Okay, this is a yaoi AU, angsty. I have a sequel planned, but I want to know what people think first, so please R&R. I'll probably revise this one first.
Fair warning: there's language and lime in here.
Duo's Story
"What I wanted to be was an actor, a movie star. I wanted to go to premiers wearing Versace and Armani, I wanted people to flock to see a movie just because I was in it. So I dropped out of school at fifteen, packed my bags, and hopped on a bus to LA I doubt anyone missed me. My parents, well, they're either dead, or heartless enough to have dropped me in a dumpster. That's where Sister Helen found me. Crying, so small and premature she thought I was still fetal. And she took me in, her and Father Maxwell. They raised me until I was about five, and that's when the church burned down, the Father and Sister still inside. The police promptly shoved me in some orphanage, where they wouldn't have to deal with me and my emotional baggage. The tragedy of a five-year-old´s upbringing wasn't something they wanted to think about. So I lived in the orphanage, living an uneventful, albeit lonely, life, until I stuffed me few possessions in a backpack and got on that bus.
LA was everything I knew it would be, and everything I hoped it wasn't. There's no glamour in that city, just cars, streets, and thousands of other people just like me. I didn't know where to start looking for a job, or even where to find a place to stay, so I asked the guy working the ticket kiosk.
`Hey kid,´ he had said, `do I look like a Hollywood agent? Try looking through some of those insider mags they've got.´
And I did. I found a newsstand and bought every magazine they had that would have listings and auditions in it. I spent maybe thirty dollars there, then I went to find a bench I could sleep on. Just my luck, it rained that night. The next morning, I found a public restroom and brushed my teeth. I also spent an hour washing my hair, trying in vain not to let it touch the sink's surface, because you never know what kinds of germs you'll find in a public restroom. It's pretty funny, me worrying about germs in the bathroom, and just look at how my life turned out. But I digress. I braided it so it didn't look so messy, and went to my first audition. That really didn't turn out how I had thought it would. I spent a fortune just to get a taxi to take me there, and then they wouldn't even let me in the building. They were saying I needed to be part of the union, that I had to go apply for a membership with the Actor's Guild or something like that, before I could audition for them. And there I was, no place to stay, savings rapidly disappearing- I didn't have the time or money for shit like that. So I decided I had to get a job first. I was fifteen, with no education or skills. I didn't even have an address or my social security number. Needless to say, I couldn't get a job, not with the system the way it was. I couldn't even be a damn waiter. So I just stayed around my bench for a few days, reading those magazines I had bought my first night out here, wondering what I was going to do with myself. That's when some guy came up to me, some old prick, asked me for a blowjob. He said he would pay. So we went into the stall of some public restroom together, no one even batted a lash at that, and I sucked him off. I almost gagged on the stuff that came out of him, I had never done anything like this before. Afterwards he threw a twenty in my face and said I was okay, then he turned around and left. I wiped the cum that was trailing down my chin and left a little later, not nearly as ashamed as I thought I would be. At least now I could buy something to eat.
You know what? I might have been okay then, but I'm a whole lot better now. I guess it's true what they say, practice makes perfect, and I wound up getting a lot of practice after that. It was an easy way to keep myself fed. At first I just gave blowjobs, or maybe a hand job if that's how the guy got off. Sometimes they'd want to suck me off. I didn't mind that at all. Then I found out I could be making more money with sex, maybe enough money for new clothes. Mine barely fit anymore. It wasn't that bad, but I always made sure they prepared me well enough if they were top. Most guys that came to me wanted to be top; I guess it's part of the allure of fucking a fifteen-year-old boy. If they wanted to be bottom I didn't give a shit whether they were prepared or not, and I found that they didn't either. It was almost always guys who wanted my service. If a woman came she came with her husband, middle-aged couples looking to spice up their marriage. I had never heard of a couple reviving their marriage through sex with a little boy before I came to LA, but hey, that's what they got off on. Perverts, all of them. I blame them for the childhood I never had, and I blame myself, my fucked up hopes and dreams.
I even had a place to stay. Some chick named Hirde, five years my senior and married. I met her in a diner, while I was eating my breakfast. Scrambled eggs and sausages. She was drinking coffee. Her and her husband were taking a boarder, had a little room in their house they wanted to let out. She let me rent it real cheap, provided I fuck her every now and then when her husband wasn't looking. She was into some really kinky stuff, wanted to be bound and gagged and pretty much dominated.
One day some guy picked me up off the street, took me back to his hotel room. He handed me a cat and led me to the bathroom, where the tub was already filled. He stripped and got in the tub, putting a fifty on the counter by the sink. He told me he wanted me to piss on him, and I would have been okay with that, but then he told me he wanted me to drown the cat too, while I was at it, told me that he would really get off on that. So I pissed on him, stomped on his nuts, grabbed the money and the cat, and ran out. Sick fuck. I hope the cat's okay, I left him in an alley on my way home. Hopefully he wasn't just picked up by some other pervert.
That night when I got back I just wanted to go to sleep, but Hirde was there waiting for me with this leather body suit on, tits cut out, zipper all along the crotch. I wasn't in the mood, but she kept sidling up to me, whispering nonsense into my ears. I told her to leave me alone, that it had been a long day, and she threw me out. So I was back on the streets.
I stayed out there, for a while, found an alley I could sleep in where bums and johns wouldn't bother me. It was rainy season, though, and I wound up catching something fierce. It definitely wasn't a cold, maybe it was the flu going around that year. So I didn't work much, which meant I didn't eat much, so I wasn't getting better. So I was sitting in the alley, back against the brick wall and rain pouring down on me, hard, and I was about to pass out. Then I saw him, an angel, walking towards me. Or maybe it was just a cop, there to drag my body somewhere where it wouldn't bother the locals. Those were the thoughts passing through my head, right before I lost consciousness.
When I woke up I found myself lying on soft sheets, softer than anything I´d ever felt before, somewhere warm. Then my savior walked in, and I found out he was neither angel nor police officer, that he was a Japanese ex-patriot. I was sleeping in his guestroom; he had a two-bedroom apartment that he lived in alone. His English was perfect, only a slight accent marred his voice when he spoke. He had these cold, burning blue eyes, that looked at me like they knew me, like we were longtime companions. His name was Heero Yuy.
Over the next few weeks Heero took care of me, and I let him. It was nice, having food and shelter and some one to look out for you. He didn't even ask for sex, and he must have known I was working the streets from the way he found me. I found out he was an artist, and figured it was his artistic side that had saved me. All artists are hopeless romantics, you know, and I was the damsel in the distress. He mostly did paintings, of landscapes, since he didn't like painting people, said they got in the way. He liked to paint me, though. Some times he wrote Haikus, which I couldn't read, but he told me it wasn't just about what the words meant; the beauty came from looking at the poem as a whole. The way the characters were written and displayed on the page. Haiku is an aesthetic artform. I found I loved watching him paint those poems, watching the characters appear on the white paper. He did it slowly, smoothly, dipping his paintbrush in the ink and gliding it over the page's surface.
On my next birthday, he had forced me to tell him when it was, he had me take off my shirt and lay on my stomach. He glided his paintbrush over my bare back, and I could feel the brush strokes, the ink as it cooled on my skin. It was an incredibly sensual experience, and I had never had one of those. When he was finished I got up to look in the mirror. Sprawled across my back, in beautiful calligraphy, were the words `Happy Birthday, Duo´. That was when I found out I was in love with him.
Heero got me into the union. He had filled out the paperwork, mailed in the fee, and even booked my first audition. When he handed me my membership card, I thought that maybe there was a chance he cared for me. When he asked me later that night if I would like to move into his room with him, I was sure of it. And the thought didn't comfort me as much as I thought it would.
Nothing came of that first audition, but there would be more auditions for me to go too. I was just happy I had actually auditioned. It was a major step for me, and made my dreams seem all that much more concrete. Heero and I made love that night. It was surprisingly different from just sex, and I laid awake that night and every following night we would make love, wondering how he could possibly love me.
The two people who should have wanted me the most didn't, leaving me to die, and even God didn't see fit that I live in his domain. And what was I, but a whore. A cheap one, at that.
The next several auditions didn't lead anywhere either. I was a little disheartened, I hadn't even gotten a call back, but then I knew stardom wasn't an overnight thing. Heero was being so supportive, so caring, and it made me feel even worse.
I was walking back home from another failed audition, back to a nice, warm house with some one I loved more than anything, and all I could think was that I didn't deserve this. I didn't deserve Heero. And when I was propositioned by some guy walking out of a bar, I took him home with me. He wasn't my type, not any one's type really. He was typical bar trash, greasy and egotistical. As soon as we were in me and Heero´s room he nailed me to the wall, like I thought he would, he was just that kind of guy, and started pumping into me. He was slimy, and reeked of beer and urine, and I could tell he was just about to orgasm when Heero walked in.
The poor guy, surprised, pulled out of me, sending his cum flying over our walls and carpet. He had the modesty to hide behind the bed, zipping up his jeans along the way. But Heero, Heero didn't look mad. He just looked at me blankly, like he didn't know me at all, like I was just some stranger. And I think that hurt more than his anger.
He turned around and walked out of the house; I heard the front door slam. Shortly after the guy I picked up left, running back to the bar I guess. I gathered my stuff and left too; I didn't want to be there when Heero got back, and I doubt he wanted me there anymore either.
Everything that happened to me after I left Heero is inconsequential. I sold my body some more, maybe I sold my soul, too, damned if I´d remember. Then I ended up in a clinic in San Francisco, where they told me I was dying. AIDS, but then you probably guessed that. I drifted around for awhile, then I must have collapsed, because some one found me in the mud and brought me here."
Quatre looked at his new roommate, shocked. "That's awful."
"No, not really. I mean, we're all in here to die, right? That's what this wing of the hospital is for."
Quatre shook his head. "No, I mean about Heero."
Duo shrugged. "How old are you, Quatre?"
"Nineteen."
"That's an awfully young age to be dying."
"So is thirty-two, but here you are."
Duo managed a weak laugh and popped two small pills in his mouth. "Yeah."
"Would you mind if I asked you a question, Duo?"
"I don't mind much of anything anymore."
"If you loved him, why did you cheat on him?"
Duo sank back in his mattress, closing his eyes as the morphine took hold. "You know, it's funny. I knew he would be coming home soon. He always came home at six o'clock, after working at that portrait job he hated. Never even a minute late. And I took that guy home, five fifty-five exactly, even took him into our room. I knew Heero would walk in on us. I wanted him to see. I wanted him to know what a slut I was, I wanted him to know that he deserved better."
"Duo." Quatre looked at the boy next to him, knowing there was nothing really he could say. "Why don't you contact him? Before it's too late?"
"There's no point, I don't have anything to say to him. Anyway, I wouldn't know how."
Quatre curled up on his side, feeling weary all of the sudden. "So what are you going to do now?"
"What we're all doing here, Quatre. I'm going to wait, wait until death decides I'm good enough to keep him company."
Quatre nodded in understanding, at the same time drifting off to sleep. "I guess that's all we can do."
~owari~