Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Bleeding On the Inside ❯ Blood Roses ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: I own nothing except this story.

Warnings: Angst, rape, yaoi, and 3x4/1x2 content. Cutting and suicidal references.

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BLOOD ROSES

Blood roses blood roses back on the street now

can't forget the things you never said on days like

these gets me thinking when chickens get a taste

of your meat chickens get a taste of your meat you

gave him your blood and your warm little diamond

he likes killing you after you're dead you think I'm a

queer I think you're a queer I think you're a queer

said I think you're a queer and I shaved every place

where you been I shaved every place where you

been God knows I know I've thrown away those

graces the Belle of New Orleans tried to show me

once how to tango wrapped around your feet

wrapped around like good little roses Blood Roses

blood roses back on the street now now you've cut

out the flute from the throat of the loon at least

when you cry now he can't even hear you when

chickens get a taste of your meat when he sucks

you deep sometimes you're nothing but meat

Tori Amos

>>>*<<<Bleeding On The Inside - Chapter 8 - Blood Roses

Quatre woke to the light sound of Duo's snoring. He woke, which meant that at one point he must have been asleep.'Heero. Heero must have drugged the tea…'

He considered getting angry but decided that it wasn't worth it. The boy had only been trying to help and he had needed the rest. Besides, under the gentle cloud of codine his sleep was dark and dreamless. No monsters came out of the shadows to make him bleed once more. In fact, it was sad that he had to awaken to this horror again…

He felt a warmth at his side and tensed, carefully opening his eyes to find the braided boy curled up next to him, Heero on the other side, an arm wrapped loosely around his waist. Quatre observed the gentle scene and almost smiled.

Almost.

And then reality came crashing back and he hated both of them with a vengeance, he hated them for being able to sleep without the aid of drugs. He hated the simple touch that Duo could endure from Heero without flinching. He hated the happiness and peace the shared. He hated…

'No, no…how could I? They are innocent, innocent. I'm the dirty one. They're blameless. Look at Duo's face. He's not smiling. There are tear tracks down his cheeks. He's in pain because of me. I don't deserve to feel this. I don't deserve to feel…'

Slowly, Quatre eased himself off the bed and tiptoed into the bathroom, careful not to wake the sleeping pair. Closing the door with a sense of relief, Quatre looked at himself in the mirror above the medicine cabinet.

He look exactly the same as he had always looked, except for the white bandage on his neck and the red rimmed eyes that looked hollowly out at himself. Quatre hated the figure. He lied. He still looked human. He still looked alive and it wasn't true! He was dead! He was!

Quatre's body, which had been considerably numb due to the drug Heero had slipped into his tea, was now shaking its effects. Quatre felt a white hot flash of pain slide throughout his body and his world tilted for a moment before he grabbed the counter in an attempt to stay upright. Gasping, the boy leaned his forehead on the cool porcelain of the sink until his vertigo passed. The room was slightly cold and he shivered, placing his hands around his body as if to protect himself. After a while, the dizziness vanished and Quatre stood and made his way to the edge of the bathtub, where he sat down heavily and debated taking another hot shower. He still felt…

And that was the problem. He felt and he didn't want to. He wanted the nice numbness back. He wanted to lose himself in that white cloud again. He briefly wondered if Heero had any of those codeine capsules left.

A quick search of the medicine cabinet showed that if Heero did, he wasn't keeping them in Quatre's room. Quatre sighed and sat back down on the tub's edge, placing his head between his knees.

'I just want this to go away.'

//Never…//

'I just want this to go away.'

//I'm here in your head.//

'This isn't the way it was supposed to be.'

//This is the way it's always going to be.//'And I…'

//Would you?//

'…can't do this.'

//Help me.//

'Stop!'

//I fear too much. I see too much. I hear too much. I feel too much.//'Please…'

//Too much.//

Laughing. Someone was laughing at him. So loud…Quatre covered his ears with his hands but he couldn't block the sound out. It was there, inside his head.

"Please…" he whimpered, trying to curl in on himself. "I don't want this."

Hands burned trails across his skin, leaving the feel of dripping filth in its wake, a stain of something foul that Quatre couldn't seem to wipe away. It was all over him, smothering him, taking over the body, this body, he hated this body, this body that betrayed him and called others to touch, to take like it was theirs, their body, all bodies, dead bodies, so shiny and waxy and sweaty and heavy heavy falling to the floor, falling…

//Inside, inside, there's something inside! Let it out, let it out, LET IT OUT.//

Sobbing, Quatre searched the bathroom, not even sure of what he was searching for. His hands grasped a bottle of cologne, a hairbrush, a razor…

//Inside, Inside, INSIDE.//

"Quiet! I can't think anymore! I can't…" Quatre shouted but his voice only whispered, only rasped in painful shadows. Even after it was all over, he could not find a voice to speak those words.

The hand that held the razor quivered and then slashed down in a dizzying arc to swipe a shallow cut across the bare flesh of his right thigh. And the voice in his head were strangely silent as the blood welled out and dripped down his leg with a soft pat-pat sound. And Quatre knew a brief peace.

'So…this was what moved inside. This was the violence I kissed. This is ghost disease, this sick inside of me. So pretty…like flower blooming red, red. I'm crazy now. Am I crazy now? I must be, must be.'

"Quatre."

The blond boy turned calm eyes to the figure in the doorway, not concerned with the blood now pooling on the tiled floor.

"Heero."

It seemed there was nothing more to say after that. What could be left? What could one say? Words have no capacity for that and those who try are making a mockery of moments.

The spiky haired boy silently grabbed hand towel from the rack and pressed it to the wound on Quatre's thigh. The washcloth was blue. It turned a pretty purple. Quatre let him wipe off the blood, placing yet another white bandage on the split skin. A small smile marked Quatre's face as he thought of an entire body swathed in white, no ugly flesh peaking through to tempt and stain, except for perfect blossoms of blood roses.

"Quatre…"

Heero paused, uncertain of what to do. There were no resources to fall back on here. There was no safe ground. They couldn't discuss the weather. This wasn't the weather. And comfort was never his strong suit.

"Why?"

And, though he never expected him to, the boy answered.

"Because it made the screaming in my head stop, just for a little while."

And he nodded, because it made sense. Still…

"Will you do it again?"

"I don't know."

"Quatre, this isn't…it's not the end, you know?"

Bitter laughter. It sounds so strange from mouths that never uttered it before.

"Why not? What's left? Is there more? I don't want any more. I've had enough, thank you very much."

"I meant…Quatre he's taken so much from you already. Will you let him take your life? Your love?"

Quatre stared at Heero, his eyes like burning ocean water, clear and brutal.

"Love? No one can love a whore."

Heero opened his mouth to protest but Quatre interrupted him.

"I don't care what Duo said. I don't care that it wasn't my fault. That doesn't take away the fact that I'm no longer innocent. I've lost things, precious things. Trowa loved me for these things. And now I'll never get them back."

"So tell me Heero," Quatre whispered, pressing a palm to the white bandage on his thigh, watching the cotton tinge with red, "tell me; who's going to love me now?"

Heero took Quatre's hand and pulled it from the bandage, quieting it in his own perfect palm.

"Trowa loves you," he said. "Trowa will always love you. No matter what. But even if he doesn't there are still many others that love you."

"It's not the same type of love," Quatre argued. "I can still be the pitiful creature you need to protect, I can still be the younger sibling that follows along behind. But what about the other side of me? Who wants to kiss lips that bleed? Who wants a body that's been used? Who?! Can you tell me that Heero?! Well can you?!"

The boy's eyes shut tight and his body shook violently. Under his breath he murmured soft cries, pleading with an unknown force for a quiet space once again. Or maybe it was himself with which he pleaded. It didn't matter since neither of them knew the answer.

Heero put a hand on Quatre's shoulder and flinched when the boy shied away from his touch.

"Quatre…"

//It wasn't supposed to be like this.//

Arms wrapped around him and for once, Heero let the Perfect Soldier inside himself be silenced, offering comfort that was only human and nothing more. His hands moved in soothing strokes over the blond boy's back, rocking him gently as he screamed into his chest, tears soaking through the thin fabric of his tank top. Over his shoulder Heero saw Duo in the doorway, his face drawn and tired, as if his sleep had been anything but restful. They stayed there, still and silent except for choked cries and murmured words of comfort. Outside the rain had stopped, but he water still flowed around them all, drowning them in its vengeance.