Around 10:00 pm, after both boys had slept off their sadness, Duo asked his question again. "Heero, why were you so scared? Why are you acting like someone's about to jump you?"
"I guess you have a right to know; Duo look around, what do you see? What do you think this room was used for?"
"I dunno, a dentist or something."
"Wrong, you remember, about Odin Lowe and how he trained me right?" Duo nodded, "Well, did I ever tell you how I was punished if I did something wrong?" Duo shook his head. "This is how. I was taken in here and was forced to choose, one day a whip, the next a branch with thorns, so on and so forth; look around, these are the choices I had. After I got my beating, I was secluded for as much as days on end."
Duo looked and, as he looked at each device of torture and pain, he couldn't help but see them used on a 6 year-old Heero. "Heero…" Then he saw a whip, not just any whip, but one that had hooks to catch and hold (or rip), soaking in chlorinated water.* He imagined, or tried to imagine, what it would feel like to be hit with and said quietly: "Damn the bastards, I'll make sure they go to hell even if they bring me with them!"
Heero was a little startled by the vehemence whit which Duo said that. "Duo, he's dead already."
"Then when I get there I'll make sure that he gets what he deserves!" then with less anger, "No one should have to suffer these things."
"Oh Duo."
A person passed by in the street outside and saw, framed in a dark broken window, two teenagers. One with long brown hair tied up in a braid glaring out into the street. The other, a boy with short brown hair looking rather distressed. The first looked rather protective of the second even though she (he?) was smaller. The pedestrian decided to just keep walking.
End
* Have you ever gone swimming when you have an open cut? It hurts like hell!