A/N - Rusty piece I promised my best friend I'd post. Constructive criticism welcome!
Maybe just Schuldig
Schuldig paced his room; four steps from the door to the window, turn, four steps back. Gritting his teeth in frustration the telepath glanced restlessly from side to side - at the plain walls, the unmade bed, the clothes strewn across the floor. Turning the skinny young man sat on his bed for a split second before standing and resuming his irritable pacing. Four steps from the door to the window, turn, four steps back.
On the second pass he turned, grabbed both sides of the window frame in his pale hands and pushed his body backwards out into the night. He barely noticed how the incandescent city lit up the walls of the building outside as he stood on the widow-sill and reached for the edge of the roof above, casually kicking his feet off the sill as he did so and, for the split second before his hands caught the ledge, his mind was blissfully blank.
Crawford shoved his wire rimmed glasses back in front of his tired eyes and office slid back into focus. The solid mahogany desk in front of him was covered with ever increasing piles of paperwork that you'd think someone else who wasn't dealing with the dirty end of this business could deal with but apparently Takatori thought otherwise. He glanced at the slim, white and chrome, clock that sat on the corner of his desk politely telling him it was slightly past 2am. Removing his eyes from the rude reminder of why he wasn't in bed he looked at the bookshelf lined with folders full of secrets.
Schuldig was itching to know what was in some of those, so much so that he had bribed Nagi to try and steal some for him - that had ended predictably. Precognition had its perks, and one of them was being able to know when your well- guarded secrets were about to fall into the wrong hands or, in this case, talkative hands. He had no issue with Schuldig knowing what was in the folders, his issue was that, more often than not, Schuldig not only had difficulty keeping his own thoughts strictly separate from others but he also had trouble keeping his own thoughts organised. When a normal person lost their train of thought, they backtracked before continuing on again. When Schuldig lost his train of thought the German himself didn't even know what he'd find when he went looking for it. Crawford knew that sometimes the younger man was even scared to.
Unfortunately, the American had found out the hard way that occasionally Schuldig would find and express exactly the wrong thought at exactly the wrong time. As such, the redhead had been denied access to the folders. This had not gone down well with said redhead. Screeching about psychic discrimination and how no-one ever trusted him Schuldig had stormed out to spend the night with whatever slimy thing he found in wherever it was that Schuldig went to find his favourite brand of slimy things. Crawford could find out, but he quite honestly didn't want to know.
Leaning his head back against his chair the Precognitive groaned inwardly; paperwork and Schuldig. Sometimes he doubted if there was room in his mind for any other topic other than paperwork and Schuldig. It was getting ridiculous.
Schuldig had tried and failed to explain to Crawford how absolutely frustrating his ability could be. It came with a sort of restlessness that sometimes overwhelmed him, as if all the external stimuli he received every minute he was awake or asleep had to be diffused somehow, and it usually that involved motion - restless, churning, frustrating motion. When his nerves were rattling so hard that he thought people might hear the noise, but when he had no interest in being anywhere near other people, he came here.
The redhead stalked along the edge of the roof, pulling a cigarette carton out of his jeans pocket before sliding one out and lighting up, staring at the horizon for a second as his eyes lost focus and a voice stomped through his head, uncaring of what thoughts had been there before. Groaning inwardly Schuldig was about to force the intrusion away – he'd forgotten he was coming up to Crawford's office – when he caught the end of the thought itself.
… paperwork and Schuldig.
Curious the Mastermind looked up at the Schwarz leader's office window, where a light was still predictably on, displaying the American's stubborn dedication to his job for the world to see. Or, rather, for all those who thought to look. The German felt his restlessness begin to turn into recklessness.
Pushing his chair back from the desk Crawford stood and walked to the window. The Tokyo skyline was diligently forcing the night and its stars back up to the very zenith of the sky. Crawford flicked his eyes up for a moment, but the lights from his office reflected off the windowpane and obscured his view. Scowling about the fact that he couldn't even control what he saw out his own goddamn window he curled his fingers under the bottom of the window frame and slid it open. The cold air washed over him and swirled off to diffuse in the office behind him, unconcerned he stuck his head out and began to turn his head to one side, craning his neck to see the sky above.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't ask but –"
Startled Crawford spun his head back around and stepped back quickly. Too quickly. The back of his skull cracked against low metal frame of the open window with a solid whack and he let out an involuntary yell of pain. From somewhere outside he heard a loud, all-too-familiar cackle. Groaning and reaching a hand back into his neatly cut, black hair to rub the tender lump that was already emerging Crawford leaned against the window frame and closed his eyes, willing away the pain.
The laughter got louder, seeming to fill the air around him. Slowly opening his eyes he saw Schuldig, leaning on one arm on the windowsill outside. A cigarette in one hand and his thin red hair hanging unrestrained around his shoulders the telepath half choked on the smoke from his last drag as he continued to laugh at his leader. Looking up, his blue eyes shining with unshed tears of mirth and half obscured by his wispy fringe, Schuldig commented,
"Do you know how to go out with a bang or what?"
Crawford groaned and reached towards the top of the window frame to close it in the laughing redhead's face when the Mastermind gestured with his cigarette, a giggle still touching the edges of his voice,
"Puns are one of the most intelligent forms of humour, you know."
Sighing Crawford looked at the grinning younger man and said, bluntly,
"No smoking in my office."
Smirking Schuldig brought his cigarette to his pale lips and mumbled around the butt,
"I'm not in your office."
Taking a drag the telepath looked Crawford square in his dark brown eyes before exhaling a stream of smoke in through the window. Raising his eyebrows as if to protest his innocence Schuldig said,
"Oops."
Scowling Crawford prepared to slam the window down and shut off the redhead but the younger man had already disappeared, leaving a thread of smoke drifting in through the window where he had been. Frustrated Crawford turned back towards his desk, determined now to tackle the rest of the month's documents and then go to bed.
"You should tell Takatori where to shove his paperwork, you know."
Crawford could still hear the telepath, clearly - with his ears. Turning back around and gingerly poking his head out the window he looked around outside. Less than half a storey below him, on the flat roof that jutted out approximately where the kitchen was, a figure sat half obscured by the shadows cast by a nearby building. All Crawford needed to see was the mop of bright hair and the small orange glow of the end of a cigarette to know who the skinny figure, leaning against the wall with his legs sprawled casually in front of him, was. Looking up Schuldig called,
"Give it up; it's not as if you're going to do anything more productive tonight anyway."
Waving his cigarette in the air above him the German continued,
"Or at least take a cigarette break."
Clenching his jaw Crawford was about to respond when Schuldig's voice cut him off again, impatient,
"Come on, Crawford. It's not as if you're not going to go over all of it again tomorrow, anyway."
Without quite knowing what had come over him Crawford swung one of his legs out the window and straddled the window sill. His left foot easily found the drainpipe that the redhead had used for leverage on the way up, as he swung his body fully out the window. He hung from the window-sill by his hands for a second before he dropped down to the flat rooftop below amid Schuldig's triumphant cheers. Turning and walking to the telepath the American snatched the cigarette carton from the redhead's thin, outstretched hand and took the liberty of lighting himself some stress relief.
A breeze skidded across the rooftop, shifting the two men's hair and clothes as it passed. Crawford was hit with a brief smell of shampoo, cigarettes, cologne and something that was different, unique. He snorted as a thought hit him; sin. The redhead seemed to be dipped in sin and then presented to the world before he had been wrung out to dry. Tossing the packet back to the younger man Crawford sat on the roof and stared at the skyline, which he seemed to have somehow merged with by sitting here on the rooftop, in silence.
Schuldig was never very good at keeping up silence.
"So paperwork, huh?"
The American slowly turned to look at the telepath, meeting the other man's blue eyes and taking a drag on his cigarette before saying, carefully, stunned by Schuldig's sudden lack of small-talk skills,
"Yes, Schuldig. Paperwork."
The telepath chuckled and looked upward, exposing his pale throat to the world as he did so,
"You know what you should think about?"
Crawford's dark brows furrowed as he watched the slender German but he didn't try to cut off the next comment.
"Me."
Startled, Crawford blinked. Schuldig had moved in front of him, leaning on one hand and looking him in the eyes, barely inches away. It was an uncanny trick that the telepath had figured out, he wasn't actually all that fast, but he could trick other people's minds into not focussing in the exact moments he needed them to - like now. Very quietly Schuldig said,
"You should think about me instead of paperwork."
The German's breath smelled like cigarette smoke and something sweet as it brushed Crawford's face. Before he could notice his mind slipping the redhead had moved again, his thin lips barely touching the American's own. Crawford blinked in surprise but Schuldig was already gone, his thin red hair flicking over the edge of the rooftop and a half smoked, still-lit cigarette discarded on the rooftop and rolling in the breeze the only signs he had been there at all.
Schuldig fell back through his own window, his thin body reeling and uncoordinated for a moment as his feet hit the floor. His mind barely kept up with the drastic motions as he stumbled a few steps forward, falling onto his bed where he felt his thoughts wobble, teetering on the edge of chaos, before collapsing back to where they should be. His heart was pounding and his restlessness had somehow drained out of him during his flight over the edge of the rooftop.
A breeze had followed him in through the window and shifted the hair on the back of his head. Startled, wired on a whole new level, he leapt up, lunged forward and slammed the window closed before flinging himself back onto the bed and pulling his pillow over his head. He wished that tonight hadn't been the night he had decided to be reckless. He closed his eyes, let down his guard and the barrage of other people's thoughts pummelled him into noisy oblivion.
He didn't want to know.
Crawford sat on the roof, stunned and staring at where the redhead had been, the half smoked cigarette dangling forgotten in his hand. He heard Schuldig's window close somewhere below and closed his eyes; trying to regain some control, trying to force his tired mind to come up with a reasonable explanation for what had just happened.
His mind, however, was seemingly still preoccupied with thoughts of paperwork and Schuldig. For a second Crawford almost bought his own line before he sighed and admitted to himself;
Maybe just Schuldig.