Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R
Warnings: Death, gore, angst, language, drug use
Pairing: Implied 1+2+1
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Notes: I was going through some old files and found this one-shot, which I wrote about five years ago. It was a little rough (because I was thirteen when I wrote it, I think...*heh*) but I found the theme of it lent itself pretty well to Requiem. So I reworked it and made it a companion piece...
"As I walk along these streets, I see a man who walks alone
just an echo of people's feet, he has no place to call his own
A shot rings out from the roof overhead, crack-head asks for change nearby
old man lies in an alleyway dead, a little girl lost just stands there and cries...What would you do? If it was you? Would you take everything for granted like you do?
Boy just fifteen on the corner for sale, swallows his pride for another hit
overpopulation, there's no room in jail, and most of you don't give a shit
That your daughters are porno stars, and your sons sell death to kids
so lost in your little worlds, your little worlds you'll never fix...As I walk along these streets, soaking up the acid rain
underneath the taxi cabs, I hear the streets cry out in vain..."
--- Stained, What Would You Do?
Sacrificial Faith
I hate this place.
I love it, and I hate it.
We're standing at the corner near an email booth, waiting for the coded instructions we've been told will arrive here in exactly two minutes. Heero has the disk we're going to insert into the console to collect our briefing, our objectives.
Our targets.
Two boys on old beat-up hoverboards covered with obscene neon graffiti are doing weaves through the square. They are winding in and out of each other's paths with a liquid, violent dexterity that suggests to me a solid background in small-time breaking and entering, and possible high-paying futures as military space-traffic controllers.
Probably for OZ, I add as a bitter afterthought.
Both wear their hats backward. Both wear the white bands on their right arms, the mark of support for the rebels, for colony independence. Support for us. I wonder for a minute why they wear the bands. They're too damned young to wear the bands, aren't they? Too young to know...
Then I decide that I don't care, and they probably don't either.
Suddenly the two boards, which had been avoiding each other easily up until then, crash together with a resounding crackling thump. Both kids go down hard on the asphalt, hard enough to make me wince and think of Heero setting his own broken leg. But then they get to their feet almost immediately.
I'm kinda relieved to see that they aren't hurt. But I don't know why.
"Goddam wet end! Stupid motherfucker!" the one in the torn camouflage tee-shirt yells indignantly at his friend. He's maybe eleven, with a scar across one cheek and dirt across the other, and my heart clenches painfully on a memory of Solo. "What the hell's the matter with you, huh? You ride a board like retards fuck!"
Suddenly, there is automatic gunfire from a nearby alley. Ratta tatta tatta tat tat tat. The kid getting his ass chewed out snaps his head up like a deer that hears a rifle shot. My hand goes to where my gun is a comforting bulge at my waistband, but then I pull it away again.
"You hear that?" the kid who had looked up said, resetting his hat carefully on his dirty-blonde mop of greasy hair. "Great big bangs. OZ soldiers getting to it again. You tellin' me you didn't hear that? Boo-ya!"
"I didn't hear jack shit," the kid in the camouflage shirt says sullenly. He held out his palms, which are now dirtier than they had been before, and are oozing blood from three or four minor scratches. "Look at this--fuckin' street-rash!"
How can he not hear it? I think, and then I think of the monorail, the old monorail that runs through Bottomside. That damned thing used to run all hours of the night, loud and hard enough to shake loose glass out of window panes in the old warehouses. But after awhile, a couple of weeks of sleeping on cold concrete, feeling the throbbing rush of that train passing by through the cry of the ground, I couldn't hear it anymore.
Because I heard it every fucking day.
"Ah, quit bitchin', ya pussy," the other says, laughing. "And if I fly a board like retards fuck, you fly a board like greencoats fight!"
Camouflage Boy stares at him, jaw gaping, then bursts out laughing. The other joins him. The kid in camouflage throws an untroubled arm around the other's shoulders, as if neither had heard someone get shot only a few moments before.
I suddenly feel like crying, and a knot rises up in my throat.
Solo...
Heero doesn't notice. Heero never notices, not things like that. Somehow, I don't think he ever will. He's in the email booth, hands flying expertly across the worn keys. It's getting dark. Getting cold. The light from the screen is glowing on his face. I turn away from him again, pulling my coat more tightly around me.
"Yeah but--" The kid in camo notices the two of us there, Heero hacking the booth, me leaning against a streetlamp, hands in my pockets, watching them. He tenses up and takes his arm from around the other boy's shoulders real quick-like. "What the flying blue fuck you lookin' at?"
"You and your friend," I replied. "That's all."
"That's all, huh? Just that?"
"Yup--the whole story."
Camo Boy glances at his friend, who seems to be a little bit younger than him, then back at me. His green eyes--they are a dull jade color, not the bright blue that Solo's had been--glower at me with that purity of suspicion which, in my worldly experience, can only be found here in L2.
His young voice is cigarette-husky and serious.
"You got a problem, buddy?"
"Not me," I said. "I was just thinking 'bout how things are here on L2. Grew up here. You guys just remind me of the kids I hung out with, that's all."
Suddenly, a dozen or so kids, a gang of them, enter the Square from the other side; two of them are arguing about something. I see what's going to happen right before one of the older ones socks the other in the mouth.
The two of them grapple, spinning around in a sort of aggressive dance, then tumble to the cement. As vocal as L2 street kids usually are, fights here are silent and solemn. The two kids I'm talking to instantly lose interest in me and run to join the mob.
Just as one of the boys climbed on top of the other and began to beat the shit out of him in earnest, thick hammering butcher-shop sounds resonating through the twilight as he rained down blows, the clerk from a store comes out.
"Now youse guys quit fightin' in the damned Square! Take it out to an alleyway, ya hear! You goddamned street rats!!" the clerk barked, and the kids scattered like stray dogs.
The boy on top of the other dismounts reluctantly. The two street gladiators rise to their feet, looking at each other warily. There is blood on their faces, and it almost looks fake under the weird glow of the streetlights. The one that had been winning glares at the other, then a switchblade is out in his hand in a dove-gray shimmer. He mimics slashing his own throat, and I read the gesture perfectly.
I'll get you, that gesture says to the other boy. Maybe not now, maybe not anytime soon, but sometime when you're not expecting it. So don't go sleepin' in any obvious streets, because I'll find you, and there won't be any warning next time.
What had probably started out as a simple argument had evolved into an all-out street-style duel in under five minutes, a duel that would undoubtably end with one of them in a dumpster, lying in a pool of his own blood. It's a record that beat even Solo's most impulsive streetfights, I think with awe.
And some sick vestige of pride.
The church bells ring, and I turn to the front of the Square. I see the great church of Topside--Santa Maria Novella--the sister church of Maxwell Cathedral.
There are fires in barrels at every corner and restless straggles of people moving between them. It's full dark now; the more desperate orphans are beginning to turn their tricks on every corner. The police gave up trying to stop them even before I could remember, back when I could still remember my parents' faces.
My eyes drift across the square until they land on a still form lying in the gutter. At first, I only think it's some kid sleeping, but then I see how pale he is, the dark purple circles beneath the eyes. The eyes are slightly open, just a crack, and they are like dull marbles. The eyes of a statue. One arm is outstretched, knuckles resting loosely against the asphalt, and I see needle tracks in the crook of the elbow.
I turn away quickly.
Death always feels contagious here.
Suddenly, I hear shouting, and I see Heero's hand go to touch his pistol. Another fight has begun. Weapons--mostly switchblades and pipes--and voices are raised in counterpoint, one and then the other.
I know immediately-just from the tone of the voices-that someone stole something. Real big surprise in the crime capital of the colonies.
A horde of shabby figures-none of them more than eighteen-had surrounded the thief--a girl.
Others in the Square, hearing the commotion, begin to move either away or towards the crowd, depending on whether they were the kind of people to fight or run. The mob is now a mass of dancing arms and swaying clothes whose liquid feral gestures could be set to club music.
The thief breaks free and tries to cross the middle of the Square. Other orphans follow her, yelling, but she throws them off and turns toward the open doors of the church. Sanctuary. If she could only reach the steps, no one would dare touch her. If there is anything that L2 does not lack, it is clubs and churches, and we attend each in an equal sense of devotion and intensity.
No one would dare kill her on the steps of the church.
But the girl is thin and weak--already exhausted--and a group of teenagers our own age quickly overtake her, racing up the far side of the Square, followed by a pack of dogs and human cries of encouragement. Nearing the church itself, which is still letting out Mass, the mob turns and forms a wall, keeping the girl from the church steps.
She stands irresolute, turning in each direction to gauge the avenues of escape. None are open to her. She is, as we say here on good ol' L2, royally fucked.
If they want her... if they want to take her down now, beat her until her blood is seeping into the asphalt...she doesn't have a chance.
The crowd is silent now, and all the fires can be heard.
"Duo--" Heero starts in a choked whisper. I can tell he wants to step forward and I grab his wrist, squeezing hard. Something about little girls always does that to him. I don't know why, and I don't ask. I never have.
It isn't any of my fucking business.
"Shh," I say impatiently. The old blood is rushing through me now, the adrenaline that is different from any kind of thrill in battle, the L2 tribal vibe of Kill or be killed, motherfucker.
The sweet boy-singing of the choir, that singing which seemed a moment before to have absolutely no earthly connection to the human race, rises plaintively beyond the doors.
The girl--she can't be more than fourteen--lets out a cry and raises her arms toward the sky.
But it's useless. There is no one there to save her--no angels on L2, as the saying goes--nothing of God Himself, no matter how many churches--only the sky beyond the smoke and the stars beyond the sky and the dark beyond the stars.
Resigned, sobbing, she drops to her knees and makes the sign of the cross. She prays and makes the sign again, then covers her face with her hands
At first, the crowd of orphans is silent--almost motionless-watching her the way a vigilant fighter watches his felled opponent to see if he will rise again. And all fights on L2 are sino missione... to the death.
Nothing happens. A dog barks. One--and then another.
"Duo--"
I turn to him. His eyes are questioning, almost innocent. He's not an innocent. But this is a new kind of death to him.
I see the question in those cobalt depths. What is this?
I put my hand over his mouth in a warning, then take it away and look back at the girl. I'll never be so bold to do something like that anywhere else, but this is my colony and I know the rules. It is a jungle here and the number one rule is to watch your own ass. You don't interfere.
It's a jungle. You sleep in the dark, with your eyes open. You hear the sobs in the night, and then the screams...and you just turn your face to the wall, your ears open for their footsteps. You just hope to God that you're not next.
Because if they're killing someone else, they're not killing you.
There is nothing that can be done for the girl, at least not at the moment.
The silent mob--composed mostly of kids younger than me and Heero--watches the girl pray coldly, impassively.
Five or six of them, sick of the game, shake their heads and drift back to their fires.
When she doesn't think she is going to be attacked after all, the girl uncovers her face and takes a half-empty box from beneath her arm, eyes darting uncertainly, a subservient, timid smile on her face.
They were gonna kill her over donuts.
So I guess L2 hasn't changed, not since I lived there.
I'm starting to think it never will.
We watch the girl eat, sinking back on her heels, her vacant gaze on the asphalt she kneels on. Her face glows green in the light of a nearby neon sign. She begins to rock back and forth in some kind of ecstasy.
"Oh, Duo, I didn't know..." Heero whispers, trailing off beside me.
"Yeah. Food. It was like that back then for me too. To be nourished--to be filled--but still knowin' that no matter how much you eat, you're still gonna be hungry. Nothing ever fills an L2 orphan, that's a sayin' around this place," I whisper back, never taking my eyes from her.
"Let's go, Heero."
He looks at me like I'm crazy. "You're... just going to leave her there?"
I smile at him. I don't know exactly what it looks like, that hard grin that I can feel ripping at my heart like knives, but he backs up away from me a little.
"That's the way it works here, Heero. Now let's get the hell out of here."
I pull my coat closer to me, blocking out the chill, all too aware of the barefoot homeless all around me, watching from alleys, sitting out on the sidewalks, bowls outstretched for alms. I walk past them, eyes straight ahead. I've already given out all the credits I had on me.
The rest of them are going to have to suck it up. Live or die. Fight or lie down in the gutter, take one last hit, and wait for eternity to crash over you like a beer bottle shattered over your head.
Tonight I'll light two candles instead of one. One for Solo, and one for the nameless dead kid in the gutter, the twelve year-old heroin addict with no shoes and a cigarette butt in his hair.
I know it's bad. I've seen it all.
But maybe, someday... I can change it.
I will change it.
OWARI
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