018-020 » what he hides

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 018-020
WHAT: The fog recedes!
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Graham Plowman "Edge of Darkness"

DAYS 018-020
THE HIDDEN REVEALED
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
— Benjamin Franklin

As the sun rises in the distance above the sea, the fog slips away from the unsettling town, winding through streets and across buildings until it is nestled soundly in the forest. There it waits, ready to snare any who dare test its limits — residents would do well to remember what happened the last time they encountered the fog so intimately.

With the fog receded, the western portion of Mathias is now revealed and available for exploring. There are more businesses on the town square and even some on the street that runs off the square. The schoolhouse is nestled by the southern treeline, not from the little makeshift cemetery at the end of Jackson Boulevard that is courtesy of a few kind residents in town. To the far north of the square is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. And to the west, beyond the square, is another residential district of the same size as that to the east. What is different, however...

These buildings are all in some form of decay. From the beginnings of rot to completely collapsed and little more than a pile of proverbial bones, none of these homes are anything resembling livable. Well, as far as one can tell, at least. For between the streets of Hill Lane and Stine road there is a crack in the earth. A dozen feet across and fifty feet down, the crack extends from one side of the forest to the other, either end cut off by the fog. The view to the other side is clear but there is no way across.


THE NEW ARRIVALS
There are quite a few new faces in Mathias on this day. Awaking throughout Day 018, they will find themselves laying in the snow beside that unsettling crack in the earth, houses both quaint and decaying surrounding them as the snow begins to cover their bodies. Best get inside and warm up, dears.

SPECTRES IN THE NIGHT
The days are short now that winter seems to have set in unseasonably early. Though the clocks in Mathias fail to properly keep time or sometimes even work at all, the sun rises around 8:00am and sets at 5:00pm. There is far more darkness than light in these days, but in that darkness there is, in fact, light.

In the distance all across Mathias, there are lanterns lit against that darkness. Their lights dance across the snow, the warm flickering shining like tiny stars and offering an almost ethereal glow to the crisp white snow. It would be a beautiful sight to behold... if it weren't for the shadowy figures that held them. With partially raised arms, the figures hold the lanterns and walk the streets of Mathias, drifting in between buildings and disappearing into the forest. Still yet, there are some that simply stand in place, as if waiting for something or someone.

No matter where or when these figures are seen, they always seem to be facing away from our residents, and attempts at reaching them are all for naught. They will fade from view if one gets too close, and return to sight when that distance is regained. And in the morning, those lanterns may be found in the snow, their lights extinguished but their glass somehow still warm.

STRANGER IN THE SNOW
Those investigating the western part of Mathias and venturing near that inexplicable crack in the earth will have the most unsettling feeling of being watched. Most of the time, there is nothing there and no one to be seen, but then—

On the other side of that expanse, sitting on a porch, in the shadow of a home, or standing in the oddly moonlit street, there is a man. His features are shrouded in darkness and not much can be discerned about him, but instinct tells you he is dangerous. There is a sense deep in your bones that he is maliciously amused.

He makes no move to speak, nor will he respond to any attempts on your part. Instead, he sits, or he stands, and he watches. By the end of Day 020, all sign of him will be gone, along with the eerie feeling of being watched.

---

LOCATIONS

Unless otherwise noted, all new locations have working electricity and other utilities.

BENEDICT BOOKS Nestled quaintly on the square surrounding the Town Hall, a thick layer of dirt covering the front windows. A portrait hangs at the front of the store to illustrate the namesake of the little shop... that may, in fact, not be so little. Dust covers everything in sight and detritus litters the wooden floor, as if someone left the door open and allowed half the forest inside. (more info)

MATHESON ANTIQUES Also on the town square is an antique store that is a lesson in chaos more than culture. The items within are stacked haphazardly, creating narrow aisles running throughout the space. Furniture, light fixtures, old revolutionary and civil war memorabilia, all of it is jumbled together with no rhyme or reason. Indeed, one wrong move could create an avalanche of aged wood and peeling paint.

POE'S CLOTHES Located on the town square, this shop carries only the basics. Loose jeans in a few sizes, khakis, solid color dress shirts and blouses, flannel in various styles, socks and underwear.

SPIN RIGHT ROUND RECORDS On the square across from the beauty store, the music shop is as dusty as everything else in this town has been. Tables line the walls of the long shop, filled with rows and rows of vinyl records, while a few wall shelves display cassette tapes for sale. One side of the store is for New items, while the other holds the Used section with items for resale. Residents may recognize some of the artists but many are unfamiliar to them.

CLINIC Outside the decayed, crumbling building just north of the square is a still miraculously intact sign with the name of the clinic's doctor, Dr. Ken Suzuki. There is no way to treat patients in this location, but with care, some salvageable supplies may yet be found in the remains.

BARKER BOTANICALS Not quite a flower shop and not entirely an apothecary, the botanical store to the far north of the square is something of an amalgamation of both. With a few broken windows to let in the rain, parts of the shop have been overtaken by nature, the house plants growing beyond their pots and rotted flower petals littering the floor to tell of seasons past. The still unclaimed walls are filled with decaying plants and jars of dried herbs and other vegetation, along with a few essences and tinctures.

GREENHOUSE A few dozen yards from the botanicals shop is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. The glass is still miraculously intact, though covered in grime so thick that one cannot see inside.

GALLERY The gallery is essentially a large empty space with framed and matted black and white photographs of the town lining the walls. There is a small selected of prints available for sale near the front entrance, and a few rooms at the back of the building — a dark room for developing photos, a small office, and a locked room.

MOVIE THEATER This single-screen theater is quite small, having only 40 seats, but there is a large collection of movies in its storage room. These are all old film reels however, so hopefully someone knows how to thread a film projector.

HISTORY MUSEUM Across the street from the Historical Society, this once esteemed wooden building has seen better days. Windows and doors are boarded up and there is visible rot and decay on the exterior walls. Part of the roof has fallen in and the accumulating snow threatens to collapse the rest of it as well. It is not wise to venture within.

HISTORICAL SOCIETY This brick building has also seen better days, though in a different sort of way. Where once had been carefully cataloged collections and cozy reading rooms for aficionados of local history, there are now stacks of bankers boxes and weathered tomes in every nook and cranny. There is no organization to any of it, everything seeming to have been stashed in a hurry and then left forgotten. Anyone who dares to dive into this archive will need to devote quite some time in order to find anything worthwhile. They will also want to bring their own light source — the electricity does not work here and the windows are quite dark from the accumulated dust and grime.

SCHOOLHOUSE A much smaller school than most of our residents might be used to, there are only a half-dozen rooms in the building, with a few comprising classrooms, meeting areas, and workspaces. All ages were taught here, and one might almost imagine the sound of children's whispered voices and distant laughter while within the empty building.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall in Mathias. Days 18-19 see light snowfall that very slowly accumulates, but the snowfall turns moderately heavy on Day 20 and sees significant accumulation. The temperature hovers just below freezing and dips lower when the sun goes down.

— VOICES are not openly haunting our residents, though they may still be occasionally encountered in the more heavily decayed buildings where some rooms seem to almost swallow whatever light tries to enter them.

— THE FOG has receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach. The path through the northern forest to the lighthouse is now also clear.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Daisy Johnson has returned, Zed Martin, Rey, and Quentin Coldwater have now vanished without a trace.

OOC UPDATES

— MADNESS has now been unlocked. Congratulations to Inky for Claire earning the first Madness! Who will be next? (Please be sure to keep your sanity updated regularly; Stars has created an amazing tracker for anyone to use if they'd like.)

— HELPERS are officially in residence! Kelly is our Registrar and Stars is our Librarian — both of these delightful members of our community are helping behind the scenes to keep things organized and updated (and doing wonders for the mod's own sanity levels), so please give them some thanks for their hard work!

— REPORTING updates is still a thing that your mod and helpers beg you to do. Changes to locations, plot notes that affect the community, and discoveries should be reported over here so these can all be noted in their appropriate places. (For clarification, reported Discoveries are not public knowledge unless a character has ICly shared this information.)

— A MAP of Mathias now exists, thanks to our wonderful Librarian! Please note that it is not to scale and there may be a few minor errors due to your frazzled mod. Expect updates in the future as more secrets are revealed.

— BULLETIN BOARD — don't forget about it. That's all.

CLAIMING AP REWARDS

Normally, only one AP reward can be claimed per log, but due to the plethora of new and old locations to explore, this restriction is being relaxed. Instead, for this log only:

— Players may spend AP on up to three rewards, though only Spot Hidden may be repeated.
— If a player is spending multiple Spot Hiddens, they must be with different characters and in different locations.

If two characters are investigating the same location together, they may each spend a Spot Hidden on that location. Players should record their spent AP after the AP request has been approved. Sometimes there is nothing to Spot with your Hidden and the points will be "refunded" to use elsewhere.

navigation | faq | setting | mod contact

Comments

[vampirebats]

"Excuse you, it's a good goddamn face!" Come on, laugh a little, man. Sometimes you just have to or you'd curl up in a fucking fetal position and cry.

"Alright..." He straightens up after the boards back in place, holding up his hands.

"Look, I'm sorry. Truth is, I'd be shitting my goddamn pants right now if I let myself, but it's not gonna help. It won't change whatever happens to us next and believe me, I get it. You don't forget watching somebody die. You never do." Not from cancer, not from your own fucking hands. Best you can do is not think about it.

"But I'm being real goddamn serious about this. I don't know what rules apply here. You ever see me taking my last breath, from this or anything else, you beat my fucking head in the first chance you get. I wouldn't trust just anybody with that, but-- hey, we're friends, right?"

He gives him a look as he holds the torch back out for him to take. "And I'd say we're sharing a real special bond right now."

[thering]

"I didn't say it was a bad face!" he retorts, hands moving to rest on his hips just above his gun belt. Far be it from Doc to die impolite. He can appreciate a bit of stubble compared to all these baby-faced men trying to redefine masculinity walking amongst them. But that's neither here nor there.

"Alright. I'll take care of you." In that way. "And you do the same for me. We have ourselves a deal." At least Negan knows what to look out for. He takes the torch back and slides it back into his gun holster, tilting his head and levelling Negan with an equally serious look.

"Smoke on it?" he asks after a brief pause, plunging his hand into his pocket to pull out the tin case where he had kept his cigarillos. Now cigarettes, since he can't find any of the former. They can puff away on one while they make their way over to the Town Hall.

"Need to write a note. There's some pen and paper where we're going."

[vampirebats]

"Yeah?" Well, that's good to know. "Yours isn't so bad either, actually. I like the mustache."

Hey, he can give compliments as good as he gets them. He's just that kinda guy. Even if the world feels like it's turning on itself.

"Hell, yeah. I think we deserve a smoke." Although the logistics of killing each other with a butter knife... man, he doesn't even know.

"I don't think I've got any notes to write, but you go right on ahead."

[thering]

At last, a genuine compliment about his moustache. That makes Doc a little less irritable. "Could always grow yours out." Although it's a fine line between 80s pornstache - not that Doc knows what that is - and respectable gentleman.

Doc offers the smoke over to Negan before plucking one out for himself. He's still got a box of matches he had salvaged from one of the first houses he checked out when he first got here, but it's near impossible to keep lit in the snow and wind so it has to wait until they're inside the Town Hall before he pauses to strike one and light Negan's up, then his own.

He glances over all the notes fluttering on the board before the door closes and the wind that had swept inside dies down. There's a good chance Raylan would see it if he left a note up. He would come looking for Doc once he's figured out how to handle Malcolm on his own, or so he thinks. He hopes, without really hoping. It would be nice to be looked for, this time around.

Moving briskly over to the stack of papers and plucking the nearest pen up, Doc draws a few squiggles to get the ink flowing before breathing a sigh and placing the tip of the pen in the top left hand corner of the sheet. So many things to write. So many things he does not want to. Too many thoughts. Too big of a sheet of paper to cram them all into. He lifts the pen and sets it down again, rolling it between thumb and forefinger a bit while the cigarette burns away between his lips.

"...do you mind?" Why are you breathing down his neck looking over his shoulder, Negan? You're giving him performance anxiety.

[vampirebats]

He could, couldn't he? He's not sure he's the mustache type of guy though. Stubble, sure, bit of a beard. Maybe he ought to leave the mustaches to the cowboys.

Mostly, by the time they're inside somewhere out of the cold, he's just glad for it. Fucking chills you to the bone out there. Makes everything ache the more the cold sets in, much more than he'd like to admit. He takes a drag off the cigarette once they can manage to keep them lit, idly paces, idly peeks over Doc's shoulder.

When he's called out, he holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture. "Hey, sorry. Just not a hell of a lot to do in here, you know?"

And his mind's racing, wondering if each new ache or pain is something to worry about or if it's just the cold that's settled in bone deep. "I'll give you your privacy though, write out all those confessions. Guess it's good to get them out sometimes. Never been too big on it, myself."

[thering]

He has half a mind to throw a stack of papers at Negan and ask him to draw or colour something.

"These are not confessions. Merely instructions." Even though it starts off with Dear Raylan, I am sorry to leave you like this. It continues with a quick sketch of what looks like a tree, some arrows pointing here and there. Over the page there are a few bullet points, a list ingredients with measurements next to them. Then a few more bullet points with various names. Finally it's signed off as your friend, now and always and that signature most certainly reads J H Holliday.

"Suppose we just wait and see now?" he asks, folding the note in half and then half again, writing Raylan's name onto one side of the fold and tucking it into his back pocket.

"I mean how do you even know if you're hungry or... hungry?"

[vampirebats]

Hey, not his fault he's antsy. He could be dying over here or something... but whatever Doc is writing, it's not terribly interesting. Well, maybe the signature catches his eye, but he doesn't pry right now.

He'd been hoping for a little hot and heavy, old timey notes maybe.

He huffs out a sigh as he straightens up, idly paces a little. "Well, in my world? You get really fucking sick and then you die. You come back alive with a hell of an appetite then."

So, you know... deathly ill is a good sign. "Whatever's left of you... it's not really you anymore. Just a goddamn corpse wandering around."

[thering]

If Doc is writing hot and heavy old timey notes Negan can be sure that he would be doing so alone, away from the all seeing eyes of nosey individuals clad in leather jackets and attitude.

"Alright. So we'll just wait until we die." Doc swallows and nods, crossing his legs at the ankles as he leans back against the table he'd been writing on previously. Maybe today can be a cheat day and they'll have two cigarettes. They might not live past tonight after all. And to think, he had fought pretty hard to win against tuberculosis, time and proverbial and literal demons to make it this far, just to be claimed by a room full of spores.

"You must feel better off here. None of that to worry about, whatever is happening inside the museum aside. Abandoned homes and working appliances, a so far endless supply of food. Decent people." They haven't turned on each other yet, even if it might still be early days to be proclaiming that.

[vampirebats]

"Sounds like a plan, sure." Hopefully they don't. He feels pretty good still. He settles across from Doc after a moment and considers that. Does he feel better off here?

"Back home, I knew what I was dealing with... Here? I haven't got a fucking clue. Not sure how I feel about that, but... can't say I mind getting to take an actual hot shower regularly." You don't know how much you fucking miss the little things when you don't have them.

"But there are decent people. Maybe we can keep breathing, make sure they stay alive."

[thering]

"So much of our lives is outside our control," Doc muses with a purse of his lips and a tilt of his head. To be honest, being here is not too different for Doc as living with a chronic illness dictating those good and bad days he gets to have in his life. At least he has a little more control over his body in this town. He can choose what to do with his time, how he treats other people, and he is choosing now how he wants to go should his time be up. It is not where he wants to be and who he wants to be with, but given their circumstances, surely this is enough.

"I spent some years of my life as a dentist but I have been far better at making sure people get dead. It would be nice to keep people alive, for a change." He's not sure he's particularly good at it, but he's been trying.

"Tell you what though. Won't be missing all this god damn snow." He gets plenty enough of it in Purgatory. Pretty enough until it turns to sludge, blocks the door, soaks into everything. It might have been nice if their Supreme Overlord had beamed them onto a tropical island instead.

[vampirebats]

"Ain't that the truth." And no matter how you try to control it, half the time... God likes to kick you right in the nutsack sometimes. Or maybe that's just because he's been a shit person in his life and only learned too late to really stop it, make a damn bit of difference. Now he might be dying here, or contagious... who the fuck even knows?

"Some years? How the fuck old are you?" He looks at Doc for a second, quiet and thoughtful.

"You never know... I would've never pegged myself as a leader of any group before the end of the world. I was a fucking coach at a school. I taught kids, I was married. Hell, I wasn't even a good husband. So we survive this, you can always learn and do better at keeping people alive."

He lets out a sigh at the mention of snow. "I'd rather be sipping drinks by a pool or something."

[thering]

"A hundred and sixty six. Or so." Has he lost a few years since they have technically travelled back in time to arrive in this place? He's not certain how that all works or whether it matters at all. He might be dying tonight, there is no point in keeping secrets.

"You were a schoolteacher?" A coach, he had said. He certainly does not give off that impression. Not that Doc would call Negan not respectable to his face, but the teachers that Doc had met before did give off... a vastly different vibe.

"I will confess to not having been a good husband, either." He had a wife once. Kate. He does not speak of her anymore. It is all ancient history now. Even what he is talking about now is ancient history. Still, he does not mind to share. "I was drunk. Sick. In pain, all the time, wasting away succumbing to an illness there was no cure for, and not getting any better at hiding it. She mostly put up with me. Your relationship changes, when you are no longer equal partners, when your lover becomes your caretaker slowly getting suffocated by the elephant in the room." He does not know of Negan's personal struggle with this, he is only speaking from his own personal experience.

"She no longer looked at me the same way she did when I first came into her life. I had been her hero then. Not her burden. At least this... disease you speak of is fast. There is mercy in that."

[vampirebats]

"I'm sorry, what?" Negan's initial thought is that this asshole is pulling his leg, but the mannerisms, the looks, the name... Hell. Now, is it bad manners using their possibly limited time to figure out how the hell a six hundred and sixty-six year old is running around still?

Or just accept the old crazy at face value like he did The King back home?

"Yeah... yeah. I was a teacher. Man, the parents hated me. I cared about those kids though. Really connected with them. Trick is, you gotta treat them like they've got some fucking brains, not like they're goddamn infants." You show respect, they tend to give it back.

Negan's expression darkens as Doc continues on, something like shame twisting at him inside, that rock solid guilt that stays in the pit of his stomach. Doc has no idea how close to fucking home that hits. "My wife-- I haven't told many this story, just one other guy, but she was a fucking angel, man. Better than I ever deserved. I was a fucking asshole to her. We tried for kids, didn't happen... somewhere along the way, I started sleeping with other women, lying to her about it."

He falls quiet for a moment, brows furrowing. "Then she got sick. Cancer, no treatment worked even if she put up a hell of a fight. Even if I pushed for every treatment in the goddamn book. You never know which is worse, you know? Watching the person you love the most suffer and knowing you can do fuck all to stop it or actually losing them and any chance you got to make up your past."

Negan drops his eyes, carefully not meeting Doc's. He knows what kinda look is probably there. Same one that was on the preacher's creepy as fuck face. Disgust, looking at him like the piece of shit he really is. "Sometimes I wonder if-- I brought it on, you know? If God was trying to punish me and she got caught in the crossfire of it all. Only positive thing is she was gone before things got real bad. 'Course I didn't even have the balls at the time to stick around, put her down when she came back."

And he should have. Fuck, he should have. She deserved the rest. "I'm-- sorry you were on the other side of that, man. I don't know your circumstances, but I can say from being on the other end... sometimes you just don't fucking know how to act. Sometimes you're just scared shitless and trying to be as brave as you can be. Although gotta say, for a dying man... impressive you made it to six hundred. What's your secret?"

He snorts after a moment, rubbing a hand down over his face. "Yeah, I guess that's one way to look at it. You only suffer a little while."

[thering]

Doc knows very little about children. He had never planned on having any. But life, as always, chooses these things for you sometimes. It remains to be seen whether he would be any good with them or not. But he is also accepting of the fact that he may never find out.

He lets Negan talk. He did not know this of Negan. Did not expect it to be shared, even though they don't know whether they will make it through tonight. At some point, Doc moves on in closer, sitting down next to Negan without touching. The Town Hall is a big empty chamber and they need not be shouting their misery at each other across the space.

It's not really cathartic to dredge all this up anymore. Not for him, anyway. Doc does not find that release when he talks about the things that he has felt hurt by in his life. He watches the floorboards like they have come alive before his very eyes, closes his eyes and listens to Negan speak. They are both too sober for this conversation. And yet they will continue it.

"She would have wanted you to be happy, even if it was with another woman," he says after a long stretch of silence on his end. "Kate left me, towards the end. I was angry at first, but. We fought a lot even when I was in better shape. We were volatile, not good for each other. I knew it was inevitable. But I was happy for her, in the end. She was right to leave. I did not want her to see me, in the shape I was in in my last days. And she deserved so much more than I could ever give." Doc clenches his teeth and clears his throat, not wanting to let old wounds get raw again.

"The journey is only over for the one of us. You deserve to be happy with whoever is lucky enough to have you, after we are gone." He knows such words bring little comfort now, so long after the fact. He says them anyway, in case they still mean anything to Negan.

"In the 1880s a woman came to me on my deathbed and said she could cure me, give me eternal longevity. You know this was the time they actually made and peddled snake oil to some fools who have more money than sense. No one would have believed her. But she asked for nothing in return, and I had nothing to lose."

[vampirebats]

There's a reason he doesn't talk about it. It doesn't help, doesn't soothe the pain away or stop him from sitting up nights thinking about her, thinking about what he should have done, could have done, if he hadn't been a selfish asshole. There's no point thinking about the past when you can't change it. He died with her the day she took her last breath and what he is now-- well, it's a shell. A fucking charming, good looking shell, but just a shell that exists to keep his fucking people as safe as he can.

Not that he's gonna say that bit out loud.

He looks over at Doc when he settles in next time him and breathes out a short sigh, steadying himself. "Nah, besides Lucille, there's no one I could love like that." And he's not talking about the bat, but he hopes Doc won't read between the lines.

"You ever have someone else? Sounds like you had time to move on too... after the freaky snake oil or whatever. What the hell did she give you?"

[thering]

Oh Doc is already making links between the dead wife, the baseball bat, the man left behind. He's got assumptions mapped out in his head with lines to link various ideas together. He will not speak of it of course. No need to hurt a man even more if this is how they are going to go.

"Bit of magic. Then she threw me down a well for 130 years." Suffice to say, he maybe should have thought it through more fully before committing to anything. Though he can't tell Negan whether he regretted saying yes to her. He made it out. Got his revenge. Still alive, right now anyway.

"I have tasked myself with assisting and protecting my friend's great great granddaughter." Suffice to say, that is a complicated relationship. One he doesn't feel the need expounding upon. "I do-- care about her, deeply." There is only the slight problem that she does not love him back.

[vampirebats]

"Magic." Like that Constantine guy, right? He huffs out a sigh. That shit goes well over his head. "Why'd she put you down a well? Seems like a hell of a waste."

If they're being honest here. Give someone eternal life, toss them down a well before they're even useful?

"Yeah? Is she here or back wherever you came from?"

[thering]

"Because Wyatt-- my friend Wyatt, he put down these monsters she called her children. She was none too happy 'bout that. They did a number on him, and everyone close to him. Would've been too easy if I died, I suppose. She knew I didn't like small, dark spaces so she must have thought it would have been funny."

Don't. Poke fun of his claustrophobia, Negan. That's a one way ticket to guarantee Doc will never speak to him again.

"She's back there. For the better, too. She's seven months pregnant. Or close to eight now, I guess."

[vampirebats]

"Jesus Christ... I guess it's true what they say about scorned women." Hey, he might bust some balls once in a while, but even he knows when to back off some things. Usually. And they're sharing personal shit, not the time to joke right now.

Especially with potential, impending death.

"Guessing that kid isn't yours either, huh?" He reaches over the narrow distance between them to give him a quick pat on the shoulder.

"Sorry, man. Hey, maybe there'll be someone else that'll show up. You never know. I mean, if we live through the night."

He sighs. "Sorry, just in case, that I'm the guy you're stuck with in your potential final moments. I mean, I am damn fine company..."

[thering]

Doc stiffens up considerably when Negan pats him on the shoulder after mentions the kid not being his, pursing his lips, wringing his hands, averting his gaze. Nothing says guilty as charged for thinking with the wrong head in a moment's weakness like a wiggling moustache and a hand running through his hair.

"I would rather no one else show up," he tries to change the subject quickly. "Wouldn't wish this on anyone, unless we were sipping drinks by a pool."

And sure, he would rather be dying next to that pool with someone else, but Negan is all he has. He didn't get this far by being unable to roll with the punches.

"Suppose I'll have to make do with you. Just as you do with me. Let's not- talk about chronic illnesses anymore."

[vampirebats]

"Oh, holy shit... you were sure as hell the baby daddy, weren't you?" Buddy, no. He sucks in a breath of sympathy, gives another pat. He could be more obnoxious about it, but... that is just some bad luck. Man.

"I guess you're right, man." He tips his head back, idly looking at the ceiling. A pool, surrounded by nearly naked chicks wouldn't be a bad place to go at all.

"Yeah, you got it. Let's stop talking about depressing shit in general. If this is our last night, let's try to have a couple laughs at least... then we'll figure out how we're gonna kill each other if that time comes."

[thering]

"Negan, let's-- not." Doc squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his face with a kind of fatigue he . It was not supposed to happen. It did. He is taking as much responsibility for it as Wynonna would let him. He said he would be there, whatever happens. He is not there.

No long term death sentence talk and no baby talk. Those two fall under 'depressing shit'. It still leaves them with plenty of other options, surely.

"I have a few ideas for how to get rid of you," Doc says wryly. "You might look quite dashing in a hempen necktie."

[vampirebats]

That's his happy talk? Should Negan's feelings be hurt or fucking what?

"Well, that'd preserve my face, but come on... then you got a swinging, ravenous corpse waiting for the next poor bastard who'd walk in."

He shakes his head. "No, maybe I should do you, then I'll do me... or vice versa."

[thering]

"Least you'd be on a leash hanging off a beam, give them plenty of clearance. And you did ask for a laugh." They should both be used to gallows humour by now. You have to be when someone's taking their time stretching out their dying across several years. Two guys one sharpened butter knife means they either have to be recycling said butter knife, assuming one of them goes before the other, or they have to find something else in the town hall other than paper and pens.

Maybe they have to stab each other through the neck with a pen, if it comes down to it.

"You are most certainly not doing me tonight. Or any night," Doc huffs, pressing a hand on his thigh and tilting his head away from Negan to regard him from a short distance away. You couldn't afford him, Negan. Even if this happens to be his last night and he's scrounging around for every bit of pity he can get.

"We both gon' use the knife?"

[vampirebats]

Okay, it does get a laugh out of him. "You've never shit yourself so fast until you step into a room with one of those things hanging, let me tell you. First time I saw it? Swear my heart stopped and I had to change my pants."

Too much information? Hey, they're buddies now, he can deal with it.

"Hey, I'm sure it'd be magical and all, and your mustache would tickle all the right spots... But I am not trying to get in those well-fitting pants of yours, my friend." Maybe if he wasn't too busy focusing on every tickle in his throat or waiting for some sort of fever to settle in or something. But Negan Jr. is just not in the game right now.

"If I can find something heavy enough, I can always beat your head in and use the knife on myself after. Prop it up on something, let myself drop on it... I've thought about it before, how to do myself in if I was ever gonna turn. What'd be easiest is if we had a goddamn gun or Lucille here."