On the Eleventh Day ...
Title: Something You Can Rely On
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Erik/Raven, past Erik/Magda
Word Count: 641
Summary: When Erik visits the mansion, he always comes to Raven at night. Raven sometimes wonders if she should stop him.
Link: Here
Title: Finding Common Ground
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: G
Word Count: 288
Summary: Alex and Scott have never had much in common.
Link: Here
Title: All Right Together
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Pairing: Hank/Charles
Word Count: 697
Summary: Hank has nightmares after the events of Apocalypse and Charles tries to comfort him.
Link: Here
Title: Reaching Out
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Word Count: 844
Summary: Storm goes to try and talk to Psylocke
Link: Here
Title: Tactile
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Pairing: Charles/Hank
Word Count: 488
Summary: Hank sometimes worries when he watches Charles, even though he knows he doesn't need to.
Link: Here
Title: Enigma
Fandom: X-Men Comics (Uncanny X-Men)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Scott/Magneto
Word Count: 271
Summary: Magneto finds Scott fascinating.
Link: Here
Title: Surprise Reaction
Fandom: Welcome to the Punch
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 339
Summary: Jacob watches Max sleep.
Link: Here
Title: Friendless
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: G
Word Count: 152
Summary: Avon reflects on people.
It was pretty rare that Avon ever let himself reach out for anybody.
Reaching out for people made you look weak. Every person should be reliant on themselves and themselves alone. Involving others in your life could only lead to an increase in danger, an increase in trouble. He was better when he was alone. He would always be better when he was alone.
He had briefly thought it was different when he had been with Anna. But then she had died and it had been his fault. He had sworn that he would never be fooled again. Never let anybody else into his life.
Yet somehow, being on the Liberator had changed that. His crewmates were frustrating, insufferable, antagonising, ridiculous in their turns. And yet ... they had their uses.
That was how he preferred to put it to himself. Uses. They weren’t friends, of course.
Kerr Avon had no friends.
Title: Alone
Fandom: Getbackers
Rating: PG
Word Count: 152
Summary: Ginji knows people need him.
Ginji knew what it was to have people reaching for him.
He was the leader of the Volts, the Raitei and they loved him. It was rare that he was ever alone, rare that he was ever able to think because there was always someone who wanted to be around him, wanted to ask him something or bask in his prescence. And Ginji let them. How could he do anything else? They needed him like they needed air.
And yet sometimes, he wanted to reach out himself. Wanted someone to tell him that it was okay not to be the person that they all seemed to need him to be. Wanted someone, anybody to help him as more and more of him slipped away.
But there didn’t seem to be anybody out there that could do that. Not in the Fortress.
Not until Ban Midou came.
Title: Unexpected Development
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Mogi/Misa
Rating: PG
Word Count: 276
Summary: Mogi tries to help Misa after. It works, somehow.
It probably wasn’t a great idea.
He should have left her alone. Let her get back to the world that she’d left behind. But Misa had left her world so very far behind that Mogi thought there was probably no returning to it anyway. She had no one now, no one but the Yagamis and she’d never been close to them - and besides, they were so very damaged too ...
So Mogi took it upon himself.
Misa always welcomed him in; dully and quietly with almost no hint of her former sparkle. They sat and he made her tea and checked she had eaten something that day. She mostly did what he asked without a fuss. They were both careful not to talk too much about the past. It was a system and it worked for them.
He wasn’t quite sure when it changed. Maybe when Misa started putting on the occasional bit of makeup for his visits. Maybe when he arrived to clean, only to find that she had done some of it herself. When she started to talk to him a little more, ask him questions about what he’d been doing that day. When he started looking forward to seeing her, when he started thinking about how nice it would be to sit in companionable silence while he did his paperwork.
One night, as he was about to leave, she reached out her hand. That was all. Mogi took it and that was that.
It was a strange thing. Unexpected. But somehow, it felt right and in a world where things hadn’t felt right for a while, Mogi felt that was what really mattered.
Title: Following a Designated Path
Fandom: Detective Academy Q/Hunger Games
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1483
Summary: Ryu has always known it's his destiny to volunteer for the Games.
Ryu sat and watched the other tributes being picked.
You could learn a little from the way people reacted. Not everything, of course. Lots of people were shocked and shock meant that they did not react the way you might expect. They cried or stood stone-faced but later, they found their strength or weakness. But you could get a vital first glimpse here and his grandfather had told him to study the other contestants every chance that he had. Ryu’s skills were not in doubt. It was what everyone else could do that was important.
Most of them didn’t really stand out. They looked the usual mismatched group of sad, weak children, some older, some younger, although a tall boy from District Four that volunteered instead of a twelve year old caught his eye. He looked as though it would have been his last year eligible and Ryu couldn’t decide if he’d been secretly training or was just being stupidly brave.
Only one other caught his eye. A boy, probably about his age from District Nine. He looked pale and scared but he directed a huge smile at the people below and even waved. He took the hand of the shaking female tribute and smiled at her too. It didn’t look like bravado but Ryu wasn’t sure what it was. It was ... strange.
Not a threat though. Not to someone like him. But all the same, he remembered the name.
Kyuu.
*
Kyuu approached him in the first training session.
“Are you planning on learning disguises too?”
Ryu already knew how to disguise himself. He already knew how to do everything in this room. Grandfather had given specific instructions of how to behave in the training room. Stay calm and impassive. Do not display your exact abilities, just a little of them. Visit every station and watch what the others know.
“I suppose so,” he said coolly, turning away. Why would Kyuu talk to him? They were rivals. Ryu was going to kill Kyuu in only a few days time.
Perhaps it was a strategy. Some kind of trick. Any competitor with sense had some sort of idea to throw everybody else off their game - at least, that was what Grandfather said.
“It might be fun,” Kyuu was saying brightly. Ryu decided not to answer. Maybe the child was an idiot. That might explain a lot.
*
He wasn’t the only person that Kyuu chatted to on those three days. In fact, Kyuu seemed to try talking to everybody. Most people rejected him outright but Ryu noticed that a small boy from District Three - Kazuma - began to tag around after Kyuu and the tall volunteer from District Four - Kintaro - seemed to have taken a liking to him too. Along with his District mate - Megumi, her name was - they would often be seen working together, talking. A few times, Ryu edged closer to listen but they weren’t discussing tactics or working together - they were talking about their districts and their families and friends, as though they’d just met up at a party.
Ryu didn’t understand it.
He wasn’t used to not understanding things.
Kyuu always smiled when he saw him and even waved. Ryu decided that Kyuu was clearly slightly mad.
*
Kyuu spoke to him again on the third day as Ryu sat, staring with little interest at the weapon’s training.
“Are you already good at that?”
“I suppose so,” Ryu said, without thinking. He was bored of keeping silent, bored of talking about nothing, bored of learning nothing new. At least Kyuu was different.
“I’m rubbish,” Kyuu said sadly. “Weapons just aren’t my thing. I keep dropping them everywhere. Guess I’m gonna get a pretty low number!”
He rubbed the back of his head and tried to laugh. It was the first time that Ryu had seen any sign of real anxiety from him and it made him feel ... odd.
“Ability with weapons isn’t all that you need to survive, Kyuu.”
“Oh, I know. I mean, I’ve done the classes on survival and food plants and everything. But I guess people who can fight live a bit longer.”
“Cleverness has it’s uses.”
“It does,” Kyuu said and he smiled. “You never know. Maybe we could all really use it and not have to stay in the arena at all!”
Ryu laughed. He couldn’t help it. Kyuu grinned at him, apparently not worried that the laugh might be at him. There was something so open about him, something ... likeable.
Ryu wasn’t really meant to like anyone. But he found that he was liking Kyuu all the same.
*
He had been carefully prepped for his interview with Ceaser Flickerman, of course.
“They will ask about me,” his Grandfather had told him. “That is acceptable. Distract them by letting them think about what I did. Don’t talk so much about what you can do. Remember, you have to be a surprise.”
Ceaser did indeed ask what it was like to be the Grandson of “King Hades.” Ryu let that largely be the focus, talking about his Grandfather’s serious demeanour, how he rarely spoke about the Hunger Games that he had won, how Ryu had always admired and respected him. He kept his voice composed, his head up. They would all see that he wasn’t at all worried and they would know what that meant. He would earn sponsors because he was confident and physically attractive and the son of a much loved champion.
He was a born winner and everybody knew it.
Still, Ceaser Flickerman did his best to help the others too. Ryu watched as they soared or stumbled through their interviews. He found that the only one he was really interested in was Kyuu’s.
Kyuu was bright, bubbly and clumsy. He chatted about the fun he’d had in the Capitol, about how he wished he could send some of the food home to his mother, how he’d made some nice friends. The audience made “awwwwing” noises at that and Kyuu blinked, as though he hadn’t expected that to gain him sympathy at all.
Perhaps he truly hadn’t.
Ryu found himself hoping that Kyuu was killed quickly and not stabbed in the back by one of his “friends.” Then he felt foolish for such a sympathetic thought. He was a fool.
*
The arena looked like a deserted town.
Ryu hadn’t stayed long at the Cornucopia. His grandfather was very dismissive of it. It was the thugs that required weapons. There were useful things, of course, but Ryu could get them by stealth later - and his sponsors would see him right. Ryu knew full well that he had sponsors.
He walked through the deserted buildings, deciding where to go. There were houses but they didn’t appeal to him, somehow. He found himself wandering further out, looking for somewhere a little isolated.
The little school building looked good, somehow. Perhaps because he had always been comfortable when he was learning. It was all he felt really comfortable doing in his life, all he’d ever really wanted to do.
Besides, nobody would expect it. Obviously He’d be well hidden and he could wait to see who had survived and begin to plan accordingly.
He walked in quietly, just in case. There was a long corridor and he headed down it, opening the door to a classroom - and saw he wasn’t alone.
Kyuu was there, Kyuu with his little posse of people, all staring at him with active hostility - except for Kyuu, who smiled at him.
“Hello Ryu!”
“Don’t be an idiot, Kyuu,” Kinta said sharply.
“No, Ryu’s okay, honestly! I’ve talked to him, he’s cool.”
“He’s District One, Kyuu!” That came from Kazuma, who was slightly huddled behind the rest of them. He looked even smaller here, somehow. Ryu felt oddly sorry for him.
“I trust him,” Kyuu said. He stepped towards Ryu and smiled at him, that wide, hopeful smile that he’d directed at so many people.
“What are you hoping from this?” Ryu asked him. “Friendships end quickly in the arena, Kyuu. What is the point of an alliance when all but one of us must die?”
“I don’t see why,” Kyuu said. “Friends are friends no matter where they are.”
He was looking at Ryu as he said it and Ryu got the feeling that wasn’t exactly what he’d meant. Was Kyuu intending to escape? That was impossible, everybody knew that was impossible. Or did Kyuu just live in hope? Or was there a plan?
His grandfather had told him not to make any alliances. But he had also told Ryu to think on his feet, to be unpredictable.
Nobody would ever consider this as something he would do.
Kyuu held out his hand and after only a moment, Ryu took it.
He wasn’t sure that he believed.
But more than anything in his life before, he wanted to.
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Erik/Raven, past Erik/Magda
Word Count: 641
Summary: When Erik visits the mansion, he always comes to Raven at night. Raven sometimes wonders if she should stop him.
Link: Here
Title: Finding Common Ground
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: G
Word Count: 288
Summary: Alex and Scott have never had much in common.
Link: Here
Title: All Right Together
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Pairing: Hank/Charles
Word Count: 697
Summary: Hank has nightmares after the events of Apocalypse and Charles tries to comfort him.
Link: Here
Title: Reaching Out
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Word Count: 844
Summary: Storm goes to try and talk to Psylocke
Link: Here
Title: Tactile
Fandom: X-Men: Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Pairing: Charles/Hank
Word Count: 488
Summary: Hank sometimes worries when he watches Charles, even though he knows he doesn't need to.
Link: Here
Title: Enigma
Fandom: X-Men Comics (Uncanny X-Men)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Scott/Magneto
Word Count: 271
Summary: Magneto finds Scott fascinating.
Link: Here
Title: Surprise Reaction
Fandom: Welcome to the Punch
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 339
Summary: Jacob watches Max sleep.
Link: Here
Title: Friendless
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: G
Word Count: 152
Summary: Avon reflects on people.
It was pretty rare that Avon ever let himself reach out for anybody.
Reaching out for people made you look weak. Every person should be reliant on themselves and themselves alone. Involving others in your life could only lead to an increase in danger, an increase in trouble. He was better when he was alone. He would always be better when he was alone.
He had briefly thought it was different when he had been with Anna. But then she had died and it had been his fault. He had sworn that he would never be fooled again. Never let anybody else into his life.
Yet somehow, being on the Liberator had changed that. His crewmates were frustrating, insufferable, antagonising, ridiculous in their turns. And yet ... they had their uses.
That was how he preferred to put it to himself. Uses. They weren’t friends, of course.
Kerr Avon had no friends.
Title: Alone
Fandom: Getbackers
Rating: PG
Word Count: 152
Summary: Ginji knows people need him.
Ginji knew what it was to have people reaching for him.
He was the leader of the Volts, the Raitei and they loved him. It was rare that he was ever alone, rare that he was ever able to think because there was always someone who wanted to be around him, wanted to ask him something or bask in his prescence. And Ginji let them. How could he do anything else? They needed him like they needed air.
And yet sometimes, he wanted to reach out himself. Wanted someone to tell him that it was okay not to be the person that they all seemed to need him to be. Wanted someone, anybody to help him as more and more of him slipped away.
But there didn’t seem to be anybody out there that could do that. Not in the Fortress.
Not until Ban Midou came.
Title: Unexpected Development
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Mogi/Misa
Rating: PG
Word Count: 276
Summary: Mogi tries to help Misa after. It works, somehow.
It probably wasn’t a great idea.
He should have left her alone. Let her get back to the world that she’d left behind. But Misa had left her world so very far behind that Mogi thought there was probably no returning to it anyway. She had no one now, no one but the Yagamis and she’d never been close to them - and besides, they were so very damaged too ...
So Mogi took it upon himself.
Misa always welcomed him in; dully and quietly with almost no hint of her former sparkle. They sat and he made her tea and checked she had eaten something that day. She mostly did what he asked without a fuss. They were both careful not to talk too much about the past. It was a system and it worked for them.
He wasn’t quite sure when it changed. Maybe when Misa started putting on the occasional bit of makeup for his visits. Maybe when he arrived to clean, only to find that she had done some of it herself. When she started to talk to him a little more, ask him questions about what he’d been doing that day. When he started looking forward to seeing her, when he started thinking about how nice it would be to sit in companionable silence while he did his paperwork.
One night, as he was about to leave, she reached out her hand. That was all. Mogi took it and that was that.
It was a strange thing. Unexpected. But somehow, it felt right and in a world where things hadn’t felt right for a while, Mogi felt that was what really mattered.
Title: Following a Designated Path
Fandom: Detective Academy Q/Hunger Games
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1483
Summary: Ryu has always known it's his destiny to volunteer for the Games.
Ryu sat and watched the other tributes being picked.
You could learn a little from the way people reacted. Not everything, of course. Lots of people were shocked and shock meant that they did not react the way you might expect. They cried or stood stone-faced but later, they found their strength or weakness. But you could get a vital first glimpse here and his grandfather had told him to study the other contestants every chance that he had. Ryu’s skills were not in doubt. It was what everyone else could do that was important.
Most of them didn’t really stand out. They looked the usual mismatched group of sad, weak children, some older, some younger, although a tall boy from District Four that volunteered instead of a twelve year old caught his eye. He looked as though it would have been his last year eligible and Ryu couldn’t decide if he’d been secretly training or was just being stupidly brave.
Only one other caught his eye. A boy, probably about his age from District Nine. He looked pale and scared but he directed a huge smile at the people below and even waved. He took the hand of the shaking female tribute and smiled at her too. It didn’t look like bravado but Ryu wasn’t sure what it was. It was ... strange.
Not a threat though. Not to someone like him. But all the same, he remembered the name.
Kyuu.
*
Kyuu approached him in the first training session.
“Are you planning on learning disguises too?”
Ryu already knew how to disguise himself. He already knew how to do everything in this room. Grandfather had given specific instructions of how to behave in the training room. Stay calm and impassive. Do not display your exact abilities, just a little of them. Visit every station and watch what the others know.
“I suppose so,” he said coolly, turning away. Why would Kyuu talk to him? They were rivals. Ryu was going to kill Kyuu in only a few days time.
Perhaps it was a strategy. Some kind of trick. Any competitor with sense had some sort of idea to throw everybody else off their game - at least, that was what Grandfather said.
“It might be fun,” Kyuu was saying brightly. Ryu decided not to answer. Maybe the child was an idiot. That might explain a lot.
*
He wasn’t the only person that Kyuu chatted to on those three days. In fact, Kyuu seemed to try talking to everybody. Most people rejected him outright but Ryu noticed that a small boy from District Three - Kazuma - began to tag around after Kyuu and the tall volunteer from District Four - Kintaro - seemed to have taken a liking to him too. Along with his District mate - Megumi, her name was - they would often be seen working together, talking. A few times, Ryu edged closer to listen but they weren’t discussing tactics or working together - they were talking about their districts and their families and friends, as though they’d just met up at a party.
Ryu didn’t understand it.
He wasn’t used to not understanding things.
Kyuu always smiled when he saw him and even waved. Ryu decided that Kyuu was clearly slightly mad.
*
Kyuu spoke to him again on the third day as Ryu sat, staring with little interest at the weapon’s training.
“Are you already good at that?”
“I suppose so,” Ryu said, without thinking. He was bored of keeping silent, bored of talking about nothing, bored of learning nothing new. At least Kyuu was different.
“I’m rubbish,” Kyuu said sadly. “Weapons just aren’t my thing. I keep dropping them everywhere. Guess I’m gonna get a pretty low number!”
He rubbed the back of his head and tried to laugh. It was the first time that Ryu had seen any sign of real anxiety from him and it made him feel ... odd.
“Ability with weapons isn’t all that you need to survive, Kyuu.”
“Oh, I know. I mean, I’ve done the classes on survival and food plants and everything. But I guess people who can fight live a bit longer.”
“Cleverness has it’s uses.”
“It does,” Kyuu said and he smiled. “You never know. Maybe we could all really use it and not have to stay in the arena at all!”
Ryu laughed. He couldn’t help it. Kyuu grinned at him, apparently not worried that the laugh might be at him. There was something so open about him, something ... likeable.
Ryu wasn’t really meant to like anyone. But he found that he was liking Kyuu all the same.
*
He had been carefully prepped for his interview with Ceaser Flickerman, of course.
“They will ask about me,” his Grandfather had told him. “That is acceptable. Distract them by letting them think about what I did. Don’t talk so much about what you can do. Remember, you have to be a surprise.”
Ceaser did indeed ask what it was like to be the Grandson of “King Hades.” Ryu let that largely be the focus, talking about his Grandfather’s serious demeanour, how he rarely spoke about the Hunger Games that he had won, how Ryu had always admired and respected him. He kept his voice composed, his head up. They would all see that he wasn’t at all worried and they would know what that meant. He would earn sponsors because he was confident and physically attractive and the son of a much loved champion.
He was a born winner and everybody knew it.
Still, Ceaser Flickerman did his best to help the others too. Ryu watched as they soared or stumbled through their interviews. He found that the only one he was really interested in was Kyuu’s.
Kyuu was bright, bubbly and clumsy. He chatted about the fun he’d had in the Capitol, about how he wished he could send some of the food home to his mother, how he’d made some nice friends. The audience made “awwwwing” noises at that and Kyuu blinked, as though he hadn’t expected that to gain him sympathy at all.
Perhaps he truly hadn’t.
Ryu found himself hoping that Kyuu was killed quickly and not stabbed in the back by one of his “friends.” Then he felt foolish for such a sympathetic thought. He was a fool.
*
The arena looked like a deserted town.
Ryu hadn’t stayed long at the Cornucopia. His grandfather was very dismissive of it. It was the thugs that required weapons. There were useful things, of course, but Ryu could get them by stealth later - and his sponsors would see him right. Ryu knew full well that he had sponsors.
He walked through the deserted buildings, deciding where to go. There were houses but they didn’t appeal to him, somehow. He found himself wandering further out, looking for somewhere a little isolated.
The little school building looked good, somehow. Perhaps because he had always been comfortable when he was learning. It was all he felt really comfortable doing in his life, all he’d ever really wanted to do.
Besides, nobody would expect it. Obviously He’d be well hidden and he could wait to see who had survived and begin to plan accordingly.
He walked in quietly, just in case. There was a long corridor and he headed down it, opening the door to a classroom - and saw he wasn’t alone.
Kyuu was there, Kyuu with his little posse of people, all staring at him with active hostility - except for Kyuu, who smiled at him.
“Hello Ryu!”
“Don’t be an idiot, Kyuu,” Kinta said sharply.
“No, Ryu’s okay, honestly! I’ve talked to him, he’s cool.”
“He’s District One, Kyuu!” That came from Kazuma, who was slightly huddled behind the rest of them. He looked even smaller here, somehow. Ryu felt oddly sorry for him.
“I trust him,” Kyuu said. He stepped towards Ryu and smiled at him, that wide, hopeful smile that he’d directed at so many people.
“What are you hoping from this?” Ryu asked him. “Friendships end quickly in the arena, Kyuu. What is the point of an alliance when all but one of us must die?”
“I don’t see why,” Kyuu said. “Friends are friends no matter where they are.”
He was looking at Ryu as he said it and Ryu got the feeling that wasn’t exactly what he’d meant. Was Kyuu intending to escape? That was impossible, everybody knew that was impossible. Or did Kyuu just live in hope? Or was there a plan?
His grandfather had told him not to make any alliances. But he had also told Ryu to think on his feet, to be unpredictable.
Nobody would ever consider this as something he would do.
Kyuu held out his hand and after only a moment, Ryu took it.
He wasn’t sure that he believed.
But more than anything in his life before, he wanted to.