by: Kracken
Disclaimer: Don't own them, but I really would like too. Please don't sue, strange people don't have any money and I'm plenty strange!
Warnings: Yaoi, guys getting mooshy mooshy with each other, violence, angst, Duo torture, Heero being a meany. Bad guy splatter. Duo's P.O.V.

Tie Me Up

The alarm makes me jump almost out of my skin. "Damn, Duo Baka!" I mutter as my fingers fly over the keyboard of the computer. "Just a few minutes, that's all I need. Damn protocol alarm! I knew better than that! Heero's going to kill me! He is definitely going to kill me!"

The room is dark, the glow of the computer screen interrupted by the strings of code I'm pouring into it. Access denied. Access denied. Access denied!

"Fucking machine! Fucking code! Why isn't it working?"

It's too late. My mission is a failure. If I don't leave now, they're going to capture me. Still, I can't bring myself to leave. I bang the keyboard with my flying fingers, sweat beading my face and eyes narrowing with desperation.

Acces denied. Access denied. I want to cry, but I don't have time. I'm the ultimate hacker, the best there is. How many times have I bragged about it to anyone who would listen, especially Heero?

Access denied. Access denied. I don't want to fail. How can I face them if I do? How can I face Heero? He'll hate me, I'm certain. That's what I really can't face.

Access denied. Access denied. The gun presses against the side of my face. My fingers stop. I swallow and let my hands drop into my lap as I swivel my eyes to see the three Oz guards.

They are older men, war veterans. They know what I am; damned Gundam terrorist, their most hated enemy. How many of their friends have I killed? How many sisters? How many brothers? Fathers? Mothers? My hands, so chill in my lap, are steeped in blood. I know what to expect. If I was in their shoes, I suppose I would act the same way. brutal, vicious, and hell bent on exacting some revenge before the higher ups find out there's a prisoner.

I go down in a melee of fists and kicking boots. Someone grabs my braid and uses it for leverage. I hate that. It always makes me go berserk, that stinging of the scalp, that sudden fear that I might lose something so precious to me. My beating gets more brutal as I struggle. They pin me down at last and... I don't want to think about how they're pulling my pants down. I just close my eyes and pant, trying to flood my body with enough adrenalin to dull the pain I know is coming. Still, I can't help talking. I never shut up. Anyone will tell you that. This wasn't an exception.

"You shouldn't do that, " I manage to say through my busted lips. "My-My boyfriend is very jealous!"

They're disgusted. I find that funny. Here they are, about to rape me, and they're disgusted that I'm gay! They make the mistake of loosening their grip. I think they've decided to just beat me to death instead. Too bad for them. I slip my hand into my black coat and yank out my knife.

I'm a trained killer. I don't feel sorry for them. I don't hesitate and wonder if there's a better way of dealing with the situation. I don't simply try and run. I do what I've been trained to do. I kill, everyone, without a blink or a twitch. They don't even have time to get their guns out of their holsters. They just clutch at the knife wounds I give them, across the throat, in the gut, in the face, under the chin. It isn't pretty and it isn't quick, dying by a knife. I just take one of their guns and shoot them in the end. By that time, black, thick blood is oozing everywhere. I'm covered in it, but that's proper. I'm Shinigami, after all, Death.

"Well," I find myself saying to the room of dead men as I pull up my pants, "at least you don't have to answer to Heero. He wouldn't have been so easy on you." I laugh, a little hysterical, as I sit down at the computer and try to hack it again. You see, I didn't want to answer to Heero either.

Access Granted. I grin and begin singing a soft, happy tune as I watch reams of information begin to download to our remote station. I wait for the 'complete' to flash and then I close the connection and enter my virus. By the time Oz realizes it's there, it'll chew through all of their system's data.

Escape time. I'm good at that too. I've entered the virus into basic systems maintenance. Lights go off, alarms and locks fail, communications go down. They can't coordinate a search now. They can't track me either. All I have to do is become one with the shadows.

I stand up and then abruptly sit down again. My body feels like shit. Pain stabs through my lungs and guts. The room whites out. No! No! No! I will not pass out! Getting out is part of the mission! I refuse to fail! I refuse! Get up, damned body! Get up, Duo, Baka! You are going to escape!

I'm shaking with the pain, but I force myself to my feet. Move! Move! Move! I put one foot in front of the other. The whiteness of unconsciousness plays at the edges of my sight. I take deep, steadying breaths, panting like a woman in labor, trying to increase my adrenalin.

Broken ribs, maybe one in the lung, I think, as the pain shoots up my side and grinds inside, deep, and all encompassing. Bruised kidney, hopefully, not a ruptured spleen, or I'll be dead soon. Ruptured disk in my lower back for sure. My legs are tingling with numbness even though my back is alive with pain. How far can I get like this? As far as I have to, I tell myself determinedly.

Too many damned hallways! I'm lost, wandering, sunk in a haze and wondering why someone hasn't captured me already. I wish they would. I just want someone to put me out of my misery. At one point, the pain becomes so bad I throw up and collapse. Sprawled and sobbing on the cool floor, I don't know how much time passes. When a hard hand takes hold of me, I'm relieved.

"Just shoot me now, please," I whisper to the pool of vomit next to my head.

"Baka!" Heero's voice growls. "You've alerted the whole base to our presence!"

"Hello to you too, Lover," I reply with a broken smile. I'm not surprised by the blow to the face. It almost spins me into unconsciousness as he hauls me to my feet by the front of my jacket.

"We are in danger," Heero hisses, but I feel more threatened by him than any Oz guard. He asks about what's most important to him, "Mission completed?"

I nod and he relaxes. I know he would have left me and gone back if I had said no. I don't blame him for that. I would have done the same. It's what we're trained for, what we believe in. We both understand, would have understood, and wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"I'm hurt," I tell him; a severe understatement, but I have my pride. "You might have to carry me."

"Shut up, Baka, and walk!" Heero snarls in reply. "We have to get out of here, now!"

Oh, come on! You were expecting sympathy, worry, words of love, from Heero Yuy? Don't hold your breath! You'll suffocate before any of that happens!

The air is cold and it's raining as we leave the base and flee into the forest. Perhaps flee isn't the right word. Stumble like broken dolls, is more descriptive, my arm flung over Heero's shoulders and my legs barely holding me up as he drags me after him. I'm smaller than him, lighter too, but not by much. It isn't easy for him and I don't know what he went through before he hooked up with me nearly face down in my own vomit. He had been working on his part of the plan, sabotaging enemy machinery. Of course, his part of the mission had gone through without a hitch. He wouldn't have left if it hadn't. He wouldn't have been there to save me either. Whatever he felt for me, I would never rate higher than a completed mission.

We have to rest. No, I have to rest. Heero isn't about to admit that kind of weakness. I pull away from him, ignoring his curses, and sit on a fallen tree, the rain pouring down and making me a miserable, pain filled, lump of Human fallibility.

Heero just stands there, panting a little, his only sign of fatigue, and glares at me. I think he's actually counting the seconds I'm wasting. His hand is behind him. He has a butt holster. When his eyes narrow, I know what he's thinking. He won't leave me alive for Oz to find.

"K, I can go on now, Heero, no need for-"

We were in a fucking forest! There are hundreds of trees, hundreds of places, and an infinite time for something to happen. Why did it have to happen to me, just then, and in that very spot? Kind of makes you believe in fate.

I hear the crack of a tree limb breaking. I feel Heero grab me hard by the arm and pull. I feel myself brought up painfully short by my braid as something smashes down on my hand. I howl with the increase of pain until Heero claps a hand over my mouth. I scream against it, jerking and shuddering, until I'm just too exhausted and near unconsciousness to do anything any more. He lowers his hand then, cautiously, looking behind me as the rain trails down his face in rivulets and drops off his chin.

I look too, after gathering the courage. It's worse than I imagined. The tree limb is big and heavy. My braid disappears between it and the fallen tree I'd been sitting on. My hand is under there too, buried up to my wrist. It's definitely broken.

"Huh!" Is Heero's only, exasperated comment. He digs with his fingers around my hand and wrist and then tugs sharply. I feel it slide across slippery mold and pulped mushrooms attached to the dead tree. I gasp and whimper, biting my lip so hard it bleeds. The blood mingles with the rain running down my face.

My hand slides free. It's definitely broken. It hurts so bad I can almost see it pulse and swell with each shocking wave of agony. Still, I ignore it, well, as much as I can, worrying about a far more important part of my body; my precious braid.

Heero tugs. He tugs again. He braces a foot against the tree and grits his teeth as he pulls. I whimper some more, not from pain this time, but because of my fear for my hair as Heero, at last, gives up. It's not an easy thing for Heero to do. Mission not accomplished.

"No," I say, before he even suggests it.

He doesn't argue. He paces, a hand wiping at the rain on his face, trying to find some solution. I want to cry. I really want to cry. Don't you see it? Can you understand how much it took for Heero, the Perfect Soldier, the unfeeling, cold fish, bastard, to not slash my braid in half and drag me off? Maybe nobody can see it but me. I've watched his face, his moods, his slightest body language for a long time now, ever since I realized that I loved him and wanted to know if he loved me too. As definitions of Heero's feelings go, this was a biggie. This was definitely a sign of deep and abiding love. He really, really cared about-

Heero jumps on me suddenly, rain and mud splattering me as he begins to beat the crap out of me. "Baka! Baka! Duo Baka!" It was like a song or a chant. Heero had taken a step too far. His training was kicking in at the worst possible moment. Emotions were a liability. He was in a dangerous, military situation. The conflict of interest was more than he could handle.

I defend myself, kick out, punch with my good hand. I've learned a thing or two since I began stalking my Heero tiger. One of my punches connects solidly with his chin. Maybe he let me do it, I'm not sure. It seemed too easy. The pain of the blow shakes Heero back to his senses. He steps back, breathing hard and cursing between those breaths. I know then that he doesn't know what to do, how to free me, how to not have to kill me.

Heero pulls out his gun. I stiffen. This is it. The soldier just made a decision, the only one possible.

"I love you anyway, Heero," I say and he stands and blinks at me as the rain pours down over us both. "I know you can't help it. They trained you too well, so well, that you won't even feel bad about it later. That's okay. I don't want you to feel bad. We never had a chance anyway. Me and my screwed up life and you and yours. How could two messed up individuals find happiness together? The answer is, we weren't going to. You would have killed me sooner or later or I would have had to kill you to stop you. I am Shinigami after all-"

"Shut up, Duo," Heero growls. He steps forward and puts his gun away. His hands lock on the heavy tree branch, testing it against his own strength. I see a look on his face and I know the branch isn't going to win. It's probably the same look he wore when he self destructed. Total dedication to a cause.

Pain isn't a consideration with Heero, or the frailty of flesh. It's frightening to see a man strain with every ounce of energy he has, to hear joints popping, and to see muscles and veins twitching and standing out with a single-minded effort. The branch could do only one thing, give way before that determination. It creaks, and slides, and then topples over with a crash, branches catching at me painfully as it slides by me onto the ground. My braid comes free and I pull it close to examine it.

"It's all right!" I can hardly believe it. Muddy, knotted, but still in one piece. My Shinigami pride and joy, the keeper of my memories, was still with me.

Heero had dislocated his shoulder. He snaps it back with the smallest of grunts and grimaces. "Get up, now, Baka, and kiss your hair another time."

Okay, I was kissing it, but it was an attempt at humor by Heero, someone whom I thought incapable of it. When he reaches down to help me up, I wrap my arms around him and give him a kiss on the cheek, warm and thankful. He doesn't jerk away, his skin just twitches like a nervous animal.

I know I'm in danger, but I don't care. I slide my lips along his cheek until I meet his lips. I'm not prepared for him to grab me with his one good hand and jerk me against his hard body. He devours my mouth, breathing inside of it, jamming his tongue in, hurting my damaged lips. Heero doesn't know how to be gentle. This hot kiss was all he knew of foreplay. He throws me on my back right after that, jerking down my pants, as if we were perfectly safe and not stretched out in the rain and mud.

Crazy, you think? Couldn't happen? Adrenalin does strange things to men. It can make them strong. It can make them endure. It can also make them unbearably horny. Being two young teenagers, we reacted to the overdose of adrenalin as if we had been dipped in sex hormones and set on fire. We would have done it, right then and there too, except that I knew it would kill me.

"You're jeopardizing the mission." I pant the words. I'm still in horrible pain. He's on top of me, hitching my legs up. He freezes as if I had just kicked him in the face again.

He's going to beat me to death, I think, but it's a detached thought. I really want him to continue. I want him to fuck me. I want to be with Heero even in the mud and rain, even though I'm in terrible pain. How can I stop him when this is the first time that he doesn't have to be tied hand and foot to have sex with me? It's a triumph. I'm not sure it's a triumph I'm going to survive.

The soldier kicks in. I can see the guilt and the distaste at himself, that he's broken training and tried to do this with me. I can see him thinking, 'This is why I was trained not to love, not to have emotions, and not to have sex. It does make a soldier vulnerable. It is a distraction.' It moves behind his dark eyes like print on a white page. My fault, those eyes accuse in the end.

"Let's find the Gundams," I whisper, sick at heart and wishing now that I had let him do it. He's lowered the wall between us again. I'm just Gundam Pilot 02 again. A necessary evil. A competent set of hands at Deathscythe's controls. For that and that alone, he will deign to save me.

It's harder now. Heero can't grip me with only one good hand and arm. The one that had been dislocated, was numb. I, with my broken hand, can't hold onto him too well. We stagger like drunks through the forest and hope that we don't run into any patrols. In our state, we can't put up much of a fight.

+

[cont]