Chapter 4 at last, and none too soon; I've been labouring at several different things at once, trying to keep track of all the connections. Since this feeds into my previous stories (The Vagrant and The Lonely) and the ones I'm still working on that aren't up here yet, whenever an idea occurs to me, I have to make sure I flesh it out there and then, to see if it 'fits into the jigsaw'. all of which takes time.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who's reviewed my work thus far: it's big boost for me to know people are enjoying my work, and also to know why. It keeps me going! And now, Chapter 4.

There were, Falco had concluded, two problems with Leon Powalski.

Firstly, he was too much of a spineless little goody-two-shoes crybaby to ever join in with anything Falco thought was fun. Leon could never back him up when he was scrapping with the neighbourhood kids, seeing as how he'd be too busy whimpering in the shadows as soon as anything kicked off, looking all pouty-faced and miserable.

You couldn't have any kind of fight with the little runt: if anyone raised a fist at him, he'd go pale (and he was very good at that) and come running to his 'big blue babysitter'. If Falco himself so much as looked at him funny... oh man. The endless floods of tears, the big hurt eyes, that look of betrayal...

The first time it had happened had taught him that bullying Leon was no fun at all. Quite besides the bawling and general guilty conscience, Leon always gave him that look, the one that seemed to instantly teleport him back to that filthy room, turning the corner and seeing her... it was like staring into the eyes of a ghost, a chill he couldn't shake off.

About the only thing Leon might have been any good at was petty theft, since he was thin like a length of rope and about as flexible, too, yet even that wasn't an option. The one time he'd tried to coerce him into helping out with a little light burglary to pass the time, he'd been stupid enough to do it within earshot of Tideswell. The old dog had cuffed him round the side of the head so hard he'd almost done a somersault.

"You wanna be a little gangland shit alla yer life, Lombardi, 's fine with me, but don't be draggin' him down with ya!"

He hadn't been expecting that, not least from the boss of a gang. True, East River weren't bad guys, as gangers went, but nonetheless, it jarred... when it came to Leon, Tideswell seemed to run things by a different set of rules, and it was just a whole heap of frustration.

Secondly, and more worrying... Leon clung to him, stuck by his side like glue, no matter what he was doing, as though the fact that he was a dirty orphan who stole and fight and made like hell for all around him didn't matter, because he was the only person Leon would trust. In the chameleon's eyes, Falco could do no wrong, which made him feel dishonest in a way he didn't like. He'd never claimed to be a good kid, never would have dared tell him that, because he knew he wasn't. Having someone treat him like the sun shone out of his ass was just unsettling.

Falco had spent a great deal of time lately wondering why the hell had the boss saddled him with the kid in the first place. Surely it wasn't on account of them being around the same age, because that was a damn stupid reason, in his eyes. Just because he was young didn't mean he wasn't bad.

Then again... he could see the other gang members in his mind's eye, flicking past a page at a time, and the idea of one of them taking care of Leon? It could have been funny, if it wasn't so depressing. By now all that would have remained of the younger kid was an unmarked grave. Not that that mattered, of course, because Falco took care of himself and didn't have time to worry about other people, always looking out for number one.

On the other hand, damned if he was going to admit defeat! The boss had told him to do something and he was gonna do it, because nothing, nothing, got the better of Falco Lombardi, not even whiny kids with a really bad eye for role models.

Besides, he told himself, caring about what happened to Leon and defending him gave him an excuse to beat the crap out of the local kids, so he got something out of it. Never mind that pretty much no-one messed with the little guy any more. The sight of Falco bearing down on them like the angel of death was enough to convince most local bullies that it Just Wasn't Worth It.

Having someone he needed to look after had meant he couldn't be as much of a drifter as he'd been before. Usually he found somewhere he could sleep and stayed there for only a few weeks before he felt the need to move on. Recent events, however, had forced him to find somewhere he could make a more permanent base.

As such, 'home' was currently a small abandoned house where he'd managed to pick the locks on the door. The windows were boarded up so it was dark inside most of the time, but most of the windows still seemed to have glass in beneath the planks, so the cold winds blowing up off the river didn't freeze them in the night. The house was old enough that they even had a fireplace, so the pair of them had been raiding planks and tangle-thorn branches every day until they had a good supply of firewood. The surface-dwellers of Macbeth never really saw much of the advances in technology of the rest of the system, but at least right now it was a blessing. A high-tech heater was no damn good when you didn't have electricity to run it with.

He'd also acquired some extra blankets from an unguarded clothesline recently, mostly for Leon's benefit, but they seemed to have been following the younger kid into the main room in front of the fire, forming a heap on the floor a safe distance away. It should have annoyed him, but it had just became part of daily life, as though things had never been different.

* * *

"I'm cold... I wanna go home."

This was the third time he'd complained. It was getting on his nerves... wasn't it?

"Suck it up, beanstalk. Winter ain't going to pack up and leave any time soon."

Falco came to a halt, subconsciously pulled his coat around himself a little more, to shield himself from the chill wind blowing down the rubbish-strewn back-alley. He'd spent as much of his life as he could remember in this city, but never had the air seemed so piercingly cold. He jammed his tightened fists deep into his pockets, flexing his fingers as though he could pump the warmth back into his fingers, trying to fluff his feathers up as much as he could under his clothes.

A few paces away, Leon was trying to button up his own jacket, though his fingers seemed unwilling to co-operate with him. All the while, his pouty expression ensured that his objection to being out in the cold wasn't forgotten. Currently he was wrapped up in two shirts, a jumper, a fleece, his dark blue coat and about three scarves, which on anyone else might have made them look comically round, but added to his skinny frame it seemed to make little difference. It certainly wasn't making him shut up about being cold.

It wasn't like he'd wanted to go out today either, Falco reflected, but he'd actually scored some money from a fist-fight a few days ago: it was always worth buying some food whenever you could. You couldn't rely on charity to keep you fed, after all, or the easily robbed to have the things you liked to eat. He was pretty sure he'd never lifted anything from the local mart, so he figured he stood a good chance of the store owner not chasing him out.

Behind him there was a little sigh of frustration: he turned to see as Leon fumbled with the coat buttons one last time before giving up, his shoulders slumping.

"Geez, you're such a klutz..." Falco said, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry..."

He felt the twinge of guilt almost instantly. How in the world had the little brat gotten so good at making him regret the things he said? Briefly he looked both up and the alley. Didn't look like anyone was coming, which was why he walked this way from the house usually, but it didn't hurt to make sure. He had his pride to think about, after all, wouldn't want anyone to catch him having a soft moment like this. Stooping over, he started hooking the buttons into their loops.

"When we get back, we'll get the fire going first thing, but we gotta have food. Else you're gonna end up getting so thin you vanish." He looked up and grinned as best he could. "And then who'd bug me about being cold?"

"Yeah..." Leon gave a weak smile, his expression tired, sleepy-eyed, nodding slowly.
It seemed as though he'd been like this more and more, lately. Falco wondered idly if the chameleon was one of those people who got all tired and depressed when the days started getting shorter. This morning especially, when he'd woken to find the younger boy curled round his arm (again), it had taken a lot of shaking and calling to get him to uncoil himself and get moving.

He did up the last button and got to his feet, stretching his arms out before readjusting his jacket and carrying on up the path, Leon trailing after him at a slower pace. It was still annoying, at least in theory it was, but the irritation had lost its ability to get its claws into him. Gradually he found himself slowing down a little to let them walk side by side with one another. What would normally have been no more than a ten minute walk seemed to stretch beyond half an hour.

Their eventual arrival at the Liquor & Mart a few minutes later heralded an unexpected change. The advert-plastered doors slid open jerkily, their movement accompanied by a high-pitched squeal of unoiled metal and the warm, dry air from within billowing outwards. The store within had no other windows, it seemed, dimly lit with dust-coated striplights that turned the light a sickly yellow.

To the left of the entrance as they walked in, the shopkeeper behind the counter, an old bulldog with patchy brindle fur, gave the pair of them a venomous, piercing look through his thick glasses, wrinkled canine features rearranging themselves into disapproval with practiced ease. No doubt the old man had had plenty of trouble with the local delinquents over the years, and Falco had probably been one of them, sometime in the past, but today that look stung him, more than it should have. Since when did he care?

He tried to shrug it off, but found himself staring down at his feet and the chequerboard linoleum on the floor, feeling shamefaced for a moment before he grabbed at a shopping basket and shuffled up the nearest aisle, wanting to be out of range of that accusing look. By the time he felt able to look up, he realised he was amongst the breakfast and cereal stuff. That was good, he could just about cope with cereal right now. He turned towards Leon, eyes scanning the boxes on the shelves for a moment, looking for anything that might catch his eye.

"So, you want any... huh?" Once his attention was back on the here and now, he realised he was talking to thin air. Where'd Beanstalk vanished off to? Walking back to the end of the aisle, he spotted his friend had halted beneath the hot-air blower next to the entrance, arms outstretched and face turned up to the heat, his eyes closed blissfully, as though receiving a blessing from the heater.

"Uh, Leon?"

The chameleon took a second to respond, frowning briefly before opening his eyes and realising who'd called him.

"Sorry, I'm..." He seemed at a loss for words for a moment, then shrugged and smiled, a little sheepish. "It's warm here."

Falco shook his head, turning away before Leon could see the grin forming on his face. "Well, just wait here, then."

* * *

A quarter of an hour of unrestrained consumerism later, Falco was beginning to feel, if not happy, then at least considerably better about life. He had food, drink and extra clothes packed tightly into two new rucksacks. The promise of a fire in the fireplace at home even meant Leon wasn't giving him any hassle about going back out in the cold to go home. As the sliding doors opened, he figured today might possibly be one of the better days he'd had.

"Well well... lookie here, you follow the flies, you find the shit."

On the other hand...

Around the entrance at least ten or eleven of the local neighbourhood brats had come out of the woodwork and were gathered round, forming a semicircle. Trying to push through them was probably suicidal. He vaguely recognised some of them, which was never a good sign if you were in someone else's patch, because recognition generally meant you were looking at someone you'd screwed over recently, which wasn't something that endeared people to you. Mind you, he reflected, wandering another gang's patch never endeared you to anyone there.

Leon very slowly starting shuffling behind him, which pointed out another error: given that most people knew that Leon followed Falco everywhere, leaving him in full view of the public at the front of a shop was, in hindsight, a reallybad idea. To his left, someone pushed their way through, and Falco groaned inwardly when he realised who it was. Really really bad idea.

Tachi was governed by four unchanging factors: He was strong, violent, stupid and immensely orange, almost luminously so. This last point at least gave the advantage that you could see him coming well in advance, which gave people enough time to clear out of the way. That he also favoured bright coloured clothing also helped (today was no exception, with him wearing a bright overly tight red jacket, which he'd obviously stolen from someone a size smaller than himself, along with the usual tattered jeans). Falco had taken advantage of this natural warning system on many occasions, but being in the shop today hadn't given him the best view of passing traffic.

"You an' me got a score needs settling, featherhead." The brightly coloured feline sneered and cracked his knuckles as he stepped closer, which sent Leon scurrying the rest of the way behind Falco's back instantly.

"I ain't looking for a fight today, dumbass, so let's just-"

The next thing Falco knew, he was bending over forwards, clutching at the ache in his gut where the punch had landed, while the feline looked down at him.

"Not so great when you're not calling the shots, are ya?!"

"Go to.. to hell, Ta-"

He rolled over to land heavily on his side as Tachi aimed a vicious kick at his chest, nearly lifting him off the ground entirely. He was dimly aware of Leon making a little squeak of panic as he hit the floor with his shoulder, but the pain was taking up almost all his attention. As he tried to push himself back up, so he felt a boot on his back, pushing him back down again.

"Shut your mouth! Sick a' you running your mouth off, wandering in here like you own the place!"

There was blood on his tongue, dull and metallic, he spat it out and looked up.

"More than you ever will."

Tachi just smiled, a nasty curve of teeth across his face which had nothing to do with humour. He reached into the pocket of his coat, fumbling with something there before drawing out a huge serrated knife. Falco's sense of pain fell away, replaced with the cold hollow of fear.

"I guess I just need to get you gone, then."

What happened next seemed to go past in a blur: Tachi's arm drew back, knife gripped firmly, pointing downwards, as Falco 's eyes widened, certain he'd reached the end of the line. There was a momentary flash of green and the knife was gone, then suddenly back again, this time buried to the hilt in the feline's shoulder.

"What the-" His expression was confused for a second, but only a second.

The string of cursing that might have followed was cut off by another flash of green: the knife had migrated to the other shoulder, a spray of blood still arcing from the first wound. He opened his mouth and screamed, an un-nerving sound which was enough to see most of the gathered crowd disperse quickly.

One final flash of green shot past Falco's vision and he turned to look behind him. Leon was standing there, the knife clasped firmly in the end of his tail, eyes wide, staring into space.

"Leon?"

The chameleon's gaze flickered to him instantly, and Falco was suddenly struck by the oddest, most disturbing thought:

-No wonder he's always watching me... he's been learning.-

There was something in that look of his, some element of helplessness, of being lost and looking to someone for guidance, that seemed so at odds with his unexpected violence that it sent a shiver down his spine. Just for a moment, he seemed like two people in one.

Then Leon's eyes flicked to the end of his tail, with the knife and the blood, and he fainted clean away.