Chapter Text
Kevin leaned back in his seat, tie loosened, a pen perched between his fingers as he finished writing the “statement” his canine friend insisted on making (right on his freaking lunch break, but okay) the second after he crashed onto his window with a sign that read [ EMERGENCY ] like someone was dying.
“Okay,” Kevin said, already trying not to smile, “so let me see if I’ve got this.” He clicked the pen once. “He waited outside your cave.”
Wile’s paw moved fast.
[ FIFTH TIME THIS MONTH ]
Kevin’s brows lifted. “Fifth time. Great. Very normal.” He scribbled a line on his notepad, then glanced up. “Then during today’s chase he… blew you a kiss.”
Wile’s ears flattened so hard they nearly disappeared.
[ TWICE ]
Kevin bit the inside of his cheek. A laugh threatened to come out but he swallowed it down because Wile was already glaring like he was about to throw cartoon dynamite to his face. “Twice,” Kevin repeated, as if saying it out loud would make it less ridiculous. “And he kept looking back during the chase.”
Wile snapped his sign up with offended precision.
[ MENACINGLY ]
“Righhht. Menacingly.” Kevin dutifully wrote it, then added, under his breath, “Sure.”
Wile’s eyes narrowed. Kevin decided not to look up. “And when you got stuck,” the man continued, “he just… stared at you.”
[ IN A CREEPY WAY ]
Kevin nodded at the sign, “In a creepy way. Noted.” He underlined it, part because that seemed to make Wile feel better, and another because, despite how insane his friend was, it’s true that the force of nature known as the Road Runner had quite the... intense stare. It was better to be safe.
Paige glanced at the notepad. “Coyote feels threatened?” she read between bites of her Chinese food. “Are you sure that-”
The mammal signed without looking away from Kevin.
[ I DON’T FEEL THREATENED BY PREY ]
Kevin’s mouth twitched. “You just said ‘in a creepy way’, buddy.”
[ IT WAS ]
“And somehow that’s a different crime from a threat?”
[ YES ]
“Hey, you’re the one who insisted on doing the statement thing instead of going to the diner, but I’m the one who knows how to differentiate a crime from paranoia, so let me determine if you actually need legal advice.”
Wile was scribbling something when Paige sighed between them. “Guys.” She tried for stern and landed on tired. “We’ve got thirty minutes before I have to go back and call Judge Willoughby about the Warner Triplets case. Speed up the shenanigans and start communicating like grown adults, please.”
Coyote pointed at Kevin; the man spread his hands innocently. Then they both looked at each other, for one blessed second, like co-conspirators deciding whether to actually listen to her or keep arguing.
Luckily, Sal chose that moment to stroll in, crisp suit, tablet tucked under one arm, a stack of papers in the other. He didn’t knock; but paused mid-step, eyes flicking from the food to the canine to the notepad to Kevin’s expression.
“Am I interrupting… whatever this is?” Sal asked.
“Therapy,” Kevin said, without missing a beat. “For our client.”
Wile signed back.
[LEGAL ADVICE]
Kevin held his hand out for the documents on Sal’s hand. “Come in, man. Maybe you can give us your take on Wile’s little problem.”
Wile’s head snapped toward Sal, offended. Kevin patted the table once, gently, a silent “it’s okay”. Wile did not relax, but he did stop sharpening his irises into weapons.
“Road Runner is threatening the Coyote?,” Sal concluded aloud after a glance at the paper. The human snorted, then looked Kevin up and down in a way that reminded Wile of his irritating blue bird. “That’s the best conclusion you could come to, Avery?”
Kevin’s eyes flicked up, slightly annoyed at the mocking tone of his partner. “He’s acting weird.”
Sal hummed, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “It’s a roadrunner that defies the laws of physics. He is the definition of weird.”
Paige pinched the bridge of her nose and Wile bristled, because yes, Road Runner was weird, but not in the way they got to say it.
His claws tapped the tabletop, his gaze slid away for a second, like he didn’t want anyone noticing how quickly he’d taken the joke about the bird’s behavior as a personal offense.
Meanwhile, Sal kept reading over Kevin's shoulder. “Explain to me how ‘giving food’ and ‘knocking on his cave’ leads to… ‘threatening.’”
Kevin leaned forward, pen still in hand, ready for cross-examination. “He’s clearly invading my clients’ personal space. Besides, how else could you explain the creepy stare?”
Sal leaned closer too, their shoulders almost touching over the notepad. It was subtle just enough to make Paige’s eyes widen a fraction and search for Wile’s eyes instead.
“Maybe your client is biased. Tsk tsk Kevin, you getting sloppy now?”
Wile raised a brow, suspicious. The tall man standing over his lawyer had the same threatening-but-not-quite smile the Road Runner had given him that morning. His chin rested on the left paw while the right one wrote on the paper
Intense stare + hovering = common form of intimidation?
Sal’s voice dropped, “and besides, didn’t you tell me the bird literally kissed him when he—”
The chair went airborne.
It slammed into the wall behind Sal with a cartoonish crack, missing his head by mercy, physics, or because ‘intense violence’ was not a tag in this story.
Wile’s sign, however, snapped up so violently that the author considered adding it.
[ THAT NEVER HAPPENED ]
Sal froze, one hand still holding the papers, the other slowly lifting in surrender. Kevin didn’t even flinch, he just stared at Wile like he’d suddenly remember the toon was there.
Wile whipped around on him too.
[ YOU PROMISED YOU DIDN’T SEE A THING ]
Kevin held up both hands, at least looking guilty over telling someone about the event-that-shall-not-be-named. “I didn’t,” Kevin said, sheepishly. “I saw nothing. I am blind. I am a bat. Sal is just a liar.”
“HEY!”
Paige made a sound that was half sigh, half prayer. “Can we please—” she started.
No one listened.
She tried again, slamming her palms on the table. “Can we PLEASE return to the topic at hand? Road Runner is acting strange, and we don’t know why. Maybe he’s trying to ask Wile for help?”
“Or,” Kevin said quickly, “maybe it’s a threat. Maybe Wile forgot some cartoon debt. Some… desert honor statute that truly needs my legal expertise.”
Sal, recovering, adjusted his jacket like a man who absolutely had not almost died. His gaze flicked to Kevin again, lingering an instant too long softening, like he was about to say something that wasn’t an argument.
Instead, he exhaled hard and muttered, voice rising the more he tried to keep it down.
“Or maybe,” Sal said, “he just wants a thank you, you know?” Three pairs of eyes stared at him as if he’d grown bunny ears. “Maybe, after the trial, the bird thinks it’d be nice if some people showed appreciation to their buddies who’ve been through thick and thin with them and won’t even NOTICE that they—”
Dottie appeared in the doorway with impeccable timing. Without a word, she hooked an arm around Sal’s elbow and began towing him back out. Kevin's hand reached out like trying to stop the man from leaving but then decided against it.
For a moment, the room sat in a stunned, too-loud silence.
Then Wile’s ears flicked, his jaw working once like he was trying to chew through the confusion.
[ THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN ]
“No idea, bud. That made no sense at all…” Kevin concluded at the same time.
Paige stared at the doorway for another second, then looked at Wile and Kevin like she was deciding if they were twins separated at birth. Or just the same brand of stupid.
Finally, with a sigh, the girl tapped the notepad. “I think Sal might be onto something,” she said carefully. “Maybe Road Runner does want a thank-you for showing up at Congress.”
Wile stared at her like she’d suggested he become a vegan.
[ I KEEP CHASING HIM. I ACCEPTED WE ARE FRIENDS ]
Paige inhaled, then exhaled slow through her nose. “Yes, but have you ever said ‘thank you’ like a normal person?”
Wile signed immediately.
[ I’M NOT A NORMAL PERSON. I’M A TOON ]
Kevin’s lips pressed together, fighting a smile and losing. He leaned toward Wile, voice lower, gentler. “Hey. It could still be a threat,” Kevin said, desperate to win the argument against Sal despite not even fully believing it himself “But… thanking him might be worth a shot.”
Now at night, Kevin drove Wile back into the desert with a greasy paper bag of roasted chicken.
It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t poetic. But the duo had decided it was tangible, warm, and smelled like something you could hand as both a thank-you gift and a peace offering, in case the whole thing really was a threat.
Back at the office, Paige had lasted exactly three minutes after hearing the proposal before she stood up, grabbed her purse, and declared, “I’m too young to potentially die because of chicken twice in the same year… ” then left the conference room, shaking her head, questioning her entire existence. Through the glass wall, Sal rolled his eyes from his office in a way that said “good luck, you two idiots”, and then pretended he wasn’t listening.
So it was just Kevin and Wile again. A human lawyer. A coyote who communicated via signs and spite. And one bag of chicken.
The tires crunched over gravel as they turned off the highway, the city lights shrinking behind them until there was nothing but dark sky and desert road. Wile sat in the passenger seat with a giant blueprint sheet spread across his lap, because of course he did. He’d scrawled two columns with thick white marker like he was drafting a rocket rather than a social interaction.
OUTCOME 1
- give thank you gift chicken to road runner
- he eats it
- he’s happy and everything goes back to normal
- explosion
OUTCOME 2
- give thank you chicken to road runner
- he threatens again and now will have to feed chicken to the bird forever
- explosion
Kevin glanced over at the last step in both lists and frowned. “Why do they both end in an explosion?”
Wile stared at him. Silent. Unblinking.
Kevin’s mouth twisted into a sheepish line. “…Cosmic toon bad luck, right. Sorry. I forgot.”
Wile’s shoulders loosened a fraction, apology accepted. They joked the rest of the way out there, Kevin trying to keep it light and failing every time the desert got too quiet. He promised, twice, that if something went wrong, he’d help Wile figure it out.
Wile held up a sign without looking away from the windshield.
[ IF I DIE, SUE HIM ]
Kevin snorted. “Noted.”
When they finally parked on the road near Wile’s cave, the air hit them cold and dry. Kevin got out first. The bag of chicken in Coyote’s hand made a soft, accusing crinkle when he grabbed it.
Then came the snap of a branch.
Kevin froze.
Up ahead, between the scrub and the rocks, he swore he saw two red eyes staring back at him.
“Wile,” Kevin whispered, pointing. “Do you see that?”
Wile followed the line of Kevin’s finger, squinted, and then shook his head like nope, nothing, you’re being dramatic.
Then another sound, something metallic. Unnatural. Like… a gun cocking?
Kevin made a noise that would’ve been a laugh in any other situation and definitely wasn’t one now. He backed up until his shoulder bumped Wile’s. They hugged automatically, the way people do in those scary movies when they’re about to be killed and have already gave up instead of running for their lives.
And that’s when it happened.
“Beep beep!”
Road Runner materialized in front of them like he’d been dropped into the scene by a petty god of timing, and in the process he “accidentally” shouldered Kevin out of the way as if Kevin was a piece of tumbleweed that had wandered into the wrong story.
Kevin tried anyway. “Hi—hey. Uh. Hello.”
Road Runner didn’t acknowledge him.
The bird sighed, actually sighed, and signed to Wile like the human wasn’t even making sound.
[ YOU’RE BACK ]
Wile nodded, already looking for his sign on the hammerspace.
[ YES ]
Road Runner stared in silence and then took one slow step closer.
Wile’s instincts fired off like a warning siren. He raised the bag of chicken with one hand like a shield and lifted a sign with the other.
[ FOR YOU ]
Kevin snorted under his breath, suddenly remembering the earlier sign in the office (I DON’T FEEL THREATENED BY PREY) and how untrue it was.
Then both toons turned their heads to look at him. Road Runner made eye contact. Kevin’s smile died. Tweety’s statement about how that bird had obliterated a military unit with a single meep picked that moment to resurface in his mind.
Road Runner’s stare stayed unnerving. Then the bird looked directly at Wile and signed, sharp and offended.
[ WHY IS SCRUFFY STILL HERE ]
Kevin tried to be diplomatic. “Heeeey,” he said, voice too high. “It’s Kevin, remember me from court Mr. Runner? Road Runner? Roadie? Can I call you that?”
The answer was already out before the sentence was finished.
[ NO :3 ]
Kevin swallowed and plowed on anyway, because that’s what humans did when they were scared.
“I just drove Wile back,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the car like it was a neutral zone. “A-and I just wanted to say… thanks. For coming to court. As Coyote’s lawyer, it meant a lot, even if we didn’t win the case. So if you need anything, if either of you need anything—”
He stared at Wile hard enough to communicate an entire paragraph with his eyes.
Blink if you need help.
“… I’m here for you, guys.”
Road Runner held that stare for a long moment. Then, slowly, the tension eased out of the bird’s posture. He exhaled, and his expression softened back towards ‘cheerful normal’ and away from ‘blink-incorrectly-and-you’re-dead cheerful’.
[ THANKS FOR HELPING WILE ]
Kevin released a breath he’d apparently been holding since the branch snapped.
“Of course, you're welcome” he said, already stepping backward like he didn’t trust himself to stay alive within pecking range. “Okay. Cool. We’re all… civilized here. Awesome.”
He went to say goodbye properly, reaching out to Wile for the half-hug thing they started doing somewhere before Washington D.C. and stayed since then.
They barely touched when a loud, furious BEEP BEEP erupted, except it wasn’t just Road Runner. It was also the car’s horn, because the bird had reached out and casually pressed it like he was making a point.
Kevin yelped, sprinted to the driver’s side, and fumbled the door handle like the Road Runner was about to steal his vehicle just to be petty.
“Yep! Got it! Bye! Goodnight!” Kevin called, sliding into the seat. “Don’t—don’t start the car, please—”
Road Runner stared, wings hovering over the steering wheel for a few more seconds before jumping out of the vehicle. Kevin started the car himself, because he was not letting that be the last line on his tombstone, and peeled away down the road as fast as he could.
Wile turned back, ready to demand an explanation.
Before he could, Road Runner signed first:
[ SO. DINNER AT YOUR CAVE ;3]
Wile blinked.
[ I ATE ALREADY. CHICKEN IS YOURS ]
Silence.
Road Runner’s eyes narrowed, offended in a way that felt personal. He snapped the bag out of Wile’s hands with one quick motion, and for a second Wile thought the bird might actually tear it apart out of spite.
Instead, Road Runner lifted one last sign.
[ THANKS… ]
Then he turned and walked away, tail feathers flicking like a slammed door.
Wile stood there in the dark desert, alone, holding nothing, understanding less. A minute later, he pulled out his phone and typed into the group chat with Kevin and Paige:
MISSION FAILED?
Paige replied immediately with a meme.
*pretends to be shocked*