[ Was bound to happen, JL comments, always the fucking brains between them. He's right, though, Marcel should have expected it, sooner rather than later, shit, if he'd had a leader back in the day who fucked other men, he'd have used it for a little quick promotion, too. Except, Marcel would have made it fucking work, none of this shit. Once he finds out who it is, they're done player drug dealer or errand boy or whatever lame-ass function they've managed to obtain, yeah. He'll make sure of that.

For now, he meets JL's eyes as the man steps closer and gives him a look, taking in his bruises, his busted lip, his maybe broken nose, his black eye. He wasn't ever any fucking beauty to begin with, but Pa might just have messed up the rest, too. Marcel breathes out slowly, carefully, hands balling into fists at his sides. The bags get no real reaction, not that he'd expected they would. JL and he have been living together since they were 10, right, this it just the final fucking extension to that agreement. If you've got my back, I've got yours.

JL's got his, yeah. He's still got it. Also as he pokes his arm (gonna fucking break your finger, man) and Marcel follows him with his eyes first, for just a few seconds, before breaking into a trot behind him. ] We weed out the weak ones pretty regularly anyway, guess it's just time. [ Marcel isn't fancy or deep or shit like that in his word choice, it's pretty plainly obvious that he's talking about their little rat as well as his Pa. The weak come, sure, and the weak are the first to fucking go. ]