Eight starry evenings
[Title] The Stars We Don't See
[Fandom] Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Clarissa and Bill each have other concerns - they're too busy to stargaze. (Clarissa/Bill, set during book four.)
They don't notice the stars, which will soon be covered by cloud anyway.
Sneaking out for a midnight feast has made Bill remember sneaking out to visit Thunder, back in third year, and she is reflecting, as she looks at herself in the dark pool, how much happier she is now, and how you can look at friends and not know that they will be your friends.
Clarissa is half-scared, half-excited that it is her food they are eating and that she is having a midnight feast like a proper, normal schoolgirl should and she only wishes Gwendoline didn't not like all the others so that she herself could talk to them.
Neither of them really notice the other one, either.
[Title] The Stars Don't Care
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG for language
[Notes/Summary] Kaisuke looks at the sky and thinks about old war movies. (Specifically, Platoon, although it's not stated.)
So, there was this movie, right? Yamagata brought in this bootleg of it, subbed really badly in Japanese with subtitles that didn't make sense and half the time didn't show up. It was a war movie, 'cause Yamagata loved that shit. Not that Kaisuke doesn't. Didn't. (Well, actually, he can see people dying just if he walks down the former streets these days, so he's not so into it, but that's not the point.)
In the movie, there was this guy in a bandana who said -
You never used to be able to see the stars in Neo-Tokyo, before. Now they're everywhere; sometimes it's like they're more real than anything else. They certainly hang around more than everything else did.
Kaisuke sits on a crooked rooftop kicking a chunk of brick from foot to foot and watches the stars. The air smells of cold.
This guy in a bandana, who said something like how the stars don't care about right or wrong.
Suits Kaisuke. Feels like everyone else stopped giving a damn about right and wrong months ago. 'Cept him. He thinks he still gives a damn, even if he fucks up a lot. 'Cept him and Kaneda.
But Kaneda's dead now.
So Kaisuke looks at the stars a lot more these days and tells himself it's not sappy if you take it from a war movie.
[Title] Not Knowing the Stars
[Fandom] Harry Potter
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set during Book 7. Neville remembers when his biggest concern was failing Astronomy lessons.
Neville knows there are far more important things to be doing than sneaking out to look at the stars. If you're going to risk life and limb to break rules, you should at least be putting up a bit of anti-Voldemort graffiti. And usually that is all he does, but every so often he dodges danger to go up to the Astronomy Tower and sit and look at the stars.
They don't really study Astronomy much any more, and Neville was never particularly good at it anyway. He's forgotten most of the names or what he's supposed to notice about them. Sometimes he feels like he's forgotten a lot, forgotten what it was like before he was sort-of leading a resistance and wondering how many scars the new day would bring.
Sitting looking up at the stars and trying to remember things about them helps. Then he's just Neville Longbottom who never remembers anything useful, and no one expects anything of him.
It's not right, and he shouldn't be wishing to be mediocre, but it helps, and stuff that helps is important too, these days.
[Title] Tagging Up the Sky
[Fandom] Jet Grind Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Yo-Yo and Mew talk about the morality of rudieism. And stars. (Rudies don't follow the rules, so they don't stick to my title scheme.)
"You got family, kat?" Yo-Yo doesn't meet her eyes as he asks the question. Least, Mew can tell by the direction of his voice that he's not looking at her. In the railway sidings it's much darker, like bits of the world just aren't there any more.
She doesn't look back at him as she answers. "Uh-huh."
"But you ain't home any more."
She turns away now, pretends to focus on her tag glowing on the wall. The air smells of soot and smoke, which is funny 'cause the trains are electric. "No. I see my mum sometimes, you know? But... I dunno, I had to get out."
She's waiting for Yo-Yo to crack a joke and turn this into a laugh riot, but he doesn't. Just shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and says, "Sure."
"She thinks it's just vandalism," Mew says, her own voice sounding very small in her ears and in the dark. "She thinks I failed at life."
"Mosta' Tokyo-to thinks it's just vandalism, kit."
"S'different when it's family."
"You wouldn't quit, though, right? You'd stay?"
"Course I would!" She turns round to look at him. "This is what I want, it's just... you know. You worry, when people say..."
"Nah. I don't."
"Well, yay you."
"Aw, come on." He moves a bit closer, skates crunching on the ground, and after a few seconds, he says, "Hey, take a look at the stars."
She tilts her head back. "Wow. They're really clear tonight. You'd think they wouldn't show up from a city."
"Helps looking at 'em from the dark. S'like God tagged up the sky, right? Spatter effect with silver paint."
"I reckon God could use something better'n paint. Like... magic dust or something."
Yo-Yo snorts with laughter. "Yeah. Something like that."
"You trying to make a moral point here?" Mew says.
"Maybe a little."
"Well..." she says, grinning even though he won't be able to see it properly, "I like it."
[Title] When the Stars Come Out
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Yuka Nakagawa/Satomi Noda
[Notes/Summary] Yuka and Satomi have a romantic moment under the stars.
"Wow... Satomi, have you seen the stars?" Yuka wrenches the window open, her breath fogging the glass, and leans out. A rush of air, smelling of dead leaves, fills the room. "Seriously, they're gorgeous. It's like someone spilt whitewash all over the sky."
"Well, with that sort of pitch, how can I fail to be impressed?" Satomi clambers off the bed and walks through the darkened room to join Yuka. "I see what you mean. They're really bright tonight. No wonder it's so cold."
"Is that all you can think about?" Yuka puts an arm round her anyway. Below them the streetlights glare orange and Shiroiwa smarts with dots of light, but neither of them look at that. "What's wrong with oooh, pretty?"
"It is cold. It's December." Satomi laughs a little. "Besides, I didn't say they're not pretty. They really are."
"I bet you know what all the constellations are."
"Not as much as I should. I can spot Orion."
"And Cassiopeia, right? I know that one. See, the W -"
"Everyone knows that one," Satomi says.
"Oh, shut up. Where's Orion, then?"
Satomi leans out of the window a little as well, points into the cold air. "There, see? Those three stars in a row are the belt."
"Where's the rest of him? I don't see a man."
"Use your imagination."
Yuka laughs, a low, snorting laugh. "Oh, you really want me to do that?"
"I'm sorry. I forgot your dirty mind."
They stand looking a little longer, Yuka absently resting her head on Satomi's shoulder.
"Hey," Yuka says at last. "Is this a romantic moment?"
Satomi frowns, straightens her glasses.
"I suppose, technically, it is," she says, and then smiles. "Wonderful."
[Title] Heart of a Star
[Fandom] Torchwood
[Rating] PG-13 for language
[Notes/Summary] Owen has never been very fond of stars. Spoilers for the Torchwood second season finale.
Owen Harper was never very interested in starry nights.
It wasn't like anyone around him ever told him to look at the stars or reminded him of how pretty they were. Maybe that's why he's never seen it. They're just like fairy lights, except further away. And it isn't like they aren't always there. Anyway, yeah, as a child he never picked up on it. He had other things to worry about.
Then as a medical student coming out of the library at one a.m. or, as a junior doctor finishing the night shift, sometimes there were stars and sometimes there weren't. When there were, it usually meant it wasn't pissing it down, but it also meant it was bloody freezing. Once or twice he stopped to look up at the sky. It wasn't to admire it. It was usually someone had died and he was only looking up because he was thinking that hundreds of people had snuffed it and the sky was still hanging there as if it didn't give a fuck, which it probably didn't.
(He thought that after Katie died. She probably told him that the stars were beautiful, but it was too late by then.)
And then Torchwood. And then he should've been looking up at the stars and thinking about the strangeness of everything he'd seen but if he ever did it was more there's millions of stars and each one's a sun and we've already had a bunch of aliens who want to murder us showing up, how many more are there out there, d'you reckon? And then you started thinking you may as well just lie down and die right now and so really, why would he want to look at the damn things?
And besides, Cardiff's a big enough urban conurbation that he couldn't see them most of the time.
(He doesn't remember stars with Diane but he remembers nights. But that's just one part of how stupid it all was to break the habits of a lifetime.)
And when he dies (the second time) it seems fitting that he can't see the sky at all, let alone the stars. Although, if you're being funny, the last glimpse he gets of reality is of white-hot radiation, and isn't that like being right in the heart of a star?
Not that funny, when you think about it.
[Title] To Sit Among the Stars
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Raito's sudden interest in astronomy has a less noble reason than people might suppose. Spoilers for the ending of Death Note.
Raito expresses an interest in astronomy, and requests a few books on it for Christmas and birthday presents. His parents are fondly surprised that he wants to gain another field of expertise. He carries the books upstairs and opens them and learns the constellations off by heart and sits up at night after writing down the names, matching up the stars' positions with the diagrams.
Ryuk finds it funny, and says that you might well know a star's name but you're not going to see its face any time soon. Raito remarks that his interest in stars is nothing to do with being Kira, that he is allowed other interests, but they both know that's a lie.
Raito does not like looking at the stars any more. He knows that the ones we can see from Earth are only a tiny fraction of all the stars out there. That the universe is vast and may be expanding. That being the god of the new world doesn't seem to be enough, when you look at all the stars. Knowing the constellations allows him to pretend that humans have categorised and labelled everything and that if he can rule humanity, he can rule all.
When he dies, the sun is setting, and the moon and the stars will be coming out soon.
[Title] Striving To Reach the Stars
[Fandom] Azumanga Daioh
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Kaorin/Sakaki, one-sided
[Notes/Summary] Kaorin tries to get up the courage to tell Sakaki how she feels. Set at the end of the manga.
Starlight isn't as bright as you'd expect, but Kaorin's kind of glad. It means no one can see how much she's blushing. (It's silly still to blush every time she looks at Sakaki, she really should have got over this by now, but no.) The ground is dry but the air is sharp and cold and the stars hang above them like, like stage lights, as if she's got to start the play.
This is probably the last time she'll see Sakaki. And it's not as if she can ask the other girl to write to her, is it? It's not like they were ever really friends, it was just...
They're beautiful, she wants to say. You're beautiful.
Only she thinks she stole that off some romantic TV show, and how could she say something so corny to Sakaki anyway?
But she can't just sit here in silence, blushing in the dark, not when this is the last time.
"Hey, Sakaki..."
Sakaki turns to look at her. It's not moonlight falling across her face, it's that orange glow from the streets below them.
"It was... it was nice, being at school." With you. "Wasn't it?" And she can almost kid herself she did say the bit in the middle after all.
Sakaki smiles.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, it was."
And it's still not enough, but it's better than nothing at all.
[Fandom] Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Clarissa and Bill each have other concerns - they're too busy to stargaze. (Clarissa/Bill, set during book four.)
They don't notice the stars, which will soon be covered by cloud anyway.
Sneaking out for a midnight feast has made Bill remember sneaking out to visit Thunder, back in third year, and she is reflecting, as she looks at herself in the dark pool, how much happier she is now, and how you can look at friends and not know that they will be your friends.
Clarissa is half-scared, half-excited that it is her food they are eating and that she is having a midnight feast like a proper, normal schoolgirl should and she only wishes Gwendoline didn't not like all the others so that she herself could talk to them.
Neither of them really notice the other one, either.
[Title] The Stars Don't Care
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG for language
[Notes/Summary] Kaisuke looks at the sky and thinks about old war movies. (Specifically, Platoon, although it's not stated.)
So, there was this movie, right? Yamagata brought in this bootleg of it, subbed really badly in Japanese with subtitles that didn't make sense and half the time didn't show up. It was a war movie, 'cause Yamagata loved that shit. Not that Kaisuke doesn't. Didn't. (Well, actually, he can see people dying just if he walks down the former streets these days, so he's not so into it, but that's not the point.)
In the movie, there was this guy in a bandana who said -
You never used to be able to see the stars in Neo-Tokyo, before. Now they're everywhere; sometimes it's like they're more real than anything else. They certainly hang around more than everything else did.
Kaisuke sits on a crooked rooftop kicking a chunk of brick from foot to foot and watches the stars. The air smells of cold.
This guy in a bandana, who said something like how the stars don't care about right or wrong.
Suits Kaisuke. Feels like everyone else stopped giving a damn about right and wrong months ago. 'Cept him. He thinks he still gives a damn, even if he fucks up a lot. 'Cept him and Kaneda.
But Kaneda's dead now.
So Kaisuke looks at the stars a lot more these days and tells himself it's not sappy if you take it from a war movie.
[Title] Not Knowing the Stars
[Fandom] Harry Potter
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set during Book 7. Neville remembers when his biggest concern was failing Astronomy lessons.
Neville knows there are far more important things to be doing than sneaking out to look at the stars. If you're going to risk life and limb to break rules, you should at least be putting up a bit of anti-Voldemort graffiti. And usually that is all he does, but every so often he dodges danger to go up to the Astronomy Tower and sit and look at the stars.
They don't really study Astronomy much any more, and Neville was never particularly good at it anyway. He's forgotten most of the names or what he's supposed to notice about them. Sometimes he feels like he's forgotten a lot, forgotten what it was like before he was sort-of leading a resistance and wondering how many scars the new day would bring.
Sitting looking up at the stars and trying to remember things about them helps. Then he's just Neville Longbottom who never remembers anything useful, and no one expects anything of him.
It's not right, and he shouldn't be wishing to be mediocre, but it helps, and stuff that helps is important too, these days.
[Title] Tagging Up the Sky
[Fandom] Jet Grind Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Yo-Yo and Mew talk about the morality of rudieism. And stars. (Rudies don't follow the rules, so they don't stick to my title scheme.)
"You got family, kat?" Yo-Yo doesn't meet her eyes as he asks the question. Least, Mew can tell by the direction of his voice that he's not looking at her. In the railway sidings it's much darker, like bits of the world just aren't there any more.
She doesn't look back at him as she answers. "Uh-huh."
"But you ain't home any more."
She turns away now, pretends to focus on her tag glowing on the wall. The air smells of soot and smoke, which is funny 'cause the trains are electric. "No. I see my mum sometimes, you know? But... I dunno, I had to get out."
She's waiting for Yo-Yo to crack a joke and turn this into a laugh riot, but he doesn't. Just shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and says, "Sure."
"She thinks it's just vandalism," Mew says, her own voice sounding very small in her ears and in the dark. "She thinks I failed at life."
"Mosta' Tokyo-to thinks it's just vandalism, kit."
"S'different when it's family."
"You wouldn't quit, though, right? You'd stay?"
"Course I would!" She turns round to look at him. "This is what I want, it's just... you know. You worry, when people say..."
"Nah. I don't."
"Well, yay you."
"Aw, come on." He moves a bit closer, skates crunching on the ground, and after a few seconds, he says, "Hey, take a look at the stars."
She tilts her head back. "Wow. They're really clear tonight. You'd think they wouldn't show up from a city."
"Helps looking at 'em from the dark. S'like God tagged up the sky, right? Spatter effect with silver paint."
"I reckon God could use something better'n paint. Like... magic dust or something."
Yo-Yo snorts with laughter. "Yeah. Something like that."
"You trying to make a moral point here?" Mew says.
"Maybe a little."
"Well..." she says, grinning even though he won't be able to see it properly, "I like it."
[Title] When the Stars Come Out
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Yuka Nakagawa/Satomi Noda
[Notes/Summary] Yuka and Satomi have a romantic moment under the stars.
"Wow... Satomi, have you seen the stars?" Yuka wrenches the window open, her breath fogging the glass, and leans out. A rush of air, smelling of dead leaves, fills the room. "Seriously, they're gorgeous. It's like someone spilt whitewash all over the sky."
"Well, with that sort of pitch, how can I fail to be impressed?" Satomi clambers off the bed and walks through the darkened room to join Yuka. "I see what you mean. They're really bright tonight. No wonder it's so cold."
"Is that all you can think about?" Yuka puts an arm round her anyway. Below them the streetlights glare orange and Shiroiwa smarts with dots of light, but neither of them look at that. "What's wrong with oooh, pretty?"
"It is cold. It's December." Satomi laughs a little. "Besides, I didn't say they're not pretty. They really are."
"I bet you know what all the constellations are."
"Not as much as I should. I can spot Orion."
"And Cassiopeia, right? I know that one. See, the W -"
"Everyone knows that one," Satomi says.
"Oh, shut up. Where's Orion, then?"
Satomi leans out of the window a little as well, points into the cold air. "There, see? Those three stars in a row are the belt."
"Where's the rest of him? I don't see a man."
"Use your imagination."
Yuka laughs, a low, snorting laugh. "Oh, you really want me to do that?"
"I'm sorry. I forgot your dirty mind."
They stand looking a little longer, Yuka absently resting her head on Satomi's shoulder.
"Hey," Yuka says at last. "Is this a romantic moment?"
Satomi frowns, straightens her glasses.
"I suppose, technically, it is," she says, and then smiles. "Wonderful."
[Title] Heart of a Star
[Fandom] Torchwood
[Rating] PG-13 for language
[Notes/Summary] Owen has never been very fond of stars. Spoilers for the Torchwood second season finale.
Owen Harper was never very interested in starry nights.
It wasn't like anyone around him ever told him to look at the stars or reminded him of how pretty they were. Maybe that's why he's never seen it. They're just like fairy lights, except further away. And it isn't like they aren't always there. Anyway, yeah, as a child he never picked up on it. He had other things to worry about.
Then as a medical student coming out of the library at one a.m. or, as a junior doctor finishing the night shift, sometimes there were stars and sometimes there weren't. When there were, it usually meant it wasn't pissing it down, but it also meant it was bloody freezing. Once or twice he stopped to look up at the sky. It wasn't to admire it. It was usually someone had died and he was only looking up because he was thinking that hundreds of people had snuffed it and the sky was still hanging there as if it didn't give a fuck, which it probably didn't.
(He thought that after Katie died. She probably told him that the stars were beautiful, but it was too late by then.)
And then Torchwood. And then he should've been looking up at the stars and thinking about the strangeness of everything he'd seen but if he ever did it was more there's millions of stars and each one's a sun and we've already had a bunch of aliens who want to murder us showing up, how many more are there out there, d'you reckon? And then you started thinking you may as well just lie down and die right now and so really, why would he want to look at the damn things?
And besides, Cardiff's a big enough urban conurbation that he couldn't see them most of the time.
(He doesn't remember stars with Diane but he remembers nights. But that's just one part of how stupid it all was to break the habits of a lifetime.)
And when he dies (the second time) it seems fitting that he can't see the sky at all, let alone the stars. Although, if you're being funny, the last glimpse he gets of reality is of white-hot radiation, and isn't that like being right in the heart of a star?
Not that funny, when you think about it.
[Title] To Sit Among the Stars
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Raito's sudden interest in astronomy has a less noble reason than people might suppose. Spoilers for the ending of Death Note.
Raito expresses an interest in astronomy, and requests a few books on it for Christmas and birthday presents. His parents are fondly surprised that he wants to gain another field of expertise. He carries the books upstairs and opens them and learns the constellations off by heart and sits up at night after writing down the names, matching up the stars' positions with the diagrams.
Ryuk finds it funny, and says that you might well know a star's name but you're not going to see its face any time soon. Raito remarks that his interest in stars is nothing to do with being Kira, that he is allowed other interests, but they both know that's a lie.
Raito does not like looking at the stars any more. He knows that the ones we can see from Earth are only a tiny fraction of all the stars out there. That the universe is vast and may be expanding. That being the god of the new world doesn't seem to be enough, when you look at all the stars. Knowing the constellations allows him to pretend that humans have categorised and labelled everything and that if he can rule humanity, he can rule all.
When he dies, the sun is setting, and the moon and the stars will be coming out soon.
[Title] Striving To Reach the Stars
[Fandom] Azumanga Daioh
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Kaorin/Sakaki, one-sided
[Notes/Summary] Kaorin tries to get up the courage to tell Sakaki how she feels. Set at the end of the manga.
Starlight isn't as bright as you'd expect, but Kaorin's kind of glad. It means no one can see how much she's blushing. (It's silly still to blush every time she looks at Sakaki, she really should have got over this by now, but no.) The ground is dry but the air is sharp and cold and the stars hang above them like, like stage lights, as if she's got to start the play.
This is probably the last time she'll see Sakaki. And it's not as if she can ask the other girl to write to her, is it? It's not like they were ever really friends, it was just...
They're beautiful, she wants to say. You're beautiful.
Only she thinks she stole that off some romantic TV show, and how could she say something so corny to Sakaki anyway?
But she can't just sit here in silence, blushing in the dark, not when this is the last time.
"Hey, Sakaki..."
Sakaki turns to look at her. It's not moonlight falling across her face, it's that orange glow from the streets below them.
"It was... it was nice, being at school." With you. "Wasn't it?" And she can almost kid herself she did say the bit in the middle after all.
Sakaki smiles.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, it was."
And it's still not enough, but it's better than nothing at all.