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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2207 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing AC or the characters from it. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
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A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 4

Part 4
　

That first week of September, I caught a glimpse of what the rest of my life is going to be like. I suppose that sounds pretty melodramatic. I mean, it isn't like I'm not accustomed to loneliness. I spent the first nine years of my life lonely, although not the kind of loneliness I had felt after Quatre's death. Back then, my father hadn't been as volatile and frightening as he is now and his presence had still been something of a comfort. And I had spent that year and a half after Quatre's suicide without a single person to help me through it.

But, and this is going to sound strange, that time had felt very different to me. I'm not even sure how. I was just so swallowed up in my misery of missing him. Sure, I had realized how terrible it was going to be not having a friend, not having a single person to talk to, but it had taken me months to actually feel that emptiness instead of the pain of missing him.

Then Trowa had called me out of the blue and had made me forget what it felt like, that nothingness. I mean, sure, we didn't really talk like Quatre and I had, but whenever I had felt stressed about my family or work or I had just wanted to get out of the house for a little while, he had been there. I had had something, one thing that, if I looked at my life and asked myself if there was a point to it, I could say yes, there's Trowa. He made me feel frightened and sad and frustrated, but he also made me happy sometimes. Maybe that sounds like a small thing, but what else did I hate to feel happy about? He made me smile. That seemed worth the fear and hurt.

The day following the fight we had had (if you could even really call that a fight), I got that taste of what things would be like without him. I half expected him to call me that previous night to inform me that we were through, that there was no way in Hell that he wanted a wishy-washy boyfriend, that he had meant every word he had said about me being trash, but he didn't. He didn't call me the next day or the day after that and I made no attempt to call him, either. We ignored each other in the hallway like we always had and sometimes it felt like nothing had changed. But I stopped going up to the studio.

He was probably so angry with me that he didn't want to see me, but I was paranoid that he did. In some stupid place in my head, I thought that we couldn't break up if he never actually said those words to me, and if we didn't talk to each other, it was no different than the weeks we had gone last semester without saying a word to each other. It didn't mean I would never see him again. Even if he didn't want to break up, and I couldn't understand why he wouldn't, I couldn't face him. I still hadn't managed to muster up any anger at him for the things that he had done and said to me, and I still felt like the entire thing was my fault. I just couldn't deal with my guilt and his rage at the time.

I could have resented him for taking my secret lunch spot away from me, but I couldn't find the energy to care about it at the same time that I was driving myself crazy with anxiety over Trowa, constantly turning my issues with sex and intensity around in my head, and wariness over what my father had done. He hadn't apologized to me for trying to strangle me, either, but I hadn't expected him to. I was actually kind of hoping he had been too drunk to remember. It must be nice. I could almost be tempted to drink my problems away, too. I certainly have enough of them...

I was just... tired. Really, down to my damned bones, tired. And not just emotionally, either. I haven't slept well since Quatre died, but after the night my father had choked me, it got worse. I kept having this nightmare. It was different than the one I have about Quatre; it was more muddled and felt a lot more like a typical dream. It was exactly the same, every time I had it.

I am lying on the floor of the train platform with someone on top of me. I can't see who it is and every single time, my dream self assumes it is my dad. Whoever it is is bigger than me and holds me down so I can't move. Then, he starts hitting me, over and over until every part of me is broken. Only it isn't my father, like it usually is when I have dreams of getting beaten to death, this time it's Trowa. And the second that I realize that, he has a knife and stabs me in my groin and makes that soft moan he had given out when he had made me touch him.

He keeps stabbing me and I gasp for air, only it's blood that I'm sucking in and I choke on it. Then, after this seems to go on for hours, he'll stop and say,

"Thanks, but I don't need you anymore," and he'll drag me to the train tracks and every single night, he throws me in front of the train.

Every time I had this nightmare, I would wake up panting and gasping like I couldn't breathe, shaking like some dumb kid that had just dreamed that they had gotten eaten by a monster. The third time I had had it, it had been exactly the same dream, the only different was that the person stabbing me and moaning and telling me that I wasn't needed anymore was my father. That time, I woke up with a chill so severe in my gut that I thought I was in shock.

But the worst was the thick taste of blood in my mouth and for a solid minute, I had seriously believed that my dream had been real. Then reality had returned and I had realized that I had bitten my tongue in my sleep, hard enough that it would hurt until later that morning. I ran into the bathroom to throw up and told myself that it was just from swallowing my own blood for who even knows how long. The next night, my dream murderer was Trowa again. I was relieved to see him on top of me and pushed away that other incredibly more fucked up dream to never think of it again.

By Friday night, I was completely sick of the nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat. I was managing about one to two hours of sleep at a time at that point and I, in my infinite wisdom, had decided that night that since I wasn't really sleeping anyway, I would just stay awake through the night for a little while and hope the dreams would just disappear. I managed two nights without sleep. I staved it off easily enough, reading into the small hours of the morning and then around four I would sneak out of the house and go to the beach. If you walked far enough down the beach, there is this sort of mound of rock and sand that had been formed by the elements so perfectly that it kind of looks like a manmade path or road.

The mound makes this long trail about five miles long from the surf right into the ocean. It was nearly shaped like a hill, flat enough to walk on, but it slowly lurched out of the water and then receded right back into it at the end. If you went at low tide, it ended at a ridge that you could sit on and almost have your feet touch the water, but at high tide, it sunk under the waves. I loved running the length of it during that time. It made me feel like I was running to meet the ocean; that if I just kept going, I could run into the sea and have it swallow me up.

Saturday and Sunday morning, I ran along that trail until the sun rose and I sat on that ridge and watched the sunset. I was all alone during that time; it was too cold for anyone but the most dedicated joggers to brave the beach. A couple times, I caught myself leaning towards the edge too far and attributed it to my tiredness. Those cold, icy waves really would swallow me whole. I doubted anyone would survive a five mile swim back to the shore in that weather. After watching the sun's reflection gleam off the water for a little while, I would walk home and make myself breakfast.

Sleep deprivation is a funny thing. Even though I've been accustomed to it since I was little, even before Quatre died and I started getting those horrible nightmares and restlessness, and my parents' fighting would keep me wide awake or out of anxiety of my father's bad moods or because he would sometimes drag me out of bed out of spite. But I've never gotten used to how it just destroys your sense of time. Sleep isn't just something your body needs; it's a marker of days and the passage of time. You fall asleep one day and wake up the next. It's like the human body's great reset button. Get rid of that, even for a short amount of time like, say, three days, and it starts to fuck with you. You forget what day it is, what time it is. Eventually you stop feeling how tired you are and just feel confusion, like someone spun you around so many times, you can't reorient yourself.

Sunday night, I was so exhausted and disoriented; I don't remember my first two work shifts at all. I was an anxious wreck, not eating, forgetting to drink even water, and forgetting why I felt anxious about school the next day. I could remember my fight with Trowa, but I was in a haze and couldn't recall why that fight had anything to do with my stress. I remember going to the beach that morning, blinking at the sunrise and suddenly I was at the factory, throwing empty boxes into the bailer. I only know I went to my other jobs that day because I got paid for them. It's amazing I didn't lose my hand in the bailer at that point.

I certainly wasn't surprised when, in my tiredness, I raked a box cutter over my left hand when cutting up some cardboard boxes. I just stared down at the cut for a few minutes, watching the blood drip out of it and unable to comprehend why I was bleeding. The next thing I knew, Solo was wrapping my hand in a towel and yelling at me, telling me that I was a dumb shit for not paying attention to what I was doing.

The cut wasn't that bad, but my boss sent me home early anyway. I think how messed up I was had finally filtered into sleep deprived brain at that point, because the first thing I did when I got home was walk right up into my room and throw myself onto my bed. I think I was asleep before I even felt the mattress under me. The nightmare came back, but I slept deeper and longer than I had in a very long time, a grand total of six uninterrupted hours. I haven't slept that well since.

Monday night I got a call from my boss at the factory telling me to take a couple days off, fully paid for. Somehow Solo had convinced him that the reason why I had cut myself was that the retract switch on the old blade had jammed. I guess my boss was desperate to cover his ass since, if I insisted on filing a workplace injury report, it would get him into trouble for hiring someone under-aged to work there. I would have to bake Solo a pound of gingerbread cookies to pay him back for that one. While I didn't have much to do beyond work, I hated working at the factory and even just one day away from it was a blessing, let alone two.

I spent Monday night in the library courtyard reading and listening to music on the disc player Quatre had given me for my eleventh birthday. I didn't want to let my father know about the two days off, he would make me do chores or go on errands for him. I suppose that sounds incredibly lazy, but I was much happier reading in the lowly lit courtyard all by myself than busting my injured hand up weeding, looking over my father's car which was now dead in our driveway and had been all this week, or fixing the leak in kitchen sink.

I went home Tuesday after my shift at the diner with the exact intention of doing that again. I had rented out a bunch of Irish literature from the library and had finished a poetry collection from Keats Monday night. I wanted to grab Dubliners before I snuck back out again and see if I could finish it that night, but the sound of Pat Donovan's voice when I walked through the front door stopped me cold.

"No fucking kidding?"

"Corroded to hell," my father's voice was gruff and thick, agitated, and it had that mean quality to it that told me that he was not only drunk, but pissed off enough that he was going to be quick to throw a punch if I dared to look at him oddly, "the whole goddamned battery. Fucking thing isn't even two years old and it's already gone to shit!"

"You should sue their asses," there was a pause and I knew that Pat was taking a drink.

My father snorted.

"Who the hell has the time or the money for that?" he growled, "All I know is the flaming car can't even get out of my damned driveway and now I need to pay for a new battery I shouldn't need."

There was another lengthy pause. I considered going back out the front door before either of them could spot me. A book wasn't worth a run in with Donovan or my father in the mood that he was in.

"Duo, get over here!" my father suddenly bellowed, somehow sounding irritated even though I hadn't said or done anything.

I flinched so hard that I hit the back of my head against the wall and was immediately glad that I was too far away from the kitchen for either of them to have seen that. Pat would have jeered at me and called me a pussy. I walked slowly and cautiously into the kitchen like I was walking into a den of tigers, not knowing if something was going to come hurling at my head, like a bottle or an insult. The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table on opposite ends of each other, a few empty, glass bottles sitting on the floor and the both of them had a half and two-thirds empty bottle in hand. They weren't quite as into it as I had feared, but it wouldn't matter with my father has pissed off as he was.

"Yeah?" I asked nervously.

"Go down to Neely's Auto Shop and get me a new battery," he barked at me.

"No-" 'way' was the first thing that popped into my head.

Neely's was where Trowa worked and he always had the night shift on Tuesday's, usually by himself as part of the skeleton crew. There was just no way I was going to risk running into him, especially when he might be all alone at the shop. But in a half a second, I saw exactly what would happen to me if I said no to my father. He would throw that almost empty beer bottle at me and beat the shit out of me as Pat watched and jeered. Hell, he would probably even join in.

"-problem," I said instead, my sanity returning to me.

While I didn't want to see Trowa, my fear of talking to him didn't trump the fear of my father.

"Yeah, shithead," Pat sneered at me with raw contempt, "Why don't you make yourself useful for once?"

My father snorted derisively.

"It's about all he's useful for."

That dream I had had with him in it, the one that I had resolved to never think about again, came to me and I had to turn away from the both of them quickly so they wouldn't see the hurt in my eyes. That it was the truth only made that hurt deeper.

"Uh... what kind of battery do you need?" I asked, my heart racing in my chest, worried that my father was going to get irritated with me.

Pat roared with laughter.

"You don't even know what kind of battery your father's car needs?! I bet he doesn't even know where the engine is!" he sobered and gave me this kind of mean leer, "But then again, I wouldn't expect a little pansy bitch like you to know anything about a car. I feel sorry for you, Nathan. No sports, doesn't know shit about cars... your only kid and he's turning more into a fag by the day."

At my sides, my hands curled into tight fists. I wanted to slam them into Pat's sleazy, smirking face. My stomach churned unpleasantly and I felt this thick, murky anxiety submerge me. It was so volatile that I really thought I was going to throw up. I didn't know what I felt more, the hurt or my rage. I wanted to scream at Donovan, 'At least I'm not so pathetic that I have to bum drinks off my friend because I lost my job. At least I have a damned job. At least I don't have to rely on a woman I have no respect for to pay the fucking bills. If you're such a great, macho prick of a man, why don't you provide for your goddamned family instead of tormenting mine?!' But I valued my ability to breathe and walk at the same time too much to let a single one of those words leave my lips.

My father didn't say a single thing about what his friend had said to me. He didn't look amused by it, but he didn't bother trying to defend me, either. He just pointed to where there was a small pile of bills and a piece of paper on the kitchen counter. I went to it, happy to put Pat's obnoxious face to my back.

Why did it hurt so much? Why did I let that sexist, alcoholic pig get to me so much? And why did it bother me this badly when my father agreed with the awful things he said to me and Mom or never told him to cut it out? Pat was just a mean, vindictive bully, just like Zechs was, but his words still cut through me like a knife. They made my hands tremble and it didn't take me all that long to figure out that it was from fear, not anger. He frightened me. In some ways, he frightens me more than my father does, but I don't know why.

"Leave it on the kitchen table when you get home tonight," my father ordered me, "I'll switch it out tomorrow."

I didn't wait for any further instructions from him or insults from Pat. I grabbed the money and list of battery details and bolted out of there. I would find something else to read that night. But once I was actually free of the two of them, the second I reached the sidewalk, I found myself dragging my heels. The last thing that I had wanted that day was to go to the auto shop.

I didn't want to see Trowa and I sure as hell didn't want to talk to him. I was such a fucking coward. I had just been a second away from getting the shit beaten out of me by my father and I was more afraid of facing my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Whatever the hell we were. But what other choice did I have?

I would do it as quickly as possible, I told myself as I walked through South Nausten to the town's center where the auto shop was, in and out, just grab the battery and head to the park or something. As drunk as my father had been at the house, I could probably get away with sneaking in before my shift would have ended. No problem. Heck, maybe Trowa wouldn't be there or there would be another customer. No way he would try to have it out with me around witnesses, right?

Then I was standing in front of Neely's and I felt my stomach drop. What the hell was wrong with me? It would have been so much easier if Trowa would just beat me up. I could handle that. But the thought of him being angry with me, disappointed with me, just turned my stomach. You would think that I would be as used to disappointing people as I was used to taking a beating. Standing there in front of the shop, hesitating like I was facing off against the maw of some drooling monster, I felt like the biggest wuss on the planet.

I stood there for a good five minutes, trying to think of a way out of the situation before I finally grew a pair and walked in, realizing that if I waited for much longer, they were going to close and then my father would kill me. A loud 'ding' sounded as I opened the door, making me flinch and I started to question my sanity. I was getting startled by a fucking door ringer. Why was this so hard? My stomach quivered like I had eaten a dozen live fish as I walked past aisles filled with bottles of oil and various car parts up to the only register in the place. To my immense relief, there was someone standing behind the desk that I didn't recognize.

"Hey there," he greeted pleasantly, but after years of working in the diner and pizza place, I easily recognized the irritated look in his eyes that came in all my coworkers' eyes whenever we got a customer so close to closing.

"I'm really sorry," I said immediately, not wanting to piss the poor guy off, "My dad sent me here pretty last minute. His car won't start and he needs this battery, but you guys are the only ones open this late," I handed him the piece of paper my father had given me and was gratified to see some of the annoyance leave his eyes, "Do you have one?"

The attendant was obviously a full timer and had probably worked there for years, long enough to put his frustration aside and be professional with me, even if I was a teenager. His brown eyes quickly scanned what my father had written down and he nodded.

"Yeah, we have this model. I'll have our back room associate grab it for you-," he started to say.

I didn't even have a moment to feel the dread in my gut, suspecting who it was that was working in the 'back room' that night before the door behind the register that read 'staff only' opened and Trowa himself walked out. He was wearing a paint stained white shirt and jeans that were in worse shape than mine were and there was a black smear of something across one of his cheeks - having obviously been working on someone's car back there - but he looked just as handsome as he always did. His hair was so mussed, it almost looked like he had just woken up and his attire made him seem so down to earth to me. I was overwhelmed for a second with the urge to kiss him right there in the shop, but my anxiety to see him curbed it.

"Rick, you didn't leave the keys in the office-," Trowa said with a slightly annoyed tone before his green eyes fell on me and went wide with shock.

"Trowa," Rick said with obvious relief, "You're a lifesaver, man; can you take care of this customer before you lock up? I really need to get going. I swear I'll make it up to you."

"No problem," my... whatever said just a bit too quickly and too eagerly, standing behind the register looking like he couldn't believe I was really there.

"Wait-" I tried to protest.

Bad enough that Trowa would be the one waiting on me, but there was just no way we were going to be alone in this shop together. But neither of them was listening to me.

"Thanks, man!" Rick dug a huge key ring out of his pocket and tossed it to Trowa.

He caught it deftly, stuffing them into his own pocket. Even when his coworker pushed past him and nearly ran out the door, his eyes didn't leave me. Then it was just the two of us in the entire place and we just stood there, staring at each other, words escaping the both of us. I didn't know whether to laugh at the situation or to cry. I actually considered running out the door the same way Rick had, but my fear of what my father would do to me trumped even my fear of what Trowa was going to say. He managed to get over his shock and found his voice a lot faster than me for once.

"Duo," he said in a tone that was so full of sadness and relief that I couldn't stand to hear it.

With that one word, all of that anger that I had tried to feel at him came to me so easily. I still felt hurt, but there was this icy layer on contempt on top of it. It had been a week since our fight, but I could still hear his voice in my head calling me trash and demeaning me with every word that he had spoken, boosted by my own feelings of inadequacy and guilt. I couldn't stand that same voice now sounding so soft and compassionate, to see those eyes seek me out with desperation.

I hated him for that.

I thrust the paper my father had given me at him before he had a chance to say anything else.

"I need this," I said to him with a coldness that shocked even me.

Trowa's eyes widened again and he looked almost as hurt as I felt, like I had hit him. He gingerly took the paper from me and read the information from it.

"I have one downstairs," he said meekly and I thought that he would just go get it, but he paused and glanced up at me, "Look, Duo, I-"

"I don't care," I snapped at him, "Just give me the damned battery."

He flinched from me and immediately went through the door behind him to get what I needed. I felt bad about snapping at him, but only for a moment. I think that he had hoped that I had come to his shop to talk to him and had just been using the battery as a smokescreen. In that instance before he had gone downstairs, he had looked so disappointed. It was in me to tell him to forget the whole thing. Obviously he felt bad about it, or he was that eager to talk to me. He definitely wasn't mad at me anymore, or if he was, he was willing to move past it. Was I?

I was... tired. Tired of being alone, tired of these moments we had where he was mad at me because I wouldn't put out and I was mad at him for being mad at me. I was tired of hurting, tired of always worrying about what my not wanting to be intimate with him meant about me. I didn't know what I want, only that I didn't want to talk about our hang ups and what he had screamed at me. I wanted to forget about it and just go back to how we had been at the beginning - holding hands and just grateful for the other's company. But I couldn't have that without doing what he wanted, too. That wasn't fair to him.

I knew, intellectually, why he wanted a relationship with me, what he was using me for. And I knew where he wanted such a relationship to go. I was scared of losing him. Logically, I knew what I had to do to keep him from breaking up with me. Because, really, what else was there about me that could keep him interested? He had said it himself. I was trash, uninteresting trash, and I should consider myself lucky for having him. I did. And he just wanted this one thing from me. So why? Why couldn't I give it to him? Why was I so frightened?

It was so tempting to tell him that I wasn't mad and to just push it all away. Maybe we could have what we had had before, after we had fought about this that time in the woods. He would be attentive and affectionate without pushing me, for a while. But I knew that it would always lead us back here. And I didn't want that.

I didn't know what the fuck I wanted anymore. Didn't want sex. Didn't want to break up. Didn't want to forgive him. Didn't want to fight. Maybe... maybe walking away from him was the right decision? But was I strong enough to do that?

I felt so ridiculous, standing there in the shop, waiting for him to come back. Hadn't I yelled at Quatre once for not walking away from this very same person? And yes, I know that him clinging to a boy he had thought he could never have is different than my clinging to that same boy just because I was lonely, but it was just so stupid to me that I was doing the same thing I had been so frustrated at Quatre with. I hadn't understood why he couldn't do what I had thought was obvious, and it wasn't the same because I didn't feel the kind of love that he had felt, but damn it, I couldn't do what I knew that I needed to do, either. I felt like a hypocrite and a pathetic piece of shit.

By the time Trowa came back from the stock room with the car battery in hand, I didn't know who I was angrier at. I kept waffling back and forth between not wanting to forgive him for all the things he had yelled at me and breaking it off with him for good, and telling him it wasn't a big deal and just... continuing on like we had been until the inevitable next time he tried to feel me up. And I was furious at my father for making me do this, but then I realized that if he had gone to pick up the battery, Trowa would have waited on him.

Why did that send such a weird chill up my spine, the idea of my boyfriend and my father crossing paths? It made my stomach twist into complete knots of unease and it hadn't even happened. Or had it? Nausten isn't exactly a big town, and Trowa worked at a reputable auto shop. I was sure that he and my father had met at least once in the time that Trowa had worked there. You would think that that would make me feel better, that it had already happened and nothing bad had occurred, but it actually made me feel worse.

Trowa rang up the battery and I paid him, just wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, but I wasn't that lucky.

"Duo," he said again with that soft, infuriating tone as he handed me my receipt, "Look, I'm..." he struggled with his words like he often seemed to do when he was upset or didn't want to say what he was going to say.

I usually found his verbal hang ups endearing, but watching him flounder with it now made me feel awkward.

"...I'm sorry," he finally got out, though it seemed to take a great deal out of him and he flushed darkly, "Those things that I said to you..."

"I don't want to talk about it," I said icily, "You said what you said, apologizing for it isn't going to take it back."

"I didn't mean any of it!" he protested and there was such desperation in his voice that it made my heart clench.

I wondered where all my anger at him was suddenly coming from when at the moment that he had actually said those terrible things, I hadn't been able to feel it, and if I really couldn't forgive him or if it would just make walking away from him easier. Could I even do that at this point?

Trowa looked nervously up at the security camera that dangled from the ceiling above the cash register. I was sure that there was no sound on the cheap thing, but if anyone watched the tape, it would still looked suspicious. Of course that would be his first priority. I was stunned at the bitterness of that thought. I couldn't blame him for that, could I? Since when had I cared that he was so worried about being caught with me?

"Please," he begged, "Can't we just talk?"

I considered, very seriously, just grabbing the damned battery and walking out of the store, leaving him there - hurt and wondering if we were through. Wasn't that exactly what he had done to me? Not once, but twice? Wasn't it all that he deserved? But that wasn't fair. Did I even deserve my anger, when it was my fault that he had blown up on me to begin with? I hesitated and later, I would hate myself for that weakness, but I just couldn't walk away from him.

"Fine," I said in a considerately softer tone than I had taken with him that entire transaction.

His expression immediately brightened and I felt pathetic again, though I couldn't say why. Because I had given in to him so easily, or because I had held on to my bitterness as long as I had?

"Just give me a moment to lock up," he said and walked to the door to lock it.

I leaned against the cash register and watched him as he turned over the 'open' sign and closed the register.

"We can talk in here," he told me, opening the 'staff only' door.

"Are you allowed to take customers in there?" I asked in concern.

"No," he admitted sheepishly, "but I'm alone here tonight. No one will find out."

I looked up at the security camera. The last thing I needed was to get Trowa into trouble - or myself, for that matter. I could just imagine Trowa's boss accusing me of stealing something.

"No one will check the footage unless there's been an incident," he assured me.

I shrugged and followed him through the door. It wasn't like I had anywhere better to be. Trowa led me down a long ramp leading into the garage of the place. There was someone's pickup truck sitting in the bay that had a smashed up bumper and a broken left tail light, and several workstations with various tools strewn on them. There was some thick smell down there - a mix of oil, gasoline, paint, and rubber.

The place was so silent, it was almost creepy. Trowa put the ring of keys on one of the workstations and sat down on the pickup's bed, moving over for me but I didn't take him up on it. I didn't want to sit next to him just then. I felt almost vulnerable there in a place that he was obviously very comfortable in. This was his territory, I realized, something that I hadn't been in since the only time I had gone to one of his games. Every place we had been together had been neutral territory.

I felt something in the air... a kind of electricity, like something was different and something was going to happen. I didn't know what that something was at the time, but even before it did happen, I felt on edge, not quite scared, but just... twitchy. I stood in front of him, very happy to tower over him for once.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked uneasily.

He had apologized to me, but I wasn't naive enough to take that apology as some kind of sign that things were ok between us. He had said that he wanted to talk. That could mean he just wanted to work through our issues, or it could mean that he had wanted the privacy to break up with me. He shifted awkwardly where he sat and I realized that he felt just as uneasy as I did, for the same exact reason.

He didn't know where we stood anymore than I did and that made me feel better, more like we were on even level with each other. He was nervous because he thought that I was too mad to want to see him. Maybe he was angry at me for always putting our relationship on ice, but he wanted it to continue. He didn't want to break up with me, I realized, not if there was a chance we could work through things.

"I'm sorry," he said again, "for what I said to you last week. I was..." he ran a hand through his messy hair and sighed heavily, "Fuck, but you frustrate me."

"I'm sorry," I blurted out and winced as my voice echoed in the wide, open room.

"Are you?" he asked softly, not jeering at me, but honestly wanting to know.

That bitterness in me tried to well up, that I even needed to apologize to him at all, but I forced it back down.

"I am," I said honestly, picking at the hem of my shirt, "I don't mean to frustrate you."

"And I didn't mean to say those things to you," he bulled forward, "I was angry and upset and frustrated. I just don't understand what the problem is with you!"

His voice twisted up with all those things that he had said he had felt and I immediately felt guilty.

"I want more than this," he continued, "I want to be closer to you."

"I... I know," I murmured.

"Then what is the issue?" he pressed, "Why do you keep pushing me away?"

"It makes me uncomfortable!" I confessed.

"Being close to me?" he frowned.

"Sex!" I snapped at him, not angrily but in exasperation.

He shook his head at me.

"Duo... goddamn it, but you aren't a kid!" he sounded almost angry and I remembered all the things that he had screamed at me, how I wasn't some blushing virgin and needed to grow up. I couldn't even say that he was wrong, "Are you just going to go through the rest of your life scared of sex? I know you're a virgin, but it's nothing to be frightened of!"

"I'm not scared of it," I said weakly, "I just... it just makes me feel uncomfortable."

"Are you gay?" he accused me suddenly, "Or is it all bullshit? Do you even want a relationship?"

"Of course I do!" I protested, "I agreed to date you, didn't I? I want to be around you."

"But you don't want to have sex with me," he said bitterly, "Because you're uncomfortable. That's the whole point of being in a relationship, Duo. If you can't even... is there something wrong with you?"

He stopped, maybe realizing how close he was getting to the things he had screamed at me before. And really, the things he was saying then were practically the same. The only thing different was the volume of his voice. He had no idea the effect that what he was saying was having on me. Was I gay? I... I still wasn't so sure, because he was right. What good was I to him if I couldn't have sex? And all because I had some hang ups. Of course he was right. I wasn't scared; I was uncomfortable. So what was the problem? If I couldn't have sex with him, didn't that confirm that I wasn't gay?

'Is there something wrong with you?' Didn't I ask myself that a thousand times every single day? I didn't want to confess it to him that there might really be something broken in me, that I felt no real urge to have sex ever. I didn't want to think of any of things that he was accusing me of out of frustration. I think I hated him a bit then, for making me feel as insecure as I did. When I had told Quatre, years ago, that I might be asexual, he had told me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I would figure this out eventually. But Trowa wasn't letting me wait, and why should he? I could feel myself shaking and I hated my boyfriend a little then, for not even trying to comfort me.

"If... if I can't have sex with you," I asked, refusing to let the fear show in my voice, "are you going to break up with me?"

He stared at me, silent and intense and a bit cold. I wanted him to go to me then and hold me and tell me that he cared about me. I wanted him to tell me that he would care for me whether I could give him sex or not. And every second that he didn't was a poisoned dagger in me.

"I don't see what the point in a relationship like that would be," he said icily.

I could feel something in me cracking. He was going to break up with me. Because I couldn't get over my discomfort, he was going to leave me behind.

"I don't know how to give you what you want," I heard myself say in a tiny, broken, desperate whisper.

I hadn't meant to say that. I had wanted to yell at him that he was being unfair and just... storm off. That was what I was supposed to do, wasn't it? I didn't want sex. Trowa wanted sex. One of us had to give or we had to break it off. I never should have said that to him, showed him that weakness in me. I didn't really want to surrender, did I?

Finally, he reached over and touched me, wrapping my trembling hand in one of his and pulling me over to him. Because he realized what he was doing to me, how his bitterness and frustration and doubts in me were making me break, hurting me so deeply inside that it frightened me? No, I think it was because he heard that surrender in my voice. He knew that he was winning and he could have what he wanted if he just gave me a little push. He could have backed off then and let me gather my strength and resolve back up, but he didn't. He was a lion with a wounded deer in his sight. He pushed.

"It doesn't hurt," he promised, "it really doesn't, Duo. You have no reason to feel uncomfortable. It's easy and it feels good. It's a bit scary at first, but then... it's the best feeling in the world."

He didn't even need to push that hard. I could feel those cracks in me widening. I wanted to ask him what his first time had been like and who it had been with. Some eager girl, a fan of his? Or had he somehow found another gay boy? Had he had the same confidence he was showing me then, or had he been scared like me? How did he know that it wouldn't hurt - how did he know that it would feel good?

I could have pushed him away and just walked out of there, but I felt frozen still, so very cold inside as some part of me realized what was going to happen but didn't have the courtesy to tell the rest of me. And when he rose and pressed his lips insistently to mine, he was so warm that I let him. When he led us to sit on the floor, I let him. I felt like a puppet, a toy that he could maneuver however he liked and I wouldn't so much as protest.

Where had all my strength and resolve gone? Where was the person who routinely told his teachers to fuck off? Where was the person that Quatre had always called mature and strong? Why did I suddenly feel like a little child following in his father's much bigger footsteps? And why, despite every voice in my head screaming at me to make him stop, couldn't I find my actual voice, couldn't wake up and tell him to stop? Because that's what it felt like, that I was sleepwalking in a fog.

"I'll make it feel good, I promise," he murmured against my neck, nipping my skin lightly with his teeth, "There's nothing for you to feel uncomfortable about."

His hands were busy as they slid under my shirt, traveling up my sides and rubbing against my chest. It was actually soothing and familiar at that point. I could feel myself relax as Trowa trailed these little kisses up my neck until he was thoroughly plundering my lips again. I even grabbed at his shoulders and kissed him back, enjoying the feeling of him like that, like he was exploring me, trying to use his warmth and intensity to forget what we had just been talking about.

It made him bolder and I gasped a little when his fingers suddenly touched one of my nipples. It was light at first, just a caress, but then he was pinching it, rolling the flesh between his fingers tips and I felt this weird burst of electricity go through me. It was a bizarre sensation and it took a good deal of control to keep from pushing him away from me. Then both of his hands slid back down my chest and I felt him working at the button on my jeans, getting it loose. I felt panic well up in me as I realized what he intended to do. That I didn't kick him was an amazing feat of restraint; instead, I lightly pushed at him until his mouth was off of mine.

"No..." I panted, "No, I can't... please don't make me-"

I couldn't do this. I couldn't have sex with him. My heart was like a jackhammer in my chest, screaming at me that his hand shouldn't be on the zipper of my jeans the way that it was, and I felt like I was going to vomit at how close I had come to letting him take me too far. His face, flushed from excitement, all at once turned hard and furious, his hands clenching at my jeans like he was going to rip them open.

"Goddamn it, Duo, stop being so fucking pathetic!" he snarled at me, "I said I'll make it feel good! If you keep being such a freaking cock tease, you can just go the hell home!"

My breath hitched and I knew that he wasn't just telling me to go home. If this didn't happen... and if it didn't happen right then, then that would be it. I had pushed him to the end of his rope and he had pushed me to the edge of my boundaries. I didn't want to do it. I couldn't. I was terrified, absolutely terrified and I knew that he knew how frightened I was. But still, he was making me choose: Sex or loneliness. He was going to end it if I didn't... he knew that I didn't want to, so how could he do this to me?

I felt tears burning beneath my eyes, but refused to let them even show, let alone fall. I could do this. I could do this. Just this one little thing, then he would stay with me. I was going to throw up.

"Please don't do this," I begged him, my voice all rough and vulnerable, "I'll do anything else..."

His eyes were so hard and cold, nothing like the boy that I had known three years ago. Nothing like the boy that I had thought I had known.

"There's nothing else I want from you."

He started to stand up and I grabbed at him, wanting to plead that he not leave, but I still had that one ounce worth of pride left.

"Ok! Ok..." I breathed hard, feeling like I had the night that my father had nearly strangled me, like I just couldn't get air into my lungs.

With hands shaking so hard, I thought that I was having a seizure, I finished the job that he had started - unzipping my jeans. He was back, pressed flushed against me in a second, his eagerness softening his expression into one that was just as frightening to me as when he had been pissed. He swatted my hands away so he could pull my jeans down my hips. I shifted, lifting my lower body a little so he could get them fully off of me. He eyed my legs appreciatively and I flushed, feeling ridiculous

When he reached for my underwear, I almost flinched from him. It's funny, the entire time when I thought about having sex with him, I was just thinking about the actual act. The thought of being naked around another person for the first time in my entire life had never occurred to me and now that it had, I felt like I was going to die of embarrassment. But I was still scared of making him angry and disappointed, so I didn't say a word as he pulled down the grey briefs I was wearing.

And then there I was - sitting on the ice cold, cement floor of the auto shop garage wearing nothing but my socks and a long sleeved shirt, crossing my legs to best hide my groin, and wanting to find some discreet, little hole somewhere that I could crawl into to die from shame. I watched Trowa fold up my jeans and underwear and put them on the bed of the truck before returning to me. The fog in my head didn't want to lift as he put his hand on my knee, and I wasn't sure if I wanted it to lift because I was pretty sure that if it did, all I would feel was screaming anxiety. My heart hadn't raced so fast since Quatre had almost gotten hit by that truck.

Trowa trailed his hands over my bare legs and the heat in his eyes was more intense than ever before. He slid one hand down my stomach towards my crotch and I felt my stomach plummet to my knees. The fact that he was still fully dressed was making me feel incredibly self-conscious. That questing hand of his made its way between my legs and the feeling of his fingers on my cock was just too much for me. I squeezed my eyes shut and trembled harder, just wanting this whole thing over with.

I could feel those long fingers caressing a place that had never been touched like that before and even worse, I could feel that flesh not respond to it at all. Had he noticed yet, I wondered. I dared a glance at him, but he looked enthralled by what he was doing, excited just to touch me. Maybe when I was done being absolutely scared out of my mind, I would have the nerves left to feel flattered by that.

I think he expected me to have... some trouble down there with how nervous I was. In a way, feeling him start to stroke me did feel good, but it was all sensation and something was disconnected. There was something missing entirely and my dick refused to harden even a little. Trowa started to lay me down on the ground and I had this moment of terror. I remember thinking 'this is it'. Then my back was touching the ground and I felt this startling pain there. I had completely forgotten about the bruises I had on my back and hip from a week ago. They were faded at that point, but they still ached. I hissed at the feeling and Trowa paused.

"What's wrong?" he asked, but his voice lacked all concern, just irritation.

"My back is bruised," I confessed.

He didn't ask why, though even now I have no clue if he knew what was going on with me at home, but he helped me back up.

"Here," he urged, "get on your knees, it'll make it easier."

I hadn't thought my face could get much redder, but it certainly felt like it had as I started to get on my knees. As I crouched there, out of the corner of my eye I saw him start to unbutton his own jeans.

"Wait," I protested and that rage flared in his eyes again.

He, in a move that seemed almost defiant and pissy to me, roughly pulled down his zipper.

"What?!" he snapped in exasperation, no doubt thinking that I was trying to back out of this again.

"Condoms," I said meekly

He sighed loudly.

"You've never had sex before and I haven't had it in awhile. It will be fine," he pulled his boxers down a little and I saw his cock, as hard as it could possibly be, jutting out from that gap in his clothing.

Although I was sure that he was completely average in size, in that moment, his penis looked huge to me and I felt my mouth go dry. That he wanted to... wanted to go 'bare back' was horrifying. Every sex education lesson I had ever taken screamed at me. I remembered wondering during those lessons how girls could be so stupid to let their boyfriends talk them into having unprotected sex, but I understood it then in the garage. I didn't want that angry gaze on me. I didn't want his scorn.

But I also wasn't stupid and, goddamn him, if he was going to do this to me, I wasn't going to risk getting some illness, too. Also, I will admit, I was scared to feel his cock go... go into me bare like that. It was too intimate, too weird. I was anxious enough without having to worry about all of that.

"I'll have sex with you, right here and now, but I want you to wear a condom. Please, Trowa, that's all I ask," I begged him and hoped that he wouldn't push the issue.

In the state that I was in, I was sure that he would win again if he really did push. He shot me a frustrated and annoyed glance and stood up, not so much as bothering to tuck himself back into his jeans. I prayed as hard as I could that he didn't have anything, that I could put this whole thing off for another day, but to my dismay, he just walked to where his jacket was slung over one of the chairs at a workstation and pulled out a wrapped condom.

That he had one did absolutely nothing to put my mind at ease. I just kept wondering why the hell he had that in his jacket pocket of all things. Had he just kept it on him on the off chance that I would let him have sex with me one day, or was he seeing someone besides me? Maybe that sounds like a paranoid leap of logic, but was it really? Maybe Trowa would be hard pressed to find a boyfriend in this town, but Quatre had been gay, and I was, more or less, gay, so maybe he had found someone else, someone who had been giving him what he needed.

Of course, if he had, it didn't make much sense that he was so desperate to do this with me. I didn't want to believe that he was the type of person to cheat, even if it would be almost understandable given what a shitty excuse for a boyfriend I was. But if you had asked me if Trowa was the sort of person capable of screaming at me or being as bitter and frustrated as he was at me, I would have said no way. For as long as I had known him, Trowa had seemed calm and collected. But time, and the death of someone you love, changes a person. I should know that.

And then there was my father. When I saw Trowa pull that condom out of his pocket, I couldn't help but think about all those times I had caught him coming home late, stinking of beer and perfume. I had long ago dropped all of the possibilities that my father wasn't cheating on my mother. But then Trowa was sitting on the floor next to me, taking the condom out of its wrapper, and carefully rolling it on to himself and I pushed all thoughts of my father out of my head. It just made me feel weird.

"Happy?" Trowa asked, almost snidely, when he was done.

'No,' I nearly snapped back at him, but I just nodded and resumed getting into the position that he wanted me in.

I went on my knees and folded my arms in front of me, resting my head on them. It was the best I could do for feeling comfortable at all and I deeply wished that, if I had to go through with this for the sake of our relationship, we had a better place than the hard, dirty floor of Trowa's workplace to do it in. Hell, even on top of some blankets would have been nicer.

But as I felt him crouch behind me, so close to me that I could feel his heat on my naked skin, I realized that the cold and hardness of the floor didn't matter to me at all and a luxurious bed wouldn't have made a single, fucking scrap of difference to me. Everything I was feeling was terrible and I wanted it to be over, and he hadn't even started yet. I felt his hands, rough and cold, slide across my back, under my shirt, rubbing my bruised skin and I realized that he was trying to be comforting.

He probably felt how tense I was, but there was nothing for it. A back rub wasn't going to cure it and the second I felt his hand on my ass, all bets were off. It came to me then that I was too late. Even if I changed my mind, which seemed like a good idea to do at that point, it wasn't going to stop it. I was committed. He was excited, I could feel that in his touch, and I imagined that he was heaven, finally getting to have what he wanted, and I just didn't think me protesting things was going to matter.

My stomach tightened and churned violently as both of his hands kneaded by butt cheeks in what, to anyone else but me, would have been an erotic motion. I felt like I was going to start hyperventilating at any second. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to make a run for it and never look back. And when one of his fingers very lightly touched that puckered hole, all I could hear in my head was my own frightened childish voice, screaming, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, this can't be happening. Please, please, don't, I don't want this, I don't want this,' useless protests, over and over.

"Relax," Trowa scolded me, "I haven't done anything yet."

I didn't see why he should care how tense I was, but I took several, deep breaths of air anyway and pretended like I was trying to calm down. And yet that voice continued and my heart did something truly freaky in my chest. It was that day at the crosswalk all over again, watching that truck come barreling towards my immobile best friend. Only this time, it was entirely my fault and there was nothing I could do. That it was my virginity and sense of safety and comfort on the line instead of Quatre's life didn't make me feel that much better.

"I'm going to loosen you up," Trowa warned me, which was pretty fucking considerate of him, "You're going to feel pressure here, and it's going to feel weird, but it won't hurt."

I wanted to scream at him to just fuck me and get it over with, but that probably would have offended him. He was expecting that I was going to like it. I was fairly sure that I wasn't. I hadn't wanted to do it and he had pushed me into it. Didn't he get that I was doing this for him, that he was the one that was going to enjoy it and didn't fucking matter how it made me feel? I just nodded and hoped that he would hurry the hell up so I could get off the freezing floor.

I'm not a complete, helpless virgin, ok? The idea of sex... of being that vulnerable around another person, might scare me. It might make me feel uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean I don't know what sex is, I just had never had it before. I had never had anyone, boy or girl, see me half naked before or touch my ass or my dick. That didn't mean that I was clueless about where rod A was going to go into slot B. The sexual education classes that I had gone to were pretty blunt about what happens when a guy wants to stick his erect junk in a girl's vagina, how it should go and all that.

Sure, those classes had not informed us of what two guys need to do for the same result, since our school didn't want us to be privy to that kind of information, but come on. I had spent all of my high school years and the majority of my middle school ones getting slurs like 'fudge packer' and 'ass fairy' thrown at me. Do you really think that I couldn't figure out what those things meant? Or that in the case of rod A going into slot B, what slot B is on a man's body? The dick needs to go somewhere and that somewhere needs to be a hole. There are only two holes where the penis can go, so yes, I understand what gay sex entails.

But I don't, really. I've never had it. I don't know what it feels like to have someone's dick go... there. I didn't know if it really wouldn't hurt or if Trowa was bullshitting me. I mean, it must feel good if gay people did it, right? But when he slid a finger inside of me there, it didn't feel good. Sure, it didn't hurt, but it just felt so... so freaking weird that I couldn't enjoy it. I almost wished that he had just shoved his dick in my mouth. I probably would have handled that better.

He slid his finger in and out of me a few times before I felt another digit join the first one and, just like he had warned me, I indeed did feel a pressure as those two fingers moved in me and then pulled those tight muscles apart. I just kept thinking, over and over again, that he was touching me in the worst place he could possibly be touching me in, how utterly embarrassing it was. I had thought that I wanted to find a nice, dark hole to crawl into before. Well, having my boyfriend's fingers in my ass was worse, and I knew that when he got his dick into me, it would be unbearable.

Trowa spent maybe a minute prepping me with his fingers. Not nearly long enough. Then I felt a thick, steady pressure against my anus and I knew that this was it, that the thing being pressed against me was the head of his cock. My breath came out in harsh pants and I almost groaned in pain when he grabbed my hips, his grip pressing down on my bruises, but in a way, that ache soothed me a little. It was a pain that I was used to at least.

"Just relax," I heard him repeat himself, "I'm going to push in. It'll feel uncomfortable, but once you get used to it, it'll feel amazing."

I nodded against my arms, still not looking at him. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't stand to see that flushed, aroused expression of his at that moment. So I just kept my eyes closed and my face pressed against my arms. Just let him do whatever he wants, I told myself, and then it will all be over. My heart wasn't just racing anymore. It was racing and pounding and screaming in me. That I didn't black out is amazing.

All my body wanted to do was lash out and kick him away, to bolt like some kind of frightened deer, and I was trying to convince the rest of me that it didn't need to do that. I think at some point, I realized I was having some sort of anxiety attack and it was taking all of my concentration not to let it overwhelm me.

Then Trowa pushed into me and I had to bite down on one of my arms to keep from screaming as I felt the latex encased member penetrate me with an ease that was almost insulting. It hurt. Oh god, it fucking hurt. I felt like I was being stabbed by something blunt, like his goddamned dick was ripping through me, although I knew intellectually that it wasn't really, that it would hurt a whole lot more if it was doing a lot of damage. The condom that Trowa had used was one of those lubed ones, which had to have made it go in me easier. But still, it burned and stung and it was easily the worst sensation I have ever had in my life. Worse than broken ribs, worse than a broken arm.

The asshole had lied to me. Or maybe he hadn't known. Or maybe it wasn't supposed to feel like this at all and one of us was doing something wrong. I don't know. All I knew was that it sure as hell didn't feel good. I stopped feeling the ache on my bruised hip and the icy ground digging into my knees. I just felt him in me and wanted to take it all back. I wanted to scream at him to get the hell out of me, that I wanted my virginity back, I wanted it all back. I didn't want to know what this pain was, not because it hurt, but because of what it had meant. There was something wrong and this thing... this thing that was supposed to feel good was a lie. A dirty lie.

I had thought that that was it. He was in me, now I just needed to wait for... something to happen. I wasn't expecting it when he started to move. That pain that I was talking about? Forget it. It was nothing compared to how the rest of it felt. There was a fire in me and when he moved, I could feel it in my gut, like my insides were being pulled out of me. I bit my arm so hard that I tasted my blood in my mouth.

"You're so tight," Trowa pressed his chest against my back and panted in my ear, "God, Quatre, you feel so good..."

He kissed my bruised shoulders, the back of my neck, anywhere that he could reach. I felt tears gathering in my eyes and I almost laughed. I had almost forgotten. In all of my fear, I had forgotten the most important thing. I wasn't the one being fucked, Quatre was. Not me, never me. I wasn't there in that garage with Trowa, not really. That should have been a comfort, something that I could have clung to and told myself that it made it better, but it didn't.

The pain in my insides was nothing at all compared to the pain I felt in my heart just then. I didn't love this person, but... but Trowa was my boyfriend. He had taken my virginity and I had done this for him goddamn it. I let him pretend I was someone else. I gave him that release... but hearing him say my best friend's name while he was fucking me ripped my guts right out of me. I felt cheap. I felt like a whore and in that moment? I was a whore. His whore. Only instead of money, I was getting his companionship. For a bit of his time, to pretend that I wasn't alone, I let him fuck my friend's ghost.

I gasped, desperately trying to suck in air between the pain of his thrusts and the pain of his words. I could feel him speeding up, becoming more frantic. I think he mistook my gasp as one of pleasure. The sound of his hips hitting my skin made me feel so dirty. I bit myself so hard to keep those tears from falling that the wounds would scar. They would be a reminder to me later of what I had given up for this fucked up relationship. I felt him wrap one of his hands around my penis and flinched, finally opening my eyes. My vision was blurry. I told myself that it was just because I had had my face pressed to my arm so tightly.

"Don't," I begged and dared a glance back at him.

He looked... disappointed as he realized that I wasn't even the least bit hard still. Disappointed and frustrated and unhappy and, I realized, a bit repulsed. How could he look like that? I was giving him everything... everything that I had left, all for him, so he could be happy. He had to be happy with this. He had to be, or what meaning did any of this have?

He let go of my cock and I tore my gaze away from his, not wanting to see that terrible expression there. He kept going, though, not even slowing his thrusts until his nails were digging into my hips, drawing blood.

"Fuck!" he suddenly cried out and I felt his body shudder against mine, his hands grabbing me so hard that they would leave bruises on top of the ones that I already had.

He thrust into me in hard, trembling jerks three more times before pulling out of me in a single, fluid motion. I could have cried with relief when I realized that he had finally reached orgasm. The second he let go of me and I couldn't feel him inside of me anymore, I rolled over onto my back away from him, still breathing hard and no longer giving a shit about the bruises on my back. I felt something drip out of me and worried that the condom had broken, but when I finally gained the strength to look at Trowa, I saw that the condom was still in tact.

I just studied him for a moment from my spot on the floor. He was sitting back, panting a lot harder than I was, a flush still over his tanned cheeks and looking like he had just run a marathon. His eyes were glazed over from his climax. It took him longer than me to gain his senses back and I watched him, feeling completely detached from the situation, as he carefully removed the condom from his now soft member. I felt bruised and dirty and as used and useless as that semen filled condom as he twisted it up so it wouldn't spill. He looked at me and his expression, instead of being full of gratitude or affection or even just tired from his exertion, was one of contempt and disgust. I felt like my chest was impaled by a thousand shards of steel. Those cold green eyes glanced down at my groin and I knew exactly what he was seeing, what he was thinking.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he spat and stood up, walking towards the other end of the garage.

"I'm going to clean myself off, you can have the bathroom when I'm done," he said with the most condescending tone I had ever heard out of him.

He then proceeded to do just that, striding to a dingy white door near the ramp we had walked down earlier, what seemed like days ago.

"Fucking freak," I heard him mutter under his breath as he went.

I didn't think he had meant for me to hear that, but it didn't matter. It wasn't anything worse than he had called me before. The second he was out of my sight, I sat up quickly, my back, hips, and ass screaming at me in pain. I rested my forehead against my knees and started to laugh bitterly. A freak. Didn't that say it all? He wasn't gone for more than a second before all of my guilt and self-hatred settled back in me. What I had just done... let him do to me... hit me like a fucking truck. I had let him fuck me. I wasn't a virgin anymore. And I regretted all of it. What had I done? Just what in the hell had I done?

I stumbled onto my feet, my legs shaking like a new born calf's, and grabbed my clothing. I winced at the twinges of pain I felt in my abused ass as I pulled my underwear and jeans back on. I felt something wet between my ass cheeks, but I just didn't care at that point. I put my shoes back on and sat on the pick up truck's bed. Sitting hurt like hell, but in a way, I was starting to get used to the stringing sensation.

Trowa didn't stay in the bathroom long, but I waited for him to walk back up the ramp before I took my turn in the bathroom. I pulled my jeans and briefs down again. My underwear was stained with blood and sweat. There wasn't a lot of blood, just a few large spots, but the blood was dark and when I wiped myself with some toilet paper, there was blood on that, too. If I had had the energy to care, I would have worried that Trowa really had hurt me. He had been hurried and forceful and I wondered if he had even cared when he had seen blood on the condom. At that point, I was just too broken and tired and sick to my stomach to think about the pain I was feeling and the evidence of some injury.

I cleaned myself off and was gratified when no more blood came out. At least my jeans wouldn't stain. As clean as I was going to get without taking a shower, and hoping that I didn't smell too much like sex, I walked back up into the shop. Trowa wasn't there and I was glad. I couldn't face him. Not for myself and not for him and his anger that he hadn't been able to arouse me. I grabbed my father's battery and walked out the front door, finding it unlocked.

I didn't sleep for a single minute that entire night.
　

End Part 4
Author's Note: first off, I would like to again thank everyone who has reviewed and favorited this story. It always blows my mind that people read and actually like my stuff 0_0
This part was some of the hardest writing I've done in a long time. I wrote the first 14 pages over the course of a week and kind of dragged my heels, not knowing how to approach the entire scene in the auto shop. Then Tuesday I just kind of sat down at my computer and turned out the last 20 pages. I don't know how I did it. It's probably going to seem rushed and I apologize for that, but I just couldn't agonize over it. It was hard enough writing that kind of rape scene and I don't think I did it justice, but Duo really isn't the sort of person to write about it in tons of detail.
I also want to thank darkelf2x1 for betaing and editing this for me and finding all my stupid mistakes since I type faster than my brain can keep up :V
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)