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Title: Honor Among Thank you lazydwarf and brandixcyanide for wonderful betas ♥
Haley was three miles out of town when she finally got a car to stop for her, which made it a good day. Sometimes she went for days without seeing a car even on the busiest of highways. Sometimes even if there were cars, they ignored her completely, or sped up as if they drove fast enough they could deny her existence. All of which was fine by her, particularly since she more than understood the chanciness of depending on the kindness of strangers. Still, she didn't like hiking in the snow any more than the next person, so Haley was grateful when the car pulled up beside her and the driver rolled down his window. "Thanks for stopping," she said, flashing him a winning smile. "It's winter, of course we had to stop," the guy said, and Haley's eyes flicked over him, taking in the glasses, the carefully-trimmed hair, the button-down shirt. In the passenger seat beside him sat a second man, this one slightly scruffier and sporting a fedora along with a knit vest. Good boys, her mind wanted to say, the kind of guys who remember their grandmother's birthday and rescued kittens from trees. After the incident in Jersey two months back, Haley didn't trust good boys any more than she trusted the rest of the world, but that was fine. She didn't need to trust these two in order to get a ride out of them. "You'd be surprised how many people wouldn't," she said, still smiling. "I started hitching my way west from Chicago thinking it would take me about a week to reach Bloomfield, and that was back in August." Always give a place of origin, always give a destination, she'd learned. Never let them suspect you were just a drifter because no one wanted to give a ride to a bum. "So, where are you two headed?" Haley asked out of politeness, not necessity. She honestly didn't care what answer they gave as long as they weren't going back towards Chicago. "Four corner's region, so I guess in your direction?" the guy in the hat said with a smile. He had a nice smile but Haley wasn't going to buy that. She'd met nice smiles before – hell, she had one herself – and she knew better than to trust one. "Sounds good. I'm Kyle, by the way. Kyle Williams." Always have an origin, always have a destination, never give your real name, never let them know you were a girl if you could help it. The driver reached behind him and unlocked the back door. "Old car," he said with a shrug, "from before power locks. Nice to meet you, Kyle. I'm Luke, he's Jack. When you get in, make sure you don't sit on Clover, alright? Jack gets upset when that happens." "Clover?" Haley asked, opening the door and quickly sliding in. "What's— oh!" She laughed as a small grey head poked out from under a blanket and mewed at her. "She was pathetic. I couldn't leave her," Jack said, and he turned around to give Haley a sheepish look as Luke put the car into gear and started the engine again. An hour or so later, after she'd explained to the men that she was headed for, "My aunt's place in Bloomfield, New Mexico. She's got a grocer's and my uncle recently passed away, so she wrote to ask if I'd come help her out," and Luke had told her how he and his brother-in-law were heading back to Phoenix after taking care of some legal business in Iowa, Haley was feeling a lot warmer and a lot more confident about who she was traveling with, in spite of the good boy outfits and charming smiles. Still, she was a little surprised when Luke said thoughtfully, "...so, Kyle. That would be short for what, Kylee? Kaylie?" Haley froze in the middle of scratching Clover between the ears, going stiff in her seat. "Hey, look, don't worry, we're not going to try anything," Jack reassured her. "Luke's a priest and I'm gay." Meeting Jack's gaze, Haley couldn't help but laugh at this. Jack frowned, looking hurt. "What? Why is it no one believes me when I tell 'em I'm gay?" "No, no, it's not that," she insisted. "Really. I just can't believe you expect me to think he is a priest." "I am, actually," Luke said, eyes still focused on the road. "Ha, yeah right. No priest has fake IDs stashed away in his car, Mr. Urie," Haley shot back. They hadn't even been well-hidden – honestly, what fool bothered hiding things under the floor mats in their car? She'd found the clutch of driver's licenses without even trying, really. "What makes you think that's even the right name?" Luke – or rather, Brendon Urie, if the card Haley had found was to be believed – asked with a laugh. "And alright, I'm not a priest, but I am a missionary. Or, well, I used to be one." That certainly made a lot more sense than him being a priest. "It's the name on the only one of these that could possibly pass for genuine for one thing. Plus, it's the one with the worst picture." "Vanity is a sin," Jack agreed with a sage nod. "I told you it was a mistake to use good pictures, Brendon." "The colors are too good on the fakes," Haley continued, warming up on the subject. "If you match things perfectly, people get suspicious and start seeing flaws where there aren't any. It's better to hint at accuracy and let them provide the details for themselves rather than trying to do it for them. And you can't skimp when it comes to paper and proper lamination and stuff like that. Real licenses are printed directly onto the plastic like this one," she waved the Brendon Urie ID at the men in the front seat. "Your little contact-paper quick-fix wouldn't fool any cop, let alone a liquor store clerk." "Yeah, well. Maybe I can't afford what the good forgers are charging," Brendon said, sounding more than a little crabby. "How is it you know so much about fake IDs anyway, Kaylee?" "Haley," she corrected him. It was pointless to stick to the rules now – these were clearly her kind of people, and the best way to handle her kind of people was to be straight up and honest. Well. Honest-ish. "Forging is something of a hobby of mine," she admitted. "Why do you need so many different identities?" "Brendon here is a wanted man," Jack said, raising his eyebrows at Haley and grinning. "Which is what happens when you get caught." "Yeah, yeah, I was young and foolish, tried to bite off more than I could chew. Not everyone has years and years worth of experience to fall back on," Brendon said, rolling his eyes. "He's Jon, by the way, if we're going to be upfront about this stuff." Haley laughed. "Oh, poor baby. Are you still fresh in the ways of illegal and illicit activities?" She leaned forward and patted Brendon on the shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll get there eventually – you've already done a very nice job cultivating a 'good boy' appearance for yourself. Or did Jon do that for you?" Jon was the one in the argyle sweater vest, after all. Brendon preened at Haley's praise. "Ha. Jon didn't even know about furniture before I found him. I mean, really. A kitten may be great for one-time furniture, but it's not exactly something you can easily dump when you need to disassociate yourself from a persona. Well. Not one you can dump in good conscience, at least." "And I keep telling you – you don't need furniture if you never get caught," Jon cheerfully shot back. Clearly this was an old argument between them. "You two, are you confidence men, then?" Confidence scams weren't all that that far off from her own line of work, and she had to admit she was curious. "He is," Jon said. "I just do simple card tricks." "Which is Jon's way of saying that he's pretty much the slickest card shark you'll ever meet. And that, little lady, would be why we are headed for Vegas," Brendon said, flashing a grin at her in the rear-view mirror. "Well. That and I'm due for a visit home before my parents start worrying that I'm dead in a ditch somewhere." "Parents do that. Worry, I mean." Haley paused. "I've never been to Vegas," she said thoughtfully. It was pretty much the perfect destination for her, all things considered. Particularly seeing as how she couldn't exactly show her face in New York or Chicago again any time soon. "You set us up with some halfway decent identification and we'll pretty much let you follow us anywhere," Brendon told her, and Haley grinned. Finally, her kind of people.
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