And...in the death - as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare - the shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building - high on Poachers Hill and red mutant eyes gazed down on Hunger City - no more big wheels - fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers - like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love Me Avenue - ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox - now leg warmers - family badge of sapphire and cracked emeralds - any day now - the year of the Diamond Dogs

          --from 'Future Legend' by David Bowie

"Boys, It's a Sweet Thing"

[It's safe in the city]

Trowa's breath came in ragged pants, misting in the chill night air, as the large man currently groping him pushed his thin frame further into the hard wood at his back. The man whose name he would never know kept his fast, thick hands moving all over Trowa's body, lingering only for a moment under the boy's sleeveless turtleneck or down the front of his slim leather pants.

[To love in a doorway]

He was warm, head thrown back in an unutterable cry, anchored securely to the surface behind him. It could feel as good as he would let it, and tonight he felt remarkably lenient. Without warning, the man released him, moving only a single step away.

Trowa regretted the loss, but smiled, going down upon his knees to the cold, familiar street, his long, graceful hands delicately releasing the man's hardened flesh. He never teased, as some did, and immediately took the man deep, fast, unconcerned with how long this would last. The man's sounds of pleasure barely had time to reach his ears before he was drinking his hot, salty liquid.

Trowa released the man from his mouth, sitting back a bit on his haunches as he ran a tongue deliberately across his lips, gazing up into dark brown eyes gone momentarily dim, in a body that sagged against one side of the doorframe.

The man had paid for more, Trowa knew he had paid for more, and he waited patiently for their encounter to move upstairs, to the pretended privacy of Trowa's room.

The boy didn't flinch as the man, finally regaining himself, grabbed both his wrists, the thick hands violently dragging him to his feet. Or as he was heaved up two flights of stairs like a lifeless sack of nothing and thrown through a doorway in the general direction of his bed. Or even when the man fell upon him, outweighing the boy by a factor of three, never bothering to close the room's thin, cracked door.

[To wrangle some screams from the room]

 

---

 

Less than thirty minutes later, Trowa was back downstairs in the building's doorway, only having had to change his shirt, same style, in purple this time. He didn't stop to think then, as he sometimes allowed himself the treason of, about all the ills of this life, or of the sweet life he'd left back home. The life that had been full and ripening, until the rotting times came, washing him out of town to this place. He didn't stop to think of all the grim faces, or the next grim face. He didn't stop to think of anything, because it would have led to hope, and he had no time to stop for that, either.

He caught a dim movement out of the corner of his eye, and as he focused more intently, saw that it was a boy, roughly his own age, traveling silently through the shadows past his doorway. Their eyes met in a viscous moment, the boy paused, and for the briefest of seconds, Trowa thought he recognized something in the other's deep blue gaze. The feeling passed as quickly as it came, and the boy approached, each step clacking the pavement with confidence, while his eyes kept watch all about him.

"Are you working?" the boy asked in a strained voice that made Trowa jump. Like the gaze, almost familiar.

"I don't take money. Everyone pays at the club, then you can come here." Trowa didn't often have to remind people of this, as everyone in town was familiar with the procedure. And they didn't get any visitors here. This boy was...strange. Or perhaps just suicidal.

The stranger moved a step closer, now only three feet away, and asked softly, "What if I said I'd already paid?"

[And isn't it me]

Trowa wanted him. He felt drawn to the boy by a force that could not be explained away solely by his great beauty. He was tempted to believe the boy's lie. This one would want Trowa to take the initiative. He hadn't done that in a long time, not since he'd come here. This was dangerous, going against the rules. But he couldn't say no. The boy's eyes wouldn't let him say no. "Then I'd say let's go upstairs."

The stranger gave a half smile before closing in on Trowa, embracing the boy and latching onto his neck like an infant onto that which will sustain it, breathing softly into the pale skin there. "What if I don't want to go upstairs?"

Trowa tried not to gasp too loudly, but the boy caught him off guard, crashing their two bodies together in a painful embrace made pleasant only by the warmth that came with it. He got the words out as best he could. "There are...certain things we can...do in the street...certain things...we can't."

The boy had run his soft hands under Trowa's shirt, playing at the green-eyed youth's hardening nipples, softly sculpted chest, moving to kiss his gaping mouth, tongue stroking deeply towards his throat. When at last he released Trowa's mouth, he went back to sucking at the boy's neck, before finally answering the comment. "According to who?"

Trowa didn't want to argue, didn't want to explain or expound or debate anything. He just wanted to move upstairs, let the frenzy begin and end, do the job, steal a bit of pleasure along the way, as he normally managed to do...yes, this one could bring him pleasure. His arms thrown wildly about the other boy's shoulders, he gasped, "Up...stairs..."

The young man didn't argue, nor did he discontinue his assault of the other's neck and mouth. The two began a slow dance up the building's deteriorating staircase, Trowa allowing himself to be led, gracefully taking the steps backwards until he found himself on his back, the comfortably light weight of the other boy above him, his sickly gray-clothed bed beneath.

Trowa lay quite still, anxious for the frenzy, but waiting...waiting to see what the other would do. Now that the world had gone horizontal, the blue-eyed boy's kisses slowed, and without even a glance into Trowa's face, he began to remove the tall boy's clothing, piece by piece, taking no pause until he lay atop a bare body.

There was no light in his eyes, the color of the sea over some treacherous waterway, nor smile on his pale, dry lips as he stripped himself next.

When they lay together with nothing to keep their hot flesh from mingling, Trowa finally moved, firmly rolling the heap of their bodies until he had reversed their positions. Neither spoke of the maneuver, and Trowa began to slide down the other's unflawed skin towards a pleasure he had come to know well.

He was stopped by a harsh grasping of his shoulders, and the blue- eyed boy pulled him back up towards his face. "Wait," he said tonelessly, his eyelids closing and reopening as if he had put great thought behind the action. Trowa was again struck, powerfully so, by the feeling that he'd known this person, but it fled away once more, unwelcome here.

The boy brought their mouths together, and though it was no less urgent than before, there was something more in it: a request. Trowa almost laughed at the irony of it, tragically displayed as it never had been before. How many times had he, himself asked for gentleness in exactly the same manner? How many times had the grim men laughed at him? Been purposely worse because of the very request? How long had it taken before he'd learned not to ask?

But he would not hurt this boy. The twisting hands of bitterness he felt could not touch this one.

Trowa pulled upwards, away from the boy's mouth, and smiled, running a hand gently through the dark, disheveled hair. Though he could never say it aloud for fear of choking hatefully on the words, Trowa's actions conveyed his feeling: 'I will not hurt you.'

He began his dissent again, this time unimpeded, and found the boy's cock straining against an invisible force, waiting for him. He took the hot organ into his mouth, delighting in the unusualness of it, so unlike all the others. Brutish, crusty men with matching anatomies, always he enjoyed them, but only for a moment, until their warmth died away, and he was left without anything at all. Not like this one, who wanted kindness and asked for it with a kiss.

The boy surged into Trowa's mouth weakly, which he tried to ignore as he kept his tongue moving over sensitive flesh, even slowing a bit as to prolong the act, a thing he never did, not even when told to.

The boy came, making a beautiful arch, and rather than drink, Trowa reserved the fluid in his mouth and hands, a trick they had taught him nearly from the first. He had lubricants, more so than food, a resource never allowed to dry up. But somehow, they had come to prefer it this way, the men that frequented the club. It was all the fashion.

He let that which he held in his mouth go onto the boy's abdomen, finding the ensuing moan pulled at the already erect flesh between his own legs. With the liquid in his hands, he poured a small stream down the boy's ass, moving his fingers quickly inside to slick the tight passage. The blue-eyed youth's every sound of pleasure, every moan and entreaty filled Trowa with desire, and he wanted this more than he had on the street, or on the stair, or even only a moment ago. But he would be gentle, if only to prove to himself that he was better than the grim men.

He had found admittance for three stroking fingers, located the one place inside the other boy that would justify the whole encounter, had him writhing, crying, hard again, before he even considered moving forward. But the moment would not wait any longer, and he scooped the boy's fluid that he had lain on his stomach into his hands, covering his stiffened cock and sliding deep inside the nameless youth.

[Putting pain in a stranger?]

The room was filled with a sound that Trowa could not place...it wasn't the boy, wasn't himself. In another moment he recognized it as their commingled voices, rising and falling together. The joy of it was nearly unbearable, a movement he'd almost forgotten come back in a flash of brightness. The boy tensed in spasms around him, but no more than was the usual pleasure. Trowa found he could move relatively freely in and out of the boy, and he thrust, shallowly at first, in increasingly deep movements. The boy tried to bring his legs around Trowa's waist, to pull him further into himself, but was prevented, Trowa finding a greater leverage in their current position.

It was so different this way that he could almost forget what he was.

[Like a portrait in flesh]

Could almost forget what they'd made him. A toy that never wanted for anything...he couldn't even hate them for it. He'd come willingly, their dutiful pet.

[Who trails on a leash]

The stranger wound beneath him, flexing his entire body every second or two, rising towards their goal of the purest of sensations. Trowa felt that they were close, both of them, and took the other's quivering hand rather blindly, using it to stroke the boy's dripping erection. The blue-eyed youth moaned, a pained sound, and Trowa released the boy's hand, saying, "Do it yourself."

He closed his deep blue eyes, obeying the command, sending his curled hand to stroke up and down his cock. With another thrust they were there, almost entirely together, both spilling themselves on the bed and each other. And Trowa felt the difference again, emptying inside someone, but the words still came to his mind. No amount of rearrangement could change that. 'You're for sale...'

 

---

 

They had lain together for a time, not embracing, but bodies still touching, the comfort in it welcome to both. Trowa knew the longer they stayed like this the greater their risk of being caught, and began to will himself to move. As he rose and swung his legs over the edge of the dilapidated bed, a soft hand on his arm stopped him, surprised him. He had thought the boy asleep.

"Trowa..."

The name hit him hard, knocking the breath out of him, like a brick to the chest, and he jerked away from the grasp, up off the bed before the other could move. Trowa meant to ask him how...how had he known, who was he, what did he want...but the questions all died before he could speak them.

[Will you see]

He knew, knew the answers to them all, and he felt sick for it. And stupid. And ashamed.

"You...you're from the orphanage at home. I knew you there, before."

The other boy lay still, then sat on the edge of the bed, talking quietly. "Yes. We were both adopted on the same day."

Trowa sought something to cover his nakedness, finding his crumpled clothes upon the floor. As he slipped into them, he tried not to notice how truly obscene they were, tried not to let the familiar boy bring everything back that he'd spent so long killing, burying. Once dressed, Trowa asked, studying the bare floor, "What do they call you now?"

"Yuy. Heero Yuy," the blue-eyed boy replied, rising to seek his own clothes as well. Trowa's garments had done nothing to cover him, and he felt completely bare to Heero's scrutiny. The feeling terrified him.

[That I'm scared and I'm lonely]

He had to get rid of this 'Heero Yuy', had to be alone, if only for a moment. Solitude was the one thing he prized above all things, and in the shortest of supplies in this place. "It was nice to see you again," he said, voice devoid of even a hint of emotion or sincerity, "Heero. But please leave now. I've more work to do this evening."

Heero didn't move, didn't give any indication that he'd even heard Trowa's words. Then, with a rapidness that was almost startling, he rose and made his way to the door, giving no words of goodbye.

Trowa was angry, inexplicably, unavoidably furious. Who was this boy that came here, with his quiet beauty and eyes that spoke volumes his mouth never could? How was it that one simple, short-lived encounter could leave him so? He wanted to break things, hear wood crack and glass shatter. To scream and rant and rail against...but that was the problem. Against what? Who did he have to be angry with? Them? The people he worked for? The grim men? That came at him with their hot desires?

No. There was no one to blame, save himself. And the pointlessness of harming that familiar person sat before him, a great black bird winged in cold guilt.

[So I'll break up my room]

His anger ebbed away for a moment, but quickly returned, full-forced and irrational. He felt no need to justify anything, and ran to the bed in the upper center of the room, grabbing the underside of the frame and overturning it with one try. It was nothing, held no weight, a livid strength coursing through his thin body. He wanted it gone, all of it, but most of all the bed where Heero had lay.

Now he flew about the room, tearing sterile pictures in cheap frames, the type of things found in a physician's office, from the peeling gray walls, ripping drawers from the crumbling plastic wood chest, their contents flung throughout the room in a shower of brightly-colored fabrics and other devices of his profession. When he found that he had nothing more to pillage, the room pitifully bare, he set to tearing apart the puddles of his clothing, ripping sleeves from shirts and legs from pants.

And quite suddenly, in the middle of halving a green button-down shirt, he stopped, looked around him, and lost all momentum. There was no longer any anger or sorrow or fear or loneliness. No longer any of the feelings the blue-eyed boy's appearance had brought to life. No longer anything at all but the desire to forget, a desire so strong that not even one of the grim men would do. But he knew where to find the ones that would.

[and yawn and I'll run to the center]

Smoothing his hair a bit with his hands, Trowa kicked a bare foot through the piles of shredded clothing strewn about like leaves, searching for the only thing one could wear with leather pants: leather boots. He finally found them, miraculously still together, near the bed, and sat to slip them on. Then he left the room, the door wide open, and the building, heading for the middle of town, to the club and the owners and all the grim people he could ever want to blanket his mind with.

 

---

 

The inside of the club was hot, the masses of human beings giving off waves of heat like a sauna. And loud, not only with music and voices, but with blindingly displayed colors, luminescent in the concealing darkness. It might have made his head hurt, had he cared to let it, but all sights and sounds faded into the background as Trowa searched for his boss, 'master' to use the term he'd heard others apply to the man, though he never had. Certainly a practice that sometimes pre-empted a strike to his person, but really, one could almost get to like anything if one possessed a strong enough will.

His eyes sifted over faces and bodies, some seated at tables surrounded by black leather benches, some joining in the writhing, serpentine dance dominating the club's floor, some hanging from the relatively bright bar like moths off a torch.

Finally, in the very center of things, upon a marginally raised, lighted platform near the dance floor, Trowa saw him. Khushrenada, the owner of his building, the grimmest of the grim men.

It was hard sometimes to fear him, for he was handsome in the most appealing way, with his beautifully groomed ginger hair, intelligent blue eyes, and noble bearing. For it was easy, dangerously easy, to believe that all monsters were ugly, unpleasant, and foul. But whenever in Khushrenada's presence, the fact became clear enough: evil had nothing whatsoever to do with outward appearances, and even the malodorous drunkards that lay in the alley behind the club, that would kill a man or woman or child for the price of one ounce of liquor, were kinder.

In the face of all this, Trowa felt no fear. He was incapable of feeling anything just now, so the bold manner in which it appeared he approached his master caused quite a few on the floor to stop their ungraceful dance and stare at him. Stepping onto the platform with Khushrenada, where the man was accompanied by a young woman of no more than fifteen and a young boy of no more than thirteen, both attired in what Trowa recognized as the ragged, revealing type of clothing the man enjoyed, the green-eyed boy found himself at a loss for words. He began to doubt why he'd even come here.

[Of things where the knowing one says]

Khushrenada shot a glance to the side and the boy and girl scurried away in a small flutter of curiosity and fear, disappearing into the crowd. "Why are you here, boy?" he asked in that slow, elegant manner of his that seemed to melt those around him.

[Boys,]

Trowa also knew what tones it could acquire when Khushrenada was displeased, never quite angry, but full of assurances of punishment. The man gazed down at the boy, eyebrows rising, mouth up at one side.

[Boys, it's a sweet thing]

Trowa stood perfectly still, lowering his eyes to observe the man's shiny black shoes before raising them once more. He spoke, carelessly stumbling over the words. "I want...I want you to...I..."

[Boys,]

Khushrenada laughed, stretching his arms forward to drag Trowa towards him, pressing their bodies together in a heat the boy found nearly unbearable, sending a stinging fire to all his extremities. "What was that? What do you want?" the man asked, his hands finding their way lower on Trowa's body, one resting on the boy's hip, the other snaking between his legs, leisurely pressing into the flesh there.

[Boys, it's a sweet thing]

Falling deeper into the man's touch, Trowa found that somehow the act helped him to form his thoughts, the familiarity of it almost comforting. "I need...one of your..."

[Sweet thing]

Khushrenada stroked the boy more forcefully now, eliciting a small, closed-eyed moan from Trowa. Laughing, he replied in a grand voice, "Then why aren't you at home in your doorway? All the fucks you'll ever need await you."

[If you want it, boys]

Trowa lowered his head against Khushrenada's chest, breathing hard as the man fondled him through the tight leather pants, gasping out, "No, I don't want them...I want one of your 'Specials'."

[Get it here thing]

The man stopped stroking the boy with his hand, pulling him even closer, burying his left knee between Trowa's legs, the sensation against his painful erection nearly taking the feet from under him. "You're ready for one of them, boy? You haven't been here that long, and these Specials of mine aren't to be trusted with everyone. With most."

[Boys,]

Khushrenada formed a regal half-smile and lowered his eyes. "What can you do?"

[Boys, it's a cheap thing,]

Trowa was beyond speaking at the moment, mad with sensation, a feeling toy in the man's hands, and he felt himself slipping further and further out of range. Khushrenada took in the boy's face, eyes closed, mouth cracked open, and laughed again, this time with a finality that shook Trowa back to life. "I know one," the man said, "that will like you. Go sit at the bar and I'll send him over. Or would you rather I deliver you to his arms like a lamb?"

[Cheap thing]

Without receiving an answer, Khushrenada released him, striding through the crowd before Trowa could even figure out how to stand on his own again. He remained and only blinked for a moment, finally summoning the will to follow, making his way to the bar, where he sat towards one end, trying to calm his ragged breath and soothe his quickened pace.

Just when he'd finally began to feel sober again, he felt a presence at his back that he knew instinctually as Khushrenada. He turned on the stool to find the man with another man, tall and blonde, a long sheen of pale hair flowing down his back. He could have been kind, with his barely blue eyes and warm mouth, but Trowa couldn't imagine a kind man in any sort of association with Khushrenada.

"This is Zechs Merquise, a good friend of mine," Khushrenada began, a rather cruelish smile sliding across his lips. "He wants to be your friend too, boy."

The man placed a confidential arm around Zechs's shoulder, whispering something into the blonde man's ear, to which they both smiled. Trowa looked away, wondering if he really knew what he'd gotten himself into, but lost interest in the thought. What did it matter?

Khushrenada gazed down on Trowa, eyes harsh while his mouth remained calm. "Be good, won't you?" he said as he turned and walked away, leaving the two alone.

The blonde man did not speak, only frowned at the boy, blue eyes disengaging even as Trowa watched them go. He wondered at the man's disinterested nature, but did not comment on it. It was nothing surprising. Instead he stood, making no attempt to appear enticing. "Do you want to go?" Trowa asked, lightly touching the other's arm.

Zechs nodded and the two made their exit into the dimly lit night.