Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Midvalley's Serenade ❯ Troubled Sleep ( Chapter 9 )

Troubled Sleep

Nick was almost back to his old self after the death of the little girl, Molly. During the day, he was a cheerful companion and a considerate partner, but he was suffering from insomnia again. At night while I slept, he sat up, smoking and brooding for hours at a time. After several days in a row like this, I was missing the feeling of his body in the bed next to mine. One morning I woke up at three in the morning and saw him asleep in his hard-backed chair in what looked like a most uncomfortable position, his head arched back, mouth open, neck pinched.

I roused him and shepherded him to the bed.

"Come on, Nick. Lie down with me, and get some sleep."

He lay down beside me and after a soft squeeze of my hand, was asleep almost instantly, and I not long after.

I was roused from that sound sleep, a scant hour later when Nick rolled his body forcefully against mine with an agitated cry. My arms went around him instinctively and I felt the rapid beating of his heart, but he pulled away and started to get out of bed, but I reached for his hand.

"Don't go, Nick. Stay with me for just a little while longer."

He only stayed because I asked, but he didn't look comfortable where he was.

I put my hand on his shoulder and pleaded with him, "Please don't shut me out, Nick. Talk to me. Can't you tell me why it is you have such trouble sleeping?"

He didn't answer me for the longest time. He stared at the ceiling with intense concentration and looked as if he were trying to come to a decision. Finally, after maybe five minutes, his posture softened and he let out a sigh.

"Did you ever have a mission that went really bad, Midvalley?"

"Obviously not. I'm still alive. You know the policy as well as I do. 100% success rate. You have to admit it keeps us on our toes. Don't tell me that you got a special break because your dad is Chapel the Evergreen?"

Nick uttered a short bitter laugh. "A special break. That's a good one," he said and he stared off into space again and I began to be concerned that he wouldn't tell me what troubled him, so I apologized.

"I'm sorry for the sarcasm, Nick. Tell me about the mission."

He sighed lightly and began to speak.

"You don't attend the academy without hearing Chapel the Evergreen lecturing about the need to make a choice in the limited time available. He also believes in selecting the right tool for the job."

"I heard that from him at least once a day for years."

"Well, when I was about 14, Master Knives' power was being challenged by a very powerful gang leader, named Roland Drake."

"I remember reading about him in the paper, some years back. Go on, Nick."

"Drake was a serious rival. He had money, weapons, men, power, influence, connections, charisma and he was utterly ruthless. Leonof and my father had been conducting surveillance on him for several months, trying to see where his financial assets were hidden and how the security around him might be breached in order to destroy him. Drake traveled with an entourage of up to twenty bodyguards in his immediate vicinity and had around fifty for protection when he was at his home.

Neutralizing Drake was Master Knive's first priority. Using Legato's psionic powers to do the job would have been ideal, but was not considered as he was recovering from surgery at the time. Then there was briefly a plan in place to use Caine the Longshot for a sniper shot on the theory that if you cut off the head you'd kill the whole organization, but it became clear that killing Drake wouldn't solve the problem completely. He had well-trained commanders who were smart and ambitious enough to continue to challenge Knives especially with access to Drake's financial resources. These men were all part of Drake's elite body guard. So the planning went on to find the right tool for the job.

Drake had a wife and daughter. Our organization staged a kidnapping and ransom of them to see if Drake could be worked on that way. When he was contacted by phone, I heard he just laughed and said, `Kill them and save me the trouble. That bitch couldn't give me a son if her life depended on it.' The wife and child were returned unharmed.

There was one peculiarity that Leonof noticed in the running of the household. Every so often, Drake would hire new household help, boys about my age with my skin coloring, eye shape and body type. Leonof thought he could handle the job of infiltration with a puppet, but it became clear to both Leonof and my father, that the job might require up to a month of on-site preparation and Leonof could not maintain a puppet for that length of time. My father suggested me for the job, because of my fast reactions, ability to improvise and of course, I had the look of the type of boys that he hired. The right tool for the job.

They managed to come up with some blue prints of Drake's house, and ran me through several scenarios and field exercises on the training range. Since I was successful in the training runs, it was decided to go ahead with the plan. An employment agency found me a job working as a houseboy to establish me with some work experience and references. In three months, when Drake had another vacancy, I applied for the job, giving my reason for wanting to quit the job I had, as the pay Drake offered which was substantially more than I was receiving. I just turned 15 when I was called in for the interview.

Drake didn't interview me. One of his bodyguards, a cousin, named Ed Jasper did. He was a fleshy man with sandy hair and too many freckles. It made me feel sick inside the way he licked his lips when he looked at me. He didn't ask me too many questions, just a little about my work experience and whether I had any relatives. He seemed pleased when I said I was an orphan.

He finished the interview saying, "I think you got the job, boy. Of course, Mr. Drake will have the final say-so, but, I think he's going to be really pleased with you. Oh, yeah, completely satisfied."

Jasper stopped off at the house where I was staying. I picked up my belongings and we went to Drake's house. It was a mansion really. Drake was wealthy enough to afford a cloned plant of his own to power the place and he even had a garden.

Drake was out of town, but was expected back in a couple of weeks, which allowed me ample time to get the guards accustomed to my presence, to get acquainted with the house routine, the habits of the body guards, the probable locations of the arms caches and safes.

I had previously arranged with my father and Leonof, a way to exchange information and smuggle in my guns and ammunition. I had to come in with nothing since I knew I would be searched. But Leonof sent in a bird puppet to my window and I sent out a message detailing my requirements. The automatics with silencers arrived over a period of a week, delivered at night to my darkened window, by Leonof's birds.

I met the wife and child, after I'd been there a week. They were back from a visit to September. The wife's name was Rachel and the little girl was named Carlotta, but they called her Charlie. The name I had for the mission was Nicholas Chaplain. The wife seemed to take an instant dislike to me. She had blonde hair, beautiful features, and a brittle manner. As for Charlie, she fell in love with me at first sight.

She was a funny little thing, always into the dirt in the garden. No matter how pretty the clothes her mother dressed her in or how tidy her hair was to start out the day, by the time the day was done, her clothes were covered in dirt, her brown hair was a wild tangle and she looked like a ragamuffin.

"How old was she, Nick?" I asked him.

"About four or five."

"Molly's age?"

"Yes. She followed me everywhere while I did chores and called me Nicky. Whether I was changing bed linen or bringing her mother a meal on a tray to her room or working in the garden, she wanted to be around me. And I was glad for her company because when she was with me, it took my mind off the danger I was in, and Drake's bodyguards tended to leave me alone.

Before Charlie came, there were a couple of guards who couldn't seem to keep their hands off me, taking every opportunity to search or touch me. I acted meek so I wouldn't arouse their suspicion, but I was beginning to feel violent. One day the two of them cornered me in the laundry room. One was running his hands over my ass and the other was trying to unbutton my pants when Ed Jasper walked by.

"Karl! Whitey! Keep your hands off him or I will fucking cut them off. Don't you two have brains at all? You know Mr. Drake doesn't like to share."

"His ass is so sweet though. We could all fuck him now and Mr. Drake would never know."

"Keep your hands off his sweet ass. Drake likes them untouched. He has ways of knowing. Go on, get out of here, Chaplain."

I was beginning to get the idea of what lay in store for me when Drake arrived, and deep down inside, I was sick with horror. I began to see why Rachel acted like she hated me. She was jealous that I would be her husband's fuck toy. If only she knew how much I loathed the idea.

It was such a relief when Charlie was around. On time off from my duties, I would read her stories from a big picture book. Sometimes we'd play catch. Within three days of meeting me, she told me I was her best friend. Within a week, she told me she wanted to marry me. I told her it was the best offer I ever had.

I was beginning to be worried for her safety though. All my weapons were in place and Drake was due back in two days. If my intuition was on target and I didn't act quickly, I knew Drake was going to rape me, possibly the night of his return. I hoped to find a way to get Rachel and Charlie out of there before the gunplay started.

The next morning, Mrs. Drake came to me and asked me to help her get ready for a trip. She was going to take Charlie to visit her grandmother the same day that Mr. Drake returned from his business trip. I packed the suitcases for her and Charlie with a feeling of relief.

The morning of Drake's arrival, Jasper made special point of telling me that I should clean myself up extra well, dress very sharp and be in the driveway when Mr. Drake's limousine arrived. Charlie came out with me to meet her dad. The driveway was filled with bodyguards milling around, when the ironwork gate opened and a long, sleek black car slid in and came to a stop.

Jasper opened the limo door and a tall well-built man exited the car. He was in his 40's and had cool gray eyes that seemed to measure everything. Jasper brought him over to where I was standing and they began to measure me.

"This is your new hire, Nicholas Chaplain, Mr. Drake." I kept my eyes lowered. Jasper said to me, "Look at Mr. Drake, Chaplain.

I raised my eyes and then lowered them as if I was scared. He was about six inches taller than me.

"So are you shy, Nick?" he asked me. He had a nice voice. He took my face in his hands and tilted it up towards him and then left and right, almost caressing it.

I didn't answer.

"Shy," he said as if confirming it to himself. "I like that."

His wife Rachel was watching him touch me.

"I'll just bet you do," she said with acid in her voice.

"Don't you have some place to go?" he said to her in a cold tone, and then returned his attention to me.

"Are you a virgin, Nick?" he asked.

"What's a virgin?" asked Charlie who had stepped up beside me.

"Get her out of here," said Drake with some exasperation "I want you both gone by this evening," he said to his wife.

He waited a moment while Rachel and Charlie began to move toward the house and then he turned to me and took my face in his hands again.

"I asked you a question. Cat got your tongue? Let's see if the cat got your tongue."

He had big fingers and he pushed two of them into my mouth and slid them suggestively in and out, like he was fucking me. I gagged immediately.

"I think I got my answer. A virgin. I like that." He smiled at me. "Take my luggage to my room, Nick. You will be my personal attendant. Your duties start tonight."

I picked up his suitcases and as I turned to leave, I heard him say to Jasper as if he were talking about a thing, "I really like that! Nice work, Jasper."

When I got to his room with the luggage, Rachel was there. She gave me two hard slaps across the face where he had touched me.

"Do you know what he does to his houseboys?" she asked me.

I shook my head.

"They get what they deserve," she said with a smile that scared me.

I wanted her out of the house as soon as possible with Charlie, so just to goad her to that point, I said, "So, did you want to watch us then?"

She slapped me again. "I don't need to watch slime like you try to steal my husband."

She left the room. In a couple of minutes, I heard her screaming at her husband. He shouted back. While they were arguing, I hurried downstairs to my room and assembled my weapons and ammo. I had four automatics with silencers and a total of 72 rounds in the magazines. Plus another 4 magazines. They were heavy. I hoped it would be enough to take care of Drake and his 50 bodyguards. There was no way I was going to let any of them lay hands on me again.

The shouting stopped and now I heard him slapping her hard. Rachel started screaming again, this time in pain. I heard Charlie wail low and mournful. Suddenly, it got very quiet. I heard the front door slam and heard the sound of the limousine engine revving into life. I looked out the window and saw Rachel and Charlie were in the vehicle that was pulling out of the driveway. I breathed a sigh of relief, pulled on the white jacket of my uniform and with my pistols concealed beneath it, walked into the kitchen to wait for Drake's summons.

I heard Drake's footsteps ascending the stairs and heard his voice calling for me, "Nicholas, I need you in my room."

The bodyguards in the dining room laughed and jeered at me as I made my way to the steps. "Nicholas, I need you in my room," they mocked me and acted out a butt-fucking for their own amusement and Whitey who could never keep his hands off me grazed my crotch where I had a magazine concealed, with his palm.

"Oh, you got a hard-on for Drake. This boy's got a hard-on for Drake." That was a close call.

My nerves were tight, but Charlie was gone and it was time for me to go to work. I had an automatic hidden at my side when I came into Drake's room. He was sitting naked on the bed. I put three bullets through his brain, pushed his body back onto the bed and went on to the next room.

The next five minutes seemed to pass by in slow motion. I remember each twist and turn and roll and dive I made. I remember my own awful fear as I turned the door knob of each room not knowing what lay behind it, but fast and accurate, my pistols spit death , faces blanked and bodies fell. I made my way from room to room. I was surprised by a guard exiting the bathroom. He pulled his gun out and fired at me, but I ducked, twisted and shot him right between the eyes. The report from his weapon roused the house. I could hear sounds of alarm downstairs. My element of surprise was gone. From here on out it was going to be down and dirty. I discarded two of my pistols and held the remaining two, one in each hand.

In a headlong rush down the staircase, I took out eight guards with a high volume of automatic fire, then I rolled under the grand piano in the drawing room and killed five men in less time than it takes to say it. I dropped another pistol and popped a magazine into the only one I had left. Two shot-gun blasts punched through the dining room door, but I was out of the line of fire. I willed myself to action and dove and pushed through the swinging door, my finger a blur on the trigger and killed 10 in the dining room. Then there were six left alive in the kitchen, and then moments later six dead, arterial blood pumping out onto the black and white tiles. I remember the look of surprise on Jasper's face. I slid another magazine into my automatic.

My senses heightened, I pushed through the swinging door back into the dining room, and someone shot me. I fired three times before I even saw my target. It was Rachel that I shot. She was in the doorway with a gun in her hand. Her body jerked spasmodically. She opened her mouth like a fish gasping for air as if she had something to say, but she only coughed up blood. The light went out of her eyes and she collapsed, Midvalley."

Nick stopped speaking, and all of a sudden through our link, I felt his emotion. First I felt a sensation of piercing pain in my chest and then an overwhelming desolation, a grief as deep and dark as I feel when I play Silvia to kill. If I'd been playing Silvia, the power of that pain would have taken out a city block. As it was, weeping was my only relief. Tears rolled down my face and sobs shook my body. I was in agony, and the waves of pain that washed over me went on and on. I lost track of time and place and only began to come back to myself when I felt Nick's trembling lips on mine, our faces wet with tears, his arms around me seeking desperately to give me comfort. His eyes were full of concern for me.

"What is it, Midvalley? Am I hurting you? Please don't cry. I love you so much."

And he did. I could feel that through our link as well, and I cried even harder at the fears that prevented me from responding in kind. But he surrounded me with his loving feelings until my tears dried. And then when I recovered enough, I felt the need to hear him finish his story.

"You killed Charlie, didn't you, Nick?" I said softly.

"It was an accident," he sobbed. I put my arms around him and hugged him to me while he vented his grief and I found myself weeping again for his pain was so great. When we were calm again, some time later, he continued the story.

"When Rachel fell, I saw Charlie lying on the floor with a small hole in her forehead where the bullet that killed her went in. My bullet.

I locked the door of the house behind me and walked the six miles back to the Academy in a daze. I rang the doorbell and fainted or so they told me.

My father came in after the doctor patched up the wound in my shoulder.

"Well?" he asked.

"Drake's dead. They're all dead. The money is in two safes. One in his room and one in the wine cellar.

There's a weapon's cache in the garden shed, and another in the cellar and a third in a hidden room in the

attic."

"You did well, Nicholas. I knew you wouldn't let me down."

They sent a team over to acquire the arms and money. They verified what I reported. My father was over the moon with what I had done. Knives and Legato were impressed as hell.

As for me, the wound in my shoulder got infected. I couldn't keep food down and was losing weight. I suffered from nightmares so disturbing that I tried not to sleep. It was always the same dream. Whitey, Karl, Mazarov and Drake take turns fucking me while Rachel watches and laughs and just when Drake is almost through with me, he starts to choke me with his big hands. Just when I'm almost dead, Charlie comes to me and tugs on my pant leg and looks up at me with the hole in her head and the trail of blood leaking and asks me why I hurt her.

One of the nurses taking care of me was a nun. After I woke from another nightmare screaming, she took me in her arms, and told me she knew I had too much of a burden to carry by myself. She promised not to tell anyone if I told her what happened. So I did. She gave me some advice about restitution that helped me, and that's when I decided to become a priest and asked my father to send me out to December to enter the seminary. I don't think he wanted me to go. I guess he wanted to bask in my reflected glory for a while. But while I was half-sleeping I overheard the nun talking about me to him.

"Your son is a wreck, Mr. Chapel," she said. "He is skin and bones. His wound won't heal. He can't keep down food. He can't sleep because of the nightmares. He is having a nervous breakdown from what he went through. I think he can get some peace of mind if you allow him to let him study for the priesthood in December and give him some time to try to make sense of what happened to him. You sent out a boy to do a man's job and these are the consequences. Take a good look at him. Your son is dying. Do you really want him to die? Then by all means, keep him here and send him back to your precious academy. The choice is yours."

Officially, the mission was a great success and I think my dad pulled some strings, so I was graduated early on the strength of it and sent off to December. But to my way of thinking, it was a mission that went bad, and it's why I have trouble sleeping sometimes, Midvalley. Molly's death brought the memories of Charlie back.

"I hope you can let these feelings go, Nick. The deaths were accidents. You should forgive yourself. It really hurts me to see you in so much pain."

"I could feel that. I didn't know that you would feel my pain through the link. Can't you turn it off?"

"When I'm playing Silvia, I can't link. If the emotional connection is weak, I can protect myself, but if the emotional connection is strong, the way it is with you, for good or ill, I feel what you feel."

"Then you know how I feel about you."

"When I look at myself in the mirror, I'm okay with what I see there. It's nothing to write home about, but I've seen myself through your eyes and I know you think that I'm a lot better looking than I do. You look at me like I'm something special."

"Ah, you're nuts, Middie. You are special."

"There's something else about the link, Nick. Sometimes, my empathic gift acts as a kind of lightning rod for emotion, and I can release the excess charge and there's a healing effect. Time will tell."

After the intensity of the emotions with which we started the day, the rest of the day felt easy. Chapel's arm wound was almost healed. We ate well, sat in cafes, watched people passing and held hands. I checked out a couple of saloons, taverns and a music store, to find out if there was any music happening.

I was struck by a strong urge to play, and found a gig with a guitarist and a drummer I heard rehearsing at the Lucky Sparrow Saloon. I went back to our room and picked up Silvia and went back to practice with them for a while. While I was practicing, I started to get an idea for a new song, so I wrote down some of my improv ideas and by the time the afternoon had blended into night, I had finished a tune I called "Troubled Sleep."

Nick was surprisingly relaxed. When we got home late that night, we fell in bed together, feeling a good kind of tired and we both slept peacefully until morning.