After the bridges he’d burned last time they were acquainted, Brody honestly had never even considered that he’d cross paths with Ezra again; so it’s a shock, to say the least, when one night he turns up out of the blue in one of the lesser-known dive bars Brody frequents.
He’s out of place and he knows it, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes darting from the door to the bar and back a mile a minute, and for a moment Brody is sure he can’t be here for him – The DeLorean is common knowledge to the NYPD, a hotbed of their Most Wanted, but the bar they’re currently stood in is somehow rarely in any trouble. His confusion is short-lived, however, as he realises that the alley out back was the same alley Brody had held a gun to his head in.
Though Brody’s mind is working a mile a minute, Jack seems to be none the wiser, standing with one hand stuffed casually in the back pocket of Brody’s jeans and the other holding a beer, busy focusing on giving orders to a group of petty drug dealers who have been running some ‘errands’ for him. Brody considers not acknowledging Ezra, staring straight past him and hoping that he’ll leave thinking Brody isn’t there, but the minute he thinks it he’s too late; Ezra stops looking around just long enough to make solid eye contact with Brody, and the way his eyes darken immediately leaves Brody with a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Shit,” he mutters, under his breath but just loud enough to catch Jack’s attention.
“Problem, love?” he says, ending his question with a reassuring squeeze of Brody’s ass. Brody doesn’t reply, instead gesturing in Ezra’s general direction, and as soon as Jack catches sight of him he laughs out loud, sharp and delighted and a sure sign of trouble. Ezra’s coming towards them now, eyes determined and shining with anger, and as he gets closer Brody realises he’s teetering on the wrong side of sober.
“Well shit, if it isn’t good old Fletch,” Jack calls as soon as Ezra is within hearing distance, “you come to buy us a drink, kitten?”
From a distance, Ezra had looked near enough exactly the same as the Ezra Brody had known all his life, but now, up close, he’s almost completely unrecognisable. The surface hasn’t changed, but everything else has; from the way he walks to the hard set of his mouth, the way his hands are balled up into fists and making no effort to relax. Guilt bubbles up inside Brody’s chest like fire, but still, there’s no regret.
“Don’t hold your goddamn breath, Draper,” he spits, and even his voice is different now, his accent more threatening than homely in the way it always used to be. He barely acknowledges Brody at first, focusing on staring Jack down instead, eyes narrowed and bloodshot. Jack’s grinning, unfazed, hand still in Brody’s pocket; a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by Ezra, whose mouth sets even tighter once he’s seen it.
“Fuck me,” he starts, voice low and brimming with something hateful, “look at you two now. Do I need to buy a hat?” Jack snorts at that and Brody sees Ezra flinch; he can tell he was expecting more of a reaction, one he would’ve given months ago, but his expression is unwavering.
“Getting a bit ahead of yourself assuming we’d invite you, kitten.”
When Ezra takes a step towards Jack, Brody instinctively takes a step towards him, and it’s the first time Ezra’s looked at him properly since he came over; under the lights in the bar, his irises look near black, and the disgust Brody can see in them doesn’t help at all. It feels exactly like the last time they saw each other and he hates it.
In this position, Brody is the focus of Ezra’s attention entirely. It’s almost as if Jack was never there.
“Still playing guard dog, then?” he snarls, top lip curled in a way that makes him look like the feral one. He moves closer to Brody as he speaks, and Brody can feel Jack tense behind him. Brody might be protective when he needs to be, but that’s nothing compared to Jack – Jack who has a bottle in one hand and a big audience and will think nothing of glassing Ezra straight in the face – so Brody grabs Ezra’s arm and pulls him close, hisses not here in his ear and then turns him around to march him straight out of the bar.
The cool New York air does nothing to clear Ezra’s head, and as soon as Brody’s outside and well away from the door, Ezra gets one hand in his hair and slams him cheek-first against the concrete wall of the alley. It’s a shock, both the collision and the act itself, and it takes Brody longer than it usually would to regain his focus; he can feel Ezra’s fingers twisted roughly at the base of his scalp as he forces Brody to face him, cold eyes boring into him and not letting up. He opens his mouth to protest but Ezra gets there first, and he figures he owes him enough to listen to whatever it is he has to say.
“You know”, he starts, accent still holding that bitter twang, “I spent so long trying to justify you pulling that fucking gun on me. Pathetic, yeah? But I knew you, Brody, and we were close – so close, you know, for all those years, and I just thought, no. No, that’s not him. That’s not Brody. It helped me cope, I think, at first. Imagining that you weren’t you anymore, blaming Jack for fucking you- for fucking you up, manipulating you into becoming someone, something useful for him. And God, Brody, I hate him, I really do, that’s never gonna change. But you know what?”
Brody figures he’s not really looking for an answer, so he doesn’t give him one, and he carries on.
“I hate you just as much.”
It’s not what he says that gets to Brody; it’s the way he says it, voice dripping with pure venom and underneath, still tinged with the hurt that’s never really gone away. He attempts to cut in but Ezra’s not done, tugging Brody’s head back again to shut him up.
“You let this happen. You chose to fuck off with him, to leave your job, leave me – all of that is on you, and I’m over making excuses for you now, Brody. I’m done.”
He doesn’t look done. Brody speaks before Ezra has a chance to cut him off again, voice quiet and hoarse.
“So what, you gonna turn me in now? Or are you gonna keep smashing my head against this wall, get yourself some kind of revenge? Because if you’re really done, Ezra, I think the best thing for you to do is leave. We don’t need to see each other again.”
Ezra laughs at that, loud and almost unnerving in a way that Brody never thought he could be.
“You know they fired me, right? Couple of months ago now. Told me to take some time to myself – unpaid, we all know what that means –, said I hadn’t been focused since you left.” He releases his grip on Brody’s hair whilst he’s talking, but he makes no effort to get out of his face.
“Did me a favour, really, getting me away from those idiots, but that’s not the point. You owe me. You and Draper.”
Brody has to laugh at that, more out of surprise than anything else, and when he speaks he can’t help but sound like he’s mocking him.
“Are you threatening me?” The incredulous tone of his voice doesn’t seem to go down well with Ezra, who’s obviously here to be taken seriously, and he looks like he’s about to do something stupid again, so before he has a chance to talk back this time Brody cuts him off, fist colliding with his jaw with a crack that echoes in the empty alley. It knocks him off balance and gives Brody chance to fully regain his composure, stepping forward to loom over Ezra slightly as he wipes the blood welling on his bottom lip. There’s a dull ache in Brody’s head and his cheek is throbbing where the brick of the wall scraped his skin – Jack’s gonna be so pissed off when he goes back inside, and there’s a part of Brody now that wishes he’d stayed there in the first place and let Jack handle him; at least then he wouldn’t be in this predicament.
“I don’t like threats, Ezra, and Jack really doesn’t like threats. He also doesn’t like people roughing me up, which you’ve actually done a decent job of, so if I were you, I’d quit while you’re ahead and fuck off now.” Any sense of regret or nostalgia that Brody had been feeling originally is gone, replaced with irritation and the hazy anger that always washes over him when someone tries something with Jack. He’s fixing Ezra with a look almost as cold as the one he’s been getting from him all night; Ezra, straightening himself up and staring straight back, only grins, baring teeth all streaked with the blood still pumping from his split lip.
“Don’t worry, I’m going,” he states, much too cheery now, “but trust me, Brody, that was a threat.” He spits blood at the floor by Brody’s feet, throwing in one last fuck you whilst he can, and then turns and leaves, passing the bar completely and disappearing into the gloom of the streets.
Jack’s on him the second he steps back inside, beer discarded and early negotiations clearly put on hold for now. None of the patrons are staring like they were when Ezra first skulked over, and the smashed glass Brody notices on the floor where they’d been previously standing is more than likely the reason why; Jack’s temper is always more effective than his words. He brings a hand up to the graze on Brody’s face, who winces at the contact, and his eyes darken significantly, taking in the damage as he moves his hand to rest against the side of his neck instead.
“You should see the other guy,” Brody jokes, attempting to lighten the mood though he knows it’s pointless. He knows when something will get Jack’s attention in a negative way, and this definitely has.
“Hope you’re not still fond of Fletch at all, love,” Jack says, his accent coming through slightly stronger the way it always does when he’s mad, “because he’s just started something that he can’t finish.”
