kinkfest | Inconsequential [Weiss Kreuz, Crawford/Schuldig, PG]

Title- Inconsequential
Author-

fireun
Rating- PG
Prompt-Weiss Kreuz; Crawford/Schuldig; losing trust; Schuldig reads Crawford's mind and sees something that disturbs even him
A/N- Embarrassingly late. So sorry!

He couldn’t get the taste of it out of his head. Rotten fruit, bad meat, mold and maggots- had he anything left in his stomach, Schuldig would have curled around the toilet and vomited. At least bile would taste better than what was currently tangled through his telepathy, dancing along mental taste buds with antagonistic glee.

There was a difference between knowing and knowing. He should have known better. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, but it did send it out to play in traffic.

“Schuldig?”

Schuldig gathered his ill graces and poisonous smile from beneath revelation screaming through his mind. ‘Living room.’ His telepathy wouldn’t quiver with nerves, wouldn’t give away the instability that threatened to send his entire being into something between frothing madness and drooling catatonia.

Crawford. Smelling of expensive cologne, sporting clothing from only the best designers. Cold eyes, and even colder smile. Schuldig wanted to curl up in those arms even as his skin pricked and tingled with fear and revulsion. Crawford leaned over the couch, getting a close look at Schuldig’s carefully casual position. “We have work to do. Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

Schuldig was careful not to let the panic that rang through him show. His face curled into its familiar sneer as he shifted ever so slightly. “I am always ready.”

Crawford dipped down to brush a kiss across Schuldig’s lips. “That’s one of the things I find fascinating about you.”

Possessive. It tasted like dark chocolate, alluring and intriguing through its bitter undertones. Schuldig refrained from pulling away, but he did allow displeasure to curl his expression into a grotesque parody of a proper smile. “Always glad to provide a show.”

It left Schuldig at a disadvantage, having someone as alert to the little things as Crawford as a partner. They had become accustomed to every nuance of each other’s moods, and Crawford could read the distress in Schildig’s. It glittered in the back of narrowed eyes and slack posture, warning like a rattler ready to strike.

“What is it this time?”

A delicate balance of genuine interest and a lack of patience colored Crawford’s expression, jangled like a poorly tuned wind chime through Schuldig’s mind. He could brush the question away, bury it in a mess of frivolous statements and twisted humor, he could brush Crawford aside and they could both move on to business as usual.

Except it wasn’t business as usual. Not anymore. Not now that Schuldig knew, without a doubt that…

“If push comes to shove and it all goes to hell, if I go all to hell, you will leave me there and move on.”

Crawford straightened, not quite retreating, but definitely moving to the very edge of Schuldig’s personal space. “I had assumed you understood that part of our partnership.”

“I understood, back at the beginning when I was nothing more than a brat with a powerful brain and you were merely an arrogant asshole with a god complex. I understood then.” Accusation kept Schuldig’s tongue sharp, his telepathy lashing out in irritation like a cat’s tail, brushing the implication that things should have changed over time through Crawford’s mind. More importantly, the knowledge that, for Schuldig, things had changed over time.

Crawford stood still for a few moments, calm in the face of the telepath seething before him. Empathy was alien to the both of them, colored the betrayed frustration in Schuldig’s eyes, the cold calculation in Crawford’s. They faced off; two implacable powers each waiting for the other to make a move.

Schuldig stood with an exaggerated sneer. “Don’t get your briefs in a bunch. I get it.”

Telepaths were tools with a short shelf life. It had been silly of him to think maybe Crawford felt differently.

The troubled edge, a hint of unhappiness, that twinned through Crawford’s thoughts made Schuldig’s sneer evolve into a bitter smile. Telepath’s had a short shelf life, but at least he had managed to confuse a precognitive. Where there was confusion, there was always the possibility that Schuldig would come out on top.

And when it all went to hell in a hand basket, he would be the one pulling Crawford’s sorry ass out of the debris.