Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chains ❯ Figure Me ( Chapter 98 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Figure Me

“Here,” Omi said, handing over a large manila envelope that had already been opened.

Sitting on the couch, Yohji reached up to take it. It was heavy, filled with a packet of papers. He pulled them out and tried to decipher what he was looking at. From the chair, Aya looked up a little.

“They’re Aya’s papers,” Omi said. “From the doctor.”

Yohji nodded, already flipping through the detailed report of the boy’s health that Kritiker had put together. There were certain expected things, diagnosis written in bold near the bottom of the pages, medical jargon that he parsed as he went. Though the boy was labeled as basically fit (belatedly, Yohji thought, since they had been doing missions for almost two weeks), there were certain reservations.

There were hints at malnutrition (recoupable) and digestive issues still to be sorted but not in need of medication. Vitamins were recommended. Recently healed lacerations, fading marks that he could see with his own eyes. Other things, too. There were ribs that had been broken, healed okay but not perfectly. A slight skull fracture that was in a similar state. A small ankle bone that wasn’t set quite right and might need to be adjusted if it bothered Aya. Remnants of strains and pulls and beatings, healing and healed. It was amazing Aya had no lasting scars.

His eyes were fine, vision 20/20. His blood work normal. His MRIs regular.  

Yohji felt relieved though he hadn’t been overly concerned about any of it. Maybe he should have been. They hadn’t talked about it.

There were other exams that bothered him more, those traumatizing physical evaluations Aya had suffered through. In those results there was testimony to sexual abuse, tender healed tears that reminded him what else Aya had gone through. He looked away from the paper but was unable to look at the boy, his gaze hovering awkwardly around the coffee table. Yohji didn’t like to think about that.

“Can I see?” Aya asked, very quietly.

Surprised by the request, Yohji felt bad that he hadn’t offered. Here he was rifling through Aya’s medical information (and Omi had obviously been through it before him), and Aya had to ask if he could look.

“Yeah, here,” he said, flipping it closed and handing it over. He turned back to Omi who was watching Aya, a sad, searching look on his face. Yohji wondered how much those papers had confirmed for him.

“What time is it?” Yohji asked, mostly for the sake of getting Omi to look at him and away from Aya than for actual information. He was, after all, wearing a watch.

“A little after seven,” the other answered, focusing. “Are you guys going out tonight?”

“Yeah, Aya’s got practice.”

Omi nodded, a vague, distant gesture before he moved out of the room. Yohji’s gaze followed him, not particularly liking whatever it was the kid might be thinking, something which undoubtedly involved Aya.

A heavy breath brought his attention back to the redhead who was staring at a page. Getting up, Yohji walked behind the chair to look over Aya’s shoulder; the boy stiffened at his presence but didn’t move away from him. It was the page on blood work and infectious diseases, and Yohji tried to figure out which section Aya was looking at.

“Which one?” he questioned.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, as if in admission, Aya ran the tip of his finger over a line of bold print: STDs: NONE.

“You were worried,” Yohji said, quietly. They hadn’t talked about that, not at all, what had happened to Aya before. They had never gotten beyond that one vague admission that Aya had been hurt.

The boy nodded, looking solemn. Unable to resist, Yohji threaded his fingers through an eartail, glad when Aya didn’t pull away.

“You can talk to me about it, you know?” Yohji asked.

No, Aya shook his head, fingers brushing along the edge of the collar now.

“We’ve got to talk about it sometime, Aya.”

And though Aya shook his head no again, Yohji had realized that if he wanted any hope of getting anywhere, they did.

~*~

He leaned against the hood of the Seven, cigarette in hand, thinking.

Yohji didn’t really want to be thinking about it. He had, in fact, set out determined not to spend the time brooding over Aya, especially after the boy had made it clear that he did not want to talk about it. But they had to. It was, Yohji had realized, the only way Aya was ever going to trust him. The boy needed to tell him what had happened in order to realize that it wasn’t going to happen with Yohji.

And, maybe, to realize that Yohji wasn’t going to like him any less because of it. He wasn’t sure this was even an issue for Aya yet, but it was to him, and Yohji was determined not to let whatever the other had to say affect him in that regard. The bigger problem was how to get Aya to say it.

~*~

Purple eyes regarded him warily.

“Later?” Aya asked, quietly, hesitantly.

“Tomorrow,” Yohji replied, not pleased with being put off and certainly not going to leave it at an indefinite later that might never happen. But Aya was tired.

“Yes, Yohji.”

~*~

Though he had been eager the night before, as the day wore on, Yohji became increasingly grateful for the reprieve he had granted Aya. There were details to be figured out. First and foremost, where did he intend to have this discussion. He wanted Aya somewhere private (since it wasn’t exactly the type of conversation one could conduct at a restaurant), but, at the same time, somewhere the boy would be at least somewhat comfortable.

The bedroom was out for reasons he didn’t want to think about. He considered the kitchen table, the site of their former talks, but hesitated since Omi or Ken were likely to come through, and Yohji didn’t want to be interrupted on the off chance that he actually succeeded in making Aya talk to him. The odds didn’t seem to be in his favor, but he finally decided on the mission room and made plans to waylay the redhead after work and go down there.

As to how to get Aya to open up to him, Yohji found himself at a loss. He couldn’t very well sit down and demand the other spell out all the details of what had to be a painful past. But something had to happen. Yohji was quick to admit he was curious, but that was dwarfed by the actual need for Aya to speak about his past. They couldn’t ignore it, not when it was obviously haunting him. Besides, there might be details to help save the mysterious sister.

If she could be saved.

Yohji quickly put that thought out of his head. Weiss had had good luck before (with a hell of a lot of bad thrown in between) and he hoped that that would be the case with Aya-chan.

After a bit more consideration, he thought the girl might be an in to conversation with Aya. It was, at least, the best he could come up with. So, armed with this idea and a prayer, he went forth, deciding, en route, not to grab a bottle of tequila from the freezer.

He called that plan B.

~*~

Aya stared uneasily at Yohji as the blonde settled on the couch in the basement room. The lamp on the side table was turned on and it threw odd shadows over his angled features as he leaned forward.

Aya was to the side, settled on the edge of the chair, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, dreading whatever was about to happen. Yohji said he wanted to talk, more specifically, that he wanted to know what had happened to Aya…before.

The younger man didn’t want to think about it. He spent so much time trying to avoid it, to shy away from thoughts of the pain and humiliation, from the very real possibilities that Schuldig was checking in on him, that Crawford would want him back. Why on earth did Yohji want to hear about it? There was no pleasure to be derived from this kind of conversation, nor even any crucial information. There was nothing important in what had happened to him.

“Don’t look like that,” Yohji requested, staring at him above the edge of those dark glasses. “It’s not so bad.”

Yes, it was. It was terrible.

“I just want to know, Aya. It won’t change anything.”

Then ,why? Aya bit his lip to keep the question from slipping out. He didn’t feel good, already on edge and off balance, and it would take policing not to say something wrong. He didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t want Yohji to be angry with him either.

“Please,” the other asked, looking at him earnestly. “Just try.”

There was a long moment of silence, of sitting under that gaze, and Aya realized that Yohji wasn’t going to relent. There wasn’t going to be that frustrated huff, letting him get away without answering. The blonde had gotten very good at waiting out his indecision, and it was obviously now working in Yohji’s favor.

Aya knew he had to say something, but words fled from him. He grappled with it and couldn’t find anywhere to start. What did Yohji even want to know? What was there to tell? Aya had done what he had to; there had been consequences. He had failed…

“Aya,” Yohji broke through his thoughts, “start from the beginning. When did you meet…”

Now the blonde was searching for words, and Aya rallied a bit. He could say that; hadn’t he repeated it a hundred times.

“My master.”

Yohji looked like he wanted to disagree, but he didn’t.

~*~

For a long, silent minute they stared at each other.

“It might help,” Yohji added, squelching the feeling of hesitation at broaching the subject, “It might help us find your sister. We…I need to know.”

Purple eyes lingered, fled. Aya’s hands tangled with each other in his lap. Then he started talking.

“The explosion…you…I told you about that.”

Yohji nodded, leaning back against the couch and determining to listen patiently and quietly for as long as he could.

“After that…after the hospital…he came and took me away. I…I don’t know…a house, sort of. I,” he tugged at the sleeves of his black sweater, pulling it down over his hands, “I don’t know. He said…there was a debt. I…I had to…she, Aya-chan…I had to.”

Yohji nodded again. He wanted to tell Aya it was okay now, but he kept his mouth shut. Aya stared at the floor, curling up more in the chair as he talked until his legs were drawn up in front of him.

“He…one of his men…he called him my keeper,” a deep breath, and a tug at the collar, “he gave me this, took me away…I…I was his now, my Master’s…property. A slave. I…fought…for a while. He…he had to…teach me…things.”

Aya pressed his forehead against his knees, his arms wrapped around them now, tucked into himself. He said no more, despite the silence, just breathed deeply like he was trying to calm himself down.

“What things?” Yohji finally asked.

“You know,” Aya said flatly. “You already know.”

“Please tell me.”

“He…he taught me not to talk back…not to…not to fight...to follow the rules. I…I wasn’t very good at it.”

There might have been sarcasm there, but Aya’s voice was so quiet that Yohji wasn’t sure.

“He…punished me.”

“How?”

Aya lifted his head suddenly to glare at him.

“Why do you want to know that?” the boy asked him angrily.

“I need to know,” Yohji returned, calm. He had expected the anger, hoped for it even.

“You need to know what?” Aya snapped. “You need to know what they did to me? Don’t you know enough? That they ruined my life, that he took everything from me? Do you need the gory details? Do you need to hear how he beat me with a whip until I bled? How he tied me to his bed and fucked me?! Is that what you want to know?!”

“Aya…”

“I lived through it, Yohji! I don’t want to fucking talk about it!”

“I know you don’t, and I get that. But if you want to move past this—”

“They’ve got my sister. And he could come here any day, any minute, and that’s it. I can’t…I can’t just ‘move past it.’”

“Listen to me,” Yohji said, reaching without thinking, only to have Aya jerk backwards. The blonde relented the action but pressed on with his thoughts, “You’ve got to get that idea out of your head. They’re not going to come in here, and they’re not going to take you back.”

Aya said nothing, but his look was more than incredulous.

“Aya, seriously, look where you’re living. No one’s sneaking in here, at least not without a pretty nasty surprise. And ,even if they did,” he sighed at Aya’s nod, “even if they did, you could fight them off. You realize that?”

No, Aya shook his head, both hands searching out the collar like he was checking that it was still there.

“Fuck, Aya. What’ve you been doing these past weeks? Training ,right? Didn’t you take out those guys? You’re too damn strong to worry about these assholes. If they come here, you kill them.”

The look was different now, worried, verging on fear, at least the eyes were.

“None of us would blame you,” Yohji hurried to say, trying to ally that fear. “If the house is compromised, Kritiker will be okay with it too. I don’t think you have to worry about it, honestly, but if something does happen, you’re strong enough to deal with them.”

No, Aya shook his head again.

“They’re…” he started, stopped, shook his head again.

“What?”

“I can’t….they…he….”

Yohji waited, thinking that Aya was much quicker to speak when he was angry.

“They’re not normal.”

~tbc~

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