A/N: Hey guys, no time for a proper authors note, last minute thing but here is part 4!

JD sat on the brick ledge just inside the skate park, fastening on his roller blades, checking the straps and clips to make sure they were secured, and not too tight or too loose. He hadn't realized until he got over here that they'd taken out the row of metal lockers and replaced it with open cubby holes to put your stuff in, so that he was just going to have to trust that no one would run-off with his converse or backpack. Standing up, a smile naturally came to his face as he sat his eyes on a short grind rail just far enough away for him to build up enough momentum to grind it. Setting off, he moved with short, controlled thrusts of each leg, bent forward against wind resistance as he got going faster, leaping up and twisting into a neat sideways grind, then jumping up off the rail into a 360 spin, completing the grind when he landed, and then headed towards a bowl, dropping in at an exhilarating speed.

JD had been skating for about twenty minutes when he noticed them, a group of three teenagers, two boys and one girl with skateboards who'd come into the park a minute ago, staring at him. Thinking that they were watching him do tricks, JD may have shown off a little, doing a back-flip with a rear grab mid air off one of the higher ramps, landing it smoothly. It wasn't as cool as a brainless, but he wasn't getting quite enough air to try and do a 540 spin after the backflip. Plus, when he'd done it in front of Buck the last time they were skating (Buck thought it made him look cool for the ladies, JD hadn't had the heart to tell him you had to be good at skating for that to work), the man had practically had a heart attack and started going on about JD needing a helmet if he was going to do tricks like that. He hated helmets, but he had to admit Buck was probably right.

Okay, so technically Buck had said he shouldn't be doing any tricks without a helmet, but he'd be fine. He was careful.

He wasn't expecting to see the group snicker at him, calling out, 'fake baby skater' and a few other things he didn't quite hear, and really, he thought the whole twisted sibling rivalry thing between skateboarders and inline skaters was over and done with. JD had heard it all before, and sure, his skates were attached to his feet, he couldn't fall off of them, but that meant when he went down he went down, he couldn't bail off. Maybe there weren't as many different combo tricks you could pull off, but there were plenty that were impressive enough for him, and it's not like any of them, including him, were old enough to have been there when some of the original skateboarders had broken away to develop inline, or to have any kind of grudge either way. Deciding to ignore them-they were probably sixteen-year-olds, there was something about being sixteen, old enough to be plenty cocky and think they were adults, but exempt from the punishments that older teenagers and actual adults faced, that made them think they could do whatever they wanted. Seventeen-year-olds generally seemed to be aware that they were awfully close to the cut-off point and maybe shouldn't push their luck.

Doing a series of flat spins across the pavement just for fun, JD half-smiled, half-grimaced as a memory hit him, leaping up to do a quick grind on a length of pipe. When he was in his second year of college the few friends he'd had had been mostly still in high school, people he'd known before they figured out the reason why he was always distracted in class was because it was way too easy and he was completely bored and bumped him up a few grades, and like most teenagers and young adults they all considered house parties with no adults the best thing ever. Despite mostly having more experience with movies about house parties than actual house parties. Alex, a kid who'd been on his soccer team for years, had invited everyone he knew to party while his parents were on a cruise, about two weeks before his eighteenth birthday.

Only his folks came home unexpectedly, and in the middle of the clean-up, with both of Alex's parents furious, kicking out the kids they didn't know and putting the ones they did to work, his Dad had growled at him when he'd tried to hint and see how much trouble he was in, that no, he wasn't grounded, and no, they weren't taking his car away. But he could certainly expect quite a birthday spanking, and right in the middle of his party sounded like a good place to do it.

Mr. Lariviere hadn't tanned him in the middle of his party, but judging from the grimace on his friend's face when he sat down to open his gifts, he'd tanned him good before it.

The kids occasionally called comments at him that he didn't bother to acknowledge, while JD couldn't help but notice they were just standing around, occasionally trying, and mostly failing, to do a kick-flip or something similar, but not actually skateboarding. JD wasn't a skateboarder, but he had skated and knew he could do a better kick-flip than that with his eyes closed. Another trip through a couple of bowls that were close to each other, dropping in on one and then the other, he finished with a grind that went almost all the way around the edge of the biggest one before he had to break away, and realizing with a glance at his watch and a grimace that it was past time for him to meet Ezra, he started skating towards the entrance to put on his shoes.

Only his shoes weren't there. JD frowned at the empty space where they should be, confused. His backpack was still there, and even though he knew he hadn't put his shoes in it, he checked inside, then looked around the other cubbies. What the hell, someone had actuallystolen his shoes? They weren't even that nice! As he scratched his head and wondered what he was supposed to do now-he couldn't even go in the mall to buy more because you weren't allowed in without shoes, and he was pretty sure his skates didn't count-he heard a sound that had him sucking in a deep breath, mad now, red-hot mad. Snickering. He turned, saw the group of teenagers laughing and pointing, and, with a snarl, skated right towards them, skidding to a stop about five feet away. Two of them had taken steps back as he approached, apparently thinking he was going to run right over them, but they were just kids. "Where the hell are my shoes?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," sneered the girl, slouching and looking up at him under too-long bangs, trying to sound offended, the two boys, one of whom who looked to be her twin brother, echoing "yeahs!" after her.

"The three of you are the only ones here besides me. We all know they didn't vanish into thin air, so what did you do with them?"

"Dude, you can't prove nothin', it was probably a homeless guy that took them." Barely keeping himself from telling the kid that saying 'you can't prove' was a sure fire sign to literally anyone that you had probably done whatever it was you were telling them you hadn't done, JD ground his teeth and reached into his back-pocket, pulled out his badge and flipped it open.

"I'm an ATF officer. I pay attention, nobody has entered the park except for us. Just give me back my shoes and I'll drop this." If they returned the shoes, he'd just leave, but if they didn't he'd be contacting mall security. There was a moment where the kids started to look nervous and JD didn't think he would have anymore problems, but then something shifted, and with a few glances between each other they were smirking at him again.

"Yeah, right, you don't look old enough to be a fed," snorted the boy twin.

"Probably got that out of a cereal box," said his sister.

Gaping now, because he didn't remember teenagers being this bad-if he'd acted like that he would have been getting very familiar with the four walls of his room-JD shook his head, and was considering pulling out his phone and making that phone call to security when the kid in the back, the one who'd been silent, jumped on his skateboard and sailed away. Holding JD's converse up behind him as he went! Thatwas it. Streaking around the two just standing there, annoyed that of course it was the kid who had his shoes who could skate, JD stayed hot on his heels as they crossed the pavement. He didn't even properly register the barricade until after he'd made the jump over it, and well, by then he was already past it, so...he'd be careful. They whipped around pallets of construction material, cleared a three foot drop that appeared out of nowhere and then the kid was hopping off his skateboard and snatching it up with a kick to the back, leaping onto the half-pipe's ladder and scaling it like a squirrel. JD couldn't go up it nearly that fast, his blades slowing him down, but by now this was war and he wasn't backing down. Up at the top the boy laughed at him, though JD could see he was nervous, and shouted out, "Man, you must really like these shoes, huh?", and dropped into the pipe still holding his shoes, swinging them up onto the platform on the other side as he neared it, and coming back down the bowl.

Annoyed, but also kind of glad he'd actually be able to get his shoes, JD waited for the no-name kid to be clear and dropped in-sure, he could have climbed down and then climbed up on the other side, but he had his pride-not quite getting high enough to flip up onto the opposite platform with his first pass, but on the second he did so, landing neatly, crowing a little at his victory, and then looked around for his shoes. He was really late by now, he was sure, needed to grab them and go.

That was when he heard the voices, two to be exact, one after the other.

It was the second JD was worried about.

"Hey, you kids can't be up there! That thing ain't finished yet, it could get unstable!"

"John Daniel Dunne! Climb down immediately!"

Heart sinking, JD turned his head to see that the security guard was converging on the half-pipe from one direction, and Ezra coming from the other. JD couldn't see his expression very well from up here, but he could see it well enough to know it wasn't happy. Clearly, he had heard the security guard. Clearly, JD was so dead. Deader than dead. Chopped up into little pieces and buried in the backyard dead. Vaguely aware of the teenager dropping into the pipe from the opposite side, then hopping off his skateboard as he flipped it up into his hand and booked it away towards the back fence of the park, JD found his shoes, picked them up, and head hanging, tossed them down to land at the bottom of the ladder and started down himself.

*.*.*.*.*

Ezra sat on the stone bench, enjoying both the slowly lowering sun on his face and the presence of the deep gift box his new suit was nestled into. He'd gone a bit bold on the color of the suit and tie, but one could only wear so much black without risking being mistaken for Mr. Larabee. The gentlemen's shop had been everything his heart could desire, though he wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last more than a year as, while the pricing had not been outlandish for the quality of both the apparel and service he received, it had been enough to give him pause. Still, the suit was magnificent and the few alterations he'd needed had been done before he'd finished picking out a secondary tie-one never could have too many sartorial choices when it came to ones wardrobe. If it wouldn't likely have made his jeans and t-shirt clad companion feel a bit awkward Ezra thought he might have worn it out of the store.

Speaking of which, where was JD? It was generally Ezra who was fashionably late. A glance at his watch showed him it was about five minutes past four, and Ezra supposed he'd allowed himself to lose track of time in his fun. Well, it would do him no harm to venture the few hundred yards over to the skate park and collect Mr. Dunne himself.

Standing, he arranged his package in his arms in a way that would not crush the material and began walking that way. As he got closer Ezra began to cast about for JD with his eyes, not concerned at first when he saw no sign of him, assuming he'd come into view at any moment. By the time he'd reached the park's opening and there was still no sign of him, neither hide nor hair, Ezra was frowning in mild concern. Perhaps he'd missed JD, passed him on the way over here?

Or, perhaps he'd fallen and injured himself in a location where he couldn't be seen by passersby?

Swallowing, because the park was almost entirely deserted, just two teenagers standing around over to the side a ways, and it would have been quite possible for no one to notice if such a thing did happen, Ezra quickened his pace, glancing behind or into each of the park's features as he passed them. JD had been here for over an hour, if he had been injured shortly after he arrived...at that moment, just as his thoughts were trekking in a direction he did not care for at all, he caught a flash of dark hair moving out of the corner of his eye and turned to see JD skating after another figure in the closed section of the park. In the active construction site. Relief warring with exasperation-What in the world did that young man think he was doing? Was he racing that other young gentleman?-Ezra followed after him, not hesitating at all when he hopped the barricade and began following after. It wouldn't do for an ATF agent to be caught trespassing, particularly in such a obviously non-work related matter, and so he intended to collect JD and leave posthaste. Really, it was the sort of trouble only JD could get into, and Ezra was inclined to find it amusing.

Until he came to the gap he'd seen JD jump a few moments ago, right before he'd disappeared around a sharp corner and realized that while it was only a few feet across, the chasm was around six feet deep and had exposed piping filling up the bottom of it. Teeth gritting quietly he continued tracing JD's path, not at all surprised to find him in the middle of a half-pipe as he came around the corner, and making a good showing for himself it seemed, as he flipped up onto the platform and made a noise of triumph at his opposite number on the other platform. So not a friendly competition then? Stepping forward, planning to announce his presence and insist his teammate remove himself from the restricted area, Ezra swore quietly as he saw a security guard approach at a run, then felt a chill go through him as he realized just what the man was hollering at the top of his lungs. "Hey, you kids can't be up there! That thing ain't finished yet, it could be unstable!"

"John Daniel Dunne! Climb down immediately!" He surged forward, watching anxiously as a miserable and apprehensive looking JD began to climb slowly down the ladder. Good, that boy should be apprehensive, Ezra was going to read him the riot act for being so careless with his safety.

"Hey, you with that guy?" The security guard, looking none too pleased himself, called over the few feet to Ezra.

"We journeyed to the mall togethah, howevah Ah only learned of this little misadventure when Ah sought mah companion out as the hour grew late." Ezra kept his eyes mostly on JD, half-way down now, as he answered, but he could see the guard look at him like he was insane, likely based on his choice of language.

"Yeah, well, good, you can deal with him then, I'm supposed to be on my lunch break," the man grunted, "just don't do it here, I need you out before I can go. And if you're gonna give him the bare ass tanning I'd be giving any of my friends for doing something that stupid, remember the park is child focused, so use one of the cubicles."

Ezra blinked for a moment, surprised at the man's bluntness and at the realization that, yes, he would be expected to deal with this matter. No matter how displeased, how outright angry he was, he had no desire to actual harm JD. Of course, he could not avoid acknowledging that he had not felt harmed after either of his 'discussions', and JD, who would expect certain consequences, was even less likely to do so. And climbing atop an unfinished half-pipe was easily as foolish as his attempting to drive when so upset-more so, because JD hadn't merely tried, he had actually mounted the structure and used it.

Also, child focused? Cubicles? Clearly, he had more googling to do tonight.

JD was nearly to the bottom by now and pushing his other thoughts away Ezra moved forward to see what he had to say for himself, trying to steel his heart when the boy looked up at him through his bangs, guilt in every pore and one skated foot raising to rub nervously at the back of the opposite ankle, half-mumbling, "He took my shoes." The shoes in question were dangling out of the younger man's fist and it took him a moment to realize that what he'd seen was a giant game of keep away. "I'm sorry, Ez...don't be mad."

Fighting the urge to rub his forehead, Ezra said quietly, voice stern, "John Daniel, you put your life in dangah by using an unsound, barricaded structure, all for a pair of shoes. In ordah for me not to be mad Ah would have to have a lack of regard for your safety that is nevah going to happen."

With a resignation that made the southerner want to forget about the entire thing, JD said, "You're gonna spank me, huh?

"Yes. Ah am."