Chapter Text
“... You want a drink?”
At first, Joe thought he must have misheard. In all the weeks he’d worked with Angelo, every single one of his pitiful attempts to spend any non-assassination-related time with him - be it a cup of coffee in the car - had been briskly rejected.
He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to keep the tears in his eyes as controlled as possible. Hiding them was not possible, not opposite someone who was trained to observe. He almost expected Angelo to point them out, to mock him for them, to ask how he thought he could do what they did if a few words about his childhood made him cry.
Soft.
Weak.
Angelo’s hand landed on his upper arm and kick-started his brain. He hadn’t misheard. After inviting him into his fancy apartment, Angelo was now offering him a fancy drink.
Joe exhaled to shake the remaining tension in his body off, to regain control of himself.
“I would love a drink.”
Angelo opened one of the identical dark cabinets, revealing a selection of expensive looking bottles.
“Pick your poison?” he said, glancing over his shoulder, while pouring whiskey into a tumbler.
"Uh,” Joe scanned the labels, but he really didn’t care what he drank, as long as it got him buzzed. “Whatever you’re having,” he landed on, his eyes wandering around the room again to take in the apartment once more, without the weight of his unspoken words this time. “How come you live like this and I’m a final notice away from needing a roommate? What does my uncle pay you?”
Angelo turned to him, shooting him one of those looks that he knew meant he should shut up. Unfortunately, that usually only spurred him on, and this time was no different.
“What?” he said with a shrug. “You know that’s my inheritance you’re spending.”
“If I were you, I’d be more focused on making sure you’re around long enough to make it to the inheritance.”
Joe’s bravado quickly faded at the underlying threat, and he gave a curt nod of understanding, swallowing a mouthful of whiskey. The drink gave him enough liquid courage to speak again almost immediately.
“So how much is this place a month, 200k, 300?”
“Neither. I own it,” Angelo said plainly.
Joe whistled through his teeth and looked up at the unreasonably high ceiling.
“So what, Dutch not paying you enough to afford rent?” Angelo asked.
"Well, I couldn’t afford a place like this. Not in Manhattan.”
Angelo hummed, leaning against the counter.
“I couldn’t afford it at your age either if that helps.”
“Yeah?” Joe snorted. “What were you doing at my age? Messing up missions and washing dishes?”
“No, I was not,” Angelo shot back. “And if your uncle says I was, don’t listen to him.”
Joe blinked in surprise, then started smirking.
“I can’t believe you just made a joke. Did you put poison in my drink or something? Is this how I die?” he joked awkwardly.
Angelo smirked.
“Not this time,” he said. “But don’t get cocky. Keep messing up and I just might.”
“Understood,” Joe said, and though his voice was serious, it felt lighter this time, like the air between them had been cleared.
He downed the rest of his whiskey to get a little more courage in him before he harrumphed and shifted on the barstool.
“... Listen, uh, that stuff with my dad… Dutch doesn’t need to know I came here and talked shit about family, okay?”
“Do I look like a gossip to you?” Angelo asked.
Joe smirked again, unable to hide his relief. He knew his emotions tended to show plainly on his face, a stark contrast to the way Dutch and Angelo kept all their cards close to their chests, but he couldn't help it - never could.
“Aren't all Italians?” he shot back, his smirk widening as he slid his glass forward in a silent demand for a top-up.
Angelo hummed, tipping his head in a borderline agreeable way. He refilled both of their glasses.
“Well, we aren’t all Italians, are we?”
Joe was about to respond when his phone vibrated with an incoming text. He made the mistake of placing it face up on the counter so that he had his hand free to knock back the whiskey. Only when he set the glass down did he see the incriminating Katana emoji on the screen with the lazy message ‘whaddup’ underneath.
Before he could react, Angelo’s hand had snatched the phone up, his expression darkening instantly.
“Hey-” Joe protested weakly.
“A sword is an unusual thing to put in a contact name, hm?” Angelo said. “Please tell me why there’s a sword and,” he peered closer, “Whaddup?”
Joe faltered for a moment, trying to scrape together a lie, but he knew by now that lying to Angelo was a dumb idea.
“Do not lie to me.”
“Okay - look,” Joe said quickly, his mouth moving faster than his brain, and the lie tumbled out regardless of his theoretical wisdom. “I'm just keeping an eye on the kid to make sure he doesn't lose his nerve and start saying shit he shouldn't - if he incriminates himself we don't exactly have anything left for blackmail, do we?”
He thought that he'd actually managed to pull it off, that that sounded believable - and it wasn't exactly a lie, he was keeping an eye on him - when Samurai Lord texted again, and Joe squeezed his eyes shut when he saw, even at the awkward angle of the phone with Angelo still holding it, the message preview simply reading [image].
Angelo’s eyes flicked between him and the phone. Before Joe could make something up about a picture of a new katana or something of the sort, the final nail in the coffin came through, a final buzz, a final message.
‘;)’
Angelo let out a deep sigh, turning the phone to Joe’s face.
“Wait-!”
It unlocked and Angelo stared at the screen, shaking his head.
“Oh, Joe,” he said. “And here was me thinking we were actually getting somewhere, thinking that you would actually listen -”
“Hold on, you're the one who told me to get close to the guy!” Joe threw in, but even his tone betrayed that he knew it was a weak defence.
“That’s not what I meant,” Angelo snapped.
“Well, it worked, didn't it?! Who got you access to the house?! Who got him out cold when you needed it?! Who got you Garcia?”
Angelo shot up from his stool and grabbed Joe’s face roughly.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded. “Do not get cocky with me. I don’t care what the fuck you do in your free time - or who - but you don’t shit on not only your own doorstep, but mine, Dutch’s. You think this is gonna go down well?”
Joe knew he should grovel, should apologise, but the whiskey was hot in his veins and he never had been good at keeping his mouth shut.
“How's this shitting on our doorstep but screwing Nicky isn't?”
Angelo was momentarily stunned.
“What did you say to me?” he gritted out.
Joe's survival instincts finally caught up with his ego, and he ducked his head, dropping the act of squaring up against Angelo, of being someone who could square up against Angelo.
“Okay, I'm sorry, that's none of my business, I didn't mean… Sorry, okay?! Danny's just not that big a deal, okay? He doesn't know anything and he won't. I'm not stupid.”
Angelo laughed.
“Oh, I beg to differ.” The man gripped his chin tighter. “And you’re right. It’s none of your business. But what you do is my business.”
Joe clenched his jaw and refused to meet Angelo's eyes, trying to tamper the urge to snap back at him again, to get defensive.
“Look, I'll tell him I got bored or something and he'll move on to the next guy - it's not like we got married,” he gritted out instead. “But can I say, just for the record, that it would've been really fucking suspicious if I'd suddenly ghosted him right when a dead body shows up in his room?!” he added a little more heatedly, his gaze lifting to Angelo’s despite himself.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Angelo retorted. “Because there was no connection between you and the body! He doesn’t even know who you are!”
“No connection, except for the part where I was in his bed when he blacked out and when he woke up, it was a murder weapon and a dead guy instead,” Joe scoffed. “You think he can't put two and two together? He's stupid, but he's not that stupid. And you and Dutch might be untouchable, but if Garcia finds out I'm the one who did the dirty work -”
“Then we would protect you,” Angelo interrupted. “But this situation you created yourself!”
That shut Joe up, though presumably not for the reasons Angelo may have thought. He had his doubts - many of them - about whether or not anyone would bother to protect him if it came to it - if he was at risk, it would be more trouble than he was worth.
“... Whatever,” Joe finally muttered, averting his gaze and jerking his head out of Angelo's grasp. “I'll handle it,” he added, holding his hand out for the phone.
“Handle it? You’re gonna delete that number. Right. Now.”
Joe's eyebrows wandered up, and he stared at Angelo for a moment.
“... Yeah, I don't know what you think that's gonna do, but he's just gonna keep texting me,” he pointed out. Suddenly, he remembered the whole reason he'd come here - besides giving Angelo the unlocked phone. He wanted to change. He wanted to be better and to own his shit, so he tried to summon that same determination from before and held Angelo’s gaze, lowering his voice to something less sarcastic, something less defensive.
“Look, I'll handle it, alright? One message and he'll never want to hear from me again.”
“You can block him,” Angelo said, clearly unwilling to budge.
Joe snorted before he could stop himself.
“Man, you don't know college guys, do you?” he muttered. “Lemme give you the rundown - I block him, he'll find me somewhere else.”
“No, I don’t know college guys,” Angelo deadpanned. “Wait… find you somewhere else? Are you telling me that you’ve got yourself plastered on social media somewhere!?”
“No! I'm not an idiot!” Joe huffed, though it felt like the more he was cornered into insisting upon that in front of Angelo, the less believable it got. “You think my old man would have liked a fruit for a son? I know how to be low-key. Just let me get rid of him,” he said again, a little more pleadingly this time, and nodded down at his open hand.
For a brief moment, something flashed across Angelo’s face, a similar expression to the one he’d had when Joe opened up to him earlier. But it was gone just as quickly.
“Fine,” the man said. He put the phone in his hand, standing over him to watch. “Do it now.”
Joe couldn't help but grimace.
“Some privacy?” he tried.
“Not a chance,” Angelo said smoothly. “You have something to hide?”
Joe pressed his lips together and knew he had to bite the bullet, opening his chat with Danny Garcia.
“Hey, Joe, what did you do today? Nothing much, my boss watched me break up with my fuck buddy,” he mumbled to himself as he wrote a nasty message pretty much on autopilot and hit send without bothering to reread it. He didn't need much time to think about insults that could disintegrate a guy; he had a whole childhood’s worth of memories to pick from. “There. Done,” he said, unsurprised when Danny's profile picture disappeared only moments later, indicating that the other man had blocked him.
Angelo eyed the phone for several seconds before seeming mildly satisfied.
“Good boy,” he said mockingly.
Joe swallowed and tried not to roll his eyes, both at the taunt itself and at the misplaced reaction something inside him wanted to have at the words.
“Do I get another drink or are you kicking me out now?” he asked - barely phrasing it as a question, because the answer was obvious to him, and he was already starting to slide off the stool.
“I should kick you out,” Angelo said. “I should send you straight to Dutch and ask what the hell I did to deserve you.”
Joe didn't rise to it this time, the harsh words bouncing off him like rubber in their simple familiarity. There was something more important in Angelo’s statement, and Joe fixed the man with a serious, penetrating stare.
“... When I said low-key,” he began, “I meant low-key.” He hoped his meaning was clear, but after a beat, he added, just in case: “If you have to tell Dutch, just make Danny a chick.”
He heard his own throat click as he swallowed, and he rose from the stool fully, straightening his jacket as he turned away, towards the door.
“Joe,” Angelo called after him.
Joe didn't stop walking, but he glanced over his shoulder, expecting another threat, another warning.
“What?”
“Get back here,” Angelo ordered, pointing at the seat again. “Sit.”
Joe hesitated for a split second before he turned and walked back towards the counter cautiously, wracking his brain as to what else there could be.
“... It's not gonna be a very useful threat, you know,” he said, preemptively. “Uh, you're better served with the…shooting my head off. It's not like I've ever had a girlfriend to throw him off the scent… Not a very well-kept secret is what I'm saying - not well enough to be interesting.”
Angelo frowned, studying him quietly. He refilled the glasses, stepping around to stand over Joe.
“I have no interest in telling Dutch about your personal life,” he said. “That’s not what I meant. That’s your business. But when your personal life affects the rest of us, it becomes our business.”
Joe wasn't sure what to do with Angelo's apparent understanding - or pity -, but he knew he shouldn't trust it.
He nodded when the man kept talking and dropped his gaze to the whiskey.
“I'm sorry,” he said, genuinely this time. “You're right. I'm not gonna let it happen again, okay? No contact with anyone after the mission's done. I got it.”
“Okay,” Angelo said flatly. “Because next time, I will shoot your head off.”
Joe tensed and grabbed the glass to lift it to those words in a mock-toast, swallowing the whiskey faster than he probably should have. He was by no means a lightweight, but he'd had several glasses by now, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten.
“Mh, damn,” he exhaled when he lowered the glass, his head swimming in just the right way. “You got any more of this?” he asked, indicating the half empty bottle.
Angelo produced another bottle seemingly out of nowhere.
“Take it easy,” he said, pouring a much smaller glass this time.
Joe downed it as quickly as the last several, adding to the pleasant numbness in his brain, and he smirked when he lowered the glass, gesturing at the bottle clumsily with his free hand.
“Can I take one of those home?”
“No. You can’t afford those,” Angelo said, sitting down again.
“That's why I'm asking you,” Joe shot back.
“Like I don’t give you enough already without you stealing my whiskey.”
Joe eyed Angelo critically, tempted to point out that at the most, the man gave him panic attacks.
“So,” he hummed instead, changing the topic entirely when his gaze landed on the phone he'd brought Angelo. “You gonna tell me why you needed me to break into some guy's phone? Leo, was it?” he asked, having snooped through enough of the contents to get a name at least.
“Nobody can say you aren’t a tryer,” Angelo sighed. “Now tell me something, why the lies? What are you worried about with Dutch?”
Joe was a little blindsided by the turn the conversation had taken, and he wasn't sure if the heat in his veins and his face was just from the whiskey at the moment. He shrugged with just one arm, as casual and low-effort as possible.
“Didn't you tell me never to trust anyone?” he shot back dryly.
“Yeah, but it’s hardly a life or death situation, is it?”
Joe honestly wasn't sure if it wouldn't have been one with his father, but he knew as well as Angelo did that it wasn't one with Dutch. Still, he didn't see the point. He'd never brought anyone around and he wasn't going to. Dutch could draw his own conclusions from that, but he sure as hell wasn't going to give him any extra hints.
“You tell Dutch about every woman you go out with?” he said instead of responding, trying to divert the attention away from his own life.
Angelo’s jaw twitched, a barely visible movement. “No,” he said. “But I’m not his family.”
Joe scoffed.
“Family's in the blood you spill for him, not the blood in your veins.”
“Maybe. But he’d spill mine just as quickly for his own family.”
Joe couldn't bite back the laugh that escaped him, and thanks to the whiskey, he couldn't seem to stop laughing either.
“What’s so funny?” Angelo asked, half smiling.
Joe shook his head and exhaled a last laugh roughly, the sound turning ugly, mirthless.
“You think Dutch wouldn’t pull the lever if it was me on one side of the tracks and you on the other? Hell, he'd run me over himself if he had to.”
“Right now he might. But if you’re as useful as you have the potential to be, I doubt it.”
Joe rolled his glass between the table and his fingers, smiling wryly.
“How d’you think a guy in his twenties ends up washing dirty dishes and running errands for a hitman on Dutch's payroll? Cos it's not by being the family favourite, trust me,” he huffed. “In case you haven't figured it out, man, he saddled you with the black sheep.”
“He saddled me with you because he thinks I can turn you into something good. Despite how much you go out of your way to prove me wrong, I agree with him.”
It took Joe a second through the fog of drink to puzzle together the meaning of Angelo's words.
“Did you just compliment me?”
“Yes,” Angelo sighed. “You’ll get compliments when you do a good job. Is that such a surprise?”
“Yes,” Joe laughed. “I've been single-handedly setting up all of your kills for months and this is the first time you've said anything nice about me.”
“Setting them up is the easy part. Don’t forget that.”
“Easy my ass,” Joe snorted, tipping the empty glass towards Angelo to ask for more. “Let's see you hack a whole security system.”
“I wouldn’t. I’d get someone else to do it.”
Joe sipped his drink, slower than the last few, eyeing Angelo over the rim of his glass.
“... So who was your last guy? Who'd you boss around Pre-Joe?”
“Nobody important,” Angelo said dismissively. He didn't seem to realise what those words implied, and even though Joe was sure he'd just spoken thoughtlessly and not actually meant anything by it, he smirked.
“... That mean I'm important?”
“You’re Dutch’s nephew. That makes you important.”
“Bullshit,” Joe huffed, amused rather than bitter this time. “I don't even factor into any of this. I'm just the guy you babysit. Your words..."
“I never said I don’t babysit you. You’d get yourself killed if you didn’t have a babysitter.”
“I'd say you're the most likely person to kill me, actually,” Joe scoffed, emptying his glass again.
He'd lost count of how much he'd had, how much both of them had had, but the first bottle of whiskey was empty and the second one was getting there.
He groaned at the head rush he got when he stood up unsteadily.
“Why are we-” He stumbled in his attempt to free himself from the barstool. “Woah,” he chuckled, steadying himself on the counter and getting his bearings before he continued and made his way to the couch, “-on tiny stools when there's a big, fancy couch?” He concluded, dropping onto the leather cushions and sighing. “See, that's more like it…”
Angelo followed after him, pointedly straightening the cushions before sitting down next to him.
“Get your feet off my couch,” he said, grabbing Joe’s legs and pushing them to the floor.
Joe groaned and shifted to get comfortable again.
“I'm sure your couch's seen worse,” he muttered.
“Oh, you think?” Angelo scoffed. “Keep those on the floor.”
Joe rolled his eyes and kicked his shoes off in response before stretching his legs out again, emboldened by the alcohol.
“You make Nicky keep her shoes off the couch too?” he asked without thinking, too tipsy to be reasonable.
Angelo gave him a puzzled look.
“She doesn’t put her shoes on the couch. She’s not a savage.”
Joe was shocked Angelo had actually responded to his probing, bold question. Maybe the man was tipsier than he'd intended - Joe knew he was. That must have been why he kept talking, why he kept running his mouth, despite already being on perhaps the thinnest ice he'd ever been on.
“Working her way through the local mobs? Sounds kinda savage to me…”
Angelo’s hand was back at his face in an instant, his fingers digging into his chin as he turned his face towards him.
“How many times do I need to tell you to watch your mouth?”
Joe winced, but Angelo’s grip was too tight for him to go anywhere. He couldn't help but notice how cool his fingers felt against his heated face.
“Sorry,” he huffed, his hand wrapping around Angelo's wrist subconsciously, trying to free himself once more, to pull the other man's arm away. “... But if you wanna defend your girlfriend's honour, there's guys in the club who say worse about her.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Angelo said, his tone mildly bewildered. “Why are you even talking about her?”
Joe was asking himself the same question. His thoughts had settled on the topic like a fly on a rotten fruit, and he couldn't stop circling it. He shrugged vaguely, giving up on pulling Angelo's hand away and dropping his own arm back onto the couch instead.
“Why are you even hooking up?” he retorted, practically belly-flopping onto the most fragile part of the ice on purpose.
“Why?” Angelo repeated. “What kind of question is that? Why were you hooking up with Garcia’s son?”
“He came onto me and -” Joe started before he realised Angelo didn't actually want to know. He flushed and dropped back onto the couch with a scoff.
“Christ, you’re more of a mess than I thought,” Angelo breathed, shaking his head.
“Listen, I just meant… I mean… Dutch talks about you, y’know, and he's never mentioned any women before so I was just wondering why, uh, why now,” Joe rattled off in an attempt to scramble back to shore.
“Oh, shit, I must have forgotten to bring Dutch my list of women for approval.”
Joe snorted, even though he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be in on the joke - rather, he was the butt of it.
“C'mon,” he tried, as if he hadn't just been threatened by him for the nth time. “You just watched me dump my fuck buddy, can't you give me something? Quid pro quo?”
“Give you what?” Angelo exclaimed.
“Something! Guy talk. I don’t-”
“Guy talk. Are we twelve?!”
Joe huffed another laugh, this one verging on frustrated.
“Fine! You know, I'd let you pick a topic, but you never want to talk to me about anything outside of work.”
“That’s better than the topics you’re picking. Christ, I offer you a drink and now you’re putting your shoes on my couch and giving me the Spanish Inquisition.”
“After you looked at Danny's dick,” Joe pointed out lazily.
“Oh, trust me, I had no desire to see Danny’s dick. You forced that on me with your idiocy.”
“Forced - You grabbed my phone!” Joe said, sitting up abruptly, which unfortunately made the room spin slightly. “Speaking of phones,” he said then, shifting upright fully and moving closer to Angelo. “... You gonna look at what's on that phone or did I unlock it just for fun?” he asked, his voice lowered conspiratorially, making no attempt to hide his nosiness.
“I am,” Angelo said. He lifted his hand and rested it on Joe’s head, pushing it playfully. “When you’re not here.”
“If I'm gonna keep going behind Dutch's back for you, don't I at least get to know why?” he sighed.
“Nope. It’s none of your business. And I’ve done enough covering for you. You owe me one.”
Joe opened his mouth to protest, but when he could think of nothing to counter Angelo's point, he closed it again.
“... Well, you didn't tell me it wasn't your phone but I gathered that pretty fast, so I scanned it for spyware too. You're welcome.”
Angelo raised an eyebrow at him.
“And? Was there anything on it?”
“What happened to it's none of my business?”
“Is the right answer,” Angelo said. “I was just checking.”
Joe grinned, barely realising that he was still leaning into Angelo's space, his whole body titled towards him.
“I pass the test? For once?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“Can you blame me?” Joe huffed. “It's like you're allergic to me.”
“What do you want from me? To tell you you’re a good boy every five minutes? Jesus.”
If Joe had still had his drink, he probably would have choked on it. As it was, he just averted his gaze before his face could give too much away, huffing and trying to sound nonplussed.
“Hey, just once might be nice,” he scoffed jokingly.
Angelo huffed a laugh.
“Alright. You didn’t go through the phone. Good boy.”
Joe had, in fact, gone through some of it, but he wasn't about to say that. The words were still sarcastic, but they were probably as close to real praise he would ever get.
“And you're really not gonna tell me what's on there?” he stated more than asked. “Maybe I could help.”
“Don’t make me regret letting you in here,” Angelo warned him. “Ask me again and I’m kicking you back out that door.”
Joe lifted his hands in surrender, though he was grinning again.
“Can I ask for another drink, then?”
Angelo picked up the whiskey bottle, pouring the remainder of it into the two glasses.
“That’s it,” he said. “Don’t want to knock you out.”
“I'm a big boy, I can handle my liquor,” Joe huffed, picking up his glass and knocking it back, only to instantly regret it when it went down the wrong way. Slamming the glass back down clumsily, he coughed a few times, trying not to choke or spit the whiskey back out.
Angelo clapped him on the back with one hand, the other gripping his shoulder.
“You were saying?” he asked.
Joe sat up and inhaled sharply, through the burn in his throat.
“I think that tore a hole in my windpipe,” he grimaced. Then, because the worst conceivable idea in the moment was often the one he went for, he dug his pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. “You smoke in here?”
“Not usually, but go ahead,” Angelo waved his hand at him.
Joe flicked a cigarette into his mouth before offering the pack to Angelo quizzically. The other man accepted, plucking one out and leaning back against the cushions.
“Light?” he asked.
Joe searched through his jacket and pulled out a lighter eventually.
Without thinking, he leaned in to light the cigarette for Angelo. What he hadn't considered was that, with the way the other man was sitting, reclined against the back of the couch, he ended up practically bent over him. It meant he got a lot closer to Angelo than he'd been prepared to be. That, in turn, meant that he forgot what he was supposed to do, the lighter unlit and frozen in his hand as he just stared.
Eventually, Angelo clicked his fingers in his face and took the lighter from his hand. He lit his own cigarette first before offering the lighter to Joe, whose cigarette was dangling from his fingers, useless and forgotten. He lifted it on autopilot, towards the flame, without even looking at it. He vaguely felt the heat wandering towards his fingers, but his eyes were still fixed on Angelo. When the man took a drag from his cigarette, Joe subconsciously leaned closer yet, his own still forgotten.
He hadn't gotten this far by thinking about his choices, or making smart ones. He hadn't ended up here by controlling his impulses. And maybe, part of him was looking for a way to mess up. Maybe he wanted to make it all come crashing down before it could go wrong on its own.
Or maybe, if he wanted to be a coward, he was just drunk.
He barely waited until the cigarette had left Angelo’s mouth before he leaned in to press his lips against his, his free hand coming up to clutch the side of the man's neck.