Part Eight
The hall light is on when I arrive at the floor for Matthews' office. I pause just outside of the elevator, listening to the doors sliding closed behind me, and gaze down the hall towards his closed door. Matthews has been here already, then. That's how I am to get into his office. He has come and unlocked the door and gone again. I take a slow breath, steeling myself for what's to come. On the outside, I am as calm and forbidding as ever. On the inside, it's a different story. I have done many distasteful things for my clients before but none of them were anything close to this; I could accept those things but I cannot and will not accept this. I will allow it to happen because Rosenkreuz has inexplicitly declared that it must happen, but I will not accept it.
I head down the hall, listening to my shoes tap against the floor. The secretary's lamp is on; it stays on all day and all night. Her desk is neat and tidy, waiting for the next long day of work. I idly wonder how she can stand working so close to Matthews with his wild mood swings. There has to be something in it for her, but I don't care enough to wonder what. It means nothing to me.
I reach out and test the knob, and it's unlocked as I expected it to be. The hall light spills across the office floor when I push the door open and my lone shadow stands there. The last time I was here at night it was with Farfarello. I don't particularly want to think about that, but it's preferable to standing here thinking about this upcoming 'meeting'. I turn Schuldich's words over in my head for the nth time since I left Matthews' estate, stepping into the office and pulling the door closed behind me. Even if Schuldich's right, what is that supposed to mean? It doesn't mean I'll forgive him for what he's been doing these past few weeks. It doesn't mean he's not as aggravating as hell. It gives a rhyme and a reason to what he does, I suppose, but that understanding doesn't come hand in hand with acceptance. I still want to beat him brainless for how much hell he's caused me.
That, of course, leads to thoughts of Schuldich's anger over Farfarello's anger. Farfarello is mad because I've pushed Matthews to make this vision happen; he called me blind and stormed out. Farfarello is not one for making idle threats, so I don't know what to make of his words about needing a new Watcher. Does he honestly think he is going to leave Schwarz? If Farfarello leaves, will Schuldich carry through on his promise and leave as well?
--You really are fucking oblivious,-- Schuldich had said.
The words annoy me; the implications annoy me. If Schuldich is right, then I've missed a big piece of the problem between Farfarello and myself. I cannot solve it, for I don't know how, but there has to be a way to work around it. Like it or not, Schuldich is right about Farfarello being the best, and I've always known that. I can't afford to switch Watchers. Farfarello works, and I can't risk losing Schuldich just because I let that psycho Irishman walk out. That means that as soon as I can get away from here, I have to go find Farfarello and figure out how to make him come back. Damn.
I hear the elevator ding in the distance; it distracts me from my thoughts and I lift my gaze towards the clock to see the second hand ticking away towards midnight. For some reason I think of Farfarello's words from the night at the club: "Then when he has you in his office, you can pretend it's me." He's arrogant and insufferable, but at least he was right that I would be thinking about him right now. I'm thinking that I should have seen a way around this, that there should have been a way to avoid such a thing. I'm thinking about Farfarello telling me I should have Schuldich find me a girl so that when Rosenkreuz marks down that one of their precognitives has broken his celibacy, they won't put Matthews' name on my file. If it was a girl, they wouldn't ask many questions. As Matthews is a man and our client, there will be a small dossier of its own attached to my file for the rest of my life that will explain to anyone with access to it that I let this happen because it was included in Rosenkreuz's orders.
I think perhaps that I should have found a girl, regardless of the fact that it would have gotten both Schuldich and Farfarello involved in parts of my life I have no desire to have them in. If I hadn't been so annoyed with Farfarello, maybe I would have thought it through more.
The door opens then, and a flash of light spills in from the hall. My shadow reappears, strung out across the desk; I see the shadow of Matthews' head off to my side and then both vanish as the door is shut again. The lock on the door slides into place, clacking loud enough that it drowns out the chiming from the clock that says it's midnight. I hear the small fumble it takes him to get it secure in his inebriated state and find it ridiculous that he's locking it. It's not like there's anyone else here but us.
I can feel his stare on me as he starts across the room. I can just barely hear his shoes as they sink into the carpet, but I can feel him come to a stop right behind me. "Ahhh," he whispers, sounding satisfied. I keep my gaze locked on the desk, studying the natural designs in the polished wood. I wonder if this is really happening or if my stress has thrown me back into aggressive precognition state. I would prefer the second, and I wonder if I can delude myself into thinking it is. I cannot be distracted here, however. This is a game of control for him. I have to give him what he wants, but I will not give up my control. I will not give him anything.
I think of the list of our projects that we still have left to do, think about how I will have to go home from this and see him again tomorrow to work with him as if nothing has happened. I think about how we are living in his house and how there's no guarantee that this will be the only time he asks for this, and the disgust I feel for him is just a breath away from hatred.
His palm presses against my back before running along my shoulder blade to my side. His hand is heavier than Farfarello's was. It is not what I wanted, to stand here and compare his touch to my wild teammate's, but I cannot stop myself. It is only now that I can understand and almost appreciate the differences. Farfarello moved where the vision had him move; he touched where Matthews did when he did. He taunts me with his authority as my Watcher and with Nagi's power, but it's nothing like this. Matthews' hand is unforgiving, selfish, and rough. There's a weight to his hands that Farfarello's didn't have, a possessive air.
So much for lesser evils, I muse.
His hands have found bare skin and he pulls me back against him. He's hard already, getting off on the power rush of this situation. The urge to hit him is strong but is swallowed as he pries at the buttons on my shirt. He murmurs something at my ear, husky and thick with desire, and for the first time in all of the times I've seen this coming I can understand the words.
"Don't pretend like you don't want this," he says, and I think he's drunk enough that he actually believes those words. The sound of them brings the rest of my thoughts to a dead halt, and it is a good thing he's behind me because I can feel my precious stone expression crack a bit in something that might be incredulous dismay. The hatred I have for him colors with scorn and I feel my lips curve into a sneer that is there and gone again as his fingernails rake red lines across my skin. "Everyone thinks they can tell me no," he mutters against my throat, and I feel his breath run down my collarbone. "Everyone takes and takes and takes, exploiting my generosity. Now it's my turn to take." Fingernails bite savagely into the skin and I wonder if he's drawn blood yet.
A hand tangles in my hair in a cruel grip then and he yanks my head back. If I hadn't seen it coming, I don't know what it would have done to my neck, because he's too far gone in liquor and lust to be careful. I catch a glimpse of dark hair and darker eyes as he crushes his mouth against mine. It's a quick, hard kiss and I can taste the alcohol on him. He's pushing me away then, almost taking some of my hair out as he shoves me back against the desk, and we stare each other down. Cold, hungry eyes rake across my face and I gaze back with a smooth expression. He tugs me forward just a moment later for another bruising kiss and I think I can see why psychics would want to remain celibate; nothing these past few weeks has given me any indication that sex has anything to offer. It just seems like another tiring power struggle. Perhaps then it's good that I was so oblivious to Farfarello.
Ah, back to Farfarello again, then? Fantastic. Yes, let's think about a rabid Irishman while the client rapes you. How's that to make a bad situation even worse?
I taste blood as he bites down on my lip and my mind points out that it didn't hurt when Farfarello kissed me in his mocking games. Granted, I pushed him away as soon as it happened, but still. Ah, but what's the 'but still' for? The stress is messing with my mind; the distraction isn't any better than the situation. I cannot afford to be distracted but I do not wish to focus on what's going on, because everything in me is telling me that I can take Matthews down and out with just one hit. I know so many ways to lay him flat and I'm not allowed to land any of the blows. I am a precognitive who saw this coming but cannot do anything about it. I am Schwarz's leader, the only one trusted to keep my teammates in line, and they follow my command.
"Did you see this coming, clairvoyant?" he asks me.
"A long time ago."
He laughs, twisting my hair tighter. "Whore. Fucking whore."
Ruthless businessman, clairvoyant whore. I suppose I should feel honored.
The stress must be getting to me, because I almost find that amusing. It's enough that my expression breaks enough for my mouth to curve into a chilling smirk. Matthews smirks back at me at the sight of it and shoves me against his desk hard enough that the edge digs into my back. "You and your precious self-control," he says. "I'll break it. I'll beat it out of you until you scream. I'll-"
He doesn't finish the sentence. He can't, really, because there's suddenly a knife buried in his throat. Rather, the knife goes in one side and comes out the other, and Farfarello has materialized out of the shadows behind Matthews. Matthews is staring at me with wide eyes and I'm staring at Farfarello past his shoulder with my expression frozen on my face. There's hot blood on my face and chest and I can feel it running down my throat; it's spraying everywhere from the wound. Farfarello's yellow eye is on mine where he stands off to Matthews' side, arm and hand covered in blood. His gaze is hard and then he gives a final wrench to pull the knife through Matthews' throat out the front.
Matthews never knew what hit him. He crashes to the floor and Farfarello and I stare at each other as I struggle to process what's just happened.
"You're bleeding," Farfarello says at length.
"It's not mine," I answer without thinking.
He snorts and reaches out, pressing his fingers against my chest where Matthews scratched me. "Here," is his simple answer. "Let's go."
"Let's go?" I repeat, looking from him down to Matthews. I cannot say I'm upset to see him dead, but the consequences for his murder will be severe. "Look what you've just done!"
Farfarello scowls at me, pointing his knife in my direction. "We're leaving," he says. "I am going to Rosenkreuz and you are going to find a new Watcher." Farfarello understands that Rosenkreuz will want to kill him for what he's done, and I can just stare at him. He gives his knife a shake. The anger in his gaze isn't as fierce as it was earlier; it seems to have died down to something smoldering and resentful. "You shouldn't have pushed him, Oracle. Schwarz falls under Austria's jurisdiction first and foremost, and if they gave permission to refuse Matthews, they could argue our side against the Rosenkreuz here."
"You talked to Lady Bausch?" I say, giving him a sharp look.
His scowl deepens. "I hadn't gotten an answer yet," is his sour response, and I finally realize why he was so angry at me for pushing Matthews. Farfarello has been right all along… He said precognitives were given Watchers because they're blind in that they focus more on what they see than what's left unseen. I was going to allow Matthews what he demanded because Rosenkreuz's American branch said I must, but Schwarz is on contract in America while Austria holds the override. Austria is the branch that put us together; they understand our unit intimately. If Farfarello had gotten word from them that said Matthews was a liability, I could have politely told Matthews to fuck himself when he said he wanted this. Without that approval, what Farfarello has just done is take out Dreyden's biggest client without proper warning. There hasn't been time for Austria to approve it and argue it out with America; there hasn't been time to prepare Dreyden for what's coming. And for Farfarello to act without Austria's approval means that even if they might have given it to him before, they will be much less likely to do so now.
I pushed Matthews into demanding this early, and therefore sentenced Farfarello to either allow it to happen or kill Matthews anyway and let Dreyden execute him in turn.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I demand.
"Why didn't you trust me?" he sends back, matching my flat tone.
What I want to say, in my anger, is 'Why should I have?', but I know better than to say such a thing. I should have, plain and simple. "My reasons were valid for pushing this confrontation," I say instead.
He just frowns at me. "So I fixed your problems and took a little for myself," he says, as if there's nothing at all wrong with this. It's my turn to scowl at him for the easy way he says it, and I wonder why he had to wait until Matthews showed up to start acting on anything that Schuldich says has existed for a year and a half now. I wonder if it's because until this vision happened, he didn't think any such approach was possible. Either that, or he's just an opportunistic bastard like I always thought he was. I'll place my bets on the latter option.
"Dreyden's going to be furious," I say at length, looking down at the corpse by my feet.
Farfarello shrugs. "Did you find a new Watcher?"
I give him a cool look for that. "No," I say. "I knew before I looked that there wouldn't be anything worth investing in there."
He offers me the barest of smirks, arrogant as always. The blood is cooling quickly against my skin, so I button my shirt together as best as I can when several buttons are missing. Farfarello wipes his blade off on my sleeve but I don't have it in me to chastise him about it right now. There's too much to think about right now, too much to do. The relief I feel that Matthews is dead is pushed aside under the realization that I am just hours away from losing my Watcher unless I can convince Dreyden and his people to pardon Farfarello's action. I should have trusted him. Damn it. I won't lose him, not when he's the best there is and not when he so readily signed his life off just to stop this act. Matthews wasn't going to kill me, but Farfarello knows me well enough by now to know that this would have affected everything else. It would have never shown on the outside, but Matthews, Rosenkreuz, and myself would always know what I would do for my employers. Farfarello prevented this at the cost of his life, but I'm not willing to pay that cost.
"We're leaving," I say, and Farfarello follows me towards the door. As I reach for the knob I see that the lock is still in place, and I flick a quick look back at my teammate. "You were watching," I accuse him.
He gives me a lazy little smile, all evidence of his anger missing and for all appearances, completely unconcerned that Rosenkreuz will want to kill him tonight. "I was waiting to see if it was worth it," he tells me, and he lifts his clean hand to his face to trace his lips as his smile curves into a smirk. "You smiled at him," he says. "Like this. He would have lost tonight; he wouldn't have gotten everything he came for."
I just look at him for a long moment as I try to decipher those words. "You are a headache," I tell him, pulling the lock free and tugging open the door. Farfarello just laughs and trails behind me towards the elevator. I think Schuldich is out of hearing range from here so I flip open my cell phone and have it dial the first programmed number. Schuldich answers on the first ring.
"Meeting over so soon?" he asks, and from the tone of his voice I know he's still displeased with me from our earlier argument. His words make me glance at my wrist, only to remember I took my watch off.
"Farfarello and I are on our way back," I say.
"You found him, then?" I can hear the tension leave Schuldich's voice. "Is he still in a pissy mood or is it finally safe to ask why the hell we've gotten a fax from Rosenkreuz?"
The elevator doors open and we step on, and we prop ourselves against opposite walls out of habit. "A fax from Rosenkreuz?" I repeat, more for Farfarello's benefit than my own. His gaze had been on the glowing numbers above the door, but it shifts to me at my words. "Austria or America?"
"Austria, to Farfarello. Put him on."
I hold it out towards him and he takes it, moving it to his ear as he relaxes back against the wall. "Austria?" he asks, and he's silent for a minute as Schuldich talks. We arrive at the bottom floor before Schuldich is finished, but Farfarello starts speaking again as he follows me across the lobby. "Didn't he tell you?" Farfarello wants to know. "We've quit our contract early." He quirks an eyebrow in response to whatever Schuldich has to say to that. "He's dead, Schuldich. No. No. Crawford's wearing most of him."
It sounds weird to hear my name; I don't know if he's ever called me by it. He always calls me Oracle to my face, if anything, and he calls Schuldich and Nagi Mastermind and Prodigy in his conversations with me. But when talking to Schuldich, Schuldich is Schuldich and I am Crawford. Again I wonder just how much those two talk when I'm busy with our clients, and wonder if Schuldich's anger over mine and Farfarello's fights and Farfarello's apparent threat to leave was equal parts business and personal. Considering they can both use telepathy, there's no way to track how often they speak and what sorts of things they talk about.
Farfarello holds the phone out towards me with a bland look on his face. "Phone for you."
Schuldich must hear the phone rustle against my cheek or hair or something, because he's speaking before I can say I'm back on the line. His voice is mixed parts startled, angry, and indignant. "What the hell does he mean, Matthews is dead? He doesn't seriously mean you killed him, does he?"
"I didn't," I answer smoothly, stepping out into the night air. "Schuldich, pack your things, and have Nagi clean up as well."
"How can you sound so goddamned calm about this?" Schuldich wants to know. "Fax or no fax, Dreyden's going to shit a fucking brick. No, not a brick. A house! Just because you cleared it with Austria doesn't mean you cleared it with the States, Crawford. This approval and request for further updates is marked about an hour ago today; that's not a good enough time window to work in."
I look towards Farfarello as we approach the car. "It was a reprieve?" I ask him. I see a flash of white teeth behind pale lips as he offers me a quick smirk.
Schuldich hears the words. "It's permission to cut your contract short early. The maid you sent up to my room delivered it as you were leaving. That's not even to mention the message I picked up for Schwarz that was from Dreyden himself demanding that you get in contact with him. Which, of course, I tried to tell you about but Farfarello kicked me out of your office. You can tell him I said fuck you and thanks for nothing, by the way." He leaves the conversation for a few moments; I hear a bang on a door and then his voice just a second later as he tells Nagi to pack up and prepare to move out. "Dreyden sent us a fax while you two were spatting that said he wanted you to get in contact with him, but I couldn't tell you because of Farfarello. Then you walked out and I received a fax from Rosenkreuz saying they approved Farfarello's request to terminate our contract and gave the date and time they would be speaking to Dreyden's group. I've been sitting here staring at these faxes trying to figure out what's going on."
"Now you know," I tell him. "Book our tickets to DC on the next flight. Reprieve or not, Dreyden is going to want to fight it."
"Austria will win," Schuldich says confidently.
"I know."
"See you when you get here, then," the German says. "And I'm going to want a better explanation than 'Didn't Crawford tell you?'. Fuckers."
With that he hangs up on me, and I close my phone and slip it back into my pocket. We've reached the car and Farfarello turns an expectant look on me as he waits for me to explain the call. I reach out and unlock his door, but instead of opening it, he lounges against it. "We're going to move back to DC to argue this out with Dreyden, but Austria's authority is going to hold more weight. Lady Bausch won't let them take you from Schwarz and Schuldich would maim me if I didn't back her up."
"So you are frightened of violence from Schuldich but not me?" Farfarello asks, amused.
I figure honesty is the best thing here. I owe him that much, considering that he killed Matthews with the expectation that he'd be executed for it. If that reprieve wasn't sitting at Matthews' estate, I'd say we'd have a zero percent chance of keeping Dreyden from killing Farfarello for what he's done. Even Farfarello's appeal to Austria alone couldn't have guaranteed that we'd walk away from this. If I had thought of it a week ago, my first response would be to think that Austria would side with America out of loyalty to their own organization. The fact that they sided with us is surprising but welcome. "Schuldich will walk out of Schwarz if you're not here," I tell Farfarello, "because he knows you're the best Watcher we could have."
Farfarello is silent as if considering this, and he picks idly at his collar. I listen to his fingernails click against the leather. "You could have taken that off," I tell him.
"I could have," he agrees, eyeing me.
We stare at each other in silence as we consider the evening, and although I tell myself it shouldn't be at all important, I find myself asking the question anyway. "Is it true?" I want to know. "What Schuldich said about you regarding me."
"He says a lot of things," he answers vaguely. "Most of them are half truths. The rest is open to interpretation." This is followed by a faint, sly little smirk and he lowers his hand from his collar. "But I can wait."
I just look at him. "You'll be waiting a very long time."
He gives me one of his strange little half smiles, yellow gaze amused. "I'm young," is his dry answer. "I can afford to wait."
I give a quiet little snort at his arrogance and point a finger at the car in a silent order for him to get in. "Once we've gotten things in order with Dreyden we'll most likely be returning to Europe. I doubt he'll want to deal with us after we lost him his biggest client."
"I didn't like America, anyway." He shrugs and pushes himself away from the car to tug the door open, and slides into his seat with a lazy grace. He slouches down in his seat enough that he can bend his legs and prop his boots against the dashboard, and he turns a look on me that says he's waiting for me to close the door for him. I reach out to take hold of his door, offering a small shrug of my own.
"No," I say. "I didn't, either."
Teeth flash at me in a quick grin and I push the door closed before moving around to my side of the car. As I turn the key in the ignition, I consider the events of the past few weeks and everything that's just suddenly been revealed to me and wonder what Schwarz will be like from here on out with this new understanding between us. I don't expect Farfarello to be any less aggravating and I don't expect our struggles with each other to end any time soon, but I wonder if the tensions will be quite as strong between Farfarello and myself after this. I wonder if I'll finally begin to be able to appreciate our fights as the games Farfarello has always seen them as.
I don't know. I'm the precognitive, but I'm not sure what Schwarz's future holds.
I might be okay with that.
After all, precognitives may be fated to see the future, but we don't have to face any of it alone. These games we play in memory of the future have never needed just one winner.
The End
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