Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lukey was having a horrible day. He woke up 30 minutes past his alarm, the traffic to the office was horrible and he had a stack of documents at his desk when he actually reached the office.

He feels lucky that he was able to talk his way out of getting scolded (coffee bribery does wonders) but that did not help with the hours of careful reading, research, emailing and writing that he now has to do.

He picks up the first document of the paper stack, situated in a clean manila folder with a sticky note attached to the top of it. The note reads “UPDATE: CASE LAW FOR UNINTENTIONAL BIOWEAPON #46572726.”

Lukey simply sighs, shaking his head. He’s a lawyer, not a scientist. Why was he the one assigned to do research for the bioweapon case? What even is the legal classification of an organism?

Sitting down at his desk, he types in his password, mentally wishing to go home. He clicks on his case files folder and gets greeted by the blue screen of death.

“Okay, what the actual fuck,” Lukey whispers to himself, already dreading the IT conversation he will have to have. Dragging his hand across his face, he stands up, heading in the direction of IT.

---

After hours of IT troubleshooting, researching about the extent of if skulk can legally be defined as an organism that can have intent, and a surprise meeting about a sudden lack of public defenders at the ready, Lukey feels the urge to drown himself in a lake grow ever present.

(He would never, for the record. It is a well-known fact that he hates getting wet.)

Instead, Lukey decides to go to the nearby wine shop to do the other type of drowning - drowning in alcohol.

Getting into his white Chevy Impala, he drives the short 5-minute drive to the wine store, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 blasting through his radio. He parks his car, heads straight to the wine aisle, pays for a single bottle of red wine with minimal small talk towards the cashier, and leaves the store. Wine bottle in hand, he steps out into the cool March air and gets greeted with chaos.

The first thing that Lukey registers is the faint smell of burnt sugar.

Then, it was the shouts and sirens coming from the grocery store across the street and the revving of engines nearby.

The visible scene before him finally clicks in his mind, with the leftmost display window of the store being smashed, glass shards littered around the sidewalk. People are pouring out of the store yelling, cursing and running after something that has just entered his view.

A minivan, run-down and painted in the most hideous pale green, that seems to be trying to u-turn on a two-way street 30 minutes into the hell that is rush hour. The driver, a man with the most obnoxious orange hair, wearing sunglasses of all things is driving the abomination.

The revving that he only faintly noticed reaches a higher pitch, and suddenly, with a jerk of the orange man’s arm, his own car, his white Chevy Impala, gets rear-ended by the back of the minivan.

The minivan’s driver yells out “Sorry!” as he somehow speeds away, the crowd of people chasing comedically behind.

Staring at his rear-ended car and the chaos and destruction that has occurred across the street, Lukey realizes two things: 1. He has to now talk with insurance sometime in the future cause his car just got fucking rammed, and 2. He now has to deal with the horrors of rush hour public transportation in the city.

Begrudgingly accepting his fate for the night, Lukey pops the wine bottle in his hands and drinks straight from it. He’s not driving tonight, so who cares anymore.

He begins dialling, mentally cursing whatever god has decided to curse him for simply existing in modern society.

Oh, and also the orange man with the minivan that hit his car. He needs to be thrown into hell.

Chapter Text

Figuring out transportation wasn’t all that bad. Public transport, though horrible in rush hour, got him home and the train and bus to the office the next day was surprisingly not too packed.

His co-workers were even sympathetic to his unfortunate situation, many offering advice on what to do afterwards. One such co-worker, more like his direct supervisor actually, Badboyhalo, was so sympathetic that he decided that he was going to pick and drop off Lukey every day until his transportation situation gets resolved.

Now, you see, Lukey is amicable with Bad. He wouldn’t consider him to be a work buddy but they do work together a lot - emails are frequent between the two, they exchange greetings by the office microwave area during lunch and they see ach other at the team check-in once a week.

Overall, Bad is a friendly face and he’s thankful for his offer to drive him to and from work every day.

The problem is that when you are in a regulated work environment with someone and you take that someone out of that regulated environment, let's say a black SUV on the way to work, you may learn a bit more than you would like due to the blurring of professional boundaries.

Which leads to Lukey’s current situation where he is hearing Bad rant about the difference between having a date and a date.

“-and since when was going on a date seen as romantic? It’s not a date, it’s a date!” exclaims Bad, turning into the parking area of their building.

“I see what you mean but they’re both technically the same word, just the intonation is different…” Lukey responds, exasperated.

“They’re not the same word,” mutters Bad, parking the car.

Lukey rolls his eyes, opening the door and getting out of the vehicle. “Sure, Bad.”

The two walk to the elevator, with Lukey tuning out Bad’s complaints. He did not need to learn any more about Bad’s confusing love life and his thoughts on the English language.

“Oh yeah, actually I completely forgot to mention this to you on the way here but you’ve been assigned a case!” says Bad, pressing the 6th floor button on the elevator.

Lukey raises his eyebrow. “What kind of case?”

“Criminal case, robbery, you’re gonna be their public defender!”

That caught Lukey’s attention. “Huh? Since when was I a public defense lawyer?”

Bad stared at him. “You raised your hand yesterday during the meeting.”

Huh? Raised his hand? Was Bad gaslighting him?

Lukey racks his head through his memory of yesterday before the incident. There was a meeting about a lack of public defenders, that’s true. But why, in any world, would he have raised his hand? He’s barely even been in court!

“Are you gaslighting me?” he asks. The elevator dings and the door opens. The two walk out. “Also, that’s not how the selection of public defenders even works! The court assigns a lawyer and I definitely should not have been in the running to even begin with!”

Bad shrugs. “Okay, you didn’t raise your hand but I did appoint you cause I was originally assigned and I am unable to do it. Conflict of interest and all that.”

That left Lukey with even more questions cause that’s just not how the process works.

“What do you mean you appointed me? You’re not the judge?” he exclaims, arms flailing out. “Also, conflict of interest? How about a conflict of qualification cause I’m not qualified to be a public defender?”

“The legal system is a little bit loosey-goosey-”

“Since when would ANYONE call the legal system loosey-goosey?”

“Listen, it just is! It’s loosey goosey at the moment and the judge was just like ‘Okay, you can’t be the attorney for the case cause conflict of interest but you can elect someone’ and I decided to choose you! You need the experience anyways and I’ll still be able to help advise you along the way! I, in fact, know the client very well already.”

Lukey stopped walking and stared at Bad.

“You're crazy,” states Lukey.

Bad rolls his eyes once again and gestures to the office door. “I’m making perfect sense, Lukey. Do you want to see the case file?”

With whatever shred of sanity Lukey has left, Lukey decides that there is no reason for him to continue arguing with Badboyhalo. He takes a deep breath in and out.

“Lead the way.”

They step into Bad’s office and Bad immediately begins rummaging through his desk. He finds what he’s been looking for, opens up the folder and plops it on the desk, gesturing to Lukey to come take a closer look.

Lukey’s eyes caught the picture of the client immediately.

Bright orange hair.

Dark sunglasses resting on top of his head.

A way too smug grin across his face.

It’s him. The fucker that rear-ended his car. Even though Lukey has only seen this man for about 2 seconds in-person, he would recognize him anywhere.

Looking over at the actual text on the document, he reads that the man is charged with robbery over $5000, careless driving, mischief over $5000 and hit and run. His eyes skim over to the name of the man: Pangi Pangolin.

He turns the page and is greeted with a couple more photos: one of the grocery store that was broken into yesterday and another one of his very own white Chevy Impala.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says to himself. Is he really going to be the public defender of the man who rear-ended his car yesterday? When he’s not even a public defender?

Realizing the insanity of the situation he’s gotten himself roped into, Lukey closes his eyes, turns to the nearest wall and moves to slam his head against it.