petronia

Oh, *hells*.

He'd untucked his shirt, left his tie folded in his breast pocket. The jacket stayed because he was carrying concealed; it took no special psi ability to know that discovery would not assure his welcome. At least the suit was dark.

Getting in was still a near thing.

Once past the door, though, no one seemed inclined to care how he was dressed. Crawford descended two flights of corrugated-metal stairs into a hell of flashing strobelight and writhing bodies. It was dark, the walls a claustrophobic black interspersed with demonic faces grinning in halftone; the air tasted like sweat and smoke (not all of it cigarettes). The pounding was deafening. It didn't register as music with Crawford, who liked Bach and Shostakovich. Wailing and drums, he thought. Primitives in the night. Barbarities... His vision adjusted with difficulty to make out different areas: raised bar and silver-sprayed tables, battered couches in corners of darkness, gyrating crowd outlined by festoons of wires. He squeezed his way past the drinks line, guided more by flashes of inner vision than anything else.

Schuldich was dancing with a girl, pressed up close with his arms hooked around her waist and her chin on his shoulder (she was a little shorter than him even in heels). From a distance they looked like young animals huddled together for warmth – but the club was sweltering with enclosed human movement, and Schuldich had his fingers under the ragged fringe of her cut-offs, caressing the white flesh at the top of her thighs. Crawford could see through a brief parting of the crowd that her eyes were closed, hot-pink lips half-parted and unsmiling.

*Schuldich,* he thought. Making it a call. *Schuldich—*

Schuldich turned his head to gaze into Crawford's eyes, the girl's pale throat complaisant beneath his lips.

Crawford kept himself still. The girl seemed upset, and inclined to be shrill until Schuldich caught her hand with something crumpled and plastic-wrapped in his own. She quieted then, and did not even glance back at him as she slipped into the darkness beyond the speakers. Halfway across the dancefloor a tall blond in a ripped Edvard Munch t-shirt reached out and caught Schuldich around the waist. Schuldich swayed unfazed into the movement, tilting his head up to be kissed. A few words were exchanged after the liplock, humourous apparently – the other man laughed and released him with a friendly push. And then Schuldich was before him, the same sharp-edged amusement dancing around his lips.

"You wanted to see me?" he mouthed. The words travelled clearly, and Crawford found it difficult to tell if he was using his talent – or if he was simply close enough to hear.

"Flores paid you," he said. "And I'm not even dead."

"So," Schuldich said. The song segued into another – drums less frenetic, more guitar. "Let's call it a tie, then. Do you dance, herr Crawford?"

"I'd prefer to stick to business."

"Boring. I could teach you." Crawford was accustomed to snob British standards of personal space, upon which Schuldich was now infringing: just a little too close, swaying languidly to the beat. He refused to back up. "You ever loosen up? Or don't they give that class at assassin school?"

"I want to know where Flores is hiding," Crawford said, ignoring him. You need what I can give you.

"Same to you." Schuldich grinned at Crawford's eloquent pause, a flash of white in the prevailing darkness. "You could find another way at Flores but there's only one me. Correct?"

"What did Mara Eikener tell you?" he said, and only then realized the superfluity of the question. Schuldich laughed outright.

"She never told me anything," he said. "But she knew... just enough..." Crawford opened his mouth to ask the next question, but Schuldich was already there. "She's dead. A traffic accident."

Crawford remembered blood matted in golden hair. "When?"

"About two weeks after I met you." Schuldich did not give any sign that the break from his previous story was of any importance. "Right here in Amsterdam. So I... stuck around."

"What was she to you?" Crawford reached into his jacket pocket for his pack and lighter.

"Sorry?"

"What was she to you. Mother? Sister?" Flick of the lighter. "Guardian? In socio-legal relationship terms."

"What the fuck are you, youth protection services?"

"Just curious."

"She was—" there was one of those jagged shifts in the pounding of the music that Crawford could perceive but not time: a heartbeat of hushed anticipation before the synth cut in again, and the thundering bassline crashed over them like a mounting wave. Schuldich took a deep breath and tilted his head upward, his eyes sliding closed. He'd never quite stopped swaying in place, and now a smile fluttered on his lips, jarring by its vapidity. Crawford smoked and wondered if the logical end of their conversation was at hand, and peripherally if a Schuldich entirely removed from controlled substances would be easier to deal with. He decided that the opposite was probably true: the higher the better, frankly.

The Organization made certain its operatives stayed clean, unless of course they wished otherwise. Failure to obey regulations meant death for the rank-and-file. Properly trained espers were too rare to purge similarly, but the Institute's methods of treatment were… unpleasant.

None of which constituted Crawford's problem.

Schuldich laughed suddenly, slumping forward so that his hair fell into his face. "My aunt," he said. "I think, anyway. I – oh, shit." And he started laughing again. Crawford took another long drag on his filter, experiencing the mint-tinged acridity of the smoke as a balm.

"You stuck around," he said. "Squatting in a building that should have been razed two city administrations ago, fucking yourself up with the same illegal substances you re-sell in your moments of lucidity, luring men to keep the pudgy smile on a small-fry Dutch importer's face. Do you know why street rats are street rats, Schuldich? Because they can't cope. Psychological issues. It's the story of a generation."

He dropped the stub of his cigarette on the floor, grinding it undershoe.

"You're really boring me," Schuldich said through his smile. His eyes were flat. "I won't let SS touch me, herr Crawford."

"SS doesn't have to know about it."

"I don't believe you."

"Who's running Flores?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Where is he?"

Schuldich shook his head from side to side. His smile turned mocking.

Crawford grabbed him by the arm roughly and dragged him forward. Two steps and they were in a dark corner; he shoved Schuldich up against the wall, his forearm across the boy's throat. Pinned his lower body with his own. Schuldich stopped struggling almost immediately, watching him warily.

"So why are you still talking to me, Schuldich?" Same pair of jeans he was wearing, it looked like. Crawford undid the buttons one-handed. The boy was hard, his cock throbbing with heat under Crawford's rough fumbling. "Is this what you want?"

"You have no fucking idea," said Schuldich, "of what I want. You—" Crawford tightened his fingers a fraction and Schuldich's words died in a gasp of air. His eyes closed as he melted into Crawford's touch, his head lolling back against the wall.

All this could well be an act, but Crawford found that he did not care. He quickened the rhythm of his stroking, pressing up close to Schuldich and feeling him quiver. The air was torrid of a sudden – stifling – but Schuldich's hands had come up and fastened on the lapels of his suit jacket, crumpling the fabric, and he couldn't shrug it off. The boy's lips were parted, his breath coming in short pants. Sweat moistened his temples, darkening strands of red and making them cling. Crawford bent his head to lick at the skin there, tasting salt. Schuldich moaned and turned his head, but it was a gesture of abandon and not refusal. His hips were bucking against the steady caress, and the pressure holding him fast.

It was a matter of seconds before he made a stifled sound - and Crawford felt wet warmth flood into his palm. He reached to the side, not looking, and wiped it off against the fake leopard's-fur covering of one of the high barstools.

Schuldich was gazing up at him, his eyes green slits of satiation. Crawford held him up against the wall and kissed him hard. Schuldich responded readily, catching at Crawford's lower lip with playful teeth. He tasted like alcohol.

"You'll have to pay for that," he whispered when Crawford lifted his head for air. Crawford gave a bark of not-quite laughter.

"Drop the act," he said. "That's not what you do. It's easier for you to let them think what they want."

"You don't get what I'm saying," said Schuldich. He reached up and pushed Crawford's glasses up with one finger – they had slid down – and then he brushed the same finger across the lens, and Crawford realised the glass was blurry with moisture. "But you will. Herr Crawford."

He barely needed the vision this time: he brought his hand down just as Schuldich's was curving around the grip of the Walther in his holster.

"Show me where Flores is," he said.

After a moment Schuldich grinned again. He let his head fall forward against Crawford's shoulder.

"Do you have a car?" he murmured.

***

tsuzuku~