Warning: This fic is Yaoi in nature, if you cannot handle male/male (homosexual) relationships, then please do not read.

Setting: Germany, somefive years before the start of the series of Weiss Kreuz (Knight Hunters) and Yami no Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness)... Hisoka is not appearing in this for anything. Don't look for him, this is the only place where he will be mentioned.

On to the story.

Death Captured

Inside the crate it was dark with only a few slips of light streaming in from between the slats of wood. His stomach had stopped protesting a long time ago, that didn't stop him from being hungry. And thirsty. He was so thirsty. Tsuzuki could barely remember the last time that he had eaten. Okay so that was a lie, he had eaten a few hours before he had been rendered unconscious. Though, he was more than a little upset over the fact that they hadn't even waited for him to get the dessert before taking him.

There was movement outside the crate, some banging and thumping. There were people out there, but they were speaking a language that was totally foreign to him. Tsuzuki could feel them moving him. He would have complained if he hadn't been gagged.

The crate tipped dangerously. He heard swearing and the box was righted. He couldn't understand the words... but someone was in trouble. The shinigami felt his stomach attempt to lurch when the crate he was in was eventually put down... He tried to mentally convince his stomach to stay where it was. This being gagged was getting to be tedious.

---

He'd sucker punched the guy, so what? That didn't give him and his goon friends to try and beat the crap out of him now, the young red head thought to himself as he ran from the larger teens He ducked through and around people and other obstacles, heading down a narrow alley. If he remembered right, it opened up onto a larger street at the other end. He dashed down the dirty, cluttered pavement.

Fuck, fuck, fuck... Brad was going to have his hide if a bunch of low life street punks were able to get the best of him.

There were too many people around for him to get a mental 'fix' on his pursuers. He really needed to work on that. Brad was always bitching about how he needed to practice more. He could see the street opening up at the end of the alley, bright and hopefully not busy.

He only saw the speeding truck only after it started honking frantically at him. Oh fuck. Hoping his fabled speed would be enough, he tried to scramble out of the way.

---

Tsuzuki would have sworn that both his life and afterlife had flashed before his eyes when his crate was tossed back and forth.

His stomach dropped as it felt like the crate, and therefore him, went airborne. It fell with a tremendous crash and the sweet sound of splintering wood. Pain bloomed across his awareness as his shoulder was dislocated from the impact.

Brakes screeched and there was loud swearing. The truck seemed to be getting farther away. Mentally the shinigami both cursed and blessed the existence of the little styrofoam peanuts that had been put into the crate with him. Bracing himself, he gave a few good solid kicks to the already weakened wood. He could hear another voice outside. He couldn't understand what they were saying... Fingers appeared around the edges of one of the loose boards, tugging.

The brunette blinked a few times when the wood was pulled away and light finally fell upon his face. He would have thanked his savior, except that he was still bound and gagged. Violet eyes looked up somewhat uncertainly at the fiery silhouette of the person helping him.

A single word was spoken, most likely an expletive by the tone. Hands reached for the gag.

Tsuzuki stretched his jaw when the gag was removed. "arigato..."

The boy... it was a boy, he thought, said something. He looked confused.

The violet eyed shinigami tried to get up, but winced when he moved his injured shoulder. If that wasn't set, only Enma knows how it would decide to heal. The kid helped him up, then slipped a hand down into his boot. He pulled out what looked like a very sharp knife. Tsuzuki definitely hoped that knife was for the ropes that tied his wrists behind his back... If not, then he would be in serious trouble since there was no way that he could conceivably fight back with how he was tied up.

The redhead ducked around behind him. There was a sharp tug and the ropes fell to the ground. The kid gestured toward an alley, looking around nervously.

For the moment, the shinigami wasn't going to argue. Placing a firm but gentle hand on the teen's shoulder, Tsuzuki let the boy lead the way.

---

"What do you mean that my package was stolen?" The blonde's tone was quiet, but menacing. "Have you any idea how rare a Japanese god of death is?!"

"We didn't know the crate fell out... we almost had an accident."

Deiter glared at his subordinates. Turning his attention back towards the talisman they had used to subdue the shinigami, he frowned. They had at least a month before the creature would be back to full strength. By that time, the shinigami had better be in his collection.

The men were trying to sneak off...

"You will find him." Deiter warned.

"Of course... we're just going to look..."

"Have him safely back in my possession with twenty five days, or your lives are forfeit."

The men paled and ran out of the room.

---

If the boy's odd language hadn't been enough of a clue for him, the foreign characters on the street signs were evidence enough for the brunette that he was no where near home. While he had an idea of what most romanji looked like, he knew that some of those characters truly were foreign. Miserably he sighed. He couldn't really go into a doctor's office for his shoulder, even if he could figure out where one was... there was always the problem of paying the person, he hadn't really expected to be kidnapped and less than a thousand yen on him. Not that yen would do him any good here.

The boy was leading him down dirty, smelly alleys and equally squalid streets. This was obviously NOT the good part of town. Unfortunately this also looked better than most of the areas that the Summons Dept's new secretary had placed him in during his investigations.

Finally the boy headed into a dilapidated building... but at least it didn't look like it had been condemned. He'd stayed in a few places that HAD been condemned. The redhead ushered him into what seemed to be a small apartment, carefully locking then dead bolting the door behind them. He sighed in relief then waved the man towards a beaten chair in the corner.

Holding his arm as immobile as possible, Tsuzuki moved towards the indicated chair and sat down. He didn't think that it would be a good idea if he stayed very long... the boy's family would probably not be very receptive to their son's new and completely unannounced 'guest', the brunette thought to himself.

The boy frowned and said something to him.

"Gomen... I can't understand what you are saying."

The redhead pointed to the injured arm.

Going for the simplest phrase possible, Tsuzuki pointed to his shoulder, "itai."

The boy walked over and moving slowly, put his hands on the shoulder. He probed it carefully. Hissing in pain, the shinigami looked up at the teen with teary eyes. The kid mumbled something... then grabbed the arm, wrenching it. Tsuzuki could heard something pop amidst the agony.

Now it was the brunette's turn to vent a few interesting expleratives as the torture device that was formerly his arm was put back into place. The kid disappeared for a moment, came back with a thin strip of cloth, and fashioned a rough sling. Once again, the shinigami thanked the teen.

The boy looked at him curiously. He pointed to his chest. "Schuldich."

Tsuzuki returned the curious look, and tried to say the difficult name... "Shurudihu?"

The redhead winced. "Schu."

"Shu-san?"

The kid shrugged. He pointed at the brunette.

"Tsu-zu-ki," he broke the name down into three simple sylables to make it easier for the red-head to say, and was partially grateful that his name wasn't as hard to pronounce as 'shurudihu'.

"Su-zu-ki?"

The shinigami chuckled, looked like they were both going to have problems. Part of him was tempted to write the name out for shu-san, but that would be about as useful as trying to make a fish ride a bicycle. "Hajimemashite," Tsuzuki said with a small bow to the red head.

---

Over the next few days, Schuldig was pleasantly surprised over how well 'Su' could manage a house... true his cooking was atrocious, but at least the newly scrubbed apartment compensated for the food. The fact that he never felt a malicious thought from the brunette was also quite comforting. He wasn't sure what to do with the man. It was obvious he had been kidnapped or otherwise taken from wherever he was from. Maybe the next time he saw Brad he could see if the American could do anything.

Stepping in through the doorway, Schu felt a vague annoyance from Su as the man came in from the other room motioning for him not to move.

"What?"

The brunette said something in his own language and pointed to a set of slippers next to the doorframe.

"Yeah... they're slippers... though where you found those in this section of town I have no idea."

Pointing to himself, Su pantomimed sweeping, then made a gesture that encompassed the room. Tapping his own slippered foot, the brunette bent over and picked up the second slippers and handed them to the red head.

"all right all right... although it's not going to make much of a distance... the dirt's just going to come back in."

"arigatou." Humming, the brunette turned and was about to head into the only room that Schuldig dreaded seeing him go into, the kitchen, when he stopped and pointed to a box on the coffee table, "Sore package wa..."

"Package?" The redhead walked over and looked at the wrapping. Brown and non-descript. Just what he had come to expect from his dealer. The only difference was the note that accompanied his latest 'supply'. Truthfully, he didn't have much of a problem with paying off his debts with his own body... especially when that meant he could keep his laughable sanity intact that much longer. Unfortunately, it seems that his 'generous' supplier had seen Su, and has started taking a liking to the violet eyed man.

He would have to head that idea off. He carried the box, still wrapped, into the miserable excuse of a bedroom and hid it under the bed. Pulling out some of his more revealing clothes, he changed. He left his coat, he wouldn't feel the chill by the time he was coming back. He headed back out towards the door. "I'll be back later... not that you understand what I'm saying..."

The coat was held out to him. Schu frowned. "I won't need it... besides, I don't want anyone to steal it or get stuff on it."

The brunette cocked his head to the side and gave a clueless smile but didn't press the coat any further. Schuldig could taste the edges of Su's mind, and it made him think of the way he believed that good expensive cocoa should taste, warm, sweet with a hint of something else, but nothing that would make it over powering.

He couldn't let that pervert get his hands on someone with such a sweet mind. "I'll see you later..." He stuffed his feet into his shoes again and headed out the door without looking back. That was the last real coherent thing that the red head thought until he came back to himself. Waking, he found himself tucked into bed and wearing a set of pajamas that he didn't really remember very well. Strangely enough, he was clean and his hair was brushed and pulled back into a loose braid. On his forearms, several strips of white gauze neatly covered the needle marks.

Oh yeah... he'd gotten fucked up in addition to fucked. At least for now his dealer wasn't as interested with his house guest. He wasn't entirely sure what had happened but he could make some guesses. At least the silence was holding.

In the near darkness, Schu saw Tsuzuki slip into the room carrying a small bowl. The brunette brightened visibly when he realized that the red head was awake.

"Yo." He tried to sit up and things spun a bit. "whoa... better take it easy..."

The violet eyed man settled on the edge of the bed and gently nudged Schuldig back down into the worn pillows. "Dame." From the bowl a damp cloth is pulled out and placed on the teen's forehead.

"I'm not sick... well, maybe sick in the head a little. I just need to move slower."

"Demo, genki nai yo."

Now that he was waking up a little more... Schu was noticing that he was damn sore. "what the hell did they do with me... use me as a punching bag?" Su shrugged. It was obvious that he wasn't really understanding what was said. The redhead groaned and rubbed his side. "Maybe you can find me some aspirin?"

"asupiriin?"

"Yes... aspirin."

The brunette got up, left the room and reappeared a few moments later the small bottle of aspirin that was in the bathroom medicine cabinet and a glass of water. "Oh thank you!" Schu struggled to sit up, more of his body protesting the movement. He must be black and blue up one side and down the other. Su helped him up, and through their closeness, Schuldig felt the sweet concern flowing off of the brunette.

He shouldn't... he knew he shouldn't, but Schu leaned into the man, drinking in those gentle feelings. No one had ever been like that with him before, not even Brad. He slipped deeper into the man's mind, happy to get whatever he could before Su disappeared from his life.