Chapter Text
“Alright,” Brett claps his hands once they’ve all entered the room and sat down on the three couches in the main room. Trevor, Jakob and Asher all sit on the cow print couch, James and Lindsey sit on another and Brett and Aleks sit on the last.
“What am I allowed to talk about?” Brett looked over to Aleks and James almost rolled his eyes. It shouldn’t matter what Aleks wants Brett to say about him, Brett should say it all and actually trust them.
Alright, James’ll take that back. He knows what’s happening. Brett is respecting a friend’s privacy and asking what he can and cannot talk about but, Brett should already know what he should or can talk about or mention. He shouldn’t need confirmation for Christ’s sake. James knows full well that he’s just thinking that because he doesn’t like Aleks yet -that’s right, yet- but he also agrees with that side of his conscious.
Aleks, when Brett looked to him for an answer, looked almost surprised that Brett even asked, “Whatever you think they need to know.” He supplies, shrugging.
James wonders why Aleks can’t just talk and tell them what’s up but then he realizes that Aleks could leave out certain things and James still trusts Brett to tell the truth. Because Brett will always tell the truth, he will just avoid doing it.
Well. He did fake his death so, that could count as lying.
“Well.” Brett starts, or tries, “Um. Okay, you guys know that I faked my death a bit before we started this crew and that I purposely stayed behind the scenes enough to where no one at all thought that I was alive.” James watches Brett take a small breath when he was done with that sentence. He’s nervous, James knows this. He hasn’t talked about this in a while.
“I’ve told you about the Rattlers a bit and how they really were and what they did to people while I was there.” He takes another breath and James looks to Aleks who kept a carefully blank face. Brett continued, “After I, ‘died’, I still keep up with everything they were doing and i saw that Aleks had recently gotten onto bad terms with the Rattlers and went AWOL so to say and-“
“What’d you do?” Trevor leans forward, his face is smiling eagerly. James casts a look at Aleks, he doesn’t look offended or affronted.
Aleks considers what he will say, tilting his head, “I had a disagreement and I did something about it.”
Trevor accepts that, leaning back in his chair, watching for the rest of the story. But James, he’ll accept it for the sake of Brett and this meeting but he doesn’t want to. Later on, he’ll ask Aleks himself. But, then again, he does he care? Oh right, he cares about Brett so in turn, James cares about Brett’s problems.
Brett starts up again, “I noticed that Aleks wasn’t on normal jobs and that the crews dynamic had drastically changed so I got curious and did deeper research and I found that Aleks had managed to make his way cross country, god knows how, and into Los Santos. I figured out where he was after a week so I figured that they’d be coming too. I was right but I just wasn’t expecting Vinnie to also come, because he just peer everything back on the East Coast. So I pulled James aside and said I need him to help out an old friend. My plan was to have James take Aleks back to his place but there was a misunderstanding on names so I stepped in.”
Brett explained everything in truth. James still has questions. It seems Aleks does too.
“That’s the only reason you stepped in?” Aleks narrows his eyes. James nods with him, “Yeah man, you could’ve told me that over the comm.”
Brett shakes his head, “I didn’t recognize the voice, I didn’t know if it was him or one of them.”
James is dissatisfied with that reasoning, pulling his mouth to the side and pushing himself back into the couch.
“Also,” Jakob raises a finger and looks around at everyone else like they’re idiots, “this, um, situation? Kinda puts us in a bad spot? Once they know that he’s here they aren’t gonna hold back. Especially when they know you’re here.” He points to Brett.
James full heartedly agreed. If he had to personally escort Aleks to wherever the hell he lived, he would. As long as he didn’t have to deal with any backlash from the Rattlers because of Aleks.
Brett lifted his chin at Jokab, “Hm, well, they won’t find out because it’s not like he’s going to be running jobs with us. And, maybe, I want to catch up with my friend after he believed I've been dead for the past two years,” he suggests.
Jakob gives him an unimpressed look but relents nonetheless and shrugs. “If you wanna put us in danger then so be it. No offense.” He adds and looks to Aleks who nods at him.
“I said the same thing.”
“I agree,” James looks to Brett but then back to Jakob, “but it’s not like they saw me, or Brett.”
Jakob shrugs, “True. I just hope I don’t have to say ‘I told you so.’”
Brett pulls his lips into a straight line, “Thanks I appreciate that,” but James is having a bit of a hard time focusing on anything but Aleks in this moment because the guy wont stop moving. It’s not because he’s nervous. It’s not nervous energy it’s just, extra energy.
He’s been bouncing his leg up and down for the past two minutes, solid. And probably at a speed that could baffle an Olympic runner. With his hands, Aleks mediates between tapping his legs -for a few seconds it could look like there’s a rhythm to it but mostly it doesn’t look controlled, per se - and messing with a ring on his hands. James vaguely wonders why Aleks would have a ring because he can’t be married. Right?
James looks to the floor. Right?
Brett’s phone rings and the man stops talking. Well shit, when did he start talking? Was James really that zoned in on-? Nevermind.
“Um, hold on.” Brett says and he walks away to the corner of the room and take the call. James watches for a second but finds himself bored. He looks back at Aleks.
“Can you stop?” James bites out.
Aleks’ leg stops for just a second before bouncing again, “Can you stop?”
James squints his eyes, “Lemme think about it.”
Aleks shakes his head and looks away, his leg continues to bounce. James looks away too but not before making an affronted noise. He looks back to Brett who looks like he doesn’t want to be on the phone anymore because he keep nods his head, shifting from foot to foot and giving “yeah”s and “uh huh”s.
“Alright great, bye.” Brett huffs once he’s hung up and then mutters, “God, he’s hard to talk to.”
Brett turns back to the group and claps his hands together, having pocketed his cellphone, “Who remembers the mafia gang from La Bronks?” there’s some noises of recognition that float around the room before Brett starts again.
“Well, they wanna have a face to face on Saturday evening which, if you can’t count, is in two days.” He looks annoyed, with good reason, because, two days? They could make it work for an important ally but, those guys? James didn’t even consider them real mob-like, they’re just a mess.
“Two days?” Trevor asks with lifted eyebrows.
Brett nods, “Just got of the phone with the old man. Was pretty instant that it was that soon.”
James sighs, “Well, I can’t go.” Brett nods again, “Send Trev and Linds.”
Trevor’s eyebrows somehow go higher and James amends his last statement, “Or Lindsey and Asher, whatever.”
“Yeah, I’ll see. I sent the list to Jakob, someone go see if we already have anything they want.”
Trevor, Jakob and Asher get up, and then James does too, feeling like he’ll be more help with them. Before he leaves the room though, Brett speaks, not to him but to Aleks.
“Aleks go follow James to the armory and see if you can help. I’m gonna talk to Lindsay.”
Well, /that/ wasn’t discrect at all. By Aleks’ unimpressed face, James would guess that he agrees. He only waits to see if Aleks will actually follow him before leaving after the other three guys, blatantly ignoring him. They are through the door and have left the room before Aleks, to James’ surprise, breaks the silence.
“You guys have an armory?” His voice is light a curious and James bets that if Aleks didn’t have the ounce of self control that he does, he’d be over James’ shoulder, pestering him with accompanying questions.
James keeps his head straight forward but can’t help but pull a face, “Yes? Why? Did you not?”
Aleks makes a ‘tt’ noise with a scoff, “Well yeah we had one. They didn’t call it an armory though.”
James doesn’t comment on the ‘we/they’ thing that just happened there and scoffs on his own, “What’d you call it then?” he decides not to give Aleks any slack. If he is still confused on where he stands with the Rats, then let him be confused, James figers that if Aleks doesn’t like it, he’d tell him.
Aleks doesn’t answer for only a second, he exhales quickly and James will bet anything on Aleks’ neck twitching because he has realized what James is doing.
“They just called it the gun dump.”
James let a small smile grace his face because one, that was the shittiest name ever and two, James knows exactly what buttons to push on this guy and he considers that a job well done.
James let the silence speak for him. James wasn’t going to talk to Aleks unless he had to, he wouldn’t ignore him but, if he wasn’t spoken to first he’s not about to spark up a buddy-buddy conversation with the guy. Aleks seemed to take note.
The short remainder of the walk was quiet. James didn’t mind.
They accporch the door and James turns himself around, leaning into the door. It’s heavy so he pushes it. He might have let Aleks walk down the hall behind him but, damn his paranoia, won’t let him pass through a door behind him. James makes sure to make strong eye contact with Aleks while he does this for two reason. James is simply making sure that Aleks is constantly aware of James distrust of him and the fact that James is just curious as to how much he can handle. The door blocks out sound so while he slowly pushes it open, voices fade in which make the contact a little less awkward but not by much.
Aleks looks annoyed and, better yet, nervous, when James stares. James smiles at him -with teeth and everything- before turning his head to look at the occupants of the armory. He holds the door.
“Well?” He shouts, “What’do we got?”
Aleks shakes his head as he too enters the room, he stands off to the side, excluding himself from the group. He is looking around the room, eyebrows raised. James would guess from the size. Admittedly, it’s pretty big. It’s just very long, really. It’s a thin room but extends maybe thirty, forty yards back. The steel table in the middle of the room takes up space and makes the room look smaller than it it because it’s covered and you can barely see the metal anymore.
“I mean,” Asher starts, and James turns his attention back to him, “Not..much? Not much. Of what they want. But I know exactly where to get everything we do need.”
James nods, “Alright. Gimme what we do have.”
Asher does just that and reads off names of weapons and Trevor, Jakob and James try to find them. It’s a short list, and they find everything they already have in about five minutes. Aleks didn’t help. James keeps one eye on him the whole time.
“That’s all?” Trevor asks. “Well that sucks.”
James snorts, doesn’t he know that.
Trevor looks through so more crates, obviously bored and James looks back to Jakob and Asher. “Where’re we gonna get the rest of this shit?”
Asher shrugs, “We can ask the Fakes?”
James tilts his head down and raises an eyebrow at Asher who promptly raises his hands up, “Hey, it’s just a suggestion. They said they’d help us with whatever we needed.”
James shakes his head, “Yeah they did, but we can’t just take their help, come on man.”
He sees Jakob roll his eyes. Jakob doesn’t like James being stubborn. But that just make James want to flaunt it in his face.
“We have allies other than the Fakes. They’re like last resort.”
Asher shrugs, Jakob speaks, “Who do you think will have all of what we need?”
James scratches his chin, “I dunno, Fake Pine? They have a lot of random shit.”
Jakob pinches his face, “isn’t Fake Pine, by name, a part of the Fakes?”
James shakes his head, “I’m talking about AH, dude. AH is last resort.”
“I have no idea what the difference is but okay.” James nods to Jakob with a smile. He then looks back to Aleks because he’s taken his eyes off the other guy for more than three seconds and needs to know where he is again.
Aleks is looking between all of them with a very obviously suspicious face. James pulls his own face of suspicion, “What?” He asks harshly, pulling Aleks of whatever he was thinking about.
Aleks looks to James and after a second he shakes his head, “Nothin’.”
“Oh look,” Trevor calls, James keeps his eyes on Aleks, just waiting for the man to fidget. To James’ surprise, Aleks suppresses himself and stands still for possibly the first time him his whole life. James turns his body and walks to Trevor. The kid stands in front of a cardboard box and points at it with a wide smile on his face, “fireworks.”
James lets a smile grace his face, “Oh yeah. We got those on year for Fourth of July and lit them off the roof.”
Trevor laughs and then stops to give a very, bothersome smile.
“Well, you guys know what this means. Right?” He looks away from James and back at the others.
-
Brett watches Aleks follow James through the doorway and then blows out a breath.
“What the fuck?” Lindsey hisses at him. Brett lowers his head and breathes again, “Brett, what, the, fuck.”
He straightens himself out and looks right into Lindsey’s eyes, “Okay, listen-“
“Damn right I’ll listen. Tell why the fuck Immortal was in our kitchen. I don’t care how, I want to know why.” She crosses her arms and Brett bites his lip, willing himself to be calm.
“Didn’t I just explain everything-”
“No,” Lindsey shakes her head, “You told them what happened. Now tell me.”
Brett throws back his head and screws his eyes shut. He’d really rather not but, he can’t exactly argue with Lindsey now can he?
“What would you like to know? Why he’s here?” Brett tried, Lindsey didn’t give him an answer so he takes that as a yes, “Because that was true that I’ve been checking up with him. I wanted to know if he actually did die doing some stupid shit that Vinnie sent him off to do.”
Lindsey hummed and Brett throws her an incredulous look, “Do you think I’m lying?
“If you cared about him so much why didn’t you just tell him where you went and take him with you?” She asks which is something that Brett had been asking himself for the longest time.
“Because, Lindsey, if I wasn’t dead, Vinnie would have tried much more harder to find me and taking Aleks with me would have made it a bit obvious don’t you think?”
Lindsey bristled, “Then why didn’t you just have James take him home, like you planned?” there’s clear air quotes around that last word but Brett still answers, as steady as he could.
“Because James was about to shoot him and I didn’t realize that Vinnie was going to be here too. They found his place and I’m going to take a wild guess and say that he doesn’t have any safe houses around here yet.” Brett finishes and chances a look at the woman.
“Why - ugh,” She puts both her hands on her forehead and shakes her head. Brett knows what she wanted to say. She almost asked him why he even needed to be ‘dead’ in the first place. And Brett still doesn’t have an answer for her.
She lowers her hands and looks at Brett. She doesn’t look angry, she doesn’t look happy either. Her face is content. She bites her lip for a second and nods, “Alright. Whatever. You know that they aren’t going to let this go without him dead right? And there’s nothing pointing to you being alive right?”
Brett shakes his head and she nods again, letting out a long breath.
“You know he dyed his hair?” Brett looks to her.
She looks appalled he’d ask such a thing, “Okay, I not that stupid. Yes I noticed the platinum.”
Brett shrugs, “It’s a little funny. You think he did that to try and fit in around here?”
“Honestly,” she huffs out a breath and lets a small smile grace her face, “that is something he would do.”
Brett smiles back at her. But then he sees a light in the hall that the others went through. He tilts his head because the light is green and now it smells like gunpowder and fire, “What the fuck-?”
It blew up and Brett’s first instinct was to pull out a gun and shoot someone but then he heard James’ cackling, Trevor’s howling and whatever the fuck Jakob does as a laugh. Brett closes his eyes and breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth and then he chuckles to himself. They found fireworks.
Lindsay can’t stop from laughing either, “Jesus!” she tries to make her voice stern but halfway through the word she struggles.
The firework dies off and right away another gets thrown into the room. Immediately Brett runs, picks it up and throws it back into the small space and immediately there are shrieks and yells. Brett smiles widely. Lindsay yells something at them about being children, James yells something else back and through the dim hallway he can see Trevor and Aleks laughing with each other. Bret honestly doesn’t know what the right choice is now but, they have a deal now and maybe Aleks will find his place here. That’s what Brett hopes at least.