Warnings: het, yaoi, Crawford POV, OOC, mild language

Ratings: pg-13

Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them. I promise that when I am done I will give them back in the same condition that I found them.

Pairings: Nagi+Tot, Ken+Yuriko, Schu+Omi, Farfarello+Yohji, Crawford+Ran

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The past few days have been . . . both wonderful and hellish.

We have gained reason to celebrate, we are almost free of our much-maligned employer, but the price for our impending liberation has been high.

Much as I feared, Schuldig acted unthinkingly and may well have ruined his chances with young Bombay.

I have no way of knowing what the full ramifications of his actions will be as my visions are still not coming with any regularity, or even clarity. I can only go by what my instincts and observations have told me.

That boy is very protective of his loved ones, and he did love that girl. Whether or not my impulsive comrade intended to end her life or not, whether he even pulled the trigger, is unimportant. The kittens' so-called sister is dead and he is not the type to forgive and forget in this situation.

He pauses and takes a sip of coffee from a dark blue mug

To our great misfortune Omi is the least of our problems.

If Reiji Takatori has a single good point it is his devotion to that girl. Ouka was his darling baby, the apple of his eye, and the only person that was ever completely safe around him.

Needless to say, he did not take her death by Farfarellos hand well. If I never see another golf club again it will be too soon. It was all I could do to not pull my gun and splatter his power-hungry brains across the walls of that pristine office.

No one hurts my teammates and gets away with it.

But I know that I must be patient. Our time is coming, and my responsibility is keeping everyone alive until it arrives. A task that is proving itself to be far more difficult than I ever would have believed. Everyone involved is behaving as suicidally as migrating lemmings.

Abyssinian has all but broken with his teammates, choosing to ambush Reiji Takatoris car instead of joining them in an assault on what is now the base of his personal army.

He is lucky that I foresaw this before my powers went on the fritz.

If I had not I would have been unable to stall him long enough for his untrusted commander to arrive and whisk him off to the rescue of his friends.

Schuldig tells me that the rescue itself was truly something to behold and that if Mr. Fujimiya had not arrived when he did young Omi would currently be residing with us, most likely with an entirely new set of memories.

I can only assume that this means the soldiers came far too close for his liking.

At the moment though I am too relieved that the is thinking rationally again to care about how he handles any survivors from that ambush. Well, relieved and slightly exhilarated, though I do hate to admit it.

That fight with Abyssinian . . . with Ran . . . was quite possibly the single most pleasant experience I have had in months.

I was able to touch him, to see the fire in his stunning purple eyes and feel the silk of that amazing blood red hair. I was able to enjoy the exquisite challenge of predicting his movements.

He is a splendid fighter and more physically attractive than almost anyone else I have ever seen. Adding to his appeal is my inability to fully predict him. Even when my senses and abilities are at their sharpest he is still able to land blows.

This makes him impossible to forget, to ignore, to overlook.

I must know him.

Farfarello, the ever watchful and eternally surprising, clapped me on the back after the fight and told me that such a relationship would surely make God weep. Amazingly I am quite glad to have his blessing. It should make things at least that much easier.

Now we all have to make it through.

He smiles coldly

Takatoris time on this earth is running out, my only regret is not being able to deal the deathblow myself.

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Notes: I have decided to deal with Crawford's malfunctioning gifts in a sidefic at a later date. This fic is already set to be at least ten chapters long and is hard enough to keep straight without that. As such, I ask that you be patient and stick with me. I will get to it. Also, I offer my apologies for taking so long in updating. These have been a busy couple of weeks. As always comments and criticism are more than welcome but flames will be used to feed my favorite muse.


Misura: laughs

Most everything about him is sexy, but those speech patterns are still difficult. Schu's behavior will all be explained from his perspective eventually; I already have a good bit of that written, in fact. But you don't need to worry too much, he'll come around!

takes a bow

And once again I thank you for your compliments. You always make me such a happy little writer!


Mmha: Thanks, I will.