18-Oct-2002
Breakdown: An Alternate Universe Weiss Kreutz Fanfic
by Nixerchan and bonnejeanne
Contact: nixerchan@aol.com and bonnejeanne@yahoo.com
Category: AU
Pairings: Various, or to put it another way, most of them ^__^;;
Warnings: LEMON this section. Weird premise, weird psychic powers, probably confusing plot, um, possibly some OOC, some violence, probably gratuitous use of pointless Japanese and German, what else... oh yeah, LEMON from time to time... poor Nixers, I'm such a corrupting influence... ^__~
Rating: NC-17
SUMMARY/PREMISE: What if the Weiss boys actually possessed psychic powers similar to Schwartz, which had been suppressed or erased from their memories?
AU TIMELINE: Picks up *almost* at the end of the OAV, just after the death of Gen. Norman Powell.
/something/ - may indicate thoughts, telepathy or other psychic contact.
'something' - indicates just thoughts.
Chapter 14: Tripping
Nagi's presence withdrew from around Omi a few moment after an echo of something terrible had ghosted the corners of his defenses, and a feeling of open air around his body filtered back through refined senses. Upon opening his eyes, Nagi was no longer beside him, but on a branch some ten feet above him, and the ground was nearly twice that distance from where he had been placed.
"Gaah!" Omi grabbed the limb, getting his balance quickly but still startled. He peered upwards. /I missed something...?/
/A ground level train and a street car colliding by the looks of it,/ Nagi looked out, seeing something from his taller perch. He glanced back down and jumped down to Omi's branch with the sort of confidence of someone who *can't* fall. /It covered a retreat. We should be safe here until they move out. No one ever looks up./
Omi smiled, remembering the one time he'd looked up, guided by his sense of the other boy's presence. /Gonna start calling you Birdman./ The humor was reflexive. On an immediate and serious next thought, /We lose anyone?/
/I don't know. Schuldig's not likely to open up for a while. We'll find out soon enough./ Nagi frowned, settling into a crouch, then shot Omi a smirk, /And call me that, I'll take the branch out from under us./
/Touchy touchy,/ the answering grin was sunny. And again followed rapidly by a more serious mood as Bombay began running the events back through his mind to catalogue and evaluate. He was always the one that had to file the reports, and the habit of setting his observations and speculations into memory for easy retrieval was too useful to abandon just because there would be no report sent to Kritiker on this one. The data was useful in and of itself.
/Outside agency, 'talented', not Kritiker, crashes the party. The appearance of a Chinese lady, probably illusion, then same illusion power used to make Aya think... Schwartz, Crawford, was doing something threatening. Some kind of approach/attack from the north, the illusionist probably in the east, along with a telekinetic who attempted to weight us down, countered by Nagi. Another talent with that group, someone who blanks out those around them - something like Manx. Schuldig... breaks the illusion while trying to reach the illusionist through Aya's mind... Aya uses Schuldig's connection to 'reach' the illusionist, and uses his ability to control/command her to die.../ A slight shiver and a little unconscious touch of awe punctuated the summation as Omi filed the 'report' in his memory for typing up later. /Crawford precogs a nearby big accident to use as psychic cover for our escape.../ Pursing his lips in a silent whistle, Omi allowed himself a moment to wonder at the sheer potential of the moments-old and most unlikely alliance of all time.
Somewhere, at some point, the escape had turned into a game. It came with the realization that the swordsman had kept up with an unconscious burst of speed and the easy movement over the same obstacles that Schuldig had never thought to go around. That of course begat a couple of more intentional twists and turns, far more than shaking any opposition would have required.
By the time he let the headlong pace die down into a trot - approaching a sleek red sports car - he was almost ready to admit he was halfway enjoying the tenacious brat.
A smirk covered any traces of exhaustion the German might have been feeling, and a wave of the hand indicated the passenger side door. He didn't wait for a response in moving to the other side of the car, he was already debating a small opening up of consciousness, to persuade those around them that the car wasn't even there... but the press of a not so distant terror, pain and excitement from a gathering crowd was a swift dissuader.
The young assassin took his seat in the car without a flicker of emotion on his face. The only sign of interest in anything outside his own thoughts was a very brief examination of the car and a slight, neutral appreciation of the machine.
The car purred to a start and pulled out smoothly into traffic. As distance increased, Schuldig seemed to relax in his seat a bit more, opening up the car to some of the higher speeds, in minutes all traces of the pained falter the telepath had shown at the explosion had completely vanished. "Settle in, mien katzchen, it's a drive from here," he said, sliding a glance over through the rearview mirror.
He got a brief, cool look of mild irritation which wandered off to stare out the window.
Another gear up, another jump in speed. The low car darted between a slower car on the left and a turtle-like semi, shaving only inches of air between bumpers. The reopening was extremely careful, focused on a familiar, sharp mind. "You'll be happy to know your lover made it in one piece," the comment was casual, delivered with smirk and a bit of lingering on the title for Siberian.
This time the look was at the other end of the temperature scale. Aya seemed to have no in-betweens. It fixed on the German and stayed on him for a good thirty seconds. Then it chilled again and moved back to the window. "Arigato."
"Bitte," Schuldig replied, the expression settling. The reaction was filed away somewhere between 'Interesting,' and 'To Play With Later.'
Aya did not look away from the scenery, however he spoke a few moments later, his voice neutral. "I suppose if I asked how you knew that you'd just laugh."
"It's tempting," the German replied, the humor in the voice was not the lighter kind. "I'm not sure if that or graphic details would be more fun." Letting go of the mutual frustration he'd picked up on first observations was hard when he was told in no uncertain terms to pick. While playing with Bombay had been satisfying, a second shot at Aya was an unexpected, but welcome bonus. "All damned year I was wondering when he'd just give up on that boundary shit and just jump you. And here I missed it."
An amethyst look swung towards the telepath and then Aya... smiled. And looked away again. "Good."
There was a faint touch on Aya's mind, aborted cautiously. "Good?" the question was asked out loud, curiosity and a little wariness mixing.
"That you missed it."
The smirk returned and a roll of the shoulders. "Hmm? Not an exhibitionist?" he question was purred. "You might change your mind if you try it. Nahhh, nevermind, you'd be more of a voyeur type." He let it hang for a moment before adding, "Would give us something in common."
"Neither," Aya remarked to the passing scenery, though there was a faint hint of slight untruth to it. "But I don't share. Consider it a warning."
"I do. Consider it an offer."
A soft grunt and sidelong look were momentary but surprising signs of a slight relaxation from the darker redhead.
The tug on the sleeve of Youji's coat released when he was seen to be following, but resumed now and again for no obvious reason. The path the Irishman took was serpentine and threaded through back alleys and underground tunnels until Youji thought he was going to end up in Siberia...
Gingerly stepping around suspicious still water on one of their underground forays, Youji gave his uncomfortable traveling companion a hard look. "You do have any clue where we are going..... right?" His voice echoed along the concrete tunnels, bounding back in fragments.
An oddly guileless smile answered him, and Farfarello took a turn and started up a ladder that seemed to end in a hatch above. "A clue and more than a clue, kitty."
Youji sighed and followed, thankful for the protection of his gloves. He had to wonder at his own sanity because he couldn't quite figure out why that made sense.
The Irishman lifted the trap door above and crawled out of the opening, reaching a hand down to pull the blond assassin up. There were voices - the hatch was in a room that was occupied. The voices were all high ones.
"Ooh, what did you bring us, Silver?" a chorus of female tones surrounded the hatch. Looking up, Youji found himself surrounded by young women in various stages of undress. What clothing was there consisted of what were obviously stage costumes... very very small ones.
"Ladies," Youji greeted them, an automatic reflex placing a winsome smile on his face and European-style bow as soon as he had found his feet. On rising, he shot a glance at Farfarello, an eyebrow twitching. "Silver?" the question sent at a low, incredulous octave. The name almost won out as more surreal that their sudden surroundings, or the familiarity of the women, but not quite.
Farfarello was being cooed over and petted by a large number of the ladies. "Blame me for your Japanese dolls being colorblind?" This was greeted with fond chuckles.
Hands pulled Youji to a chair. "Sit down, Gorgeous, you want some tea? Soda? Megumi! It's your shift, get out there!"
The music coming from beyond the room was loud and had a very suggestive beat. The chair was beside a long counter covered with makeups, and decorated with sequined g-strings
"Whatever's around," he answered, still caught in somewhat of a dazed regard of the Irishman. The surroundings had sunk in, just hadn't clicked properly, even amongst numerous distractions. "If I could pry a little bit?" He asked the woman who stood in front of him, a well-honed sense allowing his eyes not to drift. "But how did you meet...?"
A bottle of health drink was pushed into his hand by one girl, removed and replaced with a bottle of milk tea by another.
"What's your name, Gorgeous? Or should we just call you Gorgeous?" the woman answered with a smile. "We found Silver sleeping in the basement! Such a sweet kid. You must be sweet to be his friend..." she winked and kissed his cheek.
Farfarello accepted a drink, seemed to be exchanging some kind of comments with a couple of the girls, and then raised his voice slightly. "Need a car."
There was a rustle as through a flock of brightly plumed birds, some discussion, and then a set of keys was tossed at the Irishman by a girl who was leaving to take her place on stage. "Leave it in the back lot when you're done - I need it back by the weekend!"
Paying the commotion more mind than he seemed, Youji lifted the hand of the girl he was talking to, to brush his lips across her knuckles. "Gorgeous it is then, I could never deny a lady her whims."
There were some laughs at that and a few scattered claps as well as one or two cat calls.
Finishing his drink, Farfarello dropped the bottle in a waste can and jerked his head. There were some noises of disappointment but no one really tried to keep the white-haired boy. He pointed his chin at a door in the back of the room and headed for it, giving Youji's sleeve a tug as he passed.
"Ja matte ne," Youji said, getting up and following easily, depositing the drink (now a bottled water) on the low table as he passed it. As they passed into the parking lot, Youji waited until the door had swung shut to give Farfarello a glance, finishing an unvoiced thought. "Downright cuddly."
The expression on the Irishman's face never changed from a slight, relaxed grin. "They'll eat you alive if you're not careful, kitty-boy."
"I was talking about their descriptions of you," the playboy replied as he got into the car, a slight return of humor. "Play bouncer on your off time?"
The questioned wandered into Farf's consciousness and out the other side. "...heaven's little flock of soiled doves..." He drove through the streets and traffic just slightly under reckless enough to get pulled over. "Show me your trick with that pretty silver wire..."
"Saa, no faith in sheer skill these days," Youji sighed a glance down then back. He shrugged, willing to play along. "Like what?"
"Make something up."
He pulled a length of wire, wrapping it several times around his hand before triggering a hold on the winding mechanism on the watch. Still staring out at the traffic as they passed, the occasional flash of an angry or shocked face at their car's behavior, he shook the wire down, a little twist sending it back up into a controlled spin. In the flash of silver, a simple image resolved, vaguely a face, though it was hard to tell if it was female or feline, perhaps a little of both.
A simple exercise he'd refined over time for control. He let it lapse almost as quickly, withdrawing the weapon. "Satisfactory?" he asked, it had started to get common to be asked... but it was still strange, and even stranger from the pale man.
Taking his eyes off the road a little longer than was prudent to look, the boy's golden eye widened slightly in delight. "Not bad."
Grimacing slightly, Youji found himself using it again far sooner than he'd expected to pull the wheel to avoid a collision from the turn in the roadway.
Giggling, the Irishman took one hand off the wheel... then the other.
"Oh no." The comment came from under a sigh. Eyes wide and suddenly extremely tense, Youji took full control of the car before the poor alignment pulled it into another to their right. "I'll pull us over if you're not interested," he warned, voice tight.
"Hai," the word had an odd twist from the Irishman's lips. "Chiba highway southeast for about half an hour," a shrug, "Maybe an hour. Private boat dock." With that, Farf climbed over the back of the seat and curled up in the back.
Staring backwards nearly caused an accident of his own. Youji gave a soft curse and worked on shifting to the other side of the car before the absence of a driver could cause attention. He settled his hands on the wheel and glanced back through the mirror, unsure if the calm he saw there was sleep or just another whim. He shook it off and paid attention to the roadway in front of him, looking for water. This was not how he imagined the end of the meeting to pan out.
The man across from Crawford was easier to read than an open book. In the course of a few minutes of seeming to realize where he was, the maniacal expression and darker gleam to green eyes had siphoned off, passing into stages of realization, disgust, numbness, then a sort of distanced worry, all without a single word. He gave the tiring impression of pacing without leaving his seat, and Ken's attention seemed to have wandered away from Crawford in a tentative fashion.
"You've got a meeting place set?" the question was rhetorical, but posed anyway.
Crawford chose to answer with a nod. "How long have your blocks been down?" the question was spoken in voice that would have worked for, 'can I read the newspaper if you've finished it?'
Ken debated answering at all, passing the moment to watch a passenger carefully walk down the aisle past their seats. "Couple hours." The answer wasn't as nonchalant as he'd have liked it to have sounded.
There was no particular reaction, the reception as bland as he could have wished for. "Like your work for Weiss." It was a statement, the implied subject Ken himself.
"Which part of it?" Ken asked, this time his gaze staying on the American. Despite himself, he still gave the question a half-shrug.
"Terminating with extreme prejudice." Again the tone was so colorless that people sitting around them never paid the slightest attention.
The only 'right' response he had - I don't - had the feeling of a complete lie. Ken looked away, settling on an evasion. "It's a part of the job."
"There aren't good and bad skills," Crawford mentioned. "Just the skilled and the unskilled." He smiled slightly. "Relax. We'll change trains in ten minutes, go by car from there." Reaching over to pick up a discarded newspaper from an empty seat, he took out the sports section and handed it to Ken.
It was taken almost automatically, and a slight involuntary smile at the scores of yesterday's baseball game typed in bold print across the top. The underdog had managed to pull out just before the bottom of the ninth, breaking the two inning tie. "How do you do it so calmly?" he asked, scanning only the first few lines of the story.
"The alternative betrays too much weakness, which ends up being fatal," Crawford answered, turning a page to check the stocks.
"I can't work like that," Ken replied, the denial accompanied with a sigh. It wasn't so much for Crawford's benefit as something he was telling himself. It felt like giving up the rest of what made him human. "It's worked pretty well so far."
The American shrugged. "Then don't. Each talent is different."
Ken didn't have any response for that, just putting it aside to work on later. The tracks opened up to a platform outside of the window, a myriad of people streaking past in a blur while the train raced further on. He flipped the newspaper over, not really taking in any of the print he was staring at. "Can you... Do you have any clue about the rest of them?"
Letting the paper rest against his lap, the American reached up and took off his glasses. His eyes unfocused for a few minutes as he reached for the next few minutes, stretching it as far as he could. Returning the glasses to his face he picked up the paper again. "If Balinese can avoid a car accident," he said and shrugged.
There was a strange relaxation in tension in the Japanese boy, even as he put one hand to his face. "That wasn't exactly comforting," Ken muttered, the rest of his energy shifting almost perceptibly into something that was, if not normal, then recognizably typical of the boy. Even at worst, the prospect of a car accident seemed mundane enough to be dealt with easily.
"You must not have confidence in his driving skills," Crawford allowed himself to be amused. He didn't bother to mention that those skills would be needed from the passenger seat. Why clutter the conversation with useless trivia?
"I kept my bike for a reason," Ken replied a slight return of humor at the exaggeration. None of them were notably safe drivers but, "It's not far enough into the afternoon," he added as if that explained everything.
Ignoring the odd comment, Crawford got up, half a minute before the next stop came up. "Here," he said, leaving the paper behind. Stepping out as the door opened, he kept enough of an eye on Siberian to be sure he was keeping up. Ascending to street level, Ken was guided to a parking lot where Crawford walked up to a new looking Benz and opened the unlocked door. The keys were in the ignition. Using the electronic doorlocks he opened the passenger side.
The assassin slid into the seat, after a quick glance around. He pulled the door shut a little gingerly, as if just noticing the condition of his gloves. He fought down an irrational urge to apologize and settled to wait, getting more anxious for their destination, whatever it turned out to be.
Pulling out of the parking lot, Crawford said, "Check the glove compartment. I'm curious about the name of the forgetful owner..."
Ken stared at Crawford, first believing, then hoping halfheartedly that the precog was joking. A quick shuffle of contents totally eradicated that concept. "The insurance is on Toriyume Jen," the statement was dry, the 'I should have known' left unspoken as he put the paper back into the disarray that composed the inside of the glove compartment.
"You disapprove?" the question was mildly amused. "I'm not a kleptomaniac. This is the best way to make sure of having a clean vehicle during a high risk extraction."
It was with a contrite expression that Ken managed to stop himself from starting on a legality issue. At this point, it was be far to easy to have that turned back rather quickly. "You don't wonder about extremely expensive cars left unattended, with the keys, in a public parking lot?" he said, sarcasm getting the best of the statement by the end.
Crawford's smile widened. "I don't wonder when I have seen the fifty year old executive's wife leave the keys in it and the door unlocked because she's had too many drinks at her lunch with the other executive's wives... five minutes before it happened. If we'd walked a little faster you could have seen her. She's not bad for her age."
Ken didn't remember any pause, or reaction like Crawford had on the subway when asked to 'check' on the others, and it slowly clicked into an understanding, or at least a suspicion. "I'm amazed you don't walk into walls with all that shit going on," he said, a little subdued at the prospect of something as constant as he was imagining.
The amusement took on a slight tinge of ironic pride. "I learned not to walk into walls by the time I was fifteen. You know what is harder? Reading the newspaper. My most notable accomplishment when I was twenty was finishing my first short novel."
"So you've always had it?" The question came after a good stretch of silence from the other man. There was some difficulty in grasping the lifestyle it had to be, but once a slight handle on it was there, it gave something of a perspective on his own problem, 'This could take a while,' he thought, the barest flip of concentration letting him watch the heat rise from the engine and the cooler air pushed from the air conditioning.
Crawford considered before answering. Getting warm and fuzzy with Siberian wasn't something he would have chosen, but he had his own agenda and there was nothing, as he'd reminded Mastermind, he wasn't prepared to do to accomplish it. "It started when I was eleven. Infrequently at first, then rapidly increasing. One of my earliest was of seeing the trainer from the school arrive to take me there, after exchanging a large untraceable amount of currency with my parents. I thought if I ran away I could make it stop, and I did. Instead of paying my parents, they were killed for letting me escape and the trainers picked me up a quarter of a mile away. They had great ambitions for me. I managed to disappoint them almost entirely." The satisfaction was unguarded.
Ken had gone quiet in the course of the story, the traces of Siberian returning to the surface in a long response from his time in Weiss. "Those guys today sure as hell weren't Kritiker," he said, seeming to find something more comfortable in the concept of a target. "They have anything to do with this school?"
"Everything," Crawford said shortly. His mouth pulled to one side. "We were told to steer clear of you." The slight sneer in the last comment was undisguised.
Ken settled a little bit in his seat and pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to unhook the straps on one of the bugnuks. "All right," he said, pulling one of the weapons off absently. He smirked slightly as he placed the heavy glove in his lap and reached to work on the other one. "I'd have met out of spite too."
Crawford settled back as the car moved onto the highway from the city streets. "The annoyance factor *is* attractive. But certainly not the only one. You might be interested to know their intentions. At this point, to kill us, for our audacity in disobeying the edict from on high, and for you - capture. Of the two groups, yours is by far the worse possibility."
"It's harder to capture than kill," Ken said, frowning at the passing landscape. It was hard to judge this world by the one he knew yesterday. The statement hung there for a moment as he considered the idea of some place where death was the preferable option. "If we were so worth the risk, why didn't you try for us before *we* knew anything."
"Because I didn't know." It was a flat statement. "The window is broad but shallow. The shift in the matrix was so substantial that it took time to pin it down."
Ken shook his head slightly putting that off as a bit too much to try and begin to figure out, not on top of everything else. With the same absent, practiced precision, he gave both weapons a rudimentary cleaning, just enough to keep the blood from drying in the triggering mechanism. He gave voice to his thoughts a little reluctantly as they turned over the events of the short meeting and aftermath. "It all comes down to a common enemy," he said with a sigh.
"Certainly reason enough," Crawford replied smoothly.
"How much do you think they know about us already?" Ken asked, pausing before adding, "We're already expecting a problem from Kritiker with Aya's family. I'm just trying to figure out what we've got to keep away from her."
Crawford took his time, considering. Not the answer so much as the thought behind the question. After a few moments, he said. "Assume they know everything."
A few yen had bought them enough to get Omi and Nagi to the outskirts of the city via the subways. From there, both had started walking, traffic thinning with the passing minutes, taking away more and more available options.
/It's too far to walk,/ Nagi glanced over to Omi, then back to the roadway where a line of cars shuffled forward a bit at a time to the dictates of a distant stoplight. /Your way or my way?/
Omi tilted his head. "Nani?"
The other boy was already considering the situation. It was too crowded still to go by force and even more effort keep the driver alive and complacent by threat alone... he wasn't sure at all about Bombay, but driving was never a task he'd worried about before. That left... "Can you project something that you're not feeling?" Nagi asked in response to the question. He waved a hand towards the motorists that they walked parallel to. "Say some sympathy and generosity towards two students with a long way to go."
The blond assassin blinked at the idea, the Nagi could feel him considering it. /It's not so much projecting something you don't feel... it's more like feeling something when you want to.../ He considered it as they walked. Then he started opening his senses up, cautiously. Impressions coming from the cars beside them. Nagi could sense the impressions weaker, 'second-hand' as it were. Omi slowed down at one point and then speeded up... something he wasn't ready to deal with from one of the drivers about the picture the two boys made walking together... walked a bit further, opening up a little more. Then slowed down again, until they were - apparently unintentionally - pacing a particular car. The woman driver was in her late forties. She glanced over more than once. Omi reached up and wiped his arm over his forehead. And then Nagi felt him start to project a feeling of friendliness, sympathy, and wistful loneliness for an absent person, about the same age as the driver.
The car horn sounded after a few minutes. Omi's look around was admirably genuine-seeming. The woman beckoned and in a few minutes they were both sitting in the back seat.
"So your son is in America going to school?" Omi sounded impressed. "That's a great opportunity. We have to get to my friend's folk's place - they work off shore and couldn't come get us. Where is it?" he turned to Nagi, his expression shining with innocence.
/And you wondered why I was nervous around you./ Amusement and admiration mixed. Out loud he gave the directions quickly, agreeing with the woman with a long suffering air at what a distance it was. "They're the type who take independence rather seriously," he said.
/Nervous? You?/ the giggle was internal but just as audible to Nagi. "Yes, a little too seriously!" he added fervently. "My feet don't feel very independent just now! Just our luck my scooter's out of service."
The driver clucked over them in half stern, half doting tones. It seemed she was going very near the destination and had no problem with taking them almost to the door.
TBC