[The Devil's Den] Down the Rabbit Hole [Oogie]

The place was the Devil's Den and Jude currently felt like he was heading to a meeting with the devil himself. He'd been given the invitation earlier in the day and he'd noted a few particular things. Men - multiple in number and huge in stature - had delivered it. That was an intimidation tactic if Jude had ever seen one. And yet he hadn't been dragged out of the house or apparated to the place then and there. The invitation didn't hint at the reason or the person doing the inviting, just a time and place - a place that Jude had heard rumours of from time to time, but never stepped foot in before. He'd heard rumours about the kingpin that oversaw the area too - but they were just that. Rumours. Nothing concrete, and who knew whether they were more monster-under-the-bed type stories than actual fact. The whole situation equally terrified him and intrigued him. He decided not to tell Noemi where he was going, but instead wrote down the details of the invitation and popped them into a parchment envelope marked 'in the case of my disappearance'. He tucked that behind a plant pot on his desk. Not that it would alter his fate in the slightest, but at least if this did end badly, his family might be able to work out why and seek some vengeance.

He was going as... Jude. He'd agonised over the decision for hours, considering whether to polyjuice, or femme up a little and go as Juliette. Those options felt wrong, or even dangerous. So he'd put on both a binder and a packer beneath dark jeans and a dark grey short-sleeved shirt. Looking in the mirror, the person that stared back could easily pass for male. His voice tended to give him away, but he felt confident in his appearance. "At least if I'm getting murdered, I'll die being myself," he muttered, pulling on a pair of hardy leather boots and his jacket before flooing himself to Knockturn.

He was careful to avoid the lab, even though he was sure that Noemi would be wrapped up in her work and not paying attention to people passing on the alleyway. Besides, she seemed totally oblivious to the criminal happenings around them. Turning the collar of his leather jacket up, he fixed his face with an impassive, confident look and headed to the place on the invitation. There was a password - of course - and then the surreal nature of the night ramped up even more as the door transformed before his eyes. Jude was proud of himself for not outwardly reacting, keeping his cards to his chest as he handed over his invitation and gave his name - Jude. Not Juliette. Not Jules. Not any of the other aliases that he used when out in the clubs wearing someone else's face. He hardly ever used that name outside of his own head, but here nothing else seemed to make sense.

Without being seen to be looking around too much, he tried to take as much in as possible as he was led through the main room and through a rabbit's warren of corridors. The room was fancy with soft furnishings, though, far from the stark nature that Jude had been expecting. He hesitantly perched himself on one of the sofas, unable to relax, no matter how comfortable his surroundings were. Now, he didn't know what to expect. There wasn't much left to assess, but he found himself mentally going over everything, every little detail in search of some clue, trying to prepare himself for any eventuality.

“No, not that one. Number 84, 106, and 217, please Bert.”

Oogie was standing in a massive room, the high vaulted ceilings only made to look smaller by the fact that the walls were honeycombed from top to bottom with small stone compartments. An impossibly long, unstable-looking ladder slid carelessly from side to side as a small man with a comically large grey moustache and blurry spectacles moved from shelf to shelf, pulling different colored glass bottles from the shelves and throwing them haphazardly toward the ground. Three of Oogie’s men were scrambling behind him, trying to catch the falling vials as the small man on the ladder muttered loudly to himself.

Finally, the small man made a strange harrumphing noise and slid down the ladder in one fluid motion, landing on the floor with a dusty little poof (Oogie wasn’t sure if the dust had come from the room itself or the man’s hair). “84, 106, 217,” the little man said proudly, holding the bottles in his long apron. One of Oogie’s men, the only one who wasn’t currently holding an armful of strange bottles, placed the three bottles carefully in a black trunk that was padded with fur.

Oogie shook the small, dusty man’s hand. “Excellent as ever, Bertram. Thank you for your time.” Oogie gave his remaining men the orders to put all the other bottles back as he and the man with the trunk left the store room. The room outside of the massive storeroom was a lab, with rows and rows of strange instrument and oddly bubbling smells seemed to be working away at all hours of the night. Oogie didn’t go into Bertram’s lab that often, despite the older man being one of Oogie’s top potioneers, mostly because Bert was a little bit…eccentric to say the least. He was a genius, a mad genius, but also very finicky and Oogie usually only ever saw the man when he was coming up with new and (often useless) new potions.

And that was why Oogie was heading out of the sublevels, to the top floor of the den, for a meeting. He exited the secret entrance in the back of the building, making his way through the maze of corridors and hallways to the room at the end. The man stationed outside nodded at Oogie and opened the door for him. Oogie stepped inside, straightening his tie as he did so, laying eyes on the other party for the first time. Dark black sockets examined the man carefully. Ah, he thought, suddenly understanding. How interesting.

Oogie stepped fully into the room, the door closing behind him, the other men instructed to wait outside. He approached the young man, sitting down in the armchair across from him. “So you are Jude,” Oogie said thoughtfully, rolling the name around, listening to the way it sounded with his thick Spanish accent. “I am Oogie. It has come to my attention that you seem to have some great need for boomslang skin. Not an easy item to find and not an east item to get into the country. This I know. What I am more interested in is what such a young man as yourself would need it for, so much so that you would incur such a large debt in so little time. I am quite…curious." He looked at the younger man solemnly. "Such debt cannot go unpaid for much longer, I am afraid.”

The door opened and Jude instinctively stood. It turned out that the monster under the bed was real and even Jude with his strong sense of self control, found himself staring for a moment. The man that stepped into the room was certainly the one that Jude had heard rumours of. The rumours didn't do the full body tattoos justice - they seemed to cover every inch of visible skin turning the man into the image of a walking skeleton, albeit a rather well-dressed skeleton. But Jude's mind also dwelt on the smaller details. Someone else had opened and closed the door for him and were no doubt waiting just outside the room - another blatant show of the power he'd noted earlier. He also noted the way that this man's eyes lingered on him for a moment in a way that Jude was quite familiar with, some kind of realisation sparking there which Jude hated seeing.

He waited until the man had settled into the armchair in front of him before sitting down once more. There was an accent - Italian? Spanish? And a name - the one he'd heard muttered before and found at the time quite ridiculous. Oogie Boogie. And yet the name fitted this man and suddenly didn't seem ridiculous at all. Unsettling, yes.

Oogie got right to the point, putting Jude out of his misery of trying to guess and second-guess what this was about. Ah yes, his apothecary 'credit'. Honestly, he wasn't even sure how much he owed. Hundreds? Thousands? Usually he liked to know everything and pour over the small details, but this had definitely been a case of sticking his head in the sand and hoping it would just go away. He needed the Boomslang skin and stealing it from Noemi was no longer an option. In hindsight, getting into debt with a Knockturn-based apothecary probably hadn't been his wisest move ever. Hindsight wasn't even needed - he'd known it was pure stupidity at the time. The lure of being someone else for a few hours was just too hard to resist.

Oogie called him a young man. It felt both odd and perfectly natural at the same time. He wasn't used to male terminology when he wasn't using potions. Despite his usual masculine attire and hairstyle, the majority of people stared at him for a moment and came to their own conclusion about his gender. The odd moment when someone merely glanced his way and called him sir or boy felt like tiny, rare victories. But Oogie hadn't merely glanced. He'd looked and seen... and yet he didn't question Jude. Not yet anyway. That was strangely refreshing.

Of course there were more serious things to be focusing on. "I brew polyjuice," he responded honestly, deciding that lying was a fools game in this situation, "for personal use." It was a brief but truthful answer. An answer that Oogie had probably already figured out for himself anyway given that Polyjuice was the main use for boomslang skin. Something in the pit of his stomach was churning and he realised that it wasn't the threat of death that scared him, but rather the thought that this was the end of his ability to polyjuice. He could... find the money from somewhere... or work it off maybe... but he'd have to stop buying. There would be no more Boomslang which meant there would be no more Polyjuice. No more feeling at ease in his body. No more walking into a room and feeling accepted for the person that he wanted to be. Other people used polyjuice as a form of deception. For him it had always been a release.

The words that followed were matter-of-fact, but there was something of an emptiness and a hopelessness to his tone. "So, how long is 'much longer' and... what happens if... I can't pay?"

Inky bone fingers steepled together thoughtfully as Oogie listened as the young man spoke. Of course it was polyjuice potion, there were few other uses for boomslang skin at such a high frequency and volume at this skill level. Oogie had at first been curious as to where all the potions were going, since the profits made from the potion itself should be enough to pay back the suppliers easily. But then the men he had put on the young man and his white-haired boss relayed intelligence Oogie found much more interesting than bad economics. A polyjuice addiction. Now that…that caught Oogie’s attention.

“You buy your ingredients from Lucario in Knockturn Alley, correct?” Oogie said, looking at the young man, knowing the answer was yes. “Well, Lucario buys his items wholesale from supplier named Algernon, via a monthly payment plan. Algernon works for me. Believe it or not, your name went all the way up the ladder and landed on my desk. Lucario has a habit of allowing customers unlimited credit, but Algernon is much less forgiving. He asked permission to get his money the hard way. You know, to send a team into your home and take it by force.” Oogie shook his head and gave the young man a sinister smile that stretched his tattoos all the way to his ears. “But I saw an opportunity.”

As if on cue, the door behind them opened. Brutus, one of Oogie’s men, walked in pushing a cart laden with strange items and odd plants on the lower levels. The top of the cart was wide and flat, with a black cauldron and the trunk from earlier placed on top. Oogie stood, buttoning his suit jacket as he did so. He gestured for the young man to come closer to the cart. Bony fingers opened the trunk, revealing the three potions Oogie had personally chosen from the store room.

“My men have been watching you for quite some time, Mr, Blythe. You’re a skilled potioneer, you and your Mistress. Miss Noemi seems quite nice,” Oogie said casually, absently straightening the paring knife on the cart. “A little bit odd but a lovely woman, I am told. My associate had many kind things to say about her when they met not long ago. Both the flat the two of you share and the potions lab you rent are properties currently held in my possession. It is not that strange, most of Knockturn Alley is nowadays. It would be a shame if she was forced to pack up her livelihood and relocate once again all because of your addiction. Your habit is unsustainable. You and your mistress have a business of humble means, which would in no way be able to support the debt that you have already compound on every occasion that you bought boomslang skin. You need an alternative.”

A skeletal hand reached into the trunk and gently placed the three differently colored, differently shaped bottles on the top of the cart beside the cauldron. “Each of these bottles contains a different, uncommon potion. You have forty-five minutes to identify and replicate it perfectly.” Dark eyes bore into the young man. “If you fail, I will take my payment out of Miss Noemi’s deposits, which I daresay is all of it. If you succeed, you will come work for me. Since you are obviously unable to repay me in gold, you will work off your debt to me in skill. You are going to keep needing polyjuice potion and I can make sure you get what you need. One way or another,” Oogie said grimly, sitting back down in his chair and watching the young man. “I will get my money’s worth.”

He nodded as Oogie spoke, although he knew that the other man didn't need answers. The man was simply making it clear that he already knew everything. Jude winced internally at the mention of men coming in to take the debt by force. He'd dragged Noemi into this and she was oblivious. If anything, this was worse than stealing from her directly. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or scared at Oogie's mention of an opportunity. He wasn't getting answers to his questions and that was obviously because Oogie already knew that he couldn't pay. Certainly not on any short deadline.

His eyes turned to the cart that was wheeled in, half expecting the top to be laid out with torture implements. Instead there was a cauldron, chopping board and various ingredients. Curious, he got up when beckoned closer, moving over to the cart. His mind was already trying to be a few steps ahead. Was this... a job interview? Was he going to be expected to make something? His eyes flicked to the plants on the cart, already mentally listing potions that they were used in and ruling out options with long brewing periods. He frowned as the three vials were pulled from the trunk, trying to make sense of their presence.

He paled a little at the mention of Noemi, and then the revelation that Oogie owned both the properties that Noemi rented. Fuck. His normally control facade faltered as his eyes were drawn to the knife that Oogie 'absently' straightened. Another scare tactic, the logical part of his brain was telling him, and yet... people didn't rise to the top of the pack by being all bark and no bite. He hadn't known Noemi for long... but somehow she'd already managed to earn his loyalty. There were few people that Jude trusted and was loyal to, but she had been so good to him so far. He couldn't risk screwing up her life because of his own stupidity.

He focused as Oogie gave him the task at hand - and let him know the consequences for failure. Nothing like some pressure to focus the mind. Jude nodded. There was nothing else he could do. He was here in the lion's den with a man who could quite easily make him disappear off of the face of the planet and ruin the lives of everyone he cared about. He reached a hand for the first potion, purposefully picking one with an unusual deep red hue. Immediately that drew up a list of possibilities. Of course there was always the possibility that it was a potion he'd never heard of... but Oogie had said 'uncommon' not 'rare' and so he could only trust his knowledge and hope for the best. Digging his wand out of his pocket, he uncorked the bottle and performed a few simple identifying spells, checking the potion's reaction to heat, cold, steam, charms... anything he could think of. His mental list was narrowing and eventually a type of instinct settled in. Things were clicking in his mind; the ingredients that were offered, the lack of brewing time, the way the potion reacted, the colour... Jude crouched to rummage in the supplies box, searching for a particular couple of things and then started chopping. He moved in an almost ritualised fashion - methodical and structured. The first potion was done swiftly and he tipped the cauldron's contents into an empty bottle, setting it next to its twin. "Anti-coagulant," he said, not sure whether Oogie expected him to announce their names and effects, but doing so just the same, as if this was a lesson with Noemi assessing him, "prevents the imbiber's blood from coagulating, meaning any wound will simply bleed out."

Next potion. The scent of this one made him recoil as soon as he uncorked it, and he didn't need to do any tests to confirm what this bottle held because he recognised that scent. It had taken him a long time to perfect this particular potion and that haunting scent took him right back to nights spent huddled over a cauldron in his room back in Winchester. He couldn't even remember why he'd wanted to learn this one - a particularly nasty flesh-eating potion - but once he set his mind to something, he didn't accept failure. "Carnem putrescat - flesh-rot," he muttered, re-corking the vial immediately and making sure to pull on the thick pair of dragonhide gloves before fishing out the various active ingredients. "more effective if it's brewed over a 24 hour period, but a tamer version can take... " he trailed off. An hour. That had been his quickest time beforehand. Which already put him way over the 45 minute time period without him even attempting the third potion. What did he do? Work on this one without even looking at the third? Try to identify the third and not have time to brew either? His face began to twitch into a wince as the pressure and panic was settling in, along with the realisation that he probably wouldn't complete this task. He was going to fail. It was certain. He was going to fail and Noemi was going to lose her home, her savings... he was going to lose the career and the life that he'd worked so hard for.

He tried to brush that aside with a shake of the head, feeling his skin starting to dampen and flush. He shrugged off his jacket, throwing it absently over a nearby chair and enchanting the knife to start chopping the ingredients for the flesh-rot potion. He usually avoided chopping spells, prefering to do it by hand, but at least while that was being chopped, he could have a go at the third potion - an inky black, thick substance. Uncorking the bottle, he frowned. No scent. He performed a few identifying charms. No reactions. Fuck. His eyes flew up to the clock on the room's wall. Barely fifteen minutes left. Where had the time gone? His mind raced through all of the black potions he could remember, ruling out any which he knew to have scents or reactions. His heart was thudding and he was sure he could hear his pulse ringing in his ears, providing a virtual count-down as the seconds passed. Tick. Tick. Tick. "L-living nightmare?" he stuttered. It was a guess. An educated guess, based on the ingredients available and the clues from the potion, but really he felt like he had just picked an option out of the air. Tick. Tick. Tick. No choice but to trust his instinct.

The knife was now chopping thin air, so Jude cancelled the charm and started a few ingredients in the cauldron, charming it to stir itself. His eyes turned back to the black potion. Pulling a face, he glanced up at the clock. Twelve minutes. He couldn't wait until the flesh-rot was complete before starting, or he wouldn't get a chance to start at all. He set the knife chopping new ingredients, making sure to pile the ingredients for the two potions separately. He didn't usually brew side-by-side like this, as there was so much risk of cross-contamination, but he had no choice. The problem was that there was only one cauldron. Time to cheat... and hope that Oogie saw it as resourcefulness rather than actual cheating. Pointing his wand at the cauldron, he glanced briefly at Oogie before enunciating, "Geminio". The cauldron seemed to spit out a duplicate of itself which tumbled off of the cart to the floor with a clang. With a frustrated tch, Jude picked it up and set it on the cart, immediately beginning to pile in the ingredients for the living nightmare potion... although he'd never actually made this one himself, only read about it... and he was sure that its brewing-time was over an hour. Tick. Tick. Tick. He raised a hand to brush damp strands of hair away from his forehead. All he could do was dart between the two potions, one that he was familiar with and the other that he was trying desperately to remember from a book he'd read once or twice - was it clockwise or anti-clockwise stirring? Was it one tablespoon of Amanita muscaria or two? He turned his attention to the flesh-rot potion which had turned the right colour and its scent was beginning to permeate the room. It wasn't pungent enough to be ready. Should he bottle it anyway? His eyes darted up to the clock again and this time they widened in pure panic. One minute. If that.

"There's not... not enough time!" he turned to Oogie, panic obvious in his voice and face for the first time, his hand shaking as he continued to stir the nightmare potion, "I'll get there, I swear, I can do this, I just need longer..."

Impressive.

Oogie watched with muted fascination as the young man in front of him began to work. It was like he had turned into a different person, the nervousness and anxiety being pushed aside by extreme focus and determination. Jude was certainly very comfortable working with potions, handling the knives and materials with great familiarity. His hands still shook slightly, possibly because there was the threat of  possible death hanging over his head, but Oogie was impressed with just how much the young man was able to focus on the task at hand. The ability to function under duress was a critical one for Oogie’s line of work, and it appeared that Jude was handling it better than most civilians and non-criminals.

The first potion was done. Oogie didn’t show it, as he didn’t want to effect Jude’s concentration either way, but that had been very well done. His knife work was very clean and precise. It was almost as if Jude was in a trance. His movements weren’t necessarily the smoothest (they were a little jerky for Oogie’s tastes) but the mechanical, focused way he brewed the potion was enough to satisfy Oogie’s expectation. Without showing it on his bony face, Oogie checked the first potion off in his mind. Healing potions such as the first one were always important and his agents needed them regularly. It was good to know Jude would be able to handle the simplest of them.

Then the second one. Oogie smiled just a little bit as he watched the young man recoil after smelling it. Good, at least he was familiar with it. Oogie couldn’t have someone too squeamish working in his employ. They probably wouldn’t last long. Oogie had expected Jude to move onto the next one, since Carne putrescat took much longer to brew than the next one, but Jude pulled on a pair of gloves and dove right into it. Probably not the best choice under pressure, but Oogie had to admire how the young man just pulled up his sleeves and got down to it, knowing it would probably be futile. Then he performed a chopping spell and moved onto the final potions. Efficient.

The last potion was the gnarliest and one of Oogie particular favorites. Jude guessed Living Nightmare, which Oogie supposed was as close as someone who had never seen this particular revision would guess. Oogie had to restrain himself from smiling when Jude duplicated the cauldron, though he thought the young man should have done it earlier. Perhaps he had been under the impression that this was a one-cauldron deal at first but the timing had prompted him to think outside the box. But not long later, Jude’s focus began to deteriorate. He was panicking, looking from one pot to the other with crazed eyes, his hands shaking. One minute left….5…4…3…2…1.

Oogie held up a bony hand to stop the panicking words that were spilling out of Jude’s mouth. Rebuttoning his jacket, he stood up. Silently, Oogie circled Jude thoughtfully, examining the potions, smelling them, holding them up to the light, and tasting them. He went over the potions with a critical eye, before finally turning to face Jude. “I have seen enough,” he said in a low voice, approaching the young man. “Seven months,” he said, making a decision. “As of right now, your servitude to me will last the next seven months in order for you to pay off your debt. I will keep supplying you with ingredients for polyjuice potions or whatever you may need, but if your demands exceed the current pace of the payment plan, your servitude will be extended accordingly.”

The skeleton saw a great opportunity to increase his potions store, since his men went through healing potions and poisons very quickly. Having another supplier would be very useful. Jude was not bad under pressure, though he could still use some work. Perhaps time would ease him into it. The young man was also precise and resourceful, which Oogie also found quite useful skills to have. “This is arrangement is to be kept strictly between us,” Oogie said, looking at Jude grimly. “If I find out you have told Miss Noemi or anyone else about this, you will have more to worry about than losing your home. While you are working for me, you will also fall under my protection. Come straight to me if you have any trouble. I am offering you a place in my organization and safety in a dangerous town in exchange for your good work. I do not think I need to tell you how … unwise it would be to squander it, Mr. Blythe.”

His words ceased at the raised hand, just as if Oogie had cast the silencing charm. Jude's ragged breathed punctuated the air, wide eyes watching as the man circled him, analysing the potions one by one. He felt like a rat in a cage, poked and tormented just to see how he'd react and when he realised that he was practically panting, he tried to regain control over himself. He hated losing it like that and showing his weaknesses. Apparently, Noemi was now one of his weaknesses. It came as something of a surprise to him. The thought of her hurt seemed to shake him more than any threats to his family would. They hadn't been together long, but apparently his loyalty to her was already cast in stone.

He tried to remain impassive as Oogie approached, but he was waiting on his verdict with baited breath. When the skeleton's sentence came, his breath slipped slowly out. Seven months. That wasn't so bad. It was certainly better than any of the other options his imagination had been not-so-helpfully providing as he'd panicked. It was a chance to work himself out of a hole in a way that didn't affect Noemi. Servitude - a word that Jude despised, but there was no escaping that. There was no hint yet as to how much work he'd be expected to perform within those seven months or what kind of work... but Jude figured he would find out soon enough. In the meantime, Oogie was going to continue 'funding' his habit. It came with a warning though. Taking advantage of Oogie's generosity in that respect would only increase his debt and the time he owed. He tried not to let himself think about the inevitability of that. He'd have to get a control of himself.

Confidentiality was something that Jude had assumed would be a part of their deal, but Oogie made it clear anyway: Noemi had to be kept in the dark. That suited Jude just fine. She'd freak out if she even got the vaguest idea of what her apprentice was getting himself into... and he had to admit that he'd been good at keeping secrets from her so far. He smothered the pang of guilt he felt. But if he couldn't even tell her that he was uncomfortable with being a girl... how would he begin to tell her about this? It wasn't going to happen. This was his burden to bear alone.

"I understand," he finally said, a seriousness to his tone that he hoped carried the weight of the statement. "And I'm grateful... for the opportunity." and the not-killing-me thing. Deal with the devil. Done.