Tainted Tears

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http://tokyo.cool.ne.jp/sagakure/index.html

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FIC : Tainted Tears – chapter 2
Author : Sagakure
Fandom : Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac, Cavaleiros do Zodiaco, Caballeros del Zodiaco, Chevaliers du Zodiaque).
Pairing : Not exactly yaoi. Well, maybe, but not with a pairing yet. There is BIG innuendo for Saga x Kanon and Kanon x Saga, though. (“Obvious” would be a better word than “innuendo”. ^^;)
Rating : NC17 (For utter angst and mature content. Don’t read if it’s not your cup of tea).
Warnings : Timeline went to space, so it could be considered AU, but I’m otherwise sticking with the canon story whenever it’s possible. The original timeline for their ages couldn’t have worked with this story. ^^;;; Even with the AU timeline, Saga and Kanon are very young when they get rescued by the Gemini saint and he becomes their master.
Saga and Kanon are in their early adolescence at the beginning of this fic. That means they\'re pretty close to the age of Seiya and Shun in the series. Just wanted to mention that so you can picture some of the scenes without getting too shocked, since ages are not mentioned and people could think they\'re even younger. This fic has a very heavy subject, but the point here is more the things they go through to get over the trauma caused by their past, rather than anything kinky itself. There are scenes with sexual content, but they\'re only there when deemed necessary for the story.
Disclaimer : I do not own Saint Seiya.
Saint Seiya is (C) of Masami Kurumada, Toei, Shueisha, Akita Shoten and quite probably some more people.
No copyright infringement or disrespect intended here. This is a work of fanfiction, done completely for fun. No profit is taken out of it.

Notes : Chapter 2 was supposed to be “Drop #2 – Leon”, but I thought it was best to add a chapter about Kanon before going into the Leon part, otherwise there would be too much Saga and not enough Kanon at the start of the fic… So the Gemini saint makes his appearance in the next chapter. ^_^/

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Drop # 2 - Kanon

Kanon’s head felt like it was going to explode. More exactly, it felt like it was spinning upside down on its own. His eyes and nose burned and kept filling with tears. He buried his head on the thick pillow and hoped that it would pass quickly. That was the only thing in that place that was good, the comfortable beds. Then again, considering the house’s main activity, the beds had better be good. After all, the twins and their customers spent most of their time on them.
Kanon sighed miserably, and bit the sheets to prevent a choked sob from escaping his lips. The sun was already going down, and soon it would be busy time. Not good to feel sick during that time. Things could get bad.
Well, not that they weren’t terrible already. But they could always get worse. He had learned to always expect things to worsen, because that was the only way he wouldn’t feel as bad when they did. Saga was always hoping that it wouldn’t be as bad, but Kanon knew better.

He heard a movement by the door. Saga? No, the old harpie again... That’s how the twins used to call her, when she wasn’t around, of course. She was one of the managers of the place, and was always yelling after them for anything, saying that they didn’t work hard enough, or ate too much, or slept too long etc.
Even when they would work until dawn and until they crumbled of exhaustion, she still thought they could do better. Never enough money. Even though they were the #1 attraction of the place. Ironically, she wasn’t as bitter to the other people. But since Kanon and Saga were their hen that lays golden eggs, she expected much more from them than from anyone else. And as scrawny as her arms were, she was always ready to beat them up or humiliate them when they didn’t make as much money as usually. Never mind that there were days with less movement than others, and that it wasn’t the boys’ fault. But in that, she wasn’t different from the other managers of the place. It was better to avoid attracting too much attention over yourself, for clearly, they didn’t mind if their merchandise sported a web of bruises or not. Neither did the customers. If anything, some of them complained for bruises on the faces, but on the body it rather seemed to turn them on.

Sometimes, Kanon wondered if she had some particular reason to hate his brother and him, or if it was just in her nature to be that bitter and mean to them. Maybe because they had beauty and youth, both things that she lacked. Not that she didn’t make the life of the other prostitutes miserable either.
Kanon sometimes wondered what she was in her youth, for he couldn’t picture her doing the same job as them. Maybe she had always been in charge of the place. He was too small to remember when they were sold, but he had very detailed memories of their earlier childhood there... The other managers were bad enough, with their bad taste jokes and their hazing, but she somehow managed to be even worse, with her constant bickering. It undermined the twins\' moral even more than the occasional nasty joke from someone else, maybe because it was a constant background noise, a flow of complaints that invaded their mind anf flooded everything, making it impossible for them to let their thoughts wander off to block away the pain or the shame.

They didn’t always do that job, it only started a few years ago. When they were sold, they were under three years old, so for many years they only did cleaning chores and errands. And not the same kind than the one Saga was currently doing either. But even back then, the people wouldn’t let them go out together. They knew that by separating them, they wouldn’t try to run away. Not that they would dare to nowadays. When they were smaller, they still had illusions and imagined it might be possible to escape from that place one day, but as they grew up and saw what happened to the few people who tried, hope slowly crumbled into dust. The chains that they sometimes wore as children weren’t even necessary anymore to prevent them from trying anything. The very idea that one day, his brother or him could be one of those mangled corpses all sliced up and oozing blood and liquids made Kanon shiver in horror. That and the stories he heard about torture and even worse things. He didn’t want to find out which rumors were real and which weren’t. Escaping wasn’t an alternative. The brothels were run by the mafia, and nobody escaped from them. It was too easy for this people to disappear with the body of someone that nobody cared for or knew that existed.
And so, all their childish daydreams about leaving one day and starting a life together in some place far away ended up turning into smoke with the years. They wouldn’t dare to talk about it anymore, and the looks that they exchanged sometimes told each other that they shared the same thoughts. The only way to get out of a brothel was to be bought by someone else, but he never heard of anyone who ever had. Oh, he had tried to seduce most of their richer customers and attempted all that he could to try to convince them to purchase Saga and him, but they never took him seriously. Some even complained to the managers, which ended up in some pretty nasty beatings for the two boys.
It costed too much money to buy someone from a brothel. Especially because the “house” kept track of every single one of their meals and anything they costed them as something more that added up to their debt and made the price even higher. No matter how much they’d work, it would never bring the balance to a level that would make it possible for someone to pay their debt and buy them.
The few times that he had dared to ask to see their papers, he was horrified to see the amount they apparently “owed” the place. Everything was overpriced in order to make the debt impossible to ever be paid back.
The only good thing about those ownership papers was that they allowed Saga and him to find out a little bit more about their past, since they didn’t remember their parents or anything. Sneaking into the manager’s room and snooping through the papers, Kanon found out about their birth date, as well as the fact they came from a smaller greek island off the coast. Their parents had named them and must have raised them for a while when they were babies, but then something happened. Maybe their father died and the economical situation of the widow worsened or something, because according to the managers, it was their mother who sold them. The twins didn’t know her name, the sign in the paper was just an “X”. She probably didn’t know how to write. Much like them, since what few rudiments they had were learned entirely on their own.

Saga was fascinated by learning, and had pushed Kanon into doing it too, even though the younger twin wasn’t originally very happy with the idea of wasting some of the already meager resting time they had in the mornings. But then again, he could never resist Saga. So he followed him and learned as much of reading, writing and counting as they could on their own. Nobody in the brothel ever cared for helping them, considering that the place received the money from the customers directly, rather than let them give anything to the boys, and so counting or reading wasn’t really necessary for them.

There used to be an old priest who lived in the slums and had made an oath of poverty, who used to visit the brothels and attempt to give the poor wretched creatures some hope. Even if their life was beyond horrible, they could at least expect some solace in the afterlife. He was a good man, who helped the twins as much as he could when he heard they wanted to learn to write, and who filled their heads with stories about the world.
Sometimes, Kanon felt annoyed at him, because the old man fueled Saga’s hope, and the younger twin thought that hoping would only cause his brother more suffering. Hoping for the afterworld was okay, but he knew better than expect anything good from their destiny in this life. Other times, he felt disgusted of himself for having those thoughts, because Saga’s smile when he listened to the old priest’stories was just so beautiful and pure that Kanon couldn’t bring himself to tell him that he didn’t believe there could be anything good on the world outside. If people were that bad in the brothel, there was no way he could believe that mankind was naturally good. Kanon only prayed to die and escape that suffering. But he lived on, because he couldn’t bear the idea of leaving Saga alone. As ironical as it might seem, they couldn’t stand the idea of double suicide. They wanted to die only because it was the only way out, but they couldn’t stand the thought of their twin in agony. Kanon would endure absolutely anything for Saga, and he knew the opposite was also true.

Eventually, the old priest stopped coming, and the twins guessed that the mafia must have either scared him away or done something worse. Kanon heard that he had been trying to attract the government’s attention over the situation of the people sold to places like that, and he might have tried to get the police to do something about it, but with no success whatsoever.

As pessimistic as he might be, Kanon hoped that the old man was still alive and safe, for he was one of the only people who had ever been nice to them.
The younger twin fancied himself more hardened by life than his brother, who still retained some ideals, but he couldn’t help being a child still. Sometimes, he found himself daydreaming that their mother was a gentle and loving woman, and that the one who sold them had robbed them from her. But he wasn’t sure if that possibility made him feel more or less miserable than the other way around, and he bit his thumb to concentrate on the pain and not cry. He hated when the people would hear Saga or him crying. Most often, they couldn’t help it, but he was sure that the old harpie liked it, and he didn’t want to give her that pleasure.

She was fumbling with the door again. Fever made him gasp and see two blurry images of the slouchy old woman, glaring at him trough the veil of tears that were filling his eyes. The old cracked paint on the door and the decrepit brownish pattern on the wallpaper were making his stomach upset, reminding him of all the nightmares he had seen in that room, whether he had been asleep or awake staring at the ceiling. The decoration of the place was anything but greek, as the managers seemed to think that going for a more “elaborate” look would make the rooms seem more sophisticated, when it actually only made it look more sleazy. Much like a whore wearing too much make-up. Perhaps a fitting look for a brothel room, after all.
Kanon hated the frilly lace curtains almost as much as he hated the red light from the lamps outside, that invaded their room with its obscene reflections absolutely every night, as an never-ending reminder of their condition and the fact that it would never change until there was nothing left of them.

To make things worse, everything in the room seemed to be spinning, making the boy feel even more nauseous.

“Where is Saga?” - he mumbled, his voice sounding deformed in his own ears, and on the verge of breaking.

“Not back yet! He better have a reason to be taking so long!!” – she knew very well what was the reason, and that was exactly why they would send Saga or some of the other good looking younger ones to collect that kind of debt. It infuriated Kanon, but he didn’t dare to talk back. He didn’t have the energy today, and knew better than provoking any of them when he was that weak. In his normal state, he could always try to think of something else when they’d hit him, but in that feverish state, he was completely helpless.

“And you should be getting ready already, you lazy little filth! It’s more than time for that, unless you’re thinking that any client will lower himself to lay with you after you’ve been sweating all day!”

So that was why she was haunting their room’s door. He was surprised that she didn’t say anything sooner. There was probably no movement whatsoever yet, and she had just felt like bothering him, otherwise she would have already thrown him out of bed and into the shower.
Or maybe he thought too soon, because she seemed to have sensed what was going through his mind as quickly as a snake striking at its prey, as she strode through the room and until the bed.

\"I’ll...I’ll get cleaned soon, I swear...\"- he stuttered, his voice altered by the sudden fear, and tried to crawl away from her grasp. But as large as the bed might be, he didn’t have the time. She latched for the boy’s wrist and yanked him from underneath the blankets with a strength he didn’t believe her bony arms could contain.

\"Sure you will, you little liar! If I’d believe whatever filth comes out of you or your brother’s mouth, my ears would rot off!\" – she spat, dragging the shivering form towards the bathroom door.
Kanon’s head was spinning faster, and the cold feeling in his stomach spread to his legs, making him feel like all strength had left them. He tripped and nearly fell when the old woman pulled on his arm violently, sending him slamming his back against the chilly wall of the shower.
\"Please...I’ll do it myself...please...\" Kanon shuddered. He felt like throwing up, and begging only made it feel worse, but anything was better than this. Unfortunately, the old harpie ignored whatever he would say, and grabbed a handful of his hair to get a better hold of him while she pulled his small shorts down. He clutched the sides of the shower as well as he could to avoid falling down when she removed it from him, and attempted to brace himself for whatever was going to come next, but when the ice cold water hit his feverish skin, he couldn’t help but cry out in surprise. His legs gave out and he fell on his knees, shivering so much he thought he’d faint. He didn’t need to lift his head to know that there was glee in her eyes. She was making the noise, that was the closest thing to laughter for her.

\"This way your body will cool down and you’ll stop sweating!\" – she spat in a most amused tone.
Kanon curled up against the corner of the shower and retched violently, earning more mocking comments from the old woman, while she kept orienting the showerhead to get all of his body wet. And he cried, because he was too miserable to care anymore for whatever pride he still had. Even the tears streaming down his face felt cold.

When she was done with the water, she pulled the shivering boy back up, wrapped an old bath towel around him and vigorously rubbed him dry.
Kanon was nearly conscious when she sat him on the toilet cover, sprayed him with perfume and began applying light make-up to his face and nipples.

\"They like how pale you two are, but you gotta have some color in some places.\"- she repeated her usual quote, while rubbing on him the powdery thing that smelled so cheap that it almost made him gag again. He hated that make up maybe more than anything else he was forced to wear for work. In his mind, it was the ultimate symbol of their humiliation and of the power their owners had over them.

Half of him hoped with all he had that Saga would be back soon, because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he had to take care of a customer alone in that state. The other half hoped he would die, and that Saga could sense it and run away. But his rational mind knew better than hoping to die just from a fever. Not to mention the fact Saga wouldn’t leave him alone anyway, and that running away wasn’t even an option to begin with.


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[To Be Continued]
[Next Chapter : Drop #3 – Leon.]

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Sagakure, May 14th 2005