But It’s Not Me

You asked for it, and this is what came out. Now my head hurts…

****

“There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.” —“Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd

 

 

Crawford woke with a start as his lust-fogged brain realized someone was touching him, it wasn’t just another dream of his pixie–

“Schu?” It had damn well better be. He reached for his gun as he asked, but a nip to his ankle reassured him. He knew those teeth, how could he not? Soft lips slid to the hollow behind his knee, Crawford tensed to keep still. Oh, damn, shit, Schu was good with his mouth! Tongue swirling, then suction, why did it feel so good right there, and how did Schu know?

Who cared?

Hot tongue tracing slowly up the inside of his thigh–Crawford shifted impatiently, Schuldig chuckled under the sheet and the mouth moved away, replaced by the hair. God, the hair–it wasn’t as soft since he’d dyed it, but it was Schuldig’s hair, and it was rubbing against Brad Crawford’s legs and–

“Schu…” he moaned. And grabbed fistfuls of his pillow to keep from touching. Like any magical creature his pixie would vanish if he wasn’t careful. Schuldig had wrapped his hair around his cock, now he sucked and nibbled at Crawford’s balls, every move tugging on his straining erection and oh God how did Schu always get him so hard so fast? Just once he’d like to make things last.

And while he was wishing–damn, he wanted to touch Schu, but every time he tried–he could not stand it if the wild child ran away now! Crawford strained at the pillow and swore as the hair was flipped across his lower stomach, replaced by that talented mouth oh shit he loved when Schu took him all the way– “Schu…yes, Schu…”

His pixie loved when Crawford moaned his name. Even wrapped around his cock, Crawford could feel him smirk. And his hands were just as talented as his mouth, and oh shit– “If–if you want–oh, fuck!–Schu, if you want fucked–“ Too late, Crawford groaned and came into that incredible mouth. Oh God…

When Crawford went limp, Schu chuckled again. “Don’t go to sleep yet,” he murmured, sliding up his lover’s body to smirk in his face. Crawford shook his head, still clutching the pillow.

“Not likely. Can I touch you?”

“Give me one hand.”

Crawford had to pry his fingers out of the fabric, but he managed to give his right hand to his pixie. Schuldig smeared something wet on his index finger. “Here you go,” he breathed, guiding Crawford’s hand to his ass, “audition for the job.” He kissed Crawford, and wriggled on top of him. It felt so good Crawford had to bite his own lip to remember what he was doing. Schu hadn’t let him do this before–

He twisted his wrist until Schu gasped on top of him, sucked on his lover’s tongue as he hit just the right spot again and again, added another finger and stroked his pixie some more. God, how had he ever resisted this? That beautiful body thrashing on top of him, sweet moans in his mouth, Schu never held back, thrusting against each other and he was hard again already damn he wanted–needed–this was meant to be, this pixie was his and Schuldig ought to realize it and–

And think that too loud, Oracle, and you’ll be all alone with one hell of a hard-on. Crawford added a third finger and directed his thoughts only at pleasing Schuldig, this wonderful wild child, this fallen angel of flame and passion–fallen, hell, Schu had jumped–

The German jerked away from his hand, bounced up and then down, impaling himself on Crawford’s cock. Both of them hissed, why did he do it like that? Crawford grabbed the pillow again and angled his hips, letting Schu take it all since that’s how he wanted it. His wild child never hesitated, with a gasp and a groan Schu was off, riding Crawford like Farf had his imaginary horse, only wilder and harder and oh God no one fucked like Schuldig, like there was nothing in the world but fucking like it would never end like all he ever wanted for all his life was to bounce along on Crawford’s cock and oh–oh shit, his mind was exploding and it wasn’t coming back–

“Schu!”

“Banzai!” Schu shouted, and laughed as he came, and oh God did that feel…just…oh. Shit. Urgh. Crawford tried to catch his breath, reminded himself not to grab the exquisite creature slumped over his chest. He untangled his fingers from the pillow, but only planted kisses in the newly-green hair.

“Schu,” he panted. “Schu, that was…incredible.”

His pixie chuckled and lifted his head. Even in the faint moonlight, Crawford could see the sparkle in those beautiful eyes. “That,” he said, “was just the beginning.”

“How many pixie sticks have you had?”

“Only what the doctor ordered,” Schuldig answered, and kissed him again. Crawford dared to link the fingers of one hand through Schuldig’s, and he didn’t run. Maybe, finally…

Maybe Schu had finally decided on killing him, Crawford thought hours later. The sun was rising, and thanks to Schu’s talented mouth so was he, though he’d doubted he could. How the hell could Schu still want more?

What the hell, was there a better way to die? Maybe this was why he’d always believed needing Schuldig would kill him. His pixie was– “Schuldig!”

Again he felt the smirk around his cock, holding him still while that finger wriggled inside him. Shit, no–

“Crawford-san,” Nagi called from the hall, “your video conference begins in thirty minutes.”

Damn, oh damn, he’d forgotten–

Of course he’d forgotten, with what Schuldig had been–was still doing! “Shower,” he croaked, hoarse from shouts and moans. “Shower, Schu, we can finish this–“

The hair on his stomach shook from side to side, that mouth did wonderful things, and the finger prodded. Crawford’s eyes crossed. Oohh da-mnnn…

“Schu,” he managed to gasp, “Schu, have to…oh, shit, Schu, oh God, have to…to…damn it, have to do…something…”

“Why?” Schu asked, mocking, stroking Crawford as he traced jumping muscles with lips, teeth and tongue. “We already showered, Crawford-san.” He giggled into his lover’s navel. “Twice.”

“Did you–oh, shit!–have too much…unnnhh…espresso?”

“Mou, Brad-chan,” Schuldig grinned as he stiffened at the nickname, “you just make me so horny!”

Damn. The conference had been months in the arranging, but Schu–

Crawford sighed and reminded himself of the plan, and grabbed his lover’s shoulders. “Come here, Sch–“

In an instant the German twisted out of his grip and was gone. Nagi yelped in the hall.

“Schuldig, if I ever see that again–“

”Maa maa,” Schuldig answered, “drink your milk and you’ll grow big and strong too!”

Crawford sighed and rolled to the side of the bed and sat gathering strength. That espresso machine had to go. Bad enough when Farf got high on the stuff, worse when Schu did, if ever the two of them drank it together…Crawford shuddered and staggered into the bathroom. And had an even worse thought. What if Nagi started drinking the stuff?

As soon as the conference was over, Crawford took the espresso machine outside and hid it in the doghouse until he could drop it in the bay. On the way back into the house, he noticed his car was missing.

Damn that sneaky, horny little telepath.

When the car still wasn’t back hours later, Crawford gave it up for lost. Every time Schuldig took the car without supervision, he wrecked it. He usually managed to dent it even when monitored. Crawford opened his laptop to make arrangements for a new one. This was what, three times with this car now? Three was enough.

“Okay,” Farf was saying, leaning over a Risk board. “There are two ways you can win. If he turns up wearing clothes from one of your chosen continents, or if we have to go there to fetch him, you win. And if he comes home drunk but with the car in one piece, you win.”

“Ha!” Nagi said. “Does that mean if he drives the car through the garage again, you win?”

“Only if he’s sober. If the car is fine and he’s drunk, you win. If the car is wrecked and he’s sober, I win. If he’s sober and the car is fine–“

”Yeah, right!”

“–Crawford wins.”

“What if he doesn’t wreck the car, but he’s wearing something from your continent?”

“Hmm.” Farf tapped the Risk board with his knife, bouncing the markers around. “With the car there are only two choices, continent is harder, so continent wins. Unless–“

”Will you two stop?” Crawford growled. “You do know this is insane, don’t you?”

“Crawford-san,” Nagi was almost smiling, “when has sane ever applied to us?”

The kid was definitely spending too much time with Schuldig. Farfarello and Nagi went on, thrashing out the details of Farf’s new creation. Hours of fun for the whole assassin family, Predict the Pixie and Win. And as soon as they thought they’d covered everything, Schu would drop in wearing a parachute and nothing else, and tell them the car was fine but still on the plane. Or–well, Antarctica wasn’t on Farf’s improvised map, and though Schu tended to head for warmer climes, he had been known to stagger his way from Sweden to Moscow to compare Absolut to Stolichnaya.

He probably should have been more worried, Crawford admitted. But Schu had done this so many times, and always he turned up again, stinking drunk and stinking, period, smeared with nameless substances and ready to sleep for a week…he only did it when they had no work for too long. As much as he hated being controlled, Schu hated boredom only a little less. But he did always come back, mostly in one piece.

So Crawford wasn’t worried. He was jealous. He knew some of what Schu was doing, and he wanted to kill every person his pixie was doing it with. Slowly. Usually he preferred efficiency, but in this case he could make an exception. Gut shots, so they suffered. Or aim for non-vital areas, so he got to shoot them more than once…Farf would help. He’d enjoy it, and he deserved it. He had been very well-behaved lately. The damn dog–Spike was not appropriate for that fluffy little tongue-on-legs–hadn’t even learned to fear him yet, he’d been so quiet.

Damn it, he couldn’t turn Farfarello loose on every person Schuldig had ever fucked. Half of Tokyo would be dead or maimed, and while the idea appealed on aesthetic as well as emotional levels, he needed to keep the big picture in mind. Crawford grunted and checked his email again, for drunken messages or notification of credit card use or for Schuldig’s passport having been processed. Just how had the man gotten out of Japan without him knowing last time?

Because he hadn’t been paying attention. Because he had thought it was just Schu off on a bender again, and most of the time Schu didn’t go that far. Last time he could have tracked Schu and stopped him before he got on the plane. This time Schuldig knew Oracle couldn’t read his future, and if Crawford found him too easily, he would want to know how.

This sitting and waiting was a far cry from the first time Schu had wandered off. Crawford’s first choice, his first recruit, and the boy had just vanished, gone to his room one night in Rome, and the next morning was nowhere to be found. Crawford had nearly torn the city apart, wondering what the hell he was going to tell Essett. After forty-one hours and yet another dead end, he came back to his car and found Schu passed out across the hood, wearing a monk’s robe and a pink feather headdress that clashed horribly with his hair. Crawford remembered thinking that, how the damn headdress clashed with Schu’s hair, then he growled disgust at the both of them and snatched the feathers off before stuffing the German in the Ferrari. Even in his condition, Schuldig had fought the seat belt.

That had been the first time Crawford put Schuldig to bed, though it would be far from the last. And the next time the German found his way out of his room, damned if he hadn’t asked after the feather headdress.

“Crawford-san,” Nagi said, frowning. “Are you all right?”

“Hm?”

“It’s just–you keep smiling. It’s–“

”Inspiring,” Farfarello finished for the boy. And grinned. “Do you have a plan, Crawford-san?”

Looking for Schu was dangerous, not only because it tended to make him run harder. And now was not a good time to be calling attention to themselves, his plans were at a delicate stage–

Then again, a drunk nude telepath roaming the streets would bring a lot more attention than even Farfarello in a howling mood could. Crawford opened a search for an acceptable rental car.

“Nagi, get your laptop.” Prodigy could locate the other tracker, the one they all knew about. If Schuldig hadn’t drank his way to mostly-naked yet, they might find him quickly.

***

Oracle did not have silly island music or any other such thing on his cell phone. If he let it ring, it sounded like a phone. But usually he left it on vibrate. Schuldig had never let him forget the time he started ringing in the middle of what had been a carefully-orchestrated murder.

When his phone began shaking they had been searching for hours. Crawford was getting worried. Nagi had fallen asleep, and when awakened grumbled that Crawford ought to just move the telepath into his room, then maybe other people could sleep at night. Farfarello complained that he had been out of espresso beans for two days, or he could have kept Nagi awake.

So it looked like Schuldig hadn’t slept in days, and espresso wasn’t the reason. Neither were the pixie sticks, enough of those to keep him awake, also would have made him horribly ill.

“Crawford,” he answered the phone.

“You didn’ fix it,” Schuldig’s slurred voice said. Crawford snapped his fingers at Nagi. They’d tried finding Schu by his phone already, but he hadn’t been on it, and he hadn’t answered, either. “You were supposed t’ fix it, Bradley.”

“Fix what, Schu?”

Schuldig laughed, long and high. “Me, Bradley!” he finally answered. “You were supposed to fix me.”

Oh shit, he was really messed up. Crawford glanced at Nagi, got a direction and made a turn. “I wasn’t aware you needed it, Schu.”

“The fucking Oracle didn’t know?” Schuldig laughed again, and then with a hitch and a gasp he was crying. “You need to know, Brad. You have to. Tell me how.”

“How what, Schuldig?” Nagi pointed, Crawford turned. Schuldig was crying? The German tended to do his serious drinking elsewhere, but Crawford had seen it enough to know crying wasn’t a common drunken Schu reaction.

“How to make it stop.”

“Make what stop?” Crawford asked as the hair on his arms stood up. Mari’s telepath had taken a bottle of prescription sleeping pills, and before she could get him to the hospital, told Mari he’d found a way to “make it stop.” Control, Crawford. Stay calm. Think.

“Them!” Schuldig wailed. “Make them go away, Brad, I don’t want to know any more! They’re all such bastards, look down on me when they’re thinking worse things, act like they’re better than me because they’re Japanese or they have real jobs or they aren’t drunk yet, haven’t gone home and beaten their wives yet, they’re–“

”They’re cowards, Schu, cowards and hypocrites. They want to do what you dare.”

“I don’t care!” Schuldig’s voice went higher, louder and filled with desperation. “I don’t want to know, make them go away, make them shut up, Brad, I can’t stand it anymore!”

“All right.” Though how the hell he was supposed to do that– “Tell me where you are, Schu, and I’ll make them go away.”

“I don’t know where I am,” the German sniffled in a small voice. “I lost my jacket.”

“Don’t worry, Schu, I found your jacket.”

“You did?” More sniffles. “You take such good care of me, and I’m such a bastard all the time.”

“We all are, Schu. That’s why you belong–“

”I do not! I am not yours! Fucking control freak, go to hell!” The line went dead. Shit! Crawford looked to Nagi, who shook his head.

“He’s in one of these buildings,” the telekinetic said, pointing at two, a hotel and an office building. “I think he’s on the tenth floor or higher, and I’d guess towards the back, from the strength of the signal.”

“I’ll take the hotel, you two take the other. Let your shields go and try to think something provocative, you might get him to come to you.”

“Oracle,” Nagi folded his arms, “are you telling me to let a drunk and sadistic telepath read thoughts that will make him angry, while my shields are gone?”

“Think about sex,” Farfarello advised. “Schuldig will come for sex.”

Nagi’s face twisted in revulsion, but he didn’t argue further.

In the hotel, the sole desk clerk was amenable to bribery, but he honestly didn’t remember a redheaded man, naked or otherwise. Crawford decided his brain was going, and asked about a green-haired gaijin. The clerk lit up. Tendo Soun had rented the honeymoon suite for himself and his–daughters–Nabiki and Kasumi.

Crawford called Nagi and Farfarello from the elevator, told them to come to the fifteenth floor and wait. He turned away from the suite long enough to steal a maid’s all-access computer key–it was good to be a precog–then went to collect his pixie.

There were two naked women passed out in the bed, but Schuldig wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the living room or the bathing room or–Crawford went back, and opened the shower. A naked and bloody Schuldig squinted up at him.

“Go ‘way,” he growled, waving a bottle. “Don’ need you. Got what I need.”

“If Absolut did the job, you wouldn’t have called me.” Deep breath, it wasn’t as much blood as it looked like, hadn’t even reached the drain yet. And he wasn’t gushing from anywhere. Crawford grabbed the stack of washcloths and sat next to the wild child.

“Figured it out,” Schuldig giggled. “Just needed more.” He took a determined swig, drank until Crawford took his free arm. “Don’! You’re not fucking tying me up!”

“I just want to stop the bleeding.” Crawford shook out the washcloth. “See? It’s not big enough to tie you to anything, Schu.”

“You’ll get blood on your suit,” the German protested. “‘s your favorite.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“‘m cold.”

There were robes on the floor in the other rooms. Crawford didn’t want to go get them, so he took his jacket off and wrapped it around Schuldig. The German blinked, his eyes wide.

“This is…Armani,” he whispered. “‘m bleeding on Armani.”

“It will come out.” Crawford shrugged, wrapping a washcloth around one wrist. Just scratches, clearly intentional but not deep. “Or I’ll get another one.”

“I…wrecked the car. I left it. I forget where.”

“The next one is already on the way.”

“If I lost your gun, would you get mad?”

“Do you want me to be angry?” Crawford took the other wrist. This was good, Schu let go of the vodka bottle and let him. “Why?”

“Sometimes,” Schuldig answered. “Hate when you don’t care, don’t notice me no matter what I do.”

“I’m not ignoring you now. Why would you want to make me angry?”

“To see if you really care. I wrecked the car and stained your suit. If I lost your gun and you still didn’t get mad, then I’d know.”

God, after what Schu had read in the space room, how could he doubt?

But Schuldig didn’t know. Maybe the German thought he’d imagined what he wanted to see, maybe Schuldig had somehow misunderstood. Telepathy was no more perfect than precognition or any other ability, after all.

If Schuldig didn’t know, Crawford wasn’t caught.

But his pixie had called him, had asked–demanded–his help. Not his dear friend Balinese, he’d turned to Crawford. He looked into Schuldig’s eyes as he pulled his gun out, offered it butt first. “Go ahead.”

Blue eyes widened again, Schu slowly reached and took the gun, staring back at Crawford.

“You…don’t care? I could throw it out the window, and you wouldn’t care?”

“Just wipe our fingerprints off it first. And we’d have to go to the roof, probably, I doubt the windows open.”

“I could smash one.”

Crawford shrugged. “So do it.”

Schuldig flung the gun across the shower and threw himself into Crawford’s arms, kissed him frantically. Crawford held him without thinking and kissed back, and Schuldig didn’t wriggle free. Instead he kissed them both breathless, then buried his face in Crawford’s neck.

“It’s quiet,” he murmured. “It’s you.”

“Me?” Crawford whispered, daring to stroke his pixie’s hair. Schuldig sighed and tried to press closer.

“You’re quiet. Make them go away.”

“I will.” Somehow. Crawford stared at the bloody razor blade lying by the abandoned vodka. In Essett it had been an open secret that even the most stable telepath–wasn’t. Mari’s telepath had used pills, Handel’s had jumped off a building. One of the teachers at the academy had blown her head off after fifteen years of teaching recruits to control their power. When an Essett telepath–no one knew anything about non-Essett telepaths, if such existed–when an Essett telepath died, it was nearly always by their own hand. He’d been making himself blind again, not to see warning signs in Schuldig. The near-constant drinking, the insomnia, the binging on alcohol and sex–

His arms tightened around his pixie. Schuldig snorted and snored, drooling on his neck.

Now he knew, he’d take care of it. Somehow. Crawford stood, amazed at how light his wild child was. Schu was slender, yes, but he just–filled a room, somehow, and it was always a surprise to realize how delicately-built the German was.

Delicate and beautiful. Crawford laid Schuldig on the couch and collected his gun and jacket, rinsed the blood out of the shower and found a complimentary kimono to cover the blood on his clothes, and another for Schu. As he wrapped it around his lover, the German started to struggle.

“It’s just a kimono,” Crawford told him. “Relax, Schu–“

”Hurts!”

“What hurts?”

“Her!” Schuldig’s eyes snapped open, he pointed at the bedroom. “Bad dream, he’s hurting her–“

”I’ll take care of it.” Crawford walked into the other room, used a pillow for a silencer and shot both women. “Better?” he asked when he returned. Schu smiled sleepily.

“Better.”

Crawford left Nagi and Farfarello to take care of the bodies and the desk clerk, and took his pixie home.

This time, he put the German in his own bed.

*****

“Brain Damage” is by the incomparable Pink Floyd.