Chapter 4

"Mmmm, Mmmm, Good"



Normally, after a token fight in an angst-ridden drama film, the victim will remain unconscious until morning and wake clean and unjolted in a sunny room. Well... that's crap. My sweet, unadulterated trip through blackness is interrupted violently when metal tweezers dive, dive, dive into my leg and my spooked scraps of good religion scramble back to me in a frenzy, so that I whimper very loudly and arch up against the warm thing restraining me. Warm pink thing with tinges of blonde hair tussled in my eyes, chin in a vice against my skull, warm arms slicing off the circulation, pinning me to a surprisingly forceful Quatre. I suck in a deep breath, whirling in a black slur of sensations. Acid pain and seemingly icy cold blood stringing along my leg. Violin rosin, gunpowder flooding my nose... and oh yeah, Wufei's sticking metal tweezers that obviously don't belong in my leg like a perverse fork in a drumstick.

Eat up, bastards.

I annimalistically growl something to the effect of Fuck you, as I slam my skull against Quatre's chin and he grunts in pain. Instantly, I regret my pained thrashing. In my haze, I know enough to realize I've just headbutted the little blonde one, and sure enough, angry, protective hands clamp on my shoulders and vice until my shoulders feel like a clownish balloon pinched by giant bloody tweezers.

All I smell is antiseptic and blood. All I feel is the ache that I'm going to die one day, damned if I could discern dusk or dawn in my brain, and pain. Three pilots converging on a bloody cesspool that is me, wherever they laid me out, moodily smoking cigarettes of inner demons. Proverbial smoke of angst drifting nonchalantly, whorishly through each other's war pocked lungs.

What a happy homecoming.

... never... ever...

Heero's not here.

... shot... he's never... that's so...

... Yuy needs... that's all... snap... acceptable...

... was scared... Death?

... what is... head, Duo?

I'd be rotten worm filth by now if he were.

I'm sorry, I rasp scratchily and involuntarily as soothing, callused hands ruffle my scruffy hair affectionately. Whether or not I'm grumbling incoherently, whether or not I'm even speaking, it doesn't matter. Aches just drain away when an angel like Quatre comforts you. Thank God for Quatre. Thank sweet, laughing God...

In hindsight, I was flitting carelessly through consciousness then, visited by darkness and glimpses of misty dreaming sleep equally. Hot and acid still roared up my leg, dulled by liberal shots of painkiller and disinfectant. Not that I was seriously injured... just severely depressed, to be correct. Swirling in blackness tormented by green eyes and blue ones didn't help me to get over the fact every shitting thing was doing handstands and kicking dirt in my eyes that day. I've killed and they are killing, so does it have to chalk up against me?

Why did I say that? Why did I say that? Why did I say that? I bash my brain, interrogating myself, wrenching at each poor, wretched cell that ever willed me to say those things to the stone cold Heero Yuy with the bottomless blue eyes that spit at sentimentality in their metallic prowess and efficiency.

I'm a stupid Shinigami.

** Ch-chink **

I wake up instantly at some recognizable alien noise. I've been trained to the noises of guns and treading feet.

And enter Heero.



I was curled up fiercely into the scraps that were my blanket, wedged in my little spot beneath a half-buried, bare-boned car frame covered with a tarp, the last time I saw the Solo I thought I knew. It was seconds before his ever-present, brotherly, catlike smile slowly drifted away from his face and he just left. Quietly stood from his bed and walked from the junkyard, leaning over to the side and resting breathlessly on occasion. He didn't believe that I had been awake when he decided to leave like an animal looking for a place to die quietly, or at least he didn't expect it. Because when I staggered out of bed, dragging my blanket noiselessly behind me, watching him walk bowlegged and shake violently, and he realized someone was behind him, he jumped, letting out a keening noise of pain and terror like a trapped, panicking animal. Then, I suppose, he never even saw who was following him, because his heart, which had been weakened to the point it was no better than raw hamburger by the plague, simply exploded and he dropped.

You see... Solo had never told me he was sick.

I thought I had known him.



Although it's really Trowa who quietly opens the door in consideration I might still need my sleep, there's a sensation of blood and silent adrenaline that lingers behind him even after he nudges it shut that tells me that Heero's there in the blackness, waiting. Like the soldier he is. Staking out his target ruthlessly, selflessly, endlessly, all in the name of the precious initiative. His presence is enthralling in a deathly, sort of stalker-movie fashion. Even as I feel the weight and heat of a porcelain soup bowl in my hands and vaguely take in the stoic, chiseled planes of the Latin boy's face looking me solemnly in the eyes, I feel a certain paranoia welling up in the back of my mind that obsesses me beyond sanity.

I can feel Heero waiting for his chance.

But a bloody quilt pressed over my raw, screaming legs reminds me of just what he's waiting to do—Lecture me until I once again snap for the opportunity to shoot me up again.

Time to forget. I huffily snatch up the tiny spoon clattering around the edge of the bowl with as much sulking anger I can produced out of a drained body and proceed to stuff my face with the piquant, warm stew Quatre has made for me. Less than politely I might add. Hot soup trails down the crease of my lips half-obscenely and I eat furiously, almost ready to dig out my own tongue with aforementioned spoon if it'll distract me for a fraction of an instant from that intoxicating, killer presence hanging outside the door.

Trowa shakes his head. The bed dips and a forceful, but scolding gentle hand presses against the rim of the soup bowl, preventing me from burying my face, my grief, my aggression in the warm broth and noodles like some starving urchin, like how the urchin I used to love would do. I glare pointedly at the brunette Latin boy when his hand doesn't move. Pretentious fucking hand. No matter how much I am bonded with these soldiers, they still know how to royally piss me off effortlessly. How dare he, I snarl in my brain. My face contorts sourly, whipping out of my control. Sad, sad imitation of the death glare.



Ah, what? I growl testily.

Trowa Barton gazes quietly at me, regarding me like a book printed in baby talk – carefully, slowly, like I'm so fucking brittle, yet all with a tiny leer in his eyes.

I ask defensively.

There it is. A smirk. That bastard.

What do you want, Trowa? I'm snapping now. I offhandedly slurp up a noodle dangling from the corner of my lips.

There is a liquid amount of skepticism and mild amusement glazed over those emerald green eyes and an eyebrow arched at my expense. As if he's been living only to deliver this line, he says simply, Please, Duo, stop getting your panties in a bunch.

I instantly choke on my soup.

It's making everybody else tired. The weight becomes absent from the mangy cot. Trowa's hand vacates itself from my soup bowl and I try and jerk it away first, immaturely, uselessly, splashing some hot soup on the bloodied up quilt.

Just talk to Heero.



Trowa scolds monotonously, dark green eyes searing stoically across my face like the sting of blame. Hell, they are the stings of Blame.

I'm just not ready to deal with a homicidal rock today, I growl back, teeth grinding in the back of my mouth. I don't know want to know what the fuck's wrong with him that would make him fucking shoot me—I don't even know what the fuck's going on in my own head!

I feel concern burn along the ridges of my face. Pity. Dammit, I hate my mouth. Such a flaming train wreck, rolling on in chaos.

Besides, that psycho hair-trigger and I need our space, otherwise we'll only kill each other! He fucking shot me! You want that to happen again? I have the obligation to scream this at him, anger constricting like venomous warmth in my throat and my arms wrapped in a vice grip around the soup bowl until the hot porcelain sears at my flesh.

Duo, please. I flinch at the tone of his voice. His cinnamon-colored eyebrows arch upward, digging together in angst ever so slightly. Infuriating. Everything is. Duo, listen to me. You don't understand the situation.

The hell I do! I yell back.

I manage a weak glare of chipping daggers up at the brunette's semi-bothered face before he brushes it off like dull butter knives, striking his back harmlessly. My eyes flame furiously, my teeth grind until I taste the metallic wash of blood haunting my mouth.

No one bosses Duo Maxwell, except...

[[Du-chan, come on, buddy. Your garbage soufflé is getting cold.]]

Green eyes, a foreign shade of pine green slash one more time across my face, fuming darkly and quietly, before Trowa sighs listlessly. They leave blame in every inch of me until it burns and I frown deeply. He mimics it solemnly. he lies. And on that note, he leaves, melting into the shadow of the dusky dim cellar room. The heavy wooden, metal-trimmed door closes—

** Ch-chink. **

And is bolted.

I'm gagging on a wandering piece of chicken. Warm noodles still dangle from my lips like limp, dead octopi. I feel so damned dignified right now, I'd flick the Queen of England off and just giggle femininely into my palm.

The air is cold and laden with dust and dirt particles, an old abandoned and unfortunately empty wine cellar we found beneath our current safehouse. Dark and musty. Like cold, malicious fingers around your neck as you breathe, constantly. Nightmare cold. Arctic starlight cold and malicious in it's absolute silence. Despite the warm porcelain bowl steaming in my lap, I feel a sharp chill arch through my bones almost immediately as I hear the rusty metal lock into place. Unmovable. Unbreakable. Constant. Perfect. Frighteningly perfect.

As cheesy as it sounds, I need Trowa back, I need a warm human closeness in this anonymous, cold dark room, and I sniffle harshly, angry with myself and rubbing my knuckles roughly against my eye. I sniffle wetly, hot dashes of soup splattered across my cheekbones and chin.

I thought I knew him.

I thought I knew him.

I really though I did; I thought I was the deceptive one, with this damned whorish grin—A whorish, shallow grin flashed at the drop of a dime like a circus attraction veil falls. Goddamnit... I scrape viciously at my face, skin burning, until I begin to almost scratch myself bloody, overwhelmed by a black pit gaping in my brain that sucks all the sanity and self-control from me. And soon, it's not all just homemade chicken noodle soup stinging down my face. I feel so damn selfish and wretched at the same time... I don't want to eat the warm soup in my lap anymore, I don't even want to recognize light or colors or shapes. I want to be blind and dumb. I just want to starve and forget like a bastard puppy. I want oblivion.

[[Du-chan, come on]]

So I quickly fall into dreams of black and green.