Basket Case
Chapter 6: Clean Up Before She Comes
Shortly after she had departed from the pilots to her own room, the honey-tinted smile that held her face in victory growing by the second, Relena unzipped her bag and dumped out a menagerie of exotic colored glass bottles and odd feathered items and a prehistoric-looking book that spewed dust as it hit her bunk bed. She was careful to securely lock the door and clamor straight into her bed, which luckily had a curtain to keep prying Gundam pilot eyes out. The princess didn't even look over her new living space. It didn't matter much. Relena didn't expect to be staying long. As the garish colored items clinked and rolled when she sat down on the bed, she flipped her long hair behind her, staring down at the alien objects. How could these make it any better? she wondered. She bit her lip viciously.
"…I know this seems wrong, but I can't wait for you forever, Heero," she whispered gently to herself, even though she was totally alone. She stoned her face for the unbelievable and dangerous as she placed the most important item in her lap, choked down a bitter regret, and determinedly flung open the large book to the first page of golden parchment, chipped and weakened by time.
Odd words and ingredients popped up at her in alternately choppy and graceful printing, lifting a smell of incense and leaves to her nose. The cover itself was thick, sun-bleached leather blotted by ink stains and what appeared to chicken blood, or what she hoped was. For hours, she sat in the privacy of the small bedroom, paging through the incantations and remedies, looking for the right one. She was glad in a way that the other pilots were upset with her, that way they probably wouldn't invade on her important reading time.
She bit her lip, coming across a rather sinister looking one, and quickly skipped it when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Every once and a while she would pause to examine the bottles that Paegan had searched extensively to find on Earth. She wasn't exactly certain what she was searching for in the archives of voodoo witch generations gone past, but any general aphrodisiac probably would suffice.
"No… no… no…"
Another furious flip of the page. The golden-blonde girl huffed in the silence of her small apartment, darkened except for the dull yellow light overhead and unexplored. Her patience with this book was fading, and fading quick, hastened by the images of blue eyes and wild hair that made her even more fervent for reciprocation.
Her eyes darted to the glowing clock in the corner, flashing a number, which Relena blinked and rubbed her eyes thoroughly to make sure was accurate. It wasn't a mirage. It was 12:25. After midnight. Her unrequited feelings were acting as a pretty good insomnia muse. Giving a grumble under her breath about working herself to death, she stared back down on the pages that seemed to glow in her lap.
"No."
Flip.
"No."
Flip.
"…Definitely not!"
Flip.
"…wait."
She had passed a page and almost frantically flipped back to examine it, something vaguely familiar catching her eye and afraid she'd never locate it again. She scratched at her head as she read a page filled with the chicken-scratchings of an odd language. Reading over the alien words once or twice, Relena recognized it as the spell she'd heard the gypsy lady cast for her.
Very vividly, she could see the gypsy lighting one of her hairs and one of Heero's she'd scoured out of his dorm room once he'd fled for another mission and drop it ceremoniously into a wide bowl of what looked like silver gelatin. Once they'd hit the bowl, it had turned the entire thing red. She remembered seeing a flat face on the tanned gypsy woman, distressed by wrinkles, and she was unable to gauge her reaction but still got a bad, churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She suddenly wondered if something had gone wrong with the spell.
Duo woke up again, this time courtesy of a throbbing headache. Luckily, he was sure it was morning by now so he wouldn't be shoved back into bed by a stony mothering Heero Yuy to go back to sleep and have to toss and turn while his brain cells bashed against his skull. He snorted into his pillow of the thought of his Japanese comrade being an actual mother, staggering up in the morning cranky from morning sickness, with a loose teddy bear flannel pajamas and an irritated melon for a stomach, drinking orange juice straight from the carton, pulp and all. Stuffing his face into the pillow to muffle his tired laugher, he secretly hoped Heero wasn't listening in on that last thought. The aftermath wouldn't be pleasant. His smile grew against the starched fabric.
The American finally yawned and sat up, stretching his bony fingers to the ceiling above him. His hair, which he'd unbraided when he'd woken up late in the night while racked with insomnia, was cascading down his back in a tangled mess. With a grumble, he reached out for his brush, but found he'd manage to kick it out of his bunk in the night and it lay on the floor, teasing him. He frowned and reached down.
At the same time, outside, the other pilot threw his legs off the side of the couch and slid off to walk towards the bunk door, grumbling unhappily to himself as he took it upon himself to wake his comrade up. He was going to waste no time that could be used to get this mess cleared up. Brushing his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair, he staggered to the door, bones still claimed by sleep and a deep, undisturbed sleep at that, the kind that he'd been denied nearly every night of the war. As his fingers clenched around the doorknob, he noticed that the faint humming that was Duo's emotions in the back of his mind seemed to get sharper the closer he got. Now it was a bubbly, muddled content feeling that sleep had brought, rather than a vague warm sensation at back of his head.
/…Almost got it…/ Heero heard Duo think.
The door swung open, and Duo froze like a deer paralyzed by the glare of headlights, with his long chestnut hair hanging like his tail out into open space. The stoic, sleep-drained face of his comrade hovered in the doorway, cold Prussian eyes calculating him. Duo, embarrassed he'd been seen with his 'girl hair', flushed profusely and his stomach plummeted without him. He fumbled to get back under the blankets in his pinkish embarrassment. The slight shift in weight he made was enough to throw his balance off and Duo eeped loudly as he dropped like a sack of dead weight.
/Oh, shit! /
Before Heero could think in reply, his arms were filled with a mass of panicked Duo, caught just as he slid off his bunk. The Japanese boy was assaulted with the adrenaline rush from both him and his friend pumping his veins, making him breathless and tense. Duo flinched like he had splattered on the floor, took in a bracing breath, and then opened his eyes in confusion.
Wide, undisguised violet eyes shot straight up at him, and Heero thought he would die from looking at undiluted color they held. Duo's head was thrown back slightly over his arms, so that his insanely long hair was flung in all directions, his bangs a swirling chocolate mess over his forehead and some of his eyes. Daggers went through Heero's heart, ones that melted and left a warm, anxious jolt in his chest and sucked his mouth dry of moisture. Duo's dazed expression and face freeze famed in his mind, for the lack of a better word, was…
/Gorgeous. /
The purple eyes widened. "Heero?"
Heero looked like he'd swallowed a live squid and it was fighting up his throat again, face white as sheet. He'd thought that out loud! The Japanese boy was overwhelmed by panic and heat running to his face like an outbreak of disease, and he quickly put his friend onto his feet, though roughly and blindly and a face as red as it'd ever been. "Sorry," he muttered half-heartedly, Prussian eyes seemingly nailed to the floor.
Duo blinked, shocked as hell to see his comrade so flushed and skin still crawling in a tingly rush, and then noticed how quickly he was moving towards the door. One hand anxiously shoving his hair behind his head, the American called out, "Hey—Heero, wait!" The Japanese boy only seemed to flinch under his disheveled hair and slink away faster.
Suddenly, there was a blink of feedback in Duo's head, and the connection was broken. The fierce butterflies in Duo's stomach suddenly screamed in his nerves and fingernails dug into Heero's scarred skin.
Heero spun around, big mortified blue eyes locked on him. "What?" he said, the frightened expression giving away the flat tone in his voice. Something smoldered in his expression, and Duo could see him lick his lips nervously and shift his center of gravity constantly. Too bad he'd been shut off from Heero's thoughts again, he thought bitterly. Else I'd understand... why...he said that.
"Heero, you don't have to be afraid of me," the American started, fingers still bound around Heero's bicep, which twitched occasionally, he noticed.
The expression on the Japanese pilots face was surprisingly unnerved and confused; a muddled, blurry-lined confusion that showed the average teeanger still hid under Heero's skin. Duo'd seen it once before, and instantly memorized it. It'd been that night… the night he thought he hated Heero completely...
The Japanese boy suddenly flinched under his fingernails, more from confusion than from actually pain. Duo didn't have fingernails as long as Relena did. He was afraid of the sudden bitterness he felt from his friend.
Duo took a deep breath, composing himself, and Heero calmed, sensing the bitterness hide somewhere and dull. "Heero, I ...uh...um, if there's something... you wanna talk to me about, I'm... always here, ya know." Again, his fingers trailed up to his ears in a nervous habit, digging his hair behind them. "Whatever you wanna… talk about… is fine with me. Whenever."
"…I know," he replied.
The American's eyes dropped, half disenchanted that the abrasive side was back and there was no further move from his friend to respond. Duo unwrenched his fingers from the pale gold arm and stood fidgeting with his eyes on the floor. His tongue was desperate for direction and conversation to break the guillotine silence. "Um…" he said while staring his pink feet, gesturing lifelessly to his hair, "…sorry 'bout not fixing my hair..."
The stone eyes flickered. /…I like it. / "It's fine."
Duo's eyes lifted optimistically, but one eyebrow cocked in harsh skepticism, something he found hard to control sometimes, and Heero flinched again. /What does he mean by that? --That my hair's okay or that he doesn't mind? He's the last person I'd expect to… like my hippie' hair… /
"Is that all?" Heero asked, butterfly-infested stomach lurching to escape, so he could get the haunting, surreal image of the long hair that seemed to come from nowhere out of his head. He was completely aware that in order for his comrade's hair to be as long as it was while braided, it had to be significantly longer while down, but it was like a punch to the stomach seeing it so… real. He needed to get out. It was going to suffocate him, make him do something stupid, otherwise.
"Yeah," Duo said tiredly, waving it off, "that's it." The American turned toward his bunk, pale back streaming with chestnut, and rubbed at his temples with a grumble that if Heero had been paying attention, probably could have deciphered as, "Why the hell do I ever try?"
Before Heero could even get his foot out the bunkroom door, the something sang out in the area of the living room. Both Gundam pilots in the apartment jerked their heads instinctively to the noise, their battle-trained ears unaccustomed to the tiny shrill of an old-fashioned Earth phone. Prussian eyes glanced at Duo one more time, and then he was out the door. Across the darkened room, the phone cried out feebly, the ringing choked by age. He picked it up out of the socket curiously, and glanced back over his shoulder at the bunkroom door. Blinking, he saw Duo glaring out the crack in the door, cheek pressed up to the doorframe and eyes as stony as his own had ever been. The American stared back him and then shut the door abrasively. Heero flinched slightly, then quickly pressed the reciever to his mouth.
"Hello?"
A honey voice he was all too familiar with grating on his eardrums returned. "Oh, hello, is this Heero?"
"...Yeah."
"Oh, hello Heero! Good morning." Relena giggled slightly on the other end. "I just called to see how you're doing. Doug or something is sick, right? Quatre told me before he left, but I can never get his name right—"
"Duo," Heero stated, feeling something dangerously defensive whirl up in the pit of his stomach. "His name is Duo."
"Oh, right. You didn't catch anything from him, did you Heero? That'd be awful, the two of you sick and so cooped up all alone… I know! Breakfast would cheer you up, wouldn't it?"
Heero growled something low in the back of his throat to himself, something careless and unheard by the girl on the other end. "I guess," he mumbled out, staring down at the right threadbare cushion in the couch. "The food isn't like a restaurant up here, like on Earth, Relena. It's mostly freeze-dried and cafeteria food at best."
But nothing seemed to dampen the hazy ring of sunshine that frustratingly hung around that girl, not even the prospect of powered food slopped in with manufactured water. A frown darkened on Heero's face instantly. "Oh, that's okay! It's not the food that makes the breakfast, it's the conversation. And I'm sure it's palatable at least."
"Right…" Heero answered half-heartedly, voice a flat rumble. He was defeated and backed into a corner; he bitterly knew Relena would only prod and pester harder if he denied her a meal with him... Maybe Duo had been right, maybe everybody had been right... he could definitely feel her claws searching for a soft spot to dig into. Regret boiled up in his stomach.
"Great!" The girl said happily, the feminine curl in the honey voice making him flinch with sudden regret. "I'll meet you down in the cafeteria soon. Bye bye…"
Click.
The Japanese boy slammed the receiver down and flopped onto the couch, the knot between his eyebrows returning with a vengeance. Anger boiled up in, mostly from frustration and the embarrassment he'd suffered a few minutes before. His face burned at the slightest memory of it… He barely had the patience to deal with her now, to deaden his face and tolerate a whole breakfast with her when he could be… what? Could be doing what? He suddenly asked himself. While his body sank into the tired couch, disheveled hair covering his eyes, the bunkroom door swung open with an audible squeak. Heero cocked his head up to stare at his comrade upside down.
Duo, face stony and shadowed by his long, jagged bangs, moved shadowily out the bathroom door. He was already dressed in his long black jumper and priest collar, clinging to his cat-like body, and apparently soured up. Shutting the door silently, he paused for a moment, conscious that Heero was watching. His drawn-together eyebrows darkened his face and he moved silently and sullenly straight for the door. His hands dropped from his back to his sides after he snapped the hair band into place and his completed braid flapped at the small of his back. Not bothering Heero with eye contact, the American was out the door into the brightly lit hall of Peacemillion and was gone, leaving anger and bitterness like a disease in the air.
/What did I do?/ The Japanese boy stared at the door, stomach churning.
Apologizing to Duo, that's what he could be doing. Something he said must have angered him, he thought vaguely to himself, though Heero wasn't sure what. He could be apologizing and returning the old truce they had created, so that he'd act like his old self, not this bitter ghost that fled from room to room avoiding him… Smiling instead of scowling at life with a dark look… maybe even teasing him again... causually hrowing innuendo his way and laughing when he got uncomfortable... Heero missed it deep in the pit of his stomach.
He closed his eyes and sighed, being sucked into the couch cushions with the image of wide purple eyes burning in his retinas.
******************
i'm so sorry to keep you guys waiting soooo much. I'm just... very moody, I guess. Heh, it takes me forever to find the perfect time to write, otherwise I never like it and I end up doing it over and over. But today I promise you that I'll try to get another chapter out of me soon. If I don't, you can slap me over the head with a fish. A big slimey wet one, okay? I'm still working on fan art, too, which I'll have to find somewhere to post... dang... Oh, and while I'm talking, I have some movie recommendations.. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, if you're old or mature enough and if you haven't seen it, it's great! I love the little brown-haired raggedy guy, The Mole, who tries to free terrance and philip. I thought he could have made a great Gundam Wing character, with his smart-ass French tone and that perfect line when he's checking off the supplies Cartmen and the rest brought and he goes, "Did you bring the 'butt for?'" "What's the 'butt for'?" "For pooping, silly." And then he puffs his little cigarette all dramatically and it was hilarious! Aw, but he dies! I have this wierd attraction to dead guys... go figure. Thank you and r&r please!! Oh... gotta go get the lyrics... *rummages through pocket, tosses out a few pounds of lint, then holds up lyrics* I didn't want to use another Nirvana song, it was meant to be a theme of green day, but it's such a beautiful song, I couldn't resist. Acoustic. Hmm, very pretty.
Clean Up Before She Comes -- Nirvana
Clean up before she comes
Living in a dusty town
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
Twenty months has it all (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I must be getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
Clean up the dusty town
Living in a dusty town
Clean up before she comes
Living in a dusty town
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I'm starting to eat my vegetables
Chapter 6: Clean Up Before She Comes
Shortly after she had departed from the pilots to her own room, the honey-tinted smile that held her face in victory growing by the second, Relena unzipped her bag and dumped out a menagerie of exotic colored glass bottles and odd feathered items and a prehistoric-looking book that spewed dust as it hit her bunk bed. She was careful to securely lock the door and clamor straight into her bed, which luckily had a curtain to keep prying Gundam pilot eyes out. The princess didn't even look over her new living space. It didn't matter much. Relena didn't expect to be staying long. As the garish colored items clinked and rolled when she sat down on the bed, she flipped her long hair behind her, staring down at the alien objects. How could these make it any better? she wondered. She bit her lip viciously.
"…I know this seems wrong, but I can't wait for you forever, Heero," she whispered gently to herself, even though she was totally alone. She stoned her face for the unbelievable and dangerous as she placed the most important item in her lap, choked down a bitter regret, and determinedly flung open the large book to the first page of golden parchment, chipped and weakened by time.
Odd words and ingredients popped up at her in alternately choppy and graceful printing, lifting a smell of incense and leaves to her nose. The cover itself was thick, sun-bleached leather blotted by ink stains and what appeared to chicken blood, or what she hoped was. For hours, she sat in the privacy of the small bedroom, paging through the incantations and remedies, looking for the right one. She was glad in a way that the other pilots were upset with her, that way they probably wouldn't invade on her important reading time.
She bit her lip, coming across a rather sinister looking one, and quickly skipped it when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Every once and a while she would pause to examine the bottles that Paegan had searched extensively to find on Earth. She wasn't exactly certain what she was searching for in the archives of voodoo witch generations gone past, but any general aphrodisiac probably would suffice.
"No… no… no…"
Another furious flip of the page. The golden-blonde girl huffed in the silence of her small apartment, darkened except for the dull yellow light overhead and unexplored. Her patience with this book was fading, and fading quick, hastened by the images of blue eyes and wild hair that made her even more fervent for reciprocation.
Her eyes darted to the glowing clock in the corner, flashing a number, which Relena blinked and rubbed her eyes thoroughly to make sure was accurate. It wasn't a mirage. It was 12:25. After midnight. Her unrequited feelings were acting as a pretty good insomnia muse. Giving a grumble under her breath about working herself to death, she stared back down on the pages that seemed to glow in her lap.
"No."
Flip.
"No."
Flip.
"…Definitely not!"
Flip.
"…wait."
She had passed a page and almost frantically flipped back to examine it, something vaguely familiar catching her eye and afraid she'd never locate it again. She scratched at her head as she read a page filled with the chicken-scratchings of an odd language. Reading over the alien words once or twice, Relena recognized it as the spell she'd heard the gypsy lady cast for her.
Very vividly, she could see the gypsy lighting one of her hairs and one of Heero's she'd scoured out of his dorm room once he'd fled for another mission and drop it ceremoniously into a wide bowl of what looked like silver gelatin. Once they'd hit the bowl, it had turned the entire thing red. She remembered seeing a flat face on the tanned gypsy woman, distressed by wrinkles, and she was unable to gauge her reaction but still got a bad, churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She suddenly wondered if something had gone wrong with the spell.
Duo woke up again, this time courtesy of a throbbing headache. Luckily, he was sure it was morning by now so he wouldn't be shoved back into bed by a stony mothering Heero Yuy to go back to sleep and have to toss and turn while his brain cells bashed against his skull. He snorted into his pillow of the thought of his Japanese comrade being an actual mother, staggering up in the morning cranky from morning sickness, with a loose teddy bear flannel pajamas and an irritated melon for a stomach, drinking orange juice straight from the carton, pulp and all. Stuffing his face into the pillow to muffle his tired laugher, he secretly hoped Heero wasn't listening in on that last thought. The aftermath wouldn't be pleasant. His smile grew against the starched fabric.
The American finally yawned and sat up, stretching his bony fingers to the ceiling above him. His hair, which he'd unbraided when he'd woken up late in the night while racked with insomnia, was cascading down his back in a tangled mess. With a grumble, he reached out for his brush, but found he'd manage to kick it out of his bunk in the night and it lay on the floor, teasing him. He frowned and reached down.
At the same time, outside, the other pilot threw his legs off the side of the couch and slid off to walk towards the bunk door, grumbling unhappily to himself as he took it upon himself to wake his comrade up. He was going to waste no time that could be used to get this mess cleared up. Brushing his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair, he staggered to the door, bones still claimed by sleep and a deep, undisturbed sleep at that, the kind that he'd been denied nearly every night of the war. As his fingers clenched around the doorknob, he noticed that the faint humming that was Duo's emotions in the back of his mind seemed to get sharper the closer he got. Now it was a bubbly, muddled content feeling that sleep had brought, rather than a vague warm sensation at back of his head.
/…Almost got it…/ Heero heard Duo think.
The door swung open, and Duo froze like a deer paralyzed by the glare of headlights, with his long chestnut hair hanging like his tail out into open space. The stoic, sleep-drained face of his comrade hovered in the doorway, cold Prussian eyes calculating him. Duo, embarrassed he'd been seen with his 'girl hair', flushed profusely and his stomach plummeted without him. He fumbled to get back under the blankets in his pinkish embarrassment. The slight shift in weight he made was enough to throw his balance off and Duo eeped loudly as he dropped like a sack of dead weight.
/Oh, shit! /
Before Heero could think in reply, his arms were filled with a mass of panicked Duo, caught just as he slid off his bunk. The Japanese boy was assaulted with the adrenaline rush from both him and his friend pumping his veins, making him breathless and tense. Duo flinched like he had splattered on the floor, took in a bracing breath, and then opened his eyes in confusion.
Wide, undisguised violet eyes shot straight up at him, and Heero thought he would die from looking at undiluted color they held. Duo's head was thrown back slightly over his arms, so that his insanely long hair was flung in all directions, his bangs a swirling chocolate mess over his forehead and some of his eyes. Daggers went through Heero's heart, ones that melted and left a warm, anxious jolt in his chest and sucked his mouth dry of moisture. Duo's dazed expression and face freeze famed in his mind, for the lack of a better word, was…
/Gorgeous. /
The purple eyes widened. "Heero?"
Heero looked like he'd swallowed a live squid and it was fighting up his throat again, face white as sheet. He'd thought that out loud! The Japanese boy was overwhelmed by panic and heat running to his face like an outbreak of disease, and he quickly put his friend onto his feet, though roughly and blindly and a face as red as it'd ever been. "Sorry," he muttered half-heartedly, Prussian eyes seemingly nailed to the floor.
Duo blinked, shocked as hell to see his comrade so flushed and skin still crawling in a tingly rush, and then noticed how quickly he was moving towards the door. One hand anxiously shoving his hair behind his head, the American called out, "Hey—Heero, wait!" The Japanese boy only seemed to flinch under his disheveled hair and slink away faster.
Suddenly, there was a blink of feedback in Duo's head, and the connection was broken. The fierce butterflies in Duo's stomach suddenly screamed in his nerves and fingernails dug into Heero's scarred skin.
Heero spun around, big mortified blue eyes locked on him. "What?" he said, the frightened expression giving away the flat tone in his voice. Something smoldered in his expression, and Duo could see him lick his lips nervously and shift his center of gravity constantly. Too bad he'd been shut off from Heero's thoughts again, he thought bitterly. Else I'd understand... why...he said that.
"Heero, you don't have to be afraid of me," the American started, fingers still bound around Heero's bicep, which twitched occasionally, he noticed.
The expression on the Japanese pilots face was surprisingly unnerved and confused; a muddled, blurry-lined confusion that showed the average teeanger still hid under Heero's skin. Duo'd seen it once before, and instantly memorized it. It'd been that night… the night he thought he hated Heero completely...
The Japanese boy suddenly flinched under his fingernails, more from confusion than from actually pain. Duo didn't have fingernails as long as Relena did. He was afraid of the sudden bitterness he felt from his friend.
Duo took a deep breath, composing himself, and Heero calmed, sensing the bitterness hide somewhere and dull. "Heero, I ...uh...um, if there's something... you wanna talk to me about, I'm... always here, ya know." Again, his fingers trailed up to his ears in a nervous habit, digging his hair behind them. "Whatever you wanna… talk about… is fine with me. Whenever."
"…I know," he replied.
The American's eyes dropped, half disenchanted that the abrasive side was back and there was no further move from his friend to respond. Duo unwrenched his fingers from the pale gold arm and stood fidgeting with his eyes on the floor. His tongue was desperate for direction and conversation to break the guillotine silence. "Um…" he said while staring his pink feet, gesturing lifelessly to his hair, "…sorry 'bout not fixing my hair..."
The stone eyes flickered. /…I like it. / "It's fine."
Duo's eyes lifted optimistically, but one eyebrow cocked in harsh skepticism, something he found hard to control sometimes, and Heero flinched again. /What does he mean by that? --That my hair's okay or that he doesn't mind? He's the last person I'd expect to… like my hippie' hair… /
"Is that all?" Heero asked, butterfly-infested stomach lurching to escape, so he could get the haunting, surreal image of the long hair that seemed to come from nowhere out of his head. He was completely aware that in order for his comrade's hair to be as long as it was while braided, it had to be significantly longer while down, but it was like a punch to the stomach seeing it so… real. He needed to get out. It was going to suffocate him, make him do something stupid, otherwise.
"Yeah," Duo said tiredly, waving it off, "that's it." The American turned toward his bunk, pale back streaming with chestnut, and rubbed at his temples with a grumble that if Heero had been paying attention, probably could have deciphered as, "Why the hell do I ever try?"
Before Heero could even get his foot out the bunkroom door, the something sang out in the area of the living room. Both Gundam pilots in the apartment jerked their heads instinctively to the noise, their battle-trained ears unaccustomed to the tiny shrill of an old-fashioned Earth phone. Prussian eyes glanced at Duo one more time, and then he was out the door. Across the darkened room, the phone cried out feebly, the ringing choked by age. He picked it up out of the socket curiously, and glanced back over his shoulder at the bunkroom door. Blinking, he saw Duo glaring out the crack in the door, cheek pressed up to the doorframe and eyes as stony as his own had ever been. The American stared back him and then shut the door abrasively. Heero flinched slightly, then quickly pressed the reciever to his mouth.
"Hello?"
A honey voice he was all too familiar with grating on his eardrums returned. "Oh, hello, is this Heero?"
"...Yeah."
"Oh, hello Heero! Good morning." Relena giggled slightly on the other end. "I just called to see how you're doing. Doug or something is sick, right? Quatre told me before he left, but I can never get his name right—"
"Duo," Heero stated, feeling something dangerously defensive whirl up in the pit of his stomach. "His name is Duo."
"Oh, right. You didn't catch anything from him, did you Heero? That'd be awful, the two of you sick and so cooped up all alone… I know! Breakfast would cheer you up, wouldn't it?"
Heero growled something low in the back of his throat to himself, something careless and unheard by the girl on the other end. "I guess," he mumbled out, staring down at the right threadbare cushion in the couch. "The food isn't like a restaurant up here, like on Earth, Relena. It's mostly freeze-dried and cafeteria food at best."
But nothing seemed to dampen the hazy ring of sunshine that frustratingly hung around that girl, not even the prospect of powered food slopped in with manufactured water. A frown darkened on Heero's face instantly. "Oh, that's okay! It's not the food that makes the breakfast, it's the conversation. And I'm sure it's palatable at least."
"Right…" Heero answered half-heartedly, voice a flat rumble. He was defeated and backed into a corner; he bitterly knew Relena would only prod and pester harder if he denied her a meal with him... Maybe Duo had been right, maybe everybody had been right... he could definitely feel her claws searching for a soft spot to dig into. Regret boiled up in his stomach.
"Great!" The girl said happily, the feminine curl in the honey voice making him flinch with sudden regret. "I'll meet you down in the cafeteria soon. Bye bye…"
Click.
The Japanese boy slammed the receiver down and flopped onto the couch, the knot between his eyebrows returning with a vengeance. Anger boiled up in, mostly from frustration and the embarrassment he'd suffered a few minutes before. His face burned at the slightest memory of it… He barely had the patience to deal with her now, to deaden his face and tolerate a whole breakfast with her when he could be… what? Could be doing what? He suddenly asked himself. While his body sank into the tired couch, disheveled hair covering his eyes, the bunkroom door swung open with an audible squeak. Heero cocked his head up to stare at his comrade upside down.
Duo, face stony and shadowed by his long, jagged bangs, moved shadowily out the bathroom door. He was already dressed in his long black jumper and priest collar, clinging to his cat-like body, and apparently soured up. Shutting the door silently, he paused for a moment, conscious that Heero was watching. His drawn-together eyebrows darkened his face and he moved silently and sullenly straight for the door. His hands dropped from his back to his sides after he snapped the hair band into place and his completed braid flapped at the small of his back. Not bothering Heero with eye contact, the American was out the door into the brightly lit hall of Peacemillion and was gone, leaving anger and bitterness like a disease in the air.
/What did I do?/ The Japanese boy stared at the door, stomach churning.
Apologizing to Duo, that's what he could be doing. Something he said must have angered him, he thought vaguely to himself, though Heero wasn't sure what. He could be apologizing and returning the old truce they had created, so that he'd act like his old self, not this bitter ghost that fled from room to room avoiding him… Smiling instead of scowling at life with a dark look… maybe even teasing him again... causually hrowing innuendo his way and laughing when he got uncomfortable... Heero missed it deep in the pit of his stomach.
He closed his eyes and sighed, being sucked into the couch cushions with the image of wide purple eyes burning in his retinas.
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i'm so sorry to keep you guys waiting soooo much. I'm just... very moody, I guess. Heh, it takes me forever to find the perfect time to write, otherwise I never like it and I end up doing it over and over. But today I promise you that I'll try to get another chapter out of me soon. If I don't, you can slap me over the head with a fish. A big slimey wet one, okay? I'm still working on fan art, too, which I'll have to find somewhere to post... dang... Oh, and while I'm talking, I have some movie recommendations.. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, if you're old or mature enough and if you haven't seen it, it's great! I love the little brown-haired raggedy guy, The Mole, who tries to free terrance and philip. I thought he could have made a great Gundam Wing character, with his smart-ass French tone and that perfect line when he's checking off the supplies Cartmen and the rest brought and he goes, "Did you bring the 'butt for?'" "What's the 'butt for'?" "For pooping, silly." And then he puffs his little cigarette all dramatically and it was hilarious! Aw, but he dies! I have this wierd attraction to dead guys... go figure. Thank you and r&r please!! Oh... gotta go get the lyrics... *rummages through pocket, tosses out a few pounds of lint, then holds up lyrics* I didn't want to use another Nirvana song, it was meant to be a theme of green day, but it's such a beautiful song, I couldn't resist. Acoustic. Hmm, very pretty.
Clean Up Before She Comes -- Nirvana
Clean up before she comes
Living in a dusty town
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
Twenty months has it all (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I must be getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
Clean up the dusty town
Living in a dusty town
Clean up before she comes
Living in a dusty town
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I starting to getting old (getting older)
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)
I'm starting to eat my vegetables