Monstrous Regiment/Being Human Crossover Crack!Fic
Hi. New member here. After watching the wonderful first series I was inspired to write crossover crack!fic between the crazy vampiric Bristol and my usual sandbox (Monstrous Regiment, Discworld). Having posted it on the usual comm: cheesemongers, someone (phantomreviewer) suggested I cross post it over here. So here ya go.
Title: Crack!Fic: Inter-Universe-Travel Incorporated
Author: 7tree_hugger
Pairing(s): Discworld: Polly/Mal, Being Human: none
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Author owns nothing and does not intend to profit from the work. Characters from Monstrous Regiment belong to Terry Pratchett and those from Being Human belong to the BBC.
Warnings: Takes place after the end of the series so may be mildly spoilerific. Otherwise nothing really, but it is crack!fic so insanity and forced Narativium inhalation do occur. Oh, and mild swearing.
Summary: It's just a jump to the left. A little step to the right. With your hands on your hips, and your characters in a dimension jump fic. Let's do the Time Warp again!
Author's notes: If you're not au fait with the discworld there's an explanatory few paragraphs here - will contain spoilers for MR.
A bit of background for those who don’t read Terry Pratchett. On the Discworld (a flat world carried by four elephants who stand on the back of a turtle which swims through space - work with me here) there are vampires. These vampires come in many shapes and sizes. Some are the old fashioned vampires you would recognise from Dracula legends, they sleep in coffins, can be damaged by sunlight, garlic, crosses, holy water, the works. Others have learnt to overcome the negative (read deadly) effects of such techniques and can live almost normal lives, as long as they keep their attention focussed.
A self-help programme has been set up for Vampires who wish to desist from the nasty habit of drinking blood. These people are called Black Ribboners and go through a strict 12 step programme in order to wean themselves off the dreaded b-vord. The process involves transferring the need to another subject or item selected by the vampire to match their individual tastes and desires. After they have completed the programme they join the general population, wear a twisted black ribbon on their lapel and attend weekly meetings to keep their resolution strong. There they sit around the harmonium singing encouraging hymns and drinking hot cocoa. Though not accepted totally by society, a Black Ribboner is more welcome than an unreformed Vamp.
In the Terry Pratchett novel Monstrous Regiment, a group of young lads join the army for a number of plot related reasons and go off to assist their small country in its fight against the country next door. Both countries have similarities to Eastern European or Baltic states. During the course of the novel each young ‘lad’ is in turn revealed to be instead a young ‘lady’ masquerading in order to circumvent the chauvinistic religious and social barriers that stand in their way. Suffice it to say that the group win the day (I’ll try not to spoil too much of it for you in case you might want to read it) and following discharge from the army, go their separate ways. Two of the ‘lads’ Maladict[a] (a black Ribboner who has transferred to coffee) and Polly Perks rejoin the army at the end of the novel to continue fighting for equality, justice, freedom and quite probably a hard boiled egg.
All you really need to remember is girls masquerading as boys in the army and a vampire who needs unrestricted access to coffee at all times. Or else she’ll start biting again. And you wouldn’t want that.
If you're already a Discworld reader congratulations, you have great taste! Now Read On.
1. Borogravia to Bristol
This, thought George nursing his umpteenth cup of tea, was the final piece of evidence that he had no life. Normal people went out on a Saturday night. He could even remember how it was supposed to go. You’d go out, have a few drinks, have a few more drinks, and then when satisfactorily drunk go to some dive with a sticky floor and dance awkwardly until they put the lights up and everyone left dancing alone skulked home via the kebab shop to nurse the hangover. Sometimes you might get lucky and a nice girl might take pity on you and then there was the careful dance of the coffee invitation and the hoping that this time your flatmate hadn’t thrown up in your bed again. Staying in, slumped on a second hand couch watching “Total Wipeout!” on BBC1 whilst waiting for Casualty to start so that you could snark bitterly at the behaviour of the nursing staff just didn’t compare.
“My life is over” he informed the other two occupants of the room.
Mitchell as usual ignored him but Annie looked round, worried and he was forced to reach out and grab her arm to prevent her getting up to make him another cup of tea. At that moment the TV picture juddered, the digibox on the blink again and he swore, nudging Annie to nudge Mitchell to go and fix it. Normally he would be wiling enough to fiddle with the wires, reassuring connectivity appealing to his geeky side, but tonight he was in such a foul mood that he couldn’t be bothered. So it was Mitchell that was crawling forward to reach round the back of the unit and jiggle wires when the flash of blue light ripped through the flat with an unpleasant tearing sound.
When they blinked away the white dots they saw sprawled on the floor before the TV, where Mitchell had been just a minute before, a figure in an unfamiliar uniform. For all the androgynous appearance George’s nose and the still untamed wolf libido told him it was definitely a female. She seemed to be carrying something.
“Oh My God!” George leapt to his feet pulling his arm from Annie’s terrified grasp (and hoping no-one had heard his girly scream when Mitchell had vanished before their eyes). “There is a woman in my house! And she has a cross bow!”
The intruder just stared at them, the confusion they were feeling written across her face. Then, as though suddenly recollecting what she was carrying, she carefully put the crossbow down, ensuring it wasn’t pointing at anyone.
“How is this even possible?” George appealed to Annie but she could offer nothing but a shrug.
“Mitchell was there! And now he’s gone and you’re…” he waved in a derogatory manner “…here. And you have a crossbow. Why do you have a crossbow? And, Oh My God, what looks like a very efficient sword!”
He swallowed in an attempt to collect himself.
“What the, excuse my language, FLYING FUCK is going on?”
The young woman sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. When she spoke her accent startled them. The words were perfect English, but with an unfamiliar lilt, perhaps Russian George thought.
"Do you have any coffee?" They both stared at her in total incomprehension. “Coffee? Made from roasted Coffea Arabica or Coffea canephora beans, ground and infused in hot water?”
“Yes, thank you, we know what Coffee is!”
“We’ve got tea.” Annie offered brightly.
“No. It has to be coffee.” She looked at them and realising they spoke the truth shook her head. “You don’t have any coffee in the house? At all?”
“I’ll look.” But George stopped halfway to the kitchen as the idiocy of what he was doing sunk in.
“Hang on a minute. You came here, out of nowhere, disrupting a nice quiet evening let me tell you, and we’ve not had many of those lately...” He caught himself rambling. “Anyway! You come here out of nowhere and you get me looking for coffee for you? Well I’m not doing it!”
He drew himself up and adjusted his glasses. “We’re not making you coffee until you tell us what’s going on! If that’s ok. No! Even if it’s not ok!”
Annie looked over to him in gentle exasperation. “It’s only coffee George. It’s not a major demand.”
The young woman made a ‘what-she-said’ face.
“Besides” Annie added, “we can easily kick her butt if she tries anything. You are, after all, the worlds gayest Ninja and my powers are quite strong in this house, I’ll throw the sofa at her or something.”
“Not the TV.” George held out his hands in a pleading gesture. “We’re still making payments.”
The stalemate continued in silence, the girls gaze flickering from one to the other of them as each wondered what to do next. George could feel the nervous sweat prickling down his spine and castigated himself for being such a wuss. Straightening up and pushing his shoulders back in an attempt to at least appear butch he determined not to let her dominate him. It was his house after all, his territory. She moved at last tilting her head to one side as though she’d just picked up on something interesting. Her face passed through a number of expressions and the one it eventually settled on worried him. She sniffed deeply, snuffling at the air.
“You’re a werewolf?” Her lip curled.
“Maybe! How did you know that?”
He inhaled in turn and caught the scent of something familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. An image of Mitchell the first time he’d met him flickered across his mind. Why would she remind him of Mitchell?
“Wait a minute. You’re a vampire?”
“A vampire?” Annie vanished, reappearing in the kitchen. “I thought Mitchell was finished with all that!”
“Hey, hey.” She held up placating hands. “It’s all cool, see?”
The evil she vampire who had invaded his house pulled forward the lapel of her jacket, showing them something there. It was a folded ribbon, held on a pin, like an AIDS ribbon but black. It didn’t ring any bells.
“What’s that then? You’re against prostate cancer? Campaigning for better rights for Goths?”
She sighed, exasperated. “No you idiot. I’m off the stuff. A Black Ribboner. You’ve heard of us right? ‘Not Vun Drop’?”
Two puzzled faces stared back at her. Comprehension was not making house calls today.
“I’ve done the programme. I’m officially certified as no longer a danger to women posing on balconies in under-wired nightdresses.” They still weren’t getting it so she continued in quiet statement. “I don’t bite people anymore and I don’t suck blood.”
They continued to stare unbelieving.
“Anyway, you live with a vampire.”
How did she know that? George asked the question and in reply she swept a hand around the room explaining that the carriage clock and style of ornament placement were obviously vampiric in origin.
“Plus it stinks of vampire. I’m surprised you can’t smell it. Guess you must have got used to it”
“Ok, yes” George gave up, there was no arguing with her. “A vampire does live here. But Mitchell is our friend!”
The vampire lifted her hands and shrugged, the ‘whatever’ as clear as if she had spoken it. Either vampires and werewolves lived together in perfect harmony where she came from or she just couldn’t be bothered to judge. Rubbing the bridge of her nose again she asked plaintively, “are you sure you don’t have any coffee?”
~X~
Mitchell opened his eyes and then quickly closed them again in the hope the vision would go away. When he cracked open an eye he was disturbed to see that they were still there. It wasn’t so much the large number of lads in uniform holding him down, rather the annoyed looking young woman currently aiming what looked like a loaded and cocked crossbow at the anatomically correct portion of his chest.
“Er. Hello?” He dragged up his best conciliatory smile but that only made them tense further.
The woman leant a worrying few inches closer, the arrow tip now skimming his breast bone, and asked him an incomprehensible question.
"Are you a Black Ribboner?"
He gazed up at her in confusion. She sighed at his stupidity and tried again.
"Are. You. A. Black. Ribboner?"
Women asking incomprehensible questions were something he was perfectly at home with, he’d been living in the same house as Annie for a year after all.
“He’s definitely a vamp Sarge. Look at the teeth.”
Mitchell pulled his lip down over his fangs and wondered if he could survive another stake to the chest without George and his 999 skills.
“Scruffy though.” It seemed they all had something to say.
“Maybe we should just stake you now to save trouble.” The exceedingly frightening young woman slid her finger purposefully from where it had been resting along the shaft to hover over the trigger.
Mitchell felt he had to do something. There was no way he could raise his hands any higher, or adopt a more submissive position (which incidentally his ego wasn’t that happy about).
“Look, you don’t need the crossbow. Ok I’m a vampire; you’ve got me there love. But I’ve been off the stuff for over a year now, on my mother’s life!”
The crossbow was being to get rather personal. His patience was running thin and he wasn’t sure he wanted to play this stupid game anymore. Plus the “scruffy” comment had rankled.
“I’m not from round here, I don't know who the feck you are and I don't know anything about this ribbon shite!"
The crossbow twitched and in that instant he saw his life flash before his eyes. A lot of it had been very boring. His eyes, aching from staring at the bolt-tip cross-eyed jumped up to her face and he saw her expression relax as she accepted that he was probably telling the truth. She stepped back and his shoulders slumped in relief, though he noted she was still holding the crossbow rather more in his direction than he would like.
“Ok. Fair enough. So where did you come from and where’s my vampire gone?”
“What?”
He quickly waved conciliatory hands again as the crossbow swung back. It became abundantly clear that the woman was not in any way joking at this moment in time.
“Where. Is. My. Vampire?”
Mitchell promoted this day to his worst. Even above the day he got vamped. Even above the day he asked the girl next door for a kiss before he went away to war and had to walk down the high street with what felt like the whole village laughing at him. He was going to die in a muddy clearing miles away from home by the hand of an insane power-mad bitch with a crossbow fetish and no-one would ever know.
“I don’t know!!” He hadn’t meant to wail, but the strange place and the multitude of angry people with weapons was getting to him. “I was sat at home with my friends, minding my own business and watching crap Saturday night TV when there was this fizzle of light and I opened my eyes to find you lot staring at me and the uncomfortable end of a crossbow attempting to make friends with my breastbone. I swear. I don’t know what happened!”
He suddenly thought of George and Annie left back there wondering where he had gone. What would they be doing? Would they worry? George would work it out. George could always work anything out given enough encouragement, generally a boot up his arse.
“Typical.”
He looked up to see his attacker put the crossbow up, flicking the safety catch off and sighed in relief. Maybe the maniac wasn’t going to kill him today.
"They have coffee where you come from?"
Mitchell blinked, confused. She might have decided not to murder him in cold blood, but it appeared she was still unable to stop asking incomprehensible questions.
"Yes?"
The woman smiled, relieved, and seemed to be pondering something. Whatever it was it seemed to have distracted her from her homicidal crossbow tendencies and she turned to the lads holding him down and indicated they should let go.
“Wherever Mal is, I’m sure he’ll be ok.” A man Mitchell recognised as a Corporal received the crossbow from the disturbed bitch with a reassuring smile. Stripes on uniforms were a long ago learnt skill though now he looked, Mitchell thought these uniforms seemed worryingly familiar in their unfamiliarity.
“I’m sure.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose as if she wasn’t that sure actually. “Take over Corporal. There are some people I need to talk to.”
Mitchell thought he heard her mutter: “I can’t be doing with this” as she walked away.
~X~
Part II now up
Title: Crack!Fic: Inter-Universe-Travel Incorporated
Author: 7tree_hugger
Pairing(s): Discworld: Polly/Mal, Being Human: none
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Author owns nothing and does not intend to profit from the work. Characters from Monstrous Regiment belong to Terry Pratchett and those from Being Human belong to the BBC.
Warnings: Takes place after the end of the series so may be mildly spoilerific. Otherwise nothing really, but it is crack!fic so insanity and forced Narativium inhalation do occur. Oh, and mild swearing.
Summary: It's just a jump to the left. A little step to the right. With your hands on your hips, and your characters in a dimension jump fic. Let's do the Time Warp again!
Author's notes: If you're not au fait with the discworld there's an explanatory few paragraphs here - will contain spoilers for MR.
A bit of background for those who don’t read Terry Pratchett. On the Discworld (a flat world carried by four elephants who stand on the back of a turtle which swims through space - work with me here) there are vampires. These vampires come in many shapes and sizes. Some are the old fashioned vampires you would recognise from Dracula legends, they sleep in coffins, can be damaged by sunlight, garlic, crosses, holy water, the works. Others have learnt to overcome the negative (read deadly) effects of such techniques and can live almost normal lives, as long as they keep their attention focussed.
A self-help programme has been set up for Vampires who wish to desist from the nasty habit of drinking blood. These people are called Black Ribboners and go through a strict 12 step programme in order to wean themselves off the dreaded b-vord. The process involves transferring the need to another subject or item selected by the vampire to match their individual tastes and desires. After they have completed the programme they join the general population, wear a twisted black ribbon on their lapel and attend weekly meetings to keep their resolution strong. There they sit around the harmonium singing encouraging hymns and drinking hot cocoa. Though not accepted totally by society, a Black Ribboner is more welcome than an unreformed Vamp.
In the Terry Pratchett novel Monstrous Regiment, a group of young lads join the army for a number of plot related reasons and go off to assist their small country in its fight against the country next door. Both countries have similarities to Eastern European or Baltic states. During the course of the novel each young ‘lad’ is in turn revealed to be instead a young ‘lady’ masquerading in order to circumvent the chauvinistic religious and social barriers that stand in their way. Suffice it to say that the group win the day (I’ll try not to spoil too much of it for you in case you might want to read it) and following discharge from the army, go their separate ways. Two of the ‘lads’ Maladict[a] (a black Ribboner who has transferred to coffee) and Polly Perks rejoin the army at the end of the novel to continue fighting for equality, justice, freedom and quite probably a hard boiled egg.
All you really need to remember is girls masquerading as boys in the army and a vampire who needs unrestricted access to coffee at all times. Or else she’ll start biting again. And you wouldn’t want that.
If you're already a Discworld reader congratulations, you have great taste! Now Read On.
1. Borogravia to Bristol
This, thought George nursing his umpteenth cup of tea, was the final piece of evidence that he had no life. Normal people went out on a Saturday night. He could even remember how it was supposed to go. You’d go out, have a few drinks, have a few more drinks, and then when satisfactorily drunk go to some dive with a sticky floor and dance awkwardly until they put the lights up and everyone left dancing alone skulked home via the kebab shop to nurse the hangover. Sometimes you might get lucky and a nice girl might take pity on you and then there was the careful dance of the coffee invitation and the hoping that this time your flatmate hadn’t thrown up in your bed again. Staying in, slumped on a second hand couch watching “Total Wipeout!” on BBC1 whilst waiting for Casualty to start so that you could snark bitterly at the behaviour of the nursing staff just didn’t compare.
“My life is over” he informed the other two occupants of the room.
Mitchell as usual ignored him but Annie looked round, worried and he was forced to reach out and grab her arm to prevent her getting up to make him another cup of tea. At that moment the TV picture juddered, the digibox on the blink again and he swore, nudging Annie to nudge Mitchell to go and fix it. Normally he would be wiling enough to fiddle with the wires, reassuring connectivity appealing to his geeky side, but tonight he was in such a foul mood that he couldn’t be bothered. So it was Mitchell that was crawling forward to reach round the back of the unit and jiggle wires when the flash of blue light ripped through the flat with an unpleasant tearing sound.
When they blinked away the white dots they saw sprawled on the floor before the TV, where Mitchell had been just a minute before, a figure in an unfamiliar uniform. For all the androgynous appearance George’s nose and the still untamed wolf libido told him it was definitely a female. She seemed to be carrying something.
“Oh My God!” George leapt to his feet pulling his arm from Annie’s terrified grasp (and hoping no-one had heard his girly scream when Mitchell had vanished before their eyes). “There is a woman in my house! And she has a cross bow!”
The intruder just stared at them, the confusion they were feeling written across her face. Then, as though suddenly recollecting what she was carrying, she carefully put the crossbow down, ensuring it wasn’t pointing at anyone.
“How is this even possible?” George appealed to Annie but she could offer nothing but a shrug.
“Mitchell was there! And now he’s gone and you’re…” he waved in a derogatory manner “…here. And you have a crossbow. Why do you have a crossbow? And, Oh My God, what looks like a very efficient sword!”
He swallowed in an attempt to collect himself.
“What the, excuse my language, FLYING FUCK is going on?”
The young woman sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. When she spoke her accent startled them. The words were perfect English, but with an unfamiliar lilt, perhaps Russian George thought.
"Do you have any coffee?" They both stared at her in total incomprehension. “Coffee? Made from roasted Coffea Arabica or Coffea canephora beans, ground and infused in hot water?”
“Yes, thank you, we know what Coffee is!”
“We’ve got tea.” Annie offered brightly.
“No. It has to be coffee.” She looked at them and realising they spoke the truth shook her head. “You don’t have any coffee in the house? At all?”
“I’ll look.” But George stopped halfway to the kitchen as the idiocy of what he was doing sunk in.
“Hang on a minute. You came here, out of nowhere, disrupting a nice quiet evening let me tell you, and we’ve not had many of those lately...” He caught himself rambling. “Anyway! You come here out of nowhere and you get me looking for coffee for you? Well I’m not doing it!”
He drew himself up and adjusted his glasses. “We’re not making you coffee until you tell us what’s going on! If that’s ok. No! Even if it’s not ok!”
Annie looked over to him in gentle exasperation. “It’s only coffee George. It’s not a major demand.”
The young woman made a ‘what-she-said’ face.
“Besides” Annie added, “we can easily kick her butt if she tries anything. You are, after all, the worlds gayest Ninja and my powers are quite strong in this house, I’ll throw the sofa at her or something.”
“Not the TV.” George held out his hands in a pleading gesture. “We’re still making payments.”
The stalemate continued in silence, the girls gaze flickering from one to the other of them as each wondered what to do next. George could feel the nervous sweat prickling down his spine and castigated himself for being such a wuss. Straightening up and pushing his shoulders back in an attempt to at least appear butch he determined not to let her dominate him. It was his house after all, his territory. She moved at last tilting her head to one side as though she’d just picked up on something interesting. Her face passed through a number of expressions and the one it eventually settled on worried him. She sniffed deeply, snuffling at the air.
“You’re a werewolf?” Her lip curled.
“Maybe! How did you know that?”
He inhaled in turn and caught the scent of something familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. An image of Mitchell the first time he’d met him flickered across his mind. Why would she remind him of Mitchell?
“Wait a minute. You’re a vampire?”
“A vampire?” Annie vanished, reappearing in the kitchen. “I thought Mitchell was finished with all that!”
“Hey, hey.” She held up placating hands. “It’s all cool, see?”
The evil she vampire who had invaded his house pulled forward the lapel of her jacket, showing them something there. It was a folded ribbon, held on a pin, like an AIDS ribbon but black. It didn’t ring any bells.
“What’s that then? You’re against prostate cancer? Campaigning for better rights for Goths?”
She sighed, exasperated. “No you idiot. I’m off the stuff. A Black Ribboner. You’ve heard of us right? ‘Not Vun Drop’?”
Two puzzled faces stared back at her. Comprehension was not making house calls today.
“I’ve done the programme. I’m officially certified as no longer a danger to women posing on balconies in under-wired nightdresses.” They still weren’t getting it so she continued in quiet statement. “I don’t bite people anymore and I don’t suck blood.”
They continued to stare unbelieving.
“Anyway, you live with a vampire.”
How did she know that? George asked the question and in reply she swept a hand around the room explaining that the carriage clock and style of ornament placement were obviously vampiric in origin.
“Plus it stinks of vampire. I’m surprised you can’t smell it. Guess you must have got used to it”
“Ok, yes” George gave up, there was no arguing with her. “A vampire does live here. But Mitchell is our friend!”
The vampire lifted her hands and shrugged, the ‘whatever’ as clear as if she had spoken it. Either vampires and werewolves lived together in perfect harmony where she came from or she just couldn’t be bothered to judge. Rubbing the bridge of her nose again she asked plaintively, “are you sure you don’t have any coffee?”
~X~
Mitchell opened his eyes and then quickly closed them again in the hope the vision would go away. When he cracked open an eye he was disturbed to see that they were still there. It wasn’t so much the large number of lads in uniform holding him down, rather the annoyed looking young woman currently aiming what looked like a loaded and cocked crossbow at the anatomically correct portion of his chest.
“Er. Hello?” He dragged up his best conciliatory smile but that only made them tense further.
The woman leant a worrying few inches closer, the arrow tip now skimming his breast bone, and asked him an incomprehensible question.
"Are you a Black Ribboner?"
He gazed up at her in confusion. She sighed at his stupidity and tried again.
"Are. You. A. Black. Ribboner?"
Women asking incomprehensible questions were something he was perfectly at home with, he’d been living in the same house as Annie for a year after all.
“He’s definitely a vamp Sarge. Look at the teeth.”
Mitchell pulled his lip down over his fangs and wondered if he could survive another stake to the chest without George and his 999 skills.
“Scruffy though.” It seemed they all had something to say.
“Maybe we should just stake you now to save trouble.” The exceedingly frightening young woman slid her finger purposefully from where it had been resting along the shaft to hover over the trigger.
Mitchell felt he had to do something. There was no way he could raise his hands any higher, or adopt a more submissive position (which incidentally his ego wasn’t that happy about).
“Look, you don’t need the crossbow. Ok I’m a vampire; you’ve got me there love. But I’ve been off the stuff for over a year now, on my mother’s life!”
The crossbow was being to get rather personal. His patience was running thin and he wasn’t sure he wanted to play this stupid game anymore. Plus the “scruffy” comment had rankled.
“I’m not from round here, I don't know who the feck you are and I don't know anything about this ribbon shite!"
The crossbow twitched and in that instant he saw his life flash before his eyes. A lot of it had been very boring. His eyes, aching from staring at the bolt-tip cross-eyed jumped up to her face and he saw her expression relax as she accepted that he was probably telling the truth. She stepped back and his shoulders slumped in relief, though he noted she was still holding the crossbow rather more in his direction than he would like.
“Ok. Fair enough. So where did you come from and where’s my vampire gone?”
“What?”
He quickly waved conciliatory hands again as the crossbow swung back. It became abundantly clear that the woman was not in any way joking at this moment in time.
“Where. Is. My. Vampire?”
Mitchell promoted this day to his worst. Even above the day he got vamped. Even above the day he asked the girl next door for a kiss before he went away to war and had to walk down the high street with what felt like the whole village laughing at him. He was going to die in a muddy clearing miles away from home by the hand of an insane power-mad bitch with a crossbow fetish and no-one would ever know.
“I don’t know!!” He hadn’t meant to wail, but the strange place and the multitude of angry people with weapons was getting to him. “I was sat at home with my friends, minding my own business and watching crap Saturday night TV when there was this fizzle of light and I opened my eyes to find you lot staring at me and the uncomfortable end of a crossbow attempting to make friends with my breastbone. I swear. I don’t know what happened!”
He suddenly thought of George and Annie left back there wondering where he had gone. What would they be doing? Would they worry? George would work it out. George could always work anything out given enough encouragement, generally a boot up his arse.
“Typical.”
He looked up to see his attacker put the crossbow up, flicking the safety catch off and sighed in relief. Maybe the maniac wasn’t going to kill him today.
"They have coffee where you come from?"
Mitchell blinked, confused. She might have decided not to murder him in cold blood, but it appeared she was still unable to stop asking incomprehensible questions.
"Yes?"
The woman smiled, relieved, and seemed to be pondering something. Whatever it was it seemed to have distracted her from her homicidal crossbow tendencies and she turned to the lads holding him down and indicated they should let go.
“Wherever Mal is, I’m sure he’ll be ok.” A man Mitchell recognised as a Corporal received the crossbow from the disturbed bitch with a reassuring smile. Stripes on uniforms were a long ago learnt skill though now he looked, Mitchell thought these uniforms seemed worryingly familiar in their unfamiliarity.
“I’m sure.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose as if she wasn’t that sure actually. “Take over Corporal. There are some people I need to talk to.”
Mitchell thought he heard her mutter: “I can’t be doing with this” as she walked away.
~X~
Part II now up