Work Text:
Just a warning there’s a joke in here that’s so bad even I thought it might be over the top, so I’m warning you.
I am not responsible for you needing brain bleach.
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Everyone was gathered in a windowless internal conference room, ready to ride out Extermination day safely within a barrier maintained by none other than the princess of Hell herself. It wasn’t that they all wanted to or enjoyed being in the same room. It was a necessity. Well, there was one demon missing: Alastor. He liked to watch the carnage. He still wasn’t completely over being poisoned by dozens of cobras at once, but that wasn’t stopping him from at least finding a place with a nice view of the bloodshed.
“So, what do we do? Do we just sit and stare at each other until Charlie can drop the barrier?” Baxter asked, speaking first.
“Well, actually… I was thinking this would be a great opportunity for team building!” Charlie responded with a huge smile. “We can really get to know each other!”
A room full of blank faces met her in response. “We can… play games!” she continued, trying to encourage them.
“What kind of game? We can’t even play Truth or Dare because we can’t have any good dares when we’re all stuck in one room,” Angel pointed out.
“No, but… we can play… Monopoly!” Charlie announced, pulling the game board out of seeming thin air and smacking it down on the conference room table.
“… Monopoly,” Vaggie sighed.
“I want to be the cute dog. Sir Pentious, you can have the top hat.”
“Why do you assume I would want the top hat?” he asked in a disgruntled tone.
“Oh, do you not want it?”
After a pause, he sighed. “I’ll take the top hat.” Arackniss was going to have to help him because half his body was still in a cast after the events of the previous day, but that was okay with the spider. Arackniss really didn’t want to play Monopoly all that much. 23, his one remaining Egg Boi, was also eager to help.
“Husk should be the wheelbarrow because that’s how we get him home after a bender,” Angel said.
“Then you should be the race car because you finish too fast,” Husk grunted in response.
“Oooooh, how would you know that? You want to find out?” Angel asked, slapping his own ass.
“I want to be the ship because it blows shit up,” Cherri said, taking it from the set.
“I want the iron!” Nifty grinned.
“… Why am I the old shoe?” Vaggie asked.
“Because Baxter got the thimble first,” Charlie answered. “Now, I’ll be the banker.”
“Hey, how come you get to be the banker?” Angel asked.
“Because she can’t trust any of the rest of you with the money,” Vaggie grunted, arms crossed.
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Several hours later
.
“Come on, Nifty, you have to trade me Park Place! You can’t do anything with it without Boardwalk!” Angel urged.
“Then you should trade me Boardwalk,” she answered, sticking out her tongue.
“I’m not trading you Boardwalk!”
“Hey, Husk, if you give me your railroad I’ll let you land free on all my properties for one round,” Sir Pentious offered.
“You can’t do that!”
“Where does it say that in the rules, princess?”
Charlie picked up the rule book. “I know it’s in here somewhere,” she said.
“Fine then. Sell me your railroad for whatever you would have owed me for rent in the next round.”
“Make it three rounds.”
“Deal.”
“That’s still cheating!”
“How? We’re allowed to sell property. It doesn’t say how we have to price it,” Pentious argued back.
“Damn it, Husk, now you’ve let Sir Glow Worm get all the railroads!” Angel snapped.
Husk shrugged. “Yeah, I know I did. I just wanted to piss you off,” he answered.
“What good is a railroad against a battleship? PEW PEW!” Cherri said, turning her token and aiming it at the nearest railroad.
“That’s not how you play Monopoly, and that’s a cruise ship,” Vaggie snorted.
“They turned cruise ships into battleships in World War One,” Cherri retorted.
Angel rolled the dice. “I get to take a card. It says… go directly to jail,”
“Oh, we can be cell mates!” Nifty cheered, having gotten one of the other jail cards.
“Can I shiv her and steal Park Place in a jail room fight?” Angel asked.
“No!” Vaggie snapped.
“You know what, screw this. If I’m going to jail, I’m going to jail for something big!” Angel said, pulling his shirt over the lower half of his face and putting his hand in his pocket to make a gun shape. “I’m robbin’ the bank!”
“You can’t rob the bank!”
“Oh, I’m robbing the bank too!” Cherri cut in. “Hand over the dough or I’ll blow this place sky-high!”
Charlie started grabbing up the fake money when Vaggie stopped her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m giving the robbers the money so they don’t blow up the bank!”
“While everyone is distracted by the bank robbery, I bribe the zoning board. I now have permission to put hotels on all my properties,” Sir Pentious added. “They give me a tax break so I can do it for free.”
“You can’t bribe the zoning board!” Vaggie snapped back.
Husk raised a hand. “I’m the zoning board, and I say he can. Give me some of that cash.”
“Hey, I own water and electric. If you don’t bribe me too, I’ll shut off power and water to your new hotel properties,” Baxter cut in.
“Ha ha ha, we’ve emptied the bank!” Angel crowed, drawing Vaggie’s attention back to him.
“Ugh, fine, if that’s how we’re playing this game, I’m the police and I’m taking that money back and sending you to jail!” Vaggie snapped, slamming her hands on the table as she got up.
“Gotta catch us first, copper! You’ll never take us alive!” Angel shouted back as Vaggie started chasing him and Cherri around the table in circles.
“You’re supposed to go directly to jail without passing go!” she snapped as they continued to do laps.
“Wait, I want to be a cop too! I was only in jail because I was acting as a secret informant. Now I’m out. And since you are using Boardwalk to commit a crime, I claim it as civil forfeiture!” Nifty said cheerfully.
“Don’t touch my Board-AH!” Angel shouted. He’d been too distracted by Nifty to notice that he was about to trip on Pentious’ tail cast. Cherri ran into his back as he tried to catch his balance, and then Vaggie slammed into both before they ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and flying paper money.
“Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of our systems, can we play this stupid game the way it’s MEANT to be played?” Vaggie groaned, rubbing her head.
“I thought the point of Monopoly was to start family fights,” Baxter shrugged. “Anyway, I’m putting a hotel on my hotel.”
“You can’t put a hotel there!”
“If Pentious can bribe the zoning board, so can I!”
“I’m the zoning board and I allow it,” Husk reminded Vaggie. “As long as all the hotels have full-service bars that give free drinks to zoning board members.”
“I… don’t think the game is supposed to be this realistic,” Charlie stammered, flicking frantically through the rule book.
“I forge a will leaving all of Pentious’ property to myself and then he just happens to meet a mysterious accident,” Baxter said.
“No, I didn’t!” the snake hissed.
“Yes, you did! You should have been more careful about tying yourself to your own railroad tracks!”
“A handsome hero with bulging muscles on all four arms and shining grey fur rescued me just in time,” Pentious snapped back.
“That hero was an assassin under my command. You die anyway.”
“As the head of the assassin’s guild, I’ll allow it,” Husk shrugged.
“Niss!” Pentious said, sounding hurt. “Fine. I rise as a vengeful demon and curse all the property you stole from me! It falls to pieces and becomes worthless!” Pentious hissed. “NYAHAHAHAHA!”
“EARTHQUAAAAAAKE!” Nifty shouted, shaking the board. “Your hotels weren’t built to code and they all fell down.”
“This isn’t Dungeons and Dragons,” Vaggie groaned as she tried to untangle herself from Angel and Cherri.
“Dungeons and Dragons is more organized than this. This is just freeform LARPing,” Husk noted.
“You know, I think Monopoly might be a little too intense for us,” Charlie said nervously. “But don’t worry, I was planning on having a game night so I’ve got plenty of games here. How about snakes and ladders?” she asked.
A shocked look came across Sir Pentious’ face. “I thought a princess would be more societally aware than this. That came is species-ist against snake kind” he huffed, crossing his arms.
“Oh, uh… right. How about… the Ouiji board!” she asked, holding it up.
“Ouiji board? Isn’t that for… contacting the dead and demons?” Angel asked as the three finally managed to get off up the floor. “Hate to break it to you, but we’re already dead and demons.”
“The hell version of the game lets us talk to humans!” Charlie replied, stars in her eyes. She had no experience with living humans, and she thought far too highly of them. “See? There’s a speaker so we can hear their questions, then we push the game piece to respond.”
“Only two or three can play that game at once,” Vaggie noted.
“We can take turns.”
Charlie and Vaggie went first, while the others lounged around and watched.
“Is anyone there? What is your name?” a voice came through the speaker.
“Let’s spell my name!” Charlie squealed excitedly as she pushed the planchet around.
“Wait, like, Charlie-Charlie?” the human asked.
“Let’s move it to yes,” she said excitedly to Vaggie.
The very next turn, the planchet moved to goodbye. “Oh. I guess they were tired. Let’s try again!”
After three more tries where the humans immediately disconnected after asking if she was Charlie-Charlie, the princess was starting to get frustrated. “Why do they keep disconnecting?” she sighed.
“Hey, it says on the internet that Charlie-Charlie is apparently some kind of creepy pasta thing humans do on youtube to scare one another,” Angel said, showing her his screen.
“… Huh. Do you want to take a turn?” she asked.
“I… would rather not talk to the human world,” Angel said, cuddling Fat Nuggets.
“Why don’t you try, Sir Pentious, Arackniss, and Baxter?”
It took a while to make another connection. “Is there anyone out there? Hello?”
“I guess we move it to yes,” Baxter said.
“What is your name?” came the next question, the voice sounding more excited. They could hear whispers of “You’re moving it, no, you’re moving it,” coming through.
“I’ll spell my name,” Pentious volunteered. He only got as far as S-I-R P-E-N” when laughter erupted from the other side of the board.
“It said penis!” someone shouted on the other side, causing a room full of mortal giggles to erupt.
“What?! I did not say penis!” Pentious snapped. Angel and Cherri were doubled over in laughter, tears at the corners of their eyes. “Push it to no!” he said angrily, but he pushed too hard and the planchet flew off the board and onto the floor. The screams that came through the speaker could have woke the dead, and the demons trapped in the hotel would know, as they were the dead.
“The ghost threw the planchet!” one of the voices screamed.
“Pentious, it says not to push so hard on it!” Charlie corrected, going to pick up the game piece.
“Hmph. Like I care,” he hissed, flicking his tongue at her.
“Hey, if you look through the middle, you’re supposed to be able to see demons, right? I’m gonna try it!” someone on the other end of the speaker said right as Charlie picked up the game piece. She froze, uncertain if the human was looking at her. “Aw, it’s just a perky goth,” came a disappointed voice through the game board.
Charlie placed the planchet over the goodbye, then returned the game to its box. “Let’s not do that again,” she said.
“Maybe we need to try a slightly simpler game. Like Candyland,” Vaggie suggested. “Or would that be too difficult for this group?”
“Ooooor… how about… Jenga!”
“We can’t just play Jenga! It has to be sex Jenga!” Angel protested.
“… I don’t want to know but I have to ask. What is sex Jenga?”
“Each block has a different sex act on it, and when you pull it out…”
“We are not playing sex Jenga.”
“How about the game of Life?”
“… We’re all dead.”
“What about Uno, then? Uno is safe, right?” Charlie asked hopefully.
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“Draw four, princess! Read it and weep!” Angel gloated.
“Again?” she asked, frustrated. “Someone play a reverse card, please!”
“There can’t be that many draw four cards in the deck,” Husk grunted. “Someone’s cheating.” Someone besides himself, he meant. He was definitely cheating.
“Uno!” Niffty called as she placed a card down. Everyone looked at her.
“Niffty, you know we love you, but you are going down,” Husk informed her.
Forty minutes later, the game finally concluded when Niffty managed to cinch up a win for herself. “YAAAAY!” she cheered. “I’m the champion!”
“Why don’t we try something different than playing games?” Angel suggested. “Let’s tell scaaaary stories! In the dark!”
“We’re demons. In Hell,” Arackniss pointed out.
“Then our stories should be extra scary, shouldn’t they?” his brother huffed.
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“Squish-squish-squish! The sound grew closer and closer! Fred rattled the door, but it was locked. He was trapped in. There was no way out. The squishing grew louder now, hungry! Oh, Satan, no! it was… the ghostly used fleshlight! And it was hungering for his diiiiiick,” Angel said dramatically, shining a flashlight in his face.
“Well, I’m disturbed,” Pentious said, blank-faced.
“I told you it was scary!”
“Yeah but… not for the reasons we expected,” Arackniss agreed.
“Could you come up with a better one?” Angel asked.
“I’ve got one!” Pentious said. “Ahem. Once upon a time, all was right with the world. The sun shone, the birds sang, the bees buzzed… but then, the most horrible thing happened. The most awful, no good event in all of history! For you see, on that terrible day… Angel Dust was born.”
Arackniss snickered. “Hey!” Angel said. “I wanna be mad but that was actually better than your usual insults. Niss must be coaching you.”
“How much longer until we can get out of this room?” Cherri asked.
“Another eight hours,” Vaggie said, not sounding at all happy about it.
“Ugh, and this room is starting to smell like day old fish and snake ass,” Angel complained.
“Pardon me for being stuck in a Satan-damned body cast after saving your brother’s life!”
“I’ve got a scary story I could tell,” Cherri suggested.
“If it contains any references to sex, then no,” Vaggie answered.
“I guess then I don’t have a story to tell,” Cherri pouted.
“What about Pictionary? We could play that,” Arackniss suggested.
“We’ve tried in the past, but all your brother draws is dicks,” Vaggie informed him.
“I’m not an artist, dicks are all I know how to draw!”
“And that’s why you’re not allowed to sign my cast,” Pentious pointed out.
“What do all of you normally do on Extermination day?” Charlie asked.
“Go into a bunker with pops and a few other high-ranking guys and sit there in silence for 24 hours while we all act like reading newspapers is exciting,” Arackniss said.
“Similar, I go to my underground hiding spot and listen to music or read, but mostly, I sleep through it,” Pentious answered.
“The Exorcists rarely go very far under water, so those of us who can dive and stay down for the full day, usually do,” Baxter said.
“I make bombs all day so I’m ready to go out and claim and the free real estate,” Cherri added. “Way better way of doing it than playing Monopoly.”
“How is the way you played Monopoly any different from a turf war?” Vaggie asked. “Wait, I don’t want to know your answer. Let’s just continue the conversation.”
“Usually, I get stuck in the studio all day. So, just like any other workday,” Angel responded.
“I’m with the bunker crowd, although I get drunk in mine,” Husk shrugged.
“I usually follow Alastor around and watch the streets run red and black with the blood of sinners screaming out their dying breaths,” Niffty said cheerfully. “I always sleep so well the following night.”
Finally, the 24 hours had rolled to a completion. Everyone followed Charlie to the roof to watch her fireworks. “You know… normally seeing those makes me so sad, because I know how many demons just died. But when I’m with all of you… it doesn’t feel so hopeless,” she said.
“Aw, don’t go all mushy on us, princess,” Angel chided.
“Hey, Anthony, can you help me get Pent back down to his room? There’s something I wanted to tell you. In private.”
“… Okay, I guess. Sure.”
They had only been gone for a few minutes when Angel screamed out loud enough to wake the recently exorcised, “WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?”
A moment later, they heard “SATAN DAMN IT, ANTHONY, I SAID PRIVATELY!” screamed back, just as loud.