Title: The Bridge of Sighs
Author: lady xenax
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz
Category: yaoi
Pairing: Crawford/Schuldig/Ran
Summary: Post-Gluhen. Schwarz hide in the old Palace that used to belong to the Crawford family. Oracle is losing his mind, and the German gets a new power
Rating: R
Genre: horror
Warning: AU, Gluhen spoilers
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, though I wouldn't mind having Crawford at my full disposal… for a week at least
1
"You're pathetic, Fujimiya."
Aya raised his head, holding on to a post box with one hand and clenching the wound on his chest with the other. His fingers felt the wet warmth of blood. There was no pain, only a grey fog inside and outside. The fog hid the damp street - it had rained recently, - dimmed the silhouettes of passers-by who hurried shopping, caught in the Christmas fever.
The weather was too mild even for the New York winter, Aya thought like a native citizen of the Big Apple. But why did it interest him?
"Yup, you're not interested in anything, right Fujimiya?"
A familiar laugh and a drawling intonation. Aya blinked, trying to discern the German.
"You don't look well, redhead. Been in a mess…" The Japanese's last words were lost in a coughing fit.
Somebody seemed to have cleared the steamy glass. The redhead stepped out of the fog. The German's figure acquired a surprising transparency.
It was nice that he had gotten rid of his great overcoat. Very jazzy…
"Do you think your orange sweater was better?"
In spite of an expensive Armani leather coat and designer pants the telepath had lost his former sadistic superiority. His handsome face looked more like a pale mask, and his eyes concealed despair and feverish excitement. A strand of wet hair stuck to his cheek.
"I forgot to take my umbrella, can you believe it? Fucking rain…"
Schuldig squatted next to Ran who didn't have enough strength to get up from the cold pavement. The Japanese knew he was dying and treated this fate calmly. If only the telepath turned out to be a joke of his imagination.
"You wish. I've been looking for you for a while…" The German touched Ran's hot forehead. He felt the tremor of the wounded man. "For a long time… Too long to let you die from the knife of some street punk."
"Leave me alone… Find someone else to torment… Let me die in peace…"
Aya closed his eyes wearily. He let his left hand hang helplessly. The hotness of blood enveloped him. His head was spinning. He felt no pain.
"You did…" he suffocated.
Schuldig nodded.
"I don't need your… pity… get lost…"
The German's lips curved in a faint smirk. He swept his fingers across the red spots on Aya's vest.
"Sick Nazi… bastard…"
Schuldig licked his blood-stained finger. Tasted like blood, he thought.
"I love you too," said the telepath, rising to his feet. "It wasn't my idea. Damn you Crawford! As if I don't have to deal with your fits, now I'm supposed to take care of this stray cat."
His red BMW stood several meters away. Crawford asked him once, why he had begun to take an interest in German cars as soon as they had moved to America. Schuldig only shrugged. One couldn't choose cars, just like authorities. Circumstances bound with either of them.
"Let's go, kätzchen. You're heavy…"
The German lifted Ran. He was panting and could only drag his feet a little.
Drowned in the endless paleness… Schiller would think of such a phrase if he had had a chance of seeing Ran.
Schuldig loaded the semi-conscious Japanese inside. It took a lot of his effort. The telepath was angry at his powerlessness. A year ago he could have easily carried the kätzchen in his arms and reached a hospital on foot. Now he wasn't able to lug him for a couple of meters without gasping.
Yes, those were the remnants of Schwarz… Brad was losing his sanity and the telepath was losing his powers.
"You'd better not dirty the cabin. I'll kill you and tell Crawford I didn't find you."
Schuldig took a quick glance at the shapeless bloody mass that used to be called Abyssinian. Finished? The telepath checked if the Japanese was still alive.
He had to get to a hospital. He didn't like to leave Crawford alone for such a long time. Brad was OK, but to be on the safe side…
Have you found him?
Crawford's mind turned out to be strange. Being forewarned about his insanity, Crawford allowed Schuldig to control him from time to time.
Yes, but I was late. The kätzchen had been stabbed and I'm driving him to the hospital.
He mustn't die. And don't tease him more than you need to.
Yes, sir! Schuldig saluted.
Something unnatural was inside the American, something so alien that Schuldig ignored it most of the time, expecting new changes in Brad's behavior.
Frankly speaking, the telepath had never been more scared in his life.
Sick weather got on his nerves. It started raining again.
The emergency room was unusually quiet. A pretty nurse was having a cat-nap at the reception desk. The air stank of old blood and medicines. A black janitor was swabbing down the floor and humming something.
A young doctor, ugly-looking brunette with a big mouth, sauntered from around the corner. He froze at the site of an odd couple – a thin guy with red hair was dragging an Asian whose jacket was covered with blood.
- Move your ass, baka!
The doctor could swear that the redhead's mouth remained scornfully pursed.
Orderlies materialized with stretchers in a second. The doctor started to give orders in a professional voice.
Schuldig came up to the pretty nurse to fill in the papers. He easily faked the handwriting and information. Having signed in Ran under a made-up name, the German smiled to the blonde and walked down the hall.
He didn't like hospitals. It didn't matter to him that such places were perfect to play with people's thoughts. He just despised the very surroundings. Suffering made him sick.
There was a kid in the nearest ward. He was crying from terrible pain, he had broken his arm. Schuldig winced from the unpleasant sounds but stopped nevertheless. The boy had red hair similar to his. A cute thing. When a nurse injected him with painkillers, the kid relaxed.
The kid's parents stood outside the door to the ward. The man was soothing his crying wife.
Schuldig carefully touched their minds. One and the same picture kept on going in the woman's thoughts – she's screaming at her son, he's standing in front of her, terrified; she's hitting him in his face, he's leaning backwards and falling down the stairs.
The telepath obligingly showed her the image of her son lying on his back with a broken neck. The woman threw a fit.
What a bitch, Schuldig thought and went further down the corridor.
Some dying old men occupied the neighboring wards. Their thoughts were bitter. Schuldig drank them, trying to ease his pain. Panic seized him and he almost ran to the ward where Ran had been taken to.
Seeing the approaching German the doctor looked up from the papers.
"What's your relation to the patient?"
"I'm his lover," Schuldig said, smirking.
The doctor swallowed such an obvious lie. "He's lost a lot of blood, but his condition's stable now. He has to stay here for a couple of days."
"Can I see him?"
"Yes, but not for long."
It was pathetic to see the fearless ex-leader of Weiss in a hospital bed. His chest was heaving, his eyelashes were trembling as he was dreaming. His tired face had acquired almost divine beauty.
Schuldig stepped closer. He wondered what dream was tormenting Ran now. The telepath caught the glimpses of Abyssinian's memories about past fights. Ridiculous! After all these years he still believed in something…
"Did you want redemption?" Schuldig said aloud. "Did you think you'd get peace in hell? Jerk…"
He touched Ran's hand and winced from an unwelcoming sympathy. He had become too soft. Why should he pity Abyssinian? The kid had chosen his own path.
Schuldig?
Brad?
Come back.
I'll bring him tomorrow, he's still weak.
Come back, I need you.
As usual. When he left the Palace for short periods of time Crawford always found excuses to call him back earlier than was necessary. Schuldig was ready to howl from despair. He didn't want to come back to that shadow cell.
Crawford had also turned into a shadow of his former self. He almost never left home. When Brad dared to step outside the Palace's gate – a week after their arrival – a paroxysm of creepy panic caught him and made him fall on his knees and grasp his head with his hands, and yell something about a lethal wind. Strange patterns of scars appeared on his body, they disappeared after Schuldig had carried him inside the Palace.
Whatever had possessed him was contained within the rusty metal fence surrounding the Palace and the garden around it.
After the first fit Brad locked himself in his room for a week.
Schuldig was going crazy from worry. He was rushing about the house and blitzing the ancient furniture in unoccupied rooms. From time to time he came up to the locked door, shouted at Crawford because the American had closed his mind, and threatened to kick the door open. Every time Brad's quiet voice stopped him and asked to calm down. The hell yes!
When Crawford left his room at last the German couldn't make up his mind whether to kill the boss at once or to pull into their bedroom.
After a night of hungry sex Crawford confessed that he was losing his sanity.
It sucked him from the inside. It took his strength. It had existed in the Palace; its effect on his family had been excruciating for many generations. Crawford was engaged to death from the very birth. SZ's slavery only postponed the "wedding".
Schuldig stopped at the closed gate. He sat in the car for a moment and then went out, leaving the door open.
The sky over the Palace was different. Steel-grey on clear days and bloody-red in bad weather. Now it was covered with poison. Black clouds scratched the flesh so that the sky was ready to cry again.
The telepath pushed the gate that opened with a rustle, freeing the way. Schuldig came back to the car and drove it inside. He left the BMW at the muddy pavement near the house. Next to his car, Crawford's Porsche was having a rest.
He had to come back and close the gate. Out of habit, not for security's sake. Nobody dared to enter the Palace. It existed in some other damned world.
'From a spy action movie to a horror flick' was Schwarz's motto today.
The sound of steps was heard in the silence of the garden.
Schuldig liked such desolation. Withered naked trees looked like death camp prisoners. The landscape was surely from the mad pictures by Goya.
Not the best place for walks. But Brad had no choice. He couldn't go out. That's why he took his walks in the garden, delighted at the way how the surroundings mimicked his inner world.
Schuldig always accompanied him. His lover's useless care annoyed Brad in the beginning. He was angry at his helplessness and his feelings. And at the telepath's feelings as well.
Crawford used to ask his lover to abandon him, so that he could rot with the Palace. Schuldig told him to fuck off.
So what that he was losing his strength? He wouldn't yield to a haunted house. Schuldig ignored the constant fatigue. Taking care of Brad and things required to keep the house in minimum order took most of his time.
Shit, he had forgotten to buy some food.
"Brad, it's me!" Schuldig yelled rather light-heartedly, closing the door with a bang.
He pulled himself together and ran upstairs.
Quiet jazz was playing. The door to the library was half-open, leaving a pattern of light on the floor. For economy they occupied only a few rooms – the bedroom, the library (that served as an office), the kitchen and the parlor from time to time. The rest of the Palace smelled of dust and bad memories.
Crawford was sitting in the armchair with his hands hiding his face. A half-empty bottle of whiskey was standing on the floor next to him. The light from the floor-lamp was falling on his lap. Sylvian's velvet voice was singing about nostalgia.
"Why have you been drinking again? Couldn't wait for me?" The telepath's heart ached.
The American mumbled something incoherent. Schuldig kneeled beside the armchair. He took Brad's hands in his.
"What happened lieber? Did you have a fit again?"
Crawford shook his head. He seemed too old in the darkness. But still beautiful. Brad pressed Schuldig to himself.
A familiar wave overwhelmed the German – the aroma of whiskey and that special subtle smell that belonged only to Brad. Schuldig felt the heat emanating from him. The American kissed his lover's hair and moaned.
It was unbearable. Schuldig was angry at the world that made his special person suffer so much.
"You're going to be all right, lieber, I promise. I'll exorcize your demons. You'll leave this cursed place and we'll travel to Vienna. You promised to take me to Vienna. And Fujimiya will come with us as a porter."
Crawford chuckled quietly. Schuldig smiled back.
"Let's go to bed. Tomorrow I want you to bring Ran here."
The American stood up, his hands never leaving Schuldig's.
TBC
