Many, many apologies for the long wait. The chapter's slightly longer to compensate for that! Enjoy!
Warnings: lotsa language, angst, building
up to more angst
Pairings: Schuldig/Yohji
Summary: Schuldig's POV as he copes with life after Schwarz and Estet. And then Yohji finds him, and things get interesting.
Archive: Lunacy in Two Forms (URL on the profile page because FF.N is a bastard)
Disclaimer: I like denial. They're all mine.
As always, dedicated to Karen from KanaDUH. ^_^ Plus a little extra note to say thanks to Minerva Solo for being such a great pal and helping me figure out some of this chapter. (The thing with the peanuts was her idea.) Wish her luck, she's up at Cambridge right now for interview!
Healing
by Anria
Part 5
Do you know what the most fucking annoying thing in this world is? Having something wonderful, that was all yours just for a moment, and then seeing it get ripped away. My experience with people tells me that they react in one of two ways to that - either get terminally depressed, or fucking pissed off.
Can you guess which route I picked?
Depression pokes its head 'round the door occasionally, just to niggle at me, but never stays long. Being angry is more tiring, but it gives me enough determination that I don't just decide to give up, roll over, and play dead.
Yohji's been hanging around at the bar more often, though he's drinking less. He claims he hangs around to stop me moping. I say he hangs around in the hopes of distracting me so much the boss finally gives me the sack.
"Bar peanuts are some of the world's most disgusting food," Yohji muses, poking idly at a bowl of the said snacks.
I grunt, not really paying much attention. Wiping mugs seems to be the stereotypical job of barmen everywhere, so I'm currently engaging in being a cliché. It's comforting to let Yohji babble on about nothing at all, giving me something to focus on other than my failure to control my goddamned "talent".
Yohji picks up a peanut and holds it in front of his face, staring at it. "Do you know," he says, "that there are supposed to be thirteen different kinds of urine on this?" [1]
Because I really needed to know that. "Don't eat it then," I say.
Yohji grins, and pops it in his mouth.
The bastard did that just to make me cringe. I roll my eyes at him instead and slam the mug down onto the bar before picking up another one.
"You ever think about the snacks bars all over the world seem to have?" Yohji says after a moment, apparently content to talk at me. He likes the sound of his own voice, although I can see why. It's got a sort of purr to it, making him sound like a cat that just got . . . its belly rubbed. Yeeeeeah.
"For example, pickled onions," he continues, staring at his glass as he absently rolls it on its edge, making what's left of the drink inside slop around in circles.
"What about them?"
"What is the point in pickled onions?"
I shrug. "What's the point in peanuts? What's the point in bars? What's the point in life?"
Yohji leans on his arm, keeping his face from being pressed against the sticky surface of the bar. "To not die, of course."
"To cause others pain and ourselves pleasure." I work my neck from side to side, trying to ease out the tension in it. Doesn't work. Nothing I do seems to work, and it's fucking frustrating, which just makes me tense up even more.
Yohji raises his glass and sits up a little. "I'll drink to that."
"Funny, I thought you were an optimist."
Yohji waggles his eyebrows. He looks utterly ridiculous - it's got to be the stupidest thing I've seen all day. "And you're not?"
I snort, trying to smother my smile. "I'm not the one who never wears underwear."
The blond idiot wags his finger at me. "Aha, so you hear, but do you know?"
I stop, and put down the glass and towel. Planting my hands firmly on the bar, I lean close so our faces are barely inches apart and we're breathing the same air. His breath smells of whiskey, and I wonder briefly if he'd taste of it, too.
You'll never find out, will you?
Ignoring the bastard little voice at the back of my mind that just loves to remind me of reality, I purr, "I know."
Yohji's eyebrow shoots up. "Oh?" he says. "And whose mind did you suck that out of?"
I wait until he takes a drink from his glass before saying, "Omi's."
Kudou chokes, his drink spraying from his mouth onto the already sticky bar. He coughs violently, looking utterly traumatised, and I burst out laughing. I laugh so hard I have to catch my balance on the bar, one hand clutching my sides.
After a moment I realise Yohji's recovered from his coughing fit and is watching me with a slight smile on his face. Suspicion instantly wipes out the last of my amusement.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing." Yohji picks up his glass and swirls it. He likes doing that. "You just looked happy."
He was smiling at me . . . because I looked happy?
Okay, I am not going to blush.
Not.
Definitely not.
No way.
. . . why the hell am I blushing?
Yohji snickers, pointing at me. "You clash," he says.
Bastard.
I smile sweetly and grab his bottle, easily holding it out of reach. "I think you've had enough," I say.
"That's cruel and unusual punishment." Yohji makes a half-hearted swipe for the bottle, missing by a mile. "I've paid for that, you know."
"Let the punishment fit the crime," I say, and take a swig.
He grins at me. "Asshole."
Time goes past. It has a habit of doing that, I've noticed.
We've kept up our meetings, both at the bar and on my night off. Yohji's been trying to help me with my talent, but there's only so much a non-telepath can do. So in the end, the attempts filtered down to a minimum and we're back to watching movies and getting drunk.
"Hey, Yohji," I say, wandering out of the kitchen into his living area. I hand him a beer and sprawl out on the sofa. "How much money have you got left, anyway? You're not working, right?"
Yohji shrugs, eyes fixed on the TV screen. "I put a lot of it in stocks and bonds. There's quite a bit of it there now - I probably won't need to work for another few years, possibly even a decade if I play my cards right."
I blink. "How long have you been saving up?"
"Since. . . ." Yohji's words trail off and he frowns at the can in his hands. Abruptly, he stands up and grabs the remote, switching off the TV before turning to me. "You want to go out?" he asks, an overly bright grin on his face.
I frown at him, but get up anyway. Fuck it, if he wants to avoid the subject, who am I to go prying?
We end up going out every time I get a break now. Kudou keeps dragging me back to the little coffee shop where we first went back - fuck, has it really been six months?
Weird.
The café is mostly deserted most nights, which is good for us. There's one table right at the back which has seats you just sink into. It's perfect for us because it gives us privacy, puts our backs to a different wall each, is close to the back exit, and lets us see the whole café easily.
Heh. Paranoia. But we're still alive, aren't we?
"Coming up to the anniversary," I muse out loud, warming my hands on the mug of coffee.
"Anniversary of what?" Yohji asks around his cigarette. He's picked up an abandoned magazine off another table and is fighting his way through the crossword puzzle. "Two across: 'this occurs when a child is separated from an important attachment figure.' Eleven letters."
That's a damn weird clue. I frown at the crossword and try to read it upside down. "Psy . . . psychword? What the fuck is that thing?" [2]
"It's a special psychology edition of whatever the hell this magazine is. I read the editor's note." Yohji absently taps the end of his cigarette against the ash tray before taking another drag. "You got any idea about that one?"
I think about it. I can vaguely remember Nagi studying something like this at one point. "Deprivation?" I hazard.
Yohji frowns, then grins at me. "Perfect! So, what anniversary?"
"Of when they all died." I take a sip from my mug, and burn my tongue again. Dammit, why can I never drink anything hot without burning my tongue?
"'They?'" Yohji queries softly, still bent over his crossword.
"Crawford. Nagi. Farf." I take a gulp of my coffee this time. Heck, if a sip burned my tongue why worry about a mouthful? "Ken. Omi. You know."
"That soon, huh?"
There's an odd note to Yohji's voice, and I frown at him, but he's bent over that stupid crossword so I can't see his face. Keeping my tone light, I reply, "Yep. Was wondering what to do about it - aren't you supposed to go visit a grave or something on the anniversary of someone's death?"
"Only if they have a grave to go to. Only if the body in the grave is really theirs." Yohji's voice is much softer, and he doesn't seem to be focusing on the page in front of him at all.
Something's up.
Suddenly, he sits back and grins wryly at me. "After all, Kenken and Omittchi already had graves before they actually died. What about Schwarz? Were you officially retired from life when you joined Estet, or did the psychos who wanted to take over the world have a retirement plan?"
I answer him easily, but I'm certain this is bugging him more than he wants to let on.
I'm also fairly sure that when he talked about the wrong body in a grave, he wasn't referring to Ken and Omi.
Somehow, the next night at Yohji's ends up as our way of remembering them. It's not the right day - hell, it's not even the right way to honour the dead - but who really gives a fuck?
I still get the feeling that . . . for Yohji, this is just the precursor to something big.
"Schu?"
"Hmm?"
"What was it you liked the most about Schwarz?"
"What was it I liked about Schwarz? Pick the hard questions, why don't you."
"There's got to be something."
". . ."
". . . and?"
"Fine! Fine. I had little things I liked about them. Like how Crawford could be an anal bastard but everything he did was to get us out of Estet. How Farfie could be so . . . jaded in some ways, and then do something which made him seem like a total innocent. How Nagi was a total innocent, despite everything, but tried to pretend he was big and tough so we wouldn't look down on him."
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Look down on him?"
"He was a kid in school uniform with a permanently grumpy expression. I couldn't help it."
". . ."
". . . what about you?"
"Eh?"
"You! Weiss! What was it you liked the most?"
". . . heh. Now I know what you mean about it being a hard question."
"Kudou. . . ."
"Fine! Fine. Omi mothered everybody, which was damned annoying, but he was always there, you know? Whenever you needed something. I don't think we did the same for him very well when his memories started coming back, though. . . . Strangely enough, it was Aya who really got through to him then. Aya's a bastard. The only reason I didn't strangle him was because . . . there was a nice guy under there, somewhere. But the nice guy couldn't cope, so the bastard took over, and the bastard annoyed the fuck out of me. Ken was just . . . he was just Ken. A good guy with a temper. I think he was the only one out of us that really believed in what we were doing."
"And they're all dead, except the bastard."
"Heh. Yeah."
". . ."
". . ."
". . . I wish they were still alive."
". . . me too."
"Did you fuck him?"
"Huh? Who?"
"Ken. Did you fuck him?"
"No! Why the hell would I - shit, don't look at me like that. I mean it! I- It was just the once, okay? I was drunk, and he was there, and he was . . . Ken. You know what I mean."
"Do I?"
"Yes, you do. And how the fuck did you know I fucked Ken?"
"Intuition. So, why did you fuck him?"
"I already told you that!"
"No you didn't."
"Yes I - okay, fine, I didn't."
". . . and?"
"Can't you just leave it alone?"
"Nope. Tell."
"He was . . . Ken. I think he really believed, deep down, that people were all good underneath. I mean, otherwise he'd have to say that Kase was always a jerk and he just didn't notice, right? He had to adopt Omi's way of looking at things to survive in Weiss - that the bad are bad and the good are good - but . . . shit, even after everything we'd been through he still believed that people could be good. That they could be nice without some ulterior motive. And damn it all to hell, but that's addictive."
"So you fucked him . . . for what? So you could catch innocence off him?"
"Shit, say it like that and it sounds so sordid."
"Isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but. . . ."
". . ."
". . ."
". . . I'd have done the same."
"Do you think they'd approve?"
"Of what?"
"Of this. Us. The white hunter and the dark beast, together in the same room getting drunk and talking like we're actually friends."
". . . did you listen in on our mission briefings?"
"Is it my fault Persia's an outstanding comedian?"
"Heh, guess not. . . . Omi wouldn't approve."
"Never forgive the bad ones, eh?"
"You know about that?"
"The kid was fucked up. Blame it on his father."
"Yeah, Takatori Reiji has a lot to answer for."
". . . shit!"
"What?"
"I forgot you don't know. Heh."
"Forgot I don't know what?"
"Oh, you'll love this one - Omi's father wasn't Reiji, it was Shuichi."
". . . come again?"
"Ever wonder just why Daddy dearest didn't pay the ransom? He knew Omi - Mamoru - wasn't his kid. His wife and Shuichi had had an affair, and the result was dear little Omi."
"Shit. . . ."
"Yeah. Shuichi didn't know - I suppose at the time he thought it would be ironic to use Reiji's kid against him. When he found out Omi was his son, he regretted what he put the kid through. Funny, ain't it?"
"When did he find out Omi was his son?"
"Right before Reiji killed him."
"Shit. . . ."
"You said that."
"So . . . it was his father that turned him into a murderer?"
"Yeah."
". . ."
". . ."
"I'm glad he's dead."
"Good for you. Hey, weren't you going to go on about whether the rest of Weiss would approve?"
"If you insist. Aya - shit, I really don't know. Part of me says he'd kill himself before admitting that you're not so bad, and part of me says he'd never think it in the first place."
"So either way, he wouldn't approve. What about Kenken?"
". . . I think it would take him a long time to come around to it, but he would. I mean, like I said before, deep down he really thought that everybody was good at heart, it was just some got led down the wrong path. He made himself separate people into 'good' and 'bad', and it would hurt him to have to go back to thinking everybody's good-"
"-or everybody's a bastard-"
"-or everybody's a bastard, but in the end he'd do it. He'd accept it, because he's just that damn nice."
". . . did you love him?"
"What?"
"It's a simple question, Kudou."
"I know that, it's just - fine. No, I didn't love him. Happy now, asshole?"
"Woah, calm down! Why the fuck are you angry?"
"Fuck off."
"No."
". . ."
". . ."
". . ."
". . . you're gonna have to talk to me at some point."
"I should have loved him. I admired him, I fucked him and loved every minute of it, he was a great friend - I should've loved him. But I didn't."
"Why not?"
". . ."
". . . Yohji?"
"Because I'm a fucking retard, all right?"
"That's not the reason."
"It might as well be!"
"Shit, Kudou, I'm not stupid!"
"Could've fooled me."
"Look, let's try this again - why didn't you love Ken? A simple 'I don't know' would suffice!"
"Fuck you."
"Dammit, what crawled up your arse and died?"
"You'll never know, will you?"
". . ."
"Shit. Schu, I'm sorry."
"Fuck off. You don't want me around? Fine, I won't be around."
"Schu, wait a minute-"
"Fuck. You."
Shit, I know it was childish. I know it was stupid. But being unable to touch people is a sore spot for me and he damn well knows it. At least I have the excuse of the Ken thing only coming out tonight.
I slam into my shithole and bolt the door. The mattress is uncomfortable, but that's normal. It feels unfamiliar though, which is strange - I hadn't realised I'd been spending the night (or day, in my case) over at Yohji's so often.
Well. Guess I won't be doing that for a while.
. . . the Ken thing.
What the fuck is up with that? Is Yohji feeling guilty because he couldn't make himself love him? Did he love him and just won't admit it?
Even in death Weiss gets more than me.
Figures.
I groan and drag my hands over my face. "If Ken's so fucking perfect, why wouldn't he love him?" I say out loud, voice muffled under my palms. I don't think it's just that, though. I mean, he's been avoiding talking about whatever's bugging him for so long that to start yakking about Ken tonight just doesn't follow.
. . . fuck it. I'm going to sleep. Kudou fucking Yohji's fucking love problems are none of my fucking concern.
And, like he pointed out tonight, they never will be.
[End Part 5]
[1] Wonderful little fact pointed out to me by my friend Min. O.o Just wanted you always wanted to know about bar peanuts.
[2] This "psychword" thing actually exists - I once bought a magazine that had it in. Psychology 'zines are weird. . . .
Heh, Schuldig's jealous of a dead man and in denial, while Yohji's building up to some major angsting, and we have so retrospective Yohji+Ken. Awwwwww. (Sorry, I love those two! And there aren't nearly enough fics for them, dammit. .)
Meh. Did you guys like?
