Title: Shanghaied
Author: Grevola
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, a couple of bad words, AU.
Notes: Written for the 2010 Moments of Rapture contest. Some very minor edits made since that version.

From now on boys, this iron boat's your home ~ Singapore by Tom Waits

Prologue

My story? You sure? It's plenty long and there's not that many high points. Well all right, if you're buying the drinks.

I'm Duo, Duo Maxwell. First thing you've gotta know about me is I'm just the luckiest son of a gun to ever walk on God's green Earth. The trick is remembering there are two kinds of luck, and I mostly get the other kind. Which is not to say I haven't had a few moments of good fortune, but they're usually tempered with some pretty bad luck too. Take the big Chicago fire about ten years back. I was there when it started - oh boy was I there when it started - and I escaped without so much as a singed eyebrow. Unfortunately half the city burned down, including an orphanage that had sort of been taking care of me at the time, and I was left broke and homeless at the tender age of ten.

A toast to the orphanage? A fine idea! To Sister Helen, Father Maxwell and all the little demons, God bless 'em every one!

What'd I do after that? Well the next couple of years were mostly spent hanging around the cattle market, picking up spare jobs and playing down by the train yards. When I was big enough, I got myself hired on by some cowboys who were in the business of driving herds up to Chicago from as far as Texas. Things seemed pretty good until I was about eighteen and a plague went through the cattle and left us with just about nothing. I tried my hand at working on the rail lines after that. Shoveled some coal, served hoity-toity passengers in the dining car, and took a wrench to things when they needed it. Not a bad job for a year or two, but you get bored living in a tiny metal box even if the scenery out the window is always changing. Decided I'd try my hand at gold digging out near San Francisco.

Here's to chasing fairy gold! Since I'm not wearing a nice suit and smoking a cigar you can guess how well that turned out.

I wound up working a few less than reputable jobs before some slick offered me money to go north to Oregon territory and run some cattle for him. Just a short trip, a few hundred miles, nothing at all to an experienced cowhand like me. More the fool's me, I took him up on it.

Rode north on a nice little steam train, got over the mountains and into the territory without trouble. Then I found out I wasn't just riding a herd, I was supposed to get the damn thing together. He wanted a hundred head of cattle moved north, and I don't know that there were fifty of the damn beasts in the whole county. By the time I'd begged, borrowed or stole all the cows I ever wanted to see again, I didn't have near enough time to get them up to the city for sale. The boss wasn't pleased, but I think he was over a barrel himself because he paid to have the cows run up river on a steam barge.

To the Willamette and all her barges! I'm liking your toasts, my friend.

Would have been quite a nice ride, if it didn't smell like nervous livestock and if the steam wheel didn't throw a gear half-way north. I got the damn thing running again right quick, because damn if I wasn't sick of the whole sorry mess, and you know what I got for my trouble? A kick in the ribs and a dock of pay! He said he'd hired me to be the cowboy, not the mechanic, and if I was up to my ass, pardon me, in a steam engine there's no way I was tending the heard. Like cows need a lot of attention when they're standing in a damn pen!

So that's what brings me here. We finally hit the dock today, I got the damn bovines off my hands and collected half my pay. Figured I'd spend the last of it on a nice drink and maybe some company before I start looking for more work.

A little woman back home? Me? You've gotta be joking. Nah, no one's waiting on me. Another drink? You're still buying? Don't mind if I do sir, don't mind if I do.

Woo, that's a strong one. House special you say? I'll have another, if you're on the tab. Woah, maybe better not. Got a bit dizzy there. You got a twin brother? You sure? I swear I saw two of you. Now who's turned the gas lamps down? A man can hardly see his drink in here...