cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-04-29 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | 1x2, duo, heero |
[GW] I Quit (In 12 Parts)
I Quit (In 12 Parts)
by cozzybob
Rating: R
Pair: 1x2
Warning: little dark, intense, swearing, some torture, angst-ness, minor limes (with a happy ending!).
Note: This was originally going to be for fic_to_quit way back when, but that never really happened, so. Hee! I told Su dahlink that I'd write her a Howard piece for her birthday, but I found this sitting on my puter, and I figure she deserves--*gasp*--1x2 from me since I lurve her and we never see each other anymore. ^^ Enjoy, ralphiere! I love you soooo much!
Summary: Heero has been captured, and Duo's determined to get him back by whatever means necessary.
I.
Today you're a Sweeper, and your name is Jack. I've met you in a degenerating alley off an L4 spaceport, and you have his tousled hair, but your eyes are all wrong, all dark and brown with the stench of bloody mud caked over your worn once-waterproof hiking boots. There's something fleshy red under your fingernails, and when you catch me looking for just a moment too long, you grin that over-grinned grin that all the Sweepers tend to wear, the one that says, Yeah, that's really what you think it is. Even when it's not.
You're daring me to ask, but I refuse to be baited. It's not the first time I met a man with gore underneath his fingernails, and it's not the first time I didn't really care, either.
We're settled here today because you have a new lead for me, and the man who gives you your career is almost my father. You think that Howard overindulges me in this, but you don't know that finding Heero is a matter of war and peace, and you don't know that the war is going to be started by yours truly if you don't answer my goddamn questions.
So I don't bother to flash you my badge because you already know that I'm a Preventer and you already know who I'm looking for. And you know that it wouldn't matter one way or another, because you know who I am when I'm not a Preventer, and you don't like that very much at all.
You don't dare to play games. You know better, because you're a Sweeper, and Howard picks his men well. When you tell me exactly what I want to know, your all-wrong eyes travel shamelessly up and down my form, and I barely restrain from ripping your throat out. Because you're smart, you carefully walk away, and I pretend to forget all about it.
II.
On L1, you're an ex-OZ-convert-White-Fang by the name of Jace, and you look exactly like Wufei, except your hair is dyed white and your eyes are blue. I've never seen anyone like you before, and you smile something much more subtle than Jack, but far less beautiful than Heero.
You're even younger than I am, and I wonder how that's possible. You have a soft rumble like he does, and you're quiet, to the point in things. I like you more than I'm supposed to like you, and I know that you know it, but you don't know who I am or what I want with you, so when I flash my badge, you seem genuinely surprised, and your shoulders straighten like galvanized steel the way all Victorian cadets are taught in the presence of higher authority. I don't wave you at ease because I don't want you to know that the authority sickens me, and that I like you better when you're relaxed.
I ask you about White Fang. You tell me they're all dead.
I lead you into the bathroom, shut and lock the door, and I slam you against the nearest wall. When you don't answer, I knee twice you in the kidneys, and you cough hard several times before falling to the ground.
Your pale blue eyes are betrayed, and I don't care at all.
I ask you again.
You say nothing.
I pick you up by your hair and press the tip of my knife into your beautifully beating pulse.
You give me a name.
And I let you live because I like you.
III.
On a commercial flight to Brussles, you're a little girl named Lillian, and you tell me that I'm not supposed to smoke when I pull out a cigarette.
The flight attendants refuse to interfere because this is the smoking section, but a mother, probably yours, is across the walkway and glaring holes into my right hand where the pack is so warm and welcoming. I have to share the seat with you, but even though I had the window, I took the isle so that you could watch the ship go down into re-entry. It's been an hour since then, and there's another hour until we get to Brussels, but you hadn't taken your eyes from the window until my hand moved and I took the bane of my existence out of my pocket.
I have the humanity to feel guilty. It refreshes me because I've let myself feel guilty for so little these days and you are so precious with your big green tea eyes and softly wilted frown. You pluck nervously at your baby blue shirt, and point to the drawn cigarette.
"You shouldn't do that," you tell me. Your voice is determined and it reminds me of Heero that day he bailed me out of the barge only to tell me that he didn't have an escape plan. When thoughts of him inspire the frown on my lips, you hesitantly add, "It's very bad for you."
I really don't want to put it away, because it craves hard and angry, and I haven't indulged in several days. But, "I'm trying to quit," I tell you, lamely.
You smile brilliantly. "That's good!" The smile grows wider. Innocently devious, or perhaps not-so. "So put it back."
And I do.
Heero would hate me if I didn't, and you remind me too much of everything I might have already lost trying to save him.
Your mother goes back to her magazine, but you don't return to your window.
IV.
In Brussels, you're an old and wrinkly Quinze, and you live on the thirtieth floor of a high-rise apartment complex. You have three cats and two dogs and a goldfish named Sandy. You're a hundred percent senile.
When I ask you why you're alive, you tell me, "God squeezed me out, that was what my mother used to say," and when I mention Libra, you say, "No, no, I'm a cancer." Then you frown, the tip of your finger to the edge of parched lips, and you add, "No, it's heart disease. That's not a form of cancer, right?"
I'm cannot give this up because everything I have points to you, but you haven't got a clue. I sigh and ask you about White Fang.
You point to a flea-ridden golden retriever and grin.
Frustrated, I pull out that same pack of cigarettes, and in my rotten luck, you sober and waggle a finger, just like Lillian. "You aren't supposed to do that."
I revel in the embers lighting up in a warm glow, and I pull the smoke into my lungs, cough when my body reminds me of how long it's been. Feeling guilty, I only allow a small puff and drop it on your rug, crushing the fire with the toe of my boot.
There is no reaction in you, and it feels so wrong.
"I know," I tell you.
"Shouldn't smoke," you say, "My mother smoked, and had lung cancer. Father drank himself to death, he died with a bad kidney."
"I know," I say again, feeling lame, even though I hadn't, and didn't really care.
But you go on and on and on, and I leave because I don't want to listen to you babble anymore.
V.
In a night club on the other side of town, you're a stripper named Lavender and you're wearing your namesake in whatever sparse clothing currently attached to your body. Your breasts are very large, your face nearly plastic, your smile permanently full and pouting. You've got lavender-colored hair, but I know you're a natural blonde because your brows are golden, like rays of sunshine slashed across your skin. It makes you look foolish, and suddenly I never wanted to be near him more in my life. The men look at you with wolfish grins, and you play stupid around me even though I know your brains didn't come with your looks or your natural hair color.
After your shift, you lead me into a back room and I give you a wad of cash.
I ask you questions, but you hush me.
"You paid for the service. I'm going to give it to you."
You're not a whore, I think, you're a stripper, but apparently you're a little of both. You grind yourself against me and I go hard against my better judgment, my hand rising to feel the enormous globes of your breasts. You keen, flowing into a rhythm against me, and we haven't even taken off our clothes yet.
I grab your delectable little ass and flip us over. Pin your arms over your head, growl into your mouth.
You like that.
"You're Quinze's granddaughter," I tell you. It isn't a question.
You just keen a little more, arching your back into my hardness and the jeans rubbing against you. My hands, still on your breasts, are wondering at the shape, the feel, the plastic beauty.
"Yesss..." Snake-like. I think of Medusa, worried I'll turn to stone.
"Your sister's taken over the family interests, hasn't she?"
But I'm already stone.
You stop keening.
When you don't answer, I grab your hair, and stand up, dragging you along with me. I shove your face into the door, your arm twisted at a nasty angle behind your back. There's a snap, screaming, blood draining from your nostrils. Broken nose; I'm not sorry.
"Hasn't she?"
Now you're whimpering.
"D-Don't--"
I hit you again. Never had a problem hitting girls, especially when I come from where I came from. I know women like Hilde, Sally, Catherine and Dorothy, girls perfectly willing to show you just how hard a real woman can hit, and you, well... you're hardly a real woman. You crumple, shield your midsection. Cough.
"You're going to tell me where to find her, aren't you Ms. Lavender?"
Wobble-nod, like a bobble head shaken vigorously.
"Speak."
"I-I-I don't... I d-don't know--" At my raised fist, you stumble over the words like every sentence is an obstacle course, and I'm the drill Sergeant that's going to send you home a disgrace. "W-We don't talk," you say, "I-I don't like what sh-she does, do you think I'd be a st-strip-stripper if I was on good t-terms with her dirty mon-money?"
Ah. But, "You'll make a good ransom, then. She still loves you, right?"
"N-no, she h-hates me, h-haaates me..." You're sobbing.
I roll my eyes, clean you up, haul you out. Make plans.
VI.
"Give me my sister back,” you say, and you're over the vidphone looking like the Wicked Witch Of The West, minor differences in skin color aside. You have medium-length brown hair, which is fuzzy and unkempt around the edges, and thick dark glasses that magnify your eyes slightly so that the fury in them can not be denied. I have just the right time to note that you're eyes are a peculiar ashen green color before you go on about all the things you're going to do to me if I don't give you your unloved black sheep of a sister back.
Your sister is quietly moaning in the background—I had to break one of her fingers earlier because she tried calling you while I was conveniently not around, but I did that on purpose so that I could speak to you over the phone. I'd tried asking her before for your number, and she'd denied it from me, you see. Lavender is starting to realize that I don't like being denied, and every now and then she whines to you at my back, telling you to just give me what I want so that everyone can go home happy.
But despite the necessary care you've taken for your sister's well being, you don't care nearly enough to wonder at the pain she's in and you're not about to give up Heero oh so easily.
Thus, your brow twitches very slightly when you say, “We meet on the moon. Yours for mine. Fair trade.”
And I nod, because there's a plan stirring, and it might actually be a good one this time.
VII.
We're on the moon, and Lavender is back home, locked in a solid room with enough food and water to last her a month. I built her a toilet at the corner for her to use, but she didn't seem very happy with the set-up—which is why I left her without a television, or any other forms of entertainment. I hope the bitch goes mad, but you're not very happy to see this when you arrive on the moon without Heero, either. I smirk at you because turnabout's only fair play, and you're so fucking easy to read with that megalomaniac woman super villain thing going on.
You've got twenty flunkies all around us with huge guns aimed at my head, but I don't even have the dignity to care. You ask me, “Where's Lavender?”
And I tell you, “Dead in a month or so if I'm not there to give her supplies—not pretty, starving to death.”
Your ashen green eyes narrow and you say, “I'll find her.”
“I doubt that.”
“I have more--”
“--power than I could possibly imagine, yes, what-the-fuck-ever,” I say, because I'm getting impatient now. “Let's stop playing games. I get my hands on Heero, you see Lavender again. Assuming you care about her as anything other than a convenient punching bag, because she's absolutely sure she's going to die alone and unloved if her life really is in your hands.”
Not surprisingly, you shrug. You flick your wrist and your men are all over me. I put up a bit of a fight for show, disabling two guards, but in the end, I let them have me. You drag me back to your ship, and at my back you say, “That's true, I hadn't thought of that. Good going, Mr. Maxwell...”
She's very predictable. I know her type. This comforts me only slightly as I let them take me to the brig.
IIX.
My fucking grand plan, see? I'm a fucking idiot.
We're... somewhere, and I can't move without panting at the harsh agony running up and down my legs. The bitch had put a sledge hammer to them. Thought it was funny. She wanted to make sure I wasn't going anywhere—because she knows my reputation, like—and she said that the pain might even give me the incentive to tell her the location of her long lost little sister. Clearly, she doesn't know me that well. I told her to fuck off and she did.
This is the isolated part of the visit to Happy Land. No food or water for what seems like days now. The light never turns off. Or sometimes it does, and it stays off for a lot longer than eight hours. Sometimes it blinks on and off and on and off all fucking day. Sometimes the meal door slides open and the bitch leaves me presents, but I stopped getting excited after the first dead rat. And just once, knowing that I was craving, she gave me a cigarette, but there was nothing to light it with and I sat for hours chewing on the filter. It's in shreds, now. The foul stench of the dry nicotine overrides even the rat carcas
ses. The smell alone makes me shudder with the need, and it's almost worse than the dry pangs of hunger.
I can deal with anything, any pain at all, but hunger is something that will drive me back to insanity faster than any other torture device. I'd rather die any other way, debase, raped, flayed, cut in pieces, burn fucking alive, but starvation... no.
You, you're the third rat. I've taken you to the tiny rat pile in the corner and I tell you all about how fucking hungry I am, how terrified. How thirsty. God, I tell you, I'd kill to suck the blood right out of you if I wasn't sure you were diseased.
You don't say anything because you're a dead rat, and I know this. But the childish torture tricks are starting to get to my head, and I need to hear myself think. I tell you—because I know the bitch is listening—that Lavender has one week less left to live. I tell you that I hope she dies for that bitch's crimes, because it'd only be fair in the scheme of things. I tell you that a lot of good people have died for my crimes, so I know exactly what kind of justice it really is. I tell you that it's beautiful. I tell you that I really, really don't want to die. Not without him.
You don't say anything, of course you don't, you're a dead fucking rat and you're starting to smell, but I'm sure you agree with me anyway. I'm sure you wouldn't want to starve to death either.
IX.
When I'm on the borders of falling into a coma and can't stay awake for more than three minutes at a time even if the lights play their mind games, the bitch moves on to Phase Two. She drags me out of the cell by my crushed legs despite all my unmanly screaming and tosses me into the cell next door.
Shockingly, it's not him, but you look exactly like him. Same eyes, same wild hair, same lips, same huge feet. But unlike him, you just sit there with your legs folded neatly in front of you, and stare into space like a fucking automaton. You don't even react when I call your name.
You sit in the corner and you stare and you breathe. Every now and then you twitch, but I'm starting to think maybe these are just aftershocks to whatever they've been doing to you, and you haven't even seen me at all. You don't even recognize me. You don't recognize anything. You breathe.
In my original plan, I was going to break out about now, but I decide to let the game play a little bit longer. I'm so tired and you're delirious. It can't hurt anything, right? Just a little longer.
I curl up next to you, try to get your arm around me, but you're stiff and unmoving, like a statue depicting all the horrors of humanity. Still, having you there is better company than the rats. I've missed you, even like this.
I'm going to fucking kill them all, when I'm done. But after I sleep first.
X.
It must be only hours later, I think, but I don't know. For the first time since I finally saw you again, you give a reaction to the outside world.
You scream bloody murder.
Either because of the scream, or maybe you're screaming because of them, but the guards come and they point their weapons at you. You tremble like a starved kitten and race back into the corner with me, hiding behind my prone, aching body.
The world starts to return to me enough to know that these people need to die, because they've obviously hurt you. So I growl in a very feral manner, and the guards falter in their step. Then they laugh, and press forward, mocking me with dumb growls of their own.
You're whispering something, I don't know what it is. It's too low for words, too erratic for sense. You grasp at my shoulder, your grip so hard I can feel my bones creaking. It gives me strength.
The cocky fuckers stand two feet front of me, finding our terror hilarious. I swipe the one guy off his feet with my arm. The other guy freezes for a moment, but it's just enough time for me to grab the first guy's gun and shoot him dead. The first guy recovers then, and roars, making a grab at me. I aim to fire at him, too, but then you come to life and maul him. Literally. You pound his face into the floor until there's nothing left but stray bits of hamburger swimming in the blood and cartilage that was once his face, and you shake as if coming down from a nightmare.
You turn to me, and lift me over your shoulders without a word.
I point for the exit.
Together, we make our way out of there.
XI.
We make it as far as the docking bay before you come from around the corner, clapping your hands and looking smug as shit. You say, “I have to admit, I never expected you to make it out of the containment cell. Congratulations.”
I'm not sure to whom you're speaking to, me or Heero, but it's me who responds because Heero, for all his care in holding me in his arms, has gone back to his robotic state of being.
“Let me guess—there's a fleet of soldiers eying our movement as we speak.”
“Actually, no,” you say, and for the first time you're not as confident as you like to pretend to be. I think maybe you're smarter when you're not so smug. “You two killed most of them already. Small operation, you know how it is.”
You wave a casual hand, as if tossing out a truce.
I scoff at both it and you, and steer Heero like a fucking horse back toward the ships. He grunts, but doesn't complain. He never complains. I wonder what you've done to him, that he never even speaks.
I want you dead.
“I want my sister back,” you say almost petulantly.
“Should've thought of that before you fucking Mengele'd my boyfriend!” Heero is still walking us toward a small viper. I look behind us and aim the gun at your head again.
You stand there, fists balled in rage.
And then the fleet finally arrives. They spray bullets down on us, and Heero is hit in the back. He stumbles a moment, nearly dropping me, but I hold on and he keeps moving. Finally, we make it to the ship, and you're shouting chaotic orders. Heero opens the hatch and climbs in. I crawl to the co-pilot's seat.
We fly.
XII.
It was all too easy, of course, but I'm counting my blessings. I left Quatre a note to check on Lavender after I locked her in that room. I told him to keep her secure and hidden until I got back, and he did as I asked without comment, even at her apparent injuries. Lavender is safe, unharmed, and mending when I return. Quatre's hospitality is still the thing of wonders; she doesn't want to leave, not even when she sees me and cowers away in fear.
You don't speak for weeks afterward. Trowa and Wufei send a squadron to deal with the White Fang bitch, but she's gone long before they get there, and you're left with your ghosts.
We sleep hanging on to each other. At first, you pushed me away, but I clung on like a human barnacle and you eventually surrendered. I speak to you all the time, whisper things to you, even in sleep, about how much I missed you, how much I want you back. You never say anything, but I can feel you starting to relax again. Your shoulders aren't so stiff with fear, your eyes not so old, like blue ice.
You go into counseling. You never speak to the doctor either, and this frustrates everyone. I try to be patient. I know you care—I know you're trying. I know, because you take care of me. I'm bound to a wheelchair the first few weeks, but you do everything you can to keep me comfortable. When I walk again for the first time, a small tear trickles down your cheek and you hug me in a manly, back-patting sort of way.
We live life like this for two months, until finally, out of the utter blue one day, I get the strongest craving for a cigarette. I pat my pockets, and come up with a solitary lighter.
You raise a brow at me from the other side of the room, your eyes wide. “I thought you quit,” you say, your voice hoarse and wary.
The world pauses, and then it flows again. Hot and cold, emotions finally flooding to the forefront and causing my vision to blur, I speak through the haze, “Yeah, I did.”
You close the space between us. I take you into my arms, and you smile for the first time. All over again.
“I'm glad,” you say again, and it's a fucking miracle.
I don't have the words. I just kiss you until you kiss me back, and the world melts away from both of us.
--Fini
*(On a side note, the style of this fic was inspired by Maayan, who writes Farscape. And is awesome.)