Disclaimers: I own very little, and it doesn't include these boys.
Author: Avium
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Crawford x Ken
Fic length: 1/1
Timeline: Indefinite
Author's note: Originally written for the Lj writing community Temps Mort's 'Dialogue-only' challenge (the entire drabble has to be written in the form of dialogues with absolutely no descriptions), I've expanded on the drabble by going beyond the dialogue-only limit with scene and character descriptions. You may view the original piece here:
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The interruption had been foreseen, and he had no intentions of allowing it to take place. However, a call from his superior stopped him just as he moved his finger over the power button of the silver device.
He had accepted the call and had answered the questions raised.
He had also forgotten to turn off the handphone afterwards.
He was alerted to his negligence only when he felt the quiet vibrations against his skin from his breast pocket. It could have been done: move a hand over the fabric and press the cancel button through the material – to end the call before it even began. The movement would have been discrete, given that he wore a jacket over the shirt where he pocketed his handphone. But he also knew that the other party would not stop dialling the number until he received a properly worded reaction, and the power button would take somewhat more obvious effort to be pushed…
Sufficient to say – having to leave the room in the middle of a conference was not going to sit well with his current employer. But he had little choice in the matter, so pushing his chair backwards he rose from the seat and walked out of the room without so much as a word uttered. His grey-haired employer had glanced at him as he left, but made no move to call him back, and nor did he intend to question the American's motives. There were some things that one had to put up with if one wanted to continue enlisting the service of Schwarz.
His purposeful steps took him back to his office. Locking the door with a click behind him, he reached into the folds of his jacket and withdrew the hand with the vibrating handset encased within his fist. He made for the seat behind his desk before turning his attention back to the buzzing contraption.
Opening his hand, he looked down at the number flashing back at him from the white LCD screen. The number was a familiar one that required no record to be made in his phonebook. Or rather, he couldn't afford to place the number into his SIM card if he wanted to avoid questions from any prying eyes. Scowling, he brought his thumb over the 'accept' button and stated his displeasure to the caller in a single sentence:
"You called me on my phone."
"Oh, really? I didn't notice that – I thought I was dialling for a pizza
takeaway. My bad." A bright voice chirped from the other end of the line. But
there remained a hint of sarcasm in the voice as it spoke, and it was painfully
familiar to the man.
Ah, of course. The boy.
There had been no promise between them to not contact each other, but neither had the act been discouraged by either party before. The usual practice, however, was that they avoided all non face-to-face contact as far as possible, least they leave a trail of evidence behind for their own team mates to piece together. Phone calls were uncommon between them, and when they did take place the caller usually made the effort to seek the other through a public phone. This time, the boy had called him directly through his personal handset – a decision that was far from wise in the older man's eyes.
The call had left Brad Crawford far from amused; "You are not supposed to be calling me on my handset, let alone through yours. The evidence will be incriminating if you do not take care to clear your call history after this."
He thought he heard an exaggerated sigh from the brunette before the handphone crackled with the continued flow of the conversation, "Look, I'm not stupid, okay? I do know how to clean up after myself."
It occurred to the raven-haired man that Ken's reply bordered on being
incomprehensible – not so much the structure of the sentence but more what the
contents implied, "I believe you've broken a language usage rule."
He could picture the boy placing a hand on his hip and scowling back at him.
"Gee, I didn't notice that. What did I do now, Mr. Grammar-checker?"
"You used 'I' and the phrase 'clean up' in the same sentence – it is semantically impossible." He knew that his actions could not be detected through the phone, but he still made it a point to punctuate his reply with a smirk; Ken was not exactly famous for his ability to perform electronic trail clean-ups, and spelling it out to Ken might alert him to the problem.
Fat chance.
The brunette blinked at the barely concealed insult before lifting an eyebrow in irritation, "… You know what? You're an ass."
Crawford had expected a better insult from the boy who usually had an arsenal of obscure vulgarities at his command, so a mild "ass" had not been anticipated. It took him a second to reorganise the reply that he already held at the tip of his tongue before he addressed Ken in his usual standoffish manner. "I don't claim descent to donkeys, if that had escaped your notice. However, I fully expect you to, as usual."
"Why do I even bother calling you?" Ken would have thrown both arms up in exasperation, except that it would mean losing his own handphone to the cold marble tiles underfoot, so he had settled for a snappy tone. He just hoped that it transmitted clearly through the line.
The question made the American's lips curl upwards in silent satisfaction – there was no doubt that he derived pleasure from making the boy run around in circles.
"The question is mine to ask," Crawford stated calmly.
"… Yeah, fine. Whatever. Is there ever going to be a day when you can stop insulting me?"
"Perhaps when you start to show the first shards of intelligence, then I'd make a memo to myself to dispense with the need to spell everything out for you in detail."
There was no mistaking a disgruntled Ken's sarcasm-coated reply – "Oh, thank you. I sure as hell didn't notice that I was mentally challenged! It was very reassuring to have you point it out to me."
Pressing his handphone to his ear using his shoulder, Crawford lifted up his arm to pull back the sleeve in order to check his watch. The meeting would be nicely underway – the group of boring old suited creatures must have gone on to the area of market growth for the 3rd quarter by now. It was definitely something that he wasn't keen on returning to, but at the rate that this phone conversation was going…
"Is this going to take long? I don't have time for your banter." He made it a point to emphasise on certain words in his reply in order to expression his waning patience with the boy. Once in a (very rare) while he might be a little more generous with his time, but it seemed to him that Ken had called for the sole purpose of irritating him and nothing else. That he would never make time for, no matter how masochistic Schuldich made him out to be.
The line made an odd crunching sound again - "Oops - I'm so sorry I interrupted your terribly important business meeting by calling you on your handphone. Shall I hang up?"
He couldn't tell if the boy had been serious or if he were just joking. He had often relied on his premonitions to tell him the outcome of such encounters; and if they didn't come he would at least have the other party before him so he could read the boy's body language and judge for himself the seriousness of the 'threat'.
But for now, the ambiguous, lingering reluctance in the distant voice would have to be used as a gauge. It was a crude one, but it would have to do.
Crawford rolled down his sleeve and dropped the phone into his hand before he pulled open his drawer to retrieve from it the hands-free set – an awkwardly designed but otherwise extremely useful Bluetooth earpiece. He then lifted up the earpiece to inspect it, as if to check for any visible flaws on the device before attaching it to his ear.
"… You may if you like. Though I am about to switch to my hands-free set."
"You mean, that ugly Bluetooth thingy that you clip to your ear?"
Ken had seen him with the slim instrument once, and by all counts Crawford had never thought of his choices as ugly or unsightly in any manner – whether they be human or non-living objects. He replied to the question with a slightly annoyed "yes".
Ken blurted out almost immediately, "It makes you look like a wanker."
"… A wanker?" The earpiece was carefully replaced onto the tabletop.
"A wanker."
The boy was probably nodding in affirmation, judging from the sudden static from the line. Brad Crawford inhaled deeply and allowed a potent silence to develop before repeating himself in a dangerously low voice:
"A wanker."
Perhaps the tone had achieved the desired effect – the boy began rattling off on his high-speed, slightly clumsy speech as soon as he managed to swallow down the nervous lump in his throat - "Yeah, you heard me the first time – a bloody wanker! Who in the world wears that stupid-looking thing on their heads? It makes you look like something that walked out of a sci-fi movie or TV show – you know, something cold-blooded and with blue bits sticking out of their heads?"
"I'm deeply touched by your endearing analogy. However, I am not amused," teaching Ken to keep his trap shut before he invoked a violent physical reaction from him, Crawford decided, was going to be a priority the next time he met the boy.
How quickly the boy forgets: "I didn't ask for you to be amused, jerk."
"You are childish," Crawford said it as if it were a fact; to him it was definitely one.
"Thank you. But you're still a wanker," Ken smirked.
The American nudged his spectacles higher up the bridge of his nose – he wasn't expecting the conversation to continue along such a vein. But perhaps it was the only way to get the boy to do something else besides hurl childish insults at him:
"Technically, I am not when I obtain my sexual gratifications solely from your body."
There was a messy splutter of made-up words before Ken managed to form more coherent ones with his tongue.
"… You used the 's' word."
Did the boy sound… scandalised?
It made Crawford smirk as a confused Ken always made him – "what is so wrong with the word 'solely'? Or is it beyond your usual scope of vocabulary?"
"No, not that word. You said 'sex'." Crawford noted that the boy became a little tongue-tied when the last word was pronounced.
And it intrigued him.
"Ah – I used the term 'sexual gratification'. How very astute of you to notice."
Ken knitted his eyebrows, apparently confused by Crawford's behaviour. "You
never used that 's' word before."
"I didn't know that you're a closet prude," the sentence was spoken deliberately to taunt the boy, and taunt the boy it did.
A flustered, blushing Ken came to mind most easily at that moment for Crawford when the boy finally found his tongue after a moment's pause: "Oh, fuck off already. It's just not normal to hear you using that word, you know? It's sort of like… expecting that German team mate of yours to listen to your advice for once." The brunette was trying to change the topic, and Crawford knew. It was a change for the better, he supposed – not having to deal with a rascal of a teenager on the other end of the phone anymore.
"I do not give out advice – I state my orders. And a defiant Schuldich is not a pleasant image to entertain right now."
"You would rather entertain amorous thoughts, right?" At this the boy grinned – whether the remark was meant to be lewd or accusing didn't matter to Crawford as much as the fact that such a sentence was spoken.
'Look Who's Talking' never came more obviously than this.
"Congratulations – you have used a low frequency word correctly. And I find it hard to comprehend how one can get aroused by hearing our conversation." He adjusted his spectacles again, annoyed that the frames didn't seem to want to stay in place today.
"… Now you used the 'a' word."
"This is not a silly word game - you are not getting points for picking out words of the sexual nature."
"Hell – is everything a game to you?"
At this the American paused. It was a thinly-veiled accusation, but an accusation nonetheless. The manner in which it was spoken seemed to him that the boy was making reference to more than just their ongoing conversation. It seemed highly probable that Ken was stirring their strange relationship in the same cauldron as well.
Crawford's voice's softened, "It will depend greatly on your definition of a game."
"Oh, I don't know. How about phone sex?" No sooner was the phrase spoken that both amber and turquoise eyes widened in an ostensibly pre-synchronised fashion. Somewhere in the haze of his thoughts Crawford could hear the boy's slightly panicky attempts at taking back his words - "… No wait, hang on a minute – I did NOT intend to use that as a example…"
He laughed – richly and deeply in spite of the malice that he had employed in
his tone. "And here I am wondering who is the one entertaining lustful
thoughts…"
Ken had pouted, embarrassed and annoyed at his own fumble, "Aw, shut up."
Such a game was too entertaining to be let go of so easily, so Crawford dropped his voice to an even lower, practically husky one. "… You are not, perchance… doing anything to yourself, are you?"
"… What the fuck are you talking about, asshole? You're making me sound like a goddamn machine – "get turned on, no, wait, get turned off". Honestly!" He was sure he could see Ken blushing and waving his arms about there and then.
Leaning back on his leather-covered seat, Crawford reached into his pocket for his wallet and tipped several coins out from the pouch. He made sure that the sound of coins landing and rolling on the tabletop was conveyed clearly through the mouthpiece before he picked one large silver one off the wooden surface. He began flipping it in a purposeful manner while asking the boy in a serious voice, "And where do you propose I insert the quarters in order to get the program started?"
"… You still carry quarters in Japan?" Disbelief dominated the boy's words.
Crawford smirked, "I also have my lucky silver dollar with me – very useful."
Ken's voice neared a shriek. "Oh dear God, I'm so not hearing all this. Excuse me while I just go DIE!"
For several seconds Crawford heard a series of loud thumps from Ken's end of the line. It sounded suspiciously like something large and soft hitting the wall repeatedly. It suddenly gave way to a loud yell – as if Ken were shouting at someone or something else besides him. At length the boy's laboured breaths broke the string of disconcerting noises. The American relaxed his shoulders; having found them strangely tensed in the previous few moments that had just passed.
When the raven-haired man spoke at last his tone was a questioning one – neither mocking nor concerned: "Are you done with exorcising your desires now?"
"I do not desire anything, dammit!"
A plain denial; that which Crawford was only too glad to catch hold of.
"Funny, I could have sworn I heard heavy breathing from the other end of this line."
"You know what?" Ken's voice was softer now – so much so that Crawford found himself adjusting the volume of his handset as if it were an automatic reflex. It took him a few milliseconds to realise what the boy had uttered.
"Don't play guessing games with me."
"Yeah well – you know what? I really hate you." Ken had blatantly poured a generous dose of bitterness into the word 'hate', although his restrained tone hinted that his true feelings remained hidden and probably questionable.
"I can assure you that the feeling is mutual."
The American's reply came too fast, surprisingly even himself – it was as if the sentence had been lurking at the back of his head all this while, simply waiting to be spoken aloud. At this he cut off all further thoughts, instead concentrating on the uneasy silence hovering on the line linking them. He heard the boy parting his lips in a wet smack, but no words followed the sound. If Ken had willed himself to silence his own speech, then it was highly likely that the proud brunette would not be the first to break the silence.
So Crawford had to be the one to break the spell.
"… Are you done yet? I don't have time for this." He surprised himself with the hardness of his soul, but maintained his cool while awaiting the boy's reply.
A breath was slowly released as Ken finally spoke up, "… So, do I still meet you this Saturday?"
"I don't expect otherwise."
Silence burnt between them, and the man thought the air too thick for breathing despite the boy's sound panting. He found himself dreading to hear any further words from the boy, but at the same time couldn't find any words from his suddenly blank mind to cut off the call with.
As he pulled the phone away from his ear and readied to disconnect the call, Ken's voice sounded again. The question the boy brought forward sounded dispirited and perhaps even a little sad.
"… How did we end up like this?"
For once, he willed the boy the truth:
"It's a question that I'd rather overlook for now."
They didn't know who hung up first. Anyway, it wasn't important to either one of them.
~ End
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Author's notes: They have a strange, sad relationship. I blame my muses for this piece.