This does NOT mean I'm going to stop with Angels Dark and Light, I promise you. But I caught something in a forum that I wanted to write on. This fic is dedicated to Shaku-chan (no foam, I promise) and Lady Ezri, who both inspired me to start this.
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Darkness surrounded the form of a man, alone in the room. He could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. No, these words didn't apply to him. Not really. Perhaps one would call it nothing, call it darkness, but that wasn't right. Darkness meant the absence of light, and nothing implied that something had been there at one point in time, but was now gone. Void was closer, but could only exist in a world of things to not be there. Nothingness is only real when there is something to not be.
No, that wasn't it at all. Could a soul that never saw light know if it was in the dark? What is pain but the absence of pleasure? Is this what it meant to hurt? He could feel nothing, why? But sometimes his thoughts would bleed, and he could never describe it to anyone. Was there no one to understand?
The man twisted in his fitful sleep. God knew. Oh he knew, and he laughed in his perfection, perfection he had cast the Irishman from before he had ever known it. Farfarello had done nothing wrong, but was punished nonetheless. God was spiteful, amusing himself with man. But Farfarello wouldn't play.
So God took everything from him. Murdered everyone he loved. He could hear the laughter in his mind, could see his sister's smile. Yes, she had been happy. So had he… but God tore them apart, and he could hear screaming.
The scream came from his own throat, and he twisted against the bonds that held him from himself. He hung upside down, in the broken silence of his waking nightmare. For a moment a tear almost formed somewhere, but it was lost instantly. This was his punishment; trapped in a painlessly painful oblivion, with the shadows of his madness to keep him company.
A golden eye gleamed in the darkness. No, Farfarello wouldn't play. He took away pain, so Farfarello would return his gift to God with the agony of others. He would return a false, professed love from a deity with deep and heartfelt hatred. For what is love but the absence of hate?
The time went somewhere Farfarello could not go, and the door to his prison opened. Reflexively, his pupil dilated at the sudden intrusion of light, but there was no headache to accompany it. The Irishman knew it should be there, somehow his body knew when there should be pain, but instead there was nothing.
The day always began with a disappointment. Somewhere in his mind, Farfarello wanted to feel pain. He wanted to be able to hurt. His revenge was somehow unfulfilled if he could not feel the mutilation. He was robbed of that consummating sensation. But he always had a sick hope that perhaps tomorrow would mark a change. Perhaps tomorrow he could feel…
" Morning Farf. Crawford says its time to get down." The German must be in a good mood, and Farfarello eyed him as he was lowered to the ground. Farf wondered if they would let him loose today, by the tone of the other man's voice. Nevertheless he was a little suspicious. Mastermind in a good mood was a potentially dangerous Mastermind, a sadist through and through.
Not that that bothered the Irishman, who bore sadism and masochism in harmony together in his twisted mind. Truth be told, he liked the redhead more than any of the other members of Schwarz. Mastermind helped him escape from his hell sometimes.
" What does Oracle want?" The American was too high to be called simply by his given name. Farf had never once let the name Crawford pass his lips, and certainly never Brad. To do so was to incur a wrath so cold it burned, a wrath that even Mastermind avoided at times. Oracle was on different plane than the madman, they all were, and Farfarello understood it well.
" Nothing, but you know how he is. When Brad's awake, no one sleeps." Mastermind made no pretense of being gentle with the straps, snaps, and buckles, knowing full well that Farf couldn't feel it if he hurt him. Instead, the Irishman gave every instant of unfelt pain to enjoyment. Somewhere his mind had flipped the two emotions, translated the absence of pain to ecstasy.
" Prodigy isn't awake." The young Japanese boy was in the room next to Farfarello, and his acute hearing hadn't picked up a sound. The redheaded German snorted, and cast a glare at that adjoining wall. Suddenly, it spread into a smile.
" He will be." He turned back to finish extracting Farfarello from his night jacket, seemingly forgetting about the whole thing. But the Irishman could feel a buzzing, like static, that he knew was Mastermind's psychic transmission. He had once asked the others if they could hear it too. So far he was the only one.
The ability had its uses. He could always tell when Mastermind was talking to someone. He could "hear" it from far off, and use it to find the German, even if he didn't want to be found. As long as he was doing anything that set his psychic voice in motion, Farfarello could find him. This had been a saving grace for Mastermind before. Farf remembered well a mission of theirs that almost lost them that nasal-voiced, Cheshire smiling team member.
Oracle couldn't find him, even with his powers that Farfarello thought should be more specific than they were. Weiß had fought hard, and Mastermind was wounded when Abyssinian and the little blonde went for him at the same time. The Irishman hadn't thought about him, being busy with Siberian.
They had met together where Oracle told them, but the German was missing. Prodigy and Farfarello had been dispatched to search, while the spectacled leader waited in the car for a quick getaway. The building was huge, and there was no way to know where the smiling redhead could have gone. Worse, the Weiß kittens could still be inside, or even have him with them.
That was when Farf had put one and one together, and followed the trail of that strange sound not quite in his ears and not quite in his head. Mastermind had been bleeding heavily in the corner of an office, in disarray with darts riddling his body. Later he'd remember with a wince and say he looked like hell. Farfarello had wished he could have had a picture.
A tired and pained groaning coming from the next room brought the Irishman back to the present, where it was soon transformed into loud and angry (yet still pained) shouting. Mastermind grinned to himself and pulled the last clasp free.
Farfarello let the German leave the room before he pulled himself from the floor. Another day to exist, another to cease existence. The halls were lit with misplaced sunshine, but in the mind of the insane man it was kept cool, dark, and calculating. He could think clearer away from the blinding dazzle of that overgrown star and the mind-numbing noise of the ensuing day.
Sometimes he was sick of orbiting in this same system, as a tool, a game, a puzzle to be wondered at. He hated to be used, didn't want to play anyone's game, and despised the mysteries that even he himself couldn't remember to understand. Anger flared up in the Irishman as he walked down the hallway. He hated being labeled a madman, a psychopath. Those words meant nothing in their names, but they meant that he could be discarded in his misunderstood status. It wasn't fair; when all he did was deviate from the masses they called him a psycho and shunned him.
Sudden as an ice cube dropped into his gut, Farfarello felt the anger disappear, to make room for that cold realization that turned all emotion to stone, but inside the statue his heart still bled. He was insane, and they couldn't understand him. Never since he was a child.
As God created him to be something good, and so he must be a killer. This was his revenge on God and man. On the deity, for his theft of everything the Irishman loved. On man, for throwing him away, leaving him when he needed them most. Man is pathetic, weak, and selfish. Followers of that God were hypocrites, hiding behind pious masks and sermons while underneath they are no different from the sinners they condemn.
And so they all must feel the sick pleasure Farfarello derived from their pain.
" Farfarello." The Irishman's attention snapped back to the table in the dining room before him, where the rest of the members of Schwarz were at breakfast. Prodigy was eating cereal and casting dark looks at the toast-munching German, who was making a point of not paying attention. The voice that spoke his name emanated from behind a newspaper.
" Yes Oracle."
" You're going with Schuldig to take Nagi to school." Suddenly the redhead choked, and the young boy's spoon went flying through the air on its own at seventy-four miles an hour. Both of them stared at the forbidding wall of newsprint. Oracle managed to be unreachable while at arm's length, his newspaper doing what the Wizard of Oz with all his deceit could not.
" But… but Crawford you always take me…" Prodigy was pleading with his eyes, but through that barrier of newsprint there was no passing of arguments. Farfarello stood in front of the table, unmoving as when he entered. " How come I have to go with Schu…"
" You don't have to," sneered Mastermind, "there's always the option of walking." The Japanese boy glared at him, and the table began to vibrate. Farfarello heard again the half-sound that foretold a psychic storm building around Mastermind. The air seemed to heat up.
Only then did Oracle smack down his newspaper, silencing the battle before it began. " Aren't we bitches and bastards this morning..." he said in a cold, even voice, looking from one angry face to the other. His spectacled eyes locked onto the German first, who was now fixing him with a concentrated look of death.
" No, I don't care. I'm going to a meeting. Nagi needs to get to school. You're taking him, and you're returning straight back here. No detours, no short stops." Mastermind stood up, scraping the chair on the floor, and stormed past Farfarello into the living room. Oracle turned to the boy.
" I don't want you giving him any trouble either. I'll pick you up after school." Prodigy had fallen into the blank silence that Farfarello loved to look at. He stared past everyone and everything into his own thoughts. Maybe he even looked past those into nothing. Farfarello always wanted to know what that would be like. What did this boy with such a peculiar but powerful mind see?
"Come on, then. Farf, we're going." Mastermind announced from the other room, jangling his keys. Prodigy silently left the table, slipped between the Irishman and the wall, and lifted his hand. A backpack, floating about two feet from the floor, silently lifted to its owner's hand. Farfarello looked over at the American, but he was again behind the paper. With a shrug he followed the two out the door.
Prodigy sat in the front, leaving Farfarello the entire backseat. He sat in the middle, looking out the front to the people flying past. Mastermind always drove fast. The Irishman didn't know how to drive, and they never even gave him the opportunity to learn. Probably for the best. He really didn't care either way. Cars weren't very useful to him personally. Other people could drive them.
Mastermind pulled up in front of the building. Farfarello stepped out first, out of a habit that never wanted to be broken. He stood there, regarding the school with a golden eye, when Prodigy came out. He looked up at the Irishman, then his eyes fastened on the man's right shoulder. He coughed and turned, moving faster than a walk to get inside. Farfarello watched him go with his head turned slightly to the side. Now what was that for?
He opened the door and sat next to Mastermind, who snorted and pulled away. He was muttering in German, which Farf did not understand but could recognize enough the anger in it. Mastermind turned to him, about to say something, but stopped with his mouth open. Then he shut it and turned back to the road.
" Are you going to leave that there all day?" he said irritably. The Irishman continued to look at him, the question not making it past his mind to his face. That itself was unnerving, and any other would have kept silent from anxious fear of this seemingly emotionless man. But this was Mastermind, and he could see past the shell and heard he unasked question. " You have a knife in your shoulder, Farfarello."
" …Oh…" the man breathed quietly. He reached up and took a hold of the handle of silverware. He didn't take it out immediately; for a moment he twisted it around, until he could hear metal scrape bone. Next to him the German winced, but he didn't notice. His mind was suddenly lost in a sharp, soft pleasant fog. With a jerk the silverware tore free from his shoulder in a red spray.
" Farfarello!" Mastermind shouted, "That's my upholstery!" But there was no reaching the man next to him. His eye was glittering in masochistic pleasure, and in his mind the German could hear a whisper of I can't feel it…. There was no smile on those scarred lips, but his body was somehow relaxed in its tension. "Oh never mind… I hated the color anyway."
Suddenly Farfarello began to chuckle, a dark and sinister, soft and smooth laugh. Mastermind looked back at the Irishman, who was smiling as he licked the blood slowly and carefully off of the thing buried in his shoulder.
It was a spoon.