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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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- 27
A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 5

Part 6
　

October 25th, 2007
　

I remember reading a book that I had taken out of the library as a child. I don't exactly remember what it was about, only that it was the sort of book that, had I had responsible, engaged parents, they never would have let me read it at that age. But there was one line that stuck with me, latching onto me like a parasite or a bad smell or a ghost: We all create our own monsters. I don't know why I remember that when I can't remember the plot of the book or any of the characters. It was just that one line. It haunted me and creeped me out, although I don't know why.

As I got older, I remembered that line with a more jaded sense, believing it to be a crock of shit. After all, I hadn't created Zechs or Relena and, besides rejecting Relena's advances, I hadn't done a damned thing to either of them to justify their cruelty. Neither had Quatre. But now? Now I can believe in it. Because I hadn't understood until now. We all create our own monsters. But Relena and Zechs were never my monsters, they were Quatre's. There had been a much bigger and more terrible monster waiting for me in the dark of my own heart, and in the shadow of my life.

If I'm damned and dying, if I'm hurt and bleeding, it's my own fault and no one else's. I saw my monster out of the corner of my eye and I turned away from it. I ignored it, let it get close to me, the whole time denying that it existed. When it disemboweled me, in the end, I wasn't surprised. It ripped out my heart and ate it, and that's exactly what I deserve.

I think that the one thing you want the most is the thing that kills you in the end. I always thought that it was going to be my father's beatings or Relena and Zechs's bullying that did me in. But it isn't the pain or the anger or even the grey nothingness. It's love. Love kills everything. I spent my life searching for it, doing things that I never wanted to get a tiny taste of it. I waited and waited, but I was blindsided when it snuck up behind me and stabbed me in the gut. The worst thing is that it hasn't finished the job yet. There's still some of me left, lying and bleeding on the floor. Quite literally. I don't know how long it will take, but I think the thing that scares me is that I'll survive it. I don't want to survive anymore. I just want this to end.

It took me months to write about Quatre's death. Months to come to terms with it enough to write it down on paper. This took me eight days of struggling with the words, struggling with the decision to own up to it. I had thought that writing about Quatre would be the hardest thing I would ever face in my life, but even though I came around to it a lot faster this time, I think this is harder somehow. In all respects, it shouldn't be this simple to write what I'm about to. My hand isn't even shaking yet. But that doesn't mean that it's easy. There's a screaming voice in my head and a black hole in my heart, sucking in everything. I think writing about it is all that I have left of me. I killed everything else. Or maybe I just don't have the breath left to scream anymore.

Coping. I hate that word. In three years, I still haven't figured out how to do it. I don't know how to look at my memories and move on. I think that this is too big for any one person to swallow. Maybe that's what trauma really is, choking on something too big and dark and awful for you to digest. Eight days, and I already miss who I used to be. I miss my ignorance. I miss being a child and thinking that a hug from my parents would solve all my problems. I miss thinking that Relena was the worst thing in my life. I want that back. I want to remember Heero's eyes and be able to drown in them again. But I can't. There's too much black for that blue to reach me now.

October 17th was the day that my heart died, the very day that I let the monster in. I had six whole days living in blissful ignorance of what my shitty choices would cost me. My mother's injuries healed enough for her to return to work. My bruises faded until my father gave me new ones. He continued to go to job interviews all day and come home drunk, itching for a fight. Our savings got smaller and smaller, but my father always seemed to find a way to keep the fridge well stocked with beer and whiskey.

I came home one night, two days before it had happened, and heard Pat and my father's friends inside the house. The memory of what had happened the last time that they had all been together was fresh in my mind and, like the pathetic, little child that I am, I hid in the shadows at the side of the house and waited for them to leave and my father to go to bed before I quietly crept into the house. I tried to avoid my father and Pat as much as possible. I stayed away from the beach, too, just in case Heero didn't listen to me and kept stalking the mound. I couldn't help crossing paths with him at school, but I made damned sure that we would never be alone together again.

After a week had passed since my father had tried to feel me up, I had foolishly thought that I was getting a hand on things. He hadn't so much looked at me differently since that night, our interactions limited to him barking orders at me and beating me in his drunken fits of anger. The worst that he did to me was try to hit me with a frying pan one day after he had burned his breakfast. It was so easy to believe that things were like they had always been with him. He was more chaotic, more prone to those fits of his, and even my mother was very careful not to talk to him about finding a job.

But beyond that, things seemed normal. I should have been on alert. I should have run away. I should have told my mother what had happened. I know that she would never do anything about it, but I should have anyway. I should have done a lot of things, but I chose not to. I, instead, became entrenched in my feelings for Heero, trying to combat them and ignore them like I was ignoring the problem with my father. Who knows, maybe that will come back to bite me in the ass, too. Only the joke's on the universe. I don't think I have anymore blood left to bleed after this.

Why can I remember the things that I don't want to so vividly, but I have to struggle to hold on to the memories that I never want to forget? I have a hard time remembering moments with Quatre that I was happiest, tiny details that I know had made me smile once. But that night... I think I'll remember everything from that night until the day that I die. Everything that happened from the minute that I came home that night is etched into my brain with a knife. Can you go insane from a single memory?

I had a shorter shift at the factory that night and managed to get home right at midnight. My father's car was in our driveway, but he wasn't home. That made me more anxious than relieved. That late at night, it only meant that he was out with Pat. Sometimes I wonder why my father hangs out with that prick. Sure, they were friends and they had known each other longer than I had been alive, but their friendship was weird to me. Whenever I had hung out with Quatre, I had felt happy and, for a little while at least, I had felt like some of my stresses had been soothed.

But when my father and Pat went out drinking like they had that night, he always came home sullen, which would often lead to one of his drunken rages. He would be frustrated and depressed and bitter for reasons that I think I'll never know. Maybe it's just the alcohol itself or maybe Pat reminds him of times when things were better, like my mother does. No matter what the reason, he always comes back to us in a terrible mood and is quick to loose control. That night would prove to be the worst, or maybe that's just what I want to believe. It's easier believing that it was the drink and Pat's influence that made him... made him do what he did. It's harder believing that it was just my father.

My mother wasn't one to be outdone by my dad. I found her sitting at the kitchen table, the bottle of whiskey that she had been working on since the day before no more than a foot away from her head, and dead asleep, blacked out from overdrinking. Finding her like that was very common after she had come back from the hospital. She spent her days in a silent depression, moving about the house like a corpse, not saying a word, not looking anyone in the eye, and avoiding my father entirely. For nearly a week, I had been finding her asleep at the table or on the couch. If my father was in the kitchen, she would hole up in the bathroom or bedroom until he left. She didn't leave if I was around, though, so it was definitely him.

As I looked at her, her thin body slumped over and her face obscured from her loose, golden hair, I debated if I should leave her there or not. It couldn't be good for her and I worried that she might start puking and choke on it. At the very least, she should move to the couch. I prodded gently at her arm, more scared of her harming herself in her sleep than I was getting yelled at for once.

"Mom?" I called to her, shaking her gently, but she didn't stir even a little bit.

I sighed, wondering if I left her here, if my father would take her to bed or he would do the same thing, or worse. It was that thought, that if I left her in the path of the hurricane, she would get hurt again, that had me pushing the chair that she was sitting on away from the table, keeping one arm against her chest and shoulders so she wouldn't fall out of it. I slung one of her arms over my shoulders and hooked my arm under her knees. When I lifted her up, I was certain that she was going to wake up and freak out, but all she did was murmur something in her sleep that I couldn't make out and press herself to me, unconsciously making it much easier for me to pick her up.

I'm not exactly a big person, but neither is my mother. I have a few inches on her and she's thinner than I am, so while I couldn't carry her around like she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, I didn't struggle too much getting her into her bed. It was better than the couch and I hoped that she was too out of it to notice the difference. I pulled the covers over her and got a large bowl from the kitchen to put on the floor next to her, and a towel from the bathroom to tuck by her head, just in case she ended up throwing up, which I was sure that she would. When I was done, this wave of memory washed over me. You know, those moments of nostalgia that you get when something reminds you of some scrap of your childhood.

I don't know why that particular moment was anything special, it wasn't like I hadn't tried to take care of my mother after one of her binges before, but for some reason, as I watched her sleep, the memory hit me all at once. It's the last memory I really have of my mother before she stopped acknowledging that I existed. I don't remember how young I was, maybe four or five. I woke up one morning with a raging fever and hadn't been able to stop throwing up.

My father had been running late for work and had hit me across the face for throwing up in the kitchen. Back then, him hitting me had been a much rarer occurrence, something that only came from moments when he was frustrated with me, personally. Back then, he never came home drunk and angry and full of rage, looking to beat me to a pulp. He would occasionally get drunk and hurt me badly, but it was usually after I had made too much noise or had broken something. Those few moments when he would go off unprovoked, which would increase as I got older, he would unload on my mother, but rarely me. I miss those times a lot. Back then... back then I loved both of my parents and the thought that I would grow to hate them was a completely alien thing.

Although remembering my father like that filled me with sadness and longing for a time when he had actually seemed to love me, it was the memory of my mother that made my heart ache. Eleven years ago, she had looked a lot more like the young version of her that I had seen in the photos in the basement. Her face had been smoother, her eyes clearer, and her chestnut hair straight and in a short braid. She had been angry with my father for hitting me when I had been sick and had yelled at him to just go to work and she would clean up after me. I remember how relieved she had looked when he had left, like a toxin had cleared from the air.

My mother had washed my face with a warm wash cloth, made me drink a glass of ginger ale, and carried me into the living room where she laid me down on the couch and put a blanket over me. Like I had just done for her, she had laid some towels out in case I needed to vomit again. I had been frightened, having not been that sick before, and had childishly thought that I was dying.

"You'll be ok, Duo," she had said to me, brushing my bangs from my face, "Just sleep and everything will be better when you wake up."

I had dozed off shortly after that, and when I had woken up again, I had found that my mother's words were true and I had felt a little bit better. I remember waking up sometime in the late evening, hours later, and seeing my mother curled up in my father's chair, mere feet from me. She had skipped work just to make sure that I was ok. Even then, before I learned how cruel she could be and to cherish moments like that, I wanted to hug her and tell her how much I loved her, how much better I felt just having her be there for me, watching out for me. I wish that I could do the same for her.

That would be the last time that my mother had ever done anything nice for me, beyond her rare advice to not cross my father. But still, even after everything that she had done to me, the memories of the moments when she had truly been my mom seemed more powerful than the moments when she had been a monster to me. I still want to make things right for her. I still want to find a way to right all the turmoil that I had caused in her life.

I know that, even if I was the one to make her into the person she is now, I shouldn't want that. I should be bitter and feel nothing but loathing for her and my father for hurting me. Why should I love her when she didn't love me? We had hurt each other, but I could manage at least that much affection for her, but she couldn't. But even knowing all of that, I can't help wanting to help her, and wanting to punish myself for ruining her life. Her telling me that I was unwanted and that my father had wanted to abort me is one of my most painful memories, but it also made me realize that, in a really fucked up way, I owe my life to her. It might not be any kind of life that I want, but because of her, I exist. Because of my mother, my father didn't get his way. And even though she loathed me for destroying her life and her body, she still took care of me and tolerated me in her home.

She had made that choice, despite all of the pain that I had caused her. That had to say something, didn't it? I imagine that, for a parent, it's easy to tolerate a child out of love, but it probably takes a much stronger person to tolerate someone when you resent them. She had done at least that much for me, but I couldn't do a single thing to repay her for it. How could I hate her for calling me useless when that's exactly what I am?

In a cloud of guilt, I showered and got ready for bed, feeding and playing with Pepper before I laid down on my mattress. It felt good, being able to go to bed hours before I usually did before I had lost my job and normally I would have spent that time finishing homework. It was also nice to be able to try to go to sleep without my dad around, putting me on edge. With just my mother and I in the house, there was nothing to stop me from falling asleep aside from my own poor mood. Even that only kept me awake for another half an hour, before the sound of Pepper's soft, sleeping purrs lulled the thoughts running rampant in my skull.
*****
October 26th, 2007
This is ridiculous. I'm ridiculous. I finished writing yesterday with my heart racing. I had to put this journal down and hold Pepper just to get it stopped, and even when I did, I felt like I was going to be sick, like I was going to start screaming and black out just from my terror. Terror of fucking what? My memories? What the hell is wrong with me? Something... something is broken inside of me and every time I remember, it rips me apart. I've gone insane, not even capable of thinking about something that shouldn't be as painful as watching Quatre die. But it is. Why is this so hard? Why can't I write about it? Why does the mere attempt at it make me tremble like some dumb, little kid?

Because... because I am. My father saw to that. He reverted me to a child. But I made this choice. I tried to shove it deep, down inside of me and ignore that it exists, but I can't. That's impossible. And if I don't talk about it... write about it... I think something bad will happen. I don't know how things could possibly get any worse, but I think that they can. I'm hanging on by my fingernails and I'm scared of what will happen from the second that I lose my grip. What else do I have? What else can I do?

If I don't write about what happened that night, it's like it never happened. I would like to write that that's what I want, but I don't. I can't. After all of the pain, all of the agony that it caused me, I can't handle it becoming a fevered dream. It happened. I wish that it hadn't, but it did and I want someone... no, I need someone to know that it did, even though I know that if I dared to tell anyone beyond this journal about it, no one would believe me.

October 17th, 2007. I don't know what time it happened. Sometime before dawn, I think. Maybe only an hour after I fell asleep. Maybe minutes. You can never tell the time during a nightmare. I was sleeping pretty deeply for once, not even any sounds from downstairs disturbed me. But when I felt a very heavy weight settle on me, I was wide awake in an instant.

Maybe some part of me, subconsciously, understood what was happening, or maybe I had just been on edge for long, the instant that I woke up, without really knowing what was going on, I was lashing out at the person holding me down. I somehow managed a solid punch to my father's chin, but I was pinned down on my side and couldn't manage a second before he grabbed my arms.

"Get off of me!" I screamed at him and thrashed angrily against him, but I knew in that second of clarity that there was no way in hell that I was getting him off of me unless he wanted to. He was only straddling my waist, but it felt like I had a lion on top of me.

"Quit it," he barked at me, shoving my arms down at my sides.

His breath was putrid with alcohol, his clothes reeking of it. My terror of what was happening was a black pit in my chest, sucking in all of my sanity. All I cared about was getting him off of me somehow. I kicked at him wildly, but none of my blows were hitting him. In the low light of my lantern, I could see his face. Familiar and alien, his grey eyes glazed and intense at the same time. My continued attempts were only accomplishing to piss him off.

"I said, quit it!" he snapped and forced my wrists under me, driving his weight down on me so I couldn't move them in time.

He fumbled at his belt, that soft 'schlick' sound as he pulled it from the loops from his pants would haunt me for days. That sound was the only warning he gave me before he struck me across the face with it. Pain exploded from the lower right of my cheek, over my nose and dangerously close to my left eye. The shock of it had me still, like a lifeless doll. He had never done that, hit me in the face with his belt before. Other places, yeah, but never like that, not so viciously. Of course, he had never tried to rape me until a few days ago, either. The pain made me blind for a couple of minutes, but I could feel my father gripping my wrists and manhandling me onto my stomach. His grip was so tight, I could actually feel the strain on my bones. If I fought, I wondered in panic, would he break my arms just to get his way?

"Please, please, Dad," I begged and pleaded in a frantic scream, sounding more like a hunted and trapped animal than a person as I felt him shove his knee into the small of my back, keeping me pinned, and he wrapped his belt around my wrists tight enough to hurt, "Don't do this! I'll do anything! Please... please... stop!"

His hand, rough and big, covered my mouth, muffling my cries.

"Ssssh," he said in a slurring mockery of a soothing tone, "It's ok, kiddo. It'll feel good, I promise. It'll be over real quick, you'll see."

"Ssh, Duo. It's alright, kiddo. I know getting shots is scary, but it'll hurt for a little while, then it'll be over real quick. There's nothing to be scared of."

I felt his hand stroke my bangs in the ghost of a childish memory and my hot tears poured down his real hand as I sobbed into it.

"Don't scream, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice sounding so far away and barely like he was speaking English, "Don't scream, everything will be ok."

When was the last time that he had called me 'sweetheart' or 'kiddo'? When was the last time he had spoken so kindly to me? When was the last time he had talked like that... like he was my father? And why did he have to say those things then... at the one moment in my life that he was the least bit my dad? The shudder that went through me as I felt him snap the tie around my hair was more like a convulsion. He ran his hand through it, letting it fall through his fingers and I could feel them brushing along my scalp, that gentle touch. It reminded me of when he had ruffled my hair when I had been much younger. It made me feel sick, down in my guts.

His body shifted, his knee releasing me, but he didn't need to keep me pinned like that anymore. He straddled my hips again and I could feel him pressed against me. Even through the pants that he was wearing, I could feel how hard and excited he was. I felt that sense of surrealness again, like this couldn't be happening, this couldn't be my father on top of me, my father's erection that I was feeling pressed against my leg. I thrashed and screamed when he pulled my pants down around my thighs, pushing at my bindings so violently that the leather cut open my skin, but I didn't even care.

"Settle down," I heard him say in that infuriatingly calm and paternal town and he grabbed my bare hip with one hand, pulling me back against him.

I felt the naked head of his cock slip between me and press against me threateningly and I felt something inside of me snap, what little, tiny measure of control I had, that remaining part of myself that was sure that my father could never do it, he could never actually go this far. I screamed and cried in denial. Unable to do anything else to fight against him, I bit savagely at his palm, drawing blood, but he didn't so much as flinch. Was he so drunk that he couldn't feel the pain, or was he so aroused, so desperate that he didn't care? I could have thrown up then with the realization that this was going to happen. There was nothing I could do to stop him. My father was going to rape me. But I was too petrified to even vomit.

I braced myself, my teeth digging into my father's flesh. I braced myself for the horror of it, my revulsion, and the pain. I remembered how much sex with Trowa had hurt. I had thought that it was the worst pain that I had felt and ever would. That pain is laughable now. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to compare my first time and my father's rape with. Trowa had used a lubed condom, and while he had been eager, he had still entered me with some slowness. And he hadn't been quite this... this big. My father shoved into me, dry and hard as steel. He was used to fucking women, not a boy.

I didn't even scream. I just kind of... choked. My vision turned into a haze of red as my father ripped into me. That's the only way that I can describe that pain. It felt like he had stabbed me with some blunt, metal object. But it wasn't an object. It was him, and I think that that knowledge drove me a little bit insane. The agony was immense, this hot thing shrieking through me and coiling in my gut. I could feel blood dripping down my legs from the injury, but even that was nothing compared to when he started to thrust in and out of me. I felt like he was tearing my insides into shreds and pulling them right out of me. I felt like he was killing me, and in a way, he was. The feeling of him pressing his face into my hair and his lips pressing a tender kiss on the back of my neck was repugnant.

"Helen," he cried into my skin, his voice full of sorrow and grief and yearning, but more than anything, it was full of love, a love that he had been denied for a very long time, "Oh God, I miss you so much..."

Something dark twisted in my gut as I heard him say that. If he hadn't had his hand over my mouth, I might have laughed in hurt hysterics. Of course, I thought crazily, this wasn't a rape at all, and how could I have ever thought that it would be? His thrusts became frantic, like a mating animal's, and his orgasm was violent, his fingers digging black bruises into my hip. Something went out of me as I felt his semen shoot inside of my body. Every ounce of fight that I had had minutes before left me, just like that.

"I love you, baby boy," he panted into my neck, so low that I barely heard him.

That twisting thing eviscerated me. It ripped out my heart. Helen. He had called out my mother's name while he had been fucking me. Just like Trowa... I wasn't any more than a means to an end. He wasn't raping his son, he was just using him to remember what it had been like to have sex with the woman that he had loved. But... but he had said that he loved me.

All I had wanted... my entire life, all I had ever wanted was to hear that. 'I love you.' When was the last time that my father had said that? Had he ever? I... I can't remember. I can't remember if anyone had ever actually said those words to me. All I ever wanted... Is this the only way that I can be loved by my father? By being fucked by him? Just like Trowa... that's all anyone wants from me. To hurt me. To violate me, no matter what I want. Trowa didn't even love me for it. But my father did. My father loved me for this.

'Is that so terrible?'

My father took his hand away from my mouth, but it didn't matter. I wasn't going to scream anymore. What would be the point? I was already dead. He had already torn my heart out. I didn't have the voice to scream anymore, nor the care to do so. It wasn't like anyone was going to save me anyway. No one cared about me. The only person who loved me anymore was the one hurting me. I buried my face into my pillow and let my torrent of tears soak into it as my father began to move inside of me again and I couldn't sobbing like I was five years old.

I couldn't bear it anymore. His thrusts, slower and more shallow this time, went on for eternity. The sounds of his pants were like shards of glass in my ears. I was sick. In the shredded mess of my heart, I was too sick to go on. Like the wounded beast that I was, I desperately clawed in my head, searching for that dark hole there that had grown the day that Quatre had killed himself. I felt betrayed by it, that it hadn't come for me the moment that I had realized what my father was going to do to me. It hurt too much, my body and my emotions. Every thought was torture and I couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to feel him come in me anymore. I didn't want to smell his breath or feel his hands or breathe in my disgust and self-hatred anymore.

Right before my father spilled into me for the second time, I found that hole. It's presence frightened me, it's readiness to take me in. But it was still better than the abyss in my guts that my father had formed, that blackness that was filled with monsters and my own screams. I gladly sunk into the black hole and let it swallow me up. What little of me was left.
*****
We create our own monsters. I created mine out of denial and hope and trust. I had thought that there was nothing in me left capable of trusting after Quatre had looked me in the eye and ended his life. I had forgotten that I had trusted long before I had met him. I had been betrayed all over again. I betrayed myself. I knew... three years ago, I saw something in my father's eye and I refused to acknowledge it. I dreamed of him doing this to me, and I pushed it down deep in me, ignoring it. Even when he showed me his true colors outright, I came back. I came back. I could have run away, could have escaped. I knew what was waiting for me, I knew that this could happen, and I came back anyway. Had I wanted this to happen? Had I wanted to punish myself? Or am I just an idiot? I did this to myself, not my father. I raped myself.

I sank into the black pitch in my head, that secret place that I can run to when my memories hurt too much. But even there, I can't seem to escape them. I sank and I dreamed. I looked over into that abyss under my feet and let myself fall forward. I surrendered to gravity and let it swallow me up. I sank down into black water, it's icy currents pulling me down like a familiar lover. Waves like rough hands, grabbing me and holding me down. As I gasped for air, I let that blackness fill my lungs until there was nothing. No light. No warmth. No color. Nothing. That was where I belonged, in the unmoving sea, trapped forever.

I drifted in that single dream for a long time. As terrible as it was, it was better than the reality that was waiting for me when I was done hiding from it. When I did come out of it, even for just a few minutes, I wasn't allowed the luxury of lying to myself that it had just been a horrible nightmare. I didn't even wake up confused and need to grasp for what had happened to me. My memories were there, waiting for me like a hungry crocodile, eager to take me down. I hurt too much for any kind of lie. My wrists felt like someone had tried to saw my hands off. My face ached. And my ass and back and abdomen were a horror show.

"Yes," the sound of my father's voice far too close to me had my heart slamming in my rib cage.

I trembled there in my bed and curled up into a tiny ball, waiting for that weight to settle on me again, waiting for the pain to start again.

"No," I heard his voice again and dared to open my eyes, trying to find him.

I didn't even think about getting away from him at that point. I wasn't even entirely sure that I was capable of standing up, but I still tracked him like a frightened rabbit, needing to know where the attack was going to come from. I looked behind me and finally found him standing behind me, in the doorway of my room. I didn't even have the strength to turn over in bed and I was scared to try it, but from where I was, I could see him talking on the phone.

"No," he repeated, "He's very sick, he won't be coming into school today. Yes, I'll make sure he gets his assignments. Thanks."

He hung up the phone and I quickly faced back in front of me, hoping that if he thought that I was still asleep, he would leave me alone. I felt very strange hearing him call me out from school. That wasn't like him. Even when he had broken my ribs, he had always made me go, unless I couldn't stand. Although, given the pain that I was in, I was sure that this qualified as one of those times. But he couldn't know that. I didn't know what to think, that he had done it out of some ulterior motive, or if he had done it to be nice after assaulting me.

I heard his footsteps behind me and I gripped my sheets tightly in fear, trying to keep from hyperventilating. 'Please,' I wanted to beg him, 'please don't do it anymore, I can't take it. It hurts too much.' I wondered if he had raped me when I had been sleeping and how many times he had done it. I wasn't sure that I would survive him raping me again, not in the state that I was in right then, emotionally and physically. I felt like a bomb had gone off down there and it was all I could do to not think about the fact that the dry, flaky substance caked on my thighs was my own blood and probably my father's cum, too. The second that that nice little thought filtered into my brain, I felt bile rise in my throat.

I froze as my father crouched down behind me, waiting for a blow or for him to grab me. Instead, he kissed my cheek.

"Goodnight, Duo," he whispered to me affectionately, running his hands through my bangs.

Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision. He hadn't said goodnight to me since I had been six years old. Some deep, dark part of my heart, a part that had always been there, a part that I hadn't tried to think about since I had been a child, bled. It was the part of me that had always wanted this, for my father to treat me like that, like he loved me. It felt like opening some ancient wound. It hurt and it felt good at the same time. I would hate myself so much afterwards, but in that moment, that part of me loved him for just that small part of affection that he had shown me in the aftermath of his violence.

I listened to his footsteps leaving my bedroom and walking down the steps, but I didn't feel an inch of relief. He was still there, I knew, far too near me. I couldn't handle it, the fear that I felt for the same man whose love and approval I had wanted every day of my life. I sat up sharply, twisting my body as much as my injuries would allow, and threw up on the floor what little was still in my stomach. I fell back onto my mattress and promptly fell back into blackness.
*****
My second attempt at consciousness was a slow, lethargic thing. My concept of time was totally fucked and I didn't like how similar it was to my breakdown after Quatre's death. I think that, if my father had bothered to clean up after his handiwork, I could have just drifted in that state forever, but I felt disgusting enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep.

The last thing that I wanted to do was open my eyes. I just wanted to go away, forever. I couldn't face the screaming that was still there in my head. I didn't want to move. Didn't want to breathe. Didn't want to do anything. I think that I would have let myself starve in that bed if it meant not having to think. My cat had different plans for me, though. I finally opened my eyes when something soft and furry brushed against my cheek. Pepper stared down at me and rubbed the top of her head against my face again. My smile amazed me. I wouldn't have thought, hours ago, that I would be capable of smiling ever again. But looking into her large, yellow eyes, I couldn't help it.

I won't be so melodramatic to say that my kitten saved my life, but I think that she had. She pulled me out of the black pit that my heart had become, and even if my smile was a jaded, hurt-filled thing, it was better than I would have managed without her. She made me give a shit about something, made me feel something beyond my rage and horror.

"Hi, Princess," I murmured sleepily and picked her up, daring to roll onto my back so I could place her on my chest.

Her happy purr vibrated through my heart and before I could stop it, I was crying again. She let me clutch her against my neck like she was a stuffed animal and didn't struggle as I sobbed.

"I'm sorry," I gasped out, struggling for control over my emotions and knowing that I was probably scaring her, "I'm so sorry."

It took me awhile to get the tears to stop, but by the time that I did, I knew that it was time for me to leave the bed. It was a slow, arduous process. Every little movement hurt and I felt dizzy for some reason. I put Pepper on the floor and sedately sat up, then got on my knees, then finally stood. As I found myself upright again, I had to gasp in pain. My ass throbbed unpleasantly and my thighs felt absolutely disgusting. My father had done something with my pants, hopefully thrown them out, because I was never going to wear them again. I would even end up throwing out my night shirt, unable to stomach wearing it again. It looked like he had cleaned up my vomit, too.

I stood there in my bedroom on shaking legs, feeling like ten miles of bad road and tried to get my bearings. My clock gleefully told me that it was 4 pm, October 18th. I had slept for maybe more than twelve hours, or at least that's what it felt like. Now that that mystery was solved, I searched for the next thing that I needed to do. Everything felt daunting to me, even the idea that I desperately needed to go downstairs to clean myself.

'But what if he's down there?' I thought with childish fear.

I pushed it all away and focused on something else, something that wouldn't result in me screaming in terror. Pepper. I hadn't fed her that morning and while I had made my way to a standing position, she had wandered over to her food bowl, pawing at it.

"I know, I know," I mumbled at her and limped to her.

Feed the cat, that was simple and harmless enough. Trying my hardest not to bend or move my lower body at all, I found the bag of cat food in my desk drawer and dropped some into her bowl. Some of it fell on the floor around it, but I knew that she would make quick work of that. Her water dish was still half full, so I wouldn't have to worry about that in awhile. I walked back to my bed, making a mental list of things that I needed to take care of as I went.

Clean the bed. Clean myself. Eat something bland. Drink a lot of water. But after that, I came up with nothing and I didn't want that to happen. I needed to do things, anything at all. I hoped that my father had picked up my homework assignments. I hoped that he had gotten into a car wreck and would never come back home. I felt something wet track down my leg as I moved and refused to even acknowledge it. I looked down at my bed and my stomach recoiled from the sight.

There was a large, dark stain on my sheets. It looked wet and nasty. Semen and blood, my mind helpfully supplied. I swayed, my vision graying a little. That was my blood... and my father's cum on those sheets. It was the same blood and semen that was still on me. Still in me. My heart raced and my mind buzzed with panic. It was all still inside of me. My hands shook. I could smell it, that revolting mix of violence and sex, somewhere that it had no business being. I panted, my breath coming out in frantic pants as the anxiety attack hit me. I needed to get rid of it. Now. Right fucking now. That smell... that disgusting smell... it wasn't just coming from the sheets, it was coming from me.

I ripped the sheets off my bed, even pillow covers, not caring about the pain from my movements. It needed to go away. Tears pouring down my cheeks and struggling to breathe, I rolled my stained sheets into a ball and limped downstairs. That was the worst part, getting down those steps. I was in such a frantic hurry to get rid of my sheets that I didn't take my time, and each step pulled on some injury inside of me. Through some miracle, I didn't black out from the pain or get dizzy enough to fall.

My concerns about walking around the house in nothing but a t-shirt that only barely covered my crotch were long gone. I think that, in that moment, I wouldn't have cared if the whole world had seen my blood streaked legs, so long as it was a means to an end of getting clean. It didn't matter anyway, it didn't look like anyone was home. Later, I would feel grateful for that. If I had ran into my father then... I threw my sheets into the trash barrel and escaped into the bathroom, flicking on the light switch.

The lights flashed on and I found myself face to face with my reflection. For a moment, I didn't recognize myself. I was a stranger, standing there in the familiar bathroom. A stranger that looked only a few moments away from death, white faced, big eyed, and bloody. My skin of my face was grey, the only color present coming from the dark circles under my eyes and the damage that my father's belt had done. A hideous bruise arched over my face, dark black and bloody red at the edges of it, evidence of bleeding under my skin.

I remembered the sound as it had cracked across my face, the pain, and how he had almost taken out my eye with it. The leather had made a cut over my nose and cheek. The cut was much smaller than the ones on my wrists, but blood had gushed and dried across my face, making me look like a murder victim. My wrists were worse. My thrashing had turned them completely black and my skin was not just torn and ripped from the belt, but I had rubbed them raw. I could feel the belt binding them, biting into them as I struggled and screamed and begged-

Bile and panic rose equally in my throat and I had to tear my eyes away from my reflection just to keep sane, to keep my memories from overwhelming me and dragging me down again, but I couldn't control the shaking in my hands. Just a memory, I told myself, it can't hurt me anymore, it's over with. But my body and my heart wouldn't listen to me. I could still feel it, the leather on my wrists, my father's hand across my mouth as he came inside of me...

Trembling like a strung out junkie, I stumbled to the toilet. I needed to be clean. I needed it out me, the only way that I knew how. I sat down on the toilet, wincing as my back protested being in that position and clutching the bottom of my shirt in white-knuckled hands, I pushed my internal muscles.

Sheer agony ripped through my insides at just that tiny push and I gasped in pain, doubling over until my forehead was nearly resting on my knees. It was bad enough to make my vision swim, but I thankfully didn't black out. The stinging sensation that accompanied the pain reminded me a great deal of a bladder infection that I had had when I had been a kid. It had that same heavy feeling in my guts, that same heat and sickness, only the pain was much worse. Something trickled out of me and I grit my teeth as I tried to just ride out the wave of misery. I think that I lasted all of ten seconds like that before it got to be too much and I hastily stood up on unsteady legs.

I felt sick when I saw that the water in the bowl was red and I worried about what sort of injury my father had caused. The little bit of blood that had been in my underwear after Trowa had fucked me that one time was nothing compared to this, but what could I do about it? I wiped my tears off my face and cleaned myself off. The toilet paper came away stained with blood, and something else that was slimier. I pretended that it was just in my imagination and flushed the tissue down the toilet. Just that one act, and I felt like I was breathless and hollowed out. How much more could I take? I didn't want to find out. I didn't want to know what was going to happen to me when that thin thread that was my control and sanity finally snapped.

I shed my shirt and turned on the water of the shower, not even waiting for it to warm up a little bit before stepping into it. The icy water felt good on my numbing feelings. A bit of the fog that was trying to wrap around my brain eased and I felt a bit less like a walking corpse. I tilted my head back and let the water soak through my hair and wash away the fresh blood on my thighs. I wasted no time in soaping a clean washcloth scrubbing at my skin. It wasn't just between my legs. I felt filthy all over, like my skin was crawling with filth.

I washed the blood off my face and the mess off my legs and in between my buttocks, but it wasn't enough. I still felt like something gross was clinging to me like a veil. I scrubbed obsessively at my arms and chest, again and again, until my fingers ached. I looked down at my naked body, trying to find what it was that was causing that feeling and saw black bruises in the shape of fingers on my hips. I could still those fingers on me, squeezing me, controlling me...

The washcloth fell from my lax fingers as that memory swept over me, just a fragment of that morning's assault. Did I deserve this? Did I deserve to be raped and assaulted and beaten for everything that I had done? Was that why my father had done it? To punish me for destroying their lives? Did he hate me so much for being born that he could never forgive me for it, enough to stop hurting me? Was that all this was? Just another way for him to take all of his anger and hatred out on me? Was all of this my fault?

Why didn't I deserve that pain? I had destroyed so many lives. My mother's. My father's. I hadn't been able to be a friend to Quatre. I had let him die. I had pushed Trowa away from him. I had killed him and destroyed any possible chance for the both of them. I had only ever brought Trowa misery. And because of my harsh words, I had killed Quatre's mother, too. No matter what I did, I only hurt people. I was worse than my father, worse than Relena, worse than Zechs. I was pathetic and I had no right to feel sorry for myself for being raped. It was what I deserved, a fitting punishment for all my failures, all my callousness, all my selfishness.

I don't know why, but I thought about Heero in that moment. I thought of his blue eyes and that honest smile of his and I felt a pain deep in me that I had never experienced before. It felt like rotting death, like I was shriveling into nothing. I loved him. Despite everything, I loved the fucking asshole. I didn't even have that right. I was filthy and tainted and loathsome. He might be a homophobic jerk, but he was still so much brighter and better than I ever would be. Especially now. I was a cancer, and I should be glad that I had thrown everyone away. I didn't have anything left to ruin. Maybe my father would even take away the part of me that was always hurting people. That was all I had left, that hope, and my useless feelings.

I screamed, my memories of Quatre's suicide and my father's assault flashing through my brain like the most fucked up movie imaginable. I couldn't stop that sound of helpless rage and sorrow from flowing out of me as I cried and slammed my fist into the shower wall, over and over again. I felt my skin tear from my violence, but my blinding rage refused to let that small pain in. It's a wonder that I didn't break my hand. I just kept punching until, all of a sudden, all of it left me and I crumpled to the floor of the shower, slumped there like a marionette that had lost it's strings.

I couldn't feel anything. The pain of my wounds, my anger at my father and myself, my grief and agony. It was all gone, ripped out. All I could feel was numbness. That was alright, though. I didn't want to feel anything anymore. I wanted to be blissfully empty of everything, even thought. I wanted someone to carve out my memories. I wanted it all to go away, even the good things, because they only reminded me of what I had lost. I closed my eyes, begging for sleep to come and wash it all away from me, but this time it didn't. My heart was like a jack hammer in my chest, my fear and anxiety worse than any insomnia. I couldn't find the hole in me, I couldn't find that wonderful oblivion. Now even my mind was punishing me.

It was hours before I found the ability to care enough to pick myself up, turn the icy water off and leave the shower. As I dried myself off, pulled my long hair into a lazy and messy ponytail, and walked out of the bathroom naked, I shook, but it wasn't from the cold that I had tortured my body with. I felt like I was having a seizure, like the whole world was shaking with me. I needed it to stop. How can you be numb and feel such pain at the same time?

I stumbled into the empty kitchen and found my way to the refrigerator. I needed to wash it away. The shower hadn't helped, but I knew something that would. Something that would take away my pain and my reality, something that would make the sleep come. I opened the fridge and found what I was looking for instantly: tucked behind a six-pack of beer, a gallon of milk, and some Chinese take out containers was a tall bottle of whiskey. It was about half empty already.

I didn't contemplate what I was about to do, the dangers of either of my parents getting mad at me for drinking their stuff, what I was going to put in my body, or my vow to never touch the stuff after I had drunk that little bit of vodka on the train tracks. I just grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and took a huge, lengthy swig from it, raw, gulping down the amber liquid like I was dying from poison and it was the antidote. I didn't notice the taste at all, but the burning fire that ran down my chilled throat was disgusting and I felt goose bumps being raised on my arms from it. The first time I had drank that shit, it had warmed my stomach and felt kind of nice, even if the drunken feeling it had left me with and the taste of it had been awful. This time, though, it didn't feel warm. Maybe it was just from the sheer volume of the stuff I was drinking or the kind of alcohol that it was, but it didn't feel warm. It burned and stung. It felt like it was ripping a trail of fire down into me, not helping the cold and numbness, but mixing with it. That burning feeling reminded me of how it had felt when my father had shoved his cock into me and I had to drink more to stop that memory dead.

I didn't stop drinking until the very last drop fell from the mouth of the bottle into mine. I stared at the empty glass, but I didn't feel anything, neither remorse for what I had just done or mourning that there wasn't any left. I threw the bottle into the trash barrel so hard that it shattered and wiped at my mouth. I felt weird, swaying with something other than shock. My head was fuzzy and my stomach felt heavy, like it wanted to heave. I guess my body was fighting back at the unwanted intrusion of alcohol, even if my head couldn't. I just stood there for awhile, staring down at my hands. They didn't feel like they were mine. I felt disconnected from myself, like was floating in blackness again.

There was pain, but the whiskey had done its job of making me not care about it. It was distant from me, as numb as the rest of me. I must have stood there for awhile to have felt it's effects so harshly, but no one intruded on me. I don't know what I would have done if either of my parents had come home then and found me drunk and naked in the kitchen. Probably nothing at all. I had nothing left in me to care about something like that.

I walked up the stairs unsteadily. I had stopped shaking at some point, but my legs felt just as wrong as my hands, like someone else was controlling them and I was just hanging on for the ride. When I made it back to my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and, not even really thinking about what I was doing, fished out the sweatshirt jacket that Quatre had given me on my thirteenth birthday. I held it in my hands, hyper aware of it's softness, and clenched it tightly. What would he think of all this, I wondered, and almost burst out laughing at that thought. I didn't bother trying to imagine his ghost then, I knew that I wouldn't be able to make him appear. I wasn't even sure if I deserved his comfort.

It hit me then as a kind of horrible shock, that I hadn't seen my imaginary vision of Quatre in a long time. He hadn't come to comfort me after my rape or even after my father had tried to molest me. He had been suspiciously absent this entire time. Was that really how I felt, that I was such a miserable, sorry excuse for a person that I didn't deserve so much as a figment of my imagination to tell me that things were going to be ok? Was he gone for good?

It was too much, that thought. It was like I had killed him all over again. I hurriedly walked to my mattress and laid down on it, bare of any sheets and curled up into a tiny ball on it. I wrapped my sweatshirt around me like a blanket and covered my head with it. The darkness that it made around me was a welcome thing. I closed my eyes and let the alcohol and my stress pull me down into a dark sleep, filled with nightmares and awful things. My last thought was that I hoped that I died in my sleep.
*****
I woke up with one of the worst headaches that I have ever had, a taste in my mouth like something had crawled in there in my sleep and had died, and a body that felt like it had turned into hard, agonizing rock. I groaned and rolled from laying on my back to on my side, coming eye to eye with Pepper. She headbutted my forehead and trotted over to her food bowl, batting at it and pointedly looking at me with a beseeching expression. The ringing sound the metal bowl made when she hit it with her claws was like a bell banging in my abused head.

I scrubbed at my encrusted eyes and looked over at my clock. It was five am, Friday the 19th. I nearly groaned again. I had slept away another day, but at least I hadn't missed another day of school. I laid there for a minute, trying to find enough ability to care to get up. I easily recognized the signs of depression, and I think I could have wallowed in it for several more days if I had been a different person. But I had realized something at a very early age that had always put things into perspective for me. Life has it's ups and downs no matter who you are, but life doesn't really give a shit if you're having a bad day or a bad life time. It will ultimately continue on no matter how much pain and suffering a person goes through.

Some people suffer more than others, just look at Quatre and Relena, but life isn't going to just stop because I get a bad grade or if my father raped me. No matter how much I wished that it would. So I was faced with three options: one, I could lie there on that mattress until someone dragged me out of it, two, I could get up and go to school and try to pretend like nothing had happened, or three, I could kill myself.

Not moving and letting my depression control me didn't really appeal me. Although I had done that for almost two days, and I had let it happen after Quatre's death, it really wasn't in my nature. My whole life, after something bad had happened with the exception of trying to kill myself three years ago, I had always picked myself up and moved on. I didn't consider it an issue of personal strength, it was just something that I did, because the alternative was kind of stupid.

The jury was out on the third option. I had failed killing myself twice already. I knew how to slice my wrists correctly now, but even in the misery that I was in, the thought of trying again wasn't anymore appealing than doing nothing. It wasn't that I wanted to live, not with what had just happened. The mere thought of trying to continue on, of living with my father, living with those memories, was too painful. I couldn't even come up with a reason why I should keep on living. My life was shit. I had no friends, no one who cared about me besides my cat, no future, and a past that I didn't want to face up to. Everything frightened me now, every second that I was still breathing. What if my father did that to me again? What if Heero somehow found out that I liked him? Worse, what if he found out that my father had fucked me and I hadn't done anything to stop it? That some disgusting part of me had liked him saying that he loved me, even at that huge cost?

The thought of returning to school after all of that had happened was daunting. I didn't know if I was going to be able to deal with the bullying, if I was going to break down again like I had the previous day. But I realized something as I laid there, looking at the wall and thinking about Zechs and Relena, all the things they might do to me and how I might still be too fragile to deal with it. Being raped by my father, being hurt and told that I was loved after doing something like that to me, had given me a kind of... not strength, really, because I was far from strong after that.

There were so many holes in me now that I felt like a block of Swiss cheese. It was more like there was a brick wall around my heart, refusing to let any more poison in. I felt like, after that experience, nothing in the entire world could touch me anymore. Anything that anyone did, I could just ask myself 'is it worse than the rape?' That kind of comparison made things easy. Being called fag didn't hold a candle to it. I could survive a single day at school, if that was what I decided to do. I didn't feel like killing myself just yet, so it seemed as good a thing to do as any.

I sat up and a wave of dizziness hit me, making me rest my forehead against my knees until it went away. My stomach angrily reminded me that I had no clue when it was I had last eaten anything. It was no wonder that I felt like shit, emotional turmoil not included. It had consumed almost half a bottle of whiskey on an empty stomach, and with no kind of tolerance. I would have cursed my stupidity if I hadn't been aware that it wouldn't have made any difference. In the state that I had been in, I don't think that I would have cared if I had realized that I hadn't eaten anything before doing that.

I won't say that I felt more together than I had the previous day, but waking up not covered in blood and other bodily fluids and reeking of sex and day old sweat helped me from swinging back into a panic attack. Even my anal injuries didn't feel as horrible, although they still ached and burned. I made a mental note not to eat anything solid for awhile, at least until the tears healed enough for infection not to be a concern. There was no way in hell that I was going to go to the hospital over this. It would just take time, I told myself. The bruises on my wrists, hips, and face, the tears inside of me, the cuts from the belt, my sore muscles, it would all just take time to heal, then it would be like nothing had ever happened.

I got out of bed and pretended like it was just any other school day. I fed Pepper and gave her some fresh water and made sure that all of my school supplies were in my back pack. I felt irritated that no one had woken me up yesterday or brought me my due homework. I hadn't been in the right mind to do it then, but I was sure that my father hadn't even bothered to pick it up. I wondered if he had called my bosses to excuse me from work or if I was going to get in trouble for skipping them for a day. If he had, he must have called Andre and figured out that I had quit. He hadn't come up here to beat the crap out of me so either he hadn't called at all, he didn't care, or Andre had lied about it. That seemed the most likely option. Andre only had everything to gain if my father didn't find out that I wasn't working for him anymore.

I pulled my jeans out of my closet and looked at them for a moment. I really didn't want to wear them. I couldn't say why, only that it didn't appeal to me at all. They were old and a bit tight on me and for some reason, they made me nervous. Instead I found a pair of sweatpants, a long sleeved shirt, and a thick hoodie jacket to go over the shirt. The jacket and sweatpants were a size too big and baggie on me, but I had bought them at a thrift store the previous week in preparation for the cold weather. They draped over my hands and feet and made me feel better. Safer. Hell if I know why. I combed my hair and pulled it up into a low pony tail that I hid under the sweatshirt, which made me feel even better.

I walked down the steps slowly, not because of my injuries, but purely out of caution. I could hear the shower going, but I had no idea who was in there. The thought of running into my father down there had my heart racing again. I felt so stupid, cowering on the stairs and listening for any noise like a skittish animal. This was my house and I wasn't a character in a slasher flick. There was no serial killer out to get me, no monster hiding around every corner. But that's what I felt like. I was on edge and frightened, the walls and corners of the house that I had lived in for seventeen years seemed so sinister to me.

There was no one in my parents' bedroom when I glanced into it, although the bed was made, and there was no one in the kitchen. I hoped that my mother was the one in the bathroom until I looked out our front door and saw that my father's car was still there. Just the sight of it made me feel sick, but I refused to let it get to me. Just another day, I told myself. I would have to see him again at some point. Unless I ran away right then, it was inevitable. But how could I handle that? Looking into the eyes of the man that had raped me? I wasn't so sure that I could, that it wouldn't drive me insane or I would try to hurt him. If I had only kept that knife under my pillow... but that thought made my nausea worse, that it was just another thing that I had damned myself with.

I could have left the house then, like I often fled during our worse fights, but some stubborn part of myself that wasn't quite broken yet had me walking into the kitchen. If I didn't get used to being around my father then, how would I ever? Besides, I needed something in my stomach if I was going to get through the day. There wasn't much to eat in the house again.

When I saw the alcohol in the fridge, my stomach recoiled, my body remembering that I had poisoned it not too long ago. It was a stupid thing for me to have done, but I didn't really feel the urge to keep drinking, thankfully. Although I hate to do it, I have to admit that I've been tempted to use alcohol to help me sleep again. It had worked perfectly well last time, hangover and gross feelings non withstanding, but it's a small temptation. As much as I want to escape my nightmares, the threat of becoming like my parents is too awful to me.

Through sheer luck, I found a can of vegetable soup broth in the pantry. It wasn't much, but my stomach could handle it and as cold inside as I still felt, a hot meal sounded great. I heated the soup up and sat at the table, drinking it with a spoon. I barely tasted the broth, but the heat from it has it pooled in my stomach was wonderful. Halfway through my meal, I heard the shower turn off and my father get out of the bathroom. I froze, my guts turning into stone inside of me and it's a wonder that I didn't throw up what I had just eaten.

I stayed there, still and scared, my hand shaking as I gripped the spoon. Hearing him move into his bedroom didn't make me feel any relief. He was going to be out soon and he would want his morning coffee. I couldn't be here when he did. For all my thoughts of being strong and facing him, I was a pathetic coward and I couldn't do it. Just from hearing him moving around, my body's instant reaction was to run away and cower someplace. It was completely ridiculous, but I couldn't help it. The fear that I felt was instinctual and overpowering.

I almost didn't eat the rest of the broth. I felt sick again, like my insides were trembling as badly as my hand, and what appetite that I had found was long gone, but I forced myself to finish it anyway, gulping down the still steaming soup as quickly as I could, burning my mouth a little. I wasn't fast enough though. Just as I was standing up to clean my dish, my father walked out of the bedroom. I all but ran for the sink, keeping my back to him. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't acknowledge him.

Tears pricked my eyes and I felt myself start to panic as he walked across the kitchen towards me. Would he apologize for what he had done? Would he make up excuses for it? I didn't think that I could take an apology. I might want it, crave it, some knowledge that he felt remorse for violating me, but at the same time, I didn't want to hear those words. I didn't even want to think about what he had done to me.

He was right there, at my back, and I froze. My heart lurched and pulsed violently and I felt a deep chill fill me. The spoon clattered in the bowl as my hands shook harder and harder. I looked down at it and saw that I was clutching the ceramic bowl so tightly that there was a crack in it. Then he was right there, directly behind me, so close that his chest was almost at my back. I felt bile in my throat. I could feel that chest pressed up against my back, his hands on my hips, squeezing me, using me like how I imagined he had used one of his whores...

"Move," he grumbled at me in a voice that clearly said that he was still half asleep.

Move? That was it? If I hadn't still been so frightened, I would have turned around to look at him. It was the sort of thing that he would have normally said to me. No apology, no excuses, not even a threat to not tell anyone. Just 'move', because I was in his way. This man behind me was my father, the one that I used to know, not the monster that had visited my bed. A horrific thought came to me then. What if he didn't remember what he had done to me?

What if he had been so thoroughly wasted that night that he didn't even remember that he had raped me? Was that even possible? He always remembered, no matter how drunk he had been, and I had very clearly heard him call my school. Had he done that while still drunk? I don't know which possibility is worse, that he didn't even remember ripping my life apart, or that he did and it didn't so much as bother him.

I moved slightly to the left at the order before it dawned on me what he wanted, that the coffee grounds was in the cabinet right next to my head and how close he was going to get to me in order to get them. He reached out his hand to open the cabinet and his arm brushed against mine. His scent filled me, his touch sent spikes through my nerve endings. My heart exploded in terror in my chest and my breath came out rapidly, uncontrollably. I saw nothing but red for a second, then I felt it. Him pushing into me, his cock thrusting inside of my body. That pain. That smell. The smell of blood and sex and violence and alcohol. I felt him in me, ripping me apart.

I couldn't breathe. Even when my vision finally cleared, I saw it in my head, his body moving against mine, that touch on my bare skin. I dropped the bowl into the sink, unable to handle the panic attack that took all of my sense away. I couldn't stay there. My fear was immense, all over a simple, unintentional touch. I was terrified by my own father. I ran out of there, hyperventilating and feeling like the world was collapsing around me, that my heart was a drum being played by someone on speed. My dad didn't even yell at me for possibly breaking the bowl.

I kept running, not even closing my bedroom my bedroom door, and in the blink of an eye, I suddenly found myself cowering under my desk, hugging my knees to my chest. I was going to suffocate. I was going to die because of my fearful memories. I stayed there in my dark corner and rode out the panic attack, not knowing what to do to come back to sanity.

Pepper trotted over to me and looked up at me in curiosity instead of fear. I scooped her up and hugged her to my frightened heart, resting my face against her soft fur. She struggled for a second, not liking how tightly that I was holding her, but after a few annoyed sounds, she settled in my grip.

'Duo,' I heard Quatre's voice in my head, 'You have to calm down. You're breathing too fast. Everything is going to be alright, you know that. Just one breath in, hold it, and then let it out.'

I wanted to laugh and demand to know where he had been when I had fucking needed him but I knew where he had been. It's hard to hold on to an imaginary friend when your head is so terrified that it can do little more than scream gibberish at you. I wanted to scream at him to go away and leave alone, but I really didn't. I knew he was just my own consciousness trying to help me through this anxiety, but I did what he said. I took a deep, shuddering breath in, held it for several seconds, and let it out slowly. I repeated it again and again until my heart slowed and calmed back into it's normal beat.

I let Pepper go finally. For her credit, she didn't take a swipe at me, but just shot me this irritated look and, tail high in the air, returned to her hole in the wall. I did laugh then, this ugly and twisted sound. I was so fucked up, running and hiding from nothing like a child. But I couldn't deny that this was real. I was so scared. Not just of my father, but of everything. I felt like he had opened a portal in my head and every fear that I had ever known was coming back to haunt me through that hole. Every noise, every smell, every movement startled me and scared me out of my wits. How was I supposed to survive this?

I didn't know. It wasn't exactly something that I could go to a doctor with. My father had broken me. Nothing was going to fix that. I just had to do the exact same thing that I had done after Quatre's death. I had to learn to live with whatever shards were left of me.
*****
School was a nightmare. I was so high strung and hyper sensitive to everything that even someone standing slightly close to me had me shrinking away from them. My headache grew worse and worse as the day went on and my nerves felt frayed, like I was constantly in a state of adrenaline rush. At several points, I considered just walking out, unsure if I was going to last until 2pm feeling that way. I even ate in the studio for the first time since Trowa and I had had that fight up there, simply because I couldn't handle dealing with other people any longer. I had never felt so isolated, so alone in my life. Even after Quatre had died, Mrs. Khushrenada had always been trying to talk to me about it. But now, it wasn't just that no one would talk to me, just being around people hurt.

There was only one thing that helped me to keep my sanity and manage to stay through the entire day: Heero. For the first two periods, I ignored him as much as I could. We had most of the same classes together, so it wasn't exactly easy, but for once he and Relena weren't messing with me much. I kept a low profile, forcing my eyes not to glance at him. I had thought that I didn't want to see him, didn't even want to think about him without feeling the misery I had felt before, knowing the futility of my affection for him.

Even if he had been gay, who the hell would want me now? Like Trowa had told me once, I was no prize, and that was before my father had raped me. Now I was just this disgusting thing. No one was going to ever want anything to do with me if they found out about it. Heero finding out about it made me feel so ashamed, so it was just better to stay far away from him. I couldn't even handle the hatred and disgust that I felt for myself, I was sure that his would kill me.

But even knowing all of that, I found myself watching him after awhile, sneaking these little glances and feeling relief when I heard his voice. Being around him hurt, but it was a hurt that I was quickly becoming familiar with. It's a strange thing to admit, but he helped me more than anything else that day, because every other moment, I was that kid that had been assaulted by his own parent. I was the broken freak, tainted and unwanted. People might fake sympathy, but I knew the truth. No one wants to deal with someone like me. No one likes to think that a father could do that to their own offspring, so they would rather ignore someone like me. No one wanted to know.

But in those moments when I saw Heero, I wasn't that person. I was just a pathetic, little gay kid with a pointless crush. That was a lot more normal than the other things that I was, wasn't it? I was a cliche, just another teenager angsting for a love that they could never have, no different than any other loser that wanted to be with someone popular and attractive, gay or otherwise. That pain made me normal. Even if it hurt, it was exactly what I needed. I could hide in that pain and pretend like nothing else was different. I just wished that I could keep that pain afterwards, late at night when I had to go home and worry what the darkness of my room was going to hold for me.

Home Ec used to be my safe haven this year, the one class that I have that Relena, Zechs, and Heero aren't in. At least that was true until the start of this month, when Relena and Heero transferred into my class. Relena transferred first, although why I'm not sure. At the beginning of the year, she had been in Computer Programming with her brother. She had taken Home Ec before last year, so she didn't need to take the second course to fulfill the requirement, but she did need a computer elective.

So why change classes a month into the semester for a class that she didn't need or, I thought, even liked? The only thing that makes a bit of sense at all is that her brother had been in that class. Their relationship has always baffled me, but maybe that's because I'm an only child. Sometimes they seem close, sometimes Zechs acts protective of his younger sister, but a lot of times they seem to loathe each other. A lot of times, Relena doesn't seem to even want to be in the same room with him. I could imagine her, being the spoiled bitch that she is, getting into some squabble with her brother and switching classes just to spite him.

Heero was probably the reason why she hadn't transferred back by now. He had transferred himself out of some metal shop class a few days after Relena had shown up in my Home Ec class. The girls in my class had gushed about it, saying how romantic it was that Heero had changed classes just so he could be with his girlfriend. It made me gag. I wished that they had found some other class to be romantic in.

That class, we were making a vegetable lasagna, something that most of my classmates whined about. It was a rule that we had to trade a piece of our dishes with one of the other groups and at least try it, but not many people wanted to try a vegetarian meal. At least we got to keep the rest of what we made. I hadn't brought a lunch with me again. We had an odd number of people in our class, so I was the only one without a group. Our teacher had tried to put me into one, but I had said that I was fine working alone, and I was. It was easier than working with a partner and on that day, being alone was a blessing.

Cooking and baking has always been... I don't know. Therapeutic, I guess? I always feel calm when I'm making something, especially if there are a lot of steps to it. What I make, if it tastes good or if I fuck something up doesn't even matter, although I do feel a sense of accomplishment, that I can do something, even something that small, right. I just feel this stillness in me that I can never seem to find elsewhere. It's the only time where my mind doesn't wander, where my thoughts don't go someplace dark.

That was exactly what I needed that day: stillness. Heero and Relena's station was right next to mine. I had never actually eaten anything that they had made. A lot of times Relena would give it to someone else while our teacher wasn't looking, but even in the times that they had passed their food to me, I would just throw it out at the end of class. I couldn't risk the possibility that they would do something horrible to it, and even if they didn't, there was no way that I was going to eat anything that cunt made.

But when I started to boil the pasta and chop the vegetables, none of that mattered. It all just faded away. I fell into the rhythm of it. There's just something about cutting fresh fruit and vegetables that's very satisfying, the crisp sound. It was a welcome thing, to melt into that task, to smell the aroma of tomato sauce and cut vegetables instead of the ghost smells of sex and blood that I couldn't seem to get switched off. Even when our teacher walked around to give her remarks to our progress, telling me that I was doing a good job, I barely acknowledged her. There was only one thing that broke through that peaceful shell that I had built around myself to keep out all noise and chaos: Heero's laugh. My hand stilled halfway through chopping up a zucchini, my heart freezing at that sound.

"I feel sorry for the group that gets Duo's food," Relena was saying, her tone just as cruel as her boyfriend's laugh had been, a mock whisper that was anything but, "Who knows what sort of nasty things he does with his hands, and I don't remember seeing him wash them. They should just throw it out, anything that faggot makes will probably taste like shit and smell like cum anyway."

My hand shook as memory hit me like an electrical shock. The sound of my father panting. The agony of his penetration. The semen that had dripped out of me... I had to take a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating again. It was just a memory, just a memory, nothing more, just cruel whispers, just like her, I chanted to myself, trying to calm down. I wouldn't fall apart. Not there, not in front of him.

Faggot. That's all she ever said, all she would ever harp on about. For whatever reason, hearing that from her then was more painful than it had ever been my entire life, even from the first time that Zechs had accused me of being one. She couldn't know how it tore at my heart, the reminder of what I was, and I refused to ever let her know. A boy that likes other boys. Had my father raped me for that reason, had he known what I was and thought that it would make it easier for me? Was it easier, because I liked guys instead of girls, and the entire reason why I had been unable to make it stop, the reason why I hadn't run away, was because I was a fag?

And why... why did I still like men? Why did I like Heero? All men did was hurt me. Heero, Trowa, my father. How could I possibly still be attracted to him after everything? Hadn't I been frightened and scarred enough to feel some aversion to it all? What the fuck was wrong with me, that I could still like him? I had never wanted anything to do with sex, and now I knew that I would never, ever want it, so why? Why was my heart so messed up? I felt like my father had reached into my chest and autopsied my heart, just ripped it open and peered inside. There was nothing in the world that was going to be able to put it back together again. Everything was hopeless.

I came back to myself realizing that I was gripping the handle of the knife so hard that my knuckles were white. I stared down at the blade. It was a large thing, made specifically for chopping, and not very sharp. But in that moment, I imagined walking over to Relena with that knife in hand and stabbing her in the gut with it. I imagined the wonderful sound her entrails would make when I twisted the blade and ripped her open. That single image sent a perverse thrill of pleasure through me. I wanted to do it. I wanted to stab her, kill her, watch her blue eyes go wide in shock and her already pale face turn white.

I dropped the knife like the handle had just become searing hot, horrified by own sick daydream. My heart craved violence, it craved hurting her. Was that what I was? Just a shadow of my father? It was happening. I was becoming more like him. I could feel that, his blood in my veins and I wanted to rip it all out until I couldn't think anymore. Even when I had dropped the knife, my hand had automatically curled into a fist, and it took every ounce of control that I possessed not to at least punch her, to vent some of my anger. My rage was a poison, coursing through me. As much as thinking of hurting someone made me feel good, I didn't want it. I didn't want to be this person.

Tears filled my eyes as I remembered how I used to be, when I had been younger, when Quatre had been my friend. Even then, when I had been quick to anger, it had never been like this. This blackness had never been there, inside of me. I had clung to his goodness, his kindness, and had wanted to be more like him. But now... now I knew that that was impossible. I couldn't escape who I was, where I had come from and I knew that the longer that I lived, the more like him I was going to be.

A quick movement out in the corner of my vision had me thinking in a panic that Relena had somehow figured out that I had just been thinking about stabbing and punching her, or one of them had noticed that I was close to crying right there in the stupid class. I turned to look, just in time to catch Heero leaning over from where he was stirring their tomato sauce to press a kiss to Relena's pale lips.

A pain, completely unlike any of the others that I had felt since my father had assaulted me, burst in me like a piece of rotten fruit. I had seen them together, so many times. And each time, it had hurt me almost unbearably since I had figured out that I liked him, but I had never seen them kiss like that before. Heero looked so focused and intense, and Relena looked happy, her eyes sliding closed in contentment and a blush spreading across her cheeks. They looked like a fairy tale, the handsome prince chastely kissing the beautiful princess. It was too easy to see them like that, the picture perfect couple, and not as my bullies.

I have never felt so ugly, so tainted, and so unseemly as in that moment. I felt like such a freak... such a... such a fag. I was an unwanted thing, something to be sneered at. I stared at them, burning the image of them into my mind before I finally had to turn away. That was what I could never had, I reminded myself. For some reason that I can't comprehend, he loves her and wants to be with her, the very picture of normal. Compared to that, my love for him was hideous and I didn't even understand it.

I felt like my heart was getting ripped apart all over again. How was that possible? How did I have any parts of me left that weren't completely damaged? It was ludicrous. After what I had just gone through, something like that shouldn't have even touched me. So why did it hurt me so badly? I think I know, now. I think I understand why watching Heero kiss her hurt me as much as getting raped by my father did. I loved the both of them, even though I shouldn't, even though I knew that they were only going to hurt me. And my love, that bright and shining thing that Quatre had shown me, the thing that I had seen on my first day of school when my classmates' parents had picked them up, the thing that I had craved and seen as the solution to all of my problems, had betrayed me.

See, all the television shows and books and movies and poems have it wrong. Love isn't magical. It isn't beautiful. It isn't the thing that can save you or heal you when you need it. Love is poison. It seeps into you, deep inside where you have no hope of digging it out. Then, little by little, it slowly kills you. It makes you do things that you would never think of doing and it turns you into something else. It took me too long to realize that and now, I can't purge it from me.

I've learned that love is something that, if it's ever presented to you, you should turn away from it. My love for Quatre had me crying for days at his loss, and later had me slitting my wrists open. My love for Heero had made me weak to his bullying and had me agonizing over a thing that I could never have. My father's love for my mother had seen me raped, and his love for me through that act had left me clinging onto it, unable to fight against it.

But even though I understood all of that, I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop loving Heero. He was no good for me, just like Trowa hadn't been any good for Quatre, and my father was even less so. But still, I loved them, despite the pain. Did that make me as bad as my father, loving someone who loathed me, desiring them instead of moving on, letting my heart become more and more twisted? Is that what had happened to him? Had wanting Mom driven him to this dark place where, like me, he was willing to grab any scrap of affection, even if that meant having sex with his son?

I'm not saying that I sympathize with what he did to me, but I think that I almost understand it. Maybe not his reasoning, but his feelings. The frustration, the burning ache, the anger. I felt all those things when I saw Heero kiss Relena. And I wondered if it was really so terrible, what my father wanted. I'm not wanted by anyone. Not Quatre. Not Trowa. Not Heero. Not my mother. But my father wanted me. I knew that he was just using me. He was like Brian, using me to feel better about himself. I was his punch bag and his sex doll, nothing more than that. But Trowa had walked away from me, because I hadn't been able to be a good enough doll for him. My father hadn't. And he had said that he loved me, not Mom, but me. Trowa hadn't even been able to do that much. Would I do the same for Heero? If he ever asked me to do something like that, would I jump at the chance like a slut, only for affection instead of sex?

It was wrong... it was so fucked up, my feelings. But I can't lie that I didn't have those thoughts. That I still don't have those thoughts. If love is a poison, it's still one that I need to live. I wondered just how much that I would endure for it, because really, I think that being wanted as punching bag by my father to vent both his lust and his anger, was sure as hell better than not being wanted at all.
*****
That night, something strange happened. I had a dream. No, it wasn't a dream. But it was. It was impossible, and it felt like I was dreaming... at the same time that it felt like that I was wide awake. How something like that is possible, I don't know. There was someone in my room, in the corner where the light from my lantern wouldn't touch. That corner is usually all dark shadows, but there was someone standing there. I could see the outline of their shape and I knew that it was looking right at me. It was just... staring at me as I laid on my mattress.

The sight of it... and some part of me that the 'it' was really a man at the same time that it wasn't, that it was really a monster, terrified me. I couldn't look away from it, I couldn't even blink, but I felt a horror that I've never felt in my entire life. I couldn't breathe, and my heart was screaming where I couldn't. My breath was caught in my throat. All I could do was lay there and shake, feeling like a small child again in the presence of some boogieman.

Then it... he... took a step towards me and I think that I might have screamed, although I don't know if I had only screamed in the dream. I opened my eyes and found myself crouched under my desk, tears running down my face and my heart racing so fast that I felt sick from it. I had the scissors that I keep in my desk drawer clutched tightly in my hands, drawn out in front of me like I was warding something off. I don't remember getting them, or leaving my bed. But I remembered the man, I remembered that there was a monster in my room and it was coming for me. It was going to eat me.

I pressed myself hard against the back of the wall, my breaths coming out in frantic pants. It was there, in that corner, walking towards me. I was awake, my eyes were open, but I was still asleep. I was having a nightmare while I was awake and later, that would frighten me, but in that moment, all that mattered, all there was to be scared of, was the thing in the corner of my room.

Eventually, I started to wake up. It was the strangest experience that I've ever had. My eyes were wide open with fright, and there was adrenaline coursing through me, but I was trapped in this weird state, between being awake and asleep. I became more aware, like waking from a deep dream, and it was gradual, just like it would normally be. I was still very scared, still paranoid that there was something there in my room that wanted to hurt me, but minute by minute, that suggestion seemed sillier than frightening, and the thing that was starting to scare me wasn't the man in the room, but what the hell had just happened to me.

I felt like I had when I had been really little and I had had bad dreams about werewolves and the boogieman, being scared even while I was awake and having that fear fade, but still linger. I opened my hand around the handle of the scissors and saw that I had cracked the hard plastic. When my heart beat settled to merely agitated instead of full out terror, I crawled out from under the desk, but some strange part of me was still on edge, still tense and prickling with the fear that something was going to jump out from the shadows and gut me.

It took a lot of effort for me to reach up and put the scissors on the desk. I didn't want to part with what little bit of protection that I had, even if I knew that I was being ridiculous. I crawled back onto my mattress and wrapped my blankets around me tightly, shaking like a newborn foal. I pulled my pillow out from under me and hugged it tightly to me, wrapping my body around it like I thought that it could save me from the assault of hyperawareness that I was under. I could hear everything, the creak of a board, the sound of the wind and rain beating at the side of the house... it was all a source of horror for me.

I couldn't even close my eyes, not for a second. I was too afraid of what would be there, lurking in the dark behind my eyes. I heard another creak, coming from downstairs, and my entire body tensed. I was on high alert, listening for any evidence that my father was there, that he was going to come for me like he had before, but I couldn't uncurl myself from where I was. With every one of those noises, my heart jerked. I wanted to shut off, to die, if that's what it took to get this to stop. How could anyone be this frightened and not wish for death or sleep to take it all away?

When my door softly opened from behind me, I was in such a state of anxiety that the real proof of my fear, my father's footsteps behind me, couldn't make it worse. My mattress dipped as he sat down on it, but I didn't move, didn't try to run. He leaned down close and I curled up tighter, waiting for the horrid stench of his alcohol fueled breath to wash over me like it had the first time. It didn't. There was no beer on his breath or clothes at all.

Tears ran down my cheeks as he pushed me over onto my stomach, not as rough as he had before, but definitely not gently. I didn't protest. I didn't try to fight him. It was never about the alcohol, I realized. My father wanting to have sex with me had never been about him getting drunk. I had just wanted to believe that. That there were two sides to my father, the drunken monster and my gruff dad. But that wasn't true. Both of them were the monster, and he had only needed alcohol to vent his desires that first time, to get the courage for it. He didn't need it anymore. I realized something terrible that night, something more terrible than my father's soberness, more terrible than my strange nightmare. I realized a truth that was enough to break me apart all over again in those small hours of the morning.

It wasn't going to stop.
　

End Chapter 5

Author's Note: I apologize for the wait on this part. It was a very difficult part of the story to write, as I knew that it would be. It caused a few tears and quite a bit of frustration and stress, so it's a bit of a relief to get it out. Although I do write a lot of stories where the main character goes through sexual trauma, it's not something that I enjoy writing and with this story, it was a bit personal.
Chapter 6, while having some dark scenes, is not going to have the same tone of this one (it will also probably be shorter), I promise, and is actually going to have some good things for once! So, I hope this chapter didn't scare anyone off ^_^
Thanks to everyone to your kind reviews. It always overwhelms me to know that people are reading and enjoying this story : )
　

　
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)