Disclaimer: Everythig what belongs to Weiß Kreuz is mine! laughs like cray Uh-oh ... does a mad dash from the LIB´s (Lawyer´s in black) Ok, Ok! It´s not! It´s not! It belongs to all the people with the rights of it, not me! ´`´`* I´m sorry! Entschuldigung! Pardonne moi! Gomen nasai!, oh shit HELP!!
and the moral of the story: don´t claim what´s not yours if you´re not good at your feets ´`.´`*
Warnings: I´m back! With chapter 4! Great thanks to everyone who´s been reviewing! tries a bear-hug and is promptly stopped by a rather ´hard´ computer screen ...Oroo! ´`.´`# So, warnings: probably mild beginning of shonen-ai (depends on how you want to see it), not so perfect grammar (put up with it, I´m already using a dictionary! ´`´`), ... Alright, that was it! On with chapter4! Let´s slowly get some speed into the whole thing!
What he certainly hadn´t planned
By Picaro
Chapter 4
One of the leading first-class luxury hotels of the world.
The pool water was sparkling in the warm light of the afternoon sun. The few scattered guests were refreshing themselfes in the crystalline liquid in the pools or were lazing in the warm, caressing rays of the sun. The few who could afford this sort of luxury were high above the normal class of luxury-tourists and so it was normal that they were more than awe-causing to the bellboy who was nearing one of the deck chairs.
"Mrs. Tannin?"
A couple of sunglass-hidden eyes turned at him.
"Yes, sonny?"
"There´s a call for you."
A fine eyebrow came up at that. The swimsuit clad woman looked at the phone in his hand as if she´d be seeing it for the first time. The dark swimsuit and the silk pareo which was tied around her waist were giving more of her nice curves than it was comfortable for the poor boy. Even more because she had shifted when he had spoken to her, so that he was now having a rather good sight at her décolleté.
"Uhm...Miss? It´s from Japan."
"Oh." And with that, a slim hand, grazed with fine tattooed patterns, stretched out and took the phone. "Here you go. I appreciate good work." She handed the bellboy a bill, dismissing him.
She waited till he was out of hearing range before she finally answered the phone.
"Yeah? Tannin here. … Problems? Speak up."
Her expression darkened at what she was hearing. When she continued speaking her voice had grown a sharp edge.
"What do you mean with you lost him?! After what we´ve put him through, he shoudn´t have been able to go three steps, speak from escaping from the security net and the guards. …"
"…What? Your instructions were to make him speak or to kill him and you what?! … What do you mean with ´supposed to´? Are you trying to tell me that someone has broken in and has stolen him? A ´corpse-napper´ maybe?" Pause. "You GUESS?! "
"Wait! Let me get that straight… In a window… In open public… while you were drinking coffee. …"
"…I don´t care if it was a hidden alley!! Your instructions were to make him speak and get rid of him! Is that so difficult to get? FIRST make him speak, THEN get rid of him."
"…Stay where you are. We´ll be there ASAP." //click.//
She cursed under her breath while trying to get her composure back. Then she dialled another number.
//Click.//
"Hello Jilocasin? Tannin speaking."
"Sammy, ma chere, it´s so good to hear from you again. Still enjoying yourself in luxury?" A cheerful, french accented voice asked. "When will you ever learn that those rich yuppy´s aren´t any good company to you?"
Despite herself Tannin grinned. The Frenchs tendency to mix different languages failed seldom to enlighten her mood. The seriousness he was speaking with was making it just funnier. Still, this wasn´t the right time for this.
"Sorry to ruin your plans for vacation, but there´s work to do." She could literally see him frowning on the other end.
"Work? Immédiat?"
"Yeah. Right now. Those brain-miracles in Japan have reported a case of supposed-to-be corpse-napping, just now."
"Supposed-to-be corpse-napping?"
"Don´t look at me. My vacation ´s just as much ruined as yours."
"And le corpse is who I´m thinking he is?"
"Yep. That´s why I´m calling in the first place. He vanished three days ago, no traces. Get Memoiré and place yourself in the next plane. Seem´s like we´re making a nice long trip to Japan, so polish your japanese knowledge."
" sigh …Oui, oui. At your command, my lady." //Click.//
Tannin sighted and put the phone away. She´d have to be careful with Jilocasin. The French was acting like a smart easy-going, but she knew just too good how dangerous the man could be. But if He was still alive she´d need Memoiré too much in this mission to risk anything.
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As he realized the situation he was in Crawford was with one hit wide awake. ´God! If Schuldig gets to know about this I´ll never hear the end of it.´ To think about the readhead wasn´t the best decision Crawford had made. `If I´ll manage to get back, that is.´
Now that he´d started to think about Schwarz worries started to nag at him. Although his story about amnesia was nothing more than made up fiction, there was a grain of truth in it. He had added the story about the tormenters but it was true that he´d woken up within those strings. What Crawford hadn´t told Weiß was that he´d been awake for what had seemed to be hours, standing in the same awkward position because he´d soon realized that any wrong move would bring him certain death or at least serious damage. He´d also kept to himself that the had just tried to get help when he realised that he was about to loose consciousness.
`I can´t even guess where they are now...` The last time Crawford had seen them was at the downfall of Estet. ´Or even if they still are...` quickly Crawford pushed this thought away.
´Of course they are alife!´ He was and he hadn´t seen it seen it coming. And Weiß made it also! So with their powers they just had to survive!! They were Schwarz after all! No crappy collapsing building could possibly stop them!
Desperately Crawford tried to find other good reasons for their obviously absence. `Probably they just haven´t found me yet.´
`...or maybe they aren´t even looking.` A bitter little voice in his head added. Schuldig should be happy without anyone around pestering him about work that was to be done or his mindless actions. And Nagi´s been mad at him since that accident with that Schreient girl... Farfarello probably wouldn´t even notice that he was gone.
`Wouldn´t be such a big surprise after all... guess that nobody would really mind if mister `stickinhisass´ was there or not.´ Angrily he tried to silence those thoughts. Of course he´d known about this things. He was knowing about everything that happened in Schwarz.
Still, the thought of this possibility being true was even more hurting than the former one of them being death.
´If I could at least remember what happened back then!´ From a certain spot on there were several holes in his memory. The last thing Crawford could tell for sure was that there was a strange light coming from the room where those old idiots had tried to execute that strange ritual of theirs. He´d noticed it because he´d just been passing by as it had started. The light had been followed from a slight shockwave from an explosion which had swiped him from his legs. From this spot on his memory was blank.
He didn´t know how he had made it off of the crumbling building. He didn´t know how the rest of them were. And he didn´t know how he´d gotten in his current situation.
´SHIT!!`
His current situation!
He´d gone daydreaming (in the middle of the night ´`´`) while he was lying with a more or less unknown under the same sheets. An unknown who just happened to be Weiß.
Okay, not the same sheets. Crawford had the only sheet tightly wrapped around his body. But still!
The body next to him shifted. Crawford froze. After a while the other one stopped again. Great. Just great. Now he was lying even closer to him than before. Close enough for him to smell the faint scent of alcohol, mingled with the sweet scent women were using. In short: The other one was smelling like drinking and women. Crawford wrinkled his nose. ´Well, that cuts the possibilities down to two.´ Somehow the thought of Bombay or Abyssinian running trough the apartment, obviously totally drunk didn´t seem fitting to him. `That means two down, still two remaining.`
Readying himself for whatever might come Crawford turned his head to look at the person next to him. Silently he was praying that it was just some huge dog. And sweatdropped. `Yeah. Bull´s-eye.´ If that next to him was a dog then it was the strangest one he´d ever seen. A strange dog with wavy blonde hair and lazy green eyes if they were open. (No, no golden retriver!) A really strange large dog who was still wearing his dating outfit included shoes, silently snoring in his deep alcohol induced slumber.
´I am really lucky. Balinese, the Weiß equivalent from Schuldig.´ Crawford thought sarcastically. As if on cue, Kudou started moving again, this time trashing with his arms.
Promptly he succeed in smacking Crawford squarely in the face.
´. . . . .!` Crawford groaned. `He´s even just such a restless sleeper as him.` Rubbing his damaged face, Crawford started to think the possible choice of courses. He discarded the thought of waking the blonde up or leaving the bed immediately. If he would also react like the readhead the other time... Crawford had really no desire to go trough the same mess again. Not without a bottle of aspirin, enough work to burry himself in, and the ability to shout at the other one as much as he wanted. As he finally got to a satisfying decision, Kudou ruined everything with shifting again, throwing a heavy arm around Crawfords shoulders.
Suddenly lying face to face with Kudou Crawford held his breath again. It´d be just absolutely great if the tall blonde would wake up now, just to find the two of them in a situation like this. `Don´t wake up! Not now! Don´t you dare waking up now!`
Kudou´s breath evened out until he was peacefully asleep again. Looking into the others peaceful face Crawford let out a deep breath. `He´s still asleep.` After some minutes had passed by the arm started getting heavy. Carefully he wriggled one of his feet's from under the blanket. Then he proceed into kicking the other, hoping that he wouldn´t wake from this. It functioned. Kudou mumbled something that sounded like " ....s´ka." and turned again, freeing Brad.
Crawford immediately backed away until he reached the edge of the bed. There he came to a rest. Balinese had turned his back to him now and resumed sleeping. It didn´t seem to be a peaceful sleep anymore, though. Instead of trashing around he had now started to murmur and whimper in his sleep. Out of curiosity Crawford tried to listen but the words were too soft and too incoherent for him to understand. Crawford nearly felt sorry for the other man. `Strange guy. By day he´s playing the big carefree playboy, and at night he´s whimpering in his sleep. ...´ Nearly. His face was still a little bit too sore to feel real pity. ´Hump ....His own fault. To get himself drunk like that...`
Giving the blonde a last look he turned over and tugged the sheet over his head. `This is going to be a long night...`
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Ken awoke to the peeping sound of his alarm clock. After he had pushed the snooze- button the fifth time and it was still buzzin´ he clawed himself out of bed and onto his way to the bath room. No matter how often or hard he was hitting it, it still kept being noisy, never allowing him to doze another fife minutes before facing the rough day. Sometimes he really hated his alarm clock. And sometimes he suspected that Yohji or Omi had somehow reprogrammed that damn thing.
Anyway, he was on his way to a nice, cold morning shower when the sound of quarrelling voices reached his ears.
Now, that was nothing especially new in their household. Just that he was normally one of them. Curiosity taking the better of him, Ken turned and headed in the direction of the voices. `Sounds like Omi and Yohji.` While Omi´s voice sounded very excited and maybe a little accusating, Yohji´s replies were very low and short. He also sounded totally confused.
In the back of his mind Ken wondered what Yohji was making here. The blonde playboy had spent the last few nights out of house, announcing that their guest would need a really bed to rest and him being the one with the best chances to find a nice, comfortable place to stay over night. Normally Yohji would use every chance he´s getting to sleep as long as possible. And now he was not only there, but also awake! That was more than enough to make Ken more than curious.
Soon he spotted the two. Omi was standing in the doorway to Yohji´s room, agitatedly talking to the other. Yohji was sitting on his bed, still wearing the same outfit like when he´d left the day before.
"I can´t believe that you´d just done that, Yohji-kun. Didn´t you even notice that the bed wasn´t empty?" Yohji gave him a confused look. "I already told you that the bed was empty when I came in. He wasn´t there." His voice was hoarse and he looked like he was more asleep than awake.
Ken stopped behind Omi in the doorframe. "Huh, where´s Brad?" Omi jumped. "Ken-kun! Stop scaring me like that! First Aya-kun and now you. Is this some sort of game?" Despite his words he grinned at the taller soccer player. Ken returned the smile with one of his own warm ones and retorted "Sorry, Omi. Didn´t intend to. But what´s going on here? And why´s Yohji there?" "´Cause this happens to be my room, Kenken. And would you two mind stop shouting? My head´s ringing." Came the answer from the bed.
Ignoring Yohji, Omi turned to Ken. "He´s having a hangover from yesterday. I think he came somewhen last night and just fell into his bed." throwing a look at the still fully clothed blonde on the bed and the tangled sheets lying on the floor beside it. "I wanted to check on Brad before I go to school and found him sleeping wide sprawled on the bed." "And Brad?" "Not there."
"I told ya that he wasn´t there." Yohji hand finally managed to pull himself to his feet and was now joining their conversation at the door. "Have you already check the bath room?" Omi gave him an exhausted look. It was clear that he wasn´t very happy with him at the moment. (No, nothing like that, you hentais!) `Drunk as he were, I doubt that you would´ve noticed him and if you were lying on top of him.´ Of course Omi didn´t say anything resembling that out loud. He had no desire for arguing so soon in the morning. So he just gave Yohji instead a last dark glance and left. "I´ll go searching for him."
Ken watched Omi´s retreating form. Then he turned to Yohji. Somehow he couldn´t believe that the boy had just run away in the middle of the night. "You sure that he wasn´t there?" Yohji sighed " To the I-Don´t-wanna-know-how-muched time: Yes." "So he was there?" "No. He wasn´t. Listen, Kenken."
Now it was Ken´s turn to look confused. "I do. But you don´t make much of a sense. Anyway, what are you making here? I though that you were staying with some women." Yohji grinned his lazy grin at that. "Yeah. But I got drunk and forgot that little fact somehow."
Pushing beside Ken trough the door, he added. "And now I´m going to find a nice, warm shower. My head´s killing me." And with that Ken was alone in the corridor.
Looking after him Ken cursed himself internally for letting Yohji first into the shower. Now he could forget his shower! Yohji was going to stay there until there was no hot water left for anybody else. Still chiding himself he allowed his look to wander around. It was strange but Ken somehow knew that Brad was still there. ´Not that it´d make any sense if he was telling the truth and then running away.´ It´d really make no sense to run from the only place where one could be helped.
Suddenly something caught his attention. The blankets were stirring. The movement were ever so slightly, barely enough to be visible if he looked hard. A grin formed on his face as the small frame of a teenager rose out of it. Well, at least he tried to untangle himself. Too bad that the blanket seemed to be an different opinion. Ken leaped forward just in time to catch him, before he smacked face first into the floor.
So it came that poor Kenken found himself with a lithe teen which happen to be named Brad clinging at his arm and the front of his shirt. The boys feet were still tangled in the sheets. Ken´s grin widened as he lifted the boy a little so that he could untangle himself. As soon as he was free Brad released his firm grip on Ken and stepped a little back, bringing some distance between them.
Ken chuckled openly now. "Normally just girls are throwing themselves at me." For the fragment of a second a slight blush coloured the others face. "That wasn´t on purpose. Normally I don´t do that." Looking at the sheets next to the bed, he added. "Normally I also don´t sleep on the floor." The brunette grinned at that. "Sure. You´re lucky that I was a goalie once."
Brad nodded. Studying Brad Ken suddenly had an idea. "Hey, do you play soccer?! I´m training some kids out of the neighbourhood, so why you don´t just come along?"
Brad stared at him. That couldn´t be his seriousness? Slowly he shrugged. "Uhrm...I don´t think that I´d be so good at it..." But Ken brushed all objections to the side. "Oh, come on! It doesn´t matter how good you are. Just that you have fun." Then he turned his best hurt-little-puppy-look at him ( He´d learned that trick from Omi). "Come on! Please! Just one Time!"
Crawford backed slowly away. He sweatdropped. Having a member from Weiß who was currently older than him, looking at him that way while asking him to accompany him to a soccer game was more than strange. "...No."
"Please. Take at least a look at it......-" And so it went on for about a half hour or so. Finally Crawford gave in and it was settled that he would come to the next soccer practice.
Ken was quite happy with this outcome and already about to start cheering out loud when something else popped into his mind. He frowned "Anou, ... but I´ve switched shift with Yohji. That means that I´ll have to cancel the practice today." Brad lit up as he heard that. ´That means hat I still have a week to find a solution for this.´ Not noticing his delight Ken continued, smiling again. "We´ll just have to delay it at tomorrow!" Crawford sweatdropped again. This time a little more.
Glancing at the clock Ken turned to go. "We´ll have to hurry if we want to have breakfast before opening the shop. I´ll meet you at the staircase in fife minutes!" And with that he dashed to his room to change, not minding the dazed Brad Crawford he left behind.
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The rest of the day went by uneventfully. Weiß hadn´t been willing to let him to the shop where they seemed to work as a cover, so Crawford subsided into spending it in his room.
* * * *
"An own room?"
"Hai. We set the room actually up as a possibility for Aya-kun´s sister to stay, but since the college she´s attending is on the other site of town, she´s living together with a friend in her own apartment. So it´s seldom used."
Crawford glanced at Omi who was guiding him trough the apartment. "But why wasn´t I staying there then?"
"Yeah... Well, I had much work to do for school so I asked Ken-kun to do it. Ken-kun was working in the shop and training the kids therefore he asked Aya-kun to do it. Aya-kun was working the whole time in the shop so he told Yohji-kun, who asked Ken-kun again and…-" Omi shrugged sheepishly, a smile playing around his lips. "- so on. I finally did it yesterday, after you went upstairs again."
Crawford nodded.
* * * * *
The room Crawford was now in held the usual pieces of furniture. A bed, an television set, some seats and a closet.
Now it was middle in the night and Weiß had went out for a mission. This mean that Crawford was free now to search trough the whole apartment without fearing to be noticed soon. What he needed was a computer.
O course Bombay had allowed him to use his but he hadn´t wanted to have anyone looking over his shoulders. It would´ve been a little different to explain why he was knowing this particularly links.
Stopping by the first door Crawford peeked inside. Greeting him was a picture of utter chaos. Various things were strewn all over the floor and a soccer ball was lying just so on the floor that one had no other choice but to trip over it. ´That would be Siberian´s room.` He closed the door again and went to the next one. Locked. ´Probably Abyssinian's.` One room later he was rewarded with the sight of a down shut computer. `And this would be Bombay´s room.`
He slipped inside and turned the device on, patiently waiting ´till the connection to the net was built up. Crawford quickly connected with the special side Nagi had put up once for them and checked for any relevant signs of the other three. He finally stroke gold as he looked at his mailbox.
There was a message from Schuldig.
Crawford breathed out in relieve. Though it wasn´t making many sense, it was at least a proof that the annoying readhead wasn´t dead.
Quickly he typed / Schuldig, where are you?/ and send his own message at the German´s address. The answer came surprisingly fast.
/At our appointed meeting place of course! Bradley, where the hell are you?! I´m waiting for hours!/
Crawford frowned. Their appointed meeting place?
/Which meeting place do you mean?/
/What do you mean with `which meeting place´ ? In München of course! Before the Frauenkirche. In an internet-café. You yourself made that meeting point up! You slowly growing old, or what?/
A smirk crept over Crawford´s features as he read that question. ´Far away for that, far away.´
/I didn´t made it up. I´m still in here Japan./
This time the answer took a little longer. /In Japan?! You chokeing me? The mail I got came from your address! Also sounded like you./
Crawford´s frown deepened. `Someone´s using my address?´ He didn´t like the idea from somebody else hacking through their system. Sternly he typed.
/That wasn´t me. I don´t know who it was. You know where prodigy and berserk are?/
/Aren´t they with you?/
/No. Come back as soon as possible. It seems that somebody had managed to hack into our system, so be careful with it. I´ll search in meantime for them. Crawford./
As Crawford clicked the send icon, a sudden vision of Bombay standing in the room struck him. Cursing the changed the web page to one which held the current news on it. He barely managed to disguise his tracks before the light was switched on with a click.
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Schuldig frowned at the last message from Crawford. If it wouldn´t have been their up-tied leader he would´ve sworn that somebody was playing a choke at him. A very bad one, too. But that was Crawford and Schuldig doubted that the man had anything resembling humor in him.
Still the thought of somebody else fooling around in their communication net wasn´t very welcome to him too. Even less when he thought that those very same somebody had managed to send him somewhere into the blue.
He had gotten that mail shortly after that god-damned Estet incident. Although the mail hadn´t been signed, the fact that it had come from the americans address in their wide distance communication net had been enough proof for him. It had held the instructions to split up in order to mislead any possible persuer´s. Schuldig should meet up with him in front of the womans-church in Munich at the named date.
Back then it had seemed logical enough for him. Though, admittedly he should have grown suspicious as Crawford hadn´t shown up in time. It wasn´t like the american to come too late. Not to a date with a Schwarz member, that is. Schuldig knew that he hadn´t any problems to let one of their ´clients´ wait. `How to the hell should I´ve known that somebody would manage to hack into Nagi´s program?!`
But so he´d waited in this internet-cafe for hours, with nothing more to do than to than to send naggin´ mails to Bradley and peek into the present persons minds. Which proved to be terribly boring. `Those bore´s are just too simple minded! Can´t they think about more than three topics?`
Suddenly a well-known feeling tingled at the corners of his mind. Somebody with mental shields was approaching him. Sadly for the person the shield´s weren´t strong enough to hide it´s presence.
`So you were thinking that you could catch me like a little helpless kitty, huh?` His usual smirk crept over his features as he silently readied himself for the attack that were to come. `Wrong thought, mein Lieber.`
"Mister Schuldig?"
As the readhead heard the faint click of a released safety catch he was ready. "Ja?"
//BANG//
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End chapter4
mein Lieber – my dear
Ja – yes, yeah
AR: So, I´m ending this chapter before it´s becoming to long. Well, watcha think about it? Liked it? Please review!! Pretty, pretty please!
Reviews, contributional comments and any suggestions (events, pairings) will be looked at every evening and morning, flames will be fed to my shredder on four legs. Outch, stop poking me, I´m already saying it! Greetings from him too!