Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Street Without Time ( Chapter 8 )

Chapter 8

The Street Without Time

With a sigh, the winged woman known as Aphrodite observed the bloody carnage, and twisted her face apprehensively when it dawned upon her exactly what had been diced on the forceful trip through the chain-link fence. Tinges of disgust shown through, but she had dealt with many grisly details since the birth of her Deathly son. Dressed in a pristine white robe, the one she had slipped into while flying towards Valentine, the Goddess of Love strolled to a stop, a few feet separating her and one dazed mortal with an Angel of Death clinging to his chest.

Silent for a moment, she only opened her mouth to mutter, sounding almost despondent, and "I don't what I'm going to do with you anymore."

Heero bit his lip in uncertainty as he watched Iria look solemnly down at the carnage, a look so sadly intense it seemed she was pondering the complexities of life and coming up short. Meanwhile, as his attention was distracted, Shini had wrapped his arms tightly around his husband's rib cage. His sobs stilled for a few moments, punctuated by a few hiccups as gradually began to calm down from his guilty tears. He refused to lift his head from the human's chest so he inconspicuously wiped the blood on Heero's tattered shirt, with a absently comforting hand pressed to the back of his head. However, Heero hardly even noticed, too busy shooting ambiguous looks at Iria as she surveyed the damages done.

She had just shifted her attention from the melting carcass of the vengeance spirit when something nipped sharply at her feet. The Goddess of Love let out a low yelp and quickly sidestepped as a lick of fire extended out from the blazing car fire, and she angrily twitched her face at the flames. "Pesky stuff, fire. Especially on Earth," Iria groused, as her familiar enchanted wind was summoned to snuff out the stubborn flames. Once it had been reduced to much more obedient embers scattered around rusted mufflers, she passed a victorious smirk over to him.

Silver eyeshadow replaced the drastic red, making her seem even more like a grieving mother than before. "I don't know how all you mortals managed to deal with it. It's so unbehaved here. You think Prometheus could have at least taught the fire he brought some manners after he unleashed on Earth."

Heero unwittingly pressed Shini tighter to him as he scowled in usual fashion at his extravagantly beautiful and very irritable mother-in-law, ready for answers and demanding at least a few from her. "What exactly was that thing?"

"Always quick and to the point, Heero Yuy," Iria said, thinly masking a sigh and minor scowl in return. She folded her arms loosely and looked tired of everything that had happened in only a day and a half. "But if you have to know, before it was diced, it was what the Divine would call an animus ultionis."

"And what would a lowly mortal call it?" Heero asked pointedly.

"You would call it a ghost, a spirit, a specter. A nasty little campfire story that makes little boys pull the covers over their head," she explained dully. "Most of the time, your human ghosts are pushovers. Sure, they'll startle you if you can't really see them or sense them, like you mortals can't, but they're nothing compared to those of a Divine. Especially a God of Death as powerful as Shini."

Heero frowned darkly, only half-satisfied with the answer he received. "Why was it following me?"

Silver-highlighted blue eyes met his own sharply. "I should be asking you that, Heero Yuy. They spring forth from strong emotions and mindlessly enact revenge upon whatever comes in their way." Iria shifted her scowl down back toward the pool of blood and Darkness, steaming quietly through the metal chain-link fence. "And since this particular animus ultionis went around consuming human hearts, it's safe to say that it was a vengeance spirit of heartbreak."

There was a certain poison in her last few words that left little to be assumed, as she stared back over at the roughed up mortal that stood with her son. Heero could only subconsciously grit his teeth in response.

In the sudden stillness of the air, her long, broad white wings brushed the ground behind her high heel clad feet, of a much wider wingspan and more streamlined than those of her son. Regal, almost, while Deathly black ones were more-apocalyptic. Iria turned away from the sight of all the carnage, finally satisfied with all that she had seen in a frustrated and very tried manner. Speaking of feathers, there were an array of black ones scattered on the ground where there had been a struggle between the god and violent spirit, and they scooted away on tiny little breezes as Iria walked over to the winged god and bleeding man, stopping half an arm's length from her Deathly son.

"Shinigami, come here," Iria said softly. A hand gently began to comb through the length of matted brown hair that lay neatly between each of his winged shoulder blades, picking out the scraps of dry, Earthen leaves and tiny sticky webs that had formed in his hair from the Darkness oil he'd fallen into earlier that morning. Heero was honestly surprised at how unabashedly maternal the often-domineering goddess turned once she began speaking to her son. Even her fiery eyes were strangely calm.

Shini sniffled quietly and obediently turned his head while Heero simply continued to scowl in her direction. However, a second later the arms left him and a strange sense of hurt filled him as the Angel of Death went to his mother instead, leaving him standing with a semi-surprised expression. As much as he resented the union, there was this strange twinge that went through him as the Shinigami left him so readily and was comforted by his mother. It wasn't anger, but then it wasn't quiet the relief he would have hoped for.

He was just so used to having to pry the Shinigami off him. Yeah, he thought dully. It was just a sudden change, and he had always resisted change.

After a motherly embrace, Iria began petting the side of her son's face, the top of his head only brushing her chin when he came close and let her begin to rub the dirt and blood off his cheek. "Now, let's get you cleaned up first," she said in a warm tone, offering a sweet little smile. Eventually, the guilty look began to disappear from the Shinigami's face, and hints of a smile shone through.

"That's better," Iria laughed. "I know you're not such a little sourpuss, so come on and show your husband some of those teeth." She lopsidedly pushed a corner of his lip up in a ragged smile, and he pulled away, resisting the urge to finish the rest of that smile beneath a distinct red color.

He rubbed at his face, seemingly trying to resist the comforting humor of his mother, and insisted in a whisper, "Come on, stop it. You're embarrassing Shinigami." For a second, his ungodly eyes flashed in the Japanese man's direction, and they left a burning sensation on Heero even after they pulled away

"Of course you're embarrassed. Anyone can see you're covered in blood!" Iria said with a laugh on the side. "And anyone would be embarrassed to look like that in public, I'm sure. Hold still, now, Shini. I'll clean it right up for you."

Iria ignored whatever muted protests her son gave as she presented a hand out of her robe and it hummed with some sort of energy, even taking on a dim golden haze. She gently restrained her son from backing away with a hand on his shoulder and began running her thumb along the cuts he had received. When it lifted, there wasn't a trace that there had ever been a wound, let alone dirt or blood. First she erased the nick across his nose with a complacent look across her face, and moved down to wipe away the pale blue stains the blood had left after dripping down his face.

Shini squeaked, "Dame!" in sudden protest and pulled his head away from his mother's hands, though still secured by her hand on his arm.

His wings flapped once as well, emanating a sticky nose as the Darkness oil caked into his feathers stretched. He somehow looked like a blackbird resisting his mother's worm, Heero thought, as he watched the display almost distantly, like it was some how just a movie.

"What now, Shini?" Iria asked impatiently, resting the golden healing hand jauntily on her hip.

The Angel of Death tugged his arm away from his mother and soon plastered on an adamant expression. "No," he insisted as he glanced over in Heero's direction and let his eyes fall weightily on the crimson red crisscross of cuts across his chest, almost as if he had killed him and ached to right it. "Heal him first, please."

Iria looked incredulously over to the bloody mortal with mouth agape almost ridiculously, displaying all of her pristinely white teeth in her shock. Pointedly angling herself, even her wings sharply flapped, and she exclaimed in blustery huff. "Honestly, for how he's treated you Shini, without an iota of respect for even your name or who you are, I frankly can't see a reason not to let him take care of his own damn self!" the mother reprimanded sharply. As her temper flared an ethereal white-gold glow began to seep from her luscious blonde hair and reveal a heavenly aura.

And the shock was equaled in the mortal himself, who was staring firmly at the slight God of Death, the God of Death in his mud-caked, oil dripping robes, with his tangled brown hairs and blue-violet bloodstains. There really shouldn't have been a sentiment left for him, after all the things he really had done. Heero would probably have shot himself in the foot before relenting and admitting that he had hurt the Shinigami to any one, but he understood that he had inflicted pain upon a deity who had the emotions of a human being. And to see such selflessness in return for all the harsh things he'd said was unexpected, to say the least.

"Shini, don't be ridiculous-"

The Angel of Death turned smoldering violet eyes toward his mother, sternly confirming what he had said, wrapping his arms around his own chest to keep himself warm as an inexplicable coldness filled the alleyway.

"Okasan, he's been really hurt-And that's only Shini's fault," he said firmly, lifting his chin to seeming prop up his courage, as it was sagging with exhaustion. "Please, help him. He's not like us, Okasan, it hurts him much more than it can hurt us."

Iria twisted her pouting red lips untrustingly and looked flatly over at Heero.

He stiffened and almost looked ruffled. Pinned beneath the gaze, he deepened the frown as her eyes dully searched him for some fault unknown to him.

Meanwhile, Shini shuffled over and tugged at her robe humbly to nudge her toward what he wanted, and what Heero sorely needed.

"Shini doesn't care what he did before. Shini doesn't want anyone to ever get hurt because of him again. Not again," the black-winged god with the blue-violet blood pleaded seriously with his headstrong, winged mother.

As Heero was watching, his arranged husband was taking on a look that was unfitting for the one known as Death: an honest remorse. A second later, he glanced over and was transfixed with staring at the mortal with those frustrating puppy eyes of him, ones that didn't mean to look so imploring but just were anyway.

Flinging an unhappy finger in the mortal's direction, Iria turned to her son with a new argument and an equally strong expression on her face.

"He'd be too stubborn to take the help, and besides, it's not even that bad," the Goddess of Love disputed evenly, taking another level look over at the troublesome man who she had arranged with her son, and had had sudden doubts about.

She was honestly disgusted with how easily he seemed to have tricked her about his character-he was not like the man she and Shinigami had observed in candidacy for a year, not when all the godly pressure fell on him. And as far as Iria was concerned, that ability to deal with the supernatural level-headed was something Heero Yuy did not use, and Shini needed if he were ever to find a place to stay while he was banished from Hell.

"It's only a little scratch! Compared to what it could have done, had Shinigami not come and pulled your ass out of trouble, it's nothing," Iria said, addressing the mortal himself, but making sure that everyone understood her tone and the spark in her eye. "I don't think he should even be worried. It's not something that needs divine healing-get a bandage, for Hell's sake."

Shini was not satisfied with his mother's righteous anger that prevented Heero from getting the attention he needed, and it was evident in the childish way he flared his cheeks and stared at the side of her face. There was his mother's temper, thought the mortal man watching the two gods, mother and son, argue about whether to take care of him. Turning her head back, she caught the glare and finally relented. But only with a frown.

"You're both so stubborn. How could I doubt that you two were a match made in Hell?" Iria grumbled to herself as she stalked over to her son-in-law, still clutching his jacket around him to keep warm. It was getting strangely cold, he noticed, almost as if summer had just faded away while they argued.

"Fine. Come here, then." Ruffling her feathers, she lunged out a hand and tugged him forward when he did not move and then lifted the glowing palm toward his scratched up chest. The Shinigami made a small look of happiness from behind his mother.

"Vengeance spirits create a sensation of pain that's greater than the actual damage done, just to let you know. You imagine you're in more pain than you actually are because that's part of what they do, they cause suffering despite being mostly powerless," the one known as Aphrodite said as she went to work grudgingly. Using her thumb, she began rubbing away the blood and torn skin like it were chalk on a blackboard and leaving nothing but flawless skin when she lifted her hand away. It was erased, like it had never been there. The pain left him too.

"And," Iria went on indefinitely, explaining how he had been fine all along, "they aren't that strong. They have to gain momentum before they have enough power to break through human skin, or try to wear or knock them out. Hardly that big of a threat."

However much his mother grumbled, that pleased trace of a smile didn't leave his face after all the traces of blood had left Heero's chest. He huddled his wings around his shoulders and remained silent. Iria lifted her hand and roughly wiped a finger across Heero's forehead, erasing the last cut, before she moved away from him and went back to the Shinigami.

The same process was performed on the God of Death, erasing the faint blue stains of blood that ran down his face and even picking the leaves from his hair. Once he was satisfactorily cleaned up, no longer carrying the ragged look he had before, Iria glanced back over to Heero, with one hand on the Shinigami's shoulder.

He tensed up again, uncertain beneath both of their gazes. He truly was indebted to them now, and he wasn't sure how or if he could get out of the arranged marriage anymore. He had a sinking suspicion that Iria might force him into it just for being so uncooperative with her and the spite that it would bring upon him.

Eventually, he was shocked to hear Iria sigh and say, "You can go home now, Heero Yuy."

"What?" he asked blankly, after staying quiet for so long. "I-I can?"

"Shini and I both understand if you're opposed to going along with this," the Goddess of Love explained calmly, still with her hand on her son's shoulder, almost as if comforting him because of what she was saying. "Despite what I may seem like when I'm upset, Heero Yuy, I do take into consideration what your feelings about all this are. Otherwise I would have lost my job many centuries ago. If you're too frightened or you don't want to go through with this all, then I can have the Amendment nullified by tomorrow."

He wasn't sure of how to respond to that, and the words probably would have died on his tongue had he tried to say something, but it seemed to have been decided already. With an arm over his shoulder, the two winged deities began walking out of the alley, with or without the mortal it seemed. Still a little shocked with the ease that his problem had disappeared, after so much trouble had been created out of it, he stood fast. A look over the Shinigami's shoulder brought him back to reality, and as soon as he started walking, the Angel of Death hurriedly turned his head around again.

However, that wouldn't be the only surprise he suffered for the day. As the unlikely trio walked out of the junkyard alley way, with the remains of the animus ultionis now completely evaporated, it didn't take Heero long to figure out that something was very wrong with what he was seeing.

In the middle of the idle street that was lined with old apartments, long-evicted bakeries, failed restaurant ventures, and very few pedestrians, there had been a spillage of crumbs somewhere that had attracted a group of pigeons. It wasn't their presence that shocked him, it was their... status. A woman with an umbrella had gone walking by and stirred them up into the air, and they had stayed there long after they had taken off, and the woman had yet to step by them. They were frozen in place completely. The white and smoky gray of pigeon wings was extended in the air, mid-flap, utterly motionless. The woman's foot hovered an inch above the pavement and didn't move.

Heero had a feeling that time had stopped. But hey, that might have just been him.

While he stopped and stared, noticing how even the sun had lost that fiery touch and looked dull and a flat tone of yellow, Iria noticed and opened her mouth to explain. "Yes, Time has been stopped, as you know it," she said with a sigh, lifting her arm from Shinigami's shoulders. She scratched idly at the back of her neck and then fanned out some of her long golden hair as habit commanded. "It's so annoying to have to deal with the complaints that we receive when Shini or myself are spotted by mortals. I know that he probably didn't take the time to conceal himself while he came here to save your sorry ass-" Heero narrowed his eyes at her for that remark. "-so I had no choice but to start erasing memories to keep him concealed from the Earthly conscious."

"And the crew and the people that saw him at the safehouse?" he inquired quietly, still taken by the strange sight of a street without Time.

"No idea. However, they know they met something supernatural that they really didn't enjoy meeting, so they left as quickly as they could."

Only semi-satisfied with the results, Heero arched an eyebrow at the blonde Aphrodite. "And the tapes?"

"Shini'll only show up as a black haze-like an apparition-if at all. You see, most mortals possess dismal senses of the supernatural, the pulse just below the surface. Either they're too absorbed with their clumsy libidos or their dead-end jobs or their soy lattes to really pay attention to something that isn't part of their schedule," Iria said, continuing beyond what Heero had really wanted in an answer, but still keeping his attention undividedly. "I have to admit, I was surprised that you would be able to see even a smidgen of metaphysical energy, what with the way you're wound tighter than a titanium coil and all."

Resisting another growl, Heero asked, "Do you mean the ghost of the little girl?"

With a snigger, Iria turned her head again and smirked snobbishly. "That really did scare you. You were quivering in your bootstraps, I would be so bold to say!" Even the Shinigami couldn't resist a little laughter at the mortal's expense, and it merited a quick slash by the glare that took his face. Shini quickly sealed his lips when he caught his arranged husband frowning at him and looked away, but he was still having trouble in holding back a giggle at his expense.

"Yes, I sent that as a test, if you mean that 'ghost.' Really, it was the equivalent of something like an energy fart I pulled off a crow's aura just before you reached the house, but I'm sure it must have been truly terrifying."

"Whatever," the disgruntled mortal snapped lowly. He didn't see the tweaked little smile shot his way from beyond the Goddess of Love when he returned to staring at the street without Time.

Beneath that complacent look, Iria spoke up again, folding her arms and quietly taking in the sight of birds frozen in flight and a man in the process of tripping. "I would have to say that aside from one other person, you, Heero Yuy, are the only human being who knows inescapably of the existence of Shinigami. Well, aside from one, luckily."

A sliver of something seeped into her tone and the concept of only one human being having seen a Shinigami besides from himself sparked something in his curiosity. Heero turned his head to look at Iria's mythically regal profile when from far off, the hiss of a train whistle cut the air suddenly. At the same moment, the air began to warm again and where utter silence had been was the sound of a man grunting as he tripped. The flutter of wings continued up into the air until the silhouette of the pigeons disappeared, all together unknowingly ringing in the return arrival of Time.

"Shit," Iria said lowly. "I didn't think it would start back up so soon. Well, my powers aren't the best when I'm under a lot of stress, I suppose." Her words were really addressing no one because Heero bolted from where he was standing and sprinted across the street without another word. "Hey, where the Hell do you think you're going?!" she snapped promptly after him. "You could at least have said goodbye, you bloody ingrate! Now, where does he think he's going in such a hurry?"

As the second train whistle burst into the air, announcing from a distance that time had run out for those waiting for a ride out, the Shinigami nervously tightened his grip around Iria's sleeve. His eyes followed the mortal as he disappeared through the alleyways, even after he had slipped out of sight, and he bit his teeth anxiously. They ground uncertainly for a second, and it caught his mother's attention.

"Is something the matter?"

Shini didn't glance up to meet her concerned look as he let go and ripped away from her and sprinted across the street without a regard to the pedestrians. Needless to say, none of their morning coffees would have prepared them adequately for the winged deity that rushed by them on foot, the tie for his black robes and his long hair flapping like banners in the air behind him.

"Shini!" Iria snapped sharply after her waywardly son, filling her face with a frustrated color very unfitting for a Divine who needed to be collected and impartial. She jabbed her finger dangerously at the spot beside her where he had once stood. "Get back here, Shinigami! Don't you dare go running after him-we agreed that we would let him go if he didn't want the pressure! We agreed! It's already been decided, Shini!"

The only answer she received was a momentary glance over the shoulder. Shini gave her an unreadable look, though if she had been closer she might have detected a trace of a defiant smile, and that would have just fanned the flames of her temper to much more uncontrollable heights.

"Shini!" Iria barked finally, smacking her shoe against the pavement so that puffs of valentine red smoke began leaking out from the ground. When he too disappeared off into the distance, the Goddess of Love let out an angry noise and turned with a loud huff to two wide-eyed humans, clutching their bags in shock.

"What," she drawled caustically, when they remained stock-still and equally tongue-tied, "haven't you seen a beautiful woman before? Well, it's a shame you won't be able to remember it then."

Iria dutifully lifted her hand at the two, and when a pink haze descended on them like pollen sifting to the ground and caused them both to sneeze loudly, she walked away while the two tried remembering just who they were for a few very confused minutes.

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[[[A/N]]]

Pfft. This dialogue took much longer than I expected it too, but I suppose it's one of those pleasant surprises. I guess. I decided to spilt the content of this chapter into two because this part turned out longer than anticipated. Well, waste not, want not. {I really have no idea how to use that phrase, if you haven't noticed} Thank you, everyone, for all the support. I've been so happy to hear from all of you. I never imagined I'd actually be able to carry this story like I have been. Hopefully this won't become some black velvet script. {Yep, there's another pretty phrase I toss in like an idiot because it sounds nice. ^-^} Usted tiene un celebracion feliz este fin de semana. Merry Indepedence Day! Oh, and good news, too-a new Green Day record this year!