WIP: "Noose 2: A Low Place Like Home"
As I've mentioned, I've been writing WIPs for months but not finishing anything so thought I might post them here to see if anyone has anything to say that might help or let me know if anyone is interested in them. Writing in mostly monk-like solitude can be dispiriting and alienating. (It does get seen by the wonderful akira17, who does beta for me in e-mails, which I greatly appreciate, but I never fully recovered from the loss of speaking to multiple people about these things in AIM in real time.)
Because my brain never lets anything go, here's a WIP that's a sequel to 2004's "The Tightening Noose" (NC-17), which is a necessary read for this. "A Low Place Like Home," currently rated R, is mostly Aya/Yoji with some Schuldig/Yoji, with a content warning for Schuldig being an evil bastard toying with them for his own entertainment. "Noose" has "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" on it for good reason, and it continues here. Like "Noose," "A Low Place" is Side B era. Started maliciously by Schuldig, some of Yoji's memories have been returning, and he's on the run from Schuldig and some members of Kritiker. Here, Yoji returns to Aya in London for help....
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“A Low Place Like Home” WIP
by Viridian5
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I might be making a huge mistake but this might save my life. Not that I always thought my current life was worth saving.
I’d thought being on the run from Schuldig had been stressful and exhausting, yet, somehow, no longer having him chasing me was worse because, without him, I lacked purpose, direction, and the adrenaline-fueled drive to keep moving and living. I felt listless and nothing seemed to matter. Pathetic, right?
Sometimes only the thought that Aya would hurt over it if he found out I died--that someone would care--kept me going. (After what I’d unwittingly put her through, I wouldn’t blame my wife for being guiltily relieved by my death, since it would mean she’d no longer have value as a target or hostage and get to regain some freedom. She was a good and loving person, and it’d probably hurt her if she found out I died, but it would be better for her.) Aya might directly help keep me going now--though that was a lot to put on one guy’s shoulders and I felt a bit guilty about it--thus I came to London, to the flower shop. But since I wasn’t supposed to be here, I didn’t go inside, just got a look at the shop’s hours posted near the door to give me an idea of when he might be done working and left the immediate area to do something to pass the time until then. Hopefully he’d come outside on his own so I could talk to him.
It’d be weird seeing Aya in person again since I knew him and didn’t know him, since he was and wasn’t my ex-lover. Me, personally, I’d only been in his presence for maybe a cumulative two hours, but original Yoji had known and lived with him for years and dated and had sex with him for a while during that time. I had it in my memories but also not *my* memories. Sometimes I had cheat notes and glimpses of things about Aya, though it could be difficult at times sorting out facts from suppositions and fantasies. I’ve had feelings about Aya that weren’t entirely mine, and dreams about him I didn’t want him to know about. I didn’t know how accurate my impressions of his body had been in them, but it’s been years since they dated anyway so it *had* to have changed somewhat since then, so if I did somehow get to see him unclothed it’d still hold some surprises.
I used to worry that being with and thinking about Aya might make original Yoji fully return and crush me into oblivion under his weight, effectively killing me, but so far it hasn’t happened. Some parts of original Yoji seemed to just be *gone*, permanently, and I had mixed feelings about that.
It hadn’t stopped bits of original Yoji from using my body to flirt with Aya the last time we met, though.
During our brief time together, I’d liked Aya a *lot*, and Schuldig had claimed that Aya preferred me over original Yoji. I didn’t know if any of that would play a role in today’s meeting.
As closing time approached, I waited in the alley behind the row of stores the flower shop belonged to and tried not to let the smell from the garbage bins bother me. I had to be careful what I stepped in too. I didn’t stand close to the shop because I didn’t know who might come out with the trash at the end of their workday; better for me to see who showed up and whether I wanted them to see me. The backdoor opened as Aya, looking tired and somewhat sad, walked out carrying two very large garbage bags. Even doing that, even looking tired, he was so pretty, like an idol, almost unreal in it. The blaze of his vibrant red hair amidst all the drabness around him and the darkening overcast sky forced your attention to him, *made* you look. I wanted, *needed*, to touch him, hold him, kiss him.
I needed to get a hold of myself.
Aya immediately dropped the bags the moment he became aware of someone being in the alley with him. I moved away from cover so he could see me.
The memories I had from original Yoji had let me know that Aya generally kept an impassive expression, so it amazed him/me to see the journey Aya’s face took when he noticed me standing there, especially when *happiness*/affection crossed it right after surprise. He looked so glad to see me that it put a warmth in my chest and a lump in my throat. Worry, then determination followed it. Then Aya put his hand up in an obvious *Stop* gesture, took a notepad and pen out of his apron pocket, wrote something in large characters, then held it up for me to read. His note said, “I’ll come out to meet you in about 45 minutes. Don’t approach the building. There are security cameras.”
Had I screwed up already? Thinking about it, I figured that I hadn’t gotten close enough to the front or back of the shop for long enough to be notable unless the person watching the footage knew to look for me. Once I nodded my understanding, he took a deep breath in that seemed to be relief, then picked up the bags, put them in the bin, and went back inside the shop.
I had 45 minutes of time to kill but I’d already waited this long and could wait a little more.
Those 45 minutes felt like an eternity though.
Aya looked somewhat annoyed as he walked out the back door and came to me, though that annoyed look mostly extended to his occasional glances behind him to the shop. Maybe someone had given him trouble on his way out, maybe Ken. During my last visit I’d found out that Aya and Ken were in a relationship and Ken had felt threatened by my return. He had some reason to be.
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” Aya said when he reached me.
“Hey, me too,” I replied. Just having him talk to me lifted my spirits a bit, a relief after how dark, depressing, and lonely life has felt for me lately.
Aya winced at himself. “I could’ve expressed that better. But I *am* glad. Are you still on the run all the time?”
“That’s a bit of a long story. It looks like it’s gonna rain soon, so we should find someplace indoors to catch up in.”
“It’s London, so it rains a *lot*. Good idea though.”
“Same hotel as last time?” I asked.
“We could. Yes. Let’s get out of here.” Funny, but endearing, how he could be so graceful in some things but awkward in others.
Streetlights started to turn on as we walked through the streets together, close enough that our hands almost touched at times. I followed his lead since he knew where we were going; enough of original Yoji remained in me for that to be instinctive and natural. A kind of electric sexual tension quivered between us, thankfully not one-sided. Maybe not “thankfully,” depending on what I wanted to achieve here. It might not be safe for us if I stayed with him for long, and I was still married, even if I’ve been on the run, away from Asuka, longer than I’d even known her. But I *wanted* him, and the small, sweet, “secret” smiles he sometimes directed at me when he thought I wasn’t looking didn’t help, nor did the shy way he sometimes turned his face away when he saw me noticing them. How could this man, this killer, be this cute? We didn’t talk much, but I’d said we should wait to be in private in the hotel room for the big stuff and Aya had never been one for small talk, so it mostly felt comfortable.
When it started to rain, Aya opened up his large umbrella over us and leaned in closer to me to get me further under it without a word. Although it probably didn’t mean anything, it made me blush a bit from how his closeness increased that feeling of sexual tension and made me feel like we lived together in a small, intimate world, just the two of us, with everything beyond us misty, wet, soft-focused, and drowned out by the sound of rain. Just having someone looking out for my comfort, without me even needing to ask for it, did something to my heart too.
“Are you hungry?” Aya asked. “*I* am. We can stop to pick up something before we get to the hotel.”
“Or we could order room service *at* the hotel.”
“That’s more expensive and there are fewer choices.”
I got the impression that Aya had always been frugal with money; at least some of it coming from needing to pay his comatose sister’s hospital bills. “Okay.”
But then Aya stayed silent for several minutes while obviously lost in thought, making me ask, “What’s the problem?”
“If I take you someplace we generally pick up food from, a place that knows me and the shop, they might mention you to the rest of the team in the future, while you’re not supposed to be here and I don’t want them to know you were here if I can avoid it.”
“There’s still room service.”
“All right.”
We stopped at the same hotel we used last time. This time I didn’t protest about the price or him paying for most of it because he was stubborn and I didn’t want an argument right now. I might bring it up later though. Once we were inside the room, we took off our wet shoes at the door, with Aya leaving his wet umbrella with them. Aya took my damp coat and hung it and his light trench coat up from the bathroom’s shower curtain rod, revealing that he wore a sapphire blue sweater and faded black jeans, sleek and flattering on him. I think he’d been wearing them under the apron before he knew I’d arrived, so they weren’t for my sake. I had some memories of him having mission outfits that were rather goth and a bit kink but, long ago, showing absolutely no taste in his “civilian” ensembles, with an ugly orange sweater, often inexplicably paired with blue trousers, being a particularly horrible crime against nature. I didn’t remember when--or why--he’d started improving.
Aya handed me one of the room service menus from a small table, saying, “Order whatever you want. Please. I’ll pay for it.”
“Damn it, Aya, I can pay.” I had my pride.
“Please let me just take care of this. You’re my guest.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You look like you need to feed yourself more often. Anyway, I’m ordering something for myself and you’ll have to watch me eat it, so you might as well eat with me.” Stubborn.
“...fine.”
We decided what we wanted to eat and Aya made a phone call to order it. Afterward, Aya said, “They said it should be ready and show up in about 30 minutes.”
This was almost like a date. We had a nice evening walk despite the rain, almost but not quite holding hands, sexual tension crackling between us, with Aya chivalrously protecting me from the rain with an umbrella we shared. He took me to a cozy hotel room he paid for and bought my dinner, which we’d eat together. How far would we go? I’d come here to reconnect with him and chase away some of the loneliness and purposelessness that’d been dragging me down in the last month or so, but there was reconnecting and then there was *reconnecting*. We seemed to long for each other, *want* each other, but he had a boyfriend and I was married, even if I hadn’t seen or talked to my wife in so long that I wouldn’t blame her at all for moving on and finding someone else. She’d be much better off: it might even stop people from thinking they could get to me through her, taking her out of danger.
With that in mind, I sat in a chair at the table, not on the bed, and asked, “How have things been with Ken?”
That question stopped him in the middle of sitting down and had him obviously trying to decide what he’d tell me.
“So, it hasn’t been good,” I said. “Is it my fault?”
“No!”
Liar. “At least partially. C’mon, Aya. Please tell me the truth.”
“...my relationship with Ken has suffered. Mostly from insecurities and uncertainties, as well as from Ken having an idealized vision of me in his head that I can’t possibly live up to, which is the Aya he’s actually in love with. We’re having more arguments. It’s not--”
“Did the trouble start after my visit?”
Aya didn’t answer but didn’t have to. Schuldig had said that Aya preferred me to the original Yoji, whom he’d *loved*. Ken must’ve noticed the way Aya had looked at and talked to me.
“It doesn’t help that we both have a temper,” Aya said.
Original Yoji remembered Ken “welcoming” Aya into the team with a fistfight that ended in a mutual knockout, and that Ken had been dealing with some rage issues for a while, both of which made me need to ask something and try to word it delicately. “You don’t.... He doesn’t.... hit...?”
Looking shocked, Aya answered, “No! We don’t do that. I wouldn’t let.... I wouldn’t stay.... *He* wouldn’t, to someone he.... We have enough violence in our lives already.” But then he said, “Things are just awkward, and living and working together while we’re having... trouble make things more awkward and stranger too. I think we’re over as a couple but can’t quite make it official yet, because it seems like it would hurt a lot of people....” He sighed. “I keep doing the same thing and thinking this time it will end differently, keep saying yes to these kinds of relationships, which is stupid, but I try to be kinder to myself about it from knowing that getting a... civilian involved with me, with my murderous life and my need to lie about it, wouldn’t end well either.”
I knew that original Yoji had been the one who’d started their relationship in their original Weiß and probably should’ve guessed that Ken had started this one. Were there any others?
Aya continued, “And... Ken’s aware that I don’t have the same feelings about him that I did for Yoji, always has been aware.”
None of what Aya had just said reassured me.
He moved one of the chairs over so he could sit facing me, close, his pretty face focused on me. “Yoji, is this just a friendly visit or is something going on? Do you need help? ...should I still be calling you ‘Yoji’?”
“Yes, please.” I knew what I needed, what I couldn’t seem to do for myself, but asking him for it.... I should be better on my own. I shouldn’t *need* him. But if I didn’t, then why had I come here, interrupted his day, and put him at risk? I would work my way to it. “Has Schuldig stopped bothering you like Nagi said? Stopped showing up and stopped affecting your dreams?”
“It seems so. My nightmares seem to be my own--I certainly have enough raw material on my own to use--and I haven’t seen him around. Though once in a while I feel like I’m being watched by someone and I don’t know if it’s really him or my paranoia. You?”
“The same. That’s...” I took a deep breath in. “That seems to be a bit of a problem for me. Stupidly enough. Without him chasing me, without the adrenaline and fear keeping me moving... I’m....” Spit it out. “I’m... finding it hard to keep going, keep *living*. I keep getting tired and apathetic and wondering if it’s worth it. Even without him dogging me, those sections of Kritiker that want me dead stop me from going home, back to Asuka, but they’re not showing up as a threat often enough to give me the same energy Schuldig did. I just... I feel so *pathetic*.”
Looking upset, radiating sincerity and intensity, Aya leaned in toward me and set his hand on my shoulder to try to comfort me or maybe further emphasize what he was about to say, the touch a bit of a shock since I hadn’t had many friendly touches in a long time, leaving me a bit starved, and I had the impression that he didn’t reach out to touch many people. His eyes really were so purple.... “Yoji, don’t give him this kind of victory. You’re not pathetic. He ripped everything away from you--your wife, home, friends, job, country, *identity*--and forced you to run for your life. He assaulted, scared, and isolated you, and made himself the only semi-familiar thing you had left. Of *course* you feel lost now without him chasing you to force you to go on. You’re tired and alone. Of *course* your thoughts are turning darker now that you have more time to think.”
“Aya--”
“*Thank you* for coming to me for help before doing anything... irrevocable. The last time, Yoji wouldn’t tell me or come to me about anything, and all I could do was watch him *spiral*....”
That was too raw for me to face at the moment, and I didn’t want to get sidetracked. “You faced Schuldig alone for years, and he was invading your mind and dreams.”
“I had my sister and vengeance to live for. I had a steady place to live, roommates who were also my co-workers checking in on me, and two jobs to do. I had inertia, routine, and a sense of purpose on my side.”
“But then you killed Takatori Reiji and got your vengeance, and Weiß broke up, so you lost all of that except for your sister.”
“...it’s *horrible*, but her kidnapping, my need to find and rescue her, and my return to the team broke me out of my own dark hole. Before that, I came close to... but she still needed me at least, even before she was taken.” Aya shook his head.
Truly horrible. He kept saying that I had it worse than he did, but he dealt with all this shit for *years* on his own. “Did original Yoji know about this?”
“No, and I doubt he would’ve cared much at the time it was happening.”
“What kind of an asshole was I?”
“I don’t blame him. We weren’t together then, and I didn’t reveal much to my teammates. I’d... gotten attached to some people and revealed things I shouldn’t have in the two teams I belonged to before our Weiß and that... ended very badly. Both times. I learned from it.”
“Did original Yoji know about *that*?”
“He found out about the Weiß team before ours and might’ve guessed about Crashers, though he had a lot of other things on his mind during our mission at the school so perhaps not.”
“So you didn’t *tell* him.”
“No.” No explanation, as if it didn’t need one, and Aya’s manner basically said, *Why would I?*
Have I managed to learn more intimate details about Aya in the very short time I’ve known him than original Yoji did over *years*? “But you’re telling me.”
“You need to know. Also, back then, I didn’t know how much Schuldig would let me reveal of things like that without punishing someone for it, but that’s not an issue here.”
A knock at the door let us know that our food had arrived, which was kind of a relief after how intense things had gotten. Aya must have agreed, because after he went to the door to get it and brought the laden tray to the table, he said, “Maybe we should try some lighter topics while we’re eating.”
“Do we *have* any lighter topics?”
Aya’s slight smile looked wry as he sat down with our meal. “We can try.”
After we both did our “itadakimasu,” watching Aya eating activated my own hunger, a good thing since I did need to get my weight up a bit. I just hadn’t had much of an appetite lately. Friendly company to eat with helped, such a small thing until you didn’t have it.
“Would you count my experiences in the flower shop here a lighter topic?” Aya asked. “I don’t know if it’s a trigger of any kind for you.”
“You’re not doing anything crazy there, are you?”
Another of Aya’s slight smiles. “Define ‘crazy.’”
“Ha, ha. Nah, it should be fine. I don’t remember much of my flower shop time, just that it seemed to be some short bursts of busy mayhem between long stretches of tedium.”
“That’s pretty accurate. We thankfully don’t have the same kind of schoolgirl devotees constantly underfoot like we had in Japan. Getting familiar with the local currency and many different UK accents of customers was rough and sometimes I still get tripped up, which I hate.”
“Doing that job but in a foreign language? Ugh. Do you actually know all the English names of all the plants you deal with?”
Aya snorted. “No.”
“How’s Ken doing with all that?”
“Worse. But most customers enjoy the ‘excitable puppy’ air he gives off and don’t mind. He’s endearing.” Aya certainly looked fond as he said it.
Suddenly remembering, I asked, “Do you still yell at people to buy something or leave?”
“We have fewer loiterers here. Besides, it doesn’t really feel like ‘my’ shop so I don’t feel like I have the right.”
“I don’t think you cared about that back when.”
“...I guess you might be right. Maybe it’s that I’m less angry now.”
Less angry, more resigned? If I said something like that, I’d be breaking our attempt at avoiding heavy topics while we ate. It might just be that killing the man who destroyed his family and his sister coming out of her coma had made a positive difference for him.
Now that I reminded myself of his sister, I said, “I saw Aya-chan about a month ago. She looked good, at least from the distance I saw her at. I checked out her security detail while I was in Tokyo trying to figure out the one around my wife. They’re good enough that I couldn’t get too close to either of them.”
Aya looked at me in silence for a bit then said, “...that seems reckless of you.”
“Now that I think about it, yeah, you’re kinda right.” It made so much sense at the time, but when I looked at it from another perspective and more distance.... “But I really needed to do it.” The original Yoji part of me was surprised Aya had said “reckless” instead of “stupid”; Aya really had mellowed out. “I obviously didn’t get caught at it.”
“That you know of.”
...shit. “I wasn’t worried about that before--”
“Obviously.”
“--but I am now.” If they had noticed me, they hadn’t done anything about it in the weeks since, so I was probably all right, but I couldn’t know that for certain.
“Good. You should be. Be more careful of your safety. But thank you for checking in on my sister and thinking of her. I can’t risk calling on Mamoru too often for updates on her condition.”
Like me, Aya couldn’t meet up with his loved one himself due to that part of Kritiker being willing to kill him for the “crimes” of disobeying their orders, failing to be executed by Kritiker agents, and skipping out on them. He’d joined Kritiker to save his sister but now Kritiker kept him from seeing her and being in her life. I didn’t call or write Asuka to explain what had happened, where I was, or what I was doing because I worried that Kritiker had her phone tapped and checked her mail and would find me and perhaps think she knew more about what was going on than she did and punish her. I hadn’t been able to get close enough long enough to hear what she thought was going on with me and why I’d left. I also worried that me being around the team in London too obviously or for long would drag more Kritiker attention (as well as Schuldig’s) to them, since here they’d get a chance to kill three of us: me, Aya, and Ken.
Damn, I’d driven us back to heavy, depressing topics and ruined my appetite too. “I’m sorry,” I said and pushed my plate away. Aya immediately got up out of his seat and came toward me. “Aya, you don’t have to--”
Aya sat on the bed, close to my chair, close to *me*, close enough that I could feel some of the warmth his body gave off. “You don’t need to apologize. Also, please keep eating. By the end, you... he... got so scarily thin and there was nothing I could say or do about it.”
That look on his face.... “Don’t give me those puppy eyes. They’re hard to argue with.”
Obviously confused and seemingly worried, he replied, “I... my face... my eyes don’t do that.”
“I think your face and eyes are more expressive than they used to be. Which is a good thing! Don’t stop it! I like it, and I hope it means that you’re opening yourself up to other people more.” I didn’t want Aya to stop that because of something dumb I said off the cuff.
Instead of addressing any of that, he said, “If you’re really not hungry anymore, you don’t have to eat, but I worry about you.”
With Aya close enough to touch and so concerned for me, the original Yoji wanted to give Aya a Look and say something like “I’m not hungry for *food*,” which made me!Yoji *cringe* but he wasn’t wrong, even if he worded it like a creep. I didn’t know if I even dared asked him for some snuggling from what it might lead to, but I was truly starved. It didn’t help that the shushing sound of light rain and occasional rumble of thunder might be nice, but the dampness in the air made me want to get under the covers with somebody friendly and share body heat and other... things. And I was *tired*. Tired of restless, sleepless nights and being on the run and alone, but also literally tired. Could Aya tell? He could be oblivious to a lot of things.
Patting the edge of the bed next to him, Aya said, “Yoji, come here. Please.”
I shouldn’t... but I got up and sat next to him. He put an arm around me and leaned closer to me as I leaned closer to him, our heads resting against each other, one of his hands stroking up and down my arm in a soothing way. With how protected and safe I suddenly felt, all my muscle tension immediately bled out of me, making me sleepier but also hornier. I wanted to fall backward onto the bed and have him straddle me and stroke me all over, to shudder beneath him and touch and kiss him back, but I shouldn’t. If I went to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to lust after Aya like this, but I *wanted* to see and be with him, not be unconscious in his presence. Who knew when I’d get another chance?
“It’s okay, I just haven’t been sleeping well lately,” I said. “I’m not always this down.”
“You can sleep here if you need to. I expected you would.”
“I came here to see you, so it wouldn’t make sense to waste some of that time asleep.”
“I’ll stay to keep you company, keep you safe.”
“Ken would be okay with that?”
“Even during the good times, I never moved in with him or spent every night with him. He and the team are used to me going out now and then without notifying them of where I am or how long I’ll be gone.”
“That’s dangerous. If somebody kidnapped you, they wouldn’t know it until you’ve been gone a long time.”
“It’s worth it. I need some time and space that’s truly my own.”
“I don’t want to keep you awake all night guarding me.”
“Then I’ll sleep with you.”
“To sleep with me or *sleep* with me?” my dumb mouth couldn’t help asking.
“I’m... open to both. I don’t know if you are though.” That was Aya being much more open about softer emotions than he used to be.
“Would you just *fuck* already?” Schuldig said, suddenly visible, seated by the table, near us, facing us.
Fuck! Seeing him, I instinctively threw myself backward, almost falling off the other side of the bed, but Aya sprang *forward*, *at* Schuldig. No! They fought hand to hand, entangled, moving too quickly for me to follow well. I wore my watch but left the protective, reinforced gloves in my coat pockets in the bathroom, meaning I’d have to be very cautious and limited in using my wire so I wouldn’t slice my own hands open, and I couldn't intervene in this kind of fight on those terms. I was useless, and Schuldig was laughing....
Aya was fast but Schuldig was faster, and I could see Schuldig gaining the upper hand....
Suddenly Schuldig had his right arm wrapped very tightly around Aya’s neck just under his jaw and the base of his skull and left hand yanking Aya’s left arm down and with such force that it pulled and stretched the collar of Aya’s sweater to expose his shoulder. Schuldig used his right arm and fist to pull Aya’s head dangerously to the right side, openly threatening to do worse. “Stop fighting this, Aya,” Schuldig said, “or I’ll snap your neck and kill you while Yoji helplessly watches. Or maybe I’ll just pull enough to paralyze you, also while Yoji has no choice but to just watch it happen. Be *nice*.”
My heart dropped and my throat tightened, afraid that Aya wouldn’t be willing or able to stop himself. With how Schuldig had Aya’s face tilted away from me, I couldn’t see even his minimalist facial expressions or get a look into his eyes to have any idea what Aya might be thinking or planning.
Obviously angry and frustrated, Aya stopped struggling and let himself go limp, but Schuldig, prepared for tricks, easily kept his hold on him and kept him upright. Aya couldn’t stay limp for long, not without hurting himself, so he stood on his own soon after, mostly still and trying to minimize the pain of being in Schuldig’s grip. Grinning with teeth bared, bright blue eyes alight, Schuldig gave me a very significant look, looked down at Aya’s bared shoulder, and then back at me, saying without a single, actual telepathic word that wouldn’t it be *funny* if he bit down hard where Aya’s neck met his shoulder, when neither Aya nor I could do anything about it. My stomach turned, not just at the violence of the possibility and pain it would inflict but also the nonconsensual sexual tinge it would have, knowing full well that Schuldig lusted after both of us in many different ways.
How was Schuldig *here*? How close had he been to us? He might be a telepath, with the ability to cloud people’s minds, but we hadn’t sensed his presence at *all*. How long had he been with us, watching and listening? Just at the hotel? Since the flower shop? *Earlier*? Had he made me come to London and meet with Aya specifically to get us alone and in this situation?
“I do enjoy that you being smarter means you can see and torment yourself with the possibilities, Yoji,” Schuldig purred at us. “It means I don’t have to do as much work explaining things to you.”
Aya said, his voice sounding strained and painful from the pressure on his neck, “Yoji, Schuldig can mess with our senses, but he’s still be visible on camera, which limits some of his ability to stick with us in certain places, like the flower shop and immediate surrounding area, without being discovered later. Also, London has a lot of CCTV cameras.” Probably Aya trying to reassure me, but I worried that Schuldig might punish him for it.
“You can be such a killjoy sometimes, Aya.” Schuldig moved Aya’s head to put Aya’s ear closer to his mouth. “It makes me want to *do* things to you.”
Trying to convince myself and Schuldig, I said, “You’ve put years of work into Aya, so you don’t want to just kill him for something minor now. It’d be a waste for you. Let him *breathe*!”
“There are billions of people in the world, and you’re only two of the games I currently have going on. Neither of you is irreplaceable.”
“Nagi said that he’d tell Persia about what you’ve been doing to us and there’d be punishment for it.”
“Then I guess I have to really make this worth it for me, hunh?”
All my attempts to deescalate it seemed to be making things *worse*.
“It’s okay, Yoji,” Aya said in a rasping voice, probably trying to soothe me.
It wasn’t okay, not in the slightest, and it didn’t work.
“Mmmm,” Schuldig purred into Aya’s ear, and something about the way Aya moved suggested, horribly, that he tried to avoid feeling Schuldig’s hard dick pressing into him. That sick bastard.
“*Don’t*,” Yoji said.
After looking briefly surprised that Yoji had noticed, Schuldig asked, “Why not? He’s been wanting you since you met up today--*God*, he’s horny for you today--but you’re too stuck on a woman you barely know who barely knows you and wouldn’t even recognize you now or like what you’ve become, to reciprocate. You’ve been away from her longer than you’ve been *with* her. Move on and let *her* move on.” Throwing my fears in my face. “But in the absence of that, why shouldn’t I give him some relief?”
“I don’t want *you*,” Aya gritted out. “Leave us alone.” He was going to get himself killed, but I could understand his disgust.
“Don’t you? I could make you.”
Holy fuck, no. “You said you wanted *us* to fuck already.”
“Somedays I enjoy the slow burn, pining shit, but two of my favorite toys are rarely in a room together these days--”
“Which is mostly your fault!”
“--so when you are, I want you to smash. But if you’re completely against it, I have to adjust my plans. Like you reminded me, there’s risk for me just being here, so I have to make it worth it.”
Did that mean I’d have to fuck Aya, with Schuldig watching, to save Aya from something much worse?
“You’re thinking that like it’s such a hardship. If it’s too horrible for you to contemplate, I’m here for him.”
~To Be Continued~
Because my brain never lets anything go, here's a WIP that's a sequel to 2004's "The Tightening Noose" (NC-17), which is a necessary read for this. "A Low Place Like Home," currently rated R, is mostly Aya/Yoji with some Schuldig/Yoji, with a content warning for Schuldig being an evil bastard toying with them for his own entertainment. "Noose" has "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" on it for good reason, and it continues here. Like "Noose," "A Low Place" is Side B era. Started maliciously by Schuldig, some of Yoji's memories have been returning, and he's on the run from Schuldig and some members of Kritiker. Here, Yoji returns to Aya in London for help....
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“A Low Place Like Home” WIP
by Viridian5
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I might be making a huge mistake but this might save my life. Not that I always thought my current life was worth saving.
I’d thought being on the run from Schuldig had been stressful and exhausting, yet, somehow, no longer having him chasing me was worse because, without him, I lacked purpose, direction, and the adrenaline-fueled drive to keep moving and living. I felt listless and nothing seemed to matter. Pathetic, right?
Sometimes only the thought that Aya would hurt over it if he found out I died--that someone would care--kept me going. (After what I’d unwittingly put her through, I wouldn’t blame my wife for being guiltily relieved by my death, since it would mean she’d no longer have value as a target or hostage and get to regain some freedom. She was a good and loving person, and it’d probably hurt her if she found out I died, but it would be better for her.) Aya might directly help keep me going now--though that was a lot to put on one guy’s shoulders and I felt a bit guilty about it--thus I came to London, to the flower shop. But since I wasn’t supposed to be here, I didn’t go inside, just got a look at the shop’s hours posted near the door to give me an idea of when he might be done working and left the immediate area to do something to pass the time until then. Hopefully he’d come outside on his own so I could talk to him.
It’d be weird seeing Aya in person again since I knew him and didn’t know him, since he was and wasn’t my ex-lover. Me, personally, I’d only been in his presence for maybe a cumulative two hours, but original Yoji had known and lived with him for years and dated and had sex with him for a while during that time. I had it in my memories but also not *my* memories. Sometimes I had cheat notes and glimpses of things about Aya, though it could be difficult at times sorting out facts from suppositions and fantasies. I’ve had feelings about Aya that weren’t entirely mine, and dreams about him I didn’t want him to know about. I didn’t know how accurate my impressions of his body had been in them, but it’s been years since they dated anyway so it *had* to have changed somewhat since then, so if I did somehow get to see him unclothed it’d still hold some surprises.
I used to worry that being with and thinking about Aya might make original Yoji fully return and crush me into oblivion under his weight, effectively killing me, but so far it hasn’t happened. Some parts of original Yoji seemed to just be *gone*, permanently, and I had mixed feelings about that.
It hadn’t stopped bits of original Yoji from using my body to flirt with Aya the last time we met, though.
During our brief time together, I’d liked Aya a *lot*, and Schuldig had claimed that Aya preferred me over original Yoji. I didn’t know if any of that would play a role in today’s meeting.
As closing time approached, I waited in the alley behind the row of stores the flower shop belonged to and tried not to let the smell from the garbage bins bother me. I had to be careful what I stepped in too. I didn’t stand close to the shop because I didn’t know who might come out with the trash at the end of their workday; better for me to see who showed up and whether I wanted them to see me. The backdoor opened as Aya, looking tired and somewhat sad, walked out carrying two very large garbage bags. Even doing that, even looking tired, he was so pretty, like an idol, almost unreal in it. The blaze of his vibrant red hair amidst all the drabness around him and the darkening overcast sky forced your attention to him, *made* you look. I wanted, *needed*, to touch him, hold him, kiss him.
I needed to get a hold of myself.
Aya immediately dropped the bags the moment he became aware of someone being in the alley with him. I moved away from cover so he could see me.
The memories I had from original Yoji had let me know that Aya generally kept an impassive expression, so it amazed him/me to see the journey Aya’s face took when he noticed me standing there, especially when *happiness*/affection crossed it right after surprise. He looked so glad to see me that it put a warmth in my chest and a lump in my throat. Worry, then determination followed it. Then Aya put his hand up in an obvious *Stop* gesture, took a notepad and pen out of his apron pocket, wrote something in large characters, then held it up for me to read. His note said, “I’ll come out to meet you in about 45 minutes. Don’t approach the building. There are security cameras.”
Had I screwed up already? Thinking about it, I figured that I hadn’t gotten close enough to the front or back of the shop for long enough to be notable unless the person watching the footage knew to look for me. Once I nodded my understanding, he took a deep breath in that seemed to be relief, then picked up the bags, put them in the bin, and went back inside the shop.
I had 45 minutes of time to kill but I’d already waited this long and could wait a little more.
Those 45 minutes felt like an eternity though.
Aya looked somewhat annoyed as he walked out the back door and came to me, though that annoyed look mostly extended to his occasional glances behind him to the shop. Maybe someone had given him trouble on his way out, maybe Ken. During my last visit I’d found out that Aya and Ken were in a relationship and Ken had felt threatened by my return. He had some reason to be.
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” Aya said when he reached me.
“Hey, me too,” I replied. Just having him talk to me lifted my spirits a bit, a relief after how dark, depressing, and lonely life has felt for me lately.
Aya winced at himself. “I could’ve expressed that better. But I *am* glad. Are you still on the run all the time?”
“That’s a bit of a long story. It looks like it’s gonna rain soon, so we should find someplace indoors to catch up in.”
“It’s London, so it rains a *lot*. Good idea though.”
“Same hotel as last time?” I asked.
“We could. Yes. Let’s get out of here.” Funny, but endearing, how he could be so graceful in some things but awkward in others.
Streetlights started to turn on as we walked through the streets together, close enough that our hands almost touched at times. I followed his lead since he knew where we were going; enough of original Yoji remained in me for that to be instinctive and natural. A kind of electric sexual tension quivered between us, thankfully not one-sided. Maybe not “thankfully,” depending on what I wanted to achieve here. It might not be safe for us if I stayed with him for long, and I was still married, even if I’ve been on the run, away from Asuka, longer than I’d even known her. But I *wanted* him, and the small, sweet, “secret” smiles he sometimes directed at me when he thought I wasn’t looking didn’t help, nor did the shy way he sometimes turned his face away when he saw me noticing them. How could this man, this killer, be this cute? We didn’t talk much, but I’d said we should wait to be in private in the hotel room for the big stuff and Aya had never been one for small talk, so it mostly felt comfortable.
When it started to rain, Aya opened up his large umbrella over us and leaned in closer to me to get me further under it without a word. Although it probably didn’t mean anything, it made me blush a bit from how his closeness increased that feeling of sexual tension and made me feel like we lived together in a small, intimate world, just the two of us, with everything beyond us misty, wet, soft-focused, and drowned out by the sound of rain. Just having someone looking out for my comfort, without me even needing to ask for it, did something to my heart too.
“Are you hungry?” Aya asked. “*I* am. We can stop to pick up something before we get to the hotel.”
“Or we could order room service *at* the hotel.”
“That’s more expensive and there are fewer choices.”
I got the impression that Aya had always been frugal with money; at least some of it coming from needing to pay his comatose sister’s hospital bills. “Okay.”
But then Aya stayed silent for several minutes while obviously lost in thought, making me ask, “What’s the problem?”
“If I take you someplace we generally pick up food from, a place that knows me and the shop, they might mention you to the rest of the team in the future, while you’re not supposed to be here and I don’t want them to know you were here if I can avoid it.”
“There’s still room service.”
“All right.”
We stopped at the same hotel we used last time. This time I didn’t protest about the price or him paying for most of it because he was stubborn and I didn’t want an argument right now. I might bring it up later though. Once we were inside the room, we took off our wet shoes at the door, with Aya leaving his wet umbrella with them. Aya took my damp coat and hung it and his light trench coat up from the bathroom’s shower curtain rod, revealing that he wore a sapphire blue sweater and faded black jeans, sleek and flattering on him. I think he’d been wearing them under the apron before he knew I’d arrived, so they weren’t for my sake. I had some memories of him having mission outfits that were rather goth and a bit kink but, long ago, showing absolutely no taste in his “civilian” ensembles, with an ugly orange sweater, often inexplicably paired with blue trousers, being a particularly horrible crime against nature. I didn’t remember when--or why--he’d started improving.
Aya handed me one of the room service menus from a small table, saying, “Order whatever you want. Please. I’ll pay for it.”
“Damn it, Aya, I can pay.” I had my pride.
“Please let me just take care of this. You’re my guest.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You look like you need to feed yourself more often. Anyway, I’m ordering something for myself and you’ll have to watch me eat it, so you might as well eat with me.” Stubborn.
“...fine.”
We decided what we wanted to eat and Aya made a phone call to order it. Afterward, Aya said, “They said it should be ready and show up in about 30 minutes.”
This was almost like a date. We had a nice evening walk despite the rain, almost but not quite holding hands, sexual tension crackling between us, with Aya chivalrously protecting me from the rain with an umbrella we shared. He took me to a cozy hotel room he paid for and bought my dinner, which we’d eat together. How far would we go? I’d come here to reconnect with him and chase away some of the loneliness and purposelessness that’d been dragging me down in the last month or so, but there was reconnecting and then there was *reconnecting*. We seemed to long for each other, *want* each other, but he had a boyfriend and I was married, even if I hadn’t seen or talked to my wife in so long that I wouldn’t blame her at all for moving on and finding someone else. She’d be much better off: it might even stop people from thinking they could get to me through her, taking her out of danger.
With that in mind, I sat in a chair at the table, not on the bed, and asked, “How have things been with Ken?”
That question stopped him in the middle of sitting down and had him obviously trying to decide what he’d tell me.
“So, it hasn’t been good,” I said. “Is it my fault?”
“No!”
Liar. “At least partially. C’mon, Aya. Please tell me the truth.”
“...my relationship with Ken has suffered. Mostly from insecurities and uncertainties, as well as from Ken having an idealized vision of me in his head that I can’t possibly live up to, which is the Aya he’s actually in love with. We’re having more arguments. It’s not--”
“Did the trouble start after my visit?”
Aya didn’t answer but didn’t have to. Schuldig had said that Aya preferred me to the original Yoji, whom he’d *loved*. Ken must’ve noticed the way Aya had looked at and talked to me.
“It doesn’t help that we both have a temper,” Aya said.
Original Yoji remembered Ken “welcoming” Aya into the team with a fistfight that ended in a mutual knockout, and that Ken had been dealing with some rage issues for a while, both of which made me need to ask something and try to word it delicately. “You don’t.... He doesn’t.... hit...?”
Looking shocked, Aya answered, “No! We don’t do that. I wouldn’t let.... I wouldn’t stay.... *He* wouldn’t, to someone he.... We have enough violence in our lives already.” But then he said, “Things are just awkward, and living and working together while we’re having... trouble make things more awkward and stranger too. I think we’re over as a couple but can’t quite make it official yet, because it seems like it would hurt a lot of people....” He sighed. “I keep doing the same thing and thinking this time it will end differently, keep saying yes to these kinds of relationships, which is stupid, but I try to be kinder to myself about it from knowing that getting a... civilian involved with me, with my murderous life and my need to lie about it, wouldn’t end well either.”
I knew that original Yoji had been the one who’d started their relationship in their original Weiß and probably should’ve guessed that Ken had started this one. Were there any others?
Aya continued, “And... Ken’s aware that I don’t have the same feelings about him that I did for Yoji, always has been aware.”
None of what Aya had just said reassured me.
He moved one of the chairs over so he could sit facing me, close, his pretty face focused on me. “Yoji, is this just a friendly visit or is something going on? Do you need help? ...should I still be calling you ‘Yoji’?”
“Yes, please.” I knew what I needed, what I couldn’t seem to do for myself, but asking him for it.... I should be better on my own. I shouldn’t *need* him. But if I didn’t, then why had I come here, interrupted his day, and put him at risk? I would work my way to it. “Has Schuldig stopped bothering you like Nagi said? Stopped showing up and stopped affecting your dreams?”
“It seems so. My nightmares seem to be my own--I certainly have enough raw material on my own to use--and I haven’t seen him around. Though once in a while I feel like I’m being watched by someone and I don’t know if it’s really him or my paranoia. You?”
“The same. That’s...” I took a deep breath in. “That seems to be a bit of a problem for me. Stupidly enough. Without him chasing me, without the adrenaline and fear keeping me moving... I’m....” Spit it out. “I’m... finding it hard to keep going, keep *living*. I keep getting tired and apathetic and wondering if it’s worth it. Even without him dogging me, those sections of Kritiker that want me dead stop me from going home, back to Asuka, but they’re not showing up as a threat often enough to give me the same energy Schuldig did. I just... I feel so *pathetic*.”
Looking upset, radiating sincerity and intensity, Aya leaned in toward me and set his hand on my shoulder to try to comfort me or maybe further emphasize what he was about to say, the touch a bit of a shock since I hadn’t had many friendly touches in a long time, leaving me a bit starved, and I had the impression that he didn’t reach out to touch many people. His eyes really were so purple.... “Yoji, don’t give him this kind of victory. You’re not pathetic. He ripped everything away from you--your wife, home, friends, job, country, *identity*--and forced you to run for your life. He assaulted, scared, and isolated you, and made himself the only semi-familiar thing you had left. Of *course* you feel lost now without him chasing you to force you to go on. You’re tired and alone. Of *course* your thoughts are turning darker now that you have more time to think.”
“Aya--”
“*Thank you* for coming to me for help before doing anything... irrevocable. The last time, Yoji wouldn’t tell me or come to me about anything, and all I could do was watch him *spiral*....”
That was too raw for me to face at the moment, and I didn’t want to get sidetracked. “You faced Schuldig alone for years, and he was invading your mind and dreams.”
“I had my sister and vengeance to live for. I had a steady place to live, roommates who were also my co-workers checking in on me, and two jobs to do. I had inertia, routine, and a sense of purpose on my side.”
“But then you killed Takatori Reiji and got your vengeance, and Weiß broke up, so you lost all of that except for your sister.”
“...it’s *horrible*, but her kidnapping, my need to find and rescue her, and my return to the team broke me out of my own dark hole. Before that, I came close to... but she still needed me at least, even before she was taken.” Aya shook his head.
Truly horrible. He kept saying that I had it worse than he did, but he dealt with all this shit for *years* on his own. “Did original Yoji know about this?”
“No, and I doubt he would’ve cared much at the time it was happening.”
“What kind of an asshole was I?”
“I don’t blame him. We weren’t together then, and I didn’t reveal much to my teammates. I’d... gotten attached to some people and revealed things I shouldn’t have in the two teams I belonged to before our Weiß and that... ended very badly. Both times. I learned from it.”
“Did original Yoji know about *that*?”
“He found out about the Weiß team before ours and might’ve guessed about Crashers, though he had a lot of other things on his mind during our mission at the school so perhaps not.”
“So you didn’t *tell* him.”
“No.” No explanation, as if it didn’t need one, and Aya’s manner basically said, *Why would I?*
Have I managed to learn more intimate details about Aya in the very short time I’ve known him than original Yoji did over *years*? “But you’re telling me.”
“You need to know. Also, back then, I didn’t know how much Schuldig would let me reveal of things like that without punishing someone for it, but that’s not an issue here.”
A knock at the door let us know that our food had arrived, which was kind of a relief after how intense things had gotten. Aya must have agreed, because after he went to the door to get it and brought the laden tray to the table, he said, “Maybe we should try some lighter topics while we’re eating.”
“Do we *have* any lighter topics?”
Aya’s slight smile looked wry as he sat down with our meal. “We can try.”
After we both did our “itadakimasu,” watching Aya eating activated my own hunger, a good thing since I did need to get my weight up a bit. I just hadn’t had much of an appetite lately. Friendly company to eat with helped, such a small thing until you didn’t have it.
“Would you count my experiences in the flower shop here a lighter topic?” Aya asked. “I don’t know if it’s a trigger of any kind for you.”
“You’re not doing anything crazy there, are you?”
Another of Aya’s slight smiles. “Define ‘crazy.’”
“Ha, ha. Nah, it should be fine. I don’t remember much of my flower shop time, just that it seemed to be some short bursts of busy mayhem between long stretches of tedium.”
“That’s pretty accurate. We thankfully don’t have the same kind of schoolgirl devotees constantly underfoot like we had in Japan. Getting familiar with the local currency and many different UK accents of customers was rough and sometimes I still get tripped up, which I hate.”
“Doing that job but in a foreign language? Ugh. Do you actually know all the English names of all the plants you deal with?”
Aya snorted. “No.”
“How’s Ken doing with all that?”
“Worse. But most customers enjoy the ‘excitable puppy’ air he gives off and don’t mind. He’s endearing.” Aya certainly looked fond as he said it.
Suddenly remembering, I asked, “Do you still yell at people to buy something or leave?”
“We have fewer loiterers here. Besides, it doesn’t really feel like ‘my’ shop so I don’t feel like I have the right.”
“I don’t think you cared about that back when.”
“...I guess you might be right. Maybe it’s that I’m less angry now.”
Less angry, more resigned? If I said something like that, I’d be breaking our attempt at avoiding heavy topics while we ate. It might just be that killing the man who destroyed his family and his sister coming out of her coma had made a positive difference for him.
Now that I reminded myself of his sister, I said, “I saw Aya-chan about a month ago. She looked good, at least from the distance I saw her at. I checked out her security detail while I was in Tokyo trying to figure out the one around my wife. They’re good enough that I couldn’t get too close to either of them.”
Aya looked at me in silence for a bit then said, “...that seems reckless of you.”
“Now that I think about it, yeah, you’re kinda right.” It made so much sense at the time, but when I looked at it from another perspective and more distance.... “But I really needed to do it.” The original Yoji part of me was surprised Aya had said “reckless” instead of “stupid”; Aya really had mellowed out. “I obviously didn’t get caught at it.”
“That you know of.”
...shit. “I wasn’t worried about that before--”
“Obviously.”
“--but I am now.” If they had noticed me, they hadn’t done anything about it in the weeks since, so I was probably all right, but I couldn’t know that for certain.
“Good. You should be. Be more careful of your safety. But thank you for checking in on my sister and thinking of her. I can’t risk calling on Mamoru too often for updates on her condition.”
Like me, Aya couldn’t meet up with his loved one himself due to that part of Kritiker being willing to kill him for the “crimes” of disobeying their orders, failing to be executed by Kritiker agents, and skipping out on them. He’d joined Kritiker to save his sister but now Kritiker kept him from seeing her and being in her life. I didn’t call or write Asuka to explain what had happened, where I was, or what I was doing because I worried that Kritiker had her phone tapped and checked her mail and would find me and perhaps think she knew more about what was going on than she did and punish her. I hadn’t been able to get close enough long enough to hear what she thought was going on with me and why I’d left. I also worried that me being around the team in London too obviously or for long would drag more Kritiker attention (as well as Schuldig’s) to them, since here they’d get a chance to kill three of us: me, Aya, and Ken.
Damn, I’d driven us back to heavy, depressing topics and ruined my appetite too. “I’m sorry,” I said and pushed my plate away. Aya immediately got up out of his seat and came toward me. “Aya, you don’t have to--”
Aya sat on the bed, close to my chair, close to *me*, close enough that I could feel some of the warmth his body gave off. “You don’t need to apologize. Also, please keep eating. By the end, you... he... got so scarily thin and there was nothing I could say or do about it.”
That look on his face.... “Don’t give me those puppy eyes. They’re hard to argue with.”
Obviously confused and seemingly worried, he replied, “I... my face... my eyes don’t do that.”
“I think your face and eyes are more expressive than they used to be. Which is a good thing! Don’t stop it! I like it, and I hope it means that you’re opening yourself up to other people more.” I didn’t want Aya to stop that because of something dumb I said off the cuff.
Instead of addressing any of that, he said, “If you’re really not hungry anymore, you don’t have to eat, but I worry about you.”
With Aya close enough to touch and so concerned for me, the original Yoji wanted to give Aya a Look and say something like “I’m not hungry for *food*,” which made me!Yoji *cringe* but he wasn’t wrong, even if he worded it like a creep. I didn’t know if I even dared asked him for some snuggling from what it might lead to, but I was truly starved. It didn’t help that the shushing sound of light rain and occasional rumble of thunder might be nice, but the dampness in the air made me want to get under the covers with somebody friendly and share body heat and other... things. And I was *tired*. Tired of restless, sleepless nights and being on the run and alone, but also literally tired. Could Aya tell? He could be oblivious to a lot of things.
Patting the edge of the bed next to him, Aya said, “Yoji, come here. Please.”
I shouldn’t... but I got up and sat next to him. He put an arm around me and leaned closer to me as I leaned closer to him, our heads resting against each other, one of his hands stroking up and down my arm in a soothing way. With how protected and safe I suddenly felt, all my muscle tension immediately bled out of me, making me sleepier but also hornier. I wanted to fall backward onto the bed and have him straddle me and stroke me all over, to shudder beneath him and touch and kiss him back, but I shouldn’t. If I went to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to lust after Aya like this, but I *wanted* to see and be with him, not be unconscious in his presence. Who knew when I’d get another chance?
“It’s okay, I just haven’t been sleeping well lately,” I said. “I’m not always this down.”
“You can sleep here if you need to. I expected you would.”
“I came here to see you, so it wouldn’t make sense to waste some of that time asleep.”
“I’ll stay to keep you company, keep you safe.”
“Ken would be okay with that?”
“Even during the good times, I never moved in with him or spent every night with him. He and the team are used to me going out now and then without notifying them of where I am or how long I’ll be gone.”
“That’s dangerous. If somebody kidnapped you, they wouldn’t know it until you’ve been gone a long time.”
“It’s worth it. I need some time and space that’s truly my own.”
“I don’t want to keep you awake all night guarding me.”
“Then I’ll sleep with you.”
“To sleep with me or *sleep* with me?” my dumb mouth couldn’t help asking.
“I’m... open to both. I don’t know if you are though.” That was Aya being much more open about softer emotions than he used to be.
“Would you just *fuck* already?” Schuldig said, suddenly visible, seated by the table, near us, facing us.
Fuck! Seeing him, I instinctively threw myself backward, almost falling off the other side of the bed, but Aya sprang *forward*, *at* Schuldig. No! They fought hand to hand, entangled, moving too quickly for me to follow well. I wore my watch but left the protective, reinforced gloves in my coat pockets in the bathroom, meaning I’d have to be very cautious and limited in using my wire so I wouldn’t slice my own hands open, and I couldn't intervene in this kind of fight on those terms. I was useless, and Schuldig was laughing....
Aya was fast but Schuldig was faster, and I could see Schuldig gaining the upper hand....
Suddenly Schuldig had his right arm wrapped very tightly around Aya’s neck just under his jaw and the base of his skull and left hand yanking Aya’s left arm down and with such force that it pulled and stretched the collar of Aya’s sweater to expose his shoulder. Schuldig used his right arm and fist to pull Aya’s head dangerously to the right side, openly threatening to do worse. “Stop fighting this, Aya,” Schuldig said, “or I’ll snap your neck and kill you while Yoji helplessly watches. Or maybe I’ll just pull enough to paralyze you, also while Yoji has no choice but to just watch it happen. Be *nice*.”
My heart dropped and my throat tightened, afraid that Aya wouldn’t be willing or able to stop himself. With how Schuldig had Aya’s face tilted away from me, I couldn’t see even his minimalist facial expressions or get a look into his eyes to have any idea what Aya might be thinking or planning.
Obviously angry and frustrated, Aya stopped struggling and let himself go limp, but Schuldig, prepared for tricks, easily kept his hold on him and kept him upright. Aya couldn’t stay limp for long, not without hurting himself, so he stood on his own soon after, mostly still and trying to minimize the pain of being in Schuldig’s grip. Grinning with teeth bared, bright blue eyes alight, Schuldig gave me a very significant look, looked down at Aya’s bared shoulder, and then back at me, saying without a single, actual telepathic word that wouldn’t it be *funny* if he bit down hard where Aya’s neck met his shoulder, when neither Aya nor I could do anything about it. My stomach turned, not just at the violence of the possibility and pain it would inflict but also the nonconsensual sexual tinge it would have, knowing full well that Schuldig lusted after both of us in many different ways.
How was Schuldig *here*? How close had he been to us? He might be a telepath, with the ability to cloud people’s minds, but we hadn’t sensed his presence at *all*. How long had he been with us, watching and listening? Just at the hotel? Since the flower shop? *Earlier*? Had he made me come to London and meet with Aya specifically to get us alone and in this situation?
“I do enjoy that you being smarter means you can see and torment yourself with the possibilities, Yoji,” Schuldig purred at us. “It means I don’t have to do as much work explaining things to you.”
Aya said, his voice sounding strained and painful from the pressure on his neck, “Yoji, Schuldig can mess with our senses, but he’s still be visible on camera, which limits some of his ability to stick with us in certain places, like the flower shop and immediate surrounding area, without being discovered later. Also, London has a lot of CCTV cameras.” Probably Aya trying to reassure me, but I worried that Schuldig might punish him for it.
“You can be such a killjoy sometimes, Aya.” Schuldig moved Aya’s head to put Aya’s ear closer to his mouth. “It makes me want to *do* things to you.”
Trying to convince myself and Schuldig, I said, “You’ve put years of work into Aya, so you don’t want to just kill him for something minor now. It’d be a waste for you. Let him *breathe*!”
“There are billions of people in the world, and you’re only two of the games I currently have going on. Neither of you is irreplaceable.”
“Nagi said that he’d tell Persia about what you’ve been doing to us and there’d be punishment for it.”
“Then I guess I have to really make this worth it for me, hunh?”
All my attempts to deescalate it seemed to be making things *worse*.
“It’s okay, Yoji,” Aya said in a rasping voice, probably trying to soothe me.
It wasn’t okay, not in the slightest, and it didn’t work.
“Mmmm,” Schuldig purred into Aya’s ear, and something about the way Aya moved suggested, horribly, that he tried to avoid feeling Schuldig’s hard dick pressing into him. That sick bastard.
“*Don’t*,” Yoji said.
After looking briefly surprised that Yoji had noticed, Schuldig asked, “Why not? He’s been wanting you since you met up today--*God*, he’s horny for you today--but you’re too stuck on a woman you barely know who barely knows you and wouldn’t even recognize you now or like what you’ve become, to reciprocate. You’ve been away from her longer than you’ve been *with* her. Move on and let *her* move on.” Throwing my fears in my face. “But in the absence of that, why shouldn’t I give him some relief?”
“I don’t want *you*,” Aya gritted out. “Leave us alone.” He was going to get himself killed, but I could understand his disgust.
“Don’t you? I could make you.”
Holy fuck, no. “You said you wanted *us* to fuck already.”
“Somedays I enjoy the slow burn, pining shit, but two of my favorite toys are rarely in a room together these days--”
“Which is mostly your fault!”
“--so when you are, I want you to smash. But if you’re completely against it, I have to adjust my plans. Like you reminded me, there’s risk for me just being here, so I have to make it worth it.”
Did that mean I’d have to fuck Aya, with Schuldig watching, to save Aya from something much worse?
“You’re thinking that like it’s such a hardship. If it’s too horrible for you to contemplate, I’m here for him.”
~To Be Continued~