Victims of Love

A/N: I don’t own Get Ed, as you may have noticed. This was completely inspired by my favorite new band, Good Charlotte’s Victims of Love.

Their history could not have started stranger. He was rough and she was determined.

‘I never listen.’

One got hurt by the other. Mostly, as he knew very well, he hurt her.

‘Play with fire and you’re gonna get burned, I guess…’

It was not that he was bad, per se; it was that he was protective of her—very protective.

“I told you to stay there!”

“Why? I can manage for myself, y’know. I’m not a little kid anymore!”

“Yes, you still are. Now go!”

She stayed. Stubborn girl. He was getting angry and annoyed. She needed to leave that instant.

“Fizz, stop being so stubborn and go! I don’t want you here and that’s final!”

And that was the mistake. The big mistake.

“What?!” she had cried out. Tears welled up in her eyes.

He had messed up—big time. He had trapped himself in a web he could not escape. Not even when he tried.

His eyes had lit up in shock. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Forget it, Burn!” And she left running with tears in her eyes.

“Fizz, wait!” He was about to chase her, but a riot-bot stood in his way. “I don’t have time for this!” He tried to outrun the robot, but after two tries he had no choice but to battle it and hope for the best. ‘Fizz… please be alright.’

That was their recent bickering; and for a while, their last. She had not spoken to him since that battle with the riot-bots. Not when they crossed paths in the Dojo, not in breakfast, lunch or dinner, nowhere, nothing!

Burn had tried in a lot of times to apologize to her, he really had; but Fizz really did not wanted to listen or she would storm off. It really hurt him, even more than the bickering sometimes.

‘Following her is the reason of my injury.’

He had broken his right arm following her out of the Dojo that week; he had slipped. No doctor could see him because the city was still being rebuild. Fizz had to take care of him.

“So… how bad is it?” he had asked her as she checked his arm.

Fizz said nothing. Her usual response to him.

“You’re gonna have to talk.”

She poked his arm and he gave out a painful yell. The yell was loud enough that it startled the remaining couriers.

“Burn, what’s wrong?” Ed asked as he entered the workshop. He looked at his injured leader. “What happened to you?”

“He slipped outside and fractured his arm. I doubt there are doctors working by this time; so unfortunately, I’m gonna have to fix this,” she told the teen behind her. Her tone was dull, just like her eyes.

“Unfortunately?!” Burn exclaimed in shock. It finally sunk in for him—she hated him.

“Fizz!” shouted Ed in surprise. She would never resent a person, much less a friend. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ed, check my desk over there and look for a sling. That’s the only thing I can do for him for a while.” Her gaze returned to her leader’s arm and she poked it again.

He yelled again in pain. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he muttered under his breath.

She only smiled grimly.

Ed returned with a sling in hand. He handed out to the girl and stepped back. “How long will it take for Burn to heal?”

“Without proper medical help… long time.”

“Ed, go to the Team Room, now,” Burn told him.

“Burn—”

“Now!”

“Fine,” the courier huffed and left.

Burn sighed. “Fizz, look, I’m really sor—ah!” he suddenly yelled as the girl tried to tie the sling onto his arm.

It was another attempt to cut him off—to not let him talk and explain. The first time was enough, and she got hurt.

Fizz tied a knot on the sling and let it go. With two of her fingers, she touched the teen’s chin and raised it for his eyes to see hers. She was angry, he could see. With a fast movement of her hand, she slapped the boy’s face.

“What?! Fizz…” He was hurt. Not only physically, but emotionally. He did not mind the burning red cheek.

“Idiot!” she screeched and she stormed off.

He put a hand on his cheek and sighed. ‘I really am an idiot…’ He was hurt, maybe even more hurt than her.

The silent bickering continued, and soon it turned noticeable for the rest of the Dojo. Burn would mostly stay in his room or stay outside the Dojo looking at the street above. Fizz always closed the door to her workshop and did not let anybody in. When they had to cross paths, there was silence between them.

Deets tried to make Fizz talk about what had happened between her and Burn, but she stubbornly stayed quiet. The leader often hid close to them to overhear the conversation, to see why Fizz did not let him apologize. He never got what he wanted.

And one time, he tried to confront her again. Burn wanted to set the record straight: he wanted to apologize and she had to listen.

The teen hid on a hall in the Dojo and waited for a few minutes until Fizz walked on the hall near his. He walked towards her and stopped her in her tracks as he placed his left arm on the wall. “Fizz, we need to talk.”

The redhead said nothing.

“Fizz, I’m serious. All I want to do is apologize and you just—”

“Just what?!” she yelled angrily.

“Just…” he grumbled to himself, until he finally gave up. “You just ignore me! You hit me and it breaks my heart when you do that! I’m just trying to apologize to you for what I—”

“You meant?”

“What?” he said in shock. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

“You did. You said it… You put your heart and anger into saying it. You meant it.”

He could not deny it. He meant it, but not the way Fizz was thinking.

“Say it: “I meant what I said.” Torture me. Break me!”

He did not understand her last sentence. He stood in silence.

“Say it!” she shrieked.

He did not want to, but he had to talk fast before she misunderstood—or cut him off—again. “I meant it, but it was for—”

“Jerk!” she yelled as if he was hurting her. Truth was, he was hurting her, but he did not mean any of it. “You’re nothing but a selfish and arrogant jerk. I hate you!”

And with that, he collapse. His heart broke. His feelings ripped apart. He was defeated.

The tomboy just walked away, without feeling remorse. She let him on the floor—broken.

Days then passed by, the Dojo Leader had just stopped. He stopped eating, he stopped sleeping, he stopped talking, he stopped working—he stopped living. All he did was stay on his room, weakening each and every hour.

The Dojo couriers started to worry on the exact same day they found him lying on the floor. Their worries grew even more when he stopped working. He was the last person on Earth they would have guessed to do such a thing. All he did was lay on his bed.

Each of them tried something different to lift his spirits, but they soon found out—he had none. So Loogie’s jokes, Ed’s suggestions or Deets’s tries to open up to him failed miserably.

“Burn, what are you trying to do, kill yourself?” Deets asked.

His eyes gazed at her. They had changed color from bright fiery orange, to a dull darkening brown.

“He’s not killing himself. He’s dead.”

Deets turned to the door. Fizz stood there, glaring at both of them. ‘She never did came to cheer him up. Maybe she’s the cause of all of this’ The teen turned back to Burn. “Stop doing this to yourself. Why are you doing this anyway?”

“He’s dead. Dead!”

“Fizz, stop it! Why are you being so cruel to him?”

“Ask him yourself.” She scowled at him and then left.

Deets turned again to her leader. “What happened?”

He shifted on his bed. His back to her. ‘I was a victim.’ He closed his eyes. ‘A victim of love.’

A victim of love: a person who loves too much and let himself get injured by his love. No matter what.

‘No matter what.’

It did not matter if his heart got injured, if his soul was dying, or if his body was weakening. If she was safe, he was fine with it. But she was feeling hate; he was not fine with that.

“I hate you!”

But he could not do anything. Anything at all! But yet…

‘I have to do something.’

He had to escape the web he was in—escape the darkness. He had hurt her before, but why was this last time so different? Did she want to be injured? Why did she want to feel hated?

‘Why? Why—ah!’

He falls. He hits the floor headfirst.

“Ow…” It is the first word that comes out of his lips in a long time. He looks up at his bed. ‘It’s a long fall.’

His white and orange bed sheet is tangled from his bed to his feet. His pillow is about to fall too. His discarded courier uniform and gray boots lay next to him on the floor. He takes notice of these things in the darkness of the night.

He wears black and orange-striped pants. Nothing more. This black and orange shirt/tunic lies on the far side of his bed. The air conditioner stopped working a while back, so there are hot nights where the Dojo has to at least discard one item of clothing to sleep well at night.

“Burn…” says a worried, small, but dull voice. He is looking almost everything backwards. He does not need to move to see that Fizz is there. “What happened?” She wears a simple white tank top with short purple pants.

“Like you would care,” he answers.

She runs towards him and helps him by untangling the bed sheet from his feet. “How’d you fall?”

“Like you would care!” he yells. Why is she acting strange? ‘She’s pitying me.’ He shifts so he can sit up straight.

“Let me check your arm.” Fizz kneels down next to him and starts untying the sling. She notices that he winces a little bit when she unties the sling. “It still hurts, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, doctors should start to appear soon.”

“Fizz, I’m sorry!” he can finally say.

“For what? You don’t have anything to apologize for.” She does not look at him. The redhead continues to check his arm.

“Yes, yes I do. I did meant what I say, but it was because you had to leave the fight, not because I don’t want you around anymore. If you leave, then everything breaks apart.”

“You’re fine. You didn’t injure your arm.”

“Fizz, are you even listening to me?” He is getting hurt again.

“I am…”

“Can I ask you something?”

She looks at him in silence.

He rapidly grabs her arm and pulls her towards him in a hug.

She furiously blushes at his action. “Burn!” She tries to pull herself away, but she is trapped between his left arm and his body. She stops fighting and cuddles near him like nothing is happening between them. “Yes…”

“Why do you want me to hurt you?” he asks her in a soft voice. So soft in fact that she wonders if she is talking to Burn or another teen.

Fizz tries to pull away, but she cannot. She knows it could be tighter if Burn’s right arm was not injured. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

“You do know. Why do you want to believe so much that I want to hurt you—to hate you?”

She is silent.

“When you know very well that I love you.”

“You… don’t,” she whimpers. Her eyes start to water.

“Why do you want me to hate you?” he repeats.

Fizz whimpers loudly. She puts her face on his bare chest to control herself, but she cannot—she just cannot. She suddenly breaks out in tears on him. “You can’t love me! You can’t!” she cries in desperation.

In a try to comfort her, Burn places his injured right arm around her, ignoring the pain that comes from doing so. “I can, and I will.”

“I’ll always bring pain to you. You always will to me. It’s the order of things between us. You can’t!” She holds him tighter in her arms. She does not know from where that desperate feeling comes from. He should be the one crying, not her. He should be the one crying for forgiveness, not her crying to stop something between them. “You just can’t…” she whimpers again.

“It’s the order of things to fight between us. It’s normal for us. But we’ll get stronger, I’ll promise you that.”

“B-Bu-But you can’t…”

“I can.”

And they sit there together, embracing each other until Fizz falls asleep. Burn pulls the bed sheet next to him and covers himself and Fizz for the night. He was not going to disturb Fizz to take her to her room—let her enjoy the time she has of being happy again.

He touches her arm; she feels different. She is loose, not tense.

‘She cried for me. I can’t thank her enough…’

She is precious, but he is rough.

He is strong, but she is delicate.

They compliment each other; they help each other—even in fights. They have to fight.

They are victims of love—nothing is going to change that.

A/N: Last one-shot I’m gonna work in a while. First I’ll finish my upcoming stories and then wait for the schoolwork to pile up. Heck, my Geography teacher just gave me homework on day one. Even worse, my P.E. teacher gave us homework before school started about the Beijing Olympic Games. I’m rooting for my home island, Puerto Rico! Whoo!

By the way (if someone asks because they're thinking dirty thoughts), they're sleeping by sitting on the floor. Nothing more happens.