The Standard Disclaimer: Characters belong to Mirisch/Trilogy Productions/CBS etc. I make no claims upon them. I'm not making any money off this, so please don't sue.
Date of Creation: July 29/30, 2002
Rating: PG-13 (Violence)
Warning: Contains Wiccan elements. Anybody who is offended shouldn't read this story.
Author's note: This particular story was written just for shits & giggles. Hope you enjoy it. (The title comes from the movie Sunday in the Park with George.) This is the fourth, and, at this point in planning, the last of "The Supernatural Adventures of Cuervo and The Seven". I have another, unrelated but similar, series in the works. If anybody else wants to write stories in this series, go right ahead.
Also note: This story contains general Wiccan/Pagan theory and information. It is not intended to accurately represent or portray any one particular tradition or pantheon.
This is set in the ATF AU, and thanks to Mog for creating it.
This story hasn't been beta-read, yada, yada.
'Sometimes,' ATF Agent JD Dunne thought with frustration, 'It's the simplest things that cause the most trouble.' Here he'd been, at his desk, keyboarding a simple report. Not hacking into the Pentagon (not that he would... unless he really, really had to), not setting up a search program with complex boolean strings, just typing a stupid damned report, for crying out loud! Then his computer had suddenly gone wonky on him, and he couldn't figure out why.
Oh, of course he'd tried the obvious solutions: he'd shut down the program and attempted to get back in - but he couldn't. Then he shut down and rebooted the computer — no dice. So he'd run a virus scan and a search for worms — nothing. He'd done the low-tech stuff, too, like checking his plugs and connections — nada.
So he'd been reduced to going really low-tech. He'd banged on it. Nope, nothing, zip, zero.
Finally, in utter frustration, he angrily typed in: "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits", and hit Enter.
To JD's utter and absolute astonishment, a small, brown, hairy creature about eight inches tall slithered out of a vent-hole in his computer, jabbered angrily at him while frantically scratching itıs armpits, ran across his desk, jumped down onto the floor, and disappeared.
JD, stunned beyond the ability to form coherent sentences, leaped out of his chair, which fell over onto the floor, drawing the attention of Buck, Nathan, and Josiah, the only ones around at the moment. Ezra was late (what a surprise), and Chris was in his office with the door closed, on the phone. (He'd grumbled something about "budgets" on his way through to his office). Vin was present, too, but was too involved at the moment, banging on the side of his computer.
"Something wrong, Kid?" Buck asked.
"It... jump... brown..." JD stuttered, bouncing agitatedly and pointing frantically at his desk.
"What?" Buck asked, startled. He'd never seen the — admittedly excitable — young man quite like this before.
"Thing... armpits... computer..." JD continued, still too astonished to think straight.
"JD, are you having some kind of seizure or something?" Nathan asked, concerned, as he carefully approached the younger man.
"Thing!" JD cried, beginning to calm down, somewhat. But not much. "My-computer went-wonky-and-I-checked-everything-and-that-wasn't-it-so-I-cursed-the-computer-and-this brown-hairy-thing-jumped-out-and-the-curse-worked-cause-he-was-scratching-and-he-jumped- off-the-desk-and-disappeared!" JD words came out in a single long ramble.
"Thing." Buck repeated, not sure he'd heard correctly. "There was a thing in your computer." Buck's tone of voice left no doubt as to what he thought of JD's sanity. Or lack thereof.
"Shit!" Vin's panicked voice suddenly sounded over everything else. "What the hell's that!" And he pointed to a black, hairy creature, about seven inches tall, that was crawling out of his computer. Vin grabbed the first thing that came to hand — his coffee mug — and swung it at the creature. He hit it square in the back, and it went tumbling ass-over-teakettle across the desk and over the edge. Down on the floor, it bounced to its feet, blew a raspberry at Vin, and scampered away.
Five lower jaws simultaneously dropped open.
"What the hell was that thing?" "See, I told you!" "It came out of my damned computer!" "I must be seeing things!" "Where'd they go?"
That last question caused all babbling to cease. The five men all looked at each other, horror dawning on each of them.
"Oh, shit!" Buck uttered. "We gotta find 'em. Look around, they gotta be here somewheres."
All five men began frantically checking on, under, and around desks, chairs, miscellaneous pieces of furniture, etc. Mid-way through the search, Ezra sauntered in.
"And a fine mohnin' to you gentlemen." He greeted them. Then he noticed the activity. "And what, pray tell, are you so diligently searchin' for?"
"Things!" JD snapped.
"Gremlins". Josiah clarified. "They've gotta be here somewhere."
"Gremlins?" Ezra asked, not sure he'd heard right.
"Yeah, gremlins." Buck told him. "One came outta JD's computer, and another one was in Vin's. They crawled out and now they're runnin' around loose somewhere."
"Gremlins." Ezra repeated, his tone of voice leaving no doubt as to what he thought of the other men's sanity. Or lack thereof.
"Come on, Ezra"! JD said. "Help us look!"
"And what, exactly, may I ask, do they look like?"
Suddenly, a male scream split the air, followed immediately by three gunshots.
"Chris's office." The men all chorused, exasperated. The door to the black-clad agent's office flew open, and two small creatures scurried out, followed by Chris, chasing intently after them, gun in hand.
"What the hell are those things!" Chris and Ezra both yelped simultaneously
"Hey, get 'em!" JD cried. Chris took aim again, but before he could fire, a letter opener suddenly appeared, quivering, in the floor right where one of the gremlins had been scurrying just a second before. Nathan had missed the fast-moving creature by a hair.
"Damn!" Nathan swore.
"Quick little muthers, ain't they?" Buck put in.
But by now, the gremlins'd had enough. The brown one made a rude gesture at JD, while the black one blew another raspberry at Vin. Then they both stomped off.
A few steps later, another letter-opener thunked into the floor, and the two gremlins took off running. They disappeared out the door.
"Thank god they're gone!" Buck uttered, relieved.
"Amen to that, brother." Josiah added.
Down in the parking garage, Cuervo the cat slumbered peacefully on the warm hood of Inner Warmth's Jaguar. That is, until the doors to the Moving Box opened, and two tiny creatures scampered out. Cuervo opened one eye, and watched the figures for a second. They smelled of Power and Mischief. Without moving, the cat opened up a small Portal in the floor of the building. Then, he set himself, legs tucked under him, tail lashing, gaze focused intently. As the small brown creature flitted by, Cuervo pounced! He caught it neatly between his front paws, then grabbed it in his jaw by the scruff of the neck, and carried it triumphantly to the Portal, where he carefully dropped it in. One down, one to go.
Cuervo looked around, but the other Mischief had scrambled away. So Cuervo sniffed the air, and listened carefully. It was hard to find things in the cavernous structure because of the way sounds and smells traveled, but soon he had it. It was trying to get into Inner Warmth's Jag. Cuervo was half tempted to let it, as he and Inner Warmth had a kind of rivalry going about paw prints on the car. Cuervo put them there every morning, and Inner Warmth washed them off every night. Still, it was a friendly rivalry, and Cuervo wouldn't wish Mischief on a friend.
So Cuervo bounded over to the Jag, and swiped the creature off the front bumper, where it was attempting to get under the car's hood. The creature rolled to a stop on the floor, made a rude sound at Cuervo, and scurried away. Cuervo licked his chops. Mischief was going to do this the hard way, eh? So much the better, as Cuervo was in a cruelly playful mood after having his nice nap so rudely interrupted. He crawled under the Jag, and crouched. As Mischief ran by, Cuervo reached out and thwacked it! Mischief went tumbling. Cuervo leapt out from under the car, landed in front of Mischief, and batted it again. He followed as the creature slid across the floor.
Cuervo played with it for some minutes as he batted it back and forth across the floor, before tiring of the game. Finally, he batted the mischievous spirit into the Portal. Then he carefully closed and sealed it, and pranced triumphantly back to the Jag. He nimbly leapt onto the now-cooling hood, stretched luxuriously, then lay down and went to sleep.
A moment later, a sudden itch made itself unbearably known. Cuervo sat up abruptly to scratch at his flank. Oh, no! Somewhere, he'd picked up... fleas!
The End
Additional author's notes: 1. No gremlins were harmed in the writing of this story.
2. To you spoilsports and nitpickers out there: Yes, there are dire consequences to discharging a firearm in the building. It's a comedy! Don't worry about it!
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