"Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go."
--- Brooks Atkinson
"Tell me who's your friend and I'll tell you who you are."
--- Russian Proverb
"If anyone says they hate war more than I do, they better have a knife."
--- Jack Handey
Fall From Innocence Part 2
Pariah
"Why should I wor-ry? Why should I ca-a-are? I may not have a dime, but I got street savoir faire..." Duo sang under his breath, snapping his fingers nervously. He smiled at the boarding attendant who let him off the shuttle, smiled even though he didn't feel like it and didn't know the guy.
Hundreds of people milled in the spaceport, walking aimlessly, sitting (or sleeping) on the hard, rusty metal benches. A few drank coffee from syrofoam cups, or from bottles in brown paper bags. The noise echoed in the dome, surrounding him, until he already felt a headache coming on. There was a little girl standing alone in the crowds, bawling at the roof of the dome. It hurt his heart a little, but he let his eyes slide blindly over her, the same as everyone else.
A loudspeaker echoed through the spaceport, announcing the incoming and outcoming shuttles. Shuttles to L3-20384, L4-74903, Orbital Window 38: New York City, L1-27948, on and on. Obviously, a lot more people wanted to leave the colony, Duo realized with a bitter grin, than wanted to arrive there.
A young boy sat against one of the boarding entries, a cardboard sign in his hands and shoebox at his crossed ankles. His eyes were dull and distant. POOR + HOEMLESS PLEEZE HELP ME
Duo felt a twinge as he saw the needle tracks in the crook of the boy's elbow, and when he looked over, the boy met his eye, smiling vacantly.
"Hey, help a guy out?" The boy's voice was inflective and drawling. Duo could tell he had recently been on the nod.
Duo opened his mouth to tell the kid sorry, no go, he only had a hundred creds to his name himself and he needed them, but instead he found himself reaching into his bag for his wallet, finding a twenty- cred tab. He shoved it into the boy's callused hand.
"Food, kid. Not skag."
The boy's eyes widened, and he nodded his head frantically, pocketing the money before Duo had a chance to change his mind. "Sure, sure, gobbless, man Damn "
Duo turned away and headed towards the other end of the spaceport, knowing that the boy was going to buy drugs with the money, no matter what Duo told him to do with it. At least with twenty creds instead of five, he was more likely to get better drugs, not something cut with poison.
Maybe it would be better to let the kid get a bad batch and bake himself, Duo thought. Better to die quick than die slow.
"Fuck no," he muttered, shaking his head. A few passersby looked at him strangely, but he was just one person talking to himself in a city that had a crazy on every street corner. He didn't cause a lot of commotion.
Duo finally found a less-crowded bench and laid down on it, putting his softer bag beneath his head, cradling the second on his belly, hands laced over it. He closed his eyes, feeling the thrum of the shuttles as they took off, hearing the loudspeaker voice like the voice of God.
He couldn't sleep. He was exhausted, and he needed to rest, but he couldn't sleep in this place; unless you were homeless and had nothing, doing so was unbelievably stupid. He at least still had something, and as long as he did, he was going to protect it.
Duo was still dazed by how quickly it had all happened. One minute, a terrorist extraordinaire. Then look, ladies and gentlemen, it's a Preventer! Now a homeless guy on a bench in a spaceport! Duo, Maxwell, Shinigami, Kid, the man with a million faces.
He sighed, and despite his oath not to doze off, he slipped into sleep, a series of jumbled, bloodied images chasing each other through his head.
"Kid! Heya, Kid!"
"Come get me, you Ozzy fuckers..."
"I catch you using, I'm going to pound you, brat."
"Please, Kid, oh please Jesus it hurts... fucking Jerusalem... Kid, give me my knife, give me my knife, I'll do it myself!"
"You either get him outta here, Kid, or by God I'll drag him into the street myself! You see that I don't!"
-"Solo!!"
Duo jerked awake on the bench, gasping, one hand going convulsively to the bag on his chest, gripping tightly. He bared his teeth in a snarl, unaware of the expression on his face. Once he realized where he was, he sat up, feeling his back twinge where he had been lying across the hard metal. The spaceport was hot and stuffy from too many people trying to breathe the same air, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead roughly with the back of his hand. He had no idea how long he'd been lying there, but his stuff was still all there. It must not have been too long.
It's over, Duo thought, an oppressive feeling of despondency washing over him at the thought. The war's over, and I never have to fight again. Even if I have to live under a fucking bridge or in a doorway, or in a bus depot, I never have to kill again.
But I'll never see the guys again, either.
His eyes stung, and he blinked fiercely.
Fuck it, he thought. He slung his bags onto his back, one over each shoulder, plastering a confident if-you-don't-like-it-fuck-ya grin on his face, even though the last thing he wanted to do in the world was crack a smile.
I grew up on this colony. I'm a street brat.
I'll improvise.
~*~
Duo made his way to the tech quarter, shifting his bags every once in awhile when they began to get too heavy. Finally, just before he was about to give up and go back to the spaceport to go sleep on a bench, he saw a handprinted sign in the entrance of a large repair dock. Over the entrance, a red neon sign glowed in the fading dark of the colony's synthetic twilight.
YOFER'S SALVAGE
The sign put up with duct tape beneath it was a promising one. Reading the scrawled letters, Duo felt a genuine smile cross his face.
TECH HELP WANTED ADDICTS NEED NOT APPLY
He walked into the open dock, his grin widening at the smell of mech oil and the sound of buzzing sound of solders, things that reminded him of his preteen years, the Sweeper years, the years more happily spent than the rest of his years as a street kid and a soldier combined.
Sitting on top of a totaled Taurus in the front of the dock, a young man in an oil-stained jumper swung his legs lazily, a cigarette clenched in his teeth. He was a few years older than Duo, white-blond hair pulled back with a piece of rawhide, with a terrible scar from the corner of his jaw to his cheekbone, as if someone had caught him across the face with a switchblade. He was reading a paperback book that looked like it had been to hell and back.
Duo peered up to see the title.
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
Suddenly, the young man sensed Duo's eyes on him and folded the book down a little, looking over the top of it with narrowed gray eyes the color of cold winter.
Duo's eyes widened.
Jeremiah?
"What the fuck are you looking at?"
Duo shook his head. "Nothin'."
"You callin' me nothin'?"
What the hell's his problem? Duo scowled defensively, starting to protest, but then he saw the playful smirk on the young man's face. The tech's laughter rang through the repair dock, and he braced his feet against the mobile suit's side, his elbows resting on his knees, grinning down at Duo like a Cheshire cat.
A voice bellowed angrily from the other end of the dock, and both Duo and the tech flinched. "Isaac, are you still reading that damned book!? Your break was over five minutes ago, you punk ass! Get back to work on that bull or I'll have Yofer dock your pay!"
The tech glared balefully over his shoulder, shouting over the din. "I'm on it, Johnnie, Christ! At least I can read, you dumb fuck!"
He glanced at Duo again, rolling his eyes in a priceless expression that Duo could understand perfectly - this city, man... - and jumped into the open hatch of the mobile suit. Duo thought he could still hear the tech's mumbled curses under all the noise as he got back to work.
Duo smiled. It was like coming home.
He walked past the other techs, and the rows of tanks,
ALBER YOFER
SALVAGE AND REPAIR
This must be my guy.
Duo knocked. A few moments passed, and he almost knocked again before a gruff voice issued from inside.
"Come in."
He opened the door walked into the dark, musty office, throwing his bags down on the floor. The heavier one clanged on the floor, his rachets and wrenches banging against one another, even though he had them wrapped in rags to protect them. The slovenly man behind the desk didn't even look up from his work.
"Saw your sign out front."
The man didn't look at him. "So you want a job, huh?"
Duo stood patiently in front of the slovenly character sitting in the chair behind the desk, a spreadsheet of orders in front of him. The man, who Duo assumed was Yofer, was hunched over them, squinting in concentration.
"Yeah, I do."
The man didn't even falter. "Well, that's a real fuckover. I can't help you out, brat. Sorry."
Dammit.
Duo sidled up to the desk, resting his elbows on it, looking at the man square in the face. "C'mon, Yofer, I have my own tools, good ones, and I can fix anything you throw at me. Tell me you don't need a junker like that."
"I don't hire guys your age. Too many fuckin' junkies. Get lost."
"Do I look like a junkie to you?"
Finally, the man's eyes came up to meet his, hazel eyes like hard nuts buried in his flabby face, and he scowled as he studied the former Gundam pilot.
"Got a college degree?"
Duo snorted softly, putting a hand on his hip. "Yeah, astrophysics from MIT."
The man's scowl deepened into a glare. "Don't get cute with me, brat, or I'll find someone who's not a wiseass to fill the job. We have enough of them around here already as it is."
Duo sighed. "No, I don't have a college degree. Not old enough to go."
"High school degree? Or a tech school?"
Duo thought about the fake ID papers folded in the bottom of his bag, beneath his two changes of clothes, then shook his head. No more lying. "No. I... ah... moved around a lot. Never had time to finish."
"GED?"
"... No."
"You learn anything, kid?" Yofer asked, gazing at him critically.
Duo glared back. "Yeah, I learned how to take a bullet and kill a man. Need references?"
That got the salvage manager's attention in a hurry. He looked up, studying Duo a moment longer, then nodded to himself a little. "Ah, one of the soldier brats." He leaned back over his work. "You're hired."
"Look man, I don't-" Duo trailed off, confused. "W-what?"
The man picked up a pen and scribbled something down on one of the order forms. "You heard me. You're hired. You gun-babies have discipline and you know your mechs. You got a name, or we just going to have to call you Kid?"
~~~"Kid! Heya, Kid!"~~~
"Kid's fine."
Yofer glanced up at him, surprised, then shrugged. "Your dime, Kid. You go out and talk to Harper. He's that fucking towhead slacker working on the Taurus up front. Tell him you're roomin' with him now."
Duo nodded. "Thanks."
"Yeah, yeah. You start tomorrow for five creds an hour. Board is ten creds a day and you fend for yourself for food. Clock in at six A.M sharp. You're late and I dock your pay. I catch you on the nod or hyped and you can go back to supporting the habit with blowjobs in backalleys, hear me?"
"Got it."
"Good. Get the hell out of here."
Duo picked his bags off the floor backed out of the office, waiting until he closed the door behind him before breaking out into a grin. Despite the loneliness he had felt before, when he first arrived back home, he was due for some good news.
Got a place to sleep, got a job. He sighed, still smiling a little. Not much, but it's a start.
He walked back through the repair dock. Someone was using a metal drill, and he winced as the sound echoed, making his skull ring. On top of it all, someone had turned heavy metal music on over the PA system, and the echoes jumbled and discorded it, turning it into something that sounded less like music and more like noise. He approached the Taurus, putting his bags on the ground and scrambling up the side, using the damaged, ripped side of the mech for footholds.
"Harper!"
Nothing. He cupped one hand around his mouth, shouting louder.
"Harper!"
The tech's head popped out of the hatch so suddenly that Duo was startled, almost losing his grip and falling to the cement fifteen feet below. "What?"
"Yofer hired me! He said I'm rooming with you!"
Someone kicked the drill to a higher gear, and the young tech scowled. "What?!"
"I said-"
Harper turned away from him suddenly, roaring across the dock. "Johnnie you gimp asshole, turn that down!" The drill quieted slightly, shifting to a lower gear again, and Harper gestured Duo forward, trying to get him to come closer.
Harper leaned down, speaking directly into the cup of Duo's ear, and Duo fought the urge to shiver at the intimate feel of the tech's breath in his ear. He was close enough that the young man's stubble brushed the side of his face, and when the tech spoke, Duo did shiver then. He couldn't help it.
"Kid, what'd you say?"
Duo turned and leaned forward, speaking as clearly as he could over the din.
"Yofer hired me. He says I'm staying with you."
Harper drew back, a grin crossing his face. He wiped his forearm across his forehead, then gave Duo a thumbs up.
Duo grinned back, and a wave of relief washed over him.
This... maybe it won't be so bad.
TBC...
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