Untitled
Title: Untitled
Recipient: Fireun
Author: StoneCarnival
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Light Crawford/Schuldig. Gen.
The black Zippo clattered on the tabletop. Schuldig picked it up, set it upside-down, and spun it again. "They're gonna tear me apart," he said, shaking his head.
"No they won't," said Crawford.
"They are gonna tear me apart," Schuldig repeated, "and I'm gonna haunt you." He spun the Zippo.
"Absolutely no one will realize you were involved." The lighter spun out of control again, and Crawford slammed his hand down on it before Schuldig could move.
"You're gonna have to give it back to the guard outside," said Schuldig as Crawford pocketed it. "I borrowed it."
"What for?" said Crawford, heading to the door. He heard a metal chair scrape across concrete behind him.
"Idle hands are the devil's playground, or whatever," said Schuldig.
***
The hall was empty now; the man who had guided them to the room had disappeared. Schuldig's impatient hand reached into Crawford's jacket pocket, reclaiming the Zippo.
"Don't burn anything down," said Crawford.
We could make it look like an accident. Schuldig's voice came as clear and persuasive as if he'd said it against Crawford's ear.
No, Crawford thought.
It had been six years since Crawford had lived at Rosenkreuz, but he remembered the corridors like they'd been seared into his mind. They all looked the same; cold gray tunnels with long fluorescent lights stretching above them, dark steel doors marked with white signs: C213, C214, C215. The door to C215 opened suddenly and two men wearing surgical masks emerged.
"It's got to be the sugar," said one, pulling the mask down around his neck.
The other followed suit and wiped his hands on his grey uniform, carefully avoiding the splatter of blood on his chest. "It's not really that sweet, though," he said.
"If you drink it that's not what you're thinking, but to him, it might be totally different," said the first. They walked past Schuldig and Crawford without acknowledgment. "That--in there, he's not really human like you're human. The same stimulus might be perceived in a totally different way. That's why I'm saying go for the brain; there's more like him."
"Yeah, but that's a waste," said the second man reluctantly, as their voices faded away.
Schuldig said nothing until they turned the corner at the end of the hall. "What makes you think he won't hate you?" he asked.
"He won't," said Crawford.
"I would've," Schuldig replied casually. "If you'd dropped me off here by choice? I'd leave with you, but you'd have to have eyes in the back of your head." He made his hand into a gun and pressed his fingers to Crawford's temple.
"I do," Crawford informed him, and Schuldig relented, dropping his hand and the subject with a derisive snort. Crawford stopped, and Schuldig looked at the doors in front of them, silent for a moment. Crawford let him have that moment for himself. Some part of Schuldig still lived at Rosenkreuz, probably; some part that was still fifteen and going tense as a researcher passed him in the hall, forever.
Crawford's lips twitched--what a pointless thought. Schuldig finally moved, pushing open the double doors to the dining hall.
He wasted no time. The doors swung shut behind them as a group of students across the room squawked and scrambled like birds. An instructor had picked up Nagi Naoe by the back of his shirt. "I told you not to look at me like that!" he shouted, and he flung the boy onto the floor like he was made of cotton.
From their vantage point they could not see him on the floor, and he did not stand up.
"Get up!" the instructor persisted. No movement; the students formed a ring around them. The instructor lifted his arms and swung his leg back, then forward, hard and vicious.
No movement.
An invisible force slammed him into a concrete pillar, and something dark flew out of his mouth with a choking sound. He crumpled to the floor just as Nagi rose. The students seemed to suddenly lean away, shrinking into themselves. A red stain marked the pillar. Crawford pushed Schuldig back with his arm, glancing at him. Go.
Schuldig met his glance and backed away. Crawford didn't wait to see that he was gone before he walked toward Nagi.
"You did well," he said. At least thirty pairs of eyes turned on him at once, Nagi's included. They were just as cold and dead as any of those around him, but there was recognition behind that.
One of the students broke into a run, and Crawford let him pass. What would happen next was inevitable.
Nagi's gaze flicked to the double doors as they slammed open. Crawford didn't move. "Don't fight them," he said. The instructors swarmed the boy in their vulture-gray uniforms, and he squeezed his eyes shut, though Crawford couldn't see the needle.
The man wore a black band around his left arm, and that was what first drew Crawford's attention; not his small hateful eyes or twisted nose, many times broken. It meant he was a supervisor. It also meant he was telekinetic - that was a requirement.
His thick hands were wrapped around Crawford's lapels. "Maybe you've forgotten what it means to be a team leader!" he shouted.
"I fail to see how that's related," said Crawford.
"He put an instructor in a coma!" the shorter man raged. "And you stood there and watched!"
"He has to learn to defend himself. He's working for Eszett now," Crawford responded. Eszett, the magic word. Behind him he heard Schuldig laugh. The man's eyes darted to a point above his shoulder somewhere, and then he heard a grunt and a thud.
"Keep laughing, you worthless piece of shit," the supervisor warned. He turned his attention back to Crawford. "You have no idea how hard it is to get competent instructors."
"I didn't realize," said Crawford coolly.
He saw the man's fist flying at him before it actually happened, which made it even more tempting to dodge. He let it land with a hard smack and tasted blood almost immediately.
The man stood there and glared at him. "Take him," he said, jerking his chin at Schuldig, "take that kid, and don't let me see you again before you leave." He stalked out the door, and it shut heavily behind him.
Crawford spat blood onto the floor. "Let's go," he said.
"Good thinking," said Schuldig sarcastically, heading for the door, "now you can show that kid the bruise and tell him it was all for his sake." He looked back at Crawford. "I mean, assuming you had a reason for letting that shithead hit you."
"It was either that or leave a corpse," Crawford explained, "and we still have something to pick up, if you recall."
Rosenkreuz's E-block detention center was made of old stone, like some kind of castle dungeon, and everything about it was damp--the smell, like moss and wet rock; the uneven floor, covered in puddles. Small black slits marked all the doors like single eyes, empty and silent. Nothing in E-block was numbered; it was too small, and besides, it was for those who misbehaved. If they weren't screaming until they made themselves hoarse, they hadn't been in long enough.
But that didn't help Crawford. "Where are you?" he said.
A snide young voice answered, muted and metallic through one of the dark slots in the iron doors. "Depends on who you're looking for."
"If you were more respectful to your superiors, you might not be in here," Crawford answered, calmly making his way toward one of the center cells.
"What makes you think you're my superior?" the voice asked, dripping with contempt. Crawford stopped in front of a door, and the dark slot in the middle seemed to ripple; something moved in the shadow.
"What's your name?" he asked.
Suddenly the little dark window was skin and the bridge of a thin nose and blue eyes; a hand flashed up to brush red hair away from his face. He was maybe seventeen.
"Hey Crawford."
Crawford snapped back to the present and tore his gaze away from the door marked E, one of the few in Rosenkreuz that had a window, and looked at Schuldig.
"You just zoned out," Schuldig informed him, smirking a little. He had his hands in his pockets and he was standing in front of another door, D-134. "We're gonna walk in and take him, right?" he asked.
"No one will stop us," Crawford confirmed. He pushed open the door and moved ahead of Schuldig.
One light hung low over a body covered to the neck in a white sheet. Nagi's face was smooth and emotionless as a doll's, eyes closed. Thick leather straps secured him to the bed he was on, stretched over his small chest, his midsection, and his ankles.
Another white-covered body lay on the floor next to the bed. The man's lab coat seemed to shine where it caught the yellow light; over his back, to his waist where it had bunched up, and along his left arm, which stretched towards the door in vain. He looked almost relaxed; fingers gently curled instead of strained and shaking, lips just parted instead of screaming. Blood had dribbled out of his mouth and made a puddle on the floor; it had run from his eyes and over his cheekbone and his nose.
Schuldig stood over the body for a long moment, staring. "How'd he do this sedated?" he thought out loud.
"You'd have to ask him that," Crawford said.
"What a monster," muttered Schuldig. It sounded like approval.
Crawford pulled the sheet back and gathered the boy in his arms. 'Thin' was his first impression, but it didn't really describe that body. It was a skeleton covered in skin; he could feel ribs through the shirt.
"He's not like you," Crawford corrected him. "He wants to have somewhere to go. We're giving him that." He headed for the door, Schuldig on his heels.
"Somewhere to go, where he can fit in, and nobody'll call him a freak, and somebody'll be there to give him girl advice and tell him how to deal with high school or some shit?" Schuldig mocked. "Put him back. He hasn't been here long enough."
"He's been here as long as we can afford," Crawford responded, with finality. "Get this." He nodded at another steel door, marked CHECKPOINT.
Behind it stood a guard to the side of an unmarked door, holding an automatic. "Yes, this has been approved," Crawford intoned, moving past him.
"I'll need to see proof," said the guard, dropping the barrel of his gun between Crawford and the door.
"No you don't," Schuldig spoke up suddenly.
"Yes, I do," the guard insisted. "I'm authorized to use force on anyone without it."
Suddenly his eyes went unfocused. Crawford noticed only because he'd known it would happen, and he'd been watching them closely. That moment almost always eluded him.
"I hate people who love rules," said Schuldig calmly, and the guard turned his gun up and pressed the barrel against his own chin and fired. Crawford moved to avoid the spray of blood, and he turned around just in time put Nagi's body between himself and Schuldig.
"Is this the last time we have to come here?" the telepath demanded.
"Why? Does it bother you?" Crawford asked, faintly amused. He let it show in his face; Rosenkreuz had no effect on him.
Schuldig's eyes turned steely in an instant, and he gave Crawford a big lazy grin. "Hell no. But next time it might be two guards." One of his idle hands reached over Nagi and curled around Crawford's tie. "Or ten. You okay with that?"
"Excuses, excuses," Crawford said, low and quiet.
Schuldig stared him down and slid his hand inside Crawford's jacket.
Crawford shifted Nagi in his arms, crushing the moment. "I don't think you want to play this game here," he said, turning away. "Get the door. And when he wakes up, don't patronize him immediately. He's not stupid."
Schuldig shot him an irritated look as he led the way outside, and Crawford knew that Nagi would be no more grateful for the help.
Recipient: Fireun
Author: StoneCarnival
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Light Crawford/Schuldig. Gen.
The black Zippo clattered on the tabletop. Schuldig picked it up, set it upside-down, and spun it again. "They're gonna tear me apart," he said, shaking his head.
"No they won't," said Crawford.
"They are gonna tear me apart," Schuldig repeated, "and I'm gonna haunt you." He spun the Zippo.
"Absolutely no one will realize you were involved." The lighter spun out of control again, and Crawford slammed his hand down on it before Schuldig could move.
"You're gonna have to give it back to the guard outside," said Schuldig as Crawford pocketed it. "I borrowed it."
"What for?" said Crawford, heading to the door. He heard a metal chair scrape across concrete behind him.
"Idle hands are the devil's playground, or whatever," said Schuldig.
***
The hall was empty now; the man who had guided them to the room had disappeared. Schuldig's impatient hand reached into Crawford's jacket pocket, reclaiming the Zippo.
"Don't burn anything down," said Crawford.
We could make it look like an accident. Schuldig's voice came as clear and persuasive as if he'd said it against Crawford's ear.
No, Crawford thought.
It had been six years since Crawford had lived at Rosenkreuz, but he remembered the corridors like they'd been seared into his mind. They all looked the same; cold gray tunnels with long fluorescent lights stretching above them, dark steel doors marked with white signs: C213, C214, C215. The door to C215 opened suddenly and two men wearing surgical masks emerged.
"It's got to be the sugar," said one, pulling the mask down around his neck.
The other followed suit and wiped his hands on his grey uniform, carefully avoiding the splatter of blood on his chest. "It's not really that sweet, though," he said.
"If you drink it that's not what you're thinking, but to him, it might be totally different," said the first. They walked past Schuldig and Crawford without acknowledgment. "That--in there, he's not really human like you're human. The same stimulus might be perceived in a totally different way. That's why I'm saying go for the brain; there's more like him."
"Yeah, but that's a waste," said the second man reluctantly, as their voices faded away.
Schuldig said nothing until they turned the corner at the end of the hall. "What makes you think he won't hate you?" he asked.
"He won't," said Crawford.
"I would've," Schuldig replied casually. "If you'd dropped me off here by choice? I'd leave with you, but you'd have to have eyes in the back of your head." He made his hand into a gun and pressed his fingers to Crawford's temple.
"I do," Crawford informed him, and Schuldig relented, dropping his hand and the subject with a derisive snort. Crawford stopped, and Schuldig looked at the doors in front of them, silent for a moment. Crawford let him have that moment for himself. Some part of Schuldig still lived at Rosenkreuz, probably; some part that was still fifteen and going tense as a researcher passed him in the hall, forever.
Crawford's lips twitched--what a pointless thought. Schuldig finally moved, pushing open the double doors to the dining hall.
He wasted no time. The doors swung shut behind them as a group of students across the room squawked and scrambled like birds. An instructor had picked up Nagi Naoe by the back of his shirt. "I told you not to look at me like that!" he shouted, and he flung the boy onto the floor like he was made of cotton.
From their vantage point they could not see him on the floor, and he did not stand up.
"Get up!" the instructor persisted. No movement; the students formed a ring around them. The instructor lifted his arms and swung his leg back, then forward, hard and vicious.
No movement.
An invisible force slammed him into a concrete pillar, and something dark flew out of his mouth with a choking sound. He crumpled to the floor just as Nagi rose. The students seemed to suddenly lean away, shrinking into themselves. A red stain marked the pillar. Crawford pushed Schuldig back with his arm, glancing at him. Go.
Schuldig met his glance and backed away. Crawford didn't wait to see that he was gone before he walked toward Nagi.
"You did well," he said. At least thirty pairs of eyes turned on him at once, Nagi's included. They were just as cold and dead as any of those around him, but there was recognition behind that.
One of the students broke into a run, and Crawford let him pass. What would happen next was inevitable.
Nagi's gaze flicked to the double doors as they slammed open. Crawford didn't move. "Don't fight them," he said. The instructors swarmed the boy in their vulture-gray uniforms, and he squeezed his eyes shut, though Crawford couldn't see the needle.
The man wore a black band around his left arm, and that was what first drew Crawford's attention; not his small hateful eyes or twisted nose, many times broken. It meant he was a supervisor. It also meant he was telekinetic - that was a requirement.
His thick hands were wrapped around Crawford's lapels. "Maybe you've forgotten what it means to be a team leader!" he shouted.
"I fail to see how that's related," said Crawford.
"He put an instructor in a coma!" the shorter man raged. "And you stood there and watched!"
"He has to learn to defend himself. He's working for Eszett now," Crawford responded. Eszett, the magic word. Behind him he heard Schuldig laugh. The man's eyes darted to a point above his shoulder somewhere, and then he heard a grunt and a thud.
"Keep laughing, you worthless piece of shit," the supervisor warned. He turned his attention back to Crawford. "You have no idea how hard it is to get competent instructors."
"I didn't realize," said Crawford coolly.
He saw the man's fist flying at him before it actually happened, which made it even more tempting to dodge. He let it land with a hard smack and tasted blood almost immediately.
The man stood there and glared at him. "Take him," he said, jerking his chin at Schuldig, "take that kid, and don't let me see you again before you leave." He stalked out the door, and it shut heavily behind him.
Crawford spat blood onto the floor. "Let's go," he said.
"Good thinking," said Schuldig sarcastically, heading for the door, "now you can show that kid the bruise and tell him it was all for his sake." He looked back at Crawford. "I mean, assuming you had a reason for letting that shithead hit you."
"It was either that or leave a corpse," Crawford explained, "and we still have something to pick up, if you recall."
Rosenkreuz's E-block detention center was made of old stone, like some kind of castle dungeon, and everything about it was damp--the smell, like moss and wet rock; the uneven floor, covered in puddles. Small black slits marked all the doors like single eyes, empty and silent. Nothing in E-block was numbered; it was too small, and besides, it was for those who misbehaved. If they weren't screaming until they made themselves hoarse, they hadn't been in long enough.
But that didn't help Crawford. "Where are you?" he said.
A snide young voice answered, muted and metallic through one of the dark slots in the iron doors. "Depends on who you're looking for."
"If you were more respectful to your superiors, you might not be in here," Crawford answered, calmly making his way toward one of the center cells.
"What makes you think you're my superior?" the voice asked, dripping with contempt. Crawford stopped in front of a door, and the dark slot in the middle seemed to ripple; something moved in the shadow.
"What's your name?" he asked.
Suddenly the little dark window was skin and the bridge of a thin nose and blue eyes; a hand flashed up to brush red hair away from his face. He was maybe seventeen.
"Hey Crawford."
Crawford snapped back to the present and tore his gaze away from the door marked E, one of the few in Rosenkreuz that had a window, and looked at Schuldig.
"You just zoned out," Schuldig informed him, smirking a little. He had his hands in his pockets and he was standing in front of another door, D-134. "We're gonna walk in and take him, right?" he asked.
"No one will stop us," Crawford confirmed. He pushed open the door and moved ahead of Schuldig.
One light hung low over a body covered to the neck in a white sheet. Nagi's face was smooth and emotionless as a doll's, eyes closed. Thick leather straps secured him to the bed he was on, stretched over his small chest, his midsection, and his ankles.
Another white-covered body lay on the floor next to the bed. The man's lab coat seemed to shine where it caught the yellow light; over his back, to his waist where it had bunched up, and along his left arm, which stretched towards the door in vain. He looked almost relaxed; fingers gently curled instead of strained and shaking, lips just parted instead of screaming. Blood had dribbled out of his mouth and made a puddle on the floor; it had run from his eyes and over his cheekbone and his nose.
Schuldig stood over the body for a long moment, staring. "How'd he do this sedated?" he thought out loud.
"You'd have to ask him that," Crawford said.
"What a monster," muttered Schuldig. It sounded like approval.
Crawford pulled the sheet back and gathered the boy in his arms. 'Thin' was his first impression, but it didn't really describe that body. It was a skeleton covered in skin; he could feel ribs through the shirt.
"He's not like you," Crawford corrected him. "He wants to have somewhere to go. We're giving him that." He headed for the door, Schuldig on his heels.
"Somewhere to go, where he can fit in, and nobody'll call him a freak, and somebody'll be there to give him girl advice and tell him how to deal with high school or some shit?" Schuldig mocked. "Put him back. He hasn't been here long enough."
"He's been here as long as we can afford," Crawford responded, with finality. "Get this." He nodded at another steel door, marked CHECKPOINT.
Behind it stood a guard to the side of an unmarked door, holding an automatic. "Yes, this has been approved," Crawford intoned, moving past him.
"I'll need to see proof," said the guard, dropping the barrel of his gun between Crawford and the door.
"No you don't," Schuldig spoke up suddenly.
"Yes, I do," the guard insisted. "I'm authorized to use force on anyone without it."
Suddenly his eyes went unfocused. Crawford noticed only because he'd known it would happen, and he'd been watching them closely. That moment almost always eluded him.
"I hate people who love rules," said Schuldig calmly, and the guard turned his gun up and pressed the barrel against his own chin and fired. Crawford moved to avoid the spray of blood, and he turned around just in time put Nagi's body between himself and Schuldig.
"Is this the last time we have to come here?" the telepath demanded.
"Why? Does it bother you?" Crawford asked, faintly amused. He let it show in his face; Rosenkreuz had no effect on him.
Schuldig's eyes turned steely in an instant, and he gave Crawford a big lazy grin. "Hell no. But next time it might be two guards." One of his idle hands reached over Nagi and curled around Crawford's tie. "Or ten. You okay with that?"
"Excuses, excuses," Crawford said, low and quiet.
Schuldig stared him down and slid his hand inside Crawford's jacket.
Crawford shifted Nagi in his arms, crushing the moment. "I don't think you want to play this game here," he said, turning away. "Get the door. And when he wakes up, don't patronize him immediately. He's not stupid."
Schuldig shot him an irritated look as he led the way outside, and Crawford knew that Nagi would be no more grateful for the help.