Michael picked the place because it didn't look like a place you could pick.
No neon screaming LIVE NUDE, no velvet rope, no bouncer built like an armored car. Just a low, tired sign over a door in a strip mall that had once promised frozen yogurt and had since renegotiated its relationship with hope. The kind of place that survived by never being anyone's first choice.
Inside: wood that had absorbed decades of spilled liquor like a sponge with a criminal record. A couple TVs mounted too high, playing something sports-adjacent. A jukebox that seemed embarrassed to still exist. The air smelled like lime, bleach, and old decisions.
Franklin stopped in the doorway and took it in like he was appraising a used car.
"Man," he said. "This your little bar you like?"
Michael, already halfway to a booth like he owned the shadows, shrugged. "I like places that don't ask me who I am. It's a big step up from my house."
Franklin followed, eyes flicking over the room. Habit. Always scanning exits, angles, faces. The same way he did the first time Michael dragged him into something bigger than repos and petty street beef—only now there wasn't a gun in his hand, just the old reflex of it.
They slid into a booth. The vinyl stuck to the backs of their shirts for half a second, like the booth was trying to keep them for safety reasons.
A bartender drifted over—woman in her forties with the calm eyes of somebody who'd seen enough drama to stop believing in it. Not unfriendly. Just… not interested in being surprised.
"What'll it be?"
Michael didn't look at the menu. "Beer."
Then, like he remembered he'd brought a human being with preferences, he added, "And—" he flicked his eyes at Franklin "—beer."
Franklin stared at him. "That's the whole plan? I thought you was gonna—"
Michael cut him off immediately, reflexively, the way a man covers a wound before he realizes it's bleeding. "Don't. Don't say it."
Franklin leaned back. Smiled. "Don't say what? Don't say you told me one day you'd explain how the world work?"
Michael blinked. His mouth did a tiny, irritated thing. "I was being—"
"Dramatic?" Franklin offered.
Michael looked offended, then satisfied. "Yes. Dramatic. Thank you. I'm a man of theater. It's a disease."
The bartender watched them like she was deciding whether to charge extra for whatever this was. She placed two bottles down. "You boys behave."
Michael saluted with the bottle. "We're old men. We're here to discuss our feelings and die."
"Mm," she said, unimpressed in a way that felt practiced. "Try not to do either too loudly."
She walked off.
Franklin held his bottle up, inspecting it like it might be counterfeit.
"So this it?" he asked. "This the famous beer?"
Michael clinked his bottle against Franklin's. "This is the beer I didn't think I'd ever actually have with you."
Franklin drank, then grimaced. "Damn. This taste like somebody dissolved a TV remote in it."
Michael drank and didn't flinch. "It's an acquired taste."
"Like trauma?"
Michael pointed at him with the bottle. "See? You're already doing it. You show up and the universe turns into a therapy session."
Franklin smiled again—smaller this time. "I mean… you offered."
Michael sighed the way men do when they've been caught honoring their own words. "Fine."
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, bottle between his hands like it was a microphone.
"You want the speech?"
Franklin didn't move. "I want the truth."
Michael laughed once, sharp. "Nobody wants the truth. They want a story that lets them keep living the way they already live."
Franklin's eyes narrowed, but not angry—curious. "That's the truth?"
"That's a truth," Michael said, already hedging like a man who'd been sued before. "So. Tell me. What do you think 'the world' is?"
Franklin took a slow drink. "I think the world is… people. Mostly. People and money. And the shit people do for money."
Michael nodded like a teacher pleased by a student's vocabulary. "Great. Now: who makes the money?"
Franklin stared at him. "Everybody?"
Michael's smile turned sympathetic—weaponized empathy. "That's adorable. No. Everybody touches the money. Like it's holy. Like it's contagious. But the people who make it… don't touch it. They move it."
"Okay," Franklin said. "So… the movers. The rich."
"Bigger," Michael said. "The system that decides what counts as 'rich.' The system that decides what counts as 'crime.'"
Franklin's mouth twisted. "Man, you really do talk like you read books you don't even like."
Michael accepted this as praise. "I'm trying to help you, Franklin. I'm trying to—"
"Explain how the world work," Franklin finished.
Michael nodded, almost solemn. "Exactly."
Franklin sat back and tapped the bottle against the table twice, like he was knocking on wood. "Aight," he said. "Explain it."
Michael's eyes flicked around the bar. The TVs. The other people. A couple laughing too loud at something that didn't deserve it. A man alone staring into a glass like he was waiting for it to apologize.
Then Michael said, quietly: "The world works because most people are exhausted."
Franklin blinked. "That's it?"
Michael held up a finger. "Let me cook."
Franklin snorted. "Man, you ain't even order food."
Michael ignored him. "People are tired. They're tired from working, from worrying, from trying to be good, from trying not to get hurt, from trying not to be seen as hurt. So what do tired people want?"
Franklin answered automatically. "Rest."
"Comfort," Michael corrected. "Certainty. A little story that says: This is normal. This is how it's supposed to be. Because if you believe it's supposed to be this way, you stop asking if it could be different. And then the people who benefit from 'normal' get to keep benefiting."
Franklin tilted his head. "So your whole philosophy is: everybody sleepwalking."
Michael leaned back, pleased. "Finally. Yes. Sleepwalking. And the people who are awake—"
"Are criminals?" Franklin said.
Michael smiled. "Or CEOs. Same thing. Different uniforms."
Franklin stared at him for a long second, then laughed—not because it was funny, but because it was accurate enough to sting.
"Aight," Franklin said. "My turn."
Michael gestured grandly. "Please. Restore my faith in mankind before my liver gives up."
Franklin leaned in, copying Michael's posture like a mirror with an opinion.
"I think you right," Franklin said, "about people being tired. About people wanting comfort. I seen that. I grew up in that."
Michael's face tightened like he'd expected a punch and got a handshake instead.
"But," Franklin continued, "you use that like an excuse. Like because most people tired, that mean it's pointless to try."
Michael's eyes narrowed. "I didn't say pointless."
"You don't gotta say it," Franklin replied. "You live it."
Michael's jaw worked. He took a drink, buying time with carbonation.
Franklin went on. "You telling me the world rigged. I know it rigged. I ain't stupid. I'm saying: rigged don't mean fixed. You can still move."
Michael laughed softly. "Move where?"
"Up," Franklin said. "Out. Forward. Whatever. You can change your situation."
Michael tapped his bottle against the table. "And what happens when you 'change your situation' and the situation changes you back?"
Franklin didn't flinch. "Then you change again."
Michael looked at him like he was looking at a younger version of himself in a mirror that still believed in skin care.
"You hear yourself?" Michael asked. "You sound like a motivational poster."
Franklin shrugged. "Maybe you sound like a dude who gave up and started calling it wisdom."
That landed.
Michael's smile didn't break, but something behind it did. "Touché," he said.
They drank.
The bar's background noise thickened around them, like the room was listening.
Michael set his bottle down with deliberate care. "Alright, Franklin. Let's do it your way."
"My way?"
"The way where you pretend you're not afraid," Michael said.
Franklin's eyes sharpened. "I ain't afraid."
Michael held up both hands. "Sure. Then answer this: what do you think you're building?"
Franklin frowned. "My life."
Michael nodded. "Good. And what is your life made of?"
Franklin looked annoyed. "Days."
Michael's grin returned, predatory. "Days. Great. And who owns your days?"
Franklin stared at him.
Michael leaned in. "Because you say you can move up. You say you can change your situation. But the world isn't a mountain you climb. It's a treadmill. And the people who built it charge rent."
Franklin exhaled through his nose. "You think you the only one know that?"
"I think," Michael said, "that you think you can beat it."
Franklin's voice got calm. "I think you think it beat you."
Michael's eyes flicked down, then back up. "It did."
Franklin nodded slowly. "And you still here."
Michael scoffed. "Don't romanticize me. I'm a cautionary tale with a pool."
Franklin's mouth twitched. "Pool still nicer than my aunt's couch."
Michael laughed, despite himself.
"Funny," Franklin said, "you talk about treadmills like you ain't the one who grabbed me and ran me straight into the deep end."
Michael's expression shifted. "I gave you an opportunity."
Franklin pointed with the bottle. "You gave me Vangelico."
Michael spread his hands. "Oh, come on."
"Nah, don't 'come on' me," Franklin said. "You remember that? You remember the first time you had me standing there in those dumb-ass bug masks, looking like I was about to rob a damn comic convention?"
Michael's eyes flashed with a little pride and a lot of irritation. "The masks were tactical."
"The masks was humiliating."
"They were anonymous."
"They were stupid."
Michael leaned back. "And yet we got out."
Franklin laughed. "Barely. And you wanna know what I learned that day? I learned you don't do this for money."
Michael's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
Franklin nodded. "You do it because you like being the kind of man who can walk in somewhere and take what he want."
Michael's smile turned thin. "That is a very… Trevor interpretation of things."
Franklin's mouth twisted. "Don't put that on me."
Michael lifted his bottle like a shield. "Hey, I'm just saying—Trevor does things because Trevor is a rabid animal wearing pants. You?"
Franklin stared at him. "And you?"
Michael paused. "I do things because I'm… complicated."
Franklin barked a laugh. "Man, that's the fancy way of saying 'I don't know why I do what I do.'"
Michael opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Then, begrudgingly: "Fair."
They drank again.
Franklin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Lemme ask you something, then. Since we asking."
Michael gestured. "I live to be interrogated."
Franklin pointed at him. "You always talking about 'the world' like it a machine. Like it a force. Like it just happens to people. But you—"
He tapped the table once.
"—you did stuff. You made choices."
Michael's face hardened immediately, defensive architecture rising.
Franklin kept going, gentle but relentless. "You robbed people. You lied. You ran. You… did all that. And now you sitting here telling me 'that's just how it is.'"
Michael's eyes flashed. "You think I don't know what I did?"
Franklin held his gaze. "I think you know it. I think you don't wanna feel it."
That one hit deeper.
Michael looked away, jaw tight. Took a longer drink. When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its performance.
"Feelings are for people who can afford them."
Franklin answered immediately. "That's a lie."
Michael looked back, surprised by the speed.
Franklin continued. "The poor got feelings. The tired got feelings. Everybody got feelings. You just got better furniture to hide them under."
Michael stared, then laughed—but it wasn't mocking. It was the laugh of a man caught in a trap he'd built himself.
"You're good at this," Michael admitted.
Franklin nodded. "I'm tired too."
A beat.
Michael leaned back, looking at the ceiling like it might offer an escape hatch. "Okay. Fine. Here's my question."
Franklin waited.
Michael said, quietly: "What do you do with your optimism when it costs you something?"
Franklin didn't answer right away. The pause wasn't theatrical. It was real.
Then Franklin said: "You pay."
Michael blinked. "That's it?"
Franklin shrugged. "Yeah. You pay. You pay in time. You pay in losses. You pay in people thinking you dumb. You pay in getting hurt sometimes. But… you pay because it worth it."
Michael stared at him like Franklin had just described a color.
"That," Michael said, "is youthful naïveté."
Franklin leaned forward. "No. That's a choice."
They clinked bottles again—this time not as a toast, but as agreement that the argument was officially alive.
Michael studied him for a moment, then said, "Let's test your theory."
Franklin blinked. "How?"
Michael's smile returned, meaner now, more precise. "We're gonna do what we always do. We're going to use a story."
Franklin frowned. "Man, if you bring up Brad, I'm leaving."
Michael's face twitched. "Please. I'm not trying to cry in public."
He tilted his bottle toward Franklin. "I'm talking about the Bureau. The FIB. Your friends with badges."
Franklin's eyes narrowed. "They ain't my friends."
"Exactly," Michael said. "So. They grab you, they threaten you, they throw you at a problem you didn't create. They put you on a leash and tell you it's a job opportunity. What do you do?"
Franklin didn't hesitate. "I survive."
"Good," Michael said. "And do you survive by being optimistic?"
Franklin stared. "I survive by being smart."
"And why are you smart?" Michael asked, leaning in. "Because you believe there's a way out. That there's a move that changes the board. That's faith, Franklin. That's optimism with better clothes."
Franklin's mouth twitched. "That's not optimism. That's me refusing to be somebody's dog."
Michael pointed at him. "There it is. That's your religion."
Franklin smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "And yours is what? Sitting on your couch talking about your movie dreams while a fed with a ponytail tell you jump?"
Michael's jaw tightened. "I didn't jump."
Franklin gave him a look that said you jumped.
Michael exhaled. "I hopped."
Franklin laughed. "Man, you hopped all the way to Paleto Bay."
Michael groaned like he'd been punched in the memory.
"Oh God," Michael said. "Paleto."
Franklin's grin widened. "Yeah. Paleto. Where you had me in a damn ski mask again, in the middle of nowhere, fighting half the state with an AR while Trevor—"
Michael cut him off, pointing. "—Trevor was enjoying himself."
Franklin nodded, delighted. "Trevor was having the best day of his life."
Michael stared into his beer like it might offer asylum. "He was… radiant."
Franklin leaned back. "So yeah. You wanna talk about 'how the world works'? The world work like that. Big men with money sit in clean rooms and point at little men with guns and say 'go do violence over there.' And then they call it business."
Michael's eyes flicked up. "And you know what the best part is?"
Franklin raised an eyebrow.
Michael smiled, bitter. "The little men start to believe they're important because they're the ones holding the guns."
Franklin went still for a second. Then, softly: "You talking about me?"
Michael held his gaze. "I'm talking about us."
A beat.
Franklin took a slow drink. "Aight. Then I'll talk about us too."
Michael waited.
Franklin's voice got quiet, the way it did when he stopped performing toughness and started telling the truth.
"You ever think about the slaughterhouse?"
Michael's face changed. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just… immediate. Like someone hit a switch inside him.
"Don't," Michael said.
Franklin didn't move. "Fresh Meat. You remember. When them dudes had you hanging like a damn side of beef and I had to come get you."
Michael's jaw worked. He didn't look away this time. "I remember."
Franklin nodded. "So don't sit here and act like the world just happens to you. That day? The world was happening to you. And I made a choice."
Michael's voice came out rough. "You saved me."
Franklin shrugged like it wasn't a big deal, which is what people do when it is. "I could've left you."
Michael stared at him. "Why didn't you?"
Franklin's eyes held steady. "Because I ain't you."
Michael laughed once, but it cracked. "Ow."
Franklin pointed at him with the bottle. "See? That's what I'm talking about. You call it naïve to care. But if I didn't care, you'd be dead. If you didn't care, you'd have let that happen."
Michael swallowed. "I didn't let—"
Franklin cut him off. "You built a life where it could happen."
Silence sat down between them like a third man.
Michael stared at the table for a long time. When he spoke, the voice was smaller.
"You know what I hate?" he asked.
Franklin waited.
Michael said, "That you're right, and I can't buy my way out of it."
Franklin didn't gloat. He just nodded once. "Yeah."
Michael's phone buzzed on the table, vibrating in a small aggressive circle. The screen lit up: TREVOR.
Franklin looked at it, then at Michael. "You gonna answer?"
Michael stared at the name like it was a spider. "If I answer, this conversation ends with somebody stealing a forklift."
Franklin snorted. "That do sound like him."
Michael let it buzz until it stopped. Then he flipped the phone over like a ritual.
"See?" Michael said. "Trevor is how the world works when nobody's tired. He's just… raw impulse."
Franklin leaned in. "Nah. Trevor tired too. He just don't know what to do with it, so he turn it into chaos."
Michael blinked. "That is a terrifyingly compassionate thing to say about Trevor."
Franklin shrugged. "I'm practicing."
Michael stared at him, then laughed, and this time it didn't hurt.
By the time the second round became the third, the conversation changed texture. It stopped being two men fencing and started being two men bleeding, carefully, into the same space.
Michael's voice got looser. Franklin's laughter got louder. The booth felt smaller, like it was being pulled into the gravity of their honesty.
Michael leaned in conspiratorially. "You know what's funny?"
Franklin squinted. "You 'bout to say something racist?"
Michael looked offended. "Jesus. No. I'm not Trevor."
Franklin snorted.
Michael continued. "What's funny is… I used to be you."
Franklin rolled his eyes. "Man, you were never me."
Michael waved his bottle. "Not you specifically. I mean… hungry. Certain. Like the universe owed me a storyline."
Franklin's gaze sharpened. "And what happened?"
Michael stared into his beer. "I got it."
Franklin waited.
Michael said, "I got everything I thought I wanted. Money. House. Family. The whole American hallucination. And then I realized… it didn't fill anything."
Franklin's voice softened. "So you started stealing again."
Michael's smile returned, bitter. "So I started feeling alive again."
Franklin nodded slowly. "That's the addiction."
Michael blinked. "Excuse me?"
Franklin pointed at him. "Not the money. Not the crime. The feeling. The chase. The moment you put on a suit and a mask and you get to be somebody else for ten minutes."
Michael opened his mouth, then stopped. Like the thought had just walked into the room and sat down.
Franklin continued, steady. "You keep calling me naïve. But you—you the one chasing a feeling like it a religion."
Michael stared. Then he laughed quietly. "You should be a therapist."
Franklin smirked. "You should pay for one."
Michael raised his bottle in surrender. "Fair."
They drank.
Michael's cheeks had that warm flush that made him look younger and more dangerous at the same time.
"You know why I'm cynical?" Michael asked suddenly.
Franklin shrugged. "'Cause it make you feel smart."
Michael nodded. "Yes. Because it makes me feel smart. Because if I expect nothing, nothing can surprise me. If I believe everyone is selfish, I never have to be disappointed."
Franklin watched him closely. "That sound like fear."
Michael's smile wobbled. "It is."
Franklin took a drink. "So when you told me you'd explain how the world work…"
Michael looked at him.
Franklin said, "You weren't offering wisdom. You were offering… a way to not get hurt."
Michael stared for a long second.
Then, softly: "Yeah."
Another round arrived. Michael didn't remember ordering it. Franklin definitely hadn't. The bartender had started making executive decisions for public safety, and apparently she'd decided the two sad philosophers in the corner weren't driving anywhere useful tonight.
Michael stared at the new bottles like they were evidence.
"Alright," he said, voice thickening. "I'll admit something."
Franklin leaned in. "Here we go."
Michael pointed at him, slow. "You… are annoying."
Franklin laughed. "Man, that ain't an admission, that's a fact."
Michael's finger wobbled. "But you're annoying because you remind me of… the part of me I keep trying to bury."
Franklin's smile faded, attentive now.
Michael swallowed. "I keep telling you you're naïve because—"
He hesitated, searching for the honest word in the fog.
"—because if you're naïve, then I'm not… responsible for what happened to me."
Franklin sat very still.
Michael continued, voice rough. "If optimism is dumb, then losing it is smart. Then I didn't lose anything valuable. I just… grew up."
Franklin's eyes stayed on him. "And?"
Michael's laugh came out broken. "And that's bullshit."
A beat, heavy.
Michael rubbed his face with both hands, like he could wipe the last decade off. "I didn't 'grow up.' I got scared. I got tired. I got comfortable. And I started calling comfort 'truth.'"
Franklin's voice was quiet. "So what's the truth?"
Michael looked at him—really looked.
"The truth," Michael said, "is you can't live without some kind of faith. Not religion. Faith that your choices matter. Faith that you're not just… reacting."
Franklin nodded once. "Yeah."
Michael pointed weakly at him again. "And I hate you for having it."
Franklin smiled, gentle. "You don't hate me."
Michael's mouth twitched. "I hate that I let myself forget it."
They sat there, the argument finally done killing and starting to build.
Franklin raised his bottle. "So… you capitulating?"
Michael stared at the bottle, then clinked it.
"I'm blaming it on your youthful optimistic naïveté," Michael said, slurring the last word just enough to make it funny.
Franklin laughed. "There it is."
Michael added, softer: "Don't lose it."
Franklin nodded. "Don't steal it."
Michael laughed again, full this time. "Deal."
The bartender walked by, glanced at their growing pile of empties, and said, "Deal's gonna be you two calling an Uber."
Michael looked up, charming on instinct. "We're not drunk."
She didn't even slow down. "You're philosophizing in a dive bar at midnight. You're drunk."
Franklin grinned. "She got you."
Michael sighed. "Everyone's against me."
They stumbled out into the parking lot under the sickly orange glow of streetlights. Los Santos hummed around them—cars, distant sirens, the quiet engine-noise of a city pretending it wasn't a machine built out of hunger.
Franklin breathed in. "You feel different?"
Michael leaned against his car like it was holding him up emotionally as well as physically. "I feel… drunk."
Franklin grinned.
Michael looked at him, eyes glassy but clear in the way alcohol sometimes makes you—stripping the lies, leaving the bones.
"You know what's the real explanation of how the world works?" Michael asked.
Franklin raised an eyebrow. "Here we go."
Michael said, "People decide what they can live with."
Franklin nodded. "And you decided?"
Michael looked out at the street. "I decided I'm tired of pretending my cynicism is wisdom."
Franklin smiled. "Good."
Michael sighed. "Still not gonna save the world, though."
Franklin shrugged. "Ain't nobody asked you to."
Michael looked at him.
Franklin continued. "Just don't make it worse."
Michael's laugh was quiet. "You're gonna get me emotional, Franklin."
Franklin smirked. "You can afford it."
Michael shook his head, smiling like it hurt. "Alright," he said. "Get in before I change my mind and start explaining economics."
Franklin opened the passenger door. "Man, you start explaining economics, I'm walking."
Michael started the car—then stopped, fingers still on the key. He stared forward, breathing.
Franklin glanced at him. "What?"
Michael swallowed. "I meant it, you know."
Franklin frowned. "What?"
Michael gestured vaguely, like words were suddenly too small. "That thing I said. Back then. About a beer."
Franklin's expression softened. Just a little.
Michael nodded to himself. "I didn't think I'd live long enough to cash that check."
Franklin stared at him for a beat, then said, low: "Well… you did."
Michael started the engine again, and for a second it sounded like a promise.
They pulled out into the night—two men driving through a city that hadn't changed at all, while something small and stubborn inside them had.
Not redemption.
Not salvation.
Just… a choice.
And, finally, the beer that never happened—happening anyway.