Guess who watched the Red Dwarf episode of that very name the other night? ^_^ No real parallels though, it just happened to suit this chapter. I'm beginning to get closer to the real rating of this fic, R, here. While things ought to start looking up, I'm getting used to being a little more graphic. Just so you're warned.
Bradley contemplated the room. The bedroom he got all to himself. Sure, he'd been alone for most of the last year, but this room only had one bed. And a window. With curtains. There was a communal bathroom just down the hall, which he shared with only three other men. And it had a bath…
Bradley's feet curled around the taps and he sank a little further beneath the water. No foam, that was a luxury too far, but an actual bath? He hadn't had a bath since before he came to Rosenkreuz. Water all the way around him, supporting him, caressing him. Even a bar of soap, though it produced a woefully small number of bubbles.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then submerged completely. All modesty was laid aside now, he shared a bath, shower, toilet and two sinks with three other men and the door had no lock. Oddly enough, there had been no complaints about him being the first to use the bath, as long as they got to use it when he was done. There was a limit to the amount of water they were allowed to use, and no point running more than one bath.
So this was life after Rosenkreuz? But it was still in Rosenkreuz, just yet another part of the building. He'd proven his talent for leadership in the graduation games, and they were willing to let him do as he wished. He'd keep 'teaching', keep searching, and keep sucking up. He would learn how to use every weapon known to man, from a sling to a hydrogen bomb; he would learn every fighting technique they could teach him; he would learn how to manage a household, from tax returns and choosing insurance to cooking a simple meal for four; he would learn how to command and coerce others into doing his bidding. And, next year, he would be allowed out of the complex. On his own.
His fingers curled around his cock and coaxed it into an erection, dreaming of the power and control he would gain. Sliding his hand back and forth, he brought images of Tanya to his mind, trying to avoid reopening old wounds, undressing her mentally. But as climax neared, his thoughts gained a mind of their own. A vision began to build in momentum as his hand jerked frenetically back and forth and climax neared. A teenaged boy with orange hair lay naked on his bed. He was lying naked with the boy. They were having sex. He was watching himself have sex with another man, with the ginger German boy. It shimmered and other visions overlapped with it. They were both men, in a large bed, having sex. The redhead had chlorine green hair, and they were having sex. They were having sex outside. They were having sex in a cheap hotel. They were having sex on an aeroplane. They were having sex at a train station. As the figures in all of the visions climaxed simultaneously, so did Bradley.
He gasped, taking in water. Struggling to sit up, he stared at the water with dismay. Semen lay like curdled milk across the surface, some clinging wetly to his chest hairs. He couldn't empty the bath, this was most of the week's water.
He clung to these thoughts like a drowning man. As long as he concentrated on small, immediate things, he could ignore the content of the vision. The fact he'd seen himself have sex with someone he intended to employ later in life. The fact that said person was a man. The fact that he was quickly getting hard again thinking about it.
He turned his attention back to the problem at hand. Hand. Not a good word. Too many things he could be doing with his hand right now. His hand had got him into this mess. Mess. What a mess he'd made. Made. Rhymes with laid…
He hit himself on the side of the head. ENOUGH! Climbing out of the bath, he used his hands to skim the surface and collect the white viscous liquid. Carrying it carefully, cringing with every step, he flushed the semen down the toilet. The bath was still a bit of a state, but after several minutes he managed to work up enough of a lather with the soap to hide the remains of what he'd done. Berating himself viciously, he grabbed a towel and made his way out of the room and down the corridor.
"Bath's free!" he called, and left the other to their mad scramble to be the first to get in the spoiled water. Still feelings a bit sick, he made his way into his room and surveyed the new clothes Estet had provided.
It was Estet now, not Rosenkreuz. Estet would provide for his every need, as they saw fit, not Rosenkruez. So there were suits, perfectly tailored. One white, one black, one charcoal grey, and one navy blue pinstriped. He would fit in perfectly wherever he went, not standing out in any way whatsoever. There was even a briefcase.
Shying away from the white, he dressed slowly in the grey woollen three-piece suit. It was surprisingly warm and comfortable, and he found himself smiling as he stared out of the second story window. Winter in the Alps. So much white! He slammed the curtain closed, unhappily reminded of his vision so soon.
"Perhaps," he said aloud, "it was just a fantasy." That didn't sit well with him either. "Perhaps it was rape?" No, he'd never let himself be raped, that was too much like losing control. And he'd seem well, 'happy' in the visions. "Perhaps there are extenuating circumstances," he told himself. "Maybe it's one of those visions that can be altered." It didn't feel like it, but it was a vaguely comforting thought. It could even have been a different timeline; that had been known to happen, though not to him.
Bradley sighed and made his way out of the small room. He had to teach.
* * *
Much of the year was passed in simple routine, teaching, training, thinking. He kept his mind off of the disturbing visions, but he got the impression he was repressing a lot of dreams based on them. More than once he woke up from what had apparently been a wet dream, unable to recall the exact substance of the dream. He pushed such thoughts away, though, and forced himself to go through life as if nothing was troubling him.
Things were though, and not just the dreams. He'd still heard nothing from Tanya, and he still wasn't allowed phone access to try and contact her. There were murmurings from the top, suggesting the council had plans, and said plans involved him personally. His visions seemed to attest that, implying that in his pursuit of personal power he was going to get more than he bargained for. He was doing more and more of the teaching in the general studies classes, and he feared being cornered into teaching them permanently. Hertz was still his superior, and would periodically remind him of that. His back was a mass of bruises.
And the worst thing? He was lonely. He'd never been lonely before. He knew no one. He learnt names and faces, but they never spoke to him unless forced. The others who shared his bathroom treated him with the same respect they had as students, and kept the same distance.
Lying in the itchy sheets early on autumn morning, towards the end of the year, Bradley made peace with himself. It was the visions that made him lonely. In the visions, the German and himself shared something, and neither was alone. This reminder of what he didn't have was hurting him more each day. If these things were to happen, he would accept them, as long as it got rid of this awful ache.
Climbing out of the bed into the frigid air, he leant against the icy window. He'd had another dream last night, and he'd managed not to repress it. Instead he revelled in the comfort it offered. His own sleek body, unmarred by scars and bruises, and the wiry pale German, made an image as aesthetically pleasing as it was sexually pleasing.
Another dream, another day. He showered and dressed and made his way to the main building. The day passed almost without incident, until supper destroyed the clean record he'd maintained all year.
Sitting alone, as usual, he'd been pushing food around on his plate with his usual enthusiasm. He was startled out of his reverie when he gained company, a fellow post-graduate sitting down opposite him. Too shocked to speak, he stared at her for several seconds. Long blonde hair curled around a heart shaped face, and blue eyes sparkled mischievously.
"So you are the famous Bradley Crawford?" she lilted. "I am Mared."
"You're Welsh," Bradley observed, more than a little unnerved.
"Yes," she smiled, and dimples appeared in her cheeks. Bradley was smitten. "I thought you looked like you would appreciate some company."
"I appreciate the sentiment, but I was happy on my own," Bradley snapped, his ego a little bruised. She looked hurt, and began to stand. "Don't go!" Bradley half shouted, then blushed furiously. "I was happy on my own," he told the bemused girl, "but I am happier with you here." Internally he was spitting and cursing himself. He was making a spectacle out of himself, in front of such a pretty girl!
She laughed merrily. "Well, you are quite the charmer." She sat back down again. "What's you're gift?" she began to make conversation.
Meal forgotten, Bradley smiled gratefully and forced himself to get a grip on himself. "Precognitive. And you?"
"Shouldn't your power tell you?" she laughed flirtatiously.
"If I told you what you were going to say, you wouldn't say it, so how could I foresee it?" She looked blank. "No," he explained patiently, "my power doesn't tell me."
"Oh! I'm a healer!" She smiled prettily, but her charms were rapidly beginning to wear off on Bradley. Not the brightest lass. In fact, most of the surviving Rosenkreuz students were a little lacking when it came to intelligence. The stupid were more easily brainwashed, Bradley reasoned, so they tended to survive when those with doubts were culled.
"Would you like to join me for 'coffee'?" she batted her eyes. Bradley frowned. She'd been a summer, graduating earlier this year. She wouldn't be allowed to have a coffee machine. Then it dawned on him.
"No. Thank you. Though I appreciate the offer." He stood up to leave.
"You're turning me down?" she spat. The sudden change in mood was startling in it's ferocity. "You, Mr Bradley 'I-barely-survived-because-my-loyalties-are-questionable-but-I'm-too-damn-useful-to-kill' Crawford, dare turn me, Miss Mared 'perfect-example', down?"
"Sorry," Crawford said calmly. He knew what she was going to do next, though it seemed she had little idea. He put his plate and cutlery on the table, and picked up the tray just as she lunged at him, using it to shield himself from clawing fingers. They were attracting a lot of attention, but now he was on top of the situation Crawford didn't mind. It was Mared who came across badly, to the casual viewer.
"Mared!" a voice boomed. Shit. Hertz. "Herr Crawford!"
Crawford lowered the tray and turned to face the diminutive controlled of Rosenkreuz. It was a mistake. Mared latched onto his arm, digging pointed nails through wool and linen to shred his arm. Crawford didn't even flinch, but he hit her, hard.
She fell onto the floor, but sat up almost immediately. "Hah!" she snapped. "The wounds inflicted today will never heal!" Crawford stared at her blankly. "I've used my gift to scar you for life," she told him triumphantly.
"You've scratched my arm," he said in a maddeningly calm voice. "Are you really that shallow as to believe that will bother me?"
"Oh, it will tonight," someone else said. Mared climbed to her feet and stood next to the plainer girl.
"This is my friend, Claire. She's a precog, like you. She knows what she's talking about." Mared was smirking at Crawford, her previously stunning looks warped into an ugly façade of vengeful triumph. "No one turns me down and gets away with it!"
Hertz shot her.
Crawford watched the body collapse bonelessly, in the way only a corpse could. It was credit to Rosenkreuz's training that not a single other person in the room batted an eyelid, including Clair, who had had her arm around Mared.
"Come with me," Hertz commanded. Crawford followed, obedient, to suffer yet another beating at the hands of the sadistic Nazi.
He lay on his bed, much later that night, having woken from another vision-dream. Again, he and he German boy had been going at it like rabbits. His unscarred body contrasting with the German's battered physique. The bruises on his torso would heal, eventually, but the scars on his arm were there to stay. In the vision, he was unscarred. In life, he had four white streaks on his arm.
He was going to remain alone. They weren't real visions. They couldn't be. The loneliness wasn't going to stop. It wasn't going to end. His heart throbbed painfully in his chest, and his stomach ached in sympathy. He didn't care about sex. He didn't believe in love. He didn't need any friends. All he had wanted was the promise of a companion, one day, and that promise had already been broken. Despair clutched his heart like a drowning man, and the final echoes of a future that would never be faded into black nothingness, insubstantial as mist in a dark night.
For the first time in a long time, Bradley rolled over and cried himself back to sleep.
I missed the angst. I was suffering from angst-deprivation. Poetic-angst-deprivation. It's randomly OOC, I know, but I had a year to fill in a single chapter and nothing to fill it with. He'll be back to his 'normal' self soon enough. And oo look, is that the arrival of Schu I see just over the horizon? Could it be could it be, could it be could it be, could it possible be Benja- Sorry, Joseph and The Technicoloured Dreamcoat moment there. ^_^
