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"So, is Flynn coming to bowling tonight?" Cassandra asks while the LITs are all sitting down for team breakfast. Eve doesn't always have time to join them, and also no longer needs to eat for survival, so admittedly it's been longer than she'd like since she last shared this ritual with them.
Maybe that would explain why she is so careless in her response. "He can't. Moriarty is poisoning him right now." Eve pauses to eat a forkful of scrambled eggs before adding, "It's a particularly slow and painful one so they'll probably be busy until tomorrow."
It is only when she looks up to see Ezekiel, Jake and Cassandra all looking at her in horror that she realizes this must be the first time this has come up in conversation.
"He's murdering Flynn?!" Cassandra hisses in response.
Before Eve can respond, Jake adds, "And you're okay with this? I mean I know Flynn can be a bit hard to handle sometimes but trying to kill him isn't the right move."
Luckily, Jenkins comes back from the annex kitchen and cuts in before Eve has to figure out how to make this situation less awkward. "Mr. Carsen has taken to regularly poisoning himself in the name of scientific research. The Professor monitors and documents his symptoms."
When the LITs continue to stare with mildly confused horror Eve adds, "Unfortunately, this is what I get for dating a couple of immortal nerds, but the papers they've published have actually already helped someone so I just tell them they have to keep me updated on everything." Eve is about to eat another forkful of eggs when her cellphone goes off.
Eve excuses herself from the table before answering what turns out to be a video call.
Flynn is sitting still wearing what appears to be his pajamas, which makes sense as he likes to be comfortable when doing these experiments.
The moment he sees Eve he immediately goes wide-eyed and yells "Eve! Moriarty just poisoned me!"
Somewhere offscreen, there is a long suffering sigh from the aforementioned poisoner followed by, "There are many things I find to be rather charming about you, Librarian. Your sense of humor is not one of them." After a pause James adds, "Drink your tea before the heat dissolves the Meevaraine root rendering it a harmless sludge."
"So, what are the symptoms of this one?" Eve asks as she walks back over to the table so that Flynn and James can say hi to the LITs and Jenkins while the former drinks his poisoned tea.
"Slurred speech, hallucinations, spontaneous changes in body temperature, seizures, vomiting and death within twelve hours!" Flynn sounds far too cheerful as he speaks, even as Cassandra in particular looks more and more horrified with every new symptom listed.
"Why would you do this to yourself?" Cassandra hisses.
"You know what Red, you probably don't want to know," Eve sighs before ending the call.
-
Although she's been receiving hourly updates, it isn't until roughly seven hours later that things get truly interesting. At this point, Eve has been roped into a midday for her, nearly midnight for Belgrade consultation because apparently they need extra help decoding a map that just so happens to be of Portlock, Alaska and that means it's sort of in her personal expertise.
So there she is, at the annex in Belgrade, trying to help a half asleep team read a map, when she decides to do a check in.
When she clicks on the video chat, James is standing evasively in the center of the room and although he asks if she is alone before declaring that because the other Librarians are there and she can't see Flynn it doesn't set off too many alarm bells.
However, what does set off alarm bells is when he suddenly turns to look away from her, looking ridiculously frightened for Professor Moriarty, and then the phone drops to the floor.
Next Eve, and the others with her hear an animalistic growl and then the still oddly poshly British sounding, "I'd advise you not to do that Librarian," which starts to sound oddly garbled and wet towards the end.
Charlie Cornwall suddenly stands up straight before stating in a reasonably alarmed tone, "Is he being murdered?"
"Not in a way that will be permanent," Eve hears herself respond nonchalantly before realizing that it sounds completely absurd. "I can't believe I thought that was a completely normal and not remotely unhinged thing to say out loud. I'm…going to go reevaluate every single choice I've made in my life. Text me if you still need help with the map, but I might be cleaning up…something."
At least the Belgrade team now all look to be completely awake.
-
Jenkins is standing in the main entry of the annex when Eve bursts through the magic door and at first he looks at her with concern before stating, "I assume Flynn had a particularly unpleasant, well more unpleasant than guaranteed death, reaction to the Meevaraine root tea? Really, that's by far the most potent way to ingest the toxins. Nasty stuff. There's a particular literature about a dying man mistaking himself for a wild beast and using his teeth to rip out the throat of his traveling companion." Eve must be wearing a rather blank expression as it dawns on her that this may very well be what happened because he adds, "Well, that's rather unfortunate. Would you like me to accompany you to the laboratory in case the Professor needs further help subduing him?"
"I think I can handle Flynn, even if he's hallucinating." Eve states.
Minutes later, when she makes her way into the "lab" which is really just a room attached to the Library apartment, the scene she sees is a mess.
Flynn is in the middle of the floor "dead" with his eyes wide open and seemingly shirtless with a sheet over him. There is black goop around his mouth and splattered all over the floor even leading off in a trail.
Eve has a strong suspicion what the goop is and how it connects to her other partner who is seemingly missing, but first…
"That sheet is there to protect his modesty," James's voice sounds from the other room as Eve almost reaches over to move the above-mentioned bedding.
She's about to ask why he's seemingly naked when a thought suddenly flashes in her head. Flynn had been so excited to mention that overheating was one of the symptoms. "I'm just gonna close his eyes. His dead stare is giving me the heebie jeebies." Really, there are so many life choices she is reconsidering right now. "Do we need to be concerned about you have a clotting disorder?"
"Oh no, my ichor as you've taken to calling it, flows quite normally. I'm afraid in his hallucinogenic haze Flynn went right for the vessels in my throat. Managed to bite through a tendon in my dominant wrist too which is likely why I'm having trouble sewing myself back together." He sounds disturbingly casual about the fact that he's obviously bleeding, or ichoring, out in the other room. Then again, the bar for normal is not normal when you're part of the Library. Still, dying Librarians biting through your carotid artery should not be normalized.
Eve pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, "Well, when Flynn wakes up again I am officially banning future research poisonings." She allows herself one more sigh before adding, "I do have some training in battlefield medicine."
-
"You know if you really wanted to get out of bowling with the LITs there are easier methods than murder/suicide." Eve isn't sure why she blurts that out other than the fact that she's still trying to file the black blood of one of her partners out from under her nails and although she can't really get drunk anymore the whiskey is hitting enough that she doesn't feel weird about how today turned out.
Flynn surprisingly looks almost upset. "Wait, we missed bowling? Why didn't you tell me they wanted to go bowling tonight?"
"Sorry Babe, you seemed to have your heart set on poisoning yourself," Eve hears herself respond before again thinking of how weird this is.
"I also seem to recall someone dropping the ball on his foot last time," James adds before attempting to do a gesture that is probably an absent wave. Of course this would probably work much better with a wrist that hasn't had the tendon bitten through.
"Hey, that wasn't my fault I was…"
"Trying to eat a hotdog at the same time," Eve adds, rolling her eyes.
"It was a really good hotdog," Flynn pouts. Before Eve can say anything else Flynn randomly turns to look at James, who is still sporting a huge, oozy looking gauze on his neck, and states, "Speaking of which, you taste horrible…like old dried out ink."
"Well, I am from a classic novel so that may serve to explain why I taste so outdated. Perhaps a fictional from a newer piece of literature would…"
Eve had been about to reach for a slice of pizza from the box because look, she thought she deserved pizza for all of the trouble today had bought except the direction the conversation is taking is arguably more disturbing than anything that has happened already. Sighing internally she reminds herself that one of the involved parties literally is Professor Moriarty. Still, that doesn't excuse any of this. "We are not replacing bi-monthly poisonings with bi-monthly cannibalism."
The statement is so ridiculous that for a moment they all just stare at each other until an alarm on Flynn's phone suddenly goes off signifying that the clipping book has gone off.
All Eve can think is to pray to Ray that this mission will be ridiculously mundane. Of course, they never are.