Sorry about the massive lack of updates, y'all. Life decided to push me down a flight of stairs recently, and while I'm not 100%, I'm at about 73%, so I'm getting there.
Also! With the end of the school year, and therefore FINALS (aka "Fuck I Never Actually Learned this Stuff!"), updates will probably not be back to normal until May or June. Please be patient with me, mmkay? Thank you~!
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 Five Six Chapter Seven: Thunderstruck
Five minutes after finding Sora and Roxas in the parking lot, Riku was officially convinced that Bad Days were the new norm for him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to see them or anything. No, he was very happy to see Sora, at least, much happier than he should have been, considering the fact that Sora was probably a wanted criminal or something. Roxas, on the other hand, he wasn’t so happy to see. But that was probably because Roxas was the reason people were giving him a wide berth - he looked like he’d just come back from a fight club.
“Get off the ground, you idiot, and get in the car!” Roxas was pulling at Axel, glancing around fervently, like they were sitting ducks or something - which, Riku supposed, they were. Axel, however, would not be moved from his place kneeling behind his baby, mouth open in horror as he studied the scratched paint.
At the moment, though, Riku didn’t really care whether they were about to be sniped from the nearest tall building. You see, Sora was standing in front of him, looking vaguely embarrassed and slightly nervous and, all in all, very cute. His motorcycle was nowhere in sight, which Riku couldn’t help but be thankful for considering their last meeting, but his hair still stuck out in odd ends like he’d just taken the helmet off.
“So,” Sora started, and then stopped again, scratching the back of his head and not meeting Riku’s eyes like he had just confessed to skinny-dipping in Riku’s pool or something.
“So?” Riku prompted.
The brunet glanced at him and away again, apparently finding the Cracker Barrel building highly interesting. “So. Um. About the other night.”
“Yeah?” Usually, the hesitant conversation would have gotten on Riku’s nerves. As it was, Sora’s lips formed a cute little ‘o’ every time he stalled with another “so,” and Riku decided that Sora could stall all he wanted.
“With, um, Rox.”
Stupid blonds mess everything up, Riku thought inwardly, his heart sinking a little bit. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Riku looked at the ground, sliding his hands into the uncomfortably tight pockets of Axel’s jeans. “He, uh, said it was from you.”
Sora blushed a little bit, looking at the sky and therefore away from Riku, and the only reason Riku caught it was because he was looking up through his too-shaggy-to-look-professional bangs. “It was supposed to be a joke… I didn’t think he’d actually, like, do it…”
That made Riku’s heart sink a little bit more. It was probably to his thigh right about now. “Oh.”
“Yeah. So.”
Riku missed that cute little ‘o,’ looking at the pavement instead. “So.”
“…Hey, Riku?”
He looked up at the brunet, who pulled his tan arms behind his back and rocked back on his heels a little. His eyes wouldn’t meet Riku’s, but there was a small smile on his lips, where the sun still shone, and Riku couldn’t help but smile back. Then, Sora took a step forward, then another, closing the little-more-than-a-foot between them, and Riku may have stopped breathing then, may have stopped living altogether, because Sora was close enough that he could smell generic shampoo and the inside of a motorcycle helmet, and that was too good to be real. Suddenly, there were spikes brushing his nose as Sora looked up, blue eyes catching sea-foam green for a split second before closing, eyelids covering the sky like storm clouds.
And then it was roaring winds and crashing thunder and lightning in his head, behind his eyes, because Sora was kissing him, and it wasn’t blue skies and summer rain like Riku had imagined. No, it was a raging storm, a hurricane that left them both a little desperate, but he couldn’t help but want to seek the thrill of running into the center of it all, to where the thunderbolts crashed and crackled and prickled his skin and the angels sang in a chorus to back the sound of God’s fury, to the eye of the storm.
Too soon, the sky cleared, the clouds moving away, and the storm reached its calm. Riku opened his eyes slowly and met guilty blue looking up at him.
“I’m sorry, Riku.”
The handcuffs closed around his wrists with a loud, metallic click.
Blue eyes looked away, to the side, where Roxas was wrestling with Axel on the ground, apparently having much more trouble getting the cuffs on than Sora had. He looked back at Riku, but still refused to look him in the eye. “I didn’t want to, but we need the three of you to come kind of quietly and… it was all Rox’s idea.” Of course it was. Roxas, who got a kick out of knocking him out and kissing him.
Riku had to hand it to Sora; he was really good at looking miserable.
Riku looked away from him, jaw set, and leaned against whatever car was behind him. The brunet sighed, scratching the back of his head again and kicking at a rock, looking up only when Roxas let out a sound of triumph from his place straddling Axel’s back. Axel looked like he was in a mix of heaven and hell. “…You’ll thank us for it later,” Sora finally said, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than Riku, and opened the door to the backseat for the detective.
Riku didn’t bother replying as he got in.
By the time they were on the road again, Roxas and Kairi were both seething at each other, the former covered in blueberry pancake stains and the latter being the one who threw them. Riku was much more quiet in his anger, refusing to meet blue eyes in the rearview mirror as they kept glancing back at him, instead choosing to look past Kairi and out the window at the rapidly passing farmland. Axel had discovered his new favorite pastime: hitting on Roxas. Roxas had also discovered his new favorite pastime: flipping off Axel. It was an odd example of cause-and-effect.
But by the time they were three hours away from Springfield, Axel had run out of pick-up lines and Roxas’ middle finger was getting tired.
“Hey, Roxy?”
“Don’t call me that,” Roxas replied, eyes narrowing and jaw clenching. “It sounds like a girl’s name.”
Axel grinned and ignored the request. “I have a question.”
“If it involves what I do on my Saturday nights and those handcuffs, I’ll rip your spleen out with my bare hands.”
“It doesn’t, and blood stains are a bitch to get out, so you wouldn’t really,” Axel responded, but silently added that question to his list. “See, I’m curious. What’s so special about that disc?”
Sora glanced at Roxas, who started slightly, having not expected the question. A silent conversation seemed to pass between the two, thoroughly confusing the occupants of the backseat. Finally, Sora cleared his throat and shifted his other hand to the wheel of the Firebird.
“Sorry,” Roxas said, though he didn’t really sound sorry at all, “but we can’t tell you.”
“Can you show me?”
“No.”
“How about singing it for me?”
The corner of Roxas’ mouth quirked into what could have been a smile, if Riku had believed it possible for Roxas to smile at Axel. “No. I can’t give you any information about it at all.”
Axel nodded, thinking for a moment. “But it involves the Organization, right?”
Again, Roxas glanced at Sora, something passing between them. Finally, Roxas turned away, to the window again. “Yeah,” he said, “it does.”
“How?” Axel pressed.
“Can’t tell you that either.”
“Here’s one,” Kairi piped up. “Why don’t you exist?”
Roxas gave her an amused smirk and even Sora’s gloomy mood lifted a little. “Glad to see you did your homework,” the blond said, “but I’m afraid that’s classified, too.”
“Another one, then,” the secretary continued. “Where’s your sister?”
This wiped the smile clean off of Roxas’ face and Sora’s storm cloud returned to rain and thunder and lightning all over the front seat. Neither brother replied for a moment, and silence reigned until Roxas finally said, “We have a general idea.” He refused to elaborate or answer anything else after that, no matter how many times Kairi kicked the seat.
When they were about thirty minutes from Springfield, Sora pulled off of the interstate into a small interstate town, keeping his silence despite Axel and Kairi’s persistent questioning. Finally, he relented with some information, but definitely not the kind the detectives were after.
“Alright, here’s the thing,” the brunet said. “Me ‘n Rox have got a lot of stuff that we have to take care of, a lot of dangerous stuff, so we’re taking you to a safe place.”
“You’re kidnapping us for our own good?” Axel asked, grinning. “Aw, Blondie, you care!”
“Don’t call me that either and I do not care.”
“Wait,” Kairi said, looking an odd mix between worried and royally pissed off. “You can’t just make us disappear like that! Somebody’s going to notice, you know. I’ve got a boyfr-”
Roxas turned and smirked at her, holding up a file folder from his black backpack. “We did our homework too, Little Red,” he said, and she tensed at the nickname, mouth falling open slightly, “and you are currently single, living by yourself on Maple Street. No pets. All elderly neighbors. One job. Fifteen grand on your head by midnight tonight.” He turned around again, facing to the front as Kairi glared at him in shock from behind. “Besides,” he went on, “if they can’t find you, they can’t kill you, remember? So shut up and let us take care of this so you can go back to annoying the crap out of everyone else.”
Kairi was silent, though Riku was sure it was from shock and not because Roxas had told her to be.
“What about my cat?” Riku asked, glancing up and looking away again before blue eyes shot up to the rearview mirror, because he knew as soon as he saw them, he wouldn’t have it in him to be mad anymore. Roxas looked back as well, only a glance, but Riku wasn’t afraid to meet his blue eyes… They’d probably just piss him off even more.
“Don’t worry about it,” was all the blond said before he turned back to the road, scanning the houses they passed.
“I’d like to add that I am against this in principle,” Axel said, “but I am willing to put up with it if you’ll be staying with me, Rox,” he finished with a sort of coo that made Roxas look back in what was most likely disgust, his expression similar to the ones that Riku and Kairi wore.
“We won’t be.” The car slowed as Sora pulled into a parking lot behind an apartment building. “We’ll be, yunno, taking care of this.”
“Then I am completely against this and even you shoving your hand down my pants again won’t change my mind.”
It was a good thing that Sora had parked halfway through Axel’s statement because he would have wrecked the car otherwise, and that would have been a really bad, albeit unexpected, end to the whole thing. Riku and Kairi simply stared at Roxas in shock, and the blond looked as though he would have rather liked to beat Axel about the spiky head and sharp shoulders (like the redheaded stepchild that he was) and taken a jump off of a tall building.
“You what?!” Sora finally asked, mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“He wouldn’t stay still!” shouted Roxas in a poor attempt to defend himself. “He kept wiggling and groping me! It was the only thing I could think of!”
“And while I am glad that you thought of it, sweetheart, it won’t work a second time.”
Roxas’ head dropped into his hands. “Shut up! And don’t call me sweetheart!”
“Sweet Jesus,” Kairi muttered. “It’s the Apocalypse.”
Riku was rather inclined to agree with her.
“Okay, you know what? Get the fuck out of the car.”Roxas unbuckled his seat belt like it was burning him. “Get out, get out, all of you out. Axel, go stand in front of it and don’t you dare dodge.”
“Sorry, baby,” Axel said as Roxas flung open his car door. “Riku and Sora already have that corner covered. You’ll have to think of some other way to get me unconscious and vulnerable.”
“I was not unconscious and vulnerable!” The detective defended himself, his foot connecting with Axel’s shin and earning a hiss from the redhead.
“It was not on purpose!” Sora exclaimed, his head meeting the steering wheel.
“Are you all done?”
They all froze and looked out Kairi’s door, which no one but she had realized was open, and at the current object of the secretary’s enraptured gaze. At that moment, Riku learned something about Kairi that he had never wanted to know. Kairi seemed to have a thing for leather pants.
“Yes,” Roxas said too quickly, stepping out of the car and slamming the door behind him. “We are done.”
Axel probably replied with something cheesy like, “We’re just getting started,” but Riku tuned him out and instead scrutinized this new arrival, the man currently helping Kairi out of the car. Riku personally thought that the tall brunet looked rather cocky, the way he was wearing an I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass expression and those leather pants. In Riku’s opinion, his hand lingered a little bit too long on Kairi’s wrists when he undid the cuffs, and a flare of protective anger shot through him, settling in his chest.
It was nothing compared to the blaze that rippled through him when Sora walked up and gave the man a hug.
“Leon! It’s good to see you!” the motorcyclist exclaimed, all smiles again, much to Riku’s dismay.
“Hey.” Axel leaned over and nudged Riku with his shoulder, his hands still bound. “Down, boy. Quit growling.”
“Shut up.” Riku scowled, and would have probably replied with something witty and scathing, had Sora not then turned to him with a semi-hopeful expression on his face. The detective caught one glimpse of wide blue eyes, and he knew he was done for and ready to be served with dressing on the side as the angry fire within him cooled.
“So…”
Here we go again, Riku thought, and sighed inwardly, giving up. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, mustering up a half-smile to chase away the little clouds that still threatened Sora’s sky. “So you can let me go.”
Sora’s smile was so bright that you could probably see it from space, and he quickly unlocked the handcuffs. Riku absently rubbed his wrists as he followed the brunet into the apartment building, not really paying attention to what he was saying and instead focusing on his surroundings, still looking for a way out of this predicament.
They hit the top floor, the elevator strangely silent even though the halls had been filled with Sora’s babbling, Kairi’s protests, Roxas’ indignant shouts and threats, and Axel’s insistence that his hand had a mind of its own. He heard Kairi breathe, “Penthouse…!” beside him and rolled his eyes, glancing across the elevator at Leon. To his surprise, the brunet had what could have been an amused smile on his face, though Riku couldn’t have been sure without a magnifying glass.
“Leon’s my half-brother,” Sora was saying when Riku looked away from the brunet in question. “He’s quiet, but he’s a good guy, so…” He trailed off, but it was clear that a glance toward Axel and Kairi meant that he wanted them to behave.
Riku wasn’t making any promises.
“Do you take after your mother?” he asked instead as they walked down the hall. Sora looked up at him, surprise evident on his features… Riku found it amusing that he portrayed emotions so comically, like he was a walking cartoon character. Riku himself hadn’t been that animated in a long time.
“Yeah, I do!” Sora replied. “Are you, like, psychic?”
It was tempting to let him wonder instead of letting on that Naminé had been the informant. Too tempting, it proved. “Maybe,” the detective said. “Maybe not.”
Leon unlocked the door to the penthouse before Sora could reply, and they filed into the spacious living room. Kairi was looking around, her excitement levels dropping a smidgen as she realized that everything was not, in fact, gold-plated.
“You know, for a prison,” Axel said from his place behind Roxas (the best possible view, in his honest opinion), “it ain’t half-bad.”
“Isn’t,” the blond corrected. “And it’s not a prison. It’s a safe house.”
“I wasn’t aware safe houses had wardens,” Kairi said, looking at Leon, as she had for the last ten minutes.
“He’s more of a guardian,” Roxas replied.
“Oh, really?” Axel pasted on an interested look. “Hey, Leo, heart of a lion and all that jazz?”
“It’s Squall,” Sora corrected him.
“It’s Leon,” Leon corrected them both. “Guest room’s need made up.”
Unsurprisingly, Kairi immediately volunteered. Roxas did as well, and Axel followed him like a puppy. Sora sat down on the single couch in the large living room, and Riku took it as a cue that his help wasn’t needed. Of course, he didn’t actually plan to be here by the time they’d even need the guest room, so he didn’t actually care. He sat down beside Sora, spacing himself so he wasn’t too close, but so that he wasn’t all the way across the couch, putting much more thought into that single seating arrangement than he did into his usual cases of lost pets and missing cars.
“No,” Sora suddenly said out of the blue.
Riku looked over at him. “…No what?”
“You’re not psychic,” the brunet replied in a decided tone, and Riku was slightly worried that he had actually put thought into it. “If you were, you’d have seen my bike coming.”
“Well, maybe I did and I let you hit me anyway.”
Sora grinned. “So are you a suicidal psychic then?”
Riku smirked. It was wide open. He couldn’t help himself. “Maybe I saw that you were going to kiss me and thought the Strawberry Shortcake band-aids were worth it.”
If any annoyance had been left, it was quickly washed away by the blush on Sora’s cheeks and the way he looked away like he was cool, damn it. “Yeah, I’m, um, sorry about that…” he murmured. He quickly looked up then, worried. “Not that I, like, regret it or anything! ‘Cause I totally wanted to kiss you anyway, so it was kind of a plus that I got to do it while I was putting you in handcuffs… No, wait, that came out wrong!” He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. “Oh my God.”
Riku couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him, no matter how awesome he was managing to reduce Sora to a babbling, adorable, blushing mess of spikes. “I think I get it,” he said.
A blue eye peeked out from between motorcycle-gloved fingers. “Really?”
Riku nodded, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. Ha, now he looked as awesome as he felt. “Mmhmm. You ran me over so that you could kiss me and put me in handcuffs.” Sora groaned and threw his head back against the couch, one arm tossed over his face. To Riku’s joy, his head landed right on Riku’s arm. And stayed there. He tried not to let the part of him that cheering sound in his voice when he asked, “Speaking of your bike, where is it?”
Sora’s face took on a strange expression. His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing, and Riku got to experience his first taste of Sora angry. The detective was thankful that it wasn’t directed at him.
“Larxene!” the brunet spat, as though the name were a curse word (and in Riku’s book, it was.). He didn’t give any more detail than that, and that single name was enough. The bike was dead and gone by now.
He was about to make the mood lighter, was thinking of something to say to bring back that sunny smile, when Roxas stomped back into the room. Axel followed, sporting a grin and an angry red mark across his face.
“We’re leaving,” Roxas informed Sora through gritted teeth.
“Rox slapped me like a girl,” Axel informed Riku with a grin.
“We’re leaving!” the blond reiterated, and Sora heaved himself up off the couch with a sigh. Riku followed suit, and for a moment, no one said or did anything else but watch each other.
Sora cleared his throat. “Well, um, we’re leaving the Firebird. It’s too flashy to, yunno, hide or anything.”
Riku caught Axel’s eye and smirked, a clear I told you so. Axel just rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Roxas, who was pointedly not giving Axel any attention whatsoever.
“What are you going to do about a ride then?” the redhead asked. “You can’t walk all the way to… wherever the hell it is you’re going.”
“Well,” Sora replied with a grin that clearly said he was going to enjoy obtaining a ride. “We’re probably going to steal one.”
And then Riku remembered. Remembered that Sora was actually running from the law, remembered that Sora was mixed up in some kind of gang-affiliated mess, remembered that Sora had a whole lot of secrets that might put him away for a few years. It was ice water to his face, waking him up and forcing him to see with stark clarity.
Sora was his assignment. Not his boyfriend.
“Steal one?” Axel was asking when he shook his head to get rid of the mental-ice water he had been doused in. “As in, grand theft auto?”
“I believe that’s what they call it, yes. We’re leaving,” Roxas said again, as though to remind Sora that they were wasting time. Wasting time, yes, that’s what it was. Riku had been wasting valuable info-getting time while he was trying to kiss Sora. Sora, who was his case, not Sora, who hit him with a motorcycle. Riku’s brain was having a hard time separating the two.
“Aw.” Axel gave a mock frown and stepped forward, toward Roxas, with his arms spread wide. Roxas stepped back, away from Axel, glaring at him in a way that would have made lesser men shrivel up and fall over dead on the spot. Axel just smiled at him. “I’m gonna miss you, baby.”
“Do not call me ‘baby,’” Roxas growled. “And I’m not going to miss you.”
Sora laughed lightly beside Riku. “Rox likes him,” he informed Riku quietly. “You can tell by the way Axel’s still, like, breathing and isn’t in the hospital. Rox just doesn’t know it yet.”
Riku glanced over at him, out of the corner of his eye, but Sora was smiling, and he couldn’t tell which Sora it was when he smiled. “Really.”
Sora nodded again, turning to Riku fully, and his smile faded a kilowatt. “So.”
Oh, for the love of… “So?”
“I guess this is, you know… Goodbye.” Riku couldn’t help but feel a little bit… happy when Sora looked slightly more depressed as he spoke, and that couldn’t be healthy, right, or politically correct in any way.
“Guess so,” the detective replied, because telling Sora that he planned to break out at the next opportunity probably wouldn’t go over too well.
Sora glanced away, and Riku knew what was about to happen, because it was all going to be straight out of the last Lifetime movie he’d watched. Sora would look back at him, and lean forward for a kiss, and then walk out the door and seemingly completely out of Riku’s life, in an effort to keep him safe. Never mind that Riku was supposed to be bringing him back to St. Louis, probably in handcuffs. He couldn’t tell right now if this was Sora, the manila folder on his desk, or Sora, the future high school history teacher. And it was for this reason that, when Sora leaned forward for the kiss, he leaned away.
“Goodbye, Sora,” he said.
Sora stared at him for a minute, and there was no sunshine at all, because the grey clouds were already beginning to form, and there was probably one hell of a storm on its way. “…Bye,” he said. And then, like the script called for, he walked out the door. Riku didn’t watch him go.
That night, it rained. It wasn’t unexpected, despite the lack of warning, because this was Missouri after all, and Missouri tended to change its mind like a woman with severe PMS. Riku sighed and watched the rain splash against the window of his room, watched how the lightning crashed and illuminated the parking lot, where one blue Toyota was inexplicably missing. He hated the sight of rain on concrete. Hated the sound of it. As Kairi had once said, the rain tended to bring the memories down from the sky with it, like a fitting retribution.
The door opened quietly, and Riku glanced behind him at the nightgown-clad figure who softly padded her way across the carpet to where he was seated on the edge of the bed. She sat down beside him and followed his gaze out the window, to the rain and the thunder.
“You should be in bed,” he said to her. “It was a long day.” She nodded, but didn’t say anything, didn’t move, just leaned back a little. “Go to bed, Kairi,” he tried again, a little bit softer this time, because he understood why the rain was keeping her awake and understood why she was silent even though she’d screamed when it rained once upon a time, but couldn’t she at least try?
If she gave up, he was fucked.
“I can’t sleep,” she finally said, quietly against the loud anger of the storm. “Do we still have the sleeping pills in the bag?”
He nodded, pointing to where the duffel bag rested on the floor near the bed. She looked at it, but didn’t move, her arms wrapped around herself. It could have been an attempt to keep herself warm. Riku knew it was an attempt to keep herself together. He sighed and relented, pulling her to him where she could rest her head on his shoulder and he could keep her from falling to pieces before his eyes again. He couldn’t handle watching her break down again, like she had watched him. She was stronger than him like that.
“It’s all happening again,” she whispered, and he wondered why she hadn’t gone to Axel for a brief second before remembering that Axel hadn’t been in the rain with them, hadn’t watched blond meet concrete with a sickening thud.
“No,” he replied. “It’s different this time.” People couldn’t die twice, after all.
Kairi nodded and let out a shaky breath, beginning to patch up the little cracks that had begun to show through her strength. “You’re right,” she said, and repeated it, her voice stronger the second time. A few minutes later, she pulled away from him and stood, walking over to the bag, her head held high but her hands shaky as she gripped the bottle of over-the-counter sleep aid. “Axel, he…” she paused, and he knew. Axel wouldn’t understand this time. It was okay.
She closed the curtains before she left, but Riku could still hear the rain.
Chapter Eight