Stage 1

[have_your_lives]

[Schuldig is currently sitting in - yes, in - his most recent regain, something entirely unlooked for but thoroughly welcome. He hadn't actually tried to recreate the Space Room since he'd come to Mayfield, but apparently he wouldn't have been able to until today even if he had. Of course, the effects of the Space Room are entirely a telepathic construct of his own design, one he's able to recreate now in his house in Mayfield as easily as he'd been able to in their headquarters in Tokyo. It just involves a little mental tweaking of perception...well, that and a telepathic connection to anyone else he wanted to share the projection with.

And, as it did in Tokyo, the Space Room serves a dual purpose - part vanity, in providing a setting as stunning and dramatic as he feels he deserves, and part practicality. Even if the swirling stars and galaxies didn't induce an almost meditative effect, it brings a sense of comforting familiarity even to one of the rooms of this domestic hellhole he's trapped in. He could almost believe he was back in Japan.

It also helps him feel cut off from the rest of the world, which is exactly what he wants right now. He's aware of the confessions and the truth-telling compulsions going on right now, and he's not particularly pleased. For one thing, he likes knowing everyone's secrets as a telepath, but if everyone gives those secrets away, what fun is it for him? And, of course, he wants nothing to do with any confessions himself.

...that may explain why the house phone has been ripped from the wall and is lying out in the yard. He's taking no chances. Anyone who wants to talk to him - an understandably small number of people - is going to have to come to him.

Or they could catch him when he's prowling around Mayfield later in the day. That could work, too.]

Comments

[1-21jigawatts.livejournal.com]

I don't have to answer that at all.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Then I'll just keep doing as I like, and you can keep glowering and staying out of my way. That suits me just fine.

[1-21jigawatts.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not. Not until you promise to leave Ema alone. Sure, you can go around her but don't ask her or imply you need anything done at all.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

Whatever you say. [It's not necessary anymore, anyway - he's got her trained to the point where she gives him a share of her money and makes coffee for him without even being prompted. But there's no need to inform Misaka of that, is there?]

[1-21jigawatts.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to stop watching you. One slip up and you're a goner.

[have-your-lives.livejournal.com]

It's cute how you think your threatening me for any hint of misbehavior is any different from what I do with Ema.

Or that you genuinely believe I'd consider it some sort of deterrent. I've faced down far more dangerous than you, and I've died a handful of times here already. There's nothing you could threaten me with that'd actually bother me enough to give me pause, if I had a mind to do what I liked.