Castle Down

Tell me no more stories
And I'll tell you no lies
No one wants to hurt me
But everybody tries
And if you think that I've been waiting
For my planets to align
It's Time you go on
Get your things, get up, get out
I'm doing fine

--

"Does he have to stay on the couch? He's dirty." Nagi gave the unconscious boy a dirty look from his position on the couch.

"He's dirty because he was just laying under a collapsed building," Schuldig said. "You'd be dirty too."

A warm female body pressed itself against Nagi's side, wrapping an arm around his waist. "Don't be so mean, Nagi-kun," she said. Crawford eyed the two of them for a moment before speaking.

"Nagi, would you at least wash the blood out of his hair and get his shoes and jacket off. You know which room he's going into." Nagi sighed loudly, but took hold of the unconscious body with his gift, trailing him into the bathroom.

"If you really must know, I don't think much more of you than Schuldig does," Nagi muttered to the boy he was carrying. "I think you're a waste of space and oxygen, and that we'd be better off without you. Crawford, though, is going all mister-high-and-mighty on us about whether or not we're allowed to kill you."

He continued his monologue the whole time he was dressing the wounds the other boy had sustained.

Schuldig appeared in the doorway as he was wrapping bandages around the assassin's ribs. "It's like having your very own, life-sized dress up doll," he commented. Nagi shot him a dirty look.

"If you're that keen on undressing him, Schuldig, you're welcome to take over." He tugged the shirt back down to where it was meant to be, and surveyed his handiwork. The young blond was clean, bandaged, and whole, at least for now. Schuldig was making a comment about undressing people five years younger than him that Nagi duly ignored. He let the boy gently into the bed Crawford had designated, in what was now the spare bedroom, and returned to his girlfriend. She was still in her school uniform, and he paused to smile at her.

"Hey, Nanami-chan." He settled next to her on the couch, and she pressed play on the movie they'd been watching.

"Kids your age should be in bed at this hour," Schuldig said through a yawn.

--

Nearly a week passed and the boy in the bed hardly even stirred. It was six days after his entrance into the Schwarz house-hold, on a rainy afternoon. Most everyone was out doing their own business, and he opened his eyes in a strange room.

Looking around, he took in the neat bed-clothes, slightly rumpled from where he'd been laying. There was a small wooden table with drawers beside the bed, and resting on it was a small, nondescript lamp. The room was Western in it's design and execution, the coverlet and curtains a matching shade of royal blue. The bed frame was wooden as well, and stained to match the beaureau in the corner and the bed-side table, and the closet doors were slatted and folding.

He didn't remember any of how he'd come to be in the strange room with no personal effects. Standing slowly, he winced slightly as he realized that his chest hurt terribly, as did his ankle. He was able to stand, however, and it didn't hamper his breathing too much, and he pulled open the drawers in the beaureau. Most were empty, but the top drawer contained a dusty old bible, worn at the edges. On the bible was a rosary, also covered in dust, but otherwise very pretty. A small hand gun and a blunt knife sat side by side, less dusty than the rosary and bible, but it was the photograph that drew his attention. It had the bleached look of an older photograph, before colours had become so bright and clear as they were modernly. A smiling family looked out from the small square, a beautiful woman with long dark hair who was dwarfed by a grinning man with greying dark hair. Two children, both young boys and seemingly identical twins stood between them, grinning impishly at the camera.

The backdrop appeared to be a beach, the sun setting low in the sky behind them. There were a few trees visible on one side of the photo, and a beach ball rested at their feet.

He turned it over, looking to see if anything had been written on the back.

"Family vacation, 1975
Ocean Beach at San Diego"

He wondered who was in the picture, and why it had been important enough to keep all these years. It was a small comfort that the room wasn't entirely without something personal, some human touch to it, though he still didn't know who the room belonged to. It didn't seem at all familiar to him, but he didn't know what he'd done to get there.

He pushed open the door, and a small black cat immediately made it's way into the room, settling on the bed with an air of a cat who has been denied something for too long. He stopped and watched it for a moment as it settled, and then turned back towards the hallway.

It was a long hall, with two turns at either end. The door he'd come from was at the left end, and he could see several doors lining the wall. The one at the very end was open, and he could see inside to a bathroom. The floor mat and shower curtain - what he could see of it, anyway, - was a pretty green colour, and when he walked forward and poked his head in, he could see that everything from the soap dish to the trash can was the same shade of leaf-green.

Too afraid to test any of the closed doors, he turned around and wandered back the way he'd come. He felt tired by his walk, but still curious, and he continued past the door of the room he'd awoken in down to the other corner. This one opened up into a large living room, with tall shelves full of movies, and the most amazing television set that he'd ever seen. It was a massive affair, fixed to the wall above a small stand full of boxes with coloured lights and buttons. There were speakers affixed around the room, and the entire thing gave off an air of affluence and comfort.

The only thing saving it from total overload was the couch, which was a mottled green and orange beast that looked to have seen the inside of a meat grinder once or twice and set on fire before being thrown into a pile on the floor where it then proceeded to coalesce back into something resembling furniture.

A girl in a high school uniform and pale blue hair flung herself out of the monstrosity passing itself off as a sofa and attached herself to him, saying something that he belatedly translated as, "You're finally awake, we've been so worried about you!"

He took a moment to collect his thoughts and get his breath back after the bone-crushing hug. "... Tot?" He managed finally. She looked somewhat embarrassed.

"I ... used to be Tot," she said. "Now I'm Nana-"

"Nanami-chan!" A cheerful voice called from the doorway, and they both turned. Nanami released him to wave at the door.

"Nagi-kun! Guess what!" He'd never seen anyone's expression melt away quite so quickly before. The telekinetic of Schwarz stood there, glowering as though the force of his gaze alone would crush him. Maybe it could, he had time to think before spots swam up before his eyes and he fell forward onto Nanami.

The light from the windows was muted, and he found himself back in the bedroom he'd first woken up in. For the first time, he noticed the desk in the corner, a white lump draped across the top and a dark shape hanging from the back of a chair. After a moment, he realized it was his sweater and jacket, the mission-clothes he'd been wearing the night he dropped Miyakamo Industries building down on top of his own head.

There was a new shape by the door, and he struggled to focus in the near dark. A light switched on, blinding him momentarily, but when he discovered the identity of the person he jerked backwards out of reflex, hitting the headboard and pressing into it until his ribs hurt with the effort.

"I won't hurt you," Farfarello said calmly. "You were brought here for a specific purpose, and it would be against my better judgment to go against Crawford's wishes." He made a gesture towards the bed. "When your body has healed more, I will teach you to be unafraid."

Leaving those cryptic words to be puzzled over in his absence, Farfarello then vacated the room. Moments later, Nanami popped her head in.

"I thought you'd be awake now. He's been standing in here since you passed out earlier. He wouldn't even come out for dinner. Are you hungry?"

His stomach gave a loud rumble at the thought of food, and he grinned sheepishly. She barely looked like the Tot he'd fought so many years ago, and it seemed his other options were Schwarz. "I'd like that, Nanami-san," he said politely. She giggled, and disappeared.

A few moments later, she bounced in, wearing pajama pants and a tank top. "Nagi-kun doesn't like you much," she said in a low whisper. "I couldn't believe how angry he looked. And when you fell over, I thought he was going to explode!" She giggled, as though the idea of her boyfriend exploding was an amusing one.

"Oh.. yes... I'm... I'm sorry, I think... I fell on you earlier," he said, feeling like an idiot.

"You're alright," she said, and handed him a steaming mug. "It's stew; Crawford made it, so it should be alright." He'd been about to raise it to his lips, but her words gave him pause. She giggled again. "Schuldig can't cook," she said. "And Farfarello doesn't try. Crawford's the best, though, that's all I meant."

She bounced off the bed with an energy that he felt envious of. By the door, she paused, one hand on the frame. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked speculatively.

It felt like he had to drag his name up from a very long way down. "Omi," he said finally. "Tsukiyono Omi." The syllables sounded awkward on his tongue, and he wondered what Schwarz would want with him.

"Ja," she said. "Oyasumi, O-mi-ku-n," she said, dragging it out in a way that was so reminiscent of Ouka that he felt tears sting at his eyes.

This is silly, he thought fiercely. She died years ago.

So had Tot, a voice supplied in the back of his mind. Farfarello stabbed her, but the telekinetic - Nagi - had brought her back.

-Spilled coffee, yeah?- A familiar voice touched in his mind. -Water under the tower and all that. Crawford is glad you're awake, but the faggot-ass jerk won't come and say it himself.-

Schuldig left an amused feeling behind and left. Omi tried to ignore the sensation of someone in his mind, and finished his stew. It made him feel tired again, and he left the cup on the table before laying down to sleep some more.

--

The next time he awoke, he was feeling more like himself, and was able to spend time actually wandering the house more. Nanami gave him a full tour of the apartment building of which they occupied the entire top floor, pointing out people they knew and were friendly with.

"I've never even been to this side of Tokyo," Omi revealed, looking out at the unfamiliar skyline from the roof.

"It's very beautiful," Nanami said quietly. "Especially from up here; the city just seems to go on and on forever."

Omi nodded in agreement, looking out over the buildings. "Nanami... why are you here?" He cast her a sidelong glance.

She looked pensive. "Well, I suppose it's because I've got nowhere else to go," she said. "My... family's dead. I don't know anyone else. And Nagi-kun cares for me, in his own way."

"He really loves you, I think," Omi said softly. "It's a very special feeling." She heard something wistful in his voice, and turned to look at him straight.

"You loved someone once?" she asked bluntly. He nodded.

"It turned out... we were cousins. But.. she died anyway. I still loved her. I don't think... I'll ever love anyone again. Love's not for me. I'm going to die too young to enjoy it, and I couldn't make someone fall in love with me, and then leave them like that. Not after losing everyone close to me."

"Don't think like that, Omi. Don't ever think that. Not even Schuldig thinks like that, and he's the most fatalistically depressed person I've ever met."

He cast a surprised look at her. "Schuldig? Depressed?"

She nodded. "He's very good at hiding it," she said. "But sometimes, if you catch him when he's alone, you can see it in his eyes. He's... lonely, I think. Not so much any more, but... for a while, I used to be afraid that he'd do something drastic, like kill himself."

"But... he's so confident, so sure of himself." Omi said, and even to himself it sounded like a weak argument.

"Is he? Is he really?" They were silent for a long time. The sun was sinking under the horizon, and the stars were already starting to come out. "If you looked at Schwarz, without knowing anything about them, you would think Crawford is the cool and collected leader. He's the one in charge, and Nagi is the weakest link. Farfarello is insane, and Schuldig is... well, just Schuldig. But... If you get to know them, you'd learn things like Crawford throws things when he loses his temper - which is pretty much at least three or four times a day. Schuldig is depressed and lonely, and Nagi is ... really pretty weird. Farfarello is the most normal of all of them, I think, because he doesn't have any powers like theirs. He has his moments, yes, and his bad days, like the rest of us, but the things he thinks of. He's taught me so much more than even going to school has. He's the worst when he drinks, though. It's not very often, but sometimes he'll see something that reminds him of something bad, and he'll get into a bottle of whiskey or something, and when he drinks, he... talks."

"When you talk about them, Nanami, you make them sound almost human," Omi whispered. She gave him a surprised look.

"Aren't they human? Aren't they as human as you or me?"

He stood, stretching his muscles out. "Am I human any more?"

--
TBC
Lyrics are Rose Red, by Emilie Autumn

Chapter is dedicated to Argyle with much thanks for the review. I've got some surprises planned, and I hope you'll all stick around for them.