Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Midnight Aloha ❯ The Tilting of the World ( Chapter 3 )

This was Schuldig's third attempt at hotwiring a car for them. That alone informed Crawford that the world had rudely changed and left them behind. How many years there were between the last New Year he'd seen and AC 198 was a mystery, but as it wasn't even the same dating system. The sky was blue still though, and buildings were still big tall square things. Cars even looked very similar, even if the ignitions were quite different.

Schuldig cursed in German; in German that Crawford was not totally familiar with, but Nagi moved away from the car that he'd been leaning on like it might melt down shortly. Farfarellow was leaning against a building, bandages all tight and knives put away. As Crawford watched him, the sun was just rising around the corner of the building he leaned against, and the not always very sane man stepped away from where he leaned and turned to look between the buildings at the rising sun. It laid gold over an endless expanse of ocean, made the white sand look almost too bright to look at for a moment.

On that bright sand, several women danced, grass skirts and long flowing hair, black hair, red, and one pink, all moving in harmony. From where Crawford stood, they looked like they were dancing for the sun, calling it with their arms, seducing the light into being. Farfarello's breathing synchronized with their movements, calmed and deepened. Watching him closely, as the lightest little rain started, more a heavy mist, the Irishman stood a little straighter, the rain laying his white hair down, ordering it in some almost supernatural way. Crawford saw the Irishman's smile before he turned, but it was still a surprise. "God is a jealous god. He hates it here."

Crawford, who'd always accepted his place as a thorn in God's side, found himself agreeing. This place wasn't natural.

Nagi wasn't immune to the effect the place had on them either. He was just returning from across the street, with, and Crawford blinked, slowly, as he realized that Nagi had gotten himself a huge ice cream cone, in a rolled up waffle. The boy looked like a boy, dark hair and school uniform, licking an ice cream cone. It set Crawford's hair on end. There was something in the air, some drug in the mist, he thought. The boy came to stand next to him, his hand moving to offer a taste then snapping back before doing it.

"Woman liked my Japanese, was impressed by the classical purity. Gave me ice cream. I was hungry."

"Did I say I was unhappy about it," Crawford asked, eyes forward, arms across his chest, but they both knew he was.

"We're not going back, are we?" Nagi asked, biting of an edge of his cone.

The youth in Nagi's voice startled Crawford. It all hinged on that, on going back or staying here. This was a new world. "There was rather a lot of fire."

"They think we're dead." Nagi said, licking his cone between we're and dead, as if he was saying they'd missed a bus. "Tot will be unhappy."

Crawford had never understood that aspect of Nagi's life, why he cared for that insane girl, why the boy cared for anyone at all.

"You like that cop?"

Crawford turned, drawing up a bit, chin tucked, eyebrows up, fist doubling up. Nagi smirked, wrinkling his nose and running it into cherry colored ice cream.

The car roared to life though, and the red head was waving at them. "The world has not changed that much, Naoe." Crawford snapped moving away from where he'd still been in the shadows towards the now running car. The world wasn't really changed that much. And he said as much to the boy following him.

It took them three hours to find the home of the police officer that Crawford had kissed. Schuldig seemed to take great pleasure in letting the thoughts of the other two trickle over to Crawford telepathically. The out of character kiss had been like some kind of world shifting icon to both the boy and the Irishman. It was a new world and Schuldig took delight in the confusion swirling around in both of them. Farfarello thought they might really be in hell, with women worshipping on a beach and a beautiful man kissing Crawford and Crawford kissing back. It was invasion of privacy, indecent somehow, but Crawford didn't close out the thoughts, didn't close out Farfarello's curious hope that God couldn't touch them here.

Nagi's thoughts were more disturbing. He didn't find it disturbing that the Crawford had responded to 'Death's' kiss. Crawford found it oddly disturbing that Nagi accepted in a deep subconscious level that the white man who'd kissed him was the Japanese god of death. On top of that, Nagi seemed to think it was a sign of divine favor and that Crawford would become the consort of this god of death and adopt him. The boy was dysfunctional, Crawford though, then actually snorted at his reflection in the window, such a small movement that only Schuldig caught the emotion or the movement. Almost immediately the stolen thoughts stopped flowing to him and he didn't want them back.

The house that matched the address on Duo Maxwell's id card hardly seemed like an appropriate house. Three stories, black Japanese roof with twin green jade dragons guarding the gate. Crawford stepped out of the car. A slight breeze carried the scent of flowers past him as it lifted his hair and reshuffled it. Vision hit him again and he pressed his bent pointer finger to his forehead, memorizing and accepting the second big vision the space of a few hours. It was so real, this vision, so like he could spend a life time in it.

When he opened his eyes next, Farfarello was carrying him into the house. If his head had not felt like a balloon full of shrapnel, he would have protested. They were talking, a mix of English, Japanese, broken German coming from Nagi and the occasional French from Farfarello, but Crawford could not really understand any of them, all the words were jumbled as his mind tried to stay in two places at one time, to stay both in the pride and power he'd always known and to hold the braided man in his arms, kissing him deeply as the sun rose over them. The pain in his head told him he couldn't have both for long, but he would hold it as long as he could.

….

Downtown, in Duo's office, his pager went off, letting him know that his home security had been breeched. Impulsively he dialed the security company, put in the code for a false alarm. He thought he knew who it was invading his home and it was something he wanted to take care of personally. There was a watch to get back, after all.