Taking It Out On Duo -----part 1----- Quatre climbed out of bed feeling incredibly lousy. Not sick, just in a very bad mood. "Mission briefing in ten minutes." Heero told him. "Yeah, sure. Whatever." Heero raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?" Quatre shrugged. 'Not really." Heero decided not to press the matter. Quatre made it down to the table in time to see Wufei polish off the last PopTart. He gave Wufei a bad look, but said nothing. "Quatre?" Wufei began. But when he looked again, Quatre was smiling, so he assumed he had just been seeing things. "Good morning!" Duo called out, cheerfully, as he ran into the kitchen and grabbed the packet of PopTarts he'd hidden the night before. full intending to share them with Quatre. He knew Wufei's love for PopTarts and had hidden two for that very reason. However, Quatre took one look and lost it completely. "YOU FUCKING SNEAK!" he screamed at Duo as he grabbed for the packet of PopTarts Duo was holding. He knew he was overreacting, but he didn't care. This was the culmination of a very bad morning. He managed to get hold of the packet and began to devour them. Duo was shocked and more than just a little hurt. "I hope you enjoy them, Quatre." he snarled, under his breath. "They just cost you our friendship." -----part 2----- "Who needs him anyway?" Quatre bitched as Duo returned wearing his coat and hat. "Good riddance to the little thief. He was probably just waiting to rob me blind. He probably burned the church himself to cover the fact that he did the same to them." Duo's eyes shimmered with tears. What the hell was wrong with Quatre anyhow, and why the fuck was he directing all this hate towards him? And that last remark. Accusing him of... "Little nun-murdering thief." Quatre glared at him. Duo let out a heartbroken sigh and walked out. "Duo..." Trowa said, as he saw Duo heading for the door. "Duo, he doesn't mean it." "I don't care." Duo replied as he walked out. Trowa went into the kitchen and grabbed the PopTarts from Quatre. "You hurt Duo." He said, simply, as he tossed the PopTarts into the trash bin. "So what?" Quatre hmphed. Not far from the safe house, OZ troops patrolled the nearby city. They caught sight of Duo, who was too upset about Quatre's callous words to notice them. "Huh?!" he blinked as he noticed the OZ soldier for the first time as the man grabbed him and kissed him. "NO!" he shrieked, pulling back. The OZ soldier smiled. "So beautiful." he said as he grabbed Duo and pulled him into a tight embrace. "He's quite lovely, don't you think?" This brought several sounds of agreement from the other OZ soldiers. "I wish I could make love with him." one of them said. "Me, too." Another agreed. "Perhaps we should take turns." the soldier who was holding Duo suggested. Duo's eyes went wide with that suggestion. They were going to rape him! "Perhaps you should go to Hell!" he retorted as he twisted free of the man holding him and tried to make a break for it. The others were swiftly upon him, however, tackling him as easily as a pack of wolves brings down a gazelle. In seconds he was on the ground, stripped, and in pain as random cocks rammed into him over and over. Quatre found Duo some hours later, bleeding and dying. He'd been ordered to look for the other boy by Heero and the others had adamantly stood their ground in their agreement on this matter. He'd been angry during the search, going over the PopTarts incident in his mind. //He hid them from you. He hid those PopTarts so you couldn't have them. He wanted them all to himself...// //...so why didn't he hide *all* of the PopTarts?// Quatre had blinked as the new thought hit him unexpectedly. He thought about it. //He wasn't hiding them *from* you,// his SpaceHeart told him. //he was hiding them *for* him. And what's wrong, Little Quatre? Why are you so angry? Duo's your friend, and you hurt him.// Quatre'd bowed his head. "I didn't mean to.// he had said. Then, as he straightened up, he spotted the group of OZ soldiers having their way with a new victim. Praying to every deity he could think of that it wasn't Duo, he'd gone to rescue whoever it turned out to be. Sure enough, it was Duo. That's when Quatre truly lost it. The man who was ramming Duo suddenly let go of the braided bishonen and grasped his head, screaming in pain as he stumbled back. A moment later, the man's head exploded in a horrific spray of blood, hair, skin, and grey matter. Quatre called his family and had them pick up Duo and himself. He couldn't go back to the safe house with Duo like that. He would never hear the end of it if he did. Quatre's family's doctors admitted Duo into the Winner Family's private hospital. "What happened?" his father asked. Quatre told his father everything. "So, it's happening again?" the older man asked. Quatre nodded. "I thought I'd had it under control, but...And it lasted longer this time." "It's been years since your last incident." his father replied. "I'd hoped they'd stopped all together." "They did for the most part." "Until today." His father prompted. "I was in a bad mood, that's all." Quatre replied. "And I said things I never should've said. I'd take it all back if I could." "You still need help, Quatre." "I don't need a shrink." Quatre shook his head. "They don't know what its like. Having all those people in my head. I can't stand it any longer. What the hell his wrong with me? Please?" The elder Winner regarded his son with fondness and sadness for a moment, then walked over to the window. There was no gentle way to put it. No easy way to say what needed to be said. He took a deep breath and let it out again, gazing at the city outside. "You're a Scanner." he finally told his son. -----TBC----- Notes: According to the movie, Scanners, a scanner is a person with strong telepathic and telekinetic abilities. This is the result of their mothers taking a drug during pregnancy called "Ephemerol". Oddly enough, this same drug is now found to be an effective scan-suppressant and is the only thing between a scanner and the insanity that must eventually befall him as the result of hearing millions of voices in his head every day.