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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
- 13
- 14
- 15
A/n: Please allow to begin with the following: I HATE THE RICH TEXT EDITOR. I don't know what was so difficult about adding story codes but apparently it was too something or other. But the solution is terrbile. I would like to be able to post a chapter in under an hour please.

That being said, I was told by TOS to keep my a/n's under 600 words, which will be easy considering how much fun it is to type one sentence in fifteen minutes. So no more tidbits about my life. Although if you are really interested, I have been thinking of making a forum thread for this story. Let me know if there is any interest.

About this chapter: I actually rather like it. Apart from what I did to Trowa in the ...yesh. What's wrong with you, brain? Really.

Warnings for this chapter: language, torture, sexual depravity, and a very interesting twist on Quatre's character. As always, read and enjoy.

Chapter 14:

“Dude, I’ve seen road kill that looked better than you, today. You alright?”

Trowa had found that repeating “I will not fall asleep” ten times, with hard blinks every few words, kept him from, well, falling asleep. He had only been on number seven when Duo interrupted him so it took him a little longer than usual to answer.

“When was the last time you took a good look at road kill?” Trowa asked putting his pen down on the form he was finishing. “Far as I am aware, my skull is not crushed and leaking out of my ears, and my severed spine and ribs aren’t pushing out of my chest. I could be wrong, though.”

"Now I know you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick,” Trowa sighed. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

“Again?” Duo asked, leaning against the side of the desk. “I mean, I heard you a couple of nights this week, but I thought last night you were okay.”

That would be because last night Trowa hadn’t bothered with activity. Instead, he had lay as still as possible, counting: counting the seconds and then the minutes, counting the stitches in his blanket, counting the beats in scores by Beethoven and Vivaldi, counting the number of suits he felled in the war.   It had been a change of pace. He couldn’t obsessively clean every night; he’d quickly run out of things to do.

Of course, if people were going to hear him, Trowa wasn’t going to clean anymore. Or move, for that matter. He thought he had been very quiet. He kept to a single area every night and never moved anything larger than a chair. He always took extra care when jostling things or moving them from wood to carpet and back again. Trowa had gone so far as to stash his cleaning supplies in his bathroom and tidied them up while breakfast was getting ready.

The walls were either that thin, or Duo was that perceptive when it came to nocturnal activities. Either way, Trowa was going to have to come up with something else. It was probably a good thing; his room was starting to look too clean. And I’m tired of smelling like sanitized lemons.

“Kept waking up, kept falling back to sleep. That’s all.”

“But more time awake and waiting, right?” Duo asked. Trowa sighed, running his hand through his hair. Duo interpreted that as a “yes” and nodded. “Got it.”

Trowa wasn’t sure what Duo “got,” but it apparently wasn’t anything that warranted leaving. In fact, Duo lingered at his desk, crossing and uncrossing his legs and tapping fingers on his arm, long enough that Trowa almost asked him what he was thinking. But then Duo nodded to himself.

“Right,” he said. “I need to get back to work, but come talk to me. After lunch. Before everyone gets back. Yeah, that should work.”

Trowa had no idea what should “work.” He didn’t get a chance to ask, either; Duo skipped off to his desk right after whatever epiphany he had. Trowa let him, since he wasn’t all that eager to draw everyone’s attention to himself with calling him back. Which he would, considering Duo’s desk was on the other side of the room and he had cleared half of it in a few seconds. No, one person thinking “insomnia” was more than enough.

Not that is was insomnia. Trowa was able to sleep. All he wanted to do was sleep. He was just denying himself that necessity because he was going to go insane if he had one more nightmare. Of course, long-term sleep deprivation did lead to loss of mental function, and probably insanity, even for those trained in body deprivation. It would just take a little longer. Trowa was over seventy-two hours of absolutely no sleep. He figured he had another forty-eight before the effects were really noticeable. By then he hoped to have either a solution or to be so exhausted that dreaming just didn’t happen.

Or Fahd could just get his ass back from wherever the hell he went.

He would not check his phone for messages. He would not check his phone for messages.

Trowa had accepted, begrudgingly, that Fahd had completely ruined his sleeping habits. His body and mind demanded activity and body warmth before settling in, which Fahd was only too happy to provide. Trowa had accepted that until he died, or Fahd got bored and left Trowa with time to beat his past back into the recesses, he was going to have nightmares every time he slept alone.

He just didn’t realize, until recently, just how bad.

Trowa had been in too much pain to do more than doze the night Heero had picked him up. And every other night that week Fahd had dragged him out, despite all his protests because even Heero had trouble accepting Trowa gone every night, “lover” or not. If Heero was getting anxious, Trowa could only imagine what Duo and Quatre thought. They had to know, or at least be ready to ask, if they hadn’t already.

That, however, had lasted less than a week. Friday night, after multi-round oral sex—because Fahd flat-out refused fucking but sucking was apparently fine; the “69” was quickly becoming Trowa’s least favorite position because he kept choking---but before sleep, Fahd announced he was leaving. Not forever, of course. That was too much to hope for. There was something he had to do, however, “back home.” Something he put off for too long and now required immediate attention. He would be gone for at least a week.

Trowa had been good about keeping the elation to himself. A week was more than enough time, with work and stubbornness, to get his sleeping habits back on track. It might take a sleepless night or two. There might be some unpleasant nightmares, but he’d break himself of the need for the man.

He started the moment Nizar dropped him off early Saturday morning, having already decided on not sleeping until Monday. Two days was just enough time to give his body the craving without showing signs of sleep deprivation.   It had worked; Monday night, his body needed only token amounts of attention before succumbing to sleep. He woke only two hours later, his fist stuffed nearly into his throat to block the screaming.

He had not dreamt of the past, at least not one that he remembered. Which was unfortunate since Trowa could have handled that. He could have handled more nightmares about the damn medic better than the horrible mess his brain had thrown together. Shadows and hands, invisible but constant. Crushing. And fire.

Fahd kept those away. He must have, with just a chest against his back or gentle fingers on his side,    an occasional lazy stroke or a soft but persistent kiss. Now that he wasn’t there.

Trowa hadn’t thought getting a tazer to the crotch could affect him like that. But it apparently it did, enough to turn his head against him. That unknown assailant, armed with lightening in a plastic box, terrorized him every night. Then, every hour. Like any good sadist, his subconscious eventually tired of the game, but instead of languishing under the monotony, it got creative. By the end of two weeks, it was pushing different monsters on him in unpredictable and unrelenting patterns. Patterns that were starting to cross: the medic muttered about blood and genes while Trowa’s penis was twisted to bruising.   The captain groaned somewhere out of sight when Trowa’s rapist lit his testicles on fire.

But the crossover couldn’t happen if he didn’t sleep. Not sleeping was good. Not sleeping for a week? Not so much. It wasn’t like he had a choice, though. Not until Fahd came back. What could possibly take three weeks?

He pondered and eliminated several possibilities (engagement; marriage; death of parent, children, or pet etc) until lunch, with a few breaks for mantra-ing and finding new copies of the papers he accidentally listed said possibilities all over. Duo made a point of passing by his desk before going for lunch. This in and of itself wasn’t unheard of, if Duo wasn’t near his desk. But the light, lingering touch on his elbow was. Duo’s fingers closed just enough to catch Trowa’s attention. He didn’t say anything, just gestured towards his desk with his head before skipping off to the elevator.

It was subtle enough for Heero to ignore, and blatant enough for Trowa to frown after. He’d have to wait until after lunch to sneer.

The city on lunch hour was busier today than usual, so getting his lunch took a bit longer than Trowa was used to. Of course, it could just be the sleep deprivation making things like crosswalks and lunch counters more complicated. Trowa blamed his lack of appetite on it, too. He took a couple token bites before putting the sandwich back in the bag.

He was just about to pick up his pen—his pen and not the cell phone that had someone snuck its way out of his pocket and onto the desk—when Duo returned, sliding out of the stairwell as if opening the door any wider would cause something to explode. He strode towards his desk and sat down. Only after making sure that all the desks in his immediate area were empty did he wave Trowa over.   Then, he practically stuffed his head in a drawer.

This is either stupid or illegal,Trowa thought as he pushed away from his desk. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Here,” Duo said, tossing him a pill bottle. Sleep deprived or not, Trowa was close enough to catch it one handed.

“I know we can get away with a lot, Duo,” he said eyeing the blank bottle. “But I doubt even Une can explain away narcotics.”

“They’re not drugs.”

“Which explains the pill bottle.”

“They’re not illegal drugs.”

“So pharmacies have simply stopped printing prescription information, then.”

“And save some trees?” He snorted. Duo sat up. “I got these sleeping pills from Vincent. They’re legit.”

“Because you obviously have sleeping problems.”

“You know, there are a few things mind-blowing sex and cuddling can’t cure.”

“Right,” he muttered, staring at the bottle with renewed interest to squish the face and blush.

“I did.” He said. “Not terrible, terrible but bad enough that I was willing to sit through the evaluation for them. Then Heero and I started---”

“So why are they in your desk now?”

“Because I still have a bad night here and there.” He answered. Duo fiddled with the end of his braid. “And Heero doesn’t know.”

“He probably does.”

“He knows I don’t fall asleep sometimes, or that I wake up a lot. But it’s always in sets of two or three, so I just take a pill home after day one and pop it right before bed. Problem solved. Usually.”

“He probably knows.”

Duo sighed. “Probably.”

Trowa rolled the bottle over in his hands. The pills, small white ones made orange by the plastic, clinked over one another. There were a lot of them.

“Picked it up last week.”

“Insomnia could be contagious.”

“If it is, I have another bottle. These things have a pretty long shelf life.”

“Pills usually do.”

Duo shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Typical dosage: one pill a night. And you’re going to want to follow that recommendation. This is strong. You do not want to overdose on this stuff, trust me.”

“I didn’t think doctors proscribed the strong stuff if your problems aren’t ‘terrible’.”

“I may have exaggerated a bit.”

He had been on the receiving end of one of Duo’s “exaggerations” before. Duo could look convincingly miserable when he wanted to.

“Thanks,” He said.

An awkward silence settled over them. Trowa stared at the pill bottle, wanting to leave and not doing it. Duo had something to say. He could tell by the way he shifted in chair and crossed/uncrossed his legs. And while he couldn’t bring himself to invite whatever it was with something so direct as eye contract, Trowa couldn’t bring himself to shut down whatever conversation Duo wanted to have. However little Trowa wanted to have it.

Duo straightened and nodded. Trowa lifted his gaze enough to see to see Duo lean towards him, open mouthed. Then the elevator dinged. The pill bottle jumped up Trowa’s sleeve. Several files flew into Duo’s hands. Heero didn’t say anything as Trowa passed him on his way back to his desk.

Trowa tucked the pills safely into desk. By the time he picked up his pen, Trowa had already decided on taking two instead of the one. Considering his high tolerance for medication, he could probably take three, but that would definitely be a risk. No, two would be more than enough. Trowa turned his attention to his papers. After a few lines, he started repeating “I will not fall asleep” in his head.

He was beginning to look forward to tonight.

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

When they got home, Trowa was going to kiss Duo’s feet. Hands and knees, lips to skin, kiss his feet. Hell, he would do it now except that the rest of the Preventers might find it a little strange. Not that Trowa would care what the other Preventers thought, but Duo might. And the last thing Trowa wanted was to give Duo a reason to regret passing off the pills.

So he’d wait. Trowa could do that. Actually, with the way he was feeling, Trowa could do a lot of things, including handsprings down the aisle. He’d never had this much energy before, or patience for that matter. Exhaustion and irritation had always been churning below a carefully crafted and held look of indifference. Now he knew why, and it wasn’t Duo’s exuberance or Quatre’s pity or the disgusting hodgepodge he called a body. It was sleep that made life bearable, or not. It was sleep that made mountains of oddly-magically-appearing paperwork not only ridiculously easy but their ability to appear at will acceptable. Even admirable, the devoted sheets.

Sleep made it possible for Trowa to thank Une with a smile as she praised his efforts and shoved barely-covered cleavage in his face. Several times.

If this was how he felt after a good night’s sleep—a real good night’s sleep, not one of those the nightmare-laced sleep monstrosities he had been accepting for years—then Trowa was taking sleeping pills for the rest of his life. He kind of liked not being a moody bastard.

Could do without the breasts, though.

Trowa was wondering when the dress policy had changed (he didn’t question the blouse itself. After all, Une had to wear something other than conservative skirt-suits, on down-time at the very least, although she had never struck him as the type), and if that meant he could wear his jeans and turtleneck, when someone rapped him on the head with a file. Only one person had the audacity to do it every time he passed, and it was only because he knew Trowa had noticed him coming before he even left.

It might be good to give Duo a little warning about the events to come. No particulars, just a suggestion or two. Duo might even have a thing or two he’d much rather prefer. And apart from sex, Trowa was up for anything.

Duo could follow subtly, even if he wasn’t all that good at initiating it. Most of the Preventors would miss the cues, and those who wouldn’t weren’t near his desk.

“Just who I wanted to see,” Trowa said. He pushed back from the desk.

Duo could fit quite comfortably into the chest Trowa turned into. Trowa blinked at the small buttons straining in their holes before leaning to the side. Around the hip, Duo was at his desk. Well, at Heero’s desk. On the edge of Heero’s desk. Whispering something that had Heero blushing to the roots.

“Really? I’m so flattered.”

If he could breathe, Trowa could kill him. If the fist strangling his lungs relaxed a little, he could at least run. But it didn’t. Instead, Trowa gripped the chair’s arms and tried to force open his throat. Tried to push the pounding out of his head. Tried to see. His vision was still black around the edges when the hand lashed out. He managed to knock it off course before choking made lifting his arms too hard.    The second hand tangled in his hair. The world spun.

The first impact of his head to the desk unblocked his throat. The second locked his jaw with a splintering crack.

Trowa clawed at the hands that had slithered out of his hair, twisting as they gripped his shoulders. Trowa kicked at the underside of his desk while trying to force numb legs to brace against the desk frame. If he could slam the chair back into the bastard’s knees. Better yet, his groin.

The shadows under his desk grunted. Trowa dragged his legs up with mouth-trapped shout. The movement jerked his weight back. The bastard took the advantage. Arm around his throat, he yanked Trowa backwards out of the chair. Trowa landed with a grunt on the man’s chest. He started to twist, trying to get both his head and his legs free from arm and chair.

“The subject appears to have developed normally, despite abnormal levels of testosterone and estrogen.”　The arm around his throat tightened as Trowa stiffened.　The blonde head followed the voice, bobbing with the lilting tenor’s rise and fall too much like a snake. A pink tongue swept across his lips.

Doc never could pull off detached and clinical.

“Of course,” he said, crawling forward with the recorder tight in his fist. Disgustingly-familiar blue eyes pinned Trowa to the man beneath him. “development, or lack thereof, cannot be properly determined without extensive testing. We’ll begin examination immediately.”

Doc had a hand on his ankle for less than a second before Trowa attacked. He got in one solid kick to Doc’s face before pain locked his knees. Tazer-less, the bastard beneath him grabbed Trowa’s jaw and squeezed. Trowa heard the broken bones grinding. He tasted blood. Screaming behind clenched teeth, he clawed at the hand.

Doc took no chances. He straddled Trowa’s knees for only so long as it took to yank his pants down to them. He slid off and tangled them around Trowa’s shoes.

It was enough to shove some sense through the pain. He was on the floor of the Preventer’s Headquarters. He was being assaulted on the floor of the Preventer’s headquarters. Neither of which mattered quite as much as the fact that the Preventers in said Preventer’s headquarters could see exactly what he was. That got him twisting.

No one seemed particularly bothered, though. Trowa got his now-nearly-crushed jaw free long enough to snap left and see one Preventer talking with his partner, and snap right and see another pulling out a music player from inside his desk. They knew, of course, and Trowa knew they knew: the first talked a little too loud and the second looked a little too hard at his audio files. But neither was distracted enough—or concerned enough—to be anything but mildly irritated.

Trowa didn’t have time to dwell on that. The bastard managed to get his jaw again.

“The subject is approximately nineteen years old at the time of this examination.” Doc said. Trowa twisted his hips as he reached for his flaccid penis. A quick squeeze of the mouth stilled him. Smirk creeping across his face, Doc weighed and rolled the flesh with cold hands. “The subject’s penis and testicles are fully developed. Smaller than average, although large enough to not be diagnosed as micro.”

Doc shot the bastard a look that Trowa, clawing and flinching and blushing as he was, did not miss. The body under him shifted. Quite suddenly, Trowa’s legs were rising and falling open, nudged and held apart by large, persistent knees. The arm around his throat finally left, only to wrap around his squirming and bucking hips.

“The vagina is also fully developed, and smaller than average.” Doc continued, prodding and peeling apart the moist flesh. He ignored Trowa’s short, nasally cry. “It will make penetration difficult. We’ll have to be more cautious when testing the subject’s reaction to physical stimulus.”

Doc smirked as he said it, caution the last thing on his mind.

Trowa didn’t care if he ended up breaking his pelvis, or ripping his jaw clean off his face. Doc wasn’t getting any closer to his genitals. The bastard beneath him had a different idea, though. He went so far as to sneak his hand between them and haul Trowa’s hips up with a firm grip on his rear. Just enough for Doc to get his hands under and start undoing the bastard’s slacks.

Someone to the side of the three snorted. Trowa’s eyes darted after the noise, quickly followed by his head which had managed to get away again. Maybe it came from the talking Preventer, who wasn’t talking anymore but sneering. It might have been Zechs, watching from the corner of his eye, lips pursed in distaste. Or even Wufei, watching them with nothing short of loathing.

It couldn’t have been any of Preventers palming themselves, adjusting their chairs for better access or a better view. It couldn’t have been Une, whose skirt kept shifting up her thighs. Certainly not Duo, leaning forward with a lopsided grin. Or Heero, perfectly still except for the wet tongue swiping over dry lips.

Finding the snorter suddenly seemed a lot less important than slinking underneath his desk and dying of embarrassment. Trowa squirmed under the arms and hands. The Preventers let out a collective groan: half enraged, half aroused. Trowa was shuddering under the smoldering gazes when Doc’s hands clamped down on his rear and pulled. The bastard jerked his hips up. Trowa’s scream at the hard, dry thrust almost pried his mouth open.

Almost.

He thrust slowly. It was more a matter of position than consideration, Trowa was sure, when he wasn’t flinching from the jolting movement. When the arm pushed down on his hips, driving the head into his prostate after it scrapped brutally against the walls, he was certain of it. Something dribbled out of him. Trowa swallowed back tears. Doc straddled his spread shins. Trowa clenched his eyes shut as fingers nudged testicles out the way. He didn’t let them fall, not even when the fingers rubbed the moistening slit. Trowa wouldn’t.

“The subject is reacting to the physical stimulus. Anal stimulation, while giving rise to some increased blood flow, appears to be insufficient for total arousal of the penis.”

Of course it was.   Every burst of white hot pleasure ended in white hot agony as the head scrapped sensitive walls. It was better than a cold shower.

Then Doc pushed in two fingers and Trowa flinched for new reasons. The fingers thrust slowly, too, but with more care.

“The subject responds positively to vaginal stimulation,” Doc continued. He twisted his hand until he could rub the clitoris while he thrust. Trowa’s hips jerked against the arm. “More so to clitoral. Like a normal woman.”

The corners of Trowa’s eyes burned, but he didn’t taste salt yet. Only blood.

“Considering the advances of the procedures, it is my recommendation that the subject undergo surgery and hormone therapy. The subject is still a minor—” Two fingers turned to three and the thumb dug hard into the sensitive nub. “so it may be possible to encourage hormonal development and gender assignation without profuse amounts of estrogen.

“We’ll begin removing the unnecessary genitalia immediately upon completion.”

Suddenly, whatever care or concern Doc had was gone. The three fingers spread inside him, blunt nails bumping against the walls. After the fourth finger slithered in, it was worse. They slammed and curled, scratching at him. And still Trowa jerked and dripped down his hand, because Doc kept twisting and rolling his clitoris. Hard and fast.

The white haze crept over him. Trowa grew less and less concerned with the cursing and the slurs, the grunts and cat calls, of the Preventers around him as the heat pooled and swelled. He writhed against the fingers, rocking as much as the arm slung over him allowed.

Then he heard it: the low sneering of “freak” and low groaning of “fuck,” the hard “k’s” slamming against his ears like gunshots. They came from either side of his head—in too-familiar, too-precious voices.

Trowa, tears rolling down his face, shrieked as he came.

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

There was something ridiculously attractive about watching “search-and-destroy” Heero. Clad in only black boxers, it bordered on a sinfulness that blinded Quatre to the fact that Heero had just busted in a very expensive oak door.

Of course, if Trowa hadn’t locked it…

The inappropriate appraisal ended when a wave of negative emotional energy poured over him. Quatre stumbled back a step; that hadn’t happened since his empathy first started becoming more than just a personality trait. The loathing and despair, though, it was overwhelming. Duo’s hands gripped his shoulders. They coaxed him back from the door. Quatre shook his head and brushed them off with a word of thanks. He followed Heero into the room

Heero stood just a few steps from the door, body locked in “fight” response but with an odd expression on his face. Apart from Trowa, so contorted that, were he inclined to believe such things, Quatre would have demanded exorcism, no one was in the room—which couldn’t possibly be true because Trowa was still screaming. And Trowa didn’t scream, ever. Period. The only reason he might would be if someone was torturing him brutally. Even then, he’d bite his tongue out first.

No one was in the room. Trowa was screaming. Quatre watched Heero’s face as he tried to cling to the quickly unraveling analysis he had made somewhere between bolting out of bed and jumping down the stairs. No was in the room but Trowa was still screaming. There was something to destroy but Heero couldn’t see it. How did he destroy something he couldn’t see? Heero’s mouth twitched as his body started to relax.

Then Trowa hit a strange octave. It took them a minute to realize he was sobbing.

Heero was nothing if not adaptable, even in situations as far from his comfort and expertise as possible. He listened to the sound for a second before deciding the first order of business was shutting Trowa’s mouth. Hopefully by waking him.

One of Quatre’s sisters used to sleepwalk. He didn’t remember which one; he had been five at the time. He remembered Iria, though, the one time he tried to “help.” Quatre had heard his sleep-trapped sister in the hall, watched her bump lightly into the wall. He was just going to tug her hand and see if she needed help. She might have gotten lost on the way to the bathroom or something. Iria caught him, by the hair. She had shaken him like a toy; did he want to give her a heart attack? Didn’t he know that’s what happened to woken sleepwalkers? Quatre’s yelps woke the sleepwalker. Nothing happened. She even helped pry Iria off.

But his sister couldn’t shoot a man in the head in the dark. Heero was at the bed before Quatre could open his mouth to warn him.

Trowa’s entire body locked when Heero touched his shoulders. Dropping to the mattress, Trowa panted, no, particularly choked.   Then both of his hands were darting beneath the pillow.

Heero barely dodged the first fear-powered strike. It must have grazed his face because he hissed and turned the rearing back into a sidestep, with his hand against his cheek. Duo cursed. Trowa, body pitched forward for a stab, twisted towards the door. Quatre saw wide, wild green eyes before Duo yanked him to the floor by the neck. The knife sank three inches into the doorframe.

Trowa howled. Quatre squirmed beneath Duo, who kept pushing every freed limb back down into the carpet. Quatre snarled; he needed to see, damn it! A ridiculous strong need to “flee” was pouring over him.   Trowa had just been radiating “kill or be killed.” Emotions never changed that fast!    Then again, Heero didn’t usually have his arm around Trowa’s throat.

He had somehow wrestled Trowa out of bed and into a hold that would have been hard to slip even if he wasn’t panicking. Quatre couldn’t decided which was more painful: the angle Heero had Trowa’s head at; the force Heero had on wrist of the knife-occupied hand; or the pressure on Trowa’s spine to keep Heero balanced while he pushed a heel hard into Trowa’s stomach. None of which stopped Trowa from trying to break it. Heero tightened the hold as much as he dared as Trowa twisted. Trowa choked, bowing forward as Heero leaned hard on his back. His heel dragged across his stomach to his side and dug in.

It was enough. The muscles of his stomach and throat heaved as much as they could with hard limbs crushed against them. Trowa gagged silently, eyes rolling back. The knife tumbled from stiff, convulsing fingers. Heero unwrapped himself as quickly as he had trapped him. He pounced on the knife. Trowa didn’t notice. The moment he was freed, he fell forward onto his hands and heaved. Trowa choked up everything in his stomach before collapsing.

The room was silent, apart from Trowa’s ragged breathing. Heero watched him with the knife behind his back. He stood slowly and walked towards the dresser, eyes always on Trowa’s face. When Trowa shivered and his head lolled deeper into the carpet, Heero set the knife down next to Trowa’s hairbrush.

“Jesus,” Duo breathed. Quatre wormed his way out from under him. He slid down beside Trowa and rolled him onto his back, out of the puddle of sick. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Heero said, hand on the back of his neck.

“He was scared,” Quatre said while taking measure of his pulse and watching the empty green eyes roll back. It didn’t help at all but it gave Quatre something to do as he picked apart the chaos that had rolled off Trowa so quickly and ended so abruptly.

“No shit, Cat, but why?”

“I’m not a mind reader.”

“Then read what you can.”

“It doesn’t work that way and you know it. Emotions have no ‘facts’.”

“Make an educated guess.”

“Based on what?”

“I don’t know. Something! Trowa doesn’t just pull knives on people.”

“What is this?” Heero asked. He rolled something small and slender between his fingers. Whatever was inside it clinked.

Duo was up and snatching the bottle out of Heero’s hand faster than either he or Quatre expected. He dumped its contents on the dresser. The pills scrapped and skipped across the wood as he counted.

“God damn it. I told him just take one.”

“He got these from you?” Heero snapped.

“They’re not illegal.”

“And they’re not his either.”

Duo rolled his eyes. “I was trying to help him out. He wasn’t sleeping well.”

“And the reason you didn’t tell him to get them from a doctor himself?”

Duo snorted. “Because I would tell either of you two to go to a doctor. That would go over real well.”

Heero sneered at him, mostly because he couldn’t deny it. “How many did he take?”

Duo looked at the small pile of pills for a moment. “Three,” he said finally. Heero ran a hand over his face.

“What kind of side effects can these things have?”

“I don’t know. I trusted Vince when he said more than one would seriously mess me up.” Duo said. He was quiet for a second then chewed on his lip. Heero pounced on it.

“What?” he demanded.

“I had some wicked nightmares after the first couple of doses.”

Heero cursed.

“Someone help me get him back to bed,” Quatre sighed.

While Duo swept the pills into his hand, Heero knelt down beside Quatre. Quatre didn’t get a chance to wrap his arms around Trowa’s knees. Heero lifted the boneless weight easily. Cradling his lolling head against his shoulder, Heero carried him carefully the three steps to the bed. Quatre didn’t need empathy to know how little Heero had liked incapacitating Trowa.

“You guys should go back to bed,” Quatre said, heading towards the bathroom once Trowa was covered up. “You have to get up in a couple hours.”

“So do you.” Duo said.

“They can survive one Saturday without me. The Preventers on the other hand.”

A second, Fahd-centered operation had just recently opened, under much tighter security. Heero and Duo were two of four Preventers brought over from the botched one. Everyone else involved was fresh and scared witless of what Lady Une would do if there was a leak of any kind. Now was not the time to test her patience with personal time.

“She can deal with it if she has to.” Duo said.

“You told me about the new team. You really want to leave them to do anything?”

Heero flinched. He wouldn’t trust them with three-digit ciphers. “You don’t have to do this alone.” He said anyway.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” Heero asked. Quatre felt a shiver building in his lower back from the hard blue gaze. He pushed it down.

“Yeah.” He said, flicking on the bathroom light.

Quatre took a little longer than necessary finding and filling something suitable with warm water. Eventually, they left, Heero lingering at the door a little too long before closing it softly behind him. He knew it was Heero. His emotions also felt a little…heavier. And while they were both radiating guilt and concern, whoever had strayed by the door left behind a rich bitterness that irritated Quatre’s senses. Quatre shook his head, tossing a towel and washcloth over his shoulder. He would never get used to Heero really “feeling.”

Trowa didn’t have a side table. His alarm clock, which Quatre could never remember hearing, was on the dresser. And if he ever needed light for reading or writing or whatever, he probably used the chair in the corner or the deep windowsill. Quatre could go get a stool or a chair from the dining room. Trowa wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. He didn’t. He put the bowl on the ground and hung the towel on the headboard. Quatre wetted and wrung the washcloth before crawling carefully onto the bed. He had no idea when Trowa would wake up again, or if he kept a third knife under his pillow, but Quatre doubted would want to wake up sticky from vomit.

Quatre brought the washcloth to Trowa’s face. He barely shifted at the gentle heat and pressure. Quatre rubbed slowly; Trowa didn’t even sigh. Moving closer, Quatre bathed his face, brushing back strands of hair. He slid carefully off the bed, rinsed and wrung the cloth, and started dabbing down Trowa’s slender neck.

It was then Quatre realized Trowa hadn’t gone to bed with a shirt on. He probably rarely did. Quatre held the cloth beneath his chin until water dripped along Trowa’s throat and pooled in the elegant dip of his collarbone.

His mouth and chin could use a little more attention.

Trowa’s face and neck couldn’t get much cleaner. The water wasn’t going to stay warm forever, and the skin of the chest was almost always more sensitive, thanks to lack of exposure. But if he left the carpet for much longer, it was going to stain. So is the blanket. Quatre dabbed his face dry. Blankets were much easier to replace than carpets. He should change the water too. Quatre did manage to fold the blanket back. A little bit.

Cleaning the carpet took less time than he had hoped; it was mostly stomach acid. Trowa hadn’t been eating much again. He tended to cut back on food when something was upsetting or bothering him. Which struck Quatre as being rather the opposite of the normal reaction. But Trowa wasn’t anything if not “opposite.” Maybe it started off as defense and then later turned into a coping mechanism.   What did not eating defend against? Quatre didn’t think he wanted to know.

Considering all of this only highlighted the fact that Quatre hadn’t been paying attention when it mattered. Just like he wasn’t paying attention now, when it also mattered. The carpet couldn’t get much cleaner, the smells could wake him at anytime, and Quatre still scrubbed. Only when he started ripping up fibers did Quatre stop. Which was far too long because by the time he had put the cleaning products back in the bathroom—why were they even there?—and freshened the water, the dregs of Trowa’s sudden illness had dried.

Quatre, after getting on the bed and shifting his shoulders, held the washcloth just under Trowa’s collarbone. This time, he shifted a little more from the heat, but his eyelids didn’t flutter. Quatre flattened out his hand. He brought it carefully over shoulders and beneath his collarbone, grimacing at the way the skin stretched over the usually faintly visible bones until he looked almost emaciated. Quatre watched the still face as he moved further done. Checking for alertness.

Grow up.

Since Trowa looked a bit better cleaned up, Quatre covered him back up. With a different blanket, of course. Trowa didn’t move when Quatre changed blankets, or when he took it to the laundry room to soak. Quatre accidentally smacked him with the towel and he still didn’t move. But he felt lazy waves of exhaustion instead of a heavy nothingness. Deep sleep, then, not unconsciousness.

Quatre sat on the edge, soaking up the dull emotion that came with dreamless sleep. A few months ago, he would have been ecstatic to feel something so weak and simple from Trowa. Now Quatre just dragged his knees to his chest and sighed.

He had been used to Trowa’s blankness. From the first, Trowa had exuded a wall Quatre couldn’t cross. Before the empathy, it had been a problem of mixture: tainting a placid face or a vague smile with something…else that always left Quatre doubting his understanding of the other. After the empathy had reared, the wall became “real.”   Trowa simply learned to block Quatre from the taste and sound and feel of him. Even when Trowa smiled, Quatre tasted clear granite.

Trowa wasn’t being malicious. Quatre was sure of that. Trowa wasn’t looking to manipulate anyone or anything with his pulling back and damming up. And Quatre would know; manipulation had an emotional link he could have latched onto. No, the wall was matter of defense. Of safety. Quatre had never wanted anything more in his life than Trowa’s complete trust and the wall throw the lack of it in Quatre’s face. It had always been frustrating.

Then the wall had come crashing down and Quatre tasted Trowa’s irritation. It lasted ten seconds. Then the wall built itself back up. Trowa gave no sign of feeling the breach. He slipped his phone back in his coat and sat back down to breakfast. He asked Quatre, clutching his coffee mug to keep from trembling, to pass the fruit.

The wall started falling more and more frequently. Quatre felt Trowa’s curiosity, his sadness, his embarrassment, without Trowa ever giving any indication of knowing that he could. Something had happened. Something had to have happened, and Quatre could only think of two things. And while he preferred one much more than the other, Quatre knew better. Trowa would never bring the wall down himself. Not without resistance, certainly not without help. Which meant that Trowa had to be seeing someone.

That infuriated Quatre.

Quatre would admit that part of it was jealousy. He had wanted Trowa’s friendship, and then his affection, for years. He had painstakingly nudged and coaxed and understood Trowa into a position where trust and affection were possible—for someone else. As much as he had wanted to feel Trowa, Quatre wanted more to know that it was because of him, and obviously it wasn’t. It left him with a bitterness he occasionally colored Trowa with. What a selfish bastard. All the time and effort and he couldn’t even be bothered to try. Who the hell could adore Trowa more than Quatre?

Yes, who could? Who could adore Trowa? Who could want Trowa, want…that?

I could! I do! Quatre shuddered at the way the sneering chuckle sounded a little too much like him. But it was true. Quatre had wanted Trowa since the first time he saw him: narrow hands with deceptively delicate-looking fingers raised to his head; pale lips slightly parted as he waited; a single green eye drilling through Quatre, searching his smile for deception to expose, probing at his sensitive core. Time had only made that first jolt of want stronger. He wanted Trowa’s hands to lower from his head to Quatre’s skin; he wanted to feel the war-brought callouses scrapping oh-so-gently down his body. He wanted those lips to widen, over his mouth, over his chest, his cock, and feel the smooth warmth of Trowa’s tongue. He wanted that green eye to soften and close as Trowa rode out orgasm with him.

Quatre still wanted him. He would always want him, and if he had to learn to ignore a few choice pieces of anatomy to have him—

Growling, Quatre banged his head against his knees. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

Quatre had slaved to break that hold. But after nearly twenty years of living, and nearly five years of the man being dead, he still couldn’t completely shut out his father’s voice. The self-righteous baritone lectured at the most inappropriate times: in meetings with Relena and her advisors, during lunch dates with the assistants of Middle Eastern dignitaries, basking in the afterglow with Heero and Duo breathing on either side of him. It had taken him a very long time to train himself not to flinch and shrink as his father instructed. It had taken him time to keep his face and train of thought while his father reminded him of the inferiority of women, the appropriateness of a prim and proper wife, the impropriety of male-male polygamy.

Unless said-wife knew. Better yet, agreed. Or if she had similar inclinations of her own, which would make her a less than proper wife.

It had been harder when he was young and impressionable, and worse in the war when Quatre longed for stability more than peace, no matter how discriminatory that stability might be, but he had learned to ignore the voice of “appropriateness.”    Then to flat out reject it. There was nothing appropriate about crushing a capable woman. There was nothing appropriate about entering a marriage on false pretenses or for convenience. There was nothing appropriate about treating a lover like a horrible secret. Quatre used to argue with his father’s voice quite vehemently, which had shown very clearly on his face and had made learning to keep his composure all the more critical.

Now, it masked his weakness. He was struggling to ignore his father; he hadn’t found a strong argument yet. He was afraid he couldn’t.

There had never been a lecture about people like Trowa. Quatre doubted his father considered that sort of existence. But there was enough of the man in him to make constructing appropriate arguments very easy for his brain. It made rejecting, or at the very least ignoring, all the more difficult. They may have his father’s voice, but Quatre knew the thoughts were his own. He could not ignore himself, reject himself—at least not the part of him that somehow never escaped his father’s hold. Not yet.

Somehow he would, because Quatre knew he had to. He still wanted him. Deep down and far away from the side of him that shuddered at the thought of breasts pressed against his chest, Quatre wanted him. Deep down and far away from the bastard who hated the idea of vaginal walls around his cock, Quatre wanted him. Deep down, away from the sick bastard that thought he could learn to ignore the female in Trowa and then love him, Quatre wanted Trowa. All of Trowa. Unchanged.

Quatre gripped his legs to his chest and prayed that want was enough.

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

Trowa didn’t need empathy to feel someone’s disgust. It was a matter of body, something he had always been good at interpreting. A certain shift of a shoulder or hip, the unique tightening of a knuckle, the too quick flick of the eyes, they were all indicators. Trowa had learned to find all of them. There were fewer surprises that way.

Emotional people were even easier. The body reacts with an actor’s expressiveness when the heart is worn on the sleeve. It was part of the reason Trowa limited his exposure to them; the lack of tact made him too self-conscious. Even he admitted that masks were hard to hold when you’re too conscious of the offense you cause. Quatre had been the notable exception, since tact almost always ranked higher than emotion on his priority list. Except when the hermaphrodite’s back was turned, or unconscious.

Trowa was neither at the moment, which meant Quatre would shove the disgust and its tells as far down as humanly possible. When he stepped back into the room, there would be no tingling at Trowa’s nape or a subtle tensing of his shoulders as he decided to fight or flee. The lump would stay, though. He would have to watch how many times he swallowed, or Quatre would know that Trowa knew he was hiding from him.

That was a conversation Trowa refused to have. Not with Quatre. He’d take ignorance and deceit.

Quatre knocked—even when the door was open, he knocked—before poking his head in. Not wanting him to think he was sleeping, and therefore free to let the disgust bubble up, Trowa rolled onto his side with his face towards the door. His stomach heaved. Trowa flinched and curled a bit.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fabulous. I’ve always loved migraines and throwing up.”

Quatre rolled his eyes. “Well it’ll teach you to follow dosing instructions, now won’t it?”

“I wanted it to actually work. My tolerance is rather high.”

“Not high enough.”

No, not high enough, which was surprising in and of itself. A childhood of almost routine, forced morphine injections had raised his medication tolerance to a ridiculous level. Trowa needed seven ibuprofen for a touch of relief from something as simple as a headache. Three sleeping pills should have been nothing. Of course, Trowa’s pain tolerance was also ridiculously high; he hadn’t taken anything for less than shattered bones and gun wounds in months.

Not up to arguing—and being successful at it would mean mentioning the morphine—Trowa turned his face into the mattress.

“Heero said they’d make a quick run to the store.”

“You don’t have to that, Quatre.”

“They’d have to go to the store to buy canned soup anyway. Might as well just get vegetables.”

Processed-then-canned food weren’t quite forbidden, but none of them were in any hurry to add them to the weekly grocery lists (minus the biyearly stockpile trip and those cans never made it out of the reinforced basement). There were too many memories of too many nights eating aluminum-tasting trash in a cockpit. It was why Heero never ate anything soup-related anywhere where he wasn’t absolutely certain they could make it on site.

Trowa avoided trail mix and energy bars for similar reasons.

“You need anything?” Quatre asked. Trowa shook his head. He still heard Quatre pad softly towards the bed. “I’ll get you another drink. You need to stay hydrated.”

Trowa didn’t have a side table; side tables were problematic, especially if you slept near the edge of the bed like Trowa. It was so much easier to roll out of or grab a gun from beneath it that way. A side table would make it less so. Quatre had been putting the glass on the floor: close enough for him to reach, far enough not for him to knock over when he rushed to the bathroom. Trowa turned his face out of the mattress as Quatre approached. Quatre smiled. It was small but with enough sympathy to numb whatever stings his chastising might have caused. But it didn’t reach his eyes. And Quatre’s eyes didn’t quite reach him, stopping short of a lash or pore at the corner of Trowa’s eye.

“You really don’t have to,” Trowa said softly once Quatre’s fingers were around the glass.

“Of course I do, Trowa. You’re my friend.”

Trowa, turning his face back into the mattress to keep from throttling him, thanked him softly.

Getting the drink wouldn’t take very long, even if Quatre dawdled, so Trowa didn’t have time, or the energy, to do anything rash. The worst he could do would be to throw pillows. And watching them crumple after thudding against a wall or window just wasn’t satisfying. He might be able to drag himself to the bathroom. He could prop himself up against the door and wait. There’d probably be only the faintest trace of disgust as Quatre came and went.

Yes, the bathroom was the way to go. He could even wash his face. That way, the next time he had to look Quatre in the face and watch his eyes slid so gracefully to the side, there would no tear stains to tattle on him. He just had to get up. His arms struggled. It had nothing to do with his shaking shoulders or the way his breath hitched. It was exhaustion. Exhaustion he could handle.

Trowa was no closer to getting up, and that much closer to crying, when something rattled on his dresser. The noise lasted a few seconds, stopped, then started again. Trowa watched the cell phone inch across the wood. It stopped after the third. In-coming text message. That, more than even avoiding Quatre’s disgust, dragged Trowa out of bed.

His stomach flipped with every step, and jumped straight into his throat when he straightened, but he wasn’t walking to his dresser like an invalid. Trowa tugged down the irritating shirt that had tangled around his chest with his squirming and wiped his mouth and forehead with the backs of trembling hands before picking up the phone. The message was shorter than Trowa was used to.

Just got in. Can’t see you yet. Nizar will get you Monday night.

There was exhaustion and irritation in the pixilated letters. Whatever he had been doing had either been long or tiring, and probably hadn’t ended all that well. Yet, he had made a point of contacting Trowa. Even if it was just to say they couldn’t meet. It should have elated him, having a bit more of a reprieve from the man. Of course it didn’t. Trowa was so desperate for sleep, and so unwilling to put anything with the warning “may induce drowsiness” in his system, he wanted to fling the phone against the wall. Two more days.

He didn’t, of course, and not just because smashing the phone would end with bizarre questions today and a turn over the couch Monday night. It was surprise; Fahd didn’t have to tell him. Trowa hadn’t actually expected him to. He expected Fahd to call him at work, demanding he be ready for pick up in an hour. Granted, texting Trowa was probably supposed to have negative consequences: fill Trowa with enough dread anticipation to disrupt routine and make him easier to manipulate. But it didn’t. Instead, he felt a warm tightness in his chest, one Trowa refused to name.

“Standing straight. That’s a good sign.”

He snapped his phone shut too quickly. Even though he kept his face mostly blank, Quatre still locked onto the device.

“Was starting to hurt my back.”

Quatre nodded slightly. When Trowa didn’t move—because setting the phone down now was only slightly more suspicious than holding it casually at his side—Quatre moved towards the bed.

“Everything alright?” he asked setting the glass down.

“Fine.”

"Heero asking what vegetables you preferred?”

Trowa could say yes. He should say yes. Heero would certainly back him up if Quatre was suspicious enough to ask him. Unless the overdosing changed a few things, which it might have. Still, he should say yes. The less suspicious he could keep Quatre, the better.

If Quatre would look him in the eye, Trowa would say yes. Gladly. If Quatre would let him hold his gaze—if Quatre would stop staring at the phone in his hand—if he would stop his eyes from narrowing and darkening and twisting into empty sapphires—Trowa would say just about anything.

But he didn’t.

“No,” Trowa answered.

“What he ask?”

“Nothing.”

Trowa didn’t realize, until that moment when the gentle-even-in-disgust face hardened, how much Quatre looked like Doc. His usual gentleness must have kept the recognition away. But now, when whatever he suspected and then schemed, with the phone at every thought’s center, lurked at the forefront, the delicate lips curled into that white sneer. His meticulously parted hair shifted into the purposefully-unruly blonde mess. The tender eyes hardened into selfish, hungry sapphire holes.

Trowa swayed. The corner of the dresser stabbed his side as he stumbled back. Hissing, he dropped the phone. Quatre’s face snapped back to its typical gentle mask before it hit the floor.

He didn’t go after it. That would be too obvious. Instead, Quatre wrapped his hands around Trowa’s shaking shoulders and eased his doubled-over body to the ground. He asked gentle questions and murmured tender assurances. His kind fingers slid across Trowa’s neck and face, feeling pulse and forehead, until finally resting in his hair. Quatre was a much better actor than Trowa had ever thought.

Trowa’s stomach heaved. Quatre wrapped an arm tightly around his waist and dragged him up enough to get to the bathroom. Even though it was there, the disgust, buried too deep to feel after that sudden and obvious burst of it, Trowa clung to him. Quatre eased him down. He brushed Trowa’s hair back, holding it with fingers that scratched gently at his scalp. Trowa sobbed.

But everyone cries when throwing up.

A/n: I think there is a big difference between being empathetic and accepting, one which Quatre suffers from. Having the most stable upbringing, I think Quatre would actually have the hardest time simply accepting Trowa. But that's just me. Let me know what you think; I', never sure if I can go Quatre justice.

As always, please read and review. Constructive criticism is always welcome, and adored.

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