Sneezefic by traprose > Too Much of Nothing

Schuldich was bored. This was never a good thing, for those unfortunates who happened to be in his vicinity.

It was that most unpleasant of times: too early in the day to sample the local nightlife, too late in the day to be sleeping off last night. There were no orders from Takatori (as if that were any matter of consequence), Farfarello was still under lock and key, and Nagi was-- well, did any of them ever really know what Nagi did in his spare time? Sat in his room, maybe, practicing flipping the lightswitch on and off.

And Crawford was busy, his head inclined over his laptop and his fingers approaching light speed across the tiny keyboard.

Schuldich smiled at the nape of Crawford's neck, considering his options. It wasn't long, though, before he wasn't considering "options," so much as he was considering... the way Crawford's carefully short hair brushed the back of his neck. Or the way his shoulders moved inside his suit jacket. Or the scent of his cologne.

It didn't take long for Schuldich to make his decision. And so he crept, without much thought for stealth, into the back of Crawford's mind.

It was buzzing there, always buzzing. Sort of a low-grade high, Schuldich thought, tapping into a mind that was tapping into the future. A million fractal possibilities blossoming from the radial core at the base of his cerebral cortex. More natural than caffeine, that intoxicating, highly stimulated endorphin-laden activity.

Schuldich drank it like wine.

But today Crawford was unusually tense. Well, no, not tense; everything about the man was calculated and controlled on the best of days. But in Crawford's world there were deadlines to be met, and expectations to exceed, and every neuron in his brain was firing double-time.

He was at his very best, under pressure like that.

And absolutely delicious to distract.

Schuldich casually sent a slow, shivery thought, right into the vortex of Crawford's command control. "So busy, mein Herr?"

Unshaken-- too long used to such mental intrusions, Schuldich supposed-- Crawford ignored him. And so, equally undeterred, Schuldich set about going deeper than simple worded thoughts, and unsettling him from the inside out.

Easy enough to cross a wire or two, to intercept a firing neuron and start another, different synapse-- to instigate a chain reaction, a purely physiological response. "Notice me," the spreading sensation said, its peculiar signature interrupting the smooth flow of Crawford's thought and rewriting its basic logic. "I am something you can't resist."

And Crawford sneezed.

At least, it was probably a sneeze. Mostly swallowed, only barely heard, the simplest of involuntary noises. Before Schuldich could raise an eyebrow or comment, though, Crawford's head dipped again, stifling the second sneeze in complete silence.

It wasn't really surprise that Schuldich felt, not really. There was definitely appreciation, though, mingled with a little thrill of the unexpected. But shouldn't he have known that he could do such a thing? His eyes widened.

"Gesundheit," was what he said aloud, his voice calculatedly lazy.

"Not now, Schuldich," Crawford barely looked up from his laptop, but Schuldich could tell the man's nose was still twitching. For that matter, his voice wasn't quite his own, as if he were expending just a little too much energy resisting the tickle in his nose.

Dangerous lack of concentration, mein Herr, he mused, a slow smile pulling at the edges of his mouth. With far too much relish, Schuldich sharpened his focus, and sent a ticklish, delicate point of thought into Crawford's mind. Again.

"--k'sh!" Not even two hastily raised knuckles could quite smother that one completely. Schuldich, rapt, savored the strangled sound of it.

Blinking, Crawford at last turned around. "If that's you, Schuldich," he said, but there wasn't quite enough menace in his tone, because his breathing was irregular and his hand was again halfway to his face.

Schuldich's eyes half closed in pleasure, wondering how in Himmel this had never occurred to him before. It wasn't only the turmoil of his unsteady thought, or the slow-rising tide of uncertainty in the taste of his mind-- Schuldich could see the man struggle, watch the troubled rise and fall of his breathing! Purely poetry.

"Something wrong?" Schuldich raised an eyebrow, moving imperceptibly closer to hear the hitching gasp of breath, to watch the unshed ticklish tears brightening Crawford's eyes.

"Schuldich," Crawford tried again, impatience a bittersweet tinge at the edge of his thoughts. "I haven't the t-time for this."

"Time for what, mein Herr?" This was like vintage wine, like expensive chocolate, like lingering sex. Definitely something worth enjoying. Deliberately he made his voice slow, that he might prolong it.

Crawford had to wet his lips before he could speak. Schuldich nearly moaned aloud. "Time for this sn... sn... this sneezing!" he snapped.

Schuldich shivered. He had been so certain that Crawford would lose it at that moment, the mounting sensation proving too much for him and the sneeze escaping at last. But no, he should have known better, that Crawford might hold on to his control until the bitter end.

"Are you sneezing?" Schuldich asked, tossing his long red hair back over his shoulder, the very picture of innocence. "I hadn't really noticed. Maybe you are allergic to something?"

Crawford glared, or tried to. "There is nothing I am allergic to. You are the only logical explan... expla... ehh-ex--!" Like the second, this sneeze was completely silent. It seemed an eerie tableau without the appropriate sound: panicked intake of breath, squinting of eyes, and the final, closed-mouth, shivering release.

"And gesundheit again." By now Schuldich was close enough to hear the rustle of the other man's suit, as his shoulders lifted and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Good thing you always carry a handkerchief in your breastpocket," Schuldich said casually, purposefully echoing Crawford's unspoken thought.

Crawford flashed him a look, though he could not hide the fact that his hands were already drawing the cloth from his pocket. Schuldich could not tell if it was dignity or something else that kept him from blowing his nose in his presence. He'd heard that Americans blew their noses all the time-- but then again, he had learned long ago that his boss was anything but typical.

Trying another tactic, Crawford turned back to his laptop. "This needs to be finished this afternoon," he said, in a fair approximation of his usual clipped, business-like tones.

Schuldich had never liked being ignored, and made his displeasure known.

It didn't manage to turn into a full-blown sneeze, Crawford pinching his nose shut at the last second, aggravated.

Schuldich allowed himself to laugh… He'd never seen the man bleed; it was sweet verboten knowledge to witness him sneezing, vulnerable to stimuli like any other man. True that Crawford was only human, after all. "Surely you must know what is coming, Crawford," he said. "Isn't that your gift? Why, then, do you fight the inevitable?"

With an exasperated sigh, Crawford lowered his hand to respond-- and the persistent sneeze, seeing its chance, returned with a vengeance. "Schuld-- Schul..." His shoulders hitched twice; his glasses slipped, just a little, down his nose. "--k'sh! HIH-shu! Schuldich, I hardly think you are inevitable."

Too many sneezes, though Schuldich with a smirk, will wreak havoc with a man's diction. With such a persistent sniffle, Crawford did not quite manage to sound authoritarian; not to mention the way it sounded like he said "thig you are idevitable." He said, with a slight, Japanese-style bow, "Thank you, mein Herr. I do try not to be predictable."

Crawford glared at him over his handkerchief, straightening his glasses and pinching his nose sternly shut.

Schuldich raised an eyebrow, letting the silence stretch a little longer, listening to Crawford's troubled breathing-- listening to the off-kilter chaos of Crawford's thoughts. At length, he mused, "Isn't there a saying, in this country? For counting sneezes?" He sighed, almost happily, wondering if children's rhymes weren't the most exquisite form of torture.

The American said nothing, watching him with the first hint of dubiousness in his eyes. Schuldich was supremely gratified, to see the way he waited, the way he didn't resume the work on his laptop, but let Schuldich have his full attention.

With a flourish, he lifted an elegant hand, held up one finger. "If you sneeze one time, you are being praised."

Crawford, predictably enough, resisted. If Schuldich hadn't been paying attention, he might never have heard the tiny catch of breath, might never have seen the eyelids twitch closed. Might never have felt that tiny flutter of enraged helplessness behind his eyes.

But Schuldich hadn't gotten in to his line of work by not paying attention. He shook his head, moving closer. "And if you sneeze twice," he said slowly, emphasizing each word as he raised another finger, "you are being detested."

"k'sh!" The barest whisper of sound, but it sent delicious shivers up Schuldich's spine.

"Detested? Surely not, mein Herr," he teased. For the third finger he spoke a bit more quickly, seeing Crawford's eyes glazing, his hand hovering near his face, and knowing what was to come.Ê "You see, if you sneeze a third time--"

"IXshu!"

"You are being admired," Schuldich finished with a smile, letting his eyes feast unsubtly on Crawford's tense, slender form. "Can this be so? Or, as they say, if you sneeze four times, you are--"

Again Crawford interrupted, helpless not to. But this time, Schuldich easily intercepted Crawford's hand on its way to his face, and Crawford-- thus trapped-- was forced to sneeze without his handkerchief. "hehh-SHU! ehh-hi-IXshu!"

"...Going to catch a cold." For a moment, neither moved. Schuldich's hand lay against the cool, starched cuff at Crawford's wrist; Crawford's head was bent ever so slightly into the warm hollow of Schuldich's throat… Then, as if he had considered the matter deeply, Schuldich said wryly, "They do not say what sneezing five times means."

It was too much, as he knew it would be.

Crawford snatched his hand back, handkerchief balled ungracefully against his nose. Gone was his usual composure; his thoughts were a rich and inebriating concoction of conflicting emotions. "If you don't mind, Schuldich?" he said thickly, not bothering to push his glasses back up his nose. He snapped his laptop closed with a sharp click, practically shoving Schuldich aside in his move towards the door.

Schuldich stood in his way only long enough to feel the heat emanating from Crawford's body, though he made no move to stop the other man's departure. He couldn't resist one last sting, that he might revel in having the final, parting word.

"Take care of yourself, mein Herr. If you work too hard you might come down with something."

Crawford didn't make it out the door without a final outburst, clumsily stifled, one-handed, behind a much-abused handkerchief. "h'shu! h'shu! ixSHUUU!" Without pause or breath between, three perfect, unpremeditated sneezes. He hadn't been able to keep that last one entirely in; he'd sneezed with his mouth open, an urgent, unhesitating splash of sound.

Schuldich arched backwards in undisguised appreciation. Himmlische.

Crawford stomped down the hall and slammed a door with finality. Schuldich was unwilling to push him further, just now, lest he ruin later opportunities, and Crawford never let his guard down around him again.

Sighing, Schuldich slouched into the chair that Crawford had vacated-- still warm. Ahh, what fun that had been. One for the record books, for the amount of time he'd been able to keep Crawford on the edge, without driving him away. It was treading a fine line, with Crawford, inciting him to anger; a line Schuldich did not walk frequently, but always with memorable results.

He shook his head-- and wondered then why he didn't feel quite as self-satisfied as he might have.

No matter how he tried, he could not shake a lingering mental image of Crawford: spectacles sliding down his nose, hair in disarray, speechless and sneezing convulsively.

He shrugged, and stood. Maybe he would go out into the city and find someone else to entertain him.

...The sun was setting now, after all, and the night was still young.

The End