Sacrifice Part 3
And then There were Four
As soon as the black caravan had faded from sight and the crowd had dispersed, Duo did what he had been wanting to do for the last half hour.
He hit Trowa. Belted the Heavyarms pilot as hard as he could. As charming and laughable as Duo normally was, he was still a soldier, and his punches were nothing to laugh about. And he put muscle behind this one, as if he was back on L2 and fighting for his life. When Trowa raised his head, blood ran slowly down his chin from a split lip. He was flat on his back. He would need stitches.
"Duo!" Quatre shouted.
"That's for holding me back when I said to let me go," Duo whispered, his amethyst eyes hard and glittering. "I hate you, Trowa."
Trowa's quiet reply was almost a whisper as he pulled himself to his feet. "I know. But I didn't want you to get hurt. And I respect Heero too much to let you kill yourself in front of him."
Duo stalked off wordlessly in the direction of the car.
Quatre put his hand on Trowa's shoulder as the Heavyarms pilot shook himself off. "Why didn't you dodge it, Trowa? I know you could have."
"He needed to hit me."
The three other pilots followed Duo. Trowa brusquely wiped the blood from his chin and shook his head to clear it. He wiped the blood from his hand onto his shirt. Duo packed a punch; there was a high keening noise in his head now, like a TV test pattern turned on high volume. His mouth throbbed; his lip was still bleeding steadily.
As he walked slightly behind Quatre and Wufei, he thought of the expression on Heero's face as he went with the men in suits. That expression was resignation. Heero was going to die. The men in suits would debrief him, and then they'd get rid of him. They were right about one thing, whatever else they had said: Heero was a weapon. And if all the weapons were to be disposed of, Trowa had a pretty good idea what they were going to do to Heero.
Although he would not admit it to any of the others, he was sure that Heero was going to die or was already dead. For his sake, Trowa hoped it was the latter.
~*~
There were more police cars pulling up as they left the area. The pilots wordlessly broke into a lope.
"Reinforcements. What-" Quatre started to ask.
They reached the car. "Get in! Ask questions later, Winner!" Wufei said, pushing the blonde pilot into the front passenger seat. "Shove over! Make room!"
Quatre did. Wufei looked over at Duo, who had gotten into the backseat next to Trowa. "Are you going to be a problem, Maxwell?"
Duo shook his head. The Deathscythe pilot was shaking. His eyes were angry and he would not look at the pilot sitting next to him. Wufei didn't exactly believe him. If they had learned nothing about Maxwell by now, it was that he was nothing if not resourceful. Wufei didn't want him taking advantage of his close proximity to Trowa to do anything more to the Heavyarms pilot, since it seemed clear Trowa had no intentions of fighting back.
Wufei swung into the driver's seat, wondering if the engine of this car would still start. They hadn't used this safehouse in awhile. He turned the key and the engine roared to life. A second later they were rolling.
What were they doing to Heero now? Quatre wondered. He had no idea. He couldn't believe it was happening. One of them had been taken, practically kidnapped. Not only was it perfectly legal... there wasn't anything he or his fellow pilots could do about it.
There was a tense silence in the car for almost half an hour. Wufei was the one to break it.
"Why in the hell didn't he fight back?" He scowled. // Dammit Yuy... dammit. You're the strongest of all of them. Why didn't you fight back, damn you! // He remembered the expression on Heero's face as he went. Submissive as a kicked dog. Why? Why would he surrender like that? After all they'd been through?
If he hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it.
"He made a choice," Trowa replied quietly.
"It was the wrong one!" Wufei snarled, then realized he was letting his emotions get away with him. He became silent again, hands clenched on the steering wheel.
Duo whispered in the back seat, facing towards the window.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul-"
Trowa closed his eyes. So did Quatre. Without realizing it, the Sandrock pilot put his hand over his heart. He felt Duo's pain. And Heero's. They all did.
"-He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me-"
"Maxwell..." Wufei said softly.
"-Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil..." Duo's voice choked. "My cup overflows."
Trowa started to reach over and put his hand on Duo's shoulder, but stopped. The Deathscythe pilot was crying steadily now. His shoulders shuddered hard, as if he could barely contain the sobs, as if they would explode from him.
"S-Surely goodness and mercy... m-mercy...shall follow me all the days... all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord f-forever."
Duo looked up at Trowa, his eyes filled with tears. Trowa's impassive facade broke a little as he saw the pure pain in the Deathscythe pilot's expression. "He told me what they did to him. I pr-promised... I promised."
// Did to him... // Trowa thought of Heero's icy cobalt eyes... there had always been such deeply grounded violence in that cold, stoic gaze... such pain and rage... suppressed madness... Trowa shivered. He didn't ever want to think about the things those... people... had done to him to make him that way.
Trowa shook off his thoughts. "Promised what?" he asked gently, feeling warmth prick at his own eyes. Tears from the Silencer? Surely not.
Duo sobbed. "I promised I'd never let them hurt him again."
// Boys don't cry... boys don't cry... // he thought, trying to stifle his tears. But he couldn't. Not again. There were holes that cried out in pain to him, and would go on crying for the rest of his life. One for Solo... one for Foxy. One for Father Maxwell, one for Sister Helen. One for his parents. One for all the other people he had ever lost. One, now, for Heero. He felt like he was bleeding to death from the inside out.
Wufei swallowed hard, not looking at anything but the traffic. Quatre was crying quietly in the passenger seat.
Trowa put his arms around Duo, letting the L2 pilot cry even as his own sight of the inside of the car blurred and turned to prisms. He could still hear Duo whispering against his chest.
"I lied. I said I'd protect him... God help me Trowa... I lied..."
TBC...
Back to CleverYoungThief's Fanfictions Page