Fic Post: Vicious One
Oct. 6th, 2006 03:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
momebieFandom: Cowboy Bebop
Title: Vicious One
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katilara
Theme(s): #9 Hide and Seek
Pairing/Characters: Vicious
Rating: PG 13 for death
Disclaimer/claimer (if needed): I do not own the pretty, angsty boys of the Cowboy Bebop-verse, or any for that matter. *sigh*
Summary (if needed): At the age of fifteen, Vicious finds himself.
A/N: This is first chapter of a slow descent into insanity for me. Also, the city of Alba Patera is named after a real world Volcanic formation just north of the Tharsis area of Mars. Tharsis being where the Red Dragon holds it's headquarters.
2059 - Tharsis
The small boy sat on the corner and spat peanut shells into the street. He hadn’t eaten in three days and no water but the occasional rain shower had touched his body in two weeks. He ran his tongue over his teeth and tried to knock out all of the pieces of broken shell sticking to them. It hadn’t been hard, the not eating, he didn’t have any money.
His flight from home had been unplanned, and the panic and anger he had left in precluded even hasty preparations. A civil war had been brewing in the streets of Alba Patera for a year now, and the squabbling gangs had finally gotten around to open recruitment. He had refused to join either side, knowing that they were both wrong, and that nothing good would come of it, regardless which side absorbed the power. One side had captured his sister, holding her for the ransom of he joining their ranks, and he had refused, knowing that she would probably have died anyway. They killed her, and then they came after him. He disappeared.
In Tharsis he had taken to pretending he was a ghost, already dead. He would disappear into alleys or underground, only to reappear some time later, reinvented. Often he would steal new clothing or purposefully develop a new habit, last week he walked with a limp, this week he smoked. He would play hide and seek with himself and his memories of home. It would have been a more challenging game if anyone here knew who he was to begin with. Instead, he was permanently hidden on the streets under dirt and water and smoke, because no one cared to look for him. Then he ceased hiding and took to seeking.
There were whole casts of supporting characters in a hub like Tharsis, and each one of them had a story, if only you were persistent enough to follow them. For the last week he had been tailing a group of men he called The Three. Every day he watched them arrive at the same rusting metal door wearing the same heavy black coats. They never took anything in, and they never brought anything out. When they appeared he would hide behind trash cans or walls, trying to blend in to the light concrete walls on either side of the street. Then, when he was sure they were settled inside, he would come out of his hiding place and sneak up to the door to listen. The voices would be muffled through the metal, and when they raised enough for him to understand them they were always about life or death. He desperately wished there was a window so he could see as well as hear.
He stopped fidgeting with his tongue as the men rounded the corner. Carefully he scrambled back on his elbows around a stair case and watched them cross the road. This time, one of them had brought a gun. Then he stood and crept over to the door, like had four days in a row, and listened. He stretched out as close to the wall as he could get, enjoying the warmth that burned the skin on his arms and roasted the backs of his calves through his jeans. Listening, he felt like he was part of something, like he belonged somewhere.
At first it was quiet, and he felt cheated. He had started to inch away from the door when something exploded inside and his heart pounded heavily with the sound of gunfire. He closed his eyes and let the shouts and shots dictate when he breathed in and out. A single shot, sharp intake of breath. A plea for help, slow, ragged exhale. He stood there in mid step after the noise faded away, soaking up the familiarity of the heat and the excitement crackling in the silence. The kinetic energy hummed through the door and worked its way through his limbs, waking him up to the power of possibilities and of everything he had ever seen.
It was silent again, and he knew that if the game was to continue, he would have to be out of sight. He had just slipped around the corner when the door flew open and bounced off the concrete wall with a bang. None of the men looked at the boy as they spilled out into the street. The tallest one, cupped his hands over his nose and mouth as he lit a cigarette. His dark hair was cropped short, and the boy wished that his own hair was dark and not the pale white he had always hated.
“Do they never listen?” said the man to his left. He was the one holding the gun. He waved the tip into the air for emphasis. “Simple cause and effect man. We tell them what to do, they don’t do it, we shoot them. Wasn’t that clear?”
The man with the cigarette nodded. The boy studied him, trying to replicate the placement of his hands. He wanted to be that man. The one to his right smiled as he looked up the street. “At least they died quickly. With the caliber of people boss has been dealing with lately it’s all we can ask anymore. Say there Mao, hurry up and take over so I can feel like I have a purpose again.”
“Yeah,” the first man was putting the gun into a hidden pocket in his coat. “Somehow, this taking out the trash doesn’t exactly thrill me anymore.”
The men chuckled as they drifted down the street and the boy watched them, wanting to follow them, to be one of them. Then his stomach growled and he remembered the peanut shells poking at his gums. He wondered…
Looking after the men, and then in the other direction to see if anyone was watching, he came back around the corner and slipped into the half open door. It was dark in the room, and the smell clawed at the air in his nostrils and lungs. It washed over him and oozed out into the open.
When his eyes adjusted he saw that there were three men in the room. One was slumped over a table, red vials and broken glass littered around his head, or what was left of it. The other two men were lying at awkward angles, flanking his chair.
Blood and the red liquid from the bottles mixed on the table, watery and thick, and in it, there was sitting a bottle of topaz colored liquid, a bowl of rice, splattered with the red, and a dark pair of chopsticks. His stomach growled again and he edged forward slowly and reached out for the chopsticks, anticipating the smoothness and the wet. Something inside him snapped and, not being able to control himself anymore, he jerked the bowl through the mess on the table and brought it up to his mouth, letting the rice fall into it and over his shirt. He reached to the glass and emptied it into his throat. The liquid burned in his throat and his stomach and his brain, and for a moment even the smell of death was overridden.
There was a noise behind him, small snap. He put the glass back on the table with a loud clunk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He could feel the red mixture clinging to his cheeks and clothing, his white shirt ruined.
“So young one, you were hungry then?” It was the man with the cigarette, the one they called Mao. He looked at the boy and the boy imagined what he must look like, a pale shock in a black and red room. The man smiled. “Beautiful scavenger, vicious creature, what is your name?”
The boy raised his hands to elbow height and looked at them. They were drenched in sticky redness. The boy knew his name, but it was connected to his past, to the person he wasn’t anymore. It belonged to the person who had betrayed his only living family member and then ran like a coward. That person was dead.
Somehow nothing he could say seemed appropriate in front of this man. He was afraid the sound of his voice would break the spell and the first person who had talked to him since he had come into Tharsis would disappear into nothing, like the thin smoke evaporating around the man’s head. He was quiet. He wiped his fingers on the thighs of his jeans and, shrugging, smiled. The man looked back at him and smiled in return, a different smile than any the boy had ever seen, one that looked like he felt. Oh yes, it would be fun being this man.
“Come with me vicious one. I know a place we can find something better to eat.”
Mao reached out and plucked one of the unbroken vials off of the table and fingered it thoughtfully, wiping the traces of blood off of it before he slipped it into his pocket. Then he reached his hand out to the boy and the boy reached back, mirroring him, thrilling at the first deliberate human touch he had received in years. He would be whatever this man wanted. He would hide in who he could be forever. Vicious one, yes, he liked it.
Title: Vicious One
Author/Artist:
katilaraTheme(s): #9 Hide and Seek
Pairing/Characters: Vicious
Rating: PG 13 for death
Disclaimer/claimer (if needed): I do not own the pretty, angsty boys of the Cowboy Bebop-verse, or any for that matter. *sigh*
Summary (if needed): At the age of fifteen, Vicious finds himself.
A/N: This is first chapter of a slow descent into insanity for me. Also, the city of Alba Patera is named after a real world Volcanic formation just north of the Tharsis area of Mars. Tharsis being where the Red Dragon holds it's headquarters.
2059 - Tharsis
The small boy sat on the corner and spat peanut shells into the street. He hadn’t eaten in three days and no water but the occasional rain shower had touched his body in two weeks. He ran his tongue over his teeth and tried to knock out all of the pieces of broken shell sticking to them. It hadn’t been hard, the not eating, he didn’t have any money.
His flight from home had been unplanned, and the panic and anger he had left in precluded even hasty preparations. A civil war had been brewing in the streets of Alba Patera for a year now, and the squabbling gangs had finally gotten around to open recruitment. He had refused to join either side, knowing that they were both wrong, and that nothing good would come of it, regardless which side absorbed the power. One side had captured his sister, holding her for the ransom of he joining their ranks, and he had refused, knowing that she would probably have died anyway. They killed her, and then they came after him. He disappeared.
In Tharsis he had taken to pretending he was a ghost, already dead. He would disappear into alleys or underground, only to reappear some time later, reinvented. Often he would steal new clothing or purposefully develop a new habit, last week he walked with a limp, this week he smoked. He would play hide and seek with himself and his memories of home. It would have been a more challenging game if anyone here knew who he was to begin with. Instead, he was permanently hidden on the streets under dirt and water and smoke, because no one cared to look for him. Then he ceased hiding and took to seeking.
There were whole casts of supporting characters in a hub like Tharsis, and each one of them had a story, if only you were persistent enough to follow them. For the last week he had been tailing a group of men he called The Three. Every day he watched them arrive at the same rusting metal door wearing the same heavy black coats. They never took anything in, and they never brought anything out. When they appeared he would hide behind trash cans or walls, trying to blend in to the light concrete walls on either side of the street. Then, when he was sure they were settled inside, he would come out of his hiding place and sneak up to the door to listen. The voices would be muffled through the metal, and when they raised enough for him to understand them they were always about life or death. He desperately wished there was a window so he could see as well as hear.
He stopped fidgeting with his tongue as the men rounded the corner. Carefully he scrambled back on his elbows around a stair case and watched them cross the road. This time, one of them had brought a gun. Then he stood and crept over to the door, like had four days in a row, and listened. He stretched out as close to the wall as he could get, enjoying the warmth that burned the skin on his arms and roasted the backs of his calves through his jeans. Listening, he felt like he was part of something, like he belonged somewhere.
At first it was quiet, and he felt cheated. He had started to inch away from the door when something exploded inside and his heart pounded heavily with the sound of gunfire. He closed his eyes and let the shouts and shots dictate when he breathed in and out. A single shot, sharp intake of breath. A plea for help, slow, ragged exhale. He stood there in mid step after the noise faded away, soaking up the familiarity of the heat and the excitement crackling in the silence. The kinetic energy hummed through the door and worked its way through his limbs, waking him up to the power of possibilities and of everything he had ever seen.
It was silent again, and he knew that if the game was to continue, he would have to be out of sight. He had just slipped around the corner when the door flew open and bounced off the concrete wall with a bang. None of the men looked at the boy as they spilled out into the street. The tallest one, cupped his hands over his nose and mouth as he lit a cigarette. His dark hair was cropped short, and the boy wished that his own hair was dark and not the pale white he had always hated.
“Do they never listen?” said the man to his left. He was the one holding the gun. He waved the tip into the air for emphasis. “Simple cause and effect man. We tell them what to do, they don’t do it, we shoot them. Wasn’t that clear?”
The man with the cigarette nodded. The boy studied him, trying to replicate the placement of his hands. He wanted to be that man. The one to his right smiled as he looked up the street. “At least they died quickly. With the caliber of people boss has been dealing with lately it’s all we can ask anymore. Say there Mao, hurry up and take over so I can feel like I have a purpose again.”
“Yeah,” the first man was putting the gun into a hidden pocket in his coat. “Somehow, this taking out the trash doesn’t exactly thrill me anymore.”
The men chuckled as they drifted down the street and the boy watched them, wanting to follow them, to be one of them. Then his stomach growled and he remembered the peanut shells poking at his gums. He wondered…
Looking after the men, and then in the other direction to see if anyone was watching, he came back around the corner and slipped into the half open door. It was dark in the room, and the smell clawed at the air in his nostrils and lungs. It washed over him and oozed out into the open.
When his eyes adjusted he saw that there were three men in the room. One was slumped over a table, red vials and broken glass littered around his head, or what was left of it. The other two men were lying at awkward angles, flanking his chair.
Blood and the red liquid from the bottles mixed on the table, watery and thick, and in it, there was sitting a bottle of topaz colored liquid, a bowl of rice, splattered with the red, and a dark pair of chopsticks. His stomach growled again and he edged forward slowly and reached out for the chopsticks, anticipating the smoothness and the wet. Something inside him snapped and, not being able to control himself anymore, he jerked the bowl through the mess on the table and brought it up to his mouth, letting the rice fall into it and over his shirt. He reached to the glass and emptied it into his throat. The liquid burned in his throat and his stomach and his brain, and for a moment even the smell of death was overridden.
There was a noise behind him, small snap. He put the glass back on the table with a loud clunk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He could feel the red mixture clinging to his cheeks and clothing, his white shirt ruined.
“So young one, you were hungry then?” It was the man with the cigarette, the one they called Mao. He looked at the boy and the boy imagined what he must look like, a pale shock in a black and red room. The man smiled. “Beautiful scavenger, vicious creature, what is your name?”
The boy raised his hands to elbow height and looked at them. They were drenched in sticky redness. The boy knew his name, but it was connected to his past, to the person he wasn’t anymore. It belonged to the person who had betrayed his only living family member and then ran like a coward. That person was dead.
Somehow nothing he could say seemed appropriate in front of this man. He was afraid the sound of his voice would break the spell and the first person who had talked to him since he had come into Tharsis would disappear into nothing, like the thin smoke evaporating around the man’s head. He was quiet. He wiped his fingers on the thighs of his jeans and, shrugging, smiled. The man looked back at him and smiled in return, a different smile than any the boy had ever seen, one that looked like he felt. Oh yes, it would be fun being this man.
“Come with me vicious one. I know a place we can find something better to eat.”
Mao reached out and plucked one of the unbroken vials off of the table and fingered it thoughtfully, wiping the traces of blood off of it before he slipped it into his pocket. Then he reached his hand out to the boy and the boy reached back, mirroring him, thrilling at the first deliberate human touch he had received in years. He would be whatever this man wanted. He would hide in who he could be forever. Vicious one, yes, he liked it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-06 05:55 am (UTC)Also like how you portray Vicious. The way he takes on new habbits. How he wants to be that man. How he's given his name. The whole fic's got this lovely dark, smokey feel to it, like it's not quite tangible, but you find the smell of it still sticks with you long after. <3
Can't wait for more. ~_^
no subject
Date: 2006-10-06 11:11 am (UTC)