Chapter one: Partners

He hated telepaths. They were nosy, disobedient and easily defecting. What he had wanted was a pyrokinetic. Pyrokinetics were good. They never wasted their energy, they got rid of problems easily, were precise in their aims and if cold in winter, they'd always be able to warm you. Pyrokinetics listened, didn't talk back, didn't try to mess with your mind. Though he had been long enough at Rosenkreuz to know when a telepath was reading his thoughts. Or how to teach them that they'd better not.

After one year working for Takatori company as a junior assistant, and another in a minor unit, he was given a subordinate. Compared to other C-Class members, his position was more than bad. Compared to everyone else, he was careering. His new man was coming directly from Russia, but luckily a German. So he wouldn't have to put up with someone who barley knew the language.

As much as he loved Rosenkreuz and would have given his life for their goals, he couldn't approve of the choice of a telepath. Problem was, he knew they wouldn't take him back. He had foreseen.

He smoothed his tied, tidied his jacket and entered the room where a wild looking youth sat on a chair. The head was still shaved, the clothes barely better then the ones worn at the camp. Hell, the stench of the camps was still lingering around. He didn't like to admit that it wasn't because the stench was unpleasant that he kept on the other side of the room, but because only the idea of the camps and the labs and the experiments caused panic revolting in his guts.

There was a code cruelly tattooed into the back of the neck of the boy. Which meant trouble in any case. The boy had been trouble long enough to get the tattoo there. Which meant two things: Either, he was trouble still which was bad. Or he was so badly broken that he would snap one day. Which maybe was worse.

Why couldn't they have sent him a pyrokinetic?

Of course, he knew why. They had taken him into C-Class in spite of his foolishness, his foolish behaviour. And ever since then they had tried and tried him again, paying back a thousand times for his stupidity. His naivety. His lacking love for Rosenkreuz and Eszett back then.

Which, by now, he had proven more than enough he possessed.

"That's him?", he asked the warden.

A nod. "That's him. Fresh from the camps."

"C-Class?"

A laugh. "No, not him! Stupid is he, aren't you?"

The boy didn't react. The same vacant stare onto the floor.

He gave an inward sigh. Hauer had chosen money. So no education. Only experiments on his talents and the education of how to use this talent and how to kill the quickest with it. Let's hope he had learned to read and to write before Rosenkreuz had gotten hold of him.

"He's a double. Telepath and super speed or however they call it these days. But not outrageously talented in both, it seems."

He gave a relieved sigh. That, at least, was good news. Telepaths who were too talented went insane quickly. Most didn't reach the age of twenty and if, then only high on medication.

He himself was lucky not to be too talented. Over talented clairvoyants didn't go insane. They just committed suicide.

"What's your name?" He turned to the telepath.

Suddenly, he felt the telepathy spring to action around him.

'What's yours?' Grinning from one ear to the other. A sadistically grin. Only the insane laughing missing.

'Stay out of my head.'

This time the laugh. 'Uh! What if not, four-eye?'

Quicker than ever the telepath could withdraw, he showed him. Most vivid memories of torture. Like every other telepath, this one yelped in pain, shot up in his seat, stared at his unmoving face. Scared. Most never figured out how to keep telepaths out. Obviously, he was the first this one had met who had a tactic. He probably thought that he was some kind of telepath himself.

"That wasn't nice, arsehole."

He shrugged. "I'm not paid to be nice. And I'm not paid to be patient. What's your name?"

Blue eyes glittered at him. A tongue ran over the raw lips. He didn't like him. Not a damn. Problem was, this uncivilised – thing – in front of him would become the most important person in his live. At least for the next few years as it seemed.

A grin bared his teeth. "What I always am: Schuldig."

A smirk crossed his lips and his scoffing eyes met those of the telepath. "Doesn't sound very much like a name to me. But Schuldig it is, then."

The boy gaped at him for the lack of reaction he showed. Maybe he had hoped for an outburst. Him yelling at him. Or at least getting irritated. His cool façade cracking. Yelling at him to stop the games and tell him his real name. Or showing some sign of impatience – something – at least asking him again for his name. Something that would have let him play games with him. Not to accept what he had said.

"I am Crawford."

"Eh… Mister… ehm", the warden started, "the boy's name isn't Schuldig. It is…"

"He told me his name was Schuldig." Sending the warden a glare. He didn't give a damn whether the boy was called Schuldig, Benjamin, Thorsten or even Dummkopf.

The warden shut up, stunned, and the boy realized that this young man in front of him was determined not to be messed with. That in fact, it had been him who had won the first two points in this game. But there was a reason why he had the code in the back of his neck. He only bowed if there was no over way. After all, he was a telepath. Normal mortals were pathetic compared to him. The others were pathetic because they didn't possess as much talent as he did. And if they did, they were pathetic because it broke them. Or because he showed them. Most of them were pathetic now as they hadn't manage to get away from the camps. But he had. He was one of those who'd made it from the camps alive. He might have let this guy unharmed if he had been able to break away a bit of the façade. But he hadn't. Hadn't even made a point. And that he wouldn't let pass. Let's see how much patience he possessed, this Crawford. He grinned to himself. By the end of the week, he would be calling him by his real name. He was sure of it.

.

"Slept well?", Crawford asked the telepath the next morning when he left his room, smirking.

It was six o'clock in the morning, late by camp standards and Crawford was sitting in the kitchen, sipping his tea and reading a book.

The telepath sat down, in front of a plate with a piece of bread, sausage and cheese.

As Schuldig was assigned to him now, he had moved from his one room flat to this two room flat which he would have to share with the telepath. Which he hated.

"To get that straight: My room is none of your business. You may use the lower two departments of the fridge. You will not take anything from my. You will clean your dishes after you ate. I don't care if you cock as long as you clean up. You'll vacuum the corridor every second week. You'll clean the bathroom once a week."

"Am I also suppose to clean your arse?"

Crawford didn't even seem to notice that he said something. "No visitors. That's not my rule, that is house rule. If you break it, you won't be in trouble with me, but most likely loose your room for the rest of the time."

"What if I don't?" The was a sadistically grin in the telepath's face. Rest of which time?

"If you bring a visitor, I will tell them."

"Oh! Tell them! You frighten me! What is it like, trouble with you? Are you going to beat me up? Get your fancy business jacket dirty?" A sneer.

Crawford took a sip of tea. "I won't beat you up." A twitch of his lips. A smirk, maybe. "Do you know what you are here for?"

"Obviously, I am here to wipe the pampered ass of a child who things he can play big just because you know a bit of telepathy. Did your cock-sucking mother got you this job?"

"Can you write?"

The other gaped at him.

"Can you or can't you?"

"Fuck you!"

"Read this to me."

He picked up a piece of paper he had prepared.

Schuldig's eyes fixed on it and Crawford saw his eyes gliding along the lines.

/From today on, you're assigned to me as my pupil first, later as my subordinate. I suspect, you aren't much older than fourteen. That means you are still within the age for the camps. Which is exactly where you'll go back to if you don't adapt./

The telepath face paled. Then, he stared at Crawford. "Fuck you!"

Crawford put the paper back down onto the table. "This company needs people who work and who work good for it. What I offer you is to make sure you prove yourself valuable and won't be sent back by the end of this month or this year. What I expect is obedience. And watch your language."

Schuldig glared at him, rage in his eyes. He was thinking.

Crawford didn't need to be a clairvoyant to know the answer the boy would give. He had heard the same words spoken to him about three years ago when he had been in the boy's position. Same as him, the boy had spent some time at a Swiss Rosenkreuz camp. Same as he had been, this boy was dead frightened to be sent back to the camps, the labs, the torture.

"Okay", the boy finally breathed between his teeth. "But don't expect me to like you."

Crawford smirked. He knew their fight wasn't over yet. But the telepath knew now what was at stake.

.

Half an hour later, they found themselves in the office, which Schuldig entered before Crawford. Still angry, as far as the clairvoyant could tell. But he didn't care much and thus hadn't paid much attention to the signs. He just signed them in, introduced Schuldig as 'Schuldig' to their superior, boss and god Hauer and showed the boy what they were supposed to do.

Having a new partner, the workload of course had doubled which Crawford didn't mind terribly – in his opinion, there hadn't been enough work anyhow.

"Make sure you get that finished until today evening", he told the boy, pointing at the small pile of papers next to the boy.

"But I don't know what to do!!", the boy whined.

Crawford looked up, across the table. "You know. You've been to the Swiss camp where they showed you and briefed you. And if you don't, figure it out or go back."

The boy indeed started working, his staring replaced by making noises with a biro or what other device he found.

Crawford tried to stay stoic. He knew this boy would jump into a pond of crocodiles or even from the top of a sky scraper, ordered by the right people, do it without consideration. At the moment, he, Crawford, wasn't the right people to him.

Schuldig knew nothing about him, certainly believed he was some smart arse who had never been to a camp and had a half talent in telepathy which could unearth the cruellest memories. By Rosenkreuz-propaganda someone not even worth living though most people in charge were no talents.

He had to earn his respect. One step was to make certain Schuldig knew that he would indeed sent him back to Russia if he was no use or misbehaved severely.

Which was easily done as Schuldig really dared him in the first week. He tried twice to skip work. The first time, Crawford told him he would sent him back to the Swiss camp to make sure he wasn't too dumb to do what he was told. After the second time, Schuldig was deported the next morning, coming back after two days. Mostly unharmed, only scared and with a new quality of loathing.

When Schuldig 'forgot' to clean the bath, he found himself in front of a locked door the next morning (bad, because he really had to go).

He tried to lock into his brain three more times. Each time, Crawford made sure the memory he recalled was a very ugly one and as vivid as possible, sending the telepath to the ground (and him into a sweat and shooting up from nightmares again).

Schuldig freaked out when he rearranged the things on his working table. He freaked again when he opened the door to his room after knocking, although it was clear he was inside. Crawford could have used both ways to annoy Schuldig, but he didn't. Which surprised Schuldig who was trying everything to annoy Crawford, to crack the façade, to drive him mad.

By the end of the month, both of them were exhausted.

Schuldig from always making up new ways to get a go at his mentor, Crawford from making up new ways of ending Schuldig's mischief or preventing them.

But, surprisingly enough, he didn't find a fault with the telepath's work. He wasn't particularly diligent, but the work he did was satisfying. Their boss was satisfied with them; they had done more than they had been supposed to do (which, really, was Crawford's doing as he hadn't told Schuldig when they had done everything they had been required to).

The morning of the last day of the month, they ate together. It was a Friday and around half past five in the morning, both of them back in their camp rhythm.

Crawford was reading in his book and Schuldig staring at his plate, not really eating. Crawford knew that the boy wouldn't cause any mischief today. He was far too occupied with his thoughts. Afraid of the letter that he would reach him in the evening. Which he thought would certainly sent him back to a camp. This time, a way of no return.

"By the way", Crawford announced when rinsed his plate and the cup, "today you will learn why our boss chose you over a certainly better qualified and more adaptive C-Class member."