"All of my memories keep you near..." {Within Temptations – "Memories"}
/
[Part 2]
After a long, pulverising day in the shipyard, the most he wanted to do was heat up something out of a box and crawl into bed to die for a while. This had been his habit every night for the last five years, using the physical labour as a way to pound the memories from his head. It never worked for long, because he'd never mastered the trick of turning off his gift. After so long spent looking after them, his mind kept tabs on his former team as a matter of habit. He knew Farfarello was doing well, and kept tabs on Nagi from afar, but the fourth and final member of his former team was someone he actively tried to keep from his mind.
Before he'd ever set physical eyes on the young man with the flaming red hair, he'd known their lives would be intertwined like vines climbing a trellis, but he'd never reckoned on the cost to himself. Disbanding Schwarz and sending them in separate directions had been his last futile act to give them the kind of lives they deserved, but sometimes he missed them all so fiercely it was an ache in his chest.
And despite the effort he put into keeping Schuldig far from his waking thoughts, his dreaming mind brought him back night after night.
Lying in bed, sleepless and staring sightlessly at the cracked, grimy ceiling above him, he Saw Schuldig in his mind again, sitting down at a cluttered desk. Passing from wakefulness into sleep, the vision continued as if a dream. He could see the wild shock of red hair - tamed now, cropped close and short but still echoing the faint air of chaos. He could see the lines at the corner of vivid blue eyes, a testament to the years taking their toll. Laugh lines, smirk lines, crows feet, he wondered when his former partner had developed the visible signs that he was living. Bits of the steno pad were visible as Schuldig wrote, and the vision/dream faded in and out of clarity.
[I don't even know... hurts a little...That's not really what I want to say to you...]
He flinched inwardly, and struggled to rise from the clutch of sleep that held him. Without knowing if he was awake or unconscious, the vision continued relentlessly. The untidy scrawl he remembered had somehow transformed itself into neat penmanship, letters forming in tidy strokes. He wished he could see Schuldig again, ask if he knew how dignified and mature he looked now - almost like Crawford himself, actually, which was a laugh riot considering he'd shed the unruffled businessman look with his name. His coworkers at the docks knew him as Jordan Moore, and the firehouse men, when he chose to show up and volunteer his help, called him Tyler Fairbanks. Another line of handwriting, barely recognisable, spread across the page in the wake of Schuldig's hand.
[...suppose you've heard from Nagi, have...those were good times... He must be a rocket surgeon...]
He laughed, and realised he was awake again. Concentrating, he could see the cracked ceiling again, faint through the vision that held him fast.
[You really never know. Well, I guess sometimes, you do. Fuck you Crawford and the horse you rode in on...]
/Ah, Schuldig,/ he thought. /You never really change. The years may pass but you remain the same./
He could see the pages being torn away, and tossed into the rubbish bin. The vision wavered, and the thought it was about to collapse. Schuldig was the only one he ever Saw with such clarity anymore, and he could feel his mental muscles straining under the weight of the unfamiliar length of the vision. He saw Schuldig again, looking fierce and contemplative. Since he'd once accused the younger man of not having a single thought of his own in his head, it was a pleasantly unpleasant surprise to see the thoughtful cast to his features. The pad flashed across his mind's eye one last time, and the vision faded. Crawford found himself thrust back into his tiny, three-room apartment, the walls of reality nearly throbbing with their presence. He sucked in a shuddering gasp of air, and rolled out of bed, making his unsteady way across the squalid flat to the yellowed fridge. Yanking the door open so hard he nearly took it off the cheap plastic hinges, he snatched up a bottle of whisky and didn't even bother with a glass. Sitting at the three-legged card table that served as his dining table, he lifted the bottle to the air.
[I'm getting married. She's a nice girl. That's all there is...]
Married.
"To a long and fruitful life," Crawford toasted, and drank. He knew that setting them free to pursue their own lives would break the bonds of brotherhood that had held them for so long, but he'd always imagined a happier reunion. /Maybe I should send him a letter,/ he decided. /So he'll know where to send the invitation./
Then he realised he didn't even know what Schuldig's current address was. Nagi probably would, he decided, and after a healthy swallow of the whisky, he set it back in the fridge and collected his dust-covered laptop from its home beside the sagging couch. As it whined into gurgling life, he reflected on the myriad twists and turns their lives had taken. Farfarello content with a pious life high in the mountains, Nagi working on his PhD. Schuldig a respected businessman, and here he was, in a broken-down flat that shook when the trains rolled by, living a half-life of menial labour. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and realised how long it had gotten; almost to his shoulders now. Schuldig probably wouldn't even recognise him.
[Nagi,] he wrote, one the ancient machine warmed up enough to open his email. [I heard something about Schuldig getting married. I know he doesn't know where I am, but I know you kept up with him, and hoped-]
He erased the whole thing. Stared blankly at the screen for a moment. That sort of half-begging, uncertain tone sounded nothing like him.
[Nagi,] he started again. [It's Crawford. How are your studies going?]
The cursor waited at the end of the sentence, blinking at him patiently while he decided what to say.
[If you've kept up with Schuldig, pass his address on to me. I heard he's getting married and want to pass on my condolences.]
He thought for a moment, and then bitterly erased the last word.
[Pass on my congratulations.]
That sounded more like himself. In control, condescending, and dishonest. He sent the email before he had a chance to rethink it, and shut the computer down. This time when he fell into bed, alcohol burning pleasantly in his stomach, sleep claimed him quickly.
He woke with the sun, and a nagging sensation that something was going to change. Soon.