5-Nov-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 15: Reconfiguration
Youji pulled the small car off to the side of the quiet two lane road that they'd turned off onto. He put the vehicle into park without cutting the engine before turning slightly in his seat. "You awake?" he asked, glancing back at the Irishman.
Farfarello showed every sign of waking up, not slowly, not quickly. He stretched and yawned. Then he climbed over the seat into the passenger side.
The assassin waited until the other had seemed to settle before pulling it out of park and rolling forward. "The waterfront should be along this road, I'll need directions from here."
Leaning back and crossing his arms behind his head, the Irishman said, "Left and left and look for the big blue boat."
Youji looked at little doubtful at the vague directions, but.. the man had gotten him this far. He could just hope where they were going had anything at all to do with where they were supposed to be. It had been an... erratic trip so far, but Farfarello, at least, seemed somewhat sane when he wasn't trying to take your head off.
/Yeah, that's logic Kudo,/ Youji smirked at himself, taking the first left that the winding road offered.
Youji became aware that a curious set of fingers had reached over and was threading through his hair.
He thought it was fairly admirable that he didn't jump, in fact the only sign of tension was the fact that his knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel. "Ano..."
"Shhh... don't get your fur up," Farf said, grinning at his own joke. "Since we get to adopt our own... wanted to see if mine was as soft as his..."
It took a couple long leaps in logic to put together who Farfarello was talking about, and what it implied. A flash of defensive anger washed away a good deal of caution for his own situation. "I don't think this is the same," Youji said, watching for the second turn as the treeline opened up. With the lack of structures, there wasn't a lot of chance that it would be as soon as would be comfortable.
"Why, you want it to be?" the single gold eye regarding Balinese was bland to the point of incomprehension, but not without an odd spark of humor. Unabashed, he stroked through the waves of Youji's hair a second time, seeming to derive a purely tactile and simplistic pleasure from it.
The problem, Youji decided, with dealing with someone who didn't care about pain was that it severely reduced your options. He moved just a little bit as the Irishman's hand rose again, and just a touch of the same guidance he'd used with Ran's katana.
"I'm not too fond of this 'adoption' idea," Youji said. He paused, as if struck by another concept, and took his eyes off the road long enough to give Farfarello a curious and suspicious look. "... What do you think it is?"
The Irishman's attention was on his hand... having felt the slight diversion and obviously not reaching his goal, he tilted his head. And tried again. Not using any more force, still a near-idle gesture, to see if it would be redirected again.
When it was, a strange smile curved his lips. "Stray kitties ran away from home...." he said vaguely. "Nagi found one... now he feels again. God's work, or the devil? All of you little bloody angels..."
Youji leaned back a bit, his grip relaxing. He was kind of getting the hang of this, or at least enough that the pauses weren't as long between a statement and reply. The information on Prodigy was, interesting, and possibly accurate.. it was hard to pin down what exactly had changed in the dark boy, but the last got a derisive snort and a wry smirk. "Sorry, we were never angels."
Farfarello grinned. "No indeed. Witches, masquerading as angels of God's judgment. It's a nice joke."
It was hard to disagree with that, knowing what he had from the beginning, it was hard to take it as seriously as the others. "Yeah, someone had a sense of humor alright," he replied, the expression taking a bit of a harder edge.
A hand waved beside Youji's face. "There... after that, blue boat... and," he added after a second, "Little red car."
He pulled the car up beside the sports car and pulled the keys from the ignition to hand them back to the Irishman. He opened the door and slid out onto the leveled gravel. "Looks like someone made it here first," he said, pausing beside the red one in case Farfarello had another strange turn in mind. He glanced up along the moored boat, taking up the full length of the long seawater dock. "That's some line of work you've got."
As Youji examined the luxury yacht, he became aware of a figure on the upper deck, leaning on a railing as if casually surveying the area around. The cap of dark red hair was unmistakable.
Sauntering around the car, Farfarello dropped an arm around Youji's shoulder. "Come on, I'll find you a saucer of milk..."
Youji shook his head and allowed himself to be lead up the docks and to the boarding. It really wasn't worth the struggle. He gave a light shrug beneath the Irishman's arm and decided just to go with it. "You know milk is bad for cats right?"
"Then how about whiskey.."
"Now that.. sounds about right."
The Benz pulled up beside a red sports car and a little blue Mazda that looked like it was owned by some kind of female either streetwalker or secretary... the garter hanging from the rearview mirror matched the items thrown in the back dash board.
On the upper deck of the yacht, Aya watched Ken get out of the car and resisted the urge to go down and meet him, aware of the presence of other onlookers.
The final regrouping happened in almost complete silence, the members of the two groups finding somewhere on the deck to stand, sit or sprawl as the occasional case was. Ken had wandered over almost immediately to Aya's side with the excuse of watching the Nissan pull away after dropping off the last two members of the group. By the pause of conversation and cheerful waving from Omi it seemed that whoever it was had dropped them off willingly.
Upon seeing the second and shorter blond approaching the walkway in apparent good condition, Aya felt something in him begin to relax, just a little. He shifted, moving a little closer to Ken. Turning, he looked the dark-haired assassin over closely. "Daijobu desu ka?"
"No, but I think I'm getting there," he said, giving Ran a slight grin. "Just give me a little bit and I'll be good."
The redhead nodded. They all needed some time to rest and regroup and it was unlikely they would have very much if any. Reaching a hand to grip Ken's arm briefly, he decided to make an effort to get a few practical things sorted out. "I'll be back if you want to stay up here. The view is pretty pleasant."
The grip was reversed just briefly, then dropped. "Yeah, it's not bad," he said, then turned away from it to look out over the expanse of the boat and back to Ran. "Let me know if you need anything." He paused a slight flush to his face. "Not that... nevermind, you know what I mean."
"If you do the same," Aya replied, making it more a statement of accepted fact. The sense of worry he'd had about Ken which had cranked up first thing this morning was not going away. Only notched back a bit by having him alive, well and in physical proximity.
Without waiting for an answer, Aya headed for the stairs down to the main deck. He'd done a full examination of the boat when he and Schuldig had arrived and had some specific ideas about how he wanted things to be arranged.
/Already playing leader, koneko?/ Schuldig's presence had more than a little wry amusement at the plans. /Far be it to consider that there might already be arrangements?/
The redhead's lips pressed together as he unconsciously looked for the telepath, even knowing he wouldn't have to be visible. As the thought occurred to him he had a clear impression of the lighter redhead in one of the cabins. Going to it, he opened the door without knocking.
"Don't do that. It's annoying. If you want to talk to me, do so in the same room, unless it's an emergency, and it better be life or death."
The German was hardly visible under blankets and with a pillow held loosely over his head. The only sign that his back was to Aya was the flare of orange hair on the mattress. "Want me to stop? Then tone it down," the voice wasn't so much smug as peevish at the moment. "Common courtesy when someone's trying to sleep."
Aya leaned in the doorway, crossing his arms. "Sumimasen. You'll have to teach me, I don't know how."
Schuldig turned that over for a moment, laziness competing with a desire to just crash peacefully and the knowledge that all the methods he was taught would fairly likely be considered an act of war. /You think like a fucking mundane./ The pillow was shoved aside and the bedding rustled as Schuldig twisted enough to look at Aya. /I don't know how to shut you up without breaking you./ He gave a half shrug, as if that concept didn't particularly bother him. /I'll figure out something just go somewhere... distant./
"That's going to be hard on a boat." Aya tilted his head. "You're lazy. I want to know. How do *you* do it?"
"Lazy..." Schuldig repeated the words in an acid tone, fixing the swordsman with a flat-eyed look. Generosity wasn't at the top of his list, neither were stories at the moment. "I don't know, I could have Nagi string you up from the top of the mast... should mute it a little bit, sort of a hood ornament besides."
The threat had no effect. Shrugging, Aya turned to leave the room. Oddly, he accepted at face value that the issue was a problem for the telepath as well as those he happened to "speak" to. If the young man wouldn't or couldn't help him solve the problem, he'd work on it until he had it figured out, but resumed his intended foray to find Crawford.
The resolution caused something of a mental sigh in Aya's head. /It's called scar tissue, it's how anyone 'does it.' He's on the bridge./
Stopping for a moment in the hall, something occurred to the swordsman. He had always been able to focus his concentration, in part a natural gift, in part a result of his sword training, in part a side effect of his obsession. Returning to the idea of his earliest lessons in kendo, he brought back concepts his teacher had given him about how to avoid telegraphing intention to an opponent. Thought about the mental sensation of the German's thoughts. Still and unseeing as he took the ideas and pulled them together, he felt something shift as he consciously created a thought of combining the sense of the telepath with the focus of masking intent from an opponent.
Turning back, he walked silently back to the room and just as silently opened the door.
There was no change in the telepath, who again had turned back to the far wall, drawn back up under the layers, if not quite as fully this time.
With a slight shrug, Aya withdrew just as quietly.
"Better, much better," a nasal voice followed him out, something like relief on the tones of it.
Keeping the slight smile off his face, Aya found the American and laid out his suggestions for space arrangements.
For all the world, Youji looked like he was on vacation. He had found a spot below the mizzenmast and folded up his overcoat to act as a pillow, and was stretched out like a drying sweater in the peaking sun, like he was on a cruise liner and not property owned by one of their worst rivals. He was of the firm opinion that he was going to make the best of whatever happened to come out of this for as long as they managed to survive it... and the late spring sun was taking on that hint of a summer blaze, cut perfectly by a cool soft breeze from the ocean.
It would be a shame to waste, as he figured it. Being right in Aya's path was an extra benefit, if a carefully calculated one.
"We've worked out room assignments," the swordsman said quietly and without preamble. "You're between Omi and Nagi, and me and Ken."
"Prime real estate," the blond murmured, quirking a grin up at Aya. Without moving he went straight into, "About the meeting tonight. It's still a good idea to go."
The redhead crossed his arms and looked down, frowning slightly. "You want to go."
Youji shrugged. "I got a feeling she was sticking her neck out. I don't care so much about keeping a false tie as to keep the ax from falling.... She hasn't been so bad."
"She was part of the deception," Aya said, his tone cool. Then he shrugged. "It needs to be planned. I'll think about it."
"Not too long, if I'm going to be vetoed, I need enough time to cancel like a gentleman."
"You're not a gentleman, you're an assassin," Aya replied, walking away.
Youji laughed. "We've all got our playacting, Aya. Leave me mine."
Upon being informed which room would be theirs, Omi promptly explored every corner of the small cabin, grinning at the semi-plush accommodations. The cabin wasn't huge, rooms on boats rarely are, but it was well made and fitted with a fair number of amenities.
Flopping on the bed which was smaller than a full, but larger than a twin, he finally got his arms out of the backpack, setting it on the floor with a sigh.
"I used to have a fantasy about living on a houseboat," he said inconsequentially. "Throw in pizza delivery and I'd be in heaven."
"You'd get tired of pizza pretty quickly, or the ocean, I'd imagine," Nagi replied taking to a small desk and fixed chair that had been built into the far corner of the room.
"That's the beauty of a boat, you get tired of some place, you just sail away..." the blond answer, fluttering his fingers suggestively. "New port, new doc... new delivery!" He grinned and sat up, opening the backpack to pull out the inevitable laptop. Then he went through a routine of sort of patting himself down. "Need a resupply," he muttered. Unzipping the back pack all the way, he revealed a packet at the bottom that was taped down to the inside lining and began cutting the tape away with a small pocket knife.
Nagi made no attempt to conceal any curiosity at the actions. After they had split, he'd brought down all the blocks entirely, but at some point during the car ride had tensed back up enough to keep only what was between them open. "What happens when you run out of ports?" he asked, almost as if seriously considering the scenario.
"They build new ones," Omi answered just as seriously. There was a feeling of mild excitement, like opening up a small treat. The tape was cranky, it had been meant to stick, but eventually he got it loose and cut open the paper wrapped package beneath. The light caught a neat spill of darkly painted metal shapes with many razor sharp edges and points.
Approval made it to Omi at the sight of the weapons. "A world for your convenience," he said, a slight smile in his tone. "It's a nice fantasy."
Omi nodded, a kind of small surge of pride answering the approval he sensed from the other boy. /Grown up toys./ The thought was tinged with a touch of annoyance and even a little bitterness, not acid, just something with the feel of a restriction that chaffed.
An indifferent impression met that. /There isn't any room for children./ On a whim Nagi lifted one of the shuriken a few inches from the rest of the pile and drew it back to him. He let the star spin in the air in front of him for a few moments. /These kind of toys have their own appeal./
Omi watched the levitated star for a moment and grinned. Then he picked up another, fingers handling it easily, flicked his wrist and the object sank with a muffled thunk into the wall across from him. /They wouldn't authorize me to use them for some reason. Now it doesn't matter what they authorize./
/Stupid of them, these are faster... would have been harder to stop./ He let the one he'd been holding turn horizontal and fall into his palm. /Smaller too, darts and arrows are easy to get a hold of./
/They were always handicapping me for some reason,/ Omi replied as an impression he'd once had flickered through his mind - that one or two of his employers were just a little afraid of the young assassin.
"If that's true," Nagi said, responding more to the unarticulated thought than the one meant for him. "Then they were scared of all of you. Any of you could have lived with some sniper training."
"That had occurred to me," Omi said, tucking the stars away. /I do like the silence and elegance of these over a gun, though./
Nagi turned the throwing star over in his hands gingerly. /I'll keep this one?/ He held the shuriken up between two fingers, a simple gesture just to get Omi's attention. /I've never tried these before./ The last had a pulse of fascination behind it.
The blond was pleased with the request. "Sure," he said aloud. The rest had disappeared, including the one Omi pulled out of the wall, and even though Nagi had been watching, he would had had trouble figuring out where they had gone to.
After putting the weapons out of sight, Omi opened the laptop and gave every appearance of preparing to dive into virtual space for a while.
The lights in the room dimmed and then came back. After a couple of minutes Nagi felt a small focus of problem solving and then a surge of actual pleasure. "Neat. Satellite uplink - this ship is loaded."
"Crawford's picky. I've told him it makes us predictable but..." Nagi said, standing up to cross the room and set again on the bed. It might be a while from now, and this gave him a better view. "It has its advantages sometimes."
Omi continued to work on the laptop with part of his concentration, while at the same time tilting his head to glance up at Nagi. "Hey, since we're officially allies or something now, can I pump you for information yet?" There was a combination of mischief, curiosity, something that passed more as an actual hunger for information, and a slight tease.
One of Nagi's eyebrows rose. "Your side was the one who wanted selective disclosure," he reminded Omi. Still, there didn't seem to be any resistance to the idea in the other boy.
/Aya's cautious, it's the way he's put together./ "Your side was the one that brought up living quarters," he said with a little smile. "Nice going, by the way."
"Purely selfish motivations," Nagi said dismissively. The fingers that slid through Omi's hair were familiar and idle. "What do you want to know?"
Omi shivered slightly at the touch but it was quite clearly a pleasurable shiver, his head leaning into the caress so instinctively that he hardly realized he was doing it. The boy actually had to give himself a small internal shake to refocus. "Uh.. oh yeah... the attack. You know who that was, don't you?"
Nagi's hand stilled and withdrew, a mix of darker emotions stirred up by the mention. "Yeah, I told you a little bit about the old school. That was them." With an effort, he managed to still and smooth out the outburst. "They've gotten better about working together. Usually we have the advantage of organization." There was a feathering of confusion and the impression of the illusion of the woman bowing to Crawford. "Something must have pissed them off."
Reflexively, Omi sent a little flow of support/comfort. The undertone to it was serious, accepting the impressions as legitimate information. "It would be optimal to know what did," he mentioned. "I can tell you don't like talking about them but clearly they are after you and us. I... we need to know as much as possible."
"Schuldig's a better storyteller," Nagi said, a slight shrug. Letting the comfort sink in, he used it to stabilize enough, and returned to the lingering contact, taking as much comfort from the closeness and tactile sensation as it seemed to give. "I don't even know where to start." He sighed. "There's a lot of it... We'll show you how to stay out of their reach, meeting like that was a gamble."
A little quiet flow of pleasure/contentment came back to Nagi as a direct result of the physical touch. At the same time, Omi's mind was swarming over the few bits of information like an anthill on a discarded twinkie. "You have ways of staying out of their reach. What would happen if you didn't? They want to kill you?"
"Aa," he said slowly. "If they didn't, we would."
"You would..." /What? Kill them?/ The puzzlement was straightforward. Confusion at why Schwartz wouldn't have done that already.
A reassurance covered a steady, quiet conviction. "We would have killed them if we could have," he said, the lazy touch not hesitating - this was a long accepted concept. /What I meant is death is our last option before recapture./
A surge of understanding/protective anger was kept as an undertone by the blond's intellect. "What would they do to you? I understand torture for information... maybe revenge... is it like that?"
"For study, for profit, for whatever, I didn't care. There were all sorts of theories as to what it was really for, anyone who would have been strong enough to ferret it out disappeared." He leaned over a little farther, watching the play of information a little clearer from a better angle. "Doesn't matter. They wouldn't want us back anyway, we were already marked as uncooperative."
"She said, 'your refusal to cooperate is unfortunate'," Omi repeated. "That implies that there was some kind of... offer to cooperate?"
"I'd say I feel sorry for whoever delivered the offer," Nagi gave a slow smile, and a distant resolution to ask one of the others about it. "But I don't."
Tilting his head, Omi absorbed the feeling from the other boy and filed it. "I think they just replaced Kritiker as problem number one."
/They won't get you./ The caress slid along Omi's jawline, bringing with it a fierce possessiveness and the sensation of something locking into a base determination.
That was enough to get Omi's attention disengaged from the computer, and in fact a couple of silent error windows popped up with messages about interruption of network connection. Nagi felt the boy's intellect spin its wheels as it was supplanted by an emotional reaction. Nothing articulate came from the link, but the blond rolled over on his back and looked up, the action so feline is was almost amusing. After a moment he sighed, and Nagi could feel him reluctantly trying to reset his train of thought. And it wasn't coming very easily. It was being interfered with by Omi looking at Nagi and blurred feelings of the dark boy being the most amazing thing in the world.
The telekinetic's eyes slid closed, a sort of silence from him as he let the other's emotions slide through him. Unhindered by pride and reservation, he put a hand on the other side of Omi and returned one of numerous kisses he'd been given. It was at an odd angle, without skill or thought, but an attempt.
Almost as quietly, Omi stilled, relaxing, accepting, asking for nothing more, the flow of warmth from him growing with the emotions he had no control over. When Nagi leaned back, he simply gazed up, wide eyes shining, a slightly, barely open-mouthed smile relaxing his features. /Thanks... that was nice./
Nagi closed his eyes again, sliding back with every sign of that relaxation being mirrored thoroughly. /Purely selfish motivations,/ the thought wasn't anything more than a murmur.
The smile that he couldn't see with his eyes closed widened. /Feel free to be more selfish in the future.../ it was guileless and only a little hint of afterthought embarrassment.
The agreement wasn't anything verbal, or really anything sharp enough to be considered conscious. /Let me know if you find anything./
The blond took a moment to reconnect with the idea of what he had been doing on the computer. /Oh... oh yeah, of course./ Reluctantly he rolled back over and began refocusing on the task at hand. An odd smile continued to play around his face for a while afterwards.
Aya drifted back up to the upper deck and found a place next to Ken. "Worked out room assignments."
Ken was giving the bugnuks a more thorough cleaning than he'd been able to do in the car, working carefully with a thin knife and cloth. Upkeep aside, there was something calming about getting the blood out of them. "There enough room for doubles?" he asked looking up and over at Aya, "Or are all of us stuck together for a couple of nights?"
"We have a room, Youji gets his own." Settling down beside the former goalie, Aya laid back on the deck.
"That works," he replied, a small part noting the omission of Omi. He turned his face up and into the cool salty breeze. The time up and alone had given more than enough to finish what the American's unfaltering calm had started, something of a reorganization. "I think I understand what you were worried about back then a bit better," he said, not turning back yet as he elaborated. "When you didn't force Youji like you were going to."
Aya blinked, and looked at Ken almost sharply. Then his expression relaxed. "Aa." After a moment he said, "What happened?"
"I did it on purpose, didn't even hesitate when I had the excuse," Ken said, he didn't think he needed to explain 'it,' there really didn't seem like anything else. "Got maybe four of them. It probably would have taken them a while to die if Crawford hadn't picked them off." There were hints of disgust, some guilt, and something a little more shaky, but nothing resembling regret.
Aya turned the words over in his head. "You used it deliberately." He paused and then nodded. "There are probably other uses for it. Not that there would need to be."
"That's the problem I think," the assassin said, laying aside the tools he'd been using, and looked down at the weapons. "I don't want another use for it."
Sitting up, Aya watched Ken. After a moment he said, "Here's what happened to me, as best I can put it together. Some... talent, that... woman who appeared and disappeared, got into my head and made me see Crawford about to shoot you. It was interrupted a couple of times, but kept coming back. It was real. I saw it. Schuldig did something... and someone else, I think... Omi. The illusion broke up. I was so angry I couldn't see. Schuldig was in my head and I made him show me where she was. I felt her. Then I told her to die. She did."
Ken was quiet for a long moment, the events of the day, the odd conversation with Oracle, and simply Aya were coming together into a loose pattern. Right or wrong, inevitable or otherwise... it just was. Unavoidable and simplistic. "I would have done the same," he said, an acceptance in his voice that was almost lost to the sound of the water around them.
Aya was quiet for a while after that. The he said, "If I thought they blocked me to keep such a person as I am from having such a power, I might almost be able to accept it. But that's not what I think. I think they just wanted to wait until they could figure out how to control it, without risk to themselves. Then they would use it." He paused. "It's a good thing I can't just reach someone like that without help. The bad thing is, the help is... more than willing, from what I was able to gather."
"For what though? If it was just for the work we were already doing, most of us would have just agreed," Ken shook his head, his expression darkening a little as more than a few connections came into play. "How do we know they didn't let us go on purpose? Besides Birman, they really haven't made much of an effort to get us back."
"We don't really know that. Need to ask Omi. But those are points to consider." Aya shook his head. "I don't have the answers. But I'm really starting to be tired of hiding and running. Maybe it's time to try and get some."
"Well... one target seems to be good at finding us, and the other we know where to find them," Ken said, considering it as he spoke. At some point, he'd already made a commitment to both, it was just a matter of when now. He'd leave the how up to the rest of them. "We might as well get the one we know before we have to deal with both of them at once."
"First, Aya-chan."
The dark haired assassin nodded. "Crawford said we should assume both sides know about her."
One eyebrow rose. "Aa. What else did Crawford say?"
"A little bit about who those people were that ambushed us and some of his background with them. They want to capture us and kill them, and are pretty ruthless about getting who they want," the words were accompanied with a frown and a touch of anger. "That they were told not to get involved with us... I guess that's what that chick was talking about."
"Interesting. They seem to have a lot riding on this," Aya said, the pronoun referring not to Kritiker or the new group but to the one they now shared the yacht with.
"He seemed pretty sure we had more to lose if those guys had won, but..." he let the thought trail off with a bit of a shrug. He shook his head and fixed on another subject that had been passed. "Does Aya-chan even know about us... you?"
"Some romantic story of Sakura's, that's all. She thinks we're dead. They both do."
Ken nodded. He hadn't really thought Aya had gotten back in contact with his sister, perhaps not even indirectly, but it was worth asking about. "We're going to have to keep her with us..." it was as much a question as a statement.
Aya shook his head but it wasn't really a negation. "That would be very dangerous. It would be better if we could get her out of the country."
"Will that work?" Ken asked, a little uncertainly. He shrugged, "Most of Schwartz are gaijin... I don't know... Maybe we could work something out to make sure.. someone to keep an eye on her?"
Aya shrugged, the gesture an admission he didn't like to make. He kept returning in his mind to the same problem. There was no way to keep her safe... besides killing all the people who could possibly hurt her.
TBC