"Them"
By: Princess Sassafras
Notes: Yes, yes I know what you're thinking: another Trowa rape/angst fic, right? Well I never much liked reading them, but here I've written one! I hope it's more original than most. Quatre's a different kind of warrior in this fic; he wants vengeance so that his lover can have peace.
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It's not fair that he's forced to remember it. Night after night he crawls from one end of the bed to the other in his desperation to get away from invisible hands. The comforter and sheets fall to the floor leaving him naked. I turn on the bedside light sometimes, afraid to go near enough to him to wake him but unwilling to let him twist and moan in the dark. It helps very little. He looks like a blinded deer for a few moments, his green eyes wide and unseeing and black in the yellow lamplight. At any other time he would wake, his reflexes—long imbued through pilot training—would kick into gear and he would flip soundlessly into a crouch on the floor. Alert and ready. Not now. When the nightmares grip him he goes somewhere where light and sound cannot reach.
I cannot sleep when he cannot. My stomach wakes me with its clenching. It sucks to be an Empath.
Wicked that a boy his age—not nearly twelve—should have been gifted with such fine skin and with such beautiful but aged features. He was a small boy with the face of an elegant youth and eyes that were older than most men's. Cruel that he should have such long legs and such a graceful way of moving. He hates himself for it to this day.
They saw him, and, simply, there weren't enough women for them to rape. I know that sounds wrong—backwards—that it can't be the fault of circumstances such as these. It was the fault of the men. But this is how he thinks: if I hadn't looked like that, if I hadn't walked by that night, if they hadn't been drinking, if there had been any other women or boys…
If they hadn't been Evil. Trowa, if they hadn't been Evil this would have never happened. If they hadn't forced their dirt on you, you wouldn't be writhing now, my love. And me…powerless to stop you reliving it.
"It's gone," I tell you. "Look how strong you are! And here…here, you're safe. It will never happen again."
But for the look in his eyes I might as well promise him there will never be another War. Doubt and fear live in his gaze, and I want to kill it. I want to end Them! I have never felt such hate. Not even towards Oz, the shapeless entity of soldiers. It's easy to keep them faceless, nameless. But Trowa knew his attackers' faces, and names. And I create them in that horrible place in my mind. I imagine the ringleader was tall with red hair and a cruel face. I hate myself for imagining…but I need to create an image of something…something to give to this churning hate in my belly. Something to want the death of.
My Trowa, my old-soul lover. I knew it when I first looked into his face—it was haunted with too much for one so young. Yes, even for a Gundam Pilot. His eyes are deeper—and I've looked into many eyes of many men.
A shallower man, a simpler soul, would have been able to move on by now. But Trowa's soul rebels, cries out, kicks with fear and pain and rage at the memory. How dare you, why did you do this to me, how could you, I hate you…
He thinks he is talking to himself. I think he's talking to God. But Trowa doesn't believe in God. Because God wouldn't let something like this happen.
I hate You, now. Do you hear me? I hate You! And the only way I'll ever stop hating You is if that man with the cruel face dies. If Trowa can have his bloody head at his feet. If I can see his body lying in the dark gutter, and my love stops dreaming about his groping hands. Do You hear me now? Do You?
We can only kill so much Evil in this world. And here, it still exists, in this bedroom. Kill it for him…because I can't. Not even with my love. Not even with my hands or my arms or my mouth. Not even though I would die.
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