MAIZE

"OH HELL NO!"

"What do you mean? You said I could keep it..."

"I wha—? I did not say that! EVER!"

The detective glanced down at the dog sitting on the ground. "Did he say I could keep it?" he asked out loud, to which Kota simply made a sound in the back of his throat akin to a low breath of air. No one could possibly know what it was supposed to mean. Alec then turned back to Ryder and grinned. "I think he said yes."

"HE DID NOT SAY YES. I DID NOT SAY YES!"

"You just did."

By the love of god how old were these two?

"What no I—UGH! You know what West—?!" Ryder proceeded to go off with a loud series of incoherent ranting against the detective as the two men arguably squabbled in what was—in Maize's opinion—the stupidest argument of all time.

Shortly after they had left behind the scene of Azeal's arrest, it hadn't taken much of a walk outside before Ryder was once again reminded by the fact that he was mad at both of them for being 'self-inviting non-respecting no-good-utter-thieves'—as he had put it. And with that came the unavoidable consequence of the dog-wrangler and the detective getting into a heated argument, though Maize remembered hearing more slews of random insults than any legitimate point-making. Somehow, the discussion had moved to how they would be getting back to the motel they had left the remainder of their stuff—and with that came its own new set of complications. Namely; the fact that Alec suddenly got it in his head that the car he had driven here belonged to him now.

However and whenever that train of thought had started, Maize didn't want to know and didn't want to ask—less the answer only add fuel to the blistering fire between the two arguing men in front of her.

"It's my fucking car! The answer is NO!" Ryder continued to shout, his face heated with anger while Alec stood there cool as a cucumber.

"Oh come one, you didn't even notice I had it until just now. You have so many back at your house anyway, what does it matter if I borrowed one?"

"Um borrowed? Don't you mean STOLE!?"

"Meh, tomaeto-tomato," Alec said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

"WHAT THE HELL WHAT KIND OF 'LAW ENFORCEMENT' ARE YOU!?"

Maize pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep inhale as the two idiots began to bicker all over again.

For the ever love of god. If seemed any time she wasn't busy nearly getting herself killed, she was stuck listening to this. And for a moment, she began to contemplate which was more of an aggravation. At least one of those options didn't assure the loss of brain cells with each second that passed...

"Maize are you going to say anything?!" Ryder exclaimed. She frowned from the positioned seat she had taken when the whole scene began—leaning against the hood of the very car they were arguing about—and shrugged her already folded arms.

"I'm not getting involved with...whatever this is," she said, shaking her head dismissively.

Ryder looked at her, incredulous. "Are you serious? Your idiot of a cop partner is trying to re-steal my car! Permanently! If anything—show some concern that he might have actually acquired some sort of brain damage while you were fighting!"

She shrugged again with indifference. It had already been a long night, and she felt she didn't particularly have the energy to stop either of them. Watching and mentally betting on who was riling up the other more was much easier, and so far, Alec seemed to be winning. Ryder looked one small step away from blowing steam out of his ears.

"You both suck!" He fumed.

"Someone definitely woke up on the wrong side of the sniper rifle..."

Ryder's eye was twitching. "Say that again, West, I dare you."

"Someone definitely woke up on the—"

"For fucks sake!" Ryder cut him off as he finally snapped and threw his arms in the air. "I don't know why I bothered wasting time thinking about whether either of you had gotten hurt—you're such a pain in the ass. I swear I've been shot several times at once and somehow that was less painful than dealing with you! "

Alec blinked, and stared at him. And kept staring, for at least a good five minutes, until he finished and a wide grin paired with the gleaming look in his eyes glimmered at Ryder, sappily sweet. "Aw. So you do care..."

That, it seemed, was the only part that went straight to his head.

Ryder's eye twitched. "That's it, I'm going to shoot him," he deadpanned.

"No," Maize answered flatly.

"Fine then. Kota—"

"Let's leave the dog out of this," Alec cut him off smoothly, but Maize had to hide her smile when she caught the ever so brief flash of his gaze glancing towards the canine laying calmly not too far off. "Besides, I was kidding, we already knew you cared." Ryder's eyes widened and he opened his mouth but Alec spoke before he did. "And we appreciate each time you came to save our asses..."

Well, it seemed that little confession had caught both Maize and Ryder off guard, considering who it was coming from, and who he was saying it to. Ryder, after a long moment of nose pinching silence and aggravated tight hair gripping, took a deep seething breath through clenched teeth and exhaled slowly, looking as if the action of calming down caused him more pain the relief. But still, the air around him calmed, even if just a little.

"Yeah, not my pleasure, but whatever," he muttered as he drowned his fisted hands into his pockets. "I guess on some level I should be grateful you made it out," he said before adding, "considering whatever plan you had was utterly stupid—and not to mention; suicidal."

There was a pointed look directed at Maize from two different pairs of eyes, which was around the exact same time she found the ends of her fingernails extremely interesting.

"Damn," Alec huffed a slight laugh as he smirked. "Who knew the guy who claimed to hate cops so much was such a secret softy."

Ryder groaned. "I take it back. Go rot in Hell."

"Sorry, not today," Alec chuckled as he crossed his arms with a signature smirk.

Maize sighed over in her seating area, this was beginning to wear down the ending line of her tolerance. Bored, and done listening to them, she bumped herself off the hood of the car and walked around the driver's seat. The keys were hanging from the ignition, left precisely where Alec had stuck them before Ryder had interrupted and their little brawl of arguments started. Not bothering to see if either of them were watching, she opened the back door to allow Kota to hop in, then after shutting it she moved to the driver's side and slid in. Her actions only got the two's attention once she had twisted the keys and started the ignition, but anything they tried to say to her afterwards was drowned out by the sound of the engine.

"Wait what the—?"

"Maize!"

"You both have two options," she said as she held her hand out through the open window, expressionless look on her face as she stated each of them. "One; you both agree to shut up and get in the back seat so we can finally get back, or, two; I'll just leave you both here and go back to the motel by myself."

"Can I drive?" Alec asked, to which Maize responded with the firmest and most deadpanned "no".

"Fine, but wait—why do we both have to go in the back seat?" This from Ryder, who looked about as pleased as the detective did. "At least let one of us—"

"Kota..." The dog followed the quick snapping gesture Maize made and hoped from the back up to the passenger seat by her side, settling down in a sit as he gazed at the humans expectantly, tongue hanging from his jaws. That was the end of that discussion.

Each muttering their own sighs and curses—as well as Ryder, who was giving his dog a half accusing glare of utter betrayal—they both got into the back seat of the car. Maize barely gave them any time to buckle their seatbelts before she slammed her foot on the gas and whirling down the road.

* * *

Packing was a measly task since neither she nor Alec had much more than a backpack's worth of belongings still with them—including the new set of spare clothes for each of them that the two agents had miraculously thought to send.

An envelope had been waiting for the at the front desk as well, with a note attached to the front sighed by Johnson.

'Our treat'.

Plane tickets, back to New York.

Maize had huffed just to disguise her laugh. The message was clear enough; thanks for all your help, now please go back to your own city. She had shown them to Alec and from the laughing smirk on his face, it seemed she was not alone in her humour.

They had read the flight times, set to leave in a few hours, and had looked up the amount of time it would take them to reach the airport, which was conveniently not too far away. Ryder had left them for a little while, but he was back along with Kota in time before they were about to set off.

"Time to get going if we want to catch our flight," Maize muttered, glancing once at the time on her phone.

"Right," Alec answered before he turned to Ryder, surprising both him and Maize by dramatically slapped a hand on Ryder's shoulder as if Ryder hadn't been threatening to kill him just a few moments ago. Though it seemed to knock the wind out of him as he stumbled forward a step.

Alec didn't notice—or if he did, he didn't show it. He merely continued to plaster that charmingly fake grin on his face while he lied straight through his teeth. "Well, bye Riley," he said with an exaggerated sigh. "It was nice knowing you...sorta."

"Jee, aren't you just the sentimental one," Ryder muttered with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. But then a smug smirk made its way onto his face as he turned to face Alec, mirroring his cocky attitude with his own. "But don't go saying your goodbyes just yet...not when we still have such a long flight back ahead of us."

Alec's smile faltered as he gazed at Ryder with narrowed eyes. "Pardon?"

Ryder's smile only grew with Alec's confusion, until he stuck his hand in his pocket and flashed a white card of paper. A plane ticket, which he waved in his hand. "Yep, that's right...I'm coming to the big city for a little...getaway." Ryder smirked as he gave Alec a good-hearted slap on the shoulder.

"Like hell you are." Alec deadpanned, demeanour turned dark in an instant.

"I am."

"You're not."

"He is..." Maize cut in, wincing ever so slightly as Alec shot his disbelieving gaze onto her. She fought to keep a straight face as she explained, "I asked him to."

It was silent for a few long moments before Alec threw his hands up in the air. "Why?!" He yelled out, his voice echoing with exasperation. "One! Give me one good reason why he possibly needs to come with us!"

"He's homeless, Alec," Maize stated.

"You don't have to make me sound like a damn charity case the way you say it you know," Ryder muttered grumblingly.

"I will pay for his ticket to Mexico so he can stay at Casino-woman's place," Alec tried to offer, but Maize rolled her eyes and gave her head a shake.

"Not an option."

"We could just leave him here."

"Again, not an option."

"Fucking hell." Alec proceeded to swear like Satan.

"Oh just deal with it West," Ryder interrupted as he leaned over Alec's shoulders, nearly knocking him off balance as he put all his weight on him. He ignored when Alec sent him a distasteful glare, and then his eyes shone bright and teasing as he laughed. "It just means you're stuck with me for a little while longer."

A long, pain-filled groan. "Shoot me."

* * *

HOURS LATER

All Maize could say on the subject, was that she was glad they had managed to make it at all.

The flight back to the city did not go as smoothly as Maize expected. For one, it had been more than eight hours, confined to one stuffy seat, breathing recycled air. Nearly as bad as it had been when they had taken their first flight on the mission, travelling to Mexico, unknowing to the entire warp of entangled tricks and lies it had all been. Only this time was worse. Oh so much worse. And no—it wasn't on account that some bunch of bad guys decided they weren't finished causing trouble and interrupted their trip. Oh no, that would have been a welcome relief compared to what Maize had had to deal with.

Her misjudged about her two companion's maturity levels had been a mistake. One huge grave mistake. If she thought Alec and Ryder the same car for a twenty-minute drive had been bad—those two confined in the likes of a second-class plane, in close quarters, even for one hour was a nightmare. Eight had nearly resulted in bringing down the plane.

Dear Kota—who had had to be crated for the flight in the back with a few of the other animals, though Ryder had nearly thrown a fit about it—had gotten the most merciful flight out of them all.

Maize realized; she could never have Ryder and Alec in the same moving space again, ever. Another plane? She would rather crash it.

Because, put those two in too close proximity for even just five minutes into the flight, and you get absolute hell on earth. It was an absolute, unfortunate chance that had landed all of their seats in the same area. Since the plane was two-seated per row, she and Alec had been side by side while Ryder was on his own with some old woman who had taken some kind of medicine before the flight and was knocked out cold for the rest of it. Since fate was a cruel pain in the ass, Ryder was right in front of Alec.

The entire time, if Ryder wasn't purposefully slamming his seat back as far as it could go, Alec was kicking him from behind. And when both of their agitations grew with each other, they started hissing insults like two boys caught in a playground scuffle. Oh how Maize had wished she could swallow the rest of the bottle from the sleep-drug induced woman.

At one point, Alec had kicked Ryder's chair so hard that the water he had been attempting to drink spilled all over his lap and the front of his shirt. In response, a few subtle minutes later, a pair of airplane headphones were launched at his face from a backwards toss from Ryder.

More cursing. More hissed insults. More seat antagonizing. And more of Maize wanting to just give in to her murderous impulses and strangle them both.

Ordering them to stop hadn't worked. Threatening them to stop hadn't either—since their pride and downright rivalry with one another seemed to outweigh their will to live. And since she hadn't been able to bring anything sharp with her this time...she had nothing to scare them with. And they knew it. The bastards, both of them.

Those two were the downright worst. It was obvious they were a public disturbance to the people closest to them—but the two idiots either too distracted with bothering each other that they didn't notice or care. But no one said a word, no one dared. Even the flight attendants looked nervous each time they passed, having already heard the nasty tongue of Satan from the detective and the array of retorting threats from Ryder.

In other words, it was a miracle they managed to make it to the city at all.

Her only saving grace for those eight hours had been the savour of headphones. With the sides secured firmly over her ears and her music set to max volume, she sat back, drowning out the sounds of the two nuisances to society, and focused on the heights they had reached from the window. The indescribable blue and white of the sky she loved to see, as they flew above the clouds.

3-4 more chapters left! Thank you for all the support!!