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The Road to Kindness	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 7934 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The Road to Kindness

Chapter 8

Part 15
It was strange, how the tiniest details could really drive things home. Even with the physical proof that Duo wasn't so much hurt as he was very sick, Heero was still waiting for Stark to show up at any minute and deliver some terrible news. After all, he had hidden Duo's inability to speak from them. But he didn't come by again. When Duo finally stopped crying, Name tucked him in again. They barely had any time to themselves before a nurse bustled in with Duo's breakfast.

The last time they had all been in this sort of situation, it had taken days for Duo just to eat soup because of his injuries. This time, he got the same crappy, but recognizable food that they were probably serving in the cafeteria this morning; toast with scrambled eggs, bacon, and a glass of orange juice. It looked completely unappealing to Heero, even the orange juice looked like that powdered shit you dumped and stirred in a glass of water that came out of a can. But Duo looked at it hungrily, reminding Heero for a sad moment of their early friendship and how Duo used to look at Heero's lunches with a great deal of hunger before shamefully looking away, as though he had thought that he didn't even deserve to want someone else's food. At least his sickness wasn't affecting his appetite too much.

Heero suddenly felt a very serious pain and hatred towards Duo's silence. He wanted to know what had happened during the five days he had been kidnapped. How had Wes treated him? Duo was banged up, but not as badly as he had assumed he would be, it almost made him doubt that Wes was really the one who had done this. And he couldn't have been feeding him very well if he was this hungry, but he had obviously fed him something. Then there was his loose hair and all that blood...
It wasn't his blood.

Heero shook his head. It didn't matter. Not to him. Duo, through some miracle or act of strength, had gotten himself back to them. his mother was right. Everything else they would take care of later. Right now, all he wanted to do was let Duo's presence, his existence with them soak into himself. He wanted to spend every second with him. And as soon as they got him out of here, he wanted to pamper him, to do everything with him that Duo had never gotten to enjoy during his summer vacations before.

As Duo practically inhaled his breakfast, the nurse busied herself with taking out the line that had been giving Do blood, the transfusion having run its course, and Heero had to admit that the American had a little bit more color than when he had found him in his bedroom. Duo looked down at the remaining lines in his arm and Heero could have sworn he saw him twitch at the sight of them there, knowing his immediate instinct was to pull them out and he was trying very hard to fight against that instinct. Duo looked to the nurse and opened his mouth, but remembered at the last moment, and gave a frustrated look that was painful to see. His hands clenched into fists and Heero worried that he might start to cry again.

"Nurse, I don't suppose you have some paper and a pen?" Name asked kindly, knowing what the problem was immediately.

The nurse looked bewildered for a second, then brightened.

"Oh, of course!" she beamed at them, taking a ballpoint pen out of her shirt pocket and a small pad-sized notebook from her pants one. She tore out a couple of pages she had written notes on and handed Duo the rest of the notebook.

"Thank you," Name said on his behalf.

Duo gripped the pen and winced as the move pulled on the dozen plus deep cuts on his arm and wrist. They hurt and gained his attention even more now that Stark had disinfected and wrapped them. He wanted to scratch at them, the wounds stinging and itching, but was scared to do it even over the bandages in case they would start bleeding again. Although the blood transfusion had given him a small amount of strength, the fever and hunger made his hand shake, his writing almost illegible.

'When can the other ones come out?' he wrote and held it up.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," the nurse said honestly, "The doctor doesn't want you to stop getting the antibiotics and nutrition supplements until the infections and fever goes away and he's sure you won't go into remission, then you can start to take your pills again."

Duo huffed soundlessly at that answer. He wanted to leave now. He wanted to see his cats and sleep in his own damned bed. After all that time sleeping on the floor, it was all he wanted. His room, his house... he was sick of laying on surfaces that he couldn't see as his, of not being in his own familiar space. Safe, with windows and light and wide space. The hospital was better than the dark, small closet, but he was still confined, he still couldn't leave. He was itching to see the sky and breathe fresh air.

He felt claustrophobic. He might not be screaming and crying anymore, but he was still on edge and knew that if Name and Heero weren't here with him, he would be freaking out again. Duo tapped the pen against the paper in agitation. He wanted to throw the pad across the room and scream, but the knowledge that he would never get the sound past his throat stopped him. The paper was too fucking small for all of the things he wanted to say, to ask, to try to explain. How could he communicate how badly he didn't want to stay here and wait for his body to heal? What words could he possibly use to describe the relief and love he felt, seeing and feeling Heero and Name so close to him? And how, how could he possibly write those words... 'I killed Wes. I stabbed him in the throat. It was his blood all over me. I stabbed him and he died. Please don't hate me.' How could this tiny pad with its narrow lines possibly help him to convey all of that?

And he was still hungry. He hadn't even realized it until the nurse had brought in the tray. The small bit of food that Wes had been giving him had only made his body crave more, it would have been better if he had starved him entirely. At least Duo was used to that and after awhile, your stomach clamped up and the thought of food made you sick. He eyed his empty plate and pressed his pen to the paper. A craving like he had never experienced in his life hit him and he actually grimaced from it.

He had never, ever been picky about food in his life. It was just something to put in his stomach to make the pain go away, and the sudden, overabundance of it in his life now, something that had used to be so scarce to him, still confused and worried him sometimes. Little by little, he had stopped thinking in terms of whether or not he deserved the food that Name gave him and had started to feel excitement for specific things she made just for him.

Maybe it was unhealthy, equating certain foods with love, but he couldn't help it. He had never had that sensation growing up. The closest he had was his affinity for milk, the very first thing Wes had bought for just him, hating the beverage himself. He remembered how Wes had snapped at him, telling that if he didn't drink the entire glass, he was going to shove it down his throat, because Duo's bone density was horrible and he didn't need any whores that would break from a single punch. And Duo had drunk all of it, not because he was being threatened, but because he loved the taste. It had put this strange, small, almost non-existant smile on Wes' face. A smile of approval. No one had ever looked at him like that before.

The hospital food tasted exactly the same as the last time he had eaten it. The toast was slightly over done, the bacon bland and greasy, and the eggs chewy, almost rubbery from having been obviously made in a microwave. It was food, food he didn't have to pay for so he shouldn't care what it tasted like. Before moving in with Heero, he never would have. But now... it wasn't what he wanted. He hadn't really thought of food in those terms before, as something he could have a choice and preference about. But the entire time he had been eating Wes' food, all he had wanted was Name's. He wanted to go home and eat something she had made for him, he wanted it so badly that it hurt.

But he couldn't go home and his stomach still felt like an empty hole in his gut. He was about to ask the nurse if he could get anymore, but stopped, An old, ancient voice in his head yelled at him that he couldn't ask for something like that. It wasn't his food to ask for and if he asked, she would probably just get annoyed at him. What he had gotten was enough. It was always enough for someone like him, hadn't Wes explained that to him over and over, and not to be a pest?

"Duo," Heero scolded lightly, "If you need something, please ask for it."

The other boy gave him a slow, hesitant nod, but still struggled with what he wanted to ask. Why was this so hard? Because writing it down took more thought than just blurting it out? He had come such a long way from the frightened boy Heero had saved, so terrified of disobeying he could barely ask for anything at all. So why did he still have moments like this, where speaking to adults, asking for anything that he thought he shouldn't have or he knew he might be denied, stopped him cold? It was so stupid, just a single, simple question, but he was over thinking it. Even now, after all of the steps away from his old life he had taken, he still found himself in the same self-abusive patterns.

'He can't punish you ever again. Not ever. No matter how much you disobey him. He can't hurt you anymore.'
Duo felt a jolt of electricity from the sheer, raw power of that thought. Wes couldn't hurt him anymore. He had seen to that. No matter how much he tried to push back against the mental roadblock in his head, there would never be anyone hovering over him to tell him no. No, he couldn't eat that. No, he couldn't hang out after school. No, he couldn't lock the bathroom door. No one to strike him for asking a simple question. No one to burn him if he overslept and missed his next appointment to meet a john. No one to rape him if he ate something that didn't belong to him. No one to scream at him, to make him feel dirty and useless, to hurt him and his friends, to make him feel less than human.

There were no more monsters. Duo's grip on the pen was so tight, he almost cracked it. Equal joy and equal fear filled him. From that one, simple revelation, he felt like he was going to throw up. He couldn't handle it, couldn't handle actually looking at that thought, picking apart, analyzing it and letting it absorb into himself. It was too terrible, and too wonderful. He felt like his head was going to tear itself apart. His hand finally moved and he wrote on the pad easily.

'Can I have seconds?'

He showed the paper to the nurse, still feeling a bit shy. Heero was immediately worried about how pale he was and knew his hands were trembling again.

"Of course, honey," the nurse beamed at him and bustled out to grab another tray from her cart.

Name patted his hand and smiled at him, happy that he had become a little bit bolder. After she had gotten the phone call from Quatre that Duo had come back, she had thought she would find him in the same state she had found him in the first time she had been summoned to the hospital because of him; scared of every little touch and look, shaking, raw, and barely able to handle even the simplest of things. He seemed to be taking all of this very well, even with his earlier crying. He was communicating, asking questions, and for the most part keeping himself together.

She wasn't fooled. Duo wasn't handling this better, he was internalizing everything, trying to keep the rest of them in the dark on how he was really feeling, but it wasn't going to last. She knew the boy too well, and she knew that, eventually, he would need to let this all out, they just needed to be patient and accepting of him, to not try to push him to tell the truth. And when he did break, she would be there for him.

Duo ate much slower this time, his body not as ravenous, though he didn't actually savor any of it. The nurse took his trays from him and left to visit her next patient. He laid back against the pillows and seemed relieved that it was just the three of them. Or perhaps it was just the act of sitting back. He seemed to be in pain when he stressed his back too much. Stark hadn't told her anything about it, so it couldn't be too serious. It was just another thing she would have to get from Duo eventually.

After he had rested his back for a few minutes, Duo picked up the pad of paper again.

'How long do I have to stay here?' he wrote and showed it to Name

She looked pained at the question.

"Oh, sweetie, Stark doesn't want you to go home for a few days, at least until he's sure you won't get any worse," she smiled at him, "But I'm sure I can persuade him to release you a bit early. I just want to wait until your fever goes down and the infections won't come back."

Duo nodded, but it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. He had hoped that he could just leave tomorrow. Even if he had to keep taking these antibiotics, couldn't they just set it up at home? But he knew that Name was just being cautious, that he had been very lucky that he hadn't contracted something much worse in all of those days he had been off of his medicine.

'How long was I missing?' he wrote, the question suddenly occurring to him.

The question chilled Heero. How could he not know? Had he really been that sick, that he had lost track of time, or... A horrible thought came to him. Had Wes chained Duo up to the bed again? Had he been there this entire time, in the pitch black dark? He suddenly couldn't answer Duo's question, he couldn't even open his mouth to try to respond. He felt like his heart was breaking, remembering how he had felt when Duo had told them about his punishment for trying to run away from Wes, just for a day. His stomach twisted up and again he wondered, was this his fault?

"It's been five days, honey," Name told him, giving him a sad little smile and patting his arm, "far too long," she murmured.

Duo looked fixedly down at the paper, his own, written words burning in his vision. He didn't know where to even begin to feel about that answer. Five days... Considering how long he had been gone back when he had run away from school, and that, in his more delirious moments, he had thought weeks had passed, it wasn't so bad. But still... he was missing five whole days. The last day of school and the first days of summer, his very first free summer, days that he had wanted to spend with his friends, had passed him by. It was nothing compared to the two weeks Wes had stolen from him when he had chained him to his bed, nothing compared to finding out that Yuki had died during that time, but he still hated it.

Once again, Wes had ripped him completely out of his life. how much had he missed? And how much had he forced his friends to miss in looking for him? And now, they wanted him to miss more time because of his weak body, and Heero would be here, missing those moments with him. That thought made him feel both guilty and happy.

"How are you feeling, Duo?" Name asked him

He paused, unsure of how to respond to that. Truthfully, he hadn't been paying all that much attention to his body since he had woken up. He had been too busy dealing with his stress and problem with his voice to care about how sick he was, but now that Name had brought his attention back to it, he realized how bad off he was.

If he had to pick the one thing that hurt the most, it was his head. The spot that had been slammed against the wall throbbed and radiated sharp pain like an especially bad migraine, the heavy bandage feeling very strange. His thoughts were muddled and it was hard fro him to understand things, taking him much more time than usual. He had thought that it was because of whatever medicine Stark had given him, but he recognized the woozy-headed signs of a decent concussion. At least it didn't feel as terrible as some of the worse ones Wes had given him.

His various cuts itched like hell, his back ached from lying on the floor for so long and it hurt too much to sit up for long periods of time. It hurt to breathe and his throat felt thick and swollen, but that seemed to be the extent of his physical injuries that were actually bothering him.

His sickness was another story. Getting something substantial into his stomach was helping a bit, but he felt intensely fatigued and hot. He wasn't delirious, but he could feel the fever burning on his skin. Every single muscle in his body ached terribly beyond his injuries and his head felt heavy. But even as crappy as he had felt, Duo realized he had gotten off lucky. Wes could have hurt him in a thousand different ways, but he hadn't broken anything or done anything that needed serious mending. With his compromised immune system, he could have picked up any virus or bacteria from that shitty apartment. Having a fever and some muscle aches weren't so bad, but he could see why they were being cautious.

Duo felt another burst of frustration, trying to think of a way to answer that question with only some small pieces of paper. Old habits of always ignoring himself, to take the easy way out almost had him writing 'I'm fine,' but for once, he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to lie to Name or Heero. He was sick of lying and hiding, locking everything away from the rest of the world. They wouldn't believe him for a second anyway.

'Body aches. Head hurts. Tired,' he wrote instead.

"Do you know if Stark gave you anything for the pain?" she asked.

Duo shook his head. He didn't remember anything after falling asleep in Heero's arms. He wrote so on the pad. This made her frown.

"Can I take a look at your leg?" she asked him.

Duo stared at her in confusion for a moment, then nodded. It was a strange thing, but he realized just how much he had missed her. If Wes had said he was going to look at his leg, he would have felt afraid, but let him do it because he had known he had no choice, not just because Wes would punish him if he didn't do what he was told, but because it had been beaten into him so thoroughly that to fight against something so small would be too painful and stressful. But he trusted Name, maybe more than anyone else, even Heero. He loved Heero and he trusted him with all of his secrets, but the twisted thing about loving someone so thoroughly was that he could never trust him completely with his heart. Heero could hurt him so easily without even trying. He didn't have to want to do it, Relena had shown him that much.

It wasn't Heero's fault, and he would never blame him for it, but after all of those years being on his own and just focusing on surviving Wes' brutality, he had neglected his emotions, his dreams and his hopes. Now that that part of himself was alive and awake, it was also new and raw, and easily injured. Sometimes, just being around Heero and realizing how handsome he was, how amazed he was at having him in his life, hurt terribly. But he trusted Name. He trusted her to never hurt him, to love him and be patient with him. He didn't even think twice about her question in regards to what she wanted to do to his leg, only the strangeness of it.

It wasn't exactly a thing he had experienced before. Even with Shi and the others, he had always had moments were the more animalistic part of himself flinched away and wondered if their actions, their questions, might harm him in some way. It was an incredible thing, to have someone like that in his life. It made him realize how gifted he was, to have someone like that that he could call his mother. Sometimes... sometimes he wondered if he deserved her.

Name pulled down the sheets down to his knees and pushed back his hospital gown until she revealed a thin, white bandage wrapped around his thigh. There were a few splotches of lightly colored blood, but that was it. Duo looked absolutely baffled by its presence.

'Wes didn't do that,' he wrote quickly, his hand shaking more than before.

Heero felt a cold thrill go through him at the sight of Duo's messy writing of his kidnapper's name. He realized that, as much as he was sure that Wes had been the one that had abducted Duo, he had secretly been hoping that it had been someone else, anyone else. His chill grew at the frightened expression on his best friend's face. It was just a small wound, and Duo hadn't even realized it was there until now, telling Heero just how out if it he was more than anything else, but he looked so scared of it. He really didn't remember doing that to himself. And Duo was hiding something from them, something big and important. Something that was making him afraid of a wound he couldn't remember being inflicted. Duo looked at him pleadingly and Heero didn't need the pad of paper to tell him what he was trying to ask for.

"According to Stark, you panicked a little when he was giving you a blood transfusion," Heero explained, pulling the covers up again to hide the bandage, "He said you stabbed yourself with a scalpel."

He didn't say that Duo had done it, because he still wasn't sure if he believed Stark. He also didn't tell him that he had cut the doctor. He wasn't sure why he didn't tell him that, but something was telling him that informing his sick, and probably emotionally unbalanced friend that he had lashed out and hurt someone (with a knife) was a very, very bad idea, quite possibly the worst idea (if it wasn't his blood, then wh-)

This information made Duo completely pale and Heero placed his hand over his.

"It's ok," he soothed, "No damage done. You just... got confused and scared. Everything's ok now."

Duo actually relaxed a little, though Heero thought that sounded awfully pathetic. He didn't tell him about being restrained or Stark's threat to have him go through a psych evaluation if he did it again. His mother looked as convinced of his sentiments as Heero did. People who were mentally healthy and stable did not stab themselves multiple times. That it had been in his leg and not his chest or throat did not soothe her worry. Even during his worst panic attacks, he had never done something like this. That he couldn't remember doing it actually made it worse. They couldn't talk to him and try to get to the bottom of why he had hurt himself if he couldn't recall it. She didn't think that was the last of it, she wasn't that naive. There was a concrete reason why Duo had done it, and it wasn't just going to go away because he was conscious now.

A quiet knock on the door had all three of them flinching as though it had been a clash of thunder.

"What is it?" Name nearly snapped, feeling on edge and wanting more uninterrupted time with her sick charge while he was still awake, who was looking more and more drained by the minute.

Instead of Stark or one of his staff, Quatre poked his head in.

"Umm... is it ok if we come in?" he asked sheepishly.

"Of course," she said, secretly relieved.

The blonde walked in slowly and quietly at first, but when he saw that Duo was awake, he ran to the bed.

"Duo!" he cried, his voice filled with happiness, relief, and love, and hugged the other boy tightly.

Name almost yelled at him to be careful, her maternal instinct to protect in hyper drive, before she remembered that this time Duo wasn't hurt so badly that they needed to hold back any displays of affection, and she was glad that she didn't need to. Duo had looked so exhausted and sad, but now that he had his friend's arms wrapped around him, he was nearly beaming with a similar expression to Quatre's, happy tears in his eyes and looking both excited and relieved. He hugged Quatre back almost as tightly.

"Oh, thank God... you're ok..." Quatre's voice hitched as he cried, his entire body shaking in Duo's arms.

Trowa and Wufei walked in after Quatre, followed by Wufei's mother, who was wearing her white coat, similar to Stark's, her black hair tied up in a tidy ponytail. Wufei looked almost as overwhelmed with emotions as Quatre, while Trowa was more tempered, but was still smiling at the sight of their once missing friend wider than he usually did. Name stood and shook Lian's hand.

"Hi, I'm Name Yuy, you must be Wufei's mother," she greeted.

"It's a pleasure to meet you finally," Lian smiled, completely un-star struck by the other mother, "I know I'm not Duo's doctor, but would you be offended if I took a look at his chart?"

"Of course not," Name smiled back, "Doctor Stark is... a very good physician. We owe him for all he did to save Duo's life months back, but he's left a great deal to be desired in terms of bedside manner."

Lian chuckled knowingly.

"Yes, that man has a long history of rubbing people the wrong way, both patients and staff. We've butted heads more than once since I was given this job. It really annoys him having a female immigrant, let alone a mother with attachments and hobbies outside of her profession at the same payroll as him. It certainly doesn't help that a few of his patients switched over to me."

That caught Name's immediate attention while Quatre let go of Duo so Wufei and Trowa could have their turns to hug him.

"Is that so?" she asked with interest.

"Unfortunately, yes. As you said, he's a good doctor, but can be quite apathetic. A few of his patients wanted to switch doctors, but this is a small hospital. There aren't many doctors with his level of skill here, especially not in pediatrics. Peds isn't my specialty, but the hospital was just glad they still wanted to stick with us," the Chinese woman explained.

"Exactly what would we have to do to switch over to you?" Name asked her, "Duo's only fifteen-"

"That's not an issue," Lian assured her, "It's really just a matter of filling out some forms and waiting for it to be approved, but are you really sure? Stark is very good at his job, and I know Duo has quite a few health problems..."

The doctor studied her for a moment, as though she were looking for something, but Name had no idea what.

"Yes, I'm sure," Name responded gruffly, talking low enough that the boys couldn't hear her, "He's very efficient, but I don't want his bad attitude around Duo anymore. As much as I want to be optimistic that we'll never be in situations like this again, I can't afford to think like that. Duo has come a long way since the first time he ended up in the ER, but he'll never be up to full strength, he'll never be completely healthy. He's never liked Stark very much and I want him to feel that, if there's ever anything wrong, he doesn't need to hide it from me just because he doesn't want to deal with a pompous ass of a doctor. Stark only cares about fixing what's wrong with his body, not what is happening in his life, but those things are connected! I want Duo to feel comfortable with opening up with his doctor about all the things that are wrong. He bottles up too much, he needs someone there to pry and prod him into speaking up when he's hurt. Stark will never be that person."

Lian's gaze turned somber and she nodded in understanding. From what Wufei had told her, she wasn't exactly surprised that his friend had problems telling people, even Name, when he wasn't feeling well.

"I'll get you the forms. It might take a while, up to a month for them to clear, since I have no doubt that Stark is going to do all that he can to drag his feet on this, but I'll do all that I can to get Duo transferred to my care," Lian promised her.

She looked over at Duo, who was now being enveloped by her son, the brunette hugging him back tightly, studying with the eyes both of a doctor and a mother.

"Wufei told you what happened, didn't he?" Name said, not really asking.

The Chinese woman nodded.

"Please don't blame him. He didn't want to tell me that Duo had been abducted at first, but some things need to be told," she murmured.

"It's fine," Name assured her, "This has been very stressful for everyone. I'm glad that Wufei had your support. I just have no desire for men like Stark to find out about it."

Lian nodded in agreement at that assessment of Stark's character. He was not a man to be trusted. She found Duo's chart and quickly skimmed thorugh the more recent pages, frowning in concern at something.

"We were all so worried about you," Wufei let go of the shorter boy, feeling a thousand questions burning his tongue, most of them he didn't really want to know the answers to, "are you really ok?"

Duo nodded, looking very happy at being surrounded by his friends.

'I'm ok. He didn't hurt me very much,' he tried to say without thinking.

Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei looked at their mute friend in shock as he struggled, trying stubbornly to push the words out of his throat. Duo started to hyperventilate again, this time from frustration instead of fear.

"Oh, Duo," Quatre was on the verge of panicking, too, which only made Duo's stress skyrocket, wanting to assure him that it was ok, and knowing that he couldn't.

"Settle down," Lian said sternly, but kindly to all four of them, not at all put off by Duo's inability to speak.

She promptly ignored the other boys and sat on the edge of the bed. She winced a little at the sight of the black bruises on his neck.

"How does your throat feel, Duo?" she asked.

Her soft voice and her calm, as though his muteness wasn't the huge deal that he feared it was, helped to calm Duo's strained, frantic breathing. He almost pointed to what he had wrote when Name had asked a similar question, but really didn't want to. His ways of communication were already severely limited and he didn't want to give such an impersonal response. His inability to speak reminded him far too much of the years he had spent in school before Heero had drastically changed his life. Coasting through his classes in painful silence, too shy and scared of the other kids to say more than a few scant words, keeping his secrets and feelings close to his chest. For the first time in his life, he felt... unrestrained.

He could say what he wanted, could talk about what he was feeling and thinking without having to hold everything inside. So his forced silence now was even more painful. He felt like he was falling back into how he was when he and Heero had first met and he had been unable to tell him the truth, even though he had wanted very badly to. Instead of writing anything on the hated pad of paper, he winced as he tried to swallow and gestured to his throat, not knowing how to convey what he wanted to tell her.

"Sore?" she guessed.

Duo nodded gratefully, already getting sick of playing charades.

"Any sharp pain or taste blood when you swallow?" she continued to question him.

Duo shook his head to both. It did hurt to swallow, but it wasn't strong or sharp, and was starting to feel a little bit better. He suspected that not being able to talk was helping a bit. He hadn't tasted any blood after Wes had choked him, so the rupture couldn't have been very bad at all. It hurt to breathe and he rasped when he did, but after all the other times Wes had tried to strangle him in anger, he was expecting that.

"That's good," Doctor Chang told him, looking at something in his chart, "that follows with your test results. I know not being able to talk is very scary, but I really don't think another scope is going to reveal anything different, and at this stage, I don't want to put you through any more pain or anxiety."

"...He hasn't been able to talk this entire time?" Trowa asked Heero.

Heero shook his head.

"But... if the problem isn't his throat, then what's causing his muteness?" Quatre asked the doctor.

Duo's eyes became downcast and he pointed dejectedly to his own head.

"Is that what Dr. Stark told you, that it's just in your head?" Lian asked sadly.

He nodded, suddenly looking nervous, as though he was expecting his friends to laugh at him or judge him.

She touched the top of his head softly. It reminded him of how Name would stroke his hair when he was sad or scared, and it soothed him.

"You must have been very scared," she murmured, "being abducted and taken away from your family and your home like that. Not knowing how he was going to hurt you and if you would ever see the people you love again."

Duo nodded slowly, hesitating a little at first. Fear didn't come close to the crippling emotions he had experienced being locked away in that dark closet. Every second his friends were by him was like a separate miracle. He felt like he might go crazy, wanting to cling to them, and the lingering fear of any one of them being out of his sight. Trowa sat down in front of Lian on the edge of the bed and gathered Duo into his arms, not as hard and frantic and desperate as earlier, but full of love and gentleness, safety and comfort. Duo realized that there were tears dripping down his cheeks and buried himself in Trowa's calm embrace. He was so warm and real, his smell familiar. Trowa held no need, no demand or uncertainty to him. No turbulent feelings like love or fear or grief for him. Just friendship and Duo let himself be swallowed up by that single-minded, unthreatening comfort.

"It's ok," the Italian soothed.

Duo's tears didn't last for more than a couple of minutes, but his heart hurt after they had stopped.

"You just went through something very terrible," Wufei's mother said softly, "and I don't think you've fully come to terms with it yet. I'm not surprised that you're coming up against some problems right now. Give it some time, your voice will come back." Duo managed to give her a small smile. She was making perfect sense and he knew it. He had been kidnapped by the monster of his childhood for five days. During that time, Wes had raped him, put him through an emotional rollercoaster, and made him believe that he would never see Name, Heero, or his other friends again.

'And he turned you into a murderer.'
Pain ripped through his head. Wufei's mother made sense... but he didn't believe her. how could he come to terms with this? He hadn't stopped talking because he had been kidnapped, he was sure of that. Yes, Wes had abducted him, and yes, Duo had been terrified every second he had been there. But did that really compare to what he had done? He couldn't come to terms with that, not ever. He had killed someone, someone he had proclaimed to love, he didn't deserve a single second of peace. That he was happy now, seeing the people he loved, was disgusting. They didn't know that he had a deep, dark stain on his soul.

At that moment, if he had been able to speak, he would have screamed the truth at the top of his lungs. They should know, they needed to know that he didn't deserve their comfort! But he was too much of a coward, too selfish, to try to push Trowa away. To push any of them away. He needed them, he needed their love.

"Well, at the least, we can make it easier for us to communicate," Quatre said, wanting desperately to do anything to make things better, and glancing at the notepad with distaste, "I can get something better than just pen and paper."

Duo saw that Quatre had a plan already, and as much as he hated himself for his relief and wanted to tell him not to bother, he didn't need him to do that for him, he found himself brightening.

'Thank you, Quatre,' he wrote.

Quatre smiled warmly at him and leaned down to kiss Duo's forehead, making the younger boy blush a little.

"We should let him rest," Trowa told his blonde lover, who nodded in agreement.

Lian gestured for Name to follow her outside of the room as the green eyed boy untangled himself from his friend. Duo felt cold and lonely at his absence, but didn't try to say or write anything. At the same time that he didn't want them to leave, all these people near him, when he had gotten used to social deprivation these last five days, was starting to make him stressed, and he knew that Trowa saw that where Quatre and Wufei didn't.

He didn't know what scared him ore, them crowding him like this, or being left alone. He also felt a strong guilt, seeing how tired they all were. He wanted to write that they should all go home and rest, but he was partially terrified of the solitude here, and partially just too tired to deal with much more. He was scared of being alone with his thoughts, with his other, darker self. And he was scared of the wounds on his leg.

"Trowa and I will be back tonight, ok?" Quatre promised him, "We'll bring the book you were reading, so you don't get bored, and some of your clothes, ok?"

Outside the room, Name watched as Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei said their goodbyes to Duo, fussing over him as badly as she wanted to, feeling her heart grow heavy. She wished, very badly, that she could take him home, that she could bundle him up in his own bed and know that his friends would all be close by if he needed them, but far enough away if he needed his space.

"Is there anything you can tell me about what happened to him that Wufei kept secret?" Lian asked her, "Anything at all that I might need to know? I promise, I won't tell Stark or anyone else unless they really need to know."

Name sighed. She hated going behind Duo's back, but this woman could be an ally, especially if she was going to become Duo's doctor.

"What do you know about his... situation?" she asked.

"I know that Duo was once in a very bad place, that he had been unable to adequately care for himself and was being neglected by his father. I know that, because of that neglect, something terrible happened that led to him being admitted and abandoned here several months ago with a ruptured spleen and several other complications. I know that he was shot a couple of months ago and that five days ago, he was abducted on his way home from school," the Chinese woman detailed.

"He was taken by the same..." 'piece of shit,' she thought, but amended her words, "man that had sexually and physically abused him. The same person Duo calls his father, although he's anything but."

Lian's black eyes went wide and she paled. Ever since she had found out that Duo's 'father' had abandoned him after his spleen had burst from severe, physical trauma, she had easily accepted the possibility that his father had been abusing him, but even so...

"Sexually... Wufei never told me that," she whispered in shock, surprised, as naive as it sounded, that her son could keep such a huge secret from her.

Name felt pleased at Wufei's discretion, even to his mother.

"But his medical chart doesn't list any sexual abuse, not even secondary evidence..." the doctor was confused, her brow furrowed as she tried to phrase her next words very carefully, "was it..." she couldn't use the word 'subtle'. She knew that, even if a victim of rape wasn't physically hurt by the act, there was always damage.

"He left his mark," Name said painfully, a dark rage tainting her tone, remembering the state Duo had been in when Heero had taken him to the ER months ago, and the scar tissue that Stark had told her about. The old scar tissue.

"Stark knows about it. The only reason I can think of why he didn't put it in Duo's chart is that he was aware I was trying to fly under the radar. As you know, his chart exists under a fake name. Maybe he didn't want to raise any red flags by treating an under-aged rape victim," she ran a hand through her hair, "I don't even know if it's a good thing or not that that information isn't there. Ever since I took Duo in, I'm afraid that all of my decisions towards him were fairly... emotional and blind. I'm not sure if anything I've done will turn out to have been the right choice," she confessed, thinking immediately about how, when she had released Duo from the hospital, she had decided to forget about Wes and just focus on her sick charge when, looking at things now, she probably should have gone after him immediately.

Lian nodded, recovering from some of her shock. She could certainly understand what it felt like to constantly doubt yourself. Ever since they had made arrangements to come to America, she and her husband had been questioning if they had made the right decision. At first, Wufei had been completely miserable and had seemed to hate them for separating him from his boyfriend, but now he had friends and their relationship with him had improved a lot. She knew that he still missed Fai a lot, even more now since the other boy had visited, but was dealing with that sadness with a great deal more maturity, and less destructiveness. And she knew that she had his new friends to thank for that. Lian's expression became flatter and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"One of my many duties in this hospital is to make sure that our under-aged patients are not being mistreated, abused, or being forced into any unlawful situations. You brought an orphan, a boy with no parental guardians, into your home, without alerting the authorities. A boy with a past and present of serial abuse," she summed up.

Name's own expression went cold and, for a moment, Lian saw the cut-throat business woman and the protective mother as a collective, threatening force, and felt a small, short thrill of fear, but continued despite it.

"It's a part of my job to report this and have him put in government custody," she smiled softly at the Japanese woman, "But I'm not just a doctor here. I know Duo, I've been privileged to talk to him and observe him outside of this hospital, beyond him being a patient. And I know that the best place, the place that is healthiest for him, the place where he is most loved, is with you. For any child, those are the only things that matter," she paused, her words making Name visibly relax, "I don't think that I need to warn you not to push him to tell you what happened when he was kidnapped, that that kind of stress is only going to prolong his silence."

Name nodded.

"There is something that he wants to tell us," she said sadly, "someting that something inside of him won't let him say. He's trying so hard to force himself to get it out that he's hurting himself. Trying to push him even more is only going to make things worse. He's going to think that we're angry and frustrated at him, and I won't have that. What he needs is patience and understanding. The truth can wait, it isn't important to me right now."

Lian was stunned by how perceptive Name was of her charge, but it only solidified her belief that the other woman's decision to take him in, instead of informing the authorities had been the right one. She didn't know what kind of state Duo had been in when she had first brought him home with her, but if his recent silence was any indicator, she believed that telling child services about the abuse, regardless of whether Name could have won custody over him, would have done Duo a great deal of harm. In her profession, she had seen what custody battles and adoptions in cases like these were really like. Having Name's kind of money and power helped speed things along, but they always dragged out and she was sure that forcing Duo to testify on what had happened to him would have been the worst thing for him. And now, all the time that had passed without Name informing anyone would greatly complicate everything.

"Good," she said, "I'll go hunt down those forms for you and check back in on Duo in a couple of hours."

"Thank you," Name said, watching the doctor as she walked off to finish her rounds. She wondered if the Chinese woman was timing her visits for whenever Stark wasn't around and had no doubt that if he caught her checking in on his patient, he would be furious.

Wufei ran after his mother and Quatre and Trowa appeared at Name's side.

"Trowa and I are going to go home now," Quatre told her, "Heero gave us permission to use his car. We're going to rest, feed the cats, and pick up some things for Duo. Was there anything you needed?"

"A thick book and a very strong coffee," she said dryly then paused, actually thinking about it, "and my computer, if you could. It's in the top, locked drawer of my desk. The key is in one of Patches' toys, the red ball. Knowing her, it's probably rolled and stuck under my bed again."

Quatre almost chuckled at the thought Name hiding a key to something that important in one of Patches' toys, though it was probably a good idea. Who would look for a key in a toy that jingled to begin with?

"Sure, we should be back by tonight," Trowa placed his hand on her shoulder briefly.

"Thank you," she said gratefully and went back into Duo's room, closing the door behind her.

'They're going?' Duo wrote tiredly, his hand beginning to shake more and more.

"Yes, Wufei is probably going to head home, too, but I'm sure he'll visit again later," Name assured him, "Now it's just the three of us."

Duo all at once looked sad, guilty, and relieved. He was still for several minutes as Name sat back down in her chair before he picked up the pen again.

'I'm sorry.'

"Sorry for what?" Heero asked, perplexed.

Duo hesitated again, unsure what to write to convey the guilt that was weighing down his heart.

'Everything.'

"Oh, sweetheart," Name held his hand, "You don't have anything to feel sorry for. This isn't your fault. We're just so happy you're safe."

Duo looked away from her, his eyes downcast.

"What exactly is so fucking wonderful about your shitty life that you think you deserve to put some kind of value on it? You're a pest, a rotting piece of meat whose rancid smell I have to put up with. And you dare to think that you're equal to anything above the waste that flows through the sewers under our feet? You should be happy, be fucking grateful that someone like me is willing to breathe the same air as you, let alone share my fucking home and my goddamn food with you! And now you have the fucking gall to cry like some spoiled brat, like your tears should mean something to me?! You're a dog, my dog, and you only deserve as much as any other cur a person like me would take off the streets, pissing in alleyways and sticking his filthy, flea covered muzzle in other people's garbage!"

Duo closed his eyes, an intense weariness coming over him.

'I don't want to dream these things anymore... these memories... these... waking nightmares in my head.'

Name felt, not only a great deal of worry, but an actual pang of fear in her heart as she saw the weariness and darkness on his face very clearly, the boy too tired to even try to hide it from anyone. Duo rolled over and curled up into a miserable ball on his side, away from Name and Heero. He couldn't take the love and worry in their eyes anymore. He felt Name squeeze his shoulder a little and she pulled the covers up to his shoulders. Just like how he liked to have them when he slept. Terrible guilt exploded in his heart.
'You have nothing to be sorry for? Ha! You have everything to be sorry for. You don't deserve her. You never have. The only person you deserved is dead.'

The voice was not the one that usually taunted him. It sounded like a bastard spawn of his voice and Wes', mingling together in something completely unnatural and disturbing. Duo squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the thoughts away. But they wouldn't be silenced. They followed him as he slowly fell into a restless and tormenting sleep, Name and Heero sharing an anxious look at his silent dismissal and how quickly he had fallen asleep, as though he were running away from them.
*****
Duo waited for the sound of Wes' box springs to squeak before he crept out of his own bed, the sound muffled, but obvious with the thin wall that separated their bedrooms. It took longer than usual, but Duo didn't particularly care what Wes was doing or why. His nerves were unhinged, his concentration like a cat's, waiting for his prey, or in this case, his predator. His heart jack-hammered to the point of pain and when he finally heard Wes lay down, he thought he might die from anxiety.

A week had passed since he had met Solo, Shi, and the other prostitutes, and he had found that he couldn't stop thinking about them. It was dangerous, horribly dangerous, but he couldn't help it. They invaded his thoughts at random times, like drops of water through thin cracks. When he was awake, he wanted to see them, to talk to them or just be around them. When he was asleep, he dreamt about them. The soft, long ebony Amaaya's hair. Shi's piercing red eyes. The smell of Hi's cologne. How Solo's arm felt slung around his shoulders. And sometimes, when he was with Wes or a customer, he would inexplicably remember how it had felt watching Shi kill the john that had tried to suffocate him, or seeing the guilty look on all of their faces every time he had to go back to Wes.

In the last couple of days, these daydreams and fantasies and agonizing desires had moved into infinitely more deadly territory. A thought, a single horrible thought, had invaded him like a cancer. He wanted to run away. He had always wanted that, every day of every year he had been with Wes, but he had held back out of fear. Fear of the monster's rage and punishments. Fear of going back to the streets. Fear of one of his many customers recognizing him. His desires had become paralyzed by that fear.

But this was different. It was concrete and powerful. And the more he tried to fight against it, to push it out of his head forever, like he had all those other times, the more it clung to him, the deeper it burrowed its roots in his head. Even worse, a plan had started to form in his thoughts. Not a terrible one, either. He knew all the ways out of the apartment. He knew when Wes went to sleep. But what had really changed his mind about this desire of his were his friends. Before now, he had had only himself to rely on. If he ran away from Wes, he would only go back to the same situation he had been in before he had been kidnapped, but worse. There was nothing else for him, there never had been.

But now he had that something else. He had people in his life that cared about him, that wanted to help. People that understood his situation, that had been homeless and hungry like him, people that were older and wiser than him. They had survived men like Wes in their lines of work, surely, if he did run away, they could help him? They would be able to give him shelter, at least for a little while, and they might know how to hide from Wes.

He couldn't let go of these thoughts. He hated hope, hated how it made him feel when he knew how quickly things could go to shit, but it wouldn't leave him. All he could think of for the past two days was the possibility of getting away from his abuser, of never whoring again, never being beaten again. Those thoughts and hopes weren't like him, and their existence, their power over him, terrified him. But the more he had waited, the more it had itched, the more thoroughly it had consumed him.

He supposed that it didn't matter. The fear of hope was more bearable than the sickness he felt every time Wes put his hands on him, every time he felt his cold eyes on him... Duo slipped his feet into his sneakers. They were already tied and he was still wearing his clothes from that day. He didn't want to waste a single second. There was nothing else for him to take with him. He had considered stealing some food from the refrigerator or some of the clothes from his closet, but the street rat in him reminded him that when the most important thing was getting away from your predator, speed and freedom of movement were better assets than supplies.

That morning, when he had realized that if he didn't leave tonight, he never would regain the courage to, he had considered different routes of his escape. The two most obvious exits were the window in his bedroom and the front door. But the window squeaked when you opened it, and sometimes it jammed. He couldn't risk it making noise, only to find out that he couldn't even lift it enough to squeeze out. The front door posed similar problems. Wes always put the chain on before he went to bed. He could barely reach the door knob, let alone the chain. He would have to get up on a stool or a chair to get that off, and it was impossible to keep the door from slamming shut behind him. He could try to trick Wes somehow, but the man was as smart as he was cruel. He had the instincts of a crocodile and always seemed to know what Duo was thinking. He knew that the only way he was going to get away with this was if he kept Wes from finding out what he as doing. He was faster than him, stronger and more resourceful.

Duo crept further down the hallway instead of towards the kitchen. He was also afraid that if he passed by Wes' door, which the blonde always kept open, Wes would wake up and see him. He walked toward the bathroom, but then went down the small hallway to the left. There was only one door down here and he opened it noiselessly. It led to a long flight of stairs leading up to the second floor.

Years ago, Duo had found out from Wes, this area had been a suburbia with several houses, which the apartment had used to be. But St. Peter's had fallen onto hard times and many of those homes had been torn down to put up restaurants and stores, while others had been remodeled into apartments, with two bedrooms on the first floor, three on the second, and even the attic had been fashioned into a cheaper living space. When Wes had moved in, he had paid off the owner of the building to evict all of the other tenants, letting him have the building to himself. Duo had never met or heard from any landlord, and sometimes he wondered if Wes had bought the building from him, or threatened him, or something worse.

Wes used the second and third floor from time to time, mostly for business matters that Duo was not allowed to ask questions about. There was a door on the opposite side of the building that opened to a stair well that the previous tenants had used to get to the second floor, with this door having been sealed so whoever had lived on the ground floor had to have had a special key to get up there. Once when he had been taking their trash out back, he had seen a couple of men wearing suits going into that stairwell, but he was smart enough not to ask Wes about it. He did know that, every now and then, Chris slept on the second floor. Duo didn't know how to go up into the attic, and Wes had told him, several times, what he would do to him if he ever caught him up there. That threat reminded him of another Wes had made to him, but he refused to let that memory come to him. He got the feeling that if he did, he would end up heading back to his bedroom.

However, Wes had brought him to the second floor to train him a couple of times, enough that he recalled one of the bedrooms up there. It had a window, one that opened up onto a fire escape. If he could at least make it halfway down the escape without getting caught, he thought he could get away. Wes was fast, but he was also bigger than him. What Duo lacked in strength, he made up for in agility. There was no way the man could out maneuver him going down that rickety old thing. His only real obstacle was that he didn't know if the window was locked. If it was, he was screwed. If Wes had locked one window up there, he had locked all of them. He was too thorough and methodical not to have.

'Are you willing to die to get away from him?' some voice in his head asked.

Already halfway up the steps, Duo paused. He had never been afraid of death, but for some reason, something deep inside of him hesitated in answering.

'If it means being with your friends, being free of the Boogieman, are you willing to risk the possibility of dying trying to accomplish that?' it clarified.

Yes, Duo realized. Recently, he had come to understand something, something terrifying. He was... changing. Every single day he was with this man... every single day he shoved his cock into him or let someone else do it, every day he hit him and called him a useless piece of shit, with each one of these moments, a part of himself mutated. Or just shattered into glass dust. He had never been a strong person or a good person, or something pretty to look at. He had always been scared, but never like this. He had never felt so... beaten, so ashamed. So full of disgust when someone touched him or he looked in the mirror. Disgust when he did what Wes told him and realizing that he didn't even think about it, how automatic it was, and how faint his hesitance and his resistance, even in his own thoughts, had become, like that part of himself, the part that was him and not Wes, not the whore, was fading away. Fading into something ugly and lifeless. He had never thrown up, just at the thought of a new day.

His life had never had any meaning to him. But hadn't he done all that he could just to keep it? Stolen, begged, eaten things that not even a rat would touch? But now the thought of his death wasn't just an inevitability anymore. It was almost a comfort. Was this what they meant to be at the end of your rope, to feel like you were going insane? Like you were stuck in a nightmare there was no hope of waking up from... that was his life now. He might be a child, but some part of him understood that if he didn't act now, if he just laid down and gave up, this would always be his life. Wes scared him, but so did the thought of spreading his legs to the man for another year, another two or three or ten, and one day waking up, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, and realize that there was no one inch of his self left there. Just Wes, taking over his body, his life, his soul.

He continued his journey to the second floor. He saw the open door to the room where he had seen the window. His head started to hurt and his heart raced at the thought of what he was about to do. He was running away from Wes. For a moment, he heard his pimp's voice in his head, warning him of what he would ever do to him if he tried to run away. Pain flared in his knees and his legs felt weak, but it was drowned out by the searing, roaring pain in his head. A black hole, threatening to swallow him up. A black hole with Wes' voice, telling him of all the things he wasn't allowed to do, and his hand, striking him, feeling him up, holding him down. He tried to cover up that hole and just focus on the thought of seeing his friends again, but it refused to be conquered so easily.

Somehow, he found the strength outside of his terror to walk into the room. It looked a lot like his own and was furnished similarly. His heart beat a little bit faster with each step he took towards the window. The pain in his head had a voice, it screamed at him not to do this, to go back to bed, that this was wrong, what he was doing was bad. The window was just low enough that he didn't need to look for a chair to stand on to lift it open. Outside, in a world that, for him in his cage, looked like another universe entirely, it was raining. The night was as dark as pitch save for some flickering neon lights, the early warnings of a bad thunderstorm. He could just barely see the fire escape from the window and for the hundredth time, doubted this plan. He had forgotten about the rain that had started early this morning and had only gained in intensity. He vaguely remembered Wes and Chris talking about the storm and how it was supposed to rain for the rest of the week in similar, violent downpours. The fire escape would be wet and slick. If he wasn't careful, he was going to break his neck. And because of the darkness, it was going to be hard to see where he was going.

It didn't matter, he concluded. All he could do was hope that the storm would be on his side tonight and not Wes'. Up until recently, darkness had been a sort of ally, helping him to hide from the predators. He pulled at the window, but it didn't budge. It was latched closed, and the latch was too high up for him to reach.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Duo?"

His heart froze and a jolt of cold so severe it actually hurt went down his spine. How? How had he snuck up behind him? It wasn't possible, he hadn't heard him open the door downstairs or walk up the stairs! No one could possibly be that quiet! Was this really the same man whose footsteps dominated his entire life? Some part of himself, a part that he was not at all proud of, screamed at him to beg on his knees for Wes' forgiveness. Wes wouldn't believe anything but the truth, but maybe if he apologized, did one of those nasty things he liked so much, he would only hurt him a little... maybe, if he sucked him off good enough...

Duo bolted. Flashes of lightning and the soft neon glow coming from outside the window lit his way. He was fast, faster than Wes could hope to be, and his terror made him faster. But he was panicking while Wes was as cold and calm as he always was.

Wes, after decades of training unwilling prostitutes, children, teenagers, and adults alike, predicted Duo's panic easily. He knew that the boy, like a rabbit in a snare, would try to flee instead of fight back, and lashed out with his leg before the child could get past him. Not that he could escape if he did. He had had years to craft this apartment into a cage for his rabbit. His foot struck Duo in the chest, their twin forward movements sending the underweight boy crashing into the wall. Even barefooted, Wes' kick was devastatingly strong. Duo gave out a harsh cry as he felt warm pain burst in his side, the familiar pain and stomach curling sensation that came with broken ribs, but it was choked off as his back hit the wall. If his ribs hadn't broken, and he could feel the warning stab of one of them again something in his chest, he would have rolled once he had hit the wall to keep from being trapped there, but was too scared of the possibility of puncturing one of his lungs. He could taste blood and wondered if the damage had already been done.

'Are you willing to die?'

Wes grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifting him up a little, making him gasp out in pain. Tears as hot as that pain spilled down his cheeks, not because of the pain or because he was afraid that Wes would kill him now. It was because he was afraid that he wouldn't. He had failed. After this, he would never get the chance to escape ever again, Wes would make sure of that. He would cut off his legs, or maybe paralyze him. He was going to be trapped in this nightmare forever. He was never going to see Solo, Shi, Amaaya, or Hi ever again. All he would ever be, for the rest of his life, would be an immobile hole to fuck, just what Wes wanted.

"Shut the fuck up," Wes snarled at him and for the first time, Duo saw the fury in his eyes, and realized that the man wasn't his usual cold self. He was enraged, more than he had ever seen him before, and that terrified him, "What did you think you were going to do? Your body is mine. Your life is mine. No matter how worthless it is, it's my property, not yours. Do you know what I do to the people who think they had the balls to steal from me and get away with it?" he pinned Duo to the wall, earning another pained noise, "Freedom," he gave out an ugly, condescending laugh that somehow left Duo feeling uglier and dirtier than Wes' words ever could, "What exactly is so fucking wonderful about your shitty life that you think you deserve to put some kind of value on it? You're a pest, a rotting piece of meat whose rancid smell I have to put up with. And you dare to think that you're equal to anything above the waste that flows through the sewers under our feet? You should be happy, be fucking grateful that someone like me is willing to breathe the same air as you, let alone share my home and my goddamn food with you! And now you have the fucking gall to cry like some spoiled brat, like your tears should mean something to me?! You're a dog, my dog, and you only deserve as much as any other cur a person like me would take off the streets, pissing in alleyways and sticking his filthy, flea covered muzzle in other people's garbage! You think you deserve any better, that you have the right to try to run away from me?!"

Every single one of Wes' words became like a poisoned blade inside of him, little by little digging deeper, not merely because of their brutal cruelty, but because he could not think of a single thing to say to Wes to refute them. He could not find his voice. And he found that, some part of him at least, agreed with those words.

'I don't deserve freedom.'

What value did his life have, what purpose did it have? How was he any better, with or without Wes, than a dog?

'He gave me a purpose. Even if it's a bad purpose, even if it hurts... he made me useful.'

Was he really nothing more than a parasite, did he have such little worth?

'If I ran away, I would be depending on Solo and Shi for everything, I'd be taking from them and putting them in danger for... for what? My life... my useless life... Isn't it better, being here where I'm wanted?'

Terror seized him at these agonizing thoughts. They brought with them a darkness he had never experienced before, a feeling he couldn't hope to describe, but it was a terrible emotion, a heavy one. It didn't make him cry, it was worse than that, it burrowed into him and filled him up, but with emptiness, making him feel sick...

'I don't want to die...'

Duo squirmed in Wes' grip and bit his hand as hard as he could. He tasted blood in his mouth, but didn't waste the time trying to spit it out. The feeling of his teeth ripping and piercing Wes' hand was disgusting, but he didn't let go until he felt that hand let go of his shirt in shock.

'... do I?'

The second Duo felt his feet touch the ground, he ran. He heard Wes bellow like some kind of horror movie monster and felt a strange satisfaction knowing that he had caused the rapist pain and surprise for the first time.

'Why?'

Everywhere was a cage, a trap. Everywhere was a dead end, a locked door, a closed window. Everywhere was his death.

'Why don't you want to die?'

If he went back downstairs, Wes would undoubtedly catch him at the first door. But he had never been to any other part of this second floor, had no idea which rooms weren't locked, which ones had windows, but even in his panic, he was sure that all of them were locked. Could he break one of them in time?

'Do you even have a reason?'

He ran right instead of left, plowing into the first door he could find, scrambling to get it open. Outside, he could hear thunder like some kind of God's drum.

'Or are you just running from the truth that there is no reason for you to be alive, to try to survive? That there is no reason why you should have been born to begin with. Maybe that's why your mother threw you into the trash. She knew. She was just throwing away the garbage.'

It was a bathroom, all white tiles that he slipped on as he slammed the door back closed. No windows. His heart raced in fear.

'Sunshine died because he didn't want you to get caught, too. Sister Helen died for being kind to you. Who else are you going to drag down into the filth?'

He heard Wes out in the hallway, right at his heels, not running after him, but striding. He didn't need to run. He knew that his prey was stuck.

'I'm trapped,' Duo thought in horror and stumbled backwards, away from the door. He cowered in the tiny gap between the shower and the sink, struck with the terrible thought that maybe this bathroom was like the one downstairs and it had no lock.

The knob turned, but only halfway. Wes pounded on the door once with his fist, but the door only shook a little, however Duo felt absolutely no relief. The reason why Wes had forgotten to take out the lock, because he had been that cocky that Duo would never come up here or because such a lock served no purpose whether it worked or not, didn't matter to him. Wes would get in eventually. The door was thick, but it was still made of wood. Wes would come in. He would get him.

And there wasn't even anywhere to hide. He had one shred of hope, just one, and it was tiny and pathetic. Wes probably didn't have anything on him to get the door open. He would have to move away from the door, maybe even go downstairs. Maybe, maybe that would give Duo the time to get that latch off of the window... There were so many flaws with such a plan, but if he stayed where he was, there was nothing else but to wait for Wes to pull him out of his hole.

"Open this fucking door, now!" Wes snarled.

Or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow this house down.

Duo shook his head, even though Wes couldn't see him. He waited for the sound of Wes walking away, but there was nothing. His heart beat faster.

'What is he doing?' he wondered frantically, 'He can't get through the door without an axe or something... can he?'

Wes slammed into the door with an intense force. Duo watched with wide, horrified eyes as the entire door shook like a feeble branch in a hurricane and a crack appeared on the left side as the wood split. The top hinge flew off the door leaning towards Duo at the top.

'No... he's so strong...'

Through the now present gap in the door, Duo could see Wes' form, like a demon, silhouetted by quick flashes of lightning. Wes kicked the door, his face a mask of rage. The cheap lock broke with a startling loud sound, the door flying open on the two remaining hinges, the door knob hanging from its hole. Duo was frozen in his crouch, his eyes focused on the blood dripping down Wes' hand, the jagged wounds that his teeth had made. He could still taste that blood on his tongue. Wes grabbed him by the hair on the top of his head and dragged him from the crevice he had wedged himself into. Duo didn't put up any kind of fight even though his scalp stung from the rough treatment. There was nothing left he could do. He was completely cowed from the fury that seemed to come off of the man in waves.

Suddenly, that grip on his hair tightened and Wes slammed the back of his head into the tiled floor.

The pain was white noise. It was pitch blackness, utter silence, and a deep, thundering roar. It was red blood and white electricity. It was heavy and deep and seemed to go on forever, filling every part of him. It was so intense and overwhelming that he didn't even scream. He couldn't. He couldn't even more or care that he couldn't move. He didn't even know if his eyes were open or closed. He could feel Wes striking his head against the floor at least twice more, although he didn't know for sure. The pain grew like a twisting, ravenous monster and he heard a sound that was like crunching snow. His body was limp and for some reason that his paralyzed mind couldn't quite comprehend, he smelled and tasted blood very thickly.

Wes let go of his hair... Duo couldn't feel it. Beyond the agony in his head, he couldn't feel anything at all. He was... confused. Why was he here? What... what was this... he couldn't remember if his eyes were open or closed. Up suddenly became down and he retched violently. Something was wrong, something was very wrong.

'Ssh, little nightengale, I won't let anything bad happen to you.'

A voice. A voice inside of the pain, but also outside of it... a voice... he knew her... who... who was... he? There was another voice...

"Na... a... na... where..."

Who was that... who was talking?

He threw up again. His thoughts were like bees, buzzing, stinging bees, covering his brain, eating it. He felt Wes' hands on him, but couldn't tell where they were. He heard his voice, yelling at him, still angry, still so angry. Then, for a good long time, there was nothing at all.
End Part 15
Sorry that this took so long to get out. I actually have had this finished for several days, but it took me so long to get edited because of my work schedule. I know people are going to get annoyed about their being another dream/flashback, but this one is really vital to showing... well, a bunch of stuff. Mostly Duo's psychological issues that resulted in his muteness and it's also going to be leading towards events that occur later on in this chapter. Actually, this big flashback is the last in a very, very long while. Certainly one of the last (maybe even the last?) involving Wes. We're slowly moving towards a shift in the story, away from Duo's past with Wes to other things that he needs to work through and mature into.
　

　
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The Road to Kindness