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The Road to Kindness	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 7935 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The Road to Kindness

Chapter 8

Part 22
　

　

Heero almost missed school. He had never really liked it, and it was only lately that he was starting to really enjoy it, thanks to his best friend, but he would never like it anymore than he would like it when he eventually took the company over after his mother. Still, homework assignments were always a great distraction whenever he had needed one, like now. At least he could have something to pretend to do while he was lying here on his bed, listening intently for any sounds coming from Duo's room.

Even though their bedrooms were right next to each other, the walls were thick, so he couldn't hear if Duo was awake or watching tv if the volume was low, but if his friend had a nightmare, he would be able to hear it. The longhaired boy had already been asleep for five hours now and he hadn't made a peep so far, but Heero was still alert, waiting for even the slightest sound of distress.

"Bullshit," Heero snorted derisively at his own thoughts.

He could hear the faint sounds of his mother puttering around in the kitchen, getting dinner ready for whenever Duo awoke, and could hear the news playing from the radio on the oven. He wasn't down there helping her or not watching his own tv or playing video games because he was trying to listen to see if his friend needed him. He was thinking, hard, and had been since his friend had gone to bed. In all of those hours, his thoughts and feelings tore at him, not letting him get any rest himself.

He should be happy that Duo was home, and he was, but he also felt deeply troubled. Duo's kidnapping had made him realize a few unpleasant things, things he had pushed out of the way and ignored while his friend had been recovering, but now that he was back and talking again, had risen to the surface. With Duo back home, there was nothing left to distract him from them.

When they had first discovered that Duo had been taken, they had all been frantic to find out who had done it. It had, of course, turned out to be Wes, which hadn't surprised any of them, but that long list of possible kidnappers had stayed with Heero. Relena, Zechs, Chris, Noventa, Mizu or the dozens of other people from both Heero and Duo's lives that might want to hurt either of them. It could have been any of them, in Heero's mind they were all perfectly capable in motive and means to try to abduct Duo, which only meant that any of them could in the future. He was safe now, but for how long? What could any of them do to stop it the next time it happened?

Heero remembered how quickly Duo had broken down when they had brought him home this morning.

�He wasn�t crying because he was happy to be home,� Heero thought as he gazed up at the ceiling, �he was crying because he almost hadn�t.�

Heero shuddered. No matter what he thought or felt about all this, it always came back to that. Duo had almost been lost to them forever. They were all incredibly, almost impossibly, lucky, both that Duo had gotten away from Wes, and that he had been released from the psych ward. He had very nearly slipped through their fingers like fine sand, and it seemed like there was nothing they could do to stop it from happening again. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly, but the image of his best friend covered in blood and struggling to speak stayed there.

�He could have died or Wes could have made him disappear forever, and I never got to tell him how much I love him.�

Heero instantly berated himself for that thought. He had already decided he would never ever tell Duo that... right? He had realized, a long time ago, that if he ever told his friend the truth, it would be terribly selfish and damaging. Duo wasn�t ready for a relationship. Hell, Duo wasn�t ready to even understand what romance and consensual sex were really like.

Heero had seen how Duo looked at Quatre and Trowa sometimes. And if he even suspected that Heero wanted that from him, it would scare him, make him feel inadequate, or even make him feel like he had to reciprocate for Heero�s sake. Worse, it would take his best friend away from him when he was just starting to get solid ground under his feet, to have a stable life for the first time.

Heero didn�t even know if Duo would ever be able to handle such a declaration, if anything good would ever come out of it, so he had hastily chosen to just lock those feelings away. But he really hadn�t. They were still there, all that love and passion and need. Could he really keep it a secret, did he even have that option? He had almost blurted it out numerous times now, and had never nearly kissed his friend twice. The longer he kept it buried inside, the more likely it seemed he was going to do something stupid. Telling him his feelings was one thing, but just suddenly kissing him...

Heero groaned and quickly sat up, He wished that could talk to his mother about this, she always had an answer for every situation, but he didn�t dare. His mother was as far from a homophobe as a person could get, but that fear was still there, illogical and strong.

�Duo isn�t as fragile as he was before,� he told himself.

That was certainly true. The Duo that they had first taken home from the hospital, shaking, weak, overly anxious and on the verge of an emotional breakdown, was not the Duo that had been discharged from the psych ward this morning. If that other Duo had found himself in the same situation, he would have given up. He wouldn�t have had the confidence or the strength to win his voice back, to come home to them. But even if that was true, it didn�t mean that Duo was ready to deal with Heero�s feelings for him.

�But can I bare it if he disappears again and there was a chance, even a tiny one, that he was strong enough?�

Heero looked at the wall that distanced his room from Duo�s and felt weary. He knew that there wasn�t a right answer to that, anymore than there was to him wondering which scenario was more painful, missing the chance at love or destroying the best friendship he had ever had. He stood and walked out of his room and found himself in front of Duo�s closed door, fist raised.

�Wait... what the hell am I doing?�

He ignored the rampant thought. He was sick of being torn by this, of thinking.

He knocked. Some part of himself hoped that Duo was fast asleep and wouldn�t answer, that he would take this asinine decision he had made out of his hands.

�Come in.�

Heero took a deep breath, walked into the room, and closed the door behind him. Duo was sitting on his bed by the window, still wearing his pajamas, wide awake but he didn't look tired, so he must have slept well. He had opened the shades and for a moment Heero was worried that he was falling back to that disturbing habit of watching the street that he had taken up over a month ago after Wes had shot him. But as he studied his friend, Heero realized that Duo wasn't really focused on the window at all. That struck him as strange. Even if the longhaired boy wasn't in that hyper-paranoid state like he had been, Wes was still a threat, but Duo hadn't seemed all that worried about the man coming after him again.

Shiva was in Duo's lap, sitting almost in a human way with her owner petting her stomach, the black cat purring contently. Even as Duo looked at him, he seemed far away, deep in some thought. Heero recognized his petting of his cat as the security blanket that it was. His best friend looked... Heero didn't know if he could call it disturbed, but definitely troubled. He looked weary without the tiredness of a lack of sleep, and incredibly anxious. Truthfully, he looked like a child that had done something terrible and completely wrong, and was wondering just how mad their parents were going to be at them.

That was exactly what it was, Heero realized. The look on Duo's face was one of intense guilt and fear, the kind that could drive a person mad if they felt it long enough. Heero walked around the bed and sat next to the violet eyed boy. He felt that love he had been so ready to confess fill him and all at once, the reason he had come here was lost to him, he was too consumed with that look that didn't belong on his friend's face and a burning need for answers to focus on anything else.

"Are you ready to talk to me now?" Heero asked softly, placing his hand over Duo's.

Duo fussed with Shiva's back paw, the cat not caring one bit, and was unable to meet Heero's eyes. The older boy could feel his hand shaking. He was terrified of whatever he was thinking of.

"I should be," Duo murmured, "I'm never going to be anymore ready, and I promised I would, and I know that I need to, but... I'm scared. I'm just too scared."

Heero knew the difference between when his best friend needed him to back down, to protect him and shelter him, and when he needed to be pushed. He knew with certainty that this was one of those latter times.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked, his voice not losing its gentle tone, "I told you, no one is going to be angry at you or think any less of you, no matter what happened."

"You can't know that!" Duo protested, "You don't know what happened, so how can you be so certain?"

"Because I care for you and I will never stop caring for you, even if you make me mad."

Duo chewed on his lip.

"I don't know what to say... how... how to express what happened..."

Duo's fumbling uncertainty and his fear was heart breaking, but Heero was desperate to finally hear the truth of what he had gone through in the five days he had been missing and what had made him go mute.

"Just tell me the facts," Heero urged and gave him one final push, "What happened after school the day you were kidnapped? Trowa said you had decided to walk home by yourself. Where did you go when you left the school parking lot?"

Duo took a deep breath. Was he really going to do this? His memories of that day came to him in a rush, and dread filled him, knowing what those memories led to. A thousand voices in his head clamored and pleaded and demanded that he not say a thing, that Heero and Name would hate him, that it was too painful to remember. He ignored all of them desperately focused on Heero's questions to shut out all his fears.

"I was scared to go home by myself," he admitted, "but I needed to go through with it, or I thought I had at the time. I was so sure I would be safe, or at least safe enough that if Wes did try something, there would be witnesses. There's a group of kids that take the public buses after clubs let out, when all the school buses are gone. Mr. Khushrenada kept me after class to talk to me about my grades, and club activities pretty much wind down at the end of the year, so I caught up with them easily.

"We waited at the bus stop for a long time. There was such a big group, I wasn't scared that anything was going to happen. But then we learned that there had been an accident, and there wouldn't be another bus for hours. Everyone started to leave, but no one was going the way I needed to go to get home. I thought about going back to the school, but I'd still have no way to get home," Duo's fingers fidgeted under Heero's, "or... that's what I had thought then. I've thought about it a lot since then, that I could have just asked Mr. Khushrenada for a ride, but I'm not so sure, even if I had thought of it, if I would have done that. I wanted to prove that I was strong enough to do something like that so badly. I wanted to prove, to you and Mom and even myself that I wouldn't let Wes get to me, that I could move on. Even though I was scared, I don't know if I would have turned back at that point."

Heero almost protested that he had nothing to prove to him, that he had admired his strength for such a long time, but he was scared that interrupting Duo at this point might make him stop talking.

"I didn't have the money to get a taxi and even if I had, I didn't want to risk being trapped in a cab."

Heero nodded, remembering how far Duo claimed Wes' reach was.

"I thought if I just stayed near people, nothing would happen. I've always known that Wes was crazy, but he always seemed too smart to risk getting caught. I decided to take a side street home because it was faster. It was a stupid decision. I knew Wes so well, but I had forgotten how much he knew me, too. It wouldn't have taken much for him to figure out that you and Mom left the country, especially if he was keeping tabs on us. I don't know how he knew I was going to walk home alone. Maybe he had prepared for all of us to be going together and just assumed we would be walking, but more likely he had someone in the school keeping tabs on me and they overheard us talking about it. I'm sure he figured out which route I'd take, the one that was the fastest."

"You bolt like a fucking deer, just a mindless animal whenever you're frightened. It's pathetic, but I guess I can't expect more from a stupid, feral beast."
Duo shuddered at Wes' voice in his head, harsh and mocking, yet another memory he would never shake, and hurriedly continued his narrative before Heero had the chance to ask him what was wrong.

"I thought that street would be safe. I almost didn't go down it, since it was nearly isolated, but there was a man sitting in his car. I thought he would help if anything happened. I don't know why I expected that," he said in a bitter tone that tore at Heero's heart, making him feel rage at the nameless man who had cracked the new faith in people that they had worked so hard to instill in Duo.

Duo thought about what might have happened that day if he had listened to his initial instincts that day and taken the long way around, but he knew there was no point in wondering what could have been, he might as well wonder what would have happened if he had never followed Wes to his apartment eight years ago for all the good it did him.

"Wes was waiting for me. He came up behind me and pressed a gun to my back. He ordered me to get into his car. I thought about going for my tazer, that I might have a chance if he didn't want to kill me, but I was too frightened to even try."

"I'm glad you were," Heero interrupted, unable to keep both the relief and the frustration out of his voice.

Duo stared at him in shock and Heero felt that frustration grow, that his friend was so concerned about not seeming like some weak coward and didn't understand how he felt.

"Duo, I know you have this... this need to prove your worth to us, to show us you are stronger than you were before, but you don't need to! You've pulled yourself out of a darkness that most people in that situation couldn't even fathom surviving. Every day you are with us is a testament of your strength and resolve. And I would never, ever, ever want you to risk your life for something like that! Giving in to save your life does not make you weak! And Wes telling you that he cares for you doesn't mean shit when it comes to your welfare!"

"I know that," Duo said softly, Heero's words making him blush.

He still wasn't entirely used to it, knowing that there were people who loved him so much, they were less concerned with his faults and all of his screw ups than his health and accomplishments.

'Wes said that he loved me, but all he ever did was profit off of me and show me that love when it was convenient. If it meant saving his own skin, would he have saved me or thrown me to the wolves?'

It was a question he would never get an answer to, but a question he would never need to ask Heero or his mom because he already their answers.

"I want to believe that Wes never would have tried to kill me if I had pulled my tazer on him, but I'm sure he would have. He had very nearly killed me hundreds of times since I was a kid. I told myself that that was in the past, that he loved me now, so he wouldn't take my life, but even then I knew that wasn't true. Wes was a survivor, I've never seen him hesitate to do whatever it took to get out of a life or death situation without a scratch. And when he got mad, no manner of reason could stop him. I feel like I should have fought back harder against him, but at the same time I know it would have just gotten me killed."

Heero felt a burst of pride for his best friend then. In the past, it would have taken a long time to get Duo to realize that not fighting back didn't mean the situation was his fault or it made him weak and pathetic, that surrendering was some times the best option for survival. He felt so proud that Duo had grown this much that he could come to that conclusion on his own and not let his guilt consume him. He was positive now that whatever had been eating at the boy this entire time had nothing to do with guilt at being abused again. This was something different.

"When we got to the car, I finally did panic. All I could think about was him making me disappear, like when I had run away from school, and never seeing you again. He slammed my head into some part of the car and injected me with a sedative. Whatever it was, it knocked me out in seconds and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the kitchen of the apartment, hand cuffed to the table. Wes was just sitting there, going through my book bag, like he owned everything in it, just like he used to own everything in my life. It made me so angry, that so little in my life had changed."

"That isn't true," Heero protested, "Men like Wes never really change, but you have. He doesn't own you, not your body or all of the hard work you've done since you left him. Him thinking that he does doesn't make it true."

Duo gently picked Shiva out of his lap and placed her on the bed next to him. She made a small noise of irritation at losing her comfortable place and jumped off the bed in annoyance. Duo bent his knees and hugged them to his chest, a vulnerable position that made Heero hurt to find some way to comfort him.

"I know that, I've known it for awhile now. But you need to understand this. My life with him... it broke me. Yes, he broke me deeply when he unchained me from his bed that time and told me that he loved me, but he broke me in little ways over the course of those eight years, bit by bit. When I got away from him, it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I was able to get perspective and see what it was like, having a family, having people that loved me. I was able to see the true extent to what Wes' abuse had done to me, in a way I hadn't been able to see before because I was so immersed in it.

"I told myself I could be strong, that I knew what was right, but when he came back for me, it was like all those things I felt before I came to live with you came flooding back. All my bad habits, all that darkness, it never went away, and Wes brought it all back. The worst thing wasn't him kidnapping me, taking me away from my family, it was going back to that apartment and not only remembering everything that I had tried so hard to forget, but living it all over again. All the things that I was so sure of, that I was going to live a better, healthier life, I had doubts about for the first time since I became a part of this family. You have no idea how much that hurt me and made me hate and doubt myself, and I don't want you to. Wes made me revert back to the person I used to be, or at least a shadow of that person, so quickly, it made me feel like nothing had changed."

Duo rubbed at his eyes, knowing full well that he was crying. He wasn't even at the hardest part yet. He glanced at his friend and saw tears on his face, too. It should have made him feel terrible for making Heero sad, but he felt happy that he cared about him that much to cry for him. Every time he saw those tears, it shocked him, realizing all over again the depth of their relationship. It gave him the strength to continue.

"He broke my phone. I had known how feeble hoping to be rescued was, but I still thought that it could be my ace in the hole, like in Boston. Wes always was smarter than Chris, smarter than anyone when it came to surviving and keeping his head above water. I had known it wouldn't be that easy, but loosing that lifeline almost did me in. He told me that I owed him my life for telling Chris not to kill us in Boston, and I knew it was true."

"Duo that's-" Heero started to refute that, but Duo refused to let him finish what he was about to say.

"It is true. Chris was about to slit my throat, and he was going to slit yours afterwards, that's just a fact. If Wes hadn't told him to leave us alone, we would both be dead," Duo said sternly, making Heero shudder, "I can accept that I owe the man my life, but I've also come to realize that I don't owe him my livelihood or my happiness, despite what he thought. When he insisted that he had owned me since I had been a child, and called you a mutt, I snapped. It was stupid of me to let him get to me over something like that, the worst thing I could have done was make him angry, and he was high strung as it was, but I couldn't handle it, him reminding me how much he used to control me, and his attitude about it... like I should be grateful for everything he did. I told him 'fuck you,' but it was enough to set him off.

"I had never said that to him, not ever in the eight years I had been with him. I'm lucky he didn't break any of my bones over it. If anyone else had said that to him, he would have broken their neck without any hesitation."

Heero felt himself shudder again at the reminder of the danger Duo had been in. He told himself that it was fine, Duo was alive, he had come back to them relatively unharmed, but it didn't help at all.

"He dragged me to a closet in the hall outside the kitchen, threw me in it, and locked the door," Duo's breath hitched at the admission.

The fear he had felt then when he had realized that Wes intended to lock him up in the dark again filled him. He had beaten him in the end, but just remembering how helpless he had been made him feel like a child and his hands shook, recalling that small, dark place. What it had felt like being in there, all alone, the silence, the isolation...

Duo felt himself start to hyperventilate like he had then, the panic attack coming swift and hard just from the mere memory of it. He clenched his fists and tried to gain control over it, trying to focus on the fading summer light coming from the window and the wide, spacious walls of his bedroom. Heero swept him onto his lap, hugging him tightly.

"Oh, god, Duo," his best friend said into his hair, his voice filled with the horror that Duo had been feeling, "I am so sorry."

That was right, Duo thought, Heero knew all about his phobia about dark places, he was one of the few people who really understood how being in that closet had made him feel. He was again struck by this contrast between his best friend and his father. Heero understood, just from him telling him that Wes had locked him in a closet. Wes hadn't. More than being unable to understand his fear, he had been disgusted by it.

"He kept me in there the entire time, I think," Duo murmured and Heero tightened his embrace, making it hurt a little but it felt so good to be so close to him that when he was remembering these things that Duo didn't care, "By the end of those five days, my fever was so bad I started to lose large spots of time, or at least I think that was what happened. There were no lights or windows, no way to tell if it was night or day or how long I had been there. All it was was darkness and Wes that entire time. He had done that to me before, when I was much younger as a part of my training. I was alone in the dark so long that when he finally opened the door to let me out, I was happy and grateful to see someone, to see him that I did everything he asked me to without hesitation. I don't know if he locked me in there to get me to react like that again, or to keep me contained or just to hurt me. I don't remember how I was going to the bathroom, or if my memories of him bathing me are real."

Heero continued to stroke his hair and tried to keep his rage under control. Wes hadn't just kidnapped the boy he loved, he had put him under sensory and social deprivation for almost a week. He was actually glad that Duo had gotten sick, that he had been too feverish to remember the entire nightmare. He hoped it had brought him some sort of peace, instead of being hyper aware all that time. Wes was a sick fuck. Heero had always known that, but the more Duo talked about him, the more Heero wanted to smash the prick's head in with his bare hands.

"Did he rape you?" Heero asked in a tone that was just above a whisper.

He didn't want to know the answer, even though he was already sure of it, and prayed that if Wes had, Duo didn't remember it. Duo hesitated with his answer.

'Can I even call this rape?'
"... Yes," he finally admitted and Heero felt his heart drop into his stomach, "When he came back into the closet, he tied me up with wire," Duo rubbed at the bandages on his arms and struggled speaking the rest of this memory, "He was... strange. I don't know how to describe it. He wasn't acting like himself. He was so rough when he tied me up, and he intentionally squeezed the surgical scars on my side, but then he apologized for hurting me there. I have never heard him apologize to anyone before, ever. I'm used to him beating me and taking whatever he wanted from me by force, but not that. And when he told me again that he loved me, it was worse than any other blow he could have dealt me. It was the most painful thing he could have done. It confused me. He confused me. I spent all this time choosing not to believe that it was true, that he had told me he loved me that first time to control me, but he was so sincere. Hearing him say that should have made me angry or happy, one or the other, but it killed me inside because I felt both of those things at the same time and I hated myself for it."

Heero felt his insides clench in guilt as he thought of his own feelings.

'That's not true,' he told himself, 'I'm not Wes, I'm not.'

"And when he made lo- ... when he raped me, for the first time in my life, he was gentle. Really gentle, and intimate, like he cherished me. It would have been better if he had brutalized me like Chris had. He said he missed me, and kissed me, and I started to wonder if..." his voice hitched and Duo realized he was crying again, "... if it was really rape, because some part of me did like it. It didn't hurt... it felt nice not for it to hurt for once. I still didn't want that from him, I still couldn't say no, but at the same time it felt good. He made it feel good. He could that, if he wanted to, and for once he actually did want to. The only thing that was the same as how he used to fuck me was the shame I felt.

"When he was done, he told me that he wanted me to stay with him forever. He used those exact words, that it was what he wanted. All my life, anything he wanted from me, he stole. He didn't need to ask, I was powerless and it was unlikely anyone was coming to save me, but he still asked. And then he..." Duo took a few deep breaths, trying to compose himself as his memories and feelings threatened to overwhelm him, "he promised me that if I chose to stay with him, he would never make me whore myself again. He said that I would be his, just his, he would give me anything and everything I would ever need. He said that we could even more away from here, anywhere I wanted to go. I didn't want to believe him, I wanted to believe he was lying to get me to be more compliant, but I knew that he was telling the truth. He was prepared to give up everything, his entire life, just to be with me.

"All I could think about when said that was how I had been before I had met you, and what that person had wanted, what that person would have said. Before I met you, if Wes had told me that he loved me and wouldn't make me be a prostitute anymore, I would have agreed to go with him in a heart beat."

For a moment, Heero felt a surge of jealousy before common sense came crashing back down on him and he realized all the things that Duo wasn't saying.

"You aren't worth that little," he said.

Duo's startled expression hurt and it made Heero ache to know that his best friend used to feel like that every day of his life, that he was worthless and whatever scraps threw him, whether it be food, shelter, healthcare, or even love, it was more than he deserved.

"Whatever Wes felt for you, it wasn't good enough for you," Heero said in conviction, and hated that those words brought fresh tears to Duo's eyes, even if those tears were happy ones, ones of love, because he shouldn't need to say such things to confirm them for his friend, "He made you wait eight years to tell you he loved you, and he only told you that to make sure you would stay tied to him, even though he probably cared for you for a long time. You've told me how cunning and smart Wes is, and how well he knows you. He knew how much those words meant to you, how much you needed to hear them, but he didn't say them until it served his purpose.

"For eight years, he forced the boy he loved to have sex with strangers for money, to be raped and degraded. For eight years, he raped you, beat you, tortured you. He said he loves you, yet he only gave you one pleasant sexual experience after thousands of brutal rapes, and even then he still raped you. He had the power to show you that so-called love he supposedly feels, but he never did, he never comforted you or tried to make things better until he lost you. Does that sound like someone who really loves you?"

Heero thought he might have pushed a little too hard in his anger at Wes and his desperation to make Duo understand the truth when he started to sob, but the longhaired boy clutched at his shirt and rested his head against his chest, making Heero's heart race.

�No,� Duo cried, �I know he never really loved me, I know that he told me too late. If he had said it before you moved here, I would have chosen him, because I had nothing else. Just him, and his idea of love would have been better than the nothing I�ve had my entire life! But I met you... and Mom... and Quatre and Trowa and Wufei... I learned what love is from people who really care for me, so how could he ever be enough for me? How could I ever choose him over you?�

Duo buried his face in his hands, his cries sounding like they were actually causing him physical pain.

�That�s why I�m so ashamed,� he sobbed out, �I hate myself so much!�

�Duo, you have nothing to be ashamed of!� Heero grabbed Duo�s wrists and pulled his hands from his face so he could look at him. The self-loathing and agony on the violet boy�s face was like a blow to Heero�s gut.

�Yes, I do,� Duo said hatefully and the truth of that shame was horrible to the older boy.

�Why?� Heero demanded, �You knew that he couldn�t love you like you needed, you knew what a monster he was, that there was no way you were going to go with him...�

Duo took a shuddering breath. He had thought that telling Heero he was a killer was going to be the hardest part of this... but this was impossible. All the self-hatred he had felt in that closet and in the hospital when he had been reunited with his family was coming back in a tidal wave.

�Because I almost told him yes!� he finally managed to get out and Heero�s look of shock became a dagger in his heart.

Duo took a few breaths to calm himself so he didn�t start screaming or have a panic attack before continuing.

�I told him no,� he whispered like it was a horrible secret, and for so long it had been, �but inside, I didn�t know. For five days, I didn�t know! I should have, any sane person would have known the answer, that a life with you and Mom, or a life with him, that was no contest! But when he tried to make me choose, I couldn't. I love you, and I loved him. After everything he did to me, and after all you've done for me, I couldn't choose! I hate myself for that, for being unable to stand up to him, for being so dependent on him. I latched on to him like some kind of leech. I let him abuse me by being too weak to decide what I really wanted, what I really needed. I let down the people that love me, and I let myself down when it really counted. How can I ever forgive myself?! I'm no better than he was!"

Heero cupped Duo's face in his hands, stopping his tirade which had grown into a frantic, almost senseless screaming.

"Duo, I want you to listen to me very carefully. You did not let us down and we are not ashamed of you for being unable to decide. Of course I wish that choice had come easy for you, but only because it would have saved you heartache. You have always been conflicted about Wes, and I have never expected that to change soon, if at all. You've grown enough that you see the damage he's done and want to change, that's more than I could have ever hoped for.

"You spent most of your life with him. You formed a bond with him, and that bond will always be there, he will always be there, whether you want him to be or not. It's terrible and I would give anything to erase him from your life, but there's nothing anyone can do about it. I wish that you never had to make that choice, but it was inevitable. You came back to us... even if you still have feelings for him, you still made that choice, that's all that matters. You didn't betray us or yourself just because some part of you wanted to go with him."

Heero let go of Duo's face and Duo searched his for some hint that he was lying, that he really did hate him, but there was nothing. Only love and relief and Duo knew he was right. In the end, he had made his choice, and despite the circumstances, he wanted to believe it had been the right one. Even if it had come on the end of a knife.

Heero saw that his words had eased some of that self-loathing in his friend and felt relieved. He had meant every word he had said. He would never fully understand Duo's relationship with Wes, but he saw the pain that it brought him, and how he hated that he was still so connected to him. Wes was right, they would always be connected, there was nothing any of then could do to stop that. But the man hadn't realized that what connected Duo to him also connected Duo to them, and there was nothing the thug could do to change that. Duo might feel conflicted about his abuser, if he should hate him or love him, but Heero knew that no matter what Wes did, Duo would always come back to them.

"How badly did he hurt you when you told him no?" Heero asked, not wanting Duo to dwell on his self-loathing anymore and worried how his rapist had retaliated to being turned down.

"He grabbed me by the neck and pressed his knife against my throat. I was so sure I was going to die then... I thought that, after getting so lucky in Boston, there was no way I was going to escape it this time. All my life, I'd been waiting for him to kill me and belied it was inevitable," Heero felt his stomach churn at those words, not wanting to think about the boy he loved resigning himself to that fate, living with that kind of darkness in his head for so long, "But I was wrong. He didn't cut me... it was like he couldn't. He looked so angry at himself for it, but he didn't so much as nick me. It wasn't one of his mind games, I think whatever feelings he had for me finally got to him. He had no problem raping me and beating me, but he couldn't force himself to kill me. Instead, he offered me one last chance, he told me he would untie me and let me out of the closet if I agreed to stay with him. I was so tempted, not just because a part of me wanted to stay with him, but because I knew if I didn't do what he wanted he was going to lock me in there for a very long time and this was probably going to be my last chance to get out. But I still told him no."

"Why?" Heero asked, "You weren't sure of what you wanted, so why give him such a definitive answer, especially when it was making him so angry?"

"I might not have known what I wanted," Duo said, "or even what I should do... if leaving with him would protect you guys or it would save everyone, including myself, a lot of heartache in the end, or just disappearing like that would do more damage than it could prevent, but I couldn't tell him yes either. I didn't want to lose him and all the things that had been my childhood, but I didn't want to lose my new family and new life either. Looking back, I probably should have told him yes," Duo rushed his words before Heero could panic about that, "not because there was a part of me that wanted to, but because I should have tried to trick him into believing I would cooperate, then try to escape. But I was panicked about where I was and everything Wes had said to me and how he was acting, it didn't occur to me that I should do something like that while I still had my strength, before it was too late. Even if I had thought of it, I would have been too scared to try, too scared to even say those words, that the truth of them might come out and that part of me would win. I didn't even dare.

"He locked me in there and didn't come back all night. At least I think it was night. I only slept because I was so shell shocked, and even then I was too uncomfortable with how I was tied up and had too many nightmares to get any kind of rest. The longer I spent in that damned closet, the more and more confused I was when I woke up. I kept forgetting where and when I was. And every time Wes opened that door, I was just so happy to see him, it wasn't helping me to make a decision.

"I hated myself every time I felt happy about it. I hated him for doing that to me again, but I couldn't stop feeling that way. All those days, I just kept waffling between finding things that I loved about him, and remembering how pale that love was compared to what I feel for you and Mom, but it was never enough to help me. But even as I kept coming back to memories of when Wes was nice to me, those rare moments when he really had been my father, some part of me knew I could never have a life with him, not like I can have a life here, and it kept reminding me of that, I just didn't want to listen, because I knew that if I did, I would lose him forever, and my past. That possibility was too frightening for me.

"I think I was only able to keep my sanity in there because Wes was so obsessed with this idea that the reason why I was telling him no was that I didn't believe he loved me. He thought that if he could make me believe in him, I would surrender. He never realized that I did believe him, it was just never enough, his idea of love. I don't know how I would have reacted if he had treated me like he usually had, if it would have helped me, something familiar like that, or if the abuse would have made it worse.

"He was nice to me, as nice as a monster like him was capable of. He didn't drug me or try to use physical force to persuade me. The first time I woke up, I panicked and cut my arms on the wire. He used leather cuffs on me after that so I wouldn't hurt myself. He even got me a pillow and some blankets so I could sleep better. And when my loneliness overwhelmed me enough to ask him to stay with me when I slept, he did."

Duo's voice was heavy with guilt in every word he spoke, nad that infernal self-loathing again, but Heero didn't know how to make him see that it was completely understandable that he would rely on and cling to Wes like that. He might have hated the man for putting him in that closet, but he was the only human contact the teenager had had for almost a week. He had been his only source of companionship, food, comfort, and care, and Heero knew what the dark did to his friend, how low it laid him. He didn't blame him for needing Wes, he just hated that his friend had to feel that kind of pain, that he went through something that terrible. He held the other boy's hand, his words failing him, but Duo gave his hand a squeeze to show how much he appreciated it.

"I got sick in there pretty quickly. I kept confusing what was happening with what happened when Wes had chained me to his bed that time, so much of it was the same; the dark, being unable to move, the fatigue, the loss of time, and how I kept drifting in and out of frequent naps. I wasn't sleeping well, or for long periods of time, but I also quickly lost the ability to stay away for a long time, which only made me feel more lost and disoriented. I would have done any sort of disgusting or degrading thing Wes had wanted me to do just for a peek at his watch or to know what day of the week it was.

"When I was awake, I thought the tedium would drive me crazy. I got into the habit of taking naps before I got sick simply so I wouldn't have to hear my own thoughts anymore. I sang and talked to myself, anything to pass the time before Wes came in again, but then I developed a cough, so that stopped. I cried a lot the first few days I was in there, but then I got so sick it made it too hard to breathe.

"Wes didn't make it any easier. He didn't have any kind of schedule that would have helped me to keep track of time or predict when he was going to 'visit' me. He came and went at different times. He would disappear for long periods of time, come in to rape me, leave, come back in hours later to feed me, and then disappear again. Each time he opened that door or I heard him walking around, I felt excited and scared at the same time.

"After awhile, I started to doubt that any of it was real. Then, I started to doubt that you were real; this house, Mom... everything good that has happened to me since Wes released me from his bed. I got this idea in my head that you never found me after that, that Wes hadn't released me at all. It started as just a fear, a doubt in my head between the sensory deprivation and fever, then I truly started to believe it."

As Duo recounted his near mental breakdown, Heero felt him start to press further and further against him, as though that doubt still remained and he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't true. Heero wiped the fresh tears from Duo's cheeks and the younger boy closed his eyes, shivering at the warm realness of Heero's skin.

"I was so used to the dark," he whispered, "and pain and being scared and miserable, I became so sure that those memories of love and light and home could not possibly be real. I fell back into that old thinking pattern so easily, that there was no way anyone could love me."

Heero felt himself start to cry again, too, envisioning Duo in that dark, lonely place, believing once again that he was alone, unloved, worthless, and had no hope of a better life. Worse, he had had a taste of what love was supposed to feel like, only to have it ripped from him for that small amount of time. Even one second was too long, Heero never wanted his friend to feel like that again. He couldn't even imagine the emotional turmoil such a belief had put him through, and he hated Wes for it more than he had ever believed he could possibly hate someone. The bastard hadn't beaten or physically harmed his friend much, but he had taken his pound of flesh and then some from Duo's heart.

"It made the choice Wes was trying to force me to make harder. I couldn't even trust that there was a choice, that my memories of a family that was waiting for me to come home weren't something that I had come up with because I was so desperate for one. I kept thinking that maybe it would be better if I stayed with him, because he was the only one who loved me. Better to be loved by a monster than no one at all. I tried to tell myself that the way WEs had been treating me wasn't so bad, it was certainly better than how he had before, and I felt like Wes was the only person I could rely on to never leave me or abandon me. He was the only person in my life that was always there, no matter what."

Heero felt those words rip at his heart, that he couldn't claim to be that person that had always been by Duo's side, remembering with agony how he had struck him and abandoned him when he had learned that he had been having sex with Zechs.

"But every time I thought those things, I heard your voice in my head telling me I deserved better than him. Even if my memories were a lie, the way they made me feel was real. And even though Wes hadn't hurt me like I'd though he would, he was still hurting me, still abusing me. Even though I could admit to that, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't commit to telling him yes, but I was too weak to fight him. I felt like I was going to be trapped there forever.

"I even had a moment when I thought that I should go with Wes even if you were real, because I had grown so tired of fighting him, of struggling against him. I just wanted it to be all over with. Then I would have these moments where I remembered all the horrible things Wes had done to me since I was seven years old and all I could feel for him was hatred, and at myself for being unable to truly decide not to be with him. All the rapes, forcing drugs on me, cutting up my feet and almost smashing my head in... It was remembering those things that let me realize my memories couldn't possibly be dreams or hallucinations."

"Your eye sight," it dawned on Heero.

Duo nodded.

"I've been wearing glasses ever since my vision started to go. It's something that Wes would never bother trying to fix. It was hard at first, since I couldn't see anything in the closet and the light when he opened the door would make my vision blurry, but there were also my surgical scars. Those times, he had hurt me so badly, and he hadn't even cared that I could have died. How could I believe that he loved me? And while I remembered those awful things, I realized that even without the scars and my improved vision, my memories of a better life had to be real.

"I remembered your smile and that day on the beach when you told me how much you care for me, that I'm your best friend and how you want the best for me. I remembered how hard Trowa and Quatre tried to be there for me during that time when we weren't talking to each other. I remembered how you all risked your lives to protect me when Wes tried to abduct me at work and how angry Wufei was at himself for being unable to 'avenge' me. I remembered everything your mother has done for me since the day she took me in, all the little things this family has given me every single day of my life.

"And I realized how incapable I had been of even dreaming of these things before I found you. I was so surrounded by darkness, so lost and alone, I hadn't been able to think up all these wonderful things because I had no idea what a family was supposed to be like. Even when I had been bound to Wes' bed and I had dreamed of this house, I had known it wasn't real because those dreams were so pale in comparison to the small taste I had had when I had slept over here. My feelings back then were so pale in comparison to the love you guys make me feel. There was no way I could be mistaken about those things. It was such a relief, to realize those things. It gave me hope that I could escape, that I could make my choice."

"And you did," Heero assured him, feeling a brilliant warmth in his own heart as Duo spoke about how this strange little family they had formed made him feel, "You made your choice, and you escaped. But how? If you were that sick..."

"Because of Wes," Duo told him, "ironically. I was really bad off, Heero. I didn't just have a flu or a cold. Whatever I had picked up while I was off my medication gave me a fever so bad, I became delirious. I don't know if half the things I remember when my fever spiked were illusions or memories, I can only assume based on what I know about Wes and what little I can piece together when the fever started to leave. I was getting these weird bruises all over my body, even places that Wes hadn't touched me, and where he did the bruises were the worst even though he hadn't grabbed me hard enough to leave marks like that. And I would have these moments of apathy where I could barely care enough to sit up.

"It worried Wes enough that he went out and got antibiotics for me. They were the ones that I'm supposed to take if something like that ever happens, but it was just a coincidence that Wes got the right ones. If it hadn't been for those pills, I probably would have just gotten worse and worse. As it was, escape was impossible, not just because I was weak and sick, but the delirium made it impossible for me to form a coherent thought. The antibiotics got rid of the worst of my fever, and the delirium with it. I still felt like shit, and the food that Wes was feeding me wasn't helping me keep my strength up, he was too smart for that, but I didn't feel like I was living in a fog anymore.

"It gave me clarity when I really needed it, not just to think about ways I could escape, but just how fucked up in the head I am. I kept debating with myself about who I wanted to spend my life with, Wes or you and Mom. I kept thinking that Wes was my past, he had saved me from the streets and had given me an identity, even if he had continuously hurt me and made my life hell.

"The more I thought about it, the more I could realize that I didn't owe him anything, that the longer I stayed with me, the more of myself I was loosing. And even if I did go with him, I wasn't the same person that I was, because of you, and Wes was just going to try to change me back, which could never happen. If I stayed with him, sooner or later, he was going to kill me, that was just a fact. With you, in this life, I'm happy, with Wes, even those rare moments when he could make me happy, it was always tinged with fear and self-disgust. I didn't want to feel like that anymore.

"I had only loved Wes because he had manipulated me to and I hadn't had anyone else in my life to love. I'll always have those feelings, and I'll always be connected to him, but I realized that he isn't the only person in my life anymore, and whenever I think about home, it's never his face that I see. I was thinking of being unable to let him go, when I should have been thinking of how much I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with him. All this time, I only thought of the past, so I was unable to let go."

Duo paused to take a breath, his voice still rough from not using it and this tell-all was taking its toll on him. There was still so much he had experienced in that closet that he wouldn't tell his friend, some he didn't need to say, and others he was too ashamed to say, even with some of the embarrassing things he was confessing now. How could he tell Heero all of his doubts, all of the mental circles his feelings he had put him through, remembering Wes threatening to cut his knees, and the true depths of his shame? And it was time to tell him the worst of it, the most terrible thing he had ever done... and he was struggling to find the strength to say it.

'Just do it. Say it and get it over with, tell him the truth.'
"I remember feeling very angry," he murmured, "I examined all these things about our relationship, trying to find a reason to stay with him, but all it did was rub all the wrongness in my face, how he had preyed on me all those years, all the things he had stolen from me. At the end of it, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing left there for me. It would all be the same, everything I had run away from. I couldn't do it and I hated him so much for bringing me back there, to that apartment and that mindset. You taught me I shouldn't hate myself for the past, but there I was, loathing myself all over again just for being back there for a few days.

"I couldn't go back to my old life because I had killed it the moment I had come home to you. I had already made that choice months ago. I had always seen myself as powerless, and I had put the responsibility for my welfare in the hands of a monster. But it wasn't his responsibility, it was mine and I needed to start taking care of myself. So, I decided that I was going to do whatever it took to escape from there and come back home.

"I was still very sick. There were things wrong with me that just a couple of pills of antibiotics weren't going to cure and I knew that the longer I put it off, the weaker I was going to get. As it was, there wasn't much hope that I could escape. I came up with a plan. It wasn't a very good one, but I was lucky I could even think that logically at that point. I didn't have the time to execute it, though. In order to escape, I had to get the cuffs off, so I started to rub them against this jagged edge on the door hinge. I was stupid, I should have waited until he had gone to sleep, but I didn't know what time of day it was, or if I would have the strength to do any of what I had planned to do by then. I had barely gotten halfway through the cuffs when Wes came into the closet."

Heero felt his heart stop. He realized that Duo was rushing through this part of the narrative, which meant he was telling him something he knew he didn't want to hear. Duo was here, he was safe and healthy, but he still felt anxious, wanting desperately to know what Wes had done and having this feeling at the pit of his stomach that Duo was about to tell him something awful.

"I hadn't cut through enough of the leather to make any kind of difference, but enough that Wes could see what I had tried to do. He was beyond furious. He struck me in the face and slammed my head into the wall. It was just like when he had done that to me as a kid, I couldn't move afterwards. I'm incredibly lucky he didn't hit that bad spot in my skull, and that I didn't black out. Given how incredibly angry he was, I'm lucky he didn't kill me.

His inability to do it before didn't mean anything, I knew that he was going to punish me for as hard and as long as he wanted to, and how much he 'loved' me wouldn't factor into it, not as angry as he was. Worse, I knew I had just lost my shot to sneak out of there. But I was desperate, I decided that I was going to either get out of there somehow or die trying. There was only one other trick I could try, I lied to him. I told him yes, that I would go with him. He told me that if I tried anything, he would slit my throat, and in that moment, I didn't doubt that he would. I was tired of fighting him and I think he was, too. He cut the cuffs off with his knife. I took a moment to gather my strength and let him think that I wasn't going to do anything, then I kicked him in the throat as hard as a I could."

Heero felt a moment of victory for his friend. He didn't think that Duo had ever actually hit or fought against Wes before except for when he had saved Wufei's life when he had hit the bastard with that tree branch. But the look on Duo's face was far from victorious, he looked pale, like he was about to faint.

"I thought that if I could catch him off guard, if I hit him in the throat hard enough and left him gasping for air, it would give me the chance to make it to the front door at least. I didn't even make it halfway there. Even while he was struggling to breathe, Wes was still in control, still steady, unlike me," Duo started to shake, his breathing coming faster and harsher, "I should have done something in that one second when he was off balance, hit him over the head to knock him out, grabbed the knife he dropped, locked him in the closet, something!"

"Duo," Heero grabbed him by the shoulders before he could get started, "Whatever happened, it isn't your fault because you made some kind of... misstep! You said it yourself, you were panicking, and you didn't even have the time to make it to the door, what could you have possibly done in that measure of time? Wes thought you were weak, he even laughed in Wufei's face when he had that gun to his head, do you really think he would have let you keep the knife if you had gotten to it? And for all you know, he could have had a gun on him. You didn't have the strength to knock him out all by yourself and if you had locked him in, which you probably wouldn't have had the time to do, do you really think it would have contained him?"

Duo thought of the night Wes had nearly bashed his head in, how easily he had broken through that bathroom door, and shuddered.

"No, he would have gotten through it faster than I could have gotten the chain off the front door, it wasn't that thick," he admitted.

"Then don't blame yourself," Heero insisted, "You did exactly what any self defense teacher would tell you to do. You focused on getting out of there, it isn't your fault that the man is such a monster he could still think logically after getting kicked in the throat. Whatever he did, it isn't your fault, there was nothing you could have done in that short of time to prevent it. Now, what happened next?"

Duo appreciated his friend trying to keep him on track, but he felt completely petrified, every part of himself not wanting to do this. He wanted to lie. He wanted to tell Heero that he had gotten to the knife and stabbed Wes in the shoulder or leg or arm, anything but the truth, and that was what had allowed him to escape. But he couldn't. He had promised he would tell the truth, even if this was the last time his best friend would ever hold him again.

"He grabbed me by my hair and threw me back into the closet. I remember falling on my back and then suddenly he was on top of me. He had his hands around my throat and just started to squeeze. I realized that this was too much, that he had to realize that I was never going to go with him and that it would be easier to just kill me. Or he was just so enraged about my disobedience that it wasn't even a conscious thought."

Heero's hands twitched with the need to hold his friend tightly. The image of Duo's neck in the hospital, black bruises in the form of large hands, came to him. How many times were they going to come this close to losing him?

"But then I thought, what if he doesn't kill me? And really, that possibility was much more terrible to me. I had lost my last chance to escape from him, he was either going to kill me or he wasn't, he was just going to keep me in that dark closet forever, until I went mad. So I... I... I found his knife in the dark and I stabbed him with it."

Duo's words came out in such a quick rush that Heero had a moment when he thought that he had misheard him.

"Duo..." he started to say.

"I killed him!" Duo nearly screamed, "I stabbed him and he died... I'm a murderer just like he is!"

He had spent all this time trying not to think about what he had done, all this time being so terrified of telling the truth that saying those words was like expunging blades or barbed wire from his body. Every word hurt, the truth was pure agony. He saw Wes' face in his mind again, that look of confusion.

"Duo, slow down!" Heero demanded even as his thoughts whirled in his head like a tornado.

Duo had killed Wes? That couldn't be true... Duo didn't have it in him to kill someone.

'But this is Wes...'

For a moment, Heero was horrified. Duo's face was white, his eyes so large he looked like a child, and he couldn't deny what Duo was saying. He wanted to ask him if he was sure, but he knew he was. There was no way his friend would look this terrible if he was only partially sure he had killed his abuser. It dawned him then, he had been so focused on what Duo had been telling him all this time, and not how he was saying it. He had been talking about Wes in the past tense this entire time, and even though Duo was always so deliberate in his language from years of barely knowing how to speak, he had stupidly thought nothing of it. Then, little by little, elation started to worm it's way into his heart.

'Wes is dead,' he thought, and then just as quickly as it came, that happiness left him and was replaced by a deep sadness, 'and Duo killed him. Oh, Duo...'

How could he feel happy by such a thing? Most people would be happy to hear that that piece of filth was dead, and Heero himself had wished that he would drop dead a countless amount of times, but he never ever wanted Duo to be the one that did it. Did it make him a terrible person that he actually hoped that Wes had survived it? That that monster was still alive, if only to spare his friend some pain?

"Please, slow down," Heero said more calmly, "What do you mean you stabbed him? Where?"

Duo shook, almost hyperventilating, but the calmness in Heero's eyes helped him catch his breath. Didn't his friend understand what he was telling him? He had just confessed that he was a murderer but Heero just wanted the details!

"In the throat," he said in pain, "I felt the handle of the knife on the ground next to me. I grabbed it and I lashed out at him with it. It hit him in the throat. It... it went all the way in..."

"How could you have known what it was?" Heero asked incredulously, echoing the same denial that Duo had clung to until he had realized the truth.

Duo felt an intense frustration that Heero wasn't understanding what he was telling him. Didn't he get it, he had killed Wes in cold blood! He pulled his foot up into his lap so Heero could see the scarred over slashes that covered the bottom of it.

"Because it's the same knife he used to do this to me! It's the same knife he's always used! I know what that handle looks like, I know what it feels like! I knew exactly what I was doing! I plunged that knife into his throat! I could have stabbed him anywhere else, just to get him off of me, but I didn't!"

"He was choking you," Heero pointed out, "you were reacting to him almost killing you! It was just self-defense-"

"No!" Duo yelled, "You don't understand! He let go!"

Heero stared at the other boy in shock as he started to calm down, tears streaming down his cheeks, looking more like a reanimated corpse than his friend. He wanted to tell him to stop, seeing the kind of toll just telling him about this was putting on his friend, but he couldn't. He needed to hear this and maybe Duo needed to tell him.

"He let go of my throat," Duo whispered, "I kept thinking, what if he doesn't kill me, what if he just keeps me alive, but always on the brink of death, like things were back when I lived with him? I couldn't handle that. I couldn't handle thinking that he would go on destroying peoples' lives, that he would drive me to death one day, and he would do the same thing to some other kid to replace me, that he would even kill you and Mom and our friends so I wouldn't have any more reasons to tell him no. And in that moment, I hated him so much.

"I hated him for everything he ever did to me, I hated him for everything that he was, even the part of him that loved me. I wished he had killed me because that would have been the end of it, and I loathed that he decided not to, that he wasn't done fucking with me. That's when I found the knife. I told myself later that I had done it to protect myself, that I just wanted to get him off of me, but I know now that isn't the truth. Deep down, I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me. I wanted to attack him, to have power over him for once in our fucked up relationship.

"And I wanted it to end, this struggle between us. I let my rage control me, and I stabbed him. It was the most horrible moment of my life, and I'll never forgive myself for it, because in that moment when that blade went into his flesh and he looked so... so confused at what was happening, like how I looked whenever he did something sick and disgusting and hurtful to me, I was happy. When he pulled the blade out and all of his blood came pouring out of him, it was horrifying, and I was happy."

Duo stumbled out of Heero's lap, pushing himself back towards the other end of the bed like he didn't want Heero to touch him and hugged his knees to his chest. He felt like he was going to throw up just remembering all of it.

Heero watched him like he wasn't even there, his lost expression mirroring Duo's almost exactly. He felt like none of this was real, that he was dreaming. He couldn't even imagine how his friend was feeling. He didn't know how to feel about anything that Duo had just said. He wanted to feel happy knowing that Wes had finally gotten what had been coming to him after all these years, but he couldn't without feeling horrified that Duo had been the one to do it and suffer for it. He wanted to feel that horror, too, that Duo had been the one to kill the same man he had confessed to loving, but he didn't blame him. He wanted to believe that his friend had only done it to protect himself, but he couldn't do that without discounting the rage that Duo said he had felt. All of those things were true, and he couldn't discredit a single one of them. And he didn't know what to say to his friend to make it better for him.

"All of my life with him," Duo whispered, sniffling like a child as he continued to cry, but couldn't seem to stop talking, "I saw him do the most terrible things. He raped kids like me, stole, tortured people... I saw him kill so many people. Some of them were people he worked with that had crossed him or weren't good enough to be in his organization anymore, but most of them were innocent people, kids, parents, cops, people that wanted to help... He killed all of them, a lot of them with the same knife I killed him with.

"I should feel happy that he's dead, or at least relieved, and some part of me does, but most of me just hates myself and misses him. I killed him in cold blood, and I'm still fucked up enough to miss him. All of those years, I promised myself that no matter how much of my humanity I lost, no matter what he made me do, I would never become him. I would never take a human life for him or because of him, I would never take that last step...

"That's what I told Wufei when he said he wished he could have killed Wes for me, that I didn't want the man dead, that I would never take a life and that if I ever did, I would no longer be a human being. I should have been the one to die! So how, how could I have killed him?! How can I forgive myself and how can I expect you to forgive me for turning out just like him?! You've said how much you hate him for what he did to me, so how can I live with myself knowing that you feel that way about me?"

Heero practically lunged forward to sit in front of Duo, pressing his hands to the wall on either side of him, trapping him so he couldn't escape. It was wrong, and he hated the shocked expression on his friend's face like he had just assaulted him, startling him like that, but right now he didn't care.

"Don't tell me how I feel," Heero said angrily, "I'm not going to cry over that man's death and I'm happy he's dead. I wish you hadn't had to have been the one to do it, I would give anything, do anything so you wouldn't have to have that kind of burden, but you did. You killed him, but that doesn't make you him! You will never be him, do you understand me?!"

Duo opened his mouth to protest, but Heero was having none of it.

"You aren't him, Duo, and you aren't a cold blooded killer. You killed the prick that abducted you, raped you, mutilated you, tortured you. You say that it wasn't self-defense, but that's exactly what it was! He made your life hell. If you felt rage enough to lash out at him, he was the one that caused that anger to begin with! You're a murderer, but that doesn't make you less than human. You're human, he will never take that from you. And I do not hate you. I will never hate you, especially not for this."

"How?!" Duo demanded, "How do you not understand this? I took a life!"

"Yes, you did," Heero confirmed, "Did you like it? Did you like seeing the light leave his eyes, to know that you stole his life from him? Did it make you happy to have his blood all over you, to have that kind of power, not because he hurt you, but simply because it felt good?"

"No!" Duo yelled, his stomach churning, "No, no, it makes me sick inside!"

"Then how are you like him?" Heero asked in a softer tone, feeling himself start to calm down.

Duo blinked at him, as though he couldn't quite understand.

"You say you never wanted to be like him, and you aren't. He pushed you to the brink, and then forced you even further. You don't get to say that you're him, or that we all should hate you for it. Maybe he wasn't in the middle of killing you, maybe you had a choice whether or not where to stab him, but you aren't like him. You enjoyed killing him as revenge for all the horrible things he did to you, not because you enjoy killing. You just said so, that he killed so many people, and most of them didn't deserve it. He hurt people because it made him feel good.

"You hurt one person, the one person who hurt you and broke you. You bottled up your rage at him for so long in order to survive, how can you be surprised that it finally came out all at once, and directed itself at him? You want me to be mad at you? I can't be. You are still my friend and you still went through something terrible. I don't see you as anything less than the person you have always been," Heero pulled him into a tight hug.

Duo fought against the contact for a moment, but it was impossible to resist it for long and he quickly melted into the embrace. He felt like his heart was bleeding inside of him. He wanted to tell Heero to stop, that he was a killer, and he needed to hate him, he had to, but his friend's words sunk into him. He couldn't tell Heero how to feel, couldn't make him hate him. He didn't understand any of it, but Heero didn't hate him. He was still holding him like this.

"Why?" he finally managed to get out past the tears.

"Because I know how it feels," Heero reminded him with love in his voice, "to let your rage control you. But you never hated me either, did you?"

In an instant, Duo felt all of his fear about losing his best friend leave him as he sobbed in his arms.

"I promise, no matter what happens, I'll be here and I'll give you anything you need to deal with this," the Japanese boy promised.

Duo didn't say anything, feeling as drained as he had ever felt in his life.

"I don't understand you," he murmured.

"You don't need to," Heero stroked his hair, "All you need to understand is that I'm your friend and I've got your back, just like always. Nothing has changed between us. You're home, that's all that matters to me. I know you well enough to know that you won't forgive yourself for this, but it happened and you can't change it, we'll deal with that, too, ok?"

Duo nodded and pressed his head against Heero's chest. He didn't know what he wanted to do more, cry or laugh. He had worried for so long about how Heero would react to this. He had imagined him being angry and ashamed at him, of hating him, or forgiving him, but that anger would always be there, that disappointment. He hadn't thought that the other boy would just... not have a problem with what he did, that he would find it understandable. He couldn't fathom that.

"Don't tell me how I feel."

He couldn't understand it, but Heero didn't hate him. He couldn't help his own feelings anymore than he could try to make Heero see how awful what he had done was, not when he was the only one feeling that way. He wished that he could accept how Heero saw things, that it was understandable, but he just felt so relieved that he still had his friend. He let all of his sadness, all of his regret and horror pour out as he cried, clinging to Heero like a child. His friend didn't interrupt him or say anything, he just stroked his back until Duo didn't have anymore tears left in him.

"Did anyone see you?" he asked as the longhaired boy started to calm down, "When you killed Wes or after?"

He wanted to just keep holding Duo forever, to let him rest in his arms like this until everything was all better, but now that he had gotten it across to him that he still cared for him, Heero was starting to worry about the consequences of all this. While Duo could worry about how their family would take all of this, something that not even Heero was entirely sure of, he was thinking of the knife he had pried from Duo's fingers that night, and the bloody clothes they had tossed at the hospital. Duo was too overwhelmed to think about those things, and Heero was happy to worry about them for him. He sure as hell wasn't going to let the boy he loved go to jail over this, even if that was what the longhaired boy wanted. He sighed in relief as Duo shook his head, rubbing tiredly at his wet eyes.

"I... I don't think so. We were all alone in the apartment. I don't remember much about after, I was too far gone. I just remember thinking that everything would be ok as soon as I found you again, that you would make it better. I don't remember anyone seeing me on the way home, and if they did, they didn't go to the police about it or I would be in jail right now. I'm not even sure anyone has found his body yet."

"Can't we assume that someone did?" Heero asked in confusion, "It's been almost two weeks now. Wouldn't someone have checked up on him?"

"I doubt it," Duo said, "Wes was a very private person. When he did conduct business out of the apartment, he would always call his associates first to let them know that they were needed, never the other way around. We didn't have any neighbors except for the Chinese restaurant and everyone steered clear of Wes anyway, so even if someone had noticed that he wasn't coming and going out of the place, they wouldn't call the cops over it. Wes always kept the door locked, and Chris is the only other person with a key, so anyone else would have to break the door down anyway.

"Chris is also the only person that Wes allowed to just show up out of the blue at the place, but I think they had some kind of falling out after Boston. At least, I don't think Wes told him he had abducted me and I didn't hear him there. If he finds Wes dead, I don't know what he'll do. He was always incredibly loyal to the man, but I think if he figures out it was me, and that I'm back with you guys, he won't come after me. Chris was never as smart as Wes, but he never liked taking risks unless it was something Wes ordered him to do. Unless one of his associates found him, we would have heard about his death on the news by now anyway. Wes was untouchable, legally, but the local police know who he is, and his reputation."

"Good," Heero nodded, "If there's no one who saw you that is willing to talk to the cops, I doubt anyone will pin the murder on you. You're not in the system, so your DNA can't be traced, and even if they did, without the murder weapon, I don't think they can prove you killed him."

"You don't think I should go to jail for what I did?" Duo asked softly, "I'm a criminal-"

"No," Heero said sternly, "I don't think you should go to jail. You committed a crime, yes, but you've paid for it in years of pain and suffering. Wes got what he deserved as far as I'm concerned, you going to jail would be pointless. And I'm not giving you up, even if you think you deserve some kind of punishment. I'll lock you in your room if I have to."

That made Duo smile a little, imagining Heero going to such lengths just to keep Duo from incriminating himself.

"I'll lie if anyone asks me about it," Heero said with conviction, "I'll even lie to Mom, Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei if you want me to."

"No," Duo shook his head, "I want them to know what I did. They need to know. All of you are my family and I don't want this to be this... huge, terrible secret between us. Even if they hate me for it."

Heero wanted to tell him that they wouldn't, but he honestly couldn't promise that. He wanted to believe that his mother could forgive Duo for killing his rapist, but for once he wasn't so sure how she would feel about it. Knowing her, she would be sad that Duo took a life, but he just couldn't believe that she would stop loving him for it.

"I need to ask you a favor," his friend said nervously, "I don't want to ask it, and it isn't fair of me. It's selfish and stupid and cowardly..."

"Just ask," Heero urged.

"Can you... can you tell them for me?" Duo asked in a near whisper, "I just don't have the strength to go through that again. I need to tell them as soon as possible, especially Mom, I don't want to have this hanging over my head for however long it takes me to get the nerve again. I don't know if I ever will have the nerve to tell them everything I just told you."

Heero nodded in understanding. He had just witnessed first hand what this story took from his friend. If such a small thing could take some stress and heartache from him, he was happy to do it.

"I'll tell them tonight," he promised, "but Duo, no matter how they take it, you have a family here, you know that don't you?"

"Yeah," he smiled faintly, resting his head against Heero's chest again, "I know."

And for the first time since he had plunged that knife into Wes' throat, he realized that he did.
End part 22
Author's Note: I apologize for this part, since it is essentially little more than dialogue and Duo recounting things that all of you have already read, but I thought it important to show what information Heero is being given, as well as his reaction to it. I really didn't want to pull 'and then Duo told Heero about his abduction' out of my ass. That seemed really unrealistic and, well, cheap. I hope it was somewhat interesting and not too boring *wince*
Now, originally I wanted to end things here and then go off to write my other stuff, but as I was writing this part, I realized that wasn't really what I wanted. My intent in stopping here for the time being was to leave the story at a point where most of the drama is resolved, which this doesn't do. So, I am going to write out the next part to put it at a place where people aren't feeling irritated that they have to wait for a conclusion. I hope that's acceptable ^_^
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The Road to Kindness