save me from drowning in the sea
More drabbles! More not-actually-writing-the-request!
draegonhawke suggested several ideas, actually. This was the first one. I plan to get to the rest of hers later.
"Seifer?"
"WHAT?"
Raijin jumped. He was used to Fujin, but Seifer's voice magnified through a megaphone was still a little unnerving. The way Seifer kept tapping his gunblade against his back was even more so.
"It's just." He paused. "Can I ask something?"
"SPEAK."
"It's just, I was wonderin'." Raijin scratched the back of his neck. He caught a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, but he was afraid to turn his back on Seifer. "Isn't hazing cadets against the rules?"
"RAIJIN. WHO MAKES THE RULES?"
"Um." He hoped it wasn't a trick question. "The Disciplinary Committee?"
"AND WHO IS ON THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE?"
"Um. We are?"
"CORRECT. OR, IT IS UNLESS YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR JOB AND WISH TO BE RELIEVED FROM DUTY?"
"No! I was just… Sorry, Seifer, you know I'm no good at words, ya know?"
"AFFIRMATIVE, ASS-FEZ. NOW SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE SHOW."
Nida ran by in a pair of light blue bra and panties, up to his fourteenth lap around the quad. Fujin jogged easily behind with a megaphone she didn't need, counting off the laps in a gleeful tone.
Raijin shifted his weight from foot to foot. "All I'm sayin' is that sometimes I think Fujin likes her job a little too much, ya know?"
"FIFTEEN!" Fujin shouted across the quad. "FASTER!"
"RAIJIN." Seifer lowered the megaphone. "You know what? I think you're right."
"You do?" Raijin asked in surprise. Seifer never said that, or at least not in that sort of encouraging tone.
"Yep. Of course, you know what that means, right?"
"Huh?"
"That means you're not enjoying your job enough."
"Um?"
"We gotta have balance, Raijin. A posse is all about balance."
"What?"
"RAIJIN. PUT YOURSELF ON THE LIST AND DO TWENTY LAPS AROUND THE QUAD."
"But--"
"FUJIN BROUGHT EXTRA LARGE SIZE LINGERIE AS WELL, YOU KNOW. I BELIEVE IT IS LAVENDER. WITH HEARTS."
"Okay, okay!" Raijin started running. "I'm just sayin', ya know?" he murmured plaintively, when he was sure that neither Seifer nor Fujin could possibly hear him or read his lips. At least they were both distracted by Nida's attempt to climb one of the trees to get away.
"ONE!" Fujin shouted from across the quad. Nida shrieked. Raijin sighed, and ran faster.
Notes: I went through a long survey with other people on what Seifer would call Raijin in a genial yet insulting way. We went through douchebag, dorkwad, dingus, and monkeytool before twigcollins suggested our winner, ass-fez. Seifer means them all affectionately, honestly.
***
soranokumo's original drabble got extended a little bit. Catt, you're free to ask for another since you got a short one.
It happened. There was something to be said about foregone conclusions. Touga always used his charm as deliberately as laying an ace on the table, so you could see exactly what it was. It was simultaneously one of the best and worst things about him, that absolute honesty because Saionji could never pretend that he was being tricked.
"Fine," he said into the wind, the words almost snatched from his mouth as soon as said, "we'll duel them tomorrow."
Touga didn't say anything in return. The engine roared. Beneath him, the motorcycle sped up, wavered, and then steadied almost imperceptibly.
***
twigcollins asked for characters from her Academy universe. This won't make sense to anyone unfamiliar with her work.
"What's it like?" he asks her once. It was when he thought he was meeting her for the first time.
"What's it like?" she repeats, and changes it completely with just a slight inflection, like the infinite difference caused by smallest crack in a mirror. "What's it like."
Someone who is blind from birth has no idea what colors are. It is difficult to miss something when it has never been truly experienced or understood. She knew what he would ask; she knew what she would say. The middle of a story never seems like a story at all, only confusion; it's a series of actions, of sensations: the roar of noise, a blindness of darkness, a blaze of light, a maelstrom of motion. It's only afterwards, sitting amongst the aftermath, that it becomes anything that can be related in narrative flow, as a whole story. It's only afterwards that you can see it all, when you are telling it to yourself or someone else.
Is it like a war in your head? a girl with red hair and brown eyes is going to ask her in seven years, eleven months, nineteen days, four hours, and thirty-nine seconds. And Eli will think, yes, it is, a little bit, just like it's a little like a river, a radio, an acorn, a prayer. A little bit like a war. A war is a whole but it's made up of smaller skirmishes. Even in the smaller battles and most inconsequential fights, there always comes a point where coherence breaks down entirely, and no one can say for sure how events proceed or what came first. This kind of knowledge and story is made up and recreated by the witnesses later on. History hinges on the need to make things linear and coherent, to produce an understandable myth where one starts at point A and ends at point B, and details unfold solely as one travels the journey between two points, not all at once.
"It's…"
Eli closes her eyes.
"It's really something. It really is."
She knows the expression on his face, even with her eyes closed. She knows all of his expressions. That night, he thought he was meeting her for the first time and she didn't bother to correct him. For her, there are no first times. It's difficult to miss colors when you're blind; it's difficult to meet a person for the first time when you've known everything about them always.
***
shadowshimmer's drabble-- this is not. Because it's way more about Michael than Ian. It's what I scrawled out by mistake before re-reading her request, and I can't quite bring myself to throw it out. I'll post her real drabble tomorrow.
Ian is still 'Thorpe' in Michael's mind sometimes, secretly, guiltily, although he doesn't know why he should feel that way. It's only natural to try and keep names separate with having more than one Ian in acquaintance, and he's been around Ian Crocker much more than Ian Thorpe. It was only fair that Crocker got the first name privilege.
But now that he and Ian have gotten to this point in the relationship-- he decided it was a relationship after four consecutive sexual encounters and maybe it had been three and a half if he didn't count the eleven minutes and twenty six seconds of swapped blowjobs in a shower stall and where was he? Hell, since they've gotten to the point where they have a relationship at all, it seems only right that Ian's come into first-name status as well.
The thing is, Michael wonders sometimes if he likes to think of Ian as Thorpe because it's just so… iconic, almost. Everyone knows who Ian Thorpe is. Michael loves the fact that he's got the opportunity to even think of Ian by his first name now, it isn't that. But this way, Ian in his bed now is also Thorpe from four years ago in Sydney passing Michael in the changing room without seeing him, is Thorpe from three years ago in Fukuoka running Michael over in the warm-down pool, is Thorpe from two years ago missing the first Duel in the Pool, is Thorpe from a year ago missing their training session, saying the record is impossible, and every other thing that made Michael put his head down and just swim until he wasn't thinking at all.
He wants so much, all those years that weren't quite his. It's like Michael's making up for lost time this way.
Sometimes he wonders if he is still 'Phelps' to Ian, in Ian's head. Usually he's Michael, sometimes Mikey, and once, terrifyingly, Baby-doll, and Michael had almost succeeded in shoving Ian's head through the wall. But Ian had been laughing too fucking hard afterwards to move, let alone properly defend himself and Michael hadn't felt quite right about taking really thorough revenge, and besides then there was kissing, and then there was tongue, and then there was tongue.
Michael loves Ian's mouth. He loves Ian's voice. He loves Ian, more than all the damn years-past Thorpes, so that's all right even if actually admitting this to Ian is only slightly less terrifying than the idea of diving into a pool with no water.
Right now he's got it all, Ian and medals and everything. He's supposed to call Ian; he's been anticipating it all afternoon. When Ian talks, Michael is willing to answer to (almost) any name, willing to do whatever dirty words are spilling out of that velvety-sounding mouth even if they involve candles or handcuffs or sheep.
Well, maybe not the sheep.
He fumbles out his cellphone, clicks into the pre-programmed numbers, stops, and considers. Ian knows this number. He borrows Lenny's cellphone, promises Lenny he won't use it for phone sex, promises it won't be sticky when he gives it back, dials, and waits. The phone rings three times before someone picks up.
"Thorpe," Ian says crisply from the other end of the line. Michael closes his eyes for a second, recording the sound in his mind.
"It's me. Hang on, I'll call you right back."
He hangs up, calls again from his own phone.
"Michael," Ian says when he picks up the phone on the first ring this time. It sounds like he's smiling.
"Ian," Michael says nervously, and smiles back. "I was just thinking about you."
***
More to be posted tomorrow. Too damn tired.
draegonhawke suggested several ideas, actually. This was the first one. I plan to get to the rest of hers later.
"Seifer?"
"WHAT?"
Raijin jumped. He was used to Fujin, but Seifer's voice magnified through a megaphone was still a little unnerving. The way Seifer kept tapping his gunblade against his back was even more so.
"It's just." He paused. "Can I ask something?"
"SPEAK."
"It's just, I was wonderin'." Raijin scratched the back of his neck. He caught a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, but he was afraid to turn his back on Seifer. "Isn't hazing cadets against the rules?"
"RAIJIN. WHO MAKES THE RULES?"
"Um." He hoped it wasn't a trick question. "The Disciplinary Committee?"
"AND WHO IS ON THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE?"
"Um. We are?"
"CORRECT. OR, IT IS UNLESS YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR JOB AND WISH TO BE RELIEVED FROM DUTY?"
"No! I was just… Sorry, Seifer, you know I'm no good at words, ya know?"
"AFFIRMATIVE, ASS-FEZ. NOW SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE SHOW."
Nida ran by in a pair of light blue bra and panties, up to his fourteenth lap around the quad. Fujin jogged easily behind with a megaphone she didn't need, counting off the laps in a gleeful tone.
Raijin shifted his weight from foot to foot. "All I'm sayin' is that sometimes I think Fujin likes her job a little too much, ya know?"
"FIFTEEN!" Fujin shouted across the quad. "FASTER!"
"RAIJIN." Seifer lowered the megaphone. "You know what? I think you're right."
"You do?" Raijin asked in surprise. Seifer never said that, or at least not in that sort of encouraging tone.
"Yep. Of course, you know what that means, right?"
"Huh?"
"That means you're not enjoying your job enough."
"Um?"
"We gotta have balance, Raijin. A posse is all about balance."
"What?"
"RAIJIN. PUT YOURSELF ON THE LIST AND DO TWENTY LAPS AROUND THE QUAD."
"But--"
"FUJIN BROUGHT EXTRA LARGE SIZE LINGERIE AS WELL, YOU KNOW. I BELIEVE IT IS LAVENDER. WITH HEARTS."
"Okay, okay!" Raijin started running. "I'm just sayin', ya know?" he murmured plaintively, when he was sure that neither Seifer nor Fujin could possibly hear him or read his lips. At least they were both distracted by Nida's attempt to climb one of the trees to get away.
"ONE!" Fujin shouted from across the quad. Nida shrieked. Raijin sighed, and ran faster.
Notes: I went through a long survey with other people on what Seifer would call Raijin in a genial yet insulting way. We went through douchebag, dorkwad, dingus, and monkeytool before twigcollins suggested our winner, ass-fez. Seifer means them all affectionately, honestly.
***
soranokumo's original drabble got extended a little bit. Catt, you're free to ask for another since you got a short one.
It happened. There was something to be said about foregone conclusions. Touga always used his charm as deliberately as laying an ace on the table, so you could see exactly what it was. It was simultaneously one of the best and worst things about him, that absolute honesty because Saionji could never pretend that he was being tricked.
"Fine," he said into the wind, the words almost snatched from his mouth as soon as said, "we'll duel them tomorrow."
Touga didn't say anything in return. The engine roared. Beneath him, the motorcycle sped up, wavered, and then steadied almost imperceptibly.
***
twigcollins asked for characters from her Academy universe. This won't make sense to anyone unfamiliar with her work.
"What's it like?" he asks her once. It was when he thought he was meeting her for the first time.
"What's it like?" she repeats, and changes it completely with just a slight inflection, like the infinite difference caused by smallest crack in a mirror. "What's it like."
Someone who is blind from birth has no idea what colors are. It is difficult to miss something when it has never been truly experienced or understood. She knew what he would ask; she knew what she would say. The middle of a story never seems like a story at all, only confusion; it's a series of actions, of sensations: the roar of noise, a blindness of darkness, a blaze of light, a maelstrom of motion. It's only afterwards, sitting amongst the aftermath, that it becomes anything that can be related in narrative flow, as a whole story. It's only afterwards that you can see it all, when you are telling it to yourself or someone else.
Is it like a war in your head? a girl with red hair and brown eyes is going to ask her in seven years, eleven months, nineteen days, four hours, and thirty-nine seconds. And Eli will think, yes, it is, a little bit, just like it's a little like a river, a radio, an acorn, a prayer. A little bit like a war. A war is a whole but it's made up of smaller skirmishes. Even in the smaller battles and most inconsequential fights, there always comes a point where coherence breaks down entirely, and no one can say for sure how events proceed or what came first. This kind of knowledge and story is made up and recreated by the witnesses later on. History hinges on the need to make things linear and coherent, to produce an understandable myth where one starts at point A and ends at point B, and details unfold solely as one travels the journey between two points, not all at once.
"It's…"
Eli closes her eyes.
"It's really something. It really is."
She knows the expression on his face, even with her eyes closed. She knows all of his expressions. That night, he thought he was meeting her for the first time and she didn't bother to correct him. For her, there are no first times. It's difficult to miss colors when you're blind; it's difficult to meet a person for the first time when you've known everything about them always.
***
shadowshimmer's drabble-- this is not. Because it's way more about Michael than Ian. It's what I scrawled out by mistake before re-reading her request, and I can't quite bring myself to throw it out. I'll post her real drabble tomorrow.
Ian is still 'Thorpe' in Michael's mind sometimes, secretly, guiltily, although he doesn't know why he should feel that way. It's only natural to try and keep names separate with having more than one Ian in acquaintance, and he's been around Ian Crocker much more than Ian Thorpe. It was only fair that Crocker got the first name privilege.
But now that he and Ian have gotten to this point in the relationship-- he decided it was a relationship after four consecutive sexual encounters and maybe it had been three and a half if he didn't count the eleven minutes and twenty six seconds of swapped blowjobs in a shower stall and where was he? Hell, since they've gotten to the point where they have a relationship at all, it seems only right that Ian's come into first-name status as well.
The thing is, Michael wonders sometimes if he likes to think of Ian as Thorpe because it's just so… iconic, almost. Everyone knows who Ian Thorpe is. Michael loves the fact that he's got the opportunity to even think of Ian by his first name now, it isn't that. But this way, Ian in his bed now is also Thorpe from four years ago in Sydney passing Michael in the changing room without seeing him, is Thorpe from three years ago in Fukuoka running Michael over in the warm-down pool, is Thorpe from two years ago missing the first Duel in the Pool, is Thorpe from a year ago missing their training session, saying the record is impossible, and every other thing that made Michael put his head down and just swim until he wasn't thinking at all.
He wants so much, all those years that weren't quite his. It's like Michael's making up for lost time this way.
Sometimes he wonders if he is still 'Phelps' to Ian, in Ian's head. Usually he's Michael, sometimes Mikey, and once, terrifyingly, Baby-doll, and Michael had almost succeeded in shoving Ian's head through the wall. But Ian had been laughing too fucking hard afterwards to move, let alone properly defend himself and Michael hadn't felt quite right about taking really thorough revenge, and besides then there was kissing, and then there was tongue, and then there was tongue.
Michael loves Ian's mouth. He loves Ian's voice. He loves Ian, more than all the damn years-past Thorpes, so that's all right even if actually admitting this to Ian is only slightly less terrifying than the idea of diving into a pool with no water.
Right now he's got it all, Ian and medals and everything. He's supposed to call Ian; he's been anticipating it all afternoon. When Ian talks, Michael is willing to answer to (almost) any name, willing to do whatever dirty words are spilling out of that velvety-sounding mouth even if they involve candles or handcuffs or sheep.
Well, maybe not the sheep.
He fumbles out his cellphone, clicks into the pre-programmed numbers, stops, and considers. Ian knows this number. He borrows Lenny's cellphone, promises Lenny he won't use it for phone sex, promises it won't be sticky when he gives it back, dials, and waits. The phone rings three times before someone picks up.
"Thorpe," Ian says crisply from the other end of the line. Michael closes his eyes for a second, recording the sound in his mind.
"It's me. Hang on, I'll call you right back."
He hangs up, calls again from his own phone.
"Michael," Ian says when he picks up the phone on the first ring this time. It sounds like he's smiling.
"Ian," Michael says nervously, and smiles back. "I was just thinking about you."
***
More to be posted tomorrow. Too damn tired.