Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ You Could Be the One ❯ Chapter 2

"You could be the one
To get your flowers pressed...."
------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------

Alone, Aya misted the flowers and didn't think about anything until he heard a soft sound from the other end of the small room. He pulled a knife from behind the pots and spun to face it.

"Will you cut me or water me?" Farfarello asked from a distance away. The hood of his coat covered much of his face but left his razor-edged grin visible.

Aya still held the spray bottle in his other hand. "You could use a pruning."

"Annoyed at me?"

"I am that you broke in here."

"Broke in? No. Nagi thinks locks are funny. I'm surprised that your kittens leave you alone here."

"They thought I'd be safe."

"We've just shown them otherwise. Are you annoyed that it's been two days?"

"No." Given an... association like theirs, Aya had figured that trying to predict anything would be futile, so he'd stopped trying. Yoji had seemed to be more upset at the lack of any Schwarz visitors than Aya had been.

So far Yoji hadn't told anyone what he knew about Aya's dealings with Farfarello, although he watched Aya with a troubled expression any time they were in a room together.

"Hmph. You should be." Farfarello actually looked disgruntled.

"I'm not a teenaged girl."

"Thankfully. They hurt my ears. You need a better clientele."

"We'll change our customer base just to please you. Of course, your team may kill us before then."

"Old news. Crawford has seen a future in which you kitties are useful, so you'll get to live. That's the thing with waiting to kill. Sometimes you lose the urge."

"But that can change."

"It can always change. Crawford asked me if you were sane."

Really. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. He left the room without an answer from me once he realized that I wouldn't stop laughing for a long time. For some reason, he seems to need you sane. Don't know why. Sanity's overrated." Farfarello took the hood off. "You like this place."

Something about Farfarello's movements as he walked over made Aya expectant, made him ache.... "Yes."

Farfarello put his hand out to a lily, letting his forefinger rest just a millimeter from the edge of one of its white petals. "I like this place too."

Having the madman talk to him like this confused him even more than the sex had. "Why are you doing this?"

"You're beautiful."

It sounded like such a Yoji thing to say that it left Aya stunned. But then Farfarello continued, "When you lose yourself in the hunt or kill or sex, you're beautiful. You give everything you are to what you're doing. And I didn't expect you to be funny too. I thought we would just be physical together, but I like to talk to you. Aside from Schuldig, Schwarz doesn't talk."

"Not even Crawford?"

"Every talk with Crawford is a monologue."

"No one has ever wanted to be with me for my conversation before." For good reason. "What do you want?"

"Silly kitten. I thought it would be obvious." The expression on Farfarello's face sent a wave of heat through Aya's body.

Obvious. Of course. He could be so slow in such things. "You're here for that now?"

The expression on Farfarello's scarred face gained shades of smugness as he approached. "Yeah."

"These are business hours."

Farfarello shrugged. "If the other kitties come knocking, yell at them to leave you alone like you usually do."

"I don't--" The kiss interrupted Aya's sentence and train of thought thoroughly. He let Farfarello take the knife and mister from his hands and toss them aside.

He'd always sneered at Yoji for being so easily swayed by sex. It bothered him that he wouldn't be able to do that anymore without feeling like a hypocrite.

It seemed to Aya that his zipper made such a loud sound as Farfarello undid it, and he didn't know how he'd ended up on his back on the hard floor with Farfarello on top of him and stripping him like an expert but right now he didn't mind that. Everything moved so fast, and he wished they could slow down a bit, but the undertow of lust dragged him along too. There was no quiet right now, not with his heartbeat pounding in his ears and the wet sounds Farfarello made as he licked and finally sucked Aya's cock. He tried not think about how it would be so easy for the madman to just bite right now. His hands scrabbled for something to hold onto, ghosting down Farfarello's shoulders and up his jaw and finally settling in his hair, trying to grip the short locks.

Drowning in animal sensation and the thick scents of sex, soil, and flowers, Aya wanted to say something but he could only make inarticulate sounds. At least Farfarello seemed to like the sounds, because he hummed in response, eliciting more. Keeping them as quiet as possible to avoid alerting the others was so difficult.

He was supposed to be at work here, and he would never be able to take care of the plants again without remembering this.

He was so close to coming that he could feel it gathering in his spine, but then Farfarello let his cock slide out of his mouth, abandoned. Aya almost whined in his dismay. Grinning up at him, Farfarello sloppily licked his fingers, then returned to Aya's cock. Sex-stupid and relieved to have that mouth back where it belonged, Aya couldn't figure out what that had been about until he felt something push inside him, and it hurt. He struggled, but Farfarello sucked harder, petted him with his other hand, and moved his fingers inside Aya until they hit a spot that struck sparks of pleasure.

"Fuck...." Aya gasped.

Farfarello murmured something around his cock that made him crazier and sounded almost like "Trying to...."

Aya blanked out as he came, hitting that perfect moment of pleasure-glazed oblivion. Once his brain started again, he became aware of Farfarello sucking at the base of his neck and pushing his hand toward Farfarello's cock. "Finish me," Farfarello growled. "Rough."

It was fair. Aya licked his hand, almost smiling at the near whimper the sight inspired in his partner, then reached into Farfarello's undone pants to put his fist around his cock, which waited, hot and hard and wet, for his touch. Long, hard jerks received the best response, so he went with that. It felt almost like yanking orgasm out of him, but Aya found it oddly appealing. Farfarello thrust forcefully into Aya's fist as he came.

The quiet returned then as they rested on the floor for a while, until Farfarello broke it with a smirk and "You have leaves in your hair."

And probably dirt on the back of his shirt and pants and his bare ass. He'd rather not think about that.

Of course, Yoji chose that moment to knock on the door and ask, "You okay in there, Aya? I know you like the plants but you're taking a long time."

"What do you do with the plants in here that you like them so much?" Farfarello asked softly as he plucked leaves from Aya's hair.

"It's personal," Aya whispered back, then put his hand over Farfarello's mouth to muffle his cackle. To Yoji, Aya yelled, "I'll be done soon." Unfortunately, he probably looked and smelled as if he were carrying on a mad, torrid affair with the plants.

"You have work to do. I should leave you to it," Farfarello said as he fastened his pants. "See you later."

They'd had sex again. It just hit Aya now. And he'd been considered so bright as a child.... But he didn't regret the sex. He felt... good, despite the aches. Almost relaxed. "When, later?"

"We'll see. This time, pretend you miss me."

As Farfarello snuck out, Aya tried to groom himself into some semblance of order. When he opened the door for Yoji, Yoji said, "Damn, I was kidding about you and the plants."

Shit. "It makes them grow and bloom better."

Yoji coughed. "I think you're more frightening with a sense of humor."

"Actually, I had a bit of accident." Fortunately--or unfortunately, given the cost--he and Farfarello had knocked over a pot or two, so his story held up better.

"Don't let Ken hear that. He'll start to feel threatened. Being accident-prone is his job."

Aya had no intention of sharing any of this with Ken. "He can keep it."

As Aya walked, he felt a familiar presence. He stopped and turned to glare at Farfarello. In a just world, it would kill on contact.

Unbothered by the death glare, Farfarello said, "We can't keep meeting like this."

"Really."

"I'm serious. We're leaving the country for a long-term job. I don't know when we'll be back."

Aya didn't know what to feel about that. He should feel relief.

"Farewell." Farfarello smiled and stepped out into the traffic. When the next car passed, he had disappeared. At least he didn't believe in long goodbyes. Aya hated those.

"Surprise."

Aware of the sudden motion at his side, Aya riposted the blow with his katana and leapt back, facing Farfarello the whole while. "Are you here to fight?" Their intelligence hadn't mentioned Schwarz for this mission, but that meant nothing.

Farfarello grinned, which made him look somewhat insane. "Nah. Just here to make a date."

Relief and incredulity warred within him. He had his pride. "It's been three months." More than long enough for Weiß to give up on worrying about Farfarello and his intentions.

"I know."

"Abyssinian, are you all right?" Omi asked over the headset.

"Fine. False alarm," Aya answered.

"I'll find you around. See you later," Farfarello said as he turned and walked away in a show of arrogance. Aya could cut him down from behind.

Aya didn't. And when Farfarello came to him three hours later he went along, and after a quiet dinner they had sex in an alley. Thankfully, Weiß had come to expect him to walk off and return at odd hours, so he didn't have to explain himself. He couldn't explain himself.

Yoji did make a grumpy comment about the smile on Aya's face the next morning.

"I'm not smiling," Aya answered.

"On anyone else, it wouldn't be a smile."

It amazed him that in some ways Yoji could know him so well yet be so clueless about him in other ways. It also left him feeling conflicted.

"I have to go again. I'll be back when I can make it."

"Am I supposed to be surprised?"

"You're so supportive." Farfarello tongue-kissed him, then walked away.

Aya stood there, staring stupidly, for about a minute. He hated that.

Yoji and Ken were gone, off to an assignment in Europe that had no set end date. Aya hoped that the change of scene helped them but doubted that it would. Yoji had been looking thinner and ever more haunted lately and become so much quieter, while Ken lost himself in rage and violence, enjoying the killing too much.

There was no reason for them to suffer so. They weren't Aya's friends.

Downstairs, Kyo and Sena stayed. Not a member of the Weiß Aya had started with remained.

Tonight Aya's room seemed too quiet, and anticipation choked him. He'd come to expect a certain visitor at such fraught times. Maybe he was insane, even though he currently looked sane when compared to Ken and Yoji, but he had a theory.

Unable to stay in the room a moment longer, Aya put on his scabbard and coat and went out for a walk. He let his feet take him wherever. Eventually he felt a familiar presence behind him and turned with his katana to strike, feeling a visceral satisfaction and rage as it struck and ground against Farfarello's blade in a harsh sound of metal.

"How far in advance does Oracle see the disasters in my life?" Aya growled. "Every time something truly awful happens, you arrive to pick up the pieces." After Manx and Birman had died so horribly, members of Aya's first team had turned up alive after all and quite insane, and Aya's original katana had been broken against his mentor, Farfarello had shown up. After Omi had left Weiß to take on the name and responsibilities of the Takatori clan and be Persia, Farfarello had shown up. When Aya fell to his worst, lowest points, the one-eyed maniac arrived to talk nonsense at him or fuck him into a more sedate state. "What does Schwarz think it's doing to me?"

Farfarello faced his rage and blade with maddening calm. "He doesn't see so far. The really distant stuff is vague. The detailed events he only gets a glimpse of moments before they occur, same as always. We couldn't do anything--"

"--even if you wanted to."

That one golden eye blazed with sincerity. "I'm here now."

Aya's laughter sounded more like coughing and edged on hysteria. "Yes, you are." He sheathed his katana. Why bother? Why bother with anything?

Farfarello growled. His blade retracted and he hid it somewhere on his person. Aya stripped him on occasion and still couldn't figure out where he kept his knives. "Come out of the cold."

Farfarello was here. Omi, Yoji, and Ken weren't. And he didn't dare let his sister be around him.

"Sure. We can go to my apartment." Kyo and Sena might not even know that Farfarello had been and might still be an enemy. It had been before their time.

They walked into the building with neither of the remaining members of Weiß the wiser. Surely it couldn't be so easy to get in? Yet they just entered quietly. Farfarello could have taken him hostage, could have forced him to let him in somehow, and they wouldn't know to do anything....

Once in Aya's apartment, Farfarello methodically stripped them both, then proceeded to fuck him with as little foreplay and preparation as possible, just what Aya needed right now. He didn't know if he could bear an extended period of being touched. The sex had no passion to it, just comfort and the reminder that his body still lived even though he felt so numb inside. This was the first time they'd fucked in Aya's bed instead of in the back room of the shop or some alley.... Soothed, lost in the slow, steady rhythm, Aya moaned when he couldn't help himself and moved and breathed and finally came. Orgasm wrung most of the taut tension from his muscles, to his relief. He felt a little better now.

Afterward, Farfarello unwound Aya's braid and let the long hair run through his fingers as he murmured, "Waves of red.... I like it like this." It covered the both of them like another blanket.

Aya hadn't meant to grow his hair so long. It had just become too much bother to keep trimming all of it. When it started getting in his way, he'd begun to braid it. Somehow, time had passed.

"I was in the United States," Farfarello said softly. "I fell in love with a woman and stayed."

Yet he was here, now. "What happened?" Aya asked, idly wondering.

Farfarello's laugh sounded more like a dry cough, like death, too. "It didn't work out and ended... messily. Nice dream, wrong person. So I returned to Schwarz."

Because what else could either of them do with their lives? What else were they good for?

Aya felt warm and comfortable beneath the blankets with Farfarello. Usually they had sex in places where Aya didn't dare drowse afterward. Although he ached, it was a good ache, an exertion ache like the ones blade practice gave him. He could almost feel content like this.

It wouldn't last. Farfarello never stayed and certainly never stayed long. In fact, he always stayed for so brief a time that the rest of Weiß never noticed when he was in town. Not that Yoji or Ken noticed much of anything lately.

In any case, Aya should be strong enough to stand on his own.

"I'm tired," Aya said, and he truly was.

"Then sleep." Farfarello made the world a simpler place.

When Aya awoke, Farfarello was gone, just as he'd expected. No one stayed. Aya turned his face into its usual mask and got out of bed to change the sheets and keep on living.

Schwarz had arrived for the assault on Tuji and Epitaph, but Farfarello hadn't been with them. When Aya asked the surviving members of Weiß if they'd seen him, they assumed that he'd be relieved that the berserker remained unaccounted for, and Aya let them continue to think that. He wished he could ask Oracle or Schuldig if something had happened to Farfarello, yet who could trust any answers they'd give? Oracle might have had some plans for Aya's association with Farfarello. Whatever they were, Aya doubted that Farfarello had continued to completely abide by them. Nagi might work for Kritiker now, but his answers couldn't be trusted either. He might not even know.

Farfarello might be fine. Aya might be worrying over nothing.

But having lost Sena, Asami, and Kyo to murder and Yoji to a coma, he couldn't believe it. Farfarello was a killer, as he was, working in a profession that offered numerous easy ways to die.

Farfarello didn't show in the days afterward either, when usually Aya could depend on him appearing after every major emotional upheaval. Aya would just have to deal with his pain on his own, as he should.

Everyone around him suffered and often died anyway.

When Omi offered a long-term assignment in the United States, for him alone, he saw no reason not to accept. He needed to get away, and alone was safer.

Aya felt horribly exposed in this hospital bed, with his IV line tether rendering him even more vulnerable. Some Americans who claimed to be associates of Omi's had come to tell him that he had nothing to worry about and would be safe here. It seemed that Omi had even gotten him transferred to a different hospital from the one the ambulance had taken him to. Still, he couldn't trust it. Omi was in Japan, while he was here. In the months Aya had worked here, he'd never seen these particular people before.

He'd decided that he would yank his IV out of his forearm and use the line and the stand as weapons if someone came for him. As bad as his stab wound was, it hadn't left him completely incapacitated, as anyone who attacked him would see.

Just because Aya couldn't see much reason to live didn't mean that he wanted to be murdered in a hospital while too injured to give a good account of himself.

"I'm told that this is a good hospital," someone said from the door, another patient in a hospital gown towing his own IV stand along. A redheaded someone with one green eye and bandages covering what should be his left eye and what would no doubt be very familiar facial scars.

"I don't know," Aya said. "I may be going insane."

Laughing, Farfarello sat down in the chair next to Aya's bed. "This is as undercover as I get."

"Did you put your own IV in?"

"It's not a big deal. It's not like I can feel it. With my experience, I could almost be a doctor. I like hospitals. They're like big toy stores. I'll be taking home mementos." Farfarello leaned over and kissed his brow. "I miss being able to play with your braid. You have to let your hair grow again. Went to a lot of trouble to find you."

It took effort to keep his voice steady. He blamed the drugs. "I didn't see you at the assault on the school. I didn't know what to think."

"Crawford thought that your presence and all of Tuji's talk of God might make me too crazy so he knocked me out and hung me from the ceiling in a straitjacket. I was pissed. By the time I got down and free, your cunning arch-kitten had already started to cover over your trail. By the time I caught up with you, I found you crumpled against a mailbox with a knife in your gut."

Now Aya knew the identity of his savior/tormentor. "You called it in?"

"You didn't want to be saved. Stupid kitten." Farfarello whispered into his ear, "I killed your attackers for you. The whole murderous nest."

It made Aya shiver.

"I broke from Schwarz, which is why it took me longer to find you," Farfarello continued in the same fashion, directly into Aya's ear, directly into Aya's brain. "I left them completely. I have an offer I want to make to you."

"All right."

"This is a big country. There are still quiet places here. Break away with me. You're dead to the world and dead to Kritiker. Your Omi is using you as his tame killer zombie. You said goodbye to your sister. Break away with me. We could stay here and play with flowers or corpses. Or both, whatever you like."

"A new start." The thought of it hurt almost as badly as his stab wound had.

"You get well in this hospital, keep your false face on as you tell everyone what they want to hear, then once you're free we disappear. Fall off the map. We forget our names and become new people."

A smile felt strange and unfamiliar on Aya's face. "You want us to play hooky."

"For the rest of our lives."

"In the quiet places." Instead of pushing futilely at the wall, he could climb right over it into an entirely new future.

"Or wherever you want."

"You should go back to your room, sir," a nurse said from the doorway.

"I got bored and lonely," Farfarello answered.

"We can't have you bothering the other patients."

"Yes, ma'am."

Farfarello would be taken away now, leaving Aya alone to his brooding. He grabbed Farfarello's hand and mouthed "yes." The answering grin made Aya feel very much alive.

"The nurses said that someone came in here," one of Omi's self-proclaimed associates said.

As much as Aya hated them, at least they briefly provided company and distraction during the sameness of the days here. He hated hospitals. They made him feel so powerless. Having Farfarello to look forward to made the days seem even longer, yet he couldn't regret having something to live for.

Aya had to deflect all concerns about Farfarello. "It was another patient. I think he was high on painkillers. He just talked at me."

"It could have been dangerous."

It could have been. Aya's "protectors" hadn't bothered to leave him much protection. "Fortunately, it wasn't."

"We'll have someone on the staff keep a watch on you."

Oh joy.

Somehow Aya had survived the tedium to arrive at this moment. Just getting the damned IV out of his arm at last, being untethered, had been sweet. As he signed his release papers he worried again, because he had no way of getting word to Farfarello nor any idea where his supposed benefactors intended to take him. Omi had vouched for them during a phone call, but they still didn't feel right.

A limousine waited outside at the curb, and Aya wanted to break the beefy hand that currently rested at the small of his back and made "get in" motions to him. He had to decide now if he would go with them. There were two men and a driver. He knew he'd lost some of his edge during the enforced inactivity of his convalescence....

Aya heard the roar of a motorcycle approaching and then saw it speeding along the sidewalk toward him. This had to be his ride. As it came closer, he broke free of his escort and ran toward it, even though he felt like his wound could rip open again at any time. But the motorcycle sped past him, hit one of the men straight on and then sideswiped the other, knocking him to the sidewalk. When the driver pulled a gun, the rider threw a knife into his eye. Then Aya was given the hand motion to mount as the rider's other hand briefly flipped the visor of his helmet up to reveal one tawny eye and an eyepatch.

Aya took the helmet offered to him, got onto the motorcycle, and held tight.

Sometime later--Aya couldn't tell how much time through the blur of the road and increasing pain in his gut from the vibration of the motorcycle--they stopped in a parking lot. Farfarello took his helmet off and said, "Now I want to rescue you every day." The red in his hair had faded to a blatantly unnatural shade.

"Hnh," Aya said and winced.

"Shit. We'll be using a car after this. I left it in this lot."

"You have a car ready?"

"I got bored while you were in the hospital. Now we have places to go and things to see."

"Prescriptions to fill."

"We should do that soon and somewhere far away from where we'll stop for the night. Hungry?"

"Hell yes." His days had come to revolve around the three daily meals he received, and he'd always be hungry at least three hours before the next one would arrive.

Farfarello walked and Aya staggered into the diner. As they sat in a booth, Farfarello grinned at him, and it brought back the joy of freedom he'd felt. Aya asked, "How did you know when I'd be released?"

"I had a spy on the staff. He had a whole story in his head about our forbidden love, and I worked with that a little."

"Our forbidden love."

"Our families are bigoted assholes. Your family especially, since they have something against bisexual, one-eyed Irishmen. You know, you don't have to go with me."

Farfarello's talk always went in sudden whiplash turns, but right now Aya didn't have the strength to follow. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Just because I got you away, doesn't mean you're indebted to stay with me."

It took a moment for the meaning to truly hit him, but once it came Aya found the shaky beginnings of a smile on his face. "You might not believe this--"

"Yeah?"

"But I needed to hear that to make me stay."

Farfarello snorted with amusement. "Had enough of debts?"

Aya thought of years of debts, of things he'd owed his dead parents and his comatose sister and Kritiker. "Yes. I'm sick to death of them."

"Debts 'til death do we part, and we're dead now, many times over." Farfarello lifted his glass of ice water. "To getting lost."

Aya didn't know what tomorrow would bring, and right now that seemed like a good thing instead of a frightening one in this new world and new life. Charmed, feeling lighter than he could remember being in a long time, he clinked his own glass against it and said, "To staying that way."

***********************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