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Kevin crouched behind a low outcropping of rock, binoculars pressed to his eyes, trying very hard not to sneeze from the dust that was currently tickling his nose. Beside him, Paige sat cross-legged, her own pair of binoculars dangling loosely from one hand while she picked at a loose thread on her jeans.
"So you're telling me," she said, her voice low and dry, "you dragged me all the way out here into the desert just to, and I quote, 'just check on Coyote'?"
"Yes!" Kevin whispered, a little too loud. A small cascade of pebbles skittered down the slope as he shifted to look at her. He winced and pressed himself flatter against the rock they were using as cover.
Paige raised a skeptical eyebrow. "And this has nothing to do with the fact you think Coyote's going to talk to Road Runner about the whole accidental courtship thing?"
"...No?"
She shook her head, the corner of her mouth twitching. "You know, for an attorney, you'd think you'd be better at lying."
"Hey!"
"I'm just saying." She lifted the binoculars again, scanning the clearing below. "Anyways, you know I would've come along even if you'd admitted it was just to spy on them. You know I'm nosy. And you did dump on the poor guy that he's been accidentally asking his prey out for the last few decades. It makes sense you'd be a little worried about how he'd handle the situation."
Kevin didn't answer. Mostly because she was right, and also because down below, in the wide sandy clearing in front of Coyote's modest (and surprisingly well-furnished) cave, the subject of their surveillance had started pacing.
Coyote's hands were clasped tightly behind his back. Every few steps he would stop, smooth the front of his fur as if straightening an invisible tie, then resume the circuit. His ears flicked at every distant sound - the whisper of wind through the sage, the distant cry of a hawk, the faint rattle of a loose rock somewhere up the canyon.
Kevin adjusted the focus on the binoculars. The late-afternoon light painted everything in warm golds and deep reds. Coyote's cave entrance was neat, almost tidy: a few carefully stacked crates that had once held ACME products now served as what looked to be outdoor seating, a small shade cloth stretched between two poles, even a little side table with what looked suspiciously like a tea set. A single wildflower sat in a chipped mug on the table. Kevin had half-expected the place to still look like the aftermath of one of Coyote's more spectacular ACME-fueled failures - scorch marks, half-buried anvils, maybe a crater or two. Instead, it was surprisingly domestic.
Paige nudged him with her elbow. "Dust trail. Nine o'clock."
Kevin swung the binoculars. A familiar comet was arrowing straight across the desert floor, kicking up a perfect rooster tail of dust that glowed in the slanting light. Down below, Coyote clearly saw it too. He straightened so fast he almost overbalanced, then frantically brushed any remaining bits of dust and twigs from his shoulders and the tips of his ears. By the time the dust plume resolved into a sleek blue shape skidding to a stop a few yards away, Coyote was standing at rigid attention, looking for all the world like he was about to deliver a very fine speech.
Road Runner tilted his head. Through the binoculars Kevin could see the bird's bright eyes regarding Coyote with open curiosity. Then the roadrunner hopped closer, head bobbing in that cheerful, rhythmic way that always made Kevin think of a metronome set permanently to happy. He hadn't spent much time with the bird outside of their brief interactions during the trial and the occasional distant greeting when visiting Coyote, but the cartoon did seem to exist in a pretty constant state of cheerful momentum.
What followed was the strangest, and somehow most tender, conversation Kevin had ever witnessed.
Coyote produced a succession of signs from behind his back with great care. He held each one steady so Road Runner could read it fully before tossing it aside into a growing pile. Road Runner answered with a series of beeps, head tilts, and enthusiastic foot-to-foot hops. At one point the bird darted in a tight circle around Coyote, kicking up a miniature dust devil that swirled around the coyote's ankles, then skidded to a halt and nodded vigorously. Coyote's ears flushed a deeper shade of brown - so much so that it was visible even from the ridge.
Finally, Coyote pulled out a blank sign, hesitated for a long moment, then produced a pen and scribbled something Kevin couldn't quite make out from the angle. His hand was steady, but the pause before he showed it was long enough that Kevin found himself holding his breath. Road Runner leaned in to read what Coyote had written, and then let out a soft, almost musical series of coos that carried surprisingly far on the dry air. The sound made Coyote's entire posture melt from nervous rigidity into something shy and hopeful.
It was perhaps the cutest thing Kevin had ever seen.
"I think he said yes!!" Paige hissed in Kevin's ear, her hand suddenly wrapping around his arm as she leaned forward in excitement. "Look at them!"
Kevin shushed her, but he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face as he watched his friend admit to feelings that had apparently been building for decades under the guise of a never-ending chase. All those elaborate schemes, all those near-misses and spectacular failures, and somewhere underneath it the whole time had been this.
Coyote and Road Runner stood very close now. Coyote's free hand lifted, hovering near the curve of Road Runner's neck feathers as if he wasn't quite sure he was allowed to touch. But Road Runner didn't pull away, instead the bird rose slightly on his toes, beak tipping forward towards the taller Coyote, and then-
Kevin, leaning too far forward, felt the rocks under his left foot suddenly shift.
"Kevin-!" Paige started.
Too late.
His shoe slipped and he windmilled for balance, grabbing at empty air, and then he stumbled backward as a sizable rock broke free and tumbled down the ridge in a small avalanche of gravel and dust. The crash that followed was impressively loud, and Kevin grimaced, still half-sprawled against the ground.
Down below, Coyote and Road Runner jolted apart as if electrocuted. Both heads snapped upward, searching until they found the source of the commotion. For a second the two of them simply stared.
At a loss for what else to do, Kevin slowly raised one hand in an awkward wave.
"Oh my God." Paige muttered from behind him, her voice muffled as she dropped her head into her hands.
"What?!"
Road Runner stood straight up. Then, in a blue blur that left a streaking afterimage in the air, the bird was suddenly right there, perched on the rock outcropping less than three feet from Kevin's face. Kevin definitely did not make a high-pitched noise that could in any way be described as a scream, and if anyone claimed otherwise, he would deny, deny, deny.
A rapid-fire sequence of beeps and trills poured out from the roadrunner, sharp and unmistakably scolding in tone. Kevin didn't need to understand Morse code to recognize when he was being thoroughly told off for intruding. The bird's eyes were bright and pointed, one foot tapping against the rock in clear disapproval.
He raised both hands in surrender, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry! Really sorry. We'll leave you two to it. Scout's honor. No more spying. Cross my heart and hope to... well, not die, but you get the idea."
Road Runner narrowed his eyes, delivered one final, pointed beep-beep that somehow managed to convey both "I am watching you" and "do better," then vanished back down the slope in another dust streak. Kevin exhaled and risked a glance at Paige.
She was already packing up the binoculars, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. "Smooth, uncle Kev. Real smooth."
"I panicked!"
Down below, Coyote was staring up at them with an expression that managed to combine profound embarrassment, reluctant amusement, and the very clear message that Kevin's next hangout would be accompanied by an extensive collection of extremely rude signs. Road Runner stood beside him again, bumping his shoulder lightly with one wing. Coyote's ears flicked, and his gaze turned to the roadrunner. He didn't move away. If anything, he leaned a fraction closer.
Kevin watched for another second longer than he probably should have, then turned and started the careful scramble back down the far side of the ridge, away from the cave. Paige fell into step beside him, still smirking.
They walked in companionable silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of their shoes on the rocky path and the distant wind moving through the canyons. The sun was starting to dip lower, painting the western sky in soft oranges and pinks that bled into the deeper purple of the coming evening.
"So," Paige said eventually, "think it went okay?"
Kevin thought about the way Coyote's hand had hovered over those blue feathers, the soft cooing that had carried all the way up the ridge, the fact that neither of them had bolted or launched into the old familiar chase. He thought about the look on Coyote's face when the Road Runner had cooed - shy and almost disbelieving, like someone who had spent hours upon hours preparing for rejection and had received the exact opposite.
He smiled, the last of the adrenaline racing through him fading into something warmer.
"Yeah," he said. "I think it went better than okay."