Part 4

Crawford looked at the two penitent members of Schwartz and then just shook his head. He had listened patiently to their tales of the horror of their shopping expedition. He looked at the gathered shopping bags at their feet and shook his head. He looked at the tall blonde boy that they had managed to bring with them and just burst out laughing.

They said it had started because they didn't know what to buy for Nagi, so they came to the conclusion that if they dressed like santa they could ask kids his age what he wanted, but they were swamped with seven year old girls which meant that they could thinks of lots of things for Bombay, and then the boy came up and he had given them some ideas, under telepathic persuasion, but then security and the yakuza had started chasing them, but they didn't know why, so they ran off their with their shopping, hijacked a taxi at gunpoint, and without stopping long enough to think of releasing the boy had come home.

Schuldig even had the cheek to say that it was "hell out there," in Shibuya, which obviously didn't reflect on the fact that they had insulted a Yakuza boss' pride and joy and only son, assaulted santa and kidnapped the son of the vice foreign minister.

"You're grounded." He said finally, "if you're behaving like children I'll treat you like children, and I'll take Milliardo here home."

"You mean we don't have to go to the Koneko for Christmas?" fArfarello said excitedly.

"What this means," Crawford enunciated every word, "is you have to go, but you're not going to the Evil Incorporated Christmas party, and I'm starting a buddy system, currently each member of Weiss is paired with another to prevent murder and mayhem, I'm going to speak to Abyssinian and go one up on that, I'm going to pair you each with your Weiss counterpart." He looked at the two of them and then at the bags of shopping at their feet. "Now come along, Milliardo, I'll take you home."

"I want Halo 2 and a Meccano set." Milliardo said quite clearly.

"Hmmm," Crawford said clearly. "Hmmm, indeed."

"Hey, Mill," Nagi said from the door, he had his kitten in his arms, when he was at home and not attached to his computer, like Satsuki in X, the cat was in his arms. "not that I mind but why are you here?"

"I want Halo 2 and a Meccano set." Milliardo said, obviously a little confused that that was all he could say.

A pair of large and dangerous eyes fixed on Schuldig, who started yelping and moving his hair in the direction his hair was being pulled by invisible hands. "Itai, itai. I'll let him go."

Milliardo blinked, once, twice and then a third, time, then he punched Schuldig in the face.

Meanwhile in the Koneko, "come any closer and I'll turn you all into shish kebabs." AYa said waving his katana about warningly in the kitchen door. "It's not Christmas yet, you can't have any."

"But Aya," Omi whined, making his eyes very large and vulnerable. "It smells so good."

Yohji and Ken were whispering. "Don't you dare try to distract me either. I have eyes in the back of my head. This ham is for Christmas and any attempts to get near it earlier will result in Weiss burgers. I am sleeping in the kitchen until Christmas morning." He looked at the three of them again, "and I have start of the art surveillance here just in case. Now I have made sandwiches, they are in the parlour." He looked at them again. "go."

They took combat positions. A thin reedy female voice came from the window, "OOOOOMMMMMMIIIII!"

Omi ducked under the table like he'd been shot. "Argh," he murmured, "Ouka."

"I told you not to flank me," Aya said, "I obviously had no choice.

"OOOOOOMMMMMIIIII!" Ouka repeated.

"Aren't you going to let her in, Ken?" Aya asked with a smile.

"That's just cruel." Yohji said trying to look insouciant, unlike the other two who just looked terrified.

"Aya," Omi managed from under the occasional table, "She's Takatori's daughter." He stammered out, "it would really hurt him to hurt her." He sounded desperate.

For a second Aya looked torn. "I'm not falling for it."

"OOOOOMMMMMIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She squealed again.

"I might," Yohji said, "that girl is scary."

"I'm not leaving the ktichen." Aya said, "and you're not getting anywhere near my honey roasted hickory ham, even if there is a banshee at the door, she isn't asking for me anyway."

As if on cue a second voice joined the fray, "AAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAA!" They looked at Aya.

"That could just be Ouka screaming in pain." He answered calmly.

"OOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!" One voice yelled. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!" The other joined in.

Then there was a loud bang like a gunshot followed by girly screaming and all four of them gave a sigh of relief. Ken was the first to comment, "shouldn't we feel a little guilty that one of our neighbours had to shoot at them?"

"Certainly not." Aya said, "If we weren't the good guys," he said, "We would have done it." They all nodded ruefully agreeing with them. "Now get the hell out of my kitchen. This is for Christmas, and it's the nineteenth, go away." Then he slammed the door.

Yohji opened the door to the two most normal members of Schwartz. "We heard screaming," Crawford said barging past.

"And you came all the way over here for that, you live like halfway across the city?" Yohji seemed to think that this was a valid point.

"No," Nagi said, "we were outside and there were these weird shrieking creatures carrying these." He pressed the two small delicately wrapped boxes into Yohji's arms, "so we shot at them and they ran away."

Yohji looked a little startled then threw his arms around Nagi and hugged him tight. "Can I keep you?" He asked, "you're so little and evil, we can swap you for Ken, you're so kawaii."

"What are you up to, Balinese?" Crawford said pulling Yohji away by the back of his neck.

"Aya's locked himself in the kitchen, and he called Ouka to keep Omi busy, and then we called Sakura to distract him, but we've been stuck in the house for like five minutes, and my cigarettes are in the kitchen and I can't get them, but now I can go to the shop." Yohji explained, he was beaming with happiness.

"I think I'll go home," Crawford said, "You're as mad as they are. I only came for some flowers to give to the Vice Foreign minister as an apology for accidentally kidnapping his son." Yohji raised an exquisitely sculpted golden eyebrow in a querying look "It wasn't me, it was tweedle dum and tweedle dummer."

The door to the kitchen opened, "I need help with getting the christmas cake down, you two, come here." The look Aya gave both Crawford and Nagi was genuinely scary. "Crawford, you can watch the door to keep the rest of them out of my kitchen."

Author's note:

This chapter is probably full of typos but it wasn't done on my usual computer and the spell checker is bust and my lovely beta is somewhere warm this christmas so, sorry peeps, you just have to cope with it.

Sorry it took so long, my muse is telling me to work on Lord of Death, I might have another one for you later as long as I'm feeling so productive

And forthe Chaotic Ones, Deutsche is German