Nightmare

Nightmare
Warnings: Yaoi, angst, torture, character deaths, mentions of rape, strong violence. I can hardly believe I wrote this--it was a gift to my wifey.


Duo and Heero settle comfortably into the twin-size bed with the blue, sagging mattress and the elegantly carved mahogany bed frame. The yellow fleece blanket with the image of a unicorn delicately woven into the center covers them from cold foot to chin. Heero leans out of the bed slightly and blows out the fat purple candle that serves to light their room and lower their electricity bill every month. In the sudden but gentle darkness of the room, Duo's voice rasps softly. "How was school?"

"The same," Heero breathes. Duo snuggles up to him, content to be warm and close. "Damn it, Duo!" Heero jumps, grumpily startled. "Stop putting your cold feet on me!" Duo laughs heartily. "But your feet are so warm! And you're my boyfriend! We're supposed to cuddle!" Heero, irritated that he cannot, in fact, argue either point, exhales slowly and yanks the covers from Duo. "You—" A scuffle begins for ownership of the covers, concluding with Heero on top of Duo, both teens entangled in the coverlet. "Go to sleep already," Duo mumbles. Heero's grumbled response is unintelligible. Both drift into a dreamless sleep.



Duo pours ketchup onto his purposefully overcooked rice and munches on a wonton. Heero zips his backpack. "Will you be home later?" The stoic, dark-haired teen nods. The door slams as he departs for another day of sitting at a desk and hoping for Relena's death. Duo finishes eating breakfast and rolls his eyes when he sees that Heero has forgotten to wash his dishes…again. Duo loads the dishes into the dishwasher and starts it. For the next hour he putters around the house, cleaning and straightening things. It's a mundane, comforting routine he undertakes before he goes to work in his Gundam, his giant Death-scythe robot every day.




Nightfall ends another pleasantly dull, mundane day. Duo has gotten so used to everything, even sex with Heero. The fat purple candle burns strongly, endlessly. The sex is slow and satisfying, the after-orgasm cuddling a constant comfort. Duo feels safe in his life, in his world. He feels calm as he sleeps, easily and without fail each night. Mass every Sunday brings fond memories of Father Maxwell and Duo's being forgiven. Each night, Duo reads a dozen or two verses from the Bible and thinks proudly of the tattoo on his left breast, over his heart—a rosary, and Heero's name above it. The two loves of his life are his religion and his boyfriend. Heero is an atheist and Duo does not care. They are opposite in personality and looks, but love each other more than anything. That is what matters to Duo. "Duo."


"Hm?"

"Let's go for a walk tomorrow." Even though they have sex on a regular basis and are each home every night, it has been awhile since they had honestly spent any time together. "Okay." In the darkness, in the sagging bed with the soft blanket, next to the one he loves, Duo smiles.


Sunlight pours through the bedroom window, lighting up the sky-blue walls. The white curtains gleam a buttery yellow and flutter gently as Heero dislodges them with his feet in an attempt to get out of bed. "Where are you going?" Duo mumbles, his face buried in the pillow. He knows he'll be waddling today, thanks to last night, even if it was slow. "The shower."


"I'll join you," Duo leaps up eagerly to follow Heero. He tosses his pajama pants onto the bed as he grabs his towel from the wall hook. Heero turns the shower water on and hangs his towel on the wall's towel rod. The barely warm water leaves the frosted-glass door clear, so that if anyone accidentally (or purposefully, for that matter) walk in on the two youths, they would see everything. Sex without a condom makes Duo nervous, and sex without lube makes him cringe, but both excite Heero. He always makes Duo forget because he's so good. Half of Duo's confessions every Sunday are, "I had sex with my boyfriend even though the Bible forbids it," and occasionally, maybe once every four months, the confession becomes, "My boyfriend fucked me so hard in the shower I completely forgot my surroundings. He didn't use a condom or lubricant and now I worry that I might get AIDS even though we're monogamous." Duo does not think about that now, nor does he think about anything but Heero and what Heero is doing to him. It's exciting different than usual and intensely satisfying. The hickey Heero gives Duo, along the with the accompanying bites on the neck, hurt deliciously and have Duo begging for more. Heero happily obliges, and turns the shower water off. They stumble out of the bathroom, unable to stop fondling or kissing each other, and barely climb into bed, still damp from the shower, before Heero is inside Duo a second time. Half an hour later, they dress and walk outside, holding hands like old times. Duo is happy his life is going so well. The pleasant dullness has lifted into simple happiness and satisfaction.


Days blend into weeks, then months. Duo is comfortable in his Gundam every day and occasionally thinks about the times that people accuse him of being a terrorist. The rains come. Duo and Heero collect some rainwater daily and nightly, boiling, cooling and drinking it. It lowers the water bill. One rainy day, Duo and Heero walk in the dark, slick streets. They live in a dangerous neighborhood but nothing has ever happened to them, something they are both very thankful for. Heero walks slightly ahead of him, accustomed to the sounds of the night. Duo, however, jumps at every shadow. He is nervous and cannot help thinking that something bad is going to happen. He says none of this out loud. Gunshots blare and the street lights up briefly. A corpse thuds as it lands in the street. Heero grabs Duo and they run together, away. A car's tires screech and glass breaks as the vehicle collides with a telephone pole—a drunk driver. Duo's pulse mimics a machine gun. The sky is dark purple. The sun has set, the streetlights flicker awake and it is so dark outside. Footsteps sound and Duo is grabbed from behind.




He stomps down as hard as he can on the person's foot at the moment they put a knife to his throat. A man grunts in pain and Duo struggles to flee as the knife is dropped. "Heero!" He frantically tries to locate his boyfriend and does. Heero is fighting with another assailant. Duo is punched and kicked as he tries to run. The assailant drags Duo away, ignoring his kicking and screaming. He bangs a metal object against Duo's head and Duo loses consciousness. He and Heero were in the wrong place at the wrong time.


It is raining when Duo awakens and is tossed from the car. He does not see his assailants as he hits the asphalt of an unfamiliar street. The car speeds away as he clumsily stands, disoriented and trying to figure out his location.



There are no street signs, no lights. Someone walks in the street towards him. He touches his face. His lip and nose sting and bleed, and he knows he will have a dark purple bruise on his skin. His shirt is torn. It is fragile, cotton, black with white on the sleeves, and old. He is not surprised. Gooseflesh scrambles along his skin, the cold dangerous night surrounding him. The person walking towards him is now in front of him, wearing a mask. Duo recognizes the sound of a gun being cocked. "I know you don't want to get shot, Duo. Come with me and you won't be harmed."

"Marimea—ow!" She kicks him. Hard. "Heero is unharmed but if you disobey me, both of you will be fatally injured. Keep walking." For the entire six blocks, Duo curses himself for being unarmed. "Who assaulted me in the street?" He asks questions to try and figure out his situation. "Treize."


"Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere." It is an abandoned warehouse. Armed soldiers, masked and holding assault rifles, stand at the entrance. They part for Marimea. There are others inside.. Boys and girls ranging from ten to twenty years old. A sea of faces, none of which Duo recognizes. "Gather," Marimea commands. They move as one towards Duo. He is shoved around, and he realizes that they are all walking to a window that he now faces as well. If he tries to escape, he will be harmed. With the rest of the captives, he looks outside. A masked solider dressed completely in black shoves Trowa into view. Trowa? He'd been stationed here all this time? Duo has not seen him, Quatre or Wufei in over a year. Are they, like him, trapped here? The solider raises his gun and shoots Trowa once, twice, thrice in the face. The Gundam pilot shouts in pain each time, his shouts silenced with the final gunshot to the temple. Duo is devastated to watch his friend's death and wishes he could have saved him somehow.


"Over the course of the night, this will all happen to you. Each of you terrorists will die," Marimea's voice echoes over the crying children and some of the teenagers who cannot stop screaming. Fire is opened on those who are crying and screaming. Each of them lies dying in their own pool of blood. The remaining crowd is herded through the warehouse, aware of the muffled screams in other rooms. A dozen girls are deposited in the first room where Duo sees that rape is the form of torture. There is a room where mosquitoes, wasps and lice are biting and stinging and breeding on their victims. Several other rooms have gruesome forms of torture. Duo wishes this nightmare would end.



Slowly, the crowd dwindles as specific people are shoved into specific torture rooms. Finally, ten remain. Duo and others he does not know. Who are these other pilots? They walk into the room at the end of the long gray hall. The door shuts silently, but the locking mechanism could be mistaken for a shot from a cannon. The room is completely dark, except for light streaming through a window. The room has two stories. A woman stares down from the window, looking at the victims who will go through untold hells. She wears a pink dress and—it's Relena. What on earth is Relena doing here? She is reaching out to a wall in the room on the second story, where the light is coming from. A low hum fills the large room Duo is in. The woman has flipped a switch that turns on all the lights in the room, as well as several giant gray machines. Someone bumps into Duo, and he jumps, remembering the last unpleasant time someone strange made contact with him. He recognizes the blond hair and blue eyes. "Quatre!" What a relief to see an old familiar face. "Hi Duo," he responds eagerly. Worry is in his eyes. "Are all these people accused of being terrorists?"


"I think so."


"What's going to happen to us?"


"I don't want to know," whimpers the blond.


They are living a nightmare. People are stabbed and girls' heads are being shaved. Others are beaten and raped. Duo is one of them. The giant machines whir. Quatre is chained to one and whipped. His arms are forced into a horizontal slot in the gray contraption. "Quatre," Duo spits blood. "What are they going to do to you?"

"I don't know, but this one is going to hurt a lot," tears stream down his face. The machine drags along the teen's arms, ripping off several layers of skin. Blood gushes out and Quatre wails in pain. Duo turns from the hideous sight, unable to help his fellow pilot. The door is open. He runs out, down the hall, out the main door and away, away…he is so dizzy. His head is pounding and he is bleeding again. He's going to die, he knows. He collapses in front of his apartment, the rising sun shining on his injured body.



He wakes up in the hospital with Heero by his side. "They have you on painkillers and you'll be out today." Relief floods through Duo as Heero takes his hand. "I'm so glad you're okay," Duo wheezes. Heero nods. "I'm glad you're here and safe."


"Trowa is dead, Wufei is missing and Quatre was tortured," Duo informs Heero tonelessly. A nurse walks into the room. "You'll be fine, Mr. Maxwell. Relax for a few days and use the ice pack on your face often. Use the painkillers as needed." Duo looks at the orange bottle in his hand. He has been prescribed Percocet, a very powerful and addictive painkiller. The pills are large, oval and white.

"Thank you."



Weeks later, Duo still cannot sleep, or he wakes up screaming from vivid nightmares. He takes the pills to sleep, but his body quickly builds up a tolerance to them. Heero tries in vain to comfort him.. Duo can't talk about what happened and continues taking the pills, even when his body has healed. His and Heero's relationship becomes strained. He takes even more pills. Duo stops eating and becomes reclusive, refusing to fly his Gundam. He snaps at Heero and it is rare that they have a conversation that doesn't end in an argument. Duo cannot stop taking the Percocet and enrolls himself in a treatment program. Once he completes the program, Duo receives a gift from Heero that is unusual for them both.


"Duo, tell me why you're here," the therapist poises the pen over his notebook. Duo looks at Heero and takes a deep breath. "I watched the death of one friend after I was kidnapped, the torture of another and I was beaten and raped. I have recently overcome an addiction to prescription painkillers. It was a nightmare."