Butterflies Volume II

Chapter 3

"you must be having a fucking laugh," Butcher scoffed, "that little cunt crawled up a guy's cock and blew him to bits. He almost killed Frenchie, and you're just gonna let him go cause Stan Edgar asked nice?"

Hughie stood with his hands in his pockets and shrugged. He'd come to their new residence on the words of Victoria Neumann. He would brush off Butcher's words on the notion that without himself, Butcher would not have the open office space they shared. A desk for each of them, even for M.M. if he came back. Hughie got it for them, the lines of windows actually allowing them fresh air to the stacks of reports on almost every Supe possible. Their base was now a place in which they weren't scrounging, weren't looking to hide. And Hughie liked to think that was because of him.

"Supe collateral damage is down 60%," he answered Butcher, Kimiko padding on her keyboard behind them.

"Oh come off it. That's that twat Neuman talking."

"She has locked up more Supes this year than every other year combined-"

"Then you're a fucking twat. Hughie you're working with Vought!"

Frenchie watched with a mug in his hands, his legs propped on the desk as the two men argued. Kimiko continued to play her keyboard, trying to pick up a melody but finding it difficult. It was a gift from Frenchie when she said she missed Violet, a little way to remember her music. They had seen the posters for her show dotted around the city, Kimiko brought one back to the office, though it was too swell to believe they could actually go. So Frenchie got her the keyboard to replicate the sound, but Kimiko had no clue how.

"I'm..." As the keyboard grew louder it cut the two of them off from their arguing.

Butcher shook his head, "fuck me. I should've done Termite when I had the chance."

"Look, look, things are good," Hughie followed him as he turned for his desk on the other side of the room, isolated from Frenchie and Kimiko, "we're actually winning."

Butcher turned to him, "winning are we?"

"Yeah."

"Locking up a couple of nobodies ain't winning," he grumbled, "they got all the money and all the power, and they want us dead. We're outmanned and outgunned, and we got to put them cunts in a box before they do it to us."

"If you would just compromise a little bit..."

"Compromise? Fuck you. Your whole life's a compromise," Butcher spat.

Hughie was trying to stay calm, let him know that he could stand up from himself, but as Butcher turned once again in an attempt to silence him, Hughie trailed.

"Hey, at least I have a fucking life!" He called, Frenchie raising his brows, "I didn't mean that."

Butcher sighed and went to sit at his desk, Kimiko continuing her disorderly playing.

"Look. Look," Hughie said, "can we just stop dancing around this? I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I left."

"You think I give a shite?"

"Yeah, I think you do. I think you're pissed that M.M. and I both left."

"M.M. was a bit of a loss. You not so much."

Hughie chuckled, "then I know you miss Violet, and you're pissed you didn't do something when you had the chance. But it's been a year, you can move on. It's okay to move one. Violet wouldn't want you like this-"

"Oi, Stevie fucking Wonder!" Butcher cut over him to Kimiko, "will you knock it off? You're doing me fucking head in! Jesus fucking Christ."

Butcher sat down and looked away. Because Hughie's words stung, it cracked every bone wishing to leave him a blubbering mess he couldn't afford to become. He didn't want to think about her, because it left him with a headache. He'd seen her posters, he'd heard the times Frenchie brought her up in conversation with Kimiko. And he wanted it exterminated. As each time he hears her name again, the pounding need to see her becomes overwhelming and then he's searching up where she works, he's standing outside the building at night time when he knows she's not there. Kimiko's keyboard playing made him think of her, disjointed like his own memory of the night they met. The untaught nature of the playing mocked him, making fun of his self doubt.