Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Gift ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

AN: Here's the Crawford side story for `Building Our Tomorrow'. It will go through how he came to be with Rosenkreuz up until a bit after he found Schuldig. As there's not a great deal on him in the anime or Drama CDs, there will be a number of OCs in this, but there will also be a few recognizable characters if you're familiar with the Drama CDs. The pairing for this fic is canon, but it does not give away who I will be pairing Crawford with in the main fic. Please keep in mind that I've aged Crawford and that he is 23 at the start of BOT

 

Overall Warnings: Extreme Violence, Language, NCS, Het. Sex

 

Warnings: Not any for the prologue

 

Disclaimer: I don't own WK.

 

 

Internal Dialogue

Telepathy

[Flashback]

 

Prologue

 

A young man stood in a nondescript cemetery somewhere in the United States. His nearly coffee-colored eyes lingered on two fresh mounds of dirt directly in front of him as his similarly brown hair was ruffled by the gentle breeze. He drew in a shaky breath even as the last tear he would cry for the next fifteen years carved a solitary track down his face. If only I had tried harder, he agonized. If only I could have made them understand that my premonition wasn't just the product of an overactive imagination, my brothers might still be alive…

 

[Flashback - Six Days]

 

“I'm begging you not to go,” twenty year old Brad Crawford implored his younger brothers. The youngest, eighteen year old Andrew, rolled his hazel eyes.

 

“You were just dreaming, Brad,” he said. “I swear… You've gotten so paranoid in the last couple of years, always trying to convince us not do this or that just because you get one of those feelings.”

 

“Listen to me,” Brad ground out, thoroughly frustrated and desperate. “If you go to that concert tonight, you will both die!” He turned to face his other brother nearly in tears. “Philip,” his voice was pleading. “You've seen that I'm right when I get these visions.” His twenty year old twin, younger by some three hours, looked torn.

 

“You're not always right,” he finally responded. “And we can't live our lives like this… Always afraid of what might happen just because you've `seen' something.” He muttered something under his breath, but the words `mom', `dad', and `car' could be made out. At the question in Andrew's eyes, he spoke up. “I said, `If you always know everything, then why didn't you stop mom and dad from getting in the car last year?'” The low, bitter tone suggested that the second eldest held his older brother at least partially responsible for their parents' deaths. Brad felt a whole new wave of guilt wash over him and sank into a nearby chair; he had always blamed himself for the accident, but he had no idea when or why these glimpses of the future would occur; he only knew that they were real.

 

“I don't know,” his voiced was strained, his eyes haunted. “I don't know why I see some things and not others.” He lowered his face into his hands and fought the tears that threatened to pour. Philip sighed knowing that he should never have said that. It wasn't Brad's fault, and he truly didn't blame him. Sometimes, though, his brother could be so overprotective, and it drove him to open his mouth before his brain could catch up.

 

“Come on, Andy,” he spoke quietly. “Let's leave Brad alone for awhile.” He turned to face the elder. “We won't be back until after midnight. If you're still up, we can talk then.” He paused for a moment, debating on whether to say anything else. “Brad?” he just couldn't put this off, not when the pain radiating from his older brother was practically tangible. “I didn't mean what I said.” No response. It seemed that the oldest was lost in a haze of sorrow.

 

“See you later,” Andrew spoke up, then on impulse he added, “We love you, you know.” The two younger walked out of the room, and only when the brown-eyed man heard the door click shut did he finally look up.

 

“I love you, too,” he whispered to the empty room before curling up in the oversized chair. “I hope to God that I'm wrong,” he directed his gaze upwards. “Please, let me be wrong.” Somehow, though, he knew that what he had seen would come to pass. Everything that had just occurred was part of that vision, and there had been nothing he could do to change what was to happen. If this had been two months ago, things might have been different. Andrew was still only seventeen, and Brad was his legal guardian. Despite all the arguments and his brother's rebellious streak, he had always obeyed the elder's rules. All that changed the moment he turned eighteen, feeling that it was now time for a taste of the independence that all young adults craved. It was at that point that Philip had stopped listening, as well. It seemed that so long as their younger brother was kept under Brad's watchful eye, he wouldn't do anything to make him feel left out.

 

Everything had changed in a single day. His brothers began to show reluctance when he would tell them of his `visions'. It seemed that since nothing ever came of them, they weren't real. That was a mistake on their part because they didn't realize that Brad had previously been able to prevent any of the tragedies that could potentially befall his family, at least any that he had prior knowledge of. Now, though, there was nothing he could do. Philip and Andrew were never coming through the front door again, and all he could do was cry the night away, futilely praying to a God he didn't really believe in to keep his vision from being true. Perhaps, if he had thought about it, he could have followed along and prevented anything untoward, but he wasn't in the right state of mind at the moment.

 

Four hours later, the phone rang; Brad couldn't bring himself to move from the position he had been in since his brothers had left the apartment. He already knew what the phone call was about anyway. The authorities were calling to inform him that his brothers, Philip and Andrew Crawford, had been killed outside the concert hall less than three hours ago. An unidentified man had randomly shot several rounds into the crowd waiting to get in, and the Crawford siblings had been amongst those to die on the scene. It was simply a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and in all his misery, Brad hadn't seen a way to prevent it.

 

[End Flashback]

 

Brad Crawford turned from the recently filled ground and walked away from the final resting place of his family. His brothers had been buried next to his parents, and he had needed to see his family one last time. This was it for him; he would never return to this place again, a place filled with too much guilt and pain. In a matter of hours, he would be well on his way to Germany to join an organization that had promised to help him control this `curse' with which he had been gifted. They had called it precognition, but in all honesty, he truly did not care for he would have sooner lived without it rather than go through everything that had happened in the last two years. An average looking man stepped from the waiting car as he approached the end of the path, drawing him out of his thoughts.

 

“It's time to leave, Brad,” he stated in heavily accented English.

 

“I know,” the dark haired American looked up, sunlight giving a sinister glint to his glasses for the first of many times. “And don't call me Brad.” He would later forget why he hated hearing his given name, but for now it was a painful reminder that the voices that had once so cheerfully called it out would never be heard again.

 

“Crawford, then” the man conceded, holding the car door open, beckoning the brown eyed man. Esset was waiting, and Crawford would soon learn that this was group of people who had no patience in waiting.

 

TBC

End of Chapter Notes: The way I see it, Crawford wouldn't have had the ability to manipulate his power without the proper training, so he wouldn't be able to check the future in the way that he does in BOT. That's where the whole thing about him not seeing his parents' deaths comes in and why he doesn't know about the whole considering every little factor and tries to only stop the whole event instead of altering a few minor things thereby subtly altering the course of his visions. I hope I at least implied that decently here, but if not, that's what this not is for. So let me know what you thing. Oh, and I just wanted to mention that Crawford's brothers are named for my little brother - er… my 6'3” little brother - (first and middle name). He's not likely to ever see this because he's more into Dragonball Z type stuff, but he's an inspiration to me, so I'd thought I'd do this.