hs_olympics | BONUS ROUND 5

BONUS ROUND 5

Bonus Round 5

Tales from the Road

Hey, shippers! HSO is winding down, so we thought we'd take a look back at the journey, so to speak. With that in mind, this next bonus round is going to be roadtrip-themed! Give us a little taste of your characters' life on the road, whatever form that takes.

Rules

Submit prompts! Prompts should consist of one ship (friendship/gen is fine too!) and a location. This cannot be your team's ship! This round we will not be giving points for prompts.

Look through the prompts and fill whichever you like!

You may not fill prompts for your ship, nor may you fill your own team's prompts.

Fills should be posted as replies to the prompts which they are for, following the format below. They may be any medium.

Title Format
If you are starting a new thread, please use this format in your title.

Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.

If you are filling a prompt, use this format in your title.

Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.
If your team name is not in this format and in the title we cannot guarantee that it will be counted.

Posts not using this format in the title will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, no matter what they contain. They, like all comments on the comm, are subject to the Wank Policy.

Scoring
For fills (as stated here):
First 5 entries in each post: 30 (per entry)
Entries 6-10 in each post: 20 (per entry)
Entries 11-15 in each post: 10 (per entry)
Entries 16+ in each post: 5 (per entry)

All scored content must be created/assembled new for this round.

If you have any questions, please ask them at the FAQ post here, or email them to us (homestuck.shipping at gmail). Otherwise, we cannot guarantee that we will see them in a timely fashion!

Bonus Round 5 is now closed!

16/08/12 Comments are unscreened again, for the sake of comments on fills. No new fills are being counted for points.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Jane♥Roxy

Smallville

Jane and Karkat (gen)

Pawnee, Indiana

Rose<3Kanaya, Ankh-Morpork

Dirk♥Jake♥Jane♥Roxy
Ankh-Morpork

Dave<3Rose
Coruscant

I...

Can I love you?

Dave<>Rose

Camp Half Blood.

"How's it looking?"

"Umm, battery is full, and... look, they're swirling! Oh my god. This is really good, Aradia, this is gonna be great."

She's grinning all flat-teeth and viciously starving, leaning out the window with her foot on her pedal and one hand lazily gripping the wheel. Tavros is keeping the truck from careening off of the dirt road with his left hand and holding the giant video camera rig with his other, peering at the settings. Aradia howls at the sky, her whiptail braid thrashing in the wind of a thunderstorm that looks as if it were going to open its jaws and swallow the patch of land it roiled over, and he hears himself cackling. They are cutting through the country at sixty and heading straight into an enraged sky that creeps closer and closer to the fields.

She slips back into the driver's seat and floors it, sending dirt from the road flying up in clouds behind them, and she leans forward with her teeth bared at the storm. Tavros's hands are trembling with excitement as he readies the still camera and takes a couple of test shots through the windshield, muttering exaltations under his breath. He peers at the tiny viewscreen and shakes his head in disbelief; their first real find of the year and it looks hellish. The laptop bolted to the center console shows a spot of deep redness at the center of bright yellow and lime green halos, crawling along the map, threatening to burst.

When hailstones finally pummel the truck, Aradia screams in rapture and Tavros looks over at her. His face aches from grinning and he lets his own howl rip from his throat, pounding his hands on the dashboard. They are so close, so close to destruction and it ignites their very blood with the orgasmic thrill of such danger. The sound of hail against the roof is like a spray of bullets.

When the road ends, Aradia comes to a fast stop in the grass, the wheels skidding. Tavros hands her the still camera and they scramble out, pulling the hoods of their windbreakers over their heads, buttoning the holes around their massive horns. The clouds ooze ever lower, swirling, the color of grey like smoke from a great demon's cigar. For a moment, they just stare in awe.

"Tavros."

"Yes, Aradia?"

"Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a supercell?"

"I think that, fortunately, your eyes are in working order. Unless we are both hallucinating, of course."

"Unlikely."

"Very."

They watch, chests heaving. The funnel curls ever downward a bolt of lightning hits the ground, a crack of thunder following just seconds later. Aradia is bouncing on her toes, muttering a mantra of come on, come on under her breath. Tavros braces the camera's rig against his shoulder, only glancing down through the finder to set the crosshairs. He hits record and then looks back up. He curses joyously as the tunnel touches down.

Aradia leaps into the air, pumping her fist and screaming beautiful vulgarities. This is it. They shriek and howl and gasp as the storm rips a massive scar into the empty fields, far enough from civilization to be a pure act of glorious nature. Aradia turns and her dorky grin makes Tavros's every cell ignite with bliss. And then he remembers.

"Aradia, pictures!"

"Oh, shit, right!"

They turn and steal the moment.

Edited 2012-08-07 08:16 (UTC)

This is delightful.

really really really really really good, nextian, you are so good, that's all there is to say on the matter

"It's kind of my fucking business," John said, kindly. "Since we have been man kissers since I moved to Leeds."

John, you suave son of a gun *g* This whole thing is completely delightful.

(Sorry if this isn't that great D: )

___________________________

"People really invite other humans to these sick displays of affection?"

"Course they do, idiot. That's like half the point of a wedding."

"How do I know you're not going to lead me into a humilating trap?"

"Because the invitation's from Jake and he never thinks that far ahead."

"Why would the Jake Human even invite me?"

"Hell if I know. Maybe he's got a weakness for assholes."

"You-- WHAT THE FUCK, DIRK. YOU'RE GOING OVER THE SPEED LIMIT."

"It's only ten miles over."

"I KNEW IT. THIS IS A NEFARIOUS TRAP TO KILL ME."

"Shut up man! I'm not trying to kill you! If I killed you I'd be down a hatedate to the wedding! I'm not gonna lose my pride by going without a date!"

"... I will concede to that point."

When Sollux had asked Aradia if she’d be willing to go along with a double date with one of his coworkers she’d immediately known. The changes in his mood, the strange perfume clinging to his clothes when he got home late, the distant look he got sometimes when he’d refuse to tell her what he was thinking about, all of them were exactly what she’d feared for months.

Feferi Peixes was a beautiful woman with a cheerful face and an infectious, bubbly laugh. Aradia had expected she’d hate her the moment she laid eyes on her. Instead she simply felt herself growing numb, every smoldering look between her boyfriend and the woman across the table from him making the gap between her and Sollux feel bigger. The food in the three star establishment tasted bitter, and if she’d have to give the taste a name she’d call it finality.

Across the table from her sat Eridan Ampora, Feferi’s fiancé. When Aradia and Sollux had walked in she’d almost audibly heard his heart breaking, and since then he hadn’t said a word, hardly looking up from his plate. The few times she’d caught his eyes. they’d been misty with tears.

And truthfully, she knew how he felt. This dinner was for Feferi and Sollux. They weren’t wanted here. It wasn’t how she wanted things to end, and she was sure it wasn’t how Sollux had meant to tell her, if he meant to tell her at all.
They’d just finished the main course when she couldn’t take it anymore. Reaching up to her neck, she unclasped the shimmering red necklace Sollux had given her on their first anniversary and placed the precious jewelry on the table before him. Then she straightened out her maroon dress and rose from her seat, turning to Eridan. “I believe we should go,” she told him firmly.

A stunned silence had fallen over the table, and for a moment he just gaped at her. Then she could see something flicker in his eyes and with shaking hands he began fidgeting with his fingers. Then he pulled one of his many rings from his fingers and, like her, gingerly put it on the table. His engagement ring glistered in the light and he shook his head, putting his hands up when Feferi regained her composure and began protesting. “There aint really anythin’ to say here, Fef.”
And just like that it was over. Even as she walked away from the table Aradia could feel the weight of months of suspicion and distrust lifting from her shoulders. “I think,” she told Eridan when they stepped out of the fine restaurant, “That you should take me somewhere.”

To her surprise he agreed.

---

“Come on, put your shoulders in it!” she laughed, legs wrapped firmly around his legs. “Weren’t you the one bragging about what a strong man you are?”

He’d driven her out to a small beach, empty at the late hour of a cold day. There they’d sat down and tried to start a conversation. But the wounds they carried were fresh and soon the elation of having made the final decision wore off. She’d cried and he’d complained and then together they’d screamed out over the surf, shouting obscenities and complaints until they were both laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

She’d taken of her shoes and ran into the water only to scream again, this time because of how cold the water was and he’d rushed in after her, lifting her up out of the water with strength he obviously didn’t possess and they were laughing again.
With the setting sun painting a vivid backdrop it was almost magical. The manic adrenalin coursing through the both of them, the relief and happiness and sadness and pain, the uncertainty of the future with how much and how fast things were changing, all of it fit together in a strange hymn of autumn colours and laughter, only slightly off key.

She’d never really broken up with Sollux. There was more to breaking off an engagement, especially one with as many political ties as his, than returning the engagement ring. Still, not all the reason in the world felt like reason at all.

Their lips met in a sweet, gentle kiss and while nothing was alright and the future was uncertain, the kiss tasted like beginnings.

Oops, another fill. I wrote too much. Warnings for serious violence.
---------------------------------------------

This wasn't how the wedding was supposed to go. He wasn't supposed to try and high-tail it across the country on a stolen fragment of his sister's latent space powers before landing himself square ass broke in the middle of po-dunk nowhere with no way out. He wasn't supposed to call you spitting every curse in the book and a handful he invented on the spot to tell you that if you didn't come pick him up in the next hour he'd gut the entire staff of the roadside diner he was squatting behind. You shouldn't have had to haggle him up to two hours, clutching your cell phone to your ear with your hands shaking, hissing into the mouthpiece as you tried to keep your voice calm, tried to find your fucking shoes and car keys in the dead dark of night. This was not how it was supposed to go, and he was almost gleeful to have messed up your flawless plans.

You hate him. You really wish you could run him through on your sword and be done with his damn mind games. But you can't do that. Because Jane is marrying his sister tomorrow morning and it just so happens that they still share a body.

It's an hour and a half drive on Washington's shitty roads, the rain choosing tonight to come pouring down for some reason you can't fathom. You can barely see out the windshield at points. You're still not used to seeing land. You sit in the dark on the interstate with your headlights biting twin circles out of the pavement, radio tuned to the horrendous local rave music channel if only to give your mind something to distract it from the paranoid fear that you won't make it in time.

The average roadside diner has a staff of seven, although at two in the morning it's likely closer to two people still on the clock. Two people's lives on your head. And even if you are late and he butchers them, if you find him grinning ear to fucking lack of ear in the parking lot out front covered in blood and viscera, you still need to get him back in time. You still need to haul him two hours back and then beat him over the head enough times until Calliope comes out on the other side of unconsciousness. And then you have to get her into her dress.

God, your life is coming unglued. You knew it couldn't be this easy to be Co-Best Man at your best friend's wedding.

You pull up with two minutes to spare—two nerve-wracking minutes—and you step out into the downpour with the headlights still carving a line of light out of the darkness and the distant flickering lightning. "Caliborn!" you yell into the black, hair already soaked, your shirt soaked, water splattering against your shades and leaving you all but blind.

You hear his feet crunching in the gravel before you see him, and he's more soaked than you are but he manages to wear it without looking like a drowned rat. He's grinning and for a second your heart stops, the flick of the staff in his hand catching the sheen off your headlights, but you glance at the big bright windows of the diner and you can still see the waitress doing crosswords in a booth near the door. "Took you long enough, Dirk," he says, and you've never heard someone who could make casual conversation so menacing before. "Two minutes. You're lucky I didn't decide to stick with my original game of one hour. I could have painted the walls with blood. You humans have my blood color. I should be able to do with it as I please."

He's six feet of unholy evil alien, his sister's dark green nightgown soaked and plastered to his skin. In this light he looks naked and that's awkward for everyone. Especially you. "Thanks for your restraint," you say.

And then he lunges, claws flashing, the black marble of his cane whipping through the rain as he swings it for the sweet spot that will crack open your head. You'd expected it, and that's the only reason you get away with life still in you. You flash-step, spin and jump as the globe of his staff puts a crater in the roof of your car. Your heartbeat races. He's a Time player. He's faster than you could ever imagine, and you'd known from the instant he called you that he intended to murder you out here in the middle of nowhere, steal your wallet and your car and disappear into the countryside.

Like hell he's going through with Calliope's marriage if he can get around it. It's the kind of tenderness of his wet dreams, and he'd do anything to prevent her from having an ounce of happiness.

He gives you no pause. He's after you in a split second, teeth bared, whipping his club at you. You barely duck. You rip off your shades so you can see, running and dodging backward. His eyes are blood red and full of your death, and you're fast but you're not fast enough as he rakes his claws down the flesh of your arm.

You're so fucked. In the dark, in the rain, the thunder getting closer and throwing you off your game even more. An alien trying to kill you with potential spectators less than twenty feet away. And sometimes when he moves you see the outline of his body fade into waves, bending time that tiny bit he still can to launch into bullet time.

He gets in closer than you'd intended, hulking and huge, the rain cutting out as he looms over you. The wind goes out of you as he knees you full in the chest, concussion throwing you back three yards. You land in a heap next to the car, gasping, shaky on your hands and knees in the pounding rain. And you can't rest even though you can't breathe and your head is spinning and there's an inch-long gash on your forehead from where you hit the gravel, hot blood on your skin. You push yourself up, hands trembling. Fuck, he's close, jamming the heel of his hand against his staff to get it to shift forms. That complete and utter scrub's choice of a firearm. Why beat you to death when he could shoot you and get everyone's attention? He's a flash motherfucker and you know that for fact.

He steps over, presses the cold barrel of his gun to your head. "Any last words?"

"Calliope," you say, voice shaky and desperate. "Calliope, Calliope, Calliope." But calling her name has never worked since the universe reset, and he backhands you hard, furious to hear you say that. Your face smacks against the wet of the door.

As much as you see stars, that was exactly the stall for time you needed. You get your breath back—a miracle. You get your arm up and inside the car, fishing the forty feet of rope off the seat. And when you flash-step this time you're at his back, reeling the rope out and around his huge arms and legs. He's stronger than you, faster than you, but you trip him up, distract him as you loop the rope around him, tying knots at flash-speed until his stupid gun is pinned to his chest.

He's swearing, the kinds of things that turn even your stomach to hear. Your heart races, breath coming in gulps. But he's hog-tied in the puddles and gravel next to your car. You don't dare take your eyes off him to check if the people in the diner are watching the scrawny twenty-something tie up an alien demon in their parking lot. You just pop the rear door and take the tire iron off the seat.

You crack him over the head seven times before he slumps unconscious—finally. You're trembling with the exertion and the fear and the fucking lack of sleep, but you wrestle him slowly into the back of your beat up piece of shit car and slam the door behind him.

The people in the diner have their faces pressed to the glass. You scoop your shades up off the gravel and salute them before stepping back inside your car and firing up the engine.

It'll be a two hour drive back to Jane's. You hope like hell he doesn't decide to wake up again before you get back.

Aradia<3/<3<Feferi Coral reef

John/Karkat (any quadrant/gen)
Haunted hotel

Alpha!Rose♥Alpha!Dave
Prague

ship: Dave/Equius (gen)
location: Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament

Edited 2012-08-07 09:08 (UTC)

Vriska<3<Aradia, the Aperture Science Enrichment Center

Vriska, Tavros, Sollux, Aradia (insert and/or as you see fit)
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters

Aradia<3Jade,
Loch Ness

Dirk/Jake/Jane/Roxy (any/gen), Arrakis

Meenah<3<Roxy, a classy restaurant

Dirk<>Roxy,
Belize

Dave<3Tavros
Viridian City

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 5 of 30

BONUS ROUND 5

Bonus Round 5

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

PROMPT: TEAM PARCELPYXIS

PROMPT: TEAM PARCELPYXIS

PROMPT: TEAM AUTORESPONDER<3ROXY

Re: FILL: TEAM AUTORESPONDER<3ROXY

PROMPT: TEAM DIRK<3ROXY

FILL: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

Re: FILL: TEAM AUTORESPONDER<3ROXY

Re: FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

Re: FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

FILL: TEAM DIRK<3ROXY

FILL: TEAM DAVE<3ERIDAN

FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

PROMPT: TEAM Aradia<3Jade

PROMPT: TEAM Aradia<3Jade

PROMPT: TEAM PARCELPYXIS

PROMPT: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

PROMPT: TEAM GAMZEE<>KARKAT

PROMPT: TEAM PARCELPYXIS

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3KARKAT

PROMPT: TEAM GAMZEE<>KARKAT

PROMPT: TEAM GAMZEE<>KARKAT

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3KARKAT

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3KARKAT