He sighed. "As for now, I'll take care of the business. Bear showed me how to run things. Until we handle a new leader and find one that isn't a possible killer of Bear." He sighed. "But for now it should be a council work." He glanced around the room. "Shane. Let's try and keep a cool temper, yes? I understand the situation isn't at it's finest but we need to work as a team." He says coldly.
“I understand very well, don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Shane replies. “All tasks on my front will proceed as normal. No changes required.”
Chris, with their arms still crossed, cocked their hip and raised a covered eyebrow. "Council work? You must realise that isn't going to work as well as you hope." With everyone's differences, and the way they all feel about The Bear's death, everyone was going to be suspicious of everyone. Chris lowered their hood to allow their wavy hair to flow, and narrowed their mascara'd eyes. Still, they kept their mouth covered. "I for one do not agree with working as a team, so don't expect me to be happy about it. I'll do it, only for Bear."
"So who all will be on this council? We don't even know each other, let alone trust each other to make decisions." Tam plopped down on a nearby armchair. "No offense, but none of us are great team players. I doubt we'll be able to keep the family afloat, especially while we know there's a mole in our ranks."
Davie frowns, a familiar expression for him, "If the mole isn't found out now, they'll slowly tear us apart, until we're no more" He says solemnly. "Especially if we're working as a team"
"A nice sentiment, Davie, but I doubt we'll be able to avoid being torn apart either way." Tam ran a hand through his hair, smoothing down the normally immaculate curls. "We're all used to running our parts of the business and shutting up about it, we'll never be the man The Bear was if we stick to that mindset. We need to be able to trust each other."
Chris moved to sit on the arm of the chair that Tam was sat in, a visible grin appearing underneath the mask. They crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward a little. "Tammy here is right, we don't know each other. So why don't we spend the next couple of days getting to know one another while we try and get our work done. Never know, we might find who was responsible for killing The Bear." Chris wasn't at all pleased with working together with these people, but it could be just the excitement they needed in their life.
Davie slowly finishes off his drink, "Just playing Devil's advocate" he drawls, "Hopefully that won't happen. Well, I'm normally the people person, so who wants to get to know me, huh?" He asks, pouring more drink, "Maybe we can have some fun along the way" He winks, before flashing a smile. A very sudden change in mood from before.
Tam snorted, taking another long sip of his drink. "Tell us about your life, Davie darling. What made you wanna join the family? Money? Power?" He finished his drink. "All the booze you could ever want?"
“Good question. Why are you here, Davie?” Shane asks politely.
"Hm" he mulls over the question for a moment, "Well, Doll, I needed a way out of where I was before, Bear found me, got me out' He smiles, one unlike the one before, more sincere, "Took a bit of convincing, but I'm here now" he pauses, "The booze is a close second"
"What about you guys, how'd you get here?"
“Well, being a part of the mob is preferable to homelessness. After I got kicked out of college for drug-dealing, I had nowhere else to go.”
"You know I'm considering taking you up on that offer, Davie." Chris's eyes sparkled dangerously as they shifted suddenly to move behind Davie. They had heard stories of Davie's wicked ways and had put it on their bucket list. Of course, Chris never found the chance to ask him. Their head tilted a little as they mulled over the question. Why was Chris there? Though the memory of the day The Bear called them stuck in their mind, Chris would need a little persuasion to talk about it. "I'll share my story, for the right price."
"Greedy," Tam chided, slapping them teasingly on the thigh. "We're supposed to be getting to know each other, no strings attached. Anyways, here's mine: Ma needed money, Pops wanted drugs, and I was the only one willing to put in the work." Tam shrugged, leaning over Chris' lap to grab the whiskey and refill his glass. "Course I managed to meet Bear along the way, and he took care of me 'til he…" His throat closed up and Tam had to blink to keep the tears out of his eyes. "Til he passed away."
"I'll cheers to that, Shane" Davie says, then offers a small sympathetic glance, "Right, Bear was a good man" he says before eyeing Chris, his eyes scanning over their body, "Hm, what type of price, huh, sweetheart?"
Chris slid a look and a wink over to Davie, as if saying 'you know what price'. They turned back to Tam and ruffled his hair slightly. "The Bear was more than just the leader for you, I can only imagine the pain you feel." Hopefully Tam wouldn't pick up on the double meaning Chris' words had.
Tam laughed. "I appreciate it, Chris, but you don't have to play coy. You know exactly who he was to me. I'm sure everyone does." He took another sip of his alcohol. "We didn't exactly keep it quiet."
“I can admire that. You’re not a coward, and neither was he,” Shane commented. “It sucks he’s dead.”
Davie nods, "Definitely didn't 'keep it quiet', made me wish I was out on a mission some nights" he says before lightly placing his hand on the small of Chris's back, allowing it to linger for just a second, but long enough to convey a message.
A slight smile curved on the edges of Chris' lips. Message received. They let out a short laugh, it sounded harsh but it was more in like a teasing way. "Why do you think I stopped staying over night?"
Tam snorted. "Not my fault you two decided to stay home. At least y'all had the good sense not to come home after you finished a mission early, you probably would've been scarred for life."
"Hm, I'm sure" Davie wrinkles his nose, "Good thing for pubs to keep us from seeing anything heinous"
"Why do you think I never came back…" Chris muttered, averting their gaze to the floor. They hadn't seen Tam or Davie or Shane, or anyone for that matter, for over a year. There was of course a reason behind why they didn't come back, but now wasn't the time for sharing that. They shook their head, clearing their mind, no need to think about the past when the present was definitely of more urgency.
Tam's face went from a sharp smile to a soft frown, and he groped around for Chris' hand. He'd missed having them around, especially after last year when life had finally seemed to be going right for both of them. "I dunno, I figured bear had you out on some kind of covert ops thing. We weren't that bad, were we?"
Davie glances over at Chris, slight worry crossing his face, "Yeah, any reason for that?"
"It wasn't because of you and Bear that I didn't come back." Chris smiled, though whether or not it was a genuine smile was covered by the mask. They took Tam's hand and squeezed it gently, narrowing their eyes slyly. "I'll have you know that thanks to your freaky nights I was able to stay up late enough to actually get work done."
Tam was, however, somewhat correct about the CoveOps, though they had finished it four months post-receiving the mission. "Well lets just say I don't feel like I belong, anywhere." For reasons that they were yet to share with anyone other than Bear. "I didn't come back, and to be fair no one tried to contact me either. I sent weekly letters to Bear but never got any in return so I figured I wasn't needed anymore. It wasn't until I got the call that I even thought you guys remembered me."
Tam laughed, squeezing their hand back with a soft smile. It shifted into a confused frown when Chris said nobody tried to contact them and he sat up a little to look them in the eyes. "Are you kidding!? I tried to call you for months after you disappeared but nobody answered. I kept asking Bear about it and he said you were busy. That you'd get back to me soon." His eyebrows pressed together in anger and confusion. "I missed you, Chris. Did you really think we didn't want you back?"
“Hey, no one forgot you, Chris,” Shane said. “You’re one of the most essential people to this whole organization. The information you get is priceless to most of our schemes, and don’t you forget it. Seriously.” He took another swig of his drink.
That's all they actually needed Chris for, the information they gathered…
As for Tam trying to contact them, perhaps it was something to do with the lack of service in the area they had been sent to. Hence the letters to Bear. "I didn't realise you missed me, last I remember you were quite adamant that you didn't want anything to do with me." That was a long story in itself. I wonder if Tam remembers that day.
They shrugged dramatically and ran their fingers through their hair with their free hand. "What can I say, I never really thought of myself as a person people wanted around."