(no subject)
So, I started going through your Schuldig music, two_point, and after listening to the Radiohead track, I kind of got sidetracked thinking about a story it inspired.
And then I wrote it. All 3,700 words of it. :P
I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it. I'm actually still kind of confused about the whole thing. The muse won't let me tweak it anymore or explain certain things in any deeper detail. You know Schuldig, he always has to keep some air of mystery about him.
Having said that, I'm going to post it and I hope you like it. I might post it to the BXS community; I'd like to see what you make of it first, though. I only understand so much of it because of what he's shown me, but I'm worried it may make even less sense to anyone else.
So I'll shut up now and get to posting.
Title Where I End & You Begin
Rating R
Characters Schuldig (mentions of Crawford; another character makes an appearance but I won't mention that name so as to not ruin the surprise)
Warning Death!fic
Summary Schuldig contemplates how everything went wrong in his last delusional days on earth.
I am up in the clouds
I am up in the clouds
And I can't and I can't come down
I can watch and cant take part
Where I end and where you start
Where I End & You Begin - Radiohead
Of course, Crawford had foreseen this. He'd foreseen everything. The problem, however, was that he hadn't been able to see anything in between. He'd seen the outcome, but not the components. He knew of all the variables, had worked out all the possible equations in his head, but for once the end result just hadn't added up properly. There were holes and gaps and errors in judgment - mistakes.
Schuldig had always known that he would die young (himself, not Crawford). It had never seemed possible for him to live a typical long life. It hadn't seemed possible for any of them. In fact he'd been quite certain that he wouldn't have wanted to live that long. The quarter of a century he'd lived already had been rent with complications and confusion and suffering. Why wish for a repeat?
But this end? He'd never pictured this. He'd always envisioned himself going out in the midst of a gunfight, his straying attention span skipping over the barrel of the gun pointed at his head. It may have been a cowardly way to go out, not having to stare death in the face, but then he'd never deluded himself into thinking that he was gutsy. His life hadn't required strength and daring courage. His life had been the lazy choice, the path of least resistance (after death, of course).
That may seem crazy to anyone else, but he knew that his thoughts were sound. They may have been the only sound thoughts he'd ever had.
But this end? Maybe this was fate's way of waving him goodbye. Maybe this was karmic retribution. Or maybe this was just how things were ending for him based on bad decisions and poor judgment. Maybe this was simply his own fault for not paying proper attention.
Maybe he should find a shoe store and get some proper boots before his feet froze. Maybe he had enough control left for that. Maybe.
He shuffled out of the empty driveway and drew his damp trench coat around him more tightly. He'd have left it behind, but it was clean and covered up the blood stains on his shirt. It didn't quite cover the ones on his pants, but he was okay with that. They'd dried after two days of laying on the floor next to the heater, and he'd scraped most of the flakes off already.
“Now you may ask yourself, why do I need new boots when I have a house with a heater? Image,” he walked along the sidewalk, head down watching for puddles. He didn't realize he was speaking out loud. “If you look the part, and you believe you look the part, they will believe in you, and then you're in, Schuldig. You're in!” He danced around a half-flooded portion of cracked concrete, frowning as his right foot squished into wet grass. “Wrong way,” he chastised himself before managing to find a dry bit of pavement and continuing along his way.
Thoughts swirled in his head that he tried to ignore, but he wasn't sure where they began and where they ended and what belonged to whom.
“Story of my life;” he stopped where he stood and looked up, his head turning left to right and trying to determine which way he wanted to walk.
This city is full of fucking crazies, he's probably homeless too, look at him.
“I'm not homeless.” He didn't know which woman he was talking to - there were three of them standing a few feet from him, all wide-eyed with worry. “I'm not homeless,” he repeated, before asking them “Do you know where I could find a good shoe store? I'm looking for leather boots, mine are falling apart.” He held his left foot up, evidence of his statement clearly showcased by the fact that the sole of his shoe flopped down a few inches. The women backed away, horrified. He watched them scurry off in the opposite direction. Fucking bitches.
He walked in the opposite direction, his eyes scanning the shops. He stopped for a moment, wondering if he should open up completely and try to look for a shoe store the old way. He couldn't bring himself to try, even contemplating that outcome left him shivering and jittery. Maybe he ought to ask someone on the street again? His eyes scanned the people walking by him, looking at their choice in footwear. Why bother with a store? Maybe he should just find someone with boots his size and take them. Why not? He could do it...
But what if he picked someone with the wrong size? What if they were too small? He only had one shot at this, so maybe he ought to find a store instead. He started walking again, his eyes on the sidewalk, dodging puddles. Every half block he stopped and scanned the stores, feeling increasingly desperate. All he wanted were some god damned boots. At this point he'd take fucking moccasins! And new socks. His were wet.
Two blocks (and a few unfortunate stunted conversations) later, and he finally found what he was looking for. He took hold of the door handle, pulling on it with increasing strength. It wouldn't open. Were they closed, then? That would be just his luck. He could always break the window, though that may arouse some suspicion from passersby on the street.
Try pushing the door, moron! No matter how big we make the fucking sign, people still don't see it.
He pushed on the door then, a little harder than was necessary, stumbling into the shop. He met the face of the slightly bewildered shop owner, who was taking in his appearance. Christ, should I call the cops? Is this bum looking to rob me?
Schuldig walked over to the wall rack, grabbing the first boot he saw. “I'm not going to rob you. Do you have these in a size eleven?”
Silence filled the air after his question, though his mind was still buzzing with sound. Coincidence, he didn't know what I was thinking...
“Do these come in eleven or what?” He turned to look at the man, who was still standing by the register, regarding him with a look of disgust. “I'm not homeless.”
The man looked even more stunned, but quickly walked towards him, taking the boot in question from his hand. “Yes, they do. Can you pay?”
If it weren't for the fact that his feet were cold and wet, he may have been offended. Or amused. It really depended on the day. “Can I try them on?”
It was a standoff. Both men rooted to the spot, staring at the other, looks of confusion on their faces. It ended suddenly when Schuldig turned and picked up another display boot. “This one too. I'd like to try both of them.” He thrust it into the arms of the shopkeeper, who nodded and walked towards the back of the store, his eyes still on the shabby looking young man standing there looking lost.
“It's okay I'm not going to steal anything while you're in the other room.” He walked over to one of the chairs and sat down, leaning back and closing his eyes briefly. He didn't like what he saw on the backs of his eyelids so he quickly opened them again, stifling a yawn as he looked down at his feet. He leaned forward, undoing the laces on his shoes. Slowly (because he had little energy) he started pulling them off. They stuck a little because they were wet (maybe he hadn't avoided all the puddles like he'd been trying to do). He pulled off his socks too, leaving them on the floor in a little bundle.
His toes looked funny. The toenails had a blueish tinge to them, and the rest of the foot was slightly wrinkled. He hoped the man sold socks as well.
He looked up as the shopkeeper reemerged with two boxes in his arms, still looking a little nervous.
“Do you sell socks too?” He did not want to have to put his own wet ones back on.
The shopkeeper shot him a look of distress before nodding and laying the boxes down on the chair beside him. He moved back towards the counter where the register was, and Schuldig saw a bin with bundles of dry socks. Maybe karma was only going to nibble his ass instead of bite it.
Schuldig took the socks the man offered and clumsily pulled them over his feet. “It's amazing, dry socks. They're nice,” he mumbled into his lap while he fought with the second sock, finally pulling it up and sitting back to admire his handiwork. A ghost of a smile crested his lips before he opened the box next to him and took out one of the two boots lying inside it. The leather felt soft to his finger, a sign of quality. “Always pick a quality product, Schuldig. Quality over economy. If you can't afford it, take it anyway.” He started pulling the boot on over his freshly socked right foot, sighing when it was all the way on. Perfect fit.
“I told you I'm paying for these.” He reached for the other boot, not bothering to look at the man he'd just spoken to. If he had, he may have laughed at the look of disbelief on his face. “It's not all coincidence. It's never coincidence,” he finished pulling on the left boot and stood up. He walked three paces and nodded. These would do nicely.
He fumbled in the pocket of his coat, pulling out a wad of bills. He leafed three of them away from the rest and pushed them towards the man. “Keep your change,” he turned the moment the bills were taken and made for the door again.
That may have been the weirdest sale I have ever made. Ugh, and he left his old socks and shoes here! What am I supposed to do with those?!
“Throw them away, of course.” Remembering his trouble with the door from the other side, he pulled on the handle and walked out, wondering why the shopkeeper kept contemplating a vacation. The man wasn't crazy. Maybe he just didn't have many conversations? All he'd done was answer the man's questions, after all. He had been speaking out loud all those times, hadn't he? Surely he wasn't mistaking thought for speech? Or was he? He'd always been able to tell the difference before. But then it didn't really matter much. He didn't anticipate having much more in the way of contact with others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was sitting on the floor again beside the heater, admiring his new boots. He'd happily trodden in puddle after puddle on his way back, no longer worried about damp socks and soggy shoes. All he had to worry about now was the pounding in his head. While the new boots were great, he was starting to think it had been a mistake, venturing out into the throng of society. His shields had been wavering before and now they were flickering off and on, and he was lucky there was no one home at the moment. He wouldn't be able to take being around anyone else in his present state.
He stretched out on the carpet, facing the cracked off-white paint of the radiator, listening to the water boiling. He kept thinking that maybe he should have something to eat, but he wasn't hungry. He hadn't been hungry in five days. He was empty and no amount of food would fill him up again. He was surprised no one had come for him. Didn't they know by now? Hadn't any of them seen this coming?
He shouldn't be surprised. Crawford hadn't seen this coming - well he had, but not the way it had happened. In all honesty Schuldig had never really understood when he'd tried to explain, he'd just listened to the desperate ramblings about visions that had woken the precognitive up in the middle of the night. There had been a frenzy in Crawford's voice that had never been there before, a desperate yearning to understand and Schuldig had never helped. Well, maybe he had. What would Crawford have done if he'd not been there every night? Would he have spoken to himself, out loud? Maybe a tape recorder so he could play the conversation back again and again in some anxious attempt to figure out what was happening? Maybe he would have written it down?
Probably not any of those. Crawford did not like to leave evidence around, he had always taken measures to protect himself. So the only method of recording he'd ever employed had been rushing to the telepath's room in those instances, shaking him awake, and spilling everything out in some rushed verbal formula, half of which Schuldig had never quite understood. But Crawford would always make sense of it when he'd ask Schuldig to call up those words from memory. He actually had quite a clear mind when anyone else was looking at it, though it appeared jumbled and disorganized when he himself tried to wade through the mass of memories and noises.
He'd always felt that hadn't been entirely fair.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In retrospect, he probably should have taken his pants off before getting in the bathtub. Then again the stained pink of the water was kind of neat, in a delirium-induced sort of way. But it didn't answer the question of what he was going to wear when he finally got out of the water. He didn't have any other clothes, those were all back at the hotel. He knew already that he wouldn't fit into anything he'd find here, because the people who lived here (had lived here) were Japanese, and nearly a foot shorter than he was. Okay maybe not a foot, but at least a good six or seven inches. The pants would never fit him, and when all you had left was your image, he'd rather be naked than wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes.
At least he had good looking boots.
He'd been in the tub for nearly two hours (re-filling it with hot water three times) and figured that he ought to get out before he succumbed to sleep and drowned. That would not be a fitting end to his life.
He crawled out of the tub (he was in no fit state to stand, not with all the stars he kept seeing exploding in his vision) and spent nearly ten minutes struggling to get out of his wet jeans. If only he'd listened to Crawford and worn the dress pants instead of the tight fitting denim, he wouldn't be engaged in this struggle right now. So maybe Crawford had foreseen this, then, when he'd demanded three times that Schuldig change his pants before leaving the hotel?
From his spot on the floor he looked around the room, spotting towels in the corner. He crawled towards them, frowning when he felt the rough quality of them. A house full of expensive antiquities, and they bought cheap towels? He was not impressed.
Wrapped now in three towels he made his way towards the toilet, where he'd left his socks and boots. It took him another fifteen minutes to struggle into them, though time was the last of his concerns right now. After he was fully dressed he decided to try and stand. He seemed to be alright on his feet (after a brief flash of black) so he left the bathroom and walked back towards the stairs. He paused at the top, looking down the hallway. The door to the room at the end was lying open, and he could see the tip of a booted foot inside, not having moved from its position in five days. He quickly looked away and sat down at the top of the staircase, feeling ill.
Memories rushed through his head, images he'd buried coming back up to the surface. This was not how things were supposed to end for them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was back in front of the radiator now, lying on the carpet, the towels still rough against his skin. He felt cold. Maybe the heater wasn't working anymore? Maybe his body wanted the all-encompassing heat of the bathtub and was trying to get him back upstairs? But that would require him standing up and walking, and right now he felt as though he'd shiver himself into pieces if he moved.
Ten minutes passed before he heard the snick of the front door open (he knew because he'd counted every second) and he listened to the 'click-click-click' of heeled boots walking deliberately towards his location.
In retrospect, he actually should have let himself drown in the bathtub.
“Well, aren't you pathetic? What happened to your clothes? You lose those along with your mind?”
Of course. Who else would be sent to clean up after him but her? Karmic retribution for him fucking things up after all.
“They're wet.”
A short laugh that sounded like icicles fell on him from above, and she knelt down by him. “They told me what happened. They told me what you did.”
He refused to look at her. He kept his eyes on the radiator. “Did you have the heat to the house shut off? The radiator doesn't feel like it's working.”
She snorted, standing up and walking over to the other side of the room. He heard the rustle of fabric as she sat down. “After everything you've done, and a fucking cat is your downfall?”
“Well, did you have the heat shut off? I assume you know I've been here for a while.” All he could think about was the heat, he wasn't willing to allow anything else in his head. He couldn't.
“Of course I've known you were here. I thought I'd give you the chance to off yourself first. Want to hazard a guess why?”
“Laziness?”
“Pity. I actually feel sorry for you.” You'd have never been able to tell that from the tone of her voice, which was fiery and snappy and hostile. “You should have amounted to more, you know. You were skilled.”
“So I've heard,” he curled a little more tightly in on himself, “can you at least get me a blanket?”
He didn't have to see her face to see the look of aggravation on it. The silence told that tale well enough. “You know I'm here to kill you, right? This is not a recovery mission. You've wasted all your chances.”
He didn't answer her.
“But enough about that, I want to talk about what happened five days ago. I still can't believe it. If Colonel Amlisch hadn't shown me what he'd seen, I never would have believed it. But still, how on earth did it happen?”
He didn't answer her. Instead he pressed his hands to the radiator, wrapping them around the piping hot iron. So the heat was still working - perhaps it was his body that was finally shutting down?
“A simple mission, childishly easy. But you and your penchant for dramatics just had to go and ruin the whole thing, didn't it? I still can't believe it, a cat.” She laughed again and all he could do was concentrate on the searing heat beneath his fingers.
“How did it happen, exactly? Why were you even pointing your gun at him?” She paused, waiting for a response. “These aren't rhetorical questions.”
Schuldig pressed his forehead to the radiator as shivers overtook his limbs. He wasn't going to think about it.
“And I'm left wondering that if Crawford really was as powerful as he'd been at school, why didn't he see this? What do you think he would have said to you if he'd seen that in a vision?” She was at his side now, a hand gripping a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back, staring into his face. “What would he say to you? What warning would he give?”
Finally he gave in, letting those memories surface. He closed his eyes and his body shook from chills that had nothing to do with the temperature and he wasn't even sure if he yelled his answer at her or whispered it in his mind. “He'd say, 'Before we get started, go and find that Siamese cat you kicked on the stairs and shoot it',” a rain of icicle laughter invaded his head and he felt his pulse rate increase, and he started gulping air in a manner that he thought had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with molecular manipulation by his least favourite telekinetic in the history of psychic study.
“Silvia, do you know what he did tell me?” He opened his eyes and looked up into her face, which was even more beautiful than he'd ever remembered it.
“What?” She returned his gaze with one of disgust.
“That for all your refined behaviour, your elegant taste, you still fucked like a whore from the slums-”
There was no sound except the crunch of bullet entering skull, because she liked to use a silencer.
She stood up, letting his dead body fall back to the floor. That hadn't felt nearly as rewarding as she'd imagined it would. She fit the gun back into its holster and made for the staircase, needing to witness the stiff corpse of Brad Crawford with her own eyes. Her eyes strayed back to the corpse of the German telepath on the floor, swathed in towels, one end adorned in expensive leather boots, the other end adorned in blood.
“What a waste.”
And then I wrote it. All 3,700 words of it. :P
I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it. I'm actually still kind of confused about the whole thing. The muse won't let me tweak it anymore or explain certain things in any deeper detail. You know Schuldig, he always has to keep some air of mystery about him.
Having said that, I'm going to post it and I hope you like it. I might post it to the BXS community; I'd like to see what you make of it first, though. I only understand so much of it because of what he's shown me, but I'm worried it may make even less sense to anyone else.
So I'll shut up now and get to posting.
Title Where I End & You Begin
Rating R
Characters Schuldig (mentions of Crawford; another character makes an appearance but I won't mention that name so as to not ruin the surprise)
Warning Death!fic
Summary Schuldig contemplates how everything went wrong in his last delusional days on earth.
I am up in the clouds
I am up in the clouds
And I can't and I can't come down
I can watch and cant take part
Where I end and where you start
Where I End & You Begin - Radiohead
Of course, Crawford had foreseen this. He'd foreseen everything. The problem, however, was that he hadn't been able to see anything in between. He'd seen the outcome, but not the components. He knew of all the variables, had worked out all the possible equations in his head, but for once the end result just hadn't added up properly. There were holes and gaps and errors in judgment - mistakes.
Schuldig had always known that he would die young (himself, not Crawford). It had never seemed possible for him to live a typical long life. It hadn't seemed possible for any of them. In fact he'd been quite certain that he wouldn't have wanted to live that long. The quarter of a century he'd lived already had been rent with complications and confusion and suffering. Why wish for a repeat?
But this end? He'd never pictured this. He'd always envisioned himself going out in the midst of a gunfight, his straying attention span skipping over the barrel of the gun pointed at his head. It may have been a cowardly way to go out, not having to stare death in the face, but then he'd never deluded himself into thinking that he was gutsy. His life hadn't required strength and daring courage. His life had been the lazy choice, the path of least resistance (after death, of course).
That may seem crazy to anyone else, but he knew that his thoughts were sound. They may have been the only sound thoughts he'd ever had.
But this end? Maybe this was fate's way of waving him goodbye. Maybe this was karmic retribution. Or maybe this was just how things were ending for him based on bad decisions and poor judgment. Maybe this was simply his own fault for not paying proper attention.
Maybe he should find a shoe store and get some proper boots before his feet froze. Maybe he had enough control left for that. Maybe.
He shuffled out of the empty driveway and drew his damp trench coat around him more tightly. He'd have left it behind, but it was clean and covered up the blood stains on his shirt. It didn't quite cover the ones on his pants, but he was okay with that. They'd dried after two days of laying on the floor next to the heater, and he'd scraped most of the flakes off already.
“Now you may ask yourself, why do I need new boots when I have a house with a heater? Image,” he walked along the sidewalk, head down watching for puddles. He didn't realize he was speaking out loud. “If you look the part, and you believe you look the part, they will believe in you, and then you're in, Schuldig. You're in!” He danced around a half-flooded portion of cracked concrete, frowning as his right foot squished into wet grass. “Wrong way,” he chastised himself before managing to find a dry bit of pavement and continuing along his way.
Thoughts swirled in his head that he tried to ignore, but he wasn't sure where they began and where they ended and what belonged to whom.
“Story of my life;” he stopped where he stood and looked up, his head turning left to right and trying to determine which way he wanted to walk.
This city is full of fucking crazies, he's probably homeless too, look at him.
“I'm not homeless.” He didn't know which woman he was talking to - there were three of them standing a few feet from him, all wide-eyed with worry. “I'm not homeless,” he repeated, before asking them “Do you know where I could find a good shoe store? I'm looking for leather boots, mine are falling apart.” He held his left foot up, evidence of his statement clearly showcased by the fact that the sole of his shoe flopped down a few inches. The women backed away, horrified. He watched them scurry off in the opposite direction. Fucking bitches.
He walked in the opposite direction, his eyes scanning the shops. He stopped for a moment, wondering if he should open up completely and try to look for a shoe store the old way. He couldn't bring himself to try, even contemplating that outcome left him shivering and jittery. Maybe he ought to ask someone on the street again? His eyes scanned the people walking by him, looking at their choice in footwear. Why bother with a store? Maybe he should just find someone with boots his size and take them. Why not? He could do it...
But what if he picked someone with the wrong size? What if they were too small? He only had one shot at this, so maybe he ought to find a store instead. He started walking again, his eyes on the sidewalk, dodging puddles. Every half block he stopped and scanned the stores, feeling increasingly desperate. All he wanted were some god damned boots. At this point he'd take fucking moccasins! And new socks. His were wet.
Two blocks (and a few unfortunate stunted conversations) later, and he finally found what he was looking for. He took hold of the door handle, pulling on it with increasing strength. It wouldn't open. Were they closed, then? That would be just his luck. He could always break the window, though that may arouse some suspicion from passersby on the street.
Try pushing the door, moron! No matter how big we make the fucking sign, people still don't see it.
He pushed on the door then, a little harder than was necessary, stumbling into the shop. He met the face of the slightly bewildered shop owner, who was taking in his appearance. Christ, should I call the cops? Is this bum looking to rob me?
Schuldig walked over to the wall rack, grabbing the first boot he saw. “I'm not going to rob you. Do you have these in a size eleven?”
Silence filled the air after his question, though his mind was still buzzing with sound. Coincidence, he didn't know what I was thinking...
“Do these come in eleven or what?” He turned to look at the man, who was still standing by the register, regarding him with a look of disgust. “I'm not homeless.”
The man looked even more stunned, but quickly walked towards him, taking the boot in question from his hand. “Yes, they do. Can you pay?”
If it weren't for the fact that his feet were cold and wet, he may have been offended. Or amused. It really depended on the day. “Can I try them on?”
It was a standoff. Both men rooted to the spot, staring at the other, looks of confusion on their faces. It ended suddenly when Schuldig turned and picked up another display boot. “This one too. I'd like to try both of them.” He thrust it into the arms of the shopkeeper, who nodded and walked towards the back of the store, his eyes still on the shabby looking young man standing there looking lost.
“It's okay I'm not going to steal anything while you're in the other room.” He walked over to one of the chairs and sat down, leaning back and closing his eyes briefly. He didn't like what he saw on the backs of his eyelids so he quickly opened them again, stifling a yawn as he looked down at his feet. He leaned forward, undoing the laces on his shoes. Slowly (because he had little energy) he started pulling them off. They stuck a little because they were wet (maybe he hadn't avoided all the puddles like he'd been trying to do). He pulled off his socks too, leaving them on the floor in a little bundle.
His toes looked funny. The toenails had a blueish tinge to them, and the rest of the foot was slightly wrinkled. He hoped the man sold socks as well.
He looked up as the shopkeeper reemerged with two boxes in his arms, still looking a little nervous.
“Do you sell socks too?” He did not want to have to put his own wet ones back on.
The shopkeeper shot him a look of distress before nodding and laying the boxes down on the chair beside him. He moved back towards the counter where the register was, and Schuldig saw a bin with bundles of dry socks. Maybe karma was only going to nibble his ass instead of bite it.
Schuldig took the socks the man offered and clumsily pulled them over his feet. “It's amazing, dry socks. They're nice,” he mumbled into his lap while he fought with the second sock, finally pulling it up and sitting back to admire his handiwork. A ghost of a smile crested his lips before he opened the box next to him and took out one of the two boots lying inside it. The leather felt soft to his finger, a sign of quality. “Always pick a quality product, Schuldig. Quality over economy. If you can't afford it, take it anyway.” He started pulling the boot on over his freshly socked right foot, sighing when it was all the way on. Perfect fit.
“I told you I'm paying for these.” He reached for the other boot, not bothering to look at the man he'd just spoken to. If he had, he may have laughed at the look of disbelief on his face. “It's not all coincidence. It's never coincidence,” he finished pulling on the left boot and stood up. He walked three paces and nodded. These would do nicely.
He fumbled in the pocket of his coat, pulling out a wad of bills. He leafed three of them away from the rest and pushed them towards the man. “Keep your change,” he turned the moment the bills were taken and made for the door again.
That may have been the weirdest sale I have ever made. Ugh, and he left his old socks and shoes here! What am I supposed to do with those?!
“Throw them away, of course.” Remembering his trouble with the door from the other side, he pulled on the handle and walked out, wondering why the shopkeeper kept contemplating a vacation. The man wasn't crazy. Maybe he just didn't have many conversations? All he'd done was answer the man's questions, after all. He had been speaking out loud all those times, hadn't he? Surely he wasn't mistaking thought for speech? Or was he? He'd always been able to tell the difference before. But then it didn't really matter much. He didn't anticipate having much more in the way of contact with others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was sitting on the floor again beside the heater, admiring his new boots. He'd happily trodden in puddle after puddle on his way back, no longer worried about damp socks and soggy shoes. All he had to worry about now was the pounding in his head. While the new boots were great, he was starting to think it had been a mistake, venturing out into the throng of society. His shields had been wavering before and now they were flickering off and on, and he was lucky there was no one home at the moment. He wouldn't be able to take being around anyone else in his present state.
He stretched out on the carpet, facing the cracked off-white paint of the radiator, listening to the water boiling. He kept thinking that maybe he should have something to eat, but he wasn't hungry. He hadn't been hungry in five days. He was empty and no amount of food would fill him up again. He was surprised no one had come for him. Didn't they know by now? Hadn't any of them seen this coming?
He shouldn't be surprised. Crawford hadn't seen this coming - well he had, but not the way it had happened. In all honesty Schuldig had never really understood when he'd tried to explain, he'd just listened to the desperate ramblings about visions that had woken the precognitive up in the middle of the night. There had been a frenzy in Crawford's voice that had never been there before, a desperate yearning to understand and Schuldig had never helped. Well, maybe he had. What would Crawford have done if he'd not been there every night? Would he have spoken to himself, out loud? Maybe a tape recorder so he could play the conversation back again and again in some anxious attempt to figure out what was happening? Maybe he would have written it down?
Probably not any of those. Crawford did not like to leave evidence around, he had always taken measures to protect himself. So the only method of recording he'd ever employed had been rushing to the telepath's room in those instances, shaking him awake, and spilling everything out in some rushed verbal formula, half of which Schuldig had never quite understood. But Crawford would always make sense of it when he'd ask Schuldig to call up those words from memory. He actually had quite a clear mind when anyone else was looking at it, though it appeared jumbled and disorganized when he himself tried to wade through the mass of memories and noises.
He'd always felt that hadn't been entirely fair.
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In retrospect, he probably should have taken his pants off before getting in the bathtub. Then again the stained pink of the water was kind of neat, in a delirium-induced sort of way. But it didn't answer the question of what he was going to wear when he finally got out of the water. He didn't have any other clothes, those were all back at the hotel. He knew already that he wouldn't fit into anything he'd find here, because the people who lived here (had lived here) were Japanese, and nearly a foot shorter than he was. Okay maybe not a foot, but at least a good six or seven inches. The pants would never fit him, and when all you had left was your image, he'd rather be naked than wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes.
At least he had good looking boots.
He'd been in the tub for nearly two hours (re-filling it with hot water three times) and figured that he ought to get out before he succumbed to sleep and drowned. That would not be a fitting end to his life.
He crawled out of the tub (he was in no fit state to stand, not with all the stars he kept seeing exploding in his vision) and spent nearly ten minutes struggling to get out of his wet jeans. If only he'd listened to Crawford and worn the dress pants instead of the tight fitting denim, he wouldn't be engaged in this struggle right now. So maybe Crawford had foreseen this, then, when he'd demanded three times that Schuldig change his pants before leaving the hotel?
From his spot on the floor he looked around the room, spotting towels in the corner. He crawled towards them, frowning when he felt the rough quality of them. A house full of expensive antiquities, and they bought cheap towels? He was not impressed.
Wrapped now in three towels he made his way towards the toilet, where he'd left his socks and boots. It took him another fifteen minutes to struggle into them, though time was the last of his concerns right now. After he was fully dressed he decided to try and stand. He seemed to be alright on his feet (after a brief flash of black) so he left the bathroom and walked back towards the stairs. He paused at the top, looking down the hallway. The door to the room at the end was lying open, and he could see the tip of a booted foot inside, not having moved from its position in five days. He quickly looked away and sat down at the top of the staircase, feeling ill.
Memories rushed through his head, images he'd buried coming back up to the surface. This was not how things were supposed to end for them.
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He was back in front of the radiator now, lying on the carpet, the towels still rough against his skin. He felt cold. Maybe the heater wasn't working anymore? Maybe his body wanted the all-encompassing heat of the bathtub and was trying to get him back upstairs? But that would require him standing up and walking, and right now he felt as though he'd shiver himself into pieces if he moved.
Ten minutes passed before he heard the snick of the front door open (he knew because he'd counted every second) and he listened to the 'click-click-click' of heeled boots walking deliberately towards his location.
In retrospect, he actually should have let himself drown in the bathtub.
“Well, aren't you pathetic? What happened to your clothes? You lose those along with your mind?”
Of course. Who else would be sent to clean up after him but her? Karmic retribution for him fucking things up after all.
“They're wet.”
A short laugh that sounded like icicles fell on him from above, and she knelt down by him. “They told me what happened. They told me what you did.”
He refused to look at her. He kept his eyes on the radiator. “Did you have the heat to the house shut off? The radiator doesn't feel like it's working.”
She snorted, standing up and walking over to the other side of the room. He heard the rustle of fabric as she sat down. “After everything you've done, and a fucking cat is your downfall?”
“Well, did you have the heat shut off? I assume you know I've been here for a while.” All he could think about was the heat, he wasn't willing to allow anything else in his head. He couldn't.
“Of course I've known you were here. I thought I'd give you the chance to off yourself first. Want to hazard a guess why?”
“Laziness?”
“Pity. I actually feel sorry for you.” You'd have never been able to tell that from the tone of her voice, which was fiery and snappy and hostile. “You should have amounted to more, you know. You were skilled.”
“So I've heard,” he curled a little more tightly in on himself, “can you at least get me a blanket?”
He didn't have to see her face to see the look of aggravation on it. The silence told that tale well enough. “You know I'm here to kill you, right? This is not a recovery mission. You've wasted all your chances.”
He didn't answer her.
“But enough about that, I want to talk about what happened five days ago. I still can't believe it. If Colonel Amlisch hadn't shown me what he'd seen, I never would have believed it. But still, how on earth did it happen?”
He didn't answer her. Instead he pressed his hands to the radiator, wrapping them around the piping hot iron. So the heat was still working - perhaps it was his body that was finally shutting down?
“A simple mission, childishly easy. But you and your penchant for dramatics just had to go and ruin the whole thing, didn't it? I still can't believe it, a cat.” She laughed again and all he could do was concentrate on the searing heat beneath his fingers.
“How did it happen, exactly? Why were you even pointing your gun at him?” She paused, waiting for a response. “These aren't rhetorical questions.”
Schuldig pressed his forehead to the radiator as shivers overtook his limbs. He wasn't going to think about it.
“And I'm left wondering that if Crawford really was as powerful as he'd been at school, why didn't he see this? What do you think he would have said to you if he'd seen that in a vision?” She was at his side now, a hand gripping a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back, staring into his face. “What would he say to you? What warning would he give?”
Finally he gave in, letting those memories surface. He closed his eyes and his body shook from chills that had nothing to do with the temperature and he wasn't even sure if he yelled his answer at her or whispered it in his mind. “He'd say, 'Before we get started, go and find that Siamese cat you kicked on the stairs and shoot it',” a rain of icicle laughter invaded his head and he felt his pulse rate increase, and he started gulping air in a manner that he thought had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with molecular manipulation by his least favourite telekinetic in the history of psychic study.
“Silvia, do you know what he did tell me?” He opened his eyes and looked up into her face, which was even more beautiful than he'd ever remembered it.
“What?” She returned his gaze with one of disgust.
“That for all your refined behaviour, your elegant taste, you still fucked like a whore from the slums-”
There was no sound except the crunch of bullet entering skull, because she liked to use a silencer.
She stood up, letting his dead body fall back to the floor. That hadn't felt nearly as rewarding as she'd imagined it would. She fit the gun back into its holster and made for the staircase, needing to witness the stiff corpse of Brad Crawford with her own eyes. Her eyes strayed back to the corpse of the German telepath on the floor, swathed in towels, one end adorned in expensive leather boots, the other end adorned in blood.
“What a waste.”