"Come one, come all! The main event is about to start!" The carnie made a flamboyant show of flipping his top hat and pulled off a few cheap tricks before placing it back upon its rightful perch, his eyes falling upon my partner. "Ah, you sir! Surely you wouldn't make this beautiful young lady miss such amazement?"
I didn't spare him a glance since I was already preoccupied with scanning the small number of stragglers hanging around the stalls, our guy had to be around here somewhere, he could never pass up a circus.
"We ain't here for no-show, go bug someone who gives a damn, yeah?" A small smirk lifted my lips, my brother was always such a charmer.
A flash of scraggly blonde hair caught my attention as my dark blue eyes narrowed and trailed the person until I was sure this was our guy; grabbing my brothers attention and nodding towards the aforementioned blonde, he grinned with an air of arrogance as he walked straight towards our target, whilst I strolled around the back of the - most likely rigged- ring toss game.
A few seconds later our blonde friend came rushing around the corner, almost running straight into me. "Well hi there Der-Der, long time no see luv.~"
"Move!"
The overly familiar click of a gun made poor little Derek freeze, a taunting smirk crawled its way onto my face as I flashed my own gun that was resting snugly against my hip. "No Hun, you move."
"Cocky little bitch!" Derek made a dive at me but got cut off immediately by my partner's arm slinging it's way onto his shoulder, gun tapping against his chest in warning. " Ah, ah, ah Der-Der. Boss is already pissed at you, you don't want to add marking his little girl to that list, now do ya?"
"Screw you, Rivers." Rivers began leading Derek away casually rambling off to him as he went, I followed along shaking my head in amusement.
From the corner of my eye I caught sight of a redhead staring at us in wonder, I cocked my head curiously, jumping my brows at him. "What did ya just see, kid?" I made sure he saw me hovering my hand over my gun, but to my amusement all this did was cause him to let loose an enthusiastic grin.
"Nothing." He brushed his hand through his ginger locks and gave me a somewhat flirty smile. "Nothing, but a gorgeous gal being bad."
Smirking I gave him a once-over; he was undeniably cute I must say. "Are you even legal, Sweetie?"
Another seemingly contagious grin spread across his pale face as he waggled his brows at me. "Yep~ Turned 18 a while back, beautiful."
"18?" Receiving a nod in confirmation, I made a noise of contemplation. "Only 3 years younger than myself Luv, not bad I guess...shame I don't go for young 'ens, though."
The redhead frowned at this. "Well, that's no fun."
Giving him a grin of my own I turned to follow my partner, but not before calling to him over my shoulder teasingly. "See ya around, Puds.~"
"Hey, boss! We caught the little rat."
A man in his later years, with greying hair and warn facial features, turned towards the three new entries. His dark blue eyes took in the sight of the scraggly looking blonde, his lip curling in disgust before he turned his attention towards his two younger members. "Ah good, I was beginning to believe that you two were trying to disappoint me." He said in a playful tone.
He stepped closer to the three, slapping his hands roughly on either side of Derek's face forcing the man to look at him. "You thought you could get away with cheating me out of my money Derek? Thought you could disappear from Gotham for a while? Then just wander back in like everything was hunky dory?" He glanced at my brother, which was enough confirmation for what happened next.
A small hunting knife was swiftly lodged in Derek's thigh causing an ear-splitting cry of agony to fill the air, Rivers backed away from the now injured Derek who quickly got dragged away into a backroom by two other buff goons with a quick signal from the boss, "My boys are gonna show you a real good time." Shortly after vicious sounds of skin hitting skin could be heard. "Well then, I completely apologize for you having to see that Ms Mooney."
Boss turned to the three other members in the room apologizing to the regal looking dark-skinned female, a woman to which all of Gotham knew as Fish Mooney.
"Oh no, business is business, after all, I completely understand Mr McCain and please do call me Fish, we are friends are we not." An overly practised and friendly smile was plastered on her face, she graced us with her dark gaze before returning it back to McCain.
"Then please, by all means, call me Harris." He motioned for us to step forward as he began to introduce us. "I'm sure you recognise my kids? This here is David & Allison Rivers, took their mothers name for safety reasons, without sounding biased they're definitely my best workers."
"Well, family moulds the best workers." Mooney looked us over a few times, starting with David; she took in his rather buff yet slim appearance, everything from his expensive looking Italian leather shoes, to his neatly cut and styled caramel brown hair. humming in approval her dark gaze then took a sharp snap towards my own stormy blue eyes. " And you're sure this lovely young thing is related to you Harris?"
"Ah, Well I'm not sure if I should take offence to that." She cocked a brow and sent McCain a questioning look. "They're defiantly mine," He gave her a lopsided smile accompanied by a nonchalant shrug. "Even had a DNA test done just to be safe."
Mooney turned her now scrutinizing gaze back to me; taking in my short platinum blonde dyed hair, moving along the rest on my slim body before she got to my expensive dark grey suede, thick high heeled ankle boots. I stood quite a few inches taller than her, my guess is without her heels on she's about 5 foot whereas I stand at a decent height of 5'7 without heals, she obviously noticed this but didn't let it affect her.
" Well aren't you a pretty little thing."
I suppressed a smug smirk, bowing my head in thanks. "Got most of my genes from my father, Ms Mooney."
McCain came over and slung an arm over my shoulder."Well, good work you two." I grinned as he pressed a quick fatherly kiss on my forehead. "Now, why don't we continue our discussion in my office, Fish?" He began to lead Mooney, her two men following behind her; one of which I recognized as Butch but the other was completely new to me.
"Oswald, dear why don't you stay here and make some friends? This isn't something you need to bother yourself with."
This 'Oswald' character didn't look too pleased about this, but agreed graciously anyhow and watched with some annoyance as the door swung shut.
"Wow, what did you do? Or do you always get kicked out onto the kiddies table?" A bit of casual taunting should pass the time quicker, don't you think?
He gave me a fake laugh that was laced with irritation that was easy to spot if you know how to look for it. " Oh it's nothing like that, I'm sure it's just a very serious matter in which none of us are allowed to be involved."
Oh wow, was that a sly dig? Nice. But not covered up well enough.
Strolling towards the slightly odd looking black haired man, I let a smug smile grace my face. "I can go in if I want~ McCain lets me do almost anything, whenever and wherever I want Luv."
He gritted his teeth in annoyance for the briefest of moments before giving me a charming smile. "Well isn't that wonderful for you, McCain must really trust you."
"Oh he does, didn't you hear?" My smile turned into a taunting grin as I took an intimidating step forward, my heels allowed me to practically tower over the small black-suited male. "I'm his baby girl.~"
David snickered at us from his seat in the lounge. "Al, leave the poor guy alone will ya? He already looks pathetic enough without you belittling him."
My demeanour took a playful turn as I spun around to face my dearest brother, teasing him by childishly sticking out my tongue. "That was a rather big word for ya Davy, no wonder you had to sit down for it.~"
He flipped me off as I laughed walking over one of the armchairs, throwing my legs over the side and resting my back against the other arm, I looked to Oswald and waved him over. "Come on, plonk ya ass."
Oswald stared at us with suspicion, then decided to just let it go I guess since he took the spare chair.
"I was only messin' with ya Ozzy, wanted to see how you'd react." Sending him a friendly - and hopefully reassuring - smile, I offered him a single unused match from my pocket. He looked at it completely befuddled before casting me a confused look, my face contorted with a look of amusement as I waggled it in between us. "Consider it a peace treaty Oz."
The match was tentatively taken from my hand and given an unsure once over, then cautious thanks were given.
"Keep that on ya and you can ask for a favour sometime."
Oswald then looks at the small seemingly unimportant object with a new light, before grinning at me with appreciation. "T-Thank you! This is much appreciated, Ms Rivers."
My nose scrunched up with distaste. "Ms Rivers is my mother sweetheart, Alli is fine."
"Allowing me to use your first name is very gracious of you, Ms Rivers."
"Hey, what did I just say? Don't make me regret being nice to you." A sneer coated my words as I narrowed my eyes at the bird-like man that sat across from me.
"My apologies. I've been brought up in such a manner that calling a lady by their first name without knowing them well would be seen as incredibly rude."
David decided to join in with our little conversation. " It ain't a request, Penguin."
Oswald twitched at that, which caused a sly smirk to scramble its way onto my lips.
"You don't like that name, huh? Good." I stretched out my leg and held it above me as I absently scanned the shoe for any scuffs. "Every time ya call me by that name, I'll call ya Penguin.~" I caught the dark look that appeared upon his features as I then gestured to the match that was now held with a small amount of aggression. "By the way, one match only gets you a tiny favour." I brought my foot back down, resting it back upon its previous perch. "So don't come askin' me for something big, the more matches you get the bigger your favour can be."
A black eyebrow raised daringly at me. "What's to stop me from just buying a box of them and turning them in?"
One finger went up " One, I'm not stupid." A second joined it. "Two, I keep tabs on people." A third. "And thirdly, my matches are special; you can't get them anywhere else, so have fun trying."
"What makes them so special?" He asked with a curious tilt of his head.
I tapped the side of my nose with a knowing wink. "Now that would be telling, my dear Ozzy."
A/n: Annnnnnnd that's all we've got time for folks! We do hope you enjoyed your time here at shadow industries, and we look forward to receiving any feedback from our wonderful backers (that's you). Please do feel free to browse whilst you make your way out.
No, but in all seriousness, I do hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse into 'Method in the madness.' Which is also uploaded to my AO3 account (RileyWiley_87) And any feedback you can give me would be much appreciated, thank you and good night/day/evening.
Also, in case anyone is curious about what Al and Davy look like I think the best face claim for each of them would be Allison as Brittenelle Fredericks and David as Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Riley.
