Thanks go to my darling querida, without whom this would never have happened. She gave me the inspiration, the plot bunny, and a good deal of the main idea. She's the light of my life and the rainbow in my skies. I love you.

Not Even Death

Christophe stared blankly at the wall of the cell, the slow trickle of the water down the stones not sufficient enough a distraction to drown out the screaming coming from the next room. He knew who it was, but that doesn't make it any better. If it was faceless, nameless screaming he could take it, ignore it even. But those screams were coming from Gregory, his Gregory. And it was all his fault.

Christophe shook his head to clear the flashback from his foggy mind. What had he been doing again? Oh yeah, groceries. He sighed and grabbed a cart, wheeling it slowly through the supermarket, eyes boring holes into the ground like his shovel used to do.

His shovel…where had that thing gone to? He guessed that it really didn't matter, he hadn't dug anything in years. Not since…

No, he wouldn't think about that. Not now, not when he was surrounded by so many people. They could not be privy to his pain.

Pain…

Gregory…Gregory in pain…

No, Christophe! Snap out of it! He growled and shook his head, clearing what little of the fog he could. It never really cleared up, not for long. He fought through the mist to reach out and grab things blindly from the shelf, numb to everything outside of his own head. He didn't really need to pay attention, he always ended up with the right things in his cart anyways.

He checked out in the same daze as he always did, not noticing that the old lady at the 20 items or less register tried to get him to come out of his shell. She always did that, and on good days he even talked to her. She was the only one he ever talked to anymore.

"Christophe please, forget about me and escape" Gregory pleaded, face bloody and bruised. His entire body was that way, but his eyes had never strayed far from that beloved face. He didn't want to see what those monsters had done to his lover's body.

"I weel not leave you, mon amour. I weel geet you out. I promeese."

Christophe took the groceries out of the bag on the table, sliding them into the cupboards without taking his eyes off of the wallpaper right in front of him. But he didn't see the cheerful yellow flowers, all he saw was Gregory, beaten and bloody. He had made good on that promise, but it had been too late.

Christophe slipped out of his cell behind a careless guard who had thought he had beaten the Frenchman unconscious. He snuck up behind the man and snapped his neck, feeling a sick sense of pleasure at taking the life of one of the bastards who had captured and tortured both him and his lover. With that same twisted sense of satisfaction he dispatched the guards, literally ramming his fist down one man's throat and shoving his fingers into the eye sockets of the other. He smashed their skulls together with a jarring force and gave a deep reverberating chuckle.

He slipped into the room and grabbed his shovel…Where had that shovel gone to? Swinging it at the man who tried to sneak up behind him and attack.

Christophe wheeled around, preparing to take care of the attacker, but there was no one there. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and sank to his knees, but by the time he remembered where he really was, he was gone again.

With shovel in hand, Christophe felt all-powerful, like he could do anything. Getting Gregory and himself out of this hell hole would be a simple task. He burst into the room, guns blazing, making quick work of the one man in there. Wait…one man? Usually there were more people in here: men to keep guard, a doctor on call to make sure the victim didn't die before he could tell them whatever they wanted to know, and several people who's job it was to make the victim's life very uncomfortable.

But there had been just one man…and he was unarmed. A foreboding sense of dread filled him as he crossed the room, willing what he thought to not be true.

Christophe turned on the TV, staring blankly at Will and Grace, not seeing what was going on the TV, on Gregory's mangled corpse. He was had still been warm when he found him, he couldn't have been dead long. But one look at the wide, terrified, glassed over eyes, the unnatural angles of his torso had confirmed that there was no way to bring him back.

He scooped him up and ran out of the building, tears blinding him. If he had been able to see at all he would have noticed that no one had stopped their…his escape. Deep within the heart of the compound a man laced his fingers and smirked. Either Mole would swear vengeance on whoever did this and go on a rampage, killing his operatives blindly but in the process making a fatal mistake and being killed, or he would shut down completely. Either way he would achieve his goal.

The Mole would be out of commission.

Gregory's funeral had been a quiet affair, only their closest friends and Gregory's family had been there. He had dug the grave himself. That was the last time he had wielded the shovel that had been so feared for so long. How long ago was that? He couldn't remember. What day was it now? What year was it?

And suddenly there it was, the shovel, leaning innocently against the wall. Without realizing how or when, he was standing before it, hand reaching out to grip the handle, the grain of the wood sliding smoothly through his palm.

In his mind he could hear Gregory screaming and the soft thunk of the dirt as he shoveled it over the coffin containing his beloved angel. He smiled softly, caressing the handle.

There was one more hole he had to dig.

An hour later he was out in the middle of the graveyard, digging feverishly through the frozen ground. He was completely blind to the flying dirt as he dug deeper and deeper, almost not sure what he was digging towards. It was like the old days, digging just for the sake of digging. He hadn't felt so alive in years, or was it months? However long it had been since he had buried his lover.

When he finally came out of his stupor he was in an underground tunnel with no view of the exit. He cleared the earth from the casket and opened it, the skeletal form in the decaying orange dress shirt a sight for sore eyes. He smiled softly at the corpse, climbing into the coffin and laying down beside it, cradling it in his arms. He stabbed the shovel into the unstable earth above them and laid his head in the crook of Gregory's fleshless shoulder, barely noticing the dirt tumbling down onto him.

In the last seconds before he was crushed to death, cradling the bones of his lost love, he whispered lovingly to it. "Je t'aime Gregory. Not even deaz weel part us."

I know I'd said I would have the next chapters of 'Ow Would You Like to Be My Beetch Tonight and Ante Up up soon, but along with my week long lack of internet, the fact that I have an essay due in English on Monday, My slipping grade in Physics, my college applications, my relationship, and my constant plot bunnies, I also have to contend with my usual writer's block.

But you can rest assured that it will not take more then a month this time.