Tortoise and Fox [BL]

1.10

"Maybe you're just a robot."

Away in a foreign country, sat a large, multi-floored building. In one of the upper floors, a meeting was in the midst of a riled up state. At one end of the table, sat a man and women, both darkly staring down the group of shareholders as they argued.

One by one, the shareholders began to quiet down, the oppressive auras of the couple forcing down any words they had yet to say.

Soon, the only sound left in the room was tapping of fingers against wood, every soft tap seemingly bringing the people in the room closer to whatever decision the two leaders had made.

The surprising sound of a phone ringing interrupted to foreboding noise. All eyes nervously searched for the source before locating it on the sharply dressed woman, who stopped tapping her fingers. As she reached for her phone, there was a resounding mental sigh of relief from the shareholders, as if they had just escaped something worse than death. Many of them swore in their hearts that they would no longer test the Redwood couple. It was far too dangerous!

Mr. Redwood stood up from his chair. With a voice full of stern authority, he spoke. "We will resume this next week. Thank you for your time, you are dismissed."

As the last remaining person scurried out, Mrs. Redwood had already answered the phone, a large grin on her face. She leaned back in her chair, propping her legs on the table in a very inelegant way. "Hello sunshine. You called?"

Mr. Redwood shut the door softly, before turning to his wife with a pout. "Turn speaker on, I want to hear Ced! You can't hog him for yourself. We both had him."

"Hun hold on, Dad's saying something to me." She covered the microphone with a palm and glared back at him. "Go into labour for a couple hours and then we'll talk."

Mr. Redwood stepped closer to her. He spoke, tone full of warning. "Julie..."

His wife quickly stood up, back stepping to face him on the opposite side of the gathering table. Her hand dangled the phone in front of him in a teasing way. Mr. Redwood crossed his arms, quickly walking around the table, his wife continuing to run around it.

—

"Josh wait no, no, no wait!" The sounds of crashing chairs and laughter of his parents could be heard from Cedric's phone, his face showing a mix of confusion and concern.

"Mom, are you and Dad okay?"

The laughter on the other end died down, and Cedric's mom cleared her throat quickly, expressing agreement.

"We're fine, honey. How have you been? Bored? Do you want anything? Just ask your grandparents and they'll send people to fetch it."

"I'm fine. Just wanted to check if you and Dad were taking enough time off."

Cedric's mom clutched her chest, before putting her face in her hands. My son is so adorable and filial! We truly raised him well!

Mr. Redwood took his wife's moment of weakness to steal the phone back. A happy voice spoke through the phone. "We're doing great Ced. Hopefully we'll be able to come home early. How about a vacation together when we get back? We can go to the beach villa we have down south, it's been gathering dust as of late."

Cedric felt his heart flutter, a smile growing on his face. He noticed that it did that more and more these days. "Yeah. That'd be really nice."

"Then it's settled! We'll let you know all the details tomorrow, okay? Mom and I have to get going, so we'll talk to you then. Thanks for calling Ced, it's very much appreciated. We love you."