Bonus Round 1
Sep. 20th, 2013 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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srs2013Bonus Round 0 is now closed, and Bonus Round 1 is now open! Let's get creating, shall we?
This round, the theme is book-based AUs.
If you have an idea for something you'd like to see, please leave a book title, the characters involved, and any other details as a PROMPT below. Then read through everyone else's prompts, and leave a FILL for any which catch your eye. Fills can be in any media, and they need not be long, but please put a little effort in--if anyone starts spamming this post for points, we'll be able to tell.
You should place PROMPT/FILL, your current team affiliation and a brief summary in the comment title. NSFW prompts and fills should mention this in the summary or at the top of the post.
You will be awarded five points per prompt for the first five prompts you leave. The first three fills posted for each prompt will receive 15 points, the next three 10 points, and the next three 5 points. Prompts with ten or more fills will no longer receive fill points.
Bonus rounds are still rarepair only, but you can post prompts or fills for any rare ship this round, including gen/platonic ones (which should be indicated with an & as above). However, you may not fill your own prompt. We also encourage people not to fill prompts from their teammates, although the points will not be deducted if you do.
Bonus round fills can include links provided they are publicly viewable. Works can also be cross-posted to other websites, as there is no anonymity requirement in bonus rounds. However, works posted directly to comments will be limited to 16,000 characters by the Dreamwidth comment limit. Longer works should therefore be divided between multiple comments.
Remember, Team Chuck can participate in bonus rounds, and if you change teams, points earned will transfer with you until the end of the team shuffle period.
This round will close on October 6.
This round, the theme is book-based AUs.
If you have an idea for something you'd like to see, please leave a book title, the characters involved, and any other details as a PROMPT below. Then read through everyone else's prompts, and leave a FILL for any which catch your eye. Fills can be in any media, and they need not be long, but please put a little effort in--if anyone starts spamming this post for points, we'll be able to tell.
You should place PROMPT/FILL, your current team affiliation and a brief summary in the comment title. NSFW prompts and fills should mention this in the summary or at the top of the post.
You will be awarded five points per prompt for the first five prompts you leave. The first three fills posted for each prompt will receive 15 points, the next three 10 points, and the next three 5 points. Prompts with ten or more fills will no longer receive fill points.
Bonus rounds are still rarepair only, but you can post prompts or fills for any rare ship this round, including gen/platonic ones (which should be indicated with an & as above). However, you may not fill your own prompt. We also encourage people not to fill prompts from their teammates, although the points will not be deducted if you do.
Bonus round fills can include links provided they are publicly viewable. Works can also be cross-posted to other websites, as there is no anonymity requirement in bonus rounds. However, works posted directly to comments will be limited to 16,000 characters by the Dreamwidth comment limit. Longer works should therefore be divided between multiple comments.
Remember, Team Chuck can participate in bonus rounds, and if you change teams, points earned will transfer with you until the end of the team shuffle period.
This round will close on October 6.
Fill: Team Castiel/Lucifer, The Ring AU
Date: 2013-10-01 08:24 pm (UTC)“He’s not going to talk to us, Cassie,” Balthazar whispered, “and you were against me beating the information out of him.”
“I was against you getting beaten senseless. Don’t you get it? My deadline is tonight. Tonight. And even worse, Meg watched the tape.”
Balthazar pursed his lips and watched his younger brother carefully, burying the flicker of envy that lit up inside him. “You’re really sweet on her, huh?”
Cas looked up, didn’t say anything.
“Alright, Cassie. Look, if something happens to you, I’ll take care of sweet little Meggy, okay? Feel better?”
“No. Not at all.”
Balthazar rolled his eyes. “Fine. I tried. Look, we know that the tape started in that stupid little cottage you stayed in. Where are the blueprints for that?”
Cas rummaged through the heap of loose papers across the table before spreading the plans for the cabin resort out.
“Now, which one were you in?”
“B13.”
“Here we are.” Balthazar frowned, glancing down at another roll of paper on the opposite table. “Oh my God…”
“What? What is it?”
“He was right underneath us the whole damn time…”
Cas felt like he had heaved a thousand gallons of water out of the well, but the water level hadn’t gone down at all. He lifted the bucket up over his head again, arms shaking from the repeated exertion. He lost his grip, fingers slipping in the filthy water until the bucket came crashing down over his head, drenching him further and eliciting a sharp cry.
“Cas?” Balthazar called. “Cas, are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Cas called back, but his voice was thick and choked with tears. He closed his eyes and reached his hands under the water. “Where are you? Please. I’m almost out of time, and I’m trying. I’m trying. If you just… tell me what you want…”
He continued groping around blindly, desperately for several minutes until his fingers brushed something smooth and hard. Cas’ blood ran cold when he felt his knuckles curling into the unmistakable holes. A sharp sob of relief shook his chest as he lifted the skull up and held it at eye level.
“There you are,” he breathed. “I wanted to meet you.”
Cas could almost imagine the features over the bones. The young man he’d only seen in a single photograph stared back at him with deep, placid blue eyes, blinking the water off his lashes. A lifetime of stress and exhaustion had left dark purple marks beneath them, a tarnish to his otherwise flawless white skin. The corners of his lips seemed to twitch up in a hint of a smile, yet he still managed to look sad. Cas traced the lines of his face before brushing his fingers over the bones at the top of his head, as if he were smoothing back the disheveled blond hair that he could see so clearly.
“It’s okay now,” Cas whispered. “I found you. I’ve finally found you.” He gathered the bones to his chest in a long overdo embrace and closed his eyes.
“Cas? Cassie? Are you alive down there?” Balthazar called. “You better be alive. Come on, say something. It’s 10:16-- Your deadline passed! Cassie!”
Cas looked up at his brother’s face framed by the outline of the old well, and his fingers tightened on the corpse held against him. “I’m here,” he called. “I’m… I found him.”
Cas sat with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, eyes distant and vacant. He shivered, but it was hardly from the cold.
“Cassie?” Balthazar whispered, crouching beside him. “It’s alright, brother. They’ve got him now, and they’re going to take good care of him.”
“Who?”
“Well, the authorities.”
Cas’ face fell. “Strangers,” he muttered. “That’s no way for him to…” He swallowed hard and shook his head.
“Look, we’ll give him a nice service, okay? You and I will go and say ‘Thank you for not killing us.’ What do you think, darling?”
Cas shook his head again, wrapping his arms tight around his body. “I can’t imagine how afraid he must have been down there. His own brother… His own brother left him down there to die…”
“He thought he was the devil… He thought--”
“I don’t care! He was his brother. He’s supposed to protect him and.. and… How could he do that? How could he just leave him like that?”
“I don’t know, Cassie,” Balthazar whispered, dropping his hand to his brother’s shoulder. “You know I’d never leave you, right?”
Cas looked up sadly, but he gave a solemn nod.
“It’s alright now, brother. It’s over. You found him. You gave him peace.”
Cas slept through much of the next day, only waking enough to answer his phone after Balthazar called fourteen times in a row, and even then, he simply mumbled that he was tired and hung up.
“Just wanted to make sure you were alive, darling,” Balthazar sighed. He felt confident enough that they had broken the boy called Lucifer’s curse. After all, they had found him and turned all the evidence about his murder over to the proper authorities. Cas was organizing a memorial service for him and a small headstone near the ocean. Surely that would sate his vengeance.
When he first felt the sharp pain in his chest, Balthazar brushed it off. It was stress or heartburn or something mundane. But then it persisted. He cast a wary glance at the clock and stared in horror. 4:14. Almost his deadline.
“No,” he whispered, staggering backwards. “No, we solved your riddle, broke your spell.”
His heart raced, pounding in his chest, each clench sending sharp pains through his body. And then the phone rang. Balthazar fell in his attempt to cross the room, limbs wracked by a sudden weakness.
“What do you want?” he screamed, crawling across the floor, leaving bloody handprints where shards of broken glass had forced their way into his palms. Red slicked the floor, and Balthazar’s hands slid, forcing him to fall on his face with another sharp, frustrated cry. He turned over onto his back, eyes rolling in search of the young psychic who had been called the very image of the devil. “Lucifer,” he shrieked in panic, body twisting and arching in its final throes of agony.
The phone kept ringing.
Cas gave a frustrated cry and slammed the video tape on the floor, sending pieces of plastic in every direction.
“I did what you wanted!” he cried. “I found you. I climbed down into that damn well and pulled you out. What else do you want?” He looked around the room as if he were expecting the man to appear and answer his question. “Do you want me to kill Michael?” he whispered. “Is that what this is about…? I want to help you, but I don’t know if I can…” Cas choked on his words and sank to the floor, miserable. “Please, please… My brother’s… What did I do? What did I do that he didn’t…? We were together the whole time after I--”
It came to him with the faint smell of apples and what felt like a brush of cool fingers down his spine. He could almost feel the blue eyes piercing down to his soul. Cas looked up, eyes focusing on nothing in the fading light and finding nothing but flashes of that horrible video, culminating in that single photograph and the face that had stared back at him in the well.
“I made a copy…”
“What’s this about, Cas?” Meg asked, twisting the cable of the second VCR into place.
“Just trust me. Please,” he mumbled, handing the tape over.
She frowned at it. “This is that freaky video, isn’t it?”
“This is.” He handed over another.
“You don’t want me to make a copy of it? The last thing we need is another--”
“Meg. Please.”
She stared at him quietly for a moment before pushing the tapes into place and pressing down the record and play buttons. “Did you ever find out what happened to that guy?”
“Yes.”
“...That bad, huh?”
Cas nodded. “And now everyone else will know too…”