Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The One-Eared Neko ❯ THE EXPRESSION ( Chapter 23 )

Part 23 THE EXPRESSION

They searched, they shoved, and they sniffed through the crowd as it left the courthouse, jabbing lights and microphones into every face that came their way, seeking out the attorney, the Peacecrafts, and the most scandalous character since Maxwell's Demon himself, his sole defender. They found no trace of him, not even a glimpse of the tousled dark hair in the crowd, and the media machine moved on to what scraps they could preen from the carcass, like true vultures. It didn't matter whether they had cornered him for an interview anyway (it's doubtful they would have gotten anything besides an adamant response of 'No Comment' to each question); by midday the public would have already poured over the footage mercilessly and they would have found something catchy and pretty in print to coin for Heero Yuy, a Clyde for Maxwell's Bonnie. So they scrapped amongst themselves for the first opportunity at the most infamous actors of the tragedy obsessing the headlines and few had time to be the wiser to an open window on the west side of the building. Looking in, one saw the empty bathroom, and looking out from within you could still see the disheveled bushes where a body had passed through and looking further down one's line of sight, you'd see Heero Yuy disappearing off in the distance.

It was a Thursday, a very bright and promising-looking Thursday morning. The sun apparently hadn't gotten the memo.

Deputy Roman M. Vega would be scheduled to take his shift again at promptly 8 o'clock at night, and the libraries were already opening in town. Back in the city where Heero had began, a good three or four days' drive from Cinq, the other college students who had managed to keep themselves out of any nationally involved scandal had already begun to fall into that lovely lull of a vacation where you're no longer awaiting it, but not yet dreading the end of it. And in their absence, the school was drained of its usual buzzing of bodies and voices in the halls, and the library was back to collecting dust. In that library, where Heero had spent many hours cramming and burying the sense of aimlessness that was growing within him at the time in books, a single librarian came through the door after unlocking it and turned on one of the lights to light his path.

The rest of the room remained shadowy, sleepy-the sky clouded over here, unlike in Cinq-and the tall shelves were indistinguishable from one another. He walked confidently toward one row in particular and walked cautiously down the aisle, his eyes sweeping over the spines of the books crowded together in their sleep. After a few moments of searching, his hand descended toward a mundane looking book sitting humbly on the second shelf from the ground and pulled it out. He held it up and read the cover, squinting until he remembered to pull his glasses out of his pocket. At first glance-at any glance, really-it didn't look like a book that had just found its way to an elite list: the most secretly demanded books of the day. Arthur J. Washburn's anthropology of many migrant communities titled blandly, "My Studies," was authored by a man who was almost equally bland, and not particularly interesting or outgoing besides his studies, obviously, had written this book nearly ten years ago and it had sold as well as it could for being authored by who it was-a nobody. One copy had found its way to this library and this librarian could count the number of times it been requested or checked out on one hand. One of those few had been a professor of anthropology, and another had been Heero Yuy. He'd been rather bland as well during that time; he was pointlessly studying without a real passion for anything and he'd become so desperate he'd randomly picked something off a shelf. So desperate, he was taking books home as a lush might take home anonymous women, without thought, without real care, and without importance the next morning, the next day.

This book did not blatantly deal with Nekonese culture, but dedicated one chapter to them, among dozens of other gypsy cultures and societies, all others human. If it had, by now it would have already been needed two reprintings by sheer abrupt demand. The general public did not know of this book, and the general public was under the impression nothing had been published in American books about the race, but a select few did know of it, and they were the most sensible kind of people. That librarian was one of them, and he quietly took the book home to read it as a companion work to the unending juggernaut of trial footage on the news. He had even heard a few rumors Heero's manuscript had been leaked and copies were being made, but he overlooked it as just a rumor, a part of the over-frenzied reaction.

The chapter dealing with Nekos wasn't overly long, and it was more of a summary of their way of life, of the Nekos themselves, than an investigation into their own civilization, a nomadic, tribal one that had been developing independent of America or modern human culture.

As an anthropologist, he was very apt with languages and used it as a tool, but many of the tribes had a few individuals who knew English from being in contact with human hunters, traders, and some Inuit tribes that coexisted with them in the north. There were too many dialects specialized for a certain tribe or a certain trade for him to learn proper Nekonese, but he was able to distinguish that there those localisms, and two major universal tongues, Hunter's and Elder's Nekonese. Nekos of all different tribes could communicate through these catholic languages, during large mass hunting excursions and the assemblies of the Elders. He picked up the basic structure of the language (subject-verb-object, just as many classical languages) and some of the major vocabulary, one of them being the word for the Nekonese ear, which obviously had no translation into English: Ikkunnoi. Heero would read this word and years later hear it again, while having his own radical anthropologic experience.

He studied their daily routines and would trace their migration patterns-the men would always follow the prey and the sources of nourishment; the women, Elders, and kits would either keep a village or a semi-permanent encampment to perform daily tasks. He often made comparisons to the indigenous hienn people of the Americas, and had a suspicion a few might even have melded with Nekonese culture and mingled because of their similar lifestyles. But the extent of knowledge of Nekonese genetics was as proficient as his talent with women. He didn't even begin to suspect that they were similar enough to human beings to cross-breed, to hybridize, to have half-Neko, half-human offspring. He didn't know that some of the Native American bloodlines had been infused in Northern Neko bloodlines for centuries. They were able to retain a very stable gene pool and an abundance of advantageous alleles even as infusion occurred. They were still able to retain their strengths as Nekos and combine it with human benefits: heightened senses with more adaptable immune systems; untamed strength and agility with durability and stamina; incredible tempo of recuperation with longer life spans. Had Washburn been more deeply south while studying these creatures he would have seen a progressive village, one with Neko and human cohabitation and prosperity-seen corn growing beside fixed huts and houses where there once only would have been a hut of prized wolf and bear furs and smoked meat. Mixed people holding an English Shakespeare book in one hand and a traditional Nekonese bone spear in the other.

These Nekonese and mixed, Dires, tribes lived for centuries, while America bustled and innovated beneath them, in the cold wilds and seclusion north in Canada and even sometimes as far as the Arctic circle and Alaska. They moved like wolves, with the herds that sustained them, and often times competed with and killed those wolves. They lived separately of normal human society, and even those with human wives and husbands and mixed children were either of Indian or hunter or furtrapper descent. Separate from the main bloodline of hienn civilization they remained until colder winters drove them further south and drew the weak into their graves, until recent famines had pushed them towards that civilization unless they had the intention of starvation. That's when the sparks had begun. Politicians and conservatives who had became aware of the race in that time as truly more than bedtime story figments or packs of animals feeding and killing without sentience were already edgy about the issue of Nekos, and when word spread of the progressive villages that housed both kits and children, where Neko and hienn laid down together, it began to truly rile up a few people. To political men like Senator Peacecraft, they saw them as senseless practitioners of bestiality and they opposed all interracial interaction that was not strictly platonic, trade-related, and brief, and the public began to form opinions while little was factually known and rumor began to spread, while Neko people were being forced closer to their metropolises, to their cities, to their homes. And it was that fear of the unknown, bestial culture descending from the north, almost like a wolf pack, that fed the public image.

Parents on the borderlines, the areas nearest to Neko settlements, began to change the lines in the old bedtime stories. "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Neko? He'll huff and he'll puff and he'll blow your house down!"

The day passed into evening in eerie silence, in a sort of calm that was most disturbing. The protesting citizens outside the courthouse still milled unhappily, and scuffles still broke out almost regularly near the jail, swaggering teenagers and troublemakers trying to come too close to the police department, but they were less violence than before and now often turned away at the first request. The storm that Duo Maxwell's botched assassination had created dissolved too easily, too quickly with the verdict, and left the town like a ghost town in comparison to what it had been only hours before. The media frenzy was immune to the lull, of course-they would probably go on for weeks, no matter if everything did manage to go back to normal so quickly in Cinq. Maxwell's Demon and his infamy and his defeat were media morsels too juicy to abandon so readily. But the day was uneventful for hours-no violence in the streets, no Peacecraft to shoot down the one-eared Neko in fiery rhetoric, no sign of Heero Yuy's reponse or even of the man himself.

Nothing drastic happened and the day stretched out into a horrible famine of spirit. Duo Maxwell lay slumped in the corner of his cell, and this time when there was food brought to him, he was unconscious and not just to stubborn to accept it. When he finished dreaming of the day his family had been killed, his ikkunnoi had been sheared off, and his life forever damned, he sat up, coughing dryly and wrapping his arms around his stomach while it twisted hungrily. He didn't touch the food, and even if he had been willing to give up his pride and reach for it, he felt too weak to get up. What good would it do, anyway? Prolong his life so the hienn could take all the more shots at him? No thanks. So, unwilling to face the dreadful thoughts in his mind, he ran back to his dreams, where his mother, father, and siblings still lived and breathed, and died over and over again. He slept while his body craved, until darkness and his own fading strength would wake him later, the entire day spent.

Contrary to daily tradition, Vega did not appear on the job, in his perfectly pressed uniform and his sympathetic brown eyes rested and ready for another night shift at the Cinq PD, even if he was assigned to the usually dismal tasks of monitoring the arrested in their cells, strolling up and down corridors for hours with not much to do to occupy his mind. Breaking an immaculate record, he called in claiming sickness, for which his wife vouched on the phone as well. When he hung up, pardoned for a day and as healthy as he'd ever been in his life, he remained in the kitchen with his wife, face distorted with concern and bafflement. Evelyn was not dressed in her traditional insomnia-inspired garb, she still wore her clothes from the day and the baggy sweater that had once been her mother's and stood at the other side of the kitchen. The coffeemaker gurgled raucously and coffee slowly filled. He turned and went back to the table, which were his family had always converged and it was instinct to gather there now. His expression was troubled, but not panicked, but not quite composed either.

Evelyn sat down beside him once the coffee had filled up and slid a 'I'd Rather Be Dead Than Forty' mug toward him, watching his face carefully. "I know you're concerned for them both, Roman, but he's a grown man. He's made his own decisions to do this-it was his decision to call us and ask for help in the first place, and it'll be his decision if he wants to show himself." She smiled, and the signs of sleeplessness were already setting into her eyes, but she put a hand on her husband's wrist and shook it affectionately. "Don't fret about it. There's nothing you can do about this but offer help when he comes looking for it."

"It's just like all those stories you used to read in magazines, you know? Terrible things happen to decent people, and you don't realize how horrible it is until it happens to you or someone you know," Vega groaned, setting his cheek into the palm of his hand, ruffling at his hair with the other. "It sucks," he added eloquently, taking a drink.

"They do, and it does," she agreed.

"And I feel horrible about it-poor guy looked like he was about to drop dead even before today, can't imagine how he looks now."

"You want to look just like him? Don't worry so much, Roman; most of this is out of your hands. I know you're always concerned for others, but you don't need to do this. If he needs help, I'm pretty sure he'll come back to us for it. He seemed grateful to us the last time, even though he left so early this morning."

"And now I suppose now you're gonna tell me nothing's as bad as it seems," he grumbled good-humoredly, still staring down into the black, unsweetened coffee while his wife leaned against his shoulder and hummed an affirmative happily, putting her hand on his back.

"Did you see Dorothy at all?" she asked calmly, picking up the coffee mug from her husband's hand when he was done sipping from it and taking a swig for herself, only accelerating her journey into nightly sleeplessness.

"Not a trace," Vega said. He glanced up at the clock while the second hand sliced the time away tick after tick. "I'm beginning to think she abducted him or something."

"She may be a mischievous little duchess who thinks she's just playing one big chess game, but that's going a little far, even for her. She was much too fascinated by Heero to do anything drastic-she's probably following him around and confusing the poor man with the way she encrypts everything when she talks. If she is, he's safe enough." By now, her arms had slipped completely around the Chicano's shoulders and her chin slipped into its habitual cove on his shoulder, where it'd laid on many waking nights, pining for sleep. But that shoulder was still tensed, still coursing with anxiety typical of his compassionate nature, still filled with anxieties over the welfare of another. The older Catalonia woman listened to his voice sigh, closing her eyes with a drowsy urge for one of the first times that week, and listened to it roll out beside her ear.

"His safety's not really my concern, Ev-it's Duo's. It's been close to two hours now since Rob called and if he doesn't get word of it soon, I don't think Duo will make it through 'till morning. I heard what he said about Duo not eating, and I know he hasn't touched a thing-"

They both startled when the sound of a body heavily lunging through the door in the entranceway broke the silence of their home at ten at night, strikingly loud without the distant hum of an unwatched television or children playing in the living room or Dorothy prowling back and forth, busy with some affair. The door had been unlocked, and whomever came plowing through it staggered forward clumsily, as if they'd been expecting much more resistance trying to enter. From their angle at the kitchen table, the pair was only able to see a fraction of the entry hall, glowing with a yellow lightbulb, and Vega craned his neck back to take a quick, defensive look. He automatically assumed someone was breaking in, unaware that the owners were still at home, or some bum of a kid had grown bored over his long Peace Commemoration holiday and had picked up the habit of wandering into stranger's homes. Listening a second longer, he heard a long, haggard groan as the man steadied himself and trudged down the corridor. Evelyn moved instinctually behind her husband's frame as he pushed the chair away and stood up, and she was close enough to feel the gasp of air going into his lungs through his back while she glanced around his shoulder.

"Heero!" Vega exclaimed. Whatever gladness was in his voice at his presence quickly turned to a hiss of concern, as he looked upon the sight that was the traveler, standing and panting in his entryway. "Where the hell have you been?"

"What does it matter?" he murmured in response. The Japanese man brought along an aroma of a bar, of second-hand smoke clinging to his clothes and distant hints of alcohol that were even noticeable to the lesser senses of a hienn, and beneath it was a mixture of grime and sweat that embodied the flagrant sense of despair that hung around him. Whiskey remained undeniably on his breath, and one could instantly connect it with the heavy, gawky steps he took, with one hand against the wall to guide him as he walked into the kitchen. But he was still Heero Yuy-his depression was not marked by the hints of alcohol in the air surrounding him or even by his state of dress, because his shirt remained unruffled and his appearance still very much preened. It was the waning in his eyes paired with the dead man's enthusiasm that really said it all. He seemed only to move forward on some unholy force that propelled him even as his mind was losing itself along the way.

"What happened to you?" Vega asked, this time more concerned than agitated, taking a step toward the Japanese man, who had lost that propulsion somewhere between the corridor and the kitchen where he now stood, almost teetering. The deputy put his hand on the shorter man's shoulder as he came close on a comforting instinct and nearly jerked back. He was shivering, twitching inconstantly beneath his hand. "Where did you go all day? You were damned near impossible to find and D-wait, are you drunk?"

Heero took a defensive step back, with an incriminating wobble to his gait and gruffness in his voice that did normally accompany one too many glasses of his preferred drink, whiskey. He shrugged Vega's hand off rudely and in the dim lighting, the shadows stretching his face made him seem like death freshly warmed over. "No," he grunted dimly. "I tried to, but I only had enough money for one drink."

"Whatever, I guess it's more important just that you're here," Vega dismissed reluctantly, reasserting his hand on the Japanese man's trembling shoulder. There was a more important matter at hand. "God, you're freezing. You walked here again, didn't you? Man, you are something. Evelyn and I'll make you something warm to eat if you want, but you need to get going as soon as possible. They summoned you to the courthouse hours ago-"

"What the fuck for?" Heero grumbled sourly, suddenly ripping his shoulder away from the weight of the deputy's hand and stepping back again. His eyes had turned glazed, like those of a deer carcass after lying dead on the road for a few hours, and those hollow eyes turned on Vega with a vacant expression and an unenthusiastic scowl. His words were slurred, but more from exhaustion than any other force. "No one listened to me then, so why should I expect that to change? It's probably just the press, they'll want to interview me or something vain like that. Waste of time." He scoffed bluntly. Disillusionment radiated off of him while his eyelids drooped low, his brief show of life spent. "I need some money."

"Not to get drunk, you don't."

That dismal little light returned to his eyes, fiercesome in the dark. "Yes, I do," he hissed back.

"You need to get down to the courthouse soon, before they just forget it all and head home. Then Duo'll really be screwed over," Vega said angrily. He was sure if he was upset by the sullen contempt he was being shown by a man who'm he'd welcomed into his home and spent the last day searching around for, if it was the way he continually brushed his hand off his shoulder when it was only to comfort him, if it was the fact he seemed to care more about getting too intoxicated to think than worry about a bit about Duo, the sole reason he was here in this city-most likely it was a combination of all of those, and it was working. The man who had been too softhearted to strike back at his abusive uncle when he tried to leave home at eighteen years of age was starting to heat up beneath the collar, watching Heero stand in his kitchen, defying him, stinking of a run-down bar and disregard. "And this time it will be your fault."

"You want to reconsider that?" Heero growled flatly.

"Do you want Duo's death on your conscience? Are you going do nothing about it?" was the undaunted challenge, and Vega's face did not budge even when Heero's body finally seemed to lose that last little flame that had held it up and he slumped visibly, losing all of the intimidation in his body. In the darkness, his face finally began to reflect his mind when it crumbled and his brows dug painfully together, hopeless and on the brink of falling over the edge where he'd been walking for the last few days. Even his voice warbled with vulnerability when he choked out, "No-No, I don't, but I tried already, I'll just fail him again-!"

While the two men standing in the kitchen remained that way, one too surprised by the other crumbling so readily even when he had suspected he would, the woman who had stood behind her husband, watching the scene, decided to break the silence before it settled itself on them. She walked around Vega in her bare feet and gave the traveler a comforting embrace without a second thought, resting the side of her head on the top of his and telling him quietly, "You haven't failed, Heero." Though no man really enjoyed the sight of his wife embracing any other man, Vega only watched as Heero leaned forward into his wife, put his arms around the first bit of warmth and compassion he'd felt in a long time, and ignored every rational thought that came to his exhausted mind. He felt horrible, and Eveyln's comfort assuaged that, and he liked it. It wasn't Duo's arms wrapped around him-but he was too tired to care from whom the comfort came.

"You still have your chance, you know," she hummed, petting the back of his head as she leaned back and smiled warmly down at him. "Judge Robert Reimer called our house a few hours ago, looking for you. He wants to discuss something with you about Duo's well-being in private. No press, no pressure."

Heero lifted his weary head from her shoulder, his disheveled dark hair tickling at her chin as he moved, and turned a tired face up toward her, eyes wide and scraping for whatever crumb of hope they could get. She could see the glimmer on his skin where the lines of moisture had formed and dripped down his face, though he did not cry aloud. "The judge-?"

Vega had moved beside them, and this time when he clasped a hand on Heero's shoulder, it was not refused. "I'll give you a ride over there-that is, if you're not too stubborn just to walk there yourself," he offered, with a little laugh at the end.

The courthouse had lost all of its shine and vigor, all of its occupants, all of the protestors who had massed before the stairs with their homemade narrow-minded signs, by the time the clocks in the city had turned unanimously to a quarter to midnight, and the traffic that had yearned to pass through that street had finally returned, a quiet, river-like stream of cars and their silent highlights. That was good news for him, as he shut the passenger side door and walked up the stairs alone, while Vega remained in the parked car, watching the road and the dizzying headlights stream back and forth. Even though it was dark, he could almost see every chip in every stair and it was a much more sinister experience walking up them the second time, when he was painfully aware of his failure and without the cushion of false hopes. Going up them that morning had already begun to blur in his mind. It didn't help that he had gone drinking afterward, but everything had been moving so much faster that morning than they were now. Maxwell's Demon's verdict was in, and it was guilty-the city could sleep sound now, things could relax again.

The door was opened when he reached it and a security guard held it while he passed through. The halls echoed eerily every sound he made, as empty as a skeleton's skull. The guard remained at the door where he remained silently, and Heero took another harrowing walk down to the courtroom, through those doors, and past the witness stand. He had to travel past every memory he'd been fighting with over the last few days, brush by every time he had seen Duo's eyes darken on that witness stand, every time that attorney gave him his victorious smile as he paced back and forth in front of him, and, as the bohemian would have put it so eloquently, 'it fucking sucked.'

The door to the judge's quarters was unlocked, but it had been ingrained in Heero to always knock, so that's what he did, after standing at the large oak door for a few minutes, steeling himself for the worse. God knew no matter how bad things were, they always found a way to get worse, he thought as he raised his hand. But before he had the chance to knock, the old voice from within hailed him. "Just come on in, Mr. Yuy," the judge beckoned, and the traveler obeyed, twisting the doorknob with a hint of anxiety shining through the overwhelming color of depression in his eyes.

Inside, the judge Reimer, who had overseen Duo's trial and then administered his verdict, now sat at his desk, now longer writing studiously as the paper lying before him suggested he had been. His robes had been hung up somewhere, and his glasses had been folded up and placed on the desk beside the warm yellow light. He looked amazingly mundane, normal without his distinct magistrate clothing, and his gavel now replaced with a more harmless ballpoint pen. When Heero stepped into the doorway, he calmly set the pen down and watched him stand there with a softening expression until he politely offered him to take a seat. The traveler's eyes flickered cautiously at first, though no one in their right mind should be so suspicious of an old man at a desk with only wisps of hair clinging to his head, but it was it was hard to avoid.

Every doorway he'd turned and walked through up to this point hadn't resulted in the best-stepping into that gypsy's tent had preceded a consuming and risky infatuation, following Duo to Cinq had ripped him from almost every idea of the world he had had, and trying to save a criminal who didn't want the accept the help had broken his heart. Numbly accepting Relena's offer at a relationship had emptied his bored existence into a hole and that had started it all. Going through more of those doorways was not something he looked forward too, now, considering just how more miserable he stood to become if he chose the wrong one.

But there is a right one somewhere, right?

And on an impulse, Heero stepped in and closed the door behind him. There was nothing behind him but woe to drive him forward, self-doubt thrown aside, after all.

Duo was awake when his internal clock told him it was somewhere nearing one in the morning, something residual left over from his purely Nekonese grandparents and that had been diluted by the infusion of human blood. He was awake but his eyes were half-lidded and watching memory play out in his mind, dancing from thought to thought in a drowse. It was all he could do to ignore the feeling of his own skin closing in on him, his stomach drawing up between his lungs, and his arms clinging tighter around his abdomen to medicate it. He still was slumped down in a corner, slowly sliding down over the hours and hours he'd laid there until his head was cocked upright against the cement and the rest of his body sprawled out on the floor bonelessly beneath it.

He barely noticed the guards were absent, and that they had been called away for some reason nearly an hour ago. The darkness of night seeping in from the tiny barred window overhead had brightened when the moon snuck out of the shadow of a skyscraper and cast eerie patterns of light and shadow against the wall as it passed through the bars. There were dim, inexpensive lights only switched on for night periodically spaced down the corridor running past those bars and one flickered near the end of the hall. The sounds of shoes scuffing, distant papers shuffling, and even the low murmur of conversation through the door at the end of the hall had faded while the night grew deeper. All the song in the bohemian had faded away and the cellblock remained silent. He no longer had the energy or the interest to pace, so over the hours he had slumped to the ground. It was a thickly quiet place that reeked of relinquishment; Duo had given up and you could even feel it in the air.

The bohemian let his head fall to the side and he heaved a sigh. He'd uttered the Hail Mary, the first prayer his mother had taught him, some of the first English words he'd ever learned, so many times that he was sick of the sounds it made. He was ready to throw away the memories attached to them if they wouldn't stop haunting him, if he couldn't escape the memory of his mother guiding his tiny hand across the page beneath the words and whispering them with him. If he couldn't escape the memory, he wished he could just escape it all, wished they would just get around to dragging him out back and shooting him already. He knew was inevitable, they knew it was inevitable, but someone must have enjoyed prolonging his suffering. They didn't need to drag it out like this; they didn't need to waste their precious air for breathing on a ' hateful and violent' criminal like him. They should just do it and get it over with, he muttered sullenly in his head, his lips too dry and weak to do much for conversation with himself.

They should just put all formalities aside and kill him-they'd put all justice and integrity aside for him already. No reason every rule shouldn't be revoked just to kill the once untouchable Maxwell's Demon.

"Yes, there is," that hienn voice whispered back.

Duo twisted up into a sitting position at the startling sound of locks unclasping noisily down the corridor, interrupting his morbid silence and tearing through the fantasized voice in his head. His ikkunnoi flashed toward the sound, soaking up every tiny noise in the cellblock there was to be heard, and his shoulders instinctively tensed up, pressing against the cold cement. He suddenly lost that morbid resignation and felt basic instinct returning him as he started to consider the fact that he may have just gotten his wish. There was a back door that gave access to the cellblock at the far end of the corridor, through a small security-check room, which had also been vacated hours ago. That door also came swinging open moments later and then came the most dreadful sound of footsteps approaching.

Duo's entire body grew taut and even in his starvation it fed the adrenaline to start throbbing dully in his head and down to his bloody fingertips. He almost bristled at the sound as the single person drew closer to the cell. He was overtaken by an overwhelming last-ditch urge for survival, bubbling up from within pure instinct. While he imagined himself being led out and shot and the possibility of knowing nothing but blackness afterwards, he felt all his desperation returning to him. He remembered the traveler's face and he felt even weaker that he began to growl. His eyes, slit in the moonlight, remained glued on the bars in front of him, baring a tooth. Suddenly, death didn't seem so great, picturing the last thing he saw to be a couple of garbage cans and some dark brick walls and the last thing he heard to be some fat officer grunting behind him while he lifted the gun to the back of his head.

All the attraction had left the idea of death by then.

He bristled silently, waiting for some officer to drag him away to his end. He also wished he were a little more careful with what he wished for, while the footsteps eventually passed in front of his own cell and the movement in the corridor caused his eyes to automatically adjust. The moonlight on Vega's skin that had looked a hazy blue-grey through the more human part of his retina came into a sharp, more pronounced color through the inhuman part, an internal pair night vision goggles. The backs of his eyes were reflecting a dull silver glow and he could see the deputy flinching, a little surprised by them. Duo was honestly just as surprised to see him and eyed him carefully in return.

He relaxed slightly, but he was visibly anxious while Vega silently stuck a key in the lock and began to twist it. The one-eared Neko pressed his back against the cold cement and rose to his feet in a single slow movement while the barred door swung open, his ikkunnoi flattened cautiously against his skull. He remained against the wall for a few moment even after it had opened wide, watching the deputy as he glanced over both shoulders to both ends of the corridors. Duo could smell the apprehension seeping off him, the fear of getting caught. The two men, one completely human, and one a little of something else, stood and stared at each other for a moment, evaluating each other.

Vega's eyes softened a little, noticing the signs of the strain in the criminal's eyes and the way his arms quivered, exhausted to the bone. He reached behind his back and pulled out a small bundle of cloth that turned out to be Duo's old clothing once he had tossed it to the con man and turned around to face the wall, signaling him without a sound to change.

Duo didn't get the time to speak up before the deputy put a finger to his mouth to signal to be quiet and turned back around, allowing him his privacy. The criminal was secretly mystified of what this midnight intrusion meant-would the Right Guard actually lead him out back and just shoot him? Well, he scoffed mentally, the change of clothes pointed to it; after all, the police department didn't want to be getting any animal blood over their uniform. Duo was too tired to question it any further and in a matter of seconds, he'd been reacquainted with his old con man garb and was rolling up his sleeves white to the elbow while kicking the orange jumpsuit away with distaste. He looked up, his retinas drinking in the traces of moonlight, and saw the deputy beckon him to follow.

Vega turned and started back down the corridor the direction he had come and kept walking even as Duo hesitated to follow. As silent as a ghost, he instead hovered in the doorway, watching the human walk down the corridor secretively and evaluating the situation very carefully. He really had no idea what Vega was doing-he'd be fired if any of his supervisors caught wind that he'd unlocked a prisoner's cell and let him out without authorization, especially one as notorious as Maxwell's Demon-and it went against every scrap of integrity and principle left in him to step out of that cell. He may have stolen, fought, and led a generally defiant life since he had left the ruins of his slaughtered village six years ago, but he was determined to die holding onto whatever dignity he had left and he wouldn't try to escape like a coward, now that he had committed his entire life to his revenge. And even though he had failed miserably at it and Peacecraft still lived and breathed with a bigot's mind, he would not scamper away humiliated. It was born in him as a son of a noble Warrior to follow a certain honor code-never lie and never go back on your word or your commitments. And it took a beckoning look from the hienn in the corridor as he paused, patiently awaiting him to follow, to actually pull him out of that cell and momentarily away from that code.

Vega didn't say a word, didn't tell Duo a thing of why he had come in the middle of the night to drag him out of his cell illegally and then sneak him down the hall to the back entrance, and he didn't ask anything about it. He could respect the fact he was risking his neck to get him out of his cell, and if he was, it must be for something important. So, lips pursed in a morbidly curious frown, the criminal shadowed the deputy down the empty cellblock corridor, past countless cells identical to the one where he'd spent the last few days and finally down to the first door. The only sounds were those of Vega's shoes, trailed by Duo's silent bare feet, and the tiny metallic whispers as he drew out a large ring of keys and unlocked the first reinforced door that would lead them to the outside. Beside that door there was a non-transparent window and in the dark reflection, he saw himself standing behind the deputy's shoulder and smirked with a grimace at the dragging lines in his face. He almost had to chuckle to himself, thinking of how he looked like death scraped off the side of the road and warmed over. But the laughter never made it to his mouth.

Vega pushed that door open, glanced one last time over his shoulder to the other end of the corridor, and stepped through the small transition room. Duo slunk behind him, through an unplugged metal detector, past an official's desk littered with handcuffs, and felt a cold breeze come through the door as Vega opened it to the outside, teasing at his shoulder-length hair and trying to chill him to the bone. The deputy calmly walked down the stairs and left the door swinging open behind him. Outside, he saw a thin of line of trees just outside a high mesh fence and glitters of light from the city just beyond those. The city seemed almost half-dead, pacified now that Maxwell's Demon had been successfully convicted.

Duo heaved a sigh as he dutifully followed the man he'd known as the security guard to the right down the steps and probably to his unceremonious death in an alleyway. He glanced down the short flight of cement stairs that led to the ground and stopped in his tracks once again, because there was someone familiar standing at the foot of those stairs, sitting against the hood of a car and watching him cautiously, painted by the light of a nearby streetlight.

The traveler had his legs crossed at the ankles in false casual poise and tried uselessly not to look like the forlorn scorned as he felt, his eyes glued to Duo as he stopped and noticed him. He couldn't help but feel like he'd just been caught in the stare of a god and shiver-those eyes shined in the light a glowing silver violet as they bore into him, expressionless for a moment before they filled with an indecipherable mix of emotions. The one Heero recognized the best was the one that showed the most-that morbid bitterness that had been his greeting each time he'd seen Duo since that night in the Isuzu. He stood up from the hood and stared back into the bohemian's eyes while the car's engine rumbled into the still of the night.

In a minute, Vega had climbed into the backseat and Heero had already climbed in the driver's seat and shut the door, watching Duo stand outside the ajar passenger side door, the trail of smoke from the exhaust pile billowing faintly around him as he did not move. He felt so tense, watching the unease running through the bohemian while visibly mulling the strange situation around in his head, picking it apart, and trying to decide. He wondered if he'd remembered to breathe and felt his stomach turning uneasily in his belly. Vega sat silently in the backseat, a member of the quiet midnight conspiracy but only a bystander to the unease radiating off the two younger men. He cleared his throat a little when he noticed Duo reluctant to step inside the car without a word of explanation and sunk back into the seat. Eventually, after a long consideration, Duo did slip inside and slam the door shut.

Heero had to shy his eyes away when Duo slid into the seat, too close too suddenly to keep his eye contact. He could smell the cigarette smoke infused with blood wafting off him, along with his natural scent that teased him beneath it all. Sitting in the car, they were inches from brushing shoulders and he could barely breathe to think about it, let alone look at him. Without bars to separate them, Heero was reminded horribly of how intoxicating the bohemian could be, and how foolish he was to take any of the time spent with him for granted-any of his fondness for granted. Besides, the expression smoldering across the con man's face would be formidable to anyone, and Duo kept that terrible piercing gaze on the traveler's face, unsure whether to be suspicious or exasperated of him and this strange new plot of his.

His slit violet eyes raked up and down Heero's profile while he stared ahead, unable to meet eyes with the bohemian just yet. The scowl didn't leave him, and it wouldn't until his suspicions did as well. "What's this all about, Yuy?" he asked caustically, even adding a little scoff of a laugh as he continued. "You in the habit of dragging people out of jails in the middle of the night, interrupting their beauty sleep or something-?"

Heero lifted a black baseball cap from the armrest between them and held it toward Duo, torn that he wanted to look at the man he'd risked so much for but too uncertain to so. He pursed his lips tight against his teeth and put the car into reverse when Duo sullenly took the cap from him without another word of questioning, now just frowning at the baseball hat identical to his old one. He remained quiet while Heero maneuvered the car backwards, the wheels crunching on the gravel, put it in drive, and went down the unpaved roadway leading to the back of the police department and through the opened gate. The small car pulled smoothly out into the sparse traffic, out onto a brightly-lit street while the automated gate slid close behind them.

The colored lights of shops and boutiques, of apartment and restaurants glittered in the window behind Duo, as he sat, rocking slightly with the movement of the car, staring at the side of Heero's face. A horrible silence now rode in the car alongside them, and it was worse for Heero. Even though he could immerse part of himself in just the task of driving, grip his hands tight on the steering wheel, there was still a part of him very much aware of the bohemian baring holes into the side of his face with his inhuman eyes. He glanced over on temptation and his gaze met Duo's for a split second, but it was enough to set his chest on fire and make him regret turning to look.

Duo sighed tiredly, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Really, Yuy. What're you doing?" Heero's hands tensed and his blue eyes remained on the taillights of the car ahead of him at the stoplight. A few anvil-like seconds flattened the silence even tighter down on them and Duo scoffed to himself. "What, are you ignoring me now? You can be even more fickle than a woman, I swear," he muttered to himself, tossing up a hand. "And if this is your plan to whisk me away, I have to be honest-just drop me off, I'll walk myself back."

He glanced to the back at Vega and he returned the look fearlessly, though with more sadness and sympathy than Duo wanted to see, so he yanked his eyes back toward the traveler's uneasy, drawn face and the noticeable twitch in his hands as he gripped the steering wheel tighter than a vice grip. He heaved a sigh, if only to interrupt that silence, and twisted around in his seat to stare out the window, folding his arms so that the carnival-colored lights outside could shine in on the dried bloodstains running down his hands and his bandaged right hand. He let out another huff, but this time his eyelids drooped with it and he stared lifelessly out into the passing cityscape, while the radio whispered beneath the strangling silence just audible to his ikkunnoi, not quite twisted all the way off.

My girl, my girl, don't lie to me /Tell me where did you sleep last night? /In the pines, in the pines / Where the sun don't ever shine / I would shiver the whole night through

Duo's feline ear twitched when he recognized the song and he masked the grimace he was about to make by sloppily putting the baseball cap on, a tuft of his Nekonese fur poking out beneath the rim.

My girl, my girl, where will you go? / I'm going where the cold wind blows / In the pines, in the pines / Where the sun don't ever shine / I would shiver the whole night through

Heero felt like he had taken hold of an electric wire the moment he'd seen the bohemian again, post-Isuzu night and all too real and still all too bitter. And that wire was slowly pumping him full of more and more volts and numbing him into a strange, sensitive place. He might have just been called nervous, or anxious, but no, he'd passed all those things long ago. He wasn't just nervous around Duo Maxwell-he was seriously distressed, and the news he had to deliver to that beautiful, distressing creature only made that condition worse. The electric wire he was holding sat only a foot away from him, and it was slowly killing him but his fingers still held on, even when he was desperate to pull away. Every memory of sitting in the white Isuzu, back when a con man had been a con man and things had been clearer shades of gray, taunted him now-every memory of just sitting talking with the bohemian, every time he had honestly smiled at him, teased him, gently socked him in the shoulder.

They haunted him because he felt like now he would never have those things again.

Heero continued to drive, burying his worrying instinct in the sole purpose of navigation for a moment and taking a left down an empty one-way drive, one that circled around an equally ghost-like, dusky park. Duo sat in the passenger seat, drooping unenthusiastically, and his eyes seemed miles away. Vega remained in the backseat: backseat to the indescribable tension between the traveler and the bohemian, two opposing magnets that needed by nature to come together but were separated by an impassable rift between them-the rift created and sustained by Duo's mistrust and the sins of Heero's adoptive family. So, they drove, not like they had only days before, but they drove.

Heero drove some ways down that road, alone in the street, until the sleeping green of the trees thinned and gave way to the glitter of a lake in the center of the park. Then he pulled to the side of the road and put the gear into park, stopping to stare at the dashboard displays glowing at him for a minute. He lifted his voice softly without lifting his head and said, "Vega, can you watch the car for a while?"

The good-natured deputy nodded his affirmative and replied, "Yeah. How long do you think-?"

"Might be a while," Heero said with a sigh, still unwilling to tear his eyes from the dashboard as they might wander over too far to the right. "You could drive around if you want-I can wait for you to come back."

"You'll be alright if I scan the streets for a bit, you know, watching out for troublemakers for you?"

"Yeah," the traveler replied, smiling ruefully at the steering wheel. "There's a lot that needs to be said. We'll be fine for a while. Go ahead."

"Alright," Vega said warmly, clapping his hand reassuringly on the Japanese man's shoulder as he sat up out of the backseat and pushed the car door open into the still, cold night.

Heero did the same a moment later, leaving the keys swinging in the ignition and the engine purring steadily, awaiting a command to do work. He stood up beside the humble dark blue car and Vega stepped out as well, taking his place in the vacated driver's seat. Heero took a step back to let him pass and when he slipped inside, he glanced up to see Duo standing beside his opened door, his eyes gleaming in the dark, baseball hat cocked crookedly on his head. The traveler felt like he could hardly breathe beneath that stare-and Duo could tell, giving an unhappy little frown in return before finally freeing the hienn and glancing away, moving to slam the passenger side door shut.

"Be careful," Vega reminded Heero solemnly before shutting the door and putting the purring engine into gear, before he drove smoothly off, the shape of the car disappearing into the shadow of the distance, visible only beneath the glow of a streetlamp as it turned the corner. It was the last thing he said to him before he would have to do one of the hardest things in his life, and when Heero looked up to the sidewalk beside and saw the bohemian standing there, still with that piercing gaze, he was reminded just why it was so hard. He felt ready to burst open, to let himself crumble at Duo's feet and beg for his comfort, but he knew in his heart that he would not get it now. Duo's eyes were shining suspiciously, and his body tensing was made no secret. No, he'd probably get shoved away if he tried to get close.

The one-eared Neko, again concealed by a black baseball cap, folded his arms impatiently while he stared at the traveler. He smirked in a grimace. "So," he drawled flatly, "you must be the poor guy they suckered into breaking the bad news to me, huh? What a deal." In the dark, he turned as fluidly as a shadow and started walking over the knoll of grass just beyond the sidewalk, rolling into the deserted park. He shoved his hands casually into his pockets as he strolled and said with forced nonchalance, "Let's get this over with, Yuy."

Heero followed him anxiously but by the time he was in step just behind the con man, he could hardly tell anymore. He was quiet and suprisingly calm just to be near the bohemian all of a sudden-whether it was because he was alone with him, or he couldn't see those piercing eyes anymore, he couldn't tell-and they went silently across the preened green lawns. In the center of the park, surrounded by ash and oak, a small duck pond sat glittering in the sliver of moonlight, a cluster of mallards floating lazily on the surface and a crow picking at the grasses around it. In the middle of a city that had shook with controversy only the morning before, was a slumbering haven that made you feel as if you were pleasantly lost in nature, even while you saw the lights of the city glitter above the line of trees.

A few birds fluttered away as Duo crossed the tiny strip of sidewalk that wound around the pond, Heero behind him, equally trudging. The cold wind of night going through the streets was cut by the abundance of green ash and gnarled old oak and the place glowed with heat and moonlight. As he walked, the con man could feel a nostalgic stone drop to the bottom of his stomach, making him homesick for the warm summer nights he could remember of his home, of his brothers and sister, his innocence. But he walked through it and left it behind him on the grass.

A cat meowed in soft warning before slinking off the nearby bench and sauntering on its way. Heero, startled a little at the sudden movement in the dark to the side of him, paused to watch it disappear as well as he could with hienn eyes and turned back to see that Duo had already gotten comfortable on the slope just around the lip of the pond and thrown his arms up and his hands behind his head, baseball hat tilted up. He almost looked like he was stargazing without a care. Almost-Heero knew he had more worry to his name than he had carefree pleasures. His nicked and scarred ikkunnoi that remained was flattened severely against his skull and his dully watched the sky overhead, a hazy, almost sickly pink color, polluted by too many lights and obscuring the stars.

Heero sat down on the grass beside Duo, bending his knees and slinging an arm over them, and after what felt to him like a horrible length of silence, he tilted his head upwards too.

He had no idea what to say to him, what he could produce from his mouth when it was so dry and fumbling he wasn't sure he'd be able to say his own name if asked, what he could come up with that would make Duo soften from his harsh criminal defenses, make him crack an honest joke, give him an honest smile, or just tell him the truth. He was starting to think maybe nothing could ever break Duo's resolve, when it was soaked in so much blood, pain, and when it was basically all he had. His eyes flickered toward the con man inevitably and it fueled that anxious mind. Could he even talk to him anymore? For god's sake, he felt like a stuttering sixth-grader around his crush. Granted, it hadn't always been the easiest or most pleasant thing to hold a conversation with a headstrong Duo Maxwell, but now the words were even heavier and would not leave his mouth for the life of him. He startled when it was Duo's voice and not his he heard suddenly.

"Hey, traveler."

Heero twisted his head slightly toward him, uttering out, "Aa?"

"Ever look at the moon?" His expression was stonily unreadable in the little illumination there was for hienn eyes, staring faithfully upwards, and it unnerved him a little more. His voice was lower, softer and surprisingly without the cynical sharp edge to it.

"No, not much," Heero answered honestly, running a hand tiredly through his hair and letting it flop messily to wherever it chose. "I never stopped to do anything like that. Never had the time."

Still lying completely still on the grass, Duo let out a laughing scoff that hung in the air much longer than it lasted, a ghostlike echo ringing out over the pond. A sleeping drake fluttered his feathers and beads of water rolled off them into the pond.

"Hm. That figures," he chuckled. "Figures Peacecrafts would live lives as dry as their compassion. But don't worry, it's no beauty you can't just buy from some painting or a night with some baby-faced hooker. From the city, it's as dull as chalk, and from the woods, it comes too close and looks more like a graveyard, but from wherever you look, it's still equally depressing. That's the beauty of it. You can't cheapen its disheartening effect. That's the real secret," the bohemian confessed with a rueful smile, turning his head on the grass to look the traveler in the eye. "So don't worry. You're not missing much."

Heero watched the smile in fascination, tried to imprint the way the violet in his eyes was brighter in moonlight, how his ikkunnoi twitched happily for a moment, because he had a feeling it wouldn't last for long. And it didn't. The short-lived smile soon withered and disappeared somewhere in the bohemian's face and his piercing, emotionless stare returned with double intensity. Heero hadn't realized that he had leaned back onto the grass during his sad narrations-that he was close enough for a heart attack-until Duo stared back in absolute silence, undaunted. Cat-slit eyes devoured his face, constantly analyzing it but never betraying what they were searching for. He wet his lips hesitantly, still not turning away, and Heero could feel his heart drumming against the inside of his ribs, feeling like he free-falling into pure terror. The one-eared Neko blinked as he opened his mouth and he could see silver gleaming in the back of his eye. The sound of his clothes shifting as he twisted onto his side seemed as loud a gunshot and his hummingbird heart kept it's pace.

"Did I ever tell you why they call me Maxwell's Demon, Heero?" he whispered tiredly, losing all the brash spark to his voice all of a sudden.

Heero, who was too anxious to even think at the moment and too enchanted by the melancholy bohemian to remember that he had come to deliver a specific and very burdensome message, could only numbly shake his head, his own mouth horribly dry all of a sudden.

"I gave myself that name," Duo said with a sigh. His ikkunnoi flickered sadly and his eyes traced along a dew-beaded blade of glass.

"And now, I think I'm beginning to understand why I did it. Hell, I'm even beginning to understand what Peacecraft's own damn daughter said to me and I don't want to say that she was right, but she was close to it. As ignorant as she is, I mulled over what she said and came to the conclusion that I made myself my own demon-Maxwell's Demon is exactly what his name suggests.

"I should have just burned my rosary the day I first picked a pocket, first jacked a car solely because I was so pissed at Peacecraft, the day I took my personal shit out on an innocent. Stealing smiles from the people's faces just because I couldn't do it anymore and I envied them so fucking much it got harder and harder to breathe. I really should have burned it and gone to Hell when I tormented my first family, Heero. Who deserves to be happy after they've done something like what I did? I left knives and parts of their dogs scattered around the homes of the few soldiers who helped murder my village that I could track down and a note signed 'Love from Maxwell's Demon,' on the bedside table. I was so furious I couldn't see straight the first time I did it-I don't remember writing in blood on the walls, but I must have. It was in the news the next day. I'd written the most vulgar things in me on the wall of their two-year-old daughter in smeared blood. After that, I even kept tabs on them, Heero. The wife went into therapy after she'd seen what I done and divorced the soldier; the oldest son attempted suicide a month ago." His voice hid low in his throat, choked but suppressed, as he continued. "I became him-I turned out just the same as Senator fucking Peacecraft."

When Heero only stared back, unable to speak up, Duo cracked a harsh, regretful grin. "Chh," He scoffed to himself. "Listen to me. What a pathetic shit I've become."

"You're not pathetic, you're-" the traveler started up defensively in a whisper, but was cut off by another forced, depressing chuckle.

"Just really fucked up?" The bohemian snorted again and the twisted smile returned to his face, the last barricade against the horrible sadness in him that was trying to force its way out, when it had laid there and festered for years. He rolled over onto his back and nonchalantly hooked his hands behind his head again, closing his eyes with a sigh. "Let's just get this over with, Yuy. Say what you came to say and let's be done with it. That way we can both go home and get on with our shitty little lives."

The rueful smirk disappeared from Duo's face almost immediately when he felt a warm body roll over and lean over him with a knee on either side of his legs and a pair of hands gripping the grass to the side of his head. His eyes snapped open, pupils knife-blade thin, and stared up at the traveler and into the cool blue hienn eyes he had.

"You know neither of us have a home to go back to, Duo," he whispered, and, with the care of a lonely soul and the abandon of a man who had nothing else to lose, bent down and kissed the Neko beneath him. His hummingbird of a heart stopped abruptly, shocked he'd actually gotten the nerve to do such a thing such a volatile and morose bohemian, and started up again at a furious beat. What a thrill, to be stealing a kiss from a notorious thief and getting away with it. His body sang when he suddenly felt Duo lean into him, gently kissing back, and he ran his hand through his hair, spurring the Neko to clamp his hand possessively on the back of Heero's head. The traveler's fingers wandered for a moment, brushing at his single feline ear. Duo's lips tasting of nicotine and hints of blood suddenly stopped responding and he heard the sound of skin slapping as a hand snatched out at his wrist and jerked it from his hair. Heero regretfully leaned back, his chest still pounding, and found himself again on the receiving end of a fierce bohemian stare.

The defense mechanism hadn't slipped into place just yet-Duo's eyes still had to turn to sour vinegar and grimace at him-and he gaped up at the human on top of him. For a second Heero swore he let his exhaustion shine through, and he found himself whispering his name, wishing he could ease it and making the mistake of putting his hand tenderly against the bohemian's face. It finally splintered into his old last resort, the venomous glare, and he whipped the traveler's hand away and snarled at him. "Don't touch the face," he growled, trying to sit up and push Heero off him, push the warm, comforting thing away before he could form an addiction to it, but he resisted, or he at least tried to. There was little standing up by a human to a Neko at midnight, his eyes glowing and his temper growing steadily, feeding the adrenaline in his bestial muscle to shove back.

"Duo-" He panted out when Duo surged up beneath him, his chest brushing against Heero's stomach, the cold, hard beads of the rosary distinct even beneath the fabric of his shirt.

"You're full of shit," he accused in a hiss as he sat up with the sharp liquid grace of a panther, twisting away from the human who looked at him with a contorted face, occupied by conflicting fear and concern. Yes, that damned concern might just be the downfall of the traveler, the fool, Duo thought bluntly to himself, still making a severe accusing face at Heero in spite of those innocent blue eyes.

"I'm not trying to-"

The one-eared Neko twisted his mouth into a sneer. "I said don't touch the personal shit, and my face is fucking personal!" With that, he gave Heero's shoulder a gruff little shove-little by Nekonese standards, mind you-and he abruptly fell back onto his ass on the grassy slope while Duo got to his feet in fluid fury and stalked up the mild hill toward the sidewalk rimming the duckpond. With a scuffle of harsh sounds snapped beneath his breath, he snatched up his baseball cap from where it had fallen and promptly slapped it on his head, crooked. Heero got to his feet as well as he could after being so rapidly shaken up, rattled like a Christmas present, and followed him with a flustered apology stumbling off his lips.

"I wasn't going to hurt you, Duo!" he said, letting an imploring expression through, his eyebrows drawing painfully together and up. "What did I do to wrong you so badly that you have to shove me away every time I try to help you, fangs and claws bared? I'm probably the only one in this whole city fighting to see that you don't die! Why do you hate me?"

"That's the stupidest question I've heard for a while, traveler. I've heard a lot of ignorant shit from ignorant people, but you-you, my friend, you take the empty-headed cake!" Duo snapped over his shoulder with a jeering cynicism, still stalking toward the bench lounging in the shadow of a crippled old oak tree ahead of him. His sinister eyes still flashed silver as he twisted his head back, glaring as the traveler opened his mouth again, trailing him like a forlorn pup. Heero following him only fueled the defensive fire that taken control of him.

"Ya know what? Fuck this. Fuck it all. I'm going back to the jail to starve to death all alone in my little cell, traveler, and you can't do a thing about it! No, can't write a poem in your notebook to save Duo Maxwell's soul, boy!" He tossed his hand up into the air, his wrists caked with dried blood from the cuts on his fingers and his split knuckles. "Maybe then I can find a place where you won't be able to bother me!"

"Duo," Heero said exasperatedly, planting his feet suddenly just as he crossed the concrete of the sidewalk, stepping over a string of graffiti, "I'm trying to help you. The least you could do is not ridicule me for it."

"Ha! Never heard that one, traveler," the Neko scoffed in return, the shadow flopping down nonchalantly onto the park bench and slinging a leg over his knee and his arms behind his head in the blink of an eye. He winked leeringly at Heero, his face painted a somber black and blue shadow in the dark. "Think you're so damn clever, don'tcha? So, speak up, Golden Boy and just fucking spit out what you came to say! Tell me about the guilty verdict already so I can get my hair ready for my appointment with the electric chair."

"Don't talk like that," he said softly, stopping in front of Duo, slung out in a harshly casual pose, his face contorted into a horrible forced, careless smirk.

"I don't have a mother to kiss with this filthy mouth of mine anymore, remember, so I don't give a-"

"Well, I do," Heero said, frowning sadly. "You don't have to talk about yourself like that Duo. No matter how much you try to convince me and the world of otherwise, I know that what you say scares you as much as it hurts me and no one, not even you, really wants to die."

The bohemian cracked an eye open at him. "Shit, traveler. You think you're really a psychologist, don't you?" He laughed contemptuously, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight and the backs of his eyes glimmering as he shook his head. "Aw, are you going to cry?"

"I didn't need any college degree to realize you're more frightened than anybody, just a little time." Heero grimaced grimly. "Though it was almost impossible to figure that out, when you push everyone who even tries to get close to you away so blindly."

That single violet eye glared at him without hesitation, teeth clamped tightly. "Spit out what you came to say, Yuy, and let's just fucking finish this," he growled.

Somewhere past the regrets of a foiled assassination attempt fogging up a mind and a fearful infatuation without cure troubling the other, beyond the cloud of controversy and separatism that followed and choked them both, and past the wrongs that had set Duo into his suspicious and vulnerable mind and in turn had wronged Heero with distrust, they felt an awful déjà vu settle down on them and they suddenly were back in a little anonymous park with pigeons cooing at their feet. But it was even worse the second time around, the second time they found themselves arguing and bickering so passionately. All their secrets had been bared and were no longer their to cushion the ride downhill, only weigh them down and make them feel a sudden age and weariness like never before. For Duo, it was a familiar part of his usual vicious cycles, but it was some of the first real emotions Heero'd had in years and he had no callused slang and frown to hide behind, no incapacitating vices to drown himself in, no shadows to cover himself with. And he could only stare for a minute, pushing those emotions back as he tried to open his mouth again with some of the heaviest words of his life waiting there.

The first part was simple-but Duo would make the last part incredibly difficult, if he wasn't going to open up to him and finally give him even an ounce of trust. He decided quickly this could be a very, very long night.

"You can guess what the verdict was," Heero started tiredly, taking a spot on the bench beside Duo and letting a sigh try to clean the heaviness in his chest out in vain. "So I won't tell you it again." He stared out onto the pond with a stormy mind, and the bohemian stared at him out of the corner of his eye, wary as a night prowling tom and his retinas glowing like one. He was surprised to see Heero suddenly rummage a pack of Marlboros out of the pocket of his jacket and surprised he hadn't smelt them coming from a mile away. He tapped the pack in his hand before holding it out to the one-eared Neko, offering it with a, "I bought them for you. Thought you might need it."

"Yeah," Duo mumbled, taking the whole package of cigarettes, flipping it over in his hand and staring wistfully at the label. "But I don't have a light." He chuckled morbidly and stashed it in his own pocket instead. His eyes focused out on the pond as well, refusing to alight on the human's face as he leaned back on the bench and his head sunk down between his shoulders. "Thanks," he said quietly, kicking idly at the grass with his bare feet.

"Aa." He took the luxury of one last sigh before he officially took on his task. "Judge Reimer gave you two-life sentences imprisonment yesterday for one count of attempted assassination of the Senator and various counts of grand theft auto, armed robbery, breaking-and-entering; basically whatever you confessed to, they tallied up. You would have been on Death Row tomorrow morning and executed probably sometime the following afternoon and your remains would have been disposed of in a matter of minutes had you actually killed him. You were spared of the death penalty solely because you didn't kill the Senator or anyone else-Well, none that they knew of, anyway," Heero said quietly, bowing his head a little out of a wearying memory of bounty hunters and a violent dirt circle. "They haven't decided on where they want to put you, or where you'd actually be safe enough to stay. The judge realized that no normal prison would probably be able to hold you if your truly wanted to get out and he could appreciate how much trouble you're capable of making, also. They're planning on transferring you a solitary confinement cell in New Brussels penitentiary until they find a suitable place for you. Otherwise, you're impossible to place as well as homeless." Heero's weak, mildly morbid attempt a little humor came out horribly strained and tired and Duo almost flinched to hear it.

But he didn't let it show and just smirked with a hint of a grimace and snorted. "Well, that's not going to be a problem. I would last in a cage about as long as a bird in a shoebox with airholes punched by a ballpoint pen would." The bohemian folded his arms and tilted his head back, closing his eyes.

"Yeah, I know," Heero agreed softly. "That's why I wrote it in my manuscript-I didn't think you would be able to even breathe without your freedom. And I guess I was right." A pair of concerned blue eyes flickered over to Duo's face. "You look like you're hardly even there, Duo," he whispered, "and it's only been a few days."

He cracked one eye open, not turning his head, and stared back at Heero. His cynicism was uncharacteristically delayed for a second. "Fine, motherhen. Doesn't really matter, though," he drawled lifelessly.

Heero gave him a softened look that told him yes, it did, but he chose to continue instead of hopelessly fighting with the bohemian's self-deprecating ways and words.

"The judge came to the same conclusion that I did today-that you would sooner kill yourself than be locked up, and it's obvious that you could and you would. He summoned me to his quarters an hour ago and told me of his concerns about you. They were the same as mine." The traveler's voice seemed saturated and choked suddenly, and Duo, who had sat up during his speech and turned to face him without noticing he had done so, felt that hidden quick receive a sharp cut. "We agreed that you didn't deserve to die, whether in an electric chair in the public's eye or by your own hand in a prison cell. You shouldn't have to throw your life away like that, no matter how much you believe that you do deserve it or even want it. You shouldn't be such a coward to run away from your life, no matter how difficult it becomes, because you'll only make it a thousand times worse for the loved ones you leave behind; you'll make more people like yourself if you end it. You'd break my heart, Duo Maxwell, and grind it into the dirt." Finally, he scrapped up enough nerve to look him in the eye and fought to keep his hummingbird heart beneath his ribs and all in one piece. "You leave me and I'll turn out as a fugitive, on the run from my family and my whole life. So please think about it."

"Think about what?" Duo asked immediately, not too absorbed in the traveler's poignant Prussian blues to pick up on a subtle beseechment. It suddenly felt like he'd just gained another decade of age and he felt unnaturally heavy and worn. "What do you want from me now?"

Heero wet his lips when they tightened nervously against his teeth and the heavy words in his mouth rolled off his tongue as well as anvils would roll down a flat incline. His hand twitched, he ached to take Duo's bloody, bandaged hand and beg him shamelessly as he could if need be. But he didn't move an inch, only to anxiously open his mouth. "There is an alternative," he managed out vaguely.

Now the one-eared Neko's face had gone from mild, obscurely vulnerable suspicion to confusion and a hint of distrust habitually seeping back into him, ikkunnoi pursed tightly against the side of his head and sitting up in his seat. "What the hell are you talking about now, traveler?" His voice was absolutely flat and his eyes gleamed again, skepticism rousing.

"Judge Reimer gave you an alternative to your given sentence of life imprisonment, Duo-you don't have to die for your sin, he's handing you your second chance on a platter," Heero said, hurried by the growing cynicism in Duo's grimace. "Hear me out and don't automatically set your mind on throwing it away because you think you deserve death for what you've done-"

"The fuck I don't! You don't understand me, 'cause if you did, you'd know I do deserve it!"

"You hate yourself than you do me, Duo, and that's saying a lot! Just forget what you've done and change, become a better person than you were before, just learn gracefully from your mistakes; death is not a sensible way to repent for your crimes."

"You have no right to tell me how to pay for my sins; you did not grow up torn between two different cultures, two different religions in the same household and trying to sort out the truth in it all and finding nothing but death, so you can't tell me jackshit about it!"

"Committing suicide is a sin in itself, you know," Heero told him firmly, while the Neko bristled in return.

"Yeah, I knew that-what are you, a theologian all of a sudden? Oh, boy, I had no idea you were a scholar of Christianity on top of raging pretentious know-it-all!"

"Duo," Heero said finally, his exasperation cracking again to let desperation ooze out. "Duo, please-"

The bohemian bore a tooth at him and folded his arms, his knuckles a stressful white as he gripped at his elbows. "Oh, don't "Duo" me. I told you before that you knew nothing about me, so you got no right to say it like that, and I don't see that fact changing!"

"Oh? How do I say your name, then?" he asked doubtfully.

"Like you're going to break down any frickin' second and sob in my lap!" Duo snapped finally. "I can't stand it! Just say what you came to say and let's get this over with, Yuy," he ground out, twisting his head violently back around to burn a glare into the glittering surface of the duck pond, shooting daggers at the sleeping mallards disturbed by their voices.

"Alright. The judge told me that he really didn't want to give you the sentencing that he did, but circumstances didn't allow for anything less. You've seen the rioters, how furious the separatists and Anti-Nekos can get and you experienced first-hand just how ruthless some will be to make sure they can get their way. Judge Reimer has a family, Duo-he has children and grandchildren who stand to face the same kind of punishment you got just to get at Reimer himself if he acquitted you." Much to the surprise of Heero's hummingbird heart, Duo did not slit him from throat to gut when he couldn't hold back and reached out and laid a hand on his wrist, only twitched and tensed up. "But he had another option. The trial was so screwed up from the beginning-taking away all constitutional rights, putting a Neko on trial in the first place-that he's offering you an alternative sentence."

Duo didn't remove his arm and again turned to gaze blankly into those innocent but hardened blue eyes, expressionless. "And that is?"

"You'd have to serve out the rest of your life as a peace ambassador; you'd be obligated to all Neko-human relations and it would replace your life sentence in prison. The second life sentence would have to be carried out by your heir, but you would be free otherwise to live your life. He'd give you clemency, pardon all your crimes, and you'd be cleared of it all, Duo. You'd be free."

The hand snatched away coldly, matching the level, lifeless violet eyes that stared him back in the face, apparently unpleased. "But I'd be a slave to the government, wouldn't I? Their little beck-and-call bitch, someone to just sweep up the messy dilemmas they created, one of those messes being myself? Sell my soul to the people who harbored a man like Senator Peacecraft?" The one-eared Neko shook his head, feline ear pursed severely and his face reflecting it. "No. Thank you, but no way in Hell, traveler."

"But I'd be there," that hienn voice whispered. "Do you think I'd leave you bear that burden by yourself?"

"Sorry to break it to you, but I'm not exactly all too friendly with humans anymore and I'm no politician," Duo drawled deceptively, finding himself suddenly withdrawing further and further behind the protection of a humorous, morose shell that was wilting and shrinking away, too exhausted to continue for much longer. The traveler had the most obnoxious habit of crawling beneath his skin as quiet as night and finding a nice chunk of muscle to cling to and his eyes had the even more obnoxious habit of becoming even more beautiful when they filled with grief and sorrow and begged him, begged him to reconsider in a way he could see truly hurt his pride to do so. But then again, he probably had broken all that pride long ago, along with the traveler himself.

"What about the mixed kids like you, Duo? How much would you have given for someone to have stepped in and changed the events that ruined your life? How many times did you wish that someone had before it could escalate into the murderous slaughter that it did?" He kept nudging closer, drawing like a magnet to his polar opposite but still deathly afraid of what would happen should he get too close and get shoved away again. Through it all, there was a voice in him telling him that he could only push him away and he could always try again. Duo was sorely and stubbornly underestimating his own stubbornness.

The bohemian gazed off into his memory for a second, revisited by ghosts and finding them just as haunting as the other times he had let them get at him. "I would have given anything and everything; I wished, I prayed, I cursed Death to take it back, change just one thing," Duo confessed heavily, his eyelids hanging low with heartache, but he shook his head a second later, moonlight suddenly glittering in his tightly-shut eyelashes. "But he didn't change it, Heero, and I'm stuck in this cycle. All I have left to do is finish it and do what's right, what I'm supposed to. I should have done it right, Heero. I should have shot Peacecraft and then shot myself right there on that stage and ended this fucking madness before it reached you, too. Those sins need to be repaid and I need to die, or how else do you expect my family's souls to reach anyplace good when they're weighed down so much by their son's sins?"

"You can repay them. But you can't repay death with death; you can't make right out of two wrongs," Heero told him. "So please, take this chance, take it and run with it. You know how to run away, Duo, but you can't lie to yourself forever. Don't say you want to die and throw away your shot at redemption and don't say you'd leave me behind like that."

The con man snorted to himself as the rueful smile twisting his face tweaked painfully. "I run and hide, but I never tell a lie. That's Duo Maxwell in a nutshell," he recalled sadly. "Hah. I did bullshit myself more than anyone else, eh? But not anymore. To be honest, I'm getting sick of it."

Hopeful blue eyes followed that regretful, pathetic smile spread across the bohemian's face until it faded away like no more than a hallucination of summer heat. "But I can't do it, Heero."

"Just say you will anyway," he implored in return, wrapping the top of his hand over Duo's bloodied knuckles and the arm they turned white gripping fiercely. His bones shook terribly and Heero knew it wasn't from the warm summer night. "After all, if I had the guts to bet it all on what seemed like a lost cause and you to go on after a tragic event like the one you survived, then we can both accept this chance." The wearied human let his heavy breath out in a sigh and in a vulnerable impulse of his lonely, black-hole heart, he let his entire body slump and bowed his head down humbly until his forehead rested on the other man's shoulder. Even without his inhuman senses, Duo could hear him, with heartbreaking expression, whisper to him, "We can share the load, Duo. I'll take my share and more if you'll just take the first step… and if you want, I'll leave you the hell alone, but I'll still be there to pick up what you can't carry and everything else you need me to. Break my back if need be, I'll be your beast of burden-please… just take it."

The warm, genuine sensation of the traveler falling to pieces against him, burying his face from the world, from Duo's misgivings and distrust in his very shoulder, grounded him painfully back to earth and took him out of whatever fantasy of righteousness and false sense of perseverance he had been clouded by. It took him back to sanity with a heavy hammer and clenching hand refusing to let his own go. And when he felt that weigh returning, a grounding, liberating weigh, he couldn't help but to sink into the traveler as well, burying his face in his unkempt hair and inhaling the scent of cheap hotel shampoo, bar smoke, distant alcohol, and saline coming off him. He indulged again in his forbidden fruit and felt weakness coming back and didn't give a shit about it.

He twisted his head to the side so he could whisper into the traveler's ear, "Aiena yaimo. Aiena a billion times, Heero, (1)" while dropping his folded arms to snake them around his neck. "I really suck at this trusting thing and I did all of this to you when you really didn't deserve any of my shit to deal with, none of it. I suck, and you should be put up for sainthood."

The traveler chuckled softly into Duo's shoulder and, with his hummingbird heart driven to a weightless euphoria by the feel of arms around his tired back, put his own tightly around the bohemian's shoulders. "I'm not going to say it wasn't hard; I'm not going to lie," he choked out lovably. "But it's worth doing, worth more than anything I've ever done. Even worth every time you were about to rip my head off and worth every hotheaded nickname you called me."

Duo chuckled genuinely as he held him, his breath ghosting along the edge of his sensitive hienn ear, and a hand wandered from its place around his back to soothe back the hair in his eyes, running down the side of his face and drawing his eyes up to the bohemian's face. He squinted warmly at the blue eyes that had once haunted him and now haunted him even more, but this time in very good way, and cracked a smile. "Names are just something other people give you, and I was a little edgy, so don't worry about them." He tilted his head, his baseball cap still askew at an almost boyish angle. "I've grown kind of attached to Traveler, though."

Heero responded with his own glowing smirk. "That's fine-if I can call you my Bohemian."

"Deal," Duo purred, teasing his fingers through a disheveled head of hair he'd longed to muss for an agonizingly long time. He paused when Heero clamped his hand down on his wrist again, this time as cautiously as if it were wrapped in barbed wire, and he pulled back to make sure he had the bohemian's full attention. For an instant, the fear had found its root in those blue eyes again; though diminished, it still was there.

"Then what's your answer?"

"Quit making those puppy-dog eyes at me and I'll make you a deal, how about? You get me buy me a house special steak dinner, medium rare, and I'll accept the judge's offer," Duo proposed toothily, his stomach giving off an appropriate imploring growl and chuckling. "I'd kill for something to eat right about now."

Heero joined him with his own anxious laugh. "Just don't," he joked, turning half a shade paler. "We're in enough trouble to last us a while."

They had separated from their comfortable slouching and Duo tossed an arm affectionately around the traveler's shoulder as they leaned back on the park bench, a situation that would have been an impossibly tense and flustered proposition only a few minutes ago. Out before them, the pond still glittered noiselessly and the sleeping mallards bobbed aimlessly through the reeds, oblivious to the stray cat that had slunk down to the edge of the water and drank inches away from them. The lion laid down with the lamb, and the human could put his arm around the Neko's waist without fear of losing it. Duo's moondrinking retinas shifted toward Heero's face, painted a sublime blue silver, and he lifted an eyebrow. "Us?"

An equally sublime smile crossed Heero's face. "Well," he murmured, a hint of blush turning ghostly violet over his cheeks. The bohemian laughed softly and found his drawn lips claimed suddenly and passionately by the traveler's and this time, he intertwined their fingers and drew him closer to give him a true taste of what he'd only sampled briefly one night in a gypsy's tent. Heero paused suddenly, his breath rushing between his parted lips with utmost caution and counting the one-eared Neko's eyelashes until his eyes drifted lazily open, a lounging, passionate violet. Without even a word, Duo answered his silent question by leaning up to make their lips meet again.

The stray cat prowling the slumbering park trotted off through the grass, slunk across the sidewalk, and disappeared somewhere into the city lights.

Sometime later on a dark, emptied one way in the south district a small black silhouette could be seen from a block away against the permeating orange glow caused by the streetlights and out of it two pair of legs sprawled out onto the edge of the street, one reclined and the other bent at the knees. Vega continued forward down toward that figure in the small green car he and his wife had recently bought and his curiosity had grown almost unbearable as he drew close enough to see hints of light on the figure. He pulled over to the abandoned sidewalk and let the engine rumble in park, with the image of Heero Yuy sitting on the curb and one exhausted Duo Maxwell dozing soundly with his back against his chest and hand clamped over the traveler's embracing arms illuminated in his headlights.

Nearing two o'clock in the city of Cinq, a sleeping metropolis oblivious to the fact that it's most nefarious criminal was calmly strolling the streets in his bare feet and baseball hat cocked slightly off-center, that green car was parked in the third parking space in front of a convience store. The industrial lights oozing out of the windows painted the sleepy streets a stark brightness in comparison to the rest of the city. That light reached in through the windshield to illuminate the faces of the three men sitting inside of it. The one sitting in the passenger seat was indeed that criminal, the half-Nekonese man the whole city had seemingly rallied behind sending to his death, happily inhaling the cheap hamburger he'd been given by the man in the driver's seat and reaching down to snatch up the milkshake he'd order along with it. Duo hesitated instinctively when he felt a pair of eyes on him and shifted his own upward, still slit in the darkness and reflecting silver at times, only to see Heero watching him in turn. Instead of filling with a flush, he only continued his protective vigilance with a tweak of a smile at the corner of his lip. He'd felt a little disappointed he couldn't get him the steak dinner he'd promised him, all vegan reservations aside, but Duo had insisted it only mattered if it was food. He flashed him a toothy smirk of days of old and dug back in to feed his withering hunger, one that had almost taken him to the edge of death that night.

There were no chopsticks and there was no sun in the sky to shine on the undulating grass, but it was just as, if not more beautiful as a more innocent day of the past to Heero, who suddenly felt a little bit of earth in his black-hole heart to settle his feet on.

"Man," a low voice moaned unhappily, echoing through the darkened corridor like an intruding ghost in a peaceful place. "I thought you guys loved me more than this," the shadow of Duo Maxwell joked as he reluctantly leaned against the cement wall beside his old cell, sniffing distastefully at the residue of blood and pure misery that taunted him from inside it. Through the darkness of the devil's hour, only he could see the long shallow, claw-shaped gashes in the wall and the lines of blood that dripped down from the tips. And there was another starburst of red on the sidewall drawn from his abused knuckles, and a bloodstained bar twisted jaggedly to one side in the sliding barred door. He chuckled in his uniquely morose charm. "But I guess it's a one-night stand kind of thing. Just toss me back in when you've had your fun with me, no harm, no foul done."

Vega could appreciate his morbid humor and laughed at it while he rummaged for his key in his pocket, still in his plainclothes and still avoiding his supervisor should she find out he'd played hookie on him and not only not being guarding their most dangerous convict but touring him around the city. "It's only probably for one more night, Duo. I'll inform Judge Reimer of your decision and you'll definitely be out by tomorrow, if not sooner. The press are going to have a field day when they find out you've pulled another Maxwell and come out scrape-free."

"Not to mention they'll be scared to death to know you're free to terrorize them again," Heero added from the opposite side of the deputy with a smirk and a certain radiant glow to his expression. "Maxwell's Demon walks from his own conviction and rides again. What a character."

"Sorry," Duo purred in return. "I think he'll be on hiatus for a while. But I'll be here to take his messages, you know."

The lock for the barred door, only one away from Duo's original holding cell, one still pocked with blood and freshly fragrant with the depression he'd been idling in, twisted with a protesting click and swung open. Unbeknownst to the authorities in the main section of the police department, only one corridor way, the infamous criminal they boasted custody of finally returned to his cell while the sky lightened gradually on another day. Only the judge who'd ordered him out for a breath of fresh air, worried about his well-being, and the guards Vega had called in with favors that had made themselves scarce for a while pretending to be on guard duty. He'd known them for a long time in the department and was sure to join them for a few last call drinks at an insomniac's bar, one that didn't close it's doors until the sleepless slept. He opened a cell for Duo, who was forced to return behind bars while by all laws he obeyed-his own conscience-he was a free man. This one had not been ripped apart by grief and misery and the bunkbeds rested soundly on the walls and the sink sat in the corner. Duo had sworn he wouldn't tear this one apart on a fit of rage, cross his heart, and hope to die, with a droll face and his hand on his chest. Vega smirked and told him he'd better just get inside before they all got caught.

Heero was standing to the side of the deputy and smiling as well when Duo turned to look at him, framed by the open frame of the cell door, and took his hand without a word and suddenly without that jester face. The traveler automatically hesitated, feeling as if something was suddenly wrong, when Duo asked in all seriousness, "Stay with me?" His hand squeezed once, pleading him, but Heero didn't loose an ounce of that quiet, simmering bliss in his eyes and let another radiantly sublime smile do the reassuring for him.

"Why would you think that I wouldn't?"

The unbridled joy and ardor in the bohemian's eyes turned to an instant pool of lust and Heero had no sooner felt his body being pulled forward than Duo's lips on his, claiming them for his own and doing it very assertively. He let himself be pressed up against the wall with a very grateful abandon and finally get a decent bohemian kiss, grunting from the sheer impassioned force Duo used and showed in showering his neck and hienn ears with inciting kisses and laughing wonderfully at it. He closed the gap between him and the bohemian again and Vega went chuckling down the corridor at an amble, soon to return to his wife, who had finally found her sleep muse, and slip in bed beside her with a warm little twist of the lips. Things could always be counted on to almost systematically and reliably get worse in the world, but for once there would be a fighting chance to defy that predestination.

So things were all the better.

(1) Aiena yaimo = I'm sorry.

[[[A/N]]]

I'd better be careful what I say. This is an important chapter, and now that I've actually finished it, I'm a little sad. It's akin to watching your child, the same child you raised and worked so hard to make good of, starting off on its own. The reason I'm getting so mushy on you poor readers is that I've never-you hear me, never!-gotten this far with a Gundam Wing story, or any story, really! And I feel pretty proud that did this chapter some justice and I actually finished it. That means I'll actually finish The One-Eared Neko. For a procrastinator who can lose interest in even very deserving stories that's a real accomplishment. Listen, to tell you the truth, I've been writing as long as I could remember and reading even before that, and I have a whole junkload of little stapled books from when I was five years old, all creative and all that-but not a single finished one. It's awesome (and I'm sorry you just about had to hear about my whole repressed childhood). Not that this story's finished yet, oh no. There's still another chapter left, people! I can't tell you how much all your response and your praise has pushed me along and given me inspiration to keep going, despite my inborn nature to move onto something else when difficulties arise. Readers are an unsung miracle, I tell you. Anyway, dry your eyes and I'll go start on the final chappy of Neko, though I might start bawling halfway through. If you're still worried after all I've said and you haven't read my bio on FanFiction, there's a continuation (I hate the word, "sequel") in the works. Happy New Year!

The song is the very poignant and fitting, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?". There's two versions, one by Nirvana, which is the one I prefer, or the original by Leadbelly. Either way, it's a very emotional song I think you should check out if you haven't already. It'll add a lot.