lu-sn:

let’s assume vegas has recovered as much as he can from the shooting and that he’s done whatever he needs to do to get himself and his family out from under korn’s thumb. so we’re talking deep post-canon.

if vegas is still in the mafia somehow — in any capacity — i have no doubt that pete will function as his right hand. (or left hand. hell, both.) he’s definitely got the skill set for it, and i think he would really enjoy it! it’s a perfect outlet for his brand of undying loyalty, and he gets to bestow that loyalty upon someone who is equally insane about him and who will let him beat up as many people as he wants ❤️

but i don’t want that for them. i think vegas in particular deserves that soft epilogue — a chance at the life he could have had all along without his father hovering behind him. so let’s imagine vegas has found something to do with his time that hits that perfect balance of high stakes and high fulfillment and very very high odds of survival. pete is very happy for him, and also the tiniest bit bereft. unlike vegas, pete needs something physical.

so pete is ambling back from the grocery store, idly wondering whether he needs to be trying to do something with all of his free time, when he stumbles upon some sort of scuffle just waiting to break out in a dank alleyway. and pete manages to spot a kid in there, far too young, definitely biting off more he can chew, definitely about to get his ass beat, and — well. pete’s been itching for a fight anyway.

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Vegas as a chef. It’s perfect!

But don’t give him too much lip if you wanna keep that hand.

lu-sn:

tortoise this isn’t a prompt this is a freaking dissertation topic 😂 okay okay i can pick one thing and stick to it. i swear

i think post-canon pete is suddenly in a position where he doesn’t have any friends.

hear me out. i don’t mean that his friendships have completely eroded. he sure did burn some bridges, what with shooting that one main family guy to death, and i bet there are plenty of main family guards who used to be friendly with him and now would pay money to light him on fire. but his core relationships — with arm, or porsche, or even khun — are still there. they’re just precariously off-kilter now.

pete is no longer who he was before. he wasn’t outright lying, necessarily, but he was… hiding. his friends were only seeing one facet of him, and they’ve come to understand in a pretty brutal way how much of pete they weren’t seeing. no matter what, this is going to affect their closeness with pete. it’s going to destabilize the trust they have in him. i would put khun at the far end of the spectrum, aka the most destabilized thanks to pete’s defection, and porsche perhaps the least, but it still leaves pete on uncertain terms with everyone who liked him in the before times.

and, like, vegas might love pete, but vegas isn’t actually friends with pete yet. they’ve spent… two weeks of quality time together? most of which was straight up torture? sure, they Know each other, but they’re probably going to need to work up to being casual around each other. macau and pete also don’t know each other well, and it doesn’t help that macau is a kid. that friendship isn’t going to be equally balanced for a long time.

so pete’s at a bit of a crossroads here. he can choose to let those old friendships go — to let the confusion and suspicion grow thick and gnarled between himself and the others — or he can try to actually fix them. and if he wants to do that, he’s probably going to have to start being honest. he’s going to have to be vulnerable. he needs to rebuild his friendships from a place of authenticity.

I THINK HE WILL BE REALLY BAD AT THIS. not just because pete would literally die instead of be emotionally vulnerable, but because a lot of the authenticity that porsche and arm and pol and khun are going to ask for right off the bat is going to pertain to pete’s relationship with vegas. god knows pete has no idea how to talk about that, let alone the desire to discuss it. plus, vegas hates all of these people. should pete really be telling them anything about vegas? can he be honest with people who vegas probably sees as enemies?

it’s going to be a long process. and some of it is going to depend on vegas’s relationship with these people mellowing out. i have a feeling pete will be able to reach a place of personal honesty with arm fairly quickly, if he gets to see arm at any sort of regular frequency. porsche is harder because of the whole minor family ring thing, but i think porsche might be the only person who kind of understands why pete would have run away for vegas, and i just think pete needs that understanding from someone else real bad. that connection is going to keep them afloat until they can rekindle their friendship in calmer waters.

but. but pete and khun. oof. that one’s hard. does khun have the capacity to see pete as his equal? is pete forever going to keep his former employer at arm’s length? i don’t think this will ever become a true friendship. perhaps they can reach a point of surface-level congeniality.

in the meantime, pete will hopefully make new friends! macau and pete friendship FOR LIFE. i like to think vegas only has a couple of loyal-to-the-death guards left, and i think it would be kind of cool if pete became friends with them. and maybe pete picks up some insane new hobby to fill up all of his unemployed free time and gets to make casual friends outside of the mafia, friends that are his only, that aren’t also tied to vegas or pitted against vegas somehow.

but pete is going to have to work for these. no more empty smiles. fewer white lies. less deflecting. learning to offer up parts of himself to those around him — to weave them into bonds that are made stronger by the truths woven into them.

I have no idea how the book goes, but I see Pete as a necessary pin in getting Kinn to trust Vegas

Porsche is in a precarious place. He may be head of the minor family now, but life is a prison for him. His lover, his mother, and his brother are all in Khun’s power.

His mother wanted him to escape, but he’s been trapped.

But, by taking on the role of minor family head, he has freed Vegas from the responsibility. They now are free to help him overthrow Khun, the mastermind of this imprisonment.

Porsche has no problem using, and even trusting Vegas, but Kinn does. Kinn, however, knew Pete for a long time, and his torture was Kinn’s fault. Any plans to escape would need Vegas’ help, but Kinn would not trust him without Pete, and Porsche would not leave without Kinn.

Pete may not have true friends, but he will have allies.