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"Brothers"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, Get together fic, sap, angst, fluff,
citrus Pairings: 2x1 Summary: After the death of his mother, Duo is forced to live with his estranged father. The new family seems perfect at first, but the truth is entirely different and will be revealed as Duo starts to get feelings for his "brother".
"Brothers " Chapter Fourteen As soon as he let me, I ran away, stumbling through the hallway. My legs were numb and unsteady and I had to put one hand on the wall to keep myself from keeling over. I was so distraught that I was physically ill and the tears that streamed freely down my face prickled in my eyes and nearly left me blind. I groped my way through the house and hoped I wouldn't fall or I'd have to continue on all fours when I was already impossibly humiliated. I didn't run up to my room, I headed for the garage and then up the winding staircase to Heero's room; the private, secluded, isolated bedroom. I had a better understanding than ever of what must have happened in that room, even though I hadn't seen it in the videos. In that room he trained him, he had all the privacy he needed. Far enough removed from Tabytha so she would never hear or see a thing and she was free to play ignorant. I made my way towards the bathroom and kneeled in front of the toilet bowl. I dry-heaved and coughed and spat a few times but I couldn't force the sickness out of me, it had settled deep inside my stomach and upset everything. I leaned over the seat, not even able to sit upright and I sobbed and wailed. He had been just a young boy! So young. I could imagine he had been hopeful when he was adopted and first brought home with Cameron and Tabytha, with the promise of being taken away from the hardship his biological mother had subjected him to. Everything was supposed to get better, he deserved better, but instead he got pulled into another sickening nightmare and at such a young age he had to adapt to survive, letting his own adoptive father as well as strangers do those things to him. I flushed the toilet and got up and maneuvered to the sink to wash my face. The sight of the opaque mirror only served to further break my heart. Whether or not he could admit it, he hated himself so much he couldn't stand the sight of his own reflection. He was never treated as a real person so it probably never even occurred to him that he deserved to be treated better. Did he even know he was a person with rights? All he had ever known was sacrifice and pain. It would have been me, I knew. It should have been me. Why was I recued and was Heero thrown under the bus in my stead? That wasn't right. I wondered with a heavy heart if my mother had ever suspected that he would simply replace me with another young boy. If she did, was she really so powerless against him to stop it? Maybe he had succeeded in brainwashing her to that extent, the way he had brainwashed both Tabytha and Heero. As powerful as he was, with friends in all the right places, he was not untouchable, but he had managed to convince them all that he was. His true power relied on that illusion, but I would not be tricked by it, certainly not now. He was not infallible, I knew it, I had seen it. I had seen his face in one of the videos, that had to be enough to convince a judge, jury and executioner. I scrambled back into the bedroom, the white mirror looming over me had only upset me further. Even though I was not allowed, I could not stop myself from dropping down on his bed, on my stomach and I hugged one of his pillows to me. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!" He had been carrying this burden all by himself all those years and it wasn't fair. He wasn't even supposed to be here! This was supposed to be my room. These were supposed to me my nightmares. It felt like it was my fault, although I was too young to understand what was going on when my mother took me away and I had always been kept in the dark, I felt responsible. If I had stayed, if I had been here for my father to abuse, Heero might have been adopted by a family that would have actually been nice to him, that would have erased his hurts from the past as opposed to exploiting them to ensure his obedience. I would have been the tormented soul, but in a way I thought I could have been at peace with that, after all, I was born into this family, it was my destiny to be here. I was the son of that monster, if anyone deserved to be victimized by him, it would be me. Paralyzed by fear, guilt and regret I lay on the bed mourning the loss of his innocence. Although Cameron had said it for shock-value and to discourage me, there was an honest truth to his question: could anyone come back from that? How was he ever expected to live a normal life? He seemed well-adjusted - well enough - when I first arrived, but that was just another survival tactic. His mind had been fractured, every image of the world was distorted. I didn't know if I could save him from that, from himself, from what he had become. But I could save him from Cameron, I had to try at least. Hours later someone came up the stairs. I relaxed when I could tell by the footfalls alone that it was Heero. I had gotten to know him pretty well. I didn't move from the bed, there was no point trying to hide the fact that I had been lying there all afternoon, besides, his arrival caused me to start crying again and I hugged the pillow to me tighter. I wished my mother was there to comfort me, but that was selfish. The person who needed comfort was Heero, but he would never accept any kind of sentiment, too broken to recognize how much he needed it. The door opened and he froze as soon as he spotted me sprawled over his bed on top of his sheets. Angrily he reminded me: "I told you my bed was off-limits!" I turned to him, revealing my weepy face; my red eyes and my wet cheeks. I didn't expect him to be sympathetic, I didn't think he was capable of it. The anger melted away from his features and they contorted into fear. I had never seen him express any emotion so clearly and so honestly. He couldn't hide his expression, regardless of how much he undoubtedly wanted to. "What happened?" He inquired. He closed the door and leaned back against it. "What did he do to you?" The tone of his voice changed. "I told you you should have left, didn't I?! I told you!" Realizing what he thought had happened I pushed myself up and into an upright position. "No, he didn't touch me." He demanded: "What happened?" My bottom lip started to tremble again. I felt despicable for being such a mess in front of him when he was the one who had managed to stay strong in spite of everything. "He showed me. He showed me what he did to you! What he let others do to you." I clutched the pillow to my upset stomach. There was no way for me to stop the flow of tears. "He showed you the videos?" He ignored the whimper that slipped past his lips in between the words and he hardened his face. He repeated pressingly: "He showed you the videos?" I nodded. "Yes. Did- Did you know there were videos?" He snorted and tried to be cool and casual about it as he answered: "Yes, of course, I'm not blind." "If you knew, then why did you tell me there was no evidence?" "I never said that. I said you would never find any evidence." He looked off to the side. I shook my head at the semantics. "Did he show you where he keeps them?" I stared at him. "Yes..." "Then it worked," He concluded and he looked off to the side. "Wait. What? What worked?" Monotonously he explained: "I told him you were looking for evidence of what he had done. I figured there was a chance he was arrogant enough to show you." I blinked and my heart skipped a beat. "It was a trick?" He looked at me sharply. "What do you mean?" "I... I thought you had ratted me had because you didn't want me to succeed." He stared blankly. "There would be absolutely no benefit to that," He deduced. I got up from the bed, dropping the pillow to the floor, and before he could shy away, I wrapped my arms around him and embraced him. "You really are a genius," I muttered into his wild hair. He allowed the hug momentarily, but he quickly pushed against my chest to get me away from him. "Don't get any ideas. I still think your plan is futile and dangerous." "My plan is dangerous?" I challenged, "What about your plan, telling Cameron that I was looking for stuff. That could have easily blown up in our face." "Yes, but it doesn't matter. It will fail either sooner and later. If it had failed soon, at least we would have been done with it." He pushed past me and picked the pillow up from the floor. He fluffed it and placed it back on the bed before bending forward and smoothing the wrinkles out the sheets. He tucked the ends in so tightly you could bounce a coin off the bed. I watched him work, scrutinizing the precision of his movements. After what I had seen, I didn't understand how it was possible that he had not been reduced to a sobbing mess. He had been treated so inhumanely, it was a marvel that he had not shrunk into a dark corner like a frightened animal. "Heero..." I started. His back tensed at my tone. "About what I saw..." He turned around and glared at me. It was clear he did not want to discuss it. "I'm sorry." Inwardly I laughed darkly at how useless and meaningless my apology was. It didn't change anything. It didn't help him any way. "I'm sorry you saw that." I shook my head. "You had to suffer through that. If you can do that, I can suffer through only watching it." "That's not what I meant. I'm not sorry you saw it because it hurt you. I'm sorry because I know you will pity me all the more now. But I don't need your pity. I don't need you to look at me like that," He gestured at my sorrowful expression. I didn't know what to say. Of course I pitied him, but admitting that to him would not aid our friendship nor our alliance. "I don't pity you more than I did before," I said and it was the truth, I had always pitied him, long before I knew the extent of the torment. "I do think I understand you better." "You understand?" I nodded. "I understand that you are exactly the way you needed to be to not go crazy. What you've been through-" "It's just sex, Duo," He snarled. "It is not just sex! What I saw was not just sex. I saw filthy, sweaty, greedy guys abusing you, raping you! Sex is about sharing pleasure, not about taking pleasure with force. You weren't even conscious during some of it. And you were always tied down, held down or drugged." "Stop it..." "I understand that you were brainwashed into thinking that it is just sex and that it is a fair compromise in exchange for getting all the things you never had. And how could you possibly know that is wrong if you don't know any better?" "Shut up!" "You deserve better, Heero!" "What the fuck do you know about what I do or do not deserve? You don't even know me!" I tried to approach him but when I stepped towards him he back up until he was against the desk. I didn't try to get closer, I didn't want him to feel cornered. "I know that everyone deserves better than this." "I'm a fucking mongrel, Duo! An animal! I grew up on the floor stinking of shit and piss, and not just my own! The only reason I will ever deserve better is because I worked for it, I worked my way up!" I stared at him, shocked at his outburst. Although his words did not surprise me - I had suspected twisted thinking like that were the roots of the issue - I was caught off guard by him admitting it and hearing him confirm my suspicion cut into my guts like a dull blade. I reached out to him ,wanting to comfort him, not just for his benefit but also for my own. However, he hissed at me: "Don't touch me." I respected his command and took a step back. I didn't want to do anything he didn't want me to, he already had enough of that in his life. "Heero," I started carefully, "I know you truly feel that way and I know you cannot imagine anything else being true... but trust me when I say that once you are out of this place, once you get help, you will know that none of that is true, that you always deserved better." He regarded me with angry, distrusting eyes. I didn't expect differently. "Let me help you," I urged. "Let me show you." "We will never be free of him." "We will. But there is only one way and going along with him, hoping he will let you be when you go to college, is not the way. Trust me, please." "What is the way?" He challenged. "We are going to get our hands on those videos, and we are going to show them to the press." I had already given this thought. Based on previous experiences, we couldn't trust the local police. There was a chance that the whole thing would be swept under the rug and we would be escorted home before any officer ever even had the time to take a look at the video evidence. However, if we could get the footage to a local newspaper or news channel - Hell, if we could upload it online ourselves - soon the whole country would know and public outrage would certainly demand for the case to be handled seriously and that every detail would be scrutinized. Once higher authorities would get involved, Cameron could no longer call in favors to get him out of trouble. "You want those videos to end up on TV?" His voice betrayed a fear and a shame that he would never otherwise confess to. "It's the only way to bypass his 'friends'. You won't be recognizable, but Cameron will be." He stared at me and for the first time I dared to believe I saw a flicker of hope in his deep blue, cold eyes. "So where does he keep them?" "There's a safe in his office, hidden in the wall behind a painting." He scoffed. "A safe? How are we supposed to get our hands on something that is locked away in a safe?" "We'll find a way," I assured him, ignoring the fact that I had no idea how to get them and that I knew it seemed pretty hopeless. I had dawned on me that dragging Heero to a meeting with a news reporter to tell the truth could be enough to bring Cameron's lies down around him, but honestly, as much as it pained me to say, I didn't trust Heero to stick with his story. As soon as Cameron would get wind of it, he would pressure Heero into backtracking, his hold on the young man was still strong and the whole thing could fall apart before we had managed to grab the attention of right people. It needed to be hard, irrefutable evidence, so that even if Cameron managed to sway Heero and persuade him to claim he was lying, the damage could not be undone and the authorities would get involved. We couldn't half-ass this, we had to do it right. There was a good chance we would only get one shot at this. Once Cameron would realize his carefully constructed life was actually at risk, who knew in what way he would lash out to ensure our silence? Until we could arrange our escape, I was going to make sure Cameron - or anyone else - would not get to lay his hands on Heero. It wasn't going to happen again 'under my watch'. The game of pretend became very difficult. Not only around Cameron, but around Tabytha as well. It was hard to hide my quiet loathing. I despised her for her inaction. Brainwashed or not, frightened or not, she had no excuse. My mother has surely been affected by his scheming as well, but at least she could muster up the courage to get an innocent child out of his reach. Tabytha had turned a blind eye while her own husband molested the little boy they had adopted. Even to that day, she still kissed him goodbye every day and welcomed him home every evening. It sickened me. However, in spite of my act, it was clear she had figured out I knew exactly what went on the house and she was ashamed. She could barely look me in the eyes. But Cameron and Tabytha weren't the only people I played pretend with. I did the same with Heero. I wanted to give him a break, I wanted him to forget that I had seen those videos of him. For the time being, it was the best I could offer him. The closest thing to freedom I could give him, as long as we were still in that house. We had sleep-overs every night, I didn't dare to leave his side. Cameron objected to it, of course, but Tabytha proved to be an unlikely ally. She made the case that as long as Heero and I both maintained our grades, there was nothing wrong with us sharing a room, she said it was endearing. Cameron begrudgingly allowed it to happen. Heero was proven right. The façade was still important to him, even though we all knew what ugliness was behind it. My brother wasn't thrilled at the thought of having me around all the time, but he never made any objections on those afternoons we wasted playing videogames, like we were supposed to do as teenagers. I slept on a thin, twin bed mattress on the floor at the foot of his queen-sized bed. I didn't get much sleep at night, but not because I was uncomfortable - I had slept soundly in far worse conditions, like in the back of my mom's truck in a parking lot someplace - and I would certainly never suggest sharing his big bed. Most nights I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, actively staying my sleep. Listening to him breathe was better than to let the nightmares consume me. When exhaustion would finally force my eyes shut and sleep would claim me, the nightmares were inevitable. They were always the same; slight variations on the same horror. Every time Heero was getting abused, he would be gritting his teeth and crying out some times, other times he would lay limply, with his eyes glazed over. Every time, it turned out I was the one forcing myself on him. Luckily I would always jolt awake as soon as I was revealed to be the nightmarish monster. If my nightly terrors ever woke him up, he never let it show. He seemed to remain in a deep sleep, not reacting to any of the stressed, frightened sounds I would make, much less offer me any comfort. But I didn't deserve to be comforted anyway, not when I was having those disturbing thoughts about him. During the nights I plotted our escape, but never with much success. Clearly there was no way to get the videos from the safe, pulling off an actual heist wasn't within my capabilities. I would have to find a way to get at it when he had it open to take something out of it. How to go about that, I had no idea, but I didn't share my hopelessness with Heero. With a shudder I remembered what else had been stored away safely behind that painting; a gun. I wondered why Cameron felt the need to own such a weapon. He was physically imposing enough to have maintained control over Heero and Tabytha all this time and I didn't doubt I would be no match for him either. Those stacks of money also had my mind running amuck, until something clicked. Stacks of money... A gun.... The drugs he gave Heero in that video.... And he was owner and CEO of a pharmaceutical company. I remembered Tabytha telling me the story when I had first arrived at the household. Cameron had taken over the family business and had somehow, against all odds, managed to get it to thrive in financially challenging times. He was praised as the second coming of Jesus, saving the company from certain bankruptcy when in fact there was obviously something illegal going on on the side. I didn't know how he pulled it off, but it seemed he was using some of the resources of the company to produce illegal recreational drugs. I was tempted to shake my head at myself and brush off these thoughts as an over active imagination, but a long time ago I had the same sinking feeling about what might be happening to Heero and I ignored my instincts even when they were later proven right. I could forgive myself for that moment of naiveté because I didn't know any better, I had no logical reason to suspect this family was anything short of perfect, but I had learned my lesson. This guy - my father - should not be given the benefit of the doubt. Shit, I thought to myself, was I really dealing with a fucking drug lord on top of everything else? After a couple of weeks of allowing things to settle down, I knew I couldn't keep quiet to Heero any longer. I didn't want to cause him any additional distress, but I realized that he probably knew the answer to many questions that I had and I needed those answers. It was time that I knew everything, that I knew exactly what I was dealing with and what I was up against. Part of me didn't want to know. Part of me longed for that ignorance that I had enjoyed before, before I knew anything, but especially before I had seen those videos. But there was no going back, all we could do was move forward and I had to make that happen, I had to get moving and drag Heero along if I had to. He was sitting at his desk, doing his honor roll homework and eating the sandwich I had made him. We were home alone; Cameron was at work and Tabytha had gone shopping. I stared at my own sandwich. I couldn't eat a single bite. I had lost a lot of weight in the relatively short time that had passed. Eating had become a real issue for me after I saw one of those pigs stuff his penis into Heero's mouth while the boy was out cold. "Heero?" I started carefully. I knew it was ill-advised to bring up any kind of conversation while he was clearly trying to work, but everything that I had bottled up inside me - questions and emotions - threatened to burst out of me, rip right through the shell in which I contained them, violently and gruesomely. I couldn't keep it in any longer. "Hn." He didn't take his eyes off his work, the scribbling movement of his pencil never slowed, but at least he acknowledged me in some small way. "Can we talk?" "No." "No? Why not?" He looked up at me with dead eyes. "Because I know what that means." "Then you should know that we have to talk about it. We have to. We can't avoid it any longer." "You can't," He corrected. "I can." "Please, Heero, I need us to talk." "Talking won't solve anything," He said and returned his attention to his books. He added as an afterthought: "And it definitely won't make you feel any better." I sighed. "I'm not-" I stopped myself and took a moment to gather my thoughts and make sure I could keep my composure. "I'm not trying to make myself feel better. I know there is nothing that will make me feel better. My feelings aren't the goal here. Helping us get out of here is my goal. To be able to do that, we need to talk about some things." "I don't want to talk," He reiterated. "I don't want to talk either, I need us to talk," I emphasized. "Whatever I have to say won't help you sleep at night." I blinked at him. "What?" He had noticed? "You're having nightmares, right? Because of me?" I had a feeling he purposefully avoided eye contact, as opposed to actually trying to read the fine text. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I woke you up." "That's not my point..." He said through gritted teeth. He shook his head angrily and finally turned to face me again. "Why do you do this to yourself?" I stared back at him. "What do you mean?" "You're not sleeping. You're not eating. You've really started to suck at those videogames. Why are you putting yourself through this? It's clear you can't handle it." "What would you have me do?" I shot back. "I told you a long time ago! You should have left when you had the chance." He growled. "But you're still here and you're making things harder on yourself that you need to. Why don't you just ride it out? You only have to be here until your eighteenth birthday. If you would just keep your head down-" "If I keep my head down he is going to keep doing to you what he has always done to you!" I argued. "How can you possibly expect me not to act?" "It's not your responsibility to save me! We're not brothers!" "That doesn't change the way I feel about you! I care about you, you asshole!" I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. Why couldn't he just understand that no good person could watch someone else go through this and not do anything about it? Wait, of course he couldn't understand! All anybody ever did was abuse him or let others abuse him without offering any protection. I tried to explain to him: "I'm not going to sit on my hands and let you continue to suffer the abuse that was meant for me! So just fucking let me help you and share some of this burden with me." "I don't want you to end up like me!" He blurted. "You can't handle it!" I smiled wryly at him. He wouldn't admit it, but it was clear he cared about me too. "I'm stronger than you think." "You don't look like it." He looked me up and down pointedly. "You look like shit." "Fine, if you don't want Cameron to get to me, tell me everything." He opened his mouth to argue but I interjected: "If you tell me what I'm up against, I know what to look out for. I can protect myself. And I might be able to protect you too and figure out a way to get us out of here. For good." "It's an illusion!" "Illusions can be powerful. They can make things happen." After all, look at Cameron. He was not all-powerful, but as long as the right people believed he was, they would do his bidding. I knew that if I could get Heero to believe in the 'illusion', that we could get out of there, it could incite something in him; hope and, with a bit of luck, the will and strength to fight. If he was truly on my side and committed to escaping Cameron's reach, we could do it. He rolled his eyes at me, but he gave me consent to ask him questions. I didn't know where to start, but I decided on: "Who are those guys?" He batted his eyelashes innocently at me. "Which guys?" "You know damn well. Those guys in the videos. The guys who-" "Have sex with me?" "Rape you," I corrected. His answer was vague, probably deliberately so. "Valued customers." I sighed. "What does that mean? And don't be coy," I warned. "Club owners, drug dealers, porn kings..." He looked at me defiantly and continued with smooth transition: "Family men, police officers, pastors..." "How does Cameron know them? Did he put you up on Craigslist or something? 'Young Boypussy looking to be sodomized'?" He reeled back at my harsh words, as hard as he tried to conceal his emotions, I could clearly see the word 'boypussy' upset him, it was a word some of the costumers had used in reference to him and I had used it on purpose to get a reaction out of him. He composed himself and informed me coldly: "I'm not the product Cameron is selling. I'm a complementary option. An additional purchase, available only to the VIP's." "Addition to what?" "Cameron sells them drugs." I nodded at having my suspicion confirmed. "What kind of drugs?" "MDMA mostly," He replied neutrally. "He uses surplus chemicals from the company to have it produced off the books." "How do you know this? Is there proof?" He shook his head at my naiveté. "I heard him say it. It's part of his pitch, to assure costumers that the resource is endless and untraceable. He sells it to private, individual users, but also in large quantities to lower distributors, like club-owners." "And how do you fit into all of this?" "Some of his best customers are the owners of gay clubs, as a result, a large part of the clientele is gay. When he wants to show them a good time, to ensure their satisfaction with his services, he brings me in. For extra cash they can join one of the parties or book a private session with me." I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. It was tempting to say that I didn't want to hear any more, but that was the coward's way out. Inaction wasn't going to help either of us. "Private... session..." "Yes." He paused. "He didn't show you any of those videos?" "Only- Only the 'parties', I guess. But Cameron is there during the private sessions as well?" "Yes, he is always there. He always films everything. It is his insurance that no one is ever going to grow a conscience and place an anonymous tip or leak information, because as soon as Cameron gets scrutinized, they will be exposed themselves." "Shit... Do- Do you know any of these guys? Like, do you know the names of some of them?" "No." I chewed on the inside of my cheek. None of this information was actually helping, it only served to make me feel sick again. But I realized figuring out a plan of attack wasn't the only important thing about this conversation. Another goal was to understand Heero and to do that I had to know what he had been through and how he experienced it. In the process of finding out, I hoped the confrontation would cause him to reevaluate. Straying away from the pursuit of useful facts, I asked reluctantly: "What happens during the private sessions?" He narrowed his eyes at the change of my tone and intention. "Mostly the same as what happens during the parties. They have sex with me, but there is only one." "Mostly?" He pursed his lips. "What do you really want to ask?" "What's the worst thing any of them has done to you?" The question blurted out of me. I wanted to know the answer because I suspected it could be quite telling to hear what was the worst thing in his experience. "It's just sex, Duo," He repeated for the umpteenth time. Those weren't his words, I realized, those were Cameron's words. He put those in his head from a young age as he manipulated him into being okay with all of this. "But you don't like it, right?" I chose my words carefully. "Even if it's just sex." "I like it sometimes." His words chilled me to the bone; the very marrow shivered. "The drugs help." He elaborated: "When he gives me the drugs, the pain becomes dull and distant and I feel relief and pleasure and I don't want them to stop. I want them to make me come. I usually pass out and I don't remember a lot of things by the time I wake up." I could throw up; I felt like doubling over and puking right at his feet, but I forced myself to stay composed and I hoped my face didn't grossly betray my discomfort. "And what about when you don't get the drugs, or when they wear off?" "It hurts, but it hurts less if I don't show them that it hurts." My lips quivered and I felt a single tear run down my cheek. He watched me intently but he didn't react to my emotional struggle. "What hurt you the most?" I thought I spotted a flicker of distress on his features but he fought to maintain an impassive expression. He started dryly: "One older man didn't want to have sex with me. He wanted to put his entire fist in my ass. And Cameron wouldn't give me drugs that time. The man wanted me to be lucid. He wanted me to feel the pain and he wanted me to look down and watch his hand go in. I could feel every single one of his fingers move inside me." My face contorted. I knew he was willingly sharing the details only because he wanted me to regret asking these questions. He concluded matter-of-factly: "That hurt a lot. I had to go to a hospital because he ripped me." "Oh God..." I stepped back until the back of my legs hit the bed and I lowered myself down onto it, not caring that he was glaring at me and clearly didn't want to me to sit down on his perfectly made bed. "Didn't the doctors ask...?" "Yes. I lied to them. I said I did it myself, with a toy, that it was an accident." I covered my face with my hands, I didn't want him to see me cry, I wanted to be strong for him, but so far I wasn't doing so well. "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry," I muttered into my palms. "And this other time..." He went on, kicking me while I was already curled up on the floor, figuratively speaking. "Please, please stop." I shook my head at myself. "I'm so sorry. Can we-... Can we stop for now?" I was disappointed with myself, but I couldn't handle it. I wasn't strong enough, I couldn't stomach it. I needed to take a break. Taking deep breaths through my nose I peered up at him and for a split-second I saw guilt and regret written on his face, but when he caught me looking he quickly manipulated his features into a scowl. "Sure. We can stop." "Thank you." "What did it do for you?" I frowned. "Sorry?" "Having me say these things, what did it do for you? Did it help you?" "I don't know... But I hope it helps you. If not now, then maybe someday in the future." With effort I offered him a smile. "I know you think I'm being childish and naïve, but I have faith." "Faith in what?" "Faith in justice. Faith in you. You're a pretty amazing person, I've never given you credit for that, but you are. You are strong. You've been strong all this time, dealing with this shit by yourself. Now I need you to be strong in a different way." He looked at me, confused and mistrusting. "What if you are mistaken? What if I'm not strong and can't be strong?" "Then I have to be strong for you." He snorted at the sentiment. "You practically threw up listening to these stories." I shrugged, "I guess I need to have that different kind of strength. You have the strength that has allowed you to survive all this time and maybe it's up to me to have the kind of strength that it takes to get us out of here." "We'll see..." He mused ominously. "We will. I'll show you." I didn't know if I was getting through to him, but he was never again as combative as he was before. Maybe he was quietly hopeful that I would able to help him, but he could never voice that hope out loud, not even whisper it, because that would wash the foundation out from underneath the walls he had built around himself. I liked to think that meant he secretly had faith in me as well. I wasn't going to disappoint him, regardless. It was not an option. By regularly making trips to the train station and using the payphone to call Ruby I kept in touch with her and assured her time and time again that I was fine and restated that I could not leave without Heero. It was important that I kept her in the loop because once I did manage to pull Heero out of Cameron's claws, Ruby was the only place we could go. I didn't want us to escape only have us end up living on the streets, Heero needed to be taken care off. I couldn't just whisk him away to the nomadic lifestyle that I had attempted following the death of my mother, before social services tracked me down and reunited me with my father. That was not the kind of life Heero would be able to handle, he needed stability and security or else the trauma of his childhood, as the son of a crack whore - as he himself described it - would hamper his recovery. My mother was not wrong to leave me Ruby's contact information, hidden in the photo-album. Ruby was as nice and caring as I remembered her and she was desperate to help both me and Heero, but I couldn't give her any details, I didn't want her to get involved prematurely and have everything blow up in our face. For the time being, the only thing I could do was to stay at Heero's side and serve as a buffer, to protect him from Cameron. Whenever I had the house all to myself, I used the privacy to search the home office, hoping maybe Cameron had unwisely scribbled the four digit code to the safe on a piece of paper and had hidden it somewhere. But those many afternoons spent searching were all in vain. Of course Cameron wasn't careless enough to leave the code lying around somewhere, especially not after showing me what exactly was in that safe. In that safe was everything I needed to save Heero: the evidence to put Cameron in prison, the money to escape his reach and a gun to protect ourselves until he was safely locked away in a cell somewhere. As he said, it was his way of taunting me, of crippling me, but it wasn't going to work. Knowing what was in there, only fueled my determination. Cameron noticed that his tactic had failed. He saw the fire that burned in my eyes and he saw how Heero subconsciously gravitated towards me, unknowingly seeking the protection - however feeble - that I offered. It scared him as much as it enraged him. I needed some kind of back-up plan. What would happen if he decided to get rid of me for good? Shoot me with that gun and dispose of me and pretend I ran away? My only concern was for Heero, for him being left alone in that house again, with him. There wasn't much I could do, based on the power he had over the local police force, but I wrote everything down in a notebook - the abuse of Heero, the evidence in the safe, and the possibility that Cameron could kill me to protect his secret - and included Ruby's phone number and I hid it in my locker at school. I hoped that if something were to happen to me, the notebook would end up in the right hands. It was a small, likely useless measure, but I had to do something. My father, however, wasn't idly sitting by either. I could tell he was plotting to do something to undermine my alliance with Heero. Not knowing what would happen was the worst fear I had experienced in my life so far. I could tell by the look in his eyes during our family dinners that he was planning something destructive and all I could do was wait and hope to be able to mend things when he dropped whatever bomb he was planning to drop.
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