Reborn!/PSoH: The Things They've Forged
...I should be filling out a grant application. Not writing fanfic. Certainly not writing fanfic that's a crossover between a fandom I haven't thought about in years and another that I only discovered two weeks ago. Also, this has no logical basis whatsoever, either. XD
At least it's still a big relief to know that I'm still capable of writing...anything, really, after months of non-productivity. Need to start working on that grant now, before this working session becomes completely irredeemable!
Title: The Things They've Forged
Word Count: ~550
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors/Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Notes: PSoH-wise, this would be set during the time when D's shop is in Shinjuku's Kabukichou. KHR-wise...I imagine this as taking place immediately after the Kokuyou arc; not that it really matters, though, because there's not much of a plot. ^_^*
Count D returns with the refilled teapot to see his guest frowning at the window. "There is," he says, settling down in the opposite armchair and pouring, "a certain man I know, who thinks all of that belongs to him."
By that, he means the night scene on the opposite side of the glass and thirteen floors below -- a dizzying spread of city lights and shifting crowds, scattered haphazardly across a backdrop the color of ravens. The glass window covers an entire wall of the shop, floor to high ceilings, but even it cannot block out the rancorous strains of conversation already threading their way along the streets (and that will no doubt only increase in volume, as the night wears on and Kabukichou comes to life). Over it all, D can see his guest's faint reflection in the glass, wearing an expression that, years ago -- before he had known any better -- D might have mistaken for boredom, rather than recognizing it for the restrained distaste that it was.
"He can keep it," says the boy finally, contemptuously (he may be taller, lankier, but in D's mind he's very much still the boy); he takes a sip of his tea.
"Each to his own," D concedes. "But, in his case, it is perhaps understandable. Natural, even."
"If there's anything natural in the tendency to crowd, it should be stamped out."
D sips gently at his drink as well. "I meant...it is understandable to want to forge a territory of one's own. And then to want to defend it."
The boy glares again into the night, as if considering it anew. There is suddenly a stubborn and feral glint in his eyes that makes D marvel, certainly not for the first time, at how this particular human seemed to belong in the shop as much as (even more than, perhaps?) any of its other inhabitants.
Really belong, that is -- not simply as a not unwelcome visitor, but as a very part of D's collection itself. After all, everything -- from the boy's penchant for seeking out the shop, to his wandering in whenever D was in the country, to a name like Hibari Kyouya -- seemed to be convincing evidence for why it was the way things could and should be. Convincing enough that once, years ago, also before he had known any better, D had even asked him whether he was sure he couldn't see the animals in their alternate forms.
(Why, the boy had retorted, would I want to see them as people?)
Now, as if on cue, the small yellow bird that had been darting about outside the window dives at a ledge, sending a flock of pigeons scattering. "Hnn," says D's guest, sounding none too interested; except, he is suddenly smirking in a way that gives off just the slightest hint of pride.
He is sprawled comfortably in one of the shop's best armchairs, wearing, as if they were trophies, the loosely draped uniform jacket and blood-red armband and the angry, half-healed cuts on his hands. And Count D smiles against the blaze of the city lights, has to remind himself once again that, no, there is nothing he needs to say -- nothing that Hibari Kyouya has not already learned on his own.
At least it's still a big relief to know that I'm still capable of writing...anything, really, after months of non-productivity. Need to start working on that grant now, before this working session becomes completely irredeemable!
Title: The Things They've Forged
Word Count: ~550
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors/Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Notes: PSoH-wise, this would be set during the time when D's shop is in Shinjuku's Kabukichou. KHR-wise...I imagine this as taking place immediately after the Kokuyou arc; not that it really matters, though, because there's not much of a plot. ^_^*
Count D returns with the refilled teapot to see his guest frowning at the window. "There is," he says, settling down in the opposite armchair and pouring, "a certain man I know, who thinks all of that belongs to him."
By that, he means the night scene on the opposite side of the glass and thirteen floors below -- a dizzying spread of city lights and shifting crowds, scattered haphazardly across a backdrop the color of ravens. The glass window covers an entire wall of the shop, floor to high ceilings, but even it cannot block out the rancorous strains of conversation already threading their way along the streets (and that will no doubt only increase in volume, as the night wears on and Kabukichou comes to life). Over it all, D can see his guest's faint reflection in the glass, wearing an expression that, years ago -- before he had known any better -- D might have mistaken for boredom, rather than recognizing it for the restrained distaste that it was.
"He can keep it," says the boy finally, contemptuously (he may be taller, lankier, but in D's mind he's very much still the boy); he takes a sip of his tea.
"Each to his own," D concedes. "But, in his case, it is perhaps understandable. Natural, even."
"If there's anything natural in the tendency to crowd, it should be stamped out."
D sips gently at his drink as well. "I meant...it is understandable to want to forge a territory of one's own. And then to want to defend it."
The boy glares again into the night, as if considering it anew. There is suddenly a stubborn and feral glint in his eyes that makes D marvel, certainly not for the first time, at how this particular human seemed to belong in the shop as much as (even more than, perhaps?) any of its other inhabitants.
Really belong, that is -- not simply as a not unwelcome visitor, but as a very part of D's collection itself. After all, everything -- from the boy's penchant for seeking out the shop, to his wandering in whenever D was in the country, to a name like Hibari Kyouya -- seemed to be convincing evidence for why it was the way things could and should be. Convincing enough that once, years ago, also before he had known any better, D had even asked him whether he was sure he couldn't see the animals in their alternate forms.
(Why, the boy had retorted, would I want to see them as people?)
Now, as if on cue, the small yellow bird that had been darting about outside the window dives at a ledge, sending a flock of pigeons scattering. "Hnn," says D's guest, sounding none too interested; except, he is suddenly smirking in a way that gives off just the slightest hint of pride.
He is sprawled comfortably in one of the shop's best armchairs, wearing, as if they were trophies, the loosely draped uniform jacket and blood-red armband and the angry, half-healed cuts on his hands. And Count D smiles against the blaze of the city lights, has to remind himself once again that, no, there is nothing he needs to say -- nothing that Hibari Kyouya has not already learned on his own.