Somewhere in the world it was sunny and warm and just the right weather that short shorts and tank tops were the preferred clothing choice.
Somewhere in the world kids were playing tag in the park and lovers were walking hand in hand through the man made winding forest path for alittle bit of seclusion.
Somewhere in the world elderly people were calmly feeding ducks and playing chess with old friends and accusing the other of cheating...
But that is somewhere in the world…and this is L2.
My name is Duo Maxwell. I am seventeen, I think. I have lived through a plague, and fire, two wars, and multiple death threats and attempts, and that was all before I turned the legal age to drink…not that I don't already, but it's the principle of the thing.
I live in a small, more than alittle run down apartment and have very little food to call my own. But I'm used to that aspect of my life.
I would say that I have a great job and great friends, and I guess along time ago I did, but now…I don't.
I used to work with a group of guys, all of us fought for the peace and tranquility that reigns in every nook and cranny of the galaxy, accept for L2. After the wars the five of us joined together with past acquaintances to form a police like task force that would be able to go any where and prevent anything from happening to the peace we'd worked so hard for.
It worked for awhile…until the director, Lady Une, informed us of a situation on one specific colony.
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"Ladies and Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that the law enforcement on colony L2 is non existent. We have been asked to send people in to help them re establish their system and to hopefully stop the slowly deteriorating morality of the citizens."
The brunette looked directly to her left and locked eyes with the woman that sat there.
"Sally, you will go to L2 and help the people…I'm count-"
She never finished her sentence because Sally shook her head in a definite negative sign and cut her off.
"I'm sorry Lady, I can't go. I am expecting in a few months…" Major Sally Po, a former member of OZ turned rebel, said logically, knowing that her condition would keep her from leaving earth for many months to come.
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That's when the excuses started to pour down like rain, and some stunk worse than the guy I live next to.
Heero was protecting Relena on her next peace tour, not that she needed one. It was surprising the girl could even fit though doorways anymore with as much as her ego was inflated by the turn outs of her talks, which most people slept though anyways.
Trowa was already on assignment in Brazil, doing something only Lady Une knew about.
Quatre was in business negotiations with several very influential companies about the benefits of having Preventers for security details, and couldn't leave because he was at crucial points in all dealings.
And Wufei…well, Wufei actually wasn't at the meeting, he had been forced to take some time off and relax… doctor's orders.
Guess who that left…
You guessed it, me. Lady Une never even asked Noin of Zechs, or even Hilde, she just looked at me for a minuet, looked at my file, and told me to pack my things. She never even asked if I had an excuse, which I didn't…well…not a believable one any ways.
So I was packed off and sent up here…but what I found wasn't what I expected.
L2 had a perfectly fine police force. Perfectly healthy and vary well fed. And the neighbor hoods were clean and new and looked like a million bucks, and I was pretty sure they were.
But that was just on the surface…a pretty little picture for the inspectors and Relena herself. But if anyone ever cared to take a second look, they would see L2 hadn't changed a bit. It had gotten ten times worse.
Cops were crooked and lazy. They never patrolled and only acted like they did something when a rich person had done something wrong, but the evidence always mysteriously disappeared or the case was dismissed…
The poverty was just as bad as it had been when I was young. Hookers and Pimps on every corner, thieves and con artists in every ally. Not a safe place anywhere, not even houses.
Don't get me wrong, I tried to do my job. I went into the precinct and spoke to the head of operations, but was laughed at and humored for about two months.
At the two month point I had had enough. I decided that if I couldn't help the people from the outside, I would help them from the inside.
I didn't bother with calling Une, I knew she wouldn't care. In her eyes L2 was a problem and she had sent someone to solve it. And either they would or they would come back and she would send someone else.
I had been told to 'help the people'. So that's what I was going to do.
I packed my stuff and moved from the apartment I had been renting, at double what I paid back home for bigger, and moved into a smaller hole in the wall above a bakery that sold more than just sugar cookies and sticky buns.
I figured I'd be fine in my little place, I had a gun for protection and a heart full of hope, I even had seven hundred credits and the promise of more with my next paycheck.
I had tried hard to help the people of L2, but I knew I was doing something wrong, no one would respond to me.
I was an outsider looking in at a world I had once been a large part of, someone that was trying to change peoples' lives without asking if they wanted to change. I realized then that just living around them wouldn't work, I had to be one of them again…I had to…to help the people I had to be one of the people. I had to have the same voice that they did.
I had to know their pain once more and feel their anguish…
It would be another two months before I actually realized that I had no choice in the matter anymore. It had been four months since I had told Preventers payroll of my change of address, and I had yet to receive even one check. I had even gone directly to the post office and ordered to have my pay check given to me, I had even pulled a gun on them and waved it around alittle bit. But they didn't have it. Nothing with my name had ever even passed though the loading station doors.
I have four dollars and no hope of getting more money anytime soon. I was in deep hot water…
So I made the only choice I could. I pawned my nice shirts, pants, and shoes; Preventers uniform included, and received around four hundred for the lot of it. With that money I could've got a shuttle ride home, but I didn't.
I went out and bought what I'd need for my 'new' life.
I got it all for semi cheep to. I made my way though the back streets of L2, past the good brothels, past the bad ones, around the opium dins, and through the gang lands, until I came across a little shop surrounded by other little shops in the middle of Red Light, The district for the strip clubs and bars.
The shops wasn't anything special on the outside, all it was, was cracked brown bricks and a simple sign that said 'Jonathan's' in bold black letters.
I took a deep breath as I entered the shop. Memories assaulted me from all around, everything from the leather whips on the far walls to the pink feather dusters to my left. Everything looked just as it had during the first war.
"Oh…My…God…" Came a heavily lisped tenor from my right. "Duo Maxwell, A year older and a year prettier…"
I looked over towards the voice and I smiled a true smile for the first time in about six months.
"Jonathan, you don't know how much I missed you." I said, moving across the room in two strides and enveloping the other man in a very tight hug.
"Ah baby, what's wrong?" The boy asked, wrapping his slender white arms around me.
Those gentle words were all I needed to poor out all of my frustration and pain, my fears and crumpled dreams, everything, and when I was done, I felt alittle better.
"Wow, well, no worries baby, Jonathan will take care of you."
I took a deep breath and stepped away from my friend, a smile flirting with my lips and my spirits back to their normal radiant levels.
"Tell me what to do," I said, ready to get back into the real swing of things here in L2.
"Well, first that ratty shirt and pants set, You know that, go get changed and then work front while I go out."
I didn't even question those odd orders, or what would have been odd orders to anyone that didn't know Jonathan as well as I did.
"You got it boss,"
I skipped into the back, grabbing random pieces of clothing from the racks and disappearing into the back to change from the disgusting and unwashed clothing I'd been in for weeks.
"And shower for goodness sake!" came a pleading tone from the front.
I chuckled softly and turned the lock on the door before stripping and stepping underneath the slightly rusting shower head that rested on the opposite wall from the door.
'The back room' was just a large room that was used for everything imaginable, and yes, even that. The room had a concrete floor with a drain in the center, a toilet in the far corner and a large step stool in the other.
"It could be worse," I said to myself as I took down my hair and began to wash it with the shampoo that was sitting on the floor next to my feet. "I can't think how, but it could've been."
After scrubbing my knee length hair very thoroughly before rinsing it and then slathering it with conditioner, I picked up the slightly dirty, but useable bar of soap and began to clean my body, letting my hair soak up the moisture that it so desperately needed.
"So," a lisped voice said, closer than it should've sounded for the door being locked. "Wanna tell me your story?"
I opened my eyes and rose my eyebrow at the blonde who was casually leaning against the doorframe of the wide open door.
"Do you mind?" I asked, turning so my hair covered my body, one of the wonderful things about long hair in general.
"No," Jonathan answered, "Continue…"
I chuckled and shrugged, turning around and rinsed out my hair, not really caring that my body was being exposed, Jonathan had seen it before, and I knew that he didn't really care.
"I thought I had found a family, then came to find out that they couldn't wait to get rid of me. I haven't heard from them in longer than I care to admit to myself."
Telling Jonathan my story in fuller detail as I got dressed, in truth, it made me feel better to tell the flaming man, and it made me feel even better when he laughed at me and walked out of the room.
"You always were a bit soft for L2 Duo, never change…"
o.o.o.o.o.o
Ok, it's short, but what do you think? I own Jonathan, please don't use him without permission, he is very prissy and I'd hate for him to corrupt even more people than he already has.
Review and tell me what you think, thanks
Kat