"So, uh, are we going to unpack what just happened?" Daniel murmured uncomfortably, leaning his elbow on the passenger side window as he fluffed his chocolate hair with his fingers.
"There's nothing to unpack," Lucas grunted, right hand on the steering wheel as the other dangled out of the open driver's side window. The wind whipped his raven hair around violently, thin lips pursed in concentration as his eyes never once strayed from the road in front.
"Really? Is that so? Because your one night stand kinda looked like Harley."
"Did he? Huh, I guess he did now that you mention it. Didn't even occur to me," Lucas replied smoothly.
"I don't even know what to call this. It's like... almost projection? But you're not displacing your own negative attributes onto another person, although you also do that, you're just. . . pretending you're fucking someone else? I thought constantly fucking the pain away was bad enough. God, Lucas, any therapist would have to charge you double with the amount of shit you'd have to work through. And you've got hella daddy issues on top of that-"
Daniel's ramblings soon became indecipherable background noise as Lucas' steely eyes flicked between the road and the rear view mirror, becoming alarmingly aware of the damaged white pickup truck that had begun tailing them just a few blocks back.
"Fuck," he mumbled under his breath, eyes flitting around as Lucas examined his surroundings, thinking of a decently public place to pull over. He would usually never condone pulling over when a vehicle is in pursuit, but he's done this particular tango with this particular guy many times, and the fully loaded Glock in the glove compartment greatly increased his confidence in managing the situation.
"What? Why are we pulling over?" Daniel straightened, looking around frantically before his eyes landed on the car's side mirror, the dirty truck coming to a slow rolling stop behind them. Lucas' body deflated, letting out an annoyed groan as Daniel slumped in the passenger seat.
"Are you serious? What the hell does Marco want?" Daniel griped.
"Guess we'll find out, we can't go home now anyway because we'll give away where we live, so we gotta deal with him. Hand me the Glock," Lucas grunted, hand outstretched as Daniel fumbled around in the messy glove compartment. When the gun clattered to the floor, along with various other junk and paper as Daniel struggled to keep all of the contents contained within the compartment, Lucas let out a breath, rolling his eyes.
"Big stinky rolling up any second now," Lucas prodded impatiently, eyeing the side mirror as two of the greasiest, dirtiest men in all of Southside came sauntering up to the driver's side.
"Got it!" Daniel hissed through his teeth, thrusting the Glock into Lucas' palm as he quickly hid the gun in the crevice between the driver's door and his thigh.
"Hey there, Lukey," Marco grinned mischievously as he leaned against the side of the car and into the open window, pale eyes looking further into the car at the other occupant. "Daniel," Marco acknowledged, bringing a hand up to push back the oily piece of shoulder-length brown hair that had fallen into his face.
"'Sup,'' Daniel smiled tightly in disgust, jerking his chin before cringing and looking away slightly. Lucas merely kept his gaze locked on Marco and the pudgier man behind him, who sported a patchy beard and buzzed head.
"What can we do for ya, Marco? My dear old friend," Lucas hummed.
"Have you been keeping tabs on daddy dearest lately?" The gangster mused, shifting his weight onto his front leg as he leaned slightly further into the car, bringing up a pistol to rest on the frame of the open driver's side window. Lucas' eyes flicked down to the gun, before meeting Marco's casual gaze as he pushed his own gun up and into the window, right next to Marco's. The gang leader's jaw set tightly as he acknowledged the gun, narrowing his eyes at Lucas.
"Who's going to shoot first? Han Solo or Greedo?" Lucas chuckled, flicking the safety off of the pistol with a sharp click. "Just so you know," he continued, leaning closer to Marco until his face was just inches away from the unimpressed man's, the smell of body odor and cheap booze invading his nose. "I'm Han," he whispered with shit-eating grin, before easing back into his seat.
Marco scowled deeply, the deep scar around his mouth becoming even more prominent. "Cut the shit, Lucas. I've come here to talk business, and I'm willing to put aside any hard feelings so that we both benefit."
"Well, nothing gives me butterflies and rosy cheeks more than a gun aimed at my chest," Lucas smiled sarcastically, batting his eyelashes.
Marco grinned, golden molars and slightly cracked front tooth full display. "The gun's to make sure you know I'm serious, but no wonder a sick son of a bitch like you would enjoy it."
Lucas pursed his lips. "So tell me what you want from me, aside from my hot body and mastery of sex."
"I need you to become aware of whatever fucked up political campaign daddy dearest has got himself roped into now. Then we need to figure out how to make the problem go away. Kill him, don't kill him, I don't really care. But get rid of him," Marco growled, tightening his grip on the handle of the gun.
"And why would I do that?" Lucas narrowed his eyes, raising a dark eyebrow in contestation.
"Because he's helping out that religious zealot from out of town, the one with wild eyes and even crazier ideas. This is going to fuck us both."
Lucas stared out onto the road, humming thoughtfully before turning back to Marco with a cheeky grin. "Then we shall be on our hands and knees right next to each other, and I'll turn my head towards you, smile around the dick in my mouth as you grimace, and we will simply be fucked together for eternity."
Marco stared at Lucas with his face screwed up in displeasure, the other man behind him blinking rapidly as though he was attempting to figure out the profane words that Lucas had just uttered.
"Just look into it. For fucks sake, you're a freak show," Marco shook his head as he turned to mosey back towards his truck, the other man trailing behind him.
"I hate that guy," he mumbled faintly to Marco.
"Yeah, me too," the gang leader replied, Lucas staring at them through the rear view mirror as they slammed the truck doors shut behind them.
"Do you mean that?" Daniel spoke from the silent car, as Lucas ignited the engine once again and pulled back onto the road. "That you're not going to do anything about it?"
"Of course not," Lucas gritted, rifling through the center console for his nicotine gum. "If Marco's willing to play nice with us because of this, then I'm concerned as hell."
Daniel stared out the window as Lucas popped a piece of gum in his mouth, chewing angrily as his jaw ticked. He hated having his day ruined by being reminded of his father, who despised his bastard son and loved to pretend he and his mother didn't exist as much as possible. Even worse was that Lucas got all of his striking looks from the man.
"Keep this quiet Daniel, until Axel and I figure this out. I don't want people panicking and especially don't want our buyers finding out if this is going to affect business like Marco claims it is," Lucas mumbled, fixing Daniel with a threatening look, cold grey eyes narrowed in warning.
Daniel raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. Sheesh."
Once they arrived back at the house, Lucas examined the cars present, and was relieved to only see Axel and Daniel's for the moment. Hopefully Jackie wasn't accompanying Axel, because Lucas really didn't like having this grim warning weigh heavy on his mind.
As the two men shuffled in, Axel was hunched over the kitchen counters, scrubbing at them with a dish towel.
"Daniel, if you spill orange soda you need to clean it up right away. This shit is sticky as hell. Stickier than Lucas' sheets," he scolded, gripping the edge of the counter with white knuckles as he scrubbed. Lucas rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. "What took you guys so long? Did you have troubles with the buyer?" He asked, placing the towel down to lean his hip against the counter and cross his muscular arms over his chest. The sight used to make Lucas fall head over heels with infatuation, but now it all seemed so inconspicuous. Almost as though he was beginning to view Axel like a true brother for the first time in his life, with no romantic feelings attached.
"We got held up at gun point," Lucas huffed, and Axel raised a thick eyebrow, mouth falling open in shock.
"You were what?" He breathed.
"We have shit to talk about, come," Lucas waved his hand, turning his back to Axel and heading up the stairs without even making sure Axel was following. Still frozen in surprise, Axel looked at Daniel helplessly for answers.
"You better go follow him. It sounded pretty serious," Daniel shrugged, trudging slowly up the stairs while tapping at his phone.
Covering his mouth, Axel squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation. "Oh my God," he groaned, before following Lucas into the taller man's room.
"Shut the door," Lucas said darkly as Axel entered, sitting on the floor next to the bed with his phone in his hands.
"I'm going to need an in depth explanation as to what transpired to make you nearly unalive right now," Axel demanded, closing the door with a soft click as he sat on the floor across from Lucas.
Lucas snorted, shaking his head. "So dramatic, I had it under control. Besides, it was just Marco."
"It was Marco?" Axel gasped. His former gang leader never ceased to intimidate him even to this day. "That makes me even more nervous, Luke."
"Yeah, yeah, anyway. He was trailing behind Daniel and I on our way back, so we pulled over, and Marco and his lackey come walking up. The gun was just there for theatrics, Marco said it himself- I mean you know the guy. He loves that shit. Whatever, that's not the point. I guess my father," Lucas spit out with a snarl as though the word tasted rancid. "Is helping out with a political campaign. Marco seemed pretty threatened by it, even suggesting we work together to find a resolution to the problem. Then he recommended we murder my father, which I'm all for, but unfortunately in this case murder would equal prison, even if the man is an ass."
"Right. . ." Axel trailed off in thought, eventually sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I know what Marco is talking about."
"I'm sorry, what? What the fuck, Axel? You didn't tell me?" Lucas straightened, starting to raise his voice.
"Okay, first of all, I don't enjoy bringing up your dad because you get like this," Axel hissed, aggressively motioning up and down with his hand towards Lucas. "And of course I'll know about anything that may threaten our business. I'm in charge and that's my responsibility. I also wasn't sure what to make of it myself, so I wanted some more time to figure it out before I brought it up."
"So why don't you enlighten me, then?" Lucas grumbled, his fiery anger calming into a low simmer.
"Your dad's helping out a man named Jones Dawson, he's running for mayor. Some fundamentalist pastor from Mississippi, moved here twelve years ago and never lost the accent. I think that helped his case though, everyone likes a nice southern drawl," Axel grinned, but Lucas remained stoned face, unphased with his friend's playfulness. "Anyway, he's got an. . . interesting platform. We could run into some real trouble with his interest in criminalizing marijuana and increasing policing of Southside. He doesn't fool around with prison sentencing, either. Dealers like us could go away for decades."
"For grass?" Lucas guffawed.
"Yep."
"There's no way a guy like that can win."
Axel shrugged. "I wouldn't say that. He's already gained a pretty large following in the Northside, and they never liked us from the beginning. All it takes is someone to make 'em scared and then promise to keep them safe at the same time, and he's already got their vote."
"And my dad is involved with this? Really?" Lucas scoffed, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"Must be where the money is. Never took him to be the hyper religious type."
"He's a chameleon. He'll be whoever his company wants him to be," Lucas huffed, catching Axel's contemplative face. "So what do we do?"
"Not really anything we can do. Bide our time, watch the enemy, which includes Marco, I don't give a fuck about what he says about truces and peace- and prepare for the worst."
"Stock market's doing well," Lucas muttered.
"Good," Axel grunted as he rose to his feet. "We may need it if our business model goes belly up. You're a real natural at that, Lucas. Got that talent from daddy for sure," Axel teased, to which Lucas growled and raised his middle finger towards the other man.
~
A bit more of the plot has developed this chapter, and we now seem to have a problem other than what's going on in the household. What are your thoughts on how Lucas' father is involved? And how do they lead such different lives now? What happened?
As usual, thank you for reading, voting, and commenting!