A/N: So, uh, I'm trying to get back into this fandom again... and hopefully finish a multichaptered story for once. I have many plans for this story, and I hope I'll manage to get those into words instead of mere images in my head.

I may have been reading Sherlock Holmes when I got inspired for this. Hehe.

chapter 1

urbicide

"Thank you for helping me out."

The words left his lip reluctantly, through gritted teeth, as his fingers restlessly played with the cigarette he had been smoking the past four or so minutes in the parking lot of McDonald's.

And he had thought his life couldn't sink lower; yet, here he was smoking a cigarette of a painfully cheap brand (and the taste being as awful as expected) in a parking lot that had clearly seen better days at one in the morning. Not to mention that he was… doing something so incredibly humiliating that the taste of the cigarette turned even sourer.

Two days he had kept going on with nearly no sleep at all, and the painful throbbing in his temples didn't exactly put him at ease.

The incredibly loud slurping coming from his right didn't exactly help matters.

"Haha, no problem, dude!"

Alfred F. Jones was a constant thorn in his side, and Arthur desperately wanted to remove said thorn. At least, he wanted the fool to lose his voice for a while. God, that would be a blessing.

"Always knew ya would need it," Alfred continued without missing a beat, unbearably and unbelievably cheery considering the time. Arthur frowned, and beneath his brows a deep furrow formed.

"This is- was just a one-time thing!" Arthur retorted, exhaling before bringing the cigarette back to his thin lips. "Don't think I'll come running to you next time."

There was something incredibly revolting in giving up his pride, but for the sake of this peculiar case, he had been forced to. Arthur didn't like it, but for his client's sake, he had done it. It was ridiculous, really: his client clearly asking for something that he had no access to in his position.

Arthur sighed again. At least he could trust Alfred to keep his mouth shut… or so he hoped. His cousin had always been a bit of a… talker.

At least he had been able to find out what his client had been so desperate to know, though Arthur realized the news could possibly tear her apart - at least a little bit.

That thought was not a comfortable one.

Well, luckily he had Earl Grey available in his office…

Alfred's obnoxiously muscular arm (come on, how could Alfred be more muscular than he, who actually went to gym whereas Alfred didn't even have a gym membership)slung over his shoulders, startling him from his musings and worries.

"Sure, sure, whatever you say, Art."

The old nickname made Arthur's face scrunch up into a scowl; this youngster had always been too familiar with him, even despite him being older and Alfred's babysitter since who knows how many times. (Despite the age difference of, what, five years?)

"Alfred," he hissed, "I thought I told you to stop using that name." Not only because it was stupid, but also because Alfred used it to mock him. A lot.

It was way too late to deal with Alfred and his bloody nicknames, and so Arthur gave in after a moment of glowering and pushing the arm off his shoulder as he took one last drag from his cigarette. It had been a long, mentally taxing day. Alfred didn't protest; his affection was mostly used to annoy Arthur, and that had been accomplished.

"How's everyone doing at the station, anyway?" Arthur inquired quietly, glancing when a lone car left the mostly empty parking lot. A red Toyota, he noted. Glaringly red, for it to be noticed in this darkness. Arthur sighed as he stomped the cigarette with the sole of his foot - he took notice of the smallest and most mundane things. Courtesy of his past and present careers, he supposed mildly.

Alfred shrugged as he adjusted his glaringly American jacket (seriously, "FREEDOM" printed on the back, and the damn eagle on the front) before replying casually, "The usual. You know, Kiku being busy with paperwork. Francis flirting with the girls from the traffic department—"

Arthur snorted half-heartedly at the mention of Francis and flirting in the same sentence. "Nothing new under the sky, I see." The mention of Kiku, however… "The promotion did go to the right guy, after all," he muttered to himself, genuinely pleased on the account of Honda Kiku, with whom he had had the pleasure of working a few times.

Arthur refused to glance at Alfred's jacket and immersed into the small chitchat about the police force (his old friends and enemies, really) until they went their separate ways; Alfred to catch the metro, Arthur to the bus.

He reached home around quarter to two, and he didn't bother turning the lights on as he ventured through the small rooms to his bedroom and collapsed onto it. Two times he had tripped over a magazine or a book, and a string of curses had left his lips; eventually he reached his destination, however.

That night he had no dreams.

A quarter past two in the afternoon, and Arthur had a headache similar to the one that had struck him the night before.

His client - an unfortunate lady that trusted no police officer in the city - had left moments earlier, sniffling into her handkerchief, and while Arthur genuinely felt bad for telling her that her brother had indeed committed suicide he was also relieved because she had nearly pierced his eardrums with her wailing.

He nursed a cup of tea in his hands as silence came in like a welcomed guest.

Arthur leaned back on his seat, absently staring at the files scattered over the mahogany desk before him: new and old cases, info files, and the "dubious people" files that Arthur updated whenever possible. Arthur's dim green eyes paused at one of the files, staring and glowering at the picture of a person he knew professionally all too well.

"Ivan Braginsky" was written next to the photo in tidy handwriting.

"What are you planning, I wonder," Arthur mused aloud in the silence of his room as he absentmindedly sipped his Earl Grey. Staring at Braginsky's photograph for too long, though, wouldn't do him any good, and so he closed that particular file when the unnerving stare from the photograph became unbearable.

It's not like he could do anything about Ivan Braginsky, anyway, since he was a private detective.

Arthur's lips twitched and curled at the thought, not for the first time in the past two years, and he set the now empty porcelain cup down, careful to not misplace or drop it.

Something akin to hatred pulsed through his veins even minutes after closing that file, and it took him a couple deep breaths to get the memory of Ivan's laughing, mocking face off his mind.

With his early afternoon tea gone, Arthur went back to checking his schedule, only to find that this day he had no engagements whatsoever - saddening for his money situation, even though his last client (that poor woman) had paid him relatively well.

The pile of bills that waited him in the kitchen entered his mind, making Arthur's face twist into a wince. Fucking hell.

The ringing of his cell phone brought Arthur back to the moment, away from his reveries, and he picked the apparatus up apprehensively, as though expecting the worst… or Alfred.

In the end, it turned out to be something much worse than Arthur's worst nightmare or Alfred.

It was that blasted Francis Bonnefoy.

Arthur scowled. After retiring from the police force, he had thought Francis would have stopped bothering him. Guess he was wrong about that…

Eventually, he answered the call, his expression twitching between annoyed and guarded. What did Francis call him for?

Unless it was… unless it was…

Arthur threw the naive hope away from his mind. "What is it, Francis?" he questioned, voice civil as expected from a gentleman such as him.

Or, well, as civil as he could be when it came to the irresponsible, flirtatious fool.

Arthur made a face when Francis's signature laughter reverberated against his ear. Ugh.

"What took you so long, mon petit lapin?" Francis's voice was bloody velvet against his ear, abrasive in its smoothness, and quickly rousing the urge to harrumph and hang up from the depths of Arthur's soul - nothing new, really. "Could it have been that you were finally-"

"Stop right there, Francis," Arthur interrupted, dark color rising to his face as he realized the implication in Francis's smug tone. "I haven't heard from you in an eternity, and that's what you want to know? Stop right there, you damn pervert." The last sentence came out in a low hiss, and Arthur vehemently glared at the empty space before his desk as though he could see the damn Frenchman stand right there.

And his imagination did provide him a sharp image of Francis, indeed.

Eyes clearer than the sky in its bluest shade; hair curly and golden like sunlight; muscular body covered in fashionable clothes; head tilted to the right in a manner that said "oh, Arthur" in the most obnoxiously smug tones; thick lips that spouted nonsense day after day.

That was Francis Bonnefoy.

The tinkling laughter against his ear made Arthur recoil, as he had been in his memories for a moment too long. "I believe you have grown more uptight since the last time we met, Arthur. Why's that?" Francis sounded like a… Arthur didn't even have a word for it, not anymore.

With a sigh, he put some distance between his ear and the phone. "I'm hanging up, Francis," he said flatly, annoyance clinging to each and every breath. If this was why Francis had called, then—

"Now, now, don't get too impatient." Francis paused for a moment, and Arthur, for that brief instant, sensed hesitance. "Actually, rosbif, I would appreciate your help…"