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( I'm sorryyyy I don't have a playlist for ts omg😭 )
The city never truly slept, not in New Eridu.
Even in the Hollow-adjacent districts where neon signs flickered like tired fireflies, there was always motion — always contracts being signed, debts being chased, or something dangerous being quietly ignored until it became someone else’s problem.
Nicole liked it that way.
It meant opportunity.
It meant money.
It meant survival, if you were smart enough not to trust anyone for free.
Billy, on the other hand, thought it meant adventure.
And tonight, he was especially convinced of it.
“Nicole! Nicole! You’ve gotta see this!” Billy’s voice echoed through the garage of the Cunning Hares’ hideout, far too loud for the hour, far too cheerful for the city’s usual mood.
Nicole didn’t look up from her ledger. “If that’s another hollow-damaged — ”
A pause.
Then Nicole lifted her gaze.
Behind Billy stood a sleek black motorcycle, half-modified with parts that definitely didn’t come from any legal vendor. It looked fast. Dangerous. Almost elegant in a way that suggested whoever built it either had taste — or no regard for survival.
Nicole exhaled slowly. “Tell me you didn’t trade my emergency fund for that.”
Billy froze.
“...I can explain!”
“That means yes.”
Billy raised both hands. “BUT! In my defense — this is a Starlight Knight-level machine! Imagine it — me, riding into the sunset, wind cutting through the Hollow haze, justice blazing like —”
“Billy.”
“ — a shining comet of — ”
“Billy.”
He stopped.
Nicole walked up to the bike, circling it once. Her heels clicked softly against the concrete floor. She tapped the frame, then the engine housing. Calculating. Assessing.
“...It actually runs?”
Billy grinned. Grinned..? “Better than runs. It flies — metaphorically.”
Nicole sighed again, longer this time. But there was something else behind it. Not approval exactly. More like resignation mixed with curiosity she didn’t want to admit.
“How much control do you have over it?” she asked.
Billy blinked. “Control?”
“That’s what I thought.”
She turned toward him. “If I let you keep this, you’re paying me back. Every denny. With interest.”
Billy gasped. “So… I can keep it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t say no.”
Nicole stared at him.
Billy beamed brightly.
That was as close to permission as he ever needed.
Later that night, the city air had softened.
The kind of heat that clung to skin like memory rather than weather. Neon reflections rippled across wet asphalt, painting everything in blues and pinks that never quite stayed still.
Nicole stood on the curb, arms folded.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said.
Billy, already seated on the motorcycle, turned back with the confidence of someone who had never once considered consequences a binding concept. “I prefer ‘legendary.’”
“You prefer unpaid debt.”
“Same thing in spirit!”
She stepped closer, adjusting her coat against the night wind. “If I fall off, I’m deducting it from your share.”
“I would never let you fall!”
“That’s what worries me.”
A pause.
The city hummed around them. Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm wailed briefly — then faded, swallowed by the night like it had never mattered.
Billy tilted his head. “You ever feel like the world’s just... waiting for something?”
Nicole glanced at him. “Yes. For me to get paid.”
He laughed.
But then he softened a little. “No, I mean... like it’s waiting for us to move. Like if we stop, everything else does too.”
Nicole studied him for a moment longer than usual.
Then, reluctantly: “That’s the most coherent thing you’ve ever said.”
“Thanks!”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Still, she stepped closer.
She didn’t sit behind him right away.
Instead, she placed a hand on the bike’s frame, feeling the faint vibration of the engine waking beneath them like a held breath.
“This is going to be a bad idea,” she said.
Billy nodded eagerly. “The best kind.”
Nicole sighed.
Then she got on behind him.
Not delicately.
Not romantically.
Just efficiently — like someone accepting a contract she already knew she’d regret signing.
“Hold on tight,” Billy said.
“I am not holding onto you,” she replied instantly.
“You’re holding onto the bike then?”
“I am holding onto my dignity.”
“That’s flexible,” Billy said.
Nicole pinched the bridge of her nose. “Drive.”
And so, he did.
The motorcycle surged forward like it had been waiting its entire existence for this exact moment.
The streets blurred.
Neon streaked into long ribbons of color, like the city itself was melting into motion. Wind cut through everything — thoughts, worries, calculations. For once, Nicole wasn’t thinking about contracts or clients or how many ways a job could go wrong.
She was just... there.
Infront of her, Billy whooped into the night like he was born from it.
“We’re doing it! Nicole, we’re actually doing it!*”
“Stop yelling,” she shouted back.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER HOW AMAZING THIS IS!”
“I regret every financial decision that led to this moment!”
But she didn’t let go.
They passed districts where the lights turned violet, then gold, then a deep electric blue that made the world feel underwater. Somewhere above them, the skyline of New Eridu cut into the sky like broken glass.
Billy leaned slightly into a turn, confident in a way that should have been illegal.
“See?” he called out. “It’s like — like we’re in a Starlight Knight episode!”
“If this ends with us crashing, I’m haunting you,” Nicole said.
“Noted!”
Despite everything, she found herself laughing — just once, brief and sharp like a coin flicked into the air.
It surprised her.
Enough that she almost missed how the city suddenly opened ahead of them — an empty stretch of elevated road overlooking the distant Hollow containment fields.
The world slowed there.
Or maybe it only felt like it did.
Billy eased off the throttle.
The wind softened.
Neon lights stretched across the horizon like a promise no one had written down.
For a moment, they just rode.
No contracts. No debts. No missions.
Just motion.
Nicole finally spoke, quieter now. “You know this isn’t sustainable.”
Billy didn’t look back. “Nothing is.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“But it’s true.”
Silence settled between them — not uncomfortable, just real.
Then Billy added, softer: “But while it lasts… it’s pretty great, right?”
Nicole didn’t answer immediately.
She looked at the blurred city, at the glow of the distant sunset like a peaceful gradient, at the reflection of light bending across the bike’s frame.
“…Yeah,” she admitted finally. “It is.”
Billy grinned.
“Then let’s go a little farther.”
And Nicole, against all logic, didn’t say no.
They rode like that through New Eridu’s endless night — two people pretending they weren’t running from anything, pretending they weren’t being chased by anything, pretending the world was just something you could outrun if you held the throttle long enough.
And for a while, it almost worked.
Almost.
But not tonight.
Tonight was just speed, neon, wind, and the strange, fragile kind of freedom that only existed when you stopped thinking about what came next.
Just Billy laughed into the night like a hero who didn't know he was one.
And Nicole, holding on — not because she trusted the ride...
...but because, for once, she trusted the moment.
Riding his motorcycle with him.