The Hobbit, but the Multiverse Does the Macarena (Workshop Cut): Chapter 1
A Much Taller Hobbit
Hello! Here’s your first chapter! If I reach 50 paid subscribers, I can be bullied into writing a series of side stories about where our “missing” characters are during this. Should be good incentive for you to click this fun button:
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Enjoy the chapter! This one is goofy XD
John Watson rises, grumbling about his shit mattress, and takes a leisurely twenty-six seconds before his eyes pop open and he realizes he’s not in his bed at Baker Street.
“Bilbo?” Thorin’s voice cracks on the name. The emotion causing the vocal trip refuses to show itself.
“He got taller,” Kíli notes, bewildered.
“Is that normal for hobbits, Balin?” Fíli adds.
Balin responds, “No, lad. No it is most certainly not.”
John barely has time to look around, taking in a dense forest and none of the history etched into every tree bark, before he turns to see twelve men, all below five feet tall. John doesn’t register that these men are dwarves, but even if he did it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t know even one of these particular dwarves. And these particular dwarves don’t have the best track record for treating strangers kindly. If John didn’t look like Bilbo, they would have all reached for their weapons already.
And if they had reached for them, they would have noticed that all of their weapons, as well as everything else made of metal, is missing.
Just as John manages to say, “Alright, he drugged my medication. That’s great,” Erik Lensherr demands, “Where am I?” and wields all the available metal (John’s gun included) in threatening formations around the forest clearing.
Both men stop, look at each other, back at the dwarves, back at each other, and then, together, simultaneously, they begin demanding answers.
Erik wants to know “What have you done with Charles?” and John asks “How did Sherlock manage to piss off you lot?”
Both human men recognize the similarities of each other’s questions moments after they’ve left their mouths, and they lock eyes.
“Right, do you know what’s going on here then?” John asks Erik.
Erik shakes his head solemnly. “Until moments ago, I was playing chess with Charles in the study.”
“Yeah, that’s not… uhh, not ringing any bells for me,” John sighs. “I went to sleep in my bed in Baker Street— sorry, London, you’re not a Brit, are you?— and I woke up here.” Grinning sheepishly, John admits, “I’m pretty sure my, uh… my flatmate drugged my medication. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s drugged me, but I really thought he’d make good on his promise this time. No offense, but all of you are probably a hallucination—”
“I am very real!” Bifur cries, and there’s a chorus of dwarven assent behind him.
Erik, on that train of thought, realizes he has done this before. Or, more accurately, Logan has, but Erik was there. Twice, kind of.
“You,” he points to Balin, who stands with a more alert air than half of the dwarves, and a more intelligent air than the other half, “Where are we?”
Balin purses his lips, “I take it you’re not… You’re not Gandalf the Grey, are ye?” Erik shakes his head, and Balin turns to John, “And you’re not Bilbo Baggins?” John shrugs, and doesn’t seem fully convinced of this reality. Balin’s expression is sympathetic and wincing when he says, “Well, in that case, I must welcome you to the edge of Long Lake, in Rhovanion.”
“Never heard of it,” Erik replies.
John mutters, “Definitely a hallucination, then.”
“Now wait just one blasted minute!” Dwalin interrupts harshly, pointing his finger accusingly at both of the new additions to the party, “If you two aren’t Bilbo and Gandalf, then who are ye?”
“My name’s John Watson.”
“Erik Lensherr, Magneto, if you think that’s more appropriate. And, Mr. Watson, I don’t believe either of us are in the same universe we were in before.”
Thorin all but jumps into the conversation when it’s clear that neither Bilbo nor Gandalf are forthcoming. “Where’s Bilbo?” he snaps, “Gandalf is a wizard, he can take care of himself,” the other dwarves nod agreeingly, “but Bilbo’s a hobbit, he can barely hold up that needle of a sword!”
“What about that time he saved us from the trolls?” Bofur interjects.
Gloin adds, “And the spiders!”
Kíli pipes in, “Or the elves just yesterday.”
“And he managed to keep himself right safe in Goblin-town,” Gloin adjoins.
Balin points out, with a look that everyone recognizes, “Didn’t he save your sorry face from being smashed by Azog?”
Thorin cannot bring himself to accept these facts. “But he’s so small!”
Erik laughs aloud without elaborating, thinking of how similarly he had thought of Charles in their youth, and Thorin snaps, “What’s so funny?” He reaches for his sword where it hangs in the air and crying out in frustrated aggression when Erik keeps it out of reach.
“Everyone, just calm down,” John intervenes, putting himself between Erik and Thorin, who hesitate long enough for the other dwarves to convince them to settle down. “Now, let’s assume, just for a second, because I am not convinced,” John huffs, “that this is all real, and you fine fellows are not hallucinations from Sherlock’s latest experiment.” Thorin is staring at John’s face, so alike to Bilbo’s, with wide, doe eyes. Everyone notices except John, who has developed the uncanny ability, through being stared at in such a way very often by his flatmate, of being entirely oblivious to the fact. “Let’s go with Erik’s conclusion and say that he and I were thrown here from different dimensions, how do we get home. Because I, for one, am not happy with living in the woods with seven dwarves—”
“Twelve dwarves!” Bifur corrects.
John’s expression pinches with frustration. He continues, “—twelve dwarves for the rest of my probably short life.”
Thorin snaps out of his gawking long enough to pull himself together and remember why they’re at Long Lake in the first place. “We don’t have time for this,” he barks, “we’ve got to get across this lake and up that mountain by the last light of Durin’s Day, or we’ll never get to Erebor, or the Arkenstone.”
Erik grins darkly, a shark-toothed smile that he last wore something like thirty years ago. “So, it’s ambition that drives you?” he rumbles.
“And revenge for a fallen kingdom,” Thorin snaps in answer.
Erik sniffs somewhat contemptuously, as he has a right to, having lived the life of killing without thought while chasing the same ideals, but doesn’t have time for a witty reply because Tauriel makes herself known by pushing a man who is definitely not Legolas, no matter how much he looks like him, out of the foliage before her, and then stepping out herself.
“Alright, you dwarves have been nothing but trouble since before you entered Mirkwood,” she growls, “now what have you done to Legolas?”
^me when im a queer little bitch in a fantasy setting who recently had my mans swapped with some doppleganger who doesn’t know who i am or where he is.
XD anyway i hope y’all’re liking this one so far!!! remember to take that survey of what should come next!
This is just lovely, a very delightful meeting of new friends and can’t wait for the not legolas xD