Jul 10, 2000
Here's part six for those of you who are still with me - once again a short one. <:) At this point, I feel compelled to warn you that the story is DARK. If you're squeamish, you might want to skip this part and catch up later. Just don't read it and *then* get mad at me, K? <:)
I hope I don't really need to warn you that the story as a whole is both yaoi and a lemon, meaning that it has sexually explicit male/male interaction. It also features some B&D, brutality and nonconsensual sexual activity - if the idea of that offends you, please feel free to delete the fic unread. ^_^ Also, please feel free to point out any OOC behavior you see (it's in there! *^_^*), as I'm still learning and hope to make my next GW fic better. Any constructive comments, whether positive or negative, public or private, will be gratefully and joyfully received. ^_^ I consider all my stories to be drafts until I put them in HTML for my web page, so if you see any obvious flaws, please point them out to me. <:)
Just for the sake of pretending like I have a legal leg to stand on, I figured I should mention here that I did not create Gundam Wing, that I have no rights to the series and that I mean no disrespect whatsoever to the creator/creators, nor is this story meant to be taken as a claim to either the characters or the situations which were not created by me. Also, I not only have no money, I'm in debt past my eyeballs, and suing me would be pretty durn pointless since there wouldn't be anything to gain by it.
Also I should mention that, obviously, I'm not a medically-trained person, and any medical treatments referred to in this fic are purely conjecture on my part. ^_~ Please feel free to correct me, though, if I sound like a total moron. ^_~
Gee, I hope that does it. ^_~ On with the story!
Waking was merely a different kind of agony. He knew that he had been close, so close, to sinking into a final rest... so close to peace... But Death had betrayed him once again, left him to suffer and endure, to crawl back into the battered and humiliated body that he had hoped to abandon.
"Duo no baka," a soft voice said, and swollen violet eyes slitted open, letting in a fresh stab of pain along with the brightness of afternoon sunlight. Duo's lips parted on a gasp of pain, but his jaw was still clenched tightly shut. His skin crawled with terror as he forced one uselessly numbed arm to move, the hand flopping across his lower belly like a dead thing.
"Are you awake? Don't move," the voice said, and in spite of the unaccustomed gentleness of the tone, Duo was able to identify the voice as Wufei's. The Chinese pilot stepped in closer and grasped Duo's fingers in a surprisingly gentle grip. "Don't worry; Heero took them all out," he said, and Duo shuddered again, stifling the urge to gag. "He even found you some 'fake skin' bandages, and says you'll probably heal without scars." Wufei's smile, which was no doubt meant to be reassuring, was little more than a bitter twist of his mouth, but for some reason it was his hair that caught Duo's attention. Someone, most likely Quatre, had evened up Wufei's ragged hair, and left him with a short haircut and a soft fringe of glossy bangs. Duo was amazed at himself, that in the midst of all this horror, he could take time to appreciate that the sweet-little-school-boy look suited Wufei.
The Chinese pilot noticed the glint in the bruised violet eyes, the barest lopsided twitch of Duo's lips, and he stifled the urge to sigh in relief. "Like my new haircut?" he whispered, and his smile softened.
"Why... did you... say 'baka?' " Duo muttered painfully, struggling to make the words intelligible through closed teeth; his jaw hurt too badly when he tried to move it.
Wufei blinked, pausing to make sure he'd understood the throaty whisper. "I thought you were asleep," he said, avoiding the piercing blue-violet gaze. Duo turned his battered face toward him, wincing at the pain the slight motion had caused, and Wufei sighed. "You shouldn't have done it," he said at last.
Duo blinked slowly. Trust Wufei to state what was on his mind as bluntly as possible.
"You... would have..."
"I would have been raped," Wufei said matter-of-factly. "If I had not survived, I would have been no more than another casualty of the war - a possibility we each face every day. And if I had survived, I would have killed him and tried to escape. Do you think I am weak, that you traded yourself for me? Did you think I couldn't cope, or that my life was somehow worth more than yours?"
"Wufei..."
"Listen to me, Maxwell," Wufei said, leaning in to capture Duo's gaze. "That you sacrificed so much..." his voice cracked softly, and Duo noted with some surprise that Wufei's onyx eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. "I am in your debt. But it was foolishness, what you did, and you must know that. One life does not outweigh another."
Duo's eyes closed. Wufei was right; what he had done had proved to be just as self-destructive as any move Heero had ever made. But... it had seemed like the only right thing to do...
Wufei had just decided that the long-haired pilot had gone back to sleep when the bruised eyes opened again. "...Heero?" he whispered, and Wufei's heart sank.
"Rest, now," he said, deliberately not answering the question burning in those violet depths. Duo closed his eyes again, and sighed, and Wufei released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Surely, sleep would be a better balm for Duo's aching heart and broken body than anything else...
Heero forced himself to take another deep breath and loosen his death-grip on Wing's controls. As far back as he could remember, he had never been possessed by such an overwhelming, seething rage. Oh, he wanted to kill them, every last one of them. He wanted to hurt them, to punish them for the way they'd hurt Duo... He took another deep breath and expelled it forcefully. Duo was safe. Duo was safe, and the others would protect him while he, Heero, administered his own personal brand of justice. Even Wufei hadn't denied that the right was his.
His heart stuttered at the thought of the pain and horror Duo must have felt. It would have been easier for Heero to suffer it himself, than to see Duo so helpless and broken. His eyes were strangely hot at the memory of that shattered violet gaze, and there was an unfamiliar tightness in his throat as he blinked rapidly. At least Duo didn't have to know... certainly the others wouldn't tell him. They wouldn't tell him how they had each reacted to the sight of his mutilated body, and Heero knew that they would never mention to Duo that he, himself - he, the allegedly Perfect Soldier - had, after doing everything that was needed to help Duo, gone off to be violently and miserably ill. What they had done to Duo...
"You're too late, little Gundam boy," a voice said over his intercom, and Heero's face fell into its familiar Perfect fighting mask. "General Zehn is already long gone."
"That's right, pretty boy, and you're surrounded," added another voice. "Surrender now, and we might have mercy on you."
"Or we might give you decorations to match your skinny friend," a third voice added. "Did you like them? He was a scrawny little thing, but we wanted to pretty him up for you other boys."
"Omae o korosu." Heero had said it before, and had sent chills down the spines of better men than these... but he had never meant it so personally before. His menacing tone promised all the wrath of Hell, and Wing's beam saber swung into position to deliver on that promise. The barest hint of a smile curved his lips as his opponents closed in on him - an incongruously sweet smile belied by the furious gleam in his deep blue eyes.
A pathetically short time later, Wing Gundam stood surrounded by scattered shrapnel, all that remained of 20 well-piloted mechs. Heero's harsh breathing echoed in his ears, and his fingers were starting to cramp from gripping the controls so tightly. He had hoped for some kind of release, some kind of satisfaction... but the roiling fury was still there, just under the surface like an unlanced, festering wound. There was no sign of Zehn or the other men.
The Mission was not yet complete.
Quatre sighed as he picked up Duo's untouched tray and carried it back to the kitchen. It had been a week now... Duo hadn't spoken since that first day, after he'd woken up. Wufei had startled them by carrying the battered boy out of the room and announcing that Duo wanted a bath, and Quatre and Trowa had all but fallen all over each other in their hurry to get the tub filled and collect the things they'd need. All three pilots had worked together to gently lower Duo's slender form into the water in a maneuver so smooth one would almost think they had rehearsed it. Quatre had silently given thanks for the clever soul who had invented the "fake skin" bandages - they stood out in unsightly dark patches against Duo's pale skin, but there was no need to worry about the bandages soaking through or needing changing or peeling off; when the new skin grew over the wounds, the bandages would slough off on their own. It was a work of genius, and the bandages themselves were terribly expensive and hard to find. Normally Heero was inclined to just stitch together an open wound, but he had gone to extreme lengths during the 24-hour wait to get Duo the very best of everything he could imagine needing.
Duo had blushed, apparently embarrassed as Wufei and Quatre began gently washing him; Trowa had gone to change the bed linens.
"...Heero?"
"He'll be back soon," Quatre had said softly, unwilling to lie to his friend. He carefully began washing Duo's hair, working loose the worst of the encrustations with his own hands before pouring shampoo on the stinking mess. He'd had to blink away tears, the first of many times, just at the thought of what his poor friend had suffered.
It had taken three complete tubs full of water to get the length of hair washed and rinsed out properly, and then Wufei had wrapped a towel around Duo, scooped him up with surprising gentleness, and carried him back to the room and his freshly-made bed. Trowa was just gathering up the bundle of dirty sheets when they came in, and he paused long enough to see Duo settled in the bed.
"I'll wash your clothes this afternoon-" Trowa began, but Duo's painful whisper interrupted him.
"Burn'em."
Trowa, Quatre and Wufei had exchanged glances, and then Wufei nodded. With a nod of his own, Trowa left the room.
Quatre dumped the untasted soup down the drain, and added the bowl to the dishes that needed washing. "Burn'em." From that day to this, there had been not a word out of him, not a single sound... it was uncanny, being in a house so utterly silent other than the steady drone of the TV Duo pretended to watch. Duo had neither spoken, nor eaten. He no longer smiled. He didn't laugh or cry. He did occasionally lie still on the bed with his eyes closed, but Quatre suspected that he wasn't sleeping, either, not for more than a few minutes at a time... but most of the time, he just lay there, staring past the TV and ignoring Quatre's efforts, everyone's efforts, to talk to him. His physical wounds were healing nicely, to the point where he was able to get around some on his own, but he wouldn't allow his friends to even attempt to help with the emotional trauma.
Quatre sighed again. All week, he'd tried everything he could think of to tempt Duo's appetite. He'd bought all the long-haired boy's favorite foods, all with no success. Concerned about Duo's ability to chew with his jaw injured, Quatre had brought him milkshakes, fruit smoothies, apple juice... but to no avail. Unless Wufei was there to insist that he at least take the painkillers Heero had stolen for him, Duo wouldn't so much as look at the tray or its bearer. Quatre wondered if he wasn't deliberately trying to starve himself to death... it would certainly be one way to avoid facing the reality of what had happened to him.
The sound of the front door opening and closing brought Quatre out of his reverie. Trowa was sleeping, and Wufei was pretending not to watch over Duo... so there was only one other person in the world it could be.
"Heero!" Quatre said softly, his voice colored with relief.
End Part Six
Yoiko ^_^
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