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valiantgentle · 2 years

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THE LONELY ORNAMENTS. an eleanor aquino one-shot. c. the twelfth doctor’s era.

─ when eleanor and the doctor travel to 1961 seattle to find a trio of christmas ornaments that causes amnesia and eventual death in its owners, eleanor finds herself losing her memory.

“SO, WHERE TO?”

It always began like this. A simple inquiry, a lingering look, a promise of adventure. The routine came to exist in the TARDIS long ago and had gone through very few changes since Eleanor first met the Doctor. Sometimes the Doctor had somewhere he wanted to take her; other times they would let the TARDIS choose a random destination. But most often, the Doctor asked Eleanor where she wanted to go. Usually she had an answer—oh, she wanted to visit somewhere on Earth in the past, or she wanted to check out the future, or she wanted to see a planet and asked him to choose one they hadn’t been to together before. Other times, the box came out.

The box was a small wooden thing, an old recipe box Eleanor found and refurbished into something new. The first time she’d shown it to the Doctor, back when he was all floppy hair and bow ties, he’d looked at it like she was presenting him with a Cyberman's head. It didn’t look the way then that it did now; now it was a lovely deep blue rather than a dull wooden color, a nice wink to the reason why she’d made it in the first place, and she had painted some pink tulips on it to make it her own. But the true interest of the box was what was inside.

“I had an idea.” Eleanor was purposefully vague about it, arms behind her back as her fingertips softly tapped against the painted wood of the box and she lightly rocked back and forth on her heels.

The Doctor looked across the console at her. It wasn’t the first time she’d pulled this trick. His eyes narrowed. “You have the box, don’t you?” His hunch was confirmed with a mild shrug, one that tried to seem nonchalant, but her burgeoning smile gave away her excitement. Her smile was one he had never quite been able to deny. “All right. Choose one and we’ll go.”

Eleanor took one large step toward him and held out the open box. Her smile took over her face. “Pick a card, any card.”

It wasn’t the first time she had pulled this trick either. This one wasn’t one she did often, because she knew that artifacts tended to exhaust him and she had her suspicions it was because artifacts were the one thing she knew more about than him. He knew the universe—the Shadow Proclamation and galactic law, the customs of planets she couldn’t have imagined, the names of nebulae and galaxies and stars that were all but unpronounceable on her tongue. She knew artifacts—how they were created, how to handle them, how to find them. And the Warehouse had too many reports of artifacts delivered by an anonymous individual(s) throughout its entire history for it not to be the work of two time travelers in a blue police box. This little wooden box in her hands, it contained information on every single one of those artifacts.

“Only because I know it will make you happy,” the Doctor said, which of course delighted her, as he reached across to pluck a card from the box at random. He handed the card over without taking a moment to look at it and in exchange took the box from her hands to set it out of the way on the console.

Eleanor glanced at the front and back of the card—the front with any pertinent info she had previously copied down, the back with a photograph of the artifact where it was stored in the Warehouse in her present-day—and began reading, “The lonely ornaments. Delivered to Rebecca St. Clair at Warehouse 13 on Christmas Day 1961 by an anonymous sender. Snagged in Seattle Christmas Eve of that year.”

The Doctor flicked a switch on the console. “Christmas Eve, 1961; Seattle, Washington, United States.”

In an instant the TARDIS was in flight. The familiar wheezing ‘vworp!’ tone that accompanied it sounded throughout the room; in the years that had passed since she first heard it she had come to regard it as a something of a bell welcoming her home. Sometimes, in the times when he would drop her off at the Warehouse for a day or a week or a month to catch up with her friends, she swore she heard it while she was sleeping. There was something to be said about wishful dreaming. Her wishes always seemed to come true when he was there.

The TARDIS made a soft landing within half a minute, and within the next thirty seconds Eleanor had pulled on her coat (which had previously been left hanging on one of the railings) and grabbed her bag (or more accurately, the Doctor grabbed it from its near-permanent spot by one of the bookshelves above and waited to give it to her until she had joined him at the door), and when she was at the door, he opened it for her and she ducked underneath his arm to go out. All in the same fashion they had done a million times before. A routine set in stone, indeed.

“It causes amnesia in the owner, and twelve days after it starts, the owner dies out of the blue. Just…drops dead. The autopsy never finds anything, but the official cause of death is a heart attack. Rumors about the ornaments go back to the Gilded Age, all across the United States. It had been on the Warehouse’s want list since then. At least ten people were said to have died because of it.”

“Including at least one person in Seattle.”

The Doctor made sure to lock the TARDIS after he, too, had stepped onto the streets of 1961 Seattle. He had landed them at the corner of a busy intersection, but not one person gave them a second glance. It was one thing that Eleanor’s two lives, her life at the Warehouse and her life in the TARDIS, had in common—people always missed the obvious even when it was right in front of their eyes. Artifacts or a blue police box appearing out of nowhere, they just didn’t notice until it affected them directly.

Eleanor looked closer at the second image she had glued onto the card all those years ago. “Part of a funeral program was in the package left for Rebecca. Gregory Brown,” she read the decedent’s name, but she was hardly able to make it out and had to squint even more to see the details of the service. “The funeral was on Christmas Eve. Today. We should start there.”

So the pair of them went on their way, after Eleanor had the idea to pick up a tourist map of the city. By her estimation, the funeral home was a fifteen minute walk from where they had landed. Their clothes wouldn’t stand out at the place; he wore black on a daily basis already and her coat was hiding the bright floral pattern of her sweater. It was a little chilly outside, a little rainy, but overall not a horrible day to be out. Of course, it was Christmas Eve, and on a dreary Christmas Eve like this one would rather be inside drinking hot cocoa and listening to Christmas records, but there was something charming about the last-minute chaos and the overheard, rushed wishes of happy holidays.

When they passed a tall Christmas tree all decorated for the season, the Doctor remarked, “Christmas and I don’t particularly get along.”

Eleanor’s brows furrowed. “I think most days and you don’t particularly get along.”

“Every Christmas I visit, bad things tend to happen.”

“It just seems that way,” Eleanor reasoned. To be fair to him, she had been with him on a few of these bad Christmases he spoke of and it did seem like it became a pattern at some point, but also, trouble following him on nearly every adventure was a pattern of its own. She could probably count on both hands the number of trips they had been on where they entered the TARDIS at the end of it unscathed. “It’s like how the odds of dying on your birthday are higher than any other day. It’s a notable day, you’re just more likely to remember things.”

The Doctor shook his head. “That’s not it.”

“I mean, I nearly die every Tuesday. I don’t have a vendetta against Tuesdays.”

“You nearly die every day of the week.”

“My point exactly.”

Eleanor kept walking forward even when the Doctor came to a brief stop in the middle of the pavement to look at her, first with furrowed brows and a frown (she really was too casual about her many near-death experiences, and on at least one occasion an actual death experience, sometimes, and the thought of her dying was one he refused to consider). Then when she realized he had stopped she turned back around and gestured for him to come on, and he did so after a few seconds with a hidden smile meant only for her. His Eleanor.

“Everyone’s getting some last minute Christmas shopping done,” Eleanor observed as yet another hurried group of shoppers brushed past them.

It was the third such group to have done so since they arrived, bustling about the city like they were on fire with arms full of shopping bags. One woman with two children under the age of ten in tow had nearly knocked Eleanor into a busy street in her haste less than five minutes after their arrival; fortunately the Doctor had grabbed her and prevented her from adding yet another near-death experience to her ever-expanding list. After that incident, he made sure that she was on the inside of the pavement and he was closest to the streets.

“Except for them,” the Doctor said, and Eleanor looked away from the windows of a shop closing for the day to follow his gaze just down the street.

It was a sorrowful affair and one that nearly suited the day’s weather though not the date. Mourners dressed in black, not a single dash of color among them, were filing into a building made of brick with their heads hanging low. Many of them were young, younger than Eleanor was. The sign outside the building verified what she believed—this was the funeral home where Gregory Brown, the latest victim of the lonely ornaments, was receiving his final goodbyes.

“A funeral on Christmas Eve,” she remarked as they crossed the street. “It doesn’t seem right.”

“Death doesn’t wait to be right.”

If death waited to be right, it would never be.

The funeral home displayed a small sign with the deceased’s name at the open door to greet the bereaved and assure that they were here at the right place and time. There was a decorated Christmas tree in the corner and just feet away from the door was a small table with an open book and a cup full of pens that people were stopping at. The juxtaposition of holiday cheer and bleak mourning was jarring. A little horrifying, really.

A man dressed in a dark blue suit with a name tag that identified him as the funeral home’s director nodded solemnly at them. “Hello. Were you friends with the deceased?” he inquired, and to avoid any questions they let him believe his assumption was correct. “I’m sorry for your loss. Please take a moment to sign the condolences book. The service will begin soon.”

With a gesture to the table, the funeral director said nothing else and merely repeated himself to the next person to walk in the door like it was rehearsed. It must have been a horrible job, dealing with grief all day. Especially on a day like today. How does someone do all that and not be driven mad by it all?

“Do I put my real name?” Eleanor asked the Doctor quietly. The last thing she wanted was to have her name and signature recorded in the sixties when she wouldn’t even be born for another nearly thirty years. The proper solution might have been to not sign it at all, but it wasn’t worth drawing attention to themselves for being the only ones not to sign the book.

“Just put down Smith as your surname,” the Doctor said, and so with a pen from the cup on the table she signed her name as Eleanor Smith rather than Eleanor Aquino. She offered the pen to the Doctor, who signed the name John Smith right below hers and stuck the pen back in the cup for the next signer to use.

Eleanor spotted a stack of funeral programs that appeared identical to the one she’d taken a photo of at the Warehouse, but these were fully intact whereas the one in the photo that had led them here was torn with only Gregory Brown’s name and the details of the service legible. The program got back to Rebecca somehow, so she took one from the top to make sure it did. It was simple, only a single page with a photograph of Gregory Brown; the date, time, and location of the service and the wake afterwards; the name of his only surviving family member, an older brother by the name of Stephen; and the dates of his birth and death. Born 1937, dead 1961. Less than a week ago.

“He was twenty-four,” Eleanor murmured after doing the math in her head. He hadn’t even lived a quarter of a century. That’s why so many of the funeral attendees were so young. They were his friends, his age. “That’s too young.”

The Doctor looked down at her and asked a simple question. “Are you okay?” He knew better than most how often the unfortunate crept up on her, how young she herself had been in her worst times. He probably knew the best.

“I just don’t like funerals. Especially when they’re for people younger than me.”

Wouldn’t he have felt the same, and wouldn’t he have felt it even stronger than she? He was two thousand years old. Not a day passed that he didn’t meet someone younger than him and so many of those people he had watched die. Too many goodbyes. Too many funerals. But she was still here. Against all odds, she still stood by his side, still took his hand when he was at his darkest and still looked at him like the sun peeking through storm clouds.

“They won’t be here, the baubles,” the Doctor said after a moment. He was right. There was no reason for the lonely ornaments to be present at the funeral, so assuming no one had started to pack up his things, they would still be at Gregory’s home. There was just one little hitch in this theory. “Everyone will be distracted, they won’t even notice anything is missing.”

“We don’t know where he lives,” Eleanor pointed out.

The Doctor conceded to that fact momentarily, but then he properly noticed the program in her hand and snatched it from her. Yes, a question yet to be answered, Eleanor realized—why was Rebecca sent the program in addition to the artifact itself? Why had it been included in the package? The Doctor seemed hot on the trail of an answer, gaze darting from mourner to mourner until it fell on a man at the front of the room who stood by the closed coffin. The man receiving condolences from every person who had walked in. Gregory Brown’s only living relative.

“Excuse me!” the Doctor exclaimed, moving through the crowd to get to him. Eleanor hurried to follow, offering awkward smiles and quiet ‘excuse me’s to the people she brushed past. There went the low-profile she hoped they would keep. But would it really be an adventure if the Doctor didn’t draw unnecessary attention to himself? “You’re Gregory’s brother, aren’t you? Stephen?”

Stephen Brown couldn’t have been more than three years older than the man in the casket. He stood tall and relatively composed even with his brother’s coffin only steps away, but there was something lost in his eyes, like he was experiencing all five stages of grief all at once. But more than any of that, he looked…confused. He had looked confused when receiving condolences and he looked even more confused now that they were in front of them. It didn’t seem entirely because no one knew who they were. But Eleanor couldn’t put her finger on it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you,” said Stephen with a wary onceover of them. Eleanor couldn’t very well blame him. He was probably racking his brain trying to figure out why a Scottish man who appeared to be in his fifties and a Cuban woman in her thirties were at his brother’s funeral in Seattle. “Were you friends with Greg?”

“I’m the Doctor, this is the lovely Eleanor,” he said. Eleanor usually aimed to keep a serious demeanor on these parts of adventures, the questioning of witnesses or people otherwise involved in whatever strange thing was going on, in an effort to come across as professional (which she often did not), but every time he introduced her in that way she couldn’t help but smile. Given the setting, she tried to bite it back. It was inappropriate to smile like that so near a dead body. The Doctor drew the psychic paper from his pocket and flashed it for a brief moment. “We’re from the coroner's office.”

“The coroner’s office?” Stephen repeated, squinting at the paper. It was a good cover and the psychic paper certainly gave them credibility (really was a miracle to have around!). It got them into places they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to and answered enough questions about who they were and why they were asking questions in the first place. “What’s this about?”

It was Eleanor who spoke this time. She was able to come up with a believable excuse as to their presence in a matter of seconds, though it did come out a little stilted as she thought it up and said it aloud. “Uh, we just want to tie up some loose ends. Unfortunately our office has misplaced the paperwork with his address. Do you mind giving it to us? We just want to make this as easy as we can for you at this time. Losing someone is grief enough without legal technicalities getting in the way.”

Stephen exhaled heavily and nodded his head. “Yeah. Do you have a pad of paper?”

Eleanor reached into her bag and withdrew a pen and some paper. Stephen scribbled down the address. His hand was shaking. It didn’t escape either of their notices, but all they did was exchange a glance. Stephen handed the paper back to her, but once it was between her fingers he took it back. Part of the paper tore in her hand.

“Wait,” he mumbled, holding the paper close to his face and squinting at it. Bad eyesight? Or something more? He shook his head and gave it to her, and this time he didn’t take it back. “Yeah, that’s right. Sorry, the grief is wreaking havoc on my brain. Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how to be a person.”

Stephen pocketed the pen in his outside suit pocket like it belonged to him, like it was something second-nature and a genuine accident. It didn’t look as if there was any ill intent to steal her pen.

Eleanor said, “Um, that’s my pen.”

He looked at her with furrowed brows as she pointed to the pen. He realized then what he had done and shook his head like he was clearing his mind or mentally chastising himself and returned the pen to her. “Sorry. It’s a nice pen.”

The pen had cost less than five American dollars and looked like it. Eleanor just nodded slowly and turned away, stepping to the side to allow the mourners behind her a chance to speak with him. The Doctor was the one following her out this time. They were able to escape the attention of the funeral director still at the front of the building by simply walking past when he was greeting another mourner in the same way he had with them. No one gave them a second look as they stepped out onto the street.

Eleanor took out her map of the city again and unfolded it, holding the paper with Gregory Brown’s address at the corner to compare street names and locate where they were at now and where they were meant to go. Her conclusion this time around was similar to the last one. Gregory’s home, an apartment building, wasn’t far from the funeral home. It was close enough to walk just like before.

So they walked. As before, he walked along the street and she kept to the inside of the sidewalk. For a short time it was in silence, but it was indeed a comfortable silence that only two who cared so deeply for one another would be able to stand.

Eleanor and the Doctor had known each other for quite some time by this day. Ask either just how long it had been and you would receive two different answers, for there were many years in his life he had spent without seeing her at all yet for her the longest he had been out of her life was a mere few months. But she had known this man beside her through three of the faces he had worn and he had known her through the times her sunshine turned to rain.

“I know that grief isn’t an easy subject for you.”

His remark nearly came out of the blue and broke the easy quiet between them. She had, of course, felt his glances toward her before he spoke, but by the fifth time she noticed she mistakenly believed that he would keep whatever he was thinking of to himself as he often did. This had been brought on by what she said to Stephen Brown, hadn’t it?

Her simple, noncommittal reply was, “Is it for anyone?”

“Eleanor.”

Her name was all he said. He had no need to say anything else. Any question he had, anything he ever had to say, was perfectly conveyed through how he said her name. In this instance, the question was: do you need to talk?

“I’m fine, Doctor,” Eleanor assured him as the pair stopped in the middle of the walkway. Last-minute shoppers continued around them. His regenerations were all different in face, in voice, even in personality, but the three she knew had one specific thing in common, and that was that he was always half a foot taller than her. She was always looking up at him and he was always looking down at her. Now was no different. “Let’s just snag this artifact before one of those bad things you obsess about on Christmas happens.”

The Doctor frowned. “Now you believe me.”

Gregory Brown’s apartment building was in sight within another five minutes walking. The building was equipped with a buzzing system for security purposes so that anyone who wanted in had to be buzzed up by a building’s occupant for the door to unlock. Though this obstacle would have been easily bypassed with the help of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, when they approached someone was coming out of the building in such a rush (muttering something about a Christmas chicken) that they didn’t check to see the door lock behind them, so Eleanor and the Doctor were able to enter the building as if they lived there. The apartment itself was on the third floor and was locked as expected, but Eleanor had a non-sonic solution to that she had been eager to try out.

“Hold this,” Eleanor said, placing her bag in the Doctor’s arms. He made no protest. She unzipped the bag—a somewhat heavy leather thing that always had inside it whatever she needed at that moment (don’t ask how or even point it out; remarking on it jinxes the bag’s effects) that was a relatively new addition to her travels in the TARDIS—and began to rifle through it.

When she pulled out an old key that certainly wouldn’t fit in the lock, the Doctor questioned, “And what is that?”

“It’s the original skeleton key. Well, one of them. It opens any lock—on Earth, at least,” she conceded as an afterthought, having not tested the key on another planet. This was her first time using it at all, actually. She was wary trying it out, but when the edge of the key touched the lock it morphed and molded until it fit inside perfectly and something clicked. She smiled triumphant and pushed the door open. “I bet it even opens doors made of wood.” The teasing comment was met with a weary glance from the Doctor. Eleanor wasn’t fazed. “One of these days you’ll have to explain to me why the sonic doesn’t do wood.”

(Of course, he’d have to have the answer to that question himself in order to tell her.)

The place itself was a little bit of a mess. Most of it was clearly the consequences of a young man living alone, like the dishes piled up in the sink or the overflowing trash bin, but some of the drawers were open and there were pillows sprawled all around the floor and a framed photograph of a king cobra on the wall was crooked. It could have been just the normal state of the place, yes, but more likely in Gregory’s last days he felt as if he was losing his mind—which he was, really—and this was just the inevitable conclusion of the tornado sweeping through his mind and leaving destruction in its wake. The only thing that appeared not to have been touched was the Christmas tree beside the window. It was fully decorated for the season, shiny bulbs all over it, but the lights were off. It made it look dull. But clearly nobody had begun to clear out his things, which meant the ornaments were still here. An easy snag.

“I don’t suppose that card you made includes a photograph of these ‘lonely ornaments.’”

“That would make it easy,” Eleanor remarked, and in return the Doctor just threw her a plain look. She tilted her head and took her bag back from him. “Of course I took a photograph. Who do you think I am?”

Eleanor set the bag down on a nearby chair, which itself was covered with clothes and pillows and what looked like at least two different brands of discarded chocolate bar wrappers, and searched through it again. She found the purple neutralizing gloves relatively easy—wearing them would prevent any of the artifact’s effects from, well, taking effect—and gave him a pair, keeping another pair for herself. Then she found the card she had made, glanced from the photograph of the ornaments in the Warehouse’s Aisle of Noel to the tree, and decided to prop it up in the branches for easy reference. Then the search began. This was the boring part, though. So conversation was made.

“How would Gregory have gotten this artifact?” the Doctor inquired, snapping the cuff of one of the gloves against his inner wrist. Always with the dramatics.

“I don’t know,” Eleanor answered truthfully, though she had thought up a few theories. How did artifacts usually wind up in the possession of the average person? “If the rumors are all over the country, clearly they travel. And they don’t usually stay in a place long enough to affect more than one person. Ten people confirmed dead because of them over the last eighty years. It must have been in an attic or a back room or something for a while.”

“Where was the first death?”

“Maryland, I think. No one realized he was gone until January. Christmas was the estimated time of death.”

“He died forgotten,” the Doctor murmured, voice low. Eleanor looked at him from across the tree. His face was partially obscured by some of the branches. “And alone.”

“That’s why current owners forget,” Eleanor realized softly. The twelve days it took for the artifact to claim a life—it must have taken twelve days for the very first victim’s body to be discovered. Even now, she didn’t know his name. She hadn’t thought to write it down on the card, nor any of the other victims aside from the one whose home they stood in. He was still forgotten to the world. How awful.

The Doctor met her gaze, and for a moment there was nothing but that. A wordless conversation, feelings conveyed through a simple lasting look that often became another part of their routine. It was said that a picture was worth a thousand words. A glance between them was worth even more than that.

Eleanor quietly cleared her throat and turned back to the tree, consulting the photograph again. The lonely ornaments were visually of a very common variety, red bulbs with gold embellishments in various styles. One was a simple trim like a garland; another was snowflakes; the final were stars. However, most of the ornaments on Gregory’s tree were of that same color scheme, which made locating the exact ones they were looking for all the more difficult.

The back of the tree, the side that faced the wall, was undecorated aside from the garland tossed around it lazily. It did considerably narrow their search area, which she considered a plus, though it didn’t necessarily make the search easier. A few times Eleanor thought she had found one, only to be disappointed when she realized it didn’t match any of the three bulbs in the picture.

It turned out to be the Doctor who located the first ornament, the one with snowflakes all over it. He announced the find with a simple statement, and Eleanor retrieved one of the foil neutralizing pouches (the gloves prevented the effects, but the bag lined with the Warehouse’s special artifact neutralizer would negate the effects entirely, which would decidedly end it) for it to go in.

“Okay, put it in,” Eleanor told him, opening the bag wide enough for it. The Doctor carefully pulled the snowflake bulb off the tree and dropped it into the bag, and out of instinct both turned away to avoid the glare of the inevitable sparks which accompanied the neutralization of an artifact. But there were no sparks, absolutely no sign that the artifact had been neutralized. It was unusual, to say the least, but not unheard of.

The Doctor straightened. “Well, that was disappointing.”

“It could be a paired artifact. It won’t neutralize until we put all three ornaments in together,” Eleanor suggested with a frown, and proceeded to make what would be the very poor decision to double-check that this ornament did indeed match the one in the photo just in case. She reached into the bag to pull it back out, but the hook of the ornament must have been sticking up at a funny angle because before she knew it something was stabbing her palm and she was hissing in pain, pulling her hand back out as if something had bit her.

“What happened?”

“The hook caught my glove,” she told him, and he immediately reached forward to take her hand and examine it. The glove had torn. There was a small dot of blood on her palm where the artifact had jabbed her. That was never good. “We need to find the other two ornaments.”

The Doctor glanced back at the tree. “That’s the only one here.”

“Are you sure?”

“The other two aren’t here.”

“They have to be here somewhere.”

“Where else would Christmas baubles be but on the tree?”

It would explain why it had taken so long to find the one, there being only one of the lonely ornaments on his tree. There went her assumption of an easy snag. It tracked, though; artifact snagging usually ended up being an elaborate scavenger hunt. But it begged the question—

“If they’re not here, then where are they?”

“Someone must have taken them.”

“Who steals ornaments from a dead man’s Christmas tree?”

“Let’s go back to the funeral and find out, shall we?”

Eleanor’s frown deepened hearing his suggestion, and she checked the time on the wall clock and tried to recall the times she had read on the funeral program. “The service is over. The wake’s starting,” she said, but the Doctor merely raised a brow at her as he pulled off his gloves and headed toward the door. “Oh, we’re about to crash a wake.”

Something was hazy.

It was like Eleanor had gotten a bump on her head, but she couldn’t recall what had happened to give her that bump. Her head was pounding for no reason and her thoughts were all cloudy and it was getting difficult to stay focused on what they were doing. If—if she were honest, she couldn’t quite recall much of anything the past few minutes. Maybe more than a few? Couldn’t quite recall the past hour, really. She knew she was standing in the home of a dead man’s brother and she knew that they were at a wake uninvited, and she knew that the fact that her feet were hurting meant she had done a fair amount of walking today, but other than that?

“Um, what are we looking for?”

“Someone who was in his home after he died.”

“Right,” Eleanor murmured with a small nod, feeling entirely stupid that she had even had to ask. Wasn’t she the whole reason they were here in the first place? Her friend, what was his—oh, the Doctor (why had it taken her a moment to remember his name?). The Doctor had yet to fully lift his close eye on her (did he always look at her like that or was this new? It felt new) but he had taken a pause from watching her warily to scan the room full of mourners. “Who would that be?”

“Friends. Family.” The Doctor’s ever-observant gaze came to a stop on a vaguely familiar man by a snacks table who looked perpetually befuddled. Oh, the dead man’s brother, wasn’t it? Stanley? Steve? Stephen! At the precise moment Eleanor remembered his name, and she was for some reason both quite proud of herself and ashamed it had once again taken so long, the Doctor made a quick and long stride across the room to approach the brother with no warning, and she hurried to catch up with him. “Hello. Remember us?”

Stephen showed no recognition of either of them. “No. Sorry. Have we met?”

“Ah, memory issues. Perfect,” the Doctor remarked to her, perhaps just a bit too pleased to hear it. Eleanor glanced up at him, he was half a foot taller than her, but said nothing. “This is your home, yes? Where’s your Christmas tree?”

“What?”

“Never mind. We’ll find it.”

With that, the Doctor promptly but gently took Eleanor’s arm and led her out of the room in search of the house’s Christmas tree. At least Eleanor was able to remember what one of those looked like, but her pounding head got even worse when she struggled to remember why he was so interested in the Christmas tree. It seemed like something she should have remembered and it was on the tip of her tongue—oh, why was he so pleased to hear about there being memory issues?—and it was killing her that all she was coming up with in her mind was a blank screen. There were no words, only the blurry image of a evergreen tree decorated all in lights and red and green and gold. The funniest thing about it all was that she smelled some sort of confection like fudge that she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, and it gave her the most oddly dreadful feeling. She didn’t think she liked the smell of fudge.

Even in his seemingly-eternal confusion, Stephen seemed to have a few more questions for them and made to follow them through his own house like a baby duck would, earning inquiring glances from those they passed by in such a hurry. He was quick on his feet and right behind them, nearly running into their backs when the Doctor spotted the tree they were searching for in the den, but questioned immediately, “Who are you?”

Eleanor’s brows furrowed. “Sorry, do you smell fudge?”

The subtle cautious look the Doctor gave her, the same he’d been giving her since the last Christmas tree they were standing around, went unnoticed as Stephen agreed, “You know, I do smell fudge.” (A note: no one knew why, but the smell of fudge when there wasn’t any signified that an artifact was at play.) “But who are you people? Did you know—did you know…” Stephen trailed off, eyes screwed shut. He shook his head. “Sorry, I…I can’t remember why I’m here.”

The Doctor faced him and said very seriously, “It’s your brother’s wake. And to honor him, you’ve stolen two of these Christmas bulbs from his home. Now you’re suffering from the same thing that killed him unless we stop it first.” He said not a word more on the subject and faced the tree again, and then he added to Eleanor, “Let me see the card again.”

Eleanor wished she had known what he meant. “What?”

“The card, with the photo. It’s in your bag,” the Doctor reminded her, voice low and gentle. Oh. Oh, right, the—the card with the photo. In her bag. She exhaled shakily and nodded, reaching into the bag in her hands to find it. There was an index card with a photograph of Christmas ornaments like the ones on the tree laying on the very top, easy to find. If only everything else felt as easy. She took the card and offered it to him, but he asked her instead, “Are you okay?”

How familiar that question sounded. “I feel like you ask me that a lot.”

The Doctor kept his gaze upon her for another long moment, as if he were seeing through her and seeing everything she was, and then he took the card from her. He held the card in one hand and with the other pulled a single purple glove from his pocket, and after a moment of scanning the tree he found what he was looking for, a red bulb with a gold garland-like trim, and used the glove to pull it off—notably avoiding touching anywhere the hook. Her headache worsened when she saw it.

“Here’s the second. None of the others here match the last one in the photo,” he said, reaching into her still-open bag for another, much much smaller one made of foil that had something spherical already in it. He turned back to the brother, who was holding a hand to his temple as if he’d been afflicted with a headache the same as she had. “You. Where’s the third one? Is there another tree around here, maybe?”

“No, it’s just that one,” he answered, but wore a frown the whole time. “I think.”

“Where’s the third bulb you took from your brother’s tree? This is a set of three. He only had one, you have another. There’s one missing. Where is it?”

Stephen shook his head helplessly again, and it became clear even to her that this line of questioning was going to lead them nowhere. The Doctor was visibly frustrated and opened the bag he’d taken from her to drop the bulb in, and inside it thudded against something else. She didn’t know why she had expected for something to happen when he did that. A sudden image of indoor fireworks had entered her mind and she couldn’t shake it. She also couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly, horribly wrong with her.

“Isn’t that the ornament Gregory gave you?” a new voice inquired. The three of them turned at the same moment to see that another young man was approaching them, he couldn't have been that much younger than her, with a wine glass in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. “Why are you taking it? Who are you?”

The Doctor merely raised a brow at his words. “Gregory gave it to him?”

“It was a pair. He bought them at a pawn shop earlier this month. He showed it to me,” the funeral guest explained, though he was clearly wary about it. She closed her eyes and raised a hand to her temple, willing her headache to go away. “He said he thought it represented the two of them growing up with just each other. He gave the other to Stephen a few days before he died. He didn’t seem like himself the last time I saw him.”

“There wasn’t a third?”

“No, just two.”

“Where’s this shop?”

“It was by his place. I don’t know the name.”

“Fantastic. The third is there,” her friend muttered to her, looking down at her expectantly like he thought she would have anything to say in return. But she had nothing to say, nothing she thought she could have said or should have said. She didn’t know he was looking at her until he said the name. “Eleanor.”

The way he said the name, it was like he was asking a question, another are you okay? or perhaps a what’s wrong? But she had a question of her own. She met his eyes and shook her head and said regretfully, because she knew more than anything else that this was a question she knew she should have already had the answer to, “Sorry, um, who’s Eleanor?”

His demeanor changed entirely. “Come with me.”

He took her hand in his and led her all the way through the house again. He didn’t have to drag her, she did indeed go with him willingly because there was something about him that felt safe and trustworthy. At the speed he was walking she did stumble once or twice, but he held onto her hand so tightly that she didn’t fall and if she had it would have been straight into his arms. Eleanor…what a familiar name…it was hers, wasn’t it? Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. Who’s Eleanor? She was Eleanor.

Eleanor trailed slightly behind him on the way out. She thought it was a consequence of their height difference. It didn’t feel like it was the first time they were in this position, because she was used to it. How strange that she felt so used to it when she couldn’t remember a time when they had done this before. When she couldn’t remember what she had even had for breakfast this morning.

Her friend pulled them both to a stop once they were outside the house and spun around, pulling something from his pocket that looked like some kind of mutated screwdriver. She was certain screwdrivers weren’t supposed to make the buzzing sound that it did when he pointed it at her, and if they were it wasn’t supposed to sound so oddly…peaceful. He only pointed it for a few seconds, and then he looked at it directly as if it would have some kind of information to tell him.

“What’s that?”

He didn’t answer the question. “It’s in your bloodstream.”

“What’s in my bloodstream?”

“It must have happened when the hook pricked you,” he said. Her hand suddenly stung. When she looked, there was a bandage on her palm. How had that gotten there? “You’re losing your memory. I noticed it earlier. It’s taking effect faster than it should be, you should have had more time. If it’s happening this quickly, you might have less than a day. Maybe just a few hours. We’ll have to find the third bulb and neutralize it.”

“What happens if we don’t find it?”

“You die.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring.” Eleanor’s response to his blunt answer—he seemed like someone who gave blunt answers more often than not—came out like she was out of breath, and her heart had started to pick up its beat. It was a horrifying thought. Dying without her memories, without knowing who she was. Who he was. “No, wait, I don’t—I don’t even know—”

“Eleanor…” Her name on his tongue trailed off as he stepped toward her. He looked at her like he was trying to keep himself collected, but his voice betrayed his concern. He sounded like he already knew what she was going to say. “Do you know who I am?”

“Um…I—I know that you’re someone important to me. I can’t remember your name or why.”

She didn’t know someone could have as much pain in their eyes as he did when she said that. It was like his heart (hearts, plural, something in the back of her mind corrected) had been broken by something so simple. How could she not remember his name? She knew she trusted this man before her implicitly, trusted him with her life, and yet she had no idea what they had gone through for this trust to be so strong that she still felt it even now.

He stared at her for a very long moment. The look on him, the sadness in the way he looked at her, made her own heart break. He nodded his head. “I’m the Doctor,” he introduced himself, a subtle ache to his words. When she asked doctor who, he continued, “Just the Doctor. You and I have been…friends,” there was a pause before the word like he wasn’t sure if it was the right one to use, “for a very long time. We travel together. And I’m going to make sure you remember all of this. I need you to trust me.”

“I trust you,” Eleanor said immediately. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. What a wonderful name. What a wonderful man. She wished she remembered why, hoped he would keep his promise. “I don’t know why, but I trust you.”

The Doctor reached for her hand again. He was far softer this time. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” Eleanor promised.

Eleanor kept repeating his name over and over again in her mind, desperate not to forget it again. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. He had yet to let go of her hand on the walk through the city, kept her close to his side even though she knew somehow that she could lose her recollection of the past half hour and she still wouldn’t leave him. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. They kept looking at each other throughout it all, occasionally catching each other’s eye at the same moment, and every time they did she was struck by how much care and love and worry he seemed to hold for her. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor.

The Doctor was patient with her and all her questions. He explained as much to her as she could understand in her state and she wasn’t quite sure she heard it all right, but she understood that something was wrong with her and that he knew how to fix it, and that therefore, they were on a little holiday scavenger hunt. He had been surprised when she called it a scavenger hunt. She surmised it was a phrase she used before, back when she had her head on straight.

The scavenger hunt led them to a pawn shop where the ornaments that were apparently doing this to her were sold. It was the only such shop within half a mile of the first victim’s home (the one with the funeral), therefore it was the only possibility for where he had gotten the ornaments from. The shop was empty save for one person, a man behind the counter who looked like he was closing up for the day.

“Hello. I’m the Doctor, this is Eleanor. Isn’t she lovely?” the Doctor said as if introducing her in that way was second-nature. She blinked in surprise, but had not a second to dwell on it when he let go of her hand to draw a leather wallet from his pocket and flash it at the man behind the counter. When she looked, it was a some sort of investigator identification paper. How strange. “We need to discuss some recent purchases that have taken place here.”

The owner squinted at the paper. “There’s nothing illegal going on here.”

“Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?” The Doctor absentmindedly ran his fingers over the shade of a dusty lamp. “You sold a pair of Christmas bulbs to Gregory Brown two weeks ago. It was a set of three. I need the third one.”

“For what?”

“Official reasons.”

“It’s Christmas. We’ve sold more than a few ornaments.”

“I’m looking for the one that you didn’t sell to Gregory Brown.” The Doctor reached into the bag Eleanor was carrying and took out a small card with writing and photographs on it, facing the side with the photo toward the owner. “Look. It was a set of three. You sold these two. Where’s the third one?”

The owner looked closely at the card, squinting even more, and nodded. “I remember. He only wanted two.”

“Good, good. And the third one is still here?”

“No. Sold it three days ago.”

The Doctor’s frustration upon hearing that was palpable, and Eleanor would admit she felt a strong annoyance bubbling in her chest. As if this couldn’t have gotten any worse, the final ornament was even further out of their reach than before. Her description of this being an elaborate scavenger hunt sounded more and more accurate with each second that passed.

“To whom?” the Doctor asked, astonishingly managing to relatively keep his cool despite it all. Eleanor was a little impressed, admittedly. She didn’t know if she would have done the same if her head was right.

“Can’t tell you that,” the owner said, which appeared to be precisely the wrong thing to say at the moment. Eleanor watched in real-time, in a matter of milliseconds, the Doctor’s calm completely vanish. It came in the blink of an eye. “It’s shop policy. Can’t break it.”

The Doctor stepped closer. Perhaps fortunately, the glass counter still separated them from the pawn shop owner, who simply stared like this wasn’t the first time he’d been in a situation like this. “Listen to me. A woman’s life is at stake—”

The owner looked doubtful. “Over Christmas ornaments?”

“Yes. I need to know who bought the final ornament and where I can find them because their life is in danger, too. More importantly, she is going to die,” he gestured to her, voice growing gruffer, “and I won’t lose her.”

Eleanor did not know what it was about the way he said it, but it gave her the feeling that even if she remembered who they were to each other she still would have been so struck as she was now hearing it. He didn’t seem like someone who would often be so forthcoming about his feelings. He seemed so reserved, sometimes like he was afraid of losing something, and now she knew what it was. Her. He was afraid he would lose her.

But this way of information gathering clearly was not getting them anywhere. The owner was firm in his ways and was not going to give up the name of the person who bought the final ornament, and though Eleanor couldn’t quite tell what the Doctor was thinking, she decided to take the initiative herself. She went around the corner and lightly nudged the owner out of the way to look in the box he had been organizing when they came in. She was relieved to see that they were receipts from the shop. Now she just had to find the right one.

The owner looked back and forth between them. “What are you doing? What is she doing?”

“Eleanor…” the Doctor began carefully.

The receipts were ordered by descending date. “Um, what’s today’s date?”

“Christmas Eve,” the Doctor answered her question, and the owner threw his hands in the air incredulously and started mumbling something that was unintelligible but sounded vaguely like a long string of curses. “Twenty-fourth of December.”

“So three days ago, that’s the twenty-first of December, isn’t it?” Eleanor flipped through the receipts, trying to ignore the owner’s continued insulting mumbles. There were no receipts for the twenty-fourth, today, but there were ones for the twenty-third, twenty-second, and twenty-first. Only a handful from that day. Only one mentioned an ornament sale. She handed that receipt across the counter to the Doctor. “Here you go.”

“You can’t do that,” the owner scoffed.

“Well, I—I think I just have.”

“Hey, lady—”

The owner grabbed hold of her upper arm before she could turn away. For a reason she did not know, Eleanor found herself frozen on the spot. She stilled as if she were a statue. Her heart stopped for a moment, and then quickened its pace again. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t try to escape his grip. Why didn’t she try to get out of his grip?

When the Doctor spoke, there was a warning hidden in his words. “Let go of her.”

“She just stole from me.”

“No, I just stole from you.” The Doctor didn’t waste another breath before reaching forward to grab the box of shop receipts off the counter, and then he turned it upside down and emptied it all over the floor. The owner’s grip on her arm loosened entirely. Eleanor stumbled away from him, somehow managing to make it back around the counter. “Oh, that’s a mess. You should clean that up.”

Before Eleanor realized it, the Doctor was holding her hand in his again and pulling her toward the door and out of the shop, back onto the rainy streets of, what was it, Seattle? The owner yelled after them, something about reporting them to their supervisors, whoever he believed those to be. Eleanor wasn’t sure he’d get very far with that.

“I know where the third bulb is,” the Doctor said to her. “We’ll take the TARDIS.”

Eleanor stared after him. “The what?”

The rain kept coming down, down, down. Her head was pounding, screaming at her remember, remember, remember! And yet with each distant thunderclap and each flash of lightning as the holiday storm picked up, it was getting harder and harder to remember…to remember anything. Couldn’t remember what her friend’s name was now no matter how hard she tried. Couldn't remember what city they were in or why they were here or where they were going in a storm like this. Couldn’t remember how old she was or where she was from or what she was called. There was just nothing, except for one thing: her trust and faith in him. She still had that. And she wanted so desperately to know why, more than she thought she had ever wanted to know anything.

“Why have you stopped? The TARDIS is this way.”

“Am I going to die?”

Her question looked to have caught him unawares. He stood about three feet in front of her, having doubled back when she let go of his hand just moments ago, but after a moment of staring at her with a fallen face he took another step forward to close it to just one foot. Even when she found the intensity of his gaze too much and had to look away from him, he didn’t look anywhere else but her.

“No,” he said. She wished she believed him. “You’re not going to die.”

“Are you sure? Because you’re walking fast and—and you’re talking fast and you—you—you keep looking at me like…like you’re making sure I’m still here,” she stammered out. He was still looking at her like that now. It broke her heart and she didn’t know why. “I—I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why I trust you. I can’t…I can’t remember my own name. I don’t even know who I am!”

Her voice wavered and shook and broke and finally the composure and sense of togetherness she had been trying to keep despite it all shattered. Every last memory she tried to cling to faded away, every single name she tried so hard to remember vanished. She was unable to keep her sobs at bay anymore. Oh, she was so lonely. Had she ever been this lonely before? Had anyone?

She sat down on the rainy curb and buried her face in her hands to muffle her cries, hardly able to stand looking at his heartache anymore when her own was drowning her. His was only killing her faster. Another thunderclap boomed. The storm was getting closer. He waited a moment. Then he sat beside her on the curb, a mere few inches from her, but he did not say anything at first. She felt his eyes on her just as she had for as long as she could remember of that day. Did he always look at her like this?

“Your name is Eleanor Graziella Aquino Huerta,” he spoke after a minute had passed. It had been a minute of quiet, of sobs, of rain. She did not look at him. His tone was heavy. “Your mother was Spanish-born, but she immigrated with her family to Cuba when she was an infant. She was a teacher. Your father was Italian. He was a historian. He named you for Eleanor of Aquitaine. You didn’t have a good childhood. No child should go through the things you did. But you survived.

“You speak four languages. You’ve never told me which one the TARDIS translates into for you. Your favorite color is pink, your favorite flowers are tulips. You love art. Particularly the impressionist movement. We met Vincent van Gogh once, you were struck speechless so many times I almost forgot what your voice sounds like.” He almost laughed there. Almost. But she heard the smile in his voice. “Your favorite painting is Monet’s Water Lilies, any of them, all of them. You say it calms you just to look at them.”

Eleanor lowered her hands from her face but still didn’t turn to him. She was still crying. It was just silently this time, quiet tears that mixed together with the falling rain coming down her face and turning her red. Oh, it was so cold. But he was so warm. His voice, his words, his face.

“You have grief. Oh, you have grief inside you that could drown galaxies. But the love in your heart, the light that shines in your eyes even in your darkest times—it could birth stars,” he said, taking her hands in his. And she looked at him now, properly looked at him through her tears, and she swore the stars he spoke of were in his eyes. “Create entire worlds.” He held their hands close to his chest. His final words carried in them hesitance, like he had never said such a thing to her so directly before, and faith that nothing could prove him wrong at the very same time. “Bring me back to life with just a glance.”

Her mouth quivered. “Who am I to you that you can say all those things like that? Who are you to me?”

“I’m the Doctor. Your Doctor,” he said simply, as if it explained everything. It did. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. Her Doctor. His grip on her tightened. “And you…are my Eleanor. And you, Eleanor Aquino, are not going to die. I’m going to save you.”

The determined, almost mischievous, glint to the Doctor’s eye didn’t disappear (something told her that it never really did) as he abruptly pulled her up from the curb. A surprised yelp fell out of Eleanor’s mouth but she didn’t protest his actions, and instead allowed him to take her to wherever they were heading in the first place. She still couldn’t remember where exactly that was, but she knew that after everything he had just said it was somewhere safe.

“Where are we going?”

“To the TARDIS,” the Doctor said, which did absolutely nothing to answer her question. She threw him a confused, incredulous look, but trusted that the answer would soon become obvious. Another two minutes and it did, because they came to an intersection where there was some sort of strange blue box that said police on it and he went straight towards it. He snapped his fingers once, and the door opened despite him being a solid six feet away from it. He had let go of her hand and was halfway in the box when he turned back to her. “Come on.”

Eleanor laughed nervously. “Um, I don’t think we’ll both fit in there.”

The Doctor extended his hand. “Do you still trust me?”

Eleanor did not hesitate to take his hand.

He pulled her inside the box with him, but let go of her after he had closed the door back and left her standing at the door. The very act made her furrow her brows and she turned to ask him where he was going in such a small space, but her words died the moment she saw the interior of the box. The place was massive, far, far greater in size than the exterior could have ever suggested. It didn’t even look as if this was the true extent of it, because she saw at least two other doorways from where she stood and when she stepped further in she saw another. There was no end in sight. The box, what she had seen out on the street, it can’t have been more than ten feet tall and maybe five feet on each side but the inside was—oh, she didn’t even have the words for it. Well, she had a few words.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Eleanor breathed in awe.

“I’d enjoy that if it were anyone but you.” The Doctor had gone to some sort of console thing in the middle of the room and Eleanor slowly made her way to him, spinning around in an attempt to fully take in the place. It was wonderful, just pure wonder. Endless wonder. “Right, let’s find that third bauble.”

The Doctor pulled one of the levers and in an instant some sort of oddly familiar ‘vworp!’ noise sounded throughout the room. The very sound startled her enough that she stumbled and she grabbed hold of the edge of the console to stay standing. The sound lasted for a few seconds, at least ten but maybe as much as thirty. Then everything settled and he made his way toward the door, beckoning her to follow.

She wasn’t sure what she expected to see when she stepped out of the box. Maybe the street corner they’d entered it on, but then what was the point of the box? Regardless of whatever may have been on the list, she was certain that a random suburban kitchen was not on it at all. Yet that’s precisely what she laid eyes upon when she followed him out. How…?

“We’ve moved,” Eleanor realized. She couldn’t fathom it. “Have we moved?”

“Yes, we have,” the Doctor said. He didn’t explain what had happened beyond that. She looked at him hoping he might say more, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. Oh. They had somehow gotten to a family’s kitchen. There was a child, no more than three years old, playing with a wooden snake toy on the floor and the child’s mother and father were previously occupied cooking together. All three were staring at the pair as if they had two heads. “Hello. Would you mind directing us to your Christmas tree?”

“Who are you?” said the father, while the mother tightened her grip on the knife in her hand. Eleanor stepped slightly behind the Doctor. “I’m calling the police.”

“No need for that.” The Doctor once again drew the leather wallet from his pocket and showed it to them, all the while holding his arm out to push Eleanor even further behind him. He was trying to protect her from the mother’s knife should she come at them. “Just need to take a look at your tree and we’ll be on our way.”

“Christmas tree inspectors?” the mother read with a scoff. “That’s not even real.”

“Of course it’s real, I’ve got identification,” the Doctor said dismissively, pocketing the wallet again. Had the very same paper not before said investigator? Curiouser and curiouser was he. Eleanor looked around the kitchen and saw the reflection of twinkling lights in a framed photograph in the next room. Some sort of soft, dreadful humming caught her ears. Something peaceful at first, but the longer she listened the more it drove her mad, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Completely oblivious of her distraction, he added to the child, “We’re from the North Pole.”

That sound, that horrible sound, she couldn’t help but follow it. It grew louder and louder as she stepped through the doorway in search of the source, and with each fall of her foot the weaker she felt. Like her legs would give out at any moment, like her heart was pounding so quickly she couldn’t hear her own thoughts, like it was getting harder to catch her breath. The awful hum came from the decorated tree in the corner of the room, wrapped presents gathered all around it. It smelled like pine and fudge and cinnamon. A tree indoors, how funny was that.

He followed her. “Eleanor?”

“It’s humming. The tree is humming,” she murmured. “Why is the tree humming?”

“It’s not the tree.”

She looked at him. A stranger to her. Lightning flashed. “Who are you?”

No sooner had the words left her mouth did she fall.

The bag in her hands dropped to the floor. If he had not caught her in his arms, she would have hit the ground too and might have hit her head bad on the way down. But he did catch her, and he did keep saying the name Eleanor as he carried her over to the couch and laid her down, and he did brush her hair out of her face as she kept gasping for breath.

Oh, the pain—the pain was excruciating! It was as if her heart was being torn from her chest and she was being stabbed and smothered and drowned all at once. Burned alive and buried alive and bleeding out, and yet there was no blood or injury or anything other than the awful, torturous feeling inside her. This was death. How was death so familiar?

Everything around her was a blur. She could just barely make out his figure before her, looking down at her, but in a blink he had left her side and gone to the peculiar tree. He pulled one of the ornaments, something red with gold embellishments like stars on it, off the branch it had been on. Pine needles scattered on the carpet. He knelt beside the bag she had dropped and unzipped it. He pulled out a foil bag, opened it up, and dropped the ornament into it.

The bag sparked. It was like fireworks, small white flashes of electricity with no true origin or explanation. Some invisible force hit her in the chest when she noticed the sparks and in an instant the emptiness of her mind was replaced with a multitude of thoughts, of memories, of people. Doctor. TARDIS. Warehouse. Artifact. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor!

Eleanor shot upright on the couch with a gasp, throwing a hand over her chest as if it would help her coughing and trying to regain her breath. Her legs didn’t feel quite up to standing yet, but it didn’t matter. Because she remembered—she remembered all of it! His name, who he was to her, who she was to him, and best of all, she knew her name. Eleanor Graziella Aquino Huerta—undoubtedly a mouthful of a name but it was hers.

“Eleanor?” The Doctor came back to her side. “Eleanor. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the Doctor,” Eleanor answered lightly, still too weak to raise her voice any higher. The Doctor grinned. She’d never been so happy to see that smile. After all the aching she had seen in him during her troubles today, it was the most beautiful thing she thought she had ever seen. “I could never forget you.”

“How do you feel?”

“A little lightheaded. But alive.”

“I told you I’d save you.”

“You always do.”

Eleanor and the Doctor smiled at one another even while the storm continued on outside. There may have been nothing but clouds out there, but there was nothing but the sun here between them. She raised her hand to the side of his face and rubbed her thumb across his cheek, but before she could speak someone cleared their throat. Oh. Right. They were in some random family’s home on Christmas Eve. They should probably get back to the TARDIS and get out of here before the family actually did call the authorities on them or an ambulance for her after what they had just witnessed. Besides, they had an artifact to deliver.

At dawn on Christmas Day, 1961, in a bed and breakfast in an unincorporated little town in South Dakota, Rebecca St. Clair of Warehouse 13 woke to find a Christmas gift on her nightstand. It was neatly wrapped in festive paper befitting the holiday season and had a bow tied perfectly around it, and tucked underneath the bow was an envelope bearing her name. Inside that envelope was a letter written in a hand she was all too familiar with. This was far from the first letter she had received in this handwriting.

Dear Rebecca,

Feliz Navidad! Buon Natale! Merry Christmas! We found an artifact for you in Seattle yesterday. Enclosed are a set of three Christmas ornaments (“the lonely ornaments” if you will). They’ve been on the Warehouse’s want list for a few decades. The ornaments cause amnesia in the owners and twelve days after it begins, the owners die suddenly with no sign as to why. But well, I suppose you and I both know why, don’t we? Wishing you and Jack and the rest of the Warehouse a happy holiday and strength for the year ahead.

Love, E

(P.S — watch out for the hooks)

“Looks like our mysterious E has struck again,” Rebecca told Jack when she met him in the hallway that morning, holding the open gift in her arms. He was her partner in every sense of the word—her colleague, her best friend, her lover. Before Rebecca joined the Warehouse, it was he who had received letters and artifacts from E. When she joined the team, they all went to her instead. “I found this on my nightstand when I woke up. I don’t know how they got it there without me noticing.”

Jack took the letter when she offered it to him. “The lonely ornaments,” he read with raised brows. “Aisle of Noel artifact. ‘Tis the season, huh?”

“I should bring it over to the Warehouse so it can be put away.”

“It can wait a few hours, Rebecca. It’s Christmas. Who knows, we might just find ourselves under the mistletoe,” he suggested boldly, though in a hushed voice. No one knew about their relationship but them—except somehow for this anonymous E, who had alluded to it in two previous letters accompanying artifacts they had delivered since their relationship changed in August.

Rebecca bit the inside of her cheek, unable to resist such a proposal. “All right,” she agreed, putting the letter and the gift box with the artifact back in her room for now. “I just wish I knew who this E was. It’s not just one person, they’ve been delivering artifacts to the Warehouse for as long as the Warehouse has existed. That’s two thousand years, Jack. Someone’s been keeping the tradition going.”

It was snowing. The flakes were falling softly from the white sky, turning the quaint little bed and breakfast Eleanor and the Doctor were looking at from down the street into its own perfect winter wonderland. It was straight out of a snow globe, the way the lights twinkled on the snow and how through the frosted windows one could see the agents who occupied the house were opening presents on this enchanting Christmas morning. Everything that had happened in Seattle yesterday (well, more like just an hour ago for the two of them) seemed a distant memory now. But at least it was one Eleanor remembered.

“I have a question,” Eleanor spoke, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders even tighter around her as the snow kept falling around them. They were both leaning against the TARDIS, which was already covered in snow despite how little time it had actually been sitting there, to observe the aftermath of their trip and take a moment to breathe before moving on. “How did we know the artifact was in Seattle?”

“It was on the card,” the Doctor said.

“But why was it on the card? We knew it was Seattle because it was on the card, Rebecca knew it was snagged in Seattle because we left it for her, but how did we know it was in Seattle in the first place? Who knew first? Is time just a—a circle?”

“No, time is—” the Doctor began, but stopped short before he said anything else. Eleanor pressed her lips together and raised her brows at him, willing him to continue. Yes, she did indeed have an ulterior motive to her convoluted question, and he knew exactly what it was. “You just want me to say it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’m not saying it.”

“Please? For me.”

Her smile was one he had never quite been able to deny. He looked at her, pursed his lips, and said reluctantly, “Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.” It was much to her happiness (and her happiness was always a priority of his) and her small, burgeoning smile broke out into a wide grin, and she laughed. His previous disinclination vanished almost immediately. “Did you enjoy that?”

She nodded vigorously. “Very much, thank you. And…thank you for saving me.”

“I won’t let any harm come to you. Ever.”

It was an empty vow, and they both knew that. If he could help it, of course he would never allow her to be hurt. He would do everything he could to protect her from even the smallest injury. But sometimes, he did not have a say in what the universe wanted to do to her. Sometimes he couldn’t stop her from being hurt. Sometimes he couldn’t save her. But he had saved her today, and today was all that mattered.

Eleanor leaned her head against his shoulder and adjusted the blanket again, watching pensively as the distant forms of Rebecca and Jack met underneath the mistletoe for a secret, romantic embrace. In six months Jack Secord would be dead. It was the only thing she hated about this mission she had undertaken, finding all these artifacts throughout history and delivering them safely to the Warehouse. She knew how all their stories ended. These two, they would never see their one-year anniversary together. They had no idea how short their time truly was.

While she was watching Jack and Rebecca, the Doctor was watching her. She was sad and wistful and she was thinking of lost time and memories that would never be made. Without saying a word, he pulled a single pink tulip from his pocket and held it in front of her. It was a fresh flower, as if it had just been plucked out of the ground.

Her sentimental smile brightened. “It’s December. Where did you get this from?”

“I have to keep a few secrets from you,” the Doctor said. Eleanor took the tulip from him, twirling it around between her fingers. Its perfume was sweet and strong. It was beautiful. He was wonderful. He had turned back around to face the bed and breakfast again, but he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Do I remember what happened when I was losing my memory?” Eleanor asked him, making sure it sounded as contradictory out loud as it had in her head. It made no sense, really, but at the very same time it was precisely what had happened. “I do. It’s lonely, not knowing who you are. Knowing that there are things you should know but the place in your head where it’s supposed to be is just empty. But those things you said, it kept me grounded. Even when I didn’t remember who you were, I knew you would keep me safe.”

Eleanor remembered every word he had said to her when she broke down on the curb. How he knew so much about her and so much of that she hadn’t even told him. He had observed her and made those conclusions on his own. He’d noticed how often she wore pink. He’d noticed that her bedroom at the present-day bed and breakfast always had tulips in it, whether they were fresh in the spring or made of fabric the rest of the year. He’d noticed that her own art, every painting and portrait she made, imitated the impressionists with broken light and quick brushstrokes and looked like she had painted from her dreams.

You have grief. Oh, you have grief inside you that could drown galaxies. But the love in your heart, the light that shines in your eyes even in your darkest times—it could birth stars. Create entire worlds. Bring me back to life with just a glance.

No one saw her quite like he did.

“Feliz Navidad, Doctor.”

“Feliz Navidad, Eleanor.”

It was getting far too cold to stay out here any longer. Conditions were rapidly worsening; this light snowstorm would be a blizzard in no time. The Doctor opened the door for her and Eleanor ducked underneath his arm to go inside. The TARDIS hummed as they entered. It was a much lovelier sound than the humming from the ornaments before they were neutralized in Seattle. It was like home.

“So, where to?” the Doctor asked.

“Somewhere quiet,” Eleanor answered.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been to Asgard.”

“It has.”

The Doctor looked across the console at her with a wicked glint to his eye and Eleanor’s face broke out into a wide grin as the TARDIS took flight through space and time. It always began like this. A simple inquiry, a lingering look, a promise of adventure. On to the next one, and onto every adventure after that.

#ch: eleanor aquino #ocappreciation #allaboutocs #type: writing #i have finally written the eleanor christmas one-shot!!#obligatory 'eleanor is a warehouse 13/doctor who crossover au oc' reminder feels relevant :)#it's more w13-lore based than dw-lore bc i simply did not have the brain power to come up with something alien when i was writing this lol #anyway. merry christmas from me and this ''ended up being twice as long as i thought it would be'' one-shot!#it's a little rough around the edges i think but i had fun and that's all that matters <3

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selstice · 5 months

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all of my ramshackle ocs so far !

I've introduced the 1st on on my other acc @selvrse , but why not introduce all of my ramshackle ocs here in my main blog?

more under the cut !

‘‘‘ Ann Rodriguez ★

- Ann is an industrious and optimistic 13 year old scrap kid, who tries to fulfill her dreams in becoming a circus ringmaster in the future. She used to live in the slums, but then one day she was taken in by a kind old man, who works as a mechanic.

Growing up, she tried her hands at various jobs, whether it'd be delivery, mechanics, selling lottery tickets, any simple jobs will do. During her freetime, she'd go to a library and read some books to learn, since neither her adoptive father and her can't afford to apply to a school. She is used to carrying heavy things, since she used to work in various jobs that includes carrying heavy stuff.

She's also friends with a rich girl her age named Beatrice. ( Beatrice drawing and info soon ! )

‘‘‘ Ephraim 'Eph' Martinez ★

- Eph is a rebellious angsty 14 year old kiddo with a strained relationship with his father. Eph comes from a rich family, but he didn't like the idea of acting like 'proper' all the time, being told of how to act, what to eat and what to do, he was tired of it. So he became rebellious and obstinate, insisting on his ideals and actions even if others disagree with him.

He skips classes usually, and causes trouble in class, which—as a result, gets himself in detention most of the time. He does carry around a nail bat, hitting anybody that goes in his crew's way.

Yes, he has his own small crew, they do stuff like pickpocketing and stuff. Despite his personality, he does care about his crew's wellbeing and all. Eph's crew have their own hideout, and it's this abandoned warehouse they found, so they all mostly hang out there. Aside from the fact that he hates his rich life, he does have two caring big brothers, whom Eph looks up to. Even though the three of them spends time together rarely because of the two big brothers having busy jobs, they do keep in touch by calls.

- He has learned a little bit of acrobatic skills from one of his brothers. He can also draw, though it's only rare to see him draw.

- What makes Eph irk is the idea of wearing rich clothes, eugh... He hates it when he's invited to his parents' friend's party or smth that the fact he has to wear proper clothing. But because of this, he has knowledge in disguising, mainly using his rich and proper look to get away with trouble. Also, he's alot shorter than other average 14 year olds.

#ramshackle #ramshackle oc #zeddyzi #oc #oc art #digital art #art #artists on tumblr #oc concept #sel ocs #sel art

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swift-creates · 5 months

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@chrumblr-whumblr day 4: watching while loved one is hurt

wc: 293 | warnings: blood, torture, mention of broken bone, swearing (pg-13), spitting i guess, strike jason and the joker should all be their own trigger warning, crowbars, my extremely niche AUs | characters: Strike Kamino (OC) (pov), Jason Todd, the Joker, two unnamed masculine mime thugs

this is part of my Coruscant City Outlaws AU, which is different from my Coruscant City AU (which is also an au I have not posted about ever). this version is technically a Titans (show) au. which I have not watched btw. so in actuality it’s kind of a mishmash of stuff from the comics, my brain, and what I’ve seen of various Titans media including the show. not much of that is relevant to this tiny snippet though; this bit is mostly inspired by the Death In the Family comics. but if you want to know more of the Coruscant City and/or Outlaws AUs come and yell at me about it maybe 🥺

—

Strike spat blood onto the warehouse floor and watched the gray floor turn red. The mime thugs hauled her up before she could do it herself, and she stumbled as they jerked her onto her feet roughly.

“You okay?” Jason said hoarsely from across the room. “Just dandy. Worry 'bout yourself.” She turned to wipe her bloody mouth on one of the mimes’ vest, and had the satisfaction of seeing his face twist in disgust.

“I think you should both worry about each other and yourselves!” The Joker bent to prod Jason right in his broken arm, and Strike clenched her jaw as he let out a grunt of pain. “No one gives a damn what you think, Joker,” she hissed.

“I give a damn what I think. Why does no one ever factor me into these things?” He shook his head like a disapproving parent, and Jason spat in his face. “Ugh. Children these days.” Then he leaned over to pull Jason up by his collar and hefted a crowbar in the other hand.

Strike struggled against the mimes, but they didn’t budge. “You hurt him and I’ll-” “You’ll what, tiny? You’ll hit me? I am shivering in my shoes.” “Get the fuck away from him!” The Joker only grinned and twirled the crowbar in his hand. “But dearie, dancing is so much funner. And who doesn’t want to dance with uncle Joker?” He slammed it into Jason’s ribs, and he doubled over, coughing. “I swear to God, Joker, I’ll kill you,” she snarled, voice shaking with pain and exhaustion, and he laughed. “You flatter me. Watch this space to see what happens next!”

She lunged towards them, but the mimes pulled her back; all she could do was watch and scream.

#swift creates #swift writes #Jason todd #red hood #strike (OC)#Lieutenant strike #Clone OC #Star Wars #CHRUMBLr whump #Chrumblr whump May #Jason Todd whump #Whump #Dc #Batman #the clone wars #the joker #coruscant city outlaws au #outlaws au #coruscant city

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naughtyneganjdm · 1 year

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On the Run - Chapter 13

Summary: The group goes ahead with Bill's plan of action to find out who is trying to kill Y/N, but things don't go to plan.

Characters: Joel Miller (The Last of Us), Negan (The Walking Dead), the reader (OC, third person), Bill (The Last of Us), Frank (The Last of Us), etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47007172/chapters/124256413

Warnings: Swearing, angst, violence, etc.

Notes: One more chapter left after this one. Sorry it took a while for me to post this one. I needed to take some time from social media. Thank you you to those who read this!

“I don’t like this,” Negan announced with tension in his tone scooting closer to the desk that featured all of the screens that Bill had set up inside of the surveillance truck that he had. They were all sitting closely together inside of the truck after Bill had instructed them to park it down the street from the address to the warehouse that was texted to him. With the surveillance Bill set up, they could see inside the warehouse, outside and could also watch whatever Bill was seeing from the camera he had hidden on his jacket. Everyone was watching closely in anticipation, not sure what to expect next. “Sending Bill in alone doesn’t feel right.”

“I think Bill is very capable of taking care of himself,” Joel tried to suggest gazing over at Negan from where they were sitting cramped together watching the screens. “This was his whole idea. We know that he can take care of himself.”

“Not to be an asshole, but have you looked at the guy? Compared to you and me I don’t see him being able to hold up against a group of people if he has to,” Negan grumbled under his breath, his face tensing up and showing the visible stress that was flooding through his body. “Bill is the brains, not necessarily the strength.”

“You know I can hear you,” Bill huffed through the earpiece after Negan went off on the whole thing. “There is a reason all of us are wearing earpieces. So everything you are saying, I hear.”

“We know honey, but you can’t be talking to us. Whoever is meeting up with you is going to think you are crazy,” Frank hushed Negan, waving his hand about while Y/N and Joel scoot in closer to the screens to get a look at everything. “Right now there is no one at the location. So take your time walking because you don’t want to show up early and get bombarded.”

“Now remember your safe word. You use it and the two of us will be there in no time,” Joel coached Bill, sliding in closer to Frank while he surveyed the video that was attached to Bill’s jacket. Deep down Joel knew that Negan was right. Bill going in alone just didn’t make much sense, but Bill insisted. “Negan and I will grab whatever we need. We’ll come in after you.”

“Ten-four,” Bill muttered, his deep breaths filling the air while he walked up the hill toward the warehouse. Every second that passed felt like an extraordinarily large amount of time. “Of course this place had to be on a fucking hill. I’m going to be passing out by the time that I get up there.”

“See what I mean?” Negan whispered letting out a grunt when Y/N smacked at the center of his chest. Throwing his hands up in the air, Negan knew that he wasn’t wrong about this whole thing. Sending Bill in alone was almost a death sentence for this guy if things went wrong and he didn’t want Bill to die.

“You’ve got this,” Y/N emphasized glancing back at Negan who was now surveying the guns they had brought with them. Of course they hoped they wouldn’t have to use them, but she knew that Negan was preparing just in case. Bill had several guns and knives on himself to keep him safe, but she knew that Negan was severely uncomfortable with this whole thing. Reaching her hand out, she placed her hand in over Negan’s knee and caressed over it. The motion made him look to her hand and his jaw flexed in uneasiness. Placing his hand over hers, he hooked their fingers together and swallowed down hard. “Just know we’re right here with you Bill.”

“I’m coming up on the warehouse. This is where I stop,” Bill informed them and Joel’s face was locked on the screen. Coming to a full stop, Bill looked around when he noticed that the parking lot was empty. “I’m still the only one here.”

“It’s not exactly the time yet,” Joel informed Bill looking to his watch that was on his wrist. Clearing his throat, Joel’s foot was tapping about a mile a minute showing his nervousness as well. “Just give it some time Bill.”

“We should have the truck closer,” Negan blurt out feeling tense about the whole thing. It made Y/N’s fingers hook tighter around his and he sighed. “It’s too far away.”

“It’s not that far away Negan. It wouldn’t look right just having a white van sitting there right next to the warehouse when nothing else is around. It’s like a sore thumb telling the person hey look we’re right here, come find us,” Joel responded which elicited a grunt from Negan’s throat. “This is to make sure that we are safe enough away to still get the reception of the video while hiding.”

“Would you two please shut up?” Bill scoffed on his end of the video showing that he was gazing around the area. The sun was starting to set and it was growing darker. “I need to have a clear mind to pull this off and you two bickering is not going to help.”

“We’ll keep them quiet,” Frank promised waving his hand about trying to get both Negan and Joel to shut up. Frank had to focus as well because he was the one in control of everything. Everything that Bill set up for him to be in control of that was. From one of the street cameras Frank could see a truck approaching. “Alright Bill, we have…” seeing that there was more than one SUV made Frank swallow down hard. “You have three vehicles approaching.”

“I told you this was a bad fucking idea,” Negan muttered under his breath, the tension growing in his body when the three large vehicles surrounded Bill. This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go. They all knew that. Negan knew from the start they were never going to play fair. “Remember Bill, we are right here. You say the word and I will be there before you know it.”

“He’s got this,” Frank assured Negan, waving him down and Negan could feel his heart hammering inside of his chest. Bringing Y/N’s hand up, Negan deposited a kiss over the back of her hand before lowering it back to his lap. Y/N’s life really depended on this whole situation. If it fell through, she would never be safe and they all knew that. “I’m assuming the big dog is in the central car. Just keep your cool and we can get what we need. Easy peezy.”

“Really?” Negan snorted, his hazel eyes gazing over at Frank who gave a small shrug. Grumbling to himself, Negan scoot in closer to the screen, his eyes locked on the camera that was attached to Bill’s jacket. Waiting for the doors to open, Negan let out a shuddering, disappointed breath when a familiar face was revealed. Loosening his grasp over Y/N’s hand, he felt his arm go limp when the face became clearer in Bill’s footage. “That’s Simon.”

“I am so sorry,” Joel whispered knowing that Simon was Negan’s best friend. Upset filled Negan’s hazel eyes and it was obvious he was broken to know that Simon had something to do with this. Honestly? Joel wasn’t as surprised. “It makes sense Negan. It always made sense. After you told him about Poppy? How he sent a cleaning crew instead of someone to help. And then the people at the safehouse? Simon was always the obvious choice.”

“I know, I just…” Negan began finding himself losing the words. Stealing another glance at Y/N he felt guilty. Maybe this was his fault all along that he could never bring himself to believe that Simon was capable of something like this. Damn it, he hated that he was getting emotional over this whole thing, but he was. “I never thought he would do something like this. Not after everything we’ve been through together. I thought we were friends.”

Simon made an elaborate gesture that caught their eye pulling them to look back to the screen. Watching Negan, Y/N could sense that he was shattered to know that the one person he cared about other than her in his life was one of the bad guys. Like Joel, she wasn’t surprised to see his face. She was just curious as to how he made this whole thing happen.

“Are you the guy?” Simon arrogantly questioned pulling his black sunglasses from his face. Dramatically he bobbed his head about and Joel turned to look at Negan who lowered his head into his palm. Seeing Simon at the other end of the feed was hard for Negan to accept.

“I’m the guy,” Bill put emphasis on the word as Simon extended his hand out to Bill. Accepting the shake, Bill was obviously cautious when multiple men got out of the cars. Once their faces became clearer in the video, Y/N had recognized more than a few of the faces. These were all men that worked for Simon when it came to her father. “Are you the guy?”

“I’m not the guy, but I’m a guy,” Simon explained with a snicker throwing his arms up to give an over-the-top shrug.

“What does that mean?” Bill inquired, his voice changing when he gazed around the men that were surrounding him. “I requested that it just be me and the man in charge. This feels a bit much. Don’t you think?”

“For me? Oh yeah. Totally,” Simon reached out to pat Bill on the shoulder giving it a firm squeeze. “Trust me my man, when we go in, it’s just going to be me and two others. We’re waiting on someone else. But the rest of these folks? They are just here to make sure that things go smoothly. See, I didn’t know if I could trust you because I’m not used to fucking hackers getting in my business. You know what I mean?”

“I hate to break it to you friend, but when you offer that kind of money and you send the information out to multiple people you need to learn to hide things better,” Bill responded to Simon’s comment. Snickering, Simon almost seemed amused to hear Bill’s counter.

“Hmmm…just tell me how you actually did it,” Simon urged Bill to explain further, waving his hand in the air wanting more details. “How did you find this whole thing in the first place? You really have to understand how strange it is to be getting a text from someone…a complete stranger telling you that they did what no one else could. You have a gigantic sack for even trying this in the first place.”

“The future governor has a shooting at his house where his child goes missing and you don’t think you’re going to have people interested?” Bill replied in such a way where he didn’t seem worried at all. In fact it impressed Y/N with how good Bill was acting everything out. There was no fear in his voice. Bill seemed bored with the whole encounter. “I dug into everything. I’m a hacker. I was able to find texts, learn about those men that were killed at the first safehouse. You sent out a lot of texts. It wasn’t like you were hiding it.”

“I see,” Simon seemed to be scrutinizing Bill with his gaze.

“You know I know who you are too,” Bill informed Simon showing that he wasn’t afraid or backing down. It made Negan wonder if that was really the right approach to this whole thing.

“Oh?” that peaked Simon’s interest.

“You’re Philip Blake’s head of security, Simon. I guess I should have known that someone on the inside was in charge. It was too convenient,” Bill thought aloud causing Simon’s jaw to tense up while he stared out at Bill with curiosity. “I learned everything I could about Philip Blake and his family. Along with the three that were with Blake’s daughter. Tell me, did you just start to hate your job or…?”

“I thought you know everything,” Simon mocked, his eyebrows bouncing up when Bill took a step back to eye him over. “I mean go ahead. Tell me what you think happened here. I’m dying to hear what your theory is.”

“I never claimed to know everything. I just know more than the average person does,” Bill corrected Simon who gave a small smirk in response. “I just know you work for the man whose daughter went missing. And you were best friends with the big one.”

“Hmm…” Simon hummed in response making Negan tense up from where he was seated in the white van with the others. Instead of acknowledging what Bill said, Simon just folded his arms in front of his chest. The expression over Simon’s face was hard to read. There was no way to tell if Bill was right or not because Simon was giving nothing away.

“My guess as to why you are doing this? You got sick of working for Philip Blake. You knew how much money he was really worth and you were getting paid scraps. Decided to take things into your own hands. While working for a man like that you are going to have access to all kinds of things and you took advantage of it. Philip had to have gotten rich enemies through the years willing to work with you to take advantage of his running for office and killing his daughter to make a point,” Bill deduced and his theory sounded like it could be right. It made the most sense. “I think your biggest mistake was the country singer. You just weren’t hiring the right people to truly get the job done.”

“Yeah, Half Moon got…carried away,” Simon tipped his head to the side letting out a tense sound when he sucked in a sharp breath of air. “It was a case of someone taking a situation into their own hands. But what I really want to know is how you found Y/N and the two men. They disappeared off the grid. No one saw them. At all and trust me, we were looking. So how did you do it when no one else could?”

“Because I’m not like anyone else,” Bill answered with a smug tone and amusement flooded Simon’s features. His dark eyes were hooked on Bill like a hawk and it was obvious that Simon was absolutely curious about the man that Bill was. “What I’m capable of is quite amazing.”

“A man of mystery, I like that,” Simon stepped forward and wrapped his arm firmly around Bill’s shoulders pulling him toward the front door of the warehouse. “So you just typed some things into your little computer and you were able to find out whatever you wanted?”

Frank shifted his seating when he adjusted to watch the screens where Simon was now walking into the warehouse with Bill and two other people. Like Simon said, the rest of them stayed outside while Simon and Bill walked over toward a container at the center of the warehouse. Simon sat down on top of it and threw his hands up in the air.

“I could find anything I want about anyone,” Bill was honest and they all knew that. Hell, Bill had something on every single one of them. Things that no one really knew, so Bill wasn’t lying to Simon. “After they left the motel, I was able to track their SUV by using traffic cameras. Following them after that wasn’t very hard. They were hiding somewhere in the woods. Thought they would be safe, but my father taught me to hunt when I was a child. I became very good at tracking. Super easy.”

“Look at you, Mr. Smarty Pants,” Simon retorted sucking in a sharp breath of air. “Smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Well if this goes well, maybe you can hire me on so you can actually get your projects done right,” Bill snorted back and there was an annoyance in his tone. “I don’t really mean to press your buttons here, but if you’re the man in charge I’d really like to get my money now.”

“What’s the rush?” Simon scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air. A dramatic, over the top expression flooded his features before he chuckled. “The money is here big guy. You’re not going to get screwed out of your money.”

“Prove it,” Bill blurt out and Simon chuckled before tipping his head from side to side. Letting out a sigh, Simon got up from where he was seated and headed over to the far wall. Reaching for the large painting that was on the wall, Simon set it down on the ground and pointed to the safe that had been hidden behind the painting. “How do I know there is money in there?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me because I don’t have the fucking code,” Simon knocked on the safe letting out an amused sound before heading back over to where he was originally to sit down on top of the container again. “So where are the bodies Mr. Smarty Pants? You were supposed to bring them here.”

“Where is the man in charge? He was supposed to be here,” Bill replied back with a bit of venom in his tone. Simon threw his hands up and almost mocking Bill. The other two people that followed Simon into the warehouse were at the corners of the warehouse and when they shifted on their feet it caught Bill’s attention. “I’m not a stupid man, I knew that by coming here with the bodies I would have no leverage over this situation. You give me the money, I give you the exact location of the bodies. That way we both win.”

“I see,” Simon swallowed down, sucking hard at his bottom lip. “Let me see that photo again.”

Wiggling his fingers, Simon demanded and Bill sounded disgusted. Pulling out his phone, Bill looked through a few things before handing over the phone to Simon who survey the photo over letting out a tense sound.

“Are you going to keep fucking me around or are you going to actually give me the money so I can give you a location and we can get back to our regular everyday life?” Bill snapped finding himself getting uncomfortable with the fact that things were not working out the way he was hoping.

“We need to wait,” Simon asserted with a rumble as his eyes were still locked on the phone. “This looks legit.”

“Because it is,” Bill spoke swiftly making all of them tense from where they were seated inside of the work van. Was Simon questioning the validity of the photo? “The three of them are dead as can be. Waiting for you to go collect them and take care of this so we can get this over with.”

“I told you, I don’t know the combination to the safe,” Simon reminded Bill angering Bill even more. “What are you so damn nervous about? You are about to be a rich man. You can’t handle a little conversation?”

“I’ve never been a very social man,” Bill claimed, folding his arms out in front of his chest. “I like to get things over and done with.”

“Tell me how you did this,” Simon held the phone out showing Bill the photo that was up. “Tell me how you killed them.”

“I told you. They were hiding out in the woods and I was able to track them,” Bill recalled what he had already told Simon who was rolling his eyes in response. “I killed them, I got rid of their SUV and their bodies are waiting where I left them.”

“No, I want details,” Simon tossed the phone to Bill who fumbled to catch it before pushing it back into his pocket. “You’re a smart man. I’m sure you don’t forget details. Go over how you killed them.”

“I killed the big one first,” Bill explained coming up with a story and they hoped that he was able to work well under pressure. “Negan? That was his name, right? Put up a hell of a fight, but he never saw me coming. Took multiple gun shots to finally get him down. Then Joel Miller? Fought like hell to protect her. But he didn’t see me coming. I have my talents at being able to stay hidden. I gutted him. And then when it came to her, she was leaning over the side of Joel’s body trying to help him. She was the easiest. I came up behind her with my knife and I cut her throat. End of story.”

“Bloody,” Simon’s eyebrows bounced up and he stood up from the place he had been seated. Stepping in closer to Bill, his eyes were locked on the smaller man as he cleared his throat. His expression grew dark while he stared down at Bill. “You know the order was to kill just the girl.”

“And the country singer killed her friend, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Bill snapped back and even though it was true, it made Y/N let out a saddened sound knowing that she still wondered what happened to Poppy’s body. Then again, Simon had to admit to being in charge of this whole thing. And once they had him in custody, he would have to be convinced to admit what he did with Poppy’s body. Part of her believed he wouldn’t even do that. “I couldn’t get to her without killing them.”

“You killed the strongest son of a bitch that I ever knew,” Simon informed Bill, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat showing that he was getting angry. Stepping in closer to Bill, the warmth of Simon’s breath was hot over Bill’s face. “He shouldn’t have died at the hands of a hillbilly like you.”

“Oh, fuck this. Give me my money,” Bill demanded before letting out a sharp breath when the sound of a gun going off was heard. Dropping to his knees, Bill grabbed a hold of his abdomen, his eyes big with shock. Standing before him was Simon with a gun that he had managed to sneak out in their discussion.

“You shouldn’t have killed Negan,” Simon snarled down at Bill. The other two men that had joined Simon in the warehouse had stepped forward beside him.

“Son of a bitch,” Negan stood up in the van not waiting for any kind of word from Bill. What they had just seen was reason enough to rush to go help Bill. Grabbing the guns he had selected earlier made Joel cuss out.

Scrambling to keep up with Negan, Joel reached for his supplies as well. Without a second thought, Negan hopped out of the van making Y/N panic. Joel cussed out trying to grab what he could, but he wasn’t keeping up with Negan. Instead of rushing out after Negan, Joel leaned into press a swift kiss over Y/N’s temple. Pulling back, Joel stared out at Frank who looked worried, “You keep her safe. Do you understand me?”

Giving a nod, Frank watched as Joel hopped out of the truck and slammed the doors shut behind him. Joel couldn’t think about Frank and Y/N in this situation. Joel had to be Negan’s back up. Trying to catch up, Joel could see that Negan was already running up the hill toward the warehouse.

“Hey,” Y/N reached for Frank’s arm inside the van seeing that he was clutching to the table that was before him where they were doing surveillance. In the video she saw Bill fall forward on the ground and Simon lifted his gun to itch at his own temple.

“What the hell Simon?” one of the other men snapped looking down at Bill motionless on the ground. “You weren’t supposed to fucking kill him. We needed the location of the bodies. What are we going to do now?”

“I overreacted,” Simon tossed his hands up in the air looking down at Bill’s body and he dramatically shook his head. “I’m just supposed to be okay with some fucking loser killing Negan? Some fucking hacker hillbilly? I’m sorry, but I’m not okay with that shit. He deserved to go out in a way that fit. Not because of this loser searching the deep web to find the information. Fuck that.”

“What are we going to do?” the other man demanded an answer trying to reach down to check on Bill who was motionless. “I think you fucking killed him.”

“We see the picture. We heard the story. It’s believable,” Simon declared with a loud grumble trying to gather himself. “By the story he told they were in the middle of the woods. No one would be able to track their bodies at this point. Just let the bodies rot.”

As the conversation was taking place, both Negan and Joel were approaching the warehouse together. Joel hid behind one of the trucks that they had brought seeing the men that were surrounding the building. Multiple ones had gone around the back and Joel knew they would be up against over a dozen men.

“We need to come up with a plan in order to go get Bill and get the hell out of here,” Joel explained trying to get Negan to focus while he scouted out the area, his jaw flexing. “I’m sure we can be stealthy, take down who we need and…”

Without even listening to Joel, Negan stood up and started shooting. Because it was random and unannounced Negan was able to shoot several of them making them hit the ground hard while the rest of them spread.

“Son of a bitch! Negan!” Joel called out seeing that a few of them were popping out behind Negan in attempts to shoot him. Thinking quickly, Joel shot multiple times taking the men down with the rifle that he had grabbed hating that it was leading to this.

Inside of the warehouse, Simon had hid himself behind the containers that he had been sitting on previously, trying to keep himself hidden, “Holy shit. The hillbilly had a fucking group of people with him too. I did not see that fucking coming.”

“You shouldn’t have fucking killed him!” one of the other men in the warehouse stood with their gun pointed at the door. “This was stupid. This was so stupid!”

Outside, Negan and Joel made their way toward the front of the warehouse. The way Negan moved for the door like nothing could hurt him worried Joel. Negan was killing people easily without much of a reaction, but by the time they had gotten to the front door, multiple bodies were on the ground and Joel hid himself against the wall.

“The door is locked,” Negan pulled at the door letting out a roar looking back at Joel with frustration in his eyes. “Get Frank to unlock the door.”

“Frank, you have to get the doors unlocked,” Joel instructed moving away from the door to try to get Frank to respond to them. Bill had set everything up so Frank was in control of everything that had to do with the building.

“Joel, they are already unlocked,” Frank explained from where he was looking down at the buttons, confused to what Joel was saying. “They were never locked in the first place.”

“They are unlocked Negan,” Joel was confused when he turned to look and see that Negan had opened the door and was pulling it shut. Running forward, Joel tried to tug open the door but Negan had manually locked the door in his attempts to keep Joel safe. “Negan! No. You can’t do this whole thing alone. You’re just one man.”

“Keep her safe,” Negan demanded pointing in the other direction. It was clear what he wanted from Joel. Hitting the door over and over again Joel was determined to get in with the glass starting to crack, but not enough to make a difference. Instead of opening the door, Negan turned on his heel eliciting a hiss from Joel.

“He locked me out Frank! I need to get in,” Joel explained drawing Frank to let out a nervous sound and he felt Y/N moving around beside him in the truck. “Negan can’t go in there alone.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Joel, the back door is surrounded by them and you know that you can’t go there. Not after what we set up,” Frank looked for an option but there was none. Joel’s loud, frustrated breaths were heard while he continued to pound at the glass on the door trying to break it down. “Break the door down Joel. Use your gun.”

“It’s wasting bullets,” Joel reasoned before using the butt of the gun to hit at the glass until it finally shattered.

“What are you doing?” Frank questioned from where he was seated noticing the way that Y/N was digging through the supplies that was in the work van. When he saw that she had grabbed a handgun, he let out a frustrated sound. “You can’t go there after them Y/N! You know what the plan was!”

“I’m not going to let them get hurt further. Not for me,” she hopped out of the van sticking to her guns. Frank frustratingly breathed out. It looked like he was going to follow her out, but she threw her hand up in the air. “You have to keep them safe from here. You know what you have to do. You can’t leave.”

“Goddamn it,” Frank cussed when she slammed the doors of the van shut behind her leaving Frank inside.

Wincing out, Joel had managed to get his arm through the broken parts of the glass to get the door unhooked and at the same time Negan was approaching the room that Bill had gone in with Simon. When he stepped into the entrance way, he let out a grunt when one of the two managed to shoot him in the arm making him jolt back. Quickly gathering himself, Negan shot multiple times at the man who had shot him, hitting him several times before getting a kill shot in the head. Pointing his gun at the other man who was left standing, Negan cleared his throat and motioned them to throw the gun down.

“Throw it down, now!” Negan demanded seeing the other man shake his head immediately. It looked like he was about to shoot Negan, but another few shots filled the air. Looking back over his shoulder once the body dropped to the ground, Negan saw that Joel was standing behind him. Joel expression was furious. “I fucking told you to stay.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Joel snarled at Negan and it was followed by a surprised sound escaping Simon’s throat when his hand pressed in over the container so he could look back and over to see Negan pointing his rifle out at him. “Negan!”

“Back from the fucking dead,” Simon let out an amused breath making Negan’s face scrunch up in anger and Negan pulled the gun up further. “Was this your idea? You sent this idiot in to stage everything and you got him killed?”

“Don’t,” Joel warned when Simon slowly stood up looking between the two of them. “Don’t move. Or I’ll fucking shoot!”

“I can see that,” Simon was amused, keeping his hands at his hips while Negan remained silent. “You do know at any moment, the rest of the crew is going to come in through the back, right? I’m sure they are making their way there right now as we…”

A booming sound filled the air making Simon drop down and cover his head when debris from an explosion toward the back exit filled the small warehouse. Instead of reacting to the explosion, Negan kept his gun on Simon knowing that the explosion was caused from the explosives that Bill had set up just in case someone tried to sneak into the building. Frank had set it off showing that Simon was right and the rest of the crew was coming in through the back.

“Negan!” Joel called out seeing that a few people were still approaching. It became obvious that not everyone had been effected by the explosion that was set up. Immediately bullets were flooding into the room and Joel shuffled to try to get cover behind a wall. Negan had dropped down at the other end of the containers that Simon had scrambled behind again.

Trying to pop his head out, Joel scoffed when the bullets continued to graze by him. Dropping down onto the ground, Joel clung to the rifle and cussed out loud knowing that there was still too many men for them to take down at once in this situation. They had the upper hand.

Scoping out the warehouse, Joel saw the set of stairs that were at the corner of the room that led to the second floor overlook of the warehouse. That was the only way he knew that would work with him having an advantage in this situation. Stretching his fingers out, he reached for a piece of the debris from the explosion that had made it this far across the building. Tossing it aside, the gunmen shot at the area it landed giving Joel enough time to scramble for the stairs. They shot at him and he managed to reach the steps before he could be shot.

Once he reached the top, he paused to make sure that there was a safe spot for him to settle himself. They hadn’t stopped trying to shoot at Negan who could barely move and Joel knew he needed to do something. Propping himself up, he aimed at one of the men that Simon had brought with him, shooting and hitting the first one in the neck causing the blood to spray from his throat. It was something that usually would have made Joel uncomfortable, but he had to push through the emotions of this whole thing. Killing was never something he wanted to do, but this was a situation that he got stuck in. Taking another shot took another one down leaving Negan room to finally move away from where he was. Once Negan was safe, Joel dropped back down to give himself cover as well.

“Negan!” Simon called out from where he was still hidden. “What the hell are you doing?”

When the shooting stopped, Negan popped out from where he was hidden to shoot at the remainder of the men that were there. With them distracted on Negan, Joel knew that he could pop up again taking out a few more of them. During the process they had noticed that Joel was up on the second level and he had to hide himself. It gave Negan the opportunity to shoot at them. Heading back for the stairs, Joel knew that it would give him the chance to fool them with where he was. They were still shooting at the second level unaware that he had made it back to the first floor.

“Christ! Stop!” Simon screamed out while the bullets continued to be shot back and forth between both sides. Once another one of their men was taken out by Joel and Negan, the remaining three had dropped back. “You two are killing all of my men.”

“Good,” Negan snarled back, pressing forward toward the area they had run off in. It left Joel trying to go off after him, but Negan was already pulling out the handgun that he had, dropping the rifle on the ground. The way he shot the men with ease in the back as they ran away shocked Joel knowing that Negan was an incredible shot.

“Hey!” Simon called out drawing Joel’s attention since he was still partially in the warehouse. Letting out a worried sound, Joel saw Y/N moving into the building and before he could react Simon was scrambling from where he was to move in behind her to wrap her up in his arms from behind making her gasp out. Pointing his rifle out at Simon, Joel made his way back toward the situation seeing that Simon pressed the gun to Y/N’s head. “You step closer and I will blow her brains out all over the place.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Joel questioned with a frustrated glance seeing the fear in Y/N’s eyes while she stared out at him. “You were supposed to stay where you were.”

“I couldn’t let the two of you get hurt,” she answered letting out a wince when Negan had entered the warehouse and lifted his handgun to point it at Simon when he realized what was happening. “Negan.”

“Let her go,” Negan warned getting closer to the three of them that were already in a standoff. “You do something stupid Simon and you’re outnumbered. All of your men are dead. There is nothing you have over the two of us.”

“This is fucking insane,” Simon acknowledged with a bit of a maniacal laugh. Hiding his body behind Y/N’s, Simon was doing his best to keep himself from being shot. Simon’s arm was hooked around her throat, with the gun still pointed at her temple. “All of this over this dumb broad? The both of you?”

“Let her go now!” Joel screamed at Simon, his body shaking from his emotional outburst. Snickering, Simon buried his head against the side of Y/N’s neck. The sensation made her eyes shut tightly in fear.

“You must have a magic pussy or something,” Simon slurred making her let out a disgusted breath when his lips pressed in over the back of her ear. “You have both of these two suckers willing to risk their lives for you. What is it? I’ve known you your whole life and I just don’t see it.”

“You’re disgusting,” she shouted out at Simon trying to wiggle out of his grasp, but his muscular arm wasn’t letting her go anywhere. “I always knew you were a piece of shit.”

“Oh? Did you now?” Simon’s voice raised while pulling her tightly to him. “Do you want a fucking cookie for knowing that? God, you’re so fucking special, aren’t you? Did you think the men who were working for your father were good people?”

“Let her go Simon,” Negan demanded but Simon didn’t listen. It just made Simon smirk and he shook his head. “Why are you doing this Simon? Tell us who hired you and we can work something out with you.”

“Oh, you’re going to work with me?” Simon chuckled with his eyebrows furrowing and Simon nuzzled his nose in the back against Y/N’s neck.

“Do you trust me?” Joel inquired making Y/N’s eyes grow with fear. This was Joel asking Y/N for permission to do something and it made Negan let out a nervous exhale. “Do you trust me?”

“No,” Negan responded with a shake of his head seeing that Joel was lining up a shot. “We don’t trust you.”

“I need to hear it from you,” Joel begged of Y/N knowing that it was only her that could give him the permission to do this. There was doubt in Negan’s face, but she could feel the gun digging in further at her temple.

“I trust you,” she breathed out and a moment later a gun went off making Simon hiss out in agony showing that Joel had hit him. It made Simon release Y/N and Negan scrambled to grab a hold of her so he could push her behind him to protect her. Simon was holding the side of his face, clinging to it while blood seeped through his fingers.

“You shot off part of my ear?” Simon snarled, lifting his fingers to trace over the area that Joel had managed to shoot in order to get Simon to let go of Y/N. Tossing his handgun up, Simon pointed it at Negan. Joel stepped forward to make it clear that he was there with his gun. “Fuck, I understand why you hated the fucking professor.”

“Fuck you,” Joel swore at Simon making Simon laugh and gaze over in his direction. “Tell us what we need to know and I won’t put a bullet in your fucking head. And trust me, with that shiny ass forehead it’s not going to be hard to miss.”

“Oh, look at you. Big and bad. So terrifying you smartass,” Simon chuckled, gazing over to Negan and letting out an exhausted sound. “I can’t believe it got to this.”

“What does that mean?” Joel inquired letting out a groan when a gunshot went off, hitting his left arm. Hitting the ground hard, it felt like the breath left his lungs and Joel immediately clung to his arm. Quickly turning, Negan shot off a few rounds at the person who had obviously shot Joel. Once the sound of a body hitting the ground was heard, Negan turned on his heel and brought the gun back to Simon. Simon had his gun pointed at Joel and he had kicked Joel’s rifle away. “Fuck.”

“That’s what you deserve for shooting part of my ear off you prick,” Simon hissed at Joel who was clinging to his arm while blood seeped through his fingers. When he noticed the fear in Negan’s eyes, Simon chuckled to himself and shook his head. “You really are clinging to these two, aren’t you?”

“Hey,” Negan made sure to keep Y/N behind him to block her so that way Simon couldn’t point his gun at her. “Just tell us what we need to know.”

“Come on Negan, don’t you think it’s about time to give up the gig?” Simon pushed keeping his gun up and pointed at Negan while Negan made sure to push Y/N further behind him. “I think it’s gone on long enough at this point.”

“What are you talking about?” Negan tipped his head to the side noticing out of the corner of his eye that Joel was attempting to slide toward the gun that Y/N had dropped when she entered the building. She had dropped it when Simon had grabbed a hold of her. Trying to keep Simon’s attention he knew that he didn’t want Simon’s gun on either Y/N or Joel. “Stop fucking around Simon!”

“Don’t play innocent,” Simon snickered looking between both Y/N and Joel who looked confused with his response. “I didn’t think you’d let it get this far. When you came up with the idea for this whole thing, I thought it would be a simple job, but you have dragged this thing out way too far.”

“What?” Negan snarled, his eyebrows furrowing when he shook his head. “You’re talking nonsense.”

“Y/N, this was originally just supposed to be Negan stepping in to be the hero,” Simon clarified, his head nodding slowly when he dramatically wiggled his gun out in the air. “There is no money in that safe. Negan wanted to be your hero to make you fall in love with him. He was so jealous that you had the professor that he tried coming up with a scenario of how to make you fall in love with him. I let him do it because he’s my friend and I thought after the first night it would be over. I didn’t think this would drag on for weeks. We were going to set up the shooting, Negan was meant to kill them and then he would be your knight in shining armor. You deserve to know that Negan isn’t the man that you think he is.”

“Bullshit,” Y/N snapped back at Simon making him look offended when he place his hand in over the center of his chest.

“Why do you think I was so fucking pissed that the hillbilly killed him?” Simon pushed further nodding over toward Bill’s body that was still on the ground. “This was just supposed to be something that Negan and I worked up together. After Negan lost Lucille, he just became so obsessed with the idea of you. You were this sweet, pure little thing and he just wanted you so much. And the professor was getting in the way. Negan is not the man that you think he is. In fact, he’s quite honestly the biggest manipulator I know. Hell, I fell for it too. I wanted my best friend to find love and even though it was a bit extreme, I went through with it. I didn’t think he was going to make a whole fucking action movie out of it. It was when Poppy got killed where I knew I had to straighten this shit up.”

“Oh fuck you,” Negan snarled once he realized what Simon was trying to hint at. “I would never do something like this you fucking piece of shit. And you know that.”

“Oh?” Simon held his finger up on his free hand digging into his pocket to pull out his phone. “I thought you might pull something like this. So…”

Keeping Y/N safely behind him, Negan felt his whole body tensing up when Simon brought up something on his phone and the audio clip started to play, “I have to figure out a way to get rid of the boyfriend. All the guy fucking does is upset her. But she’s so goddamn in love with him that I don’t know what I could even do. It would have to be something big. Something that was a grand gesture. I wish I could just throw the guy in the fucking river and be done with it.”

A nervous laugh fell from Negan’s throat when he looked back at Y/N seeing her eyes gazing over him and he shook his head, “That’s taken completely out of context. I don’t even know why he recorded that. It was right after Joel asked you for money the first time and I was talking to Simon about it, I don’t…I don’t even know why he recorded that.”

“Negan, she loves you at this point. You got what you wanted,” Simon shoved his phone back into his pocket pointing over at Joel who had started to pull himself up from the ground. “I can tell by the way she ran in here guns blazing. You have both of these two wanting to protect you and keep you safe. You got between her legs, so let’s finish this shit up.”

“Shut up,” Negan screamed at Simon who simply shrugged his shoulders and lowered his gun about. “You don’t know when to stop lying, do you?”

“Do you?” Simon repeated pointing back and forth between Y/N and Joel. “You just can’t stop this whole thing you started. Joel has been shot for fuck’s sake. Poppy is dead. People are fucking dead. Lots of fucking people. And it was all over some girl? This is fucking ridiculous Negan. I helped you set up this building, I picked the men for you to kill to make sure she knew you were the one that loved her the most. What more could you possibly want? This is what you do to your best friend?”

“Negan?” the color drained from Joel’s face while he stared out at Negan who was shaking his head.

“He’s full of shit,” Negan declared shrugging his shoulders. “Why would I do this?”

“Because love makes you do crazy things. Your wife died and you were never able to get over it. I think it drove you kind of crazy friend. And I should have questioned this before you did all of it,” Simon retorted with a wrinkle of his nose making Negan’s face scrunch up in anger. “I’m sorry, it’s just time to be honest about things. Let’s just do what you wanted from the start with Joel. Let’s just kill the son of a bitch and get a move on because this is really fucking with her dad’s run for governor which is fucking with my job. You’re my friend, but enough is enough.”

“You’re trying to fuck with her mind and it’s not going to work,” Negan shook his head, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat when he felt Y/N’s body moving away from him. Looking back over his shoulder, Negan felt his throat tightening and he let out a tense breath. “You can’t actually believe what he’s saying, do you?”

“Come on Negan. She’s not stupid,” Simon pointed out waving his gun about when he saw her eyes staring Negan over. “How the hell do you think we knew where you were at all times? There was only one constant Y/N. And that’s Negan.”

“The tracker in my necklace,” she blurt out thinking to the tracker that she had destroyed previously from the necklace that her father had given her. “My father gave me a necklace when I was younger that had a tracker in it. That’s how.”

“You think that tracker would work across the fucking country?” Simon scoffed working to make Y/N question that very thing. Negan’s face had gone pale so much that when Y/N looked to him, Simon could tell that Negan was staring to panic. “Honey, Negan has been fucking obsessed with you since Lucille died. It was just supposed to be a show. Hurting people is not something Negan has a problem with doing. You think he just suddenly learned to be a good fighter? The guy was a baseball player and a gym teacher. Yet he can kill people point blank and easy? Were you guys with Negan every time that he called me?”

The look over Joel’s face answered it for Simon and he snapped his fingers showing that he was proving a point, “After the shooting happened at your birthday party, Negan realized that it was pushing you and Joel closer together. We were supposed to stop it, but he couldn’t handle you being with Joel. So he told me to keep things going. Begged me. The country singer was an accident. He had a mind of his own, Poppy wasn’t supposed to happen. That was my mistake not making sure that it was someone who understood better, but this whole thing happened because Negan wanted you for himself.”

“Why are you doing this Simon? You were my friend,” Negan reminded Simon, but it didn’t seem to effect Simon when he simply shrugged his shoulders.

“How do you think I fucking feel Negan? I am your friend, I got you this job. I didn’t expect you to fall in love with Philip Blake’s daughter. You were just supposed to do your fucking job. I just can’t put up with this any longer. It’s gone on for too long and it’s fucking up my life. I’m sick of it and it needs to stop,” Simon interrupted Negan looking to Joel again who was just standing there staring out at Negan. Both Joel and Y/N were staring out at Negan looking for any kind of proof that this wasn’t true. “Listen, I’ll just kill the professor for you so that way he’s no longer competition for you. Then it can just be the two of you. We’ll clean up this whole mess and pin it on Ezekiel like we originally planned. Then our life can go back to normal.”

“No!” Negan called out seeing Simon lifting the gun to point it at Joel. Right when Simon was about to pull the trigger a shot went off making Simon jolt back. Negan had shot him in the shoulder to stop him from shooting Joel. A furious roar escaped Simon’s throat when he turned away from the group. Waving his hand out, Negan nodded toward the door and cleared his throat. “We need to get you help Joel. Come on, we can grab Simon and bring him with us.”

With a tip of his head, Joel cleared his throat and shook his head. Holding out his hand, Joel motioned Y/N to come to him. It made Negan lower his gun, looking back at Y/N who was staring out at him with big eyes. A shuddering breath fell from Negan’s throat when she moved around him to head over to Joel instead.

“Why isn’t anyone showing up Negan?” Joel wondered making Negan’s jaw flex with tension while he gazed back and forth between Y/N and Joel. “If someone was in charge, they would have shown up by now, right? Why aren’t they?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Negan stepped forward trying to reach out to Y/N, but she stepped back away from him. Joel urged her to get behind him and Negan could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest. “After everything I’ve done…this is how you two respond? Yeah, I didn’t like you at first Joel, but you didn’t like me either. But now? After everything, we’re a fucking trio. Remember? We all protect each other. Do you really believe I let myself get shot? That I allowed myself to get my ass beat so bad that I pissed blood for days?”

“I don’t know what to believe Negan. The person behind everything is your best friend,” Joel reasoned with Negan looking to Simon who was hunched over grabbing his arm. “And you are incredibly good at killing people. Simon isn’t wrong. For someone who claimed to never kill a person before, you do it really well.”

“So are you,” Negan reminded Joel with a shake of his head, lowering his gun when he spoke to the two of them. “I can’t believe this. After everything we’ve been through together, you really believe the shit that he is spewing? There are so many plot holes in his story.”

“Is there?” Joel questioned, his eyebrow arching up in curiosity drawing Negan to let out a hurt sound. “How did he know that we were getting closer after the shooting at her birthday?”

“I called him every fucking time we stopped and you know that,” Negan reasoned with Joel stepping forward. It made Joel raise his gun up further stopping Negan from getting any closer. “Why would I hurt Y/N? I wouldn’t. She was the only reason I was still here. I love her. And I…I thought the two of us…”

“Dear God Negan. You’re sinking the ship in both of them? You fell in love with him too?” Simon shot back at Negan making Negan’s hazel eyes narrow and he raised his gun back at Simon again who stood. “I can’t believe you shot me, for him. Of all fucking people.”

“Just put the gun down Negan so we can figure all of this out,” Joel suggested seeing the way that Negan looked to Y/N. “We’ll take Simon and we can figure things out.”

“You really think I had something to do with this?” Negan begged for an answer from her seeing the confusion that flooded into her features. “Y/N, I love you so much. I promise you, I would never do something like this. I’ve done bad things in my life. I have. You know that. But what I feel for you, I love you so fucking much. I would have died for both you and Joel. Why would I do this to protect the two of you?”

“Because you didn’t want them to find out,” Simon screamed at Negan seeing the way that Y/N was staring out at Negan. “You’re making it more obvious Negan. I knew you were fucking obsessed with her, but the begging. And wanting the professor’s approval too?”

“You’re fucking with the people I care about,” Negan snarled holding his gun up in Simon’s direction making Simon roll his eyes. Stepping forward, Y/N reached out to place her hand in over the side of Negan’s face getting him to look at her with his hazel eyes. “Please…”

“I believe you,” she whispered drawing Negan to loosen up before her. “There is only one person in this world that I’ve counted on my whole life to keep me safe and it’s you.”

“You mean that?” Negan inquired with a small quiver of his bottom lip and she nodded her head, tipping up on her toes to brush a kiss over Negan’s lips. It made him exhale loudly while she stroked over the side of his face. “I promise…”

“I know,” she reached for Negan, leading Negan closer to them. “Simon is trying to fuck with us Joel, but Negan’s not lying. I have never in my life felt safer with someone than I do when I’m with Negan. He just wants to keep us safe.”

“You are such a stupid little girl,” Simon called out from where he was drawing their attention to him from where he was holding his gun. Joel was moving toward them and Simon raised his gun. “This shit would have been so much easier with the professor fucking gone to begin with. If he wasn’t there on your birthday…”

Tossing the gun up, Simon didn’t wait this time. Joel tensed up hearing the gun go off and he gasped when Negan threw himself in front of Joel after shoving Y/N aside. The sound of the gunshot echoed throughout the warehouse when Negan fell forward against Joel. Clinging tightly to Negan, Joel felt his heart racing realizing what happened.

“Ah shit,” Simon snarled when Negan fell to his knees and he realized that Negan had taken the bullet instead of Joel. “You weren’t supposed to do that. You were the only one I wanted to keep alive you idiot. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hey,” Joel clung to Negan, his hand pressing in over Negan’s back feeling the blood that was against his fingertips. Dropping to the ground with Negan’s body, Joel let out a tremoring breath when he realized how much Negan was bleeding. “Negan?”

“Negan,” Y/N called out sliding down in beside them seeing Negan reaching out to her and she grabbed a hold of his hand.

“I made the choice for you,” Negan whimpered causing her chest to ache realizing that Negan was referring to the conversation that they had the day before. “I didn’t do this. I just want to keep you both safe. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Hey, no,” she shook her head motioning to the door. “We need to get him out of here.”

“Come on,” Joel tried to pull Negan up making Negan cry out in pain and he fell back onto the ground. Crawling in beside Negan she pulled him into her arms and she tried to pull him up to the best of her ability. “We have to get you help.”

“I can’t move,” Negan shook his head with broken breaths, his hand lifting to see the blood that was covering his fingertips. There was fear in Negan’s eyes while she pulled him in closer to her chest. Burying his head against the center of her chest Negan winced and she kissed at his forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize,” she shook her head feeling tears swelling at her eyes while Joel sat on his knees beside Negan. “We need to get help. Now. Call someone.”

“No one is calling anyone,” Simon asserted stepping forward raising his gun up seeing that Y/N was pulling Negan in closer to her body to hold him close. In her arms, Negan’s body went limp and Simon sighed loudly. “He wasn’t lying,” Simon informed them with a huff staring down at Negan in her arms. “As much as I love this fucking guy, we needed someone to fall back on and he was the perfect scapegoat. The bodyguard that became obsessed with the woman that he was watching over? It fit him perfectly. He already had pictures up of you at his apartment. I hate that he has to die, but now I guess it makes it easier to sell the story. Not that it’s going to be hard anyways. I mean look at how fast the two of you believed the story I was selling. He gave his all for the both of you and look at what you did to him. You turned your backs on him as soon as you could.”

Lifting his gun up, Simon pointed back and forth between the two of them before finally settling in on Y/N, “I wish you would have just died that first night. It would have made things so much easier. Instead you made this shit so damn hard for me. All of you were such a pain in the ass. Goodbye Y/N. You and Negan can die together.”

Closing her eyes tightly, she heard the sound of a gun going off and let out a shuddering breath when she realized that she wasn’t struck. Opening her eyes, she looked to see that Simon was looking down toward the center of his abdomen where he was bleeding. Looking beside her she saw that Joel had a gun that he had in his hand that he had obviously hidden previously. Dropping his gun, Simon fell backwards and his blood started to pool on the floor.

Motioning Y/N to move, Joel looked over Negan seeing that he was still breathing, but barely, “We need to get him out of here,” Joel announced picking up Negan from the ground in his arms with a roar. Carrying him toward the door, Y/N quickly followed after him only for the lights to go out leaving a small light from only the exit sign flooding the room. A few gunshots went off and Joel cry out followed when the lights came back on Y/N could see that he was on the floor with Negan and Joel got shot in the shoulder on the same side he had got shot in the arm. Scrambling to help them, she didn’t know what to do at this point. “Get out of here!”

Movement was seen in the back of the room and Joel shot off a few shots with his good arm making a body drop to the ground when it was obviously one of Simon’s men that they had missed previously when they entered the building.

“You fuckers,” a slurring sound was heard when Simon started to pull himself up showing the blood that was dripping from his lips. “If I’m going to die, I’m going to die knowing that you both are fucking gone.”

A gunshot went off and Simon fell to the ground in a thud and this time the gunshot was to the head so there was no getting up anymore for Simon. Lifting her eyes, Y/N saw that it was her dad standing behind Simon holding the gun that Negan had dropped.

“Dad?” Y/N muttered seeing the way that her father’s head slowly rose to meet her stare. Getting up from the ground, Y/N scrambled over to her father to wrap her arms tightly around him to hug him. “What are you doing here?”

“I had some men watching Simon because he’s been acting suspicious,” Philip explained hearing Joel wincing out as he pulled himself into a standing position trying to reach for Negan. “They found a paper that Simon wrote information on and I came as fast as I could.”

“I need help,” Joel called out with a desperate sound trying to pick up Negan with all of his might.

“Let’s get all of you guys to the hospital,” Philip suggested moving forward after putting the gun into the back of his pants. Leaning down to try to help Joel pick Negan up, Y/N headed over toward Simon’s body to pick up the gun that was there. “Come on honey, we need to get Negan help.”

Going to move forward, Y/N stopped when she spotted the safe that was still exposed in the wall. Swallowing down hard, she looked to Simon thinking about how he seemed to be waiting for someone the whole time. Stepping toward the safe, she shakily reached her hand out to the dial doing the combination that she had known for so long. Letting curiosity get the best of her, she knew that it should have been the last thing that she did, but she couldn’t help it.

“Come on!” Joel called out looking back over his shoulder seeing her standing at the safe. “What are you doing?”

Putting in the last number, the sound of the safe opening was heard making Joel and Philip both turn to face her while they were holding a limp Negan up by wrapping his arms around their shoulders. Negan was soaked in blood at this point and he should have been her number one priority, but when the safe pulled open she felt her heart sink. A shuddering exhale fell from her throat seeing the stacks of money that were inside of the safe. Involuntarily her body began to tremble and it was followed by a nervous sound from Philip.

“How did you get that open?” Philip inquired with tension in his tone. “It must have been left open.”

“It was your combination dad,” she informed her father swallowing down hard when she turned on her heel to stare out at her father. Uncomfortably Philip laughed. “It was the day you made your first million. I know because I stole mom’s necklace from your safe years ago. I’ve always known your combination. That means this safe is yours. This building is yours. Simon was working for you and waiting for you. You’re the person that put the hit out on me. Your own daughter.”

“Come on,” Philip grumbled staring out at Y/N with a look of disgust plastered over his features. “I’m a lot of things, but you think I would kill my own daughter? It had to be Simon that did it. He knew everything. He had all of my resources!”

“No, he didn’t know the combination. He was waiting on you to show up the whole time,” she snapped at her father making Joel’s gaze switch to Philip who was shifting uncomfortably at the other side of Negan. “Simon had no idea. Not once did he trash your name. It was you that he was working for.”

“Hell,” Philip scoffed pulling out his gun making Y/N gasp out when Philip shot Joel in the leg. Immediately Joel dropped to the ground with Negan falling in over him. Sounds of agony filled the air when Philip marched forward and Y/N attempted to lift the gun, but Philip swung the gun out hitting her in the face with an incredible amount of power knocking her to the ground. “Simon wasn’t wrong. You are an incredibly stupid little girl. How you have my blood running through your veins and you are like this is beyond me.”

Crying out, she pulled her hands away from her face to see that her nose was bleeding and there was an incredible amount of heat flooding her face. Slamming the door shut on the safe, Philip growled out and tossed his hands up in the air.

“You had to let your curiosity ruin everything. If you would have just kept your fucking mouth shut, we could be on our way to the hospital and both men in your life would be okay,” Philip alerted her waving the gun about in the air. “Instead you have to do what you do best and fuck shit up. It’s what you were always good at.”

“Why?” she pulled herself up into a seated position bracing her back against the containers that were behind her.

“Why not?” Philip responded, kneeling down before his daughter making her look up at him with big eyes. “You are a fuck up Y/N. I’m running for governor and honestly? I’ve never really liked you all that much. It wasn’t that hard of a thing to come up with. A tragedy often sways the public vote toward someone who lost everything. If you died, it was guaranteed that I would win hands down. Especially now that the news channel is suggesting that Ezekiel had something to do with that. But see, the media is easily corruptible. You hand them some money and they are eager to do whatever you tell them. Money fucking talks sweetheart. It’s what keeps me going. I need to win. You know that I’m projected to go all the way to the white house if I get elected as governor. I have this happen, Ezekiel loses by large amounts and I don’t have to worry about the wrong media focusing on the fact that I’m not a family man because I kicked my troublesome daughter out of my life.”

“All so you can win governor?” she blurt out feeling the world spinning around her while her father stared out at her with his intense blue eyes. “I lost my best friend because of this.”

“Poppy was never supposed to die. You were. Then Joel, Poppy and Negan had to get in the fucking way,” Philip snarled down at her, throwing his finger up toward Joel and Negan. “If you would have just died that night at the party, Poppy would still be alive. Negan and Joel wouldn’t be bleeding out.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” she whimpered seeing Phillip think about it before nodding.

“I am, you’re not wrong about that,” Philip shrugged letting out a tense sound as he stayed knelt before her. “Listen, we have two options here. Either I take Simon’s gun and I shoot you with it myself before killing both Joel and Negan or you take option two. And option two is very nice if you ask me. Option two is we pin everything on Simon. I allow you to keep one of the men in your life and the three of us walk away from this being able to live another day.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped at her father making him sigh out when he stood up from where he was to head over toward Negan and Joel. “Leave them alone.”

“You’re going to have to make a choice kiddo. Negan is still breathing. I see it. But barely,” Philip informed her swirling his finger over Negan. Blood was surrounding the floor around both Joel and Negan. At this point she wasn’t sure what belonged to who. “If we forget this whole thing happened, I’ll let you pick one to keep alive. If you want to pick Negan, I would suggest you do it fast though because he looks like he is bleeding out. Joel is slowly working his way there.”

“You want to just forget this whole thing happened?” she hissed out, pulling herself up into a standing position. Philip simply nodded, his eyes staring out at her when she cleared her throat.

“I’ll give you and whoever you pick all the money your heart desires. Just to disappear. You stick around long enough for the media and when it’s over you can leave. It will make sense because the media will play it like you had to get away from the catastrophic event that almost killed you and killed two of your friends,” Philip went off pointing the gun between Negan and Joel. “So pick!”

“Money doesn’t fix everything,” she stammered lifting her hand to reveal that she had Simon’s gun. Philip laughed when he saw it. “Money won’t make me a monster like you.”

“You’re going to shoot me?” Philip stepped forward, his eyes narrowing at his daughter when he stepped before her. When she didn’t pull the trigger, Philip wrapped his finger around the back of her neck and forced her forward. “Money can make anyone do anything. I fucking promise you. Watch…”

Snapping his fingers, Philip managed to get Joel to stare out at him from where he had propped himself against the wall. There was anger in his eyes while Philip pushed Y/N before Joel, “Joel Miller, if you shoot my daughter, I will give you two million dollars. I’ll fund your business, make sure your daughter and your brother get the best of the best. We will pin everything on Simon and Negan. Use the same story that Simon told you earlier.”

A shuddering exhale fell from Joel’s throat and Y/N felt her stomach sinking, “Joel?”

“See here is the thing honey. Money is more important than you. Money has always been the most important thing in the world. Money is what made this son of a bitch fuck with you in the first place,” Philip squeezed his fingers at the base of her throat making her whimper while Joel stared up at them with his intense brown eyes. “In fact, let me explain to you how important money is. When your mother left, it took her a year to settle her shit. To get help with the alcoholism, to get her own home…and then she came back for you. I offered her money to leave and never look back. And she took it. Your own mother picked a life of luxury and money instead of choosing you. I don’t care if you think Joel loves you, no one is going to turn down the kind of life that I can promise them. Well, no one other than you. And maybe Negan, but he’s not really in a position to be making decisions now, is he?”

Wincing out, she felt her father’s fingers digging tightly into her flesh, “So what do you say Mr. Miller? Do the kill shot and I’ll give you everything you ever dreamt of.”

Joel’s eyebrows twisted with tension, he was sweating and the color drained from his face. After a moment, he nodded his head making Y/N let out a whimpering breath, “Joel?”

“A man with common sense,” Philip motioned Joel to stand watching as Joel shakily pulled himself up and braced his weight on his good leg. Handing over the gun to Joel, Y/N cried out when Philip pushed her before Joel. “Come on Joel, one right between the eyes and your life gets incredibly better. You can start over new with your family.”

“Joel, please…” she begged seeing Joel lining up the gun, his dark eyes narrowing while the gun shook in his hands. “Joel…”

“You’re going to learn a lesson before you die sweetheart and that’s money is more important than you will ever…” Philip began letting out a wail when Joel swiftly turned the gun shooting Philip in the shoulder making him fall back onto the ground in a thud. Sliding back on the ground, Philip scrambled for the gun that he had gotten Y/N to drop pointing it out at Joel who stepped in front of Y/N to keep her safe. “I just offered you everything. What is wrong with you? I offered you your life back. And then some.”

“Some things are more important than money,” Joel declared with a shake of his head looking back at Y/N with a firm nod.

“I will destroy you. No one is going to believe what happened here today. They are going to…” Philip paused when he heard his voice echoing and he looked over his shoulder to see that Bill was standing behind him holding his cell phone out to show that his speech was being streamed onto one of the most popular news channels.

“I think it’s time to stop Mr. Blake,” Bill explained, tearing at the shirt that he was wearing to reveal that he was wearing a bulletproof vest. The bullet that Simon had shot him with had hit him so firmly that it had knocked him unconscious from the pain that it caused. “We weren’t the only ones here today. There was one more. And when you started talking about why you did everything, he started streaming out your confession to all the major news channels. Everyone knows what you’ve done now. Everyone. See, I came in here earlier today and disguised myself as an electrician. Said the powerlines went down and I made sure that I linked all of the cameras in here to my own personal computers. So you’re wrong. Everyone is going to believe what happened here today because they heard it from your own mouth.”

“You son of a bitch,” Philip raised his gun at Bill in attempts to shoot him, but Joel shot off once more hitting Philip in the hand making him drop the gun to the ground with a pained wail. Dropping out onto his back, Philip smiled and shook his head slowly. “You must feel big Joel Miller. Bringing down the man that ruined your life. Might as well take your final shot.”

“And make life easy for you by killing you?” Joel snarled, his dark eyes narrowing when he let out a tense exhale. Tossing the gun aside, Joel shook his head and glared down at the man who had done nothing but made his life hell. “I want you to be around to experience everything that is going to happen to you Philip. You’re not escaping this one…”

Sirens filled the air when the lights from the police cars pulling into the lot of the warehouse were heard making the color drain completely from Philip’s features. Shaking his head, Joel turned on his heel and reached down to grab a tight hold of Negan. Pulling him up in his arms, it took everything inside of him to get Negan up as he headed for the door limping.

Giving her father one final glance, she felt the police moving in around her and when they forced her father face forward against the ground, she shook her head and followed Joel out. Chasing to catch up with him, she knew that she wanted to be with Negan.

“He’s lost a lot of blood, please help him,” Joel explained with a weak exhale when he finally got Negan to the ambulance that was there. They grabbed a hold of Negan and put him onto a stretcher. Once they had Negan, Joel dropped down himself and felt himself being caught by Y/N who lowered down to the ground with him. Lifting his eyes, Joel stared out at Y/N letting out a tense sound. “You’re free from him now. You’re safe.”

There were tears in her eyes when she nodded and he reached out to stroke his fingers in over the side of her face, “If something happens to me, please take care of Sarah.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” she hushed him looking to see that his leg was bleeding badly as well. The paramedic reached for Joel pulling him from her arms making her let out a shuddering breath when she looked down at her hands to see they were covered in blood. It was undoubtedly mixed from both Joel and Negan.

“We need to get them to the hospital,” they informed her and she stood up to her feet approaching the ambulance.

“I need to go with them,” she asserted and they allowed her to get into the passenger seat. Once inside the ambulance, all she could focus on was the sounds of the paramedics in the back trying to help both Negan and Joel. By the sounds of what they were saying it didn’t sound good for either one of them. Nothing else mattered to her after tonight. Not her father. Not her father’s money. All that she prayed for was that both Joel and Negan would be okay. They just had to be. Or else this would have been for nothing.

#Negan #Joel Miller #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #Pedro Pascal #The Last of Us #The Walking Dead #negan x reader #joel miller x reader #negan fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #twd fanfiction

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farnsworthed · 3 months

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Welcome to Warehouse 13.

Or as I like to call it, America's Attic.

farnsworthed - canon and oc warehouse 13 multimuse. ask and roleplay blog. not spoiler free. crossover friendly. 18+. nerdiness will ensue.

#scifi rp #star trek rp #syfy rp #warehouse 13 #warehouse 13 rp #indiana jones rp #indie rp #rp promo

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nytehavyn-circle · 2 months

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I am in need of these muses to play against/ship with:

Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch A Gwen Cooper (for my Jack Harkness muse). Catwoman (comics/game/movies version, idc) Gwen Stacy Mary Jane Lois Lane Lana Lang Harley Quinn She-Hulk Lady Sif Batwoman Black Canary Emma Frost Kaylee (Kaywinnit Lee Frye) Maleficent (Angelina Jolie's version) Cat Grant Faith Lehane Martha Jones Lena Luthor Adult Hemione Granger

Since Tolaas has a problem with cops and thinks most of them are crooked, I need a cop love interest for Tolaas, someone who can convince him that they're not all bad. (He knows of a couple of cop informants/friends that Terramn has in his network, that's about it.)

Need a Morgana, too. (From Merlin) Warehouse 13 H.G. Wells Need a Supergirl Myka Bering A Narcissa Malfoy, as an enemies-to-lovers or forbidden lovers or whatever-type of thing...

A Dean Winchester to play Tolaas against, because Tolaas doesn't like/trust Dean, and thinks he goes off half-cocked in his Hunting. So this could be enemies or acquaintances to actual friends.

Some of my muses could use friends, too - like Tolaas needs more male friends because all of his friends are played by me and I don’t wanna have friend threads with just me. All of my muses' friends are played by me. Need more that aren't.

For anyone I currently RP with, that are RPing any of the above with me, you're awesome.

I need some love interests for my girls (male or female). Need more OCs to play with!

Give me some gods, demigods, deities to play with!

Definitely need more redheads. >_> lol

This list will be updated as needed. Nothing above is 100% important or set in stone, but it is a bit important because I wanna get some more shipping going, and get more of my creative juices flowing.

#ooc #wanted opposites #wanted plots #wanted muses #wanted

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the12thnightproject · 3 months

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Chapter 13: Lovers and Madmen - There are an awful lot of people wandering the corridors at night, none of whom Okatsu wants to encounter... all of whom she encounters.

Mitsunari x OC; Nobunaga x Mai

Previous Chapter

Logline - In order to protect a political alliance, Katusko and Mitsunari must pretend an engagement. But this “all business” arrangement is threatened by a coup against Nobunaga… and by feelings.

Chapter CW: Gaslighting

From the Military Notes of Ishida Mitsunari…

Indirect approach – Dislocation is the aim of strategy. Direct attacks almost never work, one must first upset the enemy's equilibrium, fix weakness and attack strength, Eight rules of strategy: 1) adjust your ends to your means, 2) keep your object always in mind, 3) choose the line of the least expectation, 4) exploit the line of least resistance, 5) take the line of operations which offers the most alternatives, 6) ensure both plans and dispositions are flexible, 7) do not throw your weight into an opponent while he is on guard, 8) do not renew an attack along the same lines if an attack has failed.

Personal comment: On occasion, Ieyasu has used the word ‘gullible’ in my presence. It is true that I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt when their motivations are mixed. However, it does not necessary follow that I believe there is a potion that will cause two people to fall in love with each other, for if such a thing existed, more people would employ it.

How much simpler it would be to bespell an emotion into existence.

Or, out of existence.

Five years ago, this man had tried to kill me. Now? He was smiling, unconcerned, apparently happy to see me. Had I entered an upside-down world?

“Kaya! You’re alive! Thank the Gods!” Iekane moved to hug me, but I held out the tea tray in front of my body as a shield. Iekane looked at the tray. “Are you a maid here?”

Dressed as I was in my nightrobe under Mitsunari’s haori, I probably did look like a servant. Iekane took the tea tray and set it on a table.

As soon as my hands were free, I grabbed my knife and held in front of me. Inside my body, that cold fear had settled in my stomach, clamped around my lungs, but I refused to shiver in his presence. I might feel powerless, but I would never let him see that.

Iekane cocked his head sideways and frowned at the knife. He raised his hands, palms up, as if he were placating a small child. “Kaya, what’s all this? Don’t you remember me?” He smiled. Oh yes, I remembered that smile.

“I remember that you tried to kill me.” I willed the hand that held the dagger to stay steady. If he made one move closer, I swear I would gut him.

Luckily for him, unfortunately for me, Iekane was smart enough to stay out of my reach. “Kill you? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kaya.” He caught my glare. “Katsuko.”

I’d alert him to my new name later. If I let him live.

Wait.

Could I kill him?

Iekane was clearly an honored guest – his room was much nicer than the one Mitsunari had been given. Somehow, he had managed to convince Mozumi that he a person of some importance. The question was not whether I could kill him (I could. Probably.), but could I get away with killing him? My assumed Oda name wouldn’t save me. Mitsunari and Mai might possibly speak up for me, but Hideyoshi wouldn’t. Mitsuhide would likely develop selective amnesia. Nobunaga would dismiss my existence as unimportant.

No, I couldn’t kill Iekane – not here anyway.

“Kill you?” He repeated it one more time into the space of our awkward silence. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

“Five years ago. Warehouse.” In the face of his smiling amusement, I felt my words leaving me without editing. “You locked me in a crate and left me to die!”

Iekane’s smile faded to a look of shock. “No! No. There was no lock on that crate. You ought to have been about to get out of it without any problem. Remember, we tested it. You must have pulled it the wrong way and panicked. You always were prone to jumping to insane conclusions.” Iekane sank to his knees. “I had no idea that you thought you were locked in.”

“If that was the case, why didn’t you look for me when I didn’t signal you?” I shouldn’t believe a word out of his mouth, but his utter sincerity was making me reassess everything I had ever thought I had known about that day.

Had I simply assumed the crate was locked? Had I freaked out over nothing?

“I couldn’t. Soon after I left the warehouse, I was attacked and left for dead.” Iekane rubbed the back of his head as if remembering an injury. “When I finally regained my senses, it was weeks later. I didn’t even know where to begin to figure out where you were.”

He’d been in a coma? No. Not buying it. But others… they might. “Why didn’t you return to Aki and tell him what happened?”

He sighed and hung his head. “I was afraid he’d blame me. You and Aki were always so close – I didn’t want him to take his anger out on me.”

Plausible. Also, cowardly. But maybe more plausible because he was admitting to cowardice? I was not ready to believe him, but I needed to know what story he would be selling to others. “How did you get from near death to… who are you?”

Iekane got to his feet, then bowed deeply. “Sakai Iekane. Lord Iekane. Daimyo of Tsuruga district.”

Daimyo of Tsuruga?

Iekane was Shohime’s fiancé?

Oh God. Shohime couldn’t marry him… he’d destroy her.

If only I had asked her what her fiance’s name was! Maybe I would have written that off as a coincidence, but with Hikosane’s ‘he smiles too much,’ and Shohime’s description of ‘good looking, nice, and old.’ Yeah. I’d have put all that together and been more prepared for our inevitable meeting. “That’s a big rise. From robbery victim to Daimyo and an engagement to Mozumi’s daughter.”

“It was a stroke of luck, in fact.” Now that he was back on his feet, Iekane acted as if the matter of trying-to-kill-me had been settled. With a smile he poured a cup of tea and sipped at it delicately. “I was rescued by Sakai Tadanao. Eventually, we became … close and he adopted me. Unfortunately, he developed a sudden fatal illness last winter, and I now here I am, the new daimyo.” He gestured to his richly embroidered kimono, and I recalled how Iekane used to complain over the plainness of the uniform like outfits we had worn as Aki’s messengers.

He then sent a rather sneering look at my own clothing. “As for you, why are a maid here… or… are you here to spy for Aki?”

He shook his head sadly. “If you’re here as a spy, then you must know, I will have to turn you over to Mozumi… or perhaps even Nobunaga. I wouldn’t like to treat an old friend so… but I couldn’t possibly cover up a potential traitor.”

He leaped for something by his futon – a musket – but I got there first and kicked it out of the way. “I’m here as part of Nobunaga’s entourage, and he’s aware of my history with Aki. In any case, the visit is to enable me to spend more time with my fiancé, Ishida Mitsunari.”

He was quiet a long time, but he looked me over so intensely that I felt like he was splitting my skull open and poking around inside. Finally, he seemed to relax. “Interesting. You too have risen from your humble beginnings. And you can assure me that you no longer work for Aki in any capacity?”

“Aki objected to losing a competent messenger to marriage, however we parted on friendly terms.” It was almost frightening to me how easy the lies came to my lips. Iekane wouldn’t be familiar with this version of ‘Kaya.’ I had not been a liar when we had known each other before. But a murder attempt will bring about all sorts of new facets of a personality.

“Then I must congratulate you on your betrothal. I am relieved that you found someone willing to overlook… the… er, insanity in your family line. He is aware of that, is he not?” He picked up his teacup. “I am tempted to sit here with you and reminisce about old times. Remember whe we used to sit together at Aki’s and talk about our lives? Our pasts? It’s such a pleasure to converse with someone who knows everything about you, is it not?”

After Iekane had (possibly) tried to kill me, I spent months thinking back on our friendship – zaprudering every conversation we’d had. I’d regretted telling him about my parents (thankfully, I had kept that time travel part out of it) because our friendship had been a lie. A betrayal. Now… a new regret. It’s such a pleasure to converse with someone who knows everything about you…

He knew everything. Every weakness. Every shame.

Iekane sadly shook his head and sighed. “However, it is rather late, and you ought not be in my rooms at this time. I am sure I will be able to catch up with you later.” He slid open the door, peeked out, then gestured for me to exit.

“I need to return to my fiancé in any case. Lovely to see you again.” Although I strolled out as if I had not a worry in the world, I could not reach the door fast enough for my peace of mind. I forced myself to wait until I heard the door slide shut behind me before I picked up my pace.

Could I believe him?

Should I?

And if not, then what could I do about it? The cooly placed comment about insanity in my family – well, it wasn’t true, although I imagined he could drop enough hints, with sorrowful downcast eyes to be believed anyway. He had just informed me that he had all the power in this situation. And therefore, for my own safety and the success of Mitsuhide’s current scheme, I had to at least pretend to believe that Iekane had not tried to kill me.

Until I could prove otherwise.

And damn it, he had taken my tea!

“Lady Okatsu.” That frigid tone stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see Lady Yone strolling toward me. “It’s rather late to be wandering through the corridors.”

Crap. Had she seen me leaving Iekane’s room? Was she surprised that I was wandering around, or surprised that I was still alive? Had she told Shohime about the flowers hoping that Shohime would serve it to us? Or had it simply been a joke that Shohime misunderstood?

Either way, now was not the time to question her. I just wanted to get back to my room, and wrap myself into three blankets. I wanted to stop shivering. “I got up to get a drink of water.”

“You got the water yourself? That’s rather… provincial of you. I always ask a maid or a page to get that for me.” Nothing in her voice suggested any surprise that I was still living.

“Naturally, when we are at Azuchi, that is what I do. However, Lord Nobunaga employs dozens of servants – I only have to blink and they come running. But since we are from home, I didn’t want to cause extra work for your staff. The few that I see seem terribly busy already.” There take that, Lady. I added a few innocent blinks and pretended that I had not just insulted her household and implied that they couldn’t afford to hire enough help. With another smile, I bowed to her, and took myself off. After running into Iekane, I didn’t the energy for protracted battle of polite insults with Lady Yone, or-

“Okatsu is there a reason you’re wandering around at night, dressed like that?”

-another late-night chat with Hideyoshi. Does he ever sleep?

I froze. Turned. Offered him a bow as well. “Just getting a drink of water. I’m going back to my room right now. Have a good night, Lord Hideyoshi.” I whirled and started to hurry away.

“Don’t run.” There was, as usual, impatience in his tone, and I turned around to look at him, his eyebrows were already in that deep V in the center of his forehead.

Although I shouldn’t have done it, the events of this evening had already put my mood on edge. “Lord Hideyoshi, when I went to the kitchens, there was an odd man talking with the maids. Perhaps you ought to go check things out.”

If it were at all possible, the frown deepened. “Thank you. I will do that.” He strode away, haori flapping in the breeze. Good. Let him and Mitsuhide annoy each other for the rest of the night. Someone ought to give a so-called love potion to them. It would make everyone’s lives easier.

Meanwhile, poison disaster averted. Love potion was… probably … just water. Iekane… he was still a problem… but I would do my best to stay far enough away from him… except… now that I knew who Shohime was engaged to, I felt a lot more inclined to help her.

Deep breaths. I was going back to the room now, where the sweet and uncomplicated presence of Mitsunari waited for me. I almost wanted to hug him. Not from any love potion. Just. Relief.

Everything will be fine.

That mantra lasted until I returned to the room and discovered that Mitsunari, who was deeply engrossed in a book, had accidentally, or perhaps absently drunk the rest of the tea, which may or may not have contained a love potion, and that… I really didn’t remember leaving that close to him.

“Mitsunari!” He jumped. I had yelled more than loud enough to attract his attention. He looked at me and smiled, that beautiful smile that I was not at all going to be distracted by right now. “Did you drink that tea?”

He glanced at the cup. “I suppose I did?” It was half a statement, half a question. He looked back at me and tilted his head slightly. “Okatsu, that haori looks very nice on you. Is it new?”

“It’s yours.” I might… possibly have been gritting my teeth.

“I like you in my clothing.” He smiled again. “I like you not in my clothing too.”

Did he really just…? Dammit maybe that truly was a love potion.

“Um, thank you.” Once again, I wished I had the tea pot with me, to both replace the cursed tea, and to give me something to do with my hands. Instead, I reached for my abandoned comb, intent on putting it away.

Mitsunari reached for it at the same time, and our fingers touched, his overlapping mine. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t pull my hand back. Mitsunari moved one figure across mine, a light, fleeting touch that skittered all the way up my arm faster than that skittering spider had the other day.

“I like your hands too, Okatsu.” He closed my fingers over the comb, his eyes never leaving mine. “Strong and pretty. Like you.”

“Stop! Please. Look, if that really was a love potion, I’m sure it will wear off by morning, and then you’ll feel really embarrassed about everything you just said or might say.” And even if it didn’t, I couldn’t let myself get too used to the pretty words or the look in his eyes. I had been distracted by pretty words in the past; it had nearly gotten me killed.

And… I was going back to Aki by the end of the summer.

I carefully folded up his haori, put it away, then got into bed. I turned my face to the wall.

“What if it wasn’t the potion?” His words floated over to me and covered me like a blanket. “I can simply like you for yourself. Can you accept that?”

“It’s the power of suggestion. The fact that you thought it was a love potion put that idea in your head. They call it the placebo effect. It isn’t real. I’m not real. Remember, I’m not an Oda Princess. These are not my clothes. Everything you think you like about me is just a costume.”

Okatsu isn’t even my name.

And Iekane can blow my entire life out of the water with one single phrase. Her mother was insane.

I put my arm over my eyes to blot out the lantern light and drew up the covers. I was still cold. Maybe I would never feel warm again. Was it this castle? Or just me?

@bestbryn @lorei-writes @lyds323 @katriniac @briars7

#TBTMND #a mitsunari night's dream #throwback thursday #ikemen sengoku #fanfic #ikesen mitsunari #mitsunari ishida #oc: katsuko #katsuverse #cw gaslighting #tw gaslighting

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ultimatemilvesbracket · 1 year

Text

THE MILVENING HAS BEGUN

That's 114 contenders! Amazing job everyone!

we got 323 submissions and labored over every single one until approximately 2am, which is why this bracket looks so fucking incomprehensible. (shoutout to tumblr user asparagoos for creating The Milves Rubric and user pastramis, who plays fantasy football and knows brackets.)

anyway, full match-ups are below the cut. starting tonight (3/30) we'll start with uhh the upper left-hand chunk today, then make our merry way down the list three times a day until the first elimination round ends. the top scoring milves will not appear until the second elimination round, aka when this bracket is legible.

milf lovers grab your therapist's number!

ROUND 2 / BRACKET 1

Regina Mills (Once Upon a Time) vs. Marge Simpson (The Simpsons)

Queen Clarisse Renaldi of Genovia (The Princess Diaries 1 & 2) vs. Olivia Crain (The Haunting of Hill House)

Barbara Howard (Abbott Elementary) vs. Ambessa Medarda (Arcane)

Helena "HG" Wells (Warehouse 13) vs. Taissa Turner (Yellowjackets)

ROUND 2 / BRACKET 2

Catelyn Tully Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) vs. The Black Fairy (Once Upon a Time)

Penelope (Greek Mythology, The Odyssey) vs. Siobhan Sadler (Orphan Black)

Xenomorph Queen (Alien Cinematic Universe) vs. Goldie O'Gilt)

Bella Goth (The Sims) vs. Jean Milburn (Sex Education)

ROUND 2 / BRACKET 3

Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) vs. Valka (How to Train Your Dragon 2)

Queen Calanthe (The Witcher Netflix) vs. Nancy Botwin (Weeds)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 1

Marge Simpson (The Simpsons) vs. Ella Montgomery (Pretty Little Liars) WINNER MARGE

Queen Clarisse Renaldi (The Princess Diaries) vs. Peggy Bundy (Married With Children) WINNER CLARISSE

Sarah Jane Smith (Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures) vs. Olivia Crain (The Haunting of Hill House) WINNER OLIVIA CRAIN

Barbara Howard (Abbott Elementary) vs. Stacy's Mom (Fountains of Wayne) WINNER BARBARA

Ambessa Medarda (Arcane) vs. Jacqueline Carlisle (The Bold Type) WINNER AMBESSA MEDARDA

Helena "HG" Wells (Warehouse 13) vs. Flemeth (Dragon Age) WINNER HG

Taissa Turner (Yellowjackets) vs. Janet Van Dyne (Antman and the Wasp) WINNER TAISSA

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 2

Patty Hewes (Damages) vs. The Black Fairy (Once Upon a Time) WINNER THE BLACK FAIRY

Milah (Once Upon a Time) vs. Penelope (The Odyssey) WINNER PENELOPE

Siobhan Sadler (Orphan Black) vs. Norma Bates (Bates Motel) WINNER SIOBHAN

Gerri Kellman (Succession) vs. Xenomorph Mom (Alien Franchise) WINNER XENOMILF

Alex Blake (Criminal Minds) vs. Goldie O'Gilt (Ducktales 2017) WINNER GOLDIE

Bernie Wolfe (Holby City) vs. Bella Goth (The Sims) WINNER BELLA

Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) vs. Jean Milburn (Sex Education) WINNER JEAN

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 3

Valka (How to Train Your Dragon 3) vs. Ana Servín (Madre Solo hay Dos) WINNER VALKA

Matriarch Benezia (Mass Effect) vs. Queen Calanthe (The Witcher Netflix) WINNER CALANTHE

Julie Cooper (The OC) vs. Nancy Botwin (Weeds) WINNER NANCY

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 4

Ana Amari (Overwatch) vs. Aunt May (Spider-Man MCU) WINNER AUNT MAY

Joyce Byers (Stranger Things) vs. Queen Ramonda (Black Panther) WINNER JOYCE

Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager) vs. Nalini Vishwakumar (Never Have I Ever) WINNER JANEWAY

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 5

Carol Newman (The Santa Clauses) vs. Bette Porter (The L Word) WINNER BETTE

Addison Montgomery (Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice) vs. Sabine Cheng (Miraculous Ladybug) WINNER ADDISON

Laura Roslin (Battlestar Galactica) vs. Mrs. Brown (Paddington 1 and 2) WINNER LAURA ROSLIN

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 6

Yennefer of Vengerberg (The Witcher 3) vs. Carminha (Avenida Brasil) WINNER YENNEFER

Camila Noceda (The Owl House) vs. Sarah Alder (Motherland: Fort Salem) WINNER CAMILA

Wynne (Dragon Age) vs. Melissa McCall (Teen Wolf) WINNER MELISSA

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 7

Mon Mothma (Star Wars) vs. Carol Peletier (The Walking Dead)

Helen Parr (The Incredibles) vs. Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Picard)

Abigail Pent (The Locked Tomb) vs. Medea (Greek Mythology/Euripedes)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 8

Queen Elinor (Disney's Brave) vs. Caroline McKenzie-Dawson (Last Tango in Halifax)

Evelyn Wang (Everything Everywhere All At Once) vs. Takhisis (Dragonlance)

Annalise Keating (How To Get Away With Murder) vs. Maureen Robinson (Lost in Space)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 9

Gemma Teller (Sons of Anarchy) vs. Celeste Wright (Big Little Lies)

The Fairy Godmother (Shrek 2) vs. The Smart House (Disney's Smart House)

Marcia Roy (Succession) vs. Martha Rodgers (Castle)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 10

Pyrrha Dve (The Locked Tomb) vs. Danielle Rousseau (Lost)

Olivia Benson (Law and Order: SVU) vs. Linda Flynn-Fletcher (Phineas and Ferb)

Morticia Addams (The Addams Family) vs. Maeve Millay (Westworld)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 11

Melanie Cavill (Snowpiercer) vs. DCI Amy Silva (Vigil)

Beverly Crusher (Star Trek: The Next Generation) vs. Lucille Bluth (Arrested Development)

Abby Bartlett (The West Wing) vs. Laura de Mille (Doom Patrol)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 12

Alicia Florrick (The Good Wife) vs. Ellie Torres (Cougartown)

Zelda Spellman (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) vs. Lisa Lisa (Jojo's Bizarre Adventures)

Tsunade (Naruto) vs. Jules Cobb (Cougartown)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 13

Katherine Hastings (American Auto) vs. Esme Cullen (Twilight Series)

Abby Griffin (The 100) vs. Letty Ortiz (The Fast and the Furious 9)

Jocasta (Greek Mythology) vs. Joss Carter (Person of Interest)

ROUND 1 / BRACKET 14

Julia Sugarbaker (Designing Women) vs. Eve Fletcher (Mrs. Fletcher)

Chrisjen Avasarala (The Expanse) vs. Marion Lavorre (Critical Role)

Tiffany Valentine (Chucky) vs. Jodie Mills (Supernatural)

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my-favourite-zhent · 9 months

Text

New Tricks - Chapter 4

Status: Work In Progress

Version: 2.01

Pairing: Rugan x AFAB!OC

Rating: NC-17 (This chapter PG-13)

Genre: Adventure/Romance

Summary:

Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young. Being the Southern Deliveries Manager for the Baldur's Gates Zhentarim is not an easy job. Between mentoring new recruits, juggling vicious coworkers and whip-cracking bosses, bandits are the least of Rugan's troubles. An encounter with a charming stranger on the job serves to only complicate his life all the more.

Notes:

Thank you to @dustdeepsea for proof-reading and sanity checking the rewrites of this chapter. They wrote the most excellent Zarys fic performance review

And thank you to @captainsigge for sanity checking. She is author of Vera Við Aldr a cute and funny Tav x Rugan one-shot.

Table of Contents

Read on AO3 here or below the cut.

New Tricks - Chapter Four

“So instead of the tablets, which I specifically asked for, you’ve brought me a load of scribbles. Is that right?”

Zarys' voice was perfectly even, her volume that of a normal conversation, and her tone could almost be mistaken for friendly, almost .

Rugan knew from experience this meant she was very close to dismembering him in some way.

“Now Zarys, before we get ahead of ourselves–”

“ Specifically asked for,” she repeated.

“They were just clay Zarys, not really relics or anything. The glyphs are all anyone would want.”

“How would you know, you bloody idiot? Are you a wizard now too? Read all up on artefacts are you?”

“Listen, just send the buyer and see for yourself. It's safer this way, I swear.”

“Alright. But if this job is fucked because of you I'm docking your pay, and I may just take a pound of flesh while I'm at it.” Zarys walked to the office’s shuttered window and threw it open. She scanned the warehouse floor.

“Sal! Get me a stlarning sending scroll.”

“Right away, Zarys!” Came the red-headed wizards reply before she slammed the shutters back closed again.

“And you, get out of my sight before I decide to take that flesh preemptively.”

Rugan inclined his head in deference and left without a word. He hurried down the stairs two at a time.

“I told ya so, you plonker.” Bellar was leaning on a pile of crates at the foot of the stairs. Olly was sat upon one crate fidgeting with his bow. They hadn't heard everything down here, but they had heard enough.

“It's fine.” Rugan tried to sound confident but he was beginning to wonder. Sal anxiously hurried past them, up the stairs with a scroll in hand.

“Don't expect me to bail you out when you’ve gotta leg it out of town.”

“I have a cousin here in Waterdeep you could stay with, Rugan.”

“Dammit Olly, let him sort his own mess out.”

“I appreciate the sentiment lad, but it won't come to that, and I don't want to hear anything more on the subject.”

“Rugan, can I have a word with you for a moment?” It was Garias who had approached the trio. The man was tall and broad-shouldered. His dark hair stood in stark contrast to his brother's clownish red.

“Now ain't exactly the best time.”

“It's about Brem.”

Rugan dragged one hand down his face in frustration, a ragged groan escaping him. “Fine, lead on.”

Garias led him to one of the storage alcoves on the far side of the warehouse. Rugan practically collapsed onto one of the nearby chests while he watched Garias pace back and forth.

“Well, spit it out, lad.”

“Right, so the thing is, the thing with the bird, you know. Right, the thing is, it wasn't Brem.”

“The lass from the ambush? What do you mean it weren't Brem? Of course it was your brother—Bellar saw them together, didn't he?”

“Well, aye, but Brem was already asleep by the time she started asking questions.”

“What do you mean, already asleep?” Rugan’s brow furrowed in confusion, then he threw his head back and laughed as the realisation dawned on him. “By the Black Hand is there anything you bloody fools don't share?”

“Well you know folk pay good coin at Sharess to–”

“I really need you to stop talkin’ now, lad.”

“Right.”

Rugan sighed and put his head in his hands. “So you're telling me I have to apologise to Brem, now?”

“Well I reckon he'd likely appreciate it.”

“Stupid of him to take the fall for you, but fine, I'll treat him to a pint. Assuming of course I survive the rest of the night that is.”

“Rugan!” Came Zarys' shout from across the warehouse. “Now where’s he gotten off to?”

“I'm here, Zarys.” He approached the window, chest tight.

“Thought you'd run off on me.”

“Too old for that, knees would give out.”

“It's your lucky day then. Buyer's pleased with your creative problem solving, they pay extra for discretion, and you lot get a cut.”

+++++

The trio had decided to celebrate their good fortune at the city’s docks ward the next night. They dragged Brem along for good measure, and in turn it had been Brem who recommended the Blackstaron inn.

“I fold.” Rugan placed his hand down on the table. The tavern was bustling with noisy patrons, and the smell of beer hung on to the place like fleas on a dog.

“Ah c’mon, Rugan,” Olly pleaded. “Lemme win back my coin.”

“No thank you, besides Bellar is gonna clean us all out.”

“Can’t be helped, you lot are rubbish at cards.” Bellar chirped merrily.

Brem put his hand down as well. “Yeah I'm done, ain’t keen on losing all my coin to this git.”

“Fancy a pint at the bar?” Rugan asked Brem with a nod of his head.

“Nah, I need a tall drink, but not of that sort.” Rugan followed his gaze to a barmaid with a mischievous smile.

“Good luck to you mate.” He clapped Brem on the back as he rose from his seat. “You too, lad, just remember Bellar squints when he has a good hand.”

“Oi don't tell ‘im that!” Bellar complained after Rugan, as the man made his way to the bar.

Leaning on the counter, he ordered an ale and turned to look down the worktop as he waited. There was a pair conversing on the opposite end, after a moment he realized he recognized one of them. She hadn’t seen him yet, chatting as she was with another man. No finery this time, she wore a simple blouse that cinched under her bust and her hair was tied back, but it was definitely the woman in green. The bartender slid over his drink and Rugan watched her over the lip of the glass as he downed it.

It was then that they locked eyes. He noted the surprise on her countenance that quickly turned to a smile. She gave a little wave and he couldn't help but grin and waggle his fingers back. Her conversation partner had also turned to see who she was greeting, his expression soured upon seeing Rugan. The Zhent watched her turn and make some excuse to the man.

“Fancy meeting you here.” She was practically beaming as she approached.

“That's twice now you've abandoned your date for me, either you're very fond of me or extremely fickle.”

Her eyes sparkled with laughter as she reached out to run her fingers down his jaw. “What's not to like?”

“The feeling’s mutual, lass.” She smiled coyly at that.

“Do you have a name Zhent?”

“Planning on screaming it for me later?”

“Presumptuous.”

“I'd also accept moaning.”

“You cocky bastard.” She was laughing already.

“Whining, even.”

“Tell me the damned name already!” Despite her raised voice, her cheeks were aching from smiling.

“Rugan.” He said at last. “And you? Erica was it?”

“No. That was just for the job.”

“Well, go on then.”

“Isolde.”

“Isolde? You are a bleeding noble after all.”

“I am not!”

“Name like that? Too posh for us common folk.”

“My parents were old-fashioned is all.”

“Ah, so it is your real name this time.”

“It is.”

“And why give me the real one?”

“Because I'll get jealous if I hear another name on your lips.”

“You're almost a worse flirt than me,” he laughed.“Still too posh though.”

She shook her head and sighed though she seemed similarly amused. He regarded her for a long moment when an idea struck him. “Can I give you a nickname?” Rugan asked before turning to the bartender briefly, raising two fingers to indicate another round.

“You are a cad after all, aren’t you? Fine then, let's hear it.”

“Izzy, I think that suits a little minx like you.”

“Alright then. But I reserve the right to give you a nickname once I come up with one.”

“It's a deal.” And he made a show of shaking her hand to seal the contract, drawing another laugh. “Don't often give out the real one, do you?”

“No.” She admitted, looking a little embarrassed and he worried for a moment that he had pried.

“Too many pushy suitors is it?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh aye, I understand completely.” Rugan held up his hands in mock seriousness. “Folks are harassing me all the time. Never taking ‘no’ for an answer.” Her smile had returned and he felt himself relax.

“Poor thing, you must be beating them off with a stick.”

Rugan had a cheeky rebuttal to that, but luckily two drinks were slammed down in front of them before it could come tumbling out of his mouth.

He paid for the drinks, waving off her attempts to reach for her coin purse. “It's on me, got a nice little bonus thanks to you.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed, but let's chat somewhere a little more private. Shall we?” He directed her to an empty table at one of the various alcoves that lined one wall of the tavern.

The pair passed Brem on the way and he gave Rugan an exaggerated wink as they went by.

“Friend of yours?” Izzy queried as she looked up at him, eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Wish I could forget I knew him half the time.”

“And the other half?”

“Man's gotta sleep at some point.”

She was laughing as he guided her into a seat, and he noted with no small amount of interest that she scooted it right up into his own.

“My employer was very happy with those etchings of yours.”

‘At least, she was eventually,’ h e thought.

“Glad to hear it.”

“How about you? Make a nice profit on yours then?”

“Oh no, mine's not for sale. Personal project.”

“Personal project?” He asked incredulously. “Do you mean to frame it on your wall?”

“No,” she laughed. “I mean to translate it. I'm an archaeologist of sorts, I specialize in a few of the old tongues.”

“Should’ve figured you for an academic. What's a prestigious scholar such as yourself doing crashing parties and looting safes?”

“I’m not a proper scholar, at least not one anyone recognizes, no money for studies means no proper degree. But I have audited a few classes.”

“You did their taxes?”

“No!” Isolde couldn't help but laugh. She loved the way his pitch rose in confusion when he asked the question.

“It's just a fancy way of saying I sat in on lectures without paying. So most wouldn't recognize me as a proper student.”

“You're allowed to do that?”

She hesitated a moment. “Sometimes…”

“So you're an academic that lacks legitimacy, still doesn't explain why you're rooting through towers.”

“I told you, personal project. I don’t usually rob places where the inhabitants are still alive.”

“Usually?” He was enjoying teasing her, she was surprisingly candid.

“Hard to find legitimate work in a field largely funded by nobles if you can't get a recommendation from a professor.”

“So who are your regular clients?”

“Most often smaller religious groups and uh, occasionally tomb raiders.”

“Almost sounds dangerous when you put it like that, lass.”

“I have met some rough characters.” She eyed him meaningfully, lips pulled into a playful grin.

“Why do I get the feeling you like it that way?” To accentuate his point Rugan grabbed Isolde by the waist, easily pulling her into his waiting lap. She laughed, wrapping an arm around his neck before leaning in to press her lips against his throat, mouth searing hot like a brand.

Rugan groaned in response and leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “Maybe we should take this upstairs.”

“As much as I would like that,” Her fingertip tracing patterns on his chest. “I believe your friend is about to get into some trouble.”

“Brem?” Rugan scanned the crowd for the ridiculous looking mass of red hair.

He spotted the man talking to the now less than impressed barmaid.

Izzy followed his gaze and shook her head. “No, the other one, from the tower. That's him isn't it?”

She tilted her head towards a table across the way where Bellar was heavily flirting with an older red-headed woman. The woman was smiling wide and when Bellar flashed some of his card winnings she leaned down to give him a kiss.

“He's one of yours isn't he? Recognize him from the party.”

“Bellar? He's not doing anything–”

“That’s the innkeeper's wife, love.” Right on cue the proprietor approached Bellar his face fixed in a scowl.

Rugan let out a long drawn out sigh. He had half a mind to just let Bellar sort out whatever problems on his own rather than ruin a perfectly good evening. When what looked to be the innkeeper's three sons surrounded the man, Rugan still had a quarter of a mind. It was when Olly jumped into the fray that his decision was made for him.

One of the sons took a swing at the lad and this seemed to be the signal for the various patrons to take out their own personal grievances on one another. Punches began flying, Rugan thought he caught a glimpse of Brem and the barmaid pulling each other's hair.

“Dammit,” he cursed softly as he moved to deposit Izzy back in her seat. He was startled when she yanked him down against her.

Rugan felt something brush against his top knot and heard the accompanying thud of thick glass against the far wall.

Some bastard had thrown a bottle at him .

He spotted the assailant, the youngest son, who was readying another bottle.

“Not that!” yelled the innkeeper. “The cheap stuff!”

The lad put down his current bottle in favour of another.

Thinking quickly Rugan flipped the table on its side, such that its former top provided a bit of coverage. He turned to grab Izzy, who was already moving from her chair to crouch behind the makeshift barrier.

Just in time, they heard the new bottle smash against the table.

The old one chose this moment to roll down between them, thick green glass shining dully in the candlelight.

“Good vintage at least.” Izzy remarked wryly when they both looked down at it and Rugan couldn't help but bark out a short laugh.

The taproom resounded with the cries of patrons and the shatter of smashing glass but when none sounded remotely close to their table he was confident their assailant had found a new target. He dared to peak around the table’s edge and saw the lad engaged in wrestling with Olly on the floor.

Bellar was similarly fending off two sons and actually doing quite well for himself, at least until the father climbed up onto a table and leapt on him from behind.

A little blade work would put a quick end to this—hells even a well placed bolt or two or four from his hand crossbow would. But this wasn't some out of the way town in the sticks. Waterdeep was a proper city, with a proper city guard; a city guard Zarys had specifically asked them not to antagonise.

The sound of a popping cork caught his attention and he turned to see Izzy putting the bottle to her lips. She paused mid sip when their eyes met and she held it out in offering.

“My thanks.” He said taking his own swig and handing it back. “I bloody hate fisticuffs.” He muttered before leaving the relative safety of their table.

Brem was the closest and Rugan weaved past a half dozen pugilistic patrons on his way to him.

Roughly he yanked the girl off Brem by her hair before unceremoniously dumping her behind the bar.

“Stay down.” He ordered when she made to rise. Something in his tone made the lass obey though she glared at him all the while.

He turned to Brem who was tentatively checking his scalp for injury. “You said this was a nice place, mate.”

“It was nice until we showed up.” Brem replied before regarding the crowd.

“Nevermind, go help bell end, I've got the boy.”

The pair split up, making their way to their respective targets.

Rugan had made it half of the way over to Olly when someone tackled him sidelong. The wind was knocked out of him and he crumpled to the floor utterly breathless.

It took a moment for him to regain his senses and when he did his assailant was already astride his waist.

“At least buy us a drink first.” Rugan managed before the young man wrapped his hands around his throat. Rugan considered this very unsporting for a tavern brawl, especially since he was going to such efforts so as not to kill or maim anyone.

“No one hurts Cohne!” The lad cried. Rugan would've asked who in the hells that was if he had the breath to.

He pried at the young man's fingers, hoping to pull them away from his rapidly closing windpipe but the lad was deceptively strong. Something bumped against Rugan's elbow, the familiar green bottle.

One hand still tugging desperately at his attacker's hands, the other reached for the bottle. Rugan slammed it hard against the lad’s head. The blow dazed him and freed Rugan's throat from his grasp.

Whimpering, the lad began crawling away and Rugan heard a cry of “Tad!” cut through the commotion. Coughing fiercely Rugan rolled over to see the barmaid run over and fuss over his assailant.

‘Ah, Cohne,’ he thought. Looking at his attacker, Rugan saw his brow was split and bleeding. Yes this was quality glass, with a proper heft to it.

Sitting up he noticed Izzy under the table only a few feet away. Rugan held up the bottle she had rolled him and with a quirk of his brow asked: “Couldn't ‘ave hit him yourself, lass?”

“And cross the staff?” She scoffed. “My room's already paid for.”

“Fair enough.”

Rugan rolled his shoulders and got to his feet. He tried to find Olly in the crowd only to find the lad battering his opponent.

“Reckon he's had enough, lad.” He commented as he approached, and indeed all the fight had gone out of the innkeeper's son.

“Right.” Olly replied somewhat sheepishly. He wasn't the bloodthirsty sort, but in the boy's short time in the Network Rugan had known him to lose his temper in defence of his fellows.

Olly turned to face Rugan, and his features became painted in a mask of alarm. Before he could get out a word of warning Rugan felt the chair slam into his back.

Pairs of burly arms soon had both his arms and was aware of himself being half-marched, half-dragged towards the door.

+++++

The quartet had been beaten, handily.

“Out of here, the lot of you.” The innkeeper barked at the Zhents, and when he saw Isolde standing to the side. “That goes for you as well, miss.”

The burly sons were busy shoving them out the front door, past the remaining frightened patrons and broken furniture.

“I've already paid for my room.” Isolde complained indignantly as she fished out her room key from her cloak pocket. “Are you going to reimburse me?”

“Consider it damages for your associates handiwork.” The man sneered.

“They're not my associates, I'm no mercenary!”

“Yeah but you're associated with them aren't ya? At least that one there. That makes you associates.”

“No more than your wife.” Isolde bit back. Rugan manoeuvred himself between her and the innkeeper just as the man stepped forward menacingly.

“Now, hold on, there's no need for more violence.” The Zhent held up a hand in a gesture of peace. “The lady will hand over her key.” Rugan half turned to her and extended his other hand at this. She made a petulant face and started to retort when Rugan's narrowing eyes made her think better of it.

“Fine.” She deposited the keys in his hand, still pouting. Rugan in turn, deftly tossed them to the innkeeper.

“There, now everyone’s happy.” The corners of his mouth tugged into a smile, yet the expression was somehow more threatening than anything else.

The innkeeper only grunted his assent before nodding to his sons. The family re-entered the inn, but were no doubt watching them from the windows.

“Gods, woman, you're worse than this lot with that mouth of yours.” He sighed in exasperation.

“Man’s robbing me! Why should I be polite?” She huffed.

Behind her Brem and Bellar finally broke into the cackles they had been holding in. Olly only shrugged, embarrassed by his companions

“Did’ya see ‘is face though?” Bellar was grasping at his sides.

“Don't encourage her. And don't think I've forgotten we're in this mess because of you, Bellar.”

“Not my fault, the wife said they had an arrangement.”

“And you took her word for it?” Brem asked incredulously.

“Like I'm gonna take stick from you of all folks.” Bellar replied.

Rugan shook his head ruefully. “Come on then, I saw another inn just down the road.” He turned to a still pouting Izzy. “Don't fret about the coin, lass; you can stay with me as long as you like.” He held out his arm for her. “You were planning to spend the night with me, weren't you?”

The pout melted from her face and she appraised him a moment before making a show of daintily taking his arm. “Well if you're going to be a gentleman.” She cooed while resting her head on his shoulder, knowing very well he was not.

“I'll be the very model of chivalry.” He could hear that Bellar and Brem had begun their cackling and hooting again. He shot them a smirk as he led the party down the docks.

#rugan #bg3 rugan #rugan bg3 #zhentarim #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #new tricks #bg3 fanfic: new tricks #bg3: new tricks #my writing

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