Chapter 10: Beliefs

It was a ten past one when he walked through the doors of the bakery with an ice pack held to his right eye. He had planned, and promised, to be back at noon sharp, but erring on the side of caution prevented him for doing. In his state, stopping at a corner store for two hundred pesos worth of cubed ice, most of which had already melted,was more important than being punctual. He was greeted by the twin stares of his benefactors: one of shock from Alejandra and one of abject disappointment from her mother. There were no doubt many obvious and uncomfortable question headed his way, but all he could find in his mental search for an opening statement was a weak, "Hey."

Without hesitation, Alejandra rushed over to him with very vocal concern.

"Oh my g-what happened!?"

"Got jumped,"the courier replied matter-of-factly. "Don't worry, I won."

A brief twinge of something that wasn't quite confusion flickered on Alejandra's face,

"Are you sure you're okay? Is anything broken?"

"It's fine, it's only pain."

Her demeanor wasn't quite as passive after hearing that.

"No it isn't, I can see the black eye through the bag."

"...Okay, yeah, it hurts pretty bad," He conceded. "And it's been giving me a headache, but It's fine, I don't need help, just time."

"Yes, you do. Don't try to act tough," she insisted with an anger backed by worry.

"Mom, do w-", she started to say as she turned to see her mother returning from the back room with an armful of jars and bottles.

"Aspirin, muscle pain relievers, some cream to make the bruising go down, and eye drops for the bloodshot," she explained clinically as she punctuated each item with a soft thump of plastic on wood.

Even Alejandra was surprised at how well she had been read, but swiftly moved past it with an awkward,

"Right, thanks!" and hurried over to collect them. Brian was thoroughly confused by both of them, Meche for her efforts despite her clear dissatisfaction for what he had done and Alejandra for her insistence despite her own distaste for being coddled.

"I'm fine," He angrily insisted as Alejandra struggled to undo the security cap of the aspirin bottle, "I'd rather just suffer through it."

Alejandra made a quizzical look at that and chose each of her next words carefully once she believed she understood the meaning behind his anger.

"You're not weak just because you got hit a few times and there's nothing wrong with admitting it hurts.", she said seeing the wounds in his pride and understanding that as towering as it was, it was load bearing. She believed him in his claims of the attack as the reality of Dorado was well known to her and she understood Brian well enough to catch his simpler lies. Vainglory and bloodlust no doubt hung on his shoulder in this fight, but she had little chance at knocking them from their perch, especially now. It would be a slow path, but if Brian was willing to ride two thousand miles in the pursuit of his madness, Alejandra was willing to walk a more abstract one to save him.

"Yeah, there is." Brian nearly said, only just stopping himself from doing so.

Again he found himself unable to deny the truth of her words, despite what the thunderous voice of pride told him.

"Gotta fall before you can rise, right?", he chose to say instead as his mood sweetened, taking to her meaning.

Failure is a necessary step on the road to success, something he realized he should have learned when a bullet struck his temple.

Taking the aspirin bottle from her, still somewhat reluctantly, he cracked the seal with not much more ease and poured a number of pills into his hand. Turning the bottle around to search through the fine print, the information came from a swifter source not a moment later,

"Two pills now, then one more in four hours" Meche interjected as Brian turned to see her offering a glass of tap water. Nodding in thanks, he placed two pills on his tongue, returned the remainder to the bottle, then took the glass and a quick swig to send them down. Near instantly he felt relief from the sharper stings of pain, something he would be unable to thank the placebo effect for.

As Alejandra reached for the next bottle, she was met with more measured protest.

"I'm fine for now, it was just the eye punch that was bothering me, everything else isn't so bad.", he said, only mostly telling the truth.

"There's no point in leaving a job half done.", Alejandra retorted, still putting thought into each word.

"At least let me walk part of it off.", he replied, doing his best to inject some humor into his tone.

"Well, rub some of the cream on the bruise on at least so we won't get any wrong looks. We are still going out at two, right?"

"Don't...Don't phrase it like that. We're just gonna be looking around the market together because you wander and I have bad taste."

Unscrewing the cap of the cream of a brand so pretentious Brian could not even read their name off the jar due to the over-stylized writing, the conversation continued.

"I still don't know why you're so sensitive about that. It's not like it would be weird.", Alejandra insisted, more innocent in intent than she sounded to him, once her mother left earshot.

Her reason for doing so eluded her, but she hadn't the time to put any serious thought into it. Perhaps this was her way of testing her daughter after the latter's constant insistence to be treated like an adult, but with Brian in the state he was in, Alejandra had no time to dwell on it.

"Half my age plus seven is fourteen and a half, you're a year and a half off. It's weird", Brain said bluntly as he began to apply the cream, using pain as a map rather than a mirror.

"A year off." She corrected somewhat incorrectly, as she was born in June. "And is that the law up north?"

"It is to me." He said, hard-nosed. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"We could talk about how you got that shiner."

"Not much to tell," Brian said with a shrug. "I got jumped, just like I did two days ago. Only difference being this guy knew how to fight."

"But not better than you.", Alejandra appealed as a way to gain a foothold in the conversation.

"You know it.", he played along.

She didn't quite laugh at that half-genuine boast, but the bemused puff of air and a sarcastic shake of Alejandra's head gave him some ease. He knew this was at least partially an act, either to soothe his pride or guilt him into an apology for something that was not his fault. Experience with the baker's daughter told him it was likely a mix of both, but he could not bring himself to hold it against her. "She's only trying to help, and it's not like she's all that wrong."

"It was a Los Muertos this time," Brian told her for the sake of honesty and advice, "Looked fresh, had a butterfly knife, think his name was Cesar, had this weird fighting stance; any of that sound familiar?"

"No, he doesn't. If he was new, you shouldn't need to worry too much about someone coming after you. They don't care too much about anyone who hasn't earned their first tattoo and even then, it rare for them to care about anyone who not useful to them at that particular moment."

"Yeah, I remember you telling me something about that."

"So why did you ask then?"

"I just wanted to know if anyone else on the streets knew how to fight like that. Kinda look like this." He said as he roughly imitated the odd stance.

."No, never seen anything like that before."

"Exactly", he responded in a sly tone as he raised the eyedropper high and held its target open and unobstructed. Still, he was hesitant to apply the minute pressure to actually use the medical device, much to Alejandra's confusion and eventual ire as she wished to get to the root of his point. Slowly reaching over to the rubber cap, she placed her thumb and index finger and, with a brief exchange of a raised eyebrow from her and a resigned curl of his lip and a quick nod, she squeezed to release the stinging medicine.

"It's not like anyone willing to teach it to a gangster would be willing to teach it to you, since...well, you know how they are by now.", she continued to press as grimaced and blinked rapidly.

"I was talking more about if anyone else knew how to fight like that so I could work it out myself, one way or the other."

Seeing clearly for the first time in an hour and a half, he was greeted by an expression that somehow conveyed absolute frustration, utter concern, and violent disappointment all in equal spades.

"I meant if I had to fight against anyone like that again," Brian countered, realizing his accidental implication "I don't go looking for trouble...anymore."

With a heavy sigh that told him just how unconvinced she was, Alejandra replied, "If you say so. I'm going to get ready, we'll leave at one-thirty."

"Right…" said Brian, as he lifted himself up through the remaining majority of the pain and made his retreat to the basement to cleanse the blood from his good luck charm.

"Come on, you can barely tell! I may have done it fast, but I did it mostly right."

"It's still damp and it's still dirty from everything else, it makes you look like some kind of street beggar!" she said, making sure to hide the more genuine part of her frustration behind a comedic tone.

They entered the outdoor mall at one-thirty-five and they had been arguing about his choice to not change out of his blue hoodie since they had left. The shape of the crowds had changed entirely since Brian had first left to start work. This could not be called unsurprising given that this was a Sunday and one only less than two weeks from The Day of the Dead at that.

"We've been over this, it's a good luck charm. The whole museum thing was like the second time I ever wore it and everything since then's been going my way. Like that bullet just missing everything it needed to hit, you can't call that a coincidence."

"Lucky would be if it didn't hit you" She responded with a hefty amount of snide "And how do you know it's that big blue bootleg that's been stacking the deck for you?"

"Oh, I've tested it, even with other Raider hoodies, but unless it's this specific one, my luck gets as bad as it normally is. And how did you know it was a knock off anyway?"

"If you're willing to lug around that brick you call a phone, you're willing to buy clothes made behind the Panda Express."

"Hey, come on now, I'm not that cheap. I get my stuff from behind the P. 's like a normal person," he said, over exaggerating the jest in his voice. "Anyways, isn't that why we're here, to help me find non-hobo tier stuff?"

"You don't need me for that, just go into any store and just pick anything that's not on a mannequin or in the bargain bin. It's not like you dress all that bad, you just need clothes that aren't covered in dirt and knife holes."

"You had me until 'not the bargain bin'" he said only half-sarcastically.

Alejandra shook her head and tried to hide the smile he had given her as she gave him a shove in much more legitimate humor toward the nearest storefront, one by the name of Delgado's. They didn't spend long, as Brian followed her well-intentioned nagging with diligence once she was able to coax him past the six-hundred peso price tag. However, despite her best efforts to persuade him otherwise, they had only walked away with a single extra change of garb.

"Hey, I live on the road. I can't spend all that much on anything that ain't food and shelter." He had said to her.

"Well, you don't have to live like that," Alejandra offered "There are plenty of heroics to be done here, you said it yourself."

"...Half plus seven.", he said, assuming too much from her statement and moving even more steps ahead of it.

"You sure assume I'm talking about...that a lot."

"Well...I mean...I remember how I was when puberty stuck. Its dirty street needle in my backside, so I just want to lay the ground rules now," he said, only partially in jest.

"...Now I regret not fighting you harder about coming to church," she replied, joking even less.

Brian was silent for a time after that quip as they made their way to a food stop of Alejandra's prior choosing, an authentic Mexican faux Italian-American style Cafe by the name of Bertorelli's Caffè. It was a recent addition to Dorado, arriving only four months before Brian had, and the franchise itself only arriving after the borders of all states were made as open California had been since the Armstrong Act had let them some forty years ago. There was a decent number of customers, just enough to make their wait seem tedious, though the overwhelming majority of them opted to stay inside due to the relative cold of October. The weather had left an abundance of seats outside and given what they were about to discuss, the dubious privacy of a patio table would have been their choice anyway. Had Alejandra not known any better, she would assume he had left the air after her comment stagnant out of shame or embarrassment, but she was familiar enough with him to know he was just finding the proper words to explain himself. It wasn't until they had already placed their orders and found a seat, that he finally decided on how to make his case.

"I've been to a few churches to spend the night on my way here when the hotels were too rich or too sleazy. They were all decent enough about, I got to stay so long as they got to try their hand at converting me. I swear they all and the same speech about, 'The light shining in darkness', down to the pauses even. I still don't really believe in all that, but at least my folks were wrong about hope and charity just being buzzwords and I'm not gonna pretend like I know everything."

Alejandra put much thought into what Brian had said, just as much as he had before saying it. However, she was hurried on by his the unnatural straightness of his posture and subtle fidgeting of his legs, telling her of his unease and was quick to rectify that.

"I can understand that and I can't act like I know everything either, really no one can." She could see him relax ever so slightly, only to tense up again the moment she continued to speak. "Still, it doesn't hurt to give it some thought, even if you don't take it all that literally."

"I got plenty of those little booklets they hand out," he said dismissively "Haven't found much I haven't heard in different words already."

"Well, if that's what works for you," she replied with some concern in her voice "But, well, this might be a bit of touchy question…"

Brian was apprehensive, there were many things he had left unanswered that aptly fit the description of 'touchy'. The transition to this upcoming question for the topic of religion did not give him many clues, given the sheer number of life's aspects that Catholicism had its own guidelines for. Not confident in his ability to accurately guess what Alejandra was referring to, he ushered her on with a simple, "What is it?"

"Well, I mean…" she started nervously, "I thought you would be more interested in the other side since you've been there."

Contrary to Alejandra's expectations of another rise in his emotional defenses, Brian relaxed, relieved this was not another question about his upbringing.

"I try not to focus on the end, it distracts from the here and now. Besides, I don't remember anything between the bullet and waking up, so I'm still not convinced there even is anything there. I try to keep an open mind and all, but I kinda just-"

"Don't care.", Alejandra finished for him. She did so without even a hint of venom in her voice, simply stating it as a fact. "It's fine, I keep an open mind too."

Brian didn't have time to smile as the call for their orders came.

"Caffe Americano with a bagel and a Cappuccino with biscotti!"

Alejandra's pleasant demeanor suddenly soured, as her order was for a Marocchino.

"This is going to take a while, don't get into another fight while I'm gone.", she said as she rose up.

"Is it really that big of a deal? They're basically the same thing."

"They're not the same thing!", she asserted "And come on, you should know how annoying something like this is. You need to make a stand sometimes, you know that better than I do."

For a half-second, Brian was concerned, thinking back to the many times he had seen under qualified Californian mothers start a tirade over the smallest of mistakes, particularly the unfortunate number of times he was on the receiving end of one for errors that were not his. Alejandra, however, was the furthest thing from one of those petulant woman-children, so he brushed off the suspicion and let her go with a piece of advice, just to be certain.

"Just don't be too hard on them.", he said with a smile.

"I'm not a Tijuanan housewife. I just want what I ordered," she read behind his comment with her own smile.

She was only a few paces away by the time Brian heard the faint chuckling behind him and the jeer that brought it to his attention.

"Hell of a catch, Dailor!" The voice was singsong and in good humor, but with a distinct sliminess that fit the face, Brian quickly turned to witness. He had the look of a young, but pale Hispanic man in his early twenties with the grace of a man of his late-thirties and had the fashion sense of one in his forties, given his choice of a purple suit and yellow undershirt that somehow looked simultaneously cheap and expensive.

"Or maybe she's the one who made the good catch, Fist Boy!", he said, flashing an unnaturally white, priggish smile.

Two men, most certainly underlings of his judging by the hints of purple on their attire, sat at each side of him at the table. The both of them looked to be in their thirties and the distinctive grit each of them carried said they had been in the business of crime for at least half of their lives. They were dressed far more utilitarian given their role as simple soldiers for the only gang that earned the right to wear such a garish color and have it seen with fear and respect. They were not visibly armed, which of course meant that they were armed for a bear. Even in the off-chance that they were not, they were all larger and almost certainly more experienced than the courier in the art of fighting. Brian did not move from his table while he sized up the trio in the momentary silence, barely moving an inch of himself other than to take in breath, refusing to show even the slightest sign of weakness.

Irritated by the continued silence, the sharp-dressed gangster laid his thinly veiled threats on thick.

"I'm not mistaken now, am I? You are Brian Caleb Dailor, son of Aaron Dailor and Michelle Klein who live on 3436 Hannah St in Clawson Oakland with their other, less suicidal son, Timothy?" Of all the smug dominating he did with his knowledge, hearing his middle name for the first time in over seven years was the most aggravating slight to Brian, still reeling from the ignored intolerance he had faced for his heritage.

"And you're Santana.", the would-be hero with hefty snide. Most of his knowledge of Los Muertos had come from Alejandra given her obvious experience living in a city infested by them, but she had often been very evasive about the subject most times it had been brought up. In the short list of the more important information was the name of the Captain in command of Los Muertos operations in Dorado. Anselmo Santana was, from what he understood, one of the men most responsible for the gang's rapid conquest of the city during his stint as a lieutenant with a relative lack of violence compared to most other assorted townships that have come under their heel. While the exact details were either beyond her knowledge or too painful for Alejandra to speak of, Brian surmised that he did so through a massive campaign of blackmail and extortion powered by the legions of hackers and other information thieves, not too dissimilar to how the Wah Ching Triad assumed control of the majority of West Oakland after the mass exodus of the blighted Chinese mainland after the inhuman virus bombings of the omnic crisis.

From there, the Los Muertos was free to roam the city unopposed as they owned nearly every piece of property directly or indirectly and could easily bribe, intimidate, or outright murder anyone who spoke up about it. "It was like the twenties all over again", was her way of phrasing it. That, however, was before Los Muertos was deemed worthy of Overwatch's attention once the presence of Talon was found in the city. Despite being spread as thin as they were in the years leading up to their collapse, the terrorists were routed and much of Los Muertos' operations were pulled out by the roots on the vague suspicion of collaboration with Talon. While this ended in the death of the Gang Captain in command of the city, Santana himself was able to escape the watchful eye of the world police and claim the vacant seat of power in the years following Overwatch's collapse. While the gang may not have regained all the power they once had and their attempts at reclaiming it near irreversibly hobbled by the actions of Soldier 76 and Sombra abandonment of them, the streets of Dorado and many cities across Mexico were well under their control.

"Ah, so you've heard of me?" Santana said as his smile became genuine, albeit self-satisfied. "I take it that's her work, then? Well, it doesn't matter, as long as it saves us time. Come sit with us, we have business to discuss."

Brian let out a brief, silent laugh of disbelief as one of the skull-clad bodyguards pulled out the remaining empty seat and turned it toward the courier. For a man who knew every recorded detail of the young man's life, Santana had an astronomically incorrect judgment of him to think he would even consider listening to anything the gangster could offer or be swayed by anything he could threaten.

"I preferred hard road and homeless shelters to living with them, what makes you think that intimidates me?" Brian said, telling two-thirds of the truth. "Besides, the Triad's don't tolerate any crime on their turf that ain't theirs and what's left of the Old Tijuana Cartels stateside don't deal with anyone further south than the Baja and you burned out all your goodwill after what you pulled in San Diego. You got nothing on me."

Santana raised an eyebrow and gave an impressed grin. "Guess I was wrong, she's definitely the one who got the better deal."

The lieutenant took one last sip of his espresso and slowly rose from his seat, quickly halting his compatriots from doing the same with a mere gesture. Taking the chair offered to Brian, he pulled it ever so closer to the would-be hero and took a reversed seat. From this new distance and enhanced lighting, Brian finally understood the strange disconnect between his apparent youth and his fashion sense. The use of Cosmetic Biotics to reduce the effects of age may have been an unspoken law amongst any woman on the latter end of their twenties, but it was generally considered poor form in most parts of the world for a man to do the same thing, due in no small part to the fact most were designed solely to interact with female hormones. Yet Santana did, as the mismatch in skin texture between his face and the rest of him told Brian. The courier had little understanding of why he would do so, given that age was a thing to be respected in most crime organizations given how violent they tend to be, but it would hardly be the first time a mid-life crisis led a man to something beyond logic.

"Let me cut to the chase for you," The vain lieutenant continued "You remember that boy that gave you that black eye about an hour or so ago?"

"Cesar," Brian said with a sneer of wounded pride.

"Yes." Santana grinned, catching onto that particular crack in his armor. "You won't have to worry about him coming back for you, I got the boy on a leash, scouted him myself. Hell, I was the one that sent him after you."

The courier said nothing at that, merely adding to another few centimeters to his scowl.

Santana added entire inches to his smile as he came to his point. "You might have noticed that he was one hell of a fighter, not quite to the level of my friends back there, but the kid's chock full of potential. Kind of like you in a way, though I imagine you'll be applying it in different ways by the end. Would you like to know where he learned to fight?"

Thinking several steps ahead in the conversation, Brian calmly and clinically answered the question he sensed was upcoming after several moments of pondering.

"I'm not joining your gang, you insecure manwhore."

Up close, Santana's smile was a thing of true horror, unnatural youth on the edge of splitting apart under the strain of the gangster's show of bleached enamel. His laugh was low and quiet and the disturbing dance of his vocal cords drew Brian's attention to the poor attempts to mask the shallowness of his throat that came with age. There was a slight hoarseness to the chuckle that further revealed what vanity had tried to hide as he continued on.

"Oh, you're getting way ahead of yourself, boy. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Hell, the boss thought I might have been a bit too white when they brought me in, so what chance do you have? Anyways, that wasn't why I've been keeping an eye on you since you did e the favor of getting Inigo back in prison so one of my boys that's worth an eighth of a white dog turd could kill him for me."

Brian flinched at the thought of that, even if the thug did hurt Alejandra like he did and almost kill him, he couldn't enjoy the idea of sending to his indirect demise.

"Hmph, If that's how you feel hearing that shitheel got what he had coming to him..." The gangster said, reading the twinge. "Maybe you aren't cut out for Vemana."

Once again, Brian gave an involuntary sign that showed his interest that would be invisible to anyone but one as devious as a Los Muertos lieutenant.

"Just a little side-project I've been working on for the last few years, a way to put our new recruits through the wringer and keep the old guard sharp while we make some money on the side."

"A fight pit." The would-be hero said deridingly, though not without some legitimate intrigue hidden behind it.

"The one that Cesar learned how to fight in. The one that's open from 10 pm to 4 am at 2281 Porraz Avenue and has no entry fee. The one that's always looking for some fresh meat, and whose veterans are starting to get a bit too soft, I'd say you're just the kind of wake-up call they needed. Nothing lethal, of course, not unless you both want it to go that way and we have some of the best med-school dropouts money can buy even if you do lose at some point. What do you have to lose?"

With the purpose of this meeting finally revealed, Brian's plan on how to respond to any offers had yet to be unchanged. "And you think I'm dumb enough to take you up on that?"

"Yes, I do."

The courier turned away, allowing the immense risk it brought him for the sake of the insult.

"You wouldn't be smiling the whole time when fighting Cesar if you didn't enjoy it." Santana proclaimed, his tone growing dark for the first time. "If you're worried about your 'heroism' being wounded, you'll be beating up aspiring criminals, maybe you can even beat them hard enough to figure it's not worth it. And, hell, maybe you'll figure out some new ways of doing it, just like Cesar did. I only bothered trying to threaten you as a formality, I'm not making a deal with you, I'm doing you a favor."

Brian kept silent, considering the offer despite himself. He had to admit to that it was quite tempting, everything he could have wanted was on a platter and all he had to sacrifice was some pride and make a few changes to his sleep schedule. It was a touch of the former and a hefty sum of Alejandra belief in him that kept the courier from accepting and a slight confusion that made him ask a question.

"You seem happy enough to shove your mouth-breathers at me now without anyone doing much about it, why bother with a fight pit?"

"I like to keep the streets peaceful, it keeps people like you from cropping up and the less of you, the less hits I have to order. Just in case you need another threat and another offer of the table."

There was little a threat to his own safety could do to move Brian and he suspected that Santana knew that. More perplexing to him, however, was the fact that he had yet to offer any promise of violence toward Alejandra. He had figured that Meche had to be paying protection fees through grinding teeth, but whatever meager sum they could claim through that was hardly enough to keep them off of the list of intimidations

. "Are they off limits to them? She hasn't been keeping anything from me, has she? She did say that Russian wanted to get information about the gang, she never said what though. Maybe that's why she never talks about her dad..." With that in his mind, an extra ounce of conviction was added to his next refusal.

"Don't know how much it takes to bribe a cop these days, but I imagine that rates are high when it comes to murder, I'm gonna guess about 100,000 pesos a body. Add an extra 50k since still technically a kid, another 50k for me being American and how bad it would look to tourists not to mention what the government would want to know given how much Texans love to prod yours about that, and given that whole 'fisting' as you put it and it being against Talon no less, I'd say that's worth about a whole mil. And since you're at the point where you have to deal with a pisskid like me in person, I doubt you can take that hit standing up."

Santana scowled, revealing new and unthinkable ways for his malformed features to contort that would have been sure to spawn nightmares in a young child.

"Listen here, boy, y-"

"I'm not your boy, and I don't need your favors. You should move to Hollywood if you're into giving kid's 'favors'", the would-be hero sneered with finality and without a hint of fear leaking through his facade.

Santana should have been furious, he wanted to be furious, but the sheer audacity of the upstart American forced him to laugh. There was no reason for him to lose his composure, the courier may have been obtuse and stubborn in his beliefs, but there were ways of forcing his hand to drive him into Santana's palm. As things stood, his pride would need far more damage done before he could be forced into anything.

"You know what kid, I can respect that level of ballsiness, so I'll let you off for at least a day. I urge you to reconsider your position though, everyone thinks they're the hottest shit on the sidewalk until they get stepped on. Talk to you later." He gave another gesture to his cronies and the group was on their way. As they exited the hearing range of the would-be hero, the older of the two guards demanded an answer to his perplexity.

"We really letting that shitlord whitey off the hook after all that?"

"I'm deeply offended by the fact that you even assumed that." His superior snapped back. "Call up Tepoztli and tell him to keep an eye on that -what did he call himself?- pisskid and give him the boots when he's in a big enough crowd. I want him alive, but he can break as much as he wants before that, just as long as that chip on his shoulder breaks too."

Brian leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh once the thug trio was out of sight.

"No way this isn't going to bite me in the ass someday."

The brunt of his fears and anxiety may have left him at the moment, but the anticipation of the danger that was sure to come already began gnawing at him. "God, I'm a dumbass, I should have just taken the deal. I'd be screwed either way, at least his way I wouldn't need to worry about a knife in the ribs as much as normal. It's not like I can just show up anyway, what would that say about me? And what about Alé? Do I even tell her about this? I don't even know what her deal with them is or if their even is one."

When she finally returned, Alejandra carried a tray of their and a satisfied look back to the table. As she approached, Brian made a mental note to accompany her inside the next time they went anywhere, not trusting the magic number to be on his side the next time.

"There we are, took a few minutes, but you need to make a statement sometimes."

Reaching for his cup, the luke-warmth he felt made him doubt the value of her stand, hypocritical as even he realized that was. "Yeah, guess you do."

Reading the deeper contemplation hidden behind his clearer disappointment, she voiced her worries. "Did...Did something happen again?"

"No, nothing…" He lied "I was just thinking about what we should do next." That, at least, was the truth. The opening comments from Santana, debating which of the two was the others catch, had stuck with him far more than the gangster had likely anticipated. Even if he didn't consider them to truly be each other's anything, the idea of one of them being superior to the other in that context did not set right with him. Considering what he valued in himself, a way to thin the perceived gap between them was clear to him. "Remember when I was talking about showing you how to fight?"

"Yeah, but that's not really my idea of how to spend a Sunday. And are you sure you're up to it? It's only been about two hours…"

"It'll be fine, you'll be doing most of the work anyway. I'm not planning on anything major, just a few basics, just in case someone comes for you to get to me or anything like that. It shouldn't take too long, an hour at the most."

"I don't think my mom would want us to do that kind of thing around the house, though…" She said with false disappointment.

"Then we can do it in the park, plenty of space there."

"Yeah, but aren't you supposed to have special equipment for that? I don't want either of us to get hurt."

"It'll be fine, only the trainer's supposed to wear padding and I'll be fine without it."

"I don't know, I don't have any real sportswear. I mig-"

"Alé, just humor me, will ya?"

It was a brief crack in his facade, but Alejandra saw a flicker of true concern in his angel eyes. It stood to reason that he would worry for her safety after all he had been through, just today he had been beaten half to death and he had only been in Dorado for just over a week. Amused by the role-reversal, she decided to push aside her own want for a lazy afternoon and share in Brian's interests to ease his worries and gain more insight into how he thinks and feels during his bouts. Besides, he wasn't the only one with heroic aspirations, this would be a great opportunity to prepare for her future.

"Alright, alright." She smiled " If you're really that worried for me, I'll give it a shot."

"I'm a lot more than just worried for you." He said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

Sneak Peek at Chapter 11: /watch?v=ut9kyP1Bsx4

Sorry this took so long, between the polar vortex and many rewrites based on feedback from my proofreader, I've had problems finding enough time to spend hammering things out. I'd say the next chapter should be out faster, but that'll just jinx it.