Warnings: Finally, some lime-y yaoi….heh… but there's also some serious insanity, as well as graphic violence (I'm an ex-bio student; I list the organs that get f*cked up…)
Weiss Season III
Episode Five
"AAAAGGGH! It stings!"
"Told you so," smirked the black-haired American to Omi, who shook his head and turned back to his friend, who was sitting on a rock, her soaking camisole drooping down her reddened shoulders while Ken held her down so she couldn't kick or hit anyone. Or bite, as the ex-soccer player had found out the hard way. She wasn't a very good hand-to-hand fighter, as she'd relied on her pyrokinetic gift for fighting all her life, but when she flailed around enough, some appendage was bound to connect. Painfully.
Naturally, all Crawford was going to do was to sit and gloat at the blonde girl. Tei was as helpful as he was; she sat sharpening her knives, eyes hooded and glowing eerily as she watched everyone with a feral, not-quite-sane edge that they failed to notice.
"Why didn't you listen to me, Miry?" Omi asked, pressing a damp cloth to her cheek.
Nagi turned away from the others, rolling his eyes, and trudged the four meters and small rocky outcropping to the oasis pool, which had the rocks and a few trees to offer privacy. So he had no problem shucking off his tee shirt, shoes and pants, without a thought.
"Long time since I've seen that, Nagi," purred a familiar voice. The brunette looked up to see Schuldig sitting in the pool languidly, eyes half-closed. His long, muscular arms were spread on either side of the bank while the water lapped at his lean chest, and his red-orange hair frizzed all around his head.
He wasn't the only one there. Yoji was lounging in the other side of the pool, golden hair wet and limp, clinging to his face and shoulders. And Aya was seated arm's length from Schuldig, the telepath's graceful fingers brushing his shoulder when he shifted. The swordsman's shoulder-length red hair had been wiped straight back from his face, probably with his hand, and his violet eyes were staring upwards, at the sky.
"Not my problem," answered the boy, tossing aside his boxers and sloshing into the water, hissing as it came in contact with his burnt skin.
"How many of your team members have you fucked, anyway?" muttered Aya, eyes flickering to the German beside him and then back to the sky.
Schuldig laughed. "Why do you care so much, bishonen?" he asked, flicking his fingers absently over the other man's skin.
Aya shrugged, not appearing to notice the contact, which his movement only increased. "It was a rhetorical question."
"How are the other burn victims?" yawned Yoji from across the pool.
Nagi pursed his lips. "Omi and Ken are working on Miry, Crawford is laughing at them sadistically, Tei is bitching, and Farfarello is… huh. I don't know where he is," he said, frowning. Where had the Irishman disappeared?
"You lost the psychopath," Aya stated incredulously, sitting up. His red face and tee-shirt-tan-reddened arms were an excellent match for his crimson hair, and the rising moon gave his sweaty skin a gleam that Nagi could be certain Schu was appreciating.
"Damn right I am," smirked the telepath mentally.
"Fuck. I'm not going to sit around and wait to be skewered by that nutcase!" announced Yoji, standing with a splash.
"Yeah, we need to look for him," decided Schuldig, accepting the hand that Aya offered him to help him up. For a moment, the two redheads stared at each other, face-to-face, with the German's lips curling into a faint smile before Aya turned away.
"You coming?" asked the blonde as he pulled his pants on, eyes moving to Nagi.
"Give me a minute," he replied tersely. His skin was in agony, and the cold water felt wonderful.
"And if he comes after you while you're alone here?" Aya said, his shirt open over his chest and boxers.
Nagi sighed and some water spontaneously sloshed onto Schuldig across the pond. "I think I can handle it."
Schu yowled when he got splashed, using Nagi's pants to dry himself off in retaliation before he darted off behind the Weiss boys, checking out Aya's hindquarters.
"They're gone, Farf," he said in a low voice, closing his eyes and tilting his head back against the bank, letting his body sink into the delicious water.
There was a rustle in the tallest tree and a figure with glistening white hair dropped to the ground in a crouch, slowly pacing around to where the telekinetic was resting. One black-sapphire eye cracked open to watch the older boy approach him.
"Why'd you say that, hmm?" asked the Irishman, coming to sit idly beside Nagi, one knee propped up and one hand pressed into the sand, supporting his weight as the other one moved to brush lightly over the brunette's hair.
"Why'd I say what?" murmured Nagi. Cool water, Farf's hand, soft sand contouring to his body—it was perfect. He didn't need anything more.
"That ye didn't know where I was."
Nagi shrugged. "You're not the most sociable guy I've ever met. I figured you were waiting for them to leave… and besides, I could do without Schuldig yapping at me."
The psychotic chuckled and ran a finger over the line of his companion's profile. "I do like the privacy," he said.
The brunette closed his eyes and let his head sink back against the bank, exposing his throat to the Irishman. Most people wouldn't have been comfortable with doing something like that, but Nagi wasn't too worried. After all, Farfarello appeared to be in a pretty lucid right now, and he seemed not to care about hurting, killing or maiming anyone at the moment.
"Since when have you cared who sees you naked?" asked Nagi quietly, the movement of his mouth causing one of the silver-haired man's fingers to slip between his lips.
"It's not being naked that concerns me," whispered the older man, leaning down so that his lips brushed at the telekinetic's ear as he spoke.
The brunette felt his stomach muscles ripple in anticipation and he turned his head around, coming nose-to-nose with Farf. The older man's tongue traced first the line of his own lips, then Nagi's, his one amber eye fixed on the boy's blue-black ones. There was a moment of electrified silence, during which they stared at each other, when the caress ended.
And then, hungrily, the telekinetic grabbed hold of the silver hair, fingers burying themselves in it, yanking the Irishman to his mouth and kissing him with rough, desperate passion. A scarred hand dug fingers (no nails, they'd thought to cut those) into burned shoulders, while the other one indelicately scraped over his chest.
Moments later, as teeth grazed down his sternum and over a nipple, as his hands fumbled at the clasps of Farf's pants, Nagi saw, from his tilted-back position, Schuldig and Aya on the rocks, watching in amusement (in Schu's case) and surprise, in the instance of the swordsman. But, after that fleeting hitch in his breathing, they turned away and walked off, and the German surprisingly elected to afford them mental privacy as well.
That small grace was more than enough for Nagi, who'd been aching for this long enough.
"So exactly what is our plan?" asked Yoji challengingly, the question directed at Crawford but punctuated by a glare at Omi. The young brunette bit back an angry, obscene reply in favor of sighing. No use arguing with a sunburned Yoji who couldn't go in the pool until Nagi and Farf were done.
The American man pinched the bridge of his reddened nose and closed his eyes briefly; no one was in a good mood, except, perhaps for the aforementioned couple. Luckily, the rocks served as a decent sound barrier, so long as they stayed the hell away from the area.
"I'm working on it. There is always the option of disappearing, you know," he answered tightly after a long pause.
Aya stood up, glaring, causing Schuldig to tumble backwards from where he'd been leaning slightly against the other man's shoulder. With an affronted glare, the telepath picked himself up and tried to brush the sand off.
"I will not go living on the run from these people. They've controlled my life for long enough," growled the swordsman. He glanced back at Schu and made an apologetic grunt.
"Yeah, plus the fact that they could try to get us using people we're close to…" pointed out Ken, shifting behind Miry and pushing some of her sweat-frizzed hair out of his nose and mouth, locking his head onto her shoulder to keep it out.
Omi raised a brow at this, but Schu's comment was quicker.
"Are you implying something there, you two?"
With dull, tired apathy, Miry turned her face at the German and said wearily, "Blow me, Schuldig."
Which of course started up a verbal sparring match between those two, mainly contingent on sexual innuendo and references to small genitals. Crawford seethed.
What ended the argument shocked everyone. A knife appeared at the throat of both Miry and Schu, and everyone looked slowly up to see Tei, black hair tumbled around her scorched face, eyes glowing with something faintly insane, her body shaking with rage.
"Shut up," she hissed, looking back and forth between the two. "No one gives a shit."
Miry's eyes narrowed and the tips of her hair glowed crimson, a moment before the knife at her neck melted onto her burned collarbone.
"Put your knife away. PMS is a lousy excuse for murder, honey," she snapped back, always the cleverly obnoxious one, as her hand absently brushed away a few drops of molten liquid. Amazing how quickly it had melted.
"I don't need an excuse," sneered Tei. Two people realized what she was going to do, but only one could act on it in that instant. The linked bodies of Miry and Ken were bowled sideways, against a tree, by the sudden blur of Omi.
"GYAAH!" screamed the young man, as a knife tore into his side, going deep enough to slice his kidney, to sever a section of his small intestine, gouge out his appendix, and then to slice a tremendous, hideous gash as his momentum carried him sideways and down, rending him open to the hip.
A moment later, the bloody knife still clutched in her hand, Tei collapsed, victim of a powerful telepathic attack. Schuldig leapt to his feet, swearing in German, but Yoji beat him to Omi's side. Miry and Ken, who had been near victims, were trembling, and Crawford and Aya had just gone a shade paler.
"Omi!" cried Yoji, cradling the boy's torso in his arms, running his fingers through the sweat-slick hair that clung to his forehead to remove it from the perfect azure eyes. He was shaking all over, but not as badly as Omi.
"We've got to get him to a hospital!" cried Aya, as Schuldig slammed a fist into the side of the insane ninja woman's head hard enough to ensure she'd be out for a while. Crawford had sprinted for the pool, while Ken and Miry got slowly to their feet.
"I can stop the bleeding," offered Miry desperately, one hand igniting and her skin glowing faintly. Omi looked up at her, tears of pain clouding his vision. He saw Ken and Schuldig race after Crawford, saw Aya come over and dig his fingers into the blonde girl's shoulder, all he would allow himself of an emotional reaction, because no one could touch Omi but Yoji right now.
"Dammit! Do it, then!" screamed Yoji, his own tears of a different kind of pain. "Omi, you can't die! Damn you, you'd better not die!"
"Yoji… nnh… I don't… hate you…"
"Shut up! You're not dying yet! You've got a long time to live! Don't talk like that!"
"You have to move away a bit if I'm going to cauterize everything… Omi, oh, gods, this is going to hurt like fuck," whispered Miry. A trail of flame ran down one of her cheeks, and a pale thumb rose to wipe it aside.
"Don't cry on him. It'll give him more burns," whispered Aya, turning his gaze back to Omi. The young man's breathing was shallow and his eyes were glazed; the cut had shredded so much tissue, so many blood vessels, that it would not take long for him to bleed out.
"Do it! Save him, damn you! Save him!" screeched Yoji, his tears splashing onto the younger man's face, washing him over.
Omi's eyes fluttered. "I'm… sorry, Yoji…"
"Don't be sorry! Be alive!"
"Cauterize him! It may be the only chance!" yelled a new voice, as Nagi came sprinting into view, wearing boxers and the fading flush of rapidly crushed arousal.
Gritting her teeth, Miry plunged her flaming hand into the gaping wound in her friend's side. Omi screamed, his voice tearing from his throat painfully and his back arching up as pain lanced through him, a thousand times worse. Yoji screamed, too, and Schuldig suddenly dropped to the ground, curled into fetal position and clutching his right side. The scent of burning flesh filled the air, turning the stomachs of several people. Miry whirled away, dropping to her knees and vomiting.
Nagi shoved the two pyros aside as he bent to look at the wound; eyes closing as he telekinetically probed it.
"His kidney's been injured… and a section of his intestines has been severed. Shit!" reported the young man, eyes opening. Yoji barely heard it as the pain subsided.
"Oh, god, Omi, I'm so sorry you got hurt. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm such a bastard!" he moaned, stroking desperately at the clammy skin of Omi's cheek.
"I… I did like… when you…kissed me…" whispered the archer painfully, his vision blurring constantly from tears and pain.
"I—You're not going to die! Damn you, Omi! If you die, I'll—I'll come after you!"
"Shh. Don't say… that stuff…I'll come… haunt you…"
"No! Omi, Omi, please no! I love you! Don't die now! Not now!" wept the blonde man, lowering his face until his forehead touched the brunette's.
"Love you… too…" A slender hand came up to brush at the tears on Yoji's face, chin tilting up incrementally so that their mouths touched briefly, and then clung, in a hopeless, reckless kiss.
Nagi cursed, hearing their verbal exchange. "I'm not going to let your last words be that fucking lame, baka," he muttered, eyes glazing over and hand stretching out, his telekinesis pulling cells and tissue together, binding cells at the site of the worst wounds.
While he could hold the other boy together, real thread would be needed, because the wounds were too many, and too severe. Tot had had a single hole in her chest, not even properly slicing her heart open. That had knocked him unconscious for two days, in such a bad state he was easily mistaken for dead. This… he could repair the worst cut, the intestine… but that would knock him on his ass and leave him useless.
"Schu, I can't do this on my own. We're too far from a hospital…"
"Fuck! I can't sew!" hissed the German, clutching at his hair in a desperate panic.
"I can," said a deep voice, a hand curving over the frenzied telepath's shoulder and gently moving him aside. Amazing, considering that the hand—and voice's—owner was Aya.
Schuldig bit his lip as Aya pulled out a travel sewing kit and moved over to sew up the boy's wounds. Sweat was breaking out on Nagi's forehead as he concentrated on holding Omi together, while Schuldig furiously forced some of his own psychic strength into his teammate, trying to save everyone from a terrible fate. If he were a Channeler, he would have been much more useful, but he wasn't, and he had to make due with slowly sinking to his knees, then to all fours, in the sand, unnoticed in the turmoil.
Aya's stitches moved over the broken tissue of Omi's kidney, and then to the muscles of his side, putting the obliques and the lassimus dorsi back into place, medical terms running like water through his mind. His hands faltered, but new ones engulfed them, took the tools, and he sat back, eyes burning. Crawford took over the task, the long flaps of skin coming together with the last thread in the kit. It was green, or it had been, but it was so bloodied that it was black-brown now.
Tei was bound to a tree, and Farfarello was patting her down methodically for knives or anything else, lucid and cold. Ken and Miry were working on making a bed for Omi to stay on, and Schuldig had collapsed in the sand, sweating.
Aya's eyes ached, and his neck was a bit sore, but he could still help the telepath. Kneeling down, the swordsman scooped up Schu in his strong arms, carrying him over to the pond, sliding carefully down the rocks and cradling the other redhead close to his chest so he wouldn't hit his head. He settled down beside the water, the lean man in his lap, and sighed, resting his head back against the rocks.
"Dammit, Schuldig, you were right. You've got no reason to lie…"
He chewed his lip and exhaled, eyes rising up to stare at the stars. He couldn't explain why, but he trusted this man. He knew that the obnoxious, loud-mouthed German didn't want any harm to come to him, but he wasn't sure how he knew. Just a gut feeling that he was safe.
"Heh. You know, I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I… I trust you. You're somehow… perfect. I don't know…. It just seems like… somewhere inside you, you're a wonderful, good person…" he murmured. "I wish I could find it. I want to reach you, Schuldig.
"Schuldig. Guilty." His hand slid through the sunset-toned hair, gently removing the shades from the top and folding them, setting them aside, before loosening the bandanna. "I know you've done some awful stuff, I know you're a bastard… but you're not completely Schuldig, are you? What's your real name, anyway? Who are you?"
Blindly, his fingers ran over the length of the thick mane, surprised that someone whose hair retained a kind of choppy, spiky look could feel this soft. But then, without the gel and mousse and goop to use on it, after letting it air dry from the spring, Schuldig's hair fell down in loose almost-waves, thick and heavy, framing his face almost delicately.
Aya closed his eyes, shifting the telepath in his arm and feeling his hair-running hand glide over the German's cheek. His skin was overheated from the sunburn, irritated, and somewhat chapped, but…
"My name… is Gunther," was the soft reply.
Aya started and looked down, to see the jade-chip eyes half-closed, but looking at him nonetheless, under heavy lids and dark lashes. The angles and planes of his face alternately glowed and shadowed, in the harsh silver moonlight. Somehow, he was more beautiful like this, quiet, weary, without any chemicals on his face or hair. Natural. There was nothing false about the moment.
"Gunther?" he repeated softly, letting a faint smile cross his lips. "I'm Ran."
"Nice…nice to meet you," murmured the beautiful telepath.
Ran brushed his thumb over the line of Gunther's cheek and nodded. It was nice to finally meet the man beneath Schuldig.
Wrath coiled up, a poisonous snake, dark with glowing amethyst eyes. The fury solidified and snarled, evil dripping from its fangs and glistening like sweat. Like tears, as the tears ran over the pale, scarred, burned, mangled cheeks of all that remained human. The human needed to die. The soul, the conscience. It was meek, and beaten, cowed and terrified, but it was still there.
Pale hands clenched and unclenched into fists, wrists burned from the sun's fire tearing and bleeding under coarse rope.
The game had gone on too long. The human needed to die, it had grown dull and uninteresting. A broken toy isn't any fun to patch up, even if you do get to break it again. It's not as fun to break the second time. And others had done so much of the breaking, damn them. Rage had savored those deaths, nurturing the metallic bloody aftertaste for years afterwards.
The slender torso convulsed, twitching once, against the cutting ropes, and wires, and the single bright eye of the watcher opened. But it was nothing, and so the guard shut his eye again.
The pure angry hatred had boiled and festered and grown for so long. The human wept, begging for mercy. A weakling, like those others who had begged. They'd all begged. In a single strike, blood, red blood as crimson as the fool boy's hair ran, and venom stained it black. It spread, evil, loathsome, creeping and pouring, taking over the entire consciousness, the entire being.
Brilliant, shining amethyst eyes opened, almost glowing in the dark.
Tei was dead. Gekido was awake.
Upcoming: A list of Farfarello's medications. Yes, a list. But it will come into play later, so try not to skim it too much… I tried to keep it short, tempting as it was to pump him full of drugs…. hehe
