You don't have to have read my fic Saber's Night Off Part 1 to enjoy this story, though it is recommended.
Irisviel stood outside the house, watching me as I trudged up the road, pushing my motorcycle. Dawn touched the sky, and my head felt like it was about to drop off.
A few sleepy birds coughed and tittered in the creaky trees. Irisviel, clad in a fluffy white dressing gown, stared with huge eyes at the sight of me. I deposited my motorcycle in its usual spot and staggered over to the door. Dust covered my once-spotless black suit, my hair, slipping out of its ponytail, floated around my head like a nimbus, darkness lurking under my eyes. "Saber?" Irisviel squeaked. "What on earth are you doing pushing your motorcycle?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but the only sound that came from my shriveled throat was a raspy, "Uhh."
She flickered.
Clearing my throat, I tried again. "I lost my key." I didn't feel like explaining.
She blinked. Blinked again. The color trickled out of her face. "Lost? How – how did that happen? You're not careless. You're not the kind to lose things. Not like me, at any rate," she added, mostly to herself.
With a sigh, I said, "Archer stole it." Just the bare minimum. I didn't want to say that he had taken it when he was trying to cuddle with me in a pizza parlor on my night off, which I had spent the rest of walking home with my ten-ton motorcycle. I was going to do my best to forget that night.
"Well," Irisviel said, speaking faster in a bubble of panic, "you're just going to have to get it back. It's the most practical method of transportation for you, and I don't like to think of what might happen if you suddenly have to go somewhere and you only have the car…"
I didn't even have that. Kiritsugu was driving it off somewhere. And Irisviel's was off limits.
"I'm going to call Kiritsugu and ask if you can have today off as well, so you can get your key back. I'll explain it all to him. He'll understand. Now won't you come in and lie down? You look ready to drop."
I was. I stretched out on the sofa while Irisviel called up her husband. I blocked out the sounds of their conversation. I could do with a cup of coffee.
Hanging up the phone, Irisviel looked at me and cringed. I looked half-dead. "Well, Saber, he said that you could go and get your key, but it would be best if you found it as soon as possible. I'm sorry –"
"Don't be, my lady." I heaved myself to my feet. "I will rest when I return." I hoped that Kiritsugu would return soon. I didn't like the thought of leaving Irisviel and her daughter all alone in the house for a whole day without even Maiya to protect them. Maiya was off with Kiritsugu. I willed none of the other Masters or Servants to come and attack in my absence. I gave myself a quick foot rub and changed into tennis shoes, which did not match the rest of my outfit, however dirty and rumpled, in the least, but as I was going to have to walk, I needed better foot support than the pumps I had been wearing.
I set out to the Tohsaka residence. I didn't know if Tokiomi, Archer's Master, was home or not, and I hoped he wasn't. It would be the epitome of awkwardness to have to explain this whole mess to him, though I did wish I could have brought someone – anyone – with me. Being alone with Archer was not high on my list of favorite things to do.
Tokiomi's house looked asleep. Rags of morning mist hung off of it. My stiff hand hovered over the door knocker, then I grasped it and knocked without another thought.
Nothing but mist answered me.
I knocked again.
"Mr. Tohsaka!" I yelled.
I tried the door handle. Locked.
I was about to try knocking one more time when the sky fell around me. What looked like pieces of comets flashed down like raindrops of fire and lit up the whole world like the day. I stayed still, unmovable, and I wouldn't have moved if the earth opened up to swallow me right then and there. But it didn't.
"Lucky move, staying put," said an all-too-familiar voice. "If you had moved you would be stuck full of steel by now."
The fire ceased. Rings of ornate weapons surrounded me, their blades sunk into the lawn. Portals of liquid gold swam all around and under the sky. I looked up, still holding the door knocker, to behold Archer standing on the narrow top edge of a gable above the door. He was bright enough to give the sun a headache.
"I've come for my motorcycle key," I said.
The sun rising behind the house struck his swept-back hair and turned it to fire, outlining his face. The red skirt of his armor whiffled in the little breeze. He folded his arms snugly against his chest and flicked his head to feel his earrings thump against his face. "Oh, that key was to your motorcycle? I was hoping it was the key to your heart."
"Sorry to disappoint you." No sarcasm, Saber. Don't be like him. "It's of no use to you, so kindly give it back."
"I'm not accustomed to granting favors." He examined his fingernails – or at least, where his fingernails would have been if he wasn't wearing gauntlets.
"Then let me in and I'll get it myself."
"Oh, no. I couldn't possible do that. Tokiomi and his family are away, and he's forbidden me to let anyone into the house, let alone an enemy Servant."
As though he was in the habit of obeying Tokiomi. "Archer, what will you have me do to get my key back?"
"You could grovel a bit. That'd be nice."
My proud king's heart burned within me. "No."
His eyelids drooped in an expression of mock disappointment. "Too bad. I've always wanted to see a king grovel."
"Try looking in the mirror."
Ouch.
His very skin seemed to glow with wrath. I could sense the portals hovering somewhere just outside the dimension, waiting for him to open them and pour forth a torrent of blades on me. While he undoubtedly looked in the mirror at least twenty times a day, he was not one to grovel. He was getting to me.
"All right, little girl," he seethed and sat down on the gable, one leg brought close to his body, the other dangling. "I'm going to be nice to you. I'll give you your motorcycle key, but you're going to have to fight for it."
Excalibur was ready. So was I.
"If you want your key back, all you have to do is –"
"What? Drink you under the table?" I snapped.
He rolled his eyes in a show of elegant exasperation. "Oh, please. We both know how that will end."
He was right. It took him less than twenty-four hours to go through Tokiomi's entire wine cabinet, and he ended up just as sober as he was when he began. I didn't quite have the same ability.
He sprang down from the gable and landed without a sound on the wet grass, straightening in front of me, near enough so that he could still look down at me. With a snap of his eyes he turned his back on me and opened the door. "Now look at what you made me do. Forcing me to disobey Tokiomi's orders."
He didn't sound too heartbroken about that.
With another flick of his head he gestured me inside, and, heaven help me, I went in.
From the look of the place, Archer had been raiding a little more than just the wine cabinet, and not bothering to pick up after himself. He kicked aside an open jewelry box (he claimed all the treasures in the world belonged to him, so he probably viewed his snooping through Mrs. Tohsaka's jewelry as simply going through his own stuff) and languorously sprawled out on one of the sofas in the drawing room. I stiffly sat down in an armchair.
"Now let's be reasonable," he said, sounding as though he would fall asleep at any moment. I closed my eyes and prayed fervently to be delivered from this nightmare. Dear God, I don't care if I get my motorcycle key back or not, just get this creep away from me!
"It's not every day I get such a beautiful advantage over dear Arturia Pendragon. I really have to think this through, see where best to strike."
Personally, I was ready to do a little striking of my own.
"If I were to give you back your key, would you, say, kiss me?"
I ground my teeth together till the noise echoed all around the room. "On the lips?" Recalling his alcohol-laden breath from last night, I could feel needles of ice dancing up my back at the very notion of kissing him. I almost gagged. Almost.
He grinned. "Where else?" and started stretching his neck out, leering toward me.
Oh, his arrogance was insufferable.
I bit back nausea as I picked up rings from the coffee table and slipped them on, all under his ruby gaze. He didn't object to me acting like a woman. That's what he wanted.
Well, all right. I'd give him a kiss to remember.
I stood, slow. His eyes practically jumped out at me in his triumph. Kneeling on the carpet in front of him, I held out my left hand. "First my key."
He palmed it to me, but after I put it in my pocket he locked onto my wrist so I couldn't get away. No doubt he was both insulted and amused by my revulsion of him. He half-closed his eyes, waiting for it. I half twisted away from him, rolled my shoulders back, focused right on him. He didn't rush me. He had me right where he wanted.
And he was right where I wanted.
He never saw it coming. My right fist, studded with jewel-encrusted rings, with all the power of my battle-strengthened arm behind it, swung up and around and landed on his mouth with such a crack that the house shuddered. I would have loved to see a slow-motion playback of that moment. His head knocked to one side, his bloody-red eyes popped as he and I both watched the blood fly from his mouth. The rings had torn at least three beautiful scrapes along his perfect face, right next to his mouth, and the force of my blow bowled him over on the sofa. He lay there, looking up at nothing in particular, blinking. Blood dripped down his face.
"That's the only kiss you'll ever get from me," I said, stripping off the rings. As Archer lay on the sofa like a slug, I packed up Mrs. Tohsaka's jewelry box. Pivoting on my heel, I marched to the door, and just as I stepped out I heard Archer laughing from inside. What a rat.
I spent the rest of the day asleep, my motorcycle key clipped to the inside of my pocket. I hope that, the next time I saw Archer, he would have one heck of a bruise on his face.