Staying Straight

Notes: Happy 5/8 day, everyone! I'm celebrating in style! Just off the bat, this is a modern urban AU (inspired, of all things, by my daily commute to work through the city.) Names have been changed, but characters should be pretty quickly recognizable. With a few exceptions, the first letter of the new names will match. The ones who don't, I hopefully have made them obvious enough.

Second, this is going to be a multi-chapter story, but unlike my other stories, there will be no regular update schedule. It's ready when it's ready.

Third, I promise this story will be a lot less weird than anything else I've written.

Last, special thanks to RodiSquall for reading over the chapters before I post them! I touched it last, but she helped!

Disclaimer: The original characters are not mine, and I do not profit. This story is being cross-posted on FFN and AO3.

1: Jo

Jo opened his eyes to the roar of a guitar riff from somewhere under his futon and the drumming of rain against the window in tempo with his racing heart. He killed the alarm with a swipe of his finger, and glared out the window, dismayed, at the wet morning waiting for him. Chance Harbor wasn't normally this damp this early in spring, but he couldn't even tell the sun was up. The dull windows of the apartment high-rise across the road, and even the mirrored skyscrapers visible over it, reflected only drowsy blue-gray and the crumbling brick of his building's facade. Miserable, but it wasn't just the gloom of the morning souring his mood. He slid one hand down over his face, and got it.

"Back in the slammer again las' night. Always when it rains." He could brood about his nightmares, but it would be pointless. It didn't matter what happened last night. He still had to get up, put pants on, and face the day.

Jo didn't dream of jail every night. He didn't dream very much, though, and he only mostly remembered the ones about being locked up.

Maybe "jail" wasn't accurate in terms of his vernacular. Yana corrected him whenever he said he'd been in jail for four years, since he'd spent three of them in juvenile hall. It was still four years of his life he didn't spend on the street, which was nice compared to how it had been before his arrest. Before that, he'd been mostly by himself, or under Benny's wing when Benny needed a hand and never when Jo did. Benny- yeah, Jo could probably blame Benny for at least some of it. Benny was a bottle-blonde sonofabitch who thinned his eyebrows like some Shangri-La yakuza- he thought he looked cool, but Jo thought he looked like a cancer patient- and he tried to act like one too. Jo couldn't quite remember how he'd fallen in with Benny, only that he was there when he wandered into this particular Little Shangri-La and Jo had no particularly good reason to push him away. If Benny cared, there would be a roof over his head and a hot meal in front of him, and nobody trying to mug him for whatever he might have had. When Jo was on his own, he was sleeping in shelters when there was room and getting food in whatever way he could.

It wasn't like he was ashamed or anything. He had been doing what he had to do to keep himself alive. He picked pockets, swiped wallets, he'd put a knife to a few throats on nights when he couldn't count back to the last day he'd eaten and his stomach was starting to growl like the motor on a burnt-out Pinto. He got as good as he gave, since there were guys bigger than him, stronger than him, and hungrier than him. It was one of the reasons he got so good at fighting back, which was probably the only reason Benny wanted him around at all. That, in turn, was how he got arrested.

"Just a quick hotel job," Benny'd said. "The security's shit, we'll be in and out in two minutes," Benny'd said. "If shit goes down, I want you around to be my security, but it won't come to that, you just gotta stand around," Benny'd said. Jo had no idea how his fifteen-year-old self couldn't figure out just how full of shit Benny was. He and some of Benny's other cronies had been keeping watch on the pier outside of the Waterfront Temple Suites while Benny and a few others went in to bust the safe. Jo had figured it out later, but Benny was the kind of guy who had big ideas and not nearly enough brain power to think them through, so while he'd figured on only having to deal with one overnight receptionist to get to the safe, and he'd figured he wouldn't be able to move the safe, he hadn't exactly calculated how to open the safe. Jo heard the explosion. Hell, Philadelphia probably heard the explosion. Whatever Benny had used wasn't the right stuff, or it wasn't enough; it was just enough to kill everyone in a ten foot radius (which didn't include Benny, since Benny was stupid, but he wasn't that stupid) but the safe was still there, as thick and sturdy as the day it'd been bought, as were the fire detectors in the next room. Ten thousand alarms went off, and the cops descended from around the block onto Jo and the five other dudes who'd been keeping watch. Jo managed to hold off the cops while trying to figure out how to get into the crumbling lobby; he could still hear Benny screaming from under the rubble, and Benny might have been an idiot and not especially reliable, but he'd fed Jo more than enough times to deserve a drag out of the mess he'd made. He wasn't going to run away, it never even crossed his mind. He just had to get the cops out of his hair. He was- still was- whipcord strong and bullwhip quick, so dodging taser wires and punching the lights out on a few donut-eaters wasn't a problem for him. The problem was the next three cars full, then the vans of men in black armor.

Jo had heard of the Crows before his arrest. He wasn't deaf, and Benny never tried to be quiet about it. He knew that every other guy who'd been with him that night had a crow's wing tattooed on their arm, chest, or shoulder, Benny on his left temple in line with where his eyebrows would be if the ugly fucker didn't shave them off. So when the cop interrogator asked how long he'd been a member of the Crows, Jo had laughed.

"You see wings anywhere on me? Fuck, I'm not in his gang." Benny had asked Jo to join formally, of course, but Jo couldn't stand the thought of being tied down like that. He didn't know the next time he'd want to change cities, and he didn't want to have to worry about any "blood in, blood out" contracts. The interrogator didn't believe him, and he remembered sitting in that tiny room for a very long time by himself. When he'd been little, before it had happened, Jack would sometimes tell him to "go sit and think about what you did" in a corner, because of course it was Jack's job to punish him when Mom was too drunk to beat him. He was pretty sure that was what they were doing now, letting him think about what he did because he was such a naughty little bastard, but he'd heard some of their conversation under the door or through their obvious one-way mirror as clear as if they were talking over his head.

"I'm not finding any records on him. You think he's lying about his age?"

"Throw a wider net; you heard him, he doesn't remember what state he came from. He doesn't look more than fifteen, anyway."

He'd been right on the line, so he figured. The interrogator came back in and told him that "Benny flipped on you." He also brought in a lady from Child Services and a public defender in a cheap suit. Once they decided he was too young to represent himself, they started to treat him like he couldn't tie his own shoes, and the conversation was between the three adults. Sure, Jo had been taking care of himself for six years, but the second the cops got involved, he was nothing but a helpless infant. Jo could only sit there and nod with the Child Services rep digging way-too-long acrylics into his shoulder and whispering, "You don't have to answer that, sweetie" down to him whenever the interrogator tried to ask him something or say anything to him. They agreed that if Jo would write a deposition on the gangs, right down to names and addresses- which would keep him from having to testify against Benny directly and risking retaliation, but would still be useful in the cops' investigation- and give a full confession, he'd be able to go to juvy instead of adult jail for most of his sentence.

And hell, it wasn't like he could get out of it. He still remembered the look the judge gave him a few weeks later at sentencing, the way-too-bright, windowless room that smelled of cheap cologne and angry sweat, and the heavy cuffs around his wrists and ankles.

"Joel Sha, for theft, loitering, assault, and engaging in organized criminal activity, I sentence you to a total of five years of imprisonment." The judge sneered down at him around his too-wide, pockmarked nose, and in some of the stupid old crime movies he and Jack would watch, the judges would follow the sentencing with something like "May God have mercy on your soul." This judge didn't have to, maybe didn't want to say a line like that, or maybe it was against regulation, but Jo could feel that condemnation from just his face. God didn't have mercy on guys like him, that was what they were always trying to say, but people like that were never straightforward with it. They gave you their side and let you fill in yours. It pissed Jo off. It made him not really want mercy at all.

Juvy was actually kind of okay. It was better than being on the street- roof over his head, food on sanitized white plastic tables in a sanitized gray dining hall, and every night, there were nine different desserts he could choose from. Jo had never figured there were nine desserts to be had, maybe never thought about it- snacks weren't really a thing when there was nobody to buy them for you- but here, there were little squares of carrot cake, German chocolate cake, and vanilla cake, cups of vanilla, chocolate, or rice pudding, or chocolate eclairs, little fruit tarts, and chocolate chip cookies. It was the same nine every night, but if Jo was ever in the mood for sweets, he had his pick. It wasn't all roses and sunshine- it was still prison. He couldn't leave, he had a laundry list of things he could and couldn't do, and that buzzer that marked when to go and wherever they wanted him to go rubbed him raw. It was just nicer than the way he'd lived since he was eight and on his own. It was almost like those boarding schools in the movies, just with bars on the windows, barbed wire on the fences, and there weren't actually classes scheduled. Jo still decided to get his GED, because it wasn't like he had anything better to do. He wasn't much for reading, but he was okay with numbers, and he signed up for classes that could get him up to speed. It was something to do, and it might be good to have after he got out. Plus, his public defender and the Child Services lady had both said that evidence of good behavior could get him out faster, and getting a GED sounded like something a "good" kid would do in juvy.

It seemed there were only "good" kids in there with them, according to the adults he heard muttering about them. He didn't make friends, not solid ones anyway, because he just didn't get along with dudes all that well. He smiled enough to have guys to talk to in the yard, guys who taught him poker with smuggled-in decks, guys who stopped wanting to play poker with him after getting their asses handed to them by Jo's uncanny luck, and even a few guys who would help him study for tests. He didn't remember their names when they stopped talking to him, or when they got released. Most of the guys got released pretty quickly, and the ones who didn't just went away. Jo thought about the ones who went away sometimes- not the ones who aged out, but the ones who freaked out, who attacked another kid or an officer. One time, a guy tried to cut his own throat with a plastic knife at dinner and splattered his blood onto the sanitized white table and onto the sanitized charcoal linoleum, but only made a mess of himself and not in the way he wanted. Jo hadn't been there, he'd only heard, but he smelled the sanitizing solution a lot stronger for the next few days and the yard poker games were a little smaller until the next bus arrived. Whenever someone went away, no matter what the reason, Jo could hear someone or other saying, "He was a good kid."

He wondered if they said that about him when he turned eighteen and they moved him to the Our Lady of Perpetual Peace Bayside Correctional Facility. He didn't want to be a good kid, or even a good adult. He just wanted to go back to being him.

Jail was a lot like juvy, really, just bigger, and with bigger guys and more of them. He still had a bed to sleep in and three squares a day, plus those same nine desserts, every single night. Maybe if you were there a couple more years, a guy could get sick of them, and the monthly meal rotation to boot, but Jo didn't care for sweets and as long as it was cooked through, he'd eat whatever was splashed onto his tray with a grateful smile. They didn't make him cut his hair, which Jo had expected from the TV shows he'd seen, but he was grateful, since he'd been growing it since before he was arrested and he liked how it looked long. (Maybe he was vain, but it sort of had this burgundy sheen to it that looked like red wine in the sunlight. He liked that.) He didn't have a cellmate, since he'd been jailed for gang activity, but he wasn't put in solitary confinement either. He knew there were other guys from gangs around- he knew there were other Crows around, but the known Crows were kept in solitary, and the Crows who weren't known as members either didn't recognize him or did and kept their mouths shut because solitary is the closest thing to a literal hell Jo could think of. But there weren't just Crows. Operating out of Little Shangri-La alone- Jo's preferred stamping ground, and his only stamping ground in this city- Jo knew of the Centipedes, the Bulls, the Sharks, and the Holy Men, and he was sure all four had at least some representation. However, they were the same as the Crows: if they knew he'd been involved with Benny, they didn't say anything because then it would come out that they were involved with Benny at some angle. And looking back, maybe Jo was a little more involved with the gangs than he'd figured on before his arrest.

Jo remembered writing his deposition- or rather, "dictating" it (the Child Services lady's words, not his) because writing and typing weren't really his strong suits- and surprised himself with how much he knew about how the gangs operated just from listening to Benny jabber. "We don't do turf wars, it's kind of split on certain blocks, except field trips. If we meet outside of our ward, we either stay out of each other's way or team up." The Crows would willingly work with the Bulls or the Sharks- the Bulls would work with anyone, though the Sharks were a little more picky. The Sharks and Cents didn't work together, and the Crows would only work with the Cents if the job was really worth it, since Benny hated how the Cents worked. ("I hear their initiation is done on ladies- only on ladies. Those sick fucks, they fucking require a boy to take a lady and- Jesus, Jo, don't fuck with the Cents. They do sick shit like that for fun. I don't know what they do to little boys.") The Holy Men were a different story- they didn't do team-ups, and they were the only one of the five who would go out of their way to attack other gangs. They were smaller and worked quietly, almost under the radar, but if they thought someone was getting too close to finding out what they were actually doing, that someone would vanish, and while Benny wasn't afraid to kill people, he never went out of his way to do it. The Holy Men didn't do turf wars, per se, but if they were planning something in a certain area and one of the other gangs started some activity there, there would be a brawl, and the Holy Men were tough customers in a rumble. Benny was smart enough to stick to his streets, and if he even heard a whisper that the Holy Men were working on a block, he'd tell all of his guys to steer clear. Even that couldn't keep them at bay for good. Every once in a while, the Holy Men would come onto another gang's turf and stomp on them for fun, like an earthquake rolling through. It was enough to keep fresh blood constantly rolling into the other gangs, because once the Holy Men were done with you, you had plenty of old blood getting swept out, often into the bay in a cloud of gray ashes. Benny had given Jo the same warning: "Don't fuck with the Holy Men. Hell, don't fuck with anybody if you don't have to. I hear the Holy Men keep operatives in other gangs just to keep tabs on 'em."

So he didn't. If he recognized a Bull, or a Centipede, or a Shark, he didn't say a word. He never recognized a Holy Man, but if he did, he wouldn't say anything. There were a couple reasons for this. Just because he recognized one didn't mean he recognized all of them, and if he turned one in, it was as likely as a sunrise that he would be recognized right back and his brothers would pay him back in blood and broken teeth, or worse. It was because of this that he worried that he would be put in solitary confinement for his own safety; punished for doing the right thing. There was also that he just didn't care; they were already locked up, if the cops weren't smart enough to figure out who they were dealing with, then they deserved to let them slip through the cracks.

But really, Jo almost liked being in jail. He got an hour in the yard every day to play poker with whatever group had gotten together, he had enough room to work out in his eight-by-six cell, and there were some good comic books in the jail library. The Child Services rep was gone now, but his public defender would come around on visitation day every few months, wearing that same cheap suit, and promise him, "You're doing just fine, no involvement with any trouble, no incidents, you got your education, you'll be out after a year." He suggested Jo take some college courses through the correspondence in the library, but Jo didn't care enough. If he was going to do college, he would do it outside. Outside felt awful close, especially out in the jail yard. The whitewashed brick walls were so high he could scarcely see the barbed wire, and the sky looked different every day. It helped Jo keep tabs on the time passed.

Most of the guys kept time by visitation days- "My boo came three days ago, so she'll be here again in eleven. Wonder if they'll let us have a little, hehe, conjugal." Jo didn't. Nobody came to see him. If Benny had copped a plea and got back out on the streets, he sure as hell wasn't looking back for Jo, and if Jack was alive and in the same city, the same state, shit, on this side of the goddamned country, Jo had no idea how to get in touch with him and tell him he was there and to come visit, or if Jack would even want to visit. Probably not, Jo figured. There was a reason Jack had never come back for him, one that he'd never had a chance to ask about and probably never would. Instead, Jo watched the sun in the sky through his ten-inch square window or from the broad expanse of the dirt-packed prison yard and counted the days from bad weather.

"It rained nine days ago. The ground's pretty dusty now. I wonder if it'll rain again soon."

It was a rainy day Jo remembered best, or maybe worst. That was the day he decided he didn't want to go back to jail. That was the day he had nightmares about, even three years into his parole. He got his release a year early, as promised, but after that day, Jo had stopped counting.

It made Jo grateful he couldn't remember his dreams so well, especially not after a few hours awake, not after three years of freedom. Remembering things kind of sucked, but while it was easy not to remember, it was hard to forget. Maybe that was why he still had nightmares about that face that had stared up at him from the mud, that soft, faint, laughing voice:

"You're... covered in blood too..."

"Jesus fuckin' Christ." Jo lit a Lucky Strike and stuffed his hands in his pocket and squeezed, trying to make himself not remember again. It was the rain doing it, he was sure; raining today, rained yesterday, probably would tomorrow. It's not like getting wet bothered him much. Jo didn't own an umbrella or bother with more than zipping his jacket up. Maybe it was that stupid vanity kicking in again, but he thought his hair looked sexy wet, like lava running down his shoulders, but it was the suede of his jacket that kept his skinny chest warm in the damp, chill wind. He kept his head low to try and keep the cherry bright under the shade of his forehead, but with the drops thicker than spills from shotglasses, it didn't go so well, and he ducked under an overhang to finish his smoke. Luckies were a little pricier than most, but since Jo didn't spend much on food, he could spare to splurge on his preferred brand. Still didn't mean he wanted to lose one to the rain. He heard someone walking past sniff at him as he took a drag, and rolled his eyes- "Yeah, yeah, fuckin' anti-smoker laws, probably shouldn't be in the fucking door way- motherfucker, you stand thirty feet from a fuckin' door in this fuckin' weather!"- but finished his cigarette just as his phone rang again. He yanked it from his pocket and swiped the screen. "What's up, Ken?"

"Hi, Jojo!" A chipper, strident, girly voice spoke over the grumbling tenor Jo had been expecting. "Jojo, are you still being a slowpoke layabout, or is my big brother teaching you right?"

"Shut up, Lily!" Ken grunted, and Jo suppressed a snicker. He hated being called 'Jojo,' but he loved the thought of idiotic little Lily spilling Ken's innermost thoughts onto any open line. "Jo, where the hell are you? I need you to take on an office thing, and I need it twenty minutes ago."

"I had to walk, asshole, you seen this goddamned rain?" Jo spat his butt into a puddle. "The buses ain't running 'cause of the flood watch, because why the fuck would the buses wanna run when people don't wanna walk places, and my bike's right the hell out with traffic this bad because the second a drop hits the ground around here, fuckers slow down to five miles an hour and start steering with their ballsacks, so what goddamn choice do I have?"

"Whatever." Ken groaned just off the receiver. "You're gonna need a bike, but I'll loan you the spare. Just get here as quick as you can, or I'll find someone who will." He abruptly hung up, and Jo snickered aloud this time. Just for that, he would have one more cigarette before dragging himself in. Ken might have threatened to fire him on a weekly basis, but he was a pretty good boss. Yana, his parole officer, had gotten him a courier job at West Side Deliveries straight out of jail, and had promised him that Ken was good to his employees and despite being a bit rough on the outside, very tolerant. "Loyal," was what she had called it, but Jo didn't quite see it. The job paid enough to make his rent, pay his bills and get cheap cable, he siphoned off the neighbor's internet for his work computer, and it kept him busy enough, though he still had nights off to go to the pool hall on Eastern Avenue for a few dozen rounds of poker to waste whatever he had left over with whoever would let him. He didn't have to worry about anything. Life was okay, the same kind of okay jail had been.

"It's easy," Jo grumbled to himself, and finished his second cigarette. Even the nicotine rush didn't block out that mud-and-blood stained memory. "It's so easy I could puke." He threw the butt away and splashed on through the rain, through the motions, onto the nuts and bolts that made everyday life what it was. It wasn't like he could just get out of it.

Ken usually made Jo do pick-ups, since he didn't have his own car. If he needed to do a delivery, he could drive a company car, but Jo knew his way around the city on foot down cold. He could stagger in hung over or even still drunk from the night before, and still know the quickest way from one end of the ward to the other to go and fetch whatever it was that needed delivery. Ken sometimes wondered if those wild hairs that stuck up from his bangs were antennae that told him where the accidents were and which cross streets would get the "walk" signal first. Jo usually told him to fuck himself whenever he tugged at them- "You think I'm some douchebag, wanna wear hair gel all the fucking time?" Ken would snicker at him. Ken could actually be kind of cool like that, but with unkempt hair like his, he probably didn't want to take back what he was dishing out. Luckily, Ken was only interested in dishing out orders today.

"The front desk computer's gone to shit again. I need you to take it to Extreme Dataflow and get Zack to do whatever and make it work, and I need it today. Sit on him if you have to."

It was little things like this that made Jo question just how good of a boss Ken was. Kenneth Maoh had inherited the business from his mother at age nineteen, and he'd done a pretty good job of keeping them in the black, but Ken was either naïve or stupid and Jo wasn't sure which. Naive was reasonable- maybe Ken didn't know what kind of asshole Zack was. Jo had known Zack from his "associate" days with the Crows, another "associate" he hadn't bothered mentioning in hi deposition, and giving him your computer was basically like saying "Please, Zack, take my name, address, social security number, and credit card information off my hard drive. I wasn't using that money or credit score." Maybe Ken just didn't know that Zack was just as rotten as Jo, but hadn't been caught yet. Stupid was a worse option- Ken knew, but like he trusted Jo after a few years of employment, he'd been dealing with Zack long enough that he trusted him or maybe even owed him one stupid favor that he paid back with monthly invoices. Maybe that was why Ken always sent him to deal with Zack- maybe Ken did know about Zack, and since he definitely knew what Jo was, he could trust Jo to keep him safe from whatever scheme Zack was running this week.

Extreme Dataflow- Jo had no idea what was so Extreme about it, except that it was maybe opened in the Nineties when everything had to be "extreme"- was a nondescript, concrete-block building on the North side of little Shangri-La. It only really stood out because it was painted white next to the dull, umber brick of the adjoining rowhouses, and the side wall was covered in stark black and green text, handpainted on in chipping acrylic: "We fix all computers and laptops! Macs – Windows – Linux – iPads – Tablets – Video Game Systems" along with a little illustration of an old Commodore 64 with a face and a thermometer sticking out of its mouth. There was a flickering neon "Open" sign hanging in the window facing the larger of the streets at its corner, and Jo put the company bike into park and chained it to one of the bars on the outside window. He hauled the clunky old computer and monitor, shielded from the rain in two layers of garbage bags, out of his rear bike basket and backed into the door, whirling around to shake the water off as he did so.

"Yo! Zack!" He shook his hair off, wrung it out, and grinned at the idiot on the other side of the desk. Zack shook mussed, oily dull-blonde hair back and shoved his cellphone into his desk to greet Jo with a clapped high-five.

"Jojo, I thought you couldn't swim!" He laughed sharply, and Jo chuckled and wrung his hair out onto the floor behind him. Thunder struck outside, and the wind pounded the rain harder against the glass to emphasize its strength. The building settled from the second floor, and Jo could swear he heard a creak from the stairwell behind the dividing wall. "The fuck are you doing out in weather like this?"

"The boss' computer's gone belly up, and he needs somethin' done about it. No fancy shit, either." Jo folded his arms sternly, and Zack shook his head and let out a weaselly, nervous laugh.

"Come on, Jo, I learned some new tricks! S'called the Illusion." He wiggled his fingers like a magician entertaining toddlers. "Just plant a few lines of code in the security coding on your favorite browsers, and a fraction of any online purchase made vanishes- like magic!- Kenny won't even-"

"No." Jo put steel in his voice and fixed Zack with a stern look. "He said the monitor and computer tower ain't on speaking terms, and he just wants you t'make 'em friends again. Can ya do that?"

"Ah, jeez." Zack slicked his hair back, but the fringe fell back over his eye. There was a rustle from the open door into the darkened room behind him. Jo could spot a few computer towers and laptops with their guts out on the desk. Zack plugged the monitor in and depressed the power button, and set his elbow on the desk to watch the screen flicker to life. "I mean, I can fuck with it a little, but I'm definitely more of a software guy and that sounds like a hardware issue, and since Dougie got arrested-"

"Shiiiiit." Jo dug his hand up into his hair. Zakuro nodded sympathetically, and pulled a wire up from another tower and plugged it in. "That ass got caught?"

"Nowhere near here, thank god. Apparently he got caught doin' somethin' or other off the clock." Zack squinted at the monitor. "I mean, this side looks like it's working." He shook his head. "Probably somethin' on the inside, but without Doug..." He smirked up at Jo. "Well, lucky me, I got a new guy." He glanced over his shoulder, and Jo followed his gaze to spot a shadow dodging out of the open door. "He ain't like us, y'know, but he's plenty good at what he does. Think you wanna give him a shot? He's almost as brilliant as I am." Zack grinned a cocky grin, and Jo chuckled.

"Sure, but whoever he is, he better be ready for me to lean on him. Ken wants this today. No excuses." He set his hands on his hips. "I'll zip around town getting parts if you need it, just to keep him off my ass." Zack smirked, and leaned around the corner in through the door behind him.

"You gonna keep bein' shy, or are you gonna be polite and say hello to my old buddy here?" Jo was reminded of a cat dragged on a lead towards a dog as Zack coaxed the poor nerd out from the work room. Jo braced himself not to snicker at pizza-face pimples or a dorky, grease-stained Doctor Who tee-shirt- he wasn't mean, but how bad did this guy have to be to hide like that?

Jo hadn't expected green. Zack dragged out a slight, lean man who was paler than expected, with bright- like, weirdly bright- green eyes. The brightness of those eyes stood out against his dark brown hair, which stood in contrast again to pale skin. His black-rimmed glasses were askew on his nose, and the right lens was cracked under the shag of his bangs. He was clean-shaved, clean-faced, and almost pretty, for a dude. Jo had expected a fat nerd, not an out-of-place banker or overgrown school boy. He looked bewildered, but not too put off, and managed to push his jaw shut as he landed in front of the desk. He gently shook Zack's hand off and smoothed the buttons on his shirt, then his sleeve. "My apologies for not joining the conversation sooner." He met Jo's eyes and bowed his head. "I did not wish to interrupt what seemed to be a pleasant reunion between old friends."

"You got that right," Zack snickered, and nudged the man forward. "Me an' Jo, we go way back. West Side's one of our most loyal customers. Jo, this's Harley. Harley, Jo."

Harley extended a hand, and Jo took it and shook it. His smooth lips slipped up into an easy smile, but one Jo wasn't sure was completely real. "My pleasure, certainly." His voice was even, it canted and dipped with sweetness and honey, and while Jo didn't care much for sweets, there was definitely a bitter to this sweet. Jo grinned easily back, and clapped his other hand around their shake.

"Pleasure's mine. So, uh, you Zack's new hardware dude?"

"Oh, I do a bit of everything." Harley glanced to the window. "Erm, would you mind coming up to my work space? And could you carry that?" He gestured to the computer, and with another smile, it was difficult to say no.

The narrow stairs up to the office echoed Jo's footsteps as he thundered his way up, monitor in the crook of one arm and tower under the other, but Harley walked softly, as if he weren't even there. The upstairs room was neater than Jo remembered seeing it when Doug had worked there; no papers on the desk, and parts and pieces in tiny plastic storage drawers with neatly-written labels. There were no gutted computers like the downstairs work bench, though a mysterious high dome covered with a cloth was oddly conspicuous on the end of the desk. Jo didn't want to ask. There was at least the familiarity of the busted-up spinning chair that Jo got to sit in while Doug worked, usually seated on a vinyl stool with wheels on it and skittering around the floor between whatever creepy porn he'd been watching and the work he was supposed to be doing. He hoped he wouldn't have to worry about that with Harley, but the prim nerd seemed repressed enough (from what little he'd seen) that he could control whatever urges he had until he was off the clock. The blinds were all drawn, and though Jo had heard strains of music when he'd walked in, the noise silenced when Harley crossed the threshold and touched a button on a speaker set beside the door. "Were you listenin' to that?" Jo nodded to the radio. "I don't mind." He set the monitor and tower down, and Harley hesitated, before reaching out and turning the music back on. It was nothing Jo recognized, and maybe even a little out of the ordinary.

"Where you been hidin' lately? Where you been hidin' from the noose?"

"What station is this?" Jo grinned over his shoulder at Harley, who'd busied himself with unscrewing the side wall of the tower.

"It's an internet station. Indie, soft rock."

"No wonder I've never heard of it. I'm more of a Guns 'n' Roses kinda guy myself." Jo held up the "rock" symbol with his index and pinky finger extended. He expected a smile, a chuckle, a nod, anything, but Harley was more interested in the insides of the computer tower. "Y'know, Kix? Metallica maybe? I've actually kinda got a thing for the Charm City Devils right now." Harley didn't seem to react, and the music played on.

"Red tongues and hands..."

"But, uh, whatever floats your boat." Jo settled himself into the spinning chair and gave it a few test sways- it didn't bob under his weight, so it had been fixed somewhere between now and the last time he'd paid a visit. Harley glanced over his shoulder, an apologetic slant to his eyes.

"I would have left it off, but I prefer the music to the noise." Jo frowned, but in the quiet that Harley let sit, he could hear the rain drumming on the roof. He stared up at it, until the rustle of paper in front of him got his attention. Harley offered a few forms and a yellow and pink pen with a "Bail Bonds" logo. "Would you fill these out? I know the previous gentleman often neglected these, but..." He trailed off indicatively, unable to fill the void.

"Oh, oh yeah." He shuffled the papers to straighten them and filled them out- basic information, like his name and company and what brought him to the shop- and Harley retreated to his desk and started sliding out boards and cases one by one. "So, uh, you another buddy of Zack's? How'd you get the job?"

"Ah, well, my parole officer-" Harley flinched, and Jo looked up.

"You have a parole officer?" Jo rose both eyebrows, and Harley slowly turned around, his hands meeting in front of his stomach.

"If that offends you, then my sincerest apologies." The tips of his fingers battled one another like a spider clicking her spinnerets. "Would you like me to see if Zack can work on your computer instead?"

"What? Why the hell would I want that?"

"If you believe me untrustworthy."

"Dude, Zack may not have a rap sheet yet, but like hell if he's trustworthy." Jo grinned and sat back in the chair. "You're cool. I'm an ex-con too. Why?" He put his feet up onto the empty desk, kicking mud out of the grooves in his boots. "That turn you off? Lots of ladies hate it, but how about you?"

"Ah..." Harley trailed off again, mouth hung open before he remembered to lock his jaw. "I'm not disgusted by it, no. As long as... no, never mind." He quickly turned around again, and Jo laughed and sat back in the chair. It rocked back to catch him, and he leaned his head back until it bumped the wall.

"Jesus fucking Christ, guy, don't be so uptight." He crossed his legs, one over the other. "I don't bite. I only gotta sit here to make sure we're getting our worth on the rush charge, and like I told Zack, I can go anywhere in the city you need if we need parts. I'm just making conversation, but if you don't want to talk to me, just say so."

"Isn't that just masturbation?"

"What?" Jo sat forward all at once, feet landing on the floor, and Harley turned again.

"Jesus fucking Christ. Since Jesus is the Christ, isn't Jesus fucking Christ just masturbation?" Harley smiled again, another one of those not-quite-there gestures, but Jo laughed hard. Harley giggled along, a slim hand lifted to his lips, and Jo spun the chair around completely.

"Alright, smartass, that cans it. I'm gonna sit here and talk to you whether you like it or not." Jo splayed both legs around the chair. "So, tell me, Harley, what put a straight-laced smarty like you in the slammer?"

Harley smiled again, an almost-real one this time. "I'm afraid there's little to tell."

"Don't care. I'm interested now." Jo grinned, but even he couldn't totally suss out why he was so curious. Maybe it was those bright, way-too-bright green eyes. Jo had been a city kid his whole life, walled in with brick and concrete, asphalt and cement. Even jail had been nothing but shades of red and gray. He wasn't sure when anything green had come into his life before, and if nothing else, it was enough to get him out of his own head on a gloomy, gray day like this.

And Harley smiled completely. "I suppose nothing less will keep you satisfied." Jo grinned; he was right. He was sure he hadn't been so interested in anything in a very, very long time.

End Notes: The music on Harley's radio is "The Wolves" by Ben Howard.

If you liked it, let me know! Like I said, no set update schedule, but I should hopefully have more done within the next few weeks.