He remembered smelling Arizio's pizza restaurant very clearly and then the feel of hands on him, and a voice saying, "There you are! I told you not to wander off alone when you're so ill!"
Duo's hands cautiously felt the rough blanket covering him, the iron frame of an old bed, and, daring a wave of nausea, the bare floor beside the bed. His ears picked up sounds of traffic and a dog barking somewhere. It told him that he was still in the city, but not much else. His nose smelled sour sweat on his pillow. It wasn't the flowery perfume that Hilde favored, or the spicy incense scent that always hung about Quatre, or even the faintly orange blossom scent that told him when Wu Fei Chang was near. Heero had always smelled earthy, like the outdoors, and not in a bad way, and Trowa Barton had smelled like gun oil. Cleaning his weapons constantly was a nervous tic, picked up from mercenary days, that the man had never been able to shake.
"I should have gotten the dog," Duo muttered hoarsely, and felt the sting of helplessness, of not being the man he used to be. Despite everything that he had put himself through, spending hours in the dojo to learn to defend himself blind, and learning to target weapons by sound alone, he had been taken as simply as a man walking up to him and putting an arm around his shoulders.
"It wouldn't have mattered," a voice told him and Duo remembered it. The veteran who had helped him on a street corner.
Duo said nothing for a moment, his mind running through options, and escape scenarios, before he asked, "Is this revenge?"
He heard the man moving around and water poured. "That's your first question? Do you have a lot of enemies, Duo Maxwell?"
"You could be a crazy stalker, in love with me, and ready to kidnap me to have me," Duo drawled, "but nobody's liked me like that, ever, so revenge seems a lot more plausible."
"That's sad," the man replied and Duo felt a plastic cup pressed into his hand. It was cold and he drank before he even considered that it's contents might be bad. Water hit his parched throat and he gulped down to the last drop. The cup was taken away then, but not refilled. Duo didn't ask for more, though he was still very thirsty. He knew all the mind games, already, and he wasn't in the mood to play.
Duo rested against the pillow, trying to keep the water down in his queasy stomach. He heard the man walk and didn't flinch when his voice said, very close to his face. "Aren't you going to ask 'why'?"
"What's it matter?" Duo sighed.
A very rough cheek rubbed against his own. "It matters to me," the man almost crooned. "It matters that I only have half a face and that you're the one who sliced up the other half with shrapnel during the war."
Duo kept silent.
"No remorse?" the man asked, like a disappointed child.
"Shit happens in war. I've seen a hell of a lot worse." Duo shrugged. "I saw a burned guy's skin come off when they lifted him to put him on a stretcher. He lived for hours, after, while we were trying to evac the area to get him, and some others, to the medics. I've seen a guy stitch his guts back in with a broken grenade pin and thread from his clothes and another carry his blown off arm for miles.You may be ugly, but you have all your parts."
"Do I?" the man rubbed roughness against him again. "I have an empty eye socket and only half a mouth. My face looks like melted raw meat, Duo Maxwell, because even grafts can't fill in that much empty space. Not that they bother too much when the government decides not to pay for any 'beauty work'' on the enemy."
"Oz?" Duo wondered.
"and loyal to the end," the man replied proudly.
"Then I don't get it," Duo told him as he felt a leather collar around his neck, thick and tight, and found the metal lock and chain attached to that. His hands felt heavy and almost numb. It took effort to make them move to do as he wanted. "I mean," he explained, as he ignored the face so very close to his own, "You know what happens in war. It's personal, but it isn't. I didn't pick you out of a crowd of soldiers and decide to blow your face off, I just wanted to take out the opposing force."
"Luck of the draw?" the man wondered in bitter amusement. "You'll forgive me if I don't accept that gracefully."
Duo let his hands fall back to the blanket, the nausea almost winning. "So, it's torture and death, for revenge?"
"Death, in the end, possibly, but torture is overrated," the man almost purred. "Humiliation is so much more satisfying. I want to let you experience my world, Duo Maxwell."
The face went away and Duo heard footsteps and a door opening.
"We'll start tomorrow, when you'll be more alert and more appreciative of my efforts," the man told him.
"Do I get a name?" Duo wondered.
"Peter," came the reply. "Though I'm sure you'll be calling me other things soon."
"I'm sure I will," Duo muttered sourly.
_________________________________
"Don't shout to get attention," Peter told him as he moved around the room. It might have been morning, now, but judging time was impossible. "We're in an abandoned building. I insulated the walls."
Not very well, Duo thought, if he could still hear street noises.
"I nailed the windows closed as well," Peter went on, in a voice that sounded very cheerful."And you won't be able to pick the lock on the door or your collar."
Make friends, Duo knew. Remind the enemy that you're human. Staying silent was a challenge. It made them even more determined to break you.
"Am I going to be dead at the end of this?" he wondered.
"Do you imagine that I would tell you?" Peter replied in amusement.
"Maybe," Duo said with a shrug. "Some people like to gloat."
"If I said, yes?"
"I'm not going to do crazy shit to stay alive, but it would be nice to know that there will be a time limit to your crazy shit."
"Ah, well, you'll do what you're forced to," Peter told him. "I didn't expect willingness from someone like you."
"I need the head," Duo complained.
Something thudded against the floor far away. "Right here."
The tone of voice made Duo scowl angrily. He didn't have to be told that the man had no intention of giving him privacy.
"Am I getting fed?" Duo wondered next.
Another clatter in another corner. "If you can reach it," Peter replied cryptically.
Reach it. Duo hadn't had the strength to leave the bed and test the length of his chain. The mind game might make reaching those points impossible, the man simply wanting to see him try.
"So," Duo grumbled as he forced himself to sit up. Naked, cold, and still reeling with nausea, he had to put out both hands on the mattress to steady himself.
"So?" Peter mocked.
"You'd think having acid thrown in my face and going blind would be enough for you."
"I thought that it would, too, when I set up the bomb... but no, not really," Peter replied coldly.
Duo felt as if his entire body had been picked up and shaken. He felt intense heat flash through him and then an intense cold fury. "You... set... the bomb?"
He could almost hear the indifferent shrug, "It's too bad your rookie set it off prematurely. I didn't want him to die. I feel... bad about that. As for you... your friends came to your rescue, didn't they? They fixed your face, made you handsome again, and even gave you your eyes back. They fawned over you and never let you suffer what I did. What kind of revenge is that?"
Control. Duo wrestled for it and one, barely. "I owe you," was the only reply that he couldn't stop from coming from his lips.
Peter chuckled. "I'm not a fool. You won't get a chance at me, Duo Maxwell."
"Karma is a bitch," Duo replied tightly and tried to stand up. He ended up on his hands and knees, on rough wood, the room spinning out of control.
"That's how I want you," Peter told him. "That's my revenge and your bad karma. I want you crawling, always... or until I'm tired of you."
"That's it?" Duo couldn't help wondering, though it was humiliating. Collared like a dog, naked, and on hands and knees, in a room that he knew nothing about, made him feel completely vulnerable.
A hand took hold of his braid and it tightened in such a way, and at such an angle, that Duo could guess the threat. "Would you like more?" Peter wondered irritably. "This braid is going to get filthy dragging about on the floor. Maybe I should remove it?"
Duo said nothing and then the braid dropped onto his back. A hand patted his bare ass in a non sexual manner, just a perfunctory, get on with it, motion. The chain was taken up, though, like a leash, and Duo could hear the man walk beside him as he tried to find where he was supposed to relieve himself.
Humiliated in the extreme, when he found the bucket and had to manage, shaking and dizzy, to keep his balance long enough to do the deed, he still had the presence of mind to compartmentalize and keep track of his surroundings. He gathered every bit of information he could and, as he crawled and tried to find his food, he started to piece it together to make a mental picture.
Peter limped. His hand on the chain was strong. His hold wasn't cruel. Delivering pain wasn't on his agenda. That told Duo that the man might have a certain squeamishness that could work to his advantage.
The floor was fixed, in places. Duo picked up a splinter as he crawled and felt nails poking up along uneven, warped flooring. Dirt and dust was prevalent and he knew that he was getting filthy very quickly.
Sitting and leaning against one wall, as Duo managed to find his bowl of food, and eating with his fingers, some flavorless stew, Duo felt drywall, not plaster. That discovery could definitely work in his favor if the right circumstances presented themselves.
"You're skinny," Peter commented as he fiddled with the chain. "Your ribs stick out."
Duo shrugged, but couldn't help asking, "You're not going to rape me, are you?"
Peter's distaste was clear. "No, of course not. People don't screw their pets."
Pet. Duo sighed and put the bowl aside, trying to keep the stuff down. "So, was that dog food?"
"It's food," Peter replied. "If you don't eat, and keep your weight up, the drugs may kill you. Let that be your incentive."
"I am a Gundam pilot," Duo pointed out as he crawled back to the bed. Spots of warmth told him where the windows were and that it might be close to midday. He had slept a long while, it seemed.
"Meaning?" Peter wondered as he let the chain drop and clatter on the steel frame of the bed.
"We're always ready to die," Duo replied.
"Why is that?" Peter asked as he grabbed Duo's chin and turned his head, this way and that.
Duo gritted his teeth as he felt something rubbed on his grafts. It stung and continued to sting as the man dropped his chin.
"They lives we had were shit," Duo explained as he stretched out and covered his nakedness with a smelly blanket. "Death was something that we hoped for."
"Even now?" Peter wondered as he moved away and began gathering up the stinking bucket and the dish.
Duo thought of Heero, of his friends, of a life that he had put on hold, because of his blindness. Before the accident, he would have said that he had a great deal to live for. Had he been dancing that close to being suicidal?
"God, they were right," Duo sighed.
"What?"
"About me shutting myself off," Duo replied. "About me hating my blindness so much that I wasn't dealing, wasn't getting past the accident.. What a whiney little shit I turned into. I gave you the nice lecture about bad things happening and here I am thinking, I have it so tough, that everyone should see what a freakin' cripple I am and walk away."
"Having an Epiphany, are we?" Peter sneered. "It's far too late for that."
"I suppose," Duo agreed. "Nothing I can do about it now."
"No, nothing at all," Peter agreed. "Not that they will want to hang around the handsome Duo Maxwell when I get done messing up your grafts and scars."
Duo's jaw clenched.
"They always tell you that it's all right, that they hardly notice," Peter explained and Duo heard the door open, "but it's a lie. Pretty soon, they can't lie about it anymore... or stand to look at it... and they leave and never come back."
"If they do that," Duo replied, "Then they were never friends to begin with."
"That sounds comforting," Peter bitterly, "but it's not true at all."
-------------------------------------------------------------
When Duo awoke next, the blanket was gone and his grafts ached. He touched them gingerly, they felt puffy and raw. The doctors had told him, time and again, to keep them clean, to keep taking care of them with special ointments to keep them flexible. He wondered what Peter had put on them, and considered acids that worked slowly, and whether they could actually eat their way into his face, eventually.
A whistle made him tense. "Here," Peter said in a way one talked to a dog. "Come here, boy, if you want your water." He whistled again as Duo scowled.
He needed food and water if he ever hoped to have the strength to escape, Duo knew,. It was worth the humiliation if he kept that firmly in mind, but it was hard, nonetheless to sit up and leave the bed, to feel the hard jerk on the chain that brought him to hands and knees, and the boot on his back that kept him there, and not retaliate. Something cold on his balls warned him that his retaliation would be a bad idea.
"Castrating males, can make them more agreeable," Peter warned and a knife blade played with Duo's balls, making them swing. "I might consider it."
Duo felt them retract, but he said, calmly enough, "Not like I'm using them for anything."
Peter laughed as he gave them a last tap and then left them alone. "You probably never will, after I'm done with you."
A hand smoothed over him, positioned Duo's arms and legs, as if Duo were a show dog, and then pulled up on the chain to bring Duo's head up. "You are a handsome pet," Peter chuckled, "But a complete mutt, unfortunately."
"Don't know," Duo replied, trying not to tense against the chain. "I could be a pedigree."
It wasn't what Peter wanted. He wanted humiliation, not a victim that cracked jokes. He made Duo crawl about the room, made him drink from a bowl, like a dog, and then made him sit at what Duo thought was the center of the room.
"You found the bars on the windows, I trust?" Peter asked as he moved about the room.
Duo nodded.
"And the gundanium lock on the door?" Peter went on as dishes clattered on the floor.
Duo nodded again.
"Not talking, now?" Peter wondered irritably.
"Dogs don't talk," Duo replied with a grin.
"Ah, I see. All right," Peter finished whatever he was doing and then tugged on the chain until Duo moved to his side. "They do like to lick things clean, as well, and, since you are trying to be such a good dog, you can lick these. A treat for your obedience."
Duo's head was pushed down. He instinctively resisted and something, a switch of some sort, snapped on top of his head with a sting.
"Bad, ungrateful, boy!" Peter snapped. "You're not getting anything else to eat until you lick these clean."
Duo's stomach rumbled, but he replied, "I told you that I wasn't doing any crazy shit."
"And I told you that I only wanted your humiliation," Peter replied more calmly. "I promise that there is only food on these dishes from my breakfast."
"And that's worth?" Duo sneered.
"More than you think," Peter retorted.
The chain was released and the sound of someone sitting in a chair was audible.
"As long as it takes," Peter told him.
Duo could imagine him sitting, with arms crossed, watching him. Duo sat down in the dust, hating the way his privates itched with dirt, and his hands and knees felt caked with it.
Options? Duo thought through scenarios and came up with dead ends to every one. Dead ends where he ended up dead. It didn't make compliance worth the effort. To hope for a mistake, from his captor, that would allow for an attack, when he couldn't be sure if the man was armed, or if the door could be opened afterward, or if the place wasn't booby trapped in case of just such an occurrence, was the most prevalent in his dead end thinking.
"The more the food dries, the harder it will be to lick clean," Peter warned. "I want them spotless."
Duo played with his braid, trying to tuft it and shake out some of the dust. He sneezed and felt a tightness in his chest. He wasn't prone to allergies, but a long exposure to a dust covered floor wouldn't do him good long term.
"I'm not a mastermind," Peter told him. "I do make mistakes. I might give you some opportunity.. eventually. You're not giving up are you? I would be very disappointed, if you were."
Duo frowned and tried to ignore him. Peter stood, yawned, and then walked to the door.
"You'll change your mind. Starvation and thirst will do that," Peter assured Duo.
The door opened and then closed.
Duo snorted. "You're still here."
Silence.
"My ears are very good," Duo assured him.
Peter said at last. "I see that they are."
Something pressed into Duo's ear, deep, and nestled against his eardrum. Peter repeated it on his other ear. When silence reigned, Duo's arms were pulled back and attached to his ankles with metal clasps. Upended on his side, now, Duo couldn't tell what Peter was doing. A hand patted his hip and Duo started. Nothing happened after that.
Hours ticked by. Duo's ears began to ache from the plugs and the silence was making him anxious. He hadn't realized how much he had come to rely on his hearing.
"At least you could give me something to lay on," Duo complained, but his voice sounded hollow in his own head.
Duo's mouth was bone dry. His stomach was clenching in hunger. His muscles began to tremble from their locked position. Duo's will was strong, though, and he ignored his discomfort. When a thought came to him, though, a sudden scenario that didn't come to a dead end, he held very still. He thought it through several times,considered how slim the odds were, but admitted, to himself, that it had a sound logic to it, a hope that wasn't too far fetched.
Duo rolled awkwardly to come upright. With his ass in the air, and chest pressing against the floor, his face went hot with embarrassment as he licked at food encrusted plates.
Peter pulled out the ear plugs and chuckled."Good boy."
Duo could have happily killed him at that moment.
_______________________________________________
Duo coughed. It was becoming more frequent as the tightness in his chest increased.
"You could vacuum," Duo complained.
"That would require electricity," Peter replied as he exchanged the filthy bucket latrine for a clean one.
"You're not so stupid, then," Duo admitted.
"Hm?" Peter was scraping and moving something about.
"Electricity, phone, water... it all leaves a trail..." He stopped talking, feeling a chill, as he called himself the worst kind of idiot. He hadn't meant to make that connection, hadn't meant for Peter to consider trails.
"I doubt that someone paying utility bills would raise any alarms, even in a place like this," Peter reasoned. He was only half listening, though, and that might have saved Duo's only hope, just then. Peter was working on... something... diligently.
"A new game?" Duo finally asked.
Peter chuckled. "I suppose it's a game, for me, a way to keep you from growing used to your situation. A man can get used to certain humiliations. I want this to last as long as possible."
"And when nothing you do works any longer?" Duo prodded. "That's when you'll kill me?"
There was silence and then Peter said, "When they find us, we'll both die, you realize? That's part of my revenge. I know you have hope in the cleverness of Preventers, and I must admit to having a fatalistic resignation about that as well, but it won't matter, you see? I won't let them rescue you, or take me into custody. They will, however, have ample vid footage to remember you by."
Duo went red with embarrassment as Peter pulled hard on his chain and brought him to his feet. He took Duo's chained hands and touched them to a metal cage high on one wall.
"This protects the vid camera from you," Peter explained. "It runs on a micro battery and has a very large memory chip. Anyone who finds it, will be able to see you in all your glory."
Peter released him and Duo lowered his hands. "You are a sick bastard," Duo said softly.
"You made me that way," Peter countered. "Everything that happens to you, is your fault."
Peter's foot steps moved across the floor to the bed. There was the sound of a man wrestling with the heavy thing, and then a loud noise of the bed being dragged out of the room. It clattered in an outside hallway and then Peter returned. He took up Duo's chain and ordered. "Hands and knees."
The punch took Duo down when he resisted and his chains rattled loudly.
"I don't like hurting," Peter growled, "But don't try my patience. Hands and knees, or you'll have to wonder about whether you can survive that little operation I talked about earlier."
Head ringing, Duo felt his balls retract. A lot of threats would have made him laugh in the man's face, but that one had teeth. He could, all to clearly, imagine trying to deal with the shock and injury, in a filthy place like that, and vid taped the entire time.
The chain tugged sharply. Duo rose on shaky hands and knees, and moved to where Peter wanted him.
"Your new bed," Peter said as he patted a cushion in a corner of the room. "After some consideration, I decided that pets shouldn't be on the furniture."
Duo was shoved onto the cushion. If he curled up, he could just fit onto it, something he was sure Peter had planned when he had chosen it.
Duo's hope was a faint thing in the face of so much indignity, so much threatened abuse, but it was still strong enough to keep him from trying to snap the man's neck. He found that was wise when the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead and a stun gun pressed against his belly.
"I know you're angry and depressed, right now," Peter told him as he removed the threats, "and thinking that death might be better. I can make it last. You won't get me without getting it in return, I promise you."
"I've been tortured before," Duo couldn't help saying. "I did go through a fucking war."
"Sometimes, it's all about a moment in time: dedication to a cause," Peter replied, almost sadly. "Outside of that cause, a man might find that he can't find reasons enough to endure pain and death."
"I think you're giving me enough reasons," Duo muttered.
"Am I?" Peter chuckled and said, as he walked towards the door, "Then you aren't the Gundam pilot that I knew."
"You didn't know me at all," Duo retorted, but the door was already closing, and he was left to contemplate his new situation.
________________________________
Duo played a mental game. He called it, 'When blank catches you, they're going to...', and entertained himself by inserting a name and imagining the mayhem that person might inflict on Peter. Une was too calm and willing to wait for a trial. Trowa would simply blow the man away with a pistol. Wu Fei was more interesting to imagine, cutting the man to pieces with his sword. Heero would punch. Quatre, strangely enough was easiest to imagine doing the worst. The man had passion. When pushed, Duo didn't think that any of his decisions would end up being rational ones, especially with his friends and loved ones were involved.
Despite Quatre being the one most likely to inflict the greatest harm, Duo kept finding his mind imagining Heero coming to his rescue, instead. He could almost imagine it firmly enough to trade a smirk with the man, as Heero beat Peter to a pulp in outrage over his one time partner's treatment.
Partner. Duo sighed as he stretched out on his pillow and tried to find a position that would allow him to breath easier through his congested lungs. It wasn't partner, that he kept imaging Heero saying either. As much as he tried not to, it was 'love' the man kept saying in his mind. "He'll pay, love."
Duo rubbed at his aching face. Peter had once again put on something that had inflamed the skin there. He tried not to imagine it eating away at flesh. There wasn't any blood, or fluid of any kind, so he doubted that it was going that far. He didn't think that Peter would want him to die from infection, either. There were more subtle ways of making unnoticeable skin grafts suddenly patches of raw looking meat to scare children with.
It had seemed so logical to push everyone away, Duo thought with a wave of depression. He had wanted independence so badly, had wanted to regain at least part of his old life back. He couldn't have done it with everyone hovering and helping him, he knew. Heero, especially had wanted to take that step, at last, into something more than partners. It had been cold hearted to close him out so completely.
There was doubt, eating at Duo's mind, an underlying fear that he had pushed his friends too hard. What if they didn't look for him at all, and simply assumed that he had run away? Easy enough to follow a money trail, especially insurance money for his care, and that's what he had been hoping for all along. Follow the money and find Duo Maxwell. Though it might take a lot of two plus two equals Maxwell, trained Preventer agents and ex gundam pilots were adept at it.... if they were looking for the equation in the first place.
Duo began humming a tune, trying to distract himself from fears and
boredom. The stun gun to his forehead startled him. How long had Peter been
there, so close and so quiet? Since he had waked from sleep?
"Dogs don't hum... or sing," Peter told him and rubbed him behind
one ear in a playful manner.
Quatre would take a laser, Duo thought, as Peter pulled him to hands and knees, with his leash, and made him walk around the room, and cut the man open. He'd letPeter's guts spill and then make him recite a personal apology to him as he died, slowly. With perfect grammar and sincerity, Duo added, as Peter made him roll over and rubbed his bare belly with his shoe.
Trowa would shoot the man in every extremity, Duo thought, as Peter made him sit up and take a small bit of food from his fingers, before making a bulls eyes in the man's forehead.
Wu Fei would cut Peter, a little at a time, ignoring every plea for mercy, and then call the man weak before taking off his head.
Peter was suddenly behind him, crouched, and pulling Duo's bare bottom into his lap.
"I'm sorry that I don't have any male for you," Peter said softly, and rubbed hands along Duo's sides before gripping him tightly there. "Not that I could find one who could stand your ugly face."
Heero..... Duo felt anger boil through him as Peter began an obscene motion... Heero wouldn't stand for any of this. He'd have killed the man no matter what the consequences were.
Duo's elbow lashed backwards and took Peter in the face. The man fell back and only his howls of pain, from a broken nose, warned Duo where he was, as he threw himself on the man.
"Why?" Peter demanded. "There's no way out!"
"Some things are worth dying for! This is one of them!" Duo
snarled as he punched downwards and crushed the man's windpipe, just as he felt
the tazer shock every nerve in his body, and rob him of consciousness.
TBC