FicWad

"Come on! There's no reason why I can't!" Brett argued, eyes furious and hands on his hips. When he was angry it showed spectacularly and once again Crawford was reminded that his son took after Schuldig more than him. In too many ways, it seemed. The oracle could have gone without having two temperamental redheads in the house at times.

Mentally sighing, Crawford adopted the Business Face that normally worked on Schuldig. "There's no reason why you can't continue to bring your own lunch to school."

"Most people buy their own every day."

"If most people jumped off of a bridge, would you?"

"Sure, I'd even encourage it. After paying Kirito a lot of money to keep me from actually falling."

This time, Crawford sighed aloud. "That aside, you should be thankful to have someone make you lunch every day. When I was your age, I would have appreciated a home-cooked meal /once/."

Brett rolled his eyes. "And you walked fifteen miles in the snow every day, barefoot with no coat. Gott, you're so..." A very sharp warning glare. "....not young."

"Actually, it was ten miles a day, on very sharp rocks," Schuldig drawled from the couch, where he was idly flipping through magazines. "Rosenkreuz only allowed it to snow on the grounds when they wanted us to freeze."

"Home sweet Hell," Farfarello reminisced.

The teenager huffed. "Yeah, well, aren't parents supposed to want better lives for their kids and stuff?"

Schuldig snorted.

Not getting help from that side of the room, Brett appealed to Crawford again. "I'll pay for it myself!"

"With the money I give you."

"Why are you so cheap?!"

"He does have a point there, Brad."

"You're not helping, Schuldig."

The older telepath grinned. "I'm the devil's advocate. I neither help nor hinder anyone."

Farfarello laughed at that and got hit upside the head with a rolled up edition of /Life/.

"Look," Brett tried one last time, "I'm sure Uncle Nagi and Uncle Farf wouldn't mind not making me lunches. I bet they'd even appreciate it. And I can't make anything edible..."

Schuldig sat up suddenly with his 'I Have A Plan, Sucks To Be You' face on. "I'll do it!"

Farfarello laughed again, louder, and got a slipper shoved into his mouth.

Brett panicked. "No no no, iie, nein, that's okay really. I can just-"

"Now Brett, you've gotten Schuldig motivated to do something productive. And it solves your problem. The perfect solution. Everyone's happy now, right?" Crawford's glasses gleamed.

Looking defeated, Brett stalked off. Spitting out the fluffy pink 'princess' slipper that wasn't Cailin's, Farfarello's lips quirked. "Submit'in him ta Schuldig's idea o' lunch, Crawford? Ye could'ave jus' asked me ta kill th'boy."

"A lesson must be taught here. No matter how terrible the methods may be."

Schuldig absent-mindedly flipped them off. He was too busy thinking to put much heart into it.

*

The next day, Brett stared at his lunch bag distrustfully as it sat unmoving on his desk. The fact that it wasn't moving encouraged him slightly, but he realized it could just be biding it's time before it attacked.

Kirito stared at the bag with outright fear.

Sighing, Cailin pushed the bag towards her cousin. "Just open it, Brett. Uncle Schu isn't really going to kill you with food."

"How do you know?"

"He said the life insurance policy hasn't gone through yet."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just open it."

"Fine." Bracing himself, the redhead reached into the bag and pulled out a box. And stared, ignoring the sounds of his cousins' and nosy students' laughter.

DAD!!!!!!


Back at the Schwarz house, Schuldig paused in cleaning his gun and smirked. And Crawford suddenly realized something.

"Schu...where exactly did you 'misplace' the edible underwear?"

"Fun and low in calories, Brad."