FIRSTLY....! I extend my demented thank-you to Sanely Challenged for pointing out that movie fics are generally thrown into the Sleepy Hollow book section. My story now resides here. Be happy for me.

Disclaimer: I still want to know why I'd be writing "fanfiction" if I've got something to do with the movie. I don't have anything to do with any songs or product names mentioned, either. So there.

—

Chapter Two: The One and Squeamish Ichabod Crane

Van Garrett was seated in the comfortable back of his stagecoach, looking from side to side nervously. The area in which he rested was comfortable, sure, but he himself was not. The skies were alive with lightning and the whole world seemed like it wanted to consume him. He wished the pair of walruses which pulled his little carriage were faster. To calm himself, he began humming.

"My sex change operation got botched, my guardian angel fell asleep on the watch, now all I've got is a Barbie doll crotch..." Van Garrett sung quietly. So what if it was from Hedwig and the Angry Inch?

The ominous sound of a sword being drawn cut through the air like lightning, and Van Garrett wheezed in alarm. He was suddenly aware that his walruses weren't the only ones riding the trail. His fears were confirmed when he heard a sudden slice and the roll of what could only be the coachman's head. Frightened, alone, and wishing he was pretty, Van Garrett looked out of the window to verify this. Indeed, the walruses were now slamming themselves along without guidance, for their driver was decapitated.

There was nothing else to do... Hurling himself onto the ground, he took flight into a shriveled corn field, gasping "I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty, and witty, and gaaayyy..." between bursts of energy. He stopped dead, however when he came to a scarecrow with a jack-o-lantern for a head that looked like it had been carved by some artistic mental asylum escapee. It was freakish and yet attractive at the same time....and then there was a rustling from behind. With a final wheeze of fear, his own head was dismembered and taken by the same blade.

–

1799 in New York City looked lonely. There were street vendors drooling and smacking themselves with fish, even after business hours were over. Rumor had it that none of them could stay away from the bottle. Walruses transported people all over the cobblestone streets with delightful slapping noises as they lurched along.

And Ichabod Crane sat on the edge of a fishing dock, giggling maniacally while poking a bloated, greyed, waterlogged corpse with a stick. He'd recently found it bobbing along in this eddy in the river. It had to be the least attractive thing he'd ever seen.

Two officials were strolling along the darkened street in his general direction. One of them was laughing hysterically at the other, who was slightly red in the face. "What do you mean, you got a gift certificate for a vasectomy for your birthday?" the first howled gleefully.

"Shut it, Smith," hissed the other through clenched teeth. "This is not my day."

"Clearly not," replied Smith, tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks. "So are you going to use it, or what?" he managed finally, between giggles.

"Of course not! It's insulting! Especially since Lillian gave it to me!"

"You fancy her, don't you?"

"I said to shut the gaping orifice you call a mouth!"

Still, Smith could not help chortling quietly. Feeling slightly sorry all of a sudden, he wanted to change the subject. It helped when he spotted someone ahead. "Constable Crane, that you?"

"Yes," replied Ichabod. "I've found something." He hurriedly tossed the stick with which he had done the poking aside and tried to sound professional. "He's been dead for some time now."

A few minutes later found the liquidly obese corpse being carted into the courthouse, and Ichabod found himself speaking to one of his superiors. "But we don't know the cause of death! Let me just do an autopsy –"

"When you find him in the river, the cause of death is drowning," intoned the ugly bastard to whom the constable spoke. The truth was, the ugly bastard knew the cause of death could possibly be murder, but he had never liked this Ichabod Crane guy very much. He wished that he had Ichabod's great looks, his pallid complexion and dark hair, his expressive eyes...but no, he was as unsightly as it was possible to be, and instead of attracting women, small boys made a habit of trotting up to him and humping his leg. It wasn't fair. He then added, "Slicing each other up, indeed... Are we animals?"

Two more officials raced in, dragging a haggard bum by the arms. "We caught him anally raping a butterfly, sir!" one of them said.

"Alright then." The ugly bastard nodded, consenting to the haggard bum's imprisonment.

"But you don't know if the butterfly was willing or not!" interjected Ichabod, eyes alive with the injustice of the situation. "If the butterfly was willing, then you can't accuse this man of rape! You don't even know if they're telling the truth!"

But the two men were already opening a wrought-iron hatch, shoving the butterfly raper into the opening of his cell. He yelled as he plummeted down into it, but no one really gave a damn. Ichabod focused his attention instead on a strange moaning noise issuing from the street below. Stepping away from his ugly superior he stared out of the barred window to see that two walruses were vigorously having sex in front of a crowd of onlookers.

"Those damn walruses have been going after it all evening," said the ugly superior, following Ichabod's stare. "It's nothing new, I promise."

–

"It's the same thing with you, every time, Constable Crane," said Judge Screwball the next morning, yawning. "You've always got this thing for – for justice, and factual whatnots."

"Your point?" replied Ichabod, standing, slightly annoyed.

"I can do one of three things for you. I can hold you in contempt, or I can make you anally rape a butterfly and have you see for yourself how much the butterfly likes it...or thirdly, I'll have you do your factual investigating that you love so much in the town known as Sleepy Hollow. There have been a series of murders there...each of the victims found with his head...lopped off."

"Lopped off?" Ichabod had gone from slightly annoyed to slightly nervous. His facial cheeks twitched.

"Yes," continued Judge Screwball, "and I want you to go there, find the murderer, and bring him back here to face justice. Will you do this?"

"I shall." Another facial cheek twitch.

"Remember...it is you, Ichabod Crane, who is now put to the test."

"I hate you," came the answer, but the constable picked up his bag of screwy homemade instruments and left the courthouse to pack the rest anyway.

In his lofty apartment, Ichabod was busy organizing letters, random scraps of parchment, and articles of clothing. He made sure that any other device of his own design was thrown in with the rest. Now he stopped, gingerly picking up the round card suspended between two pieces of string, the optical game he'd had forever. On one side of the card was the image of a birdcage, on the other a cardinal. Taking it by the strings and spinning it, he stood mesmerized, watching the bird appear trapped and free at the same time. He then strode over to his actual pet cardinal inside its actual cage, grabbing it in one quick movement, only to carry it to the window and release it.

Ichabod looked down at the street from his loft without much emotion. His ride was already there, a sleek black coach led by two mismatched walruses. One was positively immense with tusks the size of kayaks. The other was very small and very young, with three tusks instead of two, all of which had grown into ringlets in its short life. Shaking his head, Ichabod departed.

Over a twisted road he traveled, sitting there, playing with the cardinal-in-a-cage image, looking out at the fog-immersed world of oddly shaped trees.

He didn't know what he'd gotten himself into.