Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ House on Fire ❯ One-Shot

“House on Fire”
By Viridian5
3/27/08

RATING: R; suggestions of Schuldig/Crawford and Schuldig/Nagi. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by.
SPOILERS: tiny spoilers for “Last Mission 12: Epitaph.”
SUMMARY: I bear the scars / Of an insufferable will...
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things Weiß Kreuz belong to Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiß, Polygram k.k., and Animate Film. No infringement intended.
NOTES: I actually got the basic idea for this while in the ER for the cerebrospinal fluid leak I had post-surgery in October 2006 but listening to Assemblage 23’s Failure in my car recently made me decide to write it out now. Looking at the lyrics, you can see the subliminal call. This fic’s title and summary come from “House on Fire” by Assemblage 23.
Many thanks to Thorn and Syvia for pre-reading.

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“House on Fire”
By Viridian5
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I’d made such a mess of the targets that I had trouble finding a clean spot to crouch in but once I had it I settled in and looked at Mr. Wright’s dead face and staring eyes. What to do with him? I’d drawn flowers on the others. I dabbed my latex-clad forefinger into the blood pooling on his chest and started to draw a design coming up his face starting from his jaw on the left, getting more blood as needed. Once finished, I tilted my head to the side a little to study it. It looked a bit like a branch of rosemary. Rosemary is for remembrance. I heard that somewhere.

-Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.-

Thanks, B. And you say I have no culture.

-You don’t.-

You suck.

Rosemary is for remembrance. Appropriate quote for everything, kind of.

I felt the urge to sign this work, but my client hired me specifically to throw off pursuit of him, a psycho to make this look more like a psycho killing than a professional hit. I watched my finger write an S before the pain in my head started and saw my now shaking hand spastically add another S before I pulled it away. Once I stopped trying, the pain faded. My old name remained a no-no. “SS” could do.

Time to go.

Outside in the alley near the trash, I pulled off my bloody latex gloves and shoved them into a baggie and the baggie under my coat then pulled up my hood. Three years after getting my head carved up, I still felt better with it covered while out in the cold. My hair worked for that in better temperatures and even hid the scars. But I liked hoods. In these days of security cameras all over public streets, I’d take whatever anonymity I could get. Cut down on my peripheral vision a bit, though.

Though at least the unwanted brain surgery had given me a weird instinctive sense of running cameras while weakening and altering my telepathy.

I had holes in my memory, my talent had shifted, certain words and memories hurt like hell, I had occasional changes in my eyesight, even three years later I felt some stabbing pain and neuralgia, my scars could forecast rain, sometimes I couldn’t find words even in my native language, and my sense of balance could be so chancy that I didn’t stand at the edge of a rooftop or jump from one to the next anymore, but I was alive, free, working, and not entirely alone. Much better than the powerlessness and helplessness They’d intended for me. And I’d made so many of them pay....

B had lost much more at their hands.

Rosemary is for remembrance. Is something coming, B?

-You know I can’t do that anymore. Not with your body.-

I figured it was worth asking. I miss the things you used to do with my body....

He didn’t answer that. I hadn’t figured he would.

Far enough away from the scene I called my client on a landline phone, harder to find these days, and said, “It’s done, and it’s very artistic.”

“Good. You’re sure they’re all done?”

“Yes. I counted and everything. Do you need me to go back and take a photo?”

“No. That’s fine. Your payment will be sent as specified.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Not. “Bye.” I hung up without saying that if it weren’t all there I’d pay him another visit. We’d already gone over that, and I’d gotten a reputation in the business under my new work name, enough that people didn’t try to fuck with Chimera anymore unless they were really arrogant or really nuts.

Some people I worked for were that arrogant or nuts, and I made them pay for it.

Despite the cold, I took my time walking home, enjoying the sun rising over London. I felt Lucy and Emily coming before I heard Lucy shout, “Davey!”

I grinned at Emily in her plastic covered stroller, and Emily smiled back. Kids loved me. “I see you have Emily plastic wrapped to retain freshness.”

“It’s cold out!” Lucy said. “And there are air holes, so the freshness leaks out.”

“You’re saying Emily is spoiled?”

“Am not!” Emily said.

“Are too!” I replied back, ever mature.

“Am not!”

I asked Lucy, “What’s up with taking the niblet outside in the cold on the wrong end of the morning?”

“She likes being outside,” Lucy answered.

“It’s dogs that need walks.”

“Funny.” Lucy knew about my brain damage and fecklessness and even knew I would be leaving the country some time in the spring, but she still looked at me like that. I still had it.

I liked her and the sprog, but when I tried to imagine settling down with a frau and kids and giving up my vocation to work something honest and legal I couldn’t. The team’s rabid wolf had found himself a bitch and left years ago and might even have cubs now, but I couldn’t see it for myself.

I liked George better, and he was a great lay and hairstylist who didn’t start “subtle” conversations about me giving up my footloose ways. Sorry, Lucy.

A sudden burning stab of pain punched through my skull and kept going, like someone had thrust a hot poker into my head and stirred my brains with it. -Roll with it. Focus.- Fighting to think through the agony, I pulled my shields up harder and tighter until the pain started to fade. Some telepath had been searching for me and touched me.

Looking concerned, Lucy stared down at me. No wonder, I’d fallen to my knees during my episode. “Let me help you get home,” she said.

Head still spinning, I stood on my own. Even Lucy could tell how quickly and harshly I was breathing from the rapid dragon plumes of smoke coming out of my mouth in the cold. “I don’t need help. I’ll make it on my own. You keep on with the niblet.”

“Davey--”

“I’m fine. I was just overtired.” I pressed my mind on hers a bit, letting her think I was really all right now and she should leave me alone.

“All right. But get some rest!”

“Will do. Bye, ladies.” I walked away, slowly picking up speed. Once I knew I’d left them behind, I broke into a sometimes swaying run.

I hit my flat like a hurricane, grabbing a suitcase and clothes and tossing my emergency go bag in. As I took one of my three prescription painkillers, I ordered plane tickets online then packed my laptop in amongst my clothes. David Frost had to take a vacation. Possibly a permanent one. I didn’t know how much that telepath had gotten from me, but I wouldn’t let myself get taken again.

I felt the temptation to set the flat on fire, but that would be too dramatic and draw too much attention. A very final act too, for what might turn out to be a small incursion that might not have gotten much information from me. I did a fast cleaner’s job on it instead. Any personal belongings I couldn’t bring with me I tossed into a box then taped the box shut. I buried my baggie of bloody gloves inside my kitchen trash and put the trash bag in the outdoor bin. I had no time to clean my gun properly.

I combed a temporary darker red color into my hair, giving it chunky streaks. Up close it wouldn’t stop anyone from recognizing me, but it could make a difference seen from a distance.

Occasionally I felt a slight burn across my skull. The person looking for me hadn’t given up but wouldn’t get much from me now. It still served as a reminder that I had to get the hell out.

I locked up, possibly for the last time, then carried everything down to be loaded into my car. In the driver’s seat, I let myself have one last look at my building. I’d liked being Davey. I’d enjoyed George’s easygoing nature and the way he could always handle my hair without hurting me. Lucy and Emily had been fun company, and my landlady made me cookies because she thought I looked too thin. Sure, I’d known I’d have to give it all up in a few months, but I’d fully intended to live out those few months. Someone may have stolen all of them from me. Once I had time and safety, I’d look into finding out whom.

I had a few hiding places in the city where I kept my weapons, so the box went in one and the gun I used today in another. I could always get more weapons wherever I ended up. At the last place I left the car and got a taxi to Heathrow, feeling an occasional burn the whole trip.

The airport could be chancy. My pursuer might be waiting there, expecting me to skip out on a plane. I’d have to be sneaky and fast and use Heathrow’s size to my advantage. In case he’d been looking for someone ordering at the last moment for a flight out, I’d ordered myself three tickets, each for a different destination on flights leaving different terminals. I decided which one I’d actually use as the taxi reached the airport so the driver could drop me off at the correct terminal.

In the old days I would have had him drop me off at a different terminal and then hot footed it to where I had to go to further throw people off, but my limbs currently felt a bit shaky and weak. Stress or adrenaline rushes did that to me at times. Sometimes my body could actually do more than it felt like it could, but I saw no reason to push it here. I might need it later.

Check-in went pretty quickly. I always hated handing my luggage over to an airline, but I never put anything irreplaceable in bags I checked in. I kept contacts and the like in my BlackBerry; my laptop was just for fun and a larger, more comfortable keyboard and to hold my MP3s. I kept my prescription bottles, medical excuse note, iPod, and current identity’s passport in my pockets.

B liked CrackBerries.

Next stop, security control. I always hated this part, but I could mess with their minds if I ran into a problem. Good old telepath-induced human error. Like a good boy I took off my hood when the guard told me to and put my keys, wallet, iPod, and BlackBerry into the bin to get scanned.

“Walk through,” he said.

As I started to walk toward the metal detector I heard someone yell, “Schuldig!” at the same time I felt another hot poker stab into my skull, and the two combined pains made me stumble and clutch my head. I muttered, “Old brain injury acts up sometimes,” through clenched teeth to the security guard as I kept walking. I’d already closed myself off, so how the hell did whoever get in?

-The voice sounds familiar. Maybe it’s an old mental link reawakening through proximity?-

I only had a link to two people left in this world, and I didn’t want to see either of them in my current state, and not just because looking at them and automatically trying to remember their names would hurt like hell. Aside from me caring about my pride, I had no guarantee they weren’t working for someone who wanted me dead or captured. While I no longer had the capability to break a mind link old me had done, I could put up a screen of telepathic misdirection for everyone who wasn’t a security guard. I kept moving despite the pain, because I had to get to the other side, grab my stuff, fuck the guards’ heads up, and run. I could hide amongst the other passengers and keep doing enough telepathic misdirection to throw him and anyone he had with him off my scent so I could catch my plane.

Most of the time I felt proud of everything I accomplished with what I had left. Most of the time I didn’t get my face rubbed in how much I’d been diminished since my team days.

I just needed to get through….

I hit an invisible wall so hard that at my speed I bounced backward and fell on my ass. Of course N-- the kid would distrust my sudden disappearance and put up a barrier just in case. I crawled toward it and pushed at it but it remained strong at floor-level too. Beating it with my fists didn’t help. Maybe I could wait the kid out? If I didn’t appear for long enough, he might give up and leave, especially if a long enough line of people formed, impatient to get to their planes. Hell, I might be able to get through with the next person.

“Do you need a doctor?” the security guard asked. Everything had happened so quickly that I hadn’t gotten a chance to blank myself out to him. Then again, my stuff was on the other side of their scanner, and he and his partner wouldn’t readily believe that someone had put all that in and left it.

Decision time. Needing more information and figuring that I already had a world of hurt in my head and might as well, I launched my talent at Na-- the kid to get his intentions but hit a damned good shield. Fucking figured. I’d given him a damned good foundation to it once upon a time. Once I could have attacked it with the telepathic equivalent of a sledgehammer wielded by a muscle man, but now I only had a hammer and chisel. What the hell. I chiseled fast.

The shield gave way suddenly, too suddenly for it to my doing, and a wave of concern/accomplishment/happiness/relief hit me. It boded well for his intentions if I could believe it, which I couldn’t. That would be exactly what he’d want me to think, wouldn’t it? Besides, the barrage hurt, some of it trying to reach parts of my brain I didn’t have anymore.

His ~ Schuldig, I can feel where you are with my telekinesis even though I can’t see you. I’m here to help you, ~ brought me to a level of pain I hadn’t felt in years. It hurt so bad, so bad, so bad. Kill me. End it.

-Hold on. You can do it. Play along with him. Give yourself a chance to recover. That way you can attack the moment he looks like he’s going to harm you.-

I might as well, because he dropped to his knees at my side a moment later, obviously aware of where I was. He held my wrists up to stop me from clawing at the carpeting. I saw that I’d already broken one fingernail doing it and watched it sluggishly bleed.

“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “When I didn’t hear from you I figured you were dead. They fucked with your brain, didn’t they?” He put up his mental shield and turned off the team link, to my great relief.

Last time I saw him he’d been a wildly dressed young adult with emo hair. I’d liked it. Now he looked completely adult, groomed, and immaculately professional in a stylish, beautifully tailored suit, prosperous. Well, immaculate aside from how he was kneeling on the floor near me. He appeared unlike his old self enough that just looking at him didn’t hurt too badly.

“Cut bits of it out,” I answered, tasting metal in my mouth. Fuck, I’d bitten my lip.

He looked angry but not entirely surprised. “We found a few people like that.” That explained it. He looked up at the guard and said louder, “I’m sorry about this, sir. He has a medical condition and gets really confused sometimes. He shouldn’t be flying. Please hand his belongings back over. I’ll take care of the rest with his airline.”

“It’s all right,” I managed to say to the guard. I’d committed myself. “He’s a good friend. I know him now.” I pulled my paperwork out of my coat pocket. “See, I’m legitimately messed up.” I’d used that more than once. It could be handy to have something legit-looking that suggested I could be confused and/or brain damaged and have the occasional faked seizure.

After five minutes of note scrutinizing and me and Na-- the kid saying heartbreaking things, the guards gave me my stuff and let us go. It helped that the no-longer-kid looked reasonable and rich. Thankfully, I managed to find my knees during that time so I could walk away with him without help. He kept a one-handed grip on my arm anyway and gave me a worried look as I dry-swallowed a Percocet.

After walking with me in silence for a few minutes, he said softly, “I thought Crawford would be with you.” Although I tried not to let the stab of pain show, he noticed. “Names hurt, then. Other things too, probably. They programmed that.”

B and I had thought of that, but I’d never dared to hope that some things in me could be fixed. “I thought a lot of it came from the damage. I’m missing pieces,” I answered as softly.

“Some of it’s damage, but some of it was deliberate sabotage. They probably did it while you were weak from fucking brain surgery.” He sounded angry. On my behalf? “We’ve had some luck in deprogramming some of the victims. We could do it for you.”

“Do you still head your own mini organization?”

“It’s not so mini anymore, but yeah.”

“Still fucking the little bastard?”

His grip on my arm tightened painfully, and his smile took on a cruel edge. “Still avoiding my question on Crawford. Did he dump you?”

I winced at the name but laughed at the presumption. “They killed him during our first escape attempt. There were just too many guards.... The only part of him that remains is what transferred to my head as he died. So he’ll never leave me.”

He turned a paler shade of pale then loosened his grip on my arm and stroked. It felt nice even through my sleeve. “I didn’t-- Damn.”

“It was one more bit of proof that all their efforts to break me down into a docile little minion hadn’t worked, so they volunteered me for experimental telepathy-removing surgery. About a week afterward I managed to drag myself out through what little talent I had left, sheer will, and playing on my nurse’s depravity and managed to mindcall a Good Samaritan to me once I’d trudged a few kilometers away. I don’t remember a lot of that time very well.”

“I don’t blame you.”

-He seems honest. You should see what he can offer. If his claim about deprogramming is true, it would be a big help.-

Yeah, B. Although I’d gotten so out of practice at it that I might never remember to use it, it’d be nice to be able to use my own name for myself again. Principles counted.

“I’m still working,” I said, still having my pride.

“Really? I always thought he had to kick your ass in gear to make you do that.”

“Hey. I have him inside my head now, so.... Anyway, I like to be able to make a living.”

“You’re still working, and you evaded notice for years.... My not so mini organization has a place for you.”

I liked my independence, but I missed having a team. “I’m not what I was,” I had to admit. He already had some idea anyway and what he didn’t know he’d find out soon enough if his people evaluated me.

“We’ll find out what you are now. You look good, especially considering what happened to you, so you must be living well, and you evaded capture while staying in the business. That says a lot.”

I am not this easy. I am not. Yes, I am.

-Yes, you are.-

Shut up.

“I can offer you more security.... What’s your airline?” he asked.

“Swiss International. I could just mind--”

“It’s all right. You’re hurting, and I can handle it.”

He brought me to the counter and immediately went to work. Through his connections and sheer force of his highly confident and commanding will, with some help from my doctor’s note, he had them refunding my ticket and handing over my suitcase within thirty minutes. It made me hot watching him wield power over people like that.

-Sad.-

You helped kink me this way, B.

The no-longer-kid glanced over at me, looked briefly surprised, then gave me a seductive smile of his own. “Follow me,” he said as he took my suitcase and led me out to a waiting limousine. As I settled into a very comfy seat, he used his cell phone to call off what sounded like other searchers since he said, “I have him. Meet me at the agreed rendezvous point.” Once he finished his call, he pulled me over to sit right next to him, showing me he’d gotten over some of his standoffishness over the years. “I came here for business, but I felt you and I couldn’t believe it....

So all anyone who wanted to find me needed to do was grab an old Sch-- team member and use him as a bloodhound? Scary.

But I couldn’t feel that scared right now. My adrenaline rush had faded, leaving me tired and shaky, while the Percocet made me sleepy and killed a lot of the pain. Comfort surrounded me, and I had a warm and sexy N to lean against. He put his arm around me, and I even found a comfortable way to rest my head. My eyelids drooped to half-mast.

This was dangerous. In my limited capacity I couldn’t read people as well, and I currently couldn’t read him at all, just judge based on my general feel of him, what he said, the small smile on his face, and the way he held and stroked me.

I’d been running, hiding, and lying for years, which was tiring and lonely. Him offering me things I wanted didn’t guarantee that his offer was a trap. B thought I should give N a try too.

Sometimes you had to take a chance and trust your luck. Normals did it all the time. As I closed my eyes, I decided I felt lucky.

  **********************THE END***********************     More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room version 3.0 at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/   No-frames but no-frills access available at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/index2.htm