Disclaimer: 'Johnny the Homicidal Maniac' is property of Lord Vasquez. The original idea for 'My Bloody Valentine' is copyright 'Demon Eyes Glow Blood Red'.

Authors Notes: Part two of the sorta-but-not-quite interlude. I don't really have much to say -not as I type this- but I do wanna say that I do plan on putting the karaoke scene (from the original) in; just not now. I felt that there needed to be a break in the happy - things need to be pushed along a bit, the plot subtly expanded just a little more. If I can squeeze my plot idea in.

That's right – I've come up with a full plot for this, a rather good one, I think. Normally I'd blab everything, but imma keep things secret for once. I wanna see you guys squirm as you try to figure out what's going on. :D

PS: ARG these chapters all looks so small!

::Written while listening to 'Exile Vilify', by The National, 'The Fading Lights', by Speaking in Shadows, and various tracks by Audiomachine::

She found it oddly quiet when she woke up – normally, Johnny was already awake -if he'd gone to sleep at all- and doing something that filled the apartment with a slight noise that somehow made her home feel less creepy. Granted, it had freaked her out at first; waking up to the noise of somebody moving around in her usually empty house, but after getting used to the sounds that Johnny made, it was considerably less unnerving to hear him metaphorically up and about.
This morning though, it was silent – dead silent. Her home was filled with a quiet she hadn't heard for weeks; was filled with only the sound of the rain that she hadn't been aware the city was going to get. She knew that Johnny couldn't be sleeping; not only did he seem to dislike the idea of both of them asleep at once, he was far too much of an active sleeper, mumbling, and shifting around too much, to allow her home to reach this level of quietness.

Quickly, she got up, skipping the kitchen and heading straight for Johnny's room. Silent, still. Unnaturally silent. It wasn't like Johnny to be this quiet; even when he was having a good night and was at his quietest.

"Johnny?" She said, slowly opening the door with the hopes that everything was fine. His bed was empty and made up very neatly, and could see on the pillow, a sheet of paper that looked like it had something written on it. A clean, tidied-up room, no Johnny, and a note on his pillow? Devi didn't need to wonder what was going on; movies had taught her enough – Johnny had left. Hoping that his note would expand on things, she walked over, picking it up and groaning lightly when she discovered that it barely said anything. There was, in fact, only one word written on it.

'Sorry' Written in Johnny's sharp, angular script, all the proof she really needed that Johnny had left, but telling her nothing about why.

"Hey folks, morning!" Devi heard called out through her apartment as the door opened – it was Tenna. Standing, Devi ran out, hoping that the girl had seen something, had somehow gotten wind of whatever Johnny had done.

"Tenna!" She cried, pulling her friend inside. "Tenna, have you seen Johnny?" Tenna continued to smile as she responded.

"Last time I saw Johnny, I was calling Dib over to fix Johnny's injuries up. Why?" Devi groaned, disappointed. She had hoped that Tenna had seen Johnny leaving, that Tenna would somehow know what had happened to the maniac. Apparently, the girl knew just about as much as Devi herself.

"He's gone. He cleaned up his room, and left – and I don't know when he left, so he could be anywhere by now!" Tenna shook her head, frowning a little.

"In this storm? Doubtful. This started up sometime around one AM – totally woke me up; if Johnny left during the night, he's been fighting the wind the whole way, and on that leg he can't have gotten far." Tenna's statement sparked a bit of hope in the painter – though Johnny had been able to walk -albeit, slowly and with a limp- it would be impossible for him to have made much progress in a rainstorm, regardless of how early he'd left.

"We should go look for him." She told her friend, who scoffed.

"Oh, you think? Dev, he's fighting infections from a stab-wound, and apparently decided to run away in a storm – if we don't try to find him, he'll die of pneumonia." Tenna didn't pause for even a moment before moving towards Devi's coat closet, rummaging around inside of it and pulling out two rain-jackets. Noticing the confused look on her friends face, she grinned. "Well? Aren't we gonna search around for him?" Devi smiled – it was times like this that Devi loved Tenna.

0o0o0o0

It was raining hard – hard enough that it was difficult to look in the direction the rain was coming from without putting something between the pouring rain and their eyes; which kind of defeated the purpose of looking in the first place.

"Holy crap!" Devi yelled out, gripping Tenna's arm for fear that the girl would blow away. "When the hell did the world decide to give us a hurricane?" Tenna didn't respond, and Devi couldn't blame her; between trying to walk against the wind, and the rain pounding down on them, most of her attention had to have been on trying to stay upright.

Vaguely, Devi wondered where Johnny would have gone – and why. Was he bothered by their last meeting; when he had tried to kill her? No, that couldn't have been the reason – while certainly plausible, if Johnny was that bothered, even now, by his attempt to kill her back when, he would have tried to run sooner than this. It had to be something else.

That Jimmy kid, perhaps? Johnny had implied that the male had already died; that Johnny had already killed him. With that thought in mind, that either Johnny had missed something or that the undead were finally at work, mixed with Johnny's unstable mind and some possible late-night thinking, it may very well have been enough to convince Johnny to leave. He had, after all, promised over the phone -through a recording- that he didn't want to hurt her. If he felt that Jimmy was gonna go after her once Johnny himself was dead, obviously he would make himself scarce.

Suddenly, she felt herself being pulled off-course, away from the street she'd been heading towards. For a moment she thought that the wind had picked her up and so she fought to keep going; but when she felt something tugging at her arm, she paused, and turned. Tenna was gesturing to a nearby building, a hotel that they could pause in the lobby in while they figured out where to go next.

When they entered, the warmth was welcome – and the two knew they wouldn't be allowed to loiter, regardless of the friendly staff.

"So what now?" Devi asked, certain that if they did find johnny, it wouldn't be till next morning. And by that point, if Johnny hadn't already found a place to stay for the night, they would most likely be dealing with a corpse. Tenna shrugged.

"I dunno. I mean, sure – in this storm, he couldn't have gotten far, especially with his injuries, but he's already had hours of time, at least, to get ahead of us." Devi sighed.

"So, it's hopeless. We just start to fix things, and he decides to take off." She let out a breath, gazing at the rain pounding against the window. "That asshole." She muttered quietly. Tenna frowned, about to speak when a man, dressed in a damp-looking set of clothes, walked over to them.

"Excuse me; this fella you're looking for, what did he look like?" Devi blinked, and almost told the man to back off – but Tenna spoke first, cutting her off while obviously sensing her friends downcast and irritated mood.

"Well, he's tall, skinny, kind of a Hispanic skin tone. He might be wearing something with a hood, or something that'll cover up a fair bit of his face, maybe. And he'll definitely be walking with a limp, probably a noticeable one." Devi remained quiet, letting Tenna do the talking. If Devi herself spoke, she probably wind up insulting the man that was apparently trying to help them; and in this city, verifiable help was incredibly difficult to find.

"I seen somebody like that an hour or two ago, down Harnell Avenue. I was rushing to get here, but I think I saw him turn down an alleyway." Tenna grinned, nodding at the man, thanking him while grasping Devi's arm and pulling the girl outside again, back into the rain which had only barely let up.

"Harnell Avenue isn't far from here!" Tenna yelled, turning to gaze at her friend for a moment before returning her attention to the street. Vaguely, Devi wondered why her friend was leading her around – she knew where Harnell Avenue was. She'd walked up and down the street several times during her travels in the city. Granted, that had been before the first incident with Johnny, but still. She knew quite well where Harnell was, could easily run alongside Tenna were the girl not practically dragging her down the road, as she currently was.

Still, she let Tenna lead, speeding up only to avoid falling down; being taken out by the wind and rain, which was fairly cold. If Johnny had been out in this for hours... They needed to find him fast.

By the time they found Harnell Avenue, both girls were shivering. The warmth they'd gained from their brief stay in the lobby of the hotel was gone, replaced by sopping wet clothes and cold-induced shivers.

"Tenna" Devi started, drawing close to the girl in an unconscious attempt to get warm. "Where's that alley?" They stood still a moment, gazing up and down the street and hoping, praying to whatever deity was listening that the person that hotel-man had seen was, in fact, Johnny. If it wasn't, then it was likely they wouldn't find Johnny till morning, because in this cold they wouldn't last long enough to hunt through the city to find the maniac.

This was a lucky find of a clue, though – one in a million that anybody had seen somebody matching Johnny's description, even more so that the man felt the need to tell them, and Devi couldn't help but be skeptical – couldn't help thinking that Johnny was long gone, and they were about to stumble into the home of one of the many hobos this town had.

They came upon the alleyway slowly, Tenna's normally excited grin dampered by caution and perhaps a touch of fear. With the rain, they both knew they had to find the man they'd been told about, and fast, lest they both get sick.

"Look." Tenna said, pointing down the alley to a dumpster that had been rather obviously forgotten some time ago – Devi could see no bags in it -not from this angle- and it had rust climbing up it like some strange form of ivy. Next to it, leaning against the side facing them, was the crumpled form of a human being. Was it him? They certainly appeared skinny enough.

Throwing caution to the wind, Devi ran forward, ran towards the person ahead of them – while definitely a male, he had evidently fallen unconscious at some point, his hooded head slumped forwards and his body curled vaguely in towards himself; a remainder of his attempt to keep warm during the rain. He wasn't shivering, not very well, a hint that perhaps this man had been here for a while.

Devi was no longer skeptical when she got within arms reach of the figure leaning on the dumpster – after being so paranoid for so long, she knew exactly what Johnny looked like, cloaked or not. And this man, this person that they'd been led to by a kind stranger in a hotel lobby, was not one of the towns random homeless. It was Johnny – cold, sick, and most likely hypothermic, but it was Johnny.

"We need to get him home, fast." Devi said, lifting the skinny, nearly weightless man up and hefting him onto her back. Though she knew it would be best if she could stop the rain from touching him, it would be very well pointless to think up such a manner of holding him if she couldn't get him back home quickly enough to warm him up and stave off the doubtless hypothermia.

"I think he stole your best coat." Tenna said as they tore back down the street, effectively disrupting the serious mood hanging around them. And Devi, though she desperately wanted to get back to her apartment as fast as possible, though she usually ignored most of Tenna's offhand comments if the situation was serious enough, couldn't help but notice that Johnny had indeed stolen the best coat she owned.