Hm... I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. Except that I think if it and the previous chapter were put together, it might actually make a decent sized chapter! Let me know your thoughts. Oh, and sorry. I swear this story has a plot, and I'll get to it. Until then... enjoy the angst?

Weiss is still not mine... TT-TT

Chapter 3—Pearls That Were His Eyes

When Schuldig first awoke after his late-night flight through the city, he had been burning up, freezing, starving and nauseous all at once. He had nearly passed out trying to sit up, and had discovered that he had done significant damage to himself. His pulse throbbed through blistered hands, and every muscle in his body burned and trembled when he moved. His nails were broken and cracked, and even as he was sitting still, head clouded and slightly confused he nearly collapsed again as his abs attempted to rest themselves after the long run and heavy burden he had endured.

Then he had looked over at Brad, and completely forgotten about any complaints he would have made. The other man was in agony, and shivering so hard it looked more like he was convulsing. Schuldig's body moved without thought or effort after that as he stripped his leader to bare skin to take in the full damage done to him. Fierce cuts, vivid red against pale skin, ran across his torso and shoulders, and livid bruises covered his entire form. The wound on his head which had caused the concussion had bruised so heavily that it reached around to trace his eyebrow. Both of his eyes were blackened, and the right one had a small piece of glass from his lost monocle lodged underneath it.

It was, in Schuldig's unique way of putting it to himself, a cluster-fuck. He didn't even have the most basic of medical supplies, and the man before him looked on the brink of death. With a touch, Schuldig found Brad's skin to be clammy, and over heated. He added fever to his mental checklist of Things Wrong With Brad. The number one place was reserved for "fucking bad judgment." For the millionth time, Schuldig wondered what the use of having a precognitive was if he couldn't keep himself out of trouble.

Cutting short his self pity, Schuldig searched himself to find what weapons he had remaining. It was a dismally limited selection. He had the dented gun he had lifted in the rubble, with only three bullets remaining, and the small knife Brad kept on his person at all times. He used the knife to cut a large chunk out of one of the under sheets on the bed. There were always too many of them anyhow, in his personal opinion. Brad gave a rasping choke and cough that spurred Schuldig out of his thoughts again. Cursing himself for loosing focus while his teammate lay dying, Schuldig quickly ran the tepid sink water over the rag, grabbed every one of the disposable soap bars, and set straight to cleaning out Brad's injuries.

It was unpleasant, difficult work. When conscious, Brad Crawford could sit silent through the most brutal of torture, but unconscious and injured, he was only a human, and the little whimpers of pain that escaped him tore at Schuldig. As he worked, it was quickly becoming obvious that his scanty equipment was severely lacking, and that his body would not hold out much longer against exhaustion and hunger without augmentation. Schuldig cursed quietly to himself, because he was running out of options, and already short on time.

With a moan, the telepath realized there was no way he could leave Brad alone, which meant he would have to call the food to him. With a grimace, Schuldig ripped open the boundaries around his mind separating himself from society, and hijacked the mind of the first take-out delivery boy he could find. It was stunningly simple to change his destination to the hotel they were hidden in. It would not be so easy to blank his mind of their presence afterwards without leaving Esset a trail.

Setting aside his concerns for the boy's arrival, Schuldig carefully cut out more strips of the sheet with shaking hands and carefully bound Brad's newly-cleaned wounds. The smell of iron and cement coating Brad was getting to him, and making him dizzier than he had been before, so as soon as the worst of the injuries were taken care of, and before he tackled the piece of glass so close to that eye, Schuldig wiped Crawford down as thoroughly and briskly as he could. It was not as difficult as it normally was to tune out Brad's nakedness. Schuldig had never gone for the bruised and battered look, and it didn't suit his leader in the slightest.

With a grimace, the telepath threw the dirtied, blood-stained rag in the trash and made a mental note to mess with the minds of a few cleaning ladies to smooth the blood-stains over. While he was between tasks, Schuldig leaned back on the bed and reflected on how very much work there was to be done. His chest ached, and his body was one radiating mass of pain. He let out a slow breath, reigning in his panic, which would do no good, and focusing briefly on his shields. They had, indeed, been damaged slightly by his misuse of his powers, and were leaking in the anxiety of the extremely pregnant woman next door. Schuldig mended the imaginary walls with a quick, practiced hand, and felt an immediate release of some of the tension. He could empathize with the woman to some degree. His everything hurt too.

Wearily, he stood once more and covered Brad with the thick, if old, comforter atop the bed. The man's color was still bad, but removing the dust had made a significant improvement. Schuldig was slightly more confident that the man would survive now that he could see his real coloration. He couldn't resist brushing the messy hair from Brad's face with a gentle hand, a faint smile touching his lips. It was no secret that Schuldig loved Brad, as much as he loved anything, and he had truly been afraid. He stroked his hand down a pale cheek, and watched the older man turn into it with a slight, rusty sigh.

When the someone knocked on the door, Schuldig jumped so hard he almost fell off the bed. A quick scan showed the delivery boy standing outside impatiently, laden with cheap Chinese food. Schuldig made sure his temporary gun was safely stowed in his belt before answering the knock. He made sure to have a firm grasp on the pimpled teen's consciousness before he opened the door fully. The kid would never remember seeing him. Schuldig relieved him of the food he carried and all the cash in his wallet. Out of habit, he took the credit card too, though he didn't plan to use it. It would be too easily traced. As he closed the door in the kid's face, he implanted a suggestion that he should go pick a fight, then remember only getting mugged. Well, Schuldig mentally amended, he would remember getting mugged if he survived.

Schuldig sat back on the bed, opened the first of six to-go containers, and began preparing for the long list of tasks ahead of him in the best way he could: eating lukewarm lo-mein.

-- --

Mamoru Taketori was an instantaneous success. He hardly even had to try. The public ate his story up. He was rich, handsome, and alone, the three things people loved most. He smiled for the cameras, took on an appropriately dark look when anyone asked him about his father's assassination, and laughed on the inside at how easy it was. At first, he had felt some guilt for leaving the remnants of Weiss to their own devices, but as each of them had gone their separate ways, and he had maintained silence it had gotten easier. The only one of them that would have really tried to keep him as Omi was still in the hospital, lost in his own mind.

The thought of Yohji still brought a distant sting to Mamoru's heart, but the man was better off without the memories of what he had gone through, and all of them knew it. That was why Ken had locked himself away in a prison rather than try to bring their Yohji back, and why Ran had disappeared from the blonde's bedside the moment the new Asuka stepped forward to love him. Even Mamoru didn't know where Ran had gone after that.

The only thing to upset the perfect fake life he had crafted for himself was Nagi Naoe, the young man who had been saved by Omi Tsukiono, and still drew what remained of Mamoru's alter-ego to the surface. Often, when Mamoru called Nagi in to speak with him, what he had intended to be a brief mission debriefing or meeting turned into passionate kisses that had nothing to do with business, and everything to do with linking the young telekinetic to his humanity. Omi had discovered very early in his friendship with the boy that Nagi was shattered on many levels, and had set himself to healing a lifetime of hurts in his new friend. He had come remarkably far, but Mamoru was quickly peeling away they scabs his former self had created.

In Mamoru's mind, which seemed to conveniently shut down when the handsome paranormal was nearby, the risk of these trysts was becoming too high. He had too many people working too closely with him to risk a scandal now. Being found lip-locked with another man would definitely cause a ruckus. Something inside him rebelled fiercely at the notion of excluding Nagi from his parody of a life, but the risk to the game he was playing was too great, so Mamoru took care of it. He had one of his secretaries phone his lover's private number and tell him that he was no longer a friend to Kritiker.

The entire downtown of Tokyo experienced a slight, unexplainable earthquake that day, but the newspapers reported only one man was injured cutting himself while he was shaving. There was a man wounded much more deeply, but no normal human on the planet could have found him. For all Kritiker could tell, Nagi Naoe disappeared off the face of the earth that day.

Free of his final distraction, Mamoru surrounded himself with work and powerful allies. Though he started out on the straight and narrow, he quickly discovered how easy it was to stop caring about morals in the face of simple corruption. The stronger his allies, the stronger he felt. Esset had always been the best of allies, and they had been keeping an eye on young, vulnerable Mamoru for quite some time.

-- --

Aya Fujimiya was the epitome of what every girl her age should be. She went to school, and was never late, she did all her homework, was friendly and open, and even held down a part-time job at a little flower shop. If every once in a while she balked from a reminder of the things she couldn't remember, no one held it against her. She was a little shy around older men, and showed a rather inexplicable distaste for all things German, but aside from a few new quirks, she was the same simple girl she had been all those years ago when she had fallen into her coma.

Anyone forced to observe her would have reported that it was the dullest assignment they had ever been handed, but no one was forcing Ran. He watched her with all his assassin's skill and none of the intent, both day and night. It made him feel sick inside to follow her so closely, but he couldn't bring himself to risk leaving her for too long. If something else happened while he wasn't there, he wasn't sure he'd be able to save her this time. And besides, even as masochistic as he was, even Ran felt that he'd lost enough recently.

If Aya noticed him, she never acknowledged the presence of a second shadow behind her. She was busy catching up on all that she had missed, and though her missing brother was never far from her thoughts, he was no longer the first thing she thought about each morning, or the last thing at night. That situation had neatly reversed itself. As Ran's obsession with watching over his baby sister grew, he couldn't help but get involved in her life in little ways. If she forgot to turn the water off at home before heading out to school, it would be off when she returned. If she lost a shoe, and had to wear a spare pair out, the missing twin would be neatly in its place when she returned.

Aya chalked it up to her recently increasing distraction. Some feeling of uneasiness pulled at her constantly from the corners of her awareness, and made her loose focus even more than other teenage girls prone to flights of fancy. Though no one else paid it any mind, Ran noticed, and worried. It was, after all, what he was best at. He had become all but a professional worrier in matters pertaining to Aya over the past few years. It had been a source of constant amusement for Yohji and Ken, and had given even Omi cause to smile once or twice.

When Manx approached him outside the Cat's Eye on a busy afternoon, Ran knew immediately something was about to change, because Manx did not break cover for any reason, and walking up to an ex-operative in the middle of the street was firmly in cover-breaking ground.

"Ran," she greeted absently, glancing around the street. Ran merely stared at her incredulously over the rims of his sunglasses. Manx chose to ignore the look and towed him behind her to a nook of a side street not far from the shop. When she turned to him again, it was not the gentle protector of Aya that faced him, but the stony woman who had presented them with tapes showing who they were to murder. Ran removed his sunglasses and scrutinized her.

"Should you be talking to me?" he asked, voice calm and low. The woman heaved a sigh and shifted her weight onto one hip, glancing him over briefly.

"You never change, Ran Fujimiya." She accused softly, all traces of the sensual purr she used to charm strangers gone from her voice. "Here I am sticking my neck out to help you, and you're worried about whether I'm breaking the Assassin's Code. Of which there isn't one." Ran's gaze never wavered. He was not one for small talk, and found the idea of being pulled away from his watch to discuss something so trivial as his personality deeply annoying. Manx appeared to pick up on his reticence, because she continued with barely a pause.

"Listen," she muttered, "I thought you needed to know. Omi…"

"Taketori." Ran corrected with venom in his voice. Manx heaved a sigh.

"We'll compromise on Mamoru. The point is, not everything is going as well as it seems inside Kritiker. A few of our more seasoned agents are worried that Mamoru may be falling in with… the wrong crowd." When she was greeted with yet another blank stare at this information, Manx had to smile. "Yes, you go ahead and scowl, Ran, but I know you. Whether he's Omi or not, Mamoru is still close to you. All I'm asking is that you consider giving him some support."

When Ran didn't respond, she added one final plea. "I'm not telling you this on Omi's behalf." She murmured, eyes suddenly distant and sad. "He'd fire me if he found out. It's only, there's already been talk of the company of mutiny, and I don't want to hand anyone a tape of Mamoru."

Manx turned out of the alley and walked back to her job as Aya's guard, but Ran stayed rooted in spot for a long time before finally urging himself into motion again. He did not go back to his stalker-esque lookout point across from the flower shop, but instead went back to the small apartment he had rented, packed away what few things he owned, and got ready to go back to Kritiker. Omi might have been dead to him, and Weiss might have been disbanded, but as far as Ran was concerned, Mamoru was a close second, and therefore still worthy of his help.

-- --

Brad opened his eyes to poor lighting and a furious telepath. He looked around briefly at the cheap, dingy wallpaper and sparse decorations, decided he was not quite in hell, and pulled in a tortured breath.

"So you saved Kudoh." He murmured. His voice was weaker than he had thought it would be, but understandable enough. Talking was an agony, though. His voice felt like it was being squeezed through sandpaper rather than his throat.

Schuldig stared blankly at him, relief and rage struggling for dominance. A thin smile crossed Crawford's face, but it didn't reach his golden eyes. They remained dilated and distant. With another slow intake of air, Brad worked up the energy to speak again.

"I'm sorry Schuldig," he said softly, a twist of discomfort coming across his face, though whether it was from pain or the apology eluded Schuldig, "I'll have to rely on you from here."

"You knew." Schuldig accused softly. Brad gazed blankly at him, and his silence was his answer. Schuldig turned to leave the room, but couldn't quite bring himself to. So he stood halfway to the door, with his back to the bed, staring at the garish hotel walls until he was certain he could speak without screaming.

"How much did you see?" he asked softly. When Crawford didn't respond, Schuldig turned to find him sleeping once more, breath rasping evenly in and out and brows furrowed. The telepath could have simply taken it from Crawford's mind, but the last time he had attempted to take such matters into his own hands had not turned out well.

Instead, he sunk down to sit on the edge of the mattress and put his head in his hands. It seemed that since he had entered the Epitaph building he had not ceased being exhausted. With reluctance, he widened his range of perception and began the strenuous trail of maintaining the fallacies he had implanted in the hotel staff. It was dull work, and could have waited, but Schuldig found it much easier to bear that tedium than ponder how much of their current situation Brad had known, and for how long he had been aware of it.