Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 13 ( Chapter 13 )

13

i hurt myself today, to see if i still feel

i focus on the pain, the only thing that's real

I exhaled, forcing my stress out with the spent air. He was obsessing over Nagi again. This was a dangerous thing, a potential disaster, and with Brad gone I was the only thing standing between them. Scheiße, aber das war sehr nicht gut! I rubbed my eyes and tried to calm down.

Would he attack a helpless boy in a coma? I didn't know. Every other time he had gone for Nagi, the boy had been rendered helpless the way a bird becomes hypnotized and stands waiting for the strike of the serpent. I never understood the origin of his fascination with this one child; Far never attacked other kids, always targeting those old enough to be accountable. But, accountable by whose standards? The law? The church? Which church?

My head hurt. I sat down next to Nagi and took one cool hand in mine. "Chibi, you'd better wake up soon. The wolf is hungry, and you're starting to look like dinner." Lamb, Far called him. Lamb of God? As in, Son of God reborn, or sacrifice to an older, vengeful deity? To Farfarello, there wasn't always a distinction between the two.

Like an animal trying to escape an inward pain, I bolted up and nabbed my gun, making sure the thing was clean and loaded. I had always been meticulous with my guns, the way Far was with his knives, and I was prepared to use my weapon should he come at Nagi with his.

Still physically restless and mentally agitated, I paced around the room, then sat once more at Nagi's side. "Kiddo, I hope you can hear me. Because I'm telling you to wake the fuck up before Farfarello gets any ideas on you! Brad isn't here, it's just you and me and the psycho, and Farf isn't in the best of shape. You didn't die in the water, you didn't die on the beach, so why won't you fucking wake up?" I had the momentary irrational urge to slap him across the face, make him react to me. I choked it down; I don't hit kids, and it wasn't like he'd only fainted, anyway. He would wake up when he woke up, and not a second earlier no matter what I did or didn't do.

My hand itched. I looked at the stitches, no sign of infection but damn! I would carry fine white scars around my hand for the rest of my life, the mark of the White Hunters embedded in my flesh. The stitches weren't the dissolving kind; they'd have to come out. Nagi was our usual medic, but he wouldn't be taking care of this for me. I could ask one of the women, but I was still too pissed over Brad's leaving to even bother.

I got up, stuffed the pistol in my waistband, and went in search of something sharp. Part of my mind knew I was not acting rationally at the moment, but the rest of my mind didn't give a good goddamn. I was obsessing as neatly as Farfarello, and I was going to take these damn stitches out myself if I had to cut off my hand to do it! The itching had proven to be the absolute last straw, and it was either take the stitches out or go stark raving mad, and Farfarello really didn't need the competition.

In Brad's shaving kit, a tiny box of razor blades invited me to take a look at their neat, shiny edges. He always used an old-fashioned razor, the kind with the screw-on safety face and the removable standard blades. I think it helped him stay grounded in the present, to have his daily shaving ritual to attend to. I opened the little box and reached for a blade, my hand starting to shake visibly.

Razor blades and I had a history together. Most telepaths would say the same: the drive for silence often led to disastrous solutions, and sometimes only the deepest silence would suffice. But today I only wanted to remove my stitches, and couldn't manage to choose anything more logical as a tool, like scissors. The lure of the blade shone as brightly as an addict's fix, and I took one from the box.

Holding the blade in my left hand, I raised my right and searched for the knot. Finding it, I put my mouth to it and grabbed the thread with my teeth. Tugging it hurt, made my hand throb, but the pain served to clarify my thoughts against the backdrop of the world, and I tugged a little more. When I had gotten the end free of the skin, I held the knot in my teeth and slid the razor blade between my hand and my lips, reveling in the cool threat of the steel. I felt the suture give, and moved my head back with a triumphant grin.

One by one I picked out the stitches, pulling and cutting when I had to. It took several minutes, and by the end of the process I was drenched with foul-smelling sweat and I felt vaguely nauseous. But at least the moments had been truly mine. I felt certain that no one else in the world, or at least within a few hundred kilometers, had felt the urge to remove stitches with their teeth and a razor blade just now, so the impulse and action had really been all my own doing.

Sometimes I just felt the need to test myself, to know if my thoughts and desires were really mine or simply a reflection of the world. Sometimes, I could even feel like a real human being, isolated and alone in my own head. Solipsism, Far called it. Sometimes I liked the way it felt, and could believe that nothing existed at all but my own mind.

Distant throbbing from my hand brought my attention back. I looked at the irritated skin, dotted and red where I'd pulled the sutures out with no regard for comfort. Damn, I was going to regret that. Already did, in fact.

I rummaged around for a bit of stiff paper, folded it into a little envelope and put the blade inside, then stashed it in with my tapes. The action was so automatic I didn't even think about it; one never knew when such things would come in handy, after all.

I had to ask the matron for some rubbing alcohol; it wasn't in our bathroom. We had our own supply, but I didn't want to get into it unless there was no other option. As I scrubbed at my offended flesh, I regarded the matrix of scars critically. It lacked the artistry of Farfarello's self-inflicted marks, yet had a certain poetic savagery nonetheless. I started pouring a steady stream of alcohol over my right hand, momentarily amazed that my left hand wasn't shaking. The alcohol burned like acid. I smiled, a dark and feral smile. The kitten who had marked me with his wire - would I ever get to return the favor? Mark him in some way?

Intriguing man, Balinese. Temptation made flesh. In combat, we had danced around each other, neither truly wishing the other dead. Were it not for our jobs, we may have had some interesting times together. I smiled at myself. What trouble I could have gotten into! Thank gods I didn't have that distraction here; I would hate to have to choose between him and Crawford, between lust and the team. In my current aggravated state, I really didn't know who would win. Already, once before, it had been a close call.

A few days before the ritual, I had gone off in search of recreation and booze, and had wandered into an odd little bar I hadn't tried before. I hadn't decided whether I was more interested in sex, alcohol, or violence, but in a place like that it didn't much matter. I would find something to distract me from the intolerable waiting, the maddening stress that was the hand of Esset.

At the bar I had spied a familiar figure, overly tall among a nation of the petite, with wavy gaijin hair and small-lensed tinted glasses worn purely for effect. ::It's him,:: I remember thinking. ::That guy...::

As though sensing my presence, his back had stiffened and he had turned very slightly, picking me out of the crowd with ease. His eyes had narrowed menacingly; his thoughts were loud. ::You! Schwarz!::

I had sauntered toward him, mentally commanding the guy next to him to leave his seat and find another place to be. Balinese had watched my approach and fingered his watch as if to remind me that we were, in fact, enemies.

"Pax, kitten," I had told him, mixing Latin and English just for the fun of it. "I just want a drink."

He'd nodded as though granting permission, and I'd helped myself to the vacant seat to his left. "Chivas, neat, and a refill for my friend."

"I'm not your friend. Why are you here, Schwarz?" Jade eyes watched my every move.

"Like I said, I'm here for a cheap drink, Weiß. Just like you." I'd pulled out a cigarette and lit up, then offered him my lighter for his own. He'd ignored it, instead lighting his next from the butt of his last. All I could think then was how slender and graceful his hands were.

I sighed, shaking off the memory. Yes, Kudou's hands were graceful and long, not at all like Crawford's. It really hadn't surprised me much to find out that Brad had lived on a farm; he had large, strong hands, the kind that can wrestle a bull to the dirt and crush a half-full beer can.

My hands, though, were sore and the right one in particular was throbbing violently. My head hurt and my eyes were watering. The room stank of rubbing alcohol; the bottle was half empty. I cursed and rinsed my hand under cold water until it started to go numb.

If I couldn't get my head working right, things would only go downhill faster from here, I told myself. These flights of fancy were well and good, in a secure setting. Now, with the threat of a wounded Esset on our heels and our team in tatters, I was quickly becoming the weakest link. I couldn't concentrate on one subject for more than a few minutes, I couldn't remember dates or numbers, and I couldn't even complete one task without wandering off onto some other tangent. Again I had left Nagi alone, and there was no reason to believe that Farfarello wouldn't return early and take advantage of the situation, were he so inclined.

Damn it!

I grabbed a towel and bolted back to our room.