The rain was falling thickly, drenching both young boys to their bones.
The smaller one looked up, question shining in his unveiled greenish-blue eyes.
"Hallo."
The other one blinked.
"Pardon?"
A foreigner. The younger blinked once in surprise, but wasn't willing to let himself be defeated that soon. Taking a breath, he repeated.
"Hello."
The other one lightly tilted his head. He seemed to be a few years older than the redhead.
"Hi."
"Uh….What do you do..?"
First the foreign boy didn't react to the awkwardly formulated question. He merely rose his head, moving his stare from the little kid that had dared to approach him to study the grey sky instead. It almost seemed to look merciless. The younger boy noticed that he had a set of glasses stashed in one of his pants pockets.
"…wait."
The red-haired boy blinked again at the barely whispered words. "Huh?"
Amazing toffee-brown eyes turned on him again. "I'm waiting." The boy merely blinked again. This was confusing. Especially those eyes. They were brown, but not a brown like he'd ever seen in his life before. More like a cats than of a human. There was life in them, and the promise of thousand unknown secrets that only the boy knew, but also something else.
As if something inside them had been killed and he knew of it.
"For what?"
"… ..I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Yes"
The boy's face scrunched up at that, as he was trying to puzzle out the hidden meaning of those words. He couldn't find any.
"But it's raining."
The black-haired boy merely nodded, not taking his eyes of his little interrogator. The boy frowned. It wasn't supposed to be like that. The other boy should be answering his questions, not giving him new ones to think about as well.
How could he find whatever he was searching for without wearing his glasses to see, anyway? With a jerk he realized that he must have asked his question aloud, since the boy was now watching him with a slightly amused look in his eyes. The rest of his face stayed impassive.
Jerking his head upwards for a second, he said calmly. "It's raining. I'm still seeing more that way than most other humans do."
The kid was totally confused now.
"Why are you here?"
Again that knowing smile that only hinted that he didn't have a proper answer for his question. The little boy felt a lone cold chill run down his back. He was freezing.
Suddenly he didn't know anymore, why. Was it because the on-going rain had finally succeeded in clenching him completely or was it because of this strange foreign boy who had suddenly appeared on the other side of his street and didn't seem to mind the rain in the last? The constant calm glance that was neither assessing nor truly gentle made him suddenly fidgety.
"… " He didn't find the right words to ask what he wanted to know. "uhh…" A fine raven-black eyebrow was rosen a bit. „...Yes?"
„What are you?"
"…That depends."
"On what?"
"You."
Here we stand in ravishing rain
Joy is like pain It feels like a miracleYou can't turn back, you're in chains
Never again
Return from a cynical world
When he later remembered back to that time, the redhead wouldn't be able to say for how long they had been standing there in silence after that particular answer.
Strange, wasn't it? How time could stretch that eternally long and be in reality just a few moments and the next moment turn from hours into seconds when you were preoccupied… Things never really were the way they looked.
He still remembered how he had left, though. Cleary, as if it had been just minutes ago, not years…
The rain had been fading, slowly.
The strange, in riddles talking boy had just suddenly said. "It's time for me to go."
It had sounded like a sigh to the little boy. Like the other one didn't really want to go. And he had felt sad. It could be heard in his voice easily.
"Oh. Right now?"
He didn't want him to leave.
The other boy shook his head, wearing a look of non-described understanding. "No. Not right now."
He seemed to be taking a look over the boy's shoulder. Turning his head, the little redhead could see that there was nothing there.
"But now."
At that words the child had pivoted around, but before he could react the rain intensied with a sudden, brute force and a giant thunder clap like a canon blast made him flinch in shock.
When he had opened his eyes again, it had been raining like crazy.
The boy had vanished.
So why did he still clearly see him in his mind, illuminated by the black and white of a flashing lightning?
The boy didn't know…
Good intentions lost in thin airYou were craving for affection
And a certain invitation
Led you here to me in the cynical world
Years had passed since then. The little red-haired boy had grown tall, though somewhat lanky. He had started hearing voices inside his head that had turned out to be the others thoughts… He had become what was called a telepath. He normally just called it insane. After all he was hearing voices in his head, right? It didn't matter that they were somebody others thoughts. It were voices.
When his ´talent´ had finally nearly succeeded to drive him insane, they had come. Come and taken him to that place which was called Rosenkreuz. Where they had tried to brake him.
Where he had proven to be stronger than them, in some degree. They had never succeeded in braking him totally. Never. There had always been an little part of him that had remembered, no matter how hard they had tried to make him forget. Had remembered a dripping-wet, strange, foreign boy with wet raven-coloured bangs and knowing eyes… who had only existed in a world illuminated by the pale light of lightning.
Yes, he remembered. He would always remember.
And then he had met that boy again; years later, in that hell of Rosenkreuz and Estet.
"Hah. It's really you. First I thought that's just my eyes playing a prank to me."
He had turned gracefully, arching a fine black brow in question. The redhead grinned a crooked smirk at him.
"Never imagined to meet you again at such a place."
Still no answer. Despite that, he knew that the other one knew who he was. Already had before he had even decided to speak to him.
"I see, you are wearing your glasses this time. Are you still seeing more than most others do?"
An unreadable expression got fixed at him. Like the first time they met, it was neither dismissive and cool nor was it especially friendly. It was, well…him. The exactly same expression as with he'd been watching him with before.
Finally pale lips parted for an answer.
"Yes…and no."
The boy frowned a bit. "Your answers haven't lost their clarity." The black-haired youth tilted his head in a way that read ´Why are you asking then, in the first place?´. The redhead smirked. Just like he had remembered him.
"Im Schuldig. You?"
„Schuldig...For what?"
Grinning, the redhead shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno. Ask the others, I'm sure they'll find some reasonable answers." The raven-haired one nodded.
They didn't let them keep their names there. Actually, they erased their names from their memories and replaced them with more fitting ones. Or at least with what they considered ´more fitting´.
"You haven't answered my question yet."
"…Bradley Crawford."
The one called guilty stared at him, his mouth hanging open.
"You…remember? You remember your real name?!" The other one –Crawford- gave him a nonchalant look.
"Of course I do."
There he had noticed it for the first time. The constant humming of thought that made the constant back ground in his head… he was not with them. Bradley Crawford was no part of them. Instead he radiated something akin to silence of himself, something that was far more deafening that anything he'd even heard.
It was like the deafening, though incomplete silence that followed particular loud rolls of thunder…
That day Schuldig asked the one named Brad Crawford if he could come with him. The American had just turned and let the way.
Schuldig had also asked something else.
"Hey, since your name's Bradley may I call you Braddy?"
"No."
Schuldig smirked. "Okay. ...Braddy."
***
He had enough. He had so enough of all of it! Enough of the violence, the killing, the noise in his head…Of Crawford! He had come to call the other Crawford by now, having learned that the precognitive didn't stand anybody calling him Braddy or any other form of his given first name… He hated him!!
First the German had been attracted by the elusive seer. The other had been like a unsolved mystery calling for and mocking him every time he laid eyes on him. And like a little child Schuldig had eagerly accepted the challenge. Dived in and tried to solve whatever secret might been hidden there, going deeper and deeper, giving himself up to the American in his eagerness… Just to find that there was nothing here.
After long years of living with him, learning with him, killing with him, -flirting- with him he had finally gotten to see the bottom of the others very existence – and found nothing. No shining secrets, no forbidden knowledge of something so great that it wasn't for human eyes, no stashed away deeds, nor dear held memories or regrets. Nothing.
He felt betrayed.
As if given a huge, richly ornamented and even more locked and secured chest with the promise that one could have whatever treasures were inside, if one would just get them. Yeah, that was like Crawford. Tall, impressive, somewhat intimidating….promising.
Crawford always seemed to be what others wanted to see him as. But nobody could ever see behind that first, carved surface. Nobody. Except Schuldig. He had carved for the hidden secret, dug deeper and deeper till his fingers were bleeding…. And he had finally reached his goal, had unlocked the last lock and opened the lid.
Just to see that there was nothing inside.
All his strains had been in vain. Wasted.
And Crawford had known all the time!!!
He had known what Schuldig had been longing for, what he had been searching. After all he himself had given him the baits, never fully telling what he knew and always leaving that vague hint that he actually knew more… He had been laughing at him! All the time, when they had finished a job, had…Always!!
The Oracle looked briefly up from his computer's screen as he heard the door slamming. Watching the redhead pacing through the room, throwing together his belongings he raised a fine eyebrow in question. His honey-brown eyes kept wearing that annoying mildly bored expression, though. As if he knew. Hell, if Schuldig wouldn't know better he would've sworn that he really already knew. But he didn't! It was all just a giant fake for the sake of making fun of him! Like he always did. Schuldig barely restrained himself from attacking the other man just then and there.
"What are you doing?"
The tone of the question was mild, maybe a bit disinterested, the voice deep, cool and smooth. Schuldig hated it.
"Packing my things, as you surely can see."
Crawford tilted his head slightly. No question why he was doing it or where he wanted to go.
It made Schuldig seethe just the more.
"Just for your information, I'm leaving!!! You and that all god-damn fucking Estet and Rosenkreuz and what-the-fuck else asses can stay where-"
"Fine."
"-and nothing you could do will…What?!"
Giving him a slightly annoyed glance, the black-haired one shrugged his shoulder, turning back to his screen. For once disinterest was clearly shown on his face. "You heard what said. Fine."
Schuldig started at him, mouth agape. Did he really…? Did he just say fine…?! A member of his team, a part of his life for the last years told him that he never wanted to have anything to do with him ever again…-and all he said was ´fine´?!
After a few minutes Crawford stopped typing. Giving him a brief glance over his shoulders, he rose an eyebrow at him. "Didn't you say that you wanted to go…?"
Still wide-eyed, Schuldig couldn't bring himself to muster more than a weak nod, accompied with a undefined "Uh…"
The American turned back to his screen. "Then why are you still standing here?" The typing resumed again.
Schuldig stood by the door, staring at the others back. ´Then why are you still standing here?´ It hadn't been a real question. And it was all he got. Then why are you still here…
Unable to form any comprehensive thoughts, he open the door and exited quietly. He didn't even have the power left to slam it.
If you feel you've loved me in vain
Why not relieve your guilty love affairs
In the warm breeze you will cryAgain and again
That's fate for a criminal
All that was long past by now. I had long by returned, realising that I only hurt myself that way. Smiling, I gently run my finger through his raven-coloured locks. Now. Now I finally understood. Why he had come to me that day, when it had rained as if the skies themselves were crying…
In some back part of my mind I had always been thinking that you had came that day to get me, to claim me as some part of that unknown game you constantly kept playing. But I was wrong.
It had not been out of malice. And also not out of calculation or something like that. That wasn't what had made you come and take me with you. No. You had come searching for something.
Consolation.
You had been seeking for consolation. For somebody else who was like you but wasn't. From the very beginning on I have been everything you weren't – I still am. That is it what made you come. Our utter difference. It is what makes you special, as well as it makes me.
Toying with a stray strand of your hair, I remember the day it happened. The day you came for me. Not with force or persuasion, no. You just came.
And that is what made me follow you.
No one but me in this cold place
I will love you and serve you, criminal
That's your final consolation
Now hang on to me, in the cynical world
~Fin~
Notes: As you all know, I don´t own Weiss Kreuz. This story contains lyrics of the song ´Cynical World´ by Yuki Kajiura was written for the Cynical World challenge. I hope you liked it. Please be so kind and leave a review, ne? ´`´`