Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ To Catch a Thief ❯ Chapter Seven ( Chapter 7 )

To Catch a Thief

By Llewlyn

Summary: Schuldich is a master thief in the city of Schwarz, the Capitol of the great nation, Estet. Brad Crawford is a minor, but very wealthy, nobleman whose wife died three years prior. Schuldich, Aya, Yohji, Ken, and Omi are members of a crime ring run by a mysterious man named Persia. Schuldich gets an assignment to burgle a nobleman's house...

Rating: R, I guess, for upcoming lemons and limes and crude language inappropriate for kiddies.

A/N: Damn my muses... *attacks Yohji and Schu with a broom stick in one hand and a golf club in the other* My ideas always come at two in the morning. Also, the street rats have atrocious grammar, which annoys me to write, but I gotta cause they... *points at innocently grinning muses of lust and love* are making me!

***

A week later, Schuldich opened his eyes again. He'd been in a fitful, feverish sleep, tossing and turning, mumbling incoherently. Sometimes he would be dreaming of what had transpired on the night he'd run away, and then he would whimper pitifully. His fists clenched outside the sheets, and he'd cry out in remembered pain and humiliation, thrashing about as he tried to fight off Crawford in his feverdreams. The healer had assured Crawford that feverdreams were to be expected, and that all they could do was hold him down and try to dose him with medicinal teas.

Other times, Schuldich would speak of his childhood. Sometimes, he would laugh and grin, slapping imagined friends on the back. Crawford smiled as he watched those from his vigil beside his slave's sickbed. It gave him a glimpse into a Schuldich that wasn't so jaded and full of hatred and fear. He kept up with Schuldich's physical needs, bathing him tenderly, feeding him what he could, plying him with water and tea to fight the fever.

When Schuldich looked out up at the ceiling for the first time in seven days, Crawford breathed a sigh of relief to the gods he didn't believe in for his recovery. "Schuldich, it's good to see you awake," he murmured gently, tucking a few stray tendrils of damp, fiery hair behind the man's ear.

Schuldich snarled and weakly slapped Crawford's hand away. "Don't touch me," he growled hoarsely, sitting up on the bed and moving away from the nobleman. "Bastard..." Crawford froze, his hand in midair as Schuldich painstakingly got out of bed.

"Get back in bed, Schuldich," Crawford finally said, retrieving his wits. "You're still weak. You've been bedridden for seven days." He got out of his chair and rounded the bed to grasp Schuldich's shoulders to try and force Schuldich back into bed. The redhead snarled, baring his teeth in a feral grimace, shoving Crawford away.

"I said, don't TOUCH me!" he yelled, stepping back. He flushed as he realized he was wearing only a pair of thin pants and rapidly turned to tear clothes out of the closet. He moved unsteadily, his body weakened from being in bed for a week, as he pulled on a shirt and pants, and tied his hair back. Crawford didn't move to stop him as he moved around the room. Schuldich pulled a bag out of the closet and shoved his expensive clothes into it. He moved to the dressing table and pulled out the jewelry that signified his slavery, the earrings, chains, and belly rings that Crawford had given him, jamming it all into his pockets.

Through all of it, the baronet stood in shock as his slave packed what he had been gifted with. Finally he spoke up. "You're not leaving, Schuldich. I forbid it." Schuldich laughed coldly and turned to face Crawford.

"I don't care... I don't care! You raped me... you bastard, you tore me open!" He grinned, appearing slightly deranged. "I would have gone willingly into your bed! All you had to do was ask... I actually liked you somewhat. I wouldn't have minded sleeping with you!" Crawford was startled by the admission, moving forward to try and stop Schuldich as he retreated towards the door. Schuldich deftly avoided him, even wobbling the tiniest bit like he was. "I'm leaving, Master," he said as he reached behind himself to open the door. "Goodbye, you insufferable prick." Smirking, still looking a bit like Farfarello on a bad day, he turned and ran as fast as he could out the door and down the hall.

Crawford ran after him, bellowing, "Farfarello! Follow him, damn you!" as he passed the bodyguard lounging outside his study. The white-haired man sighed and began running as well, growling when they heard the front door slam. As the pair reached the foyer, richly decorated as it was, Crawford yanked the door open and practically threw Farfarello out. "Find him and bring him back! He's still sick!" he ordered as Farf took off running again, out the garden gate.

Sighing heavily with defeat, he turned away from the door and leaned against the nearest wall, eyes clenched shut as he pounded his fist once into the wall. "I'm sorry, Schuldich..." he whispered to himself. "God help me, I'm sorry..."

Above the ground, hidden from view in the trees of the Crawford household's gardens, Schuldich perched and waited for whoever was chasing him to leave before carefully moving through the branches to the one that hung the furthest out over the garden wall. Checking once again to be sure no one was in sight, he dropped from the tree onto the ground and ran in the opposite direction of the middle class neighborhoods, around the block and down the next street, putting two mansions between himself and his pursuers as he escaped.

His bag with his only source of money banging against his back as he ran, Schuldich dashed through the streets of the nobilities' homes. He was running on pure adrenaline, forcing himself to keep moving or else collapse before he reached his destination. Finally, chest heaving with exhaustion, he reached where he had been running to- not the house in the middle class neighborhood that the boys who worked for Persia lived in, but a temple- the temple of the Lady God of Thieves.

Schuldich staggered into the dimly lit room, inhaling gratefully the scent of the temple's incense, and dragged himself to the deeper recesses of the room. He fell to his knees before a statue of a smirking young woman, dressed in a fashion similar to Schuldich's thieving attire. Her hair shone a bright red in the dark room, her skin pale and eyes bluish-green. He pulled the sapphire earrings that still dangled from his ears off and dropped them on a small altar before the statue that was littered with baubles and coins. "Lady, help me?"

Then he passed out, falling against the low marble altar, eyes sliding shut.

***

He woke some time later, his head pounding and sight blurred. "Lady?" he asked groggily as a red-haired woman leaned over him to wipe his sweaty forehead. The woman laughed gently.

"No, sweet, I'm not our Lady." She smiled, her clear blue eyes sparkling.

"Aunt Liese?" Schuldich said, trying to sit up.

"Shh... don't sit up yet, Schu, you're sick," Liese ordered. Liese Reidinger, Schuldich's maternal aunt, was the high priestess of the Lady God of Thieves. Their family was rumored to have descended from the Lady Herself, and it was always a son or daughter of that line that was the High Priest (or Priestess) in the first temple. Liese was also an excellent healer, and had raised Schuldich after his mother and father died.

"Aunt Liese... I need to get out of the city. I'm kinda on the run... again..." Schuldich showed the shackles on his wrists to his aunt. "One of the noble's caught me thieving and made me his slave."

"Oh, Schu... you've got to stop getting in trouble like this. Even our Lady got in less trouble than you, and she was made a goddess because of her adventures." Liese shook her head disbelievingly. "Well, darling, let's get these off you." The woman rose and left the room to call a smith that worked with the temple. Soon, Schuldich was freed of the bands on his wrists, and was lying back to fall asleep again.

The next time he woke, Yohji was leaning over him, a worried expression on his face. "Schu, ya ok? We was sick o'er ya." Schuldich smiled. "Hey, Yohji. I'm fine. I just have to stay out of sight for a while, Crawford isn't going to be happy that I escaped." He reached up, feeling blessedly lighter without the metal encasing his wrists, and tucked a lock of dark gold hair behind his friend's ear. "And Liese is going to try and convince me to stay here and take over for her." Together, Yohji and Schuldich grinned, saying, "You're the last in the Lady God's line, so it's time you took up your duties and began training as a priest for her. Isn't it time you settled down?"

Liese's dry voice cut in before they could get any farther in the memorized litany. "I don't always say it like that. Sometimes I say you need to settle down first." Schuldich laughed.

"Whatever you say, Liese. When can I go home?"

"Well, if you're going to mock your poor old aunt like that, then you can go home as soon as you prove you can eat something, so I know you won't starve." She presented him with the bowl of thick stew and bread, which he dug into heartily. He coughed slightly, but nothing came back up. "Alright, you're free to go, you ungrateful brat."

Schuldich slid off the cot-like bed and pulled on the clothes that hung over the back of a nearby chair. "Thanks, Aunt Liese. I'll come by soon." He kissed her on the cheek and the trio walked out of the temple. Schuldich was given the bag he'd come in with, and he and Yohji left the temple. Together, they joined the throngs of people that seemed perpetually on the way to the marketplace and returned home to the small house that they'd lived in for years.

Author's Note: Sorry this took so long. I got really sick after writing chapter six and lost all inspiration for this story. I wrote part of this chapter, but it was horrid, so I started all over. I've got plans for the next few chapters, but don't expect them too soon because I've got another fic that's pounding in my head. Thanks for reading!