Note: There is a YAOI LEMON in this chapter! If you don't like, don't read! Also, I'm still working on Endless Summer. And the title of this fic will eventually make sense, I promise. ^_^;;

Life and Death in Africa Part 2
Fallen

There was a collective scream from the women of the crowd as the acrobat toppled from the high-wire, landing with a sound that could not be heard over the shouting mob.

"Trowa!!" Quatre could hear Catherine's shocked shriek over all the rest.

The boy was lying sprawled gracelessly in the safety net, head tilted at an unnatural angle. His arms were thrown out to either side, as if he had been crucified and taken down, or had tried to fly and had been shot.

Quatre pushed violently through the crowds with Rashid in front of him, using the huge Arab as a human battering ram, making his way to the center ring. "Out of the way! Out of the way!!"

The crowds were on their feet, wide-eyed and whispering behind cupped hands. Many people pulled cell phones to call an ambulance. The band had died, faltering to a stop, the last roll of the drums echoing in the stillness, along with the whispers of the audience. Against them, Catherine's worried cry was very loud.

Vaughn beat him there. He had climbed up onto the webbing and was crawling towards the boy, cursing under his breath. Catherine was climbing the ladder, making her way across the net.

"Trowa! Oh, Trowa!!"

Quatre got to the center ring and shouted up at them. "Don't move him! I'm coming up!" He got onto the ladder and began to climb up the twenty-five feet between the hard floor of the center ring and the net.

Rashid looked up. "Master Quatre! Please do not go up there! It is dangerous!"

Quatre ignored him grimly, crawling across the net. Trowa looked so ungainly, lying crumpled there in the webbing. So pale and fragile. So still.

"Trowa..." Quatre crept across the net, gently lifting Trowa's head into his lap, feeling the other boy's neck, then his arms and legs. No broken bones that he could tell. A film of cold sweat coated Trowa's face, and Quatre wiped it away gently, hearing the sirens wailing as they approached the big top.

~*~

"Trowa."

Darkness. Nothing but darkness and the smell of antiseptic. Cold darkness that smelled like Lysol. Darkness shouldn't be cold, he knew. But it was now.

"Trowa."

What was he doing? He was supposed to be at the circus, wasn't he? He had a performance... where was he? He was shivering. Shaking. Who was talking to him. He just wanted to go back to sleep. When he was sleeping, he could forget.

"Come on, Trowa."

Come where? He liked it better in the dark. It hurt less.

"Please, Trowa..."

Something sad and scared in that voice. Scared. That was Quatre's voice. He couldn't do anything to make Quatre afraid; it wasn't fair. He would have to wake up. There just wasn't anything else he could do.

The pain verified his existence, bringing him into focus. Back to the here and now, wherever that was. Jesus, the pain was bad.

"It's okay, Trowa. It's okay," Quatre whispered, cradling the fallen acrobat in his arms. His face floated over Trowa's circle of vision, a pale blurry ghost. He saw Catherine's, too. There were others he didn't recognize. There was a bright, wailing sound drilling into his brains.

"The sirens..." Trowa said, his voice a cracked whisper, muffled by the oxygen mask on his face. He could hear his own breath in a rasping, loud rhythm. He couldn't move his head; his neck was in a brace. He was strapped to a board.

"What about the sirens, Trowa?" Quatre replied softly, brushing the bangs back from Trowa's face with one trembling hand. He kissed Trowa's forehead gently. "We're heading for the Preventers Medical Corps."

"Turn them off... tell them to turn them off."

Catherine leaned up into the front of the ambulance. "Could you please turn those sirens off? He's conscious and he's asked that you turn them off. They're hurting him."

The ambulance driver looked back to the paramedic in the back who was watching Trowa's vital signs. The paramedic shrugged, and the sirens were killed.

Trowa tried to sit up, and Quatre gently forced him back down. "Take it easy, Trowa," Quatre said softly, drawing closer to him. "It's okay. Everything will be okay... you're sick."

/// ...I know. ///

Trowa closed his eyes again, exhausted, even though he felt the need to answer Quatre, to reassure him. But he couldn't. He kept his eyes closed, as if he could push the pain down that way. Push everything away.

It was more than the pain that he felt. It was the knowledge that now, everybody would know. Everyone would know. That was not an option.

They made their way to the hospital in almost total silence except for Catherine's tears of relief-he had looked so... dead... up there in the net-and the shushing sound of the paramedic, trying to calm her down.

~*~

"Everyone gets sick, Trowa. There's no need to be ashamed of it. All you have to do is help me help you. All you have to do is tell me where it hurts."

Sally's voice was no-nonsense as she took blood from his arm and set it in a tray of samples, her teacher's clinical military voice, but there was an undercurrent of concern in it. She looked down at where he was lying on an examination table in nothing but a hospital shift.

Trowa looked up at her in her crisp white doctor's coat, nothing like the first time he had seen her, in torn fatigues and a beret. He closed his eyes and was silent.

Sally was becoming frustrated, medical chart held in her hands so tightly her knuckles were white. "I know it's hard to admit when you're in pain, Trowa. I was a soldier, too. But I can't help you if you won't help me. I sent away the others because I know you wouldn't want to say anything in front of them. But you have to tell someone."

The pain was slamming through him in great red waves. But she was a soldier once, the same as him, and so he knew he had to maintain his composure. He noticed he was breathing too hard. He tried to be more quiet.

To speak of the pain would be to let it capture him and drag him down. He wouldn't do it.

She put her hand on his shoulder, gently. Her voice was pleading. "Trowa. Please. I came all the way from L1 because you wouldn't let any of the other doctors near you. I thought you would trust me more than this."

He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut and turned his head away. He tried to speak, to cry out for help, to beg Sally to do something, to help him, he was dying, the pain, it was so bad...

/// No!! ///

"I-" he said softly, trying to force himself to speak. "I-"

Sally took his hand. "What, Trowa, what is it?"

"I'm fine." His voice was a choked whisper. He slid off the examining table, trying to get away, and a wave of dizziness hit him, passing as quickly as it had come. Sally took him by the shoulders. "Wait, Trowa, you're weak. You can't just-"

He felt the fever burning in him, felt the nausea rising in him again. He pushed out of Sally's arms and ran towards the bathroom. Sally followed him. He threw himself to his knees on the cold tile, dry heaving.

Sally kneeled next to him cautiously, as if afraid to touch him. "Trowa... please tell me what's wrong with you. Tell me how you feel."

Trowa struggled to tell her the truth, the words he was trying to say already formed in his mind. About how his bones hurt like shattered glass. How when he stood up too quickly, he thought he would pass out.

But he couldn't.

When the spasms passed, Sally touched his shoulder. Her voice was resigned and "Come back to the table, Trowa. I'm going to look you over and see if I can figure out what's wrong with you, since you're obviously not going to tell me."

Trowa allowed himself to be led back to the table, and Sally began an examination of him. She stuck a thermometer under his tongue and wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around his upper arm. She examined his tongue and peered down his throat. She shone a penlight in his eyes and tapped his knees with a reflex hammer.

When she compressed his abdomen, probing gingerly with her fingertips, his face paled and his jaw clenched. It was the only indication he gave that anything she did caused him pain. She reached out her hand and pressed her palm gently against his clammy cheek to reassure him, her other hand still probing at his side.

Her brow furrowed at whatever she felt when she examined his abdomen, and she wrote down a few notes on her chart.

"Well," she sighed when she was finished. "I think you're all right to go home with Quatre tonight. Your fever is down and you're stable." Seeing the expression on his face, she scowled. "Yes, I want you to stay with Quatre. I don't want you staying alone. And you're sure as hell not going to be performing until you're well. I want you to come back tomorrow for the results of your blood work. I'll call you at Quatre's estate when it's ready."

She was right, Trowa thought. He did feel a little better. He still felt like he was going to throw up, but he was pretty sure he wasn't going to. The aching in his joints was still there, but not as bad as it had been before. He felt a little cooler, too.

He tried one last time to tell Sally how he felt before he left. But he could do nothing but repeat the lie he had been uttering for the last six months.

"I'm fine."

~*~

When Sally came out to talk to Quatre, her expression was neutral and guarded. "He's stable for now. I think his main problem is exhaustion. It's most likely the reason he fell to begin with."

Fresh tears welled in Catherine's eyes. "I knew something was wrong with him, I just knew it. I knew he was sick. I was asking him how he was right before the performance, but he said he was fine." Quatre put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Yes," Sally said softly, her voice distant. "That seems to be his popular response to the question lately..."

She looked at Quatre carefully. "He has been spending time with you since he came to L4, hasn't he?"

Quatre raised his eyebrows. "Yes. Of course. It's the first time we've had to spend together in a few weeks. But I've only seen him once before the performance. And it was only for a few hours."

She moved her gaze to Catherine. "And he's been living with the circus?"

Catherine sniffled. "Yes."

Sally scowled slightly. "He has some serious bruising on his torso and back. They're rather violent injuries."

Catherine looked up at her. "Acrobatics is not easy work. A few bruises aren't really abnormal in our kind of work."

"Those are not the kind of bruises I'm talking about."

Quatre looked up into Sally's eyes. "Were they caused by the fall?"

Sally shook her head, never taking her eyes off of Quatre. "No. These bruises could only be caused by direct concussion. Hitting."

Quatre gazed at her, trying to read her expression. "What are you trying to say, Sally? If it wasn't the fall, and it wasn't just part of what Trowa does on a regular basis, then what do you think they were was caused by?"

Sally's eyes never left his. "Quatre, I can't think of any tactful way to say this, so I'm going to come right out and say it...has he been beaten?"

Catherine stood angrily, glaring at her. "Are you accusing him of hurting Trowa? Sally, you of all people should know that Quatre would never do something like that!"

Quatre looked dismayed. "Sally, that's ridiculous. Even if I would do such a thing, do you ever think I could beat Trowa in a fair fight? He outweighs me by over eighty pounds, and he's almost a foot taller." He shook his head, eyes meeting Sally's steadily. "I would never hurt Trowa. I would give my life for him. You know that."

"I never said you would hurt him, Quatre. I meant has he been beaten by any strangers that you know of? Has he gotten in any fights with any of the other performers? I just don't understand these injuries, and I'm trying to rule out assault. And Trowa won't tell me anything."

Quatre tried to keep his voice calm and level. "Nothing like that has happened. I want to see him."

"Yes, of course," Sally said softly. "You're free to take him home, now. He should be up to the trip. But you have to be careful. If there are any changes in his condition, I want to be notified immediately."

~*~

After Quatre got Trowa home to his mansion on the upper side of L4, he immediately herded the taller boy into the bedroom. Trowa almost shuffled with exhaustion, displaying none of the swift agility and grace that was a normal part of his gait.

As soon as the door was locked behind him, Quatre grabbed the bottom of Trowa's long-sleeved tee-shirt, pulling it up. Trowa grabbed his wrist, stopping him. Green eyes looked down at him wearily.

"No, Quatre."

"I want to see," Quatre whispered. "Please."

Sighing, Trowa let go of the little Arabian's wrist. Quatre pulled the shirt over his head, letting out his breath in a soft gasp.

Trowa was black and blue with bruises, bruises Quatre had not yet had a chance to see. His gaze swept over Trowa's chest and shoulders. "Trowa...why didn't you tell me? How did this happen?"

Trowa smiled gently down at him. "Felt a little under the weather lately. Haven't been landing all of my stunts."

"That's not all."

Trowa just blinked at him gracefully. "I swear to you, Quatre. That is all that caused these marks."

"Why didn't you tell me that you weren't feeling well?" Quatre asked softly.

Trowa leaned down, his hands on Quatre's shoulders, lips brushing over Quatre's lightly. Quatre's eyes slid half-shut. "Because I didn't want you to worry."

Quatre looked up into his eyes, and a scared, hurt expression crossed Quatre's face. "Never do that again, Trowa. Ever. You wanted me to worry all at once when you almost fell from the high-wire tonight? I thought I'd lost you."

Trowa wrapped his arms around the smaller boy. He could feel Quatre shaking, and it hurt his heart to know he had scared Quatre so badly. "I never want you to worry."

/// ...But you can't know about this. ///

"Let's go to bed," Quatre whispered, leading him by the hand. They undressed without saying a word, like familiar couples will. Trowa laid with him, listening to Quatre's heartbeat, kissing his chest, his belly, tasting the sweetness of the Arabian's skin.

Very gently, Quatre reached between his legs and stroked him, gently but with almost unbearable friction, up and down. It seemed to go on forever... he would get close to the edge, and then Quatre would slow... almost stop. Quatre moved down his body, chest sliding over his belly. Sky blue eyes met his before Quatre leaned down and kissed him there in his shy way. Quatre was so gentle in bed. Always gentle, unlike anyone else Trowa had ever met.

He buried his fingertips in blonde, mussed hair, gazing at Quatre's flushed cheeks as the smaller boy moved his head and mouth in a gentle, rising crescendo of movement and rhythm that only led to one thing.

Then Trowa was gone, fallen into the sweet melody of something other than himself, and there was no pain for all the pleasure.

~*~

Later.

Trowa laid awake beside Quatre, with the blonde boy curled against his side, Quatre's head resting in the crook of his shoulder. Quatre was sleeping deeply, mouth slack in complete relaxation.

Trowa looked down at him, reaching one hand up to curl around Quatre's shoulders and stroke the blonde boy's head gently, fingers running through his fine, baby-soft hair. He kissed Quatre's forehead gently before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, knowing somewhere deep in his heart that it would probably be one of the last times Trowa ever saw him.

/// I'm sorry, Quatre. ///

TBC...

 

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