Strange Times

Coaxing an intoxicated Schuldich out of the dive of a bar he had gone to ground in was similar to handling a wildcat of dubious sedation. Aya had to be mindful of random clawed assaults, a bit of nipping, and the fact all of Schuldich’s limbs seemed to have gained their own ideas as to where Schuldich should be going. Combine that with the fact Schuldich smelled of an unfortunate kitchen accident involving citrus and alcohol that smelled cheap enough to sear the finish off furniture and Aya was starting to doubt his previous inclination towards concern.



“How are you still alive?” Aya turned his head to the side in an attempt to avoid Schuldich’s breath.



‘I ask myself that every day.’



Aya shifted Schuldich’s limp, lanky form and peered into glazed blue eyes. “How are you coherent in there?”



“Am not. Not really.’ Schuldich blinked slowly. ‘You should be at dinner.’



“Dinner is over, you idiot.”



‘Where’s Jens?’



“I’m hauling you home, and you ask after someone else?”



‘He was lonely.’



“No. You were.”



‘I am.’



“You’re not lonely now. You’re drunk.” Aya propped Schuldich against the front of his apartment building and opened the front door, catching and holding it on his hip as he maneuvered Schuldich inside.



‘Lonely…’



Aya barely managed to suppress the shiver that mournful whisper of telepathy inspired. Schuldich wasn’t supposed to be depressed. He was a vicious, vindictive killer. A nasty creature concerned with his own amusement…



Schuldich was a highly social creature that had lost his entire family in one instant and wasn’t allowed the pleasure of going with them.



It didn’t make Schuldich’s past actions and transgressions acceptable, but it did put the present into perspective.



Aya allowed an arm to tighten around Schuldich a bit more than the situation demanded as he helped haul the telepath up the stairs. “How can you be lonely? I’m here.”



‘Who...?’



“That’s insulting.” Aya huffed, wrangling Schuldich into the apartment and hip checking the door shut. “I go through all the trouble of keeping you alive and you forget me as soon as you get a couple dozen drinks in you.” It was a damn uncomfortable feeling, Schuldich’s awkward, inebriated telepathic poking and prying as he searched for the answer to his benefactor’s identity. Aya bore the blossoming headache with a wince while steering Schuldich towards the bed.



“Aya.” Schuldich breathed quietly; all alcohol fumes and tentative, hopeful epiphany.



“Come on, I think you spilled at least a handful of drinks on yourself. Let’s get you out of the shirt.”



“Why?”



“I don’t want my bed smelling like Yohji vomited. Help me out a bit here, lift your arms.”



“Why?” Schuldich hissed, grabbing Aya by the throat, and Aya flinched as the full breadth of the question burned through his mind. Why had he reached out and saved a drowning enemy? Why had he medicated and nursed that enemy back to health? Why had he allowed that enemy the comfort of his bed? Why…



“You aren’t an enemy.” Aya gasped. “Not anymore.” Followed quickly, importantly, by “and I want you here.”



Schuldich’s face twisted into a rictus of amused agony, and he released Aya’s throat and started to laugh. From murder to manic between one shaky breath and the next. Unstable, uncomfortable, and more than a little unhappy Schuldich stumbled away from Aya, collapsing back against the bed when he could retreat no further.



“Crazy bastard.” Aya whispered, settling next to Schuldich’s hunched, hysterical form. “Stop that before you make yourself sick.” It was an act of courage, to ignore his carefully maintained personal space, to pull Schuldich into a tight embrace.



To admit he wanted to.



“This is the last time I let you go get drunk.” Aya muttered into Schuldich’s hair, silently encouraging the tendrils of telepathy nervously unfurling and curling through him.



There were other options.