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The Grey Zone: Snippets
by Icka! M. Chif
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♦ Drabble: Cliché ♦ Drabble: Darts ♦ Billiards ♦ Growth Spurt ♦ Shojou Manga ♦ Flexiable ♦ Drabble: Angry Johnny ♦ Dropping the Soap ♦
“I don’t want to say it.” Saguru leaned against Kaito slightly, facing away from the crowd.
Kaito eyed the restless crowd. “You have to.” He hissed back. “You’re the detective who figured everything out.”
Saguru growled, an embarrased sound deep in the back of his throat. “But… it’s so cliché…”
“Saguru-kun...”
“I know, I know.” The detective sighed, then straightened, adopting a formal attitude as he turned and faced the gathered suspects and officers.
“Ms. White did it.” Saguru announced stiffly. “In the Dining Room. With the candlestick.”
“At least you didn’t say the butler did it.” Kaito muttered softly.
-fin-
It took the guys at the local pub three different visits to figure out that he was good at throwing darts.
It wasn't until the fifth game that they insisted that he step back a few feet.
On the eight game, he stood on the other side of the small room. And still didn't miss a shot.
In retrospect, on the ninth game, landing the darts on top of each other may have been over kill.
After the twelfth game, he was allowed back to the line where the rest of them stood.
But now he had to play blindfolded.
-fin-
"Um... Kaito-kun?" Saguru had a look on his face like he wanted to say something and wasn't quite sure how to go about it.
Kaito sighed. He knew what was coming. He had known what the detective was going to say when he had coaxed Kaito away from the dart board towards the open billiard table at the local pub. "Yeah?"
"You suck." Saguru was not doing a very good job at hiding his disappointment. It was obvious that he'd been hoping for a challenge on the billiard tables and the rest of the pub patrons had enough sense not to play him.
And -Aoko- could beat Kaito when it came to pool. Which wasn't quite like billiards, but it was close enough.
"Shut up. I know." He grumbled back. "I can't be perfect at -everything- you know."
"Yes, but..." Saguru's face scrunched up. "I know eight year olds who could play better than you..."
"If you want me to trounce you, we can play darts." Kaito declared firmly.
"Perhaps I could give you some pointers?" Saguru offered, clearly not ready to give up the game.
"Won't work." He sighed. "Jiichan tried to teach me, and he used to be pro. It's like ice skating, there's just some things I can't do."
Saguru shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to try."
"That I doubt." Kaito chuckled. "Give me playing cards, I can make them dance and sing. Put a stick and a couple of balls in my hands, I can't figure them out."
A silent awkward pause followed.
Saguru cleared his throat delicately. "I'm sure you'll figure it out someday."
Kaito scrambled out of bed, not at the sound of the alarm going off which he was blatantly attempting to ignore and failing, but at the sound of a body impacting on the solid floor and the cursing that followed. He dashed down the hall, pausing at Saguru's door long enough to rap his knuckles on the surface twice before allowing himself in. "Everything okay?"
"Ta. Everything's peachy." Saguru growled, fighting with his duvet on the floor and loosing. "BLAST!"
Kaito shook his head and went to help untangle his friend from the fabric. "Uncoordinated day?" He questioned, not unsympathetically.
"Probably." Saguru sighed, finally getting his legs untangled enough to stand up. The blond had shot up several centimetres from his previous 180cm height since his arrival in England, either the change in climate or food agreed with him. The downside to the rapid increases in height was a decrease in hand-eye coordination, at least until his body adjusted to the change. And occasional muscle aches as well, which meant the detective was usually in a sour mood for a few days, until his body was back under his control and pain free.
Kaito had also noticed that Saguru was starting to fill out the taller frame as well. In some ways, Kaito was slightly envious of Saguru's change in height and frame. In other ways, he was glad he'd stopped growing where he had. He was never going to be big in the way Saguru was, but having a smaller lighter frame was better for magician and thief work. It was much easier to add padding than appear smaller than you actually were.
Although he probably shouldn't be thinking about the thief part, he was trying to be good and avoid that currently.
( Kaito: 174cm / 5'7 3/4" 58.14kg / 127lb
Saguru: 180cm / 5'10" 65kg / 143lb
-we're putting Hakuba at a little over 6 feet tall or about 186cm. )
Ta = British slang for 'Thanks'
Saguru's shadow fell on top of him as the detective peered over his shoulder. "You're reading shoujou?" Came the disbelieving comment.
"Aoko left it for me." Kaito held up the volume he was reading. "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. She left a note saying since I'm such a Kaitou fan, I might enjoy it."
"Ah." Saguru nodded. "How is it?"
"The cops are incompetent, the heists are easy, the costuming is flamboyant-"
Saguru's dry comment cut off the critique. "Sounds normal for a Kaitou."
Kaito tilted his head back, grinning at the stoic-faced detective. "Yup."
"So who wins?" There was a tiny half smirk on the corner of Saguru's lips, if you knew what you were looking for, that told that the blond knew exactly who won.
"They all do." Kaito smiled, willing to play along. "But Jeanne ends up with this Chiaki guy who's been chasing her around declaring that both forms were his and no one else's."
"Ah." Saguru nodded sagely. A thoughtful look flickered across his face for a moment before he leaned over the back of the sofa, wrapping his arms around Kaito in a solid, if awkward embrace. Saguru's lips moved briefly against Kaito's neck and it took a moment to decipher the muffled determined word spoken there.
"Mine."
Kaito noticed that Saguru had an odd expression on his face as the blond watched him.
He glanced down, doing a cursorily check. Nope, pants on, not committing any thefts, no boogers hanging from his nose that he could see...
So he raised an eyebrow back at the detective. "What?"
Saguru blinked, as if pulling himself out of a haze. "Nothing."
Obviously, it wasn't nothing, or the detective wouldn't have been staring. "What?"
"Nothing!" The Briton was starting to get a little bit of pink on his upper cheeks from embarrassment. While it was one of Kaito's favourite looks for him, he'd prefer to know the cause.
"Saguru-kun." He growled.
"No, really. It's nothing." A nervous hand waved at him, in what he surmised was supposed to be an appeasing gesture. "It's just that... most men I know don't sit like that."
Kaito blinked. Puzzled, he glanced down. They were both sitting on the couch, supposedly reading. He had his legs crossed, right leg over his left knee. He often sat like that. "Huh?"
Saguru motioned to how he was sitting. His legs were also crossed, but his ankle was resting on his knee, leaving his legs open. “Most men -can’t- sit like that without squishing something vital.”
It took a moment for things to click for him to understand what Saguru was saying. “Oh.” He nodded. “Right. But most guys can’t do this either.”
Keeping his face in a trained bored expression, he slid out of the sofa and onto the floor, legs splaying to the sides in a perfect split. The muscles in his hips and thighs let him know he was a little out of practice, but nothing too painful. He’d have to start doing this more often if he wanted to keep it up.
“See?” When he glanced up, the red on Saguru’s cheeks had shifted and the detective had a very odd look on his face, like he was torn between two very conflicting emotions. And he was holding his book protectively over his crotch.
”Honestly,” Saguru said, his voice soudning a little strangled. “I’m not quite sure if I should be impressed or in pain...”
-fin-
( Inspired by re-reading Golden Eye and noticing Kid sitting like that and a discussion a long time ago with some male co-workers about sitting with your legs crossed above the knee. Their emphatic opinion was squished nads = bad. )
♦ ♦ ♦ Drabble: Angry Johnny ♦ ♦ ♦
"'But either way, I wanna kill you, I wanna blow you away.'" Saguru raised an eyebrow. "These are song lyrics."
"Right. But she's done it on the water, dry land, in a church, just about any time or place." The frantic young man, named James, not Johnny, shivered horrifically. "Jezebel shows up with that horrible laugh..."
Kaito glanced over Saguru's shoulder, reading the note. "Reads like either a kinky exhibitionist list or a creative murder spree." He glanced up at James. "Ever consider she might be hot for your bod?" He offered brightly.
The purple haired man looked stricken. "... No?"
-fin-
( Lyrics are 'Angry Johnny' by Poe. Used without Permission, no profit being made.
During the course of plotting this fic, 'Johnny' somehow became Pokemon's James from Team Rocket, with his scary and highly disturbing not-fiancee Jezebel. ^^;; )
♦ ♦ ♦ Drabble: Angry Johnny ♦ ♦ ♦
"Oooh.... gods...." Kaito groaned in ecstasy as the warm water sluiced over his head. "I sooooo needed this."
Saguru made a muffered comment that was most likely agreement.
They'd been chasing a suspect, due to the fact that both of them tended to be faster than the resident officers when the suspect had seeked refuge in a candy factory.
A toffee factory to be precise.
Long embarrsing story short, they'd both ended up covered in the sticky substance with a peppermint coating. Humbug, indeed. They couldn't -walk- without squelching and all manner of horrible noises.
The officers had offered them use of the communal showers to wash all the goop off before it hardened. They'd gratefully taken them up on the offer, both of them pointedly ~not~ looking at each other.
-or, in reality, trying to steal glimpses when the other wasn't looking in the age old tradition stealing glimpses in the shower.
Kaito thought he had the better deal on that part, Saguru couldn't see without his contacts or glasses. Ha.
Saguru pulled his head out from under the spray, wiping off his face as he did so. "Pass the soap, will you?"
"Sure." Kaito dropped the bar of soap he'd been using into Saguru's outstretched hand.
And missed.
Both he and Saguru looked down at the white bar of soap on the pale tiles.
The moment stretched.
"I'll... go get another bar of soap..." Kaito offered.
Saguru peered at where the soap might have been. "Ye-ah."
-fin-
-from a discussion over that dropping the soap was the ultimate Seme or Uke test. Uke: I'll get it! Seme: You get it!
'course, then problems arise if you've got 2 seme or 2 uke in the shower at the same time...
A 'Humbug' is a type of candy with a toffee centre and a peppermint shell, by the way. They're pretty good.