I've seen enough to know

Crawford had watched the child being stoned by the other children. He watched as the boy picked himself up, stumbling away into exile. Now, he watched as the boy shrivelled up in a dark alley crying. Men in the streets passed him by, faceless. Some stopped momentarily to stare, then went on their way because there was nothing of interest. His delicate face was pretty, but his limbs were so frail; he was physically bruised and psychologically broken and yet the boy still survived. He was crying.

The last of those visions flashed through his mind as the sunlight crept quietly beneath his lashes. Crawford groaned and sat up, stretched to rouse stiff limbs from sleep. Schuldich was still asleep beside him, tapered fingers curled tight round the corner of their blanket. Let him rest, he thought fondly - it had been a long night, and the redhead certainly earned it. He picked his glasses off the table, rubbing off the dust collected from the previous night with a velvet cloth. His actions grew mechanical as he sorted through his thoughts.

He knew it was no dream; he never dreamt. He replaced his glasses on the table top and walked into the bathroom. All through the shower his thoughts strayed to the little boy crying in the street.

Since they had been transferred to Japan, Crawford had begun seeing visions of that boy. He and Schuldich are both psychic. Schuldich is clairvoyant, but Crawford has the ability to see into the future, which usually involves things that were to happen around him. But mixed into these visions now are those of that mysterious, sad little boy who he was sure he had never truly laid eyes on before. Crawford realised he had grown all too attached with the boy and the boy’s suffering was his own.

He came out of the shower and looked at the redhead, still asleep on the bed. He dried up and got dressed. He couldn’t help but think that Schuldich would just adore the boy. He could see that happen. He would go find the boy, he decided. He would take the boy away from all those troubles and find a way to keep him safe. But how?

He didn’t even know the child’s name!

An inner voice told him that things would work themselves out. For some reason, that voice sounded suspiciously like his German lover’s. He glanced at the prone figure on the bed, resisting the urge to run his hands along that silky mass of amber flame.

He put on his glasses and left.

It was too early to be moving around but Schuldich was already wide awake in bed. Brad was dreaming about that Japanese boy again. He knew. Of course, Brad never called it dreaming; he called them ‘visions’. Visions that translate to thoughts, which are then translated to Schuldich welcome or unawares.

But Schuldich hates thoughts, and he loves them. He was bombarded with people’s thoughts every conscious second of the day. Everyone effects him. Sometimes it becomes hard for him just to tell whose thought’s are whose. But thoughts are quite useful, if one knows how to handle them.

Rosemary always used to think that he was crazy and because of that, Schuldich used to think so, too. Now he knew that she never accepted that she gave birth to a telepathic. People just aren’t so ready to believe in miracles any more. In her case, he was a curse. Child of the devil, she had christened him - after all, he was ‘Rosemary’s Baby’. And it didn’t help matters that his bastard father had so freely given away their limited wealth and being to some Satanist occult.

And then it wasn’t funny.

He wondered briefly what it must have been like not to have parents. What must life be like for that kid in Brad’s dreams, who has lived all his short life in some cold, dirty alley, lonely and rejected by his peers? Probably worst off than his own, he concluded. Or not.

She tried sending him to army camp, but when it turned out that he was gay, she was even more convinced that he was the devil’s son. She had been running through various murder scenarios in her deranged little head - most of which ended in suicide as holy repentance.

Poor, sick woman. She did love him. Everything she did, she really thought was for his own good and the world’s. Her son was unorthodox, unpatriotic and unwilling to be purged of his guilty sins.

So maybe it was a good thing that this Japanese kid didn’t know what was a mother’s love. And here Schuldich, always a smile on his face, was the one crying inside out.

He didn’t have to look to know that Brad was beginning to wake up. What mattered was that Schuldich didn’t want him to know that he was up. Whether Brad was aware of it or not, he had already made the unconscious decision to look for this boy and bring him back. Though Schuldich had his doubts, he wasn’t going to be in Brad’s way.

He felt the bed shift, heard his American’s deep moan that made him think of hot activities from the night before. He clutched the sheets a little too tightly and hastily chased his thoughts away.

Let him sleep, Brad was thinking. He could be so sweet when he thought no one was looking or listening. Schuldich chuckled quietly as he heard the tap water running. I ran away with the most considerate prick in the world, he mused. And he actually loves me.

If anything, that was what really baffled the redhead. Armed with charm, wit and, of course, his prophetic powers, the other man has every likelihood of succeeding in gaining almost anything he wants.

Ironically, Brad chose to stay with him and work as a bodyguard for some corrupted government official who is seriously in need of the protection, yet profoundly ignorant of the danger that he places upon those around him.

It has it’s benefits though. The client holds no prejudice against their preferences and they, in turn, never question the client’s actions or motives. The money they make is more than enough to cover the rent, so Schuldich should have no complaints.

"Tell me when you get to see him die," he had once mentioned to his oracle.

Brad gave him an odd look. "The point is to keep him alive."

"I can fantasize, can’t I?"

But Brad isn’t even interested in results. Processes are interesting to him. Brad is one of the few people he’s known who actually come to terms with and accepts how the world is run. It doesn’t mater when the world begins or ends. It has; it will. Despite all odds, the world is slowly, but surely drifting into a state of irreversible entropy.

What matters then is who you live with though this process called life; Brad chose him.

Apparently, he was going to chose another now. That little boy had touched him without trying and Schuldich felt childishly jealous. He suddenly wanted to follow Brad out and see what would happen, but decided against it. And then he saw some kaleidoscope of images flash in Brad’s mind.

He had seen Schuldich talking to the boy, at once amazed and delighted at the innocence of the child’s reply. He had seen the three of them holding hands, walking along the riverside later that evening, pointing at the stars. And some time later, he presented to his lover the boy, in his a smart, navy blue school uniform, expression still and collected as Brad’s.

It used to be strange for Schuldich seeing himself through Brad’s eyes. Sometimes, it still is. And without warning Brad would refocus onto the most minor of details.. What’s the boy’s name? Oh, sweet idiot!

‘Things would work out, Brad. Don’t worry. You’ll see."

Moments later, when Schuldich stepped out of the house, Crawford was still waiting in his car. "Hop in."

Footnotes:
Rosemary's Baby is a film I looked at for Media Studies. I can't remember much about it except the plot and it's about Satanism and greed. ^^;