fandomtownies | Needful Things, Grand Opening, Wednesday

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Needful Things, Grand Opening, Wednesday

There was something ever so exciting about a Grand Opening. Leland Gaunt was rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He had fully unpacked. His items were carefully set out on displays -- still no price tags. Price tags only hampered one's ability to haggle, and he loved haggling.

The sign in the window now read

GRAND OPENING

NEEDFUL THINGS
A DIFFERENT KIND OF STORE

You Won't Believe Your Eyes

And now, to await the first fly to walk into his spiderweb.

(OPEN for browsers, people who want non-cursed items, or people who want cursed items they've signed up for! COME ONE, COME ALL.)

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You really won't believe what he has for you.

Eliot had heard about the shop on the radio yesterday, and being the sort who liked to know what was going on around him, he'd made a mental note to stop by and see what it was all about.

"Antique shop, huh?" he said aloud as he walked in. Honestly, he was a little surprised Fandom didn't have one already. "'Bout time, I suppose."

Leland Gaunt was thrilled to see the man walking into his store.

"Hello there!" he said brightly. "I agree with you, high time indeed. Welcome to my establishment! You are my very first customer, and you are very welcome indeed."

Eliot raised an eyebrow. That was . . . enthusiastic. "Yeah, things can run kinda slow on the island," he said, deciding to ease into the 'until you get attacked by something' part. "You get used to it." He offered his hand. "I'm Eliot. I run the diner in town."

At the hand, Leland appeared to hesitate, then chose to instead bow.

"Forgive me," he said. "I don't shake hands if I can help it. Nothing personal, I assure you."

He was listening attentively to the rest. "The diner?" he asked. "I saw one named Luke's, on my way through town. Would that be yours?"

Eliot nodded, filing that little bit of information away. There was definitely something off about Leland -- but that could describe most people Eliot knew best. And just about everyone else on the island, to boot. "That's the one. I sort of . . . inherited it when I got here last year. No idea who Luke was, or if he ever really existed." He started pacing slowly through the store again, looking around. "Interestin' assortment you've got in here."

"Perhaps the original owner liked the name Luke," Leland suggested. "It's hard to name a business after one's self if one has an unpronounceable name."

Whereas Luke was hard to mispronounce.

"I do pride myself on my collection," Leland said, eyeing the shelves thoughtfully. "Tell me, is it true that this island is ... somewhat unusual? A place where perhaps, a peddler need not lie about his more interesting items?"

Eliot snorted. "If you mean you're selling magic stuff, then yeah, it's true. Took me a little while to get my head around it, myself, but Fandom'll prove it to you quick enough." He held his hand out towards a shelf of books, but didn't touch anything. If Leland was selling magic stuff, he didn't want to accidentally get zapped or something.

Besides, groping antiques was just impolite.

Edited 2015-03-04 23:51 (UTC)

"The books don't bite," Leland said, sounding amused. "I'd hardly set them out on shelves like that if they did. All carnivorous books are safely locked up in the back."

It was anybody's guess if he meant that.

"That was, indeed, what I was referring to," he said. "Magical items. The unusual and rare. I make a hobby of collecting them, but some locations, I have to be circumspect about what it is that I sell. Imagine trying to sell a mermaid's comb to a young lady who doesn't believe in mermaids."

The books were properly dusty, the way old and rare books ought to be. Some of the titles were in runes, or symbols; others had odd-sounding titles. There was a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, and one of John James Audobon's Birds of America, alongside scribbled notebooks and diaries from famous dignitaries from many worlds.

Eliot's fingers lingered over the Shakespeare -- Sophie would flip -- but he still didn't touch. "Old leather also ain't a big fan of oils," he noted. "Materials they used in those days weren't always the most stable." He should know, he'd once watched Hardison very meticulously fake them. "You carry a lot of mermaid combs, then?"

The folio would be an amazing gift for Sophie, but if he was getting her something, he should find something for Nate, too. He made a mental note and kept going, nearly walking right past the jewelry case. Nate wasn't much for that, outside of a con, and anyway, the stuff in the case was too rustic, all wood beads and shells and bone and --

Eliot stopped, then backed up a step, eyes not quite so much drawn as snapping to a particular piece.

"Maybe some. . . ." What had he been talking about? "Dragon scales or somethin'?"

Oh, he lived for this. There was no taste so sweet as that first thrill, when the prey spotted the trap.

"Not so many mermaid combs," Leland said, his tone still light even as his eyes narrowed. "Dragon scales, those are useful, but hard to come by."

He had sauntered over, lazily, towards the jewelry counter, as casual as he could seem.

"Some lovely pieces here," he said. "If one goes in for that sort of thing. Claws, teeth, and scales. It's all very feral. Some of them have the oddest inscriptions."

"Oh yeah?" Eliot wasn't entirely listening any more. He leaned forward to get a closer look. "You know, I could swear, I used to have -- I had one just like that." He tapped his finger on the glass over it, eager as a kid in a candy store. "That's a, uh. Wolf claw, right? Gray -- nah, eastern wolf."

It was a distinctive claw.

Leland narrowed his eyes at the case, then shook his head. "I can't tell some of these apart," he said, stepping around behind the counter so that he could open it up. "Forgive me. Lupus has never been a specialty of mine."

He counted over with his fingers to the one Eliot was looking at, and squinted at a sheet of paper taped to the inside of the case.

"If you mean this one," he said, lifting it from its hook as he spoke, "then yes, eastern wolf. Not mystical, but distinctive. The trader I obtained it from claimed it was a very popular style."

He brought the necklace around in front of the case, so Eliot could get a better look.

Oh, Eliot was definitely looking. He hadn't quite managed to look away from the necklace since he'd spotted it. "Wouldn't like somethin' mystical, anyway," he said. "Don't have much use for ju-ju." He reached towards the claw. "Can I, uh --" He managed to shoot a glance up at Leland, eyebrow raised.

"By all means," Leland said, holding it out so that Eliot could take it from him without their fingers bumping. "I insist that you try it. I trust that you won't attempt to run away the moment you've taken it. I'm not so spry as I once was."

As if that would somehow be a problem, if Eliot were to steal this now.

He had his eyebrows raised, an expression of mild interest on his face. "Is it so like the one you lost?" he asked. "A happy find indeed."

"Dead ringer," Eliot said, running his thumb over the curve of the claw. Hell, he felt like a kid again just looking at the thing. "Must've been a popular style." He turned it over in his hand, then sucked in a breath when he saw the inscription.

the one you feed

"How much?"

The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about it. Rookie move, that. Letting the sales guy know how much he wanted it. No way to start a negotiation.

Leland, for his part, was clicking his tongue in what appeared to be dissatisfaction.

"That's a poor start indeed," he said. "You know, I feel that haggling is like a dance. It's like seducing a beautiful woman. One doesn't approach her and ask for a room key."

Eliot smirked faintly. "Depends on the woman." Because he was classy like that. "Alright. Piece like this might retail for, what? A hundred? Dependin' on how the materials were sourced. You already told me it ain't magic, but I already told you it's sentimental." He rubbed his thumb down the claw again, feeling the indentations from the engraving. "How 'bout one-fifty. Then you can buy your girl a drink, first."

Leland returned Eliot's smile. "You've improved, significantly," he said. "Still, there's a serious misstep to which I feel I must draw your attention. The truth is that I find money to be dreadfully dull. I have enough on which to live -- more than I shall ever require. Men with money presume they can throw enough of it at a problem, and it will solve itself out of deference. Money is simply paper, to me, at this point, and paper fails to excite me."

He leaned over, elbows resting on the counter, fingers steepled together.

"I've caught your interest," he said, nodding to the claw. "Now try to catch mine."

Ah. This was one of those places, then. "Swear to god," Eliot muttered. "You better not want a goddamn sapphire monkey." He straightened, shoulders dropping, kid-in-the-candy-store to retrieval specialist in one smooth shift. "Don't see you as the jewels type, though."

Jesus, why was he even considering this? He never worked for less than six figures, before joining up with Nate. Certainly not for a damn necklace.

His fingers tightened on the claw again. Not just any damn necklace.

"What's your poison, then? Artifact or intel?"

Oh, how wonderful, to work with someone who understood how trades worked.

"Intel," he said. "You're right. I find jewels as tiresome as I find money. Shinier, but no less boring. But information is what turns the world on its axis."

He raised an eyebrow. "Or, in some cases, keeps the world from turning entirely. If one is but a humble peddler, and is, perhaps, wanted in a few jurisdictions. Internationally. Misunderstandings, all, but quite vexing ones."

Eliot's smile then was a little wolfish. "Some places got no sense of humor." Myanmar, for instance. He wondered if Sterling still hoped to get that half a million on Eliot's head, some day.

Come to think of it. . . .

"Interpol," he said thoughtfully. "Could have an angle on them."

Leland reached out, now, to grasp the beads near the top of the necklace.

"Could, or do?" he asked, tugging lightly in an attempt to pull it out of Eliot's hands. "Could doesn't purchase a highly sought after trinket."

Eliot glared, fingers tightening automatically on the necklace. Mine.

"You have any idea how much I'd charge on the open market for a job like that?!"

Well, no. Because in his right mind, Eliot would never take a job like that. Too much risk of exposure and capture.

Eliot was not even remotely in his "right mind", any more.

"No," said Leland Gaunt serenely. He wasn't letting go, but neither was he attempting to pull the necklace again. "I haven't the least idea what your rates are. Nor do I care."

He smiled at Eliot, supremely unruffled. "You want this necklace? Those are my terms. If you don't like my terms, then you may find another store. Just as soon as you return my property."

He had the upper hand. He could walk away.

Eliot stared back at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. Not so much because he thought he could stare Leland down as because that was what his face did when he was struggling with something internally.

It was a ridiculous bargain. Absurd. But the idea of walking away without at least the promise of that necklace carved a hole in something in Eliot he thought he'd long since lost.

"Fine," he bit out, still glaring. "Passwords, codenames, anything else I can find on Interpol's top agents. Give me --" He calculated quickly. "-- Two days."

Edited 2015-03-05 06:51 (UTC)

"Two days," Mr. Gaunt agreed, with a flicker of a smile. "That sounds delightful. I'll see you then."

You can only mod your shopping if you're browsing, or buying something non-cursed.

(And you can browse or buy something non-cursed in Leland's thread as well, if you'd prefer. But you can't mod a cursed item buy.)

Edited 2015-03-04 21:36 (UTC)

Some SP from Leland in an hour or so when I flee to work, but it's a tiny shift, so pings will continue this evening.

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