Disclaimer: I don't own Weiß Kreuz. Isn't that good enough?

Warnings: Angst?, Weird plot bunnies, mention of violence.

Summary: How long can one be hidden before someone will find them?

Notes: Araaa... I have NO idea where this came from. Unfortunately for everyone, my muses wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. So here's my latest venture into the world of writing Weiss.

Found

by DragonSoul

I am falling,

I am fading,

I am drowning,

Help me to breathe...

-Boa, Duvet (Serial Experiments Lain.)

He hated the institute.

Hated the cold fluorescent lights, hidden behind Plexiglas plates. Hated the intruding scent of antiseptic and cleaner which is always evident in facilities such as that. Hated the muted sounds of the other patients that filtered through his door, the screams and moans that he couldn't ignore, no matter how long her stayed there. Hated the nondescript clothing he was forced to wear. Hated the doctors, psychologists and orderlies with their pitying gazes. Hated the voices in his mind that were the reason he was in there.

And most of all, he hated the people who put him in there. His teammates, friends, coworkers, family.

Betrayed by them. Drugged and carried to that sterile facility, to be locked away, poked and prodded, tested time and again. Because they loved him, they said, the first and last time they had visited. What was love when it meant abandoning one of their own?

He wasn't insane. Far from it. Even the doctors admitted that. He could be out of there if only he'd admit that the dead didn't haunt him, that he didn't hear voices in his head. But he didn't lie often and didn't want to now.

In his last few months of freedom, missions had come fast and furious, one after the other. If he could, he'd either turn them down or take look out, not wanting to kill or maim. When he couldn't, he nearly became a casualty of the mission, refusing to take another life and screaming in pain when ever someone, be it team mate or foe, was wounded.

He stopped working in the shop, the press of minds on his own sending into a catatonic state. He could no longer stand to be touched either, the contact shattering what ever mental barriers he managed to erect. He had retreated into himself, his only protection from the rest of the world and it's minds.

Then he had woken up there, in a room that smelled faintly of urine despite the heavy mask of antiseptic, in that small room with the tiny window and the bed covered with a plastic casing that crackled every time he sat or lay on it. Had woken up stretched out on that bed, lying beneath the nondescript sheets that smelled too much of bleach and other things unmentionable, wearing the loose uniform that seemed to be what all the patients wore, whether they wanted to or not.

They came to see him two days later, having left him to fade into his surroundings for two days before they deemed to grace his life with their presence. One was tearful, the other two resolute. They said they were sorry, but they couldn't put up with his silences and fear anymore, said that he'd be taken care of there. He took this in quietly, not listening to their words but their minds, amusing himself by watching their thoughts. They all vowed to visit.

Then they left, left him alone in that sterile white room with the cold artificial lights shining down on him from fluorescent tubes hidden behind plastic, too far above his reach for him to touch, to shatter.

A week went by. Then a month. Three. They never returned. Most likely dead. This, he took all in stride.

For good behavior he was given a package or washable markers and told to do what he wished with them. Briefly he wondered what would happen if he used them in an inappropriate manner, briefly contemplated do just that. But he judged against it and turned to the walls. Random words and phrases began to cover the smooth white expanses, neat, elegant script flowing over them in multicolored ink, the raucous hues not detracting from what he had to pen. He wrote of his life, detailing every bloody encounter with targets, every heated argument with his teammates. He wrote of his past loves and ones he hoped to have, of a woman he had loved and lost to death twice and of a man who would never love him back. He wrote of things beyond imagining, places where miracles happened everyday and nightmares came to life, of inexplicable actions and enemies that couldn't be defeated. And every week the walls were cleaned, only to be refilled with that same neat flowery script.

He tormented the other patients, slipping into their minds and stirring their insanities, answered the questions that were posed to him before they were ever spoken, and delighted in the confusion that lit in the psychologist's eyes.

Drugs were added to his food and his took it in stride, knowing it meant that he was either truly going insane, or that the doctors were running out of reasons to keep him there.

Then one of the orderlies made the mistake of believing that he wouldn't mind being used as a conduit for sex. He had disposed of the idiot quickly and efficiently, cleanly snapping his neck in a cold and calculated manner. After that he was moved down a few floors, from his familiar little room with the writing on the walls, into another room, with dark gray paint that flaked. They locked him in and forgot about him, except the kindly, fifty some year old woman who brought him his food. He grew to love that old lady, to wait anxiously for that gentle countenance, even though they had never made contact beyond her unlocking the door and setting his tray on the floor next to the opening. But he was without grief when she stopped appearing and was replaced with another run of the mill, blank faced orderly.

His appointments with the psychologists ceased as he lapsed into obscurity.

A year and a half had gone by and they had not returned. He stopped caring. They were most definitely dead by now, destroyed by the same profession that had led to the awakening of his new telepathic ability.

And they ceased to be family, friends, coworkers or teammates.

He grew to know his cell inch by inch, memorizing where every paint chip or crack in the wall was located. He began stirring up the patients in the floors above him, setting them against the doctors and watching in something that approached amusement as several people died in the mutiny, souls joining him down in the tiny gray cell.

He lost track of time, days blurring together and memories disintegrating as his life lost meaning. He must have attempted suicide because the next time he was aware of his surrounding, he was wrapped in a straight jacket.

Two years gone and by now they were most likely rotting in their graves.

One day the minds of those in the institute disappeared one by one or in droves, souls shrieking past him but not lingering as he wasn't responsible for their deaths. Only four other people besides himself remained alive with in the facility, One cold and black, one apathetic, one neutral and one truly insane. They burned in his mind, the only ones left, and he was called to them like a moth to a flame. They shimmered with the same type of ability that he had, that which was not natural.

The door of his cell opened, a familiar form lounging in the doorway, shining green eyes hidden behind flaming red hair appraising him. Whether this man and the ones behind him were friend or foe did not matter. They would understand him. His family was dead, having never kept their promise to visit, and so he would go with these people if that is what they wished for him.

A nasal voice interrupted his thoughts, a sarcastic greeting drawled out from between smirking lips.

"Hello, katschen. Fancy meeting you here."

And for the first time since he had been admitted, Kudou Yoji smiled, returning the smirk with one of his own and an arched brow, ignoring the greeting and getting straight to the point. "I guess this means I've been found?"

~*~

Ja, I know that was short and weird, but I had this in my mind while I was typing Opal and it begged to be written, pissing me off to no end since I -had- to get that typed up.

And CW, I'm trying to work on Cry, really I am. March Break's this week so if you email me and pester me enough, I'll probably have chapter 6 written by the end of the week.

Oh, I'm still looking for Farf's coat by the way.