I Want Money - Chapter III

[lord-alexander.livejournal.com]

Title: I Want Money (That's What I Want) - Chapter III
Author: lord_alexander
Pairing: Very AU Billy/Dom with a touch of Andy in subsequent bits.
Rating: We're still in a PG13, chaps.
Summary: Being kidnapped by a shotgun-wielding Mancunian bankrobber, complete with an argumentative getaway driver, Billy isn't having a good day. At least it is interesting.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Even in an AU
Feedback: See me chase it like a dope-smoking penguin living in a tank of sardines.
Author's Notes: Third chapter, which has taken so long as I think my Monaboyd!Muse did a runner to Birmingham with my HarryPotter!Muse and now they are trying very hard to have many crossover babies. As you do. Anyway, here we are, I'm going to raid the fridge and denude it of pork pies now.

Previous chapters can be found here and here.


Heading south, through the smaller places between Croyden and the M25, the urban meeting rural with stunning force. In little time at all the rusty blue Ford Mondeo was sailing quite merrily through villages with mock-tudor fronted houses and populated by a veritable rash of 4x4’s. Mum’s cars, obviously, they showed no sign of being used for anything rougher than wrangling the children in while taking them the two hundred yards to school. Billy had always thought there should be a law against that. Not children, obviously unless they picked their noses and ate the contents with obvious relish, but the use of outlandishly huge and petrol-guzzling cars for such a mundane career. If he was a jeep, he’d be wanting to test his horsepower on the gentle hills behind the winding towns, grunting and working up a manly sweat before being driven home and hosed off by an owner who appreciated that four wheel didn’t necessarily mean the number of tires on the tarmac at any given time.

Maybe he’d thought about that too much. However, anything, even being sodomised with a cactus, was preferable to listening to the bickering. Not that is wasn’t top-class bickering.

“I don’t fucking know where we’re going!”

“You’re the one fucking driving!”

“I can’t do that and look at the map, I’ll get given a ticket!”

Dom gave what was approaching a martyred sigh, his eyes looking to Billy for support in this measure. Okay, possibly having no plan in case they a) weren’t arrested b) actually did the job and c) got away with it might have been a rather bad idea. But then Dom was like that, he was a flying by the seat of his rather tight jeans sort of bloke, he was for danger and adventure and the liberation of money from capitalist institutions to distribute amongst the poor and needy. That, of course, being him and Andy.

“You’re a sodding Londoner, you should know where to go!”

“Jesus Christ, you stupid bloody northern twat, that’s like saying because I live in London I should fucking well know Mr Raj Patel who lives in Epping Forest.”

"Well...do you?"

"Yeah, 'course I...that was a shit example."

“Hold this.”

Billy stared as the shotgun was bundled into his hands and the Mancunian tried to half-climb over the seat in front of him, obviously trying to grab the atlas that was temptingly just out of reach. Another volley of rather impressive swearing, and Dom wriggled forward a little more, the headrest of the front seat dragging his shirt up and exposing his back, before a final lunge, an unearthly screech of agony, and he was back, curling up into a ball. But at least he had the road map.

“You alright mate?” Andy turned around to look at his accomplice, handsome saturnine face mildly worried as Dom writhed on the back seat, and almost drove into the back of a Nissan.

“…erk…”

“Take that as a yes, then?”

“…erk…”

Being smacked in the bollocks by a headrest wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences for any young man.

*****

Right, they had some vague sense of direction, and it was to head east.

Billy could see flaws in this plan, but then Billy had come to the conclusion that he was the most sane person in this car. He’d never give a shotgun to a hostage, for starters. That was a foolish thing to do and the only reason he hadn’t threatened them and escaped was because (he told himself) he was in shock at the sheer stupidity. He’d have a plan, a well-structured and organised plan. And most of all he’d have a driver who was not so much the getaway man as some sort of sublimated London taxi driver. Not only was Andy someone who drove with his foot permenently wedged on the accelerator, and he refused to acknowledge that he didn’t know where he was going, but he talked. And talked. Then talked a little more, before rounding off with a nice bit of chatter.

The other slightly weeny tiny flaw in the plan to just head east was that the M25 was orbital. It was circular, it was the Omega of Hell. If they kept driving, they’d end back up where they started, and that was therefore an idiotic thing to do by even the standards of the Guild of Village Idiots.

He didn’t say anything, he was waiting with baited breath for the two men to realise that they were going the wrong way.

“…yeah, so I says to Dave I says you’re not pulling me round on a leash all night, and he says that I look so good as the bitch and…”

In reality - and Billy was having this sinking sensation in his stomach though it could have been the pasty he’d had for lunch - he was enjoying this. Some inner communist was cheering these two men for nicking nigh on two grand and making a run for it, like Thelma and Louise but definitely being beaten by Geena Davies in the tits stakes. They’d come in like some sort of freedom fighters, had stolen the money, had metaphorically thrown him over the back of the horse and had galloped into the sunset.

It was hard, smacking down the inner damsel in distress.

“…so Vig comes in and he’s naked apart from a turban and about a gallon of baby oil, so I’m wondering what the hell that radish is there for and…”

Not being a victim, not enjoying being the victim, not being happy with being held at gunpoint by two rough thugs. Of course, if Billy wanted out, he could have done it. Swift Glasgae kiss to Dom, nab the gun, force Andy to pull over to the hard shoulder, then be free. If he’d wanted to be released of course. Of course of course of course. Not enjoying this one iota.

“Sorry about Andy, it takes hell of a lot for him to shut his trap,” came the warm Manchester voice, and Billy was shook out of his reverie by the charmingly wonky smile of the shotgun wielding one. Maybe it was working in Croyden, maybe it was the almost one hundred percent nylon/polyester mix trousers he was forced to wear as an employee of the Crimson Assurance, but there was a certain electric frisson buzzing over the Scotsman, making the hairs on his arms stand on end.

“…Orli, great big poof, he takes it up the arse seven ways to Sodom the nonce and there is a fuck off Met. Volvo coming up my inside, so Orli, pretty as hell, far too fucking tall…”

Impressive, how Andy could just talk on and on without anyone actually paying attention.

“Anyway,” started Dom, ignoring the babbling of the driver who was trying to light a cigarette, wind down his window and drive with his knees at the same time. “I’m Dom, that’s Andy, pleased to have you with us on this short but hopefully eventful flight from here to fuck knows where. Please don’t fasten your seatbelt as they don’t work, and in the event of a crash, there is nothing you can do but die, so I hope you get some comfort from that. So, Billy…can I call you Billy? It’s right there, over your nipple…you ever get nipple rash from that shirt? Looks really static, does that shirt. Anyway, Billy, hi! Tell me something about yourself.”

Oh Christ in a hand basin. Not two of the talky bastards, surely?

*****

They were in Essex, flat and featureless, driving towards Hell. Or more accurately, Lakeside. If the M25 had been bad, this was the lava of eternal damnation, this was the flat, featureless void of the afterlife, this was the shopping centre of nightmare.

Why they were heading towards Lakeside Billy had no idea, and what’s more he didn’t actually care. He knew they had an Anne Summers, though, and judging from the talk that was still pouring from the mouth of the driver, they were going to blow two grand on battery operated little friends, peep-hole knickers, and lubricant. Lots and lots of lubricant.

Dom had fallen silent just after the Dartford Tunnel, when they turned off, and was staring out of the window into the fading light. The traffic cones had sapped his energy; to put it another way, the ranting about traffic cones had made him fall into what was approaching a light doze, punctuated by less and less frequent cries of wanting to go to the toilet, or asking if they were there yet. At first Billy had thought this was some sort of knowing post-irony, Dom getting in touch with his inner child, being cool and ironic and clever with his humour. But as the younger man yawned, sawn-off resting on his knees, then slumped sideways to utilise his prisoner as a pillow, Billy doubted this more and more.

Disconcerted, Billy had to move his shoulder, the weight of a drowsy Mancunian having turned it numb, and he brought his arm up to rest along the back of the seat. Of course, who wouldn’t have appreciated that, and Dom took full advantage in his sleepful state, head cuddling into the older man’s chest, before he gave a soft cry and sat up. A slight glare, Billy’s stomach twisting slightly though he soon controlled himself, and his name badge was removed, thrown at the back of Andy’s head, before Dom made himself more comfortable.

“He’s always like this, he’s got all this energy and has these fucking manic turns, right, but then it knackers him. Dommie’ll be alright after a kip.”

They had stopped, and Billy looked up to see the strange and pale eyes of Andy looking back, his full mouth tugging into a soft and rather paternal smile.

“He’s a good kid, just that he wants the adventure. Doesn’t even need the money, just the buzz. Silly bugger." Reaching back, the Londoner took the shotgun which Dom had been holding rather like a dangerous and lethal teddy bear, and propped it against the passenger seat, before turning, fixing their prisoner with a stare.

“Me and him, we’re not bad, just normal blokes. I could do with the dosh, Jesus, it’s a grand for me and there’s a shitload I could get for my kid with a grand. She’s with her mum, of course, don’t want the likes of me bringing up a kid, but I can get her stuff. She deserves things, nice things, not knocked-off, legit things, and her little face when I bring her stuff. Child maintenance is crippling, mate, never have them if you’re going to be buggered by the Child Support Agency, they’ll hound you, like fucking rats up a drainpipe. Yeah. Ruby’s a good girl, wouldn’t give her up for the world.”

Confused, the Scotsman gazed back at the slightly confessional speech, wondering why Andy had chosen to make it. It wasn’t for him to judge why they’d robbed a bank, and then there was the thing about all those blokes and things that he was sure the darker man had been whittering on about and it was difficult to think, really, at least with some sort of rationality. His brain had gone AWOL, so all he could do was nod slightly, not able to think of something to say. It was definite lack of tea.

“Why we at Lakeside?”

A grin, wolfish, Billy realising what all those random blokes could see in a short muscular man with unruly black hair and oddly pointed teeth, and Andy rubbed his hands together.

“You and me and the boy, we’re going to nick a car, right? Gets us off the hook for a bit, everyone nicks cars at Lakeside, it’s tradition or something. Essex is fucking odd, right? So we nicks this car and we bugger off, nice little back track, and…”

“France. Eurostar. Stick Billy in the boot.”

Billy squeaked.