I'm going to hate me in the morning.
Why am I still up? 'Cause I'm stupid.
Anyway, long as I'm here, have some Bootcamp fic.
Roundup = Fullmetal Alchemist, Ouran Host Club, Ouran/Blackbirdverse, Prince of Tennis (the crack did something to my brain. somebody shoulda warned me about that.)
1. 400 Word Limit [Ouran/Blackbirdverse]:
Latent
There are things Arai doesn't like to talk about, certain questions he'd rather not answer, and one of the reasons he really likes being in Karuizawa is that practically nobody knows him. They don't know his family, except for his uncle, and they don't know his past, except for all the summers he's spent in the village growing up.
It was like he'd been granted an alternate life, when he moved here, like those movies where someone goes into Witness Protection, and they're given a new name, a new identity, their whole life suddenly has a different story behind it.
With hardly any fuss, Arai finds himself slipping into the life of the grocer's nephew, into the quiet routine of his uncle's apartment over the store, and into the reassuring sameness of the work. Stocking, deliveries, cleanup, greeting the customers by name. The only reminder that he ever had another life is his tricky, unpredictable knee. The bad fall in a soccer match that gradually wore his old life to a barren, hopeless standstill.
But he doesn't like to think about that. He's getting around better nowadays, and he's proven himself strong enough to handle the work his uncle needs done, and even though he catches his uncle sometimes giving him looks--like something's on his mind but it's not his place to mention it--Arai knows he has a steady foothold here. And even if his life is a borrowed story, nobody's going to yank it out from under him anytime soon.
As summer shuffles off into fall, Arai waits to get homesick, but it never happens. He doesn't miss his old bedroom, or his narrow raised bed where he spent so many bored miserable hours, occasionally curled up exhausted with pain from his knee but still unable to sleep. He doesn't miss his old neighborhood, or his friends. All his friends were in soccer anyway, and eventually they all drifted off after he quit the team.
There are lots of other things he doesn't miss, but since he doesn't miss them, there's no point considering them. Uncle never asks exactly what happened to make Arai leave home for good, but Arai has a feeling he knows anyway.
Arai doesn't like to talk about his dad. Though in time, it occurs to him he comes by that honestly, because no one else in the family does either.
**
2. 100 words [Fullmetal Alchemist]:
Please
Nice gestures confused the hell out of Mustang. Ed had made a thorough study of the phenomenon.
He quit slamming doors around the office, and the Colonel's cringe reflex took a week to catch up. He substituted 'Please' and 'No thanks', for 'Whatever', and 'You fucking wish'. Mustang tilted to a funny angle, sat speechless. Ed snickered into his sleeve for hours.
Mustang worked late nights by the light of one puny lamp on his desk, until Ed found him a better one.
"Dare I ask how you got this?"
"What? It was legal," Ed shrugged. "Want some more coffee?"
**
3. 5 minutes [Ouran Host Club]:
Voice
Nobody recalls the point where Mori's voice broke and hit its deep adult register. It's entirely likely it happened during one of his quiet spells.
It was always an occasion of note whenever he spoke--people would stop what they were doing to hear his rare utterances, even when he was quite small. But the first time anyone heard him after his voice changed....
It was at breakfast, he was answering his brother's question about kendo, and the maid dropped an empty tray. No one registered that, however. They were all staring at Mori. Who promptly glanced around, closed his mouth, and did not speak for the rest of the day.
**
4. 5 minutes {Prince of Tennis]:
Ribbon
"Hope you didn't have plans for this evening," Fuji said, when Tezuka stepped into Kawamura Sushi on his birthday. Before the rest of the team spotted him, and their noise and cheer closed in over his head.
And Tezuka hadn't, but it was odd for Fuji to say, since a lunchtime party in a restaurant could hardly be expected to go so long.
It didn't start to make sense, until Tezuka opened his gift from Echizen--what Tezuka had assumed to be simple card, enclosing a gift certificate to his favorite sporting goods store. And then, beneath the certificate, was a time and an address.
Echizen looked at him steadily across the table, and Tezuka nodded (message received), and thanked him.
He arrived right on time, to the court lit by white lights, off in the corner of a quiet park. Drew the red satin ribbon, elaborately tied at the top of the net, feeling his mouth twist in a funny shape.
"I hope you don't intend to let me win, just because it's my birthday," he murmured, and Echizen gave him a sharp grin.
"You're welcome to try." And then, "Your serve, Buchou."
**
5. 5 minutes, image prompt [Ouran Host Club]:
Intermission
Haruhi wanders into the auditorium, and spots a ghost in the back row.
The room is empty, silent, and the woman sits in a narrow stripe of sunlight, angled high from the windows. Her pocketbook rests on the wooden floor, and the woman looks down, shiny black hair and slightly rounded face, and Haruhi's hands are trembling. She can't walk backward or forward, and she can't look away.
An eminently rational part of her points out that of course it isn't. It cannot be, but the name is on the tip of her tongue anyway.
It was so strange, she'll tell Kyouya later on. I haven't mistaken a stranger for my mom in fifteen years.
**
6. 100 word limit [Fullmetal Alchemist]:
Portion
Edward Elric is eating for two. And sleeping for two, and breathing for two, and growing half as much as he should at this age because half his growth is steadily siphoning off somewhere else.
It's not just that every thought, every consideration, every action of his life is made on the balance of his brother's soul; his brother's body is *somewhere*, and thanks to that blood seal on the armor--Ed's blood on Al's vessel--Ed's body is taking up the slack too.
**
Anyway, long as I'm here, have some Bootcamp fic.
Roundup = Fullmetal Alchemist, Ouran Host Club, Ouran/Blackbirdverse, Prince of Tennis (the crack did something to my brain. somebody shoulda warned me about that.)
1. 400 Word Limit [Ouran/Blackbirdverse]:
Latent
There are things Arai doesn't like to talk about, certain questions he'd rather not answer, and one of the reasons he really likes being in Karuizawa is that practically nobody knows him. They don't know his family, except for his uncle, and they don't know his past, except for all the summers he's spent in the village growing up.
It was like he'd been granted an alternate life, when he moved here, like those movies where someone goes into Witness Protection, and they're given a new name, a new identity, their whole life suddenly has a different story behind it.
With hardly any fuss, Arai finds himself slipping into the life of the grocer's nephew, into the quiet routine of his uncle's apartment over the store, and into the reassuring sameness of the work. Stocking, deliveries, cleanup, greeting the customers by name. The only reminder that he ever had another life is his tricky, unpredictable knee. The bad fall in a soccer match that gradually wore his old life to a barren, hopeless standstill.
But he doesn't like to think about that. He's getting around better nowadays, and he's proven himself strong enough to handle the work his uncle needs done, and even though he catches his uncle sometimes giving him looks--like something's on his mind but it's not his place to mention it--Arai knows he has a steady foothold here. And even if his life is a borrowed story, nobody's going to yank it out from under him anytime soon.
As summer shuffles off into fall, Arai waits to get homesick, but it never happens. He doesn't miss his old bedroom, or his narrow raised bed where he spent so many bored miserable hours, occasionally curled up exhausted with pain from his knee but still unable to sleep. He doesn't miss his old neighborhood, or his friends. All his friends were in soccer anyway, and eventually they all drifted off after he quit the team.
There are lots of other things he doesn't miss, but since he doesn't miss them, there's no point considering them. Uncle never asks exactly what happened to make Arai leave home for good, but Arai has a feeling he knows anyway.
Arai doesn't like to talk about his dad. Though in time, it occurs to him he comes by that honestly, because no one else in the family does either.
**
2. 100 words [Fullmetal Alchemist]:
Please
Nice gestures confused the hell out of Mustang. Ed had made a thorough study of the phenomenon.
He quit slamming doors around the office, and the Colonel's cringe reflex took a week to catch up. He substituted 'Please' and 'No thanks', for 'Whatever', and 'You fucking wish'. Mustang tilted to a funny angle, sat speechless. Ed snickered into his sleeve for hours.
Mustang worked late nights by the light of one puny lamp on his desk, until Ed found him a better one.
"Dare I ask how you got this?"
"What? It was legal," Ed shrugged. "Want some more coffee?"
**
3. 5 minutes [Ouran Host Club]:
Voice
Nobody recalls the point where Mori's voice broke and hit its deep adult register. It's entirely likely it happened during one of his quiet spells.
It was always an occasion of note whenever he spoke--people would stop what they were doing to hear his rare utterances, even when he was quite small. But the first time anyone heard him after his voice changed....
It was at breakfast, he was answering his brother's question about kendo, and the maid dropped an empty tray. No one registered that, however. They were all staring at Mori. Who promptly glanced around, closed his mouth, and did not speak for the rest of the day.
**
4. 5 minutes {Prince of Tennis]:
Ribbon
"Hope you didn't have plans for this evening," Fuji said, when Tezuka stepped into Kawamura Sushi on his birthday. Before the rest of the team spotted him, and their noise and cheer closed in over his head.
And Tezuka hadn't, but it was odd for Fuji to say, since a lunchtime party in a restaurant could hardly be expected to go so long.
It didn't start to make sense, until Tezuka opened his gift from Echizen--what Tezuka had assumed to be simple card, enclosing a gift certificate to his favorite sporting goods store. And then, beneath the certificate, was a time and an address.
Echizen looked at him steadily across the table, and Tezuka nodded (message received), and thanked him.
He arrived right on time, to the court lit by white lights, off in the corner of a quiet park. Drew the red satin ribbon, elaborately tied at the top of the net, feeling his mouth twist in a funny shape.
"I hope you don't intend to let me win, just because it's my birthday," he murmured, and Echizen gave him a sharp grin.
"You're welcome to try." And then, "Your serve, Buchou."
**
5. 5 minutes, image prompt [Ouran Host Club]:
Intermission
Haruhi wanders into the auditorium, and spots a ghost in the back row.
The room is empty, silent, and the woman sits in a narrow stripe of sunlight, angled high from the windows. Her pocketbook rests on the wooden floor, and the woman looks down, shiny black hair and slightly rounded face, and Haruhi's hands are trembling. She can't walk backward or forward, and she can't look away.
An eminently rational part of her points out that of course it isn't. It cannot be, but the name is on the tip of her tongue anyway.
It was so strange, she'll tell Kyouya later on. I haven't mistaken a stranger for my mom in fifteen years.
**
6. 100 word limit [Fullmetal Alchemist]:
Portion
Edward Elric is eating for two. And sleeping for two, and breathing for two, and growing half as much as he should at this age because half his growth is steadily siphoning off somewhere else.
It's not just that every thought, every consideration, every action of his life is made on the balance of his brother's soul; his brother's body is *somewhere*, and thanks to that blood seal on the armor--Ed's blood on Al's vessel--Ed's body is taking up the slack too.
**