icarus_chained (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarus_chained) wrote2015-07-30 08:42 pm
icarus_chained) wrote2015-07-30 08:42 pm
Fairytale Modern Crime AU
For the following prompt on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
comment_fic: Fairy Tales, any princess, peasant girl or nobleman's daughter, (potential modern AU) (631): I want to see a guy holding a pizza and a bottle of scotch and a box of magnums. I'm a simple woman.
Title: Guns and Glass Cases
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Grimm's Fairy Tales, specifically The Glass Coffin
Characters/Pairings: Gabriele (the maiden), Leo (the tailor), Alban (the stag/brother). Gabriele/Leo, maybe slight hints of Gabriele/Leo/Alban.
Summary: Nine months after they've escaped a monster's clutches, Gabriele's idiot husband and her idiot brother have gone to get her a birthday present. As it turns out, they know her very well indeed. Modern Crime AU of "The Glass Coffin"
Wordcount: 2922
Warnings/Notes: I suspect 'magnums' was meant to mean the ice-creams, but I couldn't resist the chance to play with one of my favourite fairytales, so I went with the guns. Mentions of crime, kidnappings, captivity, rescue, guns, recovery, family/friendship
Disclaimer: Not mine
comment_fic: Fairy Tales, any princess, peasant girl or nobleman's daughter, (potential modern AU) (631): I want to see a guy holding a pizza and a bottle of scotch and a box of magnums. I'm a simple woman.Title: Guns and Glass Cases
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Grimm's Fairy Tales, specifically The Glass Coffin
Characters/Pairings: Gabriele (the maiden), Leo (the tailor), Alban (the stag/brother). Gabriele/Leo, maybe slight hints of Gabriele/Leo/Alban.
Summary: Nine months after they've escaped a monster's clutches, Gabriele's idiot husband and her idiot brother have gone to get her a birthday present. As it turns out, they know her very well indeed. Modern Crime AU of "The Glass Coffin"
Wordcount: 2922
Warnings/Notes: I suspect 'magnums' was meant to mean the ice-creams, but I couldn't resist the chance to play with one of my favourite fairytales, so I went with the guns. Mentions of crime, kidnappings, captivity, rescue, guns, recovery, family/friendship
Disclaimer: Not mine
Guns and Glass Cases
I want to see a guy holding a pizza and a bottle of scotch and a box of magnums. I'm a simple woman.
--- Texts from Last Night
"Magnum: a gun designed to fire cartridges that are more powerful than its calibre would suggest. 'That magnum has a kick like a field gun'."
--- Oxford Dictionaries
"I asked him where he had left my brother, and how he had come by this stag, out of whose great eyes I saw tears flowing. Instead of answering me, he began to laugh loudly. I fell into a great rage at this, pulled out a pistol and discharged it at the monster; but the ball rebounded from his breast and went into my horse's head. I fell to the ground, and the stranger muttered some words which deprived me of consciousness."
--- The Glass Coffin, Brothers Grimm
Guns and Glass Cases
"How did I let you talk me into this? I'm going to get arrested! Is that what you want?"
Leo scrubbed his hands against his trouser legs again, trying his damnedest to stop sweating all over the place. He was a tailor. He made nice suits for a relatively nice bespoke menswear outlet downtown. That was it. He was not a gangster, or anything remotely resembling a gangster, even if he had accidentally married one, and it was not even remotely fair of the actual gangster in this little party to put him on the line like this.
"You won't get arrested," Alban reassured him again, for what was probably the fiftieth time so far that afternoon. He leaned back against the stack of crates and casually shoved his bush of thick brown hair back off his face. "You're a tailor, Leo. Headin' in there to pick up a box of, hell, ties or handkerchiefs or shit. So long as you calm down and stop looking so suspicious, nobody's gonna look at you twice, so just relax, alright? This'll be easy as pie, trust me."
Leo glared at him. Some nice, reassuring brother-in-law he turned out to be. This had to be beyond the pale, even for this weird-as-shit little family.
"I wasn't supposed to get involved in this side of things," he reminded quietly. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his hands properly, while Alban actually straightened up a little. "You guys promised that, remember? I'm not good at this, Al. I'm gonna mess it up, and I'm gonna get arrested, and then what? I'm not good at this part--"
"You're not getting arrested," Alban said, much more firmly this time. He reached forward and squeezed Leo's shoulder, with a grip just shy of bruising. Leo blinked at him, at the suddenly serious expression on his face, and closed his mouth with a startled click. Alban just shook his head, rubbing his shoulder soothingly. "I'm serious, Leo. I've set this up nice, and it's just this once. Nobody is going to look twice at you. You'll be fine." He paused, waited until Leo managed a nod, and then let himself smile a little. Something sly and secret. "Besides. Even if you did get caught, we'd come and get you. You got my sister out of hell, remember? You really think we wouldn't return the favour?"
Leo blinked some. He looked away, suddenly shy, a flush climbing up his neck. He'd knotted his hanky all into pieces, he noticed. He tried to smooth it back out again, his hands shaking a little bit. Shaking, but not sweating. Not anymore.
"That was more luck than judgement, you know," he said quietly. Not looking at the man beside him. "You were the one who sent me there, and the one who killed that bastard to keep him from following. All I did was sneak into his house and let Gabriele out."
"Yeah," Alban said, holding his arm lightly. "But you did it willingly, Leo. Not many people who get caught in a shootout between two strange sons of bitches would be willing to go rescue one of their sisters, and have to creep into some evil bastard's lair to do it. Gabriele didn't choose to marry you just 'cause you happened along, you know. She saw you had guts, and were willing to help out when it came to it. We appreciate that, me and her. Always have."
Leo took a deep breath, breathed it out shakily. He was getting set up again. He knew that good and well. Alban had never been shy about arranging for things to get done, by whoever was fit enough to do them. He'd been a lot more desperate the first time Leo had met him, though. He'd been on his last legs, fighting through whatever that evil bastard had done to him, and when Leo had made it into the house and found Gabriele drugged insensible and propped in a glass case like a doll, he'd understood why. The kind of man who'd do that to someone sure as hell deserved killing, and the lady sure as hell deserved rescuing, and Leo could forgive a man for being willing to force the issue if he had to.
He wasn't really being forced now, though, not like then. He knew that too. If he said, really and truly, that he was not doing this, full stop, end of, then Alban would back off and let him be. If for no other reason than that Gabriele might well shoot him for trying to put the muscle on her husband, maybe, but Leo and Alban had their own little arrangement as well. Had from the start. When brother and sister were as close as they were, it'd seemed only necessary, and Alban was a surprisingly genial sort, when you got to know him. There'd been a reason he and his sister had been one of the most famed social duos in town, at least until that bastard had screwed them over. Alban was genuinely easy-going, when nobody's life was on the line. Leo knew that. He knew he could get out of this, right here and now, if he really needed to.
And with all that being the case, and knowing that both Alban and Gabriele really would come and get him if it all went tits up ...
Leo sighed heavily, and folded his handkerchief neatly back into his pocket. "Just walk up, say the password, pick up the stuff and walk out, right?" he asked, mostly rhetorically. "The things I end up doing for you two. This was not how my life was supposed to go. You do know that, right?"
Alban grinned, a little softly, and pulled Leo into a quick, powerful hug. "We know," he said, something shining in his eyes that reminded Leo one hell of a lot of the man's sister. "You love us, though. Got to count for somethin', don't it?"
"Something," Leo repeated, not quite dubiously, and went off to get himself arrested with something not too far from a smile.
---
They'd been gone a long while, Gabriele thought, pacing around the interior of the club. The sweepers and early set-up crew ignored her with the ease of long practice, and she in turn ignored them beyond the quick scan of faces and weapons to make sure everybody was who and where they were supposed to be. Paranoia was an old and easy habit these days. One round of kidnapping by a man who wouldn't take no for an answer made sure of that.
Not the point right now. Her idiot husband and her idiot brother had been gone for quite a while, and both of them had been alarmingly close-mouthed about what, exactly, they were meant to be doing on this little outing. Leo had been sweating buckets, which didn't bode well, and Alban had been interspersing a smug smile with an attempted innocent expression, which definitely didn't bode well. Gabriele had grown up with that great lug and she knew full good and well when he was planning to do something stupid, and getting her poor innocent idiot of a husband mixed up in it to boot.
God, what were they doing? There was no business on, not until tomorrow night, and there'd been nobody making inappropriate noises lately either. Even if there had been, Alban had no business dragging Leo along to get involved in it. Where were they? How was she supposed to go and pull their asses out of whatever fire they'd landed in if she didn't know where the fire was? Irresponsible! The both of them. Irresponsible bloody idiots--
"Hello the house! Anyone home? Hey, Ernie, you know where my sister went?"
Gabriele sat down heavily on the closest barstool. There they were. Or there was Alban, at least, sounding as cheerful and casual as ever, and he'd know better than to dare sound like that unless Leo was also fine and well and following along behind him. Idiot though her brother could be, he never outright lied to her, in word or in action. They were fine. The both of them. From the sounds of it, they were fine.
Which only meant that she had her choice of killing them, of course, but she'd wait until they got in the door for that. One didn't do these things in the street, or even the foyer. Family disputes were to be kept behind closed doors, please and thank you.
Alban came in first, with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a stack of pizzas balanced on the opposite arm. He turned to hold the door awkwardly open with two fingers of the bottle hand, high up on the door, and Gabriele watched as Leo shuffled in beneath it, holding a small crate so gingerly in both hands you'd be forgiven for thinking there was a bomb in it. Good Lord, she hoped there wasn't. That'd be all she needed. Not to mention the club.
"And where have you two been?" she growled, getting up and stalking over to glare at them. Alban offered her his sunniest smile, while Leo gave her a desperate, deer-in-the-headlights look for contrast. They made such a picture, she thought absently. Her brother, all six-foot-stupid of him, lean and powerful and smiling, and Leo, short and skinny and nervous in his dapper little wool suit. The mob prince and the tailor, and the two men she loved most in all the world. The two men she'd kill for, without a second goddamn thought.
"We, ah," Leo tried, glaring in some panic up at Alban beside him. "We were ... that is ..."
"We went out to get your birthday present, sister of mine!" Alban said happily, spreading his arms to show his prizes without so much as tilting the pizza boxes. Graceful idiot that he was. "I got your favourite dinner, and your favourite drink, and Leo here ... Well. Leo got you something special. Didn't you, Leo?"
Leo looked like he'd gotten the short end of the stick, that's how Leo looked. Gabriele blinked at them as they glared at each other, caught between curiosity, amusement and a lingering alarm. Some surprise, too. She'd actually forgotten today was her birthday, and she hadn't realised that Leo knew it. He'd only been with them ... God. Less than nine months. Nine months since some skinny, terrified little nobody had crept into a madman's basement and managed to pull her out in one piece. Nine months since Alban had shot and stabbed that evil bastard full of holes. Nine months since she'd grabbed hold of that brave little idiot (both those brave idiots) and made sure to damn well keep them, one way or the other. It felt like so long, especially since she'd talked Leo into marrying her four months later. And yet, when she looked at it, it wasn't really that long at all. Not even a birthday ago.
"I didn't," Leo started, drawing her attention back again. He flushed, glaring down at the box he still cradled so carefully in his hands. "Alban ordered them. I just had to go into the warehouse and get them, that's all. Don't listen to him, love. Most of this is his doing."
"Yeah, no," Alban disagreed, and deposited his prizes on the nearest table in order to grab the man by the shoulders and steer him closer to her. Gabriele watched them, torn between smiling and scowling at them both. "It's him you shouldn't listen to, sister of mine. We both agreed on this gift, but it was Leo's idea. He thought you might appreciate it. I just arranged things for him to pick them up. It's his gift, or it's our gift, but it's most certainly not just mine. Now. Do us both a favour, will you, and take a look at your birthday present before our boy here talks himself any further into a hole?"
He smiled softly at her, his arms wrapped around her husband's shoulders, with a look in his eyes just for her. That old, warm love that had always lived between them, while he held out a skinny little tailor and a wooden box for her delight. Oh yes, Gabriele thought. The box wasn't Alban's gift to her. This year, he'd gotten her one or two rather more significant presents. Freedom and vengeance and a rather lovely husband were difficult gifts to top.
"Alright," she said softly, reaching out to take the crate before Leo finally got nervous enough to drop it. She didn't smile at them. She wanted to, but she didn't. Best to keep them on their toes a little longer. "But once that's out of the way, don't think we aren't going to have a talk about you bringing my husband down to warehouses to 'pick things up'. You can't just go borrowing him whenever you feel like it, brother of mine."
"Pff," Alban dismissed, waving his hand, while Leo looked uncertainly between them. "Your husband is my husband, didn't we promise that when we were kids? Open your present, sis. I think the suspense is killing him."
"I hate you both," Leo managed, but almost idly. Almost fondly, and he was smiling at them too. He'd gotten used to them, hadn't he? He'd taken her and Alban in fine stride, once he'd gotten the hang of them a little bit. No better husband in all the world.
... No better at all, she thought distantly, as she finally levered the lid off the crate and actually caught sight of her present. Four pristine handguns gleamed up at her from their packing, with neat little boxes of magnum cartridges stacked around them. Four perfect fistfuls of power, waiting for her hands on their triggers. They'd gotten her ...
"I thought you might want them," Leo said quietly. He'd pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, now that his hands were free, and was busy twisting it into a ragged string of knots. "When you told me about how he ... how he took you, back then. You shot him, and he didn't even flinch. I thought maybe you might ... want something someone would have a hard time stopping? I asked Alban, and he said these would put a hole in somebody good and proper, and he ... He knew where to get some, and I didn't want to pick them up, I mean, I'm not designed for sneaking around and buying untraceable firearms, you know, but I ... Well, I thought that you ..."
Gabriele reached out and yanked him towards her, mute and fiercely angry around the tears in her eyes. Leo gave a startled yelp, but he quieted when she put her arms around him. He went silent while she dragged him into a fierce, savage sort of hug, and slowly and carefully put his arms around her in turn. He'd pulled her out of her glass coffin, once upon a time. He knew why she was trembling.
"... I think you thought right," Alban commented softly, as he moved up beside them, pulled them both in against him in turn. "I told you she'd like them, Leo. I told you she'd like 'em just fine."
"I hate you both," Gabriele whispered, holding them furiously. "I hate you so much."
"Um," Leo said. He ducked his head against her neck. "Ah. Happy birthday, then?"
Gabriele laughed wetly, nuzzling against him. "Happy birthday," she repeated, shaking her head in amazement. "My birthday, and my brother and my husband go and get me a pizza, some scotch, and a box full of magnums. You two do know me, don't you?"
"It's not that hard," Alban agreed. When she pulled back enough to look at him, he was grinning down at them, that warm, fierce thing in his eyes. "My sister is a simple woman, I've said that many times. A simple woman of simple tastes. Not hard to please at all."
"That really depends on your point of view," Leo noted mildly, but he was still smiling as well, bright and relieved at them both, so Gabriele leaned in to kiss him, big and and warm and friendly, the way she had the first time they met. He answered it willingly, her husband did. He answered it with the happiest will in the world.
"Ahem," Alban said, coughing lightly when they'd gone on long enough, in his opinion. He was looking amused and vaguely disgruntled when Gabriele pulled away to look at him, so she leaned up and gave him a little kiss as well. In the interests of fairness, of course. Her brother shook his head at her, clapping Leo lightly on the shoulder, and gestured pointedly in the direction of the rapidly cooling pizza and the scotch.
"Shall we get this party started, then?" he asked pointedly. "In a manner suitable for mixed company, I mean. That pizza isn't going to eat itself."
Gabriele looked at Leo, who shrugged amiably. "I could use a drink after this afternoon," he admitted, smiling ruefully. "I don't think we got the scotch entirely for you. Can you forgive us?"
Gabriele looked at them, her two most precious men in all the world, and shook her head. She stepped back from them with a smile, and bowed over her arm in an amused, resigned 'after you' sort of gesture.
"Save me the pepperoni," she told them happily, "and I'll think about it."
A/N: I think the quotes at the start illustrate my thought processes pretty well, from the original TFLT prompt to the fairytale I matched it to. Heh. This really is one of my favourite Grimm tales :)
Ah. If anyone's getting a vague threesome vibe from the trio, that was possibly intentional on my part. There was this quote from the original fairytale: "My parents died when I was still in my tender youth, and recommended me in their last will to my elder brother, by whom I was brought up. We loved each other so tenderly, and were so alike in our way of thinking and our inclinations, that we both embraced the resolution never to marry, but to stay together to the end of our lives." I think it slanted my thoughts in that direction a little. My apologies?
I want to see a guy holding a pizza and a bottle of scotch and a box of magnums. I'm a simple woman.
--- Texts from Last Night
"Magnum: a gun designed to fire cartridges that are more powerful than its calibre would suggest. 'That magnum has a kick like a field gun'."
--- Oxford Dictionaries
"I asked him where he had left my brother, and how he had come by this stag, out of whose great eyes I saw tears flowing. Instead of answering me, he began to laugh loudly. I fell into a great rage at this, pulled out a pistol and discharged it at the monster; but the ball rebounded from his breast and went into my horse's head. I fell to the ground, and the stranger muttered some words which deprived me of consciousness."
--- The Glass Coffin, Brothers Grimm
Guns and Glass Cases
"How did I let you talk me into this? I'm going to get arrested! Is that what you want?"
Leo scrubbed his hands against his trouser legs again, trying his damnedest to stop sweating all over the place. He was a tailor. He made nice suits for a relatively nice bespoke menswear outlet downtown. That was it. He was not a gangster, or anything remotely resembling a gangster, even if he had accidentally married one, and it was not even remotely fair of the actual gangster in this little party to put him on the line like this.
"You won't get arrested," Alban reassured him again, for what was probably the fiftieth time so far that afternoon. He leaned back against the stack of crates and casually shoved his bush of thick brown hair back off his face. "You're a tailor, Leo. Headin' in there to pick up a box of, hell, ties or handkerchiefs or shit. So long as you calm down and stop looking so suspicious, nobody's gonna look at you twice, so just relax, alright? This'll be easy as pie, trust me."
Leo glared at him. Some nice, reassuring brother-in-law he turned out to be. This had to be beyond the pale, even for this weird-as-shit little family.
"I wasn't supposed to get involved in this side of things," he reminded quietly. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his hands properly, while Alban actually straightened up a little. "You guys promised that, remember? I'm not good at this, Al. I'm gonna mess it up, and I'm gonna get arrested, and then what? I'm not good at this part--"
"You're not getting arrested," Alban said, much more firmly this time. He reached forward and squeezed Leo's shoulder, with a grip just shy of bruising. Leo blinked at him, at the suddenly serious expression on his face, and closed his mouth with a startled click. Alban just shook his head, rubbing his shoulder soothingly. "I'm serious, Leo. I've set this up nice, and it's just this once. Nobody is going to look twice at you. You'll be fine." He paused, waited until Leo managed a nod, and then let himself smile a little. Something sly and secret. "Besides. Even if you did get caught, we'd come and get you. You got my sister out of hell, remember? You really think we wouldn't return the favour?"
Leo blinked some. He looked away, suddenly shy, a flush climbing up his neck. He'd knotted his hanky all into pieces, he noticed. He tried to smooth it back out again, his hands shaking a little bit. Shaking, but not sweating. Not anymore.
"That was more luck than judgement, you know," he said quietly. Not looking at the man beside him. "You were the one who sent me there, and the one who killed that bastard to keep him from following. All I did was sneak into his house and let Gabriele out."
"Yeah," Alban said, holding his arm lightly. "But you did it willingly, Leo. Not many people who get caught in a shootout between two strange sons of bitches would be willing to go rescue one of their sisters, and have to creep into some evil bastard's lair to do it. Gabriele didn't choose to marry you just 'cause you happened along, you know. She saw you had guts, and were willing to help out when it came to it. We appreciate that, me and her. Always have."
Leo took a deep breath, breathed it out shakily. He was getting set up again. He knew that good and well. Alban had never been shy about arranging for things to get done, by whoever was fit enough to do them. He'd been a lot more desperate the first time Leo had met him, though. He'd been on his last legs, fighting through whatever that evil bastard had done to him, and when Leo had made it into the house and found Gabriele drugged insensible and propped in a glass case like a doll, he'd understood why. The kind of man who'd do that to someone sure as hell deserved killing, and the lady sure as hell deserved rescuing, and Leo could forgive a man for being willing to force the issue if he had to.
He wasn't really being forced now, though, not like then. He knew that too. If he said, really and truly, that he was not doing this, full stop, end of, then Alban would back off and let him be. If for no other reason than that Gabriele might well shoot him for trying to put the muscle on her husband, maybe, but Leo and Alban had their own little arrangement as well. Had from the start. When brother and sister were as close as they were, it'd seemed only necessary, and Alban was a surprisingly genial sort, when you got to know him. There'd been a reason he and his sister had been one of the most famed social duos in town, at least until that bastard had screwed them over. Alban was genuinely easy-going, when nobody's life was on the line. Leo knew that. He knew he could get out of this, right here and now, if he really needed to.
And with all that being the case, and knowing that both Alban and Gabriele really would come and get him if it all went tits up ...
Leo sighed heavily, and folded his handkerchief neatly back into his pocket. "Just walk up, say the password, pick up the stuff and walk out, right?" he asked, mostly rhetorically. "The things I end up doing for you two. This was not how my life was supposed to go. You do know that, right?"
Alban grinned, a little softly, and pulled Leo into a quick, powerful hug. "We know," he said, something shining in his eyes that reminded Leo one hell of a lot of the man's sister. "You love us, though. Got to count for somethin', don't it?"
"Something," Leo repeated, not quite dubiously, and went off to get himself arrested with something not too far from a smile.
They'd been gone a long while, Gabriele thought, pacing around the interior of the club. The sweepers and early set-up crew ignored her with the ease of long practice, and she in turn ignored them beyond the quick scan of faces and weapons to make sure everybody was who and where they were supposed to be. Paranoia was an old and easy habit these days. One round of kidnapping by a man who wouldn't take no for an answer made sure of that.
Not the point right now. Her idiot husband and her idiot brother had been gone for quite a while, and both of them had been alarmingly close-mouthed about what, exactly, they were meant to be doing on this little outing. Leo had been sweating buckets, which didn't bode well, and Alban had been interspersing a smug smile with an attempted innocent expression, which definitely didn't bode well. Gabriele had grown up with that great lug and she knew full good and well when he was planning to do something stupid, and getting her poor innocent idiot of a husband mixed up in it to boot.
God, what were they doing? There was no business on, not until tomorrow night, and there'd been nobody making inappropriate noises lately either. Even if there had been, Alban had no business dragging Leo along to get involved in it. Where were they? How was she supposed to go and pull their asses out of whatever fire they'd landed in if she didn't know where the fire was? Irresponsible! The both of them. Irresponsible bloody idiots--
"Hello the house! Anyone home? Hey, Ernie, you know where my sister went?"
Gabriele sat down heavily on the closest barstool. There they were. Or there was Alban, at least, sounding as cheerful and casual as ever, and he'd know better than to dare sound like that unless Leo was also fine and well and following along behind him. Idiot though her brother could be, he never outright lied to her, in word or in action. They were fine. The both of them. From the sounds of it, they were fine.
Which only meant that she had her choice of killing them, of course, but she'd wait until they got in the door for that. One didn't do these things in the street, or even the foyer. Family disputes were to be kept behind closed doors, please and thank you.
Alban came in first, with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a stack of pizzas balanced on the opposite arm. He turned to hold the door awkwardly open with two fingers of the bottle hand, high up on the door, and Gabriele watched as Leo shuffled in beneath it, holding a small crate so gingerly in both hands you'd be forgiven for thinking there was a bomb in it. Good Lord, she hoped there wasn't. That'd be all she needed. Not to mention the club.
"And where have you two been?" she growled, getting up and stalking over to glare at them. Alban offered her his sunniest smile, while Leo gave her a desperate, deer-in-the-headlights look for contrast. They made such a picture, she thought absently. Her brother, all six-foot-stupid of him, lean and powerful and smiling, and Leo, short and skinny and nervous in his dapper little wool suit. The mob prince and the tailor, and the two men she loved most in all the world. The two men she'd kill for, without a second goddamn thought.
"We, ah," Leo tried, glaring in some panic up at Alban beside him. "We were ... that is ..."
"We went out to get your birthday present, sister of mine!" Alban said happily, spreading his arms to show his prizes without so much as tilting the pizza boxes. Graceful idiot that he was. "I got your favourite dinner, and your favourite drink, and Leo here ... Well. Leo got you something special. Didn't you, Leo?"
Leo looked like he'd gotten the short end of the stick, that's how Leo looked. Gabriele blinked at them as they glared at each other, caught between curiosity, amusement and a lingering alarm. Some surprise, too. She'd actually forgotten today was her birthday, and she hadn't realised that Leo knew it. He'd only been with them ... God. Less than nine months. Nine months since some skinny, terrified little nobody had crept into a madman's basement and managed to pull her out in one piece. Nine months since Alban had shot and stabbed that evil bastard full of holes. Nine months since she'd grabbed hold of that brave little idiot (both those brave idiots) and made sure to damn well keep them, one way or the other. It felt like so long, especially since she'd talked Leo into marrying her four months later. And yet, when she looked at it, it wasn't really that long at all. Not even a birthday ago.
"I didn't," Leo started, drawing her attention back again. He flushed, glaring down at the box he still cradled so carefully in his hands. "Alban ordered them. I just had to go into the warehouse and get them, that's all. Don't listen to him, love. Most of this is his doing."
"Yeah, no," Alban disagreed, and deposited his prizes on the nearest table in order to grab the man by the shoulders and steer him closer to her. Gabriele watched them, torn between smiling and scowling at them both. "It's him you shouldn't listen to, sister of mine. We both agreed on this gift, but it was Leo's idea. He thought you might appreciate it. I just arranged things for him to pick them up. It's his gift, or it's our gift, but it's most certainly not just mine. Now. Do us both a favour, will you, and take a look at your birthday present before our boy here talks himself any further into a hole?"
He smiled softly at her, his arms wrapped around her husband's shoulders, with a look in his eyes just for her. That old, warm love that had always lived between them, while he held out a skinny little tailor and a wooden box for her delight. Oh yes, Gabriele thought. The box wasn't Alban's gift to her. This year, he'd gotten her one or two rather more significant presents. Freedom and vengeance and a rather lovely husband were difficult gifts to top.
"Alright," she said softly, reaching out to take the crate before Leo finally got nervous enough to drop it. She didn't smile at them. She wanted to, but she didn't. Best to keep them on their toes a little longer. "But once that's out of the way, don't think we aren't going to have a talk about you bringing my husband down to warehouses to 'pick things up'. You can't just go borrowing him whenever you feel like it, brother of mine."
"Pff," Alban dismissed, waving his hand, while Leo looked uncertainly between them. "Your husband is my husband, didn't we promise that when we were kids? Open your present, sis. I think the suspense is killing him."
"I hate you both," Leo managed, but almost idly. Almost fondly, and he was smiling at them too. He'd gotten used to them, hadn't he? He'd taken her and Alban in fine stride, once he'd gotten the hang of them a little bit. No better husband in all the world.
... No better at all, she thought distantly, as she finally levered the lid off the crate and actually caught sight of her present. Four pristine handguns gleamed up at her from their packing, with neat little boxes of magnum cartridges stacked around them. Four perfect fistfuls of power, waiting for her hands on their triggers. They'd gotten her ...
"I thought you might want them," Leo said quietly. He'd pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, now that his hands were free, and was busy twisting it into a ragged string of knots. "When you told me about how he ... how he took you, back then. You shot him, and he didn't even flinch. I thought maybe you might ... want something someone would have a hard time stopping? I asked Alban, and he said these would put a hole in somebody good and proper, and he ... He knew where to get some, and I didn't want to pick them up, I mean, I'm not designed for sneaking around and buying untraceable firearms, you know, but I ... Well, I thought that you ..."
Gabriele reached out and yanked him towards her, mute and fiercely angry around the tears in her eyes. Leo gave a startled yelp, but he quieted when she put her arms around him. He went silent while she dragged him into a fierce, savage sort of hug, and slowly and carefully put his arms around her in turn. He'd pulled her out of her glass coffin, once upon a time. He knew why she was trembling.
"... I think you thought right," Alban commented softly, as he moved up beside them, pulled them both in against him in turn. "I told you she'd like them, Leo. I told you she'd like 'em just fine."
"I hate you both," Gabriele whispered, holding them furiously. "I hate you so much."
"Um," Leo said. He ducked his head against her neck. "Ah. Happy birthday, then?"
Gabriele laughed wetly, nuzzling against him. "Happy birthday," she repeated, shaking her head in amazement. "My birthday, and my brother and my husband go and get me a pizza, some scotch, and a box full of magnums. You two do know me, don't you?"
"It's not that hard," Alban agreed. When she pulled back enough to look at him, he was grinning down at them, that warm, fierce thing in his eyes. "My sister is a simple woman, I've said that many times. A simple woman of simple tastes. Not hard to please at all."
"That really depends on your point of view," Leo noted mildly, but he was still smiling as well, bright and relieved at them both, so Gabriele leaned in to kiss him, big and and warm and friendly, the way she had the first time they met. He answered it willingly, her husband did. He answered it with the happiest will in the world.
"Ahem," Alban said, coughing lightly when they'd gone on long enough, in his opinion. He was looking amused and vaguely disgruntled when Gabriele pulled away to look at him, so she leaned up and gave him a little kiss as well. In the interests of fairness, of course. Her brother shook his head at her, clapping Leo lightly on the shoulder, and gestured pointedly in the direction of the rapidly cooling pizza and the scotch.
"Shall we get this party started, then?" he asked pointedly. "In a manner suitable for mixed company, I mean. That pizza isn't going to eat itself."
Gabriele looked at Leo, who shrugged amiably. "I could use a drink after this afternoon," he admitted, smiling ruefully. "I don't think we got the scotch entirely for you. Can you forgive us?"
Gabriele looked at them, her two most precious men in all the world, and shook her head. She stepped back from them with a smile, and bowed over her arm in an amused, resigned 'after you' sort of gesture.
"Save me the pepperoni," she told them happily, "and I'll think about it."
A/N: I think the quotes at the start illustrate my thought processes pretty well, from the original TFLT prompt to the fairytale I matched it to. Heh. This really is one of my favourite Grimm tales :)
Ah. If anyone's getting a vague threesome vibe from the trio, that was possibly intentional on my part. There was this quote from the original fairytale: "My parents died when I was still in my tender youth, and recommended me in their last will to my elder brother, by whom I was brought up. We loved each other so tenderly, and were so alike in our way of thinking and our inclinations, that we both embraced the resolution never to marry, but to stay together to the end of our lives." I think it slanted my thoughts in that direction a little. My apologies?