Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 34 ( Chapter 34 )

34

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night, removes the color from our sight

Red is gray, and yellow, white. But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion.

Brad seemed oddly protective over the next couple of days. He watched as I practiced the mindlinks with Nagi and Farfarello, and I really didn't know which of us he was watching.

After the first try with Nagi, it got easier for him, the link strengthening itself with every contact. He had a little headache by the time I was satisfied it was good enough, but even Nagi admitted it was a small price to pay.

Far was more difficult. Something about his injury or his madness kept fighting me; the more I tried to reinforce the bond, the fainter it got. Finally I decided to settle for a just-barely-there sort of link. I hoped it would be enough, at least until we could try for something more later on.

My body mended, though slowly, the cuts on my hands stubbornly refusing to go away without a fight. I took penicillin until the smell of it made me want to throw up. But, hour by hour, my hands became more usable, which was at least something. I flexed them mercilessly to make sure they didn't tighten up on me.

My shoulder was another story. It seemed to get worse, not better. The bruise remained dark, and the joint ached bitterly. Brad asked if I wanted to see a medic, but somehow I really didn't want to. Brad hadn't forced the issue. He'd simply sent for some pain pills and anti-inflammatory medicine, courtesy of the yakuza messenger boy. I knew the damn thing wasn't broken, it wasn't even dislocated, but it hurt like hell. It occurred to me that Brad's roughness that night may have aggravated it. With any luck, a few quiet days would see it start to respond a little better.

We had gotten a few deliveries from that yakuza courier, among them more hair dyes and makeup, batteries, music, and several newspapers from around the world. Brad studied the papers intently, though he never said what he was looking for. Now, three days after my run-in with Esset, Brad showed me a tiny article in a British paper: "Interpol seeking corporate burglar".

"Good thing you dyed your hair," Brad said in a low voice. "They're looking for a red-haired European man in connection with an attempted break-in at a Tokyo corporation. I thought they'd leak it to the officials, and I hoped someone would leak it to the press. Seems we have an unwitting friend out there."

Something tickled at the edges of my memory, but refused to step forward. I shrugged it off. "So what do we do now?"

"We gather more information and get ready to leave the country," Brad stated, leafing through his papers again. "They're still too close for my liking, but unfortunately these are the kind of hunters who try to flush their prey out of hiding. If we leave too soon, they'll notice."

"You mean," Farf's voice preceded him into the kitchen, "like reptiles who see movement?"

Brad frowned a little. From the Irishman's thoughts, I picked up a blur of movie scenes, flashing between a huge dinosaur with big-ass teeth and a couple of smaller, vicious looking critters with oversized toenails. "When did you see that movie, Far?" I asked, recalling that this was one of those on his "NO" list.

"I don't know, before the mess with that girl, I think. Back when I could watch movies with the volume up." He rummaged through the fridge as he talked. "It was good. Sort of a nature program, really."

Nature program? I looked over at Brad, who was trying to ignore us. I got the feeling that the topic was now officially closed. "Yeah, something like that," I murmured, not wanting Far to get stuck on the subject. Images of hunting were not safe for him to have running through his head, whether the hunter was a man or an animal. Or a special-effect.

"So, Crawford, what do we do now?" Far asked. "Where do we go from here?"

Brad looked up, distracted. I could feel the hum of energy and tension that meant he was in the middle of visions. I held my hand up toward Far and sent, ::Wait up, my friend.::

We watched Brad sit and stare for a few moments, then he blinked and focused on me. "Did you say something, Schuldig?"

"Far was asking what's next," I told him, longing to ask about his vision but knowing he'd only tell me when and what he chose.

"Oh, I…" Brad's voice trailed off, his awareness again ensnared by his gift.

I frowned. This was unusual. He didn't tend to get series of visions like this. Suddenly I remembered he'd said something about having visions non-stop since the beach, when he'd been alone without means of telling time. He'd only mentioned it the one time. I'd been so worried about Nagi's head and my own, I had totally forgotten.

Farfarello slowly and quietly rose from his seat and slipped out of the kitchen, an uncomfortable look on his face. I didn't blame him. Seeing our leader, the man we depended upon, not acting quite right was an unsettling thing. I started to scoot my chair closer to him, trying not to make any noise.

Brad blinked a few times, looking like a sleeper who couldn't wake up easily. He gazed at me, perplexed.

Whenever he got hit hard with his visions, Brad needed to get grounded as quickly as possible. I looked around for something suitable. We didn't have a clock or a calendar in the kitchen; on impulse, I showed him the newspaper he'd been reading. "It's around June 7th," I told him, cursing the fact that I wasn't entirely sure of the date myself, or how old the paper actually was. "It's nearly lunch time. Do you know where you are, Brad?"

He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. "June 8th, Schuldig," he murmured. "June… What year?" Brad studied the newspaper a moment, then relaxed some. He pushed his glasses up, then sighed.

"You all right?" I asked. I'd never seen him this fried before, and it worried me.

"I will be. It's just hard, when the Sight doesn't want to play nice," he whispered, fatigue sinking in fast. "When they come, they come in bunches, and they usually contradict. It hasn't been this bad since puberty."

I took hold of his hands. They were cold and a little shaky. "Brad, I'm sorry, I didn't even think about what happened to you. I was so concerned about Nagi and Far, and my own shields. I thought you were okay. You acted okay," I added, my tone a little accusing.

"As if you're not keeping secrets, Schu." Brad regarded me with weary eyes. "You don't know the date. You're having trouble with that phone number. What haven't you told me?"

"I'm losing numbers. I have trouble with anything over one digit." I sighed and looked down. "I can barely get to twenty, but after that it starts to fall apart for good. Phone numbers slide right out of my head, and I don't trust addresses."

"Since the tower?" he asked.

"Yeah, only since then. You know I was good with numbers before, Brad. I could memorize phone numbers, bank account numbers, you name it. It's like there's a hole in my mind. What happened to us, Brad?" I looked into his eyes, more than a little frightened now. We'd avoided talking about this so far, but the time for silence was over. "What did they do to us?"

For a moment, Brad seemed almost tragic. Then he said, "I don't know, Schu. What bothers me is, what are they still doing?"

"I don't follow," I told him.

"Someone is messing with the flow of events," he said. "I don't mean that in any kind of surreal, sci-fi fashion, so don't even go there. But there is a very real effect that comes when several precognitives tune in on the same time-frame. Either they all get the same vision crystal clear, or they all get absolute chaos: the very act of Seeing changes the outcome."

"Butterflies."

We both looked toward the doorway. Farfarello stood there, watching us. By way of clarifying, he stated, "It's simple quantum physics. In theory, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, it could cause storms over the mainland. Now, if you want to get complicated, go to the mouse."

I looked at Brad. Brad looked at me. The clarifying hadn't worked.

Farf sighed and rejoined us at the table, swinging a chair around and straddling it. "As you know, Einstein initially rejected quantum theory because it leads to an apparent absurdity, that of a mouse changing the entire universe, just by looking up at the night sky. Now, if you have a squadron of precogs all trying to figure out where we are, or where we're going to be, I'd say we're talking mice, gentlemen."

"Where the hell did you learn that shit, Farf?" I asked. Fuck the mouse, he'd left me behind on the goddamned butterfly!

He gave me a pitying sort of look that had a perverse undercurrent of high humor and said, "I thought you Germans were supposed to be good at physics."

Brad excused himself, apparently not wanting to go any further into Einstein versus quantum theory. Or not wanting me to see him laugh. I wasn't sure.

Two steps toward the doorway, Crawford's knees gave way and he toppled to the floor.

"Brad!" I shouted, bolting around the table.

Farf was closer. He knelt beside our leader and checked his condition with practiced fingers. "He didn't hit his head too bad, there's no bump, and I didn't hear it hit. His pulse is a little fast, though, and his breathing's shallow."

I reached out to caress Brad's slack face. His cheek was cold, but his breath panted hot against my fingers. He seemed to be going into shock. I debated calling out to Nagi, to have him bring us a blanket, but I didn't want him to see Brad like this. It would only make him worry. "I'll be right back," I told Far, then sprinted out to our bags.

By the time I returned with the blanket, Brad was coming around. He gazed up at Farf, then at me, then asked, "What time is it?"

Farf lifted Brad's hand, turning it so the watch showed clear. Brad studied the glowing digits intensely, then nodded. "We're okay," he whispered, taking the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders. "Schu, can you find me some Tylenol?"

I hurried back out to our supplies, fished out the headache pills, and almost collided with Brad as Farf helped him to the couch. A trip to the kitchen, a bottle of water, and back out to the couch; Brad took the pills from me with a very shaky hand.

"Brad, what happened?" I asked. "What did you See?" I had to know. If it was strong enough to knock Brad out, it couldn't be a good thing.

"Mice," he murmured. "Too many mice." With that, he slid back into unconsciousness.

Far regarded me over Brad's still form. "What do we do now?" he asked me. "What if the phone rings?"

"If that happens before he wakes up," I replied, reminded sharply of a similar discussion with Brad about a sleeping Nagi, "you carry him."

Farf and I kept watch over our leader for several increasingly tense hours. When Nagi came out of his room and saw that Crawford was down, the momentary flash of panic nearly blinded me. I explained to him as fast and as clearly as I could that Brad had had a powerful series of visions, and it had left him drained and a little shocky. I got the feeling the kid didn't totally buy that explanation, but he backed off and let Farf and me fret in peace.

Finally, around sunset, Brad's eyes fluttered open. He was lying on the couch, his head in my lap, and Farfarello was sitting on the floor beside us. Brad gazed up at me, questioning.

"You blacked out," I told him. "You've been out all day. Your visions took you down."

"Ah, yes," he said, voice soft. "Schu, this changes things." He lifted a hand to my face. "Farfarello is correct. There are mice in the works. Rosenkreuz is trying to outmaneuver us. Outmaneuver me. Damn. If it's this hard to get a clear line on things now, what will it be if they figure out it's working?"

"So what can we do, Crawford?" Far asked. "How do we fight them?"

"Let me sleep on that," Brad murmured, then yawned up at me. "I need some real sleep tonight. And before you suggest it, no, Schuldig." He added that last with a slight smile, his fingers catching a lock of my hair and tugging it.

"It would help you sleep, you know," I bantered, knowing full well what he was vetoing.

"So would a kick to the head, but I'm not in the mood for that either." With some difficulty, he sat up, then got to his feet, pulling the blanket around him like a cloak.

Farfarello braced him carefully, then pulled Brad's arm up across his own shoulders and started walking him to his room. I followed, not wanting Brad to be alone this night.

Once Brad had been deposited on his bed, Farfarello excused himself from the room. As Brad was already asleep again, I invited myself to stay, snuggling close under that one blanket.

I lay awake, listening to his breathing. Absently my fingers stroked his hair, felt the strong lines of his face. It was a little hard to believe that we'd come to this, we, the proud men of Schwarz, laid low by our own gifts. I leaned down and kissed the forehead of the man I'd fallen in love with so many years ago. It was like another lifetime now.

It wasn't ever easy to see a teammate in distress, but to see Brad Crawford like this really hurt. Especially since I knew there wasn't anything any of us could do for him.

I hadn't planned on sleeping. When I startled awake, it took me a while to figure out where I was, and why. Dim light from the window cast everything in shades of grey.

From beside me came a small sound: a weak and frightened cry. I realized that Brad must be having a nightmare, if not more visions in his dreams. Then again, those were often just as bad as nightmares, leaving him weary and with a lingering haunted feeling the day after.

I reached down to try to wake him, then paused. I really didn't know what to expect, if I disrupted a dream vision. He was exhausted enough; I didn't want to hurt him.

He moaned, a thin sound of horror that dissolved into rapid breaths. I thought he was trying to say something, but it sounded more like broken wailing than anything I could decipher. This was more than I could bear; cautiously I prodded his shoulder. "Brad? Wake up," I said in a low voice.

Brad struggled and cried out, but did not wake.

"Brad, damn it, wake the hell up!" This was starting to unnerve me. Against all my training, I was ready to go in after him, anything to make it stop. I gripped his shoulder and brushed against his mind, the unrealness of the dreamworld pulling seductively at my consciousness.

Brad's shields slammed up as his fist connected with my jaw. I toppled over on the bed, my mind recoiling into the beginnings of a psi-backlash headache. Now I was the one moaning, and Brad the one sitting bolt upright, trying to get his bearings.

"Schuldig, what the hell?" Brad snapped, glaring at me and panting roughly. "What's going on?"

"You were having a nightmare," I gasped, pain rolling through my head in waves. "I tried to wake you up."

"You should know better than that, Schuldig," he stated, voice cold. "Especially with me."

In spite of the headache, I staggered from his room. I couldn't stay in there. He'd been suffering, I'd tried to help, and he couldn't manage anything close to a "thank you." I found the headache pills and downed a few, then huddled in a kitchen chair waiting for the damn things to do something.

Brad did not come out to check on me.

After nearly an hour, the pain had receded to an almost bearable level. I rummaged through my bags, in desperate need of something to distract me. That horrid wailing echoed in my head, sounding vaguely Japanese, though I couldn't make out the words. On top of the headache, that cry was about to do me in. It reminded me too much of my own nightmares.

Finally I found my discs and player. To my vague surprise, there was a new disc among them, another one by that Egyptian-goth band. It looked about as weird as the other one. I smiled a little at this unexpected present. Then again, he probably Saw that I'd need it. Before my thoughts could drift totally back to Brad, I took my music to my bare bedroom and shut myself in.