Category: Angst, AU
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4
Rating: R (?)
Disclaimer: Standard. You know them all by now so I won't bore you with a repeat.
Notes: This takes place in a world of my own making, where things can and are twisted into strange things. So what doesn't seem possible is. There are M/M relationships in this fic (I'm very much a 1x2/3x4 fan.) so if boys being together (and I do mean together) bothers you don't read.
Twisted Fates Part Two
By SilverLady
Duo sighed as he leaned his head back against the rock. If someone had told him then that first angry encounter would lead not only to a friendship but something much more, he would have laughed himself sick.
He certainly had never thought he'd go and fall in love with the angry young man.
"Are you here again?" the angry voice intruded on Duo's thought, again. "I was hoping you'd quit coming here."
Duo barely stirred. "What ever gave you that idea?"
"You haven't been here in the past two weeks." There was a soft thud as Heero flopped down next to Duo's prone body.
"Yeah, well, unlike you I have to try and make a living. I've been too busy to get out here." There are a lot of single men traveling this time of year.
"You don't like me, do you?"
"It's not you, really. It's what you are that I don't like."
"Why not?"
"Because your kind are what killed my parents."
Heero blinked in surprise. "I highly doubt that."
"Oh, not directly. But the actions they took caused my parents' deaths nonetheless. Or rather the lack of actions."
"Elaborate."
"They died in one of the epidemics that sweep through the city from time to time. If the people higher up had seen to the distribution of the medicine, they wouldn't have died."
"Maybe there wasn't one."
"There was. I remember my father trying to buy some when my mother got sick. He didn't have enough money."
Heero was quiet for a moment. "But one time…."
"It's all the time," Duo snapped, sitting up to glare at Heero. "It's a great way to thin out the unwanted portion of the population. Over three thousand people died in the last one. All because they didn't have the money to buy the medicine. If the Council had seen to the distribution of the medicine, a lot fewer people would have died."
"The Council does what it can."
"Bullshit. If one noble came to them needing help, they'd fall all over themselves seeing to the problem. But if you don't have money you don't count."
Heero stared off across the stream. "What do you do for a living?"
Duo winced at the question. It wasn't something he liked about himself. "Anything I can to make money. At least enough to live on."
"Where do you live?"
"Anywhere I can find a place to sleep."
Heero looked at Duo in shock. "You live on the streets."
"Not literally."
"Don't you have a home?"
"I lost that when I lost my parents."
"There are places…."
"The street are better than any one those places. Glorified slave camps are all they are."
"That's not true. They provide jobs for those who….."
"You ever been to one of those places? Don't talk about what you don't know.
They may pretty it up for the delicate sensibilities of the nobles, but it
still ain't no better that a slave camp. Long hours with little pay. And most of the time you end up
owing so much to the company that you never get out."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
Duo laughed. "You? I doubt if there is anything you could or would do."
Just then there was the rustle of leaves as someone approached the spot. Duo was instantly on his feet, ready to flee.
A man dressed in the uniform of the Red Guard stepped out from behind the tree. "Lord Heero, I found you."
Heero's face went blank and hard. "Obviously."
"You are needed back at the Palace. Your stepfather has called a meeting of the Council."
Heero closed his eyes for a minute. "And where is my stepbrother?"
"He had another fight with his Lordship. Nobody knows where he went."
Duo said nothing as he slipped away. Guess things aren't too rosy in the house of the Lord.
