WARNINGS: BDSM angst, violence, squick, child molestation, yaoi.

Dissension

Second in the Sinners & Saints arc.

Schuldig sat curled up in the windowsill, the spring breeze through the screen sending wisps of his hair drifting over his face. He brushed them back absently, bright green eyes roaming up and down the street as if watching for something.

"Tsumaranai," he sighed, letting the Japanese word roll off his tongue fluidly. He was proud of the fact that all traces of his accent had vanished now - if no one was looking at him, he could pass for a native. Of course, the moment anyone got a glimpse of his flame orange hair, they would know he was a gaijin.

"Tsumaranaaaaaai," he whined again, propping his head on his fist and staring out the window. "Laaaaaangweilig," he tried in German. Then, because that was at least moderately entertaining, he said it again in English. "Boooored! I'm so bored!" He glared at the entrance to the underground parking lot of Takatori Towers, willing Crawford's sleek black BMW to show up and pull in.

He didn't know why Crawford had ordered him to stay home tonight - usually when Takatori wanted a guard to the BDSM parties, both Crawford and Schuldig went along. Schuldig raised one hand to finger the choker at his throat, scowling at the wall. This whole Master/slave deal was getting on his nerves. Not that he was ungrateful to Crawford for rescuing him, not at all! But after two years of having to obey the man's every whim, he found he was chafing at the bit. He just didn't have the kind of personality that could willingly take orders constantly. The tricks he'd learned in his former Master's harem didn't apply here; Crawford wanted him thinking for himself when they were on duty, and that meant he couldn't just bury himself in the part and get lost in his own mind. Thank God he was at least spared having to sleep with the man - Crawford had kept to his word and hadn't touched Schuldig once since they'd started living together.

At least the precognitive had been able to teach him how to keep most of the damn voices out of his head! Grimacing, he raised a hand to his temple as if to stave off the ghost of remembered pain. It had been a long, difficult process, but he'd finally mastered his Gift as much as he was able to. It wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but it was better than it had been.

And with control came the ability to play with people's minds, to make them think what HE wanted them to think, to use their own thoughts against them. The only person he couldn't control was Crawford, because the man had a natural shield that was almost impenetrable, unless he chose to make it otherwise.

At last he caught sight of the expensive black sports car following Takatori's limo into the garage, and he bounced to his feet excitedly. The only possible reason for Crawford to have left him behind was that the precog had foreseen something occurring that night, and Schuldig wanted to know what the hell it was. He counted off the seconds in his mind, impatiently waiting for the sound of the door opening. Five minutes to see Takatori safely to his private elevator. Ten minutes to check in with the security chief, make sure nothing untoward was happening. Ten minutes to ride the public elevator up to their floor, punch in the access codes to get the door to open, and...

Right on time, the sound of Crawford's keycard in the slot reached the telepath's ears. He grinned. Crawford could be an anal son of a bitch, but at least he was predictable about his routines. It would have been a dangerous habit for anyone else, but for someone who could see any possible danger before it could strike him, routine wasn't much of a concern.

He reached out his mind, hoping to pick up some bits and pieces of the night's events, though he knew Crawford wouldn't let anything leak. He touched the curious blankness that was the edge of Crawford's shields... and was brought up short by another presence behind him. He frowned, as Crawford opened the door and his lean frame blocked the sight of whoever was behind him. Company meant he'd have to be even more bootlickingly submissive than normal - Crawford didn't demand much from him in the way of obeisance when they were in private, but in public was another matter. Sighing, he let what he called his 'mindless slave' persona slip over him and went to help Crawford with his coat.

*Who the hell is THAT?* he blurted out mentally, startled by the sight of the thin, shivering boy cowering behind Crawford. He stopped short in the hallway, forgetting all about his act, just staring.

"Schuldig, meet the newest addition to our team," Crawford responded blandly, hanging up his own coat when it was clear Schuldig had no intention of doing so. *Be civil, he's already scared out of his mind,* he added mentally.

Schuldig gaped at him. "You've got to be kidding me," he said aloud, unthinkingly. "THIS?"

Crawford nodded, a warning glint in his eyes telling Schuldig that he'd better smarten up and behave himself. Schuldig stepped aside to let his Master pass, automatically moving to put the man's shoes away in the closet. He scanned the boy as he did so, and was startled yet again by what he found.

If he hadn't been looking straight at the boy, he'd have thought he was touching the mind of an animal. A badly abused animal, at that. There was nothing in his surface thoughts but faint impulses, instincts really. His dark blue eyes tracked Crawford like a magnet on the North Pole, and there was something fragile in them. He stood quietly by the door, so still he could have been a statue. He was dressed primarily in Crawford's suit jacket, though Schuldig caught a glimpse of scraps of leather beneath it. At his throat he wore a collar identical in every respect to Schuldig's.

*What the hell makes YOU so special?* he tried asking the kid directly. The boy's eyes widened a fraction, and flickered to him for just a moment, but reverted to watching Crawford so quickly that Schuldig would have missed the movement if he hadn't been watching closely. There was no reaction within his mind, not even a stray thought wondering why he was hearing voices in his head.

Crawford had reached the living room, and had turned back with a frown to watch the two of them. "Come inside," he said impatiently. Instantly the boy scrambled forward, moving so quickly he nearly tripped over his own feet, and skidded to a stop inches away from Crawford. His dark eyes never left the American's face, and Schuldig thought he saw his Master sigh.

"This is Schuldig," he told the boy, gesturing at the German who had come to stand in the doorway. "He is also my slave, and he is a telepath. Schuldig, this is... damn it, I never did find out what your name was." Crawford looked annoyed that he had forgotten such an important detail.

Schuldig was staring at the boy, trying to get deep enough into his mind to find his personality. The child was covered in bruises, some new, some old, and there were whip and burn scars peeking out from under the oversized jacket. He gave no verbal response to Crawford's implied question, but that wasn't surprising - he hadn't been given explicit permission to speak. He did briefly flash on a memory, however, and Schuldig was able to pick it up.

"Dorei?" he repeated aloud, incredulous. "They called you Dorei? Man, that's taking it too far!" The boy's eyes flicked to him again, lingering a fraction of a second longer this time before returning to Crawford once more.

Crawford gave him a warning glance, but his frown had deepened as well. The word meant 'slave', and it was like rubbing salt in the wound to call the child that. "Inappropriate," he agreed with Schuldig. "Do you remember your name before that?"

The boy frowned slightly, the first expression Schuldig had seen on his delicate features. He caught the sound of a murmur of thoughts, moving slowly like the kid was unused to having to think at all. He reached into the stream of thought, sifting gently through the memories, careful not to damage anything. He wasn't usually so delicate with his mental touch, but something about this forlorn child made him not want to add even a tiny bit of pain to what he had already suffered.

It took the boy a while, even with Schuldig assisting the memory process, but finally he nodded hesitantly. Crawford tapped his foot impatiently, and Schuldig rolled his eyes.

*You have to TELL him to say it, Crawford,* he informed the American tartly. *God, and I thought I was fucked up when you found me!*

*Is he damaged beyond repair?* Crawford asked with clinical detachment. Schuldig considered it.

*Not sure. He may just have suppressed his personality, like I did until you started pissing me off. If so, he did a hell of a good job of it. Where did you FIND him?*

*Your old Master's newest playtoy,* Crawford replied, and there was a bite of disgust in his tone. *Though I'm fairly certain he wasn't the first to have the boy.*

Aloud, the American finally gave the order the boy had been waiting for. "Well, what is your name?"

"Nagi," the child replied, his voice so thin and high it was almost a whisper. There was no trace of emotion, in his voice or his mind, as he spoke the name he barely remembered. "Naoe Nagi."

"Nagi, then," Crawford nodded in satisfaction. "Nagi is a telekinetic, and a very powerful one, if a bit uncontrolled. As I said, he'll be the newest member of our team. Schuldig, I expect you to watch out for him when I'm not here."

A telekinetic? Schuldig eyed the boy with renewed respect. Added to his telepathy and Crawford's precognition, that would make them a very powerful group indeed. IF he could learn to control it - and if he couldn't, Crawford would have foreseen that and not bothered to bring him home. "Sure," he said aloud, shrugging carelessly.

"Excellent," Crawford declared. "I've informed Mr. Takatori that the... condition to my employment extends to cover the boy as well," he added, referring to the ultimatum he'd given their employer when he'd acquired Schuldig; hands off, or I leave. Takatori had never once broken that rule, though Schuldig knew he'd been tempted a time or two. "Tomorrow I will be attending a conference with Mr. Takatori - you will not be needed. You should take the time to help familiarize Nagi with how things work."

"Whatever," Schuldig replied, and smirked when Crawford frowned at him. He loved pissing the uptight American off.

Crawford finally sighed, and adjusted his glasses. "In the meantime, it's time we all got some sleep." Suiting actions to words, he turned on his heel and marched off down the hall towards his bedroom, leaving Schuldig to deal with the boy.

Schuldig sighed, and planted his hands on his hips. "Well, you heard him," he said when the boy showed no signs of moving. "You can have the room next to mine, I guess. Huh... now I finally understand why he wanted more than two rooms in the suite. He must have foreseen that we'd have more members." He was walking down the hall as he spoke, the boy trailing along at his heels like a silent shadow. "I wonder who'll get the last room?"

He stopped before the last door on the right side. "This will be yours," he said, opening the door and letting the boy peer past him. It was simply furnished, a twin bed with a down comforter, small desk and chair, and a window. There was nothing to make it look lived in, and Schuldig had an odd feeling that Nagi wouldn't be changing the decor anytime soon.

"Well, go on," he prompted when the boy merely stood in the hall. Hesitantly, the child crept past him into the room, moving like he was certain each footstep would elicit a blow from the watching German. When he had settled gingerly onto the mattress, his slight weight hardly making an impression, Schuldig sighed. "You can have a shower or bath or whatever tomorrow," he told the frightened looking boy. "For now I suggest you just sleep, like he said. Knowing him, we'll all be up at the crack of dawn." He grimaced at the idea, and watched as the boy slowly shed the suit jacket.

Nagi folded the jacket and carefully hung it over the back of the chair, then squirmed out of the leather harness that was all he was wearing. He didn't seem to mind Schuldig's eyes on him as he undressed, but then that was really no surprise. He would have been used to having people watch him strip. He held the leather uncertainly, not sure what to do with it.

"Just put it on the desk," Schuldig told him, and he obeyed. "We'll deal with it in the morning." He yawned, and moved to turn out the light and close the door as the boy slipped between the sheets of the bed. "Oyasumi. Oh, and try not to dream tonight, will ya? I hate having other people's nightmares."

With that he left the boy to his own devices, making his way back down the hall to his own room. He felt the child's mind slip almost immediately into the patterns of sleep - either he was exhausted, or he'd trained himself to sleep at any opportunity. Likely a bit of both, Schuldig concluded.

He stripped, leaving his clothes in a puddle on the floor to be dealt with later, and crawled into his own bed. Lying back, he forced each muscle to relax separately as Crawford had taught him, and set his shields so that they wouldn't fall when he went to sleep. For the first time in a long time, he found himself looking forward to the next day with interest; something told him this slip of a boy was going to become very important to him.

Schuldig shifted for the tenth time in the last two minutes, unable to find a comfortable spot in his chair. The book he was reading was failing to hold his interest as well, and he couldn't seem to stop fidgeting. It was driving him crazy - he was often restless when Crawford left him behind while working, but this was ridiculous!

He glanced up to see that Nagi was still sitting exactly where he had been five minutes ago - he was beginning to wonder if the kid even blinked. His mind was quiet, which ordinarily Schuldig would have found a blessing; otherwise, stuck in a confined area with the boy for long periods of time, he might start to loose track of the boundaries between their minds. But this quiet felt unnatural, unhealthy, and it gave Schuldig the creeps. Those dark blue eyes stared vaguely at the wall, not really seeing anything at all, and his expression was as blank as his mind.

It was just weird! A few of the other slaves in his first Master's harem had been what were commonly called 'pets' - submissives who had so lost the ability to think for themselves that they couldn't function at all without orders. But even the worst of them hadn't been quite this bad - they had still had a personality of sorts.

Sighing, he got up and headed for the bathroom. He'd already gone twice this last hour alone, and it was starting to annoy him. He didn't know why his body was misbehaving so badly; it wasn't even like he'd had a lot to drink that day. And despite how urgent the need to go seemed to be, his bladder acted like it was empty each time...

Abruptly he stopped, turning in the hallway to look at Nagi again. The boy hadn't moved, still staring blankly at the wall, but Schuldig was beginning to get a nasty suspicion. Probing, he let his mind slide deeper into the boy's subconscious, and almost immediately ran into a need so pressing it was actually physically painful. Wincing, he withdrew immediately, staring at the boy in amazement. Anyone else would have been doubled over in pain, but he showed no outward signs of his discomfort. Discomfort! The word hardly seemed to cover the situation.

"For fuck's sakes, if you have to go so bad, why don't you?" he blurted out, drawing the child's startled blue eyes towards him. The boy said nothing, and made no move to get up out of his seat. Now that Schuldig was aware of the source of the urgent need to piss, he could feel the pain of the cramps the boy was suffering washing against his shields. Regardless of how incredible his control was, the kid was going to wet himself if he didn't go SOON.

"You're not gonna go unless Crawford tells you to, are you?" he asked Nagi in sickening realization. God, this was even worse than he'd suspected! The pets he'd known had still been able to take care of basic bodily functions without an explicit order to do so, but he now knew with absolute certainty that unless Crawford gave the order, Nagi was going to sit there in agony for as long as he possibly could hold out, and then he would be hysterical with shame for having gone without permission.

And Crawford was in a meeting with Takatori that he couldn't get out of for hours yet. No way was the kid gonna last that long.

*Crawford!* he projected as strongly as he could, hoping the oracle would pay attention to him. *C'mon, Crawford! Damn it, listen to me!*

He got nothing but the vague murmur of the thoughts of the people around him - Crawford was ignoring him. *BRAD!* he tried, knowing that would at least get the other psychic's attention. Crawford absolutely hated it when Schuldig called him by his first name, though the telepath had never been able to discover why.

He got the response he'd hoped for. *Schuldig I have told you repeatedly not to interrupt me at work,* the precog shot back irritably. *And you have strict orders that you are NOT to call me 'Brad' under ANY circumstances!*

*YOU brought this kid home, YOU need to pay attention to him!* Schuldig replied bitingly. He projected the particulars of the situation in a wordless burst, and felt Crawford's dismayed astonishment. *He's not gonna do a damn thing unless you tell him to, apparently. Christ, it's been at least twelve hours since you brought him home, and God knows how long since the last time he got to go before that. He's in fucking agony - give him a break!*

*I didn't realize,* Crawford said, and Schuldig thought the other man sounded just a bit shaken. *You were never that badly off...*

*I was a slave, not a pet,* Schuldig replied bitterly. *I still had control over my own mind. Will you just tell him he can go, for God's sake? Or better yet, tell him to obey ME as well. That way I can maybe get him to do something other than stare at the wall.*

*Let me speak to him,* Crawford ordered, and Schuldig brought Nagi's mind into their link. The precog had no real projective ability of his own, and had to rely on Schuldig in situations like this. *Nagi, can you hear me?*

The boy jerked his head up, glancing around as if searching for his Master. It was the first real reaction they'd gotten out of him yet. It should have been funny, but Schuldig was far from amused.

*??* It wasn't so much a thought as a question without form, coming from the boy.

*He told you I was a telepath,* Schuldig informed him bluntly. *I'm relaying him to you.*

*Can you hear me?* Crawford repeated impatiently. Nagi nodded, slowly, and the ghost of a 'yes' crossed his mind. It would have to do for now. *I should have given you this order this morning, but I was preoccupied and forgot. You will obey Schuldig just as you would obey me, unless he gives you an order that directly conflicts with something I've told you to do, understand?*

*Hai...* came the tentative answer, his mental voice as thin and timid as his vocal one.

*Good,* Crawford said, satisfied. *I need to get back to work. If you have any further problems, Nagi, get Schuldig to call me again.* He faded away from the link, putting his shields between himself and them once more. Schuldig sighed.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked the astonished boy. "Go to the bathroom, for Christ's sake!"

He'd expected Nagi to bolt, but the boy got up slowly and carefully. The effort of moving without losing that iron control showed in his face, and a subliminal humming that Schuldig had only peripherally been aware of rose in volume. It tickled the back of his mind, making him shiver and rub his arms, as Nagi moved past him to the bathroom. Seconds later Schuldig felt the rush of intense relief as Nagi finally emptied his painfully full bladder.

The humming stopped at the same moment, and Schuldig blinked. It had to be related somehow, but he wasn't certain just what the connection was. Filing it away under a mental list of odd things about the boy he needed to investigate, he waited until Nagi peeked out through the bathroom door once more.

"Did you shower this morning?" Schuldig asked him, suspecting he already knew the answer. Sure enough, Nagi shook his head minutely. "Do it now," he told him, sighing. "And anything else you need to do, okay?"

Nagi stared at him wide-eyed, and a feeling of panic washed over Schuldig's shields. He frowned back at the boy, probing to find out what was wrong. He found it quickly enough - the order he'd given was too vague, and could be interpreted in several different ways. The child was terrified to make a move, too afraid he would be punished for misinterpreting what he'd been told to do.

Schuldig gaped at him, horror and pity in his expression. "My god... you really can't function on your own at all, can you?" he blurted out, sickened. Nagi just stared back at him silently, eyes begging him to clarify the order so that he wouldn't have to make a decision himself.

Schuldig leaned against the wall of the hallway and crossed his arms to hide the way they were trembling. "Get in the shower... no, take off your clothes first," he amended hastily, seeing in the boy's mind that he had planned to step directly into the shower as ordered. "THEN get into the shower. Uh... clean yourself with the soap... can you handle that without me getting more specific?" At the boy's hesitant nod, he continued. "Shampoo your hair, and rinse off. Get out, dry off, and get dressed again. Uh... brush your hair, and your teeth." He frowned, trying to decide if he'd missed anything. "That's it, I guess. Come back out when you're done."

Nagi nodded, and turned to go deeper into the room. He left the door cracked open since Schuldig hadn't told him to shut it, and the telepath reached out and closed it for him before going back to the living room to flop into his chair.

Now it was his turn to stare blankly at the wall, as he thought over what he'd learned about his newest teammate. This was ridiculous! Powerful telekinetic or not, the kid would be no use to them if he needed a direct order for every move he made in a fight. Somehow he had to be broken of this utter dependence on his Master; it was going to be a long, painful process, Schuldig knew. He felt another surge of pity, and silently thanked whatever gods were listening that Crawford had rescued him before he had gotten that bad.

He heard the shower shut off, and reached out to gently touch the boy's mind as he followed the rest of his orders. Schuldig felt none of his usual desire to manipulate and control people when it came to this boy; Nagi had suffered through more than enough people dominating him, the last thing he needed was a telepath messing with the few thoughts he could still call his own.

Finally the boy exited the bathroom, looking dwarfed by the oversized clothes he was wearing. The only thing they'd been able to find for him to wear was a pair of Schuldig's outgrown sweatpants with the drawstring pulled tight and the legs rolled up almost to the knees, and a T-shirt so big on him the sleeves covered his arms almost to his wrists. He perched on the sofa again, nominally going back to staring at the wall but actually watching Schuldig out of the corner of his eyes.

Schuldig looked at him in return, trying to decide if the restlessness he still felt was his own or Nagi's. Mostly Nagi's, he finally decided; the boy was antsy about something. "What's bugging you?" he finally asked aloud, settling back into his seat. Nagi turned to look at him directly, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. Schuldig sighed. "C'mon, talk to me, kid. Something's eating you, I can feel it."

Nagi lowered his eyes as if he were shamed. "I'm sorry," he whispered miserably, flinching as though he expected to be struck just for voicing the words.

"What on earth for?" Schuldig prompted him, astonished again.

"I... I dreamed last night," Nagi admitted in a despairing whisper, shame boiling up from his mind at having disobeyed an order. Schuldig had thought he couldn't be surprised by the way this boy thought any further, but he found he was wrong.

"I wasn't serious!" he replied, shocked. "For Christ's sake, kid, you can't help dreaming. I just meant... it was only... ah, hell!" He made a mental note to himself to watch his mouth around the boy. "Look, sometimes I say stuff I don't mean, okay? I was just teasing you. I'm the one who should be apologizing."

He looked at the boy sitting before him with head bowed, and realized he wasn't going to get him to admit that he hadn't done anything wrong. "I forgive you, okay?" he finally said wearily. "Forget about it. Anyway, Crawford hadn't even told you to obey me yet, so really you had no reason to be listening to me at all, right?"

A tiny crease wrinkled the skin between Nagi's eyes as he tried to work through that, but he couldn't spot the flaw in Schuldig's logic. Some of the shame eased, letting him glance up again. Schuldig sighed.

"You're going to need to learn to be able to do some things on your own, kid," he told the boy gruffly. "We can't dictate every move to you in a fight. Not right away!" he added hastily, seeing Nagi's distress. "But eventually. Just do your best, okay?" Nagi nodded hesitantly, but Schuldig could tell he was still terrified of the very idea.

"How long did they have you for, anyway?" he asked, curious as to how long it had taken them to break the boy so thoroughly. The kid didn't look older than about ten, so they couldn't have been abusing him for TOO long, surely...

"All my life," Nagi replied softly, scattering that theory to the winds

Schuldig gave him a hard look. "You mean, 'As long as you can remember,' don't you?"

Nagi got that frightened look in his eyes again, and bowed his head. "As long as I can remember," he agreed tonelessly. Even to a non-telepath it would have been obvious that he felt he'd been rebuked for answering incorrectly. Schuldig sighed.

"Look, you're allowed to disagree with me, okay? If I say something wrong, tell me so!" he said. Nagi just stared back at him silently. "Gott. Okay, did you really mean, 'all your life', or just 'all your life that you can remember?'"

"All my life," Nagi answered slowly, watching him as if waiting to see if this answer would earn him a blow. Schuldig just nodded, grateful that he was getting somewhere at last. Nagi brightened a bit at that sign of encouragement. "My mother was a slave," he offered shyly, the first time he'd taken any kind of initiative on his own. Technically he was still answering the original question, but Schuldig hadn't had to drag the extra information out of him piece by piece. It was a good sign - maybe he was salvageable after all.

And if it was true, small wonder the boy was so broken! He'd literally spent his entire life under someone else's total control - he hadn't just lost the ability to make his own decisions, he'd never had it in the first place. Schuldig wondered if that was going to make it harder or easier to repair him. "How old are you now, do you know?"

"Thirteen," Nagi answered. Schuldig gaped at him.

"Christ. You don't look that old. Didn't they ever feed you?"

Nagi looked thoughtful. "Most of my Masters did," he confided. His voice betrayed no emotion, as usual, but Schuldig caught a few nightmare glimpses of memory in his mind, of being starved and beaten over trifling errors. Schuldig blocked them out hastily - he had enough of his own nightmares about that sort of thing, he didn't need anyone else's bouncing around in his head. Though suddenly the year he'd spent as an unwilling slave didn't seem nearly so bad.

It suddenly occured to him to wonder if Nagi had eaten anything yet that day. As always Crawford had risen hours earlier than Schuldig - Nagi had already been dressed and out on the couch when Schuldig had dragged himself out of his room, yawning. He'd just assumed that Crawford had taken care of feeding the kid, but given what he'd seen so far today, that wasn't necessarily a safe assumption to make. "Have you eaten today?" he asked, and sure enough Nagi shook his head. "Did you eat yesterday?" Nagi shook his head again. "Christ. When was the last time you ate?"

Nagi thought about it. "Two days ago," he finally decided. "We got rice and pickles," he elaborated, and Schuldig grimaced. That was no kind of diet for a growing kid! Nagi saw the look and shrank back into the couch cushions, frightened.

"Eh? I'm not mad at you," Schuldig told him, forcing himself to gentle his usual harsh tones. He still wasn't used to the way he needed to tiptoe around this kid. "Sounds like Shigeru's gotten worse since I was in his harem. He never starved us that I can remember, unless it was a punishment."

Nagi still looked shamed. "It was a punishment," he admitted sorrowfully.

"What did you do?" Schuldig asked him, surprised. Nagi was such a perfect little slave, he couldn't imagine the boy doing anything wrong that would rate starvation rations. Shigeru had been a bastard, but he had been wise enough to realize that his slaves would last longer if he treated them relatively well.

"I broke part of his china collection," Nagi told him miserably. Schuldig grimaced; Shigeru was a collector of rare fine china dishes, and was fiercely possessive of all his pieces.

"Fuck, no wonder he was mad at you. What happened, did you drop a plate when you were carrying it or something?" Nagi shook his head, and Schuldig gave him a curious look. "Well, what happened then?"

The boy was slow to answer, looking like he really didn't want to talk about it but simply couldn't bring himself to disobey the order. "I was cleaning the glass in one of the display rooms. One of the Master's guests came in, and... he... he ordered me to service him." Schuldig was able to interpret that statement easily enough from his own experiences; the man had ordered the boy to give him a blow job or some such thing. "Master had said I wasn't to do ANYthing until he said so... he was saving me for a party later that week. I... I couldn't... I didn't..." he floundered, actually shaking with distress and shame.

"You panicked," Schuldig concluded grimly. He could guess what had happened easily enough; faced with two conflicting orders, the boy had fallen apart, unable to make a decision. Nagi was practically vibrating with misery. Without thinking, Schuldig projected a soothing feeling, trying to calm the boy before he caught the telepath up in his remembered panic. Nagi relaxed a bit, responding to the mental push, and Schuldig filed that reaction away for future reference. It might come in handy later. "Did you break the dishes fighting him off?" he asked, surprised that the child had managed to muster the strength of will to attempt to disobey the order.

"No!" Nagi protested, eyes wide. "He didn't touch me; the glass exploded, and the dishes with it."

"Exploded?" Schuldig repeated. "What do you mean, they exploded?" Nagi searched for words to describe it, but Schuldig took the short cut and plucked the memory right out of his head. "Holy fuck!" he exclaimed in shock, letting the scene play out in his mind's eye. From Nagi's point of view, he saw the man coming towards him, fly already unzipped; he felt the panic and confusion that had settled over the boy, tearing him apart with indecision; and finally he watched as the contents of the glass display case shattered, the force propelling the fragments through the glass window to bury themselves in the bodies of the room's two occupants. He winced. "Shit, that must have hurt," he muttered sympathetically. Now he knew where some of those cuts Nagi had been sporting last night originated. "How long ago was that?"

"Four days ago," Nagi answered, "counting today." Schuldig counted backwards in his head.

"Huh... that's just about the time Crawford got all uptight and secretive, and told me I wouldn't be going with him to the party last night." He frowned thoughtfully. "Do you remember what he said, about you being telekinetic? Do you know what that means?" Nagi shook his head. "It means you have the power to move things with just your mind. I think you manifested a burst of it then, because you were so frightened, and that's what shattered the plates." He snorted. "And Crawford got a vision showing him that he would encounter you, so he arranged things so he would end up as your Master. He can see the future, if he didn't tell you," he added, just in case Crawford hadn't mentioned that particular detail to the boy. "Bits and pieces of it anyway. He can't control it worth shit, but it does usually show him stuff that will be dangerous or useful to him."

Nagi gave him a wide-eyed look, but didn't comment. "Did you get those cuts treated, at least?" he asked, hoping the answer was yes. After four days, if they hadn't been treated they would almost certainly be infected, and the last thing they needed was a feverish, out-of-control telekinetic. Thankfully, Nagi nodded. "Take off your shirt and let me see," Schuldig ordered him, just in case. Nagi obeyed without comment, pulling the oversized t-shirt over his head and turning his body so that Schuldig could better see the scattered lines of cuts running down his left side.

That wasn't all Schuldig saw. The boy's soft skin was marred by scars of all descriptions, some clearly years old. Schuldig had more than his share of scars, but nothing like this. Most were on his back, but there were several on the front. They covered the length of his arms as well, and the most recent, those from the exploding china, even travelled up the side of his neck. He was lucky to be alive - Schuldig could see where at least one shard had come within a hair of nicking his jugular. "Shit," he said aloud, feeling a little faint. It was hard for his mind to encompass just how much pain the boy had truly suffered in his life. At least they all looked to have been doctored at some time or another, and those recent ones were scabbed over with no sign of infection. "I've got a salve you can borrow to put on those," he added, eyeing the damage critically. "Crawford gave it to me for mine. Keeps them from scarring quite so obviously. Can't do anything about the ones older than a year or so, though."

Nagi shrugged, his face carefully blank. Schuldig got the impression that he literally didn't care whether they scarred badly or not. Small wonder, considering all the marks he already had - a few more would hardly make a dent. Schuldig gestured for him to put the shirt back on, and he did so. "Those go all the way down your legs, too?" Schuldig hazarded a guess. Nagi nodded. "Damn. Well, no shorts or short sleeves for you, I guess. Those kind of marks draw attention, and bodyguards are supposed to be unobtrusive."

He caught the flicker of curiosity in the boy's mind, and grinned at him. "Didn't Crawford tell you anything?" he wondered aloud. "Officially, we're Takatori's bodyguards. He doesn't know we're psychic, though, so don't use your powers in front of him." He eyed the delicate-looking boy consideringly. "Dunno how he's gonna take to a little shrimp like you being his bodyguard, though. We need to get some meat on those bones of yours. Shit! I forgot!" He smacked his head in exasperation. He'd gotten so sidetracked he'd actually forgotten where he'd originally been going with this conversation. "Let's get you something to eat, okay?"

He stood and headed for the tiny kitchenette that was part of their suite, gesturing for Nagi to follow him. The boy padded along behind him obediently, like a faithful puppy. Schuldig rummaged through the fridge, searching for something edible and easy to make. "Neither Crawford nor I can cook worth a damn," he informed the watching boy sourly. "We order out most of the time, and scrounge for the rest. Uh... we both tend to stick to Western food, sorry." He grimaced. "Raw fish just doesn't do it for me. Here we go." He pulled out the makings for sandwiches, and started laying out the ingredients on the bread. "I'm gonna take a wild guess here, and say that you don't have any preferences?" he commented, glancing at Nagi. The boy shook his head slightly, wide-eyed as Schuldig continued to pile food on the bread. "Here," the German finally said, handing him one of the sandwiches. He indicated that Nagi should take a seat at the table while he hunted through the cupboards for two clean glasses.

He filled the glasses with milk and deposited them on the table, and sat down and bit into his own sandwich. He was two bites in when he realized Nagi hadn't touched his food; he swallowed and asked, "What's wrong?"

Nagi just looked at him, as if waiting for something. It took him a moment, but Schuldig finally caught on. "Oh. Go ahead, you can eat." Immediately Nagi raised the sandwich to his lips, taking a small bite and chewing it slowly, as if savouring it. Well, he probably was, Schuldig figured - that, and he probably wasn't used to having so much food in one sitting. Schuldig went back to his own lunch, glancing across the table occasionally to see Nagi watching him intently. Waiting for the next order, probably.

"We're gonna need to get another chair," Schuldig mused when he was finished, leaning back and stretching his long legs out before him. Nagi was only half finished his sandwich, and looked like it was an effort to take each bite. "Don't force yourself to eat it if you're full," Schuldig told him, knowing that the boy wouldn't be able to eat much in one sitting until his shrunken stomach adjusted. Nagi paused with the sandwich halfway to his mouth, looking back at him uncertainly. Schuldig realized that his comment implied that Nagi had to make a decision, and sighed. "Look, do you want any more of it?" Nagi looked at him blankly, the concept of 'want' apparently beyond him. Schuldig rolled his eyes. "Are you still hungry?" he tried instead. Hesitantly Nagi shook his head. "Then don't eat any more of it."

Instantly he dropped the sandwich back to the plate, folding his hands in his lap and awaiting further orders. Schuldig glanced at the still-full glass of milk in front of the boy, and sighed again. "Take a drink until you're not thirsty anymore," he ordered, and Nagi raised the glass to his lips. He swallowed half the contents, lowered it a little, then took another gulp before setting it down. He looked up at Schuldig as if for approval, and Schuldig projected reassurance at him. He brightened again, sitting up a little straighter and smiling just a bit.

Schuldig glanced at the clock. "We've still got a couple of hours until Crawford gets back. Uh... there's not a hell of a lot to do around here, honestly. Can you read?" Nagi nodded. "Kanji and everything?" Schuldig clarified, surprised. Where had the kid learned to read? "How many kanji do you know?"

"Four thousand," Nagi replied, and Schuldig gaped at him again. There were three thousand kanji in the Japanese written language, plus another thousand that were only used in names. You needed eight hundred or so to decipher a newspaper, which was about the point Schuldig was at. Very, very few people knew them all.

"Jesus Christ," he swore, amazed. "Who taught you?"

"One of my Masters," Nagi answered. He hesitated, watching Schuldig's eyes like he was searching for a particular reaction, then shyly added, "She said she liked my voice, so she started to teach me so I could read out loud to her. Then she started challenging her guests to come up with a kanji I didn't know."

Schuldig blinked, wondering what had caused the kid to suddenly open up with the extra information. Possibly he was finally getting the idea that Schuldig WANTED him to talk, to elaborate on ideas and explain. Well, he certainly wasn't about to discourage him! He projected approval, and Nagi brightened again, looking pathetically happy that he'd pleased Schuldig. "How long did it take you to learn them?" he asked, curious. Nagi thought about it.

"Six weeks," he finally said. "I learned about a hundred a day."

Schuldig just looked at him for a moment, considering. The boy seemed to have no idea what an amazing feat that was. "You know that's incredible, don't you?" he finally tried prompting him. Nagi looked confused. "To learn that many kanji, that quickly." The boy blushed a little and ducked his head, and Schuldig sensed that he would have been shaking it in denial if that hadn't meant contradicting Schuldig. "Oh yes it is!" Schuldig pressed, hoping that giving the kid a sense of accomplishment would give him a little self-esteem, which in turn might give him a bit of personality. "I've been here three years, and I only know about a thousand." Nagi stared at him with wide eyes, confused.

"Can you read English?" he asked, and Nagi shook his head. "Well, that won't be hard for you to learn, there's only twenty-six letters... oh, wait. Can you speak English at all?" Again Nagi shook his head. "Eh. Well, if you can learn kanji that quick, you should be able to learn another language relatively fast as well. Crawford and I speak in English a lot, when no one else is around." He glanced around. "Damn. All the books we have are in English and German... I don't suppose you speak German?" He chuckled when Nagi shook his head, unsurprised. "Didn't think so. That leaves TV, I guess. Ever watched television before?"

"I've been there while some of my Masters watched it," Nagi replied hesitantly. "But they didn't say I should watch it with them."

Schuldig just shook his head, feeling beyond surprise now at how literally the boy took his orders. "Go curl up on the couch - sit so that you feel comfortable. Can you manage that, or is that too vague?" Nagi nodded, and rose from his place at the table to pad out to the living room again. Schuldig cleared away the plates and glasses, dumping them in the sink with the rest of the dishes, and went out to join him.

He found Nagi sitting in one corner of the couch, leaning on the armrest with his feet tucked up beside him. It was one of Schuldig's own personal favourite positions, so he knew the boy was comfortable at least. He slung himself down on the other side of the couch, mirroring the pose. "If you get uncomfortable, you can shift your position," he told Nagi. Snagging the remote from the table beside the couch, he turned the TV on and hit 'play'. There was an English action movie in the VCR that he had been watching the night before - might as well start the boy on English now, and the best way to learn it was to hear it spoken. "This is in English," he told Nagi, who was looking at him rather than the screen. "You watch it, and you'll probably be able to pick up a word or two."

Nagi turned his eyes to the screen, watching the trailers intently. Schuldig settled down into his own seat, sighing. He didn't know what it was about this fragile-seeming kid that got to him so badly, but he found himself wanting to protect the boy from any more of the suffering that had been his entire life until this moment. Hang tight, kid, he thought to himself, carefully not projecting it. If I have anything to say about it, you won't ever have to do that shit again.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3|

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