Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Arrogance of Mortals ( Chapter 26 )

Chapter 26

"The Arrogance of Mortals"

  He is everything you want He is everything you need He is everything inside of you that you wish you could be He says all the right things a t exactly the right time But he means nothing to you And you don’t know why "Everything You Want" – Vertical Horizon  

It was sometime deep in the night when the Yuy household, long empty save for the lonely and orphaned son of Odin and Yumi, began to show signs of life again. The previous one had come a short time after sunset, as night began to slowly seep its way across the landscape. The door had rattled as Heero carefully nudged it open with his foot, carrying a sleeping body over the threshold and into the dim foyer. There he had taken on the hefty task of somehow managing to toe off his shoes without loosing his grip of the Shinigami he carried and doing it without waking the snoring deity. There was probably little that was going to wake him at this point, though.

Heero let out a sigh as he toed his shoes out of the walkway and, with a careful readjustment of weight distribution, used one arm to reach out for the light switch. As soon as those lights came on, the Shinigami made an incomprehensible grumble, presumably of protest, and buried his squinting face tighter into his chest. The mortal rolled his own eyes a little, but, with a tired smile turned them off again and lifted the sleeping body more securely into his arms. In his bare feet, Heero moved through the darkening house, past the kitchen, past the living room, up the stairs and past the bathroom door, to his own room.

There he walked quietly to the edge of his bed, unmade from that morning when he’d jumped out of bed at a terrible late hour, rushing to get to work. Shini had worked in his sleep to manage an arm around Heero’s neck, and as soon as it became obvious to him, even in his drowse, that he was going be put down, he stubbornly jammed his face tighter against whatever part of Heero he could reach. Even his thin, whip-like tail managed to weakly flutter up and wrap around his wrist once as Heero prepared to set him down on the foot of the bed.

Heero smirked with a shake of his head and continued anyway. But it was useless. As soon as he felt himself being lowered, he threw the other arm around his back. Heero tried again, but found Shini wedging his head between his arm and his side, as if trying to slither around him to avoid the bed altogether.

Finally, he spoke up, but still whispered. "Shini—knock it off, please."

He sleepily smacked his lips and snuggled closer as a defiant answer appropriate for his slumberous state.

"If I can’t put you down, I’m going to half to drop you, you know," Heero warned him.

"Fine, fine," came the grumble in reply.

Finally, he managed to get the convalescing, snoring thing to let loose his stubborn grip on him and the Angel of Death sat on the edge of his bed, hair matted, eyes closed and swaying sleepily. The young mortal kneeled close, making sure he didn’t pitch forward. In the dimness of the room the thin line of dried Darkness oil trailing down from his lip looked like blood, and Heero reached out to wipe it off. It disappeared at his mortal touch with a hiss of mist and Shini sleepily pawed at his skin where it had been, eyes still closed securely. He looked as if he was sleeping sitting up, teetering precariously from side to side, and an amused, silent smile spread across the mortal’s face.

The paint-stained tank top that he’d borrowed out to the deity was now also stained with Darkness oil and probably ruined, so he stood up, steadied the sleeping body, and asked Shini to lift his arms. Without much protest, he did so, and Heero peeled off the stained shirt and tossed it into the hamper sitting in the corner.

"Ne, Teishu, when did you open the window?" Shini grumbled as he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to preserve heat.

"My window doesn’t open, Shini," he answered with an amused smile.

"Oh... ’s always this cold on your mortal nights?"

"Sometimes."

"Why’s it got to be tonight, Teishu…?" he grumbled.

With his eyes weighed down by heavy anvils of desperately needed sleep, Shini could only sense when Heero stepped away, taking his body heat away with him while he walked to the other side of the room. The sound of a drawer being opened came to his drowsy senses and a few seconds later, the mortal had returned and had with him a large pajama shirt, which he tossed into the Shinigami’s lap.

"Nnnhh, Teishu. He doesn’t want to—"

"Be cold? Then put it on," Heero told him firmly, quietly. He stood in front of the drowsy, swaying thing and watched the expression of protest and sleepy aggravation twist and turn on his face, all while his eyes remained sealed securely. The verdict was that of refusal, and the young God of Death groaned in response, laid down on the bed, and curled up into the rumpled blankets.

"Fine. If you don’t want to take it—" he whispered and bent down to take it back.

But as soon as he had begun to turn around, he felt a handful of clutching fingers snatch it again and pull it out of his hand. The Shinigami quickly wrapped an arm around the baggy green shirt and held it protectively, like a security blanket or stuffed animal. After a second, he took a deep breath, inhaling the distant scent of his mortal husband slightly faded by repeated washing but still very worth the effort, and let it out with a content, drowsy smile. Heero realized he just would not win, shrugged, and let it go.

The process of actually getting Shini to get up on the bed so that the blankets could get drawn over him was another battle waged between the wakeful mortal and the half-dreaming god. After a little skirmish, he finally got the Shinigami to part with the comfort of lying twisted up in the covers long enough for Heero to pull them out from under him and over him instead. But getting him to move to the actual top of the bed would prove impossible, in the end, and Heero defeatedly pulled the pillow down to where he had curled up into a bundle of blankets and warm, silken robes and nudged Shini’s head upon it. By then, he had lost the ability to keep conscious at all and had passed out into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The mortal stood beside the bed after all had been done and the Shinigami slept soundly and safely, looking down on the God of Death lying there and wondering if he even knew that it was his husband’s bed. He’d given it to him out of consideration—he didn’t want him crawling out of bed sometime in the middle of the night to sneak into his room in his state, though it looked like he would have been far too exhausted to do such a thing. He looked like might sleep for a century or two; his breathing was so slow and calm he could barely hear it and his body appeared stone still. That was good, Heero thought. Then he might be able to get some rest of his own.

He watched Shini sleep for a minute more, absently toying with the tip of a long strand of hair that hung over the edge of the bed. Then he bent down to give him a kiss on the forehead that went unnoticed. He stood back up, still holding on to that lock of hair with a hand, and sighed. "Well, I guess it might be better if you don’t hear my goodbye," he admitted in a whisper to the sleeping deity, before slowly pulling himself from the bedside and to the open doorframe. He closed the door as quietly as he could and went down the stairs into the dark and motionless house.

It was sometime later that there would be another sign of life, and it would come barreling in through the front door.

Heero was sitting in the armchair in the living room when he heard the furious sound of footfalls coming through the foyer. The only source of light was that of the dimmed hallway light and it flickered when his late-night visitor stopped in the archway of the living room, her breathing ragged and enraged like that of a cornered or threatened animal, ready to tear to shreds whatever would threaten her precious offspring. Heero, who had been carefully flexing his hands in the shadows, trying to recreated the trick he had been taught only the night before, calmly put his hand down and stood up to face his newly-arrived problem. It was definitely read to face him.

The Goddess of Love at one in the morning was not quite as attractive as the mythology spawned about her would suggest. She stood beneath the dim light in a bathrobe that came loosely down around her knees, her wet and stringy blonde hair lay around her face in tangles, and what little make-up she’d managed to apply had been smeared. In short, she looked like she’d passed out in a cheap motel room and come storming into his house afterwards. But the absolutely vicious and contemptuous look she pinned on him told him that this was indeed no fun and games of any sort, and he had better watch himself very carefully. As much as he doubted the deity’s competency and common sense at times, he was very aware that as a god she wielded the power to ruin his life and give him fates worst than death.

And she was currently very pissed off. At him, no less.

Her entire body tensed and ready to rip the head from this arrogant mortal if he so much as twitched in a displeasing manner, she growled out at him, "What did you do to him?"

Heero stood calmly in the dark living room. His face was the picture of self-possession as he answered. "He’s just fine."

"Don’t give me any of your damn lip—tell me what you did to him!" she snapped at him immediately, a fire burning in her expression that threatened to blaze out of control. "And if I sense you’re lying to me at any time, you’ll find yourself roasting in hellfire so fast you’ll head will spin, Arrogant Mortal."

"Keep it down. He’s upstairs sleeping."

Her aggravated, dissecting look told him blatantly that she didn’t buy it in a very seething manner. Her mouth twisted up and she spat out another accusation at him. "You let him die, didn’t you," Iria hissed, as rigid as a knife blade and looking ready to cut into the vulnerable young mortal.

His only physical response was a firm, blue-eyed stare. "No," he said plainly, "he’s upstairs, sleeping, like I said. Go up and see if you don’t believe me."

"If you’ve lied to me, I’ll—"

"I can guess what you’ll do to me," Heero finished for her with an annoyed sigh, even taking the liberty to roll his eyes at this deity’s fiercely stubborn protectiveness, though she was more intent on chewing him out than actually checking up on her son’s well-being.

Daggers flashed in her eyes, and she was very threatening even in a rumpled bathrobe, but she still slunk away toward the stairs. Her eyes told him venomously not to move, not even to think in a displeasing way while she went to validate his claim. He was very aware of her nonverbal threats, and he stood in the hallway, folding his arms as he waited. The Goddess of Love came back down the stairs with an unchanged expression of contempt, but she was at least pacified a little that her son was going to be fine. Her mood wouldn’t get any worse now, hopefully. The two now stood at a dueling length from each other, both their tempers set on short fuses. The only difference was that Iria’s had already been lit, and she was the first to speak up.

"You gave him the antidote or whatever?" she asked tensely, jabbing a finger at him, demanding absolute and whole truth from him.

Heero’s face remained as indifferent as it had been when she had first burst through the door. With the dark circles hanging below his eyes, all he really wanted to do was get this confrontation over with and get some sleep. "Yes."

"And he’s been getting better?"

"Yes."

Still skeptical and wary of him, if not just a little contemptuous, she squinted at him discriminatorily. "You’ve been checking him? You didn’t just throw him in there and hope he made it, did you? You wouldn’t do that to my son, right?"

"No, I wouldn’t. Every hour I check in and he’s still dead asleep," Heero answered dutifully, adding a sigh at the end. It made the raggedy deity narrow her eyes dangerously again at the ill-chosen adjective and only made the poor, tired mortal even more exasperated with this whole situation. It was now that Iria decided it would be best to get into Heero’s face and drill him mercilessly for the collective body of wrong he’d committed against her poor, innocent son, to which he interrupted with a tone of incredulity, "Innocent? Have you seen him?"

"Are you trying to insinuate that my Shini isn’t innocent? Totally harmless?" she blurted out bluntly, in a tone of voice that echoed through the quiet house. "He wouldn’t hurt a fly if it bit him on the nose. Have you seen him? I mean, you look at him, but you always see trouble, a nuisance, a problem, don’t you?"

"Only when he becomes one," Heero answered coldly, trying to maintain his position as the levelheaded one in this argument.

"I can’t believe you! This is exactly what I mean," the taller goddess told him in loud exasperation. "You’ve either got a heart of stone or none at all! How can you say such things about Shini? He teases you because he likes you—he tries to seduce you because he loves you, and hell, if I went for mortal men anymore, I’d be damn well trying it too!"

The frustrating yelling seemed only to sufficiently ruffle his feathers, and in the atmosphere created, he couldn’t help it to find an edge creeping into his voice as he defended his character from a woman in a bathroom and smeared makeup. "I never asked for any of this," he answered firmly. "And I never asked for him, so I don’t see why you’re getting so upset with me."

"Oh," Iria sassily returned, "don’t try to bullshit me, Heero Yuy. Since when have you known what your really wanted? When you were young, you used to wish that you had the house all to yourself, that you could live without your parents’ rules—and when they died, you got your wish. You also cried all night and for years afterward you’d wake up screaming at night. Now what? You live in the dark and take pictures and get lonely and get ready to die! You were happy when Shini came, even if you were too stuck up to see it for yourself!"

Dangerous blue eyes settled on hers; his composure had splintered finally. "I never want to hear you say another word about my parents again."

"Well, too bad! Because you’re going to be miserable until you join them, and even then you’ll have a heart of stone, Mr. Unlovable!"

Heero’s face contorted as he tried to contain his temper. "Get out."

"No, I’m not finished with you," she asserted, pressing the matter by extending a long-nailed finger in his souring Asian face. "I’m not even started on how little I’m beginning to think you really deserve Shini. Why, if I had known what a self-important, self-absorbed, unemotional, ungrateful son of a bitch you were going to be when I gave you a reason to be happy, I would have just put your sad, lonely ass out of misery and skipped this altogether!"

"I said," came the final growl, "get out."

"Frankly, Shini deserves someone who can love him, not sneer at him every other minute, not snap at him because he simply cannot help himself, not a brat like you!"

"Then why don’t you go find him, since it’s apparently not me? Stop wasting your time on me, stop lying to me and manipulating my life, and just leave me the hell alone!" Heero snapped back fiercely, incredibly irritated by the Goddess of Love’s loud and accusing tone and aching to finally get himself some rest.

"You know what? I’d love to, but I can’t! You’re the one Shini wanted, and I actually care about the poor thing’s feelings, so I have no choice!"

"Whoever said that I cared about him?"

Iria gaped scandalously at him and was in the right mind to outright slap him for his insolence and cold-heartedness. "You—you cold-blooded jerk! If Shini ever heard that, you know it’d break his heart. But, what would you know about emotions or love?—You absolute vacuum of a human being!"

"I said that I don’t care!" he shouted finally, infuriated by one too many insults against his family and against himself to keep his temper boiling inside him.

"Oh, no," she scoffed. "No way! I’m sick to death of your bullshit, and you’d better just listen to me—"

But his sentiment was final, and completely unchangeable as far as he was concerned. He’d been toyed with by the gods, hunted by demons, tempted by angels more in the last few days that the entire human race had seen collectively for a thousand years. And Heero Yuy was one who was not going to tolerate it, not being deceived, not being perpetually insulted, not being coerced into marriage. His face went stony, the scowl returned, and he became the same lonely, stubborn man he’d been before, the only thing he’d known. "—No. I said I don’t care. Take him. Just take him and get the hell out of my house. Go find him some other poor fool to keep him because I refuse to for another day!"

The one known as Aphrodite gaped at him as if he had just driven a stake through her chest, but Heero stared back, currently unremorseful, and watched the expression of shock and betrayal and disbelief run across her face. The argument had begun to take on a hazy, unreal feeling—a drama that he was only watching from a distance—and he had not really thought of the consequences until Shini let out a bewailing moan from the stairwell, choking back a sob. And suddenly he felt the curtain come down on him and the lights dimmed, until on the reality remained that he was seeing the Shinigami sitting on the darkened stairs, trying desperately not to cry, and it was solely because of him. He suddenly felt sickness he couldn’t describe—which was guilt.

He should have been asleep was all he could think, besides the feeling of his own wretchedness just beneath that. He shouldn’t have woken up—he wouldn’t of! How long had he been there, just watching their argument? Heero felt the guilt and the shame of a father caught screaming at his wife with a teary-eyed child watching from the doorway, not daring to make a sound. Conveniently, words had left him, and Iria remained silent, still shocked, so he was forced to watch Shini’s face contort horribly.

He bit violently down on his bottom lip to keep himself from letting out the tears, the sobs that were forming, and those divine violet eyes ran like fountains nonetheless. The young God of Death had been sitting timidly on the steps, his knees close to his chest, and when he staggered up from the step, not breaking eye contact with his mortal husband, Heero saw that he still had that ratty old shirt clutched in his hand. And he kept it as he began his slow decent down the stairs, barefoot, still feverish, and sniffling. As he came further into the light, he also saw that his wings had grown back into their natural span, but there were shocking lengths of bare bone, bleach white, and the black feathers that had returned were scattered, ragged, unusable. It was like someone had bashed him into the ground and tore them out by the handful.

Both Iria and Heero remained frozen; their next moves teetered on what Shini’s reaction would be. The tension that filled the air would have broken a knife blade if it had to cut, at least to the mortal, who felt the guilt pounding a stake through his heart when Shini came to a stop in front of him and just looked into his eyes. Reading them, trying to find what he had done so wrong written there

He had stopped sniffling to await another word from his precious Teishu, but his face still gleamed with saline, his eyes were still wide and wounded, and he was still silent. And when Heero didn’t respond, for whatever reason, that face didn’t break into wails and uncontrollable tears, as he would have thought—he just wilted and looked away. The mortal blinked speechlessly and before he had even fully begun to register what had happened, the Shinigami let his chin fall and walked across the wood paneled floors without another noise, straight past his mother, until he reached the door at the end of the hall. Then he just stood there, head drooping, tattered wings gleaming dimly under the dim light, and waited. His tail was lifeless, swinging at his calves.

Iria turned her head around again to see Heero watching the deity distantly, his lips numb and his mind unable to just fully grasp what he’d done just yet but rather fearing the looming shape of it. She looked coldly at him and only said, "Rot in Hell, Heero Yuy. Rot with your entire wretched family." She turned and walked down the hallway as well with a scornful rhythm in her step.

Shini reached up to the coat rack without moving his head and cradled the balled-up cloak to his chest. He then passed noiselessly through the door, his pitch-black robes blending into the shadow, and disappeared. His mother followed suit a few moments later and they were abruptly gone. Gone. As abruptly as they had come into his life, the Goddess of Love and her son, The Thirteenth Son of Shinigami, became just another mythology.

There went another family, some cruel part of his brain said distantly.

And a few minutes later, when Heero Yuy shook off his paralysis, he would open the door only to be greeted by the sleeping darkness of his neighborhood, dozing peacefully. He would shut it, and he would walk numbly back to the living room to sit down on the couch. The last thing he would before he rolled over and forced himself to sleep, facing the cushions, not realizing that that faint aroma in the air was that of cinnamon, would be the single light on in the house across the street. And an hour later, the old man who had been reading to it would turn off the switch and go back to the bed where his wife slept.

A/N: ... well, is there much to say after that? I'm going to do this very quickly--I don't want to be here when the tomatos and various produce starts flying, now do I? Okay, going to go work on Twelve now, Barbarians will be a while in coming, you can guess, but don't give up on it! The next chapter of Shini... well, that's just a given if I want to live, right? I'm so sorry Shini--you poor, poor baby! Just when everything looked rosy... *Hug* But that's the way it goes, and that's the way it was written. Don't give me those puppy eyes, young man. I'll update soon, I promise! Ciao. And P.S., this chapter was written almost entirely to Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon and Antics by Interpol.