Breaking point
Schuldig was thinking about Nagi. He could have thought about Brad, but that made him want to go to Brad, and that wasn't going to be good for either of them.
"Bastard," Schuldig told the empty room. "Couldn't just have died."
So he thought about Nagi again. Thought about Rammi. Thought about Nagi's sleep problems that had driven him to Rammi.
Okay, conceivably the telempath could fight off the nightmares. It didn't take a genius to work out that Nagi had been having nightmares. Certainly didn't surprise Schuldig, who had nightmares every night that were rarely his own.
Maybe it would help if he went to Nagi and spoke to him. Asked him. He doubted the kid would talk to him though. He could understand that, but he couldn't understand why he had spoken to Rammi. If he had.
Nagi didn't seem the type to just talk to someone, especially not someone he didn't trust. Schuldig knew perfectly well that Nagi had fallen out with Rammi over the whole leech issue. But Rammi clearly knew what was going on, and Nagi was relying on him. That wasn't good. Nagi needed to avoid relying on people. Nagi didn't need to rely on people, not with that power behind him, and the sooner he learnt that the better.
So Rammi knew what was going on. Schuldig stared at the ceiling. So if Nagi hadn't gone to him about the problem then he must have gone to Nagi, right? Challenged him, maybe. Or threatened him. Yes, that could easily be it. Maybe he'd seen that Nagi wasn't sleeping well and tried to take advantage of that weakness to steal his power. Schuldig would have felt it in Nagi's mind if Rammi had succeeded though, felt it in Rammi's mind, at that.
But Rammi had definitely been telling the truth when he said Nagi came to him. So...
Schuldig shook his head. Stupid people. He'd said Nagi was his friend, and he'd meant it. But was that true from Nagi's point of view? Probably no more than Rammi was his friend.
Crawford didn't believe in friends. There were just allies and minions and people to brown-nose to and sycophants. Crawford saw himself as the top of the heap. Everyone was inferior. Even the people who were above him. They just weren't inferior yet, that was all. Sooner or later they would be. And Crawford could never befriend someone he saw as inferior.
Schuldig knew Crawford saw him as inferior. Not in terms of power, or intellect, or ambition... It was class. Schuldig had been a prostitute. Crawford had been a whatever. Something in a suit. As far as Crawford was concerned, Schuldig was socially inferior, and hence morally inferior. Or possibly the other way around. And what sent Schuldig round the bend was that it was nothing he'd ever had control over.
Damn. Thinking about Crawford again. He could feel him, small and weak somewhere. Crawford had pushed too far into his mind that night, running away from himself. There was a link now in the hindbrain, deeper than any other Schuldig had forged. Even Greg wouldn't see it.
There was another link he'd forged, but that was from rooting around in someone else's head too deeply. He could bring the face into his mind's eye and felt the mind behind it respond. On the psychic plane, Farfarello waved. Schuldig waved back.
Farfarello. Nagi had formed some kind of bond with him as well. Of all the people Nagi knew, Farfarello was probably the one he deemed closest to being a friend. Farfarello had never asked him for anything.
A plan formed.
* * *
Brad slumped over the desk in front of the class. He wanted to be sick. He retched and swallowed and tried to ignore the burning in his throat. Someone in the back of the room laughed. Brad wanted to raise his head and shout, but he didn't dare.
"Started drinking again?" someone shouted. Post-cognitive, Brad guessed correctly.
His head hurt like hurt. Every limb throbbed and ached. His stomach rolled. Sitting down still made pain wrap itself hot and tight around his insides.
Every night he'd have a glass of wine to ease the pain, then another to get rid of the memories, then a third to help him sleep, and a fourth because by that point it seemed like a good idea, and things went down hill from there. Never more than one bottle, of course. He'd made a point of installing a lock on the cupboard holding the wine, a complex lock he'd never manage when drunk.
He could raise his head, he could stand up, he could command a little respect from these kids. Or he could just lie there and leave them to have a bit of fun, the only fun they'd ever get in this place. He felt for them
"Que esta?" a voice asked.
Crawford sighed. Taking on final deep breath he raised his head and stared around the room. No one was watching him now. He'd ceased to be entertaining. A few bits of paper were airborne, and a few curses were sailing across the room to accompany them, but most of the class was still where they had been. They couldn't fight properly, not when they had no idea what they were saying to each other. And they were cowed. These kids had been here less than a month and they were already cowed.
"The meaning of life," Crawford's voice cut through the punctuated murmur, "the universe, and everything in it is forty two."
Silence.
He was entertaining again.
* * *
"Oh, the kid's dreaming about the man he killed," Farfarello said nonchalantly. "But I wouldn't mind talking to him anyway."
Schuldig pouted.
Farfarello looked at him, single pupil shrinking and widening as it tried to focus on Schuldig in the soft light. Schuldig had walked in the white tiled room and straight out again, using his power to insist, in his own words, that they "Turn the bloody fucking lights off!"
"How have you been?" Farfarello asked softly.
Schuldig shrugged. "So when did Nagi kill someone? And why does he need a telempath to help him?"
"I've been okay," Farfarello said. "The men in white coats don't talk to me much, and they don't touch me unless I'm sedated first. They use an elephant gun."
"I'm here to talk about Nagi," Schuldig said impatiently. "Do you know how many people I'm distracting right now?"
"The guy Nagi killed," Farfarello shrugged, or rather twitched. "Could you loosen the straitjacket?"
"No," Schuldig snarled. "Who did Nagi kill?"
"A man," Farfarello said, slowly growing determined to be as contrary as possible.
Schuldig sighed with exasperation. His head darted in quickly and he placed a rough kiss on Farfarello's mouth. Farfarello tried to respond but Schuldig was already pulling away.
"Who did Nagi kill?" he asked.
"Someone who hurt him," Farfarello sighed. "Rapist, I think. Happened when he was friends with Rammi. And you," he added pointedly.
"So why would he go to Rammi? Why isn't he coming to me?" Schuldig whined.
"Do you come to him?" Farfarello snapped.
Schuldig cocked his head to one side and frowned. "What's that meant to mean?" he demanded.
Farfarello fell obstinately silence. Even with Schuldig's mental probing and physical punching he kept his mouth shut. Outside the gathered technicians wished they could reproduce the effect.
When Schuldig eventually left, stomping and storming through the complex, Farfarello let his head fall, and that subdued mood lasted. The scientists didn't pay much attention to him as they ran their checks and checked their calculations. Maybe they should have Herr Schuldig visit more often. He seemed to be a calming influence on the madman. They discussed it and forgot the madman could hear.
None of them noticed the tears that rolled down the scarred cheek. Even if it was under duress, he knew he'd appreciate the visits.
* * *
"I thought we'd try something different tonight," Rammi told Nagi.
Nagi eyed him warily. "Different how?" he asked suspiciously.
"I want you to try and stay awake."
"You mean you're really tired from defending my mind, so if I'm awake you can get some sleep?" Nagi snorted, relaxing again.
They were lying together in Rammi's bunk, and Rammi had been playing with Nagi's damp hair just before he asked his first question. It didn't take a genius to work out what had gone through Nagi's mind, but it upset Rammi. If someone had asked the same of him he wouldn't have assumed they were going to have sex. He didn't like this world at all, sometimes.
"No," Rammi grimaced. Another chance to learn something about the boy coming right up. "I'm going to let your night stalker in."
Okay, so he didn't find it as disturbing as the idea of having sex. Now to work out if that was good or bad.
Oh, right, it didn't matter. Nagi was going to die anyway, some time soon. No point getting attached.
"Why?" Nagi asked quietly. Not 'no', but 'why'. That was trust.
"I want to get rid of him altogether," Rammi said earnestly. "It helps if you're awake, because it will be easier to distinguish your mental patterns. See, he usually attacks while you're asleep because it's easier to disguise himself in your REM patterns, and it's only a small shift to turn them into his own. Well, that's probably not how he'd put it, but the Labs are turning out this kind of stuff all the time."
"You came from the Labs, didn't you?" Nagi asked softly. Oh wonderful, compassion. Did Nagi know how hard he was making this?
"Been speaking to Schuldig, have you?" Rammi asked with forced casualness. "Yeah, I did spend chunks of my childhood in the Labs. Born there. But I wasn't bred."
"No one ever said you were," Nagi said, not to sooth but to clarify.
"Heh," Rammi dismissed it. "Does it bother you, where I come from?"
Nagi shook his head. "Who was the talent?" he asked curiously.
"Who? Oh, you mean which parent. My mother, though my father's part of the organisation as well." Rammi couldn't keep his lip from curling in disgust. "It's better than having completed untalented parents, though, I suppose. Not like those poor sods they're breeding no, taking people they know aren't talents and mixing and matching DNA in the attempt to work out what bit makes what talent."
"Have they found anything interesting?" Nagi's eyes widened.
Rammi shrugged. "I don't make a point of going down there, though I don't get that irrational terror reaction most students seem to. Honestly, it's just a laboratory. The people who work there are just that, people." He learnt back on his elbows, crossing his ankles and staring at the ceiling bare inches from his nose. "Oh, some students get hurt, but it's ever more than they deserve. Most are happier, you know. Well, when they realise they're going to die, they are. For some people that's the only good thing about being alive."
"I've been there," said Nagi dryly. "But the part that scares me is that the technicians are human. I couldn't cut open someone's head while they were cursing me and my family for generations. I couldn't lock a sane person in an empty room and wait patiently to see how long before they went mad."
"Someone has to do it," Rammi opinioned.
"It would be nice to live in a world where they didn't," Nagi observed without emotion. "Some questions shouldn't need answers."
"Some questions shouldn't need to be asked," Rammi agreed. "But this is the world we live in."
"Or not, in the case of some of the study subjects," Nagi said. Rammi glanced at him and laughed at the dark humour. It was Nagi's sense of humour, to make statements like that for others to laugh at. He judged people by how they reacted. He didn't make jokes, not Nagi, but he said things that could go either way and he watched to see which way listeners went. Rammi wondered who he looked down on more, those who failed to get the subtle humour, or those who found it funny.
"So, are you willing?" Rammi cursed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Nagi looking vulnerable was doing nothing for his resolve. "To try my plan?" he finished hastily.
"Oh. Yes, I guess so," Nagi shrugged. Calm acceptance radiated from him. "If you don't fail to cast him out I die, right?"
"In essence," Rammi admitted. He stared at the wide-eyed boy. He bit his lip. He stared everywhere accept at the wide-eyed boy. He picked at his fingernails. He stared at Nagi again. "Let's do it another night," he announced abruptly. "I... I'm not up to it right now. Better if we both get more rest. I couldn't bear to get it wrong," he said honestly.
Nagi smiled. "I really can trust you, can't I?" he smiled, nestling against Rammi's chest.
