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billy

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It's almost Christmas and Maeve, for the first time in her life around a holiday, has a boyfriend. Well, not a boyfriend, because she and Steve haven't exactly used those words or even talked about what they're doing and she still occasionally thinks about how much she'd like to shag Rowan, but really, for all intents and purposes, she's got a boyfriend.

That in itself is hard enough to deal with, but now she's realized she'd got to get him a gift or look like a complete asshole. Money isn't a problem, she's still getting her handouts from the city itself, plus she's got her side hustle up and running again, and that is what she's doing right now. Making extra cash to buy Steve a Christmas gift.

Wearing a pair of tight black jeans, her heavy combat boots, and the biggest black cargo jacket she could find, Maeve is leaning against the outside of an Ahab's Coffee, a warm drink in one hand, a stack of papers in the other. She's met three college students so far and they've exchanged essays for cash, and she has two more she's waiting on.

So of course those pricks from the high school wander by. She can't even remember their names now, she'd barely gone to any classes before fucking off and getting her GED instead. Ethan she remembers, because of something Rowan said about his brother dealing drugs. The other two are Ethan's cronies, idiots with close cropped hair and broad chests and she knows exactly the sort of guys they are before they even speak to her.

"Hey, I remember you," Ethan says. "You're that one with the book. Part of the whole sex cult, right?"

"Yeah, you got me," Maeve answers in a bored voice. "You're super hilarious, now move along."

One of the others, the bigger of the two, steps closer to Maeve. He's trying to be intimidating and she doesn't love his proximity, but she only tips her coffee cup back and takes a sip, her eyes on him the whole time. He's not close enough yet, but he will be.

"Sex cult?" he asks and Maeve smiles sarcastically.

"Yeah," Ethan says. "She's a real slut. I bet she'd even fuck you."

"Would you?" the guy asks and Maeve waits. He steps closer. Then closer. He's trying to get a look at her tits, which would be hilarious given her enormous jacket if he wasn't such a complete creep. One more step brings him in range and Maeve lifts her knee as hard as she can, jamming it swiftly into the soft and delicate and stupidly vulnerable balls between his legs.

The idiot drops and Maeve steps over him, moves over slightly, then resumes leaning against the wall and waiting for her clients.

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Obviously, Billy is not about heroics. The word hero hasn't meant much to him ever, from his shitty life growing up to his career in the military to his adult life spanking so-called Superheroes. Whatever it is that motivates a person (or a Supe) to do what they do, it's never heroic. It's always about personal gain: money or silence or security or sex. Each of these things, in Billy's experience, are more likely to be used as a weapon than a tool of good. No hero that he's known of has ever done something out of the goodness of their heart. Except maybe Starlight, and even she knows that the little line that separates him from her was growing thinner by the day when he fucked off to nowhere.

Billy's on his phone, looking for literally anything that he might be able to do in this fucking place that isn't get drunk or fight or go to a fucking fancy party. There's a kid that's parked herself against the wall that Butcher's only noticed in the quiet observance of a man that has always been on some bad cunt's radar. Feet shuffle behind and he doesn't think anything of it until he hears the words sex cult. He blinks at his phone, unmoving. At the very least, this aught to be good. What uninteresting answer is there to a question about a sex cult?

Suddenly, Butcher recognizes the voice. This is one of the kids Butcher nearly killed his first week here. This little fuck narrowly escaped a chair to the brain thanks to the intervention of a good(?) Samaritan in plastic pants. What he hears is exactly the kind of shit that got Billy riled in the first place. Again, no heroics - Butcher had been itching for a fight. Looks like he might even get a chance to finish what he started that evening.

The sound of impact is finally what makes Butcher swivel his head. There's a certain sound a bloke makes when he's taken one to the bits. There's no empathy pain in Butcher's stomach. He's just pleased. When he stands up, turns round, he takes his sunglasses off slowly. The kid whose life Klaus spared is staring at his felled friend. A smile spreads across Butcher's face.

"Great to see you again, Ethan," Butcher growls, stepping closer. Having this little fuck's name is going to prove very valuable leverage one day. The girl's fine; she's got it well in hand, and this is not about that. "You haven't changed a bit." The dumbfuck charges him and Butcher simply knocks his feet out from under him.

He nods to the girl. "Reckon by the stitching those are made with steel up front, yeah?" Somehow, he's smiling even wider. Good old Ethan is on the ground now, and she's got a clear path.

Edited 2020-12-07 22:45 (UTC)

"What? Kick him while he's down? What sort of rotten person would do something like that?" Maeve asks just before she gives Ethan a good swift kick to the left of his spine. Maybe not hard enough that he'll piss blood for the next day or so, but it's possible.

But she doesn't want to get herself arrested. Maeve may not look like it and she may not have the reputation for it, but she's the epitome of the good girl when it comes to some of her behaviour. She's smart, was part of a quiz team, aced all her classes, she doesn't touch drugs, rarely even drinks, and tries to keep her distance from people who sell or use anything harder than pot. All that shit only gets people into trouble. Makes them let others down. She's not going to be like her mum or her brother and that means not getting into any trouble either.

Still, she can't pretend giving Ethan one good kick didn't feel good. He's been a jackass to her, to Rosie, to Sabrina. Probably to a load of other girls, too.

She eyes the man who's approached and knocked Ethan on his ass. He's pretty big and she has no idea why he'd be interested in the shitty life of a shitty high school student, but maybe Ethan has pissed off bigger and scarier people these days. The thought makes her smile.

"Has he been trying to move up in the world?" she asks, amused.

"Trying is right," Butcher confirms, pleased as all fuck. They're standing next to each other, a united front against douchebaggery. It's a silly, fleeting feeling, but it's almost like being on a team, again. This sort of leadership would be at the top of Butcher's resume. "Just some dumb fucking cunt with a rich daddy, ain't that right, lad?" This is a gross oversimplification. Old Boy Ethan is the son of a mafioso and one that is out for Billy's blood something fierce. He has his reasons. Some of them are dumb. Some of them are diabolical.

Two cunts are down and one is just standing there, maybe in shock. The lad whose balls just got flattened seems to be trying to get up - he's mostly just sputtering - and Ethan is definitely a little worse for wear now that he's had a steel toe to the kidney. Somewhere, Butcher is vaguely aware that this might cost him some more "comfort," but in Darrow, he's found none, so that suits him just fine.

This is a lie. He's found comfort in Darrow, just not the kind he likes.

"Right, then," Butcher decides. "You done good work here. Kick's a little wild, but that ain't nothin' a little practice won't do ya." He grins sickly at the lad on his feet and adds to the girl, "what say we try again right now."

Maeve can't help it, she grins a little, both amused and kind of put off by the guy. She wouldn't be able to explain it, maybe it's the way he holds himself or the accent, which is familiar enough in that he sounds a lot like Maeve's mum, but whatever it is, it makes her mouth tug up into a smile she tries to pretend doesn't exist.

"Well... oh wait, hold that thought," she says as she sees her client approaching. He's checking out the scene, looking a little wary, but Maeve just steps up to him and holds out the paper she'd written for him. "The Evolution of Psychology Through History, yeah? That's a hundred."

"Yeah," the guy answers, passing Maeve two fifties that she pockets quickly and then she smiles, letting him take the paper from her hand.

"End of year papers are double," she tells him. "Remember that before you call me in May." Then she returns her attention to the scene at hand and says, "I'm already not exactly following the rules. I probably shouldn't go around kicking too many wankers while they're already down."

Yeah, Butcher gets that sort of look a lot. He's got charm on his side, but that doesn't change the fact that a life of violence has charged his vibe in a certain way. He's learned how to curb the wildness of it, for the most part, until he loses control. The chance that these three little fucksticks are going to make him lose his temper is slim. He could take all three even if he didn't have a bird with shitkickers and the right kind of attitude to hold her own.

While she conducts her shady business, Slackjawed Cunt takes off. Flattened Ballsack is getting up, and Butcher is watching with gentle amusement as he struggles. Ethan the Cunt is still down, so Butcher does him(self) a favor and picks him up by the shirt, adjusting it like he's the kid's barber after a shave and not like he's going to fucking kill him if he sees him again. And he will.

"Better run, cunts," Butcher growls. They do to the best of their ability. There isn't usually a terrible amount of satisfaction in bloodying children, but when they're like these little fucks, things are different.

"I respect the hustle," he says to her as she comes back. He doesn't ask her if she's alright because she clearly is. Billy respects that, too. "Name's Billy Butcher. Nice to meet a fellow Londoner." He holds out a hand to shake. It's a pretty civilized gesture from a man who gleefully knocked some kids around, but Butcher is always willing to pay respect where it is due.

Edited 2020-12-10 16:41 (UTC)

That's a made up name if Maeve has ever heard one, but she doesn't say as much, only tilts her head and surveys his hand for a second before she reaches out to shake. He's big and gruff and probably exactly the sort of man her mum would have gotten all starry-eyed over. Exactly the kind of man she was never going to get, instead finding herself with pathetic men like Maeve's dad, wherever the hell he got off to.

"Maeve Wiley," she answers with a smile and a shrug at the comment about the papers. "Getting paid to give the entire community college GPA a boost sounds like a good time to me. And I'm not from London, I'm from Moordale. I wish I was from London. Probably something interesting happened at least once a week in an actual city."

Nothing interesting really ever happened in Moordale. People were small minded in small towns.

It's been over 20 years that he's been in the states and he supposes this is a distinction he could have made at some point. Billy had put the place in his rearview the moment he could. The SAS took him a lot of places, but away was the only one he cared about.

"Ain't missing much," Butcher responds, digging his cigarettes out from his pocket. Funny how this habit had also been in his rearview. The more shit changes, the less Butcher feels like changing himself. "World's full of cunts no matter where you go." He gestures toward where the lads have just run off to indicate that, hey, same is true with places out of the world.

Billy's aware that she's a college-age girl and he's a gruff old man, so he's doing what he can to be careful here. If he's on the run because he beat a fucker to death, that's fine, but he's not going to be pushed to the edges of this shite place because he's seemingly creeped on an unsuspecting young person.

"Yeah, but at least some of them are entertaining cunts," Maeve answers, tilting her head. Which, after a relatively boring life in a small town where people just considered her the drug addict's slag daughter, is actually all she's looking for some of the time. They might be assholes, just like he's said, but at least she's not bored all the time anymore. Just waiting to get out.

Not that there's any getting out of this place.

"Not to mention public transportation," she adds with a little, smart ass grin. "Try getting around a place without a car when all you've got is a shitty little bus route."

Billy lights his cigarette and says, "this place ain't nothing but a shitty bus route. You must feel right at home." Bitterness is strongly present in his tone, but that has nothing to do with her, so he adds, "Got myself used to New York. Place is full of little Ethans, but it's got a lot else. Like more than fuck-all to do." What he wouldn't give to get shouldered to the side by a fearless art student.

"Aren't you pleasant," Maeve says in a falsely cheerful voice, her head still tilted as she studies him. "You've clearly never been in a shitty one bus route town for very long if this is your best comparison."

It's not as good as New York, she's sure of that, but when compared to what she had, Darrow is bloody paradise.

"Maybe you just need to expand your list of hobbies," she suggests, looking amused, her lips curling into a grin she presses tight between her teeth. "Take up knitting or yoga."

Smartass company soothes Butcher all the way down to where a soul might be if he had one left. She's not afraid and just the right amount of wary. If more people in Darrow were like this one, he'd make a better effort.

"I ain't stayed anywhere for very long," he confirms, exhaling a pleased enough steam of smoke. The pack is still in his hand, so he offers it to Maeve. "Maybe if I found the right yoga studio."

He doesn't seem like a creep, so Maeve takes the offered cigarette, lighting it with her own lighter and then blowing smoke into the air away from the two of them.

"Maybe a book club," she suggests. "I can recommend a few good ones to start with."

She's teasing and she isn't. Daryl had taken a book from her to read, after all, and she'd expected that about as much as she expects Billy might. Daryl's like Billy in some ways, but he's quieter, too.

"No good, mate," he responds, "I get too brainy might muscle you outta a job then I gotta find someone else with a steel toe when there's a cunt needs kicking." It's light-hearted enough, but she's probably right that he needs to start thinking about what a life might look like. Sure as fuck won't be book clubs and yoga studios, but he should find something. There has to be something he'd been good at before.

Nope. Nothing he can think of. The only things he remembers from his childhood are very much like his adulthood. Maybe he'd wanted to be a writer or something. Answers to these questions might only be uncovered in intense therapy, and that's never going to happen.

"What else you got?" He smirks.

"Hmm, no knitting, no yoga, and you don't want to do any of that fancy learnin'," she says, putting on what she thinks is a relatively good impression of an American accent. "What about... becoming a food blogger. Ooh, no, I've got it. Conflict resolution. I see you've got a real future in that."

She takes a drag of her cigarette, managing to look almost posh while she does, which is a feat for a girl who grew up in a caravan park, and she once again blows the smoke out the side of her mouth, away from Billy.

"Matchmaker?" she asks. "You could run a meet and greet for all the single and lonely people you know. Pair up someone like Ethan with a nice girl, preferably one who has razors stored in her vagina."

Butcher smiles a little wider. This one's alright. Turns out there's a growing list of people in this shite place that aren't boring at all. He thought he got lucky meeting Sweeney first thing, but for the most part, the people he bothers to stop and talk to have made memorable impressions for one reason or another. There's all sorts here and it's no surprise that Billy's collecting smartasses like Hughie collected action figures before one of the real cunts burst through his girlfriend.

At the last bit, Butcher fully laughs. It's a single sound, well-earned.

"Helluva contraceptive," Billy says on an exhale. The coffee he'd been drinking is forgotten on the table not that far from them. "S'good. Would be a shame for a cunt like that to multiply."

"They're high school dirtbags, they've definitely already gotten someone preggers," Maeve answers, as if only the dirtbags do that. As if her very normal, charming and well loved high school hookup hadn't done the exact same thing to her.

Mostly she doesn't think about it. She doesn't regret the abortion, she doesn't even regret that some of the people here know about it. She's not prepared to be anyone's mum, probably not ever, but especially not right now. She doesn't regret not telling Jackson either. He would have only made things worse.

"So how did you get wrapped up in high school dirtbags?" she asks. "They don't really seem like they're on your level."

Thought Butcher can't quite tell how old she is, he's got some clues and now, a few more. When he takes his next smoky, exhale, he lets some of the bullshit out, too. There's something to be said for practicing skills (like observation) to keep a person sharp. It's a whole other thing if it's cataloguing emotional blackmail on a teenager - which is really just a taller, less compliant child - who Butcher doesn't think is on the same level as he is when it comes to mischief. Not now, at least.

So, when the question comes, he answers, bullshitless, "bar fight. The one whose nut you crushed is all elbows, and good old Ethan-- Let's just say we just saw he ain't chums with the Me Too movement." Ethan's head had been the closest thing to bash. It's not like he was trying to avenge some poor lady, he just wanted to fight, and that seemed a better excuse than the audacity of an elbow in a crowded bar.

"What about you? Go to school with these cunts?"

Maeve snorts and says, "No, thank Christ.. I'm at Barton. The college."

Technically she hasn't started classes yet, but she's enrolled and she paid half her tuition, even though it took a good hunk out of what she's been saving, and the rest is on a student loan with no interest until after she graduates. Classes start soon, though, in about a month, and she figures she can say she's a college student now and it's fair.

"Some friends of mine do, though," she adds and then shrugs. "And they don't much like me for whatever reason it is this week. First time it was that I'm a homeless orphan, second time it was that I was in a sex cult, this time it's just that I'm a huge slag, apparently, and I'll fuck any of them for a fiver."

"Teenage boys are cunts," Butcher drawls, quirking an eyebrow at this infodump that he's not entirely sure what to do with. He somehow manages to bypass sex cult for the moment in favor of adding, "and you should up your price."

People didn't like him much either his whole life. He has a rugged charm to him, but that can get buried pretty deep under a mountain of hair-trigger rage. So, it's a strangely placid moment that Billy takes a drag of his cigarette in solidarity. So unassuming that he doesn't notice that Ethan and his friends are mobbing toward his back with a bat.

Edited 2020-12-18 20:39 (UTC)

"For my essays or for sex?" Maeve quips in return, one of her little, held back smiles on her face, the sort that's genuine and almost looks as if she doesn't know what to do with it.

"Our friends are coming back," she warns, wishing she was more surprised by the sight of Ethan and company with a bat. They're really not very bright, that never have been, but this is an escalation from the first time Maeve dealt with them. Back then they had been hanging out with girls and stealing her book because they thought it was funny.

Now they seem to be messed up in something bigger. Something Maeve wants absolutely no part of.

"I'm not getting arrested, yeah," she says. "I'm not fucking up my future like that."

"Ain't for me to say," Butcher responds of her prices, smirking. It's his version of a restrained smile he doesn't know what to do with. For all of the sorts Butcher's mixed himself up with over the years, the company is growing even more diverse. If he were to gather all of the people he considered capable of helping him - say an Ocean's 11 style crime team-up that's all deception but less heist and more murder - it would be a very strange line-up indeed. Sweeney would throw the height off. He'd have to be in the middle. Maybe second-row middle. Butcher doesn't care if he looks short but he damn well better be in the middle.

Even Butcher didn't think these little high school twerps would be so stupid as to come back. His mouth bends down in a sort of go figure gesture. He shifts his weight so he's turned facing them now, Maeve a bit behind him. His neck turns toward her just a touch when she speaks.

"No, you ain't." This is meant to be reassuring, but he can understand how only a certain kind of person would feel safer with Butcher around.

"Ain't you the thickest twat," Butcher calls to the lads - only one of which has a weapon. "The three of ya: the loosest, floppiest cunts I ever seen." The kid is fucking furious. Ethan swings wide (so wide) and Butcher grabs the bat in one hand. There's a second of pity. Butcher jams the base of the bat into Ethan's face. It clatters to the floor. The two remaining boys were not prepared for this outcome. They're staring. For a second, they're all stuck standing in dumb silence.

"Descriptive," Maeve says from behind Billy, shifting to the side slightly so she can see around his big frame as Ethan's nose spurts blood. She has absolutely no sympathy for them. If they're going to insist on being this stupid, they sort of deserve everything they get. Maeve isn't big on the concept of karma, she thinks it's all more or less bullshit, or her mum would've gotten what's coming to her a long time ago, but there's definitely something satisfying in seeing these idiots face down someone they can possibly beat.

"I'd fuck off, yeah?" she says to the guys. "Pretty sure my new friend here gives even less of a fuck about your personal safety than I do and that's saying something."

"Shut up, slut," one of the nameless idiots answers and Maeve rolls her eyes. She's not sure how that reputation manages to follow her everywhere. In Moordale it was Maeve Wiley's a cockbiter and now it's just straight up slut. It's so predictable. So boring.

The blood doesn't have Maeve screaming away down the street, but that's not surprising. Despite the fact that she'd kneed a guy in the balls - right, that's why this dumb twat is slouching - and kicked Ethan with a steel toe easy enough, blood is different for a lot of normal-types. While she's normal in a small-town-English sort of way, he can already tell she's tougher and smarter than most. This is another one that he'd trade Hughie for in a hearbeat.

Butcher's about to say something devastating, but the whole tide shifts when Dollar Store James Franco on the right calls out like that at Maeve. That violent itch slams into the space between his eyeballs. It's not some misguided sense of chivalry or a gross pass at impressing anyone - he just hates cunts. Cunts see some kinds of people as weaker than them, and they need these people to know that. There is nothing Butcher loves more than wiping the smug smile off what's left of a cunt's face.

Ethan is still down and gushing blood. He'll be down for a bit and the bat is rolling toward him. Butcher redirects the bat with a tap of his boot.

"Oi Maeve. Grab that, yeah?" He's not telling her to use it, but there's a suggestion. If she wants to keep her hands clean, she can help him a lot just by getting the blunt instrument out of some pathetic hands.

The other two are slow to react. It's like they want to get their asses kicked. If that's the case, Butcher holds his hand out for the bat and says," or give it here and I'll teach you a thing or two." It's not a huge deal if one of these dumb kids gets a punch on him while he's playing teacher.

"I never was very good at sports," Maeve says as she retrieves the bat from the ground and passes it into Billy's waiting hand. She'd said she's not getting arrested and she won't, because at the slightest hint of a siren or a cop, she'll disappear, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to see these idiots getting smacked around.

They all have such an inflated sense of self worth. She'd like to see that get taken done, at least a notch or two.

"A demonstration is probably pretty useful," she continues, smiling her tight lipped smile at the one who had called her a slut.

"Diobolical," Butcher appraises, happy to take the bat back. If he were to dig deeper, he would easily find that this fight doesn't feel wholly satisfying. These kids didn't do anything; at least, nothing like what Butcher used to go after. Lighting up an out-of-control Supe for hurting innocents is the sort of thing that he can contort to feel good. Even without the bat he's a Howitzer and they're a couple of milk cartons. This is the first thought of many that will lead him to the idea that something needs to change. Not now, though.

"Lesson one," Butcher begins. Now, he jabs the tip of the bat into Shut Up Slut's Adams apple. He makes a terrible choking sound. "If someone's flappin' the old windbag, shut them up." That one stumbles back, so Butcher just knocks him over with a crack of the bat to the ribs. It will be a bitch to recover from, but he'll he down for good and that's the goal.

Cunt # 3 rushes him and gets a damn good punch in, square on Butcher's mouth. Billy seems right pleased. He bars the lad across the throat with the bat and holds him there. Blood gathers in his mouth and he spits it out away from all of the masses.

"Any questions so far?"