Notes: OOC is my middle name. Well… actually PWP is, but whatever. So sue me. I don't own Weiß Kreuz and I don't intend to… At least not yet…
"So what's the big deal anyway?" Ken flopped down lazily on the couch in the mission room. Omi sat beside him while Yohji and Aya leaned against opposite walls. Each of them was watching Manx, who had promised this had nothing to do with another mission.
"Sadly," Manx glanced at each of them in turn, her gaze lingering on Aya for a moment before returning to no one in particular, "I am here to inform you that Kritiker is disbanding Weiß."
"What? Why?" Ken's harsh glare met with Manx's and for a moment no one moved. Ken had spoken for them all in two words.
"Kritiker is raising other assassin groups. We want to give Weiß their normal lives back." Manx explained it as calmly as possible, willing each of them to understand.
"Why now? Why even raise other groups when we're the top of the line? This doesn't seem like a smart move for Kritiker." Aya walked tranquilly across the room to stand next to Ken, who immediately eased up with the presence of his leader and lover at his side.
"Kritiker is afraid that eventually you will all get burned out from the killing. We don't want any of you to end up dead because you got tired of what you were doing." Slowly Manx started to leave the room before she turned and said over her shoulder, "This is for the good of everyone. Why don't you guys just go back to being normal people again instead of always having to go out and kill people? Cut yourself some slack, you can get out of this without a body bag, take this chance for once." And with that, Manx left the four to decide for themselves just what exactly they would do.
"Well," Yohji pulled out his pack of cigarettes as he walked towards the door. "I'm going bar hopping tonight, anyone care to join me?"
"No thanks Yotan, I have some homework to do for school tomorrow." Omi smiled faintly at the thought of being free of Weiß after so long. It pained him to know that he would not be with his teammates everyday like usual, but the chance to live a normal life, or as normal as it could get, was almost overwhelming.
"How can you guys be so calm about this?" Ken slowly sat back down on the couch and turned to look up at Aya. "We're all just going to walk out of here and go about our now 'normal' lives like none of us ever happened? We won't be together anymore; you guys do realize this, right?"
"We'll still be together." Aya stated after a moment. Whether he was referring to just the two of them or the whole team was unclear, but he continued speaking after a brief pause. "If you ask me, there's something odd about all this. I think there is more to it that Manx did not tell us."
"Come on Aya, lighten up. Personally I think you're just naturally suspicious of everyone with everything we went through as Weiß." Yohji lit his cigarette and took a long drag, his eyes closing slowly. "Personally," Jade eyes slid open to watch Aya across the room, "I'll see you guys around. I intend to have fun with my freedom. Later." With that Yohji quickly stalked from the room, leaving the other three to themselves.
"Now what?" Omi turned to the other two quickly. Ken buried his face in his hands, and Aya sat down next to him, shaking his head.
"Quite frankly Omi, I'm just as confused as you are for once." Aya looked away from the two people he had spent so much time with. It just wouldn't be the same without them around; it was like tearing a piece of himself off and leaving it behind for the birds to eat. Something about the whole thing just wasn't right.
Stepping into the club Yohji took a deep breath of the intoxicating air. The sweet smell of hate, pain, and sex washing away from a bad day wrapped itself around him as he made his way to the bar for a drink. He hadn't wanted the others to know, but he was deeply devastated by the announcement from Manx. Much like the others, he considered the members of Weiß as his family, not just his friends and allies. He would even miss Aya's icy attitude that Ken was working so hard on thawing out.
And suddenly everything seemed for nothing. Everything they had fought for, what good had it done? They would go their separate ways and try to forget their pasts, to live a normal life again. Quickly Yohji downed a drink, depression starting to set in. What would happen if they met on the streets one day out of coincidence? How would they react to each other, or better yet, would they try to act as if they didn't know each other? There were so many questions with so few answers.
Thin arms wrapped around Yohji's waist, causing his body to tense at the presence of the other, and then at the words that drifted through his mind. Such depressing thoughts, kitten. Yohji gripped his drink in one hand as tightly as he could without breaking the glass. The German telepath laid his chin on Yohji's shoulder lightly, a faint smile across his lips.
Taking a deep breath, Yohji tried to relax. He was no longer part of Weiß, so Schwarz would not send Schuldich out to kill him. Maybe this was a test to see if he could act normal around people or not. Yohji highly doubted that.
Schuldich, rather bored by his company, let out a sigh that stirred Yohji's hair away from his face. After a moment he let go of Yohji and slid onto the bar stool next to him. "Come now kitten, why the long face?" He reached over and gently pried Yohji's hand off of his glass and took the drink from him.
"I was here to sulk by myself, why are you here?" Yohji frowned at having his drink taken from him, but he knew he had had enough anyway. Considering the worst Schuldich had done was take his drink, Yohji figured he was doing pretty well.
"What, can't a guy come just to blow off some steam?" Schuldich took a sip of Yohji's drink, frowned, and handed the drink back. "I'm not here to kill you. After all, Estet disbanded Schwarz."
Yohji started to reach for the drink by stopped in mid motion, turning to Schuldich quickly. "Say what?"
"Did Kritiker not tell you?"
"Did Esset not tell you?" Yohji shot back, and Schuldich turned to him with a more than confused look, so Yohji continued. "Kritiker disbanded Weiß earlier today."
Now it was Schuldich's turn to be shocked. Why on Earth would both of them disband their best teams on the same day? For a moment the two sat in sheer silence, both contemplating why this was happening and why it was happening now.
"I have to go tell Aya before everyone leaves." Yohji started to get off the stool when Schuldich grabbed his arm.
"Take me with you." Schuldich held on to Yohji as he shook his head. "I'm not Schwarz anymore; I have no reason to kill you guys."
"For all I know this could be a trap." Yohji tried to brush his hand off his arm, but Schuldich held on tighter.
"We don't have time for this!" Schuldich snapped suddenly, and Yohji just stared at him. "We have to get to the bottom of this so I can tell Crawford and the others."
"You call him by name and not the others, why?"
For a moment Schuldich just stared at the younger boy in front of him, not willing to reveal such information until he knew him better. "Why did you only say you were going to tell Aya?"
Yohji seemed to think about it for a few seconds before shrugging. "Touché, you can come along for the ride, but Aya will not be happy about this."
Schuldich released Yohji and quickly followed him out to his car. "True, but this seems just a tad bit fishy if you ask me, he might understand." Yohji chuckled as he unlocked the doors, and then just smiled at Schuldich. "No, trust me; Aya will not be happy about this."
"Yohji, what the hell are you doing-"
"Aya, please, let me explain before you jump to conclusions!" Yohji stood in front of Aya, trying to keep himself between the samurai and the German telepath. Ken stood watching, not ready to get involved.
"This had better be good." Aya snapped as he walked over to stand by Ken. Yohji nodded, silently promising it would be. "Now what's this about Yohji?"
"Schwarz was disbanded earlier today, and Yohji informed me that so was Weiß. It all seemed slightly coincidental to me." Schuldich stated everything as he watched the samurai's icy glare. Everyone turned to watch Aya's reaction, curious as to how he would react to this bit of news.
"Omi called me half an hour ago." Aya closed his eyes as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "He said he was attacked by someone, but he doesn't know who. He's coming back here as soon as he can, but I told him to take it easy and watch his back." Aya looked up at Yohji, their eyes locking together as Aya continued. "We need to find a place to stay other than the Koneko for a while. I have a feeling there is a bit Kritiker, and now maybe Estet, has yet to tell us."
Sighing Yohji turned to look out the window at the slow rain that had started to fall as they had been talking. He hadn't even noticed the storm clouds earlier in the day, they had just suddenly appeared.
"Yohji, are you even listening to me?" Aya waved his hand in front of Yohji's face, snapping him back to reality. "I suggested that Mastermind leave."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry." Yohji turned to Schuldich, who was curiously browsing around the shop. "Hey, I'll give you a ride to wherever since it's raining outside." With Yohji's words everyone stopped and stared at him.
"Excuse me?" Aya quickly grabbed Yohji by the arm and dragged him to the side of the room farthest away from Schuldich. "Perhaps you have forgotten, but he is our enemy, he is Schwarz."
"Schwarz was disbanded Aya, just like we were. We aren't assassins anymore; you can stop acting like such a stick up the ass now." Yohji snapped back, receiving in return the icy glare so accustom to the red heads face. Turning back to Schuldich, Yohji pulled himself out of Aya's grasp and stalked towards the door. "At least let me give you a ride back to the club."
Glancing from one ex-assassin to the other, Schuldich finally just shrugged and followed Yohji out of the Koneko and into the light rain.
Cracking the window just a bit and turning the heat on low, Yohji lit a cigarette and leaned back in his seat. They had decided upon waiting to see if the rain would lighten up or, preferably, stop. Schuldich had refused to let Yohji drive him back to the penthouse for fear of Crawford's reaction, although the telepath was pretty sure the precognition already knew of their whereabouts. And then Yohji had refused to let the other walk home in the rain, for reasons yet unmentioned.
Bothered by the ever awkward growing silence, Schuldich turned to conversation to pass the time. "Why did you fight Aya's orders? Isn't Abyssinian your leader?"
A light chuckle managed to escape past Yohji's cigarette as he turned to watch Schuldich. "We were disbanded, so Aya isn't our leader anymore. Even if he was," Yohji settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. "I would still fight his orders."
"What does he do in return?"
"What do you mean?" Yohji finally sat back up in his seat, ditching his burnt out cigarette butt out the cracked window.
"If you fight his orders, what happens?"
"Oh. Well, quite honestly, all that he does is give us this icy glare of his that usually works on the others. Well I mean Omi never fights his orders, and Ken would back down for fear of having to sleep on the couch, so I guess I'm the only one with nothing to lose." Yohji smiled and then turned to Schuldich. "You never fight Oracle's orders?"
"Crawford. Well, Brad actually. And no, I don't. I'm," Schuldich turned away from Yohji, only to realize he could still see his face in the reflection on the window. "I'm in the same boat as Ken."
"Wait, you don't mean you're in a relationship with Ora-Crawford, are you?" Yohji smirked and turned to stare out the front window. "Man that is all too rich. You guys don't seem like you get along all that well on missions you know."
"What would you know?" Schuldich quickly snapped back, more than a little offended. What did Yohji think he knew anyway?
"Lighten up, I was just kidding." Yohji pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held them out to Schuldich. "Want one?"
"No thanks, you're filling the car with smoke." Schuldich settled back in his seat and stared out the window as Yohji put the pack up, not bothering to get a cigarette out for himself like he had originally intended.
"Hey Schuldich?"
"Yeah?" Schuldich just stared out the window, already knowing the question before it escaped Yohji's lips.
"Why'd you wrap your arms around me at the club?" Yohji stared out the front window without flinching. He hadn't meant to be so blunt about it.
"You needed some reassurance, or something to cheer you up." Schuldich shrugged. None of the answers he had actually made any sense.
"Why do you care? I'm your enemy."
"You were my enemy." Schuldich turned to face Yohji as the other did the same, their eyes locking as Schuldich continued. "You kept telling Aya how we're not assassins anymore, but you really don't believe it do you?"
Yohji turned away and stared at his hands in his lap. "I want Aya to stop being so cold and just live a slightly normal life, is it that bad of a thought?"
"No liebe, it's not." Schuldich leaned across the seat and lightly kissed Yohji's cheek. "Thanks for the ride kitten." And with that Schuldich got out of the car and disappeared into the thinning rain.