Mission #28: Beware of Darkness
Some characters are written deliberate out of character because the author doesn't like them. This is generally called character bashing. Sometimes it gets so bad it even seems the character was replaced by an imposter.
A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum were founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken from Beware of Darkness by rita. This mission was chronicled by IndeMaat
-oOo-
"Why are we hiding in the kitchen?" Allison asked. "I only see canons." Despite not seeing the point to hiding, Allison asked her question in a hushed tone. "You can't possibly still think I still want to grope the canons. I haven't even come near one in ten or twenty missions."
"It's not about that. This is bad slash and you can never tell what that will do to the characters. And I think it's closer to ten."
"Why do you never give advance warning we're going into slash?"
"I thought you preferred going into fic unprepared."
Allison grumbled. Tasmin had always warned her to prepare for fics or it might bite her in the arse sometime. She'd never thought it would be in the form of an argument used against her.
Face had conned himself into a range style house and gave the Team and Amy the grand tour. Or however grand the tour of a three bedroom (one converted to recreation room), two bathroom house can be.
Amy yawned loudly and ostentatiously, distracting the others from further praise to Face. 'God knows the man praises himself enough. He doesn't need anyone's help,' she thought, pasting a false smile on her face.
"That doesn't sound quite like Amy," Allison said dubiously. "I'm sure she can do the fake yawn and the false smile when she wants to get some information from someone for a news report, or tries on a con of her own. But to her friends ... ?"
"Told you."
Amy seemed to be on romantic nicknames terms with Murdock. She was also tired and asked Face where they could sleep.
"How about the rec room, Facey?" Murdock said hopefully, waggling his eyebrows.
"Facey? I guess Murdock is sleeping right there in the hall way."
Face didn't punch Murdock in response to the new nickname, but BA nearly did for suggesting the rec room. Face offered the master bedroom to Murdock and Amy, the guest room to Hannibal and BA got the rec room. Face took the room that was annexed to the garage, and had not been part of the tour.
"Let's go, HM; pick up our bags," Amy ordered, walking back towards the master suite.
Murdock protested, but Amy did not relent, so he picked up their bags and followed.
Music started to play in background.
"Did someone turn on the stereo? Must have been BA, accidentally ran into it in the rec room."
"Actually, this is a songfic."
"Is it chargeable?"
Tasmin shrugged. "Song's Beware of Darkness by George Harrison. It's a 1970 song, so chronologically appropriate."
"Yes, but is it appropriate to quote the entire lyrics?"
"Lyrics in a story is like putting poetry in: not everyone is going to get just what the author meant by it. Not really one of our concerns."
Allison looked up at the Words. Some of them had an unusual sparkling quality to them. After five lines the Words became their usual shade, but due to the sparkle of the lyrics the Words to the story were harder to make out.
Murdock was having a dream. He stood in a clearing while a man with a machine gun approached him. Murdock backed away. The man shot into the trees. A body fell onto the ground; it was Face.
Murdock woke up with a start, but Amy was unsympathetic to his nightmare. She dared him not to turn on the lights and told him to leave off telling her about his dream until the morning.
"Someone's cranky when they haven't had a proper night's sleep."
Murdock fell asleep again and was back in his dream. He tried lucent dreaming techniques to get out of it, but they failed him. Face was still on the ground wounded. Amy appeared in the dream offering Murdock a hug. Then Face got up, stumbled off into the woods, and started to cry.
"That's odd. I can hear sobbing too."
"That's because it's not just in Murdock's dream."
"This house needs sound-proofing. I mean, if we can still hear what's going on at the neighbours'."
"I only wish it was going on at the neighbours'."
Murdock got up and felt his way around the room to the door.
Behind him, Amy made disgruntled sounds as she realized her arms were empty. Again. "If you leave now, don't come back," she said clearly.
Murdock closed the door behind him and went to Face's room.
"C'mon. This is our moment. Let's go." Tasmin jumped up.
"Our moment for what? There hasn't been any slash yet."
"Our moment to charge the imposter." Tasmin dashed out of the kitchen.
"What imposter?"
Tasmin was already too far down the hall to hear Allison's question. She ran into the master bedroom and without turning the lights on jumped onto the bed, gun poised at Amy. "Hello, imposter."
"What? Get off the bed, you idiot." Imposter!Amy scrambled around to turn on the lights. She turned back to give the idiot a further piece of her mind, but her breath halted in her throat as she stared up the barrel of a Beretta 92SB.
"Imposter!Amy, presumably called Amy Amanda Allen Murdock. We are Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we're here to charge you with crimes against the A-Team."
Just then Allison entered the room. "What are you doing?"
"I'm about to charge the imposter."
"I'm just as appalled by Amy's behaviour as you are, but why are you so sure she's an imposter and not just possessed?"
"Get a CAD, take a measurement." Tasmin had given all her replies without taking her eyes of Amy.
Allison grabbed the duffel bag which Tasmin had dumped by the foot of the bed and searched for the CAD. When she pointed the device at Amy it let out a loud wail. IMPOSTER, the display screamed. Allison quickly turned the device off.
"All right. How did you know that?"
"There's a news paper on the kitchen table. Front page carries a story with the byline: from our foreign correspondent Amy Allen. She never would have left the chance for more front page reporting to go house-warming with Face. Can I charge now?"
"Sure, go ahead." Allison raised a hand in resignation.
"Imposter!Amy, we charge you with impersonating a canon character and making her bossy and domineering. We charge you with bashing the character you are impersonating. We charge you with doing this to bring two characters closer together. If you want to have slash in a story, kindly leave Amy out of it. Or at least don't turn her into the wife from hell. We charge you with making Face cry in his sleep. We charge you with Murdock using the nickname 'Facey'.
"You have been charged. Do you understand these charges? Your punishment will be death. You will be executed now." Tasmin rattled off the last four sentences and she shot the imposter.
"Face is going to hate you for ruining his sheets," Allison said.
Tasmin jumped off the bed and returned her gun to the duffel bag. "This world is going to fold in on itself in a moment. He need never know."
-oOo-
Character bashing is a bad thing, particularly if it is used as a plot device to drive two other characters into each others' arms. If the only reason you can bring two characters together is by mutual hate of a character they like in canon there is something wrong in that relationship. Take OOCness as a hint that some things are just not meant to be.