HEY WAITAMINUTE IS "underture" a reference to the music term "overture"? Mayhaps a Scanlan WIP?!?!
srryok bai now
Yup, kind of! It's the first CR I got an idea for - in March last year, for TLOVM, as I hadn't even watched most of the first campaign yet - and, incidentally, the only one out of five fics (/comics, if you count Scar Tissue) and 2 WIPs that doesn't begin with the letter S :P (not even on purpose, it just happened!)
Okay, so this fic exists because of three reasons:
• "Underture" is a title on the Who's concept album Tommy (and yes, a play on "overture"!) because the titular lad is Going Through It (and being made to taste drugs iirc). I discovered that album around 2002 and love the word.
• One of my favourite fics overall (like, all fandoms) is @plothooksinc's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) "Underdark", which has Leo and Mikey fall under the city in complete darkness and try to make their way back to their brothers (and the surface), with Mikey as the 1st person narrator. It is hilarious and super tense and glorious and one of the great classics in the entire franchise's fandom, imo (or should be). Since I read it in the mid-to-late 2000s I had no idea that "Underdark" was actually a D&D term and was gobsmacked when I learned! The more you know :D
• And the main reason this WIP exists is because I essentially went "wait, what if "Underdark", but make it Vax and Scanlan". Of course, now it took a life of its own and there's going to be a Structure to it (start in media res, and then alternate "how we got there" chapters and "so what's happening in the creepy dark in the present" chapters). With a healthy dose of getting to know each other and going from essentially work colleagues to friends 💜
Here's a little excerpt from page 2, so literally the start of the fic (for context, Vax got washed down a mine and wakes up alone in a tunnel):
And, somewhere in the distance, a familiar voice.
“…help?”
Vax scrambled up, finding purchase on the slippery rock wall nearby, chasing sound rather than sight. The world in front of him was little more than blobs in varying shades of black. His ears were more reliable than his eyes right now.
“Where are you?” he called. “Are you okay?”
“Define ‘okay’?”
Vax bit back a tart comment. Damn Scanlan and his utter and complete inability to be serious.
“Like, not hurt? Can you move? What’s your position?”
“Not… great.”
“What do you mean?” Vax asked sharply, still half-feeling his way along the wall. Scanlan’s voice was getting clearer, or at least closer; it also sounded breathless, strained, small in a way it rarely did. Vax could only hope most of that could be chalked up to the sore throat he’d been complaining about for the last couple of days.
There was a scrabble and a gasp. When Scanlan spoke again his pitch had climbed a few notes.
“I mean I’m kinda hanging off a cliff? Or some kind of ledge, anyway. And uh, my fingers are getting real tired, if you know what I mean.” A short, nervous laugh. “I really really don’t want to lose fingernails. It hurts like a mother and it makes playing the lute really difficult.”
“Hang on and keep talking,” said Vax, straining his ears and trying to ignore his pounding heart. “I’m on my way.”
“Okay. Usually, not really a problem, but uh… Aw, crap.” There was a strangled sound, like he’d choked up on a cough, and some more scratching. “You know me, I talk – I talk real good. B—big fan of talking. I’m a great talker, too. Talker, singer, player – give me any instrument and it is on, baby. I mean I’ve never tried the double bass, you know, those big-ass cellos. Got curious but the bow alone is almost bigger than me, so that sucks. Plus they’re really expensive. Vax?”
“Yes?”
“Hurry?”
Vax practically ran around a corner and stared into the dark as hard as he could. The tunnel in front of him kept going in a downward slope, the ceiling gradually getting lower; there was a pathway of sorts along the wall, but most of the rocky ground seemed to disappear, as though erased from existence, into the starkest black Vax had ever seen. Rivulets of water trickled into it from the walls and the ground, slithering between protruding rocks, the only movement he could discern.
Wait… Not quite the only movement.
Vax bolted towards the fingers he could see grasping at a small rocky ridge a foot or so below the edge.
“Shitshitshitshit,” he could hear Scanlan chanting, his breathing now frantic and his voice gone beyond squeaky. “Vax…!”
Three things happened almost instantaneously:
Vax reached down and grabbed one of Scanlan’s arms just as his fingers lost their grip on the ledge.
In a last-ditch attempt to find a hold of something, Scanlan’s other hand shot up and closed around the clasp of Vax’s cloak.
Vax belatedly realised he’d miscalculated as Scanlan’s weight and his own momentum carried him past the edge and into the black.
(welp, they're dead :P no they're not but they certainly think so for a hot second)
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