Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R
Warnings: NCS, angst, violence, language, torture, shounen ai/yaoi
Pairing: 1x2, 6+13+6
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Bound Part 1
Heero's mind languidly floated up through the dark waters of unconsciousness, but no light brightened the darkness around him. When he realized that the darkness was due to being locked up in the pitch-black cell of an OZ prison, he felt what little hope he had of escape fading away. He had no idea how long he'd been in the darkness. No idea whether it was hours or days. Weeks? No telling. Time didn't have any meaning.
Duo had been yelling. Hadn't he? Hai, earlier. He didn't know.
He lifted his head wearily, letting his eyes accustom themselves to the blackness. Duo sat across the cell from him, his arms handcuffed to a ring on the opposite wall, jerked behind his back. Heero's arms were bound the same way, the cuffs cinched so tight that he couldn't feel his hands anymore. Before, his arms had felt like they were being ripped from his shoulders. But now, he couldn't feel anything at all.
"Duo?"
"I'm awake, Heero. Are you okay?" Duo's head lifted slightly. Heero saw the braided pilot's eyes shine in a small window of light from the door, and heard the rustling-rasping sound of Duo rearranging his position, trying to make himself more comfortable.
"Hai. How long?"
"A day, maybe. Dunno, really." Duo's voice was slightly slurred.
Heero remembered looking into the face of one of their captors. He had been drugged, but he remembered. The guard's lips were twisted into a savage sneer, and his eyes were glazed over with a strange, lustful look before Heero passed out.
He leaned against the wall in the darkness with a terrible, sinking cold in his shoulders and seeping into the rest of his body. His stomach gnawed at him, reminding him that he was famished. But more than hungry, he was thirsty. Parched. He tried to lick his lips at least, but his tongue was dry and swollen in his mouth, threatening to choke him. There was no air-conditioning in the concrete cell, and the heat was oppressive, smothering.
"Has anyone come?" he asked.
"No, but they will." Duo snickered from across the room. The sound was cynical, afflicted, a laugh that said, Guess what I found out when I turned five or so, Heero old buddy old pal? I found out that I was getting a premium fucking over from life and that things aren't going to change. Ever. It's a washout, but it's kinda droll too. Don't ya think?
~*~
One of them came in. They were nothing but a silhouette against the unbearable bright rectangle of light from the open doorway. Heero closed his eyes, turning his face from the light.
"Are you ready to talk, boy?" A voice snarling close to his ear. Breath that smelled like a mix between rotting compose and spearmint gum. Heero was silent. He could see the shadows of two other guards standing behind the lead one.
"Well, I guess if you won't talk, we'll just have to take your faggot friend over there. He's awful pretty. Whaddaya say?" Duo's head snapped up, violet eyes wide and terrified.
"Heero?" Duo's eyes darted from Heero to the guard and back again. "Heero? Heero?"
"Ah, so that's your name, is it?" the guard asked, taking a contemptuous glance at Heero before returning his obscene gaze to Duo. Duo started to struggle again, the way he had struggled before, when they were locking him up against the wall, but there was no way he could escape.
The guard bared his teeth as he kneeled beside the trapped Deathscythe pilot, slamming a hypodermic needle into Duo's upper arm. Duo went rigid and shrieked, throwing his head back. His hair was coming loose from his braid, feathery strands of hair floating around his panicky face and catching the light, making him seem like a martyred saint.
// Kisama... I'm going to kill you, // Heero thought distantly, staring at the guard's back. // Kill you...//
The lead guard unlocked the handcuffs holding Duo to the wall. The braided pilot struggled and thrashed; the other guards came in to hold his arms, his kicking legs. The warden stood back, watching with sadistic satisfaction.
Duo got a fist into the stomach of one of the guards, causing the man to lose his breath in a woof. The guard staggered back, then moved forward again. A few seconds later, the Deathscythe pilot slumped, as if all the wires holding him up against his captors had been cut.
Heero jerked against his bonds, shaking with silent, impotent rage. He tried to lunge towards the group of guards holding his friend, watched one of them hit Duo across the face with a flat sound, saw blood begin to trickle from Duo's nose.
His chains held him back from the vengeance he wanted. His deep, fathomless cobalt eyes glared hatefully at his captors.
"Do what you want with him, just don't mess that pretty face up too much. I'll want my turn later," the warden said as Duo's arms went slack and his knees buckled, his violet eyes rolling back into his head under the drug. The leading guard looked at Heero assessively. "Unless you want to tell me where your operation is based, that is--Heero, was it?"
Heero stared at the cold, indifferent concrete floor, silent.
"Take him, then," the warden said, shaking his head in mock pity. "Maybe you'll change your mind when you listen to him, Gundam pilot."
~*~
"Heero! Heero!! Heero help me! Heero please!"
They only took Duo to the next room. Heero could hear just fine.
Duo screamed. He screamed as loudly as he could, for hours and hours. After a while--Heero couldn't tell time in the dark cell--one of the guards came in to give him a sip of water, eyes dwelling on Heero's pale face, his inscrutable eyes.
"Ready now?"
Heero lifted his head, blue eyes defiant. Finally, after a few seconds, the guard shrugged and left the cell.
// Duo, it's the mission, the mission, please can't you see that I can't-- //
Duo kept screaming. Heero tried to put his hands over his ears, was willing to rip his arms from his sockets in order to do it. Those desperate shrieks, those babbling, tortured sobs.
Next day.
The warden was back. "I'm waiting for your answers, soldier." His voice was soft, his face menacing. "I'll let the pretty one go if you tell me what I need to know. We may even let him go while he's still pretty." Duo, shrieking and howling in the background. There had been periods without screaming, until finally--Heero guessed--Duo's vocal chords gave out and all that would emerge from his throat was a rasping gasp that Heero could still hear through the wall. But the sobs remained. Muffled, but still there. Nothing that could hurt their mission, no information leaked, not a number, not a name, not a place. Even Duo knew how to keep his head in a situation, Heero mused. Even a situation like this.
"Heero!!"
// Duo, it's our mission-- //
"Iie. No." Heero turned to the OZ warden squarely. The soldier backed off, sensing the hatred and silent fury in him, the large man's face slightly frightened.
"You know that your friend is screaming for you, don't you?"
"I hear him." Heero's reply was flat, lifeless. It was true. Even when Duo was too fatigued to scream, when his cries had died down not from the relief of his suffering but of sheer exhaustion, his shrieks still seemed to echo in the dark prison ward. Along with the laughter of their captors. Sometimes they screamed back at him, a high falsetto. Mocking him.
"You don't care that he's screaming for your help?" the soldier asked, almost sounding sincere.
"Fuck you." Heero's reply was clipped and vicious.
"Actually, we'd rather fuck him." Heero recoiled as if slapped. The soldier sneered, straightened, and walked out before Heero could say a word.
~*~
A few hours later, Duo was thrown back into the cell, half-naked, battered, bloodied, bruised. His clothes were rags held together by threads. They didn't even bother to lock him up. His hair was loose, in sweat-dampened, bloody dreadlocks concealing his face.
"Duo, are you all right?" Heero would have rushed over to him, held him and consoled him, but chains wouldn't permit.
"Screamed, huh? Couldn't help it, Heero. I couldn't. Didn't tell them anything, though. That's always something." Duo smiled, beneath his tangled, knotted bangs, and the smile was terrible, like watching a dead person smile. His voice, usually a musical baritone lilted with his tough American street accent, was broken and hoarse from screaming, husky and hollow. He was curled up as if he was trying to push himself into the corner, through it.
"Duo, gomen nasai. I'm sorry."
The formally braided pilot didn't reply, but crawled over to him, leaning against the same wall as Heero, shoulder-to-shoulder with him, crossing his arms defensively over his bruised chest, pulling his knees up, as if he was trying to wrap himself into a sheltering ball. Heero saw him shuddering slightly, saw the raw red circles of cigarette burns on his pale arms. The dark slick of blood on his thighs.
"They... they wanted information for letting you go," Heero said, hanging his head in shame, "but I couldn't, Duo. I couldn't tell them anything. I wanted to, but... Duo, I couldn't..." His voice choked with restrained emotion.
"S'okay, Heero. I know. I know," Duo replied, almost too softly for Heero to hear, and leaned wearily against the Wing pilot's shoulder.
TBC...
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