BANG 2 of 3
Authour: Visitor
Title: BANG.
Rating: PG-13-ish
Genre/Pairing: AU drama, Billy/Penny
Word Count: At 3560, with this chapter
Length: Part 2 of 3
Summary: ...what if Dr.Horrible's gun hadn't been broken, in Act III?
BANG.
Part Two of Three
It took Penny two days to find an address for Billy. Or, rather, Doctor Horrible. Somehow, this bizarre alter-ego of her poor, lost friend seemed to have more of a presence in the world than ‘Billy’ ever did. Penny had needed to make a string of inquiries to increasingly odder individuals, before someone in the super-villain community decided, what the heck, what did it matter now?
Super-villain community...there was a concept Penny had never considered before now. She thought she’d seen lost souls beFORE, but those people...
And her Billy was one of them. It was impossible to think about. She knew he’d been passionate (oh, she’d thought a lot about that, more than she’d realized, when staring into his eyes at the laundromat) and driven, but she never would have DREAMED.
Hands tucked deep into the pockets of her dark coat, Penny finally walked up the front steps of a nondescript building, identical to all the others in the area. She looked, and double checked the address. It didn’t LOOK like some evil lair of world-dominating whatever, she thought.
It looked like Billy’s house. Which she didn’t think would bother her like it did. She rang the buzzer.
Nothing happened for several minutes, and she rang a couple more times. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but, Billy HAD mentioned having a roommate. She just needed to talk to someone about this, try and make sense of it all. If that was even possible.
Suddenly, the door opened a crack, and a nervous looking man with darting eyes cast her a wild glare from within. It gave Penny a start, and she wondered what he’d been doing just now. He looked drenched.
“Who are you?” He barked, angry, distrustful. Penny felt a little worried now, but stuck her ground. She’d come so far, and...and she didn’t have anywhere to go BACK to.
“I...m-my name is Penny,” she managed, “...I was a...friend of Billy’s. I’m SO sorry to bother you like this, but...”
“Wait,” he interrupted, staring so hard at Penny now she could almost feel the gaze, ”...you...YOU’RE Penny?”
Startled again, Penny blinked a few times...maybe, Billy had mentioned her..?
She nodded affirmative, and the man at the door (sweating something fierce, Penny noted, despite the breeze of air conditioning coming from within) suddenly closed the door. A second later, after he slid the latch, it opened again.
“Come in,” he told her, glancing furtively over her shoulder as he ushered her quickly in with one hand. Penny nervously did as he wished, feeling a damp spot on her shoulder where he touched her.
She stepped inside, looking about at a very ordinary room...a lamp, couch, cluttered desk, a computer...she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t really it. Still, maybe Billy’s roommate could...
A loud slam made Penny yelp, and she spun around to see that odd man locking the door tight with one hand.
The other hand was holding a gun...some kind of strange, science fiction looking ray gun, which WAS more along the lines of what Penny had been expecting. She tried to suppress a shudder, and keep calm. This was the world he was a part of, she reminded herself, this is...
Before she could finish the reassuring thought, the sweaty man turned, angry and glaring and shaking, and he pulled that insane gun up hard and aimed it right at Penny. She stumbled back, hitting a wall. Her heartrate skyrocketed, and she fought to catch her breath.
“It was YOU!” He screamed, waving the gun right at her and stepping forward, and Penny realized, she was going to die, oh God, he was going to kill her, and why had she ever COME here?
“It was ALL because of you,” the man screamed, taking another step and wiping moisture from his brow with his free hand, never taking his eyes off of Penny, “...all you had to do was...you ruined EVERYthing!”
Like a leaf in a hurricane, Penny shook and struggled to stay upright. “P-Please, I...I-I don’t know what y-you’re TALKING ab...”
“It’s all your fault,” the damp man accused bitterly through gritted teeth, gun lowering just a shade as he stepped closer, closer, “...did you BRING him? Huh? Your boyfriend? Is he waiting outside?”
Penny choked on her words as she tried to answer, when the damp man lunged, clamping his free hand around her throat and squeezing. Penny saw lights flash in her head as the pain drove into her. The world spun about her thoughts, amidst the fear and madness, and she didn’t know any of it anymore. This wasn’t her world, anymore.
“ANSWER me!” He screamed at her, dripping angry rain on Penny’s shirt, “...is the Hammer here? Is he gonna kill ME, like he did Billy? That why you’re here? Haven’t you done ENOUGH?”
That hand, Penny thought, head swimming, God, those clammy, awful fingers on her throat...she scraped weakly at them, nails drawing water. Was he even HUMAN...?
“...p-please...”
The damp man leaned in, so close Penny could feel the mist from his cheeks. Tears streamed down her own as she looked at the man, and she realized, consciousness fading to black...
She couldn’t tell. She honestly couldn’t tell, if he was crying too, or not.
A second before her eyes closed and her legs buckled, that drenched hand pulled suddenly away from her throat, and he gave off a tortured howl even as Penny gasped for air. She coughed painfully, falling to her knees. Across the room, the damp man backed into a wall, dropping down into a tortured crouch and raising his hands to his head. Over the blood rushing in her ears, Penny could hear him wailing.
“AAUUuuuuuughh...God DAMN, Billy...why, why’d you have to go and...oh, God...”
Penny watched him carefully, watched the gun bobbing around as his hands jostled his head and temples, and she struggled to stop her shaking. She wiped a glob of water from her throat.
“Please,” she coughed, voice ragged, “...please, just...just p-put the gun down...I swear, I’m not...”
The damp man finally remembered that Penny was still there. “What...this?" He sniffled, glancing for a second at the weapon in his hand before tossing it across the room like a piece of dirty laundry. Penny was embarrassed at the shriek that escaped her lungs.
“Doesn’t even work,” he muttered, sounding as lost as anyone, “...experimental gyro-destabilizer. Doc never did get it operational. Heh. He was always on to stuff like that...”
Penny stared at the man, shaking dying down. He looked calmer now. Like a fog was lifting.
“Who...who ARE you?” Penny asked in a loud whisper. The damp man didn’t look up.
“Moist,” he said humbly, “...they call me Moist.” Penny was not surprised.
“Sorry about the whole...you know, trying to kill you just now,” Moist went on, getting his own laboured breathing back to normal, “...I’ve been...tense, these days. Also...I’m a villain.”
To Penny’s interest, that mad explanation seemed perfectly passable to her, now. Besides, she wasn’t worried about dying anymore. Something ELSE was gnawing at her.
“What did you mean,” she asked, eyes regaining their focus, “...that it was ‘all MY fault’?”
Moist looked up, staring blankly back at Penny.
“I want to know!” She said, yelling now, “...I didn’t...I never even KNEW Billy was...was ‘Doctor Horrible’, how could any of this be MY...”
“I’ll show you,” Moist said quietly. And without another word, he climbed to his feet, and walked silently to the computer. Penny watched, dread fascination rising, as Moist poked around with the mouse for a few seconds, then motioned Penny over. She fought off a preminitory shudder of fear and rose, walking over to the offered chair. As she sat, she saw a batch of files listed on the screen. Each of the avi’s bore a different date/number, but the same title.
Dr.Horrible’s Blog.
“Start here,” Moist said, pointing to one file in particular, about three months old (and leaving a faint water-stain on the monitor as he did so), “...call me when you’re done.”
“I-I don’t...”
But Moist was already gone, heading into another room. And Penny was left alone, in Billy’s old house, with a computer, HIS computer, and his blog. Billy had a blog?
No, Penny corrected herself. He didn’t. Doctor Horrible, HE had a blog. Her finger trembled for a moment on the mouse. Part of her knew, that if she opened that file....there was no turning back. And she didn’t even know where she was...
Her finger double-clicked and the file opened. And there he was. Billy, her Billy, only...not. He had that uniform on, the costume he wore...at the shelter. His REAL clothes. But...he didn’t look as scary, now, to Penny. No, she liked how he looked, here on the screen, goggles sitting comfortably atop his troubled head.
Penny had already liked Billy. More than liked, if she was honest (and she was becoming very, very honest). But now...now she was starting to like Doctor Horrible, too.
“I saw her again,” Doctor Horrible’s dead voice echoed out over the computer speakers, “...this girl, at a place I sometimes...”
He paused, contemplating his words, because she knew, Billy thought everything like that was SO important, and Penny’s heart broke, and she smiled and cried and watched as he turned and looked at her, like he was really looking right AT her, just like it should be, like every Wednesday and Saturday...
“Have you ever met someone,” Doctor Horrible told Penny, even thought he didn’t know it, couldn’t know it, “...and you just knew? Because I never believed in stuff like that, but...WOW. She is it, people, this girl, she’s...she’s everything I don’t have, you know? She’s that other part of me. This is the girl.
Stay tuned.”
And, for the next three hours, Penny watched, every episode, every moment...she laughed when the Doctor, her Billy, mocked his would-be nemesis Johnny Snow, and she smiled when Billy seemed to perfect some fantastic new invention. A trans-matter ray...my God, she knew he was smart, but THIS..!
But mostly...Penny cried. Every time Her poor, sweet Billy promised to triumph over the forces of banal, corrupt authority in her name, she cried. Every time he lamented some terrible beating at the hands of Captain Hammer, because it would make him seem lesser in her eyes, she cried.
And the episode where he told his audience about how the girl of his dreams (I didn’t know Billy, I didn’t...oh, my wonderful, angry Billy, why didn’t you just TELL me??) was now in the hands of Captain Hammer, and she thought he was so ‘sweet’ , and Penny felt like such a fool, and a traitor, and she hated hated HATED herself, and she cried so hard at that one (the final episode) she thought she’d die.
And she did die. She could feel it.
“Moist,”
True to his word, Billy’s only friend in the world returned at the call. Penny didn’t look over her shoulder to see him coming, but she could feel the condensation rise. She felt a lot of things that she never did before.
“He had a lab,” she said calmly, all emotion long since wept out of her, “...Billy...Doctor Horrible. He had a lab, where he built all these things..?”
Moist stood behind Penny, humid and calm. “Secret door....behind the back wall.”
Penny frowned. She’d thought the light of the world was there for everyone. She’d thought there was good, anywhere you chose to look, and that hope always won, in the end.
She was wrong.
“Show me everything.”
TO BE CONCLUDED...
Title: BANG.
Rating: PG-13-ish
Genre/Pairing: AU drama, Billy/Penny
Word Count: At 3560, with this chapter
Length: Part 2 of 3
Summary: ...what if Dr.Horrible's gun hadn't been broken, in Act III?
BANG.
Part Two of Three
It took Penny two days to find an address for Billy. Or, rather, Doctor Horrible. Somehow, this bizarre alter-ego of her poor, lost friend seemed to have more of a presence in the world than ‘Billy’ ever did. Penny had needed to make a string of inquiries to increasingly odder individuals, before someone in the super-villain community decided, what the heck, what did it matter now?
Super-villain community...there was a concept Penny had never considered before now. She thought she’d seen lost souls beFORE, but those people...
And her Billy was one of them. It was impossible to think about. She knew he’d been passionate (oh, she’d thought a lot about that, more than she’d realized, when staring into his eyes at the laundromat) and driven, but she never would have DREAMED.
Hands tucked deep into the pockets of her dark coat, Penny finally walked up the front steps of a nondescript building, identical to all the others in the area. She looked, and double checked the address. It didn’t LOOK like some evil lair of world-dominating whatever, she thought.
It looked like Billy’s house. Which she didn’t think would bother her like it did. She rang the buzzer.
Nothing happened for several minutes, and she rang a couple more times. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but, Billy HAD mentioned having a roommate. She just needed to talk to someone about this, try and make sense of it all. If that was even possible.
Suddenly, the door opened a crack, and a nervous looking man with darting eyes cast her a wild glare from within. It gave Penny a start, and she wondered what he’d been doing just now. He looked drenched.
“Who are you?” He barked, angry, distrustful. Penny felt a little worried now, but stuck her ground. She’d come so far, and...and she didn’t have anywhere to go BACK to.
“I...m-my name is Penny,” she managed, “...I was a...friend of Billy’s. I’m SO sorry to bother you like this, but...”
“Wait,” he interrupted, staring so hard at Penny now she could almost feel the gaze, ”...you...YOU’RE Penny?”
Startled again, Penny blinked a few times...maybe, Billy had mentioned her..?
She nodded affirmative, and the man at the door (sweating something fierce, Penny noted, despite the breeze of air conditioning coming from within) suddenly closed the door. A second later, after he slid the latch, it opened again.
“Come in,” he told her, glancing furtively over her shoulder as he ushered her quickly in with one hand. Penny nervously did as he wished, feeling a damp spot on her shoulder where he touched her.
She stepped inside, looking about at a very ordinary room...a lamp, couch, cluttered desk, a computer...she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t really it. Still, maybe Billy’s roommate could...
A loud slam made Penny yelp, and she spun around to see that odd man locking the door tight with one hand.
The other hand was holding a gun...some kind of strange, science fiction looking ray gun, which WAS more along the lines of what Penny had been expecting. She tried to suppress a shudder, and keep calm. This was the world he was a part of, she reminded herself, this is...
Before she could finish the reassuring thought, the sweaty man turned, angry and glaring and shaking, and he pulled that insane gun up hard and aimed it right at Penny. She stumbled back, hitting a wall. Her heartrate skyrocketed, and she fought to catch her breath.
“It was YOU!” He screamed, waving the gun right at her and stepping forward, and Penny realized, she was going to die, oh God, he was going to kill her, and why had she ever COME here?
“It was ALL because of you,” the man screamed, taking another step and wiping moisture from his brow with his free hand, never taking his eyes off of Penny, “...all you had to do was...you ruined EVERYthing!”
Like a leaf in a hurricane, Penny shook and struggled to stay upright. “P-Please, I...I-I don’t know what y-you’re TALKING ab...”
“It’s all your fault,” the damp man accused bitterly through gritted teeth, gun lowering just a shade as he stepped closer, closer, “...did you BRING him? Huh? Your boyfriend? Is he waiting outside?”
Penny choked on her words as she tried to answer, when the damp man lunged, clamping his free hand around her throat and squeezing. Penny saw lights flash in her head as the pain drove into her. The world spun about her thoughts, amidst the fear and madness, and she didn’t know any of it anymore. This wasn’t her world, anymore.
“ANSWER me!” He screamed at her, dripping angry rain on Penny’s shirt, “...is the Hammer here? Is he gonna kill ME, like he did Billy? That why you’re here? Haven’t you done ENOUGH?”
That hand, Penny thought, head swimming, God, those clammy, awful fingers on her throat...she scraped weakly at them, nails drawing water. Was he even HUMAN...?
“...p-please...”
The damp man leaned in, so close Penny could feel the mist from his cheeks. Tears streamed down her own as she looked at the man, and she realized, consciousness fading to black...
She couldn’t tell. She honestly couldn’t tell, if he was crying too, or not.
A second before her eyes closed and her legs buckled, that drenched hand pulled suddenly away from her throat, and he gave off a tortured howl even as Penny gasped for air. She coughed painfully, falling to her knees. Across the room, the damp man backed into a wall, dropping down into a tortured crouch and raising his hands to his head. Over the blood rushing in her ears, Penny could hear him wailing.
“AAUUuuuuuughh...God DAMN, Billy...why, why’d you have to go and...oh, God...”
Penny watched him carefully, watched the gun bobbing around as his hands jostled his head and temples, and she struggled to stop her shaking. She wiped a glob of water from her throat.
“Please,” she coughed, voice ragged, “...please, just...just p-put the gun down...I swear, I’m not...”
The damp man finally remembered that Penny was still there. “What...this?" He sniffled, glancing for a second at the weapon in his hand before tossing it across the room like a piece of dirty laundry. Penny was embarrassed at the shriek that escaped her lungs.
“Doesn’t even work,” he muttered, sounding as lost as anyone, “...experimental gyro-destabilizer. Doc never did get it operational. Heh. He was always on to stuff like that...”
Penny stared at the man, shaking dying down. He looked calmer now. Like a fog was lifting.
“Who...who ARE you?” Penny asked in a loud whisper. The damp man didn’t look up.
“Moist,” he said humbly, “...they call me Moist.” Penny was not surprised.
“Sorry about the whole...you know, trying to kill you just now,” Moist went on, getting his own laboured breathing back to normal, “...I’ve been...tense, these days. Also...I’m a villain.”
To Penny’s interest, that mad explanation seemed perfectly passable to her, now. Besides, she wasn’t worried about dying anymore. Something ELSE was gnawing at her.
“What did you mean,” she asked, eyes regaining their focus, “...that it was ‘all MY fault’?”
Moist looked up, staring blankly back at Penny.
“I want to know!” She said, yelling now, “...I didn’t...I never even KNEW Billy was...was ‘Doctor Horrible’, how could any of this be MY...”
“I’ll show you,” Moist said quietly. And without another word, he climbed to his feet, and walked silently to the computer. Penny watched, dread fascination rising, as Moist poked around with the mouse for a few seconds, then motioned Penny over. She fought off a preminitory shudder of fear and rose, walking over to the offered chair. As she sat, she saw a batch of files listed on the screen. Each of the avi’s bore a different date/number, but the same title.
Dr.Horrible’s Blog.
“Start here,” Moist said, pointing to one file in particular, about three months old (and leaving a faint water-stain on the monitor as he did so), “...call me when you’re done.”
“I-I don’t...”
But Moist was already gone, heading into another room. And Penny was left alone, in Billy’s old house, with a computer, HIS computer, and his blog. Billy had a blog?
No, Penny corrected herself. He didn’t. Doctor Horrible, HE had a blog. Her finger trembled for a moment on the mouse. Part of her knew, that if she opened that file....there was no turning back. And she didn’t even know where she was...
Her finger double-clicked and the file opened. And there he was. Billy, her Billy, only...not. He had that uniform on, the costume he wore...at the shelter. His REAL clothes. But...he didn’t look as scary, now, to Penny. No, she liked how he looked, here on the screen, goggles sitting comfortably atop his troubled head.
Penny had already liked Billy. More than liked, if she was honest (and she was becoming very, very honest). But now...now she was starting to like Doctor Horrible, too.
“I saw her again,” Doctor Horrible’s dead voice echoed out over the computer speakers, “...this girl, at a place I sometimes...”
He paused, contemplating his words, because she knew, Billy thought everything like that was SO important, and Penny’s heart broke, and she smiled and cried and watched as he turned and looked at her, like he was really looking right AT her, just like it should be, like every Wednesday and Saturday...
“Have you ever met someone,” Doctor Horrible told Penny, even thought he didn’t know it, couldn’t know it, “...and you just knew? Because I never believed in stuff like that, but...WOW. She is it, people, this girl, she’s...she’s everything I don’t have, you know? She’s that other part of me. This is the girl.
Stay tuned.”
And, for the next three hours, Penny watched, every episode, every moment...she laughed when the Doctor, her Billy, mocked his would-be nemesis Johnny Snow, and she smiled when Billy seemed to perfect some fantastic new invention. A trans-matter ray...my God, she knew he was smart, but THIS..!
But mostly...Penny cried. Every time Her poor, sweet Billy promised to triumph over the forces of banal, corrupt authority in her name, she cried. Every time he lamented some terrible beating at the hands of Captain Hammer, because it would make him seem lesser in her eyes, she cried.
And the episode where he told his audience about how the girl of his dreams (I didn’t know Billy, I didn’t...oh, my wonderful, angry Billy, why didn’t you just TELL me??) was now in the hands of Captain Hammer, and she thought he was so ‘sweet’ , and Penny felt like such a fool, and a traitor, and she hated hated HATED herself, and she cried so hard at that one (the final episode) she thought she’d die.
And she did die. She could feel it.
“Moist,”
True to his word, Billy’s only friend in the world returned at the call. Penny didn’t look over her shoulder to see him coming, but she could feel the condensation rise. She felt a lot of things that she never did before.
“He had a lab,” she said calmly, all emotion long since wept out of her, “...Billy...Doctor Horrible. He had a lab, where he built all these things..?”
Moist stood behind Penny, humid and calm. “Secret door....behind the back wall.”
Penny frowned. She’d thought the light of the world was there for everyone. She’d thought there was good, anywhere you chose to look, and that hope always won, in the end.
She was wrong.
“Show me everything.”
TO BE CONCLUDED...