Disclaimer: Not mine, not now. Most likely not ever.
Author's note: Um…Brad is not my favorite character, but this little thing just demanded to be written... It was inspired by the poem at the end. Oh, and since I didn'' mention it in the story, and some of you might want to know, the meaning of the Knight of Swords, reversed: "Extravagance. Given to braggadocio. Tyranny over the helpless, be it man or animal. A person always ready to staty a fight. Destruction may come about through the knight's activities." (A Complete Guide to the Tarot, Eden Gray)
Blatant plug: Come visit my brand-spankin'-new WK site! http://www.trowaluvsduo.net/weissweb/bleedinghearts.htm
Arcana
The cards are soft with age, getting ragged around the edges and almost oily to the touch. They don't match my neat and precise appearance, but I can no more contemplate throwing them away than I can contemplate giving up my gift.
I turn over another and study the faded stylized image for a moment before carefully laying it down on the growing pile. Well, not a pile, exactly, more of a drift. It all starts with one card and builds from there, some overlapping, some complementing each other, some moving forward. The placement, random as it might seem, is as important as the cards themselves. I set the new card down a bit ahead of the last row, and my hand hesitates over the pile. Something tells me I have come to the critical point.
I look out over the spill of brightly colored cards half-covering the table, and the bright halogen light of the room seems to dim, the bare white walls melting away to reveal a grubby, tiny kitchen with green flowered wallpaper and a thick miasma of cigarette smoke and incense swirling in the dim light from the window.
The old woman, my grandmother, grins at me across the table, shifting the pattern of wrinkles in her dusky skin. Her black eyes burn brightly, still young in her shriveled old face, and the end of her cigarette glows red as she inhales, squinting thoughtfully at me. I am eight years old again, and my heart is thumping nervously as she studies me. I want to have laid the cards out right this time.
Finally, she looks down at the table and thoughtfully blows a lungful of smoke out over the brightly painted cards that mean so much to her and so little to me still, although I am learning. This is the sixth time I've laid them out today, and I hope I've done it properly, because she won't tell me what they mean until I have, and I so want to know…
"What do you want to know?" she asks abruptly in her smoke-roughened voice.
I look down at the cards, then up again at her, a feeling of disappointment welling in my chest as I realize… "I was concentrating so hard on laying them down right that… I forgot to ask anything," I admit unhappily. She chuckles at me, which I wouldn't tolerate from anyone else, but Grandmother is allowed to condescend to me. She is fascinating. She is old and clever and honest, and above all, she doesn't laugh at my visions. She has them too.
But she won't teach me what they mean until I can lay the cards out right. I sigh and reach out to gather them up and shuffle again, but she grabs my wrist, bony fingers squeezing tightly as I look up at her, bewildered.
Still grinning at me, she shakes her head and releases my wrist, motioning for me to leave the cards alone. "So finally, you do it right," she says with satisfaction.
I frown, confused. Wasn't I supposed to think of my question, of what I wanted to know, while I was shuffling the cards? Isn't that how it works?
"You know what you want to ask, deep down," she tells me. "So the cards know, too. It's when you try to think of something specific that the messages get confused. The cards will tell you things, if you let them. Now, let me have a look."
She peers intently down at the scattered cards, smoke wreathing her graying head as she mutters to herself. After a long moment of contemplation, she leans back and smiles at me, stubbing out her cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and lighting a new one.
We sit in silence for a while before impatience overwhelms me and I ask, "Well? What do they tell you?"
"Oh, many things, many things, little Bradley," she replies slowly, thoughtfully. Then she grins at me again and says pointedly, "But the more important question is, what do they tell you?"
"Tarot cards? How very unlike you, Brad," a familiar voice drawls, breaking me from my reverie. I frown up at Schuldig, who is leaning against the table, smirking down at me and my scattered deck. Normally, I would have known he was coming, or at least heard him, but I was distracted by the memory.
And the smoke from his cigarette probably let him blend into it.
I frown up at him. "Don't smoke in the house, and don't call me Brad," I snap irritably. He just smirks and blows a smoke ring into the air. I turn my attention back to my cards, ostentatiously ignoring him. Sometimes he finds that offensive enough to make him leave.
But not tonight. No, I'm sure he's curious. He's never seen my cards before, although I've had them much longer than I've known him. They are more of a keepsake than anything else, I rarely use them like I am tonight… And when I do, I've always made certain I would be alone and uninterrupted.
"You're not supposed to be back for another hour," I remark flatly once it's been established he's not going to leave.
The rustle of fabric lets me know he's shrugged as I continue to stare at the cards. "I got bored," he says, one long-fingered hand reaching out to shift one of the earlier cards slightly out of position so he can make out the picture. The Knight of Swords, reversed. I slap his hand away from the card that represents his entry into my life and wonder yet again if he doesn't have a touch of the Sight himself. "Sorry," he mutters irritably, pulling his hand back as I carefully return the card to its original position. I ignore him, studying the cards again.
After a moment, he shifts impatiently and asks, "What are you doing anyway?"
I smile to myself. "Playing solitaire," I answer calmly.
He makes a scornful noise and stubs out his cigarette in the leftover rice on my nearly untouched dinner plate. "That's no fun," he complains. "Why don't you do a reading on me, oh Great Sage?" he suggests sarcastically.
"No," I snap, a bit more harshly than is strictly necessary. He doesn't know the etiquette of the cards. I am in the middle of a reading, I can't start a new one. And to do one for him…
The cards know what I want to ask.
"What's the use of living with a fortune-teller if they won't tell your fortune?" he prods. "Come on, Brad, tell me my future."
"All right. I foresee you getting hit, very, very hard, if you don't stop calling me Brad," I mutter irritably.
He snorts in annoyance and pushes away from the table. "Fine, be that way," he grumbles, heading off toward the kitchen. "It's no wonder you don't have any friends," he calls over his shoulder as he walks away.
I turn back to the cards.
"But…Grandma… I don't know what they mean," I protest weakly.
She frowns at me. "And you think you will learn from me telling you?" she demands irritably. "Stupid boy! Only you can know what they mean."
I frown and stare down at the cards again. I don't like being called stupid, but I can't argue with Grandma.
"Lawyer blood," she mutters distastefully. "It's not your fault, boy. Your silly mother thought she could run away from what she is and hide behind a picket fence. Says she is not Rom, and she will have no Rom child. Feh," she spits, scowling scornfully. "Stupid girl. Of course she is not Rom. There are no Rom here, anymore. Rom do not live in cheap apartments and worry about the gas bill. But there is still the Sight, and that cannot be hidden, or denied. Yes, Bradley?" she snaps abruptly, spearing me with a sharp black glare.
I nod quickly in agreement. It's not wise to disagree with her on this topic, and for all I know, she's right anyway. Certainly I know my mother married my father, the lawyer Grandma detests, to get away from this squalid apartment and her strange old mother who paid the rent with a crystal ball and some cheap theatrical effects.
Or so Mama says.
Grandma nods sharply in agreement with herself, mollified by my obedient response. "At least she is not so stupid as to deny your gift," she sniffs, then taps one bony finger on the table, careful not to disturb the cards. "So! Not-Rom boy with the weak lawyer's eyes! Show me your Sight! Tell me what you see in the cards," she demands imperiously, as if she were a queen on a throne, and not a wrinkled old woman wrapped in a dirty terrycloth robe in a run-down apartment.
I sigh and stare down at the meaningless bits of laminated cardboard again, looking at the pictures, trying to see through them, beyond them, to something deeper and truer than the cracked formica and tattered paper.
"Here, ungrateful bastard. I made you a sandwich, but I don't foresee you thanking me," Schuldig announces, dropping a plate next to my elbow with a clatter. I manage not to flinch, but it bothers me how distracted I seem to be tonight. That's twice he's snuck up on me without me noticing. It's unnerving.
I pick up the sandwich silently and take a bite as he settles further down the table with his own plate of food. Liverwurst. Oh well, it's better than rice. I just wasn't in the mood for stir-fry tonight.
"So," he begins far too casually, "what do the cards tell you about your future?"
"That's personal," I reply calmly, watching with carefully concealed amusement as he glowers at me around a mouthful of sandwich.
After a moment of chewing, he swallows and declares, "Come on, Brad! I just want to know what's going to happen!"
I shrug, showing him my best blank, nonchalant expression. "Well, if you wait long enough, you'll find out anyway," I point out.
"You're a jackass, you know that?" he snaps irritably. His green eyes are flashing with frustration beneath the shaggy orange bangs.
Nobody else can frustrate him like I can. It's one of my favorite hobbies.
I can't push it too far though, or he might actually get…insulted…that I won't answer his questions.
So I sigh and put down my half-eaten sandwich. "I haven't looked at the future yet," I admit. He blinks at me in surprise, the angry motion of his jaw slowing as he chews my words over with his sandwich.
"Why not?" he finally asks curiously.
Grandma sits hunched over the table in the middle of the night, the cards spread out before her, tears disappearing into the deeply etched lines in her face. I think she hasn't noticed me until she whispers hoarsely, "Sometimes, boy, you will see things you don't want to know."
I blink away the fog of memory to find Schuldig watching me quizzically. "Why are you making such a big deal out of all of this?" he demands exasperatedly. "I mean, come on, Brad, it's tarot cards, for Christ's sake. It's not like they mean anything, even with your power."
Of course not. That's what everyone says, isn't it? That's what everyone knows. The cards are just a scam, like astrology and tealeaves and palmistry and all that crap. Because none of it ever answers the questions you ask out loud. None of it ever agrees with what you know about yourself and everyone around you.
That's how you know it's all just silly superstitions. It's always the wrong answer.
The cards know what you want to ask.
The cards know.
"Brad?" he prompts, a look of mild concern drifting briefly across his features.
He does worry about me. All work and no play, he says, makes Crawford a workaholic. Admitting you have a stick up your ass is the first step to recovery, he tells me.
"I'm not sure I want to know the answer to my question," I reply slowly, almost hesitantly. I'm not sure I want to have this conversation. I could always stop talking. Ignore him long enough, and Schuldig will go away and pout.
But I'm not sure I want him to go away, either.
He sighs after a moment of silence, and stands up, walking around the table to stand beside me again. Before I can stop him, he reaches down and turns over the last three cards, placing them carefully side by side just below the last row, closest to me. I stare at the pictures on paper, trying not to see through them, beyond them, to something deeper and truer than the pale oak table and well-worn scraps of cardboard.
But I can't help it.
So now I See the answer…which means now I know the question.
The cards knew all along.
In the center, the Knight of Pentacles, reversed. To the right, the Heirophant. To the left, Death.
The cards are right, of course. You have to accept that the cards are always right, and then you can begin to see what they tell you.
I have been stuck in a rut, stagnating, refusing to acknowledge the decision that lay before me, so I could avoid making it. Now, it comes down to a choice.
"So, what do they mean?" Schuldig asks quietly, and it is only then that I realize he is still standing very close to me. He does that sometimes. He smells like cigarettes and stale beer and something else I can never quite place, but that mellows the other scents and makes the combination just a bit dizzying when he's this close.
I shift away a bit in my chair, but the cards still stare up at me.
They know. I know. There's only one person here who doesn't, and the choice is mine whether or not to enlighten him.
"Brad?"
I sigh softly to myself. I have my answer, but I'm not ready to choose my path yet. We'll both have to wait a little longer to see what the future holds.
"I've asked you not to call me that," I snap, abruptly and quite rudely slamming an elbow into Schuldig's stomach. He staggers away, gasping after breath, and I turn to watch him, waiting for the inevitable counterattack.
But he only straightens slowly, glaring at me with not quite enough anger to conceal his confusion at the sudden violence. I want him to yell at me at least, but he only glares for a moment, then declares sullenly, "Fine, you obviously want to be alone. I'm going to bed."
And leaves. Just like that.
I sigh again and turn back to the cards.
The Heirophant or Death. My choice. My fate. And there's nothing random about it, that's the real bitch in using the cards. If you handle them properly, if you let yourself see what they show, you can watch the whole pattern form, a lifetime of choices and changes and decisions laid out before you. They can show you who you are. Because they know.
Because deep down, whether you admit it to yourself or not, so do you.
"So?" she prompts impatiently after a moment. I've almost given myself a headache glowering determinedly down at the cards, but they refuse to yield their secrets to me. "I'm sorry, Grandma," I say slowly, defeat a bitter taste in my mouth. "I…don't know what they say."
And she laughs. It's sort of a cackle, the kind you'd imagine a warty old witch that pops children in the oven to have, but it doesn't bother me. Not much. I don't like being laughed at, but if anyone has the right, it's Grandma.
Finally she calms and reaches across the small table to ruffle my hair kindly, her wide grin displaying yellowed teeth.
"Of course you don't know, stupid boy," she remarks, this time using the phrase as an endearment. "You've laid out the future, and you can't See that much. The cards know all, but we can only know a little," she informs me with a conspiratorial grin, as thought she is sharing a great secret. I listen raptly as she instructs me. "You must learn control, Bradley! You must learn to let just a little of your gift touch the cards, just enough to show you the answers, not so much that you discover whole new questions!"
I dismiss the memory again and stare blindly down at the cards, my mind drifting into thoughtless blankness.
Eventually I come out of my little trance and glance at my watch. I've been staring at the cards for three hours. Ridiculous. You'd think I'd never made a decision in my life.
Shaking my head at myself, I slowly gather up the cards, wiping out the pattern and tapping them neatly into a deck. I tie them carefully in a faded blue silk scarf.
The morning after I caught her crying in the night is Sunday, which means Mama coming to pick me up for soccer practice, just like she does every Sunday. But this morning, Grandma hands me a little silk-wrapped bundle, and I know what it is as soon as I wrap my hand around it.
"Grandma…why are you giving me your cards?" I ask in confusion.
She smiles at me with eyes suspiciously shimmering with wetness, and pats me fondly on the head. "You're strong, Bradley," she says quietly, firmly. "You'll grow into your power some day. So I want you to take the cards, and I want you to practice. Learn to use your gift. Learn to control it. It's part of who you are."
I frown, still confused, and turn the little bundle over and over in my nervous hands, picking at the knot. "You…want me to take them to practice?" I guess.
She grips my shoulders with her bony fingers and pulls me against her for a brief, tight hug. "Yes, practice, my boy," she agrees before pushing me away again, her hands on my shoulders holding me at arm's length as she studies me intently. "My Bradley," she murmurs, as if to herself, and leans down to press withered lips lightly against my forehead, like a blessing.
Then I hear the car horn outside on the street and I grin at her and wave, running off down the stairs without a backwards glance. I fully intend to practice so I can impress her with how well I can read the cards by next Saturday.
On Tuesday my parents put me on a plane to Germany, and I never see her again.
I mount the stairs slowly in the darkness, the cards an incongruously heavy weight in my hand. I head for my bedroom, walking lightly so as not to disturb any of my sleeping subordinates, but I pause as I reach a door that isn't mine.
Schuldig doesn't usually sleep with his door open, but tonight he's left it slightly ajar. I slip the cards into my pocket and carefully nudge the door open wider, hoping the hinges won't squeal and wake him up.
The open door makes the breeze blowing through the open window pick up, and he shivers slightly on the bed beneath the inadequate cover of a thin sheet. The light cotton only covers him from the hips down, and his bare back is exposed to the night air and my view as he sleeps on his stomach. The white sheets make his skin appear darker, and the moonlight mutes the vibrant shade of his hair as it fans across the pillow. I wish his face were turned toward the light, but I don't really need to see it anyway. I know what he looks like.
I know very well what he looks like.
He sighs and rolls over in his sleep, turning on his back so the moonlight bathes his slumbering features. One of his pillows is clasped in his arms, and he curls slightly around it, a small smile tilting his lips upwards.
"Bradley," he murmurs quietly, "my Bradley…"
Possessive little bastard. I smirk to myself. He only calls me Bradley in his sleep.
The cards know my questions. The cards show me the answers. But the choice is always mine.
The Heirophant or Death. Conforming to convention, or radical change.
Hardly a choice at all.
His smile fades and he sighs, clutching the pillow tighter.
He turned the cards over. Logic dictates that they would be the same regardless, the last cards left, but philosophy would argue that until they are turned over, they have the potential to be any card in the deck.
And so, they answer his question as well. There, Schuldig, I gave you your reading. You've seen your future. Your future is my choice.
I turn and leave the room, easing the door closed behind me as I go. I will make my choice. I even know what it will most likely be. But I can't make it just yet.
It's still the future, after all.
But the cards know.
______________________________________
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate -
The cards and stars that tumble as they will.
Tomorrow manifests and brings the bill
For every kiss and kill, the small and great.
You want to know the future, love? Then wait:
I'll answer your impatient questions. Still -
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,
The cards and stars that tumble as they will.
I'll come to you tonight, dear, when it's late,
You will not see me; you may feel a chill.
I'll wait until you sleep, then take my fill,
And that will be your future on a plate.
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate.
- "Reading the Entrails: A Rondel", Neil Gaiman