Who: Kitiara & Revy What: Old, rugged gal pals reuniting When: Today Where: A little shack of a watering hole Rating/Warnings: Language, but that's it Status: Complete!
It was the little shack of a watering hole a couple blocks from The Rear End that Revy ended at tonight - a wounded knee didn’t mean she couldn’t punch a fucker in the ugly mug if they’d gotten nasty, and she didn’t mind the extra cash the bouncing gig provided. Being off the leg (as in avoiding putting pressure on it so it could heal better) was probably a better idea, but in all honest truth she’d moved (and fought) with worse injuries.
It had the best Bumbo ever, anyway. A popular Caribbean cocktail during the era of piracy, made with rum, water, nutmeg and sugar. Not that her dreams took place in a traditional era of scourging pirates, but modern ones existed, and that’s what she dreamt of being. It was paying homage in a way, and this particular shithole was smoky with it structural wood rotting. Also, it was situated in a very rundown part of the area, not a place to attract the best of people but that’s where Revy felt at home.
No one bothered her but everyone knew her and left her to be. In the corner of the bar is where she sat, with frayed denim shorts and a bandaged kneecaps. Boots with laces that could never stay tied, an a v-neck shirt that did very little in concealing the gift of cleavage or the stomach with the faint line of abs.
This ex-con was fit to always break bones. Prison gave her a rockin’ bod, she’d keep up with it.
Her first month in California had not been at all what she was expecting. She’d been expecting to spend some time with her brother and Tas - both of which she had been, and she’d expected to set up the Orange County charter of the Blue Dragons Motorcycle Club, which she was working on. She hadn’t been expecting body swaps, stormtroopers, and her brother to suddenly have magic of all things.
Now, she wasn’t even surprised when she had what she assumed was her first dream. It was surprising that she was only five in her dream. She hadn’t expected to see her father again - in fact, she’d already almost forgotten his face - but she saw him in her dream. He’d taken her to war. She wielded a wooden toy sword and didn’t take place in any of the fighting, but her father took her to the war council and she spent time in the camp pretending to be a boy. It had been a surprisingly pleasant dream, all things considered.
It did make her want to drink. She’d spent some time as a teenager and a young adult trying to track down her father, but she’d given up and moved past that stage in her life. The dream had brought back some of that longing. Longing that she was very eager to drown. After all, her father couldn’t stick around in the dreams. How could he, if Caramon and Raistlin shared her dreams with her?
She’d headed to a dive near her new place that she had taken a liking to, ordered a drink, and scanned the bar for someone she drank with. Someone good-looking who wouldn’t mind the short walk back to her small house, or someone at least looked like they’d be decent company. Her eyes fell upon a woman in the corner who looked startlingly familiar. After a moment, Kit had placed her. She sauntered to the table, and then eased herself into the seat without bothering to ask for permission. “Well, if it isn’t Two Hands,” she said, shooting Revy a crooked smile. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Two Hands was a nickname (a well earned one, fuck you very much) she hadn’t heard on this side of the states. Revy wasn’t one to startle easy, and it took a couple attempts to light the fire on her bic lighter to singe the tip of her cigarette. Instinct told her to assess quickly, which meant those molten-amber eyes tightened and gave the woman a look over, because who the fuck was -
“Kitten,” she breathed out with a puff of cancer-inducing smoke. It’d taken a minute for the memory to stir because it’d been a long, long time. Before she’d gotten cuffed, processed, and locked into her own cell with her own rusty shitter. What the hell was she even doing here? “What the fuck even brings you here, of all places?”
This was actually a very friendly greet for Revy.
“My little brother lives here,” Kitiara said. “I thought I’d come to see what all the fuss was about. But you. You, I didn’t expect to run into you here, or anywhere for that matter. Last I heard you were in the clink.” There was a question there. She had expected Revy to be in there for a very long time, but she was fairly certain it had been less than ten years since the last time she’d seen the woman.
Revy was meant to be locked up longer, but that was the beauty of being connected to someone who had even more connections than she’d ever imagined. Chang liked her, was her mentor, taught her how to dual-wield firearms and everything she’d done were direct orders from him - he felt like he owed her, and it might have taken a while for him to pull those strings but he came through. Better seven years than an entire life sentence, or the death penalty.
“I got out,” she grinned, wolfishly, teeth like fangs underneath the shit light. “Good behavior.” A complete and utter fuckin’ lie, but Kit could guess the meaning behind those words. “Where the fuck is Eli, by the way? I haven’t punched him in the nads in forever, I’ve got plenty more for him to make up for all this time.”
Kitiara did guess the meaning behind the words, and she smiled knowingly. “Oh, he’s still in New York, probably. Eli and I parted company after having a … disagreement over who should run the Club. It didn’t work out exactly the way I had planned, but now I have my own MC and he might still have his.” She paused. “Unless someone else took over the mantle after his very unfortunate hospital stay.”
A ‘disagreement.’ Revy knew the meaning behind that. Before taking a gulp out of her bumbo she had to knock her head back to cackle. “Are you kidding me,” she laughed, lips stretching across her face that much wider. “Congratu-fucking-lations on your own pack on wheels, Kit.”
There might’ve been some envy there, too, because she seemed to be living it up damn well. Meanwhile Revy herself felt almost benched, maybe even retired - she edited porn for fuck’s sake. At least when Balalaika did it in Roanapur, she was also heading one of the biggest sects of the Russian mafia and striking fear in the hearts of many with her pretty disfigured self.
“You brought the gang with you, I take it? You’re gonna be a fuckton of trouble, aren’t you?”
“Why thank you,” Kitiara preened. She really was very proud of her MC and how much they'd expanded over the last few years. “It's just me for the time being. I came up ahead to decide if this was a good place to start a new charter. Once I get settled in, I'll send for a couple of my girls, and we'll see how much trouble we get in.” She gave Revy a calculating look. “Speaking of trouble, are you still working with that Chang fellow?”
That Chang Fellow. Practically the father Revy never had (considering hers was an obese drunk somewhere in Chinatown still), so of course she kept contact. “Working is a bit of a stretch,” she admitted with disappointment. “He told me to take it easy after I got out of prison.”
If he needed her she wouldn’t doubt he’d tap into her specific skillset of obliteration and mass murder under the thrall of Whitman Fever, but only if he was desperate. Chang wasn’t often. He kept it cool and controlled unlike his student here, and she’d done plenty for him - both in prison and out of prison. Having her ‘take it easy’ was supposed to be some kind of gift or some bullshit, and if she was ever in deep shit, that was one man Revy could trust to pull her out of it.
“Why?” One brow jumped up, curious, and she was muttering around the width of the cigarette. “You looking for someone to bang or do business with? Or, fuck, both knowing you.”
Kitiara couldn’t help but smiling. She’d had her eyes on Revy’s particular skill set, but trying to steal people out from under the nose of the Triad was bad manners, and bad manners in Kit’s line of work was never start. “Both,” Kitiara said, winking at Revy. “Though, if nothing else I am in the market for some muscle, and I think you’d fit in just fine with the Blue Dragons. That is, unless you’re actually planning on taking it easy.”
Fuck. Was it wrong to be excited about a potential recruitment offer? Revy had been doing so damn well, too, keeping a low profile and making sure someone like Leon wouldn’t be slapping cuffs on her for something reckless. But the thirst for violence and blood, it was a thing always ingrained in someone like her - like it’d been molded into her fucking DNA. Not everyone got off doing normal things, and she’d be the first to admit assimilating to ‘normal society’ (a laughable fucking concept here) was a bitch.
“Kinda stuck recovering from a wound,” she made a hand gesture towards her knee, and the remaining bruises on her body were of the healing yellow discoloration. “But I’ll--” Fuck. “--think about it. What kind of dirty mess are you into now?”
Drugs and weapons were always two of the biggest ones. It made the underworld of low lives thrive, after all.
Kit took a glance at the wound on Revy’s leg, and looked a little impressed. “Taking it easy, I see,” she said, smirking a little. She leaned back in her chair and took a careful sip of her beer. Very briefly, Kitiara thought that Revy might not have made it out of prison due to her connections with Chang, but because she’d made a deal with the cops, and telling Revy these things might be akin to shooting herself in her own foot. But if Revy had sold out the Triad, she’d be dead. Besides, the Revy that Kit knew would have sooner done her time than cooperate with the police.
“Weapons, mostly. I’m not as in love with the snow as Eli was, but when the fees right I can be persuaded to transport it.” She rarely touched the stuff herself, mostly just when it was the polite thing to do among new business associates, but transporting it didn’t require you to actually shovel the stuff into her nose. A lesson that Eli had never quite seemed to grasp.
There was only one cop she’d even contemplate playing nice with, and she doubted things would ever escalate to an ultimatum - Leon knew some of what she’d done, but she had also never told him how deep those rotten roots of her were buried in the underground life of scum. Right into the heart of the Triad, but those cases were usually handed higher-level officers, weren’t they?
Revy didn’t know why she was worrying about it, but the seed of doubt was planted.
“If the money’s good…” A job or two wouldn’t be fucking awful, wouldn’t it? Her shoulders shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Maybe not be a full-time MC member, but you need a gun in each hand and I’ve got your back.”
“The money’s always good,” Kitiara all but purred. She wasn’t going to push Revy into a full membership, because that was as sure a way as any to lose someone for good. But hopefully Revy would enjoy the work and would come over on her own volition. “I’ll look forward to working with you, Two Hands,” she said, raising her glass for a cheers.
“It’s gonna be fun to see your ugly face around,” Two Hands smirked, clanking their drinks together. Revy didn’t have a lot of female friends (Midna was really the only one that came to mind), so it was good to have Kit around - admittedly, she reminded her a bit of the bitchy nun she took shots with in front of a crucifix.