Dethpwn

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): None
Warnings: Unattended children.
Summary: As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Notes: Sorry this took so long, I’ve had the flu and been a little out of it. Not sure this is my best work but Rei liked it so what the hey.

For the Sausage Festival Fluff Fic Challenge! I realized it was supposed to be an OUT of character contest, but in some cases it’s just more fun to run the guys as they are…

The outfit Nathan is wearing is a tip of the hat to my dear friend Joyful Molly, who writes smashing good Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction. Frock coats and powdered wigs are totally metal. ::Throws up the horns and headbangs.::

It was just one of those situations. The kind a person should have seen coming from three miles away. Just one of those simple acts of common courtesy that was bound to backfire in the most spectacular way possible. It all started with a school bus resting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, its two rear axels broken. There was no debating they would stop. Sure they were tough and cold and dark and brutal, but only a real asshole left a busload of little kids stranded in the middle of nowhere. Charles couldn’t imagine what the afore-mentioned kiddies were thinking as they saw the formidable iron beast that was the tour bus slowly steam to a halt next to their humble vehicle. Pickles read the lettering on the side of the disabled bus and sighed quietly, rolling his eyes.

“Ah… geez! Lookit that, it’s a bus load of orphans.”

“Worse,” said Nathan, standing beside him. “It’s a busload of orphans with nuns.” He watched as a woman of about fifty years of age wearing a black and white habit stepped off the bus. Moments later there was the predictable slam of a certain Swedish guitar player hitting the window, blue eyes narrowed with the predatory intensity of a wolf on the prowl.

“Oh do NAHT even think about it!” said Pickles.

“Thinks abouts what?” asked Skwisgaar. He hopped up to catch hold of the decorative frame around the window and poke his head out the transom. Nathan, Pickles and Murderface watched him.

“Can’t we do anything about him?” asked Murderface.

“Neutering comes to mind,” said Nathan.

“Dood I’ve got a taser,” said Pickles.

Charles watched four of the five members of the band he managed, eyebrow raised, waiting for them to do something about the children.

“Well?” he finally said. “Do you think it might be a good idea to go out there and help them, hm?”

“Nah,” said Nathan as Skwisgaar began trying to squiggle through the transom. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea. For one thing I’m pretty sure if we talk to a nun somebody is gonna burst into flames, either us or her.”

Charles blinked, watching them. Finally he did something he had absolutely never once done in front of his boys. He shouted.

“WE ARE NOT LEAVING A BUSLOAD OF NUNS AND ORPHANS ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!”

“Fine,” said Nathan. “But if I burst into flames it’s your fault.”

“Fine.” Charles looked at Skwisgaar, who was now firmly stuck like a cat in a basement window, dangling there like the great yellow tom he was.

“Littles help?” Skwisgaar asked.

Nathan took a photo but that was all the assistance Skwisgaar got. They left him hanging from the window, feet scrabbling on the glass as he attempted to extract himself from his situation. Charles, Nathan, Murderface and Pickles walked to the door of the great tour bus just in time to meet Toki. Together they opened the door and stepped out as two more nuns emerged, followed dutifully by fifteen girls in Catholic school uniforms, all between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Pickles took one look, and suddenly darted away, retreating back into the tour bus. They listened as his boots fled down the hall, up the iron steps to the upper level and into the bathroom, where he slammed the door and bolted it.

Great. Just great.

The eldest nun stepped forward to meet the four men before her. “Bless you for stopping, we have been here for four hours already. I was beginning to get a wee bit worried.”

“Well it was our pleasure, sister,” said Charles. “May we offer you a lift into town?”

“Thank you, we would be most grateful.”

Toki stood, staring transfixed at the nun, his eyes huge. She smiled at him.

“Can I help you, my child?”

Toki bolted and fled after Pickles. They listened as his boots took the same route; down the hall, up the stairs and into the bathroom, followed by the predictable slamming of the door. The woman looked puzzled.

“Did I frighten him?”

“You’ll have to excuse him, it’s the habit,” said Charles.

“Protestant, is he?”

“Nihilist, actually.”

She looked affronted. “That’s almost as bad. Come along, girls, these kind gentlemen are going to take us into town.” She turned her attention to Charles once more. “I’m Sister Mary. This is Sister Agatha and Sister Jane. And you are…?”

“My name is Charles, this is Nathan, William, and…” His eyes shifted to the muttering, cursing, squiggling Swede in the transom. “That’s… Skwisgaar.”

“Shouldn’t we help him?” asked Sister Jane.

“He’ll figure it out,” said Nathan.

“But I feel so sorry for him!” said Sister Jane, her large brown eyes full of concern.

“You wouldn’t if you knew what he was doing to end up there,” said Murderface.

“Yeah he’s… completely out of control,” said Nathan. “You should take advantage of him being stuck like that to uh… help… save his soul… or something.”

“Yeah we’re deeply consherned,” said Murderface.

“Well bless the both of you for being such caring souls.”

Nathan and Murderface smiled sweetly; little angels with bent wings, tarnished halos, and pointed tails poking out from beneath their robes.

Sister Mary sighed. “Well thank you for helping us, I don’t know what we would have done without you. I admit I was getting worried.” She paused and considered the gigantic iron dragon she was about enter, the expression on her face suggesting she wasn’t certain they were out of the woods yet. As Charles dealt with their unexpected guests, Nathan made his way up to the bathroom on the bus – the only bathroom on the bus. He knocked on the door.

“Are you guys gonna be long? Because I gotta tell you, if you don’t come out soon it’s gonna get ugly.”

“I am NAHT coming out,” said Pickles.

“Mes either,” said Toki.

Nathan sighed heavily. “Why the hell not?”

“Dood I am naht coming out. There are twelve year old girls out there, I’m naht leaving.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“I am naht coming out, there are little girls out there, my ass is staying in here.”

“Pickles are you telling me you’re scared of little girls?”

The door was unlocked, and Pickles poked his head out. “I was the lead singer in an 80’s hair band. No one knows better than I do how evil thirteen year old girls can be.” He pointed to his hair, or rather the lack thereof. “You think this fell out?!”

“Pickles they’re little girls, not tools of evil. Now you’re being ridiculous. Repeat after me. Little girls are not tools of evil.”

“Little girls are not tools of evil,” Pickles dutifully parroted.

“Good.”

“That’s because evil is a tool of little girls.” He closed the door and locked it. “Toki and I are staying in here.”

Nathan growled. “You can’t hide in the bathroom or I swear I’ll haul out the trunk you keep your stage clothes in and me and Murderface are gonna stuff ourselves with chilli and beer and then when we have to go we’re gonna…”

“A’ right a’ready! C’mahn Toki, we can hide in my room.”

“But dere is nuns outs dere!”

“I’ll protect you from the nuns if you protect me from the demon-spawn.”

“Okies.”

Nathan watched the pair scurry from the bathroom like rats for a bolt-hole, then wandered towards his own room. He was tired and he needed a nap. Hopefully when he woke up this nonsense would be over with. Downstairs Murderface and a nun were attempting to extract Skwisgaar from the transom when one of the girls ran up to tug on the nun’s sleeve.

“Sister Jane, come quick! Natalie needs you!”

Sister Jane was yanking on a boot. “Can it wait a minute, child?”

“No!”

The nun sighed. “Very well.” She gave Skwisgaar a pat on the leg. “Don’t go anywhere!”

“Oh you funny lady.”

Sister Jane went off with the girl, leaving Murderface and Skwisgaar alone with eight of the little darlings… and Skwisgaar was helpless. Murderface stared at the girls. They stared back. The hairs on the back of his neck began to rise. Somewhere in the distance he was sure he heard the opening riff to ‘Bad to the Bone.’

“Sho… can I help you girls?” he asked warily.

“Not a chance,” said one. She reached into her bag and yanked out a can of Sparkle Princess Barbie hair spray. “We’re here to help you. Now that the penguin is out of the way, it’s makeover time.”

If this had been a grown woman, his first response would have been to hose her down with a full bottle of beer, or possibly grab a pool cue. But… that didn’t really seem like the best way to get free of this situation. For one thing he didn’t think Charles would enjoy preparing a case in which he had to defend the actions of rather heavily built adult male who whacked a thirteen year old girl with a pool cue. Murderface did the only thing he could - he fled, leaving Skwisgaar to his fate as a possible distraction. As four girls took off after him, four others, including the one holding the can of hair spray, regarded the frantically scrabbling back end of the world’s fastest guitar player.

“What do we do with him, Terry?” asked one.

“Well Marcia, I have two words,” she said as she pulled out a large pair of fabric shears. “Bikini wax. I’ll get his boots, you cut his pants off.”

“HEY YOU CAN’TS DO DATS, I DON’TS WEARS UNDERWEARS! YOU GETS ME ARRESTEDS SHOWINGS MY DING-DONG TO LITTLES GOILS!”

“Don’t worry, we won’t look. Bonnie?”

“Yes?”

“Get the camera.”

What followed was a lot of words unsuitable for young ears. Fortunately most of them were in Swedish.

***---***

Charles meanwhile was enjoying having a chance to engage in civilized adult conversation with Sister Mary and Sister Agatha. They sipped tea and discussed theology, pleasantly whiling away the hours, and were only occasionally disturbed by Sister Jane who seemed to be on an endless number of small quests to help this girl or the other. At first Charles paid little heed to Sister Jane popping in and out, but after the fifth time he offered a quiet little laugh.

“I would almost think those girls are keeping her busy so they can get up to something. My boys do the same thing to me when they’re trying to cover up some catastrophe.”

There was a long pause, and the three considered what he had just said. Without a word they got up and hurried from the room in search of the girls and whatever chaos they were wreaking. They didn’t have to go far. Charles watched as Murderface tore by, his hair done in pink sparkles and ringlets. Not far away Skwisgaar’s back end was now dressed in a thong, miniskirt and killer stilettos, his front end done up like a Vegas show girl, complete with feathers. Charles was horrified.

“Skwisgaar!”

“Just gets me down I just wants down!” The rest of what he said was a lot of hysterical Swedish. Charles went over to him and managed to extract him from the transom, then looked at his guitar player, dressed like a hooker who secretly wanted to dance in shows.

“Was horribles,” Skwisgaar whimpered.

“Oh, there, there, it’s all right. Let’s just… get this thing off you...” Charles removed the feathered headdress, then gasped in horror as he saw the ghastly chop-job done on his hair; his long golden tresses now flirty short curls.

“I’s hideous freak!” he squeaked.

“No… it’s not that bad…” said Charles. “We’ll just… have the makeup artist deal with it.”

Skwisgaar squeaked again. Then the four girls that had been chasing Murderface appeared, and stopped cold. Charles looked to the girls, his brown eyes narrowing as Skwisgaar shivered and whimpered. Then he looked to the nuns.

“You know, I have never launched a legal suit against an orphanage, but in this case I am sorely tempted! Look at my guitar player! He has to go on stage in eighteen hours! How is he supposed to perform in his current emotional state? And what about my bass player? Pink sparkles may be all the rage in a girls’ orphanage but this is a DEATH metal band and I don’t think I need to remind you that pink sparkles are NOT METAL!”

Sister Agatha was beside herself over what her girls had done. “Mr. Ofdensen we are deeply sorry, I… I had no idea the girls would do such a thing!”

“Forgive me for saying so but I find that very hard to believe, sister.” Charles turned to Skwisgaar. “Where are Toki, Nathan and Pickles?”

“I don’t know, I was stuck in transom whole time. I needs a bath. I just wants a bath.”

“Come along, I’ll help you up to the washroom, it’s all right, I have you.”

Charles slowly walked Skwisgaar upstairs to the bathroom, finding Murderface already locked inside, a pack of five girls attempting to jimmy the door open. They instantly became innocent little princesses when Charles showed up, but he wasn’t buying it.

“Downstairs. Now.”

They fled. Charles knocked on the door. “William? It’s Charles.”

The door opened. Charles managed to keep a straight face but it was not easy, especially since the first thing that went through his mind as Murderface opened the door was 'That is easily the most hideous Shirley Temple impersonation I have ever seen.' Murderface regarded Charles coldly, his arms crossed, his hair up in curls, looking as if he just found out that the ‘Good Ship Lollipop’ was in fact a tramp steamer filled with rancid fish.

“I’d like a word with you about you shkewed shense of right and wrong and how in the future we will be implementing a shtrict ‘no orphans or nuns’ polishy.”

“In a moment.” Charles gently handed Skwisgaar off to Murderface. “If you could just look after Skwisgaar for a moment, while I go check on Nathan, please? And be kind, he was just given a Brazilian wax against his will.”

“Brazilian? Isn’t that where they remove…?”

“Yes.”

Skwisgaar squeaked.

Murderface gently drew Skwisgaar into the bathroom. Charles went to Nathan’s room, expecting the worse… and got more than he feared. The good news was that Nathan had slept through the whole ordeal. The bad news was their front man would not be able to appear on stage and in public in eighteen hours.

Starting at the feet were gigantic puffy pink bunny slippers, complete with floppy ears, smiley faces and big silly blank blue eyes. Nathan didn’t have a huge amount of body hair, but what hair he did possess had been removed in a desperate attempt to make the reprehensible outfit he was jammed into slightly more acceptable. It was, in fact, a mini-skirt version of the corseted gowns popular in France in the seventeen hundreds. It was pink and gauzy and sparkly, and even had pink gauzy sparkly pantaloons to go with it. Unfortunately the skirt was, as was the fashion at the time, hooped, and due to the fact it was so short, the hoops stuck straight up giving everyone an excellent view right up his dress. His face was painted in the manner of the time as well – ice white, with red spots for cheeks and a dainty little red rosebud mouth. The cherry on this sundae was a pink sparkly gentleman’s powdered wig from the same time period, fitting just a little too well. Charles stepped forward and tugged at it, but the wig did not move. A pile of long black tresses on the floor told him why – the little angels had shaved off Nathan’s real hair in order to glue the wig in place.

Oh someone was going to pay for this – pay dearly.

Charles left the room, leaving Nathan to sleep, and marched downstairs to where the sisters had rounded up the fifteen girls. The nuns were clearly aware that the news was not good. Charles came to stand before them.

“Well, sisters, it seems your avenging army has struck a blow against the forces of heavy metal music. Dethklok will not be appearing later tonight. Skwisgaar is completely traumatized, and once Nathan wakes up and finds out he has been shaved bald I suspect he will not be in much better shape. Congratulations. You’ve brought the entire production to a screeching halt. There are venues to cancel, ticket prices to be reimbursed, deposits lost, and all because we were foul and cruel enough to offer you a ride.”

“Well… perhaps we could pay you back,” said Sister Mary. “How much could it possibly be?”

Charles whipped out his pocket calculator, crunched a few numbers, and showed the result to the nuns. Sister Agatha fainted on the spot.

“We can’t pay that!” exclaimed Sister Jane. “We’re a humble orphanage! This is terrible!! What will we do?!”

“We’ll be on the street!” cried Sister Mary.

“Well,” said Charles, “you have two options that I see. Number one is to send the girls on stage to explain to fifty thousand highly displeased Death Metal fans why Dethklok will not be performing while you attempt to pay for the expenses incurred as a result of the high jinks of these little darlings. Or…”

“Or?” said Sister Mary.

Charles’ eyes shifted to Terry and her long gold hair. A nasty smile crossed his mouth.

“Or we could go for a little Old Testament justice. Namely… an eye for an eye.”

Terry grabbed her hair and screeched in horror. Sister Mary looked from Charles to Mary and back again.

“Will that make us even?”

“In part. Luckily for you we have a stylist on hand who knows how to do hair extensions. That will repair our guitar player. However our front man has been shaved bald and a pink wig cemented into place on his head. That will be a little more difficult to repair.”

“The wig is real hair,” said Sister Agatha, recovering from her faint at last and getting to her feet. “If we comb it out we can extend it as well.”

“But his hair was black!” said Sister Jane. “None of our girls have black hair. And that wig is pink!”

“We have hair dye,” said Sister Mary.

“You can’t take my hair!” said Marcia.

“Hush your mouth,” said Sister Mary. “The Bible says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Well apparently you want to be shaved bald and humiliated. So that’s what you’re going to get.”

“Good,” said Charles. “I’ll just summon the stylist, then.”

And so it came to pass that, eighteen hours later, Dethklok were on stage in all their metal glory, whirling and windmilling their way through their performance, while far away in a humble home for orphaned girls, Terry and Marcia watched the show on TV, morosely munching popcorn, each sporting a brush-cut that would have made them the envy of any boy in 1952.

“Well we always did want to be on stage,” said Marcia.

“Shut up,” growled Terry.