I sat on the floor next to my unmade bed, leaning heavily on the side.
I still had not turned any lights on, save for the bedside lamp, for I had not intended to get up from the bed at all that day. Coming back from the bathroom I hadn't made it even as far as to the relative safety of that bed before falling down in agony.
I tried to remember how to breathe.
I tried not to let out a sound.
"Focus on it."
The unexpected smooth voice came right beside me and gave me the worst fright in ages. "W-what?" I ground out, blinking in order to get my vision even half way unblurred.
The sound of a door closing should have meant that I was alone again and even if that hadn't been true, my senses were usually sharp enough to inform me of the presence of another person in my own room before they had the chance to get as close as this. But now, it came as no surprise that the nauseating steady pain was too much of a distraction for me to see through.
The voice hadn't belonged to Omi or Ken. It wasn't even Youji's.
I managed to focus my vision.

Seeing the Schwarz psycho crouched down beside me, my body acted on its own and I flinched back violently, letting out a faint scream as the movement, though it wasn't fast, seemed to be fast enough for the rest of me to register the wrong way and turn up the pain levels.

I watch his hands fall away uselessly from the covers that he has been holding onto the moment before. Eyes now closed, he rests his head on the bed, his face as pale as the pyjamas that he is wearing, as pale as the sheets, all colour drained away save for the short messy hair that still remains the likeness of fresh blood.
I lean closer to talk to him.
"You see, if you can catch it, you'll be able to file it away and don't need to feel it anymore."
"Wha-... how come...?"
"I am here? Kudou let me in." I shrug away the question.
"Is he...?"
"Dead? No. Harmed? No. Insane? Maybe. That depends on your point of view. Was there anything else?" I want to get these preliminaries done as fast as possible. I see him contemplating on that one specific question, see it leading to another one, see him deciding against voicing them out loud. With the way he is, there isn't much he can do in the field of getting me out of here against my will.
"Tell me. Where does it hurt?" I know this must have been asked from him countless of times before, but I want to get back to the point again.
He swallows a load of insults before spitting out, "...everywhere."
"The most?"
"...at the moment?" He treats it like it was a stupid question that I asked. "Back. And hands... fingers."
"Firmly situated or radiating?"
His gaze flicks over my face before his eyes close again and I catch the tired look. The previous three weeks must have been the most interesting of his life.
"...down my legs... and up my arms... like they were hurting as well." His voice is going down in strength.
Is he too tired to fight? I expected more curses, more denial, more shouted questions and yet I get none.
I wonder how to convey to him the idea that I have in mind, the very reason I am here. I am sure that it will work though I have never had the need to try it out myself.
Pain is not something that I would need to get rid of.
But still I wonder why Crawford did send me over. And why Kudou let me in without any hassle at all after those few words that I said to him.
"Fujimiya Ran... Think of the pain as just a strand of feeling, like a strand that you can pull back. Or a trickle of water that you can dry up by just thinking about it. So you just need to catch the strands and pull them towards their origin. Let them sink on themselves until there is nothing left. So... catch a strand. Dissolve it. ...Can you reel it back?"
I know that he must be wondering what on earth am I talking about, why I am talking to him, waiting for me to do something else, but still... he seems to be concentrating, the violet eyes flutter open for a second before falling closed again. "No," he chokes out.
Oh well.
If it was that easy, what would I be doing here?

He is everything that I had thought him to be and everything I could wish for. A being of God, brought to the realm of pain - something which God grants to his playthings either as a punishment or just a cruel jest - a being of light and yet of darkness, beautiful and strong and as frail as only a human being can be. So easy to cut open, so easy to break, so easy to spill his blood if I choose to do that.
With his mind and body reeling with the pain brought upon him.
"Try it again."
"I..."
"Shh... Try it," I coax, "Forget what it really is. Forget the electric signals, forget the neurons and the axons, the chemistry, and make a new mental picture for it. First, reach for a place where it doesn't hurt anymore, downwards far enough. ...Found it?"
"... ..yes..."
"Now move up with the feeling, take it with your thoughts. Slow. And with the first uncomfortable bit... first bit where it starts hurting, dissolve it... so that you can't feel it anymore. It doesn't matter if the place remains numb... just that you can't feel the pain anymore."
He breathes in and out, trying to take as deep and even breaths as possible.
"And when you have that first inch cleared, move upwards. ...slow..." I emphasize the point by moving my fingers upwards on his cloth covered leg. "Hold onto..."
Hold onto the little bit that you have cleared, I was going to say, but he frowns in pain and the way he exhales tells me clearly that he has lost it again. He forces his eyes open and looks tiredly at me. I let myself wonder over the tiny detail of him not flinching back this time, of not looking the tiniest bit scared like I had expected him to. For, by all means, he should feel like the prey here.
He doesn't trust me, he has no need to, but he is not scared either.
"Again. And this time hold onto the ground that you have cleared."
"Fuck off," he tells me with that cool detachedness that he so enjoys.
"Don't expect it to be easy, Fujimiya. Does moving hurt more than staying still?"
"Depends."
I take his hand in mine and squeeze on it. "This?"
"No."
"Squeeze back."
His hand tightens around mine, but it isn't a solid grasp.
"Is that all you have in you?" I ask. "Try it again. Start from your fingertips. There's nothing wrong with them, is there? You can feel them all right... ...Just push that excess feeling away. Take it in and let it melt."

We make it a battle of wills, him catching back on that fiery irritated nature of his, and after a few tries he is able to push it as far as over the second joint of his fingers before his concentration slips and it all falls back. He would go even paler if he'd be able to, but as it is, he just coughs weakly.
"You are not going to throw up." He looks like he just might. "You're going to keep doing this until you pass out." As an afterthought I add, "...You know that I can find ways to keep your attention."
But it really is so much nicer this way. There is no fear of him passing away, crossing the border from lack of blood or from the sheer shock, not even real fear of him merely passing out. Fujimiya Ran will be in pain for a long time to come and I will keep him company.

I watch him struggle with the concept of inviting the pain to become a part of himself, I watch him lose the thread again and again. And I keep talking to him, fishing out those short responses that come either angry or exhausted. I bet he's never been under this kind of strain before.

I see the attack come to an end, after more than half an hour's worth of frustration and continuous failing. I know now that he will be able to do it, that he has enough of backbone to drown the feelings away and accept them, let them become a part of him so that he will no longer feel the fake pain.
After a few minutes of probing questions Kudou clued me in on all the necessary details. Crawford didn't know enough and I wanted to find out what kind of shit he had put me in. I am no doctor myself but I think that the real doctors might have been right in saying that there is nothing they can do for Fujimiya and that there are no painkillers strong enough to take it all away.

He is half way to sleep when I lift him from the floor and let him fall onto the bed, pulling covers over him, I myself sitting down on the edge of the bed to watch him sleep. On the nearest table there is a collection of different medicines, most of them various painkillers. Some that you can get only from doctors, some which you can buy anywhere at all. All of the packets are opened, but I can see that he has only tried using those, forgetting one brand as soon as he has seen that it will not bring any relief. Fujimiya Ran doesn't seem to like medicines.

Youji knocked on the door carefully and getting no answer pushed it open, peering into the dimness of the room. Aya liked to keep the curtains closed 24 hours a day and the sun was disappearing over the horizon again so there really wasn't much light to spare.
He seemed to be asleep and so Youji tiptoed carefully into the room so as to not wake him up. Any sleep Aya would be able to get would be good for him.
The sound of the toilet flushing in the adjoined bathroom made Youji jump. He whirled around to see Farfarello stalk out of the room, pausing only to flick the light switch off.
"He's been asleep for a couple of hours," he informed Youji quietly.
"How did it go?"
He just shrugged in answer, walking to the bed and looking down at Aya. "Is there something you haven't been telling me?"
Youji swallowed. "No. I don't think there's anything I forgot... ...Is he going to be all right?"
"How should I know? He's certainly not 'all right' now and won't be for some time, but... maybe." At Youji's disbelieving look Farfarello continued, "I'm not intending to heal him. I'm planning on talking him out of it."
Talk him out of it?
"I'll be back later," Farfarello told Youji and exited the room and the apartment.

I woke up to the sound of Youji setting the tray down and the smell of fresh coffee.
"The time?" I mumbled and buried myself deeper under the covers.
"Right past eleven am."
I hadn't slept that long for ages, right through the night and even longer.
"Why did you let him in?" I didn't let Youji even answer the question before I came up with the second one. "How long have the Schwarz known where we live? What the hell was he doing here in the first place? He could have killed me just like that and you let him into the house and into my room! What the hell were you thinking?!"
"He didn't hurt you, did he?"
"That's not the point, Youji! What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?" It certainly didn't take me long to become wide awake again.
"Okay, have it your way. I wasn't thinking. I didn't really have that much choice on letting him in or trying to keep him out."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes! Fuck you, Aya, he..." and Youji bit off the rest of the sentence.
"He what?"
"...I'd rather not say."
"What... on earth... could have he said or done to make you let him enter this house freely?"
I sat up on the bed, matching Youji's angry gaze with my own.
"Mainly something that Schuldig had fished up from my mind some time ago. And no, I don't want to tell you what that was. Farfarello said that Crawford had..."
"And you believed all that that psychopath told you?!"
"I can't tell you what he said. But if you were me..." I snorted at that statement. "...you would have believed enough."
"Usually... 90% of the time... they want us dead. Usually... as much as I know, they are our enemies. With a Takatori or without a Takatori. Why... would any of them give a damn about my health, unless it would be for making it worse? Shouldn't they consider it a positive thing that I can't risk even one flight of stairs these days?"
Youji looked apologetic when answering, "I can't tell you, Aya, I really can't. I wish I could, but even that might not answer even half of your questions. ...Yeah, I know you don't believe me, but there's really nothing I can tell you."
He left and I just stared dully at the closing door.

It didn't make any sense.
The Schwarz psychopath showing up, the way he kept on talking to me, the way he wasn't just raving on about insane thoughts and visions, nothing added up.
Youji, Ken and Omi were treating me like a cripple and that was all too true. I rarely left my room and had risked climbing the stairs only once on my own, even then almost managing to break a couple of bones as I lost my footing with yet one of those "attacks".
And what was it all? Just the exposure to some positively illegal chemicals in a warehouse when a couple of cans caught fire and then exploded. They probably hadn't meant them to work that way - the whole function of the warehouse had been to store the ingredients for some new experimental drugs - but it soon became apparent that the chemicals had screwed up my nervous system for good.
I got out of the warehouse before the rest of the cans caught fire, coughing my lungs out from the smoke and from the chemicals, thinking that I had made it. It was after a couple of hours and we had already got clear of the whole place before it began as a small annoying itch that just wouldn't go away. And then the side effects really kicked in and I collapsed from a sudden stinging pain that shot through my spine and crisscrossed my body. When it came to an abrupt end I brushed it off as... something, managing to somehow convince my teammates that it really wasn't anything to get worried about.
But when it caught me for the second time, that pain without any injury, I let Ken and Omi take me to the hospital.
We spun a tale to the doctors and nurses, something about a chemical lab explosion, a tale that was close enough to reality to seem plausible, but far enough to keep Weiß safe from probing questions.
It took a couple of nights in the hospital and a lot of talk and even more tests of all kinds before the doctors came into any sort of conclusion about my "condition". Most of that time I spent under the influence of the heaviest painkilling drugs they could gather up, surfacing from the haze only to hear the judgement.
The chemicals that I had inhaled had crept into my bloodstream, quickly spreading all around and taking residence in the nervous system. Half of their talk went over my head, but this much was clear: the chemicals interfered with the way the nervous system carried signals, in this case, specifically interfering with the signals that conveyed pain so that "pain" was informed to be present when in fact there was no injury of any sort. The same sort of cases were found occasionally, all to do with some exposure to wrong kind of chemicals, be the exposure sudden or accumulated over the years. It was rare, but all sorts of accidents happen.
So what could be done? The estimation was grim.
There really wasn't any sort of medicine that would repair the damage done or even lessen it. And it is not possible to rip out a whole nervous system and replace it. I could spend the rest of my life under the heaviest of painkillers, effectively tied to a hospital bed, or then... I could just try and live with it.
There weren't any treatments available, nothing.
After informing the doctors that I certainly wouldn't stay constantly drugged, they gave me a list of various lower level medicines and the advice to come to get prescriptions for those later. They warned me that any of the lesser painkillers wouldn't probably have the desired effect and that they might prove quite useless, but I still should have a go at those. They had consulted old records and a load of colleagues, they said.

It became soon evident that the doctors had been right, the painkillers did little good.
So I spent my days catching a few hours of sleep whenever I could, eating a little, and practically sobbing with the pain when I couldn't stand it anymore. It was really pathetic.
I lost my temper only to come down again in a few seconds and I couldn't concentrate on anything for more than a few fleeting minutes. And I didn't even want to think how it would be over any longer period of time, of what would be in store for me in the years to come.
I was so totally fucking useless.

"Do you know what pain actually is?"
"What do you mean? Pain is pain."
"Yes, but why do you know that there is an injury? How the signals are carried?"
"Does it matter?"
"It might."
"..."
"See... this here... and this here... every inch of your skin is mapped by nerve ends. And all of your body. Wherever the nervous system reaches, and it reaches almost everywhere. It is not in the fabric of your bones, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't feel a broken bone.
"Some places are more sensitive to touch than others. And the touch sense is like all the others. Apply constant unchanging stimulus and your senses will start ignoring it after a while. That's why you don't feel the clothes that you are wearing unless you concentrate on it.
"It's all about pressure, really. Give me your hand."
"..."
"You would consider this ticklish. And if I do it this way, with more force, it is no longer that. Even if I press hard, it doesn't hurt. But if I do it with a fingernail and apply the same amount of force, it does, as your body considers the sensation such as leading to possible injury.
"If I were to cut a gash here... That would hurt as it is an injury. And I could take the knife and touch the insides of that wound and you would feel that touch as more pain.
"The nervous system works as such: Take a nerve. It has a lot of ends from which the information is passed to it and one end from which it goes forward. A nerve gives off a signal and another one receives it. The signals accumulate, and if there is enough of those of the same kind, the signal is sent forward again. So... under a certain threshold you wouldn't feel a thing. That threshold can be changed by experience. You can get so used to being beat up constantly that the lesser bruises will lose their meaning and the signals will be filed away under normal touch.
"The signals themselves, as they travel through a nerve, can be explained by electrical and by chemical means. There isn't much that you can do about those without the aid of medicines. But the signals are gathered up and at last passed to your brain and that's the point where you can do something. And that is whether you choose to feel the pain at all."
"Choose? You don't just choose to feel or not to feel."
"You think so Fujimiya Ran? I've been holding your hand for the last five minutes and you haven't felt a thing."

Catch the strand, dissolve it... Warm? Well, then, let it spread into that warmth. It isn't hurting when it's warm...
Breathe. You know how to do that, don't you?
No. Try it again.
Again, I said!
Visualize it, feel it, kill it. Cut it off and it's no longer there.
Sshh... It's okay. It will be. Trust me.
...Trust me... Trust me... He had smiled a peculiar smile when saying that. Trust him that his will could force me to ignore the pressing false signals, trust him that he would take his pleasure in this and not slice my throat open when I was asleep.
I wouldn't kill you while you sleep. I'd want you to be awake for it.
You don't have to fear the Dreaming.
I had managed to settle in with the thought that I would spend the rest of my days alone in my bed, shunning all unnecessary human contact and just withering away, but then he showed up, became my personal physician and I hadn't really the slightest chance of getting rid of him.

The weirdest thing is, I mused, staring up at the play of shadows on the ceiling, that what he's trying to make me do seems to... actually work. It had been a little less than a month already, the Schwarz psycho showing up almost daily, usually staying long enough to see me collapse in agony so that he could start talking to me. I sometimes had the feel that he was looking at me like I was some kind of a strange bug on display.
It wasn't fun, but far better than him looking at me like searching for a good place to plunge a knife in.
And every time I caught his gaze to try and stare him down I found myself at a standstill; neither of us of the type to give up on a staring contest and it always ended on my body starting to scream for my attention and I had to turn my gaze away when I couldn't stand the pain any longer.
But now... most of the time I was able to push the strands of pain away from my consciousness. I could gather the lines and squeeze them into a tight bright ball and make that disappear as well. But I couldn't hold onto that absence of feeling for very long and it'd come back with a vengeance.
I got up from the bed and made my way around the room picking up a pair of pants and a black t-shirt, pulling those on as I went to the window and pushed the curtains aside to look into the early morning. I still didn't feel like risking the stairway, but I didn't want to spend all my waking hours in the bed either.
I haven't seen Aya in ages...

The common morning-traffic was sluggishly sliding past to join up in the rush of the larger roads. I wondered if I would ever drive a car or if I would ever go out on a mission again.
And then a small hot feeling crept from my shoulders, running up my neck. A white burst of pain blossomed on my left elbow like I had managed to hit my arm on a table's corner and the same feeling slid down my arm, curled around the wrist and spread into the fingers.
I slowly fell to sit on the floor leaning my back against the wall and started fighting against the numbing feeling, trying to get my arm work again.
I kept on losing the thread of it, silently cursing my luck, until I finally managed to push it away only to have it snap back again after a few tens of seconds. I almost wished that the Schwarz psycho was there to urge me on with a few insulting or encouraging words. He was uncannily good at it.
I started working at it again, trying to make the pain go away even if I just wanted to curl up in my misery and sleep.

I find him sitting on the floor of his room, eyes closed in concentration.
As I approach him and kneel in front of him he opens his eyes and tells me, "Wait. It's going away." He blinks a couple of times. "Okay. There."
"Gone?"
"Finished."
"How was it?" I ask curiously.
He starts massaging his arm and stretching his fingers, flexing his arm as if surprised that it is still attached and moving. "White. Like white liquid light enveloping my arm quickly and then moving in slow waves." He smiles a bit ruefully. I take his hand in mine and start massaging his fingers and the palm of his hand.
"I caught it like you'd catch water in a glass," he continues, "and just made the space smaller and smaller until there was no space left and it vanished, shrunk upon itself and came out from the other side. It was there still, but I couldn't feel it as long as I managed to keep it from slipping back over itself again."
"Good. You're getting better." I give him the praise as it is only the truth.
He is a lot better as he no longer lets a simple feeling overwhelm him and decide for him what he should do. But we are not at the end of the line yet, it takes far too much concentration on his half to keep the pain in check and even then he can lose it.
"Just your arm?" Usually the living snake inside him takes a few bites at the same time.
"Shoulders and neck," he answers, like it doesn't matter much.
I incline my head a bit and he turns around, suffering my touch as I massage the soreness away. When the electric wires release their hold they leave sore muscles and involuntary cramps in their wake. Or is it just the fact that he doesn't move around much and doesn't get much exercise at all?
I admire the pallor of his skin against mine as I search for the so snappable tendons in his neck, digging my fingers in and fishing for the sore spots. He looks like he would burn easily in the sun.

Fujimiya Ran intrigues me greatly.
The way his hair is of a totally wrong colour, how he tries to keep his demeanour as cold as possible. And that chemistry experiment gone wrong, those convulsive attacks of pain without a true meaning. It keeps me occupied.
Crawford has for once been right in saying that I would enjoy this "assignment".
I like watching Fujimiya Ran struggle with his punishment and get the better of it, little by little. I like seeing his pain as there is always more in store, he won't be running out of it any time soon. And wouldn't you think that it would be of my benefit if I could prolong it? Maybe.
But the pain itself won't be going anywhere, it is just his perception of it that is dissolving to nothingness.
It is as satisfying as plucking an innocent from the streets and killing them without a second thought. Either God weeps for those people or then He thinks that it serves His idea of justice, I really can't tell. It may as well be that the death of a few innocents is meant as a warning sign for the rest, warning sign for the evil and the tainted, the unbelievers and the worshippers of wrong gods. That if you do not bow down to Him you will be lost for all eternity, burning in the fires of Hell.
What are a few human beings for a God who has the whole humanity as His playground?
How am I to outguess a lying bastard God? Ask the priests and they will tell you the lies that they themselves have been taught to believe. That the God is forgiving, repent and confess your sins and you shall be saved.
The only option there really is is to rip it all apart, the web of lies and reveal the rotten insides for all to see. It doesn't necessarily mean that they will believe, that they will see, but if nothing else, it will give them something to think about.
As long as I know that there is a God and as long as I am tearing his cloud of smoke away...

But Fujimiya is no innocent and what might seem like bad luck is just as much of divine planning as anything on this earth. So it suits me well to drag him up from that swamp, to spit at God's punishments.
And I wonder if Crawford is right about the other things that he said, for it is rarely that he looks so far into the future. The paths are continuously changing, the patterns reforming themselves as we go about our daily matters and no future stays fixed for long. But if he is right, things will get pretty interesting soon.

It was soft. Everything was soft.
The sunlight, as it coated the room in pale greyish colours of the flickering shadows and the light itself, falling through the slivers between the curtains. The small almost invisible flakes of dust that danced sluggishly around with the stirred air, though it felt that the air itself had stopped moving. And the summer heat, beating down on the room, that was soft too, it did not scorch, but merely provided a friendly warmth that enveloped everything in its embrace.
The door to the rest of the house was ajar, not particularly closed, not wide open. Quiet, so quiet, and even that felt good in its way, still and quiet, even the time stood still.
And slowly, oh so slowly, Aya sank towards the floor, because he did not want to let go and because he desperately needed something solid to hold onto and because Farfarello's footing remained no more firm than Aya's. Farfarello ended up leaning against the side of the neatly made bed, his arms stretched out and holding onto the covers, Aya kneeling over him between his spread legs. And the kiss remained as soft and explorative as it had been right from the beginning, just as comfortable, just as steady. Breaking off only to engage in another one, Aya's hands supporting the back of Farfarello's head. Slow. Slow...
Nothing awkward, nothing misplaced. They had been standing close and it had been so easy to lean a bit closer, lean against, to lift a hand to steady the position. Equally easy to accept that, when you didn't stop to think, tilt your head sideways a little so that you could get a clear view of that face so close to yours.
...not really thinking, just doing. Not stopping to think of such abstract things as hate or dislike, of Schwarz, of Weiß, of mental stability, of the muted pain still raging through the body. Then to lock gazes with the yellow burn so close, take in the slightly puzzled expression, and before you even knew it your lips were brushing against his and it was sweet...

And even if Aya didn't want to think any more forward than just a couple of days, even if he wanted to stay tied to the moment when he could drown away the false damage signals his body was producing, even if he wanted to stay locked to the moment when he was still banned from half of the missions and so from the responsibility, even if his sister...
Those things were going to crash down on him with force. But not now.
Even if there was anything he'd be the first one to deny it.
And he didn't think, he just went down.

Farfarello was ignoring all the random urges to surge up from the floor, to tighten his hands around that pale throat, the skin of a different pale hue than his own, and then bring the dead look into those violet eyes.
Ran...
He was searching for a thought he could hang onto, where he wouldn't feel like he was drowning, where the mouth moving in synch with his wouldn't feel so damned good.
Something, anything, that would stop him from smelling the warm scent of Aya's skin, that would make him ignore the taste of Aya's mouth, anything at all...

For the first time in... how long? I don't know, honest, I don't. Still, for the first time in ages I can see the line clearly. I know where it goes and the things that lie on either side of it. It will blur, the distinction will lose its meaning soon, but for this while only...
The all-too-familiar (for him) pain is wrecking his body, but he pays no heed to it. He no longer even feels it, he was a natural at that, to be trained to accomplish things impossible...
Hair of fresh blood, and I reach out, I bring my hands to touch him, to find those silky strands and mesh in. He is as silent as I am, there are no words, just the slightest of sighs, more of an indrawn breath that only sounds like one, when he pulls back and I lose the touch that has been... I miss it already, it was so... nice, for the lack of a better word to use.
I didn't know that anything could feel like that, so insignificant and so addictive at the same time.
I have never kissed anyone before.
The skin on my palms tingles as I move my hands through his hair, feeling the shape of his skull underneath and... I think that I don't need to cut him open as his hair readily reflects the colour of his blood so I can see it all the time, every time I look into his direction, every time I open my eye...
And I keep my eye closed as I run my hands through the red strands once again. My fingers map his face, the sharp nose, the soft parted lips, carefully trace the eyesockets, meet the long bangs... And downwards, finding his neck.
My hands fit so well around his neck, I can feel the quick pulse there, his whole body shifting slightly with his breathing.
Stopping briefly to play with the collar of his shirt, I open my eye to stare into the pools of violet.
He is full of the pain and none of it shows to the outside, I'm not sure if he even knows it to be there anymore.
I slowly get up from the floor, taking him with me, and I fell the both of us onto his neatly made bed, his fingers now coming to play over my face in alike manner that my own discovered his just a few moments ago. I lean back, letting him to do as he pleases. I feel him tracing the scars, slowly removing the eyepatch and running his fingers over the empty socket and over the extensive scarring there. The way I plucked my eye out the result wasn't clean.
And then we are kissing again and I don't mind that at all.

Soon he will realize what he is doing and his sense of loyalty, of rationality, of whatever, will win out and he'll stop... being nice. And he'll pull away and glare at me, but not pronounce some stupid heroical phrase as that is not his habit. And he'll be horrified of himself and push me back into the nice little mental niche that he has crafted for me, that of a dangerous psychopath.
For this moment only, he has forgotten.
By choice, actually.
It's not going to last, it's not going to last, it's not going to last... it's not going to last!
There it is.
He pulls back.
His tongue leaves my mouth, his lips part from mine, his hands go to my shoulders so that he can push himself upwards and I let my arms fall from around him to the covers of the bed, I do not even try and stop him.
I know the room to be dusty in the way that is only possible in the summer, I know the tiny particles to dance in the air whenever it is disturbed even a bit. I know how the play of light and shadow goes, I know just how he must look, because I don't want to look at him and see that one expression on his face.
Maybe he'll go away.
Maybe he'll stop being the flame that draws me. (Maybe the ache inside him will leave him alone.)
Maybe I'll stop feeling this wretched and angry at the same time... and maybe, maybe I'll forget.
And maybe I'll ram my knife right through God's eye and rip His throat apart for I know that He'll be laughing. Oh, what a fool I am. Why did I ever stop thinking?
Ran still sits right next to me and so I do the unavoidable and open my eye to look at him.
A curious position that, he doesn't have his feet on the floor, but has folded his legs neatly beside him, the posture reminding me of a cat. The red hair, the unnaturally violet eyes, the silence. For this while only, I wish that I had Schuldig's curse.
We study each other in that silence and I wonder what he sees. What is he thinking?
What does he think of me? Could I have been... wrong?
I hate that feeling of hope and... what do I need hope for?
A standstill...

I sit up and that movement brings us close together again.
"What?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" he answers after a lengthy pause.
"What are you thinking? What were you doing?"
Come on... kick me away now. Leave. Say something presumably evil, say nothing at all, say something plain or try to outright lie to me. ...Cause I'll know if you'll do it and then I can despise you like I despise Him.
Come on... fuck me over and He'll get His laugh's worth of amusement.
Come on... I know you can. I know you don't care. I know you to think that you are of the white light of His sun while I am of the inky black of His darkest shadows, shunned by Him. You live in the lie, come on... Prove me right.

I didn't know how to answer those two questions because I hadn't been thinking at all, just drifting along and... doing things. More or less, I had been following my body's whims or... something. And then I was out of it - whatever it had been - and looking at him, getting stared back with that unnerving way, like he could see straight into my thoughts.
Just a moment ago... everything had been blanketed by a comfortable haze through which only the distant nag of the dulled ache in my limbs got through along with that pleasant touch of skin on skin. Pleasant... and unintruding.
I was fast forwarding my thoughts, coming out with that blank state of trying to comprehend something with too little time available to actually do that properly. I knew there to be thoughts and half realized feelings that I didn't want to voice out even to myself, much less to the man sitting beside me.
What are you thinking?
Nothing.
What were you doing?
...Kissing you. Feeling...
I didn't want to think about it, I didn't want to think about where it could lead to.
And if I didn't know what was going on inside of me, or was reluctant to admit any of it, then I was as ignorant of what I was seeing on his face. There was something there... but what?
He's dangerous, unpredictable. He's enough to drag you out of the bed when all the doctors of the world and the medical companies claim that they are unable to do that. That there has been cases like you before and that they were totally helpless when faced with things like that.
Schwarz.
You're on... on friendly terms...
No. More than that.
...with Schwarz.
I did the only thing I could.
I got up and stormed out of the room.

He was asleep on my bed when I got back.
For a moment I halted in the doorway, fighting against the urge to bolt and against the small voice in the back of my head that was telling me that I didn't care. 'Cause I really did care, it did matter to me what would happen now.
I wasn't sure why exactly I gave a damn about what Farfarello was thinking about me, if I did give a damn.
I hadn't expected that to happen - that what just did - and I hadn't expected that I would be able to feel so... comfortable around him. Why was I sure that he wouldn't kill me just for fun?
It hadn't happened so far but would it last?
For a while I hovered in the doorway, not being able to decide whether I should go in or not.
The Schwarz psychopath, Farfarello, didn't look any less dangerous when he was asleep, but gods, he looked a whole deal younger. He must have been, what? - barely over twenty?
I kept on pushing unwanted thoughts away as soon as they popped into my mind and finally just walked into my room, sitting down on my bed and waiting for him to wake up. I didn't know what I was going to tell him and I didn't know what he was expecting of me in the first place, but there were some matters to resolve.

For a moment the scene remains stationary and unchanging:
Kudou Youji slumped on the ground, holding his broken and twisted arm.
Schuldig apparently passed out from the blow to his head.
Brad Crawford trying to quench the flow of blood from his nose and fumbling for his glasses that have fallen somewhere near.
Nagi Naoe almost trembling with the mental strain of holding with mere telekinesis Hidaka Ken and Tsukiyono Omi on place at opposite ends of the courtyard-turned-battlefield.
Fujimiya Ran, surprised that he is among the last people standing, clutching at his katana by one hand only.
Farfarello, crouching next to Nagi, holding a knife openly, many more hidden away, shattering the steady plateau by suddenly jumping at Ran, sheer blood lust in his eyes.

Ran avoided the knife aimed at his throat by sheer reflex only, but could do nothing about the forceful blow that followed, sending him almost flying backwards, hitting his back against the sturdy brick wall. He grimaced in agony, faintly hoping that no bones were broken by the impact, and trying to climb back onto his feet.
Agh... ... ...that's...
...way too real. The first real ache and hurt in months didn't pale in comparison to the fake ones and it was only the iron will of the Weiß leader that got him to his feet again and to lunge at Farfarello who had stopped just a few feet away to see if the red head would stay down.
"Real careless, Fujimiya," Farfarello laughed, catching the katana-holding hand by the wrist and performing a neat little twist, continuing the movement until Ran shrieked in pain, dropping his weapon, and then Farfarello was kicking his legs out from under him, making him fall to the ground, his right arm twisted up in a ridiculous angle behind his back, held fast.
Ran blinked the involuntary tears away from his eyes, silently cursing his weakness and lack of judgement.
"Just a courtesy... Fujimiya Ran... would you prefer it fast or slow?" Farfarello pressed a knee down between Ran's shoulder blades, the knife held next to Ran's throat.
I...
...it's the same, isn't it?
"I'd..." The word came out barely audible and he tried again. "I'd rather not have it at all."
It is the same.
...just...

(Shut it off. Dissolve it. Take it apart strand by strand and reel them in. Squeeze it into a ball. Make it disappear on itself. Turn it from the inside out. Damn it Fujimiya, you're not that weak! Push it away. Ignore it. Focus on it. You will do it! Focus on it... focus on it... it is in you, it is you, and you can do about it whatever you will. Focus. Weiß wanna-be angel, how does it feel like to be so weak?)

Ran didn't care if the movement would dislodge his shoulder 'cause he didn't even feel the pain of a limb twisted in the wrong direction. There was only one direction to take so as to get out of the arm-lock and he took it, finding the little bit of leverage he needed, doing something evil to his shoulder just as he had predicted, but getting free from Farfarello's grip and that was really what counted.
He heard Ken shout his name, heard the frantic inquiries after his health.
"I'm okay," he called back, noting how his right arm didn't seem to move quite as well as it should have.
The Schwarz psychopath looked a bit surprised as Ran attacked him, but it didn't stop Farfarello from hitting Ran barehanded across the face. Ran's head snapped back, but he didn't utter a sound that would have indicated that he had more than just felt the blow, merely spitting away some blood and kicking the knife from Farfarello's grip.
It is the same, he thought as he looked into the sole amber iris and continued fighting for his life.

"Aya! Aya, are you okay?!" I heard Omi shout as I gave a hand to Youji to haul him up.
"Nothing serious," I answered. Youji was leaning on me with a unfocused look in his green eyes. "Teach me that trick of yours and I'll have your work shifts for a year," he whispered. "My arm's burning like hell."
"Aya, your arm!"
"It's okay, Omi. I think I dislodged it. But I don't feel a thing. Really."
I could see from the look in Omi's eyes that he didn't believe me.
"Look after Youji, okay? He's in a lot worse shape than I am. We need to get out of here as well."
"But Aya..."

Ken had left the TV alone to go and answer the faint knocking sound at the door, but halted in the living room doorway as he saw the back door already open and the heard the conversation taking place.
"I really did try to kill you."
Schwarz? Here again?
"My only mistake was to prolong it... I should have just cut your throat immediately when I had you down, should have known that you would realize... It was stupid of me."
On what business?
"You know that there will no hesitation when the Schwarz and Weiß paths cross. Killing is easy... and you all may get killed... sooner or later probably will, whether it'll be Schwarz or somebody else, you hold no special position - even if God will cry over you Weiß he won't step down to prevent anything... but... I... am not sure I would enjoy it if you were dead, Fujimiya Ran. I am not planning on killing you, you know that?"
"I think I know."
Aya?
"These don't hurt?" Farfarello reached out and trailed his fingers over the bruises on Ran's bare arm and on the side of his face.
"Yes and no..."

Ken quickly found out that he couldn't turn away from the scene even though he was feeling bad for eavesdropping so - What if he'll betray us? Shit, Aya... - and he looked on in fascination as Farfarello leaned close to Ran and pressed soft kisses on the bruised cheek, Ran's hand finding Farfarello's and clasping it.
Eh? Wh-what are they...?
Ran said something then, so quiet that it was drowned out by the TV's noise from the next room, to which Farfarello nodded and turned to go, disappearing back into the night through the open door.

"A-Aya? Are you and..."
Ran pulled the door closed and turned around to see Ken looking at him with a disbelieving look on his face. Ran fought the urge to frown at the intrusion on his privacy, knowing well that it would be better if he could somehow explain his... uncharacteristic behaviour.
"I don't know, Ken."
"What...?"
"I will never betray us to Schwarz, if you must know. Or let any of them live if the situation calls for it."
"I wasn't suggesting that you would...!" Ken denied fast. "I was just worried that..."
"That what?" Ran was suddenly feeling really tired. He wasn't used to explaining his actions to anyone, much less his... feelings, if he even was sure where he stood with those. It was all such a mess... world turning upside down within days, life jumping at him from odd corners.
"Uh... Aya..." Ken took the few steps required to bring him standing next to Ran. Just tell him, okay? "We'll all be here for you if you need us... I mean, I know that you don't like to confide on anyone, but if you... if there's anything... you can always talk to us, right?"
"Yes. I... Thank you. I appreciate that." He managed to smile at Ken. "Oh, and..." he added when Ken was still looking at him as if wondering what he should say next, "don't call me Aya anymore. Aya... that's my sister's name and... maybe it was time that I took back my own."

"What was it that you told Youji then?" he asks me, leaning against the back of the bench and shielding his eyes from the sun.
"A few truths and a few pieces precognition," I answer, sitting down beside him to watch the world flow by.
"What were those?"
"Which ones?"
"Either."
I ponder a while what I should, or want to, tell him. "The truths were just a bit of an old fashioned blackmail," I cackle, remembering the horrified expression on Kudou's face when he realized that I knew. And that Schuldig knew, and that the whole of Schwarz knew and that a few well placed words... would leave him with a lot of explanation to do... I have asked Schuldig what exactly it all was about, those few mystic phrases that I told Kudou, and he was happy to clarify it. The irony was sweet indeed.
"The precognition is a lot more interesting," I continue, "and a whole deal more unsure, I'm afraid. The future is not set in stone. But that uncertainity makes it quite useful for us that Crawford is able to see some of the possibilities. Note that I'd like to cut him in ribbons and paint a wall with his entrails because I hate him almost as much as I hate God, but...
"Four and half months from now there will happen something which will demolish about a half of this city. Crawford claims not to know what will cause it, but there are a lot of theories. What matters and is known, is that both the Schwarz and the Weiß will get killed in the wake.
"Actually, I didn't tell Kudou that. I just told him that in the indeterminate future the Weiß would cease to exist because Fujimiya Ran wouldn't be there to stop it. I didn't tell him how we found out that you were bed-ridden and I didn't tell him what Schwarz would benefit from having you on your feet again. The truths took care that he didn't ask too many questions even if he wanted to."
Ran looks at me, expecting me to tell him all the bits that I left out with Kudou. I laugh out loud.
"What?" he asks, frowning.
"Nothing. Just think on it. What's the simplest reason of all?"
I see him figure it out or at least enough of it. He looks like he doesn't believe it.
"Better believe it... ...honey. Of course, it's only if it comes to that. There's a lot that can happen in four months, but he doesn't like to leave stones unturned. Because we're planning to be here when the city goes down. If it goes down."
Crawford will try to whip me up for telling Fujimiya this much, but why should I care what that dog-biscuit does?
Ran is still frowning at me when asking, "Why you?"
I just shrug.
Nagi could have never done it, Crawford doesn't like to get his hands dirty and Schuldig would have just screwed Ran over and fucked the thing up when he would have grown bored. So was that it? I think not. More likely Crawford's once again leaving things unsaid. He sees alternatives and this alternative was the one that most likely worked.
So what if there were a few extra turns and twists to the plot? What did it matter to him?
"Four months..." Ran mutters beside me and I know that he is already thinking of ways that the impermeable doom could be stopped. He is Weiß and so they would save the city if they only could. Just because they were on the "good" side. Crawford would save the city only if it seemed like a profitable venture.
And I, I didn't give a fuck either way.
A whole city burning could make the God weep crimson tears of pain for his little toys.
The red head is lost in his thoughts, pondering at all the possibilities, a single flicker of pain passing over his features and instantly being pushed away like it hadn't ever been there.
Fujimiya Ran... It still feels strange that I should want to be closer to him, (or to anyone; physically, mentally, whatever) should want to kiss him and should want to be kissed by him in return. The feeling is positively alien. I never used to give a damn.
He is a flame, he is the pain that I don't have.
God must hate me for this and that is good.

I carefully kick Ran on the ankle to catch his attention and he turns to me again, taking my hand in his.

Another day and another park.
"I've always thought..." I began, "...no matter what the religion that we are talking about... that the idea of God was for the kind of people only who didn't have enough backbone to face the world without the concept of a higher being to whom they could put all the blame. That they couldn't take responsibility enough of their own actions, that they thought that they somehow needed to justify the things that happened in the world. When, in fact, the world does not care. There is no God, and everything is just governed by the rules of physics, rules that have nothing to do with consciousness, rules that don't have consciousness so that they could care." I sat up and turned to look at him laying there on the grass with sun beating down on his pale skin. The sun would give me annoying burns and he'd get an allergic reaction in the form of an itchy rash, but I kind of liked the bright light anyway.
I caught his gaze, by now quite used to the intense yellow burn that would make most people feeling quite nervous if nothing else.
And people have told me that my scowl and icy stare could freeze the sun over.
He wasn't stupid by any means, but it just might be that he had never looked the subject from that direction.
People with what they call faith tended to be a little bit irrational in a way or another.
But at that moment, his single yellow eye was slightly widened with surprise.
"So people invent a God and put Him, Her, or Them as the bottom reason for things they do not understand. Put under that word the laws of ethics and whatever suits them. And the people who can't face up the fact that they are ultimately responsible, and not some God, put their faith in that being... because they don't have the backbone..."
I studied his expression as he remained silent and let me talk.
"So lies... don't come from a God, but from the people who put the hypothetical Him on His pedestal. The lies aren't the lies of God, but of the people who invented Him in the first place, the people who have been dead for more than two millenniums."
I had been wanting to say this for a while now. Of course I wasn't sure that the idea would be a novelty to him or would have any impact that all, but a guy can always hope, right?
"So... Farfarello... The liars are dead liars and it only makes us fools for so easily swallowing the things that were written down by people who thought that the Earth was flat to begin with... Listening to priests and our parents and never once in a while stopping to think whether that all made any sense at all..."
He had pushed me through a new way of seeing things and forced me to take control, and I wanted to pay him back by hinting at something which I thought to be a more free frame of thinking.
I liked the saner parts of him, I really did, and though it was absolutely unnerving to realize that, it also was... I don't know.
A welcome change? Perhaps.

"We are so good at lying to ourselves that we rarely realize that we are doing that..."
I finally shut up, just looking at him and waiting for an answer.

And in the end, I was right and I was wrong. The flame did not go off, but it did burn me.
There is a stupid tale of a bird that in every thousand years lays its eggs to a nest and then sets the nest into a fire, dying in that flame and being born anew from the ashes and from the heated golden egg.
Usually, when you sit down to think about it, fairy tales are far more grim than it is healthy for any young child to hear. But... are the old stories worse than what this age of Disneyed, smoothed, and hypocritical stories gives out to children? How are they ever supposed to learn anything? And on the other hand, why do you think that 13-year-old boys and girls take machine guns to schools and shoot their whole class so that blood runs in red rivers down the walls?