Fic Dump.
First, from a first impressions meme over on dreamwidth.
Yotsuba&!: Yotsuba and Koiwai (gen!)
Over the Chainlink Fence
She won't remember it a year from now, or even a month, but he won't forget it. He sees her at a park across from the bus station, a skinny little kid who looks like all the other kids nearby, except she's not wearing a coat and it's already November. He kinda watches her, but not really, because people tend to assume the worst when strange men stare at little kids, especially foreign strange men.
He'd missed his bus by twenty feet, so he has to wait an hour for the next 37th route bus. He hunches up on the bench, shoves his hands into his jacket, and waits. And every now and then, he looks up across the street, to where the kids are still playing.
And the little girl is still there, pumping herself higher and higher on the swing.
When she goes flying, he winces, then straightens up on the bench.
She's not moving. No one else is moving, either, none of the mothers running or calling. He starts to stand up, then grabs his bag, jogging across the street. When he reaches the fence, the little girl is sitting up, and she is rubbing her face.
"Hey, kid," he says, then, "hey, are you okay--"
She looks at him, then down at her scraped knees, and promptly begins crying. She looks even younger this close, and her face looks dirty. Her hair looks dirty, too, and the ponytail looks tangled. She looks, he thinks, like a ragamuffin, or something sadder.
"Hey," he says, and he puts a foot in the fence's chainlink, grabs the top to hoist himself over. "Hey, let's go find your mom."
Next, from a AU meme I did a while ago.
An AU based on a Arthur/Merlin fmv to Lady Gaga's Just Dance. (hiza_chan)
Surging
It's Thursday night, a Ladies' Night, so the club is full of more women and girls than usual. The air smells like beer and sweat, a tinge of sex beneath all of it, and Arthur can feel the night curl beneath his tongue like a lazy cat. Anticipation is a throaty feeling, makes him go heady, and he dances with everyone, arms loose and hips feeling like liquid sand. It is, with one too many drinks and three too many drags, a good night.
His hands are on a girl's hips, just above her tight skirt, and when he looks over the top of her head, he has a moment of
heat, the summer sun beating down on his neck. sweating beneath the heavy links of his chainmail
vertigo. He tightens his hands on the girl's hips, rests his cheek against the side of her head. Sweat is running down his back, and he can feel it collect in the small of his back, into the back of his trousers. The club is like
too many hot summer days, the wheat in the fields dying before it's half-grown. nights spent sleeping on stone, unable to breathe
a furnace.
He pets the girl's stomach absently, feels her smooth her hand along his hip and thigh. When he pulls away, she spins into another man, drunken laughing and bright eyes. Arthur swallows back the throaty feeling, feels his stomach spin like the girls around him. He's had too many drinks, too many drags. Too many-- lives; dreams; moments tipping his head back until he falls into oblivion.
Arthur fights his way through the crowd to the big freight doors, open to the outside. The cold air is a jolt to his stomach and throat, and he breathes out, slow and shaky, as he leans his forehead against one of the heavy metal doors. It's cold against his skin, and the shock takes the edge off the dizzy, dippy feeling that's pooling in the base of his skull. Too much, too much, and he turns his head, rests his cheek against the door like he had rested it against the girl's head five minutes ago.
"Are you drunk?" someone asks. Arthur thinks about it. About how he's staggered on his feet, leaning against a freight door like it's a lover. Thinks about the way his body keeps feeling something not here, hot summer days with the sun beating down on dusty roads, and says, "yeah."
The someone laughs, closer, and Arthur lets his head roll on the door until he's looking back into the club, and at a man with dark hair and a skinny, anorexic-looking face.
"I'm not supposed to talk to you," the man says, and he reaches up, pulls at his own hair. His fingernails are painted black, shiny and unchipped, and Arthur thinks of witches and fires.
"Then why are you?" Arthur asks, words slow and syrupy, and the man laughs again.
"Because you're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I can feel the sun."
It makes no sense, Arthur knows, but maybe it's because it makes no sense that Arthur can feel something like understanding, right there on the edge of his brain. Another drink, he thinks, and another drag, and he'll have it, he'll understand
the way the cloak was always so heavy on his shoulders, like his father's hands, and the way he sank into the sea, halfway to Avalon but never quite there, dead in the water a thousand million times
everything.
"What are you?" Arthur tries to ask as the man grabs him, cold and clammy hands on Arthur's arms. Arthur breathes through his nose, dizzy air, and let himself take a few steps forward.
"Shouldn't touch you, either," the man says, and when he lets go and walks away, Arthur finds himself following him. It is like-- he is going mad, he thinks. He can't make his feet stop moving, and he can't look away from the man's shoulder. When the crowd surges up around him, like
knights shining silver and gold, trumpets and banners and a voice calling, to the prince, to the prince, as the horses scream and die
waves on breakers, he reaches out, presses the palm of his hand firmly against the man's shoulder. The knit beneath his palm is smooth, and he lets his hand slip a little, so he can feel the friction of the rub and pull. It feels good, like the purr in the back of his throat. Arousal and anxiety are melting through his body.
"Where are we going?" he yells over the thrum of the bass and the throb of the crowd. The man looks back over his shoulder, and Arthur watches him touch the corner of his mouth with a black-tipped finger. The man's smile is fast, and Arthur feels the crowd move around him, waves dragging at his limbs.
The destination is the club's bathroom-- the club, too cheap and liberal by half, has one big, gender-blind bathroom, with grimy stalls covered in vomit and piss and semen. The smell of it is almost enough to make Arthur retch, sickness and sex beneath the tang of spilled liquors. There's a line, kohl-eyed girls with tiny handbags and smeared lipstick. The man stops at the end of the line, and Arthur stops with him, standing close enough to rest his arm along the line of man's back. The knit makes the hair on his arm stand on end.
"What?" Arthur asks, like all the night is a question. He still has to yell, the bass of the music and the thud of the dancing hanging heavy even in the bathroom. The man turns halfway around, and the way he moves makes Arthur's arm twist so it's hanging over his shoulder.
"Sex," the man yells back, and the girl in front of them looks at them with sleepy eyes, half a smile. "We're gonna fuck."
"Okay," Arthur says, and he's a little proud with how calm he's feeling. It might be, he thinks, the cocktail running through his blood, but right now, he feels like he can take on anything and be okay. There is something beautifully numbing about all of this, and he focuses his eyes on the collar of the man's shirt. When he touches it with his thumb, the man shudders a little, and it's easy to wait for the line to move like this, rubbing the edge of his thumbnail over the collar, hangnail catching on the man's skin.
The club's too cheap and too liberal, so when a stall empties out and the man goes in, pulling Arthur in with him, no one bats an eye. As the door swings shut, Arthur sees a girl watching him through the mirror. He smiles at the door, and watches the man reach a hand around him to lock the door.
"Sit," the man says, pushing Arthur towards the toilet. Arthur looks at it, feels a little sick. He hesitates, then lets the man push him down onto the toilet seat. The floor is sticky and wet, and Arthur feels his feet slide a little. When the warm feeling in his stomach curls lower, he swallows, and feels glad he's sitting.
When the man settles on Arthur's lap, straddling Arthur's legs, Arthur turns his face up for a kiss. Sex in bathrooms isn't really his thing, but the few times he's done it, the kissing has been frantic enough, nasty enough, to justify the smell and the wet, sticky floors. The man's just looking back at him, though, four inches that feel like a world in between their mouths, and Arthur can't bridge that gap.
"I," the man says, "have missed you so much," and Arthur can't question the insanity of this. He can only lower his chin to his neck, and watch the man's hands land on his belly, thumbs rubbing in circles, then spreading out. When the man lifts Arthur's shirt, Arthur takes in a breath, lets it out like a waltz. Three beats, and he grabs the man's wrists, holds on. The hands on his stomach are cold, and a fingernail is circling Arthur's bellybutton. The arousal in the pit of his stomach is curling wider, hotter.
"Please," Arthur says. He's too drunk for this, too high for this, and the man laughs like quicksand, his voice sucking in Arthur's everything. He palms Arthur's dick through his trousers, then pulls the belt loose, cracks the snap and zipper in a rush of metal and fabric. The hand on Arthur's dick feels like magic, and Arthur thinks he is losing time, and maybe himself.
"Why?" Arthur asks when he is breathing too fast and is feeling faint and empty. He knows everyone in the bathroom can hear this: the wet, slick sound of his dick in the man's hands, his panting, the way the toilet creaks beneath their combined weight. When he lets his head fall back on the metal wall, he feels the stall shudder.
The man moves his head forward, presses his mouth against Arthur's ear. "My king," he says, and the feel of his tongue makes Arthur shudder. "My king."
When Arthur comes, it's with a dizzy, buzzed feeling. He lets his head fall forward onto the man's shoulder, and when the man pulls back, cleans Arthur up roughly, Arthur looks at the stall door. The club is still beating through Arthur's limbs, a steady march to his chest.
"Now?" Arthur asks, a thousand too many questions, when the man unlocks the door. The smile is as fast as it was a time, or a dozen, ago. The man pulls at his hair with his painted fingernails, shrugs, and looks entirely unremarkable, another too cheap, too liberal kid in this crowded, sticky club.
"I've seen you die too many times," the man says, and Arthur watches
his manservantwizardfriendcompanionknightlovertraitorsaviorbrotherslavegodeverything
him go.
a Kingdom Hearts one where Sora turns into a girl whenever he wields the keyblade (techiegoat)
Adolescence
When Kingdom Hearts explodes, Sora finds himself thrown onto his back, his head cracking against the floor in a way that promises stars in his eyes and a pain in his skull for a few hours at least. He grunts, tries to open his eyes, then realizes he's closing his eyes, and gives it up for a lost cause. He waits a moment, two, and winces. It feels like there's a house sitting on his chest.
Or, when he finally opens his eyes, a much more Riku-like Riku. He's crouched over Sora, kinda like a dog, or a deranged monkey, and it's only when Riku winces beneath a weird blindfold that Sora realizes that Riku was protecting him, and then Sora feels like an ass.
"Riku," he says, and he reaches out for his keyblade at the same time, that familiar little tug at his chest and burn in his palm when it pops into existence. "Riku, let me up--"
Riku looks down at him, or at least, turns his face down towards him, because he's wearing that blindfold thing. He moves, pats his hands against Sora's body like he's making sure Sora's still all in one piece, and Sora sucks in a breath, holds it.
"S-Sora?"
Riku's not one for stuttering, and Sora lets out his breath like an explosion, says, "not now, Riku."
Riku tears off his blindfold (and god, Sora had forgotten how bright his eyes are, like the lagoon on the south side of the island, like all those summer days-- like childhood), and he's not moving off of Sora, is just staring down at Sora like he can't figure out if it really is Sora.
"Riku," Sora says again, "not now. Move."
Riku climbs up off of Sora, holds out a hand to pull Sora up, and Sora makes himself look away so he can smile at Kairi and the King, and Goofy and Donald.
"Now what?" he asks, and the King looks up at the sky, and Sora looks up, too. Watches a thousand million hearts fall from the sky, and tries not to think that he was the one who put them there.
"Now we stop Xemnas," the King says.
x
Riku isn't really fazed by a lot of things. He's had a pretty crappy few years, what with falling into darkness and more or less selling his soul. Twice. He's learned that Kingdom Hearts is more like Hell than anything else, and he knows-- he's also been to Hell. Hades is pretty much a prick.
All in all, though, Riku's had so much shit happen, and has been beaten, betrayed, and more or less broken so many times that he's sure that nothing can keep himself from standing back up, dusting himself off, and moving on without a second thought. Or a doubt. Or, like, being fazed by anything.
Except-- Well, Riku was also pretty sure that Sora, his best friend since forever, was a boy.
Actually, he is sure, because he can remember when he was six and Sora was five and they played a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." And he remembers skinny-dipping in the lagoon on the south side of the island, where the water was that bright blue-green that always made him think of lime jellybeans.
So when he feels Sora up, just to make sure that Sora's alive, and real, and not bleeding to death beneath that ugly red shirt (because if Sora died now, when they were so fucking close to getting home, Riku would make this fucking world burn), he's kinda, well, fazed to feel breasts. Boobs. Tits.
Sora is supposed to be a boy, and Riku knows that only girls have tits, because Riku is a teenage boy who once fell into darkness, and he's had the chance for a lot of experimentation.
When they leave Maleficent and Pete fighting the flood of Heartless, Riku has to lean against a wall and take a few deep breaths, because Sora has tits, which means Sora's a girl, which means--
"Riku?" Sora asks, and he's a full head shorter than Riku, just an inch or two taller than Kairi. Riku looks down at him, takes another deep breath, and says, "I'm fine."
"Right," Sora says, and he punches Riku on the arm. Riku tries to grab Sora's hand, but Sora's already running to catch up with the King and the others. Riku breathes out, slowly, and wonders if all his childhood, with a boy named Sora, is another fake memory, spun in his head while he was sleeping in the darkness.
Finally, from a five-times meme I did even longer ago.
Five times Vaan got himself and Balthier into trouble. (hiza_chan)
one by one they fall
one
“I told you not to touch it,” Balthier says sharply. Vaan’s pretty sure it’s uncalled for. The situation may be bad, but yelling isn’t going to help at all.
“How were we supposed to steal it if we couldn’t touch it?” he asks, and if Penelo was there, she’d probably call his tone petulant. He thinks it’s reasonable.
“By not touching it,” Balthier says. He’s digging his nails into Vaan’s wrist sharply, and Vaan winces. If he could actually see the bottom, he’d be tempted to just let go. “Of all the stupid traps to fall for--”
“You should stop yelling,” Vaan says loudly, “or I’m just going to drop you.”
by
“I couldn’t find it,” Vaan says as explanation when he shows up at the fountain with a purse still heavy with gil. Balthier scowls as he leans back on his hands, the spray from the fountain hitting the back of his neck.
“None of this would have happened,” he says, “if you’d just paid attention.”
“I was paying attention,” Vaan says, “you just didn’t make any sense.” He throws himself onto the fountain’s edge next to Balthier, sighing loudly, and Balthier eyes him, eyes the fountain. With one easy shove--
“So now what?” Vaan asks. “I mean, you have an idea of what to do, right?”
And oh, bugger this for a lark. Balthier took in a righteous breath, then slammed his elbow into Vaan’s stomach, sending the little idiot splashing into the fountain.
“You idiot,” Balthier yelled over the sound of Vaan’s frantic splashing, “you sold my airship.”
one
“This time,” Vaan says when he wakes up, “it was not my fault.”
The cell can’t be more than ten feet by fifteen, and Balthier is lying on the floor close enough that Vaan can, when he stretches, jab him with his toe.
“It was.” Balthier doesn’t even bother opening his eyes, just sorta shimmies away from Vaan’s foot. Vaan stretches further, jabs him a little harder.
“It’s not,” Vaan says again. “You didn’t tell me which fork to use, how was I supposed to know when there were twenty forks, and they all looked the same.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Balthier says. When Vaan jabs him a third time, he finally groans, sits up and rubs his head. “There were only eleven, and they all looked entirely different.”
“Hmph.” Vaan glares at the far wall for a few minutes then says, darkly, “well, either way, it was your bright idea to sneak into the banquet to begin with.”
they
“Wow,” Vaan says in a breathless way, and Balthier wants to hit him. He settles for-- slithering as far away as he can, so he can try to withstand the temptation. “That’s-- wow.”
“What you just gave me,” Balthier says, with much more patience than he feels, “was not a potion, was it, Vaan?”
“Huh? No, it was, I think, but it was pretty old, the label was all faded-- Hey, Balthier, how do you walk? I mean, with all the tentacles and stuff.”
“Vaan,” Balthier snaps, “focus,” but even as he says it, he’s wondering, too, and like that, the hundreds of tentacles that have taken the place of his legs instantly knot up and send him into a worm-like sprawl on the ground.
Balthier’s still trying to extract himself from his own-- tentacles-- when Vaan edges closer, hunkers down close to the ground, and stares at Balthier’s newer, slimier lower parts with an intensity that puts Balthier instantly on the edge.
“What?” Balthier asks suspiciously, tentacles slowly spreading to the side to get him ready to run-- slink-- slither away as fast as a few hundred tentacles can take him.
“Nothing,” Vaan says, voice puzzled, “just... how do you pee?”
fall
“--and his Imperial Majesty offers his sincerest apologies for this terrible misunderstanding,” Zargabaath said as a half-dozen judges carried in coffers, bent under the weight.
“I see,” the king says, and everyone in the room knows that it’s Larsa’s embarrassment that sent Zargabaath with a peace offering, because Archadia has more than enough power to wipe out the entirety of Galbrina. “If I had known that these men were the Emperor's companions...”
When the cuffs are taken off the wrists of Vaan and Balthier, Zargabaath makes a insultingly shallow bow and turns, reaching the doorway to the courtroom before either Vaan or Balthier has begun to move. When it’s clear Zargabaath is more than happy to leave without them, Vaan begins to run, and Balthier trots after him, keeping an eye on the Galbrinian soldiers as he follows.
“We didn’t know she was the king’s daughter,” Vaan says as he catches up to Zargabaath, and Balthier says, “not helping, Vaan,” as Zargabaath wearily says, “really, I don’t want to know.”
Fives times Remus wishes he'd stopped James and Sirius's latest prank. (sparkism)
Knew Better
1. "Lost the only picture of me Mum, too," Hagrid said sadly, and Remus patted his hand as gently as he could.
2. After the prank with the Whomping Willow, Snape stops talking to Remus, or even looking at him. James and Sirius are properly repentant, and Peter has the vague, clueless look that means he had no idea, so there's not really anyone Remus can get mad at, or even a reason to get mad. But still, Remus is mad. He's furious. Every time he has five minutes to himself, he thinks up long, brutal speeches to throw in James and Sirius's faces. Thinks up cruel little things to do, to turn fleas loose in Sirius's bed and to tell Lily what James really does on the weekends.
Mostly, though, Remus hurts. He remembers when he was a first year, before all his classmates became third years, before they learned how to be so cruel. He remembers when, sometimes, he used to talk to Snape. When they used to partner up for flying lessons, and when Remus would share dried toad eyes with Snape. Now, Snape won't look at him, won't walk down the same hallway, twenty feet away.
Prank by prank, and Remus feels like his world is shrinking.
3. When Filch's jaw quivered, like the old man was about to cry, only couldn't remember how, Remus wished he knew how to turn back time.
4. The prank is all Sirius's idea, but Remus figures out what's going on pretty quickly. He doesn't do anything, though, because he's got a directed study with Professor Purgledon this term and the full moon is coming up. he's too tired, too busy, and it's time James fought his own fights.
Two weeks later, though, Lily looks at Sirius with bright eyes, her lips parted and her face flushed, and Sirius is looking at her the same; James is looking like he's going to fall down, and Remus can feel his heart stagger to a painful halt.
"It didn't mean anything," Sirius says the next night when they're brushing their teeth. Remus doesn't say anything, but his heart still doesn't feel like it's beating.
5. "He could have died," Lily is yelling, and James looks more shamefaced than he has since the Whomping Willow.
"I didn't think," James says, and Lily slaps him hard. James's face is white, and her handprint stands out across his cheek and jaw.
"I'm sorry," Remus interrupts, because they've only been married for a few months, they shouldn't be fighting like this. "I should've--"
"You," Lily says, "are even worse. You knew better, and you didn't stop them."
"You," she says, and her words stay with him for a long time, like the taste of vomit in the back of his throat when he had seen the way Peter's head had lolled, like a broken doll, "are the worst one."
And one Remus wishes had been a prank. . .
When James and Lily die, Remus tries to think it's a prank at first. A big, stupid prank; something James and Sirius never should've come up with, but did anyways. Something that, like always, would make everyone worry. Because if it's a prank, that means James and Lily and Peter are still alive, Harry is still living in the magicing world, and Sirius is still loyal, still a friend.
If it's a prank, something to pull over Voldemort, then that means that there's still someone there on the other side of the Floo, waiting to call him home. It means Remus still has a family friends.
five times Itachi didn't kill Iruka, but had a semi-civil conversation instead. With a Itachi/Iruka bent if you can (shadowbyrd)
Sensei
i
Iruka's headed home from the grocery store, with bread and vegetables and milk, when he runs into Itachi on the rooftop. He stops with a polite pulse of chakra, and Itachi slows down, takes a long, dangerously short leap across an alleyway to land on the roof edge near Iruka.
"Iruka-sensei," Itachi says, and Iruka rolls his shoulders back, says, "good evening, Itachi-kun."
It's almost dusk, and it's getting close to autumn. There's a bit of a chill, and the air feels damp.
"You have blood," Iruka says, "on your cheek." He watches as Itachi leans back precariously, reaches up to touch his face. Iruka watches Itachi smear the blood with the back of his hand.
"There was a cat," Itachi says. "Caught by dogs, I think."
Iruka's hand is cold, feels raw, so he leans down slowly, lies his groceries on the roof.
"I took care of it, Sensei," Itachi says, and Iruka says, "that's good."
It's twenty minutes later, when Iruka has just finished putting away his groceries, that he hears that the Uchiha family has been slaughtered by one of the clan's most promising sons.
ii
"The Kyuubi is one of your students," Itachi says as he watches Iruka slowly stand back up. He is a little bit impressed-- there is blood in the corner of the teacher's mouth, and Itachi is sure that the last crack was the sound of ribs.
"Was," Iruka says with more blood in his mouth, and Itachi lifts his hand, readies to block Iruka's too-wide blow.
"He still calls you Sensei." Itachi takes a quick step back, out of range of the teacher's leg, and watches Iruka totter, then slowly steady on his feet.
"Lots of people do." Iruka wipes his fist against his mouth, catching the blood on his glove. It's bravado-- Itachi can see the pulse in Iruka's neck, the corners of Iruka's eyes. He's slowing down-- another hit as hard as the last, and his body will begin to shut down.
"Do they, Sensei?"
Iruka laughs, wipes his mouth again with the same bravado all the chuunin of all the villages have. "Your brother was one of my students, too," he says, and the seals he makes look like suicide.
"I know," Itachi says, and he hits the teacher hard enough to throw him to the ground.
iii
When Iruka stumbles into the same village Itachi is in, it's during a summer festival. Itachi is eating sweets with a look of sick fascination, and the missing nin beside him is massive, and a shocking shade of blue. Iruka doesn't even bother looking for a way to run, because he knows he couldn't run fast enough, even if he wanted to. And part of him doesn't want to.
"Iruka-sensei," Itachi says politely, like he didn't leave Iruka for dead the last. Like he didn't slaughter a fourth of Konoha's population with a systematic ease that passed the border of psychotic.
"Itachi-kun." Iruka sits on Itachi's other side, and when Itachi offers him a stick of dango, he takes it.
"You're not in Konoha," Itachi remarks, like commenting on the weather. Iruka bites into the dango to keep from throwing up, and says, "I'm looking for someone."
"The Kyuubi?"
"Your brother."
“Ah.” Itachi smiles at Iruka as he takes another stick of dango. Iruka watches him eat it, then watches him throw the stick towards a garbage can.
“You should hurry, Sensei,” Itachi says when he stands up, the massive missing nin standing up next to him. “You’ll want to find my brother before I do.”
iv
Itachi hasn’t been a lapdog since he was a teenager and wiped out his family without a second question. It’s not that he disagrees with anyone’s principles. It’s just that he prefers to be contrary, because that makes him feel a little deeper, a little more alive.
“But who else is the Kyuubi close to?” Deidara asks like a little idiot, and Kisame says, “his teacher.”
Someone’s murmuring something darkly, past the haze on the edge of Itachi’s sight, and Kisame corrects himself, says, “his old sensei. From the Academy.”
Deidara laughs, still a little idiot, and says, like he can’t believe it, “and the Kyuubi would give us what we want for an Academy teacher?”
“Of course,” Itachi says, and Sasori’s bulky body shifts, a ripple of misty gray when Itachi tries to look at him. “All of the students love Umino Iruka.”
“What, is he a pervert?”
When Itachi stands, Kisame stands with him, and follows him as a brush against his shoulder. When they’re far enough away that Itachi can barely feel the rest of the Akatsuki’s chakra, Kisame says, “you’re not doing this, are you?”
“Of course not.” Itachi tilts his head back, squints up at the sun. He can barely see it. “I’m one of his students, too.”
v
“I think I failed you,” Iruka says, when he’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt. Itachi is sitting with him, close enough that their knees are touching. Iruka’s body is mostly numb, and his mouth tastes like blood and vomit. When he talks, his lips tingle.
“Why?” Itachi sounds amused, always sounds amused, like Iruka’s telling a joke. Right now, though, Iruka can’t think of any jokes, and he’s sure he’s bitten his lip.
“I didn’t teach you well enough, maybe,” he says, “or maybe too well. Maybe I put too much of myself in you.”
“Oh?” Itachi asks, and he leans forward, and Iruka can’t look away from his eyes. “What of yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Iruka says, and it feels like a sob is ripping when from his throat when Itachi grabs his face, turns his head toward the sky, and says, dream, Iruka-sensei.
When he wakes, lying in the middle of the road, his mouth is full of blood, and he can still see the bodies of all his students.
and the way he did
The Akatsuki catch Iruka a week before they find the Kyuubi. There are a half-dozen chuunin clustered together, remnants of Konoha, and they’re slaughtered systematically, like unwanted dogs. When the Konoha ninja fight back, there is a great deal of screaming, and of blood, and very little time.
“Iruka-sensei,” Itachi says, and Iruka is clutching his side, blood sticky on his fingers.
“Your brother,” Iruka says, “and Naruto--” There is foam on his lips, flecked with blood. “They can’t know--”
“I’ll take care of it,” Itachi says, and when Iruka says, “that’s good,” he slits the teacher’s throat.
5 times Seimei said I love you (tiger24ever)
when he says, 'my love'
when
“I love you,” he whispers in Ritsuka’s ear when Ritsuka’s asleep. The fur on the tip of his ear tickles Seimei’s lip, lets him smile. He kisses the tip of Ritsuka’s ear, then sets his teeth in it, lightly, then biting. In the morning, he knows, there will be little flecks of dried blood in the fur, though no one will notice it except Seimei.
he
“Tell me you love me,” Seimei commands Soubi, and Soubi says, “I love you.”
“No,” Seimei says. “You don’t mean that. You,” he presses a finger at the base of Soubi’s neck, where the blood is soaking through bandages, “never sound like you mean it.”
“I love you,” Soubi repeats, his throat moving beneath Seimei’s finger. “I love you, I love you, I love you--”
Seimei digs his fingernail in, catching and pulling bandages and scabs alike, and says with Seimei, “I love you.”
says
He looks through photo albums with Ritsuka on rainy Saturdays, when their mother is running errands. Seimei likes the pictures taken two years ago, when Ritsuka had his arm in a splint, and couldn’t remember who he was. Ritsuka prefers the pictures from when he was a baby, a wrapped up bundle in everyone’s arms.
“This is your baby brother,” his mother had said, and he had looked at the ugly red face, and the squashed head, and had hated it.
“Were you happy?” Ritsuka asks like he always asks, looking at the pictures hungrily. Seimei laughs, and
“I hate it,” he had said when his father had pushed him closer to the baby, and his mother’s face had crumpled.
says, “I’ve always loved you.”
‘my
The old woman he lives with likes to watch him throughout the day, doing little things. Making breakfast, pulling the laundry from the wires, turning off the TV. At first, he thought she was a pervert of some kind, an old woman who liked to watch kids with their ears, and think about taking them.
Then he saw the postcards tacked up on her wall, and when he turned them over, he read, grandma, grandma, we love you, happy birthday, hello from australia, we love you, grandma, and when she watched him pick up the dishes after dinner that night, he smiled at her and she smiled back.
“I love you,” he says now, when he comes and when he leaves, always through the front door with a pause on the threshold.
“I love you,” she always replies, faster than she realizes, and Seimei knows that it’s true.
love’
“Your ears?” Seimei asks, a cold fury in his stomach, and Ritsuka says, “Soubi, of course.”
“Of course,” Seimei repeats, then asks, “of course?”
“Who else,” Rituska says, and he is so stubborn and proud, all of fifteen. Seimei wants to break his arm again, wrap his hands around his neck until Ritsuka’s head is as red and squashed as a baby’s.
“It was supposed to be me,” Seimei snaps, and he twists Ritsuka’s arm tighter, digs his knee into Ritsuka’s back when Rituska makes a noise of pain. “I’m the one who loves you.”
Yotsuba&!: Yotsuba and Koiwai (gen!)
Over the Chainlink Fence
She won't remember it a year from now, or even a month, but he won't forget it. He sees her at a park across from the bus station, a skinny little kid who looks like all the other kids nearby, except she's not wearing a coat and it's already November. He kinda watches her, but not really, because people tend to assume the worst when strange men stare at little kids, especially foreign strange men.
He'd missed his bus by twenty feet, so he has to wait an hour for the next 37th route bus. He hunches up on the bench, shoves his hands into his jacket, and waits. And every now and then, he looks up across the street, to where the kids are still playing.
And the little girl is still there, pumping herself higher and higher on the swing.
When she goes flying, he winces, then straightens up on the bench.
She's not moving. No one else is moving, either, none of the mothers running or calling. He starts to stand up, then grabs his bag, jogging across the street. When he reaches the fence, the little girl is sitting up, and she is rubbing her face.
"Hey, kid," he says, then, "hey, are you okay--"
She looks at him, then down at her scraped knees, and promptly begins crying. She looks even younger this close, and her face looks dirty. Her hair looks dirty, too, and the ponytail looks tangled. She looks, he thinks, like a ragamuffin, or something sadder.
"Hey," he says, and he puts a foot in the fence's chainlink, grabs the top to hoist himself over. "Hey, let's go find your mom."
Next, from a AU meme I did a while ago.
An AU based on a Arthur/Merlin fmv to Lady Gaga's Just Dance. (hiza_chan)
Surging
It's Thursday night, a Ladies' Night, so the club is full of more women and girls than usual. The air smells like beer and sweat, a tinge of sex beneath all of it, and Arthur can feel the night curl beneath his tongue like a lazy cat. Anticipation is a throaty feeling, makes him go heady, and he dances with everyone, arms loose and hips feeling like liquid sand. It is, with one too many drinks and three too many drags, a good night.
His hands are on a girl's hips, just above her tight skirt, and when he looks over the top of her head, he has a moment of
heat, the summer sun beating down on his neck. sweating beneath the heavy links of his chainmail
vertigo. He tightens his hands on the girl's hips, rests his cheek against the side of her head. Sweat is running down his back, and he can feel it collect in the small of his back, into the back of his trousers. The club is like
too many hot summer days, the wheat in the fields dying before it's half-grown. nights spent sleeping on stone, unable to breathe
a furnace.
He pets the girl's stomach absently, feels her smooth her hand along his hip and thigh. When he pulls away, she spins into another man, drunken laughing and bright eyes. Arthur swallows back the throaty feeling, feels his stomach spin like the girls around him. He's had too many drinks, too many drags. Too many-- lives; dreams; moments tipping his head back until he falls into oblivion.
Arthur fights his way through the crowd to the big freight doors, open to the outside. The cold air is a jolt to his stomach and throat, and he breathes out, slow and shaky, as he leans his forehead against one of the heavy metal doors. It's cold against his skin, and the shock takes the edge off the dizzy, dippy feeling that's pooling in the base of his skull. Too much, too much, and he turns his head, rests his cheek against the door like he had rested it against the girl's head five minutes ago.
"Are you drunk?" someone asks. Arthur thinks about it. About how he's staggered on his feet, leaning against a freight door like it's a lover. Thinks about the way his body keeps feeling something not here, hot summer days with the sun beating down on dusty roads, and says, "yeah."
The someone laughs, closer, and Arthur lets his head roll on the door until he's looking back into the club, and at a man with dark hair and a skinny, anorexic-looking face.
"I'm not supposed to talk to you," the man says, and he reaches up, pulls at his own hair. His fingernails are painted black, shiny and unchipped, and Arthur thinks of witches and fires.
"Then why are you?" Arthur asks, words slow and syrupy, and the man laughs again.
"Because you're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I can feel the sun."
It makes no sense, Arthur knows, but maybe it's because it makes no sense that Arthur can feel something like understanding, right there on the edge of his brain. Another drink, he thinks, and another drag, and he'll have it, he'll understand
the way the cloak was always so heavy on his shoulders, like his father's hands, and the way he sank into the sea, halfway to Avalon but never quite there, dead in the water a thousand million times
everything.
"What are you?" Arthur tries to ask as the man grabs him, cold and clammy hands on Arthur's arms. Arthur breathes through his nose, dizzy air, and let himself take a few steps forward.
"Shouldn't touch you, either," the man says, and when he lets go and walks away, Arthur finds himself following him. It is like-- he is going mad, he thinks. He can't make his feet stop moving, and he can't look away from the man's shoulder. When the crowd surges up around him, like
knights shining silver and gold, trumpets and banners and a voice calling, to the prince, to the prince, as the horses scream and die
waves on breakers, he reaches out, presses the palm of his hand firmly against the man's shoulder. The knit beneath his palm is smooth, and he lets his hand slip a little, so he can feel the friction of the rub and pull. It feels good, like the purr in the back of his throat. Arousal and anxiety are melting through his body.
"Where are we going?" he yells over the thrum of the bass and the throb of the crowd. The man looks back over his shoulder, and Arthur watches him touch the corner of his mouth with a black-tipped finger. The man's smile is fast, and Arthur feels the crowd move around him, waves dragging at his limbs.
The destination is the club's bathroom-- the club, too cheap and liberal by half, has one big, gender-blind bathroom, with grimy stalls covered in vomit and piss and semen. The smell of it is almost enough to make Arthur retch, sickness and sex beneath the tang of spilled liquors. There's a line, kohl-eyed girls with tiny handbags and smeared lipstick. The man stops at the end of the line, and Arthur stops with him, standing close enough to rest his arm along the line of man's back. The knit makes the hair on his arm stand on end.
"What?" Arthur asks, like all the night is a question. He still has to yell, the bass of the music and the thud of the dancing hanging heavy even in the bathroom. The man turns halfway around, and the way he moves makes Arthur's arm twist so it's hanging over his shoulder.
"Sex," the man yells back, and the girl in front of them looks at them with sleepy eyes, half a smile. "We're gonna fuck."
"Okay," Arthur says, and he's a little proud with how calm he's feeling. It might be, he thinks, the cocktail running through his blood, but right now, he feels like he can take on anything and be okay. There is something beautifully numbing about all of this, and he focuses his eyes on the collar of the man's shirt. When he touches it with his thumb, the man shudders a little, and it's easy to wait for the line to move like this, rubbing the edge of his thumbnail over the collar, hangnail catching on the man's skin.
The club's too cheap and too liberal, so when a stall empties out and the man goes in, pulling Arthur in with him, no one bats an eye. As the door swings shut, Arthur sees a girl watching him through the mirror. He smiles at the door, and watches the man reach a hand around him to lock the door.
"Sit," the man says, pushing Arthur towards the toilet. Arthur looks at it, feels a little sick. He hesitates, then lets the man push him down onto the toilet seat. The floor is sticky and wet, and Arthur feels his feet slide a little. When the warm feeling in his stomach curls lower, he swallows, and feels glad he's sitting.
When the man settles on Arthur's lap, straddling Arthur's legs, Arthur turns his face up for a kiss. Sex in bathrooms isn't really his thing, but the few times he's done it, the kissing has been frantic enough, nasty enough, to justify the smell and the wet, sticky floors. The man's just looking back at him, though, four inches that feel like a world in between their mouths, and Arthur can't bridge that gap.
"I," the man says, "have missed you so much," and Arthur can't question the insanity of this. He can only lower his chin to his neck, and watch the man's hands land on his belly, thumbs rubbing in circles, then spreading out. When the man lifts Arthur's shirt, Arthur takes in a breath, lets it out like a waltz. Three beats, and he grabs the man's wrists, holds on. The hands on his stomach are cold, and a fingernail is circling Arthur's bellybutton. The arousal in the pit of his stomach is curling wider, hotter.
"Please," Arthur says. He's too drunk for this, too high for this, and the man laughs like quicksand, his voice sucking in Arthur's everything. He palms Arthur's dick through his trousers, then pulls the belt loose, cracks the snap and zipper in a rush of metal and fabric. The hand on Arthur's dick feels like magic, and Arthur thinks he is losing time, and maybe himself.
"Why?" Arthur asks when he is breathing too fast and is feeling faint and empty. He knows everyone in the bathroom can hear this: the wet, slick sound of his dick in the man's hands, his panting, the way the toilet creaks beneath their combined weight. When he lets his head fall back on the metal wall, he feels the stall shudder.
The man moves his head forward, presses his mouth against Arthur's ear. "My king," he says, and the feel of his tongue makes Arthur shudder. "My king."
When Arthur comes, it's with a dizzy, buzzed feeling. He lets his head fall forward onto the man's shoulder, and when the man pulls back, cleans Arthur up roughly, Arthur looks at the stall door. The club is still beating through Arthur's limbs, a steady march to his chest.
"Now?" Arthur asks, a thousand too many questions, when the man unlocks the door. The smile is as fast as it was a time, or a dozen, ago. The man pulls at his hair with his painted fingernails, shrugs, and looks entirely unremarkable, another too cheap, too liberal kid in this crowded, sticky club.
"I've seen you die too many times," the man says, and Arthur watches
his manservantwizardfriendcompanionknightlovertraitorsaviorbrotherslavegodeverything
him go.
a Kingdom Hearts one where Sora turns into a girl whenever he wields the keyblade (techiegoat)
Adolescence
When Kingdom Hearts explodes, Sora finds himself thrown onto his back, his head cracking against the floor in a way that promises stars in his eyes and a pain in his skull for a few hours at least. He grunts, tries to open his eyes, then realizes he's closing his eyes, and gives it up for a lost cause. He waits a moment, two, and winces. It feels like there's a house sitting on his chest.
Or, when he finally opens his eyes, a much more Riku-like Riku. He's crouched over Sora, kinda like a dog, or a deranged monkey, and it's only when Riku winces beneath a weird blindfold that Sora realizes that Riku was protecting him, and then Sora feels like an ass.
"Riku," he says, and he reaches out for his keyblade at the same time, that familiar little tug at his chest and burn in his palm when it pops into existence. "Riku, let me up--"
Riku looks down at him, or at least, turns his face down towards him, because he's wearing that blindfold thing. He moves, pats his hands against Sora's body like he's making sure Sora's still all in one piece, and Sora sucks in a breath, holds it.
"S-Sora?"
Riku's not one for stuttering, and Sora lets out his breath like an explosion, says, "not now, Riku."
Riku tears off his blindfold (and god, Sora had forgotten how bright his eyes are, like the lagoon on the south side of the island, like all those summer days-- like childhood), and he's not moving off of Sora, is just staring down at Sora like he can't figure out if it really is Sora.
"Riku," Sora says again, "not now. Move."
Riku climbs up off of Sora, holds out a hand to pull Sora up, and Sora makes himself look away so he can smile at Kairi and the King, and Goofy and Donald.
"Now what?" he asks, and the King looks up at the sky, and Sora looks up, too. Watches a thousand million hearts fall from the sky, and tries not to think that he was the one who put them there.
"Now we stop Xemnas," the King says.
x
Riku isn't really fazed by a lot of things. He's had a pretty crappy few years, what with falling into darkness and more or less selling his soul. Twice. He's learned that Kingdom Hearts is more like Hell than anything else, and he knows-- he's also been to Hell. Hades is pretty much a prick.
All in all, though, Riku's had so much shit happen, and has been beaten, betrayed, and more or less broken so many times that he's sure that nothing can keep himself from standing back up, dusting himself off, and moving on without a second thought. Or a doubt. Or, like, being fazed by anything.
Except-- Well, Riku was also pretty sure that Sora, his best friend since forever, was a boy.
Actually, he is sure, because he can remember when he was six and Sora was five and they played a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." And he remembers skinny-dipping in the lagoon on the south side of the island, where the water was that bright blue-green that always made him think of lime jellybeans.
So when he feels Sora up, just to make sure that Sora's alive, and real, and not bleeding to death beneath that ugly red shirt (because if Sora died now, when they were so fucking close to getting home, Riku would make this fucking world burn), he's kinda, well, fazed to feel breasts. Boobs. Tits.
Sora is supposed to be a boy, and Riku knows that only girls have tits, because Riku is a teenage boy who once fell into darkness, and he's had the chance for a lot of experimentation.
When they leave Maleficent and Pete fighting the flood of Heartless, Riku has to lean against a wall and take a few deep breaths, because Sora has tits, which means Sora's a girl, which means--
"Riku?" Sora asks, and he's a full head shorter than Riku, just an inch or two taller than Kairi. Riku looks down at him, takes another deep breath, and says, "I'm fine."
"Right," Sora says, and he punches Riku on the arm. Riku tries to grab Sora's hand, but Sora's already running to catch up with the King and the others. Riku breathes out, slowly, and wonders if all his childhood, with a boy named Sora, is another fake memory, spun in his head while he was sleeping in the darkness.
Finally, from a five-times meme I did even longer ago.
Five times Vaan got himself and Balthier into trouble. (hiza_chan)
one by one they fall
one
“I told you not to touch it,” Balthier says sharply. Vaan’s pretty sure it’s uncalled for. The situation may be bad, but yelling isn’t going to help at all.
“How were we supposed to steal it if we couldn’t touch it?” he asks, and if Penelo was there, she’d probably call his tone petulant. He thinks it’s reasonable.
“By not touching it,” Balthier says. He’s digging his nails into Vaan’s wrist sharply, and Vaan winces. If he could actually see the bottom, he’d be tempted to just let go. “Of all the stupid traps to fall for--”
“You should stop yelling,” Vaan says loudly, “or I’m just going to drop you.”
by
“I couldn’t find it,” Vaan says as explanation when he shows up at the fountain with a purse still heavy with gil. Balthier scowls as he leans back on his hands, the spray from the fountain hitting the back of his neck.
“None of this would have happened,” he says, “if you’d just paid attention.”
“I was paying attention,” Vaan says, “you just didn’t make any sense.” He throws himself onto the fountain’s edge next to Balthier, sighing loudly, and Balthier eyes him, eyes the fountain. With one easy shove--
“So now what?” Vaan asks. “I mean, you have an idea of what to do, right?”
And oh, bugger this for a lark. Balthier took in a righteous breath, then slammed his elbow into Vaan’s stomach, sending the little idiot splashing into the fountain.
“You idiot,” Balthier yelled over the sound of Vaan’s frantic splashing, “you sold my airship.”
one
“This time,” Vaan says when he wakes up, “it was not my fault.”
The cell can’t be more than ten feet by fifteen, and Balthier is lying on the floor close enough that Vaan can, when he stretches, jab him with his toe.
“It was.” Balthier doesn’t even bother opening his eyes, just sorta shimmies away from Vaan’s foot. Vaan stretches further, jabs him a little harder.
“It’s not,” Vaan says again. “You didn’t tell me which fork to use, how was I supposed to know when there were twenty forks, and they all looked the same.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Balthier says. When Vaan jabs him a third time, he finally groans, sits up and rubs his head. “There were only eleven, and they all looked entirely different.”
“Hmph.” Vaan glares at the far wall for a few minutes then says, darkly, “well, either way, it was your bright idea to sneak into the banquet to begin with.”
they
“Wow,” Vaan says in a breathless way, and Balthier wants to hit him. He settles for-- slithering as far away as he can, so he can try to withstand the temptation. “That’s-- wow.”
“What you just gave me,” Balthier says, with much more patience than he feels, “was not a potion, was it, Vaan?”
“Huh? No, it was, I think, but it was pretty old, the label was all faded-- Hey, Balthier, how do you walk? I mean, with all the tentacles and stuff.”
“Vaan,” Balthier snaps, “focus,” but even as he says it, he’s wondering, too, and like that, the hundreds of tentacles that have taken the place of his legs instantly knot up and send him into a worm-like sprawl on the ground.
Balthier’s still trying to extract himself from his own-- tentacles-- when Vaan edges closer, hunkers down close to the ground, and stares at Balthier’s newer, slimier lower parts with an intensity that puts Balthier instantly on the edge.
“What?” Balthier asks suspiciously, tentacles slowly spreading to the side to get him ready to run-- slink-- slither away as fast as a few hundred tentacles can take him.
“Nothing,” Vaan says, voice puzzled, “just... how do you pee?”
fall
“--and his Imperial Majesty offers his sincerest apologies for this terrible misunderstanding,” Zargabaath said as a half-dozen judges carried in coffers, bent under the weight.
“I see,” the king says, and everyone in the room knows that it’s Larsa’s embarrassment that sent Zargabaath with a peace offering, because Archadia has more than enough power to wipe out the entirety of Galbrina. “If I had known that these men were the Emperor's companions...”
When the cuffs are taken off the wrists of Vaan and Balthier, Zargabaath makes a insultingly shallow bow and turns, reaching the doorway to the courtroom before either Vaan or Balthier has begun to move. When it’s clear Zargabaath is more than happy to leave without them, Vaan begins to run, and Balthier trots after him, keeping an eye on the Galbrinian soldiers as he follows.
“We didn’t know she was the king’s daughter,” Vaan says as he catches up to Zargabaath, and Balthier says, “not helping, Vaan,” as Zargabaath wearily says, “really, I don’t want to know.”
Fives times Remus wishes he'd stopped James and Sirius's latest prank. (sparkism)
Knew Better
1. "Lost the only picture of me Mum, too," Hagrid said sadly, and Remus patted his hand as gently as he could.
2. After the prank with the Whomping Willow, Snape stops talking to Remus, or even looking at him. James and Sirius are properly repentant, and Peter has the vague, clueless look that means he had no idea, so there's not really anyone Remus can get mad at, or even a reason to get mad. But still, Remus is mad. He's furious. Every time he has five minutes to himself, he thinks up long, brutal speeches to throw in James and Sirius's faces. Thinks up cruel little things to do, to turn fleas loose in Sirius's bed and to tell Lily what James really does on the weekends.
Mostly, though, Remus hurts. He remembers when he was a first year, before all his classmates became third years, before they learned how to be so cruel. He remembers when, sometimes, he used to talk to Snape. When they used to partner up for flying lessons, and when Remus would share dried toad eyes with Snape. Now, Snape won't look at him, won't walk down the same hallway, twenty feet away.
Prank by prank, and Remus feels like his world is shrinking.
3. When Filch's jaw quivered, like the old man was about to cry, only couldn't remember how, Remus wished he knew how to turn back time.
4. The prank is all Sirius's idea, but Remus figures out what's going on pretty quickly. He doesn't do anything, though, because he's got a directed study with Professor Purgledon this term and the full moon is coming up. he's too tired, too busy, and it's time James fought his own fights.
Two weeks later, though, Lily looks at Sirius with bright eyes, her lips parted and her face flushed, and Sirius is looking at her the same; James is looking like he's going to fall down, and Remus can feel his heart stagger to a painful halt.
"It didn't mean anything," Sirius says the next night when they're brushing their teeth. Remus doesn't say anything, but his heart still doesn't feel like it's beating.
5. "He could have died," Lily is yelling, and James looks more shamefaced than he has since the Whomping Willow.
"I didn't think," James says, and Lily slaps him hard. James's face is white, and her handprint stands out across his cheek and jaw.
"I'm sorry," Remus interrupts, because they've only been married for a few months, they shouldn't be fighting like this. "I should've--"
"You," Lily says, "are even worse. You knew better, and you didn't stop them."
"You," she says, and her words stay with him for a long time, like the taste of vomit in the back of his throat when he had seen the way Peter's head had lolled, like a broken doll, "are the worst one."
And one Remus wishes had been a prank. . .
When James and Lily die, Remus tries to think it's a prank at first. A big, stupid prank; something James and Sirius never should've come up with, but did anyways. Something that, like always, would make everyone worry. Because if it's a prank, that means James and Lily and Peter are still alive, Harry is still living in the magicing world, and Sirius is still loyal, still a friend.
If it's a prank, something to pull over Voldemort, then that means that there's still someone there on the other side of the Floo, waiting to call him home. It means Remus still has a family friends.
five times Itachi didn't kill Iruka, but had a semi-civil conversation instead. With a Itachi/Iruka bent if you can (shadowbyrd)
Sensei
i
Iruka's headed home from the grocery store, with bread and vegetables and milk, when he runs into Itachi on the rooftop. He stops with a polite pulse of chakra, and Itachi slows down, takes a long, dangerously short leap across an alleyway to land on the roof edge near Iruka.
"Iruka-sensei," Itachi says, and Iruka rolls his shoulders back, says, "good evening, Itachi-kun."
It's almost dusk, and it's getting close to autumn. There's a bit of a chill, and the air feels damp.
"You have blood," Iruka says, "on your cheek." He watches as Itachi leans back precariously, reaches up to touch his face. Iruka watches Itachi smear the blood with the back of his hand.
"There was a cat," Itachi says. "Caught by dogs, I think."
Iruka's hand is cold, feels raw, so he leans down slowly, lies his groceries on the roof.
"I took care of it, Sensei," Itachi says, and Iruka says, "that's good."
It's twenty minutes later, when Iruka has just finished putting away his groceries, that he hears that the Uchiha family has been slaughtered by one of the clan's most promising sons.
ii
"The Kyuubi is one of your students," Itachi says as he watches Iruka slowly stand back up. He is a little bit impressed-- there is blood in the corner of the teacher's mouth, and Itachi is sure that the last crack was the sound of ribs.
"Was," Iruka says with more blood in his mouth, and Itachi lifts his hand, readies to block Iruka's too-wide blow.
"He still calls you Sensei." Itachi takes a quick step back, out of range of the teacher's leg, and watches Iruka totter, then slowly steady on his feet.
"Lots of people do." Iruka wipes his fist against his mouth, catching the blood on his glove. It's bravado-- Itachi can see the pulse in Iruka's neck, the corners of Iruka's eyes. He's slowing down-- another hit as hard as the last, and his body will begin to shut down.
"Do they, Sensei?"
Iruka laughs, wipes his mouth again with the same bravado all the chuunin of all the villages have. "Your brother was one of my students, too," he says, and the seals he makes look like suicide.
"I know," Itachi says, and he hits the teacher hard enough to throw him to the ground.
iii
When Iruka stumbles into the same village Itachi is in, it's during a summer festival. Itachi is eating sweets with a look of sick fascination, and the missing nin beside him is massive, and a shocking shade of blue. Iruka doesn't even bother looking for a way to run, because he knows he couldn't run fast enough, even if he wanted to. And part of him doesn't want to.
"Iruka-sensei," Itachi says politely, like he didn't leave Iruka for dead the last. Like he didn't slaughter a fourth of Konoha's population with a systematic ease that passed the border of psychotic.
"Itachi-kun." Iruka sits on Itachi's other side, and when Itachi offers him a stick of dango, he takes it.
"You're not in Konoha," Itachi remarks, like commenting on the weather. Iruka bites into the dango to keep from throwing up, and says, "I'm looking for someone."
"The Kyuubi?"
"Your brother."
“Ah.” Itachi smiles at Iruka as he takes another stick of dango. Iruka watches him eat it, then watches him throw the stick towards a garbage can.
“You should hurry, Sensei,” Itachi says when he stands up, the massive missing nin standing up next to him. “You’ll want to find my brother before I do.”
iv
Itachi hasn’t been a lapdog since he was a teenager and wiped out his family without a second question. It’s not that he disagrees with anyone’s principles. It’s just that he prefers to be contrary, because that makes him feel a little deeper, a little more alive.
“But who else is the Kyuubi close to?” Deidara asks like a little idiot, and Kisame says, “his teacher.”
Someone’s murmuring something darkly, past the haze on the edge of Itachi’s sight, and Kisame corrects himself, says, “his old sensei. From the Academy.”
Deidara laughs, still a little idiot, and says, like he can’t believe it, “and the Kyuubi would give us what we want for an Academy teacher?”
“Of course,” Itachi says, and Sasori’s bulky body shifts, a ripple of misty gray when Itachi tries to look at him. “All of the students love Umino Iruka.”
“What, is he a pervert?”
When Itachi stands, Kisame stands with him, and follows him as a brush against his shoulder. When they’re far enough away that Itachi can barely feel the rest of the Akatsuki’s chakra, Kisame says, “you’re not doing this, are you?”
“Of course not.” Itachi tilts his head back, squints up at the sun. He can barely see it. “I’m one of his students, too.”
v
“I think I failed you,” Iruka says, when he’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt. Itachi is sitting with him, close enough that their knees are touching. Iruka’s body is mostly numb, and his mouth tastes like blood and vomit. When he talks, his lips tingle.
“Why?” Itachi sounds amused, always sounds amused, like Iruka’s telling a joke. Right now, though, Iruka can’t think of any jokes, and he’s sure he’s bitten his lip.
“I didn’t teach you well enough, maybe,” he says, “or maybe too well. Maybe I put too much of myself in you.”
“Oh?” Itachi asks, and he leans forward, and Iruka can’t look away from his eyes. “What of yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Iruka says, and it feels like a sob is ripping when from his throat when Itachi grabs his face, turns his head toward the sky, and says, dream, Iruka-sensei.
When he wakes, lying in the middle of the road, his mouth is full of blood, and he can still see the bodies of all his students.
and the way he did
The Akatsuki catch Iruka a week before they find the Kyuubi. There are a half-dozen chuunin clustered together, remnants of Konoha, and they’re slaughtered systematically, like unwanted dogs. When the Konoha ninja fight back, there is a great deal of screaming, and of blood, and very little time.
“Iruka-sensei,” Itachi says, and Iruka is clutching his side, blood sticky on his fingers.
“Your brother,” Iruka says, “and Naruto--” There is foam on his lips, flecked with blood. “They can’t know--”
“I’ll take care of it,” Itachi says, and when Iruka says, “that’s good,” he slits the teacher’s throat.
5 times Seimei said I love you (tiger24ever)
when he says, 'my love'
when
“I love you,” he whispers in Ritsuka’s ear when Ritsuka’s asleep. The fur on the tip of his ear tickles Seimei’s lip, lets him smile. He kisses the tip of Ritsuka’s ear, then sets his teeth in it, lightly, then biting. In the morning, he knows, there will be little flecks of dried blood in the fur, though no one will notice it except Seimei.
he
“Tell me you love me,” Seimei commands Soubi, and Soubi says, “I love you.”
“No,” Seimei says. “You don’t mean that. You,” he presses a finger at the base of Soubi’s neck, where the blood is soaking through bandages, “never sound like you mean it.”
“I love you,” Soubi repeats, his throat moving beneath Seimei’s finger. “I love you, I love you, I love you--”
Seimei digs his fingernail in, catching and pulling bandages and scabs alike, and says with Seimei, “I love you.”
says
He looks through photo albums with Ritsuka on rainy Saturdays, when their mother is running errands. Seimei likes the pictures taken two years ago, when Ritsuka had his arm in a splint, and couldn’t remember who he was. Ritsuka prefers the pictures from when he was a baby, a wrapped up bundle in everyone’s arms.
“This is your baby brother,” his mother had said, and he had looked at the ugly red face, and the squashed head, and had hated it.
“Were you happy?” Ritsuka asks like he always asks, looking at the pictures hungrily. Seimei laughs, and
“I hate it,” he had said when his father had pushed him closer to the baby, and his mother’s face had crumpled.
says, “I’ve always loved you.”
‘my
The old woman he lives with likes to watch him throughout the day, doing little things. Making breakfast, pulling the laundry from the wires, turning off the TV. At first, he thought she was a pervert of some kind, an old woman who liked to watch kids with their ears, and think about taking them.
Then he saw the postcards tacked up on her wall, and when he turned them over, he read, grandma, grandma, we love you, happy birthday, hello from australia, we love you, grandma, and when she watched him pick up the dishes after dinner that night, he smiled at her and she smiled back.
“I love you,” he says now, when he comes and when he leaves, always through the front door with a pause on the threshold.
“I love you,” she always replies, faster than she realizes, and Seimei knows that it’s true.
love’
“Your ears?” Seimei asks, a cold fury in his stomach, and Ritsuka says, “Soubi, of course.”
“Of course,” Seimei repeats, then asks, “of course?”
“Who else,” Rituska says, and he is so stubborn and proud, all of fifteen. Seimei wants to break his arm again, wrap his hands around his neck until Ritsuka’s head is as red and squashed as a baby’s.
“It was supposed to be me,” Seimei snaps, and he twists Ritsuka’s arm tighter, digs his knee into Ritsuka’s back when Rituska makes a noise of pain. “I’m the one who loves you.”