Hello! So I used to be on this site a while ago under a different user name, but lost all data when my cpu crashed. So I haven't done this in a while, so do forgive typos/random POV shifts! I'd appreciate reviews to help me get back in the groove!

Riley stretched on the couch, groggy from his recent nap. He glanced over to the only light source in the room, a glowing TV; it displayed the DVD menu of Eagle Eye, its menacing music, on a thirty second loop, must have been what had woke him up. Popcorn lay scattered across his chest, trailing down to the floor where a fallen bowl lay, having dropped in his slumber. Despite blinking painfully to combat his dry contacts, Riley focused on the mess and vaguely ordered himself to clean that up before Abi saw it.

He was in the Gates' mansion, a historic home purchased by Ben with a portion of his Templar Treasure finder's fee. Now, Abigail Chase lived with him, for they had married very quickly after surviving the hunt for Cibola. Riley still had his own apartment in town, but he visited the Gates' estate frequently, adoring the peace and quiet of Ben reading and Abi cleaning, as opposed to the constant racket surrounding his own loft. He was completely satisfied with being the loudest person to ever hang out at the Gates' mansion, and he definitely had his days of mischief horsing around the place or murmuring with Ben over some new lead on a treasure waiting to be found. However, Riley also enjoyed the quiet, as previously stated, and there were many times when he did his best to not disturb it himself. Today was one of those times.

Riley had made his way to the Gates' mansion late one Thursday afternoon to seek that kind of quiet. His next door neighbors, a middle-aged couple, were arguing as they frequently did. When Riley first noticed the arguing within his first month of the lease, he went over to kindly ask the couple to keep it down. Soon, he learned that this was a mistake, for the man who answered the door was a bald, beared, tattoo-covered badass who looked like he had founded Hell's Angels. Although Riley didn't promptly run away when the door opened to reveal this monstrous guy, the techie was only able to squeak out, "Ohh…mmm…might you guys have a cup of sugar?" He failed to mention that he lived just next door…didn't think the info was pertinent. "I'm baking a cake," he finished lamely as the skinhead slammed the door closed and resumed the argument.

Since then, Riley just found a way to deal with the noise, by either turning up his music and using headphones, by playing a really intense video game that absorbed all of his focus, or by simply escaping to the gorgeous and peaceful mansion his best friend happened to own.

"I'm starting to think you should just move in, Riley," Ben stated when he answered the door for his friend today. "It seems like you hate your hallmates…"

Riley gave him a cheesy smile. "Ben! Don't tell me you think that's my reason for visiting!" Riley stood awkwardly on the doorstep, giving his friend the please-let-me-in puppy eyes. "I come to see you and your nag…"

"Hey!" Abigail warned from the stairs, overhearing.

"…nnnNeptune-like goddess you call a wife!" Riley smoothed over, shifting his hopeful eyes to Abigail. "Hey, Abi…" he ventured cautiously.

"Riley."

Ben shook his head and smiled. "Neptune was male," he corrected, but gestured for Riley to come in anyway. "But valiant effort."

Riley pulled off his jacket, noticing that Abigail was stringing garland down the rails of the staircase. "You guys have it real warm and toasty in here!" He slung the coat over a nearby coat rack. "And amazing candles…" He leaned over a Yankee Candle and inhaled the fragrance deeply. "And here I thought Abi was actually baking!"

Riley cried out in surprise and pain when an ornament clocked him in the nose. Abi looked pleased with herself as she placed hooks in ornaments to hang along the garland. "Kidding…" he twirled a finger around his ear and mouthed CRAZY to Ben before scampering out of Abigail's throwing range.

Ben watched his friend make his way for the kitchen, catching scent of popcorn. Abi was still smiling as she hummed Christmas carols, for her arguments with Riley were always kind-hearted and teasing. Abigail, in fact, had confided in Ben that she thought of Riley like a little brother. The first time she did this it was for the sake of explaining why she worried about him so much. She had listed off the reasons on her fingers, one by one, as if she was making an argument for her case to Ben:

He lives in a shabby apartment (without using his finder's fee to move), that was surrounded by sketchy neighbors! 2) He passes up a lot of our public events by claiming "it isn't his style" to wear a tux most nights of the week. It's sort of true, but I thought Riley loved attention! And 3) At times the way he dresses and acts reminds me of someone younger than his actual age, but at other times he's completely quiet and pensive! It's such a polarized difference! He either acts like young bubbly Riley, or an older, moody man, and there's never any in-between.

Ben agreed with most of his wife's evidence, but he was reluctant to say anything to Riley about it. Ben just assumed that it had something to do with Riley's interactions with the outside world, anyway. He preferred to be in the van running a task from behind a computer screen, like the night Ben had broken into the Archives to steal the Declaration of Independence, or the time he hid in Buckingham Palace's bathroom while Ben and Abigail studied the resolute desk. It wasn't Riley's nature to be the social guy, to act the part of someone else, or to fool guards and shoot guns at henchman. Riley was a cynic sometimes, but a lot of his sarcasm was his own awkward way of fitting into a situation. He wasn't able to keep his cool in a crisis; instead, he had the mind of a puppet master, watching quietly behind the scenes, pulling strings in his favor. As long as Riley kept that role, he would be fine. Although Ben didn't worry as much about the things Abigail noticed, he did in fact worry that Riley's insatiable craving to help Ben research lead after lead in search of a new adventure may put Riley in a different position. Each hunt had become life-threatening. Every treasure beckoned their trio, yet also enticed the bad guys to follow their every move as they too flocked toward the treasure. Ben didn't exactly know why he was dwelling on this concern…who knew if they would find a new hunt? Maybe his concern was some type of premonition.

"Wow, Ben, you look like you're trying to remember where you put your car keys." Riley was propped against the kitchen door frame, shoving mouthfuls of popcorn into his mouth. "Ugh. Kettle korn…" he unceremoniously spat the kernels back into his bowl and turned around in disgust to dump the food. The older man chuckled as that oddity brought him back to the present moment, and he followed Riley to the kitchen.

"First of all, the age jokes are getting old." Riley smirked at Ben's choice of words, but held in the comment as he took some swallows of Blue Moon. "Secondly, that was Abi's."

His eyes looked down at Ben from the swigging position. He brought the beer back down and gulped down the swallow. "This?" He tilted the beer toward Ben. "Or the kettle korn?"

"Both." Ben was already moving to the cabinet to pop his wife a new bag of kettle korn, seeing as Riley had already dumped every bit of the other serving. Riley was timidly peeking into the fridge to make sure another Blue Moon was in there for Abi. Looking satisfied, he shut the door and swaggered over to one of the bar stools, hopping on as if he were playing a game of Leap Frog.

"So," he took another swig. "What are we doing tonight?" he asked expectedly.

"I wasn't under the impression that we had plans…" Ben answered, unfolding the Orville Redenbacher into the microwave. "...but it look like you're either ready to party, or to pull a classic Riley."

Riley scowled. "I don't fall asleep every time I drink!" he protested. "You just catch me at all the wrong times." The techie shrugged and took another swig.

But this is exactly what had happened. He had continued polishing off a few beers while he and Ben watched Eagle Eye until he found himself waking up to the mess of popcorn on the floor and an otherwise empty living room. Riley cursed, peeling off the painfully dry contacts while sitting up. These were on their last limb anyway, so he just tossed them in the bowl and pulled out his glasses. What time is it? He thought, noticing that he was still pretty buzzed. Despite wearing his glasses, he was having mildly blurred vision. He got down on his knees to slowly scoop up the fallen kernels, and grabbed a few empty bottles to take to the kitchen. He kept the light out, since his eyes were still readjusting, and slowly cleaned up the mess he had created. Riley's eyes finally landed on the stove, which read 8:00 pm.

Whoa, he thought. That explains the buzz though. Popcorn alone isn't going to soak up that beer. As if responding, his stomach growled audibly. Where the hell are Ben and Abi? He asked himself, running fingers through his hair. That's when he felt the Post-It note, pressed to his forehead. He scowled and brought it down to read.

Riley,

You pulled a classic.

We've gone to grab a couple more feet of garland. Abi wants to finish the foyer tonight, and you refused to wake up. Plus, I know you hate Lowes.

Be back around 8:30 or so?

Ben

Ah, things made a bit more sense now. That's why all the lights were out. Riley felt inspired to sober up a bit in the next half hour so he could at least defend himself against the jokes about his inability to stay awake after a few beers. He stumbled back to turn off the TV, from which that music was still playing. That's when he heard it. As the TV went silent he heard a soft padding that he hadn't noticed before, but it stopped almost immediately. Riley remained still for a minute, having always been creeped out by big houses like this, but he settled on blaming the DVD for spinning to a stop. He probably should've taken that out, too, but he was too tipsy to care.

Riley decided on brewing coffee so caffeine might urge the alcohol to push through his blood stream quicker. He haphazardly poured some water into the brewer and tossed in a few spoonfuls of grinds before popping the on button. The clock on the coffee pot began blinking, as it did when it was brewing, and Riley found himself oddly fixated on it for the moment while he listened to water making its way through the grinds and into the pot.

NO POT! SHIT! Riley had forgotten to put the coffee pot in its crevice, having just poured a glassful of water into the brewer instead of using the pot to measure. Shit shit shit shit he riffled through the cabinets, looking for the pot to catch the streaming coffee, but it wasn't anywhere in sight. Instead, Riley clumsily thrust a mug directly under the stream, his spastic action splashing some of the hot brew onto his hands and arms. Shit shit SHIT THAT'S HOT ,he sputtered as he clumsily tried to clean the counter before Abi came home to a kitchen floor full of puddles. He hastily moved soaked papertowels to the trashcan, before noticing the coffee pot in the dish drain across the kitchen. "Figures!" he muttered, glancing cautiously at the brewing mess before bounding across the kitchen toward the pot.

That's when he heard the second noise. It was actually a click this time, and it's source was a gun barrel emerging out of the dark. "Stop right there," a low voice commanded calmly, causing Riley to jump in surprise and drop the coffee pot. The glass shattered easily, but he was mostly concerned about the glasses that his flailing arms had knocked off his face. He hadn't slipped off his Converses before his nap, so that worked nicely for the glass-littered floor, but it didn't work so nice for the missing glasses he was now terrified of crushing.

Riley blinked in the darkness, searching for the outline of the gun's holder, but between his buzz and his lack of glasses, he was having trouble seeing. "Who are you?" he asked lamely, not having much else of a choice.

"That's not important." Riley suddenly realized that the gunman had taken a step forward, for he heard the unmistakable sound of his glasses crunching under a shoe. "Neither are your glasses," he cool voice commented.

"What the fuck?" Riley exclaimed, taking a step backwards himself. "If you want to rob the place I can't help without being able to read numbers or whatever it is you're trying to get from me." He glanced nervously at the clock on the stove to see if Ben and Abi would be home soon. The green analog numbers were too blurry to make out.

"Again, not important," the voice answered, stepping forward again. "Come with me quietly, Riley, or this will be very difficult for you."

"How do you know my name?" Riley asked warily, backing up again.

The shadowed outline before him chuckled lowly, coming closer again. "We've met before. On the hunt for the Templar Treasure."

The British accent was the only other clue he needed. "You're one of Ian's cronies," Riley accused. "I don't know your name. It all bleeds together after a while…Well by process of elimination, it's certainly not Shaw…"

The gun jutted out to smack him in the torso, but Riley had already planned to run at that moment, so luckily he dodged out of the way and raced through the opposite kitchen door. He stumbled, slamming right into the couch upon exit, but quickly recovered and wheeled around the side. Thankfully he knew the house pretty well, but he lack of vision and focus didn't help his orientation very well. Because of this he ran into what he believed to be the foyer, but really he was turned around and had found himself in a hallway. He ran directly into a wall, having expected that area to open outward into the front door, but instead was forced to keep running down the hall. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck…I'm as blind as a fucking bat! He panicked, feeling the walls until he found the stairwell that, like the stairwell in the foyer, led upstairs. He had wanted to get out of the house as fast as possible, but was forced to go upstairs at this otherwise dead end.

A bullet whizzed into the wall where he leg had just been, and Riley yelped while instinctively raised his arms to protect his upper body from anymore bullets that might fire. He couldn't tell how far behind him Ian's henchman was, and didn't care to pause to find out.

Riley tripped at the top of the stairs, having expected there to be one more than there actually was, and his elbow dug into the floor, catching a stinging strip of carpet burn. Riley pushed himself back up, determined to bolt for the stairs at the end of this hall that would lead him back to the front door. He heard a gun cock, and realized that his pursuer had actually realized this plan, and had circled around the bottom floor to cut him off at the same staircase. Riley reacted by quickly ducking into the nearest room, the sound of bullets again dancing around his feet. Clearly the gunman wasn't trying to kill him; he only shot at Riley's legs and feet, just trying to stop him. Either way, he didn't want a bullet wound at all, so despite running into various pieces of furniture to even cross what he now supposed was a storage room, Riley rushed as quickly as he could to where the window should be located.

Riley knew that there were trees in the back yard, which is where this room had to be facing. Maybe he'd get lucky and open a window to a tree branch right outside. Come on, come on, come on, He pressed his face close to the glass, trying to see the lock, fumbling to unlock the window, and thrusting the window up just as the door to this room was kicked in. Riley had already climbed onto the sill, groping blindly, desperately, wishing for a tree to be just close enough for him to grab. But he felt only cool December air, and heard the window pane above him shattering, as he finally lost his balance and fell onto the section of roof situated conveniently below. This broke the distance between the second floor and the ground in half, preventing Riley from receiving fatal damage to upon impact, but he rolled wildly with the inertia of his fall, and finally collapsed on the ground below. He silently thanked whatever god was looking out for him, and began to rise.

A muscular arm caught him around the neck, holding him so that he could barely breathe. There was more than one of these guys, Riley was able to realize as he clutched at the arm around his neck. "Here!" The attacker called out, signaling countless other buddies to come help him. "You were a quick little bunny," the strangler taunted, also an English accent. Riley couldn't distinguish shadows from each other, so he was forced to make general statements and pleas.

"Ok ok ok ok! Easy!" he begged, holding his arms up in surrender. He felt the sleeper hold only tighten.

"Shhh…." His captor whispered in his ear. "Sleepy time…" Riley began to feel limp as the oxygen supply was cut off from his brain, and his captors were already hauling him up before the darkness over took him.