Back in Black. [drabbleage]
It took me two nights to encode this. You can blame the heat. =_=
The dates to the left of every title beneath the LJ cuts correspond to the 31_days theme that the piece was written to. Also, you'll notice that some of the entries have been labelled as cross-linked... this is because I'm going to try my hand at faithfully following the LJ drabble communities from here on. @_@
( Thick as Thieves: Nostalgia {cross-linked from 31 Days} )
January 23 [2006]: Bloodsport. Lost in the supermarket.
After the twelfth time that week of walking into HIS kitchen and finding Hoshi Inokuma not too discreetly banging his brother against the sink, across the table, or in the pantry, Aetna had the grace not to splutter and storm out. The boy merely turned on his heel and left for a moment, making Akiyo and Hoshi think that the scout had finally given up. And then Aetna returned to throw a wallet and a long roll of paper at them. They both knocked against Hoshi’s head with very audible cracks.
“You two. To the supermarket. Now.”
“…Excuse me?”
The look in Aetna’s eyes at that moment was so chilling that even Akiyo stopped.
“I believe I made myself perfectly clear.”
Akiyo scoffed.
“I do NOT do supermarkets.”
He and Hoshi were out the door in the next minute as the Inokuma, recognizing the murderous intent written all over Aetna’s face, wisely opted to do as he was told and dragged his boyfriend off with him. He probably saved both their lives with that decision.
So it was that the afternoon proved to be the most harrowing afternoon of their lives, especially since Hoshi had never actually been inside a supermarket before and Akiyo refused to do anything more difficult than pushing the cart around or checking out any decent-looking member of the male species in the vicinity. The next time Aetna walked in on them they were made to mow all the plots belonging to the Kazashimo Estate, which basically meant Hoshi mowing and Akiyo fanning himself under a tree.
This pattern repeated itself a few more times, each with Aetna giving them a difficult and never simple errand to run or chore to do. Hoshi eventually took to avoiding the estate for fear of becoming Aetna’s slave to do jobs meant for an army. Akiyo was not very happy about this. Aetna, however, moved on to enjoy some well-deserved peace and quiet, at least for a week. Then Shimeya came back from his business trip.
January 16 [2007]: Bloodsport. Psychiatrist, at your service, not at your convenience!
Dedicated to yukitsu.
Their friendship was an accident, a result of too many chance encounters and a Bladian who didn’t know the first thing about taking care of himself. It must have started with the cigarettes, and then maybe the sake. Neither of them had wanted to admit to having anything in common at first, but then it soon became evident that they couldn’t avoid the topic forever. Akiyo, being the quicker witted one, made the first gesture, declaring it a matter of convenience.
“You’re a walking air conditioner. I’d be insane not to hang around you.”
Tsuki, seeing as Akiyo had said that while sloshed on his back, wisely decided not to comment. Akiyo’s drunkenness didn’t make him any less weaker, or less vicious.
So the days of talking about nothing in kitsune-run ramen stands and smoking on the rooftop of the estate began. The first few months of their friendship were impromptu counseling sessions, as Tsuki’s woes were extensive (Hikaru Shinta - go figure) and Akiyo took his sweet time sniping at each and every one as ‘silly’, ‘stupid’ or ‘hmm, passable’. Things evened out as time went on, with Tsuki become Akiyo’s pseudo-catcher in the rye with the few issues that managed to bother Akiyo enough to complain about. Their positions reversed when Alistair Mordechai was still earning his master’s degree in Hikaruism and Hoshi waltzed into their lives in his Hoshi-like way. Then, when things normalized on all fronts, they found themselves shooting the breeze again.
One morning it occurred to Raseleane to drift out from her usual haunts and inquire upon the nature of their relationship to Tsuki.
“…Nah, we just hang out.”
Raseleane blinked, stared at Tsuki with an all-seeing gaze, and then floated off.
September 5 [2005]: Bloodsport. A winter morning just like any other.
Takes place after ‘About as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters’.
“Ready?”
Ensui looked up from where he had been rather valiantly wrestling with his winter boots to see Abel in the doorway, already decked out in his winter gear. Seth was perched on his usual place across Abel’s shoulders.
“Hai.” The Water Adept stood up, hopping a bit in place to make sure his boots were on right before bending over to tie them. He patted Seth’s head when the shoebox dragon winged over to help him, protested when Abel moved to carry his bag. They were off in the next minute, walking out of Utsusemi and into Arcis in the dead of winter.
Nearly two months had passed since they had first met and become partners, and between a fish-loving shoebox dragon and commonalities discovered in everything from Spartan eating habits to guns, guns, guns the pair had become rather good friends in the non-communicative sort of way. Ensui, however, being a Kilthei and Akiyo’s beloved-brother-but-mostly-surrogate-son, did make the occasional attempt to ask Abel about himself. Usually Abel never answered him and usually, Ensui was okay with this. This morning was proving itself to be an exception.
Alistair had called the both of them over to breakfast for the monthly progress report and briefing - the man was more than satisfied with their performance, and took time out to tell them as much. What piqued Ensui’s curiosity, however, was when the Seer set the papers aside and looked at Abel in all seriousness. “You’re due in for a routine check-up,” he told him, in a low voice. “You and Ensui can go together, since you’re partners.” At that moment, something went dark and quiet in Abel’s eyes, although nothing else - the set of his back, the deep register of his voice - had changed. When Alistair dismissed them Abel walked ahead. Ensui couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his partner looking so tall and distanced.
Abel was walking ahead of him at that moment as they trudged through the snow, walking between the eternally blooming cherry blossom tress. Their breaths crystallized the silence in the cold, crisp air. They had walked that way before, yet somehow it was different. Somehow Ensui figured something was wrong.
“Anou… Abel-san?”
“Mm?”
“Is… is something… well, I don’t know, it’s strange, but… um…”
“What is it?”
Abel had turned back to face him, tilting his head and appraising Ensui with the sort of look that made the boy duck his gaze and stammer all the more.
“IssomethingbotheringyouIcouldn’thelpbutnotice!”
A minute to decipher the gibberish and another to laugh. That was, Ensui realized with no small amount of awe, the first time he had ever heard Abel laugh. It was more a snort and a chuckle than anything else, but that was inconsequential.
“…I’m fine. I just don’t do well in the cold, and I don’t really like doctors. Old wounds and bad memories, you could say.”
“Mm. Me too.”
“Let’s go,” said Abel after a strange pause. He waited for Ensui to step up and join him before he continued walking.
They held hands in the waiting area of the Clerics facility while queuing up for their doctor: Ensui had reached out first, and Abel, to his surprise, clasped his hand and held on, all the way until it was time to go.
January 16 [2006]: Bloodsport. Your cover’s blown.
Takes place after ‘I am the spirit that denieth all things’.
It took a supreme amount of effort on both their parts to keep their hands off of each other as they made their way up to Thomas’ suite, and only in the solace of the man’s rooms did they gratefully fall apart, into each other’s arms. The pair moved much like dancing with Thomas as the lead and Raiker happily letting himself get tugged along, into sweet embraces and soft kisses.
Thomas was gentle with him in bed and always seemed ready to answer his every need: that was probably the reason why Raiker had fallen for him and continued to stay with him, beyond his undeniable charm. He was an Englishman of the old class, unique because they no longer made his sort the same way anymore. Their session that evening was particularly pleasant, and as such the conversation that followed was surprising.
“That was him, wasn’t it?”
“Mm?”
“That man you introduced me to… Dustin, correct? That must be him.”
Thomas murmured this as he trailed his fingers down Raiker’s bare back, following the curve of the younger man’s spin as they lay in bed together. He only smiled at the Branch Mage’s surprised look, and leaned forward to kiss him full on the mouth.
“It’s all right. I already knew the moment I met you that there was someone else.”
“He and I-”
“Can’t be together? So you’d like to believe. I get the impression that you’re making things too difficult for him.”
“…It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
Raiker pushed himself up and out of bed, moving to check his phone for messages first before stepping into the bathroom. The water came on. Thomas watched him through the doorway, admiring the image of his lover naked, washing his face.
“You should give him a chance. I don’t really mind.”
“Why? Because you know I’ll choose you?”
“Because I know that you’ll choose the one who will really make you happy.”
Raiker didn’t answer him. They said little else in the hours to follow, and when they kissed and said their farewells both of them knew it would be a long time before they saw each other again.
November 30 [2005]: Bloodsport. This is the house of your desire.
Dedicated to ravyn_ashling, because we all know she likes them this way.
For them an invitation to climb into each other’s pants never had to be spoken: it was always communicated in Hoshi’s forceful kiss or Akiyo’s subtle shift of his shoulders to slip his kimono a little lower than decent, revealing skin where cloth should have been. With the ways they had at each other both of them were rightfully surprised at the fact that no one in the general vicinity ever complained about them (with the exception of Aetna, who was very particular about the cleanliness and decency of the Kazashimo Estate in general). Doubtless they wouldn’t lessen their proclivities any if someone HAD brought it up with them.
Hoshi liked to take Akiyo with the boy beneath him, wrists suspended about his head, legs and everything below them spread out wide and exposed in a way that only lovers approved of. Akiyo liked to ride Hoshi with the man buried to the hilt inside of him and the feel of his large hands moving around his rib cage and over the rest of his body, appraising an object he owned for the moment and for some time yet. From there it was easy to look down and study the man’s expression when he came.
They did not have too many kinks but it was safe to assume that Akiyo took special pleasure in tormenting Hoshi or provoking him to action while Hoshi liked to coddle Akiyo as though he were some kind over overgrown stray cat that he had grown to love in spite of wanting to kick it out half the time. They still argued a lot, but few things couldn’t be undone with the power of mind-blowing, faith-altering sex.
October 23 [2006]: Bloodsport. Fairy tale ending.
This is how I figure their first time must have gone. @_@ Note that the first scene is lifted from ‘You’re the swingingest thing’, which is an iWHORE piece that I did for yukitsu WAY back.
Shimeya kissed in exactly the way Aetna imagined he would: slow, deep, full, and gentle. He had closed his eyes to absorb the moment, half fearing that when he opened them he’d realize it was another dream. The violent flush of his cheeks betrayed his relief to his senpai, who only pulled away with a smile and brushed the bangs from Aetna’s face.
“I’m sorry I took so long.”
“You should be.”
The moment those words left his lips Aetna regretted it and it showed in how he only blushed harder. Shimeya chuckled. The sound of it echoed in his ears and skipped down the younger man’s spine, making him tremble.
“Can you hold out a bit longer, or is here and the floor just fine?”
The first time Aetna came he did so in Shimeya’s mouth, as his leader had stripped him, pushed him down to the bed with firm shoves and gentle kisses, and then proceeded to suck him off. It was like Shimeya was all fingers and mouth and Aetna was nothing but nerves and heat and that length between his legs. He had originally attempted to protest, but the words trickled from his mind and nothing but moans seemed to leave his lips whenever he tried.
By the time strength had returned to him, Shimeya had put a condom on and was spreading lubricant over his fingers. He smiled when he noticed Aetna watching him, and climbed over the boy to kiss him. His closeness made the scout feel breathless and dizzy.
“I’m your first, aren’t I? Let me ease you into it. I’m rather big, if I do say so myself.”
“…You always say the stupidest things.”
Shimeya chuckled. “And you’re cute when you blush like that,” he murmured, as he pushed his first finger inside. He moved it slowly inside Aetna, careful not the hurt the younger Kilthei, reveling in the sound of blond’s soft gasp.
With the third finger Aetna was trembling, hands gripping the bed sheets and eyes shut tight; he did not know what to make of this strange mix of pleasure and agony that came with this moment he had spent nearly his whole life dreaming about, and for one of the few times in his life he felt scared. Shimeya knew this and withdrew his hand, replacing it briefly with the moist warmth of his kisses until Aetna had relaxed and was more ready for him. When he finally entered his lover it felt right, more right than anything else he had felt for years.
“S… senpai…”
The sight of Aetna beneath him, shaking with pleasure and so perfectly vulnerable, made it difficult for Shimeya to be gentle with his Right Hand and take things slowly. They moved as one, rocking to the force of too many cold nights and years of denial. They climaxed as one, with Shimeya kissing Aetna’s neck and Aetna whispering Shimeya’s name across his leader’s skin.
Sunlight was streaming through the window by the time Aetna woke up to find himself clean and in a fresh set of pajamas, staring at a breakfast that looked too nice to have been made by Shimeya.
“I had Tsumuji make that. My cooking might make you ill. I washed you myself though!”
Shimeya walked over and sat at the edge of the bed, beaming down at Aetna as he reached out to brush the hair away from the latter’s face. The blond blushed and immediately retreated under the blankets.
“Er. Thank you.”
“Hee.” Shimeya plopped down, glomping himself quite firmly over the bundle of Aetna on the bed. “Let’s go for another round!”
Aetna didn’t know whether to reach out and hug him or smack him.
March 3 [2007]: Bloodsport. My cage has many rooms, damask and dark.
Dedicated to archangel_dream.
Takeshi’s only memories of his mother involved not her smell or her face or the beautiful things she had done for him, but the sight of her figure lying amongst pillows and silk sheets, thin as the canopies shielding her from light and dust. He had only been tall enough to peer at her just over the edge of the bed and hold her hand as she died. They hadn’t even given him time to cry at her passing, seizing him still sobbing the moment she breathed her last and dragging him to the altar of Izanami, where they tied him down with spell rope. He remembered feeling like he would drown in the waves of incantations droning over and around him that night, sealing his fate.
He became infinitely familiar with his mother’s chambers in the years to follow, which were refurnished to suit his needs - the countless canopies and mazes of silk and damask, however, remained, hiding him away from the rest of Enosh’s underwater world. Sometimes he would catch the maidservants whispering about him: they wondered how he could afford to be so calm and unperturbed about his duties and why he wasn’t angry. He wanted, sometimes, to tell them that he could not afford to be angry. Anger would shorten his life, and if his life was too short his siblings would take his place before they even managed to live their lives.
He tried to fight it at first, when the rot within whittled away at his strength enough to confine him to a wheelchair, or his bed. Sora, true to his word, followed his request and let no one inside, most especially his younger brothers and sisters - Takeshi did not want to let them see him wasting away. At night, however, the despair would swallow him whole, and he would lie there, alone with his tears. When he could no longer lift himself with his own arms, it became his daily habit to count the dust motes like lightless stars above him, just beyond his reach.
The Bladian, then a mortal enemy of the Inokuma, was the one who returned him to the world, bringing him to the light. He was more thankful though, for the fact that they did not ask him to hate the nobles who had brought the curse upon his family. If there was anything that Takeshi had always made himself live for, it was love.
November 21 [2005]: Bloodsport. The real world is out there somewhere.
Takeshi liked to read books and Sora indulged him even though his superiors always accused him of needlessly spoiling a boy destined to die for the sins of his fathers. Enosh itself had little to offer in terms of literature but there was always Kazesou, who would lecture like an elder in the voice of a child but never fail to give Sora whatever he had at hand. Only the elders and the ignorant thought of Takeshi as cursed, and although they could not break tradition there were ways, at least, to ease the burden he carried for the sake of their people.
Takeshi loved stories about people, about worlds imagined and unimagined, about infinite possibilities and endless skies. Sora knew it was, at times, an unhealthy escape from reality, but it was the least he could do. He was killing Takeshi with his own two hands, and as such he wanted to kill him with a smile and have it go easy.
August 10 [2005]: Thick as Thieves. Way of difference.
Hikaru Shinta had the habit of phoning him out of the blue and at the most inconvenient times for the most outrageous favors, but not once did Rui Ishikawa ever fail to respond. This time it was police barricades to seal off what was normally one of the busiest sectors of the city during rush hour. So what if the hotter heads among his superiors would be out to scalp him after this was over? It was Hikaru. For Hikaru, he could move mountains.
They would meet on site, not as old friends but as colleagues, soldiers acquainted with each other through battle and nothing else. Rui would watch Hikaru and in his mind, he would ask the younger man how he was, what Zangyaku was up to, whether he had been eating right as of late because it certainly didn’t look that way. Hikaru, on the other hand, would have nothing on his mind beyond the mission. Thinking about Rui often left a sensation akin to a fever in his chest and a banshee’s wail in his head, so he avoided thinking about Rui altogether.
At the end of their joint operation it would occur to Rui to ask Hikaru out to dinner, or maybe for coffee: he would think of many excuses but the one he planned to use always ended up being the “It’s been a while” card. Instead, he would end up watching Hikaru walk away from him and think to himself that something about the scene made the Bladian’s back look so small and distant.
February 27 [2006]: Endtimes. The filial child.
His father was a yakuza of the old class, a man of honor with a legacy of blood, guts and glory attached to his name. His mother was an ice queen, one among the few females of her generation to inherit a gang and keep it running of her own accord in a man’s world. He was the fourth and youngest, with two brothers and a sister to handle the family business between them. Traditionally he was the useless one, the unneeded child. Most of his family members, however, were generally good people, and moved to shelter him from their world rather than shove him off to childless relatives and forget he ever existed.
When his father decided that he was to spend his high school and university years in Germany, he smiled his brilliant smile and bowed his head in obedience. This was how his parents planned on giving him a new life, providing an existence outside the changing boundaries of the underworld. His eldest brother did not approve: he was alone and vulnerable, rip to abuse because his parents would drop everything in order to save him if he ended up in trouble. His parents would not hear of it.
His uncle was his host and also the man who would try to kill him many times during his stay: he escaped these incidents with his cunning, then pretended not to know that his father’s own brother was attempting to murder him out of spite. He waited not out of fear, but because he needed the perfect time to strike. Alistair Mordechai became his opening - the Seer was a proud creature who deserved a proud master. Ouki illuminated his mind, showing his employers for exactly what they really were, turning him against the very man who had hired him. That, and they had become fatally attracted to each other. Alistair was drunk on Ouki’s youth and beauty, and never in Ouki’s life had he met someone who truly embodied strength and cruelty with his whole being, from the sound of his voice to the look in his eyes.
He managed to utterly destroy his uncle a month before his graduation and win over many of the man’s dissatisfied or weak-willed associates; he slaughtered those who resisted him with Alistair’s help. The first thing he did upon his return to Japan was kill his remaining immediate family members, placing himself as head of the Yamada Cartel. He gathered all his allies and moved to start a new empire in Arcis with Alistair at his side.
At twenty-one Ouki Yamada was one of the youngest yakuza lords in recent history - in his first year alone he established the foundations for what would become the largest underworld Court in Asia. His love affair with Alistair was short-lived, but their friendship would last a lifetime.
December 10 [2005]: Thick as Thieves: Blood Sings. The most ill-regulated memory.
This here can serve as a summary of sorts to Blood Sings, which, as some of you must already know or realize, the ‘second generation’ sort of story that takes place WAY after both Endtimes and Thick as Thieves.
What Akira had of her uncle were puzzle pieces of memory, none of which fit into the other well enough to make sense. He had been the absentee member of the household more often than not, busy with the Hunt and his duties at the Imperial Court. When he was home he was almost always cloistered away in his own wing of the house, which was the largest area of the compound even though it was her father who was head of the clan. He hardly ever joined the family for dinner in spite of how Akira’s grandmother pestered anyone who’d listen about if he would come that evening, or the next, or the next. It was forbidden to disturb him.
Akira was four the first time she ever saw her uncle emerge from his wing to be with the rest of the family, and even at such a young age she knew something was amiss in spite of how he was all warmth and light to her. Later, when she asked her mother why her daddy hadn’t said a word throughout dinner or why her uncle hadn’t talked to her grandmother at all even though her grandmother certainly tried to talk to him, her mother did not answer.
She was seven when she saw him next. She and her mother had accompanied her aunt, her cousins and some ministry officials on a survey of the Greater Wastes in the south when a legion of corrupted maga had attacked their party. The oni-tsukai accompanying them were slaughtered to a man, leaving them at the mercy of the legion’s over mind, a young Kue-jin lieutenant. And then her uncle came. In her youth, she remembered the blades, the blood, the screams, and the brilliance of his white coat. His swords were his wings.
He was smiling at her and talking to her before she had realized it, kneeling at her height and reaching out to stroke the hair from her face.
“Are you all right?”
From that moment on, she had worshipped him and wanted to join Zangyaku. In the few years to follow, she only saw him from a distance, and then up close once more, when the lady in black had brought him home from the last battle he would ever fight.
August 20 [2006]: Ghost Hunt. I have tasted the bitter and the sweet of affairs / and walked over the rough and smooth path of days.
Dedicated to kye_kestrel.
“…Ah. Leaving already?”
Lin blinked as he watched the members of the Shibuya Psychic Research agency shuffle out of the hospital room. He had returned from buying coffee to find the group moving out into the hallway.
“Yeah. I think we’ve bothered Naru enough for today.” Bou grinned and shifted Mai a bit from where she was sprawled on his back, fast asleep. “We need to take this girl home anyway. See you tomorrow!”
Lin waved a bit as he stood to watch them depart, filling the silence of the corridor with their laughter. A few years ago he would have considered it all fluff and noise.
“I thought they’d never leave.”
Naru was still up, comfortably settled back against the pillows and still poring over the very same folder he had been working on since morning. Only twenty pages in. Normally he would have been somewhere in the hundreds by then.
“You should be sleeping.”
Naru did not answer him and Lin did not consider this surprising. The onmyouji took his usual spot by the window and unpacked the contents of the brown paper bag he had brought upstairs. Brewed coffee, doughnuts, Dunhill cigarettes.
“Mai was blaming herself, you know, for provoking you.”
“That sort of behavior is expected of her.”
“Perhaps.” Naru flipped a page and Lin sipped his coffee. He welcomed the warmth. It was cold in the hospital room. “Still, your heart did stop. That scared her.”
“Fright is part of the job.”
“I don’t believe dying is.”
The folder snapped shut with a flick of Naru’s wrist.
“Come here.”
Cold, quick, imperious, but no other person on Earth would dare to order him around, and for that reason Lin obeyed. The coffee had been robust and pleasantly bitter, and Lin knew Naru could still taste it on his lips when they kissed.
“Stop using them as an excuse,” the younger man murmured with a crooked smile as they broke away. “You feared for me. That shouldn’t be too hard to admit to, should it?”
“She’s falling for you.”
“She’s still a child. Besides,” said Naru as Lin moved in closer, “I think I already know what I want.”
“So,” Bou cheerily put in as the rest of the group got into the van. “Who wants to bet something funny’s going on up there right now?”
Ayako raised her hand. “There’s no other way to explain why Lin’s such a stiff,” the priestess explained with a yawn. “…Oh. I guess this is a touchy subject for a priest like you, huh, John?”
“N-no, not at all!” John stammered, although he had already turned several shades of red.
“I wonder how we’re going to explain it to those two,” Yasuhara mused as Bou started the car.
“No clue. I DO know one thing though… with Masako’s powers being what they are and Mai’s well on the way, I do NOT want to be around when we do.”
Mai and Masako, in the meantime, remained propped against each other, blissfully tucked off somewhere in Dreamland.
May 17 [2006]: Dogs, Bullets & Carnage. The coldest eyes and the cruellest hands.
Dedicated to sindapa
At Spring they practiced on the tops of buildings, in high winds that still had the bite of winter in their breath. She spent nearly all her time in those spars on the ground, beaten black and blue, wielding a blade meant for a full grown man and not at all for a little girl like herself. He would never help her up, electing instead to sit by the edge and smoke to the cityscape as she struggled with her own weakness.
They would come to the beach at summer, sparring in the sand or among the rocks or just within the water. The mystery of the waves ate her blood, her sweat and her vomit, but could take nothing of his.
He would be gone most of autumn, leaving her to keep the house. She would rake up all the falling leaves, take a running jump into the pile, and then rake them all up again for another round. Sometimes she’d fall asleep among them and wake up in her bed. It surprised her how he’d always carry her in rather than scold her or leave her there.
It was hard to recall what they used to do during the winter because it was in November that he’d been killed. All she had was the memory of the chill of death on his skin and the sightless light of his eyes.
August 28 [2006]: Citrus Avenue. In sorrow to be here again, I am loving you.
Note that the first part of this piece was lifted from ‘Deja Entendu’.
“I appreciate your assistance on this, Aidan. Surely you have better things to do with yourself on a Sunday morning.”
“I’ll get back to you if I come up with something.”
Harume Morimoto smiled over the top of the shelf that stood between them. “Did you go to the cemetery alone?” the blonde murmured, stepping out from behind the shelf and reaching for another folded coverlet. She didn’t pursue the topic when Aidan chose not to honor her with a reply, only holding one end of the coverlet steady while Aidan unfolded the other half.
It was the weekend after the finals of Isherwood University’s latest school year, and the silence was still in the process of making itself completely comfortable in the now deserted campus. Even the professors from the university’s Science and Engineering Department had drifted off; some of them were heading across half an ocean to deliver speeches, handle workshops or teach classes in other universities. Others were actually going to take a vacation. Aidan and Harume, however, were different. As the two hardest-working professors in their department, they always felt that there was a little more to do right where they were.
“I heard there’s another batch of boarders coming into Citrus Avenue. It must be rather crowded over there.”
“It does get noisy sometimes. At least it’s close to the school.”
“You could stay on campus.”
“Too many restrictions.”
Harume chuckled. “I rest my case. You had a nice place back in the city though,” she remarked after a moment. “Don’t you ever consider going back?”
“No.”
Once in a blue moon and always on a Monday, Timothy Rosenbaum would walk into his office at Isherwood University’s faculty department for the College of Medical Science and find a message for him with the secretary from one Professor Clayce of the neighboring college. The secretary, however, being a youngish intern more interested in clothes and gabbing off on the faculty’s phone for free rather than doing her job right, would never remember the particulars, only that it had been about a house or something to that effect. Timothy would thank her profusely (often thrice over, because of the earphones), and shuffle off to his cubicle to ring up some friends. If they weren’t available for a very sudden road trip scheduled for that weekend, Timothy would send word to the main house about being available for Hotaru’s routine check-up, even though it was a bit early in the year for it. On the off chance that neither was available to him, there was always Sein and the Nebel family. They always appreciated the company.
Once in a blue moon and always on a Friday evening, Aidan Clayce would return to #2041 Citrus Avenue and find Ganymede Erasmus in his room, holding out a set of keys. He would take it from her with murmured thanks and proceed to do a great many things, all in pursuit of avoiding her questions. It was only after she would give up and be on her way that he’d set the distractions aside and pack some clothes for a weekend out.
Once in a blue moon and always on a Saturday morning, Aidan Clayce would pull up in front of a house in the suburbs of the city. The neighbors recognized him - he was the previous owner, the professor with his beautiful and now quite dead wife. He wouldn’t emerge until Monday morning, before sunrise. Timothy Rosenbaum would return the next day.
EDITS PLZ.
The dates to the left of every title beneath the LJ cuts correspond to the 31_days theme that the piece was written to. Also, you'll notice that some of the entries have been labelled as cross-linked... this is because I'm going to try my hand at faithfully following the LJ drabble communities from here on. @_@
( Thick as Thieves: Nostalgia {cross-linked from 31 Days} )
January 23 [2006]: Bloodsport. Lost in the supermarket.
After the twelfth time that week of walking into HIS kitchen and finding Hoshi Inokuma not too discreetly banging his brother against the sink, across the table, or in the pantry, Aetna had the grace not to splutter and storm out. The boy merely turned on his heel and left for a moment, making Akiyo and Hoshi think that the scout had finally given up. And then Aetna returned to throw a wallet and a long roll of paper at them. They both knocked against Hoshi’s head with very audible cracks.
“You two. To the supermarket. Now.”
“…Excuse me?”
The look in Aetna’s eyes at that moment was so chilling that even Akiyo stopped.
“I believe I made myself perfectly clear.”
Akiyo scoffed.
“I do NOT do supermarkets.”
He and Hoshi were out the door in the next minute as the Inokuma, recognizing the murderous intent written all over Aetna’s face, wisely opted to do as he was told and dragged his boyfriend off with him. He probably saved both their lives with that decision.
So it was that the afternoon proved to be the most harrowing afternoon of their lives, especially since Hoshi had never actually been inside a supermarket before and Akiyo refused to do anything more difficult than pushing the cart around or checking out any decent-looking member of the male species in the vicinity. The next time Aetna walked in on them they were made to mow all the plots belonging to the Kazashimo Estate, which basically meant Hoshi mowing and Akiyo fanning himself under a tree.
This pattern repeated itself a few more times, each with Aetna giving them a difficult and never simple errand to run or chore to do. Hoshi eventually took to avoiding the estate for fear of becoming Aetna’s slave to do jobs meant for an army. Akiyo was not very happy about this. Aetna, however, moved on to enjoy some well-deserved peace and quiet, at least for a week. Then Shimeya came back from his business trip.
January 16 [2007]: Bloodsport. Psychiatrist, at your service, not at your convenience!
Dedicated to yukitsu.
Their friendship was an accident, a result of too many chance encounters and a Bladian who didn’t know the first thing about taking care of himself. It must have started with the cigarettes, and then maybe the sake. Neither of them had wanted to admit to having anything in common at first, but then it soon became evident that they couldn’t avoid the topic forever. Akiyo, being the quicker witted one, made the first gesture, declaring it a matter of convenience.
“You’re a walking air conditioner. I’d be insane not to hang around you.”
Tsuki, seeing as Akiyo had said that while sloshed on his back, wisely decided not to comment. Akiyo’s drunkenness didn’t make him any less weaker, or less vicious.
So the days of talking about nothing in kitsune-run ramen stands and smoking on the rooftop of the estate began. The first few months of their friendship were impromptu counseling sessions, as Tsuki’s woes were extensive (Hikaru Shinta - go figure) and Akiyo took his sweet time sniping at each and every one as ‘silly’, ‘stupid’ or ‘hmm, passable’. Things evened out as time went on, with Tsuki become Akiyo’s pseudo-catcher in the rye with the few issues that managed to bother Akiyo enough to complain about. Their positions reversed when Alistair Mordechai was still earning his master’s degree in Hikaruism and Hoshi waltzed into their lives in his Hoshi-like way. Then, when things normalized on all fronts, they found themselves shooting the breeze again.
One morning it occurred to Raseleane to drift out from her usual haunts and inquire upon the nature of their relationship to Tsuki.
“…Nah, we just hang out.”
Raseleane blinked, stared at Tsuki with an all-seeing gaze, and then floated off.
September 5 [2005]: Bloodsport. A winter morning just like any other.
Takes place after ‘About as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters’.
“Ready?”
Ensui looked up from where he had been rather valiantly wrestling with his winter boots to see Abel in the doorway, already decked out in his winter gear. Seth was perched on his usual place across Abel’s shoulders.
“Hai.” The Water Adept stood up, hopping a bit in place to make sure his boots were on right before bending over to tie them. He patted Seth’s head when the shoebox dragon winged over to help him, protested when Abel moved to carry his bag. They were off in the next minute, walking out of Utsusemi and into Arcis in the dead of winter.
Nearly two months had passed since they had first met and become partners, and between a fish-loving shoebox dragon and commonalities discovered in everything from Spartan eating habits to guns, guns, guns the pair had become rather good friends in the non-communicative sort of way. Ensui, however, being a Kilthei and Akiyo’s beloved-brother-but-mostly-surrogate-son, did make the occasional attempt to ask Abel about himself. Usually Abel never answered him and usually, Ensui was okay with this. This morning was proving itself to be an exception.
Alistair had called the both of them over to breakfast for the monthly progress report and briefing - the man was more than satisfied with their performance, and took time out to tell them as much. What piqued Ensui’s curiosity, however, was when the Seer set the papers aside and looked at Abel in all seriousness. “You’re due in for a routine check-up,” he told him, in a low voice. “You and Ensui can go together, since you’re partners.” At that moment, something went dark and quiet in Abel’s eyes, although nothing else - the set of his back, the deep register of his voice - had changed. When Alistair dismissed them Abel walked ahead. Ensui couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his partner looking so tall and distanced.
Abel was walking ahead of him at that moment as they trudged through the snow, walking between the eternally blooming cherry blossom tress. Their breaths crystallized the silence in the cold, crisp air. They had walked that way before, yet somehow it was different. Somehow Ensui figured something was wrong.
“Anou… Abel-san?”
“Mm?”
“Is… is something… well, I don’t know, it’s strange, but… um…”
“What is it?”
Abel had turned back to face him, tilting his head and appraising Ensui with the sort of look that made the boy duck his gaze and stammer all the more.
“IssomethingbotheringyouIcouldn’thelpbutnotice!”
A minute to decipher the gibberish and another to laugh. That was, Ensui realized with no small amount of awe, the first time he had ever heard Abel laugh. It was more a snort and a chuckle than anything else, but that was inconsequential.
“…I’m fine. I just don’t do well in the cold, and I don’t really like doctors. Old wounds and bad memories, you could say.”
“Mm. Me too.”
“Let’s go,” said Abel after a strange pause. He waited for Ensui to step up and join him before he continued walking.
They held hands in the waiting area of the Clerics facility while queuing up for their doctor: Ensui had reached out first, and Abel, to his surprise, clasped his hand and held on, all the way until it was time to go.
January 16 [2006]: Bloodsport. Your cover’s blown.
Takes place after ‘I am the spirit that denieth all things’.
It took a supreme amount of effort on both their parts to keep their hands off of each other as they made their way up to Thomas’ suite, and only in the solace of the man’s rooms did they gratefully fall apart, into each other’s arms. The pair moved much like dancing with Thomas as the lead and Raiker happily letting himself get tugged along, into sweet embraces and soft kisses.
Thomas was gentle with him in bed and always seemed ready to answer his every need: that was probably the reason why Raiker had fallen for him and continued to stay with him, beyond his undeniable charm. He was an Englishman of the old class, unique because they no longer made his sort the same way anymore. Their session that evening was particularly pleasant, and as such the conversation that followed was surprising.
“That was him, wasn’t it?”
“Mm?”
“That man you introduced me to… Dustin, correct? That must be him.”
Thomas murmured this as he trailed his fingers down Raiker’s bare back, following the curve of the younger man’s spin as they lay in bed together. He only smiled at the Branch Mage’s surprised look, and leaned forward to kiss him full on the mouth.
“It’s all right. I already knew the moment I met you that there was someone else.”
“He and I-”
“Can’t be together? So you’d like to believe. I get the impression that you’re making things too difficult for him.”
“…It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
Raiker pushed himself up and out of bed, moving to check his phone for messages first before stepping into the bathroom. The water came on. Thomas watched him through the doorway, admiring the image of his lover naked, washing his face.
“You should give him a chance. I don’t really mind.”
“Why? Because you know I’ll choose you?”
“Because I know that you’ll choose the one who will really make you happy.”
Raiker didn’t answer him. They said little else in the hours to follow, and when they kissed and said their farewells both of them knew it would be a long time before they saw each other again.
November 30 [2005]: Bloodsport. This is the house of your desire.
Dedicated to ravyn_ashling, because we all know she likes them this way.
For them an invitation to climb into each other’s pants never had to be spoken: it was always communicated in Hoshi’s forceful kiss or Akiyo’s subtle shift of his shoulders to slip his kimono a little lower than decent, revealing skin where cloth should have been. With the ways they had at each other both of them were rightfully surprised at the fact that no one in the general vicinity ever complained about them (with the exception of Aetna, who was very particular about the cleanliness and decency of the Kazashimo Estate in general). Doubtless they wouldn’t lessen their proclivities any if someone HAD brought it up with them.
Hoshi liked to take Akiyo with the boy beneath him, wrists suspended about his head, legs and everything below them spread out wide and exposed in a way that only lovers approved of. Akiyo liked to ride Hoshi with the man buried to the hilt inside of him and the feel of his large hands moving around his rib cage and over the rest of his body, appraising an object he owned for the moment and for some time yet. From there it was easy to look down and study the man’s expression when he came.
They did not have too many kinks but it was safe to assume that Akiyo took special pleasure in tormenting Hoshi or provoking him to action while Hoshi liked to coddle Akiyo as though he were some kind over overgrown stray cat that he had grown to love in spite of wanting to kick it out half the time. They still argued a lot, but few things couldn’t be undone with the power of mind-blowing, faith-altering sex.
October 23 [2006]: Bloodsport. Fairy tale ending.
This is how I figure their first time must have gone. @_@ Note that the first scene is lifted from ‘You’re the swingingest thing’, which is an iWHORE piece that I did for yukitsu WAY back.
Shimeya kissed in exactly the way Aetna imagined he would: slow, deep, full, and gentle. He had closed his eyes to absorb the moment, half fearing that when he opened them he’d realize it was another dream. The violent flush of his cheeks betrayed his relief to his senpai, who only pulled away with a smile and brushed the bangs from Aetna’s face.
“I’m sorry I took so long.”
“You should be.”
The moment those words left his lips Aetna regretted it and it showed in how he only blushed harder. Shimeya chuckled. The sound of it echoed in his ears and skipped down the younger man’s spine, making him tremble.
“Can you hold out a bit longer, or is here and the floor just fine?”
The first time Aetna came he did so in Shimeya’s mouth, as his leader had stripped him, pushed him down to the bed with firm shoves and gentle kisses, and then proceeded to suck him off. It was like Shimeya was all fingers and mouth and Aetna was nothing but nerves and heat and that length between his legs. He had originally attempted to protest, but the words trickled from his mind and nothing but moans seemed to leave his lips whenever he tried.
By the time strength had returned to him, Shimeya had put a condom on and was spreading lubricant over his fingers. He smiled when he noticed Aetna watching him, and climbed over the boy to kiss him. His closeness made the scout feel breathless and dizzy.
“I’m your first, aren’t I? Let me ease you into it. I’m rather big, if I do say so myself.”
“…You always say the stupidest things.”
Shimeya chuckled. “And you’re cute when you blush like that,” he murmured, as he pushed his first finger inside. He moved it slowly inside Aetna, careful not the hurt the younger Kilthei, reveling in the sound of blond’s soft gasp.
With the third finger Aetna was trembling, hands gripping the bed sheets and eyes shut tight; he did not know what to make of this strange mix of pleasure and agony that came with this moment he had spent nearly his whole life dreaming about, and for one of the few times in his life he felt scared. Shimeya knew this and withdrew his hand, replacing it briefly with the moist warmth of his kisses until Aetna had relaxed and was more ready for him. When he finally entered his lover it felt right, more right than anything else he had felt for years.
“S… senpai…”
The sight of Aetna beneath him, shaking with pleasure and so perfectly vulnerable, made it difficult for Shimeya to be gentle with his Right Hand and take things slowly. They moved as one, rocking to the force of too many cold nights and years of denial. They climaxed as one, with Shimeya kissing Aetna’s neck and Aetna whispering Shimeya’s name across his leader’s skin.
Sunlight was streaming through the window by the time Aetna woke up to find himself clean and in a fresh set of pajamas, staring at a breakfast that looked too nice to have been made by Shimeya.
“I had Tsumuji make that. My cooking might make you ill. I washed you myself though!”
Shimeya walked over and sat at the edge of the bed, beaming down at Aetna as he reached out to brush the hair away from the latter’s face. The blond blushed and immediately retreated under the blankets.
“Er. Thank you.”
“Hee.” Shimeya plopped down, glomping himself quite firmly over the bundle of Aetna on the bed. “Let’s go for another round!”
Aetna didn’t know whether to reach out and hug him or smack him.
March 3 [2007]: Bloodsport. My cage has many rooms, damask and dark.
Dedicated to archangel_dream.
Takeshi’s only memories of his mother involved not her smell or her face or the beautiful things she had done for him, but the sight of her figure lying amongst pillows and silk sheets, thin as the canopies shielding her from light and dust. He had only been tall enough to peer at her just over the edge of the bed and hold her hand as she died. They hadn’t even given him time to cry at her passing, seizing him still sobbing the moment she breathed her last and dragging him to the altar of Izanami, where they tied him down with spell rope. He remembered feeling like he would drown in the waves of incantations droning over and around him that night, sealing his fate.
He became infinitely familiar with his mother’s chambers in the years to follow, which were refurnished to suit his needs - the countless canopies and mazes of silk and damask, however, remained, hiding him away from the rest of Enosh’s underwater world. Sometimes he would catch the maidservants whispering about him: they wondered how he could afford to be so calm and unperturbed about his duties and why he wasn’t angry. He wanted, sometimes, to tell them that he could not afford to be angry. Anger would shorten his life, and if his life was too short his siblings would take his place before they even managed to live their lives.
He tried to fight it at first, when the rot within whittled away at his strength enough to confine him to a wheelchair, or his bed. Sora, true to his word, followed his request and let no one inside, most especially his younger brothers and sisters - Takeshi did not want to let them see him wasting away. At night, however, the despair would swallow him whole, and he would lie there, alone with his tears. When he could no longer lift himself with his own arms, it became his daily habit to count the dust motes like lightless stars above him, just beyond his reach.
The Bladian, then a mortal enemy of the Inokuma, was the one who returned him to the world, bringing him to the light. He was more thankful though, for the fact that they did not ask him to hate the nobles who had brought the curse upon his family. If there was anything that Takeshi had always made himself live for, it was love.
November 21 [2005]: Bloodsport. The real world is out there somewhere.
Takeshi liked to read books and Sora indulged him even though his superiors always accused him of needlessly spoiling a boy destined to die for the sins of his fathers. Enosh itself had little to offer in terms of literature but there was always Kazesou, who would lecture like an elder in the voice of a child but never fail to give Sora whatever he had at hand. Only the elders and the ignorant thought of Takeshi as cursed, and although they could not break tradition there were ways, at least, to ease the burden he carried for the sake of their people.
Takeshi loved stories about people, about worlds imagined and unimagined, about infinite possibilities and endless skies. Sora knew it was, at times, an unhealthy escape from reality, but it was the least he could do. He was killing Takeshi with his own two hands, and as such he wanted to kill him with a smile and have it go easy.
August 10 [2005]: Thick as Thieves. Way of difference.
Hikaru Shinta had the habit of phoning him out of the blue and at the most inconvenient times for the most outrageous favors, but not once did Rui Ishikawa ever fail to respond. This time it was police barricades to seal off what was normally one of the busiest sectors of the city during rush hour. So what if the hotter heads among his superiors would be out to scalp him after this was over? It was Hikaru. For Hikaru, he could move mountains.
They would meet on site, not as old friends but as colleagues, soldiers acquainted with each other through battle and nothing else. Rui would watch Hikaru and in his mind, he would ask the younger man how he was, what Zangyaku was up to, whether he had been eating right as of late because it certainly didn’t look that way. Hikaru, on the other hand, would have nothing on his mind beyond the mission. Thinking about Rui often left a sensation akin to a fever in his chest and a banshee’s wail in his head, so he avoided thinking about Rui altogether.
At the end of their joint operation it would occur to Rui to ask Hikaru out to dinner, or maybe for coffee: he would think of many excuses but the one he planned to use always ended up being the “It’s been a while” card. Instead, he would end up watching Hikaru walk away from him and think to himself that something about the scene made the Bladian’s back look so small and distant.
February 27 [2006]: Endtimes. The filial child.
His father was a yakuza of the old class, a man of honor with a legacy of blood, guts and glory attached to his name. His mother was an ice queen, one among the few females of her generation to inherit a gang and keep it running of her own accord in a man’s world. He was the fourth and youngest, with two brothers and a sister to handle the family business between them. Traditionally he was the useless one, the unneeded child. Most of his family members, however, were generally good people, and moved to shelter him from their world rather than shove him off to childless relatives and forget he ever existed.
When his father decided that he was to spend his high school and university years in Germany, he smiled his brilliant smile and bowed his head in obedience. This was how his parents planned on giving him a new life, providing an existence outside the changing boundaries of the underworld. His eldest brother did not approve: he was alone and vulnerable, rip to abuse because his parents would drop everything in order to save him if he ended up in trouble. His parents would not hear of it.
His uncle was his host and also the man who would try to kill him many times during his stay: he escaped these incidents with his cunning, then pretended not to know that his father’s own brother was attempting to murder him out of spite. He waited not out of fear, but because he needed the perfect time to strike. Alistair Mordechai became his opening - the Seer was a proud creature who deserved a proud master. Ouki illuminated his mind, showing his employers for exactly what they really were, turning him against the very man who had hired him. That, and they had become fatally attracted to each other. Alistair was drunk on Ouki’s youth and beauty, and never in Ouki’s life had he met someone who truly embodied strength and cruelty with his whole being, from the sound of his voice to the look in his eyes.
He managed to utterly destroy his uncle a month before his graduation and win over many of the man’s dissatisfied or weak-willed associates; he slaughtered those who resisted him with Alistair’s help. The first thing he did upon his return to Japan was kill his remaining immediate family members, placing himself as head of the Yamada Cartel. He gathered all his allies and moved to start a new empire in Arcis with Alistair at his side.
At twenty-one Ouki Yamada was one of the youngest yakuza lords in recent history - in his first year alone he established the foundations for what would become the largest underworld Court in Asia. His love affair with Alistair was short-lived, but their friendship would last a lifetime.
December 10 [2005]: Thick as Thieves: Blood Sings. The most ill-regulated memory.
This here can serve as a summary of sorts to Blood Sings, which, as some of you must already know or realize, the ‘second generation’ sort of story that takes place WAY after both Endtimes and Thick as Thieves.
What Akira had of her uncle were puzzle pieces of memory, none of which fit into the other well enough to make sense. He had been the absentee member of the household more often than not, busy with the Hunt and his duties at the Imperial Court. When he was home he was almost always cloistered away in his own wing of the house, which was the largest area of the compound even though it was her father who was head of the clan. He hardly ever joined the family for dinner in spite of how Akira’s grandmother pestered anyone who’d listen about if he would come that evening, or the next, or the next. It was forbidden to disturb him.
Akira was four the first time she ever saw her uncle emerge from his wing to be with the rest of the family, and even at such a young age she knew something was amiss in spite of how he was all warmth and light to her. Later, when she asked her mother why her daddy hadn’t said a word throughout dinner or why her uncle hadn’t talked to her grandmother at all even though her grandmother certainly tried to talk to him, her mother did not answer.
She was seven when she saw him next. She and her mother had accompanied her aunt, her cousins and some ministry officials on a survey of the Greater Wastes in the south when a legion of corrupted maga had attacked their party. The oni-tsukai accompanying them were slaughtered to a man, leaving them at the mercy of the legion’s over mind, a young Kue-jin lieutenant. And then her uncle came. In her youth, she remembered the blades, the blood, the screams, and the brilliance of his white coat. His swords were his wings.
He was smiling at her and talking to her before she had realized it, kneeling at her height and reaching out to stroke the hair from her face.
“Are you all right?”
From that moment on, she had worshipped him and wanted to join Zangyaku. In the few years to follow, she only saw him from a distance, and then up close once more, when the lady in black had brought him home from the last battle he would ever fight.
August 20 [2006]: Ghost Hunt. I have tasted the bitter and the sweet of affairs / and walked over the rough and smooth path of days.
Dedicated to kye_kestrel.
“…Ah. Leaving already?”
Lin blinked as he watched the members of the Shibuya Psychic Research agency shuffle out of the hospital room. He had returned from buying coffee to find the group moving out into the hallway.
“Yeah. I think we’ve bothered Naru enough for today.” Bou grinned and shifted Mai a bit from where she was sprawled on his back, fast asleep. “We need to take this girl home anyway. See you tomorrow!”
Lin waved a bit as he stood to watch them depart, filling the silence of the corridor with their laughter. A few years ago he would have considered it all fluff and noise.
“I thought they’d never leave.”
Naru was still up, comfortably settled back against the pillows and still poring over the very same folder he had been working on since morning. Only twenty pages in. Normally he would have been somewhere in the hundreds by then.
“You should be sleeping.”
Naru did not answer him and Lin did not consider this surprising. The onmyouji took his usual spot by the window and unpacked the contents of the brown paper bag he had brought upstairs. Brewed coffee, doughnuts, Dunhill cigarettes.
“Mai was blaming herself, you know, for provoking you.”
“That sort of behavior is expected of her.”
“Perhaps.” Naru flipped a page and Lin sipped his coffee. He welcomed the warmth. It was cold in the hospital room. “Still, your heart did stop. That scared her.”
“Fright is part of the job.”
“I don’t believe dying is.”
The folder snapped shut with a flick of Naru’s wrist.
“Come here.”
Cold, quick, imperious, but no other person on Earth would dare to order him around, and for that reason Lin obeyed. The coffee had been robust and pleasantly bitter, and Lin knew Naru could still taste it on his lips when they kissed.
“Stop using them as an excuse,” the younger man murmured with a crooked smile as they broke away. “You feared for me. That shouldn’t be too hard to admit to, should it?”
“She’s falling for you.”
“She’s still a child. Besides,” said Naru as Lin moved in closer, “I think I already know what I want.”
“So,” Bou cheerily put in as the rest of the group got into the van. “Who wants to bet something funny’s going on up there right now?”
Ayako raised her hand. “There’s no other way to explain why Lin’s such a stiff,” the priestess explained with a yawn. “…Oh. I guess this is a touchy subject for a priest like you, huh, John?”
“N-no, not at all!” John stammered, although he had already turned several shades of red.
“I wonder how we’re going to explain it to those two,” Yasuhara mused as Bou started the car.
“No clue. I DO know one thing though… with Masako’s powers being what they are and Mai’s well on the way, I do NOT want to be around when we do.”
Mai and Masako, in the meantime, remained propped against each other, blissfully tucked off somewhere in Dreamland.
May 17 [2006]: Dogs, Bullets & Carnage. The coldest eyes and the cruellest hands.
Dedicated to sindapa
At Spring they practiced on the tops of buildings, in high winds that still had the bite of winter in their breath. She spent nearly all her time in those spars on the ground, beaten black and blue, wielding a blade meant for a full grown man and not at all for a little girl like herself. He would never help her up, electing instead to sit by the edge and smoke to the cityscape as she struggled with her own weakness.
They would come to the beach at summer, sparring in the sand or among the rocks or just within the water. The mystery of the waves ate her blood, her sweat and her vomit, but could take nothing of his.
He would be gone most of autumn, leaving her to keep the house. She would rake up all the falling leaves, take a running jump into the pile, and then rake them all up again for another round. Sometimes she’d fall asleep among them and wake up in her bed. It surprised her how he’d always carry her in rather than scold her or leave her there.
It was hard to recall what they used to do during the winter because it was in November that he’d been killed. All she had was the memory of the chill of death on his skin and the sightless light of his eyes.
August 28 [2006]: Citrus Avenue. In sorrow to be here again, I am loving you.
Note that the first part of this piece was lifted from ‘Deja Entendu’.
“I appreciate your assistance on this, Aidan. Surely you have better things to do with yourself on a Sunday morning.”
“I’ll get back to you if I come up with something.”
Harume Morimoto smiled over the top of the shelf that stood between them. “Did you go to the cemetery alone?” the blonde murmured, stepping out from behind the shelf and reaching for another folded coverlet. She didn’t pursue the topic when Aidan chose not to honor her with a reply, only holding one end of the coverlet steady while Aidan unfolded the other half.
It was the weekend after the finals of Isherwood University’s latest school year, and the silence was still in the process of making itself completely comfortable in the now deserted campus. Even the professors from the university’s Science and Engineering Department had drifted off; some of them were heading across half an ocean to deliver speeches, handle workshops or teach classes in other universities. Others were actually going to take a vacation. Aidan and Harume, however, were different. As the two hardest-working professors in their department, they always felt that there was a little more to do right where they were.
“I heard there’s another batch of boarders coming into Citrus Avenue. It must be rather crowded over there.”
“It does get noisy sometimes. At least it’s close to the school.”
“You could stay on campus.”
“Too many restrictions.”
Harume chuckled. “I rest my case. You had a nice place back in the city though,” she remarked after a moment. “Don’t you ever consider going back?”
“No.”
Once in a blue moon and always on a Monday, Timothy Rosenbaum would walk into his office at Isherwood University’s faculty department for the College of Medical Science and find a message for him with the secretary from one Professor Clayce of the neighboring college. The secretary, however, being a youngish intern more interested in clothes and gabbing off on the faculty’s phone for free rather than doing her job right, would never remember the particulars, only that it had been about a house or something to that effect. Timothy would thank her profusely (often thrice over, because of the earphones), and shuffle off to his cubicle to ring up some friends. If they weren’t available for a very sudden road trip scheduled for that weekend, Timothy would send word to the main house about being available for Hotaru’s routine check-up, even though it was a bit early in the year for it. On the off chance that neither was available to him, there was always Sein and the Nebel family. They always appreciated the company.
Once in a blue moon and always on a Friday evening, Aidan Clayce would return to #2041 Citrus Avenue and find Ganymede Erasmus in his room, holding out a set of keys. He would take it from her with murmured thanks and proceed to do a great many things, all in pursuit of avoiding her questions. It was only after she would give up and be on her way that he’d set the distractions aside and pack some clothes for a weekend out.
Once in a blue moon and always on a Saturday morning, Aidan Clayce would pull up in front of a house in the suburbs of the city. The neighbors recognized him - he was the previous owner, the professor with his beautiful and now quite dead wife. He wouldn’t emerge until Monday morning, before sunrise. Timothy Rosenbaum would return the next day.
EDITS PLZ.