Warnings: much more shonen-ai implications, yaoi references, lots of swearing, and Farfarello hunting deer. Scary, huh?
Weiss Season III
Episode Three:
The 'Enchanted' Forest
Yoji sneered at her. "We're professionals."
She took a step towards him, eyes flashing. "Yeah, well, so are they, pretty boy! So until we've hacked out their plans, you need to sit down and shut up!"
Tei covered her mouth and made a coughing noise. Ken glared at the newcomer defensively. Who the hell was she to talk to them like that? Farfarello, Nagi, and Aya eyed her impassively, Crawford appreciatively, and Schuldig appreciatively, though in a very different way than his teammate. Yoji was furious and humiliated, and Omi felt bad for him. Even if the older man's punch was already forming quite a bruise on his jawbone.
"Alright. Let's go," said Aya, turning and walking back to his car. Ken and Tei followed him, and the Schwartz members (except Schuldig) went to their car. Yoji gave both Omi and Miry a very near impression of Aya's 'Shi-ne Glare,' before getting into the backseat of the car.
Schuldig climbed in on the other side, looking out the window at Omi and Miry.
"She's something, isn't she?" he purred, playing on Yoji's jealous, embarrassed fury.
"I don't care what she is to him. He's not part of our team anymore, and I don't want anything to do with him!" hissed the blonde.
"Oh, but I'm sure you'd like to do something with him," smirked Schu, sending a vague image of the two men kissing furiously, naked, pressed against a wall.
Yoji glared at him. "Stay out of my head, Mastermind, or I'll cut yours off!"
Omi got into the drivers' seat, and Miry into the passenger side. The boy sighed and started the car, cutting off the argument between Schuldig and Yoji quite effectively.
"As a service to humanity, I'm not letting Miry drive," he said, with a faint grin.
The girl glowered at him. "Bite me, Omi. I'm not driving because I don't have a Japanese drivers' license," she grumbled.
"And thank God for that!" said Omi cheerfully.
"I'll set you on fire if you don't shut up, genki-boy."
Schu smirked. "Why don't you have a Japanese license? Don't you know how to drive?" he asked, pleasantly enough. Especially considering it was Schuldig.
"I have a license, it's just an American license. Everyone drives on the wrong side of the road over here," she complained.
Yoji snorted. "Gaijin."
"Yeah, but I'm a citizen of the most economically powerful country on earth."
"And I'm a citizen of the second most powerful country. What's your point?" snapped the blonde irritably.
"And people think I have a bad temper. You know, I think you were much cuter from a distance," she replied, running a hand absently through her tousled hair.
Startled, the blonde squinted at her. "Who are you?"
"Miriam Bennet-Smith. Miry for short," she answered. "Who're you two?"
"I'm Yoji Kudou…" said the Japanese man.
"And I am Schuldig," said the red-haired telepath, smiling hungrily at her.
"The Guilty One, eh?" Her next words were in German, a language that Omi and Yoji knew precious little of, but the other man grinned and they began conversing in that language, laughing.
"Well, they certainly hit it off," muttered Yoji, eyeing the pair as they chattered away. "Now I know she's not to be trusted."
"And now I know you don't know shit, Yoji," said Omi, jumping to her defense. "If you knew Miry like I do, you'd know that she's a lot better of a person than any one of us. She's clean. Pure. Innocent."
Schu and Miry were too preoccupied to hear them, which was best.
"She's not your lover, then what is she? Your fuck-buddy? And you just happen to be friends, too? Even I wouldn't sink that low, Omi," sneered the older man, staring cruelly into the rearview mirror at Omi's face.
"You really don't know anything, do you?" laughed the boy, bitterly. "There is nothing like that between us, at all."
At that moment, Miry suddenly turned. "Hey, Omittchi, I know you took a bag of your stuff, so when I left, I burned our apartment. Hope you won't miss the piece of crap," she said, with cheery sarcasm, before turning back to her new friend.
"You share an apartment with her? Share a bed, too, I bet. And wouldn't touch that sweet, innocent sleeping beauty, would you?" mocked Yoji.
Omi's hackles rose. "We are not like that! Not that it's any of your goddamned business!"
"Whatever you say, little bitch."
"Fuck you, Yoji. You're such a prick. You know, you're such a prick that I left to get away from you! I left because you're such a fucking prick!" yelled Omi, face flushing with rage.
The older man's green eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. "Left and went and found yourself some dominatrix pyro who burns the place when you're done, huh?"
Omi didn't have time to respond as Miry slammed her fist straight into Yoji's face.
"Sweetheart, Omi's right. You are a prick," she said. She looked at Omi. "Don't bother with him. Gods, I never knew you had such bad taste in men…"
Schu smirked and the girl winked at him.
Yoji was too stunned to reply, and the rest of the ride was silent, save for the soft German chatter of two passengers.
Crawford sighed, making Nagi look up from his laptop in the passenger seat.
"What is it, Crawford-sama?" asked the young man in his quiet, calm voice.
"Nothing, Naoe. Nothing."
The telekinetic smirked and exchanged glances with Farfarello in the rearview mirror. "Right. I'm sure."
The American man's eyes narrowed. "You'd do well to respect your leader, Prodigy."
Nagi rolled his eyes. "I'm a bit too old to call 'Prodigy,'" he responded.
"You're eighteen. Barely an adult."
Farfarello smirked in the backseat. "Was Nagi ever a child?"
Crawford glared, defeated.
The young man beside him shrugged. "If you don't want to tell us what's wrong with you, that's fine. Just don't take it out on us. Remember your rules: if you keep it in, you keep it all in."
The pre-cog gritted his teeth. Damn that boy! If only he hadn't been quite so perfectly attentive. In his own, odd, detached way.
Farf grinned. "Good work, Chibi Brad," he chuckled.
"If you must know, I was wondering why I didn't see that ambush coming," Crawford bit off, gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter. "Or why I didn't see any sign of that woman showing up."
"The pyro?" asked Nagi quietly, shutting his laptop. Great, a conversation.
"Yes, the pyrokinetic one. Omi's lover," snapped the American.
Farfarello grinned again, pausing from his incessant toying with his knife to look up. "Jealous, Crawford?"
The Schwartz leader's teeth clenched. "No, I am not jealous. Sex is not important right now. Our survival is, and the fact that my gift appears muddled is a sign that Kritker may have more on us that we realize."
Nagi frowned. "You have a point. Should we bring this up when we stop?"
Crawford shook his head. "No. If Weiss sees weakness in us, they could decide to kill us while we sleep. I would rather they fear us in ignorance."
Ken leaned his head back against his seat, thinking. A frown creased his brows and Tei's eyes snapped over to him from her position at the wheel.
"Thinking about that pyro friend of Omi's?" she asked in a monotone.
He started and glared at her. "Stay out of my head, Tei."
She shrugged. "Stay out of mine."
Aya raised his eyes up from their closed position to lock with Ken's in the mirror. "How did you survive that fire of Kase's?" he asked quietly.
Ken's eyes widened. "I—I don't know. I was knocked out, and—when I came to, everything around me was burned…"
The redhead smirked. "Looks like I'm not the only pyro in Weiss, huh?"
"You mean…?"
Tei nodded slightly. "It does explain a lot. Means it falls to you two to restrain her if she's out of control… Or Schwartz. Who gives a shit if they burn alive from touching her? You're the only ones that can touch her…"
Ken's temper flared. "Hey! Shut up, Tei!" he yelled, though a faint nervous sweat broke out on his forehead.
She smirked. "So, Aya, any idea where Crawford and Omi are leading us?"
They stopped, after several driver switches, around dawn, on top of Mount Fuji. There, they made a pathetic camp to rest at, with a fire tended by Miry. To Ken's eyes, it seemed that she was already quite attached to Schuldig, and he did not want to be near her while she was conversing with a telepath.
Tei slept so close to the fire that her skin glistened with a layer of sweat, with a Sai in her hand and another beneath her 'pillow' (a crumpled up coat). Aya slept as near to her as she would let him, which meant they both collapsed after a long argument. Ken looked on at his friends sadly for a moment, before glancing up to see Farfarello watching them with a faintly mad gleam to his amber-gold eye.
Nagi was curled up, looking almost innocent in sleep, next to the Irish psycho. Crawford, on the other side of the boy, gave Farfarello a look before shutting his eyes slightly. After a moment, the silver-haired man slept as well. Feeling a bit more at ease, Ken turned to see that Yoji was sleeping by the edge of their campsite, looking angry and uneasy, tossing and turning. Omi was curled up with his head in Miry's lap, her fingers absently stroking the archer's chocolate hair as her other hand wiped the black paint from her face with a damp cloth. Surprisingly, she was rather pretty, in an exotic, Western way. And blonde. Her hair was blonde now, with fire-red streaks, as opposed to the other way around.
Schuldig looked up at the athlete, jade eyes flashing faintly, and smirked. After a moment, the pyro beside him followed suit, blinking.
"Why don't you come sit here with us if you're not sleepy?" she offered, motioning him over with her rag.
He frowned. "How did you meet Omi, anyway?" he asked warily, walking over slowly.
She grinned. "Same apartment building. We were across the hall from each other, and then it turned out we worked for the same Nazis, when I got transferred to bein' his secretary." Her pronunciation at the end of words was deliberately sloppy, but only faintly so, making her American-ness all the more apparent.
"You're just a secretary?"
She snorted. "Yeah. Damn troublesome, too. Always emailin' him Internet quizzes and obnoxious shit like that. Pissed off our superiors, but no one can win an argument with me, so…" She quirked the corner of her mouth up and let her voice trail off.
"Okay…"
Schuldig sighed and pulled a flask from his inside jacket pocket, taking a swig. Immediately, the woman beside him held out her hand, demanding a sip of her own.
"Uh, is that a good idea?" asked Ken, sitting down. "You might, like, explode…"
She laughed. "Ah, sweetie, I'm immune to explosions. Well, not the concussive force, or the debris, but the dangerous bit…"
Schu shook his head and stuffed it back in his jacket, earning a glare from his new friend. Ken shook his head as well, but for a different reason. This girl obviously had little regard for her personal safety. A daredevil, probably a show-off, and basically what he'd come to think of as the cliché of Americans.
"Tell us, Ken, have you ever done something just for the rush of it?" said Schuldig with a smirk.
The brunette man scowled. "When I was younger, yeah."
"And how old are you, anyway?" persisted the telepath.
"Twenty-two," he said, gritting his teeth.
"I'm twenty-five," smiled Schu. "About the age my mother expected me to marry…" He sighed and exchanged glances with Miry, who burst out laughing as she tried to scrape paint from the area beneath her eyes.
"What has that got to do with anything I'd give a shit about?" demanded Ken, exasperated. He crossed his arms.
The German shrugged. "Just trying to get to know you better, is all. You ride a motorcycle, right?"
The pyro beside him tensed, her hand clenching faintly around the cloth. "Bikes are dangerous," she said tersely. Schuldig put a hand on her shoulder, comforting.
Ken sighed. "Yes, I've crashed on mine before. Your point?"
"Everyone does foolish things. Especially when they're young. Miry, you are… eighteen? Is that right?"
She nodded. "Eighteen going on twelve-year-old boy or fifty-something singleton, I can't decide," she answered sarcastically.
Ken raised a brow. "You mean… you're not with Omi?"
She laughed. "You do realize he's gay, right?"
The soccer player blinked. No, he hadn't realized that. He'd just assumed that any man so close to a girl as pretty and straightforward and unique as Miry would at least try to get into her pants. It hadn't occurred to him that Omi wouldn't, because Omi wasn't interested in women.
"Surprised?" asked Schu with an unpleasant smile.
Ken swallowed. He didn't like that look. Something bad was coming; he knew it. "I hadn't figured Omi for that type…" he confessed.
Miry smiled. "We've slept in the same bed for going on four months now, and believe me when I say it didn't go past sleepin'."
"Uh…"
Schuldig chuckled. "Could you trust Ken here like that?" he asked her, eyes gleaming nastily.
She flushed and swatted at his head. Ken, too flushed and growled, "Shut up!"
The German's grin widened rottenly. "Tension, tension. And you two just met!"
"Slut," muttered the pyro wryly, pulling out a cigarette and holding her index finger up to it, a tiny flame emitting from her fingertip. "Not everyone is like you, ya know. Some of us are embarrassed by your hentai comments."
Looking like the Cheshire cat from Alice In Wonderland, Schuldig said, "Judging by the stream of thoughts and images in both your minds, you two aren't."
The flame on her fingertip flared and she pointed at his nose. "You. Out. Of. Head."
Ken, wishing he could actually create fires, gave a Shi-ne Glare that said 'same over here.'
"Oh, you two are such dullards. How am I to have any fun?" complained the telepath.
Miry pointed at Omi, then over at Yoji. Ken nearly fainted. Yes, he was utterly and completely blind. He'd never noticed it. Their fight was about more than just Weiss. They'd started throwing punches because of their own, personal issues.
Schuldig chuckled. "You're a vicious bitch, aren't you?"
She shrugged and leaned back against the log they sat before. "You could say that."
Ken watched reached out cautiously and touched her on the nose. Her eyes crossed as she looked at his finger, and a small flush lined across both their noses.
"Uh, sorry. I just wanted to see if touching your skin would burn me," he muttered, pulling his hand back, as though he had been burned.
She giggled. "My skin is hotter than a normal person's… but it doesn't become superheated until I'm either extremely pissed or usin' my power at such strength that I can't divert energy to keeping it cool."
Curious, Schuldig leaned over and kissed her cheek. She jumped and stared at him, eyes wide and startled as he chuckled.
"Just testing! You feel like you've a terrible fever, liebchen," he said.
She shrugged. "Yeah. My body temp is about forty Celsius."
Ken's eyes widened. "Forty? That would get you sent to a hospital!" he cried.
"Believe me, it's happened." She turned and looked at the telepath. "And watch your mouth. In every sense."
"No fun at all. You're just as bad as Brad, honestly. All Americans do have sticks up their butts!" sniffed the German, crossing his arms.
Ken sighed. "Your idea of fun is pretty fucked up, Schuldig."
The other man shrugged. "But it's how I have fun!" he grinned.
Everyone was pissed by evening, when they awoke. They were stiff from sleeping on the ground, against logs, or whatever. They were hungry, they were being chased by a bunch of SWAT agents, and they were being forced to work with their enemies. Not to mention that there wasn't anything to eat.
No one noticed Farfarello grab Nagi by the collar and haul him off into the woods, away from the arguing and shouting. The younger man choked and yanked away, but Farf took hold of his wrist and kept marching onwards, steadily. While the boy was perfectly capable of using his powers to leave the Irishman hanging by his underwear from a high tree limb, he decided to just go along with the flow for the moment.
"What are we doing, Farf?" he asked in a blandly questioning tone.
"Hunting," replied the psychopath, pausing to sniff at the air.
"Uh, Farf?"
"Shh. Don't frighten the animals," hissed the silver-haired man, clamping his free hand over the telekinetic's mouth. With a mental yank, Nagi removed it.
"Why are you sniffing the air?"
The older boy looked at him, frowning faintly as though he was surprised Nagi didn't understand. "Looking for the animals," he explained patiently.
"I know that. Why do you think your sense of smell can actually locate them?" sighed the exasperated brunette.
Farf tugged on his arm and they started up, following a game trail before the Irishman stopped, drawing them into an outcropping of bushes. Nagi repressed his urge to shake the other man as hard as he could.
An amber eye settled on his face and he raised one eyebrow disinterestedly. "You freeze it, then I'll kill it. Wait for a deer."
"How do you even know a deer will come through here?"
Farfarello smiled his eerie smile. "I know…"
Nagi sighed and settled onto his butt in the dirt, waiting for something to happen, and knowing that this was not going to be fun in the least.
Review. I really want to know what folks think of my Farf-and-Nagi-go-kill-animals thing. Personally, I am highly amused by it, but I'm a crazy sicko, so that's to be expected.
Upcoming: Omi and Nagi discuss sex (oooooh) and Omi and Yoji fight even more. Plus, see the horrifying Sculdig on…. "'Coffee. He drank about a pot of coffee at the last rest stop.'" But only for a little while.
