Crossover: Pretender/HL (roughly mid season four Pretender!verse, before “Prodigal Son” HL!verse

Characters: Duncan, Jarod, Mr Lyle, Sydney, Angelo

For Prompt: 051 Water

Summary: the two boy scouts are there to save the day.

A/N: part of the “sound” series of ficlets. Usual disclaimers apply – I own nothing yadda yadda…

A/N 2: I have no idea what happened at the Normandy landing – it just sounded good.

The sharp, rotten seaweed smell of low tide filled Duncan’s nostrils as he trudged after his guide through the dubious water of the storm drain. He tried not to think about the things he felt tugging at his soaked jeans in the dark, and was only slightly comforted by the fact that this close to the sea it was as likely to be crabs as rats.

“Are you alright?” Jarod called back over his shoulder, the light of the torch shining in Duncan’s eyes for a second before it flicked forward again.

“Yeah. It’s just like the Normandy landing…only in a sewer.”

Jarod chuckled. “You weren’t at the Normandy landing.”

“How do you know?”

“You were in France during the war, not fighting to start with, but then in the resistance. No one in the resistance would have been at Normandy that day. Am I right?”

“Heh, no wonder they call you a genius.”

They trudged further.

“We’re here.” Jarod announced, passing back the torch as he reached forward to pull open an iron grate, the rusty metal screeching as it came loose. “I’ll have to fix that next time I’m here.”

“It’s always good to have a fall back position.”

Jarod’s grin stretched in the torchlight. “It is.”

The room where they entered was full of billows of steam so that Duncan could hardly see Jarod only a few feet in front of him. At least it was light here and Duncan clicked off the torch, clipping it to his belt out of the way as he breathed in lungfuls of the humid air. He wondered absently whether normal humans found it more difficult to breathe in this kind of atmosphere. It hardly mattered to him since he could breathe underwater, but sometimes it worried him that he forgot how it was to be really human.

He almost lost Jarod as the other man crawled into a ventilation pipe, but quickly followed, his shoulders protesting at being squeezed quite so narrow. Jarod knew these pipes like he knew everywhere in the centre. He hated to be there, the memory of the night of his escape as fresh now as it ever was, and his stomach clenched with fear at the thought of getting trapped here again, but he pressed on anyway. He had to think of the boy. They couldn’t let another boy be taken and used like he had been, or worse: like Timmy had been.

Coming around a corner he almost cried out as he caught the shape of someone else in the pipe in front of him. He stopped dead, peering into the darkness.

“Angelo?”

There was a happy grunt from somewhere up ahead.

“What’s going on up there?” Came Duncan’s hushed voice from behind him.

“Just a second,” he called back, before carefully approaching Angelo.

“Angelo, do you know of a new boy they brought here? Do you know where they took him?”

A nod was barely perceptible in the darkness. “Down. Down below.”

“One of the sub levels?”

“…the room where Timmy went away…”

“SL 27,” Jaord said, dread sinking in his gut like a lead weight. “Duncan we have to hurry!”

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The alarms were blaring, the corridors flashing with red lights. Duncan had dealt with the men guarding him, but since he didn’t have his sword with him he was sorry to say they would recover pretty soon. The boy had been unconscious when they found him, so getting him out through the tunnels was not looking so good. He was carrying the kid now as they ran through the complex and if he had seen any less of his guide Duncan might have thought they were lost. He doubted Jarod had ever been lost anywhere in his life and certainly not here. They had not come across any more guards yet, but Duncan hoped there was an exit close by because their luck had to run out sooner or later.

It was sooner

Jarod had just turn a corner when Duncan heard the distinctive click of a gun being cocked just behind him and whirled around just as it’s owner cried,

“Freeze!”

Duncan froze, the boy still limp in his arms. He turned slowly to face his captor as he heard Jarod’s footsteps receding down the hallway.

“Hey I know you…” the man with the gun said, while Duncan wracked his brain for some way he could disarm the guy while still protecting the child in his arms. He noticed the man had no thumb on one hand, perhaps if he could kick the gun at just the right angle that would be enough of a weak spot to make him lose his grip…

“Yeah…I killed you when we picked up the kid. I watched you go down. How’d you manage that?”

“Oh Lyyyyle!”

Jarod stepped out of the shadows, hitting the man neatly in the temple with a piece of door handle.

“Haven’t you heard,” Jarod said as the man crumpled. “No one dies at the centre.” Throwing the door handle away, Jarod gestured for Duncan to continue on the way they had been going. “Come on, we’re almost out.”

A hand reached out from a dark doorway, grabbing Jarod by the shoulder and Duncan had off-loaded the child to Jarod, and pinned this new player against the wall before he could do more than that.

“Duncan wait!” Jarod, pulled him back, passing the unconscious child back into his arms. “Sydney, what are you doing?”

“You’re going to need this.” He pressed two vials of something into Jarod’s hand. “You know what to do.”

“Thank you.”

A world of meaning was in Jarod’s eyes as he said those words, gripping the vials and turning to go.

They reached the door without further incident running out into the night as fast as they could as, encumbered as they were. They had a car hidden near by and Duncan gently set the boy in the back while Jarod slipped into the driver’s seat.

“Come on! Get in!” Jarod insisted as Duncan stepped away from the car.

Duncan shook his head, the buzz burning in his head.

“I can’t. There’s someone out there like me. He’ll be able to follow us. You know how to take care of the boy: you’ve got to go.”

“But-“

Duncan backed away hurriedly, looking frantically from side to side.

“Go! Now!”

“Thank you,” Jarod said quietly as he started the car, his eyes full of feeling as Duncan ran off into the night, his coat flapping emptily behind him.