Higher on the Street

Applause breaking out around him, he froze, the euphoria snuffed out like a candle flame. Those looked a hell of a lot like yakuza. More specifically, that yakuza.

Their eyes stayed on him as they began striding across the room, hands casually hovering near belts.

Well, looked like the party'd come to an end.

Still breathing heavily, he managed a bow to the audience and a deeper one to the flutist, propping a smile on his lips and throwing the room a thank-you as he hopped down off the table to the relief of the bartender. A slap on the arm from Ariake nearly made him lose track of his plan to yank them all out as quickly as possible out of sheer surprise, though.

He gave him a tight grin, using that arm to hoist the teen out of his chair. "Think you're sober enough to drive?"

The lad blinked. "What?"

"We might have a little problem." He canted his head to the yakuza skirting a table, clearly intent on mowing them down.

Ariake blinked at them for a tipsy second before bursting out with a "Dammit!".

"Right, don't think you're up to driving then. And I think it's a good quarter of an hour till your friend gets here." He handed the teen off to Drake, who'd luckily stayed sober and already noticed the trouble. Furiously scribbling out a cheque that'd hopefully cover the bill along with a telephone number, he pressed it into the startled hand of the barmaid. "Time to go!"

They fled out through a side door, Drake winding up mostly carrying the other two, and arrived at the car just as an engine rumbled to life further along, headlights flooding the street.

"Keys!" He shoved Ariake aside as the teen stared down the road like a frozen rabbit, practically snatching them out of his hand. "I'll drive."

"What?" Ariake glared at him, and Lachlan forcefully shoved him into the back passenger seat as Drake threw a near-comatose Eden on the other side. "I'm as sober as you!"

"Not even close, sonny boy." Though maybe the adrenaline was doing the heavy lifting, here. Still, he was the best option.

"What about the other gaijin? He's not drunk."

"I can't drive."

"What?"

"I don't have a license." Drake clicked his seatbelt in just as Lachlan adjusted his seat and turned the key, getting a feel for the gearstick.

"And Roku does?"

What a day for achievements. First a back slap, now using a version of his actual name, if impolitely. Never underestimate the power of alcohol. "Have an international license, managed to get certified here when I got my citizenship. Haven't driven a car in a while, though!"

A gunshot cracked out, Ariake's yelp turning into a garbled not-quite shriek as Lachlan shoved it into first and shot down the narrow road.

"'Fraid we're breaking the law tonight, but we've got good reason!" The lanterns flashing by opened onto the main road, and he yanked them around the corner.

The sardines tumbled around in the back, Ariake spitting fire and Eden yelling a slurred something. His attention stuck to the road, screeching out just ahead of their tailgaters, headlights glaring right in his eyes till he flipped the rearview-mirror.

Just as a sharp ping rang off the roof.

Which had Ariake abruptly trying to shove himself out the window, shouting bloody murder. "You touch my car you bastards—!"

"Hey! Heads inside the car!"

Swerving to the side and dangerously close to an oncoming truck nearly took said head off. He swung in just behind, the teen choking off, and cut into a side street, roaring up a low rise.

"Why are they after us, anyway?" Drake twisted in his seat as those headlights appeared behind them again.

"I was guessing it's because of all the trouble we've been making." He made an illegal pass. "But—" Threaded neatly in front just ahead of an oncoming car that swerved wildly "—I could be wrong."

"If they make trouble with us, they're making trouble with the SC though, right?"

"Guess the SC started it."

"Gaijin." Ariake pulled himself forward with a deathgrip on the back of Lachlan's seat, shoving a lolling Eden out of the way. "If you keep driving my car like a maniac—"

"What?" The shadow of a yakuza leaned out of the car pursuing them, and he gripped the wheel. "Like this?"

Spinning it, he pulled her around hard, tossing Ariake off into His Drunken Worshipfulness's kingdom. Unlike the old pickup he'd driven everywhere in Scandin, she took to it sharply, correcting herself as he took his hands off and skidding neatly into the other lane. Downshifting, he floored it right past their pursuer, catching a brief muzzle flash but no ping of a bullet.

Ariake screamed at him, Drake hanging on for dear life, Eden probably crushed, and Lachlan laughed. Maniac he might be, but if this'd be his first and last time driving Ariake's car, at least he'd get to drive the hell out of it.

"Gaijin, I—" Ariake made a noise awfully close to a gag "—stop."

"Can't do that. Your car, your mess." Though he could do without the smell.

"I'll— I'm gonna— I'll kill you."

"And so will they." He drifted her out onto a main street again, nearly losing the line this time and clipping a bin on the footpath. "Shite. Anybody know where we are? I need to lose these guys before Takanashi throws up in his own car. We'll try the old side-street-and-park trick."

"Uhh." Drake peered out the windshield. "Next right."

"I'm the king of Nihon," Eden declared from the back, straight out of nowhere.

"Next right. No trouble." He swung her around, Ariake hopefully succeeding in his valiant attempt not to throw up on the backseat. "How's that sound, King of Nihon?"

"You will refer to me as 'your majesty'."

"Ki-sama, of course." He nodded, following Drake's finger pointing to another street on the left. "Your graceful lordship, I do believe we're about to experience some turbulence. Hold onto your dinner."

Drake snickered as the uptight teen devolved into drunken sputtering. That snicker became a hacked-off laugh when Lachlan yanked the wheel and roared straight down the street with his foot to the floor, pursuers disappearing. "Any alleys here?"

"On— next right, I think. Just around the corner."

Perfect.

"Alright Ariake." The street twisted, house fronts blurring past, and he gripped the wheel. "We're about to make an emergency stop!"

He almost missed the alley tucked right on the back-end of the turn. Skidding in a screech of tyres and maybe the sound of a few browned pants, he shot in, just missing the thin tree on the corner. The car jolted to a stop as he braked hard enough to nearly set off the airbags, flicking the lights out with a twist of the knob.

No one breathed, the roar of another engine rising and flashing past.

Successfully missed them.

He let out a breath, sitting back and punting the steering wheel as the back door opened and Ariake stumbled out. "Whew! That should give us a head-start back home."

Dead silence. Apart from Ariake noisily upturning his stomach in a convenient storm drain, at least.

Doresu broke it with a laugh, his shoulders shaking as he pressed his face into an arm still holding for dear life to the handle above the door. And he'd started to think the lad was a thrill-seeker.

Joining in, he punched him on the shoulder, grinning. "Consider it payback for the flight. We'll call it even."

"You... are insane... gaijin," Eden said faintly from somewhere in the back. Curled over his knees, from the look of it.

"'Least it shocked you sober."

"I don't think he's sober." Drake finally peeled his hand away from the grip, wiping at the corner of his eye as he peered over his shoulder. "You're all drunk enough that the police really should've arrested us by now."

Lachlan folded his arms on the wheel with a hum. "Don't think I could've pulled off driving like that while drunk."

"Insanity...."

He rolled down the window, sticking his head out to check on Ariake woozily propped over the drain and no longer retching his guts out. "Hey, it's about time we started back. They'll figure out we slipped them soon enough and come looking if we hang around."

"You... are not driving." The teen wobbled back to his feet. "I've had... had enough."

"'Fraid that's still not on the cards. You look like you'd crash into someone's garden." He stuck a thumb back as Ariake hovered between the front and back doors with an unhappy scowl on his face. "Into the back with you."

Grumbling all the while, the lad did as he was told, flopping heavily in and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Lachlan backed them out with parking lights only, quietly creeping back along to the main road at the speed limit.

And they took off for home.