lavandarlizard2 | ...you know... Tuesdays are worse than Mondays...

Didn't want to get outta bed, still raining, customers asking me questions I dare not answer - truthfully, at least. *sigh*

Here ya go; shortish part this time...

BFB - Part 085d - Strange Days III

I know I’m losing my mind. Please; it has to be the drugs. Has to be… Otherwise there is no other possible excuse for what I did.

One moment I was wishing I’d never been born, for hurting someone else, someone I damn well care about, *again*. God... Wufei was sitting on the damn floor, stunned into immobility by Heero’s enraged command, his face chalk-white and the most... startled, most appalled look on his face. The next instant I was laughing hysterically at the poor beleaguered Were-Dragon.

I am just reprehensible.

But then, he started to laugh as well, and Heero joined in a moment later. We sat there, howling with laughter, Heero and I hanging onto each other, and Wufei rolling on the floor, for at least five minutes.

I forgot that I hurt. I forgot that I’d just had a hallucination that scared the crap out of me. I forgot that I’d done something horrible and that someone had done something horrible to me. I even forgot that I’d injured one of my best friends.

And when my laughter began to wind down, I felt like maybe I could get past this mess, somehow. Maybe if I could still laugh, even at something so... so stupid, maybe I would be okay eventually. And I thought of Teal, and how he was able to laugh, even only a few days after Shar was gone.

Well, hell. I wasn’t dead. I felt like crap and I was still scared of the unknown, but really, what else can happen to me? Once you’ve been ra- assaulted, what the hell else can be worse?

Heero was looking at me, I realised, a faint wondrous smile playing about his lips. “Banshee,” he breathed, and it was as if the fog lifted another notch.

“Heero,” I whispered. “Heero!” And I threw my still-leaden arms around him.

“Well, thank me for amusing you both,” said Wufei gruffly.

I looked down to find him leaning against the bed, red-faced and breathing heavily.

“Are you all right?” demanded Heero.

“I’m fine, lizard-boy.” He staggered to his feet, a hand to his ribs. “Ah, shit. My ribs hurt from laughing so much.”

“’Lizard-boy’?”

Oh, oh...

Wufei shot him a part glare-part smirk look. “Yeah. Lizard-boy. Whattaya gonna do about it, Heero?”

Heero glared and rumbled for a few seconds, then subsided. “Why, nothing,” he replied blandly, and I had to look at him. “I’m going to stay right here and cuddle *my* Banshee, worm.”

“Lizard.”

“Worm.”

“Hello?” I raised my hand. “I’m kind of tired here...”

The sparring stopped immediately. An instant later, I was flat on my back with the comforter pulled up to my chin, and Heero was chasing Wufei out the door. I managed to untangle my hand enough to wave half-heartedly before the door closed on Wufei’s reluctantly retreating person.

“Heero? Why was I laughing? It wasn’t funny, dammit...”

He sat beside me on the bed, his expression wistful and tender. “Stress relief, maybe. Maybe you just needed another outlet. Maybe your brain is finally realizing that you don’t have to be afraid anymore."

“Why are you out there?” I didn’t want to be alone again.

He sighed softly and I could almost see the anxiety draining out of him. “Someone needs to shut off the lights. Give me two minutes.”

“Okay. But no more than two.”

~*~

I lifted the comforter to crawl in beside him. He turned drowsy eyes to me and murmured, “Two minutes. I love a Dragon who’s prompt...”

And then he was asleep.

I arranged myself and drew him into my arms, being careful to coil his loose hair on the pillow above him so that I wouldn’t lay on it. He sighed heavily and melted against me. I wrapped my arms around him, rested my cheek against his soft hair, and then silently, in the dark, where no one would see, I began to cry.

...tbc...