Heero lay on his bed, staring with empty, vacant eyes at the wall past Duo's head. He closed them briefly, pondering the night's events. Trowa and Quatre had retreated to separate rooms, Trowa's face a mask of resignation while Quatre sobbed in betrayal to some unknown girl in the room next. Wufei and Duo had remained silent on the sudden occurrence, but both were shunning him. He could understand, but it didn't matter. Even though Duo refused to look at him, and that stung. His tentative resolve had crumbled at that rejection, sure now that he could never tell Duo the truth.
He scowled, rolling to face the wall not a metre away, feeling enclosed, and somehow comforted by the smooth cement inches from his head. It had something of a touch of home to the feeling. Heero rolled his eyes at the thought, and almost snickered. But Trowa's face, and the foul refrain of hatred from the lanky boy's lips flickered through his mind. Heero grimaced.
He had done this to Trowa. He had broken the unity of the group, and introduced yet another new weakness to the pilots. How pathetic. The perfect soldier breeds imperfections in those he works with. He somehow had to fix that weakness, even if it meant- Heero shuddered. He and Trowa could continue, but he doubted the Latin pilot would accept that. His emotions already held too much sway over him, that much was obvious from Quatre's reaction. Heero wasn't even sure he wanted to, since continuing would cause more a rift between Trowa and his lover, and likely that could extend to shatter the group.
But if Trowa could no longer give him sexual relief when the hormones were out of control, he'd have to develop another means of release...or push Duo away permanently. He frowned. That could damage Duo, and possibly make the American a liability to the group. Duo was more emotionally dependent than Trowa, and could spiral into some sort of despair, or even go so far as to betray them to OZ in some odd idea of revenge on him. Heero rolled his eyes at the idea of Duo's reactions. He was completely illogical when it came to reacting in a given situation, due to his insistence upon the necessity of feeling. Heero sneered silently. He was better than to expend energy upon feeling anything that wasn't useful.
Accepting Duo's advances as a partner was inherently unacceptable. Heero exhaled, resting his palm against the cold cement wall of their current safe-house. Duo would not be capable of dealing with Heero's unfortunate gender. Duo was gay, which caused Heero to be an acceptable partner. Were he to find out that Heero were female, the resulting realisation would make Heero unacceptable for romantic, or at least sexual relations. And he needed Duo's touch. Heero scowled at the wall for admitting that weakness, irrational as it was. He had tried to understand it, and had assigned it to another of Doctor J's flawed chemicals within his body, but he wanted Duo to touch him desperately. Just that physical contact, no matter how limited, seemed at times more important than the mission.
Heero snorted softly at the heresy. At least the irrational desire hadn't impaired his devotion to and performance of the mission. And were whatever attachment he felt towards the American to interfere, he would kill them. Just as he did anything else that interfered with the mission. Just as he had hundreds of humans. Just as he had any emotions he still held after his childhood. Just as he had killed his father.
Heero shivered slightly, the unwanted image of Odin Lowe's dead body, bleeding from a dozen stab points, flashing across his vision. So he had killed the man- he had been ordered to do so. After Lowe had abandoned him on L1, Doctor J had given him orders. And Heero had seized the opportunity, and killing Lowe was the fastest, best way to achieve mission objective. And it had felt so good, each thrust of the knife providing just a little more thrill to the mission, the stated orders augmented with sheer pleasure.
Heero supposed he should feel guilt, if he felt anything, for murdering the older man. He wanted to justify it, somehow, but justification was for the weak, for those who needed it to explain their actions, unable to take responsibility for themselves. The perfect soldier didn't need to reason away his actions, whittling at their significance and power. And he was the perfect soldier, wasn't he? Hadn't Lowe raised him harshly, training him, moulding him into that perfect image, that bright gleaming creation, even if he had used fire and sharp, hard hammer strokes to make him fit that shape?
Heero crunched down slightly, curling up under the blankets of his bed. He wasn't perfect, despite Lowe's training and Doctor J's modifications. He would never be perfect, so long as he remained female. His gender denied him the only thing he was ever supposed to be. He wasn't girlish, he didn't think like a girl, didn't have stupid female weaknesses; it was just his body that prevented him from attaining that goal, the ideal he had been made to be...
Hero gritted his teeth, trembling slightly. He wanted to lash out and hurt something, but he wanted to feel the inflicted damage himself, the punishing agony he would have felt under his father. He wasn't perfect, and he needed to feel pain, somehow gaining a small measure of discipline and strength from malice. His father would have hurt him for being so weak. But he was living, while Lowe was not. And he still needed that pain, that punishment to maintain discipline. He was weak, he was female, most importantly he *wasn't* perfect, and logically, Heero smiled, he should be punished. It was what he deserved.
Heero let his head loll back, and stared at the bare cement ceiling, the same blank dark grey as the other walls in the room. It was what he deserved. How odd, he was reasoning it away. How weak. Another thing to be punished for. Heero smiled peacefully, and tugged the coverlet from where it rested on his shoulders. He swung himself upright, and glanced at Duo's bed, not wanting to wake the American. Likely Duo would give him hell if he did, and prevent him from going about his punishment if he ever figured out what Heero was up to. The words sounded foul in his mind, but he discarded the protest before his mind roused it.
Duo blinked at him, wide pale cobalt eyes staring, quite awake, at the Japanese pilot. Heero checked his countenance, already fixed in a customary unflinching glare, and stared back through unruly dark hair at the braided boy. A brief chill of adrenaline, fearful of discovery, ran up his spine, controlled enough to prevent the instinctive shiver he wanted to give. Duo pulled himself up, and leaned against the wall beside his bed, crossing his arms. Heero glanced at the door, and stood. One obstacle out of the way- he didn't need to be so silent now. He snatched one of Duo's knives, lying naked on the table, and strolled over to the door, not deigning to look at the American. He didn't have to explain himself to him, even as something twisted painfully within him at the hurt crossing Duo's face.
"Ne, Heero, daijoubu ka?" Duo called after him softly, just as he grasped the handle of the door. Heero's scowl deepened, a slight chill running through him that Duo would stop him, and he continued into the hallway, ignoring his partner. He could heard muffled sobs from Quatre's room, and could recall Trowa's acid words echoing dully in the corridor. It burned, but that was what he was there for, wasn't it? Disrupting the necessary unity of the group. Another weakness, an imperfection to be cut out of him. He walked towards the bathroom, shaking off Duo's hand as it clasped his shoulder. He clenched the knife in his hand, the blade grazing along his leg occasionally as he moved, listening carefully for any sound of Duo's pursuit.
He reached the bathroom without Duo following, and slid the door from its frame, stepping inside. He frowned, remembering the screaming exchange only -- what, an hour? -- before, between his friend and his lover. Or ex-lover. Heero winced, he had torn them apart, and it was his fault. Another thing to be punished for, another imperfect action. He turned, locking the door, and switched on the lights, shutting his eyes to adjust. It was still too bright in white porcelain room, everything gleaming with pain and light.
Heero stepped towards the mirror, and looked at his face in the shining glass. So girlish, rounded cheeks giving way to thin lips -- too dark for a boy. Large blue eyes with too-long lashes obscured by uncontrolled dark brown hair. So feminine, it had shamed his father to bring him in public. It had humiliated Lowe in private too, but that was...different. Heero refused to bring the memories up to his burning criticism, instead looking over the knife in his hand. He trailed the smooth blade lightly down the inside of his wrist, and smiled at the sharp, thin steel biting into his skin, slipping inside the flesh with bright pain, but no tearing, no jagged pulling.
Heero pulled the knife away, and watched the blood welling up, but not overflowing, as precise, perfect cuts were wont to do. He saw the white, impossibly pale walls of the cut, driven only as deep as gravity would have it, and the blood pausing just below the surface. He wondered if he should pull the gaping cut together, and let the blood seal it into a nearly scarless line. He still had to finish, to really feel the pain as his father would have wanted it. And it was going to be bloody, he knew, with such a precise weapon. He considered dulling the blade so it would hurt more, but displaced the thought. He needed the damage.
Heero sighed softly, and stripped off the tank top and shorts. He glanced over his body distastefully in the blinding light and mirror, and sneered. How repulsive, disgusting- female. He placed the knife's edge over one of the deep scars lining the side of his flat chest, marking where Doctor J had removed the fatty tissues he continued to form as he aged. How revolting, to be female, to have those jiggling lumps of yellow and white fat, slimy material grown upon the chest, for life. He slowly dragged the blade down the side of his torso, driving it deeper with each centimetre that split under the sharpness. He paused as he curved the cut towards his groin, avoiding the artery precisely, and tilted on one side of the blade, exposing the depth of the cut.
Heero blinked, vaguely amused at the icy pain gripping him, making his body want to quake. He stared at the slit, at least a centimetre deep, slicing into his muscle past a mercifully thin, however gruesome fat layer. He glimpsed the thin, tiny pools of blood sliding up from deep within from the rest of the cut, and the blood gushing at being revealed. He slid the slick blade from inside his flesh, and whispered, "For being weak."
He then clinically sliced a precise, similar incision on his other side, naming it for being imperfect. Blood streamed freely from the two painfully deep gouges, staining his legs a deep red as the streams fanned out in a rosy spray. He looked the wounds over, marking out several smaller slashes along his waist, each with a more specific incident attributed to them. He smiled at the endorphins making his hands quiver, flooding his body with a strange, sick version of pleasure: it felt good, deserving. He scowled again at his last crime, and shakily pulled one leg up, placing it on the mirror so he could see between his legs.
Heero snarled silently, tracing an unfelt fingertip along the deep, long red scars marking his channel, still stretched and moist from Trowa's previous entry. He dug a painful finger into the side of a scar, forcing it to be felt by nerves deeper under the skin, then picked up the knife. His largest weakness, the reason for the disunity, the current schism within the group. It was all his fault, because of the gaping hole right there, dark red, and pulsing slightly. He turned his hip for more even access, and gazed at the bloodied knife, then at the soft flesh. It was thick with veins, it would likely make a mess. He figured it always had before, but he hadn't watched it, he hadn't seen it, only felt it.
He lowered the blade to the scars, and smiled, slightly manic. His eyes glittered, and his breath caught, near happiness crossing his face. Then he shoved the blade into one of the scars, exhaling softly as the flesh split about the steel. He pulled it out of the narrow, nerveless flesh, and repeated the violence upon a similar scar about the opposite leg. He yanked it free again, then spread himself with two fingers. He stared at the dark maw, and traced the knife's tip teasingly along the inside. Then he viciously palmed the hilt, and thrust.
Heero dropped his hand, clenching a fist to prevent a scream. He left the blade lodged there, holding himself open with his fingers for the sharp intrusion. His body spasmed about the blade in shrieking protest, dark red flesh splitting in streaming bright liquid, as if disintegrating into merely blood and nothing more, no flesh, no real tissue, merely blood and blood and blood...
Heero scowled, swiping through empty air at increasingly larger blots of dark blood loss before his eyes, and felt disappointed in himself. It had barely been enough, his father would have pushed him farther. But his father wasn't there to smack him awake if he passed out, and continue the punishment. He would have to stop, but he wouldn't bandage himself. That would his retribution for being so weak, yes, that would complete his punishment. Heero tore the blade free with slightly panicked actions before he could lose control, his lips curved in a nearly hysterical, silent grin. His body shook immediately, crumpling down to the floor as he clenched the knife between his spread legs, bright red blood gleaming in strands of sticky, dripping coils underneath the revealing lights, glistening wetly as they poured from his groin, the edges turning brown as they seemed to dry.
Heero thrust his arm up, clutching at the edge of the counter with blood-slicked hands, and dropped the knife in the sink where he wouldn't hurt himself accidentally. He snickered at the thought, but the burning in his lungs convinced him that laughing was out of the question. He inhaled deeply, forcing oxygen into his lungs to compensate for blood loss, then began crawling over to the toilet. He grabbed at the paper roll, tearing sheets of tissues from it, and roughly pushed himself full of the fragile absorbency, enough to pull his shorts back on. He paused, breathing in deeply, trying to restore the oxygen to his brain before he could pass out. His body obeyed, gasping for air in large wet gulps until he felt stabilised enough to stand, leaning on the counter heavily.
Heero frowned as Duo crossed the jumbled, painful mass of his mind, and wet more tissue, cleaning the blood from his legs, and sorely pulled the tank top over the thin bleeding lines crossing his torso. Duo couldn't find out, he wouldn't leave anything for him to evidence his punishments. He forced himself to his feet, almost slipping on the blood-soaked floor, and meticulously washed off Duo's knife with shaking hands, wiping it clean of any evidence of violence. He turned off the lights, deciding to take care of the blood in the morning. He was always up earliest, no one would see it but him. And dried blood was so easy to take care of...
Heero fumbled for the door, righting himself into perfect control once more. Punishment had been given, he revelled in feeling right once again, feeling safe. The pain wrapped about him comfortingly, hazing his mind like red wine, paler than blood but the same shade...He walked down the hall to where Duo stood, still waiting for him at the door. His eyes narrowed, and he handed the seemingly unused knife to the American. He strode into the room, and back into his bed, wrapping the warm comfort of the blankets about himself once more. He felt so cold suddenly...
Duo stared at the dark, wet footprints on the floor, tracing Heero's path from the bathroom. He knelt, and sniffed reluctantly. Body fluids had caused enough problems already that night, but he had the worst feeling it wasn't just water he saw staining the cement floor darkly in the dim light. He swiped a finger through the liquid, and brought it into a beam of moonlight, his knife still in hand.
The blade clattered to the floor noisily.
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