FIC, FIC, FIC!!! (Weiß Kreuz)
Title: Pieces of Black (66-70)
Author: Lauand
Beta: Avierra
Rating: Depending on the piece. From G to R.
Pairing: When it applies, Crawford/Schuldig
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Thank you very much to Avierra for her big and disinterested help. I touched this last, any mistake is my own.
Relativity II
He had caught Crawford's reflection in the mirror some seconds before, so he didn't start when he heard his voice.
“Schuldig, what the hell are you doing?”
He didn't reply immediately. Crawford hadn't sounded especially appalled, not even more than mildly curious. He probably thought it was his duty to inquire. Schuldig made another try. Then, he came to the conclusion that asking was going to be faster.
“How can you do it?”
Crawford wasn't aware he had ever done anything remotely similar to what Schuldig was apparently doing.
“Do what?” he calmly asked.
“Smiling.” Schuldig kept making faces on the mirror: showing his teeth, hiding them again behind tightly pressed lips, going for a slop-sided approach... “You can smile at people and make them confide in you. Clients trust you and your damned smile. They always think my smirk is creepy and that I'm plotting something. It's fucking unfair; you're always plotting much more than I do, but they believe your smile to be honest.”
Crawford smirked. Schuldig was pretty sure that couldn't be called a smile. It was infuriating, really.
“That is because, when you smile, you're thinking of how stupid they are,” Crawford explained, “but when I smile, I'm thinking of how clever I am.”
Schuldig stared at him as if he had said something terribly stupid, but then he remembered a similar expression on Nagi's face when talking to Schuldig and ended up thinking that most things were, in fact, relative. So he turned back to the mirror and tried again.
Curiosity
When Nagi was curious, he surfed the Net.
When Schuldig was curious, he dove into the subject's mind.
When Farfarello was curious, he ripped the object of his puzzlement apart.
Crawford was never curious.
Names III
“Don't call me that.”
Schuldig tried to stop dead at that, but it was pretty difficult at that point.
“What do you mean 'that'? It's your fucking name,” he said instead.
“Call me 'Brad'.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean 'why'?” Crawford had narrowed his eyes, but he didn't stop either. “That's also my fucking name.”
“Alright, but why now?”
“Because we are fucking, Schuldig.”
Okay, in retrospect, Schuldig figured that he could have deduced that without external help, but it was still out of character for his team leader.
“We're not Japanese, Crawford,” he said with the maximal amount of snide such a short sentence could hold, elongating the 'ee' sound as a sign of his utter contempt at the foreign culture, “you're not going to magically come if called by your damned given name in the middle of it.” He made an abrupt pause at that, suddenly alarmed, “...are you?” Crawford's deadly glare was somewhat softened by the flush, and the sweat, and just the sex of it all. “And just for the record, please, do call me Schuldig. Being called 'sweetheart' could be a serious turn off.”
“I think I will call you 'prick'.”
“Knock yourself out, Brad.”
It was obvious that Crawford was refraining from telling him how much of an asshole he thought Schuldig was, but if anything, Crawford was a man of control, so he just pulled abruptly out, flipped Schuldig over and thrust inside again, arching Schuldig's back by the traditional method of gripping his hair and pulling.
“Ah... yes... God, yes, Brad...!”
The voice sounded too sweet and breathless to be real, but Crawford's cock didn't particularly care and Crawford came like an idiot, shudders taking over while a very small part of his brain was already banging its head against the wall, knowing without a doubt that Schuldig was never going to let him live this down.
So much for control.
He knew he didn't have it in him to keep it up (in more ways than one), so he leaned over Schuldig, taking his cock in hand and jerking him as fast and hard as he knew Schuldig would take, panting against his nape, biting his shoulder, whispering in his ear.
“Come for me...” the word 'prick' was already on the tip of his tongue, “... sweetheart.”
And, with his last thrusts and a couple of masterful jerks, Schuldig did.
A bit later, when they had had the time to come down from it, Schuldig's voice said, muffled because he had buried his head under the pillows, “I won't mention today if you don't, either.”
It was a better bargain than Crawford had expected.
“Deal,” he accepted, still sprawled on his back by Schuldig's side.
“Bastard,” Schuldig muttered into the pillow.
But when Crawford smacked his ass in retaliation for the insult, it had been without real force. And the hand stayed on Schuldig's ass after that, so Schuldig chose not to complain.
Colours III
When they brought their orders, Schuldig looked the glass of white wine with open disgust, bordering sheer hatred.
“How can you drink that shit?” he asked.
Crawford smirked and made a show of his first sip. Only when the glass was once again on the table did he reply.
“It matches my suit.”
“Ha, ha, very funny.”
Only much later did Schuldig start to suspect that Crawford hadn't been joking.
Forgiveness
Some activities left a lot of mental room for thinking. Doing the dishes, cleaning his gun, surveillance work... Schuldig wouldn't have expected that half-carrying, half-dragging a battered Crawford was one of them. But it was. He still didn't know why Crawford had done it. If he asked he just would be told that it had been the best option --Crawford's standard reply to absolutely everything-- so he didn't bother. He knew that Crawford was conscious, though, if only because he wasn't a complete dead-weight (for which Schuldig was grateful, because the bastard weighed a fucking ton, he must have bones of lead, because it sure as Hell wasn't the fat)--
“Okay, I forgive you.”
The words cut off his thoughts so neatly that at first Schuldig couldn't believe that he had been the one uttering them.
“I wasn't aware...” Crawford's voice was low and slow, as if it was a great effort to let it out, “that I had done anything... that warranted... your magnanimity.”
“Oh, fuck you. Can't you just shut up and accept it gracefully for once?”
Schuldig decided that walking straight and getting out quickly wasn't as important as avoiding the potential obstacles that could make Crawford trip and fall, dragging him down, so he made a ridiculous bee-line following the clearest path. The place was a fucking mess.
“I'm not feeling... very graceful at the moment, Schuldig.”
Schuldig “Mmmmdd” in reply. The matter was still bothering him, so he pursued it.
“You could at least ask what it is I'm forgiving.”
Crawford didn't exactly sigh, but he sounded breathy enough for Schuldig to wonder if he was mentally rolling his eyes or he just lacked the energy to speak normally.
“That time when I let Takatori... hit you with a golf club.”
Schuldig kept his silence after that. At least for a while.
“Don't tell me you allowed a building to explode on your ass so that I'd let that grudge go...”
Crawford couldn't help a snort at the telepath's self-centeredness.
“I let a building... explode on my ass... because it was... the best option... for the team...”
Fucker, Schuldig thought.
Accidentally or not, he could feel Crawford's grip grow marginally tighter for a second without any kind of false step or tripping justifying it.
“What are you,” Schuldig asked, slightly annoyed, “an alpha-wolf looking after his pack?”
“Aah...” Crawford's smirk was actually audible, “and... what would that make you, Schuldig...?”
“Hn.”
The exit was already in sight. Schuldig hated working without Nagi. Schuldig hated working without Farfarello. Telepaths were a nervous breed, they didn't like it when things went to shit and there was no back-up and buildings just crumbled down on... whatever Crawford was supposed to be. And that's why the asshole was making the effort to banter when he should just shut the fuck up and keep his energy, Schuldig suddenly understood. Because for Schuldig the banter was a safe place. Familiar, calming, soothing. And Crawford knew it.
“I've decided,” he announced Crawford when they finally, ages later, reached the car, “that the best option for the team had to be, in this particular case, to let that building blow up on your ass so that I forgave you. And, even if I'm not particularly impressed, I'm just generous like that, so consider us even.”
He didn't turn to look at him, but he knew that Crawford was smiling when he started the engine.
Also posted at http://lauand.dreamwidth.org/100352.html, if you'd rather read it there or want to enter a discussion with
comments.