Fun fact: Modo was originally slated to play Vinnie's role, but Modo decided not to after learning that there was a nude scene involved.
Much love to all my reviewers!
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Vinnie groaned, reaching up to rub his aching throat, and then gasped in as he realized he couldn't breathe very well.
"Easy, easy, easy. There you go." Something was pressed to his face, and oxygen flooded his lungs. Vinnie gripped the hand holding the mask down, his fingers prying it off and then desperately holding it.
"Fine job you did, Throttle. Poor boy can't breathe well cause you nearly crushed his larynx."
Vinnie opened his eyes to see a familiar grizzled face above him, and a weight on his calves and feet.
"There's no way in hell that's Vinnie," Throttle's baritone intoned. "He can say it until the end of time and I'm not gonna believe it."
"Fine. But try not to kill him while you interrogate him, okay? I don't wanna bring the defribrillator out." Andy left Throttle and Vinnie alone.
Shitfuckery on a crapwich, Vinnie thought, his eyes widening at the look on Throttle's face. True to form, no words were gonna get in the way of Throttle finding his bro.
"Now," the tan-furred Martian said, walking over to Vinnie and towering over him. "I'd like to know where Vinnie is. The real one. NOW." He gripped Vinnie's collar roughly and picked him up off the couch.
"I.. already told you.. I'm Vinnie," Vinnie gasped out. Throttle's brow furrowed.
And then he snatched away Vinnie's oxygen mask. The mouse howled in fear and clawed at Throttle's hand, reaching for the mask.
"Give it!" he begged.
"Tell me where Vincent is!" Throttle shouted, shaking Vinnie by his collar. The beige mouse coughed and reached weakly for the mask, before his head and vision swam and Throttle clapped the mask back on his face roughly.
"We can do this all day, or you can tell me where Vinnie is and I'll tell the prison guards on Mars to go easy on you." Throttle grinned maliciously.
"Y-you remember that time.." Vinnie gasped out. "Th-th-that time wh-where you and Modo h-had that really, really bad spat over somethin'?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Throttle snapped, annoyed that this fake knew something so private.
"W-w-we was like teenagers, a-a-an' you were r-really upset about it.. and Stoker said to stop your bellyachin' an' go apologize, cause you were too goddamn arrogant and some other shit. An' Modo, he says that's not what he wants, and you says 'what do you want?' and Modo, he said, 'I want my dad back' and that when he tells you 'bout all the problems him an' his dad been having. You told me all about that. You did. You." Vinnie reached up and gripped Throttle's wrist. "You. Told me."
Throttle's face went blank for a moment.
And then he wrested the oxygen mask from Vinnie again.
Fuck, Vinnie thought as he clawed at thin air and Throttle's hands. It took him several minutes to pass out completely, and when he did, his voice was hoarse from screaming that he was Vinnie, he was Vinnie, he was Vinnie.
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"WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALMIGHTY GOD DID YOU DO TO HIM?"
The womanly shout woke Vinnie up with a jerk, and he opened his eyes to see Charley, backing up Modo and Throttle against the opposite wall, her entire frame shaking in fury.
"Get out," she hissed. "I don't care where you go. I want you out of my sight. Get out of my sight." Her tone sent a shudder up Vinnie's spine. Modo and Throttle scowled and headed out to the Scoreboard's roof.
Vinnie let out a squeak to let Charley know he was awake. She immediately went over to him, cupping his face gently.
"Charley," he mumbled. She smiled.
"Hey."
"Charley- Charley-girl, you have to let me-" He reached up, weakly gripping the side of her head, and craned his neck until his antennas touched her forehead. He let a flood of memories through the sudden gateway, and Charley practically sang in joy when she realized it was really him in that stranger's body.
He quickly exited her mind, relaxing against the couch in total exhaustion, his heavy breathing fogging up the oxygen mask. Charley held his face and gave him a long kiss on the forehead, tears running down her cheeks.
"Don't you ever do something like that to me again," she said in a shaky voice, referring to his near-death experience.
They stayed like that for a while, her arm underneath his head and her head on his chest, while he wiped her tears of anger and joy away. He didn't want to be around when she remembered that she was pissed off at his bros. He didn't even want to be on the same planet.
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"I saw it!" Charley yelped, wildly gesturing as she stood in front of a sceptical Throttle and Modo. "I saw what was in his mind!"
"There are tricks that can do that," Modo said. The last thing he wanted was Charley gaining some false hope that Vinnie wasn't dead, but that apparently wasn't going to be easy.
"I saw it!" she shouted, her hands clenching into fists. Throttle took her shaking shoulders in his hands, his voice a comforting tone.
"Charley-girl, he's dead. You gotta accept that."
Smack!
Modo's mouth dropped open in a perfect 'O' as Charley slapped Throttle, hard enough to jar his sunglasses. He let go of her shoulders and gaped at her, too suprised for words.
"You selfish son of a bitch," Charley growled. "You're beginning to look a hell of a lot like a Plutarkian to me." She stalked out of the kitchen and headed for the common room.
"Ow," Throttle whispered, and not because his face stung.
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"Ouch." Vinnie winced. "That was a little low, wann't it?"
"Vinnie, he tortured you," Charley said in a matter-of-fact tone, repositioning his head in her lap. "That insult was mild when you consider what he did to you."
Vinnie raised his eyebrows and wondered why he only feared her when she had something heavy in her hands.
Sensing something, he looked down towards the kitchen to see Modo standing at the end of the couch, looking guilty as hell despite his attempts to act normal.
"Uhm," he said for lack of a better word. Charley stiffened.
"I'd, I'd like a minute alone with.. him.. for a minute. Please."
She glared at Modo for a second, then gently pat Vinnie's forehead, sat him up and left. Vinnie stared at the grey mouse, genuinely wondering if he should start running now or later.
Modo sat down in the space Charley had vacated, and Vinnie swung himself around so he was sitting properly. For a minute, they just sat there, not knowing what to say until Modo suddenly grabbed Vinnie and nearly crushed him in a bear hug.
And the grey mouse's presence flooded his mind, a raging waterfall with good intentions.
VINNIE!
One thing about Modo was that he could mind-deafen a Martian mouse with the 'loudness' of his mental voice. He nearly deafened Vinnie with hs exclamation of joy.
Out, Vinnie commanded. Modo withdrew, leaving Vinnie gasping in suprise and a little annoyed as well.
"Wrrrnn mfff or oo oo ad," he said through the crushingly happy hug that Modo was giving him.
"Huh?" Modo let him go, and Vinnie fixed his curls before translating, "Warn me before you do that."
"Sorry."
And then they were reduced to sitting next to each other (again), Modo embaressed as hell, and Vinnie wondering which deity had a evil agenda against him.
"You- you want somethin' to eat?" Modo finally asked.
"Sure." Vinnie grinned. Modo smiled back hesitantly and left for the kitchen.
Vinnie leaned back against the couch, tired and nervous all at the same time.
"You."
"Holy shi-" Vinnie cut himself off before he finished cursing, twisting around to see Throttle in the doorway. "Geez, you sneak good!"
Throttle didn't reply, instead going over to Vinnie and standing before him, facing the young mouse with a stone-cold look on his face.
Then he picked Vinnie up by his collar and pressed his antennas against Vinnie's. Being a experienced and high-Psi-rated Martian, it took a mere second longer than a lesser-rated mouse to enter Vinnie's mind. And in that second, Vinnie brought up each detail of the experiment that had changed his apperance, every agonizing second, every atom of pain, and then threw it all at Throttle when the older mouse entered his mind.
The scream, both mental and physical, from mental and physical pain, was quietly satisfying to Vinnie. He was the vindictive sort, and he definately held grudges.
And then, when the memories faded, Vinnie showed him death.
The Void- its memory was still fresh in Vinnie's mind, forgotten only for a moment but not dulled in any way. The utter aloneness, darkness and cold pressed on their minds, and-
It proved too much, even for Throttle. The connection was abruptly severed as the tan-furred mouse fell to the floor, gasping for air even though there was nothing wrong with his larynx.
"I'm Vinnie," Vinnie said, his voice cracking from the ordeal of the last two days. Tears built in his eyes, dear God, the things that had been done to him-
Throttle wrapped his arms around the smaller mouse, his entire body shuddering as he realized what he'd done to his bro.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the sobbing mouse. "I'm sorry, Vinnie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.."
"You could have killed me!" Vinnie screamed, pounding his fists against Throttle's chest. "They could have killed me! Why didn't you come?"
"I," Throttle managed to get out, and then his own voice cracked and he buried his muzzle in Vinnie's mane. "Oh, gods, Vinnie.."
"Why didn't you come?" Vinnie sobbed. "It was hell. It was all hell. I was awake, Throttle I was awake while they were doing this to me, I felt everything-"
"I know," Throttle mumbled through his shame. "I felt it. I felt it all."
They sat like that, Vinnie sobbing loudly and Throttle rocking him back-and-forth and wondering how in the name of the gods he was going to make this up to his bro. Vinnie was right. He could have killed him, and he would have too, he was so angry.
Dear gods, the pain.
He had felt it, him and Modo both, while Vinnie was being experimented on. Modo had screamed, long and loud, scaring the utter shit out of Charley as she tried to comfort them.
And then the link, the link between their minds that had been built over such a long time of fighting and being together, had utterly snapped. Vinnie was gone. The triangle crumbled.
That had made agony like no other that they had experienced. Even Charley had felt it, and she wasn't even Martian, but her pain was nothing compared to Throttle and Modo's.
Throttle had made no noise, his body stiffening, his mouth open. Modo had just continued making noise, and Charley didn't quite take it as real until Throttle explained what had just happened.
Throttle sighed. It was clear to him now- when Vinnie had died for that little amount of time, the link had been severed, and when his body had come back online, it hadn't been restored. Why Vinnie hadn't suffered severe mental trauma was a mystery to the tan-furred mouse, but it was a blessing that he wasn't gibbering insanely and strapped in a straitjacket.
"Aww," Vinnie mumbled softly when he'd calmed down.
"What?" Throttle asked, looking down at him.
"I messed up my shirt." Vinnie looked down at the shirt, which was part of the tuxedo ensemble he'd stolen earlier.
Throttle smiled weakly and pillowed his chin on Vinnie's head. The mouse may not have been white, but he was back in (almost) full force.
