Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ The Rain Doesn't Grieve ❯ 29 ( Chapter 29 )

29

 

tsuki akari ni terasarete kuchizusanda kimi no na mo kaze ni sarawarete kieta

 

Yohji ~ Empathy

 

About the time I started to worry that he was taking too long, Schuldig padded out to the living room. His eyes were ringed with shadows. He glanced at the table, then at the television. I'd left it on; some late-night crime program spun its too-familiar tale. I turned it off with a distracted wave of the remote. To Schuldig I said, “Tea's ready.”

 

He nodded and sank onto the sofa. When I handed him a cup, his hands were trembling again.

 

“Want to talk?” I asked, watching him closely.

 

Schuldig sighed into his cup. An echo of steam rose up and curled across his cheek. “It's not something you talk about,” he whispered; his voice sounded burnt. “You can't comprehend it if you weren't there, and if you were…you already know it.”

 

“I'll listen, Schuldig. You know I will.” I tried to think encouraging and comforting things toward him, to get him to just open up and share the burden.

 

He met my gaze, held it, accepted. “Sometimes I relive things, in my sleep. Bad things. Some nightmares never die. Rosenkreuz…” His voice broke, fell silent. Schuldig swallowed hard and forced the words out. It looked like they hurt. “The place I was…trained. They don't just deal with mind talents. They're trying out new ways to control people, to control groups of people. They mix it all up with the psi training and the field training, but it's really about control.” Using both hands he set the teacup back on the table, nearly spilling it in the process.

 

I resisted the urge to take his hands in mine until they stopped shaking. “Hey, look, only tell me what you feel safe saying, okay? I'll listen to everything, but you look like it's really painful to talk about.”

 

“Yeah, it is. In more ways than one.” He took a few deep breaths, then shook his head. He looked past me to stare at my orchid, and when he spoke again he addressed the flower as though that were easier somehow. “They leave things in your head, things to keep you in line. Telepathic commands. Conditioning. Programming. It's harder to talk about than you can imagine.” Schuldig turned slowly to look at me, his expression grim. “But we're supposed to be free, Yohji. I don't want to do this anymore.”

 

“And they won't just let you go,” I stated, understanding more by the moment.

 

Asuka's most recent warning echoed in my thoughts.

 

“They'll never let us go,” Schuldig murmured bitterly. “They think we stole the Elders' power or something, I don't know. Maybe they just hate being made fools of. In any case, they want to kill us. Or take us back.” Schuldig looked down at his hands; I followed his gaze and found myself staring at a criss-crossing pattern of heavy white scars on his wrists. “Rosenkreuz is worse than death.”

 

I joined him on the couch. My hand moved of its own volition to cover those screaming scars as if I could stop the bleeding even now. “You've made it this far.”

 

Schuldig sighed and nodded. “I know. It's just, in some ways, I feel like I've never left. It's still in my head, all the pain and…screaming, echoing inside my skull. I couldn't make it stop. Then or now.” He folded in on himself, hugging his arms tight across his chest.

 

Without a word, I gathered him into my arms, cradling the wounded telepath against my chest. He shuddered at my touch as though fighting something within himself.

 

I tried to concentrate on just breathing.

 

Slowly he began to relax against me. I became aware of my own heartbeat, slow, steady, and calm. The sound of life, vibrant and terrible in the knowledge of its own mortality. Schuldig reached up and played with my hair the way a small child might, a child held close to a nurturing breast, remembering safety.

 

“Just, hold me a while longer,” Schuldig whispered. “Let me hide here with you, just a while longer. Oh, God, Karl. They hurt me. They hurt me bad.” Then he seemed to startle, as though he'd been dreaming. “Oh, shit. I - I'm sorry.”

 

“It's okay,” I told him, allowing him to pull away from me. “I don't mind. I know what can happen, in places like that.”

 

Schuldig sucked in a deep, harsh breath and regarded me with eyes gone dark. “Yohji, I hope to God you can't imagine any of it. They use torture and coercion and anything else that might increase their power. And they have a lot of power.”

 

The pieces fell into place: his protectiveness, his concern, his love for the child who had been his charge. The child's coldness. “Did they torture the kid, too?”

 

His answer came in silence.

 

I got up and walked a few paces away, trying to regain my composure before offering any sort of comfort. The thought of a kid not even Omi's age being tortured and twisted by those cult freaks - no, worse than that, I reminded myself. This was an organization far older and more insidious than any cult. It endured and grew by coercion and torture, trying to create the perfect soldiers to fulfill its perfect destiny, when all it really did was create human wreckage and despair.

 

And Weiß had failed to stop them.

 

Rather than allow myself to fall into that darkness again, I came back to Schuldig, positioning myself behind him and resting my hands on his shoulders. “Let it go for now,” I murmured, whether to myself or to him didn't matter. It was all only one sorrow. Gently, mindful of his injured right shoulder, I began to knead at the tension in his muscles.

 

Schuldig winced, then tried visibly to relax. I could tell he'd rarely received this kind of care, if ever. Relaxing for a massage is not an automatic thing for many people; clearly he was one of those perpetually tense souls who took more stress than relief from it.

 

I did my best to change that, working at his shoulders and neck until, finally, the taut muscles began to accept the warmth I offered them. Only when Schuldig sighed and his expression changed from anticipating pain to that almost startled recognition of well-being did I stop. I gave his shoulders a final squeeze and told him to drink his tea. There wasn't much left of it; I went out to the kitchen for some fruit water.

 

In the short time I was away, Schuldig finished off the tea, then took the offered bottle from me with a sheepish smile. He looked almost healthy at the moment, the gross tension gone and the lingering pain momentarily vanquished. As is the mind, so is the body, as they say. “You carry a lot of stress in your body, my friend. Guess that explains why you look tired all the time. Anything I can do to help?”

 

“Remind me that I'm still human.” He blinked at himself, then pushed his hair back from his eyes. “Remind me that they haven't won yet.”

 

“Sounds to me like I'm taking over someone else's job,” I observed, now curious about the friend he had cried out to. That Schuldig could have mistaken me for him intrigued me, though I wasn't quite sure why. “Tell me about Karl. You've mentioned him before, and I thought I heard you call his name a couple times tonight.”

 

“Dear, sweet Karl,” Schuldig whispered, smiling at some memory. “Karl's a telempath, he can feel other people's emotions and sensations, and change them if he wants to. He…was my best friend.” He paused, looking down at his hands. “Anyway, we'd meet up whenever we could sneak away. You didn't get a lot of free time there. Everything was done on the sly. We'd slip into an empty classroom or a closet or whatever. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes just breathe together. Sometimes we fucked.” He laughed softly, fondly. “Karl could get into your mind and pull up your most fantastic sexual memory. You'd have a great time, and he wouldn't even have to touch you.”

 

“Damn!” I exclaimed, grinning as I imagined for a moment just how that must have felt. My own best sexual memories were all pretty amazing…

 

“Yeah.” Schuldig glanced up at me. “That's how he stayed alive.”

 

I felt myself scowl, ashamed of my brief enthusiasm. Sharply I reminded myself that his rules were not my rules, and I could hurt him if I forgot that.

 

Schuldig seemed to misinterpret my expression. He looked away again, an angry blush darkening his face. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and let the words come on their own. “I stayed alive by bending over.”

 

My heartbeat thudded in my ears, drowning out his words. Though his admission didn't really surprise me, given what I'd learned of this school of his, the vehemence and self-loathing caught me off guard.

 

The meaning of his name thundered through my consciousness: Guilty.

 

So very guilty…

 

I shook myself out of my stunned reverie as Schuldig whispered, “I was too afraid of death to fight.”

 

“Fear of death is overrated,” I said, hoping my bluntness didn't make things worse for him but needing to make him understand. “It's no substitute for a love of life.”

 

Schuldig blinked, then stared at me as though I had just spoken a magic charm capable of breaking chains.

 

In the awkward silence that followed, I reached for my cigarettes, pulled two from the pack. “You were telling me about Karl.” I lit the smokes, passed him one.

 

“Right.” Schuldig held the cigarette a moment, not tasting it yet. “They didn't go too hard on him, because empaths break fairly easily. But I was sort of a problem child. I spent a lot of recovery time with him.”

 

“How so?” I took a drag on my own cigarette, allowing the smoke to waft between us. I hoped that discussing it would ease him some, like lancing an infected wound. His suffering had festered too long already.

 

Voice soft, Schuldig explained, “He could make the pain go away. When I needed it most, he reminded me that I'm still human.” He sucked on the cigarette, accepted its bitterness with a sigh. “Karl was the brother I never had. I haven't seen him in about four years. They assigned me to a team, and the last I heard he'd gotten on a team, too. He's probably dead by now. The gentle ones don't last long.” He paused, thinking. His eyes turned bleak as he whispered, “Or they're making him look for me.”

 

“Why?” I asked, sharply concerned at this. “Because you were close?” It did seem like the kind of thing they'd do, set friend against friend.

 

But Schuldig shook his head. “Wouldn't matter. Brad said they'd come after us with everything they've got, and a telempath would be very useful if they wanted to take us alive. Which I believe they do.”

 

For a couple of minutes, the only sound in the room was the hiss of burning tobacco.

 

“I hope he's dead.” Schuldig's voice sounded harsh in the stillness.

 

“I'm sorry for your loss. I know it hurts.” I stubbed out my cigarette and reached for the wine. “I lost someone too.” Looking at Schuldig out of the corner of my eye, I told him, “I still have nightmares about it.”

 

Again silence filled the room. His cigarette burned down, turned to ash.

 

I found myself staring at my wine glass, the dark liquid within promising oblivion but never delivering it. “She was my best friend.” Remembering what he'd said, I smiled a little and added, “Sometimes we fucked. I would have given up everything for her. I did give up everything.” The wine tasted like poison on my tongue. As I set the glass down, my own fine scars caught my attention, brought my gaze to bear upon my hands. Hands that had destroyed what I'd once held most dear. No amount of water or wine, or even poison, could ever wash that memory away.

 

Schuldig reached over and took up the wine bottle. He finished off the dregs for me. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.

 

Not looking up, I asked, “Schuldig, what did you mean when you said Karl would remind you you're still human?” I knew what it meant to me, but I had to hear it from him. If it meant the same thing…

 

“Laughing. Smiling. When we were together, sexually,” he stated with simple honesty. “Machines don't fuck.”

 

“Is that it, being able to have sex with someone?” I could almost hear the unspoken part of his reply, but it was that part I needed most to hear out loud.

 

As though understanding the importance his words held for me, Schuldig selected them quite carefully before speaking again. “No. It's more than that. But sometimes, that's all you have.” Talking once more toward the orchid in its sleek black pot he whispered, “They didn't even leave me my name.”

 

For the briefest moment, I thought I heard a whisper on the wind, but then I realized there was no wind.

 

Soft silence crept through the room, not demanding to be filled with speech. Around the edges of the window shade, rosy light announced the coming dawn. I closed my eyes; sunrises were for other souls than mine. The light only reminded me of who I had once been, someone who was lost forever now. Lost in a sea of blood…

 

My body cried out for rest. I muffled a yawn and offered Schuldig a weary smile. “Look, it's almost morning. Do you want to try to sleep, or do you want breakfast? Either way, you're on your own because I'm reclaiming the bed for a few hours.”

 

Schuldig rubbed at his eyes, scowling in that way that signals a growing headache. “I'll crash out on the couch, then.”

 

“Linens and blankets are in the hall closet. And there's headache pills in the bathroom. Help yourself.” Surprising myself, I paused and kissed Schuldig's cheek as I passed by the couch. It just seemed the most normal thing to do. “Get some sleep. We'll talk more later.”

 

 

Ran ~ Honor

 

“Get some sleep, Ken. We'll talk more later.” I stood in the doorway as my teammate snuggled under his blanket with a contented sigh.

 

Convinced that this time he'd actually sleep, or at least stay on his futon, I retreated to my bedroom and locked the door behind me. As sunlight mocked me at the edges of my window, my mind replayed the whole damn night, showed me the evidence, dared me to call it a liar. Dared me to call.

 

I glared at my cell phone, knowing my duty, resenting it. Not for the first time. But at least back then, Omi had been one of us.

 

Soft moans drifted beneath my door. Ken was jacking off again. Third time since getting back from the mission. It was as though the violence and the fire had just set him off, boiling through his senses and driving him into a weird kind of passion.

 

It scared the hell out of me.

 

I couldn't deny that something was very wrong with Ken. He'd never been like this before. True, we had all had our moments when relief at not being among the body count drove us to momentary excesses, but this wasn't like him at all. Also true that this was only the first time I'd seen him like this.

 

Did I dare wait for a second?

 

If I reported his behavior, what would happen to him? Would they break his skull again in their attempts to fix it? Would they medicate him into a stupor?

 

Would Persia make him a target?

 

Ken was all of my past that I had left. I didn't want to lose him too.

 

The low moans shifted into a growl. I closed my eyes and caught myself imagining what I might see if I opened my door. I could just hear the sound of flesh on flesh, muffled by distance and maybe a blanket.

 

My fingertips trailed down my chest, paused thoughtfully at the waistband of my pants. My own skin felt too sensitive, as though the flash fire had singed away an old layer of me.

 

Who was I becoming beneath the ashes?

 

Ken cried out softly, ending on a raw, shuddering gasp, and my own breath caught in my throat in sympathy.

 

Mad he may be, but he was still Ken. And right now, he and I were all of Weiß.

 

I waited a few more moments, until I heard soft snoring in the other room. Then I lifted my phone and made the call.

 

“Abyssinian here. Mission failed.”

 

“Acknowledged.” Persia's voice came through filtered as always, though I knew exactly to whom I was speaking. “What went wrong?”

 

“There were unforeseen circumstances.”

 

“Of what kind?”

 

“Explosives.”

 

“I see. Your position?”

 

I took a deep breath and stated, “I take full responsibility.”

 

Persia didn't reply immediately, and for a moment I thought he'd hung up. Then: “Very well. How do you suggest we resolve this?”

 

“Complete the team.” Though the last thing I wanted was two strangers in our midst, I couldn't control Ken alone. I swallowed hard before adding, “Balinese is sorely missed. And Bombay will not be easy to replace. We are half a team, Persia.” My breath felt heavy in my chest; I wrote it off to the smoke. “A wounded half.”

 

Silence stretched beyond judgment into pity, or so I imagined. When Persia spoke again, he sounded almost sad. “I'm downgrading your team's status until we get this sorted out. Any more failures will be closely scrutinized.”

 

He was giving me this one. Next time I might not get away with it. “Understood.”

 

“Do you have anything else to add?”

 

I thought about my unstable partner in the other room, thought about our missing third and fourth, thought about all the hellish mistakes in the past. Thought about all the mistakes that yet may come. “No. That is all.”

 

 

Omi ~ Absent

 

He took the fall for Ken. By some miracle Aya had found the middle road, and chosen it freely.

 

I stared at the phone a moment longer as though willing it to ring again. The pain in Aya's voice had been so clear; something was very wrong, and he did not want to trust me with it.

 

I wanted to find Yohji, demand that he return to the team; I wanted to walk away from my duties as the head of Kritiker and return to the team myself; I wanted to turn back time.

 

Each of those options was just as likely as the others. And we all knew it.

 

To the sunrise I whispered, “Good night, Aya-kun, Ken-kun. Good night, Yohji-kun, wherever you are.”

 

If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear them answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A/N:

tsuki akari ni terasarete kuchizusanda kimi no na mo kaze ni sarawarete kieta

 

illuminated by the moonlight, the wind even snatches away your name that I sing to myself

“Hoshi no Suna (Stardust)” - Gackt Crescent

 

Yohji ~ Empathy

It is believed that each human being resonates at a unique frequency, much as fingerprints are unique. I have trouble with that; given the vast number of human souls who have traveled this planet and who even now co-reside here, I suspect that Paul Simon was right. The myth of fingerprints is a conceit, and so is the myth of unique resonance. People are more alike than they want to admit. It bruises the ego to think that “one” is not the same as “only”, that two people might have the same flavor of spirit.

 

But it happens all the time.

 

This is not to imply any sort of active or latent psi talent in Yohji, merely an openness and a deep, self-sacrificing kindness, and the rare sort of understanding that comes when one just listens to what isn't being said.

 

Ran ~ Honor

It is tradition that an honorable soldier stands by his fellows, even in the face of a superior officer. Aya's response to the dilemma tells much about how he views his own position relative to Ken and to Omi. One gap shrinks as another rift widens.

 

More than once he will question whether he chose the right answer.

 

Omi ~ Absent

And now he knows: Aya will be a noble leader, responsible and concerned for his men. Now the question becomes, who could possibly fill his own shoes, and Yohji's? Weiß needs two new warriors - how easy will it be for Omi to select them, knowing what sort of life he is condemning them to?

 

Maybe the real question is, how long can he put off the inevitable?