Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Nobody's Listening ❯ The Truth about Dante ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Title: Nobody's Listening
Author: Ryoko 03
Series: post-Weiss Kreuz Gluhen
Rating: R; may go to NC-17 depending upon my muses' whims
Status: In Progress

All warnings and pairings noted in the previous chapter.

//blah// = thoughts
~blah~ = telepathy (trust me, it'll come up *sweatdrop*)

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Nobody's Listening
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The soft beeping of monitors was the first sound to greet Ran as he began to fight his way back to consciousness. His last real memory was the familiar-yet-not voice of the missing Schwarz assassin murmuring that he was not allowed to die and of hard concrete beneath him.

Now, as the beeping and the soft mattress beneath him attested, he was apparently in a hospital. Exactly which hospital was the unknown factor; Ran wasn't even positive he was still in New York. For all he knew, Farfarello might have had him shuttled off to an Este facility.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes slowly.

"Oh! You're awake!"

Ran turned his gaze towards the nurse who was tending to the monitors. She certainly *looked* like an ordinary nurse, nothing in her manner indicating that she worked for anyone other than the health care system. She offered him a bright smile and finished her notations, then placed the clipboard back on the end of the bed before turning her full attention to him.

"You had us worried for a while, Mr. Fujimiya. Your wound was rather severe, frankly we were surprised you made it here alive at all." She smiled again before adding, "It's a miracle you've recovered so well, in a few days' time you'll be able to go back home."

The redhead frowned slightly, glancing down at the bandages wrapped tightly around his midsection. He couldn't feel any stitches and wondered briefly if they'd used the self-dissolving type or if they'd had time while he was unconscious to remove them. In either case, it meant he'd been here already for at least a month. Which brought up his previous question:

"Where am I?"

The nurse didn't seem too surprised by the question: "La Guardia Hospital. We were the closest facility, and it's very lucky for you that your friend wasn't at all hesitant about using threats to ensure you arrived quickly and safely." She chuckled slightly; "Of course, Mr. Dante doesn't seem to be the conventional type. Not many men would threaten to slit someone's throat and shove a cell phone in if an ambulance isn't called immediately!"

Ran couldn't help but smile slightly, although it wasn't at the still-somewhat amusing thought that his enemy was responsible for his being alive. No, it was the name. Farfarello. Dante. It made since in a slightly twisted way: If you can't safely go by a name from literature any longer, go with the author's name instead.

"Has he been here?" he asked after a moment, one hand still resting lightly over his healing wound. It was both comforting and unnerving to think that a member of Schwarz could have been in the same room with him while he'd been helpless and slowly recovering.

"Oh yes, but not for a couple of days," the blonde nurse replied, her eyes taking on a bit of sadness. "The last time he stopped by, we had a young man jump from the sixth story." She sighed and rubbed at her eyes; obviously she was still affected by the suicide. "Such a gentle boy, too. He'd stopped in to visit, said he knew you from the church and wanted to see how you were recovering. Mr. Dante stepped out to talk with him for a few moments, and the next thing we knew he'd jumped out a window. Mr. Dante said the boy had expressed feelings of guilt over the incident and was on the ledge before he had a moment to wonder *why* such a young man would feel guilty over a senseless crime."

"I'm still asking m'self the same question."

Ran started slightly at the voice and looked towards the doorway, absently noticing that the nurse did likewise. While he hadn't really noticed more than the man's eyes before-twin pinpoints of light with one slightly hidden as darkness had settled around him-he could now clearly see the changes that the five years had had on Schwarz's resident psychopath.

Farfarello-no, apparently Dante now-leaned easily on the door, his arms crossed over his chest and his head tilted to one side. Both eyes were visible, catching the mid-afternoon light and appearing more golden than Ran had remembered. His hair, now a rusty shade of red rather than silver blonde, had been grown out past his shoulders and was currently tucked behind his ears. His numerous earrings had also gone by the wayside, his left ear only sporting one tiny gold hoop while two were visible in the right.

The other major change was, the scars were gone. Well, all but two small ones, the one crossing the bridge of his nose and the one on his bottom lip; both not truly notable and therefore easily overlooked by most people.

He stood up, moving into the room with all the feline grace the red-haired assassin remembered from his own dealings with Berserker. The nurse flashed him a sad little smile and rested a hand on his shoulder briefly, easily ignoring the fact that he was at least a good half-foot taller than her.

"I doubt we'll ever really know, Mr. Dante," she said, obviously trying to reassure the man. "But I'm sure you'd like to visit Mr. Fujimiya in private for a while, so I'll leave you to it. Remember, though," she added, voice becoming stern and professional for a moment, "visiting hours end at five today and it's already four-thirty. If I could make exceptions-"

"Aye, I know," the former assassin said quietly. "When have you ever known me to break that rule?"

The nurse smiled again, stepping towards the door. As she left she murmured, "I still can't get the thought of that boy out of my mind..." Farfarello nodded in agreement with the woman, his soft smile turning into a smirk after she'd left the room.

"Of course, the little fuck had *some* help going out that window."

Ran couldn't help but roll his eyes at the comment; apparently some things *never* changed.

"Any particular reason for that decision?" he asked evenly. "Or was it just a whim on the spur of the moment, Farfarello?"

"Jei," was the first instantaneous reply to the question before being followed by another smirk. "And I think that pushing the assassin trying to get a second chance at you out a window was a valid enough reason, don't you?"

The natural redhead blinked, the image of a young teen running into him on the street coming to mind and he rested his hand lightly over his newly-aching wound. He had barely gotten a glimpse of the boy himself; how the hell had Farf-Jei recognized his would-be killer on sight?

"How-"

"Ever heard of psychometry?"

Ran frowned slightly, the term unfamiliar to him. He'd known that most Este agents had psychic talents, with the man before him apparently being the one exception. He knew about telepathy, telekinesis and precognition only because those were the talents Schwarz expressed easily and therefore needed to be studied enough for the men of Weiss to know just what they were dealing with. Nothing in their experience had suggested a need to know about any other psi talents, although the knowledge would have come in handy against Rosenkruez.

"Iie."

Jei ran a hand through his hair (Ran noticed absently that the other man was wearing gloves even though the room was fairly warm) and pulled a chair over next to the bed. He somehow managed to drape himself gracefully into said chair without effort and took a breath before explaining:

"Psychometry is a psychic skill that involves the handling of objects in order to pick up information about that object's history or the events or emotions of people connected with that object. That's the dictionary definition, pretty damned dry and boring if you ask me. And it doesn't explain at *all* how it can affect one who isn't trained or is inadequately trained.

"Most normal humans can pick up psychometric impressions on a basic level, feeling more of a déjà vu sensation than actually picking up useful information. But there are actually few true psychometrics that possess the skill at an unusually high degree of sensitivity. They're able to pick up impressions simply by touching an object and being able to tell you about the individual who owned it as well as what happened to them."

He smiled and shrugged casually: "In a sense, it's a delicate combination of clairvoyance and telepathy taken to the next level."

Ran sat quietly, absorbing the information and filing it in his mind to review after his 'guest' had left for the day. He nodded slightly after a moment, still not quite understanding *what* psychometry had to do with Jei's ability to pick a killer out of an entire city.

At the silent nod, the Irishman continued: "Did you know that most Este agents displayed their talents at very young ages? Schuldich, Crawford, Nagi... they all displayed their talents around the age of five, although Braddy was actually seven when he had his first true vision."

"No, I didn't know that."

"Imagine being five years old and in the same moment you find your family killed before your eyes, you attempt to save yourself only to find out that the woman wielding the knife has no qualms about killing you and had, in fact, used that same knife to murder dozens of people for a German organization that you never would have dreamed existed." Jei was looking down at his gloved hands, and therefore didn't notice violet eyes widening at the third account of what happened to the Irish assassin's family.

"Imagine your skin being so damned *psi-sensitive* to *everything* that you can't even brush your bare skin against a person, a wall, a jacket without picking up lingering psychic impressions of everyone who'd ever come into contact with it and seeing every aspect of their lives play out in your mind. Imagine being told you were suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and not knowing that it meant you would spend the rest of your young life locked away. Imagine the relief you felt at the knowledge that, so long as you were locked in a fucking *straightjacket*, no one and nothing could touch your bare skin and you were safe from the visions that were driving you insane."

Amber eyes lifted, hard despite a sense of bitter despair skimming just below the surface: "If you can imagine that, then you know what I lived with for eleven years of my life."

Neither man spoke, the silence stretching uncomfortably between them. Ran was mentally doing the math in his head, frowning slightly as he came to an age that didn't truly make sense with everything he thought he knew about the other man. Tiring of the silence, he spoke:

"So what happened when you were sixteen?"

Jei smiled slightly, slouching in his chair again. "I was fifteen when I was removed from the asylum by Este. It was around that time that I started to block pain. Apparently on top of being a psychometric I was-and still am-a low-level biokinetic. Only damned thing it's good for is blocking pain, really, but it was *that* that caught Este's attention; apparently psychometry wasn't that important when compared with other psi talents out there.

"I was trained briefly, during which time they realized I was also an animal psi-that means I display characteristics of a certain animal, in my case those of a big cat-then I was sent to join Crawford, Schuldich and Nagi on my sixteenth birthday."

In all honesty, the redhead wasn't all that surprised at the revelation of Jei's third talent; he'd always been of the opinion that the man moved like a cat. The biokinesis also made sense, and he gave a slight nod to indicate that he was still following. All the information that needed mulled over was still being mentally filed; he would have all night to review it and reassess his opinion of Schwarz's 'missing' assassin.

"I was the fourth and last member," Jei continued, shrugging slightly. "Oracle had found Prodigy on the streets and brought him in without any additional training; I think I was selected to remind them *not* to go over Este's head in the matters of selecting agents. Whatever the reasoning, I was accepted without question although Schu seemed to find it entertaining to try to get into my head as often as possible. I quickly learned to throw up a mental shield if only to keep them from finding out just *what* it was that made me dangerous.

"I think Braddy figured it out first." The amber-eyed man paused, glancing at his watch to make sure there was still enough time left for him to finish, then nodded slightly before proceeding: "I was able to keep from touching much of anything for months, and able to hide my reaction when I *did* come into contact with something with rather negative impressions left upon it. One night six months after being sent to Schwarz, however, I had to press against the wall of the building we were staying in to keep from running into Nagi on the stairs and picked up the impression of a man being tortured and murdered in the hallway. It wasn't pretty, and I couldn't hide my reaction.

"I was still screaming when Schu tried to get the straightjacket on me, which was a big mistake. It was a different jacket, one that they'd picked up from another asylum after being advised that it would be a good idea to keep one handy. Unfortunately, the girl who'd worn it before me was tortured and raped on a daily basis by the guards, and that was imprinted fairly deep into the material. It just set me off more and I lashed out against my teammates for the first-and only-time."

Jei stretched slightly, turning his gaze towards the window. Ran took the opportunity to size up the other man. He appeared to be comfortable, dressed in blue jeans, motorcycle boots and an unzipped black leather jacket. Beneath the jacket he was wearing a navy blue shirt, but it was difficult to tell if it was sort or long sleeved. And of course there were the black gloves, which made more sense to the former Weiss assassin in light of Jei's talent. It was probably the easiest way to ensure that he *didn't* accidentally pick up psychic impressions from everything he might come in contact with.

Jei took another breath and continued after another minute or two: "Brad, for some reason, wasn't wearing a suit that day. Instead he was in jeans and a sweater, both brand new as he'd bought them the day before. Personally, I think he had a vision of some sort that spurred him to buy them. He never really said. Anyway, he came in the room just as I was about to slash at Schu again with my fingernails. He glanced at the jacket, swore under his breath-did you know Crawford can swear in five different languages? No? He can-and rather than pull a gun he grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms down. And since there was nothing of death or torture or anything aside from newness clinging to his clothing, I calmed down almost instantly. I could hear Brad calling the Elders fifty kinds of fool and him ordering Schu and Nagi to go and buy a *new* straightjacket immediately, but that's about all I can recall because I fell asleep."

He smiled and shrugged, "I was calm again, and I wasn't picking up anything negative. I could let down my guard. The next morning when I woke Schu began training me to build mental barriers. After a couple of months I could touch objects and throw up a wall before any negative impressions had time to saturate my thought process. Nagi walked on eggshells around me for a while, but once he realized that I wasn't going to attack any of them again he took it upon himself to keep Este from finding out that they had let an extremely sensitive psychometric slip through their fingers. I don't think they *ever* realized the truth until I was twenty-one."

"What happened then?" Ran asked, curiosity getting to him as he wondered idly just how much control Jei actually had over his talents.

The Irishman shook his head slightly, tapping his watch. "Time's up for today, kitty. I'll tell you tomorrow... that is, if you want me to visit?"

//I must be losing my mind,// Ran thought to himself even as he nodded slightly. "I'd like that. No one else knows where I am."

Jei smiled slightly and stood to leave. As he reached the door, he glanced over his shoulder. "By the way, you may want to tell the nurse to change your visitation list when she comes back."

"Hm? Why?"

"Because…" Jei ran his fingers through his hair, brushing his bangs back before continuing, "there's still one assassin out there. And he'll definitely try to finish what he started."

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Owari Part the Second
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End Notes: Thanks to Sycopantha for the hospital ref (and also for being my first FF.net reviewer =^__^=) More is on the way soon as I get a day away from work to concentrate on the narrative.