Subjects of My Sanity - Part 15 by Terrasa
Standard disclaimers apply

IMPORTANT: Ok, semi important: Pay attention in the beginning of this chapter, may be confusing. Everything is in Heero’s mind except for the things in Quotation marks… you know… cause that would be someone talking. Ugh, yes. Well just pay attention and hopefully it isn’t as confusing as it seems! ENJOY!

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~Subject: Heero Yuy~

 

What are you doing?

I don’t know.

 

“I’m running away from someone.”

 

What are you doing ‘here?’

I don’t… know.

 

“I got hit…”

 

Why did you come here?

I… don’t…

 

“…saw something I shouldn’t have.”

“…threw a coffee mug at me.”

“My boss killed…”

 

Why are you listening to this?

I… I’m not…

You’re not?

It has nothing to do with me.

Nothing.

 

“…that cut on my cheek was from my mom.”

“I helped get rid of the dead body.”

 

Why are you still here then?

I…

Why haven’t you left yet?

I… do-

Why haven’t you left yet?

But…

Why? Why haven’t I left yet?

 

Strange emotions ran through my mind that day. I don’t know where they came from, or if I had them all along. I felt… I felt…

Weak. Ashamed.

Decisions… those things I usually could easily make. Yet… I was having such a hard time just deciding whether to stay or leave. It shouldn’t have been so. I knew what I wanted… I did not want to stay here any longer. But… how could I…? Would they let me just go? Would Duo just let me go?

Why the hell am I just sitting here? I want nothing to do with this! Nothing to do with them and their problems!

I am acting like some weak… weak…

“Wufei? Is this true?”

Quatre. I could see him now. Concern written all over his face. Why? It wasn’t his problem. How could he possibly be genuinely concerned about someone else’s life? It would only bring him to worrying… to stress… to pain, as well as the other people involved. Why put yourself through that? What is the point?

I didn’t understand.

There was silence in the room. Duo had dropped his hands from where they were circled around my waist. Whether or not they had held me so to keep me from moving away or not was a mystery. I turned my attention away from that problem, directly towards another. Wufei. He was looking to the wall, eyes glazed over as if thinking about a distant memory. It wasn’t too hard to figure what memory that one was. I watched him, noting how he seemed to be staring right through the thin storage wall.

Go. Leave now.

I stood, decision finally made. Everyone seemed to be too focused elsewhere to keep me here any longer. Minds dwelling too deep on what Wufei had just said. I think… this was a chance, one that I had been unconsciously looking for. I don’t even remember how I managed to get out of there as quickly as I did. Quatre was sitting by the door, blocking it from anyone who wanted to escape. An obstacle that did not even waver me from my path. Along the way, I think I ended up pushing him, knocking him over to land roughly on the floor. I’ll probably have to apologize to him for that later.

Why?

Because… when you hurt someone… you apologize…

Why?

Because… it’s too… it’s so they won’t hold it against you…

Why should I care?

I shook my head, clearing all the thoughts from my head as I ran down the steep steps of the school building.

“Heero!” Somehow, I couldn’t figure out who it was who called after me. I didn’t even look back to see if it was Duo that had followed me out.

The cold early evening air hit me hard, causing me to shiver and pick up my pace. Anything to keep warm… running would help me with that. I moved, I jogged, stopped, went on once again… seemingly in a daze. When my mind finally settled down enough to realize my surroundings once again, I came to the conclusion that I was lost. Not in the school grounds any longer… but not near the city either. Had my mind shut down for so long without me realizing?

My head tilted up to the sky, noticing the trees surrounding me on all sides. Trees… they were familiar. Perhaps I hadn’t gone too far after all.

“Heero! You… run… fucking… too fast. Damn it!” I froze as Duo’s annoying voice came closer to me. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that he was probably clutching his knees to go along with the panting breaths. He must not have been very athletic. I took up a slow paced walk after realizing that I probably should get moving. Maybe it was the thought that I was in the woods… alone with Duo that had me feeling like I needed to get out of there. By the cracking of the leaves and twigs behind me, I could tell that he was in fact continuing to follow me.

“What are you doing?” I growled, turning sharply around, glaring at Duo, who was now staring at me, eyes slightly narrowed. Was he upset with me?

Why do you care?

I don’t.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I looked at him, slightly confused for a second before realizing what he was talking about. I had run away… well… kind of ran away. I technically didn’t run until I was out of their prying eyes. Of course, Duo saw. It was just like him to go and follow me. Didn’t anyone teach him that sometimes people want to be left alone?

“Go away.” Duo didn’t leave… of course. He followed me as I navigated myself out of the woods, even chuckled after my third turn around in attempt to not get lost even more in this dreaded place. I had somehow ended up in the thickest part of these woods, before realizing that the sounds I had heard moments before were cars. Before I knew it, I had finally stepped out into the middle of a street. If my mind hadn’t been so occupied on escape plans from Duo, I probably would have noticed that we had been walking only ten feet from the road for about a hundred yards.

Duo chuckled again as he saw my scowling face. He was rather amused that I had taken so long to get us out. I don’t know why he hadn’t just helped me! It was obvious by the way his eyes had darted back and forth between bushes that he had been unnerved by the woods as well.

I suppressed the sigh that wanted to escape my lips as we started in one direction, this time sticking to the black road. Duo stayed quiet most of the walk towards… what I hoped to be relatively close to the orphanage. I couldn’t believe that I had no clue where I was when I had lived in this town almost all of my life! I guess… I could blame that on my lack of desire to do anything besides sit in my room.

“So…” I glanced over to Duo to see him looking at the ground. “Where are we going?”

I snorted, turning my eyes back towards out path. “I’m trying to get away from you.” I admitted, smirking as I noted that he had stopped in his tracks with a frustrated sigh.

“Fine then,” I had hoped that he would say he would be leaving, but instead he changed that damn topic, “I’ll ask something else!” He walked quickly in front of me, blocking my path, forcing me to halt. “Why did you leave?” Before I could answer, he added, “Not that I care or anything. I was actually glad for an excuse to leave, myself. The atmosphere there was giving me the creeps! Q‘s real nice and everything, but he can get on my nerves with his pity stares. No… I‘m not trying to be mean or anything… well, you know what I mean.” My eyebrow rose slightly as he finally stopped his short speech. I wouldn’t have thought Duo would ever be in a hurry to actually leave what he calls ‘socializing.’ Then again, he probably was just mad that half the attention was on Wufei and not himself.

“So why’d you leave?” He repeated, then proceeded to stare at me expectantly… waiting for his damn answer. Of course, the truth is always the best way to go in my opinion.

“I left…” I said the words more slowly this time, looking at him in all seriousness, “to get away from you.” His reaction wasn’t what I had expected. I think, I had believed he would not take it so seriously, like all other things. But instead, he flinched at my words, eyes falling to the ground as if hurt.

“Oh.”

Yeah, I felt like a jerk then.

Why should you care?

Shut up.

I shook my head and sighed when noting that Duo was now kicking a rock that was by his feet gloomily. I should have just left him alone… walked away. Then I might finally have gotten rid of him. I might have been through with all of this bother!

“I’m sorry.” Instead of leaving I apologize! A brilliant way to screw up my finally being free of him. “I didn’t mean that.”

He looked up just then, cocky smirk forming on his lips, causing my eyes to widened slightly as I was struck with the answer to why he was leering at me. He was… he had been fooling me that whole time!

“I know you didn’t mean it!” Duo laughed, grabbing my arm and turning me around. “Come on, you were going the wrong way.” He smirked again, tugging on my arm to pull me out of my mental scolding.

I was such an idiot.

~~~~

Duo led me back to the city with ease. He probably hadn’t been lost from the start! Just followed me around to make me seem like an idiot. I made a mental note to look at a map… or do something in order for this incident to not happen again. Getting lost and then having to have Duo help me was not something that I wanted to remember… or repeat. After I figured out where I was, I realized that I was actually pretty close to the orphanage. It was only a few blocks from our current location.

We were currently walking through the ‘dirty part’ of town when Duo suddenly stopped in front of one of the old street stores, turning back to wait for me to catch up to him. I had been lagging behind, trying my best not to say something to the ever cheerful boy I might regret later.

“So what we gonna do now?” He asked, head tilting to the side as he waited for me to answer.

“I am going home.” Duo opened his mouth, probably with the intention of arguing with me, but I cut him off quickly. “Alone.”

His lips stuck out and he made some sort of noise on the brim of pouting. “You’re no fun.” And to my surprise he didn’t argue any further. “Guess I’ll see you at school then.” He said, waving his hand and turning around to walk in the opposite direction.

I think I stood there for about two minutes, gapping at his disappearing figure. That had been… too easy.

Shaking myself out of my shock, I proceeded to walk in the direction of my… home. By the time I actually got there, I was aware of two facts, I was cold, and I was shivering… once again. I guess I had been too occupied on Duo to notice the temperature outside. For a split second, I actually wished he was here again… but I snorted at that thought, mentally berating myself for sounding weak.

I rubbed my arms with the palms of my hands as I walked down the halls, silently as to not attract any unwanted attention from anyone who just might be roaming the halls. I was so absorbed in hiding from anyone ahead of me, that I failed to notice someone tailing me from behind until I was all the way to my room.

“So this is where you live.” I jumped, spinning around quickly, eyes wide. Duo. He was standing behind me, looking into my room with a mischievous grin on his face. I think I stopped breathing for about a minute before my brain started functioning again.

“What… what the hell are you doing here?” He ignored my pissed off glare and squeezed through the doorframe to my very small room. Just great, now he was intruding into my personal space as well as my life!

“Damn… how can you even stretch in here?” He whistled lowly as he launched himself onto my bed… MY bed, not his! Yet he uses it freely like he doesn’t care that I am staring murderously at him for bouncing on my… my property! “This mattress takes up most of the damn room… or… whatever this is.” Of course he makes a show of the obvious by stretching out his hands to see if he can touch each of the walls.

“What… are you doing here?” I growled, having a hard time getting the words to form. The anger towards Duo was not helping at all. He had followed me… he had tricked me… lied to me…

I told you, you should have lost him when you had the chance.

Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!

“Heero?” Duo was looking at me strange now. “Are you alright?”

How could he even ask me that? Was I alright! Hell no, I was not in any way fine! “NO! I’m not alright, damnit!” As those words were yelled, I instantly regretted it. Duo flinched back at the volume of my voice. I don’t think he was faking his fright this time. He was backed against the wall, eyes widened. “I… just… can’t you just leave me alone?” I had a hard time trying to make my voice not sound so shaky as I asked that.

Duo seemed to be a little shocked, for it took him several long seconds to answer. “Sorry…” His eyes dropped to the floor and he scooted his way towards the door. “I’m sorry I bothered you. Just didn’t want to go home is all. I‘m sorry.” He whispered, only loudly enough for me to hear.

My eyes clamped shut, teeth clenching as I finally realized what Duo had been doing all along. He’d been trying to delay going back to his… family? Should they even be called that? Parents who hurt their child?

The door opened slowly, Duo standing up off the bed to leave. I knew I might be very well falling into another trap… but…

But you are a weak minded idiot.

Ugh… shut up!

I reached out, grabbing Duo’s arm just as he was stepping out the door. “You can stay.” I quickly spit out, raising my eyes from where they had been studying the opened door. Duo looked surprised for a second before shaking his head.

“It’s alright, I don’t want to im-”

“Stay.” I commanded, yanking him back in by the arm and shutting the door with my foot.

How pathetic am I? First I would do anything to get rid of him and now I am practically begging him to stay. How the hell does he do it? “Damn manipulative…” I unconsciously growled under my breath.

Duo chuckled lightly as he sat next to me on the bed. It wasn’t a cocky laugh this time, more of a grateful one. And his soft, “Thanks,” confirmed that he wasn’t just playing with me this time. Thank god. I don’t know what I would have done to him if he had only been joking again, teasing again to get a rise out of me. I probably would have gone stark mad and put a fist through the door or something to that extent.

We sat on my bed in silence… not an uncomfortable quiet. It was actually nice and I was surprised that Duo wasn’t jumping at the chance to talk, or question and pry. I had a feeling he was probably humming to himself by the way his foot was bouncing to an imaginary rhythm off the bed. And it was actually me who broke the silence for once, my mind sprouting curiosity all of a sudden.

“Will your…” He looked away from where he had been studying my cheap shelves, where I kept my small collection of clothes, and turned in my direction. “…parents get mad if you’re gone?”

That question seemed to make the small resemblance of a smile slip right off of his face completely. “I dun know…” He sighed, hand coming up to rub his right temple. “I don’t think they know that I went out… slipped through the window.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes. Somehow, I had a feeling that Duo probably did that a lot. He was just the sort of person that would run away, sneaking through that tiny window space he had us climbing through the first day I met him. When I looked back to him, he was smiling at me, though it seemed a little forced. “So, are you going to share-”

“No.” I cut him off, already predicting the rest of his sentence. “I’m not going to ‘share’ anything about myself to you.”

“Ugh!” He threw his hands up into the air. “I probably know more about Relena than I do you! And I’ve only talked to her once!” At the mention of Relena, I cringed. Duo somehow found this funny and laughed loudly next to me.

“Come on, she isn’t that bad and you know it!” He couldn’t seem to stop himself from bursting into a giggling fit, once more. I had a feeling he was bringing up some embarrassing past memories in his mind that I wished he would have forgotten. Why couldn’t he have had a bad memory?

“Haven’t we gone over this already?” I growled, pushing Duo lightly in the side in attempt to shut him up. That didn’t seem to work so I decided on just pushing him off of the bed altogether. He landed with a loud ‘thunk’ on the hard floor and a groan soon followed after.

“Gah! Heero! I’m stuck!” He yelled from between the bed and the wall… which wasn’t very roomy. Hey, at least he had stopped laughing. Who knows what would happen if someone actually heard him from outside. Well… they would probably be confused as to why someone was in a closet… or…

“Heero! Earth to Heero! I said I’m stuck!” I looked over the side of the bed. Smirking as the wiggling form of Duo came into view. Yup, he was definitely stuck.

“Hm. I think you need to lose some weight, you wouldn’t have gotten stuck if-”

“Heero!” He was glaring at me now. “I am NOT fat!”

“Hn. Sure.”

“Heero!”

“What?”

“Don’t WHAT ME!” He huffed, his one free arm raised in the air towards my direction. “Help me up, damn it!”

“Why? I think you look good there.” My smirk grew wider as his eyes widened.

“Damn it Heero Yuy! When I get… out… of this, you are going to pay!”

I laid down on my stomach, chin resting on the palms of my hands as I looked down at him from the bed. His face was all red from screaming and his shoulders being wedged between the wall and bed must not have done good for his oxygen supply. Yes, this was definitely satisfying revenge for what he put me through today.

A couple minutes more of staring at him while he screamed and begged, I finally gave in and helped him up… which probably wasn’t the best idea seeing as he lunged at me straight away. There wasn’t really any place to escape to, so I had to suffer through the numerous punches aimed at my shoulder and his many curses on my name. After I was plenty bruised and Duo had finally caught his breath, we both collapsed down to the bed.

“You are such a cruel bastard.” Duo said, chuckling slightly from where he laid beside to me.

I almost laughed, almost chuckled along with him, but I held back and settled for a small smile instead. I had to admit, torturing Duo was actually…. very amusing. Maybe that’s why he gets a kick out of teasing all of us, especially Wufei, so much.

Duo sighed after a couple seconds of staring at my ceiling. “I probably should go.” He grumbled, sitting up to rest on his elbows. I think he wanted me to say something, because he was looking in my direction expectantly.

“Why?” I spit out suddenly, then blushed right after. That was a pretty stupid thing to say, when the answer was obvious. If his parents found him gone…

I shivered at that thought before clearing my throat quickly, hoping that Duo hadn’t noticed my hot face. “I mean… your parents don’t know you’re away…”

“Hmm…” Duo was staring at me now with the familiar smirk forming on his face. I got an uneasy feeling as he sat there, watching me… not saying anything.

Finally, after a minutes time, I got irritated and snapped at him. “What?” My face was most definitely red again as he started to chuckle, hand coming over to cover his mouth, eyes finally turning away in amusement.

“If I didn’t know any better…” He turned back and looked me straight in the eyes this time, grin spreading to show his teeth. “I’d think you actually wanted me to stay.”

I think my face must have been hilarious… because he burst out into very ‘loud’ laughter, clutching his stomach as he fell back, rolling over on the bed. It took me a moment to realize that he was, once again, making fun of me.

“DUO!” I yelled angrily, shoving the laughing boy away from me. He ended up toppling over the bed once more, a loud bang sounded as if he hit his head. I looked down, seeing my guess was correct as he held his head between his hands. Well, once again falling off the bed had stopped his laughing. Who was I to complain?

“Heero… I am soooo going to hurt you.” The manic gleam in his eyes told me that, yes, he probably was out for revenge.

“I’ll let you hurt me if you can get up.” Seeing as he was in a similar position, he had a high chance of getting stuck once again.

Violet eyes widened as Duo wiggled slightly. A loud moan then escaped his lips as he struggled to get his hands underneath himself in order to push himself up, to no avail. Too bad he never realized that he could have easily gotten free if only he were to notice the shelves above. They make a better hand hold then the bed… I would know. But, I guess he was too distracted by me, staring over him, laughing, to notice. I tried to hold it back, but the situation he was in, red faced once again was just too much.

During my short fit, I had failed to notice that Duo had stopped moving and was now looking at me, small smile on his lips as he watched me from below.

I have decided that I really hate blushing. It is way too embarrassing. Especially when I do it three times in one day. My face grew red, half from embarrassment and half from my growing irritation. Growling, I reluctantly pulled the too cheerful Duo up from beside my bed, hoping that he would stop smiling at me like… that! He never took his eyes off of me, much to my annoyance. And my face seemed to get hotter and hotter. This was ‘really’ unnerving.

“Well, now that you’ve saved me from the evil clutched of the wall… I should be heading home.” I followed his movements to the door, glaring at his back the whole time. It wasn’t that I was angry with him… ok, I was pissed off that he could easily make me lose my cool… so damn easily! He just had to look at me and I’d get all tensed up and would probably start to stutter if I even attempted to talk! Something is definitely wrong with him!

He stopped just before closing the door, braid falling over his shoulder as he stuck his head through the crack to say, “You know… you’re pretty cute when you laugh.” I blinked, staring at the closed door for a couple seconds. Brain trying to process what he had just said.

“DUO!!”

Damn it… I was definitely starting to hate that long haired idiot along with the headaches he was giving me. And what made it worse was that I could have sworn I heard him laughing through the door as he walked down the halls towards the exit.

As I threw a pillow over my head with a groan, I made a mental note to stay away from him on Monday. I don’t think I would be able to take any more of his pranks, jokes, teasing… the whole works. Of course, it was practically impossible to hide from one Duo Maxwell. Sighing, I punched my mattress lightly with my fist repeatedly, something I did to when I was irritated, or stressed. At least one good thing had come out of that strange… incident. I wasn’t so cold anymore.

 

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TBC

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