years. Tend to be treated as schizophrenics or something like that until it's figured out. Unsettling stuff. I was a lucky one, I guess." I give a small shrug, taking a sip of the hot chocolate, letting it rest in my mouth a moment before swallowing.
I let myself slide back into the cushions more, watching his face behind my, well, not impassive mask, but my pleasantly neutral expression, waiting for his interest, his rejection, whatever it is he decides to feel about all this.
He sighs deeply and closes his eyes. While he's is focused someplace else I allow myself to study his face in the soft light, now not wary of his seeing where my attention lies. He looks tired, with small lines around his eyes that shouldn't be there for someone so young. His skin, though, despite all the hard work he does, it still has that generous softness and curve of childhood, reminding all of us that for everything we do we really are still…just children.
I look down at my hands and bring the cup up to my face. The steam is soothing as it drifts upward, bringing with it that sweet chocolate scent.
"You have Multiple Personality Disorder?"
"I do," I say into my cup, watching my breath push the liquid around inside.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I tell him with a slight shrug, looking up at him. I hold back a snort of laughter. Okay as peach pie. "Why wouldn't I be okay? It's not like I'm a babbling idiot or anything. Or, uh. It's not like I'm a babbling idiot in the way of having something wrong with me. Just being weird doesn't sound. I'm- I'm just a little damaged. I guess."
He considers that. I can tell he doesn't get it. "Why don't you explain Multiple Personality to me," he says at last.
"I can do that," I tell him brightly, nodding. "We can do that."
He looks taken aback. "Please don't refer to yourself in first person plural right now."
I nod again. Fair enough. "Okay. Kind of weird, right?"
"Just a little."
I ease back into the cushions, making a little hold for the mug so that I won't have to hold it the entire time, and after a moment I give into Ara's insistence in that he should be the one to explain. I can't even be sure if Heero catches the switch, but then again he doesn't know what to look for yet. I'm sure he will soon enough.
Immediately my entire body relaxes everything feels more comfortable, everything seems brighter and better. Ara smiles at Heero somewhat lopsidedly. It's a part of his charm, something he has more than enough of. Bastard never shares, either.
"All right. You have to understand primarily that Multiple Personality does not mean that a person's insane or that they're crazy. In case studies Multiple Personality is caused by severe child abuse, but it doesn't have to be child abuse, per se, in strict theory. The abuse is just the most likely, and sadly, the most widely occurring catalyst. Whatever the cause is it simply is something so monstrous that the young mind simply will not, or cannot, allow that to be a part of their memory. As they cannot handle this happening a defense mechanism is triggered, in this case dissociation. The main part of the child's mind goes elsewhere, retreats away, and the small part that remains is what takes the abuse or experience. Once the occurrence has passed it's safe for the child to reemerge and the can continue on living without a major disruption to his or her life because they don't remember this horrible action taken against them.
"This is actually normal to a lesser degree, everyone at one point or another dissociates. The difference here is that it happens again, the abuse that trigged it, or something very similar happens. The same defense mechanism is pulled up and used. Pretty soon this small portion that's taking all this pain or anger or fear or whatever it is, that portion begins to develop away from the main part of the personality. In doing so a secondary and entirely separate and new personality is shaped. Each time a section of dissociated mind is drawn up and takes in more experiences it gains more and more of an independence."
Ara picks up the mug and takes a sip, then grimaces slightly at the taste before barreling on before Heero can comment on the expression.
Reaching out he pats Heero's knee. "You're following, right?"
"Yeah. Duo-"
Pressing a finger to Heero's lips Ara shakes his head no. "Let me finish. Now, you have this separate identity off to the side of the original identity absorbing different things, forming different thoughts, feeling in different ways, and having a different outlook. Then, something happens, and this part of the identity," Ara gives the hand still hovering next to Heero a little shake, "isn't equipped or willing to deal with this new situation. But neither is the child. Another part of the mind is used, another dissociation occurs, and what's happened with the first one happens slowly with the second one. And soon enough you have two separate and different personalities completely outside of the main person. With time these identities fade somewhat into the background, when the threat stops basically and they're not really needed. They never really leave, though. They can't. They can't leave or disappear, and in most cases they're formed enough that they just won't fade away."
Ara pauses a moment, thinking, though not long enough to give Heero a chance to speak. "In a lot of cases they don't even entirely leave and they come out on their own, either triggered by new stresses, though usually nothing like what formed them, or they're just independent enough that they want their own time. And then one day something bad happens that the host, or main personality, is actually equipped and able to handle and the personalities realize that they aren't needed as a background defense. Or things start to work out really well for the host and the same realization of not being needed occurs. Either way, once the personalities decide that they're not going to remain in the background there are obviously problems that occur, plenty of conflicts. It can be a rather frightening intrusion for the host, to suddenly find strange things happening. Do you understand so far?"
Heero nods, an odd comedy of interest and unease.
"Good. In time and with help these alternate personalities, called alters, begin to emerge more fully and without fear and they make themselves known to the host in some way or another, either by way odd actions that can't be explained, or acts that have to be treated, like this cutting." Gently Ara rests his fingertips above the bandage along the arm. "Treatment, I'm sure you're curious about that."
Heero nods again.
Ara lets both of his hands drop to his lap and makes himself comfortable, propping his feet up over Heero's lap, giving Duo a little mental 'ha-ha!' "Well, there's integration, and man I'm not too wild about that, if you know what I'm saying. But in integration a therapist and the host and the alters all work to bring together the fragmented parts to make a whole and complete personality. The other option is finding a way to coexist to the point that most people would never ever guess there's anything really different about the person."
Heero seems to struggle a moment for words, then lets out a breath slowly, looking at Ara carefully. "You – you're not Duo, are you?"
Ara shakes his head, pursing his lips, head tilting to the left a little. "I'm Ara," he states at last, holding out his hand. "Understandably we've never been formally introduced."
Heero freezes in place, eyes locked onto Ara. Ara hm'ed mentally about how Heero seemed to be having some trouble looking at Duo's body and knowing it wasn't actually Duo.
Give him a break, I mutter. You'd be shocked too.
Damn straight I would, Ara agrees. After a second he drops his hand and folds his hands in his lap. After another moment he pulls his feet back from over Heero and draws his knees loosely up to his chest. He gives a little shrug. "And this is your cue to ask to speak to Duo again," he says quietly. "And I'll retreat back to where I belong."
That seems to shake Heero out of his stupor, shock, whatever. "Is it?"
"Normally. I'm not blind. I may be seeing through Duo's eyes, but I do see, and I'm thinking with my own mind. I make you uncomfortable, and that's okay and understandable. We tend to make people uncomfortable. But then something interesting happens, if people bother to stick around long enough. Know what that is?"
Heero shakes his head a little.
"People actually get to know us as individuals. And then, wham, we're suddenly not just these strange fragmented, broken parts of the person they thought they knew, but we're actually people. People who think and feel and act differently. And from that point the goal is for people who know us to be able to accept us both as individuals and as this working cooperation."
He turns his head away from Heero, to where the maps have been rolled up and settled on the table, and gives a soft bitter laugh. "Just as soon as we accept ourselves, right?" He cocks his head to one side, listening to the internal murmuring, and then gives a slight nod.
"Yo, Heero, I'll chat with you later." He looks back to him, eyes suddenly sad. "Maybe."
A shiver runs through my body and my eyes close, and then open again. Only takes a moment to place everything where it should be, externally and internally. Yup, lots of practice.
"Duo?"
I give a nod and smile in a tired sort of way, lifting the drink and sipping it despite the fact that it has cooled considerably during the time Ara was out. Mmm, chocolate.
Ara mutters something about me being a freak. Meyer mutters something back about how Ara's the freak when everyone else likes chocolate. I take another sip and enjoy some more cold hot chocolate.
Silence settles between us. I don't really want to say anything I don't actually have to at this point. Heero, well, he probably hasn't the faintest idea of what to say. I sip until the cold hot chocolate is mostly gone, then set the drink down on the table and lean back against the side of the touch, studying him though my lashes and willing to outwait him.
"This won't affect your piloting abilities, will it?"
I pick up the couch pillow beside me and hit him with it, hard, since it's only a pillow. "Sure, it's going to affect my piloting abilities now, just because you know about it. Never mind the fact that I was this way long before you met me. Come on Heero, think, use some common sense."
"I had to ask, okay?" he defends, pulling the pillow from my hands. "It's the first question that came to mind."
I narrow my eyes and pull the pillow back, holding it loosely against my chest. "Fine, that's it, it's the only stupid question you're allotted tonight," I tell him.
"I might as well give up now, because I can think of a lot of stupid questions that I might ask if I stick around," he tells me, standing. I grab his hand, gingerly of course, and pull him back down, against me, and he looks over with a lifted eyebrow.
"Are you really interested?" I ask him softly.
He gives it a moment's thought – and yeah, I actually appreciate that he's got to think about it – and then he nods slowly, letting his body relax against the couch. "Yeah, I'm really interested, Duo. Why don't you tell me what you want me to know?"
Wow, that's not asking for a lot or anything.
But I give a slow nod and rearrange my body so that I'm sitting cross-legged beside him, looking at his face to judge the effect my words have on him. "All right," I begin softly, picking at a loose thread coming up from Toby's leg. Bailey grumbles and Meyer protests and I stop picking and just stroke the fur.
"You just met Ara. Knowing that it's Ara, I mean. You've spent a lot of time around him without knowing it. He's a genius, but he'd never admit it." Meyer sniggers something. Very true. "Actually, I take that back. He does admit it but it's never entirely serious. Usually when he's being a smart ass or teasing or acting smug. Ara being Ara. But yeah. We've all been tested as part of the psychological crap stuff we have to go through." Bailey mentally sighs in exasperation at me. "His IQ is like 189 or 190, around there. If you know anything about IQ scores and stuff that's… well, I'm not even sure how to describe it. I'd say Einstein-like, but he had the common sense of a moth next to a bright light and it always offends Ara any time someone tries to compare them. But pretty much math, science, psychology, machines, computers, all that sort of stuff, child's play for him. What would take me two days to correct on Deathscythe he can do it in half a day. Any number, any problem, he can work it out. He picks up patterns and finds the logic and always connects the dots. I think he speaks, hm, must be seven or eight languages. Mainly learned from hearing it spoken and from books and stuff." I stop and give Heero a chance to process that.
Inside Ara is smug at Heero's rather surprised look.
Not just good looking with a great personality but smart too, Ara quips. I'm the total package.
Except, of course, Bailey points out. That you actually don't have a package of your own to come in.
Bah. Technicalities.
I press on before the ensuing snark and grumble fest draws me in. "So, wow, that said a lot and not too much at all about who he is. He's older than me, for one thing. I'm not sure exactly what, but around 26 or 27. He's more emotional, quicker to lose his temper but equally quick to find it and put it back where it belongs and make everything all right again. He can be quieter than me sometimes and he can be louder, depending on how he's feeling. But whereas I can be pretty quiet when I want to be there's no way I could ever match Ara when he gets loud. All in all the only real problem I have with Ara, and the biggest difference between us, is that he's a freak who doesn't like chocolate."
I'll show you freak, Ara mutters.
Blueberry applesauce!
Ahg! Where?! Get that stuff away- Meyer! You-
I focus on Heero with a smile, trying to ignore Ara's rant about blueberry applesauce. I need to find a way to thank Meyer later.
"He's older than you?"
"Yep. There is no set pattern for what can and can't be. An alter can be male or female, young or old, might need glasses or not need glasses, have a speech defect, be right or left handed, all that sort of stuff. Some might be chronically sick, while the body is perfectly healthy any other time. Another may be allergic to cats and the others have no existing allergies. There are so many unknowns in the mind…" my voice trails off, dropping, and I'm sure Heero picks up the awe from my tone, the wonder about the entire thing. He wouldn't be Heero if he didn't.
And it is damn awesome. Sometimes I just wish it'd be awesome somewhere else.
I give Heero a minute to take that in and make sense of it and while he's doing that I decide another drink is in order. I take the mug back to the kitchen with every intention of getting more hot chocolate, but somewhere in the process of coming and going I end up with a soda. I'm going to blame Ara. Heero's still looking thoughtful when I come back and doesn't seem to notice that I'm trying soda at one in the morning. Go me.
"How is that possible.?" he whispers softly after a moment.
"Buddy, if we knew that we wouldn't be like this," Bailey tells him, sneaking out to twist the top off the soda and take a drink. He's gone by the time Heero looks up.
Ninja! Meyer shouts.
I give Heero a smile. "People have been studying the mind for years and there's still no ready answers for so many things. You live with it, you have no choice."
Another silence as I sip my drink and then put it down, settling in. I can feel the heat of Heero's leg against mine.
Ara gives me a little mental poke and I return it with a little mental eye roll.
"Also, Ara is attracted to guys. I don't know how I forgot that. He certainly never lets me. He-." I change what I'm going to say midway through. Don't think Heero's ready to deal with Ara being quite the bed bunny. "He's a bit flamboyant, at times. So if you ever sees flamboyant, that'll like me him. I'm not quit so dramatic, either."
He nods, looking thoughtful. "You're attracted to girls, then, I take it?" Heero asks. Almost on the heels of his words there's a flash of embarrassment regret uncertainty, like he feels bad for asking a personal question.
I can't help but grin. "Damn, right to the point. Truth is I have no idea. I'm too busy thinking about other things right now, if you know what I mean. I have a lot to work on before I even think about getting into any sort of relationship, whether the person is male or female."
"I didn't say anything about a relationship, I said attraction."
The grin drops into a smile as I let my eyes stray around the room. "I don't know, like I said. There's a lot more on my mind beyond that. I hardly notice things like that. Maybe I can't, you know, maybe Ara can because I can't." My decision doesn't stand very long. "Because trust me, Ara most definitely can and does. A lot. Me, I've never even kissed anyone. I have no idea what I would want for anything short or long-term."
The smile falters and I try to pick it back up, and then decide that I don't have the strength. Maybe it's time for me to bring down some of the barriers and stop pretending.
"I don't think I ever will," I tell Heero, letting my eyes move to his face for a second, and then fixing my gaze back on the bare wall where the maps had been hanging. Even the bulletin board is down.
"Never?"
"No. It seems a lot more trouble than it's worth. And I wouldn't want to make any connections with someone unless they know, and if someone knows they'll never want me."
"Duo-."
"Sometimes I don't want me."
"Duo-."
"I know I shouldn't talk like that," I sigh, interrupting again. Damn, I hadn't meant to say that part about wanting me. I tug at Toby's thread. "It's not healthy or productive. I know. It's just the stress, really, of the week. I'm just so messed up-."
The rest of my words are muffled by Heero's mouth against mine.
