He hated the taste of alcohol, but it was the only thing that worked; the only thing that numbed him. Needles would only break the skin and smoke could only feel his lungs. Those things did nothing for him, nothing to ease to pain of feeling, not like how he needed it too.

The chilled glass-rimmed top touched his cracked lips as he took another sip, the clear liquid effortlessly making its way down his raw throat. It tasted awful and it burned, but for a brief moment he felt numb. No sting, no pleasure, just nothing but the burn and the numbness that followed. How many bottles it took to reach that state he didn't know. Five, six, it didn't matter once he reached it so long as he did. And each bottle after that made sure he stayed there.

Vacant bottles littered his red and white tiled floor leading up to a small gathering of broken pieces and a dent in the poorly plastered wall. A slowed trickle of the transparent liquid ran down the wall from the point of impact to the broken parts below. The landlady could be damned for what little Heine cared. The world had gotten a smaller in the space of an hour and everyone realized how fragile their fabricated peace was.

Again he took another sip letting the burn linger as it went down into his empty stomach. His body should have purged it, but he wouldn't allow it to and ruin his momentary numbness. It may have been a screwed up body, but it was his body and under his control for better or worse. With a clack the half empty bottle hit the floor, his hand firmly holding the neck.

When he stumbled into his apartment he fell to the floor with bag in tow and stayed there, back to the wall as he cracked open bottle after bottle. How he managed to buy anything was beyond him and his current state. Too much blood had been lost for him to be thinking lucidly enough to purchase anything, but somehow he got a hold of his poison.

But poison was an appalling way to describe it for Heine. Poison meant it was a toxic substance, something that made you ill or was fatal to your health. This for him wasn't any that. It was his remedy, the one thing he could go to in order to stop feeling a damn thing. A lazy half grin came across his face as he stared toward broken wall, eyes glazed over.

He had reached his state of numbness again, of nothingness. The world could burn and he wouldn't have cared or noticed then, and that was how he liked it. Slowly his body worked its cursive magic and pulled him back down from his own personal high. He felt again, the coldness of the bottle in his hand, the wall to his back, and faint chill creeping through his tattered clothes.

It wasn't cutting it anymore, to just reach a point and fall. The point wasn't as good anymore; he knew it ended far too well now. But nothing else worked for him and he had tried all the others. Other things slipped by unnoticed doing nothing to his resistant body. Recommended doses would be ignored and his body would still purge it through his blood, his awful and damned blood. How many things he had tried over the years seemed impossible to count. If it existed, chances were he had tried it at some point and found disappointment in how lacking it was. Rather how it didn't do what he wanted it to for him. He didn't want a moment of happiness or to see the world in some abstracted manner, he wanted to stop feeling and the bottle was the only he knew to do that.

His eyes looked down catching the reflective metal of his pistol. His tools of carnage were perhaps the only thing he could trust in this world, but that trust had fallen wayward. He thought them to kill whatever they pointed at, an extension of his inner purpose. Yet they didn't work today. He shot Giovanni in the head, over and over watching his supposed lifeless body hit the concrete. Then he felt it, the bullets rip through his body as Giovanni stood alive and well. Heine couldn't pull the trigger after that, he didn't see the point. It didn't work anymore just like the other things he had tried to numb himself with.

Letting go of the bottle Heine reached for his pistol removing with ease from his unbuckled holster that laid close upon the floor. He couldn't do anything with them. Not even kill anymore as today proved. Bullets could be fired till the flesh of his finger went rough, but it would have down any them any good. People died today and he couldn't do anything about it.

Never could anything about. Lily, Arthur, the rest. They all died because he couldn't do anything about it. Without help, without the assistance of some object or device he couldn't do anything but watch others die. Useless, he felt every bit of it.

Gun in hand Heine looked at it, his crazed grin still lingered. A muddled reflection of his face could be seen in the grip. Dirty and covered with blood, some his own the rest a mix. He pointed the gun toward the dent in the wall and pulled the trigger watching fire erupt from the tip and thunder follow.

Then he laughed looking at the new smoking hole just shy of the dent in the wall. Another shot and another hole far from the dent. His aim was awful no thanks to his drunken state, but it didn't stop him from firing over and over trying to get a hit in the dampened dent. After a few shots he stopped and his laughed ceased seeing none of his attempts successful. Such a short distance and he couldn't hit anything, a notion that only make him sicker. Angry erupted and his free hand picked up the half drank bottle and threw it at the way. Glass shattered on impact and clear liquid splatter the wall and floor.

Words poured from his with tainted breath, none coherent for understanding beyond his own. Hate boiled over as he cursed himself coming to a staggering stand and swing his pistol wildly through the air. When he wasn't numb, he was angry, and it he wasn't angry then he was regretting everything he had ever done. His bootless feet hit the floor with each misguided step as he made way toward the only window in his shoddy apartment. The window was already open letting in the scents of smoke and the sounds of sirens clearly.

Ducking under the open window he stepping on the ledge, gun held tightly in his hand. His glassy crimson eyes over looked the city and slums below still burning faintly in the fake night of the underground. Slowly his sight traced the roads till he came to a stop looking to the street just below his feet. That crazed grin came up again as he looked on. Even a fall from this height won't kill him, that he was too certain of. It didn't stop him from thinking about it, trying to end it all in some clichéd fashion, so dramatic and yearning for attention. He spit over the ledge losing sight of what little saliva he managed to bring up.

Then Heine heard it, the creaking of his door. The door in his apartment, one he thought he had left locked in his stupefied state. His glance turned fully expecting to see the old lady who ran the building pissed and to start cursing at him caring nothing of his current stance. He was on the ledge and the drop was far enough, far enough to hurt at least he reminded himself, and she would be harping about the noise.

But it wasn't much to his shock and confusion. The door swung open quickly making the presence of whom very obvious. Her dark raven hair stuck the her neck by sweat and soot, narrowed eyes always persecuting him for things she didn't understand, and finally that last end all addition to her being; the undeniable and annoying fact Naoto was a woman.

"Tha' hell you doing here?" He called out, back now to the outer wall of the building. Heine was not longer able to see her, but she had seen him already and hiding wouldn't have done anything for him. His eyes fixated on the street below as he listened and waited from some accusing remark, but it didn't come.

"I said, tha' hell you doin' here?" This time he called out louder, more aggressively. The idea that he had seen something of a ghost no thanks to his muddle state crossed him, but the image was far too lucid. His imagination couldn't capture those eyes like that, not those glaring eyes. An angered exhale left his nose as he gave up any expectation of getting a response.

Slowly from the corner of his eye he saw her, moving an arm out and taking hold of the wall. Her eyes were narrowed as ever, but he saw something else there now. An unexplainable emotion he had never seen from her. Naoto didn't come all the way out on the ledge, but it was enough for him to see her and for her to do the same. Gloved hands held tightly the wall as her gaze went from the street below and back to him, a worried gaze in addition to that linger emotion Heine couldn't grasp.

"Heine."

His attention went to, a look of bitter amusement over his face. That had been a first, her uttering his name like that. He let her speak before he did what little he could at that point.

"Come back inside Heine…we can talk about this."

Naoto's words caused him to laugh, just as madly as before. Just because he was standing on the ledge didn't mean he was going to jump, least to him it didn't. Jumping wouldn't kill him, bullets wouldn't kill him, and Heine doubted much the natural world could.

"Abou' what? Jumpin'? Woun't kill me from heer…nothing can kill me you know?" He said back as he dangled one foot over the ledge.

"Heine…come back inside…please."

There was something straining in her voice he could hear, something that went along with that look. He complied, slowly and fairly unhesitatingly. She didn't move from the window till he had one leg in the room and didn't back away until he was completely inside, backing away only the shut the window abruptly and turn back to him. The glare came back, one that cut deeper than any blade ever did for him.

"Sit on the couch…we need to talk." She said, voice demanding. Heine moved in sluggish motions, the effects of his drinking binge slowly dying off. He was going to get an earful he was sure and he rather have been drunk than lucid for it and his body didn't look as it would allow him to be. The couch cushion sucked him in giving its old and worn state. The smirk across his face hadn't died one bit unlike his fading fogginess. For a moment Naoto stood in front of him, barely a foot or two away breathing deeply.

Then it happened, much to his astonishment leaving him unable to react in any offensive manner and only to flow with it.

Naoto hit him. Not a slap, but a genuine punch to his left cheek that sent him falling to the couch landing in the softened cushion. The fall didn't hurt, but the soreness on his cheek surely did. A muffle profanity left his mouth, too muted and slurred to make any sense. He didn't move. He only stayed still letting the sting of his cheek fade. The fact she touched him seem to blur with the fact that she hit him, rightfully hit him.

"What the hell were you thinking? You could of-" Her words stopped abruptly and the fist she had used to hit him clenching once more leaving Heine to believe she was about to hit him again. Still, he didn't move. Those punches were deserved for he failed to do, what he had been trying to numb and forget if just for a moment. Another short exhale as he considered the more likely reason for her hitting him that he was out on the ledge and far from coherent; but he'd take the punches all the same. Pain was the same not matter how one received it and he deserved it. Failing again, screwing up again, watching those people die; he wished that she would already hit him so that his thoughts could be diverted. Yet again she surprised him by now doing what he though she would do.

"-why? Why are you doing this to yourself?" She asked, fist no longer tightened and limp by her side. Her voice sounded so different to Heine, different like that look she gave him. "Why are you hurting yourself like this?

He cringed, more pain by way of word. Naoto knew what he was doing, probably knew what he would be doing. It wasn't hard for anyone to connect the dots and after what happened and all he wanted to do was stop feeling, stop blaming himself and beating himself up. A grunt left his lips, consciousness rising as his clouded thoughts organized. The effects were wearing off faster, his body kicking into gear and purging.

With the help of one of his arms, Heine pushed himself up and fell back into the couch eyes staring off into space. Naoto wasn't going to leave until she got answers and he truthfully didn't have any that would suffice. Saying that he felt guilty for failing would only bring up how it wasn't his fault. But it was, all it of happened because of him. If they didn't know him or where near him, nothing would have happened. He was Giovanni's target, their target, and that made it his fault people died.

"It's my fault…all of it." He said with words far clearer. The glassy shell around his eyes had vanished leaving the red of them softly burning in the dimmed lights of the room. He expected her to retort him, to deny any of his words and continue to glare at him. It's what they did in the end, battle being the only place they seem to hold any respect for the other.

"They were looking for me…and everyone else just got caught up in it." He added letting his eyes fully close. His arms were folding over his legs, pistol somehow lost along the way to the couch and presumable knocked from his hand by Naoto's punch. A heavy sigh came up, one often seen with exhaustion. Sleep was needed, but for Heine if rarely came regardless of how tired he may have felt. Nightmares were sure to wake him if his guilt would allow falling asleep. Those notions circled his mind as he remained seated with eyes closet, awaiting an answer from Naoto if she planned too.

A sudden shift in pressure caused his eyes to abruptly open and look to his left. She had sat down next to, far to the left and hugging the side arm. Her narrowed eyes didn't look at him; instead they were focused on the collection of empty bottles grouped where he had been sitting. Surrealism flooded in, a scene that shoulder never happen was. A woman was in his apartment and more over she had been looking for him by all appearances.

"It wasn't your fault…you didn't know that would happen." She finally said having some difficulty from what Heine was able to tell. Naoto wasn't someone who handed out sympathy and neither was he. Their lives were harsh and unforgiving leaving them little room to care for what other went through. Yet here she was trying to comfort him or something remotely close to the idea.

"They were looking for me…because of what I am…you were involved because of that, because of me." His stubbornness showed through his wording as he leaned forward. It was his fault and nothing that was said could change that, not for him and not for anyone that had died. He by all means was the one who pulled the trigger for it all, not the hood soldiers that walked the streets.

"You fought for us…and you aren't like them because of that. They may have looking for you, but you are not like them. You tried to protect us." Her eyes never left the ground as she spoke, but Heine could see that look; the look he couldn't place his finger on and left him hurting. Hurting because of the look of another, the idea rocked his core as he turned his gaze. The effects of his binge had dissipated into nothing leaving him all too aware of the situation playing out before him.

"I can't do a damn thing…I couldn't protect anyone…they died and I could nothing but sit there and watch. I brought this upon everyone and nothing could be done by me to prevent it. This was my fault; I pulled the trigger and brought hell with it." He bit his bottom lip and continued his downward gaze. His entire fault and nothing he could have done to prevent it.

…

Author's notes: Usually these are disregarded, but for the interest of you my dear readers I put it here. This fic was inspired by a song (Cheers to anyone who can figure them out.) and the desire to write something a tad darker for Dogs along with poking at my two favorite characters.

It's a practice run and an attempt to really get the voices and emotions down; which may be down right terrible to some and right on for other since it's all a matter of interpretation. Reviews and favs are adored and thanked, especially comments if this is running right. The second part and likely final will be up in about a week should things run smoothly. The questions will be answered in due time as well, there's reason behind it all I swear.

tl;dr – Comments and favs are wonderful and this fic is meant to be darker.