Yes! Oh my God! More WK fic! I don't remember what was going on at all, but I faithfully prosed the RPs we did three years ago, so I hope this frickin' makes sense! =D
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was a few hours later, after Schuldig had taken a nap and woken up feeling much better, that Brad knocked on the door and stuck his head inside. “How are you feeling?” he asked. He was doing his best to avoid leaning against the wall in exhaustion; he hated showing weakness.
“I’m not too bad.” Schuldig was sprawled out on the bed, his hair spread out across the pillow. He blinked up at Brad. He had nearly forgotten that he had been angry at Brad before everything had happened. “This place keeps the noise down. It’s giving me a chance to recover. You look like hell though.”
“I’m all right,” Brad said, with a slight smile. He pulled a chair over and sat down next to the bed. “You’re looking better, though.”
Schuldig made a face. “I saw myself in the mirror a few hours ago. I’d hate to think what I looked like when you found me.”
“Let’s not discuss it,” Brad said dryly.
“How’s Nagi?” Schuldig asked.
“He’s all right. He’s been sleeping since we got back, but physically he’s okay. I think he’ll be up in a few hours.”
Schuldig smiled, almost his usual smirk. “So what you’re saying is everyone around here is getting taken care of but you, and you’re just going to ignore yourself ‘til you fall over.”
Brad considered. “Yes. Only I said it without the amusement.”
“Right,” Schuldig said, privately amused at Brad’s total disregard for himself. “Tonight you have dinner and sleep. I’ll get up and make you eat it myself if you don’t agree.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.” Brad glared at him, although only half-seriously.
“I don’t think you could stop me.” Schuldig mock glared right back.
“Probably not, but I could enlist Yohji.”
“But . . . that’s not fair.” Schuldig made a pouting face, and stuck his tongue out at Brad. “Besides, it would be easier for him to give in to what I want than fight me.”
“Yes, but I trust that he could convince you in other ways.” Schuldig just hmphed, which made Brad smile again. “Well, that’s what you get for saying something so silly,” he said.
“I mean it,” Schuldig said, trying to look as stubborn as he felt. He wasn’t sure it was working, but at least his voice came out firm. “If you don’t start taking care of yourself, I will.”
Brad just sighed. “When have I had time to sleep, Schuldig?”
“Make time.” Schuldig studied his longtime friend for a few moments, the way he was sitting, the dark shadows underneath his eyes, the slight drag in his voice. “I’ve never seen you this worn out.”
“I think I was this worn out when I first picked you up,” Brad said thoughtfully, thinking of the week long battle in the hotel room while Schuldig went through withdrawal from all the drugs he had been on. “Of course, then I wasn’t actually in danger of getting horribly killed by Esstet . . .”
“I somehow feel responsible,” Schuldig said, looking shifty eyed. When Brad just rolled his eyes, Schuldig felt it necessary to elaborate. “Well, come on. I’ve caused nothing but trouble. You’ve never tied yourself in knots like this before. Except when you found me. And it’s not like I’ve been a peach to be around lately.”
Brad shrugged. “I’m more likely to blame that on Esstet than on you, so don’t worry about it.”
Schuldig looked at him for a moment, then looked away. “When it has to do with you, I always worry, and we both know that you can’t lay all of the recent problems between us at Esset’s feet.” Somehow, he felt horribly guilty that he nearly got himself killed, leaving Brad thinking he was pissed.
Brad sighed and rubbed his temples a little. He was too tired and had too much of a headache to deal with this, but he didn’t want to put Schuldig off. “All right, yes, but the recent problems weren’t really your fault either.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t my fault that I tried to bully you into something that you clearly didn’t want,” Schuldig said with a snort, refusing to look at him. “I know you’re worried about me, but don’t pretend I didn’t screw up because you’re worried.”
“If we’re going to be totally honest, which I see you’re in the mood for, then you have to admit that I screwed up, too.” Brad pinched the bridge of his nose. His headache was getting worse. “I brushed you off without giving you any consideration or explaining myself. So you can’t blame this entirely on yourself.”
Schuldig didn’t like the idea of Brad being wrong about something, especially when he was fairly sure Brad wasn’t, or at least that Brad had had the right to do what he did. “I . . . you know, every other time you’ve asked me to drop a subject, I’ve done it. Those were the unwritten rules. I’m even okay with those rules. You don’t have to change them. You were being an ass, but it’s not like that’s new. And it’s not like you were saying you didn’t care about me at all.”
“You’re allowed to question me when I say something, particularly if it pertains to you personally. You know that, right?”
“Of course,” Schuldig said, a little startled.
“Then why were you just apologizing for questioning me fifteen seconds ago?” Brad asked, ready to throw his hands up in frustration and give up on the entire conversation.
Schuldig just stared at him for a few seconds before he opened his mouth and words started tumbling out. “Because I almost bit it, leaving you to think I was pissed at you. Because I don’t want you angry with me. I don’t like the way it feels and I want to pretend that I wasn’t stupid enough to make that mistake.” He stopped and looked away, knowing that he had to still be a little messed up, because he really hadn’t meant to start babbling like that.
“Schuldig,” Brad said firmly. He reached out to touch his face, both to reassure him and to ground him. “I’m not angry with you. I wasn’t even angry with you then. I’m not sure I can be angry with you. You didn’t make any mistakes.”
Schuldig turned his face into the touch, not really thinking about it. He had missed Brad sorely during his absence, and the enforced separation during his own kidnapping had only reinforced that. “You seemed angry. If you weren’t, then I don’t understand what was wrong, because something was.”
“I wasn’t angry with you,” Brad said. He enjoyed the touch, but pulled his hand away after a few seconds. “I just didn’t like the results of the discussion.”
“There were no results.” Now Schuldig was the one with the headache.
“Exactly. I suppose I wanted there to be. Except there can’t be.”
To Brad, this statement made perfect sense. Schuldig was left staring at his friend in utter confusion, nibbling on one finger. He finally settled for asking the obvious question directly. “Why can’t there be?”
“As I said, because it wouldn’t work.”
There were a few moments of silence. Schuldig was torn between wanting an explanation and wanting this all to blow over, because the instability of the situation was driving him nuts. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him. “Why not?”
“Because there’s too much that could go wrong, too easily.” Brad lifted his hands to his temples and rubbed them for a few seconds. He really wished that he didn’t need to have this conversation.
“Things can go wrong no matter what,” Schuldig said. “Even you don’t see everything.” He saw the tired look on Brad’s face and snapped his mouth shut, wishing that he hadn’t spoken.
“Yes, but it’s different,” Brad persisted. “In missions, it’s easy. You see someone getting shot and you move them so they won’t be there when the shot is fired. With real life, it’s harder. I see things going wrong and I can’t fix them. So it’s better not to know. Sometimes I get visions, but I do my best to restrict those to work.”
“So don’t look and live a little,” Schuldig said impatiently.
Brad shook his head. “It’s the curse of precognition. I’m so used to using it that I can’t function without it. Therefore, if I don’t use it, things will go wrong. And if I do use it, I’ll only see them go wrong and not be able to fix them.”
“It’s just another sense,” Schuldig pointed out. “It’s like my telepathy. I block it when I can, but some things get through. I use those to my advantage and don’t worry about whether or not I should have or wanted to hear it. I can’t unhear it, you can’t unsee it.” He shrugged a little. “Some things will go wrong; if you can’t stop it, that doesn’t mean you can’t fix it. People fix mistakes all the time.”
“I just don’t want this to go terribly wrong.”
“Haven’t you ever just taken a chance before?”
Brad took a moment to consider. “No.”
“I take them all the time. It’s not that bad.”
“Yes, but you’re used to taking them,” Brad said patiently, as if his logic was perfectly sound. “I’m not, so it would probably go badly.”
Schuldig frowned. “Out of the two of us, aren’t you supposed to be the one who thinks clearly?”
“Last time I checked, yes.”
“Well, that’s some of the worst logic I’ve ever heard,” Schuldig stated flatly.
“Oh?” Brad raised an eyebrow.
“As far as I can figure, and bear in mind I’m getting a headache, you just basically said that anything you couldn’t See was destined to fail.”
There was a long pause. “Yes, that’s what I said.”
“But if you didn’t have the Sight, you’d be just like everyone else right?” At Brad’s nod, Schuldig continued, proud of himself for foiling Brad’s logic. “So are you telling me that everything that some normal Talentless jerk off the street, or for that matter any Talent that isn’t a precog, screws everything they do?”
Brad frowned. “No. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“Well, that sounds like what you’re saying, because if you just close your eyes and try something without a vision, you’re just like everyone else.”
“I just don’t believe that it can end well.”
“We are talking about love,” Schuldig said, still trying to keep his temper. “If it ends, it won’t end well, but relationship or no, it could still end. What you should be asking yourself is how much fun you’ll have along the way. Because that really might be worth it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“But what about you?” Brad gave him a serious look. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can’t see the future,” Schuldig said. “I’ve been taking my chances since the day you found me. I trust you to try your best. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Most of the time I win, and you’ve never given me cause to lose faith in you.”
“I know.” Brad paused. “And I don’t want to make more of this than it is right now.”
Schuldig took a deep breath, then spoke softly, barely loud enough for Brad to hear. “This time I lose.” He quickly got a hold of himself and shrugged. He had tried, and was trying to keep his mouth shut and take his defeat gracefully.
Brad stared at him, honestly taken off guard by the pain in Schuldig’s voice. “You can’t want to be with me that badly.”
Schuldig lost his temper. “For fuck’s sake, you can’t have it both ways. You got what you wanted and now you’re harassing me about it? Of course I want to be with you, but if you’re going to be a stubborn irrational prig, I’m not going to drive you away.”
There was a long silence while they glared at each other, then Brad got a handful of Schuldig’s shirt and pulled him into a kiss.
For a very brief moment, Schuldig struggled against him; he had been startled into forgetting where he was, given how shaky his grip on reality still was. Kissing Brad was nothing like kissing Yohji, but it was still very nice. Yohji’s were insistent and immediate, a bit demanding. Brad’s were much more about lingering.
After a few long minutes, Brad pulled away, pressing his forehead against Schuldig’s. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
“It’s not so bad sometimes,” Schuldig said.
“I have never been so out of control in my entire life, and what’s even stranger is that I don’t really mind much.” Brad leaned forward and kissed him again lightly.
Schuldig kissed back, until Brad was out of air, then pulled away. “Someday you might even outright enjoy it.”
“What are you going to do about Yohji?” Brad shifted gears abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you going to do about the fact that you now apparently have two boyfriends?”
Schuldig grinned. His mood was better than it had been in weeks. “I’m going to hope you two were paying attention in kindergarten when they had that lesson on sharing. I talked to him about it before, when I brought all this up the first time.”
Brad laughed shortly, but sobered quickly, being Brad. “You did?”
Schuldig nodded. “I mean, it’ll affect him a lot. He basically said it would take some getting used to, but he thought he could manage it.”
“Would you take it amiss if I wanted to apologize in advance for anything that goes wrong?” Brad asked suddenly.
“No,” Schuldig said, although it took a great amount of effort to not roll his eyes at Brad. “You’re strung far too tight not to have your bases covered. I know you better than that.”
“I suppose you do.” Brad leaned forward and gave him another quick kiss. “I love you.”
Schuldig actually beamed. “I love you too.”
“I’m sorry I was a dick.”
Schuldig cracked his usual smirk. “I also know you well enough to say you’ll continue to be one anyway,” he said, in his own language for ‘all is forgiven’. “And I love you anyway.”
^^^^
When Nagi awoke, he was quiet and pale, and did not seem to want anybody’s company. However, when Omi attempted to leave, he found Nagi clinging to his sleeve and wordlessly sat back down on the edge of the bed. He felt useless and helpless, and hated it, but if his presence comforted Nagi and that was the best he could offer, he would offer it gladly.
After nearly an hour of sitting in silence, Nagi quietly requested tea. His voice was hoarse and he explained that his throat was very sore. This didn’t surprise Omi, who promised he would be right back. Aya had made some tea, and Omi reheated it and added lemon. He came back into the room and held it out to Nagi, being careful to not invade his personal bubble.
Nagi took the tea and clutched it tightly between both hands, his knuckles white against the mug. “Thanks,” he murmured, not looking at Omi, and sipped it gingerly.
“Is there anything else I can do to help?” Omi asked quietly, sitting back down.
“I . . . I don’t know,” Nagi said, and stared into the mug.
“Do you think it would help to tell me what happened?” Omi asked.
“I don’t know,” Nagi repeated, but he began to shiver at Omi’s words. Omi found a blanket and wrapped it around the telekinetic’s shoulders, being careful to not touch him. “I just . . . just feel awful.”
“Why?” Omi asked. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Because I . . . I failed Schu,” Nagi said weakly, and took another sip of the tea. It made his stomach churn. “If what they’d done hadn’t . . . hadn’t gotten to me, then he wouldn’t have had to . . .”
“No one could have expected you to hold out against them,” Omi told him, having gotten some sketchy details from Brad on what he suspected had been done to Nagi. “Not even Schu. He’s not angry with you, just worried about you. And I don’t think I would have been able to hold up as long as you did.”
“They just . . . they got in my head and . . .”
“And what?” Omi asked. He noticed that Nagi’s hands were shaking badly and the tea was about to spill. Cautiously, he reached out and steadied Nagi’s hands. The other teenager almost jerked away from him, but managed to stifle the response before he let go of the mug.
“And . . . everything from when . . . when I was little and lived on the streets, all that again . . . kept playing in my head, and I didn’t remember that it was over, and I didn’t know where I was . . . it was like living it all over again.”
Omi took the tea away before Nagi could spill it or drop it, and carefully pulled Nagi into a loose and gentle hug. “It’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing and no way of stopping them.”
“I know, but . . .” Nagi drooped into Omi’s embrace, apparently content to stay there but still very tense. “I shouldn’t have let it bother me.”
“It’s unfair for you to ask that of yourself,” Omi said firmly. “If you were hurt and scared, you had a right to feel that way. No reason it should be less scary the second time around.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Nagi murmured, refusing to look at Omi.
Omi doubted this statement very much, but decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to directly challenge it. “Nagi-kun, this wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was!” Nagi protested, edging towards irrational hysteria. He pulled out of Omi’s arms and huddled into a ball. “I should have been able to get out of it but I couldn’t!”
“How?” Omi asked, hoping that if Nagi couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation, he would drop it. “Explain to me how you should have been able to stop a telepath from doing that to you.”
“I’ve had . . . I’ve had some practice with shielding from them. Crawford taught me. Besides, I should have remembered that it was over! I should have known that it couldn’t be real!”
Omi blinked at him for a few moments, then decided to try a slightly different tactic. “Trauma doesn’t work like that. Things can get twisted in your head, and if something scares you in the same way again, it’s hard to know what’s in the past and what’s now. It happens to me sometimes, and I don’t even have the excuse of some creepy person purposefully messing with my head.”
“I know, but the nightmares . . . I wake up from the nightmares, and this . . . even though Schuldig made it stop, I can’t forget it anymore . . .”
“It takes time,” Omi said gently, touching his shoulder, unsure of whether or not Nagi would welcome another embrace. “You have to give yourself a chance.”
“I just want this to be over,” Nagi whispered.
“I know.”
“And I feel awful ‘cause now Schuldig’s all . . . all not so great.”
“It’s okay to feel bad, but don’t think it’s your fault,” Omi said. This drew a faint protest from Nagi, and Omi gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to embellish on his thoughts.
“There must have been something that I could do,” Nagi finally said.
“Sometimes there isn’t.”
“But there should have been!” Nagi protested.
“Yes, there should have been,” Omi agreed quietly, “but sometimes there isn’t. I’ve learned something very important over the years. You can’t always save everyone and fix everything. Even when you want to. Even when you care about the person in danger.” He waited, but this gained him nothing but a sniffle. That was, in Omi’s opinion, better than another protest. “Besides, Schu will get better. Yohji-kun and Crawford-san won’t tolerate anything else.”
Nagi sighed and drooped against him. “I feel awful,” he murmured.
“I think you just need to take a rest,” Omi said, handing the tea back to him.
Nagi took a hesitant sip. “I’m not tired, just . . . worn out. Worn thin.”
“Well, you have some time to relax and recuperate,” Omi said. “You deserve it. Crawford-san and I will worry about what to do.”
“Okay,” Nagi said quietly.
Omi hugged him carefully. “If you need to talk, I’ll listen. And if you need company I’m sure that can be arranged too. Just try to not to sit alone and stew.”
“I don’t think I know how to talk about it.”
“Just don’t think too much,” Omi offered with a slight smile. “Sometimes blurting things out is the best way to go.”
“I just wish I could forget it all, so no one could use it against me, so . . . so it wouldn’t bother me anymore.”
“If you were missing your past you would want it back,” Omi said with a shake of his head, knowing this for a fact. “Even if it’s bad, it’s part of you, and you would want it back. I think it’s better to work with the truth.”
“Then I wish the truth was different,” Nagi said.
“That I can commiserate with whole-heartedly,” Omi said. When Nagi didn’t reply, Omi looked into his still mostly full mug and added, “You should drink your tea. You haven’t eaten anything in God knows how long.”
“I’m never hungry,” Nagi said, although he obediently lifted the mug to his lips and drank a little. “Even before this . . . I only eat because I know I should.”
“Will you at least try to eat a little dinner later?” Omi asked. “Aya can get cranky when people don’t eat his cooking.”
Nagi attempted a smile. “I’ll try, I guess.”
“That’s good enough,” Omi said.
“You won’t . . . you won’t go away, right?” Nagi asked.
“No,” Omi said, “I’m staying right here.”
^^^^
Weiss Kreuz Fanfiction
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