“I’ve had a piece of you and it left me thoroughly unsatisfied.”

          Which might very well have been a lie, but if she could pretend that nothing she’d ever done with Gideon Bitchass Prewett was enjoyable (let alone, sleeping with the man - what in God’s name could she possibly have been thinking?), then you had better believe she would. Getting her to admit that she might even like fighting with him at any possible moment, as well, was not something she was keen on doing either. Fuck him, fuck that ridiculous smirk, and fuck his ability to always show up and frustrate her until she wanted nothing more than to pull all her hair out of her scalp and leave the country.

          As he stared at her daughter, her jaw tensed, fingers itching to grab that ice cream carton and stick it in his mouth just to get him to shut. up. “Yes, your hair is much prettier than his. I imagine farm animals try to eat his in the hopes that it’s hay,” she snarled, scowling at Gideon - that he’d have the gall to talk to her daughter, as if she might like him, as if he and Gretchen didn’t nearly throw themselves at each other in a scuffle every time they were close to each other. Grabbing the handles of her cart, she made to turn away, start off the other way down the aisle, and never look back (and perhaps purchase a small island away from the entire world and live there forever with only Eris), but Eris gave her a very long and hard stare. 

          “I want. To touch. His hairs.” 

          For near a minute, the two looked steadily back at each other, before the older sighed and the younger smiled and turned around to look at Gideon, holding out a hand. Gretchen glowered, calmly seething with her knuckles white against her shopping cart. “You can come over, Prewett, but if you step a single fucking toe out of line, I’ll have your balls and hang them proudly on my front door.” Eris nodded rather gravely, murmuring, “Mum will had your balls,” in agreement, then promptly outstretched her hand further.

          “Uhm,” the toddler deliberated at the mention of ice cream, looking to the carton currently in his hands then back up at his face. “Berry - razzberry. Mum says to me to not eat animals.” Her brows furrowed deeply, creases appearing on her forehead. “You killed ice cream. Your monkey.”

          If he wasn’t being stared down by those mesmerising blue eyes, peering around her mother’s arm on such a precarious lean from the shopping cart that he almost felt concerned, Gideon might have mentioned that the only animals who had been making attempts at his hair lately had been behind a very different set of bars, but this was where restraint kicked in. While he doubted Bletchley’s spawn possessed the capacity for fear, on the odd chance she did he’d rather this encounter didn’t end in a toddler’s tears or anyone explaining what the term prison bitch meant.

         Her summons was greeted with just a hint of smugness, as if his dubious charm had won over the tiny tot with the grabby fingers rather than the shade of his hair and he beamed comically as he crouched in front of the shopping cart as if the very real threat against his balls was an idle one with a passing, “Balls, door, got it.”  All toddlers invariably had sticky fingers, a fact he’d come to accept after the third time Charlie had smeared jam into his hair, but the strength in her grip was unexpected as she yanked at his hair and seemed reluctant to budge once it was in her grasps. “Just like your mum,” he muttered, before his eyes dropped to the dripping and buckled carton of ice cream in his hands that had attracted her attention.

          It took a moment to decipher the toddler speak, his forehead furrowing in a way that mimicked hers before he replied, “Ahh, see — I don’t know what your mum’s been telling you but Chunky Monkey isn’t made from monkeys, it’s made for monkeys,” and adding a passable string of monkey chatter for emphasis as he watched that serious stare waver towards something closer to giggles. The bewildered stares of shoppers clustered around the aisle to gawk at the spectacle of the standoff between the over-sized biker in all his leather and patches and the toddler and disgruntled mother only seemed to grow as Eris delightedly yanked again at his hair. He grinned around a wince, winking before he reached out, over the lip of the open freezer to nestle the buckled carton amidst the frozen peas and corn. “I’ll tell you what, this monkey will take the raspberry ripple if he can have his hair back in one piece, deal?”

He got the distinct impression that it wasn’t a trade that would easily be taken.

His beer had already gone flat (though it wasn’t much of a surprise since he had been sitting at that same booth for nearly an hour now, his pint only half-finished) and Cedric was still at his daycare. Just his luck that he’d gotten a day off today, though Amos supposed it had been an awfully long time since he’d had some time alone. Even if he was spending it by sitting at a bar by himself during the day.

“Sorry, that seat’s – ” He began, when he thought he saw someone approaching him. “Oh.” 

It had been a good morning; sunshine and dirty hands and motor oil and the smell of not-so-fresh but definitely free London air, but much like the rest of his life, there was no surprise to the glimpse of gloomy clouds loitering on the horizon — or one of the booths inside, to be specific. Over two years had passed but Gideon had  discovered that you didn’t forget the face of the cop who arrested you. “You must be a special kind of masochist.” 

Dropping heavily into the opposite side of the booth, his lips curled into the customary sneer that found it’s way to his face whenever cops showed up in his bar (it was far preferable to Glinda II or his father’s preferred method of eviction.) “We don’t serve bacon here.”

Charlie Hunnam doing the #22pushups challenge for #22kill - day 6 (x)

Eva Green & Charlie Hunnam | Emporio Armani 2005

@goodnightgideon

          Gretchen’s focus flashed towards the ice cream being crunched in his hands, imagining for a moment that it were his own head and brain that were beginning to spill over the edges. It was a gruesome yet astonishingly enthralling image, one that she let fade too quickly as she quickly bit back, “You don’t know what I do and don’t own, Prewett,” with a ferocity colder than her voice and mere presence. 

          She looked to the group of employees trailing Gideon, timid faces pale as they continued to push at the closest person near them to approach him. “Is it alright if you throw him out? Ban him from here? I can tell him to scram if you lot can’t.” Turning heads were anxiously looking from one another, unsure of who was going to answer until a short, mousy haired woman could mumble, ‘N-no, ma’am… we have the- the situation under control,’ which only prompted an eyeroll on Gretchen’s behalf. However, she was quickly drawn back to Gideon as he started to edge around her. Fear struck her stomache.

          With a surprising amount of force, she grabbed him by the arm and shoved him back against a freezer door, bony elbow to his chest to keep him in place and a pinch of fingers to his chin to force him to look down at her and anywhere but at her cart. “Try and take a peek again and you’ll be the next victim that ends up in my cart. How much do you think he’d sell for? Half a pound for a pound of him? For two pounds? No one? He’s really not worth that much, you know. Just get rid of h-”

          “Mum?” It was a small voice carried from the front of her cart. For several moments, Gretchen was frozen in her spot, until her forehead slowly fell forward against her soon-to-be victim’s chest in resignation. Eyelids closed and stayed closed as a breath was taken in, exhaling when she finally looked over at Eris, who’s blue eyes flickered back and forth from Gretchen and Gideon. “Mum, why did he taked my hairs?”

          “He didn’t take your hair, Eris. Feel the top of your head, it’s still all there.” Her arms lowered back to her side, though one rose to point a strict finger at the jackwad against the freezer in warning, and she stepped away, towards the toddler. “Come on, Eris, turn around, don’t bother looking at him.”

          There were fleeting moments, like lightning strikes of revelations, where Gideon understood what his whiskey-soaked brain had seen in Gretchen Bletchley that night all those years ago — it was perhaps telling that these moments inevitably coincided with this bird-like creature of half his size laying hands on him and shoving him into the nearest solid object like all that bristling hostility couldn’t be contained, her fingers pinching hard into his chin to keep his eyes focused on her. Equal parts threat and amusement settled in the baring of his teeth in a smile, eyes fixed unflinchingly back on hers like maybe he liked living dangerously (and good behaviour for early parole was so terribly boring.)

        “You want a piece of me, darlin’? I don’t sell by the pound.”

         (Her problem he’d always thought, was that she talked entirely too much.)

         All that overblown hostility seemed to fold in a moment, deflated by a small voice demanding attention that did the damned near unthinkable and rendered Gretchen momentarily silent. He stared, mildly alarmed by the head that had just collided with his chest as if he were a substitute for your average brick wall before his eyes drifted, inevitably, to the toddler peering curiously over at them from the shopping cart. Blue eyes, impossibly large and no doubt as judgemental as her mother’s (jesus fucking christ, Bletchley had spawned) met his and all the edges to his smile dissolved.

        “This?” Gideon asked attention entirely diverted to the smaller of the potential evils (and the curiously magnetic force of those big blue eyes) and tugging at the ends of his hair comically (if only to ignore the pointed finger shot his way, because there was nothing so satisfying as pushing Gretchen’s buttons). “Nah, this isn’t nearly as pretty as your hair, sweetheart. Just ask your mum.”

        It wasn’t like he knew how to talk to little girls — little boys liked to be grossed out or thrown into the air until they squealed and he’d ample practice at both of those since he’d been released and it wasn’t like he knew this kid so why was he struck with the bewildering need to impress her? There was Chunky Monkey dribbling over his fingers in sticky trails and Gretchen was hovering like a mother bear prepared to disembowel him at any moment so really there was no reason to stick around. What did he care if Gretchen Bletchley had proved them all wrong and successfully revealed herself to be an actual human being? If he took his ice cream and left they might not even ban him from the store. But.

       “Hey,” he paused, ignoring the steady drip of melting ice cream puddling on the floor as he lifted the decidedly squashed carton up for inspection, “What do you think, kiddo, Chunky Monkey or Raspberry Ripple?”

“I do have great taste, and it’s a very beautiful bike.” She knew it was a long shot that she would ever get possession of the twin’s bike and she could hardly imagine Sev’s reaction if she brought home another bike, but she still couldn’t help the want she felt. Her lips quirked when they both answered simultaneously, quickly realising that hadn’t been the easiest or the most peaceful question to ask.

She would have laughed at the positively bristling tension between the two men but she doubted that would have been the best way to remain on seemingly good terms with them. She could almost imagine one of them sabotaging the other’s bike in order to get ahead, but she was entirely unwilling to wade into what was clearly a longstanding argument. It wasn’t until she was certain she was being spoken to again to reengage with the conversation, smiling back at Gideon with an easy assurance.

Her eyebrows raised slightly as he described the third bike, sighing slightly in obvious longing. Her bike, whilst fast, was not the fastest of bikes available on the market. “Mine’s as receptive as anything, but I need to sort out the suspension. It’s not designed for rough terrain but give it smooth tarmac and it’s a dream. However, considering the work I do, sometimes smooth tarmac can’t be a guarantee. I’m sure you understand.”

If anything, the easy smiles that (depending on your point of view) lessened (or intensified) the hard image of two overly large men dripping in ink seemed to grow at the mention of modifications. Their eyes simultaneously (almost comically) drawn back to Marlene’s bike, as if to size up the damage they could do, any hint of their own careers fielded behind the brightness of their grins. 

There was only a hint of a tease in Fabian’s voice as he inquired, innocent as one of Molly’s boys having been caught with their hands in the biscuit tin, “You do a lot of off-roading?”

Gideon snorted, eyes fixed intently on the undercarriage of the roadster, “We’re in the business of .. off the beaten track expeditions ourselves. Never know where your ride might lead you these days. We could take a look if you want, it’d be a shame to let those muppets at Bravo lay their mitts on her.” There was a momentary pause in which Fabian cleared his throat loudly and pointedly before Gideon glanced back Marlene’s way, lips twitching, “For a fee, of course. We aren’t a charity.”

“Don’t let the born-again beard here fool you,” Fabian added, shoving at Gideon’s shoulder and receiving a solid smack to the ribs in return.

send me ‘♡’ for a ship aesthetic of our muses.

This is a modern fairytale. No happy endings.

          Get some groceries, check out, and go home. That was all Gretchen was trying to do today - a late work time meant that it was the perfect night to sit in with a bottle of wine and the newest episode of whatever insane reality TV show that she happened to stumble upon. The groceries were going so well, too, but nothing good lasts for so long.

          Her head snapped up from her phone and the half written text (care for a wine ni), eyes zeroing in on the figure ahead. Just anyone standing in her path would not have made her blood boil, just anyone bitching and moaning in her general direction would not have brought a flame to her stomache, and just anyone with fucking ginger hair and fucking nice big ass arms and a fucking vibe of being in some weird as shit motorcycle cult would not have tensed her jaw so tight she could barely speak for several moments. 

          No, it had to be fucking Gideon fucking Prewett.

          A moment was spent deleting the text and and rewriting it (we need two bottles of whiskey tonight), glancing down briefly at a very startled Eris, stepping in front of her cart (making a point of keeping the little ginger child out of sight of the much bigger ginger child)… and then came the storm. “Nobody’s keeping you from buying your fucking ice cream, Prewett. Just get it and get on. Who said you needed even needed to fucking speak to me about it?” Stepping up right in front of him, she glared fiercely upwards. “Why the fuck are you at fucking Tesco? Right now. I thought the booze and drugs could sustain you; wished they would suck the fucking life right out of you, you fuckface, but a woman can dream.”

          In the grand cosmic scheme of his life, Gideon liked to think of himself as the reasonable one — by proxy. He could make deals for the betterment of the family business that he would have preferred to settle with a broken leg and he could negotiate terms without it ending in blood on the floor. Sometimes. The problem was that Gretchen Bletchley had an unfortunate ability to get under his skin, her mere presence setting his blood to boil and inciting the deeply desired reaction of wanting to bounce his own face off a wall if only for the possibility that he might just forget he’d run into her and her legs and her grocery cart. 

         And here they went again.

         “I would have my Chunky Monkey and be on my merry-fuckin’-way if you didn’t try to ram me,” (the simple act of peacefully pushing a grocery cart in his near vicinity was a declaration of war when it came attached to Gretchen Bletchley, it seemed). He paused, as if momentarily distracted by her surging into his space, spitting acid more reliably than one of Molly’s tweakers before continuing, “You don’t own this fucking Tesco, Bletchley. This is a free country, I can buy my fucking Chunky Monkey wherever I goddamn choose.”

         His hand curled around the frozen exterior of the ice cream carton until it began to buckle and his entourage of shop assistants dissolved into a frantic game of, ‘It’s your turn.’

         Gideon’s eyes dropped, peering over her shoulder towards the grocery cart full of actual groceries and noting how she shifted to keep herself between him and the cart. “What are you hiding, Bletchley? The remains of your last victim?”

         He stepped pointedly to the side as if to get a better look.

It must have spoken volumes on the concerning levels of chaos they encountered in their everyday lives that Bellatrix found no immediate cause for concern when Gideon appeared, armed with an axe, to take a violent swing at the garbage disposal’s power socket. Instead, her expression soured almost instantly, watching with flashing eyes as the disposal unit performed its swan song in a blaze of heat and smoke, before finally breaking off into a sad little screech of defeat. She grabbed a cleaning cloth from atop the counter and made a half-assed effort to taper off some of the smoke, glaring at Gideon as if to say, ‘was that really necessary? i was enjoying myself.’

“Fifteen years. Next week it will have been fifteen years since I’ve been living with you lot,” she announced, folding up the cleaning cloth and pitching it back onto the counter as she side stepped Gideon on her way to crack open a window. It wouldn’t have been the first time they’d dealt with a fire in this flat, and she didn’t expect it to be the last. In the words of dear old Gruffyd, she supposed it gave the place character. Bullet holes and all. “Fifteen years and I still can’t go fifteen minutes without tripping over his shit. Today it was a cellphone. Yesterday it was his underwear. Last week it was a goddamn tire iron. Does he not understand the concept of drawers?”

Scowling, Bellatrix left the window side and perched herself on a seat behind their kitchen counter. “That was the sound of justice,” she told him firmly. Bellatrix snatched an apple from a nearby basket and wiped it off with the cuff of her sleeve, taking an angry bite out of it while noting Gideon’s appearance. Something resembling amusement flickered past her lips. “If you really want to sell the Paul Bunyan look, throw on some plaid and go cut us down a pine tree. I want something authentic this Christmas, none of that cheap plastic shit.”

There was something deeply satisfying about the pluming smoke and sparks erupting from the brutalised power socket, if not from the offended ceremonial teatowel waving to disperse the smoke towards the newly cracked window and Bellatrix’s clear displeasure with having her ritual sacrifice cut short. His eyes dropped to the mangled, smoking mess of blades and iPhone entangled within the garbage disposal and his nose wrinkled slightly, wondering how long it would take for Fabian to put two and two together and decided it was probably for the best to find somewhere else to be tonight if he didn’t want to get pinned down for another twelve-hour shoot out in the living room.

“No,” he replied blandly, as if his twin’s lack of organisational skills were just another accepted quirk of his personality, much like Bellatrix’s penchant for recording devices in unsavoury places and his own wildly possessive streak over his things earned through two years behind bars. They were a volatile mix for such a small space, but this was what his family looked like. That and the banging and crashing of tiny people from upstairs and Molly occasionally shrieking for them all to shut up. “Funny, it sounded a lot like first blood of the day,” he replied with a roll of his eyes, hooking one of the bar stools away from the kitchen counter next to her and dropping down onto it with a grimace.

“I wear plaid on Thursdays,” he corrected her, staring down at his hands, lined with the grease of the bike he’d been busily tinkering with downstairs as if it might keep the stoic expression on his face but it was already beginning to shift. “Christmas is going to have to wait a while, Trixie. But if you wanted an authentic experience I think I saw an elf at the ink shop the other day.” 

Any semblance of excessive violence folded into snickering, the grin on his face a clear sign that the temporary storm had blown over, “Bean’s gonna be pissed.”