Part 5

Kitten napping, champagne and lullaby light shows.

Farfarello was hurting god. He did this in many ways, some of his favourites, he had to admit, made God weep, so when Schuldig had promised him a DVD that would hurt God he was shocked not to find a Danish Death Metal music collection, (they always promised church burnings and satanic motivated murders as well as long haired men dressed as trolls shouting about the church) Mississippi Burning a film he knew perfectly well had to hurt god, or even the Last Temptation of Christ a film that the church had decried, but a rather innocuous program about an Irish priest called Father Ted.

Sitting in Crawford's favourite armchair, polishing his knives with a little lemon pledge (which was also good for making Schuldig's hair stand up straight) and Nagi's kitten sitting on his shoulders, Farfarello found himself a new role model, someone he could look up to in times of need and doubt, someone who would understand his every vagary, and making sure all the scratches were out of his favourite flick knife he laughed, "feck," he said practising his impersonation, "drink," he thought about it, "knives," he said, then he laughed again, "feck, drink, drink, feck," and then in a true impersonation he went to sleep on the armchair.

Schuldig was convinced that when God sat down to design Reiji Takatori he had dipped his hand into the bag of traits and pulled out the words "evil," "possessive" and "koala". The man's side burns were fascinating in their own evil way, and if Schuldig couldn't read minds and therefore know better he would believe the future prime minister of Japan sat of an evening stroking them the way that Blofelt stroked his Persian cat in James Bond movies. Masafumi Takatori had hit his head quite hard on his way down the ugly tree, or had been dropped on his head as a child, and he was convinced that Hirofumi was one of those children that heavily overcompensates to make his father notice him.

Together they made Schuldig nauseous.

It was a wonder that they had actually sat working, as opposed to plotting, long enough to get as far as they had.

Crawford was stood next to the killer koala and future prime minister and was patiently practising his poker face to stop himself yawning at the old man's conversation. Only a telepath could recognise that, because it looked to all purposes that Crawford was paying acute attention to the security around the party. On the invitation it had said an intimate family gathering, and Schuldig supposed it was if your family had over five hundred members, some of whom weren't related to you at all but happened to be powerful in politics.

Crawford emptied the glass of champagne in his hand and sighed, and Schuldig knew it was going to be a long night.

Schoen slid open the window to the Schwarz safehouse as quietly as she planned, her beloved Masafumi assured her that all four members were required at his father's party tonight so she and Hell had agreed to this covert mission, "Get Todt the kitten." Todt had complained that it wasn't fair that Omi had a kitten and then Nagi had got a kitten and no one had got her one, of course with the way that Todt smothered Rabbi-chan it was unlikely anyone would get her one. She had whined, then she pouted, then she outright squalled when Neu came up with the perfect solution. Schoen and Hell, being the quietest, would steal Nagi's kitten, Crawford would demand it back and with broken hearts they would comply.

Tonight was the perfect night, they were all absent at Takatori's party, and the kitten was alone.

Crawford drained what might have been his fourth glass of champagne and decided it might be more fun to count the women in black. It was insane, all of these society women were all dressed the same. Aya was far more lovely than all of these women. He jerked his eyes away from the woman he was inadvertently staring at. "Kuso," he swore under his breath as the woman smiled and began to walk over to him, "not quick enough." He grabbed another glass of champagne from the waiter as he walked past and prepared to grin and bear it.

Farfarello stirred briefly at the strange sound, then looked at the kitten snoring on his lap, "feck," he said for good measure then went back to sleep in his chair.

Aya carefully laid Mihana down in her crib and switched on the lullaby lightshow listening to the patient soft music and watching the lights as they danced across the ceiling, a fluffy white sheep caught his attention and he thought for a moment of Farfarello, not sure why the sheep had reminded him of the Irish man. Then his thoughts went to Crawford and how soon he would see him again, and how nice it was to sit and drink coffee with him and just talk. But also how his kisses tasted of cinnamon.

The sheep was circling and the music was soothing.

Before Aya knew what had happened, he was fast asleep.

Mihana, however, was immune.

Schoen crept into the kitchen of the Schwarz safehouse making sure her felt shoes made no sound on the tile. Behind her Hell was whining, "I don't see why it takes two of us to borrow a kitten, and why are we being quiet, the house is empty? Ooh," she stopped in front of a full length mirror and smoothed out the lines of her cat suit, "damn," she said tilting her head and checking her reflection's hair, "I look fine."

If Schoen had been an anime character she would have sweat dropped.

Yamasa Nikia was doing her best to escape the dark haired American that was currently doing his best to regale her with what he considered to be a funny story but after what she counted as six glasses of champagne it was garbled and not very amusing at all. "And so I said "you're my woman dammit." He emptied another flute of champagne. "and she still said no."

"I really must be going, Crawford-san." She said trying to extricate herself from the drunken American. She touched her grey hair as she looked over his shoulder to see if she could see anyone who could rescue her.

"But I adore my Aya." He continued completely ignoring her, "and when we spend time together she says that she likes me, she gives me a shy smile and says daisuki da yo."

She raised her arm and looked at her bare wrist, "have you seen the time, I really shouldn't linger."

"And she's so striking." Crawford continued regardless, "and her kisses taste like strawberries, and are all the sweeter for having to be stolen." He said picking up another flute of champagne as the waiter walked past.

Yamasa-san looked around and caught the eye of Takatori-san's other gaijin body guard and cleared mouthed the words "help me."

Having finally pried Hell away from the mirror Schoen opened the first of the four doors to the bedrooms. Inside the room was a horror of mess, clothes heaped upon magazines heaped upon damp (and in some cases mouldy) towels with miscellaneous shoes and several cardboard boxes. Hell looked over her shoulder at the room, "schuldig," she said.

The second room was immaculate and was painted in a rich deep red but the ceiling was white. There was a gold brocade throw on the bed, and the floor boards were polished to a dull sheen. Even the furniture was carefully chosen and complemented the room, in fact despite it's size the room looked like it would belong in a stately home. "Crawford." They said together.

The third room was probably the largest and was painted black but the walls were covered in band posters for artists with names like "eat the pregnant," "the nine inch nails" and "survival of the sickest." A huge expanse of black boxes and wires dominated one wall, it also seemed to have pets that had crept away from leads. Instead of curtains there was a blind with a jolly roger motif. There was a single bed with "gundam wing" bedcovers and a small pile of plushies sat on a wicker chair that would have looked more at home in Crawford's room. There was also a small plaid cat basket. "Nagi." They said together. Todt's room was much more childish, it was painted pink and decorated with little ponies with designs on their bottoms.

There was no sign of the kitten.

They opened the fourth door a little more warily, it had to be Farfarello's.

At the Schreiend safehouse they had had discussions as to what they expected of Farfarello's room, the general consensus had favoured padded wall paper and carpet. The actuality was very different, rather than wallpaper the walls were covered with a very fake looking wood panelling, there was a dark carpet covered in pale pink flowers. There was a battered sofa in front of a bed with a floral print. Over the bed, and dominating the room was a print of a race horse. In the corner, in a wing arm chair was a white haired man and sitting on his lap was a small grey kitten.

As a single golden eye opened Farfarello expressed the thoughts of the two members of Schreiend with a single word "feck."

"Come on, Crawford." Schuldig said leading him to the small red car. Normally on these missions he was led to the car by Crawford the designated driver but every now and again the stultifying boredom meant that Crawford had dipped into the trays of champagne.

"Wanna go see Aya." Crawford said flopping down on the car seat. If Schuldig hadn't counted the ten flutes of champagne that Crawford had drank in rapid succession he would have known because Crawford was talking in English. And asking to see his arch enemy.

"Why do you want to see Abyssinian?" Schuldig asked making sure the seat belt was fastened.

"Not, Abba, abbass," he thought about it, taking off his glasses, "Aya."

"Crawford, you're in no fit state to see him, let's get you home and into bed, and you can sleep off the bubbles." Schuldig climbed into the car beside him, belting himself in.

Crawford put his hand on his forehead, "I've had a vision." He said capriciously, "we have to go to the Koneko, Nagi's in danger."

"And this has nothing to do with the fact that you want to see Abyssinian?" Schuldig rolled his eyes, he didn't like being in Crawford's position, it was strange and frankly unsettling.

"Not at all," Crawford answered, not slurring at all. "Now onwards, my good man." He said pointing. "Rally ho."

Schuldig lowered his head into his hands and sighed.

Ken woke with a start at the scream that ripped through the Koneko. He jumped to his feet and pulled on his sweat pants as he ran up the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to Omi's room with a exclamation of "Omittchi."

Omi sat up on the bed wide eyed and startled. "KenKen?" He asked with a yawn as Ken climbed over the bed to wrap his arms about the boy as Yohji hung from the door frames. "It's all right, akachan," Ken said forcing him against his muscular chest to try and contain the sobs that always accompanied Omi's nightmares.

"We're here, Omittchi." Yohji said sitting on the side of the bed and putting his hand on Omi's head.

"But I'm not crying." Omi said looking around wide eyed and startled.

In fact the screaming was continuing unabated, then there was a quiet murmur and it stopped, slowly, and it was followed by a male voice softly singing. They carefully, and as quiet as assassins, crept down the stairs, Aya was stood over the crib with the baby in his arms as Nagi helped him rearranging the blankets over the crib and setting a large grey donkey with plush ears and only one eye, that appeared to have seen better years into the corner as Aya rocked the baby and sang softly to her.

"And maybe you'll find me

a sailor, a tailor

and maybe together

we'll make mother well

I went to the meadow,

and milk wood and silk wood

and you would, if I would

but you never will."

Nagi lifted a blanket from the bed and draped it around Aya's shoulder as he sat back on Aya's austere sofa as the rest of the Weiss assassins stood in awe and wondered for the umpteenth time where Aya had gotten so good with babies.

Author's note:

TCM in answer to your request, this is a PG13 fic, however I might be entreated to putting an NC17 moment on my web site. Really with reviews, flattery will get you everywhere. (There already is one called Bombay Sapphire) Before anyone mentions my odd German spelling of things, I have become massively fond of my online German dictionary , and a friend who speaks German who told me what she thought they meant. So, Tot is going to be Todt, Schreint is going to be Schreiend and Esset is going to be ß, which is actually more difficult to put in. I have an online Japanese dictionary as well, looks smug. I have to ask though, why German? NGE is the same.

Lullabye Light shows, Fisher Price's bane for baby sitters everywhere.

Learning Japanese with Seraphim Grace

Aya's Lullaby was an excerpt from the lovely "Horses" by Tori Amos, which struck me as being a perfect lullaby kind of song.

Akachan - baby eg akachan to boku, baby and me.