Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Three Small Words ❯ Chapter 6

Author's Notes: Corneal Ulcers are NO FUN people! And these little trips to the emergency ward aren't very amusing either. But considering I've only got one good eye at the moment it's a bit of a miracle that this chapter made it to the finishing board at all. So hopefully by the time I figure out the next chapter I'll have use of my left eye back or maybe it's vice versa? ^__^ By the way there's child abuse and suicide (gasp!) and violence ahead so everybody who wants happy fluff can go and read something else. Angst and Heero torture lovers come on inside.

Lawyers? Disclaimer is still on the first chapter. Have a nice day.

Three Small Words - Chapter Six

And they say that the truth will set you free

but then again, so will a lie

it depends if you're trying to get to the promised land

or if you're just trying to get by…

(Ani Difranco - Promised Land)

Duo leaned heavily against Wufei's side as the Chinese man struggled to slide his key into the door while simultaneously trying to keep his braided companion from stumbling down the front steps. So far the endeavor was proving unsuccessful. Wufei would have been safely inside by now if it weren't for the fact that Duo kept trying to help him with the key in the terribly earnest but very hampering way that only the truly inebriated can accomplish.

"Damn! Duo…will you quit grabbing the keys! I almost had them in that time."

"Sorry," Duo hiccuped, looking totally unrepentant. "Why don't you just ring the doorbell so the others can let us in?"

"Because I was trying to spare whatever shred of dignity you have left by not parading around the fact that you're as drunk as a sailor on shore leave," Wufei snorted.

Duo looked confused as he replayed Wufei's words in his head. "M'not a sailor! 'M a gundam pilot. Shinininininigami's the name!" he slurred with some difficulty.

"Care to say that a little louder, I think there might be an OZ soldier in the next county that failed to hear you," Wufei hissed as he finally got the door opened and maneuvered Duo inside.

The lights were dimmed which was strange, it being the middle of the day and all. Wufei grew suspicious of the thick silence and reached for the gun he kept strapped to his ribs only to be impeded by a chestnut braided head burrowing in his jacket. Cursing silently to himself in Chinese, Wufei moved Duo behind him and towards the still open door.

"If you hear a shot I want you to run for it," he whispered and pulled his gun from its holster.

Sobered considerably by the situation, Duo shook his head and reached for his own gun concealed in his right boot.

"No way you're doing this without backup 'Fei," he whispered back.

Wufei shook his head but thought better of arguing with the stubborn American. He'd just have to make sure the other boy did not get hurt. Or Heero will take it out of my hide, he thought to himself ruefully.

Silently, the Chinese boy crept down the darkened front hallway, gun pointed in front of him at the ready, Duo following close behind. The living room was even darker then the front hallway and Wufei had to squint to make out two forms in the center of the room, one lying prone on the couch, the other standing over him with something shapeless in his hand.

'Get ready,' Wufei mouthed to Duo who nodded and inched his hand towards the light switch on the wall just outside the living room door. Then the Shenlong pilot took a deep breath and squinted his eyes in preparation.

"Freeze!" he shouted, jumping out from around the corner at the same instant Duo flicked on the lights. Bright white and yellow flooded Wufei's vision and he blinked furiously, keeping his gun pointed at the standing figure's head.

"Mind not waving a gun in my face Wufei?"

Trowa's face was expressionless as he turned to face the doorway, a washcloth held loosely in one hand. On the couch Quatre Raberba Winner groaned and buried his face in the pillows at his head, his eyes tightly shut.

"Shit Trowa! Scare us half to death why don't you?!" Duo yelled, putting his gun away.

"I would like to know why you and Winner were sitting here in the dark in total silence, causing us to almost shoot you Barton," Wufei said quietly, his calmness betrayed only by the small twitch under his right eye.

Quatre groaned again and Trowa bent down and placed the washcloth on his forehead, brushing a soothing hand through sweat-dampened blond curls.

"Quatre has a migraine," he explained simply. "Could you turn the lights off? The glare makes him worse."

Duo complied quickly, flicking the switch and then settling himself down beside the couch where the blond Arabian was situated. He looked at the pale and pinched face with more then a hint of concern.

"You okay Quat?" he inquired, softly.

Quatre opened his eyes slightly and gave Duo what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine," he whispered. "It'll go away once I've managed to…to calm myself."

"Are you sure?" Duo probed insistently. "I haven't seen you this bad since the day Heero self-destructed-" he stopped abruptly, the words registering in his ears as he said them.

Seeing the sudden stiffness is Duo's form, Quatre struggled to sit up, grasping Trowa's hand for support. "It's okay! Heero's upstairs. He's," fine doesn't seem the right word to use, "not injured."

Duo's heart started to beat again and some of the tension left his body, although a bit of apprehension still remained. Quatre was hiding something from him, he could tell by the way the blond refused to look directly at him. The Arabian always had been a terrible liar.

"Well then, what brought this headache on?" Duo asked. "And don't lie to me Quatre. I can always tell when you're lying."

"I…did something to upset Heero," Quatre said quietly. "He's…very angry with me. He feels betrayed and his pain hurts me in turn. Don't worry, I'll be able to block it out soon. Trowa's been helping." He smiled up at his partner lovingly and Trowa responded with a brief upturning of the lips and a soothing pat on the hand. Duo noticed this exchanged and felt a flash of jealousy, he turned his head away and saw Wufei beside him, also watching the touching scene with tightly pressed lips. Remembering their earlier conversation, Duo felt a wave of sympathy for the Chinese boy.

"What could you have possibly done to make Yuy so upset at you?" Wufei inquired, breaking the awkward silence that had settled itself around the room.

Quatre's smile faded and his eyes clouded, losing their normal brightness. "I saw something he didn't want me to see," he replied.

"What?"

"I can't say."

Duo's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What do you mean you can't say?"

Quatre looked faintly miserable as he fidgeted with the buttons on his vest, avoiding Duo's glare. "It's a private issue for Heero. I wasn't supposed to see it in the first place. I can't violate his trust again."

"Does it have to do with me?"

"I…"

"It does, doesn't it?! TELL ME."

"I can't!" the blond cried, cringing back from the livid Deathscythe pilot.

"Goddammit Quatre-" a firm hand closed around his wrist and squeezed painfully. Duo tore his gaze away from the boy on the couch and stared, instead, into a pair of stormy green eyes.

"That's enough Duo," Trowa said, calmly, but with a hint of threat. "Quatre has told you all he is able to tell. If you want to know more then maybe you should ask Heero yourself."

The braided pilot wrenched his arm out of Trowa's grasp with a sharp jerk. "Maybe I'll do just that," he hissed.

Duo turned on his heels and stalked out of the living room, towards the stairs. Wufei caught up to him by the second step.

"Wait!" he said, placing a hand in Duo's path. "You should wait until you have slept off the effects of the alcohol you have consumed. It will do neither you, nor Yuy, any good if you question him like this."

"Stay out of it Chang!" Duo snapped, brushing past Wufei's hand. "This matter is between me an' Heero. I want some definite answers! I want this thing final, once and for all."

Wufei watched helplessly as Duo stomped up the rest of the stairs towards Heero's room, the room Heero and Duo once shared together.

"Stupid fool…" he murmured under his breath. A hand descended on his shoulder and he turned to face Trowa.

"Whatever happens up there," the uni-banged boy stated, "they're going to need our support afterwards. Both of them."

"Understood," Wufei replied…and then softer, "but will it be enough?"

Trowa did not answer, but his hand tightened slightly on Wufei shoulder before he released it and headed back towards the living room where a distraught Quatre was waiting for him. After a few moments, Wufei gave up on trying to hear whatever was being said in that room at the top of the stairs and followed the circus performer into the room.

- - - - - -

Heero was sleeping. It had been the first time in ages he'd been able to relax himself enough to sleep…not that he was relaxed now, but exhaustion had set in to the point where his body couldn't care less what his mind was going through and shut down of its own violation. So…Heero Yuy slept. And he dreamed. And he kept a tight hold on Duo's pillow as flashes of colour and sound flitted through his unconscious thoughts, as if maybe the pillow were a lifejacket to keep him from drowning in the murky waters of his dreamscape.//He'd done something bad again. He couldn't remember exactly what…but it must have been terrible because Mamma had gotten out the heavy wooden cutting board to beat him with. She only used that when she was really mad. He was hiding, hiding inside the linen closet at the top of the stairs. He could fit into it easily. He was good at curling into small spaces.

He could here her yelling outside the closet. Soon she would figure out that he had fled upstairs. Soon she would discover his hiding spot and he would get extra beatings for running from her instead of taking his punishment like a good boy. He should leave the closet now, give himself up. But he couldn't make himself move.

"Coward," he whispered to himself.

Footsteps sounded on the steps, loud and angry sounding. He crouched lower in the closet, covering his face with the towels, hoping to muffle out the scary sounds. He saw the shadows of feet under the crack in the door move past and then pause and come back in front of the closet. He held his breath, thinking that it was the loud drumming of his heart that gave him away.

The closet door was yanked open and he felt a strong arm grab hold of his leg, dragging him out of the closet. The wooden board descended.

"You are a very very bad boy." *crack* "Not only were you rude to Yumi-san's daughter-crack-but you ran and hid from your punishment! Now it will be much harder for you."He tried to cover his head and face. Bruises on his arms and legs could be covered up but it always embarrassed him to have to go to school with black eyes and bruises on his temple and cheeks. People thought he got into fights on the playground and he had a bad reputation because of this.

The board landed on his legs and torso repeatedly, leaving stinging welts and much deeper aches that foretold bruising, maybe even broken bones. He tried not to cry out as he knew it only upset his mother further and besides, he deserved this punishment anyway and he should be able to take it like a man. But he couldn't help the tears that slipped free after a particularly hard whack to the stomach.

"I'm only doing this because I love you," She said, swinging the board again and again. "You have to be stronger. You have to have discipline. It's because you were too wild and ill-behaved that he left! I was too soft on you! He might have stayed if you were a good boy!"

She started to kick him, the board becoming too heavy to lift anymore. He whimpered as one foot jabbed into his ribcage. Another landed on his head and he felt his world tilt and swim before his eyes. He gave up on staying silent.

"Mamma! Mamma please! Stop! It hurts!"

More kicks. More cries. And then it became too much to try anymore and he simply lay still and silent on the floor, eyes open and staring dully at nothing. After a while, the kicks stopped and there was a sharp intake of air.

"Oh my God…"

He watched as she stared down at him, a horrified look on her face. She looked terrible. He wanted to hold her hand, comfort her, promise he'd be good so she wouldn't have to be angry or sad anymore, but for some reason he was finding it extremely difficult to move.

"Keiji? Keiji-chan?! Speak to Mamma! Say something…Keiji-chan…oh God I'm so sorry!"

She started to cry. He tried to make his lips move. To say something reassuring, but nothing would come. He could only watch her as she wrung her hands nervously and cried.

"What have I done?" she wailed, her hands shaking as she tried to wipe off the sticky red substance that clung to them. "Keiji-chan! I'm sorry! Say you forgive me, please! Don't look at me like that Keiji-chan…you're my little boy. You know I love you right? Everything I do is because I love you most of all!"

He said nothing, could say nothing to this. She looked panicked, her gaze darting around the room, searching for something. She went over to the dresser drawer and took something out of it, wrapped in a white handkerchief. The thing was small and black. She came back and sat down beside him.

"Now Keiji-chan…it's okay if you can't forgive me. I'll make it right. I'm not going to hurt you ever again, I promise. You'll be okay. You'll be just fine."

He made a sound. Only a small one, barely a whimper. She didn't seem to hear it. She was busy doing something with the black thing.

"It'll be okay. I love you so much. You must remember always that I love you so much. Everything I do is because I love you."

He tried again, to speak, but she had put the black thing to her head and there was a loud, scary noise. He shut his eyes quickly, flinching from the sound. When he opened his eyes Mamma was on the floor beside him, he waited for her to pick him up and cuddle him like she always did after punishments were over but she never moved. Carefully, he moved his hand to smooth her hair down, but it came back all covered in the sticky red stuff that had been on her hands. He called to her: no answer. He called again, louder this time but there was no response. Frowning, he shifted himself over so that he could take her hand.

It was cold. Much colder then his own hand. And the red was now covering everything. He moved over her and looked into empty blue eyes. It was then that he understood."NO! MAMMA"//

Heero woke from his dreamscape to be confronted with a pair of angry violet eyes. He blinked rapidly but since the eyes did not disappear he decided that they weren't figments of his imagination and sat up abruptly.

"Duo," he said, as if testing out the name he had avoided for so very long on his tongue.

The violet eyes narrowed dangerously. "What is this shit Heero?"

The boy on the bed blinked again, this time in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about," he retorted defensively.

Duo snorted, "Of course you don't. Quatre's downstairs with the headache from hell and we all know that he only gets that bad when either you or Trowa are in pain. I just saw Trowa and he looked fine so that leaves one person."

"Quatre," Heero hissed, still furious about the blond empath's intrusion into his most private memories. "Did he tell you anything?"

"No, and even if he did, I don't want to hear about it from him. I want to hear it from you. So 'fess up Heero. What are you hiding?"

"Why are you so concerned?" Heero questioned, a hint of venom in his voice. "We aren't together anymore. You don't want to have anything to do with me, so why should I tell you anything at all?"

"Because we're supposed to be working as a team, or don't you remember? What affects you, may affect all of us and we can't afford to have any doubts about what we're doing down here," Duo replied.

"And if I told you that this doesn't affect you or the team in the slightest?"

"Then you'd be a liar. It's already affecting Quatre and that affects Trowa. And I'm pretty sure that this affects me in some way. Maybe it's even the reason why you can't seem to say those three little words…"

"Quatre told you!" Heero shouted furiously, a red haze of rage clouding his vision. "I'll kill him-"

"He didn't tell me anything. I can bloody well guess by myself. I'm not a complete moron you know," Duo shouted back, grabbing onto Heero's wrist as he reached for his gun on the dresser. He was about to say something else when he realized that the arm he had a tight hold of was a lot thinner then it was supposed to be. And Yuy wasn't pulling away even though he was trying to desperately…

"Let go right now or I'll kill you! I swear Duo! Let me go!"

Heero swore and twisted frantically as Duo leant over the boy and snapped on the overhead light, all the while keeping a tight grasp on Heero's wrist. Swearing viciously, Heero tried to hide himself under the blankets but Duo pushed these away and took a good long look at his former lover. Heero watched Duo's eyes darken and narrow and he fell silent and still, shame making him want to crawl into a hole and die.

Duo silently inspected the boy on the bed, running a hand over the ribs that jutted out from the skin of his torso, taking in the sunken, hollowed cheeks, the pale grey-ish skin that was once as golden as burnt honey. His fingertips traced the blue veins that criss-crossed the arm that he held. His mouth tightened.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he said, his voice soft and murderous.

Heero didn't answer.

"TELL ME!" Duo roared, his hands coming up to wrap around the other boy's shoulders, shaking him violently. "You bastard! Did you think this would make me come back to you?! Did you think I would feel sorry for you? Did you think it was romantic to starve yourself, make yourself into a fucking anorexic for Christ's sake? Did you think that this would prove your love for me? You moron, you're so selfish!! You're so selfish Heero, how could you do this to yourself? You don't kill yourself because you love someone, you dumb fuck! That's not love, that's not love at all."

~Everything I do is because I love you.

NO! MAMMA!I love you so much, Keiji. You must remember…

Don't leave me all alone!~

"Don't leave me all alone!"

"Huh?" Duo paused, mid-rant to see that Heero had balled his fists into the front of Duo's shirt. The short-haired boy had his head bowed so Duo could not see his face but the hands clutching his shirt trembled faintly and the boy's thin shoulders shook and shuddered. "Heero…"

"Don't…don't leave me all alone. I'll try and be better, I promise. I'll be a good boy. Please don't leave me," he whimpered.

"I…" Duo bit back the angry words and accusations that were ready on his tongue. "Heero what-"

"Promise you won't leave!" The voice was childish, panicked and fearful with a hint of hysteria. Duo observed the shaking shoulders and sighed, pulling the smaller Asian into his arms. 'What's going on? He sounds so young all of a sudden. He's so thin…how could I have not noticed how thin he was getting? Is this why Quatre's so freaked out? Heero I don't understand…'

"I'm not going to leave," he said soothingly. "I promise."

Heero seemed to accept that, burrowing further into Duo's embrace and closing his eyes. He felt so exhausted even though he had slept for nearly six hours before Duo's presence awakened him. He just didn't have the energy to function anymore.

"…tired."

"Sleep then. I'll be here when you wake up."

"Not going to leave?"

"I promise. You know I never lie. Just rest, okay?" Duo said, smoothing Heero's bangs back over his forehead.

Heero sighed and relaxed fully against Duo's chest. After a few minutes his breathing evened out and he was sleeping peacefully. Duo lifted the boy slightly, frowning at how easy it was to do so, and moved him onto the bed and under the covers. Feeling Duo's weight shift away, Heero made a small, discontented sound in his sleep and groped blindly for the source of heat and comfort that had drawn away.

"Shh…" Duo whispered, moving around to the other side of the bed and climbing in beside Heero. The Japanese boy relaxed when he felt Duo's arms slip around his waist and Duo sighed against the back of his neck, into his chocolate coloured hair.

"Sleep now. I'll stay with you until you wake up." 'And then you're going to tell me what the hell is going on Mr. Heero Yuy,' Duo added silently.

To Be Continued…