He was touching Schuldich's orange-red hair. He was rather pleased that he'd gotten there before the judicial barber - or whatever the hell he was called - had gotten around to cutting it all off. Schuldich may look good with short hair, but Crawford preferred it at the length he kept it at normally. Long enough to enjoy. Schuldich hadn't been in jail for very long, a day at most. Just long enough to make a point.
But he'd been away from Schwarz for a month.
One very long month, during which Crawford had went a little stir crazy.
Crawford hadn't slept since he put Schuldich in their bed. He sat there, examining him. There were bruises on Schuldich's face. Crawford made a mental note to ask him about those later. Whoever had bruised Schuldich wouldn't go without a little payback.
No one touched Schuldich.
Schuldich was his.
When he woke up, he was "home". The bedroom was very clean, of course. It smelled clean, the ceiling had no stains.
Crawford was right in front of him, looking him the eye. Concern was on his face. "How do you feel?"
Concern was a strange thing to see on Crawford's face. "Tired." He wanted to fall back asleep.
"Understandable." And Crawford leaned back in his chair, away from him.
It got very quiet, then, very quickly. The two of them uncertain of what they were supposed to say in a situation like this.
"Well, shit." Schuldich sat up. "Now what?" He felt a little groggy. Whatever Crawford had given him made him feel a little hung over.
Crawford smiled and looked down. "Depends."
"On?"
"You."
"Oh." He leaned back against the headboard. "The difference between staying alive and a bullet in the head, I guess. Unless Nagi decides to get in the way again. He thinks we're in love. Of course what he doesn't know is only I am."
Crawford got up, sat on the bed next to him. He put a hand on Schuldich's shoulder, leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. "I think you're going to stay."
"Well, I enjoy being alive." With you. He put his arms around Crawford's shoulders.
"Most people do."
Crawford laid down next to him, bracing his back against the headboard as well. Schuldich turned and leaned against him, put an arm around Crawford's waist and put his head on his shoulder. Crawford kissed his forehead lightly. It felt good to be held again.
Crawford grasped Schuldich's left arm, ran his thumb over the scar there. It was wonderfully pale, diamond shaped. He could still see the faint scars at each side, marks left from when they'd sealed his arm shut after they'd stopped the bleeding. He remembered being glad Schuldich hadn't injured his strong arm. He paid a lot of money to ensure that the arm was saved.
He drew the arm up, kissed it.
"Do you realize, it's been a month and three days since we last had sex?" Crawford said almost casually.
"Yeah." Schuldich pulled closer to him. "Do-"
"No. Later, tonight. Not now." Schuldich needed his rest.
"Everything's on a schedule for you."
"Go back to sleep."
"Yes, sir." Schuldich tried to roll away from him, sleep on the other side of the bed, but Crawford wouldn't loosen his grip. Schuldich gave up resisting right away.
They were quiet again. Schuldich was pretending to sleep. Crawford knew he wasn't asleep. Neither of them moving away from each other. The two of them overly contemplative.
It was now obvious to Schuldich exactly what he was worth.
He was a body.
He was a fighter.
He was not a lover.
And now, more than ever, it was fine by him.
He'd finally accepted it.
They didn't quite resume business as usual. Crawford put off looking for work for them. He decided that the team was simply too unstable to be working.
For a few days, Schuldich had been acting defeated. Quietly sitting around their house, watching tv, ignoring everyone, crawling back into bed with him at night. And then there was the random clutching, the way Schuldich just reached at him, grasped him as though he'd vanish. Always sudden, just a shade desperate - just seeming to want contact.
Crawford almost liked it - he preferred Schuldich grasping at him to staring at the television. And after a month without him, Crawford didn't mind him being close at all.
And then Schuldich vanished. Three days of Schuldich simply not being there. Crawford had been surprised. He hadn't bothered to check the future, so when it happened so suddenly he was ready to yell at people. He despised being taken by surprise.
And just as suddenly, Schuldich came back.
The first three days was the beginning of a string of sudden disappearances by Schuldich, as random and unpredictable as Schuldich himself was becoming. It seemed to be completely without rhythm, completely without logic. He'd just go away. Crawford tried to predict it at first, but because it was so random and without reason, he found that he couldn't quite pin down the exact time.
So usually, he only knew Schuldich was going to go away a few minutes before he actually did.
And he was gone for the fourth time, now.
Schuldich had told Crawford that he was going out for cigarettes. And Crawford had known he was going away again just as he was pulling the car out of the driveway. It was too late to stop him.
Crawford watched the black car pull away. He wondered where Schuldich went. He wondered why he wasn't yelling at Schuldich. He wondered if this time Schuldich was simply not going to come back.
He made himself a drink, sat down on his office couch, and sighed.
Put simply, this shouldn't be effecting him all that much.
But it was.
He woke up in the morning to an empty bed.
He ate breakfast alone.
He turned on the news.
He didn't watch it.
He read a book.
It took him three hours to turn the page.
He tried looking at a few jobs that the three of them might take. But the team was used to having four, and without radio equipment they'd have trouble communicating. The team chemistry was ruined. They were losing money.
It was all very quiet in the house. Nagi listened to his music on headphones. Farfarello's cell was soundproofed. The house creaked and groaned by itself, for hours at night. During the day, most of his thoughts had to do with the next instant. And every now and then, he thought about Schuldich.
He thought about Schuldich a lot more than he should.
Two days later, Schuldich walked in the front door. He hung up his jacket, put the car keys on the little pegs above the coat hooks. He kicked off his shoes and sat down on the couch.
Crawford didn't look up from his newspaper. Schuldich immediately stole the remote control and changed the channel.
And neither of them said a word.
He left it on a movie, and turned up the volume.
"Turn that down." Crawford said from behind the paper.
Schuldich turned it up.
Crawford dropped the paper just a little and looked at him. Schuldich looked rather sulkily back at him. Schuldich raised the remote control, and rather theatrically turned it up just a little.
"Turn that the fuck down."
"Fuck you, I can do what I want to do."
Crawford lowered the newspaper, looked him directly in the eye. Schuldich looked back at him. They sat there and glared at each other for a while. Crawford snapped the newspaper closed, and set it to one side, turned to face him properly. "No, you can't."
"Yes, I can."
"Your place is here."
"I came back, didn't I?"
"God damnit, Schuldich."
"What?" Schuldich nearly shouted. "I go away, I come back. What's the big fucking deal?"
Crawford got up and left the room.
That night, Schuldich came to bed well after Crawford did. Crawford could hear him getting undressed, could hear the clothes land casually on the floor. He felt the way the bed shifted under his weight, as he crawled under the blankets. They both lay there for a moment, on their backs and staring up at the ceiling. The light was bad in the room, all of them having been turned out for the night. Schuldich reached out towards him, ran a hand across his belly. (One small moment, one small ache, he wanted to turn and wrap his arms around Schuldich, pull him tight and close, a moment quickly killed) Crawford didn't respond to the touch at all. "Go to sleep." And Schuldich rolled away.
They didn't touch each other after that, and neither slept well.
He wasn't bing treated as though he were needed anymore. When Schuldich climbed into bed with him, it was for sleep or sex. For a relationship that was supposed to be based on sex, it shouldn't matter one damn bit. He felt like an obligation. All they did was argue. The logic of the situation was inescapable.
Crawford missed him.
Another night, Schuldich came home late at night after having been gone for only one day, he undressed, and crawled under the blankets. Schuldich made no move to touch Crawford, and Crawford made no move to touch Schuldich.
"What do you do when you're gone." Crawford said in the dark.
Schuldich was not surprised Crawford was awake. "Things."
"You seeing someone else." He hated asking questions, he asked everything as flatly as he could.
"A few others." Schuldich put his arms behind his head. Arched his back.
Crawford closed his eyes. (Schuldich's hair being touched by someone else)
Crawford bit back jealousy. (Schuldich laughing with someone else)
He exhaled one controlled breath. (Schuldich giving a stranger everything that was rightfully his)
He opened his eyes, and evenly said:
"Just don't kill them."
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