Prompt: Fear of Fire

The Battle of Who Could Care Less 02

"Boss, Benny's here."

"Let him in."

Johnny nodded and pushed the door to the penthouse wide open, ushering the aging 'accountant' in. If Sonny didn't find something better for him to do than play Revolving Door all day long, he was seriously going to have to pick up the Classifieds.

Jason was leaning against the back of one of Sonny's overstuffed olive green couches as Benny shuffled in and immediately handed his best friend a folder – a very thin folder.

"What've you got, Benny?" Sonny asked even as he flipped through the pages of the report. The results appeared unsatisfying and he looked up at his chief fact-finder for an explanation.

The older man clasped his hands in front of his waist and took a deep breath. "I checked all airplanes leaving the Tri-State area for Mexico; I had all the cars on the interstate heading south tagged; I made phone calls to all of our contacts in the area all morning…"

Jason lifted one sandy brow humorlessly. "And?"

Benny raised his broad shoulders uncomfortably. "Nothing. It's like they vanished into thin air."

Sonny tossed the folder onto his desk and rubbed his temples. "Benny, three adults cannot just 'vanish into thin air' like that."

The accountant pursed his lips together as his grey eyes darted between his employer and the enforcer. "You'll pardon me for saying this, Sir, but Luke Spencer can make anyone vanish anytime he feels like it."

Jason pinched the bride of his nose. "Keep working on it, Benny, okay? Go over everything again – just find something that can tell us where he went."

Benny nodded tersely and turned, exiting the penthouse through the door that Johnny held open for him. The young bodyguard had heard the entire conversation and though he knew it could easily get him his ass handed back to him on a platter, he decided to speak up.

"Boss, have you tried…what about asking Michael?"

Both Sonny and Jason looked sharply up at him. "What?"

The guard shrugged, uncomfortable under their dark stares. "I'm just saying that it's been almost three days since you found out about this thing, and even in that time, Benny came up with nothin'. Michael already heard a good deal of whatever it was that Luke was telling Eliz-Miss Webber, and there might be a chance that he remembers hearing a location or their travel plans or something."

Sonny looked at Jason, whose strong features were set in a tense frown. He didn't like it any more than his best friend did, but as he reluctantly looked up toward the stairs, he figured that if there was even the slightest chance that Michael remembered something, they'd have to take it. "Michael? Can you come down here for a minute?"

"One sec!" They waited a brief moment before they heard him thundering down the hallway upstairs and then the little redhead came barreling down the stairs with two of his favorite action figures in his grubby hands. "Yeah?"

"Buddy, c'mere," Jason beckoned, kneeling on the floor as the little boy came closer. "Do you think you could help me and your Dad out?"

The boy studied the adults carefully. "I dunno."

"Michael," Sonny tried, running a hand through his dark hair, "we're trying to find out where your Uncle Luke is, and so far, Benny's been having a rough time. Do you remember him saying anything about where they were going?"

"Mexico," the boy answered automatically, pleased with himself for providing what he thought was crucial information.

Jason rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Yeah, but do you know where in Mexico?"

"Some place where they make a lot of tea."

The response threw both Sonny and Jason for a loop. "Did Luke say that?"

The redhead shrugged. "Well, that's the only thing he coulda meant."

"Hey, Buddy, can you try real hard and remember the exact words that Luke said?" Jason tried, peering down at the little boy as he scrunched his forehead and thought.

"Well, I think it was a place with a lot of tea because Uncle Luke told Lizabeth that they were gonna find 'emselves in hot water."

Jason let out a soft sigh, thinking to himself that they had expected too much of the little boy. He was just at his grandmother's house to have a good time until things calmed down at the penthouse after his father's death; he didn't know that he'd be their main informant on one of Luke Spencer's half-baked adventures.

"Thanks a lot, Buddy," he smiled, patting the boy on the back. "You helped us out a lot today."

"Can I go back to my room now?" was all the little tyke wanted to know. "I have to have Captain America save Princess Peach from the Evil Shoe Monster."

"You go do that, then," Jason nodded, tousling his nephew's silky locks as the boy raced back upstairs. He pinched the bridge of his nose and waited until Michael was out of earshot. "It was a stretch, at best. We can't expect him to remember something like that."

But when he rose from his spot and looked over at Sonny, he was surprised to see his best friend's obsidian eyes glittering as he thought. Both Jason and Johnny watched curiously as Sonny turned toward the telephone with a snap of his fingers.

"I know where they are."

"I swear I'm gonna chop off your legs before I ever get into another plane with you again."

Lucky Spencer directed a sidelong glare at his ex-girlfriend as the two of them walked behind his father through the Oaxaca airport. "I can't help it if I have long legs."

"No, but I can – by chopping them off," Elizabeth glowered, tugging on the bill of her baseball cap as she quickened her pace to keep up with Luke's long strides. "I've got bruises on my legs, Lucky – bruises!"

"Archie, Edith, knock it off," Luke called back good-naturedly, shooting his favorite young couple a wink. "You two are bickering like an old married couple. It's disgusting. At least swear or pull out a roundhouse kick or something so I know I haven't lost you."

"Elizabeth's just a little cranky, Dad," Lucky assured him, draping an arm over the petite brunette's shoulders and resisting the urge to grunt when she smacked him in the chest. "She's not used to our life on the road."

"I'm not used to being assaulted by those totem poles you call legs every time I try to move," she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at Luke's back. "Whose idea was it to use a four-person helicopter, anyway?"

"That'd be Orville Wright up there," Lucky grimaced as his father cut past a young group of girls and rounded the corner on the way to the exit. "But all things considered, it wasn't that bad, was it?"

She glared at him, trying to shrug off the heavy arm he purposely kept draped around her shoulders. "Oh, with you kicking me every two seconds and Luke snoring and emitting all sorts of unique aromas, it was definitely a little slice of heaven."

Lucky grinned and jostled her against his side, ignoring her protests, as they quickly left the airport through the maintenance doors and wound through the cement maze of corridors and loading docks, trying to find their next means of transportation. "Trust me, Elizabeth, before we're done here, you'll already be signing up for the next one."

Luke chortled his agreement as the petite brunette fumed, jogging now to keep up with her ex's long strides. "You oughta know that by now, Darlin': resistance is futile. Cowboy and I are downright addictive."

The younger Spencer glanced down at the woman tucked against his side and he could see her trying to fight a smile of her own. Complain as she might, Lucky knew there was no denying the fact that Elizabeth loved spending time with Luke and participating in any number of his crazy schemes.

She was a different person around Luke than she was around anyone else, even him. He suspected it had something to do with the fact that Luke never had any expectations from her like the rest of the town. In his company, she didn't have to be good and sweet and responsible and unselfish. She could curse, drink, act out – not that she ever really did, in the truest sense of the act – and it would all be in good company. His father had a way of making anyone in his intimate company feel like the most important person in the world, the most treasured friend, and Lucky knew that as far as people like Elizabeth went, it was genuine.

He had been mildly surprised that she had agreed to come along in the first place, but what surprised him even more was that his father had asked her to. Luke took his family's safety very seriously and even though it was perfectly acceptable for him to drag along his son on a kamikaze mission, bringing a person like Elizabeth into it was a different matter. He had cornered his father out of earshot a couple times about the situation and Luke had assured him that he knew what he was doing and no harm whatsoever would come to Elizabeth – despite the fact that she was sure to be right in the thick of things. Lucky didn't quite know how the two could be reconciled, but he bit his tongue and followed his father's lead – and not for the first time, either.

Elizabeth, it seemed, had several different reasons for accompanying the two of them down toward the equator. For one thing, it had been far too long since she had seen any action. The trauma of the last major battle between the Spencers and Cassidines had faded, and Luke never let the young woman forget how crucial she had been in that whole ordeal. A change of scenery had sounded appealing, and it was no secret that Elizabeth would have done anything for Luke whenever he asked – so long as he didn't insult her by trying to bribe her with stale jellybeans.

But more importantly than that, Lucky knew that her presence had a good deal to do with Jason Morgan. The two of them had been involved in a relationship of sorts, from what he gathered, although he wasn't certain of the details and Elizabeth certainly hadn't bothered to fill him in. But when Sonny faked his death, Jason conveniently neglected to mention it to his girlfriend and spent all of his free time guarding Sonny's air-headed sister and, as it turned out, baby-sitting Brenda Barrett. When the news leaked and the mafia lord made it back home amidst a throng of reporters and press fanfare, Elizabeth had packed up and left. She had stayed at the Brownstone for a while and seemed to be hiding out – that is, until Luke found her and forced her out of her shell.

Lucky watched as his father waved down a young native and spoke to him animatedly as he and Elizabeth quickly covered the distance between the two of them. If Elizabeth needed to do this to keep her mind off Jason Morgan, that was understandable. She'd come along with them on a week's vacation to Mexico, help out with their mission, and then she'd be able to take the next flight back to Port Charles.

"All right, kids, ready?" There was something gleaming in Luke Spencer's fiery blue eyes that Elizabeth didn't like, and she studied the older man suspiciously as Lucky took her duffel bag from her.

"Where's our ride, Luke?" she asked calmly, her hands curling into fists when the old man's grin widened. Oh, this did not look good.

The young man that Luke had flagged down was waving over a large, rusted brown truck which emitted the most ear-piercing, horribly shrill squawking noises Elizabeth had ever heard. Lucky's mouth fell open as he stared into the back of the truck, taking in the stacked cages and flying feathers.

"Dad…" he got out, swallowing roughly as he continued to stare at the birds. "Those are chickens."

"Wrong," Luke beamed, making Elizabeth want to reach out and throttle him. "That's our ride. Next stop: Aguascalientes."