Being a telepath - or, rather, being one as successful and powerful as Schuldig - was a balancing act. In one hand, he clutched who he was; with the other, he held back the avalanche of thoughts from others just enough that he could sift through them without there being too great a risk of them getting confused with his own identity. As exceptional as he was, there really wasn't that much of an obvious difference between his thoughts and the thoughts he heard around him - not enough that, if they got mixed together, he'd be able to find his own without extreme difficulty.
But the delicate equilibrium had just been shattered. He needed a moment, just a moment of silence to sort out what had happened, where he was, but that was the special hell for telepaths. Thoughts never, ever stopped coming, and as his grip faltered they hit him with the force of a tsunami.
Stop, he breathed, not knowing or caring if he'd spoken aloud or not. A flash of lucidity, like a shooting star in the dark, whispered that this was what River felt like, and then terror followed in its wake as the possibility of ending up like her arose. It had been years since he'd made such an entreaty; he hadn't begged for a cease-fire since Rosenkreuz had brutally displayed that there would never be one, that he would have to beat the odds because they would never be adjusted for him.
On some level, there was pain; it wasn't even through his own awareness that he realized the pain was his, but rather through a glimpse from Yohji's eyes of him hunched over himself, fingers digging into his scalp with, he suspected, enough force to draw blood - he'd done that before, but again, not since he'd been a child. Not since before Rosenkreuz had explained that his screaming fits were caused by something they called a gift.
After some time, he realized he'd been asked if he was okay, and that was worse because he wasn't sure whether he'd heard it and recognized it as stimuli coming through his own ears or whether he'd picked up on Hughes' memory of asking it, or Yohji's having heard it. He was unraveling; this was the kind of horror story every telepath heard about those who couldn't keep up, this was the express lane to insanity. The canary in the mine had just exploded and Hughes wanted to know if he was all right.
As lost as he was, Schuldig at least recognized the hysterical laugh as his own, and clutched it to him like a child. Make it stop.
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But the delicate equilibrium had just been shattered. He needed a moment, just a moment of silence to sort out what had happened, where he was, but that was the special hell for telepaths. Thoughts never, ever stopped coming, and as his grip faltered they hit him with the force of a tsunami.
Stop, he breathed, not knowing or caring if he'd spoken aloud or not. A flash of lucidity, like a shooting star in the dark, whispered that this was what River felt like, and then terror followed in its wake as the possibility of ending up like her arose. It had been years since he'd made such an entreaty; he hadn't begged for a cease-fire since Rosenkreuz had brutally displayed that there would never be one, that he would have to beat the odds because they would never be adjusted for him.
On some level, there was pain; it wasn't even through his own awareness that he realized the pain was his, but rather through a glimpse from Yohji's eyes of him hunched over himself, fingers digging into his scalp with, he suspected, enough force to draw blood - he'd done that before, but again, not since he'd been a child. Not since before Rosenkreuz had explained that his screaming fits were caused by something they called a gift.
After some time, he realized he'd been asked if he was okay, and that was worse because he wasn't sure whether he'd heard it and recognized it as stimuli coming through his own ears or whether he'd picked up on Hughes' memory of asking it, or Yohji's having heard it. He was unraveling; this was the kind of horror story every telepath heard about those who couldn't keep up, this was the express lane to insanity. The canary in the mine had just exploded and Hughes wanted to know if he was all right.
As lost as he was, Schuldig at least recognized the hysterical laugh as his own, and clutched it to him like a child. Make it stop.