Hallelujah In Blue

He’d barely made it out of the atmosphere. Damn Spike. One thruster at half power, the other only functioning sporadically. It would be slow progress anywhere; there was no hurry to report. No need to let them know how close he’d come to failing. The corpses would only exchange wise, smug smiles. Expectant smiles. They could hardly wait for the day that they would learn of his death.

Buttons clicked as pale fingertips tapped out the sequence. Destination: anywhere but here. The stars chided him; cold, distant pinpricks of light. Cowardice. Not cruelty. Not power. Just cowardice.

"Please select destination."

Vicious punched a few more buttons randomly. Anywhere but here…
God only knows what happened back there. And for certain, Vicious didn’t want to know. Knowledge of that fact made him distinctly uncomfortable.

"Invalid destination. Please select destination."

"…"   What is the code for oblivion? More random buttons pushed.

"The hell with it."

Maybe he didn’t want to know where he was going right now. Fingers wrapped around the joystick, tensing of their own accord.

Blue eyes swam across his vision. Betrayal. Gren hadn't even bothered to look pissed. What was he, some kind of goddamned saint? After everything Vicious had done to him…all the pain he'd caused? They'd fought together on Titan! Didn't that mean anything to the damned idiot longhair…idealist…beautiful…?

The least he could've done was be angry with me. In the very least. Just pointed that gun at me like he had a score to settle…like it was nothing personal.

Titan is beautiful from here...

Spike wouldn’t kill him, would he…?

Just as the tendril of worry curled through his mind, the distant cough of a ten-year-old Swordfish engine roared and dissipated. His head snapped around. He spotted a familiar silhouette etching through the starlight, reflecting it until the entire body of the ship took on a glow.

Gren’s ship.

It was in pathetic shape, the metal of the wings and underside rippled and torn in places from a powerful concussion. By rights, that thing shouldn't have been able to leave Callisto's atmosphere at all. He's probably dead. He's got to be. Thrusters are off. Vicious' eyes narrowed.

I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't…

"Damnit!" Miraculously, both engines gunned and roared into the emptiness of space as Vicious leaned hard left and swung about to retrieve the musician's vessel.

His comrade.

Blue eyes slid open, groggy, clouded. What. What now. Engine sounds...but...Spike left him a long time ago...

"Probably some stranger come to stare at the unfortunate, and therefore pity." He muttered, weakly. "I don't need pity. I need to die..."

A sleek shark rose through the ocean, the metallic nose of it just coming into Gren's darkening vision. But there were no sharks in space... “No sharks, but there's wolves, that's for damn sure.” He coughed, shoulders spasming even as more blood welled through the fingers crossing his lips.

The shark had a rider. Enclosed in the craft's cab was a head of moonlight hair, and a drained, seamed face. The eyes were wild with fear, which Gren had not expected. A lasso of wire coil caught some twisted crag of the musician's ship, and the jerk almost startled him to move.

"Junk collectors not even waiting for the owner to die first?"

Another jerk. He was being towed. Vicious' ship rode abreast of his, and as the silver-haired man's hands clamped the choke, his eyes never left the blood-streaked face. Gren gave him a careless smile, made macabre by the red lines at the corners of his mouth. Recognition danced just beyond his reach...it was...he was...the name burned away from his memory by the ghostly premonition of death.

"I thought that death brought all the answers." He muttered. "How very ironic."

Titan. After the blood. When life began again, after the killing stopped, there was a lull over the entire platoon. They had killed. Now, they were once again conscious of the blood on their hands, or splashed liberally over their clothes, as the desperation of survival trickled away. A few took up incoherent moans. Gren simply drew into himself, shutting out everyone and everything. It didn’t matter. In an hour they'd be deployed again, and he could shove the horror and anger to a dark corner once more. But every time he locked those feelings up, they mated, and their issue—guilt, self-pity, and helplessness—haunted him in their stead.

He hadn't always been alone. Sometimes Vicious came to sit with him. He asked to be called that...a nickname gathered in the aftermath of a trench war, when Vicious had nearly killed a fellow soldier who refused to fight. In slow motion, Gren watched the scene again, as a steely hand clamped around the troublesome comrade's throat and shoved him against the side of the trench.

"Everyone with fingers to press a trigger will fight!" Vicious screamed, "You may think I'm vicious...but you don't know what vicious is! Vicious is those guerillas out there...they'll take your head off without flinching, and if you don't fight, they will!"

But when Vicious leaned against the trench wall beside Gren, despite the latter's attempts to put him off, the quiet presence was anything but his namesake. He spoke little, but he was almost always there.

You saved my life then...why did you damn me afterward? Why did you bother? Were you keeping me safe...just for that?

Everything ached, and he was cold, despite a heavy pile of blankets. He tried to move.

"Don't." The word was a command, issued too late.

"Rgh!" Death wasn't supposed to be painful...and he should have been dead. But if Gren was dead, how could he explain the horrible throbbing, searing through his ribcage? He dropped back, breath hitching as the rise and fall of his chest brought torture in its wake. There was no point. At this rate, death would be rescuing him in minutes. But the creeping weakness that previously threatened to sap him had, if anything, receded. Maybe he was dead, after all. In that case...he must be in hell. Angels didn’t get gut-aches. Or...did they?

Gren found that his eyes no longer resisted the urge to open, and so the lids drew back, gaze focusing blearily upward at an institutional tiled ceiling. That wasn’t right..."God."

"I told you not to move."

That voice.

Just a little sluggish and dragging; its bearer eternally tired. The tone low; the words imperceptibly slurred. An alto sax, played by some unfortunate all-night bar musician in the early hours of the morning.

But of course, only Gren would appreciate the analogy. One person had that particular voice, which he recognized immediately.

"Are you an angel?" He asked the shape at his bedside, not turning his face from its scrutiny of the patterns in the ceiling tile.

"An angel, fallen from heaven." The shadow replied, an ironic smile hedging the corners of his voice.

"Then I suppose…that makes you a devil." His mouth quirked, breath rattling hollowly.

"You’d know. They're your words."

"Why am I still alive…?"

"Your ship was floating outside Titan's gravitational field. You were hurt." Vicious answered, simply. To Gren—who previously spent years in the man's company—it was explanation enough. He'd been rescued—whether he liked it or not. And probably taken to Titan, though this wasn't quite the way he'd wanted.

"Why did you…come after me, Vicious? Didn't you already...have what you wanted?"

Silence reigned. To be honest, Gren had expected nothing less. "Have some...other job that...you want me...to go down for?"

"Don't talk anymore."

"Why? Afraid I'll...hit a nerve?"

"No. You're having a hard time."

"Oh." Defeated, Gren was quiet for a moment, but for the grating of his breath. Then, "Don't expect me...to thank you."

The sliding rustle of canvas drew the bedridden man from his fascination with the ceiling tile. His head turned just in time to catch the corner of Vicious' cloak, slapping against the doorframe as he exited the room.

"...Damn."

Don't expect me to thank you. The Red Dragon syndicate agent looked anything but professional at the moment, slumped against the wall outside Gren's hospital room. He crossed his arms tightly over a broad, sleekly-muscled chest, gaze connecting dully with the polished tile floor.

Tiles on the ceiling...tiles on the wall...tiles on the floor. What the hell is it with tile in hospitals? Vicious' eyes narrowed, venting his anger on the unfortunate linoleum. He'd dragged that bastard out of space and saved his ungrateful ass. So what if Titan only had one tiny hamlet, and an even tinier hospital? Was the Blue Crow any better?

He's ungrateful because you put him here.
And not just because you brought him here.

Fuzzy-edged and thorny with cold, deadly anger, the memory emerged.

"You're in the way."
Missile activated. Launched.

He'd only meant to put the ship out of commission...it hadn’t been his intention to nearly kill Gren. Get him out of the way—that's what it was for.

The bomb in the briefcase? That was his order. He didn’t like it, but for once, he wasn't a law unto himself. There was no honor among thieves. And if Gren was disappointed with his opal and decided to let it slip who'd exchanged it for Red Eye...the syndicate would've killed him anyway. Slowly.

Still, it was a coward's method of murder. One would think that Vicious, of all people, would never stoop to that level.

Not cruelty. Not power. Just...cowardice.

The stars chided him again, enclosed beneath the roof of the dingy TCH ward as he was.

Coward.
There is no honor among thieves...

Three weeks passed, and Gren found himself the uncommon center of an unorthodox universe. For the first week, he could count on Vicious to be sitting by his bedside whenever he awoke. Strange. The cold-hearted snake had never shown an interest in his welfare before...not since he'd damned the musician to hell.

Fallen angel, indeed. Truth lay in the statement that the most beautiful faces often concealed the most vile of dispositions.

And yet, here he was. Looming over the side of the hospital bed like a feral, crouching shadow. A reminder of the death that never came. Never rescued him.

Surgery repaired what damage the missile blast had left to Gren's delicate organs, though the doctors stiffly assured him that if he persisted in squirming, he'd ruin their handiwork. Wisely, he did not repeat his earlier error—but while the sutures stopped his body, they didn't stop his mouth.

Sometimes he talked, and sometimes Vicious ordered him not to talk. Either way, the conversation remained one-sided—and he never knew whether the other man thought he was overextending his fragile resources or...he just wanted Gren to be silent.

After the second week—and the doctors let their patient sit up—Vicious began disappearing at long intervals. Gren couldn't count on him to be there when his eyes opened in the morning, and despite fierce protests to the contrary, the Titan veteran found that he missed the company. However steely and silent.

The third week—he showed up once. Briefly, words clipped even shorter than usual, expression harried—if indeed Vicious' vocabulary of expressions exceeded 'coldly impassive,' 'smug satisfaction,' and 'pissed.' Gren used his admirable mental restraint to clamp down on a rising frustrated scream. He waited for the retreating smack of heavy black canvas cape against the doorframe, and fell back against his pillows in exhaustion.

"Why didn’t you just let me die? I was getting to it...but you broke off my solo. Grounds enough to bash your head in."

His eyelids lowered sleepily. Depression made a person sleep a lot, the nurse informed him. As if he didn't know. Whenever he'd been imprisoned in solitary, Gren had slept.

And slept.

And slept, captured in a dream of his own weaving, desperate to remember...and forget.

Julia was right. Endless dreams were sometimes as much comfort as outright torture. Blessing and curse, tightly braided into the subconscious, impossible to separate. Gren drifted into familiar slumber, then, with the voice of Julia ringing in his ears.

Vicious...Julia...why can’t I just hate you?

Discharge day. As if that was something to celebrate. He located a pair of jeans, a white cotton shirt, and a loose, thick linen jacket in his favorite color.

Red. Odd, considering everyone associated him with blue. Anyone who cared to associate him with a color, anyway. And there wasn't one who cared enough to know that his color was red since Julia, and she was long gone. Vicious never talked to him long enough to ask. Oh well.

He rose from yanking on a pair of scuffed red leather boots, stretched as he hadn't in months, and drew the pristine cotton over his shoulders, slender fingers pushing each button through its hole. His mind always registered a little twinge of shock at the extra pull of the fabric over his chest, and he looked down. Maybe one day he'd indulge himself in an outfit that exploited the curves, rather than bound and hid them. Or not. He supposed it was his choice, now.

"Wonder what the nurses had to say about me during pre-op," he murmured, a half smile reflected in the mirror below carefully scrutinizing blue eyes, "bet they were surprised."

"Not as surprised as I was." There was that alto-sax again, thrumming from the open door.

Gren didn't turn. He didn't have to. "Surely you've seen stranger things, haven't you, Vicious? You've been around a lot more than I have." He laughed, bitterly.

Even though he couldn't see the other man directly, Gren detected a flinch

"What do you mean by that?"

"Easy, take it easy." Gren replied softly, "All I meant was that you've been out. Seen things. Done things." His voice caught, but he forced himself to sit, using the movement as an excuse for the falter. He bent, leaning on his knees, white hands dangling uselessly between his thighs. "I spent so much time in solitary...with two decisions...have nightmares, or have withdrawals." Dismal shadows curtained his face, as the watery institutional lighting left blue highlights in the drape of mane. The doctors hadn't stripped him of it, and so it was as long as ever, loose around his shoulders. "I chose the nightmares a lot. That's why I am the way I am."

"The way you are." Vicious echoed, confusion cracking his otherwise still mask.

Gren's head shot up from its study of the floor. Backlit blue eyes inflamed with anger. "I'm a woman, damnit! No...I...am not even that. Not really." He sighed, fury passing rapidly.

It was enough. His companion took an involuntary step backward, as though struck. That's right, Gren's thoughts turned acid, run away. Run away because I'm not the same person you knew then. I'm not the same man, to be used and tossed aside.

"Spend the rest of your life pitying yourself, Eckener." The gentle slur disappeared, as a tiger unvelveted his claws.

"I don't pity myself."

"Good."

"I blame you."

"I know."

"And...?"

"You should."

"What?" Gren retorted in disbelief, rising from the edge of the mattress. "No denial? No insincere apology? Where's your soul? The least you could do is make a halfass attempt to comfort the person you've been torturing since the Titan wars ended."

Vicious turned, his back to the room as one powerful hand rested on the doorframe. "And the least you could do is admit that what happened did more than just improve your sarcasm."

The musician's elfin chin dropped in shock, and snapped up again, etched into a mockery of a gentle smile. "I understand. You want to see my tears. It wasn't enough to know that you betrayed me, that your betrayal made me go crazy...made them dope me with chemicals, made me into this...!" He gestured wildly to the swelled line of his chest, just visible beneath his labored breathing.

"You don’t—"

"And. And, after I escaped from prison, your testimony forced me to live in a frozen hellhole. I had nobody until Julia came...and then you had the gall to take her away from me too. Without so much as a goddamned goodbye. Just waited until she was alone in our apartment...and took her."

"I had no—"

"Like hell you had no choice." Gren cut him off, pushed past the breaking point by years of suppression. He snarled. "Orders can be obeyed, or disobeyed. I found that out. Just like trust can be made...and broken." Deep sapphire eyes smoldered as Gren stared the paler man down. Vicious flinched again.

"And after all that, you couldn't even let me die the way I wanted. Still wasn't enough. After you rescue me, you want to see me break, too."

"I won't ask your forgiveness. I don’t want it." Vicious' low voice rasped into the hall.

The other man stared at his unmoving back. Sighed. Then, he moved closer, irresistibly drawn by the same attraction that had moved him for years...driven him insane with loneliness. "Want it or not, you have it, you unfeeling bastard."

He shoved past the broad black shoulder of the syndicate agent's duster, few belongings tucked in a plastic bag and dangling from three fingers. In a few more steps, he was whistling.

Don’t let him go.
But that’s what I want.
Don’t let him leave.
It’s better this way...

"I'm not an unfeeling bastard."

Gren froze, poised to turn the corner. "Oh?" He shook an errant tendril of shadowed hair from his face, and eyed Vicious with a single, distant blue iris. "That's your opinion." He continued to walk.

Until a steely hand clamped around his wrist on the backward swing. Gren jumped, shocked nearly out of his mind more by the fact that Vicious touched him.

Was still touching him.

"Bastard…let me go." He heard his own voice twisting into a desperate growl.

The expression of the ice sculpture grappling with him began to melt, to warp out of shape.

That's not…no, he doesn’t look like that. He can't. Sorrow never found a definition in his dictionary.

"What makes you think I'm incapable of feeling, Gren?"

Gren. He'd never called the man by the affectionate form of his name...to that effect, never called him by his given name at all...even when they were...

"Past experience."

"Past experience, bullshit. You have no idea what it was like..."

"To turn me in?" Gren spat, "To know that I was taking the fall for something you had done?"

"What the hell makes you think it was my doing?" Vicious could have squeezed harder. He could have shattered the other man's wrist. Gren winced at the intimation of power behind the grip, but refused to back down.

"Why should I think otherwise? You almost got away with it, too. If Julia hadn't said something, I'd never have known. Maybe in a few years I could have convinced myself that you really had believed I was guilty of espionage. Then...maybe I wouldn't have wanted revenge so badly."

Vicious snorted. "You aren't capable of vengeance. That's for the dying souls."

"Don't tell me what I'm capable of! You don't know me. You stopped knowing me the day you practically locked me into hell with your own hands!" A hysterical note crept into the musician's voice.

He couldn't stop. Couldn't stop imagining that beautiful voice...betraying him...uttering the false testimony over, and over, and over, and...

"I did what I had to do."

"This isn't about you anymore, Vicious." Gren tore at the restraining hand, "It's about what it takes to be free of this, for all."

Low voice. Lower than ever. As if he was terribly, terribly frightened of what he had to say next.

"I don't want to be free of this, for all." The words rasped rawly out of the silver-haired man's throat, leaving a burning ache behind. It hurt. Despite the walls of indifference, the rime of ice crystallized over empty years of killing and suffering with his conscience in silence. Underneath the bitter frost, a heart still pulsed. There was a human inside the machine, after all. A human in the grip of utter torture.

Blue eyes narrowed, and Gren's lips thinned. "It's a little late for that."

Vicious released him, and he was gone.

But never entirely gone...never again.

Five Months Later...

Spike watched the musician coiled on his stool near the piano with dispassionate interest. He looked familiar...but only vaguely. Almost woman-pretty, and with eyes that could make any red-blooded female swoon. They reminded him of Julia. Which made no sense. The player lidded his eyes, hiding their color again. Spike tossed back the remains of his drink and was out of the bar before the ice had time to clatter to the bottom of his glass. He had a job to do...since Faye abandoned the Bebop to go haring off on some damned goose chase, it was back to the old days...just Jet and Spike...oh, and the kid, of course. And the dog.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite back to the old days. So what. Spike had a small-time thug to line up for the half-million woolong reward he promised. Cop-killer almost by accident. Probably wouldn't get in more than a couple of good kicks before he had the guy.

God, was this gig getting boring?

He felt the incredible, jazz-blue gaze on his shoulders as he left.

The saxophone's reed slipped out of the musician's mouth as the piano drew the tune to its close. He lowered the curve of brass to his lap, idly stroking the skin-warmed metal. A stranger had come to his bar. Even in five years' time, and a long history of hardship, the memory of those bicolored eyes stood clear. They'd only met once, and beholding the gaze for the second time, he found himself remembering Julia.

And then, remembering Faye.

Spike.

Which could mean any number of things. It didn't concern him. The statute of limitations had long since passed on his bounty and charges, and even the lanky Cowboy took him for dead.

I should be dead.

But he wasn't, and stubbornly, Gren refused to think of Vicious.

It was like trying not to think about a blue cow.

He sighed.

The pianoman looked at him, questioning. Gren straightened and lifted the mouthpiece to his lips again, nodding to his accompanist.

The song picked up, and Gren played a few bars as they had rehearsed. Then, letting his mind wander, he felt the strains of Julia's Song slide from his fingertips into the softly winking instrument. Haunting blues blended flawlessly with the undertones of the piano, and the other man shook his head, a sad smile tugging at his lips as he spied the saxophone player's expression from beneath the angled lid of his instrument.

Must’ve been some woman, that Julia.

Nestled in the curve of the baby grand's gleaming ebony, Gren tilted his head back, shortened blue-black hair dripping to his shoulders as he threw himself into the riffs. The saxophone wailed throatily with all the emotion he dared not surface.

In the street outside, a thick black shadow paused before the door of the tavern, darkened, impenetrable hood turned in eery fascination. The music played on, and the shadow listened, edging closer.

The song ended, and Gren's head snapped up, shoving the curtain of beetle-sheened bangs from his eyes with an impatient hand. He searched every corner of the room, scanning the sea of upturned faces below the low dais where he and the pianist played. Nothing.

A dark flash at the corner of his vision brought Gren's eyes to the door, in time to catch the almost inaudible smack of canvas against the doorframe.

Nothing.

He bit off a gasp, pulse racing, and tore through the crowd to the doorway.

Nothing. Cold wind blasted his face, mocking.

As though stilled by his frenzy, the patrons came to life again, and their cacophany drowned out his ragged breathing.

His accompanist gave him an odd look as he returned. "Take the night off, Eli," the broad-shouldered man advised him, "I can keep the mob entertained by myself. Or Janey and Conal can get out their brass act. Lord knows they've been jealous since the patrons started asking for you."

'Eli' hazarded a glance toward the bar, where a curvaceous woman with a head of knotty red curls wiped down the counter and cast an interested eye toward their exchange. Her husband and partner ghosted up behind her, tall, wraith-thin, sporting a close-cropped shock of ice blond hair. Janey and Conal. Now two pairs of eyes – one green, one gold – focused on them intently. Gren waved them over, and said his goodbyes before heading out into the night. If his search was fruitless, at least he could always go home.

Spike, however, had other plans.

The Cowboy lounged against the outer wall of the tavern, one hand casually stuffed in his pants pocket, and the other nursing a cigarette captured between the two halves of a smirk.

"Thought you were dead." Spike commented casually, through his teeth.

"You're right," Gren tilted his head up and smiled. "I am dead."

"Then it's a ghost I'm talking to?"

"I was a ghost even before I died. How did you know it was me? I've been dead for a while. Death changes a person."

Broad shoulders hunched in a halfhearted shrug, creasing the seams of Spike's jacket. "Something jogged my memory. The music you were playing."

"You've heard me play it before…?"

"Faye used to hum it all the time. And so did Julia."

They both winced, and silence strung between them as each studied his own shoes. Spike was the first to break the still, voice low. "Who resurrected you?"

"Vicious."

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette and let it fall, mashing it brutally into the pavement with the heel of his boot. Gren watched, fascinated.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

Just a few minutes ago, I think..."About half a year ago."

"Really?"

Gren closed his eyes and raised a gentling hand, indicating that he didn't want to say anymore. Spike didn't press. "If you do see him, be careful. He wouldn't have done what he did without a reason. He knows you're alive?"

"Last time I checked." The musician scanned the growing pools of dark in the street. What were the chances of finding the man before sundown? It had to be him...

"All right," Spike shuffled away a few steps, picking up on the other man's flat tone. "I'll warn you. The Syndicate's moving. If he's still after you, he'll be looking for you soon. Just be careful."

Gren smiled again, knowingly. He took a few steps in the other direction, swinging his saxophone case gently. "And if I see anything, call you?" He mimed holding a telephone to his ear. Spike lit another cigarette and grinned.

The music haunted Vicious, as no other music ever would. Gren somehow woke the soul of the tune from its sleep beneath the harmony; that damned saxophone of his singing answers to the piano's siren call.

It was Julia's Song. But it wasn't. Gren filled the melody with more longing than he’d ever heard in the tinkling music box.

Vicious leaned against rough-hewn brickwork in a dismal alley across from the bar. His eyes closed, and again, the remnants of memorized tune filtered through his head. Sleek, sensuous saxophone rips replaced the old, twinkling metallic thrum. His lips twisted into a smile. The music box was broken. He’d never hear the sounds of Julia's Song again.

As if conjured by his own fevered brain, the object of the syndicate agent's thoughts appeared in the doorway, and cast his gaze up and down the street, blue gaze searching the pools of lamplight.

He was gone again in a matter of moments, decidedly crestfallen and shivering in the bitter wind. Mars was a much colder planet than Earth or Venus, despite the solar-paneled satellites that kept the Red Planet from freezing over. Vicious spared him a moment of pity, to be living on this godforsaken rock.

Would have spared him more, had Spike not chosen then to return. Vicious shifted uneasily, and as the sheath of his katana brushed against his hip, icy, pale fingers wrapped around the hilt. Squeezed. He could challenge the man now...right here.

No. Old friends deserved better deaths than that. The Red Dragon Syndicate was the only place to say an appropriate farewell—it was, after all, the place where Vicious was born, risen from the ashes of his previous life and practically delivered into the Cowboy’s hands. Spike wasn’t a bounty hunter then…but a ruthless, efficient machine. A perfect mentor for Mau Yen Rai’s protégée.

Perhaps one could say his birthmother, then, was Julia. After all, hadn’t she been the one who lured him into contacting the Syndicate? Convinced him to abandon the life of a drifter…the wandering war hero?

I trusted her too damn much for my own good. All she wanted was my loyalty to the Syndicate…and then she left me to them.

He was already a killer and a traitor...they stripped him of compassion...froze him into a state of apathy, with a casual disregard for human life.

Oh, it wasn’t Spike's fault. He was one and the same, but at least he had a lifeline to keep his heart from completely icing over. Julia.

Vicious had come within breaths of shooting her.

Pity.

He should have finished the job.

The same bitch that murdered me gave him life. No wonder I've never stopped hating him.

The Cowboy leaned against the wall outside the tavern door for some minutes, slowly sucking a cigarette to the butt, and lighting another one.

You lucky bastard...

Vicious continued to toy with the thought of skewering the man's heart, right through that blue flannel suit jacket. The way the fabric would give under the tip of his sword...the fear that he'd never been able to conjure in Spike's eyes...

The hand on the katana hilt squeezed fiercely, a trickle of blood drawn as an imperceptible burr left in the production of the sword pierced his palm.

Wait...is that...?

He blinked, and shook his head fiercely. Gren reappeared, and from his demeanor and the saxophone case swinging gently from one fist, he was going home. Spike intercepted him, and from the familiar—if somewhat reserved—exchange, he could safely assume that they knew one another.

Gren smiled at the thinly-drawn bounty hunter, and a switch flipped off in Vicious' mind.

The musician trusted Spike. Very well. If indeed his need for revenge drove him to kill the man eventually, he would do it with honor, and not happenstance.

Damn. This is the same reason I couldn't pull the trigger on Julia.

Vicious turned and stalked deeper into the alley's throat, ignoring puddles of skinned-over rain. The dark consumed what little could be seen of him, and in a breath, nothing remained but a single, pinprick bloodstain, blossoming on the dingy pavement.

Hands...

Hands brushing hands...brushing skin...sliding through his hair...caressing his lips...

Hands seeking every inch of him that responded...turning the touches into delicious torture as his body arced with desire.

"Ngh."

Gren sat up, and winced at the knot in his back, just above the kidneys.

He remembered that knot. He was home, and sprawled on the couch. The couch with the lump that always left his back in agony.

"I need a new couch."

When did he get here?

The saxophone nestled into the nearby armchair told him. His jacket draped across the hard black vinyl in dark, nested folds. He’d given up on searching for Vicious...how long ago?

The clock on the microwave said three hours. Enough for a sleep and a dream?

Enough to pass out after covering practically the whole city. Were you a figment of my imagination?

"No. You were there. I saw you. I felt you."

The saxophone, the jacket, and the clock on the microwave silently agreed. A pair of slender white hands linked above his head as he stretched. His spine popped audibly. He grimaced.

"Ugh."

His eyes felt gritty, and as Gren absently drew his knuckles across them, he frowned in confusion. His cheeks were puffy, and sticky with drying salt.

I wasn’t crying, was I?

"I need a shower."

Raven hair bobbed around his shoulders as the musician struggled to his feet and moved to the bathroom. He stripped to the skin with the boneless grace of a cat, and doused his head with an icy jet of water to clear it, before opening the hot water tap to full blast. The spray pounded on his chest. He tilted his head back, allowing himself to be lost in the humid cloud of steam.

What am I going to do...? It's been five years since I saw him last...five very long years.

Gren dropped his face into his hands; buried the fingertips in his hair.

And I didn't finish it. Just walked out. Over for all, my ass. I ran.

Hot anger coursed through him, hotter than the silken cords of water on his skin.

I had a very good reason to be pissed at him. That bastard's been running my life since he put me in prison. No, he was controlling me even before that.

Just as quickly, the feeling dissipated.

And I let him. Oh, God, I wanted to be controlled...wanted someone to make the decisions for me...! He offered to take care of me, and I let him.

"Oh, he took care of me, all right." The words came out with more acid than Gren expected. Surprised, he sagged against the shower wall and watched the ripples of water circling the drain.

But he did take care of me. In fact…I was safer with him than I was anywhere else... with anyone else.

Lost in a legendary Titan sandstorm. Somehow, he'd gotten separated from the rest of the troop, but that wasn't too hard to contemplate, as visibility dropped to zero any further than a bodylength away. Wind tore at his clothes and snatched the hood protecting his face. Sand filled his mouth whenever he tried to gasp for breath; stung his eyes if he dared open them, and hammered at his eyelids if he dared not. Death couldn't be far away. Damn. He hadn't wanted to die like this. Not in this hellhole. Not alone.

A bodylength away, a broad-shouldered shadow ghosted out of the yellow-brown miasma like a hell-born angel of mercy.

They stared groggily at each other for a long moment. "Eckener?" The low, familiar voice registered concern. When Gren somehow managed to nod, a powerful arm and the greater part of a thick cloak dropped over his shoulders. Pulled him to safety. There was an abandoned trench nearby–whether it belonged to the enemy or to his comrades, at this point, Gren was beyond caring. They dropped into the crevice, and huddled together against the wall as the storm raged and howled overhead.

Vicious explained his appearance in as few words as possible. His battalion was still out there, somewhere. He'd told them not to move the moment the storm really whipped up–warned them that if they separated, everyone would die. They didn't listen to him; after all, he wasn't their captain. Gren could almost touch the aura of helpless anger as he described their foolhardy disappearance into the blowing sand.

The trench belonged to their side. It was the one he'd warned them not to leave. Gren's hand brushed Vicious' hip, and felt a cord of coarse fiber beneath his fingers. A rope, tied to the other soldier's waist, and secured to a bayonet piercing the trench wall above their heads.

Vicious kept going out, hoping to find stragglers. Each time, he returned alone, more and more morose as the situation worsened. Finally, the younger of the two protested, dust obscuring the blue-black of his hair.

"You can't do this anymore. You'll kill yourself!"

"I have to." But the sand-coated, gritty words held defeat.

"They aren't out there! You've gone as far as the rope will let—"

Vicious fumbled with the rope around his waist, numb fingers tearing fruitlessly at the knot. Gren stared at him in disbelief.

"...you can't be serious!"

"Dammit, do you think I can just sit here and know they're dying?!" Vicious snarled, more at the knot than the other soldier.

"Is it worth dying to convince yourself that there's nothing you can do?!" An edge of hysteria. If Vicious left and never came back, he’d be completely alone in this sandpit. The taller man shook his silver mane, transmuted to dun by the storm.

"My life isn't worth anything, Eckener. Especially when there might be a chance—"

"You're delusional. Those soldiers didn't have a chance in hell when they left this trench!"

"But I found you."

"Yes. And now I'm going to return the favor and keep you here so I don't have to go find you later. Because if you leave, I'm going after you."

Twitching slightly, Gren remembered the frank shock registering in that pair of ice-blue eyes at his words. He turned the water off, suddenly uncomfortable in the fierce heat.

"I told you. My life isn't worth anything."

"You're wrong!"

"How the hell would you know."

Bare feet hit the terry bathmat as Gren reached for a towel. He rubbed his hair vigorously, and started on his neck. The movement slowed, transmuting into a sensual touch as the musician tipped his head to the side, remembering.

"Life is precious, Vicious. Even yours. Especially yours."

"...How...?"

"There's something about you." Gren's voice dropped, as though trying to hide his words in the howl of the gales overhead. "Something powerful. Honorable. Noble. Why else would you risk your life for your comrades?"

"I..." He didn't have a canned answer for that one. Good. Gren pushed him against the sand-worn wall, wondering distantly how they’d risen to their feet without knowing.

"Look," Gren said forcefully, and to his surprise, Vicious did look, "I don’t care what you tell me. You could tie me up with that rope, and I'd still go after you. You rescued me, and so you're not going off to die. Not without me." And with that, the smaller man wrapped his arms around Vicious' waist and leaned hard against his chest, in a vain attempt to use his body mass to immobilize the other.

A shuddering sigh made the flesh and cloth beneath Gren's cheek tremble. He looked up. Caught Vicious looking at him with an unreadable expression. Smiled.

And found himself pressed against the slick clay as the other warrior turned the tables on him. Vicious cupped his cheek in one broad, dirt-smeared palm, and stroked the dust away from his lips with the tip of his thumb. He stopped, the deceptively cold blue eyes searching Gren's for any sign of hesitation.

He never found it. Vicious leaned closer, and an electric shock coursed through both bodies as their lips touched. Gren's hands slid up to twine around his neck, and as the older soldier's arms found a home encircling the musician's waist, the corner of Gren's mouth quirked.

One hell of a way to keep the sand out of my teeth...

Even now, the memory drew sensations from the Titan veteran's mind that he never expected to feel again. It wasn't the touch...oh, he’d had that since Vicious, willing or unwilling. The difference was that below the surface, Gren had trusted Vicious, and wholeheartedly believed that there was a bright soul behind those steely eyes.

He wasn't just a willing body.
Not just in desperate need of comfort.
He was a friend.
A comrade.

The towel hit the bathroom floor with a whispered thud. Spike said the Syndicate was moving again. That could mean only one thing, and he intended to find out.

"This isn't about you anymore, Vicious." Gren tore at the restraining hand, "It's about what it takes to be free of this, for all."

Low voice. Lower than ever. As if he was terribly, terribly frightened of what he had to say next.

"I don't want to be free of this, for all."

Gren realized with a guilty start how hard it must have been for Vicious to admit that. But he'd been so wrapped up in himself...so busy feeling vindictive...

But then again, hadn't Vicious said himself that he didn't need comrades? It may have been years ago, but the human heart didn't suddenly fit in a new mold...

...did it?

Who was the real person? The man from the long ago Titan sandstorm...or the man who had pulled him back from death, five years gone?

And now that I think about it, I really didn't want to die. I wanted to be reborn.

And if they were the same person, maybe...

Maybe Vicious really did need comrades. Gren flicked his hair in agitation, suddenly feeling sympathetic to the horses in the gritty old Western flicks. The horses—galloping off after someone slapped their rumps.

Is that what he did? Gave me a Vicious-style slap on the rump to push me away? Because he...knew...the music box!

Swathed in his ratty terry robe, Gren padded over to the electric keyboard, where a broken clockwork box rested on the keys. Fingers trembling only slightly, Gren retrieved it and held it aloft, warming the cool metal with his touch.

If Vicious really had cared about him, the box and the secret it used to hold made a case to the contrary that was almost impossible to refute. He needed answers.

I wasted five years. I had a chance then, and I wasted those years...

It won't happen again!

He threw on the first things that came to hand, tossed his coat over his arms and dashed out into the hall. The Red Dragon Syndicate. That’s where Vicious would be.

That's where I'll find the answer.

Spike prowled the Martian colony like a stray cat, avoiding the main thoroughfares in favor of familiar alleys and sidestreets. Much-abused hands were tucked deep into the pockets of his beloved blue suit, lips clenched around the remains of his sixth cigarette this morning.

Now the kid and that damn dog were missing, and Faye was back. He liked the dog a whole hell of a lot better than the woman.

And with her, Faye brought a message.

From Julia.

"Damn."

Could things get any more complicated? Spike almost swore again, but checked himself as the aching pull at his soul refused to be denied.

And yet...yet he could never be sure if he really, truly loved the woman, so much as needed her.

But then, Faye had loved Whitney, who needed her more than she needed him, and Jet had loved Elysia, who didn't need him at all, or at least pretended quite well to that effect.

And Ein loved them all...but only when he needed a can opened.

I'm gonna miss that dog...

Maybe Faye would stay with Jet. He hoped so. That old man needed somebody to keep him irritated. Might as well be the walking pair of hips and breasts that squeezed into a lemon-yellow plastic halter and called herself a bounty hunter. She excelled at irritation, with a talent that far exceeded any ancient master of torture.

She'd keep Jet amused, at any rate.

And Spike had an appointment to keep.

Vicious knew the moment that Julia had dropped her sensible heels onto Mars' bloodred earth. After all, he still had a few loyal pairs of eyes in the rotting, corrupted remains of the Red Dragon.

Every dragon must one day die...no matter how immortal they seem. Vicious had overthrown the corpses; had taken their place as leader of the Syndicate. Here, in the cool center throne—carefully wiped clean of its previous occupant's blood—it was obvious that time ran short. But he had known that, even before slitting the last reptilian throat.

One could even say that he reveled in it. Because he knew that Julia would come, and that Julia would know—even before she beguiled it out of some poor soul—that Vicious was behind everything. That he and his few last supporters had seized control of the Red Dragon.

That her hand-chosen machine was capable of its own thought. And that it wanted...no...intended to self-destruct. To dismantle the very thing that she had blackened its soul to protect.

To slay the Dragon. To slay both dragons. And with any luck, the one he killed last would in turn do the same service for him.

Preferably in front of Julia. But if not, it would only be one minor disappointment in a lifetime of them. In that case, just knowing that she would live on with the pain of losing Spike would be enough.

It was time she felt what losing her soul was like. How it burned to watch a piece of herself die. In the dark, Vicious' smile became calculating, stretching across the too-wide mouth with the fascinating horror of the Cheshire Cat.

Julia was here, as he'd known she would be. And Spike was here too...no doubt a meeting had been arranged. The woman dragged that man's heart through shards of glass, and yet despite her sudden disappearance all those years ago, he still carried a torch for her. The dim starlight of early, early morning shivered across his silvered hair as Vicious shook his head with a humorless chuckle. It would be interesting to see his reaction when Julia finally discovered enough conscience or courage to explain that she'd only been using him, all along.

And yet, Spike's naive worship had been the saving of him. Perhaps he had loved too deeply, and too blindly, but Spike had loved.

A quiet sliding hiss of cloth as Vicious shifted positions, resting his chin on his knuckles to stare at the weak light filling the cathedral-style window to his left.

Vicious had awakened from the endless dream that still enraptured the Cowboy...many years ago. Only to fall into a nightmare.

And after that...dreamless sleep. Allowing his heart and mind to frost, simply because it was easier than waking up screaming, night after night. The nightmares from the Syndicate were worse even than his war dreams from Titan. When he'd proved his alliance with that goddamned false testimony, the Syndicate accepted him. After all, hadn't he saved one of their own from the fate that befell Grencia Eckener? Hadn't he saved Julia from prison? Prisons weren't kind to women...especially not the pretty ones.

He hadn't cared at first. Sure, he felt a little sorry for the poor kid, but he was the target, and Vicious hadn't been given a choice in the matter. After all, he hadn't expected to end up trusting the man! Hadn't expected to end up wanting to protect him...Vicious blinked, realizing that he was unconsciously stroking the fabric of the cloak as it draped across his upper arm. His fingers froze.

...Maybe Spike wasn't the only one who had loved. But had Gren been using him too? With an imperceptible shudder that bestirred only the feathers of his indignant, coal-dark peacock, Vicious recalled the chill expression on the other man's face. Those elegant, artists' fingers wrapped around the butt of a pistol; the eyes behind the rock-steady aim only betraying a cold need for revenge.

I'm talking myself in circles, the Syndicate leader realized with a twinge of guilt, the only reason he turned that gun on me is because I was the bastard that put him in prison in the first place.

Cold eyes had never been a part of the Gren he once knew. The Gren who had refused to let him dash off into certain death. Had proven his loyalty and trust in the protection of Vicious' flank as they fought beside one another. The Gren who hadn't recoiled when calloused fingers brushed his lips.

The Gren who held him, giving and receiving comfort in the starless, moonless dark of the trenches, as the rest of the platoon cowered around them from the enemy's midnight raids. Never a doubt.

He'd betrayed the one person who never expected anything from him in return. Small wonder Gren nearly lost his mind when someone casually explained that it was Vicious who testified against him.

The velvet void of silence seemed to nod in stoic agreement. And as always, the stars beyond chided him for his cowardice. The chin supported on his hand slipped down a little further, as the fingertips crept up to cover his eyes. He was alone. And by his own actions, damned.

In the velvet void of silence, one man broke completely, face collapsing gently into folded arms on the edge of the cold, doomed throne. ...only to die?

"Gren..." The name echoed from ceiling to floor, filling the room with an empty presence.

What was the good of Spike's death? Julia didn't mean a goddamned thing to the cloaked Titan warrior, swathed in his own grief and the ever-present darkness. Julia meant everything to Spike, who'd put the bitch on a pedestal ever since she vanished. Did Spike deserve to die because he worshipped her?

No. But she's the reason Gren hates me. And she's the reason Spike's been an angry lost soul. And she's the reason I've become such a vindictive son of a bitch.

Heh. Son of a bitch. How appropriate. Maybe Spike will appr—

"Vicious."

His head shot up.

The voice belonged to a hot, angry, bicolored brown gaze, burning from the opposite end of the room. The Cowboy had terrible timing...

"Julia is dead." Spike spat the words through lips twisted with rage.

If he expected to garner any kind of reaction from the silver dragon, he was deluding himself.

Casual replies dropped from Vicious' lips, further enraging the already internally seething man.

You poor bastard, Vicious spared him pity even in his black hole of numbing cold, you were sure I did the things I did because I loved her. Because I was jealous of you.

Poor, delusional bastard. I may have been jealous, but it wasn't because I loved Julia.

He realized with a start that he really didn't want to kill Spike. Now that Julia was gone, there was no reason for it. Perhaps he hated the bounty hunter still...but it was an aching hatred that he could live with—for however long he lived. God knows he'd already spent half his life consumed by it. What were a few more hours?

Spike went for his sidearm, then, and any option of sparing his life faded away. The challenge of battle had been denied him for so long...and this was a match between equals. To that effect, neither cared for his own life...or the life of his opponent.

Another fascinating, too-wide, too-gleeful smirk slid along his lips.

This promised to be interesting.

Here we are again.

Spike glared down the length of Vicious' katana, as the bullet lodged in his side reminded him that he was running out of time.

Here we are again. Julia is dead. Neither one of us can have her now. And so we're beating each other to death because of it.

Vicious, however, seemed coldly detached from the entire situation. Spike allowed his gaze to find the silver-haired soldier's eyes for a breath or two.

I think you want me to kill you!

Brown eyes narrowed. His grip on the revolver tightened, resolve final.

Good. That’s one request I can easily grant you.

The pair circled one another; angry lions, each sizing the other up before landing the first blows. Vicious was as yet unscathed, but in a match of weapons, his blade could not hope to deflect a bullet from the Cowboy’s pistol. Spike smirked. And struck.

Gren heard the uproar from the Syndicate compound even two blocks away. "What the hell…?" He ducked his head and dashed the last five hundred feet to the tower. His presence went entirely unnoticed, due to the chaos descending from above.

"Hi, boys. Looking for a good time...?"

Jet smirked as Faye's sultry voice crackled over the Hammerhead's radio from her position near the compound's main entrance. Several very pissed individuals crouched just inside the double doors, weapons trained on the Swordfish. Spike's Swordfish. She rained a torrent of gunfire down on them, and they retaliated. The ship rocked.

"JET!"

Faye had given up on stubborn will and shot off to Mars in search of the Cowboy, while cursing everything from his tight little ass to his dubious parentage. She swept over the colony, and found Spike's abandoned ship not too far from the Red Dragon Syndicate, nestled skillfully in an alcove to avoid blocking traffic. So skillfully hidden that Faye bashed several innocent vehicles while stealing it.

She suspected that he'd gone off after Vicious...hadn't Julia mentioned something about that...? The Swordfish was equipped with better-quality weapons, and she'd need stronger firepower than the guns strapped to her pod if she planned to go in after him.

Once I save you, you arrogant jackass, you'd better damn well be grateful for once!

Jet could practically read the woman's thoughts. He shook his head, smiling sadly. Women.

"I hope you don't expect Spike to be happy that you're crashing his party, Faye."

"He's going to kill himself, Jet!"

Jet growled and grabbed for his communicator. "You think I don't know that?!"

The Hammerhead dropped down in front of Faye's stolen craft and opened fire on the entrance amid blinding flares of orange and yellow from the burning propellant. The main doors suddenly became much wider. Faye leaned forward eagerly over the Swordfish’s controls.

"Ram it! Jet, RAM it!"

"You women are all the same. Just get it over with as fast as possible, so you can do something else." Jet grumbled to himself, and gunned the Hammerhead's twin engines. The massive nose ground into the shot-riddled doors, the bear of a pilot flung onto his metal arm against the console with the force of the blow.

If anyone was left to protest their uninvited entrance, they wisely decided not to interfere.

A smile played across Gren's lips despite his anxiety. Faye.

But wait a minute...why does she have Spike's...?

"Oh...oh my God..."

He bolted for a side door, and flung himself into an empty emergency stairwell, fingers clutching the railing in the pitch darkness to avoid falling to his death.

Cheapasses. They could have at least installed lights in here.

"Elevator's broken. Must've happened in the blast."

"God dammit!" Faye bashed her fist against the smooth metal surface in an outburst of frustrated anger.

Jet watched her for a second, then glanced over her head. The far wall came into focus. He snatched the woman's arm and dragged her after him.

"What the hell…?!" Faye squirmed. Jet tightened his grip as they ran.

"Stairway!"

Gren registered footsteps behind him as he rounded another bend in the staircase and flung his body up yet another flight. His breath was coming in sharp gasps now, as the tenth floor exit passed. What did those bastards think they were doing, putting the main hall on the top floor?

His lungs were on fire. No more. He had to stop.

Tenth floor. Hopefully the elevator here would work. Gren shoved out of the stairwell and located one of the elevator shafts.

The door opened. The car inside looked invitingly safe. Behind him, the footsteps sounded again, and labored breathing. And arguing. Familiar voice...Faye?

"...and this is crazy, Jet! The elevators have to work somewhere..." The woman flung the door ajar and stood, ruby lips hanging unattractively slack as she stared at the man beside the elevator doors...the man whom she was sure had been dead. Jet piled out of the dark passage and jammed to a halt behind her.

"Hello, Faye," Gren tilted his head with a heavily ironic smile, "going up?"

Meanwhile, the battle upstairs raged on. Vicious kept Spike moving too much to get off a good shot, and in desperation, he decided to give up on the weapon for the moment. He ducked another swipe from the katana and spun away, dropping to sweep his legs beneath the man's legs.

Vicious went down. Hard. "Ungh!" His temple struck the cold tiled floor.

More tiles, he thought sarcastically, and staggered to his feet, clenching the blade that miraculously had not gone sliding away across the floor when he landed.

Spike leveled the muzzle of his revolver at Vicious' forehead. They stood far enough apart now that he didn't have to worry about the katana.

But only for a few brief seconds. Vicious gave a low growl and charged him, batting the pistol upwards with the edge of his sword as the shot cracked. Missed. Damn! Spike clutched his sleeve against a new fount of blood welling through the cloth. The katana had tracked down and caught him across the forearm. His weapon arm. Damndamndamn...

One shot would bring down the beast...could he get it off before he fell?

Vicious leered at him, and lunged, the razor-sharp blade reaching for his heart.

Pierced the jacket and drove home, even as he forced the ruined muscles of his lower arm to drag the gun up for one last shot...squeezed the trigger.

Fire exploded behind his eyes even as it flared in response to the thunderclap of the revolver. The whole world seemed to tilt crazily under his feet, and dumped him rudely on his back against the tile.

Distantly, he heard Spike's strangled groan as the katana came free of his shoulder and clattered with a metallic crash from nerveless fingers to the floor.

It was over...

His eyes closed as the sound of footsteps staggered away, and gave a shuddering breath. At last...it was over...

"Not much further now..." The trio piled out of the elevator as the door slid back. They stood in some kind of barren lobby, and across the room was yet another door, leading to yet another room.

They crept as one to the rim of the portal, and gazed out at the backs of several stunned Red Dragon agents. A figure was marching with resolute slowness down a flaring staircase beyond them. A familiar figure.

As if in slow motion, Jet and Faye watched in horror as the Cowboy pushed past the massive ornate doors of the throne room. He looked as though he'd been steeped in his own blood, and moved as if even breathing hurt. But a self-satisfied smirk played over his features, and he pointed a quivering, weaponless hand toward the members of the syndicate that remained.

"Bang."

As he fell facedown onto the stairs, gunfire erupted from the far door, felling every last suit. Faye and Jet dashed for Spike's fallen form in the ensuing silence, ignoring the bloody chaos they'd just created.

Gren dashed right past them on the staircase, allowing himself only a single sideways glance to catch Faye's startled expression.

That's right, Faye. What did you think I was doing this for?

The main hall was just as dark as the emergency staircase had been, but rasping breathing led him to the body he sought.

Vicious, sprawled on the raised dais beside the three empty thrones. Appropriate place for a fallen king. Gren fell to his knees beside the still form, and fumbled for a pulse.

There it was, fluttering weakly. Thank God that Spike's aim had been off. The musician hoped for Faye's sake that her Cowboy hadn't bought the farm. He raised Vicious' shoulders from the floor and drew the older man's upper half into his lap.

"Vicious..."

"Gren...?" The soft word held a note of disbelief.

"You look like hell." Gren's mouth quirked in a halfhearted attempt at a smile.

"What are you...doing here...?" Still dazed, as though the pale blue eyes expected Gren's form to melt away even as they beheld him.

"Thought it was my turn to repay the favor and brood by your bedside for the next three weeks."

"It's a little...late for that."

"Don’t say that."

Wordlessly, Vicious reached for one of Gren's hands and dropped it listlessly over the bloodsoaked bullet hole below his shoulder. For all his dealings with blood in the past, the younger man winced.

"Jet's got an ambulance headed out here. They'll take care of you." Gren soothed, even though he was sure Vicious hadn't a clue who "Jet" was.

"I bet they will." Came the dryly sarcastic response, and Vicious sighed heavily in defeat. "Is...Spike...?"

"I don't know."

"Oh." Vicious let his head fall to one side, eyes beginning to slide closed once more. Gren's grip on his good shoulder tightened.

"Don't you go away. Don't you dare go away from me, Vicious!"

A short, gutteral laugh. "Haven't had...revenge yet...?"

"That's right. I intend to get my revenge for being rescued when I wanted to die...for forcing me to live, even though I was done with living..."

"Life wasn't...done with you..."

His breaths were coming even shorter, and Gren prayed that the paramedics would be there soon. "No," he answered the fallen dragon, "and it isn't done with you, either."

"Damn. I don't...even have...control of that...do I?"

"No."

Vicious looked up, into that pair of concerned, earnest blue eyes. Maybe he wasn't done with life, either...his lips curled into the ghost of a smile...

...his guardian smiled back...

...and the last thing he saw before blackness consumed him was the door flying open behind Gren's shoulder, white-garbed avenging angels dashing into the room to claim him as every corner flooded with divine light.

Funny...they should be devils...

He registered the red crosses on their sleeves...smiled again...and passed out.

When the pale eyes opened again, the first thing they saw was the too-white institutional ceiling tile. Tiles again, he could have cursed. There's even tiles in Hell.

Or laughed until he cried.

And there at his bedside was a mane of blue-black hair, dripping with honey-slowness over a pair of forearms, folded on the mattress. He lifted one wire-encumbered hand and gently stroked the fringe of hair to one side, revealing the sleeper's face. Gren. But he'd known that.

A dreamy, groggy blue eye slid open, followed by the other. They fixated on him with mild disbelief, and a slender hand flickered up to brush the errant strands out of the way with impatience. "Vicious...?" He asked, hesitantly.

"Mm." Trying to speak reminded him that his shoulder hurt, and his eyes squeezed momentarily in pain.

"Hey...you've been out for more than a week. The doctors say...you're going to be just fine..."

He caught the hesitation of the younger man's voice. "And Spike...?"

Gren's gaze dropped to the sheet, which he smoothed absently. Vicious refused to be put off.

"And Spike...?" he asked again, more firmly.

"I...they don't know. Faye said...he had internal bleeding even before you...I mean..."

"...tried to kill him."

Gren winced, but didn't continue on the topic. "He's still asleep. I checked on him this morning." He dropped a gentle hand on the man's good shoulder. "You should go back to sleep."

"Julia is dead."

The three words drilled through Gren's heart like a laser blast...like the point of Vicious' sword. He closed his eyes, and refused to let the silver-haired man push him away with them.

"I know."

"Then why—"

"Because I don't blame you, that's why I'm here."

"You should."

"Why? You didn't pull the trigger."

"You don't understand." Vicious turned his face away, towards the window. Gren studied his profile, glowing in the warm light even as the sun glinted across his lovely silver hair. Such a tortured soul...

"What don't I understand?"

"I wanted her to die," The bedridden man answered, without turning from his examination of the pink sky beyond the window, "you don't know how much I hated her."

Gren propped his chin on one palm, and rested cool fingers on Vicious' forearm. "Oh, don't underestimate me that much," he retorted, voice gently chiding, "I knew why you took her away from me. And don’t give me that bullshit line about orders. Sure, you had to bring her back to the Syndicate when she ran...but you really relished getting to kidnap her, didn't you?"

"I wasn't trying to hurt you, if that's what you're getting at.” He still had yet to turn, but the clench of his jaw hinted at what was going on in his head.

"That is not what I was getting at," Gren continued softly, "you were trying to protect me from her...weren't you?"

"That woman was poison."

"I know. But at least she meant I wasn't alone."

"She was the reason I was alone." Vicious shifted a little, recoiling from the man at his bedside, and grunted in pain. "I wanted to see her watch Spike die...I wanted to see a part of her die. Just the way she watched me die. Spike was the only thing she really cared about."

"She didn't care about you." Gren added calmly. Icy blue eyes snapped onto his. "I don't need a therapist."

"I don't claim to be one. But seeing as I have your full and enforced attention, I intend to get some answers. And if along the way, you find some, too...well, the better for both of us."

Vicious sighed in exasperation, but the conclusion was foregone. They spent the better part of two hours battling back and forth with words like an insane, unseen game of chess. They took turns, bashing at each other's long-standing walls of defense, withdrawing, and charging again, even as their own battlements crumbled around them. Finally, down to chasing each other's kingpieces around the conversation, Gren called in his knight and pinned his opponent.

"Tell me why you don't need comrades."

Vicious blinked. "You...remember me saying that?"

A nod. "How could I not? And I've been wanting an answer to that for years."

It had been a long night. Vicious knew that in the morning, the battalion would be headed home...and that a trial awaited Eckener, even though the poor youth had no idea what was about to befall him. Vicious knew what he had to do. Had to make Eckener hate him. It would be so much easier for the black-haired man to deal with, if he no longer trusted the other soldier.

Neither one pretended that their relationship didn't exist, and the rest of the men seemed to take it fairly well, provided that they were spared from watching.

He calculated the timing of his words to hurt the most, and steeled himself for what he had to do.

"You do realize that this is the last time." He murmured coldly, as Gren fell panting against the army-issued pillow. Around and below them were the gentle, deep snores of their bunkmates. The younger soldier tried to draw Vicious down to lie with him, but the other had already moved away, legs dangling over the edge of the upper bunk.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Gren asked, yanking the thin sheet around his shivering form as he suddenly felt very, very exposed. Vicious raised his eyes to bore into the innocent blue.

The man had never looked so fragile before, and even now, the memory of his wide-eyed expression of horror was burned into Vicious' mind.

"I..."

"This is the last time we're going to...do this." He'd let his voice drip with feigned disgust, his lip curl ever so slightly. An ironic tendril of thought as he wondered why he'd never become an actor. A dagger twisted in his soul as the weight of his words sank in, and as Gren's face became a contortion of anger, fear, and suicidal sorrow.

Betrayed. But as always, the youth had clung to hope, however impossible.

"But I thought..."

"Thought what?" The cold was going to kill him, but nevertheless, he held to the ice just as Gren clung to hope; forced it into his voice, forced it into the very air around him.

"Thought that things were never going to change? You’re an idyllic idiot, but you always were."

Gren flinched and drew away with a little moan of denial, and inside, Vicious was screaming. He turned away, face washed to silver by the starlight filtering through the skylights in the bunk tent.

"I thought that you were my friend. My comrade." The obvious hurt in the words made him grit his teeth.

"Comrades are for those with the luxury to trust."

"So you don't trust me?"

"I never did," Every nerve burned with dissent, begging him to refute the words he never meant. If he didn't leave soon, he was going to break down completely. "trust is for the weak."

"And so comrades are for the weak."

"Now we understand each other. Goodbye, Eckener."

He left Gren alone then, and returned to his own bunk, where he quietly went insane. It was impossible to sleep when the muffled sobs over his head began.

"I..."

"Go on." Gren's voice was patience itself. He'd obviously been waiting for this chance for a long, long time. A few more minutes of hesitation wouldn't kill him. Vicious took a deep breath, jaw clenching at the dull ache in his shoulder.

"I never meant any of it. I did it...because I needed you to hate me."

"So you thought I could just hate you...just like that?" Gren snapped his fingers.

"It would have made my betrayal easier."

"You're doing it again. You're being cold about it. How can you think that your betrayal could ever be easy on me?"

"Sorry." He looked down; looked away.

"You're sorry?" The musician echoed in surprise.

"I've been sorry ever since I did it, damnit!" He was pushed far past caring about his reputation. He didn't need it now, Lord knew. "You don't know how much it hurt to lie. To hear you crying...know it was my fault. It would hurt worse if you found out when you thought I still..." his voice refused to take any more abuse, and his throat closed.

"When I thought you still? Vicious, I never thought you did! I thought you were just...using me." He swallowed hard enough for the other man to hear.

Vicious gulped. "Can you remember...any time other than that night...when it seemed like I was just...using you?" His voice dripped with distaste, as if even the thought was revolting.

Gren's eyes lit. "No..."

"There's your answer, then." The silver-haired soldier leaned back, spent. Just as the musician rose to his feet and leaned over him. "No, it's not. If you go cold on me again, so help me, I'll..."

Vicious lifted his chin, recovering his old humor, and produced a smirk. "You'll what?"

A fall of blue-black hair curtained his jaw as Gren proceeded to demonstrate exactly what he would do.

A step was made. A small step towards forgiveness...one to the other, and Vicious to his own soul. And as Gren slid to sit on the mattress beside him and wrapped his arms around the other's neck, the pain of the years passed away.

Just as Faye chose this moment to burst in.

"Ahem."

She wasn't certain of what to be shocked about more. Their position...or the fact that Gren was actually...

He's not…blushing...is he?

Faye Valentine considered herself a reasonable woman. A likeable woman, hell, even a nice woman, when she wanted something. But as she stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching the two men at whatever game they were playing, she realized with a start that she'd never wanted to settle her hands around someone's throat more than at this moment.

Two throats. Three if she counted the unresponsive Spike.

But strangling him would have been a moot point. And the doctors said his condition was improving rapidly. They had never seen a body recuperate from such trauma with such speed, or so they said. Faye had the distinct impression that they weren't telling her everything. Every time one of those quacks started in about Spike's incredible healing capabilities, their eyes always flickered imperceptibly toward Jet's metallic arm. Jet caught it, and generally wrapped his other hand reflexively around the cool steel bicep. Faye caught it, and generally forced herself not to knock them down.

Doctors. Who the hell knew what went on in their brains, anyway?

She had more important issues at the moment. Particularly the pair of men currently sharing Vicious' hospital bed. Dangerous green eyes narrowed, and she fought down the urge to yank Gren out of that room as fast as she could pry him free.

Until Gren turned to look at her, and smiled easily. "Do you mind?" He said lightly, with a friendly wink. For the second time in a little over a week, Faye found her jaw hanging slack.

"You...but..."

Vicious never bothered to look up. Let Gren handle it. He didn't care all that intensely about how the BeBop crew felt about him, and his companion seemed more than capable of dealing with the exhausted, yellow-clad siren.

"Outside," Gren swung his fringe of beetle-sheened hair behind his shoulders and gestured to the door with one hand. Vicious released him a little reluctantly as he slid off the bed. Pale eyes never left his form, and in their depths was a slightly disturbing longing that Faye didn't like to contemplate. Gren led the still-raging woman into the hall.

Faye didn't wait for the door to swing shut behind them before striking. "Are you insane?" Her voice thundered down the aisle and rebounded off the institutional pristine walls.

Gren chuckled warmly. "You're a bit louder than you were a few months ago."

"Yeah, well, you deserve to be yelled at! Jesus, what do you think you're doing? You...him...?!"

"Precisely." He let a controlled smirk ease across his features. Faye stared, fists clenched at her sides to avoid grappling his shoulders and shaking some sense into that too-pretty head. She refused to take his answer easily, but—as Gren recounted with an affectionate squeezing of his eyes—she wasn't the kind of female to be led about by the hand.

"What are you so goddamn happy about?"

He shrugged. "I've never seen you this angry. Glad to know you're not really as numb as you seemed at the Blue Crow."

Another stare, this one of disbelief. Slowly, her eyes softened. "I've never been numb. But living with insensitive men is easier if I act like I am."

"Spike's not as numb as you think."

"Right. You be sure to tell him that. I think he's forgotten." She looked away, blinking rapidly. "God I need a cigarette."

"That habit will kill you."

Faye winced. "Which one?"

They were silent for a few moments.

"Why...why didn't you tell me you were alive?" Faye leaned back against the wall, still not looking at him. Her voice seemed unusually vulnerable. Almost childlike. It was Gren's turn to wince.

"I was trying to put something from the past behind me."

"Oh?"

Incredible how you women can put so much meaning into one syllable.

"Vicious."

"And did you?"

"...No."

Silence for another span.

"I'm glad you're alive, Mr. Saxophone. I have to go see if Spike's awake yet."

"I hope he wakes up soon." He meant it.

Falling...

Julia...I...they won't let me...

I'm sorry, Julia...

I'm coming...wait...wait for me...

Promise you’ll wait...

The swish and thump of a door brought him fully awake.

The world swam into focus in a few rapid eyeblinks.

Brown, bicolored eyes gazed groggily up at the ceiling, which was blotted out in a few seconds by the swing of violet hair, and wide, expectant green eyes.

Faye.

"Hey, cowboy," the green eyes spoke, "It's about time you woke up."

Funny. It was the gentlest tone she'd ever used with him. Before he left...she'd been almost tearful...desperate...but now...

Jet, is she saying what I think she's saying? 'Cause if she is...

Spike blinked up at Faye wordlessly, and her face drew back, allowing him to focus on more than just the nameless intensity of her eyes. Abruptly, he heard the hollow scratch of tubular steel as she lowered one of his guard rails and turned to sit on the edge of his bed. He knew, then, how hard this was for her. He should have died. She had expected him to die. She had mourned his death, grieved, and led herself to believe that if her 'if only' had evolved into a reality, he could have loved her. If only Julia didn't exist.

Don't do this to her. She doesn't know. She'll never understand...

But lying? Could he lie to her? Julia did exist, and he did love her...she was the only thing that was real. And now that she was dead...the dream was meaningless. This was meaningless.

But still...Faye needed him...and he could safely assume it was the first time she'd really ever admitted needing someone. At least to herself. And he really had nothing now, didn't he? Not even the hope of life to sustain him.

He was yanked abruptly out of his circle of thoughts. Faye was speaking again, still turned away from him, so that her words were hard to catch.

"I'm glad you're alive. You still owe me for the message I brought you. If you're d—"

"Say that again..."

"Huh?" Faye turned, eyes wide. It was the first thing he'd said since she had watched him fall. "You still owe—"

"Not that part." Spike's eyes darkened with pain, physical and otherwise. "Before that..."

The woman's gaze was on him, lit with hope, and deep inside him, something twisted, whispered wrongness.

"I-I'm glad you're alive, Spike."

"Then I'm...glad...too." Oh, God. Well, if he was going to lie, then he might as well make it a nice, fat one.

He hadn't banked on Faye's reaction, however.

"Don't lie to me, damn you." She turned away again, shoulders hunched, fingernails digging into the sheets. "You wish you were dead. Then you'd be with her."

Damnit, but that woman could read people.

So much for lying. "I can't leave her with Vicious," Spike replied, simply.

Silence hung between them. "Julia is safe. Vicious is alive. She left you with him." Faye refused to look at him. Which was just as well. The contortion of his face at those words would have been painful to see. The mattress trembled, then shook, and from the corner of her eye, she watched the hand relaxed by her hip tighten into a clenched fist. At a moaned protest at the pain, she turned to see the green-haired Cowboy force himself onto his hands. The woman at his bedside could only stare, transfixed.

Jet, however, couldn't. "Spike?! What the hell...don't!" The burly bear of a man tore into the room and shoved Faye rudely to one side, before wrapping the cold metal of his artificial palm over the lanky invalid's good shoulder. "Why did you tell him?" Jet turned his glare on the unfortunate female. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"She was trying to kill something that cannot die." The light drag and heavy tone of a familiar voice drew two of the three pairs of eyes immediately to the door. Jet, who had never before heard the man speak, did not register the sound until his companions uttered its name in accord.

"Vicious..."