Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Ripple Effect ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

The Ripple Effect

Heero landed on the ground with three things; his nose was ground into the rain-soaked dirt, a tiny pink cellphone followed seconds later and squarely whacked him in the head, and the deepest frown the world had ever been graced to witness. The Japanese man sat up stiffly and glared at the ramshackle little shed with its chipped paint and half-decayed, sagging wooden boards. He wiped the mud off his nose unhappily with the back of his wrist and staggered to his feet and continued that way toward the shed until he reached the door. With a shake of his wrist and the clattering of a wretched but steadfast, he realized it was locked and growled at the inconvenience.

The shabby storage building didn't stand a chance. He wound up without the slightest display of effort and kicked in the door, eager to track down the deviant who had 'married' him. Dust flew as the slab of wood hit the ground with an angry force and Heero called out impatiently, "Iria!" It took a few seconds after stepping inside to realize that it was empty of any demigod. She'd escaped out from beneath his nose so easily, like it should be for a deity, unfortunately.

"Damn it," Heero mumbled to himself. The Japanese man surveyed the room carefully, looking suspiciously at all the tools downed by the Shinigami's wings as if they were laughing at him. The dust finally settled and when he snorted unhappily, it flew off from Heero's shoulder.

"Damn it all," he whispered again when he turned and stepped back outside and walked carelessly on the downed door. "This is all so ridiculous. I shouldn't even have come to America in the first place if all of this was going to happen."

He noticed rather quickly that he was barely a mile from the safehouse where he'd last seen any real human life other than himself. Across the sky and the dark treetops he could see the traces of buildings and the distant murmur of car engines purring as they moved slowly on the gravel road, off in the distance. Heero's frown deepened. He remembered vaguely hearing a dilapidated storage shed that had once been on the site of the haunted home, but the foliage had overtaken it and hidden it off grounds. So, the Shinigami had taken him to the nearest secluded spot and preceded to-oh, whatever, he thought abruptly. He knew what had happened.

With an endless string of curses and unhappy mutterings on loop beneath his breath, he stalked back out to the dirt where he'd fallen. He put his hands in his pocket and stopped. The minute, shining pink speck in the mud caught his eye, and he curled back a lip instinctually before picking it off and knocking the dirt off it.

To the average person-one who hadn't just been hitched to an Angel of Death-it would have been the average girlish cellphone, a glittery metallic shade of rose with cute red and white hearts painted on it. However, Heero knew better, and he recognized the brand name Hermes emblazoned in cute, stubby dark pink lettering as more than just a random name. It was so minute that when he closed his palm, it completely disappeared in his hand.

Flipping it open, he saw that the buttons probably only could be punched with the help of a pinhead. The screen jolted to life very unexpectedly a second later and glowed a vibrant gold color, like the image of jewelry reflected in a debutante's eyes. Bold scarlet text jumped out against it, declaring something all too loudly and arching his lip even further in the fuming epitome of a scowl.

'Hell hath no fury as a mother scorned!'

A fist curled tightly around the tiny cellphone and Heero angrily flicked it off and pocketed the annoying thing in his dirt-smudged jeans, hopefully to be gone the next day with all of this tangible insanity like a bad dream. All of this. Something so horrifically vivid had to a be a dream-he would wake up later out of this madness in twisted sheets, sweating to the bone, and he would push it aside for a moment and it would be forgotten and unable to be retrieved ever again. No mortal could handle a God, anyway.

But for the time being, he decided to half-heartedly humor this especially whimsical dream cycle and began trudging along the overgrown path leading away from the ramshackle little shed, in search of places where one would find one skittish and lascivious Angel of Death.

===

Heero slipped easily out of everyone's sight, keeping his presence concealed easily in the dark and ghoulish-looking gnarled foliage. Pushing aside thorn-beds woven carefully between the branches of dying saplings and ragged, fruitless bushes, the Japanese man moved forward through the woods, although he could hear the rumbling of cars going by and glimpse the road through gaps in the bushes and trees. First, he recognized the large, dark truck that escorted the contestants to and from the secluded haunted houses leaving rather quickly. No doubt the frightened men and women were so badly shaken even the driver could pick up on it, and knew not to pull his foot off the acceleration. With a snort, Heero looked ahead and ignored the cars passing by.

He was more intent on getting his stuff, and heading back to Tokyo and a tiny apartment with paper shoji screens and a noticeable absence of any demigods. If he didn't find the Shinigami, he didn't find the Shinigami. That's as far as his concern stretched at the moment, and he didn't feel the need to care that he didn't care.

He had never asked for any of this. None of the temperamental demands from Aphrodite, none of the cosmic responsibilities she had laid on top of him, and definitely none of the wedlock-none of the Shinigami's advances, none of that innocent shine in those violet-colored eyes, none of that affectionate smile he had the sudden sinking feeling had been reserved solely for him. And when he got them, he was ready to shove it all away and hopefully discourage the gods from ever thinking to give him anything again.

Sure, they got generous when they needed something. Real generous, Heero thought bitterly. Before the train of thought could continue, he used his wrist to shove aside the last of the barren shrubs separating him and the eerie and empty yard of the safehouse. The sinister silhouette of the abandoned tuberculosis colony loomed in the background, a few hundred more meters off through the woods. The safehouse was humble enough, a simple metal-sided building with junk scattered about it from when there were actual patients dying next-door. Yard-work things; shovels, crates, and assorted gardening supplies rusted in their grassy graves around the safehouse. Heero barely noticed-he was still trying to keep Angels of Death out of his mind.

The stairs were strategically placed cement blocks. Heero had seen one of the other members fall on them once before, and the others had snickered as she stood up and brushed herself off, though it was clear her superstition had already taken a toll on her. He stalked up them easily enough, even when they shifted and buckled under his weight.

The door was open, so he pushed it and it swung open obediently. Inside, it still had the traces of human presence. Footsteps in the heavy dirt and dust across the floor, orange extension cords left behind, and a barren foldable table sitting among the stacked crates and rickety bunk beds on the far wall. There was an outline of where the laptop had sat, spitting out orders in a computerized voice. Heero looked at the spot where it would have been and frowned when he realized that if the computer had randomly chosen another team member for the mission to summon an Angel of Death instead of himself, none of this would have happened in the first place.

But no doubt Iria had had her fingers in it somehow. Probably slept with the God of Chance, he thought vindictively. And when she didn't appear, ready to slap him and chew him out like any good in-law, he knew he was probably rid of her.

His stuff was easy enough to find, after that. While the others had given all of theirs to the MTV staff to keep secure in the van and in the hotel that they were staying at, Heero had insisted keeping his with him at all times. He didn't trust a lot of the staff, in the first place, and he wasn't too afraid of any wandering ghouls taking his wallet from him. And it wasn't a lot to carry. His wallet, a jacket, and a small backpack with efficiently folded changes of clothes.

He went back into the forest unnoticed, as a final fleet of vans probably filled with technical equipment went by. Heero shrugged on his backpack and looked back over into the forest, uninterested with the glimpses of metal he could see through the foliage. The sky was already darkening beneath the thick covering of clouds and Heero didn't want to get caught in the woods when the sunset. He could walk back to the hotel by the way of the highway easily enough-it would be escaping the expanse of woods that was the tricky part.

As soon as everyone had left, Heero could get onto the road and stop avoiding human contact. There was no telling how his teammates would react to him after what had happened. The crew was probably leaving a night early because one of the contestants had brought back a strange creature and then disappeared. He wouldn't be surprised if the police started combing the woods looking for him the next day. But by then, he'd be in the land of the rising sun, forgetting it all happened.

He glanced over again after traveling a ways further and saw a grey technical van parked to the side of the road, in a small clearing of the foliage-a turnabout. The side door was open, he could tell. It was still hard to see through all the tangling leaves, but he could definitely see a black shape sitting in the van. The people driving it probably had gone to retrieve the hidden cameras they had planted in the woods where contestants were sometimes to travel and all the lights they'd set up on the road to guide the trucks in. Good. After they were done, he could stop trudging through decomposing leaves and use the road.

The black figure sitting in the opened door suddenly moved, and something inexplicably caused Heero to squint and look closer, though he was sure he couldn't have cared less what was inside the van. It pulled him forward, almost as if he were on a string, and he leaned forward and pushed the brush aside with his wrist until the tugging sensation faded and he could see more clearly into the opened van, but not the glimpse of red glowing around his finger briefly. The black figure shimmered suddenly.

Wings-black ones.

The Shinigami.

For a second, Heero was revisited by the flickering image of the younger Shinigami flashing his singular tooth in a priceless grin over his shoulder, smiling it unknowingly at who would later be his arranged husband. The next, he was pushing his way through the brush and towards the rocky backcountry road where the van was parked. It seemed so automatic that he vaguely remembered thinking, 'Wasn't I just going to leave him?' but it seemed like only some silly daydream. Heero glanced both ways for anyone that might see him and saw no one, luckily, and loped across the road.

When he got to the opened sliding door, he saw the exact state of the God of Death, rolled up into a ratty-looking blanket which no doubt had been used to lay camera parts on, from the grease and smell of cleaning chemicals. Shini's long unbound hair was matted with leaves, scattered over his back and shoulders erratically, while he curled up on his stomach and stuck his face into the crook of his elbow. As soon as Heero's heartbeat settled some, he could hear the telltale hitches in the Shinigami's breathing and the wretched moans he tried to bite back. Unsuccessfully. That's where Heero began to frown again.

The reason he'd gotten into so much trouble was because he couldn't stand watching anyone cry, especially miserably like this specific Shinigami had the tendency to do. And going back had somehow made him an eternally married man without even a hint of a stag party. Heero stood and watched the shaking ball of wings, hair, and blanket. Eventually the slow breathing and violent hitches evolved back into a low mewling sob and it clawed directly at his chest. Heero couldn't stand just standing anymore even though the anger was still fresh in his mind, so he put an abrupt hand on the Shinigami's back, careful not to pull his hair.

"Hey, get up," he commanded lowly, careful not to draw attention with his voice. When the sobbing mass didn't respond, his frown deepened. "Hey, listen to me. Get out of there before anyone sees you, I said."

The Shinigami made a sound that was something like what teenagers say when they get dragged out of bed for school-just five more minutes. The deity visible curled in on himself and didn't seem to recognize who it was, stand there, talking to him. But soon, that changed. Shini bolted up in the fashioned of a spooked doe, his mythically violet eyes wide and fearful and leaves scattered through his hair. He saw the Japanese man standing in the opened door and soon began pitiful mewling again, grinding his teeth together just to not cry again.

Heero frowned. "Come on, you're gonna go home now."

However, the Shinigami seemed to be able to read his true intention of dumping him off with his mother and never even thinking of him again and the sobs returned. With a groan, he shook his head animatedly and scampered to the back wall and pulling the blanket with him. His wide violet eyes were bloodshot from crying, and it twisted another part of Heero just watching him.

"I promise. I'll take you home! Don't you want to go home?" he insisted, leaning forward into the dimness of the van with both hands on the cold floor. It frustrated him how-like his mother-this Shinigami seemed so eager on switching from mood to mood. Ten minutes earlier he was sure he wouldn't have been able to keep him off him and now he was pulling away from him as if he were the bubonic plague incarnate.

"It's okay. Just come here," Heero tried in a softer tone. Still those violet eyes watched him fearfully without a response, and chewing up the chances that they would escape unseen. Every moment that this over-emotional deity spent sobbing, the crew that had abandoned this van temporarily was a few steps closer.

Heero wasn't stupid, despite being cold to the Angel of Death. He knew that if the public saw the Shinigami, there would be a massive uproar of either fear or a massive headhunt. And neither would be pretty if it got on his Heavenly record that he had accidentally handed over a God of Death to the American government, who were oh-so-fond of their probes and needles.

"Come on!" Heero tried again, keeping his voice to a whisper.

There was only a whimper in response as the deity brought the blanket vulnerably up to his chin and began nervously gnawing on it.

Heero bit his lip as well, knowing there was one alternative that would probably work, but it would be admitting something he would had to admit. Attachment, even if it was in the most distant of senses. But that dreading sensation in the pit of his stomach told him that he had precious little time to waste, so he swallowed the traces of reservation as best as he could and leaned forward. "Come here... Shini," he said hesitantly.

The Shinigami froze, blinking warily at his nickname. It was better than sobbing and shrinking away, Heero thought grudgingly to himself.

"It's all right, Shini, I'm gonna bring you home and you don't have to see me again," Heero said, crawling cautiously up into the van. He was surprised to hear a tone of something strange in his voice, and more surprised at how it seemed to pull the Shinigami easily to him. Shini's innocent violet eyes were unmoving, locked on his face as he nervously crept forward as well, always ready to flinch backward if there were any sudden movements.

"That's it, come on now," Heero whispered, reaching out. He sat sideways on the edge with his toes hanging above the dirt, reaching out across the van. "That's it, Shini. Come here."

Shini warily looked at his outstretched hand as if it were the snake that had seduced Eve into biting the apple, like it would leave the second he tried to take it. His wide violet and purple eyes looked up to Heero's face for an instant and seemed to freeze up again. They were frightened, and Heero wasn't sure exactly why. Something changed in that innocently fearful face that second, and Shini lunged forward and took his hand nervously. Heero instantly started to pull him back out of the van and Shini used his free hand to wrap the blanket around him and take it with.

The Japanese man looked around as a mist began to drift down out of the sky while Shini started to jump down from the van. The roads were fortunately clear of any human activity. He tightened his hand around the Shinigami's without even noticing, before saying, "Alright. Let's go before anyone comes back."

Shini yelped helplessly as his wings that were still absently hanging loosely in their normal position struck the top of the van as he tried to step down and he crumpled onto his bottom. With a windy fwap! they clamped to his shoulders protectively and the deity's face crumpled up in pain.

"Oww oww ow ow ow!" Shini whimpered, pulling the blanket tighter and pulling away his hand. A few lonesome tears ventured out onto his face and it twisted further as he tried in vain to keep them back.

Heero twisted around and frowned unhappily. He lunged back after the Shinigami and pulled him up by the arm. "Hurry up! You can cry later," he barked impatiently. There was no way he'd let him slink back into his hiding spot-he was coming with him!

Heero didn't realize how fervent his thoughts must have been because he jerked the whimpering Angel of Death rather roughly and Shini jerked forward and narrowly caught himself with his long legs. The blanket fell behind and crumpled in the gravel on the shoulder and his luxurious black robes dragged over the damp blacktop as a mist hazed low across the ground. Heero's black Converse sneakers thudded loudly across the wet road while Shini's were completely bare and moved silently. They were nearly across the road, nearly to the safety a dense, dark forest provided for creepy, crawly things, such as Gods of Death, when the truck whirled around the corner.

Heero never really found out what that truck was for or even why it had returned to the Fear safehouse, but he knew that the driver hadn't been expecting a single soul on the road. In the mist the headlights were fuzzy but still bright. In surprise he naturally paused for a second, tensed his hand around the Shinigami, then lunged back towards the other side of the road. It was agonizingly close when he felt the Shinigami stop and plant his feet in the middle of the truck's path. He staggered forward into the ditch and looked over his shoulder.

Shini didn't have a look of fear in his eyes as the headlights bore down on him, painting his face pale and his black wings with magnificent white highlights. The driver gasped unexpectedly as the image of the winged man standing in front of his car disappeared just before he would have struck him like raw hamburger.

Heero saw the Shinigami disappear in the truck's headlights and the brakes screech immediately afterward.

He was gone. Again.

Blessed day.

Before the man in the truck, who was obviously frightened, could get out and investigate and therefore see him, he dove into the woods again, cursing sharply beneath his breath. There was a mild tugging sensation, but in his anger, Heero only believed that it was the shrubbery that clawed at his clothes and pressed on until it faded. But he definitely didn't pass over the feeling that he'd slipped through his fingers on purpose...

Heero stalked angrily to a clearing in the woods while adrenaline still coursed through him. He shoved aside a curtain of Spanish moss from his face to flip open the tiny pink Divine cellphone and angrily scan the stored numbers. Luckily, the Goddess of Love wasn't completely ditzy and forgetful not to leave her son-in-law with a number to contact her at, and Heero punched it in after memorizing for ceremony's sake. After this, he was going to make sure he never had to call her ever again.

He jabbed at the numbers and restarted many times because his fingers were so big, but when it finally caught, his face was beginning to flush.

The ringtone was sickening. The color was revoltingly girlish. The misty air was infurating. Heero was truly frustrated, and it wasn't hard to see, as he started pacing a few rings into his wait.

Finally the line picked up and Heero wasted no time in snapping, "Iria!"

A buttercream voice gently discarded the angry tone with a, "Hn," and told him cordially that Iria was out at the moment and could not be reached. Important business.

Heero thought ironically, God take me now, or I'll start taking out things with me.

"Just tell her to call Heero back as soon as possible," he said brusquely and quickly slammed the tiny cellphone shut with the palm of his hand, cutting off the very sweet and ceremonious goodbye the secretary had begun to bid him. With the same deep frown adorning his face that he'd started out with from the beginning of all his troubles, he waited for a few aggravating seconds for the cellphone to ring and then gave up and shoved it in his pocket. He shrugged his backpack on better and began to walk towards the airport, intent on never thinking of that beautiful, damned deity of the damned.

===

"Suck in."

"Jesus Christ!"

Iria gasped violently as the maroon-swathed dress-sprite yanked the band of her kimono like a Medieval-strength corset and just about crushed her angelic ribs. "Are you trying to kill me?" she gasped as she crumpled conveniently against the carved stone pillar that came to stand at her bust now that it had been shoved into her chin, practically. The dress-sprite floated around to face her.

"No, that's Hades' job, remember?" it monotone dully in its face of doll-dramatic makeup.

Iria groaned and rested her face in her palm, while her blonde hair was tied up loosely in a bun and the stray strands stuck stressfully into the air. She mumbled unhappily, "Don't remind me." The Goddess of Death gingerly tried adjusting her corset before it fused angrily into her skin and staggered off in the general direction of the stairs at her full speed, though you wouldn't have known it, or been able to ask because she could only draw slivers of oxygen in her lungs in the moment.

She wandered toward the door and grumbled simultaneously. "I'm screwed. I don't have a real report. I'm improvising-of course I'm going to be dead meat! I don't even know where the Earth my son is, or if his husband even gives a flying fuck about him enough to try and find him before he ends up killing himself."

"Hm, that's bad," the dress-sprite commented dully as it floated beside her easily. Either she was losing her youthful edge or this kimono band was going to cut her in half if she took four more steps, Iria thought.

"Really, I sympathize," the dress-sprite deadpanned reassuringly. "But uh, Miss-"

"What?" Iria asked irritably, as the vein that had been twitching all day screamed over her brow.

"The stairs are the other way."

She glanced over her shoulder and sure enough the dark stone arch was all the way on the other side of the carved cavern, leering at her. The Goddess of Love picked up the edges of her white and pink kimono with both hands and waddled the other direction peevishly.

"I knew that. I was just walking off this damned corset!"

===

[[[[A/N]]]]

I should probably explain the title, if I haven't before already. There's a little old book {pink, I think} that's titled My Darling, My Hamburger that has a few select, mildly objective {hence the Hamburger part} scenes that are very explicit for a schoolgirl, such as myself, and probably planted bad little seeds in my mind. I thought of the book when I was titling this story. My Shinigami, My Hamburger. Thanks everyone who takes the bother to actually read or review my story. It helps so much! Especially since the 6-chapter hump is coming up--my cursed inablity to carry stories much past the 6th chapter without dying. Wink, wink.