WHO: John and Richard WHEN: Wednesday Afternoon WHERE: John's workplace, 21 Dec '11 WHAT: Richard gets medieval on John's face
John was practically walking on air. Only two more days until the firm shut down for Christmas! He'd be very generous in giving most of his staff Friday off, he thought. Sure, some had cases and would have to stay, but most people got to go home. Well, why not? He wasn't a total Scrooge.
And that infernal pain the the ass was now burning in hell. John grinned like a shark, incredibly pleased with himself. He'd won! He'd finally got one over on Robin and got rid of the little shit permanently. He was even being extra nice to his assistant (though the kid wasn't stopping work until John did, and that would be Friday night.) And now he was leading a meeting with the senior partners, outlining how to wind up their cases over the next couple of days. At least the partners had the good sense to not let on if they'd seen that ridiculous video or not. Firing interns for giggling right before Christmas wasn't something he enjoyed, but in this case was entirely warranted. And okay, he enjoyed it right now. He didn't want to have to fire senior lawyers too.
He pondered if his mother would object to not inviting Richard to Christmas dinner. That would really be the icing on the cake for this year.
Richard didn't care that he had no proof. When he'd heard about Robin's death and John's cheer at it, he assumed and put the two together. And despite everything, he still had his temper. John just had a way of setting it off.
So he'd found John's office and ignoring just about everyone had stalked up to the meeting room, pushing the door's open with anger in his eyes.
He brushed the assistant off and pointed to John, "you!" Out of habit he'd slipped into his native tongue. English was harder when he was angry.
John broke off mid sentence to spring backwards out of his chair, holding up a folder defensively. "You can't be in here!! Somebody call security!" he said, his eyes going round and panicked. He backed away, trying to keep the table between himself and his brother. The other men in the room looked at each other and the intruder in confusion.
Right now he didn't really care about security or any of the other people. He was focused on John.. he pushed along the chairs to get to his brother, anger written into his eyes.
John threw the folder at Richard and tried to break for the door, paper flying all over the place. "GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!" he cried, his voice just this side of shrill. "I didn't do anything! SECURITY!!"
He got the papers out of his face and hurried his pace, stepping so he was in John's path. "Like Hell you didn't! You little rat!" Then he hauled back and went to punch his brother. He didn't care how this may look. John deserved this.
John went down rather easily with a yelp of indignation and pain that was quite high pitched. "I'm bleeding!" he screeched, holding his nose. "You barbarian!!" Because Richard was speaking the old way, John had lapsed back to it in response to him.
"I'm the barbarian? You had my friend killed you piece of shit!" He didn't even care that now John's partners were acting and at least forming some sort of barrier around their co worker. If he wanted to, he could get in, but he wasn't here for a full on brawl. John just needed come some justice.
"You can't prove it! He deserved whatever he got! He's a menace and you know it!" John was looking at the blood on his hand with a kind of fascinated disgust. "That delinquent has been stealing and causing trouble since he could breathe. It's about time someone too action!" John pointed an accusing finger at Richard. "You've been aiding and abetting him for years! You LIKE him making a mockery of me! Well I'm glad he'd dead, and you better watch your back or-"
He brushed past the mortals to lean down and punch John again. He could do much worse, but wasn't. John simply didn't deserve all that. "Or what? You'll hide behind assassins and lackey's like the coward you are? There are better ways of handling this, but you never did have any common sense."
"Stop hitting me!!" John cried, eyes looking suspiciously wet. Blood was leaking onto his shirt. Outside the meeting room, he could hear people looking through the windows, and looked around in fear of cameras recording the incident. He struggled to his feet and put his fists up. "Come on then, lets go!" he said, waving his fists. He tried to throw an ineffective punch at Richard so that people wouldn't think he just sat there and took it.
He easily stepped aside the punch, throwing one back at John to get him back on his ass. "You can't even fight decently, you sorry excuse of an idiot. And no, I'm not. You have this one coming. It's not enough you insult me or Aaron, but now you go and do this. Someone has to bring you down to your level."
"What's this got to do with your stupid cripple boyfriend?" John replied, starting to feel a little dazed. "You can't prove anything." He crawled backwards before getting back up, hands raised more defensively this time. Pugilism wasn't his strong suit.
There were people coming, he knew it. Security were on their way, surely!
He picked John up by his collar but for the moment wasn't hitting him anymore. "Your words and actions are proof enough for me. This is how I settle things and when Robin comes back, you will be leaving him alone. Whatever he does I consider just vengeance for this trick of yours."
John about turned purple in the face with fury. "ME leave HIM alone!?!" he all but shrieked, followed by a string of expletives not exactly complimentary to Richard. He started slapping at Richard's hands holding him, slapping at his arms and face, anywhere he could reach to make his brother let go. "You arrogant, moronic, shit-faced fucking cockslap of a creature! You don't SEE it! You ignore it! You just let him go on and on and on- AND FOR FUCKS SAKE SOMEBODY CALL THE POLICE!"
The slapping wasn't all that hard to endure. He could take all that unless his brother developed new skills for trying to let him go. Instead he released one hand and slapped John upside the head."Maybe be less of a dick and maybe he'll stop poking at you. Robin's entire story revolves around you, you moron. You leave him alone, he'll get distracted. Put the light on yourself and you make yourself a target." He pushed John off him, hopefully to make him fall down again.
John stumbled but didn't fall properly this time. He was saved in replying by the belated arrival of security, two men in uniforms who came rushing in expecting a calamitous event and instead saw Haveland with blood dripping down his face, facing off against a taller, rather more bulky man with barely a hair out of place.
"ARREST HIM! HE ASSAULTED ME!" John bellowed at them. "See how you dodge an assault charge, you pompous prick. I did NOTHING to deserve what that little fucker did to me, and you have no proof of anything at all."
He narrowed his eyes but fighting against security would only end worse for him. So he stepped back and raised his hands, "you need a lesson in mythology you little shit."
He turned around, perfectly willing to coordinate with the security forces. Then he switched back to English and looked to the partners. "until he was fifteen, he was deathly afraid of the dark and stuttered." Not really true but he had to get one last jab in there somehow. Calmly he held out his hands to the security people.
John let out an odd sound that was a bit like a bull being strangled. The security guards took Richard away to the security booth to wait for the police to show up. John shouted, "MEETING AJOURNED!!" and went to the bathroom to wash his face before going to meet the police to give a statement. He just knew his mother was not going to be happy about this.