Chapter Text
Every Thursday at around 4pm, Paige Avery would drive out into the desert, blasting pop music from her car speakers, all smiles. She’d park at the bottom of the plateau and ascend the ramp up to the cavern that lay at its peak, rocks getting in her shoes.
The first two times she tried to get Coyote to go with her, he refused. She’d ended up coming into his cave with him and just… sort of hanging out. She had a 12-pack of orange soda and a drumstick bucket from some fast-food chicken restaurant piled precariously in her arms, which had plied Coyote into, at least, not kicking the woman back out into the cold Nevada desert outright. She brought it in with her as a peace offering.
“You should at least try it. You might not relate to every part of it, but being around other people in similar situations can be—”
Coyote turned the television up louder, cutting Paige off as he loudly crunched a chicken leg. The television was showing coverage for another of Kevin’s cases.
He was currently putting together a lawsuit on behalf of a pair of amateur detectives who were trying to sue a multi-million dollar toy company for fraud and theft. The case had already made national news a few times, and even though it wasn’t looking super great for Kevin’s clients, the public was so overwhelmingly on their side that it didn’t really matter if they won in the end or not.
“He’s been doing amazing,” Paige remarked between bites. She sipped her soda. “I can’t wait til I’m able to handle my own cases. I think we can take on something even bigger than ACME, don’t you?”
Coyote shrugged, gnawing on the bone of his drumstick idly. He kept his eyes trained on the television.
Paige pursed her lips. “You’re kind of an inscrutable guy, y’know that?”
And Coyote laughed at that, a silent little snicker, before shrugging again with more gravitas. He was fully looking at her now, yellow eyes flickering with slightly restrained manic energy.
“Yeah,” Paige nodded. “I wish I was inscrutable. I think I’m too scrutable. I kinda give my whole…” she gestured at herself, “everything away pretty easily. I know that’s not the best trait for a lawyer to have, but I don’t wanna let my career define me, y’know?”
Coyote gave her a look drier than the desert. Look who you’re talking to.
“Well, yeah, but that’s different,” Paige waved her hands as she spoke. “I guess it’s more that I don’t want the stereotypes of being a lawyer to change who I am?”
Coyote thought about this, and then gestured for her to continue.
“It’s like… If you had something else as, like, your sense of purpose, you’d probably still be an inventor, right? Like if one day the Roadrunner thing isn’t what you want to do anymore for whatever reason—”
BZZT.
Paige stopped. Coyote had a big red button in his hand, pressing down hard on it with his whole fist. The message was clear: No.
“I just mean—”
BZZT.
“Hypothetically speaking—”
BZZT. BZZT. BZZT. BZZT. BZZT. BZZT.
Paige pouted, crossing her arms. “Are you done?”
A pause. Then—
BZZT.
She sighed. Coyote stood up swiftly, tossing the button behind himself. It landed on the floor with a crack, bounced once (showing the ACME brand logo on the bottom) and then promptly burst into flames.
Coyote didn’t even seem to notice, moving to the television set and rummaging around in the boxes stacked next to it. Paige leaned forward, trying to see what he was rummaging through.
He pulled out an old looking VHS tape, inserted it into the slot, and pressed play.
It was an older movie— already partway through. The music was tinny and grainy and nostalgic, a toon singing merrily on the screen.
“And I yam what I yam what I yam and I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam 'cause I yam what I yam!”
Coyote rewound it, replaying the clip.
“I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam 'cause I—”
“Okay, I get it,” Paige put her hands up. “Buuuuut what you are is also a genius inventor. I think whatever goal you set out to accomplish, you could eventually overcome it.”
The television set continued repeating, fading into the background.
“...I almost quit law school a couple years ago, y’know.”
Coyote whipped his head around, ears sticking straight up in shock. Paige smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes like it usually did.
“Yeah, I had this teacher who was, like… kind of the worst guy ever? He was always giving super vague assignments and getting mad when people didn’t understand the super-specific criteria he never told us that he expected from us. And every time he had a problem with something I wrote, he’d point it out in front of everyone. Only my mistakes. It made me feel… like, why was I bothering with all this? Could I actually handle the job if just being a little confused was upsetting me so much?”
She popped a french fry in her mouth, feeling it crunch as she chewed. These were good fries— she’d have to go back to this restaurant again.
“One day I just snapped at him. He’d left a note on an assignment that— I honestly don’t even remember what he said, but it was so unfair and stupid that I just went off on him. Knocked a bunch of papers off his desk, stormed out of the classroom. And y’know what I did after that?”
Coyote, obviously, didn’t know. He tapped his claws together, leaning in with rapt attention.
“I dropped his class. I reported him to the dean, and I switched to another professor. The new professor was great, and fair, and I kept moving forward. I adjusted my sights, and I kept going.”
Coyote hung there, frozen, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, his ears went flat and he frowned pointedly. Then, he produced a stick of dynamite and placed it carefully into Paige’s lap. Once he was sure it wouldn’t fall, he leaned back, gesturing at her.
It took Paige a moment to understand what was being asked of her.
“I mean, I kind of wanted to blow his house up or something. But that wasn’t my goal, just… something to make me feel better. I ended up un-capping all his markers and letting them dry out at one point. That was pretty satisfying.”
Coyote placed another stick of dynamite in her lap.
“...Wile E., I’m not going to blow my old professor’s house up.”
Coyote pulled out a map of the United States, pointing at it, then handing her a pen. Paige sighed.
“I’m not giving you his address either— besides, he lives in the UK. You wouldn’t go all the way over there just to get back at a guy for pissing me off once, right? I’ve got exes that live a few dozen hours from here who deserve it way more anyway.”
Paige laughed, but Coyote’s gaze was as intense as ever. A third stick of dynamite was laid on her lap.
“Okay, okay… We can’t blow up any buildings. Buuuuuut, if you wanted, we could go light these off in the desert for fun?”
Coyote pondered this for a moment, then shook her hand. It was a deal.
—
BOOM!
The explosion was loud, and even from the top of the plateau, Paige could feel the heat rush up to meet her, blowing her hair back. She cheered and whooped, giddy and excited.
The stars were so bright out here, away from the city. It was no wonder there were so many UFO sightings in this state, you could see every twinkle of the night sky from here.
“Where do you buy explosives like this, by the way?”
Coyote looked at her like she was asking something really stupid. Immediately, she frowned, looking at the stick of dynamite in her hands.
“...Right. ACME. That’s…”
She sighed.
That was the elephant in the room here. No matter what they did, no matter how much they emphasized that it would make things worse for him, Coyote kept buying absolutely everything he could from ACME.
Paige had done the math. All of the evidence that Coyote had initially submitted? It totaled well over $100,000 in MSRP costs alone, not counting the probably absurd shipping costs to have things express-mailed to a cave in the middle of the New Mexican desert. And that was just the stuff that stayed in-tact enough to submit as evidence!
“I know you don’t want to give up chasing the Road Runner. And that’s not what I’m asking you to even consider. I just… think you’d be better off not buying from ACME?”
Coyote didn’t seem too convinced by this. He had his phone (ACME branded) in his hand, and was clearly doing something. Paige leaned back, trying to get a glance at the screen, and—
“Are you on the ACME app right now???”
Coyote’s ears went flat against his head and he turned away, hiding the screen in panicked embarrassment.
“Coyote, put the phone down.”
He did not. He typed something out, shoulders hunched so Paige couldn’t see what he was doing. The screen reflected off of his wide eyes, obscuring his expression.
“Wile. E, put it down.”
Wile E. stomped one foot, backing away from her challengingly. Or else what?
There was a moment's hesitation. Both parties frozen still, coiled little bundles of potential energy waiting to spring.
Paige pounced, trying to grab the phone out of Coyote’s hands. Coyote rolled away in a frantic effort to dodge, kicking up clouds of dust in his wake, but she was undeterred.
“Give it—!”
Coyote stretched out, punching some info into the phone before—
“Aha!”
Paige snatched it from his hand, rolling forward off of Coyote with his phone in her hand. In a moment of panic, she reared back and threw it off the plateau.
They both stared off the edge in shock— Coyote at Paige, and Paige at her own actions.
Thud.
The device shattered into a pile of useless glass and metal as it hit the desert floor. It echoed against the sedimentary rock like a gunshot.
“…I’m so sorry,” Paige winced. “I don’t know why I did that.”
Coyote growled. Or— wait, no, Coyote wasn’t growling, he was just tapping his foot impatiently against the dirt. So what was that noise?
A drone crested the horizon, carrying a bag. It flew in alarmingly fast, before dropping its payload between the pair of them.
One box fell to the ground, and the other fell directly into Coyote’s outstretched hand. A brand new phone.
Paige blinked in disbelief.
“You— ugh. This is what I’m talking about, you know there’s other phone companies, right?”
Coyote rolled his eyes.
“They’re stealing your data! They admitted it to everyone! You could just— get better sources, build a network of reputable dealers! Cut out the middle man!”
Coyote kept turning away from her as she circled him like a vulture.
He didn’t need to stop. He didn’t have a problem.
He placed another order, and in seconds, another drone dropped it off next to them. Paige veered out of the way of the box as it fell.
“You can buy things from a company that— okay maybe not one that has your best interests at heart, but maybe one that isn’t actively sabotaging you!”
Another delivery, the box landing in the dirt. Then another and another, and within moments, there was a wall between the two of them.
Paige huffed, staring up at the wall of boxes.
He didn’t need this kind of treatment from people who didn’t believe in him. She was trying to get him to give up, right?
“…I want to help, y'know. I think you can really do it.”
…right?
“But relying on ACME is just… holding you back. It’s just getting you stuck, and I want to see what you can do with things that work.”
…
Coyote sighed.
He pushed one of the middle boxes out of the way, sticking his head through the gap.
Paige put her hand on the bridge of his snout.
“I think… making connections, and finding other outlets— like, outlet mall type outlets— could be helpful for you. I think you can give it a shot, right?”
Coyote blew air through his nose, against her wrist.
He… couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him, now that he thought about it. It was weird.
…
He pulled back, and Paige thought he was going to run away again, until he came out from behind the wall of boxes and offered her a hand.
She grinned like the sun and took it, giving Coyote a firm handshake.
“I’ll see you next week. Four PM. We’ll get dinner first, okay?”
Coyote nodded.
And then the wall of boxes was hit by a gust of wind, and it collapsed on top of him.