honeydew and rhubarb with a cherry on top
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: The Angus Incident
Rating: PG (language)
Challenge: Honeydew #27: pick up line, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #21: what’s a nice ___ like you doing in a place like this? (someone makes the grave mistake of taking Pia for a helpless innocent)
Toppings/Extras: cherry (first person, present tense)
Wordcount: 933
Summary: Pia Rees isn’t the type to get scared, or so she says.
Notes: Marina’s ‘My Treat’! :)
Envy’s a dirty, vice-filled dive of a nightclub but it’s somewhere to spend the time. It’s not that I like it there or anything, but it’s sort of become one of my places. We don’t get too much gang crime in here-just the usual sort of crime. I feel safer here because I’m surrounded by people. That shoddy box room I call a home likes to close in on me sometimes, and you’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever spent a night worrying that the mould patch on the ceiling is spying on you.
Anyway, so it’s not all bad as a place, just full of shit music and shit alcohol and shit people.
Yeah, well-what do you expect? It’s under Brinkleigh Tower in the Liverpool District, and that place is a real hive of failed businessmen and politicians. They always sink to the bottom in the end, they drop through the floors ‘til they’re barely above the Smog and from there it’s downhill all the way. Literally.
“Hey, my girlie! How’re you?”
People don’t call me my girlie very much, and they never call me it twice. I turn around and see that it’s one of the losers you meet around the edge of the streetbike races. Man, I live for those races. There ain’t nothing else I’d rather spend my days doing. Unfortunately, it’s also a magnet for losers and dickwads like this one.
He’s called Angus and he’s one of those that thinks a bit of beard taped to his face makes him a real hard man. Reckons he’s got this way with women. Hah. He’s got a way right out of my fucking life, I’ll tell you that for nothing. I’ve only talked to him twice before and now he’s cosying up like we’ve been friends for years.
“Angus,” I reply shortly, looking him up and down. I don’t like the kind that has the money for nice leather jackets like the one he’s wearing. Maybe he’s been getting involved in the gangs lately-that’s the only explanation for sudden success around here. Sudden success followed by a quick disappearance, always. Sim’s warned me away from them enough times and I bloody well believe him. Sim’s old man got tangled up in the gangs, and look where that got him. Well, imagine anyway, because there ain’t no way of finding out where he wound up. “Lookin’ good. And by good I mean like a pile of fucking shit.”
“Funny,” Angus replied, edging up to me. The place is crowded and I know he’s not going to try anything-at least, I think so. He gives me the creeps. He doesn’t even ride, he just hangs around the tracks like a sad groupie, hoping someone’ll pay him a bit of attention.
Like that’s ever going to happen. His boggly face is the biggest turn-off ever.
“Didn’t take you to be an Envy sort of girl,” he said, nudging me with one of his jabby elbows. “Especially on yer own! Where’s that shadow you got hangin’ off you all the time?”
“If you mean Simmins, he’s busy,” I reply without warmth. OK, the truth is he doesn’t know I’m out. Well, he just worries too much. Seems to think I’m going to get my head kicked in one day. I mean, why the hell would he think that? “Fuck off, will you, Angus?”
He closes his hand around my wrist.
“Only if you come with me.”
“No fuckin’ fear.”
“You really ought to clean that mouth out, Pia. Want some help with that?”
God, what a sleaze. Does he really think that’s going to impress any girl? Like, ever?
“Hey, listen, you let go of me now or I’ll put your face through the back of your head. Alright? Final warning.”
He actually had the nerve to laugh.
“Girlie, you’ve been spending too much time around those big, tough streetbike racers. Don’t you know it’s a privilege to get interest from a Firebird?”
Well, shit. Looks like he has joined one of the gangs, and only the most fucking irritating one of the lot, too. Suits him, I suppose. It makes him a little more dangerous but not enough to put me off. I glare at him for another moment before socking him in the face.
What? I warned him.
“Oh, fuck, that was a stinger!” I curse, rubbing my knuckles as he sinks to the ground. It’s worth it to see the cut flinting red under his eye. It was his fucking beaky nose that hurt my knuckle, I think. Not that it matters. Angus is out for the count. I step back as some bar staff turns to face me.
“Oy, lady, we don’t want trouble,” the barman calls over.
“Don’t lady me,” I reply hotly. “I weren’t causing trouble, this fuckin’ Firebird was letchin’ me out.”
“Firebird?” the barman asks, looking nervous. “Hot shit, kid, get out of here.”
“I was gonna,” I reply sullenly over the woozy music, sticking my hands in my pockets. “This place is a shithole anyway.”
Kicking my way through the crowd of drunk, wobbling dancers I make my way to the exit and squeeze out past the bodyguard buffs. They eyeball me like I’m a fucking hobo as I trail out past them. The Smog is thick tonight and I can’t even see the lights in the ‘scrapers above me. It’s cold and if I was the type to get scared I probably would’ve been, right then.
But as you know, I’m not the type, and don’t go telling anyone otherwise.