Diamond in the Rough

DISCLAIMER: As always - Don\'t own, don\'t sue. The only things of value that I\'ve got are my car and she\'s almost as old as me (which makes her O...L...D!) and a computer that my friend (who\'s a techie) tells me is on it\'s last leg.





BETAS: As always, my work was polished up by the wonderful team of Chris and Sana! Thanks guys for not letting look like a total idiot!





AUTHOR\'S NOTES: In this chapter we meet Duo\'s father and find out a little more about the hell he faces daily. Again, this chapter is also posted on the \'READ ONLY\' site, so if it seems familiar that\'s why.









CRIME AND PUNISHMENT









Duo crept into the almost quiet house. The eerie, not-quite silence had the hairs on his body crawling to attention, but he didn’t dare start looking around. Most likely OJ’s attack would come from the front and if he left his defenses open he’d be creamed toast, again. He had wandered around the neighborhood in the hope that the bigger boy would get bored with waiting for him and leave. But from the sounds of the infernal rap music coming from the living room, his plan hadn’t worked. He went into the kitchen and began preparing dinner for the family. Not that he’d get a bite to eat, if OJ had anything to say about it.



The stocky boy found an unholy glee in torturing those smaller or younger than him. If faced with a bigger, older or more intelligent opponent, he tended to retreat into confusion. That was Duo’s only protection against the bully. Confuse and conquer that worked every time with OJ.



Owen, on the other hand, was as intelligent as his ‘foster’ son and there would be no using intellect on him. He usually saw through Duo’s inexpert mechanics and could twist them around in order to increase the braided boy’s punishment for various unfounded crimes.



* * * * * *



Owen Simpson Reid Sr had married Duo’s mother after his first wife died in a car accident, leaving him with a two-year-old son and no wife to help him get ahead. Exactly eight months to the day from their wedding date, Duo made his appearance into the world. At birth, he weight only four and a half pounds, but his lungs and spirit were strong and he survived and gained the necessary amount of weight in order to join his family at home. Senior didn’t or couldn’t believe that this tiny, fragile life had come from his seed and he accused Duo’s mother, Angeline, of infidelity. Even after three paternity tests proved that the chestnut-tressed infant carried his blood and genes, Owen couldn’t believe it.



Duo grew, never reaching the same bulk or height as his older half brother, but his mind was quick and he never complained about doing more than his fair share of the chores. He idolized OJ and would follow the older boy around, trying to keep up with him and his friends. After the third or fourth time he got the crap beaten out of him, he learned to keep his presence hidden from the older boys.



The Reid family lived near Detroit, Michigan where Owen worked as the head of public relations for GM until Mr. Winner managed to entice him to Winner Corp in the same capacity. Angeline worked behind the scenes, making sure that the household ran smoothly, that everything could be ready for unexpected guest in a minute’s notice and that a hot, filling supper waited on the table when Senior walked through the doorway after work.



In the last year that they lived in Michigan, she noticed a small lump in one breast and talked to her husband about it. Senior didn’t believe in going to the doctor’s, said that they were for people with hysteria problems and were a waste of time and money. Why pay a doctor to give the boys their shots when they could go down to the health department and get them for a lot less. So, Angeline didn’t have the swelling treated and after their move to Winnerton, it became obvious that her health was failing.



Owen decided that eleven-year-old Duo would be the perfect nurse, caring for his mother in her last days. And to get around the little problem of school, he had Angeline home school the boy until she couldn’t do it any longer. And everyone was informed that Duo was a cousin and that they were his foster parents. A tale of false misdemeanors earned Owen Senior the respect and sympathy of his new coworkers. After her death, the boy took over more of her responsibilities.



The night of his mother’s funeral, thirteen-year-old Duo had cried himself to sleep. Well after midnight, he had been woken up when a drunken Owen staggered into his bed and promptly raped the traumatized child. Within a week he found himself firmly ensconced in his father’s bed, dealing with the indignity of the nightly ‘stress relief’. And inside of six months, Owen found a way of getting some of the more perverted members of society to either switch to Winner products or to stay with the company. And for three years, Duo did as he was told to do. The one time he ever threatened to go to the police, his father had threatened him with being put into a foster home and made sure that he knew that foster care would leave him open to worse abuse than he suffered at home. Duo never complained again.





* * * * * *





Duo quickly diced up an onion, a couple cloves of garlic, some oregano and basil from the pots that sat in the kitchen’s greenhouse window and threw the whole bunch into a heavy Dutch oven with a couple of dashes of extra-virgin olive oil and sautéed them until the onions and garlic were transparent. He then added three cans of stewed tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce and a couple cans of tomato paste. He stirred the whole thing together and then tasted it. The acidic bite of the tomatoes caused his nose to wrinkle up with distaste and he added a quarter cup of sugar to take some of the acid out. He turned the heat down and let the mixture cook. While it simmered, he fried up some Italian sausage and hamburger. When it reached a deep brown, he carefully drained the mixture and added it to the sauce, leaving the whole thing to cook down and marinate as he finished getting everything else ready for supper. He put a stockpot of water on to boil, for the spaghetti noodles, and pulled a loaf of French bread out of the refrigerator. He slathered a thick layer of butter on the bread, spread more of the fresh garlic over it and topped it with a thick layer of Parmesan cheese that he grated fresh with a special hard cheese grater.



When the bread lay ready to put in the oven, he started working on dessert. He mixed up a batch of homemade tapioca, adding in grated milk chocolate for a slight change. That concoction he threw into the microwave to cook it. While everything cook, baked or nuked, he pulled out his schoolbooks and began doing the homework that his teachers had assigned. He never knew when Owen would have a new playmate for him to entertain and he couldn’t exactly tell his teachers that he didn’t get his homework done because he had spent the whole evening playing the whore so that Winner Corp didn’t lose an important client.



He chewed on the eraser end of his pencil, thinking about the events of the afternoon. It wasn’t often that Quatre Raberba Winner was found alone. Usually, the petite blonde could be located surrounded by the boys that made up his group of friends. The whole group included Wufei Chang, Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton. Sometimes Quatre’s sister, Relena: Wufei’s girlfriend, Sally and Lucrecia Noin – Zech’s main squeeze, joined the boys. There seemed to always be someone around. Duo sighed, wondering what it would be like to have that many people around him who truly cared about him. And the list didn’t include the forty bodyguards that were never very far away.



The sound of water hissing as it hit the surface of the stove brought him back to reality. There was no way in hell that anyone would care about him like that. His father considered him to be a bastard and lower than a worm. OJ echoed that sentiment and made the braided boy’s life a living hell. And Duo knew that he could disappear and no one would notice. Hell, his teachers never even noticed when he came to school sporting a new black eye or when OJ stole his lunch, leaving him to starve until he got home. Nobody cared about or wanted him. There were times that he hoped his “date” would forget himself and just end Duo’s suffering. He got up and stirred the cooking sauce, allowing himself a little taste of the slowly thickening blend. Supper would be ready when his father walked through the door at precisely six-thirty.



He gathered up the plates, silverware and napkins to set the table in the dining room. Every night he slaved in the kitchen, set two of everything on that table and then served both the “real” men their dinner, taking his solitary meal in the quiet kitchen. And after they finished with their repast, he cleared the table, rinsed and washed all the dishes then did the other things that he would need to finish before he went to bed; laundry, ironing or one of the dozens of other things that his mother used to do before her death. In some ways he felt totally betrayed by her; she left him to this life of never-ending misery. He sighed and finished setting the table.



At exactly ten after six, he drizzled a little olive oil over the boiling water and then added the noodles, stirring as they went in to keep them from sticking together. The first time he ever made spaghetti, he didn’t know how to stop the pasta from attaching to itself and he had gotten the beating of a lifetime. He learned quickly how to do things right. And there were nights that he could almost wish for a date - at least that would stop Owen from beating him; no one wanted a damaged whore.



Duo wasn’t the only pony in Owen’s stable, either. The woman who came in to do the deep cleaning, once a week, happened to be an illegal alien and her daughter worked for Owen as one of his “entertainment coordinators” just like the braided boy. All the older Reid had to do was threaten the mother with informing the INS about her status there and she’d roll over and bare her belly. In Duo’s mind, Owen became a bully and if this were Hollywood, both he and OJ would get their comeuppance. And hell, if this were a fairy tale, Duo would have a fairy godfather hiding behind the drapes just waiting to rescue him and hand him over to Prince Charming so that they could live happily ever after. Unfortunately, reality kept intruding and Duo knew that that life only existed in dreams or maybe after death.



At six twenty-five, he drained the noodles and served them up onto the platter. He dished out the sauce, pouring it into a large tureen and covering the dish. Then he pulled the salad that he had prepared the night before out of the refrigerator and made sure the pudding had set up. While the noodles had been cooking, he had thrown the garlic bread under the broiler and the pungent aroma of imported Parmesan and garlic filled the house. As he finished each dish, he took out his small portion and placed it on a plate.



Just as the grandfather clock in the living room began chiming six-thirty, Duo could hear the garage door opening and the low hum of Owen’s car as he pulled carefully into the garage. Quickly he placed the food on the dining room table and made sure that everything looked as good as it smelled. He heard the door connecting the garage with the rest of the house open and shut, quietly. He hurried back into the kitchen to take his father’s jacket, briefcase and any other thing that he might need to be relieved of.



Owen looked similar to his oldest son; tall, broad-shouldered with collar length brown hair and shrewd, dark brown eyes. The only difference between father and son was their weight; OJ weighed nearly three hundred pounds and Owen tipped the scales at two hundred. With his height – six foot four inches - and his age – forty-five – he still fit the clothing that he wore when he graduated from college. The only thing that gave away his age was is face and the heavily etched lines that creased it.



He smiled down at Duo, leaving the braided youth trembling with frightened anticipation. Something in that Cheshire cat grin caused Duo’s heart to plummet to his knees. The older man caressed his son’s cheek in a mockery of a fatherly gesture and the boy knew that something really not good was or had happened. He swallowed the knot that formed in his throat and looked at the things he held onto. Owen’s jacket and briefcase were joined by a box from a Fredrick’s of Hollywood knock off. The name had Duo almost hyperventilating until he remembered that several of his frequent dates used the same seller - it didn’t have to be the one he automatically thought of.



He sagged into his chair, his appetite having fled with the sight of that box. He could hear OJ’s voice bellowing over the so-called music. Owen’s voice rose above the song with the command to “turn that shit off!” and silence reigned supreme for all of thirty seconds. Then Duo could hear OJ telling their father his version of what happened in the woods that afternoon, leaving out the fact that his intended victim was Mr. Winner’s son.



“Duo,” Owen called, his voice tolerating no disobedience.



“Sir?” Duo squeaked as he came into the room. Hopefully Owen would allow him to explain why he had interfered with his brother’s hunt.



Owen grabbed his wrist, holding it very gently. “I understand that you intervened with your brother and his new boyfriend. What do you have to say for yourself?”



“Only that the boy OJ chose to attack was Quatre Winner,” he said, looking down at his feet.



“What?” Duo winced as the grip on his wrist caused the bones to rub together.



“I’ve got a couple of classes with him and recognized him right away. I’m sorry, Sir. Would you please let go of my wrist? You’re hurting me,” he whimpered. Duo sighed with relief as the pressure on his aching joint disappeared. And then his jaw dropped as Owen stood up and began punching his oldest son.



“You stupid bastard!” Owen growled, slamming his fist into OJ’s stomach. “What are you trying to do? Get me fired? I can’t believe that you’re my son. How could I have produced such a complete idiot?” He pointed to the stairs heading to the second story. “Get your ass up there and don’t let me see you until you grow a brain!”



OJ bolted up the stairs, blubbering and clutching at his injured stomach. After the heavy footsteps ceased, Owen turned his attention back to the slight figure in front of him. He sat back down in chair and studied the braided beauty.



“Duo,” he said, keeping his voice soft and gentle. “What would you do to help your family?”



“Anything, Sir,” Duo whispered, still looking at his feet.



“I’m glad to hear that, because I have a … ah … new/old client for you.”



Duo’s breath came in short pants. He knew whom Owen wanted him to see again, but he had been promised that he would never have to date that man again. Owen promised.



“Who,” he murmured, his whole body shaking with fear.



“Roger Muscat,” came the bland answer.



“No!” he said.



“Duo, you said that you would do anything to help your family. Is one date too much to ask of you?” Owen snidely said, standing up to tower over the terrified youth.



“Yeah, well you said I wouldn’t have to see him again after he almost killed me the last time!”



“Well, the bastard did some digging and has information that could cost me my job!” He reached out and grabbed Duo’s braid at the base. “And what he wants to keep quiet is a week of nights with his favorite little pony. And that’s what he’s going to get, understand?”



Tears flooded down Duo’s cheeks as he looked at his father. “You promised!” he cried. “What did I ever do to make you hate me? Why don’t you just kill me yourself?”



Owen’s right hand flashed out and the back of it connected with the boy’s tear-streaked cheek, knocking him to the floor. “You will do as you’re told! Understand me, Bitch?”



“Yes, Sir,” Duo replied, his voice dead.



“Good. The package I brought home is for you. I’ll arrange for the car to take you to the apartment and pick you up at midnight.” He sat back down and began eating. “I think that you need to go and get ready. And Duo, make sure that your homework is done before you leave, I don’t know if you’ll have time to do it after you get home.”



“Yes, Sir.” Duo walked up the stairs, into the bathroom and began getting ready. He knew exactly what Roger wanted and expected of him. His soul lay bloody and bleeding after having just been killed by the one person who should have loved him.