Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Fifteen-Minute Love Sex Tragedy ❯ caesar of hell ( Chapter 1 )

A Fifteen-Minute Love Sex Tragedy

by Kaitsurinu

part one cesar of hell

"I've been working here for, oh, a year and four months or so, and it's alright. Keeps me paid, my stomach filled, and my tenement apartment heated and lit. It's good. I'd rather do this for my supper than work the corner for it. It's not a breeze or anything, but to me, it could have always turned out worse. Things could always be worse. Take it from me, no matter how low down in the dirt you are, there's always another fall to take into a deeper, darker hole. And unfortunately, it doesn't always stop with death. But, I digress. It's not what most would have expected of me, it's not what any of the guys would ever even have considered. Definitely not you. I could tell the instant you walked in, you knew and you were pretty damned surprised about it, even though you tried to play it casual, buddy. This shack isn't the bolt shop I dreamt of, I'll tell you that.

"Yeah, I know." The man lowered his eyes and they sunk into despair, his face twisted into a horrible smile. "I said that I'd start up my own scrapyard, my own mechanic shop and you'd be my very first customer." His lungs emptied in a great sigh and he tilted those eyes up into the lights. He was having trouble keeping back that salt. "Yeah. Had it all laid out beforehand, too. Like a fucking movie script, polished down to a goddamn perfect shine.

"I'd fix your toster and then you'd invite me back to your dorm room for cream sodas and a tour of the fabulous halls and classrooms where you learned how to be as perfect as you are. We'd stroll down the halls at midnight, completely all to ourselves, because you would have stolen the janitor's keys the day before just for our sake. It'd be some regal university, with the smell of knowledge seeping from the very walls. The library would be centuries of years old and you'd know it all by heart. You'd have a trillion and three scholarships for every topic from Alchemy and Zero-System Studies, and then a few more for your athletic activities. You'd be reigning king of every one of the teams you tried for.

"You'd be graduating valedictorian in a few months, and there would be ivy and blooming morning glory just outside your window. And then you'd pick them for me. You'd promise me things in my ear that might never really happen and might not even exist, but it would make me so happy that I wouldn't care. Hand-in-hand, maybe even, we'd stroll through the whole school and run from security when they found us getting hot and heavy right in front of the dean's office. And when we'd had enough of adrenaline, you'd wisk me out the back door and we'd run down main street in the middle of the night, laughing so hard we couldn't breath or see straight. You'd lead me around a glowing Chinatown and then romance me down to the local cozy ice-cream parlor. For you, chocolate, of course, and for me, a heaping round of rocky road.

"And as we left, you'd slip your arm around my waist until we went back to your dorm. We'd scale the ivy outside your window and slip inside. Your room would be beautiful and simple and empty. You would have set up your roommate with a date so that we'd have the place to ourselves. I'd say how sweet you were, and you'd chuckle and say the same thing of me. We wouldn't have to get serious the first night, but whatever happened I would want to lay with you until you fell asleep. And then I'd stay anyway. I'd wake up to your alarm and hit your sleep button and again we'd promise each other impossible, fanciful things, but that would be okay. I would like that anyway. You'd skip your first class to stay and kiss me and tell me just how you'd come to such a place, but soon people would be knocking at your door demanding you and I'd slip beneath your covers and sleep. You'd steal away during study hall and I'd apologize for drolling on your pillow. And everyday, we'd do it again. Well, okay, not everyday, but as many times as we could until summer meandered in.

"You would graduate and subtly mention me in your speech as an absolutely mesmersizing stranger who had stolen his heart years ago and come back to reclaim it, and then we'd honeymoon back at my place until you fell asleep in my arms. I would fix your toaster again, because, by this time it would have broken again, that darn thing, and you would be somehow suddenly convinced to stay with me forever and my modest little livelihood. We wouldn't live happily ever after, like we ever lived out some cheesy children's movie, but it'd be the best times of our lives. We'd invite the rest of the boys over for barbeques and weekend excursions into the wilds and just to sit around and swap tales. And when they left, we'd stay by the fireside and laugh from the pit of our bellies for no reason other than it felt so damn wonderful."

The far-off wails of momentary feedback and indistinct conversation and sound of the cigarette sizzling out filled out the background as the young man fell into silence, no more to his story, no more life in his eyes. The small, yellow, glowing room seemed like its own pocket away from life itself, just a man and his pipedream sharing air and a mourning smoke in a cramped dressing room. Yes, the body of one shirtless and toned twenty-one-year-old remained reclined in a chair beside a brightly-lit vanity mirror, but his mind had long left the entrapment of his body and momentarily was somewhere else, with someone else. Eventually, he lifted his head wearily and sniffled, rubbing at his itching eyes with the heal of his palm and sat up, his leather pants making the tiniest sounds as he shifted.

He straightened himself up in the chair and gave a longwinded sigh that signified his mind had returned to the cumbersome weight that kept him dragged along in the tow of reality, and stared at the cold metal, foldout chair that sat across from him. He inhaled the wafting smoke from the air and the greivous knowledge returned to his eyes. He addressed the chair while taking another cigarette - it was going to be a long night. The longest of his life, as the observers of this melodrama will be able to see in hindsight, and suffer a certain remorse for him for those unfortunate turns of events that have culminated in this night.

"And one day, Heero, you're going to be in that chair when I tell you that story," he told no one, holding the dry fliter against his lip and letting it remain unlit.

The man who'd been standing outside the doors for the last three minutes, carefully gauging the street while the winter winds were careful to tear the fresh steam of his breath far and away down the sidewalk in a wispy trail, never to be seen again. Could one have listened into his mind and heard the irony he found in the fact he'd had difficulty finding the place, in comparison to a specific point on the projected lunar path, they might have laughed. Well, he found it funny enough, at least, for a little chuckle at his own expense as he finally realized that he indeed did have the address right, and he was a full half-hour early. Promptness didn't bother him; rumor had it that on top of showcasing, nuturing, and innovating with some of the most acclaimed bands minus the glitz and pretense of a Rockafeller record label, there was decent food and spirits to be had. Nothing wrong with being prepared. One more breath fell away into the bristling wind before slipping into the furnace-heated haven directly in front of him, the mock-medievel door, buckled with leather this way and that, falling shut with a heavy thud. The same temptus weather rocked the marquee irratically back and forth--a similiar tavern reminiscing wooden sign carved simply, "MARY-ANNE's".

The stranger to the bar was greeted warmly, ushered toward the bar by the gregarious bunch of frequenters huddled near the taps and the bartender that stood at the helm, quenching their every alcoholic whim. They parted like a great sea and offered him a seat at the bar. The collage student introduced himself and many rounds of similiar introductions and handshakes were needed; the bustling din had grown deafening by the time his feet had carried him barely twenty feet. They all smiled, in various degrees, of course, and collectively they managed to ask him what he was doing in their neck of town. They seemed very much a group--a barfly atom that would not split lest it cause a mushroom cloud of disorder and broken ritual.

"I'm waiting for a friend. We're supposed to meet in a while, but I decided to come early to sample some of the music," Heero Yuy responded almost awkwardly. He wasn't used to talking over the tuning of such loud instruments. The polished baby grand piano barked on and off, testing it's musical jaws, while the bass flirtatiously moaned beneath it. His order came sliding down to him and he wet his whiskers with a strange alcoholic concotion he'd never heard of, one that was idiosyncratic to Mary-Anne's Little Shop of Horrors. Meanwhile, he sat back and took in the great, marvellous mystery that was the decor, which, according to the brown-eyed Spanish woman who currently sat beside him, had a thorough history. Her mob of acquaintances, fellow music aficiandos, and multitude of sisters and best friends, chimed in continously, making the process of telling the first story even longer. None of this fazed the newcoming Heero, for he found it was just as easy to drink and absorb the sight and simultaneously listen to the erractic, enthusiastic narrative as anything.

The enviroment was classical and lush, provocative and lush. The dark golden and crimson air was luxiourious, the entire thing was a dramatic's wet dream in seductive colors, but the stage was just as beautiful in it's simplicity. Simplistic black back drop, a baby grand, and countless other instruments laying out, gleaming, sunbathing in the lights. And a pair of metal poles extending from the stage to the lofty ceiling, beyond the catwalk invisible in the shadows above. It was sexy, it was enticing, it was mythical, it was whatever you wanted it to be, to Heero. He didn't care too much for the theatrics as long as the music was enough to sate him, coupled with his drink.

The Spanish beside him finished the vague {so most likely, farfetched} tale of the brothel that had once been Mary Anne's Little Shop of Jewels and since had become a Little Shop of Horrors and since had stopped housing whores and instead fostered local and alternative music. "You're lucky," she said warmly, nudging him playfully with an elbow. "Five minutes later and you would have missed the beginning of Cae's show. God, you are lucky. You would have had been sore from kicking yourself. It's a stunner, every second."

"The fact he hardly can remember his shirt helps, too," an unshaven, ratty music expert added with a snort just beyond her. "Bet he shaves his legs, too."

"Don't listen to that jerk. That's Rayburn. Think's he's hip-shit because he's just so clever and he's got his own recording studio," his tourguide of sorts said sharply, though the smirk in her lips was obvious.

"Whatever you say," Heero said good-naturedly, tipping the glass to his lips. Again, he couldn't understand how anyone had ever thought of such an odd comination of fruits and alcohol. And was that just a hint of chocolate?

"Like I was saying, you'll never want to miss another moment of this guy's show. I swear he's a genius--got lungs like a demon. Screams, dances, and croons like there's no tomorrow," the girl who'd introduced herself long ago as Maria Lupe raved, making sure he took heed of her every word. "Anyone with half a mind or an ounce of musical taste will love him. I think you'll love him, too. Cae's is a real Caesar in his own right. Though you'd think he'd give a girl a chance for dinner, or his number, at least."

Heero chuckled. "I take it he's very handsome, or something."

"Yeah, something like that. Something like gorgeous, more like it."

Again, that somehow brought a laugh to the lips of a former terrorist and new-found music lover and "Cae" admirerer. Setting the beverage aside, he leaned up against the bar and asked, "So, is that all you have to tell me about this guy? Are you going to stop simply longing after him to inform me? What's his name, again?"

"Everyone around here calls him, 'Cae.' Very friendly, comes down into the audience almost every show. But his entire handle is Caesar of Hell. Personally, I don't think it rolls off the tongue very well, but it's got a lot of truth to it. A very sarcastic guy. Funny, but a little on the morbid side, I think. Asked me what my coffin size was instead of my sign, first time we talked." She sighed amourously and the bartender happened along to point out a poster for the very night Heero was attending set beneath the glass case that protected the wooden bar. Beneath his elbow was a poster exclaiming the one known amiably as 'Cae'. In the simmering gold, misty light, the bold lettering jumped out, screaming of a music barrage that would leave you blissfully bleeding for days. In the background, as Heero contentrated on reading the list of pre-colony songs that would be performed, his tourguide, Maria Lupe continued her unabashed narrative.

"I swear, he's the most beautiful thing I've seen in New New York for years. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the perfect man every one's trying to find, and he's been here all this time, hiding in a little music club from all those women. Eyes Bette Davis would swoon for, a wonderful body, hair to heaven come, and that voice--oh, that voice--"

Another woman chimed in, in the throng of aficinados crowding the bar, "Don't forget that smile!"

"I laid eyes on him, first, you know!"

"Oh, you harlot," the man named Rayburn monotoned playfully, mocking the women who swooned after this 'Cae.' "No, I do declare he shall marry me, for my corset draws the tightest."

"Everybody loves him, so what chance do you have?"

"Honestly, I don't want a man who spends more time brushing out his hair than me, or uses more shampoo than me--"

"Well, too bad. You know Cae never cuts those locks!"

Heero had now lost the urge to chuckle at the amusing back-and-forth between the woman squabbling for a mystery man who called himself Caesar of Hell and knocked out the crowd everynight with "that voice--oh, that voice." His eyes had finally wandered down to the centered image of the singer himself, twisting like a serpentine lady-killer in a white-purple-blue light, drawing up the hem of his shirt to advertise his lungs as well as his very visually pleasing body, and lifting an eyebrow to the camera that said everything a woman wanted to hear in her head. But all that was impossible, because that man in the picture was Duo Maxwell. Heero's stomach left him on a roller coaster straight down and left him reeling while the rest of the hoarde around him in the bar started screaming and wolf-whistling in sheer excitement as the house lights dimmed, the stage glowing and humming in sheer anticipation.

"Wonderful, they're starting! You'll stay to see the whole thing, right, Heero?" Maria Lupe said to him loudly in his hear over the roaring approval of the crowd filling the entire house.