Original -- The Bridegroom: Episode 3.5
Title: The Bridegroom: Episode 3.5
Rating: a mostly mild PG-13
Word Count: 1,475
Warnings: all of y'all know the drill - language, crack, gender-switching, crack…
Prompt: catastrophic at pulped_fictions
Summary: In which a few loose ends are tied up after the recent Bridegroom trauma, and other things come undone.
Author's Note: Episode 1! Episode 2! Episode 3! And now, meet the oft-discussed but never-before-seen Alistair Thompson. This is mostly just a recap, so I hope you'll forgive that about it; please enjoy your dose of crack. XD
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 3.5
Maion blinks uncertainly around the ring of staring faces. Particularly unsettling is the girl-Alicia?-who always circles her eyes in heavy eyeliner, as if she might otherwise forget where they are. She blows a huge bubble with her gum, which is…
“Brown?” Maion says faintly. “What flavor of gum would be brown? Chocolate? Root beer?”
“Gravy,” Alicia says. “It’s an acquired taste.”
Maion can’t help wrinkling his nose.
Apparently breaking his silence has opened the floodgates, though; all of the other girls dissolve into chattering that might not even seem related to him if they weren’t still staring at his currently-female face.
“I can’t believe you got airlifted out!”
“I can’t believe you got so buried in the snow that they needed to!”
“Have to say-now I’m glad that you’re so pushy about being first with everything.”
“They said that thing was safe!”
“How far did you fall? You don’t look hurt-are you hurt?”
“The camera went out; we thought you might be dead!”
“Was there blood?”
“Did he drink it?”
“Did he lap it off of your hot-flushing skin while you gasped and then stifled a moa-”
“Deandra!” Greta cuts in loudly. “That’s disgusting. Besides, there’s an easy way to answer that.”
Before Maion can escape, possibly to Mexico in order to change his name and live on a villa and pretend that none of this ever happened, Greta lunges forward, grabs the collar of his snowsuit, and pushes his slightly tangled blonde ponytail aside.
Silence falls again, thick and heavily, when they see the two half-healed puncture wounds on his neck.
“You lucky bitch,” Naina breathes.
It has been an extremely long day. Maion spent the first portion of it very cold, the second very scared, the third very violated, the fourth hastily healing his fractured ankle beneath the thermal blanket while the medics in the helicopter were checking over Vincent’s spine, the fifth guiltily prevaricating to everyone in the hospital, and now the sixth feeling like a zoo animal and getting called nasty names. He wishes it weren’t so, but he can feel his big, round, turquoise eyes filling up with hot, stinging tears.
“Leave her alone!” Rosalie says, which is nice of her, but it’s too late; Maion curls his shoulders, hangs his head, and gives up fumbling for composure. One warm trail slips down his cheek like an unfurling ribbon, then another.
“Oh, sweetie,” Kylie says, wrapping an arm around him, pulling him to his feet, and guiding him off into the bedroom. “All of you gossiping harpies should be ashamed of yourselves,” she calls over one shoulder. She makes a fairly unflattering addition in Mandarin, and then she slams the door behind them and sits Maion down on the bed. A few tissues, some hair-stroking, and a lot of comforting murmurs later, Maion manages to catch his breath.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Kylie says gently, “but if you’re okay talking about it… what was it like?”
Maion peeks at her for a second. This is Kylie. Kylie is nice. Kylie is his friend. Kylie will not judge him, and neither will she parade his weakness to the well-made-up wolves outside.
Nonetheless, Maion buries his face in the latest snot-and-tear-soaked tissue before he answers. “It was… kind of… sexy.”
Kylie’s quiet for a moment, and then she bursts out giggling, throws both arms around Maion’s shoulders, and hugs him hard.
“You crazy chick,” she says. “I am so damn glad you’re on this show.”
Maion hugs her back-and then clings to her in terror as he remembers far, far too late that there are cameras running constantly in all of the bedrooms. Belial will have heard that, which means that the demon is going to come after him with a vengeance.
“Shall we start with the gum one?” Thompson says, clearly trying not to laugh. “She kissed you, didn’t she? What does prune-flavored gum even taste like? Or were you too traumatized for your tastebuds to function?”
Vincent’s scathing glare just makes his right-hand vampire even more amused.
“It tastes like you would feel if you heard that a cardboard box full of kittens had been mistakenly left in an incinerator,” he says, and a wince displaces Thompson’s grin for a moment. “She’s going; cross her off. And… whatever the name is of that pathetic creature that threw up in the punch.”
“Olivia,” Thompson says, evenly striking out two names on the list. “Bit of a pity. I love her wardrobe.”
The girl looks like the seventies threw up on her well before she ever threw up in a beverage. “You would,” Vincent says. “Does Carrie still have to stay?”
“Only if you don’t want to become a poor man,” Thompson says, reaching into his expanding file and passing Vincent the latest color-coded marvel of organization to emerge in shining triumph from the younger vampire’s spreadsheet program. “I suppose we could survive it, but Carrie’s largely been sitting in corners plagiarizing Evanescence lyrics in her poetry anyway.”
Rarely has Vincent wanted so badly to hug a spreadsheet. “Fair point.” He massages his temples. “Should I keep Deandra? I’m hoping she’ll offend all of the others to the point of a bloodbath, and at least one of them will die in the fight.”
“I find it highly unlikely that she’s trying to kill you,” Thompson says, marking an asterisk next to her name, “rather than merely to jump your bones, so she’s probably safe. Jamaica?”
Vincent frowns, and not just because he’s starting to feel twinges of jealousy at Thompson’s ability to make sense of mathematical chaos, as evinced on this piece of paper. In a just world, he would create an entirely new company and hand it to Thompson for his birthday. Or for his deathday; either way.
“She and Naina almost went at it over orange juice,” he says. “Again with the hoping that they die.”
“Greta?”
“She’s too assertive for my tastes, but she seems to exercise it on the other girls rather than on me. She can loiter a while.”
“Rosalie?”
Vincent rubs at his forehead. “I want to suspect her of something, but she’s just too damned nice. It’s quite possible that’s her game, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt for now.”
“Janine?”
“Is she the smart and superior one? Leave her; she’s less annoying than whosit, with those giant feathered earrings and the earwax-colored miniskirt.”
Thompson’s mouth twitches as he crosses out a name. “Margot. I’m making a note so you can tell her about her choice of clothing in those exact words.”
“Bless your heart,” Vincent says.
“There’s Lola, who wouldn’t stop hugging your foot in the jacuzzi-”
“Have her committed.”
“That makes the four you have to get rid of, then,” Thompson says, tapping his pen against the list. “Are you sure those are the ones you want? There’s also Pat and Bri-”
“Don’t remember them; they can’t be too bad.”
“Be careful saying things like that. We also haven’t discussed Kylie.”
Vincent shrugs. “Maia trusts her.”
Thompson glances up, smiling a little. “Speaking of…”
“Prune-flavored gum can rot in the lowest circle of hell, where it belongs,” Vincent says. “Women should always-always-taste like clean O-negative.”
He does not like the mischievous tilt of Thompson’s eyebrows. “Whether or not that’s your favorite blood type,” he says, “isn’t there a chance there’s something else involved?”
Yes, the angle of those eyebrows is positively unacceptable. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Objectively speaking,” Thompson says, which is already a lie; “she’s very attractive, and she’s much more interesting than the majority of your choices. You two were isolated in that gondola for a long time. Isn’t there the slightest chance you’re starting to have vague inklings of f-”
“That’s like suggesting that a human would fall in love with chocolate,” Vincent says.
“Plenty of them are addicted to it,” Thompson says, still looking terribly pleased with himself.
“Addicted, yes,” Vincent says. “But they don’t marry a five-and-a-half-foot-tall chocolate bar and tuck it into bed next to them every morning.”
Infuriatingly enough, Thompson just smiles at him, silently and knowingly-as if the little bastard knows anything; as if he knows how ichor soaks into the heart and solidifies after a matter of centuries. He’s only sixty-some-odd years old, and he’s only been a vampire for forty of them. He’s a child.
“Right,” Vincent says, reluctantly trading him the beautiful spreadsheet for the list of names. “Time to go earn some fake tears and provoke a few catfights.”
“This whole venture is a bit like herding cats,” Thompson remarks.
“And it’s a fucking catastrophe,” Vincent says, gathering his silver elimination scissors and starting for the door.
[Episode 4]
Rating: a mostly mild PG-13
Word Count: 1,475
Warnings: all of y'all know the drill - language, crack, gender-switching, crack…
Prompt: catastrophic at pulped_fictions
Summary: In which a few loose ends are tied up after the recent Bridegroom trauma, and other things come undone.
Author's Note: Episode 1! Episode 2! Episode 3! And now, meet the oft-discussed but never-before-seen Alistair Thompson. This is mostly just a recap, so I hope you'll forgive that about it; please enjoy your dose of crack. XD
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 3.5
Maion blinks uncertainly around the ring of staring faces. Particularly unsettling is the girl-Alicia?-who always circles her eyes in heavy eyeliner, as if she might otherwise forget where they are. She blows a huge bubble with her gum, which is…
“Brown?” Maion says faintly. “What flavor of gum would be brown? Chocolate? Root beer?”
“Gravy,” Alicia says. “It’s an acquired taste.”
Maion can’t help wrinkling his nose.
Apparently breaking his silence has opened the floodgates, though; all of the other girls dissolve into chattering that might not even seem related to him if they weren’t still staring at his currently-female face.
“I can’t believe you got airlifted out!”
“I can’t believe you got so buried in the snow that they needed to!”
“Have to say-now I’m glad that you’re so pushy about being first with everything.”
“They said that thing was safe!”
“How far did you fall? You don’t look hurt-are you hurt?”
“The camera went out; we thought you might be dead!”
“Was there blood?”
“Did he drink it?”
“Did he lap it off of your hot-flushing skin while you gasped and then stifled a moa-”
“Deandra!” Greta cuts in loudly. “That’s disgusting. Besides, there’s an easy way to answer that.”
Before Maion can escape, possibly to Mexico in order to change his name and live on a villa and pretend that none of this ever happened, Greta lunges forward, grabs the collar of his snowsuit, and pushes his slightly tangled blonde ponytail aside.
Silence falls again, thick and heavily, when they see the two half-healed puncture wounds on his neck.
“You lucky bitch,” Naina breathes.
It has been an extremely long day. Maion spent the first portion of it very cold, the second very scared, the third very violated, the fourth hastily healing his fractured ankle beneath the thermal blanket while the medics in the helicopter were checking over Vincent’s spine, the fifth guiltily prevaricating to everyone in the hospital, and now the sixth feeling like a zoo animal and getting called nasty names. He wishes it weren’t so, but he can feel his big, round, turquoise eyes filling up with hot, stinging tears.
“Leave her alone!” Rosalie says, which is nice of her, but it’s too late; Maion curls his shoulders, hangs his head, and gives up fumbling for composure. One warm trail slips down his cheek like an unfurling ribbon, then another.
“Oh, sweetie,” Kylie says, wrapping an arm around him, pulling him to his feet, and guiding him off into the bedroom. “All of you gossiping harpies should be ashamed of yourselves,” she calls over one shoulder. She makes a fairly unflattering addition in Mandarin, and then she slams the door behind them and sits Maion down on the bed. A few tissues, some hair-stroking, and a lot of comforting murmurs later, Maion manages to catch his breath.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Kylie says gently, “but if you’re okay talking about it… what was it like?”
Maion peeks at her for a second. This is Kylie. Kylie is nice. Kylie is his friend. Kylie will not judge him, and neither will she parade his weakness to the well-made-up wolves outside.
Nonetheless, Maion buries his face in the latest snot-and-tear-soaked tissue before he answers. “It was… kind of… sexy.”
Kylie’s quiet for a moment, and then she bursts out giggling, throws both arms around Maion’s shoulders, and hugs him hard.
“You crazy chick,” she says. “I am so damn glad you’re on this show.”
Maion hugs her back-and then clings to her in terror as he remembers far, far too late that there are cameras running constantly in all of the bedrooms. Belial will have heard that, which means that the demon is going to come after him with a vengeance.
“Shall we start with the gum one?” Thompson says, clearly trying not to laugh. “She kissed you, didn’t she? What does prune-flavored gum even taste like? Or were you too traumatized for your tastebuds to function?”
Vincent’s scathing glare just makes his right-hand vampire even more amused.
“It tastes like you would feel if you heard that a cardboard box full of kittens had been mistakenly left in an incinerator,” he says, and a wince displaces Thompson’s grin for a moment. “She’s going; cross her off. And… whatever the name is of that pathetic creature that threw up in the punch.”
“Olivia,” Thompson says, evenly striking out two names on the list. “Bit of a pity. I love her wardrobe.”
The girl looks like the seventies threw up on her well before she ever threw up in a beverage. “You would,” Vincent says. “Does Carrie still have to stay?”
“Only if you don’t want to become a poor man,” Thompson says, reaching into his expanding file and passing Vincent the latest color-coded marvel of organization to emerge in shining triumph from the younger vampire’s spreadsheet program. “I suppose we could survive it, but Carrie’s largely been sitting in corners plagiarizing Evanescence lyrics in her poetry anyway.”
Rarely has Vincent wanted so badly to hug a spreadsheet. “Fair point.” He massages his temples. “Should I keep Deandra? I’m hoping she’ll offend all of the others to the point of a bloodbath, and at least one of them will die in the fight.”
“I find it highly unlikely that she’s trying to kill you,” Thompson says, marking an asterisk next to her name, “rather than merely to jump your bones, so she’s probably safe. Jamaica?”
Vincent frowns, and not just because he’s starting to feel twinges of jealousy at Thompson’s ability to make sense of mathematical chaos, as evinced on this piece of paper. In a just world, he would create an entirely new company and hand it to Thompson for his birthday. Or for his deathday; either way.
“She and Naina almost went at it over orange juice,” he says. “Again with the hoping that they die.”
“Greta?”
“She’s too assertive for my tastes, but she seems to exercise it on the other girls rather than on me. She can loiter a while.”
“Rosalie?”
Vincent rubs at his forehead. “I want to suspect her of something, but she’s just too damned nice. It’s quite possible that’s her game, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt for now.”
“Janine?”
“Is she the smart and superior one? Leave her; she’s less annoying than whosit, with those giant feathered earrings and the earwax-colored miniskirt.”
Thompson’s mouth twitches as he crosses out a name. “Margot. I’m making a note so you can tell her about her choice of clothing in those exact words.”
“Bless your heart,” Vincent says.
“There’s Lola, who wouldn’t stop hugging your foot in the jacuzzi-”
“Have her committed.”
“That makes the four you have to get rid of, then,” Thompson says, tapping his pen against the list. “Are you sure those are the ones you want? There’s also Pat and Bri-”
“Don’t remember them; they can’t be too bad.”
“Be careful saying things like that. We also haven’t discussed Kylie.”
Vincent shrugs. “Maia trusts her.”
Thompson glances up, smiling a little. “Speaking of…”
“Prune-flavored gum can rot in the lowest circle of hell, where it belongs,” Vincent says. “Women should always-always-taste like clean O-negative.”
He does not like the mischievous tilt of Thompson’s eyebrows. “Whether or not that’s your favorite blood type,” he says, “isn’t there a chance there’s something else involved?”
Yes, the angle of those eyebrows is positively unacceptable. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Objectively speaking,” Thompson says, which is already a lie; “she’s very attractive, and she’s much more interesting than the majority of your choices. You two were isolated in that gondola for a long time. Isn’t there the slightest chance you’re starting to have vague inklings of f-”
“That’s like suggesting that a human would fall in love with chocolate,” Vincent says.
“Plenty of them are addicted to it,” Thompson says, still looking terribly pleased with himself.
“Addicted, yes,” Vincent says. “But they don’t marry a five-and-a-half-foot-tall chocolate bar and tuck it into bed next to them every morning.”
Infuriatingly enough, Thompson just smiles at him, silently and knowingly-as if the little bastard knows anything; as if he knows how ichor soaks into the heart and solidifies after a matter of centuries. He’s only sixty-some-odd years old, and he’s only been a vampire for forty of them. He’s a child.
“Right,” Vincent says, reluctantly trading him the beautiful spreadsheet for the list of names. “Time to go earn some fake tears and provoke a few catfights.”
“This whole venture is a bit like herding cats,” Thompson remarks.
“And it’s a fucking catastrophe,” Vincent says, gathering his silver elimination scissors and starting for the door.
[Episode 4]