Diamond in the Rough

Summary: Duo\'s suffering the effects of his \"date\" the night before. Quatre tries to return the borrowed coat and finds the battered boy sitting on a log in the freezing forest. Some smut follows.

Thanks again to Chris and Sana for their wonderful jobs of Betaing...couldn\'t do it without you guys!! Thanks!


PRIDE AND A FALL


Duo sat on a fallen tree trunk, the icy October wind swirling around him. The sharp knives from the breeze cut through his thin shirt and eased the various cuts and bruises that adorned his body. Last night had been the hell he knew it would be.

Thin, black marks encircled his wrists from the steel handcuffs that Roger had used on him. Being hung from the ceiling, by nothing more than his wrists and barely being able to put weight on his big toes certainly didn’t help the muscles in his shoulders. He sported a black eye and rope burns around his neck where his tormentor had practiced his breath-control techniques.

The tardy bell sounded in the distance and Duo couldn’t bring himself to care whether or not he missed class. Just sitting in the cold felt good and the sore parts of his body were starting to go numb from the frigid air. As a matter of fact, his mind and body were starting to go dead. He knew what that meant, with the weather getting colder by the second and the first snowfall due by nightfall. Hypothermia wouldn’t be a bad way to die. You just slip off to sleep and never wake up, all bodily functions stopped by the cold and you dream your way into paradise. There were worse ways to go.

Of course if his coat had been present, then he wouldn’t have had the courage to even think of this idea. But since the poor, little, rich boy still had his tattered excuse for a jacket, he could hope.

He dreaded the thought of going into the school. Seeing everyone trying not to notice him and then talking about him behind his back. The teachers pretended not to notice his beaten face and body. One teacher had tried to help him and all it got the poor woman was a discharge notice from the district for sticking her nose where it wasn’t wanted.


@ @ @ @ @ @


Quatre waited by the main doorway into the school, hoping to see his longhaired savior from the day before. Around him stood his group of friends. Wufei and Sally were off to one side, busily trying to swallow each other’s tongues. Heero and Trowa chatted quietly behind him and he could hear his dingbat of a sister doing her best to attract the Japanese boy’s attention. Their parents were set on the two of them marrying and joining the best of both worlds together. Well, Heero’s parents and Quatre’s father that was.

He couldn’t understand why Duo hadn’t shown up yet. He had seen the boy that attacked him come in over a half hour ago. The warning bell went off and still no sign of the one that he wanted to see. A feeling of wrongness clenched his gut. Something wasn’t right and Duo needed help.

“Trowa,” he said, looking at his closest friend and pulling on his coat. “I’ll be back. I need to check something out, would you cover for me in homeroom?” The rooster-banged boy gave him a small smile in agreement. “Thanks, I’ll be back before classes start for real, I hope.” He hugged his friend and hurried out of the warm building.

He pulled his coat closer, thanking Allah that he taken it off for a bit before settling in to wait on his quarry. In his left hand he held the shabby jacket that he had been loaned the day before. He smiled at the memory of what he had done the night before and couldn’t wait for everything to fall into place. The feeling of urgency pulled him toward the woods where he had been assaulted and he stopped for a minute. He shivered in delayed reaction. He had babbled out his story to Rashid and then changed the series of events to reflect better on him. Something told him that to reveal what had really happened would cause more trouble for the boy who had helped him. Besides, he didn’t want people to think that he didn’t have a spine and couldn’t protect himself. He had his pride.

He stumbled through the woods, desperation coursing throughout his slender frame and nearly blocking out the invasive cold. Something wasn’t right. The feelings that emanated from the hidden figure weren’t like anything he had ever felt before in his life.

A soul-devouring self-loathing drew him like a moth to the moon. The life force that flickered just in front of him had begun to gutter, like a candle that would soon consume the last little bit of wax and then disappear in a quick puff of scented smoke. The path he had unconsciously found led him deeper into the copse and his footsteps instinctively sped up. Just as he reached a break in the trees where he could see more than two feet in front of him, his tired feet got tangled up in something and he went sprawling face first into the moist, loamy soil of the forest. The bitter scent of tannin, wet earth and dying plant life overwhelmed his poor nose and he sneezed.

“G’ bless you,” murmured a familiar voice.

“Duo?” Quatre asked, sitting up and wiping the soil off his face.

“Dat’s m’ name. Don’ wear it out…”

Quatre looked at the boy who had come to his rescue not more than twenty-four hours ago. Gone was the tight, neat braid; Duo’s hair had escaped its confines. A vacant, hopeless expression covered his features and once bright, violet eyes stared off into nothing. Of course only one eye could be seen through the patchwork of bruises that decorated the other boy’s face and neck. Delicate wrists carried the mark of something thin and Duo held his arms close to his body like they were causing him pain.

“Duo,” Quatre quietly said, “What happened to you?”

“Nothin’” the braided boy responded. He looked at the petite blonde sitting on the cold ground. “Nothin’ happened. It was a peachy night. Couldn’t be better. How was your night?”

“One of those men that you sleep with did this didn’t they?” Quatre asked, his voice becoming sharper with anger. “Why do you let them do this to you? Why don’t you just stop doing what you’re doing and be good for the sake of your family?”

Duo stared at him, sense and reality returning to his eyes. “The sake of my family?” he barked. “Do you even know what the hell you’re talking about?”

“I know that your foster father worries about you and can’t understand why you do these things. Or at least that’s what he tells my father. He really cares about you, don’t you know that?” Quatre got up off the moist ground and walked toward the braided boy. Duo’s lips were blue – where they weren’t torn and bruised – and his hands were a pasty white due to exposure. “Why don’t you come back and join us in school? I’m sure that Owen would be happy if you were in class.” He carefully draped the clean, mended coat over the slender shoulders of the boy.

“Class. Oh yeah, we can’t miss any school can we?” Duo sarcastically said. He looked at the little blonde who had brought his coat back to him. “So, what’s the repair job going to cost me? You wanna ride the cheap little whore too? Is that what you’re doing out here?” Duo’s voice rose with each sentence until it was a near screech. He stood up and began backing Quatre up.

Quatre stumbled away from the other boy. Duo’s eyes flashed with anger as he kept stalking toward him and something in that furious face made him even more scared than he had been the day before. He tripped over the exposed root of one of the trees that made up the small copse and the roughish-smoothness of the bark scrapped against his hands. He found himself trapped and the maddened Duo stalked closer to him. The braided boy reached him and pushed him tighter against the tree.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Duo said, his voice dropping seductively. “Do you want to find out why I do the things I do? Do you think you can handle the truth? Things aren’t always what they seem to be, little prince.” The pale, cold hands began to massage Quatre’s groin through his pants and the petite blonde began moaning. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours he found himself at the mercy of someone who was intent on doing something to his body that he wasn’t quite ready for.

“D-d-duo,” he gasped, “please don’t do this.”

“I thought you wanted to know why.” Duo glared into Quatre’s softer, innocent eyes. “You didn’t tell anyone about what happened with OJ yesterday, did you?”

“I told Rashid that I had gotten into a fight,” he said, closing his eyes and turning his face away from the other boy. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“I do,” Duo choked out.

“You do?”

“Yeah. If you tell someone then it becomes real and you have to face what almost happened to you. By making it seem to be less than it truly was, then it really didn’t happen and you don’t have to deal with the consequences or even think anymore about what could have gone wrong.”

“How would you know that?” Quatre asked, stunned to hear his own thoughts coming from someone else.

“Let’s just say I’ve been there, done that and, as they say, bought the tee-shirt.” He closed his eyes, but not before Quatre felt a flash of self-loathing and pain that nearly sent him to his knees. “Thanks for not getting the idiot into trouble. And before you say anything, I told Owen what happened and he punished the moron. So, you don’t have to worry about him coming after you again.” Duo dropped to his knees and began nuzzling the front of Quatre’s trousers. “I guess that I owe you twice.”

The petite blonde moaned at the delicious friction caused by Duo’s face and he carefully worked his fingers into the chestnut hair. The feelings coming from the other boy were stronger the more contact he had with him and they threatened to overwhelm the delicate empath. A deep-seated self-hatred, a disgust of what he was about to do and the tiniest fraction of true arousal raced up Quatre’s arms. His brain nearly shut down with the strength of the emotions and he moaned in pain.

Duo pulled down his zipper with his teeth and then used his frigid hands to pull the blonde’s partially erect cock out of its protective barrier. He swirled his tongue around the circumcised head, teasing the glands underneath with his talented tongue. Quatre could feel the other boy’s warm breath puffing against his exposed member. He nearly fainted when his cock was swallowed and touched the very back of the braided boy’s throat. He felt frozen in place with his fingers buried in chestnut locks and his knees were getting weak. A low hum proved to be his undoing; he shot his load into the other boy’s throat, ignoring the soft sounds of choking that reached his ears.

Duo carefully let the organ slip from his mouth, being extra gentle with the over-sensitized flesh. He sat with his head down, waiting for Quatre to regain his senses. Something slammed into his back, knocking him away from the little blonde. A wave of pain washed over him as he landed on some of his injuries. Self-preservation forced him to scramble away and put his torn back against the rough bark of one of the centuries old oaks that made up the copse. He looked toward Quatre, hoping to see who or what attacked him. One green eye and a uni-bang faced him, the eye blazed with both concern and jealousy.

Oh great! It’s wonder boy’s not-boyfriend. Duo thought, watching the two of them together.

Trowa had gotten worried about Quatre. Rashid had told him about the fight when the massive man had driven the two of them to school. Trowa had shown up at the normal time to ride with the pair and the little blonde had run back into the house to get a package he said was for someone at school. Something hadn’t been right about Quatre’s behavior the night before and the bodyguard had hoped that Trowa could get the information from his best friend and secret crush.

After Quatre had left the security of the school building, Trowa had waited to see if he would return. He had remained where he had been when the other boy left him, after asking Heero to run interference for both of them. When Quatre hadn’t returned by the time the tardy bell rang, Trowa had known that there was something happening and his little friend would need his help. There were too many predators that went to their school and while he found the petite blonde’s innocent endearing, there were a lot of others that would defile and ruin the sunny personality.

It hadn’t been hard to trace his little one: Trowa’s father insisted that his only son know how to track and hunt and he put those skills to work. The signs of someone passing in the last half hour, heading into the woods and not out of them, lead the banged boy to the clearing where he saw something that both shocked and aroused him.

To see his little one, his sweet Quatre pinned against a tree while the boy that Trowa knew turned tricks at night sucked him off drove the banged boy to do something that he had vowed he never would. He became violent with the intruder, pushing him away from his territory. Of course he hadn’t planned on Quatre getting caught up in his actions. The petite blond lost his balance as Duo was pushed away from him and he fell once more to the cold, damp loam.

“T-t-t-trowa?” he stuttered, looking up at his friend.

“Are you all right?” Trowa asked. He reached out and helped to right the fallen boy.

“I’m fine. I thought that you were going to make sure that the teacher didn’t notice I’m not there right now.”

“Yuy is doing it. You should be glad that I came when I did.” He glared over at the other boy, not noticing the various signs of abuse on him. “C’mon. We need to get to class.”

“But—”

“No buts. It’s time for school and since you plan on doing something with your life….” He left the comment hanging and glared over at Duo. “Unlike some people you have prospects in this life.” He wrapped a possessive arm around Quatre’s shoulders and began to walk him back toward the school building.

“Trowa, you have no idea of what’s really going on here,” Quatre said, stepping away from him. A wave of brutal self-hatred washed over him, driving him back to his knees. His eyesight went dark for a few seconds as his brain tried to process the overload of emotion that swept through him. When his sight cleared, Duo had moved out of the clearing and was almost out of earshot.

“Quatre!?” Trowa shouted as he shook the other boy.

“I’m fine,” he murmured. “We need to catch Duo.”

“Why would you want to go anywhere near him? Look what he did to you! He tried to rape you and took advantage of your sweet disposition.” Trowa swept him up in his arms and began the trek back to the school. Somehow he’d find a way to make Duo Maxwell pay for what he did to Quatre.

* * * * * *

Duo limped to the building, clutching his left arm tight against his ribs. None of the bones were broken, that he knew of, but the pummeling that Roger had given him the night before caused some deep bone bruises and when Barton had thrown him away from Quatre they began to throb. He rested against the cold brick of the structure, trying to pull himself together. What he had done in the woods was inexcusable, but maybe someone would hear his cry for help; someone with the power to make things stop. Or at least that’s the reason he told himself. Winner seemed like a nice kid and he had lots of friends. It would be nice to be that innocent again.

Yeah keep on wishing, Maxwell, he thought, moving into the warmth of the school and heading for his locker. If wishes were fishes, we’d all walk on water. I wonder what it’s like to have a normal family. To not have to worry about OJ doing something really stupid or to have a father that loves you for being yourself. That’s not going to happen to me in a zillion years. And, hey, if you’re going to dream, might as well dream big.

His repaired coat went into his locker along with his backpack and he pulled out the books that he would need for the next couple of classes. He had missed about the first quarter of his lit class, but the teacher could be bought off with a quick smile and a few glib, but well-spoken words. He closed his eyes, pulled his thoughts together, pasted his devil-may-care smile on his face and headed off to his class. At least no one would see the tears behind the mask and if he lived through the week then Roger would leave Owen alone and things could get back to normal. It was funny; the abnormal had become normal for him.


* * * * * *
Trowa and Quatre got about halfway back to the school before the blonde began protesting his treatment at the banged boy’s hands. He wanted to walk the rest of the way back; reclining in the arms of his secret crush had some embarrassing results. About the third time he almost dropped Quatre because of his struggling, Trowa put him down. When his feet touched the earth again, the petite blonde found his hand gripped in a tight grasp. Trowa’s feelings of insecurity and jealousy made the smaller boy smile with joy and then he remembered what he needed to do.

“Trowa,” he said as they entered the building.

“Hm?”

“I need to find Duo and get an explanation from him. I don’t know what he was thinking or what really happened to him, but I do know that he went out of his way to save me from getting beaten up yesterday and I owe him at least a chance to tell me why he did that to me.”

Trowa looked at him through his bangs, green eyes serious and deep in thought. “All right, you do what you think is best. But I’m coming with you and we’ll do it at lunch. Maxwell has the same lunch period as we do and we’ll corner him then. Is that acceptable?”

“Very much so. But let me do the talking.” He smiled up at the taller boy. “You don’t always have a way with words and you’re not known for the talent to babble like I am.” He carefully extracted his hand from Trowa’s, letting the other boy know that it was with great reluctance that he was doing it, and started to head off to his first class. The plan that the green-eyed boy came up with would be perfect. He would have some protection against Duo trying anything like he had done this morning and would give Quatre the time that he needed to figure out why the braided boy did the things he did.

Unfortunately, Duo had other plans and the meeting never happened. He managed to avoid Quatre and his friends for most of the week

But fate had plans of her own for the braided youth.