Winding Down V – To Live Forever

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. All rights with their original owners/creators. Shame though.
Warning: NC-15/M. ANGST. Hints at M/M relationships.

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Thank youto everyone who took the time to send me reviews for my stories -it is motivating to find that people actually like them, and special thanks to those of you who also tell me why.

Cheers
Aabunai

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Aya sat on a white plastic chair by the window of the small room with Yohji's bed. He had come to know every contour, every bump and shade in the seemingly smooth material because he had time to fill, and he filled it by sitting on this chair and staring out of the window. Day after night after day.

Sometimes, Omi would call, his voice distant through the phone, to ask how Yohji was doing. Most days passed in silence though, except for the scheduled bustle of nurses and doctors looking after Yohji. He had taken his sweet time to come round after the operation, and now he could not speak because a ventilator tube was jammed down his throat. Doused by sedatives, he hovered somewhere between waking and oblivion, and Aya was not even sure whether Yohji registered his presence.

Staring outside helped Aya to empty his mind. He had come to know the shades of the concrete and tarmac of the street a couple of storeys below the window. The faded grey of the ageing high-rises, clad with garish neon lights in an attempt to disguise their bareness, the dark grey of the tarmac that would blacken when rain washed the dust away, the leaden grey of the city sky. Aya's world consisted of shades of grey. Sometimes, he hated it. More often, he was too numb to bother.

He had become used to the canvas of sounds,clamourous or subtle, that wove into the stillness of the hospital room. Slurring steps or hurried steps, shouts and whispers on the white corridor outside, the soft rustling of Yohji's sheets when he tried in vain to move, entangled in tubes and bandages.

Like some insect spun into a garish cocoon, Aya thought, shifting to relieve the pressure of the chair on his back, like Yohji had enmeshed him with his wire the first time they ran into each other. His hands were folded over his latest bank statement. Aya kept his records tidily tucked away in a slim file on Yohji's nightstand, and carefully tracked the dwindling credit. Yohji should hurry up with his recovery, he mused vaguely. Aya was loath leaving the room, let alone considering some mission that would drag him away from here, yet he had resigned himself to the fact that savings and credit would soon disappear into the same void that had swallowed a lifetime of work already.

Sometimes he wondered whether his purpose in life consisted of paying medical bills.

Omi's offer had not been a friendly one. This is your fault 'cos you've been a jackass, and you're lucky to get another chance. Take it or leave it, the chibi had told him, knowing full well that 'leave it' was not an option Kritiker would tolerate, having made up their mind to accept him back. And Aya needed the money.

He did not turn at the light draft and the soft clicking of the door. The nurses would make more noise and did not usually smell of cigarette smoke. "Why, Abyssinian, contemplating the rain?" Before he knew it, the smell of wet clothes engulfed him. Strands of copper hair brushed over his shoulder, and Aya flinched away in disgust.

"Get off me, Schuldig."

"Oh, we're moody today. As we were yesterday and will be tomorrow." He laughed and sat down at the foot end of the bed. "What the hell does he find in you?"

Right, what? Ayashot him a glare. "Get off there," he pressed through gritted teeth.

"But where should I sit?" Schuldig gave him a grin. "On your lap? I don't think so. On his? Anytime, baby."

"What do you want here?"

"Same as always:see how he's doing." He paused, dangling his legs, his eyes gleaming from beneath the mess of red hair. "Since you can't take proper care of anyone. He was stupid to trust you, Abyssinian, wasn't he?"

Aya swallowed hard. It was the same song every time Schuldig called. He turned up rather frequently, with an unerring sense for the least appropriate moment, and then he would goad and prod until Aya bled inside. Heal over, scrape raw, bleed, heal... sort of. Never getting used to it, for the cool voice cut him with guilt the way his katana would slice through flesh and bone. Yet the blade was gathering dust in the hospital safe, and Aya bore the taunts as just penance.

For he had come to believe that Schuldig was right.

Schuldig left cash after every visit. Handfuls of used, non-sequential bills, crumpled up, damp and warm from being stuffed into his jeans pockets. He did not even bundle the money but scattered it over the bedspread and the floor, a blatant insult to Aya. Who picked the bank notes up without complaint or questions.

Omi though never came to see Yohji. Instead, he dropped sealed plain white envelopes with the matron who would hand them to Aya. The envelopes contained cheques, drawn on an account in Omi's name. Aya accepted this too without hesitation. He had been brought up to be cultured and pragmatic. The latter, he thought, helped him through the life he was leading. The former he preferred to ignore as useless and fraught with unwelcome memories.

Ayadid not likedeceiving himself. Yohji had sufferedhim, in his hope to revive what was left of Ran. How foolish, Aya thought crossly. Here, in this stark white room, neither flowers nor origami shapes could be of any use because Aya had failed to deploy his sword in time. Schuldig had finished the job for him. Schuldig, of all people...

"He won't appreciate it," the loathsome voice touched Aya's mind, and he half-turned. "Though I did enjoy cutting up those little dopes. I helped you out here, man."

"You still here?"

"Looks like he's trying to reach you, Abyssinian, and look where you are – gaping at the fuckin' street as though you'd wanna jump outta the window." A vague smirk crossed Schuldig's face, leaving his eyes untouched and strangely dark.

"He cannot try anything," Aya grated, "he's out cold."

"You're so daft." Schuldig leaned over Yohji, swathes of unbound copper washing over both their faces, and Aya rose from his chair.

"Get. Out. Now."

"Yeah, yeah." Schuldig straightened and stared back defiantly. "I can'tget hold of him." He paused, as though he was about to add something, but then he only snorted and got up. He stalked out andbanged the door shut, loud enough to receive disapproving murmurs outside. Aya nearly laughed – he could just imagine Schuldig's reaction to being told off about closing doors too noisily.

Yohji shifted, and Aya sensed restlessness. He dragged his chair across to the bed andscooped up Yohji's hand. Limp and cold, those hard long fingers lay on his own warm, short ones. Aya leaned his forehead onto the mattress. He did not know what to say. He hated being here, trapped in this clean white cage of a room, with all those people whose job it was to help others stay alive and get better. He was soiled with blood and death and drowning in a swamp of memories of watching over another still form on a hospital bed.

People changed so much. The barely living body here bore no semblance to Yohji as Aya knew him, and it scared him. Kept alive by the softly hissing ventilator, drips and drainage tubes, the smells of illness wafting about him – blood, waste, disinfectant. His skin looked like parchment, flabby and waxy over sharply protruding bones and slack muscles. His hair was greasy and brushed back to framehis stillface. It hadgone harsh without its smile and the sparkle of green eyes that remained closed, sunk deeply into blackened sockets. The breathing tube stuck from the mask over his mouth like some grotesque trunk, robbing him of any expression. No, this hardly was Yohji as he knew him.

Aya hated hospitals and the things within.

He shifted, and paper rustled softly inside his jeans pocket. Aya stood and stretched, then stuck his hand into the pocket to retrieve the paper. Walking back to the window, he absentmindedly closed his hand and pressed it against his chest. For some time, he stood still, watching the meaningless hustle of traffic and people. What had Schuldig said – he could notget hold ofYohji?

What a sad kind of triumph.

For Aya could not reach him either.

He lifted the clenched hand and slowlyopened his fingers, to reveal a scrap of paper, folded many a time, crisp and rusty with dried blood. The thing had fallen out of Yohji's shirt when the nurses in the emergency room undressed him. They had given it to Aya because they thought it might be something important.

Aya smoothed it out on his flattened hand until it had regained its shape, cuffed and stained, but unmistakable.

A paper crane.

xxx

"Yohji?" Aya leaned over him as he slowly opened his eyes.

He tried to say something, but his throat hurt too much, and his chest burned, but his lips moved, silently forming a word. Ran. He shifted, and the bedspread rustled oddly. Leaning back into his chair, Aya watched as Yohji groped around weakly.

Hands closing around fistfuls of paper,Yohji dragged them up and unfurled his fingers, small white birds dripping back onto the bed. He gathered an armful and let them fall, looking on as they drifted down like a shower of giant cherry blossoms.

A smile began to curve his lips that were still cracked from the ventilator mouthpiece, and broadened when he made to sit up. Aya helped him, holding him close even when he had adjusted the headboard and settled Yohji back against the pillows. A white paper square dangled from Aya's fingers, and with his arms round Yohji's shoulders, he slowly and methodically folded it in front of Yohji's bandaged chest.

"Nine-thousand-seven-hundred-and-ninety-nine," he whispered, pressing his face into Yohji's messy hair. "A thousand were not enough for you, were they?"

A small croak that might pass for laughter answered him, and Yohji leaned back to meet his eyes. Aya closed his, not ready yet to face him, but a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Now my fingers hurt," he murmured.

And through the flood of paper shapes, Yohji's hands reached for him and enfolded his fingers and the crane in a feeble grip.

xxx

They all turned up that day – Aya suspected Omi had bullied the doctors into keeping him posted with information on Yohji's recovery, and now not only the chibi came to visit, but also Ken, and – trailing in their wake as though it were the most natural thing in the world – Schuldig, wearing a broad grin on his handsome face.

They had not exactly brought flowers. Weiss were back in business, Omi informed them coolly, and if Yohji wanted...

"He doesn't," Aya cut in angrily.

Omi gave him a sidelong glance but did not argue. "Schuldig works for me now," he said quietly, and somewhat incongruously.

How strange, it crossed Aya's mind, surely this was just an odd dream, and why did he have to bring this up now? From his place by the window, he looked at Yohji who quietly accepted their good wishes. Omi watched, picked up one of the paper birds, and for the first time since Aya had decided to leave the Koneko, Omi gave him a small smile. Cautious, guarded, but truefor it shone from his cool blue eyes as much as it touched his lips. "Enough for another nine lives," he said and turned to Yohji who laughed and winced at the stab of pain in his sore chest.

"Enough to live forever," he rasped. "Can you all get out now?"

Omi and Ken left quietly. Schuldig, of course, had to linger. He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. "Me too?"

"Idiot," Yohji mumbled. "How's the rest of you?"

Schuldig shrugged. "Brad's still too sick to travel." His voice strained a little as he went on,"Far's admitted himself to an institution. I go and see him when I can. He's doing fine. Nagi's in business with me." He shook his blazing mane. "We're filling up your ranks, Balinese, so no hard feelings, huh?" For a moment, it seemed as though he was about to add something, but then he only winked at them and walked out, for once closing the door quietly behind him.

Silence filled the room once more. Aya picked up a paper square.

"Ayan?" Gasping with the effort, Yohji tried to sit up a bit more. "What was that?"

Aya kept folding, his fingers moving automatically, creating paper birds to add to those that already flooded the room, some squashed by busy feet, or heaped in the corners – he had not allowed the nurses to clear them away, and for some reason, they had not insisted. "A friendly visit," he answered after a while, his eyes still focused on the small white shape and the bundle of origami paper in his lap.

"Please," Yohji said softly, and Aya finally looked up to meet his gaze. Yohji looked so exhausted, though his eyes were calm, a little cool perhaps, but this was to be expected...

"So you took time out to come and visit me here?" Yohji broke the stillness. "How's your contract going then?"

"I never went." Aya folded his hands over the almost finished crane. "Instead, I spent weeks on this damn chair."

"Oh." A spark gleamed in Yohji's eyes. "Weeks, huh?" he wheezed. "Without sex..."

Aya groaned. Impossible that he should have his mind on THAT again, considering the state he was in...

"You should have gone," Yohjibroke into his thoughts, his smile darkening a little, his tone rueful.

Aya shrugged, unsure what to say.

Yohji gestured vaguelyat the room. "You paying for me here?"

Aya froze on his chair. Yohji was way too sharp for his own good.

"So who is, if not you? Kritiker? Omi arranged something?" Yohji pondered for a moment, scratching at the bandage around his chest. "Chalking it all up to 'debts to be deducted from future earnings', huh?"

"It's not as though I had anything better to do," Aya finally said, with a stiff shrug even asan icy suspicion sank into his mind - had it all been a setup? Schuldig had silenced those three young louts who had shot Yohji, and now he worked for the chibi. But Omi would never... or would he?

"You're stupid," Yohji snapped, choked and began togulp air in rattling gaspsbecause he could not cough. Aya was by his side in a flash and dragged him up and close, cradling him in a hard embrace. "Stupid," Yohji insisted when he could speak again, "you should be doing something beautiful. Teach, perhaps. Calligraphy, kendo, even ikebana perhaps." He laid agaunt hand on Aya's thigh. "Why don't you try it at least?"

"Is that why you let me go that evening?" Aya shook his head. "There's too much blood on my hands. How could I ever face a class full of students? Pretend to be like everyone else?"

"No one would know."

"I would." He began to knead Yohji's shoulders and neck, and felt him sag, relaxing further against Aya behind him. He felt soft and bony, so different from his usual fit, wiry self.

"What did you do with the kimono I gave you?" Yohji asked after a while. /1/

"I sold it," Aya replied without interrupting his gentle treatment of wasted muscles.

Yohji reached up and seized his hands. "Well, I suppose it was the reasonable thing to do. Help me up, hm?"

Aya obeyed. He helped Yohji to sit up, adjust the long hospital gown that flowed around him like a shroud – Aya hated the thing and vowed to get him to wear pyjamas for the rest of his stay – and gather a heap of paper birds into the bunched front of the garment. He opened the window when Yohji asked him, and stepped back, watching.

He felt his heart lurch when Yohji smiled at him andleaned against the window frame. So close, Aya thought with a dragging sensation in his chest, and the windowsill is so low; he only needs to tip over...But he resisted the urge to jump and gather Yohji up, instead he stayed still and tense at his place, following each of Yohji's movements like a hawk. Bending forward a little,Yohji looked over the busy street, gazed up into the smoggy sky, and then spread his arms and shook the birds from the bunched gown.

A cloud of white specks, theyfluttered through the air that wasmurky with exhaust fumes. The hot summer breeze picked them up, and they playfully swirled and danced for moments of blissful oblivion before sailing down onto the tarmac, to be crushed under the rushing feet of passers-by and the tyres of passing cars.

Yohji watched them settle, then he turned around to meet Aya's gaze. "Now,"he said softly, "I will live forever." His smile broadened. "You might regret that one day. Hell, how long has it been since I slept with you?"

Aya gaped at him incredulously. Yohji laughed, doubled over with pain and was still laughing and groaning when Aya grabbed him and dragged him back to his bed. "Weeks," he yapped as he tucked Yohji in, "fucking weeks with no sex, all because you wouldn't bloody listen to me! And you'll have to tell me what's going on with you and Schuldig, dammit! You know he helped folding the stupid things, do you? Man, Yohji, Yohji..." He grew still, and Yohji grasped his hand.

"What's this?" He pried Aya's fingers apart.

There lay the bloodstained crane, crumpled and damp with sweat. Yohji placed his hand over it, lacing his fingers with Aya's. "Hey."

Aya met his eyes, looking lost. Yohji smiled. "Let it go now, will you?"

AndAyalet the bird fly with the others.

Forever.
Forever Kritiker.
Forever Yohji.
Forever life.

xxx The End xxx

/1/ see 'Special Gifts'

For Yohji's odd relationship with Schuldig, see my multi-chapter story (in progress), 'Fading Light'. 'Special Gifts' fits into 'Fading Light' as a side-story after Aya's breakdown and Yohji's attempt to win him back, 'Winding Down' are snapshot stories that run parallel with 'Fading Light', fromthe early days of Weiss(I Transformation), through the time when Aya loses his old self (II Trapped), until after the cataclysm of the tower and the break-up of Weiss (III All Over, IV Full Circle), to the recovery, of sorts,of Weiss and Schwarz (V To Live Forever).

My story 'Harigane' attempts to shed some light onto Yohji and Weiss team dynamics, as I see them - it's the boys on the job.