Supernatural!Schwartz strikes again!
Haha! I return now with the next bit of this story, which now has a title! (Not only does it have a title, but I also have come up with suitable section titles.)
Accordingly, I'm re-posting the entire of the first section of this story. This first section includes the first and second bits I posted, along with a new(!) third piece. Together, they are the first section of the story.
Recapped for your convenience (and copy-pasted for mine):
Title: And Other Fruits of Men
Rating: Hard R. When the ratings go higher, I'll let you know.
Summary: So what if Crawford was hot and powerful? That didn't mean Schuldig wanted to reproduce with him.
Warnings: swearing, dream-logic, mindfuckery, off-screen blowjob, dangerous driving, urban supernatural!AU, shoddy editing, crazy pseudo-science and psychic powers, profligate use of italics.
Notes: FYI, the cities mentioned in this story are real towns in my state, but I'm shamelessly stealing the names
because I like them. There is no connection between the real towns and this story. No, this is not mpreg. The titles of the sections and of the story itself come from a pretty great book of poetry, "Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing" by Samuel Hoffenstein. (I say pretty great because the poems are very much products of their time, containing great quantities of misogyny and out-dated cultural references. But...I find them to be funny nonetheless. If you want more extensive info on what I've appropriated, let me know.)
As always, enjoy!
=====
And Other Fruits of Men
Chapter One: Who are Not Fretting to be Free
The first thing Schuldig did was rent a car. A sports car. A flashy, red, way too expensive sports car with lots of pretty horses under the hood. Ordinarily, he would have overpowered the miserable little clerk's mind and gotten it for free. Because what good was being a telepath-half water elemental and half mixed-bag and an interesting assortment of powers, actually-if you didn't use it to get things for free, twisting people around so that your wants were their wants. They were all too happy to give everything they had once Schuldig was done.
There was something very appealing about actually spending the money, though. For one, the clerk was fully cognizant and just about pissing his pants with the excitement of such a high-paying customer. Schuldig did a little snooping in the man's mind. Yep. Paid on commission.
For another, he wasn't actually spending his money. He was spending the family's money, and they didn't dare cut him off, not when he hadn't yet consented to be their babymaking stud. Schuldig watched with great satisfaction as the clerk swiped the very exclusive credit card he handed over. He took the card back, his fingers brushing against the clerk's. The physical contact afforded Schuldig a direct line into the man's thoughts. Well.
Schuldig smiled. He was feeling expansive, at the moment, being thousands of miles away from the enclave of relatives awaiting his consent to parenthood. Schuldig had those fuckers over a barrel: the family had worked for generations to make someone as powerful as him, and-he played a tiny, sad violin in his head-he was, in fact, so powerful, that he could turn them down when they told him it was time to settle down and make babies 'for the good of the family.'
Schuldig shrugged and felt the clerk's attention fix on the way his hair cascaded over his shoulders. Too bad for them. The clerk, on the other hand…Schuldig found his attentions flattering.
"Charles," said Schuldig. "Do you like working in customer service?"
The clerk stammered. This was not part of the usual blandishments exchanged between customers and employees, and Schuldig could tell how badly the deviation threw the man. His confusion was lemon-tart in Schuldig's mind, and it was all the sweeter that the man was having a bit of heterosexual panic to boot. Schuldig drank the feeling in. He pressed, ever so gently, on the clerk's mind, and moved a half-step closer to the counter.
"If you want your commission, don't you think you'd better make sure your customer is satisfied?" said Schuldig.
He gestured to himself and the clerk's eyes followed his every move: from the hollow of his throat down the sleekness of his chest, all the way to the indecently tight fit of his pants across his groin. Schuldig felt the man's brain light up like a Christmas tree. Schuldig palmed himself, and the man groaned.
Gotcha.
Schuldig unbuckled his belt and the clerk practically drooled.
"Well, Charles?" said Schuldig. "Don't you want to make sure I'm satisfied?"
The clerk nodded and tried to vault the counter to get to him. Schuldig pressed a little harder on the man's addled mind, and, accordingly, the clerk grabbed the keys for the little red sports car. Schuldig smiled like a wolf, and they headed out to the parking lot, the clerk all over him like a second skin and Schuldig half-gone in the blissful swirl of the clerk's, hmm, very complimentary thoughts.
The wind whipped through Schuldig's hair as he peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the clerk behind with a protein facial and his pants unzipped. Schuldig smirked in the mirror. For a man who had no previous experience with blowjobs, Charles had done a damn fine job. Schuldig's body tingled agreeably. He pulled onto the freeway, sliding into the sparse traffic like he belonged.
"Where to next?" he said.
For a brief second he considered leaving the country: Rome, Paris, London…Hell, even Geneva would be better than here. It would be a pain in the ass, though, to mindfuck his way through customs without a passport. He sighed and pushed the little red sports car harder. It leapt forward, accelerating smoothly to eighty, ninety, a hundred miles an hour. The speedometer's needle crept upward.
At a hundred and seventeen miles an hour, the countryside was nothing but a big, golden daylit blur. Very pretty, though Schuldig's bangs kept creeping into his eyes, stinging, and the wind hitting his face made him tear up. Everything around him was blobby, and he only very nearly missed having a spectacular wreck with a semi.
He passed inches from the truck's bumper. The truck blared its horn at him. Schuldig flipped the driver off.
"Fucker!" yelled Schuldig.
He would have beeped his horn, but he knew from experience that sports cars like his would only give an unsatisfyingly cheerful chirp. Still…He patted the dashboard. The car really ate up the miles, and she was a smooth ride. He settled into the seat, loving the feel of the leather seat as it cradled him.
He could almost fall asleep, except for the other cars he came upon: the flashes of terror from the drivers kept jolting him. Fuck them. Like they'd never seen a car going fast before. It was a highway, for fuck's sake, and the limit for the law-abiding was seventy five. Seventy-five was enough to obliterate you and your car if there was an accident, so what did it matter if he was going faster than that? They’d all be dead anyway.
One handed, Schuldig fished out a bandana and put it on. There. Now he wouldn't singe his hair if he needed a cigarette between here and wherever he was going. Speaking of which, where was he going?
Another huge highway-green sign flew by.
"Twitchell-50mi
Effington-52mi"
Schuldig gave an involuntary snort. Effington? Twitchell? Still, civilization was civilization, and the green sign was followed by a blue one proclaiming the presence of various food, gas, and hotel chains. Good enough. He was getting hungry already, and the endorphins from the blowjob were fading, leaving him tired from his spur-of-the-moment cross-country jaunt. Running away from home, if that's what you could call what he'd done, was fucking exhausting. He laughed, fished out a cigarette, lit it.
A green sign caught his attention at the side of the road:
"Twitchell-46mi"
Schuldig pushed the accelerator to the floor, and, for a second, his unhappiness lifted and his laughter was genuine. This was the life. Who'd want to stay home and make babies when they could be out doing this instead?
Schuldig felt his lips curl into a snarl, and he drove recklessly for a while, passing cars at lightning speed, playing chicken, darting from lane to lane, driving inches from the guard rails just to feel himself living.
It took the cloying, absolute fear of the next three drivers he passed to calm him down. His cigarette had burned down to ash. He flicked it out of the car. What a fucking waste. He shook himself out of his mood as best as he could and focused again.
The red sports car screamed down the road toward Twitchell.
-----
Brad Crawford got on the 2:38 plane to Twitchell. He sat in first class. He put a single bag in the overhead baggage compartment and, after accepting a mineral water from the stewardess, he closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. Brad Crawford slept for the three and a half-hour flight. A stewardess woke him as they taxied down the landing strip. He thanked her, got his bag, and disembarked as soon as the plane stopped moving. There was a car there to meet him: black, tinted windows. Crawford got in. The car drove off.
Crawford loosened his tie and adjusted the lap portion of his seatbelt.
"He'll be at The Brandt," said Crawford. "We'll go there."
The driver nodded. The car moved through the city accordingly.
Fragments of a vision dazzled Crawford, breaking up his view of the city: brick buildings marching along the road interspersed with strip malls and heavy traffic. He shook his head and felt some irritation at the sudden changes in his immediate future.
"Wait," he said. "Take me to the grocery two streets over. We'll go to the hotel after that."
"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley, eh?" said the driver.
Crawford sighed.
The driver laughed.
The car made a u-turn, clipping the back of an SUV and jostling Crawford in the process. They shot down a narrow, one-way street.
Schuldig would be insufferable, no doubt, seeing him here when he'd tried to leave everything Crawford represented behind. Crawford rubbed his temples and tried not to frown. Schuldig could take his attitude and shove it. Crawford rearranged his tie and ran a hand over his hair. He didn't have to look in the mirror to know he looked perfectly kempt. He had an appointment to keep, whether Schuldig liked it or not.
Just ahead, the grocery store's sign flicked on. It began to glow in anticipation of nightfall.
-----
Schuldig had stopped for groceries, feeling a sudden hunger to spend more money that wasn't his. He stood in the checkout, complaining to the cashier just to hear himself talk. She was his captive audience. He bathed in the sullen glow of her emotions like he was warming himself by a fire. Schuldig prodded the coals.
"I'm only twenty six," he said. "Who wants to have kids now?"
He said this having read out of her head that she had three children and she was only twenty-four, desperate to live her life as a young adult but saddled with the responsibilities of diapers and late nights and double shifts to make ends meet. He pushed a little deeper and pulled away, disgusted. She was happy anyway. He just didn't get it.
"So what if I've got a little fairy blood in me?" he said. "Lots of people do."
It was a non-sequitur, he knew, and the cashier struggled to keep up. She nodded.
"I've a little of that myself," she said. "They say it's harmless enough."
Schuldig, stuck in his own little world, continued.
"And so what if it's not actually fairy blood?" he said. "So what if I'm half water elemental?"
And suddenly he found himself under the scrutiny of everyone within ear shot. The people around him were scared that he'd suddenly change into Something Else right there and start slaughtering them all.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he said. "It's not that bad."
He paid for his groceries and stuffed them into bags himself, all the while aware of the pairs of eyes watching his every move. It wasn't like having supernatural blood was that rare. For crying out loud, people were cropping up left and right: publicly announcing that they were children of fairies, genies, and all sorts of other entities. Schuldig's family had a long, proud tradition of mixing it up, but they'd always kept it under wraps because, hey, why show your advantages to the competitors?
It was one of the things he hated most about his family: everything was competition, be it business deals, politics, or genetics. And then there was Schuldig, the young scion, full of those precious, rare genes, monied, proud, spoiled, and desperate to escape his looming Reproductive Duty to the Family. The people his family had picked out as good genetic matches… Schuldig shuddered. Not going to happen.
He turned around to leave and rammed into his least favorite person. What little good mood he'd had evaporated. Speaking of genetic matches, here was enemy number one.
"Crawford," he said. "Get out of my way."
Crawford smiled at him, self-assured. He wrestled one of the bags out of Schuldig's hands. Damn but he was strong. But so what if Crawford was hot and powerful? That didn't mean Schuldig wanted to reproduce with him.
"You're looking well," Crawford said. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"
"Go fuck yourself," said Schuldig. "You're the last person I'd ever, ever want to have kids with."
"Our families would disagree," Crawford said. "I'm not leaving until you say yes."
"Then hover quietly in the background somewhere," said Schuldig. "Leave me alone."
Schuldig glared and tried to hip-check him. Unfortunately, Crawford stepped aside at precisely the right time and the only effect he had on Crawford was to make him smile. Again.
Schuldig was tired. Tired of this argument he had every time he saw Crawford, tired of trying to run from the leash his family had him on. Though he was technically out on his own, he had no doubts that his family was watching his every move. Schuldig frowned harder. Just like Crawford. Smug, prescient bastard. He'd probably been using his visions to track Schuldig the whole time. Crawford was never more than a thought away and it rubbed Schuldig's nerves raw.
"Go away," said Schuldig. "I'm checking into a hotel tonight. I'll be perfectly safe there."
Crawford looked meaningfully over his shoulder, out to the parking lot.
"Better hurry up," he said. "It's almost sunset. I'll walk you to your car."
Schuldig swore. Sunset was bad. Sunset was when all the creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night-and were there ever things that went bump in the night-came out, hungry and wild, and someone like Schuldig was the perfect aperitif. True, those things would attack anyone out after dark, but if it was a choice between Schuldig and some poor human schmuck out for coffee, they'd go for Schuldig every time. Schuldig had it on good authority that he smelled far more delicious than a normal human and that that scent was powerful enough that it could wake even dormant genes in a pseudo-norm. It was a pain in the ass being Schuldig.
"I don't need your help," said Schuldig. "Give me my shit and leave me alone."
He jerked his groceries out of Crawford's hands and stalked off to his car, as quick as he could without running. He started it up and peeled out of the grocery store lot.
=====
I agonized over the title for days, because I was having trouble picking it, and then today I decided I'd have my cake and eat it too: by giving each chapter its own title, I got to use all the titles I thought might work. (And really, I think the runner-ups are way better as section titles...they fit better with the material.)
All things considered, this is going pretty well for being extracted from one of my dreams.
...I'm feeling far too accomplished for a post-chapter dissection right now.
~later
Accordingly, I'm re-posting the entire of the first section of this story. This first section includes the first and second bits I posted, along with a new(!) third piece. Together, they are the first section of the story.
Recapped for your convenience (and copy-pasted for mine):
Title: And Other Fruits of Men
Rating: Hard R. When the ratings go higher, I'll let you know.
Summary: So what if Crawford was hot and powerful? That didn't mean Schuldig wanted to reproduce with him.
Warnings: swearing, dream-logic, mindfuckery, off-screen blowjob, dangerous driving, urban supernatural!AU, shoddy editing, crazy pseudo-science and psychic powers, profligate use of italics.
Notes: FYI, the cities mentioned in this story are real towns in my state, but I'm shamelessly stealing the names
because I like them. There is no connection between the real towns and this story. No, this is not mpreg. The titles of the sections and of the story itself come from a pretty great book of poetry, "Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing" by Samuel Hoffenstein. (I say pretty great because the poems are very much products of their time, containing great quantities of misogyny and out-dated cultural references. But...I find them to be funny nonetheless. If you want more extensive info on what I've appropriated, let me know.)
As always, enjoy!
=====
And Other Fruits of Men
Chapter One: Who are Not Fretting to be Free
The first thing Schuldig did was rent a car. A sports car. A flashy, red, way too expensive sports car with lots of pretty horses under the hood. Ordinarily, he would have overpowered the miserable little clerk's mind and gotten it for free. Because what good was being a telepath-half water elemental and half mixed-bag and an interesting assortment of powers, actually-if you didn't use it to get things for free, twisting people around so that your wants were their wants. They were all too happy to give everything they had once Schuldig was done.
There was something very appealing about actually spending the money, though. For one, the clerk was fully cognizant and just about pissing his pants with the excitement of such a high-paying customer. Schuldig did a little snooping in the man's mind. Yep. Paid on commission.
For another, he wasn't actually spending his money. He was spending the family's money, and they didn't dare cut him off, not when he hadn't yet consented to be their babymaking stud. Schuldig watched with great satisfaction as the clerk swiped the very exclusive credit card he handed over. He took the card back, his fingers brushing against the clerk's. The physical contact afforded Schuldig a direct line into the man's thoughts. Well.
Schuldig smiled. He was feeling expansive, at the moment, being thousands of miles away from the enclave of relatives awaiting his consent to parenthood. Schuldig had those fuckers over a barrel: the family had worked for generations to make someone as powerful as him, and-he played a tiny, sad violin in his head-he was, in fact, so powerful, that he could turn them down when they told him it was time to settle down and make babies 'for the good of the family.'
Schuldig shrugged and felt the clerk's attention fix on the way his hair cascaded over his shoulders. Too bad for them. The clerk, on the other hand…Schuldig found his attentions flattering.
"Charles," said Schuldig. "Do you like working in customer service?"
The clerk stammered. This was not part of the usual blandishments exchanged between customers and employees, and Schuldig could tell how badly the deviation threw the man. His confusion was lemon-tart in Schuldig's mind, and it was all the sweeter that the man was having a bit of heterosexual panic to boot. Schuldig drank the feeling in. He pressed, ever so gently, on the clerk's mind, and moved a half-step closer to the counter.
"If you want your commission, don't you think you'd better make sure your customer is satisfied?" said Schuldig.
He gestured to himself and the clerk's eyes followed his every move: from the hollow of his throat down the sleekness of his chest, all the way to the indecently tight fit of his pants across his groin. Schuldig felt the man's brain light up like a Christmas tree. Schuldig palmed himself, and the man groaned.
Gotcha.
Schuldig unbuckled his belt and the clerk practically drooled.
"Well, Charles?" said Schuldig. "Don't you want to make sure I'm satisfied?"
The clerk nodded and tried to vault the counter to get to him. Schuldig pressed a little harder on the man's addled mind, and, accordingly, the clerk grabbed the keys for the little red sports car. Schuldig smiled like a wolf, and they headed out to the parking lot, the clerk all over him like a second skin and Schuldig half-gone in the blissful swirl of the clerk's, hmm, very complimentary thoughts.
The wind whipped through Schuldig's hair as he peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the clerk behind with a protein facial and his pants unzipped. Schuldig smirked in the mirror. For a man who had no previous experience with blowjobs, Charles had done a damn fine job. Schuldig's body tingled agreeably. He pulled onto the freeway, sliding into the sparse traffic like he belonged.
"Where to next?" he said.
For a brief second he considered leaving the country: Rome, Paris, London…Hell, even Geneva would be better than here. It would be a pain in the ass, though, to mindfuck his way through customs without a passport. He sighed and pushed the little red sports car harder. It leapt forward, accelerating smoothly to eighty, ninety, a hundred miles an hour. The speedometer's needle crept upward.
At a hundred and seventeen miles an hour, the countryside was nothing but a big, golden daylit blur. Very pretty, though Schuldig's bangs kept creeping into his eyes, stinging, and the wind hitting his face made him tear up. Everything around him was blobby, and he only very nearly missed having a spectacular wreck with a semi.
He passed inches from the truck's bumper. The truck blared its horn at him. Schuldig flipped the driver off.
"Fucker!" yelled Schuldig.
He would have beeped his horn, but he knew from experience that sports cars like his would only give an unsatisfyingly cheerful chirp. Still…He patted the dashboard. The car really ate up the miles, and she was a smooth ride. He settled into the seat, loving the feel of the leather seat as it cradled him.
He could almost fall asleep, except for the other cars he came upon: the flashes of terror from the drivers kept jolting him. Fuck them. Like they'd never seen a car going fast before. It was a highway, for fuck's sake, and the limit for the law-abiding was seventy five. Seventy-five was enough to obliterate you and your car if there was an accident, so what did it matter if he was going faster than that? They’d all be dead anyway.
One handed, Schuldig fished out a bandana and put it on. There. Now he wouldn't singe his hair if he needed a cigarette between here and wherever he was going. Speaking of which, where was he going?
Another huge highway-green sign flew by.
"Twitchell-50mi
Effington-52mi"
Schuldig gave an involuntary snort. Effington? Twitchell? Still, civilization was civilization, and the green sign was followed by a blue one proclaiming the presence of various food, gas, and hotel chains. Good enough. He was getting hungry already, and the endorphins from the blowjob were fading, leaving him tired from his spur-of-the-moment cross-country jaunt. Running away from home, if that's what you could call what he'd done, was fucking exhausting. He laughed, fished out a cigarette, lit it.
A green sign caught his attention at the side of the road:
"Twitchell-46mi"
Schuldig pushed the accelerator to the floor, and, for a second, his unhappiness lifted and his laughter was genuine. This was the life. Who'd want to stay home and make babies when they could be out doing this instead?
Schuldig felt his lips curl into a snarl, and he drove recklessly for a while, passing cars at lightning speed, playing chicken, darting from lane to lane, driving inches from the guard rails just to feel himself living.
It took the cloying, absolute fear of the next three drivers he passed to calm him down. His cigarette had burned down to ash. He flicked it out of the car. What a fucking waste. He shook himself out of his mood as best as he could and focused again.
The red sports car screamed down the road toward Twitchell.
-----
Brad Crawford got on the 2:38 plane to Twitchell. He sat in first class. He put a single bag in the overhead baggage compartment and, after accepting a mineral water from the stewardess, he closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. Brad Crawford slept for the three and a half-hour flight. A stewardess woke him as they taxied down the landing strip. He thanked her, got his bag, and disembarked as soon as the plane stopped moving. There was a car there to meet him: black, tinted windows. Crawford got in. The car drove off.
Crawford loosened his tie and adjusted the lap portion of his seatbelt.
"He'll be at The Brandt," said Crawford. "We'll go there."
The driver nodded. The car moved through the city accordingly.
Fragments of a vision dazzled Crawford, breaking up his view of the city: brick buildings marching along the road interspersed with strip malls and heavy traffic. He shook his head and felt some irritation at the sudden changes in his immediate future.
"Wait," he said. "Take me to the grocery two streets over. We'll go to the hotel after that."
"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley, eh?" said the driver.
Crawford sighed.
The driver laughed.
The car made a u-turn, clipping the back of an SUV and jostling Crawford in the process. They shot down a narrow, one-way street.
Schuldig would be insufferable, no doubt, seeing him here when he'd tried to leave everything Crawford represented behind. Crawford rubbed his temples and tried not to frown. Schuldig could take his attitude and shove it. Crawford rearranged his tie and ran a hand over his hair. He didn't have to look in the mirror to know he looked perfectly kempt. He had an appointment to keep, whether Schuldig liked it or not.
Just ahead, the grocery store's sign flicked on. It began to glow in anticipation of nightfall.
-----
Schuldig had stopped for groceries, feeling a sudden hunger to spend more money that wasn't his. He stood in the checkout, complaining to the cashier just to hear himself talk. She was his captive audience. He bathed in the sullen glow of her emotions like he was warming himself by a fire. Schuldig prodded the coals.
"I'm only twenty six," he said. "Who wants to have kids now?"
He said this having read out of her head that she had three children and she was only twenty-four, desperate to live her life as a young adult but saddled with the responsibilities of diapers and late nights and double shifts to make ends meet. He pushed a little deeper and pulled away, disgusted. She was happy anyway. He just didn't get it.
"So what if I've got a little fairy blood in me?" he said. "Lots of people do."
It was a non-sequitur, he knew, and the cashier struggled to keep up. She nodded.
"I've a little of that myself," she said. "They say it's harmless enough."
Schuldig, stuck in his own little world, continued.
"And so what if it's not actually fairy blood?" he said. "So what if I'm half water elemental?"
And suddenly he found himself under the scrutiny of everyone within ear shot. The people around him were scared that he'd suddenly change into Something Else right there and start slaughtering them all.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he said. "It's not that bad."
He paid for his groceries and stuffed them into bags himself, all the while aware of the pairs of eyes watching his every move. It wasn't like having supernatural blood was that rare. For crying out loud, people were cropping up left and right: publicly announcing that they were children of fairies, genies, and all sorts of other entities. Schuldig's family had a long, proud tradition of mixing it up, but they'd always kept it under wraps because, hey, why show your advantages to the competitors?
It was one of the things he hated most about his family: everything was competition, be it business deals, politics, or genetics. And then there was Schuldig, the young scion, full of those precious, rare genes, monied, proud, spoiled, and desperate to escape his looming Reproductive Duty to the Family. The people his family had picked out as good genetic matches… Schuldig shuddered. Not going to happen.
He turned around to leave and rammed into his least favorite person. What little good mood he'd had evaporated. Speaking of genetic matches, here was enemy number one.
"Crawford," he said. "Get out of my way."
Crawford smiled at him, self-assured. He wrestled one of the bags out of Schuldig's hands. Damn but he was strong. But so what if Crawford was hot and powerful? That didn't mean Schuldig wanted to reproduce with him.
"You're looking well," Crawford said. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"
"Go fuck yourself," said Schuldig. "You're the last person I'd ever, ever want to have kids with."
"Our families would disagree," Crawford said. "I'm not leaving until you say yes."
"Then hover quietly in the background somewhere," said Schuldig. "Leave me alone."
Schuldig glared and tried to hip-check him. Unfortunately, Crawford stepped aside at precisely the right time and the only effect he had on Crawford was to make him smile. Again.
Schuldig was tired. Tired of this argument he had every time he saw Crawford, tired of trying to run from the leash his family had him on. Though he was technically out on his own, he had no doubts that his family was watching his every move. Schuldig frowned harder. Just like Crawford. Smug, prescient bastard. He'd probably been using his visions to track Schuldig the whole time. Crawford was never more than a thought away and it rubbed Schuldig's nerves raw.
"Go away," said Schuldig. "I'm checking into a hotel tonight. I'll be perfectly safe there."
Crawford looked meaningfully over his shoulder, out to the parking lot.
"Better hurry up," he said. "It's almost sunset. I'll walk you to your car."
Schuldig swore. Sunset was bad. Sunset was when all the creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night-and were there ever things that went bump in the night-came out, hungry and wild, and someone like Schuldig was the perfect aperitif. True, those things would attack anyone out after dark, but if it was a choice between Schuldig and some poor human schmuck out for coffee, they'd go for Schuldig every time. Schuldig had it on good authority that he smelled far more delicious than a normal human and that that scent was powerful enough that it could wake even dormant genes in a pseudo-norm. It was a pain in the ass being Schuldig.
"I don't need your help," said Schuldig. "Give me my shit and leave me alone."
He jerked his groceries out of Crawford's hands and stalked off to his car, as quick as he could without running. He started it up and peeled out of the grocery store lot.
=====
I agonized over the title for days, because I was having trouble picking it, and then today I decided I'd have my cake and eat it too: by giving each chapter its own title, I got to use all the titles I thought might work. (And really, I think the runner-ups are way better as section titles...they fit better with the material.)
All things considered, this is going pretty well for being extracted from one of my dreams.
...I'm feeling far too accomplished for a post-chapter dissection right now.
~later