Chapter 5

"StAiN lIfE"


[6:59 PM]

Du-chan, buddy, come on. Your garbage soufflé is getting cold.

I'm comin', Solo!

Tiny, greasy fingers wrapped around a metal bar protruding from a large, disorganized clutter of metal and old mattresses and boxes and a tiny, greasy little boy climbed up the junk pile, tattered sneakers easily finding purchase like a cat, and flopped on top of the crowning, faded blue mattress. Around him, the shadowed-gray, sharp-edged expanse of the junkyard spanned out beneath a magenta Colony sunset.

A thin brunette, sitting and waiting cross-legged upon the mattress with two, scrappy halves of a submarine sandwiches brandished in each hand, grinned at the little longhaired urchin. Chunks of lettuce and tomatoes and deli-sliced ham and turkey flopped enticingly around the edges on pristine slices of white bread, as trails of tomato juice and Italian sauce leaked down his wrists. Solo's green eyes gleamed happily as he offered one toward Duo, his smile insanely wide and toothy.

Voila. Dinner is served.

Oh my gosh! R'weal food! The little orphan gaped, violet-blue eyes white rimmed in amazement and dirt-smudged jaw dropped, and threw himself at his best friend. Thanks so much, Solo!

Solo grinned awkwardly down at the disheveled brown hair burrowing happily into his chest as bony arms squeezed the air from his lungs affectionately. Heh, you're welcome little buddy! Cold, dripping trails of sauce began to run down his arms and he laughed nervously.

Now, come on Duo, dig in before I'm tempted to eat it all!




[---]


[Previous; 4:03 AM.]


Solo lifted his sleep-heavy head in the sweltering silence as quietly as an urchin living as long as he had on the street would have, as noiselessly as the faint memory of a ghost. His scraggly gray brown bangs clouded in his eyes, although they were useless in the pitch black of the junkyard at night, and he blinked drowsily into the blackness, questioning the night. He didn't have to wait long before the sound that had stirred him awake came again, striking at his chest in anguish. Solo's eyes widened silently, flopping his bed-disheveled hair roughly into unruly place and eyebrows furrowing deeply in the blackness. The lanky war orphan tossed the blanket off his back and bolted up on his grungy makeshift bed and trotted barefooted through the dirt toward the little whimpering bundle curled helplessly in the corner of an old, dilapidated calico couch that was his friend.

oh, Duo, don't cry

it hurts r'weally bad

The older orphan's heart twisted in his ribs painfully as he knelt noiselessly beside Duo, his grimy palm resting on his back and tentatively rubbing to calm his pained sobs. In the black, traces of distant, murky-blue light danced across the little orphan's long, tangled chestnut hair as he curled into a shivering ball, head jabbed between the cushions. Solo's face drew into a taut, massively concerned frown.

Oh Duo, I'm sorry the brunette whispered.

The little orphan only whimpered and clenched his bony arms around his constricting empty stomach even tighter.

So Solo curled up with him on the couch and quietly, gently put his fingers under the waif's armpits and lifted the sobbing bag of bones and pressed him like an infant against his chest, curling his knees up. His little boy once filled with bubbly, infectious, wonderfully innocent personality was now only consumed by the bare-boned needs of animal survival and pain and the horror that a human mind can grasp with the fact of starving, a slow, tortuous death composed of a thousand little deaths. Instantly, those emaciated arms clawed at his sides and the little urchin buried his face deeply into Solo's neck. As hot tears scratched at the edges of his eyes, the Solo buried his nose in the top of Duo's knotted chestnut hair, holding down his own pain from surfacing.

But he was good at it. He was older. He'd starved longer.

But Duo Duo was only a little boy!

I know times are tough, but can Solo stumbled and choked, trying to force out a confidant, sanguine big brother voice that just didn't exist anymore. There was nothing he could truly promise his virtuous little grinning Duo. Can you be a big boy for Solo?

Duo whined, struck by another strong hunger pain and keening pathetically in the dark.



Solo was amazed at how calm he sounded despite the rocky tone of voice. Hell, he wasn't even a thousandth that sure they'd even make it through the week, how he'd be able to feed this famished waif of a boy soon enough to see his charming smile again before he fell victim to nature's vicious cycle.

I can't, Solo.

**Solo, I'm sorry. I just can'tyou know, blood is thicker than water ya know?**

** understand, Marie it's perfectly understandable.**

**Hey, I'm sorry, Solo, I really am!**

****

**Don't look like that I do mean it! I wish I could stay, I would in an instant! I don't care if I get sick from staying on this colony, I love you. Solo, please!**

**I knowYou should get going.**

She had left, by the crew claws of fate and goddamned hierarchy, and now

I don't wanna. I wanna not be hungry anymore

And now, Duohis wonderful little Duo was dying too.

Long, bony, grimy fingers kneaded in the top of the little urchin's hair as dim, shadowed green eyes seemed to drift away from the pain of reality for just an instant. The older urchin had his chin and lips half-pressed to Duo's forehead, unnaturally hot and tensed from extreme hunger pangs, and sighed quietly. It was the kind filled with morbid secrecy, knowing very well that the sobbing orphan was too young to fully grasp the ravaging effects of severe starvation. Solo's eyebrows hitched painfully in the black and he pulled the unwavering warmth closer to him.

It's okay, Duo. We'll make it. Soothing fingers massaged the nape of his neck, tangled in the long, tangled tresses of brown hair.

The little urchin racked with a sniffle, and burrowed his nose into the warm crook of Solo's neck.

You sure Solo? It hurts bad

he lied with a distant, compassionate smile as flickering green eyes turned to starless metal skies, I'm sure. You're a tough boy, aren't you Duo?

He only whimpered.

You are a tough boy, Duo. I know you are. You're the best.

Solo's eyes drifted shut, heart aching pitifully in his ribs as he gently kissed the little urchin's grungy forehead in reassurance, a false empty reassurance, but soothing and warm anyway. With that, the violent spasms of Duo's stomach seemed to settle into minor quakes and the violent sobs waned off. Mildly, Solo felt peace returning to the warm bony thing he held in his arms.

Solo managed a flimsy smile in the blue-laced blackness. Just remember, Duo, boys don't cry.

Duo sniffled miserably and burrowed tightly against him.

See? Everything will be better in the morning.

The older urchin smiled morbidly and uneasily drifted off to sleep with Duo, his adorable bag of skin and bones and hair, clinging to him dearly for hours to come.

**How do I lie like that?**

**Duo I wishI could**


[---]


[4:50 PM]


By now, Solo's rickety confidence in his ability to handle the situation had shit its pants and scampered away whimpering like a beaten dog, though his face was frozen in it's ever present catlike, nonchalant almost brotherly expression out of sheer, undiluted terror. Terror, that, with the most wickedly disgusting breath he'd ever been damned to experiencing now wafting liberally in his face, a notorious murderer was eyeing him menacingly. Circling him even, in this wretched, dank basement littered with more shadowy, dangerous-looking objects than Solo felt comfortable with. Hell, the orphan swore that there was even something living and glaring at him sullenly with shifty, beady eyes in the corner.

And it wasn't a decorative teddy bear, to say the least.

So, what brings you here? A grimy tan finger trailed mischievously up the curve of Solo's cheekbone and impertinently flicked a lock of his pale gray-brown hair. Tomas Rachael only grinned at his trapped prey's nervousness, like a wolf licking its chops while a dumb fawn staggered in its direction willingly, unblinkingly, like Solo had. Absently rubbing at the spot where his grubby fingernails had trailed up his face, the younger and much less notorious of the two street rats gave no look to the teenager standing beside him, only mulled in his misty brain clouded with paranoia and angst.

The nauseating smell of death was enough alone to send him scampering for the door, which had shut with the most ominous noise he could have ever imagined a slab of lifeless wood could emit. He wanted to run, run for his life it was so simple he wouldn't get killed that way, so why was he standing here cemented down? He was in the liar of a killer! Willingly! He had even knocked, for God's sake!

I'm a fucking idiot.

But

[[]]

I **need** to be a fucking idiot. For him.

Hm, Solo? The dirty-dishwater blonde asked, now shifting to face him dead-on. Unflinching and predatory beneath his charming looks. He was the epitome of a cute, popular and absolutely disturbed Homecoming King who flossed his flawless, girl-slaying smile with knives.

You know, the murder said cheerfully, I've seen you around a lot. Then again, you aren't quite the recluse I am, now, aren't you?

Even his voice was velvety and warm, friendly and innocuous. It was sickening. He was being sociable. The pit of Solo's stomach twisted and was simultaneously crushed in panic by what seemed like a thousand lead anvils. Blood splattered anvils where his bones had been crushed by his stupidity not to move out of their falling path. In the reeking blackness, Tomas seemed to snort considerately, and a sudden scraping noise came from the dark sharply to Solo's right.

The oprhan's heart was clawing at the bottom of his Adam's apple when he sensed the movement paired with the keening squeal and he whipped his head around, frightened to death and unable to rein it in. The moldy yellow glare of the light bulb panicked him, terrified him; it blurred his vision so he wouldn't be able to see the knife arching toward that delicious spot between his ribs, the lethal, silent barrel of a gun bucking with a loud crack, the

chair that was pulled toward him?!

Solo's white-rimmed eyes looked instantly to Tomas Rachel's face, the face of an insane, cold-blooded killer, the genuinely innocent and slightly startled face of a teenager. The blonde blinked for a moment, possibly confused at why his visitor was shaking like a veritable leaf while he'd only turned his back on him for a moment, then seemed to grasp the situation easily, like snatching a lazy dog's tail. Solo couldn't help but find the grin dangerous but still rather inviting.

It was like being drawn into a pretty trap.

Tomas' eyes furtively glanced down at the oprhan's knees and went back to his face. It was smudged with dirt, like any respectable urchin.

Looks like you'll be needing this chair, then. You're not gonna collapse on my floor, he said, shoving the perfectly harmless wooden chair toward him so it nicked Solo's knee, after I've just cleaned it.

The blonde-haired killer gave an ironic chuckle and a blazing grin as he drew up a chair of his own and had to drag it through assorted weapons and potentially dangerous and a suspiciously large amount of plastic forks and spoons.

Solo stared at the killer, and the chair he'd offered, like they were singing the little teapot song in Vietnamese.

Well, what are you waiting for? You came to talk business, right?



Then sit! Tomas said, his voice in that ambiguous and threatening plane between humor and a hidden, impatient dark tone. The dim light flickered across the blonde's face sinisterly, although Solo could have debated if there wasn't anything wrong with him beside his breath and a few typical bolts knocked loose by a rough childhood.


[---]

[4:54]

a friend?

Yeah, I just need to sell it. He's starving, I'm staring and we have no way of getting money to be fed because—

—No one will hire street rats like you.

Solo's morbid tone spoke volumes in the dark, page of page of guilt and love and desperation left in the open air, which the killer read easily. There was also a slight of surprise in his expression, as if he had seen the blonde teenager pull the train of thought out from his skull between his eyes so easily that it was frightening.

Tomas stared down at his immaculately scrubbed feet, proudly barefoot; he was unafraid of stepping on any of the assorted blades he had lying around his basement adobe.

So how much can I get?

For the gold necklace and the gun? Tomas's misty, distant blue eyes seemed not to acknowledge anything but the dirt in his toenails. He seemed completely comfortable to slouch forward on the side of the chair and just stare off.



The killer oddly twisted his lip, biting it momentarily. He hummed tiredly, like the weight of thinking of a price wasn't the only thing haunting his brain. No, something much direr lurked in his expression.

Well, for the necklace I can get you a moderately good penny, but the gun

Is too lousy for scrap?

Tomas finally looked up at him. Again, the surprised look, but only this time on the face of the killer; the blonde, cornflower-blue-eyed popular quarterback killer that suddenly looked a lot older than Solo expected. A tired reservation. A quiet, hidden scowl that only showed in his eyes and the stress lines hanging beneath them. Yeah, it's much too old for the market nowadays, first of all The killer's voice even lagged depressingly. And the parts look pretty much busted not much worth out of this one

So, how much food do you think I could get out of the necklace? A week? Two if we go a little hungry?

The rusty gun clattered to the floor as his fingers slackened and it piqued Solo's curiosity immensely, although the throbbing black paranoia still existed in the back of his mind, always waiting for the blonde to finally give up the charade and gut him with manic eyes flaring. But he didn't. The famed killer only stared down at the floor with weighted eyes and a tiny, exhausted sigh.

do you know why I kill people?

The orphan froze.

This is not happening this is not happening it is I'm as good as dead, aren't I? Oh god why did he have to turn now? I was just starting to like him this is not happening

[[ your face it's all red.]]

I kill because I've been hired to. To wipe out as much of that new deadly virus possible, and keep it from spreading like wildfire across the colonies. After something of that deadly force gets out to the public in large amounts, it's practically over for life on L-2. I'm one of the few who have actually been vaccinated against it. I've been trained to recognize it hunt it out. The loss of blood pressure, anemia, eventual fevers, and weakened, rotting internal organs The people I've killed have all been infected, but I've never told anyone but you, thus far.

Solo shook his head slightly, and furrowed his eyebrows. why are you telling me this, Tomas?

Instantly, the blonde flinched, his own eyebrows arching upward and digging forcefully together in angst at the mention of his name. Like it'd stabbed something lodged hidden and confined in his chest. The charismatic face was replaced with an old man in a young body, a young body with unabashed knife scars marring his hands. Tomas only stared at the lanky orphan sitting across from him, almost strategically placed so the moldy yellow bulb cast a sickly looking color across Solo's face. He felt a constricting claw around the bottom of his throat.

Solo asked innocently.

Silently, the killer turned pawner stood from his chair and avoided stepping on an upturned hunting knife to grab the oprhan's grimy wrist, flipping it forcefully, and put a wad of crinkled green currency in his palm. He lingered there, slowly lifting his gaze to match Solo's infinitely confused one.

I'm sorry, he whispered, with all earnestly behind his half-plead.

And suddenly it all clicked in Solo's head.


[---]

[7:01 PM]

Even as Solo delighted silently in watching the smudged little orphan that had become his last hopeful ray of sunshine in his life, there was still something lingering in the back of his mind. Of course it would be there, some bitter subconscious voice chose to announce in the dark corner he'd forgotten, shoved away and locked, despite the fierce clanging of the bells that made every normal thought a forced smiling lie. Even nursery rhymes had their own razor's edge now, cutting in to his brain and his sanity with rhythmical little slashes and rhythmical malice. || Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. || Solo shook his head and began to take another numb bite from his dinner. It tasted like gold, nonetheless, going into such an empty stomach, but when you know when you're going to die, things like that seem to dull from glass to sand in your mind.

||Hickory dickory dock||

A little girl's voice chanted in the back of his brain, invented by his cruel sense of imagination. She hopscotched her way into his terror while singing an innocent nursery rhyme.

The little girl turned toward him as her jumprope swung in slow motion around her body in a blurring oblong arch and smiled at him sweetly. With big blue-violet eyes.

Thank you so much for the food, Solo! It's r'weally good! Where'ja get it, huh? This is awful nice food, Solo, did you have to work for it or somethin? The bouncing voice seemed to deflect straight off the older orphan's ears like sweet little nothings.

Solo was intently watching Duo, with chunks of food still ringed around his mouth like snippets of confetti, and seeming to drown in the way his wide, marble-shaped purple-tinted eyes were so infinitely lively. They seemed so immortal. Alive. While the rest of the orphan he'd pulled from the fiery remains of a torched home was so emaciated and fragile-looking, there was a bubbly resilience and indeterable joy of living that sent a stab through his heart. He was going to infect him, wasn't he? Duo was so close to him all the time, there was no way he wouldn't catch it. That was why Marie had left had been pried away from him like the fearless, virtuous thing of strength she was. But Duo he was so frail and hungry it would rip through him. He was six! No matter how determined his eyes gleamed, Duo wouldn't be able to stand up to a disease like the bloody killer called the 89RT-B virus that Tomas Rachel had described.

You're welcome, buddy, Solo said mechanically, smiling.

It's gr'weat! Tastes so good, and I don't have to be hungry, no more, right?

Solo grinned. Of course. You're the best.

The orphan cutely shot him a raspberry. No, you are! He leaned back against his shoulder and took another happy, gluttonous mouthful from the flopping sub sandwich.

He casually ruffled his hair, and the cheeky grin that returned was priceless. A piece of tomato rested neatly on his nose, like a poor-man's Rudolph.

Suddenly, Solo felt himself move and on some desperate, buried whim, he found himself pressing the thin boy against him and his nose again pressed into the crown of his head.

**I'm not going to see him. I'm not going to see him ever again**

? Solo

|| Hickory dickory dock||

**Stupid stupid! Stupidstupidstupid! You're going to infect him, kill him!**

|| The mouse ran up the clock ||

what's wrong?

Little, pudgy fingers unhesitatingly rested on the older orphan's elbows in a reassuring gesture that seemed to collapse every last coherent thought in Solo's mind until it was a deep, dark stew of sobbing pity. He wanted so badly to live to stay with wonderful, bright-eyed Duo until he could have better life beyond this, so he wouldn't have to watch him scrape listlessly through old garbage cans with an arm slung tenderly around his constricting stomach. To watch a little brunette boy with such a determined, promising look on life relive his own miserable and heartbreaking childhood again right before his eyes, crying in the middle of the night, stumbling during the day. The pudgy little hands didn't flinch. Ever.

Does your stomach hurt? Duo asked quietly, as the older orphan's own sandwich, the only decent bite of food he'd had in the last few gritty days, slipped from his fingers to thud to the dirt where the reclusive junkyard dog had been hungrily waiting for a scrap to tumble his way from atop the junk heap.

Do you want my dinner, Solo?

No, it's okay you eat up

Solo? What's wrong? Duo insisted worriedly, clawing at the rust-red sweater that he wore pooling around his elbows.

|| Hickory dickory dum||

Solo seemed to be caught in the black, pitiful trap that was the connection between his mouth and his brain, sitting there, his adorable bag of bones warm against his chest. Sand and sludge caught in his throat. His nose pressed deeper into his tangled, messy hair, so much like his when he was so young.

||The clock struck one||

And before he knew it, the words had already leapt from his mouth. I love you Duo.

The little orphan paused, momentarily struck with mild surprise, then smiled, squeezing his big, round, blue-violet eyes shut, and leaned tighter into his brother figure's grip. I love you too, Solo!

Solo smiled back.

Thank you Duo.

You're welcome! he chirped happily.

Solo gripped the loving bag of skin and bones closer and suddenly felt nothing of the chilling colony air, heard nothing of the dogs barking and general bustling hum of people and cars. He sensed nothing of the impending blackness that would be death that hung like cold blanket slowly being lowered over his shoulders anymore, just a deep-rooted pang in his heart for his little violet-eyed orphan.

You're okay, right, Solo?

He chuckled, all traces of his depression hidden successfully behind a grin, and rubbed at his eye. 'Course I am. Boys don't cry.


[---]


Later that night, however, that would not be true. Solo awoke suddenly and sat up upon his bed. He knew it was time. He looked upon the darkness one more time before he was to take those fateful steps from the junkyard with a tiny worried shadow walking behind.

|| Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran back down the clock. ||