Just to confuse the series timeline even more, this one takes place almost entirely during NtTSM. It's probably the sappiest so far, and it will probably only appeal to those who've read the others in this series, and it's entirely Brad and Michael talking. That's it. I like to think it explores Brad's character quite a bit, but I'm getting far too attached to Michael. He's just a nice guy who really shouldn't be getting involved with a remorseless killer who plotted for world domination. Hopefully by the end of this you'll be as enamoured of him as I am, but if not, you might as well skip this fic and wait a bit. There'll be plenty of Nagi angst in the next fic, and the one after that, and Michael slips back into his usual supporting character role.
"…that was something even I never saw coming." Brad leant on the railing and stared up at the mirrored ceiling. He could feel the future, almost tangible, about to alter irrevocably, and knew that whatever was about to happen was out of his control.
"Any reason you should have?" Michael asked, leaning against him. Brad smiled at the warmth of another body against his. It had been so long since touch had been anything other than sexual, but Michael was a tactile person. It had taken Brad a while to get used to it, but it was pleasant and reassuring. He leant against him in return.
"Yes," Brad admitted quietly. "The lift's about to jam," he added.
There was a clunk and a whirr and a slow purring, so that the final silence seemed quite anticlimactic.
"I don't care if you can't explain," Michael said slowly, "I think I'd like you to try." He moved away from Brad, just slightly. In a normal situation, Brad wouldn't even have noticed, but now he felt a gulf opening between them, just in those few centimeters.
Brad stared at the ceiling of the lift. "I can… I can see the future."
"What, all of it?" Michael said, a trace of skepticism in his voice despite Brad's accurate prediction of the lift malfunction.
"Well, some of it," Brad sighed. "It's mostly short term."
"So if you went to Las Vegas…"
"I'd walk away a billionaire," Brad said smugly.
Michael stared at him. "And did you?"
Brad frowned. "Did I what?"
"Go to Vegas and use your talent to make your fortune?"
"No," Brad said near-scornfully, partly because he hadn't, but mostly because he knew it was what Michael wanted to hear.
"Why not?" Michael persisted.
Brad raised an eyebrow. "Can you see me in Las Vegas?" he pointed out.
"Well," Michael almost smiled, "only in a James Bond capacity. But that isn't a reason, and you know it. Why don't you play the stoc… Oh."
Brad didn't blush, but a small frown line appeared between his eyebrows. "I would have been an idiot not to," he pointed out. "If you have a talent, it's worth using."
"You think of it like being able to run fast, or shoot well," Michael said, tone mildly accusatory. "It's not, you know. It's more like cheating in a card game. It's not something practice can improve on. Some people are born talented, but other people can work to reach the same levels. I could never do what you do."
Brad sighed. "I left," he pointed out.
"Yes, you did, but not out of any pang of conscience," Michel said coolly. "You quit because you were bored."
"No," Brad objected, "I quit because I don't like people." Michael raised an eyebrow. "Well, I don't," Brad muttered petulantly. "I find the average person very tiresome and predictable."
Michael snorted.
"Not just because of that," Brad sighed. "You've heard me speaking to Schuldig, haven't you? Once you've met him everyone else just seems so mundane. Nagi's, well, different, too. He's a challenge."
"What am I?" Michael asked.
Brad opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
"What am I, Brad? I'm not a challenge. I'm not extraordinary or bizarre. I'm no different from anyone else you worked with. I'm not different from the average man in this city, am I? And don't say anything about being different because you love me, because that's clichéd shit."
"You brought me a card, and you remembered what music I like. You went to the effort of finding out where I live and you came to see me. You invited me to dinner," Brad listed. "It's not that you're different from the billions of other people in this world, you're different from those I've known."
"Would you have even noticed my existence if I hadn't noticed yours?" Michael asked, voice still chilly.
"Probably not," Brad said candidly. "But you're one of the few people who has noticed me, in any kind of a social manner. Most people notice me for what I do for a living. They notice me as a bodyguard."
"You weren't a bodyguard when we worked together," Michael pointed out. "You caught the eye of a lot of people in 'a social manner'."
Brad sighed and shook his head. He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose, turning to lean on the handrail with one hand and rest his head against the mirrored wall of the lift. Michael just stood there, watching him, hands tucked neatly in the small of his back.
"You don't like people," Michael sighed. "I suppose it really is that simple, and I ought to be flattered that you made an exception for me. Except… except I can't help but wonder when you'll realise that I'm a person, and you don't like me."
"They're all so small," Brad swallowed. "They live such small lives and do such small things and they never even think that there's anything beyond it. War and death is something you see on the news. Everything is small and neat and these tiny little problems get completely blown out of proportion." He turned to stare at Michael, eyes wide and bloodshot. "They don't know. I almost plunged the world into chaos and fear with the intention of arising from the anarchy as the ruler of the world. Our plans were so big, and most people wouldn't even believe that it was possible." He frowned at Michael. "You don't," he said dully, "you think I'm insane."
"You can see the future," Michael pointed out. "Suddenly conventional beliefs go out the window. Did you really try to take over the world? Am I dating a megalomaniac?"
"More of an obsessive compulsive," Brad said with a tired grin. "It's all just so unorganised. I could predict earthquakes and stop terrorist attacks and slap certain rulers of certain countries. I know I could do it. I could sort out the economy and politics and war. With a united world, it's possible."
"You sound like you don't believe what you're saying," Michael told him.
"I believed we were invincible," Brad shook his head. "We were dumped in the sea by a group of Japanese no-ones. One of who, coincidentally, is the boy Nagi has taken a shine to online. When we failed and everything fell apart, I didn't know what to do. People started hunting us. Farfarello got married. Nagi joined our old enemies as a way of keeping an eye on those who were hunting Schuldig and myself. When they died Schuldig went back to his home country, and Nagi and I were just… lost. The others hadn't really cared; they were in it for the darkness and chaos and anarchy, Nagi and I were in it for the order and the organisation. Without that to work towards, what were we to do?"
"So you came to American and joined the hordes of no ones and started to create small worlds for yourselves," Michael said. "And I'm part of your small world, another no one to help you get used to this nothingness."
"You're the reason I'm still here," Brad said. "You're the reason I'm satisfied with having a small world and a small life. Without you I'd just be looking for another way to do something big, to prove to myself that there is a bigger world."
"Where did your ambition go?" Michael asked, honestly curious.
"I don't know," Brad sighed, half-sitting on the handrail. "I just don't have that drive any more. Even if I had the same opportunity, I wouldn't take it now."
"Why did you do it? To organise the world? That's not a reason, not really. It's a dream, but not even you could accomplish it."
"Oh, don't tell me," Brad said, irritated, "that I did it to be loved. That I did it because I have issues with my father and I want people to look up to me and respect me and worship me." He spoke with heavy sarcasm, folding his arms across his chest. "Why would I do that?"
"I didn't say a word," Michael said, a hand half-covering his mouth. Brad had a suspicion that Michael was stifling a smile behind that slim milk chocolate hand. "You didn't even answer my question. I'm not saying you do have issues with your father, or you just want to be loved, but don't you find it a bit odd that since we started going out you lost that desire for power?"
Brad stared at him. "It's different. You know that," he added sulkily. "It didn't just all stop suddenly. Schuldig loved me, and that didn't make me want to settle down in some nuclear family mould."
"You already pointed out he was far from normal," Michael said shrewdly. "Look, I'm not going to pass judgment on what goes on in your head. I'm not a shrink. I just want to know where I stand with you. You made it sound like you'd do anything to escape this life and go back to your super villain comic book life. I can't blame you. But then you say you've lost that ambition. You sound like you're deeply unhappy, but you can't be bothered to do anything about it. I don't know if I want to be a part of that."
Brad's jaw dropped. "No," he murmured. "Please, are you… No?"
Michael sighed. "I don't understand you. I don't even know you! I know how you like your coffee, and which suits you buy, and what music you listen to. That's great, for the first few dates. I don't know whether you have a middle name, or what your parents are like, or, well anything."
"My middle name would probably be Junior, and I'm an orphan. My mother died when I was young, and my father died when I was in my late teens," Brad said tonelessly.
"A moment ago you were almost begging me not to break up with you, now you sound like a robot," Michael said in exasperation. "Okay, I feel I know you a bit better know, but only because I forced the issue. I don't want to do that. I want you to enjoy being with me and feel able to talk to me. Sometimes I wonder if you do, or whether I'm just convenient."
"I do enjoy being with you," Brad said in a strangled voice. "I'm not a highly emotional person. You wouldn't believe how much you've changed me. Just being around you… I don't want a big world any more. I want you. I want to be a small person in a small world and enjoy the small things in life. I never enjoyed sunsets or snow or cups of coffee before. I never enjoyed just sitting with someone in silence, or curling up on a couch and just being next to each other."
Michael looked at him. "You can see the future, but you can't see what's right in front of you," he murmured. "Have you ever thought ahead, for us? Have you ever wondered what it would be like if we moved in together, and got a house, and a pet, and grew old together? I have. I've dreamed about what it's going to be like. You can see what's going to happen to us. Tell me."
"I don't know," Brad shook his head, pressing back against the wall. "I can't see that, and I don't want to."
"I'm not asking you to try and see all of that," Michael said, moving closer, reaching out to grab the railing with both hands, one on either side of Brad. "I don't know how far you can see, maybe you can tell how long we'll be in here, maybe you know what we'll have for dinner tonight, or maybe you only know what I'm going to ask you. Have you ever thought about where we're going?"
"No," Brad murmured. Michael could see fear in his eyes. Brad didn't know how he was going to react to that.
"You're scared of the future," Michael spoke softly, moving even closer to Brad, pressing against the length of his body. "You're like any normal person." He leant in and kissed Brad gently on the lips. "I love you."
"I… I didn't know you were going to say that," Brad said.
"I know. I'm not putting any pressure on you. I don't want you to feel you have to think about our future, or say you love me, or do anything at all, really." Michael stroked his cheek and rested his head on Brad's shoulder, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend. "I just wanted you to know. It's another small thing you can learn to enjoy."
Brad reached around carefully and held Michael tightly to his chest. "I enjoy you," he said into Michael's ear. "I enjoy everything about you, about having you around and talking to you and just being a normal person in a normal relationship."
"That's good," Michael murmured sleepily. His weight on Brad increased slightly. "Do you know how long it will be before we get out of here?"
"A while yet," Brad sighed. "Nagi's going to come home and go to sleep with no idea where we are."
"Ah bugger," Michael said, with feeling.
Brad chuckled. "I'm sorry. We could try hitting the walls and calling for help."
"Do you know how long it will be before we get out?" Michael asked again.
"At least an hour," Brad sighed.
Michael pulled away with a wicked grin. "Oh good," he leered.
Brad returned the look, and his nimble fingers started to work on the buttons of Michael's shirt.
* * *
As they sat on the floor of the lift, a tangle of warm limbs and slick flesh. Michael nibbled Brad's shoulder teasingly. Brad tangled his fingers in Michael's hair, enjoying another small moment.
"How long before Nagi gets back?" Michael asked lazily.
Brad frowned. "I… can't tell. Oh shit, that means he's already back."
"So call him, before he drops off to sleep," Michael insisted, holding up Brad's phone, which had fallen on the floor during their lovemaking. Brad did as requested, but the scowl on his face told Michael it was already too late.
"Damn," Brad swore. "He's there, but he's not picking up."
"Asleep?" Michael asked. "As you foresaw?"
"Almost certainly."
"Damn."
They stared at each other for a while. "I don't suppose you know the number of anyone else in the building?" Michael asked hopelessly. Brad shook his head. "Do you think we should call the police?"
"I don't think they'd be particularly impressed," Brad sighed.
"It's been hours," Michael pointed out. "I'm getting really thirsty."
"How about I call in a little while?" Brad suggested, curling closer to Michael. "I don't think I want to be rescued right now."
"Oh, me neither," Michael grinned, catlike in his satisfaction.