Author: Little Manga Neko
Rating: R
Pairings: 2x1
Warnings: AU...very AU. Angst. Disturbing stuff. Death, but don't let that scare you away.
Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam wing or any of its characters. I do own the plot and story.
Author's Note: This is dedicated to Mad Hatter. Your email inspired me and reminded me why I write. This is my way of thanking you. J LMN
Confessions of a Mental Patient
"Hello young man, I am Doctor Wong. Do you know who you are?" He surveyed the lady with the faintly Irish accent dispassionately. Dr. Wong had curly red hair, freckles and green eyes that looked straight off of a tourist commercial for Ireland. Glancing at her hands he noticed no wedding ring or tell-tale white bands of skin. How did she end up with a name like Wong?
"Of course, I am Heero Yuy." What a stupid question to ask. He wasn't mentally retarded or suffering from any form of amnesia. Heero had no doubt his intelligence was on par if not exceeding hers. God knows he'd had enough time to indulge in studying any and everything.
"Okay young man, Do you understand why you are here?" She gestured to the slightly gleaming walls of the 8x8 cage they called a room and the white straight jacket he was tightly bound in.
"Do not call me young man. I am neither young nor a man." He was starting to hate these questions, the same thing over and over. All in that sickly sweet tone only used when speaking with children or the deranged. She must have been the third doctor to interview him since he arrived, didn't they share notes? He for one was bored of it all.
"I was not informed of your delusi...um impressions." She had to be a rookie. She was staring to stumble over her words, twisting her pencil nervously before she continued. "But are you aware of the reason why you were placed in our care?"
"Of course, the orphanage director at Maxwell Church could not accept the truth of the world that surrounds him so he sent me here." That doddering old fool, Heero added silently. He had seen them once, walked into the room while Duo was playing one of his games. He had seen the braided boy holding Heero down effortlessly as he lit a cigarette and had turned back around. Refusing to see what his favorite pupil was capable of.
As his hands clenched and unclenched under the starchy fabric Heero reminded himself that if he let himself get frustrated he would lose his temper. If he lost his temper then he would lose control. If he lost control...well then... Idly he noticed her cream suede shoes had green scuff marks. She must have forgone the sidewalk to stroll across the lawn with the big red 'KEEP OFF' sign. No wonder she smelt like freshly mown grass.
"Do you know who Duo Maxwell is?" She asked making him sit up in sudden interest. This was a new question. The others hadn't mentioned the braided boy during their question time. So maybe she was slightly smarter then the other guys.
"Of course I know Duo, he is after all the one who killed me on my sixth birthday." He carefully gauged her response. She was good no outward sign... wait... he was wrong. Her mouth compressed into a thin line and she looked downright prissy.
"I find that hard to believe. Especially since you're sitting across from me in a healthy, alive, Seventeen-year-old body." Heero couldn't help but laugh. The soft chuckle of Heero's echoing in the mostly empty room. He wished Duo was here to appreciate the irony. Very well, she was the one who asked. If she truly anted to visit his hell, he would take her there. Just don't blame him if she didn't like what she saw.
"That is understandable since it has been several centuries since I was truly six. I'm not sure why he chose me as a child, maybe he understood children need love like a junkie needs a fix. I think he followed us home one night after my father had closed the temple. My parents didn't believe in monsters under the bed. For Religious folks they had surprisingly little tolerance for things that must be seen with your faith not your eyes. They got tired of me complaining that something was watching me. On the seventh night there was a full moon. He bit his tongue and slipped it into my mouth force-feeding me his blood until I passed out from the lack of oxygen. I awoke dressed in the clothes of the dead and anointed with ceremonial oils. I was still weak, too weak to move or cry as the searing pain of the flames ate me alive. I had died a little boy to be reborn as something other." Heero could see the budding interest in her eyes despite her professional ethics. She was still innocent enough to understand what the others couldn't. Briefly he wondered if anyone could understand the sick smell of burning human flesh and the horror of realizing it was your own.
"But Heero no one could survive being burnt to death alive. And we both know the only monsters that exist are all too human. Why our space probes have proved there aren't even any aliens." She was using his first name in some misbegotten attempt to reason with him. The scientific training ingrained by years of study was demanding solid proof. It was right here before her if she expected to see more she would have to let her innocence guide her.
"That is what you think. It is a belief far too many people cling too so they can function in their pathetic everyday lives. Things don't disappear just because you don't want or need them. Science has given the masses a new god to pray too, technology has grown into a worldwide addiction. But that doesn't mean the old ways disappear. They just adapt and blend in. You never know if that strikingly beautiful waitress is really Aphrodite or if the fox at the local zoo is a kitsune.
Those that can't or won't fit in retreat to the shadow realms of our world. Those caves beneath the surface where the sun never reaches and magic is bred. Can I have some water?" All those words. If Wufei could see him now the were-owl would surely have a heart attack. After all he was unused to saying so much. He had learned young that if you stayed silent and still you were usually left in peace. But the water she poured and held to his lips was good. It was humiliating being restrained like this unable to do the barest things on his own. He couldn't help the grimace that emerged as the slightly metallic overly filtered liquid soothed his parched throat.
"If all this is true then what are you Heero? Why are you here?" He saw the way her eyes clung to the unscarred skin of his face. She didn't think he would stay disfigured did she? But the she didn't understand at all. Maybe she had been too corrupted and it was all an exercise in futility.
"I am an immortal, doctor. I can be hurt, I can feel pain, and I can bleed and die. But I always come back memories completely intact. I just have to start with the body of a six year-old again and work my way to Twenty-four which seems to be the stopping point. Since then I have always been on the run with Duo, sometimes away from him. I'm not sure what he is, I just know he's not an immortal or a vampire or were-animal. I heard a friend call him Shinigami once and he had said that was no longer his job. I'm here because he brought me here." Ahhh look how her eyes light up when she hears Duo's name. Do you think I'm psychotic Doctor? Creating a fantasy world centered on my best friend? Do you think I'm in love? The very word reeks of enough red roses and chocolate candy to make me nauseous. What I have with Duo is much darker, much more primal it was mutual obsession in its purest form. Love is much too weak a word to encompass what we have together.
She's flipping through her papers now. She should really have a laptop or file folders. Those battered green spiral notebooks were inefficient and tacky.
"It says here Duo Maxwell was in the same orphanage as you, Heero. But he was only fifteen... two years younger then you. It seems you two were roommates up until he died in a car crash two months ago. The orphanage director said he was a sweet friendly boy but you were obsessed with him often seen stalking the younger teen. Shortly after his death is the first time there was any record you thought you were more then human or created this other world." It was disappointing to see her ignore what her heart was saying. He had thought she was different then the others, smarter. But she was the same as the rest of them. He just shrugged. Anything else said would be a waste of breath.
Duo had gotten bored with the orphanage. He had been in such a rush to join the old gang he couldn't wait for Heero. He had staged his death alone. He was impulsive like that. He ignored the nagging doubt that reminded him he had seen them pull Duo's mangled corpse out of the car with the jaws of death. They didn't have proof that was really Duo. Duo had just tired of this life; Heero was beginning to tire of it too. But he was helpless tied up like this.
"Times up." Her words cut into his internal argument and Heero focused on the woman. She sounded a lot like the voice on the regulation water conserving showerheads. Having proved she was as useless as the rest of them he was hard put to actually pay attention to her.
"Doctor, surely you realize I am no harm to myself or others. Could you see about getting me out of these?" He nodded towards the restraints with ill-disguised contempt. She paused shoving her notebooks unceremoniously into her backpack before smiling kindly.
"I'm going Home right now put I'll change your orders at the front desk before I leave."
*****
Dr. Wong or Xuain Lin to her friends got the call as she was starting early morning rounds. One of her patients had died. She silently cursed the beautiful weather outside. After all everyone knew bad things only happened on sunny days. She should have known when she woke up to the faint breeze rattling through the blossom covered branches of the apple tree outside her window. She should have known then her first week in clinical studies would end badly.
She went through candidates in her head it had to be either that Jennifer girl who OD on Aspirin five times in the past year. Or maybe it was mark, at ten he had a propensity for leaping out of windows. Following the curve in the corridors she found out with sick certainty who it was.
Lifeless Prussian eyes stared unseeing through her from a face frozen in determination. As the orderlies cut his body from the ceiling, Heero's head flopped forward on his broken neck like a rag dolls. He had ripped up his bed sheet and rewoven it to create a rope strong enough to hold his weight. Now that the straight jacket was gone she could see the numerous scars littering his body. Cigarette burns, deeply etched bite marks, Half crescent fingernail marks deep enough to leave permanent reminders. Paper thin parallel cuts that looked like razor wounds were also evident.
How many years of abuse had turned him mad like this? Some of the scars were old and faded enough to be from childhood. Perhaps Duo had protected Heero from his abuser and that is why the boy couldn't face a world without him. It made sense. But then the orderlies turned his body over and she saw all too well who had done this. Dr. Wong got suddenly and violently sick. Heero's back was flawless except where someone had taken the time and effort to carve words into the living flesh with a pen knife until the scar tissue was just right.
"Property of Duo Maxwell."
*****
Dr. Wong quit psychiatry the next day. In fact she quit the medical community all together. She died her hair black and moved to Seattle one of the rainiest cities in the world. There she opened the first all you can drink-24 hour-coffee shop. It's always closed on sunny days. Those are the times she sits in a booth till it turns to night remembering the past. The look in Heero's eyes still haunted her.
He had been unable to live in a world where Duo Maxwell was dead; his abuser had trained him too well. So he had created a new world where He still existed. And Heero had followed that illusion to his death.
*****
Seven days after Heero's suicide out behind Maxwell church a figure stood next to a new grave. Expertly displacing the fresh soil with a neatness that spoke of years of experience. Anyone noticing the young man in the priest's outfit would assume he was a grave digger working late hours under the full moon.
The top of the plain wood coffin was pushed up nails giving easily against the press of the child's palms. Reaching up a pale hand grabbed the hand offered and he swung the little boy up. Handing the young child with messy chocolate brown hair a shovel they worked silently side by side. Once it was filled he arranged the sod as the boy pulled on the neatly folded clothes he had left on the neighboring grave.
Picking up the tools he returned them to a nearby shed then picked up the boy who was still exhausted from his ordeal.
"You know Hee-Chan if you had waited one more day, I was coming back for you. Now I'm going to have to wait nine years before I can have you again. I think you enjoy seeing me suffer."
"Hn, Horny Baka." The boy said with a yawn, anxiously grabbing onto Duo's thick chestnut braid with one hand before he snuggled his face into Duo's neck.
With a smile Duo agreed, "Only for you, Heero Yuy, Only for you."
OWARI
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