Chapter 8

Duo woke up cold. His eyes fluttered a few times and then opened fully. He immediately realised what was wrong. Heero had gone. He sat bolt upright and stared into the semi-guilty faces of Trowa and Wufei.

"What the hell?!" Duo snarled. They flinched a little.

"Heero made them take him quietly," he said in a low voice. "He didn't want you to be awake when they took him."

"Why?" Duo asked, more than a little hurt. Wufei shook his head gravely.

"He was a mess, Duo." He muttered, "I've never seen anyone try to put on such a brave face in the circumstances."

"Oh Heero." Duo moaned, putting his face in his hands, the annoying lump coming back into his throat. "When will you get it that I don't care?!"

The silence was broken by two guards walking up towards the door which was only a few feet from the far side of the cell. Duo's stomach flipped and he let out a crack of emotion as Wufei and Trowa drew in their breaths sharply. The guards were carrying five deadly looking knives. It was too much for Duo. He flung himself into the bars, rattling them furiously, yelling his throat out, it seemed. The guards stared at him lightly surprised and then Trowa's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him back.

"Let go, Barton!" Duo yelled, trying to lash out, but Wufei's hands caught him.

"I can't do that, Heero made me promise." Trowa said.

"Promise what?"

"That we would keep you calm so that the guards wouldn't kill you." Wufei said sharply. His face and voice softened. "He needs you Duo, he…"

Wufei was rudely cut short by the door opening. Suddenly, a perfect soundtrack of what was going on in there was echoing around the hall…and it was not a pretty mental image. They could hear the manic laughter of the doctors, but worst of all, they could hear Heero screaming. Duo leapt up again, the scream piercing his ice protected heart and he slammed against the bars. Before he could shout out, the door had closed and there was silence again.

He collapsed, his knees buckling under him, pictures flooding through his head of what they would be doing to him. Ever so slowly, he began to fell the ice cold thrill of panic set in accompanied by what must have been near insanity. He moaned Heero's name, hugging his legs close to him, and fought it. Heero needed him sane, Heero needed him full stop, he couldn't break down now, he couldn't! Strong hands gripped his arms and pulled him into a fiercely protective embrace.

"Fight it, Maxwell." He heard Wufei's stern voice say.

"For Heero." Trowa added. Duo scrunched up his face and yelled with effort as he dragged his mind from the brink of the cold black pit it was falling into. Heero needed him and that was the only thing that mattered. His eyes opened and he gripped Trowa hard.

"I'm alright." He panted, after a while. "I'm ok."

"You sure?" Trowa asked as Duo pushed away from him.

"Sure." Duo answered.

There was silence for another twenty minutes before the far door opened and they heard voices that made Duo's heart leap.

"Any reason why he keeps on saying it?"

"Well, apparently it's the name of the braided one."

"Must mean a lot."

"Yeah, apparently." One of the men said as they came into view, and Duo's heart, instead of leaping, stopped. It was them. The tall, thin men with the briefcases. He saw Trowa and Wufei stiffen beside him.

"Does that K.K. mean what I think it does?" Trowa asked. Duo nodded, dumbly. The men looked over at him.

"Stay away from him." Duo threatened, his violet eyes blazing. The man simply laughed. The door was opened again and there was no audible noise from it…until the men came in.

"No!" the was a cracked plead that set Duo on fire again. "No…please! You can't…"

"Shut up, boy!" he heard the doctor shout, and then the door started closing. Duo flung himself at the bars again.

"Heero!" he yelled, as loud as he could, making the guards put their hands over their ears. The door was only just open, but they all heard Heero's reply.

"Duo! Duo, get me out of here, please! Duo!" he was cut off by the door and Duo pushed himself away from the bars fiercely, turning to the others.

"We have to get him out." He said, as soon as he was sure his voice wouldn't break. The two simply nodded dumbly. Duo turned to glare at the guards as they stood up. Gone was the panicked teenager. Here stood Shinigami. God of Death.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Heero hurt. Everywhere. The stings had gone down from the numerous cut wounds but it was also the fact that he wasn't concentrating on them right now that helped. He stared, his deep blue eyes wide in fear at the men who had just come in. The were just as he remembered them; tall, dark, bald and delicate. Their long white fingers grasped the handles of their briefcases and his stomach shrank away into nothing as he remembered what was in them.

"No…no…" he moaned, writhing a little, but his body was tired and sore and wouldn't move for him; he couldn't get out this. "Duo…" he found himself murmuring, but even the thought of the violet eyes smiling at him wouldn't calm his panic. The chill intensified with every step they took, their cold, un humorous smiles adding to the cold. "God...please!" he yelled, forgetting his pride as they stopped in front of him. He looked to J, his eyes pleading with him but the man just smiled at him. The other doctors did the same and the guards wouldn't meet his eyes. In fact, if he had been concentrating he would have seen that all of them would rather be the other side of the planet than here.

He struggled, gasping for air loudly, his fringe flopping against his face as they bent down to open the cases. There were three of them in total, all with their own set of "instruments."

His breathing became faster and shallower as the man directly in front of him and he whimpered quietly as he saw what was in the man's hand. He remembered that one well. It was silver, as all K.K instruments were, and had a thick, elaborately decorated handle. The instrument itself was simple. A small rod, about 11 cm long and a dark silver. The end was tapered to a point so sharp it looked like it could cut through air if it wanted to. "Please…" he gasped, desperately, but the man just gave him a small polite smile before flicking his grey eyes down to Heero's shoulder.

Heero was too busy trying to lean as far back as possible to realise the other men moving, and jumped when two pairs of cold, scarily strong fingers held him. One hand held his arm, one his shoulder at the join to his neck and the others held his body still. The only thing that could move on his upper body was his head. As the point got closer and closer to his shoulder, very slowly (this was part of the style of torture), Heero forgot about pride, nearly forgot about breathing. He could hear someone screaming and his brain told him that it was his own voice, but it sounded muffled and far away. The man and especially the instrument seemed to come into sharper focus than anything else and all his sense seemed to have been heightened.

He jumped violently as he felt the sharp prick of the point touch his shoulder joint. The man drew it away and then came again, applying more pressure. The prick became a sharp pang as it was driven in millimetre by millimetre. This was ok, he could deal with this, but he knew what was coming next and kept screaming. He yelped as the point touched bone and the man looked up at him. Heero pleaded with his eyes for him to stop, but the man grinned and turned back. Pain flooded over him again and again as the man pretended to search for what he was looking for, but Heero knew that he knew perfectly well where it was. He would draw it out and insert it in another place, hit the bone a few times then repeat it. Again he did this, and again and again until Heero's breath was coming out in pained gasps, Duo's name forming on his lips every time he breathed out.

He yelled and scrunched up his eyes as the man found it. The actual joint. Violet eyes bubbled in and out of his vision as the man found a comfortable position and then it started. As pressure was fiercely applied to the point, Heero knew that he couldn't do this. Yells weren't needed and all that came out was a raw shriek of agony as the pole was waggled gradually into the joint, finding all the crevices and searching for the main junction. It was hell, Heero knew he had to be dead because nothing could be this painful in life. He nearly choked as he felt another prick on his other shoulder and dimly recalled that it meant the pain would be worse. Another prick was made at the back of his neck where the vertebrae meant the shoulder bones.

One by one, the men manoeuvred the poles so that they were actually in the joint and then stopped, holding them in there. Heero stopped yelling for a few minutes but didn't relax; he had no idea when they would suddenly all start again. His breath came in starts, his throat hurt from yelling, his stomach hurt from tensing and his shoulders and neck were on fire. His body shook from the pain and he didn't bother to adjust to it because he knew that there was worse to come. "Duo…" he breathed, his heart almost breaking for the pure need of the Deathscythe pilot here. If only he could…

His thoughts were cut short by his own delayed yell of agony. The men had started. They roughly yet elegantly were slowly prising his joints apart, but doing it the long way. Bit by bit, ever so slowly, causing Heero to nearly faint. He wished he would, but these guys were too good to let him do that. He knew he would die form this, he had to, God wasn't that unkind. With three high cries, he felt the joints give way and then the men fell back.

Now he relaxed. They had to see what was going to happen to him before the doctors let them do anything else. His arms hung limply, out of place because the shoulder joints were totally out. His head seemed to be resting on his shoulders, the vertebrae separated, but so skilled were the workers that no nerves or anything had been torn. It hurt so badly he retched, but nothing came; he had nothing. He couldn't even do that. He wanted Duo, he needed Duo. He needed to be held, to be touched. His body was shaking and he felt like he was freezing cold yet boiling hot at the same time. It was like he had no control over his body at all. With small moans he recognised his body responding. His neck snapped back into place and he cried out with the sharp pain and sickening crack. His shoulders did the same the torn nerves screaming at him so he yelled again. But he was fine. The wounds on his shoulders and neck started healing, the unbearable pins and needles this caused making him squirm.

"Fantastic." He dimly heard J exclaim. "And only that in what…twenty minutes? That is a feat."

"We are good at what we do." The main torturer told him and Heero shuddered. "He is a fabulous recipient; so soft and vulnerable yet tougher than leather."

"Well, don't let me stop you." The doctor said and Heero tensed again as he looked up, seeing the men bend down again and give each other looks. He moaned loudly, his stomach disappearing once again as he saw which one it was now. The worst. They used this one over and over again last time. It was their favourite. They called it the dissector and he had soon worked out why. They would make little dotted lines of cuts along his body that would be like the biological diagrams in biology labs at schools, but would then, starting from the top and going down, go along them and dissect him, bit by bit. Unfortunately with him, by the time they had done the first dissection, the lines had disappeared so that had to do it all over again.

He watched, heart beating far too fast as two men knelt down by his feet and the main one came right up to his chest, grinning at him. Snickering slightly, he placed the too long, too sharp scalpel directly on Heero's sternum, and pressed down, slowly. There was a stab of pain and Heero felt a drop of blood trickle down over his trembling stomach.

"No dots." The man rasped and the other two nodded, watching for his signal to begin. He placed the scalpel higher, right on Heero's collar bone, grinned at him, and then suddenly brought his hand in a smooth downward action. Heero tensed, a cry coming from his lips and tears springing from his eyes. He looked down. There was a thin red line the whole way down the dead centre of his chest and blood seeped from it all the way down. Taking another scalpel from one of the others, the man approached, his hand held in such a way that told Heero he was wanting to look in his inside. He braced himself for the pain this would bring, his chest already smarting.

"Duo…" he murmured, "Duo…"

He didn't want this to happen, he wanted to go home. The tears silently trickled down his face in floods and he trembled with every part of his body he had. He felt the cold touch and sting of the two scalpels on either side and then…

The door slammed open and there were familiar cries, one louder than the rest. Heero opened his eyes immediately, knowing that it couldn't be happening. It was. Duo had slammed through the door followed by the other pilots and the four generals. They flew into the room, machine guns blazing and pandemonium started. Heero watched in terror as Duo's blazing violet eyes travelled over to him and then lie on the man cowering at Heero's chest. His face turned into a grim snarl and he started sprinting over, shooting the other two. The man scrambled to behind Heero and Duo's eyes widened at the cut which still hadn't healed yet.

Heero tried to cry out but it was too late. J had catapulted into the running Shinigami and they had tumbled to the floor. He watched in awe, pride and hope as the God of Death quickly showed that he was too good for the doctor. Suddenly hitting him so he fell to the ground, the doctor fled. Duo's eyes blazed but then met Heero's sending him on fire. He strained as much as he could but it wasn't much; his body was spent. The braided boy started sprinting towards him, the eye contact never leaving and the din seemed non existent.

Suddenly, the main torturer leapt out and threw the scalpels at him. Heero cried out his name as the one scalpel hit Duo, burying itself deep in his arm. The violet eyes darkened as the boy pulled it out without wincing and when he looked up even Heero trembled before him.

"You…fucking…barbaric…bastard!" he yelled and flew at him. The man screamed but was cut short by his neck being snapped and then Duo reached him. Strong arms were flung around his neck and a warm cheek was nuzzled against his own. Heero's breath came in sobs; he couldn't help it and Duo pulled away a little before kissing him. Heero froze in shock, but Duo's lips moving against his was almost too much to bear and he kissed back, hungrily, needing the touch and the comfort. After all he had been through, it felt so good, it felt too good. Duo couldn't be kissing him and yet the evidence was going against it.

"Oh God, Heero." Duo breathed, kissing Heero's face fiercely and protectively. "Oh God."

"Duo." Heero breathed, weakly, his own voice too far gone to break as Duo's was. "You came."

"Of course I fucking came!" Duo answered him, stopping to let his tear filled eyes meet Heero's. "It's over, Heero. We're gone, getting out of here. You're safe."

The happiness and relief in Heero's eyes nearly killed him and he kissed him again, feeling the boy pull his restraints to get closer to him. He was on fire in every way possible, but there was something missing. He pulled away reluctantly from the kiss and his stomach flipped at Heero's grunt of protest. He looked down at one of the scalpels which would be perfect but he couldn't bring himself to touch them so he reached for the machine gun. He broke every single bond and dropped the gun as Heero fell into his arms. They sat on the floor, Heero clutching at Duo as tight as possible, both breathing hard, both closing their eyes and both never letting go.

They jumped as somebody knelt down beside them. Opening their eyes, they saw it was Treize and his concerned face puzzled them.

"Is he ok?" he asked Duo, urgently.

"He will be." Duo replied.

"We have to get him out of here."

"I'll carry him."

"No you won't. Get that blanket from the cell, I'll carry him." Treize ordered and Duo reluctantly let go, kissing Heero briefly before running off. Heero looked after him, a little panicked but then Treize picked him up in his warm, strong arms and pressed him close. "Don't worry, Yuy he'll be back. I'm not taking you anywhere without him."

Heero was too surprised at this sudden change in Treize's attitude to say anything and so just relaxed as much as he could without Duo here as Treize carried him over to the door, the others checking that everybody was dead before they followed him.