Disclaimer:Don't own them, don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence, attempted NCS
Soldier Boys
sequel to The Gathering
Smoke
"You living alone or someone just not give a damn about you?"
Duo started and aborted a move towards his hidden weapons. Looking around carefully, his innocent expression firmly in place, he came face to face with a wizened old woman standing in front of the shopping terminal next to him. She was peering at him with bright black eyes full of disapproval. Duo knew that he looked like a nondescript kid, his braid hidden inside of his shirt, but he still couldn't stop a surge of trepidation and an impulse to run for it.
"Huh?" Was all Duo could manage.
The woman nodded pointedly to the readout that listed Duo's purchases. "Either you're looking to have a large sugar high or that's your actual shopping list for meals. I shudder to think it's either one, boy. You don't have to try and cook, if you can't, but there are standard, non perishable meals you can buy on the cheap."
"Well.... "Duo found his tongue again and said in embarrassment. "I guess I really didn't think about it. I have meal bars and drinks already. This was just-"
"A trip to buy junk food?" The woman shook her head. "That military crap is well and good for a little while, but you need some hot food, boy. Want me to help you out?"
Duo tried not to look obvious when he glanced around them nervously, but her eyes didn't miss much.
"Don't worry. I'm a desperado myself," she chuckled. "I won't be telling on no one, okay? You, and a lot of other people, are trying to make their way alone in this damned place and I know it's a whole sight better than those institutions they have set up."
Duo smiled and dared. "Sure you wanna chance getting arrested right along with me?"
The woman grinned back, a startling expression on a wrinkled face that looked as if it had seen its share of hardship. "You're taking a chance by being next to me, too, boy." She flicked her credit card at Duo and a startling balance flashed before she lowered it. "I suspect that your card isn't too kosher either, right?"
"No...," Duo looked around again and then decided. "Okay, you help me stay healthy, but I still want most of my junk food."
The old woman tisked as she began pushing buttons on Duo's panel. "Kids, nowadays, don't know anything about... there, all done. Better get your things and high tail it, youngster." She nodded at a reflection on the shiny panel. Duo narrowed his eyes when he saw the reflection of a man in uniform not far away.
"Damn!" Duo began to leave, but then turned and said quickly, "Thanks!" The woman gave him a nod and made a shooing motion with her hand.
Duo's purchases were already sealed in bags when he reached the pickup point. Grabbing them, he tried to slow himself down and look casual. He was just a kid doing his mom's shopping, he thought to himself. Nice kid. Mr. Responsible. Wouldn't know a crime if it bit him on the ass. Wrapping that persona around him, he took his time walking out of the store and to his car.
"This is your third arrest, ma'am," a voice said as Duo finished putting his bags in the trunk of his car. "You know we're under military laws. You know it's the death penalty this time, not just sitting in a jail cell."
Duo carefully looked around and saw the old woman being escorted from the store by the officer. She looked grim, wisps of her gray hair escaping its severe bun and her thin arms cocked back cruelly tight in handcuffs. She shrugged dispiritedly. "Death by starvation or death by being shot. I have to tell you, boy, that starving is not a pleasant way to go."
"You have a ration card," the officer sighed in a bored tone that said that he had heard it a million times. "Don't give me that whine about not having any food and having to steal."
She gave him a sour look. "Do you know what they do to the wives of dissidents? Nothing so crass as to execute them too, well not in any way that the public will know about. They just torture you to death, slowly, by severely limiting your ration card and making computer glitches that keep you from using your medication allowance."
The guard looked uncomfortable. Duo wasn't sure that the man believed her, but Duo did. He had seen enough ugliness perpetrated by officials in his life. He knew what terrible crimes they were capable of and, he suddenly realized, that he wasn't going to watch another one carried out right before his eyes.
Duo quickly caught up to the two. He put on his best, 'I'm an innocent bystander' face and patted the officer . "Good work, officer. I'm glad another criminal is off the street."
As Duo patted the man's shoulder, and the man started and frowned, Duo's other hand snagged the magnetic key to the cuffs from the officer's pocket. Passing the man by, he turned and stepped around in front of him, making the man break stride to keep from walking over Duo. As the officer, completely distracted and annoyed now, began to tell him to get out of the away, Duo slipped the old woman the key.
"Okay, okay!' Duo said as he turned and began walking rapidly ahead of the officer and the old woman. "Sorry about that, sir."
Now, for the crazy part, Duo thought, as he approached the officer's car, but crazy was what he was best at. Without warning, he spun and landed his booted foot into the passenger window of the officer's car. It exploded inwards, safety glass showering the entire inside of the car. Duo then turned and stuck his tongue out at the officer, guaranteeing a response from the man that was pure, mindless, fury. The man drew his weapon and forgot all about an old lady and a dime store crime. He left her behind and sprinted after Duo with a roar to, 'Freeze, you fucking punk, or I'll shoot!"
Duo made it look good. He could have outdistanced the man easily, but he hung back, knowing that the old lady needed time to get away. He was using a tried and true street tactic for getting rid of enemies; lead them to a remote area away from any friends or help, and then kick their ass. Of course, back when he had lived on the streets, he had been helped by a dozen other kids in his gang, but the officer running after him, looked like an easy mark. Duo didn't anticipate any trouble taking him out.
What Duo didn't expect, though, was for the man to call ahead on his cell phone for backup. Always know your territory. Duo cursed at himself for not having gone over a map of the town when he saw the officers ahead of him. He didn't have any choice but to duck into an alleyway and hope for an exit. Luck wasn't with him though. He reached a dead end full of garbage and spun around to face his pursuers.
Duo considered using his gun, but then decided that city security sensors would pick that up. He held a slim hope that the officers hadn't yet reported in to their station. If that was so, and he was able to take them down physically, then he could use the time that it would take for the station to realize that the officers were absent, to reach safety.
Play dead, Duo thought grimly and held up his hands to show the officers that he was giving up.
"Don't hurt me man!" Duo whimpered and rubbed at his eyes to make them tear. His lips trembled and he held out his hands imploringly. "It was an accident, honest! That officer made it all up! I never did anything to him! He was trying to do a number on me and I wouldn't let him, so he made up this story to get back at me."
What 'number' the officer had been trying, Duo didn't explain. He knew the imaginations of the other officers would fill in the blank. He had a chance, and knowing Oz, it wasn't a slim one, that the man he was accusing was known for being the kind of guy who might do 'numbers' on people. When Duo saw the other officers hesitate and look at the man he was accusing suspiciously, he knew he was on the right track.
"I saw him trying to shake down an old lady!" Duo sobbed. "I tried to stop him and that's when he tried to force me... force me..." He put a shaking hand to his mouth as if he couldn't bring himself to say it. "I ran. What else could I do?"
"Shut the hell up!" The officer he was accusing grated out and aimed his gun at Duo's head, steadying it with both hands while his face turned purple with anger. "Why you little punk! Saying things like that about me...! I should drill you right now."
"Marty!" one of the other officers snapped. "We got your butt out of trouble the first time, but we aren't doing it again."
'Marty' turned an even darker color and snarled. "What are you talking about?! This shit is making it all up!"
"Maybe he is and maybe he isn't," another man said. "Your partner was out sick and it's just your say so. If this kid goes to juvie spouting things like that, who do you think they're going to believe?"
"He ain't getting away with this," Marty seethed.
"Yeah, he is... this time," the other officer affirmed and Duo could have kissed him as that man fingered his gun in warning and Marty was forced to lower his own weapon at the silent threat.
When Duo heard, "Get out of here, kid," he didn't hesitate.
"Thanks, guys, you're doing the right thing," Duo was saying as he quickly tried to slip between Marty and his rescuer to make his escape. The punch to the gut wasn't all that unexpected, nor the fact that Marty tried to make the blow a lot lower. Only Duo's quick twitch away from him, saved him from worse pain, though he couldn't stop the blow from connecting all together.
"Shit, Marty!" Duo's rescuer shouted and shoved Marty aside. "You okay, kid?"
"Yeah, just fine," Duo gasped out, hands clutching at his ribs. "I'll be going now."
His rescuer wasn't completely sympathetic. "Well, if you did do what Marty says, then that's your warning. Get into trouble again, and I'll personally haul your ass down to juvie and make sure they lock you up with guys who'll really teach you a lesson."
"Yes, sir, thank you sir," Duo said as if he were terrified. He couldn't straighten and it was hard to walk, but he hurried away from them as best he could. Once he reached the main street, he made himself disappear into the crowds. Keeping low, he pulled his baseball cap from his back pocket, put it on, and pulled the brim down to hide his face.
That had been a very close call. Instead of letting him go, those officers might have decided to teach him a lesson. He thought of the old lady he had saved and wondered if she had gotten away okay. He didn't regret for a moment saving her, but he wasn't any less critical of his performance because of that. The colonies were depending on him and the other pilots. Getting himself put out of commission, or worse, killed, was unacceptable. He promised himself that he wasn't going to get caught flatfooted again. His first task when he returned to the safe house was to find Heero and to get maps of the town and surrounding area from the other pilot.
Heero... Duo winced. He didn't relish any of the pilots knowing that he had compromised them, but it was Heero that he was the most concerned about. Duo especially didn't want the pilot of Wing finding out what a mess he had made out of a simple trip. Heero's complete dedication to the cause frankly awed Duo and Duo found himself admiring Heero's skill and strength. While he liked being a mystery to the teen, and acting the fool, Duo was well aware that Heero wasn't really buying it and that Heero was keenly interested in figuring him out. The last thing that Duo wanted was for Heero to start forming an opinion that he was a screw up who couldn't be trusted to shop for groceries.
Groceries. Car. Duo wasn't used to thinking about either of those things. After a life on the streets, a short internment in an orphanage, and a stay with Dr. G and the sweepers during his training, mundane things like shopping and worrying about personal belongings, like cars, were almost out of Duo's sphere of experience. Going back to retrieve them, when he knew that the area now contained a new enemy in the form of disgruntled officer Marty, didn't appeal to Duo at all... still, it was a mission of sorts, 'get groceries and return to the safe house undetected'. Maybe he had failed the undetected part, but Duo was determined that he wasn't going fail the rest of the mission.
"Boy?"
Duo started and found himself face to face with the old woman. The crowd on the streets was swirling around both of them as they stood still, but they didn't move out of the way. The crowd was their protection.
The old woman's cool, wrinkled hand, put car keys into Duo's hand and she closed his fingers on them. "Left them in the trunk lock," the old woman explained, her dark eyes bright and mischievous. "Thought I'd return you the favor and save your stuff. I parked her down by Collins Row. Know where that is?"
Duo blinked and then blushed. "Uh, no," he admitted.
The woman looked exasperated. "How are you going to survive if you don't know anything about where you're living, boy?! I see you managed to get away from those goons this time, but next... you have to know where some good bolt holes are and where to find your next meal. " She squeezed Duo's arm and she was surprisingly strong. "Look here, you need anymore help and you come see me." She rattled off an address. "It's a government hole, but it keeps the rain off my back and the cold out of my bones. Don't see why it can't hold one more, if you don't have anywhere else to go."
Duo was moved. "Thanks, I appreciate that, but I do have a bolt hole. I'm kind of new around here, though." He rubbed the back of his neck in acute embarrassment. "Guess I was too cocky for my own good."
"Cocky will get you dead," the woman said dryly. She reached out and gave Duo a small, faint, cuff on one cheek and Duo's eyes went wide. "Offer still stands, if you get into more trouble, but I think you learned your lesson... anyway, three blocks down, and one to the right, and that's where your car is. Better hurry before parts end up missing. This isn't a good part of town."
"I noticed," Duo replied with a rueful laugh. "Thanks again."
The woman gave a curt nod and then she was gone, disappearing into the crowd as if she had never been there. Duo blinked and then sighed. 'Guess I'm learning a lot of damned lessons today,' he thought to himself, 'Maybe I should high tail it back to Dr. G and get myself retrained... 'course I don't remember there being a class in safe shopping practices in Oz territory.'
Duo took his time getting to the car. He wasn't a trusting soul, his life had been too hard for that. The woman looked legit, but there was always the possibility of being set up. Duo made sure to walk around the area and didn't approach the car until he was sure that there wasn't any nasty surprises waiting for him. Even then he thought about tracking devices and reluctantly decided to ditch the car. He retrieved his bags from the trunk and then gave the tire a small kick of regret before walked away, leaving the vehicle behind.
Duo stole another car on the outskirts of town and, after tossing out any electronics that could help the owner to track and find it, he drove the dark blue four door back to the safe house. He wasn't surprised to find the other pilots preparing to leave, thinking that he had been captured, and he was even less surprised to find several guns in his face when he opened the front door.
Duo grinned at the annoyed, consternation on his comrades faces and held out a can of coffee. "Don't kill me! I come bearing gifts. Who's for a pot of coffee? I get the first one!"
Heero was frowning darkly. He ignored Duo's attempt at humor and swatted the can aside. "Report," he growled.
Duo glanced at Trowa and Quatre and saw similar annoyed expressions on their faces.
"Yes, report at once," Quatre demanded. "Are we compromised?" Quatre's voice was cold and it was very unlike his usual, soft, friendly tone. It told Duo how very much he had 'stepped in it' with them.
Duo was ready to do a song and dance, ready to deny everything and tell them
that they were perfectly safe, but... he discovered that he couldn't honestly
do that. There was always the possibility that someone had tracked him and now
knew where they were. There was a burden that came along with being part of
a group, Duo thought, and that was having to consider the larger picture, the
larger consequences of his actions and how they effected the people he was working
with. At that moment, Duo almost wished that he had left with Wu Fei, but he
knew better. He knew that Quatre was right and that being together was going
to be far more effective than being alone and battling the large numbers arrayed
against them. He had to swallow his pride, tell them the truth, and hope that
he could redeem himself in their eyes at a later date. This wasn't going to
happen again, he promised himself, he wasn't going to put himself in a position
where he lost the respect of his teammates and endangered them with his mistakes.
He especially swore, as he forced himself to relate what had happened in the
town, that he wasn't going to make Heero look at him ever again with that expression
of anger and severe judgment. That was worse than any punch to the stomach.