Deals

Just to reiterate - this fic was originally intended to be a oneshot, due to length has now had to become a multipart, please bear that in mind because I have no idea how the separation is going to affect the fic in terms of readability and yadda yadda yadda. Okay. On with the fic!

Pairing: I AIN'T SAYING. Because it's complicated, whut. Just so you know, though, the three main characters of the fic are Ken, Crawford, and Farfarello.

Warnings: Graphic violence, graphic sex (twosome and threesome - what is it with me and writing porny threesomes?), spoilers, AU by the end of the fic, and mental disorders up the wazoo. Yeah. (It's got Farfarello in it. Of course there's stuff about mental disorders. ;P)

Disclaimer: Me no own. Me no claim me own. You no sue.

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Deals Part 2

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The instant Farfarello opened the door to the apartment, he knew something was wrong.

It was far too quiet, for one thing. Nagi never made much noise, but Schuldig could generally be counted on to have either the TV or the stereo blaring, even when he wasn’t watching or listening to either. The silence was . . . ominous.

Wandering through the apartment, he found Nagi sitting in the kitchen hunched over his laptop. The boy occasionally projected the aura of someone trying as hard as they could not to be where they were, and today it was very strong indeed.

Farfarello wondered whether Crawford had finally decided to gut Schuldig and leave him in the bath.

Then he remembered that that was his fantasy, not the precog’s.

“Why this quiet?” Farfarello asked, dropping into the seat beside Nagi. The boy started, making Farfarello frown – despite his hormone-driven teenage angst, Nagi was one of the more agreeable members of Schwarz, and he’d hate to see him get himself killed because of a simple lack of awareness. He might occasionally fantasise about their horrible, grisly deaths, but Farfarello really did care about his teammates.

Nagi controlled himself well, however, a soft but firm telekinetic nudge letting him know that Nagi thought he was too close. “Crawford is in a bad mood,” the boy replied flatly, not bothering to look at Farfarello.

A bad mood? Farfarello frowned, realising that today was the day that Crawford had planned on continuing his experiment. Leaning back in the chair, he peered down the corridor and saw that the door to Crawford’s study was shut tight.

Shrugging, Farfarello got to his feet and walked down the corridor to his leader’s study. He could feel Nagi’s curious stare on his back even as he opened the door and walked in.

He grinned as he shut the door, hearing a resigned sigh from the direction of the kitchen, along with the scrape of chair legs. Nagi was probably heading for the first aid kit, grumbling to himself about idiotic suicidal teammates while keeping an ear open for the sound of gunshots.

Turning his attention to the inside of the room, Farfarello frowned when he saw Crawford pounding on the keyboard at his computer. There was no sign of any irritation on what he could see of the older man’s face, but the way Crawford was typing suggested that he really, really wanted to hurt something.

Moving swiftly, Farfarello crossed the room and grabbed Crawford’s wrist with the intent of twisting it up behind his back. Crawford’s response was instantaneous – he spun around in his chair and kicked up, slamming his foot into Farfarello’s chin and knocking him backwards. Farfarello let himself fall backwards, loosening his grip on Crawford’s wrist, and tried very hard not to grin as Crawford grabbed hold of his shirt and punched him in the face.

His leader wasn’t one to give into the mindless savagery of pummelling Farfarello until his face was raw, however, so moments later Farfarello found himself with his cheek pressed against the wall and one arm twisted up behind his back. He knew he could have broken the hold easily enough – there were distinct benefits in only being able to feel the extremes of pain – but instead stood there calmly, waiting for whatever Crawford decided to do next.

For a few moments, there was nothing but silence. Then Crawford released the hold he had on his arm and spun him around, scowling blackly.

“What did you do that for?” he said, voice low and dangerously controlled.

Farfarello grinned at him, relishing the slight resistance the bruised muscles on one side of his face gave. “I like pain more than your keyboard does,” he replied.

For a long, dangerous moment, Crawford just stared at him.

Then he sighed, and seemed to slump a little, albeit without ever changing his posture. “Idiot,” Crawford muttered, then kissed him briefly.

Farfarello took a moment to congratulate himself on a job well done as Crawford released him, before turning his attention back to his leader. The older man walked back across the room and slumped in his chair.

“How was Siberian today?” Farfarello asked softly, and knew he’d hit the nail on the head when Crawford tensed up again. Before he could move, however, Crawford forcibly relaxed himself, settling back into the chair.

“Siberian was . . . taxing,” Crawford replied. “He . . . did not do what I expected him to.”

Farfarello raised an eyebrow, idly admiring the way this pulled at the scars of what was left of his eye socket. “Did not do what you expected him to?” he echoed.

“He’s like you,” Crawford said abruptly. “He is utterly predictable – I can foresee exactly what he’s going to do, every time. And then when it comes to the time, something prompts him to do something entirely different. Something which is internal to Hidaka, and escapes my notice.”

Farfarello cocked his head to one side. “I thought you decided that that occurred in me because I am considered insane,” he said. Farfarello had no qualms admitting that the rest of the world considered him a nutcase; he just disagreed with them. He was the only sane person in a world of broken slaves, following their false God’s bidding out of the fear that he would destroy them utterly if they did not. Farfarello knew it didn’t matter to the treacherous God whether you believed and were faithful or not, however – his family were ample evidence of that.

However, his sanity apparently meant that Crawford was unable to tell what he was going to do next. It was unclear whether this was due to the precog’s long familiarity with the minds of the unenlightened around him or whether Farfarello was truly unpredictable, but thus far familiarity had not allowed the older man to see what Farfarello was going to do next – and thus far, Farfarello had been the only person Crawford was unable to predict, whether they were considered sane or not.

It was slightly troubling that this exemption now, apparently, extended to Siberian.

“I did decide that,” Crawford said, drawing Farfarello’s attention back to the conversation. “Which leaves us with two options: either my thesis was incorrect, or Hidaka has become somewhat less than sane.”

“‘Has become’?” Farfarello queried, frowning slightly.

“Before today, I found him the second easiest of Weiss to predict,” Crawford said. “Abyssinian was the easiest, of course, because he is so entrenched in his ways. As Schuldig could tell you, in great depth.”

Farfarello shifted against the wall, crossing his arms. “So you became angered because Siberian did not react in the way you expected him to.”

“Yes.”

“So?” the one-eyed man continued. “Does this affect anything important?”

Crawford lifted his head to stare at Farfarello for a moment, before unexpectedly breaking into laughter. “Of course not,” he said, his tone indicating he was speaking more to himself than to the other man, as if the idea had only just occurred to him. “This merely makes the experiment more . . . interesting.”

----------

Ken didn’t want to admit it, but he was sulking.

Crawford’s visit the day before had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he couldn’t work out why. It seemed as though he was missing something about the whole thing – something important, or at least something that, on the whole, he really shouldn’t be missing. And he wasn’t entirely certain that it had anything to do with Crawford.

Crawford.

He’d had a conversation with Crawford. An actual conversation. Crawford.

Maybe that was why he was feeling so out of sorts – as a member of Weiss, he really shouldn’t just sit around and chat with one of his mortal enemies. Even if attacking him would be completely ineffectual and, in the end, a really stupid thing to do. It was the principle of the damn thing.

Irritated, Ken grabbed the remote and started flicking through channels, trying to find something to watch that might take his mind off the events of the previous day. Unfortunately, there was no football on, and the presenter on the only news channel he could find that wasn’t talking about the weather reminded him uncomfortably of – big surprise – Crawford.

And there went the distraction.

“Something wrong, Ken-kun?”

Ken nearly jumped out of his skin, twisting around to find Omi standing directly behind him. “Don’t fucking do that,” he gasped, heart pounding.

“Sorry,” Omi said, sounding contrite, even if his tone of voice didn’t match the amused look on his face. The amusement melted away a moment later, though, leaving him with a look that Ken knew all too well. “But really, are you all right? You’ve been scowling for most of the day, and it looked like you were trying to break the remote.”

Faced with Omi’s genuine concern, Ken felt most of his irritation melt away, along with the lingering bitterness over the fact that, when it came down to it, he couldn’t trust him. No matter what Omi did, Ken found it hard to be angry with him – and despite the fact that he frequently cursed whatever god had decided to rip him away from his former life and put him in Weiss, Ken had to admit that they couldn’t be a complete bastard if someone like Omi was there.

Or maybe they could, simply because Omi was there – and was so loyal to Kritiker.

It was with this thought in mind that he found himself saying, “It’s to do with that guy who came into the shop before.”

Omi frowned, leaning down on the back of the couch. “He came back?” he asked.

Ken decided that whatever impulse had made him say that must have come from the bastard god who put him in Weiss in the first place, and made him decide not to mention Crawford the first time he visited. But, as with Weiss, done was done and there was nothing to do but soldier on through it. “Yeah,” he muttered, looking away. “Dunno why.”

“And this is what’s got you so out of sorts?”

Ken shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”

A moment passed in silence, before the couch creaked as Omi took his weight off it. “Come on,” the blond boy said. “We’ve got the morning off, so let’s go out.”

Ken looked back up at him. “Out where? And why?” he asked.

Omi smiled at him. “Just somewhere we can talk.” He looked around at the dark surroundings of the basement pointedly. “I don’t think this is the sort of place to have a nice chat.”

Also known as the only reason anyone ever comes down here is for missions or to brood. Ken got to his feet, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and nodded. “Sounds good,” he said, attempting to force some cheerfulness into his voice and push back the feeling of foreboding. He wasn’t relishing the coming conversation – least of all the prospect of having to lie to Omi about his ‘secret admirer’ – but Omi wasn’t likely to be put off, and it would definitely be better to do it somewhere other than the basement of the Koneko.

----------

“So.” Omi carefully put Ken’s sundae in front of him, before settling into his seat with his own ice cream. “Your secret admirer.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “I hate that name.”

“Then tell me his real name.”

“Can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

Ken realised that that was entirely the wrong thing to say, as Omi stared at him wide-eyed. “You don’t know his name? Ken, does your brain go completely blank when you take orders at the shop?”

“He was ordering under a company’s name, and didn’t introduce himself,” Ken protested, and made a mental note to check that that was actually the truth. If Crawford had given him a fake name he was supposed to be remembering, then Omi was going to know something was up.

And then he realised he was making plans for how to cover up for Crawford, of all people, and scowled at his sundae.

Across from him, Omi slowly ate a few more mouthfuls of his ice cream. Just looking at his own made Ken feel nauseous, but in an attempt to make it look like he was interested he poked it a few times with his spoon. Maybe if he swirled around the melting parts a bit it would look like he’d eaten something, and then Omi wouldn’t feel bad about buying him something he didn’t want.

He looked back up as he heard Omi set his spoon down. The look that faced him was a cross between concerned, confused, and suspicious, and it made Ken feel like a deer in headlights.

“So this guy has come into the shop at least twice, made a pass at you twice – or at least once – and not even bothered to introduce himself?” Omi said. “You’ve been working shifts alone in the past couple of days, so there’s no way for the rest of us to know who he is. Whatever it is he’s done while you’re in the shop together, it’s left you embarrassed one time and annoyed the next. And you’ve been out of sorts ever since he arrived.” He picked up his spoon again. “What exactly is going on?”

“Hell if I know,” Ken said fervently, and it was the truth. Why the hell would Crawford suddenly start showing an interest in him? If he was going to pick anyone out of Weiss, Ken would have expected Omi – or possibly Aya. Omi because he practically ran the show, and Aya because he was . . . well, Aya. Impossible to ignore, no matter how much the man in question may have liked it.

But there isn’t anything interesting about me.

“Ken-kun . . . do you know who he is?” Omi asked. “Anything about him at all? I can search through the employee records of the corporation he’s purchasing for, but if it’s a big one it’s not likely I’ll find him without knowing something, at least.”

“What? You don’t need to do that,” Ken blurted, startled. “It’s not like he’s a danger or anything—” Ken bit his sentence off the moment he registered the sincerity in his voice. Not a danger? Since when would anyone class Crawford as not being dangerous?

Since now, apparently.

Omi eyed him suspiciously for a moment more, before a sunny smile spread over his face. “If you say so, Ken-kun,” he said, and Ken knew he was going to have to watch his step around the other boy from then on. Omi was far too good at spotting discrepancies, and far too good at investigating, for Ken to be able to take it easy.

----------

Over the next few days, Ken came to realise that Omi really didn’t believe him after all – or was at least doing his mother hen act and playing it safe. Ken’s shifts were noticeably reduced and all in the afternoon when at least two of the others would be working, but Omi, Yohji, and even Aya were all conspicuously silent about the change. It had made him slightly panicky, for a while, before realising that if Omi suspected the truth then a reduced number of shifts would most definitely not be the response.

It still left him at a loose end most of the time. Ken taught the kids football on the weekends, and relied on work and the TV the rest of the time for his entertainment. He was used to being bored enough to offer to help out on the afternoon shifts when he really didn’t have to as well as working morning shifts, so the reduction in the amount of hours Omi was letting him work . . . well, he wasn’t happy.

For the first few days, he entertained himself with work on his bike. It had been a long time since he’d paid her a significant amount of attention, and it definitely kept him busy for a while – but there were only so many times that you could clean, polish, wax, fuel up, recalibrate and otherwise tinker with one machine.

Ken kicked at a stone, stuffing his hands further into his pockets. His growing boredom was the reason he was currently wandering around the park without a purpose – it had been Aya’s morning off as well, and Ken’s restless pacing interspersed with equally restless channel-hopping had finally got on the redhead’s nerves. He’d told Ken to get out, and not come back until he’d walked it off.

One didn’t argue with Aya most of the time, and one certainly didn’t argue with him when he was pissed off, so Ken got out. It irritated him a little that responding to Aya’s commands had become almost instinctual, when he still remembered beating the crap out of him when Aya first joined Weiss.

Ken sighed, and slumped a little. He could be irritated all he wanted, but it wouldn’t stop him being bored – and it wouldn’t stop him jumping when Aya told him to.

“Hidaka-san, what a surprise.”

. . . oh, that’s just fucking peachy.

Ken turned towards Crawford. “I’m really fucking annoyed right now,” he announced. “And seeing as it’s all your fault, you’d better find somewhere else to be before I get really angry.”

“Which would result in what?” Crawford asked, tucking his umbrella under his arm. It startled Ken a little to see the other man with such an item – stupidly enough, it felt like he’d assumed Crawford would just tell the rain not to fall on him, and it wouldn’t. Which was a really dumb assumption to make, seeing as if he was going to think that of anyone it should be the short telekinetic.

Then it occurred to him that he should be wondering why Crawford had an umbrella with him at all, seeing as it was a sunny day. The weather report hadn’t said anything about rain during the nine times he’d watched it – which had nothing to do with the reporter on the same channel who looked like Crawford.

Definitely not.

“You can’t attack me here,” Crawford continued, snapping Ken’s attention back from his thoughts. “It’s a public park, and there are children about. Besides, there’s no cover – people would be able to see us fighting for miles.”

Ken wanted to growl, knowing he was right. “Doesn’t make me any less pissed off,” he said, knowing it was a futilely childish response. “And why have you got an umbrella?” he added, remembering his previous thought, then cursed himself. Great way to make him fuck off – start asking questions! Because showing an interest always encourages people to go away! the little voice said, its irritation ringing through Ken’s mind.

“Because it’s going to rain.”

Ken raised an eyebrow, and ostentatiously lifted his head to stare at the cloudless sky.

Crawford laughed. “Trust me, Hidaka-san, if I say it’s going to rain, then it’s going to rain.”

Ken rolled his eyes and dropped his head back to stare at the ground, as he’d been doing before Crawford had appeared. “Whatever,” he muttered, and resumed walking. He still had no destination in mind, but it didn’t surprise him to hear Crawford drop into step beside him.

Ken half-expected the other man to keep talking, even about something as asinine at the weather, but instead they walked on in silence. He supposed they must have looked a little odd, walking together – a tall foreigner in an immaculate suit, every inch a businessman (and if only they knew what business), and a shorter man in baggy jeans and a T-shirt. With holes in. Not your most common pair, by any stretch of the imagination.

Strangely enough, though, Ken began to feel his irritation drain away as they walked together. He wondered if it would have been this peaceful walking with anyone else, but any release from the tension of the past few days was so wonderful he didn’t want to question it – even if he would have expected himself to become more annoyed when in Crawford’s presence than when not.

It was . . . nice, somehow, to just wander without thinking about it, and nice to have someone beside him who would wander with him. He tried not to think about who that someone was, and found it surprisingly easy.

Eventually, they drifted to a halt beside a park bench, and Ken sat down with a sigh. Glancing at his watch, he realised it was nearly noon – which meant he’d been in the park for around about three hours. A hell of a lot of time to have gone through by just wandering – but he did feel better.

Maybe he owed Aya an apology.

The bench creaked as Crawford sat down next to him, dropping the umbrella on the seat between them. Glancing at it, Ken noted that it was plain, black, and utterly generic. It could have been bought at any one of a number of stores, and gave absolutely no clue as to its owner’s – Crawford’s – personality, unless you wanted to assume that he was just another businessman. Of course, that was assuming that Crawford was the one who had bought it in the first place.

After a moment, Crawford spoke. “I noticed that you haven’t been working on your own in the shop lately.”

Ken tilted his head back and stared at the sky through the thin canopy of trees above them. “It was Omi’s idea,” he said, and didn’t feel like expanding on it.

“Does that have anything to do with me?”

“A little. He doesn’t know who you are, and he’s playing mother hen. He thinks I’ve got some secret admirer who’s being a little bit too persistent.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ken saw Crawford raise his eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Your fucking fault for sending those flowers to me.”

It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw Crawford relax a little, then tense up again. “Tsukiyono again, I presume.”

No -san, Ken noted – which was odd, because (as he had thought while eating ice cream with Omi only a few days before) if anyone in Weiss was worth of respect, it was Omi. Most likely all that meant was that the -san, when attached to his name, was nothing more than mockery.

Which irritated him once again, and once again for no reason he could see.

“You presume what?”

“I presume that it was Tsukiyono who noticed that I ordered flowers to be sent to you.”

Ken snorted. “It doesn’t take a fucking genius to notice something that obvious.”

“So you believe Tsukiyono is a genius?”

Ken turned his head to stare at Crawford. “Are you seriously trying to say to me that you think he isn’t?”

Crawford smiled, a little. “Touché.”

Ken turned his head to face front, staring at the ground between his feet. It was a bit of a weird question, asking out of nowhere what Ken’s opinion of Omi was, and it made him a little uncomfortable to realise that Crawford might well be digging for information.

Why he’d bother was a different question. Or, more specifically, why he’d bother Ken.

Well. He could nip any ideas Crawford might have about using him as a source of information in the bud right now, Ken thought, sitting upright and turning to look at him.

“Don’t bother thinking that I’ll be stupid enough to give away anything you don’t already know,” Ken told him. “I’m willing to bet that I wouldn’t be the primary source of whatever information you’ve got, anyway, and you’ve got a bloody telepath on your team. Trying to get me to tell you anything isn’t going to tell you something you can’t get hold of another way, and it’s not going to flatter me that you’ve picked me to pry information from. If anything, it’s insulting.”

Crawford gave him a long, strange look.

“I’m not attempting to insult you,” he said, after a long moment. “Inadvertently or not.”

It galled Ken, but that relaxed him. But he supposed that if an enemy was going to show an interest in him, he’d prefer it if they weren’t also laughing at him behind his back. “Good,” he muttered, turning to stare across the park in front of them. “I’d hate to think you believed I was that stupid.”

They sat in silence for a time, but this time Ken was growing uneasy. In this visit and Crawford’s previous one, he had negated the two most obvious reasons for why Crawford might be bothering him, and it worried him that no other ones were springing to mind. If the older man wasn’t trying to instil a moral dilemma in him, and if he wasn’t trying to dig for information, what was he doing? And more to the point, why did he not even seem to care if Ken knew that that wasn’t what he was trying to do? The extreme lack of subtlety Crawford had been displaying wasn’t typical of him, and it worried Ken enough to start second-guessing his motives.

Oh, for crap’s sake, the little voice said. Why does it matter what he’s bothering you for? He hasn’t tried to hurt you yet, he knows he’s not going to get anything out of you, so if he wants to waste his time, let him!

It’s not that simple, Ken responded, frowning at his hands. It can’t be.

Why not?

I . . . don’t know. I just know that it can’t.

Hidaka, that was lame.

Fuck off.

Make me.

Fuck OFF.

Like I said, make me. I live in your head, remember?

Ken blocked the little voice out forcefully, standing up and spinning around. “Why are you here?” he asked Crawford abruptly, spurred on by some impulse that felt a little like masochism. “What interest can I possibly hold for you? You’re not trying to dig for information, and you’re not trying to make me question my purpose. So what are you doing?”

Crawford stared up at him mildly, and said nothing. Angry, and angry at himself for being angry, Ken turned away and stalked off.

He got three paces before Crawford grabbed his arm. Snarling, Ken swung around with his fist cocked, and—

—and Crawford caught his wrist and kissed him.

----------

Crawford had no idea what he was doing.

A part of his mind was thinking that with him being so accustomed to Farfarello, and to Farfarello’s random bouts of violence, that Hidaka’s attempt to punch him triggered the response he had conditioned into himself as a way of dealing with his lover’s aggression. A different part of his mind was saying that he’d have to be a complete moron to mistake Hidaka for Farfarello, so that didn’t wash at all.

However, the reason for his instinctive reaction didn’t matter right now, because in half a second Hidaka was going to hit him, hard, and Crawford wouldn’t be able to move out of the way in time. He tensed, bracing himself for the impact—

—and Hidaka relaxed against him, almost melting against his chest. The foreknowledge that had had Crawford braced for the younger man’s fist vanished from his mind as though it had never been, replaced with the certainty that Hidaka would let him fuck him right here and now, on the bench or against a tree or on the ground, and move and react and scream in a way that wasn’t Hidaka.

Crawford’s first thought was that Schuldig was playing a game, but the moment he thought that he knew that it wasn’t the case, and equally knew that there were no other telepaths in the Tokyo area powerful enough to take over Hidaka’s mind and actions.

His second thought was that Hidaka had somehow been programmed to react in this way to his advances, but that would mean that someone other than Farfarello – and Schuldig, because nobody could hide things from Schuldig – knew that he had started this experiment with the Weiss assassin, and that wasn’t the case either. Hidaka didn’t have the knowledge to programme himself, nor would he even think of something like that.

So in addition to not knowing what he was doing, he had no idea what Hidaka was doing, either.

Which made this situation very, very dangerous.

Having run through all of this in four seconds, Crawford jerked away and ran.

----------

If there had been any person observing the two men at that time, they might have observed something rather peculiar after the American left.

The younger man stood stock still in the middle of the path for a full minute, before slowly settling his weight evenly between his feet. He then turned around and . . . seemed to pose, almost, carefully placing his left foot here with his right foot almost off the ground there, with his shoulders tensed and hands clenched into fists – and his left fist went there, and his right went here – and then he . . . stopped.

It was only for a brief second, and then the careful positioning vanished, and a visibly angry young man stumbled slightly, then stalked off.

----------

Crawford had returned from his most recent visit to Siberian mildly agitated. Farfarello, curious and once more willing to face the wrath of the team leader, had let himself into the older man’s study and now sat on his desk with his arms folded over his chest, waiting for the American man to start talking. He’d been given permission to enter the Crawford’s study at any time after promising to leave his knives outside, which was probably the only reason he was getting away with intruding on the other man’s personal space.

Silence reigned for a long moment, during which the dark-haired man didn’t even bother to react to Farfarello’s abrupt and uninvited presence in the room. Then Crawford said slowly, “I’m beginning to think . . . Hidaka Ken is not the person I thought he was.” He snorted. “More than before, that is. I knew he was not totally sane, but. . . . Something he did today. . . .” He stopped, and frowned.

After another long pause, Farfarello prompted, “Something he did today. . . ?”

“He reminds me of you,” Crawford said abruptly. “Even more so now than before – but at the same time, not at all. You remain you no matter that you are unpredictable because you change your mind at the slightest impetus. Hidaka did not . . . remain Hidaka.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it – not least because I don’t pretend to understand it. Suffice to say that he is even further from what I expected of him than – well, what I expected.”

The white-haired man cocked his head to one side. A difference in the subject as to what was initially believed could be a problem, true – especially to one as accustomed to large amounts of forethought as his team leader. “Does this affect the experiment?”

Crawford shrugged. “The principles of conditioning have been shown to work even on the severely deranged, so I doubt this development will endanger the end result of the experiment. But.” Crawford stared at Farfarello. “I cannot be sure.” He shrugged. “This may occupy more of my time than I previously thought. I need to be certain that he is what I think he is.”

“Look at the future,” Farfarello ordered.

“No.” Crawford shook his head. “I have no intention of using my precognition on this count. It will not affect Schwarz in the long run, and. . . .” he trailed off. “To be completely honest, I’m not sure it will work. You, I can predict in the long run, but dependent on the nature of Hidaka’s insanity, I may not even be able to do that.” He sighed. “Yet that is one more thing I cannot be sure of.”

Farfarello stared at the older man, his one remaining eye unnervingly intense. “You are not sure it will work,” he said flatly.

“No.”

“Is this because you are holding back in some manner?”

Crawford shrugged. “It may be, or it may be something about Hidaka. I am leaning towards the latter, myself.”

Farfarello obviously disagreed, as the next words out of his mouth were, “Are you holding back on this . . . prophesying . . . because you need to focus on another?”

Sighing to himself, Crawford decided to play along. Farfarello was obviously off in his own little world again, and attempting to draw him out of it often resulted in fatalities. “Not a prophecy,” Crawford said. “Merely . . . preparing for all eventualities.”

The white-haired Irishman cocked his head to the side, a curious and hungry look on his face. “Can an eventuality bleed?”

Crawford translated that into Farfarello’s bizarre protective instinct surfacing again. For some reason, he’d latched himself onto the American man when he’d been given to Schwarz, and had at some point decided that he needed to protect the precognitive. Not that Crawford really needed protecting, but this instinct of Farfarello’s amused him so he allowed it to continue. On occasions like this, it was strangely . . . warming, to have someone who actually gave a damn about him – for whatever reason that rattled around in that dysfunctional brain.

“If the eventuality becomes a certainty, I’m sure you could find a way,” he said, and Farfarello’s grin seemed to have knives in it.

----------

“This is becoming a bad habit,” Ken announced, barely refraining from groaning aloud. The first day that Omi let him work mornings on his own again, and Crawford appeared. What joy.

Crawford smiled at him, the expression a little less arrogant than usual. “Good morning, Hidaka-san.”

“Don’t you Hidaka-san me,” Ken growled. “What do you want this time?”

“Why do you assume I want anything?” the older man responded, leaning casually against the counter.

Ken rolled his eyes. “You’ve used that line before,” he said. “Have you got another order, or what?”

“Actually, no,” Crawford said, the corner of his lips twitching. “I came to visit you because you intrigue me.”

“Eh?” Ken blinked at him.

“You’re not as stupid as I thought you were.”

The brunet rolled his eyes. “And for a moment there I thought you were going to say something nice.”

“I meant that sincerely,” Crawford said, frowning. “Originally, I believed you to be far less observant and . . . intelligent than I now know you are. And I don’t make mistakes often.”

Ken eyed him suspiciously, wondering what the hesitation before ‘intelligent’ was for. Was he going to say something else?

“And this means what, exactly?” he asked, deciding not to call him on it.

“It means you intrigue me,” Crawford repeated. He leaned forward and dropped a newspaper in front of Ken, with a small piece of paper on top of it. “Meet me there tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “I wish to be able to have a longer conversation with you than these short snippets while your co-workers are absent.” Straightening, he turned and made for the door without another word.

“Oi!” Ken yelled after him. Crawford turned to look at the younger man, who waggled the newspaper at him. “What’s this for?”

Crawford’s lips quirked. “You may be more intelligent than I originally took you for, Hidaka-san, but that’s not saying much,” he told Ken. “I hardly have the time or the patience to give you a proper education, but I refuse to have a conversation with a person who is unaware of current events beyond who won the football last night.”

Growling, Ken threw the newspaper at him. Crawford ducked out of the door, chuckling, and called over his shoulder, “Read it so you don’t bore me, Hidaka-san!”

Ken’s temper broke, and he charged around the counter and to the doorway, intending to give Crawford a piece of his mind – and fists – and who cared if there were civilians around to see? Except that by the time he got out of the shop, the older man had vanished.

Scowling, Ken stomped back into the shop, pausing to pick up the newspaper. “‘You may be more intelligent than I originally took you for’,” he muttered in falsetto. “Bastard!”

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TBC

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