TYL Event - after Nagi's return to his normal age

[have_your_lives]

[You know who has no respect for personal property? Or, apparently, bazookas? This guy. He literally tried to just grab the thing off of Lambo, because there is no possible way wrenching a bazooka out of someone's hands could end in anything other than candy and rainbows. Or whatever would be the evil equivalent as far as Schuldig is concerned - probably tears and kicked puppies.

It's been mentioned before that Schuldig has no inkling of common sense, and this should be an excellent reminder to everyone how crippling of a disability that is.

What actually happened was that the bazooka got dropped onto hard concrete and went off more or less in the telepath's face. And instead of being blown into the bloody, quarter-sized pieces he probably deserved, he got rocketed back into the past, while his twelve-year-old self has been jerked forward in time and dumped into Mayfield.

The upshot of this is that a small, skinny boy with scruffy orange hair is prowling around Mayfield. He's dressed in worn, nondescript grey clothing and looks kind of malnourished; there are many methods of discipline in Rosenkrüs, and denial of food is actually one of the pleasanter ones. Unlike others in this same situation, he seems less confused than wary and suspicious...but those who expect Schuldig's usual personality in a smaller package will be significantly surprised if they approach him. He's fairly easy to recognize with that hair, in any case.]

[OOC: I wish I had more icons for him as a kid, but this is pretty much the only one that even looks remotely close. :| You may see a lot of it.]

Comments

/late as hell

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

[Farfarello is out wandering, as he spends most of his time doing. He spots the orange hair first, but...so much lower to the ground... His eye widens when he realises what he's looking at.]

Schuldig.

[And he starts mentally conjugating verbs in Gaelic mentally, trying to keep Schuldig from reading his thoughts, though under the surface they are mostly centring on "WTF".]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

[By now, the boy has already had several people mistake him for this other man or his older self or whatever Schuldig is supposed to be, and he simply sighs.] My name's Keane.

[He studies Farfarello with an air of mild interest, along with some asperity.] I don't know what you're hiding from me, but it won't work. And if it's about Schuldig, I've met other people who knew him already.

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

Keane? [Filed away to ask adult Schuldig about.]

All right, then. [So he doesn't believe in what's happened? Farfarello isn't sure he can blame him for that. He sighs when he's called out on hiding things, and gives him a baleful look.]

You don't want to look in my head. It'll give you a headache.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

[This gets Farfarello another look of exasperated childish superiority.] I'm a telepath. I always have headaches.

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

I know you're a telepath, 'Keane'. But I'll give you a worse headache than you're used to.

I may not be psychopathic, as some say I am... [He gives him a very crazed smile.] ...But I wouldn't say my mind is a very good place to be if you're not used to it.

[That said, he stops trying to keep Schuldig out (not that he actually could have if Schuldig actively tried to get in anyway).]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

[Keane's eyes visibly unfocus as he goes looking; that's something else that was trained out of Schuldig before he left Rosenkrüs, but Keane isn't that far along yet.

Surprisingly, he doesn't react too much to Farfarello's mind or its contents. The knowledge of Schuldig isn't much he hasn't picked up from others before him, like Ema or Ken; as for the mess that is the Berserker's mind...well, Keane has spent two years at Rosenkrüs. He's seen minds in far worse states than even Farfarello's. Twisted instructors, broken psychics, and almost everything in between.]

...I told you I could handle it.

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

Oh?

[His grin intensifies into something particularly nasty.]

I'll bear that in mind the next time Schuldig accuses me of giving him a headache. ...I'm sure he'd love to be shown up by a boy ten years younger.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

[Keane gives him a wary look and backs up a step. He doesn't seem cowed so much as duly cautious.] Who are you trying to harass, him or me?

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

[He gets himself in check and shrugs idly.]

Neither. He's my friend, and you don't seem to have the same sense of humour.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

I don't know why I would. He doesn't seem to be much like me. [Which is pretty weird, and even Keane knows it. According to this place and time and the people in it - whether he believes in any of them or not - Schuldig is supposed to be him in the future. Why are they nothing alike?]

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

Are you sure about that? Or is that just your perception of it?

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

[Keane tosses his head. It's a very familiar move; apparently there is at least one thing the boy and the man he will become have in common. Schuldig couldn't quite change everything.] I'd know better than you, wouldn't I? You don't know me at all.

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

If you say so. [But there's been a spate of people being de-aged; Mayfield is a closed community, and that hair.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Even if I'm the same person, I'm not the same as him. So you don't know me.

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

[Well that makes sense. He shrugs idly.]

Fair enough, if you want to put it that way. I could get to know you, while you're here.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

You don't like me. [This is said in the tone of a statement of fact.]

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

That's not [entirely] true. [You're not Schuldig. But you will be, one day. That counts for something. But that's also why he doesn't like Keane--because he -should- be Schuldig.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

It's true enough. You don't want to get to know me, you just want me to get to being him. [Among the things Keane is not - Schuldig being foremost among them - 'stupid' is apparently high on the list.]

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

[Hey, he's not actually a bad kid, if he's all that smart.]

At least I see the connection.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

I don't. [And now there's a hint of unguarded uncertainty - or perhaps it is guarded, and the uncertainty is simply so large that it can't all be hidden.] He's nothing like me. He doesn't even have the same name. And I don't know why. [And that can't help but be pressing, because he can sense that some sort of serious upheaval would have to take place to turn him into Schuldig but he hasn't the least idea what form it might take.]

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

I was someone else when I was your age, too. [But going back to Gaelic grammar as a deterrent to prying, for however effective that will be.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

And did anyone try to make you be then who you are now?

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

No. But I would've been curious about my future, I suppose. [He doesn't actually care, he's just interested in talking with Keane out of a morbid sense of curiosity.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Couldn't you be changing the future by messing around with who I am in the past?

[victimofgod.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility. But I doubt it. [He shrugs, bored of this. So younger!Schuldig was a brat with a different name. Big deal. It looks like he's not even that interesting yet.]