Blueberry Pudding

“Duo-kun, I had the cook make your favourite for desert. Blueberry pudding.” I grin at Quatre crookedly, knowing he’s trying his best. For this effort at not being the fourth contestant in the short-dark-and-broody contest on one of the few occasions we actual manage to get to sit down and have a meal like vaguely normal people, I get a smile as sunny as the Arab’s hair. God. A blond Arabian. Still strikes me as pretty damn weird. “Now, whatever made you think that was my favourite?” I’m still grinning at him, making it look like I’m teasing. Sorry, Blondie, I just don’t like lying. “You eat it all the time, silly!” But that doesn’t mean I won’t bend the truth. “Eh, that’s true, I guess.” I would open my mouth to say more, let out another inanity for Quatre to make small talk to, Wufei to snort at and the Silent Pair to ignore, but a large bowl full of steaming blueberry pie gets dumped right in front of me. I stare at it for a moment, and wonder what sadistic impulse ever made me act like I liked this. “The cream, Master Duo.” One of the Maganacs. Joy. I crane my neck up, trying to see his face without toppling my chair over backwards. Wouldn’t Wufei get a laugh out of that. Maybe it would be what’s needed to pull that stick out of his ass. Fat chance. The Maganac - I still don’t know who it is - slathers that steaming lump of pastry, fruit, and too much sugar in front of my with thick, sickly cream. I suppose he thinks he’s doing me a favour - that is, after all, how I usually eat the damn thing. A concoction almost good enough to make anyone puke. But no. Not quite. I have to make it perfect, don’t I? I grin up at the towering man past me around the table. “Thanks, man,” I say, and hope that the biting edge of sarcasm is not as painfully apparent to the others as it is to me. And now for the crowning glory. I pick up my spoon and smash the perfectly crafted pastry again and again, mixing it in with the cream until all that’s left is a sickly purple paste that sticks to the roof of your mouth and triggers the gag reflex with its overwhelming sugariness. For a moment, I stare at it, and wonder whether today will be the day I finally decide to abandon all pretence of actually liking the pudding. Then I look up, and spy bright blue eyes peering hopefully at me from down the table. Poor kid. He tries so hard. I have to look away, and the only place to look is at the vile mess that is my food, my hand curved around the silver spoon, it’s end embedded in the violet paste. I tighten my fingers, scoop up a heap of the nauseating goo, and take a good-sized bite. Wufei is looking down his nose at my food. As I swallow, fighting back the instinct to up chuck, he says, “What is the point in making perfectly good food into that disgusting mess, Maxwell? Do you have no manners?” Well, fuck me with a geranium. The all-knowing Chang deigned to notice my lowly presence. I don’t say that out loud. No, of course not. Can’t offend the High-and-Mighty, now can we? Instead, I grin at him, deliberately peeling my lips back from my teeth so he can see the purple stains on them that I just know are there, and say, “Manners don’t feed ya on the streets.” Whoops. Didn’t mean to say that. Heh, I think I actually shocked him. He looks kinda dumb like that, with his jaw hanging open slightly - the great Chang Wufei would never stoop to full-out gaping - and his eyes comically wide. The room is completely silent. Everyone’s staring at me. Not surprising, considering it’s the first time I’ve let something slip about my past. Y’know, when you strip away all our veneers and façades and training, underneath it all, we’re still just a bunch of kids. And we still look damn stupid when surprised. It’s so damn easy, to just let the mask slip back into place, let the required words come tumbling off my lips, lips curved in that cocky grin I have grown to hate. “Got ya,” I say, and hate myself as I do. And instantly, a scowl slams down onto Wufei’s brows, black eyes glaring at me. “You shouldn’t joke about things such as that,” he says, and begins determinedly shovelling his own pie into his mouth. I’m not joking, Fei-Fei. Sighing to myself, I turn back to my mashed-up blueberry pudding, ignoring Quatre’s anxious look. I’m not acting quite like ‘myself’ tonight, am I, Blondie? And it’s making you nervous. Fuck you. I bring another spoonful of the vile pudding to my lips, and hide my grimace by opening my mouth and shovelling it in. I eat faster than I ever do with any other dish, trying to get it all out of the way as soon as possible. Quatre probably just thinks I eat so fast because I like it and I can’t get enough of it. Well, fine. Let him have his delusions. As long as he doesn’t try to force a second helping on me. Finally, I’m done. I swipe my tongue around the inside of my mouth, trying to wipe out the persistently sticky mush that clings to my teeth and inside cheeks, asking myself once again why the hell I eat this stuff. I pick up my drink to try and wash the taste away, despite knowing it won’t work. Quatre makes small talk for another few minutes, until Heero unceremoniously gets up and begins clearing his dishes from the table like he always does. Blondie’s given up fighting him over it. Once someone leads, another will follow. I fake a jaw-cracking yawn and stretch, catching the twitch of Wufei’s eye. He probably wants to lecture me about manners again. Thankfully, he keeps his mouth shut. “Mou, I’m tired,” I say plaintively, rubbing my head. “Mind if I turn in, Q-bean, old boy?” “Of course not,” he says, just like I knew he would, that goddamned angelic smile still fixed to his face. “Please, Duo-kun, feel free.” I grin my thanks at him, hating the ease the expression comes with. I’ll be grateful to just get some privacy now. I’m in my room and stripping off for bed. I never wear anything at night - it’s just so damn nice to have clean sheets that I need to feel them against my skin. Somehow I can never quite believe that it’s real unless I’m touching it. “Why do you do that to him?” The voice comes out of nowhere and nearly startles me out of my skin and I turn, clutching at the bedside cabinet to stare at Heero. He stares right back, face completely calm and blank. After a moment I find my voice. “Why do I do what to who?” I ask. His eyebrows twitch - he must be wanting to scowl, but repressing it. Ooh, clever boy. “Why do you do that to Quatre,” he clarified. Clarified? Hell, my vocabulary is getting screwed. “Why do I do what to Quatre?” I ask him again, my patience wearing thin, what little of it there was at the beginning. “Why do you lie to him,” Heero says. I frown, still not understanding. Well, there’s an inkling, but I dismiss it. Not happening. “Heero, stop hedgin’, damn it,” I grouse. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed.” He sighs. “Why do you tell him you like blueberry pie when you obviously don’t?” I stare. He . . . he didn’t. He didn’t work it out. Mr Oblivious? Mr Mission-Is-All? “How the hell did you know that?” I blurt out. He is scowling now. “The way you eat,” he informs me. “When it’s something you like, you scrape it off with your teeth and don’t leave any on the fork. When you don’t like it, you manage to smear it round your mouth as though your lips don’t want to open.” Shock. . . . I’m in shock. This is probably about the only time I’ll thank God for my mask. “What, you’ve been staring at me? Does little Heero have a crush?” I tease automatically. He slams straight as though electrocuted. “Baka,” he mutters, but. . . . Is that. . . . A blush? “You’re blushing?” Oops, didn’t mean to say that out loud. Shit. He’s glaring harder now, but - look - he’s blushing harder, too. . . . “Heero, do you. . . .” Yeah, way to blurt, Maxwell. You’ve been doing that way too much this evening. I think you better go to bed, don’t you? “I mean. . . .” “Yes,” he says, so softly I can barely hear. “I do.” Well, damn it if my eyes couldn’t rival Quatre’s in the annual Take-Over-Your-Head contest. [1] Shit, he looks nervous. But then, Hee-babe’s likely never been in this position before, has he? Takes a lot of guts to admit your first crush. Hell knows I never did. But then, my first crush died before I could tell him. “Heero . . . how long have you been watching me?” “Seven months.” Sev . . . seven months?!? No fucking way! “And, Duo. . . .” “Yeah, Hee-chan?” Now, there’s the scowl I know and love. Hey, wait a minute . . . love? “About when you were arguing with Wufei. . . .” Oh shit. Here it comes. . . . “You don’t have to lie to us, you know.” I - what?! “B-before I joined Dr J . . . I was out on the street for a while, too. After my mentor died.” Well, it’s a goddamn miracle. I’m struck speechless. “Um. . . .” Heero’s acting completely out of character - he’s actually shuffling his feet, and he’s not looking me in the eye. “I’ll leave now. . . .” No, wait. Not before I’ve said something. “Heero?” He stops in the doorway. “Yeah?” Just . . . just for him, I manage a smile. A real one. “Thanks. Me too.” It takes him a moment to work out what I’m talking about, and then . . . oh God. I have got to make him smile more. And then he’s gone, the door shutting softly behind him. I stare dazedly at the carved wood for a moment, before collapsing on the bed. Somehow it just doesn’t seem real. Someone cares about me. Someone saw through me. And it was Heero who did all of that. Heero. Mr Most-Fuckable-Ass-This-Side-Of-Zechs-Merquise. Oops, shouldn’t think like that. Naughty, fantasising about the enemy. I smile suddenly, surprising myself. It doesn’t matter any more. None of it matters. “I fucking hate blueberry pudding,” I tell the ceiling, and burst out laughing. [Owari] [1] It's a thing me and my friends joke about - Quatre's eyes are so huge they look like they're going to take over his head. Hence the comment. ^_^

Back to Pharmakon