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"Evolution"Written By: The Plotting Housewife Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sotsu
and associated Parties. This work is written for pleasure not profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, yaoi, quasi-dark, genetically engineered
pilots, test tube babies, lab-created Gods, pseudoscience. Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5x13, 13xUne Summary: Zayeed Winner, founder of The Human Perfect
Project, makes miracles happen in the laboratory by creating genetically
engineered children. It's only when it's too late that he discovers
playing God can result in catastrophic consequences. " Evolution" Chapter 8: Pavlov's Dogs Quatre shifted his legs beneath the covers and batted the blankets away from his face. His groggy mind registered the sound of raindrops hitting the roof. He cracked his eyelids open and groaned at the washed out sky beyond his window. He hated gloomy days. They made him feel tired, zapped of energy. As gray and lifeless as the world outside. The temptation to just flip the bed covers back over his head and snuggle into Trowa's arms was overwhelming, but he had to be up for his lessons. Treize was never happy when they were late. He lifted his arm and scratched at the slightly raised skin on the inside of his forearm. The microchip implant itched at times despite having been there for eight years now. Treize had installed them into him and his brothers when they'd been taken from their father. It had an uncanny knack for being able to detect any thoughts, or aspirations of harm towards the Senator, his wife, and the small army of guards and scientists that surrounded them nearly at all times. Any anger, or frustration directed towards the Senator, or his team was immediately rectified with an extremely painful shock. They'd all found that out the hard way. Quite a few times. Over the years, they'd leaned not to think such things. Their bad behavior was punished with an electric current strong enough to leave them dazed for hours. Their good behavior was rewarded with small privileges and comforts. Small amounts of "freedom", their favorite food, or music, a book they'd been wanting to read, or some activity of their choosing. They were conditioned and trained to engage in only approved behaviors. Wufei had taken to referring to the five of them as Pavlov's Dogs. After the incident when the Senator and his men had come to take them on that warm July morning eight years ago, he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that they took such drastic measures to keep them in line. It had been a horrific event that inevitably led to disaster. A disaster that still haunted all of them to this day. Their father and Dr. Sally had tried to hide them beneath the floor of the house. Carefully cutting a hole into the wooden boards and sneaking them down there in the hopes they wouldn't be found. They huddled together in the dark, frightened, as Zayeed and Dr. Sally replaced the boards over their heads and covered it with a large rug. When the Senator's men arrived, they'd concocted some story that they couldn't find them. That the boys had run away after finding out they were going to be taken. Needless to say, the Senator didn't believe them. They held each other close as they listened to the sounds of the house being torn apart above them as the men turned over furniture and searched every closet, every corner, every nook and cranny. The stomping of feet going back and forth rained dust down on top of their heads and they held their breath, trying their best not to cough and sneeze. Quatre could feel his tumultuous power vibrating beneath his skin, could feel it in all of them as the fear and the anger became overwhelming, threatening to boil over. He buried his face in Trowa's chest and felt him absorb the power like a sponge, the transfer lessening the pressure. Trowa often acted as a buffer between him and the world and he was so grateful he'd been there to imbibe the influx of energy. They all did it for him, in small doses, but Trowa was the only one capable of taking the brunt of it and remaining unfazed. He was able to hold the power within himself until Quatre got himself under control again. Something that would tire his other brothers and would outright kill any normal human. He was able to feel Wufei's surge of power as his anger spiked and in a desperate attempt to prevent a fire, he and his brothers surrounded him, pressing his head down and covered his face, his ears. The sensory deprivation often helped to soothe him and could usually prevent a volatile situation. They encouraged him with urgent whispers to meditate, to breathe, fanning their hands over his skin as his body temperature rose to dangerous levels. Duo's power was also increasing, running the risk of the men stomping around above them of dropping dead where they stood. Heero was Duo's intermediary, calming him enough to keep his God of Death persona from taking any unnecessary lives. Duo could typically control it, but there'd been a few instances of people suddenly expiring when in his presence, the first of which had been his second nanny. It wasn't strong enough to cause mass death. It required close contact. Quatre had measured the radius of his power to be somewhere around twenty feet, give or take. Enough to drop the men above them which wouldn't bode well for any of them. They crouched down when they heard shouts, the loudest of which had been their father, and the telltale sound of the rug above them sliding away, light spilling in between the cracks in the floorboards. They held their breath, little hearts pounding as the boards were wrenched up and out of the way. Quatre glanced up to see a man peering down into the hole. He looked back over his shoulder and shouted, "Found them!" What followed was an epic struggle. Five nine year olds fighting against the grown men who reached in one by one to pull them out. They lashed out, hitting, kicking, biting. Wufei shrieked as he was restrained, the man who grabbed him suddenly roaring in pain as his hands went up in flames. Quatre had seen red when another man struck his brother in the back of his head with the butt of a rifle and Wufei dropped to the floor like a ton of bricks. Duo had gone into a frenzy then, screaming bloody murder, the men closest to him collapsing as their hearts stopped. A quick diversion tactic was used to distract him, giving them sufficient time for one of the men to get close enough to bring him down with a strike to his skull. Heero shouted in rage, a large bookcase breaking free from its anchor in the wall and flying across the room, all one thousand pounds of it. It smacked into several of the men and crushed them into the opposite wall. He went down next with a hit to the side of his neck. Everything happened so fast, Quatre had a hard time keeping track of what was going on in the chaos. He saw his father and Dr. Sally run for them, screaming at the men to leave them alone. He stood frozen to his spot as patches of red bloomed on their chests, the sharp popping of gunfire ringing in his ears. He watched his father drop to his knees, one last desperate look in his brown eyes as he gazed at his son in his final moments of life before they clouded over with death and he flopped face first onto the floor. There was a moment of silence, of stillness after that. Quatre couldn't be sure how long it lasted, but it felt like an eternity. His brothers were down, his father and Dr. Sally were dead, killed by these intruders. Half of the men were taken down by Duo's proximity, the other half standing frozen at the scene that had just unfolded. Only he and Trowa remained standing and the two looked at each other, a silent communication passing between them before Trowa nodded and Quatre felt the energy fill him as he returned all his power back to him. Trowa's soft, but angry voice echoed in his head. Do it. Quatre concentrated every ounce of his energy down into a single point within his core and let it fester as the friction of the singularity became more and more erratic, the heat building up. The air within the house stirred up with a strange swirling current, ruffling their hair as it picked up strength and speed. Quatre let the anger, the fear, the emotion carry him away and fuel his energy as it built up to unprecedented levels. Their whole lives had been torn down right in front of him and he let it hurt. Let the pain consume him until the pressure inside him became unbearable. He heard a desperate curse from one of the men in the nano seconds before he released it. "He's gonna blow!" And he let it go. The result sucked all the air into a tiny point for a breathless moment in time, then the vacuum exploded outward in a deafeningboom. It shattered the windows and blew out the walls, leveling the entire house into nothing but a pile of tinder. The men that had been inside with them were blown a few hundred feet in every direction. In the aftermath, standing in the middle of the subsequent rubble, stood Trowa and Quatre. They watched each other in silence for a few seconds, wavering on their feet. Quatre had never unleashed this much energy before and the fallout drained them both. Quatre caught sight of the small army that was waiting outside for them. The windows of their vehicles blown out from the force of his power. He glanced at Trowa as he stumbled on his feet, exhausted, saw Trowa do the same, and then they both collapsed. He woke up in a room made of steel that he soon learned was several feet thick. He was alone, had no idea where his brothers were, or if they were even still alive. He screamed and keened and wept, unable to feel them, curled up on his cot, shaking with loss. He was dressed in a simple white jumpsuit, no shoes, and the room was barren but for the cot and a tiny bathroom. There was one window that took up nearly one wall, but it didn't lead to the outside. A lab stood on the other side of it and he quickly discovered it was reinforced with something that was able to stand up to his power. The room itself built strong enough to contain him, unable to affect the people outside. He banged on the shatterproof glass with his fist and hollered and screamed, fury lit in every muscle of his body. "Where are my brothers? I want my brothers!" There was a tiny speaker embedded in the wall and that was what they, whoever they were, used to communicate with him. "Your brothers are fine. They are being contained just as you are." "Let us go!" "I'm afraid we can't do that, son. You boys are far too dangerous. You are going to be kept here until we are able to discern your abilities and learn how to control them." Quatre begged and pleaded, cursed and screamed, for what felt like hours before he curled up on his cot and cried. Cried for his brothers, cried for his father, cried for Dr. Sally. Everything he'd ever known and cared for was gone. He felt lost, disoriented without his family to ground him. He discovered the tiny bump in his arm in between screaming to be let go, trying to blow up the room, and occasionally passing out from exhaustion. The skin over it was red, irritated and he rubbed and scratched at it. He held it up in front of the window and pointed to it. "What is this?" "It's a microchip," the tinny voice informed him through the speaker. "It's there to help you learn to control your power." When Quatre began picking at it, trying to dig it out, they warned him that that wasn't a wise idea. He ignored them and gouged at his skin, trying to get the chip out, bleeding all over the pristine white of his clothing and the cot bedding. When his fingers made contact with the chip, it delivered a shock so strong, it rendered him unconscious for hours. He woke up with his arm bandaged, the voice over the speaker advising him not to do that again. He didn't know how long it was before he finally saw his brothers again, unable to tell time in his windowless isolation, though he was told it had been three months. They were allowed to see each other in a room similar to the one he stayed in, in a deeply controlled environment. The people whose care they were under watching over them with their fingers likely hovering over the 'shock' button in the event that any of them stepped out of line. They came together instantly, tears streaming down their cheeks and they huddled together on the floor, subdued, but so relieved to be together again. They were given permission to see each other based on good behavior. They were given small privileges provided they did what they were told. They spent many hours, days, weeks, months, hooked up to numerous machines, put through endless tests, all in an attempt to figure out what the late Zayeed Winner, the Godfather of Human Evolution, had created in his tiny lab outside of Sanq. *** Quatre watched the rain fall outside, through the non-shatterproof glass window, to the tall fences beyond. He reveled at the feel of Trowa's arms around him. They'd all been good. They made their caretakers proud as they grew from boys into young men, honing and perfecting their individual gifts. They were kept in the compound, not allowed to leave, but it was huge. A small city in itself. They were given some semblance of a normal life. Schooling, meals together, allowed to enjoy luxuries like shopping and movies, sports and video games, all in the self-contained environment of the large complex. Though outside those walls, they were imprisoned by electrified fences fifteen feet tall and beyond that, concrete walls thirty feet high. They never forgot that. They saw the Senator often as he came to check up on their progress, visited with them as a group and individually. Quatre and his brothers couldn't help but notice the special interest he'd taken in Wufei. The sultry gazes, the almost flirty behavior. Quatre also didn't fail to notice his brother's answering interest. A few months ago, Heero had confronted Wufei about it during breakfast. The Senator left a few hours earlier after having an unusually long session with him. They watched across the breakfast table as their brother, flushed and flustered, seemed a million miles away. "Fei, he's the one that put us here," he said. Wufei looked up and snapped, "I know that!" Duo frowned at him. "Then, why -" Wufei closed his eyes, trying to control his aggravation. "Look, I don't really understand it myself, okay? You guys are all paired up and I was feeling left out and -" Quatre's heart broke and he blushed with shame that his brother had been so lonely. "Fei, I'm so sorry -" "It's okay," Wufei smiled at him. "I'm not angry at any of you. I'm just - I get it, but I...you know...I have needs and desires and -" "But the Senator, Fei?" Duo was outraged. He threw up his hands and leaned back in his chair. "Of all the people! And uh, hellooo! He's married. To someone who would probably take great pleasure in removing your head from your shoulders should she ever -" "I can't control who I want anymore than you guys can." Heero glared at his brother, though Quatre could see the deep worry in his blue eyes. "It's called Stockholm Syndrome and you are suffering from a severe case of it." Wufei glared right back and Quatre sucked in a breath as the breakfast dishes vibrated and rattled against the table. The temperature inside the room spiking high enough that his forehead broke out in a sweat. "Guys, please don't -" "What's your problem with me, Heero?" Heero raised a brow. "It's not with you, it's with him." Wufei threw his napkin down and stood. "Well, if that's the case, then you do have a problem with me." He turned and left the room, leaving the four of them in stunned silence. Duo's eyes were huge with incomprehension. "He's lost his mind." Quatre didn't quite know what to make of Wufei's so-called developing relationship with the Senator. He'd tried to talk to him about it only to have Wufei become increasingly defensive. He was also withdrawing somewhat from his brothers, in part because his interactions with Heero were becoming more and more hostile. They were young men now, seventeen, and as such their relationships with each other evolved into more than a brotherhood. Heero and Duo were paired off now, a burgeoning romance between them, very similar to Quatre's relationship with Trowa. He'd realized his feelings for Trowa went far beyond brotherly affection once he reached puberty. Their embraces became longer, added with lingering touches and soft caresses. Their gazes became more intense, heady with arousal. It was sealed when they kissed for the first time and while their caretakers had been adamant about none of them having romantic relationships, apparently it was the Senator that had given them permission. Quatre lost his virginity in front of the security camera in their room. They were always watched, something they'd gotten used to over the years. Quatre wouldn't have been surprised if they were documenting every touch, every moan, every sigh, hovering over their notes as if sex was something they'd never seen before. He'd been far too aroused and far too used to the cameras to be bothered with he'd opened his legs to Trowa and invited him, begged him to take him. He'd felt almost a sense of vindictive pleasure as he wrapped his legs around Trowa's waist, threw his head back, and moaned, his eyes focusing on the camera's blinking red light. I hope you're enjoying the show, you sick bastards. Their entire sex life was on display. It was just how it was and Quatre barely acknowledged them when he and Trowa fell into bed together. They weren't going to ignore their feelings for each other just because they were under constant surveillance. He rolled over and hooked a leg over Trowa's hip, rubbing it along the smooth skin. Trowa had continued his acrobats once they were allowed to leave isolation and his beautiful physique reflected his hard work. He'd grown from an adorable little boy into a gorgeous young man. He was kind, compassionate, gentle and Quatre felt blessed to have him in his life. He brushed a lock of brown hair away from his forehead and smiled at his sleeping lover. He leaned his head forward and pecked the tip of his nose. "I love you." Quatre felt his alertness before Trowa even opened his eyes. They gazed at each other in silence for a few moments, Trowa's hand stroking along his side beneath the covers. Those beautiful lips curled up into a small smile and Quatre answered with a smile of his own. "You have to leave now?" Trowa's eyes gleamed in the muted gray light. Quatre read his intentions perfectly and smirked. "In a little bit. We've got time." Trowa rolled over on top of him and captured his lips in a deep kiss. Quatre moaned appreciatively, one hand coming up to stroke the back of his lover's head. The other curled into a fist and he lifted it towards the corner of the room where the camera was mounted, then raised his middle finger.
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