#48 Christmas Drabbles 2010 - batch 5
Batch 5 - the last!
For rinfics: Ansible, ansible - five-to-ten years after they reached Euphrates
They have returned to a different planet from the one they left.
Nate knows this from the news stories transmitted to them on the ship; from the foreign-looking intercepting craft they send out to receive Bravo II with. Another crew boards the ship and seals away all the samples they have collected in capsules Nate has never seen before. As the craft re-enters the atmosphere and shoots closer towards the Earth he looks out of the window and sees a changed landscape.
Clara takes him home after the press conference and debriefings. She looks older than he imagined, but in her manner of speech and the way she carries herself he sees his sister and his mother. He wonders how she must see him. Uncle Nate, exactly the same as in her seven-year-old memories; the hero on the mantelpiece now returned.
“It’s good to have you back,” says Clara, reminding him that they are not strangers; that he has, from a distance, watched her grow up. Her son, who takes after his father rather than Nate’s side of the family, never tires of pressing him with questions about the voyage to Euphrates.
And so Nate describes it to him, a dark and verdant fever-dream of a landscape, filled with creeping danger and its own order of predators. He recounts this so many times to so many audiences (and writes it down, once and for all, in a book) that they begin to feel like distant stories - another man’s treasure to claim.
----
For miscetera: Aimiya friendship/romance with music as the theme. Nino becomes a big name songwriter and Aiba has to beg him for a song.
I’d been meaning to write a bit more about Aiba and Nino in Love Type Thing for a little while, which is why I sort of twisted your prompt a little bit here. :x
If there is one thing Aiba should be thankful for this Christmas, it should be the fact that the café has a membership card system with a twenty per cent discount. Nino’s address is very hard to find - unlisted on the address books and withheld by his manager - but Satomi merely has to dig a little in the office drawers to find it scrawled in block letters over a membership form.
“This is against company policy, but we’re all concerned,” Sho tells him.
It has been three weeks since Nino last came in for his macchiato. Any calls to his phone are directed straight to his answering machine. Jun’s theory is that he’s changed cafés because the espresso machine was broken that morning and they had served him substandard coffee. Satomi suspects it has something to do with the Swedish writing team being picked to work on SMAP’s latest single instead of Nino.
Aiba is afraid it’s because he’s scared Nino off.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Jun.
“It would take a lot to scare Nino-chan away,” Ohno adds. “And you’re not particularly terrifying.”
“I didn’t mean it in that sense-” Aiba begins.
“Knowing him, it’s probably the songwriting thing,” says Sho firmly. “He was working on that song for ages. For them to just drop him like that…”
“Would be a bit of a bruising to the ego,” Satomi finished. They were starting to border on creepy, Aiba thought. But in a nice way. Nice Creepy.
“Take this along with you,” says Jun, handing Aiba a thermos mug dotted with small purple stars. “Let him know we’ve fixed the machine.”
Nino doesn’t ask how Aiba found his address when he answers the door. Instead, he says, “Oh. You,” and motions for Aiba to come in.
Nino’s apartment is sparsely but trendily furnished, in a way that looks very much like he had just paid someone to decorate it without giving any input of his own. The chic-looking coffee table and the very shiny baby grand are entirely covered with sheets of music and crumpled-up bits of paper, and in the centre of the living room is a nest of quilts and blankets.
“It’s a bit of a mess,” says Nino with no trace of embarrassment. He’s still holding the game controller but sets it down almost reverently before digging around for a spare cushion.
“They’ve fixed the espresso machine,” says Aiba tentatively, still cradling the thermos mug as he sits down.
“Oh,” Nino replies. “Have they?”
“Yes,” says Aiba. “And Sho-kun and Satomi-chan are worried that you’re upset about that SMAP song.”
Nino laughs. “That SMAP song? I turned them down.”
“You turned them down?” Aiba repeats.
“I said I had some personal business to settle,” Nino tells him. “At first I thought I’d take a bit of time off for the rock musical-”
“Oh yes,” says Aiba, “how is that coming?”
“-which wasn’t going very well,” Nino continues pointedly. “And then I thought of something else. Remember that thing you asked me about?”
“Which thing?” asks Aiba. Because honestly, he has asked Nino a lot of things in the past few months (including whether he can, for once, pay for his own drink instead of leaving early so that Aiba has to settle the bill. Not that Aiba minds settling the bill, but he’d rather have Nino around when he does so).
For the first time, Nino begins to look a bit sheepish. “That evening, you asked me to write you a song.”
“Did I?” Aiba begins to say, and then - “Oh.”
They had been slightly drunk that evening. Nino had blown off a somewhat important meeting with some music producers to attend a covert strategy session to set Sho and Satomi up for a date. And somehow, Nino had ended up comforting a very sad Aiba about his latest job rejection that week. Write me a song, Aiba had said at some point. Okay, Nino had answered.
“I forgot about it after that,” Nino tells him. “And then I remembered.”
“Oh,” says Aiba. “Is it a happy song?”
“I… don’t know,” says Nino. “It’s not finished. I was going to put in lyrics but I couldn’t think of any. And then I got distracted by Dragon Quest.”
“What’s it about?” asks Aiba.
“You’ll see,” says Nino. “I haven’t even recorded it properly so you’ll just have to hear me perform an inferior version.”
Aiba has known Nino for long enough to know that what Nino considers inferior is normally actually rather good. And so he remains on that cushion, watching silently as Nino taps in a drumbeat on the recording set he has in the corner of his living room, adding two more layers of beats before picking up his guitar and strumming the opening chords.
He’s using some sort of programme on the computer to loop the tracks, because as the chords continue he begins to pluck out new melodies, introducing a clever little lick that he cannot help but grin at as he plays.
There’s something in the chord progression of the song that makes it stop short of being happy. Nino hums the chorus languidly into the recording microphone before singing a countermelody over it in a series of heartfelt ‘la’s that would sound silly on most other people. But Aiba watches him work and imagines what it would be like to be a singer or a producer, receiving something so beautiful and so infectious on an innocuous-looking thumbdrive. He wonders how anyone could bear recording over Nino’s voice, which quavers in some places and is strong in others.
Most of all, though, he revels in the fact that this song is for him. That somewhere in that funny little melody is a story about Aiba and Nino and the café, about Sho and Satomi and Jun’s love of good coffee. About Ohno’s buns and being indoors on the coldest of days.
“It still needs work,” says Nino, when the song winds to a close. He attempts to hide his embarrassment by busying himself with the guitar.
Aiba beams. “It’s lovely,” he says, simply and honestly, because it is.
For rinfics: Ansible, ansible - five-to-ten years after they reached Euphrates
They have returned to a different planet from the one they left.
Nate knows this from the news stories transmitted to them on the ship; from the foreign-looking intercepting craft they send out to receive Bravo II with. Another crew boards the ship and seals away all the samples they have collected in capsules Nate has never seen before. As the craft re-enters the atmosphere and shoots closer towards the Earth he looks out of the window and sees a changed landscape.
Clara takes him home after the press conference and debriefings. She looks older than he imagined, but in her manner of speech and the way she carries herself he sees his sister and his mother. He wonders how she must see him. Uncle Nate, exactly the same as in her seven-year-old memories; the hero on the mantelpiece now returned.
“It’s good to have you back,” says Clara, reminding him that they are not strangers; that he has, from a distance, watched her grow up. Her son, who takes after his father rather than Nate’s side of the family, never tires of pressing him with questions about the voyage to Euphrates.
And so Nate describes it to him, a dark and verdant fever-dream of a landscape, filled with creeping danger and its own order of predators. He recounts this so many times to so many audiences (and writes it down, once and for all, in a book) that they begin to feel like distant stories - another man’s treasure to claim.
----
For miscetera: Aimiya friendship/romance with music as the theme. Nino becomes a big name songwriter and Aiba has to beg him for a song.
I’d been meaning to write a bit more about Aiba and Nino in Love Type Thing for a little while, which is why I sort of twisted your prompt a little bit here. :x
If there is one thing Aiba should be thankful for this Christmas, it should be the fact that the café has a membership card system with a twenty per cent discount. Nino’s address is very hard to find - unlisted on the address books and withheld by his manager - but Satomi merely has to dig a little in the office drawers to find it scrawled in block letters over a membership form.
“This is against company policy, but we’re all concerned,” Sho tells him.
It has been three weeks since Nino last came in for his macchiato. Any calls to his phone are directed straight to his answering machine. Jun’s theory is that he’s changed cafés because the espresso machine was broken that morning and they had served him substandard coffee. Satomi suspects it has something to do with the Swedish writing team being picked to work on SMAP’s latest single instead of Nino.
Aiba is afraid it’s because he’s scared Nino off.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Jun.
“It would take a lot to scare Nino-chan away,” Ohno adds. “And you’re not particularly terrifying.”
“I didn’t mean it in that sense-” Aiba begins.
“Knowing him, it’s probably the songwriting thing,” says Sho firmly. “He was working on that song for ages. For them to just drop him like that…”
“Would be a bit of a bruising to the ego,” Satomi finished. They were starting to border on creepy, Aiba thought. But in a nice way. Nice Creepy.
“Take this along with you,” says Jun, handing Aiba a thermos mug dotted with small purple stars. “Let him know we’ve fixed the machine.”
Nino doesn’t ask how Aiba found his address when he answers the door. Instead, he says, “Oh. You,” and motions for Aiba to come in.
Nino’s apartment is sparsely but trendily furnished, in a way that looks very much like he had just paid someone to decorate it without giving any input of his own. The chic-looking coffee table and the very shiny baby grand are entirely covered with sheets of music and crumpled-up bits of paper, and in the centre of the living room is a nest of quilts and blankets.
“It’s a bit of a mess,” says Nino with no trace of embarrassment. He’s still holding the game controller but sets it down almost reverently before digging around for a spare cushion.
“They’ve fixed the espresso machine,” says Aiba tentatively, still cradling the thermos mug as he sits down.
“Oh,” Nino replies. “Have they?”
“Yes,” says Aiba. “And Sho-kun and Satomi-chan are worried that you’re upset about that SMAP song.”
Nino laughs. “That SMAP song? I turned them down.”
“You turned them down?” Aiba repeats.
“I said I had some personal business to settle,” Nino tells him. “At first I thought I’d take a bit of time off for the rock musical-”
“Oh yes,” says Aiba, “how is that coming?”
“-which wasn’t going very well,” Nino continues pointedly. “And then I thought of something else. Remember that thing you asked me about?”
“Which thing?” asks Aiba. Because honestly, he has asked Nino a lot of things in the past few months (including whether he can, for once, pay for his own drink instead of leaving early so that Aiba has to settle the bill. Not that Aiba minds settling the bill, but he’d rather have Nino around when he does so).
For the first time, Nino begins to look a bit sheepish. “That evening, you asked me to write you a song.”
“Did I?” Aiba begins to say, and then - “Oh.”
They had been slightly drunk that evening. Nino had blown off a somewhat important meeting with some music producers to attend a covert strategy session to set Sho and Satomi up for a date. And somehow, Nino had ended up comforting a very sad Aiba about his latest job rejection that week. Write me a song, Aiba had said at some point. Okay, Nino had answered.
“I forgot about it after that,” Nino tells him. “And then I remembered.”
“Oh,” says Aiba. “Is it a happy song?”
“I… don’t know,” says Nino. “It’s not finished. I was going to put in lyrics but I couldn’t think of any. And then I got distracted by Dragon Quest.”
“What’s it about?” asks Aiba.
“You’ll see,” says Nino. “I haven’t even recorded it properly so you’ll just have to hear me perform an inferior version.”
Aiba has known Nino for long enough to know that what Nino considers inferior is normally actually rather good. And so he remains on that cushion, watching silently as Nino taps in a drumbeat on the recording set he has in the corner of his living room, adding two more layers of beats before picking up his guitar and strumming the opening chords.
He’s using some sort of programme on the computer to loop the tracks, because as the chords continue he begins to pluck out new melodies, introducing a clever little lick that he cannot help but grin at as he plays.
There’s something in the chord progression of the song that makes it stop short of being happy. Nino hums the chorus languidly into the recording microphone before singing a countermelody over it in a series of heartfelt ‘la’s that would sound silly on most other people. But Aiba watches him work and imagines what it would be like to be a singer or a producer, receiving something so beautiful and so infectious on an innocuous-looking thumbdrive. He wonders how anyone could bear recording over Nino’s voice, which quavers in some places and is strong in others.
Most of all, though, he revels in the fact that this song is for him. That somewhere in that funny little melody is a story about Aiba and Nino and the café, about Sho and Satomi and Jun’s love of good coffee. About Ohno’s buns and being indoors on the coldest of days.
“It still needs work,” says Nino, when the song winds to a close. He attempts to hide his embarrassment by busying himself with the guitar.
Aiba beams. “It’s lovely,” he says, simply and honestly, because it is.