"What are you doing?" Schuldig asked.

Crawford didn't look up from the computer. "Why do you bother to ask when you can see what I'm doing?"

Sometimes, Schuldig wished he were more like Crawford. Crawford never seemed to get bored, even though, by Schuldig's reckoning, he should be bored all the time. He knew everything that was going to happen, but it never seemed to bother him. Maybe, Schuldig thought, he was bored all the time, and he'd just gotten used to it.

"Why do you answer when you know I'm just trying to bother you?"

Crawford looked at him over his glasses. "What makes you think you're bothering me?"

Crawford was almost smiling, fingers still moving over the keys. He seemed to be in a good mood for once. Schuldig wondered who was going to die.

"Don't I always bother you?"

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

Schuldig grinned and lay back on the couch, spreading his arms wide. "Do I look like I have anything better to do?"

Crawford stopped typing. He rested his chin on his clasped hands and watched Schuldig with narrowed eyes.

"When are you going to see your boyfriend again?"

Schuldig paused and bit back the automatic denial. He'd been denying it all week, for all the good it had done him. "What makes you think he's my boyfriend?" he asked instead.

"Why haven't you killed him yet?"

"Why do you care?" Schuldig asked. That was always a good one.

"What makes you think I do?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Why do you think?" Crawford shot back.

That was a good question, actually. Why would Crawford be asking? Generally, he was aggressively uninterested in Schuldig's personal life.

"Had any visions lately?" he asked.

Crawford just smiled and started typing again.

"Go away, Schuldig. You're bothering me."

As much as he hated to follow Crawford's orders when he didn't have to, he did feel like getting out of the apartment for a while. He took Crawford's car. When he ended up parked across the street from Yohji's flower shop, it wasn't really a surprise.

His fingers twitched towards his cell phone, but he didn't call.

Crawford was up to something. He approved of this...thing...with Yohji. Schuldig had no idea why and couldn't begin to guess, but he didn't like it. It might be better to stay away from Yohji.

His mind reached out, searching. Yohji was in his room--not alone. Some girl with a mind like a pink cloud was with him. Drugged on something maybe, or else just really fucking stupid.

Yohji was already inside her, moving slowly, making her moan. Schuldig could hear it, or the echo of it, through Yohji's ears, feel what Yohji was feeling. Slick, tight, hot. Not as tight as Yohji's ass, but not bad.

This was safer. He didn't trust Crawford's interest.

He slumped down in the seat and spread his legs, unzipped his pants, pulled out his cock. He stroked himself slowly, in time with Yohji's thrusts.

It felt almost perfunctory. He was hard enough, but his mind wouldn't leave him alone. Yohji shouldn't matter. He was a fuck toy, warmer than plastic, more interesting than most things that ran on batteries, but he didn't merit this much thought.

Of course, Crawford seemed to think differently.

Crawford was not who he needed to be thinking about while he was jerking off.

He growled under his breath and slammed the back of his fist against the window, half-hoping it would break. It didn't, but Yohji's Rolex did. The glass over the face fell out in tiny shards, and one of the hands stuck up at an odd angle. Schuldig ripped it off his wrist, opened the door, and threw it onto the sidewalk.

Fuck Crawford and his schemes. Fuck Yohji and his girls. They were both too much trouble, and if there was trouble in Schuldig's life, he liked to be the one causing it. They could both go to hell.

Schuldig zipped up his pants and put the car in gear.