Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Bleeding On the Inside ❯ Precious Things ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I own nothing except this story.

Warnings: Angst, rape, yaoi, and eventual 3x4/1x2 content.

>>>*<<<

PRECIOUS THINGS

So I ran faster but it caught me here yes my

loyalties turned like my ankle in the seventh grade

running after Billy running after the rain these

precious things let them bleed let them wash away

these precious things let them break their hold over

me he said you're really an ugly girl but I like the

way you play and I died but I thanked him can you

believe that sick holding onto his picture dressing

up every day I wanna smash the faces of those

beautiful boys those christian boys so you can

make me cum that doesn't make you Jesus I

remember yes in my peach party dress no one

dared no one cared to tell me where the pretty girls

are those demigods with their nine inch nails

and little fascist panties

tucked inside the heart of every nice girl

Tori Amos

>>>*<<<Bleeding On The Inside - Chapter 3 - Precious Things

It was dark. It was dark and he was alone inside this small space. How did he get here? Where was here? It seemed familiar and yet…

'Why can't I remember? What's going on?'

Silence.

It was thick and heavy. Such terrible silence. It frightened him, but he couldn't explain why. Silence had never frightened him before. Especially those long, meaningful silences he shared with…

"Trowa?"

The name rang out harsh and loud although it was only whispered. There was no reply. With the darkness came cold. He shivered and reached to pull his sweater tighter only to find that he wasn't wearing clothes.'W-why? What's going on? My clothes…'

Naked and vulnerable, he put a hand against the wall of his confined space. He couldn't be sure because of the darkness, but it seemed as though it had shrunk since he felt it last. He pushed against the walls, trying to find the exit. There wasn't one.

"H-help, help me!"

A chuckle sounded outside the room. It managed to sound sinister and gleeful at the same time.

"Please…somebody…"

Suddenly, a great pressure pushed down on his head and neck, forcing him to the ground roughly. He cried out in fear and pain.

"No please!"

The silence swallowed up his cries like water. The pressure on his head increased until his face pressed closely against the ground, thick carpet filling his mouth, suffocating him.

Pain exploded across his eyes. There was a deep throbbing within himself and something sticky and warm trailed down one of his thighs.

A black booted foot swam into his vision. He looked up to see a familiar uni-banged boy frowning down on him, a look of disgust on his usually expressionless face.

"Trowa…help me," he gasped, reaching up a hand to the boy.

Trowa smacked it away, glaring with his deep green eyes.

"Don't touch me! You're disgusting and pathetic. You didn't even try to save yourself! What kind of a Gundam pilot are you? You deserved everything you got."

"T-Trowa…"

The banged boy turned his back and walked away. The pressure behind him increased slightly and a voice chuckled. "Now that he's gone, we can have some fun."

"..no…"

A hand reached down…

And Quatre screamed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Didn't he defend himself? Scream? ANYTHING?"

Duo shook his head and glared at Heero.

"Don't be stupid. He was probably too scared and shocked to act. He feels bad enough as it is. Don't you dare try and heap more guilt onto to him then he's already insisting on putting on himself! You know damn well that there was nothing he could have done to prevent this. For God's sake he was in a Clothing Store in the right part of town! You'd think that in this day and age people would have learned to stop being fucking bastards…No, this wasn't Quatre's fault, that's for damn sure."

Heero bit his lip and ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking towards the top of the stairs.

"I know," he sighed. "I know it's not his fault. I'm just so…how could this happen? Why did this happen?"

Duo shook his head and placed a comforting hand on his lover's shoulder.

"Who the hell knows why terrible things happen to such kind, innocent people? It doesn't matter. All that matters now is helping Quatre."

Heero's eyes drifted once again to the top of the stairs.

"Is he…"

Duo followed his gaze.

"He's asleep now," he said quietly. "But he was pretty shaken up. We'll have to watch him closely. He was trying to scrub the skin off his neck with a washcloth when I found him."

"Shit," Heero cursed. "I'm going to kill the fucking bastard that did this to him."

"Hold on!" Duo said, putting out his hands in a stalling gesture. "I don't want to take any action without Quatre's consent. But you can use that laptop of yours to get some info on the clerk and look up the procedure for rape cases in this town in case Quatre wants to press charges."

Heero nodded and sat down in the living room, pulling out his laptop.

"Mission accepted."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Trowa faltered in his triple spin. He managed to land all right and the crowd didn't seem to notice but the fact that he had stumbled puzzled Trowa. Frowning, he quickly bowed to the audience and went backstage where his sister was waiting to go on.

"Trowa," Catherine called, "what happened out there? You've never missed a simple jump like that before. What's wrong?"

Trowa shook his head, his frown deepening. There seemed to be a pain in his chest. He rubbed it absently.

"I don't know," he admitted. "All of a sudden I just felt…strange. Like someone was tearing me apart from the inside. Something's wrong. I have to go back."

Trowa turned to his sister, pleading with his eyes for her to understand. She sighed and then shrugged her shoulders.

"Go on then. I'll cover for you here. But Trowa…"

Trowa paused in his turn towards the exit.

Catherine offered him a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Be careful, will ya?"

Trowa reached a hand up to trace the outline of Catherine's hair.

"I always am," he said softly.

Then he turned and walked out of the tent, leaving Catherine staring sadly after him.

'I know something's wrong,' Trowa though, moving a bit faster towards home. 'I just know it…'~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As soon as Wufei stepped into the house he knew that something was wrong. For one thing it was quiet. And Maxwell was home. These two things did not add up. Usually the braided menace came running as soon as Wufei opened the door to knock him over and demand that he take him for Chinese food, since Heero was glued to his laptop and wouldn't feed him and the whole world be damned if Duo was about to go one hour more without the sustenance he so desperately needed. But today there was nothing.

Only eerie silence.

'I hope he hasn't fallen off Wing Zero while trying to paint it pink like he did last week,' Wufei thought as he made his way to the living room.

"Maxwell?" he called.

"In here Wufei."

Yep. Something was definitely wrong. Duo never called him by his right name. It was always Wu-man, Wu-wu, even Wu-bear, but never Wufei. He hoped that he hadn't had another fight with Heero. Their grudges could last for weeks on end due to the stubbornness of those two.

Wufei entered the living room and nearly fell back with surprise. Duo was leaning over Heero's shoulder, one hand twisting around his braid in an uncomfortably tight grip, the other gripping Heero's back, white knuckled. Both were staring at the screen, eyes glued to the contents. Heero eyes contained the glitter of barely restrained rage and the hands that clicked the keys shook slightly.

"What's going on?" Wufei demanded. "Is that a new mission or something?"

Duo shook his head and kept staring at the screen. Heero didn't even respond.

Disturbed, Wufei was about to ask his question again when Duo burst out in an angry cry.

"Crap! This is all crap! Who the hell made up this bullshit anyway?! What the fuck are they trying to do, huh? What the FUCK do they expect him to do?"

"Shh…" Heero soothed, clicking the mouse a few more times. "Let's just see if there isn't a way around this before going overboard okay?"

"There isn't a way around it and you know that, Heero," Duo argued, getting up and waving his hands in the air emphatically. "It's this fucking country-"

"Excuse me," Wufei interrupted loudly, "but would someone mind telling me what the hell's going on?"

"Quatre's was raped, that's what's going on," Duo yelled thoughtlessly. "And this stupid country won't let you press charges for rape without personally confronting and accusing the bastard while a bunch of people take notes and decide if you're telling the truth or not! Of all the bloody ridiculous-"

"Would you calm down Duo? You're gonna wake up Quatre if you keep yelling like that."

Duo shut up but he looked decidedly unhappy about it and glared at Wufei as if it were all his fault.

Wufei was in shock. Just the thought of someone so innocent like Quatre being defiled in that manner…it turned his stomach. His eyes narrowed in anger.

"Who did it?" he asked flatly, violence threatening beneath the surface of his usually calm voice.

"As near as I can find out," Heero said, typing a few short inquiries into his highly advanced search engine," the only person working at Cadmy's today was Kyle Whittenstaff…this guy."

A digital photograph of a tall man with dark eyes and neatly cut black hair appeared on the screen. Wufei felt his blood begin to boil.

"A store clerk did this?"

"In broad daylight," Duo nodded. "Fucked up isn't it? And the law won't let us incriminate him unless Quatre agrees to sit in a room with the bastard and accuse him personally while their "professionals" decided whether or not Quatre's making a false accusation or not."

Wufei saw red.

"What the hell kind of justice is that?! How can they expect-"

"Exactly," Duo said darkly. "Quatre won't be able to go through that. Hell, I wouldn't be able to go through that. The guy's gonna get off scott free."

"We'll just see about that," Wufei growled through his teeth and fingered the katana at his side. He rarely had a chance to use it, the only thing left from his clan that had survived the destruction…it was only to be used in honorable causes to correct great injustices. If this wasn't an injustice, Wufei didn't know what was.

His inner seethings were cut off by a strangled cry from upstairs. Heads turned towards the stairway.

"Quatre!" Duo said, already moving, Wufei and Heero following close behind.

"No!" Duo shook his head, turning around suddenly. "You stay down here. If all three of us rush in there he'll be scared shitless. He's already feeling vulnerable enough as it is. He doesn't need the rest of us compiling it."

Then he disappeared up the stairs where more panicked whimpering could be heard. Feeling useless, Wufei plopped himself down on the couch to wait for Maxwell to come back.

'Where's Barton?' he though suddenly. 'Quatre needs him more now then ever.'

"I've sent a few Maguanacs to search for Trowa," Heero said, startling Wufei out of his thoughts. "And I sent the rest of them back to the desert compound. Quatre's in no condition to deal with a lot of people right now."

Wufei nodded his agreement and his eyes wandered to the top of the stairs.

'He'd better show up soon…'

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Quatre. Quatre wake up."

The blond boy awoke to Duo's worried whisper and a hesitant hand on his shoulder. His eyes opened wide and he shrank away from the hand.

"D-Duo?"

The braided boy smiled down at him. "Yeah, Q-man it's just me. That must have been some dream you were having. I heard you all the way downstairs."

Quatre sat up slowly, looking around him. He was wearing his blue cotton pajamas and lying in his own bed. He inspected the sheets quickly…and found no blood. He put a hand to his neck and found the skin smooth and whole.

"It was just a dream," he said wonderingly, looking up at Duo with a dazed expression.

"What was?" asked Duo.

Quatre shook a bit and then threw his arms around his friend.

"I was so frightened!"

Duo's arms came up to embrace Quatre lightly.

"Hey now," he said. "It's all right. I'm here."

Quatre sniffed a bit and then looked at the empty space in the bed beside him.

"Duo, where's Trowa?"

"Oh you don't have to worry about him," said a voice from the doorway. "I already took care of it."

Quatre looked up into a pair of dark, dark eyes.

A twisted grin.

"You…"

Quatre tried to run but found himself tangled in the bedsheets.

"No!"

The looming dark figure in the doorway came closer, hands reaching out towards Quatre. He clawed at the sheets.

"Duo! Help me!"

The braided boy looked at Quatre, puzzled.

"What are you talking about Q-man?"

The man leaned over and grabbed the back of Quatre's head, forcing it to the side. The bedsprings creaked.'No…'

Duo watched, smiling as the man's head came down.

"Don't worry, it won't hurt. Just a little pinch, and then sweet…"

"NOOOOOO!"