Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chaos Came Early ❯ Novel Ideas ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

To help moimoi-chan through her exams, and in celebration of Redqueen feeling better. And for Race and Phoenix, ‘cause you’re there and I love you for it.

*****

Farfarello was already gone, running up the steps of the church, Schuldig gaining on him. With the Irish boy’s lead and Schuldig’s speed, Crawford didn’t have a chance in hell–

He dropped his shields. ::SCHULDIG!::

The German swayed and hesitated. Farfarello leaped. But the priest decided “open door policy” didn’t apply to one-eyed teens flying through the air screaming like banshees and waving steak knives. He slammed the door.

Farfarello knocked himself silly on it.

Bloody hell.

Schuldig swayed with the sudden lack of input, and jumped as Crawford grabbed his shoulder. Then he smirked his most annoying.

“Going to the chapel,” he sang, “and we’re gonna get married...”

“And we’ll never be lonely anymore,” Crawford answered, not singing as he went on up to retrieve his very own bloodthirsty assassin.

Sigh.

Farfarello was already wandering to his feet, Crawford took the steak knife and guided the dazed boy with a hand wrapped in the oversized coat. Schuldig flanked him as he came back down the stairs and he led his team away, fuming with every step.

Herr Stein was a blasted fool. Schuldig was barely trained at all, the boy was worse than useless, no wonder his first two leaders had given him back! It wasn’t his personality, it was his uncontrolled power! Shit, a Talent like that on the loose, no wonder the boy was impulsive. The wonder was that he hadn’t fried any brains yet. Especially his own.

It was as well they were walking, Crawford was so furious driving might well have killed someone, and he didn’t have time to deal with the complications. And it was a very good thing he could shield so well, if he’d made Schuldig nervous before, his thoughts now would have scared the boy out of a year’s growth.

By the time they neared the hotel, he had convinced himself that as the lack of training had to be the only reason he’d gotten Schuldig, it was a good thing. Otherwise he would have either had to make do with another telepath, or start killing his associates long before he was ready.

Stein, however, was now first up against the wall when the revolution came. The man was simply too stupid to live.

Revolution would be a lot easier to accomplish with a trained telepath.

Damn it.

Crawford stopped at a corner, waiting for a gap in traffic. A teen on the other side of Schuldig bobbed his head in time to music from his headphones, Schuldig moved too. Damn it, damn it, the boy wasn’t shielded at all–

When the teen walked away on the other side of the street, Schuldig had a new CD player. Crawford smiled at the reminder. The wild child had power, and that was what mattered. Lack of training was fixable, lack of Talent was permanent.

Schuldig winked at him as he donned the headphones.

“...It’s just the beast under your bed,
In the closet, in your head,” he sang.

Crawford winced.

“The beast,” Farfarello repeated, and giggled. Crawford reminded himself not to get so distracted by his loose cannon telepath that he forgot to watch for more mundane things, like Farfarello with a stolen steak knife. He would hurt himself, his file had stated, if there wasn’t anyone else around to stab.

Schuldig was headbanging. Farfarello was too. Crawford wondered if the German was so careless he was broadcasting, but didn’t unshield to check.

Metallica was not his idea of a good time.

Inside he took both of them to the suite he’d reserved. The room they’d used earlier was adjoining, but Crawford had given up on that. No, he needed to be between them and the exit, it looked like.

Privacy and peace would have to wait until he had better control.

As soon as they were in the door, Farfarello examined each room, and chose the smaller bedroom. He hung up his coat and set about getting ready for bed. Crawford had thought the Irish boy would be the best fit for the couch–it was a two-bedroom suite–but he didn’t object. The way the telepath was going, he wouldn’t be needing a bed.

Schuldig danced around the shared room, singing (badly) and losing his clothes. Not stripping, just–losing.

“Here we are now,
Entertain us.
I feel stupid,
and contagious.”

Nirvana. Wonderful. Crawford hung up his jacket and locked his gun in his briefcase and sat on the couch.

“Love in an elevator,
living it up while we’re going down.”

Aerosmith. Better. Crawford wondered just how bad the boy’s control was. Was the language-skimming deliberate? It was the only thing he’d noticed before today, that might hint the wild child’s power was using him.

Perhaps it was a combination of the caffeine high and Farfarello having an exceptionally strong mind. He’d heard only the really strong ones went crazy. The weak ones just died.

Schuldig was naked now, except for one remaining sock. He danced on, oblivious. Crawford wondered how he could be so self-confident, and yet apparently insecure.

Damn the boy was skinny. And bruised. Still. Crawford had seen the marks when he brought the boy back to the hotel in Rome, but he hadn’t thought much of them. Now he added them in with Schuldig’s caution on Rosenkreuz grounds, and wondered what the hell Stein had been doing to the boy.
Besides setting Schuldig up for Crawford to win him, mind and soul, if he played this right.

“Welcome to the jungle,
we got fun and games.”

Crawford drank coffee–the suite had a pot, of course–and worked on his laptop and thought about his next moves until Schuldig finally got bored with the CD. He knew when the boy threw himself over the back of the couch, to land lying down and put his head in Crawford’s lap.

How could he be so trusting? Or was he?

“Whatcha doing?”

Crawford had heard the sigh of boredom–he’d gotten to know it well–and quit Spider Solitaire before the boy got behind him. He was surfing the Wall Street Journal when the flaming hair landed on his leg. He told Schuldig that.

“Waa. How boring.”

“Is it?” Crawford connected to his E*Trade account. “Is fifty thousand marks boring?”

Schuldig flicked his fingers. “Is that all a precog is worth?”

“I was talking about your account.”

“My–?”

“You need money, don’t you? For the times it’s not convenient to control everyone in sight? I began your account when I was told you would be assigned to me. Here it is.”

Schuldig sat up to stare at the screen. “Three hundred thousand–you said fifty.”

“This is your working capital. It will stay in the account, earning you more. Fifty thousand is your play money, I already removed it, and my seed money.”

“I have–fifty thousand marks?”

“More than three hundred fifty thousand, if you care to go to the bank and withdraw it all. Or you can play on the fifty, and leave the rest so in a week you will have more.”

“Lot of good any of it does me, without ID. With the security–“

Crawford had been waiting for that, he handed over a card.

“Schuldig Mann?”

“Would you prefer something different? That’s why I didn’t get you ID yet, I thought you’d like to choose. But that card will get you what you want, nearly anywhere you care to shop.”

“It’s everywhere I want to be,” Schuldig agreed. “Can we–what did you have planned for tomorrow?”

Training. “Shopping.”

“Wheee!” Schuldig planted a kiss on Crawford’s cheek and jumped back over the couch. “I want jeans. American jeans, I want Levis. I want–“

”You’re going to buy clothes?” Crawford said with amusement. Schuldig looked down and shivered, grabbed the complimentary robe and slipped it on. It was dark blue, and it reminded Crawford just how beautiful his telepath was. Schuldig wasn’t self-conscious because he had nothing to be self-conscious about. Except being skinny, and he would grow out of that. And being bruised, and Crawford would see that didn’t happen again.

“–pierced. I want–“

What did he want pierced?

“–doom. They say there’s so much blood–“

Crawford looked for Farfarello, but the boy was talking about a video game. “–from a pistol up to a BFG 9000, and–“

”That sounds like a good game for you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Schuldig smirked. “We can get two, I could play you in a death match.”

“I’ll leave that to Farfarello.” While Crawford drove, or worked, or planned, or whatever, and made sure Schuldig never got within five feet of anything caffeinated again.

“–karaoke machine–“

No.

“–set of bongos–“

Maybe.

“–cowboy boots–“

That should be interesting.

“–cool sunglasses–“

Heading back into safer realms now...

“–dye my hair?”

“If you want. I think the color suits you. It...draws attention.”

“Doesn’t it?” Schuldig tossed his hair and threw himself over the wingback chair to land across the seat, his legs kicking over the side. “Maybe I’ll let it grow, then. Am I at fifty thousand yet?”

“I doubt it. And even if you are, by the time you use everything you can buy tomorrow, you’ll have more.” Had he never had money of his own before? How could such stupid people have built such a wide-spread organization? It was so easy to make Schuldig happy. “There is one catch, though.”

Fear flickered, replaced almost instantly by the as-annoying-as-humanly-possible smirk. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Farfarello and I are going to try to confuse you. So if you come home with a bagful of granola bars and a Prada purse, you’ll know why.”

“Ja, ja.” Schuldig flicked his fingers. “That’s a stupid game.”

“Because Farfarello won so easily tonight?”
“I wasn’t paying attention!”

“You need to. You’re too powerful, Schuldig, you have to control it. Or it will control you.”

“Ja, ja.” Another wave of the hand, Schuldig had heard it all before. Crawford had rather thought he had. “I’m gonna go crazy, I’m gonna fry my brain, I’m gonna scare the poor sheep.”

“You’re going to learn.” Crawford stood to loom over the boy, prepared his mind and dropped his shields. Schuldig was on his knees before him in a flash, had unbuttoned his pants before he could snap his shields back up. He’d forgotten how fast the boy could move–Schuldig flushed and leaped back, put the chair between them. Crawford turned away.

“You bastard–!”

“Hate me, blame me, whine you weren’t ready,” Crawford interrupted, closing his laptop. “But what if I hadn’t shielded again?”

“Is that why you wanted me?“

”That,” Crawford said, heading for his room, “was what I thought would get your attention.”

And damned if it hadn’t gotten Crawford’s attention too.

**********

ee-hee-hee, this is just too much fun...

More ear-torture for RedQueen. ;) First is the Dixie Cups, “Going to the Chapel.” Released in ‘64, but I’ve seen it at my local 50's-style diner. Then Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Team Spirit.” Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator,” Guns ‘n’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle.” Schu’s taste seems to be as flighty as he is.