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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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"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?"

"Throat, ribs, balls," Maeve recites, even though he hadn't quite summed it up like that. It's close enough and it's the sort of thing Maeve's always kind of carried in the back of her mind.

Moordale wasn't dangerous, not really. It's a small town with a lot of entitled assholes, but Maeve had never felt truly threatened there. But she remembers what happened to Aimee, the literal wanker on the bus, and she's not going to let anyone get away with anything like that with her.

"Pretty straightforward," she says cheerfully. "You alright? You're bleeding a bit."

"Fine, thanks." Billy points at Maeve approvingly with the tip of the bat. "You're the kid in the class that takes good notes. Bet everyone cheats off you. And you turned it into a lucrative business." He smiles a bit, just on one side. "You might just be the first half-decent kid I ever met."

Before he can spend too long there, he traps the young lad in an easy headlock and says, cheery enough, "what say I knock this cunt out and we find a taco truck or the like?" Sure it was his lesson to begin with, but this is like punching toilet paper and there is no satisfaction in that.

"And here I thought once I hit eighteen, went to college, and lived on my own, I'd stop being called a kid," she answers with a put upon sigh, even though it doesn't bother her much at all. Maeve hasn't been a kid for a very long time. She's been on her own since she was fourteen, no parents looking out for her, no guardian, just her alone in the caravan.

It's not so bad, after all that, having someone think of her as a kid.

"Yeah, alright," she agrees. "I'm never going to say no to tacos."

The cleanest way to do this would just be to snap his neck. It's a little bitch of a neck and it wouldn't take much. It's also not worth the trouble in a lot of ways. Instead, he grabs the bloke's head in his hands and slams the lad's face into his knee. He crumbles.

"Right, then!" He straightens, adjusting his shirt and the collar of his coat. "I'm starving." A booted foot steps over one felled cunt, then the other. He flips Ethan's one good eye off. With a swing, Butcher tosses the bat into a nearby dumpster. They are forgotten as soon as he sets his pace for the truck that's usually around here, somewhere.

"One sec," Maeve answers, seeing her last appointment heading in their direction. She looks warily at the guys on the ground, but Maeve ignores it all, as if none of is even real, and she hands the young woman the folder with her paper in it.

"Here," Maeve says.

"Thanks," the girl answers, handing over the money, then glancing at Billy before she scurries off down the street.

"Right," she says, looking to Billy again. "Done for the day, let's go."

Sometimes it hurts him deep down when innocent people look at him the way that young bird just did. Standing over three bloodied, semi-conscious children and bleeding out his own mouth though, he gets it.

"Good hustle," Butcher appraises. From him, this is a lot of praise that he wouldn't usually dole out so easily. Seeing this odd kid stand out unashamed and unafraid takes him somewhere he doesn't understand. There's a dull ache that has nothing to do with her, but it makes him feel... something. Alive, maybe. Like there's a version of his past where things went differently. Not for him - but for the first person to ever matter to him. The one he lost first.

"Tacos are on you, then," Butcher says gruffly but not unkind. He's just seen her make money twice. Of course he's not going to try and force a uni girl to pay his way, but he can give her some shite about it.

They're walking now. The streets are empty for some reason, so they walk in the middle of the road. Butcher likes the feeling of taking up space that isn't meant for him.

"Fuck you, that's my rent," Maeve answers with a snort. She'll pay for herself, but she's not about to buy food for some guy she just met, even if she does think he's kind of cool in a fucked up way.

She's used to barely making any money, barely being able to buy food besides some shitty tea bags and cup noodles. Tacos are kind of a luxury, one she wouldn't have gotten for herself much back home and not only because Moordale wasn't exactly the height of cultured cuisine.

"So what's your deal, then?" she asks as they walk. "You just go around making friends with all the nicest people in Darrow or what?"

There are few things that make Butcher feel warmer and fuzzier than when someone tells him to fuck himself. For some, it's a certain kind of affection and maybe the only kind he can handle. His smirk is a shadow of a quiet grin. The afternoon had been full of violence and decent company. For a kid, Maeve is al-fucking-right.

"Aye - and you're the nicest of all," Butcher shoots back, that little smirk deepening. Once that is done, he decides to actually answer the question.

"I ain't been here long. I came from New York..." Hmm. Nope. "Weren't much there for me anymore." Clearly Maeve isn't going to think he got to Darrow by choice and that's not really what he means. It's the ambiguous language of a liar, a manipulator - a man that does what he has to as a means to an end that will never come. These habits are difficult to break, even for a person trying harder than Billy is.

"'M bored as hell here. The fuck do you do to pass the time? When you ain't getting plagiarizer for money or kneeing cunts in the bollocks?" There's not a great chance a school-aged girl is going to mention something that appeals to Butcher, but who knows.

She's eighteen years old and she's pretty sure whatever she does isn't going to be all that interesting to this guy, at least in terms of finding himself new hobbies. For that reason alone, the fact that he's asking as if he might take her up on her suggestions, means she has to give him shit for it.

"Well, there's the brothel," she says, pretending to consider. "Work there two or three nights a week, but don't worry. No shagging. They just pay me to hit people with this really big paddle. All studded on one side, you know? Outside of that, I deal a lot of drugs. Like, a lot of drugs. All the hard stuff, especially, that's where I'm the best of the best."

If there's one thing Maeve will never do, it's that. But he doesn't know that about her.

Butcher's not down on things that are none of his business - like sex work - but she is clearly giving him shit. He rolls his eyes.

"Alright, alright, leave it out," Butcher says, smirking. "You ain't dealin' drugs and writing grade-A papers." One of his favorite people in the world (fuck you, he'd never say it) can do a whole lot of drugs and can still create the most brilliant weapons, drugs and solutions. It's not that the things are impossible to cross, it's just that he is certain this girl does not do drugs. Her skin, for one, is pretty immaculate.

If she dealt them, those cunts bleeding in the alley would have a different tune about her. There's nothing a young rich kid loves more than hard drugs.

"I buy the bit with the paddle, though." He carefully bumps her with his arm because no, he doesn't.

"Lad I know said he's got family came here, too. You know anyone like that?"

"Uh-uh," she answers, shaking her head. "I mean, I've got no family here."

She doesn't have much of a family at all, really, but she doesn't need to say that to some guy she's only just met. So far she's enjoying the conversation and she doesn't get the sense he's some sort of pervert who's going to use any of this against her, but she's used to keeping her personal details personal.

"The guy I'm seeing, he's got someone from home, though," she says. "Not family, just like... the town sheriff or something like that. I guess they're sort of friends."

Butcher pulls a face. "Thought young people don't take too kindly to cops anymore," he grumbles, because he hates law enforcement a great deal, himself. What kind of hick-ass town is this lad coming from that a town sheriff would pass for family mention and why the fuck was some sheriff here? It's time for him to stop thinking of this place as some sort of magic business complex where people set up shop like it's a choice. Everyone got here the same magical way Butcher did. There's an us-versus-them mentality that is going to take a lot longer to shed than a couple of months and maybe then he'll stop seeing the place as a million native cunts and a handful of poor sods like himself. The ratio of outsiders seems pretty large, and when he's got nothing else to do, he wants to know what that means.

The taco truck Butcher sees around sometimes is, in fact, at the corner when they get there. Thank fuck, because he'd taken an educated guess that this was the corner he's seen it on. It's usually out later when the bars are the only thing open.

There's no line, either, so Butcher gestures for her to go first.

Maeve shrugs. She doesn't love coppers because they're generally pretty shit, Billy is right about that, but she thinks things are maybe a bit different where and when Steve is from.

"He's from the eighties," she says. "Maybe things were different then? And they're from a small town. I don't think cops are out there busting the heads of black people in small town eighties America as much as they are now. Kinda hard to get away with it when there's only three cops on the force."

She places her order, then steps aside for Billy to do the same, chewing on her lower lip as she waits.

"All due respect love, they absolutely fuckin' ain't different," Butcher says, face rotten with disgust. "Loads easier to commit a crime when ain't but 2 other cunts to keep quiet. Law enforcement is power. Ain't nothin' people get drunk on quicker."

She goes to order and Butcher thinks, great, they're talking about police brutality and corruption of power on a brisk Wednesday morning after a light assault and battery. This place is so fucking weird, but what choice does he have but to work with what he's been given?

Billy orders two or three whatever-the-fucks and meets her with two cans of whatever was caffeinated. He hands one to her without a word about it.

"Call me crazy, but I get the impression," Butcher begins, cracking his soda open, "that you like it here."

"Thanks," she says when he hands her the drink, then shrugs at his comment. He's not wrong and she doesn't see any reason to pretend he might be. Maybe they're still kind of strangers, but he hasn't looked at her tits and he hasn't asked to fuck her or called her a slut. Maybe Maeve's standards are pretty low if that's all he has to do in order to not be a complete shit, but they are what they are.

"Yeah, I do," she answers. "The place I come from wasn't exactly bustling with opportunity. People there have been calling me a slag and an orphan and a chav since I was fourteen years old. My parents fucked off, my mum's an addict, I live alone in a caravan trying to pay rent by selling essays while getting through school at the same time. There's not much there for me to miss."