AN: Don't smoke, kids! It's bad for you!

Track 6: One Step At a Time

Sprawled out on his bed, Heero gave his ceiling the same frustrated look he had worn since leaving the scene at Peacemillion a few hours ago. Actually, his mood had been thrown off ever since Duo mentioned Relena's plan for the upcoming tour. He thought tearing into her would make him feel better, but it had only served to create confusion and annoy him to no end.

After arriving back home, he went straight for his record player, wanting to drown out these irritating feelings through the harshest noises he could find. Flipping from one album to another, he turned his sound system as high as he could, risking complaints from the other tenants and possibly a call from his landlord. He didn't catch any shit from anyone so maybe everybody was out, but it wasn't like he cared either way. Regardless, it didn't work and his mind still drifted off to what took place earlier.

No matter how high the volume was, it wasn't loud enough to keep away the memory of Relena Peacecraft sobbing in front of him. He eventually gave up on the music and turned off his stereo. He tried picking up his guitar, thinking that perhaps he could work on some unfinished songs he had leftover from the Zen Arcade sessions.

Still, his recent meeting with Relena continued to override whatever distraction he came up with. He accomplished nothing and the songs remained incomplete, which bothered him tremendously because there was this one riff he was tooling around with that he liked a lot. He had even given it a working title, too.

'Heaven Hill', that's what he called it.

Unfortunately, he didn't get far in the creative process. Heero didn't think this was fair. His album was just released not too long ago and here she was, crushing his enjoyment. He couldn't celebrate his achievement; Zen Arcade was, without a doubt, the greatest thing he had ever created. He should be able to sit back in his own apartment and revel in his proudest moment, but no, she wouldn't even allow him that. Instead, he was laid out on his bed, pissed off with her and himself. His day was ruined and now he was here rotting away for the rest of the night. It just wasn't fair.

"You know… I was really excited to talk to you today."

Her voice, he hated it. Why did it continue to replay in his head?

"Your album… it's honestly one of the greatest things I've heard in a long time."

She told him she loved his record, and all he did was chew her out. He was struggling internally, trying to figure out if what he did was the right thing. No matter what angle he viewed it from, everything came back inconclusive. He detested being this uncertain.

"Relena." He spitefully growled out her name.

Before he could continue cursing her, he heard a loud knocking. He sat up, wondering who the hell was at his door. The knocking persisted and Heero got up from his bed, shuffling to the source of the noise. He stared at the door for a moment, hearing more bothersome knocking before speaking. "Who is it?" he asked loudly.

"It's your mother, Heero, let me in. I'm coming over for dinner." the muffled voice responded.

That definitely was NOT Aoi. "You're not my mother, Dorothy!" He twisted the knob and cracked the door open, revealing the aforementioned woman.

"No, I'm not, but I probably have a better relationship with you than she does." She replied with a devilish grin.

Heero glowered at her insensitive remarks. "What do you want?"

"You know exactly why I'm here, now let me in." she sternly responded.

"How'd you even get upstairs?" he further questioned, still not allowing her access to his apartment.

"Your landlord and I arrived at the exact same time."

"And he let you in?" Heero arched an eyebrow.

"He has a crush on me." Dorothy nonchalantly shrugged. He should hold back on the rent money just for that, an annoyed Heero thought. "Now hurry and open the door, these hallways are freezing."

He'd have to run into her sooner or later, a defeated Heero sighed, he might as well get it over with. He opened up and Dorothy slithered her way in. Heero walked off, heading towards the direction of his couch, an unhappy expression resting on his face. Dorothy went straight for his refrigerator, grabbing for a bottle of water.

"Who said you can go through my fridge?" He looked back at her.

"You owe me." she twisted open the cap and took a swig.

"Don't you owe me?" Heero shot back, reminding her of when he complied and allowed Relena to use his Flying V.

"True, but you killed that deal with your actions today." Her response pulled a disgruntled grunt out of Heero. "What's your problem, seriously?" she placed her bottle on his kitchen counter, folding her arms in front of her. "You pathetically carry a torch for a woman who ditched you and then act like a complete asshole to the girl who's just trying to live out her dream."

"She took Sylvia's sp-"

"Heero!" she loudly sliced through his predictable response. "Who cares!? For the last time, It's not your band!" Dorothy was astounded that she even had to go through this with him again. "Sylvia is gone! She's out! She quit! She dumped you and left! Get over it already!"

As he angrily glared at her, Heero was regretting his choice to let Dorothy into his apartment. Dorothy could feel the heat radiating off of his stare, but was completely unfazed. "I mean, honestly, what was she doing to you in bed that has you acting like this?"

"Something you probably couldn't do." Heero threw back at her, not caring how crass he sounded.

"Oh?" Dorothy had to keep from bursting out laughing at Heero's ridiculous comeback. "Is that a challenge? I do have some time tonight…" Dorothy winked as she started removing her coat.

Heero rolled his eyes, not wanting to play Dorothy's games. "Can you leave, please?"

"What?" she produced a highly amused smirk. "Afraid I'll find out you're a minute man?"

Heero could only sigh at the blonde. "Quatre is going to be pretty upset when he finds out you joke around like this."

"Ugh," a deflated Dorothy slumped her shoulders. "Why do all of you bring him up as if it's going to change my behavior?" She wanted to say something as she saw Heero give her a knowing look, but decided against it and took another sip of her water. "Besides, it's not like he doesn't know, and for your information, even if you were the last person on earth, I wouldn't and not just for the obvious reasons. After today, you are easily the least attractive person in the world to me right now."

"Where was I before today?" Heero muttered the question with another eye roll.

"Do you really want to know?" The playfulness in her tone was hard to miss.

"Not really."

"Third." she simply stated.

"Hn." Heero just shrugged, he truly didn't care to know this.

"I had Trowa ahead of you, just so you know." She told him, pointing the top of her water bottle at his direction.

"So that means Quatre was numb-"

"Look, we're getting away from the reason I came here." She stopped him from continuing and walked over to stand before the sitting Heero Yuy. "Bottom line, you're an asshole and you're going to apologize to my friend and bandmate."

Heero waved her off, refusing to make eye contact with her. "Not interested."

"Get interested." Dorothy was so put off by the Heero that she was looking at. Before the Sylvia break up, he was rational and reasonable; nothing like the petulant child he'd regressed into today. "I refuse to be a part of this tour if it means you two are just going to be awkward around each other the entire time. You guys need to patch things up before any of us hit the road. I don't have the energy to waste on keeping you two from fighting."

Heero raked a hand through his tousled hair. All day… it's been nothing but aggravations all day, and as much as he hated to admit it, Dorothy was right. The last thing he wanted on this tour was to be walking on eggshells around Relena, and he was sure she probably didn't want the same thing.

Why he even cared about her feelings, he couldn't say, and that made his jaw clench. Another vision of her sobbing again flashed in his memory and he tried to shake away the image of the saddened honey blonde from earlier. Seeing her like that only complicated matters and pissed him off at the same time. "Fine, I'll apologize." he growled.

"You better mean it, too." Dorothy looked down at him with a certain amount of skepticism.

He matched her stare with one of his own. "I said I'd do it, okay? What more do you want?"

Dorothy released a heavy sigh. "I guess I have no choice but to take you at your word. We'll be at Barge tomorrow night to grab a drink, go see her then."

"Hn." What better place then Barge, right? That would be the first venue they play on the upcoming tour, and it was also the place where he met her for the first time. Why do women always make things so complicated for him?

Maybe Wufei was right…

A twenty-one year old Heero Yuy stood outside Club Barge. There were others loitering around but he kept to himself, he just leaned his back on the building and puffed away at the cigarette in his mouth. This would be the last time he would ever smoke these horrible things. It was a bad habit he picked up in high school when he hung out with other future high school dropouts. He never liked smoking, but it was something to do in social settings and whenever he was by himself. It wasn't the greatest reason to smoke, but that's where it came from.

At least this would be the last one. He took another drag and pulled it out of his mouth, twiddling it between his fingers.

"Hey, you have a light?" a feminine voice called out to him. He looked to his right and saw a girl with blonde hair. She, too, had a cigarette in her possession as she was obviously looking to light it up.

Heero just shook his head at her.

"No?" she looked at him curiously. "Then how did you light that one up?"

He took another drag of the burning stick, blowing some smoke out his mouth and nostrils. "Threw it away after lighting this up."

"Why'd you do that?" the girl tilted her head at him.

Heero didn't really want to explain himself, but figured he might as well humor her since she wasn't getting sparked by him. "I'm quitting after this one."

"Oh," she nodded in understanding. "Me too, actually." She leaned beside Heero on Barge's wall. "Wanted to make this my last one." She sighed, looking back up at him. She studied his features, quickly recognizing how good looking he was. She wondered if he was here alone. She was about to ask him when she got an idea. "Hey, can you lean down for a second?"

Heero raised an eyebrow at the girl standing beside him, unsure of what she was up to. She graced him with a smile that he would admit made her look pretty. She placed the cigarette in her mouth and motioned him to lean down. Heero realized what she was doing now and shrugged, complying with her request. Leaning his head down, the girl moved to touch the tip of her stick to his, and she inhaled, lighting up her cigarette. They matched looks for a second before pulling away, the girl giving him a wink as they did so.

She pulled it out of her mouth after taking her first puff. "Thanks." Heero just nodded in return. "The names Sylvia by the way, yours?"

"Heero…" He blew out a large cloud, watching it float and disappear into the air.

"Nice to meet you, Heero." She leaned back on the wall. "Here alone?"

"Hn." Heero nodded in confirmation.

"Here for the show?"

Heero came to Barge to just hang out and maybe see who was playing. He honestly didn't care who was on stage. "I didn't even know who was playing till I got here. Just came to relax."

"Ah, okay." Sylvia blew her own smoke cloud. "Some guy took me out tonight."

Heero side-glanced at her. She wasn't here alone but she was out here with him? And apparently she was on a date, too? "Why are you here then?"

"Eh, it just wasn't working out." Sylvia sighed, eyes looking up at the night sky. "Nice guy, but not my type, so I kinda ditched him."

"Hn." Heero wasn't sure what to make of that.

"And besides, the guy playing on stage kinda sucks." Sylvia chuckled.

"Think so?" Heero asked her, thinking the same thing of the one man performer who was currently Barge's main event.

"Yeah, you've seen one bearded guy play folk music, you've seen them all." Sylvia cynically explained. "His guitar sounds like shit, too. Pretty sure I play better than him"

"You play?" That got Heero's attention.

"I asked my parents to give me lessons a long time ago." Sylvia revealed to him. "Been playing since I was twelve."

"Hm, are you any good?"

"I think I'm pretty good." She gave Heero a smirk. "Better than that guy on stage, at least."

She was a confident one, he'd give her that. It made him curious to know exactly what her guitar style sounded like.

"Do you play anything?" She questioned him.

"Guitar." he flatly responded.

"Oh, you too, huh?" Sylvia's eyes widened, surprised to find that she was speaking to another six-string player. "Are you any good?"

He took another drag. "I'm okay, I guess."

"When did you start playing?" Sylvia pressed on, wanting to know more about the hot guy who also played the same instrument as her.

"When I was sixteen." Heero responded.

"Did you take lessons?"

"No." He shook his head, he didn't learn the same way she did.

"So how did you learn?" Sylvia continued to ask.

"Taught myself." Heero replied truthfully. "I just learned by ear. I couldn't read music to save my life, I just knew what I wanted my guitar to sound like." It was his discovery of punk that made Heero learn it himself. He wasn't getting any help from his parents when it came to the guitar, so he knew what he had to do. It helped that his friend Duo also learned like he did. They were able to bounce off each other and create whatever racket they wanted.

"Impressive, like a true punk rocker." Sylvia giggled after taking another hit.

"That was the idea." Heero figured learning himself fit him perfectly. The albums he was listening to at that time gave him the inspiration to simply pick up and play, regardless of technical ability.

"Did your parents help you at all?" She heard Heero snort at her question and she looked to find him shaking his head. "Sounds like there's a story there."

"It's nothing."

"Sure as hell doesn't sound like nothing." Sylvia didn't buy it. "Not close with your parents, are you?"

"It's complicated." Heero didn't care to get into his relationship with Aoi and Odin.

"Those kinds of situations usually are." Sylvia concurred. "Ever thought about starting a band? You seem to be a big music guy, much like myself."

Heero gave her a quick look before looking out towards the city streets. "One day I will. When I find the right people, I'll make my own punk band."

"Still a hardcore kid, I see." Heero gave a nod.

"And you?" Heero asked her the same thing. "Want to be in a band?"

"Hm…" Sylvia gave the question a little more thought than Heero did. "Maybe if I meet the right people, but to be honest, I'm not that interested in being in a band right now. That could change, though, so who the hell knows." She took one last drag before tossing the butt on the ground, stomping it out. "And with that, no more." She observed as Heero copied her. "So, that's it? No more cancer sticks?" Sylvia snickered.

"No more cancer sticks…" Heero dryly repeated.

"Looks like we'll have to find a new vice." Sylvia jokingly suggested. Heero jammed his hands into his pockets and turned to look down at her, not knowing what to do next with the blonde. "Hey, let's grab a drink, I'll buy the first round."

She might have to buy the second and third rounds, too, because it wasn't like he had much money on him. "Are you sure? I don't have a lot of cash on me. Plus, there's that guy you came with; I'm not interested in getting into a fight tonight." he told her honestly.

"That's fine, I'm pretty sure he left already after realizing I abandoned him. He hasn't texted me or anything but I'm sure he got the hint." She easily explained away. "As far as the drinks go, you're really cute, so you can get away with not paying tonight." Sylvia grinned at the handsome young man named Heero. He regarded her with a funny look. That was a weird way of putting it.

"Are you saying there's going to be another night?" Heero questioned the curly haired girl named Sylvia.

"Here's hoping." came her simple response. They both smirked at each other and entered club.

AN: Hope you enjoy this one, y'all.

'Heaven Hill' is part of a Hüsker Dü song title. If you know the full song name, then you probably know where I'll be going with that.

Using another gimmick for this particular story as you can probably tell. Just makes sense, doesn't it?

Hüsker Dü - "One Step At a Time"