Warnings/A.N.: language, graphic sexual content, violence, character torture, and rape - THERE WILL BE NO WARNING! I complied with past requests for warnings of animal torture, and will continue to do so, and if anyone even bothers to mention that they are equally distressed by man-on-man violence, I will be more than glad to add future warnings, or maybe even repost this chapter with one. It all kind of depends on the response. *Side Note* I'm sort of hoping that someone will ask, I don't want to believe that animal torture is harder to swallow, and human brutality is so common that it doesn't even faze one single, solitary reader.

Camp Bleska

Chapter 8

A bell tolled, rang again, and rang again. Pushing his face off the bed, Duo glared squinty eyed out the window, and damned the sound that stirred him from his needed slumber. His head pulsed similar to that of a hangover but not so severe, it was more dull and made him quite withdrawn and uncaring to his surrounds. Realizing he was back at the camp, Duo forced himself to dress and re-braid his hair quickly. Desperately he wanted to roll another joint, which he'd done last night before falling asleep, to ease his abstractly frazzled nerves.

Outside the violet-eyed man found his twelve campers waiting for him, and he led the march to the Mess Hall with sluggish feet.

The second her blue eyes fixated on Heero, Relena bounced over to him and squealed, "I missed you!" Wrapping her slender, pale arms around his neck, she squeezed tightly, ecstatically. The past three days had left her to wallow in a fit of misery; she had no idea what had become of her cherished, quiet friend and her big heart bled for the boy in his absence.

At first Heero didn't know how to respond to an intense, open, overwhelmingly joyful reaction caused by his mere attendance, but as the blonde girl hung tightly to him, he found himself returning the gesture. Bundling his arms around her waist, his blue eyes closed, and he hugged her just as fiercely, nose imbedded in her silky clean yellow hair. The pure scent of her raised his spirit. But that relief would only last for fleeting seconds.

Lifting his eyelids, an invisible itch told the blue-eyed creature he was being watched. Seeking out the source, Heero found himself situated underneath Sylvia's knowing, blank stare. Neither angry or fearful, she gazed blankly at the boy who had assaulted her. For once, Heero felt an ounce of regret weighed down in the bottom of his gut. He'd done wrong - abused the girl and recognized that empty leer as a fault of his own. Regardless of how little remorse he felt, the supple teen knew he'd intimidate the girl into silence again if need be. Hugging Relena more tightly, he vowed that she never be exposed to the unwholesome side of Heero Lowe-Yuy. Shamming a seething glare, Heero pierced Sylvia's eyes with a threatening glance that made her look and walk away, head hung low.

"I missed you, too," Heero murmured in Relena's ear, brushing his lips along the shell of her appendage, unintentionally heightening her hormones.

Giggling awkwardly, blushing brightly, she pulled away from the embrace as her left hand flew to trace the ear teased by her crush. The cheery blonde smiled bashfully and said, "Don't you go getting sick on me again."

He smirked down at her. "I'll do my best."

Eating their breakfast, Relena chattered nonstop, barely breathing between her words as she enthusiastically told Heero all he had missed in great, vivid detail. From the opposite end of their table, Muller glared disdainfully; already scheming his next act of retribution. Every so often, Heero would throw a fearsome death glare back at the boy when his blonde friend would turn her gaze to her food for a millisecond, take a bite, chew, and then continue to ramble with her mouth full.

On the other side of the room Duo picked at his scrambled eggs and hash browns, not really in the mood for eating, but he downed glass after glass of orange juice. Taking no part in the conversation with the other counselors, Duo contemplated back on the three days spent in the company of the blue-eyed boy. Acknowledging too many lines had been crossed, the braided man reached the conclusion that he couldn't be alone with the kid again, for something more consequential would surely happen.

Outside the early day was quickly swelling; proving the sun was beaming down to create a hot, sticky afternoon. Howard and a few other Latino hired helpers set up six volleyball nets along the lengths of the sandy shoreline. It was important to keep the kids active and moving, lest they become bored and create trouble. Campers and counselor alike were given thirty minutes of down time to digest their meals before participating in the sport.

Separating the kids equally, - three boys and three girls to each team of six - Duo deliberately placed Heero and Relena on the same team, and Muller, Trant and Thaddeus on the other. A concise rundown of the rules and quick demonstration on how to serve, pass, set, and spike allowed the violet-eyed man to sit back and watch the game unfold with the rest of the counselors at a shady table situated nearby where they all could observe from.

Sitting at the far edge away from everyone else, Duo rubbed his eyes and temples with the tips of his fingers. The strange after effects of the come-down were beginning to fade, permitting him to feel somewhat normal again, but it wasn't fast enough. To make matters worse, Milliardo plunked down beside him, wood bench creaking under his weight.

"So," the blond man chuckled. "How was your little vacation with the Jap boy?"

Huffing irritably, Duo argued, "Was no damn vacation. He was sick. I took care of him. End of story."

"I find that hard to believe." Milliardo smirked and drank from his water bottle.

"And why is that?"

"Because if it were the truth, you wouldn't be so cross about it."

Rolling his violet-eyes, the braided man questioned soreheadedly, "Just what the fuck do you think happened?"

Smiling a toothy grin, eyes twinkling darkly, Milliardo whispered, "Now that's something only you can tell me."

Eye to eye, Duo scowled and the Peacecraft mans' grin widened. As the staring match continued, Duo curled his toes in his shoes, hands clenched into white knuckled fists, the heat of the summer air added kerosene to his inner fire. Chuckling darkly, the blond man forfeited the staring contest, stood up, and rejoined the other counselors mingling at the opposite end of the table. Agitated, Duo marched off in the direction of his cabin. He needed five minutes alone to gather his nerves.

On the second court from the left in a row of six, Heero spiked the cushioned volleyball and narrowly missed hitting Muller in the face. Their game surpassed friendly sportsmanship the instant the first serve was thrown into the air. Muller and his posse generated a united force with the added help of Miss Catalonia. Her competitive nature thrived in most of the sports she played, but her strong suit was fencing. Relena played fairly well alongside Heero and the two other boys on their team. She wasn't as invested in the game as the others, and she strived to be an active player, unlike Sylvia and the redheaded girl on their team who stood in the back of the court and dodged the ball whenever it got too close to them. Anne was much the same on Muller's team. They were tied, two-to-two, and the game grew more fierce.

Concealed in his private bathroom, the violet-eyed man dumped a small amount of chunky white dust onto the bathroom counter, chopped the larger pieces with a razor blade, shaped the drug into one thin line, rolled up a two dollar bill (1), and in one swift motion he inhaled the narcotic through the banknote. Up the nose and straight into the dome. That's all it took and the burn is bearable, more of an uncomfortable tickle. Less than half a minute and the fuzzy tingling in his head change from being a nuisance to extraordinary. Tilting his head backwards, Duo inhaled sharply a few more times, making sure none of the residue escaped. As the euphoria crept up his vertebra, the braided man cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, and cracked his neck. Pressing his fingertips into his brow ridge, Duo pushed his hands upward into his bangs, nails scratched his scalp while he breathed out a shaky, aroused moan. /Un-fucking-believable./ Spirit lifted tenfold, Duo went back outside a new man.

The volleyball games continued for the best of three. Duo's group was the last finish; the opposing teams treating the average sport game as if it were a match to the death. At Muller's last serve, he hoisted the ball high into the air and smacked it clear over the net in the direction of Relena, betting on her being their weakest link.

Watching the ball fall from the sky like a comet, Relena grasped in a nanosecond that she was going to have to dive for it to save the game. Feet digging into the sand, the blonde girl lunged herself forward with all her might, her body falling through the air. Knees grinding into the grainy ground, hands cupped and stretched far out in front of her, she fell to the ground with her eyes fixed on the target. The ball missed her wrist by an inch, plopped into the sand and bounced away.

Relena heard the irritated groans and shouts of failure from her teammates, but her brilliant blue eyes sought out those of a deeper, richer hue.

Growling, Heero kicked the ground, punched the air and pivoted around to try and hide his frustration from her. But she saw, she saw his angry, pink cheeked, sweaty face grimace. A wave of self-condemnation broke over her fragile frame as she pushed herself to her feet, brushed the sand from her knees, elbows, and clothes. Looking through the net, the disappointed girl watched her oldest frenemy jump up and down with ecstatic joy, hooting and hollering loudly. /She's always friggin' wins. Always./ Poor Relena couldn't fight off the green monster: jealousy.

Lifting his glare from the ground, Heero found his camp counselor watching him. He took three steps in his direction, but Duo turned and marched over to the other adults and quickly engaged the others in conversation. Puzzled, the blue-eyed boy allowed the man to have his clearly maneuvered avoidance tactic succeed. He didn't believe such behavior would last long. After all, they had formed a rather strong, enticing bond over the three days they'd spent together...handn't they?

Until the lunch bell told, the campers were allowed to mix and mingle on the beach without the permission to swim. Relena wanted to apologize for her folly, but she wasn't give the opportunity. After the game, Heero wandered off and found that sitting along back of his cabin was nice secluded spot. Tired and irked, the teen found the idea of continuing human interaction rather depleting - though normal people required the basic interaction with others as a necessity - of a falsified front that he, more often than not, displayed to appear normal.

The lunch meal progressed without incident. Free time to swim and splash in Lake Eerie was much the same. The only thing that registered as odd in Heero's dark mind was how the violet-eyed man repeatedly steered away from him and refused to hold eye contact for more than a passing moment.

At dinner time Heero kept quiet, adding to Relena's distress, but she sensed his attention was elsewhere. The dark-haired boy glared fiendishly at Duo. He could only handle being ignored to a certain extent, and having gained zero attention from the man throughout the day was starting to rub the boy the wrong way; awaking his vengeful side. Maybe this was his punishment for being contemptuous towards the braided man when he'd asked about his father. Duo had divulged miniscule insight to his bleak, painful past and Heero in return had said nothing. He didn't take kindly to those who tried to figure him out. It made the situation much too personal, but on the other hand, he wished to know Duo through and through, inside and out, front to back. Still, the idea of candidly talking about what he'd experienced made his skin crawl, stomach turn, and produced a mild headache.

Instead of the usual ritual of story-telling around the campfire, the teens were hauled into the auditorium for a more academic ending to the day. Slide after slide from an ancient projector illustrated the different constellations in preparation for the next nights activity: stargazing.

Thirty minutes after lights out, the blue-eyed boy snuck out of Cabin Weayaya and made a b-line for his counselors cabin. The lights were off, and the entire cabin was entirely black thanks to sky holding no moon, but Heero sensed Duo wasn't there. Walking inside and to the edge of the bed confirmed his sixth sense. Bolting from the cottage, Heero dodged and weaved through the dark, stepping as light as he could on dried fallen leaves, twigs, sand and dirt. Eventually, at the very last cabin, Heero spied Duo in Wufei's cabin among his and Hilde's company. The three of them appeared to be enthralled in an exciting, hilarious conversation. Knowing he couldn't extract the braided man for his own purposes, Heero angrily marched back to his bed, punching each tree he passed in an ineffectual effort to release his pent-up exasperation.

Halfway to his cabin a voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

"What are you doing out here alone?"

Turning his head slowly, Heero appraised the man with long blond hair standing on his porch smoking a cigarette. For some inexplicable reason, Milliardo's atmosphere harbored none of the malign nature he'd exhibited before when he briefly groped the dark-haired boy. Taking a trusting step towards the man, Heero responded, "Just walking."

"You're out past curfew, mister," Milliardo teased. "Are you looking for someone?" he asked evasively. He'd watched silently as Heero passed before, observed him outside Wufei's window. Before that he'd seen Duo walk with the Schribieker girl to the Chinese man's cottage. He was no idiot. He knew exactly what was going on. And if all played out well, he could manipulate the situation to favor his own twisted, malevolent desires.

"No," Heero lied.

"Well, you should get back to bed before someone tattles on you."

Tilting his head to his right shoulder, Heero questioned, "You're not going to report me?"

"No. Now go before you get caught by someone more honorable," the blond man chuckled.

Not wasting time, Heero took off. While running he wondered how that particular man could so capriciously change the aura around him. He didn't trust him, per se, but an ingenious idea sparked in calculating head. If he couldn't get to Duo, he make the man come to him. All he needed to do was reroute his outward appearance to show infatuations with the Peacecraft man, and that would hopefully ignite some sort of baser, territorial, carnal instinct of domain in Duo. And then all would be as it should be...

After a dinner he consumed half of, Duo inhaled two more lines of cocaine. The high from earlier lasted perhaps half an hour in retrospect. He realized he was going to have to micro-manage his use and conserve his supply, because a gram of this shit was disappearing faster than a gram of his weed. /Maybe I'm makin' my lines too big./ He thought after he breathed in the second row of white powder dust. Hilde came to his cabin, per his request, after lights out. They chatted idly for five or so minutes before he disappeared back into the bathroom to lick the tip of pinkie finger, dip it into his stash, and rub the residue along his upper gums, thrice. After that they walked to Wufei's cabin. His decision. He didn't want that demon kid to see Hilde in his private cabin again. Plus, Wufei had a bottle of vodka that he offered to share.

Wufei, Hilde, and Duo talked amicably about several different topics over the course of three hours. Duo's words and gesture entertained with his erratic, turbulent nature before the "downing" nature of alcohol leveled his high out. His acquaintances failed to recognize the inebriated state he was in, and simply prescribed it to his boastful persona. Despite how the evening came to be, Duo hadn't planned on spending it high and drunk. All he wanted was to be away from his room because he had an itching feeling that a certain someone would be stopping by, and by doing this, he was steering clear of that inevitable encounter.

Half past midnight, the violet-eyed man staggered back to his cabin, blurry-eyed and spinning. Kicking off his shoes and removing his shorts, Duo slept soundly under a thin sheet in the sweltering heat of a summer night.

Something stirred him from his slumber much too early, far sooner than the morning bell. Shifting, he couldn't move and his crusted eyes peeled open to gaze blankly out the blind closed window which authorized the grey blue morning light to seep through the slits. Mid yawn Duo heard the voice he didn't - most of him didn't - want to hear.

"Why are you avoiding me?" asked Heero.

The presumptuous blue-eyed cretin was sitting atop his half conscious body, treating him as if he were a backwards chair.

He grumbled, "The fuck, kid?"

"Answer my question," Heero demanded evenly.

"I don' have ta answer shit to you," Duo grumbled, forced his body to turn on his side, which almost sent Heero rolling off him.

"Just give me an answer and I'll go," the teen fibbed.

"Pft, yeah right, and LBJ is going to be reelected. Get the hell outta here."

"Lyndon B. Johnson is a far better candidate than Barry Goldwater, so your point is invalid. Answer me."

Crabby in the early morning, Duo scolded, "I just want to get away from you, you freak!"

That outburst made the blue-eyed boy lurch back, and it strummed a harsh chord he wasn't aware was open and vulnerable to plucking. Breathing hotly through his nose, grinding his teeth together, and snarling down at Duo and his sloppy, sleep messy braid, Heero seethed, "Fuck you."

"Yeah, fuck you too, kid," Duo sighed, practically falling asleep as the half Japanese boy removed himself from Duo's personal space and cabin all together, which allowed the twenty year old to sleep for the remaining hour and a half.

Day twelve progressed much like the last. Duo evading Heero at all costs as if he were the bubonic plague, and the teen growing more and more incandescent, baffled even, by his counselor's obvious antics. His ego was bruised. How could Duo have the audacity to ignore him and push him away now? No one he held an interest in treated him this way, no one. By the grace of God and the Devil, Heero would have his way. If he had known the penalty for his wishes, he most likely would have let the matter go and accepted failure...but an individual like him didn't learn much from defeat.

In the hours between breakfast and lunch the campers were forced upon another hike, which in the stifling hot sun seemed more like an act of pointless torture than a fun, exciting activity. This time Duo's troupe was paired up with Wufei's and after an hour and half of marching through the trees, the group took a forty-five minute break.

"Alright, when you hear the whistle blow," Wufei demonstrated by blowing into the metal instrument, sampling the high-pitched sound that echoed off the hillsides, "you're all to come back. Don't wander off far or alone, and watch out for snakes." The Chinese man sat down on a large, smooth rock next to his associate and they began to chat.

Heero picked up a long twig and meandered away from the group, per usual. Relena witnessed his break for solitary freedom and shadowed him. The blue-eyed boy heard the crunching footfalls of someone coming up behind him and his sixth sense discerned it was the only person he considered a friend. Catching up, Relena walked side by side with Heero in silence for a few minutes.

Speaking up, Relena said in a low voice, "Sorry about the game yesterday."

"It's alright, it was just a game," Heero replied, kicking a rock.

"I know, but you seemed really upset when we lost."

"Maybe a little. I just didn't want Muller to win," the dark-haired boy answered with a half-smile.

They continued to walk and talk for a while, aimlessly treading over a hillside, strolling between large trees, laughing at childish jokes they shared. While Heero leaned against a large oak tree, smiling so honestly and brilliantly, eyes not so dead; Relena gave into her own desires. Lifting herself up onto her tip-toes, she impulsively kissed her crush on the mouth.

Jolted, his eyes opened wide and before he could stop himself, Heero pressed both hands to her shoulders and shoved her back with all his startled force. Falling on the ground, the small of her back landed on the hard jagged form of a half buried rock. A shrill cry fell from her lips.

Struck with the sudden frightening shock of regret, Heero stood frozen there as his heart pounded in its cracked state. He was at a momentary loss of how to amend the wrong he'd committed. The 'flight' mode told him to run, run hard and fast, to not face his mistake. But he couldn't do that to her. It would be as if he was turning his back on Marino, which was utterly unacceptable in his mind. Suppressing the want to dash off, Heero stood stock-still, wide-eyed, and unmoving.

Rolling onto her right side, it took a moment for the pain to bring her to tears. It goes without saying that this wasn't relatively close to the reaction she'd been excepting and hoping for. Crying in agony, Relena stammered, "Wa-why'd yo-you push me?!"

Compelled into action, Heero stammered as he trembled, "I-I di-din't me-mean to!" And he pulled Relena up to her feet by her forearms. She groaned torturedly, left hand rubbing her sore, bruised back, tears drying on her pale rounded cheeks while her sky-blue orbs resembled that of a kicked puppy expression.

Water building upon her bottom lids, droplets rolling over smooth bottom folds to once again flow down her soft, tender cheekbones, Relena asked with her under lip quavering like a Fall leaf holding hopelessly to its branch in harsh breeze, "Don't you like me?"

"Yes, of course!" Heero affirmed.

"Then why don't you wanna kiss me?" she sniffled, rubbing the back of her hand under her nostrils to swipe away the nasal drainage that threatened to run down the ridges and folds of her philtrum. (A.N. philtrum: the little triangle space below your nose that extends to the tips of the upper lip.)

Understanding slammed into him like a runaway freight train. She liked him. More than a friend. Something he could never return. Letting someone down easy was a mind-fuck of a new idea. He'd never had to push someone away that he cared for and set specific boundaries. It was always went one of two ways. Number one, he didn't want their attention or affection or sexual desire at all, and was forced into situations a child should never experience at the hands of parent. Number two, he was the one who sought out and initiated the inappropriate contact. How was he to mitigate this kind of circumstance? The one singular thing he desired most was about to be turned down because it came from the wrong person. Now, wasn't that always the tricky thing about Love?

Shaking his tousled head, Heero admitted, "I can't kiss you." A long stretch of silence occupied the air particles between them as the blue-eyed boy strived unsuccessfully to clarify himself. "I don't like you like that," he whispered.

Relena whimpered, "Why not?"

Choking on his own words, the Japanese boy forced the painful exclamation out minus pause, and with fists clenched in white knuckled tension at his sides, "Because you remind me of my sister!"

Profound shock and astonishment wrapped the Peacecraft girl up in an unescapable blanket. So vainly focused on the desire of her crush returning the loving instinct, she'd never fathomed the boy to deny her on grounds of an incestuous reason. The idea made her scared, nauseous, and depressed. Her first lesson in rejection, and it wasn't easy to swallow.

Staring eye to eye, they both attempted to find the words that needed to be said, but neither could discover a healthy way out of the situation. Relena wanted to scream, cry, holler that he was sick and twisted for comparing her to his sister, but she couldn't. Heero wanted to know how she could have misconstrued his affection? But an answer wouldn't have alleviated anything, only would make matters worse.

Their saving grace was a high-pitched whistle that sounded far and echoed between the long-stemmed trees, bouncing the sound off the hillsides, making it difficult to decipher where it came from. But they weren't disoriented, they knew exactly where they were. Simply misguided in the domain of emotion, surfing on differing wave lengths in the confusing "thing" called life. Too young, too impressionable, too confused to make sense of the bigger picture.

With questions left unanswered and feelings bruised by fierce blows, the two teens began the somber, silent walk back to their group.

Halfway back, Heero grasped Relena's wrist, squeezed his digits tightly around the bones between her hand and arm, and forced her to meet his gaze. "I like you," he admitted. "It's just not the way you like me." He sighed heavily through his mouth before continuing, "Please tell me we can still be friends. You're the only friend I have here. You're the ony friend I've ever had."

Watery eyes, pouty lips, and blushing cheeks, Relena asked, "How do I remind you of your sister? Didn't you tell me she's dead?" She kept her eyes glued to spot on the ground, the tip of her left tennis shoed toe nudging at the dirt repetitively.

Shrugging, Heero confessed, "Yeah, she's dead, but that doesn't matter. I think I only like other boys anyways." What he really meant was men. He didn't care at all for other males his age, but he didn't want to explain that.

The lingering traces of tears vanished from her eyes as she stared shell-shocked at him. "But you're a boy!"

"Yeah, so?"

"You're not suppose to like other boys! It's a sin...I think." Scratching her arm, the blonde girl tried to remember what little had been explained to her about homosexuality from the Bible. It was a topic that wasn't frequently reiterated on in her church.

"Maybe it is," he speculated with a passive shrug.

"You'll go to hell! Aren't you scared?" she practically yelled, arms held out wide in a disbelieving gesture.

"No."

"How can you not be scared of hell? It's a place where evil people live! You're not bad!"

/I'm not good either./ The tousled haired youth thought to himself. "Look can we just drop it? Are you still my friend or not?"

Relena glanced around nervously before nodding her head in an unconvincing manner. Resuming their walk, the two friends made their way back to the rest of the group to continue the hike.

The hike commenced, teens following their leaders up and down hills, traipsing narrow paths between dry brush that scratch and scrape their calves similar to nettle thorns, leaving behind red swollen lines of irritated flesh. Relena rarely looked back at the boy she'd fallen for. His confession of homosexuality hurt her heart and made her sad and unbearably uneasy, nauseous; skin crawling with goosebumps. She spent the remaining majority of the hike with Dorothy and Sylvia, which made Heero feel more isolated. Usually that was an appreciated feeling, but with Duo on the outs combined with Relena's obvious disgust with him, Heero felt more alone than ever.

Later that night, shortly after dinner, the stargazing activity began. All the teens were required to wear life vests, climb into the canoes, and paddle the skinny boats out onto the center of the lake to identify as many constellations that they had learned from the previous nights projector slide show. Heero waited in the back of the group after prompting Relena to take the second seat away from Duo, leaving the one in front of him vacant. She questioned his motives, wondering if his perverse sexuality was the reason he wanted to be close to the funny, attractive braided man. Most all the girl were crushing on him, his sunny disposition and easy-going attitude making him the ideal candidate for the girls to fawn over. She shoved the idea from her head and assumed he looked up to Duo like some of the other boys did.

The Peacecraft girl took the seat her friend requested, and it wasn't until Heero boarded the canoe before him that Duo realized he should have assigned the seats. Duo climbed into the canoe, sat at the only open seat at the back of the little boat and instructed the kids to row.

Once they reached the center of the lake, the other boat-full of kids drifting in the water not from them, the violet-eyed man asked his group to start pointing out constellations, recite their origins, and their significance starting with the North Star. The girls took over the answering portion, only allowing two of the boys who actually remembered anything from last night to answer along with them. Heero was one of the few to remain silent. Though his mouth didn't move, his hands spoke volumes.

Every so often, Duo found himself swatting away Heero's wandering hands from his lower legs and knees, going as far to lightly kick them away occasionally. Just because he was a little stoney - he had shared a doobie with Wufei after dinner - didn't mean he was inebriated enough to consent to the not so subtle touching and the deeper meaning behind them.

The braided man was adamant, uncompromising in his decision to distance himself from the damning blue-eyed teen.

Close to an hour later all the canoes paddle back to the dock. Everyone climbed out as the braided man remained seated in his spot and so did - unsurprisingly - Heero. Without making eye contact, keeping his vision peering out over the lake and the tall trees along its distant dark shore, Heero repeated his question from the night before: "Why are you avoiding me?"

Most of the people had cleared the wooden walkway except for a lingering few who were too enwrapped in idle conversation. Duo found it safe to lean forward, breath hotly over the shell of Heero's ear as he whispered, "Because I want nothing to do with you. I don't like you. You're a demented, fucked up lil kid who won't stay the hell away from me. All your seducing bull shit isn't going to work. If you want somebody to fuck you, use you as their play-thing, find someone else because it ain't gonna be me."

He knew the words to be harsh, brutal, overall mean and were meant to cut deep.

Heero had quivered softly under the heat of the braided man's exhale before his damning words stabbed into the place where his supposed heart was meant to be. Angry, rejected, utterly humiliated in a not so private setting, Heero stood and exited the canoe, consciously jostling the boat harshly to make Duo hold on tight to the sides rather than fall in the frigid waters.

Violet eyes followed the kids' movements until he quickly vanished at end of the pier, marching to fade into complete darkness. He was only half apologetic for his vicious words. Duo recognized that if he didn't put a callous distance between them, Heero would only continue to push his buttons and boundaries. His best bet was to feign absolute disdain, and over all resistance if he wanted to hold onto any hope of surviving the summer to become the lofty, mildly well-adjusted individual he'd been at the start.

While Heero stomped down the dock and found Relena waiting for him at the end, he decided to ignore her and continue his rapid pace to his cabin. But the girl was not so easily dissuaded.

"What was that?" she asked in a harsh whisper.

"What was what?" he retorted grumpily.

"What happened between you and Duo?"

"Nothing."

She followed slightly behind him until they reached the old wooden steps to Cabin Weayaya. He then turned to look at her with a painfully blank stare and she fought to ask her next question: "Do you like him?"

"He doesn't like me so what does it matter?" he griped and placed his right foot on the first step up to his sleeping quarters.

The blonde girl was quick to jump onto the shallow staircase and block his escape. He was not amused by her tactics, on the contrary, he found himself moving from chagrined to down right furious. All he fucking wanted was to climb onto his bunk, huddle under the covers and wallow in his own self-pity, and begin to plot a new course of action starting at square one.

On the steps, staring down into the dark blue eyes that typically looked down on her, Relena repeated her question with more force, "Do you like him?"

Heero quickly grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her away from the cabin. A short distance away, he pushed her into a tree and seethed, "Don't say that so loud! Do you know what the other guys will do to me if they know I'm a fag?!"

"Don't call yourself that!" she pleaded, so desperately wanting it to be untrue.

The blue-eyed boy ran his hands through his unkempt hair and tried vainly to calm himself with even meditative breaths. "You can't ask those kinds of questions when other people might be listening," he advised, but it sounded more like a command.

"Just answer my question," she pleaded, clutching both his arms above the elbow and piercing his eyes with a desperate, half watery gaze.

His shoulders shrugged, falling to slack his overall posture. Returning her glance eye to eye he confirmed her worst possible fears: "Yeah I like him, but like I said he doesn't like me."

More of her young heart broke; the crack that begun to form earlier tore further down, opening up and bleeding profusely in her chest. She couldn't think of a thing to say to that, and had been hoping he would pacify her fears. As she stood there, shocked and unable to speak words, Heero settled for walking away. The sincere admission undoubtedly caused more bad than good for the friendship between him and the blonde girl.

Duo, well confined in the privacy of his bathroom, looked down at the Polaroid photo of the blue-eyed siren that he'd been gifted a while ago. He was struggling with understanding why the negative feelings continued to grow for the awful words he'd said to the kid, and came to the awareness that he was not going to grasp any kind of understanding anytime soon. Licking the back of the photograph, he stuck it to the wall opposite from where he sat on the closed toilet seat and began to divide the last remanents of his white drug into three thin - thinner than he would have liked - lines. Yeah, that micro-manage crap hadn't worked. Two days and he was out of the stuff. He was contemplating using the only phone to call his dealer and schedule a time at night to pick up, but that was a tricky since the only landline was located in Howard's office. The seemingly innocent white dust created an exceptional hunger that he fed, subsequently reinforced each chance he got, and he couldn't wait to get more.

After each inhale his violet orbs sought out the photo that stuck precariously to the wall by his saliva.

Two more unbearable, torturous, mundane days passed with no change in the circumstances between him in camp consoler. The set back made the dark-haired boy go to extreme measures to regain the attention he had had while he was ill. Heero spent a lot of time closer and nearer to Milliardo Peacecraft, consciously displaying lax suggestive body language whenever Duo's violet eyes seemed to notice. Relena took this sudden change as a mindful attempt to dissuade himself from his perversion because there was no one more honorable, forthright, and godly than her big brother.

Once Duo approached him to warn, "Stay away from that Milliardo character."

"Why?" Heero asked petulantly with his arms folded over his chest and eyebrow arching defiantly.

The little smirk playing on Heero's soft lips irritated him. "Because the dude is bad news."

"Whatever," he responded flippantly.

Walking away from the braided man, the smirk blossomed into a grin. /It's working./ He thought to himself. If all went according to plan, he'd have Duo back where he wanted him, right under his thumb.

Unbeknownst to Heero, Milliardo played well into his game like a pro, only touching him in subtle, soft, innocent ways that allowed him to believe the man had not an inkling of what his real motives were. The blond man also did this to come off as an upstanding role model for his younger sister. He knew she was infatuated with the boy, could tell by her body language which subliminally betrayed her innocent pubescent attraction. Milliardo cared not for disgracing the object of her affection while plotting the painful demise the boy would surely face. He'd become quite skilled at it over the years. A complete lack of moral compass gave him the credence to do as his wished, hide his true nature with the skills of a chameleon, and lack any and all source of regret and remorse.

Milliardo knew what he was. Knew what he had to pretend to be. And lived up to both with frightening accuracy and deception.

On the eve of the fourteenth night of camp, the Peacecraft man request the boy to meet him behind Duo's cabin well past curfew. The location was essential; a place where Heero thought a bit of revenge and provoking would take place. All the blond man needed was a little more leverage, a bit more ill placed trust, and add a tad more confidence within the ignorant boy who thought he was so damn smarter than everyone else. Such a dumb, young, self-assured beauty to be caught in his web of misfortune. A prey almost too easy to enjoy, but the sultry exotic youth knew the dark side of human nature, experienced it many times; Milliardo believed he could surely handle more torment, maybe. Or break underneath the weight of it all.

Either way, it didn't matter to the blond man as long as he got what he wanted in the end.

Over the two days Duo had to deal with no longer having that delicious white powder in his grasp. It left him wanting more, but nowhere near as addicted that he was strung out, or going through withdrawals. No. That would come much later, and he would find a fresh avenue for purchase sooner than he thought, and it wouldn't involve him leaving Camp Bleska in the middle of the night, much to his future relief. Though he did entertain the idea of running away for a few hours just to purchase that narcotic from his dealer, Tony, but could never bring himself to do so. He still had plenty of weed and a few friends with bottles of strong liquor. Wufei was actually a bigger stoner than he was. The Chinese man hid it well, and kept a fairly level head whilst high as a kite. It amused Duo greatly to know that stiff, almost grumpy looking Chinese man was faking his attitude in order to keep his drug use private. Waiting for coke could have proved good in the long run, letting him reach the ultimate recognition that it wasn't something he ought to be messing with. But that wouldn't come, and the desire to have more, more, more, more would eventually become obsessive, overwhelming, and absorbing. The new sudden addiction didn't trigger thoughts of 'I shouldn't do this', because he'd done so many other drugs along those lines and came out victorious despite his addictive nature.

Reflecting fondly on his childhood, the braided man remember the first toke he inhaled off the butt of a filter-less cigarette with his long missed friend Solo. His spunky friend had swiped a half smoked Lucky Strike from his mother's astray; it had only been lit for two minutes before being snuffed out. The re-lit nicotine tasted awful to both boys, but they sucked it down, too inexperienced to know how to inhale properly. Solo made it habit to steal his mother's smokes and over time they learned how to smoke - though Duo couldn't remember who taught who by this point - by inhaling with a deep breath, taking the toxins straight into their lungs, which created a fun tingling sensation in their heads. Even now cigarettes gave him that familiar buzz since he didn't smoke them too often, sending him right down a bittersweet memory lane.

Solo had been one of the last few persons to really get under his layers and dissect him. Since then he didn't bet on "best friends" staying around too long, especially when his obscene sexuality became public notice. And God forbid a brief lover - more like a body to temporarily screw - tried to get close enough to unravel his pain, torment, and sadness to reach his dilapidated heart.

Some would say he grew into a well-adjusted adult in the face of all his stife...but that was before Heero was dumped abruptly into his life. Occasionally he had thoughts of taking advantage of those more weak or younger than him, but he fought those urges off with the help of his faith and by simply having a standard moral compass that told him not to repeat the pain dealt to him. With another defaced soul around that moral compass twisted, turned, elongated into something unrecognizable similar to a clock from Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory".

He'd come so far only to fall to inescapable depths.

Milliardo convinced the dark blue-eyed boy to meet him outside Duo's cabin that night. There was no specific reason given, but Heero thought whatever happened it was would catch Duo's attention somehow since their meeting was to start behind his cottage.

The moon shone brightly, creating organic white-blue shapes between branches which guided his way to the back side of his counselors' cabin. He trod light paces, walking slowly and calmly until he reached the destination only to be grasped and pulled into a darker shadow.

He gasped.

Heart beat racing, the organ thudding inside his ribcage audible in his eardrums, the blue-eyed boy was eaten up by fear until a soothing familiar voice ease his discomfort.

"You made it. I'm so glad," Milliardo whispered hotly in his ear, purposefully teasing the back of the shell and wrapping him in tight, warm embrace that was suppose to signify trust, control, openness, and want. The blond man pulled out all his tricks, a true Master in the dishonorable Art of Deception. His skills allowed him to ebb and flow between being the kind, well-bred and knowledgable person he was suppose to be and the snake in the grass that he was. A true chameleon. A ferocious predator. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes, the blond man had given Heero a taste of what he truly was outside the mess hall on the day of the food fight, and then he had succeed in contorting the boys perception of him, fabricating a less threatening image.

Milliardo understood what he is.

Milliardo knew how to hide himself.

Milliardo held a uncanny talent for luring prey his; making them come willing to him.

The tension within Heero eased, his body relaxing against the blond mans' chest as the he continued to assault his ear and neck with his mouth. It wasn't as exciting as having Duo touch him but it felt good anyways. In the back of his mind, the blue-eyed boy wondered how this was suppose going to benefit his pursuit of the braided man, but that question was quickly snuffed out when Milliardo shoved his hand under the waistband of his shorts and underwear in one swift motion. Long fingers wrapped around his semi-stiff sex, stroked him with a brutal fast pace.

The blond man had no intentions of drawing this encounter out, he wanted it over as quickly as possible since it was simply a tactile manuever to get Heero to where he really wanted him.

Heero moaned loudly as he was pulled closer to climax.

"Shh," the Peacecraft man hushed, raised his free hand to draw the pads of his fingertips down the slope of the boys slender tan neck. It took great reserves to stop himself from gripping and strangling the kid into silence. Heero complied by biting his lip between his teeth with gentle force. Resting his head back on the blond man's shoulder, peering up at the sky as Milliardo pushed his shorts down his thighs just in time for him to spew his load on the ground, Heero stifled the groan of release.

It was quick, too fast and almost unsatisfactory. Heero offered to do something for him, he thought Duo was suppose to catch them in the act, but Milliardo rejected his volunteered services with kind, gentle, placating words.

The baffled blue-eyed boy began to walk away when Milliardo asked, "Meet me here tomorrow night?"

He was quiet for a moment, wondering what the point was since tonight didn't lead him in the direction he wished.

"I'll make it worth your while," Milliardo added upon a whisper.

"Okay," Heero responded, and continued to walk back to his cabin.

Along the way, he tried to decipher Milliardo's objective. Failing miserably to piece together the puzzling first encounter with their most recent. He lacked the intimidation from before, only displaying the desire to mess around while Duo was otherwise not in the picture. Whilst pushing open the door to his cabin, Heero came to misguided, false answer that he'd been wrong to fear Milliardo in the first place.

So damn wrong indeed.

Day fifteen proceed much like the last three.

When he regrouped with the blond man after bedtime, he beckoned him to follow his steps towards the mess hall.

The tall blond man offered the blue-eyed boy what he wanted, a chance to infuriate and ignite Duo's sense of domain over him, that is, if there was one to exploit. Milliardo dangled this over his head like the forbidden fruit that Eve desired in the garden and later took a bite of (2).

When he asked, Milliardo told the tale of a fabled scheme.

The plan was uncomplicated enough. Milliardo claimed he orchestrated a meeting with Duo that was to take place after curfew in the cafeteria. He was supposed to come under the ruse that they were going to smoke a few bowls and share a couple of beers; a friendly get together. What would really happen - according to Milliardo's plan - was that the braided man would stumble upon Heero and him in some sort of sexual activity, which would hopefully make Duo jealous and possessive over him. Again, Heero wondered why Milliardo was kind enough to help him, and hoped the desired response from Duo would become reality.

And so the demented boy followed the adult of whom he thoroughly believed he had control over, just like he had sway over most of the other mature people in his life, but the young Japanese boy had no idea what he was getting himself into, had not a glimmer of what kind of sadism was personified in the person named Milliardo Peacecraft – even the name so utterly deceptive, illusory, an absolute farce.

The light blue-eyed man led him to the back of the cafeteria, opened a back door that led to the kitchen. Heero entered into the complete darkness, confident and fear free. Hands on his shoulders guided him through the blindness a short distance. It made him wonder how the man behind him could see in the darkness; maybe he was capable of nocturnal vision similar to that of a cats'. When they stopped, Heero felt Milliardo reach around him and heard another door open, scrapping along the floor. Cold air blasted over his body, a harsh winter unleashed to suck the warmth from his tight flesh. Still lost in a light less atmosphere, the boy felt the man behind shove him forward gently by the shoulders, and then heard the hush of the heavy door closing behind the both of them. The chill deepened, festering into his bones and making him wrap his arms around himself to fight off the frost.

/Where the fuck are we?/ Heero questioned mentally. They'd stepped from the warm summer air into a freezing dimension.

Knowing where they were and what he was doing, the blond man reached over to the right and twisted the plastic dial for the lights. Located where it was, the lights were set to a timer rather than a switch, for when workers forgot to turn them off.

Harsh blue lights flickered to life causing Heero to squint his eyes, cringe, and cover his face while his large pupils constricted to a smaller diameter in order to adjust to the luminance. Removing his wrist from his vision, the supple teen found himself standing in a terrifying room. The four walls contained an eerie dark blue-green hue created by the few light bulbs and the hard concrete walls. On one side of the small, tight room were stacks of boxes labeled with names of food products. Along the other, large dissected rib cages of severed meat, skin stripped from the limbs hung from the ceiling by chains on intimidating large hooks beside two pig corpses. Carcasses, bright red with white fatty tissue dangled unmoving in the stiff frosty air. It lacked the stench of rooting flesh due to its low temperature, but the distinctive scent of death lingered softly in the closed off quarters. The blue-eyed boys' breath became more shallow, shaky, and visible in the freezing room; it coming forth like a thick white cloud from between his parted lips.

"What are we doing here?" Heero asked, vainly trying to put up a brave front and floundered horribly.

Milliardo smirked at the waver and pitch of his voice. "You know," he started in a soothing cadence, "You shouldn't wander off with people you don't know. It's not a wise choice."

Feeling as if he were being weighed down by a sinking ship, it dawned on the Prussian blue-eyed boy that he was in far over his head, to the point of drowning, in the company of devil far worse than any he'd encountered before. There was no ploy to get Duo here; the scheme was to get him isolated and vulnerable.

Swallowing the large lump in his throat, the tan lithe boy turned slowly on his heel, tried to bypass Milliardo for the door while softly mumbling "I wanna go back to my cabin now."

Chuckling darkly, the tall blond twisted the teen back around forcibly by the shoulders and pushed him further into the room between the hanging meat of cow and pig.

"You're not going anywhere."

Heero began to twist, turn, and struggle in Milliardo's grasp, rocketing his elbows back to dig the pointy joints into the blond man's ribcage, his heels kicking up to boot Milliardo's shins, and Heero yanked on his long, loose hair all in hopes of breaking free. Blood pulsed loudly in his eardrums and the fight or flight instinct kicked in strongly, bringing him to his current struggle for deliverance.

Milliardo laughed mentally at the boys' strife while finding his blows and kicks hardly all that painful and grinning ear to ear; knowing that he wasn't going to get away without a real brawl. Punching the teen in his throat, the Peacecraft man was successful in stunning his victim, making him fall to the floor, hands wrapped around his neck as he struggled to breathe. Heero laid on the floor like a crumpled mess at the mans' feet.

Looming over his fallen prey, Milliardo consoled, "If you continue to fight me, things will only get worse for you."

Regaining his ability to suck air into his lungs, Heero nodded dumbly, eyes fixed on the blue-grey concrete floor. The process of reverting back to his mental safety place had already begun. It's what always happened - unwilling, or unconsciously - when he heard the heavy footfalls of his fathers steps approach his bedroom door through the narrow hall in their shanty home. Receding back into his mind was the blue-eyed boys' only defense mechanism, a mental tool to help protect himself from the agony. So he fell back into that frame of mind, too scared to fight and subconsciously knowing that he couldn't escape even if he gave it his all.

Unfortunately for him, this would be a far cry from what he endured at the hands of his father. Heero had tried to fight him off the first few times when it started but was too small to win. Odin used him as a source of release, didn't care about their blood connection, and didn't inflict unneccessary pain unless his son refused to comply. This wasn't the case with the Peacecraft man. Nope, he fiendishly desired to see and hear the suffering.

Milliardo made quick work of stripping the kid of his shirt and binding prickly rope around his wrists, chaffing his sensitive skin. The adult forced the boy to his feet, maneuvered him to stand between the severed ribs of a cow and a gutted, upside down swine carcass. Lifting the numb, vacant eyed teen up off the floor by his upper arms, the blond man placed his bound joints on an unoccupied hook, leaving Heero to dangle like another chunk of meat in the ever cooling freezer.

With the tips of his sneakered toes scuffing quietly on the concrete slab beneath him, Heero tried to remain unnerved. The strain of being suspended put great tolls on his shoulders, an unfamiliar pain, and it pulled the dark-haired teen from his safe place minutely. He numbly registered that if he could keep the tips of his toes planted on one spot, without moving even though his body trembled against all his weight being placed on his wrists, the pain became less significant and allowed him to remain mentally distant from the current situation.

And there he was, displayed helplessly for an audience of one to visually drink in. Stretched from head to toe, his body buckling under the toil, Heero kept his blue eyes glued to that spot on the wall directly across from him above the crates of frozen foods. The more he tried to remain still, the more he was able to fade back into that part of his mind that allowed him to remain unfeeling. Gazing blankly at the wall, the blue-eyed boy barely noticed the fog his breath created or the dark twinkle in his perpetrators' light blue eyes.

Milliardo stood a few feet away, admiring tan skin, tight muscles that were forced to protrude by his position. Pulling a pack of Camel's from his pocket, the blond man withdrew one cigarette, brought it to his lips and lit it with a shiny, metal Zippo lighter. Enjoying the first inhale, he began to pace slowly around Heero's suspended form, releasing the tobacco smoke from his between his lips and circling a second time. Stopping behind his target, the Peacecraft man pulled the filter from between his lips, smirked at the fiery end and the stressed muscles between the boys' bulging shoulder blades. Turning the nicotine stick between his fingers, Milliardo brought it down and stubbed it hard between two notches of the boys spine.

Numbed, Heero was harshly pulled from his safe place to reality with painful fervor. Screaming, his legs kicked out from under him, curling at the knee, increasing the overtaxed muscles in his upper body to an unbareable pull. Uncontrollable cries for mercy tickled his fancy, and Milliardo laughed a delighted giggle at his victims plea's all the while twisting the cylindrical cigarette between his fingers, pressing it further into exotic flesh. The fragrance of charred flesh filled his nostrils and the burn blackened around the edges of the cigarette, creating a circle that would eventually scar in the same shape. He wanted to see blood but that could wait. (A.N.: Second and third degree burns don't typically poor blood at first, sometimes later, if at all.)

Breathing jaggedly, each inhale and exhale rattling his chest cavity, Heero tried to solidify his position, quiet his screams by sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, subsequently producing the metallic, copper ting of blood to flow over his taste buds.

It was excruciating.

One of the most painful experiences he'd ever suffered, and even though the burning tool had been removed from his skin, the pain still dawdled and radiated along his backbone. Heero's arms began to rattle against the rope, shaking the hook he hung from, as he rested his chin submissively against his sternum. Each stifled, aching breath inward caused his chest to expand and pull at the charred muscles. Each exhale was a God send, but the dark-haired boy couldn't stop himself from the need to breathe in again. Tears flooded his orbs, but the kid was nowhere near ready to let Milliardo know just how much pain he'd caused, so he summoned all his strength to halt the tears that threatened to pour.

"I'm curious," the blond man started, stalking slowly around the quavering teen, dropping the snuffed cigarette and pulling another one from his pack. "What is it about Mr. Maxwell that makes you go to such extremes?" he asked, stopping in front of Heero to gaze at his sparsely perspiring face, placed the cigarette between his lips and ignited the end of it with his lighter.

The sssip echoed in Heero's ears and made him flinch, much to the Peacecraft mans amusement.

Clamping his teeth around the soft, fleshy protrusion of his lower lip, the dark-haired boy said nothing. The burning sensation between his shoulders had created an overpowering amount of pain, but he wasn't ready to break yet.

"Hmm?" the blond man hummed from behind the boy. Heero arched his back away from Milliardo as the man circled him again. The Peacecraft man smiled open-mouthed, baring teeth, feeling absolutely titillated by boys physical, unconscious response. The more he bent, forced his body to shy away, the more his knees quaked under the burdensome weight of his body. "If you don't talk, I'll make you," the blond man whispered, leaning into the kids face to murmur in his ear, nicotine breath washing over his face. As he reached around him to stub the second cigarette half an inch below the first along the spine, he felt a great amount of joy radiate like white light through his body at Heero's struggling torment. The painful hollering of extreme suffering sent a warm tingling sensation down his back, over his shoulders that also flow down the backs of his legs. This. This is what he wanted. The blue-eyed creatures cries of pain and a climatic release that would surely follow, which would be for his own benefit and not the others.

"Noo!" turned from a yell to an anguished, incoherent sob. Pulling both feet from the ground, Heero kicked frantically to and fro, sending his free limbs flying through the frost-bitten air and connecting with his tormentors ribcage in the process. Milliardo stumbled backwards, arms wrapped around his bruised flank.

But he wasn't done.

"Fuck you!" he hollered at the top of his lungs, the profanity coming out extremely strangled as if he had gravel lodged in his esophagus. "Someone's going to hear me! And you're going to spend the rest of your life in jail!" he cried, hot tears of anguish flowing down his cheeks. "My dad is a sheriff and he'll make you suffer!" the dark-haired teen pledged.

The Peacecraft man, hunched over at the waist and clutching his abused right side fell into a fit of hysterics. Once his laughter ceased, he unwrapped his arms from his torso and stood at his full height. The man asserted confidently, "You have nothing on me. Your daddy might be a police officer, but my father is a State Senate and I come from a strong, powerful family. I've been sanctioned as his prodigal son to follow in his footsteps, and I've got the background and support of the community to defend my honor. So tell me again, what is it that you think you have on me that could damn me to prison?" (A.N.: keep in mind that this time frame is the 60's, long before DNA testing and the police work that we know of today.)

"Scream all you like," he added. "No one can hear you."

And no one would or could hear them. It was the heart of the reason and of the plan for Milliardo. With the cafeteria located further back into the forest and away from all the other cabin's, it was the utmost superb location. The added inches of concrete that structured the room was another added bonus. The kitchen staff really should have been more considerate when locking up for the night.

Milliardo clutched Heero's chin with a nail-biting grasp and demanded, "Tell me why that braided low-life is so damn important to you." The blond man lacked all understanding of affection - though Heero at this time didn't register his desires towards Duo as deep seeded affection or anything close to love - and itched to know why the abused kid sought him out over everyone else. Always inquisitive, ever wanting to understand those not like him - the rest of the human race - Milliardo found Heero's fascination with the street rat rather perplexing. All he wanted was some insight to the obviously abused teens train of thought. Oh yeah, and his absolute suffering caused by his own hands. But really, that was the main reason for luring him here. It was a game.

Slucking the fluid in his mouth from the tip of his tongue to the back of his throat, Heero flung a fat wad of clear spittle into the Peacecraft mans' face, landing on the bridge of the adults nose and covering a good portion of both of his eyelids.

Cackling uproariously, stepping backwards and bending at the waist, hands on his knees, the blond man was consumed by the hilarity of the situation. The humor was only privy to him.

Wiping away the oral residue from his face, the man in control snickered whilst glaring - and the words that followed chilled Heero to the core of his soul : "You really don't grasp the position that you're in, do you?" His laughter continued as he reached out to grab the left side of Heero's flank and spin forcefully on his axis. The hook he was precariously displayed on twisted the metal eye-lit that was embedded in the ceiling, allowing him to spin a full three hundred and sixty degrees and not just halfway around to be bounced back. Footing lost, he spun like a helpless kid on a tiring swing that was being pushed by bully. He even dug one foot into the floor to slow and eventually stop the spin.

Pulling his third cigarette free from his mouth, the end a bright orange, Milliardo continued his psychologically damaging torture.

Heero spun on the hook, the gritty fibers of the rope digging into tender skin, and the hook clinking and clanging against the hoop it was secured from which twisted in its drill hole in the ceiling. The blond man watched as hot breaths of air built short-lived clouds, and felt his cock twitch in his shorts between his legs. Latching his hands onto Heero's waist, digging the his nails to puncher through the mesh fabric and scrap the skin below; Milliardo yanked Heero's waist to his, ground into him with rolling friction that forced the boys' body to betray him and respond in a normal half aroused state.

"You are at my mercy until I set you free," the adult breathed heavily into the thirteen year olds' ear, reaffirming his state of vulnerability.

With his body acting disloyally to his mind's desire, Heero wept silently. Tears gathering on the point of his chin to fall through the chilled air, and leave a wet, dark splatter marks on the concrete floor between their legs. Repressed mewls and whines came forth from his tight throat, making his suffering all the more obvious to the man who desired the begrudging, involuntary reaction.

Fear consumed his heart. Made him react truthfully. All he wanted was Duo, and apparently that wish had brought him to this living nightmare.

"You've yet to answer my question," Milliardo pointed out, holding his third cigarette between the pinching bridge of his thumb and index finger, rolled it as an intimidating utensil - an implement of excitement for him.

Heero's already taut body became more rigid in his strained, suspended place. Every muscle was increasingly worn by each passing second.

"Which question?" the wide-eyed boy asked, shaking in his binds similar to that of tectonic plates pushing and pulling together: an earthquake.

Feeling slightly irate, Milliardo stepped back, his hand held firmly to the boys hips, and he spun him harshly on his metallic hook again. It was punishment for not paying close attention. He didn't like repeating himself. At least the added discipline brought more groans of pain that allowed him to chortle at the kids distress.

The spin forced his feet from their permanent spot, again, made him swing wide with his slender legs twirling wildly, flying through the harshly cold air seeking to grip onto something, anything to alleviate the pain in shoulders. His raised calves made contact with the sticky, slimy scum of dead flesh, their meeting generated a sickening slap, and it left slick, nasty residue on his skin. Milliardo jumped back, out of the path of kicking feet, and pushed Heero's semi-immoble form back into the dangling dead meat beside him, which added more of that gross excess slim to cover his abdomen.

Milliardo grasped him by chest, stopped him mid-turn, and reached his arm behind Heero's back to submerged the fiery end of his third cigarette into the dark-haired boys skin. The Peacecraft man held him close so he could physically feel the agony, twisting, quaking pain that he administered. Heero was more responsive than he'd dreamed. Of course, who wouldn't be when being repeatedly stabbed with a lit cigarette.

And the tears the blue-eyed boy had been valiantly holding back followed from his eyes to run hotly down the curves of his face like a flooded riverbed, ending at the pinnacle of his chin as cold semi-frozen drops. There was only so much he could take, and though the flow of tears had started a while ago, they gained quick momentum and weight.

Watching Heero's delicate, tortured face twist, warp, and crumple into pure suffering - his eyebrows furrowing together, mouth opening wide to authorize the screams to pitch at a nerve shaking decibel - Milliardo felt his half-smile spread into a grin by the way he facial muscles pulled. His sky-blue eyes widened with extreme excitement, and the craving for more deepened.

Milliardo answered with a dramatic sigh, "The one about Maxwell."

Heero's bottom lip began to tremble more violently, eyes producing tons of water, and his entire body slackened to pull against the rough rope as he murmured, "I just want him to like me."

"And what do you stand to gain from that?" Milliardo asked, utterly disgusted. The blue-eyed boys' answer brought the fowl taste of bile to his mouth, so he sucked another drag off his third smoke to counteract the taste.

Closing his dark, beautiful blue eyes, Heero allowed more fat tears roll down the arches of his face. He had an ultimate goal in mind, but it was far from a solid plan. Milliardo took one intimidating, threatening step towards him, which provoked Heero to stutter, "I-I-I dun-dunno!"

The light blue-eyed man took careful, soft placed steps around the boy; stalking around him for what felt like the hundredth time to Heero. Faced with his back and the two circular burn marks, Milliardo chuckled softly to himself as he ran his hand down the curve of the teens' bumpy vertabra. He intentionally angled the cigarette between his fingers to graze the soft tan skin while his hand descended the ridges, making the mix-raced boy bow and shiver away from his touch. "There has to be a reason," Milliardo mumbled mostly to himself, lost in his own depravity while admiring the goose bumps that formed under the pads of his fingers. Pressing his nose into dark velvety hair, the heartless adult drank in the fear tainted pheromones (3). Placing his mouth on the point of Heero's ear, Milliardo breathed heavily, "What do you hope to achieve by getting him to like you?" And then sank his pearly teeth into the tender lobe, making the exotic boy jerk and whine loudly.

The labors in his Achilles heel emanated up his calves and the backs of his thighs, which reinforced the tremble quaking his body, which quickly drained the reserves of his mental strengths. Heero's limit was breaching rapidly, leaving him with the only available option, which was to answer his captures probing, personal questions. "If I can get him to like me enough, he might take me away," the Prussian blue-eyed boy whimpered sincerely.

"Away?" the blond man echoed. "Away from where? Your home?"

Heero's unruly head nodded subtly in the affirmative.

Snorting abhorrently, Milliardo sneered, "Aww, well isn't that sweet." And he raised the third neglected cigarette that had burnt almost to the filter, and pushed the blazing end below the second burn, keeping them all along the kids' spine in a nice, percise straight line.

Halfway through his most deafening shriek yet, the prickly rope binding his wrists was severed, bringing about Heero's collapse to floor. He landed with a thud, nose bruising into the concrete so hard that blood poured from both nostrils.

Taking a risk, hoping for the best, needing to escape, Heero pushed his limbs along the floor, crawling as fast as he could to the heavy metal door, but his efforts were thwarted. As swift as lightning, Milliardo clutched his left ankle, and dragged him along the cold concrete back to the center of the icy room. The only reason he'd cut the boy free was because Milliardo knew he couldn't leave any marks on his body in places that camp uniform couldn't cover - he could swim with his shirt on like some of the heavyweight kids - and bruises would have surely formed in a few days around the wrists if he kept the boy suspended for the entirety of their encounter.

Towering over Heero's curled, crumpled body, the light behind his head making his whole front frighteningly shadowed, Milliardo extracted a fourth cigarette from the scrunched up pack. Teary blue eyes watched as the flame from the lighter kindled the smoke. Paralyzed, the abused teen continue to watch as Milliardo sucked in large inhale and breathed it out slowly; the wisps of smoke billowing in the air around the mans' dark face and lifeless eyes.

Kneeling down, resting his weight on his haunches over the boy, the Peacecraft man churned over Heero's answer in his mind. It was so naïve, pathetic, and delusional. He was somehow to convince Duo into running away with him, essentially kidnap him and...then what? Flee the state? Did this retarded kid really think that braided freak was going to fall for this? Obviously, the boy was only concerned with the immediate future, neglecting to think about what life would be like years down the road.

"So, you're just a poor lost soul waiting for some knight in shining armor to whisk you off your feet to a better life," he taunted.

Heero didn't dignify his demeaning parallel with any sort of response, only prayed that he would sink into the floor and be swallowed up, encased in the cement.

Milliardo furthered his inquiry: "What happens when you don't succeed? Which you won't, by the way." He paused to give Heero a chance to respond, and he didn't, so he took a drag off his cigarette and added, "This little fantasy you've concocted is absolutely moronic and doomed for failure."

The boys' silence irked him, diminished his patience so he grasped Heero's bloody chin with the same hand that held the cigarette. Seeing the orange-yellow embers come so close to his face made the battered boy gasp, eyes widen in terror. A smile twitched at the ends of Milliardo's lips. Forcing Heero to tilt his head back, the blood from his nose trickled down the back of his throat, coercing him to swallow and cough the vital fluid up. It misted over Milliardo's fingers, and he grinned down at the exotic boy as his thumb swiped over Heero's soft bottom lip, gathering the plasma on his digit and he brought it to his own mouth for tasting.

"When he doesn't take you away, are you just going to run away from home?" the blond man asked, licking the red fluid from his thumb.

Nodding his tousled head, the blood that gathered on the floor smeared against his tan cheek. Hot tears of despondency rained from his ducts like flowing faucet. It was a stupid plan, and he knew that. But even a severely damaged soul like his still held tightly to an ounce of hope, no matter how "delusional" it may be.

Pushing himself up from his crouched position, Milliardo stood over the kid and advised, "You should really stick with plan B."

Sitting on some boxes of frozen food goods, the blond man removed a switch blade from his pocket and popped it open. At the same time he heard a quiet, "I don't want to."

"What?" he questioned, not sure what his prey had whispered.

"I don't want to be alone."

Rolling his sky-blue eyes, he was rather disappointed, piqued, and repulsed with the kid. He wasn't sure what he was expecting from the boy, but the answers he gained were those of a typical, idealistic thirteen year old. Very unbecoming.

Reaching forward, he sunk his fingers into damp sweaty hair and yanked the boy across the floor. Vainly tying to pull away, the blue-eyed boy dug his sneakered toes into the floor and clawed at the cement ineffectually. Forcing Heero to rest his head in his lap, his left cheek pressed firmly against his arousal, Milliardo placed the edge of the knife under Heero's chin. Prussian eyes widened, pleaded silently with another shade of blue for mercy.

The blond man chortled, "Well, aren't you getting cuter by the minute? Stay still."

Twirling the smoke between his fingers, the Peacecraft man brought it down. Twisting away from the fourth burn increased the pressure of the blade against his neck, as did screaming add to the force because his cries made his humble Adam's apple undulate against the carefully, diligently, sharpened blade.

When the torture device was removed from his skin yet again, Heero proceeded to pant heavily and sob against Milliardo's mesh short covered thigh. The tears were warm on his leg in the cold room. After all this time, both were untouched by the chilled air; the blond mans' excitement was too great to be hindered by the frost, and Heero's racing heart, constant state of suffering, and the unceasing production of blood, sweat, and tears sheltered him from the temperature.

Raising his hips, Milliardo effectively ground his crotch on the head he held down between his pale legs. Heero groaned in protest, and the blond stopped only to push his index and middle finger past the his plump lips, spreading the flavor of nicotine in his victim's mouth.

"I hate to break it you, kid-" the blond man started whist simulating what he would do next to the boy with his digits,"- but you were brought into this world alone, you walk through life alone, and you die alone. It'd be astute of you to accept that reality now."

Anger building, resentment for always playing the role of the victim, and having his tormentors' talk down to him like a pettish, simple-minded child, Heero decided to bite down on the two intruders petting his tongue. As if he was reading the kid's mind, Milliardo shoved his fingers down to the last knuckle, causing Heero to gag and cough before pulling his hand free.

Gruffly, Heero begged, "Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?"

"You want this to be over?" Milliardo asking tauntingly, made obvious by his tone of voice and arching eyebrow.

"Yes," Heero hissed, weakly. He wanted this nightmare to end, and hopefully suppress the memory in the long run.

"Then lets finish this."

Getting back to his feet, pushing Heero to rest both hands on the floor alongside his knees, Milliardo shimmied his shorts down low enough to bare his throbbing, veiny manhood. He yanked on dark locks, grabbed the base of his erection, rubbed the head of his cock over blood stained lips, and deadpanned, "You know what you have to do in order to leave, so do it already."

Parting his lips a small fraction, Heero squeezed his eyes shut a moment before the Peacecraft man pulled his head forward with a violent tug and thrusted his hips forward, effectively submerging a good portion of his dry sex into the blue-eyed boys' mouth. It took about a minute for his mouth to yield enough saliva to allow the member in his mouth to plunge in and out smoothly. Milliardo placed his palms over Heero's ears, deafening him slightly, gripped the sides of his head to procure full dominance, authority, and absolute control over their speed.

With his jaw stretched far past comfort, saliva running down his chin and neck to mingle with the dripping blood from his nose, Heero futilely pressed both his hands against the curve of Milliardo's hip bones to slow the imposed pace. The hybrid flavor of his captures flesh and his own blood made Heero's stomach turn. The rounded blunt cock-head poked, prodded, and stuck his gag reflex repeatedly, making him cough around the jabbing intrusion. Knees exerted unforgivingly into concrete, mouth cramping, hair being pulled so hard it brought about a headache, Heero pushed with all his might against Milliardo's humping waist to produce some distance, but no matter how he try the man continued to thrust into his mouth ruthlessly. Just as he was accommodating to the rate, the blond man ran his hands through Heero's chocolate hair from his ears to the back of head and shoved forward, successfully plunging the entire length of his dick into Heero's constricting throat.

He tried to pull away. Tried to breathe. Tried to not to permit the bile that threatened to come up and spew.

The vomit inched its way up from the pit of his stomach to his esophagus, and poured from between his asphyxiating lips like a waterfall. He hadn't eaten much at dinner so the contents were fairly liquid with few chunks of half digest food. Milliardo didn't care in the slightest, wasn't disgusted by the reaction and was actually hoping for it. The retch added more warmth to the overall sensation, and while he held Heero's head down viciously on his cock, he was gifted with the sounds of the kids' muffled groans, punches that hardly fazed his abdomen and grew weaker and weaker. Peering down at the lovely blues that rolled back into the skull, exposed the whites of his eyes as the oxygen that was needed was denied for seconds too long.

Reluctantly pulling his cock free - he would have liked to choke the boy to death on pulsing member - the Peacecraft man gave the dark-haired boy the gift of air. Gasping for breath, the blue-eyed boy heaved more bile, hacked achingly, scraping the tissue of his trachea. Milliardo clenched him by long bangs and brought his face back to where he wanted it. Fumbling helplessly to stop the actions, Heero ducked and dodged his face to the best of his abilities. If he could just get a few more seconds of air, he might divided his pain in half, but he wasn't given the opportunity.

"You wanted this to be over, so do what I want you to," Milliardo growled, angrily. Patience none existent, the physical pain of his prey not reaching his desired level, added with his state of his arousal and how close he'd been to cumming, the blond man refused to wait any longer.

"No," Heero whimpered between gritted teeth, and did his best to keep Milliardo's cock from reentering his mouth. He proved to be too weak as the one-eyed snake made its insistent way back in with the help of a large, strong hand squeezing his jaw open, bruisingly.

What felt like an eternity, followed by hurling for the second time, Heero felt the throbbing release of Milliardo's seed pulse hotly against the back of his throat, spreading unwelcomed streams of heat and salty flavor.

"Swallow it!" the blond man demanded, purposefully joggling Heero's head. And he tried, he really tried to drink the protein substance, but with the blond mans' slowly softening member blocked him accomplishing the task. Pulling his limping cock out, Milliardo watched as his cum fell from swollen lips to the floor. Tingled by his perverse nature, the Peacecraft man lifted his foot up, placed it on the back of Heero's neck, and forced his down into the pools of semen and vomit. "Lick it up!" he ordered, drunk on power.

Petrified for his life, Heero stuck out his pink tongue, lapped the cement floor to gather the fluid he should have consumed and tasted the mixture of that and his acidic retch. Dry-heaving as he completed to process, Milliardo firmly reprimanded that if he "threw up again, he'd make him lick the entire floor clean," thus making him comply while resisting the urge to hurl all over again.

Whence he was done, the blue-eyed soulless creature laid on the floor as if he were a dead animal along the side of an asphalt road. Too weak to move. Too exhausted to crawl or inch away. Too used up to think much of anything, he laid there. Numb. Dumb. And more dead than he'd been when he arrived at Camp Bleska.

The cold began to seep back into his bones. Shivering there on the floor, memories of the first times Odin had took him, robbed him of his innocence, played on a twisted movie reel in his head. He remembered that he'd fought so hard back then, at least as valiantly as a child could. Those first few times had also left him on the cold floor of his bedroom, quavering in the fetal position.

Satisfied for the time being, Milliardo went through the task of cleaning all evidence out of the large refrigerator with ratty kitchen rags. He paid no attention to the boy curled in on himself by the boxes. A moist rag wiped away all blood, bile, and ash from the floor. He picked up the butts of the cigarettes and tucked them back into the pack they'd come from. He cleaned himself off with an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket, used that same piece of silky cloth to remove the blood and spittle from Heero's unmoving mouth, neck and chest. Though it removed a decent portion of the blood, the underlying stains created from the hemoglobin remained, painting reddish streaks across the lower portion of his face around his mouth and up on his cheeks.

Cleaning task almost complete, Milliardo dressed the boy back in his shirt, uncaring that he'd done so that resulted in the shirt being placed on him inside out; at least it wasn't backwards as well. Placing every displaced item back to its original setting, the blond man meticulously organized the room back to its former structure. He even opened the heavy metal door to allow the nicotine stench to dissipate. The Peacecraft man was perfectly content with taking care of the mess he created, what he didn't want at this point was the company of one lump body lying on the floor like a heap of trash. If he were deceased, he'd been more patient, but he knew better so he walked around the body, kicked the boy harshly in the chest - as if he weren't beaten down enough - and ordered, "Get the fuck out of here before I decide to gut you like that pig."

He didn't even need to finish that statement for Heero heard the first five words and scrambled to his feet, ran past the door, bolted blindly through the kitchen, knocking over pots and pans that clang on the floor as they bounced. He reached a wall. A solid wall. Frantically, on the verge of an all out consuming panic attack, he searched for a door knob, blindly groping the wall in total blackness. It was seconds later, minuets, possibly forever - or at least that's how it felt to him - when his hand finally fumbled around a twistable protrusion that opened up, and freed him from the dark place he'd been lured to.

Night air was not so comforting, it was hot and fucked with his over sensitized body as he sprinted headstrong in the direction of his cabin. Escorted by moonlight, his feet stumbled over rocks, exposed roots, and his own steps along his frenzied journey. He couldn't - wouldn't - allow his stride to slow regardless of his falters over unseen obstacles, and the blazing ache in his legs. He had to run at full speed. He had to push himself to safety even though his body begged him to slow down and breathe evenly. He was too afraid. Milliardo was surely on his tail - or so his mind told him - and he had to run. Run. Run. Run to safety as fast as possible.

Yards from Cabin Weayaya, the tousled haired boy tripped over a fallen branch, skidded into the dirt almost face planting, which would have caused his nose to bleed again. Pushing himself up on weak, wavering arms, Heero looked around frantically, realized he was situated equally between his cabin and his counselors.

If there was ever a time to need someone it was now.

Lifting up to his feet, he scurried to the screen door, pounded on its frame with all his remaining strength in hopes of an answer. The knock echoed and the kid waited impatiently for an answer, resting his forehead against the wiry mesh, wheezing heavily.

A knock echoed in his cabin, stirring the tall, braided man from his sleep. Situating himself on his elbows, he could clearly see which person awoke him through the intricate mesh grate of the screen door. Grumbling incoherent words to himself, he thought, /Should have pulled the blinds down or closed the main fuckin' door./ But it had been so humid when he fell asleep that leaving all avenues for air flow to his cabin open seemed necessary at the time. He even kept his hair in its tight braid in order to avoid having his thick mane stick to his perspiring skin. From the silhouette he discerned that it was that conniving, demonic boy whom he wished away each waking moment.

He clutched the handle and pulled it towards his body with every intention of telling the kid to "Go fuck himself", but the evil, heartless, distorting person he was anticipating was far from what he found standing on his old wooden porch.

He gasped out of shock. That confident kid, that manipulating mind, that hypersexual adolescent was replaced with a trembling, crying, huffing form of an excuse of what he was familiar with. Even in the dark he could see the swollen eyes, bruised lips, smears and stains of dried, caked blood around his mouth, quaking bones, and pleading irises. Duo was presented with a breaking person he wasn't capable of handling.

Regardless of his capacity to soothe, Duo wrapped the kid in arms instinctively. Heero shoved him away, the welcomed hands grazed his burn wounds and he fell to his knees, clutching Duo's black night-shirt and begging, pleading, seeking safety with words of haste, "Don't let him get me! Don't let him catch me! Help me! Please!"

Caught completely off guard, Duo snaked his arms under the kids pits, lifted him from the porch and carried him delicately to the bathroom on swift feet. The blue-eyed boy abstained from speaking further, mostly due to his chest heaving uncontrollably.

The boys' hyperventilating resulted in the violet-eyed mans' own panic-stricken state. He'd never seen Heero so out of sorts, so uncontrollable, so neurotic that he couldn't form a proper sentence. Duo's hands roamed over Heero's head, cupping his face, striving to get his attention, repeating the phrase, "Just breath, kid, come on. Just breath."

It wasn't working. Guessing it was self-imposed reaction to an anxiety attack, Duo could think of only one way to stop him. Pulling his right hand back high above his head, the braided man wondered if his action would be the proper course, but the ragged, fast breathing wasn't slowing any.

Suddenly, Heero felt a hard solid force smack against his cheek, he wasn't sure what it was at first the but the following sting proved what it was. A slap. Duo slapped him. One last gulping inhale, and he held for a few seconds before letting slowly out his mouth. The braided man achieved bringing Heero back to reality, but not without repercussions. Those blood-shot Sapphire orbs turned on him, questioning wordlessly, tears hanging precariously to red-rimmed lids and wet bottom lashes.

"I-uh," Duo began unevenly, "I-I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to hurt you." Those delicate, swollen blues closed slowly, heavy drop rolling free. "Pl-please don't cry! I'm sorry! I'm so fucking sorry! I just couldn't let you pass out on me, and I tho- I thought -," the strong-willed boy crumbled before him into a sobbing mess. "I thought wrong!" he declared, pulled the kid into a hug only to be pushed away again.

With Duo shoved back into the opposite wall, Heero threw open the mirrored medicine cabinet, and rifled through the contents, tossing everything that wasn't what he was searching for to floor.

"What are you looking for?" Duo tried to help, but the mess of a boy smacked his hands away, and made a warning sound that sounded like something akin to whining, growling, rabid animal.

Finding the toothpaste, Heero twisted the cap off and squeezed a good amount of the minty stuff into his mouth, practically eating the whole tube. He wanted it gone. All the horrible tastes in his mouth, the copper ting, the residual bile, the flavor of Milliardo; he wanted them all gone.

"You can't eat toothpaste!" the braided man scolded, tried to take the tube away but the kid made that freakish shrieking sound again.

Stepping back, body flush to the white bathroom wall, Duo stood back and simply observed Heero. The dark-haired boy jumped off the counter, turned on the faucet, and washed his mouth out, using his fingers as a toothbrush. Spitting out the last of it, Heero sighed in relief, reposed his hands on the marble top, and hung his head low in defeat.

Duo reached around him with a washcloth he'd fetched from the shower, and twisted the knobs so warm water poured from the sink. The warm rag cleaned the left over smears of blood from his face. A gentle hand cradled and lifted his chin. Heero closed his eyes as Duo washed away the streaks caused by tears, the stick of sweat from his forehead, and a small fraction of the pain.

Dropping the washcloth in the sink, the braided man placed a comforting hand between Heero's shoulder blades - well, it was supposed to be comforting, but the tortured youth bent one elbow to bow away from the touch with a hiss.

Violet eyes appraised the inside out grey shirt, found a few dots of what looked to be blood along the top part of Heero's back. It didn't look serious, nothing bleeding copiously. And so he tugged at the hem, but Heero's shaky, slender fingers wrapped around his wrist to stop him.

"Take if off," Duo begged in pleading tone.

Lost in a whirlpool of intense, confusing emotions, Heero complied. Pivoting on his heel to face Duo, his trembling fingers lifted the hem of his grey shirt, drew it slowly over his head, and dropped it carelessly to the tiled bathroom floor.

Gasping at the mirrored image that greeted him, Duo fought the urge to punch the glass into shards because he knew the reflection was innocent...but, there laid before his amethyst eyes was the reflection of Heero's willowy, thin backbone riddled with four circular burns along the top curve of his spine in a straight line starting above the outgrowth of his shoulder blades and ending slightly below. The muscles in his body went taut, tight like the string of a bow ready to release an arrow. Grabbing Heero by both wrists, his eyes continued to drink in every wound; the tips of his fingers grazing over chaffed, reddened skin.

Duo knew these physical and mental scares weren't at the hands of a typical bully such as Muller and his gang, but he had to ask: "Who did this?" His question coming forth in a low, scarily even voice.

Heero shook his head vehemently. It was too soon. He was too exhausted to tell.

Letting Heero keep his torment to himself, Duo placed him back on the counter, washed around the burn wounds, wrung that washcloth to drip luke warm water over the injuries. As he drained the cloth of water, twisting all warm droplets free, cleansing the wounds without helpful medicine, but he had a sympathetic touch and baind-aids to cover the injuries.

Duo noticed how Heero curled into him, seeking some sort of pardon. The quavering boy drew further into him as he tried to push Heero gently away. "Come on, let's lie down and get some sleep," he guidance kindly.

The disbelieving look he was given from puffy, blood-shot blues confused him. Heero didn't think Duo would let him stay. His violet eyes watched helplessly as those weary blues filled with more tears, depressed and light-less consuming the defiant vibrant color that once held within.

"No, no, no, no," he begged in a low voice. "Don't cry."

Heero gasped harshly as the new tears flowed over his cleaned cheeks.

Those compassionate hands supported his face, thumbs swiping away the tears. Their foreheads pressed together. Duo unleashed a litany of hushed, mollifying sentiments.

They'd never be one hundred percent sure who initiated the kiss, but it happened; lingering, tender-hearted, and undemanding. Relinquishing the caress, they both liberated shaky, hot breaths that wash over each others faces, the bridge of their noses nuzzling together.

Their eyes met.

So close they could clearly distinguish the array of color and intricate, abstract wisping lines of one another's irises. The color so heavy, dark at the edge lightened towards the center. Microscopic flakes of yellow and orange surrounded Heero's pupil; the coloration lost at a distance under the powerfully brilliant blue. Stormy blue and light specks of grey encompassed Duo's; the tints and shades resembling a thundery cloud, giving his unique eyes an even greater, heavenly appearance.

Duo couldn't fight against the miserable, vulnerable orbs that peered back at him. This was the most susceptible he'd seen Heero. The kid was a shell of his former self and though that person taxed Duo of his reserves, this new face he was presented with grieved him more than the other.

Their lips met again with a touch more pressure.

Allowing himself to respond naturally, the braided man ran the fingers of his left hand through Heero's greasy, dirty hair. His right palm pressed firmly to the small of the teens back to bring their bodies closer. Heero placed both his hands on Duo's broad chest, nails scratching at his collar bones over the black cotton shirt. Consumed in the moment, Duo's tongue pressed forth from his mouth and was granted swift access into Heero's. Their mouths grooved together zealously until Duo took a large stride back, separating their bodies completely.

Taking a deep breath, clearing his throat, Duo found he couldn't procure words so he nodded his head dumbly, took Heero by the hand and led him out of the restroom. The kiss confused him, and though he knew it shouldn't have happened, he was more baffled by bliss of it.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, the fatigued boy kicked off his sneakers, toed off his socks, and then laid by Duo on his side. With his head buried against Duo's chest, the mans' hand petting his hair, and with the steady thump of the braided man's heart close enough to his ear to hear, Heero fell into deep sleep almost immediately. Only the haven created by Duo's muscled arms could make him feel safe enough for slumber.

It would take more time for Duo to get back to sleep. A little past two in the morning and his mind was reeling. He wasn't sure if Heero would ever tell him everything that had happened, or who had harmed him...but he had a pretty good idea of who that person was.

(1) Insanely hard to find these nowadays, but does anyone remember the US $2 bill? Pretty sure they're out of circulation now.

(2) The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden is often referred to as an apple. Religious historians believe it was either a fig or a pomegranate.

(3) Intense emotions such as fear and disgust release chemicals signals through sweat that surrounding people can pick up on subconsciously. So, we humans communicate emotions through scent like a lot of other mammals.

So, this chapter was really hard to write...it was also kind of hard to post. I hope it wasn't too difficult to follow the dialogue in Heero and Milliardo's scene. If you have a problem with that particular scene, and want a warning for future scenes that will be similar to that. Not all chapters are going to continue to be this long.