Emotional Feathers

Schuldig knew that this sleeping torture wasn't going to work. Sure, Nagi came down occasionally, what with having more free time as a second year, but the kid seemed to be struggling to keep himself awake. Probably a puberty thing, Schuldig figured. He'd thought about playing very loud music, but he knew that eventually Brad would fall asleep despite that. He'd tried squirting Brad with water, but he kept falling asleep himself and forgetting. So he was left with the poking.

"My finger hurts," Schuldig declared.

"Am I obliged to make a sarcastic quip?" Brad asked, head nodding.

"No," Schuldig sighed. "Perhaps I should invent a poking device."

"Or perhaps you should quit!" Brad almost whined. He hated himself for using that tone of voice, but he felt like a grumpy child. And he'd started having hallucinations, which wasn't fun. Unless they were visions, which meant any time now the wall was going to start twisting in and out and the floor would undulate a bit.

Schuldig petted his on the head and stood up, wandering around to stretch his legs. He'd managed a few short naps during Nagi's visits, but when he'd woken to see Nagi fall off his chair.

"Think of the devil," Schuldig muttered and yawned.

"I'm here for the night," Nagi declared, "so you can get some real sleep."

Schuldig squinted at him. "You're not tired," he said suspiciously. It was night? When had it become night?

"I got some sleep last night," Nagi smiled. "And for the last few nights." Schuldig frowned at him. "I'm not in the dormitories at the moment," he said by way of explanation.

"Why not?" Brad asked in a moment of lucid alertness.

Nagi paused, shooting apprehensive glances at Schuldig.

"It's Rammi, isn't it?" Schuldig growled. "You should stay away from that little prick."

"He's not," Nagi muttered defensively.

"Oh, so you've been checking, have you?" Schuldig said nastily. Nagi flushed scarlet and glared at him. Schuldig felt a pang and regretted his words. "He hasn't been making you, has he?" he asked more softly.

"What? No!" Nagi snapped.

"Just making sure," Schuldig said, reassured. Nagi's reaction had been no more or less than he'd have expected from the boy. Nagi calmed as well, and an odd look crossed his face. Schuldig realised he was pleased. Well, Schuldig conceded, it was always nice to know there was someone worrying about you. He glanced down at Brad and gave him a quick kick in the ribs to make sure he was still awake. Brad grunted and glowered up at him through one half open eye.

"I bet you've forgotten what your room looks like," Nagi grinned.

"Is that my cue to shoo?" Schuldig grinned back. "Make certain you keep him awake, kid. I won't stand for having my hard work scuppered while I'm sleeping."

"I'm on your side," Nagi said solemnly. Schuldig wandered over to him and ruffled his hair, for no reason other than he felt like it. Nagi pulled away out of adolescent pride, but he didn't move out of reach.

Brad watched them through his eyelashes. A strange jealousy touched his heart after Schuldig's earlier teasing. They hadn't touched since then. Schuldig seemed to find it entertaining. And now Schuldig was being his usual tactile self with Nagi, getting the reclusive child to respond to his touches. Brad wanted him. Even now, Brad still ached for him. His body was drawn to him like iron filings to a lodestone, irrevocably responding to his animal magnetism.

At some point Schuldig left. Brad wasn't certain if losing time was a symptom of sleeplessness, or whether he had in fact fallen asleep for a few too-brief minutes. He glanced across at Nagi and his heart began to speed up. God, he was so tired. And he was losing time. Why was he losing time? Was he going mad? Brad shook his head. Nah, he was probably just dozing off. But he didn't feel sleepy now. What if he couldn't sleep? What if Nagi let him sleep and he couldn't sleep? Didn't they say paranoia was a symptom of sleep loss? Oh god, what if he was getting paranoid? What if he got too paranoid to sleep? What if Nagi told him to sleep and he couldn't because of the paranoia?

Oh thank god, the hallucinations were coming back. Brad infinitely preferred them to the paranoia. The walls were moving again, and now geometric patterns were occurring of their own accord, completely unrelated to anything around him. It was almost entertaining.

Nagi squeezed his shoulder. "I owe this to Schuldig," he said apologetically. "I have a favour to ask him soon, and really, I want him to be as well rested as possible first. The sooner you break the better."

Brad blinked at him. "Eh?" he managed.

"Seeing as you're not listening," Nagi smiled, "I might as well talk." He sat beside Brad, using his telekinesis to poke him as Schuldig had. He'd also managed to hook up a length of hosepipe to a tap somewhere, which he hung over the drain when not in use. "I looped the cameras again, but the only one down here is the one I rigged myself. I watch you on it, sometimes. I saw Schuldig toying with you yesterday." Nagi sighed. "It looked very sexy," he added mournfully.

He squirted Brad with the hose. Brad shook the water out of his eyes. "It wasn't fun," Brad managed. He changed position, parting his legs a little further.

Nagi's breath caught in his throat. Even though it had been over twenty-four hours ago, Brad still had the hard on Schuldig had coaxed out of him. Yet another symptom of sleep loss, at least in men. Sporadic arousal. Brad didn't notice the odd look that crossed the child's face. He was trying to recall any other symptoms of lack of sleep, and was beginning to wonder if perhaps memory loss was one of them. He didn't see as one hand moved out, then withdrew, then moved slowly out again. It hovered, trembling, then descended. Slim fingers plucked at material, numb and clumsy.

Brad found himself very awake very quickly. His whole body spasmed, trying to shake off the small hand. He tried to turn away, to roll away, to move away in any way, but Schuldig's chains kept him helplessly still. He snapped his head around and stared at a wild eyed and shaking boy. Nagi crawled backwards on his hands and feet, obviously terrified by this abrupt change of mood.

"You're eleven!" Brad yelled. "You're a fucking child!" Nagi whimpered and cowered. Brad opened his mouth to keep yelling, to shake off his disturbed thoughts by releasing them verbally. He stopped, mouth open and ready, as Nagi began to cry soundlessly. Nagi was remembering something, Brad could see, remembering someone and some time, in the past, that touched on the present. It touched Brad's past too.

Despite his mental exhaustion the American found he was thinking clearly, and clung to that sensation. "Nagi," he said quietly. "Naoe-kun."

Nagi stared at him. The hose snaked its way across the floor and into his hand. He held it in front of him, soaking himself and flooding the floor around him. He blinked through his tears at Brad, holding the hose like a broken toy and hiding his tears with the running water. No, not a broken toy, a broken weapon. He wore his pain like a shield. He wore his fear like a weapon.

"Why… why did you do that?" Brad managed. "No one asked you to do that. You didn't need to do that. You shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have felt you had to do that." He was panting and the words were coming out too fast for the Japanese boy to really understand, but Brad couldn't help it. Nagi just stared at him, frightened by first the anger in his voice, then the panic.

"Nagi-kun," Brad switched to his broken Japanese, unused since the trip on which he'd found the boy. "Why? Why… touch," he managed. He was pleading now, and another change in emotion only served to scare Nagi further. Eventually, Brad calmed himself enough to struggle along in his 'normal' voice. His overtired state didn't help his emotional mood swings particularly either.

"Naoe Nagi," Brad said in what was practically a monotone, "Why did you touch me?"

"Thought… thought you wanted me to," Nagi mumbled. The pool of water he sat in had now spread across the floor to lap at Brad's feet.

"Why? What did I do to make you thought… think that?" Brad breathed deeply, desperate to keep his voice steady for Nagi's sake. His Japanese seemed to be improving because of it.

Nagi shrugged. "People do," he said in English, apparently calm enough to recognise Brad's lack of fluency in his native language. "You needed to be touched."

"You're…" Brad couldn't keep it up any longer and found himself crying with emotional exhaustion. "Young," he sobbed.

"Yes," Nagi said blandly. He couldn't see what his age had to do with anything. He couldn't understand why the American was sitting there crying, like he had himself a few minutes ago. Had he scared Brad? "Crawford-san?" he murmured.

Brad couldn't talk. He shook his head pathetically and let his head drop onto his knees. Nagi watched him curiously. Brad's shoulders continued to shake for a while, and when they stopped Nagi knew the older man was asleep. Nagi didn't wake him. He didn't want to make the older man cry again. It was strange and frightening.

Familiar footsteps could be heard on the stairs and the water still gushing from the hose slowed to a trickle. Nagi was pleased to see Rammi despite himself. The older boy smiled at him and entered the room, picking his way through the water that had spread through the cracks in the flagstones to create small pools across the room. There was a chair in the room, left by Schuldig, and that was it. Rammi looked at it for a moment before deciding not to trust it. He studied the sleeping American, and then turned to the Japanese boy, still cuddling the limp hosepipe.

"You didn't come tonight," Rammi said quietly. "I was worried."

"I have other obligations. Now I've caught up on my sleep I have to fulfil them," Nagi said, incongruously calm. Rammi could see the raw redness of his eyes, and wondered what had happened. The sleeping American was still an emotional maelstrom, though, as usual, Nagi's emotions were tightly suppressed.

"You want Schuldig to help you," Rammi guessed correctly. "You sleep in my bed each night, Nagi, you trust me to keep you alive until morning. I don't understand you. What is the difference? Why do you go to Schuldig to end this threat? I could do it!"

"It's a difference between keeping my alive and not killing me," Nagi said dully. "Maybe I don't understand why, not really. But I know that I wouldn't trust Schuldig to keep me safe at night in the same way I am you."

"You don't trust me at all," Rammi said, "except out of necessity."

Nagi bit his lip. "I like you," he said quietly. "I don't trust you, but I like you. You have always been honest with me, in a way. Always made it clear you wanted my power, even if you weren't honest about how it would affect me."

"You'd be just as powerful as you were before," Rammi said earnestly, spotting a chink. "It wasn't true that you'd have my power, but do you need it? Would you want it?"

"You're not having my power and that's final," Nagi said firmly. He stared at the water he was sitting in as if it was new to him. He bit his lip. "Please come here," he murmured. The last few hours were catching up with him.

Rammi smiled benevolently and walked across the room. He actually picked Nagi up, holding the dripping boy against his chest. Nagi stiffened against him, but Rammi reached out with his gift and ruffled Nagi's emotional feathers. Nagi sighed and relaxed against him, letting the older boy tease his emotions into a mellow indifference.

Brad opened one eye and frowned at the telempath. Over Nagi's shoulder Rammi smirked at him. He hugged the child possessively, and carried him out of the dungeon. Nagi needed to be touched. He needed to be held and hugged and soothed and caressed and to have someone worry about him. Not many people did, and at Rosenkreuz it was almost suicide to extend your concerns to anyone other than yourself. Still, Rammi was worried for Nagi. Everyone knew he'd been through some trauma when he was younger, and Rammi could feel the repercussions of whatever event made him so adverse to contact. Nagi needed to be touched, but he didn't like it.

Brad raised his head and looked around. Wonderful. He was sitting ankle deep in water and the hose was still trickling. So now he was going to have a cold to deal with, at best. And Schuldig would not be happy that Nagi had abandoned his post, not one little bit. Nagi, who was uncomfortable being touched, but seemed to have no fear of touching. It was wrong, for a child to do that, to even consider doing that. Brad felt physically sick at the thought. It had been bad enough realising the boy he was attracted to on his first arrival was a mere thirteen at the time, despite later 'interaction'. Nagi was eleven, and looked young for his age. He might have been mentally much older, but still. . . . Brad didn't feel a thing for him, but if it had been a mere few hours later he probably wouldn't have even noticed it was Nagi, he was that tired and, well, needy. As Nagi needed touching by Rammi, a way of reassurance and a reminder that he wasn't alone in this big bad world, so Brad needed touching as well. It would have been something neither wanted to do, a sort of sexual harassment on both sides, but Brad felt a guilty yearning to have Nagi back. He didn't want Nagi to touch him there, but having the boy sitting next to him had made him feel a little better.

Brad blinked. Wait a second. Nagi, gone?

He stretched his back, yawned, and settled himself as comfortably as possible against the wall.

Nightnight.