Series: Neverwhere
Pairings: Tiny, tiny allusion to Richard's old fiancé, but I can't even be buggered to remember her name, so I don't think it's really all that important. And Hakuba and Aoko and Kaito might be involved in some sort of sordid threesome, I don't know. Also a small hint at Richard/Door, though you can just take it as them being friends, if you even notice it.
Warnings: TEA. … yeah, I don't know either.
A/N: Huge, huge fan of Neverwhere here. Huge. This and American Gods are right up there in the top favorites. I loved the whole London Below setting, all the people, and I rather thought Kid would fit in quite nicely there. He gets Queen's line because I don't remember it making any appearance in the book, and because it runs along beneath a museum and a circus, I think, which rather strikes me as something that Kid would love to have above him. The tea thing may or may not be my obsession with the Mad Hatter seeping through, who knows?
Tea
It began, as any great adventure must, with a cup of tea.
Richard hadn't really been meaning anything by it at the time, complaining about a lack of tea in the greater London Underground. It had been something to say in the lull between Floating Market's and running small, demeaning errands for the Marquis and effectively banging his head against the tunnel walls in an effort to track down any information on Door's sister; of looking over his shoulder for someone else when people hailed him as a hero and a hunter, biting back a shiver of distaste every time a rat skittered across his foot or climbing tremulously to the surface to sit in the sun for five – ten minutes and telling himself that he didn't regret any of his choices, not one little bit, even as he found himself humming the chorus of "I'm a Believer" under his breath.
(The thing about regrets, Old Bailey had explained to him once, was that you always had them. But if you kept yourself busy enough, you could almost forget that you did, for an hour or two at least.)
Tea was a true British comfort that he had grown startlingly fond of following his transfer to London, and while he would hesitate to use such a powerful word as 'regret' for something so trivial, it was a luxury that he would not have necessarily said no to, one way or another. Not nearly desperate enough to contemplate the Marquis' offer of a trade (for a favor, of course, the only currency the man ever dabbled in) when he first brought up the matter, at least. He wasn't completely daft.
Anymore.
"If you're after tea," Door had said, pulling a piece of her hair to the front and idly braiding it, tying a bit of red ribbon at the end. "Then you'll be wanting to stop by Kid's domain. He's got it all. White tea, green tea, chamomile tea, herbal tea, earl grey tea, model T…"
"The real trick of it," the Marquis had continued, sprawled across Door's sofa like a large, pleased housecat "is finding the bugger in that great big stretch of tunnel he calls a home. All of Queen's road he was gifted, by the Scarlet witch, and all for what? A foolish child's crush, unrequited. But he's a disgustingly amiable sort, always keen for company and if you stand somewhere along the main road and shout a bit he'll almost certainly swan out of the dark to find you."
He'd had nothing better to do with his afternoon, and he knew the line well enough, though none of his travels below previous had taken him along that way, so he went. Admittedly, it was that sort of lateral thinking that usually got him into trouble, the sort of which inevitably ended with the Marquis saving his neck for some exorbitant price, but the distant promise of tea, and maybe a few small biscuits – you could only find digestive ones underground, for rather obvious reasons – was too good of an opportunity to pass up. And anyone that made the de Cabaras sneer like that was someone Richard wanted to be friends with.
The slender, dark haired, violet eyed youth clad in impossibly immaculate white, top hat tilted rakishly to one side and monocle glinting from one eye, cape licking at his heels as he lead Richard down a dark, slightly damp tunnel to a tea party being held beneath the museum already in full swing, a boy in tweed and a girl in blue his guests was not what he had expected, however. Kid pulled a chair out for him, intoning stoically what an honor it was to sit with the Underground's greatest hunter, but rather managing to spoil the effect by giggling manically at the end, leaning down to whisper something into the girl's ear that had her giggling along with him. The tweed boy sipped serenely at his tea and ignored the two twittering like children at his side and settled a probing look on Richard.
"Er." Richard said, fiddling with the pale blue napkin set before him on the table and wondering exactly how big of an idiot of himself he would make if he made for a run for it just then. But he could see the steam rising gently from the patterned tea cups, and suddenly an idle fancy was there, in front of him, smelling sweetly of cream, and he couldn't bring himself to move. They had Jammy Dodgers, for God's sake. Jammy Dodgers. "Hi. I'm Richard." The Beast, the Velvets, Islington and those awful Croup and Vandemar men could have all come stampeding down the tunnel at that moment, and he wouldn't have moved from his seat.
"Saguru." The somber boy inclined his head in greeting and then nodded to the other two, who had seemed to calm down somewhat, the girl nibbling on a chocolate biscuit and Kid pouring Richard a cup of tea (and, consequently, making him one of Richard's most favorite people in all of the London Below, except for possibly Door). "This is Aoko." The girl smiled and waved, dashing off a small, quick 'hello', which Richard returned. "And that," he continued, stressing the word like he still wasn't quite sure what that was, even if he had, in the end, settled down to tea with it, "is Kaito."
"—Kid!" The white clad boy interjected hurriedly, eyes wide and teeth bared in the other boy's direction. "Kaitou Kid is my full title, but most around here just call me Kid for short."
There was a moment of silent communication between the two boys, spoken only with their eyes, and Richard wondered if wearing a monocle made that sort of thing a bit like speaking with a mouth full of marbles. Then Saguru smiled; a slow forming thing that looked far more menacing than it did ambivalent. Richard bit back a shiver. "Are you entirely certain that they are not simply calling you on your age?" He said rosily, selecting a Jammy Dodger for himself.
Kid's hand snaked out in a flash and snagged the treat from Saguru's hand, popping it into his mouth with a small flourish, perhaps to prevent it from being taken from him as well. He seemed to preen under the dark look the other boy sent his way. "I seem to remember someone here being two months young than me, Aoko, do you remember who that might be?"
"Heiji?" Aoko offered sweetly, stirring a small silver spoon in her tea cup only to smile across the table, staring up at the fussy young man (looking anywhere but at her) through her eyelashes. "And our own handsome Saguru, of course."
Saguru flushed.
Kid cackled.
Aoko sedately stirred her tea.
And Richard? Richard helped himself to another biscuit and kept quiet. It had nothing to do with him after all, and he'd long ago learned that poking your nose into that sort of business only ever led to trouble in the end. Of course, if he was honest, that sort of thing had never actually served to stop him before, had it? He took a sip, and closed his eyes to savor the flavor.
Perhaps after he finished his tea.
