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The Chains We Wear	By : LadyYeinKhan Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 13123 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
AN: I'd like to start this with something that I feel like I say about all of the updates: I’m not very happy with it.

The last few months have been hard. First the tsunami and earthquake (you may or may not be aware that I am actually living in Japan as an assistant language teacher. I am no where near the affected areas. Please, keep those people in your thoughts) and convincing my family that I don’t want to come home. Yet.

Then the rapid and total deterioration of a long, beloved friendship. It was the friend’s own doing but apparently I am the one suffering more for it since whatever it is he wanted out of me he apparently found in a new girlfriend not a week later.

The new school year and the changing of my school’s staff and losing my work computer to a new teacher, and with it my printer and internet access which is essential to worksheets and English boards.

This chapter probably has the most time shifts and personality shifts yet and I tried to make them not too jarring.

I’m also not going to comment on what I did to Trowa save to say that I flinched a few times writing it, and in no way do I support abuse of a child in any way, shape, or form. If you are not interested please skip sections 2 and 4.

As always, enjoy.

Chapter 13:

Trowa didn’t need to speak Farsi to know that Fahd was cursing. He dropped into pilot mode so quickly, stepping back and blanking his face the moment Nizar cleared his feet, that by the time Nizar reached the paper-covered coffee table Trowa knew he was about as noticeable as a lamp.

A much better state of being than the one where he wondered if he could strangle Heero without getting shot.

Nizar snatched the phone from a pacing, hissing Fahd. Ignoring whatever Fahd spat, Nizar shooed him away while barking into the phone. Nizar blinked and mumbled. He blinked again, and started to pace. On the third circuit, when his back was to Fahd’s white-toothed sneer, he started cursing.

Trowa almost immediately lost interest in Nizar. Without knowing Farsi, there was little he could learn, apart from Nizar being a pacer and tending to twist his free hand into trigger shapes. But Fahd moved with an agitation completely foreign to Trowa. He paced in small, tight circles while thumbing restlessly through papers scooped up from the coffee table. The muscles in his jaw tightened with each flip. If he was closer, Trowa was sure he would hear his teeth grinding.

But the narrowed eyes never actually moved. Fahd burned two, sightless holes into the exact same spot on every page. At some point in his pacing, his hand started to rise until it rested by his chin. Then further, until his lips, which parted so he could gnaw at his thumbnail.

I could use this, Trowa realized as he watched Fahd start throwing moist glances at Nizar. If he could learn how to nudge Fahd into this state—where only gruff but oddly paternal gestures from Nizar dried eyes and freed his thumb from sharp teeth—maybe he could wiggle his way out of this insanity. Or at the very least bring some semblance of balance back to his life.

And eventually file an anonymous DOA report for the Preventors. If he was lucky.

Trowa became distinctly aware, while tilting his head at the way Fahd sucked his lip between his teeth and sawed, of the duffle bag still on his shoulder. Even half-empty, it pulled on his right side, making stepping—and exposure—too much of a risk. Slowly he brought his hand to the strap and eased it down his arm. The nylon whispered through his fingers as the bag lowered. Fahd’s head snapped around.

He was out of practice.

Fahd’s face straightened into its usual smirk quicker than Trowa’s could blank. If he hadn’t actually watched Fahd almost saw through it, Trowa would never notice the dull line in his lower lip. He stuffed the papers casually under his arm.

“There you are. It’s been a while,” he said, as if he hadn’t dragged Trowa off to bed earlier in the week, and woken him twice with late phone calls.

He tilted his head. “You’re looking a little bleak. That unhappy to be out of the house?”

Trowa ground his teeth. If Heero hadn’t insisted on being so damn helpful while the circus troupe was still around to provide “cover”… Distraction thoroughly destroyed, he folded his arms and shrugged.

“How was the ride over?”

Apart from the knuckle and jaw ache after imagining the chains lashing his bike to the bed of truck cutting through the weave of the old towels that covered it, every time Nizar turned? “Fine.”

“Then act like it. You act like he stuffed you in a trunk.”

That sounded good. Plenty of air and no blindfold. “I don’t like cars.”

“It’s a truck.”

“It has doors and a steering wheel.”

“You drove suit transport trucks before.”

“Doesn’t mean I liked it.”

Fahd rolled his eyes. “Is there anything you do like?”

Trowa dropped down for his bag, sneering at the zipper. Fahd had closed the distance before the strap was on his shoulder, catching his jaw when he rose. Fahd squeezed the joint when Trowa reared and clenched his fists.

“Besides motorcycles and music.” The grip loosened just enough that Trowa couldn’t bite the thumb stroking his jaw. “Vegetables.” Fahd grinned. Trowa swallowed and the smile widened. “Turning cutlery on me.”

Trowa clenched his teeth as the thumb neared his lips. Touched. Tapped. Fahd chuckled at Trowa’s straining self-restraint, nudging the locked knees. I will not bite, I will not bite.

Fahd’s thumb spread apart his lips and pushed against the white enamel. Trowa took too long to unclench his jaw.

“I was thinking cake tonight. Hm? Would you like that? We can have a nice, big knife to play with today.”

Nizar let out a string of curses Trowa barely heard. By the time he had finished, Fahd was well out of punching, let alone biting, range.

“Unfortunately,” Fahd said removing the papers from under his arm. “that will have to wait until after I finish some unexpected business. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Go make yourself comfortable,” he said, thumbing through the ruffled corners while waving in his direction. “I’ll come to the bedroom just as soon as I’m done.”

Trowa stared long enough that Fahd had to acknowledge him. He put a bit more force behind his shooing hand. Trowa stiffened. Fahd tilted his head. When he did nothing more than fist the shoulder strap, Fahd shifted towards the couch and waited, tapping his foot. Like I’m some over-indulged brat on the verge of a temper tantrum.

If he could break the bastard’s nose in the process… Because you’ve been so successful so far.

Blanking his face, Trowa turned. Fahd muttered behind him; he could practically hear the eye roll. Once in the hall, Trowa lingered, letting the angry flush light his face. He glared between the bedroom, living room, and locked door nestled between them.

It was not the only room he hadn’t been in, but it was the only one locked. Trowa didn’t doubt it was Nizar’s and that he would more-likely-than-not find some very useful things in it. Or at least something fragile to substitute for a skull. He was no Duo but there were a few paperclips in the bottom of the bag. Less than five minutes.

And in that five minutes, Fahd or Nizar would cross just a little too close to the door in their hurried, hissing conversation and he would find himself not only in the bedroom but probably tied to the bed with that damn vibrator up his ass. Again.

Trowa didn’t slam the bedroom door, but it was only with the greatest of effort.

He took a quick look around, noting the hurried bed-making and lack of gun on the dresser, before dropping his bag and stamping towards the recently-straightened desk. Even if there wasn’t anything useful, there had to be at least scissors or a letter opener which he could use to ruin something. Like the books in the corner.

“What are you, seven?” He muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “At this rate you’re going to deserve a damn spanking.”

Because he was not running of the room in search of soap—not that he had said anything, anything at all—Trowa sat in the desk chair to search the drawers like a normal person.

The schematics were gone. He had hoped to find them folded and stuffed beneath notebooks, pens, and English-Farsi/Arabic/Egyptian dictionaries. But Nizar seemed to be the sort who would worry about cresses fading the ink. In one of the side drawers, he did find what looked to be emails and few reports. Only three he could read. One he supposed would be English, except it only had a time. The other two were written in such horrible French he wasn’t sure he could read it.

None were helpful.

Trowa flipped through the reports and a dictionary for a full ten minutes before pushing both away. Until he learned the alphabet—and he wasn’t sure how to study squiggles—

He paused, hand on the drawer handle, looking over at the book-lined corner. The likelihood anything even remotely resembling an elementary language textbook being nestled between the thick volumes was less than a hundredth. And that was rounding up. Still, Trowa gathered up the topmost report and a likely dictionary. He dumped them in the chair and looked at the shelves.

Even without being able to read Farsi, Trowa knew it was pointless. No bright colors and characters, no curlicue titles. Just dull reds and browns, an occasional blue. Most of the shelves were stuffed with leather-bound volumes as thick as his hand, the spines cracking from use. The new versions were at eye-level, but even they were too dark and too thick to be anything but beyond advanced.

So much for thinking Fahd had any sort of sentimentality.

He was going to stuff the report in his bag and the dictionary back in the desk when he saw it: a strip of faded pink poking out between pages two shelves down.   Trowa bent and slid it out. Book glue fluttered down from behind the half-severed spine. He thumbed the fraying corners of the cover before turning over in his hands. Pieces of countries had peeled away from the globe on the cover. He had no idea why Fahd would keep a history book and not, say, a collection of children’s stories but it was something of a start.

There was a bit more English than he would have thought, but Trowa was too distracted by the explosion of handwriting to notice.

There was faded pencil or ink on nearly every page, so much sometimes that, had he been able to read, Trowa would have struggled to see the printed texts through the mess. That didn’t surprise him. He was well aware that, as long as it didn’t belong to a library, notation inside books was perfectly appropriate. In some cases, encouraged. What surprised him were the two distinct sets.

He recognized Fahd’s right away by the interchangeable, and sometimes totally illegible, way he wrote his fours and nines. It had gotten a little better as he grew. But not by much. The other was so much Fahd’s opposite, it tilted Trowa’s head. Crisp and small, the letters snuggled and wiggled into every available white space. They swooped and curled in a totally unnecessary, almost feminine, way. Did Fahd inherit the book from a sister, or a female cousin?

Trowa pressed his fingers together like he held an invisible pencil. He had learned to mask and change his handwriting, mostly through mimicry and eventually forgery, of individual pieces. He memorized a letter here, a line there, and soon had a dozen different hands, most of which were too ugly to stay at the forefront of his mind longer than it took to lie on a form. This he liked: the way the script flowed across the page, like smoke. Trowa started tracing a sentence.

On the fourth pass, he was comfortable enough with the physical act of memorizing to let his mind wander. The sentence was underneath a picture of Queen Elizabeth I, if his limited knowledge of English history and Renaissance costuming was accurate at all. The caption was blacked out with pen. The note taker obviously strongly disagreed with what the author had to say.

Trowa lifted his hand from the page. He started tracing the alphabet in the air, watching his hand as it added wisps to the angles and curves. After the third time, he let his hand move alone and thumbed through the book.

She was thorough, this note taker, and after the fourth picture with royalty, women, or both, with a furiously blacked-out caption Trowa didn’t doubt it was a woman. He seriously started to wonder what the book had to say, if only to learn what she was spitting back at it.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, trying to puzzle meaning out of pictures he knew and words he didn’t. It was long enough that his wrist started to ache. Worse, he yawned.

Trowa, in spite of hissing orders otherwise, looked at the bed, with its slick, cool sheets, and thick, warm duvet. And its chains in the bedposts and its manacles under the pillow. But since Fahd wasn’t here…

Sneering, Trowa slouched into the chair. He crushed the book into his stomach when his back complained and he had an almost nostalgic thought about the way the mattress curved around his body.

Think that again and I’ll really give you something to complain about.

It wasn’t that his own bed was uncomfortable; Trowa had actually been quite satisfied with it until his body learned there was a place it could sleep without nightmares. Then it became an almost nightly struggle that nothing short of sedatives, or silk sheets and manacles, was going to cure.

He was this close to ordering horse tranquilizers.

Trowa simply couldn’t relax in bed, body or mind. Nothing short of total, flesh-numbing exhaustion let his muscles relax enough, heart and pulse rate drop enough, for sleep. Worse, his body was becoming accustomed to the treatment, flushing with the first stages of arousal after ten minutes of tossing and panting and self-induced muscle cramps.

It demanded the nightly attention. Usually twice. Sometimes three times if it knew, as apparently it could, that Trowa was in for a particularly rough night. Because once Trowa had exhausted himself enough to sleep, his mind let loose nightmares he hadn’t had since before the war and thought, until he had met Fahd, he would never have again.

It’s not the bed, he, or rather a part of him that sounded irritatingly like himself but had better not be unless it wanted an improvised lobotomy, thought.It’s the--

Think it and I’ll drug us so stupid that not even a coffee-high Duo with rights to the stereo will wake us up.

The fact that Fahd was with him in said bed for each restful night had nothing to do with it. Fahd had, after all, been with him on the bathroom floor and beneath his own sheets, breathing heavily in his ear through the phone. He hadn’t slept then. It’s not the voice, it said while Trowa shoved the quick blush down. It’s the arm.

The arm? The same one that held him flush against Fahd’s chest? The one that coiled so tightly around his middle Trowa had to lie perfectly still unless he wanted to encourage two rounds in one night? The one with the audacious hand, which stroked his stomach in lazy lines and circles the second Trowa started to shift and whine from—

It was not the arm. Trowa could live without that iron bar in bed.

Trowa shuddered as the laughter, which sounded a little too much like his own rarely-used snicker, sent a shiver up his spine. Sneering, Trowa hoisted himself out of the chair. He flung the book in the seat before stamping over to the bed.

It was not the arm, not the warmth, not the man, and he was going to prove it.   Trowa toed off his shoes. He didn’t need anything but an out-of-his-price-range mattress for a good sleep. He yanked the covers down, dislodging a pillow in the process. Steel winked up at him. Huffing, Trowa shoved both handcuffs and chains off the bed. If Fahd insisted on using them, he could pluck them from under the bed. Which he would.

Trowa flung a pillow down by one of the posts at the end of the bed before cocooning himself in the pulled-back duvet. On his side, he glared at the door and wished, not for the first time, that it locked from the inside instead of out. But Fahd liked him awake, and preferably kicking, when he chained him to the bed, so at least there would be no surprises.

He blanched at how little that bothered him and pulled the cover over his head.

*-----*-----*

Trowa only realized he was having a nightmare when he felt pain in his knees instead of his arms, yanked as they were behind him at a breakable angle, or his jaw, propped open so the still-featureless mercenary could plunge his cock down his ten-year-old throat. Of course, knowing he was dreaming didn’t make waking any easier. Trowa didn’t fully claw out of it until after the mercenary came. By then, he had been moved enough that he could confuse dream and reality—if the mercenaries hadn’t caught him throwing up after lunch or it wasn’t dark.

And since he had learned to stop choking by then…

Trowa knew he was blindfolded even without the pressure headache building at his temples (he tossed his head and grimaced as the cloth refused to move an inch). Other than the sliver at the very bottom of his line of sight, blinding him with pieces of white carpet and his own jean-covered thighs, it was perfectly dark. He flexed. Wrists and ankles rubbed against metal. Trowa pulled, pitching forward until his hips and shoulders screamed from the awkward angle he and the chains forced on them.

Easing himself back, Trowa tilted his head up, growling less from the position than from being proven wrong.

He expected a hand, either stroking his hair in a manner appropriate for a dog or else ripping it out by the roots while dragging Trowa’s head back. Trowa expected him to chuckle at the feral but pointless noises. Fahd didn’t.

He didn’t do anything. He stood, somewhere out of the sliver’s range, and breathed. Trowa’s pulse spiked after a few seconds of it because even when he was balls-deep in him, Fahd never panted like that. Considering he was usually moaning and screaming at that point, however, Trowa just might not have noticed.

The floor creaked and a flash of black stepped into the sliver. The black sock stood, inches away from his knees. The toes curled against the carpet. Trowa swallowed and tried to draw close his spread knees. The foot moved, but away from him. It paced, never less than a few inches from him, just on the edge of his vision. Trowa couldn’t let go of the breath he was holding. Not even when it started choking him.

This is a new game of his, Trowa decided on the sixth silent and touchless pass. His unwillingness at ending up manhandled into irritating or embarrassing positions was boring Fahd. One could only take so much sneering and glaring resignation—and it was resignation, not acceptance, never acceptance. Fahd had obviously reached his limit and needed a newer way of tormenting him.

Damn it all if it was starting to work.

Trowa couldn’t stop himself from flinching as the foot suddenly crossed the invisible line. Fahd didn’t chuckle. He didn’t tsk. He didn’t even try to lure out a snap or snarl with a thinly-veiled comment. He stood and panted, long enough to make Trowa twist his hands and swallow. Then a hand tangled in his hair and pulled him back. Trowa heard the distinct sound of a zipper and the hand squeezing his stomach loosened.

He resisted, of course, rearing back from the head that nudged at his lips, but without his usual enthusiasm. One sharp tug of his hair was enough to open his mouth with a far-from-convincing growl. Trowa tried not to think about what it meant.

Everything had to be different blindfolded, the same way everything was different with a head cold. It was the only way Trowa could explain (without panicking) the unfamiliarity of the feel and the smell of the flesh. Even the taste, as he wrapped his tongue around the thick head, seemed off. If there’s such a thing as an “on” taste for a blowjob. It meant nothing. The problem was a lack of sensual memory. It wasn’t like Fahd asked him to suck him off every time, after. The head lunged at the back of his mouth. For the sake of breathing, Trowa stopped trying to explain anything.

Being blindfolded had an advantage or two. Without fingers or skin or pubic hair to distract him, Trowa could fantasize himself into his favorite hanger rather easily. Fahd didn’t seem particularly interested in Trowa’s participation, gripping his head and thrusting early, so Trowa lay his tongue aside and indulged.

He could see Heavyarms’ gleaming paint and beautiful tangles of colored wires, feel heat from the overhead lights and the metal panel in his hands.   The Gatling gun chamber reeked of gunpowder and oil. Trowa breathed deeply. Setting the panel aside, he shifted closer to check damage and count—

Trowa choked as the head suddenly plunged down his throat. The dream cracked as he panicked, gagging around the head lodged in his throat.   The bed creaked. Trowa’s head was carefully tilted back. The panic lessened as breathing got easier. But he didn’t dare take a deep breath: not with his nose buried in pubic hair and a cock rocking steadily into his throat.

Focus. Gun maintenance. Panel off and cartridges accounted for—he was never going to forgive Heero for wasting his bullets in his fight with Zechs—Trowa started his meticulous dismantlement and cleaning. He flinched as something creaked just past his head. Maybe he should see about tightening the scaffolding joints first. Might want to dim the lights while I’m at it. The hanger was warm normally but the bright overheads were suffocating, sending sweat trickling down the back of his sweater like—

Fahd ripped out of his throat. Trowa was too busy trying not to vomit to wonder after the reaction right away. The nauseated, cold sweat had diminished some when the hands returned, pushing up his sweater and down into his jeans. The fingers were frantic and curious. Something thin and metallic brushed against his penis before resting between his legs. Trowa shivered even after it warmed against his slit.

“So that’s the big secret.”

At first, Trowa thought it was one of the guards. He dismissed that idea almost immediately. He had heard them speak English once or twice and while it was clear, it was heavily accented. Who else had access, or be given access, to the bedroom. Nizar? If it was Nizar, he’d be feeling brains, not fingers, oozing down his back.

Not that who it was actually mattered. All that mattered was that it was not that bastard, because that bastard never wore rings (apart from a large signet Nizar occasionally insisted on and which never failed to cause a minor tantrum), his English was slightly more accented, and he already knew.

Whoever-it-was managed to push Trowa’s jeans down while he thought and analyzed and panicked. The denim bunched uncomfortable around his knees. The man was still panting. Trowa lunged towards the heavy sound with his head. He missed and the first clasp of his corset came undone. His wrists and ankles burned as Trowa pulled and twisted. Trowa felt the first rivulet of blood dripping along his finger as the second and third popped open.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he purred. He’d heard it before, this low lilt with the subtlest traces of an accent. British? Australian? Scottish?   Trowa knew it but it danced just out of reach. “Just relax and it won’t hurt”

The voice was breathing in his right ear. Warm, large fingertips ran slowly down his exposed spine. The other hand gripped the corset’s front, right between his still-covered breasts.

Trowa turned into the voice with bared teeth.

He tasted blood, skin, and cologne without cringing. Through the yelping, Trowa heard his own pulse and a low sound he dimly recognized as his own snarling. The fingers dug and pushed, clawing at flesh and bone. Trowa clenched his teeth. Even when the hand abandoned trying to snap his ribs and ripped at his scalp instead, Trowa held on. The blood lost its taste, the hand eventually left, and Trowa felt a swoop of feral glee. Is this how lions feel?

Trowa only briefly wondered if he could get used to the wild adrenaline rush when he gasped, jolting away as pain flared and faded from his side. It jumped to the other, licking at his kidney. Trowa squirmed away and into a slap. The third tongued his stomach and this time Trowa heard the crackle. He crawled away from the Taser, backing into the bed frame. He tugged Trowa forward by the hair.

“Fucking bitch,” he growled, yanking his head back and shoving the hard plastic underneath his chin. “Should be fucking thanking me.”

Trowa’s rapid calculations (how much voltage did it take for a taser to cause serious nerve or brain damage when held so close to both brain and pulse) screeched to a halt. Thank him? He almost growled, but didn’t. Trowa even unlocked his jaw. The hand left his hair, and the penis returned. Trowa recognized the smell of precum-soaked flesh. Baring his teeth for less than a second, Trowa snapped at the head.

Trowa’s teeth snapped around nothing; the man still yelped. He followed the noise, twisting and snapping without thought of ridiculousness. On his third try, when he was starting to growl like a starving, cornered animal, Trowa saw white.

Once, when he had been young and stupid, Trowa had caught a live wire. For a brief moment, his body had been a torch, the white-hot center grasped in small but valuable hands.

Trowa hadn’t felt that pain right away. He had become flame, unconscious of his own lethal body heat until one of the mechanics ripped him from the wire. It was another day before paralyzed nerves recovered even a fraction of sensation and by then he had been on round-the-clock pain medication.

Now, he felt everything. The fire wasn’t in his skin, sucking away feeling; it was under it, tearing through veins and muscles. It licked and slit nerves, doubling the ends to drag out pain. Trowa’s head lolled back, mouth open as the white-hot center barreled up his spine from between his legs. It bumped against the scream trapped in his throat, and ebbed.

Trowa, overly aware of his own trembling and the smothered groan creeping out, held—choked on—that scream until the third bolt. White pushed through it and rushed up the last few inches of his spine.

Then he screamed and didn’t stop.

*-----*-----*

In his many years of servitude and service, Nizar had learned to expect quite a few things: the stupidity of the influential, the infantilism of the wealthy, the perpetual dissatisfaction of the ruling family. Humans never changed; people in power less so. He had found it prudent to learn how to anticipate the actions and demands of his superiors. It saved his jaw quite a bit of pain.

But Fahd, being the exception to almost every rule, never ceased to surprise him. Which was why he stared unashamedly open-mouthed, reports fluttering from his face to his feet, while the crown prince bolted from the room.

Nizar ran a hand over his face. Even as a child, Fahd had never been quite this volatile. Damn mutt. He was tempted, as he sneered down at the mess, to collect and organize the reports with deliberate slowness. His own curiosity, however, got the better of him. People just didn’t scream like that when everything was okay.

He made it down the hall—not quite running because he didn’t actually care why it was screaming—just in time to see the redhead fly headfirst into a side table. It was one of the ugly Western ones that came with the penthouse so Nizar wasn’t too upset when it shattered. The former bodyguard-turned-informant groaned, lifting carefully from the wood. Nizar watched him long enough to make sure there was no serious bleeding before heading for the bedroom.

The mutt has stopped screamed. Nizar almost wished he hadn’t. The high, hysterical crying was somehow worse. Fahd knelt by him, trying to uncurl the fetal position, pry open the mutt’s tightly pressed knees, move the trembling hands grasping the inflamed skin between his legs. He rocked sideways as he struggled against Fahd, knee flipping the taser near it.

Nizar’s penis twinged in sympathy.

“Nizar,” Fahd barked. Nizar nearly ran to the dresser, yanking open the middle drawer. He cursed when he found the med kit was not in the back right, underneath the ceremonial robe Fahd flat-out refused to wear. After dismantling the rest of the middle, and the top, drawer, he found it in the bottom drawer, nestled among some gags and cuffs. Nizar ignored the logic of it.

Nizar dropped down on the other side and helped Fahd pry him open. The sobbing mess screeched as he shifted between the trembling legs. He couldn’t quite kick but the squirming was just as irritating.

“Stop it,” Nizar growled.

He tossed his head. “Promised.”

“I didn’t promise anything, stay still.”

“You said! If I didn’t kick. You said!”

Nizar glanced up as something other than hysteria pulled at him. The eyes were wider than he remembered, ringed with long, soaked lashes. They were lighter, too, the yellowish-green of sun sickened grass. He could have flinched at the ugly color; instead Nizar shivered, because the changed irises were only a thin band of ill around large, black pupils.

He had never been happier about adding sedatives and a syringe to the med kit than right now.

Not that he appreciated it. He thrashed as much as pain and hysteria allowed the second he saw the needle. After almost ten minutes of tantrum, and Fahd nearly crushing his windpipe, Nizar managed to jab it in his arm.

Neither of them moved until the dull eyes rolled back into his head and he started wheezing. Fahd leaned back and watched before gathering him into his arms. His head lolled onto Fahd’s shoulder. He breathed about broken promises into his neck. Fahd shuddered and laid him on the bed.

Fahd was pulling the sheets over his thighs, and Nizar was deciding how to treat possible genital burns, when the floor at the door creaked. They stared at each other, prince and informant, until Fahd’s lips curled. The informant shrank back. Chains and manacles flew out of the way as Fahd lunged after him. And then there was the sharp splintering of breaking furniture.

Nizar tucked the sheet around the dazed pilot’s shoulders. It was probably better to wait for an actual doctor anyway.

“We only have one informant in the Preventors, my lord, and making another will take time,” Nizar sighed. Fahd didn’t seem to particularly care, what with the tightness of his fingers in the man’s hair and the forearm around his neck. But choking him wasn’t quite satisfying; he threw him away soon enough.

“Jesus,” he gasped, one hand in his hair and the other on the wall. “Jesus, and you asked.”

Fahd stopped before the bedroom door. The essential-but-insignificant idiot had been steps from dismal. Nizar saw the hand twitch. He spread his arms to make ripping the gun from the holster easier on Fahd and his coat.

He didn’t say anything as Fahd held the gun inches from his forehead. He didn’t move either. Fahd had to cock it before he started to kneel, the barrel never leaving the space between his eyes.

“My lord.”

“One reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“You…you said,” he answered, swallowing at the obvious stupidity of it.

Fahd stamped on his shoulder, shoving him back onto the floor. Eyes and barrel roamed over the body, deciding the best target.   Head, chest, penis. Head. Chest.

“You think with the wrong parts,” Fahd said. “Removing them should make you smarter.”

“It will make him dead and Preventors suspicious.”

“He’d live.”

“Not long.”

Fahd sneered and Nizar worried, for a moment, that the boy was enough of…whatever he was to make Fahd kill the man.

Lowering the gun, Fahd kicked trembling thighs hard. “Get up,” he spat. Nizar was impressed; the man was quick for his size, scrambling to his knees and pressing his forehead to the floor before Fahd returned the gun. “I want everything in two weeks. Or in two weeks, I will take it.”

“O-of course, my lord.”

“Go.”

Nizar waited until he had heard the door slam after scrambling footfalls. “Satisfied?”

“Don’t.” Fahd snarled.

“I don’t know what you expected—”

“Nizar.”

“—after giving such a stupid order.”

“Don’t you have a phone call to make?” he hissed, storming back into the bedroom.

Fahd didn’t bother with shutting the door, or even keeping his back to it. He stretched out along side of the unconscious pilot. Leaning up on his elbow, Fahd watched him, reaching out occasionally to move strands of hair that fell into the pilot’s face as he tossed. Nizar managed to keep the surprise out of his voice as he commissioned one of the base doctors—even when fingers lingered against cheek and lips, even when Fahd ducked his head with an almost guilty sigh.

He was, or rather had, become something to Fahd. That much was obvious. Nizar just wasn’t sure what. Despite the caresses and the misery, the black eyes gleamed with their usual possessiveness, the body before him still both project and tool. But it was milder. Much milder, and tinged with something not quite affection. Not yet, anyway.

Nizar, shoving the phone in his pocket, turned back towards the living room. As long as he could keep it from causing disaster, “what” didn’t really matter. He hoped.

*-----*-----*

“Again? For the love of God, Evan, you freaking promised.”

It took him a minute to realize Doc was talking to the captain, and another to realize he didn’t like it. Captain didn’t like it much, either. The grip on his arm tightened enough for bruises.

“Just do your job, Matthew,” he said.

“Why?” he asked, running smooth hands over an equally-smooth face and blonde hair. “So he can come back tomorrow? Or in a few hours?   It’s a waste of my time and my stitches.”

“You can’t leave him like this.”

“Three days. They couldn’t wait three days. He’s still wearing the goddamned bandage.”

“Would you just stitch him up?”

“I don’t want to be stitched up,” he muttered, pulling on the grip. Captain yanked back hard enough that he swayed sideways.

“I can’t have you bleeding all over camp.”

He wouldn’t have bled over camp. He would have bled over the crates where the mechanics had left him. Of course, those had been clip crates, so maybe the blood would have ruined them. They would never leave him alone if there was nothing to shoot.

Doc frowned at them, leaning forward in his chair. The narrow blue eyes ran slowly along the edge of his skin. He swallowed and looked away, as if lack of eye contact could protect him from Doc’s too-thorough once over.

“Get him on the cot,” he sighed.

Captain could pick him up and carry him. If he struggled, Captain would, regardless of his back. It was a good thing he was getting dizzy, then; pulling and dragging his heels just a little didn’t bother anyone much. Doc dumped all-too-familiar tools and bottles next to him before pulling up his shirt. He hissed as the stained cotton stuck.

“What the hell did they do?”

“You know, you ask that every time.”

“Does that look razor-made to you?”

“Maybe a dull one,” Captain admitted after a moment.

He didn’t think it had been a razor, dull or otherwise. Razor cuts usually didn’t hurt until after he was bleeding for a couple seconds. It was slower, too, a sting that sharpened into hurt. Unless they pulled at it. Then it hurt much sooner. What they used had hurt right away, pulling while cutting. Actually, he wouldn’t mind if they used whatever-it-was more often. It had taken a lot less time for his back to numb.

The belt numbed him fast, too, but he would take the razor over the belt any day.

“This has got to stop.” Doc said, reaching for a vial that was just outside the corner of his eye. He didn’t need to see it to know what was in it was clear and what it was for. Captain yanked his shirt over his head, bending him forward to keep his fists down.

“I’ll talk to them.”

“You better do more than talk,” Doc said. He flinched away from the hand suddenly on his back.

“I don’t want it!”

Captain pressed down on the back of his head until his mouth hit his knees. “What more do you want?”

“This has to stop. He’s—” The needle nudged still sensitive skin.

“Do it without!”

“And have you crying the whole time?” Doc asked. The needle slipped under his skin.

He felt the cold sharpness of the tip and then the hotter one of the medicine. Then he didn’t feel much at all, except the start of the mix. Heavy and light, like he was in two different places, and one of those places was very high, and neither was safe.

He felt the distant poke and pull and tried count the stitches, blinking hard when he missed one. One, two, four. Blink. Three, four, seven. Blink. Twelve. Thirteen. Thirty. But then the high place drifted a little higher and counting was too hard.

“I’m not sewing him up again.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious. Bring him like this again and I’m letting him bleed.”

Captain was silent for a moment. “I’ll talk to them.”

“Uh huh,” Doc muttered. The pull got hard enough that he almost flinched.

“With my fists. First thing.”

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

He snorted. “They’re drunk.”

“Perfect. Maybe they’ll agree to getting shot if they do it again.”

“You want me to lose all my best men?”

“We won’t lose him.”

Captain didn’t say anything. No one did, not for a while. Soon, he heard, over his own shallow breathing, a low swoosh and twang. Then again, and again. It took him a while to realize it was Doc stitching. Captain must have left already.

He wasn’t far away enough not to be scared.

Doc at least waited until the stitches were covered with fresh bandages. Doc pulled him up slowly and lowered his shirt, even as he tried to squirm and ended up falling sideways. Doc left with his tools and the empty vial. He heard them clatter on the desk before Doc opened and closed the trunk. The small one. He gripped the cot, pressing his feet against the edge after a few tries. He could do it. It didn’t matter where he ran.

“What have I told you about shoes on the mattress?” Doc asked, grabbing his ankle. He tightened his grip on the sheets and pulled. Doc pulled back. He twisted, sheets bunching underneath him, until he heard crackling and felt a distant but familiar pain on his thigh.

“Stop kicking and this goes away.”

He wasn’t sure he could. He still knew. He felt his pants being undone and pushed down, and know they were. He saw Doc putting a new disk into the recorder, and knew what was coming. He still, if he tried hard enough, could get his brain to say “kick” and his feet would eventually respond. He wasn’t far enough away.

And he wanted to be very far away if Doc ever turned it on him like he threatened.

Doc pushed his knees apart until his feet dangled above the floor. They felt too heavy to lift. Doc set the recorder down at the end. He picked up a thin, metal rod.

“Disc seven, August 12.” Doc turned the rod over in his fingers. Shuddering, he turned his face into the sheets. “We continue with examining subject’s dual urinary tract.”

He sucked cloth into his mouth and bit.

*-----*-----*

Trowa didn’t think he had ever been in so much pain. Even being blown up by a Zero-controlled Quatre hadn’t hurt quite like this. His entire body had ached without favoritism after Vayeate, which hadn’t bothered him quite as much as not remembering why, or his name for that matter. Now the pain was centralized: a hard, burning knot of agony that sent waves of lesser pain to the rest of him.

He stared across bronze sheets through lidded eyes that kept him from panicking. The answer to the “why” spinning in his head lurked at the edge. Trowa didn’t pursue it. It would sharpen the pain, and he thought it was sharp enough already. But then the body turned. The pain between his legs flared.

Fahd, fingers so gently pressed against the worn cover not a moment before, tossed the tattered history book onto the chair. When he stepped closer, Trowa shifted back, gasping as his feet caught.

“Untie me.” He snarled, voice cracking and pulling on the chains binding his ankles.

“Don’t.” Fahd said. Trowa, rolling onto his stomach, thrust trembling arms beneath himself.

Body weighing like a boulder, he pushed up. Fahd nudged his hip, and Trowa crumpled to the mattress.

“Will you stop?” He asked, moving Trowa back onto his side. He squirmed as Fahd peeled down the duvet. “You’re not supposed to move the pillow.”

Fahd, holding his bound legs apart by the knee, grabbed one of the pillows from the headboard that had somehow made it down to Trowa’s shins. He folded it in half and stuffed it securely between Trowa’s thighs. He even fixed the robe Trowa didn’t remember putting on, tucking the too-long cloth around his legs and back beneath his side before covering him up.

Trowa found himself becoming less angry and more confused. Worse: almost appreciative.

“The doctor said there had to be as little friction and contact as possible, so don’t move that again.”

“What doctor?”

“The doctor Nizar called to take a look at you.”

Doctor. He didn’t remember a doctor. He remembered dreaming of a doctor—if you could call a sadistic mercenary medic a doctor. But he had taken off the white coat that night, working in shirtsleeves and khakis. He remembered how the fabric scratched. So where did the fleeting image of a white coat come from? Trowa latched onto the squirming memory. There were needles and gibberish, strong arms and legs holding him open as he babbled and bucked. And the coat.

So there was a doctor. Trowa clung to the fact, and the angry embarrassment, to steady his spinning head.

“I didn’t ask for a doctor.”

“Because you were in the perfect position for asking, shrieking on my bedroom floor.”

Trowa sneered. “You’re the one who shoved—” his voice cracked as the panic and hurt rose. Doctor. Focus on the doctor. “I never said—”

“That,” Fahd said, miserable enough to stop Trowa’s mouth with shock, “was not supposed to happen.” Trowa was very tempted to borrow one of Duo’s perfect responses to statements-of-the-obvious.

“Then what was?”

“Nothing. I expected to find you sleeping, more like sulking, in bed.”

He was lying. He had to be. Fahd had taken far too long to actually answer, and hesitation was one of the easiest tells of falsehood. And guilt, or shame. But Fahd didn’t look particularly guilty or ashamed. Just unhappy. Maybe a little disappointed. And, if Trowa really looked, not just a little furious.

He’s lying. He has to be.

Fahd shifted when the awkward silence was too much. Trowa flinched and swatted wearily as Fahd brushed his cheeks and forehead with the back of his hand.

“Your fever’s going down. That’s good,” he said before getting up. “I’ve always wondered why people get fevers after an injury.”

Trowa didn’t know either, nor did he particularly care. A fever explained a lot: the weakness, the dizziness, the confusion—because he was confused. That’s all. Fever-induced confusion was making him see and think things that had no basis in reality, because Fahd wasn’t guilty. Fahd was incapable of guilty. And if Fahd wasn’t guilty, then there was no reason for the strange clenching in his chest when Fahd turned moist yet smoldering eyes on him—or worse down—and there was no reason for his insane desire to—

“The pain killers must be wearing off. Here.”

Trowa didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t even struggle when Fahd refused to let him up, instead helping Trowa lift his head to take a pill and a sip of water while staying on his side. Trowa just wanted to sleep. Pain killers were good for sleep. And the sooner he slept, the sooner the fever went away, the sooner everything made sense again and stopped thinking Fahd was anything but an extortionist bastard making his life miserable.

He slept, but Trowa was sure the medicine hadn’t stopped him from thinking. They weren’t nightmares per say, the dreams he had each time the medicine dragged him down; they couldn’t be, since he didn’t wake up with the usual chest pains and gasping. They were awkward, though, uncomfortable and slightly dangerous. The details always slipped away, fading faster the tighter Trowa tried to hold them, until he was left with nothing but a feeling that he had lost something too important. The new dose took away that feeling, and others. But it always returned stronger.

Trowa didn’t dwell on it the next time he woke, particularly groggy and with a headache. He couldn’t, not with the yelling.

“Stop being ridiculous.”

“No.”

“You do realize what will happen, don’t you?”

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, Nizar?”

“Stop,” Trowa hissed. Eyes shut against the light and the noise, he clawed the area around his head.   Someone pressed a pillow against his hand. Trowa snatched it and covered his head.

Fahd chuckled softly. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

“Just ignore him,” Fahd said once he caught Trowa’s growling.

“For the love of Allah—”

“Enough, Nizar.”

“—he’s been here too long.”

Trowa frowned beneath the dark, cool fabric. His grip on the pillow loosened as he first tried counting the number of times he woke and then tried using it to figure out the minutes—or rather hours—between. Trowa eased the pillow off his head.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Five in the evening, so go back to sleep.”

“On?”

Fahd sighed. “Sunday.”

Trowa could have kicked himself.

“Untie me.”

“Go back to bed.”

“I can’t.”

“Then wait a minute. I’ll get the painkillers.”

“I don’t want painkillers.” Trowa sneered, propping himself up on his elbows before attempting a full sit. “I have to go.”

“Because you’re going to get so far.” Fahd said after pain strangled a gasp out of Trowa and sent him back to the mattress. “The only way you’re getting out of this bed is to go to the hospital.”

Trowa and Nizar snorted.

“Unless you want Heero breathing down your neck with a machine gun—”

“I always wanted to see zero-one in action.”

“Would like to see Une and half of the Preventers’ special task force?” Nizar growled. “Because that’s exactly who you’ll see after I shoot Yuy in the head. And then terrorists in a high-security prison.”

Fahd grumbled something Trowa was sure was his colorful opinion on that. Still, he yanked back the covers after picking up a key from the side table. Nizar turned and busied himself near the dresser.

Usually, when Fahd decided Trowa had been chained long enough—or they were done for the moment—Trowa rubbed lingering aches from his wrists and ankles. And treated the occasional deep scratch. Apparently, though, there were situational cuffs. These had been lined with something flesh-friendly since, other than a little tingling, his ankles were ache-free and scratch-less.

Of course, he had also been in a drug-induced sleep. Trowa doubted he moved all that much.

Fahd grabbed his arm after Trowa had moved the pillow, eased his legs apart, and started sitting up. The fingers tightened.

“Take the day off tomorrow.”

“We’ll see.”

“No ‘we’ll sees.’ Take the day.”

“I’ve taken enough days.”

“Do you honestly want to do this?” Fahd asked once Trowa had gotten himself into a sitting position and unlocked his pain-clenched jaw. “Do you want to sit, at a desk, for nine hours?”

Trowa didn’t want to be sitting now. “We’ll. See.”

The closer he got to actually leaving, the more appealing taking a sick day was.

Trowa nearly cried when he pulled his jeans on. There were worse things than a tazer to the genitals: burning alive, getting blown up, having every bone broken. He focused on them, on imagining how much worse it hurt than a little electricity. It kept the tears back but it didn’t steady his hands. Fahd almost had to help him zip and button his fly. Almost. Trowa planned on being good and dead the day someone else had to dress him.

He didn’t count the corset as “clothes;” it was more of an appendage that, unfortunately, needed stable hands. Fahd only grumbled about him leaving as he snapped Trowa into it, which Trowa begrudgingly allowed since he probably would have fallen over trying to punch him.

Fahd didn’t stop grumbling until Trowa was standing by the front door, and he suspected whatever Nizar snarled at him had something to do with it. Fahd released his arm. The bruises Trowa would have tomorrow weren’t enough to stop him from at least partially appreciating how the heavy hand kept him out off the walls and floor and well away from furniture. The blindfold, however, was.

“I’m serious,” Fahd breathed into his ear while tightening the knot and steadying him when the jerk played with Trowa’s balance. “Rest.”

He didn’t answer, gripping the duffle bag strap Nizar pressed at him and stumbling out the door.

Trowa had to look pathetic. He wasn’t sure, of course, since he hadn’t been giving—or asked for—a chance to use a mirror. But Nizar was moving noticeably slower, and his grip more guiding than restraining, than usual. Such begrudging concern for his injuries could only mean that Trowa looked just as bad as, or worse than, he felt. That was before he got in the truck.

After only a few minutes, Trowa was ready to promise selling his bike and walking for the rest of his life so long as the truck stopped moving. He felt every crack, bump, and pothole crotch first. Could be worse, could be worse, could definitely be worse. After the third pothole, Trowa groaned through clenched teeth and lay his head back. It could always be worse; he just wasn’t sure how.

Finally, the truck stopped, and stayed stopped. Nizar was still and silent beside him, however. Long enough that Trowa eventually opened his mouth to ask where they were. Then, he heard the rig thunder by. Trowa tugged the blindfold off after the driver’s door opened and closed.

He recognized the stretch of highway. Follow it long enough and they would have hit the exit for the circus grounds. The ramp ahead was a service ramp Trowa recognized oddly calligraphic graffiti. He used it as the half-way point.

Trowa climbed carefully out of truck, hissing as he stretched. He walked around to the back of the truck, stopping just beside the metal ramp. Nizar looked up from the chain he was loosening. He didn’t even sneer at him.

“Get the ramp if you don’t plan on walking,” he said, sitting back on his heels.

Trowa looked at the edge. Uninjured, he could lift it without a problem; injured he would have to take quite a bit more time. He didn’t doubt Nizar, given the complete lack of scathing sarcasm, would wait. Or even help.

“I’ll walk.” Trowa said. After a brief but through stare, Nizar turned back to the chains.

Trowa gave his bike a quick once over when he came back to the bed of the truck, bag over his shoulder. No new dings or scratches. Yet.

“Know where you are?” Nizar asked after dumping towels and chains into the bolted-down box in the corner.

“It’ll take about twenty minutes without traffic.”

Nodding, Nizar shoved the ramp back into place. “There’s a gas station,” he said while locking it in place, “about half-a- mile.”

“Seen it.”

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen if you’re slow.”

Trowa didn’t say anything. Nizar stared at him, hands lingering on the edge of the tailgate. Eventually, he lifted and latched it into place. He walked around to the cab, got in, took a moment Trowa assumed was for stuffing the blindfold into his pocket before starting the engine, and drove away.

It would take twenty minutes, maybe less since it was a Sunday evening and people had work tomorrow.   It would be probably the worst twenty minutes of his life too, or his last. Dumping a bike going sixty was easy even for the experienced when pain blinded you. He could walk and would if he had a gun. Without it, the time and possibility of being harassed were less than appealing.

Shifting the bag towards the center of his back, Trowa grabbed the handlebars. He would have a couple of options when he reached the gas station—none of which he particularly liked. Tow trucks were expensive and unreliable in a multitude of ways. Cabs more so and didn’t get the bike home. Hitchhiking had all the allure of walking home.   Which left him with making one of two phone calls, and while calling Catherine for a pickup with one of the circus’s trucks was safer, Trowa wasn’t in the mood for prying.

A line of cars followed an eighteen-wheeler as it inched its way towards the ramp. Half of them crawled after it towards the station. Trowa set the bike on the kickstand and pulled out his phone.

“I need a favor,” he said once it connected.

Heero had either been expecting the call or else had blown through every stop sign and red light doing ninety. Trowa couldn’t have been leaning his shoulder against the small, attached convenience store for more than five minutes when the gray pickup pulled in. It skirted the pumps, which caused a few if the attendants, fidgeting as they did whenever cars approached, to glare. Trowa was a little too concerned with the second head in the cab to care.

He had expected Heero to call him. They had a truck, after all. Trowa just hadn’t expected him to come.

Wufei stepped out and swept Trowa, who took a little too long to straighten, with a critical eye. Trowa watched the right side of his neck tighten as Wufei grit his teeth. Ever tactful and private, Wufei at least waited until he was in grappling range to talk.

“Did he even bother to use lube?

“Does yours?” Trowa bit back after flicking Heero a sneer.

“I’d kill him otherwise. Would you like a recommendation, or a bottle? We have plenty.”

Heero turned an interesting shade of red, from shoulders to roots. Muttering about time, he hurried the bike around to the back of the truck.

“Don’t glare at him,” Wufei said. Trowa turned narrowed eyes on him, and added a snarl for good measure. “He didn’t ‘tell’ me. You’re just losing your touch.”

“Screw you.”

Wufei’s expression softened, slightly. “That’s not a bad thing when you don’t need it anymore.”

Who said he didn’t? Trowa ran a hand over his face. Wufei grabbed it by the wrist and pulled it off.

“He’s new at this?” he asked after tracing something on Trowa’s cheeks with his eyes.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Wufei snorted. “Does it matter?”

“If it gives you a fever, yeah, it does.”

Trowa pulled his hand free. He glared over Wufei’s shoulder. Through the windshield and back panel, he saw Heero crouching by the bike. It didn’t take that long to secure a bike.

“Look,” Wufei sighed, “if that’s what you’re into, fine.” I’m not having this conversation. “I get it, okay? I understand.” Get your ass out of the truck Yuy. “But if you end up with a fever, or not able to get yourself home, then something’s wrong.”

“It’s not like that,” Trowa said, without either anger or his voice cracking in embarrassment. “It…it was an accident.”

“An accident,” Wufei said with a frown. Trowa nodded once. Wufei nodded back and folded his arms over his chest. “Right. Well, make sure he knows that ‘accidents’ don’t happen anymore.”

Conversation closed, Wufei snatched up the duffle bag and walked towards the truck.

Heero jumped out of the bed after Wufei opened the passenger door and slid into the middle of the long front seat. He reached the driver’s side when Trowa reached the passengers. Heero stared: still a little embarrassed, a little concerned, and a little…something Trowa wasn’t quite sure what to call. It pinched his face, like irritation, but there was something more carnal about it. He blinked and it was gone. They got in.

Trowa was glad to be on the outside, shoulder shoved against the window and Wufei’s hips and knees crushed against his to keep the stick hindrance free for Heero. He could turn his face towards the glass, press folded arms into his stomach, and feign sleep. Which he did. They knew, of course, but didn’t call him on it. Trowa was embarrassed. Trowa was upset. Trowa was whatever they thought was reasonable enough to forgive him for ignoring them entirely after they went out of their way to pick him up off the side of the road.

So Trowa, very safely, stared into the back of his eyelids, flinching on occasion from potholes and bumps and muttering it caused between Heero and Wufei, and wondered why, when he had said it had been accident, that he honestly wanted that to be true.

AN: I actually enjoyed the small banter between Trowa and Wufei at the end. I hope the dialogue suited Wufei.

I’d like to take this time to answer a question given to me in a review. How long is this story going to be?

Well, I tend not to work in terms of length. For me, setting a number of pages or chapters leads me to write poorly (or more poorly than usual). I have found that what works for me is to work through plot points. I have a series of scenes and events that Trowa has to get to and go through. The story itself is the development of Trowa’s character so that he is the way I envision him in these scenes.

So a better question is how many more major plot points? Um…well…at least five. How long is the story between them? I have no idea. I could venture a guess of at least 20 chapters. But I don’t work in numbers.

I hope that helps. As always, please leave a review. They really make my day, especially now.

~*~Lady Yein Khan~*~
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The Chains We Wear