EPISODE 3: The Boss
(summary: Arthur meets with the head of his Mob, a BAMPH named Torisa, and explains the strange situation his private life's evolved into by harboring two street children and a prostitute.; genre: action/drama/comedy/romance; status: new )

Feliks Łucaseiwics was not one to swear, but his day had been shit.

Ivan Braginski sneered at him as Feliks nursed his wounded integrity while readjusting his clothes after coming out of the bathroom. He'd been in there for a while, sure, but that didn't give the Russ the right to— to assume that he'd been—

(He had, actually, and he hoped to God that Ivan wasn't going to tell Rodda, because she'd go off the cliff if she found out he'd gotten an erection in the middle of a meeting with a person he'd dealt with.)

"You liked him?" Ivan asked, and though his smile was full of naught but utter innocence, Feliks knew he was laughing inside.

"Shut up, Bastardinskis, you see boobs and melt," He snapped.

"Da, but you see an undone zipper and—"

"Shut up," He said again, his face burning red madly, "The guy was buff, I can't say 'no' to a six-pack!"

"I am glad you did not say anything, then," Ivan said, that smile still plastered on his face, as it always was. He looked like he was about to burst into laughter remembering Feliks' rather… strained meeting. The poor young man was still embarrassed and blushing, and Ivan' obvious glee was killing any semblance of a good day he might've had.

He'd burnt his breakfast (though not as badly as it'd have been had Arthur cooked), fallen asleep in the shower, consequentially almost drowned and been yelled at by Rodda for being late. At least Torisa had been there to stop that before Rodda blew a lung.

And then he ran off to deal some, and found out Ivan had decided he would be Feliks' partner for the day. While Feliks knew it was just a way for Ivan to put him in an even worse mood than he'd already been the whole day, Ivan had made it seem like he wanted to improve their relationship.

So if Feliks turned Ivan down, it'd make him seem like the reason their relationship was crap, but oh, Christ he hated the (freakishly) tall man! And now that Ivan had seen that, Feliks was sure Ivan would never let him live it down.

This day had been shit.

"I really want to kill you right now," Feliks growled. "I swear, if Torisa didn't like you so much…"

"My thoughts are much the same," Ivan then proceeded to call Feliks a name that Feliks couldn't understand for the life of him, because the Russ had either said it in an incredibly thick accent or in another language altogether.

Feliks growled and gave Ivan the nastiest glare he had in his arsenal, complete with barred teeth. "Okay, Bastardinskisi—"

"Oh, you changed it!"

"—if you keep talking, I will tell on you," Ivan looked confused for a moment before the expression shifted to horror. "and you will not have sex for at least a month."

"You devil!" Ivan said. "Feeeliks!"

His day had just gone from shit to… to… (what rhymed with 'shit'? He couldn't quite think of it, but it was a happy word. )

"I'll do it," Feliks grinned, "You know I will, so either hail me or shut up and maybe I won't."

Ivan wore an expression of the purest horror and disbelief. "…I will tell Rodda you were turned on by buyer."

"She won't believe you," He had better not tell! Feliks shouldn't have been so surprised Ivan was turning his own card against him, but at least he would try and hide how badly that would turn out.

"Oh yes she would," Ivan replied. "After the noodle incident—"

"Hey, no one can prove I did that!"

"—she has been waiting for something to pin on you to give you the chewing out of ever, da?" Ivan was now feeling rather smug at the unnerved look Feliks had clear as day on his face right then.

"…How about this," Feliks said after a while of silence. "We compromise. Neither of us talk for the rest of way home and no one tattles on each other, okay?"

"Da," Ivan replied, seemingly satisfied.

"Good," Feliks confirmed, and they were silent for the rest of the walk to one of the infinite sky-scraping gray buildings that they called home. They walked up a few stairs perfectly calmly until they reached a large, gray door. They burst through it.

"Torisa! Ivan's teasing me about being gay!"

"Rodda! Feliks got a boner in the middle of job!"

"He's lying, he just wants me to be in trouble!"

"And then he tried to blackmail me into not telling— ow!"

"Take it back, Bastardinskis—Ow, ow, ow!"

000

Rodda borderline hated her associates.

The scene before her of Feliks, a younger man she'd thought perfectly well cultured and polite (only to later be proven dreadfully wrong about) tangled on the floor, attempting to punch Ivan, a seemingly harmless Cossack (also a dreadfully wrong first impression), in the nose.

Feliks was in turn kneed in the crotch, kicked in the ribs, and in retaliation, bit Ivan, pulled his hair and punched him again.

"Torisa, your harem is fighting again," She felt it important to inform her personal thorn.

Beside her, yet another coworker she utterly despised made her appearance. And as usual, it did not fail Rodda's expectations.

"For the last time, Rodda, they're not my harem. Ivan's just into S and M, alright?" Torisa said, smiling, as though she were almost enjoying the two fighting yet again.

Painkiller. That was what Rodda needed.

Or maybe just a killer. She had plenty of those. Now might be a good time to use one.

Except that Torisa wasn't to be so much as nicked unless she wanted Ivan to go into a frenzy.

There wasn't much of a hierarchy within their little… association. They were hardly a mob at all, their numbers were so few. More of a gang that actually meant business, but calling themselves a gang would have belittled their actual capabilities. Well, that, and calling themselves a mob sounded much more sophisticated.

Torisa and Ivan had come as a package deal, Rodda and Elizerbet were married, and Arthur had the family name and reputation to pull them together. Feliks had known Torisa from their childhood and jumped at the opportunity to work with her.

Now that she knew him more personally, Rodda mostly tolerated the blond because of the odd ability he had to find the best guns for the lowest price.

Oh, sure, the man had his moments of unadulterated brilliance, but he was more of a nuisance than anything else. Not the foulest nuisance she had known, as most people were nuisances to her, but still a nuisance.

"They'll ruin the carpet," She said, her arms crossed disapprovingly over her chest.

"Oh no, not the carpet," Torisa stepped forward finally and easily pried the two off each other. Both of the men backed off quickly once Torisa had gotten between them, not that that stopped their yelling.

"Torisa, how can you date that ass? He's seriously been calling me a fag all day and I'm totally sick of it," Feliks said, his lips moving faster than anything else at the moment.

"I call him fag because he got boner in middle of trading guns," Ivan interjected, "so is his fault."

"Whose fault for drawing attention to it?"

"Guys, guys, calm down," Torisa said, trying to calm them down without raising her voice too high.

Rodda turned and walked out, having had enough of this already. She thought desperately of something to do to distract her from the pure idioticy radiating from the room.

Arthur, she remembered. He'd arrived back late from several jobs in a different city last night, so they permitted him to sleep in a while. It would be dinner in a few hours.

If only to escape a migraine, she would wake him.

000

It was not one of Arthur's best mornings when he woke up to discover that the twins he'd taken in from the streets had apparently gotten their hair cut during the night. Not that they were bad haircuts, in fact, they looked quite good on the two and even made it easier to tell them apart.

The shock was that he hadn't recognized them when he'd first woken up to them hovering over him.

He'd shoved his hand into the boy's face. The child, for Arthur then realized the baby fat had hardly left his face, hit the floor with a thud and a loud whine. "Wh-who the bloody hell are you?"

The boy had sat bolt upright and demanded an explanation for his treatment. Another boy had then come up on the bed as well and asked with the most heartbroken expression and horrible accent Arthur had ever heard "Whadaya mean, y-you remember us, 'ight?"

It was then, when a white rat had appeared in the second boy's arms that recognized them.

They were a tad bit colder to him than they had been before. Apparently, their trust was still very easy to lose.

Again, Arthur didn't mind the haircuts at all. He'd been curious about where they'd gotten then— apparently Frances had decided to make her first night with them worthwhile and de-loused them before deciding that their hair deserved a full work-over.

Still. A little forewarning would've made that go much better, in his opinion.

Climbing wearily out of bed and briefly ruffling his hair into its normal disarray, Arthur shooed the two children off to the side somewhere so that he could get dressed.

"But y' said people weren't allowed t' see us," one of them said. Pulling off one shirt and putting another on, Arthur squinted at them.

"What?"

"There's some'un ou' there," the other twin said. On his shoulder, the rat squeaked, and while part of his mind was registering that the one on the left was probably Matthew, the other part of his mind was going oh shit.

Tugging on a pair of pants, he waved frantically for the children to stay in his room. Darting out of his bedroom and into the hallway that connected him to the main part of the building, he opened the door and came face-to-face with none other than one of the associates he'd been particularly hoping to avoid.

"Oh, hello there, Rodda," he said, panting and with possibly the most painful smile he'd ever put on. She took three menacing steps forward, entered his section of the base and saw everything she needed to.

Her dark brown eyes narrowed on the two children peeking over his bed with the strangest sort of acknowledgment.

"Arthur, I regret to inform you that I believe a group meeting is necessary."

000

"How long have they been here?"

"One day," Arthur said, doing his best to not bend under the hard stare Rodda was giving him.

"And how long have they been with you?"

"Er, a week or so?" He found he couldn't quite remember the date that he'd first lured the children out of the alley, but a week sounded about right.

"Are there any other guests we should know about?"

"Well, er…"

Rodda's eyes narrowed. "Well?"

"I picked up this one prostitute after—"

Ivan broke into a fit of giggles. Torisa, at least, tried to cover hers up some.

"Shut up!" Arthur snapped, giving them all his fiercest glare. Only Torisa had the good will to calm herself. "I-It's not what you think, I— the kids might be useful, okay? They could be plants or— or use them as hostages whenever we needed some that wouldn't resist!"

Rodda twitched slightly, "And your prostitute?"

"She can take care of them until I find an orphanage to dump them in."

"And what are you going to do with her after that?"

"Wait until her leg heals and she goes back on the street."

There was the slimmest, most annoyed smile on Rodda's face. "What do you suppose will happen when she leaves and tries to sell us out for as much money as she can make off the location of a mob's main headquarters?"

Arthur scowled and his shoulders rose up defensively. "I blindfolded her when I brought her in."

Rodda didn't even comment that time. "I'm going to go see if we have anything better to do," she said instead, turned, and walked out the door.

Elizerbet shrugged and gave Arthur a pitying look, "Well," he said, "at least she didn't kick them out, right?"

Arthur grumbled something before Elizerbet got up and followed Rodda out as well.

Torisa stood up and patted Arthur on the back. "I'll talk to her about it," she gave him a wink, "Rodda secretly has a soft spot for kids, really."

Ivan giggled in the corner and said something that sounded suspiciously like, "but not whores."

000

Mattie had been in the building a total of one day and already managed to discover all the secret little passageways that allowed him to slide from one side of the building to the other without being seen. He supposed the other people in the building knew about them, too, because they had been covered with bars when he first discovered them. Arthur had called it 'ventilation system'.

Ventilation system was very useful, from the first day out. Alfred wasn't as good at staying quiet like Mattie was, so Al stayed behind in the room Frances was sleeping in, and he would make distractions so no one would notice he was gone while Mattie snuck through ventilation system to see what else was in the building.

He had been worried that there wouldn't be another exit in ventilation system, because as he crawled through he realized it grew darker and darker the farther he went. Kuma scampered head of him, squeaking softly to help guide him until the walls of ventilation system began to lighten so he could see them again.

Mattie resisted cheering as he found another of the barred entrances to ventilation system. The air cleared near it and it was very hard to keep his coughing quiet as he cleared his throat.

Squinting down into the room below him Mattie could vaguely make out several shelves of..

Oh…

Were those guns?

"Like, get out of my room!"

Mattie tried his best not to squeal as a voice below him sounded. He clamped a hand over his mouth and listened intently.

"Why?"

Two figures walked into his line of vision. One was short and slim and had the same hair color as he and Al had. The other walked under the vent and Mattie though he could have reached out of the vent and brushed his light hair. There was a long strip of knotted fabric trailing behind the taller man and Mattie wondered how warm that had to be and was instantly jealous of it. The vent was almost as cold as his home behind the dumpster.

"Because, I said so," the short man said and walked out of Mattie's line of vision. "Why are you even, like, here, anyway?"

"I am bored," the tall man replied.

"So you bug me when you're bored. Dude, you must have like, absolutely no life."

"Your room has very… interesting decoration."

"Do not diss the purple, man, that is, like, the color of Kings—do not change the subject! Ugh, I don't know how Torisa deals with you…"

"Likewise."

Mattie did not understand a word out of their mouths. He looked at Kuma and the mouse squeaked in equal confusion. They sat there for some more minutes, wondering how they would be able to find their way back to the first entrance to ventilation system as the two below continued to speak.

"Like, I seriously wish I could go to that casino. I'd have the debt taken back in no time," the short one bragged while the tall one took a seat.

"I am sure. You would become so frustrated you would break a small fortune of machines, da?"

The small one threw something across the room at the larger one. Just judging from the clang of metal below, it was large.

"You missed," the big one said.

"Only because Torisa would cry if I busted you!" There was a paused, "Okay, so maybe she wouldn't, but she'd make faces!"

The big one laughed. "Are you saying she would not cry over me?"

"Yes," the other one said, "Now, seriously, like, what are you bugging me for?"

The big one was moving and a chair was pulled under ventilation system's opening. Matt could see half of what was happening now, though he was a bit more preoccupied with finding how to squeeze back through ventilation system to where it led to Al. Kuma had tried to scamper back and Mattie had moved to let him go by and somehow managed to get his thigh stuck.

He was having trouble going backwards now.

"Rodda is getting Torisa and me out of the building so she can yell at Arthur in peace."

Mattie's ears perked up at the sound of Arthur's name.

"Seriously? Dude, she could do that just by, like, suggesting you two have sex. I mean, like, the moment the thought comes into your mind, you— oh no, no, no, no, you are not going to do that right now, nuh-uh, Mister, I am locking you in here and—"

"—and I would like my gun back before we leave—"

"—oh, em, gee, I am so going to force Rodda to go with you somehow to make sure you do not do that, that is just, like, out of line—"

"—I would prefer to have it to shoot people in faces with, da?"

"—where are you going, anyway, some far off city where I can't, like, hunt you down? That is unfair!"

"The casino is in town," the big one replies without so much as pause. "The owner has not paid us back for our help driving the other casino chains out, you see?"

The smaller one was quiet for a while. Mattie finally managed to unstick himself and scampered back through ventilation system's maze, the last of the conversation following up behind him.

"Isn't that, like, owned by that one guy with the funky eyes?"

"Da, Wang. Wang Yao."

"Sounds like someone bit his daddy's thingy while they were naming him."

"That is very, very mean."

That was the last thing Mattie could make out before it faded out.

000

For a while, all he could hear was the pattering of Kuma's feet, the scraping of his hands and knees, and the humming and buzzing from all around the building.

Just when the dust was getting so into his lungs that Mattie was having trouble breathing, a rush of fresher air broke through and he crawled even faster to reach the opening of ventilation system that he'd first entered from.

Kuma raced ahead of him and reached the end a good minute before he did, but when Mattie finally reached the end and poked his head out—

—two arms grabbed him and tugged him down.

"You went through the vents?" Frances said.

Mattie was dazed from suddenly being jerked out of the dark, cramped space and pulled into the bright, open space of the room they stayed in. Blinking and looking around, he found Al standing in the corner, facing it. For what reason, he couldn't possibly imagine.

"Al?" he said.

"Al is in time out right now," Frances said, staring at Mattie so fiercely that Mattie shrunk down. "because he wouldn't tell me where you went and it almost gave me a heart attack. What would Arthur have done to me if he found out one of you went missing?"

"I dunno?"

"I don't know either!" Mattie cringed again. Frances was awfully unhappy today, and it scared him. "That's why you two can't go missing or go through the vents without telling me and oh my God you're filthy. He'll be back soon, merde."

"Frances?" Mattie squeaked. The woman's attention snapped back on him. "…are you a'ight?"

Frances wobbled on her one leg and quickly set Mattie down, grabbing her crutch and steadying herself. She sighed. "Fine," she said, "I'm fine."

She didn't look fine. It must have been all the new people; they frightened Al and Mattie too. Mattie told Frances as much and she smiled, not very big, but Mattie thought it was close enough.

"So why were you in the vents?" Frances sat on the bed, her shoulders slumped forward. Mattie wondered why they only did that when she was alone with him and Al.

"'Cause," Mattie said. "S' can Al come ou' of the corner?"

Al said, "Yeah!"

Frances said, "No."

So Al stayed.

"Why were you in the vents?" Frances repeated, and Mattie wondered if he hadn't just answered the question.

"'Cause," he said again.

"That's not an answer."

Whoops.

"I wan'ed t' see wha' was in 'ere?" he tried. Frances sighed and looked at him.

"Kids," she said, wobbled to her feet on the crutch, and slowly made her way to where the bars for the vent were lying on the floor. Right where Al had left them while hoisting Mattie in a while before. "I'm going to go gray living here," she bent down slowly and picked it up by her fingertips, because she couldn't go all the way down. She held the cover up to the hole in the wall and after a click, pulled her hand away. The cover stayed on. She turned to the children. "Don't go anywhere without telling me first."

Mattie nodded. Frances looked in the corner. "Alfred."

"Fine."

"Better," she turned to walk to the door, "I'll go get you two something to eat. Al, you're not allowed to leave the corner until I come back," Al groaned loudly. Frances walked out and shut the door behind her.

The moment the lock clicked, Al spun around from facing the corner and looked at Mattie. "So?"

"It's really big!" Mattie said, stretching his arms out to try and show Alfred just how large the building. "I 'unno how t' get out."

Al's face fell and he scuffed his bare feet on the floor. "So we're gon't' stay?" he didn't sound all too upset about the idea. "'Ere's food," he said.

Mattie nodded. "'N' it's warm," he added. Al nodded with him. "'N' 'ere's no shit."

"Okay," Alfred said. "We stay."

000

This chapter's late because my brother died and I think he took half my rib cage with him.

Torisa— Toris, Lithuania. You just can't genbend that name.

Elizerbet— Elizabeta, Hungary. Was supposed to be a Hungarian name, but I couldn't spell it so I changed it.

Rodda— Roderich, Austria. I'm having fun with making OriginallyMale!Roddy's PMS literal.

Hetalia © H.H.

Original Idea & genbend names © SomethingLikeAGnome