Who:Bubba Jones Killian & Kenzi What: Killian gets a surprise at his doorstep that looks like him When: Today Where: Killy's houseboat Rating/Warnings: Mentions of illegal shenanigans, FEELS Status: Complete!
Okay, okay. You got this. This is totes not awkward.
Except it was, it really was. A small voice nagged and nagged at the edges of her mind, telling her this was the dumbest thing she’d ever thought of, this was stupid, it wasn’t too late to turn around and walk away. There was still time to hop back into her rusty 1990s Charger with the serious muffler problems and speed the heck away, letting the sight of the marina just be a distant memory. It wasn’t all that cowardly to avoid a potentially awkward family reunion, was it?
Assuming this was the dude. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Kenzi came here to find out after all, to finally snuff that last flame of blood-related curiosity. Someone raised with just one parent - it wasn’t unnatural for her to wonder what the other side of the family was like. Probably the same. Alcoholism reportedly ran on both sides. And not like she did anything to stop herself from carrying on the family legacy, but whatevs. Booze was like coffee: a warm, fuzzy hug. Especially in the morning. Especially mixed.
Careful in those sleek leather boots - laced up from toe to knee, heels so high and pointy it was a miracle she mastered steady coordination when walking - she stepped onto the houseboat, nervously adjusting the leopard-printed blazer draped over a corset-inspired dress. Which was black, of course, with some steampunk accents. Smooth raven hair was flawlessly straightened (as usual, her straightener cost a fortune and California had no humidity, praise Buddha), and mascara and liquid eyeliner applied like a professional. No clumps, all precise and smooth lines, booyah.
Time for that totes awkward knock-knock.
The knock on the door was heard inside by the shady criminal pirate dreamer, who stretched long limbs when he rose from his spot on the hammock on his back porch - he'd made the cosy spot himself to try something stress-relieving (he’d been feeling that a lot lately, thanks to foreboding warnings from a certain queen), weaving the rope with expert hands. Tonight he'd just been out there with the doors open, ruminating. Sometimes he occasionally slept in the rope net, too. Reminded him of being on ships; hammocks attached to posts were better than bunks because of the constant rocking motions.
Anyway, he shuffled weary, sea-bleached bones to the door and opened it, unsure of what to expect on the other side. Leopard print was distinctly low on the list, however, and so were dominatrix boots. Which was why those forget-me-not eyes glittered curiously, like glass, and his smile was polite enough - it could stab through a heart, so crooked and unforgiving, yet the confusion was there.
“Can I help you, love?”
She looked very...lady of the night. Potential client, perhaps? Fling from the past? ...No. That thought gave him the heebie jeebies for some reason.
His eyes were hers, her eyes were his. There was always someone in the family you resembled the most - could be a parent, an uncle or aunt, cousins. Maybe even sibling. Kenzi hardly shared any similarities to the Malikov side of her family, but she figured there was some sort of relative out there she actually looked related to, where the likeness was so uncanny a blood relation couldn’t be denied.
Now she knew who.
Blood calling blood, maybe - but at that moment all the anxious skepticism harboring into her gut poofed, leaving her nothing less than dumbstruck. Until she realized that it’d be totally amazeballs if she said something coherent and, you know, not look like a total retard. Yeah, let’s do that.
“Um, yo,” she mustered, a nervous wave of her hand with an equally nervous smile. Kinda hard to rehearse an odd reunion such as this, but oh hell, she’d try to come up with something that was sort of eloquent. Not like she expected something tearful or anything; likely, it’d be a brief encounter and they’d say their goodbyes and move on with their lives, right? Dude who lived on a pretty gnarly houseboat (how coooooool holy mother of metallica she waaanted one) probably didn’t have room in his life for some estranged stray of a half-sibling. If he’d even believe her. “You’re...Killian? Jones, right? I’m Kenzi. You, uh, you don’t know me. But apparently we share the same dad, so…” Hahaha, awkwaaaaaaaard. Her shoulders shrugged so high they reached her ears. “We’re kinda related, I guess.”
What the fucking hell was with this place? The atmosphere was heavy, something crackling in Orange County (or perhaps that was his sanity, right down the centre of his skull), and it wasn’t anything Killian would ever call normal. Or a pleasant spot to settle, yet here he was. At the door having another stroke and/or heart attack - because the one given to him by Regina, regarding the news of his potential hand doom, wasn’t enough.
“I’m not...my father’s dead, he’s been dead for awhile,” was his flat response, but that little morbid fact didn’t necessarily mean anything. Kenzi didn’t look much younger than him, no more than seven or eight years. Though the more he squinted seafoam eyes, the more similarities he saw. She had Liam’s nose, how odd.
But that wasn’t the point, so what was it, exactly? That this was a colossal joke?
He ran his fingers through his hair, fingers all worn from weapons worn at belts and sea battles. “Suppose you can come in if you’d like.” Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea, but he’d offer her a drink, figure out what all this even was, then politely inform her that he was watching his pennies - because he couldn’t imagine why else she came. It wasn’t like he was rolling in money thanks to the ‘family legacy.’
“So I heard.” Kenzi’s lips were a tight line. “About him dead - mom’s sort of a gold-digger, y’see. Tried to hound him for money to raise me and oops, too late, kicked the bucket. Haha.” Okay so that forced laugh at the end wasn’t exactly tasteful, but there was a hurricane of stressed-as-shit butterflies flapping their wings and shit in her belly. With a very cautious peek into his humble above water abode, she took a hesitant step in, patted the pocket of her blazer. Brass knuckles, in case she was being jipped.
He wasn’t the only cautious one, but cynicism taught her to be prepared.
A twirl let her eyes look around, eager to know who the hell he really was. What was he like? What did he do? Birkhoff’s help came with limits - she was lucky enough to get an address, let alone a name. “In Ireland. Belfast, or something. Not that I’m here for that, I don’t want - I don’t need pity change, I’m not broke.” Her gaze met his again, and she sighed. “Just...wanted to satisfy curiosity, is all.”
It was only natural instinct, wasn’t it? To want to know a parent or sibling that was never there, but knew that somewhere out in the world, they existed. Daddycakes didn’t seem to be like a stand up guy, there wasn’t much to mourn or miss there. Siblings, and one that was alive? Kenzi couldn’t help herself - she needed to know.
“It’s just you, isn’t it?” No dad, no mom, not even the brother. Just him.
Killian snorted a bitter laugh. “Seems like a match made in Heaven,” he said, accent wrapping around the words - it sounded more posh than he actually was, but those hailing from his corner of the world tended to share that subterfuge. Belfast was a bleak place, with a murderous history - and it matched his own very existence, in all its gloomy splendour. “Northern Ireland, actually - they think of themselves as having a separate identity. But my...your...he was all Irish.”
Provided that the girl wasn’t shitting him. Still, talking helped him gather his thoughts - because there was a lot.
“I’m sorry, but is this even real?” he asked suddenly as he went to the bar to rummage, to find them something to drink. “You came all this way and tracked me down - where are you even from, by the way - just to satisfy curiosity?” Forgive him for still having a few shreds of doubt.
A pause, as he took the top off a decanter of whiskey. “But aye, it’s just me.”
If he hadn’t questioned her, he’d be an idiot. Or at the very least it’d make her hackles rise in suspicion, because even if she had this visit somewhat planned, you couldn’t really plan it. Kenzi didn’t sit. Too restless, still too cautious. Part of her also questioned reality, but she knew, deep down, it was real.
It also made her want to totally vom from the tension. Or just drink. That whiskey was eyed, thank you - he wasn’t the only one in need of a stiff drink, and it could be laced with piss for all she cared.
“Canada,” she answered, lips pursed, arms crossed over her chest. “Mom’s side of the family’s Russian. And true to the cliche, there are some mafia connections. Loose ones. She did a lot of traveling with my uncles when they were running errands.” Killian didn’t look all that squeaky clean himself - call it a gut feeling - so she felt somewhat comfortable indulging the fact. “I left a while ago, moved out from her place longer than that, and - you gonna share some of that?”
Well, she wouldn’t be partly Irish if she didn’t have a fondness for the drink. So sure, Killian would share. He poured a measure of whiskey for Kenzi too, and it was decent stuff - it had a honey colour, it tasted like honey too, at least at first. Then that’s where the bite hit you - and he also didn’t mind drinking it straight either. From a plastic bottle or a paper bag, all the same to him.
“Russian mafia. Not shocking, really. Probably good you got far away from that anyway.” He handed over the libations, and took a sip from his own - but he didn’t sit either. There was too much tension, his storm-battered heart was beating too quickly. Perhaps in a moment. “And you and her don’t get along, I take it? Is it just you also?” If she’d been alone for awhile, he felt a pang of...something. Sympathy, maybe.
It wasn’t a situation in which she’d be picky with poison - hells to the naw, give it up, broseph. Kenzi didn’t sip hers, actually. More like a thirsty chug even though it burned the inside of her mouth, left that godawful prickling aftertaste on her tongue and throat. Alcohol of all kinds, well, it tasted shitty, but no one really drank for the taste, did they? Just the swimmy after effects that made you either go ‘whooooooo’ or comfortably numb, depending on your mindset.
On the bright side, most of the times was ‘whooooooooo’ and waking up with the taste of wet puppies in her mouth. Lucky her.
Once that was down the hatch, she shuddered from the tingles coursing through and set the glass down. Okay, conversation can proceed. “Just me,” she confirmed, wincing from that lingering flavor - it had a bite, alright, a vicious one. “S’not so bad, dancing at the beat of your own drum. I survived.” In an underground subway station turned into a commune for runaways, and then after that, squatting. Mama-dearest didn’t miss her much anyway - didn’t even go to the cops to report her missing, tried to get her back, zilch. Nada.
Impressive, the way the lass just downed all that liquor. No wimping out by ordering a rum and coke for her, then. Killian could respect that. “It’s a bit tough out there, isn’t it?” he asked, rhetorically, and then with a sigh he set down his own glass - while looking very thoughtful, brow furrowed. One hand rubbed along the inky stubble on his jaw, and he took a quick glance around - there was still a lot of internal debate going on, but it was odd how he felt a kinship with her.
Not only because she was apparently his kin.
“Well, come on, then. If I’m your older brother I suppose I’m obligated to make sure you eat,” he motioned toward the kitchen. “So you came here, you’re by yourself...what do you do? Have you got a place to stay?” During his darkest hour, after he was discharged from the Navy (and it had been for legitimate reasons, but still, the VA anywhere seemed to have problems), he’d had trouble finding work and also had no family - was homeless for all intents and purposes, until he started dabbling in drug trafficking and could afford a room somewhere, no bigger than a wardrobe. He hoped that Kenzi hadn’t become involved in anything like that in order to survive.
Older brother. Man, that was a weird term. Like, superduper ridiculously weird, so weird she pinched herself. Only to keep assured it wasn’t some kind of strange dream that played on those insecure feelings of wanting some kind of relationship with one of her own that didn’t involve her mother, or her very questionable cousins. Killian...well, he seemed decent enough. Considering that she just showed up on his doorstep implying she was his long lost half-sister, he was actually really nice.
Still, she’d met really nice people that were monsters hidden beneath the smiles and generous gestures - so skepticism when it came to strangers was a healthy precaution. Brother dearest still hadn’t given her a vibe of questionable or creepy, and she hoped it wasn’t influenced by wishful thinking.
“I could eat,” she quipped with a half-grin, following his lead. Eyes still looked around, because stuff spoke volumes of people. A home on the water, so...what, he liked the ocean? Fished, maybe? Aspired for piracy? Nothing here looked all that extravagant or designer brand - it was thrifty, secondhand stuff. No traces of a ladyfriend, at least not a permanent one. Did he cook? He was offering sustenance, but in what form, she hadn’t a clue yet.
Not wanting to feel totally invasive, Kenzi found a spot on the wall to lean against. All hands and sticky fingers to herself, Brother Jones. “I run a website that caters to the freakier fetishes,” she explain, half-grin turning into something sly. “You’d be surprised how much a pair of used panties goes for. And toenail clippings. Totes ratchet, but sweet profit.” Easiest business ever. “Staying at a motel, though. Honest to Buddha’s fat rolls, the only reason I came to this hippie state is for you.”
She just said used panties. Not only that but toenail clippings. “I see,” Killian remarked, with a slow eyebrow raise - he had a talent for quirking just that one brow. Honestly, Kenzi’s website sounded like a place on the world wide web he’d visited for the laughs once or twice - but now he’d never go back. “I do hope that you’re not selling your own toenail clippings or used knickers?” The unspoken question being, of course, where the fuck did someone get the wares for a weird fetish website? It was a legitimate inquiry.
He busied himself with making grilled cheese sandwiches while he turned over the idea that she’d come all this way and was staying in a motel just for him. Yes, grilled cheese was a grand distraction - or cheese on toast, as it was called in Britain which was much more fitting. There was no actual grilling, it was frying, wasn’t it? Yanks were so odd. Anyway.
“I’m relatively new myself,” he admitted. “But it’s a strange place to live. Very...supernatural.”
Legit inquiry, one that she’d tiptoe around to protect the integrity of her business. Or some cheap excuse to avoid the gory, in-depth conversation about the technicalities of Kenzi’s money flow. “Secret of the trade, bubba-bro, lips are sealed,” she winked. Also another way of translating you don’t want to know, so let’s leave it at that, okie-doke?
Then a pause in the conversation, only to mull over his interesting descriptor of this place. New places naturally felt strange, sure. Supernatural? “You didn’t strike me as the superstitious type,” she quipped, mirroring that single eyebrow arch. “Why did you move here, anyway? I mean, c’mon. Europe, dude.” Killian had asked his fair share of interrogating questions anyway - time to flip the tables. “Running away from someone? Job? What do you even do?”
Bubba-bro. Gods, it was like Killian needed a dictionary just to translate the girl’s lingo. He snorted, mostly a laugh, as he flipped the sandwiches in the frying pan and pressed down with the spatula a little. But alright, fair enough, he supposed he didn’t need the nitty-gritty details of where one acquired toenail clippings to sell to bizarre people who likely needed a spot of therapy.
“I moved here for the job, I suppose you could say. And still haven’t felt compelled to leave, but...” He shrugged. “It’s been interesting thus far. Plus, there’s a fair amount of work to be found here, I’ve already got a substantial client base. I’m a Private Investigator - one who specialises in obtaining difficult information or things. By any means necessary.”
Kenzi could take that as she would - but the connotations were definitely there. Big Brother wasn’t so squeaky clean, but then again, neither was she. They had that in common - it was a place to start.
Oh, yeah, totes. By any means necessary. Words by themselves on paper sounded threatening enough, and Kenzi wasn’t what’d you call a rookie. She was a thief, an impersonator, a liar. All things that’d make him question the validity of her claims, but this wasn’t some silly con for money. Most of that stuff was tucked away in the past anyway and cash wasn’t exactly a problem. Not since she and Birkhoff wiped Massimo out clean.
Plus, used panties. Killer business, yo.
But just to be on the same page… “Okay, so, like. When you say ‘by any means necessary.’” It was an appropriate time to make air quotes. “That’s not code for saying you kill people, is it? Not that I’m a saint, I mean - I get picking locks and stealing credit card numbers - but whether the dude that’s making me a grilled cheese sandwich is a murderer or not kiiiiinda makes a world of difference, Bubba, just sayin’.”
Hands were up for surrender, those pretty blues outlined in inky black blinking. And yes, in the hour that she’d met estranged sibling, she already had him nicknamed. Bubba. Bubba-bro. Bubba Jones. Bubba Killy?
...nah. Last one didn’t work. Ditch that last part. Everything else was valid.
That sounded awful, couldn’t he have a better nickname? “No, I don’t kill people,” he said, and, well...he hadn’t lately. But when Killian was first starting out, clawing and scraping his way to the top of the food chain there in the criminal underworld, he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t passed over. That he made a name for himself - as the guy who could find anything, forge your documents, do the dirty work. All for a price.
“Even if I did, what would it matter? People kill other people all the time - it’s human nature. Liam was killed by Somali pirates just for being there.”
Ah, hmm. He hadn’t meant bring that up, but it still bothered Killian to this day. It also bothered him that he’d become what Liam fought against, something his brother would have hated - or at least, he did in his dreams. But here too. The similarities weren’t lost on him.
Clearing his throat, he slid a plate of hot, ooey gooey grilled cheese toward Kenzi. “Here, eat up. And finally sit down, would you?” Even if her story was bullshit (but he had a feeling it wasn’t - call it instinct), he was at least decent-hearted enough to feed her. If she was conning him, he couldn’t imagine what for.
Well, crapcakes. It wasn’t - she didn’t mean to stir things about - “Look, just confirming that you’re not some axe murderer that keeps trophies of your victims, or something,” she explained, eyebrow knitted together in the center. “Sometimes you gotta do things you’re not proud of to make it out in the wild, I get it.” Not that she had the big balls to kill anyone and even if she tried, she probably couldn’t. Noodle arms with the strength of a hamster here. Running, though - she mastered that skill on hooker-inspired platform heels. Kenzi was good at the cowardly ‘RUN AWAAAY’ route.
But fine, she’d comply - took the plate, sat down, got cozy, and waited until the bread was cool enough to peel the crust from her cheese-melted sandwich. Though while they were on topic...
“What was he like?” Was that an insensitive question? But curiosity continued to grab her by the goddamn ovaries, and she’d at least have a chance to form some kind of relationship with Killian, but as for the eldest? “Liam, I mean. Um. Okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, I just - since I have you in front of me, I figured I could ask? He was military, huh?”
“No, certainly not - you can even search the place if you want. No trophies, no lampshades made of my victims skin,” Killian quipped, taking his own sandwich and settling. Such an odd night it had been - because he’d been fully prepared to relax with a bottle of something strong, take the edge off, bask in his solitude. Robin stayed with him occasionally, in the spare room he’d spruced up, because thanks to Regina’s warning he wanted to prepare as much as he could for losing a hand (if it indeed were to be happen). So having someone nearby to potentially cart him off to the hospital was a good enough way to prep - not much else he could do, besides fuck off from the county. However, she wasn’t here tonight.
Talking about Liam also opened wounds that hadn’t quite healed, probably never would, but he’d try. For the sake of someone who was genuinely curious. “Royal Navy,” he said. “Our father was never around much, and mum died after giving birth to me so it was Liam who basically stepped in. He wanted to actually do the family name proud, kind of...make something of himself. He was a noble sort. I’d call him heroic.”
You know, all the things that Killian wasn’t.
All the things Kenzi wasn’t, either, but she had no one to disappoint - no one in her family was ‘heroic’ (her mother’s side, anyway), everyone’s fingers was dipped in something they shouldn’t be doing. It was a disease, a family curse, a result from almost living in a state close to poverty and wanting more.
“Y’knooooow,” she snickered, edges off the grilled cheese now off, and now it was time for a chomp. “If we were some weird united family, he’d have been the golden child.” There was always that perfect one, wasn’t there? Maybe Killian would have suffered from ‘middle child syndrome’ and she, well, being the only girl and youngest - rightfully spoiled, thanks a bunch. In a perfect world, where realities like theirs didn’t happen.
C’est la vie.
Elbow propped onto the table, she pressed her cheek against her palm and smiled kinda...fondly, actually. “Talk about a swell dude, though. You must miss him like whoa, huh?”
Killian was still trying to wrap his mind around family, the concept of it - as in, a long lost sister with his eyes and general bone structure showing up on his doorstep. It didn’t have to be a terrible thing, did it? His expression was contemplative, brow furrowed as he focused intensely on the grilled cheese, before getting up to grab a soda from the fridge. Two, since it was probably healthier to not have a bottle of whiskey with a sandwich.
“A bit,” he admitted, and that probably translated to like whoa in Kenzi-speak. “He was...all I had.” Then, he glanced at her, wrenching himself from someplace dark - he spent enough time there as it was. “But not anymore, aye?” Another pass of his fingers over his facial scruff, scratching through it, something of a thinking pose. “Perhaps...I could show you pictures one day.”
Just not at the moment. It had been ages since he’d cracked open that family album - there wasn’t even much in there. But a few photos, some tokens of growing up in Belfast. He had a few things of Liam’s too - his medals and honours, his awards from his time in the Navy. Those would be revisited later.
“And I don’t have a lot of space, but if you wanted a better place than a motel, I could make do.”
Holy shitballs. “Wait,” she blinked, pausing in mid-bite. “Seriously?” Well, to be fair it’s not like she had a permanent place to call home anyway - she’d been a drifter ever since she crossed the border, never liking one place enough so it was always moving to the next. Aimless wandering, making sure the monetary cushion remained plush. It wasn’t until she got the wild hair up her ass about finding an estranged family member that she had an actual destination in mind. A more fulfilled purpose of being here.
He had no other kin, and hers might as well be non-existent. Killian had pictures. More stories about the older brother he missed a fuckton, the one she’d never have a chance to meet.
Kenzi dragged the aluminum can closer, popped it open, let the carbonated hiss settle before taking a slow slip. “Well, if you want to drastically make up for all the years I should have embarrassed and annoyed the everloving turds out of you,” she told him, that smile turned broad with glee - and yeah, okay, her gothic little heart had turned into goo. “I could totally hook you up with the experience.” Invade his bathroom, leave her shoes everywhere, drink his booze, pop his pimples (if he asked nicely).
“It’s...nice to meet you, though. For reals.”
His skin may be prickled with scruff but it didn’t resemble a greasy, pizza-inhaling teenager’s, thank you. No need to pop the invisible blemishes but it would be sweet of Miss Kenzi to offer. On his end, Killian sort of had a headache, but it would pass - this was the right decision, he had a gut feeling, even if it seemed to all come out of fucking nowhere. Funny how things worked - but he was beginning to believe, more and more, that Orange County, California was comprised of some very strange voodoo.
“I suppose it’s good to make up for those years sooner rather than later,” he smirked. “I’ll turn the dining room into a suitable space. Luckily, I’ve a lovely - “ And piranha-like, but that was part of her charm, “...friend who is an interior designer. In the meantime, there’s the sofa and the hammock on the porch - I’ve slept in it a time or two, it’s rather nice.”
For reals sounded quite legitimate, and truly, he also returned the sentiment. Killian had a love-hate relationship with being alone - he sometimes thought he was doomed to be that way, but the very thought was terrifying and painful. And yet, having someone else in the house who was family would be...an adventure. He did enjoy a good adventure, so onward they’d go.