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Carver

-By ReddAlice

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Author's Note: Mostly this story is in the 3rd person focusing on an original character named Ebon's experiences. However, the story is not about him, it's about Duo Maxwell and what he became after the war. This is not the usual fic where the pilots all become best friends fighting crime and having hot passionate sex all over the place. Nope. It is, however, Yaoi! I wanted to take a different approach towards our heroes/terrorists.

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-The Nice Guy-

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Nervously the boy passed his weight from one leg to the other, and then back again, and again. What was he thinking! People just didn't approach Shinigami looking for work. They just didn't! But he needed the money worse than ever, and he heard that the one person who could help worked there at the Automotive

Shop: Maxwell's. "Stop gnawing on your lip bo- wait, what was your name?"

"Ebon."

"Ebon, if he needs you he'll say so and put you to work!" The brisk older secretary said, whipping sweat away from his furrowed brow. "I'll go see if the Boss is with someone."

"Yes' sir." Ebon nodded trying his hardest to look proud, and hard working. After all, that's what people wanted right? Good, honest, proud, hard working strapping young men! He coughed making a sour face. He was all that, now why was it so damn hard to act it?

The older secretary came back out, rubbing the scruff on his chin with his palm. "Sorry, come back later, boy."

Ebon scrunched his nose and glared. "I was told he'd see me today!" He snapped weakly, he would support Kia at all costs.

"Can't be helped, my Boss is a busy man, very busy." He reinforced fixing the kid before him with a masterfully daring stare.

"I wanna see him." Ebon gulped like any man would do when faced with Shinigami's personal secretary. He was a notoriously well-known man in his late forties, the disfigurements he bore on his gruff face earning him the street name Scar. However, when he introduced himself a short three hours ago, he said his name was Ian.

Scar snuffed at the boy, itching his nose with a hooked index finger. "I said he was busy, come back some other time."

"No, I need to see him! Please, I need money." He begged without a shred of visible shame. "People say he'll help. I hear he's a nice guy."

"The Boss is." Scar snarled. "But, as I said, he's busy, so get lost."

Ebon sat down hopelessly on a stack of tires. He'd been trying to get in to see Mr. Maxwell for well over three weeks. He was either gone, or in with clients. Honestly, how busy and stuck up could this guy be? He owned a repairs shop for Christ's sake! "This sucks." He frowned.

Scar laughed winging for the exit of the garage. "C'mon, the garage is no place for a kid, who's what? Thirteen?"

Ebon couldn't retain his pitiful and childlike huff, "No, I'm seventeen."

"Seventeen, thirteen, it's all the same when they're minor violations waiting to happen." As the secretary finished his intentional dismissal, the black doors to the infamous office Ebon had always been just short of reaching came swinging open. Four men, and one woman came walking out their bodies twisting as they spoke to each other.

The girl must have been a mechanic, Ebon thought absently, but she was obviously commanding the suited men's attention in her grease monkey glory. Which to the observer was no small wonder. A joke must have passed through the small group, because the girl flashed a broad tomboyish smile and the men laughed.

"Shyooshyoo omachi kudasai." The woman said bowing, her voice barely audible as she came closer to where Ebon sat. She glanced at him as if he was a misplaced tool and wondered over to her locker with purpose.

A heated flush came over Ebon's face as he watched the girl reach for the straps of her overalls and unsnapped them, they oversized article of clothing dropping to the garage floor. A lump rose in his throat, he had been with his fair share of woman, and this chick was the finest example of the opposite sex.

"Hey Duo!" Scar yelled rematerializing at Ebon's side. "Wanna come here for a second?"

The woman turned mid-strip tease, and craned her neck to looked at the secretary, just as she pulled off her white t-shirt, and she...was a he. Ebon stared slack jawed.

"In a bit!" Duo called back pulling on a clean tank top and turning his attention back to the group who just smiled politely.

Ebon cringed...he had been checking out...a dude. "Who's the braided freak?"

Scar couldn't maintain his glower and smirked, "That is a nineteen year old genius. Best in this business, best in any."

Most kids nowadays were very smart, some considered geniuses; others just trained to be that way. Ebon felt lucky he wasn't one of them; he was just some street rat, just another kid bleeding to live. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

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TBC... Next Chapter: Dirty Work

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Ending Note: Ebon has yet to learn that the young man he had mistaken for a young woman is Mr. Maxwell... | I know I start a lot of fics, but I always finish my stories, no worries! I have yet to abandon a fic yet!

**Speaking of please read and review my OTHER neglected fics. Every word you can offer I'll gladly accept and appreciate wholly. You guys have helped me so much already!