milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Don't worry. I took care of that." He didn't keep any of the split for himself. All of it went back into the villagers or to a fund for Bonnie's kids.

He dumps all his stuff upstairs and offers her his arm. "When you're ready, beautiful."

She takes his arm, as proudly as she would that of any of her boys.

When they get down to the bar, she opens her door, to the smell of delicious chicken pie.

"Terry, leave the cookies, it's nearly dinner." she says, catching her errant granddaughter with her hand in the jar.

Jay smiles and says hello to Terry, and anyone else who is around.

Billie is coasting on some of the kitchen furniture, and turns around to make 'up-py' signs at Jay when he comes in.

Bonnie goes over to the cooker to turn down the potatoes.

"Hi Jay." Terry says, putting the cookie back.

The kitchen is looking fairly tidy, for Bonnie, though she seems to have stockpiled about fifty rolls of tin foil in the pantry.

"Hey Princess!" Jay picks Billie up and swings her around, balancing her on his hip.

"How's life, Terry?"

"Sucks." Terry says, casually.

"That's not very polite language to be using in front of guests." Bonnie says, putting the lid back on the pot of vegetables.

"Fine, it fucking sucks!" Terry says, flaring up. "I'm not going back go to school ever again!"

Bonnie, who has heard enough swear words in her time to not even remotely flinch at this, tells Terry to go to her room and cool off before dinner. Terry does so, slamming the door.

"Sorry about that." Bonnie says, turning back to Jay with a sigh. "Getting her to school is a daily battle again at the moment, we're looking at moving her."

Billie, who looked a bit alarmed at the door slamming, snuggles her face into Jay's shirt.

Jay holds Billie close, cooing to calm her. "It's alright, little one. It's alright." He kisses the top of her head. He nods after Terry. "Want me to talk to her?"

"Thanks, but she needs to know she cain't speak to you like that." Bonnie says. "She might talk later when she calms down."

Hearing Jay come in, Ted has come downstairs and stuck his head around the door.

"Hey honey, we've got a bit of time before dinner if you wanted to talk to Jay now?" she says. Looking back at Jay. "I'm gonna have to start payin' you fer yer adolescent therapy services at this rate."

"Hey Ted." Jay nods, ignoring Bonnie's comment about therapy. "Shall we go sit outside and talk?"

"Can I show you something upstairs?" Ted asks.

Bonnie gives Jay a grateful glance but leaves them to it.

"Of course." Jay nods. "Lead on." He follows Ted upstairs.

Ted takes Jay into his room and closes the door behind him, checking none of the others are outside. The room is a fairly typical teenager room, except that on closer inspection, it's mostly full of boxes of comics rather than any other possessions. Some of his own comic art is on the walls, and in progress on the desk.

He pulls a box from under his bed. All the comics are very carefully wrapped.

"I collect comics." he says. "My Dad used to collect them with me before he died and I have his collection too. He taught me to try to buy two copies of each one I get - one to read, one to keep. Three if it's a special edition and I want to keep a set complete. I don't have complete sets of most stuff I collect though, because I missed a bunch when I was in juvie."

He carefully removes a comic from one of the boxes and unwraps it, careful not to put his fingers on the paper itself. He puts it on his bed.

"Aunt Bonnie said you had access to the future. Is this worth anything?"

"I'm going to admit I don't know but I'll do some research for you. My gut reaction is yes, it might be worth quite a bit. Especially in good condition."

He cocks his head to Ted. "Can I ask why you're looking to sell it on now?"

"I don't need to sell it right away, I just want to know if I can rely on it later if I need to." Ted says.

"My brother Stuart, he's not like me. He's got a practically perfect GPA and he needs to go to college. And I don't think Aunt Bonnie should be payin' to keep me under her roof when I graduate high school. I work part time at the comic book store but I don't earn an awful lot, and my grades are rubbish because I got so behind when I was in juvie that I just gave up. She thinks I can scrape through my diploma, and my boss wants me to, otherwise I'd quit school now."

He shakes his head. "Aunt Bonnie works so hard to feed us all. That Turtle, he's such a freakin' mess. He's up to his eyeballs in debt, and he's drinkin' again. Last time he came fer visitation he was so drunk she wouldn't even bring Billie out to see him, and he sat on our porch cryin' and she sat and talked to him fer a bit then drove him home. I woulda given him a kickin'."

"I'll look into it for you. Let you know what you might expect to get for them if and when you need to. How about you put together a list of the issues you have and I'll get some numbers for you."

"Hey, we each work to the skills we have. I'm adopted but and I know what it's like to have brothers you feel you've got to live up to. I have an older brother who's the golden boy of the family. When I was a kid, my adopted father expected me to be as good as him. Which I was very, very much not. And I'm still not. Took me a long time to work out I had to be me to get what I wanted out of life. Hell, I'm still bent about it. But I'm damn good at what I do and I enjoy it. Sounds like the comic store is something that'll suit your passions and skills. And as long as that makes you happy and together, that's all that matters."

"I have to admit, I've offered to kick Turtle's ass a few times myself." Jay shrugs. "I'm just glad the thing with the bikes panned out so Bonnie has some extra cash."

"Yeah, she's able to pay the bills now, thanks to you." Ted says. "Thanks. She won't take my wages, I tried."

He nods. "Stuart is ten months younger than me and we're in the same grade. We look similar enough some folks can't even tell us apart and they think we're twins. But, well, I guess I was Dad's favourite before he died. We had more in common."

He glances out of the window, hearing a sound.

"Oh, speak of the devil..." he motions to Jay to come over. Turtle is getting off his bike just outside the house. "Tempted to go have some words before he gets to the doorbell."

"That's to her. She and Terry did the hard work. I just found the bikes."

"Yeah, Dickie and I never found common ground. Last time we caught up, we broke bits of each other."

Jay glances out the window. "I'd be tempted but this is Bonnie's ground. I feel like I shouldn't step in unless she asks me to." Which is not to say Ted can't.

"Gonna make sure he ain't drunk."

Ted decides to go downstairs, and barges out the front door, startling the big cop.

"Hey Ted. How's school?" Turtle asks.

"What do you care?" Ted asks. "What do you want?"

"Came to talk to Bonnie." Turtle says, calmly.

"It's not yer day." Ted says. "If you've got Billie's birthday stuff I can take it." he adds, seeing that Turtle is holding an envelope.

The look on Turtle's face suggests this isn't Billie's birthday stuff.

Jay follows him down, standing with Bonnie and lets her lead the situation. He cocks her head at her in question.

"What's he doin' here?" Turtle asks Bonnie, indicating Jay.

"I invited him fer dinner, Ted wanted a man to talk to." Bonnie says. "He ain't my toy boy if that's what yer thinkin'."

"Can we talk in private?" Turtle asks.

"Ain't convenient, I'm about to serve dinner." Bonnie says, putting her hands on her hips. "And it ain't fair on the younger kids fer you to keep turnin' up unannounced."

"This cain't wait." Turtle says.

Jay snorts a laugh at Bonnie's comment, his body language relaxed. A lifetime of training and experience, he doesn't need to be wound tight to spring into action if needed.

"Ted, can you go inside please?" Turtle asks.

Ted doesn't move. "The more you act like this the more I want to stay."

Turtle sighs and hands the envelope over to Bonnie. She opens it, and looks inside.

"I'll read it later." she says, closing it again. "I ain't signin' nothin' until Leroy's checked it."

"You brought divorce papers but forgot yer daughter's birthday present? Nice." Ted says, in disgust.

"There's a week to go. If you cain't afford a present just be sober fer her party." Bonnie says, turning and going back into the house.

Jay lingers by the door, waiting till Ted comes in too. Just in case he needs to step in. He doesn't want Ted getting in trouble over Turtle. From everything Jay's seen and heard, Turtle's not worth it.

Ted gives Turtle a glare, then goes back inside. Turtle looks at Jay.

"I never meant to hurt her, you know. I really thought it could work."

"Ted, can you set the table please?" Bonnie asks, getting the dinner out of the oven.

"Didn't work out that way, did it?" Jay shrugs, following the others inside and closing the door firmly.