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rosemaidenvixen · 7 months

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Halloween story prompt idea:

Sunshine au, the gang somehow accidentally get stuck at a house party when Jim transforms and they have to find a way to:

1) cover for a "missing" Jim who was definitely wearing a different costume and now no one can find

2) explain a completely random stranger showing up uninvited in an awesome and extremely realistic troll costume

3) get transformed Jim out of there without too many people asking questions

“H– Hi Mom,” Claire managed to squeak out “What are you doing home so early?”

Ophelia raised an eyebrow at her as more women, each holding a baby or toddler, streamed into the living room behind her “Enrique’s daycare group is having their Halloween party here tonight, did I not mention it this morning?”

“No I don’t think you did…”

This was bad, they’d planned on having their group meet up at her house because with how early the sun went down this time of year Jim would be ok transforming here and then going home through the woods.

Of course that plan couldn’t account for a herd of babies and their moms occupying the first floor.

“Well uh…I’ll just go back upstairs,” Claire slowly backed out of the room “Tell everyone to keep the volume down so we don’t wake you,”

“Sure sounds great,” Ophelia was already looking away from her, pulling Enrique into his black cat costume.

As soon as she was out of sight Claire broke into a run, racing up to her room, darting inside and slamming the door behind her “We got a big problem, Enrique’s entire daycare group is here!”

You could have heard a pin drop in the stunned silence that followed those words, the four of them staring back at her with expressions of pure horror.

“Well fuck,” Toby said, breaking the silence.

“Would it kill your parents to tell you their plans ahead of time…” Mary mumbled “Also Toby’s right, we’re screwed,”

Meanwhile Jim had recovered from his shock and shut his jaw with a click “Ok ok ok, no big deal. I’ll climb out on the roof and get to the woods that way,”

Claire felt her teeth digging sharply into her lip “That won’t work. My parents are getting the roof reshingled and have almost all of it stripped off already, so if you go out that way you could slip and wipe out,”

A collective wince rippled through the room.

“Double fuck…”

Abruptly Darci clapped her hands together and got to her feet “Ok, we can do this. You just sneak out real fast and we’ll cover you,”

“We should go now,” Claire added “They’re still getting the babies into their costumes and they’ll be distracted,”

Jim’s expression was still tight and tense but he nodded back at her all the same “Alright, let’s do this,”

Claire cracked open her door and peeked out into the hall. Seeing it was clear she stepped out and waved the others to follow. They crept out into the hall, Claire and Darci in the lead with Mary and Toby trailing behind and Jim tucked in the middle, hood pulled all the way up over his horns.

They made it to the staircase, Claire constantly glancing from side to side and keeping her ears strained for any sudden noises. Waving them ahead, Claire led the group down the stairs, touching down on the main floor without–

Sudden footsteps came from around the corner.

Claire’s heart shot up into her throat “Hide!” she hissed “I’ll cover for you,”

Without wasting a second; Darci, Toby, and Jim hustled through the doorway into the dining room, the door slamming shut behind them just as Claire whirled to face the intruder.

“Oh hello Claire!” Mrs. Knightley beamed at her, a babbling Hailey dressed in a bee costume trailing after her “So nice to see you here!”

Well of course I’m here it’s my house

“Hi Mrs. Knightley, good to see you too,” Claire fixed the smile she used with unfamiliar adults and guidance counselors on her face “Is this Hailey? She’s getting so big!”

Mrs. Knightley beamed “Yes she’s starting preschool this year. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to touch up her make up a bit,”

She stepped around Claire towards the dining room, the same room Jim had gone into–

Quick as a flash Claire and Mary darted in front of her “I don’t think she really needs make up,” Claire had to work hard to make sure her tone was equal parts sincere and convincing and betrayed none of her panic “Her features are so beautiful on their own,”

“Yeah,” Mary piped up “If you want I can give her a baby make up job, it do it for my little cousins all the time–”

“Thank you girls but I’ve worked hard to get the contouring just right and I don’t trust anyone else to do it, now if you’ll excuse me–”

Before they could stop her Mrs. Knightley barged past them and pushed the door open, walking right in on–

“Oh hey, how’s it hanging?” Toby's voice called out.

Hearing a palatable lack of screaming, Claire cautiously peeked past Mrs. Knightley into the dining room. Toby and Darci stood ramrod straight beside the snack laden table, Toby holding a bowl and Darci clutching an apple slice taken from a platter. Each of them sporting wide grins that Claire hoped only looked strained to her.

But where on earth was Jim?

“We were just trying out the snacks,” Darci said, brandishing her apple slice “Gotta make sure they’re good and all,”

Mrs. Knightley’s expression puckered “Please put that down, the snacks are here for the little children,”

“Right right,” Toby set the bowl back down, eyes almost imperceptibly flicking up towards the ceiling.

Stomach churning, Claire lifted her own gaze to the ceiling only to freeze.

Jim was up there, limbs all splayed out clinging to the ceiling like spider man.

Forcing herself to snap out of it, Claire ripped her stare away from the ceiling and back towards Mrs. Knightley.

Ok, so Jim was a wall crawler, that was new, but they could use this. All he had to do to escape was crawl along the ceiling.

And hope to god no one looked up.

“Well it’s good to see you Mrs. Knightley…” Claire jerked her head up at Jim and then at all the others, before inclining her head towards the still open doorway behind her, slowly starting to back away “We’ll just get out of your hair…”

The others picked up on what she was doing and followed her lead, inching their way towards the door with Jim crawling along the ceiling.

Mrs. Knightley waved her off from where she’d sat Hailey down and was getting out a container of foundation “Oh yes good to see you to,”

Claire nodded in reply and kept retreating. Once they made it out of the dining room the backdoor was just six feet and one turn away, all they had to–

“Oh, are you doing makeup in here?”

“Yes yes come on in,”

Claire had to bite back a scream of frustration as a group of moms pushed in from behind her, the room going from wide open to crowded in seconds.

Don’t look up don’t look up whatever you do don’t look–

“Hailey sweetie lean back so I can work under your eyes,”

Claire’s heart stopped as Hailey flopped her head back, getting a full view of the ceiling.

All five of them froze, Hailey’s eyes going wide, a roaring in Claire’s ear as a chubby toddler finger slowly raised to point up at Jim.

“Boogeyman!”

Mrs. Knightley shook her head “Sweetie there’s no such thing as the boogeyman,”

“Boogeyman boogeyman, up up up!”

Mrs. Knightley sighed, more exasperated this time, but she was slowly raising her head towards–

“Hey guys!” Toby’s voice was loud enough to cut through all the chatter in the room, all eyes instantly going to him “Snack spread looks really good, mind if I just snag a few–”

Toby picked up the entire box of cupcakes from the table “So cool if I take this? Awesome, thanks,”

Good news, everyone in the room had forgotten about the ‘boogeyman’. Bad news, all eyes were on Toby and not in a good way.

The sound that came out of Mrs. Knightley could only be described as a screech.

“Oh absolutely not–”

“You kids can each have a cupcake, but not the entire–”

“Young man you put that down right–”

The room devolved into chaos. Women shouting, toddlers wailing, and Toby playing chicken with the cupcake box.

But Claire knew a diversion when she saw one.

Taking advantage of the chaos she all but ran out of the room, opening doors and keeping an eye on the ceiling to make sure Jim was following along on the ceiling. When they finally reached the back door Jim leapt down and they all bolted into the trees.

Only once they were a good distance away did they stop, panting. Going limp as the adrenaline slowly drained away. Looking around Claire saw that there were only three of them. She, Jim, and Darci were here, but Toby and Mary were AWOL.

The rescue mission would have to come later, first she had to get her heart rate back in the normal range.

“So…” Darci said between pants “You can crawl on walls,”

“Yep,” Jim let out a gusty breath “Turns out I can, so that’s a thing, still not doing that again,”

Claire flopped back on the ground with a groan “Agreed,”

She was glad they’d been able to escape, but she already knew her mom was going to give her hell for this later.

Twigs snapped a short ways away and they all froze, but it was only Toby that came through the bushes.

“Oh man, sorry Claire, but I think I might have burned some bridges with your brother’s daycare group,”

Claire waved him off “Don’t worry about it, none of them are going to risk pissing off the councilwoman who controls their budget. Is Mary with you?”

Toby’s face went red “I…uh…might have tossed the box of cupcakes at her, and booked it the other way,”

Darci gave him an even look “You do know that she’ll kill you for that?”

“Better her than the Karen brigade,” Toby started and flashed Claire and apologetic look “Sorry,”

“Hey you’re not wrong,”

More crunching echoed in the dark woods, the four of them turning towards the sound to see Mary stomping through the trees, face bright red and gaze smoldering “You. Guys. Owe. Me. Big.”

Jim raised both hands placatingly “Oh definitely, you guys saved my ass in there. I owe you one for sure,”

Still looking angry, but more placated now Mary plunked down on the ground next to Claire. It was only now that Claire still noticed she was holding the cupcake box.

“Mrs. Knightley might be obnoxious, but we really shouldn’t take all their cupcakes,”

“We’ll give them back, but I nearly got trampled by a horde of babies and their moms over these cupcakes, I earned one,” with that Mary pulled back the top of the box, lifted out a cupcake, and sank her teeth into the orange frosting.

After a few seconds Toby reached in after her and did the same, then Darci.

Oh what the heck.

Claire grabbed a cupcake herself, the four of them sitting on the ground in the dark forest munching on their cupcakes while Jim watched with piqued interest.

“So when you guys are done can I–”

“Don’t worry,” Toby gulped down his mouthful of cake “We’ll save you the paper wrappers,”

Jim grinned “You guys are the best,”

Mary swallowed “And don’t you forget it,”

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski #mary wang #darci scott #sunshine au #halloween prompts #rmvwrites #is there a tag for these five's group dynamic?#if not I'm going to make one #I might be the only one to use it #but they're my favs and I'm tagging them

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