Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 45 ( Chapter 45 )

45

 

Mother of motion, the eyes can't capture time…

 

When I noticed I was losing track of time again, I had a much better explanation for it than before: every place looked the same. The people looked the same, the air smelled the same; if it weren't for occasional stops for petrol I would think the car was standing still. I glanced at my watch. Ten days. Ten frigging days of being locked in a car with my teammates, driving through some of the least interesting parts of China that were accessible by road.

 

And not a single cigarette.

 

I heaved a sigh and glared out my window. My reflection glared back from the rear-view mirror. Defiant copper roots blazed through a field of brown. I snarled and looked away. Damn this! “Brad, where the fuck are we going? Because, when we get there, I am stripping this color shit out of my hair for good!”

 

My outburst met with silence: Farfarello calmly continued reading some weird little book, Nagi listened to antiquated chamber music over high-tech headphones, and Brad Crawford ignored me without so much as a sidelong glance.

 

“Ah, fuck.” My mood had been fine, until Crawford had half a dozen visions that ended up with us crammed into a series of stolen cars and driving at random through the middle of China for a week and a half. I sure the hell hoped this wouldn't turn into a long-term thing.

 

As the sun settled into a hazy, smoggy blur on the horizon, Brad pulled the car into the parking lot at a small travel lodge. “Schuldig,” he stated, still not looking at me, “touch up your hair color. But keep it brown.”

 

“Ah, hell!”

 

“Crawford,” Nagi asked, “what are we doing here?”

 

“We're staying the night, and tomorrow we're joining with a tourist group. We'll follow along for a while, then I'll find us new transportation heading south.” Brad adjusted his glasses and exited the car, ending the conversation with the slam of his door.

 

Belatedly I hoped I hadn't ticked him off. I didn't look forward to sleeping alone yet again; the past week and a half had been bad enough, after his momentary warmth back in Shanghai. As we drove I'd started obsessing about spending time alone with Brad, and found I rather liked obsessing a little more than complaining. Oh, the things one discovers on a road trip! “Hey, Brad?”

 

“No, Schuldig.” He turned to look at me, then added, “We'll need our rest.”

 

“But, Brad…”

 

“Schuldig. No.”

 

Crawford made the arrangements while we waited by the car. At his gesture, we followed him to a small private cabin behind the actual lodge. Not too bad, from the outside, but I refused to get my hopes up.

 

As it turned out, the cabin had its own kitchen, and a small stocked fridge. The whole thing was designed with Western comfort in mind; leave it to Crawford to know where to look for lodging. Just for grins I decided to ask him how much this was going to cost.

 

He smiled, pushed his glasses back up, and said, “After you handle our checkout, it should be practically free.”

 

The four of us managed dinner without too much trouble, then fatigue set in. Too many hours in a car and unpleasant rest stops had left us all on the verge of exhaustion, and we weren't even out of Asia. In my mind, this did not bode well.

 

Before I could mention it to Brad, he waved me to silence. “Don't go there, Schu. I have my reasons.”

 

I resigned myself to spending the night in a room with Farfarello, while Nagi passed out on the edge of Crawford's bed. Too bad we couldn't stash the two of them together, but I knew that would never fly. I settled for a warm goodnight kiss from Brad, and managed to prolong it into a fairly intimate clench before he pulled away and retired to his room.

 

In the second bedroom, Farfarello had already claimed the right side of the bed. He sat there fully dressed, leaning against the headboard and reading.

 

Jaw clenched in aggravated frustration, I reached for my bag and rummaged for a smoke.

 

Without taking his eye from the page, Far said, “You do know this is a no-smoking cabin.”

 

“Fuck off.” I found my cigarettes and lighter, then took them into the main room of the cabin. Hands shaking, I lit up and inhaled deeply. My eyes closed in momentary ecstasy as the smoke cleared away the lingering fog. Only then did I realize how long it had been since my last cigarette. Damn, no wonder I'd been such a bitch lately! I hadn't smoked since Shanghai, not since…

 

Not since I promised Brad I'd quit.

 

Quit…or cut down, and I'd certainly managed to cut down! I counted that as a victory and savored my prize. Brad probably knew I'd be doing this, and that was why he'd arranged the rooms as he had. Smart man, knowing that sometimes nicotine is better than sex, though how a non-smoker could understand was beyond me. Then again, he was pretty damn observant, especially where his team was concerned.

 

I lingered by the window, smoking and watching clouds drift across the evening sky. I found my thoughts drifting with them, and wondered what Kudou was doing this night. My lips curved into a smile around the filter. Knowing him, whatever he was up to probably involved smoking.

 

When that cigarette was done, I flushed the remains down the toilet rather than just flick it out the door. Brad had told me not to leave spent butts lying about, and I felt pretty smart for remembering that in spite of not smoking in over a week. Briefly I debated having another, but decided to stop for the night. I felt I'd done amazingly well, one smoke in ten days, and was not in the mood to backslide any further.

 

I stretched and paced around the little cabin. Though I was tired, I wasn't ready to sleep just yet. I went back to the bedroom and dug through my bag. Nothing there caught my attention. I glanced over at Farfarello, still sitting on the bed, humor in the set of his eyebrows as he read his paperback.

 

“Hey, Far,” I asked, reaching for his bag, “do you mind if I go through your books?”

 

Again he didn't bother to look up as he said, “Help yourself. The ones down the side I'm gonna be selling, grab `em if you want `em.”

 

I pulled out a handful of paperbacks that looked like they had already traveled the world in someone's back pocket. The covers were battered and the pages dogeared and stained; some smelled vaguely like an old library. One caught my eye, and I looked it over more closely. It was the book he'd been reading on the boat, the one that had kicked off his weird preoccupation with towels and sofas. I flipped it open - the overworn spine choosing the page for me - and read a line at random.

 

The original text was “Don't panic!”, though I was hard put to decipher it as the “Don't” had been painted over with blood. I glanced at Far, then gingerly closed the book and stuffed it back into his bag.

 

Far just kept on reading.

 

I decided to listen to some music instead of risking another book. I upended my bag over the bed and sifted through the stuff I still called mine, frowning at the dwindling pile. So far, I'd gotten rid of a fair number of tapes and discs in our quest to baffle the object readers on our trail. I now had even less clothing than I'd had at Rosenkreuz, though I hadn't really owned any of that. And I had one box of hair color, brown, now lying quietly in the middle of the bed.

 

“Ah, shit!” I grabbed the damn thing and headed back to the bathroom.

 

When I came back with damp, Nutella-colored hair, Farfarello was asleep, the lights still on and his book grasped limply in his hand. I shook my head; that man could sleep in any position, on any surface…or suspended from it.

 

As quietly as I could, I stuffed my meager belongings back into the bag and set it by the bed. I stripped and set my clothes over the chair to air out a bit; we'd need to find a way to do some laundry soon, or burn the whole lot and start over. Then I turned off the lights and stretched out next to Farf, and tried not to think about where I'd rather be spending the night.

 

Sunrise found me pleasantly alert, and Farfarello still sleeping like a puppy. Like a fully dressed, man-sized hyena puppy, perhaps, but a puppy nonetheless.

 

I selected a change of clothes that seemed less fragrant than the rest and carried them to the bathroom, intent on a shower. Brad was already there, clad in undershorts and poised before the mirror, razor in hand.

 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, lathering his chin with hand soap.

 

I admired the dark scruff on his jaw a moment longer, then said, “Farf's marking in his books again. How do you think I slept?”

 

He regarded me through the mirror and said, “Considering how interesting you find him when he does things like that, I suspect you slept quite well. Besides, I smelled your cigarette. Better?”

 

“Much.” I started to run the shower. “So what's on the agenda today? Besides tourist stuff.”

 

“That's pretty much it. We have to start moving southward, but the tourist group will put us where we need to be by around three this afternoon. Of course, we'll need another car, but that shouldn't be any problem.” He finished shaving and studied his handiwork.

 

“How's the mice?”

 

Brad gave me a puzzled look, then comprehension kicked in. “Oh. That. I'm still figuring out how to work around it. Mind if I join you in the shower?”

 

Any joy I felt at his request quickly faded as I touched his mind and discovered he intended only to wash, nothing more. We took turns with the spray and the soap, then I lingered under the hot water, face upturned, for the sheer luxury of it.

 

Strong hands gripped my hips as Brad pressed against me from behind.

 

I gasped, momentarily startled. “I thought you didn't want this!”

 

“I changed my mind,” Brad murmured against the back of my neck.

 

Had I really thought that nicotine could ever be better than sex? The absurdity of it made me smile as I leaned forward, the water cascading over my ass. I reached behind me and pulled him closer.

 

No time for delicacy today, Brad slid into me with undisguised need. I bit my lip and pushed back onto him, careful not to lose my footing on the slick tile. We fucked quickly, quietly, and efficiently, two men desperate for contact. Brad came with a low groan; I followed soon after. The water hadn't even turned cold yet.

 

I dressed and made certain we had left nothing of ours in the bathroom before returning to my bedroom and collecting my bag. We had a light breakfast, none of us terribly hungry as a peculiar sort of energy seemed to infuse the team. Crawford was leading us on a madcap quest, and we were eager to follow where his visions might take us.

 

Today they would take us west. We left our car keys in the cabin, and I left the proprietor with a vague memory of a quarreling married couple. At the appointed hour, the four of us boarded the foreseen tour bus, joining twenty-some-odd other passengers on their journey. No one seemed to notice us at all.

 

I smiled at Crawford. ::I love it when it's working right.::

 

He gave me a small smile in return, then turned to gaze once more out his window.

 

I could feel his tension, and knew the source of it. The bus was too cramped, and he wasn't in control of the situation. Though it wasn't literally a small enclosed space, to him it had to be nearly as bad. ::You only have to put up with the bus for a little while longer,:: I told him. ::Remember, you said we'd find a car and ditch this lame party by three o'clock. Hey, do you want to trade seats? I don't mind sitting by the window.::

 

::Thanks, Schu. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm fine, really. Besides, this is the pop-out emergency window. Better than getting caught in the crowd, should it come to that.::

 

I tried to reconstruct a mental map of our recent wanderings, and failed. All I knew was we'd gone west, north, southeast, and now we were headed west again. Well, vaguely southwest, actually, but that didn't help me one bit.

 

::Stop thinking about it,:: Brad stated emphatically. ::The whole point was to become a little lost, give them no hint where my final destination might actually be.::

 

::Do you actually have a final destination?:: I retorted, a little surprised that he'd told me as much as he had just now.

 

Brad smiled, pushed his glasses up, and said, ::Not at all.::

 

We arrived, we disembarked. I yawned as we faced yet another little town, with another dozen little shrines. At least it was time to leave our new friends. We sheared away from the group and blended in with another batch of tourists for a while, then lost ourselves in the crowd. No one would even remember we had been there, though it cost me a mild headache to ensure this.

 

“It doesn't seem to matter whether we leave tonight or tomorrow,” Brad informed me. “I am getting some peculiar glimpses, though. Let's play cool on this one. Schuldig, take point.”

 

I led the way in search of lodging or a vehicle, whichever I happened to find first. That would decide our course of action for the night. Though I hated to admit it even to myself, I was longing for the road, in anything other than a bus. Well, maybe not just anything; it had to be large enough that we wouldn't kill each other in the first week. None of those smaller types for me, thanks, especially not after the smelly little sub-compact two joyrides back.

 

We passed a small open-air market and a number of alleyways leading to god-knows-where, and I had the strong urge to physically hold onto Nagi when we passed a group of sly-looking men. I refrained from scanning about, though my shields didn't resonate with any hint of trouble. I'd learned my lesson in Japan - if you seek, you'll find, and I wasn't in the mood for that kind of action. No, this was a pretty quiet little town, the sort of place tourists come to see “old China” and get smiled at by toothless old women. I browsed about, playing the part of generic westerner, the rest of the team trailing not too far behind me.

 

A mental gasp brought me to a halt.

 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brad stumble. He staggered, then lurched toward a street lamp, grabbing hold and clinging to it as he slid to the ground.

 

As I moved toward Brad, I scanned the crowd, my hand going to my gun.

 

The three of us reached him at the same time.

 

Brad groped for Farfarello's arm, hauled himself up and allowed the Irishman to prop him against the lamppost. Nagi gave me a worried look, then glanced around. A few passersby had stopped, no doubt wondering if the tourist were ill.

 

Brad's mental voice sounded clear in my head. ::Schuldig. No one saw this. Make certain of it.::

 

I gritted my teeth and sent out a wide “do not notice” signal, covering the town with a momentary disregard. My head pounded. I decided to resort to speech, to try to ward off the coming headache a little longer. “What's wrong?” I hissed.

 

::I can't see.:: Brad turned his face toward me and groped for my sleeve. Behind his glasses, his eyes shone wide and blank.