Posted: 9/22/00
Title: Slimcea Girl
Author: Jay/dem. Contactable at carboxylated@yahoo.com
Archive: Tyr's & those with prior permission, otherwise-- all it takes is an email. ;-)
Category: Songfic. Pure, unadulterated angst.
Timeline: 'Mirrors'
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5x13
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is quite sadly not mine, but in fact the property of Bandai, Sunrise, and other large corporations and companies I have no affiliation with. (Again, quite sadly.) "Slimcea Girl" is from Mono's amazing album, Formica Blues and is used without permission.
Warning/Rating: R. Sadism is my middle name. OOC-Relena?
Feedback: Hit me.
Notes: Song lyrics continued in [ ]'s.
"If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
[Friedrich Nietzsche]
"Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do."
[excerpt from 'Daddy,' by Sylvia Plath]
[...As she walked down the street
The rain began to fall
He called out
But she passed on by
Like she never noticed him at all.]
She thought she heard his voice, calling to her.
But it was just the hum-bleep of the machines that filled the air with artificial noise. The soft murmurs of voices in the hall made her realize how alone she was.
/Well. There are always the monitors./ Her mind provided, cynical. Blazing blue eyes trailed to the camera in the corner and fixed it with a glare. Her eyelashes fluttered after a few seconds, however, and her lids slowly shut.
She could feel the gauze around her wrists, bandaged, locking the blood in while her ravaged skin tried to undo the damage she'd inflicted. She could still remember the feel of cold steel against her wrists, the dizzying vertigo between life and death, peering into the darkness.
The darkness had looked back, with the slightest hint of a feral smile. Black had swept over her, endless black, noiselessly welcoming her home. She'd passed her trial by fire, but they'd pulled her back: blistered feet and all.
Her breath rattled in throat as she slipped into a dreamscape, muting the fine lines of reality.
[.She remembers the day
When things were going her way
Only memories remain of
The way she used to be
Way she used to be.]
Her mother's voice was graceful and soothing, even as she swept Relena's hair away to one side, smiling down at the little girl that stared at her with adoring eyes.
"The princess was beautiful and good, but the evil witch told her that she'd have to prove herself worthy before being able to rule the kingdom. She had to climb the highest mountain and find the first bloom of spring-- to keep it frozen, but alive."
"What did she do?" Her voice was soft and clear, a mere whisper.
"The princess did them. She almost died climbing the mountain. Her dress was tattered and she lost her shoes and her feet bled, but she kept climbing, scraps of silk keeping her warm against the onslaught of frigid air. She found the flower but as soon as she bent to touch it, a little of the frost melted. But it was so cold that she was turning ivory and blue and her limbs shook. She lay down, and when she breathed, her breath would freeze in the air. She decided to wait until she was as cold as the air to pick it."
"And?"
"She waited, and when she reached out, her fingers brushed new frost onto the flower. But she died, shortly thereafter, because of the terrible cold."
"That's so sad," murmured Relena, eyes troubled.
"But the ice sprites found her, and carried her body down, keeping the flower frosted, until her heart warmed and it began to beat again."
Relena never listened. She thought about the princess, caught in the limbo of cold and death, sleeping.
[.And she lives alone in Prozac Park...]
The machines showed that her heartbeat was steady. Heero stared at them with a critical eye, and satisfied that the readings confirmed what he saw, he turned to walk outside. Duo was leaning against the door, whistling and erratically tapping his feet.
"Well?" He asked, amethyst eyes inquiring.
"She'll be okay," Heero said, voice firm.
"That's good," he replied, softly.
Inside, Relena dreamed of flowers.
[.All the old photographs
Were never thrown away
She looks through them
For what made her cry
And then she decides live for today.]
"Sister." His melodious greeting fully awoke her. Her eyes fluttered, languidly, before opening and pinning him with a vacant gaze. Milliardo Peacecraft stopped for a moment, wincing at the hollowness behind those bright irises.
"Brother," she replied.
"You're looking well."
"I look like I'm dying." Her lips crooked into a smile. "Appropriately, don't you think?"
"The doctors say you're improving," he said.
Relena nodded her agreement. "The doctors say I'm improving."
Milliardo knelt by his sister's bed and brushed the fringe of hair from her forehead. "But you're not." A statement, not a question. The window was open, a light breeze sweeping through the room: light, the sounds of laughter, life.
"But I'm not."
"Can I ask you why you did it?" He gestured to her bandaged wrists.
Her voice was fragile and delicate, struggling even against the silence. "It was the dream," she whispered. "But I wasn't supposed to come back to life." She paused, before she shivered. "It's cold in here."
He rose to close the window, but she shook her head, one gauze-packed wrist gesturing to her chest. "It's cold in there." Her eyes trembled. "And all there ever was, was a dream of flowers."
"Flowers?" A memory fluttered-- the scent of roses pervading the air, inhaled in his breath.
"A dream of flowers." She sighed. "It was a trial by fire and I passed." Her voice cracked. "I passed. I-- passed and you dragged me back."
"Are you afraid?" He whispered.
She looked at him strangely. "What do I have to be afraid of?"
He searched inside himself for an answer and came up empty. Milliardo could find nothing to say to the frail creature that lay in front of him, covered by stiff hospital sheets. Her sunken eyes drilled through him and stared at the other side. She had faced her demons, the fire and brimstone-- and grasped the beyond, only to have it slip through her fingers like sand.
"I'm too far gone," she continued, looking at him simply, as if expecting her answer to explain everything.
[.Sees herself in the face of a stranger.]
In a dark corner of her mind, she lay in torn silk, asleep, fingers brushing the blue-grey petals of the first spring bloom.
The sky was a mirror image of the earth; her likeness projected into the heavens, asleep, breath visible in the wind.
[.Then the words of the song
Remind her of those days.]
"I brought flowers." Hilde arranged the yellow roses in a large vase, carefully setting it on a nearby desk.
"Thank you." Relena stared at the dark-haired girl in front of her, and abruptly asked: "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"You want to ask why."
Hilde flushed lightly, but didn't shake her head. Relena nodded. "Heero. with Duo. after the war. in peace. there were no more excuses."
"Did you want to die?"
Relena looked at her sadly. "I don't think that matters anymore."
"But it does."
"Very well. Consciously, yes. Unconsciously, no. Or maybe the other way around."
"Lena, look at me," Hilde commanded. Relena turned her head and after a moment, Hilde shook her head. There was nothing in those irises; just her reflection.
"You had no right to bring me back," Relena said, after a moment, and turned her head away.
He watched her breathe for a moment.
Just a moment, in-between the still beeping machines. The frail skeleton that was covered by sheets, lightly breathing.
Dreaming. Relena was lost in a dream, smiling.
"Heero?" Duo drew one slim arm around his lover. "Are you okay?"
"I never meant it."
"What?"
Heero's eyes brimmed with tears. "When I said I was going to kill her. I never meant it."
Their palms met, and Duo sighed, looking at the sleeping girl. "She knows," he said gently.
Outside, the sickly-acrid smell of dying flowers filled the air.
[.She'll never go back again
The way she used to be
Way she used to be
She'll never go back again.]
[fin]
Jay: ...well, there's not much to say except... uh... well, you read it.
Cheers for you!
Jay
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