Title: change
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz
Rating: G
Length: 400
Content notes: none
Summary: Schuldig messes with the future, too.


There were small rituals, little everyday habits, that they had fallen into; that, once found, they had hammered out ironclad spaces for. Islands of sanity, Crawford had once said, early on, after a week's headlong rush of nonstop grueling work: he had had blood streaked up to his elbows, spattered across his once-pristine shirtfront, his glasses smudged and his hair fallen limp. He had left red smears on his coffee mug - two sugars, no cream - and on the newspaper as he parceled it out into sections, laying it in an orderly row across the kitchen table. Seven o'clock: time for breakfast. Schuldig had watched Crawford go calmly through each one, his own nerves too jittery for caffeine; only after he had read each section back to front had he gone to clean up.

At the time, he hadn't quite understood it; had only barely, grudgingly, respected Crawford and hadn't learned to read him yet. Predictability had seemed a vulnerability after years of watching his own back, after months of trying to out-think someone constantly ten steps ahead.

But eventually he had given in to the inevitable - Coffee. Newspaper. Seven. - and slipped himself eel-like around it instead until even Crawford expected chewy rolls and honey with his morning coffee; and, of course, what Crawford wanted, he nearly always got.

The paper hadn't changed, though, even after so long, even through all the changes they couldn't avoid; Schuldig had taken to going through it himself now and then, each part after Crawford was done with it, in a sort of vague curiosity. Always, every word of every section; the news, the classifieds, the funnies, the advice columns - even the horoscopes, which ever since Schuldig had noticed had been a constant minor source of amusement.

In Paris, after they left Farfarello and Nagi behind, Schuldig happened across the newsoffice on his winding untrackable way back to their tiny hole of a hotel. He was damn tired - it had been a long day, month, year, whatever - but it wasn't much of a job: just a little lean was all it took to rewrite the future. Funny thing, that.

The next morning, confronted with a different vision all set out in black and white, Crawford smiled despite himself. Schuldig took another bite of bread and grinned lazily back. Ironclad, maybe, but even iron would bend, if you knew how to work it right.