Title: The Accursed Huntsman
Rating: PG-13 (for a Pirates of the Caribbean reference, naughty words, and slash)

Disclaimer: --

Pairing: Crawford/Schuldig

Author's Notes: This is a very fluffy and pointless little piece. A day in the life of Schwarz. Perhaps a bit AU due to the time frame. Cross-posted.

The woods were crisp and Nagi wished he'd worn something slightly warmer. Fleece was warm, but didn't always cut it. He had shoved his hands moodily into the front pocket some time ago.

Farfarello wasn't bothered by the wintry edge to the wind. Crawford probably was, but Crawford wasn't the sort of person who acknowledged lowly entities like the weather. Schuldig was perpetually Too Cold, and Nagi wondered how, exactly, he had got along in the Alps.

"God, it's cold," the telepath said for the hundredth time. (In the last five minutes.)

"Too loud," Crawford warned.

Schuldig shrugged. "Not really," he said at a lesser volume.

It was Nagi's first time on a mission like this—a sneaking around and finally killing the guy mission. Nagi was the one who sat at home and orchestrated everything from behind closed doors and computer screen. The occasional bombing or uncontrollable rage that collapsed a building were entirely separate. He had been itching to experience the results of his usual work. It was frustrating to be denied the final product. He was eager, but for some reason dread mingled with the excitement in his stomach.

"Fucking freezing," Schuldig shiver-whispered into his winter coat.

"We know, Schuldig," Crawford said absently, scanning his mind and the trees ahead.

"You are no fun, Brad Crawford."

"I don't know what you're complaining about," said Farfarello, who was wearing his usual sleeveless shirt. "I think it's a lovely day for a stroll in the park."

Below the little hill they were on walked a man wearing a screamingly orange hunting jacket and cap. Nagi saw him. He nudged the group mentally. They looked down.

Could we ask for a better target? Schuldig said to them all. He thinks he's being safe. "Safety first"—that's what he told his kid when he was gearing up. He giggled.

Crawford only said, Take Farfarello and go. Nagi is staying here.

Schuldig and Farfarello started off, looking quite unconcerned about stealth, to Nagi's eye.

The thing about stealth, Master Naoe, is that appearing not to be stealthy is part of the extra special fun of it. Which we have had years of training and experience in. Go play with Crawford.

He turned to Farfarello.

Hey, so, if a man falls in the woods, does he make a sound?

Farfarello shrugged. I wouldn't know. You tell me, Schuldig.

Schuldig gave a little grin.

"Crawford," Nagi said quietly.

"Yes."

"Why couldn't we just have shot him from here?"

Crawford was watching the others slowly disappear through the web of branches. "Why, that wouldn't be any fun, Nagi," he said.

Nagi laughed.

"It's important to let them have their fun when it doesn't make a difference. Otherwise we'd have the ritualistic murders of priests on our hands, not to mention a population so fucked up by Schuldig we'd never find a sane employer again."

"Right. I don't know why I ever doubted you and your never-ending calculation."

Nagi, he calculates the consequences of what we have for breakfast, Schuldig sent.

Nagi snorted.

Not even joking. Once he wouldn't let me leave the table until I'd finished my pancakes because then I'd be hungry later and we'd miss a train or get shot or die or something. He thinks he's our father, Schuldig laughed. Ja, definitely some daddy issues in our fearless leader's past. Gotta be.

Maybe you should get to work.

Oh, what the fuck, Nagi. I can multitask.

Schuldig turned to Farfarello. "Little Nagi thought this would be his first kill."

"Doesn't he know we're the breadwinners?"

"Guess not."

"Then he must not know he and Crawford are the housewives."

"Oh, I dunno," Schuldig mused. "I like to think of Crawford as the stay-at-home mom and Nagi as the nerdy antisocial Asian kid that goes on to win the Spelling Bee."

They walked on.

"You will let me kill this man, won't you?" Farfarello said after a moment.

"Of course, dear. After I'm done."

"Oh, good," Farfarello sighed.

Schuldig laughed. "How many people will you have to kill before you're satisfied?"

"Well, I'm not there yet."

"Have a goal, do you?"

Farfarello smiled innocently. "Six hundred and sixty-six priests. Dead."

"So only priests count?"

"Yes."

"This guy doesn't?" Farfarello shook his head. "Whatever. Hey—what about, like, monks and things? Does it have to be a priest?"

Farfarello thought about it. Limiting the definition would mean his objective wouldn't be fulfilled as quickly, but then again that meant more deaths in the meantime. "Yes," he said decisively.

Eventually they split up, Schuldig taking care to ensure that the man didn't see Farfarello bounding into the tree ahead of him. Just as the hunter was raising his rifle to shoot at something stirring in the distance, Schuldig, who was lounging behind a wide oak tree, started talking.

Do you fear death? he said in the man's head.

He jumped, dropping the rifle.

Do you fear that dark abyss? All your deeds laid bare, all your sins punished . . .

Farfarello jumped down from the tree and landed behind him. The hunter quickly retrieved his rifle from the ground and pointed it at his attacker. Farfarello grinned.

Schuldig emerged from his hiding place and sauntered over to them. "Don't worry, if you cooperate with us, nothing unnecessary will happen here."

"I'll cooperate," he said, but half formed escape plans bounced around his brain.

"Well lower your Winchester, then, partner." Schuldig had a nasty, mocking expression on his face as he came even closer. He tugged on the man's coat. "Is this fashion tragedy any good against the cold? Hey, turn around."

He turned around. "Well, um, it's not really that cold out, um." He looked confused.

Schuldig stared at him seriously, letting silence stretch. "Right," he said quietly.

"I'll cooperate," the man repeated, trying so hard to appear calm and repentant and submissive.

"Okay. I only wanted you to let Farfarello here skin you alive. Farfarello?"

Farfarello grinned at his prey, whose face twisted in terror.

Schuldig laughed. "What do you take us for? Do I look like horror movie material to you?" He produced a hand gun and shot him in the head.

The man seemed to collapse just so Schuldig could see Farfarello properly again. "Did you pull another Davy Jones?" Farfarello asked.

"But of course! It's my new favourite thing."

"I liked your Darth Vadar phase," Farfarello said impassively.

"Ja, but I couldn't choke them with the Force. Oh, hey, we should've got Nagi to do that. Are you hearing this, Nagi? I'm giving you seasoned tips, here."

Are you finished? Crawford asked Schuldig.

What, can't you see? For a precog you sure are blind.

Snow began to fall as Crawford and Nagi made their way across crackly branches to the kill.

"The kill"? Interesting phrasing, Brad, Schuldig giggled in his mind. And you have snow on your bottom lip, he informed him when they arrived. Schuldig had snow in his eyelashes, making them more visible than usual. Which I kind of want to lick off before it melts.

Not in front of the kids, Crawford thought shortly.

Crawford nudged the bright orange dead man with his foot, causing his rifle to rattle. "It's so very stupid."

"What?" asked Farfarello.

"Hunting."

"You do know, Crawford, that I'm a hunter," Schuldig said, a bit offended beneath his flippancy.

"No. You're a fisherman more than anything. Who throws his prey back."

"Comparing me to rednecks who sit around by stagnant water all day to catch a minnow or two? I'm hurt—I thought you were more creative." He snickered, rummaging through Crawford's half-formed side thoughts. "What the fuck, you enjoy fishing? Dork."

"You're not a hunter, Farfarello?" asked Crawford, electing to ignore the telepath. Sometimes it was all that could be done.

"Oh, no. I'm the Angel of Death," he grinned. He didn't seriously think that, and they knew it, but it was still great fun to make excuses that tied in with his actual beliefs, vague and changeable as they were. "I don't kill them—I take them when their time has come."

"Okay, so, what did this guy do, again?" Nagi asked.

"Who knows?" said Crawford.

"Who cares?" said Schuldig.

"He did sin," Farfarello said defensively.

"Huh? I thought you were all for sin."

Farfarello sighed, as if explaining a very simple concept, such as the fine art of filleting somebody, yet again. "I am. But God isn't. So I take out His vengeance on the people who love Him as much as you love not having wires."

"Wireless," Nagi sighed, as if explaining a very simple concept, such as writing HTML, yet again.

"This man loved God even though he had sinned," Farfarello continued.

"He was hunting on a Sunday," Crawford remarked.

Nagi found the hunter's death to be very anticlimactic. The dead body at his feet didn't make him feel anything. This small death didn't seem to pay mankind back in the way he longed to. He didn't understand what it was that spurred Schuldig and Farfarello on and made them seem to enjoy killing so much. Of all of them, he thought Crawford to be the most natural about their work because he didn't have any excuses or reasons for liking it. Nagi wasn't even sure if Crawford did like killing. He knew that Crawford loved winning.

"You probably should have shot him differently," Crawford remarked. "This won't look like an accident." He was only saying things. He wasn't really worried.

"I thought we might set an example for the other poor bastards who cross Mr. Frank."

"And you touched him. And there's probably incriminating DNA all over the place."

Schuldig rolled his eyes. "Jeez, Brad, you watch too much 'CSI'. In real life nobody cares."

"We are already in a precarious position, you know," Crawford reminded him, even though it had been long enough since they'd destroyed the Elders.

"Yeah, yeah." Schuldig fell silent. Then he shivered jerkily. "Goddammit, why does it have to be this cold?"

Nagi shuffled his feet. Farfarello was staring into space, and Crawford was staring at Schuldig who was hugging himself with his arms and trying to shield his face from the wind. Within their little group it often happened that two people would be conversing for the other two, who watched and hoped to be entertained, too tired to fill the silence themselves. But now things weren't working in the right way.

"Maybe we should get a move on, Crawford." Schuldig's voice was muffled by the dead animal on his coat. "The police will show up someday. Or, probably more likely, another hunter will happen along."

"The demons will be chasing us to keep from being caught and cursed themselves," Farfarello said.

Schuldig blinked at him. "Absolutely, Farfarello," he said.

Crawford, whose silence could only mean contemplation, said to Schuldig, I think I should have let Nagi kill this one.

No shit. I could hear you earlier, you know. You're keeping Nagi back because you're afraid of how powerful he's going to be. If I may offer the advice of a lowly non-precog—it's not like you can stop it. And he'll only get pissed for being treated like a kid. It would probably be better to keep on his good side, Brad.

Dammit. This was stupid of me.

Why, have you uncovered Death? Schuldig wasn't entirely joking.

No, but—I dunno—

They stopped talking mentally when they realised the others weren't there.

"They left to get warm in the car," Crawford said.

"They decided to give us some alone time so I would stop complaining." Schuldig gave him a smug sort of look.

Crawford smiled. Pale light reflected off his glasses.

"Oh," Schuldig said, reading Crawford's thoughts, and then their mouths were in the same place. It was awkward, though. I can't feel my lips, Brad, Schuldig laughed. Fucking freezing, dammit.

Oh well.

Schuldig's shivering-laughing jolted the kiss around and he had to pull back. Sorry, ha. You should have thought of the weather before you brought us out here.

Don't tell me you didn't have fun.

"'Kay." He was licking his lips in an attempt to get the feeling back. "Okay, this isn't working. How about we do this?" He pulled Crawford closer by his stylishly thin but sensibly warm coat and started kissing him open-mouthed. I don't see what the big deal about lips is, anyway. They're weird, when you think about it. Hey, are you going to do anything, or what?

Stop talking, Schuldig.

Oh, hey that's nice. Mmhmm. That is nice. Oh, hey, that's a— "—tree," he said as his back hit the tree and reconfigured the angle they were at. Crawford melted back in and Schuldig cursed the cold and the need for puffy winter coats and soon he just stopped thinking.

Crawford had lost track of time. At length, he extracted his tongue enough to be articulate. "All right. Why does this always happen?"

Schuldig gave him an incredulous look. "Duh," he said, not knowing how breathily it came out, and started biting at Crawford's bottom lip. I blame your wayward thoughts.

"'Duh,' I understand. I still don't understand 'why.'" It was true.

Schuldig tapped his lips, knowing it drew Crawford's gaze. "Well, hm. Let's see here—you aren't a teenager or a crazy person? Honestly, Brad."

"You're a crazy person," Crawford observed.

A smile slid across the telepath's face. "Uh huh. And you like me that way."

"Duh," Crawford said, and moved to bite the shell of Schuldig's ear, hearing and feeling him mmm and writhe happily—Schuldig loved this.

"It's really not that cold out," he admitted.

Back in the car, which wasn't that cold, either, Nagi and Farfarello were discussing the meaning of life.

Nagi had defined it: "To give the world what they so justly deserve."

"By killing everybody's God?"

"I was thinking nuclear holocaust, but okay." Nagi squirmed out of his jacket. Farfarello just watched. "You know something, Farfarello? You and I have a lot in common."

"Yes," Farfarello answered right away, his eye gleaming. After a moment he sat back and stared ahead of him. "They'd better hurry up."

"Oh, you know them," Nagi said in annoyance. "They can't be normal, they have to be spontaneous. They couldn't possibly do things to one another regularly in a bedroom or anything. They aren't in a relationship, not professional assassins . . ."

But Farfarello wasn't paying Nagi's ranting any mind. "I just hope the demons don't catch up with us. Crawford wouldn't be happy if we were cursed."

Nagi gave him a sidelong look. Farfarello wore an expression of worry and continued staring straight ahead. Nagi shrugged and joined him. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

"I don't think they're ever going to stop chasing us," Farfarello went on. "We're already cursed."

It was then that Crawford and Schuldig returned.

"Christ, it's a fucking sauna in here," Schuldig said as he bounced into the passenger seat.

"Are we all buckled up?" Crawford asked, glancing behind him.

Schuldig caught Nagi's eye in the side mirror. Well, are you, honey?

Nagi's mouth fell open. What the fuck? he sent. How haven't I noticed this before?

It's a good thing your father doesn't know you use such filthy language, young man, Schuldig said sternly before cackling in his head.

Nagi rolled his eyes. Sometimes, he really did not understand these people.

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