All is Gone
After the prostitute left I took a scolding hot shower to rinse him away. I only paid him for oral sex but I still feel incredibly filthy, like there's a million spiders crawling all over my skin. But that doesn't stop me from perusing other sex workers each night for the same release. I can't go all the way, I'm too scared to do that. I think I'll hate myself more if I give into that urge.
So I spend my days gambling, winning and losing, barely eating. Not much of an appetite right now with my head buzzing and wading from extremely high and happy at the poker tables to the bottomless low I feel after paying for a blowjob.
Tonight is no different though. Finishing up my game, I leave with six thousand dollars worth of chips in my pocket. It's as good as cash and it's how I'll pay for the services I'm going to receive tonight, which is more than enough, plus a generous tip.
Outside the casino, the air filled domes of Mars have clear ceilings; it makes me feel like I'm walking down a normal street on earth. A few blocks down and I'm treading in the place where pimps push their human property at me. One side of the narrow street is lined with girls and women; the other side is men and boys in a similar state of lack-dress. One guy in particular catches my eye. He's tall, slender, and has light brown hair. I can't see his eyes but that's okay.
The second I make up my mind to choose him, someone whispers in my ear, "You know, if the wrong person found out you were trollin' for a hooker that could lead to some god awful press, Mister Winner."
Petrified, I freeze on the spot. Someone has figured me out. Goddamn it! I knew I should have dyed my hair! Turning my head slowly, I peer over my shoulder into the violet eyes of the devil.
"Duo," I hiss, "What are you doing here?"
He chuckles, "I think the better question is what are you doin' here? Paying for sex, Curly-Q? Tsk, tsk."
"I-I-I wasn't d-doing anything of that sor-"
"Don't even try to lie to me, buddy," he interrupts. He situates his hands on his hips and glances back and forth between the men and woman. "So, which are we going for tonight? La ladies or da men?"
"Girls of course!" I practically shriek.
"Geez, man don't get your panties in a bunch, I was just asking. Wait, you mean you're not gay?"
"No I'm not gay!" I fume.
He eyes me suspiciously, smirks like the demon he claims to be, and gestures at the right side of the street where all the female prostitutes wait against a building. "By all means," he snickers, "go pick out your lady for the evening. As for me, Imma see what kind of man meat is available."
Duo skips over to the guys and I'm left shocked; I had no idea he swung that way, I always thought of him as a ladies man. Unable to think of an escape – if I run, he'll just chase me down – I walk over to the women and talk to the first girl I see. She's some Asian descent and looks too skinny, but I don't care. I just want to get out of here. Duo walks back towards me with a guy following him who looks curiously similar to Heero. Well, that's an interesting pick now isn't it? Was he crushing on the Perfect Soldier while I was fawning over Trowa?
Cringing, I shake that thought from my head. I was not, nor ever did fawn over him.
"Aight, lets go back to my room, yeah?" Duo says, grabs me by the crook of my elbow drags me
with him back to the hotel.
The walk back and elevator ride is very uncomfortable for me because Duo keeps grinning at me like a maniac, and the girl I've picked up won't stop touching me. We rise to the top floor.
"You got the Presidential suite?" I ask.
"You bet your ass I did. Hey, how come you didn't snag it first?"
"I was trying to keep a low profile."
He nods at that as the elevator stops. Inside the massive suite Duo has our 'guests' wait for us in kitchen area and he drags me into the bedroom alone.
"We'll be right back, don't you two go anywhere," he says sweetly and closes the double doors. He turns to me and asks, "So, what's going on with you, Quatre?" His snarky, laughing persona is dropped and he's become all-serious.
"I'm sure you've heard everything on the news."
"Yeah, I have. Don't mean I'm not worried about you though." He walks over to the counter by a mini fridge and cracks open a bottle of whiskey.
I sigh, "Duo, I'm fine."
He takes a drink straight from the bottle and holds it out in my direction. Reluctantly I clutch it and copy his actions. I don't indulge in alcohol often, but I feel the need to do so now. It burns and I cough harshly after it goes down.
"Still not much of a drinker, eh?" he chuckles a mirthless laugh.
"No," I answer and take another drink.
"Take it easy," he says and takes the bottle back. After he downs a large gulp he mumbles, "Don't let the bottle take you down too. It ain't a pretty sight orra fun ride." Duo goes quiet; his beautiful amethyst eyes darken with sadness. Unknowingly, he's gifted me with insight to his troubles. My empathetic heart can feel all his pain and I try desperately to turn it off. The last thing I need is to have my soul speak to me.
Regardless, my pesky heart makes me reach out to him and ask, "How have you been, Duo?"
He sighs dramatically, takes another long drink and says, "Ya know, good and bad. Just rollin' with the ups and downs of life."
I sense his unwillingness to talk about it so I try to change the subject. "I'm surprised you cut your hair. It looks good. I like it loose that way."
He cringes and continues to drink. "Yeah, well, I didn't cut it. Hilde did."
"Well, she did a good job."
"She did it to get even with me for cheating on her."
"Oh." The shock on my face must be evident. "I'm so sorry. She shouldn't have gone that far."
"I'm sure you'd have done the same thing if I gave you gonorrhea," he sneers, pierces me with his eyes as if challenging me to reprimand him for his actions.
"Well, um, uh -"
"Save it," he says. "I deserved it. I haven't been an upstanding citizen since the end of the war. Wasn't one before the battles, ain't one now, probably never will be."
"Don't say that, Duo. You are a good person."
He huffs indignantly. "Only you would say something like that."
"I say it because I know it," I attempt to affirm.
"Would you still say it if you knew I killed a cop barely a week ago?"
I gulp and question, "Why would you do something like that?"
"Because he propositioned me the night before, had his way with my body. Because I didn't want him to fuck me again. Because it felt good to feel hot blood poor over my hands and watch the light flicker out of someone's evil eyes."
"Well, you don't call yourself Shinigami, the God of Death, without good reason."
That gets an honest laugh out of him. "Yeah, ain't that the truth."
"But you're still good underneath that persona."
"I don't believe that, but thanks for saying it."
"It's true," I try to persuade. "I can feel it, right here." I place my hand over my heart.
His eyes sadden even more, the depths of them bottomless and dark. He slowly brings the bottle up to his lips and again inhales a swig; only this time he swallows three or four gulps. "Maybe one day I'll believe that."
We continue to talk for a long time. Duo's honesty compels me to open about my problems. Well, some of them, my gambling in particular. It seems we're both dissatisfied with our lives and that the high point of our existence has already come and gone. The longer we talk, the more we drink, and before we know it, we've finished more than half the bottle and it's an hour and a half later.
Duo and I are stretched out over the dark blue bed, engrossed in our own drama.
He rubs his hand over my head and snickers, "I like the buzzed look on you. Your head feels fuzzy like a cat now." At least he appreciates my buzz cut.
"Yeah, I think it looks a little weird, but I need to change my appearance if I wanted a chance to disappear."
"I get that, but hey, take out those fake contact lens. I'm tired of not seein' your real eyes."
I take them out and throw them in the trash. No use in saving them now. A few minutes pass and then there's a knock on the bedroom door before it opens and some guy with orange hair and a scarred face walks in.
"Duo, why's there a coupla hookers in the next room?" he asks.
"Oh shit, we forgot about them!" Duo exclaims, hops off the bed and runs into the other room.
"Who are you?" the orange haired guy asks.
"Trowa," I fib. I don't know who this character is, and I'm not about to tell him my real
name. "And you?"
"Mihael. I'm Duo's friend."
"So am I."
"Latest conquest doesn't make you his friend," he sneers and walks out of the room.
Well, fuck you. I wait in the bedroom trying not to ease drop on their muffled voices from the other room. It sounds like they're fighting quietly back and forth about something that appears to be more important to Motherfucker, ahem, I mean Mihael, than it does to Duo.
My formerly braided friend comes in asks, "You want this chick to stay or ya wanna just pay her for the time we wasted." Grabbing a poker chip from my pocket, I flick it over to him. "This chip is worth five hundred bucks."
"Yeah, I know."
"Ai'ght, it's yer money, dude."
Well, at least that's one problem solved. Lying on the bed, I can feel the buzz of the alcohol make my head spin delightfully. I giggle at nothing while watching the ceiling tilt and turn.
After a while Duo comes back in says, "Hey man, I need the bed for me and sweet cheeks."
"You're really gonna sleep wif him?" I slur, pushing myself up on my elbows.
"Well, I either pay him for sitting around and not picking johns up off the street, or I pay the man for his services. I rather fuck 'im and then send him on his way."
I sigh and push myself off the bed. In the next room Duo tells me that someone might come by the room and that I'm to give them a black backpack and take the cash they give to me. I asked him what's in the pack and he told me a variety of drugs, and that they are Mihael's and not his, says he's wrapped up in his buddies hustling business because he's a good friend. Sounds like Duo is staking the deck against himself if you ask me. But I agree to do as he requests, probably because of the whisky – my mind is pretty shot. So I sit and wait on a large plush couch in front of a gigantic television screen. Unfortunately for me, the walls in the Presidential suite don't have soundproof bedroom walls. I can hear pretty much everything. Every thunk of the bed. Every breathy gasp. Every wanton moan. I'd be a lying son of a bitch if I said I wasn't jealous. How come it's so easy for him? Why doesn't being intimate with another man faze him in the slightest like it does for me? Why can't I accept my possible sexuality as calmly as he has? I know it's not wrong to be gay, but that doesn't mean I have to welcome it as openly as Duo has, right?
I numbly watch TV until a delicate knock on the door resonations through the room and I remember that Duo told me someone was coming by to pick up the backpack of drugs. Pushing myself off the couch I stumble a little to the door, the alcohol still raging in my system since I'm not particularly used to drinking.
When I open the door a bell boy and a biker looking man push me back, stick a gun under my jaw and yell, "Where's the shit asshole?!"
Fear grips me as they push me around the room, knocking over glasses and vase to shatter on the floor. "You picked the wrong turf to do your business in,punk," the biker seethes in my face, his rancid breathe washing over my face.
"You low level dealers are all the same: stupid and naive," he bellhop laughs and begins to ransack the room.
"Where's the shit?" the biker asks me again and pistol-whips me.
I fall and bounce on the floor, my head aching and ears ringing. I'm too shocked to say anything but I point to where the backpack lays on the floor with a quivering hand. Like hell if I'm going to get myself killed over someone else's drug shenanigans.
The bellhop grabs the back, opens it, and boasts, "We got it. Go ahead an pop him one."
"This will teach yer fuckin' retard group to go steppin' 'round where you don't belong," the biker snarls, cocks the pistol, and holy fucking Christ he's going to kill me!
My eyes are glued to his finger that squeezes the trigger. Everything happens in slow motion, and the last thing I think of is Trowa and how much I wish I could have kissed him. Just once.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I accept my fate.
A squelching sound comes next, followed by a spray of hot liquid hitting my face. My eyes snap open and I see the biker thug with a knife sticking out of his neck, blood pouring out from around the wound. The knife is yanked from his neck; the blood squirts out of his neck and he gurgles before he falls on top of me.
Duo stands there, dagger in hand. The bellhop rushes him, but Duo is quick to pick the gun off the floor.
"Duo don't!" I yell, but it's too late. He shoots the guy three times in the chest, killing him with great accuracy.
I push the dead biker thug off of me, scramble over to Duo and stop him before he marches back into the bedroom.
"What are you doing?" I yell.
"Imma kill that hooker and then we're gonna change and get the hell outta here!"
"Why do you have to kill him too?"
"He knows our faces!" He screams in my face and shakes me off his arm.
I follow him into the room and the guy is huddled naked in a corner, screaming in some Eastern language. Duo puts the gun to his temple and I keep begging and pleading with him to stop. The guy keeps screaming and crying and Duo continues to yell, "Shut up!" in his face. He finally quiets down and I turn and leave the room.
I can't watch this and I can't stop Duo. Blood is everywhere and I finally look down at my button up blue shirt and see it's all over me and my tan slacks. I don't know what to do and my head is spinning. This is such a mess. Why did he have to find me?! I was doing just fine before that psychopath came around. I've gotta leave. I have to get out of here.
While I'm scrambling around like a chicken with its head cut off, Duo comes out of the bedroom and throws clothes me. "Wash up in the kitchen and change. We have to get out of here, fast."
I do as he says. Remove the blood soaked clothes and wash my hands, arms, and chest at the kitchen sink before putting on his clothes that are too big for me. Duo slings a backpack over his shoulder and heads for the elevator. My hands are shaking, teeth clattering, and I can't help but notice he's cool, calm, and collected. How can killing three men in fewer than five minutes not faze him?
"I didn't do it," he whispers.
"Didn't do what?" I ask.
"I didn't kill the pro. Left him trembling in his own piss, but he's alive."
I sigh, not sure why I'm relieved but I am. I ask, "Where are we going?"
"I dunno. You got a craft somewhere?"
"Yeah."
"Then lets head there first and then figure the rest out the rest when we get there."
We get into a taxi and make subtle haste to the hanger where my craft is hidden. After I pay off the gatekeeper and get inside my shuttle I find Duo, much to my annoyance, in the pilot's seat.
Instead of saying anything I take the available seat and wait for him to say something.
When that doesn't happen, I ask, "Where are we going to go?"
"We need to hide," he remarks sternly. "We're connected to a couple of homicides."
That makes my blood boil. "No! Wrong! You're tied to a couple of homicides! I did nothing!"
His violet eyes bore into me with an intense blaze as he seethes, "So? What're you sayin'? Ya gonna ditch me and disappear again? If you remember correctly, that guy was gonna put a bullet in yer fuckin' head. I saved your goddamn life, buddy!"
I clam up and cross my arms over my chest like a stubborn child. It's true. He did save me, but it didn't have to go down that way. We could have negotiated or something, at least with the bellhop.
It's quiet for a bit as we let the anger evaporate from our bodies and dissipate into the air. I try to think up the best place we should go. All the colonies seem out of the question. I'm not going back to L4 and I doubt my formerly braided comrade want to venture back to the shit cluster he crawled from. Honestly, I don't know why he went back there in the first place.
"Our only real option is earth," I say.
"I know," he mumbles. "But where on Earth can we go? I don't exactly want to be held up in bum fuck nowhere. Can't we use any old safe houses, the Preventers know all their locations now."
"Well, the middle of nowhere is all we have left."
"Not unless we know someone who is willing to help us and hide us."
"There is literally no one willing to do that for us, and I'm not drawing the Maganac's into our mess."
"Then there's only one other person," he says with a smirk and begins to pilot the craft out of the hanger.
"Who?" I blurt out in absolute confusion.
"A certain lil lady who wouldn't be where she is right now without our help."
"You can't be talking about-"
"Oh yes!"
Duo asked me to take over piloting less than an hour after take off, and disappears into the cabin of the craft. It wasn't until hours later when I found his drunk ass sleeping on the only available bed that I realized he had drank two whole fucking bottles of four hundred dollar champagne and passed out. I don't care about the alcohol, but, I mean, come on! Two bottles? Jesus, he's got a fucking problem. And like hell if I wanted to stay up and pilot over the next fifteen hours. When is traveling at the speed of light going to be a reality? That would make travel less of a hassle. At least travel from Mars to Earth and vice versa isn't what it used to be; this could be a two-year expedition. (A.N.: As of right now, a trip to Mars would take 26 months, and that's only to the red planet, not back.) Being forced to be the pilot for the whole trip leaves me the option of putting the craft on autopilot, but I have to sleep in the cockpit seat. It'll have to do. I'm tired from everything that's happened and I had been drinking early.
Five hours into the trip back to Earth I fall asleep, slumped over in the stiff pilot's seat.
When a alarm sounds and stirs me from my slumber, I recognize we've entered the Earth's gravitational field and are due to enter the atmosphere in half an hour. Hopping out of the seat, I race back to the sleeping bunker to wake Duo; he really needs to be buckled into a seat for this part of the trip because it gets rather bumpy. Only I find him there in the bed, clutching a new bottle of champagne, which has spilled one third of its contents on the sheets. How he can sleep in a puddle of booze is beyond me. I spend fifteen minutes trying to get him up, but all he does is grunt and roll away from me. He's out so cold I begin to worry. If he's gotten himself to this state then he must have been drinking for a long time. Hmm, I'm a gambling addict and he's an alcoholic. Aren't we a great pair?
Picking him up in my arms, I struggle to carry his dead weight to the cockpit. I might not be the strongest physically, but I'm not a weak pansy either. Dropping him to the floor, I see we have seven minutes until we hit the roughest part of our journey, and I still have to get him in a spacesuit and helmet. Flying as quickly as I can through the task, I get him up and buckled safely in his seat with twenty-seven seconds to spare.
Eventually we land close in port close to Brussels. We can't stay here and I'm going to have to bride someone again to keep us off the books, so I smack him repeatedly, which does absolutely nothing to wake him. Running about my large ship, I settle for filling a water bottle from the fridge, remove his helmet, and angling it just so, so most of it's contents spray right up his nose, choking him into consciousness.
Coughing he screams, "What the fuck?!"
"Get your ass up, Duo! We need to get to Relena as fast as possible!" I yell back at him.
My formerly braided ally stumbles up to his feet and falls right back down into the seat. Pulling one of his arms over my shoulder, I lug us both out of the craft and down the stairs. He hangs off me like a dead imb as I look around frantically for the people who are suppose to be working in this port.
There's no one around and my stomach hits the floor.
Something's wrong.
Preventer Agents come running in from all exits and I know where done for.
Surrounded, there's no escape.
I wrap my arms around Duo, clinging to him as he gargles unintelligible words and slumps into me.
Une emerges from the throngs of Agents, but before she or I can say anything something pricks me in the leg.
I look down to find a red dart sticking out of the back of my calf. Whatever drug the dart is tainted with kicks in fast. I look back at Une; she almost seems apologetic.
I try to say something, I don't know what. Before I know it, my eyes roll back into my head and all is gone.