Pairings: Kind of ambiguous. Take what you like.

Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz belongs to Koyasu Takehito, among other people. You know, he’s really sexy, except that he has worse teeth than Austin Powers.

Bleach

- A Weiß Kreuz fanfiction by Caspian -

-------------------- Part One

---------- Omi

Some days, you get the mission. It’s cool, clean, quick, and smooth. Everything falls into place like clockwork, and you’re airborne because you’re God. All else fades into white noise, because you just soared in like a spirit through the window, fought flawlessly, and held the most ultimate control in your hands. You’ve exorcised one of Persia’s dear dark beasts, and come off higher than a kite.

Then, some days -most days- the mission gets you. You mess up. One of your teammates mess up. You all mess up. Some of your information is wrong. Somebody who isn’t supposed to be there shows up. Somebody who is supposed to be there doesn’t. You have doubts. You wonder if maybe Persia isn’t just some bitter old rich guy looking for a thrill. You find out you share the same blood as one or more of your targets.

You know. The little things.

In other words, a whole sequence of events has to move perfectly in order for the mission to go right. If you want to come off guiltless and beautiful, a lot has to happen. But it doesn’t take much to fuck everything up. Sometimes, it’s all just too much, and you’re struggling not to break down right there. Just one look at the outfit – the shorts, the V-neck, the jackets – and you’re already sweating. It’s kind of funny that often as not you see bloodstains when you look at those clothes. Blood comes out. Doesn’t matter what Lady Macbeth thought. You’ve never had a blood spot you couldn’t remove. Not even out of the white jacket. You just have to soap it and scrub, maybe wash it more than once, give it a little time and a little bleach.

Bleach. Dirt. Mission clothes. It’s all just a gentle reminder that you have laundry to do. And yeah, some of it’s bloodstains. But it’s still wet. If you get to the blood while it’s wet, it’s not so bad at all. Just toss it into the washer. It’s only if you let it get dry and rusty that you have to really scrub and try. Ignoring the stain, giving it time to set, just makes it worse.

You can ignore the irony.

Your apartments are above the Koneko, but the ‘laundry room’ is in the basement below it. The place where you receive your missions isn’t very far from the place you clean up after them.

More irony. That could get irritating.

At least this one was relatively successful. The target died. Weiß’s worst injury came from Ken tripping and spraining his ankle on your retreat. None of you knew anyone you had to kill, and no one had a major revelation about his tragic past.  

But there had been the doubt. The lingering wonder if maybe Persia was wrong, maybe Kritiker had screwed up, maybe this person didn’t deserve to die. They were presented with the usual evidence when Manx came in, but they hadn’t been able to catch this guy in the act. And it was just drug trafficking. Was that really worth dying for? It had been quick, at least. When you were after someone in the midst of their job, they were aware, they were fighting back. People were shooting at you. Your brain shut down, adrenaline and training took over. You got the rush, the thrill.

//Dodge. Duck. Thrust. Move away. Charge. They’re shooting at me. Jesus Christ! Did that hit me!? I think it did, but I can’t feel it! Maybe I can’t feel it because I’m dying. God, God, please God, don’t let me be dying. Was that Youji’s scream? Please let Youji be okay. Dodge. Dodge. Duck. Slide. I think they did shoot me. But I can still move. There’s the target! Target, target, target. Aim, throw, pause, listen...//

//Dead.//

It’s not a very organized thought pattern, and when it’s all over sometimes you throw your head back and laugh like a crazy person, because you weren’t shot, and you aren’t dead, and it wasn’t Youji’s scream. So you can just ignore the bodies and Aya’s glare and Youji’s grumbling and the fact that Ken won’t look you in the face. Because you’re all alive!

You don’t get any of that when you plunge a poison dart into the throat of a sleeping man. You just get that strange jerk of the body, as if the soul is trying to get out a few minutes too early.  Then, the silence. The silence is what kills you. The worst part of any mission is just the waiting, the waiting, the waiting.

Sometimes, gunshots are the perfect cure for too much thinking. But that’s Suicide Lane right there, in one way or another. Suicide sucks. You know that. Sometimes, you can still remember her sweet face if you try. Or maybe you just think you remember. It doesn’t matter, really. The hurt’s still there, and she was a suicide. Chalk another one up to hating Reiji Takatori. Thanks, dad.

Ah, sarcasm. How bitter. Leaves a funny taste in your mouth, but not a bad one.

Laundry. You’re procrastinating. Eager enough to kill people, but when it comes to household chores you can’t help wanting to put it off. Well, enough of that. Can’t let the blood set, and you have other things to wash besides. Momoe is minding the shop, right? So take advantage of the break. No rest for the wicked, after all.

Shorts, V-neck, jackets, might as well do sheets... It’s a pain in the ass carrying a bundle you can’t see over the top of. Good thing you don’t have Ken’s grace, or you’d probably kill yourself on the way down the stairs. The thought of Ken making an idiot of himself makes you smile. Not because you don’t like Ken. No, nothing like that at all. Just... he doesn’t mind playing the fool. His smile is infectious. You wouldn’t mind such a disease.

Wait. The sound of water running. Aya’s probably down there already, taking care of his laundry first. Heartless bastard. He wears a black trench coat. Blood’s not so bad on black. You’re the one with the white. Maybe, if you put on the right face, he’ll let you toss your stuff in there with his. He’s not really heartless, after all, just cold as hell. You get the pout ready, and –

“Aya-kun? Is that you?”  – round the corner.

“No,” says the figure standing at the sink. You’re treated to the back of Ken’s had, and Ken’s voice. He’s scrubbing at something in the sink.

“Oh, gomen ne, Ken-kun! Are you using the washer?”

“No. I don’t think this stain is going to come out in there, so I’m just gonna do it by hand.”

“Oh. All right then. Mind if I use it?”

“Go for.”

“Thank you!” Silence as you load the machine, probably past what it’s supposed to hold. Well, silence except for running water and scrubbing. You press start, and then there’s more noise as the basin of the washing machine starts to fill with hot water. You wonder absently if you added enough soap. Hopefully you won’t need bleach for this, or else you’re going to have to separate out the whites from the colors. That looks like way too much work from where you’re standing now. In fact, even the effort of going back up the stairs to your room feels like too much. That would be your post-mission fatigue kicking in, right there. Never fails, even when things go well. Ken’s still scrubbing. You stand on tiptoes to peek over his shoulder. He’s got the damned orange sweater in his hands, but you don’t see the stain.

“You spill something on it?” you ask. Ken’s apparently startled, because he gives a little jump.

“Blood,” he says. Well, he’s certainly scrubbing furiously enough at it, but...

“Where?” you ask.

“Who are you kidding, Omittchi? It’s all over.”

“Oh,” you say. “Right.” Yeah, Lady Macbeth has nothing on you guys. Sure, she took part in regicide, but you guys are mass murderers. You all deal in different ways, of course. Ken has apparently chosen hallucinating as his method of ‘getting over it.’

“You need some help?” you ask, wondering if he’ll notice that there are multiple offers there.

“Yeah,” he says, “but I don’t think you can give it. It’s just... there’s blood everywhere, and I don’t know how to get it out.” Funny how his voice is going weak, and how you suddenly feel like the bigger person in the room.

“Sure, sure I can help,” you say. “What soap are you using to get it out?”

“Soap?” he repeats.

“Well,” you say, “that’s your problem right there. Just water won’t do it, once it sets. I guess some of the blood’s pretty old, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Some of it’s very old.”

“Well, no worries. We can get that out too,” and you reach for the bleach. Ken’s eyes, following you, seem to fade. So the double meanings were intended. Good.

“This is orange,” he says, shaking the sweater. “You can’t use bleach on an orange sweater. That’s for whites.”

“Trust me. It’s the only thing I know for fact will get the blood out.”

“But it’ll leave white splotches in the orange! This is my mission jacket. Do you know how much white stands out in the dark?”

“Ken,” you say, with infinite patience. “As you said, it’s an orange sweater. Obviously you’re not overly concerned with blending in.” Silence again. He’d regained some of the old temper when he’d protested the bleach, but he was losing it again. You can’t help but wonder, suddenly, if both of you are insane. You two are, after all, trying to decide whether or not to use bleach to remove imaginary bloodstains from an effulgent orange jacket Ken wears on stealth missions when he kills people. Normality has never seemed so far away, and the stairway to the Koneko no Sumu Ie might as well be the Tower of Babel reaching upwards to scrape heaven.

“But...” Ken is saying. “The white blotches... The blood. I don’t think we can get it out, even if we do use bleach.”

“Don’t be ignorant-” you start to say, but Ken is collapsing against the sink, head down, almost brushing the water. Was he injured on the mission? He’s shaking! Jesus Christ. This kind of shit is even worse than a bullet wound, if only because you don’t know how to handle it.

Tears.

“C’mon Ken, don’t cry. Don’t cry like that.” Please. Aren’t the four of you jaded enough yet, at least not to cry? But no, no you’re not, because you’re having to bite your own lip to keep the emotion inside.

“It’s not gonna come out,” he says, broken. “All that blood. It’s gonna be there forever. I’ll never get it out. We’re gonna die. We’re gonna suffocate in other peoples’ blood...” And everything else becomes unintelligible from there, because his sobs are breaking the words into unrecognizable syllables. So you do the only thing you can, which is wrap your arms around his shoulders and murmur nonsense. It’s funny, like he’s expecting you to take care of him for a little bit, as if you can protect him for just a moment. But pressed together like this, you feel so much smaller. It’s not as if you could shelter anything and get it right.  Certainly not another human being, not someone whose smile makes you smile back, whose frustration and helpless rage springs from the same places as your own. How can you possibly take care of him, even for just a few moments? How ludicrous. Ken, however, doesn’t seem to notice the lack of logic. So you do what you can, which is try to take care of him for the next few heartbeats.

“No,” you whisper. “It’s okay. Really. We only kill the bad ones. We’re okay. There’s no blood. I promise, there’s no blood. No blood at all. See, Ken?” You pull at the sweater. “Just orange. No red. Orange isn’t anything like red, not at all, there’s no blood, we’re okay, you’re okay, I promise.”

“It’s everywhere.”

“No, it’s not. Everything’s okay. No blood. Just orange. Just us. We’re okay. I promise, Ken, I promise, it’s all okay.” You sway just a little bit, the tiny back and forth movement like when you were a kid and your mom held you to her chest and just rocked you, back and forth, back and forth, so soothing, like dreaming, like rest, like peace. You let him whimper. The water’s still running, and the orange sweater is clogging the drain, slowing the water, so that it’s backing up. You reach into it to pull the sweater out, and it’s so cold you kind of gasp.

“Oh God, it’s all bloody,” says Ken, looking at the clear water that’s resuming its spiral down the drain.

“Let’s bleach it Ken,” you try again. “Let’s just bleach it, and get all the blood out. The bleach always works. I promise, I promise it works.”

“Okay,” he whispers. It’s a disgrace, how you two look. It’s just bleach. The blood isn’t even real. But, oh God, it is. And then you’re crying too, but at least it’s quiet, not like Ken’s choking sobs. So you reach down together and grab the bleach, a big plastic tub, the kind you get in bulk for cheap.

“What do we do now?” asks Ken, like he’s never used bleach before. Maybe he hasn’t. But the blood’s not real, right? So it doesn’t matter if you do it right or not.

“Let’s just dump it,” you say, and you do. Just lay the orange sweater down in the sink, water still running, and start to pour bleach onto it. A lot of bleach.

“See?” you say. “See, Ken? The blood is fading. The bleach always works.”

“Fading, yeah. But it’s not gone.” The ‘it’ll probably never be gone’ is left unspoken, because you both have at least a little bit of sanity left, and it would be better not to destroy it.

“Yeah,” you say. “Well. That’ll just take time. Just a little bit of time, and a little bit of bleach. That’s all.”

-------------------- End Part One