11 April 2000
Well here we go. SR is my first ever fan-fic and being the crazy chick I am, it's an epic. I have no clue as to how many parts it is going to be, or how quickly it will be finished.(however C&C does have a tendency to motivate my muse. ^_^ )And because I hate repetition (and the fact that I'm lazy as sin...) All disclaimers and warnings are here in the first part. Enjoy,
Erin
Thanks to Arashi and my mom (yeah my mom reads my writing...) for beta reading every part of SR and thier constant encouragement. Without them I most likely would have stopped writing this thing a long time ago.
Disclaimer:Blair and a few other chras are mine. Sigh...Duo, Howard, Deathscythe, Trowa and Quat aren't mine, however if my world domination plan does succeed they shall be mine shortly.... <insert maniacal laugher here>
Warnings: Shonen ai, language, angst, dark fic,um oh yeah original character (that is a warning right?)
I'm gonna die
in a place that don't know my name
and I'm gonna cry
in a space that don't hold my name.
God knows,
you're a lonely soul.
UNKLE: "Lonely Soul"
A.C. 199
My soul is tired and the only sleep it will ever receive is death. Death means giving up, and that is something I'm not about to do. Ever. For me, life has always been a toss up between an angst ridden teen sitcom, a cyber punk novel, and a good "Twilight Zone" episode that many times lacks the uplifting moral. Pathetic huh? Yeah, I agree. I hate it, sort of. I know I would commit suicide if I ever had to call Ward Cleaver "pop" or some other archaic phrase from the white bread era of American television programming.
Sometimes though, when the sun is shining brightly and the low hum of the colony presses down on me, I get lonely and vaguely wonder if this is what life is all about. What it should be all about. Then again, being a 19-year-old chick that has a list of inner demons as long as her arm doesn't exactly help my situation any. Oh yeah and you can't forget my hair. Curls. They aren't the elegantly sculpted curls you see on television or in beauty magazines, rather the unruly mess that dares you to brush it and frizzes to no end when you do. Babies either giggle at me or start bawling. Then again that might just be my aura too. Children have a tendency to be scared to death of power, no matter how kind the person wielding the weapon is. Excuse me, not weapon, tool. Tool my ass. I hate other world shit. Granted it is a large part of who I am, but I'm still bitter. Life will do that to you if you take it too seriously or if it takes you too seriously. Personally, I'm not sure which case applies.
There are parts of all of us that, when we are born, are pure and innocent only to tarnish over time due to the quiet assults of life experiences. Those parts of me are dead. I know it. I can feel it. The closest thing I can compare the feeling to is having a black hole in your soul. I can't cry. The sentence is so simple, but carries so much weight. Why the hell am I writing this in my own journal no less. I really wonder if I'm turning into a psychopath. That or getting worse. Getting worse. Sadly, I don't care.
The throb of music pressed against her body as sweat trickled down from the line of short dark brown curls plastered to the back of her neck. The drop trailed down the slight rise of her spine, under her burgundy shimmering tank top, to the ridge of the dark jeans that rode low on her hips. She ignored it easily and kept moving with the swarm of people that pulsed like a swollen monster desperately trying to break out from the restricting confinements of the warehouse. The low thump of the music changed abruptly signaling the start of a new song, her movements followed suit. That's the way raves are, everything is lost except for the base as it dictates the heart beat of the crowd. It's a place where you can lose yourself. A place where you can be anybody. A place where nothing is real, yet visceral, all at once. It's dangerous.
Blair looked down as two pale strong hands slid around her waist and felt the press of anther body from behind. Male, definitely male. She lifted her arms up above her head, a sheen of perspiration glistening in the strobe lights as she kept moving and turned her head slightly to get a better look at the mystery man behind her.
"Hi," she let her alto voice carry through the air pushing it with her mind slightly to cut through the chaos of sounds surrounding them. Anyone with out psychic awareness would never be the wiser, and most sensitives would choose to ignore it.
"You're good," was the reply that flowed smoothly into her ears from lips that seemed to be perpetually set in a lopsided grin. She smiled at his bluntness and infectious jovialness, vaguely wondering what he was referring to. With a few shoulder rolls and a subtle dip of her hips she had turned completely around to get a better look at her new dance partner. Sweat made stringy chestnut bangs bounced up and down in sync with his movements as his long braid swung with life all its own.
Violet, his eyes are violet.
Braid?
Violet?
Strange.
The beat changed again this time slower and more seductive as if whispering thoughts to the dancers the likes of which good girls and boys never even dream about. As if a switch has been flipped, fast jerky gyrations morphed into smooth rolls and dips as an imaginary hand clenched the people bringing them closer together yet father from themselves.
The man smiled openly, his pale skin glowing with the healthy blush that accompanies physical activity. The thin material of his damp black tank top, which was half pulled out of his light khakis, clung to well defined muscles as strong arms moved to wrap loosely around the curly haired woman. They moved together, both people feeling a lightening spark flash between them at every point of skin on skin, filling the air with a dizzying energy. Blair tilted her head forward and rested it on his forehead, his cool skin slicing through her self imposed isolation making her hyper-sensitive to the thin layer of sweat on her body, the smell that was distinctly him and the gentle yet fiercely strong healing quality about his aura. He reminded her of rainstorms and ocean breeze. Chaos and freedom. Blair shivered.
Rule number one: Never fall for random raver boys.
Duo closed his eyes, more intrigued by the woman with whom he was entangled with than he had been when he had first noticed he from the bar. She moves well, had been his rationalization when his hands had snaked around her from behind to rest on her hips. By all rights, it was a daring move, even for him. What was even more surprising was that for once, Duo wasn't talking. It was not that he was at a loss for words, it was that they all seemed to lose their meaning in the electrified haze.
He felt her shiver and watched through half-lidded eyes her skin tighten and bump in waves that reminded him of spring rain moving across a tranquil deep lake. Both oddly beautiful and powerful in their own right. He let her power wash over him, it was rich and almost palpable, much like the smell of myrrh. Deathscyth's pilot smiled inwardly.
I'm starting to sound like Quatra.
His eyes opened slowly and drifted over naturally tanned skin and faint definitions that all but screamed muscles yet would be ignored by most. Faint definitions that spoke softly of power and dexterity.
Rule number two: Never fall for random raver girls.
Black eyes met violet for moments that felt like a millennia, souls binding and minds spinning. The beat changed again, quicker more peppy but neither heard it. Blair moved her lips forward towards his ear, the music and people long forgotten.
"You're not so bad yourself. Got a name?"
"Duo Maxwell. I may run, and I may hide, but I never tell a lie. Yourself?"
A smirk.
"Blair"
"Nice, I like it."
The smirk spread into a smile.
"So do I."
"Blair!" A glass shattering voice screamed from some foggy distance. Duo winced slightly, eyes flicking up over her head as a hand clamped down on Blair's shoulder spinning her around.
'He's taller than I am' was her last thought before a woman, wearing too much red eye shadow and too little clothing, consumed her vision.
"Blair we got trouble," The perky Japanese woman yelled through yellowing teeth and thin lips as her cropped orange and red haired head bobbed to accentuate every word.
Duo restrained himself from nodding emphatically in agreement.
The Japanese woman's eyes narrowed on the curly haired girl as she set a badly manicured hand on her red vinyl covered hip. Blair was weird, but damn she could fight. That's what Niko and the boys liked about her, all hell and fire. Now if she could only convince the Arabian to hook. Now that would bring in the money. She shook the thought, pleased with the hazed look in Blair's eyes, but not the man standing closely behind her.
"Some thugs are trying to get one of the girls. Here drink this, you look parched" She shoved a blue plastic SOLO cup into Blair's face with one hand while the other waved towards one of the side exits, eyes fixed hotly on Duo. "Bubby can't hold them off much longer," was the last thing Blair heard as she finished off the cool liquid, tossed the cup aside and vanished into the crowd following in the direction that Niko's waving neon green fingernails had pointed. Blair's aura lashed out and people subconsciously parted forming a path, their minds' eye reacting reflexively to the onslaught of benign negative energy fueled partly by her disgust of Niko, partly by something she couldn't describe. Blair ignored the last part.
Duo stood there for a brief moment, watching the two women go in separate directions. A small voice in his mind, that strangely sounded like Heero, told him to stay out of it, what ever it was. He shouldn't involve himself. His violet eyes flicked over to the fairly repulsive red head. He'd be damned if he let some little girl get hurt. Or Blair. The fierceness of his emotions for this stranger shocked him, yet were quickly dismissed. He would deal with them later. Right now there was a fight brewing and he needed a clear head. Duo smirked as he turned to catch up to the curly hellfire; his lips set in a smile, heart in battle. Since when did he ever listen to Heero anyway.
The door stuck as if something was bracing it from the other side, the sharp pleading pitches of a woman seeping though the metal. Blair cursed inwardly and delivered a flawless roundhouse to the offending obstacle. From the other side, a makeshift wooden brace shattered with a harsh crack as it's pieces fell, mimicking the sounds of a dilapidated xylophone.
Duo let out a low whistle. "Impressive."
The stench from the alley flooded their senses in an almost visible overwhelming wave. The woman, not child as he had assumed, screamed and was promptly backhanded by a crouching bald man that looked as though he might have played football in high school only to have age betray him and transform hard muscle into that of a less desirable fatty consistency.
"Shaddaup bitch," he spat in her face. Slowly his head raised revealing a toothy smile that belonged on a hyena and two large empty black eyes set deeply into a square face. With a slight flick of his wrist a knife appeared, all the time his gaze locked on Blair, not seeing her as person but as some new toy he lusted for.
Rule number three: Sociopathic bad guys can smell fear.
Maxwell's eyes narrowed and, with a brief flick, their surroundings were solidified in his mind as he followed her into the heavy putrid air.
Two thugs plus Bubby, at least one had a gun. Two ways out.
The door behind them slammed shut and clicked as its lock slid home.
Shit.
One way out.
His mind shifted and centered in a heartbeat, silently wishing he had never given up the habit of packing a gun.
"Prey tell, what the hell you think it is you are doing, Bubby" Blair's voice was dark and carried as she stepped out into the corridor of rotting food and other things that she'd rather not think about. Her tone gave no hint of her quickening heart beat, the slowly building knot in her stomach or the strange fog that was building in her brain.
Bubby stood slowly deliberately, his movements more fluid than one might expect. "How's the head Blair, baby?"
"You didn't answer my question," was her only reply as she turned her attention to the hooker wearing torn fishnet and a skirt that was hiked up so high Blair could tell what she wasn't wearing. The Arabian wasn't surprised until she locked eyes with Niko's girl. The two cornflower marbles showed not fear, but triumph. A wave of nausea hit Blair hard, testing the strength of her legs. Something was very wrong in one too many ways. A bitter strangled sound trickled into her ears as she realized Bubby was laughing.
"Not feeling too good curly?"
"I'd worry more about how you're going to be feeling than how she is," Duo spoke, the tone riding a thin line between threatening and playful. Crossing his arms, he stepped up beside Blair, both pale eyes fixed and alert. His features strangely appearing more impish yet intimidating, the fury gathering behind his merry façade deeply concealed. Bubby turned his callous gaze towards Duo as if only just then seeing him. He laughed. And laughed. And so did the others.
"Hey, look here, Blair's got a pretty boy! That wasn't part of Niko's plan."
"Kootchy kootchy koo!" the armed man teased, his eyes closed, lips poised for an imaginary kiss, and face contorted in a feeble attempt to be cute. The instant his pale eyelids slid shut, Blair was in motion. In three silent steps she was before him, fingers curled tightly in a fist, arm raised. In a heartbeat she slammed her balled hand into his faintly freckled cheek. In the moment it took for his sandy blonde head to pivot sharply, her elbow connected with the back of his skull sending a lightening streak of pain through his brain as the organ compressed under the increased fluid pressure. A strangled choke tumbled from his lips as his body fell to the ground and dropped into unconsciousness.
"Don't," Blair hissed softly through clenched teeth as she stood over the unconscious sprawled out thug, her fist still balled. It would need ice later.
It wasn't part of Niko's plan.
Niko.
Blair's temper flared as the distant sound of colliding trashcans and human body echoed in the alley, followed by the easy rise and fall of Duo's voice, a soft thud and a pained moan.
She turned too quickly and another wave of nausea caught her. This time she stumbled, her arm reaching out for anything, just to keep her balance. Knuckles scraped rough brick, hands and knees landed on even rougher gritty damp concrete as the world twisted and pulsed to the muted base from the rave inside. Blair's senses were going numb quickly, skin crawling threatening to pull away from her flesh. While breathing in ragged gasps of sickening air, Blair's arms gave out from under her as a single tear rolled down her face in an angry hot line.
The world went mute.
She screamed in protest, the sound carrying all the grief, all the bitterness, all the pain that had compiled year after year of living in a directionless hell. Year after year of wondering if this would be her last.
And then, she blacked out.
Duo jerked his head away from the unconscious slumped over man just in time to watch Blair's body crumple and her brutal scream fade to that of anguished groan.
A fist connecting with his back, just bellow his shoulder blade, brought his focus to Bubby.
"Rohypnol, gotta love it, braid boy," the elder man murmured almost wistfully as he gripped the long hair roughly and sent Duo's body into a wall. The pain was instant as his elbow connected with the hard surface and forced a string of obscenities from the gundam pilot's lips, mind screaming to sort out his aggressor's last statement.
Rohypnol.
Ruffies.
Date rape drug.
"I wouldn't know, I don't need to drug chicks to get laid." He breathed against the rank brick.
"You little shit," Bubby hissed throwing a punch at where the man's head had been. Flesh slammed into harsh stone with a sickening crack that painfully shrieked broken bones, only to be surpassed by the internal snap of breaking ribs by an unexpected uppercut. The overweight thug's scream was cut off abruptly, eyes bulging as two fingers jabbed into his windpipe hard, but not hard enough to cause the abused breathe-way to collapse.
Duo was being careful tonight.
Acting part on instinct, part on training, the gundam pilot simultaneously slammed the heel of his hand into the bald man's temple and swept his bulky legs out from under him. A large hand shot out in reflex and attached onto Duo's black tank top. Caught off balance, Shinigami swore as he was pulled to the ground, mind quickly reacting and body twisting, arm tucked tightly into his side. Bubby hit the ground first, head bouncing off the cold concrete as the braided pilot landed on top of him, elbow sinking into the fat thug's stomach and broken ribs.
There was no scream.
There was no retaliation.
The only movement was the labored rise and fall of a heavy chest.
Duo quickly rolled off and away from the bald man and up into a crouch, one hand on the ground, fingers splayed.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Shinigami mused, fiery violet eyes focused firmly on the unconscious Bubby. Movement and the glint of metal in his peripheral vision pulled him back to the here and now. His arm shot out as he rose, knocking the blade from the blonde prostitute.
"Now, now, now, is that any way to act as a damsel in distress?" he teased darkly, fingers biting into the woman's wrist as he twisted the limb behind her back and pushed her none too gently up against the same wall he had visited shortly before.
"When I let you go, I want you to run and not look back. Understand me?" Her response was a brittle scream of threats and obscenities while her body wriggled trying to break his tight grip.
"I'll take that as a yes," he replied almost cheerfully, as he released the under clothed woman, shoving her towards the dimly lit road no more than fifty feet away. Taking a quick glance around, body shaking, her dim cornflower-blue eyes locked onto Bubby's still form as if etching the image into her mind.
"You're going to pay fucker" she spat before fleeing for the alley's only exit, stumbling in high heels over random bits of waste and cracked pavement.
Duo turned slowly, lips set in a grim line as he assessed the four crumpled forms scattered haphazardly around him. God he was going to be sore in the morning. His even breathing faltered as his gaze fell on Blair, something deep inside of him twisting violently. One moment he was standing, the next he was kneeling next to her sedated form, fingers searching for a pulse, ear placed close to her lips listening for her breath. A relieved smirk quickly washed over his features upon finding both.
"I don't know who you are, or how you got yourself into this lady, but I'm not gonna leave you out here," he spoke softly as if his words could sooth her battered soul, her painful cry still echoing under the blankets of his thoughts. The gundam pilot's arms slipped under her shoulders and knees, elbow protesting slightly as he raised to his feet. It was going to be a long walk back to the compound.
"All I need now is a little rain and a herd of stampeding fifty foot tall bunnies and everything will be perfect," Duo mused as he navigated his way out of the foul alleyway to the more pleasant parts of the colony.
Howard looked up abruptly, almost dropping his mug of coffee as Duo stumbled through the now open kitchen doorway he had just kicked in. The old mechanic's laid back grin slipped quickly from his eyes and lips as he focused on the limp form the man was clutching tightly to his body.
"What did ya get yourself into now Maxwell?" Duo ignored the statement and placed Blair gingerly on the grey Formica covered island.
"She's drugged. Ruffies," he replied as he threw open a cabinet and grabbed a towel which he promptly ran under cold water. Howard stood from his chair and moved closer to the prone lithe form, taking careful note of dirt covered palms, harshly scrapped knuckles and stained rank clothing. Slowly the gray haired man pushed back damp gritty curls that covered her face and froze, sunglass covered eyes widening a fraction. After the initial shock passed, his lips curled slightly with the barest hints of amusement, concern, and recognition.
"Well, I'll be damned," the ex-scientist whispered breathlessly, work-worn fingers moving lightly, tracing a line from the unconscious girl's forehead to chin.
"I'll be damned."
Erin Johnson
Please send comments to: johnsoel@purdue.edu