To Ldydragon7, From Thimble ♥
Title: Water Wars
Author: Thimble
Recipient: Ldydragon7
Series: Tsubasa AU, 'modern world'
Characters/Pairing: Fai/Kurogane; Sakura/Syaoran
Rating: PG13 for mildly off-colour language
Author's Notes/Warnings: May be continued.
There is a girl in the field. Her red-gold hair and the sunflower t-shirt she wears under denim dungarees are a bright flag of colour against the dull greens and browns of the flooded field. She doesn't notice the damp wind blowing except to tuck a lock of hair, absentmindedly, behind one ear. She has a handful of flags clasped loosely in one hand, made of metal rod and scavenged nylon that flicks and rustles. She considers briefly, then drives a flag into the ground where she stands with a practiced twist and shove, and then moves on, lifting each bare foot out of the mud and shaking it delicately before finishing her step. Occasionally she drives in another flag, and once three flags together, in a tight bundle near the worst of the flooding.
When she's done, there is a trail of flags curving loosely across the field, from the sullen heap of a decaying manor house to a large concrete pipe set where the ground dips suddenly, a pipe whose mouth is suspiciously dry. She has one flag left. She plants it by the outfall and cheers her own sense of spacing, raising her arms in the air and feeling happy.
A shout floats down from a high window of the manor house. Hoi! Princess!
8
It is a nice logo, its swirling blues and greens combining to suggest ease and health and quiet waters while in the foreground 'Flowright Water Works' stands with assertive grace.
It is all wrong.
Kurogane eyes the toolbox it adorns with a certain amount of disfavour. The toolbox (blue, battered) is unassuming enough - it is the denim-clad legs (also blue and battered, and skinny and long) lying next to them, plus their owner (skinny, long, also daft) who is currently half hidden behind a wall covered in peeling, flowery wallpaper, doing unspeakable things with pipes, these are the true source of Kurogane's pain. He glances at his watch - thirty more seconds, he thinks in exasperation.
A flash of colour catches his eye out the window and he swears under his breath. "Hoi! Princess!" shouted Kurogane. "Get your damn boots on." Beside him there is a muffled doinnnngg, which he ignores for the girl outside.
”Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” she calls back. “I'm not a Barbie Doll, honest.” Is that eye-rolling? It's a bit far to tell.
“Miss Sakura Amamiya Kinomoto Kurogane,” he replies, “let me introduce you to Mr Tetanus. And what do we know about Mr Tetanus?”
Yep, yep: definite eye-rolling, and a distinctly telegraphed sigh (learned from the school Drama Club if he wasn't mistaken). "Mr Tetanus is not our friend," she recites in a sing-song voice. Then Sakura grins and retrieves a pair of copper-toed boots, tied by the laces, from behind one of the trees that line the drop off. She pokes her tongue between her teeth as she picks at the knots. “I'll be off for muffins, then,” she calls sweetly. The clouds are clearing, and the sun is coming out.
8
Indoors, Flowright eases himself from under the pipes, rubbing his forehead gingerly. "How long have you been there, Bob?" he asks wonderingly of the dark, broad figure slouched broodingly against the wall, pointedly examining the dial of the watch buckled to one ropy, bronzed forearm. "And how can you sneak around in such heavy boots?"
"I need the mains turned off," says Mr Kurogane. "And my name isn't Bob."
The trouble with Mokona Manor is that it isn't one house, it is two. The original building had been divided long since into two separate establishments, one a boarding house for girls going to the nearby school, the other a fixer-upper inhabited by a pair of university students, living cheap while they slowly repair their half of the building. The trouble is, an old building means old pipes, all of which need attention fairly urgently. As Mokona Manor is really two houses, two plumbing firms have been called, who have since discovered that the 'two houses' still use the same main water system.
But the incessant border disputes between Flowright Water Works and Black Steel Plumbing are as nothing to the real issue at hand:
"But Kurogane's such a mouthful," Flowright said. "'Bob' is cute!"
"My name isn't Bob."
"Harry?"
"No."
"Tom?"
"Quit it."
"Dicky?"
"I said CUT IT OUT!!!"
“I can't just shout out 'Hey, You!' to the ringing welkin,” Flowright complains, but the other plumber is obdurate. Flowright sighs woefully. “Very well, Mr Kurogane. Half a picosecond and I'll have it all sealed off.” He picks a wrench out of his toolbox with the long, prehensile toes of one white foot, passes it to a long-fingered, nervous hand and disappears back behind the wall. He says something muffled.
“What was that?”
A panel falls out of the wall and Flowright's tousled blond head appears. “I said, 'You never asked me what I'd like to be called.'” The plumber's brilliant blue eyes brim with tears. “No matter. The hurt, I shall bear it. I wonder where that nevvy of mine has got to,” he mutters to himself, disappearing again.
8
Syaoran is in the bathroom, drying himself after a terribly unfortunate accident with a bucket of water in the Absolute Schoolgirl Zone part of the house had his checked flannel shirt thoroughly slicked to his torso. He doesn't like working wet, and the focus with which a dozen pairs of pubescent female eyes tracked his movements afterwards made him intensely nervous, so he'd retreated to the bathroom. The little deadbolt on the door doesn't work, but the door catches in the damp (have to get a plane to that sometime) so he pulled it as tight as he could get. He is changing very quickly, bending over the basin to catch drips and easing the wet fabric over his torso and dark, soggy hair.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, at blue lines like computer circuits printed over the muscles of his arms and chest and flicks a hunted glance to the frilly curtains covering the window. Still private. Phew.
There's a pounding on the door. He jumps, and calls, “I'm trying to work here.”
A cheerful voice calls out, “No problem!” and a precisely placed kick slams the door open. Syaoran clutches the soggy shirt to his chest miserably. He hates this job and wonders if his uncle can add a tariff for fangirl stalkerdom. Maybe not - the man finds the oddest things cute.
But.
But there's a girl standing in the doorway, and all the afternoon sun which lights her red-gold hair and clothes and copper-toed boots is not as beaming as her smile. She holds out a basket that steams under a patterned cloth. “You're the Flowright boy, right? You got time for a muffin, yeah?”
Syaoran starts wondering how long they can stretch this job out.
Sakura wonders if the skittish boy will stop twitching long enough to eat.
Elsewhere, Kurogane cringes as the groaning of the pipes resolves into a sullen melody: Dah dee dee dah, the pipes, the pipes are calling... to the other plumber's obvious pride. He wonders just how soon his honour as a tradesman will let him finish this job so he can flee back to sanity.
What Flowright thinks about it is, as ever, a mystery.
fin
NOTES
shaking each foot delicately... I had a cat who used to walk through puddles like that - just wanted to remember her a little.
Miss Sakura Amamiya Kinomoto Kurogane... In this timeline, Kurogane adopted the baby daughter of a pair of world-travelling archaeologists that he liked, felt responsible for, and who died violently somewhere in the back end of nowhere. Not entirely relevant to the plot, but there it is.
Probably the biggest difference to this setting isn't the tradesman thing, but what being raised by a Kurogane would do to Sakura's personality. She's ... a bit earthier than I expected.
I seem to have just barely missed a whole bunch of my giftee's prompts, for which I apologise.
If this story feels like there should be more of it, that's because I'd planned more plot. However, the bits as written aren't gelling into anything presentable and, like Gandalf, I have no time, hence the reworking of this into a portrait. Sorry.
I am not worthy!
Author: Thimble
Recipient: Ldydragon7
Series: Tsubasa AU, 'modern world'
Characters/Pairing: Fai/Kurogane; Sakura/Syaoran
Rating: PG13 for mildly off-colour language
Author's Notes/Warnings: May be continued.
There is a girl in the field. Her red-gold hair and the sunflower t-shirt she wears under denim dungarees are a bright flag of colour against the dull greens and browns of the flooded field. She doesn't notice the damp wind blowing except to tuck a lock of hair, absentmindedly, behind one ear. She has a handful of flags clasped loosely in one hand, made of metal rod and scavenged nylon that flicks and rustles. She considers briefly, then drives a flag into the ground where she stands with a practiced twist and shove, and then moves on, lifting each bare foot out of the mud and shaking it delicately before finishing her step. Occasionally she drives in another flag, and once three flags together, in a tight bundle near the worst of the flooding.
When she's done, there is a trail of flags curving loosely across the field, from the sullen heap of a decaying manor house to a large concrete pipe set where the ground dips suddenly, a pipe whose mouth is suspiciously dry. She has one flag left. She plants it by the outfall and cheers her own sense of spacing, raising her arms in the air and feeling happy.
A shout floats down from a high window of the manor house. Hoi! Princess!
8
It is a nice logo, its swirling blues and greens combining to suggest ease and health and quiet waters while in the foreground 'Flowright Water Works' stands with assertive grace.
It is all wrong.
Kurogane eyes the toolbox it adorns with a certain amount of disfavour. The toolbox (blue, battered) is unassuming enough - it is the denim-clad legs (also blue and battered, and skinny and long) lying next to them, plus their owner (skinny, long, also daft) who is currently half hidden behind a wall covered in peeling, flowery wallpaper, doing unspeakable things with pipes, these are the true source of Kurogane's pain. He glances at his watch - thirty more seconds, he thinks in exasperation.
A flash of colour catches his eye out the window and he swears under his breath. "Hoi! Princess!" shouted Kurogane. "Get your damn boots on." Beside him there is a muffled doinnnngg, which he ignores for the girl outside.
”Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” she calls back. “I'm not a Barbie Doll, honest.” Is that eye-rolling? It's a bit far to tell.
“Miss Sakura Amamiya Kinomoto Kurogane,” he replies, “let me introduce you to Mr Tetanus. And what do we know about Mr Tetanus?”
Yep, yep: definite eye-rolling, and a distinctly telegraphed sigh (learned from the school Drama Club if he wasn't mistaken). "Mr Tetanus is not our friend," she recites in a sing-song voice. Then Sakura grins and retrieves a pair of copper-toed boots, tied by the laces, from behind one of the trees that line the drop off. She pokes her tongue between her teeth as she picks at the knots. “I'll be off for muffins, then,” she calls sweetly. The clouds are clearing, and the sun is coming out.
8
Indoors, Flowright eases himself from under the pipes, rubbing his forehead gingerly. "How long have you been there, Bob?" he asks wonderingly of the dark, broad figure slouched broodingly against the wall, pointedly examining the dial of the watch buckled to one ropy, bronzed forearm. "And how can you sneak around in such heavy boots?"
"I need the mains turned off," says Mr Kurogane. "And my name isn't Bob."
The trouble with Mokona Manor is that it isn't one house, it is two. The original building had been divided long since into two separate establishments, one a boarding house for girls going to the nearby school, the other a fixer-upper inhabited by a pair of university students, living cheap while they slowly repair their half of the building. The trouble is, an old building means old pipes, all of which need attention fairly urgently. As Mokona Manor is really two houses, two plumbing firms have been called, who have since discovered that the 'two houses' still use the same main water system.
But the incessant border disputes between Flowright Water Works and Black Steel Plumbing are as nothing to the real issue at hand:
"But Kurogane's such a mouthful," Flowright said. "'Bob' is cute!"
"My name isn't Bob."
"Harry?"
"No."
"Tom?"
"Quit it."
"Dicky?"
"I said CUT IT OUT!!!"
“I can't just shout out 'Hey, You!' to the ringing welkin,” Flowright complains, but the other plumber is obdurate. Flowright sighs woefully. “Very well, Mr Kurogane. Half a picosecond and I'll have it all sealed off.” He picks a wrench out of his toolbox with the long, prehensile toes of one white foot, passes it to a long-fingered, nervous hand and disappears back behind the wall. He says something muffled.
“What was that?”
A panel falls out of the wall and Flowright's tousled blond head appears. “I said, 'You never asked me what I'd like to be called.'” The plumber's brilliant blue eyes brim with tears. “No matter. The hurt, I shall bear it. I wonder where that nevvy of mine has got to,” he mutters to himself, disappearing again.
8
Syaoran is in the bathroom, drying himself after a terribly unfortunate accident with a bucket of water in the Absolute Schoolgirl Zone part of the house had his checked flannel shirt thoroughly slicked to his torso. He doesn't like working wet, and the focus with which a dozen pairs of pubescent female eyes tracked his movements afterwards made him intensely nervous, so he'd retreated to the bathroom. The little deadbolt on the door doesn't work, but the door catches in the damp (have to get a plane to that sometime) so he pulled it as tight as he could get. He is changing very quickly, bending over the basin to catch drips and easing the wet fabric over his torso and dark, soggy hair.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, at blue lines like computer circuits printed over the muscles of his arms and chest and flicks a hunted glance to the frilly curtains covering the window. Still private. Phew.
There's a pounding on the door. He jumps, and calls, “I'm trying to work here.”
A cheerful voice calls out, “No problem!” and a precisely placed kick slams the door open. Syaoran clutches the soggy shirt to his chest miserably. He hates this job and wonders if his uncle can add a tariff for fangirl stalkerdom. Maybe not - the man finds the oddest things cute.
But.
But there's a girl standing in the doorway, and all the afternoon sun which lights her red-gold hair and clothes and copper-toed boots is not as beaming as her smile. She holds out a basket that steams under a patterned cloth. “You're the Flowright boy, right? You got time for a muffin, yeah?”
Syaoran starts wondering how long they can stretch this job out.
Sakura wonders if the skittish boy will stop twitching long enough to eat.
Elsewhere, Kurogane cringes as the groaning of the pipes resolves into a sullen melody: Dah dee dee dah, the pipes, the pipes are calling... to the other plumber's obvious pride. He wonders just how soon his honour as a tradesman will let him finish this job so he can flee back to sanity.
What Flowright thinks about it is, as ever, a mystery.
fin
NOTES
shaking each foot delicately... I had a cat who used to walk through puddles like that - just wanted to remember her a little.
Miss Sakura Amamiya Kinomoto Kurogane... In this timeline, Kurogane adopted the baby daughter of a pair of world-travelling archaeologists that he liked, felt responsible for, and who died violently somewhere in the back end of nowhere. Not entirely relevant to the plot, but there it is.
Probably the biggest difference to this setting isn't the tradesman thing, but what being raised by a Kurogane would do to Sakura's personality. She's ... a bit earthier than I expected.
I seem to have just barely missed a whole bunch of my giftee's prompts, for which I apologise.
If this story feels like there should be more of it, that's because I'd planned more plot. However, the bits as written aren't gelling into anything presentable and, like Gandalf, I have no time, hence the reworking of this into a portrait. Sorry.
I am not worthy!