Disclaimer: I don't own Weiss Kreuz. I also don't own the song bits at the beginning of each chapter. They are all from various Something Corporate songs.
A/N: just some bits. I'm sorry if the progression of Yohji and Schu's relationship seems out of whack but this part of the story is merely background and I want to get to the proper action already! I'm sure you all do too. Also my laptop is dead (the screen fell off!) so this isn't the chapter three I originally wrote and some of those scenes I left out will appear in the upcoming (I swear!) chapter four. Anyway please enjoy!
The Rising Tide
Chapter Three
"I'll never tell you what's all in my head"
Burnt Vacant Red – Something Corporate
Seven's steering wheel was cold, a comfort to Yohji's too warm forehead. He could hear his own breathing and it seemed to him obnoxiously loud in the silence of the garage. Just lift your head, Yohji, he thought, lift your head, open the door, up the steps, pass out in your bed. He couldn't make himself move. Instead he listened to his own breathing.
The car door swung upon with startling force. Yohji opened one eye slowly. Aya was a frightening figure towering over him as he was. Sexy too. Yohji laughed. He might have giggled. Aya's face twisted into a sneer.
"What are you doing down here?" Aya hissed.
Yohji rolled his head along the steering wheel cover. "Can't get up."
"You're drunk," Aya accused as though that wasn't obvious. His eyes looked menacing in the garage lit up only by Seven's headlights, a deep purple judgmental glow. "Get up! We're supposed to be prepared for a mission at any time. How do you expect to do your job like this?"
"You're a heartless bastard Ran Fujimiya," Yohji slurred weakly. Still his words hit their mark; the blonde knew all too well that Aya found the use of his real name offensive. His expression turned dark, his body tensed and Yohji truly thought that his former lover was going to hit him, but the moment passed. Aya's face was again stony.
"And you're nothing but a slut Yohji Kudoh."
Yohji finally lifted his head, laughed a loud jarring hollow bark of a laugh. Did Aya honestly think that would hurt him? That was the least of Yohji's sins. "You certainly never complained about that did you, baby?"
Yohji moved to wrap his arms around his ex-lover's waist, but Aya leapt away as though he feared the other man's touch. Yohji supposed he did.
"That's over now. You're weak, Yohji. I could never love someone like you."
Those words echoed in Yohji's head, first in Aya's voice then in Asuka—Neu's. He wanted to make them stop those voices, those hurtful accusations and before he knew it the sound of wire leaving his watch, Aya's startled gasp, and the sound of their bodies hitting the garage wall drowned out the voices. There was something beautiful in how quickly Aya's face was turning blue.
"Yohji! Stop it!" Yohji jumped at the voice from behind him. There Schuldig was, standing in front of Seven, his arms outstretched. "Don't."
Yohji turned back, saw Aya's body, unconscious and crumpled at his feet. "No," he mumbled, looking to the blood the garroting wire had drawn from being wrapped around his bare hands. "I-I--"
"You didn't. Yohji," Schuldig walked over to the Japanese man, pulled him into his arms, shielding him from what he had done. "It's okay."
The garage, Seven, Aya's body, all melted away, became the expensive hotel room they'd been sharing for the past week.
When Yohji's senses returned to him he was aware that he was standing in the middle of the room, yards away from the bed he'd been sleeping in and far too close to his enemy.
"Are you alright?"
Yohji could not answer. Schuldig sighed.
"How did I get over here?" Yohji's voice was rough from lack of use; he hadn't had much to say over the last few days.
"You were sleepwalking." Schuldig led him back to the crumpled bed, urged him to sit on its edge.
"You were in my dream," Yohji mumbled, running a hand agitatedly through his hair. Schuldig picked up a pack of cigarettes from the night stand, offered the blonde one, took one for himself, lit them both with hands that shook slightly.
"I know. It was the only way to wake you up."
"Shit." The expletive came out with a puff of smoke and was followed by a rough cough. Yohji tugged at his own hair, a habit he had when he was upset at himself.
"That wasn't all a nightmare was it?"
"I don't know." Yohji shook his head forcefully as if dispelling the images from his head. "I don't remember anymore."
Schuldig straightened up, stared at the blonde man before him appraisingly. Their eyes met, emerald and jade, and Yohji was the first to look away. He felt as though Schuldig could see all of his deepest, darkest secrets, a rather redundant feeling to have when one was in the midst of a telepath.
"So you got on Abyssinian's bad side, huh?"
The only answer was silence, underscored by Yohji's rough breathing, a souvenir from Tokyo Bay.
"I thought you were lovers."
'We were,' a stray thought Schuldig supposed he wasn't meant to pick up.
"I'm not really an expert on the matter but I don't think that's how you treat someone you love," Schuldig said, perhaps too snidely.
"Drop it, Mastermind," Yohji hissed.
"Fine," Schuldig held up his hands in acquiescence. He ground out his cigarette in an ashtray that between the two men was already overflowing.
Schuldig had retrieved the cigarettes as well as the simple clothes both of them were wearing a few days earlier. He had left his kitten in the hotel room alone, assured by Brad that he would not try to escape. However, what the precog had not warned him about was how Yohji would react to waking up to find himself alone. The events of that day were not something either man wanted to talk about, but Schuldig was sure he would never forget the sight that greeted him upon returning from his errands.
Apparently Yohji had actually intended to escape, but he had only gotten as far as the doorway before he'd broken down. It had taken ages to calm down the hysterical blonde who seemed convinced that Schuldig was not real, but only an apparition, one of the many ghosts that plagued him. It had taken even longer to untangle him from his own wire and to clean up the resulting blood. Remnants of it still stained the white walls. But now Schuldig knew that for whatever reason Yohji could not leave him.
Since then wherever Schuldig went within the hotel room, Yohji's eyes followed him and he began to look less like a caged animal and more simply intrigued. At night when the nightmares came Yohji seemed almost to expect Schuldig to hold him and Schuldig was all too happy to comply.
"What're you doing?" Yohji croaked, watching warily as Schuldig moved about the room, collecting the few items they'd accumulated.
"Packing," Schuldig answered. "I've found a place for us. We're checking out."
Yohji nodded slowly, seemed almost pleased with this news.
"Mastermind?"
"Schuldig," the German corrected.
"Mastermind," Yohji repeated stubbornly.
"What?" Schuldig demanded, looking up with irritation.
"Where are my sunglasses?"
Schuldig could have screamed at the absurdity of that question. "Oh, I don't know!" he replied bitingly. "Maybe they fell off when I was saving your goddamn life, you ungrateful asshole!"
"Oh," Yohji replied and Schuldig could feel the waves of disappointment from all the way across the room.
'Jesus,' Schuldig thought, 'all this for a pair of sunglasses.' Without thinking Schuldig yanked off the sunglasses that he usually kept perched on his head over his bandana. He tossed them at Yohji more forcefully than necessary. "Wear those."
Yohji caught them adeptly, turning them around in his hands a moment, examining them, before putting them on the tip of his nose. He gazed thoughtfully at the other man over the frames.
The change was almost immediate and even if Schuldig hadn't been a mind reader he would have noted the sudden transformation in Yohji. With the glasses on he suddenly seemed more confident and he rose from the bed less the cowed broken man Schuldig had observed for the past week and more the suave playboy assassin he had been before.
"Thank you, Mastermind." It sounded like he was thanking him for more than just the sunglasses. Yohji offered a small sheepish smile and Schuldig was not sure if the sudden burst of affection he felt was his or Yohji's. He suspected it was a mix of both.
"Dammit. Call me Schuldig." He reached up to smooth an errant strand of Yohji's blonde hair, a habit he'd realized he'd grown quite fond of.
"Schuldig," Yohji attempted slowly. The word sounded awkward and foreign in his mouth. "Schuldig."
"It means guilty," the German supplied and after he said it he wondered why he did.
Yohji frowned at that, ghosted a hand over his left shoulder where the other man knew the word "sin" was etched into his skin forever. Maybe they understood each other better than they thought.
"You can call me, Yohji," the blonde supplied, taking a slow step towards him.
Schuldig laughed. "I already do."
"Thank you, Schuldig," Yohji murmured again, he leaned forward, pressed his lips gently, tentatively to the other man's. The kiss turned fierce, passionate, dangerous.
Schuldig was the first to pull away. He caught his own upset reflection in the sunglasses. This was not right.
"Abyssinian was wrong, Yohji. You're not a slut. You don't need to do this." Schuldig felt sick, frustrated. He didn't want Yohji like this.
The Japanese man frowned deeply. The playboy mask dissolved just as quickly as it had come. Yohji shook his head, turned to walk away but surprising himself, Schuldig pulled him into an embrace just as he had in Yohji's dream.
'What am I doing?' Schuldig asked himself. He was frightened by his own actions. He had rescued Yohji from drowning to keep as his own personal sex toy. And now, well now he didn't know what he was doing.
"Am I going crazy?" Schuldig jumped as Yohji's muffled question mirrored so closely his own feelings. 'This must be how people feel when I respond to their thoughts,' he considered, bemused.
"No," Schuldig said, hoping he sounded reassuring. "No you're not."
"I should be trying to kill you," Yohji moaned, "I should be trying to escape. But I can't, I can't. I have no where to go. You're all I have. But you're my enemy."
"I'm not. I'm not your enemy anymore." And Schuldig held him tighter. His heart sank at that word, 'enemy.' Would he always be Yohji's enemy? He needed so much more than that.
"You're not crazy, Yohji," he assured him. 'But am I?' Schuldig was glad he was the telepath in this situation; he was afraid of how Yohji would react if he could sense the feelings of love threatening to take over the German's conscious.