I'm with Donald on this one.

[whynot]

Okay.

So this started out as a cracky Narnia Ocean's 11 AU that bedlamsbard and I were gratuitously cracking out on, and it's ending up as like I don't even know. I tried rephrasing the end of the previous sentence a few times and, like, yeah. I don't even know. Then when the O11 movie plotline ended, it became an Ocean's 11 crossover, and we get things like

tess and susan meet in vegas. miraz and benedict are two of a kind, and when they go off to talk business in some back room it leaves tess and susan alone at their table, drinking red wine and perusing the dessert menu for a second time.

"oh, death by chocolate," tess says, and looks wistful.

"get it," susan suggests, "you only live once."

being without peter and edmund and lucy has made her reckless, like she has to step up to fill the shoes that have been left empty. and after all, it's chocolate, and in what had been her line of work -- well, look at peter. one day you're sipping martinis, the next day you're wearing some ugly shade of orange. she's sure it does absolutely nothing for his skin tone.

"i rather like this one," she suggests. "better than sex. hell of a name, isn't it?" she says, and laughs.

tess leans forward, smiling at her. "well, you've got to try it just to find that out."

what tess doesn't know is that susan knows her. they haven't met, but she and edmund had cross-referenced everyone they ever worked with, and she knows: danny ocean's ex-wife, divorced after danny got caught (two years earlier than peter; they're in the same prison), artist. natural redhead.

it's always good to know the little things.

susan laughs a little, leans forward towards tess. when she speaks, it's low and intimate. "well, if the boys are in there that much longer, it's the best we're going to get tonight."

"oh, i don't know," tess says, sipping at her wine, and winks at susan.

she doesn't see miraz until the next morning. the cake is better than some sex she's had. she tastes the frosting on the corner of tess's mouth before she pulls her dress off over her head and tess dips her fingers below the waistband of susan's very expensive underwear.


---bedlamsbard

and

at around 11 pm, edmund shows up at rusty's hotel room with cheetos and a laptop bag.

"tumnus's flight got delayed in detroit," says edmund when rusty opens the door, "but he's sent the new security codes. sopespian's learned from miraz, and we need to revise the sixth floor scheme."

"huh. you always did know just what to say to set the mood, ed." rusty looks at the cheetos bag. "are those for me?"

"they could be. if you're good."

rusty raises an eyebrow. "how good?"

edmund shrugs. "surprise me."

rusty reaches out and grabs the front of edmund's shirt, tugging him through the doorway. "you're a hard man to surprise, edmund pevensie."

"well if anyone can still surprise me, ryan," says edmund, dropping cheetos and laptop on the table, "it's you."


---me

. Then we get backstory about how the Pevensies have been a transient band of con artists (warning: incestuous con artists) since their teens, and then there is Trouble with the mafia. So while Susan, Lucy, and Caspian take care of business in New York, Peter and Edmund are currently in hiding in the Philippines under the aegis of expatriate tycoon Lune and his party-hearty son Corin, as my thinly veiled excuse to

you want to talk about claustrophobia, you want to talk about the cruelty of the city, about its excesses (of depravity, of deprivation), then you want to talk about manila. manila will provide you with examples aplenty, garishly colored and wild-eyed. manila, with her penchant for making promises and her love-hate relationship with her past, drifting by outside the window as miguel drives them to wherever.

"don't," edmund says quietly when peter begins to open a window to give some change to a blind man and the woman who shepherds him around.

"don't be so heartless, ed."

"he's obviously faking it."

peter just gives his brother a look and drops the coins into the man's hands, rolls the window back up. a few seconds later, an urchin in a tattered power rangers shirt taps on the window, cupping her hands around her eyes to look through the benz's tinted glass. peter reaches into his pockets again, but before he can open the window, the light turns green. the car pulls away from the intersection.

borne of a culture that coddles its sense of boundaries, manila is strangely lacking in them. shanties flourish next to the private schools, behind government buildings, down the street from the shopping malls where expats and private-sector scions shop at guess and jean-paul gauthier. there is no poor part of manila, no rich part of manila, not in any true sense. it all bleeds together, overlapping.

and everywhere, everywhen, always: the heat, fierce and proud. it is like a mother's last embrace, desperate and clinging and leaving you with an odd sense of hollowness, ephemerality.

. We still refer to it as the O11 AU but at this point that's probably a misnomer.

As of yesterday, this monstrosity of a thread has pushed the post to be the post with the most number of comments on my LJ. Longer than OT3verse, longer still than the one that started out as Narnia/Stardust and changed gears into Last Battle revisionism (okay so that one isn't actually on my LJ). It even has a horizontal scrollbar. And god have mercy, it is not over.

It's mostly R-rated&lower except for a blip of Peter/Susan somewhere in the middle, as well as the most recent bits due to this exchange--
Lassiter: [Is all :-O about thread length.] I DO NOT KNOW WHETHER TO INSTIGATE CELEBRATION OR FACEPALMS
Bedlam: I FEEL CELEBRATION IS IN ORDER.
Lassiter: HOW SHALL WE CELEBRATE???
Bedlam: PORN OF COURSE.

Oh, Bed. What would I do without you.

OKAY LASS THIS GARFINKEL PAPER AIN'T GOING TO WRITE ITSELF.