Ichigo was only too eager to leave the cafeteria and its fresh memories behind when the softened chime of the intercome rang clear. What had begun as another ordinary meal, a rather agreeable one despite the lack of the proper utensils, quickly became somewhat unnerving. His conversation with...what was his name again?...took so many sharp turns,
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The music room had been out right from the start; Schuldig hadn't listened to music (at least by choice) for years and he didn't need it now. The last thing a telepath needed was more noise bouncing around in his head.
He could feel a headache coming on from his lunchtime session with Yohji; granted, he'd needed to pry, needed to see the things Yohji had already experienced that were still in his own future, but that didn't mean it didn't bring on pain. Best to stick to the more passive type of telepathy for a little while in hopes the ache would recede; listening to surface thoughts didn't require any effort whatsoever.
It was just so hard to restrain himself. It would have been difficult for anyone. When hearing fragments of thoughts, the natural inclination was to follow them to see what they connected to, to find their context, which required pursuing the thoughts into the mind that had spawned them. And from there, that could easily lead you deeper and deeper in ( ... )
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"I can close my eyes. But I guess you're right, you still get a flash of it. still... that's gotta cause a lot of problems. I mean, for other people and you." But then again, it could be damn useful. Imagine being able to pick out a criminal just by being near him, just by hearing his thoughts. Knowing what they were going to do before they did it.....
"I take it you guys know each other pretty well?"
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He looked at Hughes, surprise showing on his features. He shook his head and then glanced at Schuldig, curling his lip scornfully. "I don't know much and even that is more than I want to."
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He glanced at Yohji briefly before turning his scimitar smile back on Hughes. "Arch enemies, actually. But better the evil you know, hm?"
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"Well, you know, you work with what you've got in here," he mumbled. He had Scar and Roy in his corner, and the two of them would probably rather stay in the institute than make any attempt at friendship with each other. But they worked together.
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"If you kept out of people's lives, then maybe there wouldn't be so many people who want you dead," he said flatly to Schuldig.
A pained sigh escaped him. "That's what I meant to say." He looked Schuldig in the eyes, trying to make it clear that this wasn't some declaration of trust or anything. "I'll work with you for now. But the first sign of you messing with my head and you're dead, Schwartz."
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His gaze flickered over to Yohji, and his next comment was meant for both men. "Wiser men tend to find that my usefulness vastly outweighs any discomfort they might be put to." Unfortunately, this required labeling Crawford as 'wiser', but hell, it wasn't like he'd ever hear about it. Schuldig didn't think he could survive that level of smugness, at least from someone who wasn't him.
And Kudoh was still twitchy about the possibility of a mindfuck. Damn it, Schuldig was going to have to tell the truth - or at least a heavily edited version of it - if he was going to get anything resembling trust from the man, and that could prove critical. He hadn't seen Ling around in awhile, and Greed - well, Greed would make a hell of a bodyguard but ( ... )
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But when Shuldig mentioned that he was limited, and the experiments, Hughes just nodded. "Everybody who's got something special has found it weak here," he explained. "And they like to screw around with everybody. They make up names for it - testing, physicals, whatever they feel like calling it - but it's pretty much just a nice way of saying 'we're gonna experiment on you against your will!'." He still had some scars, from when they'd taken him two nights ago.
"Uh... you okay?" Hughes asked, glancing over at Yohji. Maybe he knew what was wrong with Shuldig - the guy was certainly acting weird all of a sudden.
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So Schuldig couldn't use his powers to their full capacity. That reassured him a little. This place blocked Schuldig's powers enough to stop him messing with people's heads to the same extent.
He tried to push away the dull feeling of disappointment that flared for a moment at that knowledge.
He broke himself out of his thoughts and glanced over at Schuldig. It was possibly the first time he'd seen the telepath not under complete control, even considering the fight in the Esstet compound. Automatically he reached out, brushing the telepath's knee. "Schuldig?"
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But the delicate equilibrium had just been shattered. He needed a moment, just a moment of silence to sort out what had happened, where he was, but that was the special hell for telepaths. Thoughts never, ever stopped coming, and as his grip faltered they hit him with the force of a tsunami.
Stop, he breathed, not knowing or caring if he'd spoken aloud or not. A flash of lucidity, like a shooting star in the dark, whispered that this was what River felt like, and ( ... )
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"Hey, hey, come on, calm down...." Hughes wet his lips, not sure if he should try to stabilize Shuldig through physical contact or if that would make things worse. "Come on, talk to us. What's wrong? What's going on?"
He had no idea what had just happened. There were stilted words coming out of the man and he was laughing like he was mad and something was seriously wrong/. What had triggered it? What had happened?
"This ever happened before?" he asked Yohji, glancing over at the other man, wishing he knew what the hell to do. Or that at least they'd figure something out before one of the staff noticed what was going on. "Come on Shuldig, just calm down!" It was the only thing he could think of to say.
If one of the staff noticed, Shuldig would probably get a tranquilizer and carted away.
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His attention snapped to Hughes for a moment before turning back to the telepath. "I don't know! Only times we've ever met before we were trying to kill each other!"
He stared for a moment longer. What did he do? Sure, he didn't like the man, but Schuldig was someone from home, someone familiar and in an odd way, that was comforting. He pushed himself to his knees, leaning closer to Schuldig. He could hear the other man muttering words, nonsense words, panicked and hurt. Half forgotten memories flashed to the surface. They'd been fighting in the Esstet compound, Schuldig had said things then, he could remember that. Telepathy wasn't a gift it was a curse. And what he was saying echoed within Yohji's own head. Reset, do-over, start again, empty slate. wipe it clean and start again.
Make it stopHardly thinking about what he was doing, he reached out and grabbed one of Schuldig's hands, grabbing his chin with his free hand. "You'd ( ... )
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Shame. It was intense, and loathsome as it was it was another identifier of his own thoughts - he hadn't broken down since Rosenkreuz, never in front of an enemy, and the thought of being seen like this, of having it made so inescapably clear how precariously he balanced on the edge of the catastrophe curve, burned like a sun ( ... )
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"I'll get you an aspirin," Hughes said, nodding. It was the very least he could do. Since he sure as hell didn't know what else he could possibly do. It looked like Yohji could handle... whatever. It wouldn't take long to get a simple painkiller from a nurse. They liked him, for the most part.
"You just hang tight, okay?" And Hughes was standing, looking for a nurse that didn't look busy - there was some commotion - or angry. Their attention seemed focused on whatever was going on on the other side of the room. He found a young one and managed to procure the pill, some generic mild painkiller. Just one, but it was something. He headed back and sat down, holding out the pill.
"Here. This is what she gave me." Hopefully that would help.
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He smiled gratefully at Hughes when the other man returned with the painkiller. "Thanks." Why the hell was he helping Schuldig anyway? If anything, he should have enjoyed the sight of the man in pain after everything he'd done. But he just fell dull and empty and kind of... sad?
Yohji still hadn't let go of him. He started to pull away, almost reluctantly (although that was something he refused to acknowledge) when Hughes held out the pill.
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He snapped the pill in half and swallowed it dry before glancing over at Yohji. "You can't be that lonely," he remarked drily.
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