The Weiss Kreuz Picture Show
A Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Legal Bit: I don't own Weiss Kreuz. That's the job of Kyoko Tsuchiya, Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiss, along with any number of other companies who hold the licensing rights and publishing rights and various other kinds of rights whose purposes utterly escape me. I don't own the Rocky Horror Picture Show either. That's Richard O'Brien's, along with several other companies who hold the rights and released the movie and did lots of other important things.

Author's Notes: It's an Obligatory Weiss Kreuz/Rocky Horror Picture Show Fic. Every single fandom has a Rocky Horror fic. Some have more than one. This is my Weiss Kreuz Rocky: there must be others. I wrote this because if I hadn't done I'd have gone crazy thinking about it, not because I wanted to tread on anyone's toes. Seriously, once I'd dreamt up my ideal casting in the shower one afternoon, this fic almost literally poured out of me during the course of a nasty two-week-long illness. I couldn't have kept this from coming if I tried. Forgive me, please.
A note on the song parodies. Yes, I did song parodies. They might not seem to scan quite right if you simply read them but I assure you they can be sung to the tunes of those in the film. I know because I've done it. Please note the allocation of lines in the 'Time Warp' isn't quite as in the film because I've heard three different versions of the song and in every one the lines after Magenta's solo get divided differently. I have retained the chorus to that song 'as was' – it's the goddam 'Time Warp', you can't change that one too much. I'm also restoring the songs which were cut. Well, why not?

Warnings: Strong language, character assassination, strange musical numbers and dance routines, shounen-ai style sexual complications, fanservice, Youji jumping half the cast, Persia in a wheelchair. Big boys and girls only please. I don't consider this R-rated for all there's sex and Ken curses a lot (I'm not American, I can't get my head round the US ratings system, and I really don't get why it's more acceptable in the eyes of said ratings system to kill someone than it is to fuck them), but I've rated it that way anyway because apparently some people out there are easily scared. So there you have it.

Part One: A Strange Journey

The wait was getting awkward. At the extreme left of a pitch-black room, a single white spotlight was playing upon nothing at all. By the fact that the lights were lowered and the spotlight was on, the story should have started – what was the holdup? Perhaps a technical hitch was causing the delay.

The only sound that could be heard was that of a hushed, though clearly heated, conversation.

"I don't want to do this!" a voice cried. By its timbre it was clearly young and female. "Why can't somebody else do it? Omi-san won't like a girl who goes out dressed like this!"
"Because there's no way on Earth that Schuldich could." The reply, coming from an older woman with the cool, impersonal manner of a nurse, was delivered in reasonable tones, or as reasonable as it is possible for tones to get when their owner was speaking in a hushed whisper.
"But it doesn't happen in the movie!" The girl protested. "It's only in the stage show! And why do I have to do it anyway? I don't get to do anything else! It's not fair!"
"It's called a 'cameo'." The woman said rationally. "And if you don't do this you'll end up in the Time Warp number. Dressing up as a cigarette girl is about a hundred times more dignified than doing the Time Warp. I'm sure Omi won't object to this."
"But the song's awful!" The girl cried angrily. "I have to sing about sex scenes!"
The woman sighed audibly. "The Time Warp is worse."
"Really?" The girl asked. "I don't want to do anything that would make Omi-san think I was cheap." "
Really." The woman said, still sounding remarkably reasonable given the circumstances. "It has a very interesting dance routine. At least you don't have to do that dance. And," the woman added, with the air of one playing their biggest trump card, "I'm sure Omi will think the costume suits you."
The girl was silent for a moment, then spoke up. "In that case, I'll do it!"

The figure of a slender teenager dressed in a cigarette girl's outfit, a silly little hat on top of her glossy black curls, took to the spotlight, tugging down her absurdly short skirt. She adjusted the strap on her cigarette tray, so it hung more comfortably and, just in case Omi was watching, patted back a curl or two. Maybe this outfit wasn't so bad after all. It did, after all, show off her legs to great advantage. Ouka Takaki cleared her throat, in preparation for her big number, and struck a playful pose.

For it had fallen to Ouka to deliver the prologue. She was slightly more aesthetically pleasing than a pair of giant lips, after all, fun though the lips were. Telling herself that at least this way she wouldn't have to do anything that would compromise her in front of Omi, Ouka launched sassily into her song.

'Mild Spoiler – Don't It Figure'

Ouka:
Yes, I know it's quite true
That this story ain't new
And you've seen it all before.

And it couldn't be tense
When there's no suspense.
I gotta say it's really a bore.

This formula's old
Hardly box-office gold
There's no big surprises in here.

We're rehashing old shtick
For this stupid fic
If it weren't for the sex scenes who'd care?

Mild spoiler – Don't it figure?
There's no need to watch the picture.
The same old story, the same old places
The same old names and the same old faces.
Oh – at the late-night, double-feature
Picture Show.

So I give you the story
In its dubious glory.
I could say more but what's the use?

I suppose you can see
It's a flick parody
So I guess there's some kinda excuse.

We ain't aiming that high
We might as well try
There's no harm in having a go.

So why not find out
What this fuss is about?
It's time to get on with the show
It's a—

Mild spoiler – Don't it figure?
There's no need to watch the picture.
The same old story, the same old places
The same old names and the same old faces.
Oh – at the late-night, double-feature
Picture Show.

Who'd wanna go
Oh – to the late-night, double-feature
Picture Show.

In the back row
Oh – to the late-night, double-feature
Picture Show.

This fanfic blows
Oh – to the late-night, double-feature
Picture Show.

The light winked out and Ouka hurried quickly away, slipping slightly on her high heels in her haste. Her work was done.

"Well I guess we finally made it, huh?"

The man who had finally made it, Botan, was a quietly handsome, youngish man in a dark suit, whose countenance was not at all marred by the fine white scar running along one cheek. He was smiling so broadly it looked as if the top of his head were about to come off. It made Ken Hidaka, who was already feeling ridiculously uncomfortable simply because he was having to wear a suit and tie which were Not Him at all, very nervous indeed and he wondered if there was any way he could run away from this strange and bizarre man without it looking rude. He smiled nervily, prayed Botan wasn't about to try and kill him, and tried to think of something to say.

"Of course you have, you've got married." Ken said finally. Oh, smooth. He glanced around, hoping nobody he knew would see him, and quickly added, "Well, you and Birman do make a pretty good couple and you've got on well since you joined Kritiker so…" Jesus Ken will you listen to yourself? When you've dug yourself into a hole stop fucking digging, okay? "Never mind. Can we start again?"
Botan must have been in a good mood because he laughed cheerfully. "Of course we do, we've got married!" He said, punching Ken playfully on the shoulder. Ken bore this with good grace and a rather forced smile. "To be honest, Birman was the only reason I joined Kritiker in the first place. Speaking of which, I wish Persia could have made it down today."
Ken blinked twice. "Come on, how could he have been here? He wouldn't be able to be moodily backlit in the middle of a church and I doubt the priest would have let him install the desk, fish-tank and Venetian blinds on such short notice. Still, it would have been nice to see his silhouette…"
Botan nodded, remembering belatedly that Ken didn't actually know who Persia was. "Well, Birman and I will pass on your good wishes when we next see him."

By the church doors Birman, radiant in a white gown, was winding up in preparation for pitching her bouquet into the crowd, in a way that suggested here was a woman who, for all her refined delicacy, was rather more used to throwing hand grenades. A group of girls milled expectantly around the bottom of the stairs, jockeying for position. Unfortunately, they didn't quite seem to have taken into account the sheer force of Birman's over-arm lob.

The flowers shot from Birman's white-gloved hand and arced gracefully over the heads of the waiting girls, who turned and began to run after them, jumping and elbowing one another as they hurried to try and intercept the flowers. All their efforts, alas, were to prove to no avail as the flowers, tumbling end over end, flew neatly toward a solitary figure who raised their arms to defend their eyes from the lethal bouquet and ended up catching the flowers by the stems.

The girls stopped short, a couple of them crying out in dismay. Something had gone a little wrong.

Ken blinked. "Ah. Botan?"
"What is it?" Botan said, finally tearing his gaze away from Birman, who had one hand to her brow as she searched for her vanished bouquet.
"What happens if a guy catches a bride's flowers?" Ken asked plaintively, looking up at Botan as if hoping the man would tell him what to do next.
"Why do you ask?" Botan asked, then he spotted the reason. "Oh."

Omi Tsukiyono smiled awkwardly and apologetically at Ken and looked around for somewhere to hide the flowers. He wasn't sure about the protocol of giving them away or dropping them, equally he didn't want to keep them. What to do, what to do. He settled for hiding them behind his back and looking as if he wanted the ground to open and swallow him up. He would have to apologize profusely to Ken the minute they were alone.

Botan wondered what to say next. Ken looked barely any more comfortable with the situation than Omi did, and the older man guessed he could understand why that was. Being a fatherly sort, he decided the best thing to do was not to mention it. On the steps, Birman had finally located her missing bouquet and was hiding a smile behind her hand. She didn't much mind the mild disruption to Her Big Day; she actually thought it was rather cute and if it finally forced Ken to come clean about his all-too-obvious crush on Omi, or vice-versa, she would not consider it a waste. With the feeling of a job well done, she hitched up her skirts and hurried over to Botan, latching onto his arm and smiling.

Ken was quite glad to see Botan depart. He had been feeling ridiculously uncomfortable and when Botan ushered Birman to the waiting car, making a big thing of opening the door for her, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad, too, when the car pulled off and the rest of the group began to disperse, if only because it meant he could take off the tie, untuck his shirt and undo the top two buttons. He didn't take to suits. The one downside, though, was it meant he now had to think of something to say to Omi.

Omi had gone to stand a few feet away from Ken as the car pulled away and now stood fidgeting nervously, wondering where to put the flowers. The pair were so caught up in their mutual anxieties that they failed to notice they weren't quite alone.

Neither Ken or Omi had really registered the presence, throughout the wedding photos, the bouquet tossing and all the rigmarole of the end of a marriage ceremony, of a strange trio dressed in dramatically drab, work-worn and antiquated clothing. In fact it looked as if the strangers were attempting to cosplay the painting American Gothic, for no discernable reason. The father certainly had the little glasses and the obligatory pitchfork though he was far too sternly attractive to take to the role; his wife, though red-headed, was slightly taller than him, grinning far too broadly for a God-fearing Quaker and looked like nothing so much as a man in a dress. The daughter slipped into the church the minute the doors were clear but there was something disquieting about her, too. Maybe it was the way the heavy church doors had opened in front of her without her lifting so much as a finger.

In short, they utterly failed to notice that they were being spied on by Crawford and Schuldich, ably backed up by Nagi Naoe. In spite of their weird clothing the three were quite recognizable and the fact that neither Ken or Omi noticed anything untoward can only be put down to the extreme astigmatism anxiety and the presence of someone you have a crush on can induce.

"Omi?" Ken said finally. "Please tell me you weren't trying to catch those things…"
Omi shook his head vehemently. "No! Of course not! Birman-san threw them too hard!" He blushed to the roots of his hair and looked quite adorably embarrassed, making Ken laugh nervously at the direction his own thoughts were taking. "Don't laugh!" Omi cried in chagrined fury. "It's not funny!"
"I wasn't laughing at you!" Ken said quickly, taking a pace away and blushing himself. "I just… thought of something." He looked away and bit his lip. Quick, think of something neutral to say. "Um. Omi. Did you like the ceremony?"
Omi nodded, feeling his blush start to fade slightly. "Uh-huh. Birman-san looked very pretty, didn't she?"
"Yeah, she did." It seemed a safe kind of thing to admit to. "Botan's very lucky."
"He is." Omi said anxiously. "He's a good agent. He'll be in line for promotion soon enough."

The neutral topic really wasn't helping. There was an undercurrent of something in the air and neither Ken or Omi liked it. Both boys were rather too naïve to realize that said something was pure animal lust and the reason they were feeling uncomfortable around one another was that they needed to admit it then do something about it and fast. Ken had a horrible feeling he wanted to say fuck Botan, can I kiss you? and the thought made him blush again.

"Fuck Botan." Ken said suddenly. "He's… not important right now."
"What do you mean?" Omi blinked. "There's no need to be crude, Ken-kun…"
"Well he isn't." Ken muttered, staring fixedly at the floor. "I mean you got those flowers, something's got to happen, right?"
Omi felt his cheeks growing warm again. "Ken-kun?"
Ken shrugged, glancing almost shyly at Omi from under a fall of his rebellious hair. "I mean, I know you can't become a bride and all that because you're not a girl, but…" He broke off, unsure how to phrase the rest of it.
Omi blinked. "Are you feeling all right?" Ken didn't look at all happy and he wanted to know why. Had he been that taken aback by the flower thing? Omi swore he would let Birman have it, but politely mind, next time he saw her. The woman must have known she'd miss those girls, the way she wound up and pitched the thing right at him!

'Blow Me, Omi'

Ken tried again. "Um. You did catch that bouquet."
Omi frowned and blushed at the same time. "Yes, you said." Where was Ken going with this apart from round and round in circles?
"Yeah yeah, I know." Now Ken blushed himself. "That's… really not what I want to say."
"Then what is it?" Omi blinked.
Ken sighed. "Well, it's more kind of… oh, fuck it!"

Ken:
There ain't a lot that rhymes with Omi,

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Crawford and Schuldich echoed him, so flatly as to bleach the boy's name of all its significance. Ken didn't seem to notice that the strange figures by the church seemed to have arrived on the scene solely to echo him. He was too busy looking everywhere but at Omi and running one hand nervously through his hair. He smiled, but it didn't make him look any more comfortable.

Ken:
This song seems designed just to throw me.

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
But hell, I'm sick of being lonely.

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
What I'm trying to say here is
Blow me, Omi,

"That's not an instruction…" Ken added quickly and nervously. He was already so ill at ease it was hard to tell if the thought had made him blush or not.

Ken:
I love you.

I'll tell you now you've gotten to me.

Crawford and Schuldich
Omi.

Ken had started to walk quickly away from Omi, perhaps because he was too embarrassed to be near him any more. Omi tagged along after him, eyes wide and mouth open, unsure if he could quite believe what was going on. No wonder it had taken Ken so long to come to the point. He was well aware he was blushing furiously. He just wished Ken seemed a little less upset about being in love with him.

Ken:
You're smart so I bet you've seen through me.

Crawford and Schuldich
Omi.

Ken:
And now I'm sure you'd like to shoot me.

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
What I'm trying to say here is
Blow me, Omi,
I love you.

Crawford and Schuldich were rather surprised to realize that, though Ken and Omi had both made it to the church doors and was now stood bare feet away from them, they still didn't seem to have noticed them. Omi was too busy staring at Ken and Ken, running his hands through his hair again, was staring at the stone steps as if there was something fascinating there rather than a cluster of confetti, a few stones and a bit of moss.

Ken:
I bet you're mad and hell, I wouldn't blame you,
And I'd quite like to drop dead on the spot.
This kind of love's perverse so it might shame you
But gotta say I like you quite a lot…

Omi finally found his voice. As Crawford and Schuldich opened the church doors, Omi grabbed Ken's wrist and yanked him into the church behind him, smiling broadly. Ken, stumbling slightly on one of the flagstones, seemed too startled by the fact that Omi was touching his wrist after he'd confessed to being hopelessly in love with him to look where he was going, let alone that the church was now being decked for a funeral. Neither he or Omi noticed Nagi either.

Omi:
Oh, I'm glad that you've finally spoken!

He didn't seem to notice Schuldich look up from the flower arrangement he was busily ruining to echo him, his voice blatantly mocking.

Schuldich:
Hey, Ken.

Omi:
I couldn't care less that we're both men.

Schuldich and Nagi:
Hey, Ken.

Omi:
Take it back and my heart's broken.

Now all three of the strange individuals were staring at Omi and Ken over the tops of the clusters of flower arrangements, now all replaced by funereal lilies and mourning garlands. Which again they failed to notice but, on the other hand, as Omi was busy unburdening his heart and Ken appeared to have gone into shock, it was perhaps unsurprising.

Crawford, Schuldich, and Nagi:
Hey, Ken.

Omi:
What I'll say over and over
Again, is Ken,
I love you.

Oh, Ken,

Ken:
You're not mad?

Omi:
My heart's open

Ken:
God, I'm glad.

Omi:
For you.

Ken:
I love you too.

Ken and Omi:
It's crazy enough to be true!

They kissed briefly, or rather Ken finally worked up the nerve to kiss Omi and damn near floored the little blonde in the process. Omi blushed and giggled giddily, clinging to Ken's hand. Behind them, Crawford, Schuldich and Nagi carrying a coffin into the church, or rather Crawford and Schuldich carried the front end whilst Nagi stood at the back and thought about lifting the coffin. That Ken and Omi managed to ignore this was some tribute to how wrapped up in one another they were.

Ken:
It's hard to believe you're not angry,

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
I hadn't a clue that you loved me.

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
But knowing you do – it relieves me

Crawford and Schuldich:
Omi.

Ken:
What I'm trying to say here is
Blow me, Omi,
I love you.

Now Omi, unable to contain himself, practically flung himself at Ken and quite literally floored him. Ken didn't seem to care and hugged Omi anyway. Behind them, die Familie Schwartz had placed the coffin on the floor and were looking stonily across the lovebirds' heads. They might as well not have bothered for all the attention they were paid.

Ken:
Blow me, Omi,

Omi:
Once again, Ken

Ken:
Blow me, Omi,

Ken and Omi:
I love you.

Lying on the church floor in one another's arms, utterly ignorant of the coffin or their audience, Ken and Omi kissed far less chastely than might have been expected, both perfectly inexperienced and not minding a bit. Yes, they were living in their own private Idaho and who said that was such a bad thing? A little bit of sexual fantasy does nobody any harm.

"I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey."

The figure in the plush wing chair, leaning on the blotter of the impressive desk with its globe of the world in that oak-paneled, book-lined study, was not that of a pompous, pedagogic old Professor of Criminology but that of Manx. She was a pretty, busty young woman with a head of bright red curls, dressed in an equally bright suit. Manx, as it happened, was employed by the police but she was far from the typical employee. As she spoke, she climbed gracefully to her feet and crossed over to one of the bookcases and selected a fat, leather-bound tome which she carried back to the desk.

As she placed the book on the back of a lectern, its title – 'The Fujimiya Experiment' – could be seen for a second or two. With a smile, the young woman flipped through it until she found her place and then sat down in front of it, steepling her hands in front of her.

"It seemed a fairly ordinary night," Manx began portentously, "when Ken Hidaka and his close friend Omi Tsukiyono (two young, ordinary, healthy kids who just happened to be assassins)…" Photographs in the book showed the individuals in question, Omi smiling perkily into the camera and Ken, who had been caught off-guard by the flash, looking as if he had a vacancy in the top story of the tower, "left town on that late November evening in an attempt to get a bit of time alone and, if it proved convenient, to visit Persia, their elusive superior, whom neither of them met unless he was asking them to kill somebody and even then it was only by video-link." She flipped the pages until she found a picture of Persia, looking dynamic, shadowy and considerably more together than either of his companions in weirdness.

In which case, Manx wondered, why on Earth did they want to visit him? How did they intend to visit him in the first place? She frowned briefly then decided not to worry about it. Maybe it would be better if she read the book and stopped worrying about what it was supposed to mean. Meaning wasn't important in tales of the unexplained. They wouldn't have been tales of the unexplained if they had been explicable.

"It was true there were storm clouds, heavy, black and pendulous—" Manx made a mental note to look up the word 'pendulous' as soon as she got a spare five minutes, "—in the direction they were driving, and as a lot of individuals in their situation can't drive a car down a clear road at midday without getting into a wreck they should have known a lot better. And perhaps predictably Ken had neglected to check if the car's repair kit was in any fit state for use. But they being about as normal as one could remain whilst still moonlighting as assassins, they were not going to let a storm put them off visiting a man neither had any pressing or indeed relevant need to visit in the first place. On a night out."

Manx closed the book after marking her place, glad to have got rid of it even if it was only temporarily. She wasn't sure about the whole visual-aid thing. In fact, she wasn't sure about a lot of this but she was hiding it. Resting her hands on the desk, she let a sinister smirk play across her painted lips.

"It was a night out," she crooned, "they were going to remember for a very long time."