Chapter Text
William Donoghue, Will for his friends, Billy when he can't help it, hasn't managed to get away too far at twenty-three. Piling up bad decisions and regretful actions by the day, he's grown used to ignoring the fact that his life is utter shit and buries his head in the sand when the knowledge of it becomes unbearable and a gun is too close at hand.
But what is done is done and sometimes, only sometimes, he gets to backtrack a couple of steps. Looking at the bigger picture, that is, in the grand scheme of things, in the wild jungle that is gangster life in London, he likes to think sometimes he can prevent certain things from happening.
Likes to think that these little good deeds wipe out a little smudge of red from his ledger. Only a small little smudge, tiny enough that it doesn't make a fucking difference but big enough to encourage him to try. Try stupid things like compromising his own skin knowing very well the consequences it'd have on him, on his limbs, on his tongue, on his hands and on his eyes and on his toenails, if the Richardsons found out he was here fraternizing.
That's what he's calling it.
It's more like a suicide mission, really.
He tries to enjoy the show but fails completely, downing glass of vodka after glass of vodka until he loses track of time and finds himself cursing under his breath as he looks towards the clear entrance of the R&R and towards that empty booth by the corner, thinking that he's really fucking unlucky to have risked it on the one day the Krays and their entourage don't fucking show up.
Then they do.
And he catches his cousin's eye the moment he steps inside, as if by some sort of miraculous bond of blood he could sense his presence there. He sees Albert's nostrils flare from where he sits, the one and only Reggie Kray insistently shoving him out of the way where he's stood frozen.
"Albie, get us some drinks, will ya?" he turns around on his seat at the bar and faces forward with an almost dizzying motion, hearing Ronald Kray's voice passing him by.
Then that secluded booth by the corner that was noticeably empty in an otherwise crowded and hot confinement is filled up instantly by the rival gang and, looking at the imposing figure of the two twins filling up the space, William suddenly thinks that maybe, this wasn't such a good idea after all.
Albert's menacing hand on his shoulder comes to confirm that very thought.
"The fuck are ya doin' here, Billy?" he mumbles in his ear, with a smile that Will can hear but not see, "'ello darling, just the usual."
The blonde at the bar nods and gets to it.
"Long time no see, Albie," he draws the word mockingly and jerks his cousin's hand off, finally turning to see him dart his eyes all over the place like a caged animal, "it's only me, no need to make a fucking scene."
And wouldn't that defeat the purpose, he thinks nervously, picturing pools of blood and hooks hanging from their ceiling and hearing screams echoing all throughout.
"Right. You're gonna get on your feet right now," Albert keeps muttering in his ear, so close that William can almost hear his teeth grinding against each other, "and be on your merry fucking way before this gets ugly."
There's a tray filled up to the brink with colourful drinks placed on top of the counter in front of them, and the bartender sends them an uninterested look before darting to the other corner to fill up more glasses.
"Is that any way to greet your family?"
He turns around with a sour grin and Albert takes a step back at the scandalous tone of his voice.
Suicidal mission, he must be thinking.
"After all this time? How's auntie Lily? How's that pretty girl next door you used to fuck in the bath? Molly, was it?"
"Albie!" there's a whistle from behind and Albert glances towards the booth, "drinks!" Ron insists. His cousin lets out a sigh and grabs the tray of drinks.
William makes his move before he turns around and before he gets cold feet.
"The meeting tomorrow," he starts, and downs the last of his drink before getting on his feet and fixing his jacket to get his hands to do something else than fidget under the stare of one very unhappy Kray from the side, no doubt drilling daggers into his cousin's skull, "it's a set-up."
"Christ sake," Albert mumbles under his breath, sounding genuinely tired, and turns around to play waiter.
"Halle-fucking-luya!" he sees Ronnie Kray exclaim, snatching a drink soon as they're within his grasp. William notices Reggie Kray looking him up and down with interest and wonders if he's actually got them mixed up, "where's the chips? Where's me chips, for fuck's sake?"
He's still staring.
Will slams a bill down on the counter and turns around without waiting for his change, thinking that's that then, blood is thicker than water and all, family comes first, he's done his duty.
Except it's not that easy. Of course it's not that fucking easy.
"Where t'fuck dya think you're going?"
Albert grabs a handful of his back collar and yanks him next to his side.
"Ya can't just show yer face after four fuckin' years to come and play the good samaritan."
"Hands off!" he pushes his cousin with a little bit too much force for his bosses' liking, and he knows this because Reggie Kray leans in on his seat looking like a lion about to hunt down his prey, "I'm giving you a fuckin' heads up, son, be sensible and heed it."
"Son?" Albert starts, with that Albert bullshit, the same unbelieving face he would make when they were kids and William stood up to him and his teasing, my, he hasn't changed a bit, "you callin' me son?"
Their little domestic turns a few heads around, some of them look like simple regular customers and that's the one and only reason he lets Albert drag him to the booth. Because drawing attention to himself and parading in here will get him killed.
Tortured first, then killed.
"Reggie," Albert mumbles apologetically, as if excusing himself for his behaviour. William doesn't think he ever heard him speak so compliant in his life. But then Albert's hand returns to grab him by the jacket like he's his personal fucking toy, like he's afraid he's gonna go running off, and there's nothing compliant about his hold, "we uh... we might have some trouble."
"You've got two seconds to let go of me clothes, mate," he growls in his cousin's face. He's only a tad less tall than Albert but he likes to think it's the promise in his eyes that makes his hand disappear from his back again, "still a fucking bully."
"Pot calling kettle black. Shut the fuck up and sit down."
He doesn't, because Albert isn't the boss of him. And Albert's boss isn't the boss of him either, so when Reggie Kray stands up in all his glorious height, with that expensive and perfectly-fitted dark blue suit, and puffs a cloud of smoke in his face, William stares him down.
"Who's this, then?" Ron's voice comes from their left, conversational and curious until he too leans over the table and takes a good look at his face, "hang on, I know you," he points at him with the cigar in between his fingers.
"Yeah? Flattering."
"Watch your mouth, Billy," his cousin warns him from beside. It seems to finally make Reggie snap.
"O'right, I'm exhausted and I want to have a drink in peace, hm? Can I do that? Yeah? Now, what's the fucking problem?"
"This is my–"
"The problem is that Charlie's played you two, again, and this time you're gonna fucking go down alright; that's what I was tryin' ta tell this fuckwit here, but he don't seem to believe me and I say that's your loss then, ain't it?"
Something changes in Reggie's eyes.
Ronald's not so subtle.
"You dare come in 'ere? You workin' for those fucking pigs?! You bring this shit into our club?!"
"Billy's my cousin," Albie announces like it pains him to admit so.
"I don't care if he's your fucking missus, Albie, you don' let the south scum into our fucking club!"
"Sit." Reggie demands curtly, all but ignoring his brother's outburst and taking another drag of his cigarette, stepping aside to let him slide in first, like William's a fucking idiot.
"Well I didn't let him in, did I? He was already fucking 'ere because apparently he's that daft."
William watches the whole exchange with arms crossed over his chest, that same pose he uses when he's trying to intimidate someone into cooperating before some of those sadistic fuckers brush him aside and resort to more... entertaining methods.
"Fuck off, Albert, at least I know how to spell my fucking name."
That elicits a laugh from the younger lad in the peach-colored shirt, the one with his hand on Ron Kray's lap.
"Yeah? And how do you spell 'cunt'?"
"Alright, no, no, enough of this fuckery," Reggie shakes his head and narrows his eyes, "you, sit the fuck down right fucking now and stop making a scene unless you want us to take this outside and beat an honest answer outta ya."
William snorts.
"I've said what I've come to say, Kray, now you make of that what you will. I don't answer to the likes of you."
Now that unleashes the beast, as Eddie says, and he barely has any time to see what's happening through the asphyxiating cloud of smoke surrounding him when he's doubling down after a clean punch on his stomach.
For the first time, he's glad for his cousin's hand on his back preventing him from falling face down on the floor in all his pitiful glory.
"You can't come into our club and fucking talk like that to my brother," Ron rants on, "that is fucking disgraceful, that is, disrespectful, you understand?"
"Ronnie, come on," a younger voice speaks for the first time.
"Ron, sit down."
"Fuckin' hell, warned ya," Albert's saying to him, hoisting him up as he wheezes, "up, up now, that's it ya senseless bastard."
He all but throws him towards the booth after he slides in first, manhandling him like a doll as he struggles to catch his breath.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, I only fucking grazed his skin, fuck off."
William can feel his face hot with exertion as he finally manages to look up. They've had the sense to sit him far away from Ron, Albert is on his right and next to him is Peach Shirt Boy, so he wouldn't be able to punch him again from there even if he tried.
But then again Reggie is on his left now so that's a problem.
"So much for not making a scene," the gangster mutters, and taps his cigarette on top of an ashtray, "you alright, there?"
"Fuck you."
There's a grave-like silence as he says it right in Reggie Kray's face. And then suddenly the man is bursting out laughing.
"My, my, you really are somethin'."
Yeah, you don't knock about with the most sadistic gang of London without really being something, he wants to retort.
Which reminds him...
"Sittin' here with ya is a death sentence," he finally blurts out and looks to his cousin because he thinks that's where he'll most likely find an ally, "that's on your fucking conscience Albert. Buy me a nice bouquet will ya?"
"Leave your lovely family reunion for later, aye? What's this about a set-up?" Reggie interrupts, and one of his hands slides behind William's back and settles there, pressing on his right shoulder only slightly. An encouragement. A warning.
William doesn't shrug him off like he did with his cousin.
"A set-up is a fucking set-up, what's hard to understand about that?"
He looks up at Ron Kray on the other side of the table challengingly, seeing him shift his weight on his seat like he wants to stand up and bash his head in against those glasses, and he smirks at him. Ron sees that smirk and stares him down without a word and it's, honestly, as terrifying as it gets.
And he's seen his fair share of terrifying.
Only his lover's hand on his lap keeps him from coming for him again, he knows. That, and his brother's anchoring stare as well. And this is how William is measuring his luck, somehow: seeing Reggie Kray's cautious reactions to his own brother's unpredictability.
Because Albie is certainly not going to do anything about it.
"Why come to us?" Reggie continues.
Now that's a question he doesn't know the answer to.
He knows one answer, but he's certainly not going with that. Because he's reckless, because there's no other way to describe what he's doing. Because his disregard for his own life is heavily outweighed by whatever stupid loyalty he owes to that idiot sitting next to him.
"Why come here?"
"How do we know this isn't a set-up?" Ron chimes in with the important questions, "how do we know this rat ain't playing us?"
"Well, you don't," William shoots back with a smile.
"Come on, Reg, it's a big fucking gamble, this. Ain't really hard to believe those fuckers don't play fair," Albie says, lighting up a cigarette of his own and leaning back comfortably.
"But that's the thing now, innit?" Reggie leans in and seizes him up and down like he did the first time, like he's prey and like he's going to chew him and swallow him whole. "It is a big gamble. It's too big a gamble just showin' up 'ere," he makes a gracious gesture to the insides of the establishment, "stabbing Charlie Richardson in the back so bluntly, eh? Anyone could be here."
Reggie Kray laughs at the notion like there's anything amusing about this at all, and he directs that same amusement to William but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Just like you are here, and we were none the wiser."
When you put it like that, William thinks, it makes this look all the more stupid.
"That's jus' Billy for ya," Albert says, "he was always a bit wrong in the head. Auntie dropped 'im off the pram when he was only a wee lil babe."
"Well it won't hurt to bring us a bit of back up," Ronnie Kray says again, those imposing square shoulders rolling down and leaning into his boy's personal space, "never was one to back away from a fight, me. And there's that rifle I've been meaning to try out, right, Teddy?"
Teddy, gives him a sly smile.
"You'll put it to good use, I'm sure."
William's eyes dart around nervously, searching for familiar faces or unfamiliar faces or any faces that might be looking upon them with interest, as if Reginald Kray voicing out his utmost concerns makes them all the more real, and he suddenly feels a bit like throwing up.
"Explosives," he mutters out, and looks back at Reggie seeing he's already staring, "they're setting up explosives as we speak, no gun's gonna stop that shithole from burning to the ground."
Through the next quarter of a minute the only sound heard is the ruckus of the club, mingled conversations and glasses clanking and people laughing and that fancy woman singing.
"Well fuck me," Albert mutters next to him in his thick accent.
Reggie Kray puts out his cigarette, stands up without a second glance at him and strides off with intent, leaving him to deal with Public Menace Number One and his very unnerving, very piercing hazel eyes, on his own.
William gets on his feet only for Albert to yank him back down on his seat immediately.
"Sit. Down." Ron orders, with an impassive voice and body language that almost sends off alarms in William's brain.
Almost.
"I need to take a piss."
"You think I'm a fucking idiot, do ya?"
"That a rhetorical question?"
And now Ronnie stands up.
"Whoa, whoa, Ron," and Albert stands up and puts a hand forward, like that's gonna do anything.
"You're very, very stupid, Billy," a big hand points a cigar at him, "you're a very, very insensible young man. And you work for that Charlie cunt, and you know what we do to you southerners up 'ere? Hm? I don't like you one bit, now, I don't like that smug face of yours at all."
The snort escapes his lips before he's realised. It's a hard-wired reaction. It's a deeply engraved reaction, that sneer, after years of rubbing elbows with the boys down south one can only expect so much from him. Charlie and Eddie might not be saints, but the Krays don't fall behind on that line either, and he's come to fucking warn them and he gets a fucking punch to the stomach in return.
"Yeah, I bet you don't."
That same spark he saw in Reggie Kray's eyes before lights up his brother's eyes now, even behind his big glasses William can see it, and he looks the gangster up and down for good measure, going for disdain but failing blatantly, regretting looking at him so flirtatiously on the spot.
"I'm probably not your type, then."
Ron's eyes twitch and he makes a move like he's about to lunge for him. That's when Albert pushes him off the booth.
"Alright, out with ya, come on, I swear to god you've got a fucking death wish. Walk on to the fucking bathroom."
And that's how he leaves a fuming Ronald Kray behind. They pass Reggie by the bar as well having some hushed conversation, and William doesn't actually see Albert making a face at his boss in lieu of explanation but he knows he's done it, and that's how he leaves Reginald Kray behind.
The toilets are by the entrance, and that's where he leaves Albert behind.
"Go on, an' don't try anything funny like flushing yourself down the toilet 'cos you ain't gonna get out of this so easily," he flings him forward, manhandling him like he's ten years old again and not being allowed to join the match, like he'd do when he was out with his mates but didn't want him around, and that's the last straw for William.
He's not a helpless little boy anymore.
He turns towards the urinal and shows Albert his back making to unzip his trousers and when he senses him letting down his guard he swings around on his feet and gives him a proper punch on the face.
He doesn't actually expect him to fall down unconscious.