Deals

End of the fic, yeah.

Pairing: I AIN'T SAYING. Because it's complicated, whut. Just so you know, though, the three main characters of the fic are Ken, Crawford, and Farfarello.

Warnings: Graphic violence, graphic sex (twosome and threesome - what is it with me and writing porny threesomes?), spoilers, AU by the end of the fic, and mental disorders up the wazoo. Yeah. (It's got Farfarello in it. Of course there's stuff about mental disorders. ;P)

Disclaimer: Me no own. Me no claim me own. You no sue.

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Deals Part 8

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“Thank you for coming,” Akita Junko said, gesturing for the three remaining members of Weiss to take a seat across from her desk. It had been a week since Ken was taken to the mental hospital – a week of sleepless nights and second-guessing, wondering what had happened, what they could have done, had there been any signs they should have picked up on—

Needless to say, when Akita’s phone call came, they were more than ready to find out what had happened.

“How is Ken, Akita-san?” Omi asked eagerly, leaning forwards. “Do you know what’s wrong with him? Can it be fixed?”

“With mental illness, I have found that nothing is ever truly ‘fixed’,” Akita said bluntly. “We can make things better, but fixing it so it was like there never was a problem in the first place? No. Possible, but highly unlikely.”

“So what can you do for Ken?” Aya asked, his tone unfriendly.

“We have been able to determine that Hidaka-san suffers from dissociative identity disorder,” she said. “In other words, multiple personalities. In Hidaka-san’s case, this is more of a split personality. I understand that you’ve already met Kishou – he’s rather vitriolic and will take any opportunity to be nasty.”

Yohji glanced at Omi. “Yeah, we’ve met him,” he said.

Akita nodded. “We’ve done some research on Hidaka-san’s background,” she said. “He has been rather close-lipped about the possible origin of his disorder, but as every documented case I have come across has been a result of severe abuse in childhood—”

“Abuse?” Omi interrupted, eyes wide.

“Yes, both physical and sexual,” Akita said, annoyed at the interruption. “Our research came across a large court case involving the orphanage that Hidaka-san was placed into at the age of four, concerning accusations that the priest and two nuns in charge of the orphanage were abusing the children. Due to the children being minors, their names were kept out of it, but some of our contacts at the police department remembered the case. Hidaka-san’s name is on their records as being one of the most severely abused – and yet one who came out of it relatively well. Most of the other children went on to develop various social problems and a majority committed suicide – but before he joined Weiss, everything about Hidaka-san was perfectly normal. I believe this is a side effect of the development of his second identity, Kishou.”

None of the remaining three members of Weiss said anything, staring at Akita in shock.

“It would appear that where most sufferers of DID will attempt to completely protect the original personality from the abuse, leaving them with no memory of it at all, Ken created Kishou only to block out the sexual abuse,” Akita continued. “In return, Ken protected Kishou from the physical abuse, leaving two scarred but functional identities. We believe that no other identities developed due to the symbiotic relationship the two had – and, it would appear, have. I have a theory that the reason most DID sufferers end up with large numbers of identities rather than the two Hidaka-san has is that the first separate identity is created to completely protect the original, until that identity reaches a point where it cannot take anything more and thus creates another identity to protect itself, and so on and so forth. With Ken and Kishou, each of them protects and is protected in return – and interestingly, both identities are aware of one another, although Kishou appears to know more about their situation than Ken.

“The truly curious thing about Hidaka-san’s case,” Akita continued, looking at each of them in turn, “is that Kishou appears to have vanished for large periods of his life. The police officers who interviewed Hidaka-san say that they remember that his attitude switched dramatically on various occasions, indicative that a different identity was in control at different times, but Kritiker has no record of Hidaka displaying any personality alterations for several years, until very recently. Something has triggered the re-emergence of the dual identities, and that is what I have called you here for today.”

“You’re asking us if we know of anything that could have triggered this?” Yohji said.

“Yes,” Akita confirmed.

Omi frowned. “There’s . . . nothing that’s really changed,” he said. “Apart from Ken-kun’s secret admirer, that is,” he added, laughing a little. The laughter sounded wrong to his ears – flat and too fake. It was hard to pretend to be happy when one of his closest friends was insane and had been insane for years – and he hadn’t noticed.

Akita’s eyes lit up. “That could be exactly what we’re looking for,” she said. “Remember, Kishou deals with sexual things in relation to Hidaka-san, so if Hidaka-san came across a person that Kishou found extremely attractive, or if a person began displaying a sexual interest in Hidaka-san, this could very well have triggered Kishou’s re-emergence.”

“Are you certain that Kishou is the identity that has re-emerged? Not Ken?” Aya asked.

Akita shrugged. “I have spoken to Hidaka-san when he names himself Ken, and when he names himself Kishou,” she said. “Ken is relatively polite – he is understandably angered at being placed in a mental institution without his permission, but despite his temper he is quite pleasant to talk to, if stubborn and unwilling to cooperate. Manx has spoken to him, and confirms that this is the Hidaka-san she has dealt with as liaison to Weiss. Kishou, on the other hand, is rude, snide, and will say anything if he thinks it will hurt the other person. The only thing he is not is violent – although he does make a habit of using sex as a weapon, but given his past I am prepared to forgive him that.”

“So what can we do?” Omi asked.

Akita sighed. “There is nothing you can directly do to help Hidaka-san,” she said. “I am afraid that it is the opinion of myself and every other physician here that allowing you to see him would not be beneficial, for either you or him. I would be very grateful if you would find out all you can about this ‘secret admirer’ of Hidaka-san’s, however, and forward the information to me as soon as you can.”

Omi nodded. “We’ll do our best,” he said, standing up and bowing to Akita. “Thank you for your time, doctor.”

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Ken lay on his back in the five-by-five room at the mental hospital, hands tucked under his head. They had tried their best to make it a reasonably nice room – the bed was soft and comfortable, the walls were an attractive shade of blue, and he had a TV and a bookshelf – but nothing could disguise the fact that it was a prison. A prison for the mad, instead of a prison for the crooks.

Ken had occasionally wondered what it would be like in prison. He’d come to the conclusion that it would be a good place to think, to get your head back on straight – secluded from the outside world, it would be so peaceful and calm after his time in Weiss. If he wanted to, he was sure he could find ways to avoid the other inmates.

But this. . . .

The mental hospital was a prison, sure. But it was a prison where he was never left alone to get things straight in his head, to work through whatever problems he was having in his own time and his own way. He’d only been there a week, and already he was sick of being poked and prodded to conform to what the psychiatrists thought, to display what they thought he should display, to say what they thought he should say and do what they thought he should do.

And it’s all your fucking fault, he thought at Kishou.

Fuck, how was I supposed to know what your friends would do? Kishou sniped back.

What, because having someone flip out right in front of them wouldn’t make them think he was a complete loon and needed to be locked up?

Fuck it. Who needs them? They’re arseholes anyway.

They’re my friends.

Your friends? Three people you decided there was no way you could trust? You call that having friends?

. . . shit, you’re right. I’m never going back to Weiss, am I.

You didn’t want to be there anyway.

Even Weiss is better than this.

And we’re stuck here until we do what they want us to.

Yeah.

Fuck.

. . . Kishou? Let’s make a deal.

Another one?

Yeah, another one. Even if we give them what they want and get out of here, the only place they have for us is Weiss. And if we go back, they’ll be watching us all the time, waiting for something to go wrong – we won’t be able to trust them with anything, and we’ll never get a moment’s peace. It’s not enough, because I remember now – the only one who’s ever taken care of me is you. You’re a fucking arrogant little shit and a bastard to boot, but you’ve always taken care of me, and you’ve always been loyal. I’ve given all of that right back to you. So fuck them. We split the time we’re in control fifty-fifty, with the other one always aware of what’s going on unless it’s something we don’t want to deal with. No more forcible blackouts, and if the other one wants to know what’s happened while they’ve been ‘sleeping’, we tell. Not show. Whether we’re in here, or out there – nothing changes. We don’t bow to what they want. We’re partners, and we work together. Now and for the rest of our life.

. . . you know, Ken, that might be the best idea you ever had.

Fuck you.

Not quite. A toast, to our new deal: fuck them.

Ken raised an imaginary glass to the ceiling. “Fuck them,” he said.

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“What the fuck is taking so long?” Schuldig snapped, pacing. “How long can they keep him on the goddamn phone – sorry,” he added, glancing at Farfarello.

Farfarello shrugged. “Why should I care? Take the Lord’s name in vain all you want. It’s all it’s good for.”

“I’ve got everything ready to go once Crawford gives the order,” Nagi said, watching Schuldig pace with a completely blank expression. His thoughts skittered nervously against Schuldig’s, however, betraying him more thoroughly than anything else.

“Shit. I mean, good job, kid.” Distracted, Schuldig stared at the closed door to Crawford’s study.

“Have a drink,” Farfarello suggested. “Watch some television. Kill something.”

Schuldig snorted. “I’d prefer the last one,” he said, then brightened all of a sudden. “Hey, does this mean I can actually kill Weiss now?”

“No,” Crawford said, appearing in the doorway. “We’ll need Hidaka’s cooperation, and we won’t get it if we kill his old team. If I see them interfering, however, I’ll give you free rein.”

“Finally! How long does it take to make a fucking phone call?” Schuldig said, throwing his hands in the air. “Are we all ready to go, fearless leader?”

“The Elders have given us orders to appropriate Hidaka Ken and add him to Schwarz, due to his ability to confound their top precognitive and telepath,” Crawford said, barely repressing a grin. “They have told us to train him ourselves rather than send him to Rosenkreuz, as we are approaching the time of the ceremony. We should have enough time if we act fast.”

“Everything is ready to go,” Nagi told him.

Crawford nodded. “Good,” he said. “All of you, come with me. We’re going to visit a dear, sick friend of ours.”

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Omi sighed, rubbing his eyes. He’d stayed up all night chasing down information on the orphanage that Ken had lived in over a decade ago, needing to confirm on his own what Akita-san had told them. Everything fit. The records on the police database, the articles in online archives, everything that he could find without following a time-consuming paper trail all backed it up.

He just didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want to think that his friend, Hidaka Ken, had been so horribly abused at such a young age. He wanted to think that whatever was wrong with Ken had a nicer origin, an easier origin, one which was much easier to fix so that everything would be fine again and Ken would be back with Weiss.

If there was one thing he knew, however, it was that life just didn’t work like that.

Sighing again, he dug out the shop’s record of orders and flipped through the pages until he found the order of flowers that Ken’s secret admirer had made to be sent to Ken. It had been billed to the expenses account of a large firm whose name Omi vaguely recognised since he drove past its towering office block head office, with no other details attached. Well, it was a start, although Omi found it hard to believe that he would be able to find one person among the hundreds of employees the company must have.

Still, Ken had mentioned that the man had come in again . . . and he and Yohji had been firmly convinced that the day Ken practically bullied him into allowing Ken to make deliveries had been a day when they would be delivering to his secret admirer. Flicking through the book, he grinned triumphantly when he came across another entry billed to the same company, this time for an arrangement to be delivered to that same company. Grabbing the phone book, he quickly found the number and dialled.

An office lady picked up on the third ring. “Yoshihara Enterprises, how may I help you?” she said.

“Hello, I’m calling from the Koneko no Sumu Iie flower shop,” Omi said smoothly. “We delivered an arrangement to you last week, but we’ve yet to receive payment. I hate to trouble you, but would you happen to know who made the order so that I might speak with them directly? The company was the only name that was left with us, I’m afraid.”

“Hmm, the Koneko? That sounds familiar . . . please hold on a moment while I check with my colleague.”

“Thank you.”

Omi held the line silently, listening to the faint sounds of two women talking on the other end. A couple of seconds passed, and then the office lady returned.

“Sir? I’m not aware of who made the order, but Crawford-san left a note at reception that a delivery from the Koneko flower shop would be made at some point last week.”

“. . . Crawford?” Omi said, staring blankly at the far wall.

“Yes, Brad Crawford-san. Americans give their family name last, isn’t that silly? I’m afraid I can’t transfer your call to him, as he’s not an employee of this company – he’s a representative of Takatori Reiji-sama. I can forward you to our accounts department, however, and they can take the appropriate action to see that you receive payment.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Omi heard himself say, as if from a great distance. “Thank you for your help.” He put the phone down with a loud ‘click’.

It could be just a coincidence. It could have absolutely nothing to do with it.

But that was complete bullshit, and Omi knew it.

Omi ran for the stairs. “Yohji! Aya!” he yelled. “We’ve got a problem!”

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Ken was still lying on his bed in the room he had been given, when all the lights went out and the door swung open.

“Hidaka-san,” Crawford said, strolling into his cell.

“Hi,” Ken said, not bothering to get up. In the back of his mind, Kishou was making appreciative comments, which Ken rolled his eyes and ignored.

“I’ve come to make a proposition,” Crawford said.

Ken raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he said disinterestedly.

“It has come to the attention of my masters that you possess qualities which confound our telepaths and precognitives,” Crawford said. “They wish for you to join Schwarz.”

Ken sat up slowly, his eyes narrowing. “This isn’t an optional ‘wish’, is it,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” Crawford agreed.

Ken eyed him for a moment longer, then said, “So what’s your proposition?”

Crawford smiled slowly. “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he said. “Our masters are cruel people, and we did not join them by choice, nor do we stay with them by choice. I have been planning for Schwarz to win our freedom from them for a long, long time, and Weiss was necessary to that plan. However,” he gestured around the cell, “you are here, and thus the Weiss I required for my plan to succeed no longer exists, and never will exist again. In addition to this, you will be joining Schwarz, whether you come willingly or not. So.” Crawford folded his arms. “I have a new plan to free Schwarz from our masters. A plan in which you are necessary. So my proposition is this: you come with us, you do exactly what I say in order to help us win our freedom, and afterwards. . . .” he shrugged. “You may do as you wish. You may stay with Schwarz, or you may leave and go live out the rest of your life elsewhere. Either way, you will be paid a significant amount, and you will not be stuck either in a mental institution for the rest of your life, or working for cruel people who could not care less about you.”

“Will you try to ‘cure’ me?” Ken asked, his lip curling.

Crawford raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?” he said. “Your illness is precisely what makes you valuable to our masters, and besides – I like you this way.”

Well? Ken asked.

Let me have control for a moment, Kishou said, and Ken readily let him come to the forefront.

Relaxing into a comfortable sprawl, Kishou smiled at Crawford, and saw the recognition in his eyes. “Will I get regular sex?” he asked, and laughed internally as Ken spluttered in indignation in the back of his mind.

Crawford laughed. “Only if you don’t mind threesomes,” he said.

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“Are you certain?” Yohji asked, for the fiftieth time. He shifted up a gear and sped past two cars, weaving in and out of the rush hour traffic at a break-neck speed.

“Yes, I’m certain,” Omi said, hanging onto the armrest for dear life. He didn’t tell Yohji to slow down, however, panicking that they wouldn’t get to the hospital in time, and then Ken would be – would be—

He didn’t know, and that terrified him.

“Fuck,” Yohji swore as they zoomed past the turning, and did a smart u-turn, causing drivers in both lanes to slam on their brakes. Yohji flipped off the drivers screaming obscenities at him as they sped down the road and swerved into the hospital parking lot. Yohji screeched to a halt as close to the entrance as he could get, and the three remaining members of Weiss leapt out of the car and ran towards the building.

The only person in sight was a small boy in a grey school uniform standing by the open doors. The remnants of Weiss skidded to a halt as the boy turned.

“So I was right after all,” Omi said.

“Crawford knew you would turn up,” the boy said, sounding bored. “I’m here to stop you interfering. If you annoy me, I can kill you, so I would suggest staying where you are.”

“You won’t take my friend!” Omi yelled, running forwards – only to slam into a wall of nothing and skid backwards into Aya.

“Time to go, Nagi-kins!” a familiar nasal voice said, and Schwarz’s telepath walked out of the building, followed by the psychopath, Crawford – and Ken.

“Ken-kun!” Omi yelled, surging forwards again, only to be pushed back by that invisible wall.

Ken glanced over at them, and said nothing. Staring at him, it gradually sank in that Ken was not being dragged or coerced in any manner – he was walking calmly beside Schwarz, an easy familiarity towards them in his body language.

He wasn’t being controlled.

He wasn’t being forced.

He was going with Schwarz willingly.

Yohji stared at him. “That’s it?” he said, harsh incredulity in every word. “That’s it? You’ve worked with us, fought with us, killed with us, and now you just walk off?”

Ken hesitated, then shrugged. “I didn’t put me in a mental institution,” he said. “Ask yourself who abandoned who first.”

“Hidaka,” Crawford said, standing by the car the rest of Schwarz had piled into.

“Be there in a minute,” Ken said without looking at him. The familiarity with which they spoke – like the familiarity in the way they acted – both galled and frightened Ken’s former teammates.

Ken’s eyes flicked from Yohji, to Aya, and finally rested on Omi. “It was fun while it lasted,” he said, not looking away from the younger boy. “But Weiss is over, now.” Turning, he made his way over to Schwarz’s car, gesturing for Nagi and Crawford to get in first. When they did, showing no qualms about leaving Ken on his own outside the car, Omi felt sick.

Standing by the car door, Ken turned back to them. “Tell Kritiker . . .” he hesitated, then said, “tell Kritiker I’ve made some new deals.”

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END

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Hopefully these links will go through! ^^;

Notes on flowers:



http://www.clareflorist.co.uk/meanings.asp

I am not a florist. I have no idea if the flowers I had Crawford request from Ken would look good together or not. I picked them for their meanings, and their meanings alone.

The second arrangement Crawford orders from Ken consists of fleur de lis, galax, and baby’s breath. Fleur de lis means “flame” or “burning”, galax means “encouragement”, and baby’s breath means “pure of heart” or “innocence”. You can read the meaning in that several ways – is Crawford trying to encourage a flame in the (relative) innocent, or is he encouraging a flame to burn the pure of heart? ^_^ I’ll leave the decision on that one up to you. (And yes, I know it’s trite. Sue me. :P)


Notes on Ken’s lack of memory after his fight with Farfarello:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000028.htm
http://www.muhealth.org/~neuromedicine/concussion.shtml
http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~cahr/headfall.html

There are two potential explanations for Ken not remembering anything. One is that Ken has a mild concussion. Strange as it may seem, one of the symptoms of a concussion is where a person is completely conscious for a period of time after sustaining the injury, but has no memory of the event. I’ve experienced this: when I was eight I hit my head at school, and between then and waking up in reception I don’t recall a thing – to me, I was unconscious for that time period. The reports from my teachers, however, said that I was awake, crying, and asked for a bucket to be sick into, and it was later discovered that I had a grade II concussion. Since Ken is a) pumped up on adrenaline, b) slightly nuts, and c) highly aroused, it’s entirely possible that the combination of those would mean he wouldn’t curl up and cry like the eight-year-old me did, but keep fighting/fucking with Farfarello. I find it highly unlikely, however, as concussions tend to cause a great deal of disorientation.

The other explanation is what actually happened – which is that Kishou took over and forced Ken into a blackout of sorts while Kishou had control, and got a blowjob. :)


Notes on office ladies:

http://wrt-intertext.syr.edu/VI/forrest.html

An office lady is basically the Japanese equivalent of a secretary. They’re employed to handle office administration work – I have heard them described as “people who do nothing much around the office, like secretaries”, but all that description really shows is that that person has never worked as a secretary. Office ladies, however, really don’t do much of anything around the workplace – which might seem a bit confusing on the surface (why would anyone bother to hire them, then?) but the link above explains things very well.


Notes on Kishou’s name:

http://www.babynamesworld.com/names4/japanese-name-meanings.html

Kishou is an exclusively male Japanese name, unlike a few others that can be male or female. When Ken says “At least you’re still male”, I think he’s more relieved that his “subconscious” isn’t a transsexual than anything else. ^_^


Notes on Dissociative Identity Disorder:

http://www.sidran.org/didbr.html
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx18.htm
http://www.noah-health.org/english/illness/mentalhealth/cornell/conditions/dissocid.html
http://www.healthubs.com/dissociative/
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/

See the links above for more information on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). For those who haven’t spent an excessive amount of time researching this as I have done, that’s the new name for multiple personality disorder, as that phrase was determined misleading. PLEASE NOTE, however, that there is a great deal of controversy over whether or not DID actually exists, since every documented case is plausibly physician-induced.

While I’m here, however, I would like to take the opportunity to point out that I am NOT an expert on mental disorders. In fact, my knowledge is limited to an A-level in psychology. I have taken a great deal of liberty with Ken’s condition, and I’m 99.99% certain that you just would not get an individual who has Ken’s particular form of DID. Do not take anything in this fic as fact about the condition, because the majority of it is either completely made up or has been subject to a vast amount of artistic license.

With any work of fiction, however, the thing to remember the most is that it is fiction. Everything in it that is treated as a fact should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the author may have removed vital pieces of information, twisted the facts into something more appropriate to the story, or just fabricated it entirely – and you have no way of knowing what course of action has been taken. Don’t take anything for granted, not least because the author most likely isn’t expecting you to – and wouldn’t want you to.


Notes on Farfarello:

http://www.psychologyinfo.com/problems/impulse_control.html
http://www.violence-risk.com/impulse/overview.htm
http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/congenital-insensitivity/nopain.html
http://www.specialchild.com/archives/dz-027.html

The information from the above links were not used in the story at all, but some of them – particularly the last two – are rather intriguing when considering Farfarello, so I thought I’d dump them in here anyway. ^_^