Part Two
This is very awkward. Frenchie thought as he sat on the edge of Sam’s chair, facing the computer. Sam was still clutching the place where the I.V. had been torn out and Butcher was standing with his back to the opposite wall. He looked over their shoulders, but kept his distance. Frenchie had been in more awkward situations, but it wasn’t to say the current situation was comfortable by comparison.
Frenchie pressed gently around his left eye, where Butcher had punched him. It would most likely bruise, but the socket was not damaged. He felt the sting of his own knuckles where he had struck M.M. and the cut on his arm from M.M.. Petite Hughie was mostly alright, though they would have to look at his ribs later.
Frenchie stared at the cracked computer screen, trying to focus on the job in front of him. M.M. and Hughie were in the apartment building and Frenchie, despite himself felt a deep sense of peace.
Especially since he knew Monsieur Charcutier was feeling anything but peaceful.
Frenchie may not appreciate M.M.’s controlling nature, nor his ability to lie with ease and without reason- but Frenchie was absolutely confident in his ability to take care of himself. While Frenchie would throw himself in front of a bus for M.M., he knew that he did not have to do so.
Butcher had no such reassurances with Petite Hughie and Sam. Petite Hughie was driven by anger, not self-preservation. Sam, as shown by the I.V. had little to no regard for her own well-being. It gave Frenchie a vicious sort of pleasure to see Butcher in the same position he had put M.M. in for years.
Frenchie let his hand fall onto Sam’s hair and started stroking it, playing with the strands. As he thought, Sam was too intent on the monitor to pay much notice. Hughie had tried to get Sam to go with him, but both M.M. and Butcher had vetoed the idea, seeing as she had fainted within the last twenty-four hours. The argument would have gone on for a lot longer, until Frenchie pointed out to Sam that she hardly looked like a professional at the moment. Her hair and outfit could not be changed quickly enough to suit their needs. Sam had agreed, but had been glued to the screen, waiting for Hughie to set up the camera uplink.
Butcher, however, was a better multitasker. He could be worried about Hughie and be sexually frustrated at the same time. Frenchie tried to remember if he had left his apartment within a week of meeting Cherie and he couldn’t remember. It was longer when they discovered Jay. Yet here Butcher was, with two soulmates who would not let him touch them, one emotionally, one platonically. Even platonic, M.M. and Frenchie did not stop leaning on each other or being in each other’s space for at least a month. Hughie was not touching him as much as he had been and Sam was still not letting him touch her at all (as far as Frenchie knew).
Still feeling a bit petty, Frenchie ran his fingers up Sam’s neck and then through the back of her head. He was startled by a slight smack.
“Stop tormenting him.” Sam cracked her wrist and did not look at Frenchie. He did not think she was angry at him, but she looked a bit indecisive for a second. She let go of her other arm and twisted to look at Butcher, where she held out her hand. It was slightly greasy and had streaks of blood on it. Frenchie could not read the looks they were sharing, but continued to watch as Butcher reached forward and took her hand.
Cherie did not like holding hands. She liked to press her body against yours, to share in the warmth. Frenchie preferred to have his hands free to fidget or to caress. Jay, though, had enjoyed holding hands. Jay was constantly reaching out to hold on his soulmates- like an octopus, but pleasanter.
Frenchie didn’t know if Sam or Butcher liked holding hands, but their fingers interlaced and Sam tugged Butcher to stand next to her. He did not attempt to get into her space anymore that that. He did not kiss her hand, as Frenchie had seen him do with Hughie. He simply stood there next to her and watched the black and cracked screen.
Sam cracked the knuckles on her other hand as she sighed.
“Your arm alright?” Butcher asked, tilting his head towards the long furrow where the I.V. had been ripped out of her arm.
“Hurts like a motherfucker.” Sam said. “Do one of you want to tell me why M.M. attacked Frenchie?”
“He is my soulmate.” Frenchie said, offhandedly, like it didn’t cut him to the bone. “He has not wished for contact for many years.”
“By your wish or his?” Sam asked, looking up at him curiously.
“If you want to talk about my relationship with my soulmate, I must insist on speaking to you about your own relationships with your soulmates.” Frenchie said, throwing down the gauntlet.
“Which one do you want to know about?” Sam said, blithely. “Butcher, Robin, Micheal or the unknown?”
She upped the ante and Frenchie was delighted.
Frenchie was about to respond, but he cut off the conversation when the camera feeds went on. Hughie gave a little nod at the camera.
“He really is full of surprises, isn’t he?” Butcher said.
“He is very good at his job.” Sam said. “He’s probably got enough knowledge for at least an associates in I.T. I could build a laptop, but I couldn’t program it beyond the basics, and even then it would require its own software systems. Hughie knows how to make things work in systems.” They watched as Hughie got up to leave and all of them relaxed for a second, until they heard A-Train’s voice.
“Shit.” All three of them said at the same time.
Butcher let go of her hand as soon as Hughie followed M.M. into the truck. Within seconds, Butcher had the doors to the truck closed and Hughie pressed against them. Hughie’s hands clawed at Butcher’s shoulders, rucking up his shirt as he took deep breaths into Butcher’s neck. Butcher’s hand was cradling the back of Hughie’s head and his other arm was wrapped around his waist.
It was very private, making Frenchie look away.
“Hey, I thought we were here to work.” M.M. said. “You’re making even Frenchie uncomfortable. Fuck on your own time.”
They did not separate, lost in their own little world, and M.M. was about to move when Frenchie stopped him. M.M. looked at him with an eyebrow raised and Frenchie shook his head. He held up his hand.
Five minutes.
M.M. rolled his eyes, but Frenchie got the message.
Fine, but if they start humping I’m pushing them out of the truck.
Sam had gone back to the screen and had her brow furrowed.
“What is it?” Frenchie asked looking at the screen. Popclaw and A-Train were becoming amorous as well.
“He’s not into it.” Sam tilted her head. “Look.”
Frenchie took a closer look at the two copulating on the screen. Not everyone had the same way of making love. Variety is the spice of life, but Frenchie understood what she was saying.
“You’re right.” Frenchie laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder.
“Wanna fill me into what you two voyeurs are seeing?” M.M. said leaning over their shoulders.
“She is making all the noise.” Sam said. “And look at his hands.”
“Some guys don’t make noise.” M.M. mirrored Frenchie and placed a hand on Sam’s opposite shoulder. Sam didn’t flinch away.
“Not when she is making that much noise.” Frenchie asked rhetorically. “Non. She is right. Also, look at his thighs.”
Butcher appeared over Sam’s shoulder, making her jump. Butcher grinned and patted her on the head, but Sam flinched away again.
“What about his thighs?” Hughie asked. He appeared calmer, but his face remained pale.
“They are too relaxed.” Sam said.
“So the Supes have some relationship problems-“ Butcher said.
“He can’t get it up.” Sam and Frenchie said at the same time.
“Wow.” Hughie said, face looking a bit disgusted. “That’s a bit too much information.”
“She doesn’t seem to notice yet.” Frenchie said, watching as Popclaw continued to make noise. “We should expect a fight.”
“No, she already knows.” Sam said. She tapped her finger on the side of the chair. “This isn’t a new problem.”
“Why are they still together, then?” Frenchie said. “If the magic is gone-“
“Sex isn’t the answer to everything.” Sam muttered. “Ten bucks she tries to do something kinky, though.”
“No bet.” Frenchie replied. He watched as Sam chewed her bottom lip. Her hands were shaking slightly. Her eyes were focused- so not a craving. Frenchie glanced at M.M.,
Observant and aware, M.M. returned his look within seconds. Frenchie tilted his head towards Sam.
It was Hughie who intervened, though. He hummed the first several bars of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It caused Sam to startle and relax.
It was good the problem could be handled quietly, because Frenchie’s attention had been caught on M.M.’s arms. Frenchie would not lie- M.M. was a beautiful man. Even without lust to enhance his beauty, Frenchie found M.M.’s clean lines and broad shoulders to match his aesthetics in a way few others could match. Frenchie, in the past, would sometimes stare at M.M.’s hands while he had to think on a problem, finding a strange sort of peace in the way they talked and moved.
But here, in this moment, they were still. They curved into loose fists and Frenchie found himself watching M.M.’s chest rise and fall- gentle.
His soulmate was content.
Frenchie was furious. A black rage swept over him like he had never felt before. He let the rage boil inside him, grinding his senses into sharp glass and then released a breath. Frenchie turned to the screen and watched an overly familiar picture play in his head. Frenchie had never been foolish enough to take any sort of erectile inhibitor- Cherie would have him killed- but he had similar conversations on drugs from both sides. He knew, watching, there was no truth to the conversation. There was no sacrifice. There was only a sick and twisted reliance.
Frenchie did not wish to see anymore.
“I would need to try some myself?” M.M. threw some sort of box at Frenchie. Hughie and Butcher had wandered off again- but not before telling them to kiss and make up. Sam had found a seat and had curled up to nap, Hughie had handed her some headphones.
“It is a just request!” Frenchie said. “We need to know how it works- I am an ideal subject.”
M.M. was going to shot him one of these days. He really was.
“You just got over your last overdose!” M.M. had good blood pressure. He was a fit man. Frenchie was the only thing making him worry about his heart rate and the various problems it represented.
“Oh, and how do you know that?” Frenchie asked. M.M. felt Frenchie enter his space more than anything else. Frenchie was a buzz, digging its way into your skin. It was addictive. It was comforting.
It was also damn annoying.
“Cherie can call me anytime she damn well likes. She has never called me right before she has collapsed in her own vomit.”
“No, of course not.” Frenchie snarled. “She calls me for such things.”
M.M. paused at that. There were implications there, but he was not ready to go into them, nor was he going to let Frenchie weasel his way out.
“Frenchie, promise me you aren’t planning on taking it-”
“From the beginning, you have asked me not to lie to you.”
M.M. groaned.
“This is why I cut contact.”
“I see you have no problems lying to me, even after all this time.” Frenchie sniffed, turning to the side to pick up his cigarettes. “You cut contact because you are a coward. You do not like who you are- there is no way you like who your soulmates would be.”
M.M. watched as Frenchie strode out of the van, door slamming behind him. Sighing he turned to rifle through the bag of equipment Butcher had set up. He looked up to see Sam’s eyes watching him.
---
M.M. made Butcher and Hughie separate. They had two different jobs, two different sides of the arena. They would draw eyes if they were together.
Sam and Butcher wasn’t much better, but at least they wouldn’t be taken in for public indecency. Butcher tried to grab Sam’s hand, but she linked elbows with him instead. M.M. felt a primitive urge to interfere, calm the down the tribe so to speak.
M.M. resisted. Frenchie left to go find an air shaft, Sam and Butcher left to get a good look around.
And M.M. was left with the baby.
Was he ever so young? He really hoped he wasn’t.
“Mild-mannered reporter.” M.M. set the camera down, glancing at Hughie. Instead of shaking- like he expected, Hughie vibrated. He seemed to hum at some unknown frequency.
Well, unknown to people who weren’t in Butcher’s orbit.
“Sam says you met Butcher a few days ago?” M.M. needed to get a decent read on Hughie. Butcher loved his soulmates fiercely. That didn’t mean Butcher wouldn’t screw them over first chance he got. Right now, M.M. needed to know that Hughie was running on anything but infatuation with Butcher.
“Yeah, sounds about right. Sam concerned, or is she doing background on Butcher?”
M.M. shrugged. “It was a statement of fact. Two soulmates and a bomb, I remember that feeling.”
“One soulmate.” Hughie corrected. “Sam was one of Robin’s other soulmates. She used to look after Robin. If Billy wasn’t her soulmate she would be half-way to Florida now.”
“One soulmate and a bomb, then.” M.M. waved off Hughie’s change of subject. “Talk about a baptism of fire.” M.M. showed Hughie the mic and watched as his hands clenched and then relaxed.
“Translucent, huh? How the fuck did you pull that off?”
“I don’t know, just lucky I guess.” The boy looked off into the middle distance and M.M. waited for Hughie to continue.
“You know what’s really messed up? In some ways, just right in that moment, it felt kind of good.” Hughie swallowed.
M.M. took a moment to despair he was surrounded by the stupidest thrill seekers (and he was one of them), when Hughie continued.
“But, I would have done it if it hadn’t.” Hughie said. “I couldn’t let Billy die. I couldn’t see Robin in the afterlife letting her know I had let Sam get killed. I am halfway terrified I’ll have to kill again to protect them- and halfway eager for another chance. I couldn’t stop A-Train, but I knew I could stop Translucent.”
M.M. knew that was only part of the story. Dress it up, put it in fine clothes- but Hughie didn’t need his soulmates to be in danger for him to like killing Translucent. M.M. got the same rush and he had tried to convince himself it was for his soulmates- like Hughie did.
Truth was- soulmates can only amplify what is already there. M.M. had been a killer long before he knew his soulmates. He had courted danger and he had thrown himself into the good fight. Soulmates didn’t make him reckless- they just made sure it was harder to bring himself back.
But how do you tell that to a grieving widower who just found a soulmate? How do you say, “It wasn’t your soulmates- you just like murder.”?
You don’t.
So M.M. stuck with the basics. He explained the rush, he pointed out the danger. He left Hughie to think.
Then he went and threw up into a nearby garbage can.
He took out a moist towellete and wiped his face, wondering if a speech like that would have worked on him.
He didn’t think it would have.
---
M.M. froze when he heard Butcher’s voice over the mic.
“Hughie, you know Starlight?”
M.M., once, met an old army buddy at a bar. It wasn’t a very interesting occurrence, but it had been in the early days of working with Butcher, and he had been out with Frenchie and Butcher and, oddly enough, Monique.
It wasn’t a particularly interesting experience, except his buddy, Lenny, kept trying to pressure M.M. to coming down to see some new weapons they had got from the range and talking up a sweet job he had picked up. It was shady as fuck. M.M. played along a bit to keep the conversation going, but before he could let the guy down gently, Butcher had accidently dumped beer on him and Monique. They ran out to the bathroom. Frenchie and Butcher dragged the guy out to the parking lot to beat the shit out of him.
Ironically, that was how Frenchie got started in the local arm’s trade. The job his buddy was offering had been with some local arms dealers, so when they found out one of their own had gotten their ass kicked, they went after Butcher and Frenchie.
M.M. still doesn’t know if the C.I.A. knows they funded a small gang war, but he wasn’t that concerned about them finding out. Butcher had enough on Raynor to nip problems like that in the bud.
Anyway, Butcher had asked M.M. if he knew Lenny in the same tone of voice as he asked Hughie about Starlight. It was honest curiosity, but it was covering up a bone deep possessiveness that made up the core of Butcher’s personality.
M.M. could hear low cursing from Frenchie as well.
“Butcher, we don’t have time for this.” M.M. interrupted Hughie, praying the kid ignored the next bit of conversation.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, M.M., I’m just asking an honest question, is all.”
Frenchie snorted in the background.
M.M., thankfully, could hear Hughie talking to Starlight, ignoring Butcher.
Then asking her if she wanted to eat.
“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea, kid.” M.M. warned.
“I’m almost there, you do not have to keep her occupied too long.” Frenchie agreed over the mic.
But it was too late.
M.M. felt a rising nervousness as he looked into the crowd. He would do anything to be out of this situation. He looked down at his phone, and found something unusual.
---
“It is good she will get an orgasm.”
Frenchie watched as Popclaw invited Alec for some decent sex. Assuming he could perform, he would be a great improvement over her regular lover. He had been watching as she worked through her high.
“That’s not guaranteed.” Sam said. She was huddled in the back, but her eyes had been watching the footage intently.
“I have faith in him.” Frenchie said. “Besides, if it is anything like regular steroids- it should be easier for her to get off. Not to mention, she is pent up- all the frustration, the disappointment in her lover, the feeling of invincibility- there is no reason she should not orgasm if he can last, eh, thirty seconds? Even then-”
“As much as I enjoy you two’s professional opinion on how to be fucking whores, I would actually like to see where this is ending up, ta?” Butcher snarled. Frenchie thought that was highly unfair, seeing as he and Sam said nothing as Butcher and Hughie got each other off in the back of the Van on the way back and didn’t say a word. It did nothing to soothe Butcher’s anger, of course. Butcher was possessive and he had not liked Hughie being anywhere near Supes.
Sam didn’t flinch, but she did raise an eyebrow at Frenchie, who rolled his eyes in return.
Frenchie watched as the roleplaying got heated. The performance was, eh, awful- arousal will make anything magnificent, he supposed. He glanced at M. M. who maintained a professional distance from what was going on the screen. He wondered what M.M. was picking up- he had always seen something Frenchie missed.
“She is going to get her orgasm after all.” Sam said, eyebrows raised at the screen.
Frenchie glanced back at the screen in time to see Popclaw riding the Landlord, Alec’s, face.
“She’s killing him.” Hughie said.
“Yeah.” Butcher grabbed Hughie’s arm, wrapping a hand around it tightly. “Ain’t nothing we can do.”
“He’s-”
“You can’t get to him in time, Hughie.” Sam said, her voice was gentle. The tone struck a chord somewhere within Frenchie and he glanced her way to see her face transfixed on the screen.
Hughie pulled on Butcher’s grip, but Butcher would not let go.
And then the head exploded.
Frenchie was intrigued, of course. He had never seen something quite like that before.
“He was already dead, Hughie.” Butcher said quietly. Frenchie watched from the corner of his eye as Butcher laid a hand on Hughie’s cheek. The hand framed the side of his face and for an instant Frenchie could see Butcher slamming Hughie’s head into the side of the van, his head splattering on the side, brain oozing like the man in the video.
Then Butcher’s hand went to the back of Hughie’s neck- pressing their foreheads together.
“We got her where we want her. This is good. All these Supes are scared of their reputations being ruined. We can make her pay for this.”
Hughie raised his hands and pressed them against Butcher’s neck, squeezing slightly. Frenchie’s mind continued the motion- saw Hughie squeezing Butcher’s neck until he strangled.
Then his mind was pulled back to the present by M.M.’s eyes boring into his. Frenchie saw his visions mirrored in M.M.’s eyes. There was a resigned acceptance there, a personal apathy to the situation- but a professional interest.