Chapter Twenty-Four – Aftershocks

Brad frowned. "Why do you keep coming back?" he asked Schuldig, who was collapsed on his couch. "I was not under the impression this was a regular arrangement."

"Why the fuck did you tell Greg you'd stick his balls up his butt?" Schuldig asked.

"I suppose we can always work on your language skills," Brad sighed, picking up a pile of heavy books and dropping them onto the small table.

"Or, we could have hot, heavy sex?" Schuldig grinned suggestively.

"I did tell you that it was to be a one off," Brad stated uncertainly. "There was no question about this becoming a regular occurrence. I do not want to have sex with you again."

Schuldig gave him a disbelieving look. "You want me. I want you. Why do we keep hitting this problem? Sex is good. It's amazingly good exercise, it makes you happy, it keeps you psychologically sound. So why aren't you throwing me onto the table instead of those books and fucking me unconscious?"

"You really have a way with words," Brad sighed. "If you want sex, I'm sure any one of your fellow students will be happy to oblige. I'm fine without, thank you."

Brad opened one of the books and gestured for Schuldig to take the chair next to him. With a moody sigh, Schuldig flopped into the chair bonelessly, one leg hooked over the back and his opposite arm clutching the side to stay relatively upright. Brad sighed, but didn't comment.

"I can't find Nagi," Schuldig said after a short period of study. "He's avoiding me. He won't talk to me."

"He can't talk to you, Schuldig," Brad said tiredly. "And it's not as though you've been around a lot."

"True. What with all the not fucking we've been doing," Schuldig said pointedly. "But the kid as actually going out of his way to avoid me. Something happened the other day, at night."

"Really need to work on your language skills," Brad sighed to himself.

Schuldig went on, frowning at the interruption, "it's this Indian kid he keeps hanging around with."

"Native American," Brad corrected automatically.

"No, Indian. As in, from India." Schuldig paused. "Okay, he might be Pakistani or Bangladeshi, but you know, that general area of the 'East'. Ever since he attached himself to Nagi the kid's being growing actively hostile towards me. I mean, he hasn't done anything yet, but he thinks I've betrayed him. Do you think it might be because we didn't follow his plan?"

"No. Now concentrate. What is a syllable?" Brad pushed the book in front of Schuldig.

"Something I'm never going to have to define except here," Schuldig snapped, thrusting the book away. "Teach me how to hold an argument on paper, Brad, teach me what to say and why to say it. Don't teach me how. I'll work on spelling, you work on grammar. What use is defining a syllable when I'm writing to save my neck? You think they're actually going to put that as the essay question? 'How is Rosenkreuz great and what is a syllable?'" Schuldig swung his feet to the ground and sat up properly, leaning across the table to glare at Brad. "I told you, Nagi caused an earthquake. What saved you the other night?"

Brad glowered back at him. "What do you mean?" he asked icily.

"Greg got off by using my mind to visualise me," Schuldig snapped, "you know perfectly well what I mean. You were on the verge of shattering when that fucking earthquake gave you the upper hand. We're in fucking Austria! I may not know much geography, but this is not somewhere you usually get earthquakes. Do you think people would ski here if you did?"

"Applying general knowledge to reach a suitable conclusion," Brad murmured approvingly. "You don't need me to teach you how to form an argument."

"Are you even fucking listening?" Schuldig stared at him. "Someone raped Nagi. Nagi cause earthquake. Nagi not talking to me. Nagi talking to Indian guy. Do you need that in shorter sentences? Smaller words? Should I spell it for you?" Schuldig bit out sarcastically.

"There are a lot of telekinetics," Brad reminded him. "Nagi doesn't matter to us."

"He matters to me," Schuldig muttered under his breath.

Brad frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know," Schuldig sighed. "I sort of laid claim to him, I guess. He's mine, I'm yours, you're Rosenkreuz's."

"I'm Tanya's, in that sense," Brad corrected enigmatically.

"Who? Don't care," Schuldig stopped Brad before he could elaborate. "Point is, I took responsibility for the kid. And now he's being stolen from me, by someone I don't trust!"

"'Stolen'?" Brad asked softly. Schuldig looked uncomfortable.

"Well, he's mine, and I don't like this other guy," he whined awkwardly. "That's not the point. He's in Madame Dubois's vision."

"He has another three years to survive. Should he survive those, without intervention, then I will consider him, should I get to choose my own field team. Until then, he is unimportant to us." Brad spoke in a 'and that's final' tone. Unusually, Schuldig accepted it. It went against everything in his nature, but if he wanted Brad to see that he'd make a great full-time lover, then he would have to be good. It rankled, but he persisted.

"So, sex?"

"No," Brad sighed. "English."

"Can't we finish German first?" Schuldig complained.

"English has a much simpler grammar, though the pronunciation is bizarre and inconsistent. It is becoming a world language, and I want you to be able to speak it." Brad opened a German to English dictionary and a children's exercise book full of puppies and alarmingly happy children.

"You mean you miss speaking it, as it's your first language, and you want to be able to hold a decent conversation in it," Schuldig guessed correctly. "I speak English fluidly, Brad. I fucked the Englishman. I speak it better than you."

"Now you're being ridiculous," Brad sneered.

"So how do you spell colour? Or pronounce route? [Eng – like root, USA – Rao-t ]" Schuldig gave a triumphant smirk. "I speak English. You speak American."

"Can you spell either of those words?" Brad asked superiorly.

Schuldig found himself staring at a page of small children and anthropomorphic dogs while Brad droned on about the differences in pronunciation and the similarities in spelling while Schuldig covered the puppies with red ink wounds and tried to guess what each child was taking. Crawford did his best to overlook the carefully sketched needles and pills that soon covered the page, but it took a lot of willpower to repress the laughter.

* * *

Nagi hooked his arms around his knees and stared at the ground. This wasn't supposed to be happening. He'd been so certain that it wouldn't happen here. He'd been so careful to avoid notice. He'd tried to hard to be overlooked. When people had hurt him, he'd 'accidentally' killed them. But still it had happened.

Rammi came and stood next to him. "Was that you, the other night?" he asked languidly. He'd managed to get a cigarette from somewhere, probably the same place as Schuldig got his, and the smoke drifted down on the still, fresh winter air, to choke Nagi.

Nagi didn't reply, he just coughed miserably. Rammi frowned at him. "Nagi, I'm your friend. I don't want to hurt you. I can see that someone else has. Tell me who, Nagi, and I'll hurt them."

Nagi frowned. "No," he said in his smallest voice.

Rammi was stunned. "No? You don't want vengeance on whoever? They raped you, Nagi. I'd assume it was a he, but knowing this place… Rape, Nagi. Surely you don't want it to happen again." Nagi shook his head and chewed his knuckle. "Tell me, Nagi. I'll kill them." Nagi shook his head again, cringing away from Rammi. "Nagi, I just want to help you, can't you see that?" Rammi sat down next to him, resting a companionable arm around Nagi's shoulders. Nagi's eyes widened at the contact and Rammi found himself sailing gracelessly through the air to slam into some second years that didn't take kindly to his intrusion.

Nagi watched as threats swiftly turned to violence and guilt churned in his stomach. Rammi wanted to help. Rammi was his friend. Well, Rammi said he was his friend, which was actually an entirely different thing, but having accidentally thrown him over there Nagi felt obliged to help him.

Nagi struggled to his feet, numb with cold, and stumbled across the packed earth. Rammi had just been hit, blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth. One of the boys finally noticed the tiny Japanese boy, arms tucked into his armpits for warmth, eyes huge.

"Please stop," Nagi said in his own language. One of them laughed. Then he was lying on his back.

The others weren't impressed by Nagi's display. One of them was a telekinetic, and Nagi jerked as a wave of kinetic energy threatened to blast him into the wall. Only by using his own power was he able to keep his feet. He was tiring fast, and his head hurt, and he desperately wished he hadn't got himself into this mess. Rammi had disappeared, taking advantage of the distraction.

Nagi closed his eyes and wished. When he opened them, all of the second years were gone. He looked up, as did the few remaining students still attached to the ground. The seconds years, but not the ones who'd been bothering Rammi, were sitting on the roof. The ones who'd been bothering Rammi were dead. And everyone had seen Nagi do it.

* * *

Nagi had been pleasantly surprised by his punishment. Well, perhaps 'pleasantly' is a bit misleading. But he'd expected death, expected rape, expected something a lot worse than being beaten almost unconscious. His father had done that to him lots of times. Nagi knew how to take a beating, though he was used to fists and feet, rather than sticks and whips. He didn't pass out and he didn't make a sound. For the first time in his entire career, Hertz had to admit defeat. He'd had children from 'troubled' homes before, but Nagi's silence was like nothing he had ever encountered, and spoke of deeper traumas than were common even at Rosenkreuz.

Nagi didn't sleep that night. The boy came again. Nagi couldn't see his face, didn't hear a word. He just bit his lip and let the boy take his body while his mind was elsewhere. At least it helped him forget the excruciating pain he was in just lying on the mattress after that prolonged beating.

There was no earthquake that night. As Nagi had grown accustomed to physical abuse, so he was growing accustomed to sexual abuse.

Ai, poor Nagi!  From mild BradSchu fluff to angsty Nagi torture. And no, it's not Rammi raping him. Poor, poor Nagi. Used and abused by everyone, and worse is yet to come. *shakes head sadly * Can't believe I'm writing this. I did warn you parts of this fic were going to be very dark.