20-Mar-2004
The Radio Arc #3
Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R
Warnings: Religious stuff that may be considered offensive, language, gore
Archive: GWA
Genre: Supernatural (Solo POV)
Timeline: Pre-series L2
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Feedback: Please?
Notes: Okay, I lied. This series will probably remain Solo POV, or past L2-centered. It may cut to an older Duo, but I'm not sure. The song I chose for this vignette is David Gray's "Dead In The Water", which was graciously suggested by Merith, to whom this arc is dedicated. ^_^
It was the most beautiful thing, I think, that I had ever seen in my life. Bigger than space, and somehow better than God. At least it was something we could touch, feel with our hands and see with our eyes. It was more than faith ever did for us.
There was more grace in that busted fire hydrant than in anything I had ever seen before in my life. It's the things like that which put the bite in phrases like "blue-eyed miracle", in my oh-so-humble opinion.
Course, this is a lot different than that other time. I'm just watching Duo wash his hands in the bathroom of a dingy fastfood restaurant. Good old Mickey D's, even up here in the colonies. Talk about the cancer of American society, pal.
There's blood on them still. I can see him trying to scrub it away, rubbing frantically at his skin, but it's coming off slow. He's already drank-drinking first, always, ever since then. You never know when you'll get another chance.
He wet his hair down, brushing it back from his face in wet strands, and his complexion is pale beneath his bangs. His eyes look too big and dark for his face, and I wish there was something I could do to make it better for him.
But I can't.
Easy does it, buddy.
"Fuck off," he hisses, a worried tone in his voice, as if he's afraid someone will hear him talking to himself. A dangerous furrow settles between his eyebrows, but I don't take any offense by it. He's just scared, that's all.
I already told you I can't. You're stuck with me, pal.
He looks around the bathroom again, as if he can pinpoint the source of my voice. But he can't.
There's a strange look in those eyes, like a guy on a bad trip, I think.
I'm not trying to scare you, Kid.
"Bullshit," he mutters to himself, splashing water on his face furiously. "Not real. Not real not real not real."
Will you fucking chill, Duo?
He looked up into the cracked mirror then, and I swear I could almost see myself reflected in his eyes. That dark part of him is still there, the part that got burned away with all the bibles and the broken prayers.
Part of me is there with him, in that dark place he calls Shinigami, but part of me isn't. Part of me is remembering a summer a few years ago, when the oxygen generators were on the blink and so was climate control. Big fucking surprise, huh?
That had been a bad summer for the streets. A lot of people died. But me, me and my boys didn't. Not a single one. Because I took care of my family, and they were all I had. That was a better time, before the plagues. We still had the soldiers, but they hadn't turned on us as quickly then. You could still find one more willing to be bribed than to put a bullet in your head.
But there wasn't any water. No fresh drinking water at all. We were breaking into houses just to use the faucets, when we could. But even people with running water were having problems getting it.
Maybe if I still had a little faith, I would have believed it was an act of God...if I still believed in bullshit like that. I'll leave that stuff to the priests, please and thank you.
That fire hydrant. I remember lying on the asphalt with the others, feeling it steam when the water hit it, feeling the strange mix of hot concrete and cool liquid against my cheek as I laid flat out in the street, not caring about getting run over by a tank, not caring about getting beat up or shot, just caring about the water.
I was laughing and crying at the same time, feeling the heat and dirt and pain washed away for a minute, one minute out of all the others. Right then, I didn't give a shit who saw Solo-the biggest, baddest motherfucker on the block-sobbing like a lil' kid. I was drenched to the skin, until I felt as if the warming water was becoming a part of me, washing everything else away.
That fucking water.
I looked up and saw Duo standing right beneath the gushing, cracked bolt, his hands cupped beneath it, his hair plastered to his skull. But he was crying then. He was-
Smiling. He was smiling...
"Solo?"
He's leaning up against the dirty sink, his small, bony elbows resting on either side of it, his head pressed so far forward it almost touched the mirror. His face is wet, glistening under the flickering flourescent lights, and his hands are shaking. His voice is barely a whisper.
Thought you didn't believe I was real, Kid.
"I believe," he says, so softly I almost don't hear him.
That's good enough for me, I guess. What are you going to do now?
He gives a little shudder, all over, and I see that darkness swim back up into his eyes, almost like another person rising. He's smiling, just like he was that time when he drank water straight from the hydrant.
Only there's slaughter in his smile now, something gleaming like a switchblade under a streetlight, deep like a moonlight drowning, and I feel scared to death for anyone on the other end of that grin.
" ...I'm going to kill them. What are you going to do?"
...Watch.
The End
(:./cyt/radio3)
