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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
- 14
- 15
- 16
A/n I am a terrible writer. Really. I have to be if it takes me at least six months to update my one major project. I'm a terrible writer...

I am however, trying to change this terrible habit, and have taken some steps to it. Those steps will be explained below, as I do not want to make you wait any longer. So without further ado:

Chapter 15

Apparently, stupidity wasn’t done with him, and Trowa was willing to admit that sparring on his lunch hour after a weekend of vomiting and borderline-dehydration was incredibly stupid. One would think stupidity had gotten enough, what with the amount of relationship-damaging lying, extortionist sex, and now, albeit accidental, overdosing he had done in the last three or four months. But no. Stupid wanted just a little more of Trowa’s skin and pride for its mantle. Maybe if he hurt himself—broken arm, cracked skull, hurt himself—stupidity would back off.

Trowa doubted it, though.

Granted, Duo hadn’t actually said “spar.” Heero was a little too close, and not nearly distracted enough, for the word. But there wasn’t much else to do on the gym-packed 16^th floor. If he had any doubts at all, Trowa lost them when he stepped out of the elevator and saw Duo, duffle bag over his shoulder, watching new field operatives take headers into the mat. Obviously has been planning this for a little while, if he brought a change of clothes.

He slid up beside Duo as casually as discomfort allowed. Trowa, lunch resting at his hip, watched half-a-dozen fresh preventers slam into the floor before Duo finally glanced at him.

“How do you say ‘Do your damn job, asshole’ with tact?” he murmured.

Trowa watched a particular fragile looking recruit struggle to his knees and the instructor’s, a burly man whose name he hadn’t bothered to remember, half-hearted and glowering attempts to help.

“Skip the tact,” Trowa said.

Duo shook his head, turned, and headed towards one of the side rooms. By three o’clock, Trowa knew there would be another “anonymous” letter regarding changes to the combat staff on Une’s desk. Or taped to her door.

The room looked enough like the one where he had learned to dance that Trowa paused before going in. But there had been a bar running around that room, and no mats. Not that Trowa and Duo needed mats, but they made excellent tables and chairs in a pinch.

Duo dropped the duffle on top of one the waist-high piles. His hands went up to the buttons of his uniform. Trowa stiffened, until Duo’s hands dropped to the hem after just the top button was undone. Only when Duo tugged the cloth free from the dress pants and started on his cuffs did Trowa put his lunch down. He unbuttoned his own cuffs slowly, wondering just how much give he needed, or was willing to give.

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Duo said rolling up his sleeves. “We’ve got about forty minutes left for lunch, and we do, you know, have to eat it. So how’s a fifteen minute spar sound? No rounds, no points. We go until the timer goes off or one of us can’t get up."

In other words, a street fight without the street. No need to pull punches, no need to back off, no need to obey most of the unwritten rules of the practice mat. Real and visceral, it was about as close to actual combat as a pilot could get inside the building. It was the kind of fighting Duo excelled at.

“We might want to avoid the latter,” Trowa said, rolling up his sleeves. “Unless you want Une asking why I’m carrying you back to your desk.”

“She won’t, but she might ask me why I’m dragging you back. Might want to avoid that.”

Trowa glanced at him. Duo grinned, twirling his cell phone in his fingers. It was a joke, an attempt at the occasional biting give-and-take they used to have. Trowa tugged his dress shirt free of his slacks.

“As if you could carry me as far as the door.”

Duo programmed the alarm on his phone with a chuckle, tossed it onto the duffle, and walked out to the center of the room. Trowa slid into place across from him. They watched each other, hands at their sides or on a hip.

Duo wasn’t Trowa’s preferred sparring partner. Higher on the list than Quatre—who, apart from the gentlemanly art of fencing, had little experience with hand-to-hand—and Wufei—who was, thanks to years of structured training, a little too eager to call “foul” on most of Trowa’s preferred combat methods—he was still miles beneath Heero, and would remain so until an irritating idiosyncrasy or two about Duo’s style was mended. And Trowa was quite certain Heero felt the same.

They simply complimented each other, as far as sparring went, providing one another with experiences they needed. Heero had yet to neutralize an infiltrator. He knew, however, that most favored the fast and graceful efficiency Trowa preferred. Trowa, on the other hand, enjoyed having a chance to study Heero’s sturdy force-based style, which was usually the favorite of an infiltrated base’s guards and soldiers. They benefited from the heavy fists and twisting bodies, from chains that could wind after the first hit and the contortions that could confuse one minute and subdue the next. They benefited without having to worry about theft.

Because there was the occasional theft when Duo was involved. Duo was street, born and raised, and Trowa had learned that the first rule for the street-born was not the same as the mercenary-born. It was adaptation. Not survival.   Whatever didn’t kill you in the fight was up from grabs if you could learn it. And Duo had enough strength and enough flexibility to borrow liberally from both of them. Heero and Trowa never faulted Duo for it—whatever got the job done—but there was a certain sting about having your own strikes and holds used against you.

About the only thing Duo couldn’t take was Trowa’s combat acrobatics; he didn’t have the experience or the bone structure. They were a surefire way to win. But after a weekend of migraines and vomiting, Trowa didn’t have the stamina to pull of more than two in a break-less, fifteen-minute bout.

He’d have to be picky, and Trowa hated being picky.

The cell phone had counted down the first thirty seconds or so before Duo decided to move. Trowa caught the small shift of his right foot, and was ready when he rushed, dropped, and swept out his left leg. It was a move he had borrowed from Heero, and one Trowa had fallen against late in a match with him. Instead of jumping, or his more preferred flip over the shoulders, Trowa let his leg catch. He wrapped his other leg wrap around Duo’s calf and rolled forward. Duo lost his tentative balance. Trowa broke the roll, landed on his back, and took Duo’s legs hostage in a painful hold with both arms and a leg.

Duo hissed. “Sneaky son of a bitch.”

Duo wasn’t quite as good at slipping a hold as Heero or Trowa (he didn’t use them enough to figure out the delicate intricacies of the body locked) but he eventually managed to overpower him. Trowa rolled out of reach in time to avoid a heel to the head. Duo didn’t press him, letting him up onto his feet. They circled each other slowly.

The next rush, Duo went for a direct assault, which was problematic. Trowa could normally dodge, catch a limb, use it as a fulcrum for a flip, and send Duo either into the floor or the opposite wall. He didn’t have the energy for it today, especially not after holding a squirming Duo for as long as possible. Trowa dodged what he could, blocked and redirected with his shins and forearms, waiting for the right opportunity. It didn’t come before Duo slipped a fist under his guard. Not nearly as hard as Heero’s, the blow to the chest still knocked the breath from him. Duo got three more in before Trowa managed to break out with a well-placed jab to the side.

Duo did not let him go, following aggressively as Trowa backed into a more defendable position. Right, left, low kick, mid kick, right. Blocking with forearms and shins. His limbs were starting to ache, and he had no idea how much time was left. Trowa changed tactics. He had first noticed this trick with Wufei, who had the irritating habit of redirecting strikes into empty air whenever he caught hold of a wrist or ankle. Once he figured out it was a matter of momentum and gentle nudging, it was easy for Trowa to find a suitable martial style; Aikido had been the easiest to incorporate into his own style. On the next punch, Trowa stepped out. He caught Duo’s wrist with the edge of his hand and pulled him halfway around.   Duo stumbled around with him. He threw a wobbly cross. Trowa dropped the first wrist, caught the second under the knot of the fist, and pulled Duo around again.

Trowa pulled Duo into a dizzing dance across the room. Punch, catch, pull around, drop the first fist, catch the next on the upswing. Every so often, Trowa would go under instead of around, switching places with Duo in a rapid, and often arm-twisting, pace. When Duo kicked, Trowa would step back with the heel, or better yet the knee, before going around. It wrenched the thigh and knee.

Eventually Duo started trying to slip his knee between Trowa’s legs, hoping to trip him or at the very least bring them both to the ground. But by that point, Trowa had more stamina, and an opening.

Trowa broke his most recent hold and backed up a few steps; Duo was quick to follow. The first punch was the sloppiest yet, a combination of exhaustion and frustration. Trowa let it slid past his guard. The slip breathed renewed confidence in Duo. He put more effort into his strikes, making the next one Trowa let by—a cross to the ribs after a jab—hurt some. Trowa backed up at step. Duo followed with a move Trowa had used himself once or twice, one he had eventually abandoned: a sharp spinning combination that, if successful, struck with fist and feet in three vital points at three different heights. It was very easy to upset, however.

Duo went for the highest target first, looking to round-house his heel into Trowa’s temple. Trowa moved the moment Duo’s foot left the floor, dropping down and rolling beneath the kick’s arc. He flattened his hands against the floor as he rolled. When Duo turned, Trowa struck. Straightening his arms, Trowa propelled his body upwards into the first stages of a flip. He twisted his leg, twining it about Duo’s neck, so that when he finished the flip, the force of the forward momentum dragged Duo along. It was an effective move, but one Trowa hadn’t done for some time. He had lost some of his muscle mass; he couldn’t finish the flip with Duo’s weight. Trowa landed on his back. The fact that Duo landed on his a few feet away didn’t quite make up for the embarrassing winding.

The alarm went off before either of them had attempted getting up.

Duo swung himself around until he could look upside-down at the phone on the duffle bag. He stared for a moment before looking at Trowa.

“Call it a draw?”

“Sure.”

Duo groaned as he rolled up onto his knees. “That hurt, you know.”

“It’s supposed to,” Trowa said, flexing his muscles systematically. When he was sure he had done no permanent damage to himself, he sat up.

“Were you supposed to fall too?”

Trowa got slowly to his feet, flinching at the dull pain in his back.

“Take that as a no.”

On their feet, they took their time, walking a bit before turning off the alarm and getting their lunches. They sat, then, in a somewhat companionable silence, backs against the mirrored wall. They had both taken a bite of their sandwiches, and Duo a swig of his drink, when Duo looked at him.

“Where’d you learn that anyway?”

“Why? Interested?”

“Not if I’m supposed to fall on my ass every time.”

“Forget it.”

“What? Dude, I could pull it off. I could totally pull off a flip move like that.”

Trowa gave him a once over, from the slightly too-broad shoulders to the tapered waist to the legs with the muscles in all the wrong places. An accident waiting to happen. Trowa turned away and bit into his sandwich.

“You’re an ass, you know that,” Duo said, lips twitching to smile.

The room was quiet, apart for the quiet chewing and swallowing, and the occasional rustle of clothes as they shifted. Trowa sensed, though, a restlessness in Duo that sparring hadn’t quite burned off. He moved no more than usual but when Trowa caught a glimpse of his face, on the pretense of getting his drink, he saw Duo worrying at his cheek and flicking his eyes.

Trowa would not begrudge him what he wanted to say. Nor, however, would he invite it. Trowa twisted the cap off his tea.

He had taken a sip and finished his sandwich by the time Duo decided to speak. “Not worth it,” Duo said simply. Trowa glanced at him, his lips around the bottle and an eyebrow slightly raised. “Well it’s not.”

Glad to know Duo was actually being smart about starting gymnastics, Trowa shrugged. He tipped the bottle back to wash down clinging peanut butter.

“I’m serious. Nobody’s worth drugging yourself stupid, boyfriend or not.”

Trowa had heard once from Quatre that the most painful drink to have come out your nose was soda; the sugar and carbonation were apparently murder on the sinuses. Tea, though, had to be in the top five because Trowa teared as he choked it both down and up. Something tickled at the back of his nose; Trowa cupped both nose and mouth with his hand.   He waited until he could open his mouth without coughing, and until he was sure tea would not run out of his nose, to glare at Duo.

“What are you talking about,” he demanded over his hand, shrugging off the hand that had been lightly pounding at his back.

“Well something happened, right? That’s why you weren’t sleeping. Dude, people aren’t worth sleeping pills, I promise.”

“And what exactly makes you think I have a boyfriend?”

Duo smirked and shrugged. “You weren’t exactly shy about it,” he said. Trowa sneered at him hard enough and long enough that Duo sighed. “Fine, Heero told me. Happy? Jesus you guys never let me have any credit.” Duo folded his arms and sulked against the mirror. Trowa pinched the bridge of his nose.

“When?”

“On the way to work Saturday,” Duo said. There could be no eavesdroppers, human or otherwise, in the car, but that did not mean some lucky Preventor had not overheard. Even Heero could let something slip if he was irritated enough.

“I can’t imagine,” Trowa said while rubbing his eyes, “how that topic came up.”

“Seriously? You drugged yourself into hysteria and didn’t think we’d wonder why?”

“So what? Boyfriend was the first to pop into your head?”

“Third, actually. A lot of shit causes insomnia.” Trowa snorted. Duo sighed. “Look, it’s not like I meant it. Total sarcasm. Thought it was freaking impossible. Is it my fault Heero gripped the steering wheel like he wanted to strangle it and gave it away?”

Trowa’s pulse started thudding in his ears. “Freaking impossible?” What, that Trowa had a boyfriend now, or that he could have a boyfriend period? He ground his teeth. Then what exactly was it, the last few months, the last few months of hell? Trowa clenched his fist, ready to strike before ripping into Duo’s ignorance with words and teeth.

Told you so…

The soft chuckle, so much like his own rarely used one, poured over him like ice water.    The last couple of months. Kader. A boyfriend? In what nightmare?

He keeps the nightmares away. Boyfriends always do. And weren’t you just itching to see him this weekend? This morning? To sleep with his arm around you.

Not by choice. He had done something to him, the bastard, something to his head, and Trowa couldn’t fix it. Not yet.   Otherwise, Trowa would gladly put a bullet between Fahd’s eyes. But if he wanted to sleep again before the deprivation caught up with him, Trowa needed him. He didn’t want him.

You keep telling yourself that.

Desperate for a distraction from the too familiar, mocking lilt, Trowa latched onto a curiosity with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm.

“What did the steering wheel ever do to him?”

“Nothing,” Duo said after eyeing Trowa for a few seconds. “I thought, you know, maybe he didn’t like whoever it is. He’s like that, but he said he doesn’t know who you’re seeing. And trust me, he’s too pissed about that to be lying to me.”

A response which could only get worse if Heero actually did.

“He hasn’t snooped? I’m surprised.”

“Heero does have something of a non-hypocritical sense of morals, you know. That, or you hide stuff really well.”

Having a separate phone bill completely unconnected to the house certainly helped.

They were quiet for a moment. A long agonizing moment. Duo frowned and looked at him. “So it wasn’t boyfriend issues?”

Trowa struggled against a flinch. “No.”

“And he’s really not a Preventor?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant at all.”

“Right… Yeah well, the pharmacy is closed, by the way.”

Trowa did flinch this time.

“I warned you, didn’t I? I told you to just take the one—”

“Duo.”

“—but no one ever listens to me.”

Sighing, Trowa ran a hand through his hair. “Duo, I need a handful of aspirin to kill a headache.”

“That wasn’t aspirin.”

“I wanted it to actually work.”

Duo smiled unpleasantly. “Worked a little too well, now didn’t it?”

Most of the nightmare was lost to Trowa, but he knew he could reclaim it, if he tried. He was not inclined to. A fragment or two remained with him when he woke the first time, and although they made him shudder, morbid curiosity had him reluctantly seeking more. Trowa thought nothing could be worse than hearing Doc’s voice in his head again, coldly promising emasculation while driving his fingers in him. Then he heard them, groaning as he lay smothered between Doc and his faceless rapist; Trowa couldn’t tell if it was with disgust or desire.

He stopped looking after that.

Duo seemed to notice the way Trowa shuddered—worse than shuddered, if Trowa choose to notice the too-familiar prickling at the corners of his eyes—from remembering the little that he could of the night. Duo shifted and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Pretty fucked up, huh?” he asked softly. Trowa snorted quietly at the understatement of the day. “Yeah, I’d guess it have to be with, ya know…”

Quatre had told him, sometime between the bouts of sickness and loathing, about his reaction. Trowa had already promised to pay for the door repairs if he couldn’t somehow manage them himself.

“That was not supposed to happen,” he said, shifting against the mirror as if he couldn’t quite get comfortable.

Duo took the phrase for the apology it was meant to be. “Yeah I know. I told them you weren’t the type.” Duo paused. “There weren’t any more under there, were there?”

“Not under the pillow.”

“Just as long as two people aren’t keeping sub machine guns in the house.”

There was just a little too little space beneath Trowa’s bed for that. Besides, he preferred the somewhat quieter firearms.

There was no clock in the room, but they both seemed to feel that sitting any longer could problematic. Trowa stuffed the trash back into the lunch bag to throw away later. Duo stowed his in the duffle after rooting around for a spare shirt. Trowa almost wished, as he watched Duo slip into the fresh shirt with mild envy, that this sparing idea had come with enough for Trowa to pack a change of clothes. He had played defensive so sweat was minimal but he could still feel a faint itch of drying salt on his back and arms. It was irritating.

But not quite as irritating as having to flash a corset at Duo and endure whatever look or comment the other couldn’t help but make.

Trowa was buttoning his cuffs when Duo, in the middle of stuffing the ends of his shirt down his pants, turned and asked, “Are you sure it’s not a Preventor?”

“Why is this so fascinating to you two?”

“Are you really sure? Positive?”

“I think I would know.”

“Yeah, I guess you would.” Duo sighed and zipped up his pants. “It’s just a matter of time, now.”

“Time until what?”

“Until you move out.” Duo had become very focused on his cuffs when he said it, so he missed Trowa’s mouth dropping open. Move? Move where?

Duo took the silence for assent. “I mean I get it. I totally get it. It’s getting serious, right? It’s got to be. You see the guy practically every day—”

“Says who?”

“That is where you go when you don’t come home, isn’t it? Where you drive off to on weekends?”

Trowa wasn’t nearly sentimental enough to make visiting Catherine every weekend a reliable lie.

“It’s okay. I’d do it, too, if I was with someone and it was that serious. But you could have told us, you know.”

Told them what? That he was sleeping with a terrorist? That he was not only sleeping with a terrorist but the terrorist at the center of the Preventors’s attention? And I’m not sleeping with him. I’m being extorted by him!

“It’s not that serious,” Trowa said.

“Sure it’s not. Just warn us before you rent a moving van. We can borrow ‘Fei’s truck.”

“I’m not going to move.”

Duo shrugged, having already accepted what he thought was the inevitable.

“I don’t want to move.”

“But does he?”

That wouldn’t matter because Fahd was never hearing about it. He knew that if Fahd ever got so much as a hint that they would accept Trowa’s moving out, Fahd would tie him to the bed and keep him there like a personal pet.

A small shiver went up his spine; he demanded it to be revulsion.

“So,” Duo said, shouldering the duffle, “are we ever going to meet him?”

Other than possibly arresting him or retrieving his corpse? Trowa turned away.

“What? Are you the skeleton in some politician’s closet?” Duo meant it as a joke; he chuckled as he said it. Trowa, with his bag tight in fist and his face as straight as he could manage, walked to the door.

“Jesus. You don’t do anything half-way.”

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

“What happened to you?”

Trowa could have asked Fahd the same thing, slouched as he was over the paper-piled dinette with a rumpled dress shirt and unraveled tie. He looked like he had slept in his clothes for several nights, and that the sleep had been short and unpleasant. But above the dark, sleep-deprivation bruises, Fahd’s eyes burned with their usual intensity. And something else, perhaps mad or sinister. Fahd ran that wild gaze over Trowa’s body. He frowned more.

Trowa imagined he looked a little frantic.

Despite his best efforts, and a growing pile of paperwork, Trowa had spent the latter half of his work day dwelling on his conversation with Duo. It wasn’t the inanity of Duo’s suggestions that he focused on, either. It was the possibilities he obsessed over.

Trowa would probably never sleep again, and mostly certainly never sleep well, if he continued sleeping alone. Staying with the others would most certainly mean sleeping alone at least a few nights a week. And while Trowa thought that being drug-free would prevent his lashing out, he didn’t want to take a chance. The knife had lodged a full three inches into the wood. He didn’t need to imagine how far that kind force could drive a knife into a body, if someone chanced on him during a nightmare.

He couldn’t sleep alone and not be a danger. The weekend had proven that. Trowa had to be with someone, little though he liked it. Have someone at his back. He couldn’t ask them. There was no guarantee he could sleep well with any of them, and it was all the more dangerous to sleep with the snake in the bed than down the hall. And there was every guarantee that he would wake from some terror and have to endure their probing.

Besides, Trowa was sure their beds were full.

This left him, under no will of his own, with Fahd as his only logical bed partner. The problem was where. Being both a politician and a terrorist, it was more than impossible to have him in the house. Trowa’s moving in was more likely but that itself was problematic. Heero simply would not stop himself from uncovering the name of his secret lover then. It would only be a matter of time before Fahd was arrested, more likely killed. And then Trowa would not only be considered an accessory to terrorism, possibly even an agent gone rogue, but he would be without any means of safe sleep.

That was, of course, only if Fahd decided not to run. Which Trowa doubted. Considering the extent of the man’s influence, and the depth of his information, it would be relatively easy for him to catch a whisper or two and disappear with perfectly viable excuses.

The question was, would Trowa try to go with him?

The fact that Trowa had decided he would (if Fahd allowed it, of course, and the man would probably tire of him by that point and leave Trowa where he would, and that chilled Trowa with something that was a little too much like fear) was not nearly as distressing as his own reasoning. Because try as he had to cling to the practicality of the decision, emotion dominated his reasoning.

Trowa could get more than just sleep. He could get a micromanaging of his diet, and probably later his life, that bordered on abusive. He could get teasing that was just short of baiting and cruel. He could get sex that rattled and bruised his body but left his head floating in that pleasant white haze. He could get deception in the form of gentle touches and words, tender concern, that made the oncoming brutality almost worth it.

Trowa could get mind-fucking drowned in so much false affection that he could forget he was being mind-fucked completely, so much false affection that the knowledge of eventual violence and abandonment would retreat to the farthest corner of his overactive mind. Trowa could get so much affection that he would allow, perhaps even embrace, the inevitability of violent conclusion.

He was finding that affection, even false affection, was addictive enough for that.

Of course, when he had reached that conclusion, Trowa rejected it. He flinched from it with enough force to push his desk chair back an inch. Fahd was a terrorist, an extortionist, raping terrorist. There wasn’t an affectionate bone in the man’s body and there was no excuse for the callous way he treated Trowa. There was no excuse for manipulating Trowa’s body for sex, for manipulating his emotion for amusement, and Trowa wasn’t so desperate for affection to say otherwise.

Except he was. Beyond desperate. He was sure they were used for the most nefarious purposes, lies to manipulate him, and yet Trowa still find himself craving those small affections. And it was a craving, when his chest tightened at a simple text message or the lingering memory of a finger skimming along his side. It was a craving when he wondered how many times the man would thrust before Fahd let him have the white haze, and shivered with warmth. He craved that one moment of pleasure, the one moment in hours of agony, with an addict’s desperation.

He could get it no place else. They would not give it to him, and Trowa did not deserve it from them. But false affection, the prelude to disaster. That Trowa deserved. And Fahd was, for the moment, happy to provide it.

But he didn’t want it!

He had been stuck in that vicious cycle of reasoning, acceptance, denial when Nizar picked him up in the alley. It so occupied his thoughts that all through the blindfolded ride he had forgot to let his stomach drop on sudden stops or to worry at his cheek when a sharp turn flashed images of chains scarring his bike in his head. He forgot customary yank out of Nizar’s grip when he started to lead him to the elevator, as if Trowa hadn’t memorized the route weeks before.

Trowa had allowed himself to be led, too distracted to struggle, too distracted to notice the confusion and suspicion in Nizar’s fingers.

Fahd was expecting an answering, leaning forward as he was. Trowa shrugged. He could almost feel the jerk of the moment, a momentary spasm.

“Nothing happened.”

Fahd stared at him before glancing at Nizar. Nizar growled under his breath, waving a hand in exasperation before leaving for the side table in the hall that always seemed to have a folder or two. Fahd sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well, I had hoped to finish by now, but you can see that didn’t quite happen.”

Trowa nodded slowly. It was probably somehow related to whatever had kept him away for the three weeks. It was something critical, it had to be. Something that shook the foundation of everything Fahd worked for, and therefore exactly what the Preventors need. Trowa eyed the piles for less than ten seconds; exhaustion and resignation had tampered his usual curiosity.

“There are leftovers and fresh bread. Help yourself.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“As if that’s a surprise. Eat it anyway.”

Trowa shook his head. “I need to sleep,” he said, somehow managing to keep desperation out of his voice.

Fahd sighed but nodded, turning back to his papers. “Fine, fine, but later you are going to eat. I’m tired of feeling every single rib and vertebrae—”

“I need to sleep.”

Fahd had been reaching for the nearest stack of papers. He paused when Trowa spoke. Trowa fought down a shiver when the black eyes rose to him. They followed the contours of his face, the outline of his body, the minute tremors of his hands, before stopping again at his eyes and searching. Whatever he saw made him leaning his chin on his fist.

“You know where the bedroom is.”

Trowa hadn’t considered it, that Fahd was unaware of what he had done. Yet here he sat, looking at Trowa with the subtle signs of potent curiosity. Like he hadn’t planned damn near everything. It wasn’t inadvertent; it couldn’t be inadvertent. Fahd had a reason to pretend, a reason he wanted to hear Trowa say it.

Which he wasn’t. Trowa couldn’t bring himself to say it, even with realization and resignation chuckling gleefully in his head. It was a step he wouldn’t make. Not yet.

Trowa walked over to the dinette, took his usual seat, and waited. Fahd would eventually “understand” or get bored enough with his paperwork to drag Trowa to the bedroom. He had waited for more than three weeks. What was another hour?

“I thought you said you needed sleep,” Fahd said.

“I did.”

“And yet here you are.”

It was a new game, then?   An experimental style of torment he had to endure before getting the moment Trowa craved? It was preferably to true ignorance, but it still set Trowa’s teeth on edge. He considered getting some bread, only for something to do—and because either Fahd or Nizar knew of a very good bakery that Trowa was not going to ask about. Fahd grabbed his wrist when he pushed back from the table.

“Honestly,” he sighed. Fahd tucked one of the smaller piles of papers under his arm before tugging Trowa out of his chair. “You are so spoiled.”

Trowa didn’t want to delay his moment of pleasure any longer than he had too; he would probably have to endure at least half an hour of rough handling as it was. So he snarled without heat and gave only a few token tugs on Fahd’s grip before following him to the bedroom.

Fahd was generally not a patient man. Five minutes and I’m naked. Tops. Trowa’s stomach fluttered.

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

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fahd wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be, but as he sat back in bed, unread papers in one hand and fingers of the other playing idly on the delicate dip of 03’s waist, he was quite certain domestic moments like this were not supposed to be happening.

He was not complaining.

The former pilot shifted. Fahd watched him curl his fingers and toes. An unpleasant cress marred his otherwise expressionless face and he inched imperceptibly closer to the solid warmth of Fahd’s thigh. Fahd slid his fingers down to the sweet spot in the small of 03’s back and rubbed it slowly. He settled almost immediately.

“Now you’re affectionate,” Fahd muttered. For whatever reason, 03 had had nothing short of a mild tantrum after they entered the bedroom. Something about Fahd propping up the pillows for his back had rubbed the former pilot wrong. Of course, his response to 03’s blunt confusion hadn’t helped; the former pilot hated being treated like a child, which was precisely what Fahd’s frustration had told him to do. To add insult to injury, he had taken a swipe at 03’s current job, reminding him that the demands of a politician were much heavier than a paper pusher, even a law-enforcement one.

Fahd hadn’t used that particular barb since the very early stages of their arrangement. It had never failed to get a rise out of 03, but he had wondered if familiarity had dulled the sting to uselessness. Fahd was quite pleased when the former pilot’s face and fists tightened.

Obviously, the dig had had the exact opposite effect Fahd had wanted. 03 flatly refused to go anywhere near the bed until Fahd threatened him with a turn over the edge of the mattress. And even then, the former pilot had looked, for a moment, willing to endure a spanking for the sake of pride and a chance to kick Fahd in the head.

But only for a moment.

03 had reluctantly crawled into bed, where he put at least a foot of mattress and duvet between himself and Fahd before proceeding to sulk. Back to him, 03 had curled his knees as close to his chest as he could without looking fetal and kept his arms crossed tight, except for when he swatted at a hand that had wandered from Fahd’s papers to the pilot’s hip or back. Eventually, though, the sleep 03 had claimed to need caught up with him. Fahd had watched the lithe body loosen in sleep with a mild smile, setting his hand back on the slight hip when 03 rolled towards him.

“See how much better it is when you behave?” he murmured. He wasn’t behaving, of course. 03 had surrendered from exhaustion, which was about as far from behaving as one could get. The former pilot, as if he had heard the quiet words in the depths of his exhaustion, twitched in a particularly kicking sort of way. Fahd smiled.

He would never get 03 to behave. The tightly wound boy would fight him at every step, giving in only on occasion, only when it suited him, only when he would earn something particular for it. 03 would never allow himself to be convinced that he enjoyed attention, both the petting and the punishment. He would never relax his guard or body. He would never allow his body to naturally melt into rhythms of sex. He would never tremble just with desire or howl just with pleasure. He would never not bleed.

Which was probably just as well. Complacency and obedience were undoubtedly boring. They had been Fahd’s fare for most of his sexual life: the easiest flavors of partners to come by, considering his social standing. There was only so much groveling he could take, though, before his attention waned. Fear was a little rarer and therefore finer, a particular spice that Fahd enjoyed but all too briefly. Desperation always turned fear into obedience, and boredom inevitably followed.

Once, though, he had had the pleasure of a rebel—one particularly fond of biting. Fahd derived such a deep satisfaction from the man’s ultimate surrender that he might have endured the rebel’s degeneration into passivity for a time. But the other had apparently agreed with Fahd about the excitement of obedience, and hung himself not a day afterwards. Lover or no, Fahd would not have been able to stop the traitor’s eventual execution so he had thought it was just as well.

03 was finer than that, and relatively safe from execution. The former pilot had such a unique but unnamable flavor.   Something persistent. Resilient. 03 hated being toyed with: always jumping at the chance to prove he was not yet beaten. He seemed to delight in drawing blood where and when he could.   And when he had finally been pinned down, be it by manacles or body, he didn’t surrender. 03 endured. He dared Fahd to say he had broken him. He dared him, with that spirit that never surrendered but only feigned retreat under the crushing pressure of pleasure, to call him conquered after the moment ebbed.

Fahd would never risk losing the most interesting thing that had ever come kicking to his bed.

03 shifted, and grimaced. His hand drifted sleepily to his side, to the soft flesh just above his hip bone. He touched at the edge of his dress shirt, searching in dreams for the hard edge of the corset that must’ve dug in as he moved. Fahd caught the fingers gently. 03 whined and squirmed.

He tossed the unread papers on the side table before rolling onto his side and stroking the backs of 03’s captured fingers. The former pilot stilled. Fahd curled a leg around the pilot’s lightly tangled ones, drawing them closer and holding the lethal limbs still.   He draped his arm over the boy’s side as he waited. 03 shifted. His eyes lids fluttered but stayed closed. Fahd pressed closer and plucked out the edge of the dress shirt.

As long as he kept up some sort of light caress—the hands and back being particular favorites—Fahd could do, and had done, quite a few things to the prone body. For now, he used the weakness to sneak a hand along the back of the corset, loosening the difficult clasps enough to shift it on the torso and away from sensitive flesh.

03 sighed and burrowed into the space between Fahd’s chest and the mattress.

Although he had seen it countless times, Fahd was tempted to expose the unique body. Running his fingers over the melding of hard masculine planes and the soft feminine curves, over small warm breasts and balls, never got tiring. That, however, involved a bit more bending than Fahd thought safe; 03 was not the always the deepest of sleepers. He contented himself with fingering the slightly exposed spine until there was a knock at the door.   Fahd waited until the third knock, the one that sounded a bit more battering, before sliding his arms from underneath 03 and rolling off the bed. The boy curled on himself with a sleepy grumble.

“This had better be good,” he muttered as he opened the door.

Nizar stood outside his door as he always did: slightly crooked. Head and hip cocked to opposite sides just so, he exuded the heavy arrogance of a man of long-service and many successes. It was well-deserved, and extremely irritating.

Fahd crossed his arms. Nizar eyed his state of dress with mild surprise.

“I do have some priorities. Besides, he needed sleep.”

Nizar sneered at the sleeping pilot once before shoving the manila folders into Fahd’s hands. He turned on his heel and left, muttering obscenities under his breath.

His advisor disapproved of 03, but since Nizar tended to disapprove of most things Fahd did, he was neither surprised nor worried. Nizar would give in. He always did, and then he would trade the glowers for uninterested glances and the lectures for veiled suggestions of how to cut ties cleanly.

He was being persistent this time, though, which was surprising. Usually, it took Nizar about a week to accept and dismiss whatever whim Fahd had taken to. Two at the very most. He couldn’t afford to have his attention diverted for longer than that; there were always much more pressing matters than Fahd’s “tumultuous” sex life to attend to. But Fahd had had 03 for more than a week—closer to a few months now—and apart from a very rare moment, Nizar acted like it was the second day. He still insisted on the blindfold. He still demanded him out within 72 hours.    He still watched the former pilot like he was going to pull a pistol from his mouth.

It’d never fit in his mouth. Maybe up his cunt. Maybe. Considering how 03 tensed when Fahd so much as glanced at the little-used hole, though, he doubted it.

Fahd could mention it during Nizar’s next lecture. He wondered which red Nizar would turn, because there was a subtle difference between rage- and embarrassment-red. It was tempting, and such a logical and anatomically-based way to show Nizar how ridiculous he was being. But Fahd wouldn’t. He knew how much of his time would be wasted arguing with a man determined to be miserable.

So Fahd would bear Nizar’s irritation. He would wait the man out with a patience that had already been tried by someone much more volatile. Should he tell his dear advisor how strikingly similar he was to 03 when angry?

“He’ll definitely shot him then,” Fahd said.

Fahd thumbed through the contents of the folders: daily-, weekly-, and monthly-reports about the outposts; expense reports and supply demands from bases and skirmish units; profiles on targets and potential traitors. And requests, pages of them: requests for meetings; requests for interviews; request for comments about the state of the country, about the family’s future, about the funeral. As if Fahd had nothing better to do than pander to the gossip-gobbling reporters and tabloids.

He considered throwing them away. “Losing” them was probably better than losing his temper with a far-from-innocent reporter asking far-from-innocent questions about how much, or little, his father’s death meant to the country and him. After considering Nizar’s reaction, though, and how little he wanted to lose 03, Fahd moved them to the top of the pile. Dinner before dessert, as it were.

Considering the best non-committal answers, Fahd turned back to the bed. 03 had moved. He had twisted himself around, lying now mostly on his stomach with his head buried in the pillow. The boy’s arms, however, were tightly crossed beneath him with his fingers pressed to his sides. They twitched occasionally, digging into the flesh. Fahd approached the bed. As he knelt on the edge of the bed, he heard the distinct sound of pillow-smothered whimpering.

03 hadn’t made that sound in months.

Folders abandoned on the side table, Fahd stretched out beside 03. He ran his fingers along his side, a gentle warning touch before approaching the small of the back. The boy flinched as though struck. Fahd sighed and prepared himself for the violent reaction he was about to cause. 03 only ever flinched when he had fallen to that place where gentle touches only fueled his distress. If he couldn’t be coaxed back to sleep, he had to be woken up. And then restrained.

Fahd, watching the lightly trembling body, wrapped his fingers around one of the too-lean shoulder and squeezed. 03 froze. Every muscle in the boy’s body tightened to the point of pain. Fahd knew the eyes had snapped opened and stared sightlessly into the pillow, first bewildered by the abrupt way he had been disconnected and then damn sure that he was in fact not. Fahd had only a few seconds to trap the smaller but more lethal body before the former pilot snapped.

He already had 03 mostly pinned beneath him when he started struggling. Fahd shifted one of his knees carefully, mindful of the thrashing limbs, and wrapped it tightly around the boy’s knees. 03 let out a particularly muffled-but-frightened cry as he squirmed his legs and hips uselessly. 03 brought his head back. Fahd dodged it narrowly and pressed down on the top of his back. 03 screeched. He twisted his shoulders. Fahd lay over him, sliding his arms beneath the other and pinning 03’s thrashing arms to his chest.

03 twisted and bucked, thrashing against his human cage with the ferocity of a wounded and frightened animal. Fahd flinched as small, hard bones of hips and elbows jabbed into his limbs. Fahd dug into the sensitive joints of his knees and wrists, grinding the smaller hand bones together in an effort to still him. The boy just continued to struggle. Growling himself, Fahd took both of the clawing hands in one and grabbed 03’s hair with the other. He pulled. The pillow came up with the boy’s head.

“I don’t know where you think you are, but you aren’t. That’s enough.”

Again, 03 froze. This time, however, Fahd heard a particular hitching in the boy’s panting. He’s confused. 03 was silent. After a few seconds he let out a groan that was both distressed and embarrassed. His body relaxed some. Fahd loosened his grip on 03’s wrists and hair. The pillow fell back to the bed.

Fahd was about to release his hands to rub the boy’s side when 03 tensed again. He started to squirm. Fahd sneered and gripped the wrists hard. When Fahd noticed the rapid way the other swallowed, however, he released him quickly. 03 tumbled off the bed and scrambled out of the room.

He could count on one hand the number of times 03 had woken up and been violently ill. Each had occurred in the earliest days and weeks of their relationship, after some particularly terrible nightmare 03 refused to discuss. And each had been accompanied by an expression Fahd remembered far too clearly. Exploiting the pleasure points on his body had kept that face at bay. It had done more, actually. Thanks to them, 03 had relaxed into having a sleeping partner rather quickly. Practically in days. Now, so long as there was body warmth, or better yet an arm over his waist, the boy slept fairly deeply and with only an occasional twitch or whine. And those were so easily manipulated Fahd could coax them in his sleep.

He could count the times 03 had woken up ill on one hand. And in the about same number of minutes, 03 had gone from sleeping seemingly well to plummeting headfirst into a hell of his own mind’s making. He had gone from easily manipulated to totally inconsolable and uncontrollable.   And all because Fahd had left the bed for a few minutes?

Something happened, Fahd decided while looking at the teeth marks in the pillow. Something happened to the former pilot, something drastic, and it happened quite a bit ago. It would have had to; 03 must need at least of week of it to teach himself how to gag himself in his sleep.

There was a creak by the door. Fahd looked over. 03 leaned heavily against the doorframe, a trembling hand gripping his probably still-churning stomach. Fahd, a bit concerned by the shaking and then the moderate swaying as the boy straightened, sat up. The movement brought up 03’s bowed head.

Even though he was expecting it, Fahd’s breath caught in his throat as he saw his face.   03 was pale, his normally calm, or moderately irritated, expression strained. The taut skin of his mouth and the fevered glow of cheeks screamed of a thousand unpleasant, and normally secreted, thoughts and memories. The stiff swallows whispered out his fear, and the rapid blinking of dull, moist eyes his misery. Look long enough, and Fahd would see the lower lip start to quiver as 03 fought down the urge to ask, the demand, to beg!

Why me?

03 had been, under no will of his own, stripped of his guard. Much the same way he had been the first time in bed. Much the same way Ilham always had when he looked on his crutches and knew they would keep him from his rightful place as first-born.

Suppressing a shudder—he didn’t like thinking about his older brother—Fahd sat back against the pillows. He folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and smiled as well as discomfort could allow.

“This seems rather familiar, doesn’t it?” Fahd asked.

03 blinked, a slow and rather unsteady movement. Fahd worried the boy still wasn’t fully connected to reality. He was preparing to catch him as he either fell or lashed out when 03’s face shifted. The dull eyes cleared and narrowed while the mouth worked itself into something closer to its usual expressionless line. 03 straightened with a silent huff.

“Hardly. I wasn’t sick then, I was sick over the weekend.”

Fahd wasn’t nearly impressed enough with the boy’s ability to crush despair with irritation to ignore that. “Sick? What do you mean sick?”

03 shifted, running his fingers along his sides and up his back. He scowled. “Did you loosen it?”

“Sick with what?”

“You stripped me in my sleep?”

Fahd rolled his eyes. “Obviously not. You were clawing at it in your sleep.” 03 frowned at him before bending back a bit and reaching his hands beneath the back of his shirt. “Sick with what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Fahd swept him with a critical eye and frowned. 03 did look a little weaker than normal, had, in fact, from the moment he walked into the kitchen. He had been twitching slightly when he sat at the dinette, almost trembling. His eyes had been a little glassy and flicked anxiously. Worse, though, was that his face was thinner. Hollow, as if he hadn’t been eating well. Again.

“Sick. With. What.” Fahd repeated, sitting forward.

03 straightened and brought his hands out from his shirt. The slow, calculated movements spoke of hesitation better than a chewed lip. 03 was considering his limited choices.

“Food poisoning,” he said in a surprisingly clear and steady voice, looking Fahd in the eye. The boy was aware, then, that flu and stomach viruses took longer than a few days to cure.

“You eat vegetables and bread. You’d know if they had turned and toss them.”

A muscle in his neck tightened as he clenched his jaw. “Spoiled milk.”

Except 03 hated milk and Fahd knew it. He had offered it at dinner once. The boy had made the most amusing face as he pushed it away. When pressed, he had assured Fahd it was not a matter of ethics but one of taste. Fahd actually laughed when 03 used the word “disgusting.” 03 had tossed the milk in his face and gotten a round over Fahd’s lap shortly afterwards.

03 must have sensed where his thoughts had gone, because he folded his arms and clarified. “In my tea.”

Fahd rose. He walked slowly to 03, frowning. For his part, 03 didn’t so much as lock his knees. He kept his arms over his chest and lifted his chin the closer to Fahd came. It was only when he was a hands-breadth from him, towering over him, forcing the boy’s head back to look him in the eyes, that 03 swallowed.

“If there was enough in it to make you sick, you’d toss it out.”

“Someone else made it. They didn’t ask.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

Something like a smirk flicked across his face. “Their feelings actually mattered.”

Fahd smiled. He leaned forward, balancing himself with an elbow on the doorframe and trapping 03 between the wood and his chest. His breath came out a little quick. Perhaps an intake of fear, perhaps a grunt from contact. 03 glanced at the wood pressed against his spine only once and amazingly briefly.

“I suggest you tell the truth now, Trowa.” He said. 03 stared silently for a moment. His arms tightened over his chest.

“Spoiled milk.”

Fahd sighed. 03 tensed, with good reason. The sound was barely out of his mouth when Fahd grabbed 03 by the front of the shirt and pulled. For all of his outward calm, 03 was still unsteady and stumbled forward several steps. 03 twisted, trying to use a sudden drop of his weight to pull Fahd off balance. Fahd stepped into the movement, releasing the shirt and catching his hips easily. It was then just a matter of lifting the boy to his shoulder. And avoiding well aimed, sharp elbows.

03 swore as he was handled. He swore louder when he was toppled onto Fahd’s shoulder with his legs held down. The swearing reached a colorful, and previously unreached, peak after Fahd kicked the door closed and headed towards the bed.

Given the opportunity, 03 would contort himself in an impossible way the moment he was released. He would twist to the point of breaking simply to get a fist or a heel into Fahd’s temple. So Fahd did not sit at the edge of the bed, where 03 could get additional purchase from the floor. Fahd knelt on the mattress just a few inches away from the edge, facing the foot of the bed. He leaned sideways until 03 rolled off his shoulders. 03 was too focused on stopping the spinning to notice Fahd holding and shifting his waist into his lap. The boy’s head and torso disappeared over the edge of the bed.

Given enough time, 03 could still cause trouble. Even now the muscles in his back were moving at an alarming rate as he tried to get his arms beneath him and stop the rush of blood to his head. Fahd didn’t waste precious time with a warning.

Clothed, the contact between his hand and the boy’s rear didn’t have the same sharp, satisfying ring. But 03 let out his familiar surprised, and slightly horrified, gasp. Fahd did not pause after the first like he usually did, did not give 03 the option of talking, which he never took. So he got three more startled yelps out of him before 03 tensed his body and ground his teeth against the assault.

He still didn’t understand that tensing made it worse.

Fahd had counted eight to himself when 03’s back started to tremble. At twelve 03 made a wiggling movement with his legs and growled when Fahd tightened his arm around them. At sixteen he let out a nasally groan from behind his teeth.

“Stop lying to me,” Fahd said, leaning over his back. He wasn’t quite close enough to his ear, so when 03 snapped his head back, he missed Fahd’s face entirely. Fahd spanked him hard.

“Are you sure you want a sore ass for work tomorrow?”

“I’d be sore anyway, thanks to you.”

Fahd spanked him hard again. This time, 03 flinched.

Fahd lay over his back, stroking the clothed but stinging backside and feeling the deep and shaking breaths 03 took. He was just this side of panting, a very good sign. The muscles beneath Fahd’s hand and chest flexed.

“It was a reaction. That’s all.”

Food poisoning was a reaction, too. Fahd squeezed the skin in his hand. “A reaction to what? And do not say ‘milk’.”

03 was silent. He shifted a bit: first his hips, then his legs, then his shoulders. It could have been a simple matter of adjustment, of removing an ache the heavy body over him was causing. Fahd knew it wasn’t. 03 was hesitating with those small movements, practically wringing his hands and shuffling his feet. He was nervous, but about what? What did you do?

“To medicine,” he said. It was not the answer Fahd was expecting. He sat up a bit.

“An allergic reaction? What did you take?”

03 shifted again, this time digging his toes into the bedding. From nervous to almost scared. As if the honest answer was somehow worse than a lie. Given his reactions, it probably was.

“What did you take?” he repeated.

03 waited a second or two before answering steadily, “Sleeping pills.”

Sleeping pills. He had taken sleeping pills? Fahd sat back, fixating on two points in 03’s skull, two that were directly behind his eyes. Why would 03 take sleeping pills? He always seemed oddly accepting of the lack of sleep and struck Fahd as someone very cautious about putting strong, mild-altering chemicals in his body. He could have, of course, decided he needed healthier sleep. When hell freezes, he thought.

It could have been prescribed: forced upon him by a physical and psychological evaluation of his job performance. A “Take it or you’re fired” moment. That was a bit more possible. If 03’s alternative job prospects were slimmer than Fahd realized, the boy could have bent to his superiors’ wills. He might not have even known he had a medication allergy; people developed them suddenly all the time.

Except it couldn’t have been an allergic reaction. An allergic reaction was practically innocent, and innocence did not explaining his reluctance. But guilt did. 03 had done it knowingly. He had taken enough sleeping pills to make himself sick. He had overdosed. People only overdosed if they were stupid or suicidal.

03 was a lot of things; stupid wasn’t one of them.

Nor was he suicidal. At least Fahd didn’t think so. 03 showed none of the classic signs of severe depression or suicidal tendencies. Not that Fahd expected him to. 03 rarely showed any classical emotional sign. But 03 didn’t show any of the others, either. The signs Fahd had learned through experience, the signs he had ignored. 03 was not slate-eyed and silent like the rebel, or poking his wrists with pen as he chatted like his schoolmate. He was not smiling demurely at some private pleasure like Fahd’s mother.

03 wasn’t stupid, nor was he suicidal. Then why did he overdose on sleeping pills?

Fahd growled in his frustration. 03 shifted in his lap.   Snaking an arm around the boy’s hips, Fahd leaned over his back again. “You overdosed.”

“I didn’t.”

“You took enough sleeping pills to get yourself sick. That’s an overdose.”

“Overdosing is suicide. I’m not dead.”

“Not yet,” he growled. Fahd gripped the front of 03’s dress pants. 03 squirmed as Fahd popped the button easily. “You overdosed.”

“Stop.”

Fahd pulled his head back by the hair. “You overdosed. Why?”

“I didn’t.” 03 countered through grit teeth.

“Don’t lie to me,” he snarled. 03 kicked as the zipper went down.

“Let go.”

“Why did you take it?”

“Let go.”

Fahd yanked 03’s dress pants down. 03 struggled. Fahd tangled the pants around his kicking legs before shoving the squirming body off his lap. The boy grunted but almost immediately struggled to roll over. Fahd pinned one of his thighs down with his knee and gripped the back of 03’s neck. 03 snarled, abandoning his attempts to push himself up to claw at Fahd’s hand.

“Get off me,” he snarled. The words broke off in a gasp as Fahd spanked him hard enough to jerk him forward an inch. “Bastard!”

“Tell me why you overdosed.”

“I didn’t,” 03 spat. He dug his fingers into Fahd’s wrist and twisted as hard as he could.

Fahd flinched and spanked him another inch off the mattress. 03’s fingers spasmed around his wrist.

“Tell me why,” he growled slowly into his ear. 03 twisted. Fahd squeezed the burning flesh in his hand. 03 snarled and whipped his head towards him. Pulling back, Fahd fumbled with his belt. When he heard the chink of metal, 03 stilled.

Fahd pulled the belt from the loops, the whisper of leather against fabric making 03 quiver. He was too infuriated, though, to be more than mildly interested at the boy’s reactions. The end of the belt brushed against 03’s skin. He flinched away, yelling before Fahd opened his mouth.

“You weren’t there!”

There was a particular pitch, a particular edge, to his voice. That, coupled with the odd answer, gave Fahd pause. He glanced between the belt and trembling back once before tossing it aside. He rolled 03 to him, the vice he had on his neck loosening into a gentler, supportive hold of his head.

03’s face was taut again, the muscles in his neck straining to both hold his head up and hold his emotions in. His eyes were shut tight, though, hiding that unfocused, fevered gaze. 03 breathed rapidly through his nose. When Fahd called his name, 03 turned away and swallowed.

He could not be pushed anymore. Not tonight, which was something of a shame. Fahd’s curiosity had been peaked, frustrated, and peaked again. It demanded satisfaction. And perhaps it would have it, if Fahd was careful. Pushing 03 now would be reckless. The boy’s stubborn resolve was vast, not limitless. Push him now, and Fahd would most likely discover he had indeed found 03’s limit, and rammed straight through it. Fahd was not ready for that.

Nor was he ready to ignore the nagging curiosity. There were simply too many questions now, too many surprises to wonder after. But 03 was too fragile at the moment to withstand that curiosity.

If you’re careful with him though.

Fahd watched the distressed body beneath him. In the long minutes, 03 had only managed to calm his breathing and trembling by a petty fraction.

If he was careful, though, so very careful, Fahd could perhaps have both. He could ease 03 from the edge and just maybe nudge the boy into a place where he was a little more forthcoming. A little more honest.

If he was careful. And being careful meant being a tad more considerate of 03 than usual.

Fahd started with his fingers, working gently at the clammy skin on 03’s nape. 03 inhaled sharply. His brow knitted when the pads of Fahd’s fingers began massaging in slow circles. Fahd would switch directions every few circles. 03 swallowed each time. Soon though, he only swallowed every other time, then every so often, and finally he stopped. His eyelids fluttered. Fahd caught a sliver of green as 03 looked up at him. Wary and defensive. Fahd’s thumb rubbed the small dip just beneath his head. 03 let out a reluctant sigh.

Wrapping an arm carefully beneath 03’s back, Fahd settled back on the mattress. 03 squirmed as he was settled over him. Fahd, stroking the small of his back, shifted his hand. He cupped the slender jaw with his fingers, leaving his thumb to tend to the sensitive nape alone. 03 pushed against his chest. Fahd pressed at the bone, dipping 03’s head back.

“No.”

Fahd nipped at the top of his throat. “Don’t start.”

03 fisted Fahd’s shirt. Fahd tsked against his neck. His pushed down on the other’s back, bringing the tense hips to meet his own. Fahd rocked against him. 03 jerked. Fahd smirked as he felt a warm throb from the boy’s crotch.

“Relax,” he said.

03 pushed at him with his fists, shaking his head. Fahd stroked the bared throat with his tongue, rocking his hips. 03 swallowed, the delicate adam’s apple bobbing against Fahd’s lip. Fahd ground harder against him. 03 shivered. Fahd felt him start to swell. 03 dug his fingers into his chest.

While nipping at his pulse, Fahd ran his fingers down 03’s throat. They slithered down 03’s heaving chest to his clenching fingers. He pried them up one at a time, holding each trembling digit for a second or two before attempting the next. When he had one hand in his own, Fahd slipped a knee between the shaking thighs. 03 gasped softly. His grip on Fahd’s shirt loosened. Fahd swept the hand into his grip with his thumb before rolling over.

Fahd held 03 beneath him with gentle pressure, stroking the bony wrists he held above 03’s head and kneading his erection with his knee. His hand slid out from beneath 03’s back and to his pelvis. Fahd’s fingertips drifted up his stomach, circling each of the small buttons on his dress shirt. 03 tugged his left hand, then his right. He shifted his hips and pressed his thighs against Fahd’s knee uselessly. 03 looked at him then. Beneath the lidded eyes and long lashes, Fahd saw a sliver of green. Grayer than usual, the single crack in the pupil-dominated eye was muddied by whatever 03 saw.

Fahd ground the wrist bones against each other. 03 flinched. The gray receded, the pupil retracted. Slightly.

A touch of pain—a pinch here, a bite there, grinding small bones and twisting sensitive flesh—kept 03 from retreating too far as Fahd popped open his dress shirt and maneuvered the corset from the uncomfortably limp body. Fahd released his hands, dragging his fingers harshly down his arms to his shoulders. 03’s hands lay above his head, only twitching on occasion at the pain. His pupils swelled when Fahd fingered 03’s small breasts. They retreated to near pinpricks when Fahd twisted his flagging erection.

03 finally hiss, shifting his hips. He twisted when Fahd forced his still pant-tangled ankles up. Fahd pushed two fingers inside him and 03 swore.

The limp hands lunged, wrapping around Fahd’s wrist and pulling. Fahd twisted the cloth around his hand, bringing the ankles closer together and pushing them towards his head. 03’s fingers dug into his wrist joint. Fahd curled his thrusting fingers, the tips finally brushing 03’s prostate. The boy let out a breathy gasp. His hands scrambled along Fahd’s arm.

Fahd manipulated the sensitive bundle of nerves with clever twists and scratches. 03 squirmed beneath him, swearing in breathy pants. Fahd rubbed the nub particularly hard. 03 jerked his hips in a uniquely rotating way. His hands slipped from Fahd’s arm, falling beside his head. Smirking, Fahd slid his hand down one of his slender legs. They sagged a bit, knees bending without the hand’s support. But the ankles, trembling as they were, strained to stay near 03’s head.

He stroked 03’s hip in praise before snaking his fingers between the tense, quivering thighs. The flesh he grabbed was hot. Fahd thumbed the swollen, moist head. 03 moaned.

Fahd continued to finger and stroke him as he eased his fingers from the tight passage. 03 still made a strangely whining groan. Making quick work of button and zipper, Fahd shifted closer. He leaned against 03’s legs, forcing the shaking limbs closer to chest. Another few inches and 03 could bury his toes in the pillows.

03 fisted the bedding on other side of his head. He panted, a high-pitched, wheezing sort of sound as his lungs tried to get air in the contorted position. A flush ran from his cheeks to his shoulders, painting the bites Fahd had given the slender, working throat deep red. 03’s tongue swept over his dry, parted lips. And he glared at Fahd with palatable loathing.

Fahd pushed into the clenching hole, rushing straight for that small knot of pleasure. 03’s glare collapsed under the assault. Fahd grit his teeth as 03 tightened around him like a vice.

Neither of them lasted particularly long.

In the aftermath, after Fahd had come down from the high of sexual satisfaction and after he had carefully shifted 03’s passed out body into a more comfortable position, Fahd stretched out alongside him. He traced the boy’s lax features and enjoyed the weight of him on his arm. And as Fahd settled his other arm over 03’s shoulders, and 03 shifted imperceptibly closer, something clicked.

Fahd glanced down at the former pilot burrowed against his chest. 03’s arms had slipped around his own waist again, but the warmth from Fahd’s body and pressure of his arm kept the grip light. Relaxed. Fahd stroked the boy’s spine in lazy circles. 03 muttered and moved his head against Fahd in a way that could only be described as nuzzling.

“You weren’t there.”

“But I am here now,” he murmured into 03’s hair. Fahd tightened his grip, fingers lacing into his hair and pressing him against his chest. “You can sleep, for now. I don’t have to leave.” He pressed his lips to the top of his head. “I won’t leave, once a thing or two is finished.”

If 03 was so in need of him, perhaps it was time to finish those one or two, or four, things.

03 whined, craning his head away to breathe.

A/n When I first decided to write a Fahd-centered segment, I wanted to prove that Fahd wasn't a total villain. That he had some redeemable qualities, or that he was a product of things beyond his control. What I've actually done is shown myself that yes I can write a completely morally-reprehensible character. Fahd may be the character I personally hate the most. Expect, however, another Fahd-centered moment later in the story; there is more to be said about the bastard.

On a final note, I have created a Tumblr. Why did I create a Tumblr? Because I wanted to be able to tell my readers, whomever maybe left, what is going on with the fic, where I am, and whatever may be happening in my life or my brain that is stopping me from writing. You do not have to follow me on tumblr. You can simply use the ASK feature on my page to nudge me with a pointy stick and make me write. You can also, if you are so incline, ask me any questions you may have: about the fic or about me.

You can find me at ahsimwithsake.tumblr.com

As always, please read and review.

~*~ladyyeinkhan~*~
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The Chains We Wear