FIC: Nagi of Suburbia (G) for daegaer
Author: andmydog
Recipient: daegaer
Title: Nagi of Suburbia
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing(s): Nagi and Schuldig
Summary: Nagi doesn't like Germany very much.
Warnings/Content: Nazis (kinda)
Word Count: 1400 or thereabouts
Author's Notes: I AM SO LATE WITH THIS
Nagi still wasn’t quite sure what he thought of Germany. The sprawling, tree-lined streets and tiny, gaudily papered houses were about as far removed from Tokyo’s bustle or the orphanage’s quiet dignity as you could get. But the house was warm, the food plentiful, and the Mullers seemed nice enough. Frau Muller even spoke a few words of Japanese (although her vocabulary centered around public transit and bathing, for some reason).
Crawford-san had promised to return for him, so Nagi waited, counting the days in his tiny, train-filled room, surrounded by untouched, gleaming toys intended for a much younger child. The Mullers had been waiting for their adopted child, Crawford-san had explained, and now here he was. Nagi lay awake at night, too warm beneath his heavy quilts, and wondered what Crawford-san had done with the little boy who was supposed to be here.
He still couldn’t read the street signs, but Frau Muller (aided with indecipherable hand gestures by Herr Muller) explained how to get to the library, the school, the sweets shop, the hospital (which Nagi hoped was just the Mullers being thorough and not a suggestion that Crawford-san had planted based on a vision), and the park. Having spent so much time living in them, Nagi considered himself somewhat of a connoisseur of parks -- how sheltered from the elements was it, how many secure places to crawl into were there, and did those places have more than one entrance, how populated was the park, and were the visitors ice-cream-and-candies kids, or did the park attract more picnicking families? Was there security in the park? Were there dogs?
He would have been happy to find something rated on par with the Sakura Hotel. The park Frau Muller directed him to? Was more like the Capitol. Huge trees, bigger than anything he’d seen before, stretched over the soft grass and gently curving paths. There were plenty of little valleys and spaces behind thornless bushes for a small boy to hide in, and the signs dotting the park all advertised -- with pictures even a non-German speaker could understand -- that dogs were to be kept leashed at all times. Students in the neighborhood passed through the park to and from school every day, and the trash bin at the gate was full to bursting with home-packed lunches, tossed aside in anticipation of purchased pizza and burgers from the school cafeteria. Herr Muller prided himself on his culinary skills, but when Nagi couldn’t handle another plateful of meaty noodles or cheesy... anything, there was always plenty to eat in the park.
It would have been paradise, he decided, if it weren’t for the other children.
Children everywhere are nasty little things. Nagi knew this better than most people -- the sweetest, most simpering child turned into a demon from Hell the instant there were no adults around, and he had his share of scars from the kicks and falls he’d suffered before coming to the orphanage. And children in a group were twenty times more dangerous than a single child on his own. Small, foreign, unable to speak more than five words of the local language, and dressed in obvious hand-me-downs (the Mullers had apparently been expecting a stocky child), Nagi was the perfect target.
Usually, he could hide. High up in one of the ancient oaks, or peering out from the shelter of a bush, he’d watch the children playing and pretend that he was playing too, hiding and waiting to be sought, or already safe on base, or spying from a distance as part of one of their numerous incomprehensible war games. Sometimes the ball would roll his way and Nagi would hold his breath as it was retrieved, both wishing for and dreading discovery. In the orphanage he had learned what it was to have friends, and some days he thought that he’d give up everything the Mullers had given him if he could just join in their games.
Today, however, wasn’t one of those days. There were less of the younger children in the park today, and more of the older ones, baby fat giving way to acne and heavier muscles and flashes of irrational, violent anger. Nagi sat silently on the bench on the other side of the clearing, hidden almost entirely from view by a small stand of trees with papery white bark. He could pretend to be reading here, he’d found, and still be able to watch the other kids playing without attracting any attention. Or so he’d thought.
Their words didn’t make any sense, but the mocking tone, underlain with that universal threat of violence that he’d come to know so well... that he understood. Nagi had stuffed the book back into his bag and turned to leave, only to find himself surrounded. One of the boys -- the leader, from his pubescent swagger -- turned up his nose and said something that got all the boys laughing. Pulling his eyes out to the sides, he leaned in, his words still completely incomprehensible.
But the postures of the other boys made their intent crystal clear, and Nagi could feel the first swellings of his power beginning to form. Crawford-san had ordered him to keep a low profile, but the reaction was an instinct -- he had no more control over it than he did over a sneeze. A mob threatened, and he would react, and blow them all into curry.
Except... they weren’t threatening any longer. The head boy was frozen, an expression on his face that Nagi couldn’t quite read. It was strangely blank and unfocused, and from the corners of his eyes (he didn’t dare turn his head) Nagi could see a similar expression being worn by the other boys. It was like they’d been struck very hard in the back of the head, he thought. But what could have...?
And then, as a unit, the boys straightened to a posture that would have done any military cadet proud. The head boy shouted a command, sharp and bitten-off at the end, and the boys marched around Nagi, forming into a neat square. Another command and they were off, goose-stepping around the park behind their sieg-heiling leader. Back and forth they paraded, attracting a slowly growing -- and furious, and shouting, and trash-throwing -- crowd.
A glimpse of orange between the trees caught Nagi’s eye, and he slipped away from the mob, glad to leave the raised voices behind him. "Is Crawford-san with you?" he asked Schuldig, who was lounging against a tree like something out of a motorcycle movie. Schuldig tilted his head to the side for a moment, and Nagi felt that unnatural buzzing presence in the back of his head that meant that Schuldig was reading his mind. The German’s Japanese was worse than Nagi’s German, Nagi knew, and Crawford-san had explained that telepathy was the only way that Schuldig would be able to understand Nagi. At least, until he learned Japanese.
Schuldig had demanded something then, in the taxi, his nasal whine wanting to know why it wouldn’t be Nagi learning German , and Crawford-san had silenced him with a single word that had left Schuldig silent for the rest of the drive. Silent, and fixated on Nagi.
Nagi didn’t like Schuldig. He didn’t trust him, and it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that he was a little scared of the redhead. When Crawford-san was there, with his fatherly hand on Nagi’s shoulder, Nagi felt safe. But here, alone, with the man Crawford-san had assured him would remain locked in die Schloss until it was time for Nagi to join them there? "Crawford-san?" he repeated hopefully, and Schuldig shook his head, tossing his flyaway hair about.
"Crawford not here," he said in horribly butchered Japanese. His accent was so thick Nagi could barely understand the sounds he was making. And then, pointing at the Nazi boys who were trying to march through a shouting crowd, he said in shockingly proper textbook Japanese, "It's okay, Nagi. You don’t need friends like those. People like us don’t seek out friends. We command armies, and one day soon all the companionship we could ever desire will be offered to us on a golden platter. I promise."
Nagi stared, aghast. Schuldig had done this? Schuldig had saved him?
...Schuldig spoke Japanese?
He felt the buzz again, as Schuldig tapped into his mind and read out the translation of the words Crawford had given him to say. With a snort of amusement, he dropped one too-skinny hand onto Nagi’s too-skinny shoulder, and steered the boy out of the park.
"Come," he said, his Japanese once again horrific. "Ice cream."
Nagi let himself be lead, mind spinning with the implications of the afternoon. Crawford hadn’t just brought him here to be adopted, had he? There was something else he had in mind, something big. Something... "Ice cream gives me an upset stomach. Can’t we go somewhere else?
Schuldig shook his head, not bothering to seek out the translation in Nagi’s brain. "Don’t speak Japanese good. Ice cream".
Nagi sighed.
Recipient: daegaer
Title: Nagi of Suburbia
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing(s): Nagi and Schuldig
Summary: Nagi doesn't like Germany very much.
Warnings/Content: Nazis (kinda)
Word Count: 1400 or thereabouts
Author's Notes: I AM SO LATE WITH THIS
Nagi still wasn’t quite sure what he thought of Germany. The sprawling, tree-lined streets and tiny, gaudily papered houses were about as far removed from Tokyo’s bustle or the orphanage’s quiet dignity as you could get. But the house was warm, the food plentiful, and the Mullers seemed nice enough. Frau Muller even spoke a few words of Japanese (although her vocabulary centered around public transit and bathing, for some reason).
Crawford-san had promised to return for him, so Nagi waited, counting the days in his tiny, train-filled room, surrounded by untouched, gleaming toys intended for a much younger child. The Mullers had been waiting for their adopted child, Crawford-san had explained, and now here he was. Nagi lay awake at night, too warm beneath his heavy quilts, and wondered what Crawford-san had done with the little boy who was supposed to be here.
He still couldn’t read the street signs, but Frau Muller (aided with indecipherable hand gestures by Herr Muller) explained how to get to the library, the school, the sweets shop, the hospital (which Nagi hoped was just the Mullers being thorough and not a suggestion that Crawford-san had planted based on a vision), and the park. Having spent so much time living in them, Nagi considered himself somewhat of a connoisseur of parks -- how sheltered from the elements was it, how many secure places to crawl into were there, and did those places have more than one entrance, how populated was the park, and were the visitors ice-cream-and-candies kids, or did the park attract more picnicking families? Was there security in the park? Were there dogs?
He would have been happy to find something rated on par with the Sakura Hotel. The park Frau Muller directed him to? Was more like the Capitol. Huge trees, bigger than anything he’d seen before, stretched over the soft grass and gently curving paths. There were plenty of little valleys and spaces behind thornless bushes for a small boy to hide in, and the signs dotting the park all advertised -- with pictures even a non-German speaker could understand -- that dogs were to be kept leashed at all times. Students in the neighborhood passed through the park to and from school every day, and the trash bin at the gate was full to bursting with home-packed lunches, tossed aside in anticipation of purchased pizza and burgers from the school cafeteria. Herr Muller prided himself on his culinary skills, but when Nagi couldn’t handle another plateful of meaty noodles or cheesy... anything, there was always plenty to eat in the park.
It would have been paradise, he decided, if it weren’t for the other children.
Children everywhere are nasty little things. Nagi knew this better than most people -- the sweetest, most simpering child turned into a demon from Hell the instant there were no adults around, and he had his share of scars from the kicks and falls he’d suffered before coming to the orphanage. And children in a group were twenty times more dangerous than a single child on his own. Small, foreign, unable to speak more than five words of the local language, and dressed in obvious hand-me-downs (the Mullers had apparently been expecting a stocky child), Nagi was the perfect target.
Usually, he could hide. High up in one of the ancient oaks, or peering out from the shelter of a bush, he’d watch the children playing and pretend that he was playing too, hiding and waiting to be sought, or already safe on base, or spying from a distance as part of one of their numerous incomprehensible war games. Sometimes the ball would roll his way and Nagi would hold his breath as it was retrieved, both wishing for and dreading discovery. In the orphanage he had learned what it was to have friends, and some days he thought that he’d give up everything the Mullers had given him if he could just join in their games.
Today, however, wasn’t one of those days. There were less of the younger children in the park today, and more of the older ones, baby fat giving way to acne and heavier muscles and flashes of irrational, violent anger. Nagi sat silently on the bench on the other side of the clearing, hidden almost entirely from view by a small stand of trees with papery white bark. He could pretend to be reading here, he’d found, and still be able to watch the other kids playing without attracting any attention. Or so he’d thought.
Their words didn’t make any sense, but the mocking tone, underlain with that universal threat of violence that he’d come to know so well... that he understood. Nagi had stuffed the book back into his bag and turned to leave, only to find himself surrounded. One of the boys -- the leader, from his pubescent swagger -- turned up his nose and said something that got all the boys laughing. Pulling his eyes out to the sides, he leaned in, his words still completely incomprehensible.
But the postures of the other boys made their intent crystal clear, and Nagi could feel the first swellings of his power beginning to form. Crawford-san had ordered him to keep a low profile, but the reaction was an instinct -- he had no more control over it than he did over a sneeze. A mob threatened, and he would react, and blow them all into curry.
Except... they weren’t threatening any longer. The head boy was frozen, an expression on his face that Nagi couldn’t quite read. It was strangely blank and unfocused, and from the corners of his eyes (he didn’t dare turn his head) Nagi could see a similar expression being worn by the other boys. It was like they’d been struck very hard in the back of the head, he thought. But what could have...?
And then, as a unit, the boys straightened to a posture that would have done any military cadet proud. The head boy shouted a command, sharp and bitten-off at the end, and the boys marched around Nagi, forming into a neat square. Another command and they were off, goose-stepping around the park behind their sieg-heiling leader. Back and forth they paraded, attracting a slowly growing -- and furious, and shouting, and trash-throwing -- crowd.
A glimpse of orange between the trees caught Nagi’s eye, and he slipped away from the mob, glad to leave the raised voices behind him. "Is Crawford-san with you?" he asked Schuldig, who was lounging against a tree like something out of a motorcycle movie. Schuldig tilted his head to the side for a moment, and Nagi felt that unnatural buzzing presence in the back of his head that meant that Schuldig was reading his mind. The German’s Japanese was worse than Nagi’s German, Nagi knew, and Crawford-san had explained that telepathy was the only way that Schuldig would be able to understand Nagi. At least, until he learned Japanese.
Schuldig had demanded something then, in the taxi, his nasal whine wanting to know why it wouldn’t be Nagi learning German , and Crawford-san had silenced him with a single word that had left Schuldig silent for the rest of the drive. Silent, and fixated on Nagi.
Nagi didn’t like Schuldig. He didn’t trust him, and it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that he was a little scared of the redhead. When Crawford-san was there, with his fatherly hand on Nagi’s shoulder, Nagi felt safe. But here, alone, with the man Crawford-san had assured him would remain locked in die Schloss until it was time for Nagi to join them there? "Crawford-san?" he repeated hopefully, and Schuldig shook his head, tossing his flyaway hair about.
"Crawford not here," he said in horribly butchered Japanese. His accent was so thick Nagi could barely understand the sounds he was making. And then, pointing at the Nazi boys who were trying to march through a shouting crowd, he said in shockingly proper textbook Japanese, "It's okay, Nagi. You don’t need friends like those. People like us don’t seek out friends. We command armies, and one day soon all the companionship we could ever desire will be offered to us on a golden platter. I promise."
Nagi stared, aghast. Schuldig had done this? Schuldig had saved him?
...Schuldig spoke Japanese?
He felt the buzz again, as Schuldig tapped into his mind and read out the translation of the words Crawford had given him to say. With a snort of amusement, he dropped one too-skinny hand onto Nagi’s too-skinny shoulder, and steered the boy out of the park.
"Come," he said, his Japanese once again horrific. "Ice cream."
Nagi let himself be lead, mind spinning with the implications of the afternoon. Crawford hadn’t just brought him here to be adopted, had he? There was something else he had in mind, something big. Something... "Ice cream gives me an upset stomach. Can’t we go somewhere else?
Schuldig shook his head, not bothering to seek out the translation in Nagi’s brain. "Don’t speak Japanese good. Ice cream".
Nagi sighed.