***
Heero lay still, her eyes open and staring at the blank, pale ceiling. She bit her lip, the one respite of pain allowed, unseen by Wufei's watching figure in the doorway. She almost wished he would say something, rail at her, reinforce the fact that she knew she was worthless and deserved punishment so badly, as Trowa had in his silent resentful gaze before he had left her to the Chinese pilot's ministrations. She pulled weakly at the metal cuffs Wufei had used to strap her to the bed, helpless. They clanked loudly, a single noise aside from Wufei's breathing and her own. She yanked again angrily, just to hear something new, then her arms fell to rest at her sides. Her vision swam, yet she forced her eyes wide and her mind awake from the blackening room.
She glared at the ceiling, as if it could help her but wouldn't. Wufei's face appeared at the edge of her vision, sitting down beside her cautiously. She turned her head, regarding the Chinese youth as if an enemy. He frowned in response to her furrowed brows, and she smirked cruelly. He began preparing a shot, more antibiotics she supposed as the silence grew tense. She had already screamed at him to release her, but was too weak to release herself. She had spoken with him in fury, but he had said nothing as her voice became hoarse and soft, subsiding into enraged silence and sobs she would not admit.
Wufei encircled her arm with his hand, and she clenched her fist, as if his touch on her narrow bicep was only further insult to her assumed gender. He eyed her, but slid the needle into her vein as she closed her eyes, an unacknowledged tear slipping free without her control. He pumped the liquid into her blood, and watched with dawning horror as a trickle of the same fell from her mouth as she bit through. He dabbed it away, and stood to provide her space.
Then he paused, thinking better of it, and sat again, peering into the Japanese's disturbed face. He reached out an unsure hand and brushed back sweaty bangs from the grimace of a boy who was no longer a boy, but never could be quite a girl. He scowled, unable to place Heero within the confines of his mind as a weak female, for he knew she was not weak, nor as a man as prior deduction would have always assumed. Heero twitched away from his touch, her teeth shining as if a dozen blades behind the slight part of her lips, slick with fresh blood. Wufei blinked, and settled his hand upon her own, encased in steel shackles but fisted nonetheless, as if that minute gesture would break her imprisonment.
Heero snarled at his comfort, and a sneer marred the features that Wufei might have considered attractive, if he could think of her as a girl. "Hn. Don't touch me, Wufei. Kisama, you wouldn't touch an onna. Why don't you refer to me as one?" she baited, her eyes still shut as she mocked him, a grim little smile curving her bitten lips. Wufei ignored her taunt as best he was able, but retorted, "Because you are not weak. It wouldn't be a false definition, but you have my respect, Heero-chan. If you didn't, I would let you kill yourself, and save me the trouble of staying awake to prevent you from doing so. But it would be an injustice to allow you that."
Heero cracked an eye open, and rolled said prussian blue orb at the other pilot. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," she snorted, turning her head away from him. "I would have survived. And there are far better ways to kill yourself anyway," she continued, not looking at him. Wufei arched his eyebrow, and queried, "Then what was it?"
"Punishment," she answered distantly, a shiver running down her spine. Her thin shoulders shuddered with the chill as Wufei stared at her in shock. She closed her eyes, the faint memory of a cobalt gaze haunting her mind as she refused to continue. Tears tracked from her eyes unnoticed as her guardian stood, and leaned in disbelief against the wall.
"Punishment...for what? You don't feel remorse!" Wufei sneered suddenly, whirling to glare at the bound pilot. Heero closed her eyes, a faint scowl crossing her face, and she hissed, "Punishment for what I've done to Trowa...and Duo." Her voice lingered hoarsely on the name of the American pilot, as if forced through sobs that could not be heard. Wufei cocked his head, anger dissapating at the sight of the Japanese youth, attempting to curl into a fetal ball despite the straps chaining her outstretched.
"What did you do to them, that you thought you needed to punish yourself like this?" Wufei choked out, sitting down again. Heero snorted, "What Trowa and I did. He didn't want to, for good reason. I'm just fucked up, so I can't control my chemicals...and he is -- *was* my outlet for sex. I guess...I raped him. And Duo..." Heero blinked, and turned away from Wufei.
"Duo...what? What have you done to him?" Wufei prompted. Heero shot him a glare, but replied, "I -- I fell in love with him. But now that he knows what I am...I have utterly betrayed him. I have betrayed his divergence from his religion for me, I have betrayed his trust in me, by lying...I have betrayed his heart, and his body."
The Japanese girl sounded so dejected and lost, her eyes clouded with some fearful emotion that Wufei could not decipher, hidden behind a lifetime of training and perfectly concealed feelings. Wufei wished he had not yelled at her before, despite what she had done. She seemed so broken, bound to the bed as if in pieces held together only by her sutures and scabs. A thought occurred to the Chinese boy, and he pondered it.
"Do you really think that Duo feels as betrayed as you say? He is likely hurt that you could not tell him, that you felt the need to conceal yourself from him and us, but I firmly believe that he still loves you, no matter what you are...he will understand, and help you," Wufei mused aloud, his deliberate words sparking hope into the deadened prussian eyes.
Then Heero's face fell. "Aa...he may somehow forgive me...but I do not forgive myself."
***
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