Work Text:
A street in the middle of London, posh shops and posh shoppers, cleaner than usual pavement, all the shop windows lit for Christmas though it’s still daylight.
Two of London’s biggest villains wander through through the square, perfectly at their ease. Except the cold wind diving into One Two‘s collar, carrying with it the chill of the Thames, the cold that never leaves metal and concrete and stone, is spoiling the moment, a bit. One Two tries to pull the collar of the wool topcoat closer together, but that’s never a substitute for a good scarf, and One Two lost his on a building site two days ago.
Handsome Bob’s not much better, worse, actually, because he’s only wearing a leather jacket, and a thin sweater under. He won’t zip the jacket because he’s got a pistol in there, even now, years after the Wild Bunch began to hunt for respectability on a large scale, and he needs to be able to get at it.
They’ve an appointment in thirty minutes, an investor who’s been feeling them out for a few months. Mumbles thinks this bloke, Johnston, is worth checking out, but they're all three more cautious now.
It doesn’t help that, according to Bertie, this Johnston is 'not quite the thing.‘ One Two knows Bertie fairly well by now, and that statement could either mean anything from this bloke wearing the wrong designed suits, to Johnston being an undercover copper.
Handsome Bob doesn’t much like the man, either, and he's got good instincts or that sort of thing, but One Two hasn’t anything else to do this afternoon, and it gets them out of their usual haunts, and Bob comes with him as a matter of course. Even after all this time, after the 14 legitimate businesses, and the almost legit tax papers, Handsome Bob is still at One Two’s back, with a pistol in his jacket.
One Two is forty, now, and sometimes achy in the mornings, his body remembering old punches and blows. Mumbles is finally starting to gray, and owns a house with a garden, and, strangely enough, is married.
Bob’s not changed much, except for letting his hair get a little longer. He still doesn’t shave more than a few days in the week. He dresses a bit better, but just a bit, courtesy of a boyfriend a few years ago who had the patience to teach him what to wear to look a bit older, more serious, without looking too respectable. So it’s designer sweaters now, instead of sweatshirts, and he buys new tee shirts before the old ones fade, and wears boots more often than trainers.
Fours years ago, the Wild Bunch would never have been meeting with a legit businessman, unless they were planning to rob him.
The four years since they tried to get into the property business and got fucked over by Lenny Cole feels either like an eternity or the blink of an eye, and One Two is glad he isn’t a thinker like Mumbles, or it would do his head in.
Looks like everything has turned out all right, in the end, since Mumbles and One Two had got wise and put their fingers in a lot of high end pies, not just one, after Lenny bought it. Eventually the property they had wanted had even come back to them, courtesy of Archy and Johnny, who owed the Wild Bunch and could locate decent on a map, with a little help.
Handsome Bob had helped there, too, or rather, Bertie’s fascination with him had. Nothing had ever happened there, Bob just wasn’t interested, but they’d found a rather strange, to One Two, friendship, and then Bertie had come in on the business side a bit, and it had all worked out.
The money had come a bit slower than they’d wanted, what with all this economic fuckery, but steady, and legal, at least on paper, and the Wild Bunch can now spend pounds and pence cleaned through legal commerce, and leave something real behind them.
Mumbles and Lilla, married a year, are having a kid in the spring, Lilla five months along now, and Mumbles, at least, is hoping for a daughter. He thinks a girl will be easier to deal with, at first, like a practice kid.
One Two just laughs at that. Any kid of the Wild Bunch is going to be a right smart little rule breaker, any way you look at it. Any road, they are all looking forward to the little squeaker, and One Two has even resigned himself to not being the favorite uncle.
As for Handsome Bob, well, he’s dated a few blokes, one near a year and a half.
One Two has been with a few women for months at a time, and both thought they’d had something real going at some point, but nothing has ever worked out.
Next to him, Handsome Bob steps aside to let an older couple pass by. His jacket gapes open and he shivers.
“You want a coffee?” Bob jerks his head at a Starbucks. There’s a queue nearly out the door with folks who have the same idea.
One Two shakes his head. “I’ll just duck into the shop here.”
He hasn’t even looked at the name of the place, but it caters to men, he likes the look of the some of the jackets in the window, and he has the money to indulge himself, even if they’re not out here to do any shopping.
The heat in the shop is like a slap.
One Two shrugs his coat back a little, and winds his way through the racks. There’s not much he needs, and he thinks he’s got Christmas sorted for the boys, but maybe he should get Handsome Bob a highly posh tie as a joke. He makes his way around another customer towards the back of the shop, thinking of picking out something terribly regimental and conservative, or a shocking purple, just to see Bob make that face.
He steps around a tangle of holiday shoppers but is brought up short against a rack of soft scarves.
One Two runs his fingers down a deep red scarf, takes it in his hands. He’s tempted to rub it over his cheek, it’s so soft. He turns the fabric over and looks at the label. 100 percent cashmere.
Well, he does need a scarf.
One Two drapes the length of cashmere over his arm to go to the front of the store to pay. By the time he gets his turn at the till, Bob’ll be waiting for him, patiently freezing his arse off and making One Two feel guilty.
Before he can walk away, a smoky green scarf in the middle of the rack catches his eye, and One Two turns back and slides it from the rod.
After paying, One Two drapes the red scarf around his own neck, admires the way it looks against the dark charcoal of his coat, and turns to the open shop door.
The pavement is filling up with people now, as the day gets later. Handsome Bob is at the far corner of the shopfront, stamping his feet a little, inhaling the steam from a takeaway coffee, watching the swarming shoppers.
One Two has to wait a beat for people to drift away before he can come up to Bob, who turns to him, about to say something.
“Stand still,” One Two says.
One Two loops the green scarf around Handsome Bob’s neck, inside the collar of the bomber jacket, so it sits against his skin. He ties the cashmere in a simple knot and pulls it snug.
Bob gives him a soft, crooked smile. His eyes crinkle up at the edges. “Thanks, mate.”
“You were making me cold,” One Two says, but he smiles back.
Bob drains the last of his coffee and tosses the cup into a bin.
One Two drops his arm around his shoulders, and without a word, they keep on down the central London street.
Neither one of them has everything they want, but, One Two, he’s in no rush.
All One Two wants for Christmas is for things to stay just how they are.
Or a new Range Rover.
Santa’s choice.