Paper Flowers

++ Here we go, new story. Thoughts and comments are very much appreciated ^^ Hope you enjoy! ++

:: Chapter One ::


Damn, it was cold. Not just your need an extra blanket on the bed, wear a jacket when you go out kind of cold, either. This was body ache, soul freezing, extremity numbing cold. The kind of cold where you’d rather be dead than have to endure another minute of life without warmth.
Summer in the Daichosa slums was a horrible sweaty hell, but it was in winter that the city really became a bitch of a place to live. Up until a few years ago, Styx had left Daichosa and travelled to the warmer north as soon as the wind began to bite, returning only when he was sure winter had come and gone. Originally from the Dinn Liaana tropics, he didn’t adapt well to the colder climate found this far south. But that had been before the war, when the roads were safe and travellers free to come and go as they pleased.
These days, the roads between cities were more dangerous than the slums, which was saying something. In the slums, people knew where they stood. There were boundaries, a mockery of rules. Outside the city was no-man’s land. Desperate chaos. Tooth and claw madness. The city might be a stinking shit hole, but most of the time a man could go to sleep and be reasonably certain he’d wake up in the morning.

Of course, there were times when death didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Like now. Styx swore bitterly and breathed on his hands in a futile attempt to warm them. He’d lost feeling in his fingers hours ago, and it wasn’t even full dark yet. It was going to be a long night, and he’d live through every minute of it. Sometimes Styx felt pity for the poor bastards who froze to death in the very early hours of the morning. Sometimes he envied them. At least in Hell it’d be warm.

“Fuck it’s cold!” Rafael muttered with feeling as he ducked into the small alcove beneath the stairs and crouched beside Styx, wrapping his tattered coat more tightly around his slim body. “I mean, it is fucking cold, man.”

“No kidding.” Styx rolled his eyes, then had to wait until a fit of violent shivering passed before he could speak again. ‘Your observational skills are astounding.”

“At least you won’t freeze to death. I think I’m already halfway there.”

“Bitching about it isn’t going to change things.”

“I’m serious! I can’t feel my balls, man! I had to check to make sure the fuckers’re still there! That they hadn’t fallen off somewhere and shattered on the ground.”

“What a shame that’d be.” Styx breathed on his hands again, and wondered if he was imagining the tiny ice crystals that formed on the air where his breath fanned out in a white cloud.

Rafael glared at him and began to speak, but the words were lost in a hacking, chest rattling cough he’d picked up a few weeks ago. It sounded worse today, Styx noted, stealing a worried glance at his friend. Like a dog that needed a merciful bullet in its head. He’d been around long enough to know that when a man started coughing like that, it wasn’t long before he ended up in the ground.

“Damn straight.” Rafael finally croaked. “Fuck, Styx. It wasn’t always this bad was it? I don’t remember it being this bad a few years ago.” Another attack of coughing overwhelmed him, wracking his thin body with shudders. When it was over he slumped against Styx’s shoulder, panting and muttering curses.

“You all right man?”

“Fuck off.” Rafael muttered weakly.

“Okay, that’s it. I’m taking you to the hospital.” It was an argument Styx had been fighting and losing since Rafael first became ill. He hadn’t pushed the issue, hoping that the cough would come good on its own. But Rafael’s health had steadily deteriorated, especially these last couple of days, and Styx didn’t think he’d survive another night on the streets.

“Don’t need no fucking hospital.” It was the expected protest, but it didn’t have much strength behind it, especially when Rafael couldn’t even lift his head to look Styx in the eye.

“Yeah, and I’m the virgin fucking Mary. Get up. We’re going.”

Rafael made a noise that wavered somewhere between a groan and a grunt, and remained exactly where he was.

“Get up arsehole.”

“Go and make tender love to a broken bottle.” Another coughing fit, shorter, but more violent than the last, then; “Styx, you know as well as I do that no one’s even gonna look at me without a nice wad of cash to sweeten the deal. You may not have noticed, but we’re not exactly rolling in money right now.”

“That’s bullshit.” Styx muttered, though he knew Rafael spoke the truth. It was the same in every aspect of life -- those with money got all the benefits, and those with nothing were left to struggle and take care of themselves. A sad state of affairs, but that was the world they lived in.

“It’s okay. Don’t need no rich boy in a white fucking coat to tell me I’m gonna die. I can tell you that for free.”

“Shut up. You’re not gonna die. I’ll get us the money.”

That surprised Rafael enough to get him to lift his head and gaze at Styx with an almost comical expression on his face.

“Uh, how?”

And there was the question Styx had stupidly been hoping he wouldn’t have to answer. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea himself, but alternative was far worse. Unfortunately, Rafael was the sort of self sacrificing fool who would rather die than see a friend hurt. Well, too fucking bad.

“Styx? How’re you gonna get the fucking money?”

Styx sighed;
“The Inferno.”

“What? No! Not no fucking way, not no fucking how.” Rafael glared at him, somehow managing to keep eye contact even while coughing his lungs up. “No. Styx, you’ve heard the same things I have about that place. It’s not something you wanna get messed up with.”

“What other choice do I have? We need money to get you into a hospital. At the Inferno I can get lots of it fast.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. But how much is your soul worth, Styx? A hundred dollars, a thousand?”

“You’re being awfully dramatic, aren’t you?”

“No, I don’t think I am.” Rafael coughed, then irritably pushed his long, shaggy hair out of his face. “You fucking know what they say about that place. Once you go in, you don’t come out.”

“Come on. Have you ever known anyone to keep me somewhere I don’t wanna be?” A lopsided smile lifted one corner of his lips, but quickly fell away when Rafael’s expression didn’t change. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go in, work the night and get out again.”

“I don’t want you to do this. Not for me.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

They glared at each other for a long time, neither wanting to be the first to give in and break eye contact. A battle of wills that neither man wanted to lose.
Rafael was the first to look away. His entire body shuddered with the force of his coughing and he seemed to fold in on himself, to grow smaller and frailer, even as Styx watched. When finally the attack passed and Rafael raised his head again, there was blood on his chin, on his hands. Their eyes met briefly, then Rafael’s gaze slid away. He wiped the blood off his face and his hand trembled.

“I don’t wanna die Styx ... Not like this ...”

“You won’t. I’ll take care of you, I promise.” Styx took Rafael’s arm and slung it over his shoulder, helping the slender man to his feet. He was alarmed by how thin he’d become, muscle wasted away to nothing, just a papery layer of skin over bone.

“But ...” Cough. “Fuck, the Inferno? Styx, there’s gotta be another way.”

“There isn’t.” Ducking his head against the icy wind, Styx lead his friend out of the little alcove and onto the street.

Once, years ago, weather this cold would have brought snow to the city. A small mercy, perhaps, that it didn’t snow any more. Every winter it got colder, but it hadn’t snowed since the war. It almost never rained, either. These days, winter came on the wind. A vengeful, freezing wind that had teeth and claws sharp enough to draw blood. A wind that could slip into a man’s lungs and kill him from the inside out.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. And once I get the money, we’ll get you well again. Everything’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
Though he spoke the words, Styx wasn’t certain he believed them. But often in this city hope was the only thing that kept a man going. If you didn’t have hope, something to believe in and strive for, then you might as well just curl up and die.
Styx wasn’t ready to die just yet. And he wasn’t going to let Rafael die either. So he spoke the words of hope and reassurance, and tried very hard to convince himself the words were true.