Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bad End; or, Yes, You Can Lose Before the Game Starts

Everything has to happen somewhere.

In one universe, I wake up to find teeth buried in my neck. I’m not awake for long; just enough to realise I’m being attacked by a vampire, how is this even happening? and then I’m gone, vanished to another universe, just enough blood left to live.

In another universe, I don’t wake up to find teeth buried in my neck. I don’t wake up at all.

In one universe, this isn’t a very short story.

In one universe, it’s not even worth writing.

Chapter Text

“No.”

I folded my arms and shook my head at the doctor. He must be pretty intrigued, if he’s trying to diagnose me in person instead of dragging his team in to interview me. Then again, he does have an unusually personal stake in this; it had been his bed I woke up in. With the front door still locked and none of the windows showing any signs of forced entry, I would have been surprised if he hadn’t tried to investigate. I just wished he would learn that not everything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary had to be caused by people being sick.

Also, there was the small problem that if he told people that a stranger had mysteriously appeared in his bed overnight and he had no idea how she got there, they would start to think he had a drug problem. And producing said girl would just compound the problem: either she (that is to say, I) would confirm it, proving there was something wrong with his memory, or deny it, implying he was delusional. Either way, he would just be digging himself deeper.

The fact that they would be right about the drugs was completely irrelevant.

“If I lied, you’d know I was lying and assume that it’s a symptom. If I told the truth, you wouldn’t believe me, and assume that I’m either lying, which would be a symptom, or delusional, which would also be a symptom. Either way, it’s going to lead you to the wrong conclusion, just like it always does.”

He tried giving me the puppy-dog look, which is kind of cute on him, and actually works on some people.

Maybe he was hoping that we had slept together and he just didn’t remember it? Or that he was somehow attractive enough and famous enough for random people to deliberately find their way into his bed overnight?

Hell, there’s certainly enough people who would. In the world I come from, at least.

“I don’t sleepwalk. I don’t have some strange compulsion to break into people’s homes, lock the door behind me and climb into bed with them. I don’t…” I dredged my imagination for anything else that might possibly be a valid “diagnosis”, and waved my hands around hopelessly, coming up with nothing. “I just appeared here. Literally out of thin air.”

“That’s impossible.”

“And…” how did it go? “ ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.’ ” I quoted at him. “And it’d be wrong.”

As soon as I said that, I realised it had been a mistake.

Damnit, I should know better than to drop obscure hints around Dr House.

Chapter Text

Three million lightyears (and just as many temporal ones) away from Earth, actual dates become a bit meaningless for working out where you are on the timeline.
 
“… looks human, but acts like a cat? Goes “eeeeeyooowww!” whenever he makes an entrance?” I gave my best impression of the Cat’s signature screech.
 
The skutter waggled its head/claw in what could only be a nod.
 
“How about Kryten? Series 3000 mechanoid with a squarish head, insists on doing Lister’s washing?”
 
The nod was a little more emphatic this time. Apparently it had a slightly higher opinion of the service mechanoid than the humanoid feline. Slightly.
 
Well, that puts it after the start of Series II at the absolute earliest, more likely to be III or later though-
 
“Eeeeeeyoooooooooww!  I thought I heard a lady cat scream!” I spun around to face the newcomer. Somehow the automatic door behind me had opened without me hearing it. I hadn’t even heard footsteps in the corridor.
 
“Hey babe.” The Cat struck what he probably imagined to be a seductive pose. “Tell me I didn’t imagine it.”
 
“You imagined it, there’s nobody here,” I told him without thinking. “Go away.”
 
“Aw, damn.” He turned, and slunk away, back down the corridor. “Just when I thought I finally got lucky.”
 
 
***
 
 
“Rimmer, we’ve done this a hundred times. How can there possibly be an intruder aboard?”
 
There were voices somewhere down the corridor. Familiar ones.
 
“It never hurts to be certain, Listy.” I could practically see the smug look on Rimmer’s face. “Now, you and Kryten take that side of the ship, and we’ll cover this one.”
 
The clang of two sets of footsteps – one a pair of boots, the other robotic – receded into the distance, accompanied by a string of what were probably complaints, and I started to relax.
 
“We don’t need to check this one. There ain’t nobody in there.”
 
The approaching footsteps stopped. “How the smeg do you know that, we haven’t even opened the door.”
 
“Because she said so!” I eeped silently and started edging in the direction of a handy cupboard.
 
“Oh, well that’s all right then.” The footsteps started moving again, and I began to exhale… then froze when they halted again.
 
“If there’s nobody there,” Rimmer began, in a careful tone, “then who told you there’s nobody there?”
 
 
***
 
 
The door burst open. Or rather, being an automatic sliding door, it slid open and they burst through the doorway, brandishing bazookoids.
 
“Alright, nobody move!”
 
The four of them practically skidded to a stop when they realised the room was empty, except for themselves and the lone skutter dusting the floor.
 
“Uhhh… you didn’t by any chance happen to see anyone else in here, by any chance?” Rimmer ventured. The skutter paused in its work to inform them, in one expressive gesture, that no, it hadn’t, and if it had it would neither tell them nor care, then picked up the duster and resumed as if it hadn’t been interrupted.
 
“Well, carry on then,” Rimmer ordered, completely unnecessarily.
 
 
***
 
 
“Are they gone?” I peered out of the cupboard. The skutter nodded, and I stepped out all the way and gave it a high-five. Well, high-three in its case.
 
“Thanks for your help.”
 
I started heading for the door, meaning to find a storeroom and pick up a few supplies. Ship of this size, they’ll never miss the little I need.
 
And then stopped, as I became aware of an absolutely awful stench. It seemed to be emanating from my foot. It took a few moments to remember what its origin had to be.
 
“Crap.”
 
“Nicely said,” said a disembodied voice. “Short and to the point. Succinct, even.”
 
“Thank you, Holly,” I said as sarcastically as I could. “You were just waiting for that punchline, weren’t you?”
 
“’Course I was,” the AI responded. “Never miss a good punchline, me.”
 
The skutter and I were practically unanimous in our wordless replies.

Chapter Text

This time it had been pitch black when I woke, or would have if not for the streetlamps. I didn’t recognise the man next to me (he was kind of handsome, with an angular yet soft face that could have come from practically any time in the last century or more, although his hair suggested it was more likely to be the eighties or early nineties), and I was barely awake when he woke too, so when I saw how his eyes flashed when he saw me (not a figure of speech; they glowed nearly red) I panicked, scrambled to my feet, and ran.

As I ran, I heard somebody call from nearby, softly, almost sing-song: “I know you’re here, Nicholas. You of all people should know by now that you cannot hide from me.” 

The tone was not one that I would have found comforting even in ordinary circumstances, so when I rounded a corner and ran straight into the caller (and I could have sworn there was nobody there when I made the turn; it was as if he appeared from nowhere) I let out a shriek that had him wincing at the sound. It was no reassurance at all when I realised that his face I knew: I had seen sketches of him, with that confident, superior, slightly predatory expression, and that distinctive pale almost-white hair, short and stiff enough to stand nearly vertical all by itself.

His name, I recalled, was LaCroix, and he was a vampire, and that meant the one I woke up next to, with the glowing eyes, must be Nick Knight, his vampiric offspring and the “Nicholas” he was looking for. The sketches of Nick had been good, but not quite as uncannily accurate. 

“You are not Nicholas,” he stated. Softly, almost… disappointed? “And yet I felt him approaching.” He closed his eyes. I tried to back away, and realised almost immediately that it would be futile. The way his hand was suddenly clamped around my wrist might’ve had something to do with it.

Chapter Text

I slid another pin through the seam of the armour, steel slipping easily through the edge of the flouncy steel. No matter what I tried, no matter how many times I re-pinned it, it simply would not fit. I re-pinned it one last time, everything snapped into position, and I was wearing it again; this time it was way too tight, and as I twisted to try to reach the buttons to relieve the pressure on my stomach and ribcage each and every pin slipped, and somehow unerringly found my arm, and stabbed, all at once…

I opened my eyes to find another pair, the bright green of marbles, right in front of my face. They were so close that if they hadn’t all been a uniform inky-black, I would have been able to see every individual hair of the fur that covered the face surrounding them.

The face backed off a little, revealing that it belonged to a large and heavy black cat. His weight shifted off my ribs, to my stomach, and I could feel the claws retract from the arm that they had been embedding themselves in. Ow. 

It was then that I realised the cat had been talking to me.

It had to be the cat. His mouth had moved along with the words, and he was still close enough that I could see the movements matching the sounds, so it didn’t look like bad dubbing. I had just been so distracted by having a cat in my face and squashing my torso that the sheer unexpectedness of it talking meant that I didn’t hear any of the actual words.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” I asked.

The cat frowned. “Quoi ?” he said.

What?

That sounded like... French? Maybe?

“Je ne… parl Francais,” I tried. I haven’t formally studied French since I was about nine; most of my recent experience with the language has been watching somebody else teach themselves, and that mostly written rather than spoken. I know my pronunciation is only mediocre. My grammar is probably atrocious. “Tu parle Anglais?” I don't speak French. Do you speak English?

Trying to string together a sentence from memory in a language you’ve never really spoken before is hard.

“Qu’est-ce que tu m’a dit ? Hé ! Frero !” the cat remarked, then turned and jumped off me. I sat up.

The fluffy feline walked over to a man sitting opposite me, his long and tufted tail waving behind. I didn’t understand what he said this time, either, but his tone made it clear that it was probably rude.

The man was stick-thin, and lanky, and was swathed in black or dark grey from head to toe. Literally; even his head was wrapped in something that looked like a combination of scarf and bandit’s mask, covering everything above his nose, so that the only skin visible on his entire body was his neck and the lower part of his face, both of which were incredibly pale, almost white against his clothes.

Something about him seemed familiar. Well, of course it does; these are all people I’ve watched or read about. I just need to work out who.

So my new companions are a rude cat and a bandit who looks like he could do with more sun. I suppose it could be worse; at least the bandit looks like he knows how to look after himself. I would assume he knows how to handle a sword, at least.

A sword. That’s what’s missing. He’s normally armed: not just with a large, probably two-handed sword, but twin pistols and an oversized dagger as well. All of them red, intelligent, and with way too many eyes.

Not “cat” or “bandit”. I think I know where I am.

Try “Bow Meow” and “Rogue”. Or “Chacha” and “Roublard”, in the original French.

“Excusez moi,” I began, and both looked at me. “Tu Remington et Grany, les freres Smisse?” Are you Remington and Grany, the Smisse Brothers?

I hoped that's what I said, anyway.

They both grinned, which was only slightly creepy on Remington’s pale countenance, but is just plain scary on anything feline.

Ok. So, I’m with most famous Rogue brothers in the magical World of Twelve, as they race against time to break the younger’s curse before he becomes trapped in the form of a Bow Meow forever. Unless, of course, it’s already too late.

Well, at least this isn’t going to be boring.

* * * * *

Oh, bloody hell, I thought to myself as I struggled to keep up with everyone; a bunch of heroes, the lot of them, even if some of them deny it, and they’re all in much better shape than me. I had no idea how I had survived the arena, even with the five of them taking the brunt of the swarm, let alone getting physically dragged into a demon world. I would be bruised and sore all over tomorrow. Hell, I was sore all over already, but stopping and facing Rushu’s wrath, or even just the rest of the demon horde chasing us, would be worse. Everything in the Shukrute lives only for destruction, so in a world with nothing left to destroy, anything new is a target. Which, surprise surprise, includes us.

Literally, actually. Ahead of me, Tristepin ducked to avoid one of the many unlucky minor Shushus that Rushu and his right-hand-demon Anathar were flinging. Both of them were very poor shots.
 
The portal which Qilby had opened from the World of Twelve, the proper world we had been dragged out of not so long ago, would remain open just long enough for us all to escape if nothing went wrong. Now, I don’t trust that lying, false-faced traitor as far as I could throw him (which isn’t very far at all; I doubt I could even lift him off the ground), but this is one thing he did right. Will do. Whatever.
 
Of course, something does go wrong.
 
It was surreal, watching it actually happen. Rushu had given up on (or more likely, gotten bored with) throwing minor shushus and was gaining ground, way, way too quickly for us to have a hope of reaching the portal. Rubilax, freed from his sword form in his native world, grabbed Grany, too small to resist, and threw him straight at the massive demon king, who promptly stopped to try to claw the bow meow off. Funnily enough, the Lord of the Shushus can’t stand cuteness in any form. Remington, hearing his brother shouting, stopped in his tracks.

I knew what would happen next: I had seen it. Remy would turn back to rescue Grany, the portal would close, and the two of them would be trapped in the Shukrute, possibly forever; this world is sealed off, and the one person capable of creating a portal between the two worlds is an insane, lying, murdering usurper who’s gained everyone’s trust under false pretences.
 
I couldn’t let it happen.
 
“I’ll get Grany! Run!” I shouted at Remy, gesticulating in the hopes that he would understand that much, then turned and ran back, back towards the Shushu horde and Grany, glad that I had left my pigtails in; the extra cuteness they gave me would gain me a few precious moments.
 
“GRANY! JUMP!” Still running, I held my arms out ready to catch him, and was nearly knocked over by the weight of a large cat slamming into my chest. Clinging to him, I turned and as I fled I felt his claws slide through my shirt and grip painfully into my skin. I couldn’t really blame him.
 
Now all I needed to do was find somewhere to hide long enough to fall asleep, and we could escape this place.
 
Struggling for breath, every muscle screaming and every movement a labour, I ran, and with every step I prayed that it was Remington who was my anchor in the World of Twelve. If he wasn’t, then Grany would never see his brother again.

Chapter Text

If there was one way I never expected to be woken up, it was by someone aiming an arrow at my face.

It looked sharp, deadly, and accurate. At this (exceedingly uncomfortable) range, there was no way it could miss.

The girl aiming it was young, blonde and pretty, and she was wearing some sort of ranger’s leathers, along with a matching unsympathetic expression.

I didn’t catch what she said to me. I assume she must have put my uncomprehending look down to my not being properly awake yet, because she repeated herself, the barest hint of impatience edging her tone.

She didn’t make sense to me this time, either, but she seemed to have woken somebody behind me, who chimed in with a rather deep voice, edged with amusement. I turned to look, and came face to face with an enormous red-rimmed eye.  

Without even thinking, I scrabbled backwards, nearly colliding with the young archer. The eye was easily as big as my fist, and looking straight at me.

They continued arguing (their tones suggested they might be sniping at each other), but they might as well have been speaking another language for all the sense it made to me.  

Actually…

I listened for a few more moments, as the familiar rhythms began to make sense. It sounded like… French?

No, not merely like French; it was French. I could actually make out the odd word here and there, although not enough to follow their conversation.

And the eye, I could now see, did not belong to any creature in the usual sense, although its sheer expressiveness was quite conclusive proof that it was alive. Instead, it seemed to be attached to the crosspiece of a short sword, on the belt of the strapping young man (still fast asleep, the lucky sod) with the heavy tan and fiery red hair who I seemed to have been sleeping next to.

Hang on...

Talking sword, heavy tan, odd black scars on one side of his face, bright red hair that could be more accurately be described as orange or even ginger. Uh oh. something was starting to add up here.

Oh, dear. That meant I now had several problems. One, my French is not very good, so I’m probably going to have a hard time communicating here. The second was the increasingly inescapable conclusion of just which world I had landed in this time. Not only is the World of Twelve a French-speaking (or near enough to make no difference) fantasy setting, heavily reliant on magic, but it has a very strong Rule of Funny, with a bias towards slapstick violence. Strong enough to be deadly if treated casually.  

The third and far more pressing problem was that the young swordsman was the archer’s boyfriend. Who I had just spent the night sleeping with. And Evangelyne packs one hell of a slap.

Chapter Text

Waking up to find yourself in the Tert is no joke. If you do, my advice is to get the hell out of there as soon as you can, any way possible. Of course, it took me way too long to work out where I woke up this time. Half-remembered descriptions from a book are no substitute for actual pictures, and I woke up alone (which in hindsight is unbelievably fortunate, and I still have no idea how that happened) so it was ages before I saw anyone or anything I recognised.

It was clear early on that this city, if you could call it that, was a bad place, and that asking questions would instantly mark me as a stranger and therefore vulnerable. Mutants seemed to leer from every street corner, most people had visible implants of some description or another, and I knew that every single person I passed would likely be armed, dangerous and on their guard. One cyberpunk city is described much like another, so suspicion was slow to grow in my mind until I finally recognised some of the “mutants” as ‘goboys, bioengineered and barely civilised dingo/human hybrids that the more powerful (except the media; they didn’t need them) used as bully boys; between the ‘goboys and the very distinctive slang that could be overheard on every street, this place could only be the poisonous, contaminated streets of that post-environmental-disaster cyberpunk slum that had grown like a cancer over what had probably once been my home. By then of course, it was way, way too late to find my way back to the semi-safe place I had woken up in.

The Tert is a place where only the tough survive for long, and often not even then. The safer, law-abiding Viva City was an unreachable haven, a long, long way away, and on the other side of the Wastelands that only the crazy or desperate even attempted to cross, and then only in packs so that at least some had a chance of surviving. I was too wired, too scared, to curl up somewhere and snatch the nap that would be my escape route, and drugs would leave me just as vulnerable, if not more so. Besides, I had none on me, nowhere safe enough to wait for them to take effect even if I did have them, and nothing to buy either them or safety with anyway.

Well, as good as nothing. There’s always something left to sell, if you’re desperate enough and there’s a market for it. And there’s always a market. Living on the streets of the Tert will make anyone desperate.

I...

I don’t want to talk about it.

I said I don’t, OK?

Just f-

Just go away.