Chapter Text
1. Marius
Marius may not be the most active NXX member, most of his time spent on work. But he was not an idiot, certainly wasn’t. He could clearly tell something is wrong when he saw agent Raven aka Luke Pearce sipping his disgusting energy drink in the morning. Are those boxes of instant coffee in the trash can? He internally retched.
“Luke.” He set down his case file, observing the detective. He had eyebags—maybe he had pulled an all-nighter to get his work done—not a good sign, he seemed distracted fingers mindlessly tapping the screen.
“Marius, fancy seeing you this early,” he glanced from the screen, “I thought you would be busy. What brings you here?” voice sore, probably from all that energy drinks he had or maybe the all-nightery had some effect to his voice, either way both sounded bad.
Marius frowned for a second he changed back to his signature business smile, “You got some work from the bureau? This is a Sunday you know, even I would love a relaxing weekend.” He earned a chuckle from the other.
“Then you walked into wrong place, no way you’re getting any relaxation by sitting here.”
“Touché.” Marius sipped his morning coffee. The bitter taste hitting his nerves, it awoke him to the point it’s irritated him and this agent isn’t helping.
He racked his brain, this damned detective was avoiding his question. It’s 7 am and he was not having it. “Answer the question Luke, did you—or did you -- not stay up all night to get this work done.” He glared at the detective the latter dozed off still stubborn to not answer the question.
He sighed. Guess some people are just rock headed.
“Get some sleep detective, I’ll take over your work.” If Luke had a bit more sleep, he would most definitely protest, but the person in question was already snoring away into dreamland.
2. Artem
Artem drove down the street as per usual, only the unusual thing is the detective sitting beside him. Luke managed to convince Artem (somehow,) to help with a local event. Not anything fancy per se. Just culinary event, that surprisingly was more popular than the detective had described.
“Ah welcome, you must be the volunteers.” An old lady welcomed them, faced wrinkled by time. She smiled tiredly, “There’s so many requests, we didn’t expect this event to be this wide spread to be honest. You could start cooking over there.” She gestured to one of the tents.
“Thank you, granny! We’ll do our best to help.” Luke assured the lady and she smiled.
Guess things will get busy, better get started. Artem hummed, gesturing at Luke to follow him. The latter followed eyes glazing upon the event, bustling with life. Maybe he didn’t get to see that many festivals Artem thought.
“Ah! Praise the heavens, finally some volunteers.” A man greeted them as if they were gifts bestowed by heavens. He grabbed Luke and shook his hand eagerly, the detective eyes widen in surprise, “Please, please! Help us we need more people to work on the Squirrel fish!” He cried, Artem swore he saw the man crying blood from despair.
“Don’t worry sir!” The agent eyes twitched.
Artem strode to the work station, eyes scanning the recipe and orders. “Luke, I will prepare the fish, you make the sauce mixture.”
“…” The detective froze, eyes averting to another place.
“Luke, what’s wrong?”
“…uh...” Something was off, a certain anomaly between the two. Artem pondered for a while, both of them in heavy silence. Before he came to a conclusion.
“You can’t cook?”
“I can! I can!” He smiled sheepishly. “I could do basic things, like boiling water and sandwiches. Things other than that usually end in an explosion?”
Artem was beyond bewildered, he reminded him of a certain woman in the back of his mind. “It’s only a sauce, nothing should go wrong as long as you follow the recipe. I will handle everything that comes into contact to fire.”
2.5 Aaron
“Bahahaha! That’s too funny!” Aaron couldn’t contain his laughter; it didn’t matter. They were both in the parking lot, not the doctor’s office. Other patients were judging the cackling doctor so hard, the oh-so-refined-Doctor reduced to a hysterical mess.
“She found the ring?”
“Yes, she did.”
“And said nothing of it?”
“For the umpteenth time Aaron, yes.”
“Hahaha! That’s too much, ack!” The doctor clutched his ribs, shoulders shaking and from the lack of. Not because he was attacked or anything, he just laughed too much from amusement.
“My wife will love to hear about this.” He patted the detective’s shoulder.
Luke rolled his eyes. “You sound like an old man.”
“That’s called being married. Youngsters these days are so disrespectful.” The doctor’s eyed crinkled from grinning. “That’s one a keeper I say.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Luke sighed, this conversation is going nowhere. “I know her.”
Aaron was quiet for a while before he relaxed his shoulders, “Then confess you block head.” Hands searched for his car keys and found a piece of candy instead. “I’m sure she would understand— or at least hear her out would you.” He gave the candy to Luke who accepted it wordlessly.
Luke’s gazed on the candy, it’s strawberry flavored. It reminds me of her goes unsaid between the two. “I don’t want to burden her, she already has a life, a career she wanted, and a promising future.”
“Luke, we’re doing our best.”
“I can give anything to her, but I...”
“We talked about this Raven.” His eyes twitched at the codename.
The doctor gave up on convincing this immovable force to move. He sighed, entered his car and started the engine. “Being honest wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Yeah, no one would be hurt.” Luke retorted sarcastically
“Just,” Aaron waved his hand. “Come over if you want to talk.”