Hiya . . . again. Well, I'm going to swear now that I'm not going to be working on my fic for a while. I have a ton of homework that needs to be done within the next three weeks, plus I have to refill my creative energy reserves. It's a bit more lighthearted than everything else has been, so just relax for this one. Oh yeah, I went out on a limb with the Death thing and it's almost a crossover, but I couldn't resist . . . ^_^
The Finer Points of Living
" . . . Which concludes our gossip unit today," the cheery talk show host said.
Duo sniggered at the image of Heero and Relena greeting each other. I thought they knew better than that, he thought. Little did he realize how near the woman had come to death, so he thought the performance was quite entertaining.
The spotlight on the woman on the television brightened and the background darkened. She said, "I think this little picture will prove to be worth more than a thousand words. How can we doubt the obvious underground significance of that expression on Heero Yuy's face? The little hints we've been able to gather haven't been enough to establish exactly what is going on, but it sure looks cute, doesn't it? It leads one to wonder how long they've sustained. As has been the topic of our show today, staying together in modern times is harder than ever due to . . ."
Vincent started to cry.
"Duo, check the baby, will you? I'm kind of busy," Sophie called.
Duo yawned mightily and hit the power button. He passed his wife in the den and saw her on the phone. She gave him a shut-him-up-or-else look and turned back to her work.
Duo went into his son's room. itwas decorated in the most popular style for little boys, a soft blue with lots of generic unisex stuffed animals and pictures of large machines such as tractors and airplanes and an artist rendition of Deathscythe (why not?), and Duo's old cross by the window.
"Hey, wittle won? What's wrong?" he asked in that tone of voice any father will unconsciously adopt when talking to his infant child. Sophie made fun of it when she was around, but she did it too. He picked the baby up out of his crib and investigated. "I think we might need a wittle changy-wangy," he cooed, wrinkling his nose.
Vincent giggled as Duo removed his soiled diaper and tickled his round little stomach. Duo grinned, not being able to remember the last time he'd got that reaction out of his wife. Babies were so innocent.
Duo had finally gotten the routine down; Take off old diaper, clean, powder, new diaper put on cartoon-character side out and plastic tape in back. "Don't see why they have to make the damn things so complicated, he grumbled." Absently, he recalled something Hilde had said once: "Humanity has always gotten a thrill watching other folks suffer— so much so we've even got a word for it: schadenfreude."
"Schadenfreude my ass," Duo muttered, picking up his son. "Let's go watch TV, huh Vince?"
~~@[~*,~]@~~
I'M TOO NICE, said Death as he picked his way carefully over to the ghost. SHE SHOULD HAVE DIED.
The ghost chuckled. He was getting quite good at bargaining with his friend.
I MEAN IT. SOMEONE YOU CARE FOR HAS GOT TO DIE, UNDERSTAND? Death stamped his bony foot in a very childish gesture. Death was indeed very childish. Incredibly so, in fact. I DON'T GIVE RUBBISH WHETHER OR NOT THEY'RE CRUCIAL TO THE HUMAN RACE'S SURVIVAL. ALL PEOPLE ARE DEAD TO ME ANYWAY.
"Peace, peace," said the ghost. "All right. One I care for if you spare the others?"
YES.
"Just not the one with the red hair. She cannot die, understood?"
BUGGER, Death said, IT'S ALWAYS THE REDHEADS THAT ARE SPECIAL. WHY THEM?
"Because she is important to me," replied the ghost, noncommital.
IS IT TRUE THAT ONE OF YOUR MANY FIGUREHEAD RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS HAS A FASCINATION WITH RED-HAIRED GREEN-EYED YOUNG LADIES? Death asked innocently.
"Unfortunately," admitted the ghost. "But Mariemaia's too smart to get pulled into one of those traps. You're such a bad faker, you know that?"
NO, HONESTLY. I DON'T MEET GODS. I MEET MORTALS. GODS DON'T DIE.
"Lucifer is said to be quite a character. Maybe you two should have lunch sometime." Somewhat of an absence of an afterlife had left the ghost a bit more than slightly jaded. Various deities possessing large amounts of supernatural power no longer had any effect whatsoever on what remained of his soul.
I'LL GET IN TOUCH. Death rubbed his finger-bone tip along the edge of his scythe, which was so thin that it was invisible except in a certain bluish light and so sharp that the yellowish-white tip of the bone was sawed clear through in a matter of microseconds.
OH, BUGGER, Death said again as the fragment rebounded off the "ground" and reattached itself. ONE DAY, AND I KEEP SAYING THIS, ONE DAY IT'S NOT GOING TO COME BACK. WOULDN'T IT BE SO MUCH NICER IF THEY JUST GAVE ME SCISSORS? BUT NO, THEY HAVE TO GIVE ME A SCYTHE. FOR THE APPEARANCES THINGY. ISN'T ANYBODY PRACTICAL ANYMORE?
"The human mind is always a mystery," reflected the ghost.
THAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH BEING AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION [If you don't remember from the last book, that is something that exists through the characterization of a natural event (death, fate etc.) by the collective human consciousness], YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE. JUST ONCE I'D LIKE TO HAVE EYEBALLS. Death idly tapped at the empty sockets of bone hidden deep in his cowl. A bluish light that the origin of was and was to remain unknown shone from within (somewhere) and death sighed. Or, rather, tried to sigh. When you don't have lungs or a mouth it's kind of hard.
The ghost patted his friend's humorous sympathetically. "In a way, I fell lucky. Then again, you never had to go through the process of dying. Hurts quite a bit, sometimes."
There was a neigh behind him, and Death's horse appeared, trotting along the nothingness, paying little attention to actual dimensional rightness. It annoyed the ghost somewhat. Death's steed was an actual living horse, as opposed to the skeleton ones, which tended to fall apart. His name was Binky.
Now really, Binky. What kind of name was that for a horse?
SQUEAK, said Binky's passenger. The Death of rats had come to pay a visit. SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUI SQUI SQEEEEK.
A SLOW DAY, INDEED, agreed Death.
"So we have a deal, then?" Pushed the ghost. He wasn't going to let his friend get away with, well, murder. "One that is valuable dies and the rest live."
I'M LETTING YOU OFF EASY, Death said. BUT YOU'RE THE ONLY THING BESIDES A FELLOW SKELETON THAT'S BEEN MY FRIEND. VERY DIFFICULT WHEN YOU EXIST INTO INFINITY, LET ME TELL YOU.
"Great teller of stories, are you," said the ghost sarcastically. I've probably heard all of them.
THANK YOU. HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU THE ONE ABOUT THE TIME I TRIED TO BECOME HUMAN? IT WAS QUITE ENTERTAINING AND MY DEAR BUTLER ALBERT RISKED HIS LIFE TO GET ME HOME. QUITE AN INTERESTING TALE . . . [Author's note: If you're really interested read Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. It is hilarious. Other books with the main character Death include Mort, Reaper Man (not currently in print), and Hogfather.]
The ghost sighed and began to stare off into space. They were currently occupying the fifth dimension just above Europe. The ghost was not all-seeing, but at the moment he wanted to visit Mariemaia's friend Ender. He wasn't out of his coma. "Oh yeah," he interrupted Death. "Not Dennis Ender, either."
I WON'T GUARANTEE IT SINCE IT WASN'T INCLUDED IN THE DEAL, replied Death tersely. He hated being interrupted.
Binky neighed again.
WHAT, YOU TOO?
SQUEAK, SQUEAK SQUI SQUI SQEAK, said the Death of rats impatiently. His tiny bony hand pointed at Binky's saddlebag, where a sound likened to moving sand could be heard.
AH, I SHOULD GET ON MY WAY, Death said, taking the hint. (His schedule was determined— unless he chose to ignore it— by tiny hourglasses filled with white sand, labeled with names. Everybody had one, even most gods.) I BID YOU GOOD DAY, FRIEND.
"Have a nice trip," the ghost said idly.
I TOLD YOU, MY CLUMSINESS IS DUE TO THE FACT THAT BONE WEIGHT IS DISTRIBUTED UNEVENLY THROUGHOUT THE SKELETON, snapped Death. I GET SO SICK OF THOSE JOKES.
The ghost quickly apologized. "I meant 'have a nice journey.'"
OH, WELL, THEN, Death grinned sheepishly. It wasn't like he had much of a choice in the matter. GOOD DAY, FRIEND.
Binky rode off, away into space, back to the Discworld, where he was needed. Binky's mild trot was quite deceptive, as they arrived within a few seconds of leaving Earth's orbit.
The ghost sighed again, eyeing the spaceship that was approaching. He sensed Mariemaia aboard. It was a cargo and passenger ship, carrying all of the Specials and their equipment back from the asteroid base. Marie was staring glumly out the thick window when she caught sight of him for the first time. He made quite apparent his physical features for her, and smiled gently.
She slammed the window angrily.
"Oh," the ghost muttered. "That's the sweet little girl I used to know, all right." Strangely, he felt abandoned.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Hey Marie, did you hear the one about the Aries and the Kirin?" The pilot who Mariemaia had saved, Cam, poked his head over the back of his seat.
"No. Leave me alone," Mariemaia said, angry again. It was all him. Why the hell did he have to come barging into her life at a time like this? He'd always been cruel to the human spirit, but this was beyond precedent.
"Hey," said Ben, seated beside her. "We had a talk about this."
"You aren't being harassed by your past," Mariemaia countered. "Just let me be."
"I'll say it again, Marie. It's just your imagination."
"It's not. Besides, no matter what you think, it's what I know that matters. So just drop it before I hit you or something."
"Aw, come on. It's not anyone's fault that you're being followed around by your dead—"
Mariemaia slapped a hand over his big mouth. "I warned you. Shut. Up."
He raised his hands in defeat, and she uncovered his face.
Cam, undaunted, continued. "So this Aries runs into this Karakadan, right? And he says, 'Hey you, you've got my beam saber!' The Karakadan says, 'How would you know?' Then the Aries says, 'well, you have two, don't you?' The Karakadan looks, and he indeed has two (I mean, standard equipment, right?) Not thinking, he gives one to the Aries. The Aries thanks him and then slashes right through him. He throws the beam saber away and goes to this Kirin. He says 'Hey you, you've got my beam saber!' The Kirin says "Oh yea? How would you know?" The Aries says 'It has my name on it!' The Kirin inspects it. "Really? I didn't know your name was I stole this from Treize Khushrenada!'
Mariemaia shot him a venomous look. "Don't you ever say that name."
Cam blinked. "Whoa. Sorry. What's wrong with saying it? I mean, you can't still be afraid. The man's twelve years gone!"
"He ruined my life."
Ben looked at Cam. "Don't bring it up if you value your balls, man."
Cam, wide-eyed, sank into his seat. I does indeed like a woman with spirit.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Heeeeeroo!" Relena yelled, making her husband cringe.
"Doon't doooo thaaaaat!" He yelled back, making his way out to the upstairs hall. "What?"
"Get the baby!" She called, her arms full of boxes and papers and God knew what else. "I'm a little tied up at the moment!"
"Where is she?"
"In her crib down here!"
Heero made his way through the piles of junk strewn across the hall, on the stairs, in the entryway. Relena had a habit of spring-cleaning. It was rather annoying, even though he knew to be prepared. The worst part was the attic.
"Hey, sweetheart," he said, lifting his little daughter out of her crib in the kitchen. She was having a sneezing fit. "Yeah, I hate it, too. This whole house is dusty right now. Let's go outside." He cuddled the upset infant out the front door and into the grass. It was a nice day, unusually warm and cloudless. The weather had been particularly nice this week, and the grass was even turning green again. Considering that it was only April, that was a blessing.
Heero sat down a little way from the house and bounced Raina on his knee, absorbed in his daughter's simple open-mouthed smile and squeals of delight. His arms began to tire, so he laid back and cuddled her to his chest, staring out into the deep blue sky. This is worth everything, he thought to himself.
Raina, deciding the fun was over, closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She had slept a lot, but she wasn't very good at distinguishing day and night. Heero and Relena had been on twenty-four hour alert for the past two months. He started to yawn himself, and closed his eyes. The warm breeze wafted over him and the yellow sun made him comfortable.
Some time later, he was aware of a shadow across his face and upper chest. He opened his eyes and saw a little girl with red hair— no, wait. He saw a young woman with a bandana tied over frazzled light brown hair looking a little frustrated. "I spend my afternoon trying to fix up the house and you go out here and take a nap?" Relena demanded. "I was calling all over the house for you!"
Someone chuckled. Heero was distinctly aware of other presences. He explored his peripheral vision farther and found five familiar people. There was Akiko, who was giggling; Milliardo and Noin, and Trowa with his arm over Quatre's shoulder.
"What a sweet picture," Noin said. "You'll treasure that one."
Relena swung her camera. "I suppose you think I'm fixing dinner, too? Nice try, buster."
Heero swallowed, trying like hell not to blush. "Have you vacuumed in there yet?"
"If you'd like to do it."
He shrugged and sat up. "I just don't want Raina to have another allergy attack, is all." He deposited the baby in his wife's arms and stalked off towards the house.
"This is so much better than threatening," commented Noin after he was out of earshot. "I think I might try that on you sometime." She jabbed Milliardo in the ribs and he gave her a look.
"I've got to go see him do housework," Trowa snickered. "Can't imagine Heero in an apron."
"He usually takes off his shirt," Relena said, grinning and rocking her sleeping daughter.
"Mom!"
"What? He's my husband, I'm allowed!"
Quatre shook his head. "That sounds so unlike you, Relena."
"Welcome to the other side of me," Relena said, flinging a stray hair out of her face. "I suppose we can go sit on the porch until conditions inside are livable again. I'm sorry about that. I didn't realize you all would be here today."
Milliardo rolled his eyes. "I thought maybe my little sister had been spared from the spring cleaning instinct, but I guess it was too much to hope for."
"I don't even have a place to clean anymore," complained Noin. "If we just hadn't got involved in all that Preventer stuff we'd still have a nice little cottage on X-17530 and maybe we'd even have a baby . . . Oh Zechs, why can't we just quit?"
"Oh, is that what you're getting at?" Milliardo said, playing dumb.
"I'm not joking. We're getting too old for this. It's time to settle down." Noin put her head on his shoulder.
Milliardo made to put his arm around her waist and jabbed her lightly in the stomach. She bent to the side and let out a short laugh. It was her ticklish spot. It worked every time. "There's no reason not to feel young," he reminded her.
Quatre quickly turned at the sight of Heero's half-naked form in the living room with the vacuum.
"What? Am I not good enough?" Trowa asked, faking a hurt tone.
The others looked at them. Quatre blushed and tried to hide.
Relena laughed. "He is a treat, isn't he?"
She waved at her husband and he pretended to be engrossed in his chore.
"He's such a cutie sometimes."
"Mooom!"
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Are we finally ready to take him home?" Wufei asked.
Phailin pondered her own thoughts, perched on Nataku's head crest. "Hm, what?"
Wufei sighed and repeated his question.
"Yeah, everything's stable."
"When, exactly, are you two going to tell me what went on in there?" Wufei demanded. Earlier that day Phailin had pulled Sally into a room and locked the door. She'd been very somber today.
She climbed down and jumped nimbly from Nataku's knee. "When we're alone," she said quietly.
Sally gave her a pitying look.
"What the hell is going on here?" Wufei yelled, but Sally just shook her head.
"You need to hear it from her."
"Women," he sighed.
Sally left the bay, presumably to go pack what remained of her medical supplies (they were the only three left on the base).
Phailin took his arm. "I think what we need is a good stiff drink," she said.
Wufei gave her a look. "And what happened to that 'I can't drink because I'm pregnant' attitude."
"I think what you need is a good stiff drink," Phailin corrected herself.
"I'll go with that one." Wufei grinned. Phailin usually only had one motive for getting him drunk.
The last few weeks had been exhausting, although not unrewarding. He shot a still-disbelieving look at Nataku. His eyes flashed suggestively, if that was possible. He had Merin's humor. Suddenly he remembered the episode they'd had when they'd first arrived at the base . . . could Shenlong understand concepts like that? It certainly seemed that way. He suddenly didn't want to talk to the gundam. Not after what they'd done in the cockpit.
"Wuffie, coming?"
"You know I hate that name, woman."
She smirked. "Would you prefer—" she articulated a Thai word he probably couldn't have reproduced, let alone translated.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
She told him.
"No, I would not prefer that." Wufei paused. "Or maybe I would. Guess it depends on how much drink you give me."
"I only brought the hard stuff."
"Bring it on, my sapphire."
"You know, that's what my name really means." Phailin glanced back at him, swinging her hips and beckoning to the door.
"Your grandmother told me." Wufei gave her a seductive look and followed her out.
Phailin was already in their quarters when he arrived. She held out a shot glass. "One."
Wufei kicked it back and shut the door behind him. "One out of how many?"
She held up an industrial-sized bottle. "How ever much it takes, Chang."
"Hey, you're a Chang too now, you know. And you're two, if you count your stomach."
"You're not drunk enough, Chang." Phailin poured another.
"Two." Wufei said, throwing it down. He was getting quite good at it.
******Several drinks and half an hour later******
"Hopeya don' mind," Wufei slurred, obviously talking to the baby. He slurped an ounce of liquor out of his wife's bellybutton.
Phailin laughed at the tickling sensation, temporarily forgetting about her worry. "Why the sudden adventurousness, Wu?"
Wufei crawled back up even with her and kissed her. The smell of saki was strong on his breath (Heero had given them the bottle as a wedding present and she'd hidden it until the trip).
"I dunno. Maybe 'm just 'xcited." He said, grinning in the low light.
"Isn't that the whole point of this exercise?"
Wufei's fingers played lightly across her abdomen, tickling the tender skin. "I jus' drink th' damn stuff."
Phailin ran her hands through his stiff hair, loosening the gel and ruffling feathery soft strands. Generally he hated to have the style messed up, but he just grinned and urged her hands down over his neck and back. She cooperated without a word, wanting to distract herself from the news she had originally gotten him drunk to impart. It wasn't good news, necessarily. He'd be very upset when she finally mustered up the courage to tell him.
But as for now, let him enjoy himself, she thought. I might as well, too.
She massaged the taut muscles of his back, feeling the satisfaction of the hot flesh in her palms. Wufei took it as an invitation.
Hours later, they lay together, still short of breath. Phailin's motive for the drink, which was beginning to wear off Wufei, drifted back, souring the after-moment for her. She melted against his side, needing comfort.
"Somethin' wrong?" he asked, his voice noticeably less slurred. He knew her body language too well.
Before, Phailin had decided that Wufei had been too drunk. This was about the right level now. She sighed, trying to formulate the right words in her head. She had a tendency to get tongue-tied over difficult things like this. Finally, she decided to say it straight-out. "Wufei, we might lose the baby."
He was in his I-love-you-no-matter-what mood, which was much to be thankful for. He squeezed her shoulders tighter. "What?"
"I've been having trouble. Sally's afraid that the fetus might not survive."
"Wait a minute, you told Sally about that? I thought this was just between us."
"I had to talk to a doctor. She was the only one around when I started having the pain, okay? We've got confidentiality. Don't you trust her?"
"That wasn't the issue."
"No, I want to pursue that," she pressed, desperate to get off the subject of their dying child. "What exactly happened with you and her?"
"It was ten years ago."
"I have a right to know."
Wufei was silent. He was obviously thinking hard. Finally, he gave in. "All right, but keep in mind that this was a long time ago. Don't hold it against me."
"That doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence."
"I had been declared an adult by my clan. I believed myself to be an adult, though I suppose I really wasn't. Out in space, when we did our Preventer work, no laws applied except the morals of the individual. In short, Sally convinced me to sleep with her."
Phailin was appalled. "And you let her talk you into it? My god, she was five years older than you at the time!"
Wufei shrugged, obviously embarrassed. "It was against my better judgement. Her assertiveness took me by surprise, mostly. I never would have thought she was that attracted to me. After about a month of her pushing me around like that I got fed up and left, leaving behind a lot of angry words. A few months later she called and apologized to me, and I've tried hard to forgive. It's difficult to get over being taken advantage of. I suppose that's part of what happened that night at Yensu. I was a little desperate to overcome the sense of being an inferior lover."
Phailin laughed. It had been a fun night. "I don't think you quite made up for it."
"No, neither do I." Wufei sighed and rubbed her arm absently. "But, it's the truth. I don't think you should worry about me being stolen again. Sally knows better than that. I wouldn't even consider it, anyway. Not with the little one on the line."
Phailin winced inwardly. They were back to the subject of their baby. She didn't want to remember what Sally had told her. Still, the words came drifting back: The pre-birth death rate is somewhere around fifty percent these days, even with all this technology. Sometimes genes get mutated so much that it would just be better to have the baby die than to have it live with a lifelong deformity. "Do you want a son, Chang?" she asked quietly, unable to fully initialize her voice.
"Honestly, I hadn't really thought about it." Wufei's voice was pretty much back to normal. The story of him and Sally seemed to have sobered him quite a bit.
Phailin smiled. That was a comforting thought, that he hadn't been wishing for a son. Had she finally conquered his superior-inferior sex ways of thinking? She nuzzled his chest gently and closed her eyes. She was exhausted.
Wufei took the hint and fell silent. They slept, not concerned about what time they'd need to get up.
*******************************************
That got a little more racy than I intended. Oh well. Hope I didn't make anyone start choking or anything *Grins Evilly*. I bid you guys adeu.
-Itsumo