Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Travis coughed out a wad of black blood onto the grey, wooden floors.
It splattered in thick drops, soaking into the cracks like spilled ink. The floorboards groaned as he peeled himself up, arms trembling beneath his weight. He moved slowly—deliberately—his lungs constricted with every motion, pain prickling through his chest like buried thorns. But it wasn’t anything permanent. He knew the difference now. Cracked ribs screamed sharper. These were just bruises.

Black gunk dripped down his chin, staining the collar of his once-white dress shirt as he sat hunched over, wheezing.

Creole stood over him, one hand resting lazily on the polished head of his cane, the other fiddling with the rings on his fingers. He looked vaguely bored, like a man checking his watch during a rerun.

His beatings had grown lackluster lately. Still painful, but... uninspired. A heel to the sternum, a lazy shove down the stairs—brutal, but not theatrical. Not like before.

Maybe he planned to kill him soon. Just get it over with—leave the body in the basement and move on. The idea flickered in his head like a spark. A comforting glow.

A fantasy. Creole would never let him go.

The voodoo man tilted his head, watching Travis struggle to breathe, that damned crooked grin still plastered across his face.

Travis glared up at him, blood pooling in his mouth.

After a long moment, Creole finally turned and started toward the hallway. The soft tap of his cane against the wood echoed louder than it should’ve.

He stopped when Travis spoke.

“You’re going to get bored of this, you know.” His voice came out strained, the first words in a while, “You’ll get tired of me, and then everything you did to get me here will be for nothing.”

Creole paused, then turned back, amusement flickering in those button eyes. He leaned on his cane, expression unreadable.

“Travis,” he said with a chuckle, “I kept Mary around for near a hundred years.”
He laughed again, louder this time. “You must be dumber than you seem if you really think I’d get bored so easy now.”

Travis exhaled, then looked up with a grin. Creole’s own expression faltered for a moment, wary. He hated when the clerk did this.

“Oh, you were having so much fun with Mary, right?” Travis said sweetly, blood smearing on his teeth. “That’s why you dragged me into this? Too busy making potions, stitching dolls, helping customers ‘fulfill their dreams’? You just needed an extra hand, right, sir?”

Creole’s stitched smile flattened into a grim line. He said nothing. He never did when Travis played this game.

“You needed someone to help, so you brought me in,” Travis continued, dropping the tone, “But I’m no help to you.”

Creole’s fingers twitched against the cane.

“Why me?” Travis asked, “Why the hell did you choose me? You can say you needed an employee but we both know that’s bullshit. What made you decide I was worth all this trouble?”

“There was nothing special about you, Travis.” Creole's tone was clipped, sharp. “I needed someone and you were there. That’s it.”

Travis barked a short laugh, cut off by a wince.

“Then get a new one. Let me go. You can’t seriously tell me all you wanted was dead weight.”

Creole slightly shifted. His fingers tapped against the silver band of his cane.

“Patience,” he said slowly, “is a virtue. And I have time. I know you’ll come around, even if I have to beat that respect into place.”

Travis looked up.

“So you’ll break me just to prove you can,” he said, “then leave me to rot? Like you did with your last puppet? And the one before that? And the one before them? What are you even hoping for?”

“Travis—”

“You know what?” He leaned forward, a tone that was something close to anger- or to pity lay on the tip of his tongue. “I think you’re lonely.”

Creole groaned, dragging a hand over his face. But when it dropped, he wore a stretched, mocking smile.

“I’m not alone, silly boy. You’ve met my friends.”

Travis narrowed his eyes.

“So... what? You make puppets that adore you to pieces as a hobby? Your… friends are busy with their own lives, so you build other friends,” Travis went on, “who can’t say no. You make them pretty and obedient, and they love you by design. That’s not company. Those are wind-up toys.”

Silence stretched between them like a taut wire.

“That’s enough, Travis.”

His tone was stern.

Travis didn’t flinch. “I’m the only one here, sir. And we’re both alone. But it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Creole said nothing.

Travis pressed on.

“I could be more than a puppet to you.”

The silence deepened.

“…Like what?” Creole asked, his voice low.

Now or never.

“A partner.”

They stared at each other. Creole’s face gave nothing away, but something in his posture shifted—a slight pull back, like he’d been touched by something unexpected.

Then he laughed.

It started as a giggle, something disbelieving, then broke into wild, howling cackles. He laughed and laughed, his body shaking with it, head thrown back like he’d just heard the funniest joke in decades.

Travis waited, watching with a blank expression.

“I could be by your side,” he said when the laughter finally dipped low enough to speak over. “Actually useful. I’ll stop fighting if we work on equal ground. No strings.”

“A partner?” Creole wheezed out a final chuckle, “You? Oh, I did wonder if I had broken your pretty little head in.”

“I’m serious.”

“Oh, I’m sure you think you are.” He turned for the hallway, chuckling again. “But you’re not partner material, Travis. You’re barely even salvageable.”

“If I’m worthless, then what does that make you for keeping me? An idiot in over his head?”

Creole tsked. His boy was just trying to get a jab in.

Travis kept going. “We keep doing this, and one day I won’t get back up. You’ll be stuck finding another thing to torment. Over and over. What a legacy.”

Creole didn't turn. He scoffed one last time.

Then he left. Cane tapping a rhythm down the hallway until it faded into silence

A sigh. Dry and humourless.

“Yeah,” he muttered to the empty room. “Didn’t think so.”

Square one…

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Rain pattered on the windows of the shop. It felt like fall rain but could’ve very well been spring.

He sat in the old rocking chair. It creaked beneath him, a quiet rhythm to fill the stillness.
His button eyes felt heavy. He missed sleep.

He didn’t hear Creole come in. He felt him.

The air shifted. The shadows bent slightly wrong.

Then, the soft sound of footsteps approaching, accompanied by a subtle tap of the cane against the wooden floors.

He turned when they stopped just behind him.

And there the voodoo man stood, slanted on his cane, an unreadable expression plastered on his stitched face.

“What would this idea of yours entail?”

Chapter Text

Travis locked the door with a satisfying click.
Twisted the cold brass handle out of habit, checking it wouldn’t budge with a shake.
No telling what kind of freak would wander in off the street.
He’d made that mistake once. and once was enough.

His hand lingered on the knob a second longer than it needed to.
He glanced up, catching his own reflection in the rain-slicked glass — a warped, tired silhouette.
Not beaten.
Not bloodied.
Just... tired.

He exhaled through his nose and turned away from the door, starting his final sweep of the shop.
Overheads off. Candles snuffed. Shelves: locked. Counters: wiped.
No bloody noses tonight. No stitches. No broken glass.

The trinkets lining the walls stared at him — button eyes, glass eyes, sockets of stitched velvet and knotted thread. Some didn’t have faces at all, just the suggestion of a head where one ought to be.
One of them — a crooked porcelain doll on the third shelf — let out a muffled whisper.
Not words, exactly. Just the soft, half-heard cadence of a conversation you might catch through the walls of an old house.
He ignored it.

The rain had picked up, tapping at the windows like it wanted in.
Somewhere down the hall, music played faintly from the King’s office — scratchy vinyl, bluesy and low. The sound curled around the corners of the hallway like smoke.

As Travis passed the basement door, his pace slowed.
He didn’t mean to stop there. He just always did.
No scratching anymore. No more muffled crying or fists pounding against the wood.
He still wasn’t sure what happened to all the bodies.
Some were dolls now. Others — ingredients. The rest...
He hadn’t been asked to help with that part yet.
So he didn’t ask.

The hallway always felt longer on nights like this.
Like it stretched depending on how much you didn’t want to get to the end.
The door at the end was slightly ajar, warm golden light spilling beneath it. The same every night.
The Kings office.
Travis pushed it open and stepped inside.

The light came from a brass lamp on the desk. It cast a soft flicker across the walls and the clutter of the room: shelves buckling under old books, dried herbs, half-dismantled dolls in glass cases, and a chess board left mid-game beneath a layer of dust.

Still haven’t gotten back to it yet.

The lamp reflected against framed photographs along the far wall — most of them warped beyond recognition. Water damage. Burn marks. A few were clawed to shreds.
Travis had never asked. He likely never would.

Creole sat behind the desk, leaned back in the old velvet chair. He didn’t look up.

“You’re late,” he said.

“You always say that,” Travis replied, shrugging off his coat. He tossed it over a nearby chair, half-aimed, missed, didn’t bother fixing it.

“You’re always late.”

“I lock up.”

“You linger.”

“You want it done fast or right?”

Creole finally glanced up, one brow raised.

“Sit. I shuffled already.”

Travis sighed, lowering into the chair opposite of the voodoo man.

“You never choose a game we both have a shot at.”

“You’re not any better at chess. Or backgammon. Or hangman.”

Creole smirked. “I’ve never seen someone get every letter wrong.”

Travis shrugged.
Creole dealt the cards. They played.

A card landed with a snap. Creole’s hand again.

“You’re very bad at this.”

“I’m letting you win.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? Pity?”

“If that’s how you’d word it.”

Creole smirked. “I’d rather call it what it is. Losing.”

Travis rolled his eyes and dealt the next round.

“You’re always so annoying when things are going your way.”

“And you’re always mouthy when you don’t have a plan.”

“I’ve had plans.” The clerk retorted.

“You’ve had tantrums.” Creole corrected. “There’s a difference.”

That earned him a middle finger. Creole only grinned wider.

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Later, long after the last hand was played and the cards stacked into neat little graves, Travis sat alone in the front room.

The storm had moved on. The streets were empty. The silence in the shop was thick and watchful.
The rocking chair creaked underneath him. A crossword stolen from someone long dead lay across his lap.
Half-finished. He twiddled a fountain pen between his fingers.

He stared out the window. Not at anything. Just the shape of his own reflection — warped, as always.
He didn’t smile.
Didn’t frown either.

'It was worse before.' He told himself.

He was still trapped.

They both were.

Their ‘lives’ were tangled in a knot too tight to undo.

Bound by a forced loyalty and someone too stubborn to let a dead thing die.

This was his life now. It might never end.
It didn't matter on those nights where he found himself close to being okay with it.
Nor did it matter on those nights where he was sure he wasn't.

No use crying about it now.