FIC: GH - Forgotten Friends - Lucky/Dante - PG - 1/?
So I started going to the gym, one of the things they have there is a row of TV’s that you can plug in headsets and watch whatever channel suits your fancy. Yeah. I got hooked on GH again. Mostly because Jonathan Jackson is back as Lucky and Tyler Christopher is back as Nikolas (if Amber Tamblyn were to return I’d have three of the reasons that I watched the show in the first place back again.) And there’s Dante, who’s very pretty. So new GH fic and maybe this will be what I need to kick me in the teeth and get my other GH WiP done.
Lucky's almost gotten over the betrayal of Elizabeth and Nikolas, he's got a new life, a new best friend and a new job that is going to bring him face to face with his past.
TITLE: Forgotten Friends
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Lucky/Dante, Lulu/OMC (past Lucky/Liz, Liz/Nikolas, Nikolas/Emily)
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Lucky's almost gotten over the betrayal of Elizabeth and Nikolas, he's got a new life, a new best friend and a new job that is going to bring him face to face with his past.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own them..
FEEDBACK: Please?
Forgotten Friends
His phone rings while he’s on a mission. He doesn’t, of course, answer it. It’s turned off, to save battery power and stowed in a waterproof compartment on his wetsuit. He doesn’t even know that it’s rung, that his past has come calling until three hours after their extraction when he and Dante are safely tucked into a hotel room almost a thousand miles away.
Dante’s gone for food and to get out of the hotel room, Lucky is uploading the information that they’d gotten to the WSB servers. Tacticians will examine in detail the information and then give them best case scenarios and percentage of success for phase two of their mission in a day or so.
When he’s done he peels out of the wet suit, showering away salt water and sweat, all the while he can feel exhaustion creeping up on him.
Dante might come back from foraging for food to find him zonked out on the bed, it’s happened before.
He pulls on sweats and a t-shirt, leaves his feet bare and pulls apart the component pieces of his suit, hanging the suit itself to dry, emptying out the compartments onto the bed. It’s busy work to keep his hands moving, to keep himself awake.
He turns the phone on and is almost surprised to hear it start vibrating almost as soon as it establishes a connection.
He sits on the bed and thumbs through the controls, enters the password to get in and he sees that he has two missed calls, and one voice mail (he also has 27 e-mails but he’ll check them on his laptop later). The two missed calls are both from the same number and it’s Lulu, he knows that.
Only seven people are supposed to have the number to the cell phone in his hand, Lulu is the only one from his other life. The only member of his family that he gave a way to contact him because as angry as he’d been when he’d left, he would never be angry enough to cut Lulu from his life.
He phones into his voice mail, another password and he waits for Lulu’s message to play.
“Lucky, it’s Lulu, dad said that it was probably pointless and Nikolas and Ethan agreed with him which means that hell has started freezing over but,” a deep breath, “I’m getting married, I’m getting married and I’d really like you to come home for it. Call me if you can.”
Lucky presses the key to delete the message, presses the phone to his forehead and tries not to think about his family.
******************************************************************************
“I’ve got food,” Dante sounds triumphant upon opening the door, Lucky is lying prone on the bed, trying to suffocate himself with a pillow. It’s not working. “Did the data not transmit? I’m pretty sure that we can get back in but I’m also pretty sure that we’ll have to kill someone this time if we do.”
“My sister called,” Lucky says. His voice is muffled, that’s probably from the pillow over his head.
“I thought you didn’t talk to your family,” Lucky can hear him shutting the door, setting the bag down, rummaging through it.
“I talk to Lulu, she’s the only one,” Lucky says. She’s the only one he needs to talk to; she keeps him pretty up to date on what’s going on, not that he wants to know, not that he asks her for specifics. She’s still got an eerie way of knowing when he wants to know what’s going on in Port Charles.
It’s equally eerie that she can tell when he doesn’t want to know, then she talks about Cole and Sonny and dad and Ethan and the insanity that is Tracy.
“So what did little sis want?”
“She’s getting married; she wants me to come home for the wedding.”
Dante is silent and then Lucky feels the bed dip as Dante sits on the end next to his feet.
“We’ve got that thing in Massachusetts’s end of next week; I guess I could go with, see my mom instead of sending e-mails, you know, kill two birds with one stone.”
Olivia Falconeri lives in Port Charles as well, she’d moved back there after Dante was grown and had joined the WSB, they had both found it vastly amusing that their families are intersecting with no help from them.
“Thanks for not making me ask,” Lucky says.
“You’re my partner, Lucky. Besides, the way you talk about this town, I let you go home and I might not get you back in the same condition I sent you. I certainly don’t want to have to break in anyone new.”
******************************************************************************
They fly out on the next morning, they don’t fly first class, people watch those people boarding in first class and nine times out of ten they need to not be seen.
They fly coach and they don’t sit together.
Lucky puts on his headphones as soon as they get the all clear, leans his head against the window and closes his eyes.
******************************************************************************
They get through customs and hit separate bathrooms, in a stall Lucky destroys the ID that marks him as Antonio Verrera and digs through his carry-on for his actual drivers license and passport, shoving them in his coat pocket.
He resettles his backpack over his shoulder and he washes his hands while he studies his reflection in the mirror.
His hair is a little darker, there’s a few more lines in his face. He’s still eminently recognizable as Lucky Spencer, he thinks.
******************************************************************************
They rent a car, taking turns driving. Dante has the last turn and he pokes at Lucky’s arm until he wakes from his light catnap.
“’m awake,” he mutters.
“I’d believe that more if your eyes were open,” Dante says; Lucky forces his eyes open wide and glares at him. “Better. Now tell me where I’m going?”
Lucky looks at the cars clock, he hasn’t reset the watch strapped to his wrist because he needs to know what time it is in Europe so he can send the next data transmission on time.
“My dads probably,” Lucky rolls his shoulders. Glances out the window.
Port Charles looks the same, same houses, same streets, same memories. There’s a reason that he doesn’t come back here, hasn’t come back here since he found out for sure that the baby Liz was carrying was Nikolas’.
“Take a left, then the next right,” Lucky says.
The bar looks the same with the exception of the packed parking lot, when Dante parks and turns the car off they sit there.
“Lot of people here,” Dante says. Lucky stares at the door and doesn’t say anything.
“How do you want to play this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Partners, friends,” Dante smirks at him “Lovers?”
“My dad doesn’t know about the WSB and I’m pretty sure Lulu has her heart set on him walking her down the aisle.”
“So friends then,” Dante shoves the keys into the pocket of his coat and goes to open the door. “You’re going to have to tell him eventually.”
“I think I’ll slip a letter in his coffin when he dies, it’ll be easier on all of us.”
******************************************************************************
He brings the laptop in with them, he could check his e-mail on his phone but he can’t respond to anything on it because the security measures on the phone aren’t as good as the ones on the laptop.
They’re still waiting for the tacticians’ scenario to be sent forward. They’ll have to modify it slightly (they almost always do), sometimes Lucky thinks the tacticians’ modify their plans knowing that they’ll end up being modified further once Lucky and Dante get their hands on them.
The second data transmission will have to be sent in four hours. Half a mission down, half a mission to go.
They make it seven steps before they’re stopped. It sort of figures.
“No one thought you’d actually come.”
Lucky turns his head slowly to the right; Dante next to him is mimicking his movements. The voice is utterly familiar and completely not anyone that Lucky wants to see, or talk to, or even acknowledge that he exists.
When he stops blaming himself for why things with Elizabeth didn’t work, there’s really only two other people that get the focus of his blame.
Nikolas.
And Jason Morgan.
******************************************************************************
Dante is watching with interest, Lucky has told him all about this town. It amuses him that Dante had tried to talk his mom into moving somewhere else when Lucky had gotten through his life story, of course only half of that was due to things that Lucky had told him. The other half came from the fact that Olivia had told him that she’d had a relationship once upon a time with Sonny Corinthos.
Lucky had told him all about when things went wrong and the stupidity of trying to make things work with someone who very obviously saw him as nothing more then a safety net for when everything else in her life crapped out.
Her things with Jason and Nikolas had made that abundantly clear, for a while there he was completely blind to it though.
There’s three people that he really doesn’t want to have to deal with while he’s here to get his sister married off. Jason is one of them.
He can deal with pretty much anyone else, he didn’t have a trunk full of emotional baggage with, say, Sonny or Cole or even Helena (although he does actually have some baggage with Helena, maybe she’s not the greatest of choices).
“It’s Lulu’s big day, why wouldn’t I,” Lucky says, he shifts slightly, he can feel the weight of the gun strapped to his ankle, there’s a knife in holster in the small of his back.
He could even use laptop bag as a weapon if it came to it, if he didn’t think that he’d manage to break the laptop on Jason’s hard as hell head. They need the laptop; it probably won’t come to that.
They’re comforting weights, just as comforting as Dante’s steady presence beside him.
They might have to use the lover route after all; they’ve done it before on missions, played the lovey-dovey honeymooning couple, the doting anniversary vacationers. When they want to be seen, when they want to be noticed so that someone else won’t be, that’s normally the route they take.
He’s going to give his dad a heart attack one way or another before he leaves this town; he’s pretty much resigned himself to that fact.
“You haven’t come back before,” Jason says, his eyes are shifting between Lucky and Dante. Lingering on Dante longer and longer. He’ll ask questions eventually, Jason pretty much doesn’t have a tactful bone in his body.
“Not much reason to,” Lucky says. “Was there.”
Jason quirks a half-smile at him and takes to blatantly staring at Dante with narrowed eyes.
“This is Dante,” Lucky says, he can see Dante tilt his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Who’s inside?”
“Oh, everyone. Cole’s doing a really great job at pretending that he doesn’t actually work for Sonny and Liz and Nikolas have taken over separate sides so as to not have to interact at all.”
Lucky hmms noncommittally. He knows that Liz and Nikolas didn’t survive past Liz having Nikolas’ baby. Though he knows that Nikolas still pushes sometimes and Liz still reciprocates, Lulu has told him that much.
Lucky figures there’ll be another kid, eventually.
******************************************************************************
When he thinks about it, which is not often because the fact that he can count his friends, people that he can talk to and trusts to not betray him, on one hand is kind of depressing.
There’s maybe five.
There’s Dante, of course, because he has to trust someone that is nine times out of ten at his back with his gun drawn, to not shoot him in the back just because he’s a viable target.
Elizabeth and Nikolas had been on that list once. It was probably why when he found out about them it had felt like someone had shoved a dagger in his back and twisted it hard to get the maximum amount of pain and suffering out of him.
He’d trusted them, and yeah there’d been a time, years prior when he’d thought there was maybe a hint of something between them.
But then Nikolas had Gia and Elizabeth had flirted with the idea of Jason but not done anything about it. He’d let it go, because Emily said that there’d never been anything between them and he trusted Emily.
Because she was Emily, she was as close to him as a sister and what reason would she have to lie to him.
But then Nikolas and Elizabeth had slept together, conceived a child together and all Lucky could think was ‘who the fuck do I talk to about this now?’
There was no Dante then. Not yet.
And Nikolas and Elizabeth were out; he could barely look at them without wanting to cause physical harm, besides they were the reason he needed to talk to anyone.
Emily was dead and Lulu was dealing with her own thing.
Lucky sure as hell wasn’t going to bend his little sisters’ ear with his problems when hers were maybe a bit bigger in size and certainly much more dangerous.
She would choose to fall in love with one of Sonny Corinthos’ goons, he’d not thought Cole anywhere near her type, but apparently love was blind. His mom would talk about fate and destiny and a bunch of other crap; Lucky liked Cole, sometimes, he couldn’t say that he necessarily wanted his little sister involved in the mob by involving herself with him.
******************************************************************************
Lucky pushes open the door and he probably should have taken Jason’s words about no one expecting him to actually show, to heed, because the whole place goes quiet.
Then there’s a burst of noise and Lulu is racing across the room, flinging herself at Lucky because she knows that he’ll always catch her.
Dante puts a hand against his back to brace him, he’s surprised they don’t topple over anyway, because they’re both only operating on about four hours of sleep (car sleep doesn’t really count); he’s really looking forward to checking into the hotel.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Lulu is saying. She’s got her arms wrapped around him like she’s going to attempt to suffocate him.
“Cowboy,” his dad is there next, and Luke Spencer is looking old, he’s still got a spry step though and a smirk like he knows something that no one else does on his face. Lulu stops hugging him, settling into his side, Lucky keeps an arm over her shoulder and Lulu grins up at him.
Luke pulls him into a loose hug, Lulu getting dragged along with him, a pat on his back and then Luke is eyeing Dante with narrowed eyes.
“This is Dante,” Lucky says. “He’s a friend.”
“Friend, huh,” Luke says, Dante holds out a hand.
“It’s an honor to meet you sir, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Dante says.
“Really?” Luke says, Lucky blinks at Dante and hopes that he remembers enough of what Lucky has told him to not bring up Robert or Frisco.
Dante grins and blinks back. Luke looks between them with suspicious eyes.
“Let’s get you boys a drink,” Luke says.
“Just soda,” Lucky says, Dante nods in agreement. “Was a really long flight.”
******************************************************************************
Luke settles them at the bar and nudges Ethan out of the way with his hip to get glasses and sodas. Lucky sets the laptop bag on the floor by his feet, looping the strap around his ankle.
“Where’d you boys fly in from?” Luke asks. He sets glasses in front of them, plucks a bowl of pretzels out from under Mac’s fingers.
“Madrid,” Lucky says, it’s half true, they’d had a connection there. It’s easier to lie if part of the lie is actually the truth just stretched enough that looked at another way it could be construed as a lie. Dante takes his drink in hand and turns his back to the bar. He’s eyeing everyone that’s trying to discreetly watch them.
He grabs a handful of pretzels, popping one in his mouth and takes a drink of his soda. He eats them slowly, one at a time and Luke arches a brow at him but doesn’t say anything.
He purposefully doesn’t turn around to see who all is staring at them.
Dante nudges his shoulder just as Lucky’s phone vibrates against his hip. He draws it out and it’s the alarm that he set.
“Can I use your office to check my e-mail and stuff?” Lucky asks.
“You don’t need to ask, son,” Luke says. “You know where it is.”
Lucky grabs the laptop bag and Dante smirks at him, “let me know if anything interesting comes through,” is all he says though.
******************************************************************************
Luke knows exactly who Dante is, if he’d known that was who Lucky had been bringing with him he would have maybe said something to Olivia, forced her to stay.
As it was she’d been tired of dealing with Sonny and his ‘you should have told me’ and ‘you lied to me’s’. He can’t say as he blames her for leaving, but now Sonny is there and Sonny knows exactly who Dante is as well, as does Jason and Michael and pretty much anyone that can be considered part of Sonny’s inner circle. She’ll be lucky if someone in this room doesn’t spill the beans before she gets a chance to tell Dante herself.
“You don’t want to check your e-mail?” Luke asks. Lucky only brought the one laptop in, that doesn’t mean that this Dante hasn’t left his out in the car.
“Lucky’ll let me know if there’s something I need to take a look at,” Dante says, he swings around on his stool and faces Luke again. He takes a sip of his drink and Luke studies him.
They both look exhausted, dark rings under their red eyes. There’s a bit of a tremble on his hand that Luke thinks might be coming from exhaustion.
He’s not surprised that Lucky came, it’s Lulu after all, Lucky would move fucking mountains for Lulu if he thought that’s what she wanted, he still had thought they’d go the hotel and pass out for a couple of hours.
Come and see them bright and early in the morning.
He wishes he could be surprised that Lucky’d brought someone with him; he’d been kind of expecting it though, ever since Lulu had said she’d got a voicemail saying he was coming. He’d been holding out for a girl and friend instead of a boy and friend. He’s liberal-minded and all, he’s had to be with Ethan fucking anything (male and female) that will stand still long enough, but he really doesn’t want Dante to be a boyfriend.
Dealing with Sonny if that’s the case will be a fucking nightmare.
Of course it could be that Dante just wanted to see his mom and they’d thought they could swing in without anyone asking questions.
They didn’t think this through at all, Luke blames the exhaustion. Because no one is supposed to know what the boys are doing for work now, Lucky sure as hell hasn’t said anything to him and Olivia had known just the bare basics of what Dante was doing with his life, he doesn’t know what picture they expected to be portraying but… They’re partners, Luke knows that much, just like he knows that no matter what story Lucky decides to spin and Dante decides to embellish on the boys weren’t exactly sightseeing in Madrid.
If that’s even where they were.
He saw what happened with Robert when he let himself be romantically involved with someone he worked with, they’d got Robin out if it, but also a bunch of years of hell as well.
“Got an interesting phone call from Frisco Jones a couple of months back,” Luke says. He scrubs at a water spot on the counter with a rag. When he looks Dante is peering at him with narrowed eyes.
“Did you?” Dante asks in a noncommittal tone.
“He plan on saying anything?” Luke asks. “Ever?”
He knows that he had always voiced concerns with Lucky going into law enforcement; he’s not exactly surprised that he went from being a cop to the WSB even if he still doesn’t understand quite where he went wrong with Lucky.
Having a thirst for adventure is one thing, going into law to get it? Something else entirely.
“I’m pretty sure you’ll have a letter to read when you die,” Dante offers.
******************************************************************************
He has 32 e-mails waiting once he unfucks his wireless connection from whatever mess Dante had made of it.
He scrolls through them one at a time, delete, delete, delete until he hits one of the ones that he’s looking for.
Part of the data stream has been decrypted and he scans through twelve pages of what looks like a medical history.
There’s no name, but there’s a girl and she’s apparently been held for almost eight years while scientists used her body as a template for cloning. He hadn’t thought that the DVX’s scientists were that far along, but he can see the data that shows the breakout of information from two successful clones, he ignores the eight failures because they’re not important, he doesn’t need a mission outline to know that the girl being held is going to be their phase 2 mission.
He taps out a text message to Dante and gives a quick once over to the rest of his e-mails. Junk mail, junk mail, e-mail from Lulu reminding him the she really wanted him to be there for her big day.
“You know they all think that you just texted me for a quicky in your dads office,” Dante says, he glances over his shoulder and then steps into the office, closing the door behind him.
“That’s disturbing on about twelve different levels, number one being there is no lock on that door,” Lucky says. He sets his blocker up in the middle of the desk. Taps two buttons and waits.
His dad is paranoid; he should have searched and found any bugs that might have been set up. But just in case.
“Tacticians e-mailed?” Dante comes around the desk and leans over his shoulder.
“They decrypted part of the data file we sent them,” Lucky gestures at the screen. “They’ve sent us second phase scenarios.”
“Cloning? Hmm, that’s new.”
“It’ll be different anyway,” Lucky says. He clicks his mouse and pulls up the partial schematic that had been sent with the e-mail. They’ll come up with their own scenarios on getting in and out with the girl, the tacticians will give them probability of success and then they’ll tweak their scenarios again just because.
“By the way, Frisco told your dad, so you maybe want to rethink the whole letter in the coffin trick.”
******************************************************************************
Lucky's almost gotten over the betrayal of Elizabeth and Nikolas, he's got a new life, a new best friend and a new job that is going to bring him face to face with his past.
TITLE: Forgotten Friends
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Lucky/Dante, Lulu/OMC (past Lucky/Liz, Liz/Nikolas, Nikolas/Emily)
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Lucky's almost gotten over the betrayal of Elizabeth and Nikolas, he's got a new life, a new best friend and a new job that is going to bring him face to face with his past.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own them..
FEEDBACK: Please?
Forgotten Friends
His phone rings while he’s on a mission. He doesn’t, of course, answer it. It’s turned off, to save battery power and stowed in a waterproof compartment on his wetsuit. He doesn’t even know that it’s rung, that his past has come calling until three hours after their extraction when he and Dante are safely tucked into a hotel room almost a thousand miles away.
Dante’s gone for food and to get out of the hotel room, Lucky is uploading the information that they’d gotten to the WSB servers. Tacticians will examine in detail the information and then give them best case scenarios and percentage of success for phase two of their mission in a day or so.
When he’s done he peels out of the wet suit, showering away salt water and sweat, all the while he can feel exhaustion creeping up on him.
Dante might come back from foraging for food to find him zonked out on the bed, it’s happened before.
He pulls on sweats and a t-shirt, leaves his feet bare and pulls apart the component pieces of his suit, hanging the suit itself to dry, emptying out the compartments onto the bed. It’s busy work to keep his hands moving, to keep himself awake.
He turns the phone on and is almost surprised to hear it start vibrating almost as soon as it establishes a connection.
He sits on the bed and thumbs through the controls, enters the password to get in and he sees that he has two missed calls, and one voice mail (he also has 27 e-mails but he’ll check them on his laptop later). The two missed calls are both from the same number and it’s Lulu, he knows that.
Only seven people are supposed to have the number to the cell phone in his hand, Lulu is the only one from his other life. The only member of his family that he gave a way to contact him because as angry as he’d been when he’d left, he would never be angry enough to cut Lulu from his life.
He phones into his voice mail, another password and he waits for Lulu’s message to play.
“Lucky, it’s Lulu, dad said that it was probably pointless and Nikolas and Ethan agreed with him which means that hell has started freezing over but,” a deep breath, “I’m getting married, I’m getting married and I’d really like you to come home for it. Call me if you can.”
Lucky presses the key to delete the message, presses the phone to his forehead and tries not to think about his family.
******************************************************************************
“I’ve got food,” Dante sounds triumphant upon opening the door, Lucky is lying prone on the bed, trying to suffocate himself with a pillow. It’s not working. “Did the data not transmit? I’m pretty sure that we can get back in but I’m also pretty sure that we’ll have to kill someone this time if we do.”
“My sister called,” Lucky says. His voice is muffled, that’s probably from the pillow over his head.
“I thought you didn’t talk to your family,” Lucky can hear him shutting the door, setting the bag down, rummaging through it.
“I talk to Lulu, she’s the only one,” Lucky says. She’s the only one he needs to talk to; she keeps him pretty up to date on what’s going on, not that he wants to know, not that he asks her for specifics. She’s still got an eerie way of knowing when he wants to know what’s going on in Port Charles.
It’s equally eerie that she can tell when he doesn’t want to know, then she talks about Cole and Sonny and dad and Ethan and the insanity that is Tracy.
“So what did little sis want?”
“She’s getting married; she wants me to come home for the wedding.”
Dante is silent and then Lucky feels the bed dip as Dante sits on the end next to his feet.
“We’ve got that thing in Massachusetts’s end of next week; I guess I could go with, see my mom instead of sending e-mails, you know, kill two birds with one stone.”
Olivia Falconeri lives in Port Charles as well, she’d moved back there after Dante was grown and had joined the WSB, they had both found it vastly amusing that their families are intersecting with no help from them.
“Thanks for not making me ask,” Lucky says.
“You’re my partner, Lucky. Besides, the way you talk about this town, I let you go home and I might not get you back in the same condition I sent you. I certainly don’t want to have to break in anyone new.”
******************************************************************************
They fly out on the next morning, they don’t fly first class, people watch those people boarding in first class and nine times out of ten they need to not be seen.
They fly coach and they don’t sit together.
Lucky puts on his headphones as soon as they get the all clear, leans his head against the window and closes his eyes.
******************************************************************************
They get through customs and hit separate bathrooms, in a stall Lucky destroys the ID that marks him as Antonio Verrera and digs through his carry-on for his actual drivers license and passport, shoving them in his coat pocket.
He resettles his backpack over his shoulder and he washes his hands while he studies his reflection in the mirror.
His hair is a little darker, there’s a few more lines in his face. He’s still eminently recognizable as Lucky Spencer, he thinks.
******************************************************************************
They rent a car, taking turns driving. Dante has the last turn and he pokes at Lucky’s arm until he wakes from his light catnap.
“’m awake,” he mutters.
“I’d believe that more if your eyes were open,” Dante says; Lucky forces his eyes open wide and glares at him. “Better. Now tell me where I’m going?”
Lucky looks at the cars clock, he hasn’t reset the watch strapped to his wrist because he needs to know what time it is in Europe so he can send the next data transmission on time.
“My dads probably,” Lucky rolls his shoulders. Glances out the window.
Port Charles looks the same, same houses, same streets, same memories. There’s a reason that he doesn’t come back here, hasn’t come back here since he found out for sure that the baby Liz was carrying was Nikolas’.
“Take a left, then the next right,” Lucky says.
The bar looks the same with the exception of the packed parking lot, when Dante parks and turns the car off they sit there.
“Lot of people here,” Dante says. Lucky stares at the door and doesn’t say anything.
“How do you want to play this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Partners, friends,” Dante smirks at him “Lovers?”
“My dad doesn’t know about the WSB and I’m pretty sure Lulu has her heart set on him walking her down the aisle.”
“So friends then,” Dante shoves the keys into the pocket of his coat and goes to open the door. “You’re going to have to tell him eventually.”
“I think I’ll slip a letter in his coffin when he dies, it’ll be easier on all of us.”
******************************************************************************
He brings the laptop in with them, he could check his e-mail on his phone but he can’t respond to anything on it because the security measures on the phone aren’t as good as the ones on the laptop.
They’re still waiting for the tacticians’ scenario to be sent forward. They’ll have to modify it slightly (they almost always do), sometimes Lucky thinks the tacticians’ modify their plans knowing that they’ll end up being modified further once Lucky and Dante get their hands on them.
The second data transmission will have to be sent in four hours. Half a mission down, half a mission to go.
They make it seven steps before they’re stopped. It sort of figures.
“No one thought you’d actually come.”
Lucky turns his head slowly to the right; Dante next to him is mimicking his movements. The voice is utterly familiar and completely not anyone that Lucky wants to see, or talk to, or even acknowledge that he exists.
When he stops blaming himself for why things with Elizabeth didn’t work, there’s really only two other people that get the focus of his blame.
Nikolas.
And Jason Morgan.
******************************************************************************
Dante is watching with interest, Lucky has told him all about this town. It amuses him that Dante had tried to talk his mom into moving somewhere else when Lucky had gotten through his life story, of course only half of that was due to things that Lucky had told him. The other half came from the fact that Olivia had told him that she’d had a relationship once upon a time with Sonny Corinthos.
Lucky had told him all about when things went wrong and the stupidity of trying to make things work with someone who very obviously saw him as nothing more then a safety net for when everything else in her life crapped out.
Her things with Jason and Nikolas had made that abundantly clear, for a while there he was completely blind to it though.
There’s three people that he really doesn’t want to have to deal with while he’s here to get his sister married off. Jason is one of them.
He can deal with pretty much anyone else, he didn’t have a trunk full of emotional baggage with, say, Sonny or Cole or even Helena (although he does actually have some baggage with Helena, maybe she’s not the greatest of choices).
“It’s Lulu’s big day, why wouldn’t I,” Lucky says, he shifts slightly, he can feel the weight of the gun strapped to his ankle, there’s a knife in holster in the small of his back.
He could even use laptop bag as a weapon if it came to it, if he didn’t think that he’d manage to break the laptop on Jason’s hard as hell head. They need the laptop; it probably won’t come to that.
They’re comforting weights, just as comforting as Dante’s steady presence beside him.
They might have to use the lover route after all; they’ve done it before on missions, played the lovey-dovey honeymooning couple, the doting anniversary vacationers. When they want to be seen, when they want to be noticed so that someone else won’t be, that’s normally the route they take.
He’s going to give his dad a heart attack one way or another before he leaves this town; he’s pretty much resigned himself to that fact.
“You haven’t come back before,” Jason says, his eyes are shifting between Lucky and Dante. Lingering on Dante longer and longer. He’ll ask questions eventually, Jason pretty much doesn’t have a tactful bone in his body.
“Not much reason to,” Lucky says. “Was there.”
Jason quirks a half-smile at him and takes to blatantly staring at Dante with narrowed eyes.
“This is Dante,” Lucky says, he can see Dante tilt his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Who’s inside?”
“Oh, everyone. Cole’s doing a really great job at pretending that he doesn’t actually work for Sonny and Liz and Nikolas have taken over separate sides so as to not have to interact at all.”
Lucky hmms noncommittally. He knows that Liz and Nikolas didn’t survive past Liz having Nikolas’ baby. Though he knows that Nikolas still pushes sometimes and Liz still reciprocates, Lulu has told him that much.
Lucky figures there’ll be another kid, eventually.
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When he thinks about it, which is not often because the fact that he can count his friends, people that he can talk to and trusts to not betray him, on one hand is kind of depressing.
There’s maybe five.
There’s Dante, of course, because he has to trust someone that is nine times out of ten at his back with his gun drawn, to not shoot him in the back just because he’s a viable target.
Elizabeth and Nikolas had been on that list once. It was probably why when he found out about them it had felt like someone had shoved a dagger in his back and twisted it hard to get the maximum amount of pain and suffering out of him.
He’d trusted them, and yeah there’d been a time, years prior when he’d thought there was maybe a hint of something between them.
But then Nikolas had Gia and Elizabeth had flirted with the idea of Jason but not done anything about it. He’d let it go, because Emily said that there’d never been anything between them and he trusted Emily.
Because she was Emily, she was as close to him as a sister and what reason would she have to lie to him.
But then Nikolas and Elizabeth had slept together, conceived a child together and all Lucky could think was ‘who the fuck do I talk to about this now?’
There was no Dante then. Not yet.
And Nikolas and Elizabeth were out; he could barely look at them without wanting to cause physical harm, besides they were the reason he needed to talk to anyone.
Emily was dead and Lulu was dealing with her own thing.
Lucky sure as hell wasn’t going to bend his little sisters’ ear with his problems when hers were maybe a bit bigger in size and certainly much more dangerous.
She would choose to fall in love with one of Sonny Corinthos’ goons, he’d not thought Cole anywhere near her type, but apparently love was blind. His mom would talk about fate and destiny and a bunch of other crap; Lucky liked Cole, sometimes, he couldn’t say that he necessarily wanted his little sister involved in the mob by involving herself with him.
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Lucky pushes open the door and he probably should have taken Jason’s words about no one expecting him to actually show, to heed, because the whole place goes quiet.
Then there’s a burst of noise and Lulu is racing across the room, flinging herself at Lucky because she knows that he’ll always catch her.
Dante puts a hand against his back to brace him, he’s surprised they don’t topple over anyway, because they’re both only operating on about four hours of sleep (car sleep doesn’t really count); he’s really looking forward to checking into the hotel.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Lulu is saying. She’s got her arms wrapped around him like she’s going to attempt to suffocate him.
“Cowboy,” his dad is there next, and Luke Spencer is looking old, he’s still got a spry step though and a smirk like he knows something that no one else does on his face. Lulu stops hugging him, settling into his side, Lucky keeps an arm over her shoulder and Lulu grins up at him.
Luke pulls him into a loose hug, Lulu getting dragged along with him, a pat on his back and then Luke is eyeing Dante with narrowed eyes.
“This is Dante,” Lucky says. “He’s a friend.”
“Friend, huh,” Luke says, Dante holds out a hand.
“It’s an honor to meet you sir, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Dante says.
“Really?” Luke says, Lucky blinks at Dante and hopes that he remembers enough of what Lucky has told him to not bring up Robert or Frisco.
Dante grins and blinks back. Luke looks between them with suspicious eyes.
“Let’s get you boys a drink,” Luke says.
“Just soda,” Lucky says, Dante nods in agreement. “Was a really long flight.”
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Luke settles them at the bar and nudges Ethan out of the way with his hip to get glasses and sodas. Lucky sets the laptop bag on the floor by his feet, looping the strap around his ankle.
“Where’d you boys fly in from?” Luke asks. He sets glasses in front of them, plucks a bowl of pretzels out from under Mac’s fingers.
“Madrid,” Lucky says, it’s half true, they’d had a connection there. It’s easier to lie if part of the lie is actually the truth just stretched enough that looked at another way it could be construed as a lie. Dante takes his drink in hand and turns his back to the bar. He’s eyeing everyone that’s trying to discreetly watch them.
He grabs a handful of pretzels, popping one in his mouth and takes a drink of his soda. He eats them slowly, one at a time and Luke arches a brow at him but doesn’t say anything.
He purposefully doesn’t turn around to see who all is staring at them.
Dante nudges his shoulder just as Lucky’s phone vibrates against his hip. He draws it out and it’s the alarm that he set.
“Can I use your office to check my e-mail and stuff?” Lucky asks.
“You don’t need to ask, son,” Luke says. “You know where it is.”
Lucky grabs the laptop bag and Dante smirks at him, “let me know if anything interesting comes through,” is all he says though.
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Luke knows exactly who Dante is, if he’d known that was who Lucky had been bringing with him he would have maybe said something to Olivia, forced her to stay.
As it was she’d been tired of dealing with Sonny and his ‘you should have told me’ and ‘you lied to me’s’. He can’t say as he blames her for leaving, but now Sonny is there and Sonny knows exactly who Dante is as well, as does Jason and Michael and pretty much anyone that can be considered part of Sonny’s inner circle. She’ll be lucky if someone in this room doesn’t spill the beans before she gets a chance to tell Dante herself.
“You don’t want to check your e-mail?” Luke asks. Lucky only brought the one laptop in, that doesn’t mean that this Dante hasn’t left his out in the car.
“Lucky’ll let me know if there’s something I need to take a look at,” Dante says, he swings around on his stool and faces Luke again. He takes a sip of his drink and Luke studies him.
They both look exhausted, dark rings under their red eyes. There’s a bit of a tremble on his hand that Luke thinks might be coming from exhaustion.
He’s not surprised that Lucky came, it’s Lulu after all, Lucky would move fucking mountains for Lulu if he thought that’s what she wanted, he still had thought they’d go the hotel and pass out for a couple of hours.
Come and see them bright and early in the morning.
He wishes he could be surprised that Lucky’d brought someone with him; he’d been kind of expecting it though, ever since Lulu had said she’d got a voicemail saying he was coming. He’d been holding out for a girl and friend instead of a boy and friend. He’s liberal-minded and all, he’s had to be with Ethan fucking anything (male and female) that will stand still long enough, but he really doesn’t want Dante to be a boyfriend.
Dealing with Sonny if that’s the case will be a fucking nightmare.
Of course it could be that Dante just wanted to see his mom and they’d thought they could swing in without anyone asking questions.
They didn’t think this through at all, Luke blames the exhaustion. Because no one is supposed to know what the boys are doing for work now, Lucky sure as hell hasn’t said anything to him and Olivia had known just the bare basics of what Dante was doing with his life, he doesn’t know what picture they expected to be portraying but… They’re partners, Luke knows that much, just like he knows that no matter what story Lucky decides to spin and Dante decides to embellish on the boys weren’t exactly sightseeing in Madrid.
If that’s even where they were.
He saw what happened with Robert when he let himself be romantically involved with someone he worked with, they’d got Robin out if it, but also a bunch of years of hell as well.
“Got an interesting phone call from Frisco Jones a couple of months back,” Luke says. He scrubs at a water spot on the counter with a rag. When he looks Dante is peering at him with narrowed eyes.
“Did you?” Dante asks in a noncommittal tone.
“He plan on saying anything?” Luke asks. “Ever?”
He knows that he had always voiced concerns with Lucky going into law enforcement; he’s not exactly surprised that he went from being a cop to the WSB even if he still doesn’t understand quite where he went wrong with Lucky.
Having a thirst for adventure is one thing, going into law to get it? Something else entirely.
“I’m pretty sure you’ll have a letter to read when you die,” Dante offers.
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He has 32 e-mails waiting once he unfucks his wireless connection from whatever mess Dante had made of it.
He scrolls through them one at a time, delete, delete, delete until he hits one of the ones that he’s looking for.
Part of the data stream has been decrypted and he scans through twelve pages of what looks like a medical history.
There’s no name, but there’s a girl and she’s apparently been held for almost eight years while scientists used her body as a template for cloning. He hadn’t thought that the DVX’s scientists were that far along, but he can see the data that shows the breakout of information from two successful clones, he ignores the eight failures because they’re not important, he doesn’t need a mission outline to know that the girl being held is going to be their phase 2 mission.
He taps out a text message to Dante and gives a quick once over to the rest of his e-mails. Junk mail, junk mail, e-mail from Lulu reminding him the she really wanted him to be there for her big day.
“You know they all think that you just texted me for a quicky in your dads office,” Dante says, he glances over his shoulder and then steps into the office, closing the door behind him.
“That’s disturbing on about twelve different levels, number one being there is no lock on that door,” Lucky says. He sets his blocker up in the middle of the desk. Taps two buttons and waits.
His dad is paranoid; he should have searched and found any bugs that might have been set up. But just in case.
“Tacticians e-mailed?” Dante comes around the desk and leans over his shoulder.
“They decrypted part of the data file we sent them,” Lucky gestures at the screen. “They’ve sent us second phase scenarios.”
“Cloning? Hmm, that’s new.”
“It’ll be different anyway,” Lucky says. He clicks his mouse and pulls up the partial schematic that had been sent with the e-mail. They’ll come up with their own scenarios on getting in and out with the girl, the tacticians will give them probability of success and then they’ll tweak their scenarios again just because.
“By the way, Frisco told your dad, so you maybe want to rethink the whole letter in the coffin trick.”
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