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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 5

Part 4
　

I thought that things couldn't get any worse. At the very least, I thought that life was done throwing curve balls at me. After finding out that I liked Heero, that I really was a freak who could fall for another boy while still not wanting anything to do with sex, I thought that that was the most shocking thing that could happen to me in my life. Even if my father got worse, more violent and more chaotic, it wouldn't surprise me. Then Sunday came.

I should have known. No matter how shitty things get, they can always get worse. But I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. Here I am, sitting on a park bench with a curtain cord holding my jeans up, too scared shitless to go home and wondering about my own sanity. And I still feel like it's all just a nightmare that I'm having. I can't even deny the fact that the only reason why I'm writing this down when I really, really don't want to is it's something to do to keep me from making any decisions yet.

I feel like I'm going crazy. I'm shaking as I write this, but at this point, I just feel numb. I'm even frightened of writing about what happened on Sunday, even if I know that it won't make anything worse. I don't know if anything can make it worse. If this is a dream, I need to find a way to wake up, right now.

I'm stalling. I know that. I imagine that, if I were talking to a shrink instead of writing in this stupid journal, they would say that I'm avoiding what I need to write about because I think that if I don't write it down or say it out loud, then I can pretend like it never happened. Well, that's wrong. I can't deny it because I can't stop thinking about it. I haven't for a single second.

Okay, okay, Sunday. The day started out alright. I hadn't thought much about going home in the early hours of the morning after my shift at the factory. I wasn't scared of what my father might do to me or had even considered that maybe I should spend the night somewhere else, until my father cooled down. I knew two truths about my father and his drunken rages: one, if it was something that he was truly, truly enraged about, he was going to keep a grudge well after he had sobered up, and two, my father didn't just drink himself into some kind of anger stupor and that was the end of it. He would drink enough to nullify what little control he had over his anger, something would set off his rage, and then he would only drink harder, typically to the point of blacking out.

I was planning on that when I snuck into the house after work, that he would be blacked out and dead to the world. Even if I woke him up, I didn't think that he would be in any shape to do anything about it. I wished that my father's unemployment had some kind of silver lining to it, that our approaching money problems would get him to stop drinking like that as soon as his beer fund ran out. But I was quickly realizing his and my mother's priorities, that things like food and bills were actually second to their addiction and no amount of common sense was going to make them stop. If Dad ran out of beer, he was going to dip into our grocery budget to buy more, and when that money ran out, Pat would just supply him with more, if he hadn't already done that. Nothing was going to change.

Sure enough, when I got into the house without making a single noise, I found my father in the same exact position that I had left him in: in his chair with the television on, dead asleep. He was even in the same clothes that he had had on when he had showed up yesterday. He had a can of beer cradled against one arm, tilted dangerously to the point of nearly spilling. It wouldn't be the first time that that had happened and usually I would sneak in there to get it from him before it happened, but at that point, I didn't give a shit if he woke up covered in the rank stuff. Let him clean up his own mess for once.

As I went up the stairs, I felt a strong disgust for him. I doubted that he had moved much while I had been gone beyond getting a refill and taking a piss. There were no more dirty dishes in the kitchen, which meant that he hadn't eaten anything. I wondered if he had even noticed that I had escaped from the basement, or if he had forgotten about me and would have left me there to rot all day and night. For just how long would he have forgotten about me in his alcoholism? Yesterday, today, until he needed to use the basement again or until the chores piled up?

That was both a curse and a blessing because I was sure that if he saw me tomorrow morning, he wouldn't even be angry with me about what had happened anymore. Unless he was significantly angry, he would just forget that it had ever happened. Don't get me wrong, he would remember what he had done. He might not remember why and he would forget his anger, but he would remember enough to be pissy and grudging towards me, but not enough to hit me for leaving the basement. I hoped. I could never tell with him, but I wasn't going to avoid him forever on the chance that he was going to be angry.

My mother still wasn't home. That worried me just as much as my father's temper. It had been four days since my father had attacked her, how could she still be in the hospital? Just how badly had he hurt her? If she didn't come back home tomorrow, I decided, I was going to call the hospital and see what the hell was wrong. I had this horrible, paranoid feeling in my chest that she had died and everyone was lying to me.

Despite all of my worries, I slept pretty well and deeply, exhausted from my day and not having slept the night before. I usually toss and turn and wake up several times during the night before finally giving up trying to get any kind of prolonged sleep, but that morning I nodded off at two am and when I opened my eyes again, it was seven. I almost always have nightmares after my father and I fight like we had on Saturday, but my dreams were almost pleasant. I don't remember them well, but I remember that Heero was in them. What little I remember, we were walking down a street, not in Nausten, but somewhere warm with a cloudless sky above and palm trees around us. We weren't talking, but I felt peaceful. Waking up to reality felt harsh after that and I felt a sharp, biting pain in my chest, knowing that our little conversation on the beach had been a fluke. When I saw him again on Monday, I knew he would go back to hating my guts and laughing as Relena messed with me.

It was still too early for me to get ready for work, so I brushed Pepper's fur with one of the cat brushes that Mrs. Liddle had given me, getting rid of her shed fur. I tried to do it at every other day so she wouldn't get any hairballs and so far, it seemed to be working. My cat seemed to enjoy it and didn't squirm even when I brushed out her underbelly, kicking at the handle with her back legs playfully. Just being with her and playing with her put me in a good mood and I hoped that my morning was going to be immensely better than yesterday's.

I braved the kitchen downstairs for something to eat, catching my father on his way out the door. He was in a rush, gulping down the last of a mug of coffee before leaving. All evidence of last night's stupor was gone and he was wearing the same dark grey suit that he had worn for his job as a detective, but he was wearing a different tie without the gun holster and his badge, he looked less adult somehow, like someone my age, trying to pretend that he was a grownup.

I idly wondered what he would do with his gun now, if he was going to keep it just in case, like that stupid joke about guns and condoms (1), or if he would sell it. I hoped that he would, we needed the money more than we needed protection and it would make me feel better. While he had never so much as threatened me with the thing, I felt the same way about that gun that he might, better safe than sorry, although I was on the opposite end. Better not have that gun at all than one day learn that he was willing to use it on me or my mother.

There was only one reason why my father would be dressed up like that and rushing out the door early in the morning: he had a job interview. I felt a tiny bit of weight lifted off my shoulders at that and wondered which job it was for. I almost called out 'good luck' to him, but wisely kept silent. He hadn't noticed me at all on his way out and yesterday had taught me a valuable lesson, that even if I was trying to be supportive of him, it was just best not to even mention employment to my father.

I enjoyed the solitude of the morning without my parents there, frying a couple of eggs and making up a grocery list that I tacked on to the refrigerator door. I hoped that we would have the money to get half of the things that we needed. My mother had missed so many days of work and I had missed one myself. Things were not going to be very pretty for awhile, but I hoped that as soon as I took that construction job, I could hide some money from my father to buy what we needed.

The warm weather of Saturday bled into most of Sunday, before things cooled down that night. For a moment, I thought of Heero's comment about the weather and how miserable he was going to be in the next few months, but shook it off. So I had had a single, decent conversation with the guy, it didn't mean shit. I just had to keep reminding myself of that and stop thinking about him altogether.

I put in my two week's notice at the diner. Andre was less than thrilled until I pointed told him that my father needed me to help out at home and he could hire a full time worker for my shifts. He had never liked me very much, and had liked my father even less. Knowing him, he would employ some big-busted woman to do my work so he would at least have something pretty to look at. The man was a pig. It hadn't even been that hard to come to the decision. While I didn't like my job at Sal's Pizza any better, at least Sal wasn't an ass to me.

I left the factory at 1:15 am, incredibly sore and tired from unloading crates of cinderblocks for hours. I didn't think that my strained and aching arms could even lift one of our flimsy, kitchen chairs. It wasn't the first time that that had happened. I had hurt my back more times than I can remember at that damned job. I could understand Solo's worry and Lorathe's hesitance in hiring me. Sure, part of it was that he didn't like teenagers and another part was him not liking my dad, but I was a scrawny sixteen year old doing the work of a man like Solo and the other guys that worked there.

I could work hard all that I liked, but I just couldn't keep up with them physically. Solo was probably right, that I was going to work myself into an early grave, or at least I was going to fuck my body over in the long run if I kept working physical labor. Although, given the sheer amount of times that my father has broken my bones, some strained muscles were the least of my medical concerns.

All of the lights were on in the windows of my house as I walked up to it and I could hear Pat's obnoxiously loud, drunken laughter from the street, making my hair stand up in warning and distaste. I could smell cigarette smoke before I even got to the door and I could hear other people inside, too. It was a familiar smell, from back when my father and Pat had been partners and they would have poker nights with their fellow cops at our house. It seemed like whose house hosted them revolved every week and I always felt a sinking in my gut whenever our turn came around.

I was pretty much safe from my father's beatings during poker night, but not from his ire or his coworker's jokes. My dad always expected me to act as a waiter for them, serving drinks and cleaning up after them. They hadn't been around lately and I had hoped that when my father had gotten fired, I would never have to see his cop buddies again. None of them are as bad as Pat is, but together, they just weren't something that I want to deal with. And by that hour, they were sure to be well into their drinking.

I didn't really have much of a choice but to go inside, I had school in the morning, although I knew I wasn't going to be getting much sleep with those pricks there, I thought in anger. I wish that I had found a nice bench to sleep on instead of gone into that house that night, but in reality, I don't think that it would have made a difference. What my father did... well, it wasn't a matter of what he did. This wasn't like him locking me in the basement or beating me with a bottle. This was a matter of who he was, a part of himself that hadn't come out yet, but I think had been there for a long time, and it wasn't going to go away in the course of one night.

The air in the house was slightly hazy from cigarette smoke and I wrinkled my nose in distaste at the knowledge that that smell would linger around my home for days. I could also smell the thick aroma of beer and cheese, even from the doorway and felt sick. My father was sitting at our kitchen table with Pat and four other men that I recognized from the force: McCullen, Jordan, Laramie, and Dermitt. McCullen was a veteran cop, like Pat, but Jordan had only joined up last year.

Laramie and Dermitt had gone through training with my father and acted like they were frat buddies instead of coworkers. Unlike my dad, Pat, Jordan, and McCullen, they happily called themselves bachelors and were always talking about their various lays. My mother called them good for nothing horndogs and male sluts, grown children that hadn't learned how to be adults yet. All five of them made me uneasy. They were playing poker, as usual, and all of them looked pretty sloshed at that point in their evening. Our sink was filled with dirty dishes and there were various empties stashed in the corner by our trash can.

"Oh, you cheating whoremonger!" Pat swore as Jordan showed them his hand.

"It's not cheating," Jordan said with an arrogant smirk, "just raw talent."

"Yeah, I know what your talent is, boy-o," Pat put one hand to his crotch and mimed jerking off.

The four of them broke up in loud, almost violent laughter, the kind of laugh that only inebriated people can give out. I didn't get what was so funny about Pat's crudeness. My father was the only one not joining in on the twisted humor. He was sitting back in one of the chairs, the suit jacket that I had seen him wearing that morning thrown over the back of it and his tie dangling, undone from his collar, the two top buttons of his shirt open. He looked bored and almost annoyed by everything.

"Speaking of that, where's that nice piece of ass of yours, Maxwell?" Dermitt slurred heavily, making obscene groping mimes with his hands and almost knocking his beer bottle off the table, "I was hoping for a bit of eye candy tonight. Laramie's old lady is a total hag."

My right hand curled into a fist of it's own will at the remark about my mother. I thought about Heero and how angry he had gotten when I had called Relena a bitch. Most guys would have decked Dermitt for calling their wife a piece of ass, but my father didn't even look offended on her behalf.

"Out," he grumbled and I wondered if he even knew where she was.

"Damn," Dermitt shook his head, "Haven't seen Helen since a year after you guys got hitched. She was smokin' hot back then!"

"Yeah, back then!" Pat laughed in disdain, "Not so much anymore. Bitch really let herself go."

"What, she got fat?" Dermitt asked like it was some kind of travesty and while I certainly didn't like them talking about my mother like she was some kind of whore or a piece of meat to be valued, I had seen pictures of her before she had married my father and I had to agree that she had been gorgeous back then.

"Nah," Pat drawled, "She became a crazy, cock stabbing cooze who can't even hold her liquor. She hasn't been much to look at in a decade."

"What about your wife?" Laramie asked Pat before taking a long intake from his cigarette, "She usually starts nagging you to come home by now."

Pat snorted, this heavy, boarish sound.

"She wouldn't stop getting on my case about finding a job, and then she had the gall to get uppity with me for getting her to shut the fuck up about it, so I tossed her to the curb. Divorce'll be finalized in a month or so. Serves her right," he sneered, but there was a hardness to his eyes that told me that he was lying.

It didn't take a genius to translate what Pat wasn't saying. Pat had done to his wife the exact same thing that my father had done to my mother when she had yelled at him about losing his job and his wife had left him over it. Was that why Mom wasn't home? Was she leaving us? I didn't know how to feel about that. While I certainly wasn't close to my mother, I felt this weird fear about that thought. 'Leaving us.' Leaving me alone with my father, just the two of us. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but I think that if she decided to do that, a part of me would be happy for her to get out of this miserable family.

"Sorry, man," Jordan clapped Pat on the shoulder.

"Whatever," Pat grumbled angrily, "Stupid cunt is trying to take half of what I have, even though she hasn't earned a single cent of it! All because I hit her a little! Fucking women..." he pointed a finger at Laramie and Dermitt, "You two got the right idea. Pussy ain't good but for one thing: fucking. Must have been out of my mind marrying that two-bit whore. I'm better off without her, just wish I had figured that out before she decided to take her share out of my hide. It would have been cheaper paying for a whore for the past fifteen years."

Despite his obvious intoxication, Pat's eyes were sharp and like a jackal's as he suddenly noticed me standing there in the kitchen doorway.

"Speaking of pussy, look who finally turned up," he sneered at me in a way that had me turning red from a mix of embarrassment and anger that I tried to hide.

It was too late to try to sneak back out the way that I had come in, so I resigned myself to my fate.

"Hi, Dad," I mumbled as I walked into the kitchen.

My father's eyes were just as sharp as Pat's as he looked at me, even if they were glassy. I couldn't tell just how drunk it was, if he was just very drunk and could still be reasoned with or if he was severely drunk and I would need to start drafting up escape plans.

"Where the hell have you been?" he rasped, his voice heavy and thick.

Very drunk, I decided, but quickly entering into the severely drunk territory that my worst nightmares were made up of.

"Sorry," I said, somehow managing to keep my exasperation out of my tone, "I had work."

Which he knew, of course, and I didn't believe for a second that it had escaped him in his stupor. He was almost on the verge of trying to pick a fight. Those grey eyes narrowed at me, but he didn't move from the chair.

"Hey, brat," Pat waved his empty beer bottle at me and that stupid smirk still on his red face, "why don't you make yourself useful for once in your pathetic life and get me another, huh?"

I wanted to grab that bottle and break it over his head. I had to literally bite my tongue to keep myself from snapping at him that I would get him another alright, I would shove it right up his pompous ass. This was dangerous, I quickly realized. I was too tired to deal with my father and his 'friends' and I was instantly fearful that I was going to say the wrong thing and test my belief that my father wouldn't hit me in front of an audience.

"Sure," I said instead, snagging the empty bottle with a lot more force than I intended.

I refilled all of their drinks before my father could order me to do so, hoping that he hadn't contributed a cent to the stash of liquor that I saw in the refrigerator.

"Clean up this place," he barked at me, like the mess was somehow my fault, "and make us something to eat since your useless mother couldn't be bothered to come home again tonight."

I blinked stupidly for a moment at him. He wasn't the sort of guy who would babble complete nonsense while drunk, which meant my mom wasn't in the hospital anymore after all and he just hadn't bothered to tell me. But she had just had surgery, so where was she? At whatever place she went to when she disappeared sometimes? I felt my anger simmer again at my father's words. I wanted to say that I was tired and needed to get to sleep. Just because he didn't have a job, it didn't mean that the rest of us could lounge around the house all day. I wanted to say to him that he had no right to complain about my mother's absence since he was the one who had hurt her in the first place and I hoped that she would leave him like Pat's wife had done. I wanted to tell him that it was nearly two in the damned morning and he could make his own food.

But of course I didn't say any of that because I had some small regard for my life. I just nodded at him and went to go see what we had to eat. Thankfully, the assholes that were in my house hadn't just loaded us up with alcohol that I was sure would keep my father occupied for the next few days, they had brought some snacks, too. I managed to find some ground beef that they had been using for burgers, bacon, a tiny bit of onion and garlic left over, cream cheese, sour cream, some fully stocked condiments including Worcestershire sauce from the burgers, ketchup, and mayonnaise, and an assortment of cheese. I set aside some mozzarella and cheddar and decided to just make them a dip.

As my father and his friends played their game and traded stories about cases they had had and girls that they had had sex with as loudly and profanely as they could, I cooked the beef and bacon, sautéed the onion and garlic, added everything together and put it in the oven before starting in on the mess in the kitchen. I collected all of the empties I found around the kitchen and took the trash to the curb, putting a fresh bag in the bin that would end up being full again by morning. By the time the dip was ready after 25 minutes, I had only managed to get about a third of the dishes done. Judging by the state of the cheese and sauce and condiments cemented onto the plates, our 'guests' had been there for awhile.

"Oh, man, that smells amazing!" Laramie said when I took the dip out of the oven.

I let it cool for a couple of minutes then placed it and a plate of nacho chips that I had found on the only empty spot I could find on the table. The obnoxious pigs wasted no time in digging into the dip and making content noises over it.

"This is better than anything my wife could hope to make," Jordan praised through mouth stuffed with cheese and nacho chips, "Your wife teach him how to do this?"

My father snorted, looking neither happy nor angry about my cooking skills getting praised.

"She's only barely useful in the kitchen," he said, "She can keep things from burning, but that's about it. When we first started to date, she was a pretty good cook, but lately her meals leave a lot to be desired."

It was the most that he had said all evening and for a moment, he seemed to come out of his stupor, only to quickly fall back into sullen silence. I gave him a new bottle of beer despite every warning in my head not to keep putting them in front of him and got rid of his empty one. He was really knocking him back and I tried not to wonder just how many of those empties that I had just taken out to the curb had been his.

"See, Maxwell," Pat laughed in between bites, and even though my back was to him, I could feel his terrible lewd and repulsive stare on me, "You don't need that bitch around, you just need this fag, he does all the housework anyway better than her. Hell, from the back, without that stupid braid, he looks exactly like Helen did when she was his age, to the fucking letter. His hair is exactly the same! Heck, he's hotter than my bitch ever was. Shouldn't be fuckin' allowed for a boy to look so pretty."

As I placed the bottle of beer in front of my father, I felt Pat's large, rough hand grab my ass through my jeans and squeeze hard. I bolted from that sleazy touch like a deer that had just been shot at, my hip bumping into the counter as I put my back to it and stared in shock at Pat. He and my father's other three men burst out in teasing laughter, like Pat had said some great joke or they thought my freaking out was hysterical. My buttock burned from where that piece of shit had touched me. Not a single one of them looked uncomfortable or disturbed that Pat had fondled me, even in ugly jest.

But it was the way that my father looked that chilled my blood to ice in my veins. He was staring at me, not in anger at Pat's remark that I looked like a girl or even that his friend had just sexually harassed his sixteen year old son, this look was something else. His grey eyes were clouded over by something more than just the booze and his gaze was intent, not even focusing on the game anymore. It was the same exact look he had given me that one time when I had been thirteen and he had caught me coming out of the shower with my hair down.

I remembered how he had smelled like some woman, how drunk he had been. He had touched my hair in amazement, like it was something precious, and then that look had come over him. A look that, I had thought years later, looked so much like Trowa's whenever he had touched me in a way that I hadn't liked... I cut that thought off viciously at the legs like I did every time I had it.

I was seeing things, I told myself, I was remembering things wrong. It didn't matter the reason, because it wasn't possible. He was my father, not even a step-father or an adoptive father, he was the man that had brought me into this world and raised me for my entire life and he would never look at me like that. It wasn't even remotely possible. He was just drunk, very, very drunk. Hell, with Pat going on about how I looked exactly like my mother, that was probably who he was seeing, not me. I felt some of my fear ebb away at that realization, but not all of it. I turned and continued to wash the dishes, but my hands were shaking nervously and I could still feel him staring at my back as his friends continued to joke about my looks and how womanly I was.

Eventually the conversation moved on from their sexist, lewd comments and to sports and no one was more grateful for that boring topic than I was. I didn't even care anymore that my back was hurting and hands were getting gummy from washing grease and cheese off of things. It took me another twenty minutes to get all the dishes scrubbed clean and onto the drying rack and by that time, I was practically sleep walking, at this weird place of consciousness where half of me was trying to fall asleep in exhaustion and the other half was wired and wide awake, trying to sort through what had just happened at the same time that it was trying to ignore it. I wanted to go to bed if only to forget about the whole mess.

"I need to go to sleep," I finally told my father after I had washed the sink and my hands, "I have school tomorrow."

"Go, then," he snapped at me in irritation.

He looked angry about something and I really didn't think that it had anything to do with my asking to go to bed. But I was relieved to see that from him, it was a hell of a lot more normal than that other look. I didn't have to be told twice, I almost ran out of there and escaped to the sanctuary of my bedroom. I held no illusions that if my father or those other pricks wanted something from me, they wouldn't drag me out of bed, but until then, I wasn't going to stick around to be a source of amusement for the assholes.

I checked on Pepper first, always paranoid that one day I would come home to find her dead or that my father had thrown her out of the house, and smiled when I found her curled up, asleep, in her box. At least one of us would get a good night's rest. I changed into the ratty t-shirt and pajama pants that I wear when I sleep, mourning that I didn't have a chance to take a shower, but there was no way in hell that I was going to go back down there of my own, free will. I would have to take one in the morning and just deal with my sweat for the night... err, morning.

I laid down on my mattress and closed my eyes, trying to get some sleep. I couldn't even call it real sleep. At three in the morning and needing to wake up in three hours, it would be a nap if anything, but it would be better than nothing. But the sounds of loud laughter and occasional yelling kept me wide awake. I kept finding myself about to drift off, only to be brought wide awake with the reminder that they were still there. It was a hellish thing, getting that close to sleep, but my paranoia and fear of my father and his friends wouldn't let me rest.

It was four am when I heard Pat and the three others finally start to filter out of the house. I couldn't even imagine what our neighbors thought about the racket that they had made, but I knew that no one was going to complain about it. I didn't even care about how freaking late it was, or if my father was going to come in to demand I clean up whatever mess that they had left, I just rolled onto my side and squeezed my eyes shut, demanding that I finally fall asleep.

"Duo!" my father shouted from downstairs.

My eyes shot open and I immediately sat up, wide awake.

"Get down here!" he continued to shout.

I froze, not knowing what to do. I should go to him, I realized, he would have gotten pissed if I ignored him sober, let alone how he was in that moment, but I couldn't make myself move. I didn't want to go down there and see what he wanted. I thought about that look he had given me and shuddered where I sat. No, I really didn't want to go down there. I shook my head at myself as I heard him call for me again. I was being stupid. That look didn't mean anything! He was just drunk and being an asshole, like usual. But even with that logic, and knowing that I was going to get the shit beaten out of me, I couldn't make myself go downstairs.

"Duo, come down here right now, you piece of shit!" my father bellowed from the bottom of the steps.

I got out of bed, taking the extra minute to replace my pajama pants with jeans in case I had to make a run for it, and sat behind my desk, my back pressed against the wall, and hugged my knees to my chest. I could feel my heart racing with fear with each and every one of his heavy steps up to my room. I curled my hands into fists to keep them from shaking, making myself small like I thought that I could hide from him somehow. Later, when I thought about the whole mess, I would feel repulsed and angry at my father, but right then, I was just scared shitless. I was sore and tired and felt like I didn't have an ounce of energy to deal with a beating, either in trying to get away with him or trying to defend myself. I don't think that I was exactly thinking sanely at that point in my day, too focused on what I had seen on my father's face and not on his rage.

I jumped to my feet when my bedroom door slammed open and my father strode in, looking furious.

"You prick," he snarled, looking more like a wolverine than a human being, not even breaking his stride as he almost tripped over my mattress, not paying attention to what he was doing, "You answer me when I'm fucking calling for you, do you hear me?!"

His fist lashed out at me, but he was more drunk than I was tired and I was able to dodge it easily. I think that if my back hadn't been aching, if I hadn't been so exhausted and had been moving faster, I could have gotten away from him rather quickly, but he recovered from his aborted punch faster than I did and grabbed my wrist and the front of my jeans to keep me from dodging again, slamming me to the wall with his superior weight. I gasped out as pain shot through my wrist, but I knew that it wasn't broken, just a bad sprain.

I struggled, trying in vain to get away from him, the button to my jeans coming off as his grip twisted with my attempts to get away from him. It made this weird 'ting' noise as it hit the floor and I felt disturbed by it and the twin sound of the front of my jeans ripping open at the sheer strength of my father's hold on me for some reason. My dad let go of my damaged wrist to grab at my hair, wrapping some of my braid around his fist and slammed my head into the wall, getting more and more pissed off the more that I moved. The blow wasn't hard enough to give me a concussion, but I still felt dazed for a second, his hard grip making a bunch of my hair come out of my braid, the feeling of my loose hair falling felt strange to me.

My father, his face twisted in soundless rage, punched the right side of my face and my head slammed against the wall again. It was only my feelings of self preservation that kept me on my feet as pain burst in my cheek, the side and back of my head. I expected a second blow that never came, ready for him to just beat me to a bloody pulp as he often did when he got into these rages, his inhibitions long gone. But he just... stopped. He never stopped when he was on a roll. I dared to open my eyes through the soft haze of pain and saw him looming over me, his hand still clutching my torn jeans.

He had that look on his face. That heated, glazed over look that I was learning to hate with disgust. I couldn't deny it's presence, not there, right in front of me. It was Trowa's look. That look of lust he had given me that had always frightened me. A look of interest and desire. A look that I had seen on my father's face only that one time, three years ago, and a few times when I had been a child and too young to understand why he was looking at my mother that way. A look that had always seemed to spur a fight between them.

His heated, stony eyes roamed over my hair and traveled to down my stomach, to the torn gap in my jeans that he had made and that look intensified. A feeling of horror grew in me as I realized, really realized it as more than just some subconscious thing in the back of my head that I couldn't bear to look at. My father... he... he wanted to... with me.

The feeling of his hand letting go of my jeans, of it touching the bare skin that that tear in them had revealed, of those disturbingly familiar fingers tracing a line over my stomach and around my hip in this intimate, sexualized way had my heart pounding with terror adrenaline and my stomach heaved, wanting to retch in repulsion at the realization of who was touching me like that. It wasn't Trowa. Wasn't some nameless boy or even a nameless girl. It was my dad.

Later, I would wonder if he was even seeing me or if he was seeing Mom, when she had been younger and had actually wanted him. I don't think it really matters. At the time, all I could feel was this bastard mix of rage and disgust. My father was looking at me with lust, like I was some woman that he wanted to fuck. My own father. I couldn't get past that one thought. He was drunk, that tiny voice in my head reminded me and I didn't even care. I didn't care about his reasons or trying to justify that he was just too out of it to realize what he was doing. He was touching me like Pat had touched me, not as a joke, but with intent.

I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't thought of Trowa right then. Would I have just stayed there against that wall and let my father grope me like I was one of his whores? Would I have screamed and hit at him? Would I have tried to talk him out of whatever stupor he was in? Not one of booze, but of want. I don't know. But I do know that suddenly I thought of that time in the abandoned house, when Trowa had tried to rape me.

In complete, unthinking and unconscious reflex, I punched my father in the throat. Even though I hadn't had the leverage or anywhere near his strength to hit him very hard, he was as unprepared for it as Trowa had been when I had done that to him, and as unprepared as I had been when my dad had done it to me last week. He completely let of me and sagged, grasping at his throat and hacking for breath.

I didn't waste a second trying to hit him again or to see if he was going to be ok, I just ran, daring to grab my book bag on the way out in a move of sense that was pretty miraculous at the time. I think that I only did it because it was right in my path and some part of me knew that if I managed to run out that door, I might never come back through it again.

I almost fell down the steps as I reached them, tripping a little on my falling jeans, but I just pushed off on the railing and soared down them, pulling my jeans back up my narrow hips. I couldn't hear my father coming after me, but I shoved my feet into my sneakers in a panic and bolted out of the front door like I assumed that he was.

I ran hard and I ran fast down our street, running both from my father and my terror at what had just happened. Actually, I don't think that terror really comes close to describing how I felt. My father's touch still burned on my skin. I could still smell the booze on him, could still see him looking at me lustily, like I was attractive to him. I stopped running as I entered Central Nausten and threw up into a trash can on the sidewalk. I didn't have much in my stomach to throw up, but I couldn't get it stopped even when I started to dry heave.

My mind kept trying to dig up my memories, tried to work it over and figure out what the hell had happened, but I refused to let it. Later, I told myself, I would think later, when I was safe, when I could afford to stop. I paused to sit on a bench and opened my book bag, taking stock of what I had on me. Textbooks, my homework, pencils, pens, a calculator, this notebook, a thin hoodie jacket that I had stuffed in there days ago when the weather had become too warm to wear it. It wasn't so warm that day and I put it on, trying to hide my sleep shirt and wishing that I had somewhere that I could shower. I could smell fear, vomit, and sweat on me, but mostly, I wanted to scrub my father's touch off of me.

When my lungs stopped feeling like they were trying to crawl up my throat from how long I had been running, I got off the bench and settled for a light jog towards the school. It would be pointless going to the closed library at not even five am and I didn't feel like going to the beach. The sun wasn't up yet. I always found the beach to be rather creepy at night and I didn't want to run into anyone. I knew that there was no way I was going to see Heero that early in the day, but he seemed to like hanging out on the beach and I didn't want to risk it. I couldn't see him, not yet. I was feeling too weak, too vulnerable to deal with him or Relena or Zechs. Or maybe I was just scared that, in the nervous, anxious state that I was in, I was going to end up trying to drown myself.

It wasn't a bad thought. It wasn't even a matter of not having anything to live for anymore. It wasn't about my only friend being dead or having lost my first and only boyfriend or about being bullied and beaten and unloved. My father had just tried to molest me and who knew how far he would have taken that? For the first time in my life, when I thought about tomorrow, I wasn't met with sadness or grief or boredom or tiredness. That morning, when I thought about the future, I was scared. I didn't think that I could do it. Hell, I couldn't even think about what my father had done without wanting to start screaming or finding some dark hole to crawl into and cry with my fear.

It was worse than being beaten by him. Worse than being called useless or anything else that he had ever done to me. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't cope with this knowledge of what he wanted, what he felt in my head. So I pushed it all away in desperation for my own sanity and walked to the school. I was happy that it was too early in the morning for many people to see me. I was sure that I looked nuts with the swelling bruise on my cheek, my wild, unwashed hair, and holding up my torn jeans with one hand.

That early in the morning, the school was locked up, but that wasn't much of a problem. I didn't even need to pick any locks, I just found a window with a loose hinge and worked at it until I could slide it open. There wasn't even an alarm to worry about unless I tried to open one of the staff office doors, which I wasn't going to. It was a school, not a bank. Who the hell breaks into a school anyway? And it wasn't like I was worried about getting caught, I wasn't stealing or destroying school property. I was just a pathetic teenager, looking for a place to hide.

I found my homeroom classroom in the dark, the eerie quiet of the school was actually kind of soothing, such a disturbing contrast to the loud shouting and laughing from my father's poker game. The classroom was just barely illuminated by the early dawn light, letting me search for something to keep my jeans from falling down without having to turn the light on. The closest thing to a belt that I could find in the whole place was the cord to one of the window shades. The cord itself was thick and long enough to go through the belt loops in my jeans twice, so I was sure that it would hold. It was still obvious that the hem of them was torn, but there was nothing I could do about that.

I sat down at the closest desk I could find when I realized that I was swaying on my feet. I couldn't tell if it was exhaustion or shock. My terrified heart was starting to slow into just a haunted ache. I sat there in the dark and stared into nothing, feeling like I was hollow, a ghost.

It was a bit like how I had felt shortly after I had watched Quatre waste himself, that feeling like I was grabbing at pieces of myself as they tried to float away, trying to hold myself together and failing. What was I going to do? Just what the fuck was I going to do now? I felt wet tears trail down my cheeks and I let my head fall onto the desk, suddenly too tired to even keep my head up, let alone try to get my tears stopped.
*****
I was startled awake by something slamming with a great deal of force mere inches from my head, the sound loud and sharp, like the cracking of a whip. I jolted upright, my confused mind trying to figure out where I was and when it was and what the hell was happening. My mind didn't spare me any comfort or give me the soothing option of denial. Everything that had happened since I had walked home from work flashed before me in horrid vividness. It didn't take me long, even in the confused, tired state that I was, to realize that I was at school, still sitting in the desk, and that I had fallen asleep, probably as soon as my head had rested on that wonderful, flat surface. I didn't even remember dozing off and it took a moment for that to filter into my brain, even though I did remember some of my dreams. I didn't want to. They were disturbing and stilted, almost fever dreams. I dreamed of Trowa, all those times that we had kissed, all the times that he had come on to me, tried to have sex with me and I had pushed him away, all up until I had finally given it up to him. Only it hadn't been Trowa, it had been my father. Remembering that, my head still in that fuzzy way right after waking up from a dream that makes things confused and reality seem less real, I'm amazed I didn't retch again. Even my mind was betraying me.

The lights were on in the classroom, the sun shining through all the windows. I must have been extremely tired if I had slept through someone coming into the classroom and turning all the lights on. I looked behind me, trying to find the source of the impact that had ripped me out of sleep and saw Relena and Heero standing next to me, Heero with his arms crossed over his chest and glaring at me with this superior look on his face and Relena with a snide, satisfied smirk on hers, a ruler in her hand. Fucking great.

The universe really hates me. Dealing with them, especially dealing with Heero, was not what I wanted right after... after what had happened with my father. I wondered what they were doing at school that early, but it didn't take a genius to figure out why a couple would go to an empty classroom before anyone else would be there. My heart ached.

"What's the matter, Maxwell?" Relena sneered at me, eying my torn jeans with complete disgust, "Tired from a long night sucking cocks for some spare change?"

I flushed darkly in anger and stupidly pulled my shirt down to try to hide the rip in my jeans, still too much asleep to pretend to ignore her or to tell her to fuck off.

"Ugh!" Heero exclaimed and waved a hand in front of his face like he had just taken a whiff of something extremely foul, "Even his breath smells like cum!"

I had to look away from the both of them for a second as I felt tears prick at my eyes, but I managed to keep them from falling. Relena's words had absolutely no impact compared to Heero's. I felt like, with just that one sentence, he had gleefully ripped out my guts and stomped on them. He had eviscerated me with six, tiny words.

"Now, now, Heero," Relena said in a fake, soothing tone, "Duo can't help smelling like a five dollar whore. Even perverts have to be satisfied."

Heero laughed, this harsh, cruel sound that reminded me too much of Pat's laughter from earlier that morning. It ripped through me and filled me up with something ugly. I can't call it simple rage or disgust or even sadness, but it was a horrible feeling, almost as bad as realizing that my father wanted to fuck me. I glanced back at him and saw his sneer turn to something cold and almost angry.

"Get the fuck out of my seat, faggot," he snarled at me, "I don't want your stench all over my desk. Bad enough that I have to see you during class, I shouldn't have to look at you outside of it, too."

I didn't think that I could possibly turn anymore red than I did just then as I scrambled out of the desk chair like Heero had shot me. It really was his desk, I realized. Had I done that subconsciously? The both of them laughed at me as I grabbed my back pack and moved to my own desk. I debated just leaving the classroom altogether, but the clock above the teacher's desk told me that there was just a half an hour before our classmates would start filtering in. I had only managed, maybe, an hour of sleep and it just wasn't enough to care that Relena and Heero were there with me. If they wanted to make out or whatever, they could find another classroom.

Still, I couldn't stop another glance back at him, like a moth to a bug zapper, or an addict to a fix that they know will kill them eventually. Relena was saying something to him and he was smiling at her. It wasn't the one that I had seen from him before, that open and honest smile, but it was a warm one. I didn't know what I was expecting. It was the sort of smile that a boy would give the girl that he liked, that he was dating. Why did that bring me so much pain? He was an asshole, only slightly less of one than Relena was and that talk we had had on the beach meant nothing compared to him saying that I smelled like semen or all the other things that he did while we were at school.

He wasn't Trowa. He didn't even tolerate me. He hated me. I'm just the disgusting, smelly faggot to him, I told my stupid, traitorous heart. I knew that, I knew that whatever I wanted, and I still had no clue what that was because I sure as hell didn't want a relationship with anyone, let alone him, I could never have with him. Hell, I didn't even have a chance of being friends with him. But I couldn't stop it, couldn't stop wanting and looking, even when it brought me nothing but hurt. I had such bigger and worse things to worry about, yet there I was, pining and letting my heart get more and more battered by him.

Using my left, uninjured hand, I pulled a book out of my bag. My right wrist was still throbbing angrily at it's injury and I hoped that I would have no surprise essays or quizzes that day. I could get away with writing with my left hand somewhat, but the writing would look like shit. I tried to spend the time before class would start reading, but the words just burned in my sight and I stopped trying after ten minutes when I had gotten three pages in and realized that I couldn't remember a single thing that I had read.

I dropped my book back into my bag and settled for looking out of the window. The sun was bright and the sky was a dark blue, I could hear birds chirping, no doubt looking for worms for their breakfasts. It was going to be a nice day out, I prophesized in disgust. I should have felt relieved, it would have sucked to have nowhere to go in the pouring rain, but in the mood that I was in, I wanted the weather to match. I vaguely realized that Relena and Heero had vacated the classroom, but I only had minutes of solitude before other classmates filtered in.

As my homeroom class began to fill out, just minutes before the start of school bell rang, I started to feel an awful headache start to build in my skull. It started just as an intense pressure and the more people that I saw in my vicinity, the more noise they made, the more that they smiled and laughed and talked, the more it built up until I heard this weird ringing in my ears. I couldn't blame it on my tiredness because I had lost a lot more sleep than that before and I had never experienced something like that. Maybe it was stress or maybe I was getting an aneurism. One can only hope. Then I wouldn't need to deal with any of my problems anymore.

"Havers has the flu, guys!" one of our classmates came running into the room to inform us and the mingling of teenagers cheered at their good luck.

Havers was our homeroom teacher and also my teacher for first block, Biology. It was kind of disgusting that my classmates were cheering that he was sick, but I didn't like the man very much myself and it meant that we would be unsupervised for homeroom and get a substitute who would probably just make us watch a movie or something for Biology. I could have cheered myself, if only out of relief. I didn't have the mind or energy left to focus on anything. I folded my arms and let my head fall onto them. I closed my eyes and didn't care that I was surrounded by the enemy, or what Relena and Heero might be doing or that I was probably going to be yelled at when the substitute came in. Sleep was like a magnet, drawing me closer and closer.

I don't even think that I was simply tired. I think that I was running away from everything, escaping the only way that I could. I knew, in the back of my head that by the time school ended, I would need to make a choice, and it wasn't any kind of choice that I wanted to face. I'm a chicken shit, through and through and I couldn't even so much as look at the problem without needing to run away from it, screaming.

It was the bell announcing the end of first period and not the substitute teacher that woke me up. I opened my eyes to the darkened classroom, the television standing in front of Mr. Havers' desk a confirmation that we really had been treated to a movie, like a bunch of four year olds being babysat by cartoons while their parents tried not to deal with them. When someone flicked the light back on, I thought I had been shot in the face with a spear. My headache hadn't been soothed by my nap, but had only grown to epic proportions. I couldn't remember my dreams at all that time and really, really hoped that I didn't snore. That would have been embarrassing, but I was sure that I was not the only kid in the class that had dared to take a nap.

I raised my head, squinting in the light, unable to believe how lucky I was that I had gotten to sleep through an entire class without anyone or anything waking me up. I think I might have managed almost two hours. My eyes finally adjusted to both the pain throbbing in my head and the harsh lights of the classroom and I opened them from a squint to find an intruder on my desk.

I blinked stupidly at the sight of something wrapped in tin foil perched on the edge of the flat surface. How had it gotten there? I glanced around the room to find Relena. She was standing in the back of the room with Heero, Dorothy, and a couple of other teenagers that I recognized as a part of Relena's posse. They were chatting and not paying any attention to me for once. Was this another one of Relena's pranks? Had she snuck something nasty onto my desk while I had slept and the rest of the class had been watching the film in the dark?

I poked at the tin foil, but it didn't explode, so I dared to unwrap it. It was a rather innocent looking sandwich, but I wasn't fooled. It wouldn't be the first time that Relena and her friends had tried to put something nasty in my food, though actually gifting me with tainted food was a first for them. I peeled back one of the ends of white bread to see what was in it and felt my bewilderment grow. Not only was it white bread, it was a peanut butter and banana sandwich. My favorite sandwich. That was way too weird to be a coincidence, right? I mean, how many people can say that their favorite sandwich has bananas in it? I didn't even see anything illicit in it; no worms or insects or spiders or dog shit or tacks or pieces of glass. It was, as much as I could tell, an ordinary sandwich.

Who the hell would give me a sandwich? Who would even know that I was starving or what my favorite sandwich was? I took another look around the classroom at the few students that were straggling to get to their next class, trying to find the person that had done it, but really, who would give me anything?

I looked back at Heero, even though I scoffed at the idea that anyone in that corner would do something like that. So when I found him glancing right back at me, my bewilderment evolved into complete confusion and almost shocked. He saw me looking at him and quickly looked away, going a bit red in the face, but I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed to be caught staring at me or if... if he realized that I suspected what he had done. Relena laughed prettily at his blush, obviously thinking that it was from something that she had said.

I looked back down at the sandwich in my hands. What. The. Fuck. There was just no way in hell that Yuy had... had given me a sandwich. That was bizarre. But who else in our class would have? Who else would look embarrassed like that? It had to be him. Even though I knew that it couldn't be, my heart told me that it had to be him, if only because I wanted it to be.

Ok, I told myself, so if Heero had left me a sandwich, there could only be two possible reasons. One, he had left something in it that would fuck me up, maybe some laxatives or something else that I wouldn't be able to see, something that had a taste that would be hidden by the bananas and the whole thing was just a messed coincidence. Or... or he felt bad for me? He had noticed that I skipped lunch a lot and had made me a sandwich? That didn't make any kind of sense. He hated me, why would he do something like that? Unless this was just a build up to some prank. Make Duo think he and Heero are suddenly friends and then mess with him? But that didn't make sense, either. The Heero that I knew wouldn't go that far, not to be around someone he couldn't stand.

I sniffed at the sandwich and suddenly realized that I didn't care if it was a prank or not. I took a big bite of it, almost moaning happily at the taste. I couldn't even remember the last time that Mom had bought bananas for me to make one of those sandwiches, but this one was heavenly. If there was anything bad in it, I couldn't taste it and I was just happy to have something in my stomach. Again, I puzzled over why Heero, and at that moment, I was absolutely sure that he had been the one to do this, would be nice to me. I remembered our talk on the beach, but I also remembered his cruel words from that morning.

I felt like they weren't even the same person, like he must have a twin brother, one that was capable of holding a decent conversation with me, one that could smile, and another that was only capable of sneers and hate. I felt a swelling of anger over him. If those two people were indeed the same boy, then Heero could do something nice for me like that, but he chose to laugh at me with his bitch of a girlfriend. I hated him for that. Nothing about him made any kind of sense. But the thought of him making that sandwich for me made me pleased as I ate it and I hated myself for it.

'He hates me, he hates me,' I repeated to myself in my head over and over again.

I just wish that my idiotic heart would listen to me.
*****
I'm pretty good at the whole denial game. Quatre's death had made me a master of it and dating Trowa had helped perfect that skill. It's really amazing how something horrible or shocking can happen to a person, and how efficient the human mind can be at not looking at that thing, how long that person can go with ignoring it and focusing on other things before it comes back to bite them in the ass.

I managed my denial game through my entire school day, before I left gym and had my own problem try to gnaw out my kidneys. I focused on mundane things; lessons, squirrels running around outside classroom windows, when would be the best time for me to go over to Mrs. Liddle that weekend to work on her shower drain, my new job, how the sun almost made Heero's hair reddish when we went outside during gym to play soccer on the field. Of course, that realization made me think about that weird sandwich thing again, another thing that I really didn't want to think about.

Nothing bad had happened to me from eating it and I almost wished that it had, if only to put my world right side up again. I was quickly getting sick of how off kilter that asshole had me, the way that my heart would jerk in my chest whenever he got too close to me, how hot my face felt if I managed to catch a glimpse of those blue eyes, how I became fascinated at the sight of his collarbone when the neck of his t-shirt dipped a bit too low. I was disgusting myself. Had Quatre felt this way? So completely unable to focus on anything when Trowa had been around? Flighty and shaky and sick in the stomach? I remembered how he would look whenever Trowa had given him the time of day, every time he would get a text message from him. I really hoped that I didn't look like that, ever.

But then school ended and something so small and unimportant like my crush on my bully became just that again. A darker shadow filled me up with anxiety and repulsion and not even thoughts of Heero could bring me back out of them. School was over, I realized as I dressed after my shower in the boy's locker room. I had nowhere to hide. For the first time, I had to face that choice that had been lingering in the back of my head. I checked my sneakers for surprises, slipped them on, and left the school.

But where was I going to go? Where did I have to go? I thought about this morning again. I don't think that I had actually stopped thinking about it, I had just stopped acknowledging it's presence in any kind of conscious way. But it had been there, waiting for me. I remembered my father pressing me against the wall of my bedroom. My wrist hadn't stopped throbbing since he had sprained it, the skin there a dark red with injury. I remembered his warm breath and the feeling of his hand curling around my bare hip. I remember how much that touch and the look in his eyes reminded me of the only other person in the world that had looked at me like that, like I was a piece of meat to be devoured.

I felt horror. I felt lost. What was I going to do? I couldn't stop thinking that, over and over again. My father wanted to have sex with me. I could say that it was just because of the alcohol, just because Pat had reminded him that I look like Mom and my Dad, for all of his faults, all of his beatings and swearing and coarseness at her, still wanted her, or at least the her that he had fallen in love with as a teenager. If he had loved her, or had just lusted after her. No. I think, remembering all those times that he had come home smelling of perfume and looking frustrated, I think that my father had loved my mother back then. I think that the way that she is now, how she won't let him touch her, how she kicks him out of bed sometimes... I think that hurts him. Was that why he had looked at me like that? To remember her like she had been before I had ruined them? Did that really make it ok?

Because I could say that it was just because of that moment, but that was bullshit. He had looked at me like that before, and I had ignored it because I had been too young to want to understand it, because I had still in mind-destroying grief over Quatre, because, really, how can anyone handle shit like this? What would happen the next time he got that drunk? Would he stumble into my bed? Would he feel me up when I was making dinner? That thought alone almost had me vomiting again as I walked out of the school and had to stop because I didn't know where I was going.

If any of that happened, how could I stop it? I could barely stop Trowa when he had tried to force me all those times, and my father made Trowa look like a fucking mouse. It wasn't just that he was bigger than me, or even stronger. He might not be a cop anymore, but he knew how to take someone down, how to subdue them. I was powerless, just as I have always been against him. If he wanted to have sex with me, all he had to do was hold me down. I rubbed at my bruised cheek with that thought, feeling my terror through my skin. My face was ice cold.

I could hear it, in the back of my head, like I had been hearing it all fucking morning. That sound that the button of my jeans had made as it had popped off and hit the floor. 'Ting'. Such a tiny sound, like a pin dropping, but it chilled me to the bone.

I found myself in the park all of a sudden. I don't remember walking there. I sat down on one of the benches and looked at nothing. I couldn't go home. How could I? He was there. Did he even remember what he had tried to do? Did he remember me punching him? Sixteen years and I had never hit him before. I hadn't even thought about it, and I'm glad that I hadn't. I don't think that I could have managed it otherwise, hitting my father.

I lowered my head and dug the heels of my palms against my closed eyes, trying to drive out the image of him in my head, drunk and full of lust. I wanted to scream, to deny that image. No, I couldn't go home. If I did... if he tried to... to do what he had tried to this morning again... that would be like sticking my own damned head in the bear trap, wouldn't it? No, I can't go home, not ever. But where can I go? What can I do? I don't have anyplace. I don't have any friends that I can stay with, no shelter I can hole up in. I have nothing and no one.

I wished for Quatre to come and comfort me, but my head was too frantic, too chaotic to summon him. I can't go home. 'Home'... have I ever really had one? I guess this park bench is as good as any home that I have ever had. It's nice and quiet here. Peaceful. I can see the sun and the grass and the trees. I just wish that there was someone else here besides me, someone that I could talk to.

Please... someone, anyone at all.

Tell me what to do.
　

End Part 4

(1) I'm sure that everyone and their mother knows this joke, but in case anyone doesn't, it goes like this: a gun is like a condom, better to have it and never need it than need it and not have it.
Thank you everyone who has reviewed this thing, and of course those that have favorited and followed it. I hope that the recent... uh, plot line does not disturb anyone too much. It's been hinted at since chapter 3 and even though I don't have warnings of it listed, it's in the older versions of the story. I also really don't like listing warnings because spoilers. But yeah, if you really want to see where this particular chapter is going to go, look for the first posted draft on my page, it's a bit different than this version but the barebones skeleton is there.
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)