milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Wilford is over by the fire, looking over a stack of notes and photographs for his current story. He's got his dog back, and has finally got him to settle down enough to be able to get some work done.

Everything's spread out over the table while he tries to organise it in a way that makes the information a little bit easier to piece together. He's done this all once before, but twelve years is a long time to remember all of the intricate details.

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Nearby, Guppy is speaking patiently to the younger of his daughters.

"Brooklyn, it's very important that you tell me. Are you quite, quite sure, that you don't have the snake?"

Buster hears this, and decides he wants to investigate. And beg for snacks.

"Leave it," Wilford says sternly. "He doesn't like you, remember. He'll call the cops."

Buster grumbles, and wuffs quietly in Guppy's general direction.

Brooke hears the woof and looks around.

"Buster!" she beams.

"Leave him, Brooke." Guppy says.

Brooke ignores him and goes to pet the doggy.

Buster is very happy to see her, judging by the thwap thwap thwap of his tail against the floor. He stays down, craning his neck to lick her face and sniff at her pockets for goodies.

"Keep your nose to yourself," Wilford warns him. "I'm right here, stupid. I see what you're doing."

Buster makes his sniffing around a little less obvious, but only just.

Something moves up Brooke's arm, away from the dog.

Guppy sighs and comes over.

"Evening." He says to Wilford. "Where was he, then?"

This gets Buster's attention, and the sniffing starts all over again.

"The tooth fairy had him."

No sense in telling multiple made-up stories, when this one will do.

He sits forward to drop another photograph down onto one of the piles he's neatly organising.

Edited 2017-05-23 20:46 (UTC)

"Told you it wasn't Teja..." Guppy says, but then frowns at the picture.

"Slenderman?"

Well, yes. He established that the second he saw Jim looking all pleased with himself in the bar.

"He moved into the neighbourhood last month," Wilford says.

Referring to Slenderman. Not Jim.

"I assume you know what he is." Guppy says. "He's not been seen here for many years."

Wilford looks up at Guppy very slowly. "Aside from the worst kind of creep, you mean?"

Wilford will admit to doing a lot of terrible things himself, but he doesn't understand people who go after kids. That's a special kind of cowardly low he has no patience for."

Guppy nods. That about sums it up.

"Are you looking for him?"

"I know where he is. Found him, got him on video, and everything. The problem is getting enough witnesses to come forward."

That's Nichola's job. Wilford's too abrasive for that, and he doesn't know how to fake the empathy required to get people to open up.

He spots Buster getting a little too nosy with Guppy's kid again, and reaches down to pull him away.

"She's got nothing for you. Leave her alone."

"I'm not scared." Brooke says, standing up and looking at Wilford. "If I get bit it's my own fault."

Wilford can't argue with that, even if he knows the dog won't bite.

But Buster is being incredibly enthusiastic about sniffing at her, to the point that even Wilford is worried he might knock the kid over, and send her dad into hysterics.

"Leave her alone," he says again.

He does not, so Wilford has to put the stack of papers he's holding down to tug him away. "What is wrong with you today?"

Guppy moves Brooke back a little bit behind him.

"Brooke, let Buster calm down." he says.

The snake up Brooke's jumper decides it needs to escape from the dog, and makes a break for it down her other sleeve.

"He's not gonna hurt your kid," Wilford says, not actually sure how true that is right now. "She's just got something he wants."

Buster yelps desperately at her, pulling away from Wilford's grip on his collar.

What the hell does this kid have in her pocket?

Edited 2017-05-23 22:11 (UTC)

At this point, a little cream-coloured nose decides to peep out of Brooke's sleeve.

Guppy looks down at the same time.

"How many times did I ask you whether you had the snake?" he demands.

"It's not a snake. It's a snek." Brooke says, booping the nose with her finger.

YIKES, it's a snake!

Buster yelps again, and Wilford is not prepared for what happens next. Rather than pulling away, he quickly turns to leap over the couch, flinging papers and kicking Wilford right in the middle of his face before he disappears.

Wilford sits still for a second, stunned at the sudden turn of events. Finally, he straightens his glasses and turns around to see where the dog went.

"Yeah, run, you stupid coward," he says, before having to start the organisation process all over again.

Guppy helps pick up the papers, then reaches down and removes the snake from his daughter's sleeve. It's only a centimetre wide, and not terribly long.

"It's not venomous, it's just a corn snake." he says.

"Try telling him that," he says.

Wilford isn't concerned about snakes one way or another, unless they're the really big kind that live in deep water. And then it's not the venom that'll get you, but the fact that they'll swallow you whole.

He sighs at the mess of papers, annoyed that he hadn't thought to steal a box of paperclips to prevent this kind of disaster. He's got about a dozen photos of Slenderman, some more in focus than others, along with stacks of notes and interview transcripts that he needs to put back together. It's gonna be a long day.

Guppy gets a box with air holes from the bar for the snake, then takes both the snake and his daughter back through the door, before coming back to Wilford.

"What do I need to do for us to clear the air?" he asks, putting the papers together.

This is new. Though Wilford doesn't entirely understand the question, because he's not the one holding a weird grudge.

"He wasn't going to hurt your kid," he says again, trying to remember which sheets went with which photos. "He's just excitable."

And she did have a snake in her shirt.

"I didn't say he was." Guppy says. "I don't allow Brooke to play with any dogs unsupervised, because she's only four and she doesn't know her own strength."

"She's not gonna hurt him either. He's tough."

Someone bounced a car off his head, and he's fine. Mostly.

From the sounds of it, Buster's found something new to chase around on the other end of the bar. Probably a rat.

"Leave it alone!" Wilford shouts.

There's some hurried skittering, and then silence.

The dog is supposed to be calming down before Jim comes to pick him back up. Sorry, Jim. That's apparently not happening.

"So what do I need to do for us to reach a truce?" Guppy asks.