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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13. Incest.
Pairing: Connor/Murphy, eventual Connor/Murphy/Odysseus. This part also has implied Seth (From Dusk Till Dawn)/Mig (Assassins) and Ahmed (Thirteenth Warrior)/Mort Rainey (Secret Window).
Feedback: Whatever you'd like to say.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: AU crossover of Boondock Saints and Troy. Set in a parallel Prohibition-era Boston, so its history didn't quite go as ours did. Supernatural overtones. Spin-off series of The City, a Once Upon a Time in Mexico AU/crossover. Thanks to rokeon for the suggestion that sparked this off.
Summary: Seth is a good gambler. Sometimes too good. And the twins have an interesting night.
***
Most of them are cracked, pitted, scratched-up bits of lumber that have never seen anything but worse days. They're brown, they're black, they're red and sticky and often being photographed from a dozen different angles to get the chalk outlines right.
And they welcome anybody. Anybody.
Just as long as the drink's paid for, of course. If that's so, then they're always there, waiting like big hulking hells ready to strip a man bare of all his silver. It's a rare one that gets splintered or wrecked-generally, they outlast history. They are history, in a way that's closer to the raw pulse of all the passing people than any number of words.
Take a seat. They've got room.
***
Morocco had had a completely different culture and too many damn languages, but it was still less complicated than this. And damn it, Mig was off doing a job in California for Los Lobos, which left Seth no readily available outlet for his annoyance.
Ahmed's chuckling wasn't helping, either. "Knock that off, or I'll tell Mort you're thinking about keeping them," Seth snarled, dropping into the nearest chair and covering his face with his hands. "Jesus. This is such a fucking crock of shit."
"Bain is going to kill…something…if he comes back and sees this." Calm as a professional surgeon, Ahmed rolled over the body at his feet so he could finish treating the massive bruising along the man's ribs. On his other side, the second guy was slowly waking up, rubbing bandaged and bound wrists over the carpet. "What happened, anyway?"
"Weird-ass poker game with old friends, all right?" Seth slumped further down. "We were drunk, and tucked behind this alleyhole bar with the most beer taps I've ever seen. Decided to up the ante. Someone had the brilliant idea to put our wagers in crates, so we wouldn't know anything about what we were playing for except the size. I had no idea. Really."
"I believe you." Ahmed suddenly slid right, his hand blurring out to slam down the lunge. He grabbed the man by the throat and had a knife to the second man's throat before Seth could even blink. "Please don't do that. I can't stitch straight when people are attacking me."
"Get away from my brother." Hissed. Irish. Kind of nice-sounding-okay, no. Mig had a freakishly accurate sense where competition for Seth's attention was involved, and that always ended up in Seth hauling too many damn corpses to the nearest body of water.
On the other hand, Ahmed looked extremely unimpressed. "Your brother has a deep laceration to the thigh, and if it isn't cleaned and stitched, it will fester and rot and your brother will die. Concussing you to keep you quiet, however, shouldn't do any permanent harm."
The two of them matched gazes for a bit while Seth surreptitiously covered his partner with his gun. Then the stranger's eyes flicked to the bandages on his wrists and the various medical supplies scattered across the floor. He relaxed just a little, which was apparently good enough for Ahmed because the Arab released his hold and turned back to the wound he'd been swabbing. "Do you know what this was made with?"
"Some long curvy thing. Like an oversized dagger." The man edged carefully around Ahmed and curled around his brother, wary gaze alternating between Ahmed and Seth. Who was confused and bored and fucking frustrated. Two days till Mig showed up. "Connor McManus. That's my twin, Murphy. And who'd you two be?"
McManus, McManus-oh, shit. Seth groaned. "As in Il Duce's kids?"
Connor perked up. "You knew my father?"
"God, I hate coming to this city. I always get screwed." Okay, now they really had to get rid of these two. Il Duce had been one of the scariest fucks of his time-could've given El a run for his money, if the two of them had ever met up-and had owned Boston, the same way Los Lobos owned Los Diablos. It'd been as if the city itself breathed and roared and fought, like a gigantic hellhound sleeping on Il Duce's doorstep.
Of course, the guy had gotten killed somehow a few years back, just before the beginning of a really, really fucked-up gangland war, and Seth hadn't ever heard much about the sons except that there'd been some, who had promptly disappeared as soon as they were born. But he wasn't about to dismiss the McManuses just on lack of knowledge about them.
"I am Ahmed Ibn…call me Ahmed. I would rather you didn't butcher the rest of my name." There was no way that Ahmed didn't also know who Il Duce was, but he didn't seem to care. Or he knew even more than Seth did, and thus had an ace up his sleeve. "That is my business partner, Seth Gecko. He's the one who accidentally won you in a poker game. If a man with glasses and ruffled hair comes in, he is Mort Rainey. And he's mine."
Very slight emphasis on the last word, but it was pretty damn telling. Connor blinked, then smirked a little. He rubbed at some of the blue-black spots that dotted his jaw and laid down to watch Ahmed push thread through his brother's flesh. "Ah-yeah. Okay. And Mr. Gecko over there?"
"Mig's out of town right now, but he's got a short temper and a huge rifle," Seth blandly answered. Once the initial shock was over with, he was pretty quick at bouncing back; it wasn't as if this was the weirdest thing that'd ever happened to him. "What the hell were you two doing in a crate?"
"It's a long story, and I wasn't awake for some of it." Against Connor's chest, Murphy's lolling head stilled. Eyelashes fluttered open, then squeezed shut as he tried to jerk away from the needle. Ahmed instantly seized Murphy's hip and pinned it down, while Connor buried his face in his brother's neck and furiously whispered.
Something was nagging at Seth. Not about why the heirs apparent to Boston weren't taking over the city, though that was puzzling enough for a whole crew of brain-men, but about the way the two of them were…almost gliding into each other, like twining and twisting and shit, Seth needed a fuck.
Oh.
"Funny, considering all those fucking rumors about me and Richie…" He wondered if insanity could jump from person to person like a cold or something, because that was definitely beyond the pale and somehow, he couldn't find the energy to care. Hell, he slept with a psychotic and worked with a guy that did the same thing. And to judge from the occasional hints Mort dropped, that bout of fractured psyche had involved a little more than fighting for mental dominance. "Ahmed?"
Who shrugged and tied off the last stitch as if he were simply mending clothes. "It's not my sin. And my religion says that you're all damned anyway."
The twins produced identical glitter-cocky smiles. "I think I'm starting to like them," murmured Murphy.
"Don't get too attached. We're leaving tomorrow, actually, and-" Ahmed's hand went up, waving Seth to a stop. "What? We aren't? Because you can fucking explain that to Mig-"
"Whipped," yawned Mort from the doorway. Totally ignoring the twins, he headed straight for Ahmed and snuggled against the other man's back. Ahmed briefly petted the bedhead that had sprouted from his shoulder, then rocked onto his heels and checked over Murphy's bandages. "Phone call. He'll be here tomorrow morning at 6."
"Who?" Connor asked, stiffening in suspicion.
Seth leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Likewise."
"We were only here to evaluate the situation." Apparently satisfied with his work, Ahmed cleaned off his hands and swung Mort around to fit the other man beneath his chin while the twins stared in interested amazement. "An old colleague of mine was going to do the actual work of getting the city settled. Since you two showed up, he'll be seeing to you."
"And who says we need a seeing-to?" Connor's chin went hard and up, while Murphy tilted back so the dangerous shade to his eyes caught the light.
"You were the ones being traded in a poker game. You tell me." With that, Ahmed stood himself and Mort up, then headed for his bedroom. Which the bastard could do, damn him, because it was Seth's bedroom that got to be shared. Cool enigmatic fucker with his effortless exits.
Well, the couch was still better than nothing. Seth just hoped he didn't have to listen to anything-they were too hurt for that, right? "He's not insulting you; he's just naturally like that. Anyway, bed's all yours, and try not to do anything stupid. I hate being thrown out of hotels."
"Truce then? No murdering or fucking around until morning comes and you're gone." Murphy didn't resist as Seth lifted him onto the bed and cuffed his hands to the headboard, and neither did Connor, though he did flinch a little when the metal cinched around his wrist-bandages. Seth thought about that, then shrugged and loosened the cuffs just a little.
"I suppose we owe you one for getting us out of there," Connor added. "But all bets are off with that friend of yours."
"Fair enough." It was pretty understandable, and Seth figured he probably would've said the same thing if he were in their position. Also, he was too fucking tired to bother arguing, and if the guy was a friend of Ahmed's, then Seth didn't see the need to worry too much.
***
Penelope had had a minor obsession with ducks; Odysseus had never quite figured out why, but he hadn't minded too much because she'd made such a pretty picture, helping their son Tel feed the honking miniature shit-engines with bits of bread.
She'd been doing just that, at the side of the road on which he presently was, when the car had mowed her and Tel down. Cracked their skulls like a frying pan smashing a nut. And afterwards, a grieving Odysseus had finally given up on trying to stay out of the Trojan-Achaean turf war. He'd joined the Achaeans, killed the killer of his family, and then watched as the two gangs had crushed Boston. The city hadn't been stable since Il Duce had gotten blown up in his car, some ten years back, and neither the Achaeans nor the Trojans had really managed to take his place. Not to mention that anyone with even a shot at binding Boston to themselves had gotten killed off during the war. Now, all that was left were babes fresh out of the wood with ideas bigger than their brains, like Aeneas Romany and Clytie Atreidus, and fatigue-scarred driftwood like Odysseus and Dios.
Who'd called last week, somehow tracking down old Ode in his Carolinas hide-out and luring him back up to meet with Ahmed. The Arab. A man Odysseus highly respected, but if he remembered right, a man that still had far more fire in him than Ode currently felt up to dealing with. A true son of the Los Lobos strain, with vengeance as his birthright and violence as his shadow. Whereas Odysseus was always ready to defend, but he'd had to teach himself how to attack.
Well, no matter what water had passed under the bridge, he still valued Ahmed's friendship. And so he turned his steps to his friend's hotel.
Where he found the lost sons of Il Duce.
***