Juno's Identity

Disclaimers: Cowboy Bebop belongs to Sunrise and Bandai.

Warnings/Rants: This is a fanfic that is, in many ways, similar to "A Vagabond's Smile." =_= Can one plagarize from oneself? Consider it a theme I like to explore with different characters. The names of the chapters... well, I'll let you figure that out. Anyway, I'm toying with the Bebop timeline a LOT here... did Vicious go to Titan before or after Spike and Julia left him? o_O So yeah. And typical for ranting, type-happy men, this is very weird. Like stream-of-consciousness sometimes. "Surreal" is a polite way of stating what it's like, I guess.

This is a Gren/Vicious fanfic. ^_^ And perhaps I will explore further into their relationship than I have done before. ::cough cough wheeze hack:: Anyway. That's just a warning.

Radishface

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[ Elara ]

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We were walking down the cold streets, our faces buried in our coats, our hands in our pockets, even though we both wore gloves. It was exceptionally chilly that day, even more cold than usual, and the perpetually cloudy skies, the dirt-streaked snow, the men in gas masks, warming themselves over box-fires in the streets, had done nothing to take the air of gloom that surrounded the city. Her blue eyes scanned the sidewalks, as if looking for a safe place to step, and my scarf fluttered slightly in the wind as I clutched my saxophone case in my hands, and I knew they were grey hands, and I would have to turn the radiator on when we got back to my apartment.

I remember the glitter of mischief I used to hold in my eyes, walking along dusty grounds with another person, and I'd say something stupid, do something embarrassing, just to try and tease, torment, see the other person blush. But drawing a reaction from him was impossible. He'd never listen to me, anyway. He'd always be off in his own world. Some world I couldn't get into.

When I was young, I remember a gypsy girl who was walking along the streets, selling goods like a peddler would, and my mother would draw me into her arms, as we sat there on our house steps, as if she was shielding me from this crazy gypsy who wandered the streets with no purpose. My mother would never go inside the house, to hide, though, as I had expected her to. She looked at the gypsy with curiousity and caution in her eyes, and observed the way she moved through the streets, her wailing voice crying out, her emaciated body trembling as she took each step, her wrists dripping with bangles and her thick, volumous hair tied back with a green bandanna. I remember the gypsy girl once came up to our front steps, and I was merely a child, and my mother clutched onto me even tighter, not letting me go, as if this gypsy would spirit me away. I knew my eyes were wide with an inquiring look, and I remember I had reached out my small hand to touch hers. My mother quickly took my hand away, but the gypsy girl had reached out and handed me something, a small red ribbon, of hers, a soft light in her absent eyes and a smile hovering about her but never materializing.

That gypsy girl never saw me, I realized later. But her eyes spoke volumes, those wandering eyes. I forget what color they were. But they had said to me, maybe we shall meet.

Shall meet, as in meet for the first time.

My mother had thrown away the ribbon, angry with me as she washed my hands where the girl had touched them. "She's a filthy child." My mother said. "Why did she have to get her filth on you? Now you're going to become an ugly, ugly, child, I won't be able to bear it." She had said this with a sob in her voice, my hands lathered with soap, she was scrubbing them so hard the skin was being rubbed raw, I could feel the pain, the gentle pain, as the water poured down my hands.

"It hurts." I had said, the sentence barely a whisper as my mother continued to cry, washing my charred hands.

Perhaps my mother had never done such a thing. Perhaps it was only me, me, who had feared such a thing would happen because of the touch from the gypsy girl. Perhaps I was afraid she was still holding onto the other end of the ribbon, that she would tie it somewhere and I would forever be attached to that thing, not knowing what I was attached to until the day I walked the length of the ribbon-- until that time came.

She took of her shoes, set them by the door, slipped her jacket off, and hung that on the racket, and walked into the kitchen, perhaps to boil something. I walked over to the radiator, and pressed the switch. There came a humming sound, magnified one hundred times to me because I heard nothing else. I set my scarf and my own coat on the couch, my saxophone case on the floor, and picked up the two glasses that were on the coffee table, the ones we had drank from last night but didn't bother to put away. In truth, I couldn't bother to wash them. She slept in my bed, my bedroom, and I slept out here, on the couch. I liked it, actually. In the middle of the night, I could play the piano, softly, of course. I could make up something that came to me on the spur of the moment. I sensed that she didn't mind. I don't know if she ever slept at all, behind my closed doors. Perhaps she kept her eyes wide awake all night, that was why she was so tired during the day. She wasn't physically tired, no, never. She always held herself tall, walked with a straight back, eyes looking straight ahead. But she was tired. Exhausted.

The kitchen was a tiny space, and we bumped shoulders as she watched the stove, and I washed the cups. The water ran over my hands, over the invisible cuts I had received from the gypsy ribbon. The pain wasn't great, it wasn't light. The water glazed over my hands, and I shuddered involuntairily, the sensation sending shivers up my spine. I was cold, the water was warm, the contrasting temperatures eventually evened out. By some chance, I wish that it was the same for everything.

The pictures hung on the wall, nailed there permanently, temporarily, by pins and tacks and whatever I could find, as long as it kept them up there. They would always be there, they would never leave me, like that wandering gypsy girl. Their stories were always easy to decipher, unlike the eyes of that gypsy. I knew what each of them meant, I understood them. And in a strange way, they understood me. The pictures said what I wanted them to say. It wasn't as if I envisioned them what they were. They envisioned themselves. And one day, they would have some meaning, another day, another. They laughed to each other, each contained in their own, separated worlds. And these were what my pictures were to me-- they were everything I had captured, like gauze-winged butterflies caught in a net. And these memories were just as fragile to me.

"Here."

I realized I was sitting back on the couch now, my eyes never strayed from the pictures. A cup of steaming something-- tea, perhaps, was directly in my vision. I looked up, and Julia looked back down, an amused expression on her face.

"Thank you." I accepted the cup, let it warm my hands.

We sat in silence for a few moments, letting the warm heat of the radiator permeate the room. I could just barely hear her sipping the liquid out of her cup, and I saw her hands were clutched tightly around it, as if it were the last thing in the world that gave warmth.

"You're going to burn yourself." I found myself saying.

"It's okay." She said. "I'm used to it."

Used to scorching your hands? I thought. How interesting. Same with me, maybe differently.

I've burnt every part of me countless times, already.

I could feel my face turn red, not just because of the heat in the room. And I recall--

"Gren..." She said, and I snap out of my reverie, glad for the interruption.

"Yes?" I turned towards her, affecting an overly-concerned face. She laughed slightly.

"Are you going to be playing tonight?"

"Well, I have to stay at the bar until one." I murmur. "I don't think you'd want to hang around that long. I have to be back there by seven."

"I'll take a walk." She replied, putting the cup down on the coffee table and looked thoughtful for a minute. "And don't worry about me--" She said, seeing my raised eyebrows. "I've got a gun handy just in case."

"In case you need ammunition, there's always that store right around the corner..." I suggested, not knowing what else to say. I couldn't have told her to stay in the house. She wasn't a domesticated animal or anything of the sort. But she reminded me of a white Persian cat-- those purebred ones you couldn't see here on Callisto-- clean and wary and seemingly house-kept. There was more than what met the eye, though.

"Do you have anywhere in mind?" I found myself asking, my cup almost empty. "For dinner, that is."

"No..." She said, pausing. "I don't really have much of an appetite." Her tone was apologetic. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry." I chuckled, swirling the clear liquid around in my cup. "Callisto doesn't have much of a selection, unlike Mars, where you're probably used to all sorts of--" I caught myself before I could say anymore, the very thought of me, rambling like a country bumpkin. "Excuse me."

"It's fine." She said, standing up, taking her cup to the sink. I sat there clutching mine, and I knew she was waiting for me to finish my drink, so she could wash it. But I didn't want her to wash it. I had always been the one to scrape the dishes, back when I lived as a child with my mother, and ever since I had arrived here-- it was a habit. I liked the sensation of water running over my hands, my body, a semblance of what it could feel like to cleanse myself, inside and out. I don't think I could ever get enough of that-- the water streaming over me, stripping the dirt away where white, marble hands had touched and left there--

"Julia." I said, finding that my breath had quickened, and I wanted to and I was unwilling to stop it. "Julia. I'll do that. Let me do that."

"You don't have to be so polite." She glanced at me, perhaps knowing what I was thinking, those blue eyes of hers penetrating into my thoughts. I couldn't bear to have her there. I wanted her out.

She was the woman that had separated--

"No, really." I stood up, an easy smile coming to my face. "You're the guest." I was aware my voice was tight and edged with steel, even though I kept a smiling demeanor. She placed the cup at the edge of the sink, it balanced there, ready to fall into the basin. I willed it to fall, to crash, to break. And then I looked back up, and she stared at me, a silent question, a challenge. Maybe it was all in my imagination. She knew everything. Why would she want to challenge, inquire, about what anything was?

"We leave in an hour." She said, breaking the tension, pointing to the clock that hung up on my wall, the opposite wall of the pictures.

"All right," I said, turning the faucet on, adjusting the hot and cold water taps.

I heard her walking into my room, her feet making no noise, but I could still hear her. She stopped in front of my picture wall, and inside, I wanted to scream at her, to tell her to get away from them, they were mine. But yet, she couldn't understand them. So I had nothing to fear. Nobody could take that away from me.

The water slid over my hands, hot and cold and yet not. It had no real form, yet I could not mold it into the shape I wanted it to be. If I could sculpt the water, I would shape it into my most precious memory, my most precious feeling, emotion. Yet the water would be invisible to everybody I wanted it to be. And if that one person came along, why then, the sculpture would be there, transparent, quivering, and they would only have to touch it to send it reeling, to send it screaming to the ends of the world, crying, crying more water, and then that sculpture would be changed. With only such a small contact.

I could never sculpt ice. It was too cold, too harsh, I could not change it-- and it wouldn't change for me. My fingers are already too cold. If I touched the ice, nothing would happen.

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