Schwarz Farm
Title: Schwarz Farm
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz is the property of its creators and the crack they were smoking
Spoilers: ahoy!
Notes: This is an AU and thus subject to strange warpings of the space-time continuum, i.e. my will. The area in which it is set is fabricated. Some of the plot events may appear familiar to a lot of you, though not all of them. What Schuldig's humming is from the first act of the opera Das Liebesverbot by Wagner. Beta'd by daegaer and htebazytook.
"Is that a fucking joke?"
Crawford eyed the orange-topped blur that was his telepath with equanimity, then went back to picking seaweed off his glasses.
"I hadn't planned on telling you all yet. There's more to it, of course-"
"You're serious." Crawford knew Schuldig well enough by now that he didn't have to see the incredulous expression on his face. "You're really fucking serious. You are a lunatic, Brad, do you know that?"
Holding up his free hand to forestall the incipient histrionics, Crawford met Schuldig's eyes. They were just visible as glints of blue in the storm-choked light. Crawford turned his head to include first Nagi, then Farfarello, both of whom tacitly ceded this battle to Schuldig for lack of energy.
"I think we can all agree that this is neither the time nor the place for this discussion."
True, Eszett was sinking in ruins behind them, but if Schwarz had escaped, who else might? Surprisingly, Schuldig relented. Crawford tried not to let his expression change, but he was half-blind and three-quarters drowned; his tacky suit jacket had been lost somewhere in the water. He was worried that Schuldig might be in shock from an injury of some kind, Nagi was exhausted from the sustained effort of getting them all to shore uncrushed by falling rubble, and none of them were in a condition to control Farfarello. Farfarello who had made it to shore under his own power. One could hope that he was too tired to try anything. Crawford frowned. It never did to think one had Farfarello figured out.
"I called our ride," Schuldig told them.
"Thank you," replied Crawford. He looked at his glasses. There was no way to dry them. Crawford put them on anyway. At least they weren't cracked.
"Good. I had our things moved to a hotel. We'll stay there until our flight."
"To America?" Nagi asked. The scepticism was evident in his voice.
"Indirectly. I have a plan."
"Please, don't keep us in suspense."
Lightning scored the sky, which had to make the glasses flash. "We'll discuss it when we get to the hotel."
Their ride was an ambulance whose driver was as mercenary as any number of assassins Crawford could have named. It was a sodden, weary Schwarz that clambered into its brightly lit, sterile rear. No one needed more than a few stitches, a fact which made Crawford's plans much simpler. The glassy fever-glaze in Schuldig's eyes had to be, Crawford realised, a direct result of hearing a thousand people die inside his head. That might be a problem. Crawford didn't have time to indulge his telepath's sadism.
Crawford paid off the ambulance driver-Just like a minibar, smirked Schuldig's voice inside his head-and led his team the final few blocks to the hotel. If not for being thrown into the bay and subsequently stormed on, Schwarz would no doubt be a much more grimy haggard mess than they were. The water had washed away adrenaline along with the dirt, leaving them all wan and ghostly to Crawford's eye. As it was, he could tell from her expression that the receptionist at the night desk wasn't seeing them as they were. It only reaffirmed his determination that the course he had selected was the right one. His team needed time to recover its strength.
"All right," Nagi said once they were all crammed into Crawford's hotel room. "We're listening."
"Schwarz has to disappear for a while."
"What?" Schuldig exclaimed, indignant. "We just destroyed Eszett! We won! We're free! Why should we run away in our moment of glory like little verdammte bunny rabbits? Who are we hiding from?"
Crawford knew all too well the frightening scope of Eszett. Nagi's research must have given the boy some idea, and who knew what Schuldig had taken from the minds of the Elders before Schwarz killed them? All the more reason to leave, and quickly.
"Our mission was a success. The blow we dealt Eszett tonight is telling. Eszett itself, however, has not been eradicated." Crawford smiled a little, showing teeth. "Did you actually think that was the entirety of Eszett? Everyone there was hand-picked for a specific purpose-either as a reward or to be intimidated. It is highly unlikely that all of them died. We are not the only ones who wished to be free. Headless, Eszett will not only be weakened by its own internecine power-struggles, but erode and be eaten away by those who, like us, desire its destruction. Soon, it will be common knowledge that we are responsible for the initial strike. Should we remain in plain view, so to speak, we will inevitably be targeted as competition by those who seek power, as traitors by the loyal, and as symbols by those who perceive we have a common goal. As far as I know, none of us has ever aspired to lead an army." Crawford's sobering gaze swept his team.
"I wouldn't turn away an army of adoring slaves bent on servicing my every need..."
"No one's volunteering, Schuldig," said Farfarello, absently fiddling with one of his knives. He fixed his eye on Crawford. "I want to hear the rest of Crawford's plan."
"It's simple, really. As I said before, we will be attached to the security force of Antonio Sanguigni, a wealthy businessman. He is...eccentric. His manor is located on a dairy farm, which he also owns. For the past few decades, it's been maintained by two families living on the property. One has come to an untimely end, while the other is moving away."
"Before the same thing happens to them?" Nagi guessed.
"Most likely. To maintain a low profile, we will be posing as replacements."
"A dairy farm? You couldn't find anything better than that? Next you're going to tell me it's in some backwater like Missouri." Schuldig was not taking this well. That was to be expected; Schuldig never took anything well. Even he would recognise good sense, not that it ever shut him up. Crawford was more concerned with how the rest of the team would react. A slow flicker of interest was kindling in Nagi's eyes. He guessed that Crawford had plans beyond this, which was true enough. It was reassuring to think that the boy trusted his moves to be significant, as much as Nagi ever trusted anything. Farfarello looked thoughtful.
"Pennsylvania, actually. It's sufficiently isolated that we should be able to deal with any trouble that comes after ourselves or Mr. Sanguigni freely." Crawford set his briefcase on the bed, sparing an irritated glance for Schuldig, who refused to make room. From it, he took the manila folders containing the mission information along with the various forms of identification Schwarz would be using and handed them around.
"Nagi, no one would believe that you're over eighteen, so I will be your older brother and legal guardian. Our parents died several years ago. You will also be enrolled in the local public school."
Farfarello cackled at the affronted expression on Nagi's face. Judging by the murderous looks sparking between the two, Schuldig was getting his piece as well.
With visible effort, Nagi brought himself back to the larger topic.
"I think I see why we aren't just going to ground in Europe. There would be too many people looking for us. And if anyone found us, it'd be too hard to escape all the attention it would draw."
The boy was using his mind; good. "Chaos is full of flapping mouths," Crawford agreed. "It's also harder to resist meddling in affairs where you live. There are too many possibilities right now; let our enemies exhaust themselves doing our work for us while we expand out connexions across the sea. The less of Eszett we have to crush ourselves, the better."
Nagi frowned. "Is the U.S. all that much safer than Europe or Asia, though?"
"Eszett didn't get its claws into North America properly. It never quite dawned on them that it extended beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Plus there was something that always unsettled them about Canada," Schuldig said absently. Crawford had run a mission in Canada once, before Schwarz; something about it unsettled him, too.
Crawford's unwonted flow of information was having its desired effect. His team was asking questions and becoming invested in their mutual future. He foresaw that if he held them together through this first stage they would be more likely to stand by him later.
I heard that.
The long hours must have been catching up with Crawford; protecting his thoughts required more effort than usual.
Sure.
Eszett may not be gone, but it has no more power over us. All of you know you're free to leave if you wish, Crawford thought back.
You say this after you've taken the contract? What happens to your reputation if we split? Schuldig needled, leering up at him predatorily.
If I can't keep my team together, my reputation deserves whatever befalls it, Crawford replied shortly. Aloud, he said, "The story is that Schuldig and I attended the same university. We picked Farfarello up on a previous job. The specifics are in your dossiers, as well as the contract details and information on the area."
Killed the family and left one alive. Fucking amateurs. Is the kid still hanging around?
Read and find out, Crawford told Schuldig. As long as it didn't jeopardise the team, Crawford didn't care if Schuldig amused himself with the locals. The telepath was already flipping carelessly through his dossier, discarded pages dropped in a messy pile. One never knew for certain what Farfarello would choose to absorb, but he could stick to a cover provided one kept an eye on him. Nagi would read his meticulously once they all separated for the night.
"All necessary arrangements will be made during the course of out travels. Our flight leaves at ten in the morning. Gentlemen, I suggest you get some sleep. You earned it, and we keep travelling hours from now on."
They filed out, Schuldig last of all. Crawford kept his mind carefully blank as he watched his telepath saunter through the door, smoothly graceful. The aura of success practically vibrated out from him. Tired as he was, Schuldig's I-own-the-world attitude was more convincing now. Not that Crawford bought it for a second.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Ran stood in a hospital waiting-room, staring open-mouthed at Mr. Sanguigni. It was true, all true. His parents were dead; Ran hadn't even known they'd been involved with the mafia. Their estate, Mr. Sanguigni had said in a gentle voice, had been seized by the government; there was nothing he could do about it. And his sister...
Ran whipped his head around as the door opened. His desperation must have been easy to see because the doctor's face instantly filled with pity. Ran turned away. He didn't need to know more. The doctor spoke anyway.
Dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _
"The only good thing about this job-because I'm just a silver-lining kind of guy, mind you, not because this job has any redeeming values-is that it is a long period of time separating me from ten-hour flights. You're all lucky I didn't go as bug-nuts as Farfarello." Schuldig stretched and shook his hair out, wincing at the tangled mess it had become.
"I don't like planes either," Farfarello said quietly. Nagi had condensed into a hyperdense bundle of antipathy. Typical. He was also leaking irritation through his shields. Schuldig would have to teach to kid to do something about that because no way was he getting a headache every time something pissed Nagi off. It happened way to often.
And the fearless leader was, of course, fearlessly leading them to the baggage claim. He hadn't been any fun since the stopover in Milan, when Farfarello had learned there weren't any spare churches in western Pennsylvania for him to ravage. Nagi, the little fink, had hidden in economy rather than suffer diligently with the rest of them.
Finally. They stepped out into a parking lot. Schuldig sidled up to Crawford's shields and sort of rode along, something he'd got better at lately for lack of anything more interesting to do. Probably, he should tell Crawford. But not now. Now, Schuldig was busy watching Crawford and his contact being paranoid at each other until Crawford was holding keys and a scrap of paper instead of a briefcase full of money. It always gave Schuldig warm shivers to watch people be this sneaky.
"So, what am I driving the rest of the way?" Schuldig asked.
Crawford gave him a sharp look, and Schuldig slid into a less intimate, not to say incriminating, awareness of his leader's mind. The man wasn't talking, and all that got past his shields was a very mixed sort of feeling that Schuldig wouldn't like it.
"These?" Schuldig said at last, echoing the recognition in Crawford's thoughts. They had stopped in front of two pick-up trucks. Someone had obviously made the effort to make them appear less dusty. Farfarello and Nagi were eyeing them with such near-identical scepticism as would have been a great cause for teasing and hilarity at another time.
"Crawford, are these used?"
Damn the flickering glasses. Couldn't the man just shrug like normal people? "We have a cover to maintain. We'll need to look the part, too. If it makes you feel better, you're in charge of selecting our wardrobe." Hence the admonition to pack light; they'd been shedding baggage since Japan.
"And when will I be doing this?" Schuldig wanted to know. He was circling the offending vehicles in what had better be an appropriately critical manner if it knew what was good for it.
"We'll stop for the night partway through Pennsylvania. You'll also be procuring degrees for us in dairy science and agriculture."
Schuldig came to rest by one of the trucks. He tapped it meaningfully.
"I'll take this one," he said, not looking up from the slightly scuffed green paint.
"And what makes you so sure you'll be driving?"
"Really, Naggins, I'm hurt. You know I suck at directions. Crawford's obviously driving. Farfarello can't. Do the math."
Nagi sighed. Schuldig flashed him a many-toothed smile.
Besides, we don't want to find out if you're subject to road-rage. Remember what happened the first time someone cut you off?
That was two years ago. I'm better now. Anyway, what sort of reflexes do you want from someone driving your getaway car? Nagi retorted. I didn't hear any complaints at the time.
Kid, at the time I was busy leaking blood from my torso. Schuldig gave Nagi a knowing smirk.
Nagi blinked back seriously. That works? I'll have to keep it in mind.
Nothing stops me, Schuldig asserted with supreme confidence. The best you can do is postpone.
Nagi started loading his luggage into the other truck.
And what do you think you're doing now? Schuldig asked, prickled.
"Postponing," Nagi replied firmly.
Spoilsport. "Postpone all you like," Schuldig said, maliciousness blossoming in his tone and visage, "your turn will come."
In the meantime, they threw their baggage in the backs of the trucks and set out. New York City's noise rumbled through Schuldig's head. He glanced at the clock and groaned to Farfarello.
"Bastard. Paranoid bastard."
"What's Crawford done?" Farfarello asked, mildly curious.
Schuldig simmered. It was an interesting thing to watch.
"It's rush hour, Farfarello."
Right. So, difficult for anyone to tail them. No possibility of car chases, too many witnesses for anything but snipers. A pity. Schuldig had once told him that picking out assassins in heavy traffic was easy-they were the ones who worried about being late to kill someone, not just fantasising about it.
"It's a good idea," Farfarello approved. That earned him a snarl.
"It's rush hour. It's never a good idea. Crawford knows I hate it. For this, he gets tailgated. I had been worried he was going soft, lately." A brief, thoughtful look clouded the telepath's face, then fled as entirely out of place.
And Schuldig didn't know? Farfarello laughed. Well, if the telepath didn't know, Farfarello certainly wasn't going to enlighten him. This promised to be very entertaining.
Schuldig shot him an irritated look. "What's got you so gleeful all of a sudden?"
Farfarello's smile was absolutely canine. "Read my mind," he told Schuldig. Which, of course, he couldn't. At least, not very well. It seemed that the telepath had rum luck with team mates. In his time with Schwarz, Farfarello had gathered that Crawford's precognition interfered with Schuldig's ability to read his mind. It made sense that Crawford didn't think in a straight line; his planes were always satisfyingly twisty. Nagi was closed-mouthed and private, which Farfarello approved, and the boy appeared to have means of keeping the telepath out of his head. The power to squash him like a bug probably helped. It was the foundation of Farfarello's own relations with the boy. Schuldig asserted that Farfarello was 'crazy as bat-shit', a phrase he claimed to have borrowed from the part of Crawford's vernacular the seer never used. The others also had telepathic shields that Rosenkreuz hadn't been able to hammer into Farfarello to any noticeable extent. Farfarello didn't think the inside of his head was so bad, once he got used to the demons and angels singing to him. They were always terribly off-key.
Schuldig grew progressively more waspish even after they escaped city traffic, a condition Farfarello helped along wherever he could. For example, whenever he suspected the telepath was trying to steal the little gem of realisation out of his mind, Farfarello thought very enthusiastically about mashed potatoes or dismemberment or Irish folksongs.
Well, finally. Crawford put his turn signal on for an exit. How law-abiding of him. For Schuldig, the day had passed in a surreal mire. Farfarello was far too happy about something, and Schuldig doubted it was cows.
Cows. Cows. Schuldig had questions to ask Crawford about cows. But why call him when one could be annoying in person? Anyway, this, proclaimed his friendly Irish navigator, was their destination. Whoop-de-do. Schuldig could already feel the cows-to-people ratio on the rise. And since when did he pick up the cow station? He hoped all the times he'd narrowly avoided smashing into Crawford's bumper were giving the seer a migraine. Farfarello had been hampering Schuldig's simple appreciation of going fast and scaring the piss out of everyone else on the road. Schuldig hated thinking while he drove-it was like being in limbo: you couldn't do anything about it ninety per cent of the time. But the loony had gone and got Schuldig's brain cells working. Bastard. Out of sheer pissiness, Schuldig had been amassing a list of grievances. Every time he thought of a new facet of the situation occurred to him, he hurtled it at Crawford like a kid shooting spit balls at the teacher. Mostly, they just pinged off the precog's shields.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Crawford had a headache. He'd seen it coming, even without the vision; such was life with Schuldig. Fortunately, four years of experience provided a ready solution to the problem.
"Schuldig," Crawford said when they reached the hotel, "I want you to go out and pick up the information we need. You might as well bring back a suitable wardrobe while you're at it."
The German scowled. "Why do I have to do everything?"
"I'll be working with the others on our cover," Crawford replied with all his cool logic.
And not me? I feel left out.
You, I will deal with later, Crawford promised. Besides, you have more experience with undercover work than either Farfarello or Nagi, and you're the best suited for this job.
Crawford would never, ever admit to having first hand knowledge of what farmhands looked like. Oh, no.
I heard that, Crawford observed thinly. Of course, he was meant to.
"Fucker," Schuldig's eyes narrowed. "I'm keeping my bandanas. You wouldn't like the alternatives." Crawford had never seen the paisley. Or the tartan, for that matter.
Don't forget boots, Crawford told the retreating string of German epithets.
Boots. Asshole, Schuldig thought to himself. He took a sniff through the local thought-pool and decided he only had to drive as far as a nearby bus stop. He'd do the shopping later. Apparently, Crawford had chosen this knothole in the fence around the world's overgrown lot as the stalking ground for Schuldig's information hunt because of its university. Too bad it wasn't near finals; it was always fun to replace bits of hard-earned knowledge with trivia from unrelated fields. Once, Schuldig has replaced a med student's education wholesale with an architecture major's on the floor below. Schuldig considered it a favour; the poor sod had a better chance of tunnelling out of whatever lab he ended up in that way.
How many trees do they fucking need?Schuldig asked himself when he reached the campus, a question that had been popping up since the Pennsylvania border. The afternoon sunlight played on the greenery, the occasional skittering rodent, and the far more clumsily skittering students. Irritation was still gnawing in verminous circles somewhere between Schuldig's medulla and parietal lobe. What bothered him more was that Crawford got to him like that. He pushed the thought away. Crawford could rot with an abacus up his number-loving arse. Maybe Schuldig would check out the club scene-it was a college town, after all. He had the time, and he needed to bloody well relax.
It really was too bad it wasn't finals. Then, information practically flung itself at you. There were always the professors, of course, like walking reference books. Boring. Unfortunately for Schuldig, the interesting ones rarely knew what they were talking about. For practical experience, the place was lousy with farmer brats. While they didn't do much to brighten the telepath's image of the upcoming social arena, he started feeling better about dairy farming once he learned that a large part of cow-handling was shouting and swearing at them. And, really, the thought of Nagi doing anything in, on, with, or generally around a tractor was a boundless font of hilarity. Was Crawford being deliberately cruel, Schuldig wondered, or had he overlooked it? Trust Crawford not to see the amusement potential. It might save his arse from the kid's wrath, though.
Less fun was the compilation-and how suspicious was Crawford not to have hired a lackey for this? Really. Was Schuldig his errand boy?-of Schwarz's red-neck attire. Yee-hah. No ties, at least, and no boxy, tasteless white suits either.
His tasks accomplished, Schuldig roamed the streets. If he weren't determined to enjoy himself, he might have brooded that his freedom hadn't tangibly expanded, that there was still a menace-not of orders, but of being hunted-lowering over his head. But that was just depressing, and the ebullient noise spilling from the nearest club's open door was calling to him. Who was he to say no?
Queues were for non-telepathic suckers. Inside, the flashing lights and deafening music were like people: generally the same wherever you went. Thrumming with the omnipresent buzz, Schuldig immersed himself in the wildly thrashing crowd. He didn't need telepathy to sense all the eyes on him, but it made it more fun.
For a while, Schuldig just browsed, enjoying the free groping, but soon he lighted on something brunette and voluptuous, her large amounts of visible complexion like so much cream. Her head was filled with the wickedest ideas. Schuldig grinned and pressed closer, which wasn't strictly possible. But of course, Schuldig existed to break the rules. He oozed and flowed sinuously until he was taking up more physical space than he actually possessed. It was driving the brunette wild. All on her own, she jerked her head towards an exit. Any exit. Schuldig's cock was noticeably hard.
Gott, thought Schuldig a few minutes later, prone on the grass with his writhing co-ed, I love trees. The little copse screened their semi-naked forms from view. From a pleasant bout of mutual ear-nibbling, Schuldig worked his way over to kiss her mouth. She bit his lip. Schuldig did something unfair under her shirt and teased her mouth open, tasting tequila and citrus. Damn, but she was a good kisser. Some of these party-girls put a lot of professionals Schuldig knew to shame.
All the while the telepath's free hand had been trailing lower, lower...she moaned into the kiss. Schuldig's tongue and fingers moved in tandem. Hands were tracing fire in swirls with soft fingertips. They clutched at his back for a long, steeping moment.
Schuldig allowed himself to be rolled onto his back and reminded why he liked his women to have long fingernails. The brunette's artful hands and teasing teeth on his nipples brought the telepath hazardously close to purring, if purring were a sound of building lust and not contentment. The issue wasted little time in resolving itself, leaving Schuldig in a very contented, if somewhat drowsy, state indeed.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Schuldig sauntered into the hotel much later than may have been necessary, smelling of sex and chocolate ice cream. Crawford might view this sojourn into farm-life as a chance for his team to de-fizz their heads and acquire a more balanced perspective, but Schuldig had determined to do his vacating beforehand, just to be on the safe side. He was feeling very mellow just now.
"Kann man so frech und schamlos sein," hummed Schuldig softly. "Bin ich aus dem Gedräng' heraus, dann laß ich nie mich wieder ein."
The telepath made for Crawford's room first, carrying a cardboard box. Crawford didn't even give him the satisfaction of picking the lock, just opened the door in Schuldig's face. Bastard.
Schuldig offered him a lazy grin, exuding self-satisfaction in an superior manner that made the precog's glasses flash more than usual. Schuldig read that as 'irritated.'
"Here," said Schuldig, shoving the box at Crawford.
Reflexively, Crawford took it, then looked annoyed with himself. Schuldig snickered. Mr. Boss-man was going short on sleep, too.
"What is it?" Crawford asked.
"Your hobo gear. Enjoy." Schuldig's smile would have been at home devouring herds of wildebeest.
Crawford frowned at it, then frowned at it thoughtfully, then put it on the bed.
"I hope you're not going to wake the others up for this."
"Nah. You're special. I want to see the look on your face." Aren't you going to open it? Schuldig prodded.
I don't see why I should give you the satisfaction. Still, he unfolded the flaps and looked inside. Probably because he knew his telepath wouldn't leave him to sleep until appeased. You could give yourself headaches trying to figure out what Crawford did or didn't know in advance. He held up a t-shirt that read Metallica in the sort of letters you find on motorcycle logos.
"Besides," Schuldig continued, eyeing Crawford as the precog sorted the box's contents out on the bed, "I thought you 'd want more time to process the info-dump. And you can tell me more about the job."
"You read the file, didn't you?"
Schuldig gave him a haughty look. "Are you trying to ruin my reputation?"
A Peculiar Thing registered through Crawford's shields and was immediately suppressed. Weird. Very.
"These long jobs never pay enough," Schuldig observed.
"I've other reasons for it."
"We can go other places to disappear. Hell, we can more than afford not to work for a few months." Nowhere near all the money they earned had gone to big momma Eszett.
Crawford did not respond. Schuldig's wide mouth twisted wryly.
"All right, not the best idea for keeping the team together," Schuldig admitted.
"Working for the mafia is a fast way to spread our reputation in the States." Schuldig's concession to reality earned him a titbit of practical information.
"Yeah, but this long-term contract's not going to make us look impartial. You skirted the yakuza in Japan to keep out of these tawdry politics, ja? Better be careful, your Omniscience." Schuldig considered. "How long are we staying on?"
"I've negotiated a certain amount of flexibility into the terms. Nagi will be keeping an eye on what happens overseas; we can leave when the situation dictates."
"What, you're not going to do that yourself?" Schuldig leaned indolently against a wall, resigning himself to being here a while.
"I have my sources, of course." Egotistical bastard. "In any event, I have told Mr. Sanguigni that we will be in his service for no more than a few months. By then we ought to be moving on anyway."
Schuldig snorted. "Do you think he's just going to let us waltz away with all that information on his security and offer ourselves to the highest bidder?"
"It's always possible," Crawford said with a perfectly straight face. It was the kind of flawlessly bland expression that proclaimed its owner would be laughing now were he the sort of man who laughed like that. It was conducted over a pause as Crawford surveyed another expressive T-shirt in order to insure that Schuldig didn't mistake it. "Do you honestly think that he could stop us?"
"No, but I thought the point of this farce was to lower the number of people after our hides."
Again, Crawford said nothing, which meant that he felt Schuldig was capable of figuring it out on his own.
It's bad for us if we kill him, Schuldig observed telepathically.
Quite true, Crawford acknowledged. Schuldig caught just a glimpse of something. Burn all seers on three-legged toadstools.
"You're plotting something," Schuldig said aloud. It came perilously close to being an accusation.
"I," Crawford reminded him, "am always plotting something." Bloody seers. Bloody glasses. Schuldig didn't entirely buy it.
"Yes, but your conniving is unusually oblique lately," Schuldig pointed out. Dammit, it rankled. "I will figure it out." Perhaps Crawford's paranoia was catching. Perhaps, the telepath reflected, his mind grey with suspicion, that wasn't altogether a bad thing.
"I certainly hope so," said Crawford unexpectedly. He extracted an item from the inside of one splotchy boot and held it precisely between two fingers. Schuldig latched onto the win, abandoning Crawford's new, cryptic outbreak of psychosis-for now. He grinned wickedly at the sight of the bright green bandana.
"Open wide." Schuldig pressed his advantage, feeling buzzed again. "It's time to learn about cows."
He felt Crawford's shields part reluctantly, ignoring whatever the man was saying. In reality, there was a hell of a lot more to it than cows. Equipment, crops-Schuldig sensed Crawford's ire mounting as he contemplated giving his leader a quaint accent of some sort. The downside of having worked with Crawford for years was that the precog had become more sensitive to telepathic hijinks. Not that Schuldig had been very serious about the accent; they had taught each other that lesson long ago.
Schuldig, being Schuldig and meddlesome and, quite frankly, fabulous, had no difficulty gleaning a more detailed view of their destination while he was in Crawford's head. He wrinkled his nose.
"I thought this guy was obscenely rich." He had to be, to afford them.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Crawford replied, "I know it's not state-of-the-art. Since Sanguigni is, in fact, obscenely rich, he doesn't keep the farm for profit. He explains it as nostalgia-he grew up on a similar farm, you see-though I suspect that his enjoyment stems more from having a tame hive of 'little folk' where he can look down on them and manipulate their lives."
Schuldig tsked, sadly shaking his head. Nostalgia was pathetic enough, but from what Schuldig knew of the man so far, he was a tragically inept metteur en scène. That deserved nothing but contempt. Real drama, now-that was more poignant. And tasty.
"I knew you were practical, Brad, but booking a mudhole is a little extreme even for you," Schuldig quipped lightly.
"Farfarello's the one with minimalist tendencies," Crawford reminded him, avoiding the question. Crawford had set aside the empty box and was surveying his neat piles. If Schuldig stayed any longer, he'd have to watch the man pack, and as much as watching anyone with as nice an ass as Crawford's bend over that much would ordinarily appeal to him, there was something almost morally abhorrent about someone who was that precise at three in the morning. Schuldig hmphed, clearly ending the discussion, and swept out of the room. A great weight of atmosphere left with him in an almost physical rush.
Crawford watched his telepath's exit without bothering to veil his amusement. A hunger glinted in his eyes, but of course Schuldig wasn't looking.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Nagi wrinkled his nose in distaste. It was a blustery, humid day that was shaping up under the grey clouds outside the window. The telepath was gone from his head, but the feeling of his touch, his haphazard confetti mind patching the network of data into Nagi's brain, was still fresh. Carefully, he smoothed his face back to immobility. He was assimilating the information, that was all.
"Good," said Crawford. "You have fifteen minutes to change and then we leave. We're just a few hours out." Nagi almost smiled despite himself at the firmness in Crawford's tone. When they needed to be, Schwarz were fast and efficient. When Schuldig and Farfarello were within reach of hot buttered scones and room service, it was a different matter.
Just a few hours? thought Nagi. America was inordinately big. Most of his time with Schwarz had been spent in Europe or Japan. They flew most places, too; and Nagi had been on enough car trips with his team to figure out why. Nagi had no doubts that Schuldig was capable of kicking the seat in front of him like a petulant child if he didn't at least get shotgun.
Thus the telekinetic was understandably, if quietly, horrified to find the orange-haired German loading both his own and Nagi's luggage into the green truck. Schuldig was humming merrily.
"What are you doing?" Nagi's voice was laden with malice and enough weight to crumple a nuclear submarine into an old wine bottle.
"So much for postponement." Schuldig grinned evilly, blithely unconcerned.
If I have to drive three more miles with Farfarello, I'm gonna end up gutting him with one of his own knives, Schuldig's voice said inside Nagi's head. He's absolutely insufferable.
You're one to talk, Nagi responded automatically. Schuldig flipped him off. Classy. He's not as upset as I expected about going into a restricted mayhem zone, Nagi replied more thoughtfully. It was true that they not infrequently hung the madman from the ceiling by his feet to restrain him, but there were also times when he seemed like the most well-adjusted member of the group, next to Crawford.
Nagi examined Farfarello's recent behaviour. He had been inordinately pleased with himself by the time they stopped yesterday, for someone who'd still been pouting like an adolescent girl in New York. Nagi slapped away Schuldig's mental presence irritably. Ergo, Schuldig had slipped up and given Farfarello something...something that had brightened his mood considerably. Nagi gave Farfarello a curious glance. Maybe he could find out what it was. If the telepath was going to needle them incessantly-as he would and did-one couldn't afford to let a chance to get a few points in go sailing by.
Nagi shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said aloud. He slung his backpack into the truck's cab and clambered in after it. He had pointedly ignored the brightly coloured shirts and anything that harked of plaid or flannel (flannel? in summer?), settling instead for blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He had to avoid looking at Crawford, because looking turned into staring and the sight was generating a network of fractures in his brain. That, and because even through the many, many layers of horror, he had a hard time suppressing a very uncharacteristic fit of giggles. Crawford stared back.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked.
Nagi refused to be intimidated. "Nice shirt," he managed with something like his usual bite. At least, Nagi couldn't help thinking nonsensically, Schuldig had good taste in bands. It was a good thing they didn't make shirts for opera, though. The look Crawford directed at him said bite me.
Schuldig smiled. "Ah, brotherly love."
If looks didn't kill, it was because the parking lot was much too public a place for it.
Farfarello, now that Schuldig mentioned it, looked like he'd just been dropped in a nunnery. Creepy.
"What's Farfarello so happy about?" Nagi asked Schuldig after a few miles.
The telepath shrugged. "Wish I could tell you," he said glibly.
"Something cheered him up yesterday," Nagi persisted. "And I don't think it was country music."
The truck swerved violently into the passing lane.
"If you tell Farfarello about country music, I swear that you will die in more pain than you would believe possible." All the humour had sunk out of the telepath's voice. It landed with an almost audible clunk somewhere around the transmission. Nagi looked over at Schuldig; his face was blank and drawn around the eyes, which stared sort of hollowly out at the road blurring past. Nagi didn't want to think what the speedometer read. Schuldig blinked, his usual more-or-less vicious grin spreading across his face.
"State police," he explained lightly. "Fuckers are thick as flies."
"It's the country. He's going to hear it sooner or later," Nagi said as offhandedly as he could, keeping a wary eye on Schuldig just in case. There had to be a story behind a look like that. Maybe he'd ask Crawford about it later. The way Crawford was lately, maybe he'd even answer.
"No sooner than can possibly be prevented," Schuldig insisted.
Nagi raised an eyebrow. "Somebody has issues."
"More than you can ever know. Just keep in mind the fact that I can transplant into your mind more knowledge of grass seeds than it is humanly natural to possess. That's not taking into account the rest of the life cycle."
"You go into my head without permission and the only burial you'll get will be a coat of paint on every building within a five-mile radius."
Schuldig smirked. "I hope you appreciate my fashion sense because you'll have to be seen in public in those clothes. Public school-and you will be going to school-no uniforms."
Nagi said nothing. He hadn't looked through his box very carefully yet. He could make it to Pittsburgh, if nowhere else. If need be, he would teach the telepath to doubt his resourcefulness.
As for school...Crawford had insisted on it, yesterday. Nagi still wasn't very enthused. American school, he told himself, was nothing like Rosenkreuz. They didn't even cane you here. He probably knew at least ninety per cent of the curriculum already.
It certainly wouldn't be a castle in a forgotten corner of Germany run by power-mad, sadistic cultists bent on summoning their demonic master so they could take over the world 1.
Nagi unfolded his map pointedly. Telekinesis made map-folding much simpler. Alas that it practically ensured that he would be eternally relegated to navigating. Anything, of course, was better than getting directions from Schuldig.
"You sure know how to compliment a guy."
Nagi slammed up his mental shields. He must have been getting careless.
"Hey!" Schuldig complained, looking hurt.
"Bitch, bitch," Nagi replied with unaffected equanimity.
Schuldig made a rude gesture.
The look Nagi gave him was unamused. He stared at the map, nonplussed. "What kind of name is 'Zelienople'?"
"What kind of a name is 'Wakkanai'?" Schuldig returned. He paused, head cocked to one side. "You know, I've tried that. It doesn't work very well. Why don't you ever use words like that out loud? You have a creative imagination." He leered.
Nagi didn't want to think about anything implicit in that statement. "Gee, that means a lot coming from a foul-mouthed trollop like you." Get out of my head! he snapped mentally. His shields must really be shit. He hated jet-lag. I will stop this car.
Schuldig laughed. Nagi glowered. How was one to keep a telepath of Schuldig's calibre out of one's head? And Schuldig was high-calibre; he was a low character and completely intractable, not to mention a pervert; but his abilities made up as much of his legend at Rosenkreuz as his exploits did. The air in the cab gained a slight charge. Schuldig backed off.
Nagi wasn't defenceless either.
"Don't get touchy; I've been worming my way into Crawford's shields too."
"Nosy." Nagi was interested in spite of himself. "Are you going to tell him?"
Schuldig shot him an annoyed look. "What, you're not gonna ask what I've found?"
"Would you tell me?"
The German shrugged. "Depends on what I'd found. It's moot anyhow; haven't got anything interesting yet. Mostly, I can tell what he's paying attention to."
"Will you tell him?" Nagi asked again.
"Eventually. I wanna see what he's scheming first. You've noticed him scheming, haven't you?"
"Crawford's always scheming." That was why they followed him, wasn't it?
"That's what he said." Schuldig's expressive mouth twisted wryly.
"This could be dangerous," Nagi felt obliged to point out. If Schuldig could insinuate himself into the precog's mind through his shields, so could someone else.
"I'm keeping an eye out. As always, Schwarz is under the warm umbrella of my protection."
Bullshit. As ever. "How about 'tacky' or 'invasive'?"
Schuldig sighed in a dramatic fashion.
"Hypocritical? Trampy?" One had to pass the miles somehow, and Schuldig had encouraged him to exercise more of his vocabulary...
_ _ _
[1] That would be too much like Pinky and the Brain.
~
song
birdy
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz is the property of its creators and the crack they were smoking
Spoilers: ahoy!
Notes: This is an AU and thus subject to strange warpings of the space-time continuum, i.e. my will. The area in which it is set is fabricated. Some of the plot events may appear familiar to a lot of you, though not all of them. What Schuldig's humming is from the first act of the opera Das Liebesverbot by Wagner. Beta'd by daegaer and htebazytook.
"Is that a fucking joke?"
Crawford eyed the orange-topped blur that was his telepath with equanimity, then went back to picking seaweed off his glasses.
"I hadn't planned on telling you all yet. There's more to it, of course-"
"You're serious." Crawford knew Schuldig well enough by now that he didn't have to see the incredulous expression on his face. "You're really fucking serious. You are a lunatic, Brad, do you know that?"
Holding up his free hand to forestall the incipient histrionics, Crawford met Schuldig's eyes. They were just visible as glints of blue in the storm-choked light. Crawford turned his head to include first Nagi, then Farfarello, both of whom tacitly ceded this battle to Schuldig for lack of energy.
"I think we can all agree that this is neither the time nor the place for this discussion."
True, Eszett was sinking in ruins behind them, but if Schwarz had escaped, who else might? Surprisingly, Schuldig relented. Crawford tried not to let his expression change, but he was half-blind and three-quarters drowned; his tacky suit jacket had been lost somewhere in the water. He was worried that Schuldig might be in shock from an injury of some kind, Nagi was exhausted from the sustained effort of getting them all to shore uncrushed by falling rubble, and none of them were in a condition to control Farfarello. Farfarello who had made it to shore under his own power. One could hope that he was too tired to try anything. Crawford frowned. It never did to think one had Farfarello figured out.
"I called our ride," Schuldig told them.
"Thank you," replied Crawford. He looked at his glasses. There was no way to dry them. Crawford put them on anyway. At least they weren't cracked.
"Good. I had our things moved to a hotel. We'll stay there until our flight."
"To America?" Nagi asked. The scepticism was evident in his voice.
"Indirectly. I have a plan."
"Please, don't keep us in suspense."
Lightning scored the sky, which had to make the glasses flash. "We'll discuss it when we get to the hotel."
Their ride was an ambulance whose driver was as mercenary as any number of assassins Crawford could have named. It was a sodden, weary Schwarz that clambered into its brightly lit, sterile rear. No one needed more than a few stitches, a fact which made Crawford's plans much simpler. The glassy fever-glaze in Schuldig's eyes had to be, Crawford realised, a direct result of hearing a thousand people die inside his head. That might be a problem. Crawford didn't have time to indulge his telepath's sadism.
Crawford paid off the ambulance driver-Just like a minibar, smirked Schuldig's voice inside his head-and led his team the final few blocks to the hotel. If not for being thrown into the bay and subsequently stormed on, Schwarz would no doubt be a much more grimy haggard mess than they were. The water had washed away adrenaline along with the dirt, leaving them all wan and ghostly to Crawford's eye. As it was, he could tell from her expression that the receptionist at the night desk wasn't seeing them as they were. It only reaffirmed his determination that the course he had selected was the right one. His team needed time to recover its strength.
"All right," Nagi said once they were all crammed into Crawford's hotel room. "We're listening."
"Schwarz has to disappear for a while."
"What?" Schuldig exclaimed, indignant. "We just destroyed Eszett! We won! We're free! Why should we run away in our moment of glory like little verdammte bunny rabbits? Who are we hiding from?"
Crawford knew all too well the frightening scope of Eszett. Nagi's research must have given the boy some idea, and who knew what Schuldig had taken from the minds of the Elders before Schwarz killed them? All the more reason to leave, and quickly.
"Our mission was a success. The blow we dealt Eszett tonight is telling. Eszett itself, however, has not been eradicated." Crawford smiled a little, showing teeth. "Did you actually think that was the entirety of Eszett? Everyone there was hand-picked for a specific purpose-either as a reward or to be intimidated. It is highly unlikely that all of them died. We are not the only ones who wished to be free. Headless, Eszett will not only be weakened by its own internecine power-struggles, but erode and be eaten away by those who, like us, desire its destruction. Soon, it will be common knowledge that we are responsible for the initial strike. Should we remain in plain view, so to speak, we will inevitably be targeted as competition by those who seek power, as traitors by the loyal, and as symbols by those who perceive we have a common goal. As far as I know, none of us has ever aspired to lead an army." Crawford's sobering gaze swept his team.
"I wouldn't turn away an army of adoring slaves bent on servicing my every need..."
"No one's volunteering, Schuldig," said Farfarello, absently fiddling with one of his knives. He fixed his eye on Crawford. "I want to hear the rest of Crawford's plan."
"It's simple, really. As I said before, we will be attached to the security force of Antonio Sanguigni, a wealthy businessman. He is...eccentric. His manor is located on a dairy farm, which he also owns. For the past few decades, it's been maintained by two families living on the property. One has come to an untimely end, while the other is moving away."
"Before the same thing happens to them?" Nagi guessed.
"Most likely. To maintain a low profile, we will be posing as replacements."
"A dairy farm? You couldn't find anything better than that? Next you're going to tell me it's in some backwater like Missouri." Schuldig was not taking this well. That was to be expected; Schuldig never took anything well. Even he would recognise good sense, not that it ever shut him up. Crawford was more concerned with how the rest of the team would react. A slow flicker of interest was kindling in Nagi's eyes. He guessed that Crawford had plans beyond this, which was true enough. It was reassuring to think that the boy trusted his moves to be significant, as much as Nagi ever trusted anything. Farfarello looked thoughtful.
"Pennsylvania, actually. It's sufficiently isolated that we should be able to deal with any trouble that comes after ourselves or Mr. Sanguigni freely." Crawford set his briefcase on the bed, sparing an irritated glance for Schuldig, who refused to make room. From it, he took the manila folders containing the mission information along with the various forms of identification Schwarz would be using and handed them around.
"Nagi, no one would believe that you're over eighteen, so I will be your older brother and legal guardian. Our parents died several years ago. You will also be enrolled in the local public school."
Farfarello cackled at the affronted expression on Nagi's face. Judging by the murderous looks sparking between the two, Schuldig was getting his piece as well.
With visible effort, Nagi brought himself back to the larger topic.
"I think I see why we aren't just going to ground in Europe. There would be too many people looking for us. And if anyone found us, it'd be too hard to escape all the attention it would draw."
The boy was using his mind; good. "Chaos is full of flapping mouths," Crawford agreed. "It's also harder to resist meddling in affairs where you live. There are too many possibilities right now; let our enemies exhaust themselves doing our work for us while we expand out connexions across the sea. The less of Eszett we have to crush ourselves, the better."
Nagi frowned. "Is the U.S. all that much safer than Europe or Asia, though?"
"Eszett didn't get its claws into North America properly. It never quite dawned on them that it extended beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Plus there was something that always unsettled them about Canada," Schuldig said absently. Crawford had run a mission in Canada once, before Schwarz; something about it unsettled him, too.
Crawford's unwonted flow of information was having its desired effect. His team was asking questions and becoming invested in their mutual future. He foresaw that if he held them together through this first stage they would be more likely to stand by him later.
I heard that.
The long hours must have been catching up with Crawford; protecting his thoughts required more effort than usual.
Sure.
Eszett may not be gone, but it has no more power over us. All of you know you're free to leave if you wish, Crawford thought back.
You say this after you've taken the contract? What happens to your reputation if we split? Schuldig needled, leering up at him predatorily.
If I can't keep my team together, my reputation deserves whatever befalls it, Crawford replied shortly. Aloud, he said, "The story is that Schuldig and I attended the same university. We picked Farfarello up on a previous job. The specifics are in your dossiers, as well as the contract details and information on the area."
Killed the family and left one alive. Fucking amateurs. Is the kid still hanging around?
Read and find out, Crawford told Schuldig. As long as it didn't jeopardise the team, Crawford didn't care if Schuldig amused himself with the locals. The telepath was already flipping carelessly through his dossier, discarded pages dropped in a messy pile. One never knew for certain what Farfarello would choose to absorb, but he could stick to a cover provided one kept an eye on him. Nagi would read his meticulously once they all separated for the night.
"All necessary arrangements will be made during the course of out travels. Our flight leaves at ten in the morning. Gentlemen, I suggest you get some sleep. You earned it, and we keep travelling hours from now on."
They filed out, Schuldig last of all. Crawford kept his mind carefully blank as he watched his telepath saunter through the door, smoothly graceful. The aura of success practically vibrated out from him. Tired as he was, Schuldig's I-own-the-world attitude was more convincing now. Not that Crawford bought it for a second.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Ran stood in a hospital waiting-room, staring open-mouthed at Mr. Sanguigni. It was true, all true. His parents were dead; Ran hadn't even known they'd been involved with the mafia. Their estate, Mr. Sanguigni had said in a gentle voice, had been seized by the government; there was nothing he could do about it. And his sister...
Ran whipped his head around as the door opened. His desperation must have been easy to see because the doctor's face instantly filled with pity. Ran turned away. He didn't need to know more. The doctor spoke anyway.
Dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _
"The only good thing about this job-because I'm just a silver-lining kind of guy, mind you, not because this job has any redeeming values-is that it is a long period of time separating me from ten-hour flights. You're all lucky I didn't go as bug-nuts as Farfarello." Schuldig stretched and shook his hair out, wincing at the tangled mess it had become.
"I don't like planes either," Farfarello said quietly. Nagi had condensed into a hyperdense bundle of antipathy. Typical. He was also leaking irritation through his shields. Schuldig would have to teach to kid to do something about that because no way was he getting a headache every time something pissed Nagi off. It happened way to often.
And the fearless leader was, of course, fearlessly leading them to the baggage claim. He hadn't been any fun since the stopover in Milan, when Farfarello had learned there weren't any spare churches in western Pennsylvania for him to ravage. Nagi, the little fink, had hidden in economy rather than suffer diligently with the rest of them.
Finally. They stepped out into a parking lot. Schuldig sidled up to Crawford's shields and sort of rode along, something he'd got better at lately for lack of anything more interesting to do. Probably, he should tell Crawford. But not now. Now, Schuldig was busy watching Crawford and his contact being paranoid at each other until Crawford was holding keys and a scrap of paper instead of a briefcase full of money. It always gave Schuldig warm shivers to watch people be this sneaky.
"So, what am I driving the rest of the way?" Schuldig asked.
Crawford gave him a sharp look, and Schuldig slid into a less intimate, not to say incriminating, awareness of his leader's mind. The man wasn't talking, and all that got past his shields was a very mixed sort of feeling that Schuldig wouldn't like it.
"These?" Schuldig said at last, echoing the recognition in Crawford's thoughts. They had stopped in front of two pick-up trucks. Someone had obviously made the effort to make them appear less dusty. Farfarello and Nagi were eyeing them with such near-identical scepticism as would have been a great cause for teasing and hilarity at another time.
"Crawford, are these used?"
Damn the flickering glasses. Couldn't the man just shrug like normal people? "We have a cover to maintain. We'll need to look the part, too. If it makes you feel better, you're in charge of selecting our wardrobe." Hence the admonition to pack light; they'd been shedding baggage since Japan.
"And when will I be doing this?" Schuldig wanted to know. He was circling the offending vehicles in what had better be an appropriately critical manner if it knew what was good for it.
"We'll stop for the night partway through Pennsylvania. You'll also be procuring degrees for us in dairy science and agriculture."
Schuldig came to rest by one of the trucks. He tapped it meaningfully.
"I'll take this one," he said, not looking up from the slightly scuffed green paint.
"And what makes you so sure you'll be driving?"
"Really, Naggins, I'm hurt. You know I suck at directions. Crawford's obviously driving. Farfarello can't. Do the math."
Nagi sighed. Schuldig flashed him a many-toothed smile.
Besides, we don't want to find out if you're subject to road-rage. Remember what happened the first time someone cut you off?
That was two years ago. I'm better now. Anyway, what sort of reflexes do you want from someone driving your getaway car? Nagi retorted. I didn't hear any complaints at the time.
Kid, at the time I was busy leaking blood from my torso. Schuldig gave Nagi a knowing smirk.
Nagi blinked back seriously. That works? I'll have to keep it in mind.
Nothing stops me, Schuldig asserted with supreme confidence. The best you can do is postpone.
Nagi started loading his luggage into the other truck.
And what do you think you're doing now? Schuldig asked, prickled.
"Postponing," Nagi replied firmly.
Spoilsport. "Postpone all you like," Schuldig said, maliciousness blossoming in his tone and visage, "your turn will come."
In the meantime, they threw their baggage in the backs of the trucks and set out. New York City's noise rumbled through Schuldig's head. He glanced at the clock and groaned to Farfarello.
"Bastard. Paranoid bastard."
"What's Crawford done?" Farfarello asked, mildly curious.
Schuldig simmered. It was an interesting thing to watch.
"It's rush hour, Farfarello."
Right. So, difficult for anyone to tail them. No possibility of car chases, too many witnesses for anything but snipers. A pity. Schuldig had once told him that picking out assassins in heavy traffic was easy-they were the ones who worried about being late to kill someone, not just fantasising about it.
"It's a good idea," Farfarello approved. That earned him a snarl.
"It's rush hour. It's never a good idea. Crawford knows I hate it. For this, he gets tailgated. I had been worried he was going soft, lately." A brief, thoughtful look clouded the telepath's face, then fled as entirely out of place.
And Schuldig didn't know? Farfarello laughed. Well, if the telepath didn't know, Farfarello certainly wasn't going to enlighten him. This promised to be very entertaining.
Schuldig shot him an irritated look. "What's got you so gleeful all of a sudden?"
Farfarello's smile was absolutely canine. "Read my mind," he told Schuldig. Which, of course, he couldn't. At least, not very well. It seemed that the telepath had rum luck with team mates. In his time with Schwarz, Farfarello had gathered that Crawford's precognition interfered with Schuldig's ability to read his mind. It made sense that Crawford didn't think in a straight line; his planes were always satisfyingly twisty. Nagi was closed-mouthed and private, which Farfarello approved, and the boy appeared to have means of keeping the telepath out of his head. The power to squash him like a bug probably helped. It was the foundation of Farfarello's own relations with the boy. Schuldig asserted that Farfarello was 'crazy as bat-shit', a phrase he claimed to have borrowed from the part of Crawford's vernacular the seer never used. The others also had telepathic shields that Rosenkreuz hadn't been able to hammer into Farfarello to any noticeable extent. Farfarello didn't think the inside of his head was so bad, once he got used to the demons and angels singing to him. They were always terribly off-key.
Schuldig grew progressively more waspish even after they escaped city traffic, a condition Farfarello helped along wherever he could. For example, whenever he suspected the telepath was trying to steal the little gem of realisation out of his mind, Farfarello thought very enthusiastically about mashed potatoes or dismemberment or Irish folksongs.
Well, finally. Crawford put his turn signal on for an exit. How law-abiding of him. For Schuldig, the day had passed in a surreal mire. Farfarello was far too happy about something, and Schuldig doubted it was cows.
Cows. Cows. Schuldig had questions to ask Crawford about cows. But why call him when one could be annoying in person? Anyway, this, proclaimed his friendly Irish navigator, was their destination. Whoop-de-do. Schuldig could already feel the cows-to-people ratio on the rise. And since when did he pick up the cow station? He hoped all the times he'd narrowly avoided smashing into Crawford's bumper were giving the seer a migraine. Farfarello had been hampering Schuldig's simple appreciation of going fast and scaring the piss out of everyone else on the road. Schuldig hated thinking while he drove-it was like being in limbo: you couldn't do anything about it ninety per cent of the time. But the loony had gone and got Schuldig's brain cells working. Bastard. Out of sheer pissiness, Schuldig had been amassing a list of grievances. Every time he thought of a new facet of the situation occurred to him, he hurtled it at Crawford like a kid shooting spit balls at the teacher. Mostly, they just pinged off the precog's shields.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Crawford had a headache. He'd seen it coming, even without the vision; such was life with Schuldig. Fortunately, four years of experience provided a ready solution to the problem.
"Schuldig," Crawford said when they reached the hotel, "I want you to go out and pick up the information we need. You might as well bring back a suitable wardrobe while you're at it."
The German scowled. "Why do I have to do everything?"
"I'll be working with the others on our cover," Crawford replied with all his cool logic.
And not me? I feel left out.
You, I will deal with later, Crawford promised. Besides, you have more experience with undercover work than either Farfarello or Nagi, and you're the best suited for this job.
Crawford would never, ever admit to having first hand knowledge of what farmhands looked like. Oh, no.
I heard that, Crawford observed thinly. Of course, he was meant to.
"Fucker," Schuldig's eyes narrowed. "I'm keeping my bandanas. You wouldn't like the alternatives." Crawford had never seen the paisley. Or the tartan, for that matter.
Don't forget boots, Crawford told the retreating string of German epithets.
Boots. Asshole, Schuldig thought to himself. He took a sniff through the local thought-pool and decided he only had to drive as far as a nearby bus stop. He'd do the shopping later. Apparently, Crawford had chosen this knothole in the fence around the world's overgrown lot as the stalking ground for Schuldig's information hunt because of its university. Too bad it wasn't near finals; it was always fun to replace bits of hard-earned knowledge with trivia from unrelated fields. Once, Schuldig has replaced a med student's education wholesale with an architecture major's on the floor below. Schuldig considered it a favour; the poor sod had a better chance of tunnelling out of whatever lab he ended up in that way.
How many trees do they fucking need?Schuldig asked himself when he reached the campus, a question that had been popping up since the Pennsylvania border. The afternoon sunlight played on the greenery, the occasional skittering rodent, and the far more clumsily skittering students. Irritation was still gnawing in verminous circles somewhere between Schuldig's medulla and parietal lobe. What bothered him more was that Crawford got to him like that. He pushed the thought away. Crawford could rot with an abacus up his number-loving arse. Maybe Schuldig would check out the club scene-it was a college town, after all. He had the time, and he needed to bloody well relax.
It really was too bad it wasn't finals. Then, information practically flung itself at you. There were always the professors, of course, like walking reference books. Boring. Unfortunately for Schuldig, the interesting ones rarely knew what they were talking about. For practical experience, the place was lousy with farmer brats. While they didn't do much to brighten the telepath's image of the upcoming social arena, he started feeling better about dairy farming once he learned that a large part of cow-handling was shouting and swearing at them. And, really, the thought of Nagi doing anything in, on, with, or generally around a tractor was a boundless font of hilarity. Was Crawford being deliberately cruel, Schuldig wondered, or had he overlooked it? Trust Crawford not to see the amusement potential. It might save his arse from the kid's wrath, though.
Less fun was the compilation-and how suspicious was Crawford not to have hired a lackey for this? Really. Was Schuldig his errand boy?-of Schwarz's red-neck attire. Yee-hah. No ties, at least, and no boxy, tasteless white suits either.
His tasks accomplished, Schuldig roamed the streets. If he weren't determined to enjoy himself, he might have brooded that his freedom hadn't tangibly expanded, that there was still a menace-not of orders, but of being hunted-lowering over his head. But that was just depressing, and the ebullient noise spilling from the nearest club's open door was calling to him. Who was he to say no?
Queues were for non-telepathic suckers. Inside, the flashing lights and deafening music were like people: generally the same wherever you went. Thrumming with the omnipresent buzz, Schuldig immersed himself in the wildly thrashing crowd. He didn't need telepathy to sense all the eyes on him, but it made it more fun.
For a while, Schuldig just browsed, enjoying the free groping, but soon he lighted on something brunette and voluptuous, her large amounts of visible complexion like so much cream. Her head was filled with the wickedest ideas. Schuldig grinned and pressed closer, which wasn't strictly possible. But of course, Schuldig existed to break the rules. He oozed and flowed sinuously until he was taking up more physical space than he actually possessed. It was driving the brunette wild. All on her own, she jerked her head towards an exit. Any exit. Schuldig's cock was noticeably hard.
Gott, thought Schuldig a few minutes later, prone on the grass with his writhing co-ed, I love trees. The little copse screened their semi-naked forms from view. From a pleasant bout of mutual ear-nibbling, Schuldig worked his way over to kiss her mouth. She bit his lip. Schuldig did something unfair under her shirt and teased her mouth open, tasting tequila and citrus. Damn, but she was a good kisser. Some of these party-girls put a lot of professionals Schuldig knew to shame.
All the while the telepath's free hand had been trailing lower, lower...she moaned into the kiss. Schuldig's tongue and fingers moved in tandem. Hands were tracing fire in swirls with soft fingertips. They clutched at his back for a long, steeping moment.
Schuldig allowed himself to be rolled onto his back and reminded why he liked his women to have long fingernails. The brunette's artful hands and teasing teeth on his nipples brought the telepath hazardously close to purring, if purring were a sound of building lust and not contentment. The issue wasted little time in resolving itself, leaving Schuldig in a very contented, if somewhat drowsy, state indeed.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Schuldig sauntered into the hotel much later than may have been necessary, smelling of sex and chocolate ice cream. Crawford might view this sojourn into farm-life as a chance for his team to de-fizz their heads and acquire a more balanced perspective, but Schuldig had determined to do his vacating beforehand, just to be on the safe side. He was feeling very mellow just now.
"Kann man so frech und schamlos sein," hummed Schuldig softly. "Bin ich aus dem Gedräng' heraus, dann laß ich nie mich wieder ein."
The telepath made for Crawford's room first, carrying a cardboard box. Crawford didn't even give him the satisfaction of picking the lock, just opened the door in Schuldig's face. Bastard.
Schuldig offered him a lazy grin, exuding self-satisfaction in an superior manner that made the precog's glasses flash more than usual. Schuldig read that as 'irritated.'
"Here," said Schuldig, shoving the box at Crawford.
Reflexively, Crawford took it, then looked annoyed with himself. Schuldig snickered. Mr. Boss-man was going short on sleep, too.
"What is it?" Crawford asked.
"Your hobo gear. Enjoy." Schuldig's smile would have been at home devouring herds of wildebeest.
Crawford frowned at it, then frowned at it thoughtfully, then put it on the bed.
"I hope you're not going to wake the others up for this."
"Nah. You're special. I want to see the look on your face." Aren't you going to open it? Schuldig prodded.
I don't see why I should give you the satisfaction. Still, he unfolded the flaps and looked inside. Probably because he knew his telepath wouldn't leave him to sleep until appeased. You could give yourself headaches trying to figure out what Crawford did or didn't know in advance. He held up a t-shirt that read Metallica in the sort of letters you find on motorcycle logos.
"Besides," Schuldig continued, eyeing Crawford as the precog sorted the box's contents out on the bed, "I thought you 'd want more time to process the info-dump. And you can tell me more about the job."
"You read the file, didn't you?"
Schuldig gave him a haughty look. "Are you trying to ruin my reputation?"
A Peculiar Thing registered through Crawford's shields and was immediately suppressed. Weird. Very.
"These long jobs never pay enough," Schuldig observed.
"I've other reasons for it."
"We can go other places to disappear. Hell, we can more than afford not to work for a few months." Nowhere near all the money they earned had gone to big momma Eszett.
Crawford did not respond. Schuldig's wide mouth twisted wryly.
"All right, not the best idea for keeping the team together," Schuldig admitted.
"Working for the mafia is a fast way to spread our reputation in the States." Schuldig's concession to reality earned him a titbit of practical information.
"Yeah, but this long-term contract's not going to make us look impartial. You skirted the yakuza in Japan to keep out of these tawdry politics, ja? Better be careful, your Omniscience." Schuldig considered. "How long are we staying on?"
"I've negotiated a certain amount of flexibility into the terms. Nagi will be keeping an eye on what happens overseas; we can leave when the situation dictates."
"What, you're not going to do that yourself?" Schuldig leaned indolently against a wall, resigning himself to being here a while.
"I have my sources, of course." Egotistical bastard. "In any event, I have told Mr. Sanguigni that we will be in his service for no more than a few months. By then we ought to be moving on anyway."
Schuldig snorted. "Do you think he's just going to let us waltz away with all that information on his security and offer ourselves to the highest bidder?"
"It's always possible," Crawford said with a perfectly straight face. It was the kind of flawlessly bland expression that proclaimed its owner would be laughing now were he the sort of man who laughed like that. It was conducted over a pause as Crawford surveyed another expressive T-shirt in order to insure that Schuldig didn't mistake it. "Do you honestly think that he could stop us?"
"No, but I thought the point of this farce was to lower the number of people after our hides."
Again, Crawford said nothing, which meant that he felt Schuldig was capable of figuring it out on his own.
It's bad for us if we kill him, Schuldig observed telepathically.
Quite true, Crawford acknowledged. Schuldig caught just a glimpse of something. Burn all seers on three-legged toadstools.
"You're plotting something," Schuldig said aloud. It came perilously close to being an accusation.
"I," Crawford reminded him, "am always plotting something." Bloody seers. Bloody glasses. Schuldig didn't entirely buy it.
"Yes, but your conniving is unusually oblique lately," Schuldig pointed out. Dammit, it rankled. "I will figure it out." Perhaps Crawford's paranoia was catching. Perhaps, the telepath reflected, his mind grey with suspicion, that wasn't altogether a bad thing.
"I certainly hope so," said Crawford unexpectedly. He extracted an item from the inside of one splotchy boot and held it precisely between two fingers. Schuldig latched onto the win, abandoning Crawford's new, cryptic outbreak of psychosis-for now. He grinned wickedly at the sight of the bright green bandana.
"Open wide." Schuldig pressed his advantage, feeling buzzed again. "It's time to learn about cows."
He felt Crawford's shields part reluctantly, ignoring whatever the man was saying. In reality, there was a hell of a lot more to it than cows. Equipment, crops-Schuldig sensed Crawford's ire mounting as he contemplated giving his leader a quaint accent of some sort. The downside of having worked with Crawford for years was that the precog had become more sensitive to telepathic hijinks. Not that Schuldig had been very serious about the accent; they had taught each other that lesson long ago.
Schuldig, being Schuldig and meddlesome and, quite frankly, fabulous, had no difficulty gleaning a more detailed view of their destination while he was in Crawford's head. He wrinkled his nose.
"I thought this guy was obscenely rich." He had to be, to afford them.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Crawford replied, "I know it's not state-of-the-art. Since Sanguigni is, in fact, obscenely rich, he doesn't keep the farm for profit. He explains it as nostalgia-he grew up on a similar farm, you see-though I suspect that his enjoyment stems more from having a tame hive of 'little folk' where he can look down on them and manipulate their lives."
Schuldig tsked, sadly shaking his head. Nostalgia was pathetic enough, but from what Schuldig knew of the man so far, he was a tragically inept metteur en scène. That deserved nothing but contempt. Real drama, now-that was more poignant. And tasty.
"I knew you were practical, Brad, but booking a mudhole is a little extreme even for you," Schuldig quipped lightly.
"Farfarello's the one with minimalist tendencies," Crawford reminded him, avoiding the question. Crawford had set aside the empty box and was surveying his neat piles. If Schuldig stayed any longer, he'd have to watch the man pack, and as much as watching anyone with as nice an ass as Crawford's bend over that much would ordinarily appeal to him, there was something almost morally abhorrent about someone who was that precise at three in the morning. Schuldig hmphed, clearly ending the discussion, and swept out of the room. A great weight of atmosphere left with him in an almost physical rush.
Crawford watched his telepath's exit without bothering to veil his amusement. A hunger glinted in his eyes, but of course Schuldig wasn't looking.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Nagi wrinkled his nose in distaste. It was a blustery, humid day that was shaping up under the grey clouds outside the window. The telepath was gone from his head, but the feeling of his touch, his haphazard confetti mind patching the network of data into Nagi's brain, was still fresh. Carefully, he smoothed his face back to immobility. He was assimilating the information, that was all.
"Good," said Crawford. "You have fifteen minutes to change and then we leave. We're just a few hours out." Nagi almost smiled despite himself at the firmness in Crawford's tone. When they needed to be, Schwarz were fast and efficient. When Schuldig and Farfarello were within reach of hot buttered scones and room service, it was a different matter.
Just a few hours? thought Nagi. America was inordinately big. Most of his time with Schwarz had been spent in Europe or Japan. They flew most places, too; and Nagi had been on enough car trips with his team to figure out why. Nagi had no doubts that Schuldig was capable of kicking the seat in front of him like a petulant child if he didn't at least get shotgun.
Thus the telekinetic was understandably, if quietly, horrified to find the orange-haired German loading both his own and Nagi's luggage into the green truck. Schuldig was humming merrily.
"What are you doing?" Nagi's voice was laden with malice and enough weight to crumple a nuclear submarine into an old wine bottle.
"So much for postponement." Schuldig grinned evilly, blithely unconcerned.
If I have to drive three more miles with Farfarello, I'm gonna end up gutting him with one of his own knives, Schuldig's voice said inside Nagi's head. He's absolutely insufferable.
You're one to talk, Nagi responded automatically. Schuldig flipped him off. Classy. He's not as upset as I expected about going into a restricted mayhem zone, Nagi replied more thoughtfully. It was true that they not infrequently hung the madman from the ceiling by his feet to restrain him, but there were also times when he seemed like the most well-adjusted member of the group, next to Crawford.
Nagi examined Farfarello's recent behaviour. He had been inordinately pleased with himself by the time they stopped yesterday, for someone who'd still been pouting like an adolescent girl in New York. Nagi slapped away Schuldig's mental presence irritably. Ergo, Schuldig had slipped up and given Farfarello something...something that had brightened his mood considerably. Nagi gave Farfarello a curious glance. Maybe he could find out what it was. If the telepath was going to needle them incessantly-as he would and did-one couldn't afford to let a chance to get a few points in go sailing by.
Nagi shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said aloud. He slung his backpack into the truck's cab and clambered in after it. He had pointedly ignored the brightly coloured shirts and anything that harked of plaid or flannel (flannel? in summer?), settling instead for blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He had to avoid looking at Crawford, because looking turned into staring and the sight was generating a network of fractures in his brain. That, and because even through the many, many layers of horror, he had a hard time suppressing a very uncharacteristic fit of giggles. Crawford stared back.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked.
Nagi refused to be intimidated. "Nice shirt," he managed with something like his usual bite. At least, Nagi couldn't help thinking nonsensically, Schuldig had good taste in bands. It was a good thing they didn't make shirts for opera, though. The look Crawford directed at him said bite me.
Schuldig smiled. "Ah, brotherly love."
If looks didn't kill, it was because the parking lot was much too public a place for it.
Farfarello, now that Schuldig mentioned it, looked like he'd just been dropped in a nunnery. Creepy.
"What's Farfarello so happy about?" Nagi asked Schuldig after a few miles.
The telepath shrugged. "Wish I could tell you," he said glibly.
"Something cheered him up yesterday," Nagi persisted. "And I don't think it was country music."
The truck swerved violently into the passing lane.
"If you tell Farfarello about country music, I swear that you will die in more pain than you would believe possible." All the humour had sunk out of the telepath's voice. It landed with an almost audible clunk somewhere around the transmission. Nagi looked over at Schuldig; his face was blank and drawn around the eyes, which stared sort of hollowly out at the road blurring past. Nagi didn't want to think what the speedometer read. Schuldig blinked, his usual more-or-less vicious grin spreading across his face.
"State police," he explained lightly. "Fuckers are thick as flies."
"It's the country. He's going to hear it sooner or later," Nagi said as offhandedly as he could, keeping a wary eye on Schuldig just in case. There had to be a story behind a look like that. Maybe he'd ask Crawford about it later. The way Crawford was lately, maybe he'd even answer.
"No sooner than can possibly be prevented," Schuldig insisted.
Nagi raised an eyebrow. "Somebody has issues."
"More than you can ever know. Just keep in mind the fact that I can transplant into your mind more knowledge of grass seeds than it is humanly natural to possess. That's not taking into account the rest of the life cycle."
"You go into my head without permission and the only burial you'll get will be a coat of paint on every building within a five-mile radius."
Schuldig smirked. "I hope you appreciate my fashion sense because you'll have to be seen in public in those clothes. Public school-and you will be going to school-no uniforms."
Nagi said nothing. He hadn't looked through his box very carefully yet. He could make it to Pittsburgh, if nowhere else. If need be, he would teach the telepath to doubt his resourcefulness.
As for school...Crawford had insisted on it, yesterday. Nagi still wasn't very enthused. American school, he told himself, was nothing like Rosenkreuz. They didn't even cane you here. He probably knew at least ninety per cent of the curriculum already.
It certainly wouldn't be a castle in a forgotten corner of Germany run by power-mad, sadistic cultists bent on summoning their demonic master so they could take over the world 1.
Nagi unfolded his map pointedly. Telekinesis made map-folding much simpler. Alas that it practically ensured that he would be eternally relegated to navigating. Anything, of course, was better than getting directions from Schuldig.
"You sure know how to compliment a guy."
Nagi slammed up his mental shields. He must have been getting careless.
"Hey!" Schuldig complained, looking hurt.
"Bitch, bitch," Nagi replied with unaffected equanimity.
Schuldig made a rude gesture.
The look Nagi gave him was unamused. He stared at the map, nonplussed. "What kind of name is 'Zelienople'?"
"What kind of a name is 'Wakkanai'?" Schuldig returned. He paused, head cocked to one side. "You know, I've tried that. It doesn't work very well. Why don't you ever use words like that out loud? You have a creative imagination." He leered.
Nagi didn't want to think about anything implicit in that statement. "Gee, that means a lot coming from a foul-mouthed trollop like you." Get out of my head! he snapped mentally. His shields must really be shit. He hated jet-lag. I will stop this car.
Schuldig laughed. Nagi glowered. How was one to keep a telepath of Schuldig's calibre out of one's head? And Schuldig was high-calibre; he was a low character and completely intractable, not to mention a pervert; but his abilities made up as much of his legend at Rosenkreuz as his exploits did. The air in the cab gained a slight charge. Schuldig backed off.
Nagi wasn't defenceless either.
"Don't get touchy; I've been worming my way into Crawford's shields too."
"Nosy." Nagi was interested in spite of himself. "Are you going to tell him?"
Schuldig shot him an annoyed look. "What, you're not gonna ask what I've found?"
"Would you tell me?"
The German shrugged. "Depends on what I'd found. It's moot anyhow; haven't got anything interesting yet. Mostly, I can tell what he's paying attention to."
"Will you tell him?" Nagi asked again.
"Eventually. I wanna see what he's scheming first. You've noticed him scheming, haven't you?"
"Crawford's always scheming." That was why they followed him, wasn't it?
"That's what he said." Schuldig's expressive mouth twisted wryly.
"This could be dangerous," Nagi felt obliged to point out. If Schuldig could insinuate himself into the precog's mind through his shields, so could someone else.
"I'm keeping an eye out. As always, Schwarz is under the warm umbrella of my protection."
Bullshit. As ever. "How about 'tacky' or 'invasive'?"
Schuldig sighed in a dramatic fashion.
"Hypocritical? Trampy?" One had to pass the miles somehow, and Schuldig had encouraged him to exercise more of his vocabulary...
_ _ _
[1] That would be too much like Pinky and the Brain.
~
song
birdy