Angel in Disguise

"Either go faster, or give me your socks."

Omi became quickly absorbed into his task. He'd pulled a small pocket computer from it's holster in his waist band, and connected it to the keypad by drilling a small hole through one of the keys. It would likely never open again, once they got through and closed it, but that was of no importance. The main thing was putting a few walls in between themselves and the creature that had followed them up the duct.

That itself gave him a moments pause; no creature was smart enough to do something like that, which meant it was something unnatural. Not surprising, considering the location in which they'd found it. It also, belatedly, occurred to him that he had his back to Farfarello, was trusting the Irishman not to stab him and leave him for dead. Of course, he DID need Omi to open the door, but once it was done, what then?

One thing at a time, he told himself sternly, but the smell of blood was suddenly strong. Fearing that Farfarello had met his demise, he forgot the keypad. A quick scan of his body revealed that he'd injured himself - nothing out of the ordinary, but wasn't that just as likely to bring the beast down on them?

"... My ... sock?!" He was running out of time; there was no way he could...

Wondering where his sanity had left him behind, he toed off his shoe, and removed the sock, replacing the darts in his hand with the small throwing knives he usually kept hidden there. There were more surprises in his shoes, and he refused to part with them - after handing over the sock, he slid his foot back into the shoe, and turned his attention back to the computer. It beeped furiously at him, and he punched in another set of numbers.

The broken keypad flashed green, and the door slid open. "Yes!"

Just as quickly, it started sliding closed again. "Dammit!" He sat himself between the closing door and the frame, holding it open with his feet, back pressed against the wall. The Irishman's name flashed through his mind, but he balked at saying it. This mystery held him up for a few more precious moments while he figured through it.

Finally, it came to him - he didn't want to be on a first name basis with Schwarz. Crawford, Naoe, the telepath and the psycho - those names were good enough. But he had to get his attention somehow. "Hey! Hurry up!"

He'd already thrown his other sock and was in the process of soaking the boy's first when the door whooshed open behind them, flooding the room with light. Just as quickly, the light stream began to narrow.

"What did you do?" Farfarello snapped, used to opened doors staying open.

But as he turned, ready to chide the assassin again for his lack of please, he couldn't help but blink at the Weiss' position. Was he... holding the door open?

But... why?

He could have easily slipped through.

Self-preservation kicked in soon enough, and he sent the remaining sock flying. The beast snarled, finally savvy to his game, and headed toward the source of the sock instead of the sock itself. Well, shit. Thankfully, it moved as slowly as it had before, and Farfarello was through the door, slipping easily around the boy, before it had gotten even halfway across the room.

For some reason he didn't even try to justify, he felt compelled to look back and make sure the kitten got through safely, hooking his hands around the door so that it didn't slam shut while the kid was going through.

Kid. He kept thinking of the assassin as being very young, but really, they weren't that far apart, age-wise. How old was he, anyways? Crawford would know. Nagi might know. Schuldig would be able to find out easily enough. Farfarello could only guess, until he got back home to look at the file, and by that time, he probably would've forgotten he'd ever been interested.

Young skin. Big eyes. ...Old eyes. He'd have to ask Nagi about that, too.

Or perhaps not. After all, it didn't matter.

Omi watched the Irishman step over him, and then immediately turn to hold the door. For a moment, it didn't sink in, and he shot a terrified look towards the monster, and then an equally confused look towards the other man, and then without being prompted, he scrambled through the opening, and allowed the door to shut behind him. A quick search of the room revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and he sat himself down again to remove his other sock; it felt strange with only one on. He didn't care what Farfarello thought of his efforts, either, though if he said anything, he was going to get one of those knives in the shoulder. He removed at least ten more small throwing knives from his other sock, and then remained where he was at on the floor while he found places in his jacket for all of them. They were useful; especially in this place.

He found room for all but one of them, and made a face before deciding to just keep it out. Standing, he jumped a few times to make sure nothing rattled or fell, and then began wandering around the room, trying to figure out how to say Thank You. One hand absently tossed the shuriken knife he was holding.

Finally, when there was a good twenty feet of distance between them, he turned. "Hey," he said. "Thank you."

Farfarello cocked his head as he watched with subtle fascination. Knives in socks? He'd never thought of that. There were a couple blades in his boots... well, had been blades in his boots... he'd forgotten the second one in the last room... but it was somewhat interesting to see what a delicious hiding place the sock was. Then there was the jacket. He chuckled inwardly as Omi bounced around a bit, the purpose of this action unclear but amusing, and stood back as the assassin surveyed the room. At least, he assumed he was surveying the room. There was something unsettled in his motions. The room felt fairly secure, and he could now hear the faint scratching as the beast began clawing vainly at the heavy door, so he wasn't entirely sure where the hunter's restlessness stemmed from.

When Bombay hit him with the 'thank you,' Farfarello recoiled. 'Thank you' for what? He'd done nothing that merited a thank you, and he resented the implication.

Or at least, he thought he did.

To make it even more disturbing, he really sounded sincere. There was definitely some strain in pushing out the words, but the phrase itself held none of the glazing that the please had before.

And that simply wasn't right. Farfarello didn't care about their group's differences. White and black. It didn't matter to him, because in the end, they were all sinners. But for such a bright sinner to feel wrongly indebted to him... that was almost like a lie in itself.

"I refuse," he said firmly, setting his jaw and turning to look for an exit.

Omi stopped dead, staring askance at the Irishman. He'd heard a lot of responses to 'Thank you' but 'I refuse' had never been one of them. He couldn't stop his mouth, which was suddenly running ahead of his brain. "What the hell does that mean? 'You refuse'?"

"It means I refuse," Farfarello said simply, pushing down the discomfort that kept trying to bubble up.

He squatted down with his back to the boy, picking at his surprisingly tidy toenails. Crawford insisted he keep clean, for some ungodly reason. Farfarello didn't want the headache of disobeying such a tiny request.

"Your thanks. I don't want them. Find someone else."

Omi stared at him like he'd lost whatever wits he had left. "You can't just refuse someone's gratitude," he insisted. "You don't have a choice in the matter."

He briefly wondered if he was bringing death down on himself, arguing with the mad Irishman, but it went against his nature to just allow something like that to pass. Several times now, Farfarello could have simply left him to die, and hadn't. It rankled, but he owed the man his life. Not that he was going to couch it in those terms; Farfarello might take it to heart, and demand his life as forfeiture.

Further irritation came from the fact that he'd had to argue the point with the other one at all. If it had been Ken, or Aya, they would have accepted it and moved on, knowing why he'd said the words, and knowing that he would do the same for them.

Honour demanded that he return the favour, despite how unnatural it seemed at first. This was someone who had tried to kill him multiple times in the past, and probably wouldn't hesitate to knife him in the back the moment he stopped being useful.

Frustrated with the circles his thoughts continued to run in, he removed two more knives and began tossing them into the air, using the focus of not cutting himself to shreds as a means of meditation. While he thought, he turned his mind to the problem of getting out of the building, but Farfarello kept intruding. They were both knife users, he realized. He wasn't nearly as competent with the blades as he was with his bows, but he could throw them hard enough to send them straight through a human body, and had before. Not for the first time, he wished he was a blade master such as Farfarello or Aya.

"I'm insane. I can do anything I want," Farfarello said matter-of-factly, turning his attentions to the floor to scratch at the caked-on dirt.

There was a shuffling behind him, and he twisted just enough to see the assassin throwing around... knives?

He hadn't been aware the boy used knives, just darts and the crossbow he'd used to shoot him that one time. Strange that it hadn't punctured any major organs then... or that it hadn't punctured any major organs that couldn't heal in a proper amount of time. He stared at the blades as they cut harmlessly through the air. Sharp. Except that one. Farfarello pulled out of his squat, padding over even more silently without the added stiffness of his boots, and caught the offensive knife out of the air by its blade. Yes, definitely not as sharp as it could be. Its dullness made it fly milliseconds slower than the other two. He flicked out another knife, shoving the hilt at the boy. It was almost an exact replica of the one he'd just stolen, save it’s miraculously sheen exterior, which just begged to sink itself into something soft and fleshy.

"Now I'll accept your thanks," he said easily, feeling confident that this action was actually deserving of appreciation. Dull knives were inexcusable. Now the boy could take his satisfaction from having thanked him and they could move on.

He stuffed the duller blade in his pocket, giving the room a once-over his mind hadn't allowed him to do a moment ago.

Four doors total, including the one they'd come through. One door on each wall. No identification. One keypad for each door. No vents. Dirt on the floor, tracked in from somewhere in various lines of footprints. Either they were close to the outdoors, or they were keeping dirt inside the facility.

And this room was a through-space. Farfarello just hoped the only way out wasn't the way they'd come. He'd definitely stay with the young assassin, for now. The way the boy kept throwing himself in the way of danger, it increased Farfarello's chances of surviving exponentially.

"I don't like three's. Between one and two, what's your favorite?" he questioned, staring hard at the first two doors.

"You're not insane," Omi retorted shortly, and returned his focus to the knives and the circle of thoughts chasing themselves around his mind. He assumed Farfarello had returned to ignoring him, before the man suddenly grabbed at one of his blades. His focus lost, the other two clattered to the ground, but before he could complain, the Irishman had produced a strikingly similar one from somewhere on his person, and handed it to him. Omi stared at it blankly for a moment. Er, maybe he is insane..

Ignoring the statement about his thanks, Omi turned around to survey the room. He looked between the two doors Farfarello had chosen, and thought he knew where they were. A right turn out of this room would take them back to the main hallway, and from there, they could probably find their way out. Unless he was completely turned around, at which point it would be a left turn, but he wasn't sure where the other door went. Not sure of where they were in relation to the rest of the building, he decided to take a chance on one of Farfarello's doors. "That one," he said uncertainly. He'd had time to collect his door-opener before throwing himself into the slide, and he retrieved it from the pocket he'd unceremoniously shoved it into. He replaced the knives in their hiding spots, the new one from Farfarello slipping against his hand and biting into the palm of his hand and several fingers.

"Ow, shit," he swore, and wiped the blade on his shorts before replacing it more carefully. Now his hand stung and blood was dripping everywhere.

With his unhurt hand, he patted his seemingly endless pockets for the tiny first aid kit he knew he'd brought with him - prepared for any emergency, he called it, but Ken and Yohji teased him by calling him Boy Scout - and found it in the worst possible place. It was his left hand that had been cut - no great loss, as he was ambidextrous - but the tiny packet of bandages and antiseptic was in his left pocket.

Holding his hand away from his body to prevent any more blood getting on his clothes, he twisted around, reaching with his right hand into his left back pocket. When that failed, he tried from the back.

When the boy chose their path, the berserker's gaze paused only a moment on his bleeding hand, and shifted away quickly. He didn't want to bleed the boy. Didn't want to. Didn't. Not yet.

...But if the kitten was willingly spilling his own blood, why should Farfarello deny himself the pleasure of drinking it in? Through his eyes, of course. Crawford didn't let him touch wounds unless he was allowed to make bigger ones.

Instead of licking the blood off like any sensible person, Omi had begun wriggling inside himself, as though by power of dance he could heal the wound.

Increasingly amused, Farfarello locked his eye on the squirming boy, trying to figure out what he was really doing. Itch, maybe? The madman didn't have much experience with such things.

The blood dripped softly, tap tap tap, creating crimson and brown Jackson Pollock designs on the dirty floor.

Crawford was increasingly anal as the days and weeks and months went by. He hadn't let Farfarello touch anyone in weeks. He'd even cut his thumb cooking, and hadn't allowed Farfarello near. Selfish. Anal-retentive. Why wasn't he allowed? He had perfect control. It wasn't like he would've bit off his thumb or anything. Not unless he wanted to.

The blood dripped, dripped, dripped. Wasteful.

He should be allowed.

Crawford wasn't here.

He could control himself.

Standing only a couple feet away from having exchanged the knives a moment earlier, it was easy as mac and cheese to simply snatch the appendage from where it floated, pressing against the boy's wrist to lessen the blood flow. Waste not, want not. He leaned forward and dragged his tongue lazily from where the liquid gathered in Omi's palm, to where it bubbled up from between his thumb and forefinger, and sucked happily, the familiar metallic taste dulling his senses.

He'd just reached the packet in his pocket when he found his wrist once again arrested by Farfarello. This time he wasn't dragged, but the Irishman was ...

Was...

Omi felt faint, the first-aid packet forgotten in his hand. When Farfarello began actively sucking on his finger, it was as though he'd been plugged into an electric socket, and not just someone's mouth. The action was so intimate, as were the implications. Farfarello was taking part of Omi's body into his own. The only thing that made it through the haze of shock and surprise was that ancient peoples once ate the bodies of their defeated enemies in order to take their strength into themselves.

That's silly, Farfarello's stronger than I am he doesn't need whatever...

The line of his own thoughts distracted him, and he suddenly found the strength to pull his hand away.

Farfarello hummed in low contentment between gulps as his tongue guided the liquid down his throat. Sweet, with a hint of rawness. Not enough iron, perhaps. Too much work. Not eating properly.

So content was he that he didn't even notice the muscle spasm preceding the arm and hand and fingers and veins being pulled from his lips.

He snarled lowly, his blood lust making his movements awkward. Control, control. He wanted to prove he was in charge. Prove Crawford was wrong.

But he wanted it. And it was there, dripping on the floor again, mixing with dirt and grime. Wasteful, wasteful.

Although the hand was no longer within mouthing distance, Farfarello still managed to keep his fingers tightly clenched around the boy's wrist.

Control, but still getting what he wanted. Taking versus demanding versus asking. Taking and demanding didn't make him in control. Asking, and leaving if met with disapproval, did. He would prove Crawford wrong.

"But it's... falling," he said slowly, his mind muddling through the words that could earn him what he wanted. Those words weren't right. What else? "Like 'thank you,' isn't it?" he rasped, rubbing his thumb up along the natural crease in the boy's palm.

He finally managed to tear his eye away from the crimson delight, locking with Omi's big blue orbs, anxious to see if his argument was working.

When Farfarello's single golden eye met his gaze, Omi felt another shock through his body, straight through from the top of his head to the soles of his shoes. The man was.. gorgeous. Lithe, stealthy, masculine beauty from his spiky white hair down to his bare feet. For a moment, he wondered how he'd never noticed before, and suddenly, the rest of his brain kicked back in and told him he'd never noticed before because he was always too busy trying not to get killed.

"It," he started, then cleared his throat and tried again, his eyes never leaving Farfarello's. "It hurts me," he said finally. "I have to-" To what? that same part of his brain that was still busily admiring the other man demanded. Give him the excuse he's been looking for to kill you?

He saw that death suddenly, spread out across his mind's eye like a movie only he could see. Farfarello would stab him, perhaps, or twirl in an arc of deadly grace and slice him into small pieces. There wouldn't be enough left of him to recognize; he'd be listed as just another victim of those horrible beasts like the one roaming the next room over. After a long moment of silence, he finally remembered he'd been speaking. "I have to bandage it," he said weakly. "Or else it'll leave a trail -" he tried again. "If I bandage it, it'll stop falling," he nearly pleaded, feeling hypnotized by that unwavering yellow stare.

The gentle caress, so carelessly done on Farfarello's part, was making his mouth dry, and imperceptible shudders flicked through his muscle. He was so unused to touching. Farfarello was probably the first person he'd touched in months. He tried again, weakly, to pull his hand away from Farfarello's grasp.

Farfarello felt his heart drop.

Control. Was it really that important?

Screw control. He should just take what he wanted. Lay the boy out. Drain every last drop. A thick voice desired that, coaxing him onward.

His fingers tightened momentarily around the boy's wrist, but Crawford's mocking voice chuckled lowly in the back of his head, so real he could swear Schuldig was feeding their leader through a mental connection. That is, if Schuldig weren't currently in Spain. The voice laughed at his inability. Locked him in a straitjacket. Told him to play nice next time.

It felt like all the blood in his body flooded to his cheeks in frustration, but he somehow managed to uncurl his fingers, letting the boy's wrist drop.

For a moment there, he was so certain the Weiss would concede. The boy's face practically mirrored what he felt, in its own sort of way, but if he enjoyed it, why turn him down?

Farfarello pouted. Perhaps the boy had more control than he did? That idea frustrated him even more.

Omi felt as though his connection to a live wire had suddenly been cut. Without Farfarello's grip holding him upright, he swayed, and had to take a step backwards to save from falling over altogether.

He couldn't have taken that much blood, not out of such a small wound, he thought, trying to rationalize the dizziness that suddenly overtook him. His first reaction to the blood that was still slowly dripping from his hand was to lick it off, but the knowledge that Farfarello's mouth had just been there prevented him from doing so.

With his good hand and his mouth, he ripped open the small first aid packet, withdrawing the sanitizing cloth first and wiping the blood away before laying down the cotton padding across his hand and wrapping it up. The movements, now that he was no longer in contact with Farfarello, were swift; it wasn't the first time he'd had to bandage himself up during the middle of a mission.

Farfarello watched with waning interest as the cut was removed from his sight, but his heart still pounded dully in his head. There was far more blood where that first batch came from. The question was, how to get to it? He licked the remaining drops of blood from his lips, pondering.

Well, he definitely couldn't let the beast... or beasts... get to him first. Otherwise, there'd be nothing left...

Finally, Omi’s heart slowed from its rapid tattoo in his chest back down to something resembling a normal beat. He still didn't like the way Farfarello was looking at him, however.

"We should," he started, and then coughed to clear his throat of the nervous lump that was lodged in it. "We should start to get out of here," he finished. "Unless you'd rather wait for Yogi to get through the other door?" He gestured to the door they'd come through, and then took a few still-wobbling steps towards the other exits.

"Yogi...?" Farfarello mumbled, but his attention was already elsewhere, his blood lust dissipating quickly now and leaving him feeling empty and unsatisfied.

Well, Crawford couldn't say he lacked self control now. He'd definitely proved himself. Now he just needed to convince Schuldig to transfer over the memory.

"The bear," Omi supplied, but noticed Farfarello's waning attention, and turned his own to the task of opening the far door.

Withdrawing the handheld from his pocket, he drilled a small hole through the keypad, and attached it to the mainframe computer. After that, it was a simple matter to try the various codes that came up on the screen until the door slid open. Luckily, this time it stayed open when he removed the computer, and he stuck his head through, looking around for any creatures that might be wandering around.

It appeared to be another lab; more intact this time. Feeling relatively safe, he stepped through the doorway.

Farfarello mushed his feet against the moist dirt, painting his toes a reddish brown, waiting for the door to open. The look he'd seen on the boy's face earlier... perhaps it wasn't anything at all. Blood loss was known to cause strange physical reactions in people. Eyes dilated, his pulse beating rapidly under Farfarello's fingertips... The closest thing the psychopath could relate it to was the joy he got from killing, but that didn't make sense. He'd never seen that reaction from the Weiss during their so-called "missions." Not that he'd paid him much attention before, although he was starting to feel now like he'd missed out. So far, Bombay had turned out to be pretty useful.

And control. The importance of it flickered like a candle in his mind. He could always wrestle out of straitjackets, and did Crawford's opinion really matter? Or was a piece of his mind just using the man as an excuse? ...For what, though?

As he turned to where the boy crouched in front of the keypad, he felt... content... that he hadn't shredded him. Besides, there would always be a next time. It wasn't like the Weiss were going anywhere. What a boring existence, that would be.

The door slid open with an airy noise, and Farfarello followed him through without a fuss, his eyes jerking around the interior of the new room.

Omi took stock of the room quickly, now that he'd determined that there were no wandering creatures to be faced off. It had no windows, which likely meant they'd taken the wrong door, and were still deep within the bowels of the building, but -

He made a happy noise in the back of his throat at the sight of all those lovely, intact computers. And the lights were still on, which meant that there was probably still power running to this room, which meant he could access the logs!

He seated himself at one of the consoles, turning it on. It was a simple matter to decipher the password; not only were the letters on certain keys worn thin from so many fingers typing in the same thing, it was written on a not-very-cleverly hidden piece of paper beneath the keyboard itself. Once into the system, the rest of the room faded to background noise as he hunted through the security logs, personal journals of employees, and other various programs.

"Yes!" he shouted gleefully upon finding a map. He quickly memorized it, and then attached the handheld to the computer and downloaded some of the more important-looking files. The people at Kritiker would know what they wanted from these, even if most of them made no sense to him. It was the journals he was most interested in; one employee had kept detailed logs of every experiment, breakthrough, and disaster. Apparently they'd been trying to perfect intelligent animals for work in circuses and zoos, by transforming some luckless human specimens into the creatures. The tone of the journal, as the person writing it became mad with his own power, became increasingly erratic.

My babies are perfect! stood out to him. They are no longer just humans or just animals, but the absolute blend between the two, combining the human intelligence and ability to think, learn, and solve problems, with the animal's body, natural abilities, and prowess.

The last entry had been dated less than four days ago. They've escaped! I have no more control! Dear god, what have I done?