Subreality Cafe/Books of Magic: The Stuff of Dreams 1/1
(SC/Books of Magic) The Stuff of Dreams
By Rossi.
Disclaimer and Credits: at the end.
Summary: This is what happens when you read “The Books of Magic” after too much round-robining…
Rating: G
Timothy Hunter. Described as potentially this era’s most powerful practitioner of magic, a force to be feared in the occult circles. Seen here shuffling down the hall of a small London council house in his pyjama bottoms, on one of those nocturnal trips to the toilet.
It isn’t easy being thirteen, he reflected as he stood on the cold floor, answering nature’s call. You get pimples. Your voice starts acting up. Girls go from being objects of revulsion to mysterious and fascinating temptresses. And four weirdos in big coats come and give you the Magical version of the orientation tour, opening the door to all sorts of occult occurrences. Lately it seemed the only time he had any peace was when he made his nightly trip to the bathroom.
Later, Tim realised he should not have tempted Fate with that thought. But he did, and so it happened that when he shuffled back to his room, the door opened not on a small untidy bedroom, but on a noisy, crowded… pub.
‘At least it’s not the end of all things,’ he thought to himself philosophically, stepping forward and noting without surprise that the door vanished behind him. ‘Not like last week.’ After the trip to the end of history with Mister E, this was child’s play. What did surprise him was that the clientele didn’t seem overly concerned with his unorthodox arrival, the fact he was only wearing pyjama bottoms, and that he was clearly underage. Or that an owl suddenly appeared from nowhere to perch on his shoulder.
“Hullo, Yo-Yo,” he said, stroking the soft feathers under the bird’s beak, “Come to keep me out of trouble, have you?”
“Whoo,” the owl replied, bobbing its head in apparent agreement.
At first the place reminded him of his dad’s local - a permanent haze of cigarette smoke, the smell of spilled beer, the cheerful hum of people relaxing after a hard day’s work. But as he looked closely, he noticed that the people here would never fit in with his dad’s drinking mates. Many - indeed most - were dressed like superheroes in bright Spandex with useless numbers of buckles and straps and impossible physiques, men and women. There were blue furry girls, small boys in parkas and knitted hats, demons and angels drinking side by side. There was a game of poker where all the players looked to be the same man, or different interpretations of the same man, with red-brown hair and eerie red on black eyes. There were Jedi knights and girls in sailor uniforms and blue sheep. And over by the bar, a familiar looking tan trenchcoat… Tim made a beeline through the crowd.
“John!” The blond man looked up, his eyes cold and piercing blue.
“Do I know you kid?” Tim looked at him bewildered.
“John, it’s me, Tim. Tim Hunter. You remember? You showed me the world of magic, you and the other three.”
“Sorry kid, you’ve got the wrong fictive. I ain’t never seen you before.” Constantine turned back to his pint. “It’s bad enough I’ve got some punk girl running around saying she’s me daughter.”
“Fictive? John, what are you talking about?” Tim’s voice rose. He’d seen some strange stuff in his time, but to have Constantine sit here and say they’d never met? It wasn’t funny. “If I’ve messed up, I wish you’d just say so, instead of giving me the ‘I don’t know you’ treatment!”
“Kid…”
“Tim.”
“_Tim_. It’s nothing personal. This kind of thing happens all the time. Bound to, with so many versions of people running around the place. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not your Constantine. You’ve got the wrong bloke.” John Constantine turned away from the confused boy, with a definite air of “this conversation is Over.”
Tim’s shoulders slumped and he moved away from the man who was John Constantine, and yet somehow wasn’t. Across the room he saw an Asian girl not much older than he shoot fireworks out of her fingers and around the head of a rough looking man in flannelette shirt and an interesting hairstyle. Then he saw the same girl, dressed in a dark purple jacket with a dragon on the back chatting with a intense young man in black leather with his face muffled in black wrappings. And the same girl again, covered in baby food and juggling a baby seemingly possessed of the ability to projectile vomit constantly. The more he looked, the more he realised people were duplicated all over the pub. Identical blue furry men in lab coats discussed something earnestly over root beer. Laughing brown haired girls hung off the arms of scruffy dark haired men in rumpled black suits. Every dim corner held versions of the same couple locked in a passionate embrace - the man with the red eyes and a woman with a white stripe in her hair. And one part of the room (whose dimensions seemed strangely flexible) was devoted to men in red sunglasses with grim jaw lines.
Tim’s head whirled, and he stumbled back to the bar, giving the other John Constantine a wide berth.
“What’ll it be, kid?” asked the large man behind the bar with a grin.
“Southern Comfort.” The man’s eyes crinkled.
“Look, kid, your Writer might let you touch that stuff, and you might even be a de-aged version of your normal drinking self, but I’m not giving a kid like you booze. How about a ginger ale?”
“Fine,” Tim sighed. It seemed that no matter how strange the place was, some things stayed constant. Even if the explanation given hadn’t made one iota of sense. Sipping at the ginger ale, he cast his eyes around the place, looking for some kind of reference point, something that would tell him where he was.
On his shoulder, Yo-Yo noted the lizard sitting on the shoulder of the woman beside them. Hmm, it was about dinner-time…
“Don’t even think about it, bird-brain,” hissed the lizard, turning abruptly to fix a shining black-eyed glare on the owl. “Or I’ll fixx you here and now, magic or not.”
“You - can talk?” Tim regretted the words as soon as he said them, but normality was a habit that died hard.
“Problem, Frank?” said the woman, turning from her conversation with the solid bloke in the red-striped rugby shirt and hair reduced to stubble across his head. Further along was another woman, no, an angel, for she had a pair of white feathered wings sprouting from her back, and an aura that set Tim’s magic radar pinging. She wasn’t dressed much like an angel, in jeans and a white t-shirt, and the way she was matching pints with the man certainly wasn’t normal behaviour in God’s Host.
“Jusst thiss kid’ss pet thinking of having the lizard sspecial for luncch,” grumbled Frank.
The woman, the smallest of the three, grinned. She was rather ordinary looking, with short brown hair and a build that was more athletic than voluptuous. She was wearing a black shirt with a Red Dwarf logo and jeans, and a key hung from a chain around her neck. “I’m sure there was no danger of that,” she said, her accent pure Neighbours. “Not after all the practice you’ve had with running away from Spike when he’s hungry.”
“I do not ‘run away’,” sniffed the lizard with an air of injured pride. “I make tactical retreatss.”
“Sure, Frank. There’s a saucer of whisky on the bar if you want it.” The woman looked at Tim again as the lizard scurried down her arm and over to the saucer. “You’re Tim Hunter. We were just talking about you. Come and join us.”
“But…” Tim hesitated, but the man had already seen him and pulled out a stool.
“Thought I sensed yer,” he said with a grin, “Come over ‘ere an’ say ‘ello. I was just explaining to Seraph here ‘bout you lot.”
“She’s being indoctrinated into the cult of Vertigo,” the brown-haired woman grinned. Tim hesitantly did as he was told, ready to bolt if they turned out to be any kind of threat.
“Now, ‘Raph, this is wot I was talkin’ about,” the man continued, waving his nearly empty glass at Tim. “This ‘ere’s Tim Hunter, from the ‘Books of Magic’. Not quite Gaiman’s best work, but still a cracking good read. Not enough fic out there ‘though - he’s the first fictive I’ve seen.”
“And a well-written one too,” the angel - Seraph? - said, her accent revealing she was Australian too. “Who’s your Writer, Tim?”
“My what?” The three exchanged amused glances.
“Your Writer. You know, the person who brought this particular version of you into being,” the shorter woman elaborated.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” Tim looked at them suspiciously. “Is this some kind of test?”
The brown haired woman looked at the angel. “Newbie?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s a bloody talented one if it is, Rossi,” Seraph replied. “Look at the quality of the characterisation. They’ve even put in the zits.”
“Hey!”
“And the accent’s spot-on,” ‘Rossi’ said slowly. “Phil? What do you think?”
The rugby player was looking at Tim thoughtfully. “Y’know, I don’t think Tim ‘ere is a fictive at all. At least not in the usual sense.”
“Somebody’s avatar running around with amnesia?” suggested Seraph, studying Tim so intently with those deep blue eyes he squirmed uncomfortably.
“No, ‘s not that either.” Phil finished his pint meditatively, the barman replenishing it without prompting. “Ta, Major. How’d yer get here, Tim?”
“I’m not sure. I opened my bedroom door and here I was.” Tim shivered, realising he was still only dressed in his pyjama bottoms. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”
“”Good thing the Café doesn’t have a dress code, or the Bouncer would have had you out on your ear,” chuckled Rossi, pulling a wad of papers and a pen out of her back pocket. “Here, let me take care of that.” Tim glanced over her shoulder as she wrote: ‘Tim Hunter is wearing jeans and a red t-shirt. On his feet are his favourite sneakers.’ As she made the full-stop with a flourish, Tim found himself wearing the clothes as described.
“Hey! How did you do that? Magic?”
“Close. The power of the written word.”
“Welcome to the Subreality Café, Tim,” Seraph smiled. “Hope you survive the experience.” The other two groaned.
“Had ter drag that old chestnut out, didn’t yer, Angel,” Phil said, shaking his head over the fresh pint which was already two thirds finished.
“It was either me or Rossi,” Seraph retorted.
“Um, excuse me, but what is the Subreality Café?” asked Tim, feeling better now he had some clothes on, but still without any idea of what was going on. And the in-jokes these three kept making weren’t helping.
Rossi looked at the other two. “You two have been around the traps longer than me. You explain it.”
“The Subreality Café is a sort of watering-hole for fictives to go when they’re not being Written,” Seraph explained. “Kielle, Tapestry and Falstaff started it, and it’s taken on a life of its own since.”
“Fictives?”
“Characters in a story,” Phil said. “The Café is largely fer fan-fiction, ‘though yer can get anyone in here, provided they can get past th’ Bouncer. Used ter be just comic fan-fic, but there’s all sorts o’ stuff now. Yer just need to prove yer’ve bin posted.”
“And you three, you’re all fictional characters?” Laughter greeted this question.
“Us? We’re Writers,” said Rossi, noticing Tim had finished his drink and waving to the barman for another. “Or at least we like to think we are.”
“We Write fan-fic, and post it on the Internet,” Seraph went on. “We Write stories using characters from our favourite comics or television shows or movies. Or sometimes we make up our own. Either way, we come here to Subreality to have a break from Real Life.”
“An angel who writes stories? Heaven get too dull?” Rossi laughed again, but Seraph just smiled.
“No, I’m only an angel here. This is my avatar, the character I Wrote for myself.”
“And Rossi doesn’t really have a pet talking lizard?” At the mention, Frank looked up from his saucer.
“I am _not_ a pet. I’m her Musse.”
“Muse? Where’s your toga? And aren’t you supposed to be a girl?”
“You see, Tim, none of this is real, not exactly. More like our collective imaginations,” Rossi said earnestly, fuelled by enthusiasm and alcoholic cider and the desire to avert a slanging match. “Right now, back in RL, I’m sitting in a train on my way to work. ‘Raph’s probably already at her work, since she gets up at five for some insane reason…” Seraph poked Rossi in the ribs and pulled a face at her. “And Phil’s probably in a bar in Stockholm, given the nine hour time difference between there and Australia. All this is happening in someone’s head.”
“There goes that fourth wall again,” muttered Phil.
“Titania told me something like that, I think,” Tim said slowly. “She said there are only two worlds- the real world, and…”
“…’And other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there.’” Rossi supplied with a grin. When the other two looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “I got the book last week. I’ve read it six times already.”
A dread seized Tim. “How… how did you know that?” he asked, voice trembling. “There were only three of us there.” The three Writers exchanged looks again.
“Yer realise who this is, don’t yer?” Phil said. “It’s ‘im. Th’ original Tim Hunter.”
“And he thinks he’s real,” Seraph continued. “He’s come straight from his world, no Writer influence. How the hell did that happen?”
“It’s the key,” Rossi said suddenly. “The key that Titania gave him. You’ve still got it, haven’t you?” she asked Tim. “The key to the Doors?”
Tim felt in his pocket. Strangely enough, the key from Faerie was there. “You mean this?”
“So that’s it,” Phil sighed, leaning back against the bar. “Who’s goin’ t’ tell ‘im?”
“Tell me what? What’s going on here?”
“Tim, in our world, in RL, you’re a character in a comic book, created by a man called Neil Gaiman,” Seraph said gently. “To us, you’re nothing more than a product of his imagination, just as the fictives here are products of ours. Just as how we appear here is how we picture ourselves. To us, you’re not real.”
“It’s my fault, incorporatin’ this place inter the whole Four Free Houses thing,” Phil admitted. “I’ve blurred th’ lines too much.”
“Don’t take it too hard, kid,” Frank said. “Who’ss to ssay what iss real, anyway? We all create our own worldss through our percceptionss.”
“You’ve been reading BRM’s philosophy books again, haven’t you?” Rossi groaned. “This whole thing is confusing enough without you bringing in existentialism.”
“So, what happens now?” Tim asked. Phil shrugged.
“We’ll get drunk, like we do every Writer’s Night, maybe abuse a few fictives, put th’ newbies in their places. ‘Raph’ll end up in a corner wrapped ‘round Nute, if he shows. Dex’ll probably turn up with th’ Bimbo of the Week, an’ Rossi will have t’ put up with inspiration fer stories about Berocca fer th’ next week while Frank’s hung-over. Th’ usual. Wanna stick around kid? We could show yer th’ sights.”
Tim considered the proposal. He had school in the morning. Then he remembered, these people had told him they thought he was fictional, a product of someone’s imagination. If that was the case, then it didn’t matter.
“I’m game.” Phil grinned.
“Then ‘ang on, kid, this is gonna be one wild ride.”
Disclaimers and Credits:
Everyone in this belongs to someone else, and are being used without knowledge, or permission.
The Subreality Café belongs to the Founders, Kielle, Tapestry and Falstaff, who in turn belong to themselves.
Tim Hunter, Yo-Yo, Titania, Mister E and John Constantine belong to Vertigo/DC. As does the quote from “The Books of Magic”.
The blue sheep are Acetal’s but are planning to take over the world soon.
Constantine’s daughter is the one created by Rhiannon Amaris.
Jubilee in the purple jacket with Jono are from Dyce’s excellent work, “Maturity in B Minor”.
The Jubilee with the vomiting baby is from my story, “Of Pigs and Robo-Babies”.
Major Mapleleaf was hired as the Café’s bartender by Falstaff.
Frank is my Muse, although I think he’s sold his soul to Glenfiddich…
Seraph, Dex, Matt Nute and Phil belong to themselves, and to the Café crowd in general.
Neil Gaiman also belongs to himself, and the fantasy/horror world in general.
Spike is Yona’s snake/Muse: one day there will be a confrontation with Frank, I promise.
And finally, BRM (Bicycle Repair Man) is my long-suffering non-comic-reading boyfriend, who counters my escapism by giving me philosophy books.
By Rossi.
Disclaimer and Credits: at the end.
Summary: This is what happens when you read “The Books of Magic” after too much round-robining…
Rating: G
Timothy Hunter. Described as potentially this era’s most powerful practitioner of magic, a force to be feared in the occult circles. Seen here shuffling down the hall of a small London council house in his pyjama bottoms, on one of those nocturnal trips to the toilet.
It isn’t easy being thirteen, he reflected as he stood on the cold floor, answering nature’s call. You get pimples. Your voice starts acting up. Girls go from being objects of revulsion to mysterious and fascinating temptresses. And four weirdos in big coats come and give you the Magical version of the orientation tour, opening the door to all sorts of occult occurrences. Lately it seemed the only time he had any peace was when he made his nightly trip to the bathroom.
Later, Tim realised he should not have tempted Fate with that thought. But he did, and so it happened that when he shuffled back to his room, the door opened not on a small untidy bedroom, but on a noisy, crowded… pub.
‘At least it’s not the end of all things,’ he thought to himself philosophically, stepping forward and noting without surprise that the door vanished behind him. ‘Not like last week.’ After the trip to the end of history with Mister E, this was child’s play. What did surprise him was that the clientele didn’t seem overly concerned with his unorthodox arrival, the fact he was only wearing pyjama bottoms, and that he was clearly underage. Or that an owl suddenly appeared from nowhere to perch on his shoulder.
“Hullo, Yo-Yo,” he said, stroking the soft feathers under the bird’s beak, “Come to keep me out of trouble, have you?”
“Whoo,” the owl replied, bobbing its head in apparent agreement.
At first the place reminded him of his dad’s local - a permanent haze of cigarette smoke, the smell of spilled beer, the cheerful hum of people relaxing after a hard day’s work. But as he looked closely, he noticed that the people here would never fit in with his dad’s drinking mates. Many - indeed most - were dressed like superheroes in bright Spandex with useless numbers of buckles and straps and impossible physiques, men and women. There were blue furry girls, small boys in parkas and knitted hats, demons and angels drinking side by side. There was a game of poker where all the players looked to be the same man, or different interpretations of the same man, with red-brown hair and eerie red on black eyes. There were Jedi knights and girls in sailor uniforms and blue sheep. And over by the bar, a familiar looking tan trenchcoat… Tim made a beeline through the crowd.
“John!” The blond man looked up, his eyes cold and piercing blue.
“Do I know you kid?” Tim looked at him bewildered.
“John, it’s me, Tim. Tim Hunter. You remember? You showed me the world of magic, you and the other three.”
“Sorry kid, you’ve got the wrong fictive. I ain’t never seen you before.” Constantine turned back to his pint. “It’s bad enough I’ve got some punk girl running around saying she’s me daughter.”
“Fictive? John, what are you talking about?” Tim’s voice rose. He’d seen some strange stuff in his time, but to have Constantine sit here and say they’d never met? It wasn’t funny. “If I’ve messed up, I wish you’d just say so, instead of giving me the ‘I don’t know you’ treatment!”
“Kid…”
“Tim.”
“_Tim_. It’s nothing personal. This kind of thing happens all the time. Bound to, with so many versions of people running around the place. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not your Constantine. You’ve got the wrong bloke.” John Constantine turned away from the confused boy, with a definite air of “this conversation is Over.”
Tim’s shoulders slumped and he moved away from the man who was John Constantine, and yet somehow wasn’t. Across the room he saw an Asian girl not much older than he shoot fireworks out of her fingers and around the head of a rough looking man in flannelette shirt and an interesting hairstyle. Then he saw the same girl, dressed in a dark purple jacket with a dragon on the back chatting with a intense young man in black leather with his face muffled in black wrappings. And the same girl again, covered in baby food and juggling a baby seemingly possessed of the ability to projectile vomit constantly. The more he looked, the more he realised people were duplicated all over the pub. Identical blue furry men in lab coats discussed something earnestly over root beer. Laughing brown haired girls hung off the arms of scruffy dark haired men in rumpled black suits. Every dim corner held versions of the same couple locked in a passionate embrace - the man with the red eyes and a woman with a white stripe in her hair. And one part of the room (whose dimensions seemed strangely flexible) was devoted to men in red sunglasses with grim jaw lines.
Tim’s head whirled, and he stumbled back to the bar, giving the other John Constantine a wide berth.
“What’ll it be, kid?” asked the large man behind the bar with a grin.
“Southern Comfort.” The man’s eyes crinkled.
“Look, kid, your Writer might let you touch that stuff, and you might even be a de-aged version of your normal drinking self, but I’m not giving a kid like you booze. How about a ginger ale?”
“Fine,” Tim sighed. It seemed that no matter how strange the place was, some things stayed constant. Even if the explanation given hadn’t made one iota of sense. Sipping at the ginger ale, he cast his eyes around the place, looking for some kind of reference point, something that would tell him where he was.
On his shoulder, Yo-Yo noted the lizard sitting on the shoulder of the woman beside them. Hmm, it was about dinner-time…
“Don’t even think about it, bird-brain,” hissed the lizard, turning abruptly to fix a shining black-eyed glare on the owl. “Or I’ll fixx you here and now, magic or not.”
“You - can talk?” Tim regretted the words as soon as he said them, but normality was a habit that died hard.
“Problem, Frank?” said the woman, turning from her conversation with the solid bloke in the red-striped rugby shirt and hair reduced to stubble across his head. Further along was another woman, no, an angel, for she had a pair of white feathered wings sprouting from her back, and an aura that set Tim’s magic radar pinging. She wasn’t dressed much like an angel, in jeans and a white t-shirt, and the way she was matching pints with the man certainly wasn’t normal behaviour in God’s Host.
“Jusst thiss kid’ss pet thinking of having the lizard sspecial for luncch,” grumbled Frank.
The woman, the smallest of the three, grinned. She was rather ordinary looking, with short brown hair and a build that was more athletic than voluptuous. She was wearing a black shirt with a Red Dwarf logo and jeans, and a key hung from a chain around her neck. “I’m sure there was no danger of that,” she said, her accent pure Neighbours. “Not after all the practice you’ve had with running away from Spike when he’s hungry.”
“I do not ‘run away’,” sniffed the lizard with an air of injured pride. “I make tactical retreatss.”
“Sure, Frank. There’s a saucer of whisky on the bar if you want it.” The woman looked at Tim again as the lizard scurried down her arm and over to the saucer. “You’re Tim Hunter. We were just talking about you. Come and join us.”
“But…” Tim hesitated, but the man had already seen him and pulled out a stool.
“Thought I sensed yer,” he said with a grin, “Come over ‘ere an’ say ‘ello. I was just explaining to Seraph here ‘bout you lot.”
“She’s being indoctrinated into the cult of Vertigo,” the brown-haired woman grinned. Tim hesitantly did as he was told, ready to bolt if they turned out to be any kind of threat.
“Now, ‘Raph, this is wot I was talkin’ about,” the man continued, waving his nearly empty glass at Tim. “This ‘ere’s Tim Hunter, from the ‘Books of Magic’. Not quite Gaiman’s best work, but still a cracking good read. Not enough fic out there ‘though - he’s the first fictive I’ve seen.”
“And a well-written one too,” the angel - Seraph? - said, her accent revealing she was Australian too. “Who’s your Writer, Tim?”
“My what?” The three exchanged amused glances.
“Your Writer. You know, the person who brought this particular version of you into being,” the shorter woman elaborated.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” Tim looked at them suspiciously. “Is this some kind of test?”
The brown haired woman looked at the angel. “Newbie?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s a bloody talented one if it is, Rossi,” Seraph replied. “Look at the quality of the characterisation. They’ve even put in the zits.”
“Hey!”
“And the accent’s spot-on,” ‘Rossi’ said slowly. “Phil? What do you think?”
The rugby player was looking at Tim thoughtfully. “Y’know, I don’t think Tim ‘ere is a fictive at all. At least not in the usual sense.”
“Somebody’s avatar running around with amnesia?” suggested Seraph, studying Tim so intently with those deep blue eyes he squirmed uncomfortably.
“No, ‘s not that either.” Phil finished his pint meditatively, the barman replenishing it without prompting. “Ta, Major. How’d yer get here, Tim?”
“I’m not sure. I opened my bedroom door and here I was.” Tim shivered, realising he was still only dressed in his pyjama bottoms. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”
“”Good thing the Café doesn’t have a dress code, or the Bouncer would have had you out on your ear,” chuckled Rossi, pulling a wad of papers and a pen out of her back pocket. “Here, let me take care of that.” Tim glanced over her shoulder as she wrote: ‘Tim Hunter is wearing jeans and a red t-shirt. On his feet are his favourite sneakers.’ As she made the full-stop with a flourish, Tim found himself wearing the clothes as described.
“Hey! How did you do that? Magic?”
“Close. The power of the written word.”
“Welcome to the Subreality Café, Tim,” Seraph smiled. “Hope you survive the experience.” The other two groaned.
“Had ter drag that old chestnut out, didn’t yer, Angel,” Phil said, shaking his head over the fresh pint which was already two thirds finished.
“It was either me or Rossi,” Seraph retorted.
“Um, excuse me, but what is the Subreality Café?” asked Tim, feeling better now he had some clothes on, but still without any idea of what was going on. And the in-jokes these three kept making weren’t helping.
Rossi looked at the other two. “You two have been around the traps longer than me. You explain it.”
“The Subreality Café is a sort of watering-hole for fictives to go when they’re not being Written,” Seraph explained. “Kielle, Tapestry and Falstaff started it, and it’s taken on a life of its own since.”
“Fictives?”
“Characters in a story,” Phil said. “The Café is largely fer fan-fiction, ‘though yer can get anyone in here, provided they can get past th’ Bouncer. Used ter be just comic fan-fic, but there’s all sorts o’ stuff now. Yer just need to prove yer’ve bin posted.”
“And you three, you’re all fictional characters?” Laughter greeted this question.
“Us? We’re Writers,” said Rossi, noticing Tim had finished his drink and waving to the barman for another. “Or at least we like to think we are.”
“We Write fan-fic, and post it on the Internet,” Seraph went on. “We Write stories using characters from our favourite comics or television shows or movies. Or sometimes we make up our own. Either way, we come here to Subreality to have a break from Real Life.”
“An angel who writes stories? Heaven get too dull?” Rossi laughed again, but Seraph just smiled.
“No, I’m only an angel here. This is my avatar, the character I Wrote for myself.”
“And Rossi doesn’t really have a pet talking lizard?” At the mention, Frank looked up from his saucer.
“I am _not_ a pet. I’m her Musse.”
“Muse? Where’s your toga? And aren’t you supposed to be a girl?”
“You see, Tim, none of this is real, not exactly. More like our collective imaginations,” Rossi said earnestly, fuelled by enthusiasm and alcoholic cider and the desire to avert a slanging match. “Right now, back in RL, I’m sitting in a train on my way to work. ‘Raph’s probably already at her work, since she gets up at five for some insane reason…” Seraph poked Rossi in the ribs and pulled a face at her. “And Phil’s probably in a bar in Stockholm, given the nine hour time difference between there and Australia. All this is happening in someone’s head.”
“There goes that fourth wall again,” muttered Phil.
“Titania told me something like that, I think,” Tim said slowly. “She said there are only two worlds- the real world, and…”
“…’And other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there.’” Rossi supplied with a grin. When the other two looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “I got the book last week. I’ve read it six times already.”
A dread seized Tim. “How… how did you know that?” he asked, voice trembling. “There were only three of us there.” The three Writers exchanged looks again.
“Yer realise who this is, don’t yer?” Phil said. “It’s ‘im. Th’ original Tim Hunter.”
“And he thinks he’s real,” Seraph continued. “He’s come straight from his world, no Writer influence. How the hell did that happen?”
“It’s the key,” Rossi said suddenly. “The key that Titania gave him. You’ve still got it, haven’t you?” she asked Tim. “The key to the Doors?”
Tim felt in his pocket. Strangely enough, the key from Faerie was there. “You mean this?”
“So that’s it,” Phil sighed, leaning back against the bar. “Who’s goin’ t’ tell ‘im?”
“Tell me what? What’s going on here?”
“Tim, in our world, in RL, you’re a character in a comic book, created by a man called Neil Gaiman,” Seraph said gently. “To us, you’re nothing more than a product of his imagination, just as the fictives here are products of ours. Just as how we appear here is how we picture ourselves. To us, you’re not real.”
“It’s my fault, incorporatin’ this place inter the whole Four Free Houses thing,” Phil admitted. “I’ve blurred th’ lines too much.”
“Don’t take it too hard, kid,” Frank said. “Who’ss to ssay what iss real, anyway? We all create our own worldss through our percceptionss.”
“You’ve been reading BRM’s philosophy books again, haven’t you?” Rossi groaned. “This whole thing is confusing enough without you bringing in existentialism.”
“So, what happens now?” Tim asked. Phil shrugged.
“We’ll get drunk, like we do every Writer’s Night, maybe abuse a few fictives, put th’ newbies in their places. ‘Raph’ll end up in a corner wrapped ‘round Nute, if he shows. Dex’ll probably turn up with th’ Bimbo of the Week, an’ Rossi will have t’ put up with inspiration fer stories about Berocca fer th’ next week while Frank’s hung-over. Th’ usual. Wanna stick around kid? We could show yer th’ sights.”
Tim considered the proposal. He had school in the morning. Then he remembered, these people had told him they thought he was fictional, a product of someone’s imagination. If that was the case, then it didn’t matter.
“I’m game.” Phil grinned.
“Then ‘ang on, kid, this is gonna be one wild ride.”
Disclaimers and Credits:
Everyone in this belongs to someone else, and are being used without knowledge, or permission.
The Subreality Café belongs to the Founders, Kielle, Tapestry and Falstaff, who in turn belong to themselves.
Tim Hunter, Yo-Yo, Titania, Mister E and John Constantine belong to Vertigo/DC. As does the quote from “The Books of Magic”.
The blue sheep are Acetal’s but are planning to take over the world soon.
Constantine’s daughter is the one created by Rhiannon Amaris.
Jubilee in the purple jacket with Jono are from Dyce’s excellent work, “Maturity in B Minor”.
The Jubilee with the vomiting baby is from my story, “Of Pigs and Robo-Babies”.
Major Mapleleaf was hired as the Café’s bartender by Falstaff.
Frank is my Muse, although I think he’s sold his soul to Glenfiddich…
Seraph, Dex, Matt Nute and Phil belong to themselves, and to the Café crowd in general.
Neil Gaiman also belongs to himself, and the fantasy/horror world in general.
Spike is Yona’s snake/Muse: one day there will be a confrontation with Frank, I promise.
And finally, BRM (Bicycle Repair Man) is my long-suffering non-comic-reading boyfriend, who counters my escapism by giving me philosophy books.