Duo's Rat: The Trap 5

By Nix Winter, bard wannabe

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, but I am the only one responsible for this story.

Notes: Persons with true Disassociative Identity Disorder do sometimes truly have altered brain chemistry when in different 'alters'.

Warnings: This chapter will contain graphic depictions of torture. It mentions past sexual violations and some people get shot.

Five

It's hard to play chess when you can't see your opponent's moves. In this kind of chess both Heero and Duo were amateurs, just young men, growing up from being boy terrorists who thought everyone could have freedom, that justice was something that could be fought for. They were the future of Japan and America, loud independence and beautiful honor, and they fell in the blast of the same program triggering sleeping gas that had taken them down before as the door opened.

Heero dropped first, hitting his knees as some lingering programming took over his body. Duo snarled, breath held as he went down to his knees, head already spinning from the gas. His good hand took hold of Heero's hair, rough and urgent, pulling Heero's head up so they were looking each other in the eyes. Duo felt himself sway, felt his lips go numb. "Heero! You are free. You do not have to do what they say!"

There was such a blank look in Heero's eyes though, as if the body were simply a shell, nothing there, and Duo wanted to scream, wanted his gundam, wanted to chop the station into a million little bits with his scythe! He wanted to reach out and into Heero and pull Heero's hidden soul out, hide it in his own body. His fingers slipped slowly from Heero's hair, such soft hair, to hit limply on Heero's shoulder, then slide down until they were hanging by his side.

The woman who'd shot Duo was there then, and Heero felt surprise that he hadn't heard her coming over the ringing in his ears. She grabbed hold of Duo's braid, holding him upright, forcing his head to the side, as she held up a hypo-spray. "Identify, Heero."

"Likely Hydro-mesanine."

"Very good. Your mind does still work. How long do you think it will be before he says anything we wish him to?"

"Don't hurt him. I will do anything you require."

Duo's eyes rolled back in his head as she caressed the business end of the spray down his exposed throat, over his bare shoulder. "But, Dear, you'd only do it as long as we held him hostage. As soon as you could, you'd kill me and escape. Our way is safer. If you want to prove your loyalty, tell him to comply with us, before the Mesanine does too much damage to his primitive little brain."

"If you inject him with that," Heero said, dead serious, already recovering from the triggering gas, even if Duo was not. "I will kill you."

"That's exactly why I have to do it. This is all your fault, Heero, because you are a bad boy."

She pressed the tip to Duo's wounded shoulder and hit the button. Innocent looking clear fluid shot into Duo's body and his good hand pawed weakly at the spray. The shaking had already set in by the time she pulled it back and pushed him towards Heero.

"If you want the antidote, pick him up and bring him to the lab. You can not beat us, Heero. You should accept that you are what you are, a smart dog that needs a keeper. You are a tool, a very valuable tool, and nothing more. His life has value only in that he is your collar. Don't forget that. His voice will give us such a deep control of you and soon we will know exactly how you were made. Compared to you, gundams are old, antiquated weapons."

She turned and strode away. Heero pulled Duo close, soothing his back, comforting Duo's limp form as if the movements could comfort them both. "I will get the antidote, Duo. Don't worry. I will take care of you."

Duo snuggled close to Heero as Heero stood, holding Duo in his arms.

The drug made his brain feel like a kaleidoscope, images and thoughts spinning with bright colors and funny shapes, nothing clear at all, except the warmth of Heero's body, and the knowledge that his voice was Heero's 'key'.

There were splits in Duo as much as there were splits in Heero and deep within him, under the drugs, Shinigami rose. Brain chemistry shifted, resisted the pull of the drug, and failed. Duo the rat, the ultimate survivor, Duo's deepest self rose instead, and rode the drug like he'd ridden all the violence and loss. He had the key that made Heero free, and no drug would ever pull it from him.

Four and a half hours later, every monitoring device their captors had, even with the drug mapping his mind out for them, showing them exactly which parts of the brain to stimulate, they had yet to get him to utter a single word.

Duo stood in a cylindrical frame of gundanium, his head held in a leather harness, the modified zero helmet again on his head, so all Heero could see was Duo's pale lips.

The hours had passed painfully slowly for Heero, as their captors had tried various methods for forcing Duo to speak, to say what they wished him to say. They wished for Duo to command Heero to transfer the 'key' from him to their lead doctor. Heero found it gratifying that her lips were pale too, her face looking frightened as her own people watched her. They were a pack of hyenas.

Duo would break, eventually, and Heero know he would die when that happened. Heero watched everything just a little distant from the events. Their techniques were flawless. They had the best technology, had ways to stimulate Duo's brain in ways that could plunge the man back into his own memories so vividly that Duo would have felt they were real. Those same memories were displayed on a wide screen for the researchers.

Heero gathered that what they really wanted was for his own mind to become open to this kind of rape. And then they would literally know how to create more monsters like himself. Heero hated himself more each time he watched a tiny Duo try to save a bleeding Sister Helen. He had caused destruction like that. He had caused people like Duo to cry.

Heero had one more self destruct button left though, and he locked his Kyo self away within himself. Tears were so like rain. He'd always hated rain. Kyo did not understand why they stood there and watched! Kyo wanted to fight and save Duo, even if Duo had not commanded it. Kyo wanted to remember a time before there were triggers and rules and programming. Heero knew they could not. Heero simply had one final weapon. When Duo betrayed them, and he would, Heero knew he would, because no one could sustain resistance against such programming indefinitely, then Heero would destroy the physical mind. These monsters would not be creating more monsters such as himself.

As the memory of Duo's rape flowed over the screen, remembered screams echoing through the sound system, even though Duo in the present said nothing, not even a whimper, that was when Heero broke. "Stop! Let me talk to him, please."

The power shifted again in the room and their blackwidow of a captor smiled, putting her minons back into place as if that was what she'd planned all along. "If you think it will help, Heero dear."

"It will help. Give him the antidote, remove the helmet. Let me talk to him. And then, when you have me. You will free him, safely."

"Of course, dear," she said, cloying, sweet, some kind of motherly figure. "We'll erase his memories, Heero. He'll have a second chance. No more war, no more pain. All of these dark memories will go away. We'll even see that he can go to school, have a nice home. You would want that for him, wouldn't you? A chance to be normal?"

"Yes," Heero said, watching carefully as her assistants removed the helmet, dosed a shaking Duo with the antidote. She was a liar. Someone of Duo's mass could not withstand the brain damage caused by the drug they'd used. Heero thought he could take them both out, just break Duo's neck so quickly, then cause several aneurisms in his own brain. They'd both die. He wondered, faintly, like a faint fairy hope, if they'd be free of their bodies then, free of war, able to be together and free of pain, free of grief. Heero ran how he'd do it in his mind, how to slide his hands along Duo's slender, already bruised throat, make it a caress, expressing all love he felt, then fast, so quick, so that Duo would never feel anything. "Let me talk to him. Let me touch him, so it will draw him back to himself. When he speaks, I will transfer the key to you. And then you will let him free. I trust you." Heero could lie so well sometimes.

"Of course, Heero dear," she said, waving her team back. "Of course, if you try to free him from the restraints, I'll have him shot. There is a sniper on the second level of the mezzanine."

"Understood," Heero said. He had no intention of freeing Duo's body.

The helmet was lifted as Heero stepped into the frame with Duo. The bruising was so much worse now, leaving both of Duo's eyes swollen nearly shut, but those eyes watched Heero with a wild animal's skittishness. So tenderly, Heero caressed Heero's cheek, and for a moment, there could have been so much love, and passion between them, all the love of Heero's life condensed into this one moment because he knew there wouldn't be another coming after. In that moment, eyes locked with Duo's, Heero willing gave up his virginity, gave up all his reservations, and lived a whole life as Duo's mate. "It's alright, Duo. I love you and I understand. I don't want you to resist anymore. Let them have what they want. I can't watch you suffer any more."

Of all the responses that Duo could have given, the one he gave would have made Duo's top 10 never-going-to-happen list. Duo stuck his tongue out, and smiled. Heero blinked, not able to translate the gesture into meaning just then.

Duo's fingers flexed, his wrist turning in the leather restraint and Heero reached to lace his fingers through Duo's. He could break Duo's slender neck with one hand, so it was okay to hold Duo's hand. The betrayal would come in a moment, then their deaths. Heero could face the end of their lives, there, together with Duo, so long as Duo didn't suffer anymore.

All that came was silence.

"Duo?" Heero said, moving closer so his breath moved against Duo's cheek, "Just say the key and we'll both be free. No more pain, no more fear, no more war. Just say the key."

Duo's lips touched Heero's cheek, no sound, not even a hard breath, just a silent kiss, and then Heero knew. Duo would not speak the key. Their captors could shred them slowly, but Duo would never betray him, never speak the key, no matter what they made him relive, or how many times, or what they did to his body. Duo was Shinigami too, and understood layers, understood how to hide, and he would hold Heero's trust so dearly. Heero was scrambling for a new plan, when the lead doctor sensed something must have gone seriously wrong.

He felt her movement before the sound of her footstep hit him, and he moved, springing up towards the mezzanine, where his mind had already noticed the sniper. Heero Yuy was programmed to be the perfect soldier and he was. His lead enemy screamed at him and he stayed visible for her, drawing her attention away from Duo, until he found the sniper only a moment later. The man fired, and Heero's mind assessed and laid in information about how the man held his gun, finger pressure and placement. He was on the man and they both went down. Only Heero came back up, riffle in hand, fingers placed exactly as his opponent had, trying for the same pressure, and then the good doctor's assistants began to fall.

She screamed, ran towards Duo and Heero laid down fire between them, a straight line that brought her up sharp. Snarling, she turned towards him, hands held up. The man she'd had most of the tension with was screaming at her, that this was all her fault, that she was an arrogant bitch and that he was going to kill her. None of them probably thought he'd get the chance. "Remove the restraints from Duo," Heero said, without emotion, rifle 's red sight trained on her forehead.

Groans and cursing were coming from the three or four assistants that he'd shot, and she hesitated. He put a bullet through her hand. Blood splattered, little shards of white, and she screamed.

Her second in command moved towards Duo. "I'm removing the restraints. There is a shuttle fully fueled in the third hanger. Don't take the one in bay two. It has a problem with the engine."

"What do you want," Heero asked, red dot back on the lead doctor's forehead.

"I want you not to kill us," the man said, holding Duo on his feet as he moved him out of the restraint frame. "Just don't kill us."

"Do not make aggressive moves towards Duo or me and I will let you live," Heero said. He slung the rifle over his shoulder by the strap and went over the railing, dropping back to the ground in a ready crouch. He was moving all on his own too, no mission from someone else driving him, only his own will, just as Duo had told him, to act as he saw fit. None of their attackers were dead yet. He didn't have to kill, if he didn't want to, but he would if they hurt Duo even the slightest bit more. "Do not attempt to program children, or we will come back and kill you."

"You're just a god damn tool! What do you think you're going to do? Go and live some normal life yourself, Heero," she spat at him, holding her bleeding, ruined hand to her chest. "You'll kill again, out there, without someone to control you. You don't want that, do you? To be a danger to everyone?"

"I wouldn't be. The person who holds my key is a good person," Heero said, slipping an arm around Duo's waist and pulling him close.

As soon as they were on the shuttle, Heero reconfigured the communications and sent a call to have them picked up. Heero's own controls were not who he called though. He called Duo's Sweeper friends.

As soon as he was sure they were safely away, he went back to where he'd strapped Duo in and found him awake.

"Duo? Are you in pain? I don't believe they're following us or tracking us."

Duo looked up, a small smile lifting one side of his mouth. His lips were dry and he licked them, eyeing the cabinet where medical supplies and emergency water and food.

Heero opened it, pulled out a water and a nutripack. "Hungry? Thirsty?"

Duo reached for the water like it was the only Christmas present ever, biting the seal off and sucking it dry.

"Duo, what is your status?" Heero asked, reaching for another water pouch, which Duo took just as quickly.

When the second water pouch was drained flat, Duo leaned back and gave Heero a small twitch of his smile. The sounds of the shuttles engines were too loud to Heero, too overwhelming. As they sat there in the silence, Heero crouching before where Duo sat, Heero thought he could hear space laughing at him. He'd given his key to someone who would give up anything to keep it safe. "Say something Duo, please."

Duo's mouth opened, closed slightly, hung open, then he was holding the side of his head, grimacing.

"Don't Duo, just let it fade a little," Heero said, a hand on Duo's knee. "Your voice will come back soon."

End of The Trap

Coming soon… Plates