SWEET DARKNESS

Part 5

"I knew you'd give me a reason if I tried hard. But that was almost too good."

Hannigan's voice reached him through the darkness, and Trowa struggled unconsciously, before having time to regain self-control. As it turned out, his struggles were futile, his hands chained above his head. The rough edges of the cuffs were cutting into his wrists and he tried to ease the pressure but his feet barely touched the floor. Yet this pain was good for him, making him lucid again.

"Now even Merquise won't say you shouldn't be punished."

Hannigan stood so close that for a few moments Trowa couldn't see anything but the morph's narrow silhouette, the pale deformed face frozen in a smile. The morph's hand whipped forward, captured his face and tilted his chin up so forcefully Trowa started losing his feet again. Sickness came back, at the thought of the colorless lips closing to his. He bit his tongue so hard it started bleeding. There was nothing he could do - he'd made his choice when he'd fought the dog away from Quatre. At that moment he'd given the power over his body and his life to the morph.

Quatre... Worry, unexpectedly sharp, pierced him. He didn't know why he worried. It was illogical. The little prostitute shouldn't have been his concern, meant nothing for the mission and the Order. Why then did he, Trowa, ruin everything for the boy's sake?

He thrashed, trying to get free from Hannigan's grip. For the first time he realized they were not in the cell any more but in some room, an interrogation room, apparently - looking nearly identical to the one where Trowa had spent last night.

Quatre was there, too - sitting on the floor with his knees up against his chest. His wrists were chained to the wall high above his head and there were small trickles of blood running down his arms. His enormous tragic eyes, so dark on the fair face, met Trowa's gaze with silent despair. Trowa looked away in distress; his intervention hadn't obviously changed anything, had spared Quatre nothing.

"What shall I do with you?" Hannigan asked conversationally as his hands roamed over Trowa's chest, under the jacket. "Punish you first and fuck you later? Or the other way round? I think I'll like my cock in that pretty mouth of yours. I wonder how you'll enjoy the taste of my come. It starts burning after a little while unless I let you wash it out - here, the little flower knows it well."

Trowa stuck his fingernails in the hard metal of the cuffs and felt the tips of his fingers bleed. Hannigan hit him, the punch in his abdomen so hard that Trowa had to bite the inside of his lip through not to make a sound.

"I think punishment will go first," the morph said. "I'd like you all soft and weeping after I finish."

I won't weep, you fool, Trowa thought. The sight of an electrified whip in the morph's hand made him sick with apprehension. He suppressed an involuntary shudder. There was constant metallic taste in his mouth from the blood he had to swallow. Quatre's voice reached him through the pounding in his head.

"Please, sir... please don't..."

"Shut up, bitch," Hannigan said lightly. "It's all your fault, remember that as you watch how I beat him. And I'll add to his punishment for every word you utter now."

Divide and conquer; an old tactics. Despite himself, Trowa felt the corner of his mouth curve in a smile. He never finished the thinking - the pain that wrapped him made him choke, turning his thoughts incoherent, disjointed.

He hadn't realized it would be so bad; he'd never been whipped before - Misques didn't believe in corporal punishments - rather applied boycotts, isolation, public condemnation or fasting. The feeling of the electrified lash clinging to his body was unspeakable. There was no trace left but he kept feeling it, across his chest and upper belly, even as the next blow came.

I won't weep, he thought again - but he did cry out, on the fifth blow, hated himself for this strangled sound that, no doubt, pleased the morph. Blood from his bitten lips got in his throat and he coughed. Fire-like pain encircled his body, tore into his mind. He clung to the only thought he had left - that no matter what, the morph wouldn't see his tears.

He didn't close his eyes but darkness surrounded him, turning Hannigan's figure into a shadow and the lashing whip into an arc of brightness.

The flash was stopped suddenly and no other blow came. Trowa struggled with his failing sight, shook his head furiously, trying to see clearly. Sickness became nearly overwhelming but at least he knew what he saw now - another morph next to Hannigan, a hand in white glove gripping on the Hannigan's wrist.

"It's enough," Zechs said.

For a moment, Trowa felt overpowering joy at seeing him - and cringed in shame at the next moment. How weak he became, how disgraceful if he started seeing the morph as his rescuer, started feeling gratitude to him for stopping the pain.

"He killed Nero," Hannigan said, jerking his wrist out of Zechs' grip.

"I know, I know." The helmeted man's voice was light, derisive. "You provoked him, didn't you? Kirov told me all about it."

"Kirov should mind his own business," Hannigan muttered.

"Oh?" Trowa saw how Zechs' mouth rounded in a feigned surprise. "I thought that, as the head of the block, I have the right to be informed about everything that happens. You don't think so, Hannigan?"

For a little while the morph didn't answer, his lips compressed in a thin line - and then he stepped away, shrugging.

"Yes, sir."

"That's better." In a fluid movement Zechs came up to Trowa, his hands flying up to touch Trowa's face briefly, brush the strands of hair away. Trowa wanted to avoid the touch but had too little control over his body to do that. Zechs still must've noticed his feeble struggles. "It's okay, my beautiful one," he said softly. "It'll stop hurting now."

The lock opened, releasing his cuffed hands, and Trowa slid down - and there were Zechs' arms, solid and strong, supporting him.

"Don't fear to fall," the morph's voice whispered against his ear, a tress of Zechs' hair ticklish. "'Cause I like catching you. I'm taking him away," he added in a different, business-like voice to Hannigan.

"Yes, sir. As you wish, sir." But as they were at the door, Trowa heard the other morph mutter in sotto voce hatefully. "Damn freak."

His consciousness was wavering as Zechs walked him along the corridor. He'd like to get free from the morph's grip but wasn't sure he could stand by himself. He didn't know if it was the aftereffects of whipping or if his state worsened again because of the vaccine - but he seemed to be on the verge of blacking out every moment.

"Here." Zechs' voice reached him through half-oblivion. "My office."

Next thing Trowa knew was that he sat in an armchair, deep and comfortable, and Zechs was leaning towards him. His white hair shimmered and his polished helmet shimmered as well and for some reason it was painful on Trowa's eyes, so, he squinted.

"Is something wrong?" Zechs asked, a strange note of worry in his voice. "Don't pass out on me any more... my beautiful criminal."

His hand was on Trowa's face again, cupping his cheek - and Trowa moved away, deeper into the armchair. His hands were chained in front of him, he noticed - in fact, stayed chained from the time he'd been hanging on his wrists. It wouldn't hinder him to push Zechs away, though.

"You're stubborn as always." Zechs left him, straightened, crossing his arms on his chest. "One might think you preferred Hannigan's company to mine. Do you feel so disgusted with me? Is it because I'm a morph?"

Of course, it was; there was no other race that liked morphs, that would willingly contact with them. And yet, as Trowa thought about it, it was not just that - the fear he felt about Zechs, the panic that seized him at the man's every touch... Trowa couldn't explain it - or didn't want to try to explain, so, he just said:

"Yes."

It seemed to him there was something bitter in the curve of Zechs' mouth as he stood looking down at Trowa thoughtfully.

"You know the history of morphs, don't you?" he said all of a sudden.

Surely Trowa studied it; he had an unpleasant feeling in his stomach as the idea what Zechs was talking about came to him.

"I do."

"And what is it you know?" The voice was taunting and yet somehow strained. Even when Zechs didn't touch him, the morph's presence was still overwhelming, affecting Trowa in some way. He muttered without looking at Zechs.

"Morphs are mutated humans."

"Right," Zechs said lightly. "Colonists sent away to the planet where it was impossible to survive. But it turned out human genes had a lot of secrets. Who could guess that the children born there would be anthropomorphs, perfectly adapted to the new conditions - and stronger, faster, more flexible than their ancestors? Who could guess that the side effect of the mutation would be enhanced intellect?"

"You got back to those who wronged us, didn't you?" Trowa said quietly. "More than justly. All those planets where humans die of diseases and radiation... and don't mutate, for some reason..."

"Yeah, right," Zechs interrupted him as if it was didn't interest him, as if it was not what he wanted to hear. Trowa looked at the flood of the white hair as the morph turned away from him. His voice sounded hoarse as he talked. "But did you ever wonder what happened if anthropomorphs mutated as well? If, for some reason, a child was born in different conditions, in the conditions close to original ones of the Earth? Backward mutation, so to say? Looking too human for his own good? What about such a creature?

"It depends on what his parents are, doesn't it?" Zechs continued in a light, almost casual voice - but he never turned back, never looked at Trowa. "For example, they might occupy such high positions that no one would dare to say it in their face that their child was an abnormality, a deviant. No one would dare to put any obstacles on his way; he would get everything - a rank, a career, a post - just as far away from the home planet as possible. 'Please, please, go and spare us from the shame of seeing your face.'

"It's funny but some really think it can be contagious." There was joyless laughter in the morph's voice. "Can rub off or something like that. It's convenient sometimes, however, you know - when no one wants to cross your way."

Zechs turned abruptly, his eyes flashing with dark, bright blue in the slits of the helmet. Trowa didn't have time to say anything - and, in fact, he had nothing to say as Zechs moved to him swiftly, his hand on Trowa's throat, hard, not really suffocating but not letting go as well.

"By the way, Kirov told me you wanted to see me. What was it about?"

Trowa shivered. What was it about? It seemed such a long time ago - all his reasoning of that period so distant that he barely could recall what he had been intended to do, after all.

'To have sex with you' was an honest answer; 'and then to escape' was even more honest. But it wouldn't have worked, Trowa realized suddenly; even if he'd managed to get it on with Zechs. The morph would never let him go.

"About nothing," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

"Liar." Zechs' slap wasn't of real force, just stinging a little. "Liar and coward."

His hand in Trowa's hair gripped hard, forcing his head back. He leaned closer, so close that Trowa felt smooth surface of the helmet against his face. And at the next moment Zechs' lips were on his, Zechs' tongue in his mouth.

Zechs' lips felt soft and warm, his tongue wet and obtrusive, wandering in Trowa's mouth. Trowa didn't feel any taste, his nasopharynx was swollen and insensitive; there was just the feeling of something alien in his mouth. Neither pleasant nor repulsive... But the helmet pressed against his face inconveniently, painfully - and it returned him to reality. He hit with his cuffed hands into Zechs' chest and kicked with both his feet - and the morph flopped on the floor, seeming slightly disoriented. Trowa got on his feet, staring down at the man.

There was no way to escape, so, he just waited as Zechs wiped his mouth on the back of his palm and rose.

"I guess I'm in for another meeting with Hannigan or Ivers," Trowa said levelly.

Zechs' movements were slightly stiff - Trowa must've hurt him, after all. A blow in his solar plexus made him double, hunch over Zechs' arm. Zechs supported him and lowered him on his knees almost carefully as Trowa gasped, trying to catch a breath. But his grip on Trowa's shoulders was iron-hard, pushing Trowa on his fours.

Against his side, Trowa felt Zechs' groin pressed to him and knew that the morph had an erection.

"I can take you right now," Zechs said in a sing-sang voice. "How will you like it? It'll be your first time, right? Face down, seeing nothing but the carpet, feeling nothing but pain. You'll never be as before after that, you'll always be dirty. Even if you ever manage to get out of here, you'll be spoiled. Your Order won't want you any more - you, a whore, a failure... No one would want you any more. No one... Even I."

Zechs' voice broke, and suddenly, in a flash of understanding that pierced through the cloudiness of Trowa's mind, Trowa knew that Zechs' threats and insults were really not directed against him - but in some weird way mirrored the morph's own pain and fears.

Deep down in his heart, a feeling akin to pity moved in him - but at the next moment Zechs pressed his head to the floor roughly and all Trowa could think about was struggling uncontrollably, just to delay the inevitable a little more.

The floor shook under him suddenly, an echo of a distant explosion seeming at first just like beating of blood against his eardrums. But it must've been real because Zechs' hand let him go abruptly. Trowa backed away from the morph, looked up. Zechs got on his feet smoothly, his small mouth compressed. Sounds of alarm first seemed to be far away and then grew louder, flooded the room. Trowa saw the morph wince.

For him, the noise was almost unbearable. His aching head and raw nerves shot through with pain. Involuntarily, he held his head, covering his ears - but it did nothing to make the sounds go away. He noticed Zechs' lips move and rather guessed than heard what the morph said:

"Stay here. I'll go check what it is."

The door shut behind the man, and then Trowa moved. He felt dizzy and weak, sore all over - but he also knew that if he didn't move now, he'd probably lose his only chance.

He looked around the room, searching for weapon - and above Zechs' table saw two thin ancient rapiers, crossed under the glass. He hit against the glass with his cuffs, turning away from the splinters. His hand smeared blood on a sharp piece of glass as he reached for a rapier - but finally he had it. Its point was probably blunted but still it was a kind of weapon. Trowa walked to the entrance, intended to wait for Zechs to return to attack him when another explosion shook the ground under his feet. He fell forward, onto the door - and as the door slid away from under him, he found himself in the corridor.

Next to him, other doors opened smoothly as the sounds of alarm became frenzied.

He saw morph soldiers, running, and saw other species as well. He pressed to the wall but no one seemed to notice him or pay enough attention. With an effort, Trowa resurrected the plan of the prison in his mind - as much of it as he knew. If he was going to get to the shuttle, he had to go downstairs.

If? What else was he going to do? This was his chance, no doubt his only one. He saw a few men in ragged clothes - probably prisoners as well - moving in that direction. One of the morphs stopped to shoot at them; two men fell, two more managed to escape. And at the next moment the morph fell dead as well, attacked by some species, unknown to Trowa, from behind.

It looked like an illustration to Struggle for Existence, Trowa thought wryly. Or it looked like hell. He leaned against the wall and supported himself with the rapier stuck against the floor. He knew what he had to do - his mind gave him very definite orders. To get downstairs and fight his way to a shuttle, flee from there. But when he moved, he walked not down but forward, against the flow of people.

He had barely registered the way when Zechs had dragged him from the interrogation room to his office - but something had to stay in his head. Maybe, it's all in vain, he thought helplessly; maybe, he's not even there any more. Taken back to the cell... and then Trowa would never find him. Or dead.

The door to the room was opened, as all others - and Quatre was there - and no one else.

"Trowa!" There was incredulity, joy and distress mixed in the boy's voice. Trowa wanted to say something but staying upright demanded so much strength he had to clench his teeth - so, he just shrugged weakly.

The boy's hands were cuffed - just like Trowa's had been when Hannigan had whipped him, and Trowa thought scathingly that the morph probably just replaced the toy with another one when Zechs had taken him away. What upset him most was blood that leaked from Quatre's mouth as the boy talked. His breath sounded so painful he likely had a few ribs broken. Focused on the immediate task, Trowa found the control device, pushed the button opening the lock holding the boy's hands. Quatre slipped on the floor bonelessly.

"Come on..." Trowa reached his hands to help him get up; the rapier was just a hindrance so, he let it go. "Get up. We need to get out of here."

He felt Quatre hang onto him for a moment and then the boy fell again. There was a strange feeble smile on Quatre's face.

"I don't think... I can walk."

"Oh. Okay."

Trowa turned with his back to him, got down on one knee.

"Hold on then. I'll carry you."

He was not sure he could but there was no fuckin' way he was leaving the boy here; not after all the way he'd done for it.

"Just look at this. How touching!"

Trowa's long bangs obscured half of the view from him - and for a moment he could almost make himself believe it was just an illusion, his fear materialized. He heard Quatre's short gasp; of course, the morph was real. For some reason Hannigan had returned.

"You're just a stupid boy," the morph said. "And I don't have time to play with you. I think I'll do it quickly now."

The gun in his hand was not a charge gun but a real one, pointing down at Trowa. For some reason Trowa couldn't look higher than it was, couldn't look at the morph's face - saw just the black round muzzle in Hannigan's hand.

Shouldn't have left the rapier, he thought absently; although what difference it would make - apart from dying with a weapon in his hands.

A sudden burst of fire made him look up; and he'd thought that when you were shot, you didn't hear the sound. But he wasn't shot; it was Hannigan whose chest suddenly tore with bluish flowers of open wounds. The morph's purple blood splashed on Trowa's face as he looked at the swaying creature in disbelief. It seemed Hannigan still tried to pull the trigger, with his last movement - but already couldn't do it. He felt forward, down at Trowa's feet.

And then, behind the morph, Trowa saw the one who'd been shooting - a smiling man with an automatic gun in his hands. The man was dressed in camouflage and his face framed with reddish-brown hair looked vaguely familiar. Trowa just felt too messed up to recognize him.

"I think it was timely, ne, kid?" the man said, his smile getting even brighter for a moment.

"Thank... thank you..."

"Never mind." He stepped over the morph's long legs and nodded to Trowa. "Get out of here while it's possible."

At the next moment he was gone - and shots were heard farther down the corridor. Trowa turned to Quatre and repeated:

"Hold on. Let's go."

The boy looked guiltily at him and Trowa shook his head impatiently. Quatre's bony arms hooked around his neck, and he got up.

With how skinny Quatre was, he just couldn't weigh much - and at any other moment Trowa would carry him effortlessly. Now he could carry him, too - there was just no other way about it.

First few corridors were empty, just dead bodies here and there - but as Trowa reached downstairs, it was inferno. The crowd was so dense, all kinds of species moving towards the shuttles, that the mass seemed solid, with a few taller figures of morphs caught in its middle. The vibration from leaving shuttles was continuous - and yet the crowd didn't grow thinner.

He knew there was no way everyone could take place in a shuttle - all those prisoners desperate to leave. He entered into the crowd, got in the flow and even managed to advance a little. His cuffed hands didn't let him shield from the pushes - and he heard a small painful cry Quatre made as someone must've shoved against his broken ribs. Another push, more like blow, made him stumble - and suddenly a hard hand caught him, pulled away. Almost without surprise Trowa looked at Zechs' helmet-covered face.

"I knew I'd find you," the morph breathed out.

The words were so senseless that Trowa thought he must've heard wrong. In this mess, with everything falling apart - Zechs wanted to say he was looking for him? Three of them were pressed to the wall by running people; Trowa let Quatre slide off his back and swayed with sudden relief. His knees were so weak he didn't know how he could stand.

"Don't go there," Zechs said in a low voice.

You can't stop me, Trowa wanted to say. The power of the morphs over the prison was down - ruined probably by that man in fatigues who'd shot Hannigan just a little while ago. He saw Zechs' very long fingers reach to his face. The morph's gloves were torn and soaked in dark fluid, so mixed that Trowa couldn't say whether it was human or morphs' blood.

"Don't go," Zechs repeated.

The next explosion was very close, the blinding fireball blossoming down the corridor, right in the middle of the crowd. It felt like the wall Trowa leaned against started crumbling. But, maybe, it was just his body that was giving up.

He was sliding down and couldn't stop it - and saw Zechs' narrowed eyes, looking at him attentively. He heard Quatre's desperate voice, screaming something next to him. Zechs put his hand in his pocket - and suddenly Trowa knew what he'd see next. A flash of the blade in the morph's hand.

"Please... Please here! Help him!" Quatre cried out, and Trowa wondered absently who the boy could ask for help. And at the next moment more people in fatigues were in his range of vision - the familiar one among them and for some reason Trowa thought he must've seen this beautiful radiant face on TV before - or over the numbers stating an award for his capture.

He didn't know if Zechs was shot or hit but the morph slumped on the floor suddenly. There was no knife in his slack hand, just a card for unlocking the cuffs.

"Help him! You won't leave him - you saved his life once, sir," Quatre's lilting voice was so insistent - Trowa hadn't known it could sound like this.

"Captain?" someone asked behind the man. The man walked up to them and bent towards Trowa.

"Okay," he said briskly, his eyes darkened blue on the white face. "We need witnesses all the same."

He took the gun in his left hand and his right arm wrapped around Trowa's ribcage, pulling him up. Trowa wanted to mind being dragged like a kitten or a little child but the man didn't seem to notice.

"Quatre..." he looked back for the boy and saw in relief that another man helped him up.

"What about the morph?" The smallest one of the insurrectionists, a thin black-haired boy, probably no older than Trowa himself, spoke with almost unmoving lips, his thin black eyebrows drawn together.

"What about him?" the man turned back slightly.

"He's not dead."

"Then finish him off, Wufei."

"Look at his rank, I think we might use him."

"All right," the man shrugged. "Then take him as well."

Trowa saw how Zechs was jerked up on his feet, his arms twisted behind his back cruelly. The morph's head drooped, he probably was not quite conscious, and his long hair flooded down against his chest like threads of silver.

"To the flyers," someone said.

To be continued

Well... So, do you want to know what awaits for Zechs in captivity? Do you want to know if Trowa will ever be able to fulfil his mission? If Trowa and Quatre are going to be together? What will happen with Treize and Wufei? Are there anywhere Heero and Duo to be met? You have a chance to know all that if you keep writing those beautiful reviews on ff.net - the reviews that make me completely happy. Thank you, people! Please keep going.