inferno // l.s.

sixty eight

"do you miss it sometimes?"

harry looked down at his fiancé for a split second before returning to tacking a tapestry he bought to the ceiling. "miss what?"

"blackwater."

"oh." harry chewed on his lip, pushing the thumbtack in with a little more force. "i miss the beginning days. we used to go out and break into peoples's cars and take whatever we could find. there was one time i found a pink rubber ducky with a cowboy hat on it and mitch said i could have it because it was ugly."

"do you still have it?"

"you know the rubber ducky that sits on the windowsill in the kitchen?"

the corner of louis' lips tipped up. "you stole that."

"fair and square."

"what else did you do in your beginning days?"

harry moved the chair he was standing on about a foot away so he could tack the middle of the border. "a lot of fighting. i had to get stitches in my eyebrow when i was nineteen after fighting at a basketball court. they tried to rob me."

"rival gang?"

"yeah, little street gang with kids my age. granted blackwater was a higher organized gang, i dabbled with street gangs. then as i got older, i got moved up with the big guys."

louis rolled over onto his stomach, laying his head in his arms as he watched him. "go on."

"i didn't become underboss until i was twenty. our previous underboss got killed and mitch needed a quick fill in. he chose me when he could have chose anyone else. he said i had the potential and drive, so i was like, 'well, fuck it.' i knew what i was up against and had nothing better to do. make more money, travel more, fight more, it wasn't easy but he believed in me. all i ever wanted since i was a kid was for someone to believe in me."

"and you looked up to mitch..."

"yes. we were instant friends over the firecracker thing. literally inseparable. he would pick me up after my last class and we would smoke before going to get food and rob a neighborhood. shit was great. he taught me what i know. and, i mean...i loved the thrill for a while. that little headrush i would get for breaking windows and taking things that didn't belong to me. fighting to get my pent up anger out and doing some pretty nasty damage. but it got old. and it got repetitive. and then you came around."

"little ol' me?"

"mhm. i knew one way or another mylo and i would end up fighting because i knew him and his reputation. he would have came here, he would have tried to stir with you at our club, and i would have beat him to a pulp. or he would have came to the apartment and i would have found out. one way or another he would have gotten what was deserved."

louis listened closely while harry continued to put his tapestry up. it was a handmade tie dyed tapestry with a grateful dead bear in the center of it. he ordered it from a shop online, but it was a local business right in the state of california.

"do you ever regret joining or leaving?"

"no."

"why not?"

"joining morphed me into someone i wanted to be for a little while. gemma may say i was a good baby brother, but i fought all of her boyfriends. all of them. except for kip, her daughter's father. i actually like him and he hasn't treated her like shit the entire time they've been together. i got in fights a lot in school and was expelled from my middle school for throwing a kid in front of a bus. he made fun of me for my parents being dead, so i blacked out. joining blackwater helped me control my anger and use my fists with a good force when necessary, so there's that."