Disorder Ch 03

This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.

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Disorder, Ch. 03

Relations in Dissonance

"Are you seriously asking me for help?"

Charles rolled his eyes and slumped back against the sofa in his living room, although it was, it had to be said, a very sparsely furnished living room. He wasn't exactly the sort for extravagances (well, fast cars would hardly fit inside an apartment now, would they?) and the only thing that his ill-gotten gains had really gone too that would have been out of place in most apartments was a security system, along with soundproofing, to ensure that unpleasant surprises could be, at least temporarily, held at bay. No one wanted to be heard through walls or the door or even the ceiling, after all, and there was far too much shady business going on in Charles' life for him to want unexpected visitors with badges and surly expressions turning up without an escape route planned. It would take a lot for them to get into his apartment, if they turned up, that was, but he would be long gone by the time that things truly came to a head.

He, after all, had no intention of going to jail for anything, despite his activities and the life that he chose to lead. No... Charles protected himself and what he deemed to be 'his' at all costs. And that was just why his two older brothers had come to his apartment, as alike in criminal activity as him and yet different in every other way bar appearance.

Frowning, Charles shook his head as he surveyed them. Just when had been the last time he'd seen them? John stood tall and smirked cockily, as arrogant as ever - the bastard. He was probably the one that Charles was most alike with his dark hair (albeit stronger in physique) but that only served to sour his expression further, turning his gaze on Donnie, the middle brother. He pushed his glasses back up his nose, although both them and the little action itself was merely for show, his hair more of a brown than a black, although it was just enough to make him look different enough to John for certain things that Charles really preferred not to dig too deeply into.

Donnie's long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to the elbows while John wore a black blazer and pants that could have been smart if not for the sneakers showing at the bottom. Expensive sneakers. There was no question at all as to those being acquired illegally, although from where was another question entirely, if not one Charles truly was bothered enough to ask. Let the fucker waste his time on clothes and crap, for all he cared. He had far more important things to worry about and distractions, at least, ran amok around him.

Donnie made a face that was something like a scowl, a man of few words and calculating scorn, although his intelligence was what truly set him apart from his older and younger brothers. More of one for crimes of technology and pushing the limits on where he could take himself in cyberspace, Donnie rolled his eyes and huffed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he eyed up John with something of a 'knowing' look that could only be shared between the two of them.

"He'll help. He's our brother."

And that was all he had to say as he turned his face away, although his eyes slid to the side, watching the scene playing out before him with some manner of interest, at least, in his peripheral vision. He may have been one to hold his words back until he truly had use for them, but he was not someone who cut themselves off completely. Shy, most certainly, was not a word that could be used to describe him.

Neither could it be used to describe John who leapt up from the sofa, a cocky grin pulling at his lips as he claimed the floor as if he was born to be there. In his mind, of course, it was his rightful place to always be the centre of attention and it was a role that he owned perfectly, seeming to dominate even Charles' sparsely furnished living room with his tall presence alone.

"Ah, Small Donnie..." John spread his arms out genially, eyebrows shooting up, almost into his hairline if he had had his black hair cut in such a fashion. "You don't know what it's like to have to ask our little, younger, brother for help. He'll think he's got a big head and all if we make a habit of this!"

Donnie frowned.

"Don't call me that."

"But you love it so much!"

Striding up with oozing confidence (though 'arrogance' was a shade more appropriate for everything he did), John grasped Donnie's arms and pulled him to him, pinning his arms against his sides with crushing, overbearing strength. As much as Donnie swore and cursed and spat out words that, truly, neither of the other brothers had the sense of mind to understand, there was little one could do to get John to release them once he'd made up his mind to be, well...very much 'John'.

"Donnie, the middle brother," he breathed, eyes burning with dark intensity. "Just what are we going to do with you?"

Throwing his arm up in the air, Charles hissed an interjection. Would they ever be done?

"If you two could cut this out now, I've got -"

"You took my card scanner didn't you?"

Donnie growled and cut in, his eyes more than enough to sear across the distance between him and his brother, John stepping back with his eyes wickedly wide and a very much not so innocent expression on his face, present in the curl of his lips and set of his eyes. To his credit, a little more refined in appearance and the way in which he held his body than his brothers, Donnie merely brushed off his shirt as if John had left some kind of residue or dirt there, throwing a simply scathing look in his direction.

"What? No..."

John fluttered his fingers, pressing them over his heart with his very best 'I have been mortally wounded by you, oh dearest brother of mine' expression plastered across his narrow face.

"Oh, Donnie, I would never do such a thing to my brother..."

Charles groaned and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, lacking his fingerless gloves, for once. He'd have to find those. Maybe John swiped them - just another reason the bloke was a complete and utter ass when he wanted to be and often when he wasn't even trying.

"Just hand it over."

Donnie held out his hand with nary a change in his expression and, sure enough, the card scanner that he liked to use out in public to filch bank details and, of course, simply drain the bank accounts of complete strangers landed back in his hand as if it had never left. John could not keep the smirk off his face and even Donnie smiled a little, although he hid his behind the sweep of his hair, leaning back against the wall with just one hand left on the pocket containing the scanner, just in case. Not that that, of course, would stop the wiles of a truly accomplished pickpocket like the bored wiles of John but it would do well enough to keep him at bay for at least a little while.

But, of course, the brothers were there for a reason and they had to get on with that even as John and Donnie tossed the ball back and forth in their invisible little dance that no one with a good brain would dive into. No... There were some boxes best left unopened and Charles saw to see what he wanted alone as John smirked and tapped the side of his nose.

"So, yeah, back to business: if you could, like, get your little head cracking on this deal, little bro', we'd much rather be off on our way elsewhere."

Charles' eyebrows shot up as if they were going to disappear right into his hairline, an ugly scowl twisting his lips even though it was purely from family relations. And, well, who could really, truly, completely be held at fault for making a face or two when a brother was being particularly annoying?

"What, you're just going to dump your shit on my plate, is it?" He scoffed, flipping his hand dismissively. "You've got to be kidding... You get yourselves caught up in trouble and you think I'll be here to dig you out of it? Don't you think I've got better things to do? I've not got the time to waste on you two."

"Oh... Brother of mine!"

Dramatically, John slung his arm around Charles' shoulders, grinning madly as he gripped him, fingers digging in hard enough to leave bruises - that was, if Charles hadn't squirmed away with a muttered curse and a particularly foul look on his face. But John was not dissuaded as he spun with his arms flung wide, a look of complete and utter over the top dramatic woe plastered across his expression. Standing by the door still, Donnie groaned and pressed his fingers into the sockets of his eyeballs.

"John, for..."

"Oh, my brother has become my saviour!" He wailed, dropping to his knees and clawing his way up Charles' jacket as his younger brother tried to push him off to no avail, John hanging and dangling from him as if he was an accessory (or perhaps a leper) that could not be shaken off. "He will denounce his ways of simply avoiding the law and come to our aid in our time of need!"

He put so much emphasis and extravagant hand movements into his speech, as short as it, blessedly, was for once, that he nearly toppled over into Donnie, who shoved him off with his shoulder, although even he could not quite keep the smile from pulling slyly at his lips. The brothers were probably the closer of the three, although that didn't mean, of course, that they got along all the time or that Donnie wanted John in his lap most of the time either. Charles, however, was not entirely partial to their brand of relationship and, regardless of what he knew went on with them, most sincerely wanted no part in it anyway.

Casting his brothers a look that could have truly curdled milk, Charles shook his head slowly, even his hair bobbing lightly from one side to the other with the sway of the weight of him.

"Are you done yet?"

Standing up, John straightened his blazer and grinned. It was as disarming and charming as ever, although a particular kind of look that Charles had seen so many times over that he would have said that he at least was impervious to it.

"Just about. So, you'll do it: it's a done deal."

Charles pressed his lips together. Damn him! He always knew just how to put Charles in such a position that, well...he got just what he wanted at the end of the day.

John always got what he wanted.

"Anything to get you out of here," Charles said eventually, putting as much (which, admittedly, wasn't all that much for his usually placid and laid-back tone) vitriol as he could into his tone. "Really. Anything."

John grinned and took Donnie's arm, looping it through his with a possessive air that could not be missed. Donnie's lips pressed together just a little more tightly, tension coming together in the most beautiful of ways, muscles drawing taut as if to herald the presence of something a little more in the room. But what that something 'more' was - well, that was another question entirely and not one for a conversation and nuance of simply getting their younger brother to do their dirty work for them while they went off doing whatever it was that brothers (in arms, perhaps) did.

"So what the hell do I have to do to get the peace back and my place back to myself?" Charles demanded, drawing their attention back to him even as they made as if to go, what they saw as their job good and already done. "Who did you piss off and just who wants your head or whatever? They won't come after you, not after this, after me. So get it all out and over with, would you?"

"Ah-ah-ah," John said, wagging a slender finger at the youngest brother. "Patience! I was merely building up for the big finish!"

"Wouldn't that be the 'grand reveal'?" Donnie interjected, jostling his brother even as John scoffed. "Get your words right, would you?"

"Ah, well, you wouldn't be so pedantic about meaningless things like that if I didn't have -"

"Would you just give me back my goddamn card reader already?"

Smirking, John stepped back and held up his hands, although he was anything but innocent, as always.

"I don't have your card reader... But, coincidentally..."

Grinning, he joshed and pushed his brother, Donnie cursing and spitting words that were, perhaps, a shade too developed for the likes of John and his shady type of arrogance. He could be pushed further, of course, and would find his eloquence in speech, even if he'd much rather stand back and survey a situation, that was, for later analysis. A linguist he was not but that was hardly something that was going to stop him from finishing just what he'd set out, the joke set up right from the very start.

"...Is that a card scanner in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"You're a dick."

"Kill the love fest you two and give me the deal," Charles groaned. "Why you have to make a deal over everything, I'll never know. That's probably why you got caught up in things in the first place, isn't it? You were lording it about and then this - you stepped in front of the wrong car and screwed up the wrong fender... Now, I'm the one who has to dig you out of the mess."

John rolled his eyes, a half-shrug completing the completely and utterly dismissive motion, although Charles had, perhaps, hit a little too close to the mark on that one.

"Ah, you don't know anything about getting into the real big game around here. Mind you, neither does Small Donnie here but that's another matter, dear brother of mine!"

With some persuasion, he cut the dramatics eventually, although his over the top attitude was something that the two brothers, who were not the perpetrators of drama, were well and truly sick of. A piece of paper and a name exchanged that would have sent chills down the spine of one not so accustomed to the crimes of the underworld and the pulsing, sickening underbelly of a city that had truly sought to eradicate those who chose to live outside the bounds of the law for many years. There was only so far, however, that one could go in the realm of trying to make a living when times and lives were tight and some could not, honestly, be blamed for thinking that it was far, far easier to cheat and lie and steal rather than take an honest living home at the end of each and every day. There was a degree of respect too between criminals that was not always present in the business world, people trying just as hard to cheat one another out of earned cash, whether or not it came easily or not, either way.

So maybe, just maybe, they were not the worst of them. Not the best, of course, but not the worst either. But none of that mattered as his security system chirped and Charles' eyes popped up automatically to the screen depicting the camera at the very base of the apartment block, recognising a figure that had, at least, been green-lit to allow up and into his apartment when he was home. Maybe that would be his downfall too but Charles really wasn't a big enough player in any sort of criminal game to draw all that much-unwanted attention. He just liked to play it safe and that cast him as somewhat of a wimp with those who may have sought to turn his little, simple life of crime into something darker altogether.

No matter. Soren was coming and the brothers had to go, go, go - and quickly too! Not that they would do anything to Soren, of course, or even seek to use him against Charles, but there was something that was the same across all families that made him break out in a cold sweat even beneath his dark clothes. And that was something that even a man engaged in as much seedy activity as he was, skirting what the law cast a shadow over, would not want to invite under any sort of circumstances.

"Alright, you two - get out!" Charles flapped his hands at them foolishly as if had all of a sudden become a housewife trying to usher her kids out to school. "Come on, I've got plans and, well, now your trouble to deal with too... And that's putting very lightly."

"What's the rush?"

Of course, John didn't really care and the two brothers found themselves chivvied to the door just as Soren knocked, knuckles rapping smartly up against it.

Rat-tat.

John stilled. Donnie cast a look at Charles, lips twisted and eyes, just ever so slightly, worried.

"Are you expecting someone?"

"Yes," Charles shot back with a roll of his eyes, hastening his words as they spilt from his mouth in a rush. "And now you two are to go and not come back. For a good while, alright? Don't make a habit of this or I will really just leave you two and hang you out to dry. Got it?"

"As if we needed more convincing... You got the deets, right?"

"What are you, down with the kids or what?"

But it was too late for him to ensure that they'd avoid seeing Soren (not that either of them was, truly, a threat to Soren) and the door swung open by the security system to reveal the blonde-haired man standing there with his hands in his pockets, weight rocking back on his heels. If he was trying to make himself look small, he completely failed, his T-shirt still pulling tight across the mass of his chest, the work in the gym that he was still able to do after work and, well, whenever Charles was too busy to take a load off his mind and his feet too. He had to keep himself busy, after all.

"Hey!"

Soren blinked at the brothers who could not, really, be mistaken for anything other than what they were when standing behind Charles on either side, John mimicking Charles' smirking, conniving grin a little too perfectly to be entirely coincidental.

"Hey," Charles answered with a sigh that was rather uncharacteristic for him. "They were just leaving."

Shoving extra emphasis onto his words instead of jabbing his hands into the smalls of their backs (he didn't know where they'd been, after all...), Charles got them out the door even with that shit-eating grin on his brother's face. Soren slunk in behind him, seemingly as wary of John and Donnie as Charles was of John and Donnie actually saying anything to Soren, for brotherly jesting went a little too far sometimes and embarrassment was still something that even a hardened criminal was, of course, capable of feeling.

Somehow, Charles managed to end up out in the hallway with his brothers even though Soren was back in the apartment, at least out of sight. And he didn't like the grin on John's face one bit even as Donnie tugged at his arm, trying to get him to leave without actually forcing him. Maybe it was the unspoken dynamic between the two of them or maybe it was just Donnie knowing that he couldn't get John to leave anyway, but something was up there and it was irrefutable that there was little, regardless, that could be done.

Sometimes the futility of his brother was the most infuriating thing.

"So..."

John exchanged a look with Donnie who sighed and ran his fingers back through his hair.

"So..." Charles ground his teeth together, clenching his jaw so hard that a muscle jumped in the corner. "Are you going or what?"

"Who was that?"

John probed, intent on following his train of thought now that it had begun, regardless of just how intent Charles was on, currently, seeing the back of him.

"Yeah, who is that, bro?" Donnie played along, a bit wicked too, to his credit. "I didn't know you had a boyfriend too..."

Charles' glare could have seared through ice and it was probably for the best that his brothers made good their escape at that point too, hustling off down the hallway to the main entrance. John, however, threw back a few loud quips about his 'boyfriend' and Charles darted back inside with surprising agility, lips twisted into the sort of scowl that only his brothers could draw from him. There most definitely was a very big reason that he didn't see his brothers about all that often.