Current mood:	sleepy
Current music:	"Love Is a Stranger" by Eurythmics

"Bad kitty."

"Glass Houses" part 3
By Viridian5

RATING: eventual NC-17. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by. AU.
SPOILERS: "Mission 13: Bruch-- Rain of Revenge" and "Mission 25: Ende des Weiss -- To the Knights."
SUMMARY: After Aya's sister dies, Schwarz tries to save Aya from himself. For their own reasons, of course.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: No, not yet. This is a trial run of a piece of an unfinished fic.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things Weiß Kreuz belong to Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiß, Polygram k.k., and Animate Film. No infringement intended.
NOTES: What if Aya's sister had been killed instead of saved? Here's one answer....
I can't blame all of this one on Kasha, but her goading is making it write itself faster, and some things I've put in to please her. Inspirational theme music is mostly Covenant's United States of Mind.


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"Glass Houses" part 3
By Viridian5
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Aya stripped his shirt and the bandage off to examine the wounds on his arm and gently washed flaked blood away from the tender edges. The stitches looked like ugly studs of black barbwire running along the two red jagged lines. They didn't look like suicide attempts; he could have gotten them in a knife fight. Not that it really mattered.

The pain ran all the way to his hand as he flexed his arm. Farfarello pressing on them last night couldn't have helped.

Assassins had to have bandages around. Sure enough, he found an aid kit under the sink. When he stood again, his shirt had disappeared from the counter. Taken. He hadn't felt anyone come in.

He fought back tears of frustration. Schuldig might know how upset he was, but there was no reason to show the others. Let them find out from the telepath or not at all.

He wrapped his arm in new bandages, then walked back into the bedroom for a shirt. Farfarello sat on the unmade bed and asked, "No bath?"

Despite the exercise sweat on his skin, Aya didn't care about washing right now, and he knew his pants would disappear. "I've heard that cleanliness is next to godliness."

"Bath."

Aya didn't ask what the alternative was. Having no desire to be knocked out, stripped, and bathed by Farfarello, he sighed and went to the suitcase, giving his pants up for lost in advance. "Who the hell packed this thing?" Aya asked when he looked through the underwear.

Farfarello barked a laugh. "You're lucky he got you only two thongs."

Must have been Schuldig.

The rest was serviceable, real underwear, though silk, far more indulgent than anything Aya would get himself. He added a pair to his pile of new clothing and returned to the bathroom to fill the tub. Its clawed feet bemused him. Once he started the water running, he backed up into Farfarello, who said, "It's possible to drown in even a small bit of water."

"I don't bathe for an audience."

"There's a first time for everything."

"I won't." Why had Farfarello given him privacy for his wound care but not for this?

"It's nothing I haven't seen before." And no doubt dismembered, perhaps saving his favorite parts for later.

To think, he'd gone with Schwarz partly out of the fear that his own teammates would scrutinize his every action and never give him a moment's peace.

He couldn't do this. He had to do this, but he couldn't do it by ignoring the killer's presence, which would be folly. Once the tub had filled, Aya undressed quickly and refused to wonder what Farfarello thought of him, then scrambled into the tub, soaking his new bandage and nearly slipping and breaking his head open in the process. Farfarello made a tch! sound. Disgruntled, Aya unwrapped the sopping gauze and dropped it to the floor.

Farfarello crouched behind Aya's head, which made his skin crawl. Couldn't see him there. Aya tried to turn to watch him, but a firm hand at the top of his head kept him immobile. Warm water trickled over his hair and down his neck in a way that made him shudder.

"I don't want you to touch me." Aya doubted that saying anything would make a difference, but at least he could say he'd tried. "I don't like it. I don't like it when anyone does it."

"Poor kitten. So distrustful."

"I'm *not* a--" The next sluice of water flowed down his face and into his mouth. Petty vengeance, since the last one had been so careful.

Farfarello hummed as he worked shampoo into Aya's hair and kneaded his scalp with his fingertips, making it tingle. It seemed that he saw Aya as a doll as well as a pet.

He quickly learned that as long as he didn't protest he didn't get water running down his face. Blinking shampoo out of his stinging eyes, he told himself that he could get through this. As he washed, he distracted himself by deciding whether he'd kill them all to make them pay or escape first. Events would probably dictate his course of action, but it made him happier to ponder the possibilities.

Whether by accident or design, Farfarello tapped Aya's earring, setting it swinging. Once he'd worn it as a weighty, ever-present reminder of his sister and what he'd have to do to avenge his family. Now it reminded him of his failure to save her and the deaths of two women who wouldn't be dead if they hadn't tried to help him. He tugged at it once, hard.

After two rounds of shampoo and one of conditioner--Farfarello's hair didn't look like it received this much attention--the lunatic simply sat and stared. Aya realized that his one eye was focused on Aya's wounded arm, more specifically, on the stitches. He had a sudden nightmare image of Farfarello lunging forward, clamping his teeth around one of the knots of black thread, and yanking.

Aya folded that arm in close to his chest. When Farfarello sighed in what sounded like disappointment, Aya answered, "Get your own."

He'd nearly killed himself getting into the tub out of an attempt at privacy but refused to repeat the process. As much as he wanted to die, he'd rather not do it this stupidly and naked. This time he stood, stepped out, and reached for a towel. Farfarello handed it to him first with only the briefest flicker of emotion in that one eye.

Aya tried to disregard that burning gaze as he dried off and dressed. His own pants had disappeared, as he'd anticipated. The new clothing fit well and reflected his taste in mission wear. It made his skin creep to think of Schuldig going into his brain to help the selection process.

As he fastened the straps at his neck, Schuldig pushed the door open, blatantly checked Aya out from head to toe, and said, "Time to do some reconnaissance. Hey, Aya, looking *good*."

Aya glared. Schuldig grinned.

******************************************************

Schwarz kept him busy for the rest of the day but not enough to keep Aya's thoughts from wandering to his lost sister, team, and home. All gone through his deeply flawed judgment. Maybe he shouldn't be allowed to make his own decisions. He'd traded the possibility of having three concerned teammates following him everywhere as his nursemaid to the certainty of having one psychopath in that role instead. At least Farfarello had no pity in his gaze. Insanity and a disturbing hunger, but no pity.

Aya wanted to scream or cry, and his face hurt as he tried to keep it all in.

As they drove or walked through Frankfurt, he felt lost amidst the unfamiliar environs, disconnected and ghostly. Sometimes some treacherous part of him found it pretty and was excited to be somewhere new, but for the most part he felt like he was wandering through purgatory without the possibility of redemption.

"Where are we going?" he'd asked once, and Crawford had answered, "You don't have to concern yourself with that. We'll be there soon."

The hot weight of Farfarello's hand on the back of his neck distracted and anchored him, so he kept shrugging and twitching it off. He didn't want to be anchored.

******************************************************

Schuldig had included a pair of pajamas in the suitcase, but Aya chose a T-shirt and a loose, soft pair of pants instead, preferring to sleep in something he could run away in. Farfarello walked in, stripped down to just pants, and went under the covers.

"I am not sleeping with you," Aya said.

"You did last night."

"I was drugged!"

"And could be again." Farfarello smiled.

Aya's skin crawled. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"I usually do, so that would be no trouble. It's far safer for me to stay with you."

"Safer for whom?"

But he could see that fighting was getting him nowhere again. Far better to go along with it for now, stay quiet, and act unexpectedly. If luck did an unusual thing by favoring him, he might even surprise Schuldig as well.

So he turned out the light and got into bed with Farfarello, who immediately draped an arm over his waist. Aya tried to ignore it.

Sleep wouldn't come, not while he had another person in bed with him. He couldn't ignore the second weight, the pressure and warmth, the breathing, and the knowledge that an unpredictable mind that could decide to do anything to him was lying that close. Farfarello's arm felt hot and humid and left Aya's skin under it feeling the same. Farfarello could rip out his throat with his teeth if he slept, and even if Aya wanted to die, he didn't quite want to die like that. Even if he *didn't* deserve any better.

Farfarello sighed and rubbed Aya's belly. "You stink of adrenaline."

"Do you blame me?"

"Yes."

"Of course you do."

"Poor distrustful kitten."

This was his life. In the absence of dying for his sins, this was what he deserved. She was gone, and thus so was his reason for continuing on.

Here, in the dark, with a demon wrapped around him, he realized that in many ways she had been dead to him for years, and that part of him had known it. He'd betrayed her in his heart long ago.

Unable to hold it back any longer after years of repression, Aya started to shake. He wouldn't do this in front of an enemy, so he tried to pull free, but Farfarello held on too tightly. Desperate, he thrashed and clawed, but it was like fighting a log. Finally he landed a shot that loosened that grip enough for him to break away, but when he reached the door he found out that it was locked from the outside. Yanking and rattling it did no good.

"Puisín." Farfarello was near the closet, where his katana was. Relying on excellent night vision, Aya could just about see him.

Still shaking, Aya slid along the wall until he reached a corner he could put his back to. If Farfarello came at him, one of them would die.

Farfarello sighed and stood there, not moving or speaking. Eventually, Aya exhausted himself, sliding down the wall to sleep sitting up.

Eventually, he woke, alone in the corner, the room still dark. He was free to move, free to act. He could leap out the window if he could get the guard gate free and had no one to stop him, and then the grief would be over. Feeling lighter now, he walked to the closet and picked up his sheathed katana, unsheathed it as quietly as he could, taking comfort in its weight, then walked to the bed. Farfarello might not feel pain, but decapitation would stop him just as it would anyone else.

There the demon was. Silent, deadly, Aya raised his katana, then brought it down--

He never knew what hit him, but he came to crumpled on the floor against the wall in the morning. Farfarello, very much alive and crouching next to him, smacked his nose and said, "Bad kitty."

"I hate you with everything in me."

"Hmph. It's time for breakfast." The bastard smiled. "You need to keep your strength up if you want to kill me."

When he found another chance, he would take it. Aya stood and followed his keeper.

******************************************************

Schuldig smiled as Aya trudged into the kitchen after Farfarello. Abyssinian had been such a treat of torment last night and now felt washed out and gray, like a month of rain.

"Have a good time last night, Aya?" he asked.

The next thing he knew, he had insane lavender eyes glaring at him from a short distance away and a hand clutching his throat choking him. Aya had moved completely without thinking. Brad knocked the maddened kitten aside as Farfarello laughed like he'd never stop. Nagi forcibly sat Aya down in a chair and kept him there. As Schuldig tried to catch his breath he saw that Aya clutched the knife he'd just been using to cut his sausage. So fast.

"Son of a bitch--" Schuldig exploded up to his feet, prepared to dole out punishment, but Farfarello stepped between them. "Get the fuck out of my way."

"You provoked him," Farfarello said.

"He tried to strangle me and slice me open."

"You provoked him."

Schuldig looked to Brad, who raised an eyebrow and said, "Sit down and eat your breakfast."

"But--"

Brad thought, ~ I told you that picking at people can get you in trouble. ~

~ Fuck you. ~

~ What? Now? ~

Schuldig refused to smile.

~ It's not like you've never had a collar of bruises before, Schu. ~

~ He left bruises? That fucking-- I never felt him moving. From the look you had on your face, you didn't see it coming either. ~

~ Something to keep in mind. You're just pissed off that he tagged you. ~

Schuldig knew he had no excuse for being taken so easily. He knew that Aya had trained to fight and kill as they had, drilling the actions into his body and reflexes until he didn't have to think each step through. He couldn't say that he hadn't realized that this pet had teeth and claws. You were as likely to be killed in your own kitchen as anywhere else.

Thus, he was pissed off.

He watched Abyssinian closely through the meal and noticed that he didn't eat, just sat there, lost in a steady pulse of grief and a longing to escape. Farfarello looked unhappy and didn't know what to do. It looked like they'd have to run the kitten around again today to make him stop thinking.

Schuldig wondered how much difficult behavior Brad would put up with before executing their guest. Brad himself didn't know for certain yet.

******************************************************

"You can sleep on the bed or the floor. Either way, I'm sleeping by your side," Farfarello said.

The kitten didn't look at him. Aya had been distant and silent all day, barely there, with even his small flashes of anger seeming cool and dead. After that one, beautiful flare of life during breakfast, all other attempts to provoke him had been useless, and that was even with Schuldig being in particularly fine, pissed off form. Farfarello recognized slow death when he saw it.

He refused to let God win, so he grabbed the kitten's chin and said, "Take the bed." Aya's eyes seemed almost washed out looking, and his body said, "I don't care anymore," in its every line. Farfarello found that bodies could be very eloquent. He shook him a little to try to stir some life into it, get things moving again.

Nothing lived in the kitten's eyes as they stared at him. It was too fucking late at night to deal with this. He tossed Aya at the bed. At least Aya cared enough to grab the bed and sit down instead of letting himself hit the floor.

Farfarello stripped down, but Aya did nothing. Fine. Let him try to sleep in his belts and boots. Farfarello pushed him into a lying down position, then turned out the light, refusing to sleep until he felt that obstinate body relax into slumber.

******************************************************

As Aya awoke he felt relief as he saw that it was still night. The change in time zones had left him disoriented, but at least Schwarz had similar problems.

He waited for his eyes to adjust, then quietly and gently slid out of bed, morbidly certain that Farfarello could hear his heart pounding. But he had fooled them all during the day, so maybe he had a chance. Hopefully his show of despair and inertia would have done its work, lowering the lunatic's guard. Why be wary of someone who'd so obviously given up?

Aya picked up one of his captor's knives. Although the retractable ones fascinated him, they made too loud a noise, so he chose a more standard one.

Swords necessarily telegraphed a little as you set them in position and moved. He could get in closer and faster with a knife. His breathing quickened as he imagined the splash of hot blood over his fingers. First he would make sure that Farfarello was dead, then he'd escape. Being calmer tonight, he wouldn't make such a mess of it. If the door was locked again tonight--it no doubt was, but he would still check--he would try to undo the metal guard on the window. If all of that failed, he would wait for the others to come, then attack and make a break for it, which would probably be suicide. Whatever would be, would be. It would almost be a relief to have his fate taken out of his hands.

Quietly, calmly, he approached Farfarello's side of the bed. His captor slept on, his throat nicely exposed. Watching carefully for any signs of returning consciousness, Aya set his knife hand in position. He moved--

An iron grip tightened on his wrist, trying to force him to drop the knife. Dammit. How did he keep waking up just in time? Farfarello head-butted him, but he clung to his weapon and slashed with it, hitting something. They grappled on the bed, Aya slashing and twisting, Farfarello clinging and punching.

Aya's head hit something hard that left him stunned and uncoordinated through the wave of pain and disorientation. It left him so out of it that he barely felt it as the lower half of his body hit the floor. His head and one arm remained on the mattress.

Farfarello laughed and grabbed the knife. "Tricky kitten. Good try." Something went around his wrists, and it took Aya a moment to realize that they were some kind of cuffs. Farfarello wound them around one bedpost.

Aya struggled but couldn't slide out of the padded leather cuffs. Pulling, he felt his arms strain and shoulders hurt. The bed started to move a little toward him.

"You're dragging the bed? Impressive. But you'll hurt yourself." Farfarello grabbed him by the hair and dashed his head against the wall.

******************************************************

Aya's head rung, and the morning light drilled into his skull when he opened his eyes. Crouching beside him, Farfarello grinned. "Good morning."

"Die."

"Not today. You can be quiet as I undo the cuffs, or you can struggle and I'll leave you in here all day." He smiled. "You might be spiteful enough to struggle anyway. Fine. I'll stay with you no matter what you do, but if you're good you can be freed from the bed, eat breakfast, and plot my painful death."

Remaining cuffed to the bed would accomplish nothing aside from amusing Farfarello, and he hated to amuse that bastard. "I won't struggle." And he didn't struggle, not even when Farfarello stroked the insides of his wrists with callused fingertips, though he did growl then.