Binary - Chapter Nine
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 Seven Eight
Chapter Nine: Somebody’s Watching Me
Riku was a firm believer in karma. He believed that good things came to those who waited - though he’d be much obliged if those good things would move their angelic little asses a bit faster - and that it all boomeranged right back to you in the end. He was a good person, in his opinion, but he knew what he was paying for now, and he could only hope he was going to get a discount in the end, because he wasn’t really willing to pay the full price for his sins. Apparently, though, that old lady he had helped across the street had been good for something other than beating the holy hell out of him with her huge bag and screaming rape, because while Kairi was digging for the credit card, some angelic light shone about her and his diminutive good karma kicked in. And it was about freaking time.
“Hallelujah!” Kairi said, yanking something from the bag and holding it up triumphantly. It shone in the light above her head, casting speckles and spots on the spotless tile floor and causing Riku to consider thinking himself insane, because there was no way in hell that she could be holding the CD.
Yes. The CD.
“Excuse me,” the woman at the counter said. “But I need your credit card.”
Riku ignored her, deciding that Axel could take care of it. “No way. We are not that lucky,” he said in disbelief, reaching for the disc in her hands. She passed it to him and he studied it, flipping it over. “It can’t be the one.”
“Oh, but there’s a good chance it is,” Kairi replied gleefully. “He slipped it in right next to the credit card-“
“Ma’am, speaking of the credit card-“
“-and while I’m really not sure what Leon’s playing at, that has to be the disc!” she finished, arms waving. Her face was bright, blue eyes shining in the crappy lighting of the airport, and she looked more excited than he had seen her in awhile. “And there’s a laptop. A laptop! He wants us to find something, Riku.”
“Did you happen to find your credit card, ma’am?”
Axel waved at her, taking the disc from Riku. “Hold on a minute, honey, we’ve just had a cliché plot twist bounce off of our heads, and none of us understand it. Isn’t this bag meant for Sora? Maybe he just wants us to take it to him and doesn’t realize you can hack-“
“Research and liberate.”
“-research and liberate all of the info on it.”
Kairi grinned, pressing the tips of her fingers together. “That’s the beauty of it! Even if he didn’t mean to give it to us, he did. Now this laptop…” She tapped the end of the sleek computer poking out of the black bag. “It’s not the same one I used at his apartment. And for the love of God, Axel, pay the poor woman before she has a stroke.” She reached down, pulled out the Visa, and handed it to him before going on. “I have my flash drive in the duffel bag, so I can take all of whatever we find that we can use and keep it for later. So if he didn’t mean for us to have it, they’ll never know otherwise.” She glared at Axel, who was still studying the disc. “Axel, buy our tickets before the poor woman has an aneurysm!”
Axel scowled and handed the disc back to Kairi, turning to the counter to gruffly purchase their tickets. She took it, smiled at it, and slid it back into the bag before closing it and pulling it up onto her shoulder. She winced suddenly, Riku noticed out of the corner of his eye, nearly dropping the bag again. He reached out and gently took it from her, quirking an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said in reply. “It’s nothing bad, just a little bruising.” She smiled and let him take it, rolling her shoulders and neck, and Riku silently vowed to take a look at it later. He had learned over the years that “just a little” meant “not quite bad enough for a hospital visit yet” when it came to situations like this. Any other time, a paper-cut would be worthy of a freak-out. He slid the bag over his own shoulder and held in a wince as he felt the result of his fall, and quite suddenly, he remembered that, yes, his ankle still hurt.
“Five-thirty.” Axel turned back and handed them each a ticket, sliding the credit card into his pocket. “Now we go sit in the gate for an hour,” he said as they began walking. “Gate eight and - Riku, why the hell are you limping?” He suddenly grinned and opened his mouth to speak again, but Riku beat him to it.
“Shut up, Axel.”
Axel blinked, surprised. “…You don’t even know what I was about to say!” he exclaimed indignantly.
Kairi poked him in the side gently. “You’re predictable, Axel. And I’m telling Sora what you were thinking about - no, I’m telling Roxas what you were thinking about Sora and Riku!”
“Hey, I just wanted to know why he was limping and that happened to be the most plausible reason I could think of!” Axel insisted, but his grin was one of a very perverse nature. “So, Riku, how was your first time?”
“I’m not the virgin here, Axel,” the detective replied and Kairi snickered beside him. “And I fell from a fire escape, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” The redhead scowled, shaking his head a little and causing his still-soaked spikes to flop a little. He scowled at the spikes. “That’s it. Kairi, give me your brush.”
They sat down in the terminal, Kairi handing him a brush and pulling out the laptop. She smiled again, running her hands over the top of it as if greeting an old friend, before opening it and firing it up. Riku watched as the screen lit up, then turned his gaze away to watch the terminal, expecting to see black and silver at any given moment.
Kairi made a noise of annoyance beside him. “It’s password locked!” she whined.
Axel smirked, leaning over to peer at the screen over her shoulder, pulling his hair into a low ponytail. Now, Riku found himself thinking, they all matched. “…He’s got a kitten as his display picture. Whether he saved our asses or not, he loses man-points for that.”
“Shut up, Axel,” Riku said tonelessly. “Can you get in?”
The redhead nodded, tapping her nails against the keyboard. “Of course I can!” Her tone implied that Riku’s lack of faith was highly annoying and unnecessary. “It’s just aggravating. But they didn’t call me Ace in high school for nothing.”
Riku lifted a tired eyebrow. “They didn’t call you Ace for hacking either.”
“Research and liberate,” Kairi replied automatically, though a faint hint of redness filled her cheeks. “And they didn’t call you Bing-Bing for the bell on your bike, and unless you want Sora to find out where it came from, I suggest you kindly shut your yap.”
Riku decided that kindly shutting his yap was the best course of action, especially now that Kairi was staring at the screen intently and wouldn’t appreciate a comeback, even if he could magically pull one out of his exhausted ear. So, to the sounds of her fingers tap-tap-tapping away at the keys, Axel’s quiet humming, and the hustle and bustle around him, he closed his eyes, just for a moment, and let the noise fade around him, not quite able to sleep (the leftover adrenaline prevented that quite nicely) but able to doze and let his mind wander briefly over the events of the past few days. It was only moments later, or so it seemed, that Axel was reaching over Kairi and tapping him on the shoulder. He opened one eye to glare at the redhead.
“Plane’s boarding,” Axel said, trailing off into a yawn. Kairi was closing up the laptop beside him, scowling at it good-naturedly. “This is a… what, thirty minute flight?”
Nodding in reply, Riku stood, stretching his arms out above his head and wincing as he unwittingly put pressure on his injured ankle again. “Yeah. I’ll call ‘em once we’re in the air.” He grabbed the duffel bag from underneath Kairi’s seat as the other two moved to get in line, glancing over his shoulder. A flash of color out of the corner of his eye caused him to drop the bag with a low curse and straighten, but the phantom was already gone, vanished into the crowd of people moving to board planes, lost among harried mothers and screaming children and lovers too far from home.
“…He just came to make sure we were alive,” Kairi said when he settled into line behind her, a small, secret, guilty smile on her face, like she couldn’t help but feel happy that he’d been there, just for that moment.
“No,” Axel replied, his tone a displeased growl of sorts. “He came to make sure you were alive. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us. Not that I want him to,” he added, a disturbed look crossing his face. “…Ew.”
Kairi didn’t reply, shifting the black bag on her shoulder as she handed her ticket to the lady at the counter who was giving Riku a wary look. But that small smile was still on her face, and Riku was willing to bet his soul that her quickening pulse was not because of the adrenaline, the butterflies in her stomach were not due to their impending flight, and the sparkle in her eyes was not for a Krispy Kreme baker’s dozen.
Damn. He couldn’t wait to get out of Missouri.
Riku found an aisle between himself and the two redheads, much to the dismay of the flight attendant who wanted nothing more than to ignore Riku and be on her merry way, much less offer him a drink. She stammered out her offer valiantly, with a fake smile and one hand in her pocket, clutching a can of mace like a lifeline, the relief showing on pretty features when Riku politely refused. She walked down the aisle toward the other attendant as though her ass were on fire, pausing to whisper urgently in her friends’ ear and glance furtively back at Riku. If he had gotten his scrapes, bruises, and black eye a different way, it probably would have been funny.
“Hey,” Axel said after take-off, and Riku looked over with a yawn. “Call Rox. I don’t want to be waiting at the airport for three hours when I could be sleeping.”
“Is that legal?” Riku asked, mostly on principle, because he was already pulling out his cell phone.
The redhead shrugged, jostling Kairi and earning himself a hearty glare. “It is in Europe.”
Well, that was good enough for him. He punched in the number that still hadn’t quite faded from the back of his hand, now a pale purple that would probably only last another shower or two. (He suddenly remembered his shower curtain, still in a tangle on the bathroom floor, and Chubchub was probably having a heyday with it.)
He realized belatedly that it was four minutes after five o’clock in the morning, and there was a good chance that Sora was sound asleep and wouldn’t like being woken up. After the second ring, he figured that it was a lost cause and they’d be better off taking a taxi.
It was a miracle, then, that the third ring was cut off halfway through. Riku changed his mind a second later.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you realize what time it is?”
Riku sighed. He’d been hoping for Sora. “Yeah, sorry, anyway-“
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“Well, I don’t feel sorry, and it doesn’t matter. Look-“
“It matters to me, asshole!” Roxas interrupted.
“If you don’t stop cutting in, I’m going to hand the phone to Axel, and he has a whole new set of lines he’s dying to try out on you.” Roxas was silent, and Riku took it for ‘why, yes, Riku, I’ll be quiet out of fear of your best friend’s libido.’ “Now, listen-“
“Sora says hi.”
Riku blinked. He decided to allow that interruption. “Oh. Um, tell him I said-“
He yanked the phone away from his ear, just in time for the whole plane to hear, “SORA! RIKU SAYS HE WANTS TO DO STRANGE THINGS TO YOUR EAR!”
“I did not!” Riku hissed.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”
“Give the goddamned phone to Sora, Roxas,” the detective said in a low, threatening voice - of course, it could have also been embarrassed, seeing as everyone on the plane was giving him strange looks, and Axel was laughing like he’d just seen Britney Spears take a dive off the wing.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Riku could hear the smirk in Roxas’ voice. “He’s turned kind of an off-red, and he’s not really breathing.”
“You’re starting to sound like Axel.”
There was a pause, and then a growl that sounded strangely like a mesh of “stupid pyro” and “rubbing off on me,” and that didn’t sit too well in Riku’s brain. He could hear the sound of the phone being tossed off to someone, and finally, the voice he’d wanted to hear.
“Um. Hi, Riku.”
Riku couldn’t help smiling, just a little, even if it freaked the flight attendants out. “Hi, Sora. So-“
“Did you really, uh, say that?”
Mentally, Riku began cursing Roxas and his entire existence. “Uh. No.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” he plowed onward, ignoring the awkward pause that could have gone there, “we’re-“
“Because you can, you know.”
Oh, for the love of…
Wait, what?
“Do strange things to my ear, I mean. If you want to.”
It was then that Riku decided that, while Roxas was a selfish, neurotic, anal little bastard, he wasn’t half bad. “Um. Yeah. Okay. Later.”
“Okay. Later.” Sora sounded relieved. “But what were you calling about?”
“Oh!” The smile vanished from Riku’s face as he was forced to remember exactly what had happened to him the night before… or that morning, or whatever. “We’re on a plane to Chicago. They found us.”
He heard Sora suck in a hissing breath, and wondered what expression the brunet’s face would show, if he would have that strange impassive look that Axel got whenever he was raging inwardly, or if his eyes would narrow and a small, humorless smile would play on his lips like Kairi’s. Or maybe, he thought, Sora would have an expression all his own. Honestly, he hoped he’d never have to see it.
“Alright, don’t tell me what happened over the phone. When are you landing?”
“About twenty minutes.” A flash of red caught his eye and he turned to see both Axel and Kairi waving to get his attention, the former pointing at Kairi and the latter giving him a rock ‘n’ roll hand. It seemed that she had finally cracked the password.
“We’ll pick you up,” Sora promised.
Riku smiled and nodded at the two redheads, holding up a finger - and not his middle one. “Alright. I’ve gotta go, I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay - no, wait a minute. Guard your ear.”
Riku wisely pulled the phone an inch or two away from his ear.
“ROXAS! RIKU SAYS THAT AXEL SAYS THAT HE WANTS TO PIN YOU UP AGAINST THE WALL AND DO YOU LIKE THE GIRL YOU ARE! Bye, Riku!”
Riku was smirking as he shoved the phone back into his pocket and turned to Axel and Kairi. “You got in?” he said.
“Not recently,” Axel replied.
“How about never, you perv?” Kairi shifted the laptop for Riku to see. “But yeah, I got in. To the computer, anyway, not what Axel’s talking about.” Her expression changed from smug to a look of vague intrigue. “I haven’t been able to check out the disc yet, but this… This is really weird, Riku. Look.”
She passed the laptop over the aisle and he positioned it on his lap, glancing at the picture she had pulled up on the screen. It took a moment for him to process it fully. “That looks a lot like… oh. Oh.”
He realized then that he was not, in fact, studying a photograph of someone who looked like him, but instead was actually studying a photograph of himself. It had been taken sometime in the winter months, he could see the snow on the cars and the ice on the trees and wires behind him, January, he’d guess, in the middle of the big winter storms.
“Whoever took it would have had to have been either really close to you, or had to have had a really good camera,” Kairi said. “The shot’s nearly perfect, artistic almost. Minimize that, though, that’s not even the weirdest part. Check out the first document I have open.” He did as she instructed, and a moment later he was reading his own full name, his own address, his license plate number of his recently destroyed model and make, his birthday, his physical description, and the transcript of a phone call he had received months earlier, one of the last he had ever exchanged with the Organization.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, though he knew Kairi didn’t have an answer.
Yet.
“There’s one for me and Axel, too. And, Riku, Leon knew that I was a hack- researcher and liberator, it’s right there in my file! I don’t know what that means yet, but damned if I won’t find out… And a lot on the Organization, a fucking goldmine, Riku… Things that if we had known, we’d have never had to gone undercover in the first place!” she replied, voice rising in excitement about her findings. Axel quickly hushed her, glancing around nervously.
Riku handed it back as she took out her flash drive and pulled the disc out of the bag, cheeks coloring sheepishly as she realized her own mistake - the Organization could have spies anywhere, even miles above ground. A thoughtful look crossed her face a moment after the disc loaded, and she passed it back across the aisle.
“…It’s some kind of ledger,” Riku said, studying the numbers and names and finding none that jumped out at him, nothing that clicked at all. There was no hint as to what it was a record of, just endless rows of transactions. “Big money, too.” He passed it back and Axel took it this time, studying the screen.
“…It’s too low for blood money,” the redhead clarified. “Maybe gambling, but that would put a serious impact on the economy. Drug money?”
“A little pricey, don’t you think?” Kairi asked. “I mean, I know inflation sucks and the economy’s in the pooper, but that’s still too much, even for the exotic crap.” She glanced around. “…We’ll figure it out later. I’ll copy everything over and search the names on Google when I get a chance later.” She settled down to work, Axel watching quietly over her shoulder.
Riku turned his gaze to the window, where the sun was breaking through the clouds, painting the sky a medley of oranges and soft pinks. He closed his eyes for a moment, going over the recently obtained information in his head, trying to find a logical solution, one that didn’t involve conspiracy theories or “Big Brother.” As it was, he could only come to one conclusion, and even the details on that were vague.
“They’ve been watching us,” Axel said suddenly, as though he had been following Riku’s inner thoughts like a radio show. Riku nodded in reply, mulling over all the questions he had rolling around his mind - who, exactly, were they? How long had they been watching him? Was he going to wake up one morning to find himself being shipped far, far away, or just not wake up one morning at all?
Was Sora a part of it?
“…We’ll need to play along,” he finally decided heavily. “We can’t let them know that we know, especially since we don’t know what will happen if they know that we…” He trailed off as he found Axel staring at him like he’d just started speaking Latin. Badly.
“…So pretend that we don’t know,” Axel said, mostly to clarify it for himself; Kairi was having no trouble understanding exhausted-Riku-speak, “when we actually do know, so that they don’t know that we know?”
Riku nodded. “Yeah. They can’t know that we know, because if they knew that we knew, God only knows what would happen.”
The redhead flopped back in his seat, closing his eyes. “God, I hate undercover work.”
Kairi shut the laptop a few minutes later, just as the flight attendants announced that they were preparing for landing, closing her eyes and rolling her neck and shoulders. Riku caught the wince and the way her hand felt her shoulder gingerly, looking away before she could catch him and insist that it was “just bruising.”
Ten minutes later, they touched down in Chicago.
“Do you see them?”
Riku shook his head, searching through the crowds for a familiar, blue-eyed face. He could see only a mass of people, all heading toward the same damn exit, it seemed, as though there weren’t six in the place, all of them conveniently located nearby. Kairi’s hand was wrapped around his arm, the one that wasn’t supporting the duffel and Leon’s black bag, and he was careful not to accidentally shake her off lest he lose her in the crowd. Axel was walking just a few paces behind, searching the heads for blond or brown spikes, his height giving him more of an advantage than Riku.
“Up there,” Axel pointed out a few moments later, and Riku’s eyes immediately picked chocolate spikes out of the crowd and Roxas leaning on a railing nearby. Sora was waving at him, smiling, but the smile was tight, lacking its usual cheer. Roxas seemed happier just to ignore them.
The smile faded even more as they drew closer. Sora elbowed Roxas sharply, causing the blond to jolt, sunglasses falling from his eyes, and Riku came to the realization that the blond had apparently been asleep. As he bent over to pick them up, he too caught sight of the trio, and an odd look crossed his face, a mix of anger and concern.
“What the hell did you do?” the blond demanded of Axel when they were within speaking range.
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” Axel tried to sound indignant and failed miserably, his jester’s grin breaking through. “It’s just a few scrapes and bruises, don’t worry.”
Roxas’ eyes narrowed slightly at him. “…Hmph. I’ll decide whether or not to worry later…” he muttered. A stricken look crossed his face. “…I’m not worried about you!” Axel kept grinning. “I’m not!” He scowled, though Riku had a feeling that it was more at himself than anyone there… Well, maybe Axel, he reconsidered. The blond grabbed Axel’s arm and dragged him away, to the restroom, apparently to make his judgment on Axel’s health. It was either that, or those stalls were about to see Axel’s virginity being stolen away, and Riku didn’t really want to think about that. At all.
“Are you okay?” Sora said to Riku quietly, and the detective pulled his eyes away from Roxas and Axel’s retreating backs to find concerned blue looking up at him. “You’ve got, like… That’s a lot of blood.”
“I’m fine,” he said, smiling, but he was sure that it was just as tight as Sora’s had been, because he was tired, sore, and probably being spied on by some foreign government or something.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kairi spoke up from beside him. “They fucking shot him.”
Sora’s eyes widened and he stared at Riku in shock, eyes trailing down the detective’s body, searching for a gaping bullet hole that he had somehow missed before. “They… what?”
Riku cast a half-hearted glare at Kairi. “It just grazed me,” he replied. “I’m fine.”
“He also fell from a fire escape at three stories,” Kairi went on matter-of-factly. Sora’s hand shot up to Riku’s neck as though he were certain it should have been twisted at an odd, sickening angle, but hovered there for a moment until Riku caught it gently.
“I’m fine,” he repeated, and loosened his grip to let Sora’s hand fall. Sora, however, didn’t let go.
“What…” The brunet took a deep breath and turned to Kairi. “What about you?” he asked.
She smiled. “I’m exhausted,” she said, patting Sora on the shoulder and snagging his sunglasses off of his head. “And I’m hungry, and I need a shower before the mud in my hair decides to stick around permanently. And I’d like a donut. But other than that, I’m fine.”
“And some medical attention!” Roxas pushed his way through a mess of people nearby, ignoring their indignant gazes, Axel in tow.
“I’m not going to the hospital, Roxy,” Axel said with a fond sort of exasperation. Riku had a feeling he had missed the argument. Thankfully.
Roxas turned to glare at Axel. “Call me Roxy again and you’ll need to. My name is Roxas, damn it, not sweetheart, not honey, not angelcake, not snuggle-bear, and not fucking Roxy.” He huffed, crossing his arms across his chest, and managed to look very much like a pouting teenager. “You make me sound like a goddamned girl. I am not a girl.”
Axel smirked, and Riku quickly spoke up before the redhead could make a comment that would probably get him killed. “Why would he need to go to the hospital?” he asked.
“Pull up your sleeves,” Roxas told Axel.
The redhead rolled his eyes, hugging his jacket a little bit tighter around himself. “Come on, Roxas, it’s not that bad.”
“Pull up your sleeves, Axel.”
Finally, Axel obliged, pulling up his sleeves and revealing a long series of scratches, and Riku instantly thought of the jagged glass of the broken window and his own hands, barely-healed cuts crisscrossing over pale skin. His weren’t nearly as bad as Axel’s, however, and he noted with a flip of his stomach that some of them were still bleeding, just a little bit, reopened by the rush of fabric against his skin. Some of them would scar. Why hadn’t he noticed them earlier?
Then again, Axel had always been the best at hiding his scars from them.
“Axel,” Kairi said slowly. “Those might actually need stitches. And they might still have glass in them.”
“They don’t.” Axel pulled his sleeves down again, looking slightly annoyed. “And all they need’s a band-aid.”
“A band-aid,” Sora repeated incredulously. “Seriously, like, a band-aid?”
“Riku, make your boyfriend drop the subject.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Riku and Sora said in unison, then looked at each other - or, rather, Riku looked at Sora’s ear and Sora looked at Riku’s mouth. A beat passed.
“Um.” Sora pulled his eyes away, suddenly finding the floor very interesting.
Riku cleared his throat, deciding that the ceiling was perhaps the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.
Kairi looked between them, then over at Roxas’ scowl and Axel’s arms, and finally pulled Sora’s sunglasses over her eyes and started walking away. “I swear to God, it’s like being back in fucking high school.”
Riku started to follow her, as Axel and Roxas were doing, but Sora held him back.
“You didn’t mention on the phone…” Sora said quietly, and Riku could see worry in his face. “Is Leon…?” He let the question trail off, but Riku knew what he was asking.
“I don’t know,” the detective replied honestly. Sora nodded slowly, and Riku watched as he forced himself to remain optimistic, even if the brunet never said a word aloud. Finally, they moved to follow the others out to what was probably a stolen car.
And Sora was still holding his hand.
That night, after Kairi had informed him that the huge, purpling bruise on her shoulder didn’t hurt as bad as it seemed, after Axel’s arms had been wrapped in gauze by a swearing, Neosporin-wielding Roxas, and after they had checked into some crappy hotel for the night, Riku found himself alone. He had napped the day away once the night before had caught up to him, awakening sometime soon after dinner, as had Axel and Kairi. Axel, however, was winning a hand of poker while Roxas watched in the shady bar downstairs, breathing in nicotine-laced secondhand smoke and craving a cigarette of his own. He had only ever lost to one person, and that opponent was dead, and the blood on the pavement had signaled the end of the redhead’s losing streak, even if Axel himself hadn’t been there to witness it.
He thanked whatever god would listen for that.
Kairi was holed up in her room, under the pretense of sleeping. Riku supposed it made her feel better to lie about what she was doing, even if she knew that Axel and Riku could see right through her crystal façade of bravery. His cell phone was missing from his pocket, and every now and again, he could hear the sound quiet laughter and hushed tears through the paper-thin, peeling walls.
The lighting was dim, casting strange shadows about, and Riku’s ankle still hurt, but he was too busy thinking about how Axel was going to save up his money again for another Firebird, a sleek silver one this time, too busy picturing how sad and yet so happy Kairi’s smile would be as she ran his cell battery down to really notice the pain. He barely noticed the quiet, hesitant knock on the door, forcing himself back to his own room as he got up to throw back the chain and deadbolt.
Sora looked nervous.
“Hey,” the brunet said, standing in the doorway even though Riku stepped back to let him through. “I was just… Well, you seemed…” He shifted his weight, scratching the back of his anxiously, avoiding Riku’s eyes.
It was leftover adrenaline, Riku would later claim, that made him forget about the picture and the files and all of his suspicions. It was leftover adrenaline that made him notice the way Sora still managed to look breathtaking in the cheap lighting of the hotel, the way the neon lights of the shady club next door seemed to dance across his features like a divine glow. It was the adrenaline, he’d swear, that made him take Sora by the hand and pull him inside, made him slide his fingers through soft brown hair, made him ignore the voice that wondered if the next morning would be the morning he just didn’t wake up because of Sora, made him press Sora back against the door, made him want to find out what Sora would taste like, made him really want to do strange things to Sora’s ear.
The adrenaline would wear off in the morning. In the morning, Riku would remember the picture, the files, the case, the scratch on his cheek, and he would be thankful that he woke up at all. But he would also remember the way Sora’s blue eyes were like an endless ocean, the way they darkened to a midnight velvet, the way they fluttered closed in pleasure. In the morning, the place beside him would still be warm, but he would be alone again. Sora would avoid his eyes when he came downstairs for a mostly-cold continental breakfast, would flush bright red every time he spoke, would push Sora away because Sora would regret a cheap hotel bed and crappy lighting and complications on something Riku didn’t even understand. Riku would regret Sora’s regrets.
And so he pulled away from the door, even though the leftover adrenaline was still pulsing through his veins, pulled away from Sora, who moved to catch his lips again, and Riku let him. One more time. The second time he pulled away, Sora stayed against the door, eyes not quite midnight, but a soft twilight sky, halfway between day and night and endlessly understanding.
“When it’s over,” Riku said breathlessly.
Sora nodded, a little rushed. “Later,” he agreed.
Riku stepped back a pace, just enough for Sora to be able to open the door and slip out, pausing to glance back at him once as though the regret in the morning would be worth it after all before moving away down the hall. Riku watched him quietly until the brunet vanished into his own room, then closed the door and leaned against it, just breathing.
Eventually, he clicked off the dim lighting in the room and closed the curtains, lying down on the lumpy bed in the dark and listened to Kairi crying and laughing in the room next door and thought about Axel smirking at his opponent on the outside and thinking of Luxord flat-out on the pavement on the inside and losing his next hand out of respect for the asshole, however little he had deserved it.
He had been an asshole.
Riku knew that didn’t even begin to justify the past.
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 Seven Eight
Chapter Nine: Somebody’s Watching Me
Riku was a firm believer in karma. He believed that good things came to those who waited - though he’d be much obliged if those good things would move their angelic little asses a bit faster - and that it all boomeranged right back to you in the end. He was a good person, in his opinion, but he knew what he was paying for now, and he could only hope he was going to get a discount in the end, because he wasn’t really willing to pay the full price for his sins. Apparently, though, that old lady he had helped across the street had been good for something other than beating the holy hell out of him with her huge bag and screaming rape, because while Kairi was digging for the credit card, some angelic light shone about her and his diminutive good karma kicked in. And it was about freaking time.
“Hallelujah!” Kairi said, yanking something from the bag and holding it up triumphantly. It shone in the light above her head, casting speckles and spots on the spotless tile floor and causing Riku to consider thinking himself insane, because there was no way in hell that she could be holding the CD.
Yes. The CD.
“Excuse me,” the woman at the counter said. “But I need your credit card.”
Riku ignored her, deciding that Axel could take care of it. “No way. We are not that lucky,” he said in disbelief, reaching for the disc in her hands. She passed it to him and he studied it, flipping it over. “It can’t be the one.”
“Oh, but there’s a good chance it is,” Kairi replied gleefully. “He slipped it in right next to the credit card-“
“Ma’am, speaking of the credit card-“
“-and while I’m really not sure what Leon’s playing at, that has to be the disc!” she finished, arms waving. Her face was bright, blue eyes shining in the crappy lighting of the airport, and she looked more excited than he had seen her in awhile. “And there’s a laptop. A laptop! He wants us to find something, Riku.”
“Did you happen to find your credit card, ma’am?”
Axel waved at her, taking the disc from Riku. “Hold on a minute, honey, we’ve just had a cliché plot twist bounce off of our heads, and none of us understand it. Isn’t this bag meant for Sora? Maybe he just wants us to take it to him and doesn’t realize you can hack-“
“Research and liberate.”
“-research and liberate all of the info on it.”
Kairi grinned, pressing the tips of her fingers together. “That’s the beauty of it! Even if he didn’t mean to give it to us, he did. Now this laptop…” She tapped the end of the sleek computer poking out of the black bag. “It’s not the same one I used at his apartment. And for the love of God, Axel, pay the poor woman before she has a stroke.” She reached down, pulled out the Visa, and handed it to him before going on. “I have my flash drive in the duffel bag, so I can take all of whatever we find that we can use and keep it for later. So if he didn’t mean for us to have it, they’ll never know otherwise.” She glared at Axel, who was still studying the disc. “Axel, buy our tickets before the poor woman has an aneurysm!”
Axel scowled and handed the disc back to Kairi, turning to the counter to gruffly purchase their tickets. She took it, smiled at it, and slid it back into the bag before closing it and pulling it up onto her shoulder. She winced suddenly, Riku noticed out of the corner of his eye, nearly dropping the bag again. He reached out and gently took it from her, quirking an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said in reply. “It’s nothing bad, just a little bruising.” She smiled and let him take it, rolling her shoulders and neck, and Riku silently vowed to take a look at it later. He had learned over the years that “just a little” meant “not quite bad enough for a hospital visit yet” when it came to situations like this. Any other time, a paper-cut would be worthy of a freak-out. He slid the bag over his own shoulder and held in a wince as he felt the result of his fall, and quite suddenly, he remembered that, yes, his ankle still hurt.
“Five-thirty.” Axel turned back and handed them each a ticket, sliding the credit card into his pocket. “Now we go sit in the gate for an hour,” he said as they began walking. “Gate eight and - Riku, why the hell are you limping?” He suddenly grinned and opened his mouth to speak again, but Riku beat him to it.
“Shut up, Axel.”
Axel blinked, surprised. “…You don’t even know what I was about to say!” he exclaimed indignantly.
Kairi poked him in the side gently. “You’re predictable, Axel. And I’m telling Sora what you were thinking about - no, I’m telling Roxas what you were thinking about Sora and Riku!”
“Hey, I just wanted to know why he was limping and that happened to be the most plausible reason I could think of!” Axel insisted, but his grin was one of a very perverse nature. “So, Riku, how was your first time?”
“I’m not the virgin here, Axel,” the detective replied and Kairi snickered beside him. “And I fell from a fire escape, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” The redhead scowled, shaking his head a little and causing his still-soaked spikes to flop a little. He scowled at the spikes. “That’s it. Kairi, give me your brush.”
They sat down in the terminal, Kairi handing him a brush and pulling out the laptop. She smiled again, running her hands over the top of it as if greeting an old friend, before opening it and firing it up. Riku watched as the screen lit up, then turned his gaze away to watch the terminal, expecting to see black and silver at any given moment.
Kairi made a noise of annoyance beside him. “It’s password locked!” she whined.
Axel smirked, leaning over to peer at the screen over her shoulder, pulling his hair into a low ponytail. Now, Riku found himself thinking, they all matched. “…He’s got a kitten as his display picture. Whether he saved our asses or not, he loses man-points for that.”
“Shut up, Axel,” Riku said tonelessly. “Can you get in?”
The redhead nodded, tapping her nails against the keyboard. “Of course I can!” Her tone implied that Riku’s lack of faith was highly annoying and unnecessary. “It’s just aggravating. But they didn’t call me Ace in high school for nothing.”
Riku lifted a tired eyebrow. “They didn’t call you Ace for hacking either.”
“Research and liberate,” Kairi replied automatically, though a faint hint of redness filled her cheeks. “And they didn’t call you Bing-Bing for the bell on your bike, and unless you want Sora to find out where it came from, I suggest you kindly shut your yap.”
Riku decided that kindly shutting his yap was the best course of action, especially now that Kairi was staring at the screen intently and wouldn’t appreciate a comeback, even if he could magically pull one out of his exhausted ear. So, to the sounds of her fingers tap-tap-tapping away at the keys, Axel’s quiet humming, and the hustle and bustle around him, he closed his eyes, just for a moment, and let the noise fade around him, not quite able to sleep (the leftover adrenaline prevented that quite nicely) but able to doze and let his mind wander briefly over the events of the past few days. It was only moments later, or so it seemed, that Axel was reaching over Kairi and tapping him on the shoulder. He opened one eye to glare at the redhead.
“Plane’s boarding,” Axel said, trailing off into a yawn. Kairi was closing up the laptop beside him, scowling at it good-naturedly. “This is a… what, thirty minute flight?”
Nodding in reply, Riku stood, stretching his arms out above his head and wincing as he unwittingly put pressure on his injured ankle again. “Yeah. I’ll call ‘em once we’re in the air.” He grabbed the duffel bag from underneath Kairi’s seat as the other two moved to get in line, glancing over his shoulder. A flash of color out of the corner of his eye caused him to drop the bag with a low curse and straighten, but the phantom was already gone, vanished into the crowd of people moving to board planes, lost among harried mothers and screaming children and lovers too far from home.
“…He just came to make sure we were alive,” Kairi said when he settled into line behind her, a small, secret, guilty smile on her face, like she couldn’t help but feel happy that he’d been there, just for that moment.
“No,” Axel replied, his tone a displeased growl of sorts. “He came to make sure you were alive. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us. Not that I want him to,” he added, a disturbed look crossing his face. “…Ew.”
Kairi didn’t reply, shifting the black bag on her shoulder as she handed her ticket to the lady at the counter who was giving Riku a wary look. But that small smile was still on her face, and Riku was willing to bet his soul that her quickening pulse was not because of the adrenaline, the butterflies in her stomach were not due to their impending flight, and the sparkle in her eyes was not for a Krispy Kreme baker’s dozen.
Damn. He couldn’t wait to get out of Missouri.
Riku found an aisle between himself and the two redheads, much to the dismay of the flight attendant who wanted nothing more than to ignore Riku and be on her merry way, much less offer him a drink. She stammered out her offer valiantly, with a fake smile and one hand in her pocket, clutching a can of mace like a lifeline, the relief showing on pretty features when Riku politely refused. She walked down the aisle toward the other attendant as though her ass were on fire, pausing to whisper urgently in her friends’ ear and glance furtively back at Riku. If he had gotten his scrapes, bruises, and black eye a different way, it probably would have been funny.
“Hey,” Axel said after take-off, and Riku looked over with a yawn. “Call Rox. I don’t want to be waiting at the airport for three hours when I could be sleeping.”
“Is that legal?” Riku asked, mostly on principle, because he was already pulling out his cell phone.
The redhead shrugged, jostling Kairi and earning himself a hearty glare. “It is in Europe.”
Well, that was good enough for him. He punched in the number that still hadn’t quite faded from the back of his hand, now a pale purple that would probably only last another shower or two. (He suddenly remembered his shower curtain, still in a tangle on the bathroom floor, and Chubchub was probably having a heyday with it.)
He realized belatedly that it was four minutes after five o’clock in the morning, and there was a good chance that Sora was sound asleep and wouldn’t like being woken up. After the second ring, he figured that it was a lost cause and they’d be better off taking a taxi.
It was a miracle, then, that the third ring was cut off halfway through. Riku changed his mind a second later.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you realize what time it is?”
Riku sighed. He’d been hoping for Sora. “Yeah, sorry, anyway-“
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“Well, I don’t feel sorry, and it doesn’t matter. Look-“
“It matters to me, asshole!” Roxas interrupted.
“If you don’t stop cutting in, I’m going to hand the phone to Axel, and he has a whole new set of lines he’s dying to try out on you.” Roxas was silent, and Riku took it for ‘why, yes, Riku, I’ll be quiet out of fear of your best friend’s libido.’ “Now, listen-“
“Sora says hi.”
Riku blinked. He decided to allow that interruption. “Oh. Um, tell him I said-“
He yanked the phone away from his ear, just in time for the whole plane to hear, “SORA! RIKU SAYS HE WANTS TO DO STRANGE THINGS TO YOUR EAR!”
“I did not!” Riku hissed.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”
“Give the goddamned phone to Sora, Roxas,” the detective said in a low, threatening voice - of course, it could have also been embarrassed, seeing as everyone on the plane was giving him strange looks, and Axel was laughing like he’d just seen Britney Spears take a dive off the wing.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Riku could hear the smirk in Roxas’ voice. “He’s turned kind of an off-red, and he’s not really breathing.”
“You’re starting to sound like Axel.”
There was a pause, and then a growl that sounded strangely like a mesh of “stupid pyro” and “rubbing off on me,” and that didn’t sit too well in Riku’s brain. He could hear the sound of the phone being tossed off to someone, and finally, the voice he’d wanted to hear.
“Um. Hi, Riku.”
Riku couldn’t help smiling, just a little, even if it freaked the flight attendants out. “Hi, Sora. So-“
“Did you really, uh, say that?”
Mentally, Riku began cursing Roxas and his entire existence. “Uh. No.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” he plowed onward, ignoring the awkward pause that could have gone there, “we’re-“
“Because you can, you know.”
Oh, for the love of…
Wait, what?
“Do strange things to my ear, I mean. If you want to.”
It was then that Riku decided that, while Roxas was a selfish, neurotic, anal little bastard, he wasn’t half bad. “Um. Yeah. Okay. Later.”
“Okay. Later.” Sora sounded relieved. “But what were you calling about?”
“Oh!” The smile vanished from Riku’s face as he was forced to remember exactly what had happened to him the night before… or that morning, or whatever. “We’re on a plane to Chicago. They found us.”
He heard Sora suck in a hissing breath, and wondered what expression the brunet’s face would show, if he would have that strange impassive look that Axel got whenever he was raging inwardly, or if his eyes would narrow and a small, humorless smile would play on his lips like Kairi’s. Or maybe, he thought, Sora would have an expression all his own. Honestly, he hoped he’d never have to see it.
“Alright, don’t tell me what happened over the phone. When are you landing?”
“About twenty minutes.” A flash of red caught his eye and he turned to see both Axel and Kairi waving to get his attention, the former pointing at Kairi and the latter giving him a rock ‘n’ roll hand. It seemed that she had finally cracked the password.
“We’ll pick you up,” Sora promised.
Riku smiled and nodded at the two redheads, holding up a finger - and not his middle one. “Alright. I’ve gotta go, I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay - no, wait a minute. Guard your ear.”
Riku wisely pulled the phone an inch or two away from his ear.
“ROXAS! RIKU SAYS THAT AXEL SAYS THAT HE WANTS TO PIN YOU UP AGAINST THE WALL AND DO YOU LIKE THE GIRL YOU ARE! Bye, Riku!”
Riku was smirking as he shoved the phone back into his pocket and turned to Axel and Kairi. “You got in?” he said.
“Not recently,” Axel replied.
“How about never, you perv?” Kairi shifted the laptop for Riku to see. “But yeah, I got in. To the computer, anyway, not what Axel’s talking about.” Her expression changed from smug to a look of vague intrigue. “I haven’t been able to check out the disc yet, but this… This is really weird, Riku. Look.”
She passed the laptop over the aisle and he positioned it on his lap, glancing at the picture she had pulled up on the screen. It took a moment for him to process it fully. “That looks a lot like… oh. Oh.”
He realized then that he was not, in fact, studying a photograph of someone who looked like him, but instead was actually studying a photograph of himself. It had been taken sometime in the winter months, he could see the snow on the cars and the ice on the trees and wires behind him, January, he’d guess, in the middle of the big winter storms.
“Whoever took it would have had to have been either really close to you, or had to have had a really good camera,” Kairi said. “The shot’s nearly perfect, artistic almost. Minimize that, though, that’s not even the weirdest part. Check out the first document I have open.” He did as she instructed, and a moment later he was reading his own full name, his own address, his license plate number of his recently destroyed model and make, his birthday, his physical description, and the transcript of a phone call he had received months earlier, one of the last he had ever exchanged with the Organization.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, though he knew Kairi didn’t have an answer.
Yet.
“There’s one for me and Axel, too. And, Riku, Leon knew that I was a hack- researcher and liberator, it’s right there in my file! I don’t know what that means yet, but damned if I won’t find out… And a lot on the Organization, a fucking goldmine, Riku… Things that if we had known, we’d have never had to gone undercover in the first place!” she replied, voice rising in excitement about her findings. Axel quickly hushed her, glancing around nervously.
Riku handed it back as she took out her flash drive and pulled the disc out of the bag, cheeks coloring sheepishly as she realized her own mistake - the Organization could have spies anywhere, even miles above ground. A thoughtful look crossed her face a moment after the disc loaded, and she passed it back across the aisle.
“…It’s some kind of ledger,” Riku said, studying the numbers and names and finding none that jumped out at him, nothing that clicked at all. There was no hint as to what it was a record of, just endless rows of transactions. “Big money, too.” He passed it back and Axel took it this time, studying the screen.
“…It’s too low for blood money,” the redhead clarified. “Maybe gambling, but that would put a serious impact on the economy. Drug money?”
“A little pricey, don’t you think?” Kairi asked. “I mean, I know inflation sucks and the economy’s in the pooper, but that’s still too much, even for the exotic crap.” She glanced around. “…We’ll figure it out later. I’ll copy everything over and search the names on Google when I get a chance later.” She settled down to work, Axel watching quietly over her shoulder.
Riku turned his gaze to the window, where the sun was breaking through the clouds, painting the sky a medley of oranges and soft pinks. He closed his eyes for a moment, going over the recently obtained information in his head, trying to find a logical solution, one that didn’t involve conspiracy theories or “Big Brother.” As it was, he could only come to one conclusion, and even the details on that were vague.
“They’ve been watching us,” Axel said suddenly, as though he had been following Riku’s inner thoughts like a radio show. Riku nodded in reply, mulling over all the questions he had rolling around his mind - who, exactly, were they? How long had they been watching him? Was he going to wake up one morning to find himself being shipped far, far away, or just not wake up one morning at all?
Was Sora a part of it?
“…We’ll need to play along,” he finally decided heavily. “We can’t let them know that we know, especially since we don’t know what will happen if they know that we…” He trailed off as he found Axel staring at him like he’d just started speaking Latin. Badly.
“…So pretend that we don’t know,” Axel said, mostly to clarify it for himself; Kairi was having no trouble understanding exhausted-Riku-speak, “when we actually do know, so that they don’t know that we know?”
Riku nodded. “Yeah. They can’t know that we know, because if they knew that we knew, God only knows what would happen.”
The redhead flopped back in his seat, closing his eyes. “God, I hate undercover work.”
Kairi shut the laptop a few minutes later, just as the flight attendants announced that they were preparing for landing, closing her eyes and rolling her neck and shoulders. Riku caught the wince and the way her hand felt her shoulder gingerly, looking away before she could catch him and insist that it was “just bruising.”
Ten minutes later, they touched down in Chicago.
“Do you see them?”
Riku shook his head, searching through the crowds for a familiar, blue-eyed face. He could see only a mass of people, all heading toward the same damn exit, it seemed, as though there weren’t six in the place, all of them conveniently located nearby. Kairi’s hand was wrapped around his arm, the one that wasn’t supporting the duffel and Leon’s black bag, and he was careful not to accidentally shake her off lest he lose her in the crowd. Axel was walking just a few paces behind, searching the heads for blond or brown spikes, his height giving him more of an advantage than Riku.
“Up there,” Axel pointed out a few moments later, and Riku’s eyes immediately picked chocolate spikes out of the crowd and Roxas leaning on a railing nearby. Sora was waving at him, smiling, but the smile was tight, lacking its usual cheer. Roxas seemed happier just to ignore them.
The smile faded even more as they drew closer. Sora elbowed Roxas sharply, causing the blond to jolt, sunglasses falling from his eyes, and Riku came to the realization that the blond had apparently been asleep. As he bent over to pick them up, he too caught sight of the trio, and an odd look crossed his face, a mix of anger and concern.
“What the hell did you do?” the blond demanded of Axel when they were within speaking range.
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” Axel tried to sound indignant and failed miserably, his jester’s grin breaking through. “It’s just a few scrapes and bruises, don’t worry.”
Roxas’ eyes narrowed slightly at him. “…Hmph. I’ll decide whether or not to worry later…” he muttered. A stricken look crossed his face. “…I’m not worried about you!” Axel kept grinning. “I’m not!” He scowled, though Riku had a feeling that it was more at himself than anyone there… Well, maybe Axel, he reconsidered. The blond grabbed Axel’s arm and dragged him away, to the restroom, apparently to make his judgment on Axel’s health. It was either that, or those stalls were about to see Axel’s virginity being stolen away, and Riku didn’t really want to think about that. At all.
“Are you okay?” Sora said to Riku quietly, and the detective pulled his eyes away from Roxas and Axel’s retreating backs to find concerned blue looking up at him. “You’ve got, like… That’s a lot of blood.”
“I’m fine,” he said, smiling, but he was sure that it was just as tight as Sora’s had been, because he was tired, sore, and probably being spied on by some foreign government or something.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kairi spoke up from beside him. “They fucking shot him.”
Sora’s eyes widened and he stared at Riku in shock, eyes trailing down the detective’s body, searching for a gaping bullet hole that he had somehow missed before. “They… what?”
Riku cast a half-hearted glare at Kairi. “It just grazed me,” he replied. “I’m fine.”
“He also fell from a fire escape at three stories,” Kairi went on matter-of-factly. Sora’s hand shot up to Riku’s neck as though he were certain it should have been twisted at an odd, sickening angle, but hovered there for a moment until Riku caught it gently.
“I’m fine,” he repeated, and loosened his grip to let Sora’s hand fall. Sora, however, didn’t let go.
“What…” The brunet took a deep breath and turned to Kairi. “What about you?” he asked.
She smiled. “I’m exhausted,” she said, patting Sora on the shoulder and snagging his sunglasses off of his head. “And I’m hungry, and I need a shower before the mud in my hair decides to stick around permanently. And I’d like a donut. But other than that, I’m fine.”
“And some medical attention!” Roxas pushed his way through a mess of people nearby, ignoring their indignant gazes, Axel in tow.
“I’m not going to the hospital, Roxy,” Axel said with a fond sort of exasperation. Riku had a feeling he had missed the argument. Thankfully.
Roxas turned to glare at Axel. “Call me Roxy again and you’ll need to. My name is Roxas, damn it, not sweetheart, not honey, not angelcake, not snuggle-bear, and not fucking Roxy.” He huffed, crossing his arms across his chest, and managed to look very much like a pouting teenager. “You make me sound like a goddamned girl. I am not a girl.”
Axel smirked, and Riku quickly spoke up before the redhead could make a comment that would probably get him killed. “Why would he need to go to the hospital?” he asked.
“Pull up your sleeves,” Roxas told Axel.
The redhead rolled his eyes, hugging his jacket a little bit tighter around himself. “Come on, Roxas, it’s not that bad.”
“Pull up your sleeves, Axel.”
Finally, Axel obliged, pulling up his sleeves and revealing a long series of scratches, and Riku instantly thought of the jagged glass of the broken window and his own hands, barely-healed cuts crisscrossing over pale skin. His weren’t nearly as bad as Axel’s, however, and he noted with a flip of his stomach that some of them were still bleeding, just a little bit, reopened by the rush of fabric against his skin. Some of them would scar. Why hadn’t he noticed them earlier?
Then again, Axel had always been the best at hiding his scars from them.
“Axel,” Kairi said slowly. “Those might actually need stitches. And they might still have glass in them.”
“They don’t.” Axel pulled his sleeves down again, looking slightly annoyed. “And all they need’s a band-aid.”
“A band-aid,” Sora repeated incredulously. “Seriously, like, a band-aid?”
“Riku, make your boyfriend drop the subject.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Riku and Sora said in unison, then looked at each other - or, rather, Riku looked at Sora’s ear and Sora looked at Riku’s mouth. A beat passed.
“Um.” Sora pulled his eyes away, suddenly finding the floor very interesting.
Riku cleared his throat, deciding that the ceiling was perhaps the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.
Kairi looked between them, then over at Roxas’ scowl and Axel’s arms, and finally pulled Sora’s sunglasses over her eyes and started walking away. “I swear to God, it’s like being back in fucking high school.”
Riku started to follow her, as Axel and Roxas were doing, but Sora held him back.
“You didn’t mention on the phone…” Sora said quietly, and Riku could see worry in his face. “Is Leon…?” He let the question trail off, but Riku knew what he was asking.
“I don’t know,” the detective replied honestly. Sora nodded slowly, and Riku watched as he forced himself to remain optimistic, even if the brunet never said a word aloud. Finally, they moved to follow the others out to what was probably a stolen car.
And Sora was still holding his hand.
That night, after Kairi had informed him that the huge, purpling bruise on her shoulder didn’t hurt as bad as it seemed, after Axel’s arms had been wrapped in gauze by a swearing, Neosporin-wielding Roxas, and after they had checked into some crappy hotel for the night, Riku found himself alone. He had napped the day away once the night before had caught up to him, awakening sometime soon after dinner, as had Axel and Kairi. Axel, however, was winning a hand of poker while Roxas watched in the shady bar downstairs, breathing in nicotine-laced secondhand smoke and craving a cigarette of his own. He had only ever lost to one person, and that opponent was dead, and the blood on the pavement had signaled the end of the redhead’s losing streak, even if Axel himself hadn’t been there to witness it.
He thanked whatever god would listen for that.
Kairi was holed up in her room, under the pretense of sleeping. Riku supposed it made her feel better to lie about what she was doing, even if she knew that Axel and Riku could see right through her crystal façade of bravery. His cell phone was missing from his pocket, and every now and again, he could hear the sound quiet laughter and hushed tears through the paper-thin, peeling walls.
The lighting was dim, casting strange shadows about, and Riku’s ankle still hurt, but he was too busy thinking about how Axel was going to save up his money again for another Firebird, a sleek silver one this time, too busy picturing how sad and yet so happy Kairi’s smile would be as she ran his cell battery down to really notice the pain. He barely noticed the quiet, hesitant knock on the door, forcing himself back to his own room as he got up to throw back the chain and deadbolt.
Sora looked nervous.
“Hey,” the brunet said, standing in the doorway even though Riku stepped back to let him through. “I was just… Well, you seemed…” He shifted his weight, scratching the back of his anxiously, avoiding Riku’s eyes.
It was leftover adrenaline, Riku would later claim, that made him forget about the picture and the files and all of his suspicions. It was leftover adrenaline that made him notice the way Sora still managed to look breathtaking in the cheap lighting of the hotel, the way the neon lights of the shady club next door seemed to dance across his features like a divine glow. It was the adrenaline, he’d swear, that made him take Sora by the hand and pull him inside, made him slide his fingers through soft brown hair, made him ignore the voice that wondered if the next morning would be the morning he just didn’t wake up because of Sora, made him press Sora back against the door, made him want to find out what Sora would taste like, made him really want to do strange things to Sora’s ear.
The adrenaline would wear off in the morning. In the morning, Riku would remember the picture, the files, the case, the scratch on his cheek, and he would be thankful that he woke up at all. But he would also remember the way Sora’s blue eyes were like an endless ocean, the way they darkened to a midnight velvet, the way they fluttered closed in pleasure. In the morning, the place beside him would still be warm, but he would be alone again. Sora would avoid his eyes when he came downstairs for a mostly-cold continental breakfast, would flush bright red every time he spoke, would push Sora away because Sora would regret a cheap hotel bed and crappy lighting and complications on something Riku didn’t even understand. Riku would regret Sora’s regrets.
And so he pulled away from the door, even though the leftover adrenaline was still pulsing through his veins, pulled away from Sora, who moved to catch his lips again, and Riku let him. One more time. The second time he pulled away, Sora stayed against the door, eyes not quite midnight, but a soft twilight sky, halfway between day and night and endlessly understanding.
“When it’s over,” Riku said breathlessly.
Sora nodded, a little rushed. “Later,” he agreed.
Riku stepped back a pace, just enough for Sora to be able to open the door and slip out, pausing to glance back at him once as though the regret in the morning would be worth it after all before moving away down the hall. Riku watched him quietly until the brunet vanished into his own room, then closed the door and leaned against it, just breathing.
Eventually, he clicked off the dim lighting in the room and closed the curtains, lying down on the lumpy bed in the dark and listened to Kairi crying and laughing in the room next door and thought about Axel smirking at his opponent on the outside and thinking of Luxord flat-out on the pavement on the inside and losing his next hand out of respect for the asshole, however little he had deserved it.
He had been an asshole.
Riku knew that didn’t even begin to justify the past.