drabbles
[assorted fandoms, Tenshi]
another assortment of drabbles, created for the livejournal drabble challenge, this time Tenshi's.
quicklinks:
*
Grayson/Kestrel [songbirds] for 
darthneko
*
Rude/Reno [ff7] for tiercel
*
Hisoka/Tsuzuki [yami no matsuei] for llamajoy
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Tseng/Rufus [ff7] for white_aster
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Oriya [yami no matsuei] for roseargent
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Rowen/Ryo [samurai troopers] for toma_karamochi
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Squall/Zell [ff8] for larathia
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Kingdom Hearts for kyburg
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Ellis/Sarin [songbirds] for urdsama
*
Zax/Sephiroth [ff7] for kaiser-chan
*
Jerdon/Rekbah [songbirds] for prim
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Flik [suikoden] for _rosiel
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Sydney/Ashley [vagrant story] for luckykitty
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Hawk [songbirds] for cymraes
*
Grayson/Kestrel for darthneko
In the darkness Grayson left behind him, the Lark was singing. He had wanted to leave this way, with Rouen's song vibrating in the ancient walls of the city, a better farewell than one asked for and given in sorrow. Grayson slipped a hand inside his tunic, closing his fingers on the temple emblem. Rouen had not known it would be a parting gift, plucked from his yearly tribute, warm from his skin.
The column of horses splashed through the icy water of the causeway. Grayson closed his eyes, his face to the south and war. The songbird of dawning was rising in the temple like the pale winter sun in the cold clear air, beatiful and distant and out of reach, a finer thing than should be held in the hands of men.
*
Rude/Reno for tiercel
"Is it to make you look tough?" Reno asked, blowing into the chamber of his pistol to clear any debris.
The hum of the electric razor stopped and Rude leaned in the doorway, eyebrow arched. "Maybe I don't want to spend two hours every two weeks dying it." He tugged at Reno's stoplight red ponytail, ruffling the soft spikes on top and showing off the traces of natural red roots. "Like some people."
"Hey, this is my signature, man. Like your sunglasses." The grin was impish. "Thought you just might be receding early, is all."
Rude snorted. "No." He wound Reno's ponytail around his hand, letting the smooth tassel slide out of his fingertips. "...Mine's...curly." He turned back into the bathroom and clicked the razor on, its dully hypnotic sound drowning out Reno's helpless giggles.
*
Hisoka/Tsuzuki for llamajoy
"Twelve!" Tzusuki said, in raptures, looking at the brightly wrapped holiday boxes. "Look, this one has petit fours, and this one has chocolate covered almonds, and oh, look, there's even brownies!"
"It's for the whole office, you know," Hisoka said, without looking up from his keyboard, tapping names from one list to the other. "Don't go sticking it all in your desk drawer."
"I'm just looking," Tsuzuki said, defensive. "It's not like I was going to take it all." He uncovered a box of tiny wrapped cordials, and held one up. "Look, all the little bottles. Cute, huh?"
"You can have mine." Hisoka clicked his mouse impatiently.
Tsuzuki grinned, sidling over to his partner's desk. "What's the matter? Don't like chcolate? Or is a raspberry liqueur more than you can handle, Bon?"
Hisoka's eyes flashed green; he snatched the chocolate from Tsuziki and ate it, crumpling the foil wrapper in his hand. "There," he said. "Happy now?"
"Careful." Tsuzuki leaned close, his smile sly. "You might wind up passed out in my bed again."
"And if you don't back off," Hisoka said, typing with more aggression than strictly needed, "The odds of you winding up in mine are extremely low."
"Betcha can't do one more."
"I can."
"Can't."
"I can too I just don't want to."
"Caaaaan't."
"Stop acting like you're twelve."
"Why? You drink like you are."
"Give me that!" Hisoka yanked the box over, rattling the collection of chocolate bottles. "And you just watch me."
Foil wrappers flew.
*
Tseng/Rufus for white_aster
"Ugh," Rufus said, leaning against Tseng far more than he would like to admit. "What time is it?"
"You don't want to know," Tseng said, subtly shifting Rufus's weight as the car sped through the dimly green Midgar darkness.
Rufus lifted his head, and put it back down again. "Don't ever let me drink with Reno again." He groped blindly for the latch of his seatbelt and loosed it, slouching completely into Tseng's lap. "I'll ruin my reputation."
"Well, it's hardly as though you were standing and singing on the piano. I don't think you have to worry. Nobody noticed." Tseng hit his brakes for a red light, and Rufus slid over slightly, his pale blond hair spread over Tseng's pinstripe thigh.
"My image is important to me, you know."
"Hm." Tseng said. The opposing 'don't walk' sign blinked orange on the empty crosswalk.
"I have a certain way I want people to think of me." Rufus nuzzled his head slightly into the folds of Tseng's pants.
Tseng swallowed, noting the absence of headlights anywhere else on the road. "And what do you think, Rufus-sama?"
Rufus smiled drowsily, and in the quiet car the sound of Tseng's zipper seemed extremely loud. "I think I'm not in any hurry to get home."
*
Oriya for roseargent
Sometimes Oriya wished he had a real job. He knew it wouldn't suit him, the trim black suit and the morning train, a grey cubicle to look forward to every day. But it had moments of appeal, such as when he was forced to pull so many strings that he didn't know if he was the puppet master or the marionette.
Politicians didn't realize they all came to him, and that the bumps he had to smooth and the names to overlook too often clashed. It made decorum, let alone figuring out which room to send which Diet member to, an utter nightmare.
Of course he had influence. He had always had influence. As his mother had, and her father, and his father, back a thousand years of cunning shadows and careful lies, painted on as thin as a courtesan's smile.
At the moment, however, the scion of the Mibu clan would much rather influence a warmed cup of sake, a hot bath, and a young woman of lush curves and dubious reputation.
Fortunately, he had the latter in spades.
*
Rowen/Ryo for toma_karamochi
"We're lost," Ryou said, looking nervously around the unfamiliar landscape. Danger lurked around every corner, and Ryou's muscles tensed as he eyed the inhabitants of this strange world. They looked hard, trained and deadly, confident on their own territory. "We'll never find the others."
"Fa' cryin' out loud, Ryou. We're in the mall, not the death star." Rowen licked cinnabon cream off his fingers and sat back in the wire mesh chair. "All of Kento's roads lead to the food court. They'll find us."
"We'll never get out alive," Ryou persisted, his eyes going slightly wide as a small army of shrill children passed by on the way to see Santa, with one lone and exhausted grownup in their midst. "We should never have come."
"Yeh? And where would you get ya Christmas shopping done? The 7-11?"
"Look, I know lots of people who would be happy to get three-year-old beef jerky for Christmas. White Blaze, for example."
"Whateva, Ryou. Just sit tight and don't get any ideas about blowin' the skylights out and makin' a break fa it. Not afta what happened at Tokyo Disney."
Ryou glowered and poked his finger on the sticky plastic table. "Look, you used your flight ablity on Space Mountain because you wanted to be part of the ride, and that's what got us kicked out. Not any talking six-foot mouse with second-degree burns."
Rowen crossed his arms. "I was just gonna adjust the alignment of the moons of Jupiter. Io's orbit was totally innacurate."
At the table next to them, the party of mothers and mothers-to-be began to leave with their copious noisy offspring, ramming their strollers repeatedly into the back of Ryou's chair and chattering loudly about Italian charm bracelets with the logo of their health club.
Ryou hugged himself. "We're gonna die in here," he said, "and they won't find us until the snow melts."
"We're done," Sai said suddenly, dropping an armload of shopping bags into the seat between them. "I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long." He blinked at Ryou, on his knees and hugging Sai around the waist, muttering something about being able to feel the wind and the grass again.
Rowen shrugged at Sai's questioning look. Some people just weren't cut out for Christmas.
*
Squall/Zell for larathia
"Nobody calls me a Chicken," Zell said, and he cracked his knuckles and stood, leaving Irvine and his smirk behind him at the table. Squall was ten yards away, scowling at the coffee machine in disgust.
"Hey," Zell said, hands in pockets, smile too broad, trying not to meet Irvine's eyes across the room. "S'up, babe?"
Squall arched an eyebrow.
"Sir," Zell amended. Irvine was laughing behidn his hat.
"Something you need, Zell?" Squall kicked the machine. "Right now I need to go out and have this thing tried for court martial."
"S'nothing big," Zell said. "You got a sec?"
"Yeah," Squall said, giving up on coffee for the morning. "What?"
"Irvine had a question," Zell tugged his commander over to the far side of the room, as if by pure chance to the one window that faced the quad where most of the students were busy having lunch.
"What? Irvine had better--"
He didn't have time to finish, Zell had pushed him hard back against the glass, mouth on his, kissing him long and hard and in plain veiw of the entire Garden. And as Zell pelted like mad down the hall and Irvine fell out of his chair and the quad exploded in applause, Zell had to admit he wouldn't regret it, not for the rest of his life.
...Which would be about five minutes, at best.
*
Kingdom Hearts for kyburg
In the cold and darkness between worlds, Riku remembered his laughter. It lingered in his memory like blue water and hot sand, raw and intense and earnest and beautiful enough to hurt, blinding in its honesty. It made his heart strain for air as he pushed the cobwebs of worlds between his fingers, born again and again from the womb of the darkness, falling to unsteady ground and dripping with shadows like blood.
In his memory there was light, water ice-cold from the waterfall, the sun melting on the horizon in a pool of its own fire, turning the ocean warm gold, the wind bringing Sora's smell agaisnt his bare skin, as if the other boy had reached out to touch him.
Riku followed it through the darkness, running low like an animal pursued, holding tight to the world he had struggled so hard to leave. He was out there somewhere, not in the brightness of memory but just ahead of the tide of shadows. Riku ran with the crest of the wave and struggled for Sora's sky. He missed time and again, one world too late, one step too far, and spun in eddies of chiaroscuro.
He landed hard and ran through a world of blurred greys, not sensing him, and burst back into the darkness as quickly as he had come, not lingering. The shadows parted for him again and it was raining here. He remembered rain in the hammered-together shelter, warm and secretive, sharing stories in the grey light until the clouds passed.
Something brushed by the fingertips of his mind and he spun, water fountaining under his boots. The streets here were empty, but they had not been for long. He tore through space like a veil, staggering at last, the trail cold. He had not been here.
The fabric of this world had not yet knit behind him and Riku spun the keyblade in his hand, waiting. It would not be the first time he had been followed, heartless with their hollow eyes and scrabbling fingers pouring out of the rent he had made in his passing.
The darkness parted and collided hard with him, knocking him back into the mud, his keyblade flung wide and useless in his hand. But no heartless had eyes so blue, or smelled like a summer sky, boundless and bright.
He was older-- how long had it been?-- and there was more strength than Riku remembered in the sudden arms around him, a depth to the sound of his name that had not been there before.
"Riku," Sora said, and his laughter was no memory. "Don't you ever stand still?"
*
Ellis/Sarin for urdsama
Sket Lessons
Ellis had really only thought it might do well to pass the time. He would not have thought the northern prince to be such a patient listener, though surely he could not have understood more than five words of Ellis' long nervous oration on history and music theory. It was easier just to show him, as he had asked. Sarin held the sket as he might an unfamilar weapon of war, dark brows furrowed, fingers moving gently over the small belly and the delicate neck.
Ellis, noting the prince's bitten fingernails, had rooted through Jerdon's storeroom in search of a set of finger-picks and finally found some that would suffice. They looked to be a thousand years old and were surely a temple-relic, shaped like birds in flight. He wondered how Jerdon had come about them, but had to admit they suited Sarin's hand, even though Sarin himself had looked rather dubious as Ellis had fitted them on the ends of his fingers.
Sarin uncertainly brushed his hand over the strings, and an artless chord shivered through the instrument. Ellis grinned, reaching up to fold Sarin's forgotten left hand over the neck. He guided Sarin's hand up and down the chords, and Sarin strummed the strings, coaxing an uncertain melody out of the instrument.
It was nothing Ellis had not done a hundred times with the flock boys, showing small hands where to find the notes, tapping out painfully slow versions of a familar melody until the music bloomed under eager fingers. Sarin was quick to learn. For some time he was content with the song Ellis had given him, the same set of simple chords that the smallest boys of the flock learned. But then he hesitated, considering the instrument in his hand and shifting his grip on the neck.
Ellis almost corrected him when the first three notes were not the ones he had learned, but Sarin kept going, tripping once or twice and quickly correcting himself, until the song he played was flawless, and his own. He looked up at Ellis and his blue eyes were bright with modest triumph.
Ellis felt his cheeks go warm and reached out for his own sket, smiling uncertainly at his prince and guiding Sarin's hands to his, willing to be taught.
*
Zax/Sephiroth for kaiser-chan
"Merry Christmas," Zax said, his laughter a low hitch in his chest. "Not how I guess you'd want to spend it." It was the end of the rainy season in Wutai, according to the last calendar Zax had looked at days ago, but apparently Wutai wasn't interested in letting up anytime soon. Water streamed from the broad leaves outside the mouth of the cave; a small muddy rivulet ran just beyond his boots. It was less of a cave and more of a hole, but Zax was disinclined to be picky. "Be better off back at camp? Or maybe in Midgar. It's probably covered in snow, right now. Don't you think, sir?" Zax paused, his fingers worrying at the knots tied in muddy bandages. "Sir?"
The general took a breath, opened one eye partway. Zax watched the slit pupil open and close, his commander looking at him without recognition. "Branford?"
The knot gave in Zax's hands. "Darklighter, Sir. Lt. Branford is dead."
Sephiroth closed his eyes, air hissing between his teeth. "My apologies. I seem to be... slipping."
Zax looked down without comprehension at the mass of lacerations under his hands. "Me too, sir."
"The helicopter crashed, didn't it." Sephiroth tried to sit up, and blood welled between Zax's fingers. "There was anti-aircraft fire... from the ground."
"You should stay still," Zax said, adding belatedly, "sir." He told himself his fingers were shaking because of blood loss and two days without food, not fear and memory. The bandages were makeshift, torn out of the sleeves of his jacket; there had been no time to retrieve anything better. Wutai guerrilla fighters were not known for their leniency, but at least they hadn't known how many passengers the chopper had been carrying. Four bodies must have been enough to content them; Zax didn't think they had been followed.
"Leave it," Sephiroth said, as Zax ripped the stitches out of his other sleeve, trying to wring the fabric dry.
Zax tore the camouflage fabric into strips anyway, fumbling them tied with his fingers. "It's Christmas Eve, did you know?" Sephiroth made a vague noise, his head tilted back against the rock face. Water trickled down his arm, tinged pink as it left his fingers. Zax could not think about what he didn't know how to fix, broken bones grating under his hands, injuries that would have killed a normal man three times over. Instead he tied up his commander's ribs and shoulder again, willed the pale skin to knit. "I wonder if Ma sent me a card. She does, you know, every year. Once she found out where I was."
The white general blinked at him bemusedly, a far cry from the man Zax had met less than a week ago. Sephiroth looked truly defeated, his long hair matted and no longer white, the fingers of his right hand refusing to even close, much less grip the hilt of the great black sword strapped to his back. Zax could not let himself even wonder at what kind of cosmic injustice would leave him alive and Sephiroth dying. "Did you run away from home, Darklighter?"
Zax grinned. "Yeah, I guess I did." Zax tried to find a relatively dry patch to sit on, gave up, and squidged over to the wall. "I didn't know anything about entrance exams or the time limitations for SOLDIER, so I turned up two weeks too late for the fall slot, and had to spend the winter in a drain pipe under sector two." Zax waved a hand at the muddy cave. "Feels just like the good old days."
Sephiroth began to make a noise, rasping and thick, and Zax was panicking for a full thirty seconds before he realized his commander wasn't having a seizure, he was laughing. "You don't strike me as the kind to hold back on an impulse." He went still, and opened both his eyes. They showed pain, but were unclouded for the first time since the helicopter crash. "How long have you been carrying me through the brush?"
Zax ran a hand through his hair, shrugging. "Two days? I knew we weren't supposed to stay at the wreck site, because of the damage of capture, so I've been trying to point us back towards camp..."
"I know the protocol, Darklighter."
Zax shut up abruptly.
"Well?" Sephiroth said, without opening his eyes. "You're a SOLDIER third class, aren't you? Your commander is incapacitated, and you are deep in enemy territory. What are your options?"
Zax considered. "Even if we stayed here, there is no real chance of us being found. We hid our tracks from the Wutai guerrillas, and HQ would be justified in marking us missing in action. So it would be best to move on if we want to survive."
"You didn't sleep though your classes, at least." Sephiroth ran a hand down his thigh, over the shredded black tatters of his pants. "It's taken you twice as long, carrying me. You know the book, don't you, Darklighter? Ones who can't keep up should be left behind."
Zax stared. "...I can't leave you, sir."
"Don't be an idiot. Of course you can. I am no use to either of us." Sephiroth struggled to grasp the hilt of Masamune, and failed. "Take my sword with you. I won't need it, and Central Command will want some proof." He smiled, bitterly. "I'm sure I will be a splendid martyr. That should please them." Sephiroth looked sharply at Zax, still hesitating. "Well? What are you waiting for? You can walk well enough. You want it an order? Fine." Slit irises narrowed. "Move out, Soldier."
Zax paused only a moment longer, then nodded. He leaned forward and pulled Sephiroth's good arm over his, slinging the general ungracefully across his shoulders and standing, grunting with exertion.
"What," Sephiroth said, in utterly bland tones, "in the name of hell are you doing?"
"Disobeying a direct order, Sir," Zax said, bearing his commander up, and beginning the long journey back to camp.
To Central Command, Admiral Heidegger, Midgar
From Gen. Sephiroth, Field Encampment 435-B, Wutai Frontier
Enclosed are forms for promotion of SOLDIER #7607, Darklighter, Zax.
Field promotion, SOLDIER, first class. Silver commendation.
That is all.
-S
*
Jerdon/Rekbah for prim
He should know by now, not to take her with him. Brightness catches her eyes, and sugared nuts and the tiny mirrors sewn to a crimson veil. Her eyes ask for everything, each treasure out of reach one more thing she must have, and Jerdon is willing enough with his coin.
As a child she delighted in it, her arms full of girlish wealth, her smile unrepentant. But now, with her body a slowly unfurling blossom of potential, she does not prod the jeweler's wares to watch them swing and sparkle from their cords, no cool draughts of fruit pulp and no sugared cakes can tempt her. He buys for her anyway, anything that she so much as looks at twice, hoping to win her smile. He had not counted on how used to it he became, how easily it could be bought for a trinket.
She protests for the first time that he spoils her, and that her greediness will be his undoing.
Nonsense, Jerdon insists to her. Surely she knows he has nothing else to do with his money. What of those silver hoops there, for her ears, and the tightly fitted green silk vest sewn over with beads, a woman's garment, not those loose things that all too suddenly do not fit her as they used to. Rekbah agrees, but looks away as he barters, at a blushing young man reciting sonnets to the giggling fruit vendor's daughter.
The one thing Rekbah truly wishes of Jerdon, he cannot buy her.
*
Flik for _rosiel
"I don't know what to do with it," Flik protested, staring at the palm of his glove.
Odessa, dressed in a Scarlet Moon infantry uniform, grinned at him from the hay bales in the back of the wagon. "It's simple enough. Just command the power of the rune and bring your will to bear on it. It sounds more complicated than it is."
"No runes in that fancy Warrior Village?" Viktor asked. There was no uniform to fit him, so he had to content himself with masquerading as a hay bale.
"We rely on our swords more than on magic," Flik insisted, rubbing his hand and feeling a faint electric prickle where the rune's imprint showed on his skin. "I've never used one before." He was playing the part of a common mercenary, and had kept his habitual blue cape, though Viktor had scoffed that no self-respecting sell-sword would wear such a thing.
"Give it a try, then." Odessa reached up to make sure her hair was still properly tucked up under her helmet. She nodded to the slowly passing countryside. "Take a stab at that tree."
Flik lowered his eyebrows and steadied himself against the side of the wagon. He would rather have tried this first alone, not rattling in the back of a haycart with even the few resident chickens watching him.
He focused his mind on the rune and felt a sudden stir of power. Surprised and pleased, he meant to command it towards the pine tree twenty yards from the road, but he had not counted on his element. It arced out of his hand unexpectedly and he quickly sought to recall it back to him-- a mistake.
Lightning burst in a blue-white flare, knocking Flik to the other side of the wagon. The chickens were deeply agitated and loudly let it be known; there was a pungent smell of smoldering hay. Odessa was sprawled on her back, laughing until tears streamed down her face, her hair falling out of her helmet. Viktor was beating the sparks out of Flik's clothing with rather more force than necessary. From the buckboard Humphrey gave them all a look of long suffering, as if he doubted this lot could overthrow a small pub, much less the Empire.
"Take it out," Flik said, when he had gotten his breath back, lost more from Viktor's pounding than the shock. "I'll kill us all."
"Don't be ridiculous, that was brilliant." Odessa wiped her eyes. "I had no idea it would like you so much."
"Like me?" Flik demanded, incredulous. "It tried to kill me!"
"Did you see it?" Viktor shook his head. "Turned around and came right back to him, just like a puppy. Damnedest thing."
"Give yourself a week," Odessa said, schooling her expression for whatever shred of dignity Flik had left. "You'll have it bringing you your slippers by then, I'd wager potch on that, and if not you can get rid of it. I've never seen such a strong response."
"Ugh," was Flik's opinion.
"It takes a few tries to get the hang of it." Odessa twirled the end of Flik's headband around her finger. "Don't worry, handsome. They'll be calling you something impressive before long... The Blue Lightning, maybe."
Viktor snorted. "If they don't call him a charred lump of armor by the side of the road."
Flik kicked him out of the wagon.
*
Sydney/Ashley for luckykitty
Ashley waited, beneath the dripping eaves of a darkened tavern. It would not be long. Sydney had said he would be only a moment. The furthest light in the manor winked out and Sydney returned before it had completely died, arching like an arrow though darkness, thundering home into Ashley's chest.
"I will teach you," Sydney had said, shrugging into the thin white robe, cool fabric to cover the scars. "But I cannot do so like this." He lifted his hand, forged joints and unfeeling steel, moved by his will and the dark. "There is a better way."
"How?" Ashley wanted to know.
"I will show you." Sydney let the sleeves fall, to cover the mockery of flesh and blood he wore. "But I have something first to do. I will not tarry long."
And Ashley understood, as Sydney's soul blossomed in him like some dark flower, spreading warmth to his fingertips. A watchman called his name and Ashley shifted forms without a thought, his diablerie flawless.
I will teach you, Sydney said, as the tide of souls in Ashley's blood shifted and flowed with the dark. And teach you well. Then I will leave you, and you must find me again, and teach me.
"You are the hart," Ashley said, to the low heavy sky, smiling in the cold rain as it splattered on his bare palms, knowing he was not the only one to feel the fall of rain on his skin.
And you are the Hunter.
*
Hawk for cymraes
He does not often sleep. In the deepest hours of night he will sit by the window, his face to the moonlight. I wake and his bed is cold beside me, his undreaming eyes open to the stars. He tells me that he has slept enough, and it is better peace for him to listen to the song of the city.
But sometimes, once a month or less, I wake to find him still beside me, lost in slumber. Without the age in his waking eyes he seems only a boy, a songbird not yet through his term. Those times he could be any bird of the Temple, dreaming of the dais and his mortal music. His skin is warm to touch, human and soft. I had thought once that touching him would be like touching time itself. But there is nothing to mark him now as sainted legend or Temple's Wing, Alveron of old who sang death down from heaven and felled a mighty army still in its ranks.
No, In his sleeping he is mortal, and for that I do not wake him. Sleep is the balm of the finite lifetime, and though it does not come to him often, it is his comfort. A Preybird of my years should have such a thing, a fine pale boy to warm the bed and the blood. But they do not know, as I do, that my face shows years that are to him a flicker of sunlight through leaves. I will ever be his, in his dreaming, in my waking, to the end of the road that he will see and I will not, when Time comes to fetch me, and does not answer his call.
And then I will sleep, and Alveron will once more watch the stars.