Chapter 3
Bad News
Touya let the front door slam shut behind him and looked around desperately for a sign that Sakura was back. He'd been frantic ever since five days ago when Yue and Yukito had been captured on a mission with Sakura. His father insisted that he continue to go to school, but he couldn't pay attention to anything in his classes anyway. He was sick with worry, and he came home every day with the desperate hope that today was the day that she had found something...
"Sakura! Are you here?"
She appeared around a corner, a tentative expression on her face, and Touya's heart began to beat faster. "Did you find him?" he asked.
She nodded, but didn't say anything. Touya wanted to scream at her, but he knew it was just nerves and controlled himself. Never mind that she hadn't mentioned that Yuki was okay. Never mind that she looked so afraid, like a bearer of bad news. Yuki was okay. He had to be. He had to.
"Where is he?" Even trying to be calm, Touya's voice had a bit of a snap to it and Sakura flinched. Touya immediately felt bad, but he needed to know, needed to know what had happened to Yuki.
"He's upstairs," she said quietly. "He's in his room, but he's asleep."
Only this last stopped Touya from charging up the stairs himself. "Is he okay?" he asked.
Sakura stared at the ground. "O-oniichan, I... I think you'd better come sit down."
For an instant Touya stopped breathing. No. No. Impossible. Yuki was alright. He was alright, dammit! Yuki couldn't get hurt. Not now. Maybe... maybe something had happened to Yue. Maybe there was a problem with their magic or something. Yuki would be okay. He would be okay.
Touya followed his sister to the living room and sat down. Tomoyo was there and Kerberos, in his full guardian beast form. Both of them stared at him as he entered. He sat down on a chair across from Sakura, who sat on the couch next to Tomoyo.
Even after he sat down though, no one seemed to want to say anything. Sakura was busy staring holes into the floor, Tomoyo was concentrating on Sakura with an arm around her shoulders, and Kerberos was looking anywhere but at him. What was going on? Why was no one saying anything? Yuki was upstairs, asleep. He was home. He was alive. He must be fine. He was back now. Now things would be okay. Why weren't they saying anything?
"What's going on?" he finally asked into the silence, his voice sounding strained.
"O-oniichan, when... when we found Yukito-san, he... he was..."
And Sakura was crying. Dear God, why was she crying? Tomoyo tightened the arm around her shoulders and Sakura turned her head to Tomoyo's shoulder and she was sobbing. Why was she crying? Touya's heart was beating a mile a minute and he felt his breaths coming far too quickly but he kept himself composed. Sakura not being in a state to continue, he turned to look at Kerberos.
Kerberos caught his eye and sighed, looking grim, but did not look away. "It looked as though he'd been raped," he said.
The words didn't make sense. "Raped?" Touya repeated.
Kerberos nodded and didn't say anything else.
"Is he okay?" Touya finally asked. It sounded stupid as soon as he said it out loud. Of course he wasn't okay. He'd been... No. Impossible. Not his Yuki. They had to be wrong.
"W-we don't know." Sakura sniffled, but it looked like she had gotten over her crying enough to talk. "He had to change back to Yue for us to get him home. As himself he couldn't even stand up. We had Yue change back once we'd gotten upstairs and Yuki was still passed out. He hasn't woken up since."
"Why..." Touya's throat felt dry and he cleared it. "If Yue was okay, then why didn't he do something to prevent it? If he could still change back, then why did you find them in Yuki's body? What was Yuki doing out in the first place?" Touya happened to glance down at his hands on the arms of his chair and saw that the knuckles were white. He forced himself to relax his grip and take deeper breaths.
"We don't know." This time it was Kerberos again. "Yue didn't say anything the entire way back. We wanted to ask him, but..."
"He had this look," said Sakura. "This ice look in his eyes and we just couldn't say anything. It was... too scary."
Touya stood up. "I'm going to go up and see him," he said. He turned to leave the room and no one stopped him.
Even having been warned, he wasn't prepared for the sight of Yuki's appearance. His lover looked as though he hadn't eaten in days. His cheeks were sunken and he was covered in bruises and cuts. There were deep dark circles under his eyes. Touya could only imagine what his body must look like; the covers on his bed were pulled all the way up to his chin. In the corner over the back of a chair lay a cape, one that looked like a piece of Sakura's latest costume from Tomoyo. It had several blood stains on it and a few other stains, less easy to identify.
Staring at Yuki's prone form from the doorway, Touya felt helpless. He hadn't felt this bad since his mother had died, not even when Kaho had left him. For the third time in his life he felt completely out of control, as though the universe had taken his life into its own hands and decided to rain hell on him. God, to see him lying there like that...
Touya crept into the room and walked as quietly as he could to Yuki's side, sitting on the edge of the bed. As soon as he did so, Yuki groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Touya held his breath and slowly Yuki's eyes opened.
Touya's heart nearly broke at the look of fear and confusion in Yuki's eyes. On instinct he reached down to brush Yuki's face with his fingertips, but to his surprise Yuki jolted back, nearly shooting to the other side of the bed and curling himself up against the headboard. He clutched tightly at the blankets, gathering them around his waist.
"Don't touch me!" he gasped out.
Now that the blankets had fallen off him, Touya could see Yuki's chest and if anything it looked worse than his face had. Large angry red scratches tore across him, along with bruises and welts of all descriptions. Some of them were still crusted in blood; he obviously hadn't had a chance to wash since he was brought back.
"Yuki..." Touya felt the name being ripped from him in pain. How could this have happened? How could something like this happen to his angel?
"Please don't touch me," Yuki whispered again, staring down at the blankets. He was crying too. First Sakura, and now Yuki was crying, the two people he loved the most in the same day.
Touya wanted desperately to hold Yuki, to calm him down and soothe away his pain, but if he even shifted closer Yuki cringed. So he sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, feeling useless and incompetent, not knowing what to do with himself, as his lover cried softly next to him.
"Yuki," Touya said again, tightening his fist in the bed covers to keep from reaching for him, "what do you want me to do? Please, Yuki, how can I help you?"
"Just-" Yuki's voice was coming out in sobbing gasps, "just please leave me alone. I need- I need to take a shower. I need to get clean again. I'm not clean. I need- clean-" he ended with a choked-off sob.
Touya stood, his eyes closed, a mess of emotions swirling inside him. Pain, despair, rage, sorrow. But what Yuki needed was most important. He forced himself to walk to the door, pausing only when he had his hand on the knob.
He couldn't look back. He couldn't, and see Yuki in tears that he was unable to help. "If you need anything, anything at all," he said to the door, "please don't hesitate to come to me. Whatever it is, anything, whenever you need it, for any reason at all. Just please. I love you Yuki. I love you so much."
He turned the knob and walked out the door.
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