KEEPING CLEAN

Rated R for cursing, violence and fish.


It was a small shop somewhere in London, set off in the back alleys among a line of stores that had long ago moved out. It was built of crumbling bricks, and painted in a colour that may have once been stylishly referred to as 'charcoal' but was now, respectively, dirt and birdshit. At the top of the squat building there was an off-white sign with cheerful, peeling gold letters that proclaimed the store to be 'Marker's Funerary, supplying exquisite coffins since 1977.'

Somewhere outside, there was the sound of a transport truck rumbling along the broken street, and pulling up beside the building. Two men in blue jumpsuits leapt out of the beaten vehicle and walked to the carriage of the transport, opening it; they pulled out what appeared to be a recently-made, unlaquered coffin. The edges were unsanded, and the interior was no doubt unfurnished. The casket was handled without much care, and then dropped unceremoniously onto the concrete - there was an 'oof' from inside.

The lid to the coffin was thrown back with a loud creak, and a man was pulled from it looking a little worse for the wear. He had splinters and cuts all over his young face, and one of his eyes were half-closed from what could only be assumed as a good, solid punch. He opened his mouth to speak, but a fist met his teeth first, and he came to the logical decision that silence was best.

He was taken under each arm and frog-marched inside where he was unceremoniously tossed onto the floor, and slid several feet before he finally found himself nose-to-shoe with another man. He looked up slowly with the one eye currently available to him.

Now, if one were following accordingly to plot devices, the man should have been tall and wearing a dark suit and foreboding smile. The foreboding smile was there, but the man was actually pretty small, balding, and wearing a bright blue apron covered in wood shavings.

"Travis," The man in the apron said, spreading his hands in a good-natured way that made everybody in the room edgy. "Travis, look at you. You're a mess."

Travis looked blearily up from the floor, his lip swollen.

"You can thank your men for that, Charlie."

"No sense in holding grudges, they're just doing their job." Charlie said dismissively, going down onto his haunches. "So if you do yours, then you can get out of here twice as fast. No sense in formalities, we both know what you're here for: where's Denny?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Travis replied too soon. Charlie exchanged a meaningful look with one of the jumpsuit men, who came forward and landed a solid kick in the fallen man's ribcage, causing him to crumple up. Charlie stood again, and began to walk the length of the store, calloused fingers running over the lids of the numerous coffins on display.

"I'm quite proud of this place Mister Giantis," he said, ignoring the sounds of the man's agony. "I make all of these coffins myself you know. They take a lot of work, every one of them - you'd know, you just spent an hour in one of them. But still, i'd hate to think of your blood spoiling any of them, I like to keep the wood in its grain, and it's not good for business."

He turned suddenly on his heels, and his shoes squeaked loudly on the floor.

"So I'll ask you again, where's Denny gone to?" It wasn't a question this time. It was a demand laced with implications of pain.

"Denny who?"

Another steel toed boot hit into his ribcage, and this time there was a very absolute crack that told everyone a bone had just snapped in two. Travis lost his lunch at that point.

"'Denny who'?" Charlie repeated with a humorless smile on his scarred face. "Dennis-Fuckin'-Farthing. Denny-the-fuckin'-rat, that's who. You should know him; you rolled with him for a good few years. What was it you called yourselves? The brothers of knives, or something of the sort?"

"The Brotherhood of the Blade." One of the jumpsuit men said, his ogre-face fixed on the retching man. "Dey all broke off a while back, tight bunch though – they were damn good con men, I tells ya."

The other man in the jumpsuit nodded.

"Yeah, all of 'em 'ave a tattoo on 'em; a cleaver or summat. Appar'ntly their ring leader lost it and retired from business a while back." He kneeled down beside Travis, and grasped the edge of the man's collar, pulling it back. Just on the back of the man's neck, there was the fading image of a blood-stained cleaver buried inside a gold coin. "Aye, see there, Charlie?"

There was a long pause in which Charlie stared at the man, and his large moustache bristled. Outside, a slight breeze caused the outdoor bell to jingle merrily. The silence broke.

"I didn't ask for a fucking life story," Charlie shouted, losing his temper, "Shut the fuck up and kick him! I want answers!"


Denny was in shit.

Not literally, of course.

Alright, well, it may have been literal, as he was running through London's sewer system. It smelled quite badly, but he didn't really have time to stop and notice the air's particular pungency, as he was too busy running for his life.

He'd been running for his life for a while now, actually, and he wasn't all too sure where he was running to anymore, but all he knew was that he had two very large men with two very large guns chasing after him and he had no intention of stopping to find out why.

Ideas raced through his exhausted and sleep-deprived mind, and eventually, once the kaleidoscope of thoughts stopped, he settled on one firmly lodged destination. He would go to an old friend of his.

As he splashed by, the breeze that caught at his shirt collar moved back for a momentary glimpse of a tattoo; a butcher knife and a gold coin.


There was a flash of silver, a glint of light on steel as the cleaver came down and cut through layers of flesh again and again, effectively separating it into several tidy pieces. There was a satisfied grunt, the knife was cleaned, and there was a gentle scrape of metal as it was put back in its holding.

Soap stepped back from the butcher's block and yawned. He pulled off his sanitary gloves, carefully disposed of them, and turned to the pot boiling on the stove. He looked at the broth for a moment, crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge, removing a bag of vegetables. He conscientiously cleaned every spot on the table and cutting board before setting the bag down; he pulled out an onion, which turned out to be badly bruised – no surprises there, he'd gotten it from Tom.

"Bugger." Soap said to no one in particular, sifting through the vegetables that sat in varying states of depressing rot.

"Bugger what, Soap? That's Tom's job."

Soap looked up, and where no one had been standing previously, had now been filled in by Bacon, Ed and Tom.

"Now that was a low shot." Tom said, tugging at his jacket.

"You can take it, you've got enough padding." Ed said, motioning to the circumference of Tom's middle.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're fat, Tom," Bacon said bluntly, having a staring contest with one of the pig heads that sat in a macabre-jaunty fashion on a counter. "And getting fatter by the hour."

"I still fail to see how you can possibly accuse me of being over weight. Look, I'm a bloody rail."

"A very fat rail."

"Would you three shut up?" Soap said, wielding a rotten onion as though it were a weapon. "Look Tom, this onion stinks."

"So do you Soap, but we don't comment on it." Tom said, but decided not to continue on that track as Soap gave him a look that spoke of hot daggers. "Look, onions are supposed to smell. What onion doesn't smell?"

"Yes, Tom, onions smell, it's a wonderful analogy. However, onions are supposed to smell like onions, not like a sewage system."

"Alright precious, don't get your panties in a twist," Tom put his hands in the air. "It's only a fucking onion anyways."

"Yes, but I bought this fucking onion from you, Tom. This isn't the first time this has happened either,"

"Then stop buying from me, Jesus Christ, Soap, what's gotten into you lately?" Tom asked, pulling off his toque, "You've been pissy about everything."

"I have not."

"Yes, you have." Ed put in, "You're going to give yourself a bloody ulcer with all the worrying you've been doing."

"Granted, worry isn't foreign to you Soap, but you've been doing enough of it for all of us lately - you need to take a rest."

"I cannot just 'take a rest', Bacon, I have a job, and it is not in my power to go have a nap time whenever I feel. You three are unbelievable."

"Look, all I know is that you need to sit down and relax before you fucking kill yourself. God knows your nerves aren't made of titanium, Soap, so cool down before you burn out, alright?"

Soap opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again. There was a long, uncomfortable silence this time.

"We're going to the pub if you want to join us." Ed said with a touch of hopefulness. Soap shook his head.

"No, I've got work to do. See you some other time."

With that said and done, the three left the kitchen, leaving Soap with his thoughts, while somewhere down the street, three more figures streaked towards the kitchen.


Author Note: No, I don't own any of the 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' characters; those are Guy Ritchie's. The others are mine though. Don't sue me please, I have no money and I live in a box. Reviews and critiques are nice, thank you very much, I appreciate it; flames are not well-looked upon and will be printed out, shown to many, and laughed at. Goo goo g'joob.