Disclaimer: I don't own a thing, except for the words I've written.

The image used for this story is not my own in any way. It belongs to artofcarmen (Deviantart). I was inspired to craft my story around this amazing art piece.

A/N: Very loosely based off of Lee Child's novel, Bad Luck and Trouble. Written from Duo Maxwell's perspective, though still in third person, with a stream of consciousness style. Rated for adult language (Duo's got quite a surly mouth and mind), some violence, and mild adult themes. Each title is inspired by a song, listed at the beginning of each chapter.

Will update on Sundays and sometimes Wednesdays when possible. Chapters are not terribly long and I'm not planning to write them terribly long.

Enjoy.

Maxwell

Chapter 1: Free From All The Picture Perfect

Photograph - The Verve Pipe

The lean and slightly intoxicated twenty-one year old sauntered down the street with an arrogance that seemed to portray him to the world as someone important, but in all actuality he was just an asshole who projected confidence because that's how you get what you want in a world like this.

It had been four years since the war and still he hadn't grown up, hadn't found a place to settle, hadn't committed to anything except maybe the idea that he should probably be committed. He wasn't crazy in the contextual sense, but in the 'fucked up and emotionally disconnected' sense. But hell, he didn't really care; he liked being fucking unpredictable in that predictable sort of way.

"Shit," he muttered under sultry breath, as a throb assaulted his skull. He reached up to touch an old injury he'd gotten after abandoning the only person who ever actually cared about him in a hospital on X-18999. It was some kind of fucked up karma for running out when things got shitty.

He'd been caught in an explosion, a terrorist bomb on one of the vague colonies he'd been hiding out on. Half his scalp had been removed from the bonds of his skull and though his braid still hung down his back, most of the right side of his head was shaved in an oddly attractive way due to the fiery explosion. Shit fuckin' painful, but he figured he'd had some kind of twisted good luck that his whole head hadn't been blown off. So now he had these gnarly scars and his hair wouldn't grow right in some places, thus the new look was born.

Karma didn't want to kill him, just fucking maim him and take away part of the thing he valued most. Fuckin' karma.

He thought about Heero in that damn hospital bed, Relena hovering over him like the worried mother he never had. It made him sick to think about. He'd run from place to place afterwards, hence the never settling. The war was over, the Gundams were gone, no one needed him anymore except maybe Quatre, but that was only because he was compassionate and selfish and wanted his friends to stay close. But he wasn't a 'stay close' kinda guy.

He'd crashed at Hilde's for a while, but when she'd gotten tired of his incessant dirtiness and the fact that he couldn't afford to pay rent she'd told him to get the fuck out. Every once in a while he heard from her, there was still a sense of vague friendship, but there was never another invitation. Though he wouldn't have stayed much longer anyways, it wasn't in his nature to stay anywhere for too long. Being a lonely, reckless vagabond and all that shit.

So he'd stayed under the radar and drank and smoked and did all of the shit he knew he shouldn't do, but the temptation was there so he took it. Got his mind off the nightmares and memories at least.

Duo Maxwell fished in the pocket of his black, leather jacket and pulled out the key to his hotel room. It took him a moment to focus and open the door, his muscles moving slower than his mind from the amount of whiskey doubles he'd gulped down over the last couple hours. Maybe not the best fuckin' choice. He felt his stomach lurch quietly as he thought about it.

When he entered the dark room he walked forward to turn on the lamp he knew to be standing next to the squeaky full bed, but his toe caught on something sitting just within the doorway. "Fuck."

He caught himself and dropped down to see what had caused him to nearly fall face first into the room's questionable carpet. His eyes found it first, moonlight from the still open doorway illuminating a rectangular manila envelope that had been slid under the door. Duo picked it up and it felt heavy, but it was still thin enough to have fit in the small crack between floor and door. His name was scrawled in dark block letters across the envelope. Maxwell.

"What the fuck?"

No one knew he was there. Hell, he barely knew he was there after all the benders he'd been going on lately. And besides he wasn't a moron; he'd checked in under a false name like he did everywhere in the ESUN. So where the fuck had this envelope come from?

The buzz he'd been feeling earlier had all but dissipated now that his mind was working on overdrive. Duo closed the door and turned on the light he'd been trying for before falling over the mysterious package. He sat down on the bed, cross legged, his braided hair falling over his shoulder.

Slowly, with more apprehension than he'd felt in a long time, he pinched the clasp on the back of the envelope and ran his thumb under the top to peel it open.

"Fucking shit..." He poured out the package's contents on the bed in front of him.

Photographs. Big ones that had been blown up to really capture every detail. They were all there, all five of them. Some of the pictures were from years ago, their faces younger, different in some ways but yet still the same as the newer images. They were all marked with a date, the last one having been taken not more than three weeks ago. There were random pairings and trios and some of all of them together. The newer ones were more solitary; they'd lost contact with each other over the years, it made sense, they were all on their own now.

But there was one in particular that made Duo's heart catch in his throat. His body was leaning against Heero's in a way that was all too fucking familiar for him. It was dark and he couldn't remember where they were or what was happening to make them think they weren't being followed. Obviously they were, obviously their was fucking photographic evidence. Duo was smiling in the picture, smiling at the stone-faced boy in a provoking manner, something he'd always done, but this time it had been different. There was no direct sign of affection in the still photograph that tauntingly stared up at him. But it was there, Duo saw it and he realized that others might too if they looked hard enough. The way they stood there, bodies touching ever so slightly, an emotional tension between them.

Duo felt the bile rising in his throat and with as much dexterity as he could manage he ran to the bathroom and was sick until all that was left was the pain of dry heaves.

"Dammit." He ran a hand over his face, feeling the sweat of stress and sickness that had accumulated on his forehead. Those pictures. Shit.

Carefully he stood and turned on the sink, splashing cold water over his features, trying hard to calm the muscles that were now twitching within his body. Those pictures. Fuck.

What kind of vindictive, sick fucking asshole sends pictures of a guy and people he knew in another life to said guy, someone who is, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world?

He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, staring at his pale reflection in the mirror above the faucet that still had a steady stream of cold water flowing out of it, when a knock on the door caused him to jump.

No one was supposed to know he was fucking here and he was starting to get pissed off. It was predictable, but he still looked out the peephole. Of all possible people of course it'd be him, he was a Preventer after all. Duo may run and hide and never tell a lie and all that bullshit, but you can't hide from the fucking Preventers.

"Wufei fuckin' Chang." He opened the door and gave a roguish smile. "You couldn't just leave me alone to wallow in self pity the rest of my goddamn life, could you?"

His humor was dry, but less poignant than he would have liked. But he'd just thrown up his guts, hadn't he? Realizing that he must look like shit, he ran fingers through his chestnut bangs as Wufei stared at him in that cold, classic Wufei way.

Duo had forgotten that the photographs were still strewn about the bed, but when the Chinese man pushed past him he bit his tongue, inwardly yelling at himself for being so stupid and careless.

There was no stopping it now. No matter the reason for Wufei's untimely and unannounced visit, they were now going to be talking about those damn pictures. No way around it.

"Wasn't that a thoughtful little gift?" Duo asked, slamming the door and watching the man as he eyed the pile of glossy images.

"Who sent you these?"

"Fuck if I know."

"What are they?"

Duo raised his brows with a mischievous grin. Always fuckin' mischievous, even now in his 'old age.' "Ain't you ever seen a photograph before, 'Fei?"

Wufei turned towards him with a glower. "I mean what is their purpose?"

"I'll say it again, fuck if I know." He watched as Wufei stared at the photograph of himself and Heero; his stomach tightened.

"Listen 'Fei, they were waiting for me when I got home. If I had anymore answers don't you think I'd tell you?" He wanted to get the man's attention away from the particularly personal image. Hell, he knew everyone was aware of him and Heero, but, you know, it was still kind of an intimate picture.

"This is home?" Wufei looked around, unimpressed and it made Duo's brows furrow.

"Does that surprise you? No judginess from Mr. Perfect Preventer Man, okay? Save it." Part of Duo wanted the man to respond with something more, he wanted the banter that he secretly sometimes missed. Wufei said nothing.

Instead he picked up a photograph, one of the few that included all five of them, and stared at it with a soft irritation. They were sitting aboard Peacemillion. Duo noticed how irritated Wufei also looked in the image and it made him laugh internally. The man's disposition hadn't fucking changed.

Both of their eyes studied the picture together. It looked as if it were taken from an old security feed. They hadn't all been in a room like that, together, in a long fucking time. Nowadays they all had their own lives, or at least they tried to call them lives.

Quatre was the one who had everything, at least when it came to wealth and stature and respect. He also had death threats and probably the most stressful job out of the group, but shit if he wasn't still the most compassionate and level headed. Duo hadn't talked to him in person in a long time, but seeing him in the newspapers and on television gave him the feeling that he still knew the man well.

Trowa he was less sure of. The last he'd heard of him he was still traveling through the ESUN doing the whole high wire act thing. He hid himself well, but always kept the name Barton, which made Duo think that maybe a small part of him wanted to be found if absolutely essential. After the war, the man had been offered a job with the Preventers, like they all had, but he'd declined it, probably in a more appropriate way than Duo had. But hell, it was a hilarious fucking conversation, how was he supposed to know they were serious?

It never surprised him much that Wufei, good ole honorable 'Fei, was the one to actually accept the job. Though he suspected it may have had something to do with the whole guilt thing from the Mariemaia fuck up. But Duo didn't care much to get into that argument as much as he'd always enjoyed their running dialogue. Stubborn and quick witted as they both were, it was usually pretty fucking entertaining.

And then there was Heero. Shit, he had a hard time looking at that old picture, set somewhere in between angry flirtation, denial, and casual sex. They could pilot giant machines of death, but they couldn't reconcile stupid, probably meaningless feelings. He hadn't seen Heero since the hospital and God only knows where that recluse had been all these years.

The only pilot Duo had any contact with had been Wufei and that was just because the Preventers never seemed to quite let him out of their insecure sites. He guessed they probably thought he might start blowing stuff up or causing chaos somewhere. Hell, the only chaos he caused was in his own fucking life and in his own fucking mind.

He looked up at Wufei and actually noticed him for the first time since he'd knocked on the hotel room door. He looked fit, maybe even more so than during the war. The Preventer uniform suited him and he looked professional and maybe a little older than the last time he'd seen him. Duo wasn't sure when that had been, but time wasn't really something he cared to keep track of these days. He wore a nice watch, seemed comfortably well off, and still held himself with that air of quiet superiority that always made Duo cringe.

For a moment the braided man felt awkward about his own disheveled clothing and the fact that his hair might have been a bit messier than usual. He normally had no one to look good for, so what the hell did he care? But here, in front of this old comrade, he felt somehow inadequate, like 'Fei was making it and he wasn't.

Duo cleared his throat. "So to what do I owe this pleasure?"

Wufei had been studying the ordinary manila envelope, addressed too specifically for either of their likings. He looked up. "I think you may want to sit down for this, Maxwell."

Duo laughed. "Geeze, who died?" .

Wufei didn't move, didn't flinch a damn muscle, just stared that blank stare like he couldn't even understand why Duo would be making jokes right now. Swallowing hard, the braided man sat. No more fucking jokes.

When the words left his mouth Duo had the worst impulse to laugh again, though he didn't because Wufei was being all business and seriousness as improbable as his statement could possibly be. A ringing began in his head as the words echoed back through his ears.

"Heero Yuy is dead."

No shit.