You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours

"Stop it," Brad said dully.

"What?" Jei frowned. Schuldig had left him on guard duty while he attended the still compulsory classes. Jei had been wondering whether it was worth talking Nagi into coming into he dungeons to keep him company. They could read Dante again.

"Stop watching me. You keep staring at me like some kind of vulture." Brad didn't know what Schuldig had drugged him with, but his arm was a throbbing mass of pain and his head felt like Nevada. No particular area of Nevada, just Nevada in general, full of heat and sand and flashes of gaudy neon in certain area.

"A vulture?"

"Yes, it's a carrion bird. You know, circling in the desert?" Brad bit out.

"A malicious bird?" Jei found his thoughts wandering back to Nagi and his book again. If he ran, he could probably find Nagi and get back again in ten minutes, if he really ran. But ten minutes was a long time, and Schuldig would be very angry if Brad escaped. They hadn't found out much yet, though Schuldig insisted that given time he would be able to learn more from the young American.

"Yes, I suppose you could say that." Brad despaired. He was sitting in a dungeon he hadn't previously known existed, in the bowels of an Austrian mountain, discussing ornithology with a psychopathic self-mutilating Irishman who hadn't blinked in over three hundred heartbeats, for lack of a better measure of time.

"Schuldig doesn't know what they're summoning. What are they summoning?" Jei asked blankly.

Brad frowned. Had Schuldig really learnt so little in the hours he'd spent inside Brad's head, violating his every thought? The idea terrified him. He could be here for months. For the first time, a treacherous little worm inside of him started to whisper 'tell them everything'.

"Is it Hell on earth?" Jei continued. "Is it the devil? Is it Atlantis? Is it an army of the dead? Is it-"

"I'm not going to tell you, no matter how many questions you ask," Brad bit out.

"Is it a demon?" Jei asked.

Brad refused to reply. He was so thirsty and tired and his whole body ached. He wanted to get up and walk around, just for five minutes. He was chained to a chair that was in turn chained to the wall of the damp stone room. A single torch burned in a bracket on one of the walls, not enough to warm or even properly light the room.  Mildew covered the walls and crept across the floors, mildew and lichen and various fungi. Sitting in the middle of it all was Jei, eyes gleaming red in the flickering light. He saw crossed legged, alternately licking and sharpening his knives. Surely the men from the Labs must be looking for him? Or perhaps, Brad thought darkly, they were glad to have him gone.

Farfarello peered at one of his knives. "Do you have a mirror?" he asked suddenly.

"No," Brad said shortly, not in the mood for this kind of inane banter. He realised with a jolt that he actually missed Schuldig. He'd rather have the German messing around in his head and commenting obnoxiously on everything he found than have the Irishman sitting on the other side of the room watching him peacefully. Jei was too unpredictable. He could very easily decide he was bored and kill Brad. Perhaps a little politeness wouldn't go amiss? "I'm sorry," Brad added.

Jei shrugged. "Not your fault. Ye didn't know ye were going to be kidnapped and I might be wanting a mirror."

"I should have," Brad sighed.

Jei shrugged and started trying to file his teeth to a point with one of his smaller knives. He cut his lips to shred in the process, and Brad took a bitter pleasure in the knowledge that Schuldig wouldn't want to kiss his new boyfriend now.

* * *

Nagi stared at him. "I said no," he insisted.

"Come on," Schuldig wheedled. "We just want to scan some stuff in and, I don't know, run a search on it. Can you do that? I bet you can. You're so clever-"

"Let me stop you there," Nagi snapped, not so much angry with Schuldig for using false flattery as with himself because it was working. "That won't work with me."

"But it is," Schuldig pointed out. Nagi glowered at him. "Come on, it's important."

"The same important that's kept you from classes for so many days? The teachers are furious," Nagi grinned maliciously.

"I know," Schuldig frowned. "I'm paying for it."

"So why did you disappear? I know Hertz. I'm surprised you're still walking," Nagi added.

"Have I mentioned your German is much better?" Schuldig said. "Jei said you're getting pretty fluent in English to, enough to read some bloody great religious book."

"I didn't realise Jei spoke to you about me," Nagi said in a small voice.

"What? Oh, yeah, I suggested he go and talk to you," Schuldig said airily.

"Oh."

"Huh? 'Oh' what? Spit it out, kid. Why have you suddenly gone off him?" Schuldig demanded. "Jei's a nice guy. It's something to do this me, isn't it? You're not…"

"No," Nagi said sulkily. "I don't have any feelings for him."

"Sure you do," Schuldig frowned. "Right now you hate him, for example."

"No, I hate you," Nagi said coldly. "I hate being used. That's all anyone ever does. I don't know what it is about me that screams 'use me', but there must be something."

"Your vulnerability," Schuldig said absently. "And, you know, your power. People want your power, and they think you're vulnerable, so they try and manipulate you."

"I'm not vulnerable," Nagi warned.

"Hell no. Not from what Jei said about that guy they found in the dungeons."

Nagi's eyes widened. "What do you know about that?" he demanded.

"Oh, don't worry. There's no proof it was you," Schuldig said breezily. "Rumour has it the guy was related to Hertz though. What do you think about that?"

Nagi just glowered.

"Oh come on, I'm not running errands for Hertz here," Schuldig sighed. "You're so paranoid! If you think I'm bugged, feel free to search me. Right now I've got nothing to better to do, what with you not lending me your scanner and all."

"You won't even tell me what for," Nagi pointed out. "You're just trying to use me and my resources. I'm not here for our convenience."

"Didn't you even listen to the opening speech?" Schuldig said vaguely. "I'm an older student. My convenience is precisely what you're here for. As I am for Brad, and he is for Hertz, and Hertz is for the Elders or Ancients or whatevers."

Nagi gave him a steady stare. "And who are they, precisely?"

"I'm not really sure," Schuldig admitted. "They're calling the shots, anyway. Look, if I bring you in on all this will you help us? It's an all or nothing deal, I'm afraid, if you're going to be this stubborn."

"You mean once you tell me what you want to use my scanner for you're going to use both it and me, whether I agree or not?" Nagi asked.

"Yes."

"No."

"Huh?"

"Don't tell me. Don't use my scanner or me. I don't want to get involved."

Schuldig stared at him. "But…"

"I've had a hard enough time here as it is. I do not want to get involved in any kind of power struggle. My priority is surviving Rosenkreuz. The only reason you're still alive is because you're a telepath. There are plenty of telekinetic here, Schuldig. I'm expendable. One foot out of line and I'm dead." Nagi sighed. "You have no idea how easy you're getting it," he added wistfully.

"If anyone knows how easy, or hard I'm getting it, it's me," Schuldig pointed out with quiet fierceness. "I know precisely how bad it is for every single person here, so don't you even think of telling me what this place is like for you and all the other 'expendable' students. No one has a harder time here than me, because I have everyone's time here. Did you know there is not a minute when a student isn't being raped, or beaten, or killed? The screaming never stops. Ever."

Nagi looked at him coolly. "I know. I'm one of those screaming."

* * *

Silvia brushed her fingers across the boy's forehead. "You poor thing," she murmured. "Spurned by the closest thing you had to a friend."

"Don't try that with me," Rammi glowered at her. "Anyone would have done the same. I underestimated his independence, that's all. I assumed he need me just a little longer, but he was just fine on his own."

Silvia gave him an odd look. "That boy will never be fine on his own," she said. "He knows it. He hates himself for it."

"So… what? I try and make it up with him? He won't trust me again," Rammi said cynically.

"He feels used," Silvia said. "By you, by Schuldig, by Rosenkreuz. He's happiest when he's independent, but he can't obtain that independence on his own. He has no idea how powerful he is, or how important he will be. He's scared. He's barely eleven."

Rammi looked uncomfortable. "I hate that Rosenkreuz does that to people," he admitted. "They took him away from his family and friends and left him here surrounded by sadists."

"I'm not sure," Silvia shook her head. "Perhaps he would be more willing to open up to a lover?"

Hertz spoke up from a corner of the room. "Or, perhaps, we could use a more conventional record," he suggested with smug superiority. "Oh look, his file, here on my desk. Let's see, he was found on the streets of Tokyo. How interesting. And what else? Ah, preliminary examinations suggested he was a run away. Oh, and they experimented with new brainwashing techniques on him. Well, I never." He shot Silvia a pointed look.

"I could have told you that and more in one conversation with him," Silvia said stiffly. "No doubt the reason he ran away is instrumental to understanding his personality."

"No doubt," Hertz echoed. "But we're not looking to understand him. We're looking to keep him away from Schuldig."

"He may well keep himself away from Schuldig," Silvia said firmly. "He's been through enough in his time here. He is smart enough to know that doing anything Schuldig asks of him will only lead to trouble."

"Let us hope so," Hertz said darkly. "There are already too many wild cards in the mix for my liking. How much of this is riding on suppositions, predictions and assumptions? Schuldig has never been predictable, the Irish boy is insane, the Japanese boy is too young and too new here for us to understand his motivations and even Crawford his surprised us in the past. With our powers we should have perfect control over this situation, and we don't. We can't even predict how long it will last."

Silvia sighed. "This is a pivotal time. Everything rests on what Schuldig is looking for."

"Which we don't know," Hertz snarled.

"Which he doesn't know either," Silvia told him.

"And what will we do when he finds this elusive bit of information, eh? We can't afford to lose a telepath, but if we can't control him…"

Rammi looked from one psychic to the other. There was so much more to this than concern for the summoning. He could feel the power pulsing in the air. He used his talent to try and get a better idea of what was going on, but the raw emotions told him very little. Hertz was on the defensive, he gathered, and Silvia… Silvia was pleased. She wasn't aggressive, she was just coolly happy that things were playing out as they were. She had been working her way up through the field agent ranks, and this commission was going to be a huge boost to her career. Her method of promotion was a bit suspect, though it wouldn't work on Hertz, Rammi guessed. He frowned. Silvia reminded him of his mother, in that respect.