… But Sewage is Thicker than Blood

Nagi was watching Brad. Since being roped into Schuldig's scheme, he'd found himself part of a rota. Unable to actually visited the dungeons, as with Rosenkreuz's shrewd observation of students meant Nagi never really got a moment to himself, and certainly never had more than fifteen minutes to visit any one place. Schuldig had made his patronage felt, though, so as long as Nagi was visiting him the staff tended to turn a blind eye, as long as he wasn't late for lessons, meals, or bed. Well, Nagi assumed it was Schuldig's influence that allowed him to get away with what he did. It didn't occur to him that he had another patron, a powerful friend.

Since visiting the dungeons would have taken at least twenty minutes, running flat out there and back and only really accomplishing a brief check that Brad was still present, Nagi had hacked into the digital camera system and sat watching the older man through his laptop. It was late at night, and he was watching Brad sleep against the wall of the dungeon, lit only by a small stage light Schuldig had wired to a car battery. It had taken several nights or Brad to get tired enough to sleep with the harsh light on. Nagi stared at it enviously. He still wasn't comfortable sleeping in the cold darkness.

He'd started having nightmares. He was used to nightmares, normally. Nightmares about his father. Nightmares about his time on the streets. Nightmares about Rosenkreuz. Memories, dreamed. But these knew nightmares weren't memories, despite bearing a worrying relation to a certain aspect of his past.

Apparently illusionists were a subset of telepaths, like healers were a subset of telekinetics. In fact, there really were only three talents: telekinesis, telepathy and precognition. Pyrokinetics and healers were telekinetics. Illusionists, clairvoyants, telempaths and postcognitives were telepaths. Precognition was a category in itself. The best field teams had one of each, and a fourth member from whichever category deemed most appropriate.

Nagi assumed his nightmares came from some of his more recent revelations. He was a natural at the kind of subversive power games Rosenkreuz played. He was precisely the same kind of bastard as the illusionist he'd killed. And now he was dreaming about the man, coming to kill him. Nagi grimaced at the symbolism. By killing the illusionist, he had begun his own suicide, descending into a personal hell. Nagi would be wiped out by his own deeds, leaving, well, the kind of adult Rosenkreuz tended to produce.

Brad stirred, and Nagi's attention was drawn back to the screen. The American looked terrible, ill and starved. Nagi knew Schuldig wasn't much better off. A rumour had started going around about how the telekinetic from Hong Kong had found him almost insensible, and it and taken full sexual intercourse to reinstate any kind of sanity. Nagi suspected that Schuldig had probably been fine after a few minutes talking to the girl, and slept with her anyway.

Nagi wasn't the only one who had heard that rumour. Most people knew by now, passing it from bunk to bunk at night, barely making a sound. Even Brad had heard, down in his dungeon. Nagi had told him, and he'd laughed bitterly. Apparently he'd already been aware of what had happened, and he warned Nagi that what was to follow could change the future irrevocably.

Of course, Brad had admitted, that was true of every single event, from causing an earthquake to scratching one's nose.

Schuldig had heard the rumour. For once he hadn't started it, and when he passed Silvia in the corridor she had sneered at him. When he had spoken to Hertz about running the telepathic scan of the new students (something he wasn't going to do, apparently), as he left Hertz had made some small comment about Silvia, and echoed her smirk. And suddenly Schuldig really, really wished he hadn't slept with her.

One night, a night when Nagi was watching Brad, he found Jei sitting on his bunk. This in itself wasn't unusual; the Irish boy had come to prefer the thin mattresses of the third year rooms to the complete lack of mattresses in the labs. The rumour hadn't really got going until a fortnight after the actual event, but now Schuldig could hear it rustling in the back of every mind he passed. It was odd, because he'd slept around before, but that wasn't the rumour.

The rumour was his real name wasn't Schuldig. The rumour was he'd been so taken by the girl from Hong Kong, after just one fuck, that he'd told her his real name. The rumour was he'd never told Brad his real name, or anyone else he had fucked. The rumour was Schuldig was a lovesick idiot, because everyone knew Silvia was a bitch.

Jei was staring at his feet, hair covering his face. It was white, Schuldig noticed. Well, bleach wasn't so hard to get hold of, he reasoned. He'd done it himself. Still, Jei hadn't made a very good job of it; there were streaks of the original blood red showing through, especially in what passed for a fringe. But white. Purity. An odd choice for Jei. His mind was a mess, Schuldig could tell before he entered the room. It was a delirious whirl of pain and anger and something Schuldig couldn't put his finger on. Something that had always been there, but was more there than it had been before. Like a black hole, it was distorting everything, pulling it in, warping the planes of Jei's mind until it threatened to consume him.

Schuldig sat down next to him. He could feel in his lover's mind that the rumour had burned its way in there, too. No wonder he was upset. Betrayal could be pretty all-consuming.

"Why did you tell her?" Jei asked, voice unreadable.

"My name?" Schuldig guessed correctly. Jei gave no sign of even having heard him. "I don't know. I think I, well, I failed her, sort of. Sexually, I guess, though I thought it had been good."

"You don't tell someone that kind of thing just to make up for being bad in bed," Jei told him.

"No," Schuldig agreed. "I guess I just wanted to tell someone. Not telling people made it seem important, and it's not, not really."

"It was never a secret?" Jei asked.

"Never meant it to be," Schuldig pouted. "But then I never got around to mentioning it to Brad, and I love him, so after that I felt like I couldn't tell anyone, because he's so possessive and that would destroy any chance of getting back together with him."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jei had accepted Schuldig's love for Brad. He had accepted Schuldig's penchant for sleeping around. Even Jei couldn't satisfy the ex-whore. Schuldig needed the sex, to stay sane, in Rosenkreuz more than he ever had outside.

Schuldig shrugged. "You weren't the kind of person to tell."

Jei didn't move, but Schuldig felt the emotional temperature in the room drop several degrees.

"I don't love you, Jei," Schuldig said bluntly. "You're a friend. With benefits. I enjoy your company. I enjoy our conversations. I enjoy the sex. But how could I tell you if I didn't tell Brad? He doesn't believe it's even worth stringing two sentences together to talk to you."

"When you're insane people act like you're stupid, or amnesiac, or deaf," Jei observed coolly.

"Yeah, and you're none of those things."

"You treat me like an idiot," Jei told him coldly. "You assume I won't hear about the rumour."

"No, actually. I knew you would. I've been waiting for this for some time now," Schuldig said calmly. "If you're angry that I slept with Silvia-"

"Idiot," Jei snarled. "I'm angry that you chose her to release your name to."

"Names aren't important," Schuldig snapped back. "I've had so many! I don't even know if Christian is the name I was given by my parents, not any more. All I really remember is that Adonis is the name Greg gave me, and Schuldig from Brad, and 'oi' from countless men in the streets."

"All your names were given to you," Jei said, a little surprised.

"Not all. Some I picked. I chose to keep Schuldig. I don't know, maybe I gave it to myself. I was delirious. Sometimes the most profound truths come through when you're in a delirium."

"It never occurred to me that names could be changed," Jei said quietly, voice emotionless again.

"I've been through several," Schuldig said, trying to keep his voice light. "Discarded so many I can't remember most of them."

"Why do you change your name?" Jei asked. He still wasn't looking at Schuldig, hair keeping his face shadowed. Schuldig reached out to turn his head, but Jei shied away. Schuldig let his hands fall back into his lap.

"Sometimes it's simply to stay ahead of the law," Schuldig admitted, "but mostly it's just a way of acknowledging other changes. It's about how I see myself. I give myself a name to suit myself. Or because I got bored."

"When people give other people names," Jei observed, "they often get it wrong. You are nothing like the name your parents gave you."

"What, a Christian?" Schuldig barked a bitter laugh. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if I was."

"I don't like your name," Jei said, voice still utterly bland.

"Neither did I. Didn't like my parents, either. 'Specially not when I learnt my mother's husband wasn't my genetic father. Even less when I told him so, because no one told me I was the only one who could read minds. And-"

"I don't like my name," Jei said.

"It's not bad, as names go," Schuldig offered.

"It's part of my life before, when I was but a sheep," Jei went on. "'The Lord is my shepherd' it says, and so I was his sheep."

"You're not a sheep," Schuldig laughed softly. "I've never met anyone less inclined to follow the crowd, unless it was myself."

"I need a name to reflect this. A name that was given to me by worshippers of the Lying God implies I am one of His." Jei let his head sink a little further into his chest. "I shall take a name that belongs to one of His enemies. A name created by man to describe the indescribable daemons that haunt his antagonist's domain."

Schuldig thought for a moment. "Azazeal?" he suggested. "Assuming Lucifer would be too presumptuous."

"No," Jei sighed. "That is not the demon I see myself as."

Schuldig thought for a moment. "Provost was the name of that man who visited Hell," he mused aloud. "Saw that in Nagi's book. If you want something a little more human, that could be a good one."

"Nagi's book?" Jei thought for a moment. "The book I read to him."

"Yeah, that's the one," Schuldig agreed.

"There were demons in that book," Jei mused. "We're going to summon a demon. It would not do to take his name."

"A demon?" Schuldig cocked one eyebrow. "That explains a bit."

"The demons in the book," Jei went on, apparently not listening to a word Schuldig said, "were named by human tongue. To give a creature of the divine a name, even a fallen creature of the divine, is a kind of blasphemy."

"So pick a bloody name already, or do you want me to go and pester Nagi and find the book so we can read it together?" Schuldig said impatiently.

"I read some to him," Jei said. "Nagi couldn't pronounce the name of the demon. A demon called Farfarello, who was like a malicious bird."

"Well there you go, then, Farf," Schuldig smirked and leant back against the wall. "You've got a few birdlike qualities. A carrion crow, admittedly, but still."

"Farfarello," Jei murmured, rolling the name around on his tongue. "Farrrrfarrrellllo."

"Very good," Schuldig sighed in mock exasperation. "So, your parents and childhood are behind you now?"

"My… childhood?" Farfarello took a sharp breath. "I take a name to spite Him who made me a victim. Who… killed my… parents." He looked confused.

"Yeah, the deity who let your parents die," Schuldig said dismissively.

"Deity?" Farfarello sounded confused. "Did God do it?"

"That's what you claim. Or, you know, some guy broke in and God let him do it, even though you were all such good little sheep," Schuldig said, real irritation sneaking into his voice.

"Something bad happened," The newly named Farfarello said, voice twisting painfully, emotion finally winning through. It was frustration, and pain, and a hint of regret. His mind was whirling now. A maelstrom of thoughts. Farfarello's world was bending and distorting like hallucinations. "They… they did something bad. Sister Ruth, I don't know, something bad as well. And then God saw fit to strike them down." Farfarello's head snapped up. "Whatever they did, they didn't deserve that," he spat.

Schuldig had stopped listening. Running down his wall next to his head were a few dark red drips, flung from Farfarello's hair when he flipped his hair back. He felt one, luke warm and sticky, clinging to his cheek. The drips were running down Farfarello's face as well, like wet mascara. But it was a sluggish kind of ooze, and the liquid was brown and thick. It was old blood, but the wound still looked so fresh. It was as though it had been made when lying on his back, and allowed to mostly dry like that, a ring of blood like the aurora around an eclipsed sun. But he'd been sitting up for a while now, and Schuldig's mind went to the psycho from Clockwork Orange. That was who Farfarello looked like, from a distance.

But Schuldig wasn't at a distance; he was eye to socket with Farfarello.