wrong
in
kh_drabble
Secret Santa Submissions Part I
Alright, this is the Christmas round for the Secret Santa. As promised, those who have given will mostly receive, and those who have not given would, you know, not receive. The grace period starts from today and will end on the 27th of December, 12 PM PST. Those who have not submitted by the end of the grace period would then be barred from the next Secret Santa. Submit your late gifts to me.
The people whom I've received gifts from but not have a gift of their own are lorei, ellyrianna, kaeru_chan, moonygirl and sabbato. If you have already submitted a gift and your name does not appear either on this list or on the following list, please re-submit to me. If you have submitted a gift, you should have received a reply from me confirming that I have received your gift. Either way, please re-submit to me if your name does not appear on either list.
I would also like to ask if there would be anyone who will like to pinch-hit for anyone after the grace period. If there are no volunteers, I will be pinch-hitting for those people who have already submitted but have not received their gifts, because it would be unfair to those people. If you are interested in pinch-hitting, please leave a clear comment on this post. I know that I should have specified a need for this in the original post, but the previous Secret Santa had everyone submitting in the end, so there wasn't a need to pinch-hit. With luck, there will not be a need to do so this year.
Hopefully, I did not screw up any of the uploads.
Lastly, have a Merry Christmas, everyone.
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For singwithin from lorei
Title: At Road's End
Wordcount: 93
Rating: G
Naminé smiled as she watched Sora leave the mansion.
Where are you going? What will you do?, she wondered, as the boy finally disappeared into the surrounding forest.
The girl almost wanted to go with him, but she laughed, and dismissed the idea. She had already hurt him enough, hadn't she? Besides, the road ahead of Sora was long and difficult-- she wouldn't try to complicate it further. And besides...it wasn't as though she'd never see the boy again.
She, and Kairi with her, would meet him at road's end.
Title: Snowballs
Wordcount: 214
Notes: ridiculously gen/fluff? Or something :D
“HEY, SQUALL!”
The man turned around, annoyed, but he only had time to say “Don't call me Sq--” before an icy snowball hit him in the face.
“Ha! See, Aerith? Told 'ja I could get him like that!”
Aerith tried not to giggle at Leon's quickly mounting anger. “Yuffie, we're supposed to be here on serious business. Merlin needs us to talk to Santa so we can--”
Whoops. How Leon had just managed to throw snow in Aerith's face, instead of that annoying ninja girl's, he didn't know. “S-sorry, I meant to throw it at Yuffie.”
Yuffie looked up at Aerith, who quickly wiped the snow off her face. “You know what this means! It means war!” the healer smiled at this declaration, and nodded. “Right! Prepare yourself, Leon!”
“I won't go easy!” the man retorted, but he was barely suppressing a grin.
-
It was maybe a few hours later that Merlin teleported himself to Christmastown. “You should have told me you were going to have a snowball fight. I'll go talk to Santa myself, then.”
“Merlin! Wait! I'm not actually having fun, I promise!” Leon was very tempted to sulk. He'd never be taken seriously again, would he.
The girls just laughed. And threw more snow.
Title: Driving
Wordcount: 310
Jack Skellington could not have been more excited. “Sora! Sora, Sora, Sora, guess what?!”
Even Sora was taken aback by this exceedingly energetic greeting. “Jack! What?”
“Santa's just told me, he'll let me drive his sleigh on Christmas Eve! Just for a little while, and only to a few worlds, but he's letting me! Oh, Sora-- isn't this exciting?!” The boy grinned knowing full well what this meant to his friend. Sora grabbed onto Jack's bones, hands rather, and did an impromptu happy dance with him.
“But, the best part of all? Sora, you can come with me!”
“R-Really? You mean it?” Donald sighed.
“Leave me out of this!”
Goofy smiled, but looked a bit terrified at the same time. “If it's all the same to you, Sora, you can go with Jack alone, right? Donald an' I can go hang out with Santa. You know, safely on the ground.”
The Keyblade Master pouted. Did they not trust him and Jack? Oh well. It'd still be awesome, getting to be Santa for a night!
Santa, Goofy, and Donald watched the two board the big red sleigh nervously. But as soon as it began to rise, the latter two had sudden doubts. “Ya know, Donald...they're driving okay...and it kind of looks like fun!”
Donald agreed. “But it's too late, now, so--”
He was cut off by Sora's sudden question. “So, Jack...how fast do you think this thing can go?”
“I've no idea! Rudolph! Full speed ahead!”
As the sleigh zooms dangerously off, narrowly missing the Gummi ship, Santa's workshop, and several trees, Goofy and Donald exchange glances. “No. It's a good thing we're not on it.”
“You're right.”
And Santa just sighed. “Now why am I letting them do this again...?”
For okami_hu, from syvia
Title: Substitution
Word count: 900
Spoilers: for KH2 if anything
Notes: Rated 'R', mild but explicit sexual content, yaoi. Demyx-centric
"So what're you up to this time, Roxas?"
Sora flinched- fluked around- his Keyblade in hand before he caught sight of the Nobody- who leaned against a rocky outcropping on the canyon wall. He grinned a little, spiky Mohawk waving in the current. Sora narrowed his eyes.
There wasn't anything to do in between musicals- Ariel had disappeared again, maybe up to the surface, maybe she'd shut herself in her grotto, but Goofy thought she should have some alone-time either way.
Sora'd been bored.
So he went out for a swim.
Which- as it now seemed, was a bad idea.
The kid was annoyed. He could relate to that... well, not really, but he could remember stuff like that still!
Weird coincidence, meeting Roxas here. Demyx hadn't even come to Atlantica looking to stir up trouble. The atmosphere kicked ass and the mer-people rocked- literally.
Still- since he was here-
"So, how ya doin?
The Keyblade Bearer narrowed his eyes.
Damn- familiar glare.
"What are you doing here?" Sora glared.
Demyx grinned tentatively. "I like it here..."
"You don't have emotions."
"Yeah we-"
"I didn't believe you before, and I don't believe you now."
It all went downhill from there.
Sora- Roxas- either... and possibly both of them- drew back the Keyblade and charged through the water.
Demyx sighed, rolled his eyes and started to play.
Sora swam right up to him- swung his keyblade- a foot to the left of Demyx' head as a sudden current caught and spun him around. He turned again, swung, missed on the right. He slashed crossways- and found Demyx a yard out of his range.
They did this for some time.
Demyx was sure Sora would remember his power any time now... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaany time.
Then again- Roxas had never known when to quit.
Demyx played a sharp chord- Sora was flung head-over-tail, Keyblade knocking into his forehead- stunning him. Demyx shifted off the rock- the translucent organ he now had instead of hips expanded and contracted- propelling him upwards.
His oral arms and tentacles drifted, twitching gently as he moved through the water. He stopped, sank a bit, then moved again, upwards. He couldn't move all that quickly, but he didn't need to.
Sora blinked- then stared at him- wide-eyed.
By the time he turned to flee, tentacles coiled around the boy's arms, chest and tail- dispensing toxin as Demyx played a lullaby.
He smiled as he drew Sora in- watching the Keyblade. It disappeared, and Demyx waited for a few seconds more, then dispelled his sitar, catching the kid's arm and pulling him upwards.
He loved being a jellyfish. ...Well, Sora probably didn't think he could, but he did.
Demyx pulled the kid into his arms and grinned. Unconscious. He kept humming the lullaby, running his fingers through brown spikes... soft... wet. The dolphin tail was smooth, firm but yielding. He stroked it idly and looked at the kid when he murmured, tail rolling towards the touch.
Dolphin.
Demyx started to smirk.
Sora blinked, moaning, and felt something slimy, constricting, on his wrists.
He blinked and shook his head, looking down... seaweed?
He tugged at it- couldn't get it off-
"Hey! So- what do ya call a room with no doors?"
Sora jerked his head around "You-!"
"Don't guess 'mushroom'," Demyx urged. "Everyone guesses 'mushroom'."
Sora looked wildly around- they seemed to be in a cave... with no doors.
"It's a Keyblade Master's prison cell!" he said cheerfully.
Huge blue eyes fixed on him- totally open, shocked.
Emotional.
Nice.
"Wha... what do you want?" Sora asked- trying to sound tough.
Demyx smiled.
"What?"
The Nocturne frowned. "I thought it made sense when I explained."
Sora continued to stare at him mutely.
He sighed loudly. "Look- Roxas made Axel feel like he had a heart. I wanna see if you can do it for me."
"But you want to-"
"Axel jerked Roxas off all the time!"
"I don't know who Roxas is, but I'm not him!" he pleaded.
Demyx pouted. "Awwww, c'mon! You'll like it and I'll let you go after!"
Sora recoiled. "I don't wanna."
"You don't even have to do anything!"
Silence.
"...Yanno... right now, lots of Heartless are-"
"Alright, fine!"
Demyx nipped pale skin- the nape of Sora's neck, running his hands over the seam where dolphin turned into human.
His penis- oddly human-like in the middle of blue sea-mammal flesh, poked out, leaking.
The Melodious Nocturne stroked that as well- moved lips and tongue over the kid's skin- sucking on the pulse point just beneath his chin.
Dolphins were the horn-dogs of the sea, and Sora was a teenager. He didn't last long.
Demyx pulled him close, felt the shuddering, jerking muscles. His tentacles would only cause pain, so he didn't use them. Sora gasped and whimpered, and came.
They hung in the water, drifting.
The Nobody was still... touching him. He was still a little hard.
Sora didn't say anything, waiting.
What if he did it again? What if he didn't?
Translucent tentacles shifted the water near his tail. One hand was spread over his heart. The other rested near the slit that had closed around his... semi hard-on.
It retracted. That freaked Sora out even more. He really hadn't noticed before.
Act tough- arrogant... like Riku. No idiot- don't think of Riku right now!
"Okay. Let me go now."
The Nobody sighed. He... sounded really disappointed. "Yeah."
For thano from lazzchan
[Title] First Impressions
[Word Count] 322
[Rating] Gen
Notes: You did say that you wanted the Radiant Garden crew, so I went back to when it was still Radiant Garden. Hope this is okay and that you like!
Aerith had only been a young girl when she visited Ansem the Wise in his study. Not all the residents got to see the man, of course-but she knew Kairi and the little princess had been a great favorite of the philosopher.
Her first impression was of a young, dignified looking man, one hand holding a sheaf of documents while the other held a stick of sea-salt ice cream. Kairi was fidgeting next to her, obviously eager to introduce her friend to Ansem.
A hidden door opened enough to permit a young man, hair falling into his face as he observed Kairi, Ansem and her in turn. Aerith felt a chill run down her spine as the eyes lingered on her and she resisted the urge to rub her arms in reaction.
"Ansem-I have the results that you requested. I feel that these claims would … best serve our purposes; everything I have backs it up and I'm sure that even you will find no fault with my research."
His voice was calm-gaze direct on the philosopher-and Ansem looked up, ice cream forgotten in his hand as he gave a slow nod. "Let me see this then, Ienzo. I will not give in so easily to what I forbid before-" he seemed to finally notice Aerith and Kairi standing there and gave them a sheepish smile.
"This isn't the best time, little Kairi. I'll meet up with your new friend later. I'll buy you some ice cream to make up for it." Kairi gave an eager nod and rushed to give the man a quick hug, never noticing the way Ienzo stared at her. Aerith suddenly wanted to get far away-away from the chill that Ienzo's smooth words brought with him.
She didn't want to know what type of research they were doing-and even her young, twelve-year old self could feel the dark winds approaching.
For schizo_niko from okami_hu
Title: Wild Joke
Rating: G/PG
Word Count: 338
The smoke cleared away, and as the body was dragged off sight, Xigbar returned to the saloon with a triumphant smile. Oh, how he loved it here, with the good whiskey, the endless prairie, and the smell of gunpowder in the morning!
"Don't you think you overdid it a little...?" Demyx frowned at him. "I was _really_ kissing his girl."
"Bullcrap, blondie!" the Freeshooter exclaimed. "You don't even know how to kiss a girl!"
Some of the men laughed, and the Nocturne's face turned red. His blue eyes darkened from anger, but slowly, a smile spread out on his lips. "But I know how to kiss a guy, right? You can't deny that."
Xigbar was too busy counting the soft clicks, which indicated the cocking of a gun. Around here, buggery used to get you hanged. Or shot. None of those are pleasant experiences, even if you're a Nobody.
"Rright, Xigbar?" Demyx purred, snuggling close with the most evil glint in his sea-colored gaze. "You taught me well-"
Xigbar started to sweat. Stupid kid! He'll have to come up with something witty to say, and pronto...!
But in the end, he didn't need to. Demyx released him with a laugh, then grabbed his wench's waist, to kiss her properly. The girl blushed a bit, and the blond youth waved his hand nonchalantly. "Calm down, everybody, I was just pulling a joke. My good old friend is a manly man-" he winked at the wench - "and we're willing to prove it. Right, Xigbar?"
The Freeshooter grinned back. "Damn right, you devil! Hey, free round for everybody!" At the mention of the booze, the mood lightened noticeably. Demyx and the girl headed upstairs and Xigbar drowned his own glass of firewater wine. Damn that kid...! He had more in him than they usually admitted.
Tipping his hat to the barkeep, Xigbar walked after the giggling pair. Yeah. He'll prove his manliness, no doubt about it. And after that - he'll have a little private time with Demyx. Just to teach him some discipline.
For dusknobody from sister_coyote
Title: Obligation
Characters: Demyx, Dancers, Zexion
Words: 200
Rating: PG
Summary: They are his, and he struggles to be worthy of them.
He called them Dancers for the way they moved: sleek, fluid, moving as though to a rhythm of their own. When they came to him, that first
day, that first hour that he lacked his heart, and pressed their blind heads to the floor before him, he said, "Oh -- oh -- I don't -- "
"They are yours to command," Zexion said coolly.
"Mine? But -- "
"They recognize you. They pledge their fealty willingly." He folded his arms and looked at Demyx from under the fringe of his hair. "Will you give them names, at least?"
He looked at them, as they rose gracefully from their obeisance to stand before him, swaying to a music that he could not hear. "Dancers," he said. "My Dancers."
They danced without music, so he made music for them to dance to, calling the sitar to his hands. They obeyed him without question, so he invented commands for them to obey. They were his, so he struggled to be worthy of their devotion.
"Why me?" he asked them, without pause in his playing, as they swayed and bowed to the time of his music.
They had nothing to say but the dance.
For lindskaba from tabitha_dornoc
Title: Because You Won't
Word Count: 654
Rating: R
“This is my witch,” DiZ introduces, gives the girl a hidden look before she swallows and reaches out her hand, palm sideways. Riku slips his hand around hers, shaking it. Her skin is numb and blank and so thin he can feel her pulse where his thumb touches the inside of her wrist.
Go away go away don’t stay, it says.
*
Cutting makeshift doorways from one world to another is long and bone weary. Riku’s hands ache from grasping his blade too tightly, his feet might well be made of stone and his skin feels itchy from sweat, dirt and fever. His shoulders dip and ache with the horrible burden of failure.
“No luck?” DiZ calls from the second floor, calmly watching as Riku trudges the stairs one at a time instead of his usual two.
“I will find that nobody,” Riku scowls. DiZ nods, places his hand on Riku’s elbow.
“I know.” And maybe Riku really does have a fever, because DiZ’s fingers on his open skin are cold and dead, and somehow send shivers skittering across his spine like knives.
*
“I may have a lead for you,” DiZ says mildly. “If you think you need it.” And it must only be the electronic glow from his network of computers that make his eyes gleam so strangely, so darkly so - (go away, go away, don’t stay).
*
“I think I’m starting to piece together his pattern. The direction he’s moving in,” Riku says, leaning chin against upturned palm. “I may find him tomorrow even.”
“Don’t be so optimistic you grow careless,” DiZ warns sternly, not unkindly. And it’s surely because his own parents didn’t touch him often as a child that Riku’s stomach now curls and recoils at DiZ’s comforting stroke and press down his arm.
*
She’s not a witch. She’s a ghost. Haunting corridors and shadowed corners; peering out at him when he thinks he’s alone. Her fingers grab the hem of his coat as he brushes by, and the small sound her throat makes shouldn’t come from anyone over the age of four. And if she doesn’t haunt places, her eyes certainly haunt people. Because she looks at him, and looks, and she knows she knows she knows.
*
Riku once tried to kiss a boy. Tentative and nervous, he almost allowed Sora and himself to mutually steal each other’s first kisses. But Sora blinked and turned his face at the last moment, so unaware of what Riku’s leaning meant. Riku had laughed and pretended nothing large and new had been killed before it had even fully formed. But still, his fingers tightened into fists at the loss of that first kiss.
So maybe it is strange, when he does get this kiss now, his hands are fisted again. But at least the fists have purpose this time. Because the more he clenches his fingers, the more control he gains on the acid now threatening to dissolve him from the inside out.
*
Before, when Ansem was a seductive voice in his mind that caressed and taunted and falsely loved, Riku thought he knew what it was like to be fucked raw. His mind bleeding and ravished and nogoingback.
He tells himself there are worse situations to have yourself be proven wrong. But lying here, with his face to a bed that smells old, musty and not-right, he can’t think of a single one.
*
The creak of the door opening makes his jaw clench fiercely and brings bile to the back of his throat. But the footsteps across his floor are too light to be... It’s the little witch child, and she’s crawling over him, squirming between the sheets and - oh.
“Why are you crying?” he asks, voice dead and heart hopefully becoming so. The girl twists in the covers, pressing her nose against his neck and spooning her body to his.
“Because you won’t.”
For tabitha_dornoc from xxmyfearsmylies
Title: Cherries and Hot Chocolate
Word Count: 579
Rating: G
Notes: I had a whole other drabble written on my
sister's computer, but it was definitely not what I
really wanted. Happy holidays~! :D
"Ever try hot chocolate with whipped cr-"
Before Sora could finish his sentence, Kairi, Namine, Riku, and Roxas exchanged confused looks and nodded like he was from another planet.
Sora pouted his lower lip out. Whipped cream, marshmallows, and cinnamon shakers were lined up across the table in the beach house, along with
unnecessarily hot chocolate. "I didn't finish. Geeze, you guys." Namine giggled involuntarily and reached for the cinnamon, "I was about to say, have you guys ever tried hot chocolate with whipped cream and a cherry?"
This time, they all exchanged slightly frightened looks. "Why do you bring this up?" Riku asked, topping his steaming beverage with whipped cream.
"Becauuuse," Sora dragged out, pausing to cool off his hot chocolate by fanning the surface. "I've tried it, and it's pretty good."
They sat in silence. Kairi coughed a little upon inhaling the steam. Sora didn't seem to notice the awkward silence and pushed on. "In meaning, I want
some cherries to put in my hot chocolate."
Kairi sighed and stood up, rummaging around the cupboards. Roxas stirred around his mug and stared into it for a second. "Y'know..." he picked up the
whipped cream and applied a good helping to his beverage. "Cherries do sound good right about now."
Sora beamed at him. "Yes! You gotta taste it. I mean, you'd think it-"
He was silenced by a peck on the cheek from Kairi. After he closed the gaping hole in his face, Kairi opened Sora's hand for him, deposited four cherries
into his palm, and closed his fingers around it. She smiled and rolled her eyes. "I don't even get a thanks?"
Sora blushed and told her, "I- w- for what? The cherries or the kiss?" and then it was Riku's turn to roll his eyes. "Newly coupled-ers." He made a snorting noise.
Namine smiled and looked over at Roxas who was stock still, eyes glued on Kairi, whose arms were now around Sora's neck, lovingly. She peered at his eyes from below. "Roxas? You okay? You look kind of pale."
Snapping back to the present, Roxas blinked and looked downcast. "Uhh... yeah... just tired..." He rose from his chair and moved towards the door. "I'm, uh, gonna go back home to rest..."
Roxas's mind was cloudy. He thought of how happy they could have been, Axel and him. Laughing, smiling, and doing the same "newly coupled" things Sora and Kairi did. But Axel wasn't coming back. Roxas felt woozy and lost the power in his knees to walk on.
Namine, furrow brow-ed, hurried over to his aid. "Roxas, please." She laid her hand on his shoulder. "I know who you're thinking of-" gulping as
though choking, she continued- "but we won't have as good of a time without you. Best friends."
Behind him, Roxas could feel the warmth of three other smiles and nods. He looked up at her.
Namine parted her lips and smiled. "I'll try a hot chocolate with a cherry if you do."
He suddenly felt lifted up; this was the present, he had so many questions answered and friends to help him if he ever needed it.
For the first time in a while, Roxas truly, truly smiled. "You're on."
For xxmyfearsmylies from schizo_niko
Title: Favours
Word Count: 1,142 (ech, went a bit over...)
Rating: PG
It was common knowledge that the smaller your number was, the more respect you received and, in proportion, how you were treated, which were often two different things. For example, number two, Xigbar, may have been second-in-command, but Larxene found him to be rude, crude, and old, a view that she would do nothing more than hint at for fear of being seriously harmed for it.
It was elders such as Xigbar that she carved a very large arc around. Though she was clever and sharp-tongued, it suited Larxene to be around the larger numbers better. In fact, the only two people she respected inside and out were Xemnas and Marluxia. Luxord was a good guy but he was dreadfully jovial. Axel was just as clever as she was but in a different way: Axel often joked; Larxene meant everything she said.
The order of the numbers was something she was, even through all of this picking and choosing, painfully aware of, which is why it was strange to her to be treated with reverence by someone superior to her-Demyx.
He was a smart creature and a funny one too, but his only drawback was his mindset; everything was easy, in his mind, perhaps because he was very intelligent and had been used to slacking off and still succeeding. When faced with something that wasn’t easy, however, that was when he quit before he started or asked for help.
The asking for help part was the worst.
“Larxene, could you do me a favour?” he asked in the spring, a mere month after they’d found him. He was still in basic training, tied to the Superior’s schedule. “I know it’s not really your kind of magic, but I’m reaaaaally sore…”
He was right; cure magic was not her specialty. Rather than admitting she’d never done a spell of that kind in her life, she outright refused and told him to suck it up.
Drifting in and out of the castle doors to one world or another, occasionally looking his way and finding his eyes upon her.
“Can you do me a favour, Larxene?” he asked in the summer before she left to survey the new castle, Castle Oblivion. “While you’re there, could you bring me something back?”
“Like what?” she said with a sigh, tossing her hips to the side. Yes, hips-they existed, the only prominent pair in the Organisation. “Run out and get yourself a souvenir. You goof off on missions as it is. Go on, I won’t tell.”
“You’re cruel,” he replied with a knowing squint of the eyes.
Relief when she’d come home. It wasn’t time for Oblivion to be used yet, but the pieces-the boy-were falling into place.
Watching her train endlessly into autumn, the world around them looking no different, ever, and saying “Larxene, do me a favour and teach me how to do that.”
The strange rubbery sensation of her skin when he accidentally touched her arm, bared as it was with her dressed in a loose white shirt (the coats were for serious business), the static that laced up Demyx’s flesh and raised his hairs on end. Even the tangled, dirty blond mass of hair on his head rose, each individual strand charged until he planted his feet firmly on the ground.
Larxene falling asleep in the midst of a hot bath one night, dozing until it got cold, dreaming that it was not water but his touch, the man made of liquid, and she smiled ruefully as she often did and reached to touch him, forgetting about her electricity until it was terminal. She woke with a start and splash when his eyes widened, dead, in the wake of the shock.
No. He should not have been asking her favours. He was her superior; he should have acted like it. What was this, what did he think it was? Being polite? Larxene was not one for being stepped on but Demyx was going to be the stepping stone himself if he kept this up.
The other worlds eventually lapsed into something called ‘snow’, a strange cold medium of water that Demyx was thrilled for and Larxene found to be, at best, a bother, because she had to be careful with her powers while trudging through it, lest one of her cohorts be standing in it and get the life shocked out of them.
The favours kept coming. It occurred to Larxene that perhaps this was his way of exercising his higher number, but the way he asked them didn’t make sense. It was easy, friendly from his mouth, as though asking her to take him, humble as he was, and teach him what she knew. He was exactly that, humble.
When he brought the strange electric lights home, like candies on a string, Larxene found them to be fascinating if not a little childish. She thought, you little lights have no clue how to use that power, do you?
The first string he brought was accidentally, or so it was said, shorted out by her.
The second was already damaged when Demyx showed it to her, and it was another favour he asked of her. “Larxene, can you do something for me? Is there a way to bring this back to life? Can you do it?”
She did.
He didn’t ask for help arranging them in his room; really, Larxene didn’t know why he wanted anything to do with the likes of electricity. When asked, he said it reminded him of her. In response, Larxene insulted him. Demyx just smiled.
The very last favour he asked of her, on the coldest, shortest day, was the most important. The only important one.
With her nose in a book she made to exit the castle, hoping to accomplish the mission as quickly as possible. She was so startled when someone grabbed her arm, someone coming from the other direction, that the short burst of charge she sent through him was genuinely accidental.
When she looked up from the book, there he was, hair in a frazzled mess, the remnants of snow still on his coat, melting into oblivion. He rubbed his arms hastily, swearing at the painful tingles going down them. When they finally abated, Larxene asked him what he wanted, and the answer came.
“I just got back and I was thinking, while I was out there. So, can you do me a favour?”
She learned to stop asking questions and wait for him to speak his mind.
“Can you kiss me?”
It struck her first as sort of sickeningly romantic and shy, but his eyebrows were locked down in a jester-like way and his thin shoulders were held back.
“Do it yourself,” she finally growled, just in time to fight off the slightly perturbed red flush on her cheeks.
He did.
For anzila from kissingchaos
Title: the drifts
Words: 240
Rating: G
the drifts
(when you gonna love you as much as I do?)
"You're going to catch cold if you stay out here like this, you know."
Aerith turned, silver bracelets jingling softly against each other as she raised a hand in greeting. "I know better. I just got a little caught up here, I guess."
Leon stood on the crumbling edge of the bailey with his arms crossed, his chin tucked into his collar. He watched her silently, unwilling to break the fragile peace of the evening with any further admonishment.
Snow fell thickly, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight, blanketing the ravine trails and bluff in a heavy layer of powder. Aerith lifted her face to the sky, delighting in the sensation of snow melting on her cheeks. Perhaps it was cold, but it wasn't often one could see Hollow Bastion --no, Radiant Garden-- in such a state of utter stillness.
Wordlessly, Leon hopped down to join her on the cliff. He removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders.
"Beautiful, don't you think?" Aerith asked softly as she turned her eyes back to the horizon. Her cheeks were flushed with cold, her face framed by snow-spangled auburn bangs and thick, white fur. She smiled then, and it was like watching the sun rise -- he blinked as the wind kicked up, sending snow spinning around her furiously in a brief, violent storm.
"Absolutely," he breathed, and she did not notice that he was paying no attention to the landscape.
For sister_coyote from euphonious_glow
Title: Wild Blood
Characters: Read to find out :)
Word Count: 1097
Rating: PG
Notes: I hope you like this, Sister Coyote!
Wild Blood
He arrived in a forest. The trees were merely shadows in the darkness, but he knew them by the scent of life and growing things. The smell brought back memories: of cool green moss and brown earth, broken twigs and half-hidden tracks in the leaves. Xaldin breathed deep for a moment (but only just--he had a duty to fulfill). Memories were the only precious things a Nobody could have.
He remembered the many autumn and winter days when he had hiked the steep paths of Radiant Garden's forests, bow and quiver strapped to his back and a knife attached to his belt. He had become familiar with nearly every acre of the forests, and knew which animal life and food sources to expect in each area. From adolescence he had been familiar with the bow, and his hands were calloused from much use. Many days he'd brought home a catch for his family, and later when he had lived alone he ate fresh meat nearly every night. Even when he was in the service of Ansem the Wise, he continued to seek a peaceful retreat to the shelter under the trees.
At twenty he built his own house, with timber from the forests he walked, grasses and mud from the wildlands on the outer perimeter of the Garden, and dwelt there in solitude. His was the heart of a hunter, and even in death the old urges could not be destroyed.
Now he hunted with spears instead of arrows, and the wind was his ally instead of his foe. His prey was also of a different kind; he sought hearts instead of animals, although both were game to him.
He braced his shoulders resolutely and started walking. Now was not the time for reverie; not when there was fresh prey to capture.
Dead leaves crunched beneath his boots; this world was in its autumnal phase. The season of death, when the trees lost their life-essence and slept in a comatose state, bereft of their beauty. It was oddly appropriate. Nobodies would never have another summer in the cold dampness of the Nonexistent World. And yet Xaldin did not miss it; he had made his decision, when he had willingly followed Ienzo into the darkness (And Ansem thought Xehanort was the puppeteer?). He regretted nothing.
In fact, a Nobody had many advantages over a human. Xaldin's senses were sharpened immensely. His eyes could penetrate the darkness like those of a cat. His ears picked up the slightest sound, the smallest rustle of leaves or lightest footsteps. He also had another sense, awareness of living beings and the ability to communicate silently to his comrades. The loss of petty emotions was no huge disappointment.
Soon he encountered a pair of tall iron gates, shut against intruders. But he was a Nobody. He feared no human constraints. Like a winter breeze Xaldin sifted his body through the spaces in the iron bars. His body solidified and he moved forward again.
He crossed a bridge of stone spanning a quiet stream, and passed through a pair of a thick doors. He was standing at the corner of a large courtyard. Moonlight cast a pale glow across the gray stones, illuminating several carved statues, standing motionless. Xaldin glanced with mild interest at the images blunt with age and harsh weather. Of more concern to him was the castle that imposed over the courtyard. It was old and crumbling, an ugly rough thing. It was completely different than the smooth, colorless architecture of his Castle. Xaldin thought he liked the change. One could tell much about a man by his possessions.
He began to stride toward the castle wall, an invisible figure in the dark of the courtyard, as his body cast no shadow (for something that did not exist could not impair light).
Slipping under the cracks between the heavy wooden front doors and the stone foundation was a simple task. The entrance hall was dark and silent. Xaldin tucked back his long braided hair with one hand and with the other raised the hood of his coat. For tonight, his task required mystery, and inspiring fear. To give his prey eyes to look into, a face to remember, would limit his ability. For tonight, he was nobody.
The creature once called Prince Alexander St. Claire thrust open the doors of his bedchamber, his blood still boiling from an argument with the girl. It was so tiresome, dealing with her--
He stopped. Someone was in his room. Someone was in his room!
"Welcome, Prince." The voice was deep and mocking, with a strange hollow quality, as though the speaker was not entirely there. It seemed to come out of the darkness like a winter draft.
"Who are you?" the Beast exclaimed, clawed hands clenched furiously. "You have no right to be here!" A figure stepped from the shadows. He seemed to be swathed in darkness. The Beast grabbed a candlestick near his hand and lit it with fumbling hands. The light seemed to be swallowed in the stranger's clothing. Only the man's eyes reflected any light; they were deep and blue and something inhuman, like shadows under the trees at midnight. He felt his heart stricken with fear.
"To answer your question, I am called Xaldin." He stood straight with soldier's precision, arms clasped behind him, perfectly at ease. He expressed no amazement at Beast's appearance. This disturbed the Beast more than anything else.
"What do you want?" he growled, ashamed at the blatant fear in his voice.
"What I want is not your concern," the stranger, Xaldin said. "But, for now, I'll accept what you have to give me."
"I will give you nothing!" the Beast snarled, striking out at the dark figure. His claws grabbed at air. There was a burst of sharp, cold laughter behind him. The Beast turned, stumbling, saw Xaldin standing beside his precious rose.
"You will do as I say, Beast." His tone clearly showed he expected no argument. "I know of the girl who stays within this castle."
Belle! His breathing was heavy, enraged. "A village wench. She means nothing to me!"
"Is that so?" said Xaldin, gesturing with a black gloved hand. "Shall I kill her then, since she is no consequence to you?"
"No!" The Beast inhaled deeply, attempting to calm his anger. His fears were answered, then. He did care for the girl. It hardly seemed possible. "Leave Belle out of this, or I'll kill you."
Xaldin laid his hand over the glass case of the rose, his intention clear. "Then, you had better start listening to me."
For i_got_spunk from dusknobody
Beta-ed by crimsoncookie
Sunlight starbright on palm fronds stretching against blue black sunset sky. White sand foam froth playing under shadows in warm cold warm washes serves for the snow that will never fall.
Slender hands carefully hang the stockings - one, two, three - around the trunk.
One for the partridge, waiting waiting waiting in the palm tree -
Two for the calling bird, crying: he's not real. There is no Santa Claus, he's not real, not real -
Three for the one she can't remember, the one who flew after the calling bird, listening to his cries; did he believe them? Did he doubt?
She can't remember, so she hangs the stockings, one, two, three - one for belief, two for doubt, and three for whatever was or will be.
For lazzchan from moonygirl
Title: Entity
Word count: 104
Rating: PG-13
To love one self was a sin. Roxas had never heard this but he knew this in the back of his mind. He was under no illusion that it was something he had learn rather it was something his other must have known.
Sora’s memories were constantly being blended with Roxas’ almost to the point where even Roxas was having problems telling what memories belong to whom. Roxas wanted lines between them, wanted to visible see the difference between Sora and him.
He needed lines, he didn’t want to just blend in with Sora, he wanted to be a separate entity away from Sora.
For kissingchaos from sabbato
Title: Understanding and Realization
Word Count: 168
Rating: PG
Water rises and falls. Flowing steady no matter what blocks it's path. The soft blue pastel moves cautiously across the paper, imitating the effect as it's moved down and thinned out by small pale fingers. Concentrating hard, the colours blend to form the sea, the sky, the land, the dark reds and oranges make perfect for an island sunset.
The blond girl only smiles to herself as she continues to play and move her fingers in time, mimicking water as she uses just her fingers and the pastels to create something beautiful. A warm smile crossed her lips as she left the sketchbook on the table open to the page she was working on.
Colours aside, she drew somebody important to her - red hair, blue eyes, and a smile to make others not help but smile. The sweet gentle tide in the background, and everything flows as it is meant to be.
Naminé knew that one day she would be seeing that smile...and wearing it for others.
For syvia from crimsoncookie
Title: Figures
Word Count: 730
Rating: G
Notes: Post-game; some spoilers.
"-thought of that before you painted the ship neon!"
"The King's goin' to Christmas Town. I thought it'd be, uh, festive." A tiny gloved paw swung out, parting the heavy cloak of evergreens bedecking the entrance to the Gummi Garage. "But y'know, I got the paint all mixed up-" Snow crunched twice, then stopped. "Chip, it's cold out here."
A black nose peeked through the curtain of greenery. "I know, Dale, it's win-" Another frost-crunch, then an undignified squeak. "It's cold!"
"That's what I said."
"Well, you can-" Chip stumbled out through the draping branches, dusted white powdery pawprints from his engineer's apron, and looked up. "-uh-oh."
Dale popped out behind him, a small explosion of fur and snow and bright red nose. "I can uh-oh?"
"Shh-shh-shh." Chip pointed across the path towards the newly-planted topiary - a shadow, for all the hearts still lost to darkness - and the silvery slivery form swaying in front of it, reaching a shapeless hand to the frozen leaves forming antennae.
"A Dusk?" Dale twitched behind Chip's shoulder, his messy fur fluffing out even further as he watched the figure bend and wave, a slender snow-creature drifting with the flurries. "We should call the guards! The King! The Keyblade mas-what's it doing?"
"It's…" Chip watched the hood unzip, the jagged mouth underneath tilt to the sky, opening and closing. "…catching snowflakes?"
"Oh!" Dale brightened. "Hey, I do that, too!"
"Shhh!" Chip pulled Dale back, tucking them into the shade of the evergreen boughs. "You're not a Nobody! Though you might be as empty-heade-"
"-Aww, Chip." Dale scuffed a foot through the snow. "It's just a little one. Maybe it used to be a kid or somethin'." The Dusk bounded up, leaping for a bright cluster of flakes and collapsing in a tangle of limbs. "It's havin' fun. Look, it even brought a friend." He flipped a paw towards the duck(though Donald and Daisy both protested the term, as they preferred warm baths, especially in such weather) pond, where a sinuous Nobody was twisting perfect figure-thirteens across the icy surface.
Chip's fur bristled until it was almost as messy as his friend's. "That's a Dancer!"
"Well, sure, Chip. Look at it go!" Dale admired the smoothness for both strokes of the X, the leaps into the lines of each I. "D'you think we could do that?"
"Come-on-come-on-come-on!" Chip grabbed Dale's paw, tugging him determinedly towards the castle stairs, admiration and all. "We've got to tell the King and Queen!"
"Aww, Chip…" But Dale followed, ears drooping, free paw stuck in the pocket of his apron. "C'mon. There's no more of those Organization fellows, 'cept Roxas and he's Sora now, Goofy said. These guys are probably just lonely."
"Look what it's making!" The Dusk had been scooping up snow in its hand-shapes, patting it awkwardly into the beginnings of an Organization coat. Chip flipped around from where he'd already began to climb. "You see?"
"Aww, they don't know any better." Dale hopped back down off the first step. "I'll show 'em!" Ignoring Chip's frantic squeaks and hisses, he scrambled in over around the snowdrifts until he rolled to a halt at the swaying feet of the Dusk. It looked down at him blankly, arms frozen in the act of adding a zipper.
"Now, see," Dale said, looking up to meet where the Nobody's eyes should be, "You can't be doin' that here. They're all gone." He held up a small ball of snow, rolled it across the ground. The Dusk watched. "Try doin'…" He stuck two more balls on top, clumsily shaped a crown. "…this!"
The Dusk wavered. Picked up some snow. Added it to the zipper.
"Aww…" Dale's chin dropped. "That's not how it goes."
"Dale! Come on!" Chip was almost vibrating.
"Keep tryin', okay?" Shoulders hunched, Dale trudged back across the frozen ground to where his friend waited. "I guess you're right. Let's go'n tell the King and Queen."
"Well, I told you!" Chip patted him on the shoulder. "But cheer up! It didn't eat you - and maybe the King'll forget about the neon."
"Yeah, I guess…" Their small voices quieted as they trooped up the stairs, leaving the Nobodies behind.
On the lake, the slender figure turned in its endless thirteens, spinning into one circle, another, then another - a tracing of mouse-ears, fading in the falling snow.
For kunoichi_life from lindskaba
Title: Secret
Word Count: 779 (GAH)
Notes: I could absolutely say a whole bunch of things about this
drabble or leave profuse apologies, but I guess I'll just say enjoy?
They trade gifts-little things, like shells or stones or trinkets spun from string. They do it secretly, hiding the presents in each other's jackets, pockets, bags-somewhere they'll be found. Too many times,Sora's slipped on his shoe and felt a familiar prick against his toes.Riku likes to put things there; makes Sora jump every time.
This time it's a shark's tooth, stained green with seaweed.
Grinning, Sora bores a hole through the enamel and strings the tooth around his neck.
--
Sora can't remember who brought Kairi into the tradition, or when. He only knows that since then, he's received more gifts than ever before.He can usually tell who they're from-an arrowhead from Riku, a shiny stone from Kairi-but the secrecy is half the fun, isn't it?
"Island at 3:00, okay?" Riku calls one morning as Sora passes him in the hall. His face seems unusually bright.
"Right!"
In first period, Kairi is wearing a comb in her hair that's crafted from shells.
Between fourth and fifth period, Sora sneaks into Riku's locker-he cracked the combination long ago, Riku is so predictable-and sets down a black and red yarn-spun bracelet. It's admittedly a little shabby,fraying a bit at the edges-but when the trio meets up on the island that afternoon, it's tied around Riku's left wrist.
Kairi weaves a bouquet of wildflowers into the strap of her bag.
--
One Friday morning, something shiny catches Sora's eye from the bottom of his book bag.
He can usually tell who they're from. But this…
It's hung on a thick and intricate chain, glittering and set in gold: a charm, shaped like a crown.
When he shows up to lunch with the charm around his neck, he receives an unexpected kiss from Kairi-on his cheek, which turns bright red. "What was that for?"
"Nothing."
Riku is unusually silent.
--
Riku has taken to watching the ocean.
Sora and Kairi build castles in the sand and fish off the dock while Riku perches on the island off the east sore, hunched tense against the trunk of a paopu tree
Sora still finds little presents among his things. Today, there's a small purple stone set expectantly at the bow of his boat; it glistens scarlet in the afternoon sun. He attaches it to an old piece of string, next to a shark's tooth stained green with seaweed. He slips the whole thing into his pocket.
He can usually tell who they're from, and they're all from Kairi these days.
--
"How come you never leave us presents anymore?"
Silver hair half shields Riku's face when he turns; Sora can't quite see his eyes. "What?"
He shifts slightly, kicking his feet. "You know, that game we used to play when we were kids, where we'd leave each other presents and… I dunno, Kairi and I still do it, and I was just wondering why-"
"Oh that?" He breathes. "Huh… I guess I just grew out of it. It's childish. Besides, there are more important things to do now with the raft and everything, right?"
"…Right."
That evening, he notices that the black and red bracelet on Riku's left wrist is gone.
--
They've stayed late on the island tonight watching the sun set from the docks. Riku insisted that they finish the raft tonight, and when both Sora and Kairi had protested, he'd swept off alone, muttering something about finishing it himself.
They wander. Sora holds Kairi's shoes lazily behind his head while she tiptoes barefoot into the surf, bending over periodically to collect trinkets from the sand.
Somehow, they end up in the tree house, back to back in the dark. Across the island, Sora can make out Riku's form in the shadows of the raft, leaning against the mast.
"Kairi… What did you mean before, when you said Riku's changed?"
Her voice is quiet when she answers. "Never mind, Sora, it's nothing."
"But-"
"Don't worry about it, really." Her back shifts against his, and he can feel her breath gentle on his neck. When he turns his head to look, she's smiling at him, her face touched by moonlight. "Just focus on tomorrow, okay? It'll be a big day."
"…Okay." Somehow, it's all he can say.
With a slight nod, she faces forward again.
Sora remains with his head turned for a moment, watching the curve of Kairi's cheek. It takes him a moment to notice the little star-shaped thing half-formed in her hands. "What are you working on?"
She turns, and smiles; it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Silly. Not everything I make is for you, you know."
In the distance, the waves hum.
"Right."
For crimsoncookie from thano
Title: Snare
Word Count: 936
Rating: PG -13
Notes: Congratulations, Crim, I am your Secret Santa; me, probably one of the sole members to whom smut is totally alien. X3 You have some fantastic luck. I really didn't want to get into the mechanics for threesomes, so I sadly put away your request for some bittersweet OT3 away for a rainy day. Marluxia and Naminé I just cannot write, for the life of me... Maybe it just scares me. O.o; And then I considered your other request... Oh god, for a pairing I don't quite understand, Saix and Kairi. I tried my absolute best to understand the dynamics between them, and... Well, here's my best shot. XD WARNING: I wrote half of this partially hopped-up on Theraflu and stuff, so... Just warning you. =3
How far? she asks the blue-black silhouette, hands tight on the bars of her cage. How far are you willing to take this? The figure doesn't flinch, a statue chiseled from the marble white walls of the castle. Kairi counts the rise and fall of his shoulders; one, two, three to get ready, and four to thread her arms between and reach and say, Please, sir; please, let me go. I want to see Sora.
And suddenly, that's all he wants to see. He shudders, making Kairi jump back from the bars and land on her backside hard (she's seen him in her nightmares against Axel, who, for all his bravado, all his grins and sharp words, still sinks down to his knees, coughing, watching with an expression of despair that she is sure belongs to someone else as the berserker drags his prey off), rips wide a black mouth of darkness, steps in, and it swallows him whole.
The great yellow dog whines in the back. Kairi shifts to her knees, reaches into his warm fur, and commiserates.
---
Kairi is determined to reach her captor. Reaching with hands, eyes, voice, anything to get this man to speak; she does not want for anything but for the lack of nothing. He stands exactly one teenage girl arm's-length away from the bars, just watching as walks the length of her cell, talking, repeating those ten syllables to cold ears. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. The visiting hours lengthened, and she found herself saying the words to herself, wandering off in her own thoughts, waking up to the taste of "please" on her lips. And each time she looks to the side, the bruise slash of color moves only to breathe, leathern shoulders softly rising and falling. His eyes, she notices, don't follow her; he looks through the room; rather than boring a golden dot of scrutiny into the wall across, as if he would rather see all of the canvas than the finer details of the scene he had been sent to compose.
Please let me go, she begs again, her words becoming a single-word waltz-step, one-two-three one, Please let me go, I want to see Sora, pleaseletmego, Iwanto seeSora.
"Patience."
She freezes, as does he. Afterwards, she wonders if his intent was to speak at all.
---
Kairi wakes on soft grass and without the dog and, for the first time, has an irrepressible scream bubbling from the pits of her stomach. Calm. Calm. Don't move. Don't bite your lips. Don't squeeze your eyelids together so hard. Mouth slightly open. Breathe. In, one-two-three, out, one-two-three.
It doesn't work. A creak of leather, and his breath tickles her cheek. "Run."
She has a vague feeling of pain, and as she ducks behind a bush, she bends down to lick away some of the blood welling from the scrape on her knee. She can feel yellow eyes sparking on her back with excitement. It's enough to propel her into the dappled depths of the forest. "Dog," she screams, whipping her way through grass, lacerating her shins into paper thin netting. She cries to the dog, to Sora, her father and mother, to the whistler in the dark, even once to Axel, nursing a shallow slice on her arm, but mostly for the dog.
"Why?" Her head throbs, after running and hiding for so long, but she stares as levelly as she can into molten gold eyes, trembling, shining in the moonlight. "Why call for your dog? Don't you want to see Sora again?" She's pinned between prickly tree bark and a face she does not quite recognize (did the scar go that deep and wide?), but she grits out her answer: "He's not mine, and if you did anything to him, when I find Sora and the dog's owner finds me, I don't know what I could say."
As they stare at each other, she is acutely aware that a warm trickle is running from a gashed lip down her neck, and that a slow and feral grin is growing on his lips. "Simple," he whispers, his scar filling her vision as he bends lower. He laughs, low, so softly that the breeze nearly blows it away. "So simple," he repeats, delicately licking the wet from her lips.
She freezes at first, eyes wide, mind too exhausted to comprehend his actions, arms limp at her sides. Damp warmth travels around the corner of her lip, lapping at the trail of red carefully down the curve of her neck, then-
Somewhere between the base of her neck and the smooth angle of her collarbone, a nerve reconnects with another and she - a slap is altogether a word too civil for it - delivers a openhanded strike, whipping the Diviner's face away, leaving stray red nail-tracks against his neck.
He stares off, past her shoulder, frozen. Kairi does not lower her hand.
Then, without a hint of a smile, with the airy disbelief of one who was wakened from a nightmare, he speaks. "So, the deer has claws. I will," quick as shadow he tears her arm away, tucks them behind her, "have to remember that."
The kisses tastes like a chase, a mad dash, with her biting and scratching and screaming into his mouth when she could, and Saix hunting, silent, openmouthed and ravenous.
---
When she finally, finally lays down against that warm hulk of yellow fur, she feel that tiny, tiny beat of desperate life after a tumble with death, and wondered if she could survive another hunt under the moon and stars.
For jaesprite from singwithin
Title: Memories
Word Count: 510
Rating: G
Notes: Riku/Kairi, for the most part.
She was twelve. She was twelve, and he had just turned thirteen - what an age, he could lord over them all now, except for Wakka, who was nearly fourteen - and they were all at the beach. It was the beginning of summer.
He remembered everything about that day - the way they swam until the tides started to change, and raced until they were tired and dry, and how they sat together by the paopu tree to talk about the remember whens and that one time before she ever came to the island. She laughed at each and every story they had, her giggles eventually dying down to smiles, and she kept reaching up to pat at her hair. It was cut short, just to her chin.
She was twelve, and he was thirteen, and watching her that day he realized that maybe there was a little more to being thirteen than just being bossy.
-
It was her thirteenth birthday, he was fourteen, and he remembers how they all ate cupcakes until they got sick. Later, they sat outside,nursing tall glasses of soda to soothe their stomachs.
Sora gave her some ribbons, maybe she could use them for charms, or hair ties, or something. (She smiles at him, brilliantly, because they are blue, and blue is her favourite colour. Blue like the ocean,or the sky. Or her eyes.)
He gave her (coloured pencils, special ones that he found, just for her-
Stop it, Naminé. I don't want to remember it this way.)
-
She was fourteen, and he was fifteen, and it was nearing the end of summer. Maybe. He didn't know for sure anymore.
She was fourteen, and so much smaller - he could cradle her in his arms, like a doll. She was lifeless, just like a doll. Her eyes would open but she wouldn't look at him, and she had no pulse when her arms would wrap around his neck when he carried her. Isn't this what you wanted? the darkness asks, and he doesn't know how to respond.
He'll admit: he wanted her heart, but he didn't want her heartless.
-
He must be sixteen by now, she thinks. How long has he been gone,anyway? It's already summer, and his birthday was in the summer. Or was it? She can't remember.
She has two boys in her head, two voices that both call her name, and both tease her about letting her hair grow long, and want to save her. She wants to save them, though, so they're at a standstill, and no one is saved yet.
Everyone says, It's just part of being fifteen. But it isn't,is it? Being fifteen isn't something so easily explained away. He was fifteen when she was heartless, when her heart was with-she can't remember, why can't she remember? Maybe it doesn't matter.
His face is the only one in her mind, now. She can't tell if it's because she only wants to remember Riku, or if it's because she has no one else to remember.
For euphonious_glow from kunoichi_life
Title: Almost the First
Word Count: 247
Rating: G
Fujin isn't fussy about gifts. She'd never turned away a present before (even from people outside the posse), so Olette wasn't in any danger of being chewed out for a bad one. What made Fujin toughest of the bunch to buy for was that no one had any conceivable way of knowing if she liked it or not. The girl accepted everything in the same fashion: A firm nod and a terse "Thanks" that could easily have been used to say "Scram" or at least a hearty "Fool."
With Hayner and Pence at least, she could tell when they liked their presents.
The bad presents they would try oh so hard to be excited for, but it was easy to tell the present would never leave the shelf. People like Hayner and Pence wore their heart on their sleeve and there was nothing like the reaction she'd get when they opened the perfect gifts.
Fujin… well sometimes it was hard to tell if she had a heart at all (and she never wore sleeves).
This particular Christmas, Olette happened upon Fujin heading home by herself. She imagines herself strutting up with the utmost confidence, settling the present in Fujin's hands and fleeing the streets before she has a chance to react. Instead, she lets Fujin walk past without so much as a wave (just like last time).
First steps are always the hardest.
Olette takes a deep breath and tells herself next year she'll get it right.
The people whom I've received gifts from but not have a gift of their own are lorei, ellyrianna, kaeru_chan, moonygirl and sabbato. If you have already submitted a gift and your name does not appear either on this list or on the following list, please re-submit to me. If you have submitted a gift, you should have received a reply from me confirming that I have received your gift. Either way, please re-submit to me if your name does not appear on either list.
I would also like to ask if there would be anyone who will like to pinch-hit for anyone after the grace period. If there are no volunteers, I will be pinch-hitting for those people who have already submitted but have not received their gifts, because it would be unfair to those people. If you are interested in pinch-hitting, please leave a clear comment on this post. I know that I should have specified a need for this in the original post, but the previous Secret Santa had everyone submitting in the end, so there wasn't a need to pinch-hit. With luck, there will not be a need to do so this year.
Hopefully, I did not screw up any of the uploads.
Lastly, have a Merry Christmas, everyone.
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For singwithin from lorei
Title: At Road's End
Wordcount: 93
Rating: G
Naminé smiled as she watched Sora leave the mansion.
Where are you going? What will you do?, she wondered, as the boy finally disappeared into the surrounding forest.
The girl almost wanted to go with him, but she laughed, and dismissed the idea. She had already hurt him enough, hadn't she? Besides, the road ahead of Sora was long and difficult-- she wouldn't try to complicate it further. And besides...it wasn't as though she'd never see the boy again.
She, and Kairi with her, would meet him at road's end.
Title: Snowballs
Wordcount: 214
Notes: ridiculously gen/fluff? Or something :D
“HEY, SQUALL!”
The man turned around, annoyed, but he only had time to say “Don't call me Sq--” before an icy snowball hit him in the face.
“Ha! See, Aerith? Told 'ja I could get him like that!”
Aerith tried not to giggle at Leon's quickly mounting anger. “Yuffie, we're supposed to be here on serious business. Merlin needs us to talk to Santa so we can--”
Whoops. How Leon had just managed to throw snow in Aerith's face, instead of that annoying ninja girl's, he didn't know. “S-sorry, I meant to throw it at Yuffie.”
Yuffie looked up at Aerith, who quickly wiped the snow off her face. “You know what this means! It means war!” the healer smiled at this declaration, and nodded. “Right! Prepare yourself, Leon!”
“I won't go easy!” the man retorted, but he was barely suppressing a grin.
-
It was maybe a few hours later that Merlin teleported himself to Christmastown. “You should have told me you were going to have a snowball fight. I'll go talk to Santa myself, then.”
“Merlin! Wait! I'm not actually having fun, I promise!” Leon was very tempted to sulk. He'd never be taken seriously again, would he.
The girls just laughed. And threw more snow.
Title: Driving
Wordcount: 310
Jack Skellington could not have been more excited. “Sora! Sora, Sora, Sora, guess what?!”
Even Sora was taken aback by this exceedingly energetic greeting. “Jack! What?”
“Santa's just told me, he'll let me drive his sleigh on Christmas Eve! Just for a little while, and only to a few worlds, but he's letting me! Oh, Sora-- isn't this exciting?!” The boy grinned knowing full well what this meant to his friend. Sora grabbed onto Jack's bones, hands rather, and did an impromptu happy dance with him.
“But, the best part of all? Sora, you can come with me!”
“R-Really? You mean it?” Donald sighed.
“Leave me out of this!”
Goofy smiled, but looked a bit terrified at the same time. “If it's all the same to you, Sora, you can go with Jack alone, right? Donald an' I can go hang out with Santa. You know, safely on the ground.”
The Keyblade Master pouted. Did they not trust him and Jack? Oh well. It'd still be awesome, getting to be Santa for a night!
Santa, Goofy, and Donald watched the two board the big red sleigh nervously. But as soon as it began to rise, the latter two had sudden doubts. “Ya know, Donald...they're driving okay...and it kind of looks like fun!”
Donald agreed. “But it's too late, now, so--”
He was cut off by Sora's sudden question. “So, Jack...how fast do you think this thing can go?”
“I've no idea! Rudolph! Full speed ahead!”
As the sleigh zooms dangerously off, narrowly missing the Gummi ship, Santa's workshop, and several trees, Goofy and Donald exchange glances. “No. It's a good thing we're not on it.”
“You're right.”
And Santa just sighed. “Now why am I letting them do this again...?”
For okami_hu, from syvia
Title: Substitution
Word count: 900
Spoilers: for KH2 if anything
Notes: Rated 'R', mild but explicit sexual content, yaoi. Demyx-centric
"So what're you up to this time, Roxas?"
Sora flinched- fluked around- his Keyblade in hand before he caught sight of the Nobody- who leaned against a rocky outcropping on the canyon wall. He grinned a little, spiky Mohawk waving in the current. Sora narrowed his eyes.
There wasn't anything to do in between musicals- Ariel had disappeared again, maybe up to the surface, maybe she'd shut herself in her grotto, but Goofy thought she should have some alone-time either way.
Sora'd been bored.
So he went out for a swim.
Which- as it now seemed, was a bad idea.
The kid was annoyed. He could relate to that... well, not really, but he could remember stuff like that still!
Weird coincidence, meeting Roxas here. Demyx hadn't even come to Atlantica looking to stir up trouble. The atmosphere kicked ass and the mer-people rocked- literally.
Still- since he was here-
"So, how ya doin?
The Keyblade Bearer narrowed his eyes.
Damn- familiar glare.
"What are you doing here?" Sora glared.
Demyx grinned tentatively. "I like it here..."
"You don't have emotions."
"Yeah we-"
"I didn't believe you before, and I don't believe you now."
It all went downhill from there.
Sora- Roxas- either... and possibly both of them- drew back the Keyblade and charged through the water.
Demyx sighed, rolled his eyes and started to play.
Sora swam right up to him- swung his keyblade- a foot to the left of Demyx' head as a sudden current caught and spun him around. He turned again, swung, missed on the right. He slashed crossways- and found Demyx a yard out of his range.
They did this for some time.
Demyx was sure Sora would remember his power any time now... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaany time.
Then again- Roxas had never known when to quit.
Demyx played a sharp chord- Sora was flung head-over-tail, Keyblade knocking into his forehead- stunning him. Demyx shifted off the rock- the translucent organ he now had instead of hips expanded and contracted- propelling him upwards.
His oral arms and tentacles drifted, twitching gently as he moved through the water. He stopped, sank a bit, then moved again, upwards. He couldn't move all that quickly, but he didn't need to.
Sora blinked- then stared at him- wide-eyed.
By the time he turned to flee, tentacles coiled around the boy's arms, chest and tail- dispensing toxin as Demyx played a lullaby.
He smiled as he drew Sora in- watching the Keyblade. It disappeared, and Demyx waited for a few seconds more, then dispelled his sitar, catching the kid's arm and pulling him upwards.
He loved being a jellyfish. ...Well, Sora probably didn't think he could, but he did.
Demyx pulled the kid into his arms and grinned. Unconscious. He kept humming the lullaby, running his fingers through brown spikes... soft... wet. The dolphin tail was smooth, firm but yielding. He stroked it idly and looked at the kid when he murmured, tail rolling towards the touch.
Dolphin.
Demyx started to smirk.
Sora blinked, moaning, and felt something slimy, constricting, on his wrists.
He blinked and shook his head, looking down... seaweed?
He tugged at it- couldn't get it off-
"Hey! So- what do ya call a room with no doors?"
Sora jerked his head around "You-!"
"Don't guess 'mushroom'," Demyx urged. "Everyone guesses 'mushroom'."
Sora looked wildly around- they seemed to be in a cave... with no doors.
"It's a Keyblade Master's prison cell!" he said cheerfully.
Huge blue eyes fixed on him- totally open, shocked.
Emotional.
Nice.
"Wha... what do you want?" Sora asked- trying to sound tough.
Demyx smiled.
"What?"
The Nocturne frowned. "I thought it made sense when I explained."
Sora continued to stare at him mutely.
He sighed loudly. "Look- Roxas made Axel feel like he had a heart. I wanna see if you can do it for me."
"But you want to-"
"Axel jerked Roxas off all the time!"
"I don't know who Roxas is, but I'm not him!" he pleaded.
Demyx pouted. "Awwww, c'mon! You'll like it and I'll let you go after!"
Sora recoiled. "I don't wanna."
"You don't even have to do anything!"
Silence.
"...Yanno... right now, lots of Heartless are-"
"Alright, fine!"
Demyx nipped pale skin- the nape of Sora's neck, running his hands over the seam where dolphin turned into human.
His penis- oddly human-like in the middle of blue sea-mammal flesh, poked out, leaking.
The Melodious Nocturne stroked that as well- moved lips and tongue over the kid's skin- sucking on the pulse point just beneath his chin.
Dolphins were the horn-dogs of the sea, and Sora was a teenager. He didn't last long.
Demyx pulled him close, felt the shuddering, jerking muscles. His tentacles would only cause pain, so he didn't use them. Sora gasped and whimpered, and came.
They hung in the water, drifting.
The Nobody was still... touching him. He was still a little hard.
Sora didn't say anything, waiting.
What if he did it again? What if he didn't?
Translucent tentacles shifted the water near his tail. One hand was spread over his heart. The other rested near the slit that had closed around his... semi hard-on.
It retracted. That freaked Sora out even more. He really hadn't noticed before.
Act tough- arrogant... like Riku. No idiot- don't think of Riku right now!
"Okay. Let me go now."
The Nobody sighed. He... sounded really disappointed. "Yeah."
For thano from lazzchan
[Title] First Impressions
[Word Count] 322
[Rating] Gen
Notes: You did say that you wanted the Radiant Garden crew, so I went back to when it was still Radiant Garden. Hope this is okay and that you like!
Aerith had only been a young girl when she visited Ansem the Wise in his study. Not all the residents got to see the man, of course-but she knew Kairi and the little princess had been a great favorite of the philosopher.
Her first impression was of a young, dignified looking man, one hand holding a sheaf of documents while the other held a stick of sea-salt ice cream. Kairi was fidgeting next to her, obviously eager to introduce her friend to Ansem.
A hidden door opened enough to permit a young man, hair falling into his face as he observed Kairi, Ansem and her in turn. Aerith felt a chill run down her spine as the eyes lingered on her and she resisted the urge to rub her arms in reaction.
"Ansem-I have the results that you requested. I feel that these claims would … best serve our purposes; everything I have backs it up and I'm sure that even you will find no fault with my research."
His voice was calm-gaze direct on the philosopher-and Ansem looked up, ice cream forgotten in his hand as he gave a slow nod. "Let me see this then, Ienzo. I will not give in so easily to what I forbid before-" he seemed to finally notice Aerith and Kairi standing there and gave them a sheepish smile.
"This isn't the best time, little Kairi. I'll meet up with your new friend later. I'll buy you some ice cream to make up for it." Kairi gave an eager nod and rushed to give the man a quick hug, never noticing the way Ienzo stared at her. Aerith suddenly wanted to get far away-away from the chill that Ienzo's smooth words brought with him.
She didn't want to know what type of research they were doing-and even her young, twelve-year old self could feel the dark winds approaching.
For schizo_niko from okami_hu
Title: Wild Joke
Rating: G/PG
Word Count: 338
The smoke cleared away, and as the body was dragged off sight, Xigbar returned to the saloon with a triumphant smile. Oh, how he loved it here, with the good whiskey, the endless prairie, and the smell of gunpowder in the morning!
"Don't you think you overdid it a little...?" Demyx frowned at him. "I was _really_ kissing his girl."
"Bullcrap, blondie!" the Freeshooter exclaimed. "You don't even know how to kiss a girl!"
Some of the men laughed, and the Nocturne's face turned red. His blue eyes darkened from anger, but slowly, a smile spread out on his lips. "But I know how to kiss a guy, right? You can't deny that."
Xigbar was too busy counting the soft clicks, which indicated the cocking of a gun. Around here, buggery used to get you hanged. Or shot. None of those are pleasant experiences, even if you're a Nobody.
"Rright, Xigbar?" Demyx purred, snuggling close with the most evil glint in his sea-colored gaze. "You taught me well-"
Xigbar started to sweat. Stupid kid! He'll have to come up with something witty to say, and pronto...!
But in the end, he didn't need to. Demyx released him with a laugh, then grabbed his wench's waist, to kiss her properly. The girl blushed a bit, and the blond youth waved his hand nonchalantly. "Calm down, everybody, I was just pulling a joke. My good old friend is a manly man-" he winked at the wench - "and we're willing to prove it. Right, Xigbar?"
The Freeshooter grinned back. "Damn right, you devil! Hey, free round for everybody!" At the mention of the booze, the mood lightened noticeably. Demyx and the girl headed upstairs and Xigbar drowned his own glass of firewater wine. Damn that kid...! He had more in him than they usually admitted.
Tipping his hat to the barkeep, Xigbar walked after the giggling pair. Yeah. He'll prove his manliness, no doubt about it. And after that - he'll have a little private time with Demyx. Just to teach him some discipline.
For dusknobody from sister_coyote
Title: Obligation
Characters: Demyx, Dancers, Zexion
Words: 200
Rating: PG
Summary: They are his, and he struggles to be worthy of them.
He called them Dancers for the way they moved: sleek, fluid, moving as though to a rhythm of their own. When they came to him, that first
day, that first hour that he lacked his heart, and pressed their blind heads to the floor before him, he said, "Oh -- oh -- I don't -- "
"They are yours to command," Zexion said coolly.
"Mine? But -- "
"They recognize you. They pledge their fealty willingly." He folded his arms and looked at Demyx from under the fringe of his hair. "Will you give them names, at least?"
He looked at them, as they rose gracefully from their obeisance to stand before him, swaying to a music that he could not hear. "Dancers," he said. "My Dancers."
They danced without music, so he made music for them to dance to, calling the sitar to his hands. They obeyed him without question, so he invented commands for them to obey. They were his, so he struggled to be worthy of their devotion.
"Why me?" he asked them, without pause in his playing, as they swayed and bowed to the time of his music.
They had nothing to say but the dance.
For lindskaba from tabitha_dornoc
Title: Because You Won't
Word Count: 654
Rating: R
“This is my witch,” DiZ introduces, gives the girl a hidden look before she swallows and reaches out her hand, palm sideways. Riku slips his hand around hers, shaking it. Her skin is numb and blank and so thin he can feel her pulse where his thumb touches the inside of her wrist.
Go away go away don’t stay, it says.
*
Cutting makeshift doorways from one world to another is long and bone weary. Riku’s hands ache from grasping his blade too tightly, his feet might well be made of stone and his skin feels itchy from sweat, dirt and fever. His shoulders dip and ache with the horrible burden of failure.
“No luck?” DiZ calls from the second floor, calmly watching as Riku trudges the stairs one at a time instead of his usual two.
“I will find that nobody,” Riku scowls. DiZ nods, places his hand on Riku’s elbow.
“I know.” And maybe Riku really does have a fever, because DiZ’s fingers on his open skin are cold and dead, and somehow send shivers skittering across his spine like knives.
*
“I may have a lead for you,” DiZ says mildly. “If you think you need it.” And it must only be the electronic glow from his network of computers that make his eyes gleam so strangely, so darkly so - (go away, go away, don’t stay).
*
“I think I’m starting to piece together his pattern. The direction he’s moving in,” Riku says, leaning chin against upturned palm. “I may find him tomorrow even.”
“Don’t be so optimistic you grow careless,” DiZ warns sternly, not unkindly. And it’s surely because his own parents didn’t touch him often as a child that Riku’s stomach now curls and recoils at DiZ’s comforting stroke and press down his arm.
*
She’s not a witch. She’s a ghost. Haunting corridors and shadowed corners; peering out at him when he thinks he’s alone. Her fingers grab the hem of his coat as he brushes by, and the small sound her throat makes shouldn’t come from anyone over the age of four. And if she doesn’t haunt places, her eyes certainly haunt people. Because she looks at him, and looks, and she knows she knows she knows.
*
Riku once tried to kiss a boy. Tentative and nervous, he almost allowed Sora and himself to mutually steal each other’s first kisses. But Sora blinked and turned his face at the last moment, so unaware of what Riku’s leaning meant. Riku had laughed and pretended nothing large and new had been killed before it had even fully formed. But still, his fingers tightened into fists at the loss of that first kiss.
So maybe it is strange, when he does get this kiss now, his hands are fisted again. But at least the fists have purpose this time. Because the more he clenches his fingers, the more control he gains on the acid now threatening to dissolve him from the inside out.
*
Before, when Ansem was a seductive voice in his mind that caressed and taunted and falsely loved, Riku thought he knew what it was like to be fucked raw. His mind bleeding and ravished and nogoingback.
He tells himself there are worse situations to have yourself be proven wrong. But lying here, with his face to a bed that smells old, musty and not-right, he can’t think of a single one.
*
The creak of the door opening makes his jaw clench fiercely and brings bile to the back of his throat. But the footsteps across his floor are too light to be... It’s the little witch child, and she’s crawling over him, squirming between the sheets and - oh.
“Why are you crying?” he asks, voice dead and heart hopefully becoming so. The girl twists in the covers, pressing her nose against his neck and spooning her body to his.
“Because you won’t.”
For tabitha_dornoc from xxmyfearsmylies
Title: Cherries and Hot Chocolate
Word Count: 579
Rating: G
Notes: I had a whole other drabble written on my
sister's computer, but it was definitely not what I
really wanted. Happy holidays~! :D
"Ever try hot chocolate with whipped cr-"
Before Sora could finish his sentence, Kairi, Namine, Riku, and Roxas exchanged confused looks and nodded like he was from another planet.
Sora pouted his lower lip out. Whipped cream, marshmallows, and cinnamon shakers were lined up across the table in the beach house, along with
unnecessarily hot chocolate. "I didn't finish. Geeze, you guys." Namine giggled involuntarily and reached for the cinnamon, "I was about to say, have you guys ever tried hot chocolate with whipped cream and a cherry?"
This time, they all exchanged slightly frightened looks. "Why do you bring this up?" Riku asked, topping his steaming beverage with whipped cream.
"Becauuuse," Sora dragged out, pausing to cool off his hot chocolate by fanning the surface. "I've tried it, and it's pretty good."
They sat in silence. Kairi coughed a little upon inhaling the steam. Sora didn't seem to notice the awkward silence and pushed on. "In meaning, I want
some cherries to put in my hot chocolate."
Kairi sighed and stood up, rummaging around the cupboards. Roxas stirred around his mug and stared into it for a second. "Y'know..." he picked up the
whipped cream and applied a good helping to his beverage. "Cherries do sound good right about now."
Sora beamed at him. "Yes! You gotta taste it. I mean, you'd think it-"
He was silenced by a peck on the cheek from Kairi. After he closed the gaping hole in his face, Kairi opened Sora's hand for him, deposited four cherries
into his palm, and closed his fingers around it. She smiled and rolled her eyes. "I don't even get a thanks?"
Sora blushed and told her, "I- w- for what? The cherries or the kiss?" and then it was Riku's turn to roll his eyes. "Newly coupled-ers." He made a snorting noise.
Namine smiled and looked over at Roxas who was stock still, eyes glued on Kairi, whose arms were now around Sora's neck, lovingly. She peered at his eyes from below. "Roxas? You okay? You look kind of pale."
Snapping back to the present, Roxas blinked and looked downcast. "Uhh... yeah... just tired..." He rose from his chair and moved towards the door. "I'm, uh, gonna go back home to rest..."
Roxas's mind was cloudy. He thought of how happy they could have been, Axel and him. Laughing, smiling, and doing the same "newly coupled" things Sora and Kairi did. But Axel wasn't coming back. Roxas felt woozy and lost the power in his knees to walk on.
Namine, furrow brow-ed, hurried over to his aid. "Roxas, please." She laid her hand on his shoulder. "I know who you're thinking of-" gulping as
though choking, she continued- "but we won't have as good of a time without you. Best friends."
Behind him, Roxas could feel the warmth of three other smiles and nods. He looked up at her.
Namine parted her lips and smiled. "I'll try a hot chocolate with a cherry if you do."
He suddenly felt lifted up; this was the present, he had so many questions answered and friends to help him if he ever needed it.
For the first time in a while, Roxas truly, truly smiled. "You're on."
For xxmyfearsmylies from schizo_niko
Title: Favours
Word Count: 1,142 (ech, went a bit over...)
Rating: PG
It was common knowledge that the smaller your number was, the more respect you received and, in proportion, how you were treated, which were often two different things. For example, number two, Xigbar, may have been second-in-command, but Larxene found him to be rude, crude, and old, a view that she would do nothing more than hint at for fear of being seriously harmed for it.
It was elders such as Xigbar that she carved a very large arc around. Though she was clever and sharp-tongued, it suited Larxene to be around the larger numbers better. In fact, the only two people she respected inside and out were Xemnas and Marluxia. Luxord was a good guy but he was dreadfully jovial. Axel was just as clever as she was but in a different way: Axel often joked; Larxene meant everything she said.
The order of the numbers was something she was, even through all of this picking and choosing, painfully aware of, which is why it was strange to her to be treated with reverence by someone superior to her-Demyx.
He was a smart creature and a funny one too, but his only drawback was his mindset; everything was easy, in his mind, perhaps because he was very intelligent and had been used to slacking off and still succeeding. When faced with something that wasn’t easy, however, that was when he quit before he started or asked for help.
The asking for help part was the worst.
“Larxene, could you do me a favour?” he asked in the spring, a mere month after they’d found him. He was still in basic training, tied to the Superior’s schedule. “I know it’s not really your kind of magic, but I’m reaaaaally sore…”
He was right; cure magic was not her specialty. Rather than admitting she’d never done a spell of that kind in her life, she outright refused and told him to suck it up.
Drifting in and out of the castle doors to one world or another, occasionally looking his way and finding his eyes upon her.
“Can you do me a favour, Larxene?” he asked in the summer before she left to survey the new castle, Castle Oblivion. “While you’re there, could you bring me something back?”
“Like what?” she said with a sigh, tossing her hips to the side. Yes, hips-they existed, the only prominent pair in the Organisation. “Run out and get yourself a souvenir. You goof off on missions as it is. Go on, I won’t tell.”
“You’re cruel,” he replied with a knowing squint of the eyes.
Relief when she’d come home. It wasn’t time for Oblivion to be used yet, but the pieces-the boy-were falling into place.
Watching her train endlessly into autumn, the world around them looking no different, ever, and saying “Larxene, do me a favour and teach me how to do that.”
The strange rubbery sensation of her skin when he accidentally touched her arm, bared as it was with her dressed in a loose white shirt (the coats were for serious business), the static that laced up Demyx’s flesh and raised his hairs on end. Even the tangled, dirty blond mass of hair on his head rose, each individual strand charged until he planted his feet firmly on the ground.
Larxene falling asleep in the midst of a hot bath one night, dozing until it got cold, dreaming that it was not water but his touch, the man made of liquid, and she smiled ruefully as she often did and reached to touch him, forgetting about her electricity until it was terminal. She woke with a start and splash when his eyes widened, dead, in the wake of the shock.
No. He should not have been asking her favours. He was her superior; he should have acted like it. What was this, what did he think it was? Being polite? Larxene was not one for being stepped on but Demyx was going to be the stepping stone himself if he kept this up.
The other worlds eventually lapsed into something called ‘snow’, a strange cold medium of water that Demyx was thrilled for and Larxene found to be, at best, a bother, because she had to be careful with her powers while trudging through it, lest one of her cohorts be standing in it and get the life shocked out of them.
The favours kept coming. It occurred to Larxene that perhaps this was his way of exercising his higher number, but the way he asked them didn’t make sense. It was easy, friendly from his mouth, as though asking her to take him, humble as he was, and teach him what she knew. He was exactly that, humble.
When he brought the strange electric lights home, like candies on a string, Larxene found them to be fascinating if not a little childish. She thought, you little lights have no clue how to use that power, do you?
The first string he brought was accidentally, or so it was said, shorted out by her.
The second was already damaged when Demyx showed it to her, and it was another favour he asked of her. “Larxene, can you do something for me? Is there a way to bring this back to life? Can you do it?”
She did.
He didn’t ask for help arranging them in his room; really, Larxene didn’t know why he wanted anything to do with the likes of electricity. When asked, he said it reminded him of her. In response, Larxene insulted him. Demyx just smiled.
The very last favour he asked of her, on the coldest, shortest day, was the most important. The only important one.
With her nose in a book she made to exit the castle, hoping to accomplish the mission as quickly as possible. She was so startled when someone grabbed her arm, someone coming from the other direction, that the short burst of charge she sent through him was genuinely accidental.
When she looked up from the book, there he was, hair in a frazzled mess, the remnants of snow still on his coat, melting into oblivion. He rubbed his arms hastily, swearing at the painful tingles going down them. When they finally abated, Larxene asked him what he wanted, and the answer came.
“I just got back and I was thinking, while I was out there. So, can you do me a favour?”
She learned to stop asking questions and wait for him to speak his mind.
“Can you kiss me?”
It struck her first as sort of sickeningly romantic and shy, but his eyebrows were locked down in a jester-like way and his thin shoulders were held back.
“Do it yourself,” she finally growled, just in time to fight off the slightly perturbed red flush on her cheeks.
He did.
For anzila from kissingchaos
Title: the drifts
Words: 240
Rating: G
the drifts
(when you gonna love you as much as I do?)
"You're going to catch cold if you stay out here like this, you know."
Aerith turned, silver bracelets jingling softly against each other as she raised a hand in greeting. "I know better. I just got a little caught up here, I guess."
Leon stood on the crumbling edge of the bailey with his arms crossed, his chin tucked into his collar. He watched her silently, unwilling to break the fragile peace of the evening with any further admonishment.
Snow fell thickly, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight, blanketing the ravine trails and bluff in a heavy layer of powder. Aerith lifted her face to the sky, delighting in the sensation of snow melting on her cheeks. Perhaps it was cold, but it wasn't often one could see Hollow Bastion --no, Radiant Garden-- in such a state of utter stillness.
Wordlessly, Leon hopped down to join her on the cliff. He removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders.
"Beautiful, don't you think?" Aerith asked softly as she turned her eyes back to the horizon. Her cheeks were flushed with cold, her face framed by snow-spangled auburn bangs and thick, white fur. She smiled then, and it was like watching the sun rise -- he blinked as the wind kicked up, sending snow spinning around her furiously in a brief, violent storm.
"Absolutely," he breathed, and she did not notice that he was paying no attention to the landscape.
For sister_coyote from euphonious_glow
Title: Wild Blood
Characters: Read to find out :)
Word Count: 1097
Rating: PG
Notes: I hope you like this, Sister Coyote!
Wild Blood
He arrived in a forest. The trees were merely shadows in the darkness, but he knew them by the scent of life and growing things. The smell brought back memories: of cool green moss and brown earth, broken twigs and half-hidden tracks in the leaves. Xaldin breathed deep for a moment (but only just--he had a duty to fulfill). Memories were the only precious things a Nobody could have.
He remembered the many autumn and winter days when he had hiked the steep paths of Radiant Garden's forests, bow and quiver strapped to his back and a knife attached to his belt. He had become familiar with nearly every acre of the forests, and knew which animal life and food sources to expect in each area. From adolescence he had been familiar with the bow, and his hands were calloused from much use. Many days he'd brought home a catch for his family, and later when he had lived alone he ate fresh meat nearly every night. Even when he was in the service of Ansem the Wise, he continued to seek a peaceful retreat to the shelter under the trees.
At twenty he built his own house, with timber from the forests he walked, grasses and mud from the wildlands on the outer perimeter of the Garden, and dwelt there in solitude. His was the heart of a hunter, and even in death the old urges could not be destroyed.
Now he hunted with spears instead of arrows, and the wind was his ally instead of his foe. His prey was also of a different kind; he sought hearts instead of animals, although both were game to him.
He braced his shoulders resolutely and started walking. Now was not the time for reverie; not when there was fresh prey to capture.
Dead leaves crunched beneath his boots; this world was in its autumnal phase. The season of death, when the trees lost their life-essence and slept in a comatose state, bereft of their beauty. It was oddly appropriate. Nobodies would never have another summer in the cold dampness of the Nonexistent World. And yet Xaldin did not miss it; he had made his decision, when he had willingly followed Ienzo into the darkness (And Ansem thought Xehanort was the puppeteer?). He regretted nothing.
In fact, a Nobody had many advantages over a human. Xaldin's senses were sharpened immensely. His eyes could penetrate the darkness like those of a cat. His ears picked up the slightest sound, the smallest rustle of leaves or lightest footsteps. He also had another sense, awareness of living beings and the ability to communicate silently to his comrades. The loss of petty emotions was no huge disappointment.
Soon he encountered a pair of tall iron gates, shut against intruders. But he was a Nobody. He feared no human constraints. Like a winter breeze Xaldin sifted his body through the spaces in the iron bars. His body solidified and he moved forward again.
He crossed a bridge of stone spanning a quiet stream, and passed through a pair of a thick doors. He was standing at the corner of a large courtyard. Moonlight cast a pale glow across the gray stones, illuminating several carved statues, standing motionless. Xaldin glanced with mild interest at the images blunt with age and harsh weather. Of more concern to him was the castle that imposed over the courtyard. It was old and crumbling, an ugly rough thing. It was completely different than the smooth, colorless architecture of his Castle. Xaldin thought he liked the change. One could tell much about a man by his possessions.
He began to stride toward the castle wall, an invisible figure in the dark of the courtyard, as his body cast no shadow (for something that did not exist could not impair light).
Slipping under the cracks between the heavy wooden front doors and the stone foundation was a simple task. The entrance hall was dark and silent. Xaldin tucked back his long braided hair with one hand and with the other raised the hood of his coat. For tonight, his task required mystery, and inspiring fear. To give his prey eyes to look into, a face to remember, would limit his ability. For tonight, he was nobody.
The creature once called Prince Alexander St. Claire thrust open the doors of his bedchamber, his blood still boiling from an argument with the girl. It was so tiresome, dealing with her--
He stopped. Someone was in his room. Someone was in his room!
"Welcome, Prince." The voice was deep and mocking, with a strange hollow quality, as though the speaker was not entirely there. It seemed to come out of the darkness like a winter draft.
"Who are you?" the Beast exclaimed, clawed hands clenched furiously. "You have no right to be here!" A figure stepped from the shadows. He seemed to be swathed in darkness. The Beast grabbed a candlestick near his hand and lit it with fumbling hands. The light seemed to be swallowed in the stranger's clothing. Only the man's eyes reflected any light; they were deep and blue and something inhuman, like shadows under the trees at midnight. He felt his heart stricken with fear.
"To answer your question, I am called Xaldin." He stood straight with soldier's precision, arms clasped behind him, perfectly at ease. He expressed no amazement at Beast's appearance. This disturbed the Beast more than anything else.
"What do you want?" he growled, ashamed at the blatant fear in his voice.
"What I want is not your concern," the stranger, Xaldin said. "But, for now, I'll accept what you have to give me."
"I will give you nothing!" the Beast snarled, striking out at the dark figure. His claws grabbed at air. There was a burst of sharp, cold laughter behind him. The Beast turned, stumbling, saw Xaldin standing beside his precious rose.
"You will do as I say, Beast." His tone clearly showed he expected no argument. "I know of the girl who stays within this castle."
Belle! His breathing was heavy, enraged. "A village wench. She means nothing to me!"
"Is that so?" said Xaldin, gesturing with a black gloved hand. "Shall I kill her then, since she is no consequence to you?"
"No!" The Beast inhaled deeply, attempting to calm his anger. His fears were answered, then. He did care for the girl. It hardly seemed possible. "Leave Belle out of this, or I'll kill you."
Xaldin laid his hand over the glass case of the rose, his intention clear. "Then, you had better start listening to me."
For i_got_spunk from dusknobody
Beta-ed by crimsoncookie
Sunlight starbright on palm fronds stretching against blue black sunset sky. White sand foam froth playing under shadows in warm cold warm washes serves for the snow that will never fall.
Slender hands carefully hang the stockings - one, two, three - around the trunk.
One for the partridge, waiting waiting waiting in the palm tree -
Two for the calling bird, crying: he's not real. There is no Santa Claus, he's not real, not real -
Three for the one she can't remember, the one who flew after the calling bird, listening to his cries; did he believe them? Did he doubt?
She can't remember, so she hangs the stockings, one, two, three - one for belief, two for doubt, and three for whatever was or will be.
For lazzchan from moonygirl
Title: Entity
Word count: 104
Rating: PG-13
To love one self was a sin. Roxas had never heard this but he knew this in the back of his mind. He was under no illusion that it was something he had learn rather it was something his other must have known.
Sora’s memories were constantly being blended with Roxas’ almost to the point where even Roxas was having problems telling what memories belong to whom. Roxas wanted lines between them, wanted to visible see the difference between Sora and him.
He needed lines, he didn’t want to just blend in with Sora, he wanted to be a separate entity away from Sora.
For kissingchaos from sabbato
Title: Understanding and Realization
Word Count: 168
Rating: PG
Water rises and falls. Flowing steady no matter what blocks it's path. The soft blue pastel moves cautiously across the paper, imitating the effect as it's moved down and thinned out by small pale fingers. Concentrating hard, the colours blend to form the sea, the sky, the land, the dark reds and oranges make perfect for an island sunset.
The blond girl only smiles to herself as she continues to play and move her fingers in time, mimicking water as she uses just her fingers and the pastels to create something beautiful. A warm smile crossed her lips as she left the sketchbook on the table open to the page she was working on.
Colours aside, she drew somebody important to her - red hair, blue eyes, and a smile to make others not help but smile. The sweet gentle tide in the background, and everything flows as it is meant to be.
Naminé knew that one day she would be seeing that smile...and wearing it for others.
For syvia from crimsoncookie
Title: Figures
Word Count: 730
Rating: G
Notes: Post-game; some spoilers.
"-thought of that before you painted the ship neon!"
"The King's goin' to Christmas Town. I thought it'd be, uh, festive." A tiny gloved paw swung out, parting the heavy cloak of evergreens bedecking the entrance to the Gummi Garage. "But y'know, I got the paint all mixed up-" Snow crunched twice, then stopped. "Chip, it's cold out here."
A black nose peeked through the curtain of greenery. "I know, Dale, it's win-" Another frost-crunch, then an undignified squeak. "It's cold!"
"That's what I said."
"Well, you can-" Chip stumbled out through the draping branches, dusted white powdery pawprints from his engineer's apron, and looked up. "-uh-oh."
Dale popped out behind him, a small explosion of fur and snow and bright red nose. "I can uh-oh?"
"Shh-shh-shh." Chip pointed across the path towards the newly-planted topiary - a shadow, for all the hearts still lost to darkness - and the silvery slivery form swaying in front of it, reaching a shapeless hand to the frozen leaves forming antennae.
"A Dusk?" Dale twitched behind Chip's shoulder, his messy fur fluffing out even further as he watched the figure bend and wave, a slender snow-creature drifting with the flurries. "We should call the guards! The King! The Keyblade mas-what's it doing?"
"It's…" Chip watched the hood unzip, the jagged mouth underneath tilt to the sky, opening and closing. "…catching snowflakes?"
"Oh!" Dale brightened. "Hey, I do that, too!"
"Shhh!" Chip pulled Dale back, tucking them into the shade of the evergreen boughs. "You're not a Nobody! Though you might be as empty-heade-"
"-Aww, Chip." Dale scuffed a foot through the snow. "It's just a little one. Maybe it used to be a kid or somethin'." The Dusk bounded up, leaping for a bright cluster of flakes and collapsing in a tangle of limbs. "It's havin' fun. Look, it even brought a friend." He flipped a paw towards the duck(though Donald and Daisy both protested the term, as they preferred warm baths, especially in such weather) pond, where a sinuous Nobody was twisting perfect figure-thirteens across the icy surface.
Chip's fur bristled until it was almost as messy as his friend's. "That's a Dancer!"
"Well, sure, Chip. Look at it go!" Dale admired the smoothness for both strokes of the X, the leaps into the lines of each I. "D'you think we could do that?"
"Come-on-come-on-come-on!" Chip grabbed Dale's paw, tugging him determinedly towards the castle stairs, admiration and all. "We've got to tell the King and Queen!"
"Aww, Chip…" But Dale followed, ears drooping, free paw stuck in the pocket of his apron. "C'mon. There's no more of those Organization fellows, 'cept Roxas and he's Sora now, Goofy said. These guys are probably just lonely."
"Look what it's making!" The Dusk had been scooping up snow in its hand-shapes, patting it awkwardly into the beginnings of an Organization coat. Chip flipped around from where he'd already began to climb. "You see?"
"Aww, they don't know any better." Dale hopped back down off the first step. "I'll show 'em!" Ignoring Chip's frantic squeaks and hisses, he scrambled in over around the snowdrifts until he rolled to a halt at the swaying feet of the Dusk. It looked down at him blankly, arms frozen in the act of adding a zipper.
"Now, see," Dale said, looking up to meet where the Nobody's eyes should be, "You can't be doin' that here. They're all gone." He held up a small ball of snow, rolled it across the ground. The Dusk watched. "Try doin'…" He stuck two more balls on top, clumsily shaped a crown. "…this!"
The Dusk wavered. Picked up some snow. Added it to the zipper.
"Aww…" Dale's chin dropped. "That's not how it goes."
"Dale! Come on!" Chip was almost vibrating.
"Keep tryin', okay?" Shoulders hunched, Dale trudged back across the frozen ground to where his friend waited. "I guess you're right. Let's go'n tell the King and Queen."
"Well, I told you!" Chip patted him on the shoulder. "But cheer up! It didn't eat you - and maybe the King'll forget about the neon."
"Yeah, I guess…" Their small voices quieted as they trooped up the stairs, leaving the Nobodies behind.
On the lake, the slender figure turned in its endless thirteens, spinning into one circle, another, then another - a tracing of mouse-ears, fading in the falling snow.
For kunoichi_life from lindskaba
Title: Secret
Word Count: 779 (GAH)
Notes: I could absolutely say a whole bunch of things about this
drabble or leave profuse apologies, but I guess I'll just say enjoy?
They trade gifts-little things, like shells or stones or trinkets spun from string. They do it secretly, hiding the presents in each other's jackets, pockets, bags-somewhere they'll be found. Too many times,Sora's slipped on his shoe and felt a familiar prick against his toes.Riku likes to put things there; makes Sora jump every time.
This time it's a shark's tooth, stained green with seaweed.
Grinning, Sora bores a hole through the enamel and strings the tooth around his neck.
--
Sora can't remember who brought Kairi into the tradition, or when. He only knows that since then, he's received more gifts than ever before.He can usually tell who they're from-an arrowhead from Riku, a shiny stone from Kairi-but the secrecy is half the fun, isn't it?
"Island at 3:00, okay?" Riku calls one morning as Sora passes him in the hall. His face seems unusually bright.
"Right!"
In first period, Kairi is wearing a comb in her hair that's crafted from shells.
Between fourth and fifth period, Sora sneaks into Riku's locker-he cracked the combination long ago, Riku is so predictable-and sets down a black and red yarn-spun bracelet. It's admittedly a little shabby,fraying a bit at the edges-but when the trio meets up on the island that afternoon, it's tied around Riku's left wrist.
Kairi weaves a bouquet of wildflowers into the strap of her bag.
--
One Friday morning, something shiny catches Sora's eye from the bottom of his book bag.
He can usually tell who they're from. But this…
It's hung on a thick and intricate chain, glittering and set in gold: a charm, shaped like a crown.
When he shows up to lunch with the charm around his neck, he receives an unexpected kiss from Kairi-on his cheek, which turns bright red. "What was that for?"
"Nothing."
Riku is unusually silent.
--
Riku has taken to watching the ocean.
Sora and Kairi build castles in the sand and fish off the dock while Riku perches on the island off the east sore, hunched tense against the trunk of a paopu tree
Sora still finds little presents among his things. Today, there's a small purple stone set expectantly at the bow of his boat; it glistens scarlet in the afternoon sun. He attaches it to an old piece of string, next to a shark's tooth stained green with seaweed. He slips the whole thing into his pocket.
He can usually tell who they're from, and they're all from Kairi these days.
--
"How come you never leave us presents anymore?"
Silver hair half shields Riku's face when he turns; Sora can't quite see his eyes. "What?"
He shifts slightly, kicking his feet. "You know, that game we used to play when we were kids, where we'd leave each other presents and… I dunno, Kairi and I still do it, and I was just wondering why-"
"Oh that?" He breathes. "Huh… I guess I just grew out of it. It's childish. Besides, there are more important things to do now with the raft and everything, right?"
"…Right."
That evening, he notices that the black and red bracelet on Riku's left wrist is gone.
--
They've stayed late on the island tonight watching the sun set from the docks. Riku insisted that they finish the raft tonight, and when both Sora and Kairi had protested, he'd swept off alone, muttering something about finishing it himself.
They wander. Sora holds Kairi's shoes lazily behind his head while she tiptoes barefoot into the surf, bending over periodically to collect trinkets from the sand.
Somehow, they end up in the tree house, back to back in the dark. Across the island, Sora can make out Riku's form in the shadows of the raft, leaning against the mast.
"Kairi… What did you mean before, when you said Riku's changed?"
Her voice is quiet when she answers. "Never mind, Sora, it's nothing."
"But-"
"Don't worry about it, really." Her back shifts against his, and he can feel her breath gentle on his neck. When he turns his head to look, she's smiling at him, her face touched by moonlight. "Just focus on tomorrow, okay? It'll be a big day."
"…Okay." Somehow, it's all he can say.
With a slight nod, she faces forward again.
Sora remains with his head turned for a moment, watching the curve of Kairi's cheek. It takes him a moment to notice the little star-shaped thing half-formed in her hands. "What are you working on?"
She turns, and smiles; it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Silly. Not everything I make is for you, you know."
In the distance, the waves hum.
"Right."
For crimsoncookie from thano
Title: Snare
Word Count: 936
Rating: PG -13
Notes: Congratulations, Crim, I am your Secret Santa; me, probably one of the sole members to whom smut is totally alien. X3 You have some fantastic luck. I really didn't want to get into the mechanics for threesomes, so I sadly put away your request for some bittersweet OT3 away for a rainy day. Marluxia and Naminé I just cannot write, for the life of me... Maybe it just scares me. O.o; And then I considered your other request... Oh god, for a pairing I don't quite understand, Saix and Kairi. I tried my absolute best to understand the dynamics between them, and... Well, here's my best shot. XD WARNING: I wrote half of this partially hopped-up on Theraflu and stuff, so... Just warning you. =3
How far? she asks the blue-black silhouette, hands tight on the bars of her cage. How far are you willing to take this? The figure doesn't flinch, a statue chiseled from the marble white walls of the castle. Kairi counts the rise and fall of his shoulders; one, two, three to get ready, and four to thread her arms between and reach and say, Please, sir; please, let me go. I want to see Sora.
And suddenly, that's all he wants to see. He shudders, making Kairi jump back from the bars and land on her backside hard (she's seen him in her nightmares against Axel, who, for all his bravado, all his grins and sharp words, still sinks down to his knees, coughing, watching with an expression of despair that she is sure belongs to someone else as the berserker drags his prey off), rips wide a black mouth of darkness, steps in, and it swallows him whole.
The great yellow dog whines in the back. Kairi shifts to her knees, reaches into his warm fur, and commiserates.
---
Kairi is determined to reach her captor. Reaching with hands, eyes, voice, anything to get this man to speak; she does not want for anything but for the lack of nothing. He stands exactly one teenage girl arm's-length away from the bars, just watching as walks the length of her cell, talking, repeating those ten syllables to cold ears. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. Please let me go, I want to see Sora. The visiting hours lengthened, and she found herself saying the words to herself, wandering off in her own thoughts, waking up to the taste of "please" on her lips. And each time she looks to the side, the bruise slash of color moves only to breathe, leathern shoulders softly rising and falling. His eyes, she notices, don't follow her; he looks through the room; rather than boring a golden dot of scrutiny into the wall across, as if he would rather see all of the canvas than the finer details of the scene he had been sent to compose.
Please let me go, she begs again, her words becoming a single-word waltz-step, one-two-three one, Please let me go, I want to see Sora, pleaseletmego, Iwanto seeSora.
"Patience."
She freezes, as does he. Afterwards, she wonders if his intent was to speak at all.
---
Kairi wakes on soft grass and without the dog and, for the first time, has an irrepressible scream bubbling from the pits of her stomach. Calm. Calm. Don't move. Don't bite your lips. Don't squeeze your eyelids together so hard. Mouth slightly open. Breathe. In, one-two-three, out, one-two-three.
It doesn't work. A creak of leather, and his breath tickles her cheek. "Run."
She has a vague feeling of pain, and as she ducks behind a bush, she bends down to lick away some of the blood welling from the scrape on her knee. She can feel yellow eyes sparking on her back with excitement. It's enough to propel her into the dappled depths of the forest. "Dog," she screams, whipping her way through grass, lacerating her shins into paper thin netting. She cries to the dog, to Sora, her father and mother, to the whistler in the dark, even once to Axel, nursing a shallow slice on her arm, but mostly for the dog.
"Why?" Her head throbs, after running and hiding for so long, but she stares as levelly as she can into molten gold eyes, trembling, shining in the moonlight. "Why call for your dog? Don't you want to see Sora again?" She's pinned between prickly tree bark and a face she does not quite recognize (did the scar go that deep and wide?), but she grits out her answer: "He's not mine, and if you did anything to him, when I find Sora and the dog's owner finds me, I don't know what I could say."
As they stare at each other, she is acutely aware that a warm trickle is running from a gashed lip down her neck, and that a slow and feral grin is growing on his lips. "Simple," he whispers, his scar filling her vision as he bends lower. He laughs, low, so softly that the breeze nearly blows it away. "So simple," he repeats, delicately licking the wet from her lips.
She freezes at first, eyes wide, mind too exhausted to comprehend his actions, arms limp at her sides. Damp warmth travels around the corner of her lip, lapping at the trail of red carefully down the curve of her neck, then-
Somewhere between the base of her neck and the smooth angle of her collarbone, a nerve reconnects with another and she - a slap is altogether a word too civil for it - delivers a openhanded strike, whipping the Diviner's face away, leaving stray red nail-tracks against his neck.
He stares off, past her shoulder, frozen. Kairi does not lower her hand.
Then, without a hint of a smile, with the airy disbelief of one who was wakened from a nightmare, he speaks. "So, the deer has claws. I will," quick as shadow he tears her arm away, tucks them behind her, "have to remember that."
The kisses tastes like a chase, a mad dash, with her biting and scratching and screaming into his mouth when she could, and Saix hunting, silent, openmouthed and ravenous.
---
When she finally, finally lays down against that warm hulk of yellow fur, she feel that tiny, tiny beat of desperate life after a tumble with death, and wondered if she could survive another hunt under the moon and stars.
For jaesprite from singwithin
Title: Memories
Word Count: 510
Rating: G
Notes: Riku/Kairi, for the most part.
She was twelve. She was twelve, and he had just turned thirteen - what an age, he could lord over them all now, except for Wakka, who was nearly fourteen - and they were all at the beach. It was the beginning of summer.
He remembered everything about that day - the way they swam until the tides started to change, and raced until they were tired and dry, and how they sat together by the paopu tree to talk about the remember whens and that one time before she ever came to the island. She laughed at each and every story they had, her giggles eventually dying down to smiles, and she kept reaching up to pat at her hair. It was cut short, just to her chin.
She was twelve, and he was thirteen, and watching her that day he realized that maybe there was a little more to being thirteen than just being bossy.
-
It was her thirteenth birthday, he was fourteen, and he remembers how they all ate cupcakes until they got sick. Later, they sat outside,nursing tall glasses of soda to soothe their stomachs.
Sora gave her some ribbons, maybe she could use them for charms, or hair ties, or something. (She smiles at him, brilliantly, because they are blue, and blue is her favourite colour. Blue like the ocean,or the sky. Or her eyes.)
He gave her (coloured pencils, special ones that he found, just for her-
Stop it, Naminé. I don't want to remember it this way.)
-
She was fourteen, and he was fifteen, and it was nearing the end of summer. Maybe. He didn't know for sure anymore.
She was fourteen, and so much smaller - he could cradle her in his arms, like a doll. She was lifeless, just like a doll. Her eyes would open but she wouldn't look at him, and she had no pulse when her arms would wrap around his neck when he carried her. Isn't this what you wanted? the darkness asks, and he doesn't know how to respond.
He'll admit: he wanted her heart, but he didn't want her heartless.
-
He must be sixteen by now, she thinks. How long has he been gone,anyway? It's already summer, and his birthday was in the summer. Or was it? She can't remember.
She has two boys in her head, two voices that both call her name, and both tease her about letting her hair grow long, and want to save her. She wants to save them, though, so they're at a standstill, and no one is saved yet.
Everyone says, It's just part of being fifteen. But it isn't,is it? Being fifteen isn't something so easily explained away. He was fifteen when she was heartless, when her heart was with-she can't remember, why can't she remember? Maybe it doesn't matter.
His face is the only one in her mind, now. She can't tell if it's because she only wants to remember Riku, or if it's because she has no one else to remember.
For euphonious_glow from kunoichi_life
Title: Almost the First
Word Count: 247
Rating: G
Fujin isn't fussy about gifts. She'd never turned away a present before (even from people outside the posse), so Olette wasn't in any danger of being chewed out for a bad one. What made Fujin toughest of the bunch to buy for was that no one had any conceivable way of knowing if she liked it or not. The girl accepted everything in the same fashion: A firm nod and a terse "Thanks" that could easily have been used to say "Scram" or at least a hearty "Fool."
With Hayner and Pence at least, she could tell when they liked their presents.
The bad presents they would try oh so hard to be excited for, but it was easy to tell the present would never leave the shelf. People like Hayner and Pence wore their heart on their sleeve and there was nothing like the reaction she'd get when they opened the perfect gifts.
Fujin… well sometimes it was hard to tell if she had a heart at all (and she never wore sleeves).
This particular Christmas, Olette happened upon Fujin heading home by herself. She imagines herself strutting up with the utmost confidence, settling the present in Fujin's hands and fleeing the streets before she has a chance to react. Instead, she lets Fujin walk past without so much as a wave (just like last time).
First steps are always the hardest.
Olette takes a deep breath and tells herself next year she'll get it right.