brooks & hale ✔️

hale

s i x ;
h a l e

"AND HOW ARE YOU feeling this fine day, Pedro Ramirez?"

Hale, gladly seizing any opportunity at a distraction, looked up from the textbook he had been frowning at for too long. Will was grinning like a maniac as he slid into the chair opposite him and it didn't bode well for anyone. Coralie and Elsie, who had also joined him, looked equal parts resigned and amused, which also didn't bode well. They usually found any of his antics funny, no matter how catastrophic the consequences were.

"Okay, I'll bite," Hale said, tipping back in his chair so it was balancing precariously on two legs. "Am I Pedro? And if so, am I allowed to call you Ling Ling?"

Elsie gasped. "Hale!"

"What? It's not racist if you smile while doing it," he added, flashing her his most dazzling smile. Elsie still looked a little scandalised, too innocent for her own good, but her expression softened. "See?"

Coralie rolled her eyes, clearly not as impressed as her friend. "Good luck telling that one to the police," she said.

"The only thing you'll be calling me is a God when you get a load of this." Will looked too far too smug as he leaned conspiratorially forward, and whipped something out of his pocket to slap down on the table. "Go ahead, let the worship begin."

Curiosity won over and Hale peered at the small white card. The black words were a jumbled mess at first glance, and it took his brain a couple of seconds to rearrange the letters into something decipherable. "Pedro Juan Ramirez, born twenty-fourth of October nineteen-ninety-eight," he read aloud, a grin tugging at his lips with realisation. "No shit. A fake ID?"

Will had leant back in his chair and spread his arms, as if they were his followers showering him in praise. "Yes, yes, I am the best," he agreed, with no one in particular. Coralie exchanged a here-we-go-again look with Elsie. "You're right, I should have run for prime minister. I really am too amazing for this world. You might as well just kiss the ground I - "

"For fucks sake, get off your high horse," Coralie interjected with a scoff. "You didn't even make the thing, you cretin. You're just passing it on from Markov."

"So?" Will yawned widely as if all that self-loving had exhausted him and closed his eyes. "I'd still make a better prime minister than Theresa May, and don't you even think about denying it."

Hale held it up to the light and had to admit, he was impressed. The last thing Markov had scrounged up for him in year eleven was so blatantly fake it wouldn't have even held up against scrutiny at the cinema. Clearly whoever was hooking him up with these had improved, because this one actually looked worth the money he'd paid for it. The small photo was actually him this time, whereas his old fake ID had been a random guy with vaguely similar facial features.

"Guess Markov isn't completely useless," Hale said contemplatively. "What's with the different birthday, though? Couldn't I have kept mine so it's easier to remember?"

"I ain't your bitch boy," Will said, without bothering to open his eyes. "You wanna file a complaint, take it up with the man himself."

"You have nothing to complain about," Coralie said, looking indignant as she dug out her own fake ID. She waved it in his face as if he'd somehow be able to read it that quickly. "Do you fucking see this? The little fuckwit gave me the name Venezuela Gertrude Butterworth."

Hale didn't bother trying to disguise his laughter, regardless of the death glare Coralie shot him. "What a beautiful name," he said, with a wink. "You really do look like a Venezuela Gertrude, I've always thought so."