#Got an exam in ten days and for some godforsaken reason the guys at the driving school decided

[circusislife]

It's once again that lovely time of the year when, no matter what you wear, you Will Always either freeze or swear for half the day :'D

[rinusagitora]

The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Vicky Schmidt, Damien LaVey, Brian Yu, Oz, Zoe, Lucien LaVey, Stan LaVey, Vera Oberlin

Pairings: Brian/Damien/Vicky, Oz/Zoe, Stan/Lucien

Words: 3.5k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 4/?. WARNINGS— mentions of csa, childhood abuse, gore, violence, unreality; Vicky meets more family than she wants, and Oz and Zoe continue their search.

Oz felt great! Not only did he save Brian from a tragic tailspin which ended in Brian's violent death in a coke house, but he got Brian two dates on top of that.

He kissed Zoe. She was beautiful, how her tendrils bounced like Victorian curls as they hopped beneath colored lights and heavy music. He wasn’t one for nightlife or dancing, but everything was more fun with Zoe and with the knowledge that none of his friends were due for expiration.

Zoe gave his phobias another drink, he felt like he swallowed unbridled rapture.

His legs gave out and he fell to the floor.

---

Blood and soot spilled from his fingertips. His index fingers were curled. Blood drained into his eyes as brain matter floated midair like soap bubbles.

There were screams. They echoed around him like they echoed off mountains.

He fell. Blue snakes covered his eyes. He fell, fell, fell into pits of lightning and vats of bloodshed and drowned in the taste of metal.

---

His mouth tasted like cotton candy. Zoe held him up by his pits with a couple of her appendages and there were tears in her many, many eyes.

“Oz?” she said. “Oz, what the hell was that?”

He couldn’t catch his breath. Had he not saved Brian? Were there other triggers that drove him to drugs? Was Oz wrong from the beginning? Could the snakes have meant Vera instead? His head spun. He pushed Zoe away and dry heaved due to his headache.

Zoe rubbed his back. She didn’t move an inch, even as other dancers collided into them.

“We were wrong, weren’t we?” she said. “We need to keep looking.”

As he clutched Zoe’s arm, he nodded. Time was of the essence.

---

Vicky's fingers dug into the sides of the toilet. The morning light made her head pound. She gagged. Her stomach shoved itself into her throat. Thankfully, all she had for ten hours was water, but her heaves were still painful.

The worst of it was that refused to purge her anxiety like it purged her stomach acid.

When Vicky wiped her face, she recalled Damien's conversation with her and Brian. He wanted them to meet his parents. But Vicky wasn't anything impressive. She was cowardly and filthy and used up, and Damien was a prince. His fathers were sure to look down their nose at her. He deserved better than Vicky could have ever offered.

The three of them gathered in front of campus after school. Brian drove them to her apartment, where Damien drew a portal to Hell on her wall in chalk.

"Close your eyes," he told them, "don't open them until I say."

He grabbed their hands and dragged them through. For a split second, Vicky was assaulted by the kind of heat that singed her hair and the screams of thousands of anguished souls followed as they echoed in a stone amphitheater.

It cut out a second later. "You guys are good now," said Damien.

They were in his room. It was clean, unremarkable. He quickly led them outside. “My dads are in the family room. It’s this way.”

“This is surprisingly domestic,” Vicky remarked. There were beige carpet and pictures on eggshell-colored walls outside. She expected weathered stone and armor stands, or something gruesome and gothic.

“My parents built this under the castle. They say it helps them compartmentalize or something.”

“Well, this isn’t nearly as scary as I expected. I was gearing up for a torture dungeon and guards with pitchforks.”

“Oh, there are plenty of dungeons. They’re just upstairs.”

Damien opened the door into the family room. His parents were a giant blue horned creature and a scrawny red thing vaguely reminiscent of Oz, with his monochromatic eyes and absence of a mouth. They both wore sweats and t-shirts and had PlayThing controllers in hand.

“Hey, dads,” Damien said, “these are my partners: Brian and Vicky. Brian, Vicky, these are my dads. That’s Stan,” he pointed to the blue man, “and Lucien,” he then pointed at the red demon.

“Well, hello there! We’ve heard so many good things about the two of you. Damien never shuts up! In fact, sometimes he gets so excited and starts talking so fast that I only understand every other word. Come, sit,” said Lucien, after he furiously shook her and Brian’s hands.

“Dad, please,” Damien bashfully mumbled.

Vicky sat beside Stan. She felt like a bug.

“So, tell us more about you,” Lucien said.

“Well,” Brian began, “I play football, keep my grade point average around two-point-nine so I can stay on the team. I like alcohol. I’ve been infatuated with Brian and Vicky for around nine months now. Oh, I can sleep past three in the afternoon given the opportunity, too, but that’s only because I’ve royally fucked over my sleep schedule thanks to our friends Oz and Zoe keeping me up until godforsaken hours of the morning binging our shows.”

When Vicky’s turn came, she felt trapped. Embarrassed. The only things about her were tragedy and robbery. “Well… I’m an A-student. I make a living bank-robbing, sometimes I go bowling with my friends Vera and Liam. I get creamed every time.”

“God, me too. I tried throwing the ball instead of rolling it, and we got kicked out,” Stan said.

“Y’know, I tried throwing it too, but I ended up breaking the floor.”

“It’s all in the wrist. I’ll show you the next time we go bowling,” Stan promised.

“So… plans for college? Or marriage?” Lucien asked.

Brian and Vicky choked on their spit. “Dad,” Damien hissed, “we’re not there yet!”

“Well, don’t you like them, Damien?”

“Of course, but it makes people uncomfortable talking about it, dad,” Damien argued.

“Lucien, he’s right. Asking couples from the surface about marriage makes them incredibly awkward for some reason,” Stan said.

Lucien sighed. “Alright, I apologize. Is college still a safe topic?”

“Yeah,” Brian replied. “I’ve been offered a couple of sports scholarships.”

“I, uh…” Vicky swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t have any plans for her future. The furthest ahead she planned for her future was her next bank robbery and her next exam. Meanwhile, Brian already had college lined up, and Damien’s future was secured by his kingdom and passion for cosmetology. It was like there was no future for Vicky, only survival in the present.

“I’ve been submitting applications to colleges. I’m not entirely sure what I want to do, though,” she lied.

“You have your whole life ahead of you, Vicky. You don’t have to have the whole thing laid out yet,” Lucien reassured her. “Life sure as hell didn’t go as planned for us, after all.”

Stan sighed wistfully. “I didn’t expect I’d be king. My siblings all killed each other, so I just assumed I’d be killed in a power struggle as well. I certainly didn’t foresee marrying and bearing a child with my archnemesis.” He held Lucien’s hand with an adoring smile. “I wouldn’t change a thing, though. Maybe in time, you’ll find a place with us in Hell if you can’t find anywhere else, Vicky. God knows you’re already damned even being near our son.”

Vicky felt like the walls peeled and buried her beneath paint chips. “If I could be excused,” she said, “I need to use the restroom.”

"Take a right, it'll be the second door on the right.”

Vicky escaped into the bathroom, locked the door, and spiraled into a panic attack so extreme she had to brace the sink to keep herself upright. Her tears and snot trickled down the drain as Vicky struggled to catch her breath among her loathful and livid thoughts. Lucien and Stan were unimpressed, and it was only a matter of time before Damien realized she was a dud and left her, or worse, never spoke to his family again thanks to her.

She wept and fell onto the linoleum, where she curled up into a tight ball.

A knock came from the door. “Babe? Are you alright?” Damien asked.

“I-I’m fine,” Vicky said nasally, an obvious giveaway for her very much not okay-ness. She cursed under her breath. “I just need a minute.”

“Hey, are you crying?”

“No.”

“You sound like you’re crying. I know what you sound like when you’re crying. Baby, let me in, let’s talk about this. Open the door.”

Vicky mechanically opened the door. She couldn’t look Damien in the eye, even when he lifted her face up. She squeezed her eyelids so tightly it made her ears rumble.

“Look at me. What’s wrong? You’re kinda freaking me out, babe.”

“Just,” Vicky groaned and wiped her face with toilet paper, “they don’t like me. Your dads.”

“Of course they like you. They were really excited to meet you and Brian.”

“No! I’m a whore, they’re gonna figure out I’m cheap and forgettable. You’re a prince. I’m gonna drag you down one of these days.”

“I don’t really want to rule Hell, babe. They may not understand that, but my dads will try. And they do like you, a lot, in fact. They think you’re down to earth and polite. Politically, they think you’d be a relatable symbol to bring the royal family closer to our citizens. They want you to be a part of our family. I want that too.”

Vicky stood still as stone as Damien hugged her. He was so intense, it was too much for her. “I love you so much,” Damien said, “what can I do to help you feel better, Vicky?”

She shook her head. “I’m just… scared. I’m out of my element.”

“I understand, but you’re gonna be fine. Brian and I are here for you! We’re always here for you.” Damien helped Vicky clean up her face of tears and snot. “Let’s get you fixed up and have some dinner. Dad made ravioli.”

“Okay.”

Vicky shoved her face back into place and dabbed her face dry with toilet paper. Damien kissed her before he led her into the conjoined kitchen and dining room.

She was not comfortable among Damien’s family. She was unused to affection and proximity, like how Lucien pet her hair, or how Damien jostled her back and forth while he told them of one of their hijinks, but her boyfriends were happy, and Vicky wanted to be happy with them for the time being before she learned how to be happy with a family on her own.

Damien took Brian and Vicky back into his room after dinner. “Are you sure you guys have to go home? There’s a king-sized bed in the guest room we can use.”

“I’d feel weird staying here…. I don’t do well in sleepovers,” Vicky said

“And I won’t lie, I've been putting off my extra credit for, like, a month, and it's due tomorrow morning," replied Brian.

Damien sighed. "Alright. I'll see you guys tomorrow, then."

She and Brian tumbled through the doorway into their world and emerged in her bedroom. Vicky kissed Brian goodnight on his way out.

It was nice to be home after her exhaustive episode at Damien’s house. But she had work she needed to do, so she dialed for Vera.

“Hi. I figured I should ask how the plans are coming along,” Vicky said.

“Splendidly. I’m glad you called,” said Vera. “Something occurred to me the other day. We get tons of cash from the banks, but imagine the payout getting just as much money from a drug lab, and taking their product and selling it. No middle man, just an enormous profit after we sell it to dealers. I crunched the numbers and we’ll make almost twice what we do robbing banks.”

That was enough to convince Vicky. “That sounds great! We’ll have to take precautions, though. They’ll have tons of guns if we rob a lab.”

“Absolutely. But that’s why we’ll do it the day after tomorrow. I’m having full gear shipped in. Body armor, automatic weapons, cell jammers, the whole gambit.”

“That’s great.”

“There’s still the issue of us getting ambushed, though. Most of these labs I’ve had scouted have at least seven people in there. Drugs, seven hardened criminals against the two of us, plus guns? Even with body armor, I don’t like those odds, so I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay. What did you want to ask?”

“This won’t be much different from our ordinary arrangement. The thing is with these labs: they’ll have product and money stashed everywhere. Can you keep seven people at bay while I search the house? I can handle the jammers, tying everyone up, and whatever miscellaneous tasks that come up since seven people are a lot to handle for anyone, but I need you to keep them under control.”

“Of course. It should be easy once we’ve frisked them and tied them up.”

“Vicky, you are amazing, you know,” Vera said. “I need your size, though.”

“I normally go with a medium. I’m twenty-eight, twenty-four, twenty-eight if that means anything.”

“Ooh, hourglass,” Vera cooed. “Alright. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, Vicky. Have a good night.”

“You too, Vera. I love you. Sweet dreams.”

---

Vicky enjoyed her chemistry class. The smell of chlorine and formaldehyde made her giddy, but she was still exhausted from her visit to Hell. She only wanted to Brian and Damien on either side of her.

But Vicky had an exam. She studied hard for it and all that effort would have gone to waste if she played hooky. So she kissed Brian and Damien when she saw them that morning and then perused her notebook with formulas and compounds and the likes expertly drawn onto her notebook.

In the middle of the exam, Vicky was called to the office over the intercom. Fear struck her heart. Had someone found out about the robberies?

Vicky made her way to the administrator’s office. When she walked inside, a large creature, tall and bald, sat in the waiting area.

She wanted to puke.

"Vicky!" Eugene cried with delight. He lumbered over to Vicky, who was frozen in place. "I've missed you so much." His thick fingers brushed through her hair. She wanted to break his arm again and again until it was fucking paste.

"What're you doing here?" she asked.

"I told you. I've missed you so much, I want us to be a family again."

A family, like when he pinned her face in her pillows and took her raw like she was a slab of meat.

Vicky tore away from Eugene with a cry of horror. Blood rushed into her legs. The memory of his torment crashed around her like Eugene threw open the floodgates. Vicky had to hide from Eugene's bloodthirst. The forest should have been sufficient protection.

Outside, Damien and Scott caught her arm.

“Vicky, what’s wrong, you look like you saw a ghost,” Scott said.

“Let go!” Vicky screamed. She tugged her arm as hard as she could, but Scott was so much stronger than she was. "Help! Somebody help me!"

“Vicky, it’s us!” Damien said, “tell us what’s wrong.”

“He’s here! He’s going to hurt me!”

“Who’s going to hurt you?”

Vicky picked at her stitches. They unraveled, and her arm fell off in the middle of her forearm, and she took off as fast as her legs carried her. She ran until her eyes only saw the forest, the school was hidden behind leaves and wood, and Eugene disappeared with it.

---

"He?" Damien grumbled. Not a second later, it felt like he was kicked in the gut. “Eugene is here,” he realized.

He was back to hurt Vicky. His precious Vicky, whose smile outshined the moon and stars and who was brave enough to stand against the world with jolly comparable to the holiday spirit.

Damien never saw red so vividly when he took off for the administrator’s office.

He grabbed Eugene, a tall, bald man, by the back of his shirt, and heaved him into hellfire, where they disappeared into Damien’s room. Eugene instinctually froze as he processed the transportation, which Damien used to throw him across the room.

“You son of a bitch!” Damien boomed. “She used to be so happy, and you ruined her, so I’m gonna ruin you!”

Eugene pushed himself onto Damien’s bed. It was a fruitless escape, since Damien’s tail wrapped around Eugene’s ankle and pulled as hard as he could.

“Please don't do this,” Eugene pleaded.

“Did you stop when Vicky begged you to stop? Did you ever consider how much it hurt her being your sex toy? How much it hurt for a grown man to fuck a kid?” Damien grabbed him by his collar and threw him onto the floor. “You don’t fucking deserve to live, you sick bastard. I’m gonna throw you into a boiling cauldron and stab you for the rest of eternity with a motherfucking pitchfork!”

He kneeled on Eugene’s shoulders once he pinned Eugene to the floor. Damien pulled a knife from his waistband and stabbed Eugene square in the jugular. Eugene flailed and gurgled. Damien forced his head back by his chin, raised the knife high above them, and then slammed it down as hard as he could. He heard the knife snap when it severed Eugene’s spine and connected with the floor below them.

Eugene began to disintegrate into black ash. Damien had a lot to clean between the ash and blood. Damien breathed for a minute before he reached into his pocket to text Vera and Brian. Not a second later, Brian’s call came in.

“What the hell do you mean Vicky is missing?” he screamed over the receiver.

“I mean she ran into the forest not too long ago and we need to look for her before it gets dark,” Damien said he wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I need to do some cleanup at home before I can come back.”

“What kind of cleanup, Damien?”

“Eugene was a real bastard to her as a kid. He decided to pay her a visit. I took care of him, but I need to clean my room before my parents get back,” Damien explained. "We need to keep this between us for now, though, okay?"

“... thank you, I’m sure she appreciates it. I love you. I’ll let you know when we find Vicky, okay?”

“Thanks, Brian. I love you too.”

---

It became unbelievably cold as dusk rolled around. The cold bit at her skin like rats nibbled at dying flesh.

“Vicky?”

When her name was called, Vicky covered her sobs with her hands. Not a sound escaped between her fingers despite how her heart tumbled into her gut. She rocked in place. Her efforts for self-preservation were useless.

"Baby, it's me," Brian said. "Come down here."

Vicky carefully opened her eyes. Brian stood alone on the ground with a flashlight pointed into the pine tree to illuminate her.

"We've been looking for you for hours, Vicky. Let's take you home."

"No!" she snapped. "He's still out there. He knows where I am. He's going to hurt me!"

"Vicky, Eugene will never hurt you again. You have me and Damien who'll protect you. I know Vera would do just about anything to keep you safe."

Vicky cursed herself. Brian was dirty and tired of searching for the forest. She was so juvenile in her fear, to run and hide. Brian and Damien must have been worried sick. Vera must have been pretty put out as well.

She made her way down the tree trunk and ran into Brian's embrace. He squeezed her like he wanted to mold them together.

"I'm sorry," Vicky said. "He was gonna do something awful, though! I'm a little toy to Eugene. You guys wouldn't recognize me when he was done. I didn't know what else to other than run as far away as I could. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you guys."

Brian, with his face buried in her neck, said, "It's okay. I'm just so glad you're safe. Let's put this awfulness behind us and go home."

Vicky nodded obediently.

Her arm was in the back of Brian's truck. She pulled it into her lap. Vicky couldn't reattach it in the car since it was too shaky, but she was glad to have it back.

It still felt like Eugene was just outside the door with a hook in hand. Vicky clutched her arm like a club.

When Brian parked outside Vicky's apartment, she saw Damien pace through the window. His hands raked through his hair, his tail twitched like the tail of a nervous cat. Brian guided her inside by her hand. Vicky felt awful. He must have been so worried about her.

Damien looked like the weight of the world fell off his shoulders when she walked inside.

"I'm so glad you're okay, " he said.

"I'm sorry, " Vicky replied as she hugged her disembodied arm to her chest, "I got scared and ran."

He pulled her hands into his own. He kissed her knuckles. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Vicky's shower was too small for even two of them to occupy, but Brian brought her a clean set of clothes and Damien found quilts stashed in her closet. The three of them wordlessly laid together, she was sandwiched between Brian and Damien, like they were shields.

They weren't enough for Vicky to tear her eyes away from her door until she finally couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.