Chapter Text
Later, Pete will refer to this moment as the beginning of the end. He lies on the couch with his feet propped up, watching Love is Blind with Tankhun. It is Saturday night, busy everywhere except for the eldest son’s suite. Pol is sprawled across the floor, catching popcorn in his mouth as two ridiculous heterosexuals fall in ‘love’ with people they’ve never really met. Arm, the only one who has an excuse not to watch, scrolls through his tablet.
Then, the alarm sounds.
The guards are out of the room in seconds, Tankhun crying behind him about how ‘this better be important’ because a Code Red is nothing compared to a dating show. The three of them follow a litany of guards to the garage and into a series of audis and cadillacs with the GPS location of their boss on the touchscreens. Pete drives, and Arm sits in his passenger seat.
They weave through the streets. Over the years, Pete has noticed how even in downtown Bangkok where the traffic is bottlenecked, people find their ways to the sidewalks when they pass. Even if their cars don’t have a label, people know, and they part for them easily. They travel to an entertainment district, then into a wide parking lot with a chicken restaurant on one side and a gas station on the other.
Kinn Theerapanyakul stands in the center of that vacant lot, hands on his hips and his hair askew. Big isn’t with him, bad news. The cars pull up in a half circle around him, a dozen guards scurrying out to stand before their boss in a human blockade. Someone asks, “Khun Kinn, are you alright?”
And Kinn responds with an incredulous shake of his head. He gestures towards the cars, a silent command to return to them. Kinn then marches off to one of the cadillacs—Pete’s Cadillac—and Pete scrambles for the backseat door. Once Kinn is inside and Pete is in the driver’s seat, Kinn speaks. “He stole my fucking watch.”
The Watch Thief, as the majority of guards come to call him, becomes an ongoing joke amongst the masses for a week. Of course, the jokes are whispered, hidden from Kinn and, more importantly, Big. Big, who hadn’t been there and has taken to guilt like Pete’s father to the bottle. Still, the jokes prevail.
Watch Thief bit Kinn on the neck.
Watch Thief kicked Ken in the balls.
Watch Thief jumped ship—literally.
It is all Pete hears before Arm gets access to the security cameras in the alley Kinn and Watch Thief fought in, and then he is far more than just a Watch Thief. Pete watches the video while Pol distracts Tankhun with a game of Sorry! and admits that he is talented. Watch Thief fights as if it were as easy as breathing. Pete recognizes a boy raised for combat; he understands why, suddenly, Khun Korn and Kinn are pushing for him to join the family.
Secretly, Pete hopes he doesn’t; he hopes this man—Porsche, Arm says—doesn’t get trapped in this world. He smiles when he fights, and he does it with the ease that alcohol brings. If he joins this family, that ease will go away. Every punch he throws will be with guilt weighing down his fists. Besides, Korn wants to buy him, and that feels dangerous; it’s always dangerous.
This family buys their guards so often, Pete wonders how they can believe in their loyalty. Afterall, most are not like him and Arm who came to work here in exchange for clemency. Most are here because they lack morality and money. And, sometimes, they lack sense.
Pete realizes that when, despite warning that he was getting a new roommate, Pete blanks on the date and stumbles out of his room naked to the sight of someone he doesn’t know standing in his living room. He covers himself quickly, and smiles at this guy—the man from the video, the Watch Thief, Porsche. Close up, he looks even younger. He looks relaxed, seems purer than most of the men who walk into this house, carrying less guilt than they usually do.
To ease any awkward air between them built from Pete’s nudeness, Pete ushers him into the kitchen and dishes out helpings of his grandmother’s cooking. “Are we allowed to eat here? There’s a cafeteria, isn’t there?”
Pete’s smile twitches. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s fine. My grandma sends it, and, uh- I get some leeway.” He’s a head guard; he gets to make some of his own rules, now. “I’m Pete, by the way.”
“Porsche,” he says, no knowledge that Pete already knows just about everything in his file already. “How long have you worked here?”
Here, he specifies, which pleases Pete. This way, he doesn’t have to think about the past he likes to bury when he says, “Four years.”
“Four? How are you still alive?”
Pete shrugs, eyes trained on his rice. “I take care of Khun Kinn’s older brother, Tankhun.”
“Older? But isn’t Kinn the, like, heir or whatever?”
Pete nods, smiling awkwardly because while he thinks it’s only fair to help the new guy, to give him information that’d save him a lot of issues later, he feels guilty discussing the vulnerable, traumatic parts of the brothers that explain who they are. It's Vegas and Macau all over again, though that is a haunt that affects him far worse.
“Tankhun’s, uh- he’s been through a lot,” Pete says. “Doesn’t leave the house, not the best option to lead the family. And Kim, their little brother, wants nothing to do with any of this. Moved out as soon as he could; Kinn’s the heir by default.”
“The egoist, I see.” Pete’s smile twitches once more as Porsche shovels food into his mouth. Cheeks full, he asks, “So, what happened to Kinn’s brother?”
And in the same way Pete shut down any request for information on Vegas and Macau’s dark secrets and insecurities, he finds himself doing it for Tankhun. After four years, how could he not? Tankhun is dramatic and over the top, a testament to how childhood pain can color your future. Pete knows he’s a lot, and doesn’t want to say anything that might have him judged for it.
He opens his mouth, a practical answer only half formed in his throat, when the front door opens. Big trudges through, arm in a sling and frowning the way he is want to do. Pete quirks a brow at him, and Big raises up a dry cleaning bag. He looks at Porsche. “Get dressed, and come with me.”
“So, what’s he like?” Tankhun asks, gazing into a mirror that Pol holds steady. As he plucks his eyebrows, he carries on with, “Kinn says he’s terrible at being a guard.”
Pete shrugs. Tankhun is being generous today, and while Tankhun picks at the minute imperfections that blackheads and stray hairs account for, he lets Arm and Pete watch soccer on the flatscreen. “He’s alright,” Pete says. “He’s nice, funny. He snores, though.”
“Only brutes snore.”
Pete rolls his eyes and shares a look with Arm. Tankhun snores, something they all discovered after slumber parties that Tankhun demanded. All of them—sans Tankhun—are tired come morning, the snores having kept them up all night.
“Besides,” Pete says. “He’s new, and he doesn’t have any background as a guard. It’s gonna take some time.”
“He’s got the guts, though,” Pol says. “I heard that Kinn shot an apple off his head and he didn’t even flinch. Once he passes training, he’ll be a badass.”
Arm shrugs. “From the videos I’ve seen, he already is one.”
“Well,” Tankhun huffs. He turns on his heels and marches over to the couch, dropping down beside Pete. He lays his head on Pete’s shoulder, curling into him like a small child. He does that sometimes; it reminds Pete of Macau. “He looks like an oaf.”
“That’s not nice, Khun Nu.”
Of course, Tankhun doesn’t care.
“I hate it here,” Porsche says. Pete doesn’t look at him; they walk to the cafeteria, collect their meals. The entire time, Pete listens. “This place is a prison. We’ve gotta wear these itchy suits, and work all hours of the day and night. We can’t even contact our fucking family most of the time. Kinn’s a fucking dick—he shot an apple off my head like an absolute psychopath. And look at this—” he gestures down at his plate, raw veggies and rice. “This is rabbit food!”
Pete smiles softly, appeasing him, letting Porsche know that he understands, even if he doesn’t. He can sympathize, understand that this is difficult for him. He knows that before this, Porsche lived in a nice house with a relatively nice family. While there were loan sharks, there certainly wasn’t hunger. There weren't beatings by people you’re meant to trust. Hell, before this, Porsche was in school— university.
Pete understands feeling bitter about leaving those things behind, but it could be a lot worse. They get three square meals a day, and beds to sleep in. As long as they do their job and they don’t screw up, they don’t get punished. This is a good job; they have good bosses, overall. Kinn is paranoid and rude, but he is understanding. He saved Pete that night.
Pete can’t hate him if he tries.
“It’s not that bad.”
“It is,” Porsche says. Despite hating the food, he stuffs his cheeks full. “Why’d I get stuck with the crazy one?”
“You didn’t,” Pete says, rolling his eyes. “In fact, you got the easiest. Kim does his best to ditch every guard assigned to him, and Tankhun-” The words die on his tongue the moment he looks up and finds a flash of pink coming down the elevator. “Shit.”
He jumps out of his chair, but Tankhun gets to them first. “WHO DID IT?” He seethes, spit flicking from his lips. Porsche hovers behind Pete like a shadow. “WHO KILLED ELIZABETH AND SEBASTIAN?”
“Khun Nu-” Pete reaches for him, and Tankhun shrugs him off.
“-ARM!” Tankhun holds out his hand and Arm hands him a tablet. Pete’s gaze flicks to Arm, who gives him an apologetic grimace. And then Tankhun shoves the tablet left of Pete, towards Porsche, and Pete leans back to see it better. There, on the screen, is Porsche in the garden. He stands in the grass for a long moment, then climbs up onto the wall of the pond. There, he pisses.
It is difficult for Pete not to roll his eyes.
“You killed my fancy carp,” Tankhun snaps. His face looks green, as if he might throw up. Pete reaches out to him; maybe he can help him, can calm him the way he’s done so many times before. Pete is good at handling tantrums, good at handling people in the throes of volatile emotion.
But Porsche is behind him, shrugging. He says, “They’re just fish, though.”
Tankhun raises the tablet high, ready to slam it into Porsche’s head. Pete tries to shield him, and Arm shouts, “Khun Nu! The Miss Universe Pageant is starting.”
And, suddenly, Tankhun’s shoulders fall. The anger leaves his eyes, and Pol and Arm see weakness in that gesture. They know they can distract him now, reach out and lower his raised arm. “C’mon,” Pol says, hands on his shoulders. “Let’s go see who wins!”
Slowly, surely, they guide Tankhun from the cafeteria, back to the elevator. Pete watches them go, unsure, uncertain. He stands there, high-strung and considering going after him to make sure he’s alright. Tankhun got those fish years ago; they’re important to him. Behind him, though, Porsche whistles low, and that sound pulls Pete’s attention away. He turns, looking up at him to find him wide-eyed and amused. “Now that was crazy.”
Later in life, Pete will recognize Kinn’s first meeting with Porsche as the beginning of the end. But now, in the present, he looks at Porsche and sees how little he thinks of this interaction. He sees amusement, intrigue. Porsche has no idea what this world is, what their lives are; he hasn’t lived the way Pete has, didn't have the teachers Pete did. Violence is a strong motivator, as is pain. Those are things this family doesn’t do well, punishments taking the form of extensive exercise rather than lost fingers and broken ribs.
Porsche does not understand the danger of pushing buttons, of playing with their bosses. Pete likes Porsche; Pete could be friends with Porsche. But they are standing at the top of a tall, tall hill, and Pete can see just how far down it goes.