Rating's not going to change. Still bad stuff in here. Many bad words, I warned you.
The kitchen fell silent when a knock came at the door. It was the fierce, angry sort of knock that one only uses when one is absolutely and royally pissed off. Denny looked at Soap from somewhere beneath the dirt, and he looked back, and for a brief moment there was a glimmer of the brotherhood they had once shared.
"Get behind the counter." Soap said slowly, and Denny nodded, darting around and out of sight. Both of them had had the same thought – that it was those great thugs that had been dogging Denny for the last little while.
Soap began towards the door, thought about it, went back to the counter and grabbed out the butcher's knife, and returned to the previously planned route. He carefully unbolted the door, and it flung open suddenly.
The car sat at the side of the road, steaming pointlessly as the over-heated engine took in the cold air through a now folded front end. The three figures in the car were silent for some time, and this was because they were all semi-conscious.
Eventually, Bacon was the first to fully regain the use of his brain, and managed to open up his door and get around to the side.
There was a series of muttered curses as he tried to open up the driver's side door where Tom sat slumped over with his head on the wheel. Bacon gave the door handle a vicious pull, struggled with it for several more moments and then decisively put his foot up against the back door, took hold of the handle, and yanked it as hard as he could, the ruined steel giving way to the force of physics.
When the door came open, Tom's head slumped even further and the horn began to go off. That was when Ed began to stir.
"Goddamn his fat head," Bacon muttered under his breath. He wasn't one for panicky, sugary speeches. This was his form of worry. He peered into the car and, with some relief, found Ed staring back at him. "Alright, Ed?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. It was kind of a familiar experience anyways." Ed said, unbuckling his belt and opening his door. There was a kind of dry look on Bacon's face when the passenger door swung open with ease. "What?"
"Nothing, just help me get Tom out."
"Right." Ed nodded, and crossed around the car to help get the dead weight out of the driver's seat. It took some effort to move him out of the awkward positioning, but eventually they managed to get his seat belt undone.
When they sat Tom back away from the steering wheel, one of his eyes opened partially and fixed on Bacon – there was a nasty gash in his forehead, and his right eye was bruised badly, but otherwise he was basically unharmed.
"Fuck." Tom croaked. "Big, flying, fuck."
"Well said." Ed agreed, and leaned in to help Bacon remove an unresisting Tom from what was formerly a car. When they got him out, and turned him round, they found themselves being stared at by a family of tourists, one of which was holding a camera and giving them a sort of open-mouth smile that made all of them cringe. A little girl with pigtails stood and licked an ice cream cone while a small boy beside her busily picked his nose.
"The folks back home'll never believe this one!" the tourist said, and poised the camera for a picture. "Say cheese!"
There was a silence as Tom, Bacon, and Ed looked at one another, Tom held under the arms between the two of them. They all looked back at the tourist.
"Fuck off." They all said at once, and Ed gave the camera the finger as the flash went off.
"I told you these Brits were all nasty," A woman with a green knit hat said shrilly, trying to cover her children's ears as they, respectively, continued to eat ice cream, and pick their noses.
"Didn't I tell you that, Fred? That's why I said we should have gone to Canada!" The woman turned and pointed a badly French-manicured fingernail directly at Tom, whose eye was so swollen he could barely see her through it; "You have no compassion at all! You are sick human beings, absolutely disgusting! What do you have to say for yourselves?"
There was another lengthy silence as the three considered this speech with a mix of consideration as well as disbelief. Each of them had their own thoughts, but Bacon was the first to voice his.
"You are a hypocritical tit, your husband is a sadistic bastard, and your children are possessed. Have a fucking lovely day." Bacon said, and turned to Tom and Ed.
The tourist woman scoffed at this, grabbed her children's hands, and stormed off, her husband trailing reluctantly behind, camera still poised in case anything happened to move.
"We'll get him to Soap's kitchen." Ed said, "It's only half a block from here."
Click, click, click, click.
Charlie Marker sat at the desk of his wood working room, his calloused hands threaded together on his desk as he watched the man on the opposite side. He was in his early thirties, his face was covered in piercings, his nails were painted black, and his head was shaved. He looked very shiny.
Click, click, click.
He was rolling the barrel of a revolver around; each click was slow and deliberate. He had been doing it for a few minutes now, but Charlie was used to it – he'd worked with this guy before. He ran an acupuncture studio and tattoo parlor downtown, but when he wasn't doing that, he was up for hire as a professional interrogator, as it were.
Click, click.
"Are you up to the job then, Pierce?" Charlie asked, sitting back in his chair. There was a rough carving of what looked like a sword fish standing upright on his desk – he picked it up and pulled a knife from his pocket, whittling the solid wood a bit more.
"Always up to a job," Pierce said, giving the barrel a final spin before putting the revolver away, though his twitchy hands itched to take it out of his pocket again. "It's what I do."
"Good then, the fellow you'll be dealing with is Travis Giantis. His friend owes me a good deal of money but isn't willing to give his location. He was part of a group,"
"The Brotherhood." Pierce said, opening a long, thin, black case that was set on his lap. "I know them."
"What do you mean you 'know them'? I'll make the assumption you're not a friend of theirs, at least." Charlie said, pausing the progression of the knife for a moment.
"I know them," Pierce repeated himself, looking up at Charlie, his multitude of piercings flashing in the yellow light of the room. "Meaning, I know them. Meaning I've met them, talked to them, and consequentially suffered a near fatal wounding from them."
A ghastly smile flitted across Pierce's thin, pale face. In the light, he looked like a skeleton with barely enough skin stretched over its skull.
"They don't like me too much, I daresay," he said, a glint in his eyes. "Ever since they saw me skin one of their friends alive – took the tattoo right off of that pretty neck of his and let him see it before he bled to death in front of them."
Charlie Marker had stopped again in the middle of carving; his moustache bristled.
"You know," Charlie said, "You really are a sick fuck."
Soap had kept a firm hold on the handle of the butcher's knife, and held it tensely in his hand, but when he saw who was on the other side, it was the last thing he had been expecting.
"What are you three doing back -" Soap began, but cut himself off and started again, "Tom, what the hell happened to your face?"
"You wouldn't believe it," Ed said, helping Tom into the kitchen towards a seat. "Tom was driving back here for his hat, and somehow a sewer cover got embedded right into the fucking engine."
"You don't say." Soap said, eyes on the counter as he crossed the room and grabbed a towel. He handed it to Tom, who pressed it to the still free-flowing gash on his head.
"What's that for?" Ed asked suddenly, looking at the knife that Soap was still holding.
"I'm a chef, Ed."
"Yes, but most chefs don't answer the door with butcher knives half up their shirt." Ed said, nodding to the knife. Soap let the knife drop down from his sleeve a bit. "And since when do you bolt the door?"
When Soap didn't answer, Ed let the subject drop. There was silence again as Tom held the cloth to his head, and sniffed slowly at the air.
"Jesus, you were right, those onions do smell like a sewer." He grumbled, raising his head a bit. Out of sight, Denny furrowed his brows, sniffed the sleeve of his jacket, and shrugged. After a moment, Tom stood up from his seat, staggered a moment, and then crossed over to the counter.
"Where are you going?" Bacon asked.
"To get my damn hat." He said, and looked at the counter top, "Where's it gone to? I know I put it here."
Denny pressed his back to the counter when Tom came closer; his eyes shifting around until he caught sight of an olive-coloured cap beside his foot. He swore under his breath.
"Maybe it's in the car." Ed suggested.
"It's not in the car. I wouldn't have cut through traffic and got myself a near concussion if my hat were in the car. I know I left it here." Tom said, leaning a bit over the counter – then his hat was suddenly flung into his face. Startled, Tom back-pedalled, tripped into Bacon and fell onto the ground.
"My God, you are spastic today." Bacon said, staring down at Tom.
"Fuck off, didn't you see that?" Tom pointed to the counter where his hat half-dangled on the edge. When all three of them shook their heads, Tom pointed more vigorously. "The goddamn counter threw my hat at me."
Ed and Bacon looked at the counter thoughtfully, and Soap looked at the ground.
"Just how hard did you hit your head?" Ed asked, going onto his haunches beside Tom.
"Fuck off," Tom repeated, still staring at the counter, "I'm serious – Soap, are you laughing?"
"No," Soap lied.
"First a sewer cover throws itself at me, and now my goddamn hat." Tom said as Bacon pulled him up onto his feet. The sound of barely muffled laughter came from behind the counter. "And now I'm hearing things."
"No, I heard that too." Bacon said, eyeing the counter too. He moved towards the counter, but stopped short when Soap appeared in front of him.
"Heard what?" Soap asked, crossing his arms and looking innocent. The discovery of Denny was slowly becoming inescapable, but that didn't mean that Soap wasn't going to at least try; he knew the sight of Denny would bring up some unwanted questions that he had insofar managed to avoid.
Bacon furrowed his brows at Soap.
"Are you hiding something?" Bacon asked. Soap shook his head. "Good, then you won't mind, if I step around you."
Bacon did so, but Soap was somehow there again. For a long moment, there was something like a face-off between the two men as they stared one another down, steady hazel against stubborn green. Neither of them noticed Ed walk past them, and around the counter.
"There's a dirty chap back here." Ed said plainly, jerking all of them out of their respective stupors.
Author's Note: Thanks for the review Bkwyrm, your review reminded me to update the story, I appreciate it, and would like to comment that I am glad I do not know any Permanent Twinkies. And thanks Iniko, you sexy beast, Hensley and Cleave will make another appearance eventually. Probably.