Blue Bottled Belly Dancers and other fine myths
Part 12
Have you ever had to cry and it gets caught in your throat? How about when you have the hiccups and they start to hurt? Imagine those things, then amplify them a hundred fold. That’s what it felt like to have a bottle, a whole, unshattered bottle, sitting beneath my ribs with my heart beating away right beside it.
Heero was down on his knees hovering over me looking completely terrified. I might have found it funny, if I wasn’t in so much pain at the time.
"What were you thinking?" He hissed, laying a hesitant palm over my heart.
"Just heal it!"
"I can’t, I don’t know what it is I would be healing. I’ve never seen anything like this before."
"That’s just wonderful, fix it!"
His face grew hard for moment. "You fool. Why did you do that?" Then his eyes softened. "It was finally over, I was finally free."
"What, now you’re not?"
"I don’t know."
"There suddenly seems to be a lot of things you don’t know." I sat up on my elbows; the pain of the bottle seemed to be ebbing away. His eyebrows rose up nearly to his hairline, and he sat back, watching me.
"What does it feel like?" He asked curiously.
"Weird. It’s stopped hurting." I gave him a puzzled look, and rubbed at my chest.
"Oh!" I jumped in surprise. It was... beating. Like a second heart. My thumb rubbed over the spot it had gone in. "What the hell is it doing?"
"Hmm, it was cursed to hold me... " he stopped, staring off into space for a moment. "Except... Until... " He paused in mid motion, his mouth dropping open. "Until the master becomes the slave and true love receives what was arrogance undone." His eyes took on a bright look, almost reverent as he turned to gaze down at me. "That’s why you did it... "
"What are you talking about?" I stood up, feeling strangely energized.
"With every curse comes a cure. That was the riddle that went with mine. That was the only way to free me. I wasn’t always in that bottle."
"That’s great, but why’s it beating?"
"It’s what?" He leaned over and laid his palm against my chest. Our eyes met.
"What’s it mean? What’s it doing?" I asked in fear. We both jumped, as it seemed to get louder, almost as if it were coming closer somehow. "Heero, this feels really weird." Then, that extra heartbeat gave a giant thump and stopped.
Unthinkingly I clasped my hand over his where it still rest on my chest. There was a crackling sound, like a circuit being connected. I half expected the lights to flicker but they didn’t. Instead, my body flickered. Like a film running out on a movie reel. I tried to say something and it came out wispy and fragile, barely audible. "Help."
"You’re becoming a Djinn." He whispered, face intent, fingers flexing beneath my own.
I shook my head, feeling my entire body start to tingle, sparks flying from my flickering skin. My non-voice wheezed out like a soft vapor cloud. "How?"
"It was the curse, only when I... when I truly thought someone was my equal would I be free. They thought I was so arrogant that it would never happen." He seemed to see the questions in my eyes. "Yes, ever since I met you in the palace. You’ve always been different."
My eyes squeezed shut as a particularly sharp jolt ran down my spine.
"You’re coming back to normal." I heard him say, his hand slipping from beneath mine.
"How can I ever be normal again?" My voice rang out. I opened my eyes, glancing at my arms. They were normal again. I patted my chest, wondering whatever happened to the pain I’d been feeling so sharply minutes before. Things had happened so fast, I’d barely had time to register them. "Do I look any different?"
"No, except for your eyes you look the same. How do you feel?"
"Godly." I grinned at him. "Is this how you always feel?" Then I remembered. "How can we be both Djinn and human? And how can you give me so much power? What happened to the bottle? What happened to me?"
"Maybe we had better clean this up," He gestured at the broken mirror that was scattered all over the bathroom, "and have a talk."
"Yeah, maybe we should." I glanced at the mirror. "I wonder how you fix something that’s this broken."
He smiled, taking my hand.
"Like this."
He did it slowly, savoring it, or so it seemed. I felt each little piece as it came together, each particle of it put into place again. "God, it feels like sex." I mumbled.
His fingers tightened on mine and the sensation grew stronger, flowing up my arm and over my body in a wave. "Heero?"
"Yes?" He turned to face me, watching the mirror put itself back together out of the corner of his eye.
"What does it feel like to create?"
He smiled at me, leaning closer and trailing his fingers over my jaw. "Why don’t you try it?"
I grinned at him. "How about breakfast?"
***
If you ever have the chance, do not try hickory smoked eggs with chocolate garnish and tie-dyed shrimp tea. Creating things was a lot harder than say, going to the store and just buying them. Or finding a nice restaurant. What pissed me off was that Heero made it look so easy.
I’d gotten dressed again finally, slipping into my clothes and feeling odd. We sat across from each other on the floor of the hotel room. Various strange and highly exotic foods sat between us. I held up a hand, a strawberry sitting on my palm. Well, at least it looked like a strawberry.
"Go on, try it."
Heero shook his head back and forth. "Not if you payed me with pure platinum."
"Well." I held the perfect, red, plump, ripe strawberry up to the light streaming in through the window. "Maybe it won’t be so bad. Come on, just try it?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"How about for a kiss?"
"N... o...hmm... "
I smiled at him. "Well?"
"If that strawberry tastes like that apple did... "
"How can it possibly be worse?"
He raised an eyebrow, leaning across the pile of food. "That apple Duo, tasted like shit."
I flushed, averting my eyes. "I didn’t know it would taste like that. I swear!"
He glared, then picked up the strawberry and eyed it for a moment. "Kiss me first, just in case this tastes like that apple did."
"I see you have faith in my abilities."
"Let’s just say, at some things you’re a natural, and this isn’t one of them." He grinned at me, showing his teeth in a wolfish way.
"Bastard." I leaned over the small distance that separated us. "I’m glad you changed my life. I’m glad I bought your bottle." I leaned in until my lips just brushed his. "But I’m really glad you’re such a mmph... " I never could concentrate when he kissed me.
***
You probably wonder how all of my questions were answered, or what it was like to suddenly be part Djinn. You might wonder how I could forgive him so easily, if we ever told each other of our love. There’s really only one answer to your questions.
It’s not over yet.
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