Chapter Text
Vegas is in surgery and has been for…a while now. Pete has lost track of time. Everything is a blur. At some point a nurse or someone had given Pete a blanket like he was in shock or something. Probably because he was covered in blood and refusing to move from his spot watching the doors.
Now, Pete is positioned with one eye on the doors to the surgery theater and one eye on Kinn and Porsche - and their various bodyguards – as Kinn attempts to bully a nurse into…something. Getting updates on Vegas’ surgery, or seeing him. Pete’s only half paying attention. The nurse is just saying the same things to Kinn that she’d said to Pete, when he’d asked. No, you can’t go in there. No, there are no updates. You’re scaring everyone, please calm down.
There is a polite clearing of a throat behind them. “Unfortunately Khun Kinn, you don’t have any authority to see Khun Vegas right now.”
Everyone swings their attention to the man who spoke. The nurse takes the opportunity to flee before Kinn starts trying to buy his way into the operating room. It turns out her savior is a lawyer that Pete has definitely seen around working for the family, even though he can’t remember the lawyer’s name. He’s standing there holding a file folder and completely unperturbed to be the focus of a group of people that collectively has a kill count that should make him wary. At his side is Macau, pale and tired but alive and trying his best to smirk at Kinn.
Oh good, Pete thinks, mustering up vague relief from the fog of his brain. Vegas will be happy Macau is safe. Though of course safe is a relative term.
“What do you mean ‘No authority’ - I am his cousin!” Kinn snaps. “Someone has to make the decisions about Vegas’ care.”
“His cousin, yes of course, but not Khun Vegas’ Next of Kin.” The lawyer says, not to be intimidated.
Kinn rolls his eyes. “Macau is a child and he has no idea what he’s doing. He can’t be Vegas’ Medical Proxy.”
“I’m not talking about Khun Macau. I am referring to Khun Vegas’ husband.” He says, holding up the file folder. “I have a copy of the paperwork right here for convenience.”
Everything goes quiet. Pete is suddenly, completely, irrevocably present in the conversation. Husband? No. No, Vegas wasn’t married. He couldn’t be. That doesn’t make any sense. There had been Tawan, according to Porsche, but Vegas had been manipulating him by dangling marriage like a carrot and it had all been fake anyway. And it sounds pathetic in his own brain but Vegas had said -
“What?” Porsche says, voicing everyone’s thoughts and interrupting Pete’s mental spiraling.
Macau grins, smug as can be, and looks right at Pete. He slings a companionable arm around Pete’s shoulders, over the shock blanket that Pete’s still got wrapped around himself. Pete tries very hard not to jump at the touch. “Pete, my brother-in-law, of course!”
It takes a moment for the words to sink in. Pete turns to Macau, who’s almost too close to see properly but at this distance it’s not hard to see how tired and scared Macau is underneath his bravado. Macau is just a kid who’s teetering dangerously, on the verge of losing literally everything instead of just almost everything. He’d be clinging to Pete, if it wouldn’t show weakness in front of Kinn and Porsche.
Pete has no idea what the fuck Macau is talking about.
Kinn and Porsche are both looking different shades of betrayed. Kinn: like the pet he’s owned for years likes his new roommate more than him. Porsche: like Pete has gone on a weekend long bender after promising to quit drinking. It’s uncomfortable is what it is. Pete can’t meet their eyes.
“Bullshit.” Porsche says, and grabs the file folder out of the lawyer’s hands.
“You married Vegas?” Kinn says, and his face has settled into the calm ‘I have a bigger dick and more money than you’ mask that Pete’s seen him wear in countless business meetings with very dangerous men that Kinn didn’t care to appease. It’s a reflex, Pete knows, for hiding how he’s really feeling. But it’s not a reassuring one.
I’m going to die, Pete thinks a little hysterically, Khun Kinn is going to kill me.
“No he fucking didn’t.” Porsche snaps, absorbed skimming through the paperwork. “There! See? This says they got married on the 5th last month, but that’s bullshit! That’s the day we went to Hum Bar, and they couldn’t have gotten married then because I only let Vegas see him for –“
Porsche stops and pales, like he hadn’t meant to admit that. Pete…Pete had already kind of guessed that Porsche was responsible for Vegas finding him that night, considering that right afterward Porsche and Vegas had run off to investigate Porsche’s uncle together. Hearing Porsche admit that he’d put Pete in potential danger on purpose makes something conflicted twist in Pete’s gut. Porsche has seen the wounds on Pete’s body, the marks Vegas had left, and drawn the correct – maybe. Sort of. – conclusion about what had happened while Pete was gone and who had done it. And he still put Pete back in Vegas’ grasp.
Should Pete hold that against him? When it led to Vegas apologizing? When it led to the crystallizing of Pete’s own feelings? When it led – eventually - to here, in this stupid hospital lobby area waiting to hear if that person who owned his heart was alive or dead?
“Five minutes.” Porsche says, looking at Pete with those sad eyes. “He got you to sign these in five minutes?”
Well, even if Pete does forgive Porsche –And he probably will but he’s not sure if he’s there yet. If there is even something to forgive him for. – that doesn’t mean that Pete has to be nice about it.
“Yes.” Pete says. He never signed any papers and still has no clue what’s going on but the flinch Porsche gives is worth the confusion.
“Khun Porsche, if I may have those back now that you’ve studied them to your satisfaction?” the lawyer says with a raised eyebrow. Porsche hands them back sheepishly. The lawyer makes a big show of putting them in Pete’s hands. “Here you go, Khun Pete. A copy of your marriage certificate, Khun Vegas’ medical directives and living will, and the papers regarding Khun Macau’s guardianship.”
Pete looks at the papers while he talks. Right there in black ink, next to Kornwit Theerapanyakul, it looks like his signature. Phongsakorn Saengtham. It’s definitely not Pete’s signature - Pete would remember signing something like this he hadn’t even been drunk that night - but it sure looks like it. He can’t imagine anyone would ever be able to tell it wasn’t his, not even his grandmother.
“You heard him! He’s my brother-in-law! That makes him my brother’s next of kin and my legal guardian.” Macau says pointedly, staring at Kinn with daggers in his eyes.
Pete blinks at the file in his hands, Macau’s words bouncing in his head. Pete smiles widely up at Kinn and Porsche and their assorted bodyguards that Pete refuses to let himself recognize, clutching the file of papers tightly.
He knows what’s happening now. He gets the move that Vegas made. It would certainly have been nice to have been informed about it before hand, but Pete knows how to pivot. He can do this.
“That’s right. I’ll be the one making the decisions about Macau’s future, until Vegas is recovered. And I think what Macau needs right now is some peace and quiet while we wait for news. So if you’d please excuse us, I’m sure the both of you have a lot of work to be doing right now.” Pete says, smile plastered firmly in place.
Kinn’s anger is about to boil over, but Porsche puts a hand on his shoulder and saves Pete from an untimely death at the hands of his former boss.
“We’ll talk later, Pete, Ok?” Porsche says.
“We’ll have a lot to talk about.” Kinn says and it’s not not a threat.
Vegas, what exactly have you gotten me into now? Pete thinks. Once they’re gone and Macau has managed to marginally relax – as much as he can in this situation – Pete looks at him and lets his confusion show.
“Khun Macau, I –“
Macau immediately cuts him off, hands in the air. “Whatever you want to ask, I don’t know. He never tells me anything. I was told to go to Pine’s office if things went bad, so I did. There’s a letter for you, too, but I took it out of the file because I knew Porsche and Kinn were going to snoop.”
He takes it out of his jacket pocket and hands it over. It just a white envelope, still sealed even, with Pete’s name on it in Vegas’ elegant handwriting. Pete stares at it for a moment almost afraid to read what it contains.
If Pete was hoping for an explanation, some justification, he doesn’t get it. Instead all he gets is two sentences that feel like a punch to the gut.
“I’m Sorry. Hopefully these shackles aren’t as unbearable.”
There’s a dot of ink, as if Vegas had rested his pen there fully intending to write more but gave up in frustration when the words didn’t come. Pete rereads the note – it can’t even be called a letter – over and over again, trying to make it make sense. He can hear Vegas apologizing, in the alley, in the parking garage, but what really gets Pete is the last sentence. That just sounds to Pete like Vegas at the poolside with a gun under his chin and no hope. Pete hates it.
It was probably given to Pine the lawyer at the same time as the fake marriage license and everything else. Pete folds the note back up carefully, only to see that Macau has been watching him curiously the entire time. Pete has no idea how to explain to him that Vegas never had any intention of surviving the coup. Macau doesn’t need to know that. So Pete just…won’t tell him.
Vegas will be fine. He is in surgery to fix his injuries and he will be fine. Especially now that Korn has an extra layer of headache if he wants to quietly bump Vegas off in the middle of the night. Korn can still do it, obviously, almost nothing stops money and power. But the paperwork in Pete’s hand adds a little wrinkle to any plans Korn might have been thinking about. And if there is one thing Pete likes, it is wrecking people’s plans. It’s what got Pete in this mess to begin with.
Just ask Vegas.