Angels In America
Part One: Birth
****** Duo and Heero ******
Duo Maxwell always maintained that they had met at a metro stop, both
reaching for the same issue of The Face magazine at a nearby kiosk.
Heero, however, would have told you a different story if you had asked.
Fortunately, or not, no one ever did. As it stood, though, their
similar taste in reading material had nothing to do with fate or
coincedence, but rather with the fact that Heero Yuy had happened to
fall in love one week ago.
And this, is what Heero remembered.
It was an abandoned warehouse, in the middle of nowhere. Some
industrial town that had dried up now that industry was dead. It wasn't
a rave, because those were much too mainstream...no, this was more
underground, a secret to be shared by only a small mass. In the
basement, pool tables and arcade machines, low noise passing off as
music, couches and beanbags. Retro, really, somewhat seventies America.
First floor and up...five floors of pulsing music, defying any genre
used in audial classification at the time. But it wasn't about genre,
brand name loyalty, your favorite dj. It was about the music and you,
balancing in total anonyminity and oblivion. The middle part of each
floor was cut out rawly, providing a view of the first floor dance
floor and maintaining an industrial feel. Couches and tables sat pushed
against the wall, resting areas for who knew what kind of people.
That was where he first met Duo Maxwell.
He had been dancing within the crowd, second floor, dangerously close
to the low rail, completely losing himself. To be no one, to be
every one, at the same time. It was like some kind of high. He
didn't know why he had happened to open his eyes at that time,
why he was looking in that particular direction, or even why the blur
he caught in his peripheral vision interested him so much.
Nevertheless, it did, and he took off in pursuit. The crowd parted as
he walked towards the open areas of the back, revealing a young boy his
age, sitting in the middle of a couch, arm swung behind it. Heero saw
the boy smirk at some one else in the sitting area...girlfriend?
boyfriend? Who knew. The boy tossed his head back, getting longish
chestnut brown hair out of cobalt eyes, and laughed as he pulled a tube
out of the inner pocket of his black coat. There was a hustle on the
table, and Heero could make out the lines the boys were drawing in
white powder. Snow.
Duo Maxwell looked up as another boy approached the table, wiping the
trail of blood coming down from his nose away with his sleeve. Hard,
Prussian blue eyes looked down at him, and the line he had just sniffed
had him wondering if the new boy was glaring or giggling.
"Yes?" Duo snorted when Heero didn't say anything. "Is there something
I can do for you?"
The boy to his side, obviously of Chinese descent, started snickering
wildly. Heero, however, decided to ignore the friend.
"I want to dance."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "Look, babe, no one's keeping you."
"I want to dance with you."
"But why on Earth would I want to dance with you?"
"Because those drugs are going to kick in in a few minutes, and when
they do you won't care who you're dancing with."
Duo smiled, slowly, laconically, and sniffed up another line. "Let's
go, then."
But, Duo wouldn't remember any of that. And when Heero saw the
beautiful boy again, at a subway station in downtown New York, reaching
for a magazine, he wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.
* * *
Two boys, lying on their backs in the middle of some field, gazing
heavenwards. Stars, floating through their fields of vision,
intermingling with clouds and cigarette smoke. A voice, gliding over
the sounds of traffic and crickets.
"You know, we're a lot like them, the stars. Floating through time and
space. Really, that's what everything in the universe is doing right
now."
"Do you always wax philosophic when you're high?"
A chuckle. "I'm not high tonight."
"Hn."
"You're awfully talkative, tonight."
Silence.
"Babe?"
"...it's our one month anniversary."
"Shit. For real? That's pretty cool. Do you think we'll be around for
the second one?"
Heero rolled over onto Duo, staring down at him through an inch of
space. After a brief moment where both boys froze, suspended in time,
Heero sat up. Straddling Duo's prone body, he tilted his head to look
back at the stars. "I was thinking you could move in."
Duo pushed himself forward, elbows digging into the grass. There was no
hesitancy in his voice when he spoke. "Okay."
* * *
One thing that I am not, is noble. You don't live a lifetime on the
street to learn chivalry, gentlemanly conduct. Hell no. You learn how
take care of yourself, how to survive. At least, that's the lesson I
got out of it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My name is Duo Maxwell, and I don't know where I was born. I don't
remember my parents, being that they left me on a park bench not long
after I was born. Some bag lady took me in, put me in the front of her
shopping cart. Amazingly, I remember that, the rank smell, her clammy
hands and contorted face. She looked old, and tired, but I'm sure I
would too if I was in her position. I was two when she died, with a
vocabulary of maybe two words. She never talked to me much.
She just keeled over. I didn't even realize she was dead. Hell, I was
poking at her for a good five minutes before I started wailing. No one
cared, though, no one stopped to pay any attention to me...not in
America.
The next thing I know I'm with Solo. I was four, picking through the
garbage in some back alley, and he was the six year old angel that
saved me. I think I might have loved him...who the hell knows, I was
just four at the time. So he taught me the ropes, took care of me, and
there weren't all that many nights where I had to go to sleep hungry.
There was a group of kids we hung out with, I'm reluctant to call them
a gang because it wasn't like that. We were family. Being together was
probably what killed them. Some one in the gang must have gotten it,
and the close quarters we keot must have spread it. I watched them die,
one by one, and was surprised when I didn't. I thought I had gotten the
rough end of the deal. I still do. The cops found the shack we lived
in, quarantined it and had the bodies cremated, and wanted to stick me
in some hospital room until they were sure I wasn't infected. I ran.
The church found me next. They ran an orphanage as a goodwill side to
saving souls. There was a fire, kids and nun found dead...notice a
pattern? Well, the father survived, aged and swafted with all manner of
illness. So I, being eighteen and the other survivor of the church,
took it upon myself to take care of him. So what do I do? I stick him
in a hospice, and send them half my paycheck every week. I visited him
once.
And now, I'm at his funeral, lover in tow. And I can't even bring
myself to look inside the coffin.
* * *
"Are you okay?"
Duo looked into concerned, Prussian eyes, and shrugged. He took Heero's
hand and they walked away from the site, sitting down on a bench not
far from the parking lot. Duo took out a cigarette, lighting it as he
put it in his mouth. "It's not so bad as it was when he was alive. When
I went to see him...that last time. It was god awful. He looked old,
and he looked so tiny. Father Maxwell. And there were machines and
wires connected to him every where...I couldn't stand to be there, to
see him like that. It was awful."
Heero just sat there as Duo cradled his head in his hands. Four years,
now, they had been together, and Heero still didn't know how to deal
with the other boy sometimes. He knew, though, that no gestures of
comfort or consolent words would do anything for Duo. So he just sat
still, waiting for his lover to regain his composure. "You know...I
think the cat ran away."
Duo looked up from his position, his eyes rimmed with red. "Well, you
always wanted a dog anyway."
Heero shrugged. "I didn't mind. Cats...they're intuitive. They always
know when something's wrong."
"Wrong?"
"It's probably why he ran away." Heero glanced down at his hands,
hesitant. "Duo, I have AIDs."
Duo blinked and sniffled, wiping away at his eyes with his suit sleeve.
"No, you don't."
"Duo... I'm dying."
****** Trowa Barton ******
Dekim Barton was the man who took me in, when he found me wondering
around a carnival looking for cotton candy and other things to eat. My
mother, apparently, was a gypsy working there, often neglecting me and
leaving me to my own devices. Dekim decided he would raise me, and
bought me up like his own son. He was a bleeding heart liberal, holding
office in our state. It was much to his chagrin, then, that I became
what I am today.
And just who am I today? I'm New York's finest lawyer...but I could
have been more. Let's go back.
I was always a quiet boy; most of the talking I did was to myself, or
inside my head. That's what astounded people when I announced I was
going to Harvard to study law. But that's what I did. And at
twenty-one, I became the youngest person ever to pass the bar. One of
my first cases was against Catherine Bloom...it was the case that would
make my career, that would start me on my path to notoriety.
It was clear from the beginning that Catherine would be proven guilty.
This was years ago, when I was still in my twenties, and the Alliance
was on the verge with war on Oz. She was accused of selling government
secrets. But looking at her, sitting on the witness stand, I hated her.
She was a gypsy... a dirty, swindling, piece of trash, a living
stereotype common in our discriminatory world. I could see myself in
her. She would have gotten time in jail if I hadn't stepped in. The
judge was a friend of my father's, and I talked him into giving her the
death penalty. America reeled with the sentence, as other nations and
colonies criticized a country that would condemn some one so harshly. I
made an orphan out of her two kids. My father never talked to me after
that... it seemed, that... I was the child no one wanted. I don't blame
them.
Soon after, I was picked up by Treize Krushenada, the head of the
Alliance ethical committee. He was like a father to me, making sure I
would rise to the top of my career. We were in charge of ferretting out
the unethicals in society...communists, socialists, faggots. We must
have prosecuted hundreds of them, maybe ruining their lives in the
process. But that all changed when people started calling Treize a
modern day Hitler. Then there were the rumors about my private life...
that I was no different than the scum I so vehemently opposed. We were
discharged, and Treize died soon afterwards.
And I opened up my law practice. I represent politicians, mafia
bosses...the most important people. I rarely lose a case.
Later, when I die, few will pity me. I'll be called a bully...a
coward...a victim...because I am all those things. But that's not for
another decade.
I hear a knock at my door, and I realize it must be my assistant. So I
tell him to come in.
****** Quatre and Relena ******
Quatre hurried into the office, carrying a stack of papers. "Mr.Barton,
I have these ready for the next case."
Trowa waved a hand in dismissal. "Just put them on my desk."
Quatre looked at the older man, who was staring out the window. Trowa
turned to face him then, and if he were any one else besides Trowa
Barton he probably would have been smiling. But as it was, he only
stared. "Quatre, you've been great ever since you joined the firm."
"Thank you, sir," Quatre fiddled nervously with his shirt sleeves.
"You should go to Washington. That's where you'll really get your
career started. I can set you up there if you want."
Quatre blinked, staring at the other man. "Washington? Really?
Well...I'd love to, I really would, but...I have a wife, and I don't
know if she'd want to move again-"
"Ask her." Trowa turned his head away again, looking out the window.
Quatre nodded, leaving the room, doubting if Relena would be happy with
his good fortune.