Note: Okay, reviewers, you guys deserve all the credit for this. There is like, no WAY I would have ever managed through about three chapters of this if it hadn't been for you guys. gets all teary eyed Thusly, more review shout outs! XD
Myka – Ha! You think Schu is confused! I'm the one trying to write this and I have noooo idea where it is going. LOL. Actually I do, but you know. Oh, and as a random comment, I just realized that 'zelos' is actually one of the stories I have bookmarked under My Favorites on my computer! XD Ah ha! Imagine that! LOL! Actually now that I look, I've actually read almost all of your works! OMG! face plant
Whisper Reilman – I'm cutting back on the Schu angst for this chapter some. XD I think it's affecting my real life mood. Heehee!
Mangababy – I'm sure another life time will come soon enough. Maybe after I finish this I'll do a one-shot song fic just for you. :)
Knight angel – Thank you for the review, I'm glad you are enjoying it! I'm updating!
With that said, I present to you the fifth chapter, completely lacking Schu. Well, not quite. Just… keep reading!
"Schuldich, are you okay?" Crawford rapped lightly on the bathroom door, but he received no response. He had only glimpsed Schuldich momentarily leaving the kitchen after he had slammed his mug of coffee on the counter. Honestly Crawford really did want to know if Schuldich was okay, he had an incredibly pained expression on his face after the coffee had sloshed onto his hand.
"Go away." Schuldich snapped through the bathroom door. He had fully intended on curling back up in his bed and going back to sleep, but he had suddenly felt extremely dizzy, and thus had stopped in the bathroom on the way to his room. Currently he was draped over the toilet seat, waiting for the little supper he had left in his stomach from the night before to make its way up as he sat staring at his scalded hand. He could tell it needed some medical attention rather soon, but he had no will power to get up and leave the bathroom. It just didn't seem worth the effort.
"Schu, what's wrong?" Obviously Schuldich had left the bathroom door unlocked, and Crawford had let himself in. Schuldich groaned and the only thought that crossed his mind was 'Well wasn't that peachy of him?' Crawford knelt next to Schuldich, glancing over the shaken figure once before repeating his question. "Schu, what's wrong?"
"You wouldn't understand." Schuldich muttered, watching Crawford examine his scalded hand. "But then again you probably already know and you're just not saying anything so that I go on a guilt trip because you're an evil bastard like that. And he's probably in on the whole, whole- conspiracy with you! And," Crawford quickly turned his attention to Schuldich, suddenly realizing the younger man's mind was running too quickly for his own good. Standing quickly, Crawford started to rummage through the medicine drawer in the bathroom while he continued to half listen to Schuldich's ramblings. "And no one gives a damn about the so called self proclaimed mission we're on and trying to solve except me, and I want Weiß away from us and I want them to be our enemies again, I want-" Schuldich froze as he spotted the pill that Crawford was offering- no- demanding that he take.
It was the tiny blue pill Esset had released to him upon his leaving of Rosenkreuz. In simple terms, it shut down his mind. It was made so that telepaths wouldn't drown in their own thought process, drown in their own minds. He had only taken it twice before in his entire life and he didn't understand why Crawford would have him take it now, but he realized in the back of his mind that his mind was spinning in circles and he was terribly confused and all he wanted was to sleep. And sleep this pill would cause. This pill would knock Schuldich senseless, quite literally. It would basically put him to sleep as soon as he took it, shutting down his mind. He'd forget most of the recent events in his life, and several hours after he awoke he'd still be powerless, having his talent rendered useless.
Yet for some reason he took the pill from Crawford, taking it with a small sip of water from the glass Crawford offered. He was still rambling though, and Crawford was worried. Of the now three times Schuldich had ever had to take the pill, once had been before Crawford had taken in Nagi and Farfarello. It had been the first time Schuldich had ever come anywhere near being lost to his own power, and Crawford had felt completely powerless to stop it. The second time was after Schuldich had just taxed himself too much on a mission. Now though, Crawford couldn't understand what had put Schuldich's mind into such frenzy.
"And I want," Schuldich was still rambling as Crawford gently picked him up. "I want you to love me like you used to. And I'm sorry Brad, I'm so fucking sorry." Crawford slowly maneuvered Schuldich's limp body through the hallway to their bedroom, where he carefully set him on their bed. "I didn't mean…" Schuldich's eyes were closing slowly as Crawford leaned down and lightly kissed him on the forehead. "I didn't mean to… kiss him…" Crawford sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments, considering what Schuldich had said in his frenzy of thoughts as the younger man drifted off into a somewhat peaceful sleep. It quite possibly could have been a reference to his past, and in which case Crawford wasn't too worried about it. He brushed Schuldich's bangs out of his face as he slept, before finally heading back to the bathroom to pick up the first aid kit. He needed to tend to Schuldich's hand before it worsened.
Crawford stood in the doorway to their room for a bit, the first aid kit lying gently in his arms. Slowly he walked around the room and sat down on the other side of the bed, taking Schuldich's hand in his own. The telepath would be knocked out cold for at least another ten hours, so there was no fear of waking him up. Taking his time, Crawford carefully cleaned, mended, and bandaged Schuldich's hand. After a few more minutes he decided to head back to the kitchen to finish his coffee while Schuldich slept.
"Is he okay?" Yohji looked up briefly as Crawford made his way back to his chair. Taking a sip, Crawford nodded.
"He will be." Judging by the position of the sun out the back door, Crawford guessed it was rather late for his 'coffee time', but he didn't care.
"What happened?"
"I believe he over taxed his mind, it was running full force and he couldn't control it." After all the time he spent around Esset workers, Crawford knew how to explain everything in simple terms.
"So if he lost control of his mind, how did you stop it?" Yohji couldn't help the questions, he was genuinely interested. He had, after all, gotten the chance to sit down and ask these types of questions to someone who actually knew.
"Esset had issued a small bottle of pills that stop the functioning of his mind. Basically they put him to sleep for about twelve hours or so. I just had him take one of them." Sighing slightly to himself, Crawford rubbed his eyes gently. "You might think it is wonderful to have the powers we have, but each of us had to sacrifice something for them. I sacrificed my career, Nagi sacrificed his childhood, Farfarello sacrificed his sanity, but Schuldich sacrificed the most."
"We didn't become Weiß without a little bloodshed along the way either, Crawford." Omi's voice rung strong from the stair case, and Yohji and Crawford both turned to see Omi and Nagi standing at the top of the stairs. There was an intent gaze in Omi's eyes, but no trace of anger. Crawford merely nodded in mute agreement before Omi headed off to find some food in the kitchen.
"Crawford, where's Schuldich?" Nagi almost sounded concerned as he asked.
"In bed, I gave him one of his pills." To everyone's amazement, Nagi actually turned a shade paler as the words Crawford said sunk in. He had been around when Schuldich had taken 'his pill' once, and it had been extremely hard to handle. The thought of Schuldich actually having to take it again was purely terrifying.
"But why?" Nagi managed to ask after what seemed like forever.
"His mind was, metaphorically speaking, strangling itself." Crawford looked up to meet Nagi's eyes, and the younger boy nodded in understanding. He knew Crawford would never do something to deliberately hurt Schuldich or put him in harms way.
"Will he be okay?" Crossing the room to sit down at the table next to Crawford, it was easy to tell that Nagi really as worried about Schuldich.
"All in due time, Nagi." Crawford rubbed his eyes again before sliding his glasses on. "I should start my day." Remembering briefly some of the things Schuldich had said earlier in his frenzy, Crawford stopped as he started to leave the room and turned back to Nagi. "I want you and Omi to start searching for information on Esset and Kritiker and what they are doing, why they are trying to kill us or even if they are. Nagi, I want a full report by the end of the night."
"Understood, we will get what we can by the end of the night." Nagi turned to Omi, who nodded as he prepared their breakfast.
Yohji couldn't help it. He was curious if Schuldich looked as peaceful sleeping now as he had in the coffee shop the first time he had seen him asleep. Glancing around the house he found that Crawford was downstairs helping out Nagi and Omi in their quest for information over either team. With the computers and other technological crap they had both brought with them, it was a miracle they actually needed some assistance. It would be another miracle if they didn't overheat the computers and fry the house down.
Pushing the bedroom door open just enough that he could peer in, Yohji was disppointed to realize that Schuldich was facing the opposite direction. Carefully, so he wouldn't make any noise, Yohji closed the door and started back towards the kitchen.He couldn't figure out why he felt like he felt. He held no true happy feelings towards Schuldich, just a growing curiosity. He didn't understand the telepath and what he did, and Yohji wanted to know why Schuldich did the things he did. But most of all, there was one question lingering in the back of his head as he went about to his day.
'What did Schuldich give up for Schwarz?'
"Yohji, why don't you do something useful?" Ken was currently helping Aya make supper for everyone, and Yohji was sitting at the counter looking completely bored out of his mind. He hadn't been up to much all day as a matter of fact, and it seemed that Ken was the only one who had even taken notice. "You doing alright Yohji?" Ken asked after a moment.
"Yeah Kenken, just a bit tired. That couch isn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world." Yohji flashed his most convincing 'Yohji smile' at Ken before sauntering from the room. It had been almost the entire day, and Schuldich was still in his room. Glancing around once more, Yohji checked to make sure no one was around as he pushed the door to the room open again lightly. This time however, he was too shocked by what he saw to quickly leave.
Schuldich was awake and sitting up in bed, but his face was stained by tears, and he was still sitting there crying. Without thinking, Yohji pushed the door open the rest of the way and all but ran to Schuldich's side. "Schuldich what's wrong?" Yohji sat down on the side of the bed next to Schuldich, who slowly turned to face him.
"You wouldn't understand." Schuldich muttered after a moment, a few fresh tears falling from his eyes.
"Try me." Yohji tried to smile as he reached up and wipped away a few of Schuldich's stray tears. "You don't know that for sure." But Schuldich didn't answer. He simply crawled off the bed and headed out of the room. Exasperated, Yohji followed him down the hall. "You know it's rude to walk away from people who are talking to you, right?" Yet it was as if Schuldich was listening to the voices in his head and just ignoring Yohji. And then of course Yohji remembered that Schuldich was a telepath and had probably been summoned by one of his team mates. Yet he continued to follow Schuldich down to Nagi and Omi's room, where everyone else was gathered.
Nagi glanced up as the two entered, Yohji standing as far away from Farfarello as he could. The Irishman was currently playing with one of his knives, and Yohji was not about to get anywhere near that.
"We figured out why Kritiker and Esset disbanded both our teams." Omi's voice interrupted Yohji's current train of thought, but he didn't mind. Aya looked a little impatient as Omi paused for a few moments, gathering his thoughts and words. "As it turns out, the two companies, if you could call them that, joined together."
"They found that it would be too dangerous to combine our two teams together." Nagi picked up simply where Omi had left off.
"So they're trying to kill us because we're professional assassains and they're afraid we're going to rebel against them." Omi finished it off, and everyone let his words sink in. "At least the last part is our theory. We still are not one hundred percent sure that they are the ones trying to kill us."
"It sounds logical." Aya commented from where he was standing by Ken.
"But the only thing you know for sure is that the two have joined together, were afraid of our two teams combining and gaining too much power, so they disbanded us." Crawford processed everything as he wrapped his arm around Schuldich's waist, surprising Schwarz. Crawford rarely displayed his affection for Schuldich in public, or even in front of them. "But you are just assuming that they are the ones after us for the reasons you stated?"
"That would be correct." Omi nodded, turning to Weiß. "I don't know what happened to Birman, Manx, or anyone else. I don't know at this point in time if they really knew of this or not."
"Understood, is that all?" Aya was ready to get out of the room, which was getting rather hot and crowded. Nagi nodded, and Aya and Ken quickly exited the room. Farfarello wasn't far behind, finding more important things to do in his own room, since Nagi had already informed him that if he broke something he would be jeopardizing their future.
Yohji was just about ready to turn and leave the room when the ringing of Omi's cell phone stopped him in his tracks. Omi stood staring at the phone, not sure what to do. He hadn't had it long, just a few days, so who could be calling him? Picking up the cell phone, Omi quickly pressed the button to answer it, lifting it to his ear as he answered it."Hello?"
"Omi."
There was a pause as the voice sunk into Omi's head, and he turned to Yohji, their eyes locking as Omi stated simply into the phone and for Yohji's information.
"Manx."