Three short beeps broke the silence in the meeting room where their project group had met to discuss their progress. Sheepishly, Craig pulled his phone from his shirt pocket to silence it, only to make a displeased scoff at the screen.
"What, got stood up by th'boyfriend?" Rick teased from across the table.
Craig rolled his eyes and ignored the comment; the current subject of his pretty high-school-like taunting had been about Craig's presumed sexuality. The amount of times he brought it up was bordering pathological; it was tiring and Craig had long since stopped even thinking about correcting him.
"None of your business," Craig sniffed, summing up his feelings on the matter as a whole and the text message he'd just received.
Still, the nature of the text set the blond on edge and the twitch of his brow, the tight grip he had on his pen, and the even shorter, more abrupt answers to any questions posed to him suggested there was something seriously wrong. It didn't quite sit well with Rick. He hadn't gone out of his way to needle the stuck-up know-it-all; who in the hell could get a stronger reaction out of him than Rick of all people? It made him cross, frankly. All that time he put into breaking down the little asshole's defenses, someone completely different was taking advantage.
After the meeting was over, Rick jogged to catch up with Craig, who had quickly gathered his things and left first. Oh no, he wasn't going to escape like that.
"Hey, Pinky, slow down, jeese," he called, slowing down once he was within reach.
"What do you want?" Craig hissed, quickening his pace even further.
"Jus' wanna know who pissed in yer coffee, s'all!"
Craig fished his phone from his pocket a second time and pressed a few buttons before shoving the screen in the taller man's face. A text from a number Craig didn't have logged into his phone was displayed, reading 'I swear to god, if you don't stop nit picking, I'm going to beat your dickery out of you myself! I got written up because you can't let one LITTLE mistake go. Drop it ASAFP or else.'
Rick read the text before glancing at Craig's face, his mouth was set in a dead straight line, but his eyes looked troubled. Well, Rick certainly returned the sentiment to the asshat who sent it. That was just a real underhanded blow, going after someone all shady like that. His green eyes scanned the number again and he reached into his pocket and squeezed his phone. That number looked familiar…
"Y'know who might'a sent it?" he finally asked.
Craig lowered his phone, "No, I do not, but they have been persistent and this is not the first message. Go on and laugh, you must think I haven't handled this 'aggressively' enough or something."
"Nah. I'll take care'a it," the dark-haired man announced.
"What? Take care of what?" Craig cried, but his antagonistic co-worker was already half-way down the hallway, out of earshot.
All it took was a quick peek at his contacts list and a couple of remembered numbers for Rick to figure out who was sending threatening texts to Craig. He was suddenly glad for being kind of a networking god in the office; he had barely ever talked to Donald down in the turret production lines, but he was about to get pretty damned acquainted with him.
The next day he had more than a couple words with 'Defective Donald' as they called him in his department, but no more words to Craig. It didn't take being a real hardboiled gumshoe to figure out what happened. Don apparently got written up several times for stealing out of the break room refrigerator and Craig had caught him, but considering all of the things he was a stickler on, it must have been so small an occurrence that Craig didn't remember how angry Don had been about being caught red-handed. The bastard broke a few more rules poking around company personnel files he shouldn't have had access to and found Craig's number to try to make him drop the claims about stolen lunch. Pretty pathetic of the guy, if one asked Rick, but the asshole was ruffling Craig's feathers enough that something had to be done.
Needless to say, he wasn't going to bug anyone who didn't expressly give him their number ever again, let alone Craig. Rick stood over him and made sure he sent an apology text, detailing just why Don was being a douchebag without revealing who he was. That was the deal and as long as that bullshit stopped, that was alright with Rick.
Later on, Rick pulled up a website that would allow him to send an anonymous text of his own. It just read 'Something else happens, someone else bothers you, you know who to go to.' Craig didn't have to know what Rick did to look out for him. It could be his little secret. He probably didn't care, or would be angry anyway.
Well, it was a job well done for the day. Rick tossed on his jacket and started to leave the building. His phone beeped just before he reached the exit and when he looked, he had to stifle a smile. It was from Craig and it just read 'Thank you.' Looked like he didn't forget, clever bastard.