Secrets and Things (MxM)

POV: Aiden

The phone took about three rings before I heard the phone going to voicemail. I tched out loud and called Nero two more times before everyone's favourite bored tone droned out.

"What do you want? I'm at work if you haven't figured it out already."

"Is that really how you greet your favourite best friend?" I figured keeping up the British accent would not help my case and would result in Nero ending the call and blocking my number.

"You're legit my only best friend, Assden."

"Hence, you're favourite."

"That's not how it wo–"

"Look, I didn't call to annoy you or have a friendly banter."

"I'm shocked."

"ANY FUCKING WAY, you know how you used to read up on a shit ton of poisons and drug during college years?"

"Yeah..."

"I kind of need that knowledge and I kind of need it fast."

"What? Why? What happened? Are you poisoned?"

"No, no. Not me. Just my temporary boss."

"Your– Erwin?!"

"Look long story short, Erwin is missing, no one knows except me and I'm trying to keep it that way. How he went missing is mystery and I'm trying to solve it. I found some sort of sweet smell in his black coffee and it doesn't smell like sugar. So I'm here to ask you if there's any lethal or non-lethal drugs that smell. I'm hoping for a non-lethal answer."

"... well, from what I can recall... there isn't many sweet smelling lethal poison and the ones that do exist are really hard to get. Like they're all in the black market. Um... there are non-lethal drugs that put you either to sleep or near coma state. They kind of work like chloroform except they're digestible. They're a lot more common and so my bet is riding on that. Then again... it might some rich person who decided to mess with him."

"Ok, no need to create a negative sandwich. The latter comment was not necessary and now I'm just going to pretend you never said it. He is not dead. Confirmed."

"Well, not conf–"

"Confirmed."

"... yeah sure. He's not dead. Now I'm going back to work. You just got all my neighbouring co-workers to look at me weird and fall behind in tasks."

"Surely you can't be that mad at me. It's for a legit reason."

"Yeah whatever. Call me if you need my assistance or if something else happens. I'm sure your boss is fine."

"Ok Nero. Thank you, bye."

"See ya."

I ended the call and went back into detective mode, once again mumbling to myself.

"So the guy definitely got drugged, meaning now it's confirmed that someone else involved. He's most likely kidnapped, right? Considering how they didn't kill him. Or maybe they'll kill him elsewhere. Regardless, there is now another party involved. So the new question is now who is it and how did they get away with it, without getting caught. We're on like the 40th floor or something with like airtight, unopenable windowpanes and there is no signs of smashed windows and it's not like they could just waltz in from the front door and then waltz back...out... hang on... I think I just had an epiphany! Why can't you just waltz in through the front door? You could... if you had some sort of meeting booked with Erwin! Then, you'd get in without any sort of suspicion. How the culprit left is another mystery completely but let's deal with that later. We have some sort of lead that can actually be answered."