Motorcity: Join me, chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters
Title: Join Me
Rating: T+
Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still a Kane's Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit.
Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie
Warnings: Don't read if you don't like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies
Author's Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

(If you've wondered where I've been I've been distracted by babysitting my cousins kids, and diamond-hunting on Minecraft)


12: Distracted

"So, where's Chuck?" Claire asked her friend as they sat down at the counter of Antonio's. Nearby, Dutch and Tennie were sitting together at a table being their typical lovey-dovey and technogeek selves that they were when they were with each other. Texas was sitting with some of the Momma's little boy members and whether or not they were arguing with each other or just talking was hard to judge because of how raised their voices were. However, the Burners leader was not present. And, now that she thought about it, Claire hadn't seen Chuck around in a while.

Julie put her smoothie down "He said he was going to scavenge some parts for his car. Which is weird, because Blonde Thunder hasn't been wrecked recently, and this is the fifth time in the past two weeks Chuck left to scavenge for parts. He never comes back with anything."

"How long's he been disappearing?" Claire asked, sitting cross-legged.

"The past two months or so - it's really strange. He's usually kind of a shut-in but all of a sudden it's like he's got a second gang." Although Chuck always had an excuse of some kind; he was going to play Magic the Gathering at Thurman's house, he needed to return a library book, he was going for a drive, he was checking the defense grid around the city, Ruby needed help opening a jar of pickles (which was a pretty poor excuse because Chuck had issues opening jars and usually deferred it to Texas), but these 'errands' always took hours as a time.

"Has he ever taken one of you guys with him?"

"No." Julie replied; that was also odd, because he would often take Dutch or R.O.T.H with him on scavenging trips.

"Huh, " Claire hummed in thought "maybe he's lying." Lying was such an ugly term to apply to Chuck of all people, he was usually such an honest person, unless if he was talking about his feelings, which he pretended didn't exist. But what other explanation could there be? Chuck was most likely hiding something.

"Well, whatever he has going on, it's probably important. If he'd hiding something it'd be for a good reason." Julie shrugged; the Burners leader did everything based on logic, not whims or emotion.


"Have a nice sleep there?" Mike asked as the blonde woke up from what he remembered had simply been 'resting his eyes'. The two were sitting on a blanket on the ledge of a cliff that overlooked a junk-choked ravine. One of the more scenic areas of Motorcity.

Yawning, Chuck sat up from resting across Mike's chest. "Sort of, it's kinda chilly out here." The blonde said said, his face turning slightly red when the other boy leant over to peck his cheek.

Mike chuckled gently at the change in pigment in the other "I'm not surprised, it's almost five in the afternoon. You've been out for a while." He explained, putting an arm over the Burner. Mike was in his Motorcity disguise, which Chuck really preferred on him over his Deluxe uniform. Much more fitting, in his opinion.

Ever since they'd first had sex, they could no longer stay away from each other; for the past two months they'd sneak behind everyone's back to meet up. At first it was completely physical, but that wore off pretty quickly; making out turned into lingering kisses, they embraced outside of the afterglow, a lot of the touching became out of affection instead of wanton need. Now they found themselves spending more and more time together.

Even when they were apart and went about their daily lives they couldn't shake off the constant thoughts. No amounts of hacking, driving, or nerdcore movies could make Chuck want his sworn enemy any less. When Mike called, he always answered in private, when they arranged a date he almost always came up with an excuse to the Burners or the LARPers to go. It was dishonest and it made him feel terrible but being with Mike felt better. It was like a drug, euphoria silencing his logic and masking the guilt.

In a nutshell, they were dating when they really shouldn't be. Cliche star crossed lovers story really.

"Do you want me to drive you back to the border?" Chuck asked, tracing Mike's chest over his shirt, he was looking slightly up to the other boy as he was still lying on his back.

"Not yet," the Kane Co commander excused, still overlooking the ravine "I'll never understand how Motorcitizens enjoy all the junk." Of course he was referring to all of the metal skeletons of cars and infrastructure lying around. The blonde elbowed him in rebuttal.

"I'll never understand how all of the white, blue, and Kane worship doesn't drive you bat shit." He returned, arms crossed.

"You wear blue." Mike jovially returned, jabbing his arm with a finger playfully. In returned the Burners leader shoved him and wrestled to pin him; it wasn't mean-spirited or aggressive, just playfulness. It was true though, Chuck's jacket, shirt, sneakers, tattoo and even eyes were varying shades of blue if darker shades. Old habits die hard.

The wrestling ended out with Chuck pinned and Mike straddling his waist, and the brunet laughed softly whilst the other just pouted. "You're cute you know." Mike husked, before leaning down and kissing him again.


"…Chuck? Chuck? You in there man?" A brown hand waving in front of his face brought him back to reality. Chuck blinked to bring himself back to present reality and looked to Dutch, who was holding a blow torch.

"Eer, uhm, what?" Was all the ever-so-brilliant Burner could sputter out. He'd been daydreaming again and didn't even notice his mechanic approaching him.

"I was going ask if Thunder needed a touch up, what's up with you Chuck? You seem spaced there." Dutch explained, looking concerned. His concern was not unfounded, Chuck had no imagination to speak of and usually used that space in his head for facts, figures and data. He was always focused on something, he was one of those genius types who could never stop thinking and always needed to mull over something. Seeing him just sitting there and daydreaming was like seeing Texas reading a Harry Potter book and writing an in-depth character analysis.

"No, I did a maintenance check this morning, Blonde's at the vertex." Chuck excused, seeming quite embarrassed and struggling to regain his more serious and cogent demeaner that he usually fronted.

"Alright Chuck… You sure you're okay? You sick or something?"

"I'm fine I swear. Look, I'm just tired, I'm going to lay down for a bit." And before Dutch could stop him Chuck walked away, his whole face up to his ears bright red and obvious from his pale skin tone, although Dutch noted that for some reason the skin of Chuck's neck didn't redden.


Julie was observant. Being the secret daughter of Abraham Kane, she'd had observation instilled in her from an early age. Staying hidden whilst gathering all of the information available was what she was best at. Fooling her was not an easy feat.

But Chuck had her stumped.

He was no liar. And he was one of the most loyal people she had ever had the privilege of meeting and working with, he always put his friends in front of himself.

But why was he sneaking around? What was he sneaking around for?

A few days ago after he'd left she'd tried using the team radar on Nine Lives to see where in the city Chuck had gone, but Blonde Thunders blip wasn't appearing, meaning he'd manually shut down his link with the others. The time after that she'd tried bugging his car but after several yards the signal got buggy and then disappeared; of course he'd put up his signal-jamming shield.

She sighed deeply as she sat in the main office of the Kane Company building, Tooley was off in another room beating up some poor schmuck who gave her father news he didn't like. "Hey Jules." she heard from behind her, and knew it was Mike. He was one of the people in Deluxe she legitimately really liked and got along with, even if he was the enemy in her double life.

"Hey Mike," she greeted and turned in her seat to see the military figure standing there with a friendly smile towards her. It seemed Mike became happier for some reason, more light-hearted than the 'stoic no-nonsense soldier' persona he'd built up for himself over his military career. But this change had only come recently, and quite drastically "are you here to give Mr. Kane some reports or?" Sometimes calling her dad Mr. Kane or Kane instead of dad irked her, at least it used to, she was far too used to it by now.

"Naw, I had some down time so I just wanted to chill out for a bit." Mike said, sitting down in another seat, friendly smile still in place. Another odd thing, Mike used to never take down time. Another oddity, his talent aside one of the main reasons Mike had been appointed to Commander at such a young age was because he was such a workaholic who never seemed to need or even want anything resembling a break.

It was a nice change to see him more easy going, but no one changed so drastically without something going on. Mike took off his blue uniform overshirt and draped it over the back of the chair to relax better. "…Is that a hickey on your collarbone?" Julie asked, noticing a dark blobby shape from right under Mike's white shirt, which was almost translucent.

Mike's eyes darted up at her and he cupped his hand over the aforementioned spot "Shit- uh, it's just a bruise Jules. Training spar." H explained, too quickly for the redheaded girl to buy it. Now, sparring bruises she understood, she got them all of the time and as did the other Burners, but the collarbone?

Hm… Now that she thought about it, the skin tone of Mike's neck was very, very slightly lighter than the rest of him. It was so faint the only reason she noticed was because she was looking for that specific thing. She regularly used makeup and knew right off the bat from that observation that his neck must have been coated in cover up. A sign of several hickies.

"If you're seeing someone that's fine Mike, being celibate isn't a requirement." Julie tried to assure, although him being discreet about it wasn't surprising; according to Chuck and all of his hacking and cyber stalking to gather intel, Mike was most likely gay. (Julie crinkled her nose slightly remembering when she'd asked the blonde how he knew that, and responded that there was a couple gigabytes of gay porn on Mike's PC storage.)

"I'm not seeing someone, it's just a dumb bruise.." Mike got defensive, cementing the other Deluxians suspicions. Julie shrugged and didn't press further, the commander had a right to privacy and a personal life, and it did explained why he'd been in such an elevated mood lately. Although she couldn't help but wonder who Mike would be seeing; he was, as said before, a workaholic. The only time he wasn't working when when he was sleeping, so he rarely had interaction outside of other Kane soldiers. Was he dating another Kane soldier? It'd make sense since dating inside of the military was allowed as long as it didn't interfere with duties and there weren't any public displays of affection.

His friend Jenzen maybe? He was a respected soldier and one of Mike's personal friends. No, Jenzen was the type who'd brag about such a thing.

Why the secrecy?

Why the secrecy with Chuck, /and/ Mike?

…Why were two people, rivals none the less, acting differently, around the same time? Two people who had shown pretty obvious interest and tension between them? Was Julie grasping straws when she came to the conclusion that the incidents correlation was no coincidence?