Disclaimer: Schwarz, or any of the other illegal organizations mentioned
here ain't mine. Someone more creative than me owns them and I'm just
sucking the blood for all it's worth to me, and while I get an immense
amount of satisfaction writing this, I do not make money out of it. I'm
jobless and I don't own real property. Find someone else to pick on.
Notes and semi-warning: This is a rather crude attempt at writing a semi- intelligent Schwarz fic where they aren't screwing each other like mad rabbits for half the story. Began writing this when I was still in high school, which was like a million years ago, so it'll sound utterly juvenile in the beginning.
Reunions
by alien21xx
Chapter 1
Crunch. Twigs snapping despite the cool moisture that saturated dry fibers. Crunch. Snow packing under the clicking heels of dirty black boots. Crunch. The endless sea of human thought.
The tall, slim figure would have looked imposing were it not bent against the whipping ice of the wind. Fucking snow. A pale-faced young man hunched closely over himself, red staining smooth cheeks as biting cold crept in despite valiant efforts to keep warm.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. People everywhere, talking, milling, walking, shopping, seemingly indifferent to the unbearable temperature low and the slow, mind-numbing crush of the endless stream of thoughts swirling around the city streets like the eye of a storm. Fucking holiday.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Oh wait. He'd forgotten. It was only him who could hear their thoughts.
'Niichan, please get that for me, I want that present! Koi, don't you think Yuko-chan will look good in this? Miss, don't crumple the fucking wrapper...
Crunch, crunch, crunch. He bit his lip as the cold threatened to drown him. His trenchcoat was wet, and the damp tails of the useless garment swished around his already numb legs as he weaved through the crush of Christmas shoppers to the sleek black car waiting for him on the street curb, and he would have wanted nothing more than to use his power to get these idiotic pedestrians out of his way so he could get to the safe, warm cocoon of the car a/c, but between his headache, the cold, and the constant ache from the slash wound on his side, hidden from prying eyes by the stolen coat, he could barely even use his power to block out the clamoring of foreign thoughts from his head.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Hurry up, Schuldig.
The crisp mental voice resounded just slightly louder than the bubble of gibberish in his head. He spotted the car and walked faster, rudely elbowing past smiling, bright-eyed shoppers, before finally breaking for a run towards the car. The passenger door opened and a leather-gloved hand reached out to drag him in. Fucking hell, he cursed as his own shivering hands reached for the door and slammed it shut. The car started speeding off the street, scattering snow and dust in its wake.
+++++++++
"There you are."
Another voice. Bored, plaintive. He slumped against the couch, struggling to remove the stolen coat, which, along with the dress shirt he wore underneath, clung to his side, pasted painfully to his abused skin by clotting blood. He ignored that and ripped the fabric from his skin, the action making him grimace in suppressed pain.
"Give me that," he demanded of the small, dark-haired youth hovering near him and carrying a first aid kit.
Nagi obligingly opened the box and handed him the antiseptic and some cotton balls. Mild surprise and concern colored the delicate features. "What happened to you?"
Behind them, Crawford was locking the door and fishing into a coat pocket for his hand phone. Schuldig grimaced again as he peeled the shirt off his body, thankful at least for the warmth of their apartment living room.
"Some stupid fuck of a bodyguard," he answered, glaring at Crawford.
"Yes, I'll get the doctor," the Oracle said calmly, ignoring the spearing look Schuldig gave him.
"What?" Nagi asked, helping Schuldig dress the wound. Nothing serious. More of a glancing blow, but the redhead was in no mood to thank his lucky stars for that minor fact. He was in fucking pain and Crawford was on his fucking cell phone calling up that simpering excuse for a doctor Estet provided for their services.
Schuldig pointed irritably at their bespectacled leader. "That asshole didn't come in to get the disc with me."
Crawford clicked off his phone after he'd informed the doctor to come. "I didn't think you needed my help."
"Yeah, sure you didn't." He sneered, applying gauze on the cut. "Stop poking that, you little bitch." Schuldig swatted at Nagi's hand as the boy pressed the gauze firmly on the wound.
"I was only trying to help!" Nagi shot back hotly, before getting up. "You're such a jerk."
Crawford merely smiled at him. "If you hadn't flirted with Silvia, you wouldn't have had need of my help."
"Fuck you." He growled to himself, thankful now that Nagi had left off the mothering and gone back to his homework, which was splayed carelessly on the coffee table. "Silvia attacked me."
A single raised eyebrow. "Indeed?"
The telepath snorted. "Don't act like you hadn't foreseen it."
"I didn't."
"What?"
The American adjusted his glasses as he moved towards the kitchen. "I didn't foresee it. I didn't even know she would be there."
Schuldig smirked, getting up from the couch in spite of his pain. He was hungry. "What, glitch in your visions?"
Crawford merely frowned, face hidden by the refrigerator door as he found some fruit. "I don't know..." Schuldig glanced at his teammate, suspicious for the uncertain manner in which Crawford had ended his reply.
"What do you mean you don't know? You're supposed to know! You're the prophet here."
The glare of fluorescent light on his glasses hid the contemplative look in the dark eyes. "Did you pick up on her thoughts when you went in?"
Schuldig was busy rummaging through the cupboards for dinner. "Huh?"
"Did you 'hear' her before you went in?" Just a hint of slight annoyance in the even voice. Schuldig frowned. Crawford never lost his patience.
"No, should I have bothered? I didn't know she was there."
He didn't get a reply. Crawford found an apple from the fridge and closed the refrigerator door before brushing past the redhead and retreating to his room. Schuldig stared at the American's back in puzzled silence. He was too tired to read his thoughts.
"Burned you?" Nagi didn't even look up from his homework and Schuldig didn't grace the comment with a reply. "Crawford's been on edge since we took this mission."
He grinned. "Well, can't blame the man, you know. I mean, here we were happily trekking the Alps when he gets a 'call' to return to Japan."
"And you've never wondered why."
Schuldig shrugged, indifferent. What did it matter where they were? Tokyo was as good as Bern or New York. It wasn't like any of them had anything in those places to root them to it.
The sound of crumpling paper filled the apartment as Nagi fisted the sheet he had been working on. At Schuldig's questioning glance, he simply shook his head.
"I hate this thing."
"What thing?"
"Composition. Fucking waste of my time."
"Is that poetry?"
Nagi sighed. He no longer wanted to think about his homework. "Doesn't matter if it is."
"Where's the psycho?"
Careless wave of a slender hand. "Somewhere in the basement. I locked him up after you left." Another questioning look. Nagi held up his hand defensively. "He was in one of his moods."
"Oh."
Schuldig stalked out of the kitchen holding up a milk carton which he found in the fridge. "Need help?"
The boy stared belligerently at the innocuous textbooks and loose sheets of paper. "Not particularly. I don't want to do this anymore."
Smirk. Swig of the milk, and Schuldig was fishing into his pants pocket for a cigarette. "You're gonna need that. You don't want to end up like me."
"What, an idiot? Don't think I could beat you at it if I tried." He exhaled softly, blowing up the bangs that threatened to cover midnight eyes. "Who's Silvia?"
Emerald eyes narrowed at the name. "Someone you wouldn't want to meet."
"And how's she involved with you?"
Schuldig smiled at the boy sourly. You do not want to know that.
Crawford's door opening silenced whatever question Nagi was about to hurl next. The American's glasses were folded and perched neatly on the collar of his shirt, his eyebrows furrowed with concern as he searched the living room for his teammates.
Schuldig grinned and took another swig of milk. What?
"Pack you're bags. We leave for Hong Kong in three hours."
"Hong Kong?" Nagi echoed, frowning at the homework he had not done. None of their missions had ever taken them there. Why now?
"Because we're needed," Schuldig condescended to supply the useless answer. Nagi merely glared at him, which he of course ignored as he bore Crawford with a steely look. "Estet?"
Dark eyes clouded momentarily before fluttering shut. Crawford look like he was going to get a headache that could match Schuldig's own. "Worse."
+++++++++++
Nine.
He counted them over again, trailing pale fingers over the deep tracks on torn skin, smearing sanguine blood over the porcelain smoothness of his hand. Nine. For the nine circles of hell.
He cackled gleefully as he rose from the corner of his cell and picked up the tattered paperback print of his bible. In the very center would be the devil. Lucifer. And each level would house the unnameable demons that catered to his whim. Farfarello was one of them. But Farfarello didn't just want to oppose God. Opposition meant taking over. Opposition meant submission in the end.
He was going to kill God.
Nine.
At the very center of the spirals was a hex. The pinnacle on the palm of his hand. He smiled again. This was the part that didn't scar. But that was all right. He'd cut himself deep enough for the knife to touch bone. Nine. Poor Nagi had forgotten to put him in his straitjacket before locking him up.
The sound of metal grating on metal had him looking up from his little ritual, his single amber eye fluttering at the sudden invasion of light as the grille slid aside and the door opened. Schuldig stood at the mouth of the opening, looking harried and annoyed.
"What?" he demanded. Sacrilegious interruption meant death. Death... oh he loved death. His death or any other person's death. It didn't matter. God hurts when someone dies. He pulled the butterfly knife from the wall socket where he had placed it in anticipation of his electric shower.
/No, I don't think you're going to get that./ Schuldig's voice was crisp and busy. Not like him at all. Farefarello stared.
"What do you want?"
Schuldig grunted and stalked over, hauling the Irishman to his feet. "We're leaving. Some mission in some godforsaken hole in China." He growled almost inaudibly as Farfarello's elbow dug into his wounded side. "Fuck you, you didn't have to do that!"
The psychopath merely smiled, an odd gleaming contrast to the malicious glint in the sulfuric gold eye. "You hurt, and your pain hurts God."
"I don't give a rat's ass about God, you asshole." But the redhead didn't sound convincing at all, the jibe falling hollow to Farfarello's ears. How very strange.
"What did Crawford say?" he asked as Schuldig busied himself with re- locking the cell. He didn't normally like having the German hovering around him, didn't like anyone hovering around him, but Schuldig was his appointed 'guardian' within Schwarz. Crawford would never leave insanity unchecked.
At this, the telepath frowned. "I don't know..." He shook his head. "Crawford seemed... uncertain."
"Oh?" Well, this was new. "Do I get to kill anyone?"
"Yeah, go jump off a balcony."
He smirked. "Did. What was he so uncertain of?"
Schuldig glowered at him irritably as they climbed to the main floor where Nagi was putting away his homework. Farfarello smiled and ripped a page off the teenage boy's textbook. Nagi scowled at him crossly.
"That's expensive, you fucking--"
"'Israfel?'" He scanned the contents of the ripped page. "God's favorite angel. His fallen little angel."
"What would you know?" Nagi sneered, dumping his books to a corner of the couch before giving the two older men a final glare, and disappeared to his room to pack some clothes for their trip.
Farfarello smiled again, crumpling the ripped textbook sheet. Plenty. He knew plenty.
Schuldig stood around behind him, one hand on his bandaged waist, looking pissed off and bored at the same time. "You ain't bringing anything?"
"Isn't it your job to look after my things?"
"I'm not your keeper, you shit."
Farfarello merely smirked. "Yes you are." He sat complacently on the couch where Nagi had been sitting and toyed with the little ball of crumpled paper in his hand. "Don't worry, I'll behave while you're gone to keep my stuff."
Schuldig exhaled a cloud of smoke over his pale face. "Fuck you."
+++++++++++ end of Chapter 1
Notes and semi-warning: This is a rather crude attempt at writing a semi- intelligent Schwarz fic where they aren't screwing each other like mad rabbits for half the story. Began writing this when I was still in high school, which was like a million years ago, so it'll sound utterly juvenile in the beginning.
Reunions
by alien21xx
Chapter 1
Crunch. Twigs snapping despite the cool moisture that saturated dry fibers. Crunch. Snow packing under the clicking heels of dirty black boots. Crunch. The endless sea of human thought.
The tall, slim figure would have looked imposing were it not bent against the whipping ice of the wind. Fucking snow. A pale-faced young man hunched closely over himself, red staining smooth cheeks as biting cold crept in despite valiant efforts to keep warm.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. People everywhere, talking, milling, walking, shopping, seemingly indifferent to the unbearable temperature low and the slow, mind-numbing crush of the endless stream of thoughts swirling around the city streets like the eye of a storm. Fucking holiday.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Oh wait. He'd forgotten. It was only him who could hear their thoughts.
'Niichan, please get that for me, I want that present! Koi, don't you think Yuko-chan will look good in this? Miss, don't crumple the fucking wrapper...
Crunch, crunch, crunch. He bit his lip as the cold threatened to drown him. His trenchcoat was wet, and the damp tails of the useless garment swished around his already numb legs as he weaved through the crush of Christmas shoppers to the sleek black car waiting for him on the street curb, and he would have wanted nothing more than to use his power to get these idiotic pedestrians out of his way so he could get to the safe, warm cocoon of the car a/c, but between his headache, the cold, and the constant ache from the slash wound on his side, hidden from prying eyes by the stolen coat, he could barely even use his power to block out the clamoring of foreign thoughts from his head.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Hurry up, Schuldig.
The crisp mental voice resounded just slightly louder than the bubble of gibberish in his head. He spotted the car and walked faster, rudely elbowing past smiling, bright-eyed shoppers, before finally breaking for a run towards the car. The passenger door opened and a leather-gloved hand reached out to drag him in. Fucking hell, he cursed as his own shivering hands reached for the door and slammed it shut. The car started speeding off the street, scattering snow and dust in its wake.
+++++++++
"There you are."
Another voice. Bored, plaintive. He slumped against the couch, struggling to remove the stolen coat, which, along with the dress shirt he wore underneath, clung to his side, pasted painfully to his abused skin by clotting blood. He ignored that and ripped the fabric from his skin, the action making him grimace in suppressed pain.
"Give me that," he demanded of the small, dark-haired youth hovering near him and carrying a first aid kit.
Nagi obligingly opened the box and handed him the antiseptic and some cotton balls. Mild surprise and concern colored the delicate features. "What happened to you?"
Behind them, Crawford was locking the door and fishing into a coat pocket for his hand phone. Schuldig grimaced again as he peeled the shirt off his body, thankful at least for the warmth of their apartment living room.
"Some stupid fuck of a bodyguard," he answered, glaring at Crawford.
"Yes, I'll get the doctor," the Oracle said calmly, ignoring the spearing look Schuldig gave him.
"What?" Nagi asked, helping Schuldig dress the wound. Nothing serious. More of a glancing blow, but the redhead was in no mood to thank his lucky stars for that minor fact. He was in fucking pain and Crawford was on his fucking cell phone calling up that simpering excuse for a doctor Estet provided for their services.
Schuldig pointed irritably at their bespectacled leader. "That asshole didn't come in to get the disc with me."
Crawford clicked off his phone after he'd informed the doctor to come. "I didn't think you needed my help."
"Yeah, sure you didn't." He sneered, applying gauze on the cut. "Stop poking that, you little bitch." Schuldig swatted at Nagi's hand as the boy pressed the gauze firmly on the wound.
"I was only trying to help!" Nagi shot back hotly, before getting up. "You're such a jerk."
Crawford merely smiled at him. "If you hadn't flirted with Silvia, you wouldn't have had need of my help."
"Fuck you." He growled to himself, thankful now that Nagi had left off the mothering and gone back to his homework, which was splayed carelessly on the coffee table. "Silvia attacked me."
A single raised eyebrow. "Indeed?"
The telepath snorted. "Don't act like you hadn't foreseen it."
"I didn't."
"What?"
The American adjusted his glasses as he moved towards the kitchen. "I didn't foresee it. I didn't even know she would be there."
Schuldig smirked, getting up from the couch in spite of his pain. He was hungry. "What, glitch in your visions?"
Crawford merely frowned, face hidden by the refrigerator door as he found some fruit. "I don't know..." Schuldig glanced at his teammate, suspicious for the uncertain manner in which Crawford had ended his reply.
"What do you mean you don't know? You're supposed to know! You're the prophet here."
The glare of fluorescent light on his glasses hid the contemplative look in the dark eyes. "Did you pick up on her thoughts when you went in?"
Schuldig was busy rummaging through the cupboards for dinner. "Huh?"
"Did you 'hear' her before you went in?" Just a hint of slight annoyance in the even voice. Schuldig frowned. Crawford never lost his patience.
"No, should I have bothered? I didn't know she was there."
He didn't get a reply. Crawford found an apple from the fridge and closed the refrigerator door before brushing past the redhead and retreating to his room. Schuldig stared at the American's back in puzzled silence. He was too tired to read his thoughts.
"Burned you?" Nagi didn't even look up from his homework and Schuldig didn't grace the comment with a reply. "Crawford's been on edge since we took this mission."
He grinned. "Well, can't blame the man, you know. I mean, here we were happily trekking the Alps when he gets a 'call' to return to Japan."
"And you've never wondered why."
Schuldig shrugged, indifferent. What did it matter where they were? Tokyo was as good as Bern or New York. It wasn't like any of them had anything in those places to root them to it.
The sound of crumpling paper filled the apartment as Nagi fisted the sheet he had been working on. At Schuldig's questioning glance, he simply shook his head.
"I hate this thing."
"What thing?"
"Composition. Fucking waste of my time."
"Is that poetry?"
Nagi sighed. He no longer wanted to think about his homework. "Doesn't matter if it is."
"Where's the psycho?"
Careless wave of a slender hand. "Somewhere in the basement. I locked him up after you left." Another questioning look. Nagi held up his hand defensively. "He was in one of his moods."
"Oh."
Schuldig stalked out of the kitchen holding up a milk carton which he found in the fridge. "Need help?"
The boy stared belligerently at the innocuous textbooks and loose sheets of paper. "Not particularly. I don't want to do this anymore."
Smirk. Swig of the milk, and Schuldig was fishing into his pants pocket for a cigarette. "You're gonna need that. You don't want to end up like me."
"What, an idiot? Don't think I could beat you at it if I tried." He exhaled softly, blowing up the bangs that threatened to cover midnight eyes. "Who's Silvia?"
Emerald eyes narrowed at the name. "Someone you wouldn't want to meet."
"And how's she involved with you?"
Schuldig smiled at the boy sourly. You do not want to know that.
Crawford's door opening silenced whatever question Nagi was about to hurl next. The American's glasses were folded and perched neatly on the collar of his shirt, his eyebrows furrowed with concern as he searched the living room for his teammates.
Schuldig grinned and took another swig of milk. What?
"Pack you're bags. We leave for Hong Kong in three hours."
"Hong Kong?" Nagi echoed, frowning at the homework he had not done. None of their missions had ever taken them there. Why now?
"Because we're needed," Schuldig condescended to supply the useless answer. Nagi merely glared at him, which he of course ignored as he bore Crawford with a steely look. "Estet?"
Dark eyes clouded momentarily before fluttering shut. Crawford look like he was going to get a headache that could match Schuldig's own. "Worse."
+++++++++++
Nine.
He counted them over again, trailing pale fingers over the deep tracks on torn skin, smearing sanguine blood over the porcelain smoothness of his hand. Nine. For the nine circles of hell.
He cackled gleefully as he rose from the corner of his cell and picked up the tattered paperback print of his bible. In the very center would be the devil. Lucifer. And each level would house the unnameable demons that catered to his whim. Farfarello was one of them. But Farfarello didn't just want to oppose God. Opposition meant taking over. Opposition meant submission in the end.
He was going to kill God.
Nine.
At the very center of the spirals was a hex. The pinnacle on the palm of his hand. He smiled again. This was the part that didn't scar. But that was all right. He'd cut himself deep enough for the knife to touch bone. Nine. Poor Nagi had forgotten to put him in his straitjacket before locking him up.
The sound of metal grating on metal had him looking up from his little ritual, his single amber eye fluttering at the sudden invasion of light as the grille slid aside and the door opened. Schuldig stood at the mouth of the opening, looking harried and annoyed.
"What?" he demanded. Sacrilegious interruption meant death. Death... oh he loved death. His death or any other person's death. It didn't matter. God hurts when someone dies. He pulled the butterfly knife from the wall socket where he had placed it in anticipation of his electric shower.
/No, I don't think you're going to get that./ Schuldig's voice was crisp and busy. Not like him at all. Farefarello stared.
"What do you want?"
Schuldig grunted and stalked over, hauling the Irishman to his feet. "We're leaving. Some mission in some godforsaken hole in China." He growled almost inaudibly as Farfarello's elbow dug into his wounded side. "Fuck you, you didn't have to do that!"
The psychopath merely smiled, an odd gleaming contrast to the malicious glint in the sulfuric gold eye. "You hurt, and your pain hurts God."
"I don't give a rat's ass about God, you asshole." But the redhead didn't sound convincing at all, the jibe falling hollow to Farfarello's ears. How very strange.
"What did Crawford say?" he asked as Schuldig busied himself with re- locking the cell. He didn't normally like having the German hovering around him, didn't like anyone hovering around him, but Schuldig was his appointed 'guardian' within Schwarz. Crawford would never leave insanity unchecked.
At this, the telepath frowned. "I don't know..." He shook his head. "Crawford seemed... uncertain."
"Oh?" Well, this was new. "Do I get to kill anyone?"
"Yeah, go jump off a balcony."
He smirked. "Did. What was he so uncertain of?"
Schuldig glowered at him irritably as they climbed to the main floor where Nagi was putting away his homework. Farfarello smiled and ripped a page off the teenage boy's textbook. Nagi scowled at him crossly.
"That's expensive, you fucking--"
"'Israfel?'" He scanned the contents of the ripped page. "God's favorite angel. His fallen little angel."
"What would you know?" Nagi sneered, dumping his books to a corner of the couch before giving the two older men a final glare, and disappeared to his room to pack some clothes for their trip.
Farfarello smiled again, crumpling the ripped textbook sheet. Plenty. He knew plenty.
Schuldig stood around behind him, one hand on his bandaged waist, looking pissed off and bored at the same time. "You ain't bringing anything?"
"Isn't it your job to look after my things?"
"I'm not your keeper, you shit."
Farfarello merely smirked. "Yes you are." He sat complacently on the couch where Nagi had been sitting and toyed with the little ball of crumpled paper in his hand. "Don't worry, I'll behave while you're gone to keep my stuff."
Schuldig exhaled a cloud of smoke over his pale face. "Fuck you."
+++++++++++ end of Chapter 1