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kaigou[sorting older posts & realized this one had never been converted over from the older journal; all other chapters are tagged, if you’re curious.]
ratings: R, this chapter
warnings: language, violence, adult situations, major liberties with medical facts
pairings: Schuldig+OC == M/F R-rating; developing Aya/Yohji == M/M, PG-13
disclaimer: I don’t own WK, but if I did, I’d spend at least a few pennies more on animation quality and less on seiyuu.
Occurs between ep19&20. Apartments & appearances per manga.
Schuldig clenches his teeth, riding out the pain as the world returns.
Rai lies across him, slumped, panting, perhaps laughing softly, though she falls silent while agonized shudders wrack his body. He fights to keep his right hand -- lying across her shoulder, fingers gripping the back of her neck -- from squeezing too tight.
He compensates by holding on with a death grip to the sheets crumpled by his hip. She exhales, hot breath across his chest, and he focuses on the warm oblivion seeping from her, still.
Farfarello’s constant murmurs, prayers and exhortations, subside into the returning chatter in the back of his head. The crazy Irishman’s meanderings are distant, but no less potent when mixed with Nagi’s lines of code, and the random intrusions from the neighboring townhouses, a passerby lost on the sidewalk, even at a whisper it’s maddening, sometimes. Schuldig takes another breath, forcing himself to relax, letting his breathing fall into harmony with Rai’s, soothing her skin where he’d pressed too hard.
“Hmm,” he says, and perhaps it’s an apology. Perhaps it’s just contemplation.
She mumbles something, turns her face, rubs her nose against his chest, licks where she’d rubbed, wriggles up him to lean over him with a slight smile. “Hey,” she says.
Her face is flushed, hair plastered to her forehead, a few strands caught on her cheek, but her eyes are open wide, her smile tentative but sated. It’s a good look on her. It’s one he’d like to see there, every morning.
“Hey yourself.” He lifts his head to look down the slim line of her back, tilting his head to get a better idea of her bandages. A pinpoint of blood’s appeared on her shoulder, and he swears. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Itchy.” She wrinkles her nose, sighs. “Stings a little.”
“Sit up. I want to check the stitches.” He prods her until she crawls off him with a grumpy look, but dutifully spins when he twirls his finger at her. He makes quick work of the bandage, and frowns at the tearing at one end of the neatly-stitched row. “Nice work, there, until you ripped it.”
“What, me?” She twists to give him a pout, but he just arches a brow, and she turns her back on him with an audible sniff. “I had help, y’know.”
“Oh, believe me, I do.” He can’t resist, and runs the flat of his tongue up the stitches.
Her caught-breath is a hiss, followed by a tiny shudder; the reaction delights him. Maybe she’s planning her grocery list, after all, but what he doesn’t know, for once doesn’t bother him. He pushes himself upright, uncaring that already he’s half-hard again, just from the sensation of her body pressed against his, back-to-chest.
“Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“Just to the kitchen,” he assures her, then points at the bandages in a pile by her hip. “I’m not up for redoing your stitches, but I can at least bandage it tighter.”
“Shit.” She hunches her shoulders, winces, and crosses her arms, instead.
She doesn’t cover her breasts, but holds her arms as she would if dressed, and it pushes up her tiny breasts into two palm-sized mounds, perfect size and shape for his hands. His palms crave the sensation, his fingers curl, longing for more time to sweep thumbs across her nipples, listen to her soft cries.
He may be in the mood again, but Rai seems too preoccupied with sulking: she tosses her hair, blows at her bangs, tosses her head again, then gives up and scrapes at her matted bangs to get them off her face. “You’re as bad as my brother.”
“What?” He halts on the edge of the futon, fury streaking through him, and he doesn’t care if anyone else might say she’s right. He won’t be put in the same category as those--
“No, not them! My--I don’t know what to call him. I grew up with him, for a little while. Before they moved me back to my...” She flinches. “Brothers. I guess, foster-brother.”
“He a doctor or something?” Schuldig steps down from fight mode with some effort, rummaging through the studio’s tiny closet-sized kitchen for his light-duty medkit. No reason to bring out the big guns.
“No. He’s a--” She pauses, a line appearing between her brows, and chews on her lower lip. That’s unusual; she can be indecisive, but never with such girlish mannerisms. Rai drops her head, shrugs with her good shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what he is, or don’t know something else?” Schuldig settles behind her, tapes several butterflies across the ripped stitches, then unrolls a length of bandage. “Raise your arms.”
When she does, he sets gauze in place, and winds the stretch-bandage around her upper chest, over her shoulder. Quick, efficient, and using far fewer length than this mysterious foster-brother of hers.
“He used to be an athlete. Don’t know what he does now, really.”
“Used to be?”
Another shrug.
He wants to press his fingers against her temples, force his way into her head, but for once it’s not to hurt her, but to stop his own hurt. She spoke so easily, before, and now she evades, uncertain, and he wonders at the cause.
Her blood-brothers were nothing but brutal, he’s gathered, in deed -- and word. The last thing they wanted was to have her dating a foreigner, even if they’re all half-breeds themselves. The pride of the lower class, he thinks with a cynical snort, is based on finding someone even lower.
Or perhaps her skittishness is thanks to this mysterious foster-brother, the non-medical former-athlete; Schuldig wouldn’t mind meeting the guy and telling him a thing or two about just how well he’d better -- shit, he can’t be considering that. He’s no one to have around, not for long. He needs to remember it’s not forever, not once Rosenkruetz finds out...
“So...” She turns in his hands, worry flickering across her face when he doesn’t react to the movement, letting skin slide against his palms until she’s facing him. “You said... stay here...”
He tenses, is sure he’s hidden it, and yet she still catches her breath, pulls back just the tiniest. It’s almost amazing, sometimes, the things she reveals, if unawares. To think people, without a way to see into the interior, can be as perceptive as any telepath. It’s almost eerie, but he can’t deny he’s hooked on it.
This is what it’s like for the rest of the world to fuck, to talk, to lie together on a late morning, rolling naked in tumbled spring sheets, with long pauses where each must wonder if the other regrets, and each strives again to prove it’s not true. There’s no certainty, no guarantee, but he wouldn’t trade it.
“Eric?”
He shakes his head, can’t help the frown. “I’m still waiting to hear from--” How can he explain it? “The company I work for...it’s not like I’m here on my own time.”
Rai’s lower lip juts. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m on contract.” He shrugs. Contract’s about as good as any way to put the concept: someone else owns my soul. “For now, it’s eight days a week.”
She looks blank.
“Never mind.” He feels a twinge of the difference in their cultures, their ages, their experiences. “You could stay here for a few nights, but longer than that, I’d have to clear it.”
He thinks of Brad, and wants to call the bastard and tell him a thing or two while the blood’s rising hot and fast at the aggravation of having to let Rai walk out that door -- and suddenly he has an armful of Rai, her breasts pressed against his chest, her lips against his. He chokes back a startled laugh, caught off-guard with no foresight into her planned moves; it’s almost like fighting any opposing agents in full throttle, when thought passes into instinct and he loses all insight as soldiers enter berserker mode.
But who cares of such analogies, when he has an armful of wriggling, writhing, impetuous lover?
“Listen,” he says, pushing her back, and sitting up straighter, even if she is straddling his lap, hips rubbing convulsively against his dick, wet warmth threatening to swallow him whole. “I’ll do what I can. For the time being, if you can stay with your friend--”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She licks her lips. “But I’d rather be doing this--”
He groans, eyes rolling back as she rises up and falls, back arching at the moment of impaling. He catches her, holds her in place, refusing to let her come the rest of the way down, smile sharp when she whines in frustration.
No, make it last, make it last, because when Rosenkreuz realizes what’s going on, it’ll be over. It was safe while she lived elsewhere, but the more she’s seen coming and going from his place, the more he risks, and he doesn’t want to share. Doesn’t want to lose. Not one more time.
“Eric,” she begs, softly. Her hips throb, her fingers clawing at his chest, ragged nails digging into his flesh leaving tiny jabs of bloody half-moons. “Eric, please.”
“Mmm?” Schuldig doesn’t move, just runs his hands up and down her sides, enjoying every shudder. “Shhh.”
“Move, move, move, please,” she murmurs, eyes sliding closed. “Let me--”
He smiles, not sure whether it’s meant to be harsh, or pleased, or maybe both. Her eyes open, slits of gray catching his intensity, reflecting it back onto him, and she tilts her head back, keening.
Her hips convulse against his, and he has to breathe through his nose to keep from throwing her onto her back -- not yet, not with those stitches and the wounds so recently rebandaged -- but Schuldig grins, baring teeth, and holds her down, releasing her only enough to writhe, not enough to enjoy the motion. It’s torture for them both.
It’s not perfect, but it’s enough. More than enough.
He never wants it to end.
He knows it’ll end, too soon, but for once, he doesn’t want to hear it coming.
Manx breaks off mid-word when Rai walks through the shop’s front door.
With a critical eye, the Weiß administrator studies the girl’s long-sleeve black shirt that’s cut off to reveal a flat, smooth stomach above low-cut black jeans. The girl’s got a leather jacket swung over her shoulder; the day was chilly, but that jacket, double-breasted and slim cut with European vents... something tells Manx the coat’s hem would fall past the girl’s knee, while wearing it. A coat made for a much taller person, a man, even. Both the girl and the jacket look a little worse for wear, but the girl grins ear to ear when she sees Ken.
Aya shifts next to Manx; his normally wary body language becomes outright hostile -- for a split-second, then he relaxes. Maybe from recognition, maybe by force of will. Manx shoots Aya a questioning glance.
He doesn’t speak, looking away, but she presses: “Aya.” She pitches his name as a statement so as to draw less attention.
Ken is talking to the girl. Something about calling, and missing lunch, and various other exclamations of friendly anxiety.
Aya shakes his head, uncharacteristically reluctant. He’d never struck her as the kind to restrain himself from criticizing his teammates; he has no loyalties to them, not at heart, and none of them are foolish or idealistic enough to believe otherwise. To her surprise, Aya won’t say a thing; he may have intended discretion, for once. For Manx, it makes his reaction all the more fascinating and puzzling. She studies the girl surreptitiously.
“I’ll be back at six. No need to tell Ken, or his friend.” Manx leaves without a backwards glance, not even pausing to interrupt Ken and Rai’s conversation.
Aya regards the flower arrangement before him. Something’s missing. Something isn’t right. Something about... His head jerks up, and he stares at the girl, standing by the back door, a shy smile on her face, her cheeks carrying just a hint of pink, battered leather over her shoulder. That coat... He stares at the spot where she’d stood for long after she’d moved away; he's comparing the image superimposed over his snapshot memories.
“Hey!” Ken’s shouting now. From the look on his face, he’s been trying to get Aya’s attention for a bit. “Aya! What are you doing?”
“What?” Aya shakes himself, looking down to see he’s crushed two chrysanthemums. He grunts in surprise and uncurls his fingers, revealing the crumpled blossoms. Ken watches him with a puzzled expression, and Aya turns away, refusing to acknowledge the look in Ken’s eyes, or perhaps just unable to place it.
Does Ken know?
The pictures hit the table with a slap, no preamble, and the mission room is completely silent for several heartbeats. Omi’s trying to formulate the meaning behind the grainy security image, when Aya picks up the photograph Omi’d been considering. Black and white 8x10, a little pixilated. Aya’s knuckles go white; Omi can’t hide his gasp at the realization: it’s Schuldig.
Yohji’s nearly inaudible curse seems to echo. All the pictures have security readouts in the frame: date, time, camera location. They’re from last night, north balcony. Down the table, the photographs slide, slick against each other, and it’s not just Schuldig; he’s with someone, talking... kissing.
Omi blinks, tries to breathe.
Rai...
At the Vault...
With Schuldig.
“I was right,” Aya says. His tone is flat, but not the usual angry emptiness; he sounds disappointed. If Yohji or Ken used that tone, Omi might even say, defeated. It’s hard to use that word for Aya, though, even if it does fit.
“Wait,” Omi barely gets out, but Aya’s shoving past him, pictures tight in one fist.
Another photograph floats to the floor, a gentle motion in the wake of Aya’s pounding feet up the stairs.
“Stop him!” Omi shouts to Yohji -- who’s already on the move, long legs shaking the stairs as he takes off after Aya. “Manx!” Omi’s somewhere between white-hot fury and complete disbelief. “Why didn’t you show me these first? My team doesn’t need this--”
“You don’t think she’s with them?” Manx’s tone is neutral, but her eyebrows are raised.
“I don’t think that’s what matters.” Omi shakes his head. “Yohji’ll need my help.”
He can’t blame her, though; he glances at the blank television screen. It’s the real object of his helpless anger:goddamn Kritiker, always playing. He ignores Manx when she follows him out of the mission room. He’d order her away if he could, but he doesn’t have time to waste his breath.
“A fist, like this.” Ken takes Rai’s hand, pulling it up to shoulder-height and curling her fingers inward. “You do like this, you’ll break your thumb.”
“Worked before.”
“That’s because you weren’t hitting very hard.” Ken pops his fingers against the girl’s knuckles and steps back. “Now try again.” She pulls the fist back before letting it fly at the boxing pad in his hand. He grins a little from the impact but his hand doesn’t move.
She scowls. “You could at least pretend to be hurt.”
“Ha.” He shakes his head. “Your aim is decent, so there’s hope. Do it again.”
The door flies open; Ken registers Aya’s step and stands down on his instinctive reaction -- and it’s just enough time to realize his mistake, and too little time to correct. Aya’s as lightning-fast as that deadly blade, a flicker of moment and suddenly Rai’s halfway across the room.
She slams against the far wall, crying out, then slides downwards into a small bundle of folded legs and shaking arms curled protectively over her head. Ken blinks, staring at Aya’s back, hands lax in shock. The boxing pad plummets to the floor. The rattle-thump of padded vinyl and wood breaks the moment.
“You fucking bastard,” Ken barks, “don’t you dare touch--”
Aya spins in place, kicks out, sweeping his foot into Ken’s knees. The momentum forces Ken down to his knees; Aya brings his elbows down between Ken’s shoulders and it shoves Ken forward onto his hands, coughing.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Ken shouts, getting a foot under him. Rai’s not moved. Aya’s eyes are too wide, unfocused: that look of madness. Ken ignores it. He has madness enough of his own to match.
“Stop,” Yohji shouts, hoping to startle the two enough before blood’s spilled. It catches Aya for a split-second, but that’s enough to give Ken the advantage, lunging up from a crouch to drive a solid uppercut to Aya’s jaw. Ken twists, sends a hard jab to the redhead’s solar plexus.
It knocks Aya’s breath out in a harsh gasp, falling back a step; he recovers fast with a left cross. Ken blocks easily.
“Yohji,” Ken yells, “stay out of this, it’s between--”
Aya grabs Ken’s blocking arm, yanks him forward, hands on shoulders to pull forward into a head-butt. Their skulls slam together with a loud crack. Ken brings his hands up and sweeps them apart to break Aya’s hold on his shoulders. With no more effort than he’d pick up a coffee cup, Ken shifts his hold on Aya’s arm, turns, and tosses Aya a good fifteen feet.
Rai struggles to sit up, freezes at the sight of Aya sliding towards her. She’s got one hand on her shoulder, and she scrambles backwards but all she manages is to squeeze herself harder against the wall, knees under her chin.
Aya tumbles over once or twice, kicks to roll himself again and gets up. Aya’s eyes are cold and flat, lips tight as he launches himself at Ken -- who crouches, hands up and ready, teeth bared. Yohji steps between, taking the blow, recoiling with the force to spin Aya around and shove him backwards.
“Ask her,” Aya snarls, pushing at Yohji, bending his knees enough to swing them around so he faces Ken. “Ask her where she was last night.”
“She was–” Ken breaks off, tensing, when Aya thrusts Yohji off but doesn’t attack. He just points to the photographs scattered on the floor. Hands still up, Ken glances at the images, back to Aya. No movement, except the rise and fall of Aya’s chest, breathing hard.
Ken lowers his hands just a fraction, a silent if reluctant agreement to stand down. He takes a step back, nudges a photograph with his foot, stares.
Yohji stays where he is, but flexes his fingers around Aya’s wrists, wishes he had his gloves, but glad he at least has his wire. He’ll need it, if Ken goes berserk. It’d take all three of them to hold Ken down, and maybe not even then.
“Where,” Aya repeats, his anger narrowing into a single icy word. When no one answers, he twists to face Rai, and snaps, "Last night. Where." There is too much fury for it to be a question; he obviously knows exactly the answer, already.
That damning image has Yohji ill at the thought, at the conclusion he knows Aya has already reached.
Schuldig kissing a girl...
“Vault,” Rai says, quietly.
Ken stops, looks at the girl, then back at Aya.
A girl...
“Say it, Aya,” Ken says. His voice is dangerously even.
Rai.
“She was with Schuldig.” Aya snaps his wrists out of Yohji’s hold. Ken looks past Aya to Yohji, and Yohji knows his silence tells Ken more than any protest.
In one heartbeat, Ken’s no longer confused and off-guard. His anger’s returned, but his focus has changed. He crosses the room to sweep Rai upwards, right hand around her throat, jerking her violently to her feet. The girl cries out, gray eyes wide with terror. Ken brutally slams her up against the wall.
“Is it true,” he growls. “Tell. Me.” He punctuates each syllable with another slam of her head against wall. “Did. You–”
“Dammit, Ken!” Omi gets in the way, arms wrapped around Ken but he might as well be holding back a bullet train. “Stop, stop,” he cries, jerked foward and back with each swing of Ken’s powerful arms.
Yohji curses fluently and exerts the advantage of his height. He lets go of Aya’s left wrist, pulls sharply on the right, steps to the side and the motion flips Aya into a forward roll. He lands flat on his back, wind knocked out of him, expression dazed.
“You stay there,” Yohji orders. His tone brooks no argument. His wire keens with the release, threads snapping through the air to catch Ken around the throat, wrap around his arm, and Yohji ignores the bite of metal into his palm -- he pulls backwards, hard, and it’s enough, just enough, to jerk Ken back, open a foot of breathing space between Ken and the quaking, terrified, baffled girl.
Fraction of movement, more a hint than anything definite, in the corner of Yohji’s eye: Aya, coiling muscles, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
For Aya, there’s no such dishonor in striking a man when he’s down, not if it keeps him down -- not that Yohji would disagree, normally, but he defines teammate a bit differently than Aya. Yohji spares a breath to curse; he just doesn’t need this shit, these hot-tempered souls that feed on each other, heat and fury.
Another strand whips out, catches Aya around the waist and one wrist, pinning him, then more length of wire, and Yohji swallows a groan, willfully ignoring cut of metal on palm. The wire’s slick with his blood, but neither Aya nor Ken can move, now. Small favors, indeed.
Omi tugs Ken back, but Ken’s too busy glaring at Rai, and Aya’s still got that freezing-angry gaze fixed on Ken. Manx waits silently by the door. Omi collects the pictures from the floor, and Yohji snaps off the wires, leaving his teammates pinioned. Omi can cut them free, once Yohji’s out of there -- with the girl.
He doesn’t turn his back on the tense silence or his too-lethal teammates, angling to have the wall at his back when he kneels beside her. She’s conscious but biting her lip to keep from crying, head cradled in her hands. Yohji runs his fingers along her skull, checking. It’ll hurt for awhile but it’s not life-threatening. He sits back on his heels, studying his team mates. He isn’t sure whether her death would be good or bad.
“How could you...” Ken pushes at the wires, cutting through his shirt, a sliver of blood dripping down his neck. He doesn’t seem to notice. The girl cowers, her hands over her head.
Yohji shakes his head. “Now, now,” he tells everyone. “This isn’t going to work. I’ll deal with Rai.”
“You’ll what?” Ken’s incredulous.
“You heard me,” Yohji responds in a patient tone. He takes Rai’s elbow but the girl refuses to move. Exasperated, he unceremoniously pulls her towards him and lifts her up in his arms. She freezes in place, hands over her head, eyes squeezed tight shut. “Stop that,” Yohji tells her mildly.
The rest of the team watches, but only Omi seems to catch the look Yohij gives Manx. With a graceful dip, Yohji barely pauses long enough to scoop up the girl’s boots. He leaves the pracitce room and his crazed, baffled, betrayed teammates behind, gentle words shushing the girl cowering in his arms.
Maybe what he’s doing is stupid, maybe what he’s doing will get him killed. But maybe what he’s doing is exactly right.
“Stand up,” Yohji says, slipping his hand out from under Rai’s knees. Her feet hit the floor with a thud and it’s only his grasp on her elbow that keeps her from falling backwards.
“What was that for,” she sputters.
“Need my jacket.” He unlocks his door and ushers her inside.
“For what?” Rai doesn’t take her boots off, but remains by the door, staring into the dark living room.
“In case it gets chilly.” He turns her, steering her out the door with his hand in the small of her back.
“Where are you going?” Rai stumbles forward, catches herself, and keeps walking. She doesn’t turn to look at him.
“How’s American food sound?”
“Listen to me,” Omi says, uncertain whether he should bother cutting them free, or just leaving them. The two aren’t just shooting angry looks at each other; their fury’s expanded to include the doorway where Yohji left with the girl a minute or two earlier. Omi sighs, shoulders slumping. “Why was our mission successful if we were compromised?”
“They wouldn’t have stopped us if they benefited from it,” Aya points out.
“Benefit how?” Omi’s mildly annoyed at yet another example of Aya’s bullheadedness. “It’s their drug, Aya-kun. Their dealer, their information.”
Aya snorts and looks away.
“Schuldig didn’t intercept us.” Omi states the obvious, hoping it’ll calm them to consider it logically. “So either Schwartz had reason to let us succeed, or she was distracting Schwartz.”
“Who knows, with Schwartz.” Ken shrugs, his expression dark.
“You can’t distract Schuldig,” Aya adds. The ice in his words are a clear sign he’s not yet down from the fighting stance.
Omi gives serious thought to locking them in the room and leaving them to settle it, but instead he draws his knife and slices the wire binding Ken. He gives Ken a warning glance.
“If you could... distract a telepath, what would it take?” Omi keeps it conversational, while he frees Aya. Another warning glance, not matching the thoughtful tone. “Who could do that?”
“Don’t you mean, what would block a telepath?” Manx gives the room that secretive smile, as if she’s gotten the punch line already.
“Block,” Ken repeats woodenly. His eyes get wide and he steps backwards. He’s making little motions like he’s wanting to shake his head but keeps stopping himself, and his brown eyes seem to take up most of his face. “Lock...” He runs shaking hands through his hair.
A line appears between Aya’s eyebrows as he studies Ken’s reaction. Omi feels the same. There’s something going on, he knows, but this isn’t what he expected.
“What?” Aya asks, but Omi’s understood, in a flash.
He knows what he has to ask: “Could Rai do something like that?” Ken doesn’t answer; Omi presses harder. “Ken? Do you know? Can she do that?”
Ken gives a slight shrug, frowning, eyes unfocused, lines deep around his mouth. It’s a kind of pain he’s never shown even when halfway to gutted.
It sends chills up Omi’s spine. “Ken? What is it?”
“Closets,” Ken says.
ratings: R, this chapter
warnings: language, violence, adult situations, major liberties with medical facts
pairings: Schuldig+OC == M/F R-rating; developing Aya/Yohji == M/M, PG-13
disclaimer: I don’t own WK, but if I did, I’d spend at least a few pennies more on animation quality and less on seiyuu.
Occurs between ep19&20. Apartments & appearances per manga.
Schuldig clenches his teeth, riding out the pain as the world returns.
Rai lies across him, slumped, panting, perhaps laughing softly, though she falls silent while agonized shudders wrack his body. He fights to keep his right hand -- lying across her shoulder, fingers gripping the back of her neck -- from squeezing too tight.
He compensates by holding on with a death grip to the sheets crumpled by his hip. She exhales, hot breath across his chest, and he focuses on the warm oblivion seeping from her, still.
Farfarello’s constant murmurs, prayers and exhortations, subside into the returning chatter in the back of his head. The crazy Irishman’s meanderings are distant, but no less potent when mixed with Nagi’s lines of code, and the random intrusions from the neighboring townhouses, a passerby lost on the sidewalk, even at a whisper it’s maddening, sometimes. Schuldig takes another breath, forcing himself to relax, letting his breathing fall into harmony with Rai’s, soothing her skin where he’d pressed too hard.
“Hmm,” he says, and perhaps it’s an apology. Perhaps it’s just contemplation.
She mumbles something, turns her face, rubs her nose against his chest, licks where she’d rubbed, wriggles up him to lean over him with a slight smile. “Hey,” she says.
Her face is flushed, hair plastered to her forehead, a few strands caught on her cheek, but her eyes are open wide, her smile tentative but sated. It’s a good look on her. It’s one he’d like to see there, every morning.
“Hey yourself.” He lifts his head to look down the slim line of her back, tilting his head to get a better idea of her bandages. A pinpoint of blood’s appeared on her shoulder, and he swears. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Itchy.” She wrinkles her nose, sighs. “Stings a little.”
“Sit up. I want to check the stitches.” He prods her until she crawls off him with a grumpy look, but dutifully spins when he twirls his finger at her. He makes quick work of the bandage, and frowns at the tearing at one end of the neatly-stitched row. “Nice work, there, until you ripped it.”
“What, me?” She twists to give him a pout, but he just arches a brow, and she turns her back on him with an audible sniff. “I had help, y’know.”
“Oh, believe me, I do.” He can’t resist, and runs the flat of his tongue up the stitches.
Her caught-breath is a hiss, followed by a tiny shudder; the reaction delights him. Maybe she’s planning her grocery list, after all, but what he doesn’t know, for once doesn’t bother him. He pushes himself upright, uncaring that already he’s half-hard again, just from the sensation of her body pressed against his, back-to-chest.
“Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“Just to the kitchen,” he assures her, then points at the bandages in a pile by her hip. “I’m not up for redoing your stitches, but I can at least bandage it tighter.”
“Shit.” She hunches her shoulders, winces, and crosses her arms, instead.
She doesn’t cover her breasts, but holds her arms as she would if dressed, and it pushes up her tiny breasts into two palm-sized mounds, perfect size and shape for his hands. His palms crave the sensation, his fingers curl, longing for more time to sweep thumbs across her nipples, listen to her soft cries.
He may be in the mood again, but Rai seems too preoccupied with sulking: she tosses her hair, blows at her bangs, tosses her head again, then gives up and scrapes at her matted bangs to get them off her face. “You’re as bad as my brother.”
“What?” He halts on the edge of the futon, fury streaking through him, and he doesn’t care if anyone else might say she’s right. He won’t be put in the same category as those--
“No, not them! My--I don’t know what to call him. I grew up with him, for a little while. Before they moved me back to my...” She flinches. “Brothers. I guess, foster-brother.”
“He a doctor or something?” Schuldig steps down from fight mode with some effort, rummaging through the studio’s tiny closet-sized kitchen for his light-duty medkit. No reason to bring out the big guns.
“No. He’s a--” She pauses, a line appearing between her brows, and chews on her lower lip. That’s unusual; she can be indecisive, but never with such girlish mannerisms. Rai drops her head, shrugs with her good shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what he is, or don’t know something else?” Schuldig settles behind her, tapes several butterflies across the ripped stitches, then unrolls a length of bandage. “Raise your arms.”
When she does, he sets gauze in place, and winds the stretch-bandage around her upper chest, over her shoulder. Quick, efficient, and using far fewer length than this mysterious foster-brother of hers.
“He used to be an athlete. Don’t know what he does now, really.”
“Used to be?”
Another shrug.
He wants to press his fingers against her temples, force his way into her head, but for once it’s not to hurt her, but to stop his own hurt. She spoke so easily, before, and now she evades, uncertain, and he wonders at the cause.
Her blood-brothers were nothing but brutal, he’s gathered, in deed -- and word. The last thing they wanted was to have her dating a foreigner, even if they’re all half-breeds themselves. The pride of the lower class, he thinks with a cynical snort, is based on finding someone even lower.
Or perhaps her skittishness is thanks to this mysterious foster-brother, the non-medical former-athlete; Schuldig wouldn’t mind meeting the guy and telling him a thing or two about just how well he’d better -- shit, he can’t be considering that. He’s no one to have around, not for long. He needs to remember it’s not forever, not once Rosenkruetz finds out...
“So...” She turns in his hands, worry flickering across her face when he doesn’t react to the movement, letting skin slide against his palms until she’s facing him. “You said... stay here...”
He tenses, is sure he’s hidden it, and yet she still catches her breath, pulls back just the tiniest. It’s almost amazing, sometimes, the things she reveals, if unawares. To think people, without a way to see into the interior, can be as perceptive as any telepath. It’s almost eerie, but he can’t deny he’s hooked on it.
This is what it’s like for the rest of the world to fuck, to talk, to lie together on a late morning, rolling naked in tumbled spring sheets, with long pauses where each must wonder if the other regrets, and each strives again to prove it’s not true. There’s no certainty, no guarantee, but he wouldn’t trade it.
“Eric?”
He shakes his head, can’t help the frown. “I’m still waiting to hear from--” How can he explain it? “The company I work for...it’s not like I’m here on my own time.”
Rai’s lower lip juts. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m on contract.” He shrugs. Contract’s about as good as any way to put the concept: someone else owns my soul. “For now, it’s eight days a week.”
She looks blank.
“Never mind.” He feels a twinge of the difference in their cultures, their ages, their experiences. “You could stay here for a few nights, but longer than that, I’d have to clear it.”
He thinks of Brad, and wants to call the bastard and tell him a thing or two while the blood’s rising hot and fast at the aggravation of having to let Rai walk out that door -- and suddenly he has an armful of Rai, her breasts pressed against his chest, her lips against his. He chokes back a startled laugh, caught off-guard with no foresight into her planned moves; it’s almost like fighting any opposing agents in full throttle, when thought passes into instinct and he loses all insight as soldiers enter berserker mode.
But who cares of such analogies, when he has an armful of wriggling, writhing, impetuous lover?
“Listen,” he says, pushing her back, and sitting up straighter, even if she is straddling his lap, hips rubbing convulsively against his dick, wet warmth threatening to swallow him whole. “I’ll do what I can. For the time being, if you can stay with your friend--”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She licks her lips. “But I’d rather be doing this--”
He groans, eyes rolling back as she rises up and falls, back arching at the moment of impaling. He catches her, holds her in place, refusing to let her come the rest of the way down, smile sharp when she whines in frustration.
No, make it last, make it last, because when Rosenkreuz realizes what’s going on, it’ll be over. It was safe while she lived elsewhere, but the more she’s seen coming and going from his place, the more he risks, and he doesn’t want to share. Doesn’t want to lose. Not one more time.
“Eric,” she begs, softly. Her hips throb, her fingers clawing at his chest, ragged nails digging into his flesh leaving tiny jabs of bloody half-moons. “Eric, please.”
“Mmm?” Schuldig doesn’t move, just runs his hands up and down her sides, enjoying every shudder. “Shhh.”
“Move, move, move, please,” she murmurs, eyes sliding closed. “Let me--”
He smiles, not sure whether it’s meant to be harsh, or pleased, or maybe both. Her eyes open, slits of gray catching his intensity, reflecting it back onto him, and she tilts her head back, keening.
Her hips convulse against his, and he has to breathe through his nose to keep from throwing her onto her back -- not yet, not with those stitches and the wounds so recently rebandaged -- but Schuldig grins, baring teeth, and holds her down, releasing her only enough to writhe, not enough to enjoy the motion. It’s torture for them both.
It’s not perfect, but it’s enough. More than enough.
He never wants it to end.
He knows it’ll end, too soon, but for once, he doesn’t want to hear it coming.
Manx breaks off mid-word when Rai walks through the shop’s front door.
With a critical eye, the Weiß administrator studies the girl’s long-sleeve black shirt that’s cut off to reveal a flat, smooth stomach above low-cut black jeans. The girl’s got a leather jacket swung over her shoulder; the day was chilly, but that jacket, double-breasted and slim cut with European vents... something tells Manx the coat’s hem would fall past the girl’s knee, while wearing it. A coat made for a much taller person, a man, even. Both the girl and the jacket look a little worse for wear, but the girl grins ear to ear when she sees Ken.
Aya shifts next to Manx; his normally wary body language becomes outright hostile -- for a split-second, then he relaxes. Maybe from recognition, maybe by force of will. Manx shoots Aya a questioning glance.
He doesn’t speak, looking away, but she presses: “Aya.” She pitches his name as a statement so as to draw less attention.
Ken is talking to the girl. Something about calling, and missing lunch, and various other exclamations of friendly anxiety.
Aya shakes his head, uncharacteristically reluctant. He’d never struck her as the kind to restrain himself from criticizing his teammates; he has no loyalties to them, not at heart, and none of them are foolish or idealistic enough to believe otherwise. To her surprise, Aya won’t say a thing; he may have intended discretion, for once. For Manx, it makes his reaction all the more fascinating and puzzling. She studies the girl surreptitiously.
“I’ll be back at six. No need to tell Ken, or his friend.” Manx leaves without a backwards glance, not even pausing to interrupt Ken and Rai’s conversation.
Aya regards the flower arrangement before him. Something’s missing. Something isn’t right. Something about... His head jerks up, and he stares at the girl, standing by the back door, a shy smile on her face, her cheeks carrying just a hint of pink, battered leather over her shoulder. That coat... He stares at the spot where she’d stood for long after she’d moved away; he's comparing the image superimposed over his snapshot memories.
“Hey!” Ken’s shouting now. From the look on his face, he’s been trying to get Aya’s attention for a bit. “Aya! What are you doing?”
“What?” Aya shakes himself, looking down to see he’s crushed two chrysanthemums. He grunts in surprise and uncurls his fingers, revealing the crumpled blossoms. Ken watches him with a puzzled expression, and Aya turns away, refusing to acknowledge the look in Ken’s eyes, or perhaps just unable to place it.
Does Ken know?
The pictures hit the table with a slap, no preamble, and the mission room is completely silent for several heartbeats. Omi’s trying to formulate the meaning behind the grainy security image, when Aya picks up the photograph Omi’d been considering. Black and white 8x10, a little pixilated. Aya’s knuckles go white; Omi can’t hide his gasp at the realization: it’s Schuldig.
Yohji’s nearly inaudible curse seems to echo. All the pictures have security readouts in the frame: date, time, camera location. They’re from last night, north balcony. Down the table, the photographs slide, slick against each other, and it’s not just Schuldig; he’s with someone, talking... kissing.
Omi blinks, tries to breathe.
Rai...
At the Vault...
With Schuldig.
“I was right,” Aya says. His tone is flat, but not the usual angry emptiness; he sounds disappointed. If Yohji or Ken used that tone, Omi might even say, defeated. It’s hard to use that word for Aya, though, even if it does fit.
“Wait,” Omi barely gets out, but Aya’s shoving past him, pictures tight in one fist.
Another photograph floats to the floor, a gentle motion in the wake of Aya’s pounding feet up the stairs.
“Stop him!” Omi shouts to Yohji -- who’s already on the move, long legs shaking the stairs as he takes off after Aya. “Manx!” Omi’s somewhere between white-hot fury and complete disbelief. “Why didn’t you show me these first? My team doesn’t need this--”
“You don’t think she’s with them?” Manx’s tone is neutral, but her eyebrows are raised.
“I don’t think that’s what matters.” Omi shakes his head. “Yohji’ll need my help.”
He can’t blame her, though; he glances at the blank television screen. It’s the real object of his helpless anger:goddamn Kritiker, always playing. He ignores Manx when she follows him out of the mission room. He’d order her away if he could, but he doesn’t have time to waste his breath.
“A fist, like this.” Ken takes Rai’s hand, pulling it up to shoulder-height and curling her fingers inward. “You do like this, you’ll break your thumb.”
“Worked before.”
“That’s because you weren’t hitting very hard.” Ken pops his fingers against the girl’s knuckles and steps back. “Now try again.” She pulls the fist back before letting it fly at the boxing pad in his hand. He grins a little from the impact but his hand doesn’t move.
She scowls. “You could at least pretend to be hurt.”
“Ha.” He shakes his head. “Your aim is decent, so there’s hope. Do it again.”
The door flies open; Ken registers Aya’s step and stands down on his instinctive reaction -- and it’s just enough time to realize his mistake, and too little time to correct. Aya’s as lightning-fast as that deadly blade, a flicker of moment and suddenly Rai’s halfway across the room.
She slams against the far wall, crying out, then slides downwards into a small bundle of folded legs and shaking arms curled protectively over her head. Ken blinks, staring at Aya’s back, hands lax in shock. The boxing pad plummets to the floor. The rattle-thump of padded vinyl and wood breaks the moment.
“You fucking bastard,” Ken barks, “don’t you dare touch--”
Aya spins in place, kicks out, sweeping his foot into Ken’s knees. The momentum forces Ken down to his knees; Aya brings his elbows down between Ken’s shoulders and it shoves Ken forward onto his hands, coughing.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Ken shouts, getting a foot under him. Rai’s not moved. Aya’s eyes are too wide, unfocused: that look of madness. Ken ignores it. He has madness enough of his own to match.
“Stop,” Yohji shouts, hoping to startle the two enough before blood’s spilled. It catches Aya for a split-second, but that’s enough to give Ken the advantage, lunging up from a crouch to drive a solid uppercut to Aya’s jaw. Ken twists, sends a hard jab to the redhead’s solar plexus.
It knocks Aya’s breath out in a harsh gasp, falling back a step; he recovers fast with a left cross. Ken blocks easily.
“Yohji,” Ken yells, “stay out of this, it’s between--”
Aya grabs Ken’s blocking arm, yanks him forward, hands on shoulders to pull forward into a head-butt. Their skulls slam together with a loud crack. Ken brings his hands up and sweeps them apart to break Aya’s hold on his shoulders. With no more effort than he’d pick up a coffee cup, Ken shifts his hold on Aya’s arm, turns, and tosses Aya a good fifteen feet.
Rai struggles to sit up, freezes at the sight of Aya sliding towards her. She’s got one hand on her shoulder, and she scrambles backwards but all she manages is to squeeze herself harder against the wall, knees under her chin.
Aya tumbles over once or twice, kicks to roll himself again and gets up. Aya’s eyes are cold and flat, lips tight as he launches himself at Ken -- who crouches, hands up and ready, teeth bared. Yohji steps between, taking the blow, recoiling with the force to spin Aya around and shove him backwards.
“Ask her,” Aya snarls, pushing at Yohji, bending his knees enough to swing them around so he faces Ken. “Ask her where she was last night.”
“She was–” Ken breaks off, tensing, when Aya thrusts Yohji off but doesn’t attack. He just points to the photographs scattered on the floor. Hands still up, Ken glances at the images, back to Aya. No movement, except the rise and fall of Aya’s chest, breathing hard.
Ken lowers his hands just a fraction, a silent if reluctant agreement to stand down. He takes a step back, nudges a photograph with his foot, stares.
Yohji stays where he is, but flexes his fingers around Aya’s wrists, wishes he had his gloves, but glad he at least has his wire. He’ll need it, if Ken goes berserk. It’d take all three of them to hold Ken down, and maybe not even then.
“Where,” Aya repeats, his anger narrowing into a single icy word. When no one answers, he twists to face Rai, and snaps, "Last night. Where." There is too much fury for it to be a question; he obviously knows exactly the answer, already.
That damning image has Yohji ill at the thought, at the conclusion he knows Aya has already reached.
Schuldig kissing a girl...
“Vault,” Rai says, quietly.
Ken stops, looks at the girl, then back at Aya.
A girl...
“Say it, Aya,” Ken says. His voice is dangerously even.
Rai.
“She was with Schuldig.” Aya snaps his wrists out of Yohji’s hold. Ken looks past Aya to Yohji, and Yohji knows his silence tells Ken more than any protest.
In one heartbeat, Ken’s no longer confused and off-guard. His anger’s returned, but his focus has changed. He crosses the room to sweep Rai upwards, right hand around her throat, jerking her violently to her feet. The girl cries out, gray eyes wide with terror. Ken brutally slams her up against the wall.
“Is it true,” he growls. “Tell. Me.” He punctuates each syllable with another slam of her head against wall. “Did. You–”
“Dammit, Ken!” Omi gets in the way, arms wrapped around Ken but he might as well be holding back a bullet train. “Stop, stop,” he cries, jerked foward and back with each swing of Ken’s powerful arms.
Yohji curses fluently and exerts the advantage of his height. He lets go of Aya’s left wrist, pulls sharply on the right, steps to the side and the motion flips Aya into a forward roll. He lands flat on his back, wind knocked out of him, expression dazed.
“You stay there,” Yohji orders. His tone brooks no argument. His wire keens with the release, threads snapping through the air to catch Ken around the throat, wrap around his arm, and Yohji ignores the bite of metal into his palm -- he pulls backwards, hard, and it’s enough, just enough, to jerk Ken back, open a foot of breathing space between Ken and the quaking, terrified, baffled girl.
Fraction of movement, more a hint than anything definite, in the corner of Yohji’s eye: Aya, coiling muscles, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
For Aya, there’s no such dishonor in striking a man when he’s down, not if it keeps him down -- not that Yohji would disagree, normally, but he defines teammate a bit differently than Aya. Yohji spares a breath to curse; he just doesn’t need this shit, these hot-tempered souls that feed on each other, heat and fury.
Another strand whips out, catches Aya around the waist and one wrist, pinning him, then more length of wire, and Yohji swallows a groan, willfully ignoring cut of metal on palm. The wire’s slick with his blood, but neither Aya nor Ken can move, now. Small favors, indeed.
Omi tugs Ken back, but Ken’s too busy glaring at Rai, and Aya’s still got that freezing-angry gaze fixed on Ken. Manx waits silently by the door. Omi collects the pictures from the floor, and Yohji snaps off the wires, leaving his teammates pinioned. Omi can cut them free, once Yohji’s out of there -- with the girl.
He doesn’t turn his back on the tense silence or his too-lethal teammates, angling to have the wall at his back when he kneels beside her. She’s conscious but biting her lip to keep from crying, head cradled in her hands. Yohji runs his fingers along her skull, checking. It’ll hurt for awhile but it’s not life-threatening. He sits back on his heels, studying his team mates. He isn’t sure whether her death would be good or bad.
“How could you...” Ken pushes at the wires, cutting through his shirt, a sliver of blood dripping down his neck. He doesn’t seem to notice. The girl cowers, her hands over her head.
Yohji shakes his head. “Now, now,” he tells everyone. “This isn’t going to work. I’ll deal with Rai.”
“You’ll what?” Ken’s incredulous.
“You heard me,” Yohji responds in a patient tone. He takes Rai’s elbow but the girl refuses to move. Exasperated, he unceremoniously pulls her towards him and lifts her up in his arms. She freezes in place, hands over her head, eyes squeezed tight shut. “Stop that,” Yohji tells her mildly.
The rest of the team watches, but only Omi seems to catch the look Yohij gives Manx. With a graceful dip, Yohji barely pauses long enough to scoop up the girl’s boots. He leaves the pracitce room and his crazed, baffled, betrayed teammates behind, gentle words shushing the girl cowering in his arms.
Maybe what he’s doing is stupid, maybe what he’s doing will get him killed. But maybe what he’s doing is exactly right.
“Stand up,” Yohji says, slipping his hand out from under Rai’s knees. Her feet hit the floor with a thud and it’s only his grasp on her elbow that keeps her from falling backwards.
“What was that for,” she sputters.
“Need my jacket.” He unlocks his door and ushers her inside.
“For what?” Rai doesn’t take her boots off, but remains by the door, staring into the dark living room.
“In case it gets chilly.” He turns her, steering her out the door with his hand in the small of her back.
“Where are you going?” Rai stumbles forward, catches herself, and keeps walking. She doesn’t turn to look at him.
“How’s American food sound?”
“Listen to me,” Omi says, uncertain whether he should bother cutting them free, or just leaving them. The two aren’t just shooting angry looks at each other; their fury’s expanded to include the doorway where Yohji left with the girl a minute or two earlier. Omi sighs, shoulders slumping. “Why was our mission successful if we were compromised?”
“They wouldn’t have stopped us if they benefited from it,” Aya points out.
“Benefit how?” Omi’s mildly annoyed at yet another example of Aya’s bullheadedness. “It’s their drug, Aya-kun. Their dealer, their information.”
Aya snorts and looks away.
“Schuldig didn’t intercept us.” Omi states the obvious, hoping it’ll calm them to consider it logically. “So either Schwartz had reason to let us succeed, or she was distracting Schwartz.”
“Who knows, with Schwartz.” Ken shrugs, his expression dark.
“You can’t distract Schuldig,” Aya adds. The ice in his words are a clear sign he’s not yet down from the fighting stance.
Omi gives serious thought to locking them in the room and leaving them to settle it, but instead he draws his knife and slices the wire binding Ken. He gives Ken a warning glance.
“If you could... distract a telepath, what would it take?” Omi keeps it conversational, while he frees Aya. Another warning glance, not matching the thoughtful tone. “Who could do that?”
“Don’t you mean, what would block a telepath?” Manx gives the room that secretive smile, as if she’s gotten the punch line already.
“Block,” Ken repeats woodenly. His eyes get wide and he steps backwards. He’s making little motions like he’s wanting to shake his head but keeps stopping himself, and his brown eyes seem to take up most of his face. “Lock...” He runs shaking hands through his hair.
A line appears between Aya’s eyebrows as he studies Ken’s reaction. Omi feels the same. There’s something going on, he knows, but this isn’t what he expected.
“What?” Aya asks, but Omi’s understood, in a flash.
He knows what he has to ask: “Could Rai do something like that?” Ken doesn’t answer; Omi presses harder. “Ken? Do you know? Can she do that?”
Ken gives a slight shrug, frowning, eyes unfocused, lines deep around his mouth. It’s a kind of pain he’s never shown even when halfway to gutted.
It sends chills up Omi’s spine. “Ken? What is it?”
“Closets,” Ken says.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 17 Oct 2008 09:06 am (UTC)Was there more of this? I'd love to read the continuation. :)
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Date: 7 Nov 2008 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Oct 2008 02:30 pm (UTC)want MORE!
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Date: 7 Nov 2008 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Oct 2008 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Nov 2008 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Oct 2008 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Oct 2008 09:52 pm (UTC)Just use Sol, since that's how I'm known in any fandom -- but be sure to mention Mikkeneko has been the site's manager since, hrm, about a year or two after I started it. I still own it (and try to manage the admin/prog end) but she manages it on a daily basis. What's there now is entirely to her
blamecredit -- any flaws are probably mine, so I might as well own up to them.Do I get a link? Heh.
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Date: 21 Oct 2008 01:38 am (UTC)I have noted Mikkeneko as the current archivist. *nods* I guessed 2005 for the date when she took over. *angelic look* Of course, if that's wrong feel free to make an account and correct it. This whole project is kind of addictive.
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Scimitar_Smile