title fail. i had no idea what to call this part. and i feel like it's done, but i'm also going "well, that was awful anticlimactic..." y'know? and, as always, i fail at writing action, so i fake it by cutting things short.
warnings: AU - Fateverse. sci-fi. technobabble. crossover with several flavors of Neil Gaiman literature, notably Neverwhere. brief mild violence. rampant pop culture references. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).
pairing: none/gen (well, a little innocent fem!Billy/Teddy).
timeline: Network Operations 3652 (AD 6188), local year AD 2005.
disclaimer: the original Wade, Hope, Billy, Tommy, and Teddy belong to marvel. au and au versions belong to me. Neverwhere, the Sandman graphic novels, and all recognizable characters and terms thereof belong to Neil Gaiman.
notes: 1) depending on the local climate, gators and their kin love places like storm drains. however, the idea of giant alligators colonizing a metropolitan sewer system (especially NYC or London) is pretty absurd. fortunately, the world described in Neverwhere is a haven for absurd urban legends. 2) "but can she pull out a coat rack" is a reference to Mary Poppins and her magical carpet-bag. 3) Hope's Boomstick is probably an AA12, a fully-automatic assault shotgun that can fire pretty much any kind of ammo that fits, including little 12-gauge mini-warheads. it's self-cleaning and fires 5 rounds per second from a 20-round drum. 4) a gator on land can sprint at 30 mph in a short straight line. 5) Mr. Bang Bang is, if you'll recall, a 50-cal Desert Eagle. 6) Elphembre's mansion is a black Victorian-style house with three floors above-ground and a cellar. it has the curious property of existing both in a cavern of London Below and in a small plot in London Above...from inside the house, all the windows show a view of the Above locale, where the Front Wall is made of stone, not people. isn't magic great? 7) the myth goes that bluebells ring at midnight to call the fairies, and anyone who hears them ringing will be dead by morning. as we all know, cats are so ignorant or uncaring of the boundaries between worlds that they might as well be undead, so i figure they can hear bluebells with a little bit of magical assistance. 8) in terms of Wade's special variety of scrimshaw, a skeleton key would probably be made from a locksmith's finger bones. 9) a dumbwaiter is like an elevator for food and dishes. it saves on having to carry things up and down stairs. 10) to drive somebody around the bend is to drive her crazy. 11) "shut it" = "shut up." 12) when a kitty claims you, there's really nothing for it but to grit your teeth and give up a shin. 13) in this case, "Gleek" is a portmanteau of "Glee" and "geek," and is the term Glee fans use for themselves.
visit The Fateverse Glossary (merianmoriarty (dot) deviantart (dot) com/art/Fateverse-Glossary-174203180) for terms, concepts, Nodes, and important people.
Gator Alert
Tunnels and tunnels, stone and brick and cobble. Sometimes they hear people laughing and talking nearby. Sometimes they hear whispers, or screams. They never see any other people. They never see animals, besides Mr. Binky.
And then Mr. Binky stops, back arched and fur standing up, and hisses.
"What?" Hope whispers. "What is it?"
Wade raises the lantern a bit. A pair of very large eyes glints in the darkness. Something growls. "Oh. Hm. Well, you know how I mentioned things trying to eat your soul?"
"Obliquely, yes."
"I forgot to mention the things that'll try to eat the rest of you. But don't worry, it won't eat me."
"That's…special, Wade. Thank you, I feel much better knowing that."
~Mina.~
She looks at Eight-ball and sees a faint white wire-frame projection. "Alligators in the sewers, are you fucking kidding?"
"Not a bit," says Wade. "I'm surprised it hasn't killed you yet. Maybe it just ate."
Mina starts slowly backing up as she reaches into her carryall for Mr. Bang Bang. "If that thing's a gator, it's gotta be the size of a fuckin' Buick. Red?"
"Yeah?" says Hope.
"Set phasers to kill, please."
"On it." There's a twinkle of light and a high-tech hum as she pulls a huge shotgun out of nowhere (Ah, but can she pull out a coat rack?), and another as she pulls out a drum magazine for it. "This, uh. This is gonna be really loud. Maybe someone should grab the cat?"
Wade unconcernedly lifts the furiously spitting feline in her free hand and gets out of the way. "Knock 'im dead, girls. I'm rooting for you—hate to see those shins get crunched, after all."
"Of course, there's still the problem that we can't really see it," Hope points out.
Mina considers throwing Eight-ball.
~Don't you dare. Roll me. Gently, please.~
She bowls Eight-ball gently toward the beast.
In the watery flare of light, the giant reptile coils backward and snaps its jaws at them.
"That's a lot bigger than a frigging Buick, Mina," Hope complains.
"Less talky, more shooty!"
Whatever the hell gun Hope has, it's magnificent. In the echoing dampness of the tunnels, it sounds like a small cannon going off at a couple hundred rounds a minute.
I want one. Or two—one for each hand.
It pisses the gator the hell off, though. With chunks being taken out of it, the gator starts to move, and any idiot who's watched a little Animal Planet knows that gators are fucking fast.
Shoulda brought bigger guns, shoulda brought a sword, shoulda brought more guns…
Mina waits for the 'yawn,' the moment when the gator opens its mouth wide to strike. A double-tap with Mr. Bang Bang does the trick. Couple of fifty cal rounds through the roof of the mouth does the trick for most critters, to Mina's experience.
The huge reptile slides to a halt about a foot away, blood and other fluids spreading in a growing puddle around it.
"See?" says Wade. "That wasn't so bad. Shame we're so far out, though…gator bones are a goldmine in my profession. Shall we?"
Mina keeps her sidearm trained on the slumped monster while she retrieves Eight-ball. Just in case.
Walking around the carcass, Wade sets the cat back down and waits.
"So, that shotgun…" says Mina.
Hope puts it away with another flicker of light. "Yeah, sorry, I was supposed to say something cool like 'this is my Boomstick.'"
"Well, you're new," Mina consoles her.
And then Mr. Binky (after bathing his knee with a tongue he no longer has) bounds off into the darkness again.
The tunnels seem endless and oddly disjointed, like the un-cat is making things fit together when they shouldn't (or maybe it's the lantern). Broad and narrow, straight and curving, branches and forks and doors. Sewers and cellars and the spaces between walls. They hear everything from muted prayers to distant jazz music to the clanking of cutlery on plates. Still no people. No more gators, either, fortunately.
Just when it looks like Hope's getting tired, the un-cat trots up a stairway into the dull golden glow of a garden lit by strands of yellow paper lanterns. Up above is air and darkness, with the distinct impression of being underground. The garden is fairly big, stuffed to bursting with ornamental plants and trees, and centers around a gazebo. Statues of angels are peppered among the plant life.
The whole affair is enclosed by a high stone wall, and nothing says 'trespassers can fuck off and die' like a ten-foot wall topped with broken glass.
A stone path lined with little pale purplish flowers leads up to an ornate wooden door in the side of a huge Victorian house.
Looks like the Addams family mansion.
"Rrrrow!" Mr. Binky says proudly.
"Bluebells," says Mina.
"A cat in the light of a Black Flame Candle can hear them ringing," Wade explains. "They run straight for 'em, like a dog to a whistle." She opens the lantern and blows out the candle. Then she puts it away somewhere in the depths of her cloak.
On the other side of the garden wall, Mina can hear a low and miserable moaning sound.
"What's that noise?" asks Hope.
"Just the Front Wall," Wade dismisses. "I toldya—Elphembre built a wall outta guys who looked at his daughters funny. Now, pipe down a bit, because this is the back door and we're kinda gonna talk to the twins without permission."
While Wade digs around in her cloak, Mina picks up Mr. Binky and puts him in her carryall. After a moment, she decides to stick Eight-ball in there, too (there's a tinking noise as the un-cat briefly investigates the new object).
It seems to take a good deal of digging to find whatever Wade's looking for, because she ends up pulling one side of her cloak wide open, showing stained jeans and a very frumpy sweater, as well as a jangling assortment of bones, bottles, buttons, beads, and everything in-between.
"If this is the back door, then how are you planning—" Hope starts to say, but stops when Wade pulls out a pale key. "A skeleton key. Of course."
"Of course," Wade repeats, and unlocks the door. "Another fine ware of the expert scrimshander, able to open any lock. Can I interest you in one? I'll cut ya a deal—only half your soul."
"I think I'll keep the whole thing, thanks."
"Eh, suit yourself." Wade opens the door. "And don't touch anything."
Beyond the door is a dim hallway, dark floral wallpaper lit by rose-shaded gas lamps. Mina feels her boots sink into the deep pile of the runner, which is a bloody shade of red, bright against the near-black of the wooden floor. Hope conscientiously closes the door behind them.
Wade leads them through a door and into another hallway. This hallway is drab and bare, and ends by opening out into a kitchen. There are three big stone ovens and two cast-iron stoves, all dark and cold. Herbs and vegetables hang from the ceiling, copper pots on the walls. A golden-eyed black cat watches from a cushioned wicker bed in the corner. On the back wall are a dumbwaiter and a set of stairs. Wade bustles up, skeleton key still grasped in one hand.
They skip the door on the first landing and keep climbing to the next. The third hallway they traverse is very like the first, except that along one wall are windows that let in dreary London daylight.
"Weren't we just—" Hope starts to ask, and Mina has to hurriedly slap a hand over the redhead's mouth.
"Stealth fail," Mina whispers.
"Sorry," Hope sheepishly whispers back.
Wade unlocks a door and goes in.
Mina shoves Hope after Wade and pulls the door shut.
It's a bedroom. A very girly bedroom. On the right wall is the bed, an old-fashioned four-poster with a pink canopy. There's a pink-and-white vanity on the far wall, and a big wooden wardrobe on the left.
A girl slams the wardrobe door closed and leans casually against it. "Nobody!" she says. Then she relaxes. "Oh, it's just you, Wade. I thought you were Daddy."
~That's the one,~ Eight-ball says from somewhere under Mr. Binky.
The girl (who looks like she's about fifteen and never goes topside) has long, wavy black hair and big brown eyes, and she's built a lot like a stick figure in a dress and tights. "Who's the one?" she asks nervously. "The one what? Wade, why is that lady's purse talking?"
"Carryall!" Mina bites out. "It's a carryall." She fishes Eight-ball out and holds him up.
~Yes, she's the one. Illamar Magnus.~
"Jeez, no, gosh, I hate that name!" whines the girl. "Illy. Illy."
"Illy," says Hope, with a slightly pained expression on her face. "You wouldn't happen to be a lonely misfit nerd, would you?"
"Oh, rub it in, that's great," Illy snorts.
There's a resounding knock at the door.
"Illy, are you talking to yourself again?" another girl calls. "Because I can almost hear it from my room, and it's driving me right around the bend."
"Oh no, my sister," says Illy. "Um. Can you guys—girls—hide? Under the bed or something?"
"Is your sister's name Tanya, or something like that?" Hope asks.
Illy pauses in trying to push Wade toward the bed. "What? No. That's ridiculous. Why would she have a name like that? It's Tamris. Tanya, the very idea…"
Hope rubs her temple. "Illy and Tam. Proof positive that the multiverse has a sense of humor."
"Illy, lemme in!" Tamris demands, knocking again. "Lemme in, or I'll go get Dad and tell him you've got a boy in there!"
Abandoning the idea of hiding her guests under the bed, Illy runs to the door and jerks it open a crack. "You wouldn't! I don't! You liar!"
Tamris shoves the door open and walks in like she owns the place. She looks exactly like Illy, except for her pale hair and suspicious expression.
"Yeah, male or female, Tom's the same in any universe," Hope sighs. "Why does so much trouble center around magic twins?"
"Who are you?" asks Tamris, pointing at Hope. "Who's she?" she asks, pointing at Mina. "Who are they?" she finally demands of her sister.
Illy stomps her foot and shuts the door. "I don't actually know, if you'd just shut it for five seconds and let me explain…"
~Can everyone please sit down and shut up?~ asks Eight-ball.
The twins obediently sit on the bed.
~Auditor, you're looking at the source of your unup. Do your job.~
Hope nervously straightens her shirt. "Um. Hi. I'm Hope. Uh." She pulls Kali from a cargo pocket and holds it up. "Illy, could you just say your name, please?"
"Illamar?"
The red sphere blinks and beeps. ~Ident confirmed.~
"Okay," says Hope, reading whatever's written in Kali's depths. "Illamar Magnus ES212, you are charged with unauthorized upstream tuning. This charge and your culpability are not in question. But, uh, since you're young and you probably didn't know what you were doing, I'll let you off with a warning."
"Huh?" says Illy, looking at Hope like she's speaking a foreign language.
To be fair, she sort of is.
Mina rolls her eyes. "What's in the wardrobe, kid?"
Illy sits ramrod straight. "Nobody!" she says again. "Nothing!"
Tamris slowly grins. "Nobody, eh?"
The twins stare at each other in silence for about two seconds, then race for the wardrobe, tripping and hair-pulling and biting the whole way.
Wade cheerfully opens the wardrobe while the twins are fighting.
Cramped among dresses and coats and cloaks, a teenage boy sheepishly smiles. "Hi. I didn't mean to be such a bother."
"A Teddy," Hope says, smacking herself in the forehead. "Of course."
"A what?" the twins say, pausing in their scuffle.
"Nothing, nevermind."
Mina beckons. "Come on, outta there. I'll just take a wild guess and say she wished for you or made you or something like that. What's your name, kid?"
He nods as he steps carefully past the twins and stands in front of Mina. "She hasn't actually named me yet."
Tamris chuckles. "Illy made a boyfriend, Illy made a boyfriend," she sings. "Dad's gonna go apocalyptic."
"Shut up, Tam! You tell Daddy about this and I'll tell him about all the times you snuck off to the Floating Market!"
"You wouldn't!"
"I would!"
"Girls!" says Wade.
Hope gestures to the boy. "Illy, uh…this is kind of a really bad use of your magic. Okay? Don't make people. Ever. I'll let you keep him, just because nothing seems to have been seriously messed up…but if you ever do this again, I'll have to come back and arrest you."
"Arrest?" Illy says blankly.
"Lock you up. For the rest of your life, in this case. You'd never see your father or sister again, and whatever you'd magicked up would have to be undone."
"Wow," says Tamris.
"Daddy makes things all the time!" Illy protests.
"Never from scratch," Wade says. "That's a rule. I'm surprised he didn't teach you about it… You're only supposed to use magic to rearrange things. The only way you're supposed to create life is with plant seeds or what's between your legs."
Illy self-consciously sits up properly and fixes her skirt.
"Yeah," Wade goes on. "Making something with a soul without using bits of other things with souls weakens the boundaries between worlds. Okay?"
Illy nods.
"And find a better place to hide your new toy, huh? The bed and the closet are always the first places anybody checks."
Totally.
Mina nods her agreement. "Good. We done here? Can I go home now?"
Suddenly, Wade is at Mina's side, black-stained fingers wiggling on Mina's shoulders like tarantula legs. "Ah, before you go…I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Binky there has taken quite a shine to you. He was a dutiful mouser in life, and just as loyal as can be. I might be convinced to part with him for the low, low price of…a shin?"
Mina is unimpressed. "You're really hung up on my shins. What're you planning on doing with it if I give you one?"
"You're the same size as…someone I know who could use a spare. The left, please."
"Mowww," says Mr. Binky, plaintively.
"Oh, for God's sake," Mina huffs. "Fine. Might as well, since they grow back… But just the left one!" She pulls her knife from her carryall. "Those of you who are squeamish, please look away."
The twins quickly turn their backs.
Surprisingly, Hope doesn't. She doesn't seem at all bothered by the somewhat messy process of Mina cutting into her own leg and laboriously disarticulating her tibia. (It's actually a lot less painful than breaking a bone, she notices.)
"And no hopalong jokes," Mina tells Hope as she hands Wade the bone. The cut is already closing, but it'll be about an hour before the bone's regrown.
Wade quickly pulls out her tapemeasure. "Ooh, I was right! Perfect! My poor Franken-Neena's finally going to have a matched set."
Hope shakes her head. "Kali, get us a tunnel back to Mina's home branch."
~Turnmeoffturnmeoff!~ Eight-ball calls from the carryall.
Mina plunges a hand into her bag. She feels cool crystal just before she feels the tickle of moving between universes.
"Sorry," Hope says belatedly. "Is he okay?"
"I don't know, he's off." Mina peers into the carryall.
Mr. Binky is now a rather scrawny and scarred specimen with greenish eyes and that same complacent expression from the light of the Black Flame Candle. He's missing part of one ear and a few patches of his marmalade fur, but it doesn't seem to bother him. "Mrrr?" he says.
Mildly concerned, Mina holds Eight-ball up to daylight and turns him back on.
~Hope, if I had a face, I would be glaring at you very sternly.~
"Um. Sorry?"
~STERNLY.~
Hope pouts a little and fidgets with Kali. "Still new to this, y'know. Are you okay?"
~…Yes. I'm reasonably sure. Mina, if we hurry, we'll make it home in time to catch the new episode of Glee.~
"Gotta get a can of food for Mr. Binky," Mina says, shaking her head.
"Ooh, wait…" says Hope. She pokes a button on the iPod-lookin' thing on her belt. It glows for a moment and spits out a can of Meow Mix, which Hope holds out to Mina. "There."
She just keeps cat food in her sci-fi Bag of Holding?
"It's not a Bag of Holding, although it operates on similar principles, and it was Wade who put a can of cat food in it under the entry 'Noms for Mr. Binky.'"
Gah, always with the mind-reading!
"And I'm still not a mind-reader. Have a nice day."
Mina stuffs Eight-ball and the cat food into her carryall and sort of hop-limps for the sidewalk to whistle for a cab. It's time to get her Gleek on.
.End.
