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Beta'd by my death princess beta-chan paradorx.
Will woke up to the ringing of his cell phone, and he groaned, willing the unwanted noise to just get up and walk away, preferably off of a large cliff. It did not heed his wishes and continued. With a groan, he swept his thumb across the screen, barely registering that it was the police station calling.
"I didn't do it, I've been asleep, I swear," he slurred.
"I don't doubt it," Alice replied in a clipped tone. "How do you feel?"
"Like I just woke up." Not the most clever of responses, but there it was. Will sat up and stretched, feeling sore joints pop. "What's up?"
"If you want, you can come by the station during lunch and sign a report about what you discovered at the crime scene yesterday. It seems like the shock you went through short-circuited the intruder's pacemaker, killing him."
"Glad to know I touched it," Will grumbled, swinging out of bed and making audible Sad Puppy Noises as his bare feet made contact with the cold wood floors. Alice seemed to find that funny, and giggled across the line at him. "So, lunch, then?"
"Do you have anything to do then?" Alice asked, and then quickly backtracked, "not that I don't think you have anything to do, you only just got back into town and all…"
"I'll be there," Will assured her quickly, "No problem. You come—work comes first right now. I need coffee. Bye." He shut the phone off and made another noise, this one at his own stupidity and the fact that first thing in the morning he had next to no filter on his mouth. The time to pine was not now, obviously. Better do something productive first. Like coffee. Coffee was productive. Or at least it led one into something akin to productiveness.
Lizard was already gone, Will discovered upon exiting his room, which was, like it had been three months ago, stripped of everything other than a mattress on the floor with thrift store sheets. Whatever it was she was doing—a hit or a score or something—was beyond his realm of knowledge, and curiosity rose, unwanted. Will forced it back down, strongly aware that in their—her—line of work, curiosity not only killed the cat, it killed all of the cat's loved ones after psychologically torturing the cat and making it wish that it had never been curious in the first place.
Coffee. Coffee was needed.
The old coffee maker was still there; the one constant thing, it seemed, to outlast his three-month retreat. He suspected that the old beast could outlast a nuclear war, and it hadn't disappointed him thus far in his relationship with it.
First cup of coffee nearly chugged, Will fully buttoned his jeans and pulled on an old grey hoodie, heading down to the shady corner store where he tilted his head to avoid the cameras (another constant, as their angle had not been altered since he has left) and bought a prepaid phone, which he used once outside to call in his work answering machine. Most of the older ones he deleted right away, but once he got to more recent requests he began to thumb numbers into his other phone. Finally, he put his main phone away and, with a stabilizing breath, called in a number that seemed tattooed into the front of his mind.
"Yes, this is Mr. Scarlet, I'm calling for… for a cleaning request. Name of 'Scarlet', yes. No, only a few months ago… yes, thank you. It was a big loss for everyone. Thank you. It's all good? Okay, I'd like some, uh, flowers placed there, if you can do that. Do you have anything red? No, that's perfect. Look, mate, I've got to go. Important business. Yes, thank you, cheers." He hung up with a release of nervous breath, and tossed the burner phone into a nearby garbage can, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt as he walked, fishing out his main phone and hitting a few saved numbers before answering with what he hoped was casual assurance.
"Red Knave Enterprises, you called wanting to discuss a meeting? Well, I'm free until lunch. Got an address? No, I don't need anyone to meet me. I'll meet you."
Ten minutes before lunch, a very rich man in a very rich suit let himself into his private offices—the entire twentieth story of the grandest high-rise in the entire city, and froze in the doorway after entering his password and allowing his thumb to be scanned. A young man with big ears and a grey hoodie was sitting at his desk, feet propped up leisurely on the dark teak wood. There was a moment of shocked, frozen silence.
"Bookcase safe," Will said, pointing towards it casually, "Approximately 20,000 in crisp new 100 dollar bills, all in a suitcase with a thumbprint scanner—very impressive. Hidden room behind the fake Picasso," he shifted his arm to point behind him, "with some of the finest fake Matisse's I've ever seen inside along with what looks like normal sentimental stuff, some old jewelry and documents, including one with all of your current bank information. But then again, you'd only know to grab that if you knew what it was for—very clever encoding. Have I missed anything?"
The man's mouth opened and closed like a fish. Finally, he seemed to gather his thoughts. Will stepped in again.
"Excluding, of course, your fake Rolex collection hidden underneath your very real scotch set. Well, at least it was real, until a little while ago." He grinned and took his feet off of the desk, which sported an empty snifter of what had previously been the aforementioned scotch, standing and approaching the still slack-jawed man. "Name's Will Scarlet, Red Knave Enterprises." He offered his hand, and it was only by instinct that the man shook it. "We had an appointment," he added helpfully.
"How did you get in here?" the man finally was capable of speech.
Will shrugged and couldn't keep a smug grin off of his face. "We had an appointment," he said simply.
As Will entered the upscale high-rise downtown, he lifted his phone up like he was checking a message at eye-level, the silver back of his phone reflecting a sharp triangle of light right onto the only security camera with the proper angle to see his face. Once he was under it he dropped his phone back down and pushed it into his pants pocket, knocking into a woman in a business suit on her way out to lunch. "Sorry," he apologized, one hand touching her elbow to steady her slightly, hiding how his other hand lightly unclipped her ID badge from the pocket of her suit. She nodded at him, not paying any real attention, and without breaking stride Will tapped her ID card on the turnstile to allow him to pass from the lobby and into the elevator area. He turned towards the stairs, dropping the ID badge on the floor and kicking it towards a corner. Once inside the stairwell Will spotted a large red fire alarm and paused beneath it, considering. Up or down? The basement seemed promising, but his gut told him to go up. Some of the older, private buildings had storage areas in the basement, but this building was newer, more singularly based. He left the fire alarm alone. For now.
Twenty flights of fucking stairs. Kill him.
Will panted, hands on his knees on the twentieth story, sputtering a bit as he checked his phone for the time. Nearly lunch, and lunch meant Alice. Better to get this over with now. The doorway leading onto the twentieth story was marked as alarmed, and Will flared his lighter underneath the fire alarm for a few seconds before leaning into the door and ducking inside the Spartan hallway, listening closely. Inside the stairwell, a man was heard checking the alarm, and noting something about a false positive before echoing back downstairs.
Will headed down the hallway until he came to the proper door. Private offices of the CEO. Will crouched down, steeled himself, and licked the thumb scanner before taking a thin piece of receipt paper from his wallet and holding it over the scanner, spitting to clear his mouth of the taste of Other People's Thumbs. It beeped its approval. Now, onto the input board, nine numbers looking serenely out at Will as he got out his phone and an appropriate wire. He didn't actually attach it; only attached one end to the ground metal of the keypad and typed the order in on his phone to override the circuits, allowing the door to unlock for him with a click and a small amount of sparks.
Will slipped inside, and let the door close behind him.
"Anyway, here's how this works," Will continued, checking the time on his phone and spying a few missed calls and texts from Alice. "I found the flaws in your security, I hook you up with vendors—not guys you can find in the yellow pages—and they pay me for finding them clients. I'm the middle man."
"Th-thank you!" the man stuttered.
Will started past him, tossing out an "I'll send your secretary the contact info," before the man stopped him again with another question.
"But, what do I pay you?" the man asked.
Will dug around in one of his pockets. "I helped myself to your suitcase full of hundreds. Grabbed myself a few of the real bills. Fair?" he didn't leave the man time to answer as he strolled out, sliding apps around on his phone. Better to steamroll than be talked to death, in Will's opinion, and so he handled all of his consultations that way. Break in, make a summary of their shit, get out with a few hundred in his pocket. Easy money.
"You look smug about something," Alice noted, eyes glancing up over her computer screen to where Will stood, grinning through his nervousness.
"That's just my face, love," he replied, sitting down in the chair next to her desk and crossing one leg across the other, trying to look roguishly casual. He managed to look lazy as hell.
Alice, he noted happily, didn't refute him, still typing. "You never answer your phone," she observed instead.
"I answered this morning," he felt the need to point out. "Which is why I'm here. Lunch date, that is. I mean, not a date. Lunch meeting."
"I've called you at least five times since then."
For lack of a better retort, he shrugged. "You should be more concerned," she said, with a final precise tapping of her keyboard, "because I just finished the report."
"What?" he asked, nearly jumping out of his seat to peer at her computer screen, "even my parts?"
"You were unconscious for most of your parts, and I have a deadline to meet." He made a face at her, and she smiled like a cat that got the cream. How quickly his smugness deserted him for fairer shores.
With a sigh, Will leaned back. "Your loss, I was treating for lunch."
"You got a job?" Alice asked as she was packing up, avoiding his comment in her perfectly casual way. Will felt like kissing her. Shoved it down.
"Old consultation business got some pings while I was away," he said, and seeing her latch onto that phrase, while I was away, he spoke up again. "So I've got a few big ones tucked away, thought I'd pay for whatever order-in you wanted. But." He gestured towards her computer.
"Oh, I wasn't planning on ordering in anything," she said easily, crushing his heart casually beneath her heels.
"You weren't?" he tried not to sound like all of his dreams had been crushed, but it was hard, because all of his dreams had been crushed.
"No," Alice replied, picking up her purse and jacket, "I was planning on going out. Cyrus and I wanted to show you the new sushi place that moved in while you were gone."
Suddenly Will's day was looking both better and worse. "Sushi place?" he stuttered.
Alice smiled past his nervousness like a beacon and held out her hand for him to take.
Cyrus's neck. Alice's hands.
The glowing way they looked at each other.
Will leaned heavily against the wall outside of his apartment and dragged his hands down his face. He'd managed not to make a complete and total idiot of himself (whether he had made himself out as somewhat of a total idiot was up for debate) but it had been a struggle. There was something in the air around Cyrus and Alice that made him feel like he was drunk. Drunk on something finer than wine, harder than vodka.
At one point, Alice left to go to the ladies room, leaving Will alone at the table with Cyrus, who had more than a fair amount of buttons undone, damn him.
"So," Will tried, "You still working out of home?" Lame. Lame. Lame. Will wanted to smash his head through the table.
Cyrus laughed, melting Will's heart at once. It was so easy for him… laughing was as natural as breathing and smiling to Cyrus. He had a definite air around him that made the whole world seem that much brighter.
"Yeah," he answered, "work's picked up though. No more 'I'm at your beck and call' for stubborn clients. I've got more a pool to pick from."
Will nodded, searching for a witty remark and failing. "Good," he said. Lame. Lame. Lame. Please assume the head-smashing position.
Alice returned from the restroom, and as she was sitting back down she leaned over and kissed Cyrus. Will could see subtle movements of tongue and busied himself with adding an unholy amount of wasabi to his dish of soy sauce and stirring madly with his chopsticks.
When he thought it was safe, he glanced at them, and they were both looking at him serenely, as if nothing had happened. God, Will was so tense he could be used to break down doors. He coughed self-consciously.
"Will?" Alice asked, and he knew that no matter what the question was, he would do whatever she wanted.
"Yeah?" he asked, swallowing heavily.
"I'm really glad that you're back, and I don't want to push you for what you were doing." He nodded appreciatively. "And I want to know if I can set you up as an on-call consultant for the police department again. It'll be like old times." The light in her eyes was encouraging.
Will was about to answer, but hesitated. Hello, this is Mr. Scarlet… I'm calling for a cleaning request.
Cyrus and Alice both noticed his pause, and something unsaid but incredibly real passed between them like electricity; Will could taste ozone on his tongue… and he wanted to taste more of it.
"Absolutely," Will said as easily as he could manage, drawing the syllables out. "Anything for you. For the department."
The look Alice gave him had him falling through the floor.
Alice gave him a ride—again—and dropped him off at the front of his shitty apartment, making his cheeks burn. He really had to get a place less slummy. He sagged tiredly against the wall and scrubbed his face with his hands. Three months, and he was already face-deep in Alice and Cyrus.
His face burned. Wrong choice of words.
He pushed his weight off of the wall, tiredly, like he was coming down from a high, and staggered up the stairs to his apartment. Too many fucking stairs today. He was kneeling down, picking the lock, when he heard something crash inside, and he froze in fear.
Hello, this is Mr. Scarlet, I'm calling for a cleaning request.
Finally, after the sound had died off, Will got control of his fingers again and made the lock moan for him, swinging it open and preparing to bolt.
He stood up in surprise and concern.
"Liz?" Will asked, letting the door shut behind him. "What the bloody hell?"
She looked up at him briefly, mascara running down her cheeks—since when did she wear mascara? She hadn't worn any kind of makeup three months ago—and then resumed her work, digging wholeheartedly into the pillows on the couch with a switchblade.
"Look, Liz…" Will continued in a gentle but wary tone, edging his way inside with his hands out in front of him. "I hate that couch too, but there's no need for violence."
"Fuck you." Her voice was small and tinny with tears, and her hands raked through discolored stuffing.
Slowly, Will kneeled down next to her and placed his hand over hers, keeping her still. She sniffed loudly.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Fucking tip turned out sideways," she told him. "Most of the crew got nabbed and now I owe Walrus… I owe him a lot, Will. I thought maybe I'd left some hidden up here, but…" she kneaded at the twisted fibers fruitlessly. "But it's gone now. What am I going to do, Will?"
"Run," he offered, and it was not a cruel answer. It was what they did. He said "they" because Lizard was the only person he could call a friend of similar situation. He knew the fear of a boss breathing over your shoulder after a job, of the uneasy trust of tips. He knew, god, he knew.
"I can't," her voice cracked. "I can't. This is too big for running."
Will squeezed her hand, mind running a million miles an hour. "… How much?" he asked in a husky voice.
She blinked blurrily at him. "What?"
"How much money do you owe, Lizard?" he asked without looking at her, speaking quickly.
She said a single number, spitting it out like it left a bad taste in her mouth. She watched his expression and he nodded slowly.
"Okay," was all he said.
"What?" she repeated.
"I need to go for a walk. Don't… wail and throw yourself from a high place just yet, okay?" he tried for a playful tone, and it only served to confuse her more. He stood suddenly and walked right back out of the apartment, down to a corner store where the camera angle didn't quite catch his face beneath his hood. He bought a cell phone.
Hello, this is Mr. Scarlet, I'm calling for a cleaning request.
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