FLOURISH
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insecure about my manhood
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I managed to reach my shared apartment with Trowa without any mishaps.
No attempted rapings, no muggings. No irritated winged gods chasing after me with hardcore Centaur porn and a debt to settle.
I swung the door open, indulged in a bit of supernatural power by doing the whole Fantasia thing and having my coat-rack walk over and retrieve my jacket.
"Trowa! Do I only have one brain?" The question had bee plaguing me since I'd fled from the restaurant. It was dangerous not to know such information. I mean, what if I unknowingly damaged it? I was scared of few things in my immortal life. One was parachute pants. Another was sheep. For several reasons. I mean come on people, I read the book. I saw what those Christians did to them. Sick bastards. And at the top of my list was brain damage. It made me sad. It made me want to pee my pants and transport myself into a place where putting brown paper bags over your head really does stave off bad things and nuclear bombs.
Trowa appeared in the direction of our living room, a skeptical look on his face. "Is this about how God only lets you use one at a time? Because I can assure you that I can use both."
I stared at him. Trowa was the most intelligent man I had ever bothered to sleep AND talk to. But sometimes I didn't know where he got any of this crap.
"Trowa, God didn't make people." I shook my head at him. "And anyway, I just wanted to know because..." And I went into the whole story about Zechs forsaking his soul because he chewed with his mouth open after haivng promised not to, and about him looking good in pants that would only make me look fat and old and about how I didn't LIKE onions in my chicken and goddammit, what in the hell is the hockey pokey and why is it all about it?
He held a hand up just as I was about to go into my rant about sheep-molesters, but I love him. So I guess I wouldn't really able to justify any violence I might heap upon him for such an insult.
I have the right to complain, dammit!
"What did you do, Noin? You only get this out of focus during reruns of 'I Love the 80's' or after you've fucked up really bad with Zechs."
He was giving me that look. You all know the one. The 'fuck it all to hell, did you just kill a god' glare that only people who really care and wonder about your well being can pull off. Trowa just turned that into another excuse to look at my boobs. Hey, why deny it? I was sure that's what he was doing. There is only one reason a man doesn't look at your face. Unless it's ugly. If it's ugly and he loves you, then he tries to pretend. It's kind of hard to pretend when you're staring straight at it. But then again, my face isn't that bad, is it? It can't be. I'm a god. Shouldn't I get like, automatic good-looks? An automatic stamp of 'sexy-beast', invisibly placed on my ass or something?
I stopped my internal rambling for a split second to think about what I'd just thought of.
'Sexy-beast' stamp? Christ! Damn those singing cooks! They slipped me the tofu again!? AHHHH! I told them last time that the stuff gets me all wired, makes me go all 1960's trippy acid-clown, non-tipping tight-ass on them! Why do they torture me this way? All I could think of were Olympian conspiracies to overtake my position.
Well, there was no way I was taking that stupid golf-club membership in exchange for gifting that piece of shit boy-band another hit. No way. I was already going to spend fifty-lifetimes resurrected as the wife of a pot-bellied man for all those times I let Hilde convince me that those whiny Florida-boys deserved to be famous. And another fifty-lifetimes as a shoe-salesman for letting that breast-implant queen with the nasally, porn-star voice become world-renown.
NEVER AGAIN!
"Uh...I kinda...sorta...threw my drink in his face." I jumped into my defense. "But I swear that he deserved it! I mean, I told you about the chewing, didn't I? You understand, don't you?"
He sighed and walked back to the living room, where he had a new movie cued up for us to watch. I followed him and sat beside him on the couch.
He started the movie and I cringed. It was Momento. Hadn't I been purposely avoiding such a movie? It deals with brain-damage. The idea scares me. Damn my luck.
"You know what really bites my ass, though?"
"What? The fact that he'll rip you a new one when he sees you or the fact that you turn into a total idiot after eating dinner with him?"
It was my turn to glare at him. "I'm not an idiot, Trowa. They so slipped me the tofu, I can feel it in my heart of hearts. Maybe I'll ask Heero to steal all of their rice."
I could feel Trowa's warmth beside me. He let me lean against his side throughout the entire movie as he pressed a strong hand on my back. The feeling of paranoia and sporadic thoughts faded away as my metabolism took care of the tofu. I was calmer. No thoughts of rabid fan-girls or pop-stars or conspiracies. Just my hormones and the need for revenge curling in my stomach again.
The film ended and I made a solemn oath to myself that I would NEVER, EVER trust women named Natalie. Or Elizabeth.
"I won't be able to see Zechs for a while."
He arched an eyebrow, tilting his face down to look at me again. "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Yeah. It would be if I didn't want those arrows of his. I NEED them, Trowa. I was going to try and get in good with him for a split second and steal them." I fingered the edge of his shirt. "There's a little matter of a running bar tab at the stupid Sparkly Fruit Juice Stand that Wufei's run up in my name." I clenched my hands and closed my eyes at the thought. "He must suffer. I needed the arrows for REVENGE PURPOSES. I was going to make him fall in love with a chain-smoker named Bob or something."
He finally laughed and I felt a smile creeping onto my own face. Trowa's laughter made me happy.
"Why don't you just use your own powers?"
I snorted. "What the hell do you want me to do? I'm the fucking god of music, Trowa. Of the arts. Of useless, art-school, coffee-snorting crap like that. What can I do? Paint an ugly picture and shove it in his face?" I shook my head and stood up. I stretched my arms out, felt the grumble of my stomach and headed for the kitchen.
"If you really wanted to, I could---"
I stopped rummaging around in the refrigerator. "NO. There's no way in hell that I'm letting you do ANYTHING."
He looked puzzled. I guess he didn't get it. My poor lover, having to deal with someone as obviously deranged and bi-polar as me must be tough. Maybe my inherent stupidity is rubbing off on him! God, no! Who'll pay the bills then!?
"BECAUSE. To use your powers you have to turn into a girl. And everytime you do it you forget how to turn back. You forget. And what happens to me, then? I get stuck with another chick to deal with for two months until you turn back. I'm not dealing with that, Trowa."
He sat on a stool, observing me as I made myself a turkey sandwich. "It isn't that bad. It's only two months. And if this revenge plot of yours really means something, if you want to stay away from Zechs for longer than usual...well, it's a fair exchange, right?"
I stared at him, pausing just as I was about to sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on the slice of turkey. "You're kidding, right? I'm not dealing with that again. I'm unsersexed and deprived and I start looking around and you get angry."
"We can still have sex when I'm a girl, Noin. It's not like I suddenly become radioactive or gain some monstrous physical abnormality."
I placed the slice of bread on top of my huge heap of a sandwich. "Actually, yeah you do. It's called a vagina."
He placed a hand over his face, shaking his head in disbelief.
"And I'm insecure, y'know? 'Cause even as a chick, I want you. And I think about you. And I'm always thinking, 'Am I gay, am I not gay?' I can't deal with those kinds of identity problems."
"But Noin, you can be both. Either or. You can be male or female."
"But I DON'T WANT TO BE GAY!" I tossed the half-eaten sandwich back onto the blue plate. "I have enough problems in my life. They used to tease me all the time back in Olympus. You think I want to fuel anymore of their crap? They'll start rumors about you and me again. They'll ask me stupid stuff like, 'Ooh, who gets to be top?' And I'll kill them this time, Trowa. I swear I will. And I have enough to deal with. I'm a woman. I'm Italian. I'm unmarried. I live with a man. I don't need anymore." I flung my hands in the air. "The things I suffered through! And now you want me to have sex with a woman?! Isn't it enough that when I was male I was insecure about my manhood? Must I be mocked in every lifetime?"
Trowa looked like he was about to start pleading with me. No, don't give me those wide-eyes. That 'listen to me and I'll take you cd-shopping' look. I can't say no to that look. Trowa just looks at me sometimes and I want to rush over and kiss him. Dammit. Dammit. He's shifting the facial features!
"You've had sex with women before. This wouldn't be anything different."
"But I'm already self-conscious! And the worst part of it is that your female form is better endowed than me!
Fuck this.
I was going to sleep. I'd blame it all on the tofu when I woke up. All of the craziness. All of the randomness. The homophobia and the bitterness. And the fact that I had just voiced an unknown desire for bigger breasts.
Who the hell was I, that damned Spears girl?
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I apologize to anyone who may have been waiting for me to update this fic. ^^; This chapter took a long time for me to get around to writing, as WRITER'S BLOCK, that evil She-Demon has apparently cursed me to never be able to mass-produce anything decent.
I hope this chapter wasn't too dissapointing, despite the fact that at its core, it strays from the feeling of the first two chapters. I blame it all on the tofu as well. ^_^
Any comments? Questions? Suggestions for improvement? Like it, hate it? Let me know. Even if you want to stab yourself or me after reading, review anyway and let me know what you think!
To the people who reviewed me and gave me words of encouragment for continuing this fic, a HUGE THANKS!
To my editor, who helped with building my confidence and to Killraven who ordered me to stop complaining so much about this sucking.
And of course, to Lain, who is actually the owner of Canton Wong #2 and to the Singing Cooks, who really did sneak a block of tofu into my sweet and sour chicken once.