Asylum: Part 6

By: Spooks

~ ~ ~ ~

Well, considering the dramatic impact that I intended to be accompanied by that last line, I guess I'd better tell you about the day they came for Quatre, the day that our already uncomfortable world just went straight to hell.

It was during our shared free period one Wednesday, and we were just vegetating in our room. Heero and I were working on a joint art project, a sketch and acrylic painting. Ms. Une said it was supposed to be an exercise in perspective. See, we were supposed to first draw a self portrait, adding in whatever we wanted in the background and such, you know, symbolism and crap if we felt so inclined. Then we were to draw portraits of each other, doing the same thing. Neither of us was supposed to look at the other's work until all four works had been finished. The point was to compare how our partner saw us to how we saw ourselves. It was an interesting concept.

Wufei was also working very hard…on sleeping. Meiran was, as always, curled around him, her eyes also closed as the pair's auras mingled quietly as they rested. Trowa and Quatre were talking quietly up on Quatre's bunk. Suddenly, about five minutes into our free period, a loud knocking came at the door, waking Wufei up and causing the rest of us to jump.

All of us knew what happened when that heavy knocking sounded at the door. It meant the Thugs were here to escort Heero to his "special" session. Dread started to roll off Heero as I glanced over at him. The knocking came again, louder this time.

"Either open up or we're coming in!" It was Mueller.

Not wanting that nasty Thug to get slime all over our nice clean floor, I hopped up and opened the door, jumping back away from the opening quickly. Mueller stood there, a fake smile pasted over his features as he leaned against the outer frame. Alex was a few feet back, arms crossed impatiently as he rocked back and forth on his heels. Heero stood up, glowering for all he was worth as he made his way towards the waiting Thugs.

Mueller snickered and held out one hand, palm outwards. "No, not you today, mute. I've been sent to get the blond fag." He pointed up at Quatre.

The silence was so thick I thought I would choke on it. Quatre? What the hell? Looking around at my friends, I could plainly read the shock wafting off of them. I swear, I don't think I've ever seen Wufei's eyes get so big in all my life. This was something we hadn't planned for, or hell, even considered.

"Me?" My Arabian friend asked softly in disbelief. "What for?"

"I don't know, something about a special session," Mueller shrugged. "Come on, I've got better things to do than wait on your pansy ass," He rolled his eyes and stated impatiently.

Quatre sat there, a glassy look of stunned confusion gracing his fair features. Ever so slowly, he swung his legs off the side of his bunk. He sat there a second, staring at Mueller blankly. Then he hopped down from the bed and walked up to the waiting orderly as if he were in a dream.

Mueller moved out of the way and gestured my friend forward. Quatre silently, as if dazed, stepped out the door and closed it behind him.

No one said anything for a minute, we were all to busy staring at the closed door in total shock.

Trowa flopped back on Quatre's bed, perpendicular to the side of the bed where he was still sitting when Quatre left. His long legs were dangling off the side, and his head dangled off the other side, causing his long bangs to fall towards the ground and expose his entire face. I swear, I'd never seen anyone look so freaked out and so controlled at the same time. The worry demons that had mostly faded away in the past few weeks suddenly started to pop back into existence. A few were settling down on Trowa's stomach, sitting with their tiny clawed feet stretched out in front of them.

Moving as if in a very bad dream, I turned to look at Heero. His dark blue eyes were the most haunted I had ever seen them, and he was staring at the closed door without really looking at it. When I carefully put a hand on his shoulder, he glanced over at me, his gaze filled with self loathing and barely contained suffering. A glance back over my shoulder at Wufei showed the Chinese boy to be just as shocked as we were.

I don't think any of us had actually considered that they would want any of the rest of us for the things they used Heero for. We were worried about the Thugs doing unsavory things to us, especially to me, and we had been doing our very best to help Heero when he had his terrible sessions. Standing there, a look of stunned disbelief etched into my features, I had trouble digesting what had just happened. Then I remembered, with startling clarity, something Heero had wrote in his first real note to us, the one that described his plight. And I quote, "I suspect that the correlations between your abilities are no mere accident, and will one day be exploited in the manner of which I am being exploited."

I felt the world rush in on me, tunneling my vision to gaze straight into Heero's haunted eyes. He had tried to warn us, hell, he had warned us, but we were too busy worried about the other things that we had all skipped over this one in our minds. One long look at my lo--friend, told me that I was thinking along the right lines. I actually don't think he actively remembered that warning himself, though. We had all had other things to deal with since then. Jesus.

"Did, did you know, Heero? Did you know this would happen?" I finally croaked out, my hand automatically ghosting forward to clasp his tightly.

Heero nodded miserably. I could see the unnatural shine in his eyes and the way tears had welled up in them, but I knew they would not be allowed to fall. His programming wouldn't allow that.

"What?" Trowa's smooth voice rang out, menace and anger edging his tone. "And you did nothing?" The worry demons were flying around him now, and only by blinking back my sense could I see through them enough so that Trowa was even visible. They were chanting in unison, I think, because all their little mouths were moving in time.

Heero's gaze hardened, and he got his little pad of paper and pen.

--I could do nothing. I did not know for sure, I only suspected. I warned you before, but then I was forced to forget about this particular threat. Please know that I am sorry.--

I read this out loud to Trowa, and I could feel the anger and frustration oozing out of him even before I looked up to his perch on Quatre's bunk. He jumped down and came to stand right in front of Heero and I.

"You're sorry?!" He exclaimed, his gaze blanking out as he paid attention to the worry demons, then it flickered back on Heero. "That's all, you're sorry?"

"Trowa, calm down. You're taking your anger out on the wrong people," Wufei's voice came like a cool wave of reason. "Honestly, what could we have done even if we had known?"

"Nothing," Trowa muttered, dropping his head down to stare at his feet. Wufei came up behind him, putting a hand on the tall boy's shoulder. Once again I was reminded of the special bond the two had as Meiran laid her one hand on Trowa's shoulder and the other on Wufei's. Trowa could hear Meiran, and therefore often had conversations with the Chinese couple, allowing them to bond in a special way impossible for the rest of us. As a result, their presence did almost as much to comfort him as Quatre's might have done.

"That's right," I jumped in, wrapping an arm around the still glaring Heero. I didn't want him to get really pissed off and attack Trowa. Knowing Heero's immense strength, I don't care how tough or quick Trowa is, he'd be in a world of hurt. "And besides, he did warn us, way back at the beginning of this mess, but we all forgot. Remember how he wrote that the way our talents combined might not be an accident and how it might come back to haunt us later?"

Trowa looked back up, understanding and recognition filling his emerald gaze. "I'm sorry, you're all right. I'm just…upset."

--Fine.--

We went and crashed on the floor under the window in a little circle. As we waited, we amused ourselves by trying to fathom the horrible things that might happen to Quatre and what may one day happen to the rest of us. If they came for Quatre, what was to say they wouldn't come for Trowa or Wufei next? Or Heero again? Would they still come for Heero now? Oh God, and what if they came for me?

All these and other lovely, comforting thoughts were racing through my head, and I'm sure, the others' as well as we sat there silently contemplating these Very Bad Things. Only about twenty minutes or so passed before our morbid collective train of thought was interrupted.

Without warning, our door opened with a soft creak and Quatre came walking in nonchalantly. Alex was behind him, and he closed the door after Quatre was all the way through. Our blond friend just waved at us, smiled, and hopped up onto his bed.

This, to say the very least, confused us greatly.

"Uh, Quatre?" I asked, standing up and leaving our little circle to go stand by his bed. I stepped up on Trowa's mattress below it so I could be up and level with Quatre as he laid back. "You alright? What did they do to you?"

"What did who do to me?" The blond asked, true confusion clouding his clear eyes.

"They came and took you to a surprise session, like they come for Heero sometimes," Wufei said, coming up to stand behind me.

"Oh, okay," Quatre shrugged lightly and tucked his hands behind his head, lying back comfortably.

The other four of us (well, five if you count Meiran, too) just blinked at each other.

"Quatre, where did they take you?" Trowa finally asked, voice that was surprisingly steady despite the nervous look in his eyes.

"Uh, I think they took me to that renovated, new wing. It's really nice," Quatre replied, closing his eyes and stretching a little. He then propped himself up on one elbow and peered down at us. "What's with you guys? You're acting pretty weird."

"Quatre? We're acting weird? What happened to you in your session?" I heard myself ask as though I was very far away from the situation. I felt as though I was wrapped in a dense fog.

He shrugged and sat up, rubbing absently at the inside of one of his elbows. "I--I don't remember. Nothing monumental, I guess, otherwise I would remember, right?" He beamed brightly at us. His smile almost made me sick, because it wasn't his normal, little smile, but a big pasted-on fake-as-hell grin. His eyes had a vacant look to them, too, that I hadn't noticed before.

Acting on a hunch, I spoke carefully. "Don't you find that a bit…odd…at all?"

Quatre blinked. "I guess so, now that you mention it. Oh well." He shrugged.

Suddenly, on one fluid motion, Heero had leapt up onto Quatre's bunk. Almost faster than I could see, he had the arm that Quatre had been rubbing and pulled up the sleeve. On the inside of Quatre's elbow was a bandage, and a small spot of blood was staining the outside of the gauze.

He didn't remember a thing. He looked confused. He had a pinprick on the inside of his elbow. He had been drugged. Shit.

Wufei's voice came from behind me, slightly shaky. "Quatre, can you tell me how we're feeling right now? Can't you read the confusion off of us?"

"What…oh, yeah, now that you mention it, I can," The blond's eyebrows knit together on his forehead in a fine line of concentration. "Wow, I feel kind of weird."

That said, Quatre promptly passed out. Heero barely caught him before he fell right off the bunk. Trowa helped ease our blond friend back to lay down again on the bunk, and he sat up there beside him so he wouldn't fall off.

Not knowing what else to do, we sat around and waited for Quatre to regain consciousness. Quietly we tried to figure out what the hell had happened. Here we were, expecting Quatre to come back shaking and barely standing. Instead he was completely fine, save for being drugged up and having Swiss cheese for a short-term memory.

Eventually he woke up, thankfully before free period was over. I would have hated for us to have to try and explain why we had all stayed out of afternoon classes. We probably would have had to go get one of the nurses, at any rate, which might have brought up some uncomfortable questions. We couldn't have that.

When my blond buddy finally fluttered his pale lashes open, we all hurried up to circle his bunk. Heero and I took one side, Wufei and Meiran took the other, and of course, Trowa stayed right where he was, still sitting beside the reclined Quatre. The Arabian sat up, rubbing his head lightly and blinking blearily at us.

"Okay, that was odd," He stated, looking down and around at all of us.

"Odd is an understatement here," Wufei snorted, trying to cover up his obvious relief. I swear, sometimes that guy just doesn't want to show any emotion at all, as though it's weak or something along those lines. Such is one of his quirks, I guess.

Quatre just smiled wanly at our Chinese friend. "That's very astute of you to notice, Wufei. Wow, I feel so weird. I can remember being escorted to that wing, and I remember Alex and Mueller knocking on the door and leaving me. Then it opened…and that's all I remember, save for suddenly finding myself back in here talking to you guys. Hey, did I pass out or something?"

"Yeah, you just flopped over like a dead fish," I replied, grinning up at him. "Not that I'm sure exactly how a dead fish flops over, but you get the idea, right?"

Everyone looked at me quite strangely for that little statement. At least I had managed to lighten the mood, though. I think. Maybe I just made it weirder.

"Well, great," He replied, blinking at me. Then Heero handed me a note.

--Class starts in five minutes.--

"We will talk about this later," Trowa stated, not suggesting or requesting, but telling us indefinitely that we would be discussing more about this topic. Leave it to Trowa.

~ ~ ~ ~

So we made our way to classes, trying to act normal, as though our carefully balanced world hadn't just taken a headlong dive into a pool full of perturbed mutant frogs. Art dragged by slowly, even though it was as wonderful as always. I think it was because now I had new things to worry about. Howard just looked at Heero and I strangely, because for once, I wasn't jabbering aimlessly, and Heero wasn't passing me notes to shut up and draw/paint/color. I supposed it was rather different than our normal behavior. Stress will do that to you.

Finally class ended and we all but jogged out the door, leaving a surprised and confused looking Ms. Une in our wake. We reached our room before the other guys did, and when they finally showed up, I could see why they had been later than usual.

When the door opened, the two of us immediately jumped up and looked towards it. And when I say jumped up, I mean it. We were…uh…cuddling, okay? Shut the hell up. Anyway, our mild embarrassment fled out of mind immediately as we watched our friends scuttle through the doorway.

Trowa and Wufei were supporting Quatre on either side, and therefore they had to edge their way in through the door very carefully. Behind the trio, Meiran floated nervously. And through Meiran's translucent appearance, stood an anxious looking Nurse Dorothy.

"Thank you for helping me," Quatre said weakly as he was eased down onto Trowa's bed. There was no chance in hell they were going to put him up on his bunk with the way he was looking at the moment.

"Would you like anything?" Dorothy asked, leaning against the doorframe and straightening her nametag. I don't know why they make the nurses wear them, everyone knows everyone else by now. "Are you going to be okay, Quatre?"

"Yes, Miss Dorothy, thank you for your concern. I think it's just because I stayed up late last night and need a nap," Quatre lied, smiling weakly.

"Yeah, right, that's why you needed help to walk," Dorothy replied, glaring. Then she sighed and shrugged. "Fine, I know there's stuff I don't know about, so I'm not going to press it. I've got a feeling you don't want this reported?"

"Please don't," Trowa asked, looking up at her from his perch beside Quatre on the lower bunk.

"Okay. But if this happens again, I'll have no choice," She replied, a look of dismay marking her features for a moment. "Look, if there's anything I can do…I know that something not right is going on with you guys…if there is anything I can do…please, let me know, okay?"

I blinked in mild shock. Was it that obvious, or was this another example of Dorothy's famous skills of observation and perception in action? "All right," I answered, nodding slowly.

A look of understanding passed between us, and she nodded back. Then she bit her lip, spun on her heel, and left the room quickly, shutting the door behind her. As soon as she was gone, we clumped up around Trowa's bunk, where Quatre had been placed.

"What happened?" I asked, looking at my three friends that had just entered.

"I don't know, I've been feeling weak for some reason. It's weird," Quatre answered, leaning back heavily against Trowa. The tall boy silently eased his arms around Quatre's waist and pulled the smaller boy up to lean his back against his chest. I swear, they are so damn cute.

"That's a bit of an understatement, don't you think? You could barely walk," Wufei added, rubbing his temples lightly with his fingertips, as if to massage away a sudden headache. Meiran floated up behind him and placed her hands over his, her hands merging with his in a light blue glow. A few moments later, the thin line of tension disappeared from his forehead and he relaxed.

Quatre just ducked his head sheepishly in response. Meanwhile, Heero scribbled a note and handed it to me to read.

--Any sort of action on your part that may have triggered this?--

Quatre frowned. "Not that I can think off, nothing too obvious. I was just sitting there, minding my own business."

Before we could talk any more, another knock came at the door. We all stiffened and glanced at each other. Were they coming for another one of us, or were they back for Quatre again? A few seconds later, the knocking came again.

"Oh, come on, open up!" It was one of the new orderlies.

When I got up to answer the door, I felt as though I were treading through molasses, as though my feet were sticking to the floor with each step. When I finally reached the door, it took me an eternity to raise my arm up, as though there were weights strapped around my wrist. I grasped the handle slowly, with mounting dread. Were they here for Heero, for Quatre…for me?

I finally managed to open the door, and I stepped away from the now open portal. Outside was one of the newer orderlies and Otto, the sorta-kinda Thug.

"We're here for Heero Yuy," Otto said, looking down at the floor.

I hate to say it, I truly do, but I felt relief flood through me when he said that. I instantly felt sick to my stomach with guilt. What was wrong with me? I was relieved that my boy--um, well, my friend that might have been more than a plain old friend, was going to be taken away to be tortured? I felt relief? Jesus. I felt like I was going to throw up.

I looked over at Heero, who had gotten up while I was contemplating retching all over the place. He gently placed a hand on the small of my back, gave me that tiny little smile he reserved only for me, and pressed a note into my as he walked out the door. When I looked down at what he had written to me, I almost fell over out of pure shock.

--Better me than you. Don't feel bad.--

Coincidence? Of course not. Nothing here was coincidence, nothing at all. Everything adds up in the end.

~ ~ ~ ~

Until Heero came back, we just sat around, piled together on Trowa's bunk. Eventually Quatre started to regain his strength, and after an hour he was back to normal. We waited impatiently for Heero to come back. He had never been gone longer than an hour before, and I was getting more and more worried as the time passed slowly. Finally, at the hour and a half mark, we heard something slump up against the outside of our door. Knowing what that slump meant, I hopped up from my spot at Quatre's feet and walked to the door, closely followed by Wufei.

Wufei carefully eased the door open, and I crouched down and caught Heero as he slipped limply into the crack of the now open portal. As I gathered the unconscious, sweat soaked and tremoring boy into my arms, I found myself staring at a pair of mammoth white-shoed feet. I looked up to see to whom those big feet belonged to, and I found myself staring right up at Mueller. Oh, great.

"Hiya, little Maxwell!" He smiled down at me. "Is this one going to be okay? I had to carry him here ya know…He's pretty…such a pretty face for a boy," He leered and crouched down to get at eye level with me.

"Don't talk about him like that," I hissed, spraying Mueller's face with spit as I spoke. The very idea of that ugly bastard even touching my Heero made me want to throw up for the second time that day.

"I enjoyed carrying him," Mueller whispered, trailing one finger down Heero's thin arm. I slapped his hand away and struggled to pick up Heero's limp body. As soon as I was a few feet into the room with my precious burden, Wufei positioned himself between us and the Thug.

"Leave now," Wufei growled, putting his hands on his hips.

"Oh, do you want to play, too?" Mueller smiled twisted evilly as he glanced around the hallway before striding into the room. He reached forward one large hand, in the direction of Wufei's…lower region.

Then the most amazing thing happened. Meiran dove forward and blended into her living husband's body, causing the same light blue glow that I had noticed earlier when their hands had melded. Suddenly, Wufei snapped one leg forward and landed a crushing blow right into the center of the Thug's chest, causing him to stumble backwards into the frame of the door. Mueller's eyes went almost comically large as he clutched his chest and wheezed.

We all stared in shock as Meiran slid back out of Wufei's body and glared angrily at the Thug. Mueller, just gawked at Wufei, then stumbled out of the room and into the hallway. A few seconds later, he was gone.

"Thank you," Wufei whispered to his spirit wife.

"What was that?" Quatre asked in awe. "Has that ever happened to you before?"

"Um, never exactly like that," Wufei answered, blushing furiously, glancing back and forth between Meiran and the rest of us. "Meiran is a martial arts expert, by the way."

For a moment I couldn't understand why he was blushing…then I figured it out. Well, fine, they had been married…well, they were still married. Married people do that.

Pushing Wufei's discomfort and Meiran's mild embarrassment out of my mind for teasing purposes at a later time, I concentrated on lugging the still out of it Heero over to his bed. Trowa hopped up and pushed the curtain aside for me, and I sat down with Heero gathered in my lap. He was gripping onto me in his unconsciousness tightly, and once again I had to try and avoid those nasty black pain waves that were rolling off of him.

Thank God they had taken him after classes, because there wouldn't be a chance in hell of him being able to recover in any conceivably short amount of time, and there was no way I was going to leave him until he woke up. I smoothed the hair back from his forehead, noting those sticky spots were they had placed electrodes again. On a whim, I carefully turned the inside of his arm toward me. Just as I suspected and feared, there was a bandage on the inside of his arm. He had been drugged, too.

Lifting up his eyelids to check on his pupils to see if they were dilated, I was thankful to notice that they responded normally to the change in light, narrowing down to pinprick fields of dark blue under the light of the room. I found myself staring at those glassy eyes, and suddenly I felt like I was sinking into them. My vision tunneled down to take in only Heero's eyes, and I felt myself lean forward closer and closer to stare into them, one hand easing up out the corner of my narrowing scope of view until it was resting on Heero's forehead.

Then Heero's glazed eyes enveloped me in a sea of blue, and I was lost, falling down into depths of unconsciousness to join him.

~ ~ ~ ~

Immediately I was snapped up into a vision, and I found myself wrapped up in the sensation of falling, hurtling headlong in a black hole towards a hard ground I couldn't see. After a few seconds of terrifying free fall, I felt a tugging at my back. Suddenly I wasn't falling, and I felt unfamiliar muscles contract and coil as I floated on invisible wings.

I started to move in one definite direction in the black sightless abyss out of instinct. I could feel Heero's aura up ahead, and I knew that I must reach him before his conscious mind managed to catch up with us. Soon I felt myself collide with a stretchy smooth elastic film. Flinging myself at it, I felt it stretch and mold around me. Just when I felt I would suffocate and not be able to break the barrier, I saw my aura flare out around me, essentially snapping through the film and popping me through to the other side.

Instantly I was bathed in a warm white light, not bright enough to be glaring, but brighter than I was prepared for after coming from such a well of darkness. I blinked the brightness away and looked around, still floating effortlessly on my now visible onyx wings. Far below me was an ocean of the deepest, richest blue, and I felt an urge to go down and land on an small island that was below me.

As though my thoughts had the power to teleport me, I found myself standing on the shore of the island's beach, my bare toes curling and burying themselves in the soft sand as cool water trickled over them, creating a sensation like nothing I'd ever felt before in my years of limited freedom as a child of the space colonies.

I heard a splashing sound behind me, so I turned around and looked, knowing that it would be Heero. I had enough of these visions from him that I was starting to know what to expect. As time went by, as we grew closer, and as his sessions got worse, we were connecting on a much more intimate level in these visions. Smiling a welcome, I ran up to the winged boy emerging from the surf and hugged him tightly, grateful to feel him hugging me back.

Our tight embrace did not last, however, because Heero suddenly went limp against me, forcing me to struggle to support his weight. I dragged him the rest of the way onto the beach, wings stretching and helping me, creating lift by flapping slightly. My nostrils filled with the salty scent of the sea mixed with the clean scent that was uniquely Heero. As I sat down on the sand and pulled his head into my lap, he blinked weakly up at me with those gorgeous haunted blue eyes that were beginning to leak tears of blood.

In the distance, the shrieking started.

Duo…They know, they know about all of us…it's getting harder…

I heard Heero with that psychic bond we always shared in these dreams.

'Oh, God, Heero. Does it hurt that much? I wish I could make this all stop,' I thought back, desperately trying to ignore the wind that was picking up around up, stirring the now blistering sand to swirl around us in torrents. The sea foam was blowing all around us, soaking us even more as we communicated, plastering the now hot sand to us like grainy wax that seared and pricked.

'What? How do you know that?'

With that final thought, the shrieking was upon us. I held tightly to Heero, but as always, he was torn from my grasp. I felt sand lodge between the fine feathers of my wings, and then a ferocious tearing agony shot through me when I felt them being ripped brutally from my back. Sobbing at the pain and covering my face in an effort to inhale around the flying sand, I felt something in my head pop.

My eardrums had burst, and now silence reigned supreme, only challenged by a dull roar that whispered in the back of my mind. Then a large wave crashed down on my, and I was lost.

~ ~ ~ ~

I woke up with a start, my eyes flying open quickly and without warning. Looking around frantically, still caught up in the aftermath of the vision, I saw that I was still on Heero's bunk, but now I was laid down next to my…my love. Okay, fine I wrote it. Happy now?

Quatre and Trowa were sitting anxiously on Trowa's bunk, watching us through the gap in the curtains around Heero's bunk. Wufei was pacing anxiously back and forth at the foot of the bed, and I could see him only occasionally when he passed the edges of the curtain. Since I woke up panting and panicky, the other guys immediately noticed I was awake.

"Duo, are you okay? You passed out over an hour ago!" Quatre exclaimed, kneeling by the bunk. Trowa stood behind him, crouching down and laying a hand on the blond's shoulder as he peered in at me with concern.

"What happened? Did Heero send you another vision?" Wufei asked, perching on the edge of the bed near our knees.

I nodded, feeling the wet slap of my sweaty bangs against my forehead. "Yeah, and guys, we have to get him to wake up. I think that things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better. It almost destroyed us when his mental blocks caught up with us."

As I was saying this, I had hauled myself up carefully on my side and was trying to shake Heero lightly to wake him. Not surprisingly, I was unsuccessful, and his body just limply quaked a little when I shook him. I reached up to peel back his eyelids to see if he was still drugged, even though he had appeared fine before I had passed out.

When I gingerly peeled back one lid I almost screamed in shock, horror, and fear, and I frantically checked his other eye to be certain. Heero's clear, deep blue eyes were clouded with blood. Several capillaries in the whites of his eyes had burst, flooding the clear lens of his eyes with a sickly crimson that shaded the blue of his pupils, turning them a slightly purplish color.

Crying out, I showed the other guys what I had discovered. We started to get panicky, this was completely out of the ordinary, even for us. People's eyes just don't start bleeding. That's damn nasty and scary as hell.

I curled up around Heero, clutching him to me and praying to every God I didn't believe in and every benevolent soul I had ever seen to do something, anything. As I hugged my Heero I saw Quatre reach forward and lay a gentle hand on his forehead, brushing back the messy brown bangs to connect with the sweaty skin of Heero's forehead. Then he laid his other hand on my forehead. Quatre's hand felt cool against my warm skin, and I felt a slight tingling sensation.

My vision started to fade at the edges for a moment and I gasped, feeling energy being drained out of my body into Quatre's hand. The blond boy gasped in unison with me, and he furrowed his pale brow in pain for a moment. Then I saw Heero's eyelids flutter open of their own accord, and the clouded bloody haze was cleared somewhat from his eyes.

Then Quatre slumped a tiny bit as he removed his hands from our foreheads. Trowa caught him, of course. Wufei was staring in shock at us, his wide black eyes calculating and cataloging what had just happened.

I hugged Heero tighter, thankful beyond belief that he was able to hug me back. Then I turned and looked at Quatre. "Did you, did you do that? Did you take part of me and make him wake up?" I asked, feeling slightly flustered and foolish for not being able to articulate my question any better.

Quatre nodded slightly, wincing in obvious pain. Trowa held the blond boy close to him and eased him back onto his own bed. "You couldn't do that before," the tall boy stated, looking closely at the slight boy in his lap.

"I know. I don't know how I was able to do that…it was like an extension of my empathic abilities, almost," he answered, looking no less than awed. "It hurt me, though. I think they did something to me in that session. I can't feel my empathic abilities very well right now. It's like I had forgotten they were there."

"Well, we know that they did something to you," Wufei added, settling down on the floor, Meiran floating beside him in a lotus position. "It almost seems like a good thing, in a perverse way, but obviously they don't want you to be able to use this talent outside their controlled environment."

Heero nodded, and I helped him to sit up. He leaned heavily against me as he wrote on his notepad.

--Exactly.--

"So it seems they have mixed motives in dealing with you two," I said thoughtfully after reading Heero's note out loud. "I think we should take some sort of action before this gets any worse."

Wufei nodded sharply. "I agree. I'm sick of running from these problems. We may be powerless now, but if we gain enough knowledge we might be able to fight back. Knowledge truly is power," He stated, looking around at all of us, his black eyes shining brightly.

"You're right," Trowa agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "Perhaps we can go back to that renovated wing, or look in some files to see if we can find out more about it."

I nodded. "And I can find what hidden passages might go around or near it. In all my time here, I eventually got bored to death with exploring them. I might have missed a few. I don't know why, but I always avoided that renovated wing."

"We should start tonight," Quatre said, looking at all of us with pain-filled eyes. "I have a feeling that if they came for me, they'll come for the rest of you too. And I don't know how much longer you can hold out, Heero."

Heero nodded and tightened his casual grip around my waist, staring down at his knees. I got the feeling that he felt like he was weak for not being able to fight harder, which was ridiculous. They had obviously been fucking with him since he was just a little kid. Considering the measures that they had already been able to influence Quatre, it made me wonder how Heero used to be before all this shit started.

It made me want to cry.

I didn't though. I just took a deep breath, smiled down at my love, and held him tighter to me. Glancing around the room at my comrades, my friends, I smiled.

"Let's fight back."

~ ~ ~ ~

That night we put our plan into motion. First we were going to go (carefully) snooping around in the secret passages. I hadn't shown the other guys them yet, because, well, as novel and cool as it sounds, they smell rather bad and are filled with cobwebs. And besides, believe it or not, they get boring after a while, not to mention the fact that we had been incredibly busy and otherwise occupied.

Entering the passages through an unassuming piece of paneling under a rickety staircase, we crept quietly along, with me in the lead holding the flashlight that we normally kept out in our hollow tree. After dinner Wufei had sneaked outside and retrieved it for us. Now, using the feeble light as our guide until we were forced to turn it off, we shuffled single-file in the direction of the renovated wing.

As we crept along we finally reached the passages that passed parallel to some of the main hallways. I had to turn off the light here because there was light streaming through the cracks in the wall and into the passage. The little slates of light were usually enough to see by, plus we didn't want anyone to see the glow of our flashlight coming from some innocent, unassuming and totally "normal" wall.

Ever so often as we tiptoed along we'd pass places where a person leaning against the outer wall broke apart the shards of light that were piercing the darkness. When this happened, we would be as quiet as possible, doing our best to avoid creaky floorboards or sneezing.

Eventually we passed around the perimeter of the cafeteria, and we were forced to crawl down a little incline that took us around the kitchen. I'm telling you, the terrible smell of the cafeteria was worse than ever trapped in the narrow confines of the walls. At one point, near where the basement staircase came up into the back of the kitchen, I thought I was going to pass out from the foul smell. Had someone lit a match, the whole place might have gone up in a blue light. Seriously, it was rank.

A few more little turns later found us at the mouth of the renovated wing, on the opposite hallway from the disguised door. Standing in a small huddle, I turned the light back on, shining it down at our feet. Looking around at the faces of my friends in the backwash of the tiny light, I felt my heart skip a beat. Everyone looked scared to death, faces very pale and eyes shining in the darkness. The shadows danced around us as the light barely pierced the gloom surrounding us and down either dark direction of the passage. The shadow demons were crawling up the wall to be on eye level with me as I looked around. This also did a nice job of freaking me out. Trying my best to ignore my growing apprehension, I put those nasty little buggers of my mind and focused on my friends.

"This is as far as I'd ever come in this direction," I whispered. "Time has always been limited, and for some reason I never really got this far in one trip. Usually the shadow demons in this part of the building freaked me out, or the smell of fresh paint would make me feel lightheaded. And as you can imagine, the last thing I'd want to do is faint in one of this narrow, dank little passages."

"I can imagine," Wufei said dryly, glancing over at Meiran as she glowed faintly in the darkness. She had been almost riding on Wufei's back the entire trip, as though she didn't want the shadows to touch her without having some sort of contact with her living husband. She looked very uncomfortable with her surroundings.

"So, how are we going to get across the hallway to that door?" Quatre asked, trying his best to sound brave and fearless. "I want to get this over with."

I shrugged. "I honestly don't know if we can even get over there. We'll need to keep the light on so we can look closely for an hidden catches or whatever, but we're going to have to keep a close watch to make sure we can turn it off if someone comes into the hallway."

"Meiran and I can do that," Wufei said, nodding to his spirit wife. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and gratefully dove through the wall to the outer well-lit corridor. Wufei fought off a little blush in the gloom and grinned slightly.

"All right, now that's taken care of, let's go," I said, gesturing with the flashlight and trying to sound like the shadow demons weren't already starting to freak me out. I think Heero caught my little act, though, because he placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.

"Hey, wait a minute," Wufei said suddenly, trying to keep his voice down. "You aren't just going to leave me here all by myself, are you?" He jumped lightly from foot to foot nervously.

Trowa and Quatre exchanged a long look, the pair clasping hands for a moment. Then Trowa stepped away and leaned up against the side of the passage beside Wufei. "I'll stay. You need Quatre's abilities."

As Trowa leaned against the old wooden walls of the passage, the little worry demons that clustered around him fought away the shadow demons, causing them to scatter away from the pair. I realized with a start that the worry demons didn't bother Meiran much, but the shadow demons did. Trowa staying was a comfort for both halves of the Chinese couple.

Wufei breathed a sigh of relief and sat down, leaning lightly against the opposite side of the passage from Trowa. Satisfied that they would be okay, the rest of us turned and ventured into the passageway I had never explored, hoping to find a route into the hidden walls of hell.

As we crept along, me in the lead again (lucky me) with Heero and Quatre both side by side behind me, we studied the walls and floor carefully, looking for anything unusual. At the end of the long hallway, we found another passage that went off in the general direction of the other side of the hallway, the side where the disguised steel door was. By silent mutual agreement, we veered off down this passage, walking more quietly and moving more tentatively than we had been before. The three of us were basically all stuck together like glue as we shuffled down the narrow passage. I could feel the heat of my companions' bodies hitting me right in the back, and the occasional accidental touches as we went along helped comfort me. It was good not to be alone.

When we were about half the distance to the door, I started to get some really bad vibes. Halting, I turned to Quatre to gauge his reaction. He was looking fine, completely normal, in fact. That was odd.

"Quatre, can you feel that?" I whispered, leaning forward to speak right into his ear.

He looked at me strangely. "No, I'm not picking anything up…"

Heero handed me a note. I flipped the flashlight beam onto the paper.

--Quatre, have you been constantly feeling out with your senses?--

The empath blinked. "Now that you mention it, I guess I haven't…I can't seem to get a hold of it to use for some reason," Quatre frowned as he concentrated a moment, then winced in pain and closed his eyes. "I can't seem to get anything."

Heero reached up one hand and pressed it to Quatre's forehead. The blond boy gasped and jerked suddenly, then opened his eyes.

"Thank you, Heero. I don't know what you did, but now I can access my ability again," Quatre whispered, looking into the obscurity of the tunnel in front of us. "I don't like this."

Heero nodded in agreement and looked at me, lifting one eyebrow as if to ask what we were going to do now. I shrugged. "Might as well keep going. Although I think it might be better if I turn off the light from here on out."

The very idea of turning off the light did not appeal to me in the slightest, but it was a necessary evil. The air was getting progressively thicker with those black oozing waves of pain the closer we got to where the door would be. Just a few more yards down the passage, and no light at all was managing to make it through the cracks in the outer wall. However, as I trailed my fingertips along the side of the passage opposite the lighted corridor, I could feel occasional tremors. Ever so often we could hear scraping noises and muffled voices.

Finally, approximately fifty feet from where I estimated the disguised steel door would be, I stopped, unable to force myself to go any further. It was getting hard for me to breathe. The black noxious waves of negative energy were getting way too strong, and every time one hit me I felt as though my body was ablaze as a thousand little flames tattooing patterns across my skin.

"I can't go further, it hurts too much," I whispered, leaning close so that Quatre and Heero could hear me. We were so close to each other by then that I could feel the tiny vibrancies of their auras tingling at the edges of my skin, a welcome respite from the malignant black vibes.

"That's okay, I'm having trouble going any further myself," Quatre answered in a soft voice.

Heero glared into the pitch gloom that was in front of us in the hallway. He reached out with one hand and lightly rapped his knuckles on the outer part of the passage, the part that bordered the corridor. A metallic ringing was the result. Blue eyes widening, he reached out his other hand and rapped ever so carefully on the opposite wall, the one that very likely bordered the wing area were he was taken for his sessions. It, too, rang in that pinging song of tempered steel.

The secret passage was lined with steel. If they went to the trouble of lining the "secret" passage with steel, then it only stood to reason that they knew about it. Oh. Shit.

As I looked at my friends in the near total darkness, I could see that they had come to the same conclusion I had. The aquamarine color almost obscured by his dilated pupils in the darkness, Quatre latched one hand onto Heero's arm, and the other onto mine.

"We need to leave, now!" He whispered urgently, looking around.

Nodding our agreement, Heero and I turned with Quatre and started back from whence we had came, moving more quickly than we had before. Screw stealth, we needed to get the hell out of there. We had only gone a few feet when Heero reached out and jerked us to a halt. He fumbled only slightly in the darkness and snatched the flashlight out of my hand. He flicked it on and with one smooth motion had it pointed up at the ceiling of the passage, only a few feet away from our heads.

The flashlight illuminated a camera. I heard the internal workings click as it moved for its lens to focus on us. We were being watched.

I felt my eyes go impossibly wide, and together, the three of us broke into a full out run, our light footsteps echoing back down the length of the passage. As we ran, Heero pointed the flashlight in front of us so we wouldn't trip. The bouncing beam caused the shadows to dance menacingly, and the demons that were feeding off the black waves of pain laughed at our fear and panic as we fled.

I became aware of a deep thumping sound behind us as we rounded the corner to go back across the outer corridor. Not having enough courage to look back, I only hoped that it was only the echoes of our soft footfalls coming back to my ears. Somehow, deep within myself, I knew better. As we panted and ran, we broke the silence of the musty passage into a thousand pieces. I became aware of the numerous shadow and pain demons that had popped up on the ceiling of the passage at this point. I hadn't been looking up before, and the thought of those nasty beasts hanging unseen inches above my head did not do my already panicked mind no good.

In what was surely a moment but felt like an hour, we were back with Wufei and Trowa. They had stood up at our approach, and looked startled when we snagged their arms and dragged them along with us. Heero flipped off the light, bathing us in the deep gloom again. A few more turns later, by the lunchroom, I halted us.

"Out---here…." I managed to say around my heavy, panicked breathing. I peered through a crack in the wall and found what I was looking for, the small latch that would allow the wood panel to slide open a space that would barely allow us to escape the passage. Satisfied with merely a glance through the crack, I shoved the panel open and all but fell out, breathing in the smelly air of the cafeteria area gratefully. As soon as the other guys were through, I slammed the panel shut again and lead the way out of there, taking the quickest route back to our room that I could. Meiran had followed us on the outside of the hallway as we had rushed along in the passage, and had all latched protectively onto Wufei as soon as we were out in the outer corridors again.

When we made it to our room, we rushed in, shutting the door firmly behind us. We collapsed in a circle on the floor, and Quatre and I proceeded to tell Wufei, Meiran, and Trowa why we had been so red-hot to get out of there.

"Do you think anything will happen?" Wufei asked, absently tucking a black strand of hair back behind his ear. His hair had gotten a tiny bit mussed in our harried flight.

Quatre shrugged. "What would they do, kick us out? That would be a blessing compared to what might be in store for us."

"Good point," Trowa agreed, easily sliding an arm back around Quatre and scooting closer towards him.

I sighed dejectedly and stretched my arms up over my head, causing my shirt to ride up a tiny bit. Heero reached forward and tugged it down for me absently, causing me to blush.

And so we sat there, nervously waiting for someone to come pound at our door, break in, and take us away to do unpleasant things to us. Eventually we realized that this was not a realistic scenario, especially since we lived in the same building as these sessions took place. We were already trapped. They could come for us whenever they felt like it.

No one would believe us if we told them, at least none of the psyches would. Hell, the psyches were probably in on the whole thing.

It wouldn't be possible to tell one of the teachers, either. In all our classes we had those damn orderlies, and I had a feeling if we tried to talk with any of our more astute teachers about these things that we'd be hauled away and silenced in one way or another. At any rate, none of them could have really done anything for us, save smuggling us out in the middle of the night. Oh, yeah, right, that would happen. First of all, we'd have to convince whoever we decided to tell (in private) that we were not crazy and really did a) see demons, b) hear voices, c) feel other people's emotions, d) see dead people, and e) that there really was a great conspiracy out to get us and do terrible things to us. I know all of it to be the God's honest truth, but even to me it sounded crazy.

And so my thoughts continued into a downward spiral of fear and hopelessness. All we could really count on here was each other and ourselves, and even then we might have that trust stripped away be whatever they were doing to Quatre and Heero. We all knew that it was only a matter of time before they came for the rest of us, now, especially since we had looked straight into that camera in the so-called secret passage.

Mentally and emotionally exhausted, we decided to hit the sack and go to sleep. We all felt nervous and scared, however, and I don't think any of us really wanted to turn out the lights. As a result, we all sat in our respective bunks, Heero and I in his, Wufei sitting on his single bed with Meiran's spirit curled around him and whispering in his ear, and Trowa and Quatre sitting together on Trowa's lower bunk. We sat in silence and looked at each other, not knowing what to do about our discomfort. This situation had ceased to be only mainly hurting Heero, it now touching all of us directly, and we were scared.

Heero abruptly stood up, walked over to Wufei's bed, and turned it perpendicular to the wall. Considering how Wufei was still sitting on his bed, this was quite interesting. Then, in one solid scrape of steel against linoleum, Heero shoved Wufei's bed right in between the bottom mattress of the two bunk beds. He then went behind me, edged our collective bed forward to bridge the gap between Wufei's relocated bed and our bunk, then repeated the action with Trowa and Quatre's bunk.

Looking down at his handiwork, he nodded once and pulled out some extra sheets from our bureau, and proceeded to extend the bunk curtain around the newer, much bigger bed. It just so happened that Wufei's mattress came to the same height as the two mattresses on the lower bunks, creating a huge bed. Then Heero flicked off the lights.

When Heero was finished with that, he slung one more sheet over the top, completely enclosing the new combined bed. Then he crawled in, grinned at us, and lay down with the length of his body going along the headboards of the combined beds. As he stretched out, I could see that there was just enough room for the five of us to recline comfortably side by side if we turned perpendicular to the way we'd normally lie on the mattresses. Catching on, I took my place next to my Heero and snuggled up to him. Quatre lay on the other side of me, his head pillowed on Trowa's shoulder. Lying next to the foot of the combined beds, on the other side of Trowa, Wufei stretched out. Meiran cuddled up next to him, slightly overlapping with his body in places.

Heero then carefully tossed a light blanket over us all, but it was barely big enough to cover all five of us at once. Seeing this, he tossed another sheet over to Wufei, who blinked in understanding and unfolded it, tossing it in the other way to drift from his side of the bed over. This done, we now had enough blankets, and in our new, bigger, shared haven, we drifted off to sleep, comforted by the presence of family.

~ ~ ~ ~

The next morning I when woke up, I was blissfully aware of the presence of Heero right in front of me. I nuzzled into his chest and sighed happily as I felt his arms tighten around me. I spared a glance over my shoulder at my friends, and I almost giggled out loud at the adorable sight Quatre and Trowa made. Usually Trowa slept with lots and lots of blankets piled over him, but I think Quatre was all he really needed for security, because he was curled up around the smaller blond boy like he was clutching a teddy bear. Quatre's soft fair hair was spread out on the pillow, mingling with the soft brown of Trowa's long bangs. Their breathing was coming in unison as they rested in the early morning light.

On the other side of them lay Wufei, who had curled up into a tight little ball in his sleep, clutching his knees. His dark smooth hair was splayed out gracefully on his pillow, and at his head Meiran sat, ethereal eyes closed as she rested her hands on her sleeping love's head. She felt my gaze on her and blinked at me, smiling. I smiled back and turned around again, giving her the privacy she wanted and allowing myself a few more precious moments snuggling with Heero.

When I looked back down at the boy next to me, I found myself staring straight into those dark blue eyes of his as they fluttered open. I leaned forward and stole an early morning kiss before lying back down.

Eventually we were forced to get up and go to class, but I do believe the other guys felt as nice as I did about our new sleeping arrangement. It just felt so safe and nice, like we were brothers…well, brothers except for those special relationships. Classes flew by despite the worrying we had from the day before about suddenly being wrapped up in straight jackets and tossed in some dank padded cell with big nasty rats as cellmates.

As the day wore on I found myself worrying less and less over the escapades from the night before, instead finding myself looking at new ways to try and fight back. Lunch was fun, even though we still sat in one of the more crowded hallways, we managed to get in some good quality conversation and planning.

Then we headed off to our group session, setting up our circle of chairs before Dr. Quinze arrived so that we'd save time and maybe get to leave early. Dr. Quinze was a few minutes late, though, and when he arrived he shattered all illusions we might have had about breezing through this session quickly.

He brought a guest with him, an older man who sported bionic glasses that melded with his face. His white hair was receding along his forehead, but in the back it was long and spilled over his shoulders. As he walked into the room with Dr. Quinze, his long white lab coat barely concealed the large metal braces that lined his legs, causing him to limp along with a sickening metal against metal squeal as the hinges at his knees and ankles worked. I flinched and looked over at Heero, recognizing that noise. One look at my Heero's face confirmed what I was already thinking.

You see, that scraping sound was the same noise I sometimes heard through the disguised door in the renovated wing, the area that blond man had disappeared into and that Quatre and Heero had been taken. That place that oozed black bile waves of evil and pain.

This man was from the other side of the door.

~ ~ ~ ~