Strawberry Panic {TomTord}

Clarity

"How else would we take them down?" Shaking his head, Tord narrowed his eyes at him, "You're our ticket to insider information."

"Isn't a snitch the worst possible thing you can be whilst in a gang?" Tom sighed hard, it left a certain, shaky ache in his lungs, "Besides, what do you mean by 'we' and 'our'? I'm not a part of this! I'm not a part of your-"

He stopped, brows furrowed and eyes unyielding, "You're a gang leader, aren't you?"

Tord paused for a second, hesitating. Slowly, he licked his lips as he finally uttered out, "The less you know, the better off you'll be."

Rolling his eyes didn't exactly hold the same weight as it would for a normal human, but he hoped Tord understood the sentiment nonetheless when he remarked, "Bit too late for that now, don't you think?"

Shaking his head again, Tord didn't answer, choosing instead to fidget with the insides of his hoody pocket.

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence before Tom dared to ask another question, "Before- a few weeks ago, I came home late and you said, 'I knew you were going to enter the game sooner or later'- what did- what does that mean?"

Tensing, Tord evaded eye contact as he mulled over his words. Apparently embarrassed by the question, he shuffled in his sitting position, "Uh."

Tom quirked an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at his lips. Being the one who was usually a hot, awkward mess, the role reversal was a decidedly nice change. Making the ordinarily unflappable man embarrassed was quickly becoming one of his favourite pastimes.

Despite himself, a goofy smile graced his lips. He definitely did like the asshole.

What a mistake that is.

Suddenly finding the wall next to him very interesting, Tord bit at the inside of his cheek; uncertain, "Sometimes, when I see you, I can see myself. Back when I was miserable when I knew that the world was unfair. Back when I thought I couldn't do anything about it."

Opening his mouth to interject, Tom paused, before closing it again. He didn't know where this was going.

Unperturbed, Tord continued, "The urge to rise up- it's there, it's inside of you. I can see it every time we fight. Just to think, if only you applied yourself more- you could take over the world if you wanted, and I would be there, opposite you. Your rival for world domination."

Tord was smirking by the last sentence, eyes unfocused in a dream-like state.

Unseen by Tord, Tom frowned and promptly shook his head.

Not liking what he was hearing, he sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, grounding himself. Willing himself to not get too angry at the words being carelessly thrown in his direction. How else was he supposed to take this confession? How could he not be offended at the fact that his crush thought he was the type of person that would want to rule the world?

What the fuck.

Furrowing his brow, Tom snapped back, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Still smirking, Tord shifted his gaze back to Tom, "Do you remember the Christmas after I had left? You stole Santa's sleigh and started to bomb London-"

"How do you know about that-"

"That's when I saw it; the passion, the burning in your eyes. I realised we aren't so different." He looked so proud, "If you could terrorise a major city on your own, without back up, within a few hours, can you imagine what you could do with the right people behind you?"

Being described by different people was always a disconcerting experience. It was like being given a window to another reality, where a person's whole perception of themselves is twisted onto its head.

This though? This was on an entirely different level.

"So why were you so upset when you thought I was apart of their crew? Isn't that something that you wanted?" It just didn't make any sense.

Tord sniffed in disgust, shaking his in what can only be described as disappointment, "They are nothing. Small fry, if anything. They're perfectly happy with drug transportation- you can do better than that."

Oddly touched at the amount of faith being poured in his direction, Tom smacked his lips, throat dry. Looking at his hands, he fidgeted nervously. He honestly didn't know what to say to that.

He doesn't get compliments very often but damn, Tord's were certainly one of a kind.

Instead of retorting, he settled on another question, "So, what now? What do I do when I go back tomorrow?"

"The plan so far is for me to check out the cafe during the day. Have you managed to get a look at the back rooms?"

Gulping, Tom sighed again. Tord, at his work, during the day? That sounded awful. 

"Not really." He shrugged, "I didn't really know what I was looking for the first time." 

Faintly, he felt the buzzing of his phone vibrating against his foot. After getting changed into a new pair of clothes, and washing his face from makeup, he had thrown the device on the bed unceremoniously, easily forgetting about it.  

Sending a quick look in Tord's direction, he opened it up to see several unseen messages from Cherri. 

Awh, shit.

[Cherri]: TAM! TAAAAM

[Cherri]: Gurl, are you okay?? Where the fuck are you??

[Cherri]: Devon threw the guy out if that's what you're worried about???

[Cherri]: Message me back when you get the chance

[Cherri]: Ms Sinclair is p i s s e d 

Good days are really hard to come by. 

--

A/N: I hope this clears some stuff for y'all, I wanted to be clearer about the connections, but I still haven't mentioned a few other things since they're for later >:))) 

I also wanted to sprinkle in some BlueLeader!Tom in there- it's not going to make a full appearance, obviously, but it is kinda linked with this other fic that I planned in 2016 (yes, there is more gasp), which takes place after The End. I've been thinking of another fic recently too (based on saloonantics) but I promised myself I would finish this one first. So who knows???