Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Violence. Language. Graphic. Torture. Angst. Guys having sex with guys.
For all of my fans who went bonkers when I tried to end this....
"Sorry," Quatre said for the thousandth time.
Duo, pacing back and forth across their small, metal cell, only gave him a sharp, troubled look, and said nothing.
"What do you think-" Quatre began.
"I don't know!" Duo snapped back and then hissed, "I'm sorry, Quatre, but you shouldn't talk. I'm sure they have the place bugged and taped. That's why they stuck us together. They want us to get so bored we'll say something. I guess they're squeamish about torturing guys young enough to be their sons."
"Then there is still hope for Heero," Quatre said, brightening.
Duo frowned, but he couldn't let Quatre rest in soft denial. "I said, 'I guess'. They might just be satisfied torturing him for now. You know Heero. He'll keep his mouth shut no matter what. If that's what they're doing, they'll come for us once they realize that he won't tell them anything."
Quatre swallowed hard, but he said with determination. "They won't get anything from me either."
Duo felt ill, looking at Quatre's innocent face, his gold curls like sunshine in that dank, dimly lit place. He hated the thoughts that gnawed at him, images of Oz soldiers taking advantage of that sunshine and beauty. No matter what his determination, the boy had lived a relatively sheltered and soft life. Duo knew that he wouldn't last long.
"If only I had seen that bunker hole, none of this would have happened," Quatre groaned. "You and Heero wouldn't have been captured if you hadn't been trying to get me out. You should have left me."
"Yes, we should have," Duo agreed. It was the truth. He knew that he would have left Heero, as much as he loved the man, and Heero would have left him too, yet he understood why they had tried so desperately to save Quatre. Quatre took care of them. He made sure they had a home, no matter of what sort, a warm meal, a genuine smile, clean clothes, and a feeling of normalcy in their chaotic lives. Saving him had been saving all of that. Weakness, Heero had grumbled, but he hadn't tried any less than Duo to pull Quatre out of that bunker. In a like situation, both Heero and Duo, would have understood, would have approved of being coldly abandoned for the sake of the mission. They could take care of themselves and either escape or bear with any amount of Oz interrogation. Quatre was a different matter entirely.
"Please stop pacing, Duo," Quatre said after a time. "I'll sit over here so you can relax." He moved to a far corner and slid down the wall until he was sitting down. He shivered and wrapped arms around himself. It was very cold in that cell.
Duo smiled and chuckled. "You're not what's making me nervous, Quatre. This is a mission. I've been trained to stay focused." He gave Quatre a warning look. "Don't talk about anything. Just prepare yourself." He didn't need to say what for. Quatre knew. The blonde Arabian nodded, his face going grim.
After several hours of quiet boredom, men entered their cell. Quatre stood up, passive, knowing resistance was futile. Duo knew it too, but he didn't care. He knew what was going to happen. He wanted his payback before they made him too weak to claim it.
"Duo!" Quatre's voice shouted in shock as Duo plowed into the Oz guards. His fists and feet struck out. Men fell and howled. Fists and feet lashed back and Duo went down under their blows. When he lay, half conscious, he felt a needle jab into his arm. That was it. The men retreated, spitting and cursing at him, but not retaliating any further.
Quatre cautiously approached Duo. Duo spat blood. It joined smears of his and some Oz soldier blood on the floor. His nose was bleeding and his bottom lip was split and swelling. One of his eyes was rapidly closing and turning black, and his arm had been twisted so far he had heard an ominous crack of joints and maybe bones. It certainly hurt enough to be broken. Still, he had enough presence of mind to say, sharply, "Don't!"
Quatre stopped and crouched a few feet away, eyes wide and distressed. "They gave you a shot of some sort. How- Is it affecting you?"
Duo nodded. The room was blurring and he felt a definite disconnect between his mind and his body. "Better be careful," he warned Quatre. "Don't come near me. I'm not sure... it's messing with my head. It might effect my self control. I might hurt you accidentally."
A voice came over a hidden microphone. "This stops when you talk," it said simply. "Be smart and we won't have to bury you like your Japanese friend."
Quatre and Duo ignored the voice. It was expected. Their torture and interrogation had begun.
"Heero," Quatre whispered sadly and tears slipped down his cheeks.
"Don't!" Duo snarled. "Don't give them anything! They could be lying!" His own heart was breaking. He curled up around his pain.
Heero had become his life, his reason for holding onto sanity and trying to find a life outside of the war, outside of the pain of his past. Without him... what was there? Another reason for revenge, he thought grimly and gripped his braid and cross, his reminders of what Oz had cost him. They reminded him that he had a reason for living. The tormented souls of Maxwell Church, the children of L2 who had been used and abused, and the citizens massacred on Earth and Outer Space all deserved their revenge. Shinigami still had a job to do, even though his heart as flying into a million pieces.
"Sit down."
Heero kept standing.
"Sit down."
A metal rod hit Heero in the back of the legs. He was forced to sit by two burly men on either side of him. They manacled him to a metal chair. Facing him was his tormentor, a whip thin, older man with a permanent sneer caused by a scar that almost bisected his lips. His black eyes, dark, cold chips in a pasty, white face watched Heero's expression as he turned on a vid screen.
Heero kept his face impassive as the picture of a cell appeared. In it was Duo, curled up in the center, and Quatre, kneeling a few feet away, but watching Duo anxiously.
"You are proof against all of my interrogation techniques," the man said with some respect, "Immune to every drug I've administered and indifferent to all physical torture." He smiled and made Heero wait. Finally, after a very long moment, he continued. "I had a drug administered to the long haired boy. He, unfortunately for him, doesn't share your immunity. Would you like to know what the drug does?"
Heero said nothing. He stared impassively at the screen and then let his eyes wander about the featureless room and his enemies, pretending that he didn't care even as his blood turned to ice and his heart clenched painfully.
A hand grabbed Heero's head and brought his eyes back towards his frowning tormentor. "You will watch," he said. "If you don't, I'll do even worse than a simple injection. We have rules, regulations, and procedures. I find they inhibit interrogations. I can become careless, let some of my more unsavory methods slip into the mix."
Heero continued to say nothing, eyes flat.
"The long haired boy is tough, angry, and obviously willing to endure pain and death for his cause," his tormentor said. "But the little blonde... so sweet and innocent, isn't he? He cares too much. In four days all he has cared about is you and the other boy. The long haired one kept telling him to be quiet and to say nothing, but he can't. It's his nature to be kind and caring. He's the one who is going to betray you. He's the one, I think, who will make you cooperate."
The man tapped the top of the vid screen. "Every hour that you remain silent, we will inject the long haired boy with a drug." The man smiled. "I don't have to break any rules or regulations, you see, because he's going to do the work for me. The injection we gave, and will continue to give him, is a cocktail of several drugs; an aphrodisiac, a nerve enhancer, and a drug that will cause psychosis. In a room without any target, but that sweet, innocent boy in there.... well, you can imagine what is about to happen."
Heero ran the scenario in his head with the speed of a computer. The conclusion he drew was far different from the one his tormentor was drawing. Quatre was safe. He was a trained Gundam pilot. It wasn't Quatre who was about to be hurt.
"Still not going to talk?" The man sighed, but his eyes glittered. He wasn't disappointed, he was glad. He wanted the mayhem to take place. "We're gong to leave you alone to watch. There is a small button under your right hand. All you have to do is press it and we will return and stop the show. Don't wait too long though. It takes time to reach that cell. You wouldn't want the blonde to die because of your indecision, now would you?"
The man stared. Heero stared back, expressionless. The man frowned. He didn't see what he had hoped for. There wasn't any tension, not any sweat, not any increase of breathing. Had he made a mistake? Heero and the long haired boy had been caught risking everything to save the blonde.... The man pursed his lips. No, he wasn't wrong, he felt, and, if the Japanese boy preferred letting his friends die rather than spill his secrets, then perhaps the blonde would break and speak first. Rape and a beating by a crazed companion did wonders to break down resistance.
Heero listened to the men retreat and the magnetic lock of the door fall into place. At once, he began pulling against his restraints, gritting his teeth and flexing his inhuman strength as he watched the vid screen, knowing what was about to happen and knowing that he wasn't going to be in time to stop it.
Duo twitched. He felt something horrible was about to happen. His mind was scattering, bits and pieces of odd feelings and memories surfacing, sinking back, and then surfacing again.
"Make it stop, Quatre," Duo hissed as he curled into a tight ball and tried to hide in an empty room.
Quatre said something, but it was lost. Duo felt his groin tighten and his nerves tingle and burn. It was pain/pleasure. He jerked and trembled. He was being aroused against his will. That had happened so often, some horrible customer trying to force him to like what was being done to him, force him to feel pleasure amidst the pain. That torment had made him impotent for so long, his mind and body refusing to feel rather than be subjected to that again. Only Heero had been able to make his body stir again and his mind accept it as something other than torture. To be forced again, to be made a puppet for some sadistic Oz interrogator, sent Duo quickly over the edge of sanity.
He was there again, whimpering as someone much bigger, hairy, stinking breath, drunk, used him, pinned him to a filthy mattress and did his business as if he were a doll, unfeeling; lifeless. Duo screamed. The man liked it. Duo kept screaming. His shrieks filled the world.
Done. At last. Thrown down like used garbage and left. Hard hands turned him, examined him, and then called in the next man. He was bleeding, but he was still useful....
"I'm going to kill you!" Duo shrieked. "I'll kill every one of you for putting your hands on me! I will not go back! Not again! Never again! I'm free! I'm Shinigami! I am Death and Death is going to send you to Hell!"
The psychotic scene changed. Deathscythe. Controls. Concentrate. Concentrate. Can't mess up. Chance for revenge. Have to get it right. Concentrate...
"Concentrate." Dr. G's voice behind his ear. Dr. G's hands on his hips, the touch alone making Duo shake, making him cry, making him want to kill. "Concentrate. Enemy vector seven. Rotate angle, left controller, right of center. Quickly, calculate vector and rotation."
Hands clenching, body fighting, Dr. G shoved him into the console angrily and said with contempt, "Get out. You aren't fit. You can't fight if you can't control yourself. Kiss your revenge good bye, Duo."
Duo thrust back against him, straightening against that adult weight, and did the calculations. Body trembling and sweat of fear rolling down his sides, he slipped into insanity and yet continued to pilot, just as Dr. G had trained him to do. Dr. G's hand slid down his front and grasped him below the navel. Duo didn't falter, but his voice shook as he read off his calculations perfectly and made
the adjustments to Deathscythe.
"Good," Dr. G chuckled. "Good, you may work out yet."
"Not again!" Duo shrieked against the memory. "Never again! I won't do it! I won't live that way! Nobody owns me. Nobody has the right.... not even for revenge... not even for peace..."
"Reentry speed and rotation, Duo?"
That odd voice touched the insanity in Duo and made it freeze in consternation. It was Quatre's voice but it was Dr. G's tactics again; drive him to insanity and then make him focus, make him complete his mission no matter what his mental state. There was a point past insanity where a mind was crystal clear and focused... but it needed something to focus on. Deathscythe had been that focus for Duo before, now Quatre was trying to make it so again, somehow understanding exactly what Duo needed.
"Fuel mixture ratio and quantity for a trip from L2 to L4."
Duo quieted, focusing, mind narrowing so that he could do the calculations. He rattled off the answers. Memory superimposed itself on reality. Dr. G kissed him on the cheek, dry old man kiss, and then licked up the side of his face.
"Two Oz Leos," Dr. G's voice said and then that voice turned into Quatre's, "Twelve o'clock and three o'clock. Distance from ground... armament malfunction in... time to impact ... "
Duo calculated and laid out strategy for destroying the Leos. He was touched. Something jabbed pain into his arm. It startled him back into reality and his eyes cleared. Two men hovered over him. Oz uniforms, his mind registered, before he was springing into action, lashing out violently.
"Don't touch me you stinking fuckers!" Duo shrieked and felt a cold needle break off into his arm as he chopped his hand into a man's face and neatly broke his nose, driving it up into his brain. The man fell, jerking and twitching a he died. His companion aimed his gun at Duo's head.
"Bastard Gundam Pilot!"
Quatre whirled and his foot came around and plowed into the man's head. He dropped beside his companion, neck broken and head twisted at an ugly angle.
"Never underestimate a Gundam Pilot," Quatre growled and didn't look so innocent any longer.
Duo sat up, shaking, still drugged, still confused by memory and reality. Quatre knew better than to approach him. Instead, he said, "Escape simulation. Oz base, Cairo, Egypt, Two guns, audio and video feeds in cell. Escape, impossible. Mission: destruction of base and self destruct."
Duo nodded, eyes glazed, and he stood up with a gun in his hand from the dead Oz soldier beside him. Quatre took the other one and waited. Duo formulated a plan from a schematic of the base in his head. Quatre waited and marveled at the level of hypnotic control that Dr. G had implanted into Duo's mind. In self induced trance, Duo was immune to his own horrors, his own debilitating fears, and even the psychotic drugs that had been administered. He was ready to function, ready to destroy and kill.
"Access tunnel, level three," Duo finally said in a dead tone of voice. "Fuel generators. Destruction of pilot and base assured."
"Implement," Quatre ordered without hesitation. Duo and Heero had thought him weak and they had compromised themselves and the mission for his sake. Quatre was out to prove them wrong. He was as strong, and as capable of dying for the mission as any of the other pilots. He had always known that this day of sacrifice might come and he was more than ready.
Duo went into motion, going out of the unlocked cell at a limping run with Quatre on his heels. They met resistance immediately, Oz soldiers boiling into the hall to stop them, having witnessed the carnage on the video feed.
Bullets hit Duo three times, all superficial wounds. Blood splattered onto Quatre. The pain of a bullet ripping past his cheek and slicing open Quatre's arm convinced him they were both about to die. Still, Quatre fired his gun along with Duo and Oz soldiers fell as they kept running, plowing into them at top speed.
The way cleared. Quatre stopped, shocked and confused, and then ran to catch up with Duo as he saw Heero standing further down the corridor, gun still poised in his hands from shooting the soldiers. Heero didn't wait for them. He turned and began running.
Heero knew the base as well as any of them. He knew what had to be done without being told. They left the pile of dead Oz soldiers behind them and raced towards the generators.
It was ugly, Quatre thought, killing so many, but he grimly did his duty, standing his ground and shooting anyone who approached as Heero and Duo entered the generator room and killed the Oz soldiers there. Blood flowed and stank. Men cried and died horribly. Quatre's golden hair was red with blood. His face and half his clothes were stained with it. His blue eyes were wide and wild, madly determined, yet cringing and horrified at the same time.
"Secure!" Heero shouted and Quatre retreated into the room, locking the door and jamming the door system. He turned, tripped over one of the many dead soldiers, and joined Heero and Duo as they began making the generators overload.
Duo fumbled with one hand, his other lifeless by his side. Heero pushed him roughly out of the way to finish the job. They weren't lovers here, Quatre saw with a pang, they were soldiers about to commit suicide, one mad with memories and drugs, and the other trapped in his cruel training. There wasn't going to be any loving last words.
The generators whined and began to smoke. The smell of burning wires, plastic, and oil began to fill the room. Quatre retreated from the others, dropping his gun, useless now, and wiping distractedly at the blood on himself as he began to kneel and offer a last prayer to Allah before dying. He thought of Trowa and wondered what his love would do when he realized that Quatre was never coming back to him.
Heero and Duo nursed the machinery towards destruction. Duo began to weaken. He fell to his knees at last and bent over, arms wrapped about his waist and cheek resting on the cold floor. His eyes were closed and Quatre wondered what his last sight was going to be, some horrific flashback of his past or the here and now and his lover, Heero? If it was the former, Quatre wished feverently that there was a Hell painful enough for the Oz soldiers who had done this to him.
Heero suddenly let out a sigh, all that could be done accomplished. His shoulders slumped and he turned to look at Quatre. He studied the bloody Arabian for a long moment and then he said. "Well done, Quatre."
Quatre found a bitter smile. "I had to redeem myself, didn't I?" he replied roughly.
"Hn," Heero grunted back, but, as if he didn't want that to be his last word, he said, "I never doubted your abilities, Quatre.... It was just too hard to lose you and it made us weak."
Quatre felt tears. His heart ached. "I am a liability. Perhaps I should stick to making cookies and securing safe houses..." he remembered sharply and then chuckled grimly, "In my next life, I guess."
Duo whimpered. His body was betraying him, hurting him, making him need, stealing his last moments from him. Without a mission, he was losing to the drugs again.
"I killed him," Heero said.
"What?" Quatre was confused.
"The man who did this to him, to us," Heero explained. "He was coming back to my cell to see how much I was hurting. He was making me watch you and Duo."
Quatre straightened. "Tell Duo," he said quickly. "Let him know that. Make him understand it. Perhaps it will give him some peace."
"No," Heero replied, and then again, "No, nothing can bring him real peace."
The smoke was making them cough now. The heat of the generators was making their skin hot. The whining noise was rising in pitch. Even if Oz managed to get the door open now, they couldn't stop the inevitable. Perhaps they realized it. There wasn't any sound of an attempt to force the door. Instead, there was the sharp sound of an evacuation siren. Quatre felt relief that some would escape the coming Armageddon.
Duo suddenly grunted and let out a long sigh. His body relaxed and slid down until he was almost flat on the floor. He blinked and grimaced, and then sat up, looking about dazedly.
"This is different," he whispered hoarsely, and then louder. "This is the generator room. I guess we're blowing ourselves, up, right?"
"Duo?" Quatre felt a rush of relief. "Are you all right?"
Duo swallowed hard and rubbed at his eyes. It took a precious moment for him to gather his thoughts. "The drugs wearing off. I'm still a little woozy, but... I can think again. I don't feel like... like I have too..." He hunched in on himself. "I'm glad we're killing them all along with us! They need to pay for what they did to me; pay dearly. Nobody does that to Shinigami and lives. Not ever again!"
"He paid," Heero said as he kneeled down in front of Duo. "I made sure of it."
"You're alive," Duo said with relief. He didn't rush into Heero's arms. He was too raw from the memories. Heero understood. Heero held himself back, accepting that any last moment tenderness had been robbed from them.
"At least four minutes more," Quatre said despondently. It wasn't ending bravely, with brave, loving words, and fond hugs. It was ending with fear and sadness.
"Quatre...," Duo almost didn't ask, didn't turn to look at him, but Duo refused to hide from the truth. " Did I hurt you?"
It was something that he could give and gladly. Quatre found a smile. "No, Duo. I can take care of myself. I'm a pilot, remember?"
Duo chuckled hoarsely, throat raw from screaming. "A Gundam pilot, Quatre."
"So are you," Quatre responded. "Dr. G made sure of that. You talked in your delirium. I was able to piece together what exactly he had done to control your..."
"-hair trigger insanity?" Duo finished, and his mood went dark. "I'm sorry you had to find that out. It wasn't... pleasant, what he did, but it was necessary."
"It helped to get us here," Quatre admitted. "It was the only way I could control you."
That left a bitter taste in Duo's mouth. Control. It seemed he had never lived any part of his life where someone hadn't controlled his life in one fashion or another. Quatre had done what he had to, but Duo still didn't like it, didn't want to die being controlled.
Ignoring every fear, every raging reflex that told him to kill rather than be touched, Duo used the control Dr. G had taught him, but, not on a Gundam this time, on Heero Yuy.
"Don't-Don't move, baby," Duo warned and Heero obeyed, holding perfectly still as Duo climbed into his lap, straddling him and wrapping arms around him tightly despite the pain of the wounded arm. Insanity roiled, but Duo was stronger. He held it in check and buried his face into Heero's neck. "Love you," he whispered.
"With all my heart," Heero replied and simply breathed in the essence of his lover, nuzzling, ever so softly, his hair.
"Oh, Allah!" Quatre lamented, wishing Trowa could hear HIS last thoughts and know how much he loved him. Tears blinded Quatre and he bowed his head to wait out their last minute.
The wall exploded. Debris rained down on them as they all crouched, arms held up to protect their heads. A Gundam, gyros and pistons loud even in the loud din of sirens and machinery overload, strode into the room, smashing everything in it's wake. The hatch opened invitingly and a voice on a loudspeaker said.
"Get in if you want to live!"
"Nataku!" Quatre exclaimed and then choked on smoke and debris dust as he began to run for the hatch. "Hurry, guys, only a minute left!"
Heero and Duo joined him at the hatch entrance. The bay was very small, meant for supplies and minor equipment, not three young men. Duo balked at once, not even death and Dr. G's control able to negate his insanity completely. He didn't want to be in a small space, trapped between two men, even if one was his lover and the other his dear friend.
Heero tried to hold Duo, force him, but Duo was beginning to fight, amethyst eyes wide and unreasonable. Quatre felt the clock ticking. He cocked back a fist and then landed it with all of his might into Duo's chin. Duo's head popped back and he crashed back into Heero with the force. Heero's arms went around his lover and pinned his arms as he carried him, unconscious, into the hold.
Quatre followed and they squeezed tight together as the hatch closed. The explosion followed not a second afterwards. The Gundam rocked, but it's gundanium alloy was proof against even that kind of power. As the base literally disintegrated around them from the blast, Nataku strode out of it, a shinning warrior leaving a boiling, fiery Hell.
"Weaklings!" A voice snarled over the speaker, Wu Fei's derisive tones as he cut down any suits that tried to stop them.
"I'm not going to go on any more missions, Heero," Quatre sighed as he nursed his aching hand. Duo's jaw had been like iron.
"Hn?" Heero grunted.
"I nearly killed all of us," Quatre replied despondently. "You can both sacrifice each other for the mission, but, for some reason, you can't do that to me. I'm a liability. A distraction. I'm not fit."
Heero replied, cradling Duo close to his breast. "You saved all of us and you completed the mission. Duo and I allowed our selfish desire for stability, the stability you give us, to make us compromise the mission for you. That will not be repeated. Next time, we will allow you to die."
Quatre swallowed and nodded, not sure why that made him feel better, but it did. He watched Heero brush Duo's bangs from his face, gazing almost tenderly at his lover. Duo was only half aware, but he was slowly coming conscious again. Heero tightened his hold.
"I guess that Duo made you compromise the mission as well," Quatre said.
Heero looked up with a frown. "Explain," he demanded as if that kind of flaw in his training was impossible.
"You came to rescue us rather than destroy the base immediately," Quatre explained.
Heero blinked and then he shook his head. "Incorrect. The cell was in line with my destination. I calculated that the act of releasing prisoners would be a sufficient distraction to allow me to reach the generators unnoticed."
"Ah," Quatre replied, eyes wide. He believed every word of it, until Heero bent and brushed at Duo's bangs tenderly again. It made him realize something about his companions, something uncomfortable. He had always thought that his space heart was a liability and that his companions were perfect soldiers, able to turn emotions off at will and to ignore even love to accomplish their missions. The sight of Heero Yuy, carefully cradling his lover, made that assumption mistaken. They were as human as he was and prone to acting on their emotions. None of them was perfect. None of them could completely ignore their humanity.
Quatre turned on a vid screen and surveyed the damage of the base quickly falling into the distance as Nataku strode away from it. He had caused that. Timid, caring, gentle Quatre. He had shown them, and himself, that he could still complete a mission despite what he was. There was room for humanity in the war after all, he thought, watching small figures in the distance escaping the carnage and glad of it. He had redeemed not only himself in that mission, but the human, compassionate soldier that he was as well. There was a place for him, he thought, there had to be. How could there ever be peace without compassion, without humanity? The answer was simple, Quatre thought with a smile as he watched Heero care for Duo, there couldn't be.
***Owari***