Warnings: mild violence, swearing, references to yaoi, shonen-ai
Weiss Season III
Episode Four
When the hunters returned from their little field day, Farfarello was covered in blood and Nagi looked ready to throttle his friend. Aya arched a brow at the deer carcass—the hacked up deer carcass—that hung in the air beside the telekinetic, and Schuldig burst out laughing. A spurt of blood shot at him, spattering his face and shirt, and a new fight broke out, which meant that Nagi let the deer drop to the dirt, no longer concentrating on it.
"Our dinner!" yelped Miry, glaring at the boy, but he didn't notice as he concentrated on holding Schuldig back from a furious attack. Crawford shook his head.
"We can drive into town and buy food," he said coolly.
"We have perfectly good food here!" snapped the girl.
"No way in hell am I eating some disease-ridden creature that Berserker caught!" yowled Yoji.
Farfarello bared his teeth at the blonde man, who bared his teeth back.
"Knock it off, you two," cut in Aya. "It's here, so we'll eat it. Does anyone know how to skin one of those?"
Farf volunteered, but he was shoved aside by Tei. "Right. Let you mutilate it some more? I don't think so," she said, catching the pocketknife that Miry tossed her and kneeling by the carcass.
Omi managed to break up Schu and Nagi, the former still seething and the latter smirking, and he looked at the now-blood-covered ninja woman beside the deer.
"Uh, what's going on?"
"You're new friends brought us dinner," sneered Yoji.
"Would you just shut up?" snapped Miry and Omi at the same time. Aya smirked at their perfectly synchronized response.
"How long have you two been together?" asked the redhead, amused.
Miry rubbed her temples in melodramatic exaggeration. "Okay, everyone, I am not with Omi!" she yowled.
The archer nodded, crossing his arms over his lean chest. "Yeah, for the record, I'm gay," he added.
Several people did a double take at this news.
"You are?"
"Omi?"
"Whatever."
"Seriously?"
"Why didn't you tell us?"
The boy deflected the comments and just shrugged. "It didn't come up. Besides, it's not like we stayed up at night braiding Yoji's hair and talking about our lovers, guys."
Everyone except Yoji laughed at this—even Crawford, probably with the help of the mental image Schuldig projected into everyone's mind of the Weiss boys giggling together in flower-printed pajamas and fluffy slippers, including Yoji with braids and ribbons in his hair. The blonde man looked positively livid, actually.
"You're all completely immature," he snarled, stalking off.
"Uh, Blondie, don't go far!" shouted Miry. "We're leaving in an hour!"
Yoji graced her with an extended middle finger before disappearing in the trees. The pyro sighed and glared balefully at Schu.
"What? All I did was let everyone know the image Omi's little comment gave me!" protested the telepath, raising his hands defensively.
She pointed at the path Yoji had taken. "After him. Someone has to go."
"Why meeeeeeee?" he whined.
Omi sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'll go," he sighed. "But Miry's coming with me."
"I'm bolting at the first sign of sexual tension," she retorted, crossing her arms and glowering.
Schu snickered. "You mean, the second they see each other?" he said mentally. Aya, who was overhearing all of this, raised a brow.
"Sexual tension?" he repeated, incredulous.
Miry rolled her eyes and looked at him. "Did you see their little fistfight, honey?"
Schuldig laughed aloud and Omi flushed.
"Can't you keep your mouth shut, Miry?" he yelled.
She grinned at him. "Oh, go after your boyfriend their, Omittchi!"
"Here, I'll go with you, Omi," offered Nagi with a sigh. "Anything to get away from that psychotic telepath over there."
Omi sighed. "Fine. Anything to get away from my roommate," he snarled at the pyro's back.
"The fistfight?" echoed Aya, bewildered.
"Wow. You're blind as hell, bishonen," she laughed. Omi practically sprinted into the woods, Nagi close behind.
"So, which way did he go?" asked the younger boy, raising a brow.
"Uh…"
"Okay, concentrate, and try to find his mind with yours," said Nagi.
"I can't do that!"
"Concentrate on Yoji. Just think of him."
Omi blushed, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking about Yoji. Unbidden, a mental image very like the one Schu had gifted the blonde with sprang to his mind, and he yelped, opening his eyes.
"I can't. It's not working."
Nagi rolled his eyes. "You're too distracted by your feelings for him. Think about his mind."
"Uh…"
"You're a complete baka. Him. Not sex. Just him. Picture him standing still. Not doing anything. Just standing."
Omi tried again. He felt a tug on his senses, kind of like a smudge of roiling fury at the edge of his consciousness. Unthinking, he turned his face in that direction, trying to catch at the spark of annoyed confusion that marked Yoji.
"That way?"
Nagi's voice brought him back to himself and his eyes snapped open. Blinking, he turned to look at the other boy.
"Uh, yes. I think that's where he is."
"Good work. We didn't realize you were that strong. Empathy is weird. You can either do almost nothing with it, or you're mind can compete with Schuldig's, so long as raw emotional force is at work. It's an unpredictable gift," explained the telekinetic as they walked along, following the red beacon that Yoji's feelings provided.
"Oh…" He digested this bit of information, and then a thought struck him like a falling brick. "Hey! You mean you knew our powers beforehand?"
Nagi smirked. "Would Schuldig have thrown a match at Aya if there was a chance he wasn't a pyro?"
Omi considered this. "Actually…"
"Schu's not that awful. He's just a bastard, and sometimes he gets carried away with it."
"I'll say," muttered the older boy.
Nagi chuckled. "He's actually quite a lot of fun, once you get to know him."
The archer turned to raise a brow at this.
"Not that kind of fun! Although he'd sleep with anything. The hentai…"
Now Omi chuckled. "Has he ever hit on you?"
The younger man rolled his eyes. "You should see him with alcohol in his system. He'd hit on the wall if he thought it'd get him off!"
"I take that as a yes…"
"How far is Balinese?" asked the telekinetic suddenly, changing the subject.
"Over the next hill, actually… keep your voice down," replied Omi.
"So what is going on between you two? Did you guys sleep together or something?"
The older boy flushed. "No! Nothing like that. He just… overreacted when I left Weiss."
"Overreacted?" One dark brow rose questioningly. "Any idea why?"
Omi shrugged miserably. "He just flipped out. First he was really nice, desperate for me to stay, and then he started getting mad, and finally he was just cruel."
"Huh. You're sure you didn't sleep together and accidentally get attached?"
The archer blushed furiously. "You don't have sex with someone unless you care at least a little about them!" he cried.
Nagi blinked. "Yes you can."
"You can, but that doesn't mean—wait, you've had sex?"
The younger boy snorted. "I'm eighteen and I live with—uh, never mind."
Omi smirked. "You mean you have slept with Schuldig?"
The telekinetic flushed faintly. "It didn't mean anything!"
"Whatever."
"We're not together. We never were. And it's been years—"
"You slept together when you were underage?!"
Nagi winced. "Shh! Yoji—"
"Yoji is very interested in your little conversation, please continue," said the deep, amused voice of Yoji. Both boys looked up and yelped, flushing. Obviously, the blonde was enjoying their discomfort immensely.
"How long were you listening?" yipped Omi, his face the color of Aya's hair.
"Around the part where you started talking about caring a little about someone you have sex with. By the way, that's kind of idealistic, don't you think? You're what, twenty? Aren't you a bit old for that kind of thing?"
The archer glared.
"You have to come back to camp, Balinese," Nagi said coldly.
"Not before I'm done talking to you two," purred the blonde, crossing his arms and smirking.
Omi pointed at Nagi. "He slept with Schuldig. When he was still a kid."
The other brunette rolled his eyes. "Who asked for my list, anyway?" he snapped.
"You have a list?" yelped the archer.
Yoji snickered. "Don't you, Omi?"
Flushing, the young man began to sputter. "I-I-no! I mean—wait!"
Now both Yoji and Nagi were laughing.
"Excuse me, dears, but could you come back here? The pyro girl is threatening to burn my hair off…" said a telepathic voice into everyone's head.
Thank you, Schuldig, thought Omi, relieved for the telepath's interference.
"I'll expect payment later," purred the voice, only in the archer's mind this time.
Omi flushed even brighter, and Yoji raised a brow.
"Schuldig," explained Nagi dryly.
The reaction was not a pretty one. "So you are sleeping with the enemy?" snarled Yoji. "I should've guessed. Little Bombay is fucking the Schwartz. How many of them? How many of our enemies have you screwed? Are they the ones on your 'list?' Tell me!"
"What are you talking about?" yelled Omi. "I haven't slept with anyone here! And what business is it of yours, anyway, who I sleep with?"
Nagi drew in a breath, wishing they'd notice he was still there during this awkward argument of theirs.
"When you've got your legs spread for the Schwartz, it sure as hell is my business! No wonder you're defending them! You'll set us up just for a lay, huh? Slut!"
"I'm a slut? Who's the one with a different girl home every night? Who's the one who'd just as soon fuck someone as look at them? I've never slept with anyone you know, so just fuck off!"
"Is that why Kritiker promoted you? Huh? Because you were fucking Agumi? You cheap little whore!"
Omi's fist cracked into the blonde man's jaw, causing the other man's head to snap back. "Fuck you! You don't know anything at all, do you?"
Nagi winced and stepped back. They were still out of sight of the camp, and out of earshot. He just hoped he wouldn't have to carry back both of the Weiss kitties.
Yoji stumbled back, but recovered, launching himself at the archer and toppling him to the ground. "I know you're a slut! I know you'll put out for anyone!" he screamed, choking the younger man.
"I wouldn't put out for you!" snarled Omi, driving his knee between his attacker's legs. The blonde gasped in pain and rolled off of him, doubled over. "Bastard!" muttered the brunette, sitting up and rubbing at his throat.
"What the fuck is going on here?" demanded a loud voice. Omi looked up to see Schuldig and Miry standing on the path, Aya and Ken following them. Absently he wondered how the girl had kept up with the insanely fast telepath.
"Uh…"
"Right. Well, you're the one who just sent his balls into his kidneys, so you get to carry him," growled Miry.
"He started it!"
"Do we look like we care who started it?" demanded Aya, skidding to a halt. A cloud of dirt rose, making Omi and Yoji cough miserably.
"If you two are going to act like a couple of assholes, we're going to treat you like that," added Ken. The four of them stared down menacingly.
"Get up. We're going back to camp. If you two cause any more trouble, we'll tie you up," said Aya, turning away.
Schu smirked. "And we'll make you eat the section that Miry cooked," he put in, earning a smack from the girl. He retaliated by pinching her butt, and they fought down the pathway, earning a glance from Ken, who quickly looked away.
"You were right to call Schuldig, Nagi," said the soccer player, turning his brown eyes on the telekinetic.
The other boy sighed. "I didn't feel like carrying them," he answered, following the others as Ken helped Omi to his feet before the younger man gingerly hefted Yoji onto his shoulder, getting a kick in the back for his troubles. Fortunately, the archer was too smart to let the blonde's feet dangle by his groin.
On the road again. Crawford sighed as he listened to Miry and Schuldig behave like childish idiots in the backseat, doing the sort of flirtatious fighting he'd thought most people left behind in high school. He hoped that Schu nailed her soon and got it out of his system.
"Oh, Bradley, you are too kind!" smirked the nasal voice of his German teammate in his mind.
"Don't mention it," answered the American man sarcastically. He sighed again and looked out the window at the passing scenery. Behind the wheel, Aya glanced at him questioningly.
"How long did you guys know about our powers?" asked the redhead.
Crawford shrugged. "Not long. It takes deep telepathic probing to find buried things like your powers, and Schuldig never bothered that with you guys. Besides, you don't have enough talent to be a threat."
Aya snorted. "I can still hack you to bits with my katana, you know."
"I meant psychic talent. Baka."
"You're as childish as you accuse everyone else of being," yelled Schuldig from the backseat. "And you say I'm immature!"
Miry flicked his ear, and Crawford felt himself warming to her for a moment. "You're a lot worse than that, dickhead," she said saucily.
"Oooh, Crawford likes Miry!" yowled the telepath.
The pre-cog rolled his eyes. "What did you drink today?"
"Uh… nothing, really."
"Coffee. He drank about a pot of coffee at the last rest stop," explained the pyro.
Aya snickered. "At least I'm not sitting with him."
"Feh. How about if I burn all your clothes off next time you're talkin' to Tei?" threatened the girl, folding her arms.
Crawford sighed for the third time. No, she really wasn't so much better than the others. She just smacked Schuldig around more readily. He wondered how much longer it would be until they stopped and he could escape the idiots behind him.
Nagi stretched out in the backseat and looked at Farfarello, asleep in the passenger side. The other man had a nice profile, eye patch and all, with his smooth features, broken only by the ragged scars. In a way, his flaws only added to the exotic luster he possessed. Combined with the silver hair and full lips, the young telekinetic found it hard to believe that no one else had ever tried to get with Farf before.
"If you keep staring at him like that, he might wake up," said a bland voice. Nagi saw Yoji's smirk in the rearview mirror and sighed.
"Do you ever mind your own business, Balinese?"
"No."
"You're as bad as Schuldig, and you can't even read minds," grumbled the boy.
"You slept with him. I still can't believe it."
Nagi let his head flop rather painfully against the door. "It was two years ago. And it didn't mean anything."
"How many times?"
The brunette sputtered. "How the hell should I know? I didn't count!"
"That many, huh?"
Nagi flushed. "It's over. Actually, 'it' didn't exist to begin with. It was sex. Nothing more."
Yoji smirked again. "Did you ever sleep with that Shrient chick? The one with the bunny?"
"No."
"You sure did like her, didn't you?"
"She was… she was innocent. Like a child. I wanted to protect her."
The blonde wrinkled his nose. "Ugh. Another Prince Valiant, huh?"
Nagi shook his head. "Not like that. I was a teenager and she was cute, but I didn't really want anything physical. Mostly I just felt horrible that she was so alone and so oblivious to everything. Like a kid, trained like a dog to kill on command."
"Oh…"
"Question: did you ever sleep with Omi?"
Yoji's cheeks colored faintly. "No. Why do you care?"
Nagi shrugged innocently, the inner Schuldig in him grinning evilly. "No reason. Just wondering about all that weird tension with you two."
"He left. He was always telling us we were like his family, and then he just packed up and left us! He betrayed us. He betrayed our friendship."
"I was actually referring to the sexual tension…"
"What sexual tension? There's nothing like that between us!" yelped Yoji, shaking his head.
"Keep your eyes on the road, please. And yes there is. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to notice it."
The blonde growled. "I have no idea. If there is any, it's completely one-sided. How was I supposed to know he was gay, anyhow?"
The brunette favored him with a bland look. "Oh, I'm pretty sure Omi returns your feelings."
"What?!"
"Yoji, you're attracted to him. Don't tell me you'd get that upset over someone like Aya walking off. Or that girl Tei."
"That's different! They don't think of Weiss as a family, or if they do, they sure don't act like it! Aya treats us like friendly co-workers, and Tei answers her bedroom door with a Sai pointed at your heart. Omi was… different."
"Because you like him."
"No I don't!"
"Yes, you do."
"I know how I feel, and I don't feel like that," snarled the blonde.
"Then how do you feel? More than attraction? More than a crush? Are you in love with Bombay?"
Before Yoji could respond, Farfarello awoke with a start. "Are we hurting God now?" he asked blearily, rubbing at his good eye with a fist.
Nagi saw the blonde man's furious expression reflected at him in the mirror, and he just smirked.
"Are we there yet?" moaned Ken.
"Will you stop asking that?" demanded Tei, waving her middle finger at a man who'd just cut her off.
"I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I have to go pee!"
"I didn't want to know that."
"Ken-kun, relax. Try to get some sleep, okay?" suggested Omi, not looking up from his laptop.
"How's their progress on us going?" asked the ninja, eyes rising to look at the young man through the mirror.
"Kritiker fired all the guys on that SWAT team that failed to catch us. Right now, their busy deploying agents all over the country in an effort to find us."
"Do they know we have a bunch of psychics helping us?" asked Ken curiously, turning around to look at his friend.
Omi shook his head. "Schuldig implanted memories of them sitting there, waiting for an hour, before they decided we weren't coming and got themselves drunk as hell at the nearest bar."
Tei smirked appreciatively. "I guess he is good for something, after all," she muttered.
"He and Nagi slept together," muttered the archer absently.
"They what?" yelped Ken, jumping in his seat and hitting his head on the roof of the car.
"They fucked," said Tei blandly. "People do that sometimes."
Omi snorted. "A couple years ago, according to Nagi."
"He told you?" Ken cried.
"Could you stop shouting in my ear?" the ninja asked calmly.
"Sorry. But, Omi, what the hell were you two talking about?"
"Sex. And whether or not you had to care about someone…"
"You don't." The furious look in the woman's glowing eyes was enough to make both men startle. "You don't have to care about someone to have sex with them. Trust me," she hissed.
Ken looked away from her, to see Omi sitting stiffly in the backseat, his gaze blankly terrified.
"Tei! Tei, what did you do to him?" he yelled.
"Oh, shit. He's the empath…"
Omi was in shock when they stopped, agreed upon by the telepathic message that Tei sent to the others. Ken carried him out of the car, only to be half pounced-on by a wide-eyed pyro. Miry grabbed Omi's face and stared at it, horrified.
"Holy shit, what'd you do to him?" she shrieked, looking up at Ken, red shooting through her hair like a raging fire spreading.
"It was me," said a quiet, monotone voice. Miry turned to see Tei standing with one hand on the roof of the car, eyes lowered to the ground. "I forgot he was an empath, and…"
"And what?"
She turned away. "I remembered something. He didn't know and he got caught up in it."
Schuldig hefted the archer out of Ken's arms, kneeling down with him on the ground and putting a hand onto the young man's forehead. His jade eyes shut lightly and then snapped open as he leapt away, horrified.
"What the fuck were you remembering?" he yelped.
Aya walked over and put a hand on Tei's shoulder lightly, but she shook it off. "I think you know already," she answered coldly.
Miry went over to cradle her friend's torso in her arms, scowling at everyone, while Schuldig ran to the bushes and vomited several times. Nagi, Yoji, and Farf got out of their car, and Yoji's eyes widened in shock at the sight of Omi in his catatonic state, being held by the crazy (to his mind) pyro.
"What's goin' on?" shouted the blonde man, running over and dropping to one knee by Miry and Omi. The girl glared at him and hugged her friend tighter.
"He's living one of Tei's memories… and it's not pleasant, by the looks of it," murmured Ken. Schu staggered back from the bushes, wiping the back of his mouth with a hand.
"How do we get him out of this?" begged Yoji, reaching out towards the boy only to get his hand slapped by Miry.
"He doesn't need you coming and hurting him physically, asshole," she hissed.
"Miry, calm down," said Ken, kneeling by her and putting a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.
"Calm down? Omi's in catatonic shock and you're tellin' me to calm down? This is my best friend in the world, god dammit! And he's in some horrible situation right now!" she screamed. Her face was red, and water fell from her eyes, hissing as it hit her skin.
"Let go of him!" shouted Yoji. "You're going to burn him!"
"No! You'll just beat him up while he's out! Don't touch him, you bastard!" Her eyes widened and smoke began rising from her clothes.
"You're going to burst into flames and really injure him in a moment," said Crawford, "Unless you pass the boy over to Balinese."
"Fuck you!" she screeched, turning to yell at the pre-cog. Yoji took advantage of this to snatch Omi away and roll him out of reach of the sudden explosion of fire that followed her realizing Omi was gone.
"Ken!" shouted Aya, turning just in time to see both Miry and his friend get engulfed in flames. He ran over and reached in, trying to grab his friend, as the blaze died down. Miry was sniffling in Ken's arms, both of them wearing charred rags, but unscathed.
"Ken… is a pyro?" gasped Yoji, looking up from the archer he cradled. Schuldig was kneeling with them, grimacing as he tried to retrieve Omi's mind from the memories.
The athlete nodded, stroking the fading crimson hair of the girl in his arms. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief; they'd been terrified that Ken would be severely burned. Aya turned back to Tei, who had crumpled to her knees on the ground, hugging her stomach and rocking back and forth, and Farf decided to carve up a nearby tree. Unfortunately, he stepped in the lovely weed-killer Schu had left in the bushes, which meant that Nagi had to drag him away and clean him up.
"Gah!" The telepath jerked into awareness, sweating and panting, tears hovering in the corners of his eyes. "I can't reach him!"
"What do you mean? You're a fucking telepath!" yelled Yoji.
The orange-haired German raked a hand through his hair and swayed. Crawford moved over to steady him with a strong arm, and Schu looked up at his leader.
"Thanks," he muttered. Turning to Yoji, he said, "The only other choice we have is physical shock…"
"No!" screamed Miry, trying to lunge out of Ken's grasp. He tightened his arms around her and tried to calm her down, but she kept shouting.
"Please, do something to shut her up! I don't care what, just do something!" the telepath shouted into the brunette man's head. Ken winced at the combined feeling of having someone shouting next to your head and into it, and turned to look at Miry, doing the first thing that came to mind.
"MMMPH!" she squawked, eyes going wide as the older boy kissed her.
Ken heard a mental snicker as Schuldig turned to Yoji, pointing at the pair. "She looks shocked, now doesn't she?"
"No way are you kissing him, Mastermind!" snarled the blonde man, yanking Omi possessively into his chest.
"That's not what I was suggesting, you fool. Besides, the way you're hanging onto him, the only one who can reach him to kiss him is you," snapped Schu. He was irritable from fatigue after his efforts. So much for that coffee!
Yoji's eyes widened and Crawford smirked. Somewhere to the side, Miry got her mouth free of Ken's and began yelling at him, but it was just noise to the blonde man's ears. The autistic shuddering of Tei, Aya's attempts to recover her, the struggle between Nagi and Farf over the latter's boots—his world narrowed to Omi's face, to his wide, blank eyes, to the tears spilling out of them, and the faint whimper that escaped the boy's lips.
That made up his mind. Forget about the way he'd walked out. It didn't matter. What mattered was that Omi—Omi, the most important person in the world—was in trouble, and he could save him. Shivering with nervousness (anticipation?) he lowered his mouth to Omi's dry, parted lips.
Upcoming: Farf wants to be set on fire, Omi wakes up (yaaah!), Schu bugs EVERYONE. Also features a hellish plane ride and a trip to the Australian desert.
