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anons-has-hlvrai-aus · 6 months ago

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The Metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman [Chapter 10]

Hundreds of Skeletons

Chapter 1 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Summary: Bubby learns about Gordon’s newest house guests.

Word Count: 3,247

Ao3 Version

Notes: Happy Halloween ya silly ghouls, even if it’s still April for our silly Science boys! The second half of this particular chapter might need some redoing at a later time, but for now I like what I have for this being my first time writing from Bubby’s perspective.

Benrey being given permission to have skeletons in Gordon’s house in any capacity whatsoever was a bad idea. Literally anybody could have told the poor bitch that much if he had asked them beforehand if it was a good or bad idea, not that he would have listened, of course.

Unfortunately, Dr. Gordon Freeman did NOT ask and the end result was absolutely hilarious.

Bubby had come over to update the duo on his current employment status, so he wasn’t expecting to see such a large quantity of the undead in one place. He was glad he showed up when he did. This was fucking gold.

The house wasn’t exactly swarming with anatomically correct skeletons, but it certainly wasn’t a small amount either. It was like being on-set for some sort of terrible remake of the Thriller music video, except none of the skeletons he saw when invited inside were anywhere that one would expect a skeleton to be.

Granted, most people don’t have anatomically correct skeletons in their possession to such a high degree, so it could maybe be argued that every skeleton in the house was someplace you wouldn’t expect a skeleton to be. But Bubby would argue that this was more so, because most anatomically correct skeletons (hell, even most anatomically INCORRECT skeletons) aren’t half-clipped into the walls and ceilings, which is a shame because Halloween would be significantly more interesting if they could do that.

It wasn’t Halloween, though. It was the tail-end of motherfucking April. And Gordon had spectacularly fucked up, as he usually does.

The man wasn’t nearly as disheveled as he would have expected him to be, given the situation.

“…I think Benrey and I are going to need to talk on what definition he considers ‘a few’ to be for the…” Gordon motioned weirdly with his left hand, his right one was not currently attached so Bubby rightfully assumed that it was elsewhere. “…Overall quantity of skeletons that he has invited into my house.”

Bubby stifled a laugh. “You fucked up, Gordon.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“You fucked up quite prettily.”

“I know!”

They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table. There was a skeleton sitting in one of the empty seats to Gordon’s left. It gently pushed a mug of coffee into his reach, which Gordon responded to by pushing the mug aside while mumbling “No, really, I think I’m done for now. I don’t need more coffee.” He looked at his wrist for a moment, something he did pretty often and for longer than he probably realized, and then at Bubby. “Do you want, like, a tuna sandwich or something?”

Typical Gordon. The man couldn’t stay still for even a second. He was about 60% certain he had some severely undiagnosed ADHD.

“How long have your visitors been here for?” He asked back. He didn’t NOT want a sandwich, but he didn’t really want to stay here longer than he needed to before Movie Night tonight, given how overbearing Gordon had become.

“Since Sunday…sometimes they show up in this quantity and…” He combed his hand through his thick ponytail. “I don’t know. It’s annoying. They start amassing whenever I decide to take my prosthetic off. I’m just trying to give my body a rest, you know???”

Bubby understood what he meant. He knew how Harold’s prosthetics worked, and how often he, too, would need to take his off from his taxing it could be to have on. They were slightly different on account that Gordon’s was one hand and Harold’s was multiple full limbs that came with Extendo Arms and Power Legs, but they otherwise functioned like a normal prosthetic, so he understood well enough that Gordon needed to take the hand off from time to time.

So like, he did get it.

But Gordon did also need to realize that he was being a fucking idiot by not realizing WHY the skeletons were acting the way that they were.

Bubby grunted before answering. “Those skeletons are probably some sort of caretaker or guardian. Haven’t you noticed how they’re getting antsy at anything that could hurt you?”

Gordon quietly side-eyed a skeleton that was standing in front of the breadbox, mixing a bowl of canned tuna with some Japanese mayonnaise. The toaster was next to the breadbox, and next to the toaster was a skeleton that looked at it with an aura of somebody who’s mother had been insulted. “…here to protect us…” He mumbled, “So Coomer was right about the skeletons too, I guess.”

“Of course he was! It checks out to me at the very least.” Bubby shrugged. “It’s the only explanation I can think of. The specimens they had at Black Mesa didn’t really explain it any, and I don’t blame them. They have every right to keep their jeeps.”

“Keep their-?? Okay but why are they acting like this in response to me taking my prosthetic off?”

“Gordon, do you have ANY idea how pathetic you were when you only had one arm?”

Gordon sighed. It was a dumb question. Of course Gordon knew, but sometimes Bubby had to be the one to state the obvious so that Gordon could get something into his thick head. “I guess I am a bit of a pussy when shit gets difficult, huh?”

“Obviously.”

Gordon leaned back into his chair with a loud groan of annoyance. “I don’t need babysitting though! I understand the concern but like…I can take care of myself!”

‘How ironic.’ Bubby thought to himself. ‘Not so nice being the one that gets babied about insignificant shit. It’s not exactly the same but…whatever’

He probably should have been speaking his mind aloud instead of keeping his own jeeps about the situation. Something told him that it would save a lot of trouble if he did so…but foresight was stupid and so was the concept of hindsight.

Also there was no way in Hell he was going to address The Problem on his own, especially when Gordon was currently fucked three ways south of the Nile River with fucked-up alien puberty. Bubby was leagues better than Gordon when it came to actually helping people out with personal problems, but only because he was willing to actively check on somebody when he knew something was wrong.

Bubby was incredibly blunt in those sorts of situations, and the last thing Gordon needed was bluntness.

So yeah, no, Bubby was going to put Gordon’s stupid controlling behaviors aside for now.

A bony hand placed a pair of toasted tuna sandwiches on the center of the table.

Fine.

Maybe he was a little hungry.

They ate quietly, Bubby’s eyes tracked down skeletons and followed their paths of movement across the house when he could. There were at least ten in the kitchen right now; Gordon mentioned that in the past few days there were normally about three or four that usually scouted around and made sure to turn on at least one light source whenever he entered a room. When Gordon had checked the attic earlier to find Benrey, it had been filled to full capacity with skeletons all standing around idly, which explained some of the stranger noises he kept hearing upstairs. This, too, was a new development.

Bubby couldn’t tell if this was Benrey throwing Gordon’s nonsense back at him tenfold or if he really, genuinely thought the man was that vulnerable with one hand missing. Perhaps that was a bit much, even for Dr. Pussy.

“Okay so,” Gordon said between bites. “I know you don’t come to my house this soon before movie night, so what brought you here? Update on the Burger King stuff?”

“You goddamn know it.” He laughed. Finally, it was his turn to talk about shit. “My first day is going to be on Saturday, so I expect you and Benrey to follow through with coming to see me during lunch hours.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Gordon gave a thumb up.

“Good!”

“Yeah. So uh…we know what we’re doing for dinner tonight?”

“Well, I was going to suggest Popeyes. If we’re watching Jurassic Park, we have every right to feast upon the better version of Dino Nuggies.” It was totally that. Bubby absolutely wasn’t feeling bad for Gordon going through a rough spot.

“Honestly, I couldn't agree more. I’ll see if I can get Benrey to, uh, tone down the number of skeletons before everyone gets here tonight.”

“Benrey can control them with the Sweet Voice, can’t he?”

Gordon looked at his own sandwich vacantly for half a second before turning to look at the skeleton nearest to them, the one that had been bringing him coffee. He opened his mouth, then closed it, seeming to mull over it. “…what would I even use? Like…do I just tell it to go away? It’s one of Benrey’s too so like…will it even listen-?”

“For God’s sake Gordon, Just sing at the fucking skeleton!” Bubby yelled. He hated when Gordon overthought stuff. He’s a scientist! The least he could do was be reckless from time to time.

“Okay! Okay!” Gordon turned to the skeleton again and sung out some bubbles of color. Bubby didn’t know what they meant. Shit, he could hardly tell what some of them were half the time, and God…it was so embarrassing to admit that he hadn’t even said anything to anybody. And why should he? The perfect life form should NOT have to wear color-correcting glasses!

The skeleton started catching the bubbles of light with its hands before it eventually backed away to stand uncomfortably close to another skeleton to shoot its own beam of color. And then both skeletons went to other skeletons to do the same thing, and so on until there were just a handful of skeletons overall in the kitchen. Significantly more tolerable for everybody involved.

“Probably should have figured that Sweet Voice was the solution.” Said Gordon.

“I guess, but you can’t always rely on Benrey when you’ve got weird shit going on.”

A sigh. “I know that. Unfortunately, my last attempt to figure said shit out on my own resulted in me getting stuck in a wall. Noclipping is fucking bullshit…”

Gordon had learned how to noclip? Perhaps this alien puberty thing was going to go by faster than they expected. Good. That meant they could all get Gordon out of their hair faster. “You’ll figure it out.”

“I guess so, man. I guess so…”

Well, no need to stick around. Bubby got up quickly. “See you tonight.”

“See ya tonight, man.”

“He’s just being protective.” Tommy said assuredly. He had claimed the passenger seat, a bag full of Popeye’s combo boxes at his feet and a couple trays of drinks in his lap, while Darnold and Harold talked in the back about a potion to cure the latter’s Green Goo allergy.

Bubby grimaced. “With hundreds of those things?”

“Benrey can overdo things sometimes.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, it was very funny.”

“He really is trying to show that he cares…” Tommy said with a frown. Something was wrong.

“You’re bothered. You’ve got that bothered tone. What did Gordon do this time?”

The younger man pursed his lips, avoiding eye-contact.

“Tommy.”

“He’s doing that thing again.”

“With Benrey? I can’t imagine it’ll last more than a week. He was quite the contrarian black in Back-fuck…”

“But it’s different now! Benrey is…he wants to be Gordon’s friend and…”

“…and?”

“I just, he, Benrey had said-he told me he was going to…he doesn’t want to argue with Gordon anymore.”

Darnold pitched in. When did he join this conversation? “He’s going to hold Benrey to a higher bar than the rest of us.”

“This is quite true.” Harold added, his tone dangerously serious. “Benrey is far more alien in his mannerisms compared to the rest of us, and Gordon already has negative associations with him. He is more likely to nitpick with him…and given our security friend’s pre-established infatuations with Dr. Freeman, I don't know if he'll be able to bite back if he gets pushed too far.”

Tommy locked his fingers together. “I told him he’s gotta stand up for himself if Gordon does too much so he doesn’t become a boiled frog, but I don’t know if he’ll actually do it. He’s trying so hard for Gordon to like him…”

“I can’t fathom what he sees in Gordon.” Said Bubby. “If he’s about to become a boiled frog, then the rest of us are all frogs that got stung in the river. We should just do the smart thing and pull Benrey out of there right now, save us all the trouble of something actually bad happening to him because of Gordon’s fruitless need to make everything normal.” His voice tensed up as he felt the fire in his chest getting hotter. “I mean, oh my god, we get it! You were subjected to the horrors of having become an actual puppet to some higher being and not knowing who YOU are as a person because your entire personality was shaped by the actions of another person, big deal! There’s at least four other people in this neighborhood alone that had the exact same experience and they’re literally fine. AND they live across the street from you!”

“Bubby!” Harold yelled. The vehicle became silent aside from the engine. Harold let out a long, deep exhale before answering in his usual calm voice. “I agree that it is…aggravating to deal with Gordon’s Gordon-ness, but we must remember to have patience. I still firmly believe that there’s stuff Gordon hasn’t told us about what happened out there, stuff that cannot be easy to explain, let alone understand.”

Darnold could be heard shuffling in his seat oddly. “I know you explained it all to me a few weeks ago but…when you phrase it the way you did just now, Bubby-”

“An explanation is not an excuse.” He interrupted, stone-faced and focused on traffic.

“It’s not. But it still sounds pretty bad.”

Harold rebuttaled…rebutted…whatever the word was, he did it. “As somebody that has seen the edge of reality by accident, if only for a moment, I can assure you that it is not a pleasant experience. I lost my marbles trying to process it all and tried everything in my power to escape. Gordon did it on purpose, and WITH purpose.”

“What’s your point?”

“…Bubby, I believe that when I tried to escape through the hole in Gordon’s suit, it did something to both of our codes. I see things I wasn’t able to before, and I can always tell when something is…wrong…with Gordon.”

“You…?” Bubby’s blood felt unusually cold. He met Harold’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. Darnold, also in view, seemed rightfully horrified.

“I’m sure you understand why I am once again hesitant to abandon Gordon, knowing this now. I agree that we should ‘hit da bricks’ as they say, but if I’m going to hold the guilt of knowing his every moment of emotional turmoil, I think the least we should do is try to talk with Gordon about how his actions affect us”

“We tried that already, and he immediately started spitting out a fucking rainbow.”

“I’m aware. We’ll have to find an appropriate time.”

“And when exactly is that, Harold?”

The man was quiet.

“He has a point…” Tommy said with a whisper.

Darnold agreed as well. “It isn’t really a conversation that can be put off indefinitely. None of us are going to be here this time next year, and you said yourself last time that this conversation-”

“Was better than just leaving him, I know. I still believe that, but we can’t drop a reality bomb like this on a man that is already going through the second worst event of his life!”

Bubby butted back in again. “He’s a control freak and we should have put him in his place years ago, cosmic horrors be damned!”

That shut everybody up.

He was right! They all knew he was right! Gordon was a control freak, everybody knew this. Literally all of them knew! The right time to stop him was three years ago, and all they’d done is wait around for him to get better. Waited for him to actually step in when one of them was having problems instead of needing to tell him upright, only for him to back out of actually helping.

Bubby had wanted to be upfront about it, multiple times! But nobody would volunteer to join him in such a confrontation. It was always ohhhh noooo it’s too soon, or oh nooooo we just need to give him time to settle in! Well now they were still stuck in this stupid limbo while on the precipice of multiple life-changing events.

Bubby had made it clear that he was never, ever going to be the one that pulls off the world-shattering bandaids if he was alone. The fact nobody else wanted to help him was on them.

“Dr. Bubby…” Tommy whimpered. Shit. He forgot that the kid could read minds. “Dr. Bubby.” He said again, annoyed.

“What?”

“…We all fucked up.”

Yes. Everybody else fucked up.

“That includes you.”

…well, shit.

“We all…everybody knew that it was a problem, and all of us were too scared to talk about it before it became a, uh, fixture of our lives. Benrey is getting pulled in too now…and I have a really bad feeling about it. We’ve all been staying out of…of obligation, and even though we all grabbed new opportunities the moment they were given to us, we still owe Mister Freeman our support.”

“We made that promise because he was like a baby deer with how much nothing he knew. Fucker didn’t even know how to use his own goddamn hands and feet.”

“We still promised. Because he needed us. And now he needs us again. We still have to tell him eventually that the way he treats us is wrong, but we still need to help. He doesn’t even know that his actions hurt us. He’s not, he doesn’t hurt us on purpose…”

“But that doesn’t address the bigger question of when we should tell him that his behavior is straight-up toxic.”

…

……

“I have a proposition.”

Everybody gave their attention to Darnold.

“Obviously, we’re not all leaving at the same time, but it will all still be happening sometime in early January. If we want to do this right, the latest we can afford to tell him is before the start of autumn. That gives us about four months to see how the whole metamorphosis thing works out. If it’s going fine, we do it sooner, and if not…well, we don’t really have a choice.”

It wasn’t a bad plan. It was spaced out enough that if they dropped the news on Gordon and it didn’t end well, it at the very least meant Bubby didn’t have to do any holiday shopping for him. Plus, more time for being able to pack all his shit up.

“It feels terrible to have to break such news to him at all.” Harold sighed.

Bubby gave him a final reassurance before they parked in a familiar driveway. “We were all planning to leave anyway, regardless of if we were given these opportunities or not. Even if it will make the separation more painful, he deserves to know.”

With a click of his keys, the whole car became dead silent.

#hlvrai metamorphosis au #hlvrai #hlvrai au #metamorphosis au #half life but the ai is self aware #half life vr but the ai is self aware #fanfic #the metamorphosis of gordon freeman

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elvendara · 3 years ago

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MYSME-FICTOBER 31 OCT ‘22

Halloween cute or scary

October 31st 2022

Saeran sighed as he walked into Yoosung’s apartment. He’d decorated for Halloween at the beginning of the month, adding to it almost daily. It would have been fine except that Yoosung’s idea of decorating was adding the cutest things he could find. Adorable cats, cute witches, smiling pumpkins, and bats with big round eyes. Decorations at Saeyoung’s were a lot scarier and spooky, spiders everywhere, ghosts, ghouls, green witches with the biggest warts, and skeletons that might pop out at you when you least expected it. The contrast was sometimes jarring going from one to the other.

“You’re here!” Yoosung hugged his boyfriend and pulled him in, giving him a short peck on the lips, then he was off to the small kitchenette where there seemed a lot of activity was happening.

“Yeah…uh…how many people are coming over tonight?” Saeran asked. He ran a hand through his reddish hair nervously. He’d thought they would be spending the night alone just watching Halloween movies. Cute ones of course.

“Just you and me. I know, I went overboard. But you can take some back to Saeyoung and MC.” Yoosung laughed, his amethyst eyes full of anticipation. “Can you put this tray on the coffee table?" he asked and pushed a tray full of finger foods like pigs in a blanket, pinwheels, zombie and witch fingers, and a couple of dips. Yoosung picked up another tray full of fruit and a coconut fruit dip.

They set them down and Saeran noted that there was already another full tray of triangle sandwiches, cheese, egg salad, and tuna. There was also a bucket on the floor that had soft drinks and some beers. He knew the beers were for him, Yoosung tried not to drink alcohol since he was such a lightweight.

“Ok, I think I’ve got everything.” The blond set down another tray with Halloween cookies and pastries shaped like pumpkins. “Oh, let me turn the lights down. You can start the movie it’s already queued up. And just to let you know. We’ll probably get some trick-or-treaters. That’s why I got some candy.”

Saeran hadn’t even noticed the cauldron next to the door full of candy.

“Trick-or-Treaters? You sure? In this building?” Saeran raised an eyebrow, mint green eyes unbelieving.

“There are a few kids that live here. And sometimes kids from other places come by too.” Yoosung shrugged as he took a seat.

“Hmm.”

“What’s wrong?” Yoosung asked.

“It’s just…I thought it would just be the two of us, you know, kind of romantic and all.” Saeran said with a frown.

“Don’t worry, we have all night to be together. After a couple of hours, I’m all yours.” He said and gave him a long and soft kiss. Saeran sighed and relaxed. “This will be a great Halloween for us. And maybe next year I can talk you into dressing up with me.” He grinned.

“Maybe, Saeyoung’s already talking about having a Halloween party next year. Another holiday we were never able to celebrate that he wants to change.” The thought actually excited him. There was so much that they had missed growing up, and even into their teenage and young adult years. He knew he was still too raw to make that kind of commitment though and a nice quiet evening with his new boyfriend was much preferable.

Yoosung was already snuggled under his arm and the warmth that came from him was soothing.

“Sounds fun. We have a whole year to think about a couple’s costume.” He said.

Saeran grinned and settled into the sofa, the hand on his thigh sending a thrill through him. Maybe tonight they’d be able to have a nice long make out session. He knew Yoosung wasn’t ready for more, but that was OK. Slow was definitely better for him as well.

No sooner had the thought popped into his mind than the doorbell rang and Yoosung sprang off the sofa. With a sigh Saeran let him go. But as the younger man had said, they had all night and in fact, they had the rest of their lives.

#my posts #@mysme-fictober #mysme-fictober2022 #Day 31 #Halloween #Cute #Yooran #Yoosung Kim #Saeran Choi #mysme #mystic messenger #cute halloween #soft Saeran

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joytraveler · 2 years ago

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#6. SPOOKSTERZ!

The title is spelled out on gravestones. When Bea starts the game, she’s given the choice of four playable characters: all of them are knights in different-colored armor, but each has a different weapon: a sword, a spear, a flail, or a jousting lance.

"I'm a-scared, I dunno if I can do this one what with the tombstones and all.." She selects the lance knight. "You know I have to pick the weapon that would be most impractical in melee combat. He's like 'hey uh, can I, can I borrow a horse from one of you guys..?' "

DueyDecimal: I don’t know who the Hero or Big Guy are in this group, but at least you picked the Lancer! berd_snurglar: all right everyone roll to save vs. pun

The lance-wielding knight turns out to be named “Rancor”. After Bea chooses him, the game makes her wait ten seconds to see if any other players want to join in!

aroseahorseboy: a multiplayer game? but there’s only one controller??

"Aw is there a CPU I can get to join in? Be my knight buddy? Maybe there was going to be a multi-port doohicky. Unless it's searching online somehow."

HNV: I hope it doesn’t have online capabilities, you didn’t even enter your WiFi password!

"Well maybe me and the two other people who bought this can do a dungeon fest. Anyway, prepare to feel my sting, vile spawn!"

Ten seconds later the game begins. It’s a multiplayer arcade-style beat ‘em up, in the fashion of Final Fight or Double Dragon, except your armed knight has to take on all kinds of spooky graveyard monsters!

DueyDecimal: Skeletons? Were-bats? Hopping coffins? This is SO my thing! HNV: and a green slimy humanoid thing that’s obviously a ghoul, because everyone knows they live in graveyards but not what they look like

"This is.. this is.. great??" She says as she charges through a group of skeletons! "And I think I even got moves! I mean special moves, not to be confused with The Moves which I also have"

TaichouSenseiKun: I had the moves recently, you probably just need more fiber

The lance itself isn't easy to use: Rancor does best from a long distance, since it's made for jabbing, but in close-up he can only swing it like a baseball bat which isn't as effective. The place it shines is in the special moves, though, which do put him astride a skeletal phantom horse to charge through the stage!

"You know what's better than a bigass steed? BIGASS GHOST STEED!" She has it rear back and stomp the foe she's just knocked down before it disappears again. "I think with more people you could do some pretty crazy group combos!"

Glockroach: this is like the abandonware treasure trove. Bea you should consider trying to copy some of these off the system berd_snurglar: is that not illegal Glockroach: Only if the company still exists HNV: Cue lecture about the dire need for copyright reform from Duey in 5... 4... 3... pigbarrel: yes this should be super ghouls n' guests *ghuests

The first boss stomps into view... with a single foot. It's a huge zombie snail with a mausoleum for a shell, its swollen eyestalks flashing like crazy barber poles! Every time Bea manages to get a good hit in, it retreats into its 'shell' and spits out partial skeletons, each of them hopping out on one foot just like their master.

pigbarrel: haha wow good. this game is good

"I'll be watching this episode later to appreciate this yucky boy, right now gotta do the fight!" Rancor's extra range is helpful for this battle, fortunately, as she whittles down the boss with jabs.

Finally the snail shrinks into its house for good, and a number of friendly-looking ghosts come to the windows and wave in thanks! They seem to be the original family that inhabited the mausoleum.

A results screen pops up, showing the four players' scores; since Rancor is the only player, he's the top scorer, of course. The big surprise is that he's posed without his helmet... and he has no head at all! The knights are all dead too!

burd_snurglar: wow this is like castle crashers of dark souls games aroseahorseboy: ghosts fighting ghosts to save ghosts, no live people allowed HNV: Makes me wonder if you can even get an "extra life"!

"This could just be the Underworld! And no HNV. You can only earn EXTRA DEATHS"

Round 2 begins with Rancor leaping off a rotted dock and onto the barnacle- encrusted hull of a ghost ship! The eerie light of St. Elmo's fire gleams from every surface as he lances his way through a crowd of skeletal pirates, some of whom fight with skeletal swordfish and sawfish!

"Ahhhh help I can't swim!! Haha, just joking, I'm dead of course!" She's excited to find a room full of treasure chests, but all but one turn out to be huge killer hermit crabs! "Aha! See, the real treasure will be the crabs we met along the way."

The ship itself isn't that big, with only the upper deck full of enemies and the treasure room to explore, but once Bea finishes off the crabs and makes her way to the stern, there's a little bit of platforming action as she jumps from dinghy to haunted dinghy! These lead to a second ghost ship, an even bigger one: it's an ocean liner, with a huge hole in the side and a quartet of dead musicians playing on the deck.

"Oh hell. Actual hell. Or the underworld thing, anywho. I guess we're deader than we thought! Been dead longer."

Baconnaise: I'm glad the ghost of the titanic got work after Ghostbusters 2 DueyDecimal: Maybe you're just armor and not a ghost at all! HNV: The armor from Ghosts N' Goblins got sick of dicking around and decided to leave Arthur behind this time

The string quartet fires bows at Rancor like arrows (how counterintuitive) and wield their instruments like clubs, but are quickly dispatched by the lance. Next comes a wave of drowned zombie tourists in grass skirts, some of whom are so waterlogged that they burst on the first attack, scattering chomping scallops in all directions!

"I might NEED another player! Any dead knights in the chat can lend a hand?" She tries to charge ahead as much as possible, only fighting the ones the game throws in her path. "Hark and buzz off, ye vast fuckin' jerks! Avast n' whatnot"

HNV: Funny but not very relevant: I saw some costumes at the Halloween store that look just like these guys, labeled “Tacky Tourist” and they had big inflatable butts HNV: but the French name underneath was “Touriste américain”

The grueling wave of tacky tourists goes for several screens, taking Rancor through a shuffleboard court, a swimming pool with rotted octopus tentacles whipping around, and a wedding reception where he gets to knock over the barnacle-encrusted cake and a tower of wineglasses, some of which have eyeballs floating in them!

"I feel like I'm fighting my way through Tim Burton's studio here. On that note I do hope there's an evil pumpkin king behind this in a massive twist!" She says as she fight's off the bride's pet zombie shark

pigbarrel: one of those sharks they caught and put bones in

The mid-boss for this ship is not a pumpkin or even a ghost-- it's the iceberg itself, which is home to a very angry frozen mammoth! All it can move are its tusks and trunk, but that's enough to lob icicles and pull more bodies from the ice to roll at Rancor like logs. Once again, the extra range of the lance really helps!

After Bea defeats him, she continues across the iceberg to more dinghies; these ones are floating in the air, and climbing from dinghy to dinghy leads her through a cloud bank to a FLYING ghost ship!

"Is this where Bowser's airships go when they die.." Bea wonders aloud, fighting off winged pirates even as they're being picked at by seagulls!

Glockroach: this is Davey Jones's Cupboard

After just a few steps on the ship, a huge spinning windmill looms into view, and demonic tulips rise from the deck to cackle at the hero.

DueyDecimal: ...The Flying Dutchman. Of course.

This battle must have been crafted with Rancor in mind: the windmill lifts itself up, unfolding like a Transformer, and roars. Don Quixote was right, the windmills really are giants, and this one needs to be tilted at!

"My main issue though, really, is that a windmill is not an undead. As far as we know. Or maybe this one is, I'm not sure of anything?" She blocks the huge swinging fists as the go by, jumping up to attack between the arms.

Glockroach: Honestly the game could end right here and I would be satisfied pigbarrel: when you die, if you are cursed, you may become a windmill.. if you laughed at windmills in your living life

Her charge move is helpful here too, as she can pretty quickly get from one side of the screen to the other as the windmill-bit flails about! Through careful use of special attacks and judicious dodging, Bea manages to hit the monster’s weak spot multiple times, finally causing it to collapse back in on itself. Once again, friendly ghosts appear to thank her, this time emerging through the front door to do a celebratory clog dance!

aroseahorseboy: This is the second time you had to fight a building at the end, it’s like a claustrophobia game

"Tell me if this is too much of a stretch, but it's almost like all the places you'd expect ghosts to be are turning bad? Like, all the haunted houses are turning on their residents. Or haunted windmills, what have you"

HNV: I expected to fight a ghost ship at the end of this one, the windmill was a surprise!

"I just expected a pirate, not all the pirates and the dutch. And now, mummies!"

Syrupentine: Who wants to bet you’re going to actually fight a pyramid at the end of this stage!

"Pyramid boss, after a brief detour to fight the entire terracotta army and some modern day mob guys with cement shoes. Actually I'm shocked they didn't show up when we were underwater!"

DueyDecimal: So how are we for good games vs. bad games so far? Most of the good ones have been sort of just OK until now

"I'm thinking this was a bunch of different developers and one publisher? Maybe even entirely different companies. SOME of them had to care!"

HNV: The bedbugs one and the eggs one were just sort of eh, like you said... Demolition Crew was rad, though aroseahorseboy: yeah what Bea said! i bet a lot of these are ripoffs of actual good games that were sold on their own DueyDecimal: Yeah, I bet this one and the King of the Monsters type one were from the same dev team! They both have good monster graphics

Bea finally gets stuck on a pair of mummified aliens(?!) that are just a bit too unpredictable and quick for her, even if she manages to take one down before the second turns into a mummy-saucer!

HNV: Aliens even now?? It’s turning into Super Mario Land but that’s fine with me!

"Gotta admit, there really seems to be something for everybody!"

aroseahorseboy: thank you, good monster developers, for your buffet of beasts

#jtnuggets #big nugget #jan 8 #bea #dueydecimal #aroseahorseboy #hnv #taichousenseikun #glockroach #berd #pigbarrel #baconnaise #syrupentine

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limitless-imagination · 5 years ago

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The Agents at a Haunted House with You

[These were written before the release of Skye. Happy Hallowe’en! - cheesy]

Breach: is having the time of his life! Bam! A screaming ghoul! Boom! A skeleton in a closet! Poof! A cackling witch! Breach finds the excitement in every activity and a Haunted House is no exception. Stay with him and he’ll keep you safe. If all else fails, he’ll just pick you up and run through like nothing to it!

Brimstone: He thinks Haunted Houses are baloney. Why would anyone choose to get scared on purpose? This stems from when he was a child. He was absolutely terrified of Haunted Houses. That hasn’t changed, even in his old age. If you ask him to go with you, he’ll try to deflect as much as he can. You’ll have to really force his hand if you want him to go. Stubborn old man.

Cypher: It’s just a bunch of tricks. How different is it from what he does? He likes to blackmail people with comedic antics which could scar them forever, and Haunted House actors scream at the top of their lungs right in your face while bleeding out. Same right?! When the two of you go in, he thinks you’re faking being scared, but once you start crying he still won’t understand, but he’ll guide you through.

Jett: She says she’s not scared, but the bursts of air that come out of her hands when she tries to block a masked murderer says otherwise. She likes a good adrenaline rush, but more from training, playing pranks or gaming. She’s a little ticked off too, that something like this can make her jump. But at least she’s not alone in this.

Killjoy: Loves a good Haunted House. But it has to be good, otherwise she’ll be a bit bored. She loves Hallowe’en, so every year she’d be on the hunt for the scariest, most terrifying Haunted House. Killjoy runs a Haunted House Ratings blog, which is quite popular. She’ll be dragging you to every single one in the city. Hold on to your socks! Oh and, actually haunted Haunted Houses get bonus points.

Omen: Bored out of his mind. It’s just not scary. He doesn’t understand. If they wanted something scarier they could’ve just hired him. At least he’ll get paid to insult and attempt to kill people. When you go together he’s just strolling through. With every scream, every jump scare, Omen is unmoving, unwavering. At some point, he’ll wanna leave, and take you with him. It’s not worth his time.

Phoenix: When you arrive at the outside of the Haunted House, you can tell he’s a bit nervous. He shoos it off as excitement sweats, uh, not that he has excitement sweats. Because he doesn’t. He takes your hand, acting with his usual bravado, and exclaims how he’s going to protect you from the characters inside. Once inside, his body starts overheating every few seconds, and he’s steaming out from his ears, trying to hold it together for you. He’s actually pretty scared. And maybe he’s holding your hand cuz he needs it.

Raze: Raze can make any situation fun with her upbeat personality. Of course, she’s a little nervous. A Haunted House’s purpose is to scare. But also it can be really fun when you’re together! As you two are walking through and hearing other people screaming, Raze starts screaming back. When you join her, it’s almost like you’re retaliating against the actors. Asserting your dominance. Screaming is half the fun, right? Once you exit the Haunted House, your throats are super dry and hoarse lol.

Reyna: When you ask her if she’d like to accompany you to a Haunted House, she can’t believe your words. Her little sweet thing wants to get scared? Oh, cute thing, if you really wanted it, you could’ve just asked her. But she doesn’t take it personally and goes with you anyway. Truthfully, she doesn’t mind if you get a little scared. It just means you’ll cling onto her more.

Sage: Doesn’t like haunted houses. Who chooses to get scared for fun? Knowing you feel the same way comforts her. She doesn’t have to pretend that she’s not scared, or that she can take it. As you two enter, she intertwines your arms with hers, and apologizes in advance if she screams too loudly. From her pocket, she takes out some earplugs and hands them to you. Huh, handy! It helps immensely with Sage’s yelling, and makes the tour a lot less freaky.

Sova: Thinks haunted houses are a little fun. He’s not scared of much, and that includes this. He’ll hold onto you tight, and let you bury your face in his arm or chest as he leads you through the house. When a jumpscare or scream pierces through, you can hear Sova’s heartbeat quicken, but he’ll laugh a little, and keep going. When you leave, he’ll console you, “that wasn’t so bad. Come, let us do something to lighten the mood.”

Viper: The only reason she agreed to come is so she could take notes. She brought a voice recorder so she could verbally announce things as she saw them, and listen to them later. Any opportunity to research is taken up, and what better way to enhance her experiments on people than to see what makes them tick, what makes them scream? Honestly, you shouldn’t have asked her.

#Valorant #Valorant hcs #Valorant Headcanons #Valorant x Reader #Breach #Brimstone #Cypher #Jett #Killjoy #Omen #Phoenix #Raze #relationship #Sage #Sova #Viper #limitless-imagination

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pallasperilous · 5 years ago

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Funny Bone

The other day Supernatural9917 threw out this meme as a cracky Halloween Dean/Cas prompt and I was SO MAD, because I then had to write it:

And so here it is. Goddammit.

Funny Bone

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26761150 Words: 4930 Castiel/Dean Winchester Fluff and Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Skeletons, Bad Pick-Up Lines, No Angels AU, Men of Letters Bunker, Mild Gore Mature (mentions of lewd acts, canon-typical violence, and some truly horrible pickup lines)

It wasn’t even a particularly creepy skeleton; it was in kind of a “just chillin’” pose on the floor. One ankle was still locked up in a heavy iron cuff, at the end of a short chain leading back to the wall. Snoresville, as dead stuff goes; Dean’s seen worse at Disneyland. It was the skeleton’s comment about Dean’s ass that really livened things up.

Discovering the bunker in the first place was a helluva surprise. The whole facility is legitimately batshit; Dead Guys of Letters knew how to live (and, apparently, die. All at once.).

But after plowing through a dozen rooms worth of priceless treasures and crusty boobytraps, even Sam was looking kinda full up on shock and awe.

“We can hit the basement tomorrow,” he said. There was a big smudge of dust across his nose and some cobwebs in his hair.

“Nuh uh,” Dean answered, kicking the door shut with the toe of his boot. “If there’s shit still kicking down there, we gotta clean it out before it cleans us out. It’s that or we’re sleepin’ in the car.”

“Ugh,” Sam said, as if twenty minutes ago he hadn’t been losing his mind over a rare book about werewolf hemorrhoids.

So discovering that the basement included a no-shit actual dungeon felt more like an unanticipated bonus, and stumbling across a skeleton while exploring it barely even registered. Skeletons and dungeons! They go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.

It wasn’t even a particularly creepy skeleton; it was in kind of a “just chillin’” pose on the floor, inside a big circle of greasy black ash. It looked a little mildewy in in places. One ankle was still locked up in a heavy iron cuff, at the end of a short chain leading back to the wall. Snoresville, as dead stuff goes; Dean’s seen worse at Disneyland.

It was the skeleton’s comment about Dean’s ass that really livened things up.

“Welp,” Dean had said, holstering his gun and wiping his hands on his jeans. “We’re all clear. Let’s head back upstairs, salt the shit out of everything, and then we can pick up some groceries.”

“Do I get to buy a vegetable that doesn’t fit in a bun, or are we still in the refractory period?” Sam snarked from the corridor.

“I don’t see you cookin’, “ Dean started, shuffling back towards the hall, and that’s when the skeleton butted in.

“Are those astronaut pants?” it asked. “Because your ass is outta this world!”

Dean absolutely did not scream, but it’s possible there was a yelp.

He almost unloaded a clip into it – unclear what that would’ve possibly done, but it’s good to start with the simple, available solutions. Next he nabbed the lighter fluid off of Sam and dumped out half a pound of kosher salt as a chaser and set the fucker alight.

This does not have the intended effect.

“Baby, I’d like to put my meat on your grill,” the skeleton says, greenish flames dancing between its ribs, “because you’re hot, and I’m smokin’.” Then it sits up a little, just enough to shoot Dean some finger guns.

“What the fuck,” Dean says.

Sam makes a little evaluatory noise. “Sexually harassed by a skeleton,” he chuckles. “I think that’s a new one. Even for you. Is that a new one? I know a lot of strange shit went down in Purgatory.”

The skeleton perks up even more at that, grungy eye sockets sweeping up and down Dean’s body. “Are you a time traveler?” it asks. (Maybe he asks, because the voice is pretty deep and dude-ish, although possibly just on account of its vocal cords being leather shoelaces.)

“Wh…no, I’m not a time traveler,” Dean fibs. He’s more of a time trafficking victim, anyway. “Oh, wait, god,” he says. “Please don’t tell me you’re asking that because –“

“– I can see you in my future,” the skeleton finishes, eagerly, and Dean really wishes this thing had eyebrows so he could tell if they’re waggling.

“Yeah, okay. That’s enough for today,” Dean groans. “I need a drink.” He starts to back out of the room as a pre-emptive strike against Bones commenting on how he hates to see Dean leave, but loves to watch him go. Dean’s working on stumbling back again Sam’s left shoe when the skeleton pipes up one last time, this time with a husky, anxious edge.

“I realize that Purgatory isn’t accessible through a simple chronological shift,” it says, teeth chattering. “But it does require travel between modalities, and if you’re capable of that, I would very much like to speak with you again.”

Dean and Sam’s heads slowly swivel back towards the skeleton, like two little pizzas on the same Lazy Susan.

An hour later, they’re still in the dungeon, working on dousing the skeleton with every possible anti-bad-stuff solution they’ve got, just in case he’s a vampire skeleton or a ghoul skeleton or a witch skeleton or maybe just a wendigo that’s incredibly bad at its job. In between progress reports, he’s still hitting on Dean.

“Dude, don’t you have an off switch somewhere?” Dean asks him.

“Well, Dean, you certainly make me feel like a light switch,–“

“– because you turn me on,” all three of them say in unison.

The skeleton looks a little embarrassed, which is kind of impressive when you think about it. “You’ve…heard that one before?” he asks.

“I spend a lot of time in bars,” Dean deadpans. “Okay, sage is a no-go.”

Sam strikes a line off on the clipboard he found upstairs. “Is this part of a curse or something?” he asks, glancing up at Bones. “Like on top of being a sentient skeleton, you can only speak in horrible pickup lines?”

The skeleton shakes his head, which produces a sound Dean recognizes from his kneecaps on cold mornings. “No, the spellwork allows me to speak freely on most subjects; except who I am, or how to free me. But it’s helpful to use language modern humans can easily understand.”

“Huh. Well, in a way, it is Dean’s native tongue,” Sam says, smirking.

“You shut your face,” Dean hisses.

“When I first saw you, I lost my tongue. Can I try yours on for size?” Bones asks Dean.

“Buddy, I don’t know where you get your information from, but nobody actually talks that way,” Dean tells him. “Nobody sober, anyway. Who isn’t a virgin.”

The skeleton slumps. “I learned from my last visitor. He tried to release me on several occasions, but he either died or abandoned the project.”

Dean arches a brow. “The project being…you?”

“I would be very valuable under the right circumstances.” The skeleton shrugs and casually holds out an arm for Dean to scrape at with the demon blade. “He gave me lessons in modern vernacular as a way to pass our time together.”

“Sounds like a peach,” Dean says, before he can catch himself. “If you have a peach-related pickup line in there, man, you’d better just sit on it.”

“That’s what-“

“I will smash you with a hammer,” Dean barks.

The skeleton relents, but with obvious reluctance.

They call it quits before Kansas rolls up the sidewalk for the night and leaves them stranded with nothing but two Clif bars and a gross of septuagenarian cans of franks ’n beans. Bones shifts nervously when Dean leaves – “Which is better, pancakes or waffles?” he asks.

“Pancakes,” Dean says, with a sense of grim duty.

“Because I’d like to know what you’re making me for breakfast,” says Bones, his voice trailing off as Dean books it down the stony corridor.

By lunch the next day (bologna sandwiches, so sue him, he’ll make something good later) they’re pretty sure that Bones doesn’t pose any known, immediate threat – other than to Dean’s sanity – so they switch gears to springing him. Maybe he will be worth something, or maybe he’ll crumble into dust and Be Free, or maybe he’ll just stop being chained to the basement wall, in which case he can become their skeleton butler or something.

There are weird runes on the ankle cuff, so Sam snaps some quick photos and heads upstairs to feel up the library. This leaves Dean in the basement with Bones, some good old-fashioned power tools, and Bones’s ex-suitor’s gross sense of humor.

“You know I can understand you just fine when you’re talking normally,” Dean says. “You’re just reciting some prehistoric shit that idiots say to girls to get a pity-laugh, hoping it leads to a pity-fuck.”

“What’s a pity-fuck?” Bones asks, all mildewy innocence. Dean’s pretty sure the grunge in his eyeball sockets is dried eyeball.

“Pretty much what it says on the tin, my guy,” Dean answers, and reaches for the acetylene torch.

“Enochian,” Sam says, when Dean surfaces for another sandwich and possibly a beer. He’s really disappointed about the torch.

“Gesundheit?” Dean replies, around a mouthful of bologna. Like everything else here, the kitchen is pretty schwa, although the inside of the fridge required three exorcisms and half a jug of bleach.

Sam paws around the smelly old book in a way that makes Dean feel sorry for the girls Sam dated in high school. “The symbols on the cuff. I think they’re Enochian. It’s a fake celestial language made up by some sixteenth century con artists.”

Dean coughs up a bit of Wonder Bread. “I respect the hustle, but what’s it doing on an ankle cuff in a dungeon younger than Mickey Mouse?”

Sam frowns. “Well, it could be for show. But just because some nutbars made it up doesn’t mean it’s totally powerless. Maybe it does have some kind of…heavenly mojo.”

“Liwl probbem,” Dean observes, finishing off his sandwich. “Def nuh heggen.”

“Huh?”

Dean takes a swallow of beer. “I said: there’s no heaven.”

Sam shrugs. “We didn’t think there was a Purgatory, either.”

“Okay, but if we find out angels are real,” Dean snorts, “then Bones can fuck me in the ass.”

Sam reports his findings to Bones, who sits placidly on the back of his pelvis, carpals splayed out on his kneecaps. What’s even holding him together? Dean can see what’s left of his ligaments, but they look like petrified gas station jerky.

“Do you know what they mean?” Sam asks him, pointing at the sigils.

Bones’s jaw creaks open a little, then closes again, and then he shakes his skull (something rattles inside.) Finally he makes a little frustrated noise and replies – “Baby, are you a book? Because I’d like to check you out.”

“Hey!” says Dean. “Keep it in your pants, man, I’m right here.”

Sam squints. “I think…Dean, I think he’s trying to tell us something, but the spell on him means he can’t say it directly.”

Bones clenches his fists, releases them, clenches them again.

“Yeah. Keep him talking. Let’s see how close he can get.”

Clack clack clack.

“Uh,” Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay. Do I need to, like. Give you some kinda opening?” he asks Bones.

“Sweetheart, I’d like nothing better,” Bones answers, then clacks his knuckles on his brow with exasperation.

“Sorry, Christ. Hit me with your best shot, buddy. Dealer’s choice.”

Bones clears his…ghost throat? and tries: “Tell me, Dean…did it hurt?”

Dean blinks. “When I…fell from heaven?”

Sam claps his hands. “Fucking knew it. It is Enochian, and it does have something to do with this. I think he wants me to check the library for another book. Maybe there’s one misshelved or something that I can actually use to translate. Or I can Google around, maybe there’s a subreddit.”

Dean’s pretty sure Bones has never heard of a Google or a subreddit (for that matter, does Dean actually know what a subreddit is?), but it seems like there’s a glimmer of hope deep in those scum-holes.

Sam gets translations for a few of the words – “obedience” and something he’s fifty percent sure means “millstone” – but the rest is still gobbledygook, and he hasn’t come down with another update in hours. The dungeon is pretty roomy, but it’s not like there’s a foosball table or a cable TV pickup down there, so Dean and Bones wind up lying on the cold-ass ground, staring up into the dark reaches of the ceiling together and, like. Chatting.

Occasionally Bones goes quiet and Dean glances over at him. He really could just be a totally normal, completely dead dungeon skeleton. A good power washing and the right mounting hardware and he’d be ready for a high school biology classroom.

“So if these runes are a celestial thing, does that mean you’re some kinda demonic...thing?” Dean asks. “Cause I gotta say, you’re a much less of a douche than the demons I’ve met.” He snorts. “I know you probably can’t say.”

Bones sighs (how? With what lungs?). “The last person who tried to free me was a demon.” He shifts a little, maybe surprised that he can say this out loud. “It had been so long since somebody had spoken to me…I’m afraid I came close to actually enjoying his company. But he was no better than his kind usually are.”

“Don’t suppose you caught his name? Maybe Sam or me killed him for you already.”

“He called himself—no, I can’t say it.” He makes a sound resembling a harumph.

Then his skull creaks over to look at Dean. “Does your name start with ‘C’?” he says, very deliberately.

Dean is momentarily puzzled, but he works it out by the time Bones wincingly adds “…because I’ve got a D that wants to come behind you.”

There aren’t too many demons under the “C” tab in Dean’s blood-stained mental rolodex, and when he says the name out loud, Bones makes a sound like an entire set of dominos being thrown down a spiral staircase.

Crowley is pretty pissed, which is fun.

It’s nice that the dungeon floor already has a perfect trap on the floor; they don’t even have to hit up Ace Hardware for paint. A damp shop cloth and a little nail polish (Wet ’n Wild in “Red Red,” don’t leave home without it) brings it right up to working order.

“Why does it smell like a nail salon fucked a bloody wine cellar?” Crowley says, after he’s settled down a bit. He manifested right in the creepy torture chair (in the shackles, even! What service!) and he made some escape attempts followed by angry noises about rust stains. Now he’s recovered his dignity and has kicked back a bit, legs crossed, fingers steepled, oozing maximum levels of 2 cool 4 school.

“How do you know what a nail salon smells like?” Dean retorts.

“I get a monthly mani-pedi. There’s no shame in a little self-care, boys.” Crowley’s eyes trickle down to their feet. “Imagine what fungal horrors those work boots must conceal.” Then he squints, and looks up, finally taking in the whole room. “Could swear I’ve been here before. Little upscale for you, isn’t it? Did we splurge for a vacation rental?”

“Crowley, why don’t we roleplay Titanic?” Bones growls from the wall behind him, and Crowley’s face goes slack. “I’ll be the iceberg, and you can go down.”

Crowley swallows and slowly twists back, as far as the shackles let him. “Feathers, is that you? Well, as I live and breathe.”

“You do neither,” says Bones, with so much gravelly contempt that Dean suppresses a little shiver.

“Oh, I still breathe now and then, when the mood takes me. I’m a sentimentalist.” Crowley cranes his neck a little harder and squints into the dim. “Goodness, you’ve dropped some weight since we last spoke, haven’t you. Finally let go of all that pesky soft tissue?”

Bones tilts forward and kind of clatters onto hands and knees, then tipsily begins to rise up to standing. Dean’s a little concerned he’s gonna topple right over and they’re gonna spend the next two hours collecting him in a basket, but when he moves to help out, Bones waves him off. After a couple false starts he makes it up onto his feet bones and then shuffles out to the end of his chain, right under one of the overhead lights. He’s still a good couple feet off from Crowley, but Crowley looks like he wouldn’t mind a few extra acres.

Bones sways a little bit, just enough for Crowley to wince. “You didn’t come back.”

“I got busy.”

Sam shifts impatiently. “What is he?” he snaps, gesturing at Bones.

“Exceedingly dull,” Crowley says. “I should’ve guessed you were friends.”

Dean uncorks a fresh bottle of holy water.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Crowley amends, quickly. “And even if you did, you wouldn’t know what to do with him. It’d be like giving a laptop to a pair of howler monkeys.”

Dean puts his thumb over the mouth of the water bottle and holds it over Crowley’s head. “Try me.”

Crowley scoffs, rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what he is, since he’s useless as long as he’s chained up. And I wouldn’t have left him down here if I had a single clue how to smuggle him out. I haven’t even been in here since the Bay of Pigs; I’d worked a loophole in one of the defense spells here that let me in. When it broke down, I lost my exploit. Wasn’t worth the bother after that.”

Dean slides his thumb a millimeter north of a perfect seal, and a fat drop of water busts its ass open on Crowley’s forehead and sends up a thin line of steam. “Good thing I’ve got a limitless supply of bother,” Dean notes. “Sam, we still got those syringes in the trunk?”

Crowley snarls. “Go ahead and melt me like the cartoon shoe in Roger Rabbit, it’s not going magically make me come up with a solution.”

Bones grunts and rattles his leg chain. “Do you speak Spanish, Crowley? Because you look like the Juan for me.”

“Did I teach you that one? You absolute xylophone.” Crowley glances back at Dean. “Do your worst, Squirrel, I deserve it.”

Sam frowns. “He uses the lines to get around the spell’s speech restrictions. This is something about speaking languages…were you able translate the Enochian symbols on his cuff?”

Crowley blinks. “What symbols?”

After a whole lot of faffing around with mirrors and terrible cellphone photography, they confirm that Crowley can’t see the symbols at all.

“More demon-proofing. Clever little buggers, those Men of Letters,” Crowley sighs. “A real shame they were peeled and eaten like bananas.”

Finally Sam just hunkers down with a pencil and pad to transcribe the entire ankle cuff, and Dean awkwardly holds up Bones’s ankle, like he’s being sized for a glass slipper. When they shove the results in Crowley’s face, Dean watches his eyes dart along the words.

“Well, it’s your lucky day, boys. Along with the usual wankery, there are instructions on how to release the cuff. I can translate it,” he finally says, with an unusually low inflection of bullshit, “but I’ll thank you to release me, first.”

Dean is flummoxed. “What, you’re not gonna haggle for a cut of the profits or anything?”

“Activating the release mechanism will free him completely, and restore his…restore him. I’d rather be at a safe distance.” He glances back at Bones, looming in the shadows. “A continent or three should do the trick.”

“If it doesn’t work–“

“I’d be more worried about what happens if it does,” Crowley sighs. “But feel free to summon me back for tea and sympathy. Here, I’ll even give you my number. But please, no personal photography. I pity you enough as it is.”

Crowley finally smokes out, and Dean has a beer to celebrate while Sam looks over the list of what they need and Bones clatters his fingertips like castanets. The ingredients are (as always) larded with shit that’s exotic and expensive; Sam is looking crestfallen at some of the items. “I’ve heard of all of this, but I’ve only seen maybe half of it for sale anywhere.”

“Baby, are you a yard sale? Because you’ve got some serious junk in that trunk,” Bones monotones. He’s back to lying on the floor.

At least it’s getting easier to translate this shit. “They’ve got all the ingredients here somewhere,” Dean says. Sam looks skeptical. “C’mon, Sam, no way these dudes would use a lock when they didn’t have the key.”

The ensuing scavenger hunt takes a few pints of elbow grease, but at least by the end they’re both familiar with the Bunker’s floor plan, document filing system, and inventory records. They find virtually everything in-house, though they do end up driving to the nearest farm stand for some hen’s eggs and rosemary (and heirloom tomatoes, because they look bomb).

Dean christens – or maybe exorcises – the kitchen range with some red meat, and they fuel up with burgers before taking the plunge. Dean’s still licking the ketchup off his fingers when Bones pipes up one last time. “Can I ask you something?” he says.

Dean and Sam brace for impact.

Bones sighs. “That’s not the start of a pickup line. I genuinely have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you so intent on freeing me? You could have just left me down here. I’m not a threat this way. You only have Crowley’s word that you might profit - or suffer - from my release.”

Sam gives Dean a look; it’s the look that says I sure hope you have an answer, because I think this entire thing has been dumb as shit and half as necessary. It’s a look Sam uses pretty regularly.

“Uh. It’s the right thing to do? As far as I can tell, you haven’t hurt anybody or done anything else to deserve being down here. We went through all those records upstairs, and there’s no note that says ‘by the way, that skeleton downstairs eats babies for breakfast.’ This place is cool, but the dudes who built it were obviously shady as fuck.”

“I see.” Bones sounds a little disappointed.

Sam fake-coughs into his hand, and Dean sets down his paper napkin. “Also, you seem cool. Like, you’re easy to hang out with. Other than the stinky one-liners, and we’re gonna wean you off of those.”

Bones straightens himself out a little. “Thank you, Dean. You know, on a scale of one to ten, I’d rate you a nine.”

“Okay, okay. Why not a ten?”

Bones sets his chin on his knuckle bones with a tidy little clack. “Because I’m the one you’re missing.”

Dean groans, but he thinks the guy might be smiling, somewhere behind that skeletal grin.

By hour two, Sam’s pretty tuckered out from pulverizing a billion and three mummified dove livers while reciting nonsense syllables, and Dean’s right arm is about to fall off from holding up this giant silver swizzle stick that’s either a really weird short sword or a decorative javelin, but Bones has never looked perkier. He’s lying on a nice white bedsheet and looking fresh as a recently exhumed daisy.

“Okay,” Sam rasps. “Light the candle and we should be good to go. Any last words, Bones?”

“Are either of you religious?” He crosses his arm bones over each other.

“Fuck no,” Dean answers, before Sam gets a chance to launch into it.

Bones shakes his skull fondly. “You should reconsider. Because you’re the answer to my prayers.”

Dean makes a gagging noise and lights the candle.

What happens next (well, after the cuff pops open) is some of the freakiest shit that Dean has ever seen, and his Freaky CV is pretty fucking impressive, thanks. Bones tells them to avert their eyes, “just in case”, but he takes a peek between his fingers anyway, because he’s an idiot.

For a second Bones is just lying there, and Dean has a second of real disappointment that maybe he’s Moved On Past The Veil or something, but then he starts…foaming. It starts out kind of uniform and colorless, but then it really picks up speed and volume and starts to separate into swaths of distinct and horrible colors and textures. He closes his eyes again for a second to give his stomach a chance to reboot, and when he looks again the foam is gone, and instead there’s a whole lot of angry jelly trying to form into organs.

Just as the jelly is really getting its shit together and looking more like lungs and intestines and stuff, the heart-jelly pulses once and sends out a fistful of big squishy vines…veins? and a fat white worm of nerve scrambles down the spinal column and starts putting out franchises. This is followed by some disturbingly tasty-looking red sheets of muscle that swiftly sheathe over all the whole scene, and then the muscles start sweating out fat and cartilage and this is the point where Dean decides that looking away is actually definitely one hundred percent for the best. Even then, the sounds are tough to handle.

Kinda wild: he’s seen people taken apart, but watching one get put back together is somehow gnarlier. Well, if this guy is even a person. It’s a human skeleton, sure, but god knows even Mickey Rourke has one under there.

Finally everything seems to have quieted down.

“How you doin’ over there, Bones?” Dean asks, and dares to take a peek.

Bones is crouched down in front of them, fists balled up in the bedsheets (it’s a relief that the bedsheets didn’t get accidentally sucked into the muscle layer or something, like one of those surgeons who leaves a sponge behind). Dean sees white guy skin and some dark messy hair and gets the gist of a decent build.

The face slowly cranes upwards, and Dean is really truly ready for anything here; tusks, fangs, Klingon forehead ridges, gingivitis. Instead he gets a faceful of hot math teacher. Bones’s eyes are still closed, but he’s frowning like he’s mentally reviewing his strategy to explain the quadratic equation to a roomful of horny teens.

He slowly rises to standing (yikes! Naked! Dean is a Moderately Bad Man, so he glances, but just long enough to register “nice), uncurling slowly and carefully.

Then he’s all the way up. Bones squares his shoulders and straightens the last kink in his spine, and the frown resolves. Dean’s about to say something, when his eyes snap open, and this cold white light absolutely blasts out of them, and fuck, Crowley wasn’t kidding: this guy is definitely A Thing. The whole room flattens and distorts in the light. Shadows race up the walls like they’re looking for a way out, then snap together into the shape of enormous ragged wings, stretching thirty feet higher than the actual ceiling clearance.

Then the light dies down; the wings fade into regular-grade shadows. Instead of a terrifying unearthly avatar of Oh Shit, Dean’s looking at a buck naked thirty-something math teacher. Who happens to be an unearthly avatar of Oh Shit. And has nice eyes.

“My name is Castiel, angel of the Lord, Seraph of the First Shield,” the avatar says, in a piss-shakingly resonant version of Bones’s voice.

Then: “Do you speak English, Dean?”

“Yes?” Dean fumbles.

“So do I,” says Castiel, and smiles.

Then he makes finger-guns.

Castiel sticks around for a grand total of five minutes before he’s suddenly gone again, because angels are (a) real and they can (b) teleport? at (c) any moment because (d) fuck you, then he reappears six hours later (clothed) standing over Dean’s bed, having apparently forgotten that humans like to sleep; this time Dean does shoot him, but luckily he doesn’t seem to take it personally.

“I located Crowley,” Bo- Castiel says. The silver sword-javelin thing is sitting on the kitchen counter in front of him; apparently it’s an Angel Blade and it lives in Castiel’s coat sleeve and can vaporize demons. It doesn’t look like it has any Crowley on it, but maybe it’s self-cleaning.

“Did you kill him?” Dean asks, now that he’s semi-coherent and wrapped around a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

“Not this time,” Cas answers. “He did help, after all.”

“Sure,” says Dean.

“You don’t need to let me fuck you in the ass, either,” Castiel says, and Dean honks some coffee up the back of his nose.

“Oh,” he gasps. “Okay. Cool. Thanks. Didn’t realize you could hear that convo all the way down there.”

“Angels have excellent hearing. Mine wasn’t impacted by the spell.”

Dean can think of at least three very private moments Castiel almost definitely could hear every instant of, and longs for death. Or maybe not, since apparently this guy lives in Heaven and could hear him there, too. “Great. Good to know. Noted.”

“But…” Castiel looks wistful.

“What?” Dean nudges him. Dean Winchester: angel nudger.

Castiel frowns. “If I said…” he stops himself. “This is…what I want to say is very irregular, at least between angels and humans.”

“Jesus christ on a goddamn pogo stick, man. It’s three in the morning, some of us have a circadian rhythm and a limited lifespan. Say whatever it is you gotta say.”

Castiel looks up and drowns Dean in his swimming pool eyes, which Dean has learned belong to a radio ad salesman in Illinois, who Castiel possessed a few years back before jumping several decades into the past to run some errands and getting rope-a-doped by the Men of Letters and then warehoused in their basement; after they all spontaneously bought the farm, he just slowly ran out of the power reserves needed to keep his vessel from turning to mush and hey presto, talking skeleton.

Classic story, really.

“If I said you had a beautiful body, Dean,” Castiel says, solemnly, “Would you hold it against m-“

Dean doesn’t let him finish. {AO3 version}

#spn fanfic #destiel #deancas #profoundnet #prompt fic

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omercifulheaves · 4 years ago

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Favorite Monsters - The Trioxin Zombies

From: The Return of the Living Dead, written and directed by Dan O'Bannon. You know what's wrong with zombies today? No personality! None of the social commentary of Romero's pitiful revenants. None of the wonderful grottiness of the Italian knock-offs. Nada. Just swarms of snarling, gray monsters that blur together and serve as little more than cannon fodder for our manly man heroes to mow down while they muse "maybe man is, like, the real monster, dude." I try not to be all "Back in my day..." but one can't help but weep at what has become as the genre upon revisiting something like The Return of the Living Dead. Positing a world where Night of the Living Dead was a fictionalized account of what happened when experimental chemical 245-Trioxin stirred up trouble in a local morgue, The Return of the Living Dead -- itself originally intended to be a direct sequel to Night based on a novel by Night’s co-writer John Russo until Alien screen writer Dan O'Bannon came on the project and threw out everything except the title so as not to step on George Romero's toes -- continues with that screwy meta-approach through out, especially when it comes to how it handles the film's undead hordes.

Think removing the head or destroying the brain will put them down for good? Not hardly, seems like nothing short of burning them ashes will put down these revenants for good and that itself comes with its own host of problems. (A throughline in Return’s dark humor is built around how any attempt to fix things just makes the situation several magnitudes worse.) Used to seeing zombies being these slow, unintelligent shamblers? Not these ghouls. They speak, they're fast, they're agile, they're aggressive and they're smart enough to set ambushes and will even use police and ambulance radios to order some zombie take out. Early on a character in the film asks "YOU MEAN THE MOVIE LIED!?" when burying a pick axe into a zombie's brain just leaves you with a squirming cadaver stuck to the floor and that phrase seems to be the entire ethos the film operates under. And yet, as much as Return's zombies deviate from the Romero model, like all good send ups and deconstructions, there's an greater understanding of the material they're thumbing their nose at than you'll find in a million straight faced knock-offs. Like Night, Return is a movie about how Alpha Male posturing means jack and spit (and as the man said, Jack just left town), having good intentions and being young pretty and in love won't save you from a horrifying fate, and boy oh boy, are the Proper Authorities Not Your Friends. This extends to the zombies themselves. Something that I feel has been lost in a lot of zombie fiction today, as it's been slowly taken over by meat headed survivalist fantasies is there was always an underlying amount of pity to how Romero's work viewed the zombies. They're dangerous yes but there's clearly something sadly pathetic about them. The human machine has broken down and fallen apart. You can see a similar thing here. While more feral, Return's zombies are just as pitiable as a captured one reveals that they're little more than amped up junkies, needing to feed on the brains of the living to temporarily stave off the pain of their existence. These things didn't ask to be returned to some mockery of life by some idiots who tried to cover up a mistake rather than own up to what happened and now everybody's going to suffer for it. But none of this would work as well as it does if the zombie make up and effects weren't up to snuff. Designed by comic artist William Stout, we've got an undead horde that looks like it could have walked out of the pages of an EC horror comic. (Honestly, Return's aesthetic is more true to EC Comic's than some official EC comic adaptations. See also: Romero's Creepshow.) There's civil war soldier zombies, half-an-old-lady zombies, midget zombies, punk Linnea Quigley zombies, zombies that look like they walked out of a bog, walking skeletons, and of course, the piece de resistance, the Tar Man, a pile of walking sludge and bones that leaves you wondering what holds that thing together. There's a bit late in the movie where somebody knocks its head clean off with the baseball bat and it lets out a confused roar *even though it doesn't have a head* as it flails about. It's pretty funny. There were a bunch of sequels to Return of the Living Dead. Other than Return of the Living Dead 3, which was really more of a rejiggered Re-Animator sequel, they're all pretty bad. Watch this one.

#favorite monsters #zombies #the return of the living dead #dan o'bannon

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skzsauce01 · 5 years ago

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Cold, White

Synopsis: While competing in a QR code treasure hunt event at your friend’s Halloween party, an unexpected companion gives you a little company.

A districtninewriters event.

Warning: slight sexual harassment, mentions of creepy-ish props

Word Count: 2.5k

Pairing: gn!reader x exbf!Seo Changbin

Genre: fluff, college party au

Read intro here. Return with the “pink Among Us astronaut” link

But which one?

After a few moments, you spotted two vampires talking softly to each other. It shouldn’t be too hard to strike up a conversation with them, you decided and began walking over. Halfway there though, you turned around, feeling someone or something staring at you back. However, you didn’t spot anything, and turned back around to head towards your destination, all the while still feeling like you had eyes glued to your back.

“Hi,” you greeted, walking up to the vampires. “I’m Y/N. How are you two doing tonight?”

They turned to you, and you immediately regretted choosing them to walk up to.

“Oh, a little skeleton,” one of them smirked, looking you up and down. You crossed your arms over your chest, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

The other one slung his arm around your waist and leaned in far too close. “Can I get you something to drink, Lil Boo?”

Oh, you did not skip studying for this. “Actually, I’m going to--”

Out of nowhere, the lights turned off. There were a few screams, but none as loud as the one in your heart when the vampire used the darkness as a chance to slide his hand down to other areas. You tried stepping away, but his grip was strong, so you just squeezed your eyes shut and hoped the moment would pass quickly.

Before he got all the way down, however, you heard a loud crack and felt his hand flying off of you as he tumbled a few feet backwards.

“What on earth, man?” he cursed, and you were suddenly aware of a new presence beside you.

The newcomer made a weird noise as if he was breathing through a machine and turned towards you. He offered you a hand, and when you tentatively put yours into it, he dragged you away, leaving behind the vampires.

“Thanks,” you gasped once he finally stopped at a faraway corner.

He placed one hand on his hip and used the other to rub the back of his… head? It was much too big to be a human head, you decided. Was he wearing some sort of mask? It was hard to see in the dark, but he sensed your curiosity and leaned forward for you to take a better look. You reached for it slowly, and when he didn’t resist, you placed your hands onto his costume. The majority of it was warm and fabric-y except for where your thumbs landed. There, it was cold and possibly white like a one-way glass. A visor of some sort, you decided, and tried to push it up to see his face.

As soon as you do, however, he jerked back and quickly shut the glass back down.

“S-sorry,” you stuttered out.

He seemed too distracted to respond to your apology. You turned to see what he was looking at and saw smoke rising from BamBam’s mezzanine. Was there a fire? No, the kitchen is to your right. Before you could question any further, the lights came back on, but only on the second floor, casting a spotlight over your best friend who stepped grandly out of the smoke.

“Good evening, ghouls and fools, snitches and witches!” his voice boomed. “Are you ready for tonight’s main event?”

Ah, that’s right. The reason why BamBam’s parties were so popular was because there was always a special kick to them, be it a go cart race or a game of Running Man. This must be why the lights are off, you realized.

“Around the house, I have hidden a QR code on each floor of the house. Each one will give you a couple of words which when unscrambled will give you the name of the item. The person who makes it to the backyard gazebo first with their item first wins,” he explained. “Each code is locked by their own minigame which you have to complete to access, but of course, your efforts will not be without reward.” There were a few ooh’s at that announcement. “Whoever brings me their time first wins… two tickets to the Caribbeans!”

Your ears perked up at that; maybe you were glad to have skipped studying after all. The Caribbeans! You’d heard many good things about that vacation spot and had always wanted to go with someone special. Someone special. You looked sadly down at your hand that felt oddly empty without a familiar warmth around it.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go!” prompted BamBam.

Around you, footsteps of partygoers dispersed in a frenzy and excited squeals filled the air. You looked around, surprised to see the masked man still standing beside you.

“Are you going to participate?” you asked.

Instead of answering, he pointed at you.

“Me? Yeah, I guess I am.”

He seemed to perk up at your answer and shyly tugged on your sleeve.

“Do you want to come with me?” you guessed.

He nods.

“Alright, but if you win, you’ve gotta give me one of those tickets,” you joked, but to your surprise, he agreed to your condition readily.

The first minigame was not hard to find since there was a crowd around it. It was a simple ring toss game where you had to throw pumpkin shaped hoops onto brooms labeled with different point values until you reached 100.

The task proved to be more difficult than anticipated, but you were making considerable progress compared to others because your pink friend ran back and forths, picking up your rings for you.

At last, you got to a hundred, and the gamemaster revealed the code to you. You scanned it with your phone and read the clue.

친. (Chin)

Satisfied, you looked up, expecting to see the astronaut throwing his rings. Instead, you found him waiting for you just around the corner.

“You aren’t participating?” you asked, walking up to him.

Again, instead of answering, he pulled you by the sleeve to the next floor. By the pep in his step, you could imagine him smiling behind that cold white mask, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he knew something you didn’t.

You nearly laughed when you saw what challenge awaited you on the next floor. The room was decorated to the top with zombies and blood, but at the center of it all was a wizard stirring a pot labeled “love potion.”

“Who dares step foot into my lair?” hissed the sorcerer with an accent that was too over the top even for his character.

“Just tell us what the mission is, Felix.” You shook your head with a smile. You knew Felix through your ex-boyfriend, and you stayed in touch even after whom you thought was your soulmate left you for college.

Felix faltered for a moment from you calling him out, but quickly recomposed himself. “Very well, brave one. Your next mission is to prove that my potion works.”

You raised a brow. “How?”

“By drinking it, of course. And then--” he smirked in a way that set off alarms in your system-- “kiss me.”

“Oh, come on. What are we, twelve?” you scoffed at the reverse kissing booth challenge. Still, you crossed your arms and stepped over plastic bones and foam eyeballs to make your way over to him.

When you were about halfway, you noticed Felix’s smirk suddenly growing wider and questioned why. Your curiosity was soon satisfied, however, when the pink astronaut suddenly overtook you with large strides and beat you to the cauldron.

“Hey!” you complained, but your words fell on deaf ears.

The pink man kept his face turned away from you as he flipped up his cold white visor and downed the potion. It must have tasted horrible since this was a challenge after all, but he didn’t miss a beat slamming the now-empty vial on an adjacent table and planting a smooch squarely on Felix’s green face. He then flipped his visor back down and gestured at your phone.

“Me? Scan?” you frowned. “But you--”

Growing impatient, he took the phone from you and scanned Felix’s code. He then stuffed the device back into your hands and dragged you up the next flight of stairs.

You questioned his sudden change in demeanor but kept it to yourself. Instead, you looked at the next clue.

자. (Ja)

As soon as you arrived on the third floor, you immediately decided that its minigame was the hardest. Your eye twitched, not that anyone could see it doing so since the floor was completely blacked out. The only thing you could see was some glow-in-the-dark thread, and you were supposed to thread it through a normal, matte needle.

“This can’t be possible,” you deadpanned.

The gamemaster, someone you couldn’t see but very much wanted to give a piece of your mind, “wooooo’ed” unhelpfully at your misery.

Your eyes struggled to switch between the different light levels, making your whole body tense up and your hand to shake. You let out a frustrated grunt after your nth attempt. By then, other competitors also entered the room, making you nervous and even more shaky.

As you were about to hang your head in surrender, you saw a pink glove clasping over your hand and steadying it. The touch sent a familiar sense of electricity up your spine, but you ignored it in favor of the task at hand. Together, you finally got the thread through after five tries.

“Yes!” you celebrated, startling a few other competitors around you.

The gamemaster handed you a slip of paper with the code on it, and your new friend led you to the exit by hand. When you realized that his hand hadn’t let go of yours since the game, a blush crept over your cheeks. You cleared your throat twice to push down the heat, but it seemed the astronaut took it the wrong way and immediately dropped it and looked at you with worry.

“It’s fine,” you shook your head when he started bowing. “I, uh, I just had something in my throat. I should thank you, actually, for helping me back there… and for all the times before that too.”

He stared at you for a few moments, looking down as he was a few steps above you on the staircase, and you couldn’t help but wonder again what he was hiding behind that cold white mask. Just as you were about to reach forward again, however, he turned back around and resumed climbing the stairs.

The last minigame was on the roof. There, a sign greeted you, telling you that multiple QR codes are hidden around the place, and that you had to find one of the many to complete your word hunt.

You looked at the code you received from the thread game. 구 (gu), it read. What could the last hint be?

You and your pink friend looked and looked, but struggled to find anything. BamBam sure didn’t make things easy for you, did he, you scoffed dryly, looking at all the pools of slime and hollowed out pumpkins where the code could be hiding.

It didn’t help that it was particularly cold that night and that you were on the roof of a three story house. As you shuffled around some prop mummy’s linen for the code, you felt a chill run up your body.

The astronaut must have been at least ten broomsticks away, but as soon you shivered, you heard him walking right up to you.

“Hey. Did you find it?” you asked, not grasping why he was here.

He shook his head and rubbed his hands up and down his upper arms before pointing at you.

“Me? Yeah, I guess it’s a little cold, but I’m okay. Let’s just find this thing quickly and head back down.”

You turned back to your mummy, but your new friend didn’t move. Despite wanting to keep you warm, he realized he wasn’t equipped with a jacket to give you.

Finding nothing in the mummy, you moved on to the next coffin, oblivious to the man’s distress behind you, and patted down a plastic vampire for any goods. As you were distracted, you didn’t realize a figure looming over you from behind. By the time you noticed the shadow being casted over you, it was too late to avoid--

“Wha--”

-- the hug.

The pink astronaut, unable to come up with any other solutions, decided to share his body heat with you. It warmed you up alright, but you weren’t sure if it was because of him or the fire that ignited on your cheeks.

“H-how are we supposed to search like this?” you stuttered.

He thought for a minute before waddling side to side to show you how you could walk.

You chuckled at his antics. “This isn’t going to--”

And then you saw it. Right there. Stuck on his arm. The last QR code.

“You found it!” you exclaimed, surprising him with how quickly you whipped out your phone and took a picture of the code. “You must have brushed up against it when you were looking around.

This time, you grabbed his hand and made your way downstairs to the backyard as the scanning process loaded on your phone. Once there, you looked at your last clue.

“남(nam),” you read aloud now that no competitors were around you. “친. 자. 구 . 남.” The words were scrambled, so you read them out a few more times until the realization hit you.

Your eyes widened. “남자 친구(namja chingu). Boyfriend. But I don’t--”

And then you looked up at the pink astronaut. He stared back at you, unmovingly, and your hands gravitated to his visor again. This time, he didn’t stop you, so you pushed the cold, white glass up to reveal the warmest smile you’ve ever seen.

“Changbin…” you breathed, recognizing him right away.

“Y/N, I know no amount of apologies can ever atone for me leaving you, but I’d do anything for you to take me baaaaaaa-aack!”

Without even hearing the rest of it, you dragged him to the balcony where BamBam was waiting.

“I got it!” you shout at your friend. “The item! I’ve got it right here!”

BamBam looked amused. “This is your boyfriend, Y/N?”

“Yes,” you said without missing a beat. Both the boys jumped a little in surprise at your eagerness.

“Alright then,” chuckled your best friend into a microphone. “We have a winner!”

You could hear groans coming from the house as gold confetti rained down from the gazebo. BamBam handed you the tickets and shot you a wink before making himself scarce. You gleamed at the prize until you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“Y/N-- oof!”

You attacked Changbin with a hug and wrapped your arms around him, frowning when you noticed he lost weight. “You’re back…”

After overcoming his shock, he returned the hug and patted you on the head. “I’m sorry I left you.”

You shook your head against him. “No, don’t be. You were chasing your dreams. What kind of person would I be if I held you back just because of our relationship?”

“But I hurt you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did, so--” You pulled your face away from his body to look him in the eyes-- “make it up to me at the Caribbeans?”

Another loving smile spread across his face as he cupped yours with his hand. “I will, but be warned: I’m never letting you go again after that.”

You laughed together. “Ooh, spooky.”

~ ad.gold

#Changbin #stray kids changbin #districtninewriters #halloween event #stray kids #skz #seo changbin #stray kids fic #skz fic #changbin fluff #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #changbin fic #gender neutral reader #20201030

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fgooooooo · 5 years ago

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HALLOWEEN TWST AU

Because I can't draw right now. I'll just ramble about the Halloween au I have going on.

Okay so

The Ramshackle Hotel is a very hidden far away place where only few can find it. Despite it's mysterious location, it's very popular among the internet. Some blow it off as fake, others believe that it's real.

The only way to get invited is within the month of October, the month of Halloween. The one day where monsters can roam among humans freely without any worry. If you're lucky, you might see the eyes of a certain mad scientist or a regal vampire, and maybe even a headless horseman!

The viewer/reader one day go out on Halloween, only to end up at a mysterious hotel. It's nothing like they've seen before. There's nothing around them and the signs talk about a cool event going on. They go inside and open the doors.

Bright white lights flood their vision as they are greeted with luxurious decor. A chandelier brimming with thousands of sparkles and a variety of colors shining through.

"Welcome! Welcome dear customer! You finally came!"

----------

It's a hotel for monsters basically, with a small exception for humans. In this AU, Crowley would be the owner and maybe Mc/Yuu as the manager and grim as their assistant? The residents would be the students.

Crowley made a hotel as a safe haven for monsters who had no where to go back in the old ages. Where humans were cruel and went on killing sprees to wipe them all out. Around the hotel is a very powerful magical barrier intended to make the hotel invisible to others.

The hotel is also always expanding itself for new occupants! The rooms are endless and the size is endless so I would say each room is like a house.

Some residents even have businesses here like Azul and his Lounge / deals, Trey and his baked goods or even Idia and his super high tech! (Though for Idia it's more of an off/on thing)

There are many events throughout the month! From movie watching to a museum on the history of monsters to skiing even!!!! There's a lot that can be done.

------------

I still have some trouble on what to make the other students as.

Trey

Cater

Jamil

Kalim

Ruggie

Leona

Pomefiore

Malleus (I would make him more dragon than fae maybe?)

Lilia (maybe another vampire but I'd feel it might be boring)

Idia and Ortho as ghosts? / grim reaper / psychopomps

Silver (maybe as those human weapons in soul eater? So he would be a silver bullet? 👀)

Etc...

There's also skeletons and ghouls (like Tokyo ghoul style) but again, I'm not sure who.

Ideas would be appreciated I guess!!!

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst wonderland #disney twst #halloween twst #twst halloween

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descendantofthesparrow · 6 years ago

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Harry Hook x Skellington!Reader - Boys and girls of every age

@sweetweasleygirl

Idea for a very special Harry x reader Halloween oneshot : Reader is daughter of Jack Skellington and Sally(from a Nightmare Before Christmas), and she and Harry are datng since a month. Reader is a Halloween freaking lover and this year, she decided to show Harry what is Halloween holiday. In the end of the oneshot ,Harry became the biggest Halloween holiday fanboy ever, and he decided he and reader needs to wear couple costumes every year XD

WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO SEE SOMETHING STRANGE?

Halloween, your favorite night of the year, the night where you could scare to your heart's delight and eat all the candy you earned.

It would also be the first Halloween you would spend with your boyfriend, harry hook.

And boy were you excited! You would show him EVERYTHING, from the pumpkins to the candy. From the trick or treating to the haunted mazes, from the ghouls under the bed to the shadow on the moon.

Everything.

Including your Halloween family. You see, harry thought you were simply someone who loved spooky and scary stuff, who loved to dress up in skeleton style clothes, and loved to scare others.

Yeah…

You kinda nervous as well, you see, you had a human appearance just like everyone else, except…every Halloween, from sundown to sunrise, you would take on your father's appearance.

Oh, you were the daughter of Jack Skellington.

Yeah…that was something interesting about you huh? Harry doesn’t know, and you-yes you the daughter of the king of scares-was scared of how he would react to your Halloween form.

A skeleton, thin and gangly, that struck horror into those who saw you.

And you were terrified that harry would fear you and leave.

Sighing, you glanced at the clock, squeaking as it read 5:00 pm, “shit!” you yelped, standing from your vanity and shoving on your jacket, pulling up the hood and grabbing your bag full of planes.

Plans for if harry decided to stay by your side tonight, plans for scares for the people of Auradon.

“bye daddy!” you yelled as you passed your tall and thin father, he laughed waving you goodbye

“see you tomorrow my little nightmare, have fun!”

“I will!”

You sat on the stair rails, sliding down and almost bumping into your mother. “oh, heading out now sweetie?”

“yeah! I said I would meet harry at 5!”

“Okay, love you, stay safe~! Say hi to harry for me!”

“yep!”

You bolted out of the house, rushing past the werewolf, the sea monster, the witches, lock shock and barrel, the musicians, and the mayor

“Hi mayor bye mayor!”

“hello (y/n)! have you got the plans for tonight's hallow-wait where are you going!? (y/n)?!”

You ran out of Halloween town, reaching the forest and quickly opening the pumpkin door, closing your eyes, imagining the Auradon forest opening, and stepping through.

A feeling of falling and you opened your eyes, stepping onto the leaf-covered ground, closing the door behind you and running forward, leaves crushing below you.

“(y/n)!” you grinned, skidding to a stop and beaming at the handsome bot before you.

“Harry!” you laughed, running and leaping into his arms, harry spinning you around before putting your down. “you came!”

“of course I did” harry hummed, nuzzling into your hair “why wouldn’t I take the chance the be with yeh?”

You snorted, pulling back, glancing at the sun, it was just starting to set, you had maybe 10 minutes before you turned.

You had to tell him...

…

But he was so warm! Fun fact, you hated the cold, you loved fall and winter, but you HATED the cold.

So harry had become your personal heater.

“because I keep doing this” you tightened your grip on him, burning your self into his chest and digging your head under his chin.

“oof, well” harry laughed, rubbing your back “I don’t mind love”

You held onto him for a good minute, before Harry spoke up again.

“so what are we doing tonight? Yeh said you had something teh show me?”

You let out a shaky breath, pulling back and glancing at the sun.

It was setting.

You had only two minutes.

“Okay, so remember when you said you wanted to meet my parents?”

Harry nodded, raising his brow “aye?”

“we-well, I needed to show you something else before that, and please please-“ the sun was setting “please don’t leave me”

“(y/n)?” harry furrowed his brows, reaching out to you, you backed away, noticing the shadows, reaching towards you. “what's wrong why are you-“

“Please don’t be sacred” you pleaded, closing your eyes, letting the shadows consume you as the sun set.

You heard harry step back, gasping as your hand's skin shadowed away and bones took its place.

Darkness bleeds away as you looked up, harry staring shocked and jumped slightly as he saw your face.

“yeh-whoa” harry breathed, but he…didnt seems to be scared? “that-is-so fucking cool!” harry beamed, walking up to you and brushing his fingers over your cheekbones.

“How did yeh do that?!”

You breathed a sigh of relief, letting him play with your fingers. “my dad, is the pumpkin king, Jack Skellington, every Halloween as the sun sets I take this form”

“that’s cool” harry giggled, biting his lip as he continued to play with your hands “you said you were gonna introduce me to them?”

You nodded “yes, but first!” you stepped back, swinging your bag off your shoulder and walking over to a flat stump, taking out your blueprints “let's do some work!”

Harry tilted his head as he read the writings and glanced over the drawing the doodles.

“wow? All yer ideas?” Harry asked, sitting down on the ground next to you. You nodded, leaning on his shoulder and pointing to a particular plan.

“yep! Dad assigned me Auradon this year, and I was wondering if you wanted to help!? This one's for Mal and her friends” harry grinned like a bobcat, reading the one you were pointing at particularly.

“I love it, im in”

---

COME WITH US AND YOU WILL SEE

Harry cackled as you high fived the headless horseman “thanks dude, have a good night!” the horse nickered, letting you pat his neck as the horseman nodded, turning his horse and trotting away.

“oh, my god lass! That was amazing!? What else is there?!”

You cackled, brining out your bullet journal, brushing your finger down the list.

“up next is dizzy, Celia, the smee twins, and Harriet hook, your sister, they are trick or treating right now, ready to scare my pirate~”

Harry grinned, tossing his arm around your boney shoulder.

“aye, my Halloween queen! let's go scare the shit out of my sister!”

THIS OUR TOWN OF HALLOWEEN

Fog, circles around Harriet and the younger vks, skipper and sterling, clinging to her jacket, shaking as they kept hearing footsteps echo around them.

Dizzy and Celia, clung to each other yelping as a figure appeared in the fog. “h-Harriet?! What is tha-HAAAAAAH!”

You jumped from the mist, a red iris gleaming as you cracked open your mouth, leaning over the screaming girls, Harriet squealing and leaping back, falling as the twins made her topple over.

“RAHHHHH”

Harry cackled as you stood still, the two young girls crying, Harriet shaking, and the twins whimpering.

He sighed, stepping from the shadows.

“Alright, that’s enough, yeh are all fine, its just (y/n)”

The twins bolted up, running into his arms and sobbing into his jacket, Harry frowned, kneeling down and hugging the boys close.

“Hey hey, it's okay, nothings hurting you, it was just (y/n), she was just scaring you”

“holy shit that’s (y/n)?!” Harriet blanched, staring shocked at the snickering skeleton. (y/n) waved and nodded

“yeah, sorry bout that, part of my job”

Celia released dizzy, starting to grin as she walked up to you, “wow, that’s cool, how’d you do that?” you made a happy noise, letting Celia touch your face.

“just something I can do each halloween~”

“cool~!”

Harriet sighed “alright, come on, pixie said you guys had to be back no later than 10:30, let's go” Celia frowned but obeyed, waving you goodbye.

“that was amazing love, what's next” harry was giddy, shaking with excitement, he never thought Halloween would be this fun.

You hummed, taking the plans out once more and glancing at them before you chuckled darkly.

“James Hook”

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

Harry watched as his father screamed in fear as dark shadows circled around him, the ticking of multiple clocks surrounded him.

“tick-tock james~” harry shivered, your voice was dripping with sadistic glee “the fear you’ve put on one, ten folded before you~”

James collapsed to the floor, covering his ears and screaming into the dark.

You materialized out of the shadows, your pale white skull stark against the dark. James' eyes widened, and he scrambled away.

“gri-grim reaper! Stay away!”

Smoke gathered around his father and girlfriend, chocking his father.

“goodnight James”

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

As always Halloween had to end, so you decided to call it a night and bring harry with you back home.

Harry sighed, yawning slightly as you led him through the woods, hands clasped tightly.

“where are we going, lass?”

“to meet my parents, and my home”

Harry raised his brow as you arrived to a circle of trees, watching as you walked up to the pumpkin door and open it, gesturing for him to step inside, your empty skull sockets staring oddly warmly at him.

“Welcome to Halloween town harry”

Harry stepped threw, feeling a shiver down his spine as a path appeared to lead to a town.

Seeing a scarecrow with a pumpkin on it, fallen leaves whirling with the wind, Harry looked behind him, noticing you stepping up behind him, grabbing onto his hand, your face still the skull.

Boys and girls of every age

Wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Ghosts whispered around him, shadows on tombs, fear creeping up on his spine as he took in the world around him.

Come with us and you will see

This, our town of Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

Harry jumped as the pumpkins were impaled, dropping from seemingly nowhere. You giggled, gripping your free hand onto his arm, anchoring him.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene

Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream

In this town of Halloween

I am the one hiding under your bed

Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red

Harry stepped behind you, holding your shoulders tightly as you lead him through town

I am the one hiding under your stairs

Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair

Harry sidestepped a snake, squeaking slightly as gleaming eyes looked at him from the dark shadows.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

In this town, we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

Harry eyed the four vampires wearily, his grip on your shoulders tightening.

He jumped at a sudden loud voice.

In this town, don't we love it now?

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

'Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can

Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll

Scream!

Harry yelped, causing you to turn around and wrap your arms around him, pulling him away from the werewolf and sewer slime monster

This is Halloween

Red 'n' black, and slimy green

Aren't you scared?

Well, that's just fine

Say it once, say it twice

Take a chance and roll the dice

Ride with the moon in the dead of night

The two witches barreled over harry, one trying to grab his coat lapel before you smacked her, glaring as they cackled away.

Everybody scream, everybody scream

In our town of Halloween!

Harry paled as the clown circled around the corner, ripping off its face

I am the clown with the tear-away face

Here in a flash and gone without a trace

I am the "who" when you call, "Who's there?"

A shadow ripped by harry, making him jump and turn, to see no one there, you sighed, the townspeople were just having a blast scaring Harry, weren’t they?

I am the wind blowing through your hair

Harry shivered as his hat was tossed from his head, scrambling to pick it up before you grabbed it and put it back on him before grabbing his hand and leading him toward the town center

I am the shadow on the moon at night

Filling your dreams to the brim with fright

Harry eyed the moon wearily, recognizing the shadow that danced on it for a second

“was that Oogie?”

You turned surprised “you know who that is?”

“aye, he was on the isle?”

“oh”

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

Halloween! Halloween!

Tender lumplings everywhere

Life's no fun without a good scare

Harry jumped as two corpses appeared behind him, pushing you and harry forward to the foundation.

Harry gripped your hand tightly, stepping closer to you.

That's our job, but we're not mean

In our town of Halloween

In this town!

Don't we love it now?

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

Harry blinked as a huge man with an axe buried in the back of his head brought in the scarecrow from earlier was brought in on the back of a wooden horse. You grinned, bringing harry forward, you couldn’t wait for your dad to meet him.

Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back

And scream like a banshee

Make you jump out of your skin

This is Halloween, everybody scream

Won't ya please make way for a very special guy

Your mom stepped out from the shadows, glancing at you and harry, gasping happily as you nodded at her when she pointed at harry and mouthed ‘harry?’

Our man Jack is King of the Pumpkin patch

Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King, now!

Harry gasped as the scarecrow came to life and grabbed a torch, lighting itself on fire and dancing on the horse.

“lass are yeh seeing this?” you giggled at his awed but fearful tone, the one everyone made when around your dad.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

Harry leaned forward to the fountain as your father leaped into it, his mouth slightly open in curiosity

Corpse kid and mummy kid leaned over the water, singing lightly

In this town, we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

You cackled as your father emerged from the water gloriously, hands crossed against his chest, gazing at the sky

La la la la la la la la la la (Halloween! Halloween!)

You blew a wolf whistle, harry turning and seeing your dark cold brushed cheeks and bright (e/c) eyes once more. “lass yer back?” you giggled and nodded

“Halloween ended! So yep!”

Harry tossed his arm over your shoulder as the town clapped and cheered, another Halloween over and done!

Your father caught your eye and smiled as you pointed to harry, nodding.

“everyone! I would like to make an announcement!”

The town settled, you gripping Harry's hand and bringing him forward

“as you all know, my daughter was assigned to scare the united states of auradon tonight, and one important detail was, her boyfriend is a resident there! So may I please welcome and introduce?”

You grinned, leading harry front and center, your father towering over the two of you

“Harry!”

“Harry!” your father echoed, placing a boney but gentle hand on yours and Harry's shoulder. Harry looked up at him, oddly not feeling afraid but safe, knowing that the “king of Halloween” had welcomed him so easily.

“oh (y/n)! you’ve got your self a pretty one there!”

Harry twisted back around seeing one of the witches grinning devilishly at him, harry swallowed harshly, stepping slightly behind you.

“he looks delicious (y/n)!”

“so yummy! Can we have a piece!?”

Your smile dropped, glaring at the witches

“haha! He looks like he could drop any second!” the Harlequin Demon cackled

The melting man reached out to harry before your mother stepped in and slapped the hand away

“how dare you? (y/n) brought him here to meet you all, and you all act like this? You should be ashamed of yourselves, go!”

The residents huffed, turning and retreating to their homes for a night's rest.

You breathed a sigh of relief, falling back into harry as he also relaxed.

“Thanks mama” you hummed, smiling as she brushed a strand of your (h/c) hair away from your face.

“no problem my little fright, they don’t have any sense of personal space.”

“well” your father boomed, leaning down to your hights and smiling “I think its time we properly introduced ourselves, im jack Skellington, (y/n)s father” harry shook the bone mans hands, smiling slightly

“nice teh meet cha jack”

Your mother jumped to hug harry, which he winced at but accepted “and im sally, (y/n)s mom! I've heard all about you! Thank you for making my daughter so happy!”

“um” Harry mumbled, glancing at you from beneath his eyelashes, blushing slightly “yer welcome”

“now!” your mother released harry, clapping her hands together, “(y/n) has told me what you can and cannot eat, so I prepared, and had (y/n) grab things from your world, to eat dinner here! And don’t worry (y/n), there is nothing that will make him lose his appetite.”

You groaned, smiling “thanks mom”

Harry nodded “I could eat”

“Perfect!”

PUMPKINS SCREAM IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

Harry yawned as you walked through the dorms, the sun rising through the windows, luckily tomorrow was a day off for the students.

“that was amazing lass, we have to do that again next year, and oh! What about matching costumes!!?” you grinned, so happy that harry now shared your love for Halloween.

You couldn’t wait to show him your plans for next year

After all, it was only 364 days till next halloween~

--the end--

#descendants #Descendents #disney descendants #harry hook #harry hook descendants #harry hook x reader #harry hook imagine #nightmare before christmas #Halloween

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tarithenurse · 6 years ago

Text

Cookies and Chaos - Halloween Challenge

Pairing: Loki x reader Prompt: 10 - “Okay, who’s raising the dead when I’m trying to sleep.” Contents: Quoted lyrics from James Brown’s “I feel good”, maybe some swearing, angst and panic, sweet and fluffy compensation, hints at smut. A/N: I’m not an expert on Halloween because it’s relatively new in the country I live in. Also I don’t bake because…the results are frankly disastrous. Still I hope this little treat is okay ;) Thanks to Devilbat for creating a challenge with fun prompts!

Cookies and Chaos

Bustling around in the kitchen with the earplugs delivering your favourite tunes, it’s hard to keep the pessimism up. The scents of pumpkin cookies is starting to spread through the Tower’s shared kitchen as a sweet compensation for the creepy decorations Loki full-heartedly has adopted the use of – the entire holiday is perfectly suited for the god’s esthetic. Perfect, the time of year and doubly so Asgardian. Loathe as you might be to admit it, a huge motivation for your efforts today are fueled by him and an irrational craving for his approval and…well why think of his love when it’s out of reach?

*Woah!* The next song starts with a cheer that makes your hips swing. Oh yeah, you feel good. Brushing with milk and lemon. *Like sugar and spice* Sprinkles of cinnamon sugar. The “wizard hats” are ready to go into the oven with a promise of chocolate-oozing perfection.

You gather the dirty utensils, each item plonking into the sink on time with the beat as it fills with hot water. Soap bubbles dance on the surface, and you mimic them through the room to make sure nothing’s forgotten.

*And when I hold you –* James Brown croons and you join, “- in my aaaarms, my love can’t do me no ha-arm –“ The dish brush is a perfect mic as you and Mister Brown have a private kitchen-party. “And I feeeeeel ni-ice –“ You twirl joyfully.

You twirl joyfully straight into the hard chest of Loki.

Shit! You were supposed to have kept quiet, the guy’d been called in last minute by Strange for something and you’d promised yourself to let him sleep in after getting back at 7AM. Glancing up at his face with the perfectly sharp cheekbones, you can see how annoyed he is.

Cool hands reach out and pluck the music from your ears. “I woke up to a ruckus, little mortal, and I thought to myself…’Who is raising the dead when I’m trying to sleep?’”

Partially ashamed of having been singing out loud, but mostly pissed at his belittling comment on the quality, you ignore the voice in the back of the head which tells you to be meek. God or not, don’t come and insult me on my singing. Not that it is good, but it’s one of the things that brings you joy and makes you feel normal.

“Well, I’m sorry, bud!” You poke his chest with a bubbled finger (only then realizing the man is shirtless). “But I happen to be enjoying some baking time while singing. There are no death rituals or ghouls or whatever here…just delicious treats.”

An eyebrow arches and his calculative gaze takes in you and the surroundings. Oh damn. A smirk, dangerous and tantalizing, forms to show those perfect teeth and you know you’ve gone much too far. If only you could go back, but it’s too late now.

“Is that so?” he purrs, “the sounds I heard could be the wails of the souls eternally trapped in damnation…however a real summoning ritual would be much…much…different.”

With a snap of the fingers, the light leaves the room even though it’s the middle of the day and plunges the place into an unnatural darkness only broken by an acid-green glow from Loki’s hands. What? Is he for real?? A pattern appears on the floor as he motions with a sweep for you to stay still, and you do because you’re much too nervous to step on the glowing runes. Suddenly you recall how Thor once talked about Hela, the goddess of death, being their sister. Tony’s gonna kill me.

“You mortals have always been obsessed with death. With what lies beyond life,” the god hisses into your ear, raising the hairs on your body, “You do not fathom the true power of necromancy.” Deep-purple, translucent blobs are rising from the floor. “A few have been close to harness it but we, your gods, know the secrets.” Each blob is a skull that grins at you with empty eye sockets and clicking jaws and you know Loki has lost his mind and gone back to his old ways again. “The living do not control the dead…the dead tolerates the mortals.”

Step by step, you back away from the menacing god and the skeletons reaching for you with the boney hands. Poisonous colours flicker like demonic fire meant to melt the flesh from your bones, the heat already too much. But Loki advanced. Tall. Powerful. Dangerous.

“No…” It’s just a whimper leaving your lips. “Y-you can’t…you’re not a necro-“

“Necromancer? Perhaps not,” he grins menacingly, “but do not forget who my sister is or the purpose I had when I first came to this measly, little planet.”

There’s a gleam in his eyes you’ve never seen before in real life…but now it’s clear. The footage from Stuttgard. The madness is the same and it’s a craze that cannot be reasoned with, forcing you to turn to flee…right into Loki’s open arms. Thrashing in gut-freezing panic, your heart threatens to stop as his grip tightens around you and every thought in your mind is crushed with the exception of one: I just wanted him to make him happy.

Laughter withers, overgrown by soft murmurs – your name, apologies – and the embrace is no longer aggressively possessive but rather a gentle rocking interspersed by soothing strokes. Gone is the darkness along with the unnatural fire and the skeletons that had seemed to lust for your soul or…or…

“Shhh, my dove, shhh,” Loki kisses the words against the top of your head, “I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you so, please forgive me.” He’s cradling you, sat on the floor with you in his lap. “I beg, do not cry…I love your smile and your voice…I love your wits and companionship…please forgive me.”

The words tremble, causing your to quiet down with surprise at the realization that you’ve never heard him sound so broken before. This is not a trick. No, Loki apparently does care deeply about your wellbeing, that he can see the error in his ways, and the normally sharp-tongued god is searching for a way to say that…

“With my life I will protect you and shield you from harm…I love you.”

What? The world stops along with your heart and breathing. Too afraid to believe it’s true, you force yourself to find his gaze and be swept into the whirl of pain, fear, hope, truth. Love. Nose to nose, forehead to forehead, his sincerity permeates the air you breath and seeps into your lungs, diffuses into your body to change away every lingering grain from the living nightmare he’d conjured, leaving behind a warmth that stands in contrast to the cool chest you’re pressed against. Reaching for his jaw with a trembling hand, you act without thinking and kiss him. Slow at first and so light that lips barely meet, but then you feel the response shudder his body and the press deepens to allow Loki’s tongue taste the seem before delving past your lips. Tasting. Exploring.

Allowing himself to accept reality, the god effortlessly repositions you to straddle his legs stretched out on the floor and he allows you to set the pace, to push him into a lying position free for you to admire while your hands create ripples of goosebumps and your lips swallow the softest of sighs.

Loki’s eyes are closed when you glance away for the briefest moment. “Hold the thought.”

A quick maneuver, a few steps, and the oven’s clock beeps just as you grab the mitt to pull out the finished pastries to cool. Oh! Cool hands skirt your waist, already skimming underneath the shirt.

“Do…am I forgiven?” Loki whispers in your ear and you can’t help but roll your eyes a bit because isn’t it obvious?

Letting him wait, you finish securing the kitchen from any mishaps in case you get distracted (while trying to stay as close to Loki as possible so he can feel your body against his). When you finally do turn to face him, his eyes are dark with need, but brows pinched with insecurity.

“You still need to prove just how sorry you are, my love.”

Your words are absorbed slow enough to see the stages he passes through before he pulls you close and steels your breath away with his lips, tongue, hands, and…oh god.

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