The Journal of Gary Perunu

He set out the carry out food on the table and poured out the drinks, waiting for Dick.

He's baking.

What do you expect of the High Priest of Geoff, the God of Biscuits, especially when he's upset?

The boys are with Gran, because he doesn't know when Dick's getting back and they have some Talking to do and Talking goes better when he's not got haif his brain on the boys.

Fuck. He hates Talking.

That being said, everyone in the building should be getting a gift of ginger snaps tomorrow morning at the mail slots.

He walks in from Milliways and drops Joshua off with Gran. The little one's glad to see his brother and the two begin jabbering and trilling at one another as Gran chuckles in amusement at Gary. As they step away from the children, however, Gran pulls Gary close, eyes utterly serious.

"You know what you're doing?"

"Of course I do, Gran. I planned this, all right? And it's for the best."

She nods, stepping away, trusting him.

"You're good boy, Miki, I know."

He nods, smiling at the trust tiredly.

"I'm to head back to my place, wait for Dick. He'll be wondering what all this's about, yeah? You take care of the kids."

She gives him an affirmative nod and he heads out.







Thus he sits in his apartment and pulls open a book.

Yes, that one.

And waits.

Gary's in his apartment.

It's been about three weeks since he came back from the longest phone call of his life, so to speak, and things are back to... normal.

For a given value of normal.

Gran'd noticed, of course. She'd asked him what was wrong so many times his head had nearly spun and she'd sent him home with twice as much as she usually did, but without baklava. The translation came to: 'I'm worried about you, but no sweets as you won't tell me what's wrong you silly boy'.

He'd wined, he'd dined; he'd drunk and screwed and had a grand old time upon returning home. It was, from an objective point of view, a good life to be living. If that was the life you wanted to live and for Gary, it wasn't.
There were drawbacks, of course, and he was in the middle of one of them. His head was pounding and his body was sore and he wanted...wanted...

No, he wasn't about to reach for the wallet. No money to spend here, of course, so the only reason he'd want his wallet was...

And he wouldn't. That wasn't real, no matter the pint glass. Nor the beads or the bloody pictures. None of it had been real and that was for the best.

Right?

Right?

Blink.

"--I brought you flowers that night you lost your cat? And how I helped you bury Snookums? That's love right there, Daph, if anything is."

And he puts down the phone. And the pint in his hand that he brought from someplace he's not even sure exists now. Except for the pint.

Which he drinks.

Because he needs it.

The glass clatters onto the sitting room table next to the phone and he takes off the coat he hadn't been wearing when he'd started the phone conversation. Then he walks into his bedroom and shakes his head.

"Oh, you knew I was waiting, didn't you? You know how amusing I find those phonecalls."

He gives her a sour look as he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

"Eh, shove it, Jess. Not in the bloody mood."

She raises an eyebrow.

"That's certainly out of character for you, Gary. Thought you were always in the mood. It's one of the very few things I can trust you to do at any given time."

The shirt's tossed off and he looks up to see Jessica curling provacatively on the sheets. Doesn't do a thing for him, but he needs to do something to get his mind off of things, to bring him back to here and pull him out from there and Jess'll do in a pinch.

The pants follow a minute later and the curious look just eggs him on, makes him push her arms a little harder than he normally would and she quirks an eyebrow at him.

"Someone's in a mood then, are we?"

"Shut it, Jess, and let's just do what we're gonna do before you go back to that bloody idiot from the ad agency you're so hot on."

Anger flashes across her face, hot and sharp, before she pulls him onto her with a snarl.

"Always knew I could count on you to be a fucking asshole, Gary. Least you're not disappointing me there."

"'pparently you're not the only one."

And maybe she hears it and maybe she doesn't, but they're fucking now so it doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter that his wallet's got pictures of two little babies he doesn't figure he'll ever see again. Doesn't matter that the shoes he kicked off were bought for him by a tiny redheaded vampire he loves to hate. Doesn't matter that there's a feather and a set of beeds in his pocket he figures he'll never use.

Gary's home now. For... a given value of home.

Gary...is asleep.

Very happily asleep.

Gary stands around in the bar, dressed up a bit posh, and waits for his date.

He wakes up.

It's still Dark.

"Bloody fucking hell..."

It's Dark.

"Oh bloody hell, I'm in just about the deepest shite a bloke could find himself in then, aren't I? Shite shite shite."

They're starting to scare him.

He's been Below for about a week now. He hasn't started a fuss, hasn't called much attention; he'd made sure to dirty himself up right off, figuring that blending in was more important than keeping things clean a little longer.

He'd found some things to be more helpful than he'd thought they'd ever be back in London Above. The Greek his Gran had drilled into him since boyhood had actually come into play when he'd stumbled on a small contigent of Greek potters in one spot. Talking with them in the native tongue had gotten him a free meal that had tasted almost as good as his Gran's and some interesting conversation that he didn't think he'd soon forget. His literature degree, one taken purely out of interest in the subject, had come up more times than he could count. Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher and the rest had all come up as cultural capital, capital he used happily and proudly.

He'd used what little money he had to go above every once in a while to get food, but most of the meat on his proverbial table had been provided by the trinkets he'd stashed in his coat. He'd only had to use up an old bobble-head and a glow in the dark spoon from a cereal box, but he'd made off well enough at the market he'd stumbled into on his second night. Having seven siblings, he was a shrewd negotiator, even though the value system was somewhat unknown and the one man had scared the living daylights out of him simply because he'd been almost as large as Gwen.

He'd almost hoped to run into the man while he was down here. Gwen...or Richard. Someone familiar. Someone who cared for him. But that didn't happen and each day gave him less and less hope for it.

And now he was about to cross what the locals called "Nightsbridge" and they were all watching him, waiting for him to try and go across. He'd made a few jokes about how he'd take any pretty girl who wanted to go with him, but they'd stared at him as if he were mad and backed away and he'd finally just given up on it and faced what seemed by all accounts to be a horrifying journey ahead.

The first few steps are all right, normal. It's a bridge. Whoop de fricking do.

And then it gets dark.

And then it gets Dark.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
"E's crazy, that one...utterly looney."
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He takes out his knife, the switchblade he'd had since Uni when he thought it was cool. He's never been so thankful for his pack-rattish ways as he is right then, as the blade flicks open with a glimmer of metal and a sharp, dependable edge.
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And he's halfway across now. It's utterly dark, utterly Dark, utterly Dark and he's never felt so alone in his life, never felt so scared...
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
...and then he's gone.

He'd returned to London a changed man.

Well, somewhat. He still chased any skirt that caught his eye, he still liked his job and his normality and his constant paycheck. He still liked his friends and his apartment and his life...

But something was different.

Something was...incomplete.

It had started, he supposed, with the realization that Richard wasn't, in fact, insane. That everything that he'd been told of, the wild and fantastical things that took place below London in a world he could scarcely imagine...was real. That in some ways he was the crazy one, the one not talking sense, the one who couldn't see things the way they were.

That realization had come to him hard and painful as his back had slammed into the wall of his entryway. Gwen, the blond giant Richard liked to call his lover, had made him look at things cold and hard and fast and he was still feeling the sting of it around the edges of his perception as well as from the bruises on his back.

Which was why he'd started looking. Started looking at the faces of the street people he now made sure to toss a bit of dosh to. Started looking in little alleys and tiny dusty shops and high above where most people forget to look because there obviously isn't anything of importance there. Started looking at the names on his map of the Underground, wondering what really lay in those places with the familiar names that he thought he knew.

Which was why he almost wasn't surprised when he walked into work one morning to find his desk being carted out.

Which was why he almost saw it coming when he had to dodge two men looking around his apartment, figuring out where the couch would go.

Which was why he didn't even try his teller machine.

Which was why he put on his favorite coat, his sturdiest slacks, his warmest sweater, his newest shirt, stuffed the pockets with all manners of things he figure he might need if Richard's stories were anything near true...

...and stepped into the alleyway, down a little ladder he'd never really seen before...and Below.