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"Lost "Written By: Artemis Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are
copyright to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties.
I make no money with this fic. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: implied yaoi, angst, violence, language Pairings: 6x2, mention of 4+3 Summary: Sequel to Interfacing: Found. Quatre
has some shocking information for Duo about his new lover; there's
trouble in Cairo... "Lost" 4) He walked across the room, noticing his black duffel bag had already been brought there. Just seeing it made him shiver with memories. Anything associated with his time at that hotel... with that man... made him shiver, including the clothes on his back. So, he began to strip as he walked toward the bathroom, peeling off the layers that reminded him. Standing naked beneath the showerhead, he turned on the water... set to hot. He let out a startled yelp as the near scalding liquid hit his bare skin, but he didn't move. He needed it hot and painful... hot enough to remove the filth of that man's touch from his body and painful enough to dampen the pain of his broken heart. [I'll never speak his name again,] he promised himself as he picked up the bar of soap and began to scrub. His movements were fierce and unforgiving as he worked his skin raw to cleanse himself of the rape. [God... why?] he asked in silent plea, remembering how he had been fucked for that OZ bastard's pleasure as recently as just a couple of hours ago. His body was tight with anger, but even in his anger tears fell. There was great shame in what had happened. A bitter shame for letting himself be used... seduced by beauty, clever words and expert hands. [Was I that desperate for love? So desperate to not even heed the warnings? He told me he was a soldier...] Images of his naked body entwined with that man's flooded his mind. And finally, images of the OZ colonel pounding into him in one of the many takings pulled a scream from his lungs. "NO!" he cried out helpless in the memory, dropping to the tiled floor... the soap falling from his hands. "I loved him... I really loved him," he sobbed. [Why couldn't I see that he was using me?] He sat like that for a long time... crumpled and sobbing, his hands covering his face, letting the hard spray of hot water wash over him. But no matter how much he focused he could still feel that beautiful blond devil on him... in him. He had been captivated... captured for three days. [I'll bet he laughed at me. Laughed at how hungry I was for him. Laughed that he could so easily fool a Gundam pilot... Oh, Quatre, why didn't you let me kill him?] Zechs Merquise rose slowly to wakefulness, a bitter taste in his mouth from the drug and a pain in his wrists. Blinking after a long minute, he realized he was on his side on a cement floor, his arms folded behind his back. The room was mostly dark except for three slits of slanting beams of light from the late afternoon sun. Awareness of his situation took longer to reach him. He shifted his arms... and knew. [Handcuffs! And I've been drugged,] he realized. Then the rest rushed back and Zechs gasped then coughed as bile rose into his throat. He managed to keep whatever had lingered in his stomach down as he struggled to right himself onto his knees. [Duo... my God, Duo betrayed me!] he remembered, feeling sick and hollow. [He... he tried to kill me, oh, God, Duo, what's going on?] A groan escaped him, then a single choking sob as the memory gripped him. His beloved Duo, standing over him with a gun, his animated face twisted into a grimace of hatred, finger on the trigger. And he'd pulled it! Only the blond boy's interference had saved Zechs's life. [He hates OZ that much - did he want to capture me just to kill me? Why the three days? Why the act? My God, he played me like a violin, getting me this vulnerable. I suspected nothing...] Another sob choked itself out, then Zechs was abruptly sobbing in earnest, half in reaction to the drug, half in torment from the thought of his lover turning on him. [Duo!] his mind wailed, aching for the bright, lithe spirit that had so captured his heart. [It can't be over, not like this!] After a while he'd cried himself out, though his heart was still sick and numb with grief over his loss. [He said he loved me... he said many things... and every one of them was false. But how? He was sincere... wasn't he? Was I that blind and deaf? Did I only hear what I wanted to?] Again he saw the mask of hatred on Duo's face. [He did use me... the little whore actually did use me! While he waited for the other to get the team in place, he enjoyed my body as much as he could. I never would have guessed...] He shuddered, his mind still grappling with the betrayal. Then he began to think about the larger picture. [They knew I was at Lake Victoria... and it's highly likely they have Tallgeese already and will be intercepting Gundam 01 when it's moved. That means OZ has no defense against them... but worse, it means OZ will take notice of them again and throw everything against them. That's not going to get them anywhere, especially if the mobile dolls are used...] Zechs felt a chill at that thought. [I don't hate the Gundam pilots... and I believe they're the only ones who have a chance of successfully challenging Romefellar. Damn...] The soldier and officer in him, he realized, was warring with his personal self, the betrayed lover in him. [They need me, my cooperation... my *alliance*,] Zechs thought, frowning. [The little blond might listen to reason... and he might be my only hope for getting out of here. My only chance is to tell them everything I can and cooperate with them fully. But Duo...] He felt a twinge at the name. Sighing deeply, he thought back over what he'd believed had been the happiest three days of his life. [I was so hungry to connect with someone... that was my failure,] Zechs mused bitterly. [How long had they been watching me? That little demon pushed every single one of my buttons.] Then he realized he hadn't really had a choice... or a chance. [That delicious little dancer's body... he couldn't have known what that would do to me. He's not like anyone I've ever gone out with before...] Then it was like his brain was shifted back into another dimension where Dancer and Wolf lived, where they still loved each other and had great, glorious sex together. Dancer had the amazing ability to draw Wolf out of his soldier-self, to extract him from the military discipline and the facade of the staid officer that he'd been, as well as from the formal manners of the well-bred aristocrat. Nothing in his life had allowed him to crack that shell - not his earliest years as the Peacecraft heir, not the procession of moneyied boarding schools, not the OZ Specials Academy, or his distinguished military service. Zechs realized something then that shook him deeply, and made the tears spill over his cheeks all the more. [I will love him until the day I die, even if I am to die by his own hand, and I will hate him for giving me myself then taking what I've gained personally away from me. I'd have been better off never loving at all, never learning to throw paper on the floor, or to be comfortable in tight t-shirts and shorts, or to dance with abandon in a nightclub. I wish I'd never met Duo Maxwell... but I have and I am doomed to love him forever.] The tears fell for a long time. [Duo's been in the shower a long time,] Quatre fretted, pacing outside the rooms he'd given his friend. He put an ear to the door. [The water's still running...] Tentatively he called through the door. "Duo? Duo, can you hear me?" Then he had the nasty thought. [What if he... oh, no, what if he tries to harm himself? Shit...] Quatre turned the doorknob and went in hastily. He glanced at the trail of clothes, then stepped over to the bathroom. "Duo?" he called again, then set his jaw and opened the door. Immediately steam billowed forth. "Duo!" "Huh?" Duo answered, thinking he had just heard his name being called. He was so focused on his misery... on his heartbreak that he couldn't be sure. [Sounded like Quatre,] he thought and then his mind drifted inward again. "Duo, are you all right?" Quatre called, bewildered. He thought he'd heard his friend answer. He lifted a towel from a stack by the door, intending to pass it through the shower door when he opened it. But he paused with his hand on the door as a wave of empathic pain washed through him from his friend. Wincing, Quatre took a deep breath. [Oh, he's hurting bad...] Taking a second, steadying breath, Quatre opened the door and handed in the towel. "Duo, here... come on out of there. You're going to turn into a lobster! Come on, Duo..." He still couldn't see a thing through the steam, though he thought he caught a glimpse of his friend huddled in the corner of the big shower stall. "Quatre?" Duo asked, raising his head and blinking as he looked toward the shower door where a towel was dangling out to him in mid-air. "What's wrong, buddy?" he asked, hearing the concern in his friend's voice. [He's worried about me,] he finally realized. Reaching for the towel, Duo stood slowly... his legs, his entire body sore from being curled on the floor for so long. He dried his face and torso and then wrapped the towel around his middle before coming out of the shower. "Sorry. Was I in there very long?" Quatre frowned at Duo's well-scrubbed, beet-red skin. "Yeah, about an *hour* - are you okay?" He hugged his own middle as he stepped back to leave Duo room. "You... you wanna talk?" "An hour?!" Duo was horrified. "It felt like... maybe ten minutes," he said stepping further into the room. When he noticed the worry in Quatre's eyes, Duo sobered even more. "Yeah, I suppose I should tell you... something." He felt like he'd been beaten from the inside out, but he owed his friend at least a few words of... explanation? He took another towel and began to dry his hair, only to realize that he had left his braid intact in the shower and now it was a tangled mess. "Damn it," he said, laying it on his chest and using his fingers to begin to sort out the mess. "I was pretty damn stupid," he told his friend and walked back into the bedroom, Quatre trailing after him. "I think you know what went on..." he said, lowering his voice and not bothering to finish the uncomfortable thought. "But I never told him anything... about the Gundams." He was proud of that fact now, though he knew how close he'd come to telling the Colonel everything. A little shiver skittered through him and then he noticed the rest of his clothes, neatly folded on the bed, brought from Quatre's Arabian home. [He thought of everything,] he thought with a little grin and walked over to the pile selecting black jeans and a black t-shirt to wear... befitting his mood. "Thank you," he said at last, turning back to look at his friend. "I don't know how you guys figured it out, but thank you for getting me out of there." Quatre stood by, hugging his arms to himself still as he listened. "All we have is his identity. I told Rashid we needed more information about him, but they were satisfied that there was enough to go on to intervene." He paused, wondering if he should reveal his own misgivings, but he knew he had no right to in lieu of what Duo believed had been done to him. Rape... his friend had named it right, he supposed. [Though I really wish we knew what Merquise knew and when... and what his true intentions were...] "You're welcome," he finished softly. "And now," Duo said, letting his anger come to the fore again, "that OZ bastard will pay for what he did to me." A flush of anxiety went through the Arabian boy at the intense hatred erupting from his friend. [I just hope to Allah that this is what it seems...] he thought, nodding as his friend hastily dressed. He watched Duo's angry movements, wondering that he didn't rip his clothes while putting them on. [My heart tells me there's more here... but what?] Duo was a little flustered at his friend's intense curiosity in him... as if Quatre wasn't convinced of something. [I don't give a shit what he thinks... I know what happened,] he thought. When he was dressed he turned to his friend and asked, "Where can a guy get some fast wheels around here?" Quatre straightened, shrugging off his own reverie. "Ah, one of the guys has a motorcycle up at the guardhouse - he lets me use it from time to time. I'm sure he wouldn't mind loaning it for a short while. Um... going for a little ride?" He didn't want to come off sounding like he was hovering, but he wasn't positive Duo wouldn't do something drastic. He remembered what he'd told Rashid once: "they're violent and dangerous, but they're all really nice guys." Duo Maxwell, he knew now from personal experience, was not one to cross or mess with. He felt sorry for the Colonel... even as he hated, too, what the man had done to Duo. [Apparently,] he added yet again to himself, minding the strange tingling in his heart. "A motorcycle... that's perfect," Duo's eyes brightened for a moment and then narrowed on his friend. "Yeah, I'm going for a ride. Got a problem with that?" His voice was sharp and unapologetic. Quatre was beginning to annoy him. "I need to put some distance between me and... and him." "Not in the least," Quatre replied sharply, feeling a brief surge of anger that Duo was trying to shut him out, too, at least emotionally, when he was trying to do all he could to support him. "Of course you need distance. Even I can see that." He turned and left the room, taking a deep breath as Duo followed him out. Duo followed his friend through the large house and outside in silence. It was an uncomfortable silence for two boys who had hardly stopped talking to each other since they'd met. At the guardhouse, the motorcycle was leaning against it and a large, armed guard was posted outside the door of the holding cell. [He's in there,] Duo thought, feeling a mix of hatred, shame and bitter loss wash over him. Shaking the feeling off and trying to put things right with his friend, he smiled. "Nice looking bike," he said, going over to the motorcycle. "Even looks fast... but not as fast as a Gundam, eh?" he asked with a little laugh. "No, not even close," Quatre replied, sighing at his friend's attempt at levity. "Yeah, it's a good bike for this climate, doesn't mind all the sand." He knocked at the side window to the guardhouse proper, several yards down from the holding cell where the guard stood. "Ziyad, you there?" Within the holding cell, the man on his knees lifted his chin slightly at hearing the voice of the little blond Gundam pilot. [Did... did I hear Duo a moment ago? He was... he was laughing...] The bitterness he felt could be tasted. The head of long, platinum hair bowed again. "Yup, Master Quatre," a man was saying out of the front window. "What can I do for you?" "My friend here wants to borrow your bike for a spin. Do you mind?" The Arab, looking down at the boys from above a long, hooked nose, summed up the boy in black. "Sure, he looks like he can handle it. Just an hour, though. I need to leave early today." "Sure thing, Ziyad," Quatre replied, accepting the keys from the man, then handing them over to Duo. "Hey, Duo," he said more quietly, "I don't mean to pry. I just want you to know that I'm here if you need to talk about anything." "Thanks," Duo nodded. "Sorry about earlier..." he trailed off thinking how unfairly he'd treated his friend. He jumped on the bike then, checking it over as he settled on the seat. "Nice fit," he grinned. "I'll be back in an hour," he shouted up to the guard in the window, and then looked back to his friend. "I hope you find out what you need to know from Colonel Merquise," he said a bit harshly, nodding toward the building. "Torture would be too good for the bastard," he said, his voice tight. He didn't wait for Quatre to reply before starting the bike and noisily speeding away from the complex.
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