Author's Notes: Two days into my first college course and I'm half asleep and dealing with a splitting headache. It's my fault, to be sure. I stayed up late watching movies and had an early morning (unmusically, it seems, because the bus doesn't come that early).. It took me two hours because I got on the wrong bus (space cadet me…) and I got lost in Silver Spring. I shouldn't have read on the bus home either, but I had to get the rest of my courses picked. (shrugs) The Advil's working.

I worship the Advil gods.

Yeah, yeah, shutting up now.

6

I know I've mentioned it before, that every one of us in Swartz is a little screwy. Even Nagi, to an extent, suffers from moderate paranoia and was thought to be autistic when he was young, simply because he didn't speak. The paranoia came from Esset training and is now so ingrained into his system that he dreams it and gets up late at night, twice between ten and six, to check the locks on all the doors and windows.

Crawford? Who knows? They say prophets are always mad somehow, from knowing too much. I don't see it, but it must take a long time. He's only twenty-six. It's a few years before he even reaches his prime, his thirties, he says, and a longer time before anything crazy happens to him. I'm only worried he'll go blind before then. His eyesight gets worse every year, if only minutely.

Schuldig is probably the most acute psychotic of us besides me. When he was younger, when he lived with his mother and father, the doctors couldn't figure out what he had, couldn't decide if it was multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia or antisocial behavior he exhibited. Once he left his own asylum, he knew what was wrong with his head. I think that made him a little stranger than when he thought the voices were imaginary. Every now and then his shields get weak and the voices come back.

Like now, actually. At this very moment he's tearing our living room set apart. Crawford is delivering the boy to the airport and I was more or less 'assigned' to watch the German. I suspected Crawford knew something, because usually it's the other way around. It was unsettling, that knowledge.

"I don't want you hear your fucking inner narration!" he screams at me, throwing a table lamp in my direction. I step to the side and hear it shatter on the wall behind me. Great…that looked like an expensive lamp.

"If you threaten this job I'll kill you myself," I shouted back, "I hate the bastard too, but he's still paying, so get a grip!"

I'm not exactly the most sympathetic of people. After my stunt and the golf club, Takatori threatened to fire us if something else pissed him off. He didn't specify to what lengths we could push his 'piss off' meter, but I wasn't about to find out. If we were fired I'd loose much more than just an eye. Schuldig and Crawford and even Nagi would suffer something far worse than my own fear of being tucked back into an asylum. I shivered at the thought.

I marched over to Schuldig, who was ripping a sofa cushion open with his fingernails and got him in a bear hug. I lifted him clear off his feet and carried him to my bedroom. I knew everything was nailed down in this room and he knew better than hurt the books on my bookshelf. I locked the door from the inside and leaned against it, eyeing him. Waiting for him to take his frustration out on me.

I expect it, actually. When Schuldig throws a fit and needs to hurt someone, or stab someone, or just get beaten to a pulp, I'm enlisted. I take pain without notice and dish it out quickly and effectively. I heal fast too, a double benefit.

I expect a kick to my head when Schuldig moves toward me, but no foot comes and I actually take a moment to study him. He doesn't look so angry anymore, but still a little caged. He presses his body against mine and tilts his head back to nose along my jaw. His fingers are tight in my sweatshirt and his booted feet a little too close to my bare ones for comfort. I don't want any broken toes…too hard to walk on.

"You got tall, Far," he whispers, his voice harsh from screaming and reeking of cigarette smoke and headache pills. The man always has a headache. He swallows them like an addict for Ecstasy.

At that thought he leans back and laughs, his eyes slitted.

"Oh, good times," he says, his arms circling my waist, "During the wall(/), do you remember that? There was so much noise, but it was so delicious when on drugs…I miss those days."

"Not as much as you'd like to think."

"Don't tell me what to think, Farfarello, I was enjoying your silence," he snaps, his voice sharp again. I put up a placating hand and he smiles in his catlike way.

"I'm still amazed you got so tall," he continues, his fingers lifting my shirt up and over my head. His hands skim over my stomach and it ripples at the ticklish touch, my bared shoulders and arms, his blue eyes following them, wide and rimmed with leftover rave mascara. "I remember when you were so thin and small, like little Nagi…You've really turned into something worthwhile."

I frown.

"And what, you were just being a general pervert before?"

Schuldig smiles, eyes glittering in the light of my room.

"When amen't I a pervert?"

I didn't know. When he was asleep maybe? He was almost normal when he was asleep, when he wasn't speaking in tongues or having a sex dream and trying to hump anything in the bed, including me. I'm not much for morning sex. He and I mutually felt mornings were awful and had better be slept through, whenever possible.

"You're not touching Nagi," I snarl, protective over the boy and over my lover. As if I'd let a squirt like him take what I'd worked to keep as my own. Maybe when I went back to church…went to confession…I snorted at the thought and Schuldig smiled teasingly. He had a wandering eye, but I made him stick to an age group that was above my own.

"I won't have to. Everyone else in Esset will, though. Poor little Nagi," he simpered. I shoved him away and slapped him for even suggesting. I'd told Nagi not to let anyone near him, not to trust anything, no matter how much he wanted to. I told him that we were the only ones he could trust and that he had to work his very hardest to come back to the team as fast as he could.

He'd understood every word and promised to obey them. Crawford had promised he would have a good career there. Unless Crawford was lying, which he sometimes did to keep me from going ballistic.

Crawford had also told me not to kill Schuldig tonight. I halted before continuing my assault and leaned back against the door.

"Sometimes I hate you worse than Ruth," I snapped.

Schuldig grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

The little prick.

"Nothing little about it, Darling."

Sex, sex, sex, all the time…The guy has the stamina of a rabbit.

He grins at me and grinds his hips to mine. I groan and move against him in return out of habit. My body knows exactly what I want, but my head is still wondering about Nagi's future and Crawford's lies and Schuldig's goddamn sex drive. Schuldig's hand cups the back of my head and draws me to his mouth, biting and savagely tearing and sucking at my mouth as if I were some kind of fruit and he was a man lost in the desert.

The desert of No Sex…let's fuck, Far-baby.

Horny piece of shite…

We don't have a romance, we don't love one another. We use one another, possess one another, but we aren't the type to exchange stupid words of adoration or how great it was. We already know. He's not a complicated man, after all.

He's just fucking nuts.

Crawford gets in maybe two hours later. I hear the door open and close and lock and I hear his coat as he hangs it on the rack. I hear his shoes when he slips them off and his sock sheathed feet when he shuffles toward my room. He knocks on the door and I slowly unwind a softly snoring Schuldig from me and go to open the door. I slip out and walk with Crawford back to the living room so we can talk without disturbing Schuldig. Lord knows the man doesn't get enough sleep as it is. I don't think any of us really ever do.

He notes my nudity and ignores it effortlessly, as routine alone can allow. Since my return from training, Schu and I have been sleeping together almost every night of the week, excepting the days we have fights and can't look at one another without diving for each other's throats. We take our seats, Crawford in the arm chair and me on the sofa, my eye wary.

"I see he managed to do some damage," Crawford commented flatly, "Less than expected, though, so good work. I don't think he'll be walking about freely for the next couple of days. Will he?"

I snort. "What do you think, or what do you know? Do we have another job or something?"

"No," Crawford says, shaking his head, "Just taking care of my team, that's all."

"Like you took care of the kid?" I snap. He frowns at me and pushes up his glasses.

"I already said before that he-"

"Had to go to training, I know, Crawford. But it's Esset! They eat kids like him for breakfast and use whatever holes left to bugger them! He won't survive there, he's not that kind of person, Crawford…Brad! He'll be brainwashed like the rest of them!"

"Farfarello, we have no choice. Nagi has no choice. And he'll come back to us, he'll be stronger, wiser…"

"He won't be Nagi," I growl, "He won't be the same as before. He won't be our kid…"

"That's a sacrifice we were forced to make to save him, you know this."

I study Crawford and wait, almost pray for any kind of remorse in those eyes. There is nothing for the minutes that tick by. I sigh and get to my feet.

"I would never sell someone so precious to those demons. I'd shoot them first," I say, very quietly. Crawford takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes.

"I know, Farfarello…it's why they couldn't train you…" He gives a quiet chuckle, the first I'd heard in months. "It's why you work so well with us, we're all a bunch of nonconformists. Go back to bed. Schuldig'll wake up if you let him get any colder."

I silently go back to my room and curl around Schuldig. I study his lax face, his very young face. He's what, twenty years old now? He's barely more than a child himself…

I heard Tink chime her way to my nightstand and watch me. For once, she's being nice and I know this is a dream, not a hallucination. She pats my head and whistles a soft song.

"You're all Lost Boys," she says, "But not to worry…Peter will come back. He always does."

Nonconformists my fucking Irish arse!

Why don't I just tattoo a shamrock my forehead and carry around a pint, just to top it off!

God, I fucking hate Crawford. He's the prick of pricks, the king prick…Prickzilla…

And Schuldig is whining about being unable to sit down…first thing in the morning. I haven't even had my first coffee and I have to hear his nasally little voice bitch, bitch, bitch…I could throttle him. Crawford gives me a warning look from across the table, sensing my plans and I sit back in my chair, propping a foot on the tabletop, just to piss him off. I settle for glowering at them both in turn.

"We've received news from Esset about Nagi's progress," Crawford says.

"I'm surprised they bothered," I snort, "I figured they'd just send us the body when they were done."

"Get your foot off the table, Farfarello," he snaps back in the way I know he's annoyed at me.

"Make me," I reply, classic rebellious teenager-style. I can see him considering what to say next, how to threaten me without threatening me. I take my feet off and stand up to dump my full plate down the garbage disposal before he can speak.

"My ass fucking hurts," Schuldig whines, oblivious to anyone else but himself…typical.

"That isn't my problem," I snort. Schuldig glares at me, demanding pity he can't leech out even on his better days…he could've at least brushed his hair…he looks like hell.

"No I don't."

And he sounds like a sixteen-year old fucking a donkey.

"What kind of shit have you been watching!"

"We have a mission from Takatori tonight, try not to kill one another before then," Crawford says, disappearing behind his paper. My eyes cut to him and I frown.

"What happened to non-conformity? What about the kid?"

"It isn't convenient at this present time. I, unlike you two, know when it may or may not be opportune to fuck around. I want you two ready before six; guns cleaned, knives sharpened, kits in the car, the whole thing."

He doesn't even look up from his paper and I can't help thinking about how much of a prick he is…He didn't answer about Nagi either.

Schuldig is looking affronted, as if Crawford should care that he can't walk straight, as if his little act is going to have any effect on either of us. We've fucked harder and he was fine…

His blue eyes turn and glare at me. I lift my coffee cup to my lips and smirk.

"Fucking wanker," I whisper.

"Psycho," he snaps back.

"Bitch."

"Cocksucker."

"Nazi whore."

"Schiesskopf!"

I laugh and set my mug in the sink.

I turn and leave before he can bark out another insult. My door is locked behind me and I dig out the small collection of knives I possess. They are neatly packed, safe in their tough leather sheaths. I finger my favorite blade: a sharp, thin stiletto(/) and flip in the air with a practiced hand. My eye follows it as I catch it.

My hand-eye coordination is improving…good.

I strap a belt lined with various sheaths around my hips and select a few styled knives, a heavy hunting knives and the slender stiletto from before, among others. I slip a butterfly knife into my coat pocket, just in case, and tuck another small knife inside the fold of my boots. I have a small pistol that is kept in my other coat pocket, but I dislike using it on principal. It just feels inhuman to kill someone like that, impersonal, when death is that only thing all humans really ever share. I think it's why the world has gone downhill so quickly since the last World War, because of impersonal weapons.

After all, if there were more people who looked in someone else's face when they ripped open their gut, there might be less killing. There might also be more work for people like us. In a fanciful world, we might've been mercenaries…

Yeah, right…

At six sharp, the three of us are armed to the teeth and meet in the living room area. Schuldig is wearing that deplorable green jacket and Crawford his signature black suit. The both of them are wearing shoulder holsters for their guns of choice, both semi-automatic…lots of bullets. They too have knives, but they prefer to use them as last minute weapons. They are both in their little zones, Schuldig wearing his self-assured smirk, his eyes cold, and Crawford looking a little more like an impersonal Roman statue than before.

We ride the elevator downstairs to a black car that waits for us, black and sleek and it looks like it's from the Yakuza…couldn't they have come up with something a little less obvious? Perhaps something bright yellow with green flames on the sides? And a siren…

We arrive at the spot, some business building in the middle of the city. The sides are completely glass, tinted dark from the lack of personnel in the inside and the nighttime reflection on the windows. We get in when Schuldig twists a bodyguard's mind and are on the elevator to the penthouse in a mere two minutes, elevator music playing in our ears. I pull out a knife and christen in with a kiss, the steel brand new and unbloodied.

It'll be good to slam it into someone's eye, vengeance for loosing mine. It'll be good to hear them scream and beg me not to kill them. It'll be good to hear them pray to a god who doesn't care.

The doors slide open and Schuldig immediately latches onto one of the guards' minds, leaving the others to Crawford and me. Our leader and I step out, my knife ready and slashing toward a terrified young guard. Crawford's gun is letting out muffled shots, held back by the silencer.

They fall beneath us silently and we're on the move, deeper into the building, looking for our target. I go before the others, searching out quarry with a zeal that makes my blood rush hot. I can smell their terror around the corners they hide by, the sweat and urine of those who know they're going to die. I can smell the blood of their comrades under my fingernails. I adore it. I savor it. I lust for more.

I snuff out life after life with more violence than the last; slicing a throat neatly from ear to ear, just under the jaw, letting the bowels of another man fall loose under my blade and silencing his cries with a crushed voice box under my boot, a simple, easy snap of the neck with my knees as the man squirms in throes of suffocation.

I am clawing at a man's face, literally tearing it away from the eye sockets to his chin with my fingernails and nearly panting in the sheer thrill it gives me to hear him scream when Crawford orders me to stop. Schuldig kills the man under me with a flash of his mind and the guard falls silent, blood oozing from his ears. I throw his body down and growl at the German. He ignores me, though, watching Crawford pump another shot into the target, just for good measure.

Then they turn to leave, quick and efficient as ever. We ride the elevator down in silence and I settle my breathing. I haven't even broken a sweat, not a heavy one. We kill the door guard that let us in as soon as the doors to the lobby open and leave. We get back into the black car and Crawford immediately pulls out his phone to call Takatori and confirm the kill.

Schuldig is sitting next to me, the entire side of his body pressed against mine and his tongue lapping at some of the blood on my neck, just below my ear. I shiver and I know he's as aroused as I am. Killing is erotic to people like us, murder is merely a form of foreplay to the insane, like us.

Admit it, you love it.

/I call top, when we get home./

You haven't let me be top in ages, Far…his mental voice whines at me. I consider it for a moment, then sigh. He smirks again, a superior look in his eye, like a cat who just got his belly scratched and was presented a rather large fish.

He bites my earlobe and breathes a soft laugh in my ear.

I promise I'll be nice, dahling…

/You'll be no such thing./

Crawford ignores us and continues talking.

Fin chapter 6

Please review

Author's Notes:

(/)Berlin Wall

(/)This is actually a weapon. The shoe came after its creation. Both are of Italian make and the shoe is called a stiletto because the heel is long and thin, like its namesake.

Also, as a side note, Farfarello's name also has Italian origin. I know I mentioned it before, but a demon in Dante's The Inferno was named Farfarello and I would assume that this is where the name would come from. It makes more sense than 'Butterfly'. I annunciated a certain obsession with Italy in the first or second chapter, thus involving it effectively.

Woohoo for me, now how many of you actually give a shit?

To My Readers:

StarTrekObsessed: You think my writing is awesome? (grabs and hugs) Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so happy you like it enough to put it on your story alert list. I know I made Far lucid compared to other fanfics, but since I decided to make him schizophrenic (which is incurable, but treatable) and I wanted him to tell this story in a fashion that could actually be read coherently (mostly), he had to be that way. Besides, of the research I did on the subject of mental instability, medications, etc. and reading the opinions of other writers on the subject of characterizing Far correctly, it wouldn't do much good to have him locked up the whole time. How boring would that be? Thirty chapters of "the walls of my cell are white"…

But enough long-winded replies, thank you so very much for your review and I hope you enjoy reading the rest of this as much as I enjoy your wonderful feedback.

Roxie Faye: Do you hear that? It's my ego swelling to the size of a walrus. I haven't had a review this good in my life and it's exciting you think so highly of my writing. Thank you!

Yes, I know I have few reviews, but you know how it is, it's such a pain giving feedback to those desperate writer wannabes (laughs), just joking. I have no idea why there are so few, but I hope it isn't anything I've done. And I'll get to twenty someday, maybe even beyond that.

I like Nagi. Most everyone likes to portray him as a forty-year-old in a kid's body, but I wanted to take a different route. Since this is the beginning of Swartz and not everyone is trained (Farf and Nagi), I wanted to use the opportunity to show that he is indeed a very strong child who was underprivileged by his lack of guidance. When he comes back you'll see how great the change is and how Esset schools have a way of altering people, especially impressionable children.

I like to think of Swartz being close, like a family rather than just a team. If they are this close it can make them an even more effective killing machine, a leg up compared to Weiss. Later on in the story you'll see how important the ties forged early on will hold them together through rough times. Crawford is kind of like a surrogate father or very eldest brother and his responsibility can make him seem cold when he's really looking after his team and thus his livelihood. He lives for the team, which then brings up the saying 'Do nothing to harm the team'. Later on everyone else adapts to this thinking. Schu is almost like a female influence on Nagi (who would be the youngest brother or son) and while he's manipulative at the beginning, his thinking will later change.

Farfarello once had a sister with his adoptive parents in Ireland (remember in the anime?) who he did kill. Even if he later did have a raging fit and slaughtered them all, I can imagine the ties between them were very close, as siblings ideally should be. He later regretted killing Valerie (I guessed on the name) and managed to think of Nagi as a kind of replacement. He takes protecting Nagi as a very serious job in pay for his sin against his sister (kind of how Aya/Ran lives in the place of Aya-chan, if you catch my thinking) and would die for him if asked.

Yes, Farfarello is insane, very seriously so, but even the mad can care. I do a lot of research, reading and the like to assume so broadly, and while some are completely at a loss, I don't think Farf is. Think about it. If Farfarello was so entirely crazy that he couldn't care, how could he function? Those kinds of people are useless to teams, and they kill the family bond Crawford needs to keep his team together. Farfarello needed interpersonal skills to work with others, so I gave him medications. Even on them his hallucinations could come back (it happens to people in real life too), but he's typically stable.

Not to say he doesn't enjoy killing them. His goal in life is still to get revenge on God and Ruth for hurting him so. We mustn't forget that.

Actually, about Farfarello not being severely mentally impaired...his hallucinations are very impairing and can even lead to self-destruction. Typically, Schizophrenia gets worse as one goes on, even with therapy and medications. I'm not claiming to be an expert (I'm anything but), but it's only a matter of time before he goes completely insane. (Still, I needed him lucid enough to speak coherently for this fic).

Well, have I talked enough? I'm sorry, I am just excited you enjoyed reading my work so much (to the point of minor revelations!). You're wonderfully thoughtful review really made my day!

(takes brownie and hands a Kleenex) And not to worry, I've no intention to stop writing this fic. I enjoy it far too much for words.

What can I say? I love the crazies.

If you liked this so much, try reading some of my other Farfarello fics. They're in my profile site.

Morbid Knight: Thank you for your compliments!

I was trying to keep them realistic compared to people I know, actually. Since most of my friends whose traits I surreptitiously 'borrowed' for each of the characters aren't morning people, I just couldn't see anyone in the Swartz household that way either. They supposedly keep late nights for their 'work', so I can't imagine Crawford (or any of them) staying up late and getting up early on a consistent schedule. His immune system would crash and he can't afford to get sick.

Thanks for the review!