Chapter Text
Aldis was smart. And good with computers. Self-taught, of course; his shitty school didn’t have enough money for a computer lab. But the guy in the apartment next door worked for an IT company. He also enjoyed the company of Aldis’s momma a lot and in return for some loving, he babysat. Not Aldis—Aldis was already in junior high—but both his half sisters were in elementary school and Aldis was glad when he didn’t have to look after them by himself. Lucy was still in diapers.
He learned a lot about computers from Devin. Devin was a skinny white guy, sticking out in their Black neighborhood like a sore thumb. He was a nerd with Star Trek figures in their original packaging, but he answered all of Aldis’s questions and even gave him an old computer to play around with. He taught Aldis the basics, and when Devin moved to a house in the Atlanta burbs after getting a promotion, Aldis knew enough to delve deeper on his own.
The public library was pretty crappy, but they had enough manuals for Aldis to build on what Devin had taught him. And when he discovered the internet, there was no limit anymore. He learned to build better computers out of the scraps he found secondhand and he learned how to hack. He didn’t want to go down the whole crime route—that never turned out well. His father had been in and out of prison since Aldis was three, and the last time they’d locked him up long enough that Aldis wouldn’t see him until he graduated college. And Aldis would go to college. He had a dream, dammit, and that dream was college. Get a degree for his IT skills, get a real job, get out of shitty apartments, and get a house in the burbs himself. Find a wife, get married and have kids, and then stick around to actually be a father to his children. Crime was necessary now—he needed to help his mom put food on the table—but it wasn’t what he wanted to do forever.
But to do that he needed a degree, and his self-taught skills were a problem when he applied to colleges. He didn’t go to a good high school, didn’t get to do after-school activities or athletics even though he was tall and good enough to play basketball. His time was eaten up by keeping the house together and looking after his two half sisters while his mom worked the streets or slept off whatever drugs she’d gotten her hands on at the end of her shift. She’d had Aldis at sixteen and from then on it had been a constant struggle.
Unfortunately, Aldis couldn’t put changing diapers, cleaning up empty liquor bottles, and negotiating rent extensions with the landlord on his résumé.
He did his best, of course, and the guidance counselor at his high school actually tried to help, but even she thought it was a long shot to get a full ride to the closest state school.
He got into a bunch of schools, good schools even, better than he thought, but no one offered more than a partial scholarship. There was no way to make it work.
But Aldis was smart. And good with computers. He thought that if his pimped-up application was good enough to fool Stanford and his hacking was good enough to get a full ride out of them, then he definitely deserved to be there.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t gut-wrenchingly nervous when he moved to California. He didn’t like leaving his family behind, but he couldn’t stay either. He vowed to send them money each month, and when he had a job, when he was rich and successful, he’d make sure his sisters had all the chances he never had. He told his mom she should look up Devin. She was still pretty enough to transition to a suburban housewife. He didn’t think she’d listen, which was why Aldis was resigned to supporting her.
For the first time in his life Aldis got onto a plane, five hours from Atlanta to San Francisco. He bought new clothes too, something that would make him stand out in his old neighborhood but hopefully make him fit in at Stanford. Collared shirts and sensible jeans and khakis, a pair of sneakers in muted colors. He still felt like a fraud, like everyone would see right through him. But no one did. Not the girl at orientation who showed him to his dorm, not the guy doing the campus tour, not the RA in his building, not his academic adviser, not the guys on the intramural basketball team. Everyone asked him where he was from and what he wanted to major in like Aldis hadn’t fudged his application and hacked himself into a scholarship. They treated him like he was one of them, a good kid from a nice family, a white picket fence, one point five siblings, and a dog. Of course, Aldis knew there were other scholarship kids here, kids who hadn’t had a great childhood, who’d had to fight tooth and nail and claw their way into higher education, but he doubted any of them had hacked their way inside. But no one seemed to even suspect that Aldis wasn’t who he pretended to be.
Then he met his roommate. Aldis had been around crooks and criminals his entire life and it only took him a few days to figure out that so had Jared.
Jared Padalecki. A tall, lanky kid from Chicago with a bowl cut and a dimpled smile that would make him any grandma’s favorite. But his eyes were sharp, always watching, and he had a habit of scanning a room like he was looking for dangers and exits. He was nice, charming even, but Aldis saw the hardness underneath.
Jared liked baseball, and even though Aldis was a basketball guy, they managed to talk sports well enough. They also went to the poster sale together—apparently, that was a thing at college, and Aldis thought it couldn’t hurt to get one of Dikembe Mutombo, his favorite player—and Jared got one of an old western with four guys in long coats in a shootout on it.
“Huh,” Aldis said. “You into old movies?”
Jared shrugged. “Only westerns. Ever seen Once Upon a Time in the West? It’s a classic.”
“Not really my genre.”
Jared looked him up and down. “This one might be.” Then he looked at Aldis’s poster. “Who’s that?”
“Mutombo. Center for the Hawks,” Aldis said and added proudly, “One of the best defensive players in the league.” The Hawks weren’t a great team, but Mutombo was awesome.
“Huh,” Jared just said and the way he looked at Aldis made him think that he had somehow told Jared more than just who his favorite player was.
“Let’s go eat,” Jared said, “and you can tell me all about him.”
They got burgers on the way back and it was nice, talking sports and then campus and classes and the newly renovated gym.
They carefully danced around each other for a while, not admitting anything, but they were both far away from home, trying to make something of themselves without their families’ baggage and they’d seen so much more than most of their classmates.
Eventually, Jared told Aldis about his brother in jail.
They were sitting on the floor in the middle of their tiny dorm room sharing their dining hall haul. It was close to midnight, the dining hall long closed, but they were growing boys and always hungry. They were both on scholarships, and money was always tight, so instead of popping across the street for a late-night burger, they raided the dining hall during dinner for whatever they could take with them. Jared had smuggled out two grilled cheese sandwiches carefully wrapped in napkins in the front pocket of his hoodie. Aldis pulled out the little package of cookies he’d taken, two bananas, and three apples.
“If you take away the cookies, this is what they’d serve in jail,” Jared said with a snort and handed Aldis a cold grilled cheese.
Aldis snorted. “You sure they serve this much fruit in prison?”
“They do in Illinois.” Jared took a big bite out of his own sandwich.
Aldis blinked at him. Surely Jared hadn’t been in jail. Juvie maybe? Aldis was morbidly curious and he realized Jared was watching him. Daring him to ask. And well.
“You got firsthand experience?”
Jared shook his head. “Nah. My brother.”
“Oh yeah? What’d he do?”
“They got him on illegal possession.”
“What’s his poison?” Aldis asked.
Jared tilted his head, and regarded him for a moment. Then he said, “Guns.”
Aldis’s eyebrows shot up. “Guns,” he repeated slowly.
Jared shrugged. “Daniel likes to play gangster.”
“Huh.” Aldis finished his sandwich and reached for an apple. “What do your folks say about that?”
“I believe my dad’s response was to sigh in disappointment,” Jared said sardonically, and then he said nothing else.
Still no mention of Jared’s mother. There had been a few times Aldis expected a mom comment, but it never came. Aldis still considered whether he wanted to ask, but Jared beat him to it.
“When you asked about poison…” he trailed off, letting the unasked question hang between them.
Aldis looked at the half-eaten apple in his hand. “My mom. And everything’s her poison if she can get her hands on it.”
“That sucks.”
Aldis nodded. “Yours?”
Jared’s expression closed off. “No. She’s dead.”
“Sorry,” Aldis offered.
“Everyone’s always sorry,” Jared said, staring past Aldis’s shoulder with empty eyes. “No one ever does anything about it though.”
Aldis wondered whether Jared blamed doctors or cops. Before he could think of something to say, Jared’s eyes focused back on him.
“No one’s ever gonna help. You gotta help yourself.”
“Amen to that,” Aldis said and wondered how bad Jared must have had it growing up as a white kid to share in that sentiment. “My mom… she tries. She brings home money, sometimes even puts food on the table.”
Jared snorted.
“I don’t judge her,” Aldis said, his voice going hard.
Jared looked at him in surprise.
“If I had her crap life and her crap job, I’d knock myself out every night too. Or morning.”
It clicked way quicker for Jared than it should have. “Fuck. What about your dad?”
“Probably keeping your brother company.”
Jared pursed his lips. Then he turned towards his nightstand and got out a bottle of vodka.
“Dude.” Aldis started while Jared also pulled out two red cups and filled them generously.
“To leaving a shitty life behind.” Jared raised his cup.
No commiserating then. No pity. Aldis could live with that. He raised his own cup. “To moving forward.”
“To Stanford,” Jared said.
“To fucking Stanford.” Aldis couldn’t keep in a laugh, because he’d definitely fucked Stanford. Jared eyed him curiously, so Aldis drank. He’d spilled enough secrets for one night.
They didn’t go home for Thanksgiving. Apart from the international students, it felt like they were the only freshmen on campus; everyone else from their year was going home, already homesick for their mom’s cooking or their pet or their high school sweetheart. When Aldis asked, Jared just shrugged and said he needed to study. He raised an eyebrow in question and Aldis nodded. His coding classes were child’s play, but Aldis still had to pass his GE requirements if he wanted to graduate and they were kicking his ass.
Aldis considered going home for Christmas, to de-stress from classes, see his sisters again, and check in on his mom. But flights were expensive and he could de-stress on the PlayStation Jared had bought. He’d gotten a deal on it, he’d said. Aldis hadn’t asked further. For the first time since Aldis could remember, he was only responsible for himself. He’d gotten a job at McDonald’s and he managed to send some money home every month, but that was it. No diapers to change, toys to clean up, food to cook, or vomit to wipe away.
When he told Jared about it, Jared gave him a smile. “That makes two of us then.”
“Seriously?” Aldis got Thanksgiving, but Christmas was a big deal.
“Christmas isn’t a thing at our house,” Jared said curtly.
Aldis was about to ask whether Jared was Jewish when he remembered that Hanukkah also fell into winter break.
“You in a weird religion that doesn’t do Christmas?” Aldis asked, mainly to break the harsh silence.
“No.” Jared’s voice was tight. He didn’t offer anything else and Aldis knew this wasn’t the time to ask.
“Well, I’m gonna go get some nice Christmas candy and stuff myself full as a present to myself, if you wanna join.”
Jared grinned. “I’ll get the booze.”
They splurged on candy and food and got pretty drunk. Aldis didn’t know how they ended up there, but at some point, he asked about Jared’s dad and if he was at least proud of his son for getting into Stanford.
Jared laughed. “Not really. He didn’t really get why I wasn’t interested in the family business.”
“What’s the family business?”
“Gun running.”
Alds choked on his tequila. Jared gave him a dopey grin.
Suddenly a lot of things made more sense. “Your brother…”
“Doing the whole footsteps thing, only not too well.” Jared snorted. “Daniel’s a fucking hothead, can’t keep it together to save a deal.”
“You know, you’d think your dad would have figured out earlier that you weren’t going to join the business,” Aldis said, trying to fish subtly.
Judging by Jared’s look, he knew what Aldis was doing. Jared deliberated for a moment and Aldis had a sinking feeling that Jared was not as drunk as he was.
“I was… getting my feet wet in high school. Enough that my dad thought I might eventually join in.”
“But you don’t want to?”
“I want to make my own way,” Jared said. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Aldis nodded slowly. “I came here, didn’t I?”
“You did. Pretty impressive.”
“Yeah, well, Stanford’s cyber security is a joke.”
Now it was Jared who sputtered. It was the first time Aldis had caught him off guard. It was fun.
“You what, hacked yourself into Stanford?” Jared asked incredulously.
Aldis smiled widely. He’d never told anyone. He couldn’t tell. But dammit, he was proud of it, and he wanted to tell someone. So he did.
Jared listened with rapt attention, and when Aldis was done, Jared asked what else he could do. And Aldis told him that too.
He was pretty drunk at the time, but the next morning he still couldn’t believe he’d spilled the beans after just four months of living with Jared. Turned out, though, it was a good thing.
A month later, Aldis was breaking into professors’ computers to get exam keys and was changing grades in the system. He never had any contact with their clients; that was all Jared. Aldis just hit buttons on a keyboard and he liked to keep it that way.
How Jared lined up their clients so quickly, Aldis wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with the expensive electronics he got discounts on because he knew a guy working at a warehouse. Or so he claimed. Aldis didn’t actually believe that, but he didn’t press. Jared had so many video consoles and projectors, he sold them to other kids at school. Those were the first guys to pay for better grades—video games took up lots of study time—and it grew from there.
Eventually, Jared made him watch Once Upon a Time in the West. It was a pretty good movie. Aldis didn’t connect to the revenge arc, but the one thing Jared never talked about was his dead mother, and Aldis suspected there was an explanation there. But he liked Cheyenne, the criminal with a moral code. And Aldis liked the widow MacBain very, very much.
“She’s really hot. Who’s the actress?”
“Claudia Cardinale,” Jared said, “One of the greatest sex symbols of the seventies.”
He didn’t sound half as enamored as Aldis felt.
“She not your type?”
Jared shot him a level look. “No. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with Harmonica, but honestly, none of the guys in this movie are particularly pretty.”
Aldis processed that. Huh. Unexpected but nothing he really cared about. “I think Henry Fonda’s considered a sex symbol too.”
Jared nodded. “Sure. Too old for me, though.”
Aldis hummed. “There’s a guy on my basketball team. My height, blond, good looking. And definitely gay.”
Jared raised an eyebrow.
Aldis grinned. “There’s a party this weekend. You should come.”
Jared smiled back. “Maybe I will.” Then his expression turned more serious. “So, now that the school operation is running smoothly, how do you feel about branching out?”
“We make good money,” Aldis said slowly.
Jared nodded. “But it’s not really enough to transition into something more serious.”
“What did you have in mind?” Aldis asked cautiously.
“Oh, this and that,” Jared said with an enigmatic smile. “Going to that party is a good start I think. Parties are always a good opportunity to make money.”
“Dude, I’m not gonna start dealing drugs.”
“Of course not,” Jared said, “that’s something you let other people do for you.”
Aldis stared at Jared.
Jared shrugged, expression a little sheepish. “Remember I had that business, in high school. It was maybe a little bigger than I let on. But don’t worry,” he added quickly when he saw Aldis’s probably panicked face. “I won’t ever ask you to do anything that’s not hitting keys on a keyboard. But if we want to make more money, we need to expand.”
Aldis hesitated. He didn’t want to be a criminal. He wanted to make a real living, have a family life. But hacking, that wasn’t like he was breaking and entering. And he was still in college. This was practically still his education.
“I’ll be your keyboard guy,” Aldis said, “but nothing else.”
Jared held out one of his big hands. “Deal.”
They shook on it. Then Jared leaned back. “Another movie?”
“Sure.” Aldis leaned back on his bed. Jared put in another western, something with Clint Eastwood. And Aldis thought he could do the whole outlaw thing with Jared for a while.