Stimulus

Written by Eternity's End, edited by Felicity Honenburg. A/N: This fic was extremely difficult to write; much time and effort has been poured into it. The tenses may be confusing, as the fic progresses from memory to reality. Please review; I look for your honest opinion, in the hopes that it will improve me as a writer. This is my first yaoi. Please tell me what you think.

//This is a memory or dream sequence.//

Warnings: This fic will contain yaoi, meaning m/m relations. (Yay!)

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiss Kreuz. Regrettably.

Prologue:

A person is influenced by outward stimuli his entire life. No event passes without leaving a mark. The mark can be positive or negative, pushing a person in to his role in life. Sometimes, the mark scars, leaving him a completely different person. Such was Youji Kudou's case.

Youji awoke in a cold sweat, the slippery silk sheets clinging to his heaving chest. He pulled the sticky cover off his chest, batting it away with his feet. Running a cool hand over his overheated forehead, he tried to pull himself together.

"Just a dream, just a dream, just a." He tried to reassure himself, the mantra becoming all too familiar to his lips. "Shit." He whispered after a few choruses. "It wasn't just a dream."



Thus had Youji Kudou awoken every night for the past week. Every night, the same nightmare haunted his sleep. It never changed. The scene replayed over and over in his mind.

//The dim cell. The iron cross, strung through the window of the door, casting the eerie shadow of a crucifix across his crumpled body. The blood, oozing from the wounds of his bound wrists, clotting only to be ripped open anew. A hollow, biting pain in his battered right shoulder. Slowly, the heavy door to the cell inches open. The shadow of the crucifix is replaced with that of a body. There is laughter, soft chuckling at the sight of beauty being held in such inhumane conditions. The amused body steps in, the door slams shut behind him. And the body approaches, stepping carefully around the pools of blood. A whimper escapes the incapacitated body as the chuckling figure leans over, his face pulled from the shadows for the first time. "Hello, kitten. I hope you had a good sleep." The orange locks brush his face, a mocking, gentle caress. And the bolt is heard, drawn heavily across the door. Locking Youji inside with the madman.//



Youji ground the palm of his hand furiously into his eyes, hoping to banish the sleep and with it the memories. But rather than banishing the dream, the movement clarified the memories. Bound around each wrist was soft cloth, stanching the blood there, speeding the recovery of the gashes. Mournfully, he brought his hands down to his lap again, allowing the memory to run its course. Hopefully, then, it would be satisfied to leave him be.

//The long hours of morning are spent enduring the hot breath along his neck and painfully heavy touches along his bruised body. Eventually, the preliminary torture stops; he is stupid enough to be relieved.//

Youji's breathing came in ragged gasps as the memory played out. Knowing what came next, he tensed; though his mind realized it was only a memory, his body refused to believe.

//Dragged up, his surely dislocated arm hangs over the madman's shoulders. The pain is unbearable; Youji whimpers because he knows the German to be most gentle of the four. His breath leaves him as the man under him begins to move, Youji tries to put his feet under him, to keep his body from dragging along. His limbs refuse to cooperate; he is helpless.//

//His new residence is nicer than the last. Youji notices this as he is dropped to the clean tile floor. He attempts to bring his head up, to survey his surroundings. But whatever drug they have given him, the one that keeps him from walking on his own, from putting up any fight, inhibited the simple act. Even speech is beyond him. Whimpers, winces, and small mewls of pain are the only expressions of his discomfort.//

//He is left lying there for a time. An hour, a minute, a day, Youji can't tell. Eventually, he fades into unconsciousness. What seems a second later, a shoe rudely awakens him. Roughly, certainly with less care than his previous handler had used, Youji is set upright. "Look at this, Schuldig! What did you give him?" A voice asks with some annoyance. "How was I supposed to know the right dosage?" Youji hears the response. His head is pulled up, roughly by his hair. Youji is confronted with a narrow face framed by large glasses. "I knew something like this would happen." Youji watches the new man's mouth move, confused when the words don't match up. "Of course you should have! You're the fucking oracle!" Footsteps are heard, accompanied with greetings. His head is released, only to be captured again with a new pair of hands, grasping him by the chin. "There's no real harm done." The boy speaks, his long brown bangs covering his eyes. "He won't last as long though." A presence, previously unknown to Youji makes a noise of protest. "Calm down, Farf." Schuldig sounds amused. Youji desperately wants to look up, to know the distance between himself and his four threats. "We'll let you have him afterwards. Promise." His head is dropped, and it falls backwards limply. A monstrous combination of black metal, leather, and unidentifiable objects greet him from his new perspective. Youji can hear many footfalls. They are all nearing.//

//The next time period is blurred beyond the point of recognition. Truly a blessing for the tortured man. There is the vague memory of being lifted, straps being tied in place, and of clothing being removed. Snippets of visual are virtually nil. Only a bit of dialogue comes through with clarity. "I still don't know where you found something like this." "You can buy a lot of things on the internet." "I never knew Nagi could be such a pervert. I'm so proud!" "Hmm. Move." Then there is pressure all over his body. Feelings of pain, humiliation, and anger coursed through Youji's veins. Things were whispered in his ears; mouths bit and suckled, bruising flesh; he is impaled, choked, squeezed, beaten and cut. The feelings come through with more clarity than anything else. Youji is over all abused. And the entire time, he is helpless to stop it.//

Youji jolted out of bed suddenly, grabbing for the door and rushing down the hall. He made it to the bathroom in time to be violently ill. Dry heaves continued long after there was nothing to come up. Mournfully, he looked himself over in the mirror. His hair was plastered to his face, blood smeared on his lip, a wound having reopened when he got sick, his naked chest covered with dulling bruises and small, scarring cuts. What used to be a tall, thin man now looked starved, gaunt, and slightly hunched. A beautiful creature, made for seduction, was now a beaten mongrel, hoping only for a comfortable corner in which to curl up and die. Youji Kudou looked wholly broken. With a wry smile, Youji acknowledged the fact that he was.

//After countless times of being beaten and raped, humiliated and broken, Youji is let down. One of them lays him out on the ground, unconscious in a growing pool of his own blood. Three quarters of the group leaves. One remains. Youji is awakened by sharp digging pain, dangerously close to a vital part of his anatomy. Thankful that the drug has, for the majority, worn off, at least slightly, Youji wrenches his body out of the way before lifting his head to see what has been attacking him.//

//Farfarello crouches where Youji had once been, a satisfied look on his face, licking the blood off of one of his blades. Youji scrambles to get up, only to painfully learn his wrists are still bound. The mad Irishman smiles, watching Youji contort with agony. Before this moment, he had been unaware of how injured he was.//

//Still smiling, Farfarello crawls to crouch beside him again. This time, Youji watches as the knife dips down, carving at the flesh just above his hip. He hisses in pain, watching the blood ooze out of the perfectly formed, upside down cross. He watches in horror as Farfarello's head dips down, allowing his tongue to play in the growing pool. Humiliation burns in Youji's cheeks as his body begins to react to the arousing stimulus. He shuts his eyes, begging anything and everything to make it stop. Seconds later, his prayers are answered.//

Youji shuddered as the memories refused to release him. It seemed they would never end. A hand traveled down to his left hip, feeling the thick bandage that covered the healing wound. It would scar. There was no helping it. And as he analyzed his wounds, Youji wondered as to how he saw one of his captors equally as his savior.

//The door slides open, and there stands Schuldig. Farfarello's head pops up at the sound. His eye narrows. "You said I could play," he says, explaining his actions. "I even got a reaction." Farfarello points proudly at Youji's half-mast erection. "Crawford." Schuldig makes a face. "He says we have to return the kitten or else the cats will come looking for him." Farfarello tilts his head. "Then we can play with all of them." Schuldig shrugs his shoulders. "I ran that by him. He doesn't think it's a good idea." Disgruntled, Farfarello stands to leave, muttering obscenities under his breath. "Hear that, kitten? You get to go home." Schuldig gives him a winning smile. "But you'll come play with us again, right?" Youji wants to respond, wants to scream at the cocky bastard, but his throat is parched, his lips cracked and bleeding. A dry hiss of air is as far as he got. "Now let's see about getting you dressed. Maybe we'll clean up some of those wounds? If I'm going to be lending you clothes, I don't want them getting all bloody." Youji's skin crawls at the thought of wearing Schuldig's clothes, but he stays silent for two reasons. One is that his throat is too dry to work; the other is that he doesn't want to risk his impending freedom.//

Youji shivered, Schuldig had been almost gentle in treating his wounds.

//He binds the cuts that still bleed, going so far as to put disinfectant on the worst. All the while, amused as Youji quivers in fear. Schuldig helps him into a pair of boxers and old jeans. He unbinds his hands to work him into a shirt, loving how Youji tenses with each touch. Then, after rebinding his wrists, he stands Youji up. Youji immediately falls over. It takes more than half an hour for the blonde to find his feet as well as the coordination to walk. The fact that Schuldig had neglected to tend to his shoulder doesn't help the problem. But Youji isn't complaining, because within the hour he is on his way home. Schuldig drives him himself, all the way up to the back door of the Koneko. There, he ties a little red bow around Youji's neck, punches him in the face, pushes him out, and speeds off into the sunset. Youji is left there, unconscious, for over an hour.//

Youji fingered the split lip, realizing he hadn't tended to it since it had reopened. Opening the cabinet with a wince, having used his bad shoulder, he found cotton balls and witch hazel to clean it.

//Ken is the one to find him, tripping over him as he exits the back with a flat of perennials. Aya and Omi join him shortly, running to discover the source of his scream. The flower shop closes early that day. The three work together to get their teammate up the stairs to the apartment. There, with smelling salts, he is revived. The trio fixes him up, tending to the wounds the German neglected. Youji is in and out of consciousness the entire time. That is, until Aya realigns his shoulder in its socket. Then he is awake and cursing. His teammates ask him endless questions, and no one seems to care that they get no answers. They feed him, give him something to drink, and leave him to sleep.//

//The next day, after Aya inquires as to information that Youji disclosed, and is reassured he hadn't talked, the entire topic of Youji's captivity iss dropped. It isn't that they are complying with Youji's wishes. They really seem to have no interest. Torture is natural in their profession. It is your punishment for getting caught.//

Youji shuddered as the memories finally drew to a close. He had been disturbed by how uncaring Ken and Omi had been; Aya he could understand, he didn't care about much. But the others? It had been a revelation. And now it had been four days since he'd returned. That was almost three times longer than the 36 hours spent in Schwarz's company. Even if the others had been concerned, they'd assume he was over it by now.

And even though he wasn't, Youji felt the need to play along with it. He pretended everything was okay. He played if off beautifully during the day. But during the long, dark hours of night, he couldn't stop the memories. And the reality became glaringly obvious. He wasn't okay.

To Be Continued in Chapter One.