Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The One-Eared Neko ❯ BOHEMIAN NOBILITY ( Chapter 5 )

Part 5 BOHEMIAN NOBILITY

It was getting too hot to be a criminal these days, Duo mused to himself darkly. In the short time he'd been out in the sun, traveling across the circus grounds, he'd already found trails of sweat curling down the side of his face. Dark clothes could be blessing and a curse. Very slimming, but at the same time they were a death trap in the middle of July. Of course, the traveler made him hot as well, but he was simply a thing of the past. He would be out of his mind to think he would ever settle down in one place long enough for his trail to be sniffed out, even for a one-night stand, unless he was begging to be caught. In this life, Duo Maxwell had only himself to depend on and he had to keep moving constantly and cut all connections with the outside world if he wanted to survive and keep his absolute freedom.

He couldn't stay in one place, even for one more day than he needed to. He would not compromise his lead over the slow and generally inept authorities. Especially not for a human.

He opened the door to his small, rounded-front Isuzu delivery truck and launched his suitcase up into the seat overhead before he bounded up the stairs and onto the seat. Above the searing blacktop a good four feet, the con man slammed the door shut to the outside sunshine. Inside the truck, he allowed himself a moment's time to get his bearings and examine it one last time. The interior reeked of human sweat and sticky, deep-fried junk food, littered with trace amounts of alcohol and cologne scent. It was engraved into the very fabric. Duo crinkled his nose in distaste, but knew he'd have to live with it without complaint. The con man lifted the black suitcase and dropped it into the meager cot in back, shedding his heavily loaded backpack and dumping it in the same fashion. Once rid of those, he went sniffing around and checked for any suspicious items.

He noted the tiny, driver's log camera in the upper left corner of the cabin, but paid it no real notice. As long as he remained in his black cap or remembered to dispose of the tape later, he would be fine.

There was shipment dossier lying on the passenger seat, and, brushing a few crumbs of stale breadcrumbs down onto the floor, he picked it up. The first sheet he skimmed across {the shipment orders, blah blah blah} and carefully examined the alien-looking scribbled signature beneath it, recognizing it as one of his thousands of aliases. This was one of the more amusing ones he'd thought up, he thought with a brazen grin. Aman Tahuggenkis. A false I.D. completed the deception, secured in the corner by a paperclip. Duo smiled mischievously and confiscated it for security measures, stuffing it into his pocket.

Duo realized he smelt the traces of fresh strawberry gum as well, hidden by the dominating scent of the people who had been there before. He leaned down and stretched his arm beneath the seat. After rummaging for a second, scattering dried-up Styrofoam cups in his wake, he sat up with a brand-new, bright pink pack of gum in his hand. The con man happily ripped into it and devoured the first three pieces. With a shit-eating grin on his face, he instinctively turned-over the engine and was lifting his hand to put in it drive. A large, airy pink bubble expanded from his lips at the same time and for a moment, Duo was carefree again. But he wasn't through with his business in this town.

The passenger side of the Japanese model truck suddenly swung open as if a ghost had ripped it open. Duo jumped in surprise and dug his fingers into the wheel, the bubble popping rudely on his face. "Jesus Christ on a cross! Don't scare me like that!" he snapped at the door and leaned over to close it. He was stopped when he saw who was standing there.

His hand was gripped around the outside handle, dressed in his pressed white shirt and tie, and a stern, quiet expression that spoke volumes of seriousness in perfectly blue eyes. Duo frowned. It would have been damned cute, if it hadn't been as irritating as shit.

"Stop following me, please." He thought he'd been asking so nicely before.

Heero put a foot on the metal step and elevated himself up so he could stare up at the con man. Not to be outdone, apparently. "Then deliver me."

Duo furrowed an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You said you were just a delivery boy, correct?" he asked. "Then deliver me."

"Hold on a second, traveler!" Duo reprimanded, sitting up so that he could earn a vantage over this persistent one. He lifted his hand quickly away and put it on the seat. There was no telling what this unpredictable thing was going to do next, after he had reappeared at the scene of the crime, tailed him no less, and then scared the living daylights out of him by suddenly appearing in his car. But somehow, he still found ways to top those and still piss him off.

"Listen to me, buddy-" Duo tried, but was soon cut off. He could tell his day was going to spiral downhill when the other man sat calmly down in the passenger seat and shut the door. On his shoulders, the bold black straps of a backpack caught his eye. Luggage.

"Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing, mister? Get the hell out of my truck, I didn't give you permission to be in here!"

"Not yet," he said, pulling a wooden clipboard from his backpack and handing it to Duo. At first, he didn't accept it, but Heero thrust it against his bent knuckles until he became irritated enough to snatch it up with a very unhappy grumble. "I want you to give me permission."

The criminal's bright blue-violet eyes flashed at him over the top of the clipboard. "And if I don't?"

The question, or threat, however one would interpret it, didn't seem to have the slightest effect on the stony resolve and stoic expression of the traveler. In fact, there was a slight of his lips before he began to speak that he took as a tiny sign of victory. It was irritating as well, he thought, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Then I leave," Heero said.

He looked at the Japanese man's face and studied it with the intent eye of a repeat offender, always watching for danger in the simplest expression.

"Why don't you tell me what this is really about, okay? You don't need to lie to me." Duo lifted an eyebrow in accusation. "And what kind of line was that, anyway?"

"A truthful one."

This time there was sarcasm. "Oh come on, mister! That line was so cheesy I could dip corn chips in it!" He scoffed. " 'Deliver me.' "

The con man accented that statement with a simple act of tossing the clipboard with attached permission slip back into his lap. Heero caught it, but the firmness of mind he possessed didn't fade an ounce. "Tell me what this is really all about and we might get somewhere."

Heero sighed calmly and adjusted the clipboard. The papers that had been wedged out of place were neatly organized and again offered up to the mercy of Duo's judgment, how ever irrational and irritated it may be. It was all he could do in the face of his situation, in light of his options left. Perhaps it was just infatuation, but there was a drive burning in him to finally convince this bohemian.

"You shouldn't worry about being turned in, Mr. Maxwell. I'm simply asking your permission, not trying to get you arrested." He nudged the clipboard toward him.

"How should I know?" Duo snapped back, keeping a safe distance and pushing the clipboard away again.

Although he could easily smell the honesty in every last syllable, there was still an undying suspicion with in him. Being trusting and naïve could only bring him death.

"Just tell me what you really want, okay?"

Heero paused, momentarily losing his grip in the simple pigment of the bohemian's eyes. "I want you to be the subject of my term paper." With a bout of renewed persistence and a stony flat expression, he again lifted the permission sheet toward the con man. The dark ink words were this time turned toward him, fresh and stark against the professional white paper.

"What?"

"You are a perfect example of misunderstood humanity. There is very little written on criminal behavior not from the eyes of a judge or completely outside force, or the actual convict himself that anyone has taken notice of. Earlier this week, I was assigned a term paper on humanity. I think I would like to write from the view of a simple observer, neither overly attached or overly distanced, about the psychology of a criminal," Heero explained in an objective tone, never wavering his gaze to anything but Duo's face.

"I would be your guinea pig?" he asked. In uncertainty, he lifted the clipboard from Heero's hands and flattened down the bent front corner, his eyes sweeping across line after line. The con man glanced back up to him once he had finished.

"Is that what this says? That if I sign this permission slip, I basically hand you the right to poke and prod me however you like?"

"No, I would just study you."

Duo lifted an eyebrow. "Study?"

"Watch you," he said simply, giving him a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders. "Observe how you behave, analyze how you speak and act and react to human stimuli-"

"In English, please," Duo pleaded at him, pressing the clipboard against his forehead. "I have a headache. There's only so much jargon I can absorb in the morning."

He obliged politely. "Basically, I would travel with you and write down what I observed about you."

"And you wouldn't breathe a word to the feds?"

"I'd be giving up my subject if I did."

"Why are you asking me permission?"

Heero answered unblinkingly. "It's school-related work. Completely standard."

"And my name would never see the printed page? Ever?"

"I'd give you a false name instead."

Duo lifted an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Heero shrugged. "Do you like the name Greg?"

The con man glanced up at this strange entity in his secrecy, this unmovable strange thing that kept coming back to bite him in the ass like a lick of bad karma. There was no reason to actually give him his trust, when he thought about it. So what if he had an abundance of intelligent words, keen blue eyes, and the most rapturous-smelling cologne he'd found in a long time? It was still no reason to hand himself over. Not after he'd been so successful in being on the run alone-not ever. It was no reason to let this unknown man into his life and allow him the opportunity to capture him. It would be so easy to, while he slept or stood unsuspecting somewhere, while he turned his back, just asking for a knife in the back. Then again, it was equally easy for Duo to kill him if the worse came to be. His stomach twisted at the thought of having to dispose of the traveler.

For a few quiet minutes, he analyzed the strange human sitting beside him carefully. Heero was happy enough to sit in silence as well, being investigated and contemplated in earnest.

Finally, Duo broke the silence. He lifted the wooden clipboard up and began to flip the pages humbly.

"Alright, where do I sign?"

"The bottom."

Duo sighed as he fished around in his pocket and eventually produced a ratty looking pen that had deep, violent-looking chew marks on the end. Gashes, almost.

"You must have some sharp teeth," Heero said absently to himself, mostly on instinct. The words had left his mouth before he realized he was even thinking it.

The con man looked at him. He was now leaning against the seat, his knee brought up and wedged in front of the steering wheel to act as a table, which he used to write on, although the wooden clipboard would have sufficed. For a second, there was fear in his expression. "What?"

"Your pen."

Duo whipped his head around to look at the mangled writing utensil. "Oh, that." An overly quick smile replaced any signs of apprehension on his face. "It's just a nervous habit, you know. Can't quit."

Heero snorted. "The first time the ink bursts in your mouth, you'll know how to quit," he said evenly.

The con man seemed to choose to ignore that and simply finished scribbling his name down at the bottom, over a printed dotted line. He flourished the last line of the final letter and ran to the edge of the paper. The clipboard soon was shoved back into Heero's possession with more than just a hint of smiling contempt so that the papers fell forward and covered his signature. He checked it once, making sure it was validly signed, and innocently slid it back into his backpack. Duo watched him, and frowned while the traveler closed the zipper and set the pack in his lap.

He could always kill him, right?

Duo folded his arms and leaned on the steering wheel. The engine was still humming loudly, waiting to roll into action. "So now I can't get rid of you, huh?"

"Sorry, but no," he answered. His head was tilted down while he finished opening another zipper on his black knapsack and pulled out a filled water bottle. It was then that Duo's mouth chose to remind him it was as dry as a Saharan afternoon.

"Even if you annoy me?" Duo asked, staring at the water.

The Japanese man twisted off the cap and lifted the bottle to his mouth, completely unaware of what he was doing to torture his subject. The crystal-clear water glinted brightly in the light from the window. He took a drink from it and rubbed at his head afterwards. "I promise to stay out of your way," Heero answered, slipping it back into a mesh pocket. "I'm only here to observe. You can tell me when I'm getting in the way of doing your job. I'll stop."

"Good." Duo grinned with only half-sincerity. "So, where to?"

"Anywhere," Heero grunted. The amount of affection for the city was obvious in his voice. "Anywhere you're going will be my new home. I don't care."

Duo looked at him quietly and paused as he reached down to shift into drive.

"There's nothing here for me anymore, either."

Though the Japanese man didn't see it, zippering up the water bottle half-heartedly, the con man smiled at him, genuinely smiled. He leaned against the steering wheel happily. "You need anything before we go?"

He looked back up at the bohemian, as he had dubbed him only to himself, and furrowed an eyebrow while lifting the other. "Not upset? You weren't the most delighted to see me only moments ago."

"Naw. I'm fine." Duo grinned a catty smirk and finally threw the truck into drive, the engine purring steadily beneath both their feet. "Besides, now I've got myself the relief driver I've been dying to get. You can take the wheel and I'll finally be free to get some sleep. When they said 'There's no sleep for the wicked', they really meant it."

Heero grunted sullenly. "Perfect."

But the nasty implied tone seemingly did nothing to hamper the bohemian's never ending abundance of grins and smirks, genuine or otherwise. That same thought returned to Heero's mind, one he'd thought upon first seeing the stranger with violet eyes. Was it all just some circus act?

"You're sure ya don't need anything?" He pulled the pack of watermelon-flavored bubblegum out from his pocket. "Hungry?"

Heero simply frowned in the direction of the candy, something he also avoided eating, and it was enough of answer for him. He swung his the moderate weight of his backpack over the seat and let it drop like a pile of bricks on top of the cot, lying on the stack of Duo's luggage. After disposing of his own luggage, he sighed tiredly to himself and rubbed uncomfortably at his eyes and temples. He began to haul himself over the scratchy fabric of the seat, careful to avoid hitting the ceiling of the truck in doing so, and Duo glanced at him curiously.

"Where're ya going?" he asked.

Heero glanced back at him over his shoulders and grunted back an answer a little less than gracefully. "I'm still hung over." And with that, he took his leave and clamored over the seat and flopped down onto the cramped cot. Two curious blue-violet eyes followed after him, analyzing and dissecting and questioning while simultaneously just watching in quiet. The heavy black baggage was shoved to the floor with a thump, creating room to make room for the Japanese man in his yuppie white shirt and tie to lie down.

He didn't even bother to even think about grabbing the fleece blanket at his feet. Sleep grabbed Heero Yuy and physically dragged him down to the pillow.