[noyana] Title: Noyana
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: hinted 1=2
Stuff: Introspective thing, angst, death (but no GW characters!), sap to save the end, Duo POV, un-beta-ed.

A/N: I was going to post something else for 12/21, but I was struck with this when I started talking to the cab driver that brought me to Chinatown. Thrown together on the ensuing bus trip home. For razberrycreme, because she has an unnatural sway over my actions. Also because she asked XD

The word 'noyana' is Zulu for 'Are you going?'

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I shot an angry glare at my watch for what seemed to be the hundredth time in the past five minutes and then boldly stepped a bit further away from the curb, my hand stuck out a bit more prominently than before. I don't know why I was having such a hard time with this today. Maybe it was the hair. Or the shades - couldn't be sure. All I know was that I'd seen at least three empty cabs zip by with the past couple green lights. Hailing a taxi definitely was a fine art.

This fucking sucked. Heero and I were supposed to be meeting for lunch like right now and I still had yet to get downtown. He was probably wondering if I'd gotten myself hit by a bus or drowned in the river or something. If there was one thing I could be consistently on time for, it was food - and now every cab in town was conspiring against me!

I started frantically waving my hand back and forth, now another few steps further from the curb. My toes were numb, too. When had that happened? Fucking cold.

Oh snap, finally! Talk about luck, too. One of the bright, yellow taxis was pulling to a halt mere feet away from me to let someone out. Quickly, I hurried over to it with the intention of snagging it for myself. But just as the woman who had just been riding in the cab had stepped out, her long black coat falling over tan stockings as she straightened outside the car, a man appeared by her. At first I thought he was someone coming to meet her because he was leaning on the door, but it didn't take me long to realize that the fucker had never seen that woman before in his life: she was walking away, I was halfway across the street and this dick was replacing her in the backseat of the taxi. My fucking taxi! I flipped him off as it sped away.

I was really starting to get pissed off when I saw another one coming down the street. I started to walk towards it, still waving my hand like a lunatic. Fuck yes, he was slowing down, putting his hazard blinkers on.... I dashed towards it, determined not to let this one get away. Wrenching the door open, I hurled my messenger bag in before me, ready to lament profusely about how goddamn hard it had been to get here but the driver asked me where I wanted to go before I had a chance.

"East Broadway," I told the cabbie as he started resetting the fare machine affixed to the car's dashboard. Its tiny beeps dotted the low murmur of the news station playing on the radio.

"Where on East Broadway?" he asked, turning to glance over his shoulder at me. He had ebony skin and a thick island accent that was really nice to listen to.

"Just under the Manhattan Bridge is good," I answered after a moment of thought as I settled back against the seat. "I can go from there."

"Good. I was going that way anyway," said the cab driver as he pulled away from the curb. There was a lingering pause in his speech as he clenched the steering wheel a bit tighter. "I just heard that my brother-in-law is dead. I was on my way to see him."

To say that I was shocked by this sudden admission would have been the understatement of the century. "That's terrible," I gasped, completely at a loss for anything more intelligent to say. I felt like pretty much everything would have sounded like false sympathy anyway. "What happened?" I could tell this guy had a lot of weight on his chest he probably just wanted to relieve himself of. I didn't mind if he had to throw it all at me; I was used to that kind of thing.

"Someone hit him in the head with a bottle," said the driver, who I thought was doing a pretty good job of keeping himself under control. "It's been twelve days."

I remembered such personal loss well, but it'd have tasted a lie to say that I dealt with it as well. Or as calmly. In fact, thinking about it, I'd venture to say that I'd jumped off the deep end when my childhood had burned. I like to think I've come a long way since then. Not that it made the past any less painful to remember.

I shook myself from my mental tangent, hoping I hadn't come off as callous by not responding immediately. "That's really awful," I reiterated, all the while thinking I sounded awfully lame. A few more silent seconds stretched by, filled only by the still-chattering radio station. There was a half-empty parking lot just outside the car window; a bundle of napkins rolled across it like a tumbleweed in the early evening breeze. I could only imagine a number of things that might have happened to that poor guy: maybe he'd gotten mugged on the street or maybe he'd been hanging with the wrong crowd; he could have been simply in the wrong place at the wrong time or had some other such bad kharma. Another bad lot for someone I just happened to come across. I was starting to think that maybe I was cursed. "It sucks they'll probably never figure out who did it either," I said with a trace of loathing, though whether the air was directed at the randomness of life or myself, it was hard to say.

The cab driver seemed to know more about it than I'd anticipated. "The guy was out on bail," he informed me. "They were at a party and he was drunk. And he got angry and bashed my brother-in-law. In the head!" He let out a much-deserved sigh of frustration and the car lurched a bit as the steering wheel jerked in his hands. "Couldn't he have waited until I was done with work?" He sounded like he was in a state of shock. Once again, I couldn't say I blamed him.

"What was wrong with him?" the driver continued, glancing at me in the rearview mirror as he halted the car at a red light. "Doesn't he realize what an important thing the head is? It's a delicate thing - the center of our bodies! How could someone be so careless towards such an important system?" He let out another helpless sigh, shaking his head slowly. "All I know is that if that happened to my wife or my son...." He trailed off and didn't say anymore. He didn't have to.

I made a low hum of agreement but didn't say anything in response this time, my eyes tracking a man and his big, fox-like dog on the sidewalk. The dog was sniffing at the roots of a scraggly tree sprouting out of the sidewalk and the man was unraveling a pair of plastic grocery bags from within the depths of his jacket. One was yellow and the other was blue. I mean, really, there was nothing I could say without sounding fake. I hated sounding that way. Loss wasn't an easy thing to handle and that feeling of needing to exact revenge was even worse. Bowery Street Real Estate, Bowery Street Tattoo - the storefronts glowed brightly in the quickening dark. They seemed so innocent of the sadness that was passing by in front of them. I wondered if the cab driver even cared. Maybe I cared more than he did. Probably because it had me thinking about the wars and how unaware the general public seemed of its consequences. My mind was suddenly met with the image of the flickering vid screen that had shown me the death of my old buddy, Deathscythe and how no one around me even cared as I tore my heart out at the loss of everything he represented to me. Not even when I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The car was moving again. We passed by that guy and his orange fox dog again. We were going much faster than we were before; I could feel the thrum of the engine shuddering beneath my feet and I vaguely wondered if it would be a good idea to buckle my seatbelt or not. I dimly recalled the driver murmuring on his cell phone at the red light. I guess the urgency was starting to set in. The storefronts were passing by quickly. The only one I got to read was a big restaurant supply warehouse on one corner. I don't know what the cross street was. We passed the intersection too fast.

Why were people so bred to fight? Why did this shit have to happen? It was careless and stupid and it made me angry to think about it. People were so unjust to each other. I guess that's why I tried to carry myself well. That didn't mean I wasn't capable of rage and frustration and jealousy and all those sorts of things I wished I could say I'd never felt. And guilt - that was another one I wished I didn't know either. For one horrible moment, I thought that the cab driver's brother-in-law was damned lucky to be dead.

We arrived at our destination not much later without really mentioning it again - though it was quite evident it was on both our minds the whole while. He told me the fare and I gave him three extra dollars. Wished him a happy holiday as I got out of the car. "I hope things work out for you and your family," I said as I grabbed my messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder.

He looked back at me and gave me a sincere nod. "Thank you," he said. In that moment, I knew I'd done more of a service than I'd realized in allowing him to tell me what he had. I offered him one of my best smiles and pushed the door shut, banging three times on the roof of the yellow cab before it pulled away. I stood on the curb and watched it disappear around the corner.

The moment it was gone, I realized I'd been swallowed up by the thick crowds of people that gave Chinatown its pulse. Here, the pedestrian reigned supreme. I quickly jumped up onto the sidewalk and started off in the direction of the restaurant, hoping to God Heero hadn't just given up and ditched. I was lucky it was a place I frequented, so finding the joint wouldn't be such a big deal. No, Heero'll still be there, I assured myself as I picked up the pace a little, weaving in and out of the crowds with artful ease. He's not that sort of guy. If he makes a promise, he'll keep it. If he says he's going to wait for you, he will.

I burst into the restaurant like a crazed person, my chest rising and falling a bit erratically. The guy who owned the place was used to my weirdness and barely looked twice in my direction, but my somewhat melodramatic entrance had Heero staring at me from the small table for two he was sitting at on the other side of the dining room. Well then, cross to stage left - sit, shake hands, say hello. The laminated menu card lay genially on his palms as his eyes fell back to the food items listed there. He didn't say anything, but I could tell by the way his lips were quirked at the corners that he was happy to see me.

I stared across the table at him. I don't know if he was aware of my unwavering gaze, but that didn't matter. He was alive - he was there! No one had taken him away from me... and by God, there certainly had been innumerable chances for that to happen. I thought about Deathscythe again. I realized that I'd rather lose a hundred Deathscythes than just one Heero Yuy. I reached across the table and pushed the menu away, drawing his curiosity. "Don't ever leave," I said.

He studied me thoughtfully for a little bit, wondering where the comment had spawned from. "I don't plan to," he said as if it were obvious. He picked up the menu again, but I almost immediately pressed it back against the table.

"And don't ever die without me," I went on, very serious in my meaning. I had to get this out - had to tell him what the cab driver made me realize. "You can't leave me alone," I whispered, leaning in close like I was telling him a great secret. "I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably lose my mind."

He pulled the menu free of my grip and picked it up, giving it a little flick. "I said, I don't plan to," he repeated, his voice soft but stern. "I don't say things like that in jest." He peered at me over the top of the tan menu card, one eyebrow quirked a bit. "I thought you, of all people, would have learned that by now."

"I... I have," I stammered, feeling foolish now. See, Heero really was a man of his word. I think that's what I liked best about him: he said what he meant and meant what he said. I wondered if I should tell him about my ride over here. Maybe it was in poor taste. Nervously, I flicked my eyes from him, drawn to the manager, who was yelling at one of the waitresses - something about her hair being in her face. I wasn't so sure, though; I'd only picked up a basic smattering of Mandarin from Wufei, and that was mostly swear words anyway. That made me fluent enough, I guess.

"Then why are you asking me questions like that?" Heero wanted to know, putting the menu down of his own accord this time. "Don't you trust me, Duo?"

My attention snapped back in his direction, my lips parted in surprise a little. "Of course I do," I said, watching him carefully. "I'm just...." I rubbed the back of my head nervously, digging my fingers into the indentation where my hair started to twist back into its thick braid. Before I realized it, the taxi driver's story was pouring from my lips... as well as all my thoughts and fears regarding it. How upset it made me - how I wished life could be different sometimes. "It got me wondering how many lives we fucked up that way," I went on when I was done, barely cognizant of the way Heero was staring at me. "Like, you kill an Ozzie, and that's cool - one for your team, one less for them. But then that Ozzie's got a wife at home. And a brother. And he's got a wife too. Maybe lots of kids. Then we were careless - just bashing lots of people in the head who don't deserve it. They were just... there. And it was the wrong place - the wrong time." I was rambling now, but I didn't really care. Heero had spent enough time with me that he was used to my incapability to make sense. Somehow, he always managed to figure out what I meant, anyway.

"Duo...." His voice was soothing, but I hardly noticed he was addressing me. That's what I get for getting so caught up in myself.

"Why couldn't more of them have been like Hilde? Figuring it out before it was too lat," I continued, propping my chin on the heel of my fisted hand. "She listened and she changed her mind. Maybe Relena's stint on talking it out is right after all...."

"Duo," he emphasized, reaching over to pull my hand out from beneath my chin. He held it in his, stroking the palm with the pad of his thumb. It was kinda rough still, but it had definitely become a lot smoother in the years of peace we've had since the wars. His calloused hands had been so real, yeah, but I liked the tangible evidences that Heero wasn't violent by nature. No, not at all. "That was a different beast," he reminded me. "You can't help what people did or didn't do."

"No, no!" I insisted, turning my hand so I could curl my fingers around his wrist. I had to hold onto something for a little support, and Heero was more grounded than anything else I knew. "Life is still just as random and unfair now as it was then. I thought shit would have changed! So I'm alive; I got nothing to show for it."

Heero's shoulders slumped a little, like my despair was deflating him as well. "Let it rest, Duo," he said, angling his head upwards to examine the menu board hanging on the wall above our table. A wad of holly and a big, tacky bell was fixed to one of its corners and it was framed with a string of blinking holiday lights. He had a good profile. I liked way his lips turned into the curve of his chin - how they were so defined and shapely. "You can't have the weight of the world on your shoulders - it's far too heavy."

I sat back in my chair, but I didn't retract my hand from his. "You would know that, wouldn't you?" I commented quietly, my frenetic speech starting to dwindle a bit. Heero had been so fast to shed his duty as a soldier when things had calmed down; it was too a point where, if you just met him, you'd probably never guess he once had saved the world.

He didn't acknowledge the comment - he wouldn't - but his eyes did fall away from the menu board to focus on me again. There was that hint of smile on his lips again, like he was thinking of something particularly amusing. "You really are a good person, Duo," he said, his eyelids fluttering halfway over his dark eyes for a brief second. Those deep, fathomless eyes that saw so much. "I think it shows in how much you care."

My hand twitched in his again. "I'm not..." I tried to protest. "Everything I touch gets ruined. I'm such a fuck-up... a waste of life...." I thought about how the taxi driver's brother-in-law might have gotten luckier if his relative might have had the fortune of stopping to pick up someone else.

"I don't think that," Heero answered slowly. He had one stern eyebrow furrowed in confusion, like he didn't understand why I would say that. Well, I guess there's a first time for everything. "I think you just don't give yourself enough credit. You can't blame yourself for every bad thing you come across."

"Sure can," I mumbled, staring at our hands again. The menu was pressed beneath our forearms against the table. Beef chow fun - now, that looked good. I hoped dumplings would be a part of this meal too. And maybe a nice bowl of soup. I could have done with the warmth. Though maybe the warmth of Heero's hand would spread faster.

"That still doesn't mean it's really your fault," Heero returned resolutely. A serious light had kindled itself in the depths of his blue, blue eyes. "Life is bigger than you and me. It's random and unfair, but that's just how it is." He shrugged, reaching over with his other hand to sandwich mine between his, squeezing reassuringly. The gesture made my breath catch in my throat, almost like it had suddenly expanded and gotten stuck there. "You can look for all the answers you want and reason until you can't think anymore, but sometimes things aren't so complicated."

My hand tried to recoil itself, but Heero still held it fast, refusing to let me go off on my running and hiding thing. "How do you mean?" I asked carefully, certain he was going somewhere with this. I wanted desperately to understand, but Heero had this way of leaving people hanging on ambiguous statements.

He inhaled deeply, his eyelids slipping closed. His thick, long eyelashes ghosted across the tops of his high cheekbones, dark and sooty like the thin skin hiding his eyes. "Today you were reminded that people die. It hurt and you were sad and you bled for that man," he started slowly, pressing my hand even tighter between his. "But you're alive, Duo! You said it yourself! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He seemed a little upset. I guess I brushed a nerve.

"I don't deserve to be," I said, not quite ready to let that guilt go just yet. Wrong things always happened to the wrong people. It wasn't fair. The randomness wasn't fair. The thought just wouldn't stop, circling me in a taunting fashion.

"Neither do I, but..." Heero stopped himself, shaking his head as if he meant to physically toss the words out of his mind. He pinned me with his stare and, for a moment, it felt like he wanted nothing more than to crawl inside my head. His voice sounded strangled and lost when he spoke again, and I thought that maybe I was going to make him cry. His eyes were a bit wet, anyway. "Shouldn't you live for those who died?" I wondered if Heero cried a lot when he was alone. Yeah, I definitely hit a nerve. His voice fell so soft after that, I hardly heard him murmur, "Can't you live for those who are still alive?"

I hung my head in shame, knowing how right he was. Living for the dead had fueled me through the war. Thinking on it, it was ironic that I now thought otherwise whenever I was met with death now. Maybe it was just me thinking like I didn't have a purpose anymore with all that behind me. I found myself wishing there was a way for me to take back all the thoughtless things I'd said to him. Here, he'd just wanted to spend some time with me and I'd gone and made him cry. I was such an asshole. A grade A dick. Careless.

He bent over the table, lowering his head so he could press my hand against his face. I'd always known Heero was the sensory type, even if it did make him come off a bit oddly to people who didn't know him well. My apprehension at the movement didn't come from any of that, but more from the thought of what it might mean. Anyone who did know Heero well could tell you that he never did anything without meaning. His thick bangs were soft to touch, feathering off into their tapered ends. "I wish you'd live for me," he mumbled. I thought maybe I imagined that he turned his head so his lips would brush my palm. I felt his eyelashes tickling my skin.

I stopped breathing.

So careless.

And then I understood.

I understood everything he'd been trying to say and everything I didn't know how to feel until then. Life was an unpredictable roulette that plundered and stole carelessly. It didn't care what it trampled as it marched blindly forward. But also, it blessed with just as hapless an eye.

I stretched down low across the table as well, offering my hand more openly to Heero, and though it was hidden behind the mask of his fingers, I felt his lips moving against it, much more confidently this time, and it didn't matter that it was something I couldn't see with my own eyes. "I already do," I confessed in a voice that was low enough for only his ears to discern.

I was blessed.

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End

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A/N: Link, once again redefining the length of a drabble. This was a lot harder than it needed to be. Sorry for the cop-out end.