#the skull cracky moment lives in my head forever

[rdps01]

horror time

[greghatecrimes]

hiiii i am the closest to your timezone that i will ever be and as such am in time to see your request for camteen ideas !! if you are looking for cracky, something to do with the whole chase/cameron use to date but now cameron is dating his sister, OR if you want something softer maybe a late-night cant sleep cozy sleepy camteen?

⚡️

Lightning anon my beloved! Thank you for the prompts!! :D Cozy sleepy Camteen it is!

Too Sweet

(read fully below the cut, or read the polished version on ao3!)

Each time she feels Thirteen slip into bed beside her, Cameron's still not completely certain that it isn't all a dream. The ambience of it all is serene, in a way living with her other partners never has been. The quiet rustling of their satin bedsheets; the slightly-floral scent of what's left of Remy's perfume after a long day at work; the soft hum of Thirteen's voice greeting her when she drifts in and out of her hazy sleep and sighs. It almost feels too perfect, too fragile, for it all to be true. Like if Allison reaches too far, opens her eyes just a moment too soon, she'll find herself lonely and cold on the other side of consciousness.

There's a brush of warmth against her skin as Thirteen climbs into bed beside her and nuzzles close, nestling herself perfectly against Allison's back. She feels the gentle pressure of Remy's chin against her shoulder; feels her arms, safe and sweet, coming to wrap around her in an embrace.

Slowly, she opens one eye, and then another. The warmth never fades.

"Hi," she hears Thirteen say softly from behind her, a sleepy smile evident in her words. It's always this, the sweet murmurs of her voice, that make Allison truly certain all of it is real. That the woman beside her won't turn to dust if she dares to sink into the moment, to hold on just a little bit tighter. "Miss me?"

Allison shifts and turns to face Thirteen, as slowly and as gently as she can. They've done this enough times now that neither one of them has to let go; Thirteen moves over to give her a few extra inches of space, Allison flips onto her side. The moment she's settled they're pressed together once more, drinking in the feelings of each other's sweet familiarity.

A smile pulls at her lips. "Hi, you." she says. Thirteen's tense, but not extremely so; it must not have been terrible at the hospital, at least. She rests her forehead against her girlfriend's shoulder and leans in to place a little kiss just above her collarbone, then another on her neck. "When don't I?"

"You're such a cheeseball." Remy teases, and Allison can picture the grin on her face without having to look. "You barely had time to miss me at all."

"Time s'it?"

"Three thirty. Case ended quicker than we expected."

"Mmmm... that was fast." That means that she still has several hours before she needs to get up for her overnight, and only one person to spend them with. A warm sort of contentedness bubbles in her chest. "What was it?"

Thirteen nuzzles her face into some of her girlfriend's hair. Allison knows she's savoring the feeling of the softness against her cheek; it's not at all uncommon for Thirteen to seek out physical touch and sensation as a way to regulate herself after a particularly busy shift. She's always more than happy to provide. It's one of her favorite things to wake up to when she's on night shifts. "Guess."

Slowly, one brow goes up, as drowsy as the rest of her. "...It's hard to think medicine when you're so distracting."

"Wow. And I'm not even trying." Thirteen teases, amused, and then gives a little shake of her head. Allison can feel the warmth of the other woman's breath on her skin with each word. Oh, she wishes she could wrap herself in this moment and stay in it forever. "Cameron, I think that might be kind of gay of you."

One of Allison's hands sneaks up to cradle the base of Thirteen's head, where her skull meets her neck. She runs her fingers through the down-soft hair there, lavishing in the soft, contented sigh it coaxes from Thirteen. Already she can feel her girlfriend starting to relax, in both body and mind. "Says the woman in my bed."

"Mmm-hmmm." Thirteen closes her eyes and moves ever closer, shifting so that she can rest her head on Cameron's shoulder like a pillow. Cameron feels her cross her ankles under the blanket as she does so, and a moment later, Thirteen's feet start to cricket against each other in a slow, steady rhythm. Cameron's heart swells– It's just too damn cute when she does that.

It's the littlest things about Remy that capture her attention the most; the sort of details she never bothered to notice with Chase, or even her first husband, during the few months of her marriages. How her hair falls over her face in fine, wispy waves; the dainty, curved Cupid's bow at the peak of her lips. She could spend an entire lifetime memorizing those features, and still not have had enough.

"I can feel you staring." Thirteen says, muffled, from where she's tucked against her.

How could I not? She thinks. Instead, she says, "You're beautiful."

"No, I'm tired and sweaty. I think you're delusional."

"I'm not that sleep deprived." Allison tells her, carding a hand through her hair once more. She's not sure she's ever adored someone quite so utterly and completely. "I just love you."

There's a fraction of a second where she expects Remy to freeze. A part of her wonders if this is the moment everything at last disappears, and she finally wakes from this too-sweet dream. She's always known that there's an impermanence to this ethereal thing between them; that something this beautiful wasn't made to last. It creates a marked hesitance between them when it comes to things beyond the day to day. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Family. The prospect of engagement, or even marriage.

The L-word.

Because while Cameron has the rest of her life ahead of her, Thirteen's tied to a strict timetable– one that grows smaller with every passing day. And it's taken a hell of a lot of persistence– and patience– for Allison to convince her that she doesn't have to walk that path alone.

So she waits with baited breath for the flinch. The inevitable rush of cold as Remy's body pulls away, retreating back to where it's familiar, back to where it's safe (alone, alone, alone). When she does finally stir, Thirteen lifts her head up to look at Allison, lips parted ever so slightly in shock; blue eyes wide and bright and beautiful.

"Hey," Allison says softly, reaching forward to tuck some of the other woman's hair behind her ear. Remy's eyes immediately dart away from hers, pupils constricting as she forces herself to focus on a spot that's somewhere vaguely above Allison's head. "I know that was sudden, and it's been a long day for you. I'm sorry."

"No!" Thirteen blurts. One of her hands shoots out to grasp Allison's as it hovers just beside her face, as though she's afraid one of them might vanish if she's not quick enough. "No. I didn't mean... you don't have to be sorry. Please, don't be sorry."

"If it makes you uncomfortable–"

"No. It doesn't." Remy shakes her head. Looks down at the bed. "It scares the hell out of me, if I'm being honest, but I'm not uncomfortable. I... liked hearing you say it."

Allison blinks in surprise. She can only watch as Remy looks up into her eyes and takes a breath; musters up a brave smile, hesitant but genuine.

"...Thank you. For saying it. I love you, too."

For a second, she swears she's having some sort of heart palpitation. A grin splits Allison's face, so wide and jubilant that it aches. "You do?"

Thirteen nods, a little more sure of herself this time. "I do."

With a gentle hand, Cameron nudges Thirteen closer. When the other woman doesn't offer up any kind of complaint, she turns onto her side and wraps her arms around her girlfriend's shoulders. Another one of those sighs escapes as Thirteen lets herself melt into Allison's embrace, the kind that releases the tension in her body along with it. The kind that means she feels safe.

Allison decides that she doesn't care if it's all a dream. She doesn't care that eventually, in seconds or minutes or a decade from now, she'll have to wake, and release the woman she loves from her arms. She lets herself to melt into the love she feels for Remy, so big and wide it had once scared her.

"I'm with you, for all of it." she promises, and she feels Thirteen smile softly against her chest. "And I know that's a little gay of me, but I was hoping that maybe, just this once, you could overlook that."

Remy actually laughs out loud, and the sound is sweet. Allison soaks up every fractal of this moment, and still... the warmth never fades.

[fangroyal]

i'm really curious about Dawn of the Conformists!

OH GOD OKAY SO

Fuck.

Somehow I just knew someone was going to ask about this one, and I’d have to find a way to actually explain it.

Which is honestly totally fine because I do love this crazy thing, but...

So this is CuRed (aka Michael/Pete, aka the curly-haired goth kid and the red-haired goth kid, because I’m pretty sure this is one of the rarest rarepairs I ship, and I don’t expect everyone to know who they are. 😂😂😂). Fun fact about me: they are my OTP only second to Dron, SO YEAH.

This one’s obviously way post-canon, when they’re of adult age and all that. It’s got zombies. It’s got roadtrips. It’s got pining and misunderstandings and epic human-on-zombie fights. And, you know, conformist stuff. Or, moreover, zombies that are obsessed with so-called “conformist” things. Because, you know, the goth kids are so annoyed by that kind of thing, haha. Which is fun for me, as a fellow goth, because I actually like some of the things I’d be ragging on myself.

ANYWAY, it’s a problem project for me because...ugh. I’ve just had it lying around for so long at this point - since September 2017? I think??? - and because of that, it’s gone through several transformations from the original idea. Essentially, whenever that was in 2017, I wrote down an outline and a bunch of snippets of scenes, was SO excited about it - and then I got really super sick in summer 2018, and have since not written anywhere near as much as I used to. (An issue that plagues me to this day. *sigh*) And up until a couple months ago, I would only open the folder for this one, like...once or twice a year, read through it and smile and remember how much I loved it and this ship...and then I’d continue to do absolutely nothing with it.

The reason for this is because after what happened to me in 2018, and now that I’m pushing 30, my writing style and my relationship to my writing and the kinds of stories I want to tell have all changed so much. And not that I’m trying to say what I wrote for this story three years ago is bad, but it’s...it’s, uh, not good??? Okay, so, by “not good”, I really mean it’s just...it’s too much like my old writing. And not just the words themselves, but the character development, the plot, my strange need back then to be very, you know, shock for shock’s sake. 🙄 Like, when I was younger, I admittedly didn’t have a great grasp on a lot of the pieces and parts of writing. Not saying that I’m a fucking expert on it now, of course not, but I do prefer the way I write now - my style, my voice - a lot more than what it used to be.

So when I inevitably opened up that folder again a couple months ago, and once again remembered how much I used to love it, I was struck by how much I wanted to change about it, to make it more like how I write now.

And so what was once actually called The Walking Conformists became Dawn of the Conformists. I decided what was once two old friends realizing their small mountain town had all turned into zombie-like “conformists” - that they needed to get away from there, move to another state, another city, where Henrietta was waiting for them, and thus the pining and hijinks sprinkled in between - needed to be more of a gradual “what the fuck”, both cracky and not, zombie’s placated by conformist things experience, a la Shaun of the Dead (i.e. the name change). I wrote up a few lines about this one scene that really stuck in my mind for the new treatment, and THEN...promptly didn’t do anything else. Again. 😂

Because, you see, I’m also having a lot of trouble translating the old outline and snippets to the new version. I don’t like a lot of what it once was, but I do like some of it. And unfortunately, the parts I do really like still relate to that whole roadtrip/moving idea, aaaaannnndddd....I don’t know what the fuck to do about it, haha. If anyone out there is willing to, I don’t know, alpha? or something? and help me out with this transition, I would appreciate you forever.

ANYWAY, I’ve rambled on enough, I think, LMAO. So I’ll give you snippets now. The first is one of the pieces I do still like from the original - a little glimpse of our poor angry boy Pete raging at himself over just how much he wants Michael. The second is part of that scene that gave me the desire to start crafting the new version. (Both are very rough, I’m so, so sorry.)

Old Version:

Pete had tried his best to make himself look like he hadn't gotten dressed in the back of a car, nor brushed his teeth in the woods with a water bottle, but he feared he hadn't succeeded. Michael looked immaculate in that way that drove Pete absolutely insane. Normally, his hair would be gelled down on the sides, top swept forward in a delicate wave down one side of his face. He was, of course, lacking in such style today, his hair mussed instead, curls tousled all about his head ― and yet he still made it look like the goth fashion statement of the century. He was even sitting there wearing that stupid fucking dangly raven's skull earring Pete had gotten him for his birthday at least four years ago, and it made Pete want to gouge out his own eyes.

He took out his frustrations on his last piece of sausage instead, spearing it violently before shoving it in his mouth.

New Version:

Pete jumped back, knocking into the counter and sending an empty mug crashing to the floor. His hands scrambled behind him, his breath coming in short pants. The man swayed on his feet, a hanging piece of skin on his cheek sagging low enough that Pete could see the layer of muscle tissue beneath. He glanced at the bread knife at the far side of the counter, wondering how quickly he could reach it before the intruder came for him again.

Then, the man slowly raised his arm and pointed at the menu above Pete's head.

Pete blinked. A hour seemed to pass as they stared at each other, and then the man gestured emphatically, and Pete ― against his better judgement ― stepped cautiously forward and followed the man's finger to the spot he was pointing at.

This had to be a fucking joke.

"Y-you want that?" Pete asked. The man gave another insistent growl, and he leaned away from him, his pulse twinging in his neck.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," he huffed. "Fine. H-hold on, just ― just stay there, okay?"

Pete tried his best to remain calm as he waited for the milk to steam. It was difficult to do with a definitely possible living corpse standing menacingly on the other side of the register, boring holes into his back with cold, dead, surprisingly wide-open eyes. Pete struggled to keep his hands from twitching as he poured espresso into a to-go cup.

When all was said and done, he plonked a large pumpkin spice latte onto the counter with a nervous nod of his head.

The man picked up the cup, and ― seeming to suddenly think of it ― flailed his free hand for a moment before dipping it into a tattered pocket of his jeans and fishing out a small pile of something that might've been a muddy piece of trash, might've just been a clump of dirt, but most certainly was not any form of currency Pete recognized, and slapping it onto the counter. Pete eyed it with barely-concealed disgust.

Then the man took a sip of his drink and smiled. Or at least attempted an approximation of a smile. His skin cracked from his lips out and threatened to fall off his face entirely. He grunted something that sounded suspiciously like 'thank you' and shuffled towards the door, cradling the cup lovingly between both hands.

"Sure thing," Pete mumbled, hovering anxiously at the register as the man leaned against the door, swinging it open and disappearing into the night. Before it even shut, Pete was already striding across the room, grabbing and yanking it closed, flipping the lock and switching off the neon 'open' sign, gripping the handle with shaking hands as he sank to a crouch.

"What the actual fuck."

WIP Title Game