FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 1/2prufrock_26August 20 2012, 03:40:36 UTC
A/N: So, yes. I know this has already been filled, quite beautifully. I definitely didn't intend to do it again. It's just that I spent ten hours in the car today, and got pretty bored, and for some reason....this happened.
Rubber Duckie, You're The One
The bathroom is pink.
Not just pink, like that. Startlingly pink, overwhelmingly pink, pink enough to send bile choking up his exhausted throat for a second, because everything in this ten-foot-square room is an alarming shade of pink.
It's also probably the cleanest place he's been in all year. No piss stains on the rosy tile, no toothpaste spattered onto the mirror; from the looks of it, she even dusts the lightbulbs under the stained-glass shades. Standing on the plush (pink) rug in his muddy, salt-caked boots with two centuries of Miss Damien's ancestral cobwebs hanging off his clothes, Dean feels like an insult to the name of suburban purity.
Still, it's been a while since they've had a thanks like this, and Dean, for one, isn't knocking it because it comes in the wrong color. He strips off the dirt-stiff clothes off his aching body, trying to consolidate them into a small, washable area of the floor and eyeing the swiftly filling tub.
It's huge - pink, of course, and about ten feet long, with clawed feet curled under it so that he can't help thinking of the Pink Panther, imagining the tub blinking yellow eyes and stretching, slinking around the pink bathroom as soon as the door's closed. There's a long rack of bottles filled with more jewel-toned liquids than he can think of functions for, and a gigantic bar of creamy soap the exact shade of strawberry milk.
There's even a fucking rubber duckie, tucked into a corner and the only thing in the entire bathroom that isn't pink - and Dean, pretty much naked by now and itching to sink into the hot, clear water, laughs at the sheer corniness of its fat yellow body, the stupid orange grin curling around its face.
He sorts through the bottles, finds one labeled bubble bath, and dumps about half a cup of that under the steaming faucet, watching in satisfaction as mounds of white foam rise up through the glistening water.
The first touch of the water on his body feels so good, it almost hurts - the water's just south of scalding, and somehow twice as wet as any water that's ever come out of a motel shower head. He lowers himself all the way under, and squirms deliciously under the bubbles, letting the silky foam slide gently over him and feeling the weeks of old dirt dissolve from deep inside his skin.
He's so caught up in the sensation of water and bubbles and heat soaking down through his pores that he doesn't notice kicking the rubber duckie off of the rack - but of course, he must have, because when he resurfaces from his second tour of the murky, thunderous warmth underneath the bubbles, it's bobbing up happily from the middle of the mound, right in front of his dripping face.
He grins stupidly back at it, and knocks it away through the rippling bubbles.
It bounces back, and sits gleefully bobbling over his stomach.
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 2/3 (oops)prufrock_26August 20 2012, 03:42:50 UTC
Ignoring the overenthusiastic bath toy, Dean finds a magenta washcloth and drags it over the soap, scrubbing the compacted dirt off his belly and knees. The cloth's got to be fucking silk, or something, because it's about as far from scratchy motel cotton as supermarket cake from a home-baked cherry pie.
He's leaning forward to scour the soles of his feet when he feels the sting at his elbow.
He sits up, nearly sloshing the water out of the tub and onto the fluffy pink bathmat, and twists his arm to peer at his elbow.
There's a perfect half-circle of red imprinted on his skin, microscopic tendrils of crimson spiderwebbing outward.
For a minute, he stares at it in confusion, mesmerized by the slow creep of blood. He doesn't remember any cuts like that, but it's not like he keeps a catalogue, so he shrugs it off and rinses the blood away, relishing the subtle pain as the soapy water licks at the fresh wound.
The washcloth's lying abandoned in the water, and he fishes it out to continue his bath, nudging the floating rubber duckie to the side as he reaches through the bubbles. He leans back in the water, closing his eyes as he drags the streaming cloth over his body, feeling cramped muscles loosen and old wounds twinge in the engulfing warmth, wincing from time to time as the soap irritates another cut. The heat and the unaccustomed comfort are making him drowsy, and after a while he lies blinking through the steam at the blurry swarm of pink, lazily drawing the washcloth up and down his stomach just to feel the tickle of sopping cotton on his skin.
He's getting so sleepy at this point that his skills of observation are letting him down, because it takes him at least five minutes to realize that the water coursing across his naked abdomen is orange.
Dean sits up fast enough to bang his head on the faucet behind him, which fucking hurts, but he's more worried about the slight reddish tint of the now-thinning bubble heaps, and the fact that, when he lifts his arms out of the water, they're scattered with a dozen streaming red half-moons identical to the first.
Water glistens off his arms, dripping in tiny scarlet pinpricks into the bubbles below.
He plunges his hands into the bath, waving them wildly through the invisible water for the escaped piranha that's somehow found its way into Miss Haley Damien's immense pink bathtub with him, but there's nothing in the water but his own trembling, stinging legs.
Just him, and the rubber duckie nodding calmly on the frenzied waves, the same satisfied smirk pasted across its plastic face.
Dean's out of the tub before he can think about it, tripping over the bathmat and slipping in the flood of rust-colored water slithering off him and onto the tiles. He grabs blindly for one of the towels on the rack and wraps it around him, watching in horror as tiny bloodstains seep through the thick cotton.
When he's safely dry and on the other side of the room, he chances a brief look at the vacated tub. The bubbles are gone by now, except for a few ragged patches at the edge of the bath, and he can now see the hideous brownish hue of the water clearly, sloshing darkly against the delicate pink porcelain. The rubber duckie floats placidly in the middle, its brilliant yellow unstained by the carnage around it.
If he didn't know better, he'd swear its smile had widened.
He's shivering now, goosebumps streaking up and down his smarting limbs, and he tears the bloody towel off to jam himself back inside his filthy clothes, not bothering about the dirt or the sweat smearing across his clean, tender skin. He hops on one foot to wrangle his jeans on, trying not to slip on the flooded tiles, and tugs his T-shirt down over his dripping hair.
The whole time, he doesn't take his eyes off the rubber duckie wobbling serenely on the surface of the bath.
Sam's probably downstairs in Miss Damien's spotless living room, making small talk while he waits for his turn in the luxury bathroom and wondering what the hell's taking Dean so long, but Sam's not going to be getting a turn in this bathtub. Nobody's getting in this bathtub if Dean can help it, not until he's been over the place with all the salt he can find and a fucking blowtorch.
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3prufrock_26August 20 2012, 03:43:25 UTC
Or -
Dean pauses with one boot on, and stares at the duck.
It leers back.
He's blaming the bath for his waterlogged brain. Damaging exposure to girly shampoo. Inhaling too many bubble bath fumes.
Pink overload.
When he comes downstairs five minutes later, neither Sam nor Miss Damien seems to notice the lump under his coat. He plasters on a smile as their hostess chatters, and watches the oven clock, listening to Sam thump around in the bathroom overhead.
He decides not to mention that he's got her murderous bath toy wrapped in a hand towel under his jacket. In the long run, he figures, it's best for both of them.
They burn the duck in an abandoned field off the highway that evening, watching in disgust as the rubber melts and bubbles and sends up a solid pillar of smoke so rank Dean considers puking up his burger into the charred grass beside the fluffy cotton pyre.
“Sam,” he says, squinting up into the darkening sky. The planets are out, but it's too early for stars. “Whaddya say we stick to showers from now on?”
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3honeylocusttreeAugust 20 2012, 15:23:03 UTC
OH MY GOD.
Best. Thing. Ever.
(Also at first I thought the thing with the tendrils meant that something was *under* his skin, and he'd somehow been infected, which, aieee. Imagine chest-bursting rubber duckies!)
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3prufrock_26August 20 2012, 23:07:00 UTC
I'm not sure I want to imagine chest-bursting rubber duckies....*imagines* Nope, definitely not. /Alien flashback
I'm still coming to terms, actually, with the fact that I've written a story about a man-eating rubber duckie. That....might take me some time. In the meantime, I shall accept my Participant ribbon with pride.
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3kallielAugust 20 2012, 17:58:05 UTC
Holy shit. XP YOU GUYS. I LOVE ALL OF YOU. HOW DO YOU WORK THIS KIND OF MAGIC WITH PROMPTS LIKE THESE. I adooooooooooooore this--it felt to me like there were two levels of horror at work, here--the unfamiliarity of the surroundings (all the pink, the bubble bath, the tub, the washclooooothhhhh), which while nice were a little bit creepy--and then the duck. I can definitely relate to the former; that feeling when you're like OMG THIS FEELS WEIRD WHAT IS IT. --OH, IT'S A MATTRESS, AND NOT THE FLOOR. And the latter, goodness. I collect rubber ducks, so this desk looks a bit like this:
And the rest of my spaces are similarly decked out. I WILL NEVER LOOK AT MY BABIES THE SAME WAY AGAIN. XDDD This was so genuinely creepy, and yet laughably so. That came through with Dean so wonderfully. This is so excellent; brava, brava!!! <33333
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3prufrock_26August 20 2012, 23:13:29 UTC
YAY I'M SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT!
Oh, I loooove all of these crazy prompts - and I love that you picked up on those two horror threads, the mundane and the WTF (though, I dunno...I think I'd find an all-pink bathroom even more unsettling than a murderous bath toy). Balancing the creepy and the ridiculous was amazingly fun.
Also: THOSE DUCKS. That's terrifying already, without the addition of homicidal intent.
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3prufrock_26August 24 2012, 11:00:35 UTC
Thanks so much! See, I almost feel like this is one I can't quite take full credit for, because it's the cracky premise that makes it so much fun. But I'm glad my efforts at translating that premise into actual words worked out so well: visceral, creepy, and weird are exactly what I was going for. It was immensely fun to write. :)
Re: FILLED (again): Rubber Duckie, You're The One, Dean, PG-13, horror, 3/3marlowe78August 24 2012, 21:16:52 UTC
Oh, this was awesome! The feel of relaxation, the idea of the over-pink bath and the bubbles and the washcloth, and everything is perfect... which of course can't last, can it?
I really feel bad for Dean, but man, that was a really creepy idea!
Rubber Duckie, You're The One
The bathroom is pink.
Not just pink, like that. Startlingly pink, overwhelmingly pink, pink enough to send bile choking up his exhausted throat for a second, because everything in this ten-foot-square room is an alarming shade of pink.
It's also probably the cleanest place he's been in all year. No piss stains on the rosy tile, no toothpaste spattered onto the mirror; from the looks of it, she even dusts the lightbulbs under the stained-glass shades. Standing on the plush (pink) rug in his muddy, salt-caked boots with two centuries of Miss Damien's ancestral cobwebs hanging off his clothes, Dean feels like an insult to the name of suburban purity.
Still, it's been a while since they've had a thanks like this, and Dean, for one, isn't knocking it because it comes in the wrong color. He strips off the dirt-stiff clothes off his aching body, trying to consolidate them into a small, washable area of the floor and eyeing the swiftly filling tub.
It's huge - pink, of course, and about ten feet long, with clawed feet curled under it so that he can't help thinking of the Pink Panther, imagining the tub blinking yellow eyes and stretching, slinking around the pink bathroom as soon as the door's closed. There's a long rack of bottles filled with more jewel-toned liquids than he can think of functions for, and a gigantic bar of creamy soap the exact shade of strawberry milk.
There's even a fucking rubber duckie, tucked into a corner and the only thing in the entire bathroom that isn't pink - and Dean, pretty much naked by now and itching to sink into the hot, clear water, laughs at the sheer corniness of its fat yellow body, the stupid orange grin curling around its face.
He sorts through the bottles, finds one labeled bubble bath, and dumps about half a cup of that under the steaming faucet, watching in satisfaction as mounds of white foam rise up through the glistening water.
The first touch of the water on his body feels so good, it almost hurts - the water's just south of scalding, and somehow twice as wet as any water that's ever come out of a motel shower head. He lowers himself all the way under, and squirms deliciously under the bubbles, letting the silky foam slide gently over him and feeling the weeks of old dirt dissolve from deep inside his skin.
He's so caught up in the sensation of water and bubbles and heat soaking down through his pores that he doesn't notice kicking the rubber duckie off of the rack - but of course, he must have, because when he resurfaces from his second tour of the murky, thunderous warmth underneath the bubbles, it's bobbing up happily from the middle of the mound, right in front of his dripping face.
He grins stupidly back at it, and knocks it away through the rippling bubbles.
It bounces back, and sits gleefully bobbling over his stomach.
Reply
He's leaning forward to scour the soles of his feet when he feels the sting at his elbow.
He sits up, nearly sloshing the water out of the tub and onto the fluffy pink bathmat, and twists his arm to peer at his elbow.
There's a perfect half-circle of red imprinted on his skin, microscopic tendrils of crimson spiderwebbing outward.
For a minute, he stares at it in confusion, mesmerized by the slow creep of blood. He doesn't remember any cuts like that, but it's not like he keeps a catalogue, so he shrugs it off and rinses the blood away, relishing the subtle pain as the soapy water licks at the fresh wound.
The washcloth's lying abandoned in the water, and he fishes it out to continue his bath, nudging the floating rubber duckie to the side as he reaches through the bubbles. He leans back in the water, closing his eyes as he drags the streaming cloth over his body, feeling cramped muscles loosen and old wounds twinge in the engulfing warmth, wincing from time to time as the soap irritates another cut. The heat and the unaccustomed comfort are making him drowsy, and after a while he lies blinking through the steam at the blurry swarm of pink, lazily drawing the washcloth up and down his stomach just to feel the tickle of sopping cotton on his skin.
He's getting so sleepy at this point that his skills of observation are letting him down, because it takes him at least five minutes to realize that the water coursing across his naked abdomen is orange.
Dean sits up fast enough to bang his head on the faucet behind him, which fucking hurts, but he's more worried about the slight reddish tint of the now-thinning bubble heaps, and the fact that, when he lifts his arms out of the water, they're scattered with a dozen streaming red half-moons identical to the first.
Water glistens off his arms, dripping in tiny scarlet pinpricks into the bubbles below.
He plunges his hands into the bath, waving them wildly through the invisible water for the escaped piranha that's somehow found its way into Miss Haley Damien's immense pink bathtub with him, but there's nothing in the water but his own trembling, stinging legs.
Just him, and the rubber duckie nodding calmly on the frenzied waves, the same satisfied smirk pasted across its plastic face.
Dean's out of the tub before he can think about it, tripping over the bathmat and slipping in the flood of rust-colored water slithering off him and onto the tiles. He grabs blindly for one of the towels on the rack and wraps it around him, watching in horror as tiny bloodstains seep through the thick cotton.
When he's safely dry and on the other side of the room, he chances a brief look at the vacated tub. The bubbles are gone by now, except for a few ragged patches at the edge of the bath, and he can now see the hideous brownish hue of the water clearly, sloshing darkly against the delicate pink porcelain. The rubber duckie floats placidly in the middle, its brilliant yellow unstained by the carnage around it.
If he didn't know better, he'd swear its smile had widened.
He's shivering now, goosebumps streaking up and down his smarting limbs, and he tears the bloody towel off to jam himself back inside his filthy clothes, not bothering about the dirt or the sweat smearing across his clean, tender skin. He hops on one foot to wrangle his jeans on, trying not to slip on the flooded tiles, and tugs his T-shirt down over his dripping hair.
The whole time, he doesn't take his eyes off the rubber duckie wobbling serenely on the surface of the bath.
Sam's probably downstairs in Miss Damien's spotless living room, making small talk while he waits for his turn in the luxury bathroom and wondering what the hell's taking Dean so long, but Sam's not going to be getting a turn in this bathtub. Nobody's getting in this bathtub if Dean can help it, not until he's been over the place with all the salt he can find and a fucking blowtorch.
Reply
Dean pauses with one boot on, and stares at the duck.
It leers back.
He's blaming the bath for his waterlogged brain. Damaging exposure to girly shampoo. Inhaling too many bubble bath fumes.
Pink overload.
When he comes downstairs five minutes later, neither Sam nor Miss Damien seems to notice the lump under his coat. He plasters on a smile as their hostess chatters, and watches the oven clock, listening to Sam thump around in the bathroom overhead.
He decides not to mention that he's got her murderous bath toy wrapped in a hand towel under his jacket. In the long run, he figures, it's best for both of them.
They burn the duck in an abandoned field off the highway that evening, watching in disgust as the rubber melts and bubbles and sends up a solid pillar of smoke so rank Dean considers puking up his burger into the charred grass beside the fluffy cotton pyre.
“Sam,” he says, squinting up into the darkening sky. The planets are out, but it's too early for stars. “Whaddya say we stick to showers from now on?”
Reply
Best. Thing. Ever.
(Also at first I thought the thing with the tendrils meant that something was *under* his skin, and he'd somehow been infected, which, aieee. Imagine chest-bursting rubber duckies!)
You win. Everyone else go home now.
Reply
I'm still coming to terms, actually, with the fact that I've written a story about a man-eating rubber duckie. That....might take me some time. In the meantime, I shall accept my Participant ribbon with pride.
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And the rest of my spaces are similarly decked out. I WILL NEVER LOOK AT MY BABIES THE SAME WAY AGAIN. XDDD This was so genuinely creepy, and yet laughably so. That came through with Dean so wonderfully. This is so excellent; brava, brava!!! <33333
Reply
Oh, I loooove all of these crazy prompts - and I love that you picked up on those two horror threads, the mundane and the WTF (though, I dunno...I think I'd find an all-pink bathroom even more unsettling than a murderous bath toy). Balancing the creepy and the ridiculous was amazingly fun.
Also: THOSE DUCKS. That's terrifying already, without the addition of homicidal intent.
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This was amazing. :D
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I really feel bad for Dean, but man, that was a really creepy idea!
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