Author: KatiKat
Warning: Post-EW, Dark, Angst
Rating: PG
Pairings: 1+2
Archives: KatiKat and Friends
Disclaimer: Not mine, you can check! No money made here. It's all just for fun :)
Notes: THIS ISN'T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE ON THE FIRST SIGHT. Trust me! :)
Reality Check
"Damn it, Duo, can't you do anything right?" the snarl sounded through the paper-thin walls in the run-down apartment building.
"Sorry, Heero, I..."
"The soup was too salty and the meat is burned. Is it so difficult to cook something edible?" There was a crash as something hit the floor, and broke into shards.
"Sorry..." came the whispered answer.
"I don't need you apologizing to me all the time. I just want something to eat when I come back home from work."
"I forgot the meat... my studies..."
A sarcastic snort. "Your studies? That's another thing! I don't understand why you need all this crap they are forcing into your head at that damn university. I don't like you going there. We need money or we won't ever get out of this shit hole. You are lucky that your scholarship pays for everything. If it was my money, you would be out of there before you could blink."
"Heero, you don't understand... I..." The other voice was even more subdued now and it quivered with tears.
"What I understand is that you are good only for one thing. To spread your legs," the hard and hateful sounding man interrupted. "And maybe you are not even good for that anymore, huh? How should I know since you have been gone every night this week?"
"I have evening classes," came the quiet objection.
"No, you don't anymore." There was a sound of chair scraping the old linoleum and a cry echoed through the apartment. "I have had enough of waiting. I am the one who earns the money here so I think I deserve something for it."
"Heero... no..."
The sound of a struggle could be heard through the wall. It was brief though and ended with a sound smack, flesh against flesh. A cry, whimpers, door banging open and closed. After a while, grunts of pleasure and cries of pain echoed through the otherwise quiet apartment.
And on the other side of the wall, someone was listening. The person, sitting on a half broken chair and leaning against the wall behind which the drama unfolded, picked up the knife that was until now lying on the table, the only furniture in the otherwise empty apartment and let the blade glint and shimmer in the blinking neon lights that were streaming through the barren windows.
He heard him, his cries, his begging for mercy. The pained screams of being forced. The silent crying in the night. Tears for love lost, twisted, bent...
He had been watching him for the past several weeks. He saw the bruises. His face contorted in pain every time he tried to sit down on the train on his way to university. Him, holding his bruised or maybe broken ribs...
He felt his pain as if it was his own. The pain of helplessness. The pain of knowing there was no way out of the hell he had fallen into...
There was no mercy for people like him, victims of their husbands, lovers, parents... and their own minds...
There was only one way out...
The knife shimmered in the neon light again...
It was time...
~*~
The whole operation went down smoothly. Weeks of preparation finally paid off, and the serial murderer had been caught.
David Beals, 42 years old, single, no family. Killed 12 innocent people, all of them victims of domestic abuse. Until now he had always escaped justice, he had always been set free. No evidence was sufficient. And so the case was handed over to the Preventers. And Lady Une sent her best team...
~*~
Heero and Duo were sitting in their car, watching as the Preventers - with the help of local police officers - dragged the struggling madman out of the apartment house. He was screaming incoherently, his twisted mind lost in his own world. It was over.
Lady Une finished talking to Wufei Chang, the head of the operation, nodded to him and looked around for her two agents. When she spotted them, she walked over and bent into the open window on Heero's side. "Well done, gentlemen," she congratulated them. "Head over to the headquarters, there will be a de-briefing in an hour and..."
"No," Heero interrupted her quietly.
For a moment she looked confused. "Huh?"
He turned to her and for the first time she noticed how pale and gaunt the agents looked like. Their eyes were hollow and haunted. "There will be no de-briefing or anything like that. You will have our written report on your table tomorrow, first thing in the morning. After that we are taking vacation until the process starts." The tone of his voice left little room for arguing.
For a moment she thought about refusing but then she saw how Heero's hands clenched on the steering wheel and how Duo's arms went around him in a protective hug. She realized that this case really got to them. She knew they were a couple and to have to live through something like that - even if it was just for show - shook them to the core of their being. She suspected that if she refused them, they would quit. Just like that. They needed time for themselves to strengthen the rattled construction of their relationship.
She nodded. "All right. But stay in touch," she added and stood up to walk away. But then she thought otherwise and bent down to look at them again. "It was a good job, boys," she said gently. "Thanks to you no innocent person will suffer by the hands of this madman anymore." With that, she turned around and walked away swiftly.
Minutes, maybe hours went by and they were still sitting there. It started to drizzle, then rain. The people hurried for cover. And they just sat there, not talking, not touching. They knew that it had been close this time. The man sneaked up on them. From his previous MO, they knew he killed his victims when they were alone at home. But this time he attacked when Heero was still in. They didn't suspect it and it almost got them killed. If Heero didn't turn around at the last possible moment, he would have ended up with a knife in his back. The man fought with all the strength of a man obsessed. Even with both of their abilities combined they were almost unable to subdue him. When they disarmed him and cuffed him to the bed, the cavalry finally arrived, hearing the struggle through the hidden microphones. They left the man in their care and went to their car. And now they were here.
"Duo," Heero whispered finally, his hands in fists on the steering wheel.
The braided man turned to him, but didn't say anything. It was hard to slip out of the role he played for so long.
Heero looked at him and felt his heart clench in pain as he saw the fake bruises on Duo's pale face. Over the weeks Duo became a master in putting on make-up. The black and blue bruises looked so real, and just the thought that they could be real and that he could be the cause of them turned his stomach.
"I wouldn't do that," he whispered looking straight in his love's eyes.
"What do you mean, Heero?" The other man's voice was just a whisper too, as if a loud voice could break them.
Heero lifted his hand, reached over and touched one of the fake bruises. Duo's muscles clenched in a learned response, but he managed not to flinch. This was Heero, his Heero, not the character he played. Not the abuser, rapist. His love who would always be there to protect him, care for him, love him. He felt himself relax, one muscle after the other and finally he leaned his face against Heero's hand and nuzzled it.
"This," Heero whispered, making circles around one of the fake bruises with his thumb. "I would never do this. Or this." His thumb moved to another multi-colored reminder of the ordeal over the last couple of weeks. "I would never hurt you. I would never beat you or r... rape you," he stammered out. "I would rather kill myself, shoot myself in the head. But I would never, ever do this."
Duo closed his eyes, pressed his cheek into the warm palm of his lover and let his words wash over him like a cleansing stream of water. This was reality. The last couple of weeks - no matter how rough - were fake. None of that was real. He had seen the pain in Heero's eyes every time he had to call him names, had seen the look on his pale face while they pretended there was a rape in progress in the shabby apartment they shared. He knew Heero would never do something like that to him. He knew, but it was nice to hear it, to be reassured. He opened his eyes, and for the first time in weeks a real smile, although small, graced his lips. "I know, love. I know." He turned his head and kissed the palm that was caressing him. "I love you."
Heero blinked to cover the stinging in his eyes. "I love you too." He then leaned over and carefully, gingerly he took Duo in his arms. He felt his lover relax totally, almost slump in his arms and he could feel his shirt growing damp where Duo's face was pressed into his chest. The bottled up stress of the past couple of weeks finally came out, and the small shaking of shoulders slowly grew into a hard sobbing. Heero couldn't force his own tears down anymore, and a few teardrops slid down his hollowed cheeks.
The case was over but they didn't fool themselves. They knew that an experience like that couldn't be just switched off, shoved in some deep corner of their minds and souls. It was something they would have to deal with, or it would destroy them both.
Their experience was a reality check for them. Before the whole thing started, they took their relationship, their love for granted. But now they thought otherwise. The characters they played must have loved each other in the past too, but they let their relationship deteriorate and turn into a battlefield of abuse and hate. Now Duo and Heero were both determined not let something like that happen to them, ever. They would never take each other for granted again because that was the first step in the wrong direction.
A direction they never wanted to take.
OWARI
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