#borrowerverse

Penelope didn’t mess up. That wasn’t in the cards, not now and not ever. Borrowers that screwed up vanished without a trace- and became the scary bedtime story parents told their kids while tucking them into bed so they would take the extra precautions that’d seen generations of borrowers through many a hard, dangerous life. 

And so the moment Penelope’s grappling hook snagged and she felt that sickening, searing pop in her shoulder, every story her folks told her about cats gobbling up clumsy borrowers or their a thousand worse fates replayed all at once in her head.

Penelope could hear it now, her mum’s scolding voice reaming her out for so severe a fuck up:

That’s what you get for living in a crime family’s walls.

Had Penelope chosen a more typical home instead of Salieri’s, she might’ve been found by a sweet old granny that would patch her up and make her a cup of tea, or a gentle child just happy to have a secret friend they could confide in once they got her out of this predicament. Or perhaps, the ideal scenario for her mother, she’d have not gone out borrowing alone, and had a beau to help her hobble back home.

Nope. Instead, Penelope’s option for help was a whirlwind of a bean named Paulie. Just the other day, Paulie had gone off on some haughty, young buck that’d just joined up, nearly killed a valuable asset and had gotten caught making unwanted advances on a well known contact’s daughter, nearly costing the relationship. Penelope’s home in the walls shook with the contact of that particular ignoramus getting taught a proper lesson via a not-so-gentle collision with it. 

“You best take a walk, kid, and think real careful on what you do next. Cos’ it won’t be my balls you’ll be bustin’, kid. It’ll be the dons. And I hope you’ve got enough of a brain to figure out what that’ll mean for ya.”

She’d have laughed at the muffled squeak the kid made to affirm he’d heard Paulie’s warning if the two bumbling beans hadn’t knocked all her damn pictures off the walls.

That same bean was sitting reclined at one of the tables, his suit jacket draped over the back and his shirt collar loosened, sleeves rolled up past his elbows to reveal dark curls of arm hair while he sipped brazenly on a glass of whiskey. 

Just as surprised as Penelope was, hanging there like a fly caught in a spider’s web with her throbbing shoulder, Paulie’s expression was a priceless thing when at last he caught sight of her mid-sip. Paulie nearly spat out his drink.

 Those dark eyes, wide as saucers, didn't seem inclined on moving from the dangling borrower’s mishap any time soon. In fact, Paulie only managed to blink once and set his drink down before he kept on gawking.

Penelope wanted to shout at him, tell him to quit staring like an idiot. The pain in her shoulder radiated up her arm, across her chest like a spreading wildfire. She dared not even look- Penelope knew the joint was dislocated and she had to figure out how the hell to get untangled and hide quick before Paulie realized he wasn’t drunk and crazy.

Penelope muttered a jumbled string of profanities, faded auburn waves falling into her face. By some miracle, her glasses, though askew, hadn’t fallen off; losing them would be catastrophic since there weren’t exactly a ton of borrower eye doctors around the joint to make her a new pair. Her right wrist burned with a familiar, deep pain, a cumbersome accompaniment to the dislocated opposing shoulder.

“Either you’re the smallest dame I ever saw,”

Paulie spoke up finally and Penelope’s body tensed. Out of instinct, the borrower sat still, grinding her teeth as she watched the dark haired fellow rise from his chair, abandoning his whiskey on the table next to a salt and pepper shaker to saunter over.

“Or there’s somethin’ funny in my drink.”

Penelope mostly got to know beans by their voices and their shoes. Paulie wore good italian leather, scuffed in spots but always kept in the best shape he could. A few pants were hemmed at the cuffs by a patient, skilled hand, the odd tear mended with careful stitching. Someone loved this big lug more than life. But faces? Penelope hardly ever saw a human face, save for far away if she was up on one of the shelves swiping something.

Paulie’s was a soft one, hardly conventionally handsome but endearing and almost boyish. Five O'clock shadow dappled olive toned skin along his jaw, his wide mouth partially agape. And boy, was this fucker huge up close, the way he bent closer to where she hung from the shelf that held rows of rocks glasses behind the bar the most jarring thing the borrower had ever experienced. Those brown eyes hung onto her form and went from a soldato’s cunning to a young boy’s awe as they beheld an impossible sight.

“Shit.”

He laughed.

“You are real, ain’tcha? My ma told me stories about tiny folks livin’ in the walls.”

Penelope’s jaw clenched, her nostrils flaring. She wanted to tell him ‘no shit I’m real, you bonehead’ but the cardinal rule of a borrower’s survival instinct kicked in- never said a damn thing to a bean, no matter what. Go to the grave silent. Let them think you weren’t real. Let them believe you couldn’t say anything. Don’t be memorable. 

“Howdya manage this? Christ.”

Paulie’s brows furrowed when he caught sight of the grappling hook that held the injured borrower aloft. He noticed the odd angle of her shoulder, the way the opposing arm was starting to shake as it tried damn hard to hold on. 

Many thought Paulie heartless for being cold enough to shoot a man point blank without thinking about it. But that was not the same man hovering a calloused palm beneath Penelope’s form as he carefully unhooked her from the shelf.

Penelope landed shoulder down on Paulie’s palm and every lesson on discretion flew out the window when pain drove her reason away.

“Fuck!”

Penelope cried out, her voice strained and nearly growling as she curled inwards in Paulie’s hand, clutching her throbbing shoulder.

“Shit. She speaks.”

Paulie chuckled and lifted the borrower up higher so he could look at her properly.

Penelope shot him a positively venomous expression. Was she pissed him for talking to her so casually when she was hurting this bad or at herself for messing up? It was impossible to tell, but a hot anger flooded her expression.

“Yeah, and as a matter of fact I do, asshole!”

She sniped

“I bite too. Hard.”

Paulie paused, let out a low whistle.

“Relax, honey. I was just bustin’ ya chops.”

Penelope felt another comment rise but Paulie’s thick fingers interrupted her.

“Ya got hurt bad. Take a deep breath, this is gonna hurt like hell.”

He said, his tone shifted. It was almost gentler, even if the thought of a tough guy talking that way felt like the ultimate tall tale.

“Dealt with way worse, pal.”

Penelope countered, took in a deep breath until her lungs filled out her ribcage. This bean intended on setting her shoulder, so who was she to argue with that when she’d already fucked up this badly? Penelope squeezed her right hand until the knuckles turned white, focusing on the stinging pain in her wrist. She closed her eyes and she felt Paulie’s fingers shift her shoulder. It popped back into place; Penelope let out an agonized growl through gritted teeth, focusing on the pain in her wrist instead. Sweat beaded across her forehead, nausea swirling in her gut. Soon enough, the pain subsided enough to think, to chance a look at the world again.

Was that…concern again, on a fuckin’ soldato’s face? Paulie seemed the type to wear his heart on his sleeve when he was allowed to. Now seemed like one such time, when the eyes of other dangerous men weren’t on him, fixing to find weakness to exploit.

“You’re one brave broad, I’ll give ya that.”

Paulie laughed. He swept her up and away back towards his table where he lifted up his whiskey glass and seemed to consider something. He held the glass beside his palm, tilting it enough for the amber liquid to be accessible to Penelope.

“Grab a sip. For the pain.”

Paulie instructed.

Penelope didn’t hesitate, caution be damned. Without a word, the borrower shuffled towards the glass, grabbed some in a cupped palm and sucked it back quick as a shot. She grabbed another mouthful, then another and another until a pleasant laugh rumbled through her bones.

“Damn! Slow down, honey, you’ll get sick.”

Paulie teased with a playfully crooked grin.

Penelope turned to look up at him and snorted

“I could outdrink you if I really tried, Paulie, so shut yer yap.”

The man paused, muttered something Penelope strongly suspected was something rude in Italian and shook his head in disbelief

“You know my name? What, you some Morello mole livin’ in the walls or somethin’?”

She arched a brow

“Well, all-you-gotta-do to learn a bozo’s name in this joint is not to wear ear plugs and wait for one a ya to get mad enough to start shoutin’. Think I learned all my Italian that way, too.”

A smirk accompanied. The searing comfort of the whiskey warmed her belly, her face and best of all, dulled the pain in her shoulder and her wrist.

Paulie let out a loud laugh.

“You ain’t answered my question, though, doll.”

He rested his palm on the tabletop and waited for Penelope to roll off on her own. 

“You a Morello mole?”

She held onto her injured shoulder and managed to stand stubbornly, unwilling to keel over in front of the first bean she’d ever spoken to in her life. 

“Shit, I ain’t got time to work for a different damn crime family when I’m already too busy just keepin’ myself fed living with this one. Now would ya back up a little, buddy? Seein’ just a fella’s chin ain’t exactly the most appealing angle.”

Paulie snorted.

“You callin’ me ugly, little lady?”

Penelope smirked

“I am, unless ya prove me wrong.”

Paulie shook his head

“Anyone ever tell ya about that mouth a yours?”

“Only when I’m singin’.”

Penelope retorted

“Or when I’m kissin’.”

Paulie shifted his arm around behind her and rested his chin on the table top. Those cinnamon eyes fixed on her.

“Alright, smart-ass. How’s this angle? I lookin’ handsome to ya yet?”

The borrower made a show of humming and hawing. The ache still lingered in her injuries but this was easy, familiar- banter. Hiding pain was simpler with a role to play.

“Better. ‘Specially those eyes, ladykiller. And that smile.”

Penelope let out a snort of laughter.

The pair of them shared a few laughs and when the pain crept back up on Penelope again, Paulie went quiet, let her drink from a glass he’d not touched again since he’d discovered her presence.

The night hours passed, quiet on the street outside, Lost Heaven lit dimly by street lamps. Sometimes folks would pass by the window, heads tucked down and minding their own business like they were meant to. Those moments, Paulie was alert and his hand became a wall to hide Penelope in case anyone got the bright idea to peak into Salieri’s at this ungodly hour.

Paulie left Penelope only briefly enough to grab a new jazz record and let it crackle to life on a gramophone. He returned and found her humming along, the familiar words of the chorus springing to her lips as she wiggled along.

“I feel like a dope. I never caught your name.”

Paulie rubbed the back of his neck as he checked the clock on the wall and sank back down his chair, hunched forward to see the borrower better.

“Seems mighty unfair, you knowin’ mine and all.”

Penelope felt her mother’s phantom gaze on her, even if the woman was across town, living safely in the walls of an old florist’s shop. And yet, the syllables produced themselves as if on their own, in tune with muffled brass and drums, Ella Fitzgerald’s voice singing ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’.

“Penelope.”

Paulie nodded slowly, tapping his shoe on the floor in time with the beat.

“Don’t know why, thought you’d have…I dunno, a more whimsical name or somethin’.”

He said. Did he want to curse the hands of the clock because they ticked ever closer to him no longer being alone in the restaurant or bless them because he could go home, go to bed and dream of one dynamite dame, even if she was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand?

“If it’s any consolation, my friends call me Spirit.”

She supplied.

“One look at a funny booze bottle label we took and the name stuck. Still got it up in my bedroom.”

Paulie snickered

“See, Spirit suits ya more than Penelope. On account of you havin’ spirit in spades.”

The soldato paused, chewed on a few words and let those earnest, boyish eyes do the talking for him again. His voice was quiet, like he was telling a secret.

“Ain’t met a girl, never mind any fella in my line o’ work that could be so brave. Danglin’ from heights like that, shruggin’ off a dislocated shoulder, hell, talkin’ to a mug as big as I am to you. Now that’s spirit.”

Penelope paused because what could she say to something like that? Humour and teasing were easy with a guy like Paulie, because he played the game like she did- a perfect mask to hide vulnerability, to be strong and confident and assured. She felt her face warm again and the borrower had a hunch it wasn’t just the booze. She shrugged her good shoulder.

Paulie checked the clock again and looked out the window.

“Listen, Spirit, you wanna…”

He rubbed the back of his neck again, tugged on his collar and as he tried to stay smooth.

“I don’t think it’d be really gentlemanly to leave a girl injured in a dive like this. Whaddya say I bring you ‘round my place? Just for a rest, you understand, though I wouldn’t object to a pretty girl askin’ for more.”

Penelope hummed with Ella Fitzgerald, sang each ‘no, no, no’ just for the look of shock and disappointment on Paulie’s face before she burst out laughing.

“I’m messin’ with ya, Paulie. Sure.”

She grinned mischievously.

Paulie’s ears went red and he smoothed his fingers through dark, slicked back hair that was starting to break free from its generous slathering of pomade.

“Like I said before- you got one hell of a mouth on ya.”

Paulie fluttered his lips before resting his chin on the edge of the table, just a smidge too close.

“Might get ya in trouble.”

Penelope felt his words rumble through her body, smelled the whiskey and the smoke on his breath. For a moment, with Paulie’s lips so close, she could hardly think. She managed a snort and that was about all she could do in response.

When that smiling mouth dipped downwards, Penelope went to ask what was wrong, but a whispered curse and a pair of hands quickly gathering her off the table top gave their answer.

“My relief is here. Sit tight and uh… We’ll be outta here soon.”

He murmured as he tucked her in the breast pocket on his shirt carefully. He grabbed his glass of whiskey and drained it quickly, shouldered on his suit jacket and fixed up his shirt collar and tie. He went behind the bar with the glass and deposited it on the shelf where the other dirty ones went when the bell on the door jangled.

“Paulie!”

A familiar voice. Sam, Penelope noted, gritting her teeth against the flare up of pain in her shoulder.

“And there he is, on the dot!”

He greeted. Penelope swayed side to side as Paulie walked. She heard him clap his colleague on the shoulder.

“Aww, you know I always show up on time for ya, Paulie. I know you gotta middle-aisle it with your bed back home after takin’ a night shift.”

Sam grinned. 

“Anything to report?”

Penelope peered up through the narrow opening in Paulie’s shirt pocket and watched him put his hat on, caught sight of the smug smirk on his lips.

“Other than a dead light bulb in the shitter, not a lick. You have fun with that girl you been seein’ last night? You’re lucky I like ya enough to take your watch when you wanna go fool around.”

Sam laughed nervously.

The pair of them chatted a few minutes, light-hearted small-talk and a few tidbits of business. But soon enough, the droning of Paulie’s voice through his chest had Penelope’s eyes drooping without a hope of fighting encroaching sleep.

The next time she awoke, there was a pair of fingers parting the opening of the pocket she laid in.

“Sonovabitch!”

Penelope barked, voice hoarse from sleep and the fingers halted. The whole pocket shook with Paulie’s laugh.

“Well, well! Rise n’ shine, sleepin’ beauty!”

He chuckled. Paulie found purchase on the borrower’s small body and produced her from his pocket.

Paulie’s apartment was ordinary, as far as Penelope could gather- even if, from the limited vantage point, she could annoyingly mark that he was a typical messy bachelor. His coffee table was covered in old newspapers, an overflowing ashtray and at least three dirty coffee cups stained brown on the inside. There was chipped paint in places on the ceiling, simple beige and brown patterned wallpaper and a window that let in slits of light through the blinds. Paulie was seated on the couch, suit jacket off again piled beside him and topped by his hat as he cupped his hands underneath Penelope’s tiny frame.

A moment of silence blanketed the pair as they observed each other somewhere new. The radiator creaked in the corner as it slowly came to life. Above, the sound of footsteps heralded early risers getting reading for the day. There were cars on the street now as opposed to the near silence of the dead night, a road bereft of traffic.

“I still can’t believe you’re real, Spirit.”

Paulie said, his voice hushed as if revealing the secret might make her vanish.

“A real girl, pretty as a peach and fits in the palm of hand. All to myself at that.”

He chuckled.

Penelope managed a smile, still coming-to from a surprisingly deep sleep.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself there, pal. I don’t belong to nobody but myself.”

She paused, reached her good arm out and rested her hand on his thumb, smoothing her fingers over the whorl. Paulie smiled at that small touch like it was the greatest gift he’d ever received. A mobster, of all folks, was treating her like gold. A bean, a human- all of those horror stories of them felt like they’d failed to take into account a big lug like Paulie, who despite his rough exterior, held her like a baby mouse, so careful never to touch too hard or squeeze too tight. Penelope wondered where Paulie learned such gentleness and pictured him holding a baby bird, gently lifting it back to its nest when his fellow Salieri brothers weren’t looking. His hands were so warm, she couldn’t help but lean into that radiating heat. Somehow, Penelope’s shoulder pain didn’t seem so bad when she had the relief of an entire apartment to relax in without worry of being caught- Or this big fella to dote on her, if Paulie seemed inclined.