cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-04-17 22:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | duo, origins, solo |
[GW] Origins 3: First Blood
Origins 3: First Blood
Pairs: Solo, Duo
Warning: mentions of child prostitution (not Solo or Duo), drug running, violence, swearing, murder/death.
Note: Part 3 in the Origins series. This can be read as a stand alone, but reading the first two won't hurt (hint). Still dedicated to shini02 for her Solo prompt, and this time, the dedication extends to anyone following the series as a whole. The comments inspire the writing which inspires getting through some RL situations at the moment, and that's always good, so thanks. ^^
Summary: At the age of four, Duo makes his first kill.
Origins 1, 2,
Solo refused to suck cock for money, no matter how bad things got. For one thing, he didn't even really know how, and for another... well, he wanted something better for Duo and the other kids, and dying a pitiful death in the grip of child prostitution just wasn't on par with his brilliant dream of How Things Were Going To Be Someday that Solo often liked to illustrate, complete with sun-light metaphors and cities made entirely of Belgian chocolate. Solo was old enough now to know that chocolate cities didn't actually exist, but he'd heard once that if you stood at the ocean back on ground and stared upwards, the big blue sky, the fresh wind, the salty sea breeze, and the great, white poofy clouds just went on and on for ever and ever and ever like some infinite slice of heaven. If he could only grind his toes in the sand just once within his lifetime and drink in his very first sunset on a cool summer night, he'd gladly die the next moment the happiest boy who'd ever lived.
With that dream in mind, he was reluctant to turn his tiny gang into a bunch of runners for the local drug lords, but he was realistic enough to know that at their age, if they weren't sucking cock, they were runners, and that was just all there was to it.
Luckily for all of them, even at the age of four, Duo was incredibly smart for his age. He knew full well the dangers of what Solo was getting them into, and he also knew why. Add the fact that Duo was probably the fastest runner Solo had ever seen, and he still had an almost supernatural instinct for self-preservation, Solo had no choice but to let the kid run with him.
“Okay, it's gonna go down like this: Don't touch the dope. Don't even look at it. Juan up there is gonna give us each a few baggies and tell us were to take it. We'll go together, got it?” Solo took a deep breath. Not for the first time in his short life, he felt thirty years older than his physical age. “Don't make eye contact and don't say anything, Duo. I mean it this time.”
Duo put tiny fists on his hips and sulked. “It's not my fault the last guy was a jerk!”
“Juan's a jerk too. Just shut up and let me handle it, okay?”
“Yeah. 'Course, Solo.”
His heart warmed. In the year after running away from the orphanage, Solo and Duo had managed to find themselves other kids abandoned to the streets. Oftentimes the kids were too young to join the prostitution gangs, most of them hardly any older than Duo, because word had somehow gotten out about them and the younger kids knew that if you wanted to survive, you looked up the name Solo for help. Solo often wondered how a kid—a toddler, really—survived on their own long enough to even consider finding his gang, and how they'd been abandoned in the first place; but he knew what society was like, and if their parents hadn't been killed by the Alliance or the chain gangs or disease, they killed themselves to sex, drugs and alcohol, and it wouldn't be the first child he'd taken under his care to be born the unfortunate son or daughter of a whore, either. Solo had learned not to ask questions when he found a kid just like himself trying to make it in a world where reaching the age of twenty was a godsend. At seven years of age, Solo had somehow been transformed into a savior, and it was a lot of responsibility to take in. They had eight kids now, other than him and Duo. That's why he needed the money—they had mouths to feed, and clothing to buy, and medications to get their hands on to keep from getting sick. He might've been a kid in his own right, but Solo knew that you couldn't survive without money, and money was fast becoming an issue. Hence, the drug running.
It helped that Duo was always there, trusting his every word, and correcting Solo whenever he was wrong. Duo was the smartest out of all of them, and he wasn't even the youngest anymore. There were other four-year-olds in the gang, but they were nothing like Duo. Duo spoke full sentences, and had a better vocabulary than even Solo. Duo knew the entire alphabet, he could spell small words, and he knew how to add and subtract, how to count to a hundred. The other kids of the gang were very careful not to make an issue of it, but everyone, including Duo himself, knew that he wasn't especially normal. Solo didn't care. It'd saved them from getting dead many a time, and he protected Duo, and his oddities, with his own life. The fact that he'd brought Duo with him to the running only attested to that; Solo trusted no one else.
So they made their way up to Juan's dingy hotel room door together, and Solo knocked very carefully on the peeling white paint, Duo tucked in behind him. The door creaked open and a Latino man with squinted eyes darted between them and handed Solo three packets of white power. “The alley between McDonald's and the old BK on 2nd, behind the third dumpster. Hundred cred.” Then the man leered at Solo, and added, “Bring back the hundred, you get twenty as agreed. Pinch me, I send Mace after you, got it?”
Solo nodded innocently, and the man shooed him off. When they got out of hearing distance, Duo asked, “Who's Mace?”
“Baddest enforcer this side of the Hive, Duo. If we don't come back with the hundred, Mace'll find us an' the kids, an' slaughter us.”
“So we better come back with a hundred then, yeah?”
Solo's smile was grim. “Yeah.”
There were risks in every business, they knew.
**
Therefore, it wasn't so shocking when the filthy, ragged, living skeleton behind the dumpster said, “Got fifty. Give you a hundred later.”
Solo held the packets firmly to his chest, an arm on Duo's shoulder, restraining him from saying or doing something stupid. “Sorry guy, but you ain't gettin' the dope without the cash.”
“Need it!”
Duo shoved out of Solo grip and balled tiny fists. “You need a burger, more like! You should use that fifty to get yourself some fuckin' food!”
Solo shoved Duo back behind him, giving the other boy a glare. The living skeleton just leered at them defensively with deep, sunken eyes, so far gone into starvation that neither boy could tell if it was a man or a woman anymore. Its breath rattled around in its lungs and it brought a cigarette to its lips, pulling in the smoke, and then breathing it almost petulantly into Solo's face.
“Fifty now, fifty later.”
“Can't--”
“Half the drugs for half the cash.”
“I can't--”
“You can,” the living skeleton said gently, and smiled something with a hint of mockery at Duo. “You look smart. Tell your brother. S'good business.”
You'd never know Duo's age when he said with perfect menace, “Shut the fuck up! Hundred now, or you get nothin'!”
The skeleton dropped a fifty at Solo's feet, flicking a shower of orange sparks in their direction. “Two packets now. Fifty cred. Come back with a third packet tomorrow, give you sixty more for the trouble.”
Duo yanked on Solo's arm, obviously agitated. “Solo, s'junkie, you can't trust 'em, c'mon, let's go...”
But Solo didn't budge. He took the fifty and tossed the... thing two packets. “Tomorrow,” Solo said, uncertainly.
“Solo! You can't--”
The skeleton grinned with rotted green teeth. “Pleasure doing business, lad.”
Solo dragged his would-be brother away. Duo cursed loud enough to draw attention in the entire neighborhood and Solo swatted him upside the head. “We don't have a choice! We need the money, dammit!”
“We can get money another way, you don't go trustin' the freakin' junkies, Solo! What about Mace? He'll be pissed!”
“I'll deal with it...”
**
Solo was casually flung into the nearest wall, and the world wobbled dangerously to and fro like a big wash of gelatin. Duo was screaming something, but the ringing in his head blocked the words and left them incomprehensible warbling; he shook himself and started to stand, but Mace kicked him in the gut and flung him back into the crumbling plaster. Solo groaned, the back of his head hitting hard into a joist with a bloody thump.
“Two packets for fifty? We're out twenty-five cred! First day on the job and you fuck it up! Should've known! Kill him, Mace.”
Duo was being held back by a second enforcer as Juan watched on, Duo forced to watch while Solo was pulverized. Solo was far too out of it to notice what happened next: Duo roared and legged the man holding him hard in the balls, and with whip-lash speed, he grabbed the downed enforcer's gun and aimed it deftly at Mace's head as the huge man bent to pick up Solo by the hair. Solo knew for a fact it was the first time Duo'd ever gotten his hands on a gun, though the confidence in Duo's eyes was so sharp it could've cut diamonds. He blinked as the picture of Duo's tiny frame clicking the hammer back on a .99 millimeter came into focus. Solo said desperately, “Don't!”
But Mace turned, saw Duo, and laughed.
Juan stared, apparently knowing better. “The kid's got balls. I like that. Could be useful after all, eh Mace?”
“Don't tempt me,” Duo said, and Solo had never heard his voice so cold.
Mace narrowed his eyes with a familiar lust to pound that insolence into the ground. Solo shuddered for Duo's sake, but the younger boy was hardly affected. Mace's thick elephant-like fingers spread and cracked satisfyingly at his sides, and the huge man's shoulders rolled, as if loosening up for a battle. The grin was greasy and yellowed, his breath smelling of dope and fast food.
“Go on, kid,” Mace said. “Pull the trigger. Be a good laugh.”
Solo shouted a warning. Mace's co-worker or buddy or whatever he was, the other enforcer that Duo had kneed earlier, crept behind the younger boy. Just as the enforcer was reaching a hand to Duo's shoulder, Duo whirled in a blur of almost inhuman little-boy speed and shot him in the gut. The man tumbled over like a tree trunk and Duo rolled out of the way. Juan shouted in outrage, and Mace roared, running for Duo with both arms extended and failing like a big, dumb troll.
The force of the shot had knocked Duo to the ground and he shook himself, but just as Mace reached him, he darted between the huge man's legs and grabbed Solo by the hand. Duo was still trying to pull Solo to his feet when Juan's gun clicked and aimed at them both.
“Mace, shut up. Don't underestimate the kid again, yeah?”
Obviously Juan had no compassion for the dying man at Mace's feet. Mace grumbled, but stood as ordered, glaring death at the children.
Juan smiled at Duo, and walked closer. Duo, contrary to his earlier bravery, suddenly dropped the gun, a look of fierce panic on his face, and hid himself into Solo's thigh. Solo cradled the back of Duo's head and stared at Juan with resignation, daring him to do whatever was to be done with them.
But all Juan did was kneel down to Duo's level and make a small, almost gentle noise of encouragement. He pulled at Duo's shoulder until the boy turned to face him, and Solo was dismayed to see tear tracks running down the Duo's flushed cheeks.
“I-I didn't mean to kill 'im, honest, I dunno what--”
“Shh,” Juan said and pet Duo's hair almost lovingly. “I like you. You're a natural. What do you say we have a little talk? Shame for talent like that to go to waste...”
“I dunno what--”
“No,” Solo said over Duo's confusion, his voice firm. “He's my brother, and he stays with me.”
Juan seemed like he was going to argue, but then he said, “You can stay, and any of your little runts can too. I'll take care of you, no problem. It's the boy I'm interested in.” Juan leered at Duo for effect.
Duo went back to Solo's thigh and clung desperately, afraid for his life.
Solo didn't know what to do, but he knew that whatever Juan had planned was not going to be good for either of them; he knew what the fixations of adults could bode on children. He wasn't going to let what happened to him happen to Duo. “I said no.” Solo tried to make it sound brave, but he was sure the fear had overpowered it.
Juan's eyes flashed angrily. “I don't care what you say, boy. I'll have you dead and take him for myself if you contest it again.” Again, he pulled Duo back to face him, and taking the boy's chin with a calloused, grimy hand, he asked, “What's your name?”
After a moment, Solo answered for him. “His name's Duo. I'm Solo.”
Juan smiled. “That's cute, that is. Listen up. In exchange for your lives and a few lessons with Duo, I'll gladly keep you and yours protected.”
Duo stiffened; Solo glared. “What kinda lessons?”
“Self-defense, enforcing, the like. Kid like that is priceless, see, he'll grow up to be a real killer. Love to have him on my team.”
“I ain't gonna give him to you so you can fuck him,” Solo said warily.
Juan shrugged, his face the picture of perfect disgust. “I'm no fag and I hate fuckin' hate peados with a passion, they're a disgrace to fuckin' humanity! I ain't gonna touch him, kid, I just wanna take advantage of some natural talent and show him how to use it.”
In the end, Solo didn't know what made him say it. Even if their lives were on the line, he knew better than to give into the temptations of a lowly drug dealer. But eventually, Solo nodded his head and said, “Yeah. Okay.”
Duo gripped his thigh until his tiny fingernails dented Solo's skin. The man at the back of the room, dying at Mace's feet, groaned pitifully.
Juan clapped his hands and turned back to Mace.
“Excellent,” he said.
They moved in with Juan, and stayed there until the plagues hit.
-tbc