Chapter Text
I’d hustled a lotta people in my time, but tourists were the easiest. Wide-eyed, gullible, loaded with traveler’s cash and no street sense. They were sittin’ ducks, really. Especially the foreign ones—they didn’t speak enough English to know when I was runnin’ a scam.
That’s what I thought, anyway.
It was a Tuesday, hot as hell, and I was leanin’ against the back wall of a greasy diner off 6th. My smoke was half-burnt, and I was bored. Then these four come wanderin’ down the block, lookin’ like they’d stepped outta a damn travel poster. Sunhats, cameras, all that jazz. Definitely not from around here. One of the guys had on socks with sandals. I knew they were mine before they even looked my way.
I gave ‘em my best crooked smile.
“Hey there,” I said, loud and friendly, like I was some helpful kid instead of a two-bit hood with nothin’ better to do. “You folks lost?”
The tallest guy, a blond, blinked at me. “Uh… English, yes?”
Bingo.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, stepping closer, hands in my pockets like I was harmless. “You lookin’ for the bus station? The museums? I can help. Real cheap, too. Only a buck for directions.”
They looked at each other, mumblin’ in something I didn’t recognize. One of the women, dark hair, big sunglasses, looked suspicious. The youngest, some nervous-lookin’ guy, said something real fast in Spanish, I think. Then the fourth—an older man with a stern face—barked a reply in a totally different language. Sounded like someone coughin’ up a lung and insultin’ me at the same time.
“What the hell—?” I muttered. “Y’all speakin’ five different damn languages?”
They started talkin’ over each other. The woman switched to what sounded like French. The tall guy stammered something in German. The older man kept using his weird scratchy language—Korean, though I didn’t know it at the time. The Spanish kid was tryin’ to talk to me directly now, real slow, like I was stupid. I caught dinero and policía.
Ah, hell.
I tried to backtrack. “Look, I was just—tryin’ to help. No need to get all jumpy. Just a friendly neighborhood guy here.”
The woman raised her camera. Snap.
I flinched. “Hey, don’t take my goddamn picture.”
The tall guy said something sharp. I could tell by the tone he didn’t mean it kindly.
The Spanish one stepped forward, pointin’. “Ladrón,” he said. Thief.
Aw, shit.
“Look, pal, I ain’t stolen nothin’,” I snapped, takin’ a step toward him. “I ain’t touched any of you.”
The older guy shouted something—harsh and fast—and now the French lady was dialing some number on a payphone nearby. I didn’t need to speak a damn word of whatever they were sayin’ to know I was suddenly about three seconds from getting hauled in on something I didn’t even do.
I was winding up to shout when a soft voice cut in beside me.
“Excusez-moi, madame. Je suis désolé. Il ne voulait pas vous effrayer.”
I blinked and turned. Johnny. Johnny Cade.
He’d appeared outta nowhere, calm as ever, like he’d just been takin’ a walk and decided to stop by and completely change the damn universe.
The French woman froze, phone halfway to her ear.
Johnny stepped closer, hands up like he didn’t mean no harm. “Il voulait juste vous offrir de l’aide. Ce n’était pas une menace. Je vous le promets.”
The woman lowered the phone slowly. Her expression changed. Suspicious to confused. Then—get this—relieved.
Before I could ask what the hell was goin’ on, Johnny turned to the tall blond guy and rattled off, perfectly, “Er hat niemanden bestohlen. Es gab nur ein Missverständnis. Er ist… un peu idiot, vielleicht, aber harmlos.”
The guy actually laughed. Laughed. At me, probably, if Johnny’s smirk said anything, but still.
Then Johnny pivoted like it was nothing, eyes soft and voice steady. “Lo siento por el susto. Él pensó que ustedes estaban perdidos. Nada más.”
The Spanish kid looked uncertain now. Muttered something back. Johnny answered. Quick and smooth. Like he was born talkin’ Spanish.
Then he turned to the older guy. That language—I didn’t even know what it was—came spillin’ outta Johnny like he’d been speakin’ it his whole life.
“죄송합니다. 그는 아무 악의가 없었습니다. 오해였어요.”
The old man’s eyes went wide.
“그는 친구이고 도움이 되려고 했을 뿐입니다. 실례했습니다.”
The old guy nodded. Just nodded. Then gave Johnny this solemn little bow. Like, actual respect. Like Johnny was someone important.
And then the French woman gave him a smile and said something back that sounded like a thank-you. Johnny nodded.
And just like that—poof—crisis over. The tourists walked off, still talkin’, and didn’t even look back at me. I was still standin’ there, jaw probably hangin’ somewhere near my damn chest.
Johnny turned to me, hands back in his jacket pockets, calm as you please.
“Hey, Dal. You alright?”
I stared at him. “What the fuck was that?”
He blinked. “I just… talked to them.”
“You just talked to four different people… in four different languages.”
He gave a little shrug. “They were upset. It didn’t seem fair to let ‘em think you were gonna rob ‘em.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Johnny, what the hell—where’d you learn to do that? French? Spanish? That other thing—what even was that?”
“Korean.”
“Korean?!”
He gave the faintest little smile. “Yeah.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. My mouth was open, but there were no words comin’ out.
Johnny Cade—the quietest kid in the gang, the one who barely talked unless he had to—had just defused an international incident with four strangers using words I didn’t even know existed.
I took a breath. Then another.
Then I said, “We’re gonna talk about this. You and me. Now.”
Soon as those tourists rounded the corner and disappeared into the noise of the city, I grabbed Johnny by the scruff of his jacket like he was a goddamn puppy and dragged him into the alley beside the diner.
He didn’t even fight me—just stumbled along, wincing like he already knew what was comin’. Good. ‘Cause I was ready to blow a fuse.
“You lyin’ two-faced little brat!”
“Dal—ow—calm down!”
I shoved him gently but firmly against the wall, not enough to hurt him, just enough to contain the absolute meltdown I was havin’. “Calm down?! Calm down?! You just started speakin’ in freakin’ demon tongues like some goddamn codebreaker from the CIA!”
Johnny winced like I’d actually slapped him. “It wasn’t a big deal—”
“Not a big deal?!” I barked. “You spoke four languages in like, what, thirty seconds?! I don’t even know what one of ‘em was! The old guy bowed to you, Johnny! What the hell do you mean not a big deal?! Since when do you speak four freakin’ languages?!”
Johnny hesitated. Then mumbled, “Nine.”
The alley went real quiet.
“…What?”
He cleared his throat like he was confessin’ to murder. “I speak nine.”
I just stared at him. My brain shorted out completely.
Johnny shifted from foot to foot, his hands deep in his pockets like maybe if he buried himself deep enough he could vanish into the concrete. “English. Spanish. Italian. French. German. Korean. Greek. Russian. And I’m workin’ my way through Gaelic right now.”
“…Gael—are you fuckin’ kidding me?!”
He flinched again. “Please don’t yell.”
“I’m not yellin’!” I was absolutely yellin’. “You speak NINE LANGUAGES? What, for fun?!”
Johnny shrugged—shrugged, like I’d just asked if he liked baseball—and said, “It keeps my mind busy. I like the patterns. Grammar calms me down.”
“Oh my God, I’m gonna crash out.”
I turned around, hands in my hair, paces short and frantic. The kid I’d practically raised, the one who got jumpy if a cop so much as looked at him wrong, had been walkin’ around with the brain of a freakin’ international diplomat this whole time? Jesus Christ.
Johnny was visibly wilting, like he expected me to scream or throw something, like this was gonna be the part where I tore into him for hidin’ it. And I mean, maybe I shoulda been mad. I was mad. But not at him, not really. Just at the fact that the world had no idea what it was sittin’ on.
So I did the only thing that made any kind of sense to me in the moment.
I grinned.
Slow, sharp, and mean in the best way.
Johnny blinked. “What?”
I turned back around, still half-laughin’. “You know what this means, right?”
“…That I’m in trouble?”
“No. It means I can swindle so many more people now.”
Johnny blinked again, slower this time. “What?”
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a goddamn goldmine, Cade. We’re talkin’ international scams. Spanish tourists? Boom. German businessmen? Bam. We could take this operation global. Hell, you could even help me with the French chicks.”
“Dal—” He sounded like he was about to protest, but I caught the tiny twitch of a smile. Like he couldn’t help it.
“Don’t give me that look. You think I’m jokin’. We could hit the east side market, maybe the university crowd. I just gotta learn how to say ‘my poor brother is sick and we need train fare’ in Russian, and we’re golden.”
Johnny laughed. Like, actually laughed. Not that tight little breathy thing he does when he’s tryin’ to not look sad. It was soft and real and shook his shoulders a bit, and I swear to God I’d commit a felony just to hear it again.
“I can teach you a few words,” he said finally, still smilin’ but lookin’ down like he was embarrassed about it.
“Damn right you will. First lesson: how to say ‘Don’t look at me like that, you uptight bastard’ in German."
He snorted. “Schau mich nicht so an, du verklemmter Bastard.”
I pointed at him. “Exactly. That’s goin’ on a T-shirt.”
He ducked his head, cheeks a little red now. “You’re not mad?”
I leaned back against the wall beside him, finally lettin’ myself relax. “Nah, kid. I ain’t mad.”
Truth was, I’d never been prouder in my damn life.