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Entry tags:
Multi-Fandom Drabble Post
I'm consolidating some of my comment drabbles, so these might seem familiar.
Enjoy!
Avatar// Sokka// Quicksand:
He hated The Foggy Swamp.
Sokka clung to the roots of a tree, quicksand sucking at his lower body.
He clawed at the wood, bark slipping off and shredding beneath his fingers. He kicked, and slid back another foot, the slurry coming up to his armpits.
He looked up, and there she was.
The breeze ruffled her short hair, tugged gently at her clothing. The diffuse light matched her eyes.
"No..." he breathed. She shoved her spear under his body and levered him out. The sand relinquished him with a sucking gasp.
"Didn't I warn you about the quicksand?" she asked, grunting with the effort.
Avatar // Katara // the changing of the seasons:
She wasn't sure when it happened, but suddenly she wasn't looking forward to visiting the Fire Nation for the chance to wear her scarlet silks, or practice her bending with ocean as warm as bathwater, but to spar with the Fire Lord, and see the (tentative, hopeful, longing) confusion expression in his lopsided gaze.
Avatar // Katara// all things go
Katara realizes she made a grave, grave mistake at Zuko's wedding.
She listens to Mai repeat the traditional vows, vows heavy on duty and honor and obedience to any number of figures.
Mai speaks, voice monotone and face pale and yet she still glows.
Katara touches the new necklace at her throat, and has the feeling she sold herself away the moment she set her mother's jewelry aside, like it was talisman to keep her free.
When she hugs Zuko at the reception, she bites back the urge to hiss 'save me' in his scarred ear.
She thinks, of everyone she knows, he would understand how much of your soul you sell for family.
Avatar// Katara// paper:
Dear Zuko,
I am sorry to hear-
~~~
Zuko,
You can’t be surprised that it didn’t work out –
~~~
To Fire Lord Zuko,
I was recently informed of the dissolution of your engagement. My condolences,although even Toph would have been a better Fire La
~~~
Zuko,
So, you and Mai broke up. Well, really, who didn’t see that coming?
~~~
Dear Iroh,
I heard about Zuko’s recent break up. Please make sure he doesn’t do anything dramatic and/or stupid, would you? I The Avatar went to a lot of trouble to get a decent Fire Lord on the throne.
Warmly,
Katara
~~~
Hey, Zuko
I heard about you and Mai breaking up.
That’s rough.
Sokka.
p.s. Katara sent some seaweed and sugar snail tarts. They're great (I tried one or two, you know, just to make sure they were up to snuff, and they'll do wonders for keeping your strength up in these trying times.)
Avatar// Toph// Shoes aka "Willful Blindness"
Six months after Zuko's coronation, Toph starts wearing real shoes in the Fire Palace.
She hates them: even if she can sense enough to avoid walls and tables and find her way from one side of the huge mansion to the other, people are blurred - instead of crisply delineated beings, Toph's family becomes a blur of voices and muffled heartbeats and indistinguishable breathing.
Toph likes it that way.
She doesn't want to know about how Zuko's breath catches at the sight of Katara, the way Katara's heartbeat skips when they talk, the way Mai's expensive perfumes seem tawdry whenever Zuko is in the room, how the vibration of madness the clings to the corners of Zuko's childhood home.
She doesn't want to know that Aang's whole being resonates to Katara, that his pulse never even hitches when Toph talks to him - unless she's hitting him or insinuating something about Katara, which isn't the same thing at all.
Toph wears real shoes in the Fire Palace, and if anyone notices, they don't say anything.
Avatar// Zuko// clocks:
Time was a mutable thing. There were moments that seemed to last years (the reek of charring flesh, almost as stomach-turning as the pain), years that passed by like molasses and quicksand at once (the roll and rock of the sea under him) but time had never stood at a standstill until Zuko strung four words together to form the most terrifying question in his life.
Avatar // Katara // Shadow:
Aang didn't understand. He didn't understand how it felt to have a killing lust rise up inside yourself, to be perfectly rational and bend a man close to breaking, to want someone dead so much that you could barely breath for it.
He didn't understand, and Katara wouldn't explain. She didn't want to see that that confused, hurt look come into his eyes, didn't want to see him looking at her fearfully when he thought she wasn't watching.
So she pretended. She pretended that she'd never almost killed an old man in cold blood, pretended that she didn't sometimes fantasize that she had.
She pretended and pretended and pretended and then one full moon she was far, far away from the Avatar and there was no need to pretend.
She wasn't sure how exactly it happened, it was her and Zuko, just like it always was during the best battles, and they were fighting or flirting or doing something friends shouldn't be doing, and that turned into her fingernails raking bloody furrows down his back, his hands bruising her hips, and when she came, lights bursting behind her eyes, for one moment it was as if shadows blanked even the moon, and the world was only shadows and darkness and Zuko still moving inside of her.
Fullmetal Alchemist// Roy// Snow:
Riza belonged to Ishbal or Ishbal belonged to her: her hair was the same harsh gold as the desert sands, her eyes reflected the red of the people he'd murdered, and death nestled in her grip as softly, as gently, a baby's head rested in its mothers palms.
When Roy left the desert, he took Riza with him, and never told her that she was a reminder of his crimes, as well as his guardian, to destroy him least he commit further atrocities.
At the border of Drachma there was nothing to remind him. No warm colors, no sun; even the fire burned low and listless.
Mustang let his alchemy smother under the weight of the snow, let his skills rust, and craved Ishbal.
Fullmetal Alchemist // Hughes & Roy // desert sand:
Roy didn't like to leave his tent when he wasn't on duty, as if by seeing nothing of the land but what he had to he could blot out the inescapable truth of who he was killing; but for Maes' own sanity, he would stand at the end of the military camp, staring out at the bloody sky as the sun sank low, trying to hoard the beauty of the moment like he hoarded Gracia's letters.
Saiyuki//Sha Jien // yearning: a shadow flits before me:
When Dokugakuji takes himself in hand, scalding water beating his back like petulant fists, he's not thinking about sex.
No, when he strokes himself long and slow, as softy as his callused fingers can manage, pleasure unfurling soft and tentitive in his belly, he's rewriting his history.
Behind his eyelids, he sees the life he didn't have, the one where his mother was sane, where he got to see his little brother grow up, where he was honestly friends with Prince Kougaji, without the delightful and tanged threads of loyalty and obedience. He imagines meeting Yaone when she didn't have her bloody history trailing behind her like a ghost, when she didn't flinch at the sight of desire in a man's eyes.
He sees white when he climaxes, spots as pure as goose-down dancing in his eyes, and he's back: back to the world where he murdered his mother, his brother doesn't know he's alive, he's the servant of a man in chains. The world where he walks two steps behind Yaone, always, and does it to protect her back, and not to worship the seductive curves of her hips.
Saiyuki // Gojyo // sometimes love hurts:
Gojyo knows that he's in love with her when the one kiss he gets tastes like betrayal.
It's her wedding day, and she doesn't have a wedding. No lucky red dress, no church, no cadre of pretty, pretty bridesmaids that he could seduce.
It's just Yaone, her soon-to-be husband, her best and closest friend, and the half-blood bastard in love with her.
They're standing in Chang'an's city hall, Hakkai filling out forms in his perfect teacher printing, kanji written as clear as blood on white walls.
Yaone is blushing with happiness, wearing a silken sari in the same shade as her hair.
In the moments before the bored official signs the papers, Dokugakuji squeezes her tight, whispering something in her ear. Gojyo kisses her, just the corner of her mouth, praying she doesn't taste the longing, and then she's out of his arms, reaching out to Hakkai and holding his hand like she's never going to let go, as the justice of the peace pronouces them husband and wife.
Harry Potter // Lupin/Tonks // leash and collar:
"The living room, Dora?" Lupin asked, digging in his heels a bit, "I'm not sure if... I mean, the bedroom right-"
Moving slow but implacably, Tonks applied pressure to the leash in her hand and pulled him towards her, until he was standing next to her, in front of the fireplace.
"Dora, this is slightly inappropriate," he managed through the rush of blood leaving his head.
"Only slightly?" she responded, and then tsked. "I'll have to fix that."
Naruto // Kakashi // Love Me Dead, Or, The Evening Copy Nin Kakashi Met A Real Life Vampire
He turned away. "Immortality doesn't interest me," he told her dismissively. Even her pitch, full of seductive, sensual phrases, coupled with her wanton body language, couldn't make living to see everyone he ever knew die sound enticing.
He stared out over the dance floor, keeping his sole original eye focused on the dancing bodies, and not any of the couples tucked into the shadows around the edge of the room, moving to a more primal, private beat than anything that was being pounded out of the speakers.
The vampire rose on tip toes, wrapped her arms around him from behind, and whispered in his ear, "You could take her with you."
He didn't respond.
"Think about it," she breathed, "You could have her, spend an eternity taking her in every manner you wish."
Against his will, Kakashi couldn't help but gaze at that corner, that particular couple: the Uchiha's hands fisted in her bright hair, restraining her as he daintily touched his lips to hers. Sakura was nothing so controlled: she kissed him delicately back, but her fingers dug into the sides of his rear, pulling him closer, undulating her hips against his.
If Sakura had been in his arms and half so responsive, Kakashi would not still be in an obnoxiously loud bar.
His heartbeat quickened at the thought; Sakura moving against him, lust and love and youth in every cell of her body, every scrap of her self. He wondered if she could warm his soul the way she must Sasuke's.
"I'm not interested," Kakashi repeated, the words tasting like graveyard ashes in his mouth.
Naruto // Kakashi // part my hair with a knife
Kakashi opens the door and for one moment panic whites out his thoughts, and then he's racing through his home, leaping over bloodsplatters and broken weapons and if there was any point in praying, he would have been on his knees.
He found Sakura in their daughter's room. Bodies littered the floor and blood splashed across every surface, dripping down the white slants of Orin's cradle against which his wife slumped.
"Hey," she croaked weakly, as Orin's cubby hands reached through the balistrades of the crib and petted her mother's bloody hair.
Enjoy!
Avatar// Sokka// Quicksand:
He hated The Foggy Swamp.
Sokka clung to the roots of a tree, quicksand sucking at his lower body.
He clawed at the wood, bark slipping off and shredding beneath his fingers. He kicked, and slid back another foot, the slurry coming up to his armpits.
He looked up, and there she was.
The breeze ruffled her short hair, tugged gently at her clothing. The diffuse light matched her eyes.
"No..." he breathed. She shoved her spear under his body and levered him out. The sand relinquished him with a sucking gasp.
"Didn't I warn you about the quicksand?" she asked, grunting with the effort.
Avatar // Katara // the changing of the seasons:
She wasn't sure when it happened, but suddenly she wasn't looking forward to visiting the Fire Nation for the chance to wear her scarlet silks, or practice her bending with ocean as warm as bathwater, but to spar with the Fire Lord, and see the (tentative, hopeful, longing) confusion expression in his lopsided gaze.
Avatar // Katara// all things go
Katara realizes she made a grave, grave mistake at Zuko's wedding.
She listens to Mai repeat the traditional vows, vows heavy on duty and honor and obedience to any number of figures.
Mai speaks, voice monotone and face pale and yet she still glows.
Katara touches the new necklace at her throat, and has the feeling she sold herself away the moment she set her mother's jewelry aside, like it was talisman to keep her free.
When she hugs Zuko at the reception, she bites back the urge to hiss 'save me' in his scarred ear.
She thinks, of everyone she knows, he would understand how much of your soul you sell for family.
Avatar// Katara// paper:
Dear Zuko,
I am sorry to hear-
~~~
Zuko,
You can’t be surprised that it didn’t work out –
~~~
To Fire Lord Zuko,
I was recently informed of the dissolution of your engagement. My condolences,
~~~
Zuko,
So, you and Mai broke up. Well, really, who didn’t see that coming?
~~~
Dear Iroh,
I heard about Zuko’s recent break up. Please make sure he doesn’t do anything dramatic and/or stupid, would you?
Warmly,
Katara
~~~
Hey, Zuko
I heard about you and Mai breaking up.
That’s rough.
Sokka.
p.s. Katara sent some seaweed and sugar snail tarts. They're great (I tried one or two, you know, just to make sure they were up to snuff, and they'll do wonders for keeping your strength up in these trying times.)
Avatar// Toph// Shoes aka "Willful Blindness"
Six months after Zuko's coronation, Toph starts wearing real shoes in the Fire Palace.
She hates them: even if she can sense enough to avoid walls and tables and find her way from one side of the huge mansion to the other, people are blurred - instead of crisply delineated beings, Toph's family becomes a blur of voices and muffled heartbeats and indistinguishable breathing.
Toph likes it that way.
She doesn't want to know about how Zuko's breath catches at the sight of Katara, the way Katara's heartbeat skips when they talk, the way Mai's expensive perfumes seem tawdry whenever Zuko is in the room, how the vibration of madness the clings to the corners of Zuko's childhood home.
She doesn't want to know that Aang's whole being resonates to Katara, that his pulse never even hitches when Toph talks to him - unless she's hitting him or insinuating something about Katara, which isn't the same thing at all.
Toph wears real shoes in the Fire Palace, and if anyone notices, they don't say anything.
Avatar// Zuko// clocks:
Time was a mutable thing. There were moments that seemed to last years (the reek of charring flesh, almost as stomach-turning as the pain), years that passed by like molasses and quicksand at once (the roll and rock of the sea under him) but time had never stood at a standstill until Zuko strung four words together to form the most terrifying question in his life.
Avatar // Katara // Shadow:
Aang didn't understand. He didn't understand how it felt to have a killing lust rise up inside yourself, to be perfectly rational and bend a man close to breaking, to want someone dead so much that you could barely breath for it.
He didn't understand, and Katara wouldn't explain. She didn't want to see that that confused, hurt look come into his eyes, didn't want to see him looking at her fearfully when he thought she wasn't watching.
So she pretended. She pretended that she'd never almost killed an old man in cold blood, pretended that she didn't sometimes fantasize that she had.
She pretended and pretended and pretended and then one full moon she was far, far away from the Avatar and there was no need to pretend.
She wasn't sure how exactly it happened, it was her and Zuko, just like it always was during the best battles, and they were fighting or flirting or doing something friends shouldn't be doing, and that turned into her fingernails raking bloody furrows down his back, his hands bruising her hips, and when she came, lights bursting behind her eyes, for one moment it was as if shadows blanked even the moon, and the world was only shadows and darkness and Zuko still moving inside of her.
Fullmetal Alchemist// Roy// Snow:
Riza belonged to Ishbal or Ishbal belonged to her: her hair was the same harsh gold as the desert sands, her eyes reflected the red of the people he'd murdered, and death nestled in her grip as softly, as gently, a baby's head rested in its mothers palms.
When Roy left the desert, he took Riza with him, and never told her that she was a reminder of his crimes, as well as his guardian, to destroy him least he commit further atrocities.
At the border of Drachma there was nothing to remind him. No warm colors, no sun; even the fire burned low and listless.
Mustang let his alchemy smother under the weight of the snow, let his skills rust, and craved Ishbal.
Fullmetal Alchemist // Hughes & Roy // desert sand:
Roy didn't like to leave his tent when he wasn't on duty, as if by seeing nothing of the land but what he had to he could blot out the inescapable truth of who he was killing; but for Maes' own sanity, he would stand at the end of the military camp, staring out at the bloody sky as the sun sank low, trying to hoard the beauty of the moment like he hoarded Gracia's letters.
Saiyuki//Sha Jien // yearning: a shadow flits before me:
When Dokugakuji takes himself in hand, scalding water beating his back like petulant fists, he's not thinking about sex.
No, when he strokes himself long and slow, as softy as his callused fingers can manage, pleasure unfurling soft and tentitive in his belly, he's rewriting his history.
Behind his eyelids, he sees the life he didn't have, the one where his mother was sane, where he got to see his little brother grow up, where he was honestly friends with Prince Kougaji, without the delightful and tanged threads of loyalty and obedience. He imagines meeting Yaone when she didn't have her bloody history trailing behind her like a ghost, when she didn't flinch at the sight of desire in a man's eyes.
He sees white when he climaxes, spots as pure as goose-down dancing in his eyes, and he's back: back to the world where he murdered his mother, his brother doesn't know he's alive, he's the servant of a man in chains. The world where he walks two steps behind Yaone, always, and does it to protect her back, and not to worship the seductive curves of her hips.
Saiyuki // Gojyo // sometimes love hurts:
Gojyo knows that he's in love with her when the one kiss he gets tastes like betrayal.
It's her wedding day, and she doesn't have a wedding. No lucky red dress, no church, no cadre of pretty, pretty bridesmaids that he could seduce.
It's just Yaone, her soon-to-be husband, her best and closest friend, and the half-blood bastard in love with her.
They're standing in Chang'an's city hall, Hakkai filling out forms in his perfect teacher printing, kanji written as clear as blood on white walls.
Yaone is blushing with happiness, wearing a silken sari in the same shade as her hair.
In the moments before the bored official signs the papers, Dokugakuji squeezes her tight, whispering something in her ear. Gojyo kisses her, just the corner of her mouth, praying she doesn't taste the longing, and then she's out of his arms, reaching out to Hakkai and holding his hand like she's never going to let go, as the justice of the peace pronouces them husband and wife.
Harry Potter // Lupin/Tonks // leash and collar:
"The living room, Dora?" Lupin asked, digging in his heels a bit, "I'm not sure if... I mean, the bedroom right-"
Moving slow but implacably, Tonks applied pressure to the leash in her hand and pulled him towards her, until he was standing next to her, in front of the fireplace.
"Dora, this is slightly inappropriate," he managed through the rush of blood leaving his head.
"Only slightly?" she responded, and then tsked. "I'll have to fix that."
Naruto // Kakashi // Love Me Dead, Or, The Evening Copy Nin Kakashi Met A Real Life Vampire
He turned away. "Immortality doesn't interest me," he told her dismissively. Even her pitch, full of seductive, sensual phrases, coupled with her wanton body language, couldn't make living to see everyone he ever knew die sound enticing.
He stared out over the dance floor, keeping his sole original eye focused on the dancing bodies, and not any of the couples tucked into the shadows around the edge of the room, moving to a more primal, private beat than anything that was being pounded out of the speakers.
The vampire rose on tip toes, wrapped her arms around him from behind, and whispered in his ear, "You could take her with you."
He didn't respond.
"Think about it," she breathed, "You could have her, spend an eternity taking her in every manner you wish."
Against his will, Kakashi couldn't help but gaze at that corner, that particular couple: the Uchiha's hands fisted in her bright hair, restraining her as he daintily touched his lips to hers. Sakura was nothing so controlled: she kissed him delicately back, but her fingers dug into the sides of his rear, pulling him closer, undulating her hips against his.
If Sakura had been in his arms and half so responsive, Kakashi would not still be in an obnoxiously loud bar.
His heartbeat quickened at the thought; Sakura moving against him, lust and love and youth in every cell of her body, every scrap of her self. He wondered if she could warm his soul the way she must Sasuke's.
"I'm not interested," Kakashi repeated, the words tasting like graveyard ashes in his mouth.
Naruto // Kakashi // part my hair with a knife
Kakashi opens the door and for one moment panic whites out his thoughts, and then he's racing through his home, leaping over bloodsplatters and broken weapons and if there was any point in praying, he would have been on his knees.
He found Sakura in their daughter's room. Bodies littered the floor and blood splashed across every surface, dripping down the white slants of Orin's cradle against which his wife slumped.
"Hey," she croaked weakly, as Orin's cubby hands reached through the balistrades of the crib and petted her mother's bloody hair.