Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Powerless ❯ One-Shot

“Powerless”
by Viridian5
7/10/13

RATING: PG-13; Crawford/Schuldig. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by.
SPOILERS: some stuff from “Mission 13: Bruch -- Rain of Revenge,” “Mission 15: Duell -- Hunters of Revenge,” and “Mission 25: Ende Des Weiss -- To the Knights.”
SUMMARY: When all the psychics in Tokyo lose their powers, Schwarz is forced to think and react in new ways.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things Weiß Kreuz belong to Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiß, Polygram k.k., and Animate Film. No infringement intended.
NOTES: Written for Weiß Kreuz Reverse Fest 2013. It might not be quite what the requester had in mind, but my impression of the effect Schuldig’s telepathy has on him and what it means to him probably differs from the requester’s.
Prompt: Rating: As high as you want to take it (I love smut, but it's okay if the story doesn't go that way) | Crawford/Schuldig: When a strange psi event hits Tokyo overnight, Schwarz wake up without their psychic powers. A week in, Schuldig hates to admit he finds Crawford a hell of a lot hotter when he's not so smug and distant. And Crawford might concede he finds Schuldig desirable when he's sane and undistracted.
The bit of poetry quoted is by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Schuldig’s German toast translates to “First take care of business, then drink and laugh! Cheers!” Beta by Rosaleendhu and Esinde Nayrall.

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“Powerless”
by Viridian5
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The moment Crawford woke up he felt something wrong, something missing, and when he reached out to his power for a hint or guidance found nothing, no feelings, no images, no instinctive reactions. Even when his power didn’t have any insights to give, he could at least sense its presence, but not today.

He might as well not be a precognitive at all.

Since Crawford didn’t do panic, not even in the privacy of his own mind, he skipped that to go straight to some necessary questions: How and why did this happen? Was it just him, all of Schwarz, or every psychic in the area? How large an area did it cover? Was it temporary or permanent? What did they need to do to get their powers back, and whom did they need to kill in revenge? Thinking gave him less time to feel lost in the dark. He’d also feel more in control if he were dressed for work, so he snapped to that. He’d check in on the others when he finished.

After a brief knock on the bedroom door, Nagi walked in without waiting for an invitation, unusual. “My telekinesis is gone,” he said, working to hide his agitation but not quite succeeding. He still wore pajamas and hadn’t tamed his bedhead, also unusual, suggesting that he’d come to Crawford’s room as soon as he realized he didn’t have his power anymore, probably right after he woke up.

“My precognition is also gone,” Crawford answered calmly, working to calm Nagi through osmosis, something that sometimes worked. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Schuldig would smirk and ask why Crawford hadn’t foreseen this event. Schuldig’s power affected every second of his life, so if he woke up without it....

Of course Schuldig would wake up without it, because when Crawford reached for Schwarz’s team mindlink he didn’t feel it there anymore.

Crawford put his suit jacket on to complete his ensemble and walked past Nagi to get to Schuldig’s bedroom. Schuldig had locked his bedroom door so Crawford used his master key, something he only did during emergencies.

Curled cozily on his side, Schuldig looked unusually peaceful sleeping in his bed. Generally the telepath spent a lot of time tossing and turning while various expressions crossed his face; Schuldig never had perfect shields, and they relaxed even more while he slept. Usually, Schuldig would wake up at least partially if anyone entered his room. Today, he didn’t.

“Should we wake him?” Nagi asked.

Although Schuldig would appreciate a restful sleep, something rare for him, if left to his own devices he slept until sometime in the afternoon and Crawford refused to wait in suspense that long. “Yes.”

“You’ll have to do it. I’m not risking it without my telekinesis. The same way I refuse to wake up and unshackle Farfarello without my telekinesis.” An annoying but predictable response.

“Schuldig! Wake up!” Crawford yelled, putting volume and rage into it, hoping to wake him without having to come close to or touch him. “Schuldig!”

Schuldig didn’t rouse, but the banging from the wall suggested that Crawford had woken Farfarello up. Nagi made a sound that could have been a cough or a snicker, probably the second one.

Damn it. Crawford walked up to the bed, stood near Schuldig’s head, and strategized. He’d need to keep an eye on Schuldig’s hands to look out for them going under the pillows and pulling out his gun. Without precognition watching out for him and guiding his reflexes, Crawford would be more vulnerable than usual. “Schuldig!” he yelled.

Schuldig’s eyelids fluttered, but he still didn’t wake up. When Crawford put his hand on Schuldig’s shoulder, Schuldig’s eyes opened. Crawford grabbed Schuldig’s slender wrists to keep his hands where he could see them and waited for whining or some sarcastic comment about this. It didn’t come. Schuldig remained silent but wide-eyed as his gaze flicked at Crawford, around the room, down to the hands on his wrists, up at Crawford, around the room....

From the confusion and freaking out Schuldig couldn’t completely hide, Crawford could tell that Schuldig didn’t have his telepathy. Although he contemplated letting Schuldig continue to struggle to keep his cool while trying to figure out the situation, letting Schuldig suffer more, he decided to be less sadistic and said, “Nagi and I woke up without our psychic powers. I’m guessing you don’t have your telepathy either.”

“You’ve guessed right,” Schuldig replied, his voice thick and low. “You can let go of my wrists; I swear I won’t you shoot you now. Maybe later if you do something to deserve it, but not now.”

As Crawford gallantly ignored the panic at the edges of Schuldig’s attempt at bravado and let go of his wrists, he wondered whether Schuldig would prefer to not be a telepath once the shock wore off and being normal seemed a bit more... normal. Having other people’s thoughts and feelings perpetually pressing on him could make Schuldig mercurial, cranky, distracted, and/or deranged, and his power sometimes gave him horrific headaches. He sometimes complained about the noise and interference inside his head. But he’d been a telepath over half his life, and he might find the silence and aloneness alien and maddening instead of soothing.

Crawford smiled as he realized that he wouldn’t have to work on his psychic shields so hard since Schuldig wouldn’t be capable of battering them again until he got his telepathy back. The telepath could be entirely too nosy, and being denied someone’s thoughts only made him want to read them all the more, a common trait of telepaths.

Looking annoyed, probably over Crawford’s smile, Schuldig asked, “What do we know about this?”

“Not enough. I need to send someone out to see how far the power-canceling effect goes.”

“What if it covers all of Japan?”

“It better not. You know we can’t leave anyway.”

“Fucking Takatori. We can’t tell Eszett what’s going on either.”

“Of course not.” Eszett would punish the messenger. And take advantage of Schwarz’s current, temporary weakness. Schwarz needed to resolve the problem as quickly as possible because Eszett would send agents to check in on them at some point. “I’m sending you. Get a train ticket. If you’re still not telepathic five hours into the trip, return here. If you do become telepathic during the trip, scan Tokyo for anyone who knows anything about what happened and to see if it affects all psychics.”

“Sure, have me do all the work solving our mystery. Scan millions of minds to find a particular needle in a stack of needles? You don’t ask for much.”

“You’re good. You can do it.”

“Ugh. Almost makes me miss the days when you underestimated my skills.”

Without his telepathy distracting him, Schuldig focused on Crawford like a laser and really listened to him in ways he normally didn’t. Crawford liked it.

“You’re thinking something that I’d want to smack you for if I could read it. I can tell,” Schuldig said. “Since your shields are so strong, I’ve gotten used to figuring out your face and body language. So don’t get too smug about my power being blocked!”

“I appreciate the warning,” Crawford answered, putting amusement on his face because he knew it would annoy Schuldig. They could be that petty sometimes, as a kind of sport. “You should groom yourself and get dressed for your trip. Nagi, check online to see if any psychics less wary than us have posted anything today.” Although no one posted anything too overt in public space, some psychics had groups on the internet and Nagi had anonymously joined to keep an eye on them.

“Are you going to unshackle Farf today then?” Schuldig asked. “We don’t know yet how losing his psychic powers is going to affect his state of mind.”

What. “You’re not funny.”

“That’s what you said the last time I tried to tell you.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

“He just thinks the majority of the psychic noise he hears comes from angels and demons, so people generally discount it. Plus, trying to read his mind hurts from how messed up he is. Don’t look at me like that. I may not be the most powerful telepath Eszett has, but I’m in close proximity to Farf. Also, I hadn’t written him off as a normal or decided he was too old to manifest any new powers.”

“You said ‘powers.’”

“Farf and I think there might be something else he can do too but neither of us have a handle on it. I’m off to take a quick shower since you want me to leave really soon.” Schuldig gave Crawford and Nagi a cheerful wave, grabbed some clothing, and left the room whistling.

“Losing his telepathy hasn’t made him less annoying,” Nagi said.

“We probably shouldn’t have expected it to,” Crawford answered. Apparently he’d have to have a talk about Farfarello with Schuldig when matters calmed down.

“Am I staying home on internet duty or do I have to visit Takatori with you?”

Crawford really didn’t look forward to working around Takatori today. Although Takatori didn’t know they had and used psychic powers, he’d notice something wrong if they acted much differently. Crawford knew that Schwarz relied on its powers for a lot, but they were still skillful without them. How skillful remained to be seen. Fortunately, Takatori didn’t expect to see all four of them every day. “Farfarello and I will go.”

“Good. I work better without distractions anyway.”

Crawford decided to give credit where it was due. “‘Distractions’ like Schuldig making sure you eat?”

“Hmph.”

As Nagi walked out, Crawford said, “Make sure you have some breakfast.”

“You’re not my father!”

“Thankfully.”

When he unlocked and opened the door to Farfarello’s bedroom, he found a straitjacketed Farfarello looking more serene than usual. Looking at him, Farfarello asked, “Schuldig finally found a way to tell you about my psychic power that you took seriously?”

Annoyed, Crawford said nothing and just starting getting him out of the straitjacket, carefully paying attention to Farfarello’s body language the whole time in case their berserker decided to go berserk on him at this intimate range. Farfarello said, “I feel less agitated and homicidal without it. God and His creations are quieter. I’ll still enjoy a good murdering spree, but I’m a wee bit less bloodthirsty.”

The little Schuldig voice inside Crawford’s head responded, “So Farfarello’s psychic power is homicide?” (The voice objected to being called “little.”) Crawford hoped the day stopped dropping nasty surprises on him. He asked, “Did you hear our conversation through the wall?”

“In pieces. I heard that Schuldig and Nagi will look into what happened to us in different ways, while you and I will go to Takatori and continue pretending to be minions.”

“That’s basically it.”

“Being without his telepathy will be hard for Schuldig.”

“How would you know that?”

Farfarello’s eye glinted at him in what appeared to be amusement. “We talk a lot during stakeouts. Heart to heart.”

Why did the thought of that make him so angry? He wouldn’t let it show to Farfarello. “I can’t imagine that. But maybe it will be a good experience for Schuldig to be alone inside his head for a little while. Quiet. Healing.”

Farfarello just shook his head and sighed.

When Crawford and Farfarello went to their apartment’s small kitchen area, Schuldig looked up from the small basket of rolls and pastry he’d been plundering. Schuldig had tied his damp hair back into a ponytail, which made a major change to his looks. The usual nimbus of hair around his face seemed to softer its features, but with his hair back his face looked sharper and more predatory.

“I’m on my way out, and yes, I have my cell phone,” Schuldig said. They used cell phones in front of clients who shouldn’t find out about their powers or when they wanted a client to overhear something. “Yes, sir, leaving, sir.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.” Schuldig wolfed down the pastry then put his coat and a pair of dark sunglasses on. Perhaps he’d realized that his eyes betrayed how disturbed he felt by the loss of his power. “I’ll be in touch one way or another.”

Schuldig had made a number of good, sensible choices, so why did Crawford feel nervous for him after he left?

On the train, Schuldig inwardly fought hard with himself to stop himself from twitching. All these damned people stood too close, and he had no idea what their intentions were. Usually he put out a small telepathic field that discouraged people from crowding him and impinging on his shields, since the physically closer people were to him the harder a time he had blocking out their thoughts. He should be the only one allowed to choose that intimacy.

Then again, having these strangers touching him made him feel more connected to reality and less like he was watching people on TV. Crawford holding his wrists as he woke up had made him freak out less for grounding him. If he’d opened his eyes to see Crawford and Nagi while he couldn’t feel them in any way, it would’ve fucked with his head even worse.

Despite the bodies leaning on and crowding him, everything seemed so flat and distant. While people he’d read in the past had observed that nothing felt so alone as feeling alone in a crowd, he’d rarely experienced it personally until today. He’d been telepathic for over half his life after all, with the years before that garbled and confused from all the other childhoods that had latched onto his mind.

To his annoyance, he also realized that he didn’t know Japanese as well as he thought he did, especially in the written character forms. His telepathy had been cheating for him the whole time and doing it so seamlessly that he hadn’t realized he needed to study more.

He was imprisoned inside his own body and feeling claustrophobic over it, with only his own overloud thoughts breaking the ominous silence inside his brain. Only his own thoughts as company.

He felt so anxious, lost, and helpless. Like prey. At least the dark sunglasses hid his nervous, darting eyes. He couldn’t live like this. If his power had been permanently removed....

At first he didn’t notice as his telepathy gradually returned but eventually, three hours in, realized that the farther away he got from Tokyo, the more powerful and connected he felt. He relished the returning waves of voices, emotions, and insights and the resulting endorphins; he felt alive again. Depth and color seemed to return to the world.

Once he felt normal, he got off at the next stop then sat down away from anyone else and composed himself to do a wide telepathic scan of the people in the area, especially in Tokyo. Millions of minds. This wouldn’t be easy, quick, or painless. Sure, piece of cake, Crawford.

Schuldig let his mind soar out, a keen-eyed predator instead of the frightened rabbit he’d been hours ago. Like a raptor, he couldn’t let himself get distracted by the massive detail and data available and instead looked for unusual movement and noteworthy features. Skimming mind after mind after mind, he found some psychics who felt panicked at being rendered powerless and some who felt relieved but none who had any clue why it had happened... except for one, a prisoner and test subject. That mind gave him leads to other minds to check out for information, who knew even more. He learned that a machine was involved and received confirmation that its effects covered Tokyo. Unfortunately, he received differing accounts about where they kept the machine, the look of the machine itself, and who was behind it all. Each person thought he knew the correct location. Some motherfucker had apparently expected an outside psychic to investigate the matter. As hard as Schuldig looked, hard enough to actually hurt, he couldn’t find the big boss in range either, nor did any of the others have definitive knowledge of said boss’ name and location. It seriously made Schuldig want to kill someone.

He felt the angry person approaching him before the man stood in front of him, ready to berate him for being a foreign vagrant. Schuldig looked up at him and shot a compulsion into his brain. From now on, any time he saw a foreigner and had dirty thoughts about him he’d instead go up to the person and thank him for coming to Japan, though Schuldig didn’t know how long for sure it would last. He hoped it lasted a good long time and caused as much inconvenience and embarrassment as possible. Then he telepathically sent the man away and grinned at his victim’s confusion and fear.

Fuck, his skull rung and his eyes hurt. Taking out a small pad and pen, he wrote down the various locations and names he’d picked up during his telepathic search and did his best to sketch the two different looking machines he’d seen. He’d feel really stupid if he went to all this trouble only to forget some of the data.

Crawford would want to know this stuff. Although Schuldig felt the strain of his search, he opted to contact Schwarz telepathically instead of by cell phone to avoid talking about psychic powers in front of the commuters wandering around him, too many to telepathically alter while he hurt this much.

Fortunately, Takatori didn’t have anything challenging for Schwarz today, just work common thugs could do. Farfarello seemed more on point today, but Crawford couldn’t be sure it came from whatever psychic power he had getting cut off since Farfarello always had good days and bad days. However, Crawford already felt tired and had a headache from how hard he was focusing on everything to try to make up for his lack of precognition. He felt vulnerable being trapped in the present.

Due to the possibility of Schuldig contacting them telepathically, Crawford also maintained his mental shields at normal levels, something that contributed to his headache. At least he hoped he had them at his normal levels and his lack of psychic power hadn’t affected that too.

~ Hey, guys, I’m sending this to all of you, ~ Schuldig suddenly said into Crawford’s brain. From the look in his eye, Farfarello heard it too. Crawford had never been so glad to hear from his telepath. However, even the team mental link felt different due to Crawford’s current lack of psychic power.

Schuldig’s mental voice sounded so silky and confident... and completely unlike how his actual voice had sounded this morning. This morning his voice had pretended to sound Schuldig-like but hadn’t completely succeeded.

~ It’s a machine causing this, and its effect covers Tokyo, ~ Schuldig continued. ~ My telepathy gradually came back, getting better the further away I got. Unfortunately, I’m getting differing accounts of where it’s hidden and no one I can read knows who’s in charge of the project. I have some addresses to share with you, but for all I know they might all be wrong. Worth a shot, though, right? Write these down. ~ Schuldig listed them all and sent images of the machine(s). Crawford wrote and figured that Nagi probably took them down as well. Neither of them could draw particularly well though.

Schwarz couldn’t try any of them until Takatori released them for the day and Crawford figured out whom to send where. Schuldig would have to get back first as well.

Although Schuldig didn’t say anything, Crawford sensed his reluctance to return through the link. Apparently he preferred to be telepathic and disdained peace and quiet, something Crawford should have expected. Regardless, Schuldig had to return to the team; without their powers, they needed their fourth member more than ever. If they needed more telepathic help, they could always send Schuldig out of the city again.

~ All right. I’ll be back in a few hours. You better make it worth my while. Later! ~

Come back. Voluntarily.This time he’d get to feel and hear his power slowly fade and disappear instead of wake up with the clean break of it being completely gone already. This time he’d be doing it to himself. He could put up a field discouraging people from leaning into him as long as possible, but he’d get to see that gradually failing too.

Sometimes, most often during his splitting headaches, he wished not to be a telepath. Sometimes he wished for quiet or to avoid knowing just how filthy and stupid humanity was on the inside. He knew that few telepaths survived to be 40, let alone do it sane and without brain damage.

Still, he’d never seriously wanted to lose his telepathy, something today had confirmed. He’d long ago made peace with the idea that he’d burn out and/or die young, like in some poetry he’d picked up somewhere: “My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light!”

He proudly burned brightly, and he wasn’t himself if he didn’t.

Still, he put himself on the train returning to Tokyo. He owed Crawford. Plus, Eszett would find and torture him if he ran.

When Crawford and Farfarello made it home after what felt like a much longer day working for Takatori than usual, Crawford was glad to see that Nagi had at least eaten some of an apple while searching the internet. Looking up, Nagi said, “I know you don’t need it confirmed anymore, but what I’ve seen shows that the effect covers psychics in Tokyo and a little beyond. Psychics online are upset or ecstatic but none of them know anything about how it happened. It’s a shame we can’t trust anyone else’s competence because we’d get through the addresses faster if we had more people.”

“We can’t chance any of them taking the address that has the actual machine and screwing up so badly that it gets moved,” Crawford answered.

“I know, and I’m sure you think it’s inefficient to waste time wishing otherwise but still.”

“Is Schuldig home?” It galled that he didn’t just know.

Sounding defensive, Nagi asked, “Why, because I have food?”

“Nagi.”

“Yeah, he’s back and in a crappy mood.”

“Do you know if it’s his lack of telepathy or if something else is going on?”

“He’s pissed that he had to lose his telepathy twice today. He also seems paranoid as hell. You could always just talk to him yourself since he’s in the living room.”

“And since he can hear you. With his ears,” Schuldig called from the living room. Definitely in a bad mood.

Oh, joy. As if Crawford didn’t suffer due to losing his power too. “We’re having a team meeting in the kitchen to decide on a plan of attack. Now.”

Once they gathered there, Crawford set out his thoughts in audible words. “We have five locations and two different versions of a machine from Schuldig’s recon. We won’t have as much information as usual during the missions, but they’re doable. Since we don’t know how quickly conditions might change, I want to hit them tonight in teams of two, with the locations split up depending on the version of the machine involved. Nagi and I will take three of the locations, while Schuldig and Farfarello will take the other two. Nagi, Schuldig and I both have experience in interrogation, which may be necessary, even without our powers.” Farfarello got too excited and enthusiastic about hurting people to properly get accurate information from them. “Also, Nagi, you’ll have to carry a gun. I trust that you can make use of the lessons we gave you, even if you didn’t see the purpose in them at the time.”

Truthfully, Crawford worried that Nagi might not be able to handle a fight without his telekinesis, since, among other things, it gave him the instinct not to move when shot at or attacked because his shields would protect him. Nagi might stand still if confronted tonight, and Crawford might spend a lot of time defending him. It might be better to leave him at home, but he needed battle experience and the mettle to fight no matter what physical condition he was in and coddling him wouldn’t do him any good.

“Damn it, I miss being telekinetic,” Nagi said.

“We all miss our abilities,” Schuldig answered then smirked when Farfarello shrugged. He still had his hair tied back in a ponytail, but it looked somewhat fluffier now, making him appear more like his usual self. “Take this as an opportunity to take it out on other people. It’s bad to keep those kinds of emotions bottled up.”

Figuring that he wouldn’t get anything more useful from the guy, Schuldig shot the security guard in the head, which made Farfarello protest, “I wanted to kill him.”

“I had to do it myself to see how it felt without my telepathy. It didn’t feel like anything!” He felt cheated! “It was like popping someone else’s blister. The blister of someone whose mind I can’t read. If there’s so little to it, why don’t deadheads kill and hurt each other all the time?”

“You read their minds all the time, so you should have already realized what they feel and don’t feel when they do it.”

“Yeah, but it’s different when it’s my hand on the gun. Usually, I feel my victims’ pain and death and the flash of their lives running by, then nothing. It hurts but it’s awesome and a head rush all at the same time. It’s like popping bubble wrap, so fucking addictive.” The death, like the interrogation, had felt like a tiny dry crumb compared to the feasts he usually got.

“I don’t get all that, and I enjoy killing. A lot of people don’t kill because supposedly God says they shouldn’t, if you can believe the Biblical works His human tools have written for Him.”

“You should write a Bible. You spend more time thinking about God and what He wants of us than a lot of people do. Then you should send it to the Vatican.”

Farfarello grinned. “You have a lot of good ideas.”

“Tell Crawford that. But I can tell him myself telepathically soon if the actual machine is here. Let’s go.”

Evading or disabling the security cameras as necessary, they made their way to the machine, killing another ten people along the way. The four Schuldig killed died in the same disappointing way as the first guy he knocked off tonight. It felt nearly pointless, not worth his bother.

They set the explosives around the machine on a timer and went to another room for protection from the blast. At least the big boom felt satisfying. They peeked out around the corner to see flaming bits and pieces. Unfortunately, Schuldig’s telepathy didn’t turn back on. “Motherfucker,” Schuldig muttered, enraged.

“On to location #2?” Farfarello asked.

“Yeah. But first we’re setting fire to all of this for wasting our time.”

“This is one of the reasons why I’m glad to be paired up with you.”

As tired as Crawford felt, Nagi looked much worse, even though Crawford had been warning him for months to keep his physical conditioning up. The boy hadn’t seen much point in it when he could travel faster and pick up heavier things through his telekinesis, and he was becoming more rebellious as he advanced into his teen years. At least he handled a gun well and accurately. Crawford hadn’t found it necessary to protect him often.

Schuldig and Farfarello waited for them at home, having already completed their missions and destroyed the machines at their locations. Seeing as how none of them had their powers back, none of the machines had been the one causing the loss.

As soon as Crawford entered the living room, Schuldig asked, “What now? It’s possible that the people actually responsible left Tokyo for parts unknown hours before I had the chance to scan for them.”

“Or that they’re here but you missed them.”

Predictably offended, Schuldig answered, “If I missed them, which I doubt, there’s more going on than we realize.”

“Which isn’t as unlikely as usual at this point. If our powers still haven’t returned by morning, we’ll need you to go out again to scan Tokyo to see what’s changed and if any of the people we need came back. I know it’s not pleasant to flip back and forth on having your power, but it’s necessary.” When the whole team gave him a surprisingly nasty look, Crawford said, “I’m not commanding this out of sadism.”

“Of course not. You have the utmost respect for my skills and professionalism. You probably think it’s a vacation for me not to have my telepathy.” Schuldig looked and sounded somewhat wounded, so honestly so that Crawford felt a little guilty.

“I don’t think it’s a vacation for you because it obviously isn’t.”

“I’ll do what you ask because I see the need for it.”

“Thank you. Nagi, you’ll continue to monitor the local psychics you find on the internet, but you’ll also be coming in to work with me and Farfarello. Depending on how you feel when you get back, Schuldig, I might ask you to come in as well. We don’t want Takatori to start asking questions about what we’re up to. The less time he spends pondering our motives, the better. Let’s all get some sleep now so we can be fresh and think of new ways to attack the situation in the morning.”

When Crawford woke up, he still didn’t have his power. Damn it. After he showered and dressed, he let himself into Schuldig’s bedroom. Although Schuldig slept as deeply as he had yesterday morning, this time he looked more stressed out in his sleep. Crawford would see if he could wake him up with just his voice first. “Schuldig. Schuldig!”

Schuldig woke up and jumped back across his bed when he saw Crawford, eyes wide and breathing hard, frightened. He quickly suppressed those obvious indications, but Crawford couldn’t forget them or how they made him feel so oddly.... protective in response.

“We still don’t have our powers, so....” Crawford said.

“So off I go. Right.”

Crawford had to say something. “You’re suffering the worst of all of us without your powers.”

“Nagi might dispute that.” Using a joke to cover or deflect, as usual.

“Why are you suffering so badly? Is it really so awful to be alone in your own head?” Crawford had some theories but wanted to hear what Schuldig had to say, or at least what he would be willing to admit. Seeing Schuldig’s conflict, Crawford said, “You already know my greatest secret, the one Eszett would kill me for. You can trust me with some of yours. This isn’t Rosenkreuz.”

“Hmmm.” Schuldig rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Alone with myself. What my self is... that’s something telepaths have to work on. The rest of you don’t have to fight to keep a cohesive identity together. Having outside sources cut off reminds me that ‘me’ is very slippery and nowhere near what I started with. The outside things that slipped in over the years remain integrated.”

“You have a personality all your own. Sometimes too much.”

“There’s a reason a lot of telepaths--the ones who’ve tamed their power enough to use it instead of being used--have a big personality. We have to have some idea of what’s us under the onslaught of everyone else.”

“That makes a lot of sense.”

“Glad you approve. Also, without my telepathy other people don’t seem real anymore. It’s like I’m watching all of you on TV. I keep fighting off the urge to touch people to make sure they’re actually there and not a hologram or something. In fact, it’s surreal talking to you right now.”

Shit. Crawford had assumed Schuldig would be saner without his telepathy. With this new information he better understood what it cost Schuldig to have his power turned on and off, how having his telepathy back not only made him feel powerful and much better informed but also made him feel grounded in the real world.

“But you can handle it. I have faith in you.” Crawford had to take it on faith, because without his own power he didn’t know. He certainly hoped that feeling that dissociated from reality didn’t make Schuldig crack.

“Like I said earlier, life was easier when you didn’t.”

“Deal with it.” When Schuldig got this weird little smile on his face, Crawford had to ask, “What?”

“We never talk like this. You’re usually too caught up in the future--your precognition and plans--to notice much about me unless you think I’m about to fuck them up. Then you just want me to fix whatever it is on my own so you can go back to not thinking about me.”

They would probably look intimate to an outsider seeing them, Crawford sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed less than a foot away from where Schuldig lounged on it half-naked in his pajama bottoms, slung low on his hips, and messy hair. (There really was a difference between the bedhead and what Schuldig called the “artful tousle” that he did on purpose.) Undistracted by his telepathy, Schuldig focused on him in a way that made Crawford simultaneously pleased and weirdly self-conscious.

Schuldig often flirted with him, but Schuldig flirted for many reasons: to defend himself, to offend others, to provoke, to distract, to deceive, to alleviate his boredom, to amuse his team.... He spread it far and wide and on everyone, and thus it meant nothing.

Being so aware of Schuldig and his prettiness in the present meant nothing. “I care more than you think. I just have a lot of things to juggle and a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah. I’m reminding myself that this will end when we get our powers back.”

Crawford set his hand on Schuldig’s bare wrist, something he ordinarily wouldn’t do because it would help Schuldig read his mind. “I’m here.”

As Schuldig looked down at the hand on his wrist and then up at Crawford he looked younger and even less shark-like, surprised and somewhat confused but almost... hopeful. What did Schuldig think that gesture meant? Crawford didn’t even know what he meant.... It gave Crawford the urge to quickly yank his hand away, but that might suggest he felt scared or intimidated or he’d made a mistake, and he hated that idea too so he left it there for a little while. Finally he removed it and said, “I have a better idea now of how difficult this is for you, but the information you may get is too important to the team.”

“I hear that. It’s a good thing for you that I’m slightly masochistic. So I’ll shower, eat breakfast, then go. Unless,” Schuldig took on a sultry expression, voice, and posture, “there’s something you want us to do together before I shower.”

Normally Crawford reacted to that kind of thing with annoyance. Today, something else mixed in with the annoyance, something he couldn’t understand. He stood up and distanced himself from Schuldig. “No, you can just go shower.”

“Your loss.” Schuldig grabbed some clothing and strutted off to the bathroom. Crawford pretended to himself that he didn’t watch him leave.

Commuters packed the train even tighter at this time in the morning. Crawford really could’ve let him sleep longer.

What the hell had any of that been? Crawford had asked him personal questions that didn’t directly relate to a mission or Schwarz’s ultimate goal, listened to him, showed concern, and did something that proved he’d listened. He still got shivers thinking of that hand on his wrist. Crawford never touched him that intimately unless he absolutely had to.

Had it meant something or how Crawford just wanted to fuck with his head, give him something to think about aside from how flipping his telepathy on and off messed with him?

Schuldig found Crawford sexy and handsome, got hard watching him kill or conquer people, and would fuck him in an instant, but Crawford’s apparent dislike for telepaths made him less attractive. Rosenkreuz practically institutionalized hating telepaths while also using them until they wore out or broke and saw no hypocrisy in it, and Schuldig had been under the direct command of people like that in a team situation before, but Crawford shouldn’t have taken the standard path. Schuldig could do a one-off or a short-term liaison with someone like that but wouldn’t be able to stand it long-term. (Doing a short-term liaison with Crawford but staying on the team after it ended would get weird.)

Not that it mattered when Crawford rarely touched him out of worry over what Schuldig might read off his mind if they got closer. He didn’t want to be read at all, ever, and it didn’t matter to him that denying Schuldig that only made Schuldig even hungrier to do it, to find out what could possibly be that juicy. Probably nothing. Schuldig would probably be disappointed with it if ever got to read it, but that didn’t matter. As a person and a telepath, he had to know.

Though Crawford couldn’t shut him out entirely. He caught glimpses of memories and emotions. While Crawford preferred to keep a cool exterior, the better to look casual as he beat your ass and made it look easy, he had a rage at his core that burst out now and then, which Schuldig found intriguing whenever he felt it. Sometimes Schuldig couldn’t help bringing it upon himself because it gave him such a thrill to crack that hard exterior. He knew Crawford reluctantly cared about him too, more than being teammates required.

This morning Crawford had touched him, and since Schuldig hadn’t had his power it had been essentially meaningless because Crawford would back off again when it wasn’t “safe” for him anymore. Schuldig tried not to feel too bitter about it but couldn’t help it.

He also couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have sex without his telepathy, without feeling what his partner felt. He’d read enough deadheads to have some idea, but it didn’t really compute. What did their opinions matter when they had nothing to compare it to, when they didn’t know how much more it could be?

Should he even try? Fuck Crawford... or don’t fuck him, Schuldig could find someone to have sex with to test it out. Maybe a woman, since Schuldig felt somewhat more heterosexual without his telepathy, even if it would still be a mistake to call him straight. Though it would be hilarious if he and Crawford did have sex while powerless and Schuldig found it disappointing. Even Crawford’s massive ego might feel the sting of that.

Schuldig felt his telepathy start to return and finally fully return at about the same distances as yesterday, something he’d deliberately checked out for because he was just that awesome an operative, thanks. He disembarked from the train at the same station and took the same seat away from everyone else as he started his scan for information.

The people he’d noted yesterday who survived to see today mostly scurried about in a panic as a result of Schwarz’s mayhem. Most of them still thought they belonged to the legitimate anti-psychic effort. Idiots. Nobody knew much more than they did yesterday. Schuldig kept searching the area but felt more and more certain that the real perpetrators had left a while ago and currently enjoyed themselves in peace and obscurity. Tokyo’s other former psychics hadn’t found out anything Schwarz hadn’t had already.

It frustrated the hell out of Schuldig that he couldn’t figure out anything Schwarz could do to fix the situation. Bad enough that spending most of his time without his power left him already feeling helpless.

He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to kill someone.

He wanted to do it as a telepath, something he wouldn’t be for much longer, because it would feel so much better, so much fuller and richer. He could choose someone randomly or telepathically scan them for an excuse, which would be satisfying. It could be someone who hated foreigners, someone who liked the color purple, anything, his choice. Someone he could take his frustrations out on, someone he could feel hurt and die before the person’s brain and life disappeared forever.

But the Brad Crawford voice in his brain told him no, that now was the worst time to randomly kill someone, that his desperation would make him more careless. How much did it suck that he had a Brad Crawford voice in his mind as a party pooper, as if he had a tiny accountant on his shoulder? He hoped Crawford had a corresponding Schuldig voice in his head that advised him to have more fun and mayhem in his life. He hoped Crawford obeyed it at least sometimes.

He hoped it told Crawford off now and then.

Schuldig obeyed the Crawford voice like a good little soldier and just compiled his findings to make a telepathic report to his team.

“Where’s the other one, the redhead?” Takatori asked about three hours into their shift. Takatori couldn’t pronounce Schuldig’s name well and resented the hell out of him for that, as if Schuldig had chosen the name with him in mind. Actually, Schuldig might have if he’d known he’d be serving Takatori eventually, but he hadn’t so he didn’t so Takatori was being childish and unreasonable as usual.

“He’s following up a lead, sir,” Crawford answered.

“For a second day? I hired all of you. Having only three of you here violates our contract.”

Crawford couldn’t wait for the day when Schwarz would get to betray him and hoped like hell this asshole would die painfully as a result, something he hadn’t foreseen far enough in advance to know yet. “He’ll be coming in a little later.”

~ Hi, team, ~ Schuldig suddenly said into the team’s reestablished mental link. ~ All the dumbasses we raided last night are stirred up but don’t realize they didn’t have the actual machine. I haven’t found anyone new, which is frustrating the hell out of me... and you, no doubt. I’m still thinking the actual perpetrators are elsewhere, but I came up with another possibility: Eszett. ~

Hell no. But possible, yes. Eszett might be testing them in particular or all the psychics in Tokyo. They had to consider the prospect. It might be looking to see whether its agents bothered to mention it happening too.

At least the way the machine or whatever affected everyone in Tokyo would prevent the Eszett in that scenario from sending agents in because they’d know they’d lose their powers, and if Eszett called Schwarz out of Tokyo to report Schwarz would regain theirs.

Crawford let Schuldig know that he’d think about it and the ramifications. Also, that Takatori demanded Schuldig’s presence and that Crawford had told him Schuldig was chasing a lead.

Schuldig sighed. ~ Of course Takatori does. And what lead? ~

Schuldig could think of one on the way back.

~ No, you’re gonna help. If you throw me under the bus I’ll pull you under with me. You’re our leader, so you need to take responsibility anyway. ~

He would too, the brat. How about that new gang they’d heard wanted to take over that downtown territory?

~ That’s doable. ~

Crawford felt a surge of something come from Farfarello’s mind but couldn’t quite make it out when he didn’t have his own psychic sensitivities boosting the mindlink.

~ And thanks, Farf. Toyokawa probably spurred Takatori on about my absence, the sick fuck. ~

Mr. Toyokawa headed one of the shadier groups Takatori did things with and had been here this morning, but Crawford hadn’t noticed him doing anything unusual that could be connected to Schuldig’s absence. What had Farfarello seen that he hadn’t? The three members of Schwarz hadn’t split up at any time.

~ Toyokawa has a twisted thing for me, mostly in that he wants to torture and rape me with knives to punish me for walking around here looking and acting the way I do. I’ve consulted with Farfarello in the past about it since Farfarello is into the whole torture-with-knives scene himself. When he’s around, Toyokawa spends a lot of time looking at me and fantasizing in detail, while I don’t shield against hearing it because I don’t want him to take me by surprise someday. ~

Schuldig had never told Crawford about any of that.

~ If I came to you every time someone thought nasty things in my direction I’d never leave your side. I’m a big boy. And I’m just waiting for a good excuse to kill Toyokawa. But you do realize that if I have to be around Takatori with you the whole time so he’ll keep his yap shut I won’t be able to do another morning commute to telepathy and finding out more about our situation that way. ~

Fucking Takatori.

~ Fuck him? Not me, not in a million years. All right, I’m coming back. If Takatori takes you guys out somewhere, give me a phone call so I can show up there instead. Ugh, a phone call. How the mighty have fallen. See ya later. ~

Hours seemed to pass slower than usual. Part of it might come from how much harder he focused to make sure his performance level appeared to remain the same as when he had his power, but some of it came from how he missed having the team mindlink functioning so they could talk, plot, and snark amongst themselves without anyone else nearby hearing. It passed the time. Besides, sometimes Takatori and his cohorts did something so stupid that if you didn’t laugh it out or sigh over it somewhere you felt like you might explode.

Takatori didn’t go out for anything other than lunch, so Crawford didn’t have to call Schuldig to tell him to go somewhere else. About four hours after Schuldig contacted them telepathically, he rejoined the team. Takatori greeted him with an annoyed “It’s about time. What do you have to show for your time away?”

“Everyone’s claiming not to know anything, sir,” Schuldig answered with no trace of the contempt and anger he felt for the man. “I busted a few heads in though. Maybe it’ll make an impression on that upstart gang.”

“Of course they didn’t talk to you. It was a waste of time. Crawford, if you have plans to send a member of your team away in the future, run them by me for approval first.”

Crawford hoped Takatori would have a long, painful, and embarrassing death. Maybe he’d let Abyssinian kill him after all; Abyssinian’s years of hating and angry brooding on revenge had surely given him ideas on how to give Takatori such an end. Besides, it’d be funny when he realized that Takatori didn’t even remember him or his family, their deaths and his sister’s coma having resulted from just another evening of casual murder and evil. Schuldig had laughed until he almost choked when he realized from his mindreading that Takatori never gave a thought to the Fujimiyas from how little impression what he’d done to them had made on him.

It wasn’t until Schwarz went off shift that night that Crawford could ask, “Did you really talk to people and ‘bust a few heads’? He might check.”

Schuldig looked weary as he answered, “Yeah, I did, because I figured he’d check. Besides, I needed to vent on somebody, so I chose a few somebodies.”

Once their apartment door closed behind them, Nagi said, “I can’t live like this for much longer.”

As Schuldig raided their liquor cabinet, he replied, “If something’s on too high a shelf for you or you can’t open a jar, you could always ask Farfarello for help,” which made Farfarello snicker.

“I don’t need telekinesis to smother you in your sleep!” Nagi answered. “And without your power, you’re much easier to sneak up on. I’m not helpless.”

“Peace,” Crawford said.

“We always bicker,” Schuldig replied as he chose a bottle of whiskey.

“Yes, but we’re not usually this tired and frustrated. I don’t want us to take things too far with each other.”

“I’m less irritated like this,” Farfarello said, “but I miss the knowing. It helps me know where His minions are and chastise them to death, thus the irritation is worth it.”

They all looked to Crawford for leadership and answers--literally in this case--so he said, “I know that we’ve hit a wall and haven’t found out anything new that can help us, but we’ll keep looking. We will get our powers back. Tonight we’ll get some sleep to make up for last night and because today obviously wore us down, and tomorrow we’ll continue looking.”

“Despite Takatori’s interference,” Schuldig said as he slumped on the couch with the whiskey bottle and two glasses, each containing a single ice cube.

“Yes. We’re not giving up.”

“Glad to hear it,” Nagi replied as he walked to his bedroom. “Good night.”

“Hey, Crawford, have a drink with me,” Schuldig said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Crawford answered.

“Fuck you. I don’t have my telepathy and I’m not currently on pain meds, so I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to drink more than usual. I won’t get wasted. Besides, after the last two days I need some serious drinking. Take a glass so I won’t be drinking alone, which I’ve heard is a sign of a drinking problem.”

“I’d like some whiskey,” Farfarello said as he crouched down near Schuldig. “Also, that way Crawford could say yea or nay and you still wouldn’t be drinking alone.”

If that hadn’t already bent Crawford’s brain, the fond smile Schuldig directed toward Farfarello in response made it worse and made him say, “That’s really not a good idea. Good night, Farfarello.”

Farfarello looked rebellious. “I’m not sleepy.”

Worse and worse. “It’s an order. If you keep on like this I’ll escort you to your room myself and put you in your straitjacket.”

Schuldig better not say a thing against it or countermand him. Fortunately, he didn’t.

For a scary moment Farfarello appeared to be considering further defiance but finally he answered, “I’m misunderstood,” as he stood up and walked away. Crawford watched him go to his room and close the door. Crawford then locked the door from the outside.

“Paranoid much?” Schuldig asked as he drank a bit.

Schwarz had one leader. Schwarz only needed one leader. Schuldig currying favor with Farfarello--and undermining Crawford’s hold on their berserker--could only lead to trouble. While Schuldig often said that he didn’t want to have anything to do with the administrative and asskissing parts of a team leadership job, he sometimes acted in ways that suggested he wanted a power base of his own within the team.

Somehow Schuldig had kept under the radar at Rosenkreuz. He’d gotten into enough trouble to get some citations and punishments but not enough to be put down permanently, he hadn’t seemed ambitious enough to be threatening to a team leader but hadn’t goofed off enough to get labeled a slacker, and his grades had put him in the middle of his classes. When Crawford had asked his superiors for information on the telepath he was getting--the telepath his precognition told him he’d have to accept to attain his ultimate goal--the picture they’d provided often didn’t match the character Crawford came to eventually know.

Though at least they’d correctly tagged Schuldig as smart and an occasional pain in the ass.

A team telepath not only pulled information from strangers, enemies, targets, and “clients” and planted disinformation in them where necessary but also in many ways watched and maintained the team, keeping them focused and occasionally fed, lancing any festering emotions they held back so they wouldn’t explode later, caretaking.... Schuldig didn’t appear obviously ingratiating and could be abrasive, yet Crawford noticed how he somehow managed to endear himself to the others anyway. He had charisma.

Crawford knew he had Nagi in his pocket from being the one to rescue/recruit him, and Nagi didn’t seem to entirely get Schuldig or his teasing and thus didn’t entirely trust him...

...but did reluctantly feel some loyalty to him.

Schuldig appeared to be gaining much more ground with Farfarello and seemingly had a unique bond with him....

“You don’t actually give him drinks, do you?” Crawford asked.

“Sometimes I do, but not in excess and not when we have him on meds. It’s not like I go out and get him wasted. He’s an adult and a person. You have to give people a carrot sometimes to get them to do things since they tend to turn on you eventually if you only give hit them with a stick.” Schuldig gave him a penetrating look then said, “I’m not buying his favor with booze. There’s nothing for you to be jealous or worried about.”

“I’m not.”

“Really? Besides, even at his best Farfarello spends at least a few moments now and then fantasizing about stabbing me.” Schuldig waved the bottle at him. “Sit down, relax, and have a drink. If you think Nagi and me bickering could lead to bad things, you really don’t want the two of us to start arguing.”

“True. All right.” Crawford accepted a full glass from Schuldig and raised it as he sat down nearby. “Cheers.”

Schuldig raised his glass to Crawford’s and clinked them. “Erst mach' dein' Sach, dann trink' und lach! Prost!”

“Are you using German tonight from being cut off from the locals’ thoughts or are you putting it on for effect?”

“Kiss my ass. And both. Drink your whiskey.”

Crawford did so. They drank quietly but companionably for a while.

Unfortunately, the whiskey couldn’t relax Crawford much. While it had been something of a relief to have easy duties the last two days while his team got used to working without their powers, it had given him too much time to think, and those thoughts still haunted him. “If you face any more Toyokawa-like situations in the future, I’d like you to tell me about them,” Crawford said softly. “That includes Toyokawa himself thinking more of those thoughts around you.” It bothered him that someone would dare harbor such thoughts about his telepath. In front of him, no less.

“Why?”

“You tell me when people think predatory thoughts about Nagi.”

“Nagi’s a kid, and we’re kind of his guardians, so that’s different.”

“I’m responsible for the both of you.”

“When the opportunity comes, I’d rather kill the sick fuck myself.” Suddenly Schuldig straddled Crawford’s lap and faced him in extreme close-up, his preternatural speed apparently unaffected by the machine that had taken away their psychic powers. The surprise made Crawford’s heart painfully skip a beat. Without his precognition to warn him, Crawford had no chance of avoiding him, avoiding this, which was unfair as hell but since when had life been fair?

He didn’t say anything about it being unfair when he didn’t have his precognition because he knew Schuldig would just scoff at the idea of being “fair” and because Schuldig could say that he felt so sorry for Crawford being reminded of his power loss when every second of the day Schuldig got reminded about his lack of telepathy.

Leaning forward, smiling, blue eyes glinting, Schuldig asked, “So ‘responsibility’ is what you feel toward me? Are you certain?”

Taunting him. Daring him. Prior experience had taught Schuldig that Crawford would react to this kind of thing by pushing him away or turning him down cold, taught him that he could leave the top buttons of his shirt undone to flaunt his bare collarbones or be a warm, tantalizing, moving weight on Crawford’s lap and nothing would come of it.

Schuldig deserved to get a surprise in return.

Crawford put an arm around Schuldig’s waist to pull him in closer and kissed him. The kiss started out hard and punishing, a show of just power, but something made Crawford start to gentle it. Maybe it had something to do with how soft Schuldig’s lips felt against his or how having him this close made Crawford... want things. Intimate things. Close things. Damn it, part of him enjoyed having Schuldig close like this, as a warm armful and arousing lapful. He wanted him, and Schuldig had to feel that prodding him.

Schuldig didn’t fight him off but didn’t respond and kiss back either. Schuldig just accepted it, and the idea that Schuldig might not be willing--that his time in Rosenkreuz might have taught him to just put up with a team leader’s sexual advances--took a lot of the enjoyment out of it. How could Crawford feel so disappointed when he hadn’t even realized he felt these things until a few seconds again? Whatever, he stopped kissing, gently pushed Schuldig back, and loosened his grip.

Wide-eyed, Schuldig said, “That was not where I thought this would lead.”

Although he felt somewhat cold and bitter, Crawford managed to keep his voice level as he replied, “Apparently.”

“What was that?” Without his telepathy, he obviously had no idea what chaotic emotions currently surged through Crawford.

That meant that Crawford could hide them or lie to protect himself. He could call the grab-and-kiss an experiment or an act of spite to get Schuldig back for all the teasing. He could say that he had no interest in Schuldig at all or that he wanted a casual fuck. He didn’t have to take the chance of getting rejected, pitied, or laughed at. (He might be Schwarz’s leader, but Schuldig didn’t always spare his dignity.)

Then again, he didn’t know exactly what he felt, though the possibilities made him look at some past decisions he’d made or beliefs he’d held about his relations with Schuldig in a new light. Not touching Schuldig much for the whole time he knew him had let him put off tonight’s revelation for years.

Schuldig started to look angry, and it only increased as the silence stretched because Crawford continued to fail to know what to answer. Standing up in a rush, Schuldig said, “It’s because I’m ‘safe’ now, isn’t it? No inconvenient telepathy to have to block against or deal with. But lacking telepathy doesn’t make me stupid. Am I supposed to be flattered by your attention? Am I not supposed to realize that all your care, concern, and physical contact with me will stop when we get our powers back?”

Crawford grabbed Schuldig’s wrist and tried to figure out what to say, knowing he had to talk fast and finding himself uncharacteristically struggling to do so. He managed to say, “I wouldn’t underestimate you like that. I don’t hate your telepathy. Don’t go.”

Schuldig had hidden his ambition from Rosenkreuz... but so had Crawford, at least he’d successfully hidden his ultimate ambition. In a way, every member of Schwarz had ambitions and only survived because of them, including self-injuring Farfarello. If Schuldig hadn’t been able to hide his ambition from Rosenkreuz he probably wouldn’t have been able to hide Crawford’s either. Many times Crawford actually appreciated and made use of the way that Schuldig could credibly stand in as Schwarz’s leader.

When Schuldig’s anger still grew, and he was obviously about to pull his arm out of Crawford’s grasp, Crawford realized that he’d been counting on Schuldig to read at least the edges of what he’d had been thinking and react to it. With his power, Schuldig usually did that... but he didn’t currently have his power. Crawford would have to save the situation through talk, no matter what it cost him.

“Don’t go. I don’t hate your telepathy, and I don’t hate you for being a telepath,” Crawford repeated. “You’re an important part of the team, and I’m only starting to realize how important you are to me personally. I’m not completely sure what that kiss was because I’m still working it out myself.”

As the anger faded and turned into a thoughtful look, Schuldig stayed in place and let Crawford continue to hold onto his wrist. “You’ve spent a lot of time telling us you’re omniscient.” It sounded light, almost teasing.

“I’ve been feeling less omniscient over the last two days.”

Schuldig smiled instead of smirked. “Nice of you to admit it. Personally important?”

“Yes, and I won’t go into denial of all this when we get our powers back.”

“You better not.”

Crawford could tell that Schuldig didn’t entirely trust him on that, and he couldn’t entirely blame him for that, not with what they’d seen of humanity and what Schuldig’s power let him hear of it, not with the upbringing they’d gotten from Rosenkreuz. But, all that aside, Schuldig hadn’t laughed at him, pitied him, or rejected his overture. He seemed to want Crawford back... which made Crawford want to push to see how far Schuldig would let him go.

“No, no, no, get that look off your face,” Schuldig said. “That’s not happening until we get our powers back. If deadhead sex turns out to be as limited and disappointing to someone used to sex with telepathy as I expect it is, you really don’t want me to associate that with our first time together.”

Nettled, Crawford answered, “It could be magical.”

“You don’t want to take the chance of leaving me sexually dissatisfied. I’m not the type to shut up and protect a guy’s ego. See it as another incentive to get us our powers back as soon as possible.” Schuldig’s expression turned more serious. “Besides, I’m not the same person I usually am.”

“You don’t seem much different to me.”

“Good, because I’ve been working hard at that.” He took advantage of Crawford’s moment of surprise to gently remove Crawford’s hand from his wrist and kiss it, his lips soft and hot. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Once Schuldig left the room, Crawford wondered if that meant Schuldig’s current yes could turn into a no when he got his telepathy returned, a thought that made the Schuldig voice in his head cackle evilly.

Having wanted to get drunk, it disappointed Schuldig that he only felt tipsy. But he couldn’t have sat there continuing to drink with Crawford after the kiss and talk, and he needed to be clearheaded to think about this so he couldn’t drink more alone in his bedroom.

Crawford really would do anything to force him to act more responsibly.

It could have been worse: all that could have gone down after he’d gotten drunk. That would’ve guaranteed the maximum amount of mess possible, which is actually why Crawford wouldn’t have made that move on him when he was drunk. Wouldn’t have taken advantage. The aftereffects would screw the team up too badly. Nagi especially....

Plus, Schuldig didn’t think he became a slutty drunk. At least not when he didn’t have an insistently slutty drunk riding along his brain. (Underlined note to self: Don’t stalk Kudou during one of his bar crawls then go directly to Crawford, and not just because the kitty could be so pathetic at times.)

A part of him couldn’t entirely believe Crawford’s confession and wondered if Crawford did it because Schuldig didn’t have his power, wouldn’t know any better, and could thus by messed with. Only a small part, because as contentious as their relationship would sometimes be, Crawford wouldn’t strike at him with a method that demanded a confession of soft, squishy, personal feelings. If he took it back later, the team would wonder about his mental stability. It would especially endanger his relationship with Nagi.

Weird to have Nagi saving his hash in two hypothetical situations. Who knew?

Unfortunately, that thinking reminded him of how uncharacteristic Crawford’s confession had been. Schuldig might not be the only person who completely changed his mind when their powers returned, and not just based off of Crawford’s usual distrust of intimacy with telepaths.

It all gave Schuldig quite a headache. Crawford better be a god in the sack.

That brought Schuldig back to wondering over his own reaction and feelings. While he occasionally lusted after Crawford and harbored some soft, squishy feelings of his own, would it really be worth it to start some kind of long-term sexual and, especially, emotional relationship with Crawford? With his team leader? Team Leader’s Pet had benefits and disadvantages, though that assumed that Crawford would even factor his emotions for Schuldig into team decisions. He compartmentalized very well.

Listening to his own thoughts, Schuldig had to smirk at himself. He obviously didn’t have to worry about being so lovestruck that he lost all sense. His smirk faded as he acknowledged that his emotions currently felt duller and less immediate to him and he had no choice but to listen to his own thoughts since he couldn’t even escape or alleviate the tedium by letting his mind drift to hear everyone else.

Though being powerless had some small benefits: he’d been enjoying his music collection in a new way now that he could hear so much more without the other noise in his head. Besides, having the voices gave him a small taste of what life usually sounded like in his head. He’d have to find another opportunity to drink more too.

How long would this go on for? He didn’t want to live like this. This uncertain thing with Crawford just gave him another reason to want his telepathy back immediately.

He did hope that some aspects of Crawford’s current personality continued, since Crawford had become less smug and distant and more attentive and caring without his precognition. It had been nice having that talk this morning, with Crawford taking an interest in him and his wellbeing and even asking how his telepathy worked for him and what it meant to him. He might be able to fall in love with that guy, and it’d be a shame to lose him forever.

Touching (and kissing) him, where usually Crawford would only place an occasional hand on his clothed shoulder, give him a shove to get him out of the path of a bullet, or smack the back if his head. As cheesy as it might sound, Schuldig couldn’t forget how that kiss had felt.

Sitting on his bed staring into space, Schuldig hoped he’d be able to sleep and wouldn’t be troubled by his worries and uncertainties playing in loops in his head all night. At least he wouldn’t have to go out in the morning for a too brief taste of telepathic power followed by another voluntary return to this.

At breakfast, Nagi and Farfarello got a big laugh when Schuldig realized that he didn’t actually like a food he usually enjoyed at breakfast. Crawford had noticed that Schuldig couldn’t handle eating some Japanese dishes as well since losing his telepathy, although he tried to hide it. Schuldig kidded around with them about it but Crawford could tell that it bothered him a bit.

He felt much less sympathy after Schuldig threw a dish towel at him when he had his back turned. Since he couldn’t see or foresee it, he didn’t dodge it so it lightly hit the back of his head, resulting in more amusement for his team.

Three days passed with few leads from the internet or the grapevine, and what they did investigate turned out to nothing or another red herring, leaving them team frustrated and increasingly worried. You’d think they’d start to get used to life without their powers, at least a little, but they couldn’t acclimate. Without the mindlink they felt less cohesive as a team and more alone in their own skins. On missions they had to use headsets, as if they were Weiß, an indignity that never faded. Furthering the indignity, they occasionally became wounded in situations they’d normally dance through. Never seriously wounded, mostly grazes, but that didn’t matter. Though they were good operatives, without their powers they were mere echoes of how proficient they should be and they knew it all too well.

Although he should want this situation fixed no matter who got it done, he couldn’t feeling a certain satisfaction that Tokyo’s other psychics sucked far more than Schwarz did.

The two times Toyokawa came by Crawford saw the man occasionally sending creepy looks in Schuldig’s direction while Schuldig ostentatiously ignored them. Crawford’s rage at Toyokawa for daring to think such things at his telepath mixed in with annoyance at himself that he’d never noticed them before. If the asshole had somehow gotten the upper hand on Schuldig, Crawford would never have thought to investigate him for it and it would’ve been up to Farfarello to bring it up, all of which galled.

Things had cooled off a bit between Crawford and Schuldig, perhaps from both of them thinking about how much differently they might feel when their powers returned. Crawford couldn’t stop thinking about it though and suspected that Schuldig suffered the same way. Schuldig didn’t flirt with him at all, where usually he made flirtatious comments or a variety of physical advances. He hadn’t realized how often Schuldig flirted with him until it stopped completely.

Schuldig had said that he missed his “soap operas.” One of the ways he got through the days of having to deal with Takatori was by telepathically listening to the personal dramas of his visitors, allies, and henchmen: who was backstabbing whom, who was having an affair, who had a torrid obsession with his male second-in-command, to the major disapproval of his wife....

Three days. Nagi, feeling useless, became more withdrawn and spent almost all his free time scouring the internet for leads. While it worried Crawford somewhat, at least Nagi funneled it into something productive.

Although the loss of his psychic power initially made Farfarello less homicidal, the increasing frustration in the team led to him needing to go out on killing sprees at times to work off his agitation. Figuring that it would be better for him to work out his violence on strangers instead of himself and the team, Crawford let him go, with Schuldig supervising and reining him in, though Crawford couldn’t help noticing that Schuldig returned nearly as blood-spattered, though at least it didn’t seem to be his blood.

When they returned tonight, it was the same thing. Noticing the look on Crawford’s face, Schuldig said, “Nobody saw us.” He had a particularly long smear of drying blood along his right cheekbone, looking dark against his unusually pale skin.

“One of last night’s kills was mentioned in the newspaper.”

“Near the middle, not near the front. Also, it’s more difficult to find people who won’t be missed when I don’t have telepathy, while Farfarello doesn’t want to wait that long and you know how he can get.”

Although Farfarello should have left to shower off, he stayed in the room, watching and listening, instead, his continuing presence scraping at Crawford’s nerves. “Farfarello, go clean up. This discussion is between me and Schuldig.”

“It’s talking about me and my actions, so it involves me,” Farfarello said mildly, but Crawford couldn’t interpret the look in his eye.

“It’s talking about what I sent Schuldig out to do. Farfarello, leave and wash up. That’s an order.”

Farfarello better not-- Damn it, he did it. Instead of obeying his team leader’s order, he looked to Schuldig for guidance, and Crawford was even less in the mood for that kind of shit than usual. Before Crawford could do anything in response, Schuldig said, “Farfarello, go. Right now you’re just making it worse for the both of us. Crawford, he’s been taking directions from me for hours and he’s still in that mode.”

Without another word or even a defiant look, Farfarello disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door, not even slamming it. Crawford heard the shower turn on, and Farfarello better be under it.

After what had just happened in front of him, Crawford needed a minute to collect himself and his thoughts. Wanting to hear how Schuldig would try to explain it all, Crawford asked, “What the hell is going on?” It came out sounding a lot more reasonable than he felt.

“We’re all on edge, and it’s making us twitchy. I don’t want the team to self-destruct over something one of us says or does while we’re not totally ourselves. I think he’s worried about me but showing it in a way that ticks you off.”

Crawford saw two ways he could react to that. One involved laying down iron-fisted discipline at a time when they all felt volatile and had to keep a united front in case Eszett stepped in. The other involved him working to keep the mood calm. He chose the second option and asked, “Does he have reason to be?”

“Probably not. You know my current problems. Some sadistic killing helps a bit, so I did that last night and tonight. It’s not like I haven’t done it before. It just takes a little more effort now.”

Schuldig had told him a lot, but Crawford got the feeling he hadn’t told him everything that was wrong with him as a non-telepath. Nobody threw off all Rosenkreuz training about showing absolutely no weakness overnight. “None of the blood on you is yours?”

“None. I just did these close-up, so it got messy. As for your ongoing recent thing about Farfarello.... He just knows that of the two of us--you and me--I’m the one who usually lets him have more fun. You don’t have to worry about the chain of command. You know that he just enjoys tugging at his leash sometimes; it’s part of the sadomasochistic relationship he has with the world.”

Crawford turned as he heard the bathroom door open and saw Farfarello walk out naked aside from a towel wrapped around his hair and headed to his room. Seeing him, Schuldig muttered, “We really need to feed that boy more carbs.”

Crawford waited until Farfarello closed the door behind him before asking, “You still think nothing’s going on with him over you?” How could Schuldig not see it when it walked past him naked? Did he really lose that much knowledge of human behavior when he didn’t have his telepathy?

(Was it unrequited? Did it go both ways?)

Had this thing with Farfarello been going on before and Crawford hadn’t noticed it, like he hadn’t noticed Toyokawa’s prurient interest in Schuldig? If it had, why hadn’t be noticed?

He needed to find out.

“What are you-- Wait, you think something’s going on with-- Are you jealous?” Schuldig looked so genuinely surprised.

“No!” He wasn’t, was he? Everything he worried about related to team dynamics, member discipline, and respect for his authority.

Smirking, Schuldig asked, “Are you wondering whether you have cause to be?”

He refused to ask. He refused to wonder or imagine.

“Farfarello does get so excited during his sprees,” Schuldig said as he set his fingers against his bare neck and slowly drew them down his chest, sensual, smearing some of the blood on his shirt. “When he’s so enthusiastic and forceful, how can I say no? He just pushes me and....” He didn’t say another word, wanting Crawford to fill in the blanks.

Crawford refused to let his face show his inner turmoil, which might protect him since Schuldig couldn’t read his mind. Then again, Schuldig knew him.

“Nothing happened,” Schuldig finally said, perhaps in disappointment that he didn’t get a reaction. “Nothing ever happened. You really think he’s interested though. Maybe I should give him another look.”

“Now you’re just trying to tick me off.”

“Farfarello has always been the ‘come as you are’ type, and he’s never been afraid to touch me. Unlike some.”

“He’s also likely to stick a knife in you for fun.”

“Yeah, well, I can relate.” He put that hand behind his neck and rubbed, obviously tired and in some pain. “It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m tired and really bloody, and the bathroom is free, so it’s shower time followed by bedtime for me. If tonight had us as our usual selves, I’d ask you if you wanted to take a sexy shower with me and you’d say no.”

“Are you asking?” After the turn the conversation had recently taken, he’d answer with an emphatic no. But he should be accustomed to Schuldig’s mood shifts by now.

Yet Schuldig didn’t have a smooth offhand answer, the way he usually did, and didn’t look Crawford in the eye. Did he only really flirt when he didn’t expect anything and it didn’t matter? Finally Schuldig answered, “No, I’m not asking. Nothing’s changed. I’ll even bring a pair of pajamas in with me so you won’t get a free show like Farfarello gave us. Good night, Crawford.”

Having probably gotten about as many answers out of Schuldig as he could expect tonight, he let him go but still wanted more information, even if he didn’t like what he’d have to do to get it. He knocked on Farfarello’s bedroom door. Farfarello sighed and said, “I expected this. Come in, Crawford.”

When Crawford walked in, he felt some relief that Farfarello had put on pajama bottoms. While some people felt weaker and intimidated while naked, Farfarello came off as more threatening and even challenging that way. He also often saw his nudity as a darkly funny joke he was playing on the viewer. Crawford would have found his attitude distracting.

“You have a distinctive knock,” Farfarello said, answering the question Crawford didn’t want to ask. He sat cross-legged on his very solid, bolted-to-the-floor bed; in the past he’d turned cots and futons into lethal weapons. “You’re done browbeating Schuldig, so now it’s my turn?”

“I have questions about what you two got up to tonight.”

“Of course you do. What do you want to know?” Apparently Farfarello wouldn’t volunteer information without hearing direct questions first.

Crawford would have to ask the right questions. “Does he often kill people alongside you when I send him out to supervise your killing sprees?” Keeping in mind Farfarello’s previous delays in answering, Crawford said, “Tell me because I’m asking for his good and the team’s. I need to know what’s going on with him. You told me yourself that you expected him to have problems without his telepathy.”

Although he seemed reluctant, Farfarello said, “Sometimes he kills, sometimes he doesn’t. Depends on whether he’s in a mood. When he’s in a mood, he says he should take advantage of your permission to tear people up. Tonight and last night were different. All that blood on him didn’t come from him choosing juicier victims; he needed to get in very close as he killed to feel their pain and death and make sure it seemed real. That’s new. And worrisome. And I’m saying that, when I’m not the perfect picture of mental health.”

“How far does your interest in Schuldig go?”

Farfarello said nothing, just smiled widely and darkly.

“If you were trying something, he didn’t notice,” Crawford said.

“You just brought it to his attention tonight, so I thank you for that.”

Growling at him wouldn’t get Crawford anywhere. “You’re not good for his stability.”

“Some of his other choices are worse for him. Get him his telepathy back and don’t act like an idiot to him once he has it. If you don’t do both of those things, I’ll always be here for him. Then we’ll be together.” The way he said it, it sounded like a threat with dire consequences for Crawford.

If Farfarello ran off with Schuldig Crawford would have to hunt them down, partly for his own satisfaction and partly from how Eszett would eventually find out and hunt them down then scrutinize Schwarz even closer. Schwarz’s plans wouldn’t survive intense scrutiny the way Eszett preferred to do it.

“You won’t get the opportunity for any of that,” Crawford said.

“It annoys me that I have to make threats instead of just taking care of the situation, but you’re too useful for me to remove unless there’s no other choice.”

It could be difficult to punish or discipline a man who enjoyed such things, and striking at Farfarello’s major vulnerability--his beliefs about God--only gave unpredictable results. It’d also be harder to hang Farfarello upside-down without Nagi’s telekinesis.

“Lead well and you’ll have few problems with me,” Farfarello said. “My other team leaders didn’t learn that.”

A madman mostly approved of his leadership. Wonderful. Eszett demanded blind, self-sacrificing loyalty, but Crawford didn’t run his team exactly that way and didn’t want to. It was easier in some ways to run things Eszett’s way, but Eszett had hundreds of warm bodies to slot into places while Crawford had to choose his teammates carefully.

“Don’t get too above yourself, Farfarello.” Crawford would be watching him even more carefully from now on.

Schuldig had told himself that would get easier and he’d get used to this, but it didn’t seem to be working like that. Tonight’s kills hadn’t helped, just as last night’s hadn’t. Leaning listlessly against the shower wall, he wondered how much longer he’d be able to hold his sanity together in the absence of his telepathy.

If things got really bad, Farfarello’s room had space enough for two inmates. Though maybe Schuldig would prefer it if Crawford just terminated him.

When Nagi met up with Crawford on his way to breakfast, he said, “Crawford, Weiß is doing recon on one of the leads I found. It looks like they’ll be doing a mission on it soon, maybe tonight.”

Although Crawford didn’t think much of Weiß’s competence, manipulating them away would take concentration and effort a frazzled Schwarz didn’t currently have to spare. They’d have to hope for the best.

Crawford hated it when “hoping for the best” was his only option. “Keep track of their work but don’t try to dissuade them away. We can’t take the chance of them going completely rogue on it.”

Nagi gave him a look and replied, “Things really have gotten bad.”

Their day with Takatori had felt interminable, as usual, but at least they had a night job that would give them an excuse to outsmart and kill people. They’d hit a knot of armed thugs on the second floor and currently exchanged shots with them from behind the cover of boxes and office file cabinets. Crawford felt his own brain seem to turn on and expand, part of it instantly recognizable as the team mindlink switching back on, as Schuldig said, “Yes,” both in his ear and head. Four of the thugs suddenly turned their guns on and shot one another, while Schuldig laughed delightedly. Smiling, Nagi stood up and used telekinesis to smash another three into a nearby wall. Feeling/seeing someone coming up on them from behind, Crawford turned and shot the man. He could see, and it felt glorious.

“Weiß?” Nagi asked, his voice spiked with disbelief.

“Weiß,” Schuldig said. “Bombay blew up the machine. Not that he really knew what it was.... The head guy just returned to Tokyo yesterday, just in time for Red to kill him tonight while saying something pretentious about justice and hell, as usual. Eszett wasn’t responsible for the machine.”

“Can I kill the rest of our targets, or do you three showoffs need to take that away from me too?” Farfarello asked. Did the look in his eye seem somewhat different now that he had his power(s) back, or did Crawford just imagine it?

“Go to it. Enjoy,” Crawford said, while Schuldig said, “They’re on the next floor up.” Farfarello took off for the stairs, murmuring, “I think one of them is even Christian....”

With Farfarello gone, Crawford noticed Schuldig staring at him, expectant. He didn’t need precognition to know what Schuldig wanted to talk about, and his precognition currently refused to give him clues as to what would happen next, no certainties, only that matters balanced on such a fine edge that anything he did or said could throw things off. Though it did tell him that he’d make it home alive, at least with how things stood now.

Well, Schwarz had already disabled all the surveillance cameras and listening devices on the first three floors.

Looking at them, Nagi said, “I can tell I don’t want to be in the room for this,” and left them to go into one of the offices and telekinetically close the door.

“Soooo, me, you, us, telepaths, any thoughts?” Schuldig asked, looking truly like Schuldig again, with bright eyes, light steps, and a smile on his lips that could mean anything. Bubbly. Crawford hadn’t truly realized how bad things had gotten for him in recent days.

Crawford idly wondered if he looked different to Schuldig. “Are you still interested or just toying with me?” Crawford asked.

Schuldig pulled over a nearby office chair, sat on it, and gave it a jaunty spin. “I don’t think we’ll get too far if you still won’t touch me for fear I’ll hunt down your deepest secrets.”

Crawford met caution with caution. “I can see that, though you do have to admit that you hunt down my deepest secrets for fun.”

“When our powers came back on you barely had your shields up yet I didn’t take advantage to hunt out anything.”

“If you weren’t hunting, how do you even know my shielding wasn’t totally up?”

“There are levels of telepathic probing, and I didn’t deep probe. Treasure my honesty! Besides,” Schuldig started laughing, “you’re not as interesting as you think you are. Sorry.”

Crawford felt unwillingly amused but refused to show it. Also, he’d increased his shielding when he realized they’d really gotten their powers back. “So this is what you’ll be like from now on?”

“Not exactly like this. I think the neurochemicals or whatever have to readjust. I am one with everything. I’ll calm down soon. The thing is, which Schuldig were you interested in? The one you’ve had with you every day for years, or the one you knew briefly who was depressed, somewhat freaked out by life, and effectively neutered?”

“When you put it that way, I’m wondering why I’d be interested in either.”

Nagi opened the door and yelled, “Will you just kiss already?”

“Our Nagi is back,” Schuldig said. “The problem is more Crawford than me, kid.”

“Fix it, so we can leave.” Nagi slammed the door shut again.

“I’m not after your secrets, Crawford, though there are some things I can’t help hearing,” Schuldig said. “Telepaths in a bunch suck far more than lone ones like myself. But I’m not gonna beg. It’s on you now. The fact that you’re drawing this out so long is making me wonder.”

Precognition told Crawford that everything hinged on this moment, that he could lose Schuldig over the wrong response, not just for a relationship but as a teammate. He trusted Schuldig with his greatest secret and ambition, a trust Schuldig had upheld, so he should be able to trust Schuldig with this.

Crawford walked over and set his hand on Schuldig’s wrist. “I do trust you, and I want to give this a try.”

Schuldig smiled, genuinely, and stood, letting Crawford’s hand stay. “All right. Good to hear.”

Crawford put an arm around Schuldig’s waist to pull him in closer and kissed him, and this time Schuldig kissed back, which made it much better than their last one. It felt warm, intimate, and necessary.

Smiling, Schuldig asked, “Do you want me to give you a little taste of why I was worried non-telepathic sex might disappoint me? Do you trust me?”

He’d gone in this far, so.... “Yes.”

Schuldig kissed him again, and this time Crawford felt the softness of Schuldig’s lips and his own lips, their hands sliding across each other bodies, Schuldig’s pleasure and his own, and their mutual pleasure kept feeding and increasing each other, spiraling ever higher. Their first kiss days ago had aroused Crawford, but this blew him through the roof. He wanted to fuck, and suddenly he knew that Schuldig kept lubricant and condoms in the top drawer near his bed.

Schuldig pulled away a little and cut off the feed, leaving Crawford with his only own sensations and feelings. And a hard-on.

“Sorry,” Schuldig said softly, almost shyly. “A little too much reverb there. It’s not usually that intense and deep. My control isn’t totally back yet.”

“It’s fine.” It was, and he felt the future settle too. “Let’s take that up again when we get home.”

He wouldn’t know for sure if he liked it if he didn’t try it out very thoroughly.

  ***********************THE END********************** More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room version 3.0 at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/ No-frames but no-frills access available at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/index2.htm Fandoms represented: Weiß Kreuz, Saiyuki, GetBackers, Trinity Blood, Andromeda, due South, Hard Core Logo, Twitch City, X-Files, Once a Thief, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Angel, Two Guys and a Girl (was Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place), X-Men, Smallville, Doctor Who, Fight Club, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine