Love from Lonliness

Love from Loneliness

Crawford’s POV


I hear the knock on the door and I look up, I already know who it is though, it can only be one person. I watch as Farferello walks in; he’s changed so much in six months, after everything happened. He has his hands clasped as he walks over to me and I place the paper work I’d been doing away. It was instinct, something to keep my hands busy so I wouldn’t go back into my memories. Memories of the night Weiss took both Schuldig and Nagi from us. The night Takatori died and with them a part of both I and the Irishman before me.

I can see he’s been crying, the trails of drying tears still streaked across his face. He never use to cry, not since Schu died did I see his tears fall, part of the Farferello I knew then broke and for a time in almost three years the true Jei had shined through. The sadness in his eye breaking my heart now as it did then. The sound of leather brushing leather reaches my ears as I turn my chair to look at him and he moves to me from the side. He stops a few steps from me and turns to look at me with his saddened gaze, his single golden orb still glistening with more unshed tears.

“Why? Why did they have to take them away…? Why….”.

He stops as he feels the hot trail of tears slid over his face and I reach a hand to wipe them away.

“I don’t know Farfie, it was an accident, a trap…”.

I’m not sure what to say as he shakes his head in refusal, I feel the pain emanating from him, and it washes over me like a deathly grip.

“If only I hadn’t been injured they’d still be alive, if only I’d tried harder…”.

I shake my own head this time. There was no blame on him, he’d been shot three times that night, not even by Weiss, Takatori’s own men had decided to betray us. The next blow with the katana to his back still scars him now.

“There was nothing you could have done Farfie, none any of us could have”.

When I say us, of course it is just I. Schu and Nagi had been killed before we could do anything. It was a trap that rain filled night. I blame myself more, if only I’d seen it. He watches me sadly, fingers twitching in his hands, I feel he wants to ask me something but is afraid. Ever since his lover died that night Farferello had lost a piece of himself. Of course by the time he’d collapsed Aya and the boy with the claws were dead, daggers embedded in their skulls, Yohji had escaped I believe but the younger one, Omi, he’d held his own lover as the building collapsed around him. Even I felt something break inside as I picked Farferello up, cradling the only thing I had left against me as I ran, paying no heed to the bullets embedded in my own chest and arms, leaving streaks as the building crumbled around us. The cries of Omi calling for his lover still rang through clearly even now.

I pull out of my memories when I notice Farferello was saying something softly. I raise my eyes to him and he lowers his head, gaze diverting to the floor.

“Schu was the only one that loved me. He could take the pain away, I have no one. I’m… so lonely”.

If the pain he felt before wasn’t visible, the pain in his quieted voice was clear now.

“I’ll never have that again. I wake up lonely and I wish I’d died with him, cradling him like Omi had with Nagi, at least he died in his lovers arms”.

He sniffed softly, hand scratching at his face to rid his cheeks of tears. The ones he hadn’t caught dripped off his chin and splashed against the ebony wood of my desk, seeping into the wood like the many blood drops had splashed onto my old one that day as I had carried Farferello.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never lost a lover before.

I’d cared for Schuldig though I’d never shown it, but not in the way he’d felt for Farferello. My heart held its need for the one man before me but I’d accepted that he was Schu’s, I know his death had made the Irishman give up all hope the other had created inside him.

“Crawford…I’m tired of being alone…tired of crying for him when I knew he’d be kicking my ass for being so stupid…”.

A small smile lit his face, something I hadn’t seen for some time.

“But I don’t know if I can, I don’t know if I can do this alone”.

He raised his pleading gaze to mine and I stood, watching him silently.

“Will you help me? I don’t want to forget him, I just, I don’t want to hurt anymore…do you think he’d understand?”

My heart fluttered a little and I nodded.

“He wouldn’t want you to be sad Farfie. He loved you a lot”.

And he had, I knew wherever he was, he still did and they would always have a place inside their heart for each other. Schuldig would have done anything to make him happy, as if he could repent everything he’d done in life by just holding Farferello in his arms or making him happy. I remember now as Farferello waits for my answer of the night to long ago when Schu had visited me. His question had caught me off guard.

~~~

“Will you join me and Farfie?”

I’d spat my coffee out over the paper I was reading and blinked at him.

“What do you mean?”

He’d sighed and sniggered at me before quirking his brow. Long hair flowing over his shoulders as Farferello had waited for him patiently in his cell.

“You may not have had any for years Bradley but you know what I mean”.

Even now I’d smiled a little at his efforts.

“Farfie likes you, I found it one night, whilst running through his memories like I have so many times. He has a part of him that cares for you deeply. Will you join us?”

I think he’d recognized how lonely I was. I hadn’t answered that night; he’d given me time to think about it. Only now do I not regret saying yes straight away.

~~~

As I look into Farferello’s eye, I nod and embrace him, hugging him gently.

“Let me love you, let me help you, together we can remember Schu and heal”.

He nodded against me and we parted, his face up turning to look at me, his need clear. I leant down and delivered a gentle kiss to his lips, taste exploding through me. As he opened his mouth to me his arms slunk around my neck, holding me to him as if from fear I would as well leave him. I knew, as I picked him up that I would protect and do anything for him. Maybe he would never love me the same as he loved Schu, but i know, in his heart he was healing and there was space for me inside. I lay him down on my bed, hugging him close and I feel his hot tears against my cheek as he pulled me even closer, never wanting to let me go. Only then did I know the love that they had shared, and inside I knew I would help him heal and love again.


~ Owari ~