Kids sure like the devils these days,
And I’m the devil with the black dress on.
Do you wanna own me, angel?
’Cause I own you, now you’re gone.
—Jack Off Jill, from “Devil With the Black Dress On”
Plink…plink…plink…
A pair of hazy, unfocused green eyes were fixed on the steady dripping of the scarlet drops onto the clean white porcelain—
Plink…plink…plink…
—and the methodical streaking of the drops down into the basin of the sink. The razor blade was poised in his other hand. He lifted it against his wrist, gouging the cut a little more, making the blood drip faster.
Plink…plink, plink, plinkplinkplinkplink—
He mentally calculated how much blood he’d lost by watching the blood flow into the white basin, using a diagnosis of his symptoms rather than trying to figure out how much he thought he’d seen flow out of his wrist. He was dizzy, (hell, he’d been dizzy all morning), but it was bad now. His vision was getting fuzzy at the edges, almost grayish, and he felt weak, drained, like the bottom had fallen out of him. He recalled something his mother had said once about menstruation to another woman when she hadn’t thought he was listening.
“It’s like the bottom of your body is just dropped out, nothing there, like you’ll drain away into a puddle on the floor. Those pills don’t stop the fatigue. It happens every month that way, for me, at least.”
He’d never forgotten his mother’s particular way of phrasing it. Is this what it’s like to have a pint of blood flow out of your body? he mused, shifting his weight on his knees to get a better balance so the blood wouldn’t drip on the white linoleum floor.
That struck him as funny, and he tried to laugh, but all that came out was a nearly inaudible rasping noise. Here he was, bleeding like a stuck pig, and all he was thinking about was keeping the pristine white floor clean. I shouldn’t, he thought. I oughta bleed all over this stinking little room, paint these white walls red, and let them see what they did. Oh yea. But Trowa probably couldn’t get up at this point if he tried, he realized. Too weak. His legs felt like jelly.
Weakness and dizziness… that meant he’d lost at least a pint in the past few minutes. Hopefully his sharp little metal friend had struck a major artery. It’d make his work easier. Instead of having to reopen the wound, he could just collapse here with the cool porcelain against his cheek and watch the red drain over the white, so pretty. So very, very pretty…
If he’d lost one pint, he still had a pint and a half to go before he was sure it’d be fatal. He had to be sure they wouldn’t find him, couldn’t resuscitate him somehow. It’s bad enough to kill yourself, he thought. It’s worse to try and fail, because you live with that fact forever.
I wouldn’t have the courage to do this a second time.
He sighed deeply, closing his eyes, and feeling very tired. When he opened his eyes again, it was like he was standing in a tunnel. A long, shadowy tunnel, where everything around him was faded and distorted like a Fun House’s Hall of Mirrors that’d been filled with fog. Again, he was reminded of an almost-forgotten childhood experience, another one of the handful of days he could remember living with his mother on the street.
They’d found an old, abandoned apartment building one November night when he was four. His mother had been happy because it was warmer than outside in the alleys. She’d climbed the stairs, and he remembered her labored breathing and racking cough. She’d been sick already, choking up phlegm into a stained handkerchief. He’d been scared when he saw the spotted bloody foam on her lips and the kerchief, but she’d told him it’d be all right.
They’d made it to the second floor, and after walking down a hallway that “seems like forever, Mommy, just forever and ever”, she’d found an old mattress to lay on in the back of one room. There were no blankets, though, and she’d lain down weak and coughing, unable to get up. Remembering that they’d passed a pile of newspapers on the way up, she said, “Go on downstairs, honey, and get a few of those newspapers. We can cover up in ’em and burn ’em to stay warm, long as we’re careful.”
So he’d left the back room on his own, and then had to walk down that long hall by himself. It was dark and shadowy, lit only by the distant street lights that cast a vague ruddy glow over everything. He’d been scared to death that something would leap out of one of the many dark, empty doorways he’d passed and grab him. He raced down the hallway, heart thundering in his chest, but no matter how fast he walked, it seemed like he’d never get to the end. It was too quiet, and he was scared, and he wanted to be back on that old mattress in his mother’s arms, but he had to walk to the end of it to get the newspaper for her, so he walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and—
Trowa slid down against the basin with a soft thud, consciousness finally leaving his wracked mind.
*~*~*
By wiggling up against the side of the wall as quietly as he could, Zechs had managed to worm his way into a standing position. He panted heavily, the sweat running freely over his face and soaking his armpits and chest. Then, warily, he slid over the door and tried the knob.
It wasn’t locked.
Of course Zechs was suspicious. Who wouldn’t be? They were making this too easy for him. So he kicked the door open, sliding back behind the wall so nobody could shred him like a piece of chop meat in a meat grinder if he was standing in range of a gun.
He forgot that a Magnum’s bullets could easily penetrate walls.
*~*~*
Relena was laying on her side in bed, hand placed over her stomach, and breathing deeply, sleepily. The pregnancy test’s little cardboard box lay discarded on her nightstand, and the egg timer was propped up next to it. It was round, she thought, and shiny and cream colored, just like an egg. Maybe that’s why they called it an egg timer, she mused drowsily. Maybe I’m just too tired.
She snuggled against her pillow, indulgently appreciating its forgiving softness. So she was pregnant with Treize’s baby. She was going to be a mother. This changed everything—not only her position with Treize. This was her trump card, her ticket out.
Treize needed this baby to make his claims on the Darlian estates truly legal.
Treize needed her to have this baby.
And she had him exactly where she wanted him. Happy Birthday, little stranger. You’re going to save both our lives.
~TBC~