This is based lightly on Tony Kushner's play, but I'd rather not compare the two pieces, since mine is devoid of any of the humor or political statements that made the original play so great. This was just a thing to help me out of writers block.
Chapter One
Duo and Heero
Duo Maxwell always maintained
that they had met at a metro stop, both reaching for the same issue of The Face
magazine at a nearby kiosk. Heero, however, would have told you a different
story if you had asked. Fortunately, or not, no one ever did. As it stood,
though, their similar taste in reading material had nothing to do with fate or coincidence,
but rather with the fact that Heero Yuy had happened to fall in love one week
ago.
And this, is what Heero remembered.
It was an abandoned warehouse, in the middle of nowhere. Some industrial town
that had dried up now that industry was dead. It wasn't a rave, because those
were much too mainstream...no, this was more underground, a secret to be shared
by only a small mass. In the basement, pool tables and arcade machines, low
noise passing off as music, couches and beanbags. Retro, really, somewhat
seventies America. First floor and up...five floors of pulsing music, defying
any genre used in audio classification at the time. But it wasn't about genre,
brand name loyalty, your favorite dj. It was about the music and you, balancing
in total anonyminity and oblivion. The middle part of each floor was cut out
rawly, providing a view of the first floor dance floor and maintaining an
industrial feel. Couches and tables sat pushed against the wall, resting areas
for who knew what kind of people.
That was where he first met Duo Maxwell.
He had been dancing within the crowd, second floor, dangerously close to the
low rail, completely losing himself. To be no one, to be every one, at the
same time. It was like some kind of high. He didn't know why he had happened to
open his eyes at that time, why he was looking in that particular direction, or
even why the blur he caught in his peripheral vision interested him so much.
Nevertheless, it did, and he took off in pursuit. The crowd parted as he walked
towards the open areas of the back, revealing a young boy his age, sitting in
the middle of a couch, arm swung behind it. Heero saw the boy smirk at some one
else in the sitting area...girlfriend? boyfriend? Who knew. The boy tossed his
head back, getting longish chestnut brown hair out of cobalt eyes, and laughed
as he pulled a tube out of the inner pocket of his black coat. There was a
hustle on the table, and Heero could make out the lines the boys were drawing
in silver blue powder. Blue snow...it was the evolved cocaine, twenty
generations down.
Duo Maxwell looked up as another boy approached the table, wiping a trail of
blood coming down from his nose away with his sleeve. Hard, Prussian blue eyes
looked down at him, and the line he had just sniffed had him wondering if the
new boy was glaring or giggling.
"Yes?" Duo snorted when Heero didn't answer. "Is there something
I can do for you?"
The boy to his side, obviously of Chinese descent, started snickering wildly.
Heero, however, decided to ignore the friend.
"I want to dance."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "Look, babe, no one's keeping you."
"I want to dance with you."
"But why on Earth would I want to dance with you?"
"Because those drugs are going to kick in a few minutes, and when they do
you won't care who you're dancing with."
Duo smiled, slowly, laconically, and sniffed up another line. "Let's go,
then."
But, Duo wouldn't remember any of that. And when Heero saw the beautiful boy
again, at a subway station in downtown New York, he wasn't about to let the
opportunity go to waste.
*
* *
Two boys, lying on their backs
in the middle of some field, gazing heavenwards. Stars, floating through their
fields of vision, intermingling with clouds and cigarette smoke. A voice,
gliding over the sounds of traffic and crickets.
"You know, we're a lot like them, the stars. Floating through time and
space. Really, that's what everything in the universe is doing right now."
"Do you always wax philosophic when you're high?"
A chuckle. "I'm not high tonight."
"Hn."
"You're awfully talkative, tonight."
Silence.
"Babe?"
"...it's our one month anniversary."
"Shit. For real? That's pretty cool. Do you think we'll be around for the
second one?"
Heero rolled over onto Duo, staring down at him through an inch of space. After
a brief moment where both boys froze, suspended in time, Heero sat up.
Straddling Duo's prone body, he tilted his head to look back at the stars.
"I was thinking you could move in."
Duo pushed himself forward, elbows digging into the grass. There was no
hesitancy in his voice when he spoke. "Okay."
* * *
One thing that I am not, is noble. You don't live a lifetime on the street to learn
chivalry, gentlemanly conduct. Hell no. You learn how take care of yourself,
how to survive. At least, that's the lesson I got out of it. But I'm getting
ahead of myself.
My name is Duo Maxwell, and I don't know where I was born. I don't remember my parents,
being that they left me on a park bench not long after I was born. Some bag
lady took me in, put me in the front of her shopping cart. Amazingly, I
remember that, the rank smell, her clammy hands and contorted face. She looked
old, and tired, but I'm sure I would too if I was in her position. I was two
when she died, with a vocabulary of maybe two words. She never talked to me
much.
She just keeled over. I didn't even realize she was dead. Hell, I was poking at
her for a good five minutes before I started wailing. No one cared, though, no
one stopped to pay any attention to me...not in America.
The next thing I know I'm with Solo. I was four, picking through the garbage in
some back alley, and he was the six year old angel that saved me. I think I
might have loved him...who the hell knows, I was just four at the time. So he
taught me the ropes, took care of me, and there weren't all that many nights
where I had to go to sleep hungry. There was a group of kids we hung out with;
I'm reluctant to call them a gang because it wasn't like that. We were family.
Being together was probably what killed them. The disease...it used to be
called tuberculosis, and before that, consumption, but now it was back AC style
and killing thousands. Some one in the gang must have gotten it, and the close
quarters we kept must have spread it. I watched them die, one by one, and was
surprised when I didn't. I thought I had gotten the rough end of the deal. I
still do. The cops found the shack we lived in, quarantined it and had the
bodies cremated, and wanted to stick me in some hospital room until they were
sure I wasn't infected. I ran.
The church found me next. They ran an orphanage as a goodwill side to saving
souls. There was a fire, kids and nun found dead...notice a pattern? Well, the
father survived, aged and swafted with all manner of illness. So I, being
eighteen and the other survivor of the church, took it upon myself to take care
of him. So what do I do? I stick him in a hospice, and send them half my
paycheck every week. I visited him once.
And now, I'm at his funeral, lover in tow. And I can't even bring myself to
look inside the coffin.
* * *
"Are you okay?"
Duo looked into concerned, Prussian eyes, and shrugged. He took Heero's hand
and they walked away from the site, sitting down on a bench not far from the
parking lot. Duo took out a cigarette, lighting it as he put it in his mouth.
"It's not so bad as it was when he was alive. When I went to see
him...that last time. It was god-awful. He looked old, and he looked so tiny.
Father Maxwell. And there were machines and wires connected to him everywhere...I
couldn't stand to be there, to see him like that. It was awful."
Heero just sat there as Duo cradled his head in his hands. Four years, now,
they had been together, and he still didn't know how to deal with the other boy
sometimes. He knew, though, that no gestures of comfort or consoling words
would do anything for Duo. So he just sat still, waiting for his lover to regain
his composure. "You know...I think the cat ran away."
Duo looked up from his position, his eyes rimmed with red. "Well, you
always wanted a dog anyway."
Heero shrugged. "I didn't mind. Cats...they're intuitive. They always know
when something's wrong."
"Wrong?"
"It's probably why he ran away." Heero glanced down at his hands,
hesitant. "Duo, I have Aids."
Duo blinked and sniffled, wiping away at his eyes with his suit sleeve.
"No, you don't."
"Duo, baby...I'm dying."
Trowa Barton
Dekim Barton was the man who took me in, when he found me
wondering around a carnival looking for cotton candy and other things to eat.
My mother, apparently, was a gypsy working there, often neglecting me and
leaving me to my own devices. Dekim decided he would raise me, and bought me up
like his own son. He was a bleeding heart liberal, holding office in our state.
It was much to his chagrin, then, that I became what I am today.
And just who am I today? I'm New York's finest lawyer...but I could have been
more. Let's go back.
I was always a quiet boy; most of the talking I did was to myself, or inside my
head. That's what astounded people when I announced I was going to Harvard to
study law. But that's what I did. And at twenty-one, I became the youngest
person ever to pass the bar. One of my first cases was against Catherine
Bloom...it was the case that would make my career, that would start me on my
path to notoriety.
It was clear from the beginning that Catherine would be proven guilty. This was
years ago, when I was still in my twenties, and the Alliance was on the verge
with war on Oz. She was accused of selling government secrets. But looking at
her, sitting on the witness stand, I hated her. She was a gypsy...a dirty,
swindling, piece of trash, a living stereotype common in our discriminatory
world. I could see myself in her. She would have gotten time in jail if I
hadn't stepped in. The judge was a friend of my father's, and I talked him into
giving her the death penalty. America reeled with the sentence, as other
nations and colonies criticized a country that would condemn some one so
harshly. I made an orphan out of her two kids. My father never talked to me
after that...it seemed, that...I was the child no one wanted. I don't blame
them.
Soon after, I was picked up by Treize Krushenada, the head of the Alliance
ethical committee. He was like a father to me, making sure I would rise to the
top of my career. We were in charge of ferreting out the unethicals in
society...communists, socialists, faggots. We must have prosecuted hundreds of
them, maybe ruining their lives in the process. But that all changed when
people started calling Treize a modern day Hitler. Then there were the rumors
about my private life...that I was no different than the scum I so vehemently
opposed. We were discharged, and Treize died soon afterwards.
And I opened up my law practice. I represent politicians; mafia bosses...the
most important people. I rarely lose a case.
Later, when I die, few will pity me. I'll be called a bully...a coward...a
victim...because I am all those things. But that's not for another decade.
I hear a knock at my door, and I realize it must be my assistant. So I tell him
to come in.
Quatre and Relena
Quatre hurried into the office, carrying a stack of papers. "Mr.Barton, I
have these ready for the next case."
Trowa waved a hand in dismissal. "Just put them on my desk."
Quatre looked at the older man, who was staring out the window. Trowa turned to
face him then, and if he were any one else besides Trowa Barton he probably
would have been smiling. But as it was, he only stared. "Quatre, you've
been great ever since you joined the firm."
"Thank you, sir," Quatre fiddled nervously with his shirt sleeves.
"You should go to Washington. That's where you'll really get your career
started. I can set you up there if you want."
Quatre blinked, staring at the other man. "Washington? Really? Well...I'd
love to, I really would, but...I have a wife, and I don't know if she'd want to
move again-"
"Ask her." Trowa turned his head away again, looking out the window.
Quatre nodded, leaving the room, doubting if Relena would be happy with his
good fortune.