There's nothing certain left to know

[have_your_lives]

[Mayfield has been seeing less and less of Schuldig over the past two months. With Crawford and Joshua having been droned, and now Nagi's following them, the Mastermind has been essentially abandoned - no partners, no support, nothing.

Forget about merely being separated from Crawford; to be cast adrift from Schwarz entirely is something that hasn't happened in over a decade. To say that he's not coping well would be an understatement, as whatever it is he's doing...it's not 'coping' at all.

Akira has managed to duck Schuldig entirely so far, and the only other inhabitant of Schuldig's house is Ema - who avoids the place as much as possible. In their absence, he's taken to prowling through the halls like a wild animal, becoming increasingly unstable. How much Ema (or Akira, whenever she happens to be around) has noticed in her infrequent home visits is debatable, but some of the walls have bullet holes in them. Target practice or random violence? Who knows. When there are no gunshots, there is an almost constant blaring of classical music throughout the house - something that Schuldig usually uses to clear his head, or at least drown out everything else in it. That he's gone beyond the point where this calms him in the slightest is a dangerous sign.

Schuldig's isolation is the only thing preventing him from going out and taking out his frustrations on the general populace. He hates pain, he hates dying, and he especially hates droning - all of which and more can happen to him if he goes on any kind of mindfuck murder sprees without the backup he's accustomed to from Schwarz. He has no allies now, no one watching his back, and the feeling of being so alone is accomplishing what only Crawford's strictest orders ever have. Schuldig is restraining himself.

But where Crawford gave him leeway, let him indulge himself at times even if he demanded obedience at others, there's no reprieve from his current situation. With no outlets for his frustrations, combined with the stress of being simultaneously alone and having the voices of dozens of people he loathes in his head...something inside him is splintering, something that was never far from snapping to begin with.

With Nagi's droning as the final straw, he's beginning to lose what little sense of self-preservation he possesses. Something is going to suffer with him, and very soon.]

[A]

[Schuldig is prowling the house, in a volatile mood and probably armed. Ema, Akira, if you dare...]

[B]

[Schuldig is walking the streets, scanning his fellow Mayfield residents both visually and telepathically. Whether he's looking for a conversational partner or a victim is difficult to say, but he'd probably be happy with either. And there's no saying whether he won't just combine the two, judging from the look of him.]

[C]

[Mayfield does offer Schuldig one small consideration. In the mail today, he receives a small box...in which lies a familiar car key. He stares at it for a long moment before ducking outside, to find his beautiful red sports car in the driveway. Anyone can feel free to approach him while he's staring at it - compliments to his car are one of the few ways in which someone could get on his good side right now - or spot him while he's driving it through Mayfield later. But eventually he'll be taking it speeding down the highway, the pedal all the way to the floor...and he'll be driving it back and forth down the highway pretty much until he runs out of gas.

He is not in a good place right now.]

[OOC note: Please make sure you've responded to Schuldig's permissions posts(forward dated at the top of his journal)! Also, he's a very dangerous man in a very dangerous mood, so be aware of that if you want to toss your characters at him. :|a ]

Comments

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

You think you can afford not to be wary in this place? You are new. [Schuldig returns the glare with a grin, though it doesn't even come close to reaching his eyes. In fact, aside from the curve of his lips, it'd just be a baring of teeth.]

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

We wouldn't have to as much if there weren't freaks like you here.

Cut that out.

[He doesn't know what the man is doing, but he's going to take a chance and bet this headache and tiredness is from Schuldig. Feeling this bad never happened just out of the blue.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

This from the personification of a country? You are aware that's not normal, I hope. [The vicarious projection of his own headache doesn't stop; if anything, Schuldig increases it. Calling him a freak isn't unusual, but it's never something he's appreciated.]

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of--

[What he was was trying to say was that it's very normal, and there were a lot of other nations -- at least where he's from. And even though some of the other nations could give him a headache from the simple sight of them alone, he knew it wasn't exactly something they did on purpose.

Instead, it strikes him as odd that this stranger knows what he is without being told and he just doesn't feel like discussing it anymore.

He winces again, shoulders rolling a little. There was that, too, and he stands up.]

What are you doing, anyway.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Not where I'm from. Countries are just the dirt under our feet and the names on our maps, and we get along just fine that way.

[At the question of what he's doing, Schuldig slides his hands comfortably into his pockets.] Returning a favor, that's all.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[Really not liking this guy. ]

Keep going. I've never met you before.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

What does that have to do with anything, exactly?

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[He rolls his eyes.]

You said, 'returning a favor'.

What do you mean?

[He's pretty confused here.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

You give me a headache, I give you one. Fair trade.

It's even the same headache, just to make sure things are perfectly, karmically balanced.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

. . .

I'm not doing anything to you.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Not on purpose, anyway. But you countries always make my head hurt.

If you can't give me a cigarette, then you can at least suffer right along with me.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[He pats at his pockets a bit. He might have one.]

Why would I give you a headache?

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

A side effect of passive telepathy. [Maybe he can head off the whole 'get out of my head' discussion if he describes it a different way.] My head isn't meant to have an entire nation in it.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[. . . why did so many people here have such strange abilities. He'd met a teleporting girl and a flying man, and now somebody who could read his mind--

Or, couldn't, as it were. Good to know. He does find a stray cigarette in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing, so he flicks it rather idly at . . . whoever he was.]

It would be nice if you could stop it. Who are you?

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Stop hearing you, or stop passing along the headache you're giving me? Either way, yes. That would be nice. [He doesn't seem to have stopped, though.]

Schuldig.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

Nobody's forcing you to listen.

[He's still pretty satisfied that Schuldig can't really get in his head, though he wonders how a normal human being would fare. He also wondered what it might be like if he didn't have this human body, instead having his nation body back.]

Can't you control it?

[He's just going to sit back down, on the grass this time, pressing his palms to each temple and rubbing a them slowly. Short-lived, but temporary relief from the dull aching.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

No. [Schuldig is preoccupying himself lighting the cigarette. Holland will note a gradual easing of his headache as Schuldig takes a drag; he seems to have relented. Or perhaps the telepath's own headache is slacking off. Maybe both.] I can fine-tune my perception of it, even change how I use it, but if you're asking if I can change the volume, or shut it off, or simply cover my ears? Then no.

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[Just a sigh, though he does notice some relief.]

I guess it's not your fault.

[But it doesn't stop him from wishing he could shut it off himself, or at least attempt to.

And he thought Spain and zus could be loud and irritating sometimes; what if he had to listen to everybody all of the time? Netherlands winces a little.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

How charitable of you to say so. [Yes, this is sarcastic. It's a slightly more enlightened view than most, and it's not as though Schuldig fails to appreciate that, but his being a telepath is in no way his fault, and thus not a matter of 'guessing'.]

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[A glare. Netherlands doesn't really like that tone.]

But that doesn't mean I'll give you more than 10 seconds to get the hell away from me.

[He blows quite a bit of smoke into the air, knocking some of the ash off the end of his cigarette. Now that he knows you can't really hurt him past a physical confrontation, he's not going to be so accommodating.]

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Hah. It's cute that you think you know the extent of what I can do. [Still, Schuldig has his cigarette and doesn't have any other real reasons to hang around, so he'll casually saunter off. He's clearly in no rush.]

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[Most likely he'd regret this but he steps in front of Schuldig before he gets past him.]

So what can you do, then?

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

What possible reason could I have for telling you?

[vertulpen.livejournal.com]

[Glaring, irritated.]

Because I asked.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Do countries usually give away how their weapons work to everyone who asks nicely? And if they don't, why should I?