Fic - Weiss Kreuz - Bad People
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz
Title: Bad People
Author: daegaer
Warnings: worksafe.
Pairing(s): Crawford/Ran
Notes: Written for Battle Challenge 1, for laurose8's prompt: Crawford/Ran : future reincarnation fic : belonging together - Space Opera! Following on from Navigating Futures
Points to Crawford, please!
They were, it seemed more and more obvious, free from suspicion as they crept their ailing way towards Windgap main station. Crawford arranged for the repairs, and found no problems with a long waiting period, or overly curious bureaucrats. It was enough to make a man start to actually believe in the gods, he thought. He decided to hold off on turning religious until after he saw how much it was all going to cost. Feeling peckish he went to the galley and prepared himself soup, eating while watching Schuldig dealing with their newest acquisition. It was the current pastime of choice for the entire crew, who seemed to find the spectacle of their first officer plying the new navigator with tidbits of cake fascinating. A mouthful of cake was offered, carefully and delicately eaten, and then she would solemnly extend a hand to allow Schuldig to clip no more than two fingernails. Then it was time for another piece of cake. Crawford felt he couldn't fault Schuldig's patience; personally, he thought, he'd have half-broken her wrist holding her still to complete the job quickly.
And that is why we decided I would deal with these issues.
"Now, then, all done," Schuldig said cheerfully. "Much better. You won't try to scratch my eyes out again, will you?"
The girl looked up at him, as if giving the matter consideration. "She might."
Crawford held his peace as Ran snorted with outright laughter. Everyone else had laughed, he could let it slide, he decided.
After a moment more of thought she said, "He made her fly after she ate."
"I'm sorry," Schuldig said, radiating so much sincerity that Crawford felt an overwhelming urge to laugh. "We had to run away from bad people."
"She doesn't like bad people."
Ran drew breath beside him, and Crawford put a warning hand on his arm. The flash he had of the several likely statements about to come out of Ran's mouth on the subject of bad people would not be helpful. Ran shivered and tried to move away, but Crawford tightened his grip. Let the boy learn some self-control, or let him learn to be controlled.
The new navigator looked younger than she had at first now that Schuldig had cleaned her up and dressed her in clothes that hung loosely on her. He'd cut off most of the badly dyed blue hair as well; every so often she touched her head in apparent surprise.
"Hey, pretty," Schuldig said, taking her hand again, "What's your name?"
She looked at him suspiciously, and slowly pulled her hand back. “It’s a secret.”
"Why don’t you think it," Schuldig said, "and let me see if I can guess it?" He looked harmless, somehow, like the nicest young man anyone could ever meet. "Nanami?" he said. "Isn’t that a pretty name?"
"He guessed!" she said, her eyes widening.
"She's been fed regularly," Schuldig said, looking her over, "thin, but not too bad. Might be forgetting to eat, so that'll need an eye kept on it. Her basic hygiene wasn't great; broken nails, knots in the hair that had to be cut out. Her old crew were slovenly."
"Because you wouldn't want something untidy looking up from the pillow," Ran said, pulling his arm free from Crawford’s grasp.
"I just like equipment to be in good order," Schuldig said, and turned back to her. "You like being clean and neat, don't you, pretty Nanami? Don't you like your hair not being tangled?"
She nodded, slowly. "They took her comb away," she said.
"Did they? That wasn't nice. If you could comb your own hair you should have been encouraged to do it. Why did they do that?"
She leant forwards and said in a tone that suggested she was sharing a great confidence, "She sharpened it into a knife."
Everyone stared at her and she smiled; a sweet child’s smile, Crawford thought. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
She regarded him with an unblinking gaze. The whites of her eyes, he saw had a definite violet tinge. She’d been navigating a lot longer than Ran, if that hadn’t already been obvious from her demeanour.
"Is he a bad man?" she asked.
"No, he’s the captain," Schuldig said, as Crawford worked his way through her pronouns and answered for himself,
"I’m not a bad man. I’m Captain Crawford. Everyone here is good. You don’t need a knife on this ship."
"Except when the first officer -"
Ran’s mutter cut off with a strangled gasp. Crawford turned to see him glaring at Schuldig as he retreated a step or two. Before he could say anything Nagi got between them, speaking quietly and urgently to Ran, who nodded once, sullenly, and seemed to settle down. Good, Crawford thought.
"We’re all good," Schuldig said quietly. "You’re safe. This is your new ship."
"She isn’t going back to her old ship?"
"No, pretty thing, you’re not."
"She isn’t going back to her family?"
"Your - family - didn’t look after you. We will. They didn’t like you as much as we do."
She chewed at a fingertip until Schuldig gently pulled her hand from her mouth. "They used to like her," she said sadly. "Until she killed her Daddy." She brightened, adding, "He was a very bad man."
Schuldig looked round, mouth open a little in astonishment. "I think she means her ship’s captain. Things are jumbled as fuck in that little head, but - gods. She really thinks she killed her captain."
'Well, fuck," Farfarello said in awe. "Your taste in girls always was shit, Schuldig."
"She used her navigation drugs," Nanami said, more cheerful now that everyone was transfixed in horror.
Schuldig let out a breath. "Just a dream - the drugs aren’t fatal -"
"She used half the ship’s supply."
He paused. "On the other hand, that would do it."
"Good for her," Ran said, loud and clear. "I don’t even care why she did it. I bet it made her crew finally notice she was a person."
"The other navigator’s wounds are making him feverish," Schuldig said. "Could someone put him in his quarters, please?"
"I have a damn name."
Schuldig turned so fast that it was clear he’d been looking for an excuse to lose his temper. He didn’t say a word, but Ran turned pale and looked faint. Nagi sighed, and got a hand under his elbow, steadying him.
"First Officer," he said, "he’s sorry."
"Put him in his quarters," Schuldig said evenly, and turned away.
Nagi tugged Ran’s arm, leading him from the galley. Crawford considered it, then followed, catching up a few seconds later.
"I’ll do it."
"It’s no problem," Nagi said.
His stance was definitely protective, Crawford thought. There was a faction forming right before his eyes. Ran needed to stop causing trouble among the crew. I helped cause this, he told himself sternly. Now he was going to fix it.
"It’s fine, Nagi. I’m just going to talk to him, that’s all."
"Yes, Captain," Nagi said, after too long a pause. He gave Ran an encouraging pat on the back. "You listen to the captain, all right? And when he says you can, come and find me in Engineering."
Ran nodded and obediently walked beside Crawford to his quarters. He stood silently at the edge of the small room, clearly expecting a dressing down. Crawford stepped closer, watching him hold himself still.
"Let me see how you’re healing," he said, carefully peeling back the medicated patch Jens had applied. "Not bad. It’ll leave less of a scar than you deserve." He smoothed it down again, gently. "If you’re not used to it, mindspeech can be a bit of a shock," he said. "Do you feel all right?"
Ran nodded, tight-lipped and clearly lying. Crawford ignored it; let the boy have his useless pride.
"What did he say to you?"
"He said that crew have names, ship’s components get referred to by function," Ran said, his voice bitter.
"Hmm. And rounded it off with something that felt like you’d been hit behind the eyes? Yes, well you publicly praised an act of mutiny. On our old ship you’d have been killed, no appeals. We’re more easy-going here."
"Easy-going," Ran muttered.
"Very much so," Crawford said. "I’m talking to you, I let you have the run of the ship, I don’t keep you locked up unless we’re ready for jump. And all you do is complain about how badly you’re treated - not one word, not one word about the First Officer out of you right now - I bought you. He did nothing illegal. And he’s left you alone since I asked him to."
"Legal’s not the same as right," Ran said in anger, the colour rising in his cheeks. It made the violet of his eyes stand out all the more.
"I don’t know why you think you have the right to argue with me," Crawford said. He glared at Ran’s furious expression. "You may be correct, but that doesn’t give you the right to say it." He paused, looking at Ran’s dumbstruck face. "Gods, just sit down." He sat down on the edge of the bunk. "Sit, I said."
"You think I’m right," Ran said slowly. He sat, his eyes firmly fixed on Crawford’s.
"I think I should have bought someone less opinionated," Crawford said. "Go on, say what’s on your mind before I change mine. Ask for compensation if you like, I don’t want two homicidal navigators aboard."
Ran gathered his thoughts, then said, "You’re not going to punish -"
"No. Ask for something else."
"My freedom?"
"You think big. Ask for something else."
Ran took a deep breath, his face clearing."“Let me study engineering. Nagi’s been showing me things, the specs, his manuals - let me learn from him. It’ll help to keep my mind focused, won’t it? And you’d get longer use out of me before I -" he swallowed, "before I got lost, like that poor girl."
"You’re healthy, you haven’t even been doing this for half a year," Crawford said. "You’re nowhere near her level. And if you think she’s vague -" He smiled at the innocence of planet dwellers. "If that’s what you want," he said. "Now, you stay in here and pretend you’re being good, all right?"
Ran gave the ghost of a smile as Crawford began to rise. "What are you and the others, Captain?"
Crawford looked over at him and let himself settle down on the bunk again. "Hadn’t you worked it out?" he said. "We’re deserters, boy. We’re a renegade Black Unit."
Ran’s face was a study, he thought. Schuldig would be sorry he’d missed it. The young man quickly stopped looking so bewildered and more as if he were reevaluating any number of incidents he’d witnessed since he’d been on-board.
"Why did you desert?" he said, in a voice that was, Crawford thought, no doubt not meant to sound as worried as it did. He’d be worried as well, if he were a civilian who found himself suddenly in the company of the regular military, let alone a Black Unit.
He shrugged. "I was in the military a long time. Perhaps it was just time for something else. There are only so many planets one can decimate before it all gets a little . . . tiresome. We were attached to the Warship Terror, which for all its name was actually a remarkably boring place, most of the time. So one day, when we’d gone out on a mission, the Hunter Ship Rose Cross vanished and became the Free Merchant Rose. We’ve had a mostly uneventful life - it’s incredible what a start you have as a merchant when you don’t have any loans to pay on your ship."
"You all deserted because you were bored," Ran said flatly.
Crawford nodded. "That and we’d had enough," he said. "You think your life is awful - I do have some sympathy. I might have ended up like you are. Your planet was so peaceful, so averse to rebellion. Mine - well a skirmish took place in its outer system, which meant all population centres in the system ended up classified as hostile. The military could legally take and retrain likely candidates as recruits, which meant anyone from thirteen to twenty, theoretically, but really meant anyone. The war was heating up then, and warships go through a lot of navigators. If you had high grades in maths and physics, the military wasn’t going to look further. I had really good grades." He grinned at Ran.
"How’d you do it?" Ran said. "There isn’t the slightest touch of violet in your eyes."
"I think you’re imagining some sort of orderly process," Crawford said. "What happened is that the teachers in my school destroyed the records of every single student, so I survived the crucial first selection and managed to get through the first rudimentary psi-test they gave everyone. The next test had more hopeful results and I got specialist training, as well as the usual combat skills. A few years later I met a skinny red-haired joker and we hit it off, eventually managed to get assigned together -" He kept his face neutral as he remembered the troops striding into the classroom. "They shot all the teachers as insurgents," he said conversationally. "They gang-raped a good few of them first. They made us watch. I was thirteen years old."
Ran’s expression, he decided, indicated what normal people thought about such things. Thank all the gods, he thought, that he’d only talked about it to Ran, and not to anyone who counted. He stood up.
"I wouldn’t bother feeling sorry for me," he said. "I did well for myself in the military, we all did. But we all have stories like that, and that’s why we left. Like you said, legal’s not the same as right. As captain, on behalf of the First Officer, I apologise. You can keep company with Nagi and study any time you’re not on duty as compensation, and Schuldig and I will also both owe you a favour you can call in when you like. Enough?"
Ran just looked at him, and belatedly nodded. "Yes, thank you, Captain."
Crawford went to the door and paused. "Stay here for half an hour," he said. "Schuldig will be in a good humour again by then. You can go to Engineering then."
"Thank you," Ran said, still looking caught between pity and horror.
Crawford left, letting the future play out before him. Ran seemed stable enough for the moment, the situation resolved, or at least settling. Gods save me from civilians and their sensibilities, he thought, and went to find what the body count for Nanami had risen to.
Title: Bad People
Author: daegaer
Warnings: worksafe.
Pairing(s): Crawford/Ran
Notes: Written for Battle Challenge 1, for laurose8's prompt: Crawford/Ran : future reincarnation fic : belonging together - Space Opera! Following on from Navigating Futures
Points to Crawford, please!
They were, it seemed more and more obvious, free from suspicion as they crept their ailing way towards Windgap main station. Crawford arranged for the repairs, and found no problems with a long waiting period, or overly curious bureaucrats. It was enough to make a man start to actually believe in the gods, he thought. He decided to hold off on turning religious until after he saw how much it was all going to cost. Feeling peckish he went to the galley and prepared himself soup, eating while watching Schuldig dealing with their newest acquisition. It was the current pastime of choice for the entire crew, who seemed to find the spectacle of their first officer plying the new navigator with tidbits of cake fascinating. A mouthful of cake was offered, carefully and delicately eaten, and then she would solemnly extend a hand to allow Schuldig to clip no more than two fingernails. Then it was time for another piece of cake. Crawford felt he couldn't fault Schuldig's patience; personally, he thought, he'd have half-broken her wrist holding her still to complete the job quickly.
And that is why we decided I would deal with these issues.
"Now, then, all done," Schuldig said cheerfully. "Much better. You won't try to scratch my eyes out again, will you?"
The girl looked up at him, as if giving the matter consideration. "She might."
Crawford held his peace as Ran snorted with outright laughter. Everyone else had laughed, he could let it slide, he decided.
After a moment more of thought she said, "He made her fly after she ate."
"I'm sorry," Schuldig said, radiating so much sincerity that Crawford felt an overwhelming urge to laugh. "We had to run away from bad people."
"She doesn't like bad people."
Ran drew breath beside him, and Crawford put a warning hand on his arm. The flash he had of the several likely statements about to come out of Ran's mouth on the subject of bad people would not be helpful. Ran shivered and tried to move away, but Crawford tightened his grip. Let the boy learn some self-control, or let him learn to be controlled.
The new navigator looked younger than she had at first now that Schuldig had cleaned her up and dressed her in clothes that hung loosely on her. He'd cut off most of the badly dyed blue hair as well; every so often she touched her head in apparent surprise.
"Hey, pretty," Schuldig said, taking her hand again, "What's your name?"
She looked at him suspiciously, and slowly pulled her hand back. “It’s a secret.”
"Why don’t you think it," Schuldig said, "and let me see if I can guess it?" He looked harmless, somehow, like the nicest young man anyone could ever meet. "Nanami?" he said. "Isn’t that a pretty name?"
"He guessed!" she said, her eyes widening.
"She's been fed regularly," Schuldig said, looking her over, "thin, but not too bad. Might be forgetting to eat, so that'll need an eye kept on it. Her basic hygiene wasn't great; broken nails, knots in the hair that had to be cut out. Her old crew were slovenly."
"Because you wouldn't want something untidy looking up from the pillow," Ran said, pulling his arm free from Crawford’s grasp.
"I just like equipment to be in good order," Schuldig said, and turned back to her. "You like being clean and neat, don't you, pretty Nanami? Don't you like your hair not being tangled?"
She nodded, slowly. "They took her comb away," she said.
"Did they? That wasn't nice. If you could comb your own hair you should have been encouraged to do it. Why did they do that?"
She leant forwards and said in a tone that suggested she was sharing a great confidence, "She sharpened it into a knife."
Everyone stared at her and she smiled; a sweet child’s smile, Crawford thought. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
She regarded him with an unblinking gaze. The whites of her eyes, he saw had a definite violet tinge. She’d been navigating a lot longer than Ran, if that hadn’t already been obvious from her demeanour.
"Is he a bad man?" she asked.
"No, he’s the captain," Schuldig said, as Crawford worked his way through her pronouns and answered for himself,
"I’m not a bad man. I’m Captain Crawford. Everyone here is good. You don’t need a knife on this ship."
"Except when the first officer -"
Ran’s mutter cut off with a strangled gasp. Crawford turned to see him glaring at Schuldig as he retreated a step or two. Before he could say anything Nagi got between them, speaking quietly and urgently to Ran, who nodded once, sullenly, and seemed to settle down. Good, Crawford thought.
"We’re all good," Schuldig said quietly. "You’re safe. This is your new ship."
"She isn’t going back to her old ship?"
"No, pretty thing, you’re not."
"She isn’t going back to her family?"
"Your - family - didn’t look after you. We will. They didn’t like you as much as we do."
She chewed at a fingertip until Schuldig gently pulled her hand from her mouth. "They used to like her," she said sadly. "Until she killed her Daddy." She brightened, adding, "He was a very bad man."
Schuldig looked round, mouth open a little in astonishment. "I think she means her ship’s captain. Things are jumbled as fuck in that little head, but - gods. She really thinks she killed her captain."
'Well, fuck," Farfarello said in awe. "Your taste in girls always was shit, Schuldig."
"She used her navigation drugs," Nanami said, more cheerful now that everyone was transfixed in horror.
Schuldig let out a breath. "Just a dream - the drugs aren’t fatal -"
"She used half the ship’s supply."
He paused. "On the other hand, that would do it."
"Good for her," Ran said, loud and clear. "I don’t even care why she did it. I bet it made her crew finally notice she was a person."
"The other navigator’s wounds are making him feverish," Schuldig said. "Could someone put him in his quarters, please?"
"I have a damn name."
Schuldig turned so fast that it was clear he’d been looking for an excuse to lose his temper. He didn’t say a word, but Ran turned pale and looked faint. Nagi sighed, and got a hand under his elbow, steadying him.
"First Officer," he said, "he’s sorry."
"Put him in his quarters," Schuldig said evenly, and turned away.
Nagi tugged Ran’s arm, leading him from the galley. Crawford considered it, then followed, catching up a few seconds later.
"I’ll do it."
"It’s no problem," Nagi said.
His stance was definitely protective, Crawford thought. There was a faction forming right before his eyes. Ran needed to stop causing trouble among the crew. I helped cause this, he told himself sternly. Now he was going to fix it.
"It’s fine, Nagi. I’m just going to talk to him, that’s all."
"Yes, Captain," Nagi said, after too long a pause. He gave Ran an encouraging pat on the back. "You listen to the captain, all right? And when he says you can, come and find me in Engineering."
Ran nodded and obediently walked beside Crawford to his quarters. He stood silently at the edge of the small room, clearly expecting a dressing down. Crawford stepped closer, watching him hold himself still.
"Let me see how you’re healing," he said, carefully peeling back the medicated patch Jens had applied. "Not bad. It’ll leave less of a scar than you deserve." He smoothed it down again, gently. "If you’re not used to it, mindspeech can be a bit of a shock," he said. "Do you feel all right?"
Ran nodded, tight-lipped and clearly lying. Crawford ignored it; let the boy have his useless pride.
"What did he say to you?"
"He said that crew have names, ship’s components get referred to by function," Ran said, his voice bitter.
"Hmm. And rounded it off with something that felt like you’d been hit behind the eyes? Yes, well you publicly praised an act of mutiny. On our old ship you’d have been killed, no appeals. We’re more easy-going here."
"Easy-going," Ran muttered.
"Very much so," Crawford said. "I’m talking to you, I let you have the run of the ship, I don’t keep you locked up unless we’re ready for jump. And all you do is complain about how badly you’re treated - not one word, not one word about the First Officer out of you right now - I bought you. He did nothing illegal. And he’s left you alone since I asked him to."
"Legal’s not the same as right," Ran said in anger, the colour rising in his cheeks. It made the violet of his eyes stand out all the more.
"I don’t know why you think you have the right to argue with me," Crawford said. He glared at Ran’s furious expression. "You may be correct, but that doesn’t give you the right to say it." He paused, looking at Ran’s dumbstruck face. "Gods, just sit down." He sat down on the edge of the bunk. "Sit, I said."
"You think I’m right," Ran said slowly. He sat, his eyes firmly fixed on Crawford’s.
"I think I should have bought someone less opinionated," Crawford said. "Go on, say what’s on your mind before I change mine. Ask for compensation if you like, I don’t want two homicidal navigators aboard."
Ran gathered his thoughts, then said, "You’re not going to punish -"
"No. Ask for something else."
"My freedom?"
"You think big. Ask for something else."
Ran took a deep breath, his face clearing."“Let me study engineering. Nagi’s been showing me things, the specs, his manuals - let me learn from him. It’ll help to keep my mind focused, won’t it? And you’d get longer use out of me before I -" he swallowed, "before I got lost, like that poor girl."
"You’re healthy, you haven’t even been doing this for half a year," Crawford said. "You’re nowhere near her level. And if you think she’s vague -" He smiled at the innocence of planet dwellers. "If that’s what you want," he said. "Now, you stay in here and pretend you’re being good, all right?"
Ran gave the ghost of a smile as Crawford began to rise. "What are you and the others, Captain?"
Crawford looked over at him and let himself settle down on the bunk again. "Hadn’t you worked it out?" he said. "We’re deserters, boy. We’re a renegade Black Unit."
Ran’s face was a study, he thought. Schuldig would be sorry he’d missed it. The young man quickly stopped looking so bewildered and more as if he were reevaluating any number of incidents he’d witnessed since he’d been on-board.
"Why did you desert?" he said, in a voice that was, Crawford thought, no doubt not meant to sound as worried as it did. He’d be worried as well, if he were a civilian who found himself suddenly in the company of the regular military, let alone a Black Unit.
He shrugged. "I was in the military a long time. Perhaps it was just time for something else. There are only so many planets one can decimate before it all gets a little . . . tiresome. We were attached to the Warship Terror, which for all its name was actually a remarkably boring place, most of the time. So one day, when we’d gone out on a mission, the Hunter Ship Rose Cross vanished and became the Free Merchant Rose. We’ve had a mostly uneventful life - it’s incredible what a start you have as a merchant when you don’t have any loans to pay on your ship."
"You all deserted because you were bored," Ran said flatly.
Crawford nodded. "That and we’d had enough," he said. "You think your life is awful - I do have some sympathy. I might have ended up like you are. Your planet was so peaceful, so averse to rebellion. Mine - well a skirmish took place in its outer system, which meant all population centres in the system ended up classified as hostile. The military could legally take and retrain likely candidates as recruits, which meant anyone from thirteen to twenty, theoretically, but really meant anyone. The war was heating up then, and warships go through a lot of navigators. If you had high grades in maths and physics, the military wasn’t going to look further. I had really good grades." He grinned at Ran.
"How’d you do it?" Ran said. "There isn’t the slightest touch of violet in your eyes."
"I think you’re imagining some sort of orderly process," Crawford said. "What happened is that the teachers in my school destroyed the records of every single student, so I survived the crucial first selection and managed to get through the first rudimentary psi-test they gave everyone. The next test had more hopeful results and I got specialist training, as well as the usual combat skills. A few years later I met a skinny red-haired joker and we hit it off, eventually managed to get assigned together -" He kept his face neutral as he remembered the troops striding into the classroom. "They shot all the teachers as insurgents," he said conversationally. "They gang-raped a good few of them first. They made us watch. I was thirteen years old."
Ran’s expression, he decided, indicated what normal people thought about such things. Thank all the gods, he thought, that he’d only talked about it to Ran, and not to anyone who counted. He stood up.
"I wouldn’t bother feeling sorry for me," he said. "I did well for myself in the military, we all did. But we all have stories like that, and that’s why we left. Like you said, legal’s not the same as right. As captain, on behalf of the First Officer, I apologise. You can keep company with Nagi and study any time you’re not on duty as compensation, and Schuldig and I will also both owe you a favour you can call in when you like. Enough?"
Ran just looked at him, and belatedly nodded. "Yes, thank you, Captain."
Crawford went to the door and paused. "Stay here for half an hour," he said. "Schuldig will be in a good humour again by then. You can go to Engineering then."
"Thank you," Ran said, still looking caught between pity and horror.
Crawford left, letting the future play out before him. Ran seemed stable enough for the moment, the situation resolved, or at least settling. Gods save me from civilians and their sensibilities, he thought, and went to find what the body count for Nanami had risen to.