The Cupid 500

Chapter 11

"..."

Last time: our protagonist was accosted by her dead brother whom she had previously been unaware of, and was begged to impregnate some impressionable young children. The cast grew to include Ah! My Goddess, Ranma, and Inuyasha (among others). Usagi has a breakdown, and a chair tests her strength of will, which is not very strong at this particular point in time. She cries.

"Misery wears a lovely dress tonight," a soft voice remarked.

Usagi's head snapped up, and hot eyes fastened on cool ones. The beautifully slanted eyes flickered over her face, rested briefly on her throat, and then moved back to her eyes. The blonde woman's fingers unconsciously brushed her jugular, and then, suddenly realizing what she was doing, changed the motion to tuck her hair behind her ears.

"It has been my experience that Misery's dress has always been too pricey for me," she said guardedly.

"And yet you wear it all the same," the man said smoothly. "Let me ask you; how much did you pay for such a lovely outfit? It becomes you nicely. It truly brings out your eyes," he practically purred.

Belldandy, who had been watching the exchange silently up till this point, rose gracefully to her feet. "What is it, exactly, that you want here, sir?" she asked dangerously.

That silky, liquid smile spread across his face. "Why Belldandy-sama, it would seem that you're being a bit antagonistic. What would ever be the reason for that?"

The goddess narrowed her eyes. "Because I know who you are—"

"If you know who I am like you think you do, you would know that I am not anyone you need to be concerned about, my lady," he said with a slight bow. "I am a simple collector. I travel the world to find treasures, and it would appear that I have found one."

"Just leave her out of this!" Belldandy snapped, fire burning in her eyes.

Usagi struggled to her feet behind Belldandy and wiped careless fingers across her tired eyes. "Okay, so who the hell is this guy? Or what is he? I'm really not in the mood for the guessing game right now, just to warn you ahead of time."

"Usagi," Belldandy said warningly.

The blonde pushed the other woman out of the way. "Can it, O Divine One. I seriously don't think that anything could make me feel shittier than I do right now. I'm fine. This asshole can't do anything to me that hasn't happened already."

"Except for one thing," the man said helpfully.

Two sets of eyes swung towards him: one cold and wary, and the other sad... and possibly the tiniest bit hopeful. "Oh yeah," Usagi demanded belligerently. "And just what might the hell that be, huh?"

"Your senseless bravado is getting you nowhere, my dear," he said with a kindly smile. "And as I was going to say, there is something I can offer you that has probably never come your way before."

"I seriously doubt that," Usagi snapped, angry at the man's ability to see through her front.

"Darling, when God put teeth in your mouth, he ruined a perfectly good arsehole," he said with an amused smile.

Usagi jerked backwards, and then jabbed a finger at him. "Hey now, don't be an ass! That's just...." her speech slowed, as something familiar caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. No way. "Rude. Just rude," she finished lamely, having pretty much forgotten what she had been going to say in the first place.

"Did you find her?" bubbled a cheerful voice. Only a half second later there was a girl inspecting the shorter Usagi with a trained eye. "Yeeeeeaaaaah you found her. Whatcha gonna do now?" she begged.

He cast an experienced glare at her that sent her flinging herself into the crowd sobbing. His eyes lightened momentarily, and then turned back on Usagi, who was looking after the girl with an expression bordering on shock.

"Puppy love," he said with a secretive little smile.

She glared at him. "Excuse me?" Usagi demanded, overriding Belldandy's angry yelp.

A satisfied expression slid across his face. "Now that I have your full attention," he continued in exasperation. "I have come to collect."

Belldandy and Usagi stared at him blankly. Usagi frowned and opened her mouth, only to be interrupted by a light hand on her arm. There was only the lightest pressure of fingers, and only the subtle shift in temperature and the most vague scent, and the bottoms dropped from Usagi's eyes. She turned, slowly.

"It's you," she breathed.

A fleeting smile flickered across his face. "I'm afraid so," he said in his soft, sweet voice.

"What are you doing here?" Usagi gasped, fingers clutching impulsively at his sleeve.

"I was sent by the gods to give you an ultimatum, which you may or may not have heard by now," he said, looking very embarrassed. "You have two choices that are given to you by Fate, who has decided to be a bit more lenient with you than she had originally planned to be. You may either fall back in love with Duo, or die."

There wasn't enough strength in her left to be put off by this absolutely ridiculous challenge. Usagi sighed and dredged up the last remaining reserve of her energy to reply. "Mali, you can be sure that there is no way in hell I'm going to let myself fall back in love with him, and I'm not going to die. So there's some other way out of this."

When did her life become a soap opera?

Belldandy watched Usagi's mystery man and the kimono-ed man exchange a veiled, dangerous look. The man in the lovely kimono moved to touch Usagi's arm, but the other was there first, steering her away from Belldandy and the Chinese man. The goddess watched them go, and then glared up at the man.

"This is your fault, you know," she said unhappily.

He raised an eyebrow. "How is this possibly my fault?"

"Because you're in cahoots with Love, and you two threw this wild card and you knew it was going to be crazy with her because combined with her genetics and the ace—"

"Even you are affected," he said in bland amusement. "It's interesting, isn't it? How one person can have such a resoundingly profound effect on a person simply by turning on a smile or waving a hand or letting one's eyes sparkle in a certain way.... The human heart is such a fragile thing."

"Which is why you have no business playing with it!" Belldandy exclaimed, not even bothering to examine why her normally gentle nature had... changed.

That warm smile crossed his face again. "I'm afraid that she is one treasure I must have," he explained. "She is a precious specimen. These crass fools can never appreciate what she truly is. She is... priceless."

Belldandy couldn't find anything to say, and instead settled for giving him a disapproving look. "But she's not an animal, Count," she said softly.

"But neither is she human," he returned just as quietly. "She is too good for them."

"There are a lot of people that wouldn't agree with you, you know. There are a lot of people that think she is just some... easy, foolhardy, stubborn woman with a vicious mean streak."

"They are wrong. She is what they live for. She is the hope of mankind." A small, wicked smile tilted his lips. "And that hope is something they need desperately," managing to make it a weighty truth and stinging insult at the same time.

Belldandy raised an eyebrow. "She's a nice woman and I know that she's saved the universe on numerous occasions but don't you think that's taking it a little bit far? I mean... you make it sound like she's some neo-Jesus save-the-human-race figure. I don't think that's she's that kind of girl, Count."

He shook his head. "You don't understand. She is completely and purely in love. That is an ideal. It is a reason."

"There you are, Count!" a blonde man roared behind them, dropping his hand heavily on the delicate man's shoulder.

A very odd notion crossed Belldandy's mind as she observed the interaction between the "dear detective" and the count. There was such a peculiar quality to the count as he reprimanded the detective on drinking so much. There was a faint answering air about the detective, although heavily guarded and rejected. What... what was it? It felt so familiar, and it was right in the back of her mind....

Her eyes widened suddenly and she covered her mouth with a tiny hand to stifle a giggle. The two men turned around and looked at her with similar pained expressions. The count's mismatched eyes were watching her, and then a horrifying smile that was a mixture of total lechery and ultimate sweetness crossed his face and Belldandy found herself regretting her decision to stay loyal to Keiichi no matter what.

"You'll help me, then?"

She sighed, and swallowed another giggle. "I'll help."

The count squealed and threw his arms around her. "Thank you!"

A sufficiently embarrassed and shocked Belldandy disengaged herself from the count's overenthusiastic clasp and stepped gently away. How... weird. She couldn't believe she was about to help the count do this. It was so... against her moral obligations as a goddess.... But he looked so happy and ignoring the detective's general inclinations the emotion was there so if she just cast a Truth of Love spell on the two of them, then....

She muttered the spell under her breath and clasped her hands together. The wind sprung up around her, playing with her hair and brushing gentle fingers across her skin. It heard her words and picked them up and memorized them and... giggled. Yes, Belldandy was fairly certain that the wind giggled in delight before happily enveloping the count and the detective— Leon, was his name?

"D, what the hell are you doing?" Leon whimpered, endeavoring to sound very masculine while he did so.

"Oh, I'm not doing anything," the count said airily, with a smug smile on his face. This was definitely turning out to be his night. His eyes roamed across Leon's face, and the smile grew. Yes, his night indeed.

"THIS IS A SONG ABOUT A BOY WHO KISSED ME ON THE FACE!" the lead singer of the current live band roared before letting his rocking fingers have at the guitar strings.

"How... appropriate," Belldandy murmured with a bemused smile on her face.

"Woman, what the hell did you do to us?" Leon yelped in a very manly way.

The goddess fidgeted. "No-thing," she hummed.

"You're under arrest—"

"Come on darling, let's not bother the little goddess, although I'm sure we'll be seeing her later... no do not touch those inferior snacks, I'll make you something much better than that trash when we finish up here and get back to the shop—detective!"

And their voices faded into the throng, and Belldandy mused over the intricacies of human psyche. The Count himself was enigmatic and dark and sinister and smooth and was the perfect villain and was at the same time a feminine pet shopkeeper who delighted in sweets and had a large and hungry soft spot for a certain member of the police force. Leon was a gruff, overly excitable and handsome detective who happened to harbor a purple streak of deep affection for the aforementioned count. And Usagi....

Belldandy turned to where Usagi and — Mali, was it? — were sitting at a small table, talking earnestly.

"Tell me that's not Mali," a woman asked plaintively from behind her.

"Alright," Belldandy said agreeably.

There was a long silence, and then a heavy sigh. "Damn," the woman said reflectively. "This isn't... good, really, you know," she said conversationally. "Bad, in fact. He ought to be dead. Because... bad news, that boy."

The goddess made no response.

"Yep. Bad news," the woman pressed.

Belldandy echoed the woman's sigh. There was no telling how long the woman would be there unless Belldandy asked the inevitable question. "Excuse me, but why, exactly, is he bad news? And who the hell are you... in relation to him, Serenity-sama?" Belldandy covered smoothly.

The purple haired woman gave her a pleased look. "He was my daughter's first fiancée, back in the Moon Kingdom. He was three years younger than her and madly in love, and I think she might have loved him too, but.... The wild card," she said with a dramatic little sigh. "My daughter and he had made a pact that they could both see other people, and, like the young adults they were, got wildly jealous of the other when they did see others. I think it was an act of jealousy and I think she was trying purposely to hurt him.... But she slept with his brother, who was a few years older than her. He was engaged to the Princess of Venus, who then slept with Mali in retaliation. My daughter was furious with both Mali and Venus, and seduced Venus' brother. Mali, who had arranged a whole romantic apology, walked in on them."

"Oh," Belldandy said in a tiny voice.

"It sounds like a soap opera, doesn't it? No one knows about that side of the Silver Millennium. Everyone thinks it was all goody two shoes wholesome goodness.... Anyways, Mali killed himself, and Earth broke off the engagement to Venus because an alliance with us was more important, because by this time we had conquered Venus. They engaged the surviving prince Endymion to my daughter, who was then killed by a lovesick woman that had made a deal with...." Queen Serenity laughed ruefully. "Well, that doesn't matter, I guess. Poor Pygmalion," she said sadly.

"Pygmalion?" Belldandy asked in surprise. "As in Pygmalion from the Greek myth?"

"Pygmalion, who was so in love with the ideal woman that he would have no other," Serenity agreed, watching the two ex-lovers at the table.

She wanted to jump across the table and hug him and cry, and beg him to forgive her for the whole, stupid mess. She wanted to slap him on the shoulder and share the easy rapport that they had in the past. She wanted to grin, and ask him how his day had been. She wanted to ask about who he was now, and what he had been doing, and whether he had fallen in love....

But what she said was, "Long time no see, Mali." Stupid. Cliché. Inappropriate.

He smiled into his wine glass. "I guess it has, hasn't it? Been a long time, I mean."

"Yeah," she mumbled, twisting her napkin in her lap.

There was silence, broken only by Mali's fingers tapping out the offbeat of the song playing. I'll be happy on the day it dies. Remember when I said I loved you? Well, I take it back. I was just a stupid kid back then, I take back every word that I said. Those things that used to make you cry, one of them was me for just a little while....

How... appropriate, Usagi thought with a grimace. "So," she began uncomfortably. "What are you doing here?"

"Giving you your ultimatum," he said promptly. "Sere, did you love them?"

She blinked owlishly at him. "Excuse me? Who? Love... what? The choices of my ultimatum? No, not so much, really. I like having better odds of living happily ever—"

"Endymion," he said, eyes trained on the white tablecloth. "And Apollo. Did you love them?"

Usagi was quiet as she watched his bowed head. What could she say to him? If she said no, he'd hate her for sleeping with men that she hadn't even loved. If she said yes, then he'd hate her for not loving him. Odds were good that he hated her anyways, and it hurt that they couldn't... just go back in time and fix things. Make everything better. Maybe if she hadn't ended up marrying Endymion, Beryl wouldn't gave given Metallia a focus point and the moon kingdom wouldn't have been destroyed and the Utopia that she was supposed to create would be active already and the world wars could have been prevented—

Her eyes were snared by a violet dress flashing by them. Violet.... Her entire core melted.

"I didn't love them," she said quietly, not looking away from the dance floor. Not like she had loved Duo, anyways.

"Why, then?"

The heartbreak in his voice made her look up. His face was still bowed, so she couldn't see his expression. She could guess that he was barely holding back tears. He had always been a softhearted guy. Romantic. Easy to hurt... which is what she had done.

"I wanted to make you jealous," she said quietly.

"Do you know—"he began, looking up into her face.

Then Usagi understood something. She slowly pushed away from the table, brushed off her dress reflexively, and stood. "Mali, we can't be having this conversation. This all happened thousands of years ago. I don't know why you're even alive. I have had a long time to agonize over how stupid my actions were, and what a selfish, easy bitch I was. I have also had to deal with the aftereffects in this life. Don't you dare think that I haven't had my punishment, because I have. I've had it ten times over," she said fiercely. "I have a life now, Mali, and it has nothing to do with you, or the Silver Millennium! Is that perfectly clear?"

"It's the Gundam pilot, isn't it?" he asked, lips tight.

"No," she snapped, "it is not the Gundam pilot."

"Then why the hell can't I get into your head?" he finally exploded. "The only reason for someone to not be able to hack into someone else is that either that person has a strong spiritual or physical bond with someone else, or that person has psychic training!"

"You're trying to hack into my head?" she demanded. "What kind of asshole are you?" Protecting me even now, Duo? It was kind of ironic.... Even after all this, he still had her back. "What the hell do you want into my head for anyways?"

"I'm trying to tell whether you're telling me the truth or not! You lied to me all the time in the past, if you remember right," he said venomously. "Now sit down!" he hissed, waving a hand frantically as she gaped at his bit of viciousness. "We're making a scene!"

She rallied to her senses. Stupid princes! Always think you can boss me around! "And you always hated to make a scene, didn't you? Well I think this is bloody well time enough to make a scene! What the hell are you trying to find out, ya goddamn pansy ass?"

"Who was it that you were in love with?" he asked desperately.

Pathetic, she through fuzzily. One thousand years, and he had not forgotten. One thousand years, and he had not been able to move on. It was romantic in a tragic sort of way. The spurned lover returns from the grave, searching for the love he had lost so long ago....

I was in my lab, creating what I thought would be, well, something great for the world. A two headed cat! You could pet one kitty's head while you pet the other kitty's head.... But little did I know that atomic energy would turn this cat into a man-eating monster! The cat with two heads, whooooaaaaa, whooooaaaaaa, the cat with two heads! The band continued in their mad ska way to sing about a magic chicken.

How... inappropriate.

Usagi decided to ignore the band (which was now clucking joyfully "Do the popcorn chicken! Do the KFC! Do the Buffalo wings! Do the pioneer! Cluck, cluck, cluck—") and focus on the problem at hand. She sat back down and touched his arm.

"See, Mali, this is why we really shouldn't even be seeing each other. We always start fighting, and it's stupid because we're both really cool people when we're not around each other. Don't you think it would be better to just forget about each other?" she asked soothingly.

"Who is it?" he managed to force out of his mouth.

Usagi slumped back against her chair. "It was the Gundam pilot."

"So you did lie!" he hissed, moving to get up.

"No, I didn't," Usagi shot back. "You asked me who I was in love with right now, and it's not Duo! I'm not in love with him anymore! I wish to God that I was because that would make things so much easier for me, it really would. But apparently me being a wild card and whatnot, it leaves me with a handy dandy escape clause which I unwittingly used and am so, as a result, not in love."

Hope returned to his face, and Usagi felt like a complete boor that she was going have to crush that feeble light. "Then there's still time to win you back?" His entire body begged for the chance.

"Mali," she sighed. "I loved Duo with all of my stupid, dumb ass heart and that didn't get me anywhere. I'm not going to be falling back in love with anyone in this lifetime. I'm sorry," she added clumsily at his expression.

His sweet brown eyes watched her, and she wished so earnestly that things had been different between them. She really did think that maybe if she had been a different person, the two of them could have fallen so deeply in love.... They could have been Romeo and Juliet that had been given a happily ever after. They could have been the romantic couple to go down in the history books. People would have talked about their magic, of their all-encompassing love.... They could have spoken in hushed tones about the way that they had looked at each other, about how radiant the two of them looked....

It could have been magical... but it wasn't. It took her breath away; looking back on how many chances she had been given to live happily ever after. She could have had that golden world with Mali. She could have had the perfect Utopia with Mamoru. She could have had that wonderful, fantastic ever after with Duo. She could have had the universe at her feet at the side of Ran. Her insides shuddered.

How could things go so impossibly wrong?

It just took talent. Talent, and... and guts. A feeling began to grow deep inside Usagi's stomach. Not entirely sure what it was that was happening, her fingers curled around the sides of the chair as she shifted uncomfortably. It seemed as if someone had reached down and peeled off an impossibly thin film from her skin. The air felt fresh and new, and each unsteady breath that she took was like breathing new life into her body.

A slow smile blossomed on her face, and she stood again. Mali was looking up at her in confusion, and his eyebrows knit together in confusion. "What's wrong?" he asked anxiously. "Are you alright?"

"Actually... I am. I'm better than alright," she said with a smile. "Because you know what? I don't regret it. I don't regret one damn bit of it. Because, Mali? I lived. I did some shitty things, and I feel bad about that but what have you been doing? You've been sitting on your ass for a thousand years stewing over this fucking soap opera that happened in a fallen kingdom.... And you haven't gotten over it. But you know what I've been doing? I've been living. I have been living, knowing what I did and knowing that it was a crappy thing.... And I've gotten over it. I wake up in the morning, and I—"

A happy, wonderfully uninhibited laugh rolled from her lips. "You know what?" she said with a big grin. "Forget about it. You're not going to get it. You never will. I can talk at you all I want, I can lecture you, I could call Jesus fucking Christ down here and have him agree with me... and you won't listen. And maybe that's just who you are. Maybe you're so hung up on how things ought to be that you can't get over and past them. Maybe that's just something that I can do because I'm rich, loved, and beautiful," she said with a wink. "But I'm leaving now. I have a family. Hell, I have two families and they both want to see me. So I'm going to leave, Mali. You can do whatever the hell you want with that ultimatum of yours; I'm not giving into whatever you want."

"Usagi?" Ran asked, appearing beside her. "I lost you at the beginning of the dance," he explained. "Where've you been? I've been looking all over the place."

She turned towards him. "Fuck you, Ran," she said simply. "I know damn well that you were the one that was sending those youma after me. I know that you're trying to seduce me and if a lot of shit hadn't gone down tonight I'd be fine with that and I probably would have even agreed to a happily ever after with you but...."

"The aforementioned shit has, in fact, gone down," he finished for her with a rueful smile.

"And man has it gone down," she said with a heartfelt sigh. "Well, I'm glad you understand. I'm going to go find my idiot brothers now," she explained, turning away from him... only to be stopped by a loose grip on her arm.

"Who said anything about understanding, my dear?" Ran asked pleasantly. "You actually think I'm going to let you run back to that moronic Gundam pilot? That would be... a waste of a future, princess."

She tugged on her arm, unsure as to what the appropriate reaction was. Should she be screaming rape yet? "So find someone else with a future, Ran. I am otherwise occupied, sorry to burst your bubble."

His expression darkened. "There are only so many futures that actually mean something. You are one of those futures, idiot! You are something that matters. Find someone else?" he scoffed. "I think not. Admittedly, most of the people in this room have done things. They've changed people's lives. They've saved worlds. They've staved off the destruction of one thing or another but you. You alone have the power to effect universes. You have the power to sway gods and demons. You have the charisma, the power, the beauty, the wit, and the charm. You could be unstoppable, and you settle for a pilot?" he seethed.

She yanked harshly on her arm. "It doesn't matter how much charisma, power, beauty, wit, or charm that I have you fucking asshole! Do you think that any of it matters to me anymore? I mean yeah, I'm vain. I love having control over people, I love being beautiful and I love knowing that I can call up a guy from a pool of thousands and he'd do anything for me. That's all great, yeah but it doesn't matter because in the long run—"

"Don't you dare even start that crap about Love! Don't you dare tell me that you'd drop all this for him. I know you, Usagi, so don't you even start that classic cliché with me," he snarled. "Someone like you could never know anything about that!"

"And what the hell do you know about it?" Usagi raged. "I'll bet that you think that kind of love has to do with that charisma crap you were spouting off about, right? Well let me fucking tell you something! Love is more than that! Love has to do with something deeper than that! Love has something to do with souls! It's looking at someone and feeling like you would literally walk up to a mountain and push on it until one day you moved it enough to get to where he wants it to be. It's waking up next to someone and knowing without a doubt in the world that looking at him is what makes breathing possible. It's what makes it even thinkable that you keep inhaling and exhaling, because you know that if you didn't you would die and you'd never get to see the stupid look on his face right when he wakes up. Love is—"she stopped, frustrated.

"And I suppose you'd know what that feels like," he said sarcastically.

"Damn right I do," she screamed. "I know because I am fucking in love with that stupid asshole Duo Maxwell and there is nothing I or any other shithead can fucking do about it! Every day I wake up by myself and wonder how the hell I'm going to find the strength to sit up and walk to the breakfast table but then I remember that he's alive and that's enough! Are you listening? That's enough for me! That little, stupid, insignificant fact is enough to make me not throw myself into traffic. Do you fucking hear me yet, because I am not fucking around anymore, you goddamn asshole!"

Mali looked at his watch. "Midnight," he said unnecessarily since Usagi's world had already exploded into a kaleidoscope of vibrant, neon colors.

"Did you mean it?" they whispered against her ear.

"Yes," she breathed.

"You hurt a lot of people," they reminded her, whispering and testing, dissolving her skin and peeling back her bones.

"I know."

"It didn't have to be like that," they sighed, stripping back the pretenses and masks of her mind.

"But it was."

"Tomorrow doesn't have to be," they cautioned, dusting away the cobwebs and opening the rusted gates.

"It won't," she promised, and she finally saw the colors of her heart.

"Humanity is ugly. There is nothing that can be done to escape this. It is an inherent part of human nature to be twofaced and amusingly evil. People lie. They cheat. They steal. They are jealous, they are hateful, and they are greedy.... It leaves one to wonder whether their hallowed Lord God knew what he was doing when he allowed them to choose between good and evil. It makes one wonder whether this ethical grime is worth free will, doesn't it?"

"I'm not here for a lecture on humanity, Count," the man snapped, beginning to grow uncomfortable. "I just want a pet. You said you had something that might help me, and if you don't tell me what's going on I'm going to call the cops. I have enough evidence to press some serious charges against you, sir, so I'd watch where I was stepping."

The count smiled. "I was just getting to the part where I make a smooth transition to the hope of mankind. Surely you wouldn't begrudge me a small pep talk? It'd also serve as an appropriate warning as to the nature of what you are about to witness, sir," he said with only the slightest mocking tone.

"Whatever," the man in the suit snarled.

"You are the prime example, my dear customer. You are the epitome of the American stereotype. You walk in here and are convinced that you are a busy man with a busy schedule. You are convinced that because you have a cell phone and talk to the presidents of large companies, you are more important than the penniless poet that drabbles about love on napkins in the local café."

"That penniless poet is worthless," the businessman growled. "I work my ass off to make money for my family, and I worked hard to get to where I am now! That damn poet doesn't deserve the time of day—"

"Oh?" the Count asked with mild amusement. "I would say that you are wrong. The poet is the man that sees the evil in humanity and knows it for what it is: a facet of the human nature. He know it for what it is, and seeks to better humanity by toting praises for the other personality of this human mind. He knows that there is a better world than this one. He knows that there are still reasons to live. He knows that there are causes to live for, and causes to die for. You, sir... you are the man that sees the world and its evils and shields yourself from the problems by becoming the problem. But you still know...."

By now the man had nothing to say. He just stood there; feeling that there suddenly wasn't enough room in the little hall. The walls were too close, the perfume hung too thick in the air and the count's face was too close to his own. His mind felt like it had been ripped open and exposed bleeding to the world.

Come on world, time to eat....

"What are you talking about?" he asked weakly.

"You know what the poet knows. You know that there's something better and it kills you. You know that there are still classic ideals out there and you know that if you tried you could find them but you can't—or you won't because it's too big of a risk and it just seems hopeless. It seems hopeless because it is hopeless, and the only way to win in this world is to be on their side but you can't because you're not rich enough because you're not ruthless enough and you're not ruthless enough because of what you know—"

"Then what the hell do you want me to do?" the man suddenly yelled. "Why are you telling me this? Why are you making me listen to this when you and I both know that there isn't a goddamn thing I can do about any of this shit that we have to live in? Why?"

"Because there is, in fact, something I can do for you," the count said simply.

"What?" the man asked hoarsely.

"I can show you Hope," the count murmured as he opened the door the businessman hadn't seen until that moment.

The room was dark. All the man could see, at first, were indistinct shapes. He could make out some kind of arrangement of pillows on the floor, surrounded by thin gauzy drapes suspended from the ceiling, like some kind of eastern harem. All at once, four dim fires lit in the four corners of the room, and he could see what it was that was like a vague suggestion in his mind until moments before.

Hope.

"Ummmm RIGHT. Well didn't go as well as I had originally planned."

"Obviously."

"Let's give that one another try them, hmm?"

"Are you serious? No. You've got to be kidding me."

"Oh, don't be a baby. It won't be that bad again. There's no possible way that the genetics and everything will be that perfect. By this time her blood will be so diluted by stupid other blood that there's no way—"

"Better to be safe than sorry."

"And he's not going to be so... you know. Dumb this time. Or, not dumb, because... then it wouldn't be him. But he won't have been psycho pilot and everything, so that'll help. And she won't have gone out with that Chinese dude. And he'll—"

"Once an asshole, always an asshole. I think it gets imprinted onto the soul or something. It's regulations, man. Gimme a smoke. I need a smoke real bad, man."

"No kidding, but...."

"But what? Ah! Thanks, man."

"It was kind of cool, don't you think?"

"...."

"Right. Ugh. Blow your smoke at someone more deserving. So can I try again?"

"Fine! Just do it already!"

"And... you said you were going to quit smoking, man."

"Do you want me to change my mind?"

"No, I was just saying—"

"Cuz I will! I can and I will, so don't push me, mister."

"Okay, okay, okay. Just chill, man. We'll give this another go, and then you can try to quit again."

"Don't push me, man."

"I'm not pushing you!"

"You're pushin it, and you know it!"

"Don't be such anal fu—"

Renowned high-school swimmer Ami Mizuno sat next to a vague acquaintance (named Yohji, so... not vague) silently, sucking contemplatively on a blueberry popsickle. His arm was draped casually around her, fingers tracing lazy circles on her bare shoulder. She was trying her best to concentrate solely on the nice, fruity flavor of her icy treat and therefore, you know... ignore Yohji's fingers. This was... paramount in importance.

Minako frowned at them. "Ami! You look positively stiff! That's unacceptable! My photography teacher says that this picture is all my portfolio's lacking! Just be a good friend and at least pretend to be interested in Yohji. For god's sake, loosen up!" Minako pleaded.

Ami blushed bright red, and turned her head quickly to the side. "Why did you choose us to be the subject anyways? You know a hundred other couples that are actually, you know. Together."

Yohji's finger's changed direction. Disconcerted, Ami flashed him a quick, confused look and blushed furiously at his sexy little smirk. She was going to die. It was certain. There would be no heaven for cute little Ami-chan because she was neck-deep in sin and was going to burn for even thinking what she was—

"Ami," Minako began in exasperation. "I've explained it to you so many times now!"

"It's not her fault you're a psycho," Mamoru observed from his position behind Minako.

She shot him a dirty look. "You of all people should believe me, Mamo-chan! You were a prince. As in, heir to some kind of fortune or at least some ass kicking royal superpower."

Yohji perked up. "I haven't heard this story," he said in interest. "Am I in it?"

Ami muttered something that he found very interesting. "What was that, luv?" he practically purred against her ear.

The blue haired girl shrieked and would have leapt from the bench if Yohji's arm hadn't been holding her securely to his side. The fingers applied slight pressure to her shoulder, and she could feel his eyes boring into the side of her face and on one hand she wanted to absolutely melt, because.... Yohji. Tasty. Who wouldn't melt? But on the other hand... eep.

"What Ami may or may not have been trying to say is this: we all were friends in a past life! In the very first past life that I even remotely recall, Ami and I were these princesses who had a sworn duty to hang out with and protect the uberprincess, Serenity! That dolt over there," she said jerking a thumb at Mamoru, "was the prince of earth and had a cute little brother named Pygmalion, usually just called Mali.

"Anyways, I was engaged to Mamoru first, because they needed Venus' resources, and so Mali was shipped off to Serenity for marriage. Only problem was that Serenity was a rampant heartbreaker and Mali was a hopeless romantic and while he fell madly in love with her, she... didn't. Only..." she trailed off thoughtfully.

"Only we—Minako thinks that maybe Serenity did fall in love with him," Ami continued. "She wasn't really sure what love was at the time, and was mostly afraid of it anyways. How was she supposed to trust it? In her eyes love was sex appeal, and it was a tool to be used against weaker people like Mali. So they made a stupid teenage pact that it was to be a purely political union..."

"Except that they both got wildly jealous when the other saw someone else," Minako said, picking up Ami's train. "Mali respected their pact too much to say anything, and Serenity was too goddamned pigheaded to say anything. Bad things went down and—"Minako's eyes flickered to Mamoru, who shrugged.

"You can just say it. He died. He sacrificed himself for Serenity—according to your story, Minako, which I still think is absolutely ridiculous. But anyways, more uninteresting things happened—"

"We all died you jackass!" Minako interrupted with a huff.

"—and we were all reborn in the 20th century. Problem being, of course, that due to our dear princess' rather supernatural origin, several things went drastically wrong. For one thing, the cards that Fate cast for her drew an ace of hearts, which bumps her to uncanny romantic levels. Add that with the magic already inherent in her nature and a few dirty tricks played by the gods and you wound up with an ex-princess destined to save the world... in more ways than one."

"See," Minako sighed happily, "we all got reborn with our powers from the past life. So we were the Sailor Senshi, destined to save the world! And when that was done, the magic that was usually running rampant through our veins began to quiet, which allowed the second part of our dear friend Serenity/Usagi's fate to fall into place. Because of her wild cards and magic and crap, it created a weird kind of thing...." Here she looked uncertainly at Ami, who sighed.

"She became a kind of Christ figure for the whole of Creation. Because her love was magical and wondrous and everything, it became a sort of beacon. It became a light that signaled to the world that hope was not lost. Thing was, she was so messed up by him," Ami said with a pointed glare at Mamoru, "and Mali, and Diamond, and Jadeite, and, well, everyone, that her love was beginning to flicker. She began to try to quiet it and shove it down into the recesses of her mind. That was, of course, not allowed to happen and so began toying with her subconscious. She began unconsciously reaching out to whole universes and drawing them towards her, because she wanted desperately to be loved, even though it wasn't happening quite the way she envisioned."

"So, the cavalry was called in. They assigned an operative named Ran to get in there and kill Usagi, thereby eliminating the threat of her reaching out and drawing all of creation in on herself," Minako said with a grin. "Jesus he was good-looking."

Ami giggled. "That's putting it lightly. So anyways, according to Minako," she said severely, "he came, he saw, and fell madly in love. So instead of killing her he decided to woo her. Only problem was that through an interesting twist of fate Mali's soul had been reborn and put to work in that department. He found out about the case and followed us all around in the guise of a creepy little child before finally showing his true colors at a big family reunion ball that was being put on in England at Usagi's mafia aunt's house. That, sadly, was the day of the ultimatum and she had managed to talk herself out of being in love with Duo—"

"Backtrack! Duo Maxwell," Minako explained, "was Usagi's one true love... just like her, too! Cute and stubborn and stupid and pissy and irresponsible and childish and prideful and—"

"What she's trying to say," Ami said with a laugh, "is that when he and Usagi broke up, neither could bring themselves to apologize for something that was really both of their faults. So Usagi went about trying to ignore it, which, you know... the whole black hole of creation thing, and Duo sulked. Thing was, Usagi was still hung up on Duo, but she wouldn't admit it. So everyone figured that if they killed Duo, she'd be free to fall in love with someone else. So they tried, and failed, to kill Duo."

"And then Usagi suffered an epiphany and realized at the last glorious moment that she was truly, madly, and deeply in love with that stupid man of hers—"

"And so was granted a way to escape oblivion!" Ami said cheerfully. "The Powers That Be or Gods or Fates or whatever the hell you want to call them peeled back her humanity and laid bare her heart and soul. She took the appearance of her old self, of course, but because she was unhindered by memory or time or any mortal concerns, her heart and soul could love Duo without having to think about anything else. I think maybe the gods cheated a little, because they took the love and separated it from the whole... but the way that it worked out, her "light" could shine unimpeded. So she was tucked away in a small pet shop in Chinatown, where little by little she brought faith in humanity back to the world. And then after a few hundred years of that—"

"She was reborn," Mamoru said, looking past Minako.

Everyone turned around and Minako laughed out loud. There was a cable repair truck parked outside a large office building. There was a woman standing outside of the truck, screaming obscenities at the man cowering behind a security guard. Clearly livid about something she spun and for one terrifying second looked at them and—

Blue.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" the blonde woman yelled. "Fucking idiots!" she shouted belligerently before leaping into her van and zooming off.

"Yeah," Minako said, recovering valiantly. "Just like that. Anyways," she said cheerfully, "Mamoru had his line of hussies and... Ami and Yohji! You two were banging each other!" she proclaimed cheerfully.

"WHAT?" Ami shrieked.

Ever one to be on the lookout for the fabled "opportune moment", Yohji figured this was as close he was going to get and so took the opportunity to kiss her. There was a click and a flash and Minako was squealing happily and Ami was sitting stone still, unable to grasp why Yohji was draping himself against the bench, smiling lazily. Mamoru was ignoring them and lighting up a cigarette, and Minako was leaping at Ami for a hug.

"Thank you Ami! The picture's going to turn out great!"

"Nng," Ami confirmed.

Yohji smirked, and Minako squealed again, grabbing up her camera and tripod. "Thanks again, you guys! I really appreciate it! You've done so much to help my career! I'll remember—and pay—you when I'm rich and famous! Ooo, you have no idea—"

Head low, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Brown hair lit by the sunlight, he walked slowly as if enshrined in a little world known only to him. Brooding blue eyes were hidden in there somewhere, fastening on the cracked and aging sidewalk as it was ten times more interesting than the world around him. He had places to be, and people to meet. He would not stop for anyone. He would not bow to anyone. He would not shake his head from the clouds, for those clouds was where his iron will and steely countenance laid. He had things to do, so maybe it was not that he would not pause... but rather that he could not. But if he did pause.... Well.

A peaceful smile lit Minako's face. She spun back towards Ami to find her deeply engaged with Yohji in... gods, what were they doing? And in public? Blinking the shock from her eyes, she turned to Mamoru.

"I'll be right back—"she stopped, flustered. "Or maybe not. But any rate, I'm leaving now," she said, rushed. Can't loose him. Not now.

"Yeah, whatever—"he did a double take. "Wait, what? Where are you going?" he demanded.

His back was facing her now. Gods, she had seen that same sight so many times before. Lips, pressed tightly together. Eyes dark and hooded, brow furrowed with the weight of purpose. She had always been filled with the sense that maybe if she hurried, if she could just reach far enough to touch him—maybe then....

She swung her backpack over her shoulder and took off running after the man that she had been waiting for. She knew that she'd find him eventually, but ever since she was a little girl she had dreamed about him. Ever since she was a girl she had been so sure of herself because she knew.... Because she knew that there was a boy... or a teenager, or a man out there that she was made to love.

Faye was chatting excitedly about how great it was going to be to have another female on board. For one thing, Minako was Sailor freaking Venus and therefore was going to make collecting bounty heads a magical snap, and (the bigger plus in Faye's opinion) she'd have another girl to complain about Spike with! It was a win/win situation! It was all so—

Minako was ignoring her. She was happy that Faye was so enthusiastic about having her onboard, but... the misery was overwhelming. Hiiro hadn't called. He hadn't even stood up to stop her when she was leaving in the first place. Was she really that big of a failure? Was she really that horrible to be around? She hadn't thought so before, but... but if a man she really and truly loved couldn't be with her... who possibly could? At this point she didn't even care whether he came or not. She just needed out. She needed to take her mind off of everything. She couldn't just stay there and think about everything that went wrong....

Her fingers wrapped around the doorway of the big ship, and glanced back out across the docking area. Empty. The boneless wonder Ed leaped onto her back and hugged her tightly.

"Welcome aboard, Vee-vee! It will be super fun with you on board! Welcome, welcome!"

No more stalling for time, then. As if reading her mind, Spike frowned at her from within. "Come on! We don't have all day," he snapped.

"I'm coming," she said absently. With one last look at the dock, she stepped inside the Bebop.

Five minutes later a man pulled up to the dock on his motorcycle. He swung his legs off the bike and removed his helmet. It fell from loose fingers, and the man walked slowly towards a package at the end of the pier, wrapped plainly in brown packaging paper. Lying across the top of the package was a simple white envelope, and a rose. Unbelieving fingers wrapped around the rose, unheeding of the thorns digging into his skin. Unreadable eyes lifted to look up at the stars, and he found himself damning himself, the stars, and the empty bay that would only serve as a reminder--

It had been a calendar. She had been browsing through a bookstore a few months before, and had come across a calendar that proclaimed itself to be the best source for tragic romance, and the pictures that captured it. She had scoffed, at first. What would they know? But then, curious, she had flipped it over, and there he was. Rose held tightly in the capable hand, traces of blood only barely visible. The package sat forgotten on the planks next to the edge of the dock, his familiar jacket discarded on the ground. His head was tilted back, and he was just watching the sky, silently.

"Alone," the caption proclaimed

He had come back for her.

She wasn't giving up this time. Having finally caught up with the man, she finally slowed down and slipped her arms around him from behind. "I was looking for you," she whispered.

The look of mild surprise on his face was priceless. "You have the wrong person, ma'am," he said coolly, breaking away from her and turning to glare at her... only to be frozen by the way she stood there, watching him with that warmth in her eyes and smile.

"I have exactly who I was looking for. I know what I'm doing this time," she said quietly, and, with uncustomary tenderness, stepped up to give him a feather-light kiss on his cheek. She pressed a piece of paper into his hand, touched his cheek gently, and then slipped back into the crowd.

So maybe she had a penchant for the dramatic, but she also had a feeling. This time there would be no doubt. There would be no question. There would be no hesitation. This time, everything would be right.

He hated cable. There was no doubt about it. It was evil. The bane of humanity. The reason society was crumbling. RIGHT THERE. The root of all problems (not just his problems-- everyone's problems) stemmed from that evil cable disk he had installed in his house.

"Thir, ya gonna be needin the phone again for the thpethial phone cable thervith?" Igor3003 asked, limping into his living room with a pair of women's underwear on his head.

Duo stared at the hologram and sunk further into his chair. He was so poor that his holographic organizer had mutated into a severely deformed midget monster with a lisp and a limp. It made for a funny story, he supposed. People loved to come over to his house and make Igor say tongue twisters that involved the letter "s". It was kind of mean, he had to admit, but there was something emotionally healing about hearing the stupid midget say "Silly Sally sells seashells by the seashore" and finding comfort in the fact that it was in fact possible to have a worse life than he did.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Better get me that phone, bud."

"Yeth thir," Igor chuckled.

"Wait, wait, wait," Duo hurried, pulling himself halfway out of the chair. "Dude, why are you wearing women's underwear on your head? Wild night, eh man? Real wild? Sex, drugs, rock and roll?"

"Laundry."

"Oh."

The phone rang, and they both stared at it like it had grown fangs and was trying to eat them. Gingerly, Duo stepped over the pizza box and lifted the phone to his ear. He listened intently, and then shrugged at Igor. The hologram mouthed the word "hello" and jabbed a finger wildly at the phone. Duo stared at him in black incomprehension, until suddenly—

"Oh, oh, oh! Sorry! Hello?" he gushed into the phone.

"Duo Maxwell? This is Duo Maxwell, right?" came a deep, snarling voice over the line.

"Uh... yeah," he said in confusion. "Listen, if this is about last month's water bill, I can assure you that it probably just got lost in the mail or something. It definitely was in the mail, though, I kid you not! I swear I sent—"

"I don't give a shit!" the man roared. "I just wanted to tell you that your cable technician will be at your house in approximately... three seconds. Have a shitty day, asshole. I hope you fall and die!" he said savagely before hanging up.

Duo stared at the phone and set it back down in the cradle. "And that, Igor, is why I don't pick up the phone anymore. People are rude little assholes, you know. Can't trust anyone anymore. Just don't understand. Feh."

Wait. Three seconds.

The doorbell rang.

"Shit!" Duo swore as he sped to the door. "Of course the cable has to break on the day that I didn't clean up! Fuck, this house is a total mess! I don't get it, Igor, what am I paying you for?"

"You're not paying me, thir," the hologram said dryly.

"Oh, right, my bad, hello sir," Duo greeted, opening the door. "And by "sir", you have to understand that I meant "ma'am". I've got a genetic predisposition to get the genders mixed up, there's nothing I can do about that psychological twitch. It's a sad thing, truly it is. Please, come inside!" he welcomed her, sweeping his hand majestically.

She raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. Right. What the hell is that?" she demanded, pointing at Igor. "Did he have a wild night or what?"

Duo took pity on her, thinking that she might have been hit by bricks or something. "That's called a hologram. It's not real. It's like a ghost but not as annoying and the room doesn't go cold when it comes in unless it's got a fan with it," he explained.

She gave him a withering look of scorn. "I know that," she said, glaring at him and then sweeping into the hallway with the air of a princess.

"So what seems to be the problem? Couldn't find the on button or what? You shouldn't worry about it. There are people out there that have problems like that. The first step to getting help is to admitting that you have a problem. Try to remember that, okay--- shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" she yelled.

"Don't hurt her!" he yelled, flinging himself into the living room (which is where the cable woman had escaped to while she had been talking at him).

The woman—Usagi, according to her nametag—gave him an odd look and crouched down beside him. "That pizza box did nothing to hurt you," she admonished gently, poking the box beneath him experimentally. "You know, from the looks of this apartment I'm surprised it hadn't grown legs and fur by now," she said with a grin.

"The CIA said that if I let that happen again I would be in violation of Code 36981427003, which has something to do with unauthorized civilians creating Frankenstein type creations out of everyday household objects such as pizza boxes. They took the last one away to their labs for testing. Secret government bio-research, you know," Duo said with a cheeky grin.

"So now I'll know who to blame when they start using custom made denizens of hell that look vaguely like furry pizza boxes as cops to keep us unruly citizens inline. Sweet. Thanks for the tip, man. But Christ what have you been doing to this poor cable system? It's fucking fried."

Duo shrugged, and Usagi sighed. "Whatever, I'll just get it fixed and... stuff."

"Stuff?" he asked curiously.

She nodded. "Stuff," she confirmed.

He decided that she was cute. "What kind of stuff?" he asked interestedly as she jammed some sort of tool into the cable installation slot.

"Just... stuff," she grunted, giving the wall a good kick.

"I already tried that," he let her know.

"Just checking," Usagi mumbled, jiggling the tool around in the slot. And then she spontaneously burst into the chorus of "It's All Been Done" by the Barenaked Ladies, which was... an absolutely ancient band from at least seven hundred years before. He obviously had to marry her.

"You know that band?"

"I know everything," she shot back. "Okay. It's fixed," she announced.

"You spent like five seconds on it!" he protested. She couldn't leave that soon. He needed to marry her, still.

"I'm talented and beautiful. Those are two things in my favor, enabling me to pretty much to anything and everything. Except, you know. Be a model or an actress or something, since that takes anorexia and stupidity, neither of which I have, which is a pity. Or, not a pity since I wouldn't quite appreciate having an IQ that could only barely rival that of a fish and a body roughly the same size across."

"I dated an actress once."

"How many brain cells did you lose?"

"None, she was majoring in law."

Usagi sighed heavily. "I hate it when my stereotypes are destroyed. Well Duo Maxwell it was nice talking to you I suppose. I'll be back to fix your thingy if it breaks again, which I sincerely hope never happens. Hasta luego and all that jazz. Adios!" she called, swooping out of the door.

Duo sat on the floor and studied the door sullenly. He jabbed the fallen pizza box with his large toe and glanced back up at the door. The man then turned to look at the cable slot, all perfect and shiny and unbroken and probably in no shape to be breaking again anytime soon....

"Don't you dare," Igor gasped.

Usagi kicked the door open with a bang. She let out a roar of rage, successfully giving heart attacks to everyone in the vicinity. The electrically charged wires that Duo was preparing to stick into the cable slot slipped and jabbed into his skin, making him shriek like a little girl and leap around like he had a fish in his pants. The forgotten wires fell to the ground, where they connected to the pizza box. Given this opportunity to bring some life to the world, the wires pulsed with some extra energy. The pizza box howled in pain and took off through the air like some kind of UFO. Igor thundered in from the kitchen, closely followed by a completely naked female hologram. The landlord poked his head in through the hole in Duo's wall, took one look at the mess, and retreated.

Duo looked up at Usagi. "Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"I wasn't trying to break it to get you to come back here," he informed her.

"Of course not," she grinned.

"Because that would be stupid," he continued.

"But kind of cute," she reassured him.

"So... dinner?" he asked hopefully.

Her grin widened, and she closed his front door behind her. "That sounds great."

Wonderful.

THE END

You go your way, I'll go mine but I'll see you next time... (oo woo hoo hoo) it's all been done (oo woo hoo hoo), it's all been done (oo woo hoo hoo), it's all been done before....