Guilty Pleasures

Meeting Zillah led to... interesting places ((nigh NSFW places)). Maria asked us if we knew what our names meant. I do, of course, seeing as how I named myself. Sometimes I regret how open a declaration my name is, but by now it's who I am. Speaking of, Iago asked how one judges a man.

Brody contemplated the suck that is cockblocking and the "problems" of rich kids. just_a_murder cautiously expressed gratitude for the good things in his life.

Spongebob Squarepants asked who your bestest friend is. Scary. Tim Drake asked the Nexus for suggestions on "intense" hobbies to take up, and the Nexus provided.


((In dear_mun, Schu and the deceased-but-possibly-coming-back-from-it cursed_bird had a very intense conversation.))

Sweet did another walk through the Nexus, so I got caught up in two sing-alongs, one with Farfarello ((mentioned in this good_rpers_rock post)) and one with Crawford, neither fun. It seems like Brad has a lot going on, and it's not good. ((Other!Schu isn't terribly happy at the moment either.)) But Sylar's was sheer win.

Nagi's looking for clothes, while Aya-kun is looking for toys. ((NSFW))

Hanatarou is deeply, deeply sorry for whatever he did while LOL'd. He's brought pastry.

Kenyuu's such an evil pervert that he makes me look like a saint. ((NSFW))

Another Sanzo has shown up. Might be interesting. Might lead nowhere.

It's like the whole Nexus was on the rag when answering this one new chickie, but it was hilarious.

A young Namor has shown up and asked about the purpose of clothes. Of course I had to answer that one.


((In dear_mun, Yohji's complaining about being dressed up for a tea party his mun has planned for him. Everyone else points and laughs. Gojyo's mun intends to be meaner to him than usual, so he's being a real bitch about it to everyone. Greed demanded some action, and Farf said he might supply some. Jean-Paul, whose name everybody can now remember again, complains of being made to smex Apocalypse in the Sweet thread. Everyone else points and laughs. And Nightwing's freaking out over a new thing.))


( cut for spoilers on sci-fi geekery for Heroes' 'Five Years Gone' and Stargate Atlantis' 'Tao of Rodney' )

I celebrated Easter with a lot of candy, particularly chocolate bunny ears, and a lot of sex. I may have huffed a bit too much nitrous oxide from balloons last night, though. London's nightlife is a bit weird. The problem with being a telepath hanging around people using drugs is that using drugs starts to seem like a better idea.


Siberian has arrived in the Nexus, and we're already breaking his brain. Not that there's so much brain there to break. Ah, Weiß. But he's good for just_a_murder in his way. You just keep being good for Aya, Ken-ken.

I have the bad feeling that someone is talking smack about me. I'll keep my eyes open to see if things get worse. Gojyo sure is. I'm annoyed that he put me on the spot about Schwarz-not-Schwarz, then didn't even have the decency to give me a cuddle. I even fetched him shit beer.

Three linked guys at different points on the wheel of their linked lives meet at a bar for one's birthday and get drunk. Hilarity ensues. I'm cheering Toki and Goku on.


I provided some advice to a Harry Potter and an older Simba. Lions grow up so fast. The last time I spoke to Simba he was a lot smaller and I was still LOL'd as a Barbie doll, albeit a gorgeous, hard-edged one.

The Joker is offering religion and somehow managing to be even creepier about it than the Daleks for Jesus. I refuse to accept a clown as my personal savior, even if he is openly homicidal.

Jason Todd asked for confirmation that there really are way too many Robins in the Nexus. I told him there are far more Edward Elrics, so he should count his blessings. Elric of Melniboné would back me up on that one.

That guy who doesn't have a name anymore must be low on cash, because he's ineptly trying to pick the Nexus' pockets. He didn't get any money off me, but he did give me a cheap if brief thrill.

A new, telepathic arrival asked what we thought of yaoi telepaths, and I told her that we're here, we're queer, get used to it.

This chickie only seems to show up about once a year, but she brought out Yuuko and Rukia's Valley best. ((Even though Rukia later castigated her mun for it at dear_mun.))


I had nothing to do with this at all, but it entertained me. Maxwell Lord is looking for ideas for a mascot for a chain of inter-dimensional fast food restaurants. "Creepy pedophile clowns are right out." We keep coming back to clowns, don't we?


((And Schu received some lovin' at good_rpers_rock! ::blush::))

Schuldig had the information they'd come for. Few people could hold much back once Farfarello started using his electrical methods of persuasion. It smelled like burnt hair, pork barbecue, and gunpowder in the room. Aloha. While smoking one of their vic's cigarettes to make more of his own contribution to the smell, Schu kept his mind open to pick up any last tidbits of data amidst the waves of pain and to see if any more thugs would be coming. He and Farfarello had already destroyed a small army, but thugs tended to be a renewable resource.

There's one. Schu shot him through the head as soon as the guy opened the door.

"Are we done?" Farf asked, bouncing up on his toes, smiling. He looked so cute when he smiled, from something about the way it made the scars on his face pull.

Schuldig refused to think about that. "I have it. We're done."

Farfarello slashed through the man's throat to finish him, then cleaned the blade on the vic's shirt before sheathing it. He turned off the lights as they left.

As they walked to the car, Farfarello said, "Do ye ever think about the elder gods?"

"Cthulu? We stopped the elders so we wouldn't have to bow down to some many-tentacled thing from beyond. Masafumi Takatori was already almost enough to turn me off calamari." Schuldig shuddered more from the feel of Farf's barely pent-up electricity slithering between them than from the memories.

"Nah, the forebears of the more modern gods, like as in Mother Earth and Father Sky."

"And She got earth because... yeah. Even older gods come from unimaginative sex jokes. No, I don't think about it. Why, Farf?"

"The male god was almost always a lightning god."

A lot of times it didn't take much to set Schuldig up in conversations because the mind reading gave him cue cards. With Farf's mind being as difficult as it was and Schuldig's recent increased shielding, it took longer. "No. You are not a god. You are not a demigod, a half-god, or a son of a god. I don't see why you'd even want to be considering what shit their lives usually end up being but no, you are not. And I'm sure as hell not paying you any tribute."

Farfarello just smiled, serene and secure in his knowledge. "No tribute at all?"

"Just this." As Schuldig got in the car, he flipped him off American style. As he drove away without Farfarello, he yelled out the window, "You can get home on the back of a donkey, you ass!"

About four blocks away, Schuldig had to park and stop the car for a bit to rest his head on the steering wheel. Farf thought he was some kind of fucking divinity. More than ever, Schuldig regretted that Sister Ruth had gotten her stupid ass killed before he could have dug into what porridge passed as a mind for her. Of course, his thoughts of how that meeting would have gone tended to be along the lines of him shaking her as he ripped into her mind and asked repeatedly, "Who was his father, you stupid bitch?" before killing her himself. There are these things called "tact" and "smarts," Sister, you might have wanted to try using on your own son before you drove him utterly around the bend....

What the hell was it with him and psychos anyway?

When he arrived home, the dining room table had been beautifully set. Although the dinner for Nagi that night would be made by a caterer and delivered later, Brad, of course, would want the table done his own way. "You'll make someone a fine wife someday, Brad Crawford," Schuldig said.

"Where's Farfarello?" Brad simply answered.

"Playing Jesus to the lepers in his head. He thinks he's divine today."

"Wonderful."

"You're the one who wants to take him on permanently. Why did you delay us so much that time with the Sister Ruth disaster?"

"Most of the time I see short-term. Short-term said it was best to delay." Brad had his seeing-into-the-distance look on. "Hmmm. At least he'll arrive within the two hours necessary today."

"Hmm? Oh. Good one, Carnak the Magnificent."

Brad gave him an assessing look. "Come over here."

Schuldig shot him a look but came over. Brad grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in close, giving him calm stillness to bathe in. Eyes closing, shields unconsciously opening to drink it in better, Schuldig leaned his head against Brad's and relaxed. "Nnnngh."

Stroking Schuldig's hair, Brad murmured, "Much better. No more lines of strain around your eyes. Now you're fresh as a tiger lily, perfect for the table."

Brad knew Nagi would be watching Schuldig to see how Schwarz had been treating him lately, and Brad had no intention of letting his operatives be poached by anyone, let alone by his former protégé.

"You're such an asshole." But Schuldig smiled and nuzzled Brad's neck. For the first time in ages, he didn't have that charged feeling in the apartment crawling all over his skin.

"There's such a big difference in you when he's not here."

"I've been saying that." Felt so good and indolent right now. Nuzzling.... "Nagi will arrive about 15 minutes earlier than he has to, which means in less than two hours. That's about how long it'll take the caterers to bring the food, right? How long do you think it would take Farf to get here?"

"You smell like death...." Brad smiled. "We'll have enough time."

Last night was bad. I ended up staggering in at 11 a.m. this morning, looking like enough hell that Brad got over his "you melted people's brains with your rage yesterday" thing enough to say that I looked like hell and I should quit my Nexus boyfriend if he left me like this. I told him it was already done and then took a long shower. It took me 10 minutes to get all the blood out from under my fingernails.

But then I felt London Aya getting physically attacked by two people trying to shut down his telepathy as well. I Portalled over--dressed, you pervs--and took them down, ripped the information of who they worked for and why they wanted Aya from their heads, knocked them out, left them to a surprised Aya to be restrained, Portalled to fucking Cardiff to steal out the records and recordings they had there and kill a technician, and Portal back for the two luckless bastards unfortunate to attack someone who belonged to me. (Yay, time-warping abilities of Portals!)

He wanted answers. Very Aya of him. I Portalled all of us off the street and into the hotel room we liked to get for his lessons. Fortunately for any innocents out there, nobody had the room at the time. I swear, if anybody had been in there, I would have defenestrated 'em if I didn't just melt their brains and toss 'em in a closet.

Eszett is dead. Nobody else has been able to scrape up the money and mojo to be as big as they were. But little organizations are operating under the radar now, and Aya's recently focused ability had come to their attention. The British Isles in particular have a lot of little talents, and now that Aya's little talent isn't amorphous and unconscious it's rising above the pack. They wanted it. They'd start looking at Schwarz soon if Brad got serious about taking higher profile gigs as what we really are or even if we just advertised Farf as a freak lightning thrower.

Aya figures this means more may be coming after him in the future, and he's probably right. I told him that that's why I stripped their surveillance center raw and intend to hand in the material and our two attackers to Brad and Farf for deep questioning. Aya demanded he get data as well, since he's in danger. I reminded him that Brad didn't give a rat's ass about him. He reminded me that I did. We argued a lot, and then we kissed for about three minutes, with passion and with tongue.

Poor Aya. He'd figured that all his passion had died a slow death as his Yohji had dragged him and their relationship through the mud years ago. He's with Ken now, but it's more because Ken loves him than because he feels anything other than some vague attachment to him. Being attracted like this to anyone, let alone me, is throwing him for a loop. I took advantage of his shock at his own actions to tell him that I'd give him a synopsis later. Then I Portalled away with the stooges to Chez Schwarz.

Farf looked very happy to get fresh meat to play with. Seeing him was... very difficult. I have to remember that he's him, not him. Being able to feel him makes a difference at least.

As I handed over the surveillance stuff and records and told Brad the lowdown, he looked like he was nearly getting hornier. Getting a challenge, having a one-up on an enemy, and seeing me become a more versatile operative in his employ now that I can Portal are all making him happier and more vital. I gave him that, and he knows it. I couldn't help getting a smile on my face watching him during that.



Yeah, everybody else is warring with Iron Man. I'll just stay on my couch with beer and munchies and watch from a distance.