Author's note: sorry it took so long.
Chapter Seven: Boy toys, stir fry, and a word from our sponsors…
Peppy got out of his car and stared. He couldn't really help it. Fox's car was parked crookedly across the docking bay, not the neat angle he and his friends usually parked at, but more like it had been left there. In fact, one of the doors hung open, but that was better explained when he saw Falco rooting around in the car. "Dare I even ask?" He inquired, walking up to the car.
Falco sighed, straightening and leaning on the top of the open car door. "He had a concert last night, remember?"
"Yes indeed."
"He just got back two hours ago."
Peppy looked at his watch. "It's ten in the morning."
"Yeah."
"Boy, he must have had fun."
"Yeah, he's passed out on the command deck, said something about checking his messages and was out like a light. I decided to come down here and make sure he hadn't left his car running."
"Had he?"
"Nope, but the keys were in the ignition. Locked in."
"You have a spare key?"
Falco gave Peppy a look.
"Oh, right. So what are you doing now?"
"Holding his keys hostage until I get some very gory details out of him, and cleaning out his car. I've found three shirts, none of which probably fit him, and lots of empty soda bottles." Falco looked at the stack by his feet. "Sadly, no really incriminating evidence."
Peppy gave a snort of laughter, and wandered up to the command deck, Falco following him. Fox was indeed sprawled asleep in his usual chair, fingers laced behind his head and smiling. A brand new shirt—King Diamond, the band he'd gone to see—had been pulled on over his other t-shirt, and his jeans had powdered sugar on them. Peppy had guessed he and Chelsea must have gone out for donuts. His eyes traced back up, and he blinked. "Ok, I count three different shades of lipstick on his cheeks, and maybe a forth on one of his ears."
"Now you see why I'm holding his car keys hostage." Falco replied.
Peppy looked at Falco, then shook his head. "We need to get some work or the testosterone overdose is going to kill you."
"What's THAT supposed to mean?" He sniveled. "Besides, in case you haven't noticed, there's no wars on and we don't run black ops."
Peppy huffed and sat down. "That was just honesty, I think we're all getting bored, and given another month all our savings accounts are going to start being tight."
"Mine already is."
"Stop buying car stuff."
"Not likely. And what ideas do you have? I mean, I'd practically rather work retail then go back to the honest military."
"You'd almost make more money in retail anyways these days." Peppy scratched below one of his ears, grinning when Fox's tail started twitching. Good dreams, apparently. "We could always call Caroso, he said he'll always have jobs for us, and he does good business."
Falco's indignant scream woke up Fox, in fact made him fall out of his chair. ROB came out of recharge briefly, saw no ax murders were taking place, and went back into recharge mode. "CAROSO! Peppy, are you mad?" Falco was waving his arms above his head. "He's a bounty hunter!"
"Which is different from us being mercenaries how?" Peppy wanted to know. "It's groundwork, sure, but it's good money."
"What the hell is going on? What about Al?" Fox asked groggily from the floor. "What the hell is Falco screaming about? What time is it?"
Peppy shook his head. Alphonse "Panther" Caroso was an old "friend" of the team's, and had been one of the pilots on standby during the war. He'd been Air Force, and like Peppy had gotten into martial arts more then most pilots. After the war released, he somehow got a loan—popular bullshit had that it was from the mob—and started a business. Security and bounty hunting, specifically, the perps who the cops would rather not lose SWAT teams over. He was good at it, too, turned a good paycheck and had cheerfully told them they were always welcome to work there. "Ten in the morning, Fox."
"How long have I been out?"
Falco ignored the question. "Peppy suggested we go work for Caroso to turn a paycheck." He informed Fox, still sniveling.
"Do you have any better ideas?" Peppy wanted to know.
"Al's a nice guy." Fox said, still half asleep.
"He hits on me!" Falco was about ready to rip out his feathers.
"He hits on anything with a pulse. What, do you flirt back?" Fox wanted to know.
"NO!"
"Then what's the problem?"
Falco was silent for a full ten seconds, gaping at him. "How does that not bother you?"
"Because Bill always hits on me. Since we were, oh, thirteen. Even though he knows I'm straight." Fox fully slid to the floor, on his back, staring at the ceiling. "My mind is made up of mush right now… Peppy, you talk to Panther, ok?"
"Sure. By the way, why is there like four colors of lipstick on you?"
Fox lifted a hand to his cheek and started to laugh. "Oh. Yeah, that. Chelsea and I got out of the concert and were wired, and she asked if we could drop by where she used to work so she could say hi, and we were close, so I said sure why not. They thought I was, and I quote, absolutely adorable."
Falco looked at Peppy, who was shaking his head in amazement, but still asked, "So what are you, boyfriend? Boy toy? Stuck as a friend?"
"Boy toy, I think." Fox grinned, unashamed. "What, Falco, jealous?"
"Ok, girls she used to work with? I knew she was a model, but what did she do before?"
"Apparently, a stripper, pretty upscale place too." Fox whistled.
"Lord almighty." Falco said this rather reverently. "Yes, I am jealous."
"Dude, what happened to Katt? She's hot as hell."
"Yes, yes she is, but she, um, lets say I have a disagreement with her claws." Falco shook off.
Fox sat up and pointed at him. "That's what happened to your back a few months ago?"
Falco just looked at him and shook his head.
"Cat scratch fever." Peppy had to grin, life as usual with this group. "So, you do want me to talk to Al, Fox?"
"Yeah."
"Ok, I will. Go to bed."
Fox staggered to his feet and wobbled off, humming to himself.
"Boy, he must have had a fun night." Falco said in an awestruck voice. "Hell, I don't even think he paid for anything."
"I think that's what 'boy toy' entails." Peppy replied. "So, seriously, are you going to have an aneurism if I get us jobs with Caroso?"
"As long as he refrains from touching me, I guess I can deal with it."
"Oh, let me guess, something new and expensive for your car?"
"Shut up, you."
Peppy was leaning on his car, pondering what to do about lunch, when his phone rang, and he grinned at the 'sexy model chick' tag. "Hi, Erin."
"Hey, Pep. What you up to?"
"Not much, I have a meeting after dinner though."
"Oh, who with?"
"A friend of the group, regarding ground work." He replied honestly. "And if you see Chelsea, tell her Falco and I are absolutely reverent of the job she did on Fox."
"Oh god, what did she do?"
Peppy laughed and gave her a description of the state Fox, and his vehicle, had been in, as well as the approximate time he'd rolled in. By the end of it, Erin was also laughing. "Yeah, she's obviously not being serious about him, but he's not complaining at all."
"Would you?"
"I don't know, never been in a status to be a 'boy toy.' He got in his car, still pondering. "I haven't eaten lunch yet, want to make it a date?"
"Sure, where do you want to eat?"
"How about I cook for us? I'm not incredibly hungry, so I could let meat marinate a while for you if you aren't."
"Aren't you a vegan?" She asked, voice incredulous.
"Yeah, I do cook meat though, I mean I live with a bunch of omnivores on the ship. I'm vegan by biology, not by choice." He didn't add on he'd been through the hospital three times in the last few years for saying screw it and eating meat anyway, he'd been sick and miserable and grinning the entire time. "What kind of meat do you prefer?"
"I'm a sucker for red meat, lean though."
"You got it, want directions to my apartment?"
Erin stood on the sidewalk briefly, looking up the flight of stairs. The apartment complex was one of those two-story spread out setups, where the majority of the doors led to open air, not hallways. Peppy had been nice enough to tell her where guest parking was, and after a moment she climbed up the cement stairs and rang the bell, trying to figure out why she was nervous. Him coming to her house hadn't bothered her, but her going to his seemed like unfamiliar territory somehow.
Peppy answered, and she blinked, he was wearing jean shorts that went past his knees and a button-up short-sleeved shirt, one hand on the door and the other hooked into a belt loop, a kitchen knife loosely held in that hand. "Hey, glad you found the place."
"It wasn't hard, you're not far from one of the main drags." She replied, stepping in and glancing around as he shut the door behind her.
"It's not much." He said, voice apologetic. "Nothing like your house."
"Are you kidding, this is a nice apartment." She said it honestly, trailing him into the kitchen. It was, a spacious one-bedroom from what she could tell. The furniture was mixed, and while the place was neat, it was obvious the only resident was male. Lonely nails still were sunk in the walls, pictures long-ago removed. The pictures remaining were the frames that allowed for many snapshots, or framed newspaper clippings. Near the balcony windows a huge empty gap of carpet stood alone, no furniture, no pictures.
"Meat's marinating, I was chopping veggies when you rang the bell." He spoke absently, finishing up with a bell pepper as she watched. "You partial or impartial to spice?"
"Some is fine, no five-alarm fires though."
"Doable, you'll have to test the meat as I cook it though. That's the only problem with me cooking meat, I can't exactly taste-test it." He set the bell pepper slices aside and checked the marinating meat. "Probably start in another fifteen minutes."
"Alright." She glanced over at the blank patch of carpet. "What used to be there?"
"My grand piano."
She looked at him, then the door, then the balcony doors. "You had a grand piano? How did you fit it in through the doors?"
He smiled at her. "It was a baby grand, and very carefully."
"Wiseass."
"It was a present from my ex-wife's parents, so I lost it in the divorce. I guess I should have been glad she didn't go after my car or demand alimony."
"So that's why you were in the music shop." She lifted her eyebrows at him.
"Yeah, I know the shopkeeper, and I've been saving money back for one for a while, but I keep having to dip into the account for other reasons. I just hit it up again for car repairs for my roadrunner." He sighed, going back into the kitchen and looking in the fridge. "Want something to drink?"
"Fizzy water?"
He tossed her one, taking out a sports drink for himself. "You're the first girl I've had here in a while, besides various girlfriends of the boys."
"Fox struck me as a bachelor."
"He'll be married and still act like that I'm sure. Falco's the player, when he wants to be. Slippy is struck with the common side-effects of geekdom, he's been nagging the other guys to set him up for ages, I doubt that'll ever happen though." Peppy leaned back against the counter, taking a drink and watching as she studied his stove, including looking in the empty and off oven. "Um, dare I ask?"
"Admiring it, this is nice, what'd it cost you, nine grand?"
"Lots, and that was several years ago, as said I used to cook a lot. I laid off so I can lose some weight."
"You look fine." She said without looking at him, flicking one of the burners on and off.
"Oh, so convincing." He snickered, taking another drink then setting the bottle on the counter. "If I ever did that to my ex, she'd have flayed me."
"What, you want convincing?" She stood, dusted off her hands, and stepped over, hooking her hands into the front of his shirt and tugging him down to her level. "You look fabulous, dah-ling."
"Now you're just hamming it up." He said, unable to hide his laughter.
"Ah, but I'm telling the truth." She kept one hand curled into his shirt, tapping his nose with the other. "You do."
He managed a sheepish smile. "I've busted my ass for it."
"I can tell." She kissed him on the cheek, grinning when he flushed and squirmed like a fourteen year old. "Now, willing to talk to me about this work arrangement you have? You said something about it on the phone, and now I'm curious."
Peppy snorted, getting the stir fry meat out of the fridge, setting his ingredients out across the counter. "Yeah, there's nothing black-book about it so I can share. We're out of work and probably will be for a while, as far as wars go. The boys are already running tight, and what with fixing up my car, I will be too. That said, we need work, and a friend of ours already said we'd have work with his company." He set two woks and a pot for rice on the stove, measuring water. "Alphonse Caroso graduated a term or two before the boys did, he's sort of a friend of the team."
Erin burst into laughter. "Alphonse!"
"Yeah. Mostly we call him Al, or Panther. He's always heavily armed and he tends to pull guns on people who use his full name. He somehow got the money together to start his own business, snapped up a rebuilt skyscraper right after the war and has been raking in cash ever since. Security and bounty-hunting." Peppy started up the burners easily, cheerful 'foomf' noises filling the kitchen as the gas caught. "He's a good guy, though Falco can't stand him normally."
"Security and bounty hunting hmm? So what would you and the boys be doing?"
"I'm not sure. That's why I'm meeting with him later tonight, to ask him if his offer still stands."
Erin nodded. "So why's Falco hate him?"
"Panther has this nasty habit on hitting on him, or anyone for that matter. He's the walking definition of flirt." He paused, considering. "Actually I think he considered modeling for a while for a gun magazine, but he said he likes hands-on stuff better."
"He's that good looking?"
"Here, stir, I'll see if I have a picture of him."
Erin took the wooden utensil dubiously, and was glad when Peppy was back a few minutes later, accepting the newsprint cutout as Peppy took the stove back over, juggling the two woks easily and expertly. The picture was a black and white, metro section, talking about the new business that was arriving. Panther himself was caught staring up at the building, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "He is pretty cute. Obviously thinks so, too."
"Yeah, he can be a conceited little bastard about his looks, but he's pretty practical about what he can actually do. He's a decent pilot, better martial artist, and damn amazing sharpshooter. He's won awards for the last." Peppy spoke absently, letting himself get absorbed in cooking.
Erin nodded, setting the clipping aside and letting herself watch him. The kitchen smelled of oil and authentic spices, and she was almost surprised when it seemed like only a few minutes later that a hot bowl was pressed in her hands, two good wooden chopsticks already sticking out of the stir fry, which had been put over a generous helping of rice. "You amaze me." She remarked, picking up the chopsticks as he dished food for himself. "If I could cook like this, I'd gain twenty pounds in a week."
"Now you see why I was so overweight during the war." Peppy chuckled, taking a seat at the table as she did. "The boys have no complaints though, they work all the calories off."
"It'll catch up with them eventually."
"Not necessarily, it never caught up with James." Peppy laughed, cradling the bowl in one hand and holding the chopsticks in other, eating almost as fast as she was. "But then, James spent a few hours a day working out."
"You really miss him don't you?"
"Yeah. He was a great friend. But what can you do, you know? Death is sort of a job hazard when you're in the military, more so when you're in a mercenary company." He shrugged, watching her get seconds of rice, consider, and load up on more stir fry too. "Have you eaten anything else today?"
"Had a bowl of cereal this morning." She replied after swallowing.
"We have got to get your eating habits better, I don't care if you're a model." He shook his head. She flung a water chestnut at him.
"Do me a favor, ok? Don't get dead on any upcoming jobs; it would be terribly depressing if you did."
He sat back and laughed out loud, still cradling the half-empty bowl.
Panther was halfway through his clove cigarette when he saw Peppy's car pull into the parking lot of his building, and smiled, flicking ash away easily. The parking lot was half-full of vehicles, assorted styles but almost all in basic black, heavily tinted. "Hey, Pep." He said by way of greeting when Peppy strolled up, studying the older man. "You look a lot better. Lost nearly all the excess fluff, I see."
"Thanks, coming from you that's a high compliment." Peppy laughed and leaned on the wall next to him, watching him draw off the clove. "Still have the building non-smoking hm?"
"Cigarette smoke's bad for the equipment." He replied sourly, flicking ash again.
"I thought you were quitting."
"Peppy, quitting sex would be easier then quitting these things. I have cut back though, down to three or four a day." He tossed the butt in one of the receptacles with a sigh. "So, you and the guys need work, am I right?"
"That's about the long and short of it, yes."
"I ever showed you around this place?"
"Actually no."
"Well, come on in then, meet the family."
They strolled through the doors, Panther nodding at a bulky Doberman behind the security desk, and walked over to an elevator. "Most of the money is brought in by security contracts right now. I employ a lot of ex-marines and ex-army, preferably the rangers on the latter." They got into the elevator, he pushed the button for the second floor. "That being said, a lot of what we actually do is walking patrols at companies that have hired us, or watching a LOT of security cameras. About a quarter of the company is female, and most of them are in the field."
The elevator door opened, and Peppy's ears were assaulted by the sound of a lot of electronics at work. Panther led him at a lazy pace through the banks of TV screens and computers, almost all of which were being actively watched. "This had to have cost a fortune." Peppy remarked, looking around. "You didn't cut corners, this looks state of the art."
Panther nodded. "I'm pretty much at the top of the list for security firms right now, locally at least. Second, third, and forth floors are all setups like this." He led them back to the elevator. "But you don't figure I'll have you watching cameras, right?"
"Can't seeing you making us walk a beat, either." Peppy agreed, stepping into the elevator with him and watching him hit the button for the fifth floor.
"Well I could. It's good cash, believe it or not. Most of the places I've got security patrols running are high end technical or medical, and are willing to pay small fortunes for armed patrols." They got out on the fifth floor. "Here's where it gets fun." The first part of the floor was banks of computers, most of which sat off. A few people waved at Panther, diligently working late into the night. He saluted them and unlocked a heavy-duty door, stepping through. "Check this out."
Peppy stared, looking at the racks of guns, armor, and weaponry. "This can't be legal."
"Oh, it is, trust me. Took forever to get the licenses to have all this of course." Panther tossed him an assault rifle. "As you know, my company also occasionally dabbles in bounty hunting. We don't go after two-bit hoods, of course, usually we're tasked to go after drug cartels, big-league busts. Blackwater Corps loves us, believe it or not."
Peppy nodded, looking at the gun. Blackwater was another mercenary group, ground work, not air work. "So, this is what we'd be helping with?"
"Yeah, if we get contracts for it, that stuff is kinda few and far between." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You have any sharpshooters? I can't recall."
"Fox and Falco prefer handguns. Slippy's good with anything with a scope, though. He's not fast, but he's accurate."
"Accuracy is what counts." He took the gun back, putting it back on the rack and suddenly stopping, fingers tapping on the guns. "Wait. I have an even better idea."
"Oh, lord almighty. What?"
"They race, don't they?"
"Yeah, Fox and Falco drift race, Slippy tunes, has his own little label too. I'm actually working on getting my Roadrunner back to snuff. Why?"
"You guys got any sponsorship?"
"Not as such, no…"
"Alright, idea." He turned around, leaning on the rack, fingertips pressed together and grinning like a devil. "It's hard to advertise this place. So what say I give you some generous cash to put my company name and logo on your cars?"
"These aren't billboard cars, Al, most sponsorship is done by car companies."
"We'll design the ads to look like any other sponsorship, and put my web address in there too. People will get curious and look it up, and some of those people are bound to be corporate themselves." He kept grinning.
"I'd have to talk to the boys."
"You do that. I'll see you out."
