Author's Notes: I'm in the middle of Literature class and I've just finished this chapter, eleven pages of it and counting. They're talking about how novels reach varying levels of success…How bleak for me, the aspiring authoress…
I've been reading psychoanalytical books again and I know I really shouldn't. It kills whatever ethic I have and it's entirely my fault. Ah well…
About the very beginning: I found myself doing this just a few days ago, thought it interesting and thus write it down. As a heads up before anyone points out the my portrayal of the schizophrenic disease is false or unrealistic…it's a fanfiction, and what research I yielded my time for suited my needs to go so far as the very basics. I have friends with family with schizophrenia and while this is by no means a serious story, I'm only worry someone might think so.
Also, I know nothing about world events, so what I say about Ireland might be incorrect.
What was I talking about? No idea…but I think all flames should be put in the form of poetry.
4
I was standing at the top of the stairs, my face upturned, eyes closed. I was thinking about oreos and death. I had no idea why, but I knew it probably had something to do with suddenly coming off my meds.
I hadn't been completely drug free since I was thirteen and that was almost a decade ago. Nine or ten years of my life was dependant on various pills, cures, remedies, depressants, and liters of tea. It was an Irish thing.
In fact, I wanted tea right now. I want a whole pot of something herbal and bitter right now, all to myself. I wanted it and a knife and an afternoon to myself so I could bleed this insanity out, I needed it out now…right now…right fucking now…
"Christ, Far, you sound like an addict. And stop standing in the doorway."
I turned around slowly, carefully, as if I might've flown away if I moved any faster and glared at Schuldig. He glared back and shoved me aside so he could march downstairs.
"If you're going to go crazy, wait long enough to get a jacket on, okay?"
I flipped him the finger.
"Fucking asshole."
I managed to get downstairs and brew myself a pot as I'd planned. It was nice; drinking quietly from a hot cup I couldn't feel burn. Liquid slopped over the edge of the cup and onto my fingers, turned the skin red, but I felt nothing. I smiled. On the edge of my vision, I could see Tink screaming at me to stop being stupid, to stop trying to hurt myself, but she was silent, her mouth moving and arms flapping and nothing coming out. I poured myself a fresh cup and stuck my fingers into the boiling tea and I saw her flinch, just barely heard her moan.
I'd killed the impossible. Maybe I could kill her too…
I got out of my seat, turned a burner on the stove as high as it would go and opened my palm toward the flame. I could smell the gas and hear the sizzling flesh, but not her, not Tink. She was silent and squirming and in so much pain, it was perfect and I wanted more. I needed more silence. I needed to kill her.
Schuldig swore when he came to investigate the smell and tried to pull me away from the fire. He tried to slip into my head and control my motor skills, but I threw him out, tore into his mind like a boy into his sister's paper dolls. He screamed and clutched his head and I grabbed his hair and screamed back. I was laughing and swearing and ripping his hair and ripping his mind when something took hold of me and pulled us apart. Crawford was at Schuldig's side the second we were separated, checking to make sure I hadn't seriously hurt him while Nagi held me against the wall.
I was still laughing. Tink was still screaming somewhere in my head, but far away like a turned down movie.
Schuldig just looked at me, fear and fury and any number of other emotions in his eyes. And then nothing, just cold…
I felt his mind slither into mine, grab hold and twist. I felt my body collapse against the forcefield Nagi still held up and my eyes fall shut.
"We need to get anti-psychotics, Crawford, now." Schuldig's voice was hard, posing no question. "He'll tear himself and the rest of us apart."
"I'll make the call. You two get him restrained."
Then black.
My senses were reeling even before I opened my eyes. From that I knew, they'd hung me upside down. This was out of fear, though, not punishment like it had been all those times before.
I remembered why I'd worked so hard to avoid this. I could feel nothing but the blood thumping in my ears and the air in my lungs. It was driving me insane already, this non-sensation, this floating.
And the boredom.
I knew they wouldn't come, but I tried calling anyway. If anything, I'd rather they'd just locked me in a room, but I realized there probably wasn't anywhere secure…This was best for their protection. I tried my best to settle in for a wait, but every second that passed was torture.
This was my pain, this was my understanding of pain.
I imagined this was how hell felt, or perhaps outer space. Just suspension, just nothing and pain from nothing, pain of memories.
Was there ever a time I knew pain in the truest human form, as everyone else does? Why was I the malfunction? In my family, in the world, why was there only one of me? I didn't want to be an individual. I'd wanted to be a priest one day; in the black robe other priests wore, with the same holy dogma. I wanted to be generic.
Fickle human, I thought viciously to myself and everyone else, you only want what you can't have; wings, gills, a sister's adoration, power, a special white collar…Black hair. I felt both an individualist and a anti-individualist well within me, right alongside the misogynist the blames Ruth for everything. All in all, I'd have to admit, a lot of this was her fault. Freud would have a field day.
Waiting gives a person time to think, about the past, present, future; the nature of happiness and heaven, hell, space, and general philosophy…
I thought about Esset, about Nox and Dementia. I'd met Nox once in training. He was a Brit with teeth sticking out of his mouth like a rabbit's. He was an Illusionist, some kind of telepath that focused on visual control to move in and kill an enemy. He had helped me try to escape the island and I had my suspicions that he was also the one they tortured to find out where I was going, why and when. There were no hard feelings left for that though, I could understand. Under torture, I might've told them everything too…there were no loyalties in Esset. In fact, I was surprised he'd bothered joining us. He'd never believed in the goodness of human nature and usually said he thought it better if we just killed one another off. Perhaps that philosophy was why I remembered him so well.
I remember liking his hair; it'd always been so smooth. I remember liking his fatalistic idealism simple because it had entertained me to argue otherwise.
Nox was partnered with Dementia, a shapeshifter who'd taken on too many forms of targets and had forgotten her own likeness and mind by age fourteen, just two years after she'd been found and inducted to the organization. She was a nice enough girl, when she was inhabiting a kind personality, but Nox seemed to be the only person who could control her. There were rumors they were lovers, but I doubted it. Usually crazy people weren't all that interested in sex. We were too self-centered, in the best sense. The few times I'd met her, I'd kept my distance. I had feared her insanity might've been catching and, on some level, still did.
I knew she was only joining us because Nox had. I had no objections, I'd seen her fight. She was a demon after my own heart on the battlefield, as bloodthirsty and one could ever hope.
My mind drifted to Loki and I shuttered. I shook my head and forced myself to put all thoughts of him away. I didn't dare glance toward that direction again.
About that time, Nagi came in to ask me how I was.
"How the bloody hell do you think I am, mini-prick?" I demanded, imitating that God awful Austin Powers movie. If I could've moved my pinky to my mouth, he might've gotten the joke. As it was, he just glared at me in a decidedly Crawford-like way (case in point). I sighed and tried to get myself swinging, just to feel the wind created on my face.
"It hurts," I finally whined.
"You don't know what pain is, Farfarello," he said softly, almost kindly. I growled.
"Like fuck you know!" I shouted.
"I'll just come back."
"Get the fuck back here and get me down, you sorry son of a bitch! Get back here! Nagi! I swear to God I'll get you for this if you leave me here, I will!"
"Don't swear to a god you hate…bad karma."
And with that, he shut the door.
Some time later I had finally adjusted myself to hanging. The nausea was mostly gone, but my vision was blurry with a raging headache and I was, once again, grateful I couldn't feel it. Kudos to my dysfunction. Even through that and trying to get some sleep (which is damn-near impossible with the blood in your head), I couldn't help wishing I'd just tried holding out a little longer. It wasn't as if it would hurt me, going without medications, and if I could just keep my tics to a minimum there was no reason I couldn't just go without entirely.
"Don't be stupid, Farfarello. You couldn't last a day without meds unless you're driving yourself crazy. If it was the nice, quiet, catatonic crazy, then yeah, it'd be fine, but you're the kind of crazy that blows up at anything, always have been. You're mind's been deteriorating since the tower, though, more rapidly than we'd expected.
"We're sorry to have to do this, really, we know it's painful, but until Crawford gets the meds there's nothing else we can do to guarantee our safety. You'll just have to deal with this."
I looked up and tried to focus on the smear of red-orange hair and black clothing in the doorway, but my eyes refused to listen. I shook my head and fixed a sneer onto my face.
"You sound like The Craw-fish himself, Schuldig. Is he force feeding you these lines or are you just picking them up out of that annoying streak you have?"
I could hear Schuldig's frown in his voice and that alone amused me enough to last the rest of the afternoon. I had caused this; I had managed to irritate the irritant. I had swatted the mosquito.
"I had come here to accept your apology, but if it comes in the form of being likened to blood-sucking insects, then forget it."
"But aren't you a blood-sucking insect? Aren't you the parasite the eats away the sanity of others? Have I, through sleeping with you, unwittingly given up my will to survive as a functioning member of society? And what have I to apologize for, if I am at long last seeking vengeance?"
His voice was dead, flat, dangerous. I could feel his glare and the cross of his arms over his chest, his weight as he leaned on the doorframe. "You ripped out my hair."
"Oh, heavens, I hope not all of it!" I gasped, laughing.
"Such a bastard…"
"Coming from you, what a compliment. At least mine's all in the family."
Schuldig was across the room before it even registered, the sound of his slap bouncing off the walls around us. I could feel my already red cheek blush deeper and I laughed again.
"Wonderful. I was getting cold. Again?"
Schuldig just growled and took hold of the straps supporting my shoulders, hauled our faces close together. I could see the muscles of his arms bulging under the fabric of his shirt, the fury that wound his face up wrong. Even his pretty nose was wrinkled at the bridge.
"I got you out of that shithole, and this is how you thank me? Me! I got you out! Not Nagi, not Crawford, not Esset, not Kritiker, me! You ungrateful little shit! Crawford was right, I shouldn't have bothered, I knew you were too far gone, but no, I didn't. You wanna know why? Com'on, ask me, you'll love it!"
My shields wavered under the force of his anger, his confusion, his passionately intense emotions. I could almost feel the radiation of those feelings on my face, in my hair, in my head and that alone frightened me. For once, Schuldig frightened me.
"Just ask," he hissed, teeth bared and breath ghosting across my cheeks. It smelled like toothpaste. "Ask!"
A moment to savor my trepidation…
"Why?" I finally breathed. The moment I asked, his mouth was sealed to mine and his thoughts, his memories flooded into my head. I'd never been kissed like this before and it felt wonderful, but the images and sensations flickering rapid fire through me, the simple emotional facts I was force fed were too distracting. I couldn't focus.
/Because I'm a sentimental bastard and it's all your fault. It's your fault I cared at all. Two or three or six years ago I would've written you off, but I didn't and I hate you and you're going to ruin it all if you don't get it together because we gave you a chance when you shouldn't have had one, so fucking use it!/
My stomach roiled with something liquid, something that was not at all nausea but still felt like being drunk. It was sloppy, messy, wet and muddy. It was covered in blood and mosaics and the petals of every flower equated to death - a white lily, a carnation, a black Brazilian rose. It was horrendous, like Frankenstein's monster and fragile like a child's smile, held up like curtains across her cheekbones. It was like looking somewhere I hadn't looked in ages, had forgotten about and found again, the joy of recovering boyhood toys as simple as wooden blocks in the attic.
It made me sick and beautiful at once and I realized what real pain was, the human condition and the cause of all things. I realized the point of living, the point of everything.
He loved me. The son of a bitch loved me.
When he pulled away, his eyes were still cold, and his thoughts were tucked away behind his shields again, the sensation merely a memory. I was staring, shocked silent. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to trace his face in my fingers and find that love again, but no matter how I twisted, I couldn't escape.
"Do you get it now? Crawford thinks I'm a fool, and I am, but I can't just let you rot there…I can't and I won't…"
I whined, still trying to get out of my bindings, staring up at the floor.
"Let me down," I demanded hoarsely, struggling, "Let me down, I'm going to be sick…"
Schuldig disappeared to get Nagi and the two of them helped me off the hook on the ceiling and to loosen the legs of my straight jacket so I could kneel by the toilet without their help. When I was done vomiting, Schuldig wiped my face and told Nagi to go get some water. The moment the boy was gone, Schuldig had pulled me against him and pressed a cool towel to the back of my head to fight off any lingering nausea.
I could feel his fingers ghosting over the buckles of my straight jacket, wishing but not daring to unlock them. I pressed my face into his shoulder and fought to breathe and reorient to gravity. He asked me if I could get up and move to the room next door, but I shook my head. My legs were tingling wildly as the blood sloshed back into them, shaking almost as badly as frightened hands against his shirt.
He hoisted me to my feet, wrapped his arms around my hips and started dragging me out into the hallway, through the living room and into his bedroom and let me down on his bed. I lay there, shaking, silent, thinking.
Schuldig was leaning over me to tuck a blanket under my shoulder, baring his throat to me in the process. Instinctively, I noticed how easy it would be to kill him, just like anybody else. A bite to the throat, crushing it, would end his life in seconds. I didn't dare, move though; it was an observation, not an objective. He had bared his throat (and his mind) to me and I wouldn't give him reason to distrust placing the care of such things in my hands.
"Are you still cold?" he asked. I shook my head.
He sat back on his heels and stroked my temple with the pads of his fingers, watching me in silence for a few minutes.
"I shouldn't have done that. I knew so much would hurt you," he said. He was looking away now, at his hands, at the floor, are the wall across from him.
He's done the same thing to kill people, to make their heads explode. Too much emotion, too much feeling was indeed, bad. If he'd been any angrier, he could've killed me with ease, the same ease it would take to crush his throat in my teeth.
"I didn't know. I thought you hated that kind of thing," I said, avoiding the word. It was a curse between us, that word, the realization of that word's existence. It was worse than saying 'fuck' in a room full of first graders.
It was a horrible word, and he said it, "Love." He spat it out disgustedly, with self-hatred. I couldn't help flinching.
It felt like the Monthy Python movie…
Schuldig read the thought off my mind and laughed, so suddenly it caught be entirely off guard.
"Ni!" he snorted, "Ni! N!"
I laughed with him, "Do your worst!"
"Ni! Ni! Ni!"
I writhed as if in pain and begged him to stop.
"Ni!"
"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'Ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history," Brad piped in. Schuldig and I whirled to face him, surprised that we hadn't heard him come in. He looked tired, but behind his glasses, his eyes were smiling. There was a small white bag in his hand at his side.
"Ni!" Schuldig shouted, pointing.
"And this is why I never brought friends home from school," Nagi muttered from the kitchen.
Brad had arrived with the same type of anti-psychotic I had taken during the Takatori years and gave them to me about an hour after the Monty Python reprise. Once we knew they were starting to take effect, the sleeves of my jacket were unbuckled and folded up so my hands were free. Even though I was still locked into the jacket, so long as I could move my arms, it wasn't so bad. My legs were still on hiatus, but I really didn't mind. Crawford was filling me in with details about the medications (ones I'd already heard months ago) and the upcoming weeks that lay in wait for us.
"Nox and Dementia will be joining us in a few days. They're heading the eastern revolt while we, Swartz, will be getting ready to free America."
I was surprised they hadn't gone to the U.S. first. It seemed a bit ironic.
"What about Europe?" I asked.
"They're still mostly in Esset's hands, since they're closer to the source, but there's a lot of inner upheaval that started once the Elders died. Most of the factions that split off have gone into hiding and I doubt they'll be joining us-" The ranks he hadn't counted as helpful. "-but we'll get there."
"What's America like?"
"Chaotic," Crawford admitted dispassionately, pressing the bridge of his glasses into his nose, "Schuldig and I spent about a month there trying to assess the damage, but since the Esset facilities there are fairly new, the talents have turned against anything that might've stood for the corporation. There is no order. The homicide statistics of normals is atrocious."
Put lightly, I felt a twinge of uncertainty when I heard this. Crawford looked nervous, actually nervous and that alone was enough to unsettle even the strongest of men. Crawford was a rock among men, Swartz's St. Peter on which we were built. Without him, we had no base, and without his surety, we could fail.
We couldn't fail. We held the fate of the world.
"What about Ireland?" I ventured. I didn't really remember much about Ireland. What I knew was based on child-like ideals and stereotypes from around the world of green fields, rainy days, thick white sweaters, red hair, Gaelic and a little civil war. I knew there was more, that even in Dublin the other children told tales of their mothers or fathers just disappearing, kidnapping or murders, but it had never directly affected me. There was still unrest, even though the Protestants were starting to find less violent means to make their points, but beyond the brief articles I scoured from newspapers, I knew little.
But I was Irish and in love with the culture and in turn in love with the ideal it stood for. If anything, I would just as happily live in London than in Dublin, but deep down, it was still my home. Somewhere within me there was a little boy who still ran about the little split-level outside the city, who rolled on the carpets with his sister and stayed up late under the covers with a flashlight and a book. Somewhere, beyond the disillusionment, it was there…I could feel it when I sat still.
Crawford looked away briefly, as if he couldn't face me. It wasn't like him.
"Once the affiliates of the organization found out that the Elders were dead and the organization itself was dissolving, they broke contact. The faculties were emptied of talents, who have then disappeared. There were flare ups right after, but usually they stayed out of trouble. Up until now there was little disturbance from the talents, but there have been a few who came out in opposition of the Protestant change of course.
"In response, others have decided to confront that position, and then others and so on. They're picking off normals and the weaker talents like crazy. Dublin's been torn apart. It's worse then New York…"
"Shit…" But I couldn't do anything about it. My home was being ripped to shreds and I couldn't get up and stop them…I wanted to, though…
After a few minutes of silence, Crawford finally asked, "What are you going to do?"
"Stay with Swartz, go to America. Every country needs their civil war…Not that I'm unsympathetic, but I know going there would be useless. The four of us can't stop an army of pissed talents. Simple logic."
"Reductive logic."
"It still works. Optimism isn't going to help. Better to be careful and avoid impossible situations."
"That's what I said," Nagi ventured over his cup of tea. I'd forgotten him across the table. He'd been quiet, just listening…drinking all my tea…
"All your nasty tea. It's bitter. How can you drink that crap?" Schuldig whined, though he'd been drinking it faster than he could boil a fresh pot. I'd forgotten him too, no thanks to his unusual silence. He glared at me for daring. I shrugged.
"I'm not going to point out the simple irony you seem to constantly exist in."
"It's called a Passive-Aggressive Personality, thankyouverymuch, and you'll do well to remember it."
"And here I thought you were just crazy…"
"Schuldig, make your goddamn tea. Farfarello, we aren't done," Crawford snapped, silencing us both.
"Yes, Brad?"
"Because we weren't expecting your reentry into the team, we were not prepared to accommodate your specific needs. In short, we only have a limited supply of anti-psychotics and can only allow a little fluctuation in our current budget. You'll have to start lessening your dosages to a point where you can go without for periods, understand?"
"I understand," I relied moodily and with no small amount of worry.
"Schuldig was forced to quit smoking, so you're not being targeted for unfairness, just in case you're thinking that way."
I brightened minutely. This seemed fair.
"When do we start?"
"Now. Today is your only pill for the next couple of days."
"Great…"
Five days, two pills and zero episodes later, someone knocked on our front door and sent the household on edge. In seconds we were armed and ready for a fight, but when Schuldig scanned the guests, he told us to lower our weapons.
"It's Nox. Far, put your knife down."
Nox was every bit as I remembered him, simply taller. His hair was still black and his teeth still overlarge, but his eyes had a certain comic flair I hadn't seen before. It looked as if he was always amused by something, as if the things people thought about were totally expected and funny. Schuldig would obviously disagree, and the stark difference in personalities was interesting. He hadn't even spoken yet.
"Brad! How are you?" he burst out, loud and happy and took Crawford's hand and shook it. Nagi and I looked on, shocked, Schuldig didn't seem to notice. No one talked to Crawford like a friend, not even us. No one outside of Swartz ever called him by name or dared touch him, but here it was, obvious evidence that Brad was indeed, a human being.
He'd always been a bit of an untouchable older brother to me.
"And Schuldig, pleasure as always," Nox continued, moving over to shake Schuldig's outstretched hand. Our redhead was smiling pleasantly back at Nox as if the man had saved our cat.
Cat…
Cat…
"What happened to Tennyson?" I asked, looking over at Crawford.
Crawford shrugged. "He wasn't at the house when we returned. WE assumed he was smart enough to get out while he could."
I'd liked that cat…
"Farfarello? What the hell happened to your face?" Nox asked, moving into the house to get a better look. I glared at him, ready to shove him off if he dared get into my personal space. "Your eye…"
"Had a run in with a client," I said gruffly, my voice a warning to drop the subject. Schuldig had said he didn't care about the scars and no one else in Swartz ever really mentioned them. I didn't like being reminded how extremely different I was from the norm.
"Gotcha, mate. Anyway, Dementia'll be here in about half an hour. She's rounding up our last assets and the lot. In the mean time, let's get busy!" Nox said as he shoved his way in and made himself at home.
I take it back, I could never live in London.
"I'll go make some tea," Nagi offered and disappeared.
Other Sources:
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (I wish I owned it, or even had an inkling of their genius, but I do not).
"Disorders of Personality" by Theodore Million, copyright 1981 by John Wiley & Sons, inc. Borrowed from campus library.
High school Latin classes and one too many viewings of the 'Addamm's Family Values'.
Author's Notes: Okay, I'm in the middle of a lecture here…they're into the discussion part, but I've survived a rather entertaining view on WWI's beginning and the involvement of Big Business in politics (which he claims to be non-existent). Of anything, the dry humor sporatically placed was all that saved me from drifting off to sleep.
In any case, I got the ten extra points and skipped a class I hate at the same time…joy. I have to kill an hour now…I have a lot of writing and planning I need to do right now…
Finals…oh, god...I miss high school some days…
And I only just remembered that goddamn cat...To My Readers:
Yes, I got your reviews, but when I attempted to restart the system buy deleting and resubmitting the entire story (goddamn it's waited six days before going ballistic and deleting all the reviews. In any case, I got them, read them, thank you very much for sending them, and have presently forgotten my replies.
There is no need to resend reviews. But I'm taking up to date ones…of course.
Normal review responses will be continued in the next chapter.