By Jedishampoo T (PG-13) for now, will change to M later (definitely). Some language, sexuality.
Summary: A magical misfire ends with the wrong Howls in the wrong worlds. Howl's Moving Castle (Movie) crossover with Howl's Moving Castle (book).
Author's Notes: This is mostly an excuse to play with the people involved and see how I might make the movie characters would deal with Book!Howl and the book characters deal with Movie!Howl. WARNING: Most of it will be T-rated and lightly humorous but I'll switch it to M later, for SEX. And what I plan to do to the characters is not very nice in some ways, so be warned, you may hate it. Bwah hah.. It's all so very, very, wrong, I'm sure, but I couldn't help it. You'll see. ;) Thanks to sakura haru and sharpeslass for their betas!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, Diana Wynne Jones or Studio Ghibli does. I'm just playing with them.
x x x
Chapter 2: The Somewhere Elses"Howl, wake up!"
It was Sophie's voice. But Howl didn't want to wake up. His head hurt something awful. And the little hand slapping at his face wasn't helping.
"I said, wake up!"
Her voice sounded concerned. He supposed that he ought to try a little harder for consciousness. And then the memory crawled into his aching skull that he'd been doing something, something delicate and probably dangerous. Oh heavens, that awful spell-- he tried to open his eyes. "Mwake," he mumbled.
"You had better be," Sophie said. "Or I shall dump the mop-water on you."
"Don't," Howl managed in the face of such nastiness. What was wrong with Sophie? He was growing more concerned by the moment, about her and the spell, and what might possibly have gone wrong while he was out. He peeled his eyelids apart, and tried to focus on Sophie's blurry face above him. She had something reddish draped over the top of her head. Odd. "Hello, sweetheart," he told her.
"Huh?" she said, and leaned in a little closer. She placed a thumb and forefinger on one of his eyelids and pulled them apart. "Your eyes have gone all strange. They're a bluish-green color."
"Side-effect of the spell. It'll pass," he said, sliding one of his elbows along the floor beneath him to push himself up. With his free hand he hooked her around the neck and pulled her down for a quick kiss. He whispered against her lips, "don't worry, Love! I'm awake. I'll be all right. Is Markl okay?"
Sophie only slapped his hand away, and the look on her face, if it hadn't been so blurry, might have suggested she was considering slapping him again. "Who?" she asked. Then she turned for a moment to speak to someone behind her. "He's all stupid! Lettie, you practice magic. You should have known better!"
"Oh, God, Howl. I'm so sorry," a male voice quavered from behind Sophie.
"For what? Wait, who is that?" Howl asked Sophie, grasping the leg of the kitchen table to drag himself to a sitting position. His eyes focused finally on Sophie, sitting next to him on the floor. Something was wrong with her. Her hair was-- red? Was it the odd light in the room? He realized that the room looked wrong, too. Or was that a side effect of the spell, also? Howl realized that was not possible. "Oh, no, Sophie! What happened to your hair, sweetheart? How long was I out? Where am I? When am I? Are you all right? Please tell me that you're all right!"
He leaned over to try and hug her. He'd botched his time-control of the spell, and sent himself too far into the future, or something, and things were not as they should be. Why had he ever wanted to try that spell?
But Sophie only scooted away from him, dragging her bottom across the floor, dirtying her pretty yellow dress. Her eyes narrowed.
"Who are you, and what have you done with Howl?" she said.
"I am Howl. Oh, no." Howl closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it of his shock at such words. It pounded. He winced and cradled his temple in his palm.
"It looks like Howl," the male voice said.
"Well, it's not," Sophie said. "I would know."
"She's got a point," the other girl said. She sounded like Sophie's sister Lettie.
"It is Howl," Calcifer's voice said from somewhere around his ear. Howl glanced over and saw Calcifer, all blue-and-green, hovering at eye level. "I sent a spark into his brain to be sure. It's not our Howl, though. And I would definitely be the one to know that. I've known him for longer than any of you."
"A spark? Into my brain? Are you crazy, Calcifer?" Howl had to ask. The rest of it was too confusing, so he focused on his most immediate concern.
"Well, you were acting all weird," Calcifer-- or the thing that looked sort of like a blue Calcifer-- said. "And now we know."
"The question is, where is the real Howl?" the man's voice said. Howl looked up and connected the voice to a tall, thin and dark-haired adolescent standing behind Sophie.
"I'm pretty real, I think," Howl said, burying his face in his hands again. "I've gone into the future, and I hate it. Oh, Sophie."
"Maybe it is Howl, and he just went to the future and changed," the young man suggested.
"Nah, it's not our Howl, and never was," Calcifer said as he floated back over to a grate. "He's a Howl from somewhere else, and that's all there is to it. It's not like we don't know other worlds exist."
"Whoever he is, that certainly looks like a green-slime mood, and I won't have any of it, do you hear?" Sophie's voice said. "Now look at me. At me! And talk. Though I know you probably don't want to, but I don't care."
That voice! Sophie was being practically cruel, and he couldn't take it. He let himself wallow in despair and regret for a few moments, then collected his more rational thoughts. Calcifer was probably right. He wasn't in the future, only some other world, or dimension, or something. And he was a wizard. He would put everything right. First, though, he would get rid of this damned excruciating headache. A wave of his fingers sent the pain spiraling away, a thankful circumstance in this world gone wrong. He grabbed the edge of the table to stand. The dark-haired young man moved forward with an outstretched hand to help.
"Don't touch him!" Sophie said. "You don't know where he's been."
Both Howl and the young man rolled their eyes at her. Like he hadn't already kissed her.
"I'm Michael Fisher," the teenager said, shaking Howl's hand once they were standing side-by-side.
"Howl," Howl said. "A wizard," he added, with a look at the not-Sophie. Then he took a few moments to glance around the room. It was sort of like his castle, and sort of not at the same time. There were the steps leading down to the door, and the door-switch with its colors, but the switch was square instead of round. The main room itself was smaller and darker than his own, with a smaller hearth containing the blue-green Calcifer staring at him out of orange eyes. There were several doors scattered about the room, all in the wrong places. It was tidy, though, Howl could say that about it. He glanced at the girls and their sewing and cleaning accoutrements. The other girl, Lettie, gave him a hesitant smile.
"I'm Lettie," she said. She was very pretty. She looked a little like Sophie, but nothing like the Lettie he knew.
"Hello," Howl said, with his usual greeting-a-pretty-lady grin.
"Ooooh," Sophie said, and pulled a chair out at the table. "Sit. Talk."
"Better do it," Calcifer said. "She'll bully you until you do so it's best to get it over with."
"Will she?" Howl asked with some interest, and gathered his courage to look more closely at the not-Sophie. She was an almost twin to his Sophie, except for her hair, which was reddish-blond and twisted into a long braid at her back. And except for her expression, which was twisted into a look of distrust that his Sophie rarely if ever wore. But other than that, she was very like. The same apparent height, the same little figure, that pale, heart-shaped face. And from what he remembered of that brief kiss, she wore the same scent. Oh, Sophie, he thought, and almost lapsed into despair once more as she glared at him.
"You'd mentioned a spell," Michael said in a kind voice as he sat at the table across from Howl. "We were doing a spell, too, and um-- well-- Howl was knocked unconscious. What sort of spell were you doing?"
"Well," Howl began. He might as well tell the truth, he decided. It could only help him get home more quickly if he had help. "I found it. It was an old one, buried in my uncle's things."
x x x
"Howl! Oh, Howl. Please wake up."
Howell winced. It was Sophie's voice, seeping into his eardrums as if from a distance. It was still too loud. His head hurt like hell, and the floor under it was very hard. So he moaned, to show that he was alive and not liking it, but otherwise didn't move.
He was rewarded with a cool little hand that fluttered over his cheeks and his ears, and a soft pair of lips that kissed his forehead. "Howl, thank heavens. You frightened me half to death. Markl, will you please wet a dishtowel for me? Cold water!"
The voice was soft but still too loud, but the touching and the attention he had liked. So Howell moaned again, an "uhhhh" like a dying animal. He only dimly thought, Markl? Maybe he'd lost partial hearing, for surely she'd really said Michael.
"Poor Howl. Give me a moment. You knocked your head pretty badly when you fell, Markl told me. Thank you," she said, and he felt gentle fingers behind his ears, lifting his head, and then a cool, wet cloth pressed against the back of his skull. It felt nice, almost as nice as the kissing. "You've got a bit of a bump. Does your head hurt?"
"Yes," he mumbled, and raised a weak hand to wave a little spell that took care of it. He still didn't get up, but he did creak open his eyes. The pain was gone but the aftereffects of his knock on the head clearly weren't, because Sophie had an aura of silvery-white about her face.
"Oh, my poor love." Sophie leaned over to kiss his eyelids, and his mouth, briefly, and then she sat up with a smile. "How odd. Your eyes have turned the strangest color. They're a sort of greenish-blue."
"Side-effect of the spell, Sophie dear," Howell said. But not in too strong a voice, lest the pity and the kissing stop. "It will pass."
"Oh. Good," she said. Her light fingertips ran over his shoulder, his chest. The strange silver halo followed her movements. "Is anything broken? Do you think you could sit up?"
Howell sighed, and realized that Sophie's concern would only last so long. "No. And probably. Help me?" He lifted a floppy arm. It was encased in plain blue. He wondered briefly where his jacket had gone.
"Of course!" Sophie slid a dark-green-clad arm under his neck-- hadn't she been wearing yellow?-- and gently pulled him up. Howell managed to sit just far enough upright so that he could lean against her. Astoundingly, she didn't protest, only wrapped her arms around him. She was concerned. This was a side of Sophie he'd never seen. He decided he liked it.
"Tell Michael I'm going to kill him, and Lettie, too. For good measure," Howell said, leaning his head back into the warmth of her neck.
"What?" a child's astonished voice cried.
"Michael? Do you mean Markl? Don't be silly. Why should you want to kill him? Or Lettie? She hasn't done anything to you, has she? You haven't even seen her in weeks."
It began to penetrate Howell's brain that something was not right. Not only was Sophie kissing him and holding him and being openly kind to him, but she was saying things that made no sense. If there was one thing he could say about Sophie, it was that she usually made some sort of sense, even if it was an arcane sense.
And he was beginning to realize as well that something was off in his surroundings. The castle room seemed larger and brighter, and the flagstone floor was not covered in flagstones at all but in rugs and smooth, polished wood. Oh lord, he thought. That damned spell. He closed his eyes to block out his strange surroundings and tried to remember the sequence of events before he'd passed out. The elos and the forthum, right, he thought.The timing had been off on the old livrous, and 'oh, shit' had definitely not been part of the spell. Still, he thought, that shouldn't have sent him off into a another world, only punished him with a small explosion or two. The spell was dangerous, sure, but his environment had been pretty controlled, Letties and Marthas and Michaels aside.
Still, Sophie was acting odd, but at least she was Sophie. She looked, sounded and smelled like Sophie. He couldn't have gone anywhere too terrible.
Howell turned his head to look at her up close. He was astonished to find that the silver halo was not an aura at all but her hair, cropped to just past shoulder-length and white as an old lady's. He stared. "Sophie, dear, what happened to your hair?"
Even more astonishingly, she laughed. "Haven't we had this conversation before?" she asked, and kissed him again, lips warm and soft against his. "You are confused. Let's get you up, and we'll get you a glass of water and check you over."
"I'll get it," the child's voice said again. With Sophie's help Howell stood, and he could see a red-headed little boy scampering over to a tap in the corner of the castle's kitchen-- living room-- whatever. He almost said, who is that, and then realized that it would be an incredibly stupid question. Obviously, it was Markl. Howell eyed that red hair, and remembered Sophie's absent titian waves.
Was this the future? Was that his son?
"You're not really going to kill me, are you, Master Howl?" the boy asked. Howell breathed a deep sigh of relief at that Master, and decided that this was probably not the future, then. Just some other universe. He hoped. And if this was another universe, then that was Michael-but-not-quite, and that was Sophie-but-not-quite.
"No?" Howell answered.
"Good," the boy-- Markl-- said, and handed him the water. Howell looked at it. He wondered if there was brandy here, and then decided that brandy was not really a proper priority and could wait. He sat at the kitchen table, waved Sophie off with an "I'm all right" look, and swallowed the contents of the glass. It certainly tasted like good old Ingarian water.
He looked again at his sleeve, and then down at the rest of his plain blue shirt. Good tailoring, but not his, he didn't think.
"Sophie, where's my jacket?" he called in a strained voice.
The not-quite-Sophie had bustled out through a nearby doorway and was just then returning with a bucket and a handful of dirty rags. She'd been cleaning. The similarities between this world and his were almost stranger than the differences.
"I should think all your jackets are upstairs, in your closet," she said, with another concerned look from her big brown eyes. His Sophie's eyes. "You weren't wearing it this morning. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yes," Howell lied. Upstairs could wait, too. He looked around at the not-castle room, and saw the magic bench nearby, and then, across the way, a wide hearth.
"Calcifer? You there?"
"Yeah." Orange flames peeped out from among the logs, and then some small, yellow, fire-demon eyes. "If you are. You went somewhere for a minute there, but I guess you're back. You gotta pay more attention to your magic, pal."
"True," Howell said, swallowing his bile at admitting such a thing, even while only play-acting. He looked at the magic-bench again, at the books and bowl and packets scattered there, and knew that the bench was where he would have to start, if he wished to know where he was.
He stood and spotted the yellowed paper. The spell written upon it was nearly exactly the same spell he'd been building for the King earlier. Nearly, but not quite.
"I tried to straighten up the bowl, Master Howl, but the spell was already gone. Poofed!" Markl said from beside him.
"So it is," Howell said, looking at the blue-rose-oil extract and the empty bowl, mind racing. He would have to play it cool and say as little as possible to keep them from realizing that he wasn't who they thought he was. Well, he was who they thought he was, technically, but not really. His brain hurt again just to think about it.
Luckily they seemed to accept him as Howl, as a wizard, and to accept his odd behavior without much in the way of questions. Howell would have to be especially careful around Calcifer, though. That fire demon didn't look like his Calcifer but he certainly had his attitude, and most likely all his powers.
Howell scratched light symbols on the wooden bench with a fingernail, trying to see the shape of the events which had taken place there. It seemed this world's Howl had built nearly exactly the same spell as Howell had, and at exactly the same time. That was an impossible coincidence.
The situation was already beyond reckoning, so Howell couldn't conceive that there had been any more than two of them doing such a thing at the same time. And so, since any number higher than two in this situation was already beyond impossible, he posited that the two of them had simply switched places.
Furthermore, both spells had gone wrong, apparently at the same time. Perhaps as a result of the impossible coincidence? Or had the botched spells caused it? And there was a barrier of some sort that kept him from returning, he could feel it. Howell's brain hurt more.
"What sort of spell were you doing, anyway?" Sophie called from across the room.
Howl heard the familiar voice, and the questioning tone, and answered as he usually might have without thinking. "None-of-your-business, Miss Long-Nose," he called back.
The room stilled with something beyond silence. Howell realized too late his mistake, and looked up. Sophie was staring at him with wide eyes and her mouth hanging open. Markl and Calcifer wore similar expressions. Apparently this Howl was a different sort of fellow from he. Or perhaps he surrounded himself with overly-sensitive people. Howell tried a grin at the Sophie.
She snapped her mouth shut and hmphed at him. "Obviously you're not feeling well, or you would not have said such a thing."
"It was just a joke!" Howell whined.
Just then a short old lady with somewhat familiar eyes buried in a flabby, wrinkled face shuffled into the room. The crone looked at him, and gave a short cackle. "He's gone all wonky," she said, and plopped herself onto a couch in front of the hearth.
"And how is that not ordinary?" Calcifer said, snapping his strange little orange flames.
"I think you should probably go up to bed to rest, and leave Markl to clean up the spell," Sophie told him. She was still glaring, but her voice had softened somewhat.
Howell agreed. Not only because he needed time to think-- alone-- about what was going on here, but he wanted to get into that closet. And find the bathroom. He couldn't think straight when he wasn't dressed well and groomed and ready to face the world.
"Exactly," he said, and ran up the stairs as quickly as he could.
x x x
End Chapter 2
Thanks to those who have commented already, and thanks for reading! PLEASE comment, if you would, even if only to say (1) you liked it, or (2) you hated it. I'd love constructive comments on the characterizations, 'cause it's just weird writing two Howls.