Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ The Pitfalls of Being Pretty ❯ Chapter 1

A/N: So, really I'm supposed to be working on chapter 19 of The Sous-Chef—and I am, I swear!—but due to some health problems, it's been extremely difficult for me to write. The words just ain't coming. So when this sort of hit me, even though it's not very strong, I figured I should write it down. I don't think it's horrid, but…I feel it's just kind of `meh.' It's not in TSC continuity, btw.

 

Un-beta'd; hopefully I didn't miss too many errors.

 

The Pitfalls of Being Pretty

By RedQueen

 

 

Aya sighed as he turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub into the steamy air. He dried off vigorously, wincing when he rubbed too hard over the new bruises on his arm. He looked down at them; they formed quite a distinct pattern of fingers and the heel of a palm. He sighed again, dolefully. All he'd wanted was to hang out with a normal person, for once. Served him right, he supposed.

 

Trevor had seemed like a decent enough guy. Encroaching on thirty, he taught history to gifted high-schoolers, had a pretty girlfriend with a great sense of humor and a chubby bum—about which he often remarked with a slightly lascivious grin—and he had two golden retrievers. How could anyone who had golden retrievers have a dark, secret side?

 

“He wants in your pants,” Farfarello had remarked as soon as they had gotten into the car, following what Aya had thought was a pleasant dinner with Trevor and Janis, the girlfriend.

 

Aya had rolled his eyes. “You think everyone wants in my pants.”

 

“Most people do. You're so fucking pretty.”

 

If anyone else had said that to Aya, he would have broken their jaw to prevent them from making more stupid observations. But Farfarello's tone was soft, and he was smiling, thumb rubbing the back of Aya's hand affectionately. So Aya just said, “Oh, bite me. Not right now,” he added hastily, as Farfarello leaned over the gearshift. “Let's get home first.”

 

Farf's eye crinkled with good humor as he raised Aya's hand to his mouth and bit the wrist lightly, tonguing the thin skin.

 

Aya shuddered. “Mmm. Let's go home now.”

 

As they had driven home, Farfarello spoke into the comfortable, anticipatory silence. “I don't want ye to be alone with him.”

 

The good mood Aya had been in began to disintegrate. “I can look out for myself, Farfarello. I don't need a damned bodyguard, and I sure as hell don't need you to be my mother.”

 

Showing admirable restraint, Farfarello held off arguing further until after they were home and exhausted from sex. The ensuing battle had ended with Aya sleeping in their guest room, and Farfarello sleeping on the couch. The next morning, when Aya asked why he hadn't just stayed in the bedroom, Farf had made puppy eyes (as well as he could with only one eye) and said he didn't like to sleep in their bed when Aya wasn't there. Aya couldn't help but feel that Farf was adorable and sweet, and he'd had to forgive him.

 

No more had been said on the subject until Aya mentioned that he was going to Trevor's house to watch a documentary marathon about meerkats. Farf asked if Janis or anyone else was going to be there, and flipped out when Aya said no. Another battle ensued, during which Farfarello punched through a custom coffee table that Aya had really liked, pissing him off even more. He managed to lock the madman in a closet, which he knew wouldn't hold him for long, but delayed him enough that Aya was able to make his escape.

 

Trevor had greeted him warmly, and took him in the kitchen to get food, which was just coming out of the oven. Trevor had made a very nice pizza from scratch, with a garlic-basil crust and spinach, mushrooms, feta and mozzarella on top of homemade tomato sauce. They ate it while watching the meerkat show, with a bottle of French chardonnay.

 

Aya noticed, after they were working on their second bottle, that Trevor was sitting quite close to him, with his arm on the couch behind Aya, but he didn't think anything of it. Aya had been leaning forward with his elbows on his knees at the time, anyway. But as soon as he straightened up, stretched his back and leaned against the couch, Trevor curled his arm around Aya's shoulders and pulled him into a kiss.

 

For several seconds Aya's brain simply couldn't process what was happening. It was as startling to him as if Trevor and reached over and started picking Aya's nose. He flinched away from the embrace, but Trevor didn't take the hint, pulling him back in place, hard.

 

Aya didn't like that at all.

 

He shoved Trevor hard enough to knock him off the couch, getting up and grabbing his keys. Aya knew he'd probably drunk too much to be driving, but his pleasant buzz was now gone and he was as cold and focused as he was on a mission.

 

In the short hallway to the front door, there wasn't enough room for Aya to completely avoid Trevor as the man caught up with him. Trevor grabbed his arm with drunken strength. “Aya, don't leave,” he pled. “I want you so much. Let me please you; let me love you.”

 

“Trevor, don't do this. Please and love Janis. I have someone, as you well know.”

 

Trevor's grip tightened painfully. “You can't be happy with that one-eyed freak,” he snarled. His expression smoothed as Aya stared at him incredulously, though his grip got even more vice-like. “I'll take good care of you, my sweet li—“

 

Aya didn't give him time to finish the endearment. Ripping his arm free, he shoved Trevor hard with his foot, hard enough that the man went flying into the glass-fronted hutch facing down the hallway. As Trevor slumped to the floor, stunned, Aya growled, “I can take care of myself, bastard,” and stormed out of the house.

 

On the way home, he'd become very depressed. He'd really enjoyed Trevor's company, and now, he didn't think he'd be able to ever again. Worse, he'd fought hard with his lover over this, and Farfarello had been right.

 

He'd just wanted a normal friend. That was apparently too much to ask.

 

Aya had avoided Farfarello's gaze upon his return home, which instantly alerted Farf that something was wrong. He'd vaulted off the couch where he'd been nursing a pint, watching TV and (it looked like) sulking, coming to stand in front of Aya. He'd tipped Aya's face up to his, reading Aya's eyes, the flare of his nostrils, the set of his jaw, the shape of his lips. Aya saw the nearly instant comprehension and tensed, waiting for the `I told you so.'

 

Farfarello hadn't said `I told you so,' though. He'd looked at Aya with understanding and sadness in his eye, and held him close, carding his fingers through Aya's hair. “I'm sorry,” he'd whispered. “I know ye wanted this friendship.”

 

Aya had returned the hug, tension draining from his limbs. “Yeah,” he breathed, a little smile on his face. “I'll live.”

 

Farf had stayed near him, hovered almost, as though to be certain he was really okay. Half naked, getting ready to shower, he'd pushed Farf out of the bathroom just as a stony expression crossed his lover's face.

 

Now, as Aya left the steaming bathroom, he wondered a little about that expression. It had been a sudden shift, from teasing and slightly worried to hard and closed off. He couldn't think of anything he'd said or done that would lead to such a reaction.

 

“Farfarello,” he called, deciding he might as well ask about it. He walked down into the living room, feeling slightly mournful as he eyed the place where the coffee table used to be. “Farf?” he called again, when he'd gotten no answer. He turned around and went up to their bedroom, but quickly ascertained that Farfarello was not there either.

 

He noticed that the pants he'd been wearing earlier were tossed on the bed, instead of the hamper where he'd left them. One of the pockets was inside-out. His brows drew together. Farf had been searching his clothes? For what?

 

He suddenly remembered that he'd stuffed the paper with directions to Trevor's house in his pants pocket. He grabbed the pants and searched them, coming up empty.

 

The hairs on his neck began prickling.

 

His gaze fell on the bruises Trevor's hand had left on his bicep. He'd just taken his shirt off when he pushed Farf out of the bathroom…when he'd gotten that expression…

 

“Shit!!!” Aya yelled, tearing down the stairs, grabbing keys and yanking on shoes at the doorway, racing out into the night.

 

******

“Trevor! It's Aya, open up!!!” Aya yelled, pounding on the door. He didn't see Farfarello's car anywhere, so he thought it was safe to assume Farf had not yet arrived. Though, it was likely he wouldn't park near the house if he was planning on…no, maybe Aya was wrong in his deductions, and Farf had just gone out to get ice cream, or something. It was—

 

The door opened beneath Aya's pounding fist, to reveal not Trevor, but an aproned and very bloodstained Farfarello.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Aya groaned, as Farf grabbed his elbow and pulled him inside.

 

“Did ye park in the driveway?” Farf asked, casually wiping blood off one of his knives with a dishtowel.

 

“No, a few blocks away. Damn it, Farfarello! It was just a couple of bruises, there was no need to…” Aya trailed off as he caught sight of Trevor's body. Well, what there was of it.

 

There was a tarp on the floor—Farf never used to bother with such things, but Aya's compulsory cleaning had rubbed off on him, just a little. Trevor's arms and legs were lined up next to his body, each cut like a neat cross-section, and there were very tight tourniquets around the stumps of his extremities. Aya could picture Farf, starting at the fingers, then tying tourniquets ever higher on the limbs as he cut off more and more, never allowing his victim to bleed out. Very touchy work, very difficult to keep the victim alive through it all, and near impossible to keep them conscious, keep them from going into shock.

 

It was pretty difficult to tell whether Trevor was in shock, because one eye was on the tarp next to his head and the other was hanging down his face. His torso was professionally pinned open, and Aya could see that several organs had been removed. Farf did like playing `Operation'.

 

The heart, which Aya could see beneath the broken sternum, was still beating. The lungs were still breathing. Slow, but still going. Aya shook his head, took out his boot knife, and stabbed the heart. “There was no need for him to suffer this much,” Aya murmured, as he watched Trevor finally die.

 

“He raised a violent hand to ye,” Farfarello explained, taking off his apron and tossing it onto the tarp. “I don't forgive that.”

 

“You've raised a violent hand to me yourself!” Aya pointed out. “Many times!”

 

Farfarello looked pained. “That's not the same thing at all! That's something we do together, by mutual consent. Aya,” Farf took Aya's face in his still-bloody hands. “Have I ever hurt ye? I mean, really hurt ye? Have I ever done anything to ye that ye haven't wanted, that ye haven't asked me for? Whether sparring, or fucking, or whatever?”

 

“No, you haven't. And if you ever tried, I'd kick your ass out on the street in half-past no time.”

 

Farfarello beamed. “I know. It's part of what makes ye such a good match for me.” He kissed Aya softly.

 

“It doesn't change the fact that Trevor didn't deserve this,” Aya responded, though he kissed Farf back. “He wasn't a child-stealing baby-raper or anything like that.”

 

“People very, very rarely get what they deserve. Look at me. I probably don't deserve to have a beautiful boyfriend and a job I love.” He leaned his forehead against Aya's. “But I have both of those things, don't I?”

 

“That's a poor excuse.” Aya looked down again at the mess that had been Trevor. “I had already kicked his ass; you didn't have to come here.”

 

“Yeah…” Farfarello actually looked a bit sheepish. “I hadn't meant to go this far, actually, but he was bleeding, and trying to pick glass out of his back—“

 

“From when I kicked him across the room into the hutch,” Aya confirmed.

 

“—and he was so belligerent, spoiling for a fight. I guess he wanted to reassert his masculinity, after having been defeated and rejected. So I'm afraid I berserked.”

 

Aya knew well that the Berserker in Farfarello was an inhuman force of nature, feral but oddly cold and calculating, completely unstoppable, even by himself. It had to run its course to whatever end. Aya shook his head slowly. “I really don't know why I love you, sometimes.”

 

Hurt surfaced on Farf's cracked doll features. “Don't say things like that. Ye know we both get pleasure from the hunt, and from the flesh and blood.” As if to confirm this, Farfarello swept a damp, bloody thumb across Aya's lips. “We're both murderers; we're just the same.”

 

Aya tried to feel nauseous or horrified at having Trevor's blood smeared on his lips, or even the slightest bit angry, but all he felt was horny and slightly irritated. “There's no justification for inflicting this kind of torment on someone,” he reiterated, but his heart wasn't in the statement. He realized he'd already given up the argument. Given it up years and years ago, before he'd ever met Farfarello, in fact. It was the reason he'd been able to fall in love with someone so predisposed to outrageous violence.

 

He pushed Farf away gently. “This is a crime scene. We have to get away from here.”

 

“You go on ahead,” Farfarello said, getting down on his knees to roll up the tarp. “I'll catch up in a bit. Won't take me more than half an hour to do clean-up. Anyone see you coming here?”

 

Aya shook his head, and turned to leave out the back door.

 

“Aya,” Farf called, and Aya paused, but didn't turn to look at him.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I'm still yours, right?” His boyfriend sounded a little worried.

 

Aya considered just walking out the door, letting Farf stew in anxiety for a while, but decided that would be too petty. “Yeah.” After a pause, he continued, “And I'm yours. We're damned together.”

 

“Always,” Farfarello affirmed, and Aya heard the grin in his voice.

 

He walked out the door, into the bloodless air outside, and embraced the golden retrievers before fading into the shadows.