29.You Never Know – Crawford and Schuldig
"We heard that Weiss had plans and went to intercept them, but unfortunately we were too late," Crawford said into the phone. Still in his combat gear, he perched on a corner of his desk, his free hand dancing impatiently on the casing of the computer monitor. "Yes, Mr Takatori, the lab went up in flames. I agree, this is all very unfortunate. Hm? Oh. And would you have an idea who killed him? A professional hit, I see. I cannot answer that. May I remind you that my team were otherwise engaged. No, I have not seen anything. Surely, someone must have copies of those files? Are you saying that all the records about the tests were in the hands of one man alone? Naive is not the word I would use." He listened for a while, before rubbing his eyes. "Understood. I will meet you for a full report in the morning. I suggest at eight hundred – fine, nine hundred hours. Good night."
Carelessly, he dropped the receiver back onto the phone and glanced at the small black wallet with disks and memory sticks that lay in his lap. He caressed it briefly, a vague smile playing on his lips. Weiss had done the legwork, and Schwarz had scooped the rewards. For all their efforts, the kitties had not gotten the milk, let alone the cream.
"He bought it." Schuldig knew better than to make it a question.
Crawford looked up and met his pale gaze with a smouldering glance. Schuldig allowed himself a smile. He had not bothered to change either; after tucking Farfarello securely into his jacket and cell, he had waited for Nagi to return and hand them the wallet with copies of the data he had unearthed in the apartment of the man they had routed. They boy had tersely reported his success, showered off the stench of his deed and gone to bed after forcing down a protein shake. He rarely ate after completing a job.
They had time to themselves now, and for all his outward cool, Crawford had his moments. Schuldig loved every second of them. "So where's the little prick?" he prodded, shifting his weight to lean hipshot against the doorframe, a deliberate sensual, teasing pose. Combined with his blood-stained clothes, messy hair and bleeding neck, it would be a sure turn-on for Crawford who gave him the eye. Schuldig let his smile broaden. He was smoking, one hand behind his head, the other one playing idly with the cigarette, flicking ash onto the carpet.
"Don't do that," Crawford said flatly, dark eyes narrowing a little. "Use an ashtray if you must smoke in here. For the time being, he will stay in my room."
Schuldig laughed. "Ooooh..."
"Shut up." He wrinkled his nose in disgust and blinked, eyes slightly irritated from the contacts. "I don't do kids."
Another laugh, a puff of smoke and a toss of copper hair caked with blood. "Almost thought you'd say you're no pervert. So you gonna let him stew? Perhaps we could-"
"Watch your tongue. That sort of thing doesn't get me off, and it doesn't help. He will find more than he went out for tonight, and he will tell us a few things. Later."
"Oh? I'd hoped we could play a bit with him."
"Not now. You stink."
Schuldig raked through his hair and wiped his hand on his cloth-covered chest with a langourous, deliberate air. "So do you. Shower?"
Crawford stepped from behind the desk, and with a few long strides, he reached Schuldig and pressed him against the doorframe. "No," he said, winding his fingers into a swath of bright hair. Then, suddenly, he dipped his head and sunk his teeth into the crook of Schuldig's neck, holding him hard by the hair while deepening the bite until it was a black, bloodshot welt. Schuldig let out his breath in a long hiss but he moulded against Crawford, wrapping arms and legs around him, the cigarette between his fingers dripping ash onto the floor.
Crawford let go and came up to kiss him hard on the mouth. The kiss tasted of blood, from the cut Yohji's wire had drawn over another slash that had barely healed over. "If you do that again," he said against Schuldig's cheek, "I will hurt you like you've never been hurt before."
"Do... what?" Schuldig gasped, trying not to yelp at the pain when Crawford slammed him into the wall, and at the flare of lust that raced through him when long, pliant fingers found the tab of his trousers and had him undressed down there in a matter of moments. The trousers would not go over the boots, so Crawford brought Schuldig down onto the carpet, right by the door that they were blocking with their bodies.
"Get yourself cut," Crawford growled and looped Schuldig's legs over his shoulders. Schuldig groaned at the pain in his flank, where Farfarello's knife had caught him instead of killing Yohji. Crawford bent him a bit more, staring down at Schuldig who met his gaze with a blue glare, cold and watery with pain. "Lube?" Crawford asked, the slightest bit out of breath.
Schuldig shook his head and bit his lip. Crawford gave him a dark smile. "Scared?"
"Not... of that," Schuldig sneered and let out a ragged moan when deft fingers touched him between his legs, then left. Crawford shifted on top of him, and then the touch returned, cool and slick this time, along with a kiss that sucked the air out of him.
"Brad," he yapped when Crawford broke the kiss and hooked one arm around Schuldig's thigh, the other one braced by his shoulder, "what if... you... we..."
Another of those mindblowing kisses, pouring fire and ice into him; the arm by his side trembled a little with the effort of holding up Crawford's body, and then they were joined in one slow, deep thrust. Schuldig's eyes went wide, then fell shut. Crawford never ceased to amaze him, with this odd, incongruous tenderness down there that did not seem to match biting kisses and the rage beneath the ice in those brown eyes, with his insistence on distance and the forcefulness of those most intimate assaults.
Every time when things seemed to become unbearable, got out of hand, out of control, when too many questions whirled in his head and all those voices inside his mind refused to quieten down. Crawford timed himself nicely.
And soon, everything was forgotten beyond the motion of their bodies and Crawford's weight on his, muscular arms winding round his shoulders, firm hands fisting in his hair.
xxx
Omi leaned back against the bedpost and tried to move his shackled hands. Up, bang against the top rail, down, clank against the frame, a few inches to the left, to the right, forwards and back, rattling against metal bars. That was it; along with the darkness in the room and the impression that someone else was breathing closeby. He shuddered, in spite of himself. Fucked up, he thought wearily, big time. Too late he had realised Crawford closing in.
The older man had skilfully dodged the darts and when Omi stared down the barrel of his gun, he had taken a deep, regretful breath and braced himself to die.
The shock of being taken alive was greater, and he shivered at an echo of the panic that had washed over him when Crawford threw him over the desk and cuffed his hands behind his back. The man was more than a head taller, much broader, much stronger, no use even to try and fight him, and when Omi tried anyway, a sand-bolstered leather fist whacked against his chest, right where his heart beat. It knocked the breath out of him for seconds until he thought his heart had given out, and he felt blue when he finally managed to yell for air.
Crawford had spoken into the intercom, his voice cool and composed, as though he had expected nothing else but success, and Omi grasped the chance of getting the team out alive. A chance, at least, for Ken and Yohji, and even for Aya.
He closed his eyes and tried to relax, to empty his mind. The things he had seen filled his mind instead, and with a small cry, he let his eyes fly open again. Things... ugly beyond belief, not human yet not animal either, things with knowing eyes, savage features and a feral sadness deep in those dark pupils... he had run through the files, dowloaded everything he could find, DNA analysis, alterations, genetical mappings, codes, endless series of experiments, things he had half-expected and never wanted to find. It had cost him all of his concentration to remain calm, try not to let touch him what he saw.
He saw glass vials, filled with fleshy things preserved in liquid, row upon row on long, stainless steel shelves, neatly labelled with numbers and mock-names, and some of them looked almost human. Almost. Cut, sliced, soaked in liquid, put in a jar, sealed and catalogued. Bits and pieces – claws, limbs, eyes, staring blindly from their vessels of repose. Lives taken before they could begin, still embedded in the hollows of muscle and fibre meant to be their shelter and had been powerless to protect them.
He had focused on the computer screen so hard, he had heard the soft rustle behind him only when it was too late. Crawford had moved like a fox, swift, deft, with not a fraction of hesitation, and caught him in the blink of an eye. The gun hooked under his jaw, a muscular arm clamped over his chest, and a long leg between his own, Omi had been immobilised. Done the only thing left to do – slumped, forced himself to relax into the punishing grip of his attacker, and gone with the flow. If the leader was down, it made no sense to sacrifice the team as well.
He had simply not expected anyone to get past Yohji without a warning.
He felt his chest tighten – perhaps it was all a ruse, and Weiss were no more.
Maybe that was why Crawford had recalled Schwarz.
Instinctively, he tried to lift his hand to wipe his eyes that filled up in spite of himself, but his arm yanked against the bonds, and he let his head drop back against the metal post. A silent tear made its way down his cheek, to his chin, and dripped onto his sweaty t-shirt. Why had everything gone so wrong that night? Why had Schwarz taken him hostage? Why had it seemed as though they had known Weiss would be there?
Who could have told them?
Omi shivered and rolled his shoulder, managing to wipe his cheek against it. He strained to listen into the darkness, to get an idea where he was, to gather smells, sounds, touches that could enable him to piece together a picture, much like collecting the pieces of a puzzle without being able to see.
Crawford had taken the disks, streamers and fobs off him, snapped the handcuffs round his wrists and yanked a balaclava over his head, back to front, so that he could see nothing. Squeak and you're dead, he had warned in his cold, deadpan voice as he dragged Omi along, leaving him for a few moments – in the middle of the laboratory, Omi suspected, to plant whatever explosives he had brought – and then yanked him along, through some narrow, damp passage – the ventilation shaft, most likely – into the cold night.
Grass, earth, rain. The scrap of a sound, his heart leaping because it could have been Aya, but no, it was Schuldig bickering with Farfarello, loud and wound-up, pain in his tone. They bundled Omi onto the backseat of a car, and with relief he realised he was sitting next to Crawford, with Schuldig driving and Farfarello growling out his fantasies what he wanted to do to hurt God. Omi shrunk into himself at the memory; he had featured in those plans rather vividly and definitely not in one piece.
Now he needed the bathroom, his head felt strangely foggy, his mouth was parched. They had slung him up some stairs and plunged him into this room, torn the balaclava off him and left him. He knew better than to try talking to them; he could feel hands roam over his body and did not fight. Whatever they had planned, this he could survive. The smell of blood, sharp and sweet, wafted over him, a hand fleetingly slipped over his cheek, and the feathery touch of long hair tickled his neck. Then a door clapped, steps faded into deep darkness, and he had thought he was alone.
Now, his breathing appeared to have an echo. Nuts, he thought, Yohji thinks it's infectuous. We're all going bananas. He strained to hear, flared his nostrils, eyes bulging and unseeing. Like blind, he thought with another jolt of fear and pulled up his knees so that he was no more than a tight ball of bone and muscle on the edge of the metal bed. Creak, bounce, the mattress yielded easily, smelled mouldy. Old. The room smelled old. An old building. There had been few steps; he was on the ground floor. Absolute darkness; the room did not appear to have windows, explained the dank feeling of the air, some spare room, tucked away, a safe room perhaps, a bolthole not on any blueprints.
Breathing.
Not his own.
Close.
Omi felt his skin crawl and his hands curl into fists.
So close he thought it could touch him.
His legs tensed, thighs hardening, ready to kick at whatever lurched in the blackness. Keep your nerve, stay in control, breathe, heartbeat calm, pulse stay steady, head think clearly, listen, feel, let instinct guide you, quicker than thought, calm, controlled, feel...
He could sense it.
Damp and warm.
On his skin.
Blood like fire, air like boiling water, skin burning, covered in cold sweat, beads of it running from forehead and upper lip, salty, bitter, taste of fear, deep in gut, pit of stomach cramping, rising to throat, sick, fear, calm...
And in his mind hammered one thought only:
Please, let it be quick. Please. Please. Please...
xxx
Next chapter: In The Dark
