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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.

Chapter List
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The Road to Kindness

Chapter 8

Part 16
Cold. So cold. Snow... and blackness... he was warm once, but now so cold. It was there, behind the bricked up door in his head. His broken head. In the snow was a soft voice, but it wouldn't come to him. He tried to probe deeper to find that voice, something telling him that it was important, but pain shot through his brain, like flashes of lightning, intense, powerful, and sharp. Duo gasped and opened his eyes, only to immediately close them. It hurt. Just the act of opening them hurt so much.

'What happened?'

His brain ached and he was scared to try to remember. He had done something... something bad... and he had been punished..? Yes. That seemed right. Wes had done something to his head, and now his world was made of pain. There was something else, but he couldn't recall it and didn't want to try. He was heavy and it was hard to think, but his heart was also racing, telling him that more was wrong than just his head.

A crunch like crushing snow.
Duo opened his eyes again, slower this time, and winced at the light, as though he had been in the dark for a very long time. The light was only coming from a dim lamp, but to him, it was like a sun. He was in the main room of the apartment, to the right of the kitchen, where the television was. It was the only room that had that lamp. He was laying down among a nest of blankets. If he was laying down, he must be on the couch, reasoned and felt incredibly relieved that he could do that much.

His vision was blurry, even as he started to wake up more. He looked away from the light and blinked, but his eyes were still having trouble focusing. He could see ok, but things were a bit... off. Soft instead of sharp. He rubbed at his eyes, but it still didn't change anything. There was something wrong with his sight. Duo sat up straight up in a panic, but the move only made his head hurt more and went to touch his head. His fingers touched a bandage that was wrapped around his head at the level of his forehead.

"Don't touch it."

Duo flinched heavily, hearing Wes' voice so close to him. His fear overran his pain and he scrambled backwards until he hit the back of the couch. Even with his eyesight, the man's grey eyes were clear and piercing, and Duo could see the anger in them perfectly. He nearly hit the back of his head against the couch, but with a frustrated growl, Wes grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward.

"Quit squirming around!" the man yelled at him, "I'm not going to make you come around if you black out again!"

An almost memory sparked in his head. Gentle, almost feminine hands cleaning the back of his head and wrapping gauze around it and, like a mirror image, bigger, rougher hands pressing against that same spot, sending him spiraling into darkness. But then, just as quickly, those sensations were gone and he couldn't recall them. His stomach churned at the feeling of Wes' hand around his thin wrist and he dry heaved violently. Dizziness overcame him and he became confused about where up and down were. Duo fell in a heap in the blankets and stayed there in a miserable ball as his skull throbbed and screamed, and the world continued to tilt like he was on a ship among stormy seas. Trying to get control over his stomach and trying to make his eyes focus only made his head hurt more. He wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep where the agony couldn't find him, but he was scared, both of what Wes would do to him in his sleep and whatever was wrong with his head.
"If you run away, I will find you and make sure that you will only ever be able to crawl or lie on your back."
Duo almost sat up again in a panic. Had it happened? Was he crippled, just like how Wes had promised?

No, his reason slipped through the panic. He had just moved his legs, they were fine. But why? Both he and Wes were wearing different clothes than they had been in his memory and he could no longer hear the sound of rain pelting the apartment. He must have been out for a long time, so... why hadn't Wes done it when he had been asleep? Unless he wanted him to be awake, to be there when he did it. His stomach churned violently again. He was suddenly hit by the feeling that he had been out of it for a very long time, that he was missing vital memories, more than just certain details about why his head was hurt, the specifics of what had happened. He felt like a lot more time had passed since his last memory than just a few hours.

Wes made a disgusted sound at Duo's dry heaving and thrust a glass of something at him. It was some kind of carbonated, amber liquid, lighter than beer. Duo was certain that the man had put something terrible in it, something that would hurt him even more. He took the glass and drank it anyway. He had been shaking ever since he had realized Wes was in the room with him and couldn't get it to stop. What fear he had had for the man before was now amplified ten fold after what he had done to him, and it took a couple of attempts to get the glass to his lips. He was weak. He was beaten. There was no way he could say no to Wes, no matter what he ordered him to do. He was done fighting him, he just didn't have the strength.

The drink was some kind of soda and tasted like nothing he had had before. The taste wasn't something he liked, but it wasn't terrible, either. He couldn't taste the bitterness of any drugs, or the syrupy sweetness of a paralytic, but it settled his stomach a bit.

Ice cold water dripped down his throat, driving away the thick taste of the blood.

"Slow down, not so fast," the sweet voice was saying.

Duo winced as shards of ice stabbed his brain and pushed the almost-memory away. His memories hurt.

Wes took the glass from him and placed it on a nearby table. He then took out a knife from its sheath and placed it on the table, too. It gleamed in the lamp light with menace and promise. He knew that knife. After all of this time, he knew it like he knew Wes' hands, their size and where they were calloused, how their skin felt and where the scars were. He knew every scratch and knick on the blade and handle, he knew how sharp it was and what it felt like when it cut into you.

"Four years," Wes said in what would have been a matter of fact tone if his voice hadn't been colored with frustration, "Four years since I took you off the streets," he studied Duo for a moment, but only seemed to get more irritated by whatever he saw, "And now... now you decide to spit in my face? What did I tell you would happen if you ever tried to run away from me? What I would do to you?"

Duo began to shake harder. He remembered what Wes had promised to do to him very well.

"You...you said that you would c...c-cut my knees," he stammered, his voice hoarse and rough, it sounded ugly, not like his voice at all, the act of getting the words out of his head and onto his tongue suddenly incredibly difficult, like there was a road block along the way. Was it because of his head injury or how petrified he was? He felt like he was going to faint, and it had nothing to do with his head, "You said you would make sure I'd never run away again."

"If a dog runs away, you put an electrical collar around it's neck," Wes intoned, "but you aren't worth that kind of expense."

Wes picked up the knife. Duo watched it like a tiny mouse would watch a scorpion's stinger.

"Is that what you want, for me to cripple you, to cut into you until you won't even be able to bend them?"

He pressed the blade to Duo's left knee. Duo flinched and began to hyperventilate, mistaking how cold it was for its sharpness. He shook his head wildly, but pain and color exploded behind his eyes.

"No, no please don't," he croaked.

"No what?" Wes snarled at him and dug the blade into his knee just barely hard enough to make a trickle of blood go down his leg.

Duo bit his tongue to keep frightened tears and cries from pouring down his cheeks and out of his mouth, knowing how much the man hated him crying.

"No, sir," he corrected and he was honestly shocked at how steady his voice was when his heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest.

Wes pulled the knife back and Duo felt a relief so strong, he almost did pass out. There was a gleam in the man's eyes that made him feel sick to his stomach again.

'Is he enjoying this?' he thought in shock, his heart still hammering at a dangerous speed, adrenaline pumping through him at how close he had just come.

"I ought to put you down," Wes said gruffly, "like a mutt that's gone rabid. Crippling you would be a waste of my time and would just dull my knife. You're pathetic. Do you really think someone as stupid and weak as you can run away from me? The only reason why I'm not going to kill you or fix you is because I can still get more use out of you than I can dead or incapacitated. Once that stops being true, the second I so much as think you're going to try to escape me again, I'll go through with it. Is that understood?"

Duo nodded and felt a tear go down his cheek, but Wes didn't yell at him about it.

"Then prove it. Take your punishment with some dignity for once in your fucking life or I'll slit your throat right now."

'Punishment?' Duo thought in confusion. But hadn't Wes already punished him?

Wes grabbed his right foot and picked up the knife again.

"No, don't!" Duo screamed as the pimp pressed the sharp blade to the sole of his foot.

"Shut up!" the blonde snarled and twisted his foot until Duo could feel his ankle bone begin to strain, close to breaking, and he promptly stopped screaming. The sound of his own screams had made his head ache, "I'm going to make sure the thought of running away doesn't so much as cross your mind again." he said in frustration, "and if you scream again, I'll cut your foot off."

The eleven year old bit his tongue hard enough to draw a little bit of blood to keep from crying out again and stayed as still as he could. He watched with wide eyes, his face absolutely colorless as Wes started to cut into the bottom of his foot. At first, it merely felt incredibly odd, almost ticklish as the sharp blade moved across the pads of his foot which were calloused from years of running around in his bare feet when he couldn't find shoes. But then Wes dug in deeper and Duo had to turn his head and bury his face into the couch to keep from Wes hearing him screaming. The pain was weird and excruciating, like when he had stepped on some glass back when he had been living on the streets, but a hundred times worse. It was nothing like all of the other times that Wes had cut him, this time he was going deeper, making the bottoms of his feet feel raw. Blood gushed from the cuts and he had to fight not to instinctively kick or thrash around. The cuts crisscrossed, covering almost every inch of the soles of his foot. It felt like fire ants were eating and burrowing into his skin.

After what seemed like hours to Duo, Wes let go of his foot and started on the other one. Duo didn't fight him or scream at him to stop. He was beyond that now. His body was a mass of pain. His head, his ribs, his feet, even his stomach and throat hurt from throwing up so much. The sensation of blood dripping down his feet was terrible and made him feel unbearably itchy and sick. He felt like he was going to black out at any second, but clung desperately to reality, not wanting to know what Wes would do to him if he fainted.

The worst part, the part that was making his heart race with fear, wasn't the pain. It was that, even through that sharp and biting pain, even through all of the adrenaline pumping through his body, his vision was still off, and his head still felt like it was wrapped in thick and heavy cotton. His thoughts were slow and he was having this constant and pervasive feeling of confusion. Not about anything specific. He just felt confused, not quite right, like his brain was separate from his body or he was heavily drugged. He was terrified, but not in a way that he had been before. It was as though someone had turned on a switch in his head and now he couldn't stop feeling that fear. There was a word for it... not just being afraid but... paranoia? That was another thing, it didn't just hurt to try to remember or recall things like specific words, it was difficult, like they were trying to swim up stream. And the pain wasn't lessening, not even a little bit.

When Wes finally let go of Duo's other foot, he tucked them close to his body protectively. They throbbed unpleasantly to the beat of his erratic heart and the skin around the cuts itched and prickled. The blood was starting to get tacky, but if he moved them, even just to curl his toes, more oozed out of the wounds. His body was limp, like a rag doll, and if Wes had left him then, with the front door wide open, even if he had been in no pain at all, he would have felt no desire to flee. Suddenly, the thought of leaving this place to be with his friends didn't matter to him. Beyond his fear, all he felt was weariness. He wanted to plunge back into the blissful darkness of sleep and never move again.

Wes cleaned off his knife and took out some bandages from the first aid kit on the table. Duo watched with some relief as he sheathed his knife again, knowing that it certainly didn't mean that he wouldn't use it on him, but still relaxing now that the blade was out of sight. As the pimp grabbed one of his feet again, Duo was struck with this sensation that he wasn't really here. All of this was some kind of dream that he would eventually wake up from. He felt beyond numb, like he was floating outside of himself. He felt the pain, but it wasn't connecting somehow. He could feel his rapid heart beat, but that he was afraid didn't come to him. Wes wrapped the bandages around his feet tightly, making them feel even worse. Duo could feel his anger in every movement. Blood oozed from between the thick wrappings, already staining the bandages. Wes didn't take any kind of care in fixing him up besides wrapping his feet, and he was far from gentle.

"I have some jobs for you to do today," the grey eyed man said gruffly, "and you are going to do them without a single complaint. At least some men don't care about what you look like," he glared at the bandages around Duo's head with distaste, "First, you're going to suck me off and prove to me that you can still do that much. If you can't, I have no use for you and I'll slit your throat right here. Is that understood?"

Duo didn't want to. More than he ever had, even when he had first started whoring, he didn't want to go on any jobs. He didn't want to suck on Wes' cock. He didn't think his stomach or his head could take it. He didn't even want to move from the couch and the thought of doing so made him feel incredibly sick. But Wes had spared his life. His health. He could have crippled him like he had threatened to do. Whatever he had done to his head didn't matter. Everything he knew about Wes told him that he shouldn't be able to move his lower half right now. But the man had given him another chance, only if he could prove he could still be a whore. He understood that. So... didn't he owe Wes his mobility, didn't he owe him everything for not going through with that grotesque promise? At the very least, he had dodged something terrible and he didn't want to face that fear again.

"Yes, sir," he murmured and felt a strange twist in his stomach. It wasn't fear, but something else that made his stomach hurt a great deal.

"Stand up," Wes barked at him as he did so himself, unzipping his pants.

Duo placed his feet on the floor and stood up, and immediately felt a wave of dizziness and nausea, partially because of the sudden agony in his feet, and also because of the wooziness from his head injury. With all of his weight on his feet, blood gushed out of the cuts faster, but more than that, the feeling of that weight just made him feel ill. He only had to lean down a little to take Wes' cock into his mouth. He wasn't growing very well, not that he had ever expected to be tall, and even when he did hit puberty, which would happen later for him than all the other boys in his classes, he would never get taller than Wes' lower chest.

Bending over like that made his head swim and he brought Wes to orgasm as quickly as he could. Wes didn't seem to care, satisfied just with the fact that Duo didn't black out through any of it. His dick and semen tasted strange to Duo, like how burnt milk tasted. It only worried him more, especially when he limped to the kitchen to get a drink of water and the burnt-sour taste lingered, like he had been sucking on a battery. Wes watched him intently as Duo walked very slowly to his bedroom to change into new clothes, the ones he had been wearing smelling very intensely of sweat and blood to him, but with his odd sense of taste, he couldn't even be sure that what he was smelling was real.

He just put on jeans and a t-shirt, and was relieved when Wes didn't force him to change again into something sexier. It had hurt too much changing the first time. The worst was trying to get his sneakers on over his mutilated feet. They didn't even feel like his feet, just chunks of hot, raw flesh someone had jammed on under his legs. From the second he tried to walk in his shoes, he could feel the blood sloshing around in them, sticky, wet, and thick. Wes dug a piece of paper out of his pocket and thrust it at him.

"Names, addresses, and times. They're all close by and you'll go to each on foot. If you aren't back by eleven, I'll go find you myself. Now get the fuck out," Wes growled at him and strode to his bedroom, not even looking back to make sure Duo was going to leave. Duo walked to the front door as quickly as his throbbing feet would let him, the piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"Stop," Wes' voice, cold and sharp, snapped at him from behind him the second Duo had his hand on the door handle. He hadn't heard him walking back towards him.

Duo flinched, a deep chill going down his spine and his hand started to shake.

'How does he want to hurt me now?'

He turned, almost automatically at the silent command. Wes had that sadistic, pleased glint in his eyes again. He had something clenched in his hand. A dog collar. Attached to it was a silver, round tag. As Wes approached him, he could read what was engraved there better than he had the note. His stomach dropped.

'Property of-' Duo couldn't read the name well enough with his compromised eyesight, but had no doubt it was one of Wes' many fake names, 'If found, please call-' he recognized the last four digits of the string of numbers as one of Wes' cloned phones. A fake name, fake number... but all of his customers and Wes' business partners would know. All of a sudden, he felt like the bottom had dropped out of the world. Even before Wes placed the collar around his neck and cinched it tightly closed, he felt a very deep depression fill him. A self-disgust and loathing and embarrassment that was beyond tears.

'He's reduced me to nothing more than a fuck-able dog,' he thought miserably.

'No,' the voice chimed in, 'He did that years ago. Now he's just making sure the rest of the world knows it.'

"You're going to wear that until you can prove to me that you can be trusted to come home like a good little boy. Don't take it off," Wes ordered.

Duo heard the underlying threat that the man didn't say. He nodded and instantly knew that even if Wes hadn't said it like that, he would have agreed anyway.

From the second he walked out of the shadowed alley, the sun was like a stake being hammered into his brain. He spent ten whole minutes just standing there with his eyes squeezed shut before he could see enough to walk. He squinted down at the paper. Wes' handwriting, thanks to his damaged vision, was barely legible to him. He felt that pang of fear again. He could remember it better now, trying to run away, Wes catching him and slamming his head into the floor.

Some details were still missing, but he at least understood now why his head was killing him. But now that he could remember it... remember the rage and the power behind those blows, he was scared. His vision, his sense of taste, the pain that was just as vivid and terrible as when he had first woken up, and how hard it was to walk straight, never mind his feet, how hard it was just to think, to remember simple things and words that should just come to him automatically... what sort of damage had Wes done to him? He had hurt him before, but never like this, never with this kind of brutality. What if it didn't go away? What... what if this was permanent?

He tried to focus his vision and hot pain exploded in his head. This time, he kept trying and didn't back off, even when tears poured down his face and he thought he might throw up again. He finally made out enough of what Wes had written to know were he was supposed to go first. He didn't have to walk any further for any of the jobs than a couple of blocks, and he was grateful. Duo frowned. There were four men listed, two of which were regulars, which wasn't too bad. But his last appointment was for five to six pm. So... why had Wes told him that he had to be back by eleven? Why had he, after he had just tried to run away from him, given him that much freedom? It confused him and made him paranoid. Or perhaps he had simply done it to prove that he could, that he was that confident that Duo wouldn't dare to try to run again.

He could, he suddenly realized. According to the large clock across the street above one of the shop windows, it was morning. He had twelve hours before he needed to be back at the apartment. There were no locked doors here, no chains. Even if Wes was trailing him, he could lose him-
'Why? What's the point?'

'He'll find me.'
'You don't deserve freedom.'
'He'll hurt me.'
'You're trash.'
'He'll cut off my feet.'
'Dog.'
Agony flared in his head and stomach, completely different from the pain he had been feeling from the head injury. He stopped on the empty sidewalk and curled his hand around the dog tag. The metal burned in his hand and he felt tears prick his eyes. Numbness filled him again and he continued to limp on his way. He just wanted to get these jobs done and go back to the apartment. He didn't care about anything else. He had no desire to run anymore. His neck felt heavy. He just wanted to sleep.
*****
When Wes had buckled the collar around his neck, it had felt like a weighted chain, a piece of burning steel digging into his neck. Duo had tried to ignore it. It was just a thing, he had forced himself to think. Nothing different than the slutty clothes Wes made him wear or the rope he used to tie him up with. He went on his jobs telling himself that over and over again. It didn't matter. It didn't.

Walking from john to john was agony. His feet burned and throbbed and he could barely call what he was doing limping anymore. None of the men seemed to be bothered by his slowness, and it was a blessing when, towards the end, his nerves were so taxed that his feet became almost completely numb. He couldn't even feel the blood anymore. His head was another matter entirely. Every movement, every car horn or police siren or crying baby he heard along his way was like a nail of hot pain, burrowing into his brain. His head felt like it was splitting open a little bit more with each second. He wanted to find a cold, quiet cocoon to hide in.

Fortunately, none of his johns were rough with him, although a few times, he found himself almost blacking out just from the motions of sex and had stayed awake only from Wes' threat. With each hand on him, each filthy leer, the collar felt heavier. And his mantra of 'it doesn't matter' became weaker. The more he began to feel what Wes had called him. A dog. A dog with a collar and tags. It wasn't the collar that was just a thing. He was. An animal, not a person. Wes' property. A shameful, dirty thing. Just a fuck-able mutt...

With each job, that realization became stronger and stronger. Wes was right. Something like him didn't deserve to be free. What would he do with it? He was nothing. Everything about him was a lie. The collar was the truth. With that thought circling in his head and gaining momentum, Duo became listless. He dragged himself from place to place like a lifeless zombie. He felt like Wes had killed him when he had slammed his head into the floor, and now here was his body, brought back under Wes' control, to keep on whoring. A soulless thing. What was truly horrible was that that wasn't true, he was still alive.

Duo finished with his last appointment five minutes early and started back on his way to the apartment. The money he had gotten from the four men was tucked in the secret compartment he had sewed in his shirt. For a moment, a thought tried to come to him. He had a little bit more than two hundred dollars. With that, he could still-

He shoved the thought away. Money was irrelevant to him. Suddenly, having that money... even money itself, disgusted him and he didn't know why. He should go home right away. Wes had told him that he had to be back in five hours... but he should go right back. He had Wes' money, and what if the man had changed his mind? What if he decided to hurt him again if he lingered out here? Duo started to shake a little at that thought.

He reached the main intersection and paused. There were not many cars out and the red lights facing Duo glared in the puddles left over from the rainstorm... he didn't know how long ago. He still hadn't figured out how much time had passed since he had hurt his head. The light flickered for a second, then switched to green. Both colors hurt his eyes and the fuzziness of them around the edges in his vision made his head pound. He ordered himself to keep walking, to take a right that would lead him back to the apartment, but he couldn't. He felt frozen to the spot.

He didn't want to go back. He had to, and he couldn't scrounge up the desire to stay away forever, but he didn't want to walk back now. The thought of walking down that alley, opening the heavy door, seeing Wes' cold, commanding stare, and handing him his money... maybe servicing him again or head him call him a dog again, made him feel sick and weary. Even the effort of taking that right was too much for him.

"If you ever need anything� or if you just want to hang out, we�re always at the same corner. So� you know� you can stop by� if you want. People like us don�t really stick up for each other all that much, but we consider you our friend, so you can look for us whenever you want to."
Solo's voice in his head made Duo's heart ache. His dream of running away from Wes to live with them was dead and rotting, but his desire to be with them was stronger than ever. He wanted to see them... just for a little while... that wasn't a bad thing, right? Then he might have the strength to go back to the apartment... He walked down the left street, not looking back to the right.

But would they be disgusted? Would they see him... bandages wrapped around his forehead, barely able to walk, blinking and squinting all the time, smelling of sweat and sex and wearing this damned collar, and be ashamed and disgusted of him? The idea hurt. More than his head and his feet, it hurt him some place deep, some place vulnerable and he found it hard to breathe. He tugged up his shirt a little bit more, but knew that if anyone was close enough to him, they would be able to see the collar anyway. He had the sudden urge to rip it off of his neck, but couldn't even bring himself to touch it. If there was a possibility that they would be disgusted in him... what then?

Duo stopped on the street as an intense wave of loneliness hit him. It was worse than the pain in his head, worse than his desire to not go back to the apartment. He had felt loneliness before. For as long as he could remember, it had been a constant companion, one of the few things that had not left him or abandoned him in one form or another. Without even understanding why, every time he had seen a family or a gang together, laughing, smiling, talking, hugging... he had felt a deep dark pain in his heart. When he had met Solo, Shi, Amaaya, and Hi, he had started to understand what it meant to be with people. How wonderful, and how sweetly painful it could be. What a family was supposed to feel like. It had given a name to that emptiness in him, that longing that had never made any sense to him.

He didn't have anything else. The realization came as a terrible blow. All he had in his life... the only people he had any connection to, the only things that kept him from slipping back into his useless existence of just surviving, were Wes and his four friends. Without them... he was alone. There was nothing there to keep him from being anything more than an animal. That desire to see them grew into a small fire. Even if they ever became disgusted in him, not just from this collar, but from anything, he couldn't stay away from them. He needed them, more than they would ever need him.

That need, almost like an addiction or a passion, gave him the strength to keep walking down the left street, and he even walked a little bit better, dragging his feet less. It was a long walk to their street corner, but it felt faster to him than trudging from the different meeting places that his customers had set up. He felt a strange anticipation as he found the street corner, not quite fear or excitement, but something that made him feel both relief and a twist in his stomach.

There was no one there. He had visited this street corner many times since he had met the four other prostitutes, and no matter what time of day he had shown up, there had always been someone here. Amaaya was hardly ever there, as she was the most popular of the four, and when Hi wasn't out trying to get customers, he was usually with his children, but either Shi or Solo were usually here...

Duo stumbled around a little, trying to spot either blonde, but the closest he saw were a couple of blonde hookers further down the street. They weren't here. But they were always here... he needed them...
'They're just working, so what?'
He sat down heavily on a nearby bench and slowly realized that it was the same exact bench that Shi had laid him down on the first night he had met all of them. He tucked his knees under his chin. For the first time in hours, his feet were off the ground and they prickled as though they had fallen asleep, the most he had felt out of them since they had gone numb. He would just have to wait here... for them to get back...
'What if they don't come back? What if they lied to you? Like everyone else has lied to you? What if they don't want to see you, or something happened to them? What are you going to do, wait for them all night?'
He didn't move. Some part of him said yes, yes he would wait for them all night if it meant seeing Shi and Solo, though he knew that he wouldn't. He was too scared. Duo stared at the spot that they usually were and thought he saw Solo's easy, exuberant smile and felt his hand on his head. But there was just an empty space. There was just the sound of cars and heavy music from one of the local stripping joints.
"... just a dog."
Something inside of him broke and he started to sob, fat tears dripping down his cheeks. He was alone. The eleven year old felt a sense of shame, but he couldn't stop his tears. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was crying. Why now and not when Wes had been cutting his feet or when he had forced him to suck him off? They would be back... even if something deep inside mocked him that they wouldn't... they would... So why did he feel betrayed? Why this nonsensical feeling of despair? Duo buried his face in his knees and felt his tears soak them, his chest shaking from his sobs.

'I don't want to be alone...'
*****
It was a good day. Well... it wasn't a terrible one anyway, better than most, Shi reasoned. The rain, after three days of downpour, had finally stopped last night, which had made hooking manageable. At the very least, he hadn't had to hear Solo bitching about keeping dry or see Hi be completely miserable today. There was just something about rain that gave the man the worst stomach pain Shi had ever seen, akin to an ulcer, not to mention nausea. But this morning, the sun had been shining bright and there was a nice coolness to the air, a freshness that only came after long rainstorms. Amaaya loved the rain, but even she had agreed that it was a relief to see the sun again. He didn't really give a shit either way, personally. The rain was soothing, but it was easier getting customers when they didn't have to huddle in their cars or hide under umbrellas. And he didn't have to worry about plugging up the leaks in their apartment.

Best of all, his favorite customer had booked him for the entire morning. He had been whoring for six years now and in that time, he had met every asshole and pedophile and useless excuse for a human being that this city had to offer, but he had also met some very good people doing this job. Men that had so much going for them, but were lacking in sexual skills, size, or looks, and weren't above throwing a struggling hooker some extra cash for their troubles. Diana was something else entirely. She had been coming to him for the last four years and he still hadn't figured her out.

For one, it was rare for a girl to pay for his services and actually remain a repeat customer. It wasn't that women didn't pay for whores, Shi knew what a stereotype that was, but they had escort services for that kind of thing. A lot of the women he knew that liked to pay for their dates didn't just want a fuck in some dirty alley. They wanted to romanced, all the wine, chocolates, and roses stuff that guys like him just couldn't afford or have the time to set up. He certainly didn't mind getting female customers, unlike Solo he was bisexual and it was rather refreshing, but this wasn't the best part of town for a girl to go looking for fresh meat. Diana was... special. She had told him once that those services were created for liars.

"Foolish, ditzy cunts that like to pretend they're in some dime store romance novel when all they're really looking for is a hot cock without all the primping and pampering. Why bother with the lie and just cut to the fucking chase?"
Shi smirked to himself. The kind of girl that a man could fall in love with. She hated lies, she had told him, which was one of the reasons why, after four long years, she had never asked anything about himself, about his past, because she had understood. Not only was Diana as blunt and horny as he was, she didn't have any trouble getting guys without paying for it. She was a short, cute thing with dark skin, naturally white hair, some lovely curves, and, oddly enough, red eyes. They were a few shades lighter than his blood-red ones, but when she had first paid him for a few hours together, he had assumed that that was the reason why she had chosen him instead of Hi. Thankfully, it had just been a weird coincidence.

Not only was Diana sexy and a freak in bed, she always overpaid him and refused to take no for an answer. Over the years, they had stopped being just john and whore and had become very good friends. It had started to feel to him like 'friends with benefits', just messing with each other, testing each other's sexual limits (he doubted that either of them had any at this point), and her trying to help him in a bad situation. It had hurt at first, that feeling like she was giving him handouts, but unlike Hi and Amaaya, pride was not an issue for him. He was a realist and he knew that he needed that money more than Diana did, and if she was offering it to him, it would be insulting for him not to take it.

He never really needed much, in comparison to someone like Hi or the other whores that he knew that had families or drug addictions to pay for. He was a simple guy with simple tastes, always had been, even as a child. He had never once looked twice at drugs, didn't believe in gambling, and had very little in material possessions. He drank a bit, but only cheap beer and not so much that he had a problem. He knew that Amaaya hated it, mostly because of her father's issues, and worried about him a lot, especially when he drank to ease the nightmares he had from time to time, but he could count the times he had actually gotten drunk with his fingers. If he had any vices at all, he had only two. Cigarettes and the people he loved.

Shi had started smoking when he had been fourteen and the thought that he should quit had never occurred to him. Amaaya bitched at him about it every now and then, but he didn't see the point in putting the effort into quitting. He didn't cough that much and it wasn't like he wanted to live forever. He made sure never to smoke around them, especially the kid, but he knew well enough the damage that smoking could do and had accepted that a long time ago. It was the one expense that he always managed to put some money aside for. The rest of what he got from whoring went to paying for their apartment and food, and everything else, he gave away.

Solo had mentioned it to him once. Of the four of them, Shi and Amaaya made and kept the most money. Shi knew that Amaaya was saving as much as she could and would move away from this fucking place as soon as she had enough, or at least he hoped that she would, but it distressed Solo that Shi gave away his money whenever one of them was low on rent or Hi's kids needed braces, or Solo's old winter coat got a hole in it. If there was a new kid on the circuit that was starting to fall in with the wrong pimp or an old whore that wanted to kick a bad habit, but just didn't have the means to check herself into a clinic, Shi would make sure to give the money to the right people to see that they were taken care of.

Solo said he was an idiot and Shi had no illusions that his friend was wrong. He had been whoring longer than Amaaya. If he had started to save like she, especially when he had first started out, he would have had the money to move away by now. Not enough to stop whoring. He didn't have any skills, not even a good enough education, to get a full time job. He could be a waiter, he supposed, and get away from prostitution, but it really didn't bother him. He could take care of himself and the meaner johns had stopped pulling shit pretty quickly once he had broken a couple of bones, and unlike his friends, he liked the sex. He was careful, that was all. And whoring paid better than food services, any day. But at least, he could have gotten out of St. Peters, gotten far away from Maine.

Away from harsh winters and found some place where the cost of living wasn't so brutal, like Rhode Island. He had just never felt the urge to do so. Besides, there were just so many people, better people than him, that could use that money. And if he left St. Peters, what about Solo and the others? Who would make sure the sharks didn't go after them? Shi didn't have any illusions. He had made some enemies, but had proved that he was not a man to fuck with. He had spent years, and quite a lot of money, making sure that those that needed protecting, the homeless kids, the weaker whores, the smaller businesses, would have as much security as he could afford. And yeah, it had pissed off quite a few people, but even men with power feared crazy and rage.

And now... he had something else he needed to protect... something that no amount of money was going to save, especially not at his level, as much as it hurt him to admit. Because there was someone else out there that was even crazier than he was. Shi sighed heavily and dug a carton of cigarettes from his jeans pocket. Diana's money had come just at the right time, he had almost run out, although he doubted that she would approve of him using the money for that, but he was tired. Diana, like always, had rode him hard, and he was looking forward to having a smoke behind the apartment building, then going up to the room for a cold beer, some hot Chinese food, and a long book, until Solo's snoring lulled him to sleep. If he had taken his advice and not gone on a job when he had that damned cold of his.

Shi took the wrapped off the carton as he approached their street corner. He wasn't near the apartment yet, but he took one cigarette and put it in his mouth, chewing on it a little. Another one of his bad habits. He paused as he spied someone sitting in one of the benches on the other side of the street. At first he thought that it was Solo and he had been dumb enough to try to make some extra cash this morning despite his coughing and fever, but it was someone smaller, someone with long, familiar hair. Shi felt the sharp pain in his chest that he always felt when he saw the kid, but it multiplied ten fold as he realized that his head was bowed and his shoulders were shaking.

Shi tucked the cigarette back into the pack and put in his back pocket, tugging his shirt down over the bulge, like he was trying to unconsciously hide it, and approached the huddling mass.

"Duo?" he said quietly and carefully, walking towards him slowly, but not so the boy would notice or think that he was treating him like some kind skittish animal.

The violet-eyed boy lifted his head to look at him, those eyes wide, a bit shocked at Shi's sudden appearance, but also intensely relieved. He looked awful, his face pale and sickly, as though all of the blood had been drained from him, and his eyes were red, dark, worn circles under them. His cheeks were wet from having been crying for a long time, and didn't look like they were used up quite yet. Shi was so alarmed by the heart broken look on his face, he didn't notice the bandages around his head for a moment. He was at the boy's side in a second, kneeling down so they could look each other in the eye. Duo's face became pinched and sharply pained when he had to tilt his head to look up at him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" the tall blonde asked, cautiously placing a hand over Duo's.

The child seemed on edge, and even that light touch made him seem like he was considering bolting, at the same time that he seemed to want to lean into it. It made it impossible for Shi to tell what he really wanted, although he did know that this wasn't just because he had had a rough night with a john. For one so young, Duo kept everything close to the chest, never releasing or telling any of them what was wrong until he cracked under the strain. The kid's face crumpled and fresh tears poured down his cheeks. He tried, for a moment, to gather some restraint, but he failed miserably.

"No one was here," he said in a low whisper, his voice cracking from emotion, and Shi felt like his heart might break.

"Oh, baby," the older boy murmured, not even realizing he was saying it as he sat on the edge of the bench and gathered Duo up into his arms.

He was incredibly careful as he did it. He didn't know to what extent the eleven year old was hurt, only that he was, and touched him like he was made of priceless glass, tucking his arms around him and bringing him to his chest. In any other situation, the kid would have protested it, trying to save face even as he cried, saying that he wasn't a child, he didn't need to be coddled like one, he could take care of himself. This time, he didn't even twitch and it worried Shi greatly. The brunette was acting like a doll, not putting up any kind of resistance and he couldn't tell if he was just too tired or if it was something else, something much worse.

Duo was alarmed for a second as he found the bigger boy holding him. For a brief moment, he thought of Wes, of his strength, how easily he had kicked in... something... he couldn't remember... but he remembered the terror he had felt, the shock, and how easily he had hurt him. But then it was gone. Shi was so strong, maybe even as strong as Wes was, but he held him so gently. No one had ever held him like this, like he was something that needed to be protected. Someone worth protecting. It scared him greatly and he wanted to push Shi away, a large part of him not liking this intimacy, not liking what it meant even if he didn't wholly understand what that was.

Instead, he relaxed into Shi's embrace, as though he could melt into it. It was frightening, but there was another part of himself that felt soothed, safe, and above all else, loved. He didn't like it, but at the same time he did, he cherished it. He never wanted to leave Shi's arms ever again. He dimly realized that he had begun to sob again, harder this time, more violently. The tall blonde was warm and for the first time, his head didn't hurt so much.

'Is this how people with family are held?'

The thought was unwanted, and he had to bite his tongue to keep another strong sob from escaping.

"What exactly is so fucking wonderful about your shitty life that you think you deserve to put some kind of value on it?"
'What do you know about family? About loving unconditionally? You don't love anyone. Would you even know what it felt like?'

Duo dug his fingers into Shi's shirt, trying to drown that voice out. He struggled to get a hold over himself. He hated crying, and he hated it even more when Shi saw him cry. The other boy already treated him like a little kid, and he didn't want to him to worry over him any more than constantly did. Wes almost always punished him for crying, and he tried as hard as he could to never let the man see him in a weak moment. He had gotten pretty good at bottling up his tears, no matter how much something hurt, or how miserable he had felt. So why did the tears come so easily when he was around Shi? He felt relieved when he finally got his tears stopped and Shi relaxed his hold. The blonde touched the bandages wrapped around his head very lightly, but Duo still flinched.

"What happened?" the other prostitute asked in the soft, careful way that was starting to infuriate Duo.

He didn't want answer him. He was embarrassed of the truth. And he didn't want to remember what had happened. It made it all hurt more. He didn't want Shi to know just how weak he was and he didn't want to admit how frightened he still was. He knew that Shi was just worried about him, but he didn't like that worry. It needled something deep inside of him that made him feel sick. He just didn't want to think about it anymore. It was strange. He wanted to pretend nothing was wrong, that nothing at all had happened to him. That he wasn't scared about what Wes had done to him. But at the same time, he wanted to let it go.
'Do you want to die?'
"I..." he started and his throat was terribly dry.
'You don't deserve him. Another whore, and he's better than you. It isn't about what Wes has done to you, what he has made you do. You were trash from the very start.'
"I tried to run away," he finally managed, "but Wes caught me."

Duo didn't say anything more, thinking it was pretty much self-explanatory. Wes had caught him. He had punished him. Was there really anything else that he needed to tell Shi? Those red eyes darkened, telling Duo that he really didn't, the other boy had figured things out perfectly. Those knowing eyes caught a glint of light and Shi reached out his hand, curling a finger around the hidden collar and pulling it out of Duo's shirt. As he read the dog tag, his friend suddenly looked like how Wes always looked right before he struck him out of anger. Shi's face filled with complete, unhampered rage and Duo was shocked when the boy didn't strike out at anything or yell, but just clenched at the collar for a moment before releasing it. His hand trembled, not out of fear, but just the enormity of his anger, as though his mere body couldn't contain his emotions.

"That..." the tall man struggled with his words, unable to find a word strong enough, terrible enough, ugly enough to describe the child's pimp.

His large hands came up again, still shaking with rage, but he was gentle as he grabbed the collar and started to unbuckle it, his trembling now with just as much desperation as fury.

"No, don't!" Duo grabbed at Shi's hands, knowing that he didn't have the strength to stop him, but still clutching at him, stilling his movements.

"Why?" Shi snapped at him, unable to stop him as his red eyes became like shimmering rubies with his turbulent emotions. Duo suddenly realized that he looked like he was going to be sick and felt guilty that his friend had seen him like this, that he had made him so distraught.

Duo dug his fingers into Shi's wrists. He wanted the collar off of him, more than he ever had this entire, terrible day. But Wes had said...
'Shi doesn't understand. You don't need to take it off. You shouldn't take it off.'
"If he found out that I took it off... even for a little while..." he saw the defiant look on Shi's face and hardened his resolve, "And if he found out about you... he would hurt you," the eleven year old struggled to try to explain things to his friend, to make him understand all the things that had made him so afraid, "My head hurts..." he murmured, "He didn't just... hit me on the head. He slammed it to the floor. It hurts all the time. He's strong, but he didn't kill me. He could have, but he didn't. The first night, when he kidnapped me, he told me that if I ever defied him, he would hurt me, and that's what he did, cuz that's what he had promised he would do. And before I left today, he told me to never take this collar off. My head doesn't just hurt, my eyes... The thing he did to my head, that was just because he was mad. That wasn't my punishment for trying to run away from him," he brought up his right foot and touched his sneaker lightly. A slight tremor of pain ran up his foot, "Then he cut up the bottom of my feet. So I would never run away from him again."

Shi looked horrified and Duo wasn't sure if it was because of his feet or his head or something else. He definitely looked disturbed by something he had said, but the fear that Duo had wanted wasn't there and it worried him. If he couldn't make Shi afraid of Wes, would he do something stupid? Would he get hurt because of him? Because he, for some reason Duo just didn't understand, thought he needed to protect him? Shi's hands clenched on the collar, as though he meant to pull it off of him and Duo felt a thrill of fear, but then those looks of rage and horror disappeared from his friend's face, leaving only a deep sadness that made his chest hurt. The blonde let go of the collar and his red eyes softened. For a moment, it was as though he had never found that stupid collar to begin with.

"That man is a monster..." Shi muttered, "He doesn't deserve freedom... he should be chained up like a blood thirsty beast, and even that would be too good for him. Any halfway decent human being wouldn't let him anywhere near a child..."

His voice was so soft that Duo was sure that he hadn't meant him to hear it, but then his tone cleared and the brunette felt the awkwardness between them dissipate, their usual relationship falling back into place and Shi looked like he had never been pissed to begin with.

"Let me see your feet," the older boy ordered him.

Duo thought about telling him no. He just wanted to ignore the wounds on his feet and he was a bit scared of taking his shoes off, but something in Shi's stare told him that he did not want to deny him this. He had been lucky with the collar, if he hadn't protested, Shi would have ripped it off and gone off to hunt Wes down and castrate him, at the very least. He very carefully untied his right sneaker and gently pulled it off of his foot. It didn't come off easily. The blood had become incredibly sticky, acting almost like a glue and he couldn't help a tiny, sharp gasp as pain started to wake up there again.

Shi winced sympathetically, easily seeing the blood that stained the inside of his sneaker completely. Anger colored his face again as he took a good look at Duo's mangled foot. What he could see of his leg was as white and pale as the rest of him, but the skin of his foot, what he could see through the bandages anyway, was already starting to become red and irritated with infection. The bandages were a lost cause, so stained with drying blood that they were causing more problems than they were helping solve. They needed to be changed, and probably had been in this state hours ago from the looks of them. Through the gaps in the poorly wrapped bandages, Shi could see hints of ugly looking cuts. It was hard for him to tell how deep they were since the blood was hiding most of the cuts, but he knew enough that they were going to scar when they eventually healed.

Shi tried very hard to keep the full extent of his rage off of his face, hidden from the boy. Who could do this to a child? What sort of monster would hurt a sweet thing like Duo like this, and then put a fucking collar on him, like he was a piece of meat instead of a person?! He didn't need an answer to that question. He was well acquainted with monsters. Even so, his stomach churned with that repulsion and rage. He wished that Amaaya and Solo were here. He had a thousand thoughts of what he should be doing to Wes right now, but he also knew how dangerous those thoughts were. His friends would know what to say to him to snap him back to reality.

"Here, lay back against the arm of the bench," he ordered Duo softly, "and put your foot in my lap."

If he couldn't quell his foolish emotions, then he was going to use them doing what he was supposed to do, taking care of the kid. He told himself that that was all that really mattered. The sadist that thought he owned him didn't matter, he was filth, nothing more. Duo did as he was told and put his right foot on Shi's lap. The change in position felt oddly nice for his foot and when Shi touched the bandages, he didn't feel afraid or in pain.

"What are you going to do?" Duo asked him, not out of worry, but curiosity.

"I want to get these bandages off of you, to get a better look at your foot. Also, they're filthy. The last thing you need is to get an infection because Wes is a fucking idiot," Shi told him, "If that's ok with you? It's going to hurt a bit, the bandages are sticking to your skin and the cuts are going to start to bleed a little, but I'll try to go as slowly as possible."

Duo shrugged.

"It isn't so bad," he tried to assure him, "I've been walking on them all day, so they're pretty numb."

This made Shi frown and all sorts of nasty thoughts about Wes flow through his head some more, but he didn't say anything. He found the loosest part of the bandage and began to unravel it. Every time Duo flinched or made some sharp, pained noise, Shi felt a tear in his heart. He tried to be as gentle and slow as he could, but every so often the bandages would snag on a drying scab and cause the wound to bleed a little bit.

He couldn't stand causing the kid pain, it came way too close to something that hurt too much to look at for him, but it needed to be done. Already, when the bandage pulled at one of the deeper cuts, he could see a tiny bit of white fluid mixed in with the blood. They weren't like cuts on an arm or the chest, he couldn't just wrap them up and hope they would get all better. The kid had been walking around... probably for a few hours now, and his feet were already looking terrible. If he didn't sterilize the cuts, and soon, they were going to get very infected. And he didn't even know what to think about his head injury.

Shi couldn't stop the heavy sigh. He wasn't a doctor, and he couldn't get Duo to one. Neither of them had health insurance, and the second any doctor took a look at these cuts, they would call child services. As wonderful as that sounded, getting the kid out of that monster's reach and possibly into a real home, he wasn't that naive. Wes had a long reach, with the power and cruelty to get what he wanted no matter who got hurt in the process, and even if child services did pick Duo up... they tended to lose as many children as they pledged to help, especially kids like Duo that needed a little extra attention. That unsurety... the fact that there was probably nothing he could do... or even worse, there was something that he should be doing, to guarantee that Duo was happy, and he was failing him, just killed him.

He unwrapped the left foot, too. This time there was no pus, but the skin was just as inflamed as the other foot. Duo obviously had the habit of putting more weight and stress on his right foot than his left, so the damage was worse, but they were both pretty bad. There might even be some nerve damage, and Duo's admission that they felt numb scared him.

"That feel better?" he asked when he was finished.

Duo nodded in amazement, sitting up straighter and looking at his naked feet. He had no idea why, but having his feet unbandaged, even though a few of the deeper cuts were bleeding, made his feet feel so much better. It just felt good, not having the bandages squeezing the cuts, and even the air felt nice. Having Shi look after him like this, someone he trusted, as much as someone like him could trust, to have his best interest, to actually want him to feel better, and actually knew what they were doing, certainly much better than he did, settled most of his fears. If there was something really wrong, he knew that Shi would tell him. He moved his feet out of Shi's lap and sat up fully on the bench, wincing a little as he placed his feet on the ground again.

Shi reached over and touched Duo's hand lightly. He saw the relief in the boy's eyes, his trust and his faith in him. It hurt, in both good and bad ways, and that feeling of failure came to him again, making his insides feel like they were filled with lead. He chuckled self-depreciatingly.

"Solo was right," he said, in half mirth and half sadness, "My entire life, I haven't been able to help or save a single person, and I'm sick of it," he studied Duo for a moment, then touched the collar again, curling his hand around the dog tag, then looking the child in the eye again, "No one owns you," he said sternly and Duo felt his heart race with the emotions swirling in those ruby eyes, "That piece of shit may tell you where to go and who to let fuck you, but he doesn't own you. A collar won't change that. Not even the people you love own you, and they never will."

Shi's words were as painful as Wes' blows to his head had been. No one owned him... that made his heart twist up. It made the dark spot in his heart grow even more. He started to cry again and this time he didn't try to stop it.

"I wish I could believe you," he cried in a raspy, choked voice, "but I can't."

"Duo-" Shi started to protest in frustration, desperate to make the boy believe him, and knowing exactly what was at stake if he couldn't.

The violet eyed boy couldn't stand those red eyes looking at him with such affection, such kindness and care. So different from the way that Wes looked at him, Shi's words so different from the man that had been taking care of him the last four years.
'Why now?'
Something inside of him was cracking.
'After four years, why now?'
Something that had started to churn in him ever since he had woken up on the couch this morning.
'Four years letting him fuck you... four years listening to how little he cares if you live or die... four years living in darkness... four years before you found enough self worth to try to run from it... why now, why not before...'
Duo felt that something snap, a strange, not all together real pain flaring deep inside of him where nothing could touch it.
"I'M NOT A DOG!" he screamed, his face screwing up with the force of the emotion pouring out of him. He felt like he might actually throw up from the mixture of rage, sadness, fear, and disgust that filled him up. It was as though the iron wall around his emotions had eroded away, and everything he had told himself that he didn't feel for all of these years was spilling out. All that anger... where was it coming from... were these really his feelings? It didn't seem possible... that he could feel these things... And just as quickly as they had come upon him, they were gone, like his strings had been cut, "...am I?" Duo murmured.

The doubt in the child's voice, and all of the dark emotions he could see as clear as day on his face, almost had Shi in tears. He swept him up in his arms, this time not being at all careful, but holding him as tight as Duo would allow him to. How could he doubt something like that? He wished that he could find Wes and kill him as slowly and painfully as possible, but he knew that if he did, Duo wouldn't be free of this nightmare. Wes' business partners would try to kill him, either out of spite or just to send a message. Or worse. They would torture him, retrain him however they saw fit, and then throw him in a brothel, using his scars as a reminder to all the other whores what happened when you got ideas, if you made friends with the wrong sort of people. Someplace with iron bars and electronic collars.

What made Wes dangerous was not how he kept Duo restrained, but the freedom that he gave him. The man was giving him shelter, even if it was a horrible one. He let him come and go without chains, which were the worst kind of all. The kind that you couldn't see or unlock. The kind that truly tied you to a person. As much as Shi wanted to take him away from that, he couldn't deny the facts. Without Wes, Duo had no home, no food or shelter, and even though Wes ignored his injuries most of the time, when it was something serious, he had the money to pay for a doctor. A good doctor, not some hack working at a clinic. Shi couldn't do that for him.

He hated himself for that, as thoroughly as a person could hate themselves. He gave money to people who were down on their luck, as much as he could afford, but he didn't even have the means to help this one child, someone who needed his help more than any of the rest. As much as he hated Wes, he hated himself even more, for being able to do nothing more than hold him close like this. And a part of himself hated Duo, too. He loved him, but he hated him. He hated how much the kid reminded him of his little brother, another child he had been unable to save. Their eyes... their faces... the tint of their skin and even the way that they cried was exactly the same. It made the abuse that Wes put him through all the more horrific to Shi.

He wanted to let go of him, he wanted to just forget that this boy existed, to never come back to this street corner, to just let him fade away. But that part of himself was tiny. He couldn't do it. Even if it killed him at the end, he couldn't stop loving this boy, and hating his own inadequacies.

"I need to get some antibiotics for your feet," Shi told Duo when his crying started to get less, "They're starting to look pretty bad."

"It's fine," Duo murmured, snuffling a little, "They don't hurt too much-"

"It isn't fine," Shi said sternly, but not harshly, "What matters is these cuts getting infected, not how much they hurt. There are a couple of them that are already showing signs and I'm not going to trust your pimp to take care of them before they need to be lanced or something worse."

He shrugged his jean jacked off and wrapped it around the boy's shoulders. It was comically big on the eleven year old and he curled up in it, secretly enjoying how warm it was. It smelled like sage and cigarettes, a very earthly smell. That smell soothed him for some reason.

"Can you wait here for a little bit?" Shi asked him, his voice and eyes maddeningly soft and kind, "I'd get some from my apartment, but it's too far away. I don't want to leave you waiting here all by yourself for that long."

Duo nodded.

"Wes isn't expecting me back right away," he told him.

"I'll be right back," the blonde promised and leaned over to kiss Duo on the forehead suddenly before getting up and jogging off.

Duo turned a brilliant scarlet red and he sunk deeper into Shi's jacket as the other boy left him alone in search of medicine. His head started to throb, but it wasn't one entirely of pain. He would never figure Shi out, he realized. Not ever. All of the men that had come and gone through his life, and he had been the first that had given a shit about him. He had been the first person to make him feel like a human being, like there might be something more that what Wes had turned him into. Even if it was a lie, it made him feel good in these brief moments when he got to see his friends. Shi made him feel warm, and he made him hurt. He made him realize that what he had felt the most when he had seen that there hadn't been anyone here, before the loneliness and before the betrayal, had been fear. Fear that the dangers of their lives had finally caught up with them. That, unthinkably, he had out lived one, or even all, of the best friends he had ever had.
*****
It was five blocks to the nearest pharmacy. There were a few convenience store along the way, but he wasn't interested in them. Duo needed something stronger than cheap, anti-bacterial cream for minor scrapes. Also, he knew the manager of the pharmacy and ever since he had saved the man's life from two coked out robbers a couple of years ago, he had been letting Shi walk off with free medical supplies every once in awhile. Which was fortunate because he just wasn't in the mood for pick-pocketing right now and even something as basic as antiseptic and bandages were ridiculously expensive. He took some painkillers, antiseptic, a roll of paper towels, a bottle of water, and cold medicine for Solo as well. He knew that Duo was insisting that his feet weren't hurting that much, but the kid often hid the worst of his pain from them. It wouldn't make the pain any worse, anyway, and he didn't think that Wes would give him anything to help even if Duo had the courage to ask him for it.

Shi ran all the way back where he had left the boy. Living with that piece of shit, he dealt with life and death dangers every day, but he refused to let anything happen to him under his watch. And now he was incapacitated. His feet being numb was worse than them hurting, he wouldn't be able to run very far or very well if anyone started shit with him. And that collar... rage flared in him again and he fought to put a lid on it. It was hard. It had always been difficult for him to control his anger, ever since he had been a kid, and as much as he told himself that there was nothing he could do for Duo, there would always be a part of himself that didn't believe that.

Duo was nodding off by the time he got back to him, his head bowed and his eyes closed as he was curled up in his jacket. Shi felt his heart warm watching him, but he also felt a great deal of sadness. The boy actually looked his age for once.

"I'm back," he warned him, not wanting to startle or scare him by approaching him too suddenly.

Duo blinked up at him groggily and looked for a moment as though he were about to fall back asleep, which Shi wouldn't have minded. The kid looked like a nap would do him a world of good. Then Duo lifted his head, and it must have caused some kind of pain for him, because his eyes shot fully open and he looked panicked, almost like a mother that had become focused looking at a dress or some grocery that she needed, only to come back to herself and realize that her child was not right beside her anymore. He looked around frantically, but when he saw the sun, peeking out through the clouds, he relaxed. It wasn't that hard to figure out, that Wes had probably given him some kind of curfew and, for a terrifying moment, Duo had thought that he had surpassed it. Even if the eleven year old did fall asleep, Shi resolved that he would make sure he got back in time, personally. He didn't think that his younger friend could take much more 'punishments'.

"Have you had anything to drink today?" Shi asked him, putting his bag of supplies on the bench and sitting down on the opposite end.

"A glass of soda," Duo said, "I... I don't know if I had anything else. My memory is really fuzzy."

Shi frowned at that. The violet eyed boy was lucky if that was all his memory was. He dug the bottle of water and pain killers out of the bag and handed them to him.

"Here, take these and drink half of this, but just half. I need the rest."

Duo struggled to get the cap off. His hands were shaking again. He wasn't sure why exactly, if it was because he hadn't eaten anything, the fright of waking up and not knowing what time it had been, or the sudden sharp pain in his head. He finally managed and was happy that Shi hadn't tried to help him. He popped the pills into his mouth, for once not caring about what they were. The pain was starting to come back into his feet and he just didn't want to think about it anymore. The water was warm, but good with his dry mouth and throat, and though he wished he could have the rest of it, he handed the bottle back to Shi. The tall blonde put it aside and helped Duo move so his back was resting on the back of the bench, his feet dangling over the side, and he kneeled down in front of him, grabbing the bottle of water.

"I'm going to clean the cuts first, since he did such a shitty job of bandaging them, then I'll disinfect them and bandage them again," he informed Duo, who nodded.

He gritted his teeth as Shi poured the rest of the water on the bottom of his feet. It burned the cuts and he was suddenly very glad that it wasn't cold. The older boy used the paper towels to dab his feet dry, making sure not to put too much pressure on the cuts.

"Sorry, this is going to hurt a little," he said apologetically, and then took his time pouring the antiseptic over the cuts.

This time Duo hissed. He wasn't a stranger to antiseptic, but the burning and stinging was incredibly unpleasant. His toes twitched and he tried not to thrash and hit Shi in the face. Shi was unfazed, totally focused on his job. He had bandaged Amaaya and Solo up many, many times, so this felt almost like a routine to him. When he was satisfied that he had sterilized all of the cuts as much as he could, he spread the antibacterial ointment on them and started to bandage Duo's feet with the clean bandages.

The way Shi wrapped his feet was nothing like Wes. He was slow and methodical, making the bandages tight out of care, not to cause him pain, and he didn't leave any gaps. When the blonde was done, Duo actually felt better. He didn't know why, his feet still hurt, but they felt cleaner at least, and he wasn't so afraid of the injuries. Shi stashed the remains of the supplies back into the plastic bag and reached up to touch the bandages around Duo's head. They were entirely different than the ones that had been around his feet, even more carefully wrapped than his own. It was as though someone other than Wes had done it...

"No, don't touch it!" Duo yelled and recoiled from him, his heart racing and a phantom pain shot through his skull, as though Shi really had touched him.

Shi backed away from him.

"Are you sure?" he asked, burning to see the damage that Wes had done to him and make sure that he was going to be ok, not that he thought his meager efforts would help if he wasn't.

Duo nodded. He felt a kind of stinging hatred suddenly for Shi. He wanted to scream at him to leave him alone, to demand to know what he was doing here, why he was being so kind to him when no one else gave a shit. He didn't like the feeling and he didn't understand where all this violent anger and bitterness was coming from. It wasn't like him. He never felt like this. But suddenly, Shi's care for him hurt, it felt wrong.

"That's about as much I can do for them, I think," the red eyed man said.

"Thank you, Shi," Duo said honestly, flexing his toes.

Shi smiled and ruffled his hair.

"I... I should go back now," the boy murmured reluctantly, "He said I didn't have to be back until 11, but..."

"I know," Shi said softly, "better safe than sorry."

Duo looked away from him. He hated how his friend could always see right through him. He didn't have to explain why the only reason why he had come all the way out here was because he hadn't wanted to go back to the apartment, because he had wanted someone to talk to, someone to not look at him like a piece of meat. He didn't have to explain how much finding that person hurt, or that his fright in waking and not knowing what time it was had scared him enough that whatever hesitance he had felt in not wanting to go back to Wes had lessened in the face of his fear. Shi knew all of it. It seemed like he was the only person he couldn't hide the truth from.

"I'll carry you back," the other whore told him.

"I can-"

"Walk, I know. And I would like to keep it that way. Wes isn't going to give a shit how much your feet hurt, or what damage he did to them. He's going to make it hard on you, force you to walk more because of your injury and you know it. That doesn't mean that I have to be a party to that. Besides, it will make me feel better, ok?"

Duo shrugged uncomfortably. He felt that strange twist of emotions again. Bitterness at Shi's kindness. Embarrassment that he needed Shi to do something like this for him because he wasn't strong enough to take care of himself. Warmth that Shi cared enough to force him to take that kindness. He waited for Shi to reclaim his jacket, already missing the warm denim, and then wrapped his arms around the blonde's neck and let him lift him up. Shi carried him and the supplies easily, as though Duo were no more than another bag he was carrying home. Duo was sure that Shi would drop him off where he had a week ago, a few blocks away from the apartment, but was shocked when Shi kept walking until they were standing in the alley right outside of the apartment.

How could he possibly know where he lived?! He hadn't told him, not any of them! He had made sure not to. The less they knew about the details of his life with Wes, the safer it was for them, so how had Shi figured it out? Had he known all this time, or had he followed him here once? That didn't seem likely, Shi just didn't seem like the type of person that would do something like that...

Shi let Duo down gently and studied him with that all knowing stare of his that always made the boy squirm. He seemed to want to say something to him. Something very grave and very serious. Duo looked away from him, not wanting to hear it or to figure out what it was, and caught his own reflection in a puddle left over from the rain.

His pale face with violet eyes rimmed with tired circles stared back at him. It was the first time he had actually seen himself since before Wes had hurt his head. He looked like some kind of strange ghost of a boy that had been killed in a war, his face worn and his eyes large and haunted, bandages wrapped just under his bangs. Had he always looked this small, thin, and pathetic? Just looking at himself, he felt that he had no strength, no resolve at all. The metal of the collar glittered in the reflection and he saw, for the very first time, what he really looked like with it on. He was overcome with the very strong, very real, and very crazed urge to claw at it until it came apart in his hands or it left his fingers completely bloody. He clenched his hands tightly closed, trying to get rid of the impulse, and was frightened at just how strong it was. Just how strong and deep his self-hate ran.

Duo tore his gaze away from his reflection and looked up at Shi. The older boy looked pained and greatly upset, but was visibly trying to push it down deep, to not let Duo see it. He realized it then, and he would wonder why he hadn't realized it before, that Shi was just as much a slave as he was. They all were. There was no one to hit Shi if he did something bad, or tell him that he was useless. There was no one that would take the money he had earned or regulate his food, water, and bathing like you would a dog. But even so, Shi was a slave. He could never do what he wanted, live how he wanted. He couldn't even help the people he wanted to. Even if he wanted a better life, to have a different way to make money, he would always be a whore.

For people like them, what else was there? If Shi had had a choice to be anything else, he would have taken it. And in that moment, Duo knew, if Shi had been able to save him, to help him, he would have. He hadn't needed to run away, that had been so childish of him to think that that would have made any kind of difference. Even if he had made it out of the apartment, there was nothing that his friends could do for him. If there was, they would have. Even if he didn't deserve it, he knew that Shi would try, if he was able to. He had thought, in his darker moments, that they were lying, that there was no way that any of them would want to help him, just like everyone else. But that pain in Shi's eyes... he couldn't believe that that was fake.

He was never going to be free. He was always going to be a whore. Even if he did manage to run away some day. Even if Wes died, he would always come back to this. He had nothing else. He was nothing else. Just this. Thanks to Wes, and thanks to his own failings, all he knew how to do was spread his legs, lie, and steal. He couldn't go back to eating out of dumpsters just to survive. He had barely been able to feed himself and protect himself back then, when he had been smaller, faster. He was older now, almost a teenager, he needed more to live, and now that his feet were ruined, he would never be as successful. One day, he would get hungry. Very, very hungry. Hungry enough to do anything just for a bite to eat. And there whoring would be, his only option. He would betray himself, he would always be this shameful dog, he couldn't possibly escape it.

The only real difference between him and Shi, the lives they led, was that everyone could see what he was on the outside because of this damned collar. And that shouldn't bother him. If it didn't matter, then wearing this shouldn't bother him at all. But even then... he hated that reminder of what he really was.

"Please... take care of yourself ok?" Shi implored instead of what he had wanted to say, "If your head gets any worse, or your cuts get infected, come see me."

"I'll try," Duo promised him. It was the most that he could do.

The tall blonde sighed heavily, but nodded. Again, that expression that he wanted to say more came over him. But whatever it was that he wanted to say, he seemed to know that he shouldn't, responsibly, say to Duo and simply gave him a wan smile, not ruffling his hair like he usually did because of his head injury, and turned and walked down the alley. Duo watched the form of his back through his jacket as he walked away. It was slimmer than Wes', his shoulders not as wide, but it reminded him of his strength and surety for a moment. And for a moment, he was filled with both love and contempt for his friend and it only confused him.

As soon as Shi was out of his sight, he went into the apartment. The very first thing he wanted to do was go lie down on his bed and get the weight off of his feet. He felt like he hadn't slept in a week, at the same time that he was still groggy and heavy headed, but he knew the drill. Wes' money came first. He found him sitting in his chair in the main room, watching a news broadcast about a man a few towns north of them that had been found brutally murdered. He didn't seem to be paying attention to it that much, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. The ash tray next to him had several used butts that hadn't been there when Duo had left and the smell of the smoke was thick in the room, creating a kind of haze.

The man looked worn around the edges, reminding Duo for a very, very odd moment of the way that Solo looked after a long day of work. The skin on the side of his hands was irritated as though he had been scrubbing at something and his hands were stained pink. Higher up on his arms were darker spots of red and the hem of his pale green shirt had more noticeable, dried stains of blood. He could also smell, through the scent of tobacco, the scent of cleaning supplies.
'That's my blood.'

Wes finally noticed him there and gave him a stony look for a moment.

"Go to all your appointments?" he asked gruffly and Duo realized that he sounded tired. He couldn't remember another time when he had ever seen him or heard him like this and it made him feel funny.

Duo nodded.

"Yes, sir," he said softly and took the money out of his pocket, putting the wad next to the ash tray.

To his astonishment, Wes didn't count out the money or try to search him to see if he was hiding any like he usually did. He just stuck it in the pocket of his jeans like it was irrelevant.

"Come here," he ordered Duo, gesturing to in front of him.

The tone of his voice wasn't angry, but slightly stern, not at all like how he spoke when he was training him or about to punish him and Duo didn't know what to make of his mood. He was instantly wary of him, like he was on the incredibly rare occasions that he got drunk enough that he became more unpredictable than he usually was, but he shakily walked in front of him. Wes sat up and grabbed at Duo's head. Duo gave out a sharp inhalation of shock and flinched from him, but Wes didn't even seem to notice. He turned the boy's head to look at the back of it, inspecting it, but didn't touch the impact point where Duo had been expecting him to touch.

Wes made some annoyed sound and let go of him.

"Take off your shoes."

Duo hesitated for a second. He had no idea how, but he had hoped that he would be able to hide his newly wrapped and cleaned feet from Wes for long enough that he would just assume that he had done it himself with the med-kit in the bathroom. What would he think if he saw them now, that he had used some of his money to buy new bandages? Seeing that Wes was already starting to get impatient with him, he kicked off his sneakers. The blonde frowned seeing his feet and without any kind of warning, picked him up and placed him in his lap. Duo shuddered, thinking for a moment that he was going to fuck him, but Wes only grabbed his right ankle, examining the wrappings.

He expected the man to get pissed, as it was rather obvious that Duo hadn't done the job himself, the bandages were too neat, but Wes, oddly, only seemed satisfied with how they were. The pimp lightly pushed him off of his lap with a kind of gentleness that was totally alien to the boy. Wes kept one large hand on Duo's thin shoulder, not to hold him there, but just to touch, making him nervous. Grey eyes studied him for a moment and Duo saw something in them that he didn't like. He didn't like because it didn't belong on the man's face at all. Approval... and something else, something that reminded him of Shi for a second.

"There's some beef stew in the refrigerator and biscuits on the counter. Heat them up. I don't care how much you take. Finish the milk. I hate that shit and I'm not going to throw it out when I could have spent that money on something else. Eat in your room and don't come out unless you have to use the bathroom, is that understood? If you need anything, you can wait for me when I feel like checking up on you," Wes said matter of factly, so Duo couldn't tell if he was angry at him or annoyed with him or what.

He felt like he was dreaming and he stared up at Wes as though he had never seen him before in his life before nodding slowly.

He was positive that this was some sort of trick, that the second he turned his back on Wes, he would grab him, hit him, and demand to know where he had gone after his last job, and who had bandaged his feet. But he got to the kitchen and Wes stayed where he was, watching the news program without actually watching it, deep in some disturbing thought.

Duo opened the refrigerator and sure enough, sitting among the beer bottles and some food items he didn't recognize (he wished that he had thought to have asked Shi what day it was, because he still had no clue) there was a bowl of beef stew waiting for him. Wes hated beef stew, even when it was cold out. And it was one of those bowls that the grocery store near them sold, still sealed tight and untouched.
Why?
Duo took it out of the refrigerator, limped over to a cabinet, and tried to reach up and get a bowl, but shocks of pain through his feet had him immediately regretting it. He pulled over a chair and kneeled on it, almost sighing in relief at the almost immediate release of pain. While staying mostly on the chair, he dumped the beef stew into a pan and cooked it on the stove. He debated just heating it up in the microwave, but didn't mind having to do extra dishes. He hated the way beef tasted when you zapped it, and if Wes wasn't going to punish him for using the stove, he preferred it this way. The aroma of the meat, potatoes, and carrots as it cooked was painful. His stomach finally seemed to realize its hunger and began to cramp up.

Duo grabbed a biscuit from a zip-lock baggie and chewed on it as he waited for the thick stew to get the right temperature. Why? Why would Wes do this, go out and buy a meal that was obviously intended for him? He had tried to run away... so the man had gone out and bought him a hot meal? It made no sense to him, he just couldn't figure it out. It scared him and made him nervous. Maybe it was just because Wes wanted him to keep up his strength so he would be able to keep going on jobs, but he could have gotten him anything rich in protein and other nutrients for that. Why something he would like?
He's being nice to me. He bought me food and cleaned up my blood. He made sure my feet were fixed up and didn't ask who did it. He didn't even try to rape me. He's acting... acting like Sh-

Pain flared through his head, both physical and emotional and he felt a strange ache in his chest. Wes was treating him like a child. Duo squeezed his eyes shut. Like a father would. That realization made him sick to his stomach.
Is he... is Wes my...
He switched off the burner, dumped the stew into the bowl, poured himself the rest of the milk, and grabbed a couple of biscuits before walking as swiftly to his bedroom as he could, as though something terrible were chasing him. Something with cold, grey eyes and sharp claws.
*****
Name and Heero ate better than Duo had. About an hour after Duo had fallen asleep, long enough that Name was assured that he was getting some rest at least, she left him under her son's guard to sneak them in some food. Although she didn't really have to do much sneaking considering that, by now, none of the hospital staff felt the urge to start any fights with her over something that trivial. She felt a bit bad about it, going out and some fresh sandwiches and salads from the nearby deli when her sick charge had to choke down hospital food, but her anxious stomach just couldn't handle that greasy, freeze-dried mess, and she had been antsy to stretch her legs.

Name felt torn. She couldn't bear to be away from Duo for more than a minute, her instincts telling her that there was still something very wrong, and how lucky they had been to get him back at all, let alone in one piece. But at the same time, sitting there, watching him sleep, not only made her feel intense relief and love for him, but also a swirl of negative emotions that made her blood churn. Anxiety over the fact that, even though they had gotten Duo back, it hadn't really solved anything. Wes was still out there. The demons from Duo's life were still stalking him, and she doubted that Wes was the only one they would have to worry about. Anxiety over what she needed to do in order to ensure her child's safety. Yes, she knew now, what she had tried to deny in the past, that Wes had driven her into a corner and that she would have to betray her own morals and ideals in order to save someone she loved, but that didn't mean that it was an easy decision or that it was going to let her sleep easy.

She felt this deep fear that even that wouldn't be enough to stop Wes. She had sent person after person after him when they had been looking for Duo, men she had never thought she would ever need to contact in her lifetime, all for naught. Wes wasn't just some thug, a rabid dog she needed to put down. He was smart. He knew how to cover his tracks and stay downwind, not just to hide, but to be the first one to strike. He wasn't immortal, but his game wasn't hers. She had no idea what sort of weapon it would take to get the best of him. And she felt guilt. Every cut, every bruise, every raspy breath that Duo took, she felt personally responsible for. If she had acted sooner, if she had spent more time focusing on dealing with Wes... would this ever had happened? Or was this inevitable?

She did not want Duo to ever see these thoughts or feelings on her face. She didn't want to leave him alone and have her anxiety swallow her up, but she needed perspective. They all did. She didn't want a single one of them, not even Wufei, to become like Duo had been when Wes had shot him in the woods, terrified of his own shadow, overlooking everything else, all the good things, because of that fear. So it was nice to get out of that hospital room, make some phone calls to her assistant, and just to have some fresh air.

Duo slept long and hard, not waking up even once as the two of them had eaten their lunch or the entire time they sat there as silent guard, reading or pretending to read. Quatre and Trowa didn't come back and Name was glad. It was nice to have some quiet and she knew that Duo would want to be awake to see them, and she wasn't going to wake him up any time soon. Besides, the longer they stayed away, it meant the longer they were resting themselves. The longhaired boy twitched a few times, his face scrunching up in some sort of pain and his mouth moved in his sleep, as though he were saying things in his dream or perhaps making some noise that they couldn't hear. It scared the both of them, that Duo's psychosis was so terrible it was even affecting him while he slept.

Heero wasn't exactly sure when he had drifted asleep as he had sat there, a silent but resilient guard, but eventually the long days and hard nights he had gone through when Duo had been missing caught up with him, much to Name's relief. His dreams were nearly as troubling as Duo's were; some involving Wes, others Duo or his father, occasionally a bastard mix of all three. By the time he was jolted awake, it was late at night, a little over twenty four hours since Duo had been admitted.

He was incredibly disorientated, waking up in the dark hospital room, the lights from Duo's heart monitor and what little light fought through the heavy blinds on the window giving only hints to information. For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming. His mother wasn't in the room anymore, but her cell phone was still on the bed side table, so she couldn't have gone far. He blinked in the darkness, trying to figure out what had woken him up, not another nurse, but something that had his heart hammering in his chest.

The sound hadn't woken him, because there wasn't anything louder than Duo's shaky breathing, not even strong enough to be called a pant. For a startling moment, in the darkness Heero thought that Duo was looking at him, needing him but not wanting to wake him up. He was sitting up, and he could see that glint of the brunette's eyes, but little else. He sat up quickly and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, seeing that his friend wasn't looking at him at all, but straight ahead, at the blank wall. His breathing was hard and trembling, still having that raspy quality from being strangled.

"Duo?" he murmured sleepily, but there was no response.

Duo didn't even turn to look at him, just kept his odd, senseless staring and uneven breathing, reminding Heero of a child that had been badly frightened by some moving shadow in their bedroom late at night. He scrambled for the light switch on the lamp that was on the bedside table, not wanting to hurt Duo's eyes with the overhead lights. Heero's heart skipped a few beats as the light showed him why his friend wasn't responding to him, even by a simple look.

Duo's eyes were indeed open, but they were only half lidded, blank and unseeing, dark like a doll's. The sheets on the bed had been tossed around like in a strong wind and his hospital gown had been pushed up to his thighs. It was then that Heero realized what had woken him. It hadn't been the increased beeping of his heart monitor, but the sharp smell of fresh blood.

The bandages that had once been wrapped around his leg were a lost cause. Duo hadn't simply unwrapped them, they were torn and shredded, some bits still wrapped around his leg, like a wild animal had been at them. Some white strands still clung to his fingernails. His leg and hands were smeared with blood. It wasn't dark, like the blood that he had been covered with when Heero had found him, but it stained the white sheets as it dripped down his leg from the wound. Duo, unable in his dazed state, almost like sleepwalking, to find anything better, had attacked the puncture with his nails, making it bigger. Blood was stuck under them and the darkest of the red was on his fingers. He hadn't set off to hurt himself logically, if he had, he could used something better, something deadlier. He could have ripped out one of his IVs and used the needle, or even the pen that was on the bedside table. It was more like he had gone into a frenzy and had savagely attacked himself. Cuts made from his fingernails ran over his upper leg and for a moment, they didn't look human to Heero at all.

"Christ, Duo," Heero stood up so fast, he knocked the chair over and didn't notice it, grabbing Duo's upper arms in case he decided to try to hurt himself even more than he already had. His best friend's hands were lax at his sides, and it looked like his fit had passed, his eyes and body devoid of any kind of energy, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Duo's skin was cold and even though Heero's grip was tight, he remained unresponsive. The Japanese boy felt panicked. He didn't know what this was. Duo had never done anything remotely like this before, even when he had been in his worst panic attacks. Right now, he didn't even recognize him, it was like...

Mentally unstable
he was dreaming with his eyes open. What should he do? His mother wasn't here, and he had this horrible, twisting feeling in his gut that he wasn't going to be able to talk his friend down this time. Duo didn't even seem aware that he was here, touching him, how could his voice reach him? That he had done this to himself... Heero felt his stomach churn. He couldn't deny that Stark had been telling the truth now. The American had stabbed himself, and now, in his sleep, he had hurt himself again... Would they have to constantly guard his sleep or whenever he was drugged? He couldn't wrap his head around it, why Duo had done this, what was wrong with him. His inability to speak and now this.

Heero slowly let go of Duo's arms. He felt helpless again, like he was failing the person he loved somehow. He felt swept up in this tidal wave of desperation and fear. When he had found Duo in his bedroom, he had thought that it was all over, as long as they had gotten him away from Wes, he wouldn't have to be afraid of losing him. But he didn't know how to save his best friend from himself anymore than he had known how to save him from his abuser.

He wrapped his arms around the longhaired boy and tucked his head under his chin. Duo was so small... he forgot sometimes, whenever the younger teen showed him how strong he was, how resilient he could be, but in his arms like this, he was reminded of how slight he was, too, all the damage that malnutrition had done over the years, how incapable he seemed to bear everything that life had thrown at him. Heero cried silently, his shoulders shaking a little as he felt Duo's soft hair against his neck. If Duo had really reached the end of his rope, and that was what this was, then everything was on them.

He would have to be strong for his friend and try to bring him out of the dark again, but this time, he was in a much deeper and darker place. Heero was suddenly struck by the ludicrousness of the situation. He was seventeen years old, not even old enough to vote, he could barely take care of himself. How could he hope to help the one person he cared about more than anyone else? How could any of them when they didn't even know exactly what was wrong? He had always been able to figure it out in the end, because even when Duo was lost in his nightmares, in his memories and demons, he found ways of communicating. They had always been a team, helping each other find the right path, but now Heero felt that they were both very much alone, separated from each other, more than they had ever been after that nightmare trip to Boston.

At first, Duo felt like a doll in his arms, lifeless, not moving and cold. But as he held him, some warmth seeped into his skin and he began to move a little.

"Please..." Heero begged softly, "I know that something terrible happened to you, and that you're scared and confused and lost, but I need you to help me."

He felt something tug on his shirt and looked down. Duo had one of his blood stained hands fisted in his shirt and was looking up at him. His eyes were red and wet from having crying in his sleep at some point. He was still distant, as though he were dreaming with his eyes open or he was very severely drugged, but there was a spark of recognition in his eyes. He seemed like he wasn't in pain at all and was completely unaware of what he had done to himself. Duo closed his eyes and sagged against him, the heart monitor settling. Heero waited for him to go into another fit or open his eyes again, but he didn't. He seemed to actually be sleeping now. He didn't know what to believe, that his presence had stopped his friend from hurting himself anymore and had soothed the darkness for a little bit, or that Duo was just too tired for anymore, that it was just a matter of time before he did it again. He knew what he had to do, but he hated himself for it.

"Please forgive me," he murmured and kissed his friend's forehead.
*****

Before his head injury, Duo couldn't remember thinking about his dreams all that much. He had had nightmares, of course, but given what his life had been like, his nightmares had never surprised him. Truthfully, back then, his dreams had always been distant and fuzzy, the way he supposed dreams were for almost everyone. After Wes had cracked his skull, his nightmares had changed. A lot of them remained fuzzy and hard to remember, but every now and then, although nothing like the hallucination he had had about Zechs killing Heero, they were so detailed, so sharp that his sleeping mind confused them for reality. Sometimes his dreams were like memories, being replayed like on a DVD player, some of those memories were even things that he had forgotten. He had assumed that it was because of the head trauma, but the longer he had had those lucid dreams, the more he had started to suspect that the cracked skull was only partially to blame.

He was never going to be free. He was always going to be a whore. Even if he did manage to run away some day. Even if Wes died, he would always come back to this. He had nothing else. He was nothing else.

This was one of those times. A memory, not a dream, incomplete pieces, sewn together by his frazzled mind. Even before he opened his eyes, Duo understood that. This had been a bad one. It had felt so real that he could still feel the collar around his neck, the throbbing in his skull, and taste the odd flavor of burnt metal that he had tasted in everything he had eaten for days after Wes had hurt his head. The over head lights of the hospital room burned his eyes and made his headache worse, so he immediately closed them, not liking the similarities of the pain to the one in his memory.

His own thoughts from back then weighed on him. A dog... he had truly believed what Wes had told him all those years ago and it had festered in him. He had believed that he would never break free, that he would die a whore.

'I was wrong,' he realized, and the thought filled him with relief, but also bitterness, both against Wes and himself. He opened his eyes a little and turned his head to look at a darker corner of the room.

He had been wrong... he had come to believe in Wes' hateful words so easily, that there was no way out for him. By believing that, he had kept himself in that hell... and he had believed it for so long. Even after Name had taken him in, some part of him had clung to that childhood illusion. But Wes was dead. He wasn't a whore anymore.

His heart shuddered. He wasn't a whore. He wasn't. He never had to whore again, the man that had turned him into that was dead and he had killed him. He could believe in that for the first time in his life. He was a criminal, a murderer, and a coward, but for the first time in eight years, he had actually escaped. That fact terrified him, but he couldn't deny it.

Shi had been right all along. He wasn't owned by anyone. Not even Name and Heero owned him. He could do what he wanted. Wes had put a collar around his neck and called him his dog, but he hadn't owned him, not really. When it had really mattered, Duo had made his own decisions. He had decided to go with Heero and Name instead of him, hadn't he? But... if he hadn't been Wes' dog all this time... why did his death bother him so much?

He should be happy. He should be overjoyed that he finally overcame him, even if the freedom he had now had forced him to become a killer... but he didn't feel happy. He felt grotesque. He felt like a monster. How was that any better than feeling like a dog? There had to have been some other way to get away from Wes... if he had just tried harder...
It's my fault he raped me.
Instead of panicking about escaping, he should have waited until Wes had been out of the apartment.
I should have fought harder.
Wes had haunted him for so long. He had turned him into an animal. And yet, he felt guilty, like he should be punished for lashing out at him, for driving that blade into his throat. He had always believed that Wes was a monster for all the lives he had taken. Did the reason for it really matter? He had taken the life of a person, why should he be forgiven for that? There had to have been a way... there had to... it had to be his fault...

Duo closed his eyes again. His heart hurt. Why did he have to remember these things? Why couldn't he just forget? Forget Wes, forget that he had killed him...forget how much he missed Shi and Solo, how he just knew that they would find the right things to say to him to ease this pain in his heart. Shi would say that Wes deserved it, that it was a good thing that he was dead and he had done the world a service. Solo would say that it wasn't his fault, that he hadn't meant to kill him.

He wanted to forget all of the damage that Wes had done to his life. All these mental roadblocks and fears and disabilities that even now, he struggled with. How much the impact of the back of his head into the tiled floor had hurt, and how it had destroyed his memories. He still couldn't remember what had happened directly after the injury, how much time he had lost and what he had done in those moments. He had thought that he had tried to run away from Wes when he had been seven years old, but he hadn't met Shi and the others until he had been eleven. His memories... his beliefs of what had happened when where all screwed up. It terrified him.

If he was wrong about when he had run away... or the first time he had met Shi... what else was he wrong about? What else was he missing from his life?

A terrifying thought occurred to him as he lay there, half asleep and half awake. What if his inability to remember his parents, remember his real name, where he had come from, and who he really was... what if he had remembered? What if all the things he was confused about, all the things that were missing from his past had nothing to do with how young he had been? What if Wes had stolen all of those things as well?

Duo squeezed his eyes shut and allowed his tiredness to overcome him. He ignored that dark voice inside of him, screaming things at him that he didn't want to hear. He just wanted to sleep. He was so concentrated on that desire, to just slip away, that Duo didn't realize in his stress and tiredness that there was a new line in his arm, or the cuffs closed around his wrists.
End part 16
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long (again). I wanted to stop right after the flashback had ended, but I was worried that the bits directly after would feel weird if they didn't come out right away. Also, we still don't have our own wireless. It got shut off due to my roommate losing her job and our bill is just too big for us to pay right now. Then the wireless that we were stealing from one of our neighbors went out for awhile, so even though the part was done, I just didn't have the means to post it. It finally came back on, but it's still really shitty.
Anyway, as I stated before, this is the last flashback for a very, very long time. I'm not talking parts, I'm talking whole chapters with none of these stupid things. The Road to Kindness is now moving beyond Duo's past and into his future, thankfully. Whatever that entails.
I am also incredibly close to getting to the point where TRTK is going on hiatus (read that 'hiatus', as in not stopping it, just taking a vacation from it) for awhile so I can work on other stuff. There are just three pages of notes left.
I want to thank ffreeloader and jeangreymullinsjr for their reviews, and also solacerequiem and caressedbythorns, your comments and love for this story are amazing and kept me plugging along on this, even when I got a bit frustrated ^_^
　

　
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The Road to Kindness