Assorted: Abandoned WiPs
Aug. 7th, 2008 05:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuesdayficarchivedI mentioned I might do this quite a while back, and now I'm actually following through. I'm setting them free! These are mostly probably definitely abandoned. Expect a lot of tiny, tiny snippets and jumping around, as I don't always do well with linear. I might poke at and pick back up one or two of these (or take and use bits for other fic), but don't pin all your hopes on seeing more of any of these:
Dresden: Genderfuck:
For my twelfth birthday, Justin DuMorne, my then mentor and adopted father, walked me through summoning an oracle spirit, Ulsharavas. When the oracle said that my first child would hold the key to the end of the world, Justin convinced me not to worry. Months after I walked out of his burning lab and into delicious, open air, when I finally turned eighteen, the first thing I did was make a hospital visit to have my tubes not tied, but cut. I thought my next mentor would kill me when he turned up, but instead he bundled me into the cab of his pick-up and took me home.
--
I looked from Marcone to the window and shivered a little. My smile was all edges when I turned back to him.
"It appears we'll have to continue this another time," he said.
"Right," I said. "I'll get right on that. When hell freezes over."
***
Dresden: Harry/Marcone resurrection fic:
There was a flash of light and the acrid stench of burning hair. After a moment, I realized it was my hair, at which point hands began beating out the flames. My vision blurred—I was surrounded by so many bright streaks of blues, reds, and oranges. My lungs were filled with smoke and my mouth tasted like the inside of an ash tray. I promptly began to choke, and the hands pulled me up, pressed hard against my oversensitive skin. I flinched and coughed out—hint of lavender and thyme—incense?
Through the jumble of sounds I made out the words "okay?" and "not—planned" and "last chance."
Black dotted my peripheries, swiftly washed across my entire vision. Stronger hands jerked me over, pressed me flat against a metal bed I suddenly could barely feel. I realized I wasn't breathing when lips pressed against mine and forced air through, down into my lungs. After an interminable time, endless to me, though I was later reassured was under forty seconds, I took another breath of air in on my own. The strong hands tightened against my shoulders and the lips returned, softer this time, more coaxing.
This is not CPR, was my first barely coherent thought, unless it's been updated at some point to include the use of tongue.
"Let him breathe," came an annoyed female voice. "We didn't bring him back again so you could kill him with make-outs."
"He is breathing," was a deeper and exceedingly more masculine voice.
Hell's Bells. I recognized that voice.
I opened my eyes to look at my unlikely and all too expected savior. "Marcone," I said. "You shouldn't have."
--
"They said you were still alive while the house burned down."
"They were right," I replied curtly.
--
"Marcone traded half his life for you!"
"Well I didn't want it!" I stopped. I mentally rewound our conversation, which had gone a bit different than I'd expected. "What do you mean half his life?" I asked, voice low and dangerous.
"Um. You should probably talk to Marcone about that."
--
"It's not a big deal," Marcone said dismissively, going back to his paperwork.
[long cut for spoilers and nonsensicalness, revelation that Marcone, uh, actually managed to make a deal for a really extended lifespan of his own]
"Being alone would be boring," said Marcone, stroking a hand against the grain of my stubbled jaw. "And it would take unnecessary effort to train a new wizard to suit my needs."
"You've only just gotten me housebroken," I allowed.
"I wouldn't go that far," said Marcone, eyes crinkling at the corners.
"Hey, I don't pee on the nice rugs anymore."
"But you still leave suspicious stains on the furniture," Marcone said, backing me toward the couch.
"I have not," I protested.
"Would you like to?" Marcone pushed me down into the plush cushions, and I wondered how anyone could say no that without sounding like a crazy person.
***
Harry Potter: Neville/Luna, various (slightly more likely to be picked up, but maybe not, as I'm probably done with HP for a long, long while):
“Ginny is so scary,” said Neville. “Why am I attracted to her?”
“You’re a Gryffindor,” said Luna simply, as though that explained things perfectly.
Neville supposed, rather depressed about the matter, that it did.
--
“Have you ever thought that maybe you,” said Neville, “maybe I.” He stuttered to an awkward halt, face flaming, mouth dry, and watched Luna’s face carefully for any sign of derision, though with Luna it was hard to tell.
“Once,” said Luna, expression quite serious for her, “a snyptcritch and a minotaur fell in love.”
“Oh?” asked Neville, and tried to resist the urge to ask what a snyptcritch was. “And what happened?”
“When they tried to mate, the snyptcritch bit off the minotaur’s head and feasted on his innards, then painted a beautiful love letter with the blood on the canvas of his body.”
“Oh.” Neville wondered if this was Luna trying to say that she was a lesbian, or that she was in love with Harry Potter. Knowing Luna, either was a strong possibility. It was possibly the most endearing rejection he’d ever experienced, certainly better than when Ginny had looked at him with a good deal of pity and then threatened to hex him.
Then Luna was kissing him and it was wet and awkward, and Neville realized he might never know Luna in full at all.
***
Hikago: attempted blind_go zombie AU (I haven't touched this for a year, and it has too many problems; it's definitely abandoned):
Sai’s eyes were pinched, face paler than Hikaru remembered. Sai held himself oddly, as though wounded. His hair was messy, knots snarled in the usually well-cared for locks. His lips were pressed hard together as though holding back a tide of words.
Hikaru had no such compunctions. “Sai! Sai, what are, how did—” he caught up Sai’s cool hands in his own, surprised they didn’t pass through one another, words cutting short. “. . . What?” Hikaru stared at their hands, his darker, broader ones clutching Sai’s pale, thin palms and fingers, then up at Sai. “Am I dead?”
Sai looked to the side, at something Hikaru couldn’t see. All that was visible was the play of light on mist, endlessly shifting around them. He could taste nothing, smell nothing. The only sound was the rustling of his clothes as he moved his weight restlessly from one foot to another. Sai didn’t meet Hikaru’s eyes as he spoke. “No.”
“Then I’m dreaming,” said Hikaru, grinning. The words came gushing back, excitement buoying him. “But where’s the goban? What have you been up to? Played against Touya-meijin lately?” Sai didn’t answer, just continued to stare off at that invisible something. “Sai?”
“How much do you remember?” Sai asked abruptly. He turned their hands so that he was clutching Hikaru back, grip tight. “How much do you remember of recent events in your world?”
Hikaru blinked. “Um.” He thought a moment, searched through his mind. Things were a little fuzzy, like he was watching an out of focus TV, the cable broken and a few wires loose. “Not much?”
Sai’s fingers dug almost painfully into Hikaru’s. “Think.”
Hikaru concentrated harder, things beginning to slot slowly (very slowly) into place. “Ogata finally pried the Honinbou title away from Kuwabara. Akira, Ashiwara, and I took him out to celebrate. Then . . . “ Nothing. Wait. Hikaru felt his brow furrow, forcing memories up from the dregs of his mind. “Then I had a couple of days of go tutoring. There’s nothing all that exciting happening this soon after the Honinbou league.” He looked back at Sai, whose expression was somewhere between frustration and disappointment. “But that’s not what you’re asking about, is it?” he asked, chest going tight. Some unknown dread caused his fingers to twitch, his mouth to spasm. It felt like someone had just punched him in the chest. “Sai, Sai, what’s going on?”
“Hikaru, think. What do you remember?”
The mists around them were closer, darker than before. Things moved off in the corner of his vision. The expected goban was taking shape before them. He thought he heard a voice cry out and his head hurt, vision blurring briefly. The taste of copper crowded the back of his tongue.
“I don’t, I don’t know.” He thought furiously. “There was the tutoring. I played a game or two with Touya at his parlor when we had a couple of free hours. Isumi got married last month. Akari had her second kid. Touya and I—”
He crumpled, leg folding up under him. Sai held Hikaru up, steady, implacable. The sound of far-off shouting grew louder, unintelligible and annoying. The shapes seemed to fade into the mist, become the mist, moving uneasily in the distance.
“Touya and I heard the news reports in the break room. Ishikawa had left the TV on and we—“ Hikaru blushed. “We could hear it and there were . . . there were . . .” His eyes widened in disbelief and remembrance. He looked at Sai for confirmation, voice questioning, doubting, even as he said it. “There were zombies spreading up from Kyoto and Osaka?” Sai said nothing. “Sai, tell me there aren’t really zombies ”
“What else do you remember?”
“Sai.”
“What else do you remember?” Sai’s eyes were sharp, demanding.
Hikaru swallowed. “We thought it was a joke.”
Touya had been disapproving of someone allowing the “perpetuation of such a crass and ridiculous hoax, causing needless public panic.” Hikaru had laughed and suggested that they had better things to do than worry about some soon to be fired newscaster’s idea of a joke. Touya had rolled his eyes at Hikaru’s lack of regard for such matters and found better uses for his mouth than arguing.
Then they had gotten the phone call.
--
Hikaru had turned off his cell phone before arriving, not wanting anything to disturb his game with Touya. Touya’s had landed in a gutter and skidded down the grate after Hikaru had dodged it in the middle of a particularly vigorous disagreement and they hadn’t found the time to replace it in the past couple of weeks (or agreed on who was at fault and needed to do the replacing: Touya was firm in his position that the damage to Hikaru’s head would have been negligible and possibly beneficiary, whereas his dodging it had resulted in its necessary replacement. Hikaru thought it wouldn’t need replacing if Touya hadn’t thrown it at his head).
They were the only ones in the go parlor, Touya having seen the last of the customers out twenty minutes before. Touya was freakish in his responsibility. Despite it being after closing, when the parlor’s phone rang, he pulled back and said, “I have to answer that.”
“You don’t,” said Hikaru, hands wrinkling Touya’s still mostly pristine shirt, light blue looking better rumpled and even better pulled out of Touya’s dark khaki slacks. “You have to keep doing that thing with your tongue.”
“It’s called French kissing,” said Touya, smirking at Hikaru.
“See? Can't even remember what it's called. Obviously need more demonstration."
“Shindou, it’s nothing we haven’t done a hundred times before,” said Touya, tugging Hikaru’s hands away. “The days of you being able to play clueless are long gone.”
“I’m a slow learner,” said Hikaru, giving up on the shirt and linking his fingers through Touya’s belt loops, the belt itself now draped over a chair with Touya’s jacket. “I need further instruction. Teach me.” Hikaru tugged Touya back toward him.
“Stop that.” Touya swatted Hikaru’s hands, backing out of the break room, Hikaru following determinedly. “I have to get the phone. It could be important.”
“But Touya,” said Hikaru, drawing out the vowels of Touya’s name, “What we’re doing now is more important. I haven’t seen you in a week.”
“Six days,” said Touya, ducking through the door. “We went home together after Ogata’s party.”
“And you fell asleep! You’re a terribly boring drunk.”
“And whose fault was it that I was drunk in the first place?” Touya shot back.
“I didn’t think you’d actually drink all of those drinks I ordered you.”
“Yes you did. You just thought it would make me easier.”
Hikaru’s grin was unrepentant. “I don’t need alcohol to get into your pants, Touya.” He backed Touya against the counter, deftly unbuttoning Touya’s slacks with the calm ease of familiarity. “Besides, I like you hard.”
Touya let out a little huff of air that was a mix of frustration, long-suffering, longing, and amusement. “You’re terrible.” He was smiling.
“I’m good,” Hikaru murmured into Touya’s neck, licking slowly along the tendon and then nipping gently below his jaw. “I’m good and you want me and don’t answer that.”
Touya had taken the opportunity to lean back and feel around for the phone. He picked the receiver up from the cradle, fending off Hikaru’s snatching hands. “Hello, you’ve reached—“
“Touya!”
“Yes, yes, he’s here,” said Touya, still smiling. “I’m sure you can hear him yourself.”
“Who is it?” Hikaru demanded, curious, no longer grabbing for the phone, but refusing to move away from Touya. He bumped their hips gently together and slouched against Touya, resting his chin on Touya’s shoulder and putting his ear by the receiver.
Waya’s voice was loud, but the background noise was louder, nearly drowning him out. “Shindou, you have to stay there! Shindou--!” It was impossible to hear what he said next, his voice inaudible against the shouts, shrieks, and screams.
“Are you at a concert?” asked Hikaru, stealing the receiver and turning it his way, but keeping it poised between himself and Touya. “I can’t hear you.”
There was only more noise, then the sound of Waya’s phone dropping. Then nothing. Static swiftly replaced by a dial tone.
Touya raised an eyebrow at him. Hikaru shrugged, pressing into Touya a little more than necessary as he hung up the phone. “Must be one hell of a concert,” said Touya.
“He’s probably having a lot of fun,” said Hikaru. “Speaking of which, isn’t there something fun we could be doing right now?” He ran a hand down Touya’s side, then up under his shirt. He had to pull out an undershirt before his questing fingers met skin.
Touya was frowning. “I didn’t know he had that much free time this week.”
Hikaru unzipped Touya’s pants with his other hand. “I think Isumi’s wife set him up on another blind date. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t have to do a lot of talking if they saw a show.”
Touya continued to frown, not reciprocating and generally failing to get with the program, here. Hikaru wondered if he would need to make pamphlets. “I didn’t hear any music.” They would probably need to have “SEX WITH SHINDOU” printed all over them in large, red letters. “And that doesn’t explain why he cut off so suddenly.” There would need to be diagrams. “Maybe we should call him back.” And illustrations. Lots of illustrations.
“He probably got caught up in a mosh pit or something,” said Hikaru. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt. Besides, we’re busy.”
Touya went from frowning in general to frowning at Hikaru. There was a difference. One was kind of sexy. The other indicated that he would be getting nowhere until Touya was appeased.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll call him,” said Hikaru, surrendering. Grumbling not quite under his breath, he went storming back into the break room.
“Where are you going?” Touya called.
“To get his number!” said Hikaru, snatching up his jacket from its position on the floor. He dug through his pockets, wondering how the hell he could fit so much into such small pockets. It was impossible to get one thing out without pulling out everything. He did so, eventuallly spotting the flash of go stones amidst the clutter. He fished the cell phone out by the strap, feeling triumphant that at least one thing was going his way.
“You still don’t have his number memorized?” asked Touya. He was leaning against the door frame, watching Hikaru.
“He just changed it.”
“He changed it months ago.”
“Well, you don’t seem to know it, either.”
“He’s not one of my best friends.” Touya’s brows were beginning to furrow again.
Hikaru waved off the argument with good grace, escaping that trap. He was going to find the number, call Waya, and get laid, damn it.
Touya didn’t pursue the subject, glancing back at the television as Hikaru moved past kanji to the katakana Waya had typed his name in as after deriding Hikaru’s kanji level. He’d even put it in under “wa.” Hikaru was just glad that he’d found it, looking up at Touya with a grin.
Touya had gone pale, eyes wide and still fixed to the television. “Shindou,” he said, voice shaking minutely, “what if it’s not a hoax?”
The screen showed shot after shot of carnage, pans of raging mobs and hordes of terrified people running, strangely detached ones pursuing, attacking with anything on hand, many of those running quickly being taken down. About a quarter of those who fell stumbled back to their feet and joined those pursuing. The rest were slaughtered, throats slit, heads bashed in—the cameras, shooting from overhead helicopters, showed any number of gruesome ends.
The announcer droned on, voice numb with shock. “I repeat, police advise to stay in your homes. Barricade yourselves as best you can and wait for assistance. International aid has been called for and is expected to arrive any hour now. The police and the JSDF have already been mobilized. Until such time as they arrive, I repeat, stay in your homes. Currently, the Tokyo threat is centered around Tokyo Station and the immediate area, most of the danger spreading from there. As of this moment, there is no news of the emperor and his family, though the JSDF is scrambling to send additional units in—“
--
“And then?” Sai prodded. He looked tired, his usual buoyant energy drained away. One of his sleeves was torn. His fingernails were dirty, some unnamed substance, a dark brown, crusted under and around the edges.
“And then we watched,” said Hikaru. “We closed and locked the break room door,” and sat indecently close together, “and watched the news for several hours, waiting. Eventually, we got a goban and go-ke and started playing.”
--
At the bottom of the screen, text scrolled past giving updates of southern Japan and Kyushu, as well as more detailed movements in Tokyo itself. They had turned the sound to low, the loudest sound in the room the “pa-chi, pa-chi” of stones against wood. Neither fumbled a stone, though it would have been more than forgivable in the circumstances. The news only grew grimmer.
Already they could hear the growing-less-distant sound of shouts, screams, and general pandemonium through the walls and windows. The television continued to advise patience as their best option. Every channel was more of the same, two or three companies collaborating and broadcasting on most networks, the media pulling together and pooling resources.
There were no on-site reporters, all dropped in having met one of three ends—addition to what were most adamantly not being called zombies, to those attempting to hide or flee, or to the ever-growing death toll. The only footage remained that of the helicopters hovering overhead, some rather precariously between buildings and others using extra-zoom lenses.
The near-silent voice from the television stated calmly, despairingly, that the “threat has reached past Kanda, all the way to Ueno, .” That their particular area hadn’t already been swarmed was only a matter of luck. It was likely that this bubble of safety was already surrounded. Hikaru wondered idly, almost hysterically, if there was space enough to drop a stone and make two eyes, or if they would have to wait and hope that the JSDF could connect and save at least part of this side of Tokyo.
“I resign,” said Touya, bowing his head a brief moment. They cleared off the goban as they had the previous games since they began their vigil, with no post-game discussion, in near-silence, the soft murmur of the television, the stones clicking together, and their soft breathing the only noise apart from the ever more disturbing outside sounds.
--
“Then what happened?” asked Sai gently.
“Then—“ Hikaru stopped, frowning, trying to think, swallowing down the bitter tang of copper once more. His right leg was throbbing almost painfully now and his fingers hurt more than the pressure of Sai’s around them could account for. The backs of his hands burned as though blunt nails had raked against them. The mist sharpened into shapes and images, most unsettling, before fading back into itself. There was blood on the corner of the goban. “Then—“
--
The screaming got louder. But now there were occasional words and individual voices. An individual voice. Hikaru and Touya stared at one another, too sick even to play go.
The voice was shrill, faint through the low tech soundproofing of walls. Sometimes it faded, but it had returned closer several times, as though something (someone) was holding it there. Always, the same words. “Mommy! Mommy! They’re coming!”
***
Naruto: Lee/Gaara kidnapping snippet (there is actually a shamefully large amount more, but it is lost in misplaced notebooks and flash drives. You can tell it's much older in that I hadn't settled in to spelling Kankurou with the extended vowel yet):
For the first time in a very long time, Kankuro saw something like conflict cross Gaara's face. “It's not . . . entirely true.”
“What?” Kankuro didn't understand.
“Lee and I.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. Kankuro paled. “You mean Bowl-Cut was taken because he had some unrequited . . . thing for you, and the villages somehow got it mixed up?”
“No.”
“So you didn't actually get the chance to—get around to—” Despite the time he'd had to get used to it, Kankuro still had difficulty fully wrapping his mind around the idea.
“Lee wasn't receptive to that kind of relationship.”
***
Naruto: Abandoned kink meme snippets (from last November: Neji/Tenten, Shikamaru/Kankurou, Kakashi/Guy, Sakura/Ino)
There were many things she had never suspected about Neji Hyuuga before dating him. For one, she had never thought he'd be such a kinky fuck.
--
“Your puppets are impressive,” Shikamaru finally allowed, “But I think you'll agree that my shadow technique is a bit more useful in this particular situation.”
Shikamaru took a step forward, and Kankuro mirrored him.
--
Kakashi smirked, knowing Guy could tell Kakashi's mood from the contours of the mask against his face and the tone of his voice. “And just what kind of challenge are you proposing here?” he purred, sidling closer.
Guy gulped. “I—you—”
It was at that moment that Lee piped up, “Go get him, sensei!”
Guy froze. Kakashi did the same, though a bit more nonchalantly than Guy, with his red cheeks and stiff limbs. Kakashi couldn't decide whether he was more proud at having gotten Guy to forget their onlookers, or more embarrassed that he had nearly done the same.
--
“Can you hear me, Ino-pig?” Sakura demanded rather desperately now, feeling back for some touch of skin to skin, fingers reaching through dirt and mud and blood for another's warm fingers, or even just some small brush of fabric. “Ino?” Again, Sakura cursed her too kind silk bonds, too difficult to cut through with just flesh and nails. She shook her head in frustration and a vain hope of shifting the blindfold—a hope once more unfulfilled. Their captors were entirely too skilled to allow for any such leeway. “Ino, answer me!”
Sakura gritted her teeth and reminded herself that it could be the drugs that had silenced Ino, not her head wound.
***
Psych: Gus and Shawn in a familiar sci-fi setting:
"Dude, I don't want to break your special personal space bubble, but--"
"That's your side. This is mine. Just stay on your side of the line, and no one gets hurt."
"Gus--"
"Stay on your damn side of the line, Shawn."
"But my side is shrinking!"
***
So some of those are freed because I haven't touched them in a long time, because I couldn't figure out where I was going, it would take too long, it was just plain horrible writing/plot/everything, the tone varied too much, it went in a direction I really didn't want, or various combinations of these reasons (and many more). I have a lot more in my wip folders (you have no idea how much more), but these are the ones I've set free and thus freed myself from feeling obligated to work on at all, ever.
As I said, there may be one or two I'll come back to (Dresden and HP of these look more likely than the rest), but it's a relief to take a bunch of things out of the wip folders. I know they'll only too soon be replaced especially if the Psych folder keeps increasing at its current rate.
Dresden: Genderfuck:
For my twelfth birthday, Justin DuMorne, my then mentor and adopted father, walked me through summoning an oracle spirit, Ulsharavas. When the oracle said that my first child would hold the key to the end of the world, Justin convinced me not to worry. Months after I walked out of his burning lab and into delicious, open air, when I finally turned eighteen, the first thing I did was make a hospital visit to have my tubes not tied, but cut. I thought my next mentor would kill me when he turned up, but instead he bundled me into the cab of his pick-up and took me home.
--
I looked from Marcone to the window and shivered a little. My smile was all edges when I turned back to him.
"It appears we'll have to continue this another time," he said.
"Right," I said. "I'll get right on that. When hell freezes over."
***
Dresden: Harry/Marcone resurrection fic:
There was a flash of light and the acrid stench of burning hair. After a moment, I realized it was my hair, at which point hands began beating out the flames. My vision blurred—I was surrounded by so many bright streaks of blues, reds, and oranges. My lungs were filled with smoke and my mouth tasted like the inside of an ash tray. I promptly began to choke, and the hands pulled me up, pressed hard against my oversensitive skin. I flinched and coughed out—hint of lavender and thyme—incense?
Through the jumble of sounds I made out the words "okay?" and "not—planned" and "last chance."
Black dotted my peripheries, swiftly washed across my entire vision. Stronger hands jerked me over, pressed me flat against a metal bed I suddenly could barely feel. I realized I wasn't breathing when lips pressed against mine and forced air through, down into my lungs. After an interminable time, endless to me, though I was later reassured was under forty seconds, I took another breath of air in on my own. The strong hands tightened against my shoulders and the lips returned, softer this time, more coaxing.
This is not CPR, was my first barely coherent thought, unless it's been updated at some point to include the use of tongue.
"Let him breathe," came an annoyed female voice. "We didn't bring him back again so you could kill him with make-outs."
"He is breathing," was a deeper and exceedingly more masculine voice.
Hell's Bells. I recognized that voice.
I opened my eyes to look at my unlikely and all too expected savior. "Marcone," I said. "You shouldn't have."
--
"They said you were still alive while the house burned down."
"They were right," I replied curtly.
--
"Marcone traded half his life for you!"
"Well I didn't want it!" I stopped. I mentally rewound our conversation, which had gone a bit different than I'd expected. "What do you mean half his life?" I asked, voice low and dangerous.
"Um. You should probably talk to Marcone about that."
--
"It's not a big deal," Marcone said dismissively, going back to his paperwork.
[long cut for spoilers and nonsensicalness, revelation that Marcone, uh, actually managed to make a deal for a really extended lifespan of his own]
"Being alone would be boring," said Marcone, stroking a hand against the grain of my stubbled jaw. "And it would take unnecessary effort to train a new wizard to suit my needs."
"You've only just gotten me housebroken," I allowed.
"I wouldn't go that far," said Marcone, eyes crinkling at the corners.
"Hey, I don't pee on the nice rugs anymore."
"But you still leave suspicious stains on the furniture," Marcone said, backing me toward the couch.
"I have not," I protested.
"Would you like to?" Marcone pushed me down into the plush cushions, and I wondered how anyone could say no that without sounding like a crazy person.
***
Harry Potter: Neville/Luna, various (slightly more likely to be picked up, but maybe not, as I'm probably done with HP for a long, long while):
“Ginny is so scary,” said Neville. “Why am I attracted to her?”
“You’re a Gryffindor,” said Luna simply, as though that explained things perfectly.
Neville supposed, rather depressed about the matter, that it did.
--
“Have you ever thought that maybe you,” said Neville, “maybe I.” He stuttered to an awkward halt, face flaming, mouth dry, and watched Luna’s face carefully for any sign of derision, though with Luna it was hard to tell.
“Once,” said Luna, expression quite serious for her, “a snyptcritch and a minotaur fell in love.”
“Oh?” asked Neville, and tried to resist the urge to ask what a snyptcritch was. “And what happened?”
“When they tried to mate, the snyptcritch bit off the minotaur’s head and feasted on his innards, then painted a beautiful love letter with the blood on the canvas of his body.”
“Oh.” Neville wondered if this was Luna trying to say that she was a lesbian, or that she was in love with Harry Potter. Knowing Luna, either was a strong possibility. It was possibly the most endearing rejection he’d ever experienced, certainly better than when Ginny had looked at him with a good deal of pity and then threatened to hex him.
Then Luna was kissing him and it was wet and awkward, and Neville realized he might never know Luna in full at all.
***
Hikago: attempted blind_go zombie AU (I haven't touched this for a year, and it has too many problems; it's definitely abandoned):
Sai’s eyes were pinched, face paler than Hikaru remembered. Sai held himself oddly, as though wounded. His hair was messy, knots snarled in the usually well-cared for locks. His lips were pressed hard together as though holding back a tide of words.
Hikaru had no such compunctions. “Sai! Sai, what are, how did—” he caught up Sai’s cool hands in his own, surprised they didn’t pass through one another, words cutting short. “. . . What?” Hikaru stared at their hands, his darker, broader ones clutching Sai’s pale, thin palms and fingers, then up at Sai. “Am I dead?”
Sai looked to the side, at something Hikaru couldn’t see. All that was visible was the play of light on mist, endlessly shifting around them. He could taste nothing, smell nothing. The only sound was the rustling of his clothes as he moved his weight restlessly from one foot to another. Sai didn’t meet Hikaru’s eyes as he spoke. “No.”
“Then I’m dreaming,” said Hikaru, grinning. The words came gushing back, excitement buoying him. “But where’s the goban? What have you been up to? Played against Touya-meijin lately?” Sai didn’t answer, just continued to stare off at that invisible something. “Sai?”
“How much do you remember?” Sai asked abruptly. He turned their hands so that he was clutching Hikaru back, grip tight. “How much do you remember of recent events in your world?”
Hikaru blinked. “Um.” He thought a moment, searched through his mind. Things were a little fuzzy, like he was watching an out of focus TV, the cable broken and a few wires loose. “Not much?”
Sai’s fingers dug almost painfully into Hikaru’s. “Think.”
Hikaru concentrated harder, things beginning to slot slowly (very slowly) into place. “Ogata finally pried the Honinbou title away from Kuwabara. Akira, Ashiwara, and I took him out to celebrate. Then . . . “ Nothing. Wait. Hikaru felt his brow furrow, forcing memories up from the dregs of his mind. “Then I had a couple of days of go tutoring. There’s nothing all that exciting happening this soon after the Honinbou league.” He looked back at Sai, whose expression was somewhere between frustration and disappointment. “But that’s not what you’re asking about, is it?” he asked, chest going tight. Some unknown dread caused his fingers to twitch, his mouth to spasm. It felt like someone had just punched him in the chest. “Sai, Sai, what’s going on?”
“Hikaru, think. What do you remember?”
The mists around them were closer, darker than before. Things moved off in the corner of his vision. The expected goban was taking shape before them. He thought he heard a voice cry out and his head hurt, vision blurring briefly. The taste of copper crowded the back of his tongue.
“I don’t, I don’t know.” He thought furiously. “There was the tutoring. I played a game or two with Touya at his parlor when we had a couple of free hours. Isumi got married last month. Akari had her second kid. Touya and I—”
He crumpled, leg folding up under him. Sai held Hikaru up, steady, implacable. The sound of far-off shouting grew louder, unintelligible and annoying. The shapes seemed to fade into the mist, become the mist, moving uneasily in the distance.
“Touya and I heard the news reports in the break room. Ishikawa had left the TV on and we—“ Hikaru blushed. “We could hear it and there were . . . there were . . .” His eyes widened in disbelief and remembrance. He looked at Sai for confirmation, voice questioning, doubting, even as he said it. “There were zombies spreading up from Kyoto and Osaka?” Sai said nothing. “Sai, tell me there aren’t really zombies ”
“What else do you remember?”
“Sai.”
“What else do you remember?” Sai’s eyes were sharp, demanding.
Hikaru swallowed. “We thought it was a joke.”
Touya had been disapproving of someone allowing the “perpetuation of such a crass and ridiculous hoax, causing needless public panic.” Hikaru had laughed and suggested that they had better things to do than worry about some soon to be fired newscaster’s idea of a joke. Touya had rolled his eyes at Hikaru’s lack of regard for such matters and found better uses for his mouth than arguing.
Then they had gotten the phone call.
--
Hikaru had turned off his cell phone before arriving, not wanting anything to disturb his game with Touya. Touya’s had landed in a gutter and skidded down the grate after Hikaru had dodged it in the middle of a particularly vigorous disagreement and they hadn’t found the time to replace it in the past couple of weeks (or agreed on who was at fault and needed to do the replacing: Touya was firm in his position that the damage to Hikaru’s head would have been negligible and possibly beneficiary, whereas his dodging it had resulted in its necessary replacement. Hikaru thought it wouldn’t need replacing if Touya hadn’t thrown it at his head).
They were the only ones in the go parlor, Touya having seen the last of the customers out twenty minutes before. Touya was freakish in his responsibility. Despite it being after closing, when the parlor’s phone rang, he pulled back and said, “I have to answer that.”
“You don’t,” said Hikaru, hands wrinkling Touya’s still mostly pristine shirt, light blue looking better rumpled and even better pulled out of Touya’s dark khaki slacks. “You have to keep doing that thing with your tongue.”
“It’s called French kissing,” said Touya, smirking at Hikaru.
“See? Can't even remember what it's called. Obviously need more demonstration."
“Shindou, it’s nothing we haven’t done a hundred times before,” said Touya, tugging Hikaru’s hands away. “The days of you being able to play clueless are long gone.”
“I’m a slow learner,” said Hikaru, giving up on the shirt and linking his fingers through Touya’s belt loops, the belt itself now draped over a chair with Touya’s jacket. “I need further instruction. Teach me.” Hikaru tugged Touya back toward him.
“Stop that.” Touya swatted Hikaru’s hands, backing out of the break room, Hikaru following determinedly. “I have to get the phone. It could be important.”
“But Touya,” said Hikaru, drawing out the vowels of Touya’s name, “What we’re doing now is more important. I haven’t seen you in a week.”
“Six days,” said Touya, ducking through the door. “We went home together after Ogata’s party.”
“And you fell asleep! You’re a terribly boring drunk.”
“And whose fault was it that I was drunk in the first place?” Touya shot back.
“I didn’t think you’d actually drink all of those drinks I ordered you.”
“Yes you did. You just thought it would make me easier.”
Hikaru’s grin was unrepentant. “I don’t need alcohol to get into your pants, Touya.” He backed Touya against the counter, deftly unbuttoning Touya’s slacks with the calm ease of familiarity. “Besides, I like you hard.”
Touya let out a little huff of air that was a mix of frustration, long-suffering, longing, and amusement. “You’re terrible.” He was smiling.
“I’m good,” Hikaru murmured into Touya’s neck, licking slowly along the tendon and then nipping gently below his jaw. “I’m good and you want me and don’t answer that.”
Touya had taken the opportunity to lean back and feel around for the phone. He picked the receiver up from the cradle, fending off Hikaru’s snatching hands. “Hello, you’ve reached—“
“Touya!”
“Yes, yes, he’s here,” said Touya, still smiling. “I’m sure you can hear him yourself.”
“Who is it?” Hikaru demanded, curious, no longer grabbing for the phone, but refusing to move away from Touya. He bumped their hips gently together and slouched against Touya, resting his chin on Touya’s shoulder and putting his ear by the receiver.
Waya’s voice was loud, but the background noise was louder, nearly drowning him out. “Shindou, you have to stay there! Shindou--!” It was impossible to hear what he said next, his voice inaudible against the shouts, shrieks, and screams.
“Are you at a concert?” asked Hikaru, stealing the receiver and turning it his way, but keeping it poised between himself and Touya. “I can’t hear you.”
There was only more noise, then the sound of Waya’s phone dropping. Then nothing. Static swiftly replaced by a dial tone.
Touya raised an eyebrow at him. Hikaru shrugged, pressing into Touya a little more than necessary as he hung up the phone. “Must be one hell of a concert,” said Touya.
“He’s probably having a lot of fun,” said Hikaru. “Speaking of which, isn’t there something fun we could be doing right now?” He ran a hand down Touya’s side, then up under his shirt. He had to pull out an undershirt before his questing fingers met skin.
Touya was frowning. “I didn’t know he had that much free time this week.”
Hikaru unzipped Touya’s pants with his other hand. “I think Isumi’s wife set him up on another blind date. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t have to do a lot of talking if they saw a show.”
Touya continued to frown, not reciprocating and generally failing to get with the program, here. Hikaru wondered if he would need to make pamphlets. “I didn’t hear any music.” They would probably need to have “SEX WITH SHINDOU” printed all over them in large, red letters. “And that doesn’t explain why he cut off so suddenly.” There would need to be diagrams. “Maybe we should call him back.” And illustrations. Lots of illustrations.
“He probably got caught up in a mosh pit or something,” said Hikaru. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt. Besides, we’re busy.”
Touya went from frowning in general to frowning at Hikaru. There was a difference. One was kind of sexy. The other indicated that he would be getting nowhere until Touya was appeased.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll call him,” said Hikaru, surrendering. Grumbling not quite under his breath, he went storming back into the break room.
“Where are you going?” Touya called.
“To get his number!” said Hikaru, snatching up his jacket from its position on the floor. He dug through his pockets, wondering how the hell he could fit so much into such small pockets. It was impossible to get one thing out without pulling out everything. He did so, eventuallly spotting the flash of go stones amidst the clutter. He fished the cell phone out by the strap, feeling triumphant that at least one thing was going his way.
“You still don’t have his number memorized?” asked Touya. He was leaning against the door frame, watching Hikaru.
“He just changed it.”
“He changed it months ago.”
“Well, you don’t seem to know it, either.”
“He’s not one of my best friends.” Touya’s brows were beginning to furrow again.
Hikaru waved off the argument with good grace, escaping that trap. He was going to find the number, call Waya, and get laid, damn it.
Touya didn’t pursue the subject, glancing back at the television as Hikaru moved past kanji to the katakana Waya had typed his name in as after deriding Hikaru’s kanji level. He’d even put it in under “wa.” Hikaru was just glad that he’d found it, looking up at Touya with a grin.
Touya had gone pale, eyes wide and still fixed to the television. “Shindou,” he said, voice shaking minutely, “what if it’s not a hoax?”
The screen showed shot after shot of carnage, pans of raging mobs and hordes of terrified people running, strangely detached ones pursuing, attacking with anything on hand, many of those running quickly being taken down. About a quarter of those who fell stumbled back to their feet and joined those pursuing. The rest were slaughtered, throats slit, heads bashed in—the cameras, shooting from overhead helicopters, showed any number of gruesome ends.
The announcer droned on, voice numb with shock. “I repeat, police advise to stay in your homes. Barricade yourselves as best you can and wait for assistance. International aid has been called for and is expected to arrive any hour now. The police and the JSDF have already been mobilized. Until such time as they arrive, I repeat, stay in your homes. Currently, the Tokyo threat is centered around Tokyo Station and the immediate area, most of the danger spreading from there. As of this moment, there is no news of the emperor and his family, though the JSDF is scrambling to send additional units in—“
--
“And then?” Sai prodded. He looked tired, his usual buoyant energy drained away. One of his sleeves was torn. His fingernails were dirty, some unnamed substance, a dark brown, crusted under and around the edges.
“And then we watched,” said Hikaru. “We closed and locked the break room door,” and sat indecently close together, “and watched the news for several hours, waiting. Eventually, we got a goban and go-ke and started playing.”
--
At the bottom of the screen, text scrolled past giving updates of southern Japan and Kyushu, as well as more detailed movements in Tokyo itself. They had turned the sound to low, the loudest sound in the room the “pa-chi, pa-chi” of stones against wood. Neither fumbled a stone, though it would have been more than forgivable in the circumstances. The news only grew grimmer.
Already they could hear the growing-less-distant sound of shouts, screams, and general pandemonium through the walls and windows. The television continued to advise patience as their best option. Every channel was more of the same, two or three companies collaborating and broadcasting on most networks, the media pulling together and pooling resources.
There were no on-site reporters, all dropped in having met one of three ends—addition to what were most adamantly not being called zombies, to those attempting to hide or flee, or to the ever-growing death toll. The only footage remained that of the helicopters hovering overhead, some rather precariously between buildings and others using extra-zoom lenses.
The near-silent voice from the television stated calmly, despairingly, that the “threat has reached past Kanda, all the way to Ueno, .” That their particular area hadn’t already been swarmed was only a matter of luck. It was likely that this bubble of safety was already surrounded. Hikaru wondered idly, almost hysterically, if there was space enough to drop a stone and make two eyes, or if they would have to wait and hope that the JSDF could connect and save at least part of this side of Tokyo.
“I resign,” said Touya, bowing his head a brief moment. They cleared off the goban as they had the previous games since they began their vigil, with no post-game discussion, in near-silence, the soft murmur of the television, the stones clicking together, and their soft breathing the only noise apart from the ever more disturbing outside sounds.
--
“Then what happened?” asked Sai gently.
“Then—“ Hikaru stopped, frowning, trying to think, swallowing down the bitter tang of copper once more. His right leg was throbbing almost painfully now and his fingers hurt more than the pressure of Sai’s around them could account for. The backs of his hands burned as though blunt nails had raked against them. The mist sharpened into shapes and images, most unsettling, before fading back into itself. There was blood on the corner of the goban. “Then—“
--
The screaming got louder. But now there were occasional words and individual voices. An individual voice. Hikaru and Touya stared at one another, too sick even to play go.
The voice was shrill, faint through the low tech soundproofing of walls. Sometimes it faded, but it had returned closer several times, as though something (someone) was holding it there. Always, the same words. “Mommy! Mommy! They’re coming!”
***
Naruto: Lee/Gaara kidnapping snippet (there is actually a shamefully large amount more, but it is lost in misplaced notebooks and flash drives. You can tell it's much older in that I hadn't settled in to spelling Kankurou with the extended vowel yet):
For the first time in a very long time, Kankuro saw something like conflict cross Gaara's face. “It's not . . . entirely true.”
“What?” Kankuro didn't understand.
“Lee and I.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. Kankuro paled. “You mean Bowl-Cut was taken because he had some unrequited . . . thing for you, and the villages somehow got it mixed up?”
“No.”
“So you didn't actually get the chance to—get around to—” Despite the time he'd had to get used to it, Kankuro still had difficulty fully wrapping his mind around the idea.
“Lee wasn't receptive to that kind of relationship.”
***
Naruto: Abandoned kink meme snippets (from last November: Neji/Tenten, Shikamaru/Kankurou, Kakashi/Guy, Sakura/Ino)
There were many things she had never suspected about Neji Hyuuga before dating him. For one, she had never thought he'd be such a kinky fuck.
--
“Your puppets are impressive,” Shikamaru finally allowed, “But I think you'll agree that my shadow technique is a bit more useful in this particular situation.”
Shikamaru took a step forward, and Kankuro mirrored him.
--
Kakashi smirked, knowing Guy could tell Kakashi's mood from the contours of the mask against his face and the tone of his voice. “And just what kind of challenge are you proposing here?” he purred, sidling closer.
Guy gulped. “I—you—”
It was at that moment that Lee piped up, “Go get him, sensei!”
Guy froze. Kakashi did the same, though a bit more nonchalantly than Guy, with his red cheeks and stiff limbs. Kakashi couldn't decide whether he was more proud at having gotten Guy to forget their onlookers, or more embarrassed that he had nearly done the same.
--
“Can you hear me, Ino-pig?” Sakura demanded rather desperately now, feeling back for some touch of skin to skin, fingers reaching through dirt and mud and blood for another's warm fingers, or even just some small brush of fabric. “Ino?” Again, Sakura cursed her too kind silk bonds, too difficult to cut through with just flesh and nails. She shook her head in frustration and a vain hope of shifting the blindfold—a hope once more unfulfilled. Their captors were entirely too skilled to allow for any such leeway. “Ino, answer me!”
Sakura gritted her teeth and reminded herself that it could be the drugs that had silenced Ino, not her head wound.
***
Psych: Gus and Shawn in a familiar sci-fi setting:
"Dude, I don't want to break your special personal space bubble, but--"
"That's your side. This is mine. Just stay on your side of the line, and no one gets hurt."
"Gus--"
"Stay on your damn side of the line, Shawn."
"But my side is shrinking!"
***
So some of those are freed because I haven't touched them in a long time, because I couldn't figure out where I was going, it would take too long, it was just plain horrible writing/plot/everything, the tone varied too much, it went in a direction I really didn't want, or various combinations of these reasons (and many more). I have a lot more in my wip folders (you have no idea how much more), but these are the ones I've set free and thus freed myself from feeling obligated to work on at all, ever.
As I said, there may be one or two I'll come back to (Dresden and HP of these look more likely than the rest), but it's a relief to take a bunch of things out of the wip folders. I know they'll only too soon be replaced especially if the Psych folder keeps increasing at its current rate.
Tags:
- characters: burton guster,
- characters: fujiwara no sai,
- characters: harry dresden,
- characters: haruno sakura,
- characters: hatake kakashi,
- characters: hyuuga neji,
- characters: john marcone,
- characters: kankurou,
- characters: luna lovegood,
- characters: might guy,
- characters: nara shikamaru,
- characters: neville longbottom,
- characters: rock lee,
- characters: shawn spencer,
- characters: shindou hikaru,
- characters: tenten,
- characters: yamanaka ino,
- fandom: harry potter,
- fandom: hikaru no go,
- fandom: psych,
- fandom: uzumaki naruto,
- ship: gaara/rock lee,
- ship: ginny weasley/neville longbottom,
- ship: harry dresden/john marcone,
- ship: haruno sakura/yamanaka ino,
- ship: hatake kakashi/might guy,
- ship: hyuuga neji/tenten,
- ship: kankurou/nara shikamaru,
- ship: luna lovegood/neville longbottom,
- ship: shindou hikaru/touya akira,
- type: au,
- type: crack,
- type: femslash,
- type: for kink meme,
- type: gen,
- type: genderfuck,
- type: het,
- type: slash,
- type: wip amnesty,
- type: zombies
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 09:31 pm (UTC)And to think I wandered over here from
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Date: 2008-12-20 09:45 pm (UTC)I have another, much longer Dresden fic I'm working on. It's probably going to end up at least 20k and I'm a bit blocked, but I have over 10k to the first part of it (I have a little bit more that would be in stories set after it). After I'm done with it, I may come back to other things in my Dresden folder. First, I need to finally finish it.
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Date: 2008-12-22 10:16 am (UTC)Btw: I am friending you in the hopes of you friending me back.
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Date: 2008-12-23 07:41 pm (UTC)Friended you back!
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Date: 2012-03-19 08:14 am (UTC)<3