For the first time in what felt like a long time, he wasn't going out of his mind. Riff had been anxious and downright mean since before Tony went to prison ( but his incarceration had only exacerbated Riff's anxieties).
He still didn't know what had been going on with Tony, or why he had wanted to start japping downward towards Hell's Kitchen. The fact that it turned into an all-out rumble was something else all together.
Sure, Riff was as ready as the next guy to defend their turf. He'd been running his mouth just as well as throwing his fists when the mood struck. He'd asked Tony not to go down that way. If the Emeralds were as big a threat as Tony made them out to be, then let them prove it.
He had thought if he hadn't been there, then Tony wouldn't have gone out without him. They did everything together, surely he wouldn't have started all that without him.
He couldn't let him start all that. Not when Joe lived down that way. Joe was his best kept secret. Not even Tony knew about his half brother. Riff simply couldn't let him know. Not when Joe came out looking like that. Like one of them.
it wasn't like Riff saw much of the kid anyway, though he did try. It wasn't until Tony had declared his intent to go japping, the hit and run kind of fighting, that Riff realized that accidents could happen. They could mistake some idiot kid off the street and not recognize him as just a coolie. any snot nosed brat worth his salt could be misidentified as an Emerald. Gangs got big after all, and when tensions were high, it didn't matter if you belonged or not, you still could get hurt.
Riff had been right not to go. He'd been right to choose Joe and to steal his kid brother away for the day. Tony had paid for it.
But so had Riff. There were consequences for simply abducting a kid int he middle of the night.. He'd lost Tony, and now Joe.
If he knew where his brother was, then that would be one problem solved. He could keep him safe like he always did and no one would have to know he was related to someone who came out with the drop in the bucket genetics... even if that drop looked like the whole ocean. He was just as much ashamed of his brother as he was of himself for feeling that way. He'd take that secret to the grave.
He was calm. he was sitting next to the best girl in all of New York. This was the kind of girl that would spend an entire two dollars on a six pack of beer instead of the standard forty nine cents for a severely cheap bottle of wine. She was tough, he couldn't deny that. those wild curls reflected what remained of the city lights like stars.
He couldn't lose her too. He couldn't imagine being alone.
He couldn't help but smirk a the way she guffawed through her sip, the nature of that beer going down the wrong tube somehow endearing. he shifted where he sat, the motion awkward and stiff given his bad back, but his left hand reach out toward her face, his mother's old silver wrist watch ( now nothing more than a wrist band he'd soldered closed around his wrist ) slid up his skinny wrist, exposing an old tattoo that read 'Velma', before he'd tried to remove it himself with his pocketknife.
his hand finally collided with the corner of her mouth, rubbing away some of the aspirated beer.
"Yeah." he said, " I mean it."
