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Warnings: language, some angst, some humour
Pairings: Schuldig/Yohji (I'm getting there, okay?)
Summary: Schuldig's POV as he copes with life after Schwarz and Estet. And then Yohji finds him, and things get interesting.
Archive: my site, The Temple of Lunacy http://lunatic.deep-ice.com
Disclaimer: I like denial. They're all mine.
Healing
by Anria
Part 3
Kudou meets me outside the bar on a Tuesday night, the only one of the week I get off. This is the first time we've tried to get together since we talked at his apartment - well, okay, so we didn't really talk much then. More like sat around and drank vodka like it was water.
Y'know, I've never really understood that phrase. I never liked drinking water - too flavourless - so how can I be drinking something like water when I'd much rather drink something like vodka?
Anyway, Kudou decided he was going to pick where we go tonight. Well, that's fine and dandy with me, I don't feel like thinking much right now.
We trudge along the street, not speaking much. I guess walking around outside in the cold doesn't put either one of us in the mood for conversation, which is fine by me. A lot of things seem to be fine by me right now, I wonder why I'm in such a good mood?
I can't help but be a little surprised when Kudou walks straight past all the bars and into a more pleasant area of town. I'd have thought he'd decide on a bar to go to, seeing as we're both about as alcoholic as you can get and not have your liver give up completely on trying to deal and instead focus its attentions on getting the hell out of there, now. But apparently not.
Eventually, he leads me into a quiet, cosy place, soft music playing on the stereo and not a hint of alcohol in sight. "I figured you might be sick of bars, seeing as how you're in one every other night of the week," Kudou says softly, taking off his coat and gloves. "And I found this all-night café, so I figured it'd be a good place to come - feed the caffeine addiction instead of any of the alcohol one."
I grin at him. I must be feeling agreeable, because what he says makes sense.
We find a small coffee table with two much larger leather armchairs on either side of it, and sit down. Kudou orders a mocha; me, a cappuccino.
I sit and relax for a moment, letting the warmth of the café seep into my frozen extremities. No, not those extremities, just fingers and toes.
When the coffees arrive, Kudou leans forward to stir his, taking a sip. "So," he says.
"So," I agree. This is almost amusing.
He leans back, cradling the hot cup in between his hands. Hmm, that looks like a good idea - I think I'll copy it.
He cocks his head and looks at me curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, how did they die?" he says, an edge of caution in his voice.
Well, if I was him, I would've asked that with caution too. I expect myself to feel angry in some way that he should have the audacity to bring that up, but. . . . Nothing comes. Well, if the emotional responses that even I don't understand are fine with it, then what the hell. I shrug, looking away. "I don't really know," I say. "I was in a coma for six months, and when I came out of it, they were dead. I don't even know if any of them made it out of the sea. Or if they died at hospital. Or if they were perfectly fine and just got picked off by whatever the hell's left of Estet." The words are said without bitterness, but they stir some unfamiliar emotion in me and I take a big gulp of my cappuccino, ignoring the way it burns down my throat. Funny how whenever I meet Kudou with coffee, I always seem to burn my mouth. I look back at him. "You?"
Yohji grimaces. "Aya came out fine. Ken and Omi . . . weren't so lucky. Ken was dead when they found him washed up on the beach, and Omi died during surgery." He scowls down at his coffee. "Somehow it doesn't seem right that I only had a broken leg to show for it. Not when they died."
I nod, for some reason that I'm sure makes sense to my subconscious. Like why I'm being nice. Oh, wait, that's because I'm lonely. "Where's Ran now?" I don't know why they all had such trouble learning to call him Ran. Hell, I've been calling him it for years.
Yohji snorts. "Somewhere in Hokkaido. He went off up there after Aya-chan woke up, decided it was better for them to have a fresh start in a new place. Haven't heard from him since."
I shrug. "He always struck me as the anti-social type. Kinda like Nagi in a way, maybe a bit like Brad."
"Nagi?" Kudou asks curiously.
I can't help but half-smile, a little wistful. The image of Nagi staring at the computer screen as though in a trance floats before my eyes, bringing with it a sense of nostalgia. "He spent his life on the internet. When he wasn't on it for pleasure, Brad made him do work. Sometimes I wished I could drag him off that bloody machine and feed him until he actually gained some weight. He spent so long on it he kept forgetting mealtimes."
Kudou makes this strange noise which is half snort, half laugh. "Sounds like Omi," he says. "Ken mothered him no end - had to, otherwise the kid would've been fainting all over the place from lack of food. Although it did encourage Omi to get off the computer - Ken couldn't cook worth shit, and Omi was too polite to turn down the offers of food, so in the end he'd get up off the machine and make some proper food just so he wouldn't have to eat Ken's any more."
I snicker, picturing it in my head. "Y'know, Ken cooking makes a funny mental image."
Yohji grins. "It made a funny real life image, too," he says. "He had the stupidest apron - I think it was a joke Christmas present one year."
I raise my eyebrows at him. "He wore an apron? What did it say, 'Kiss the Cook'?"
Yohji shakes his head. "Nope," he replies cheerfully. "It was more of the frilly housewife apron. Just as well he didn't realise he could just have used the apron from the flowershop, the pictures made for great blackmail material."
I grin, imagining it. "Hey, I wonder what Farfie would have looked like in an apron," I muse.
"Farfie?"
"What, it'd be amusing at least. . . ."
Yohji shakes his head, taking another sip from his mocha. "No, I mean the name. You called him Farfie?"
I grin at the cappuccino. "Pissed the hell out of him."
Yohji laughs, and I start. I never expected anyone to find amusement in that - the reason I did things to piss people off was absent-minded malice, nothing more. It had been going on so long I did it without thinking, and it had long since lost meaning to me. Pissing people off was a habit, telling them not to get too close or too emotionally involved - that way, if I stayed with them for a long time their emotions concerning me would never reach the point of such volume it hurt. However, looking at it from Yohji's point of view, I can see why he finds it amusing. Hell, it would amuse me if I didn't know the reason behind wanting to piss people off.
I guess in reality that's the reason why I'm so bad at socialising. As a telepath I always wanted people as far away from me as possible - or preferably, dead - so when I finally got the point that I was able to keep my 'talent' blocked up behind strong shields, my idea of socialising was firmly cemented as "push people away, and keep them away."
No wonder I was so lonely.
"I did the same kinda thing," Yohji says, placing his mug on the table and relaxing back into the chair. It was fascinating to watch; it looked like he unwound every muscle one by one, slowly sinking back into the chair and reforming them to meet the chair's specifications. Think of a cat curling up on a big, soft seat - first it stretches, then it settles, then the faint lines of tension melt away and the cat ends up almost seeming part of the upholstery. Yohji did the same thing, but on a scale ten times as big.
"I called Omi Omittchi," he says, eyes drooping lazily. "And Ken was Kenken. He always got pissy about that one, although Omi hated it more when I called him kid."
"What about Ran?" I ask.
Yohji frowns. "I'm not sure I ever came up with one for him that stuck," he muses. "I mean, I called him Ayan a couple of times after I found out his real name, but . . . he never seemed to care, so in the end I gave up." He shakes his head, dislodging the uncomfortable memories - Aya had abandoned him (all that was left of Weiss) for his sister, after all. A reminiscent smile curves his lips. "Omi and Ken conspired to find a nickname for me, so I ended up being Yotan."
I stare into my coffee. "I'm not sure I have that many good memories of Schwarz," I say slowly after a moment. I look up to see his vibrant green eyes regarding me curiously. "We . . . were never anything more than a team," I tell him, trying to work it out myself as I go along. "There were never any real feelings there at all. Unlike you. Unlike Weiss."
Yohji cocks his head to the side, peering at me over the rim of his sunglasses. Why he feels the need to wear sunglasses in the middle of the night in a darkened café I don't know - but then I'm hardly one to talk, seeing as one of the first things I did when I got out of the hospital was find a replacement for my old bandanna and sunglasses. They're in their usual position now, both resting across my forehead.
"I think there was more there than you're admitting to yourself," Yohji tells me.
I blink at him. "So what are you now, my psychoanalyst?" I snort. "I think the telepath knows his own mind."
"Or is so caught up in others' he never had a chance to," Kudou says without missing a beat.
I scowl at him. "Maybe there were some things I didn't want to think about, Kudou. And maybe I'm not the only one."
Yohji nods placidly - his calm reaction to everything is really beginning to piss me off. "All I'm saying is that from what you've said, you cared more about them than you ever realised. Don't get angry with me for pointing out the truth."
I know he's right, even though I don't want to admit that to him.
I decide it's time to change the subject. I put my coffee mug down on the table with a nice satisfying thunk, then sit back and say, "What type of music do you like?"
Kudou looks startled. "What?"
"What type of music do you like?"
"I thought we were talking about old times," Yohji says, looking at me warily.
I toss my hair over my shoulder and smirk at him. "Yeah, we were. Old times are old times, let's talk about the now."
Yohji snorts, leaning forwards to put his cappuccino on the table next to mine. "You just don't want to answer the question."
"What question?"
"The question I asked just now."
"You didn't ask a question."
"I implied one."
"Implying is not asking, Yohji."
"Jazz."
"What?" I blink, trying to work out how 'jazz' is a response to my statement.
Yohji smirks at me, the bastard. "I like jazz. The mellow kind. And the slow kind of rock and metal. Sometimes dance or anything with a strong beat is all that will cut it, though."
I blink again, slowly reworking the past conversation in my mind. A smirk spreads over my lips as I figure out how he unbalanced me. "What about normal metal? The kind that gets in your blood and starts pumping."
He shrugs one shoulder. "It's okay, I guess."
"Only okay? You haven't heard the right kind of metal."
"Screaming guitars? Vocals that sound like the singer's voice box is puking? Drums with no sense of rhythm or beat at all?" Yohji snorts. "Yeah, that's great music, all right."
I smirk at him. "Like I said, you haven't heard the right kind of metal music."
He gives me a look over the top of his sunglasses. "Then what is the 'right kind of metal music', pray tell?"
I lean back. "Rammstein, obviously."
"Just Rammstein? And what's wrong with the music I like?"
"Rammstein are the gods of music. No one compares to them. Besides that," I spread my hands, "I never said anything was wrong with the kind of music you like."
"Yes you did."
"No, I did not."
"You implied it." A small smile dances around his lips.
"Implying is not the same as saying," I smirk.
"You're the master of implication."
I wag a finger at him. "I never tell a lie."
The smile grows every so slightly wider. "But implying is almost as good as saying."
"Not the same thing."
"Face it, Schuldig, you manage to lie without ever actually saying anything but the truth."
"And I'm damn proud of it."
Yohji suddenly bursts out laughing. I start for the second time, not expecting that any more than I did the first time. I fight it as much as I can, but my smirk gradually wavers into a grin.
He gradually calms down, chuckling slightly. "I think we have more in common than either of us realised, Schu," he says, smiling at me.
I start to smile back - then realise what he just said. I scowl at him instead. "Schu?!?"
His laughter echoes into the night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We continue to meet, initially every Tuesday night. It's strange to finally meet someone I can actually talk to, after all these years, someone who will listen to what I say as thought it actually has some weight, and then respond. And he laughs when I crack a joke. Actually laughs - the most I got before was Farf grinning and Nagi smirking at me. I knew it was a good joke if Crawford told me to shut up.
Slowly we start to meet more regularly. Kudou comes to the bar, not to drink his liver to death, but to talk to me. The boss scowls about it, but I don't think he actually minds all that much - he would have said something, otherwise. And I'd have ignored him, but hey, it's what I do. Though it seems as long as keep our talk low, since the bar is never incredibly busy, we can chat for as long as we like.
It's . . . nice. I don't think I've ever had a relationship like this before, at least not as far as I can remember. I've never really had what a normal person would call "friends", and I liked it that way. Now, I find myself thinking about Kudou much more than is normal for me, and not blinking an eyelash. It's strangely . . . nice.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We arrange to meet one night a couple of months after we first went to the café. Kudou's a bit late, and, lucky me, it's pouring with rain.
I huddle deeper into the folds of my coat, trying to ignore the wet trickle of rain running from my hair down the back of my neck. Kudou had better fucking get here in a hurry, because I'm beginning to feel like a drowned kitten and that's not a pleasant sensation.
It passes nine, and he hasn't come. Ten goes in much the same direction as nine. It's almost twelve before I get really pissed off. I was only mildly pissed off before, now I'm ready to spit nails. I feel like a jilted date.
I make up my mind, and begin stalking through the streets towards Kudou's apartment. I'm trying to steadfastly ignore the part of my mind that keeps niggling at me, telling me that there could have been an accident, he could be hurt, which would be why he didn't show up, and - oh, screw it, that just makes me madder. If he had a fucking accident, I would expect him to damn well tell me! Not because I'd be worried or anything, but because it would mean I didn't have to stand out in the fucking freezing cold rain for a few hours waiting for a moron who wasn't going to turn up! It's definitely not worry at all, no way.
I climb up the stairs of Kudou's apartment building, dripping water as I go, and pound on his door. "Kudou!" I bellow. "You better fucking me unconscious or dead, because if you're not when I get through with you-"
"Door's open," the muffled voice drifts through the wood.
Oh, the door's open, is it? I stare dumbfounded at the wood for a moment, a stab of painfully familiar emotion going through me. But it's not relief. Definitely not. Sodding bastard decided he didn't want to go out in the rain, is that it? Dammit, I'm going to give him a fucking piece of my mind-
I slam open the door and stalk into the apartment, not bothering to close it behind me. "Kudou!" I yell, making my way to the living room. "Where the hell are you, you ungrateful piece of shit-"
"And good evening to you too," Yohji says to me as I enter the room. "I take it you didn't get my message?"
"What fucking message?" I yell. "I don't have a fucking answering machine! And unlike you,
some people actually work in this city, and that means they have to fucking sleep during the day-"
Hey, I think I'm actually enjoying this.
"Could you shut the door, please? You're letting in a draft." The fucking bastard actually smirks at me.
It's stupid, and immature, and childish, but I get the sudden urge to stick my tongue out at him.
I ignore it, and shut the door instead. Walking back into the living room, I deflate a little, the force of my anger falling away in the face of his blaze responses. "So why didn't you turn up?" I ask, standing a little stupidly in front of him with my coat dripping water onto the carpet.
Kudou points down his leg to his ankle, which, I suddenly notice is propped up on the sofa, swathed in thick white cloth. "Sprain," he says. "I tried calling you to tell you, but you didn't pick up. I left a message with your boss at the bar."
I sigh, and unceremoniously drop my coat in a wet crumple on the floor, dropping myself into a chair. "Idiot, I don't work on Tuesdays," I say.
Yohji shrugs. "I know, but you weren't answering your phone," he says, as though that explains everything.
"So, what now?"
Yohji picks up a remote from beside him on the sofa and waves towards the TV with it. "There're a couple of films on tonight," he says. "We could watch those."
I make a face. "Films, not really my thing unless they meet specific requirements."
"Like what?"
"Blood, violence, sex, an interesting main character. . . ." I tick them off on my fingers. "That's pretty much it."
"Gangster movies, then."
I stare at him. "Gangster movies are not something most people would pick first from that list, Kudou."
He grins. "I take it no gangster movies, then."
I shake my head. "Nope."
"Horror? Action?"
"Action never has an interesting main character, and horror films are just funny."
"Hey, I like horror films."
"And action?"
"No . . . well, some of them."
"See? You have no taste."
Kudou throws the remote at me, grinning. "Go get me something to drink."
I raise my eyebrow at him. "What do I look like, a nursemaid?"
Yohji glares at me. It doesn't quite work, since he's trying not to grin at the same time. "Just go get the bloody drinks, Schu."
I get to my feet, heading for the kitchen. "And don't fucking call me Schu!"
He laughs at me again.
Asshole.
[End Part 3]
Any good?
