Binary -- Chapter Five
Title: Binary
Author: Lost Forevermore or Woebegone121
Rating: R for swearing, themes, and violence. (as of now. Rating is subject to change.)
Pairings: Sora/Riku, Axel/Roxas, and various other random scatterings
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Kingdom Hearts would be a musical.
Warnings: Slash, language, possible adult content, eighties metal music, Motley Crüe, Guns 'n Roses, Savage Garden, fat cats, Roxas' mouth, Axel's lighter, Sora with a motorcycle license, crappy apartments, and excessive amounts of randomly named bands that may or may not have anything to do with each other.
Summary: Detective AU. It all started with a motorcycle accident, a missing blond, and a stolen computer disc. Now Riku's tracking his so-not-boyfriend and a hotheaded blond down with the help of his rock-obsessed, pyromaniac, partner-in-fighting-crime and his secretary who still hasn't figured out that she works for him, not the other way around. Not to mention the gang that's trying to kill them. And poor Riku's mop still isn't magical.
Or, at fanfiction.net.
Links to previous:
One Two Three Four
Also. "All She Wants Is..." by Duran Duran always makes me think of Demyx for some reason. I don't know why.
Chapter Five: All She Wants Is...
For once in his life, Riku got to work on time. It was strange to see the morning traffic, even stranger to see it from the backseat of Axel’s car with a plate of scrambled eggs in hand. He didn’t much like it, being more of a super-early or so-late-that-the-cows-done-came-home-and-left-again person, mostly due to the noise. Honking car horns coupled with his friends’ radio war was not the sort of thing he wanted to wake up to.
So he sat in the backseat with his eggs and his left eye throbbing. Kairi had tried valiantly to cover it with makeup, but the effort had failed (and she was too tan for him, the stuff made him look like a friggin’ carrot), and unless he planned to don an eye-patch and risk being the butt of Axel’s rather large repertoire of pirate jokes, he was stuck looking like he’d been the unlucky victim of an annoying, anal-retentive blond.
Oh wait. He had been.
He stabbed an egg viciously, finishing off the last of them as Axel pulled into the teensy-tiny parking lot next to the agency. Kairi’s green Volkswagen still sat nearby, thankfully having not been used as an advertising space for the local “street artists,” looking all bright and cheery in the way-too-freaking-early morning. They walked together to the office, Riku half asleep and still carrying his now egg-less plate. They came to a sudden, synchronized stop in front of the door, the two redheads falling silent.
Kairi was the first to speak. “You know,” she said, “I think Axel should go in first.”
Riku nodded, shoving Axel forward. “I agree. Axel, you go first.”
The sacrifice in question shook his head avidly, backing up and standing behind Riku. “No way in hell. You two go in.”
“I’m not getting blown up!” Riku and Kairi exclaimed in unison.
“Well, neither am I!”
They simply looked at each other for a moment, then at the locked door to the dark, possibly bomb-ridden office.
“…Well, somebody has to go in,” Kairi said.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” Axel suggested. He suggested it again when he lost. And once more when he lost for the second time.
“Nope!” Kairi said, Riku shaking his head in agreement with her. “It was two-out-of-three. You lost. We’ll miss you, and we’re grateful for your sacrifice.”
“You cheated!” Axel insisted indignantly. “Dynamite doesn’t count. And scissors cuts the wick off anyway.”
Kairi maturely stuck her tongue out at him. “Dynamite totally kicks scissor’s ass. Now go get yours blown up so I can get back to work, you chicken.”
Riku could feel his headache returning. He was beginning to wonder if he should see a doctor about them, with the way they kept showing up day after day.
“If you can use dynamite, then I can use bulldozer!”
Or he could just kill Axel now and save himself medical bills.
“Hey!” he interrupted before Kairi introduced Axel to the pavement. “I have an idea. Let’s all go in together. Like adults.”
Axel and Kairi looked at each other for a moment, then back at Riku.
“I’ll go if the pyro goes,” Kairi said.
“I’m not a pyro, you shoe whore.”
“Just because you’re jealous that I can pull off these heels and you and your chicken legs can’t-“
Riku closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten. If he was lucky, the building would be rigged and all of his problems would go up in flames and smoke. “What are you guys, fifteen? Shut up and come on.”
They walked up to the door together and paused again, the mood suddenly a hell of a lot heavier. A million possible ways to rig an explosive to the door ran through their minds, and they collectively took a deep breath. Finally, Kairi pressed the key into Riku’s hand and stepped back, shielding herself with their bodies. The detective briefly wondered how they’d managed to silently decide that he’d get to be the one to blow them all sky-high, then slid it into the lock, said a little prayer, and prepared to be blasted into a bazillion tiny Riku-pieces.
He turned the key and they threw themselves to the ground.
Somewhere nearby, a bird chirped.
Riku opened his eyes and slowly sat up, looking at the door, which had not been blown off of its hinges. Even better, the hinges were attached to a building that was still standing.
“Well!” Kairi stood, dusting herself off. “That’s a relief!”
She walked inside, and that was that.
They couldn’t say that the day started off uneventfully. Riku and Axel found themselves checking every little nook and cranny for bombs, including Kairi’s Volkswagen, and by lunch, Riku was pretty sure that he’d be blown up at any given moment. He began writing his will on the back of one of the file folders when he realized that they still had Kairi’s apartment to sweep.
Kairi had managed to trace that morning’s call to a pay phone across town, near one of the many, many McDonald’s - honestly, how many did one city need? - which meant that the trace had pretty much been useless and Riku was, as a result, very discouraged.
“We’ll head for Springfield tomorrow,” he told Kairi, meaning himself and Axel. “Pay Sora’s brother a visit. Can you look up the directions for it?”
Axel grinned. Springfield was a three-hour drive away, which meant that, for Axel, it was really an hour-and-a-half drive away. This meant that he got to drive his Firebird for an hour and half.
“I’ll stay,” she said. “I actually have paperwork to catch up on.”
Axel’s grin faltered a bit. “You should come,” he said, putting his feet up on her desk. She pushed them off with a disgusted look at the redhead, then wiped her hand daintily on his sleeve. “Might not be safe here all alone.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks,” Kairi replied, flipping through the files in the cabinet beside her. “I’m a big girl. And after you make sure that I won’t blow myself up trying to cook dinner tonight, I’m sure I’ll be A-okay.” She found the files that she had been looking for and passed them to Axel. “Roxas and Sora,” she said by way of explanation.
Axel passed one to Riku, who sat down in the cracked chair beside the redhead’s. He opened it to discover that in May of the past year, Sora had gotten a speeding ticket and was, true to his word, twenty-two.
Axel, however, looked slightly puzzled. “Hey, princess? Are you sure this printed off right?”
Kairi nodded, pulling up something on the computer screen. Upon closer inspection, Riku found that she was buying about two hundred dollars worth of shoes. “Yeah. I thought it was weird too.”
“What’s weird?” Riku asked.
Axel passed him the folder with a shrug. “Roxas Martel doesn’t exist.”
Riku frowned, flipping open the folder and wondering why Kairi had even bothered to print out the “Search term not found” page. “What?”
“He doesn’t exist,” Kairi replied. “At least, that name doesn’t. I’m sure he exists, but he’s apparently using a different name. There’s no trace of Roxas Martel anywhere, not even on a Google search. There’s barely anything on Sora as it is.” Riku looked down at the papers in his hand, which he now noticed was a fairly small stack. “The address listed is old, runs to Vienna.”
“Vienna’s, what?” Axel thought for a minute. “Three hours away?”
“Six for us normal people,” Kairi said. “And there’s another odd thing or two about Sora. I did my homework and called the university uptown. He’s not listed in any classes. People have seen him around campus, he sits in on classes every day, but no one’s ever bothered to find out who he is.”
Axel ‘hmm’-ed, tapping the folder against his chin. “But Roxas had to have a background check to work at EXP.”
Kairi nodded. “They’re next on my list to call. They should still have a copy of it on file.” She nodded to Riku, pointing at the folder in his hand. “Look at the second page.”
Riku flipped to the next page as Axel leaned over to read over his shoulder. “…Wow,” the redhead said, bright green eyes skimming down the page. “Everything but a chauffer’s license.”
“Mmhmm.” Kairi finished typing in her credit card number and stowed the plastic away in her purse, exchanging it for Easter-egg-blue nail polish. “Now look closer at the ticket.”
Flipping back to the first page, Riku studied it for a moment. “Speeding,” he said.
“…by the Water Patrol,” Axel added.
“In a yacht,” Kairi finished. “I didn’t even know you could speed in a yacht. Now, I looked up the report for the ticket-“
“Hacker,” Axel threw in, but he was grinning.
“I prefer the term ‘Professional Information Researcher and Liberator.’ Anyway,” she went on, “I researched and liberated the report for the ticket, and found out that he was completely and totally alone on it, at ten at night.”
“Curious,” Axel said slowly, mimicking a British accent - badly. “How very curious.”
Kairi paused in the painting of her thumbnail. “Axel, be normal. And you sucked at that accent back in high school drama, you suck at it now.”
“He’s been reading Harry Potter again,” Riku told her, flipping through the small collection of papers that made up the entirety of the information they had on Sora.
She rolled her eyes. “Again? Are you serious?”
“No, I’m Axel!”
She hit him with the nail polish brush, getting a streak of blue down his cheek.
Riku tuned the ensuing argument out, flipping through the file once more. Twenty-two, brown hair, blue eyes, five-foot-five. Pretty much legal to drive anything but a limousine or a taxi cab, including his pilot’s license. Apparently unknown to the school he was studying at to become a teacher. Something was off. (What was your first clue, detective?)
“Kairi,” he said, interrupting a nail polish war between the two redheads. “See if you can get Naminé Martel on the phone, and that background check for Roxas. We need to dig deeper.” She simply looked at him, one eyebrow quirked. Finally, he sighed and relented. “Please?”
She finished one hand, waved it around a bit, and got to work on the second one. “And?”
Riku thought for a moment. “…And I owe you cheesecake?”
The look on her face clearly said, “You can do better than that.”
Sea-green eyes slid to Axel for help. Axel was good at creative begging. Riku kind of failed at it. Luckily, his partner-in-fighting-crime took pity on him.
“And you are amazing, O Great Kairi!” Axel fell to his knees, the folder clasped in his hands. “We would be lost without you, wandering the dark abyss of the internet, never knowing where the object of our quest lies! Your hacking skills-“
She cleared her throat.
“Uh, researching and liberating skills are unmatched throughout the world, including the guys who did the zombie apocalypse signs! We can’t function without you! You are the pen to our paper, the Nancy to our Drew, the Mr. Spock to our Enterprise!” He suddenly grabbed her hand, careful of the wet paint on her nails. “You are the hot sauce to our taco!” (1)
She sighed melodramatically, waving him up in a dismissive manner befitting a queen. “I suppose that I could grace you with my higher feminine intelligence once more before I stow you underground for breeding…” Axel and Riku shuddered inwardly. She smiled, painting another nail a bright blue, and nodded to Riku’s office door. “You two have paperwork to do, remember?”
The realization hit when he was walking through the door with her voice echoing in his head, telling him to do paperwork and paused, glancing back at her. Somehow, though his name was on the sign outside, she had become the boss of their little operation.
He walked into his office, leaving the door open, deciding that he’d just duke out alpha status with her later (translation: He was going to be her bitch until he died, damn it all.). He sat down, resting his head on his hand as he flipped through the file again, as though waiting for the answers to all of his questions to appear on the pristine white pages. They stayed hopelessly and unhelpfully blank, however, the few black letters glaring back at him, mixing and diving and echoing gray the longer he stared at them. Finally, he closed the folder, leaned back, and ran over everything again in his mind.
Axel stuck his head in the door. “Hey. I’m doing a Chinese run. You want-“ The bell above the door cut him off suddenly, and he frowned, knowing that his Chinese food was apparently to be delayed. He gave Riku a look that clearly said that it was somehow the other’s fault and it would be coming out of his wallet.
“Hey, Little Red! How ya been?”
The voice stopped them both in mid-motion, Axel half-turned and Riku partially standing. Finally, they heard Kairi laugh and say something in reply, snapping them out of their shock. Axel turned fully in time to see a man in a Hawaiian shirt shoot the girl a sunny smile and walk right past her, up to where Axel stood in the doorway to Riku’s office. His grin stayed in place as he pulled his sunglasses to the top of his mullet-clad head and shifted his guitar case to the other shoulder.
“Hey, Red!” he greeted cheerfully. “I’m thinkin’ that you guys could probably help me out a bit.”
“And I’m thinking that we can’t,” Axel replied, smirking in return.
“Aw, come on!” A lip stuck out in a perfect puppy-dog pout. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you guys! I just came to say hi.”
“No, you didn’t.” Riku stood behind the desk, arms crossed, hoping he looked at least somewhat intimidating with one black eye and almost-healed bruises. “Isn’t this kind of job a little too mean for you, Demyx?”
Demyx pushed past Axel, leaning his guitar case against the desk and flopping into one of the chairs. “Nah, I don’t have to kill you.”
“Yet,” Axel finished quietly, closing the door.
Demyx barely spared him a glance, his gaze instead trained on Riku. “Man, you look like hell!” he laughed. “You fall down a flight of stairs?”
“Demyx, what do you want?” Axel demanded before Riku could get the same words out.
The blond held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just the messenger, don’t bite my head off.”
Riku sat down again, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer to his next question. “Well, what’s the message, then?”
“Get off the case,” Demyx replied. “Trust me, boys, it’s not worth it.”
With a sigh, Riku crossed his arms. “And why couldn’t you have told me this before you blew up my car? No, wait, don’t tell me. It wasn’t your idea.”
The blond nodded, practically bouncing. “Nope! It was-“
“Larxene,” Axel interrupted. Demyx pouted a bit. “Has her written all over it. Why didn’t we see that at first?”
Demyx laughed, his moods changing lightning fast. “I don’t blame you for repressing your memories of her.” He sat up a little straighter, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “So. Do I have to make my point, or are you gonna leave Roxy alone?” His grin widened into something that wasn’t so sunny or cheerful, a lazy finger pointing at Riku’s eye. “Or did he teach you that himself? I feel sorry for you. He’s got a mean punch, doesn’t he?” He leaned back, the smile still playing around his lips, eyes watching Riku intently. “Too bad he left before things got real interesting… Gave you some goodbye though.”
Riku clenched his jaw, fury rippling through him at the thought of being spied on, possibly nonstop for months. His fingers gripped the chair arms, and he reminded himself that Demyx wasn’t alone, those bastards never did anything alone, and it wasn’t worth it to die now.
“Oh, Red!” Demyx turned that smug smile on Axel. “You were awesome last night! You were James Bond all the way, bro. Even had the sexy lady waiting for you all alone in nothing but at-shirt while you saved the day. I honestly thought you’d have a martini with that pizza.”
Axel returned the grin easily. “Thanks. Those were some great subtle threats you threw in, there.”
Demyx’s smile faded a little.
“You know what cracks me up?” Axel stood a little straighter, shoving one hand in his pocket. He probably looked cocky to Demyx, but Riku knew that the hand was wrapped around his lighter like a safety blanket. “See, you guys have been giving us the same bull for awhile now and, well.” He spread his arm out as if to say, “Here I am!” “I’m still kicking, last I checked.” He leaned back against the wall. “Besides, you can’t put a hit out on the guys who saved your sorry asses.”
And just like that, Demyx’s smile was back full-force.
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” the blond said merrily, looking at the closed door that led to the office. “The hit wouldn’t be for you.”
A cold burst of fear exploded in their chests, extinguishing the righteous anger that had burned there only moments before. Axel’s smirk vanished in record time, morphing into a tight-lipped, narrowed glare of terrified rage. Demyx just smiled in reply, stood, and stretched.
“Anyway,” he said, grabbing his guitar case, “it was great seeing you guys again.” He turned and walked out, waving goodbye with one hand. Axel stuffed his hands in his pocket, tempted to reach out and wrap his hands around the blond’s pale, hemp-covered neck.
They were silent, unmoving, as they listened to him leave, calling out a goodbye to Kairi and promising to play a song for her at his next gig. She appeared at the door to their office moments after the bell jingled, smiling and fanning her almost-dry nails. “God, I love that guy.”
She jumped as Axel’s fist connected with the wall behind him, staring at him as though he’d lost his mind before turning to Riku for an explanation.
“They want us to drop the case,” he said quietly, looking at Axel with the silent command to calm his ass down.
Kairi blew on her nails. “So? You’re not going to listen, are you?”Riku was silent. She glanced to Axel, who was digging in his pocket for his lighter. “Look, you can’t keep letting them boss you around! Come on, this is the most interesting case we’ve had in months. So what if-“
“They’ll put a hit out,” Axel interrupted tonelessly, almost indifferently, if he hadn’t been flicking the lighter with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes.
“They can’t,” Kairi replied, confused. “Remember, you-“
“Damn it, we know what we did!” Axel snapped.
“Axel, cool it.” Riku put a cool hand on his forehead, trying to chase away the cold anger long enough to think straight. “Kairi, it wouldn’t be for us.”
“Then who…” She let the sentence trail off, her hand freezing, eyes widening. She sat down heavily in the seat that Demyx had recently vacated. “…oh,” she breathed, looking somewhere past Riku. Then, her mouth settled into a determined line, and her hands began fanning with renewed vigor. “Okay, so people want to kill me. Whatever.”
“Not yet,” Axel corrected in the same flat voice. On, off, one finger tapping against his leg.
“The point, boys, is that I am a big girl. With a taser and three guns, one of which I carry on me at all times. I’ve lived through people trying to kill me before, you know.” She stood, putting her hands on her hips, her nails apparently dry enough. “And I worked my cute little ass off getting that info for you, so it had better not go to waste or I’m never working that hard again for either of you.”
Riku looked at Axel, who flipped the lighter on and off a few more times. Finally, he sighed, resting his head back against the wall and flattening a few spikes. “Princess-“
“Axel, I swear to God,” she interrupted. “If you give me anything similar to, ‘It’s too dangerous,’ or ‘We’re just trying to keep you safe,’ I’ll burn all of your pants. And I know how hard it is to find any in your freakish size.”
Axel looked at Riku, silently asking for his help convincing her that the stakes were too high this time around, that they couldn’t play this game of cat-and-mouse again. Riku just shrugged, knowing full well that she was able to take care of herself, and secretly wanting to find Sora before those bastards did.
“…Goddamn it,” the redhead muttered. “Your ass better be fucking super-glued to mine and you’re at my place until this is all over with.”
She smiled at him. “It’s cute when you go all big brother on me. Kinda freaky ‘cause we’re not related - thank God - but cute.”
Axel didn’t reply. Instead, he just shoved the lighter back in his pocket and walked past her, patting her head as he left to assure her that she wasn’t the reason for his ire. They heard the door jingle as he left. Kairi sat again and Riku sighed heavily.
“He’ll be back soon,” she said like Riku didn’t know that he’d only left to sulk against a brick wall nearby and plan ways to avoid the thousand various scenarios that were running through his head - all of them ending with the same gruesome image that would keep him awake for weeks. Once upon a time, there would be a cigarette in one hand. Now, there would be just the steady flick of the lighter and the burning desire for nicotine that he would stubbornly refuse himself.
“I just hope that he remembers he’s our ride.” Riku knew for a fact that Kairi wasn’t going to go within ten feet of that Volkswagen - twenty, if he could help it.
“I just hope that he remembers he’s got the only key to my current place of residence,” Kairi added. “And the Chinese food. I hope he remember the Chinese food.”
Axel simply wished that he could forget everything.
(1) Thanks to Hanita-chan for the inspiration for the taco line!
Chapter Six
Author: Lost Forevermore or Woebegone121
Rating: R for swearing, themes, and violence. (as of now. Rating is subject to change.)
Pairings: Sora/Riku, Axel/Roxas, and various other random scatterings
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Kingdom Hearts would be a musical.
Warnings: Slash, language, possible adult content, eighties metal music, Motley Crüe, Guns 'n Roses, Savage Garden, fat cats, Roxas' mouth, Axel's lighter, Sora with a motorcycle license, crappy apartments, and excessive amounts of randomly named bands that may or may not have anything to do with each other.
Summary: Detective AU. It all started with a motorcycle accident, a missing blond, and a stolen computer disc. Now Riku's tracking his so-not-boyfriend and a hotheaded blond down with the help of his rock-obsessed, pyromaniac, partner-in-fighting-crime and his secretary who still hasn't figured out that she works for him, not the other way around. Not to mention the gang that's trying to kill them. And poor Riku's mop still isn't magical.
Or, at fanfiction.net.
Links to previous:
One Two Three Four
Also. "All She Wants Is..." by Duran Duran always makes me think of Demyx for some reason. I don't know why.
Chapter Five: All She Wants Is...
For once in his life, Riku got to work on time. It was strange to see the morning traffic, even stranger to see it from the backseat of Axel’s car with a plate of scrambled eggs in hand. He didn’t much like it, being more of a super-early or so-late-that-the-cows-done-came-home-and-left-again person, mostly due to the noise. Honking car horns coupled with his friends’ radio war was not the sort of thing he wanted to wake up to.
So he sat in the backseat with his eggs and his left eye throbbing. Kairi had tried valiantly to cover it with makeup, but the effort had failed (and she was too tan for him, the stuff made him look like a friggin’ carrot), and unless he planned to don an eye-patch and risk being the butt of Axel’s rather large repertoire of pirate jokes, he was stuck looking like he’d been the unlucky victim of an annoying, anal-retentive blond.
Oh wait. He had been.
He stabbed an egg viciously, finishing off the last of them as Axel pulled into the teensy-tiny parking lot next to the agency. Kairi’s green Volkswagen still sat nearby, thankfully having not been used as an advertising space for the local “street artists,” looking all bright and cheery in the way-too-freaking-early morning. They walked together to the office, Riku half asleep and still carrying his now egg-less plate. They came to a sudden, synchronized stop in front of the door, the two redheads falling silent.
Kairi was the first to speak. “You know,” she said, “I think Axel should go in first.”
Riku nodded, shoving Axel forward. “I agree. Axel, you go first.”
The sacrifice in question shook his head avidly, backing up and standing behind Riku. “No way in hell. You two go in.”
“I’m not getting blown up!” Riku and Kairi exclaimed in unison.
“Well, neither am I!”
They simply looked at each other for a moment, then at the locked door to the dark, possibly bomb-ridden office.
“…Well, somebody has to go in,” Kairi said.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” Axel suggested. He suggested it again when he lost. And once more when he lost for the second time.
“Nope!” Kairi said, Riku shaking his head in agreement with her. “It was two-out-of-three. You lost. We’ll miss you, and we’re grateful for your sacrifice.”
“You cheated!” Axel insisted indignantly. “Dynamite doesn’t count. And scissors cuts the wick off anyway.”
Kairi maturely stuck her tongue out at him. “Dynamite totally kicks scissor’s ass. Now go get yours blown up so I can get back to work, you chicken.”
Riku could feel his headache returning. He was beginning to wonder if he should see a doctor about them, with the way they kept showing up day after day.
“If you can use dynamite, then I can use bulldozer!”
Or he could just kill Axel now and save himself medical bills.
“Hey!” he interrupted before Kairi introduced Axel to the pavement. “I have an idea. Let’s all go in together. Like adults.”
Axel and Kairi looked at each other for a moment, then back at Riku.
“I’ll go if the pyro goes,” Kairi said.
“I’m not a pyro, you shoe whore.”
“Just because you’re jealous that I can pull off these heels and you and your chicken legs can’t-“
Riku closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten. If he was lucky, the building would be rigged and all of his problems would go up in flames and smoke. “What are you guys, fifteen? Shut up and come on.”
They walked up to the door together and paused again, the mood suddenly a hell of a lot heavier. A million possible ways to rig an explosive to the door ran through their minds, and they collectively took a deep breath. Finally, Kairi pressed the key into Riku’s hand and stepped back, shielding herself with their bodies. The detective briefly wondered how they’d managed to silently decide that he’d get to be the one to blow them all sky-high, then slid it into the lock, said a little prayer, and prepared to be blasted into a bazillion tiny Riku-pieces.
He turned the key and they threw themselves to the ground.
Somewhere nearby, a bird chirped.
Riku opened his eyes and slowly sat up, looking at the door, which had not been blown off of its hinges. Even better, the hinges were attached to a building that was still standing.
“Well!” Kairi stood, dusting herself off. “That’s a relief!”
She walked inside, and that was that.
They couldn’t say that the day started off uneventfully. Riku and Axel found themselves checking every little nook and cranny for bombs, including Kairi’s Volkswagen, and by lunch, Riku was pretty sure that he’d be blown up at any given moment. He began writing his will on the back of one of the file folders when he realized that they still had Kairi’s apartment to sweep.
Kairi had managed to trace that morning’s call to a pay phone across town, near one of the many, many McDonald’s - honestly, how many did one city need? - which meant that the trace had pretty much been useless and Riku was, as a result, very discouraged.
“We’ll head for Springfield tomorrow,” he told Kairi, meaning himself and Axel. “Pay Sora’s brother a visit. Can you look up the directions for it?”
Axel grinned. Springfield was a three-hour drive away, which meant that, for Axel, it was really an hour-and-a-half drive away. This meant that he got to drive his Firebird for an hour and half.
“I’ll stay,” she said. “I actually have paperwork to catch up on.”
Axel’s grin faltered a bit. “You should come,” he said, putting his feet up on her desk. She pushed them off with a disgusted look at the redhead, then wiped her hand daintily on his sleeve. “Might not be safe here all alone.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks,” Kairi replied, flipping through the files in the cabinet beside her. “I’m a big girl. And after you make sure that I won’t blow myself up trying to cook dinner tonight, I’m sure I’ll be A-okay.” She found the files that she had been looking for and passed them to Axel. “Roxas and Sora,” she said by way of explanation.
Axel passed one to Riku, who sat down in the cracked chair beside the redhead’s. He opened it to discover that in May of the past year, Sora had gotten a speeding ticket and was, true to his word, twenty-two.
Axel, however, looked slightly puzzled. “Hey, princess? Are you sure this printed off right?”
Kairi nodded, pulling up something on the computer screen. Upon closer inspection, Riku found that she was buying about two hundred dollars worth of shoes. “Yeah. I thought it was weird too.”
“What’s weird?” Riku asked.
Axel passed him the folder with a shrug. “Roxas Martel doesn’t exist.”
Riku frowned, flipping open the folder and wondering why Kairi had even bothered to print out the “Search term not found” page. “What?”
“He doesn’t exist,” Kairi replied. “At least, that name doesn’t. I’m sure he exists, but he’s apparently using a different name. There’s no trace of Roxas Martel anywhere, not even on a Google search. There’s barely anything on Sora as it is.” Riku looked down at the papers in his hand, which he now noticed was a fairly small stack. “The address listed is old, runs to Vienna.”
“Vienna’s, what?” Axel thought for a minute. “Three hours away?”
“Six for us normal people,” Kairi said. “And there’s another odd thing or two about Sora. I did my homework and called the university uptown. He’s not listed in any classes. People have seen him around campus, he sits in on classes every day, but no one’s ever bothered to find out who he is.”
Axel ‘hmm’-ed, tapping the folder against his chin. “But Roxas had to have a background check to work at EXP.”
Kairi nodded. “They’re next on my list to call. They should still have a copy of it on file.” She nodded to Riku, pointing at the folder in his hand. “Look at the second page.”
Riku flipped to the next page as Axel leaned over to read over his shoulder. “…Wow,” the redhead said, bright green eyes skimming down the page. “Everything but a chauffer’s license.”
“Mmhmm.” Kairi finished typing in her credit card number and stowed the plastic away in her purse, exchanging it for Easter-egg-blue nail polish. “Now look closer at the ticket.”
Flipping back to the first page, Riku studied it for a moment. “Speeding,” he said.
“…by the Water Patrol,” Axel added.
“In a yacht,” Kairi finished. “I didn’t even know you could speed in a yacht. Now, I looked up the report for the ticket-“
“Hacker,” Axel threw in, but he was grinning.
“I prefer the term ‘Professional Information Researcher and Liberator.’ Anyway,” she went on, “I researched and liberated the report for the ticket, and found out that he was completely and totally alone on it, at ten at night.”
“Curious,” Axel said slowly, mimicking a British accent - badly. “How very curious.”
Kairi paused in the painting of her thumbnail. “Axel, be normal. And you sucked at that accent back in high school drama, you suck at it now.”
“He’s been reading Harry Potter again,” Riku told her, flipping through the small collection of papers that made up the entirety of the information they had on Sora.
She rolled her eyes. “Again? Are you serious?”
“No, I’m Axel!”
She hit him with the nail polish brush, getting a streak of blue down his cheek.
Riku tuned the ensuing argument out, flipping through the file once more. Twenty-two, brown hair, blue eyes, five-foot-five. Pretty much legal to drive anything but a limousine or a taxi cab, including his pilot’s license. Apparently unknown to the school he was studying at to become a teacher. Something was off. (What was your first clue, detective?)
“Kairi,” he said, interrupting a nail polish war between the two redheads. “See if you can get Naminé Martel on the phone, and that background check for Roxas. We need to dig deeper.” She simply looked at him, one eyebrow quirked. Finally, he sighed and relented. “Please?”
She finished one hand, waved it around a bit, and got to work on the second one. “And?”
Riku thought for a moment. “…And I owe you cheesecake?”
The look on her face clearly said, “You can do better than that.”
Sea-green eyes slid to Axel for help. Axel was good at creative begging. Riku kind of failed at it. Luckily, his partner-in-fighting-crime took pity on him.
“And you are amazing, O Great Kairi!” Axel fell to his knees, the folder clasped in his hands. “We would be lost without you, wandering the dark abyss of the internet, never knowing where the object of our quest lies! Your hacking skills-“
She cleared her throat.
“Uh, researching and liberating skills are unmatched throughout the world, including the guys who did the zombie apocalypse signs! We can’t function without you! You are the pen to our paper, the Nancy to our Drew, the Mr. Spock to our Enterprise!” He suddenly grabbed her hand, careful of the wet paint on her nails. “You are the hot sauce to our taco!” (1)
She sighed melodramatically, waving him up in a dismissive manner befitting a queen. “I suppose that I could grace you with my higher feminine intelligence once more before I stow you underground for breeding…” Axel and Riku shuddered inwardly. She smiled, painting another nail a bright blue, and nodded to Riku’s office door. “You two have paperwork to do, remember?”
The realization hit when he was walking through the door with her voice echoing in his head, telling him to do paperwork and paused, glancing back at her. Somehow, though his name was on the sign outside, she had become the boss of their little operation.
He walked into his office, leaving the door open, deciding that he’d just duke out alpha status with her later (translation: He was going to be her bitch until he died, damn it all.). He sat down, resting his head on his hand as he flipped through the file again, as though waiting for the answers to all of his questions to appear on the pristine white pages. They stayed hopelessly and unhelpfully blank, however, the few black letters glaring back at him, mixing and diving and echoing gray the longer he stared at them. Finally, he closed the folder, leaned back, and ran over everything again in his mind.
Axel stuck his head in the door. “Hey. I’m doing a Chinese run. You want-“ The bell above the door cut him off suddenly, and he frowned, knowing that his Chinese food was apparently to be delayed. He gave Riku a look that clearly said that it was somehow the other’s fault and it would be coming out of his wallet.
“Hey, Little Red! How ya been?”
The voice stopped them both in mid-motion, Axel half-turned and Riku partially standing. Finally, they heard Kairi laugh and say something in reply, snapping them out of their shock. Axel turned fully in time to see a man in a Hawaiian shirt shoot the girl a sunny smile and walk right past her, up to where Axel stood in the doorway to Riku’s office. His grin stayed in place as he pulled his sunglasses to the top of his mullet-clad head and shifted his guitar case to the other shoulder.
“Hey, Red!” he greeted cheerfully. “I’m thinkin’ that you guys could probably help me out a bit.”
“And I’m thinking that we can’t,” Axel replied, smirking in return.
“Aw, come on!” A lip stuck out in a perfect puppy-dog pout. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you guys! I just came to say hi.”
“No, you didn’t.” Riku stood behind the desk, arms crossed, hoping he looked at least somewhat intimidating with one black eye and almost-healed bruises. “Isn’t this kind of job a little too mean for you, Demyx?”
Demyx pushed past Axel, leaning his guitar case against the desk and flopping into one of the chairs. “Nah, I don’t have to kill you.”
“Yet,” Axel finished quietly, closing the door.
Demyx barely spared him a glance, his gaze instead trained on Riku. “Man, you look like hell!” he laughed. “You fall down a flight of stairs?”
“Demyx, what do you want?” Axel demanded before Riku could get the same words out.
The blond held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just the messenger, don’t bite my head off.”
Riku sat down again, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer to his next question. “Well, what’s the message, then?”
“Get off the case,” Demyx replied. “Trust me, boys, it’s not worth it.”
With a sigh, Riku crossed his arms. “And why couldn’t you have told me this before you blew up my car? No, wait, don’t tell me. It wasn’t your idea.”
The blond nodded, practically bouncing. “Nope! It was-“
“Larxene,” Axel interrupted. Demyx pouted a bit. “Has her written all over it. Why didn’t we see that at first?”
Demyx laughed, his moods changing lightning fast. “I don’t blame you for repressing your memories of her.” He sat up a little straighter, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “So. Do I have to make my point, or are you gonna leave Roxy alone?” His grin widened into something that wasn’t so sunny or cheerful, a lazy finger pointing at Riku’s eye. “Or did he teach you that himself? I feel sorry for you. He’s got a mean punch, doesn’t he?” He leaned back, the smile still playing around his lips, eyes watching Riku intently. “Too bad he left before things got real interesting… Gave you some goodbye though.”
Riku clenched his jaw, fury rippling through him at the thought of being spied on, possibly nonstop for months. His fingers gripped the chair arms, and he reminded himself that Demyx wasn’t alone, those bastards never did anything alone, and it wasn’t worth it to die now.
“Oh, Red!” Demyx turned that smug smile on Axel. “You were awesome last night! You were James Bond all the way, bro. Even had the sexy lady waiting for you all alone in nothing but at-shirt while you saved the day. I honestly thought you’d have a martini with that pizza.”
Axel returned the grin easily. “Thanks. Those were some great subtle threats you threw in, there.”
Demyx’s smile faded a little.
“You know what cracks me up?” Axel stood a little straighter, shoving one hand in his pocket. He probably looked cocky to Demyx, but Riku knew that the hand was wrapped around his lighter like a safety blanket. “See, you guys have been giving us the same bull for awhile now and, well.” He spread his arm out as if to say, “Here I am!” “I’m still kicking, last I checked.” He leaned back against the wall. “Besides, you can’t put a hit out on the guys who saved your sorry asses.”
And just like that, Demyx’s smile was back full-force.
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” the blond said merrily, looking at the closed door that led to the office. “The hit wouldn’t be for you.”
A cold burst of fear exploded in their chests, extinguishing the righteous anger that had burned there only moments before. Axel’s smirk vanished in record time, morphing into a tight-lipped, narrowed glare of terrified rage. Demyx just smiled in reply, stood, and stretched.
“Anyway,” he said, grabbing his guitar case, “it was great seeing you guys again.” He turned and walked out, waving goodbye with one hand. Axel stuffed his hands in his pocket, tempted to reach out and wrap his hands around the blond’s pale, hemp-covered neck.
They were silent, unmoving, as they listened to him leave, calling out a goodbye to Kairi and promising to play a song for her at his next gig. She appeared at the door to their office moments after the bell jingled, smiling and fanning her almost-dry nails. “God, I love that guy.”
She jumped as Axel’s fist connected with the wall behind him, staring at him as though he’d lost his mind before turning to Riku for an explanation.
“They want us to drop the case,” he said quietly, looking at Axel with the silent command to calm his ass down.
Kairi blew on her nails. “So? You’re not going to listen, are you?”Riku was silent. She glanced to Axel, who was digging in his pocket for his lighter. “Look, you can’t keep letting them boss you around! Come on, this is the most interesting case we’ve had in months. So what if-“
“They’ll put a hit out,” Axel interrupted tonelessly, almost indifferently, if he hadn’t been flicking the lighter with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes.
“They can’t,” Kairi replied, confused. “Remember, you-“
“Damn it, we know what we did!” Axel snapped.
“Axel, cool it.” Riku put a cool hand on his forehead, trying to chase away the cold anger long enough to think straight. “Kairi, it wouldn’t be for us.”
“Then who…” She let the sentence trail off, her hand freezing, eyes widening. She sat down heavily in the seat that Demyx had recently vacated. “…oh,” she breathed, looking somewhere past Riku. Then, her mouth settled into a determined line, and her hands began fanning with renewed vigor. “Okay, so people want to kill me. Whatever.”
“Not yet,” Axel corrected in the same flat voice. On, off, one finger tapping against his leg.
“The point, boys, is that I am a big girl. With a taser and three guns, one of which I carry on me at all times. I’ve lived through people trying to kill me before, you know.” She stood, putting her hands on her hips, her nails apparently dry enough. “And I worked my cute little ass off getting that info for you, so it had better not go to waste or I’m never working that hard again for either of you.”
Riku looked at Axel, who flipped the lighter on and off a few more times. Finally, he sighed, resting his head back against the wall and flattening a few spikes. “Princess-“
“Axel, I swear to God,” she interrupted. “If you give me anything similar to, ‘It’s too dangerous,’ or ‘We’re just trying to keep you safe,’ I’ll burn all of your pants. And I know how hard it is to find any in your freakish size.”
Axel looked at Riku, silently asking for his help convincing her that the stakes were too high this time around, that they couldn’t play this game of cat-and-mouse again. Riku just shrugged, knowing full well that she was able to take care of herself, and secretly wanting to find Sora before those bastards did.
“…Goddamn it,” the redhead muttered. “Your ass better be fucking super-glued to mine and you’re at my place until this is all over with.”
She smiled at him. “It’s cute when you go all big brother on me. Kinda freaky ‘cause we’re not related - thank God - but cute.”
Axel didn’t reply. Instead, he just shoved the lighter back in his pocket and walked past her, patting her head as he left to assure her that she wasn’t the reason for his ire. They heard the door jingle as he left. Kairi sat again and Riku sighed heavily.
“He’ll be back soon,” she said like Riku didn’t know that he’d only left to sulk against a brick wall nearby and plan ways to avoid the thousand various scenarios that were running through his head - all of them ending with the same gruesome image that would keep him awake for weeks. Once upon a time, there would be a cigarette in one hand. Now, there would be just the steady flick of the lighter and the burning desire for nicotine that he would stubbornly refuse himself.
“I just hope that he remembers he’s our ride.” Riku knew for a fact that Kairi wasn’t going to go within ten feet of that Volkswagen - twenty, if he could help it.
“I just hope that he remembers he’s got the only key to my current place of residence,” Kairi added. “And the Chinese food. I hope he remember the Chinese food.”
Axel simply wished that he could forget everything.
(1) Thanks to Hanita-chan for the inspiration for the taco line!
Chapter Six