Maeve Wiley (
complexfemalecharacter) wrote2020-12-07 03:09 pm
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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.
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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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."
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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?"
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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."
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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"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?"
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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."
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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.
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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."
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"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.
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"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."
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"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.
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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?"
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"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.
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"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.
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"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?"
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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."
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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.
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"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.
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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."
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"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."
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