Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The One-Eared Neko ❯ FERAL ANIMALS ( Chapter 14 )

Part 14 FERAL ANIMALS

Duo pressed the end of his emptied aluminum pop can to his forehead and playfully bit his tongue and crushed it easily. Then he smiled and tossed it over his shoulder without out bothering to look or even note the sound of the metal clanking as it fell into the trashcan. Overhead, it was a perfectly sunny day. Early morning clouds threatening of miserable driving weather had lost interest and drifted away by mid-afternoon, and that was one thing Duo was grateful for. Now he sat on the flat metal roof of the Isuzu's cabin, legs crossed, hat tilted down to shield his eyes from the sun, staples long removed and blood and scabs long healed, and junkfood scattered in front of him. He chewed on some circus peanuts while watching all the activity in front of him.

They were roughly a day's drive from Cinq and too close to the deadline for comfort. If Duo pulled another all-nighter, they'd be fine. The bounty hunter incident had taken more time to recover from than expected, but the bohemian healed very quickly. And now, they'd stopped once again for a rest. The long stretches in between smalltime gas stations and dingy parking lots (what Duo thought would be safest places to stop) were filled with wordless silences, not uncomfortable, but with lots of unanswered questions left hanging between he and the traveler. Duo had his radio to occupy him, and Heero had his notebook. Duo had stopped trying to peek at what he was writing, and only dully feared what it could be as he drove, Hüsker Du and The Who roaring in the background.

The aforementioned traveler was currently unhooking the gas pump from the tank and setting it back in its place with a resigned metal clack. As he dusted off his hands and began to walk around for the gas station and prepared to pay for their fuel, Duo's voice stopped him.

"Hey, wait," he said.

Heero turned his face up and squinted into the sun. "What is it?" A sudden black blur descended on him and instinctually the traveler lifted his hands to catch it. The item slid out of his palms but he pinned it against his chest and picked up the leather wallet that had been tossed to him. The tempting amount of green made him frown and squint up at the smirking bohemian again. At least, he thought, he was behaving a little more normally. If Duo really ever acted normally around him. Despite being lethal and beautiful, he knew that his smirk wasn't all truths.

"Fifty American greens. You can buy whatever you want-knock yourself out."

Standing still, the traveler suspiciously rubbed his thumb over the leather. "Isn't this your con money?"

"No," he said as he bent his elbows on his knees and cushioned his chin in-between cuffed palms, "it's all mine. Legally earned, believe it or not. But I think you'll be able to put it to good use. If you're gonna grab something to eat for me, I'll take anything with meat on it. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, though, my vegan traveler."

"No, I guess it'll be fine," Heero said slowly, suspicion gumming up the works of his brain. A baffled expression nearly peeked through, but he caught it and turned his head before the bohemian seemed to be able to notice. "Thanks," he added quietly. He kneaded the leather wallet into his back pocket as he turned and walked inside.

"Don't mention it," the bohemian commented casually to himself. But after the traveler left, there was a noticeable rift in his smile. He shifted away, glancing around the sunny city citizens, going about their lives with a pleasant chatter and gleam in their eyes. A mother towing two rambunctious, brightly dressed children in tow passed by and a tiny girl with long brown hair and a juice box clenched in one hand spotted him and smiled. Probably because she'd never seen a man sitting on top of a car eating his lunch. He waved at her and she giggled and returned it before her mother's urgent arm dragged her off. After that, he happily munched on another fluorescent orange circus peanut and lay down on the sun-warmed metal.

A few minutes later, Heero's hand gripped the edge and he hoisted himself up, one of those thick orange vegetable drinks clutched underarm and a little bundle of fluorescent yellow plastic bag as well. The bohemian seemingly hadn't heard him approach, sunning himself, and sat up in a half-start. Happily surprised to see the traveler, he patted the roof beside him as invitation. Kicking the assorted candy wrappers off to the side, he made room and Heero sat down beside him.

"What'd you get me?" Duo asked jokingly, knowing fully he didn't expect anything.

Heero set the glass bottle in his lap and handed him the yellow plastic bag declaring the name of the gas station in tacky black printing. The expression on the con man's face was slightly skeptical at the thought of receiving such a sweet gift of an empty plastic bag, but he soon realized that there was something wrapped up inside the bundle.

"Whoa, you actually got me something! You didn't have to, you know."

"It was your money," he replied flatly. "I didn't have a problem with buying something for you."

"I guess so. When the money's somebody else's, why not spend it, huh?" The bohemian's face turned genuinely happy for a brief second, something rare in their long stints of false pretenses, and he hurriedly tore into the plastic wrapping. "So, what is it? The suspense is killing me. Is Heero really being nice to me, or did he just buy me a trash bag?"

The traveler, always the taciturn one, simply looked down at his vegetable shake again before he could turn colors and unscrewed the lid. "It's just something I thought that you might need," he said, before taking a drink. "For both our sakes."

Duo pulled the item out of the plastic bag and displayed a crooked grin, looking down at the gift lying in his palm. A black-and-white lucky rabbit's foot with a little looped chain sat comfortably in his palm. "Thanks," he said with a laugh. "You probably just made my day."

"I picked out the right thing, I take it?"

The bohemian jauntily grinned and with one finger pulled a gold chain from underneath his collar, unlatching the metal links connected to the rabbit's foot and tying it on. Glittering beside it was a tiny gold crucifix. He patted it down and adjusted his rumpled collar, still smiling brightly. "As long as it's good luck, I have no problem with it. It's sweet, really." he said. With one final admiring glance, Duo tucked the small Dalmatian-spotted rabbit's foot under his shirt.

Heero took a final drink from the vegetable shake, closed the half-emptied bottle, and set it on the roof beside him. The white metal of the Isuzu was searing in the midday sunshine, soon to turn his beverage lukewarm and fairly disgusting. Meanwhile, after the bohemian had finally stopped rubbing at the hidden necklace, he had began ravaging through the other snacks scattered around him. Not to interrupt his meal, Heero waited for a moment when there wasn't candy stuffed into Duo's jaws, and kept on waiting. He should have expected it, it being vaguely lunchtime, and eventually, Duo noticed and stopped eating.

"Hey, something up?"

Heero shook his head. "No, not really. It's nothing. How much further to Cinq is it, anyway?"

"Nothing too bad. That is, if you can still stand me for another day of driving," he joked, chuckling through a chocolate lollipop.

"We only have twenty-four hours left? We're still ahead of schedule after all of the things that happened? It doesn't seem right to me. We should have a least a deficit to make up, or something."

"I snuck in a few more hours when you were ever so gracefully sawing logs." After I saw how innocent and helpless you looked, put a blanket over you and had to kiss you a little on the mouth, that is, was the unheard afterthought. "Less than that, if you drive. You seem to be much better at it than I am, for whatever reason. But hell, I don't care," the bohemian concluded happily, smiling in his direction past a candy stick. There had been no warning for his sudden good mood, but whatever it was, the traveler was happy to see it. Unfortunately, that didn't mean he wasn't the same devious criminal.

Heero narrowed his eyes slightly, frowning to himself. "The only reason I make better time is because I don't stir up trouble wherever I go. I try to keep myself out of it, at least, instead of seeking it out."

"You keep out of trouble by cavorting with a wanted con man across the country, helping me steal and run from police? That's the strangest way of staying out of hot water that I've ever heard of, and trust me, I've heard of quiet a few. You're practically jumping in to it! I don't understand you sometimes, the way you insist on being so straight-laced, but still, you're here, aren't you? And I'm still a wanted criminal, aren't I? If I didn't know better, I might call you a hypocrite, but I can tell that you're not like that."

"Yeah," Heero agreed quietly, staring contemplatively at the sun-baked metal roof, as if his eyes bore through it. Suddenly, he realized that whatever delicacies and cracking glass existed in their relationship, born of criminal behavior, secrecy, and fear, didn't matter right then. Duo had smiled at him sincerely and didn't bear any new secrets to hide from him, so it was a good day. That made a sliver of his own smile creep out, like it had just slithered out from a war-battered bunker into daylight.

The bohemian caught that, with those cunning eyes of his, and returned it thrice-fold. "Alright, I think you're a little more rebellious than you allow yourself to be. I wouldn't be surprised if we had put coal in your ass at the beginning of this trip and out came a diamond two days later. But you're not the same man from the carnival. I believe you've changed a lot since then. You're-dare I venture as your fortune teller-less distant."

"That's vague. Is it a change for the better?" Heero asked skeptically, trying not to smile as he said it.

With a nod, the con man grinned and jauntily tipped up the rim of his black baseball hat. "How could opening up horizons be bad, Heero?"

Strolling across the gleaming tiles, his bare feet silent as they scuffed playfully against the floor, Duo toured the miniature souvenir aisle as casually as could be. Abandoning the traveler in the Isuzu and leaving him to his pen and notebook, he'd wandered back inside after sufficiently scrapping all the candy he'd bought before and licked it all clean. Spoons engraved with the awkward name of the town glittered at him, dashboard Chihuahuas with disjointed heads rested in plastic boxes, and dozens of sarcastic and witty keychains hung from metal hooks. The bohemian grinned to himself, strolling along. Distant chatter of a tiny television stationed behind the counter caught his ear, besides a rather disinterested clerk who drummed his fingers absently on the cash register keys and glanced over at the colorful screen. Much like the other small time gas stations he had visited upon the unorthodox trip, he was mostly alone in his slow journey through the aisles, and that pleased him.

Eventually, the bohemian plucked a pair of black flip-flops and happily dropped them on the counter. His singular pair of shoes had been reduced to ashes only a few nights before. That thought plagued his mind with the images of the traveler panting in the white glaring headlights, the telltale trails of blood that flew from the holes in the bounty hunter heads, and the distinct viciousness of the bigot snarling in his face. His flawless smile flashed at the apathetic teenaged clerk, beyond the violence in his thoughts.

Duo rummaged through his pocket and whipped out a crumpled five-dollar bill. The lanky cashier returned a palm-full of change and the bohemian thanked him graciously. Disinterested eyes shifted toward the television again, like dull sets of magnets, and Duo went about tearing off all the plastic ties on his new pair of shoes. Gnashing his teeth around the stubborn plastic looped around both shoes once and it snapped harmlessly and Duo spat it out. Humming happily to himself, the con man leaned against the brick wall surrounding the door and slipped them on in order to test them out.

Meanwhile, the air hissed intermittently with static as the stations flickered at the will of the clerk's finger pressed against the buttons. Eventually, it settled upon a newscast and the icy-looking woman in her precise grooming and conservative pale makeup. Duo paused, the residual grin of nothing lingering on his face, even as he dreadfully recognized the colorful computerized graphic glowing in the corner, the sullen face framed in the corner.

"Tonight, we expand upon a topic of growing concern," the dark-haired woman announced reservedly. "The world of politics has been in a recent uproar upon breaking news concerning the kidnapping of the Peacecraft's son."

Duo's smile went dead.

"We've covered this story for the last week. As we've told you before, the son of the Peacecraft family, a major force in American and International politics, was reported missing at the beginning of the Peace Commemoration Holidays after reportedly storming out of his apartment and disappearing into a nearby carnival ground. The daughter of the Peacecraft family, Relena Peacecraft, was 'forcefully locked inside' and prevented from stopping the young man. However, this incident is no longer being considered as a missing persons case by police, but as a kidnapping in light of new evidence."

The bohemian stared dully as the colors shifted and a pair semi-hazy photograph was displayed, one of his own furtive face glancing over his shoulder, and one of the traveler's beautiful Asian face, frowning cutely in the unwanted presence of a school camera.

"From security cameras in a small truck stop outside of May City, twenty-five-year-old Heero Yuy was seen in the company of the notorious con man Duo Maxwell, whom police have been hunting for months. The tapes and further information are yet to be released on whether he is still speculated to be alive or being held as a powerful political hostage against the Sen. Peacecraft. But the family insists that they will stay strong no matter what the situation and plan not to wield to any sort of ransom that may be posted. Concerning the reported kidnapper, Duo Maxwell's current bounty has again risen and is now set at $1,000,000, to be paid upon capture or any information leading to his arrest, as indicated by the Peacecraft family."

Duo quietly slipped on his shoes and lowered the rim of his baseball cap, unobtrusively pushing the glass door open and gliding out like shadow.

"Our hotlines are open to any information that you may have and we urge all our viewers to be cautious. Because besides being a criminal, the authorities have confirmed the long-standing suspicions that Maxwell is also a-"

Purple bars of mute glowed suddenly below the hotline number on the screen, and the clerk lifted his finger from the mute button to snatch up the phone lying hidden beside the register. His disinterested eyes now glittered, thinking of what he could buy to win over his old girlfriend because of the money he was gonna make from this particular phone call.