Strange Times

It was a fine mix of nightmare and nonchalance. He watched his mother bleed and his father scream. He saw the look in Crawford’s eyes the second before they started to fall, heard Farfarello’s almost exultant shout, felt Nagi’s dismay and concentration. Over and over his world came crumbling down…

And yet somehow he was always around to haul himself from the rubble.

He could smell coffee, slightly burnt and delightfully bitter, as he stretched and crept towards consciousness. Warm, wrapped in a bed, possibly safe.

Never really safe. Life didn’t work like that.

Aya was a seething pit of disapproval somewhere nearby; armed and oh so very dangerous. Keeping watch, making sure the wrong man didn’t wake up to wreck havoc upon his orderly little life.

Scattered bits of personality and whim fit back together with all the security of a late-stage Jenga game, and Schuldich opened his eyes. The headache was almost intolerable, combining its forces with the steady throbbing of the wound in his side. The quip he had been about to launch at his fuming lover suffered a quick death as Schuldich’s arm snaked out of the blankets and flopped about inelegantly in a reflexive bid for the bottle of pills that were strategically located on the nightstand.

“I should kill you.”

“I didn’t know you were fond of mercy kills.” His throat was too dry to gulp down pills without water. Schuldich pressed his eyes closed, intent on defeating his headache through sheer stubbornness.

“Who said anything about mercy?”

Aya’s feet padded across the floor, pausing at the side of the bed. Schuldich cracked one eye open, then reached with a reverence usually reserved for holy artifacts for the glass of water Aya was holding.

Schuldich washed painkillers and morning mouth away with cool water. His world was still in place, this time. Mind roiling with irritation and a bit of nausea, Schuldich pulled himself from the blanket cocoon and silently regarded his lover. Tension and trauma shifted through beautifully violent purple eyes, and Schuldich suppressed a slight smile. It wasn’t perfect, but it was damn good.

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Schuldich cracked his neck, flexed his fingers, and got distracted for a minute by a bit of blood that had dried under his nails. “Thank you.”

That, Aya was not expecting. His surprise sparkled through Schuldich’s mind, tickling like carbonation on the tip of the nose. Schuldich smiled, an uncommonly benign expression, widening the smile to include a flash of tooth at Aya’s blossoming irritation.

“I don’t understand you.” Aya muttered, retreating from honest emotion to his usual glacial disapproval.

“Unfortunately, I think you do.” Schuldich took a deep breath, and worked his way towards upright. Home was where the coffee was, and he could still smell it in all its bitter, beloved glory. Aya shifted to the side as Schuldich attempted to move with some semblance of his usual grace towards the kitchen. Neither of them spoke as Schuldich poured himself a cup of the coffee Aya had brewed before relocating to Schuldich’s bedside. Unfortunately Schuldich was not a quiet creature, thus dooming the quietly companionable atmosphere to an early grave.

“You learn anything?” Schuldich inquired, the silence outside his head too much in contrast with the chaotic babble inside.

“Yes. And I came back to share, only to find you had already decided to take matters into your own hands.”

Disapproval, tasting like dirt and bile, wove its way with a cayenne pepper spark of anger through Schuldich’s mind. He looked up, eyes narrowed. “A little retribution will keep them on their toes.”

“The hell…”

“I don’t want them fucking touching you.” Schuldich snarled into his coffee, unhappy with his own honesty.

“I’m a fucking assassin! I can take care of myself!”

“Yes, you are doing a splendid job of it…”

“I was doing fine until you showed up.”

‘I’d do fine without you’ was implied, and the temper in Schuldich’s eyes simmered down to a bitter cold.

“Hey, anytime you guys are ready…” Yohji poked his head into the kitchen. Courage and flippant smile withering as two sets of furious eyes focused on him, Yohji drew back a bit. “Don’t look at me like that. I drew the short straw. If you could reschedule your domestic squabble for a bit later, we are waiting out here.”

‘I wouldn’t do fine without you.’ Schuldich hissed, raking mental nails through Aya’s mind. Making sure his point was made. Making sure it hurt. Like some sort of offended angel, Schuldich drifted past Aya, showing no outward sign of the furious lashing his mind was engaged in, his posture in impeccable neglect of the bullet wound in his side.

Fists clenched against pain and the urge to rearrange Schuldich’s impossibly aloof expression, Aya waited until Yohji’s raised eyebrow prompted him to follow Schuldich out into the living room where the rest of his team waited.