and you're sure

already november!

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:54:24 GMT

Three people stopped me today - two for directions and one to do a survey - so I must be doing something right?
(I mean, until I talk, because then it is clear that I am not a French person :P .)
Also, today I remembered my umbrella, my scarf, and a map. That doesn't happen often!

Today I walked for several hours.
I have trouble saying no to home furnishing stores; I probably went into three or four. Those and random trinket stores and papateries (which are, honestly, sometimes the same thing). I visit a lot of them.
(We don't really have papateries in the US. Um. They are stationary stores that also, depending on the store, may stock magazines and even books. So lots of cute notebooks and stuff.)
I walked from a metro station that wasn't terribly near to the water to Notre Dame, and from Notre Dame to l'Ile de St Louis to the Bastille, where I got on another metro. And I took pictures, but they weren't fantastic. Oh well. It's not like I don't have a thousand of them anyway ~

<3

things I like / things I saw today.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:30:03 GMT

Today I went (back) to Le Bon Marché. That I am posting those photos before those of our trip to see the gothic cathedral or the Musee d'Orsay probably says something about my priorities :P .
I have three basic categories of pictures for this store: Christmas stuff, toys, and sugar.
...
Maybe I should just call it "Things I Like" and be done with it :) .

My pictures of the large trees are, unfortunately, blurry (and in some cases, nonexistent). There were four: traditional Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Black and White, and Rainbow. My personal favorite was the Winter Wonderland tree, for reasons that will become clear.

1. The WWT involved heavy application of random woodland creatures, including squirrels...

2. ... and owls.

3. And, apparently, Glittery Christmas Hedgehogs. I was so enamored with the GCH that I took if off of the tree (which is probably a cardinal French Christmas ornament shopping sin of some kind), but it did not have a price. The other one was directly in front of the cash registers and, placement on the tree-wise, more out of reach. I assume that they were out of them otherwise, because there were none on any of the tables. I looked.

(I did not ask about it because, I mean, how do you communicate that you want to know more about Glittery Christmas Hedgehogs in your second language? Seriously. This picture does not do him justice, though.)

I was also fond of various other ornaments, including these

which came in various colors.

Moving on to the toy section:

Bunnies!

There was a whole section of plastic knights and damsels (some of whom had swords), and, while this was not my favorite knight, I am fond of him for two reasons:

1. It takes a real man to wear a swan on his head, and
2. This reminds me a lot of the "12(?) Knights of Christmas" fold-out that my mother has, because this is seriously the sort of thing that the knights in it wear.

There was also an extremely interesting tree made out of cardboard.

Around this time I headed to the food section. I am fond of the food section at Le Bon Marché because they have their food in ethnic sections. For example, there is "United States/Canada" section and a "Tex-Mex/Spain/Germany".
US/Canada foods include marshmallows, peanut butter (and vanilla peanut butter?? I didn't realize that there was such a thing!), and pancakes. There was even a woman making sample pancakes.
(In Monoprix, another grocery store, you can buy box-like things of pancakes in the breakfast section.)

They also sell things like the following.
These are (let's not put to fine a point on this) chunks of chocolate on sticks. There is nothing wrong with that! I am rather intrigued by their hot chocolate applications. They come in various flavor assortments; this one is the exotic assortment and is made up of, I believe, chili pepper (???), cinnamon, and coconut.

This is yet another case where it is probably a good idea for one to translate before one buys :P .

I am assuming that this is biscotti, and I have to award them for their honesty:

Flour, raspberries, and butter sound pretty good to me. Butter is kind of big selling point in France, I think; foods are labeled with what percentage of each of the big ingredients they contain, and it is interesting to know when what you're eating is fifty million or whatever percent butter.

Other things that I do not have room for:
"Diamond Salt," which was big chunks of pinkish salt and came with their own cheese grater-like device.
Boxed soups. There was a whole aisle of these, and, somewhere along the way, the French or someone learned how to put soup in a box, because they are generally pretty delicious.
And, speaking of things that there were aisles for, sugar.

Today I learned that the French are absolutely fantastic with sugar presentation.
For example:

Who needs fake candy hearts once a year when one can get pure sugar ones dyed in romantic colors??
(There are also plain white ones and ones that I believe were brown sugar.) They also had decorated sugar cubes, sugar in little flower shapes, and colored squares of sugar. I don't know what the technical name of this is, but there is also rock sugar. (Think rock salt for appearance.) I haven't seen this in the US, and it is a really nice touch on some baked goods.

That concludes my super-long tour of my shopping trip this afternoon. I didn't buy anything, although I was tempted to.
And if you made it this far, you probably deserve some of those sugar hearts or something.
<333

almost november.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:02:30 GMT

and I had a dream
it blows the autumn through my head
it felt like the first day of school
but I was going to the moon instead

(Dar Williams, "End of the Summer")

versailles: part two

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:15:50 GMT

So... This took me awhile :) .

Also, I am touristy.
And, um, apparently distressingly short :P .

versailles: part one

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:18:03 GMT

We went to Versailles today. The 'castle' was alright, but the gardens are fantastic.
I am really unwilling to deal with all of my photos right now, but I will soon, and I am already voting that we just skip (most of?) the castle and go straight into the greenery.

list the second.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:15:22 GMT

Another list! This time, it is things that are, well, different here. Of course it is totally biased and whatnot :P .

1. Smoking is the norm - it is rude to ask people to stop smoking around you. (It is rather naive to assume that someone doesn't smoke, as well. I asked for a non-smoking home, and it is not - although they don't smoke a lot in the house - and it probably wouldn't matter anyway, because it is everywhere.) I am mostly used to it by now, but I am going to have to get some of my clothing dry-cleaned (some fabrics/items seem to adsorb the smell better than others), and it is really just a big change.

2. Dog shit. Watch where you walk.
Seriously.

3. I have discovered the joys of plastic wrap. Plastic baggies do exist here, but they are not common and they are expensive. Plastic wrap is easy to find and cheap. I pack my lunch (my mother, she is so proud) and a lot of that involves struggling with my box of plastic wrap and trying not to get it to cling to itself.
One thing that is REALLY nice is that I can buy big boxes of pastries and individually prewrap them.

4. On that subject, individually wrapped items are popular. And, stemming from that, Bonne Maman (I don't know who knows Bonne Maman. In the US I've only seen their jellies/jams.) also apparently produces a great deal of cookies and whatnot, which I am very, very pro. The ones that I tried were very French.

5. There are a lot of pigeons. Yes, I know that there are pigeons in the US. But do they have a habit of flying directly at one's head, sometimes one right after the other?
No?
I did not think so.

Ah, man, it is raining. Nargh.

8. Children are cuter here. I don't know, either.

9. Guys are shorter? This was my roommate's observation. After staring for a bit I have concluded that she seems to be on to something. Beyond that, however, I think that people just look more mature for their ages here. (It may have something to do with the clothing, I don't know.)

10. French women do not wear a lot of make-up. Make-up is expensive here - really expensive. Some women wear eyeliner or lipstick, but there is a lot less over the top color (which is not helping my own case. Hmm.)

11. I knew this already, but Paris drivers are not hot on stopping for pedestrians. Every time someone stops for me, it makes me kind of nervous. Usually they do not stop - it is a cross the road at your own risk sort of thing.

12. Except that crossing the street illegally is rampant. I do it, too. There are a ton of one-way streets here, which makes it really easy, and usually you have a pretty good view of whether someone is coming or not.

13. Also, a lot of the time there are more cars parked on the side of the street than actually driving in the street, at least where I live. Sometimes they even partially block crosswalks.

This list is kind of getting out of control o.o .
There were other things, but suddenly I have forgotten them, and I need to get to class anyway. Next time, next time.

EDIT: Okay, I forgot a big one. That I forgot it just shows how used to it I am, now.

14. Refrigeration is iffy. Leftovers do not necessarily go in the fridge. Heck, they don't necessarily get covered (with plastic wrap :P ) before they spend the night out on the counter.
And, yeah, it is kind of weird to see last night's salad or meat sitting on top of the stove (it is a small kitchen), but I think that in American we... well, not over-refrigerate... maybe don't give foods credit for their staying power.
A few days ago I had cheese-filled pastries for breakfast which had been sitting out on the counter all night. Once something is there, it is fair game.

And... yep. Okay, I really need to go to class! :P

au louvre.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:08:33 GMT

Today I went to the Louvre and, by the time that I had gotten my ticket, I realized that all I really wanted to do was see Winged Victory.
Nine euros is a lot of money to see one statue, yet...

I don't know why, but she is simply my favorite.

Of course, I saw other things as well. A LOT of other things. I really prefer statues, and, well, there are a lot of statues at the Louvre. An extraordinarily small sampling:

I also took a stroll up the Champs Elysees... once I found it. I don't know; I just don't have a good track record with not getting lost in that area. By that time, though, I was just about ready to go home. I visited the big bookstore - I didn't find anything - and then I did.
Tomorrow... I am not sure. Grocery shopping and the post office, probably.
<3's.

a city of paper buildings

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:15:14 GMT

list.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:27:06 GMT

A list! I am pro lists.

1. Laundry day here is like Christmas. The French do not terribly believe in dryers, and my host family has a set-up wherein the vast majority of wet clothing is hung above/around the bathtub. I do not have a lot of clothing, and am not so hot on rewearing most things, which means that laundry day practically makes me do a little dance and then wander around, staring up at the ceiling to see what of mine was washed, with my mouth open.
So far, I don't think that my host family has seen me doing this. At least, I hope not.

2.I do not get the scarf thing. Or, well, that is not totally true. I get it. They are warm and pretty and can be worn in many different ways. I just don't get how to wear them when they are looped around the neck (so, fold the scarf in half, put the loop over one shoulder and the ends over the other, and put the ends through the loop) - which side does the loop go on? Is there a secret code to this? Is it gender specific?
I spend far too much time observing people on subways to see how which side they have their loop on.

3. It is cold. It just is. Luckily, the girl who was here before us(?) left behind three bags of clothing and I claimed her gloves. My roommate may have gotten the actual clothing, but I am the one who got warmer hands out of it.

4. I have finally discovered the difference in usage between "bien" and "bon(ne)(s)." The first is an adverb and the second is an adjective. Why did I never internalize this?

5. My host brother talks amazingly fast. Like, I don't know when he has time to breathe fast. This means that I don't get a lot of what he says, but he also does voices and hand gestures, so I am also constantly snickering. Dinners are weirder now that my roommate is off visiting England (she is the one who talks; I am the one who listens).

6. I actually have a list of places to go this weekend or, at least, in the near future. (This is only partially related to how I spend a lot of my Critical Theory class today jotting down a Christmas card list and gift and ideas above my notes. Considering that I usually draw hearts - bad hearts :P - this may be a step forward. Spring quarter I did a lovely drawing of the plot of "We." It is hard to do that for Aristotle's Poetics and whatnot, though.)
Otherwise, I did not make it to the Louvre last Monday because I was doing reading for class. I am starting to become disillusioned with all this reading, particularly considering that we are several days behind in talking about it for my New Wave film class (and when you only have two days a week, this is sketchy) and that the most interesting Lit Crit talk that we have had so far was on something that we had not read about, since he generally just commentates on and explains the reading.
Hmm.

7. I am sure that there is more, but... It will come when I have more pictures? :P

Fontainebleau

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:38:22 GMT

Hmm. I am really not sure how to describe today, except that it was cold, and full of togetherness, and that I should have bought more postcards. We went to the Chateau de Fontainebleau, which my prof had described as a 'castle.'
It is not a castle. It is a weekend castle, which means that it is smaller and whatnot, except... well. From the inside...
I think that I will just let my pictures speak for themselves. Some of them are not the best, in part because my camera just does not do color all that well, but in person it is overwhelming. I had a difficult time picking out which pictures to post, honestly, because there is just so much.

(They just don't do ceilings like they used to.)

Almost all of the walls, the floors, the ceilings... all decorated. It is kind of crazy, but cool to look at.
Afterward we went out to lunch as a group and then had the option of going on a hike. I bowed out because it was cold and windy and because there was just a little too much togetherness going on.
And now there is homework and whatnot to do.
<3's ~

exploring.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:13:24 GMT

Today I was lying in bed, working on my thirty-one page reading for my cinema class, and I thought to myself, I did not come to France to read in English.
So I went to St. Michel instead.

pieces and pictures.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:49:50 GMT

I feel like I am trying to make a life here.

I do not really do touristy things, although I take touristy pictures; I go to class and to the supermarket and to the bakery, I wander around the city (between classes yesterday, I accidentally ended up at the Seine), and I stay in.
I have fallen in love with the metro. It is one of my favorite things here, definitely; I love the posters and the advertisements, I enjoy going from one place to the other underground, I like having a pass so that I don't have to buy a ticket every time.

It's strange to come home to this neighborhood -- the other parts of the city that I have gone to are all so alive, overflowing with people, and then I get back here and it's calm and still. We're surrounded by apartments, schools, and hospitals.
This is a good place to be, I think.

These pictures were taken between the apartment and Carrefour, which is kind of like a cross between a Walmart and a Costco, atmosphere-wise. (I will not be going on a Saturday again. It was super, super hectic. I was amazed at how much stuff some of these people were buying.)
Little grocery carrier things with wheels are VERY popular here. I felt kind of out of place, and ended up snagging a bag in the frozen food section (a nice bag! Dual-layered! It was only 00,10 euros, too, which worked for me). This ended up being a really good choice, because they don't have bags at the checkouts there - it is strictly a bring your own situation. Good to know.
And... yes.

As for classes, that is an interesting situation. I described it to a friend a few days ago as being like elementary school (in that you see the same people in every class and go on field trips and whatnot together), except with more alcohol and caffeine involved.
I have class for an hour and 45 minutes or so on Wednesday and Friday mornings, and then have it from again from 1:30 until it's done. (So far, that has been at about 6:00-6:30.) That part is kind of painful, and not very interactive. It involves a lot of movies and lecturing.
On Thursdays we go on field trips. I have pictures of all this, but they are even more touristy than usual :P . Perhaps more later!

day three.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:27:51 GMT

It rained in Paris today.

salut!

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:04:09 GMT

So, I am in Paris now, with my host family and my roommate. I got in early last morning (on French time; late Friday night on Washington time), and... Well. Let's start out by just saying that metros, which are full of staircases, and suitcases don't exactly mix, shall we? :P
Otherwise, it is kind of a "Well, now I'm here, so I have to buck up and do this" sort of situation. Not in a bad way, though.
I was dead on my feet all of yesterday, so -- today! Today C (roommate) and I started out by going to a marche (an outdoor market). I had been to a small one in Foix, but it wasn't hardly anything compared to this one, which was huge and extremely crowded. Claustrophobic.

But it was fun! All the produce looks fresher; it might be France, it might be the being outside, I don't know. I did notice yesterday that some of the supermarkets label where their produce is from though (not on the tags, on signs) and that a lot of it is from France.
There was a lot of fruit, meat (bacon! Rabbit! Tongue! Brains! Snail! You had all of your bases covered), cheese (which C really enjoyed) and flowers, as well as things like clothing and jewelry. The food areas were definitely the most crowded, though.
It was only a short walk from the apartment of the family that we're staying with. Speaking of that --

This is a view from one of the windows. It is a beautiful apartment in a beautiful area; the only thing that I'd really like to change is for there to be light on the stairs. (We're on the 7th floor and C and I have not figured out how to make the stairs light up yet, supposing that that is possible.)

Our host mother is kind of a professional host mother -- she's had a lot of students from several countries -- but she's really nice, and so is the son that we see relatively often. The apartment is rectangular rather than squarish; our bedroom is at the end of an extremely long hallway with uneven, creaky floors. There is a lot of charm here.
(Although, I wouldn't want to be tall, like C, and use that shower! And I need to remember to be even more of a tourist and take pictures of the details in the architecture around here, because if there are somethings that says that I am not in the states anymore, that is definitely on the list.)
I am having a hell of a time with the time change, although not in the sense that I'm jetlagged. I just have no idea what time it is unless I'm in front of a clock (and I have issues converting between times).

After the marche, we met up with some other girls from our group at the Louvre -- the first Sunday of each month has free admission -- but it was crowded and C had to go and up with someone else. I didn't feel like staying, so I took the metro home alone. (Are you proud of me? You should be proud of me :P .)
The metro really is better than buses, although you see less, scenery-wise. I am very fond of my little map and have underlined the stations that I will be using regularly.

And... yes. That is what I have done today. I might go out again to find something to eat, but we only have one key between us, and C is currently out and about. Hmm.
We have orientation tomorrow, and then class Wednesday, and I don't know how to fill the time in-between. That's probably not a good thing to say :P . I will find something!
(Probably something tourist-y!)

<3's, darlings.

princesses.

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:56:10 GMT

"When you're young, I think every little girl has high-flying dreams of being a princess. Some girls want to be asian empresses of ginger and jasmine, having love affairs with chamomile tea and dancing precariously on tip-toes. Others want to be French royalty in baby blue, taking honey baths in the high courts of Versailles. Still yet are those who dream of being Indian princesses, belly-dancing under the full moon while visions of Ganesh and Krishna turn through their heads, rustling like the pages of the Bhagavad Gita. Whoever it is we see ourselves as when we close our eyes, in one way or another we all have our flings with royalty.

"As we grow up into modern-day queens of the concrete jungle, those royal dreams seem to subside. We put away our pink lip gloss and stop practicing the waltz in our backyards - we fold up that spectacular champagne dress that we promised we would wear to all those royal balls and throw away our favorite plastic pearls. We trade in bunches of pink tulle and translucent sequins for pencil-skirts and oxford heels. We turn our backs to that shimmering fairy-tale world and we enter the strange and unknown - reality.

"Maybe it's not that we shun our childhood, our silliness and our dreams, maybe it's just that the little girls inside of us can't take it - maybe they see the world that we're entering, seemingly devoid of everything sugary-sweet, and maybe they're the ones who curl up and wait patiently for the return of our dreamworld. Maybe even they can't spot the everyday magic our world possesses.

"The trick of it all is that once we leave our fantasies, we do become those global princesses. Suddenly we're out on our own, making choices, facing each day; we become these strong, independent women in designer dresses and silken pearls. We realize that our childhood alter-egos were never just about bubble baths and tulle, but rather graceful warriors of their respective lands who just so happened to dabble in royalty. It occurs to us that our teeny-bopper dreamers were always there inside while we faced reality, pulling in everything beautiful like planets in orbit, and that they were the ones who kept that childish charm in our lives.

"Standing on the street, or in coffee shops, or over dinner, we realize what life-long dream we have fulfilled. We stand over mirrors and see Japanese geishas. Or Rococo darlings. Or caramel yoginis.

"Our princesses have never left. They have only grown."

- Penelope Bat

Good until August 2013!

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:58:42 GMT

At the beginning of the year, we were all issued these bright red 'emergency' backpacks, which include 'emergency food rations.'
And, since the beginning of the year, I have been wondering what they tasted like.

(Note the 'apple cinnamon flavoring.')
Because there has been a pretty constant influx of people moving in and out of our room, J and I have ended up with FOUR bright red backpacks, and (in theory) four emergency food rations, so I didn't feel guilty at all breaking into one.
(Because, I mean, if one brick equals three days worth of food, then we could each survive six days! Twice the average! Supposing that we don't get sick of apple cinnamon flavoring by then.)
Also, they are good until 2013, so we have a while.

Unfortunately, if I had just survived some sort of apocalypse, I would either want my emergency ration package to be easy open or come with scissors. As it stood, I wasted precious crumbs on my pants. (It might be worth mentioning that I was doing this, taking pictures AND talking on the phone at the same time. It takes skills!)

Also, this brick, while pre-scored, is not actually broken down into bricks, meaning that I could devour more than I meant to and not get my three days out of it. Fail.

Surprisingly, it tasted pretty decent! Like a really crumbly apple cinnamon flavored pie crust, or possibly just apple cinnamon flavored dried dough. The package says that it doesn't cause thirst, though, and since I wanted a piece of gum almost immediately afterward... Hmm.
But! Our backpacks also have water! Which I didn't try. Again, hmm.

Overall, I am going to give it a C for taste/texture and an F for not being pre-chunked. Also, I wonder what other flavor varieties these come in.
The handiwipes (seen in the first picture), however, I am giving an A, because if there so should happen to be an apocalypse, we must remember what country we're from. Also, there is more than one, but they did not make it into the picture, for some reason.

Fifteen Years (Gravitation fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:22:26 GMT

A Hiro-centric Gravitation fanfic, written in October of last year.
It can be seen as a companion fic to Where It All Led, but it's not a direct sequel.

Hey, Orion, he’s falling
Catch him if you can
Hey, Orion, he’s calling
Amen, amen, amen

Five, ten, fifteen years later, it’s hard to remember the little things. It’s not the music, or the way that they felt on stage -- no, those things have remained. He still keeps his guitar in the apartment, takes it out to play a little on good days and improvises until his fingers are bloody on bad ones, on the days when the surgery didn’t go right or there were complications and now there are empty eyes instead of full ones. And the operating room -- in some ways, it’s better than the stage ever was, because for once in his life, he’s in the foreground and not in the background. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t mind stepping back to Shuichi, because Shuichi was Shuichi and that was enough, but that he’s never felt this way before.

Really, what he does and does not remember can be counted in years.

Five years later, it’s hard to tell the difference between a guitar pick and a scalpel; there are similarities, although his classmates laugh awkwardly and joke the few times that he brings them up. He smiles at him, half-smiles, crooked, the old glitter still in his brown eyes as he watches their movements, graceful only from practice. There are ways that the stage has helped him here, ways that dealing with the press has made him more equipped for this job, but after a while, he doesn’t mention it at all.

Five years later, he can hardly remember the swing of red hair against the back of his neck, the heavy layers that were his signature. Shuichi laughs when he first sees it short, his purple eyes glistening slightly, and Hiro suddenly remembers --

Hiro --

Yeah, Shu?

When that thing… with… Taki… happened, the main thing that I remember from afterwards is your hair.

He looked down at the table between them, holding a half-empty bottle of beer between short, slim fingers. Shuichi’s nails were painted and bejeweled, ridiculous and trampy and sexy, and the other man didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know what the novelist thought of them.

Oh.

Yeah. Shuichi shrugged. I don’t know why I thought that you should know, but --

It’s okay, he said, and took another swig of beer. Besides… You weren’t yourself.

No, the shorter man replied, and then asked about something else, instead.

When the vocalist says that it looks good, reaching up with newly-polished nails to run his fingers through the drastically shortened strands, Hiro looks up and sees golden eyes staring at them through the doorway. Unable to tell if the gaze is a challenge or a cool welcome, he holds his ground, and the novelist finally nods.

Five years later, he marries Haru, and Shuichi sings at the reception with Suguru at the piano. As they walk down the aisle, he realizes that the music is never going to disappear.

Ten years later, he’s able to look at the old pictures, flip through the old tabloid stories and the interviews, and frown when he sees himself, sees quotes that he said that he cannot remember. Shuichi’s are still clear, pulled from the recesses of his mind, and there are days when even Suguru seems to be whispering in his ear. His own voice, however, remains a mystery, musical terms replaced with medical ones, and the guitar sits alone in the corner.

Ten years later, he runs into Suguru in a restaurant, hoity-toity and posh, the other man looking surprised and elegant. They’re both dressed in suits, Suguru’s hair either dyed dark blond or allowed to return to its natural color, and he has that tight-lipped Seguichi smile that Hiro remembers so well.

Hello, Nakano-san, the keyboardist says, and delicately removes a glove to offer his former bandmate a naked hand.

I thought that you stayed in the states, he replies, taking the hand and pulling the other man into a hug. Suguru tenses slightly in the taller man’s arms, and it’s only when they pull apart that he notices the man standing behind the blond.

This is Kazumi, the younger man says, and gestures toward him.

They bow, sizing each other up, and the keyboardist smiles. I didn’t stay in the states, he answers, because it wasn’t home.

He can understand that, and he nods, pulling his eyes away from his old friend’s companion. How is the playing going? he asks. I heard that you joined a new band.

Suguru shifts on his feet, and his companion goes to stand behind him, large and protective -- a wall against the past, he thinks, and dismisses the thought immediately.

Yeah, he finally admits. And you’re really a doctor now?

The red-head nods, and the other chuckles. I guess, the half-gloved man continues, his voice a little sad, it wasn’t a vacation after all.

All that he can do is nod and try to smile back. I guess not, he replies, and he hasn’t seen Suguru since.

When he gets home that night, he can’t decide if he wants to drink or to play, and so he compromises, the stereo playing lightly in the background as he pulls out a bottle of beer and watches the music channel on TV. Haru lingers in the doorway, finally coming to sit beside him on the sofa, and he wraps his arm around her. One hand on her swollen stomach, he listens to the bass radiate through her body. If nothing else, their child will know.

Fifteen years later, he’s back on the cover of a magazine, this time rated on a chart that he hadn’t even imagined years ago, when the musical charts were the only ones that he paid attention to. It gets him recognition, gets him phone calls from both of his old bandmates, from people that he used to work with, and for the first time in almost five years, he gets out his guitar and plays not for his child, but for himself.

They all set up a weekend to meet, two days to get together, one just for them -- guitarist, keyboardist, singer -- and another for the things that have changed and those that haven’t. Doctor and his wife, keyboardist and his lover, singer and his everything.

When he realizes that he’s looking forward to it, he even breaks out a notebook and a pen, skipping past pages of notes and anatomy drawings to scrawl down part of a song that, even if they never get a chance to record it, he’ll end up filing away under Bad Luck. Beside the clippings and photos it looks small, folded in on itself, and he runs a finger over it once more before the closing the drawer.

There are scalpels to be cleaned and guitar picks to be put away, and if sometimes he can’t tell the difference between how they feel in his hand, well, it’s better than just forgetting how things used to be, and there’s a kind of peace in that.

(A bit of backstory: Anais Mitchell has a song called Orion (which the lyrics in this fic are from), which is about a drummer who commits suicide. Somehow, my brain consistently managed to relate this to Hiro. And, well, this was the result.
Luckily, this story is a lot happier than the song.)

Where It All Led (Gravitation fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:38:24 GMT

Title is from "Blue Light of the Flame" by Dar Williams; lyrics are from "Bright Lights" by Carbon Leaf.

Step inside the lights beyond the shadow of our doubt.
And never find our way out,
We'll never find our way out,
We'll never find our way out of here again.

When their final concert ends, the afterwards is heralded by the same silence that fills the halls of NG after they finish an album; it’s the same quiet mourning that eclipses the space left between the footsteps in the practice rooms and the slow whir and thump of the janitors and their machines. There’s cheering, of course, and tears -- not from the band, but from their audience, screaming fangirls who are dressed like someone has died and like this a funeral, a funeral will be followed by some sort of contest.

What it would be for, Shuichi can’t tell. They screamed at him as he sang, reached their hands up to him as he performed. No bras on the stage, thankfully; that seemed to be something reserved for the American crowds.

At the time, K had just laughed and laughed. “Now that’s a souvenir of your time in the States, Shindo-san,” he had roared, clutching his sides, one hand dangerously close to his gun. They all backed away as the blond man had shaken his head, wiping tears from his eyes. “I’ll have to tell Judy,” K said, his shoulders still trembling. “I wonder if any of these is her size…”

Now, however, even K is quiet. He watched them, one hand fingering his gun reflectively, as they obediently filed off stage in order to return for an encore, then another, and finally a third. There’s no forth, but the band walks out again after the stadium is empty, and he waits for them, able to hear their words but not see their faces.

It feels wrong, somehow, so he waves over a guard and asks him about how security went during the show.

---

“It was a good concert, Shu,” Hiro says, his voice subdued. He’s still holding his guitar, clutching it gently in steady fingers, frozen in place.

Shuichi nods, his own hands wrapped tightly around his microphone. He looks at Hiro, feeling the same inability to let go, and then at Suguru. The younger man is detached from them, distant even now that it doesn’t matter anymore, his fingers running lightly, obsessively over his keyboard. He isn’t watching them, but glancing back and forth between the keys and the empty seats instead.

“I know.” His voice is harsh and he coughs, once, then again. Hiro rests a calming hand between his shoulder blades as the sounds continue into a string, shattering in the severe atmosphere of the venue. “I just wonder, sometimes, you know…”

Shuichi doesn’t finish the sentence, but the words don‘t have to be said. They jump between his back and Hiro’s palm, drift through the air to make Suguru’s fingers clench spasmodically, a clanking buzz jerked from the keyboard as his hands twitch over it.

“Sorry,” he says, meeting purple and gray eyes as the sound lingers. With it, the wrong notes carry the words back to K, making him shiver as they wrap around his gun hand. The movement carries them back to Tohma and Eiri, further backstage, pleasure and disappointment mixed in their minds.

“S’okay, Fujisaki-kun,” Shuichi tells him. He lets go of the microphone with one hand and rakes his free fingers through his styled hair. They come back streaked with sweat and gel and glitter, and he wipes them unthinkingly on the vest of his stage costume.

Suguru nods, apparently satisfied. Five years later, they still don’t call him by his given name, and they’ve all come to accept that. It’s not a matter of not being able to, but simply that the moment has never been right. Now that they’ve run out of time, the moment will never be wrong, but that doesn’t make it easier.

They stand there, reflective, for a few more minutes, connected by the line that’s been pulling at them since they were teenagers. Severing it was a group effort, eventually -- a moment of pressure, here and there, from Suguru’s parents, the slow dawning that Yuuji’s life is not what Hiro wants for himself, one walk between the different recording studios of NG that slowly expanded until Shuichi was spending more time with other bands than with his own.

The knowledge that Ryuichi was doing the same thing, the gradual understanding that Tohma was watching, the sharp awareness that they were the only ones who were surprised when it all came together to split apart.

The slow insight that five years is a long time, and that they’re all growing up.

“When are you leaving for America, Suguru?” Hiro’s voice carries through the large room, surprisingly steady.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, then a release as he answers. “The end of July,” the green-haired man says. “Tohma has already contacted some of his pianist friends there for me.” That he’s been accepted into a prestigious university is left unsaid; while it may be embarrassingly late, his parents seem to believe that it’s better late than never. He’s had his fun, and now… now it’s time to think of his future, or of theirs. It’s never really been specified, and Suguru hasn’t asked.

“You’re going to see so many things!” A note of excitement has come back into Shuichi’s voice, and he turns to face his companions, throwing his arms wide for emphasis. The microphone that he continues to hold crackles warningly, but he ignores it as he gestures to makes his point. “You’d better keep in touch!”

That makes the others smile, Suguru more shyly than Hiro, whose palm lingers on his friend’s back. “You do,” the redhead agrees. His own parents don’t share the same sentiment as Suguru’s; instead, they’ve temporarily turned their attention back to their no-good actor son. He knows that he won’t be totally back into their graces until they see him in a white coat, clipboard in hand -- they’ve failed enough with him that they won’t believe that they’ve succeeded until he’s actually made it. “What about you, Shu?”

Shuichi has finally lowered his arms, and he shakes his head. “Yuki and I decided to wait until he has another book tour that takes him overseas,” he admits, looking only slightly upset. Suddenly, he brightens. “That way, I can keep Yuuuuuki company while he has to deal with those awful fangirls! Do they throw bras at authors, too? I keep asking him, but he won’t say!”

Even Suguru has to laugh at that. “I don’t know,” he admits when Hiro can’t get the words out. “I guess that you’ll just have to go along and protect him from them, anyway.”

“Besides,” the singer continues. “Ryuichi has asked me to record a song with him, as part of his solo deal.” The stars in his eyes are visible even in the sterile light of the after-show clean-up preparations. They all know that nothing short of becoming mute or dying will keep Shuichi from singing, with or without a band – with or without Bad Luck.

They’re still smiling from the idea of Yuki being pelted with bras by adoring fans when the author himself walks out from backstage, lit cigarette burning cherry against his pale hand. “Are you ready, brat?” he demands, golden eyes cool. “The janitors are starting to ask when you people will get going.”

“Yuuuuuuuki!” Shuichi launches himself at his lover, the other man swearing as he tries to keep from burning the smaller man and still remain standing. In his exuberance, Shuichi shoves them both backstage, and Hiro finds himself left alone with Suguru.

“I guess that we should leave before they throw us out or before Shuichi and Yuki-san damage their décor too badly,” Hiro says, and glances at Suguru. The younger man nods, and they walk backstage together. They both take a quick glimpse backward as they do so, trying to burn the picture of the venue into their minds.

“Are you going home on your motorbike?” Suguru asks quietly, nodding solemnly at K as they pass him.

“Great show, guys!” the American says, flashing them two thumbs up before he returns to a conversation with a security guard.

“I thought that I’d go to a few clubs first,” Hiro admits. “Do you want to come?” he asks, but the other is already shaking his head.

“I’m going home with Tohma. We still have plans that need to be finalized,” Suguru answers.

“All right.”

They walk, not speaking, through the halls that wind between the stage and their dressing rooms. Shuichi and Yuki have already disappeared into one, apparently, from the noises that they can hear. Hiro winces, amused, and Suguru wrinkles his nose. “Maybe they think that it’s their last chance to get it on in a dressing room?” the redhead suggests, and his companion chuckles.

“They’ve never needed motivation like that before,” he points out. “Besides… it’s not.”

The words bring their conversation to an abrupt halt, painfully true and awkward. For them, this might have been their last chance, but for Shuichi, it is not. As crude as it appears, the reality of it cannot be avoided. Hiro tries to smile but the attempt is sideways, crooked, and his hair falls over his face as he does it.

“Maybe we’ll just have to call it a vacation?”

“Maybe,” Suguru says, doubtful, and pauses. The real goodbyes have already been said at the studio, on the nights that the band has gone out together, in the final party thrown for them by NG, but this – the ending formality – is still painful. He bows to Hiro and, after a second, the other reciprocates. It feels ridiculous, both of them sweaty and barely half-dressed, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

“I’ll give you a call before you leave,” Hiro promises, and the other man nods. “Good luck.”

“Good luck to you, as well, Hiro-kun,” Suguru replies, and then walks into his dressing room.

They both know that the other will not be waiting when they come out, and as they listen to the banging on the walls and to the hum of the cleaning machines, they each get ready a little slower than usual to assure themselves that they will be leaving alone.

Whatever they decide to call it, it is unavoidably an ending.

This fic doesn't feel right to me, so much so that it hasn't been added to my masterlist yet, but I can't quite put my finger on the problem. Comments/critiques?

Wait (HP fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:06:00 GMT

Since it finally made it on fanfiction.net, I thought that I'd format it and post it here, too. (So it did go up eventually, Steph! :P )

Sirius/Remus, or Remus/Sirius (whatever floats your boat), and Remus/Tonks. Warnings for DH spoilers and interesting use of italics.

There’s a shout, words that he can’t connect anymore, a flash of light, and then –

“I had to do it,” Remus Lupin says, wand-arm still extended, although it seems silly and pointless in the midst of an almost empty King’s Cross, amongst all of this nothing and everything.

Sirius Black just stares at him, young and fit and as arrogant as he’s ever been, and finally he replies – “Why?”

***

And it feels as thought they’ve been here for years already and Remus knows that they still have an eternity to go as they sit, Sirius backwards in his chair and Remus looking at their hands – so close, and yet not entwined.

People flit around them, some alone, some in groups, all of them just shadows against the edge of his consciousness, and he can barely hear the train when it whistles.

So many people get on, and no one is getting off, and he and Sirius aren’t doing anything at all.

It’s the missing gray from his hair, from Sirius’, the wrinkles that are gone and the dull shine of the faux-silver ring on his finger that remind Remus to keep speaking, explaining, rationalizing.

And practically the only thing that Sirius has said so far has been to remind him “But she was my cousin, Remus,” and although they look young, they cannot escape that they’re old, old men.

“I know,” he replies, like it makes everything all right again, like it will take away what he’s done. And in Sirius’ hurt eyes he sees the reflection of another boy, another time, and he thinks that it’s good that Sirius remembers, that he needs to be reminded once in a while.

Sirius speaks. “My god, Remus, I knew that we weren’t going to be forever, but – “ and then he cuts himself off, his fingers briefly twitching against Remus’.

“Do you think that she’ll be here soon?”

And neither is sure who said it, or if the other replied in return, and finally Remus stands up, rubbing his face, surprised to discover just how scarless it is. “I should be there to meet her, if she is,” he says distantly. “She is my wife – there’s nothing that you can do to change that, Sirius.”

And just as he’s going, almost gone, really, it reaches him –

“Wait.”

***

And suddenly he really isyoung again, and he’s sitting almost alone in the hospital wing and reading and solidly ignoring the boy talking to him.

“It just happened, Remus; I had to do it,” Sirius pleaded, his dark eyes a little less arrogant than usual, his tongue a little less sure.

Remus turned a page, trying to work the letters into a readable pattern. “You shouldn’t be here, Sirius,” he responds coolly.

“I know,” Sirius says, and the look that he shoots him, the darkness and the strength and the resignation in it are exactly what Remus pretends that he hasn’t seen when Sirius pushes his chair away. Then, it breaks free of his throat, as though he has no control at all –

“Wait.”

And when Sirius turns back to him, he pretends not to see the relief and the reservations either.

***

And even as he turns back, a half-complete “I know what you’re doing” smile on his face, he knows that it’s not Sirius’ voice that he’s heard.

As their shadows step off of the train, he isn’t able to raise a hand in greeting to Lily and James, isn’t able to look away from Sirius – now that he’s turned back, he doesn’t know how to continue.

And then Lily’s arms are around him, her perfume whispery in the air against his cheek, and she’s laughing, smiling.

“It’s been so long,” she says, and throws her arms around Sirius next.

Remus nods and embraces James, then forces himself to turn away. “I have to go and meet Tonks,” he says again, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder, so familiar and yet so strange. The swollen veins are gone, replaced with the taunt calluses of a Quidditch player, and he tenses, avoiding Lily and James’ worried eyes.

“I should come and say hello too,” Sirius says. “ – It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” Remus says, and he doesn’t know who he’s talking about any longer, just that it’s true. Still, he walks away, towards the entrance of the station, and Lily joins him a second later, her hand slipping into his.

“Do you think that she remembers me?” she asks, and he can’t see why she wouldn’t.

“I have a son now,” he says instead, the words oddly hollow on his lips.

There’s a long pause, and this time it’s Sirius’ voice that reaches out to break the silence – “And you didn’t name him after me?”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” Remus answers, turning around to meet his eyes without looking away for the first time.

***

“So –“ Sirius pauses, none of the things that he had imagined saying sounding quite right now that it’s actually time. “This is it, then?”

“We’ll never be the same, Sirius,” and he’s still reading, still detached and holding himself at heart’s length.

“Never.”

***

Sirius nods slowly, and this time his eyes are steely. “Of course not.”

Another pause, the distance between them, between Lily and James, palpable, and then Remus asks “Never forever?” knowing that Sirius will understand. When Sirius doesn’t answer right away, he goes back to waiting, asking Lily about what death is like and what’s at the other end of the train tracks, and he doesn’t sound afraid or resigned, just – ready.

Remus doesn’t turn around again, and James claps his hand on Sirius’ shoulder, the fabric of his coat rippling in a silent wind that curls around them as another train pulls away. “She’ll be here soon,” he says, “and then we’ll have to go to Harry.”

“Yeah,” Sirius murmurs, jealousy and anger and pain and arrogance playing over his handsome features. “And then…”

“And then – forever.”

***

And Sirius stares at his jeans, doesn’t look up at Remus again right away. He picks at the fabric of the seat cushion, lets the silence stretch until he simply can’t take it any longer.

“But, Remus – forever’s a long time to stay the same.”

“…” The other boy glances up. “… I know.”

***

As the entrance to King’s Cross shimmers again, he wonders if the sentiment is still true.

Comments/critiques?

All Right (Gravitaton fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:23:32 GMT

This piece needs to have its scrawny neck wrung. Multiple times. I wrote the original draft back in February, if that says anything. I'm not sure how to add what I think I need to add, either.

Gravitation fic, alternate reality/history, multiple (mostly implied) pairings.

“So take the blue and take the black
And take all the colors
Of heartbreak back
And throw them in the sea
And say you love me…”
- “Golden,” A Girl Called Eddy

Sunlight streams through the windows of the New York apartment, staining the walls with a soft golden tint. The morning silence is almost oppressive, months and weeks and days of lies and hope and fresh paint compacted into what they’ve rationalized by calling “now.” Yuki rests his head against the glass doors of the balcony, a cup of coffee in one hand as he observes the sunrise without seeing anything but his own reflection.

“Hey…” the voice behind him is sweet, sleepy, and he refuses to respond as he takes another sip of the bitter liquid. It burns his throat, but he savors the pain and tenses slightly when he feels arms encircle him, his lover’s head pressed against his shoulder.

“I’m glad that you’re still here.” The boy pauses, careful, considering. Finally, he says, “It’s too early to go out drinking.”

Yuki clenches his hands around the mug, watching them melt away in the glass. “Since when did I give you permission to say what I can and cannot do?” he asks. The body against his recoils slightly, and he tries to soften his words. “Besides, it was part of the deal that I made with Tohma for you, wasn’t it?”

“…Yeah.” His voice is getting deeper with every passing month, Yuki reflects, taking a final swallow and feeling the head nestled against his neck. He has such pretty golden eyes, especially when they reflect the sun.

“Eiri?” He drops his free hand down to touch the boy’s hip, caressing and soothing him in the early morning light.

“Hm?”

“I’m glad that you didn’t go back to the Japan,” he says simply, lifting off the corner off the scab and then letting go. They don’t talk about it much – the memories are embarrassing and painful, searing and frightening. Yuki loves the feeling of control that it gives him when he makes Eiri bleed, but he knows that too much will drive him away for good.

Yuki doesn’t question why Eiri missed. He already knows that he doesn’t want to know. It wasn’t because of love – they were past that point already.

He doesn’t know why Tohma has let Eiri come back – something about Mika and NG and music and Eiri’s becoming legal. He wonders what Eiri did, said, to make Tohma agree.

Then again, he’s never actually asked, and he knows that he’s never going to ask, because he knows that Tohma’s not a forgiving person. He knows that Tohma’s just waiting for a reason to arrange some sort of accident that will keep him away from Eiri forever.

He knows that Tohma’s sorry that Eiri missed, and sometimes he thinks that the other man’s just jealous.

“I’m glad too.” The sentence is short, more restrained than usual. Eiri lets go of him, taking the cup from his other hand before walking towards the kitchen. Yuki’s kitchen, although they’ll never say it, wrapped in a guise of togetherness.

Yuki doesn’t wince when he sees the handprint on the side of Eiri’s neck, half-hidden by his shirt and hair. It’s almost perfect, bruises spreading like a river of ink under his pale skin. He only hopes that it’ll be gone by the time that someone comes to check up on them – someone always comes to check up on them. That was part of the deal, too.

The mark has to be gone, or Tohma will not be the only one who arranges accidents.

He is vaguely glad that Eiri seems to like it rough, even if it isn’t about pleasure at all.

Yuki follows the boy into the next room, setting at the table as Eiri begins to make breakfast. “You’re beautiful,” he says slowly, carefully modulating his voice into a light slur. “You make me want to drink.”

The boy slows but doesn’t turn around. Yuki is impressed. Eiri always seems to know what Yuki means – means to say, means to do, means not to do and then does anyway.

“Yeah,” Eiri repeats himself before going back to the task at hand, the graceful movement of his back revealing none of his emotions. Yuki knows that he’s disposed of all of the alcohol in the apartment, but they can deal with that later. Until then, that’s what secret flasks and bars are for.

He tried to love Eiri, truly he did, but fairytales don’t come true. And now that Eiri’s growing up, he doesn’t know how much longer he can take this reality, either.

They eat silently, each not meeting the other’s eyes. “What are you thinking about?” Yuki asks, watching as Eiri pushes food around his plate.

“Japan,” he begins slowly. “My father’s ill. Mika and Tohma both want me to go back for awhile, set things right with the old bastard.”

It is rare that Eiri shows this much emotion anymore, and Yuki is surprised at his honesty. “Ayaka?” he questions.

“Probably. I thought that he had pushed her off to Tatsuha – but they’re stubborn, all of them.” There’s a fire in Eiri’s eyes that Yuki sees out of the bedroom once in a blue moon, and it fascinates him. “The bastard just won’t accept that I’m never going to go back to stay.”

Yuki nods, thinking it over. “And you’re going to humor everyone and go anyway?”

“I have to,” Eiri replies, playing with his fork. “Tohma has connections. He’s threatening to block the Japanese printing of my latest book.” He begins to laugh. “The fangirls would kill him, though, if my editor didn’t. That doesn’t seem to faze him, though.”

Yuki joins in with his laughter, and the apartment suddenly embodies the sun instead of merely reflecting it. He wonders briefly if this is kind of relationship that they could have had, once, but pushes the thought away. Maybes are even scarcer than second chances, and much more dangerous.

When they’re calm again, he asks, “What about me, Eiri?” His eyes are the ones that burn now, challenging Eiri to defy him.

Eiri doesn’t take the challenge and even smiles in the afterglow. He touches Yuki’s hand before replying. “You’re coming with me, although you’ll have to –“ he pauses, his eyes worried, “I mean, we’re not – I don’t like men. However, I don’t trust you enough to leave you here on your own, either.” It’s a blunt statement, heartfelt and tinged with fear and another emotion that Yuki cannot name.

The quickest to love are the easiest to ensnare, and everyone can see the pattern. Yuki sees it and twists it to his advantage, as does Tohma. They are two spiders twisting in a web of their own design, the only ones who are guaranteed safe passage through the hells that they have created.

“Of course not,” Yuki says smoothly, bitter only because it is true.

***

Tohma is waiting for them at the airport with a limo, all empty smiles and superficial words. His eyes are sweet when he greets Eiri, but his mask is back in place when he glares coolly at the boy’s companion. When they shake hands, Yuki realizes that Tohma is wearing gloves, and he knows that they’re for him.

Should murder be required before they arrive at the hotel, there will be no blood on Seguchi Tohma’s hands.

Tohma is a priss, but his ability to hate is legendary, and he’d stopped liking Yuki years ago. As far as Yuki is concerned, the feeling is neutral.

He forces himself to listen to Eiri’s excited chatter as the car rolls out of the garage, secure now that he is in Tohma’s presence. He wonders why Eiri doesn’t stay with the other man if he knows that he is safe with him. However, he knows that, even if Eiri desired it, Yuki wouldn’t let him go.

Yuki keeps his senses alert even after silence falls, wondering what will happen when Eiri realizes that Tohma is not a god and Tohma realizes that Yuki’s deal has been forged with lies.

The third man shifts in his seat and folds his hands in his pink-suited lap. “I hope that you do understand, Kitazawa-san, that it isn’t possible for you to stay in the family complex.” His dead smile cuts through Yuki like a razor, whispering that Tohma knows what he is.

Yuki hates Tohma for that smile because it makes him feel like they’re one of a kind.

“I’ve already made reservations for you at a nearby hotel. Of course, you’ll be introduced to everyone,” he says, more for Eiri’s sake than anyone else’s. “But Uegusi-san was quite clear that he desires to be surrounded only by family during this difficult time.”

“Of course,” Yuki replies pleasantly, smiling at Eiri reassuringly. “Anything to make this visit go as smoothly as possible.” Privately, he wonders if the hotel has a bar. Eiri’s raised eyebrow tells him that he knows what Yuki is thinking, and that he doesn’t approve. Yuki doesn’t know why he needs Eiri’s approval anyway, but he thinks that Tohma would be too careful to make a mistake like that – unless he’s even more twisted than he had thought.

When Tohma is involved, anything is possible, and Yuki pretends not to notice when the other man’s hand lingers on Eiri’s shoulder for a little too long.

***

Eiri’s right – it is a plot to get him together with Ayaka, a plot that openly fails miserably. Only his father refuses to see it, and the drama that he creates is enough to actually make himself ill and delay their departure for the States.

“I don’t know why he thinks that I’m suddenly going to be the perfect son, like my brother,” Eiri rants one evening, pacing up and down in Yuki’s hotel room. His protections are slipping down, helped by the constant presence of Tohma, and Yuki is obsessed with watching him fall apart like this.

“Perfect son?” he repeats. “Isn’t Tatsuha a popstar-obsessed womanizer?”

“Yes and yes,” his lover admits, dropping down to sit beside Yuki on the bed. The other man strokes his hair comfortingly as they twist around to face each other. He hopes that Eiri won’t smell the alcohol on his breath. “Maybe ‘perfect’ isn’t the right word, but he loves Japan and the temple. He’s a good priest, and I can’t imagine him leaving.”

Yuki raises an eyebrow as he runs his hands over the buttons on Eiri’s shirt. “Even for love?”

“Even for love,” Eiri agrees.

Yuki has to wonder if Eiri knows what love is, but they don’t talk about things like that.

The boy continues talking. “Only one more day, and then we can go home. I think that Mika is going to take up my case with the old bastard and try to convince him to stop making a fool of himself.” He grins. “I think that Tatsuha and Ayaka will look great together, don’t you?”

“You’re vain,” Yuki half-teases, wrapping his arms around Eiri and pulling him in for a kiss. The even stronger than usual bite behind it surprises Yuki; it is almost enough to make him wish that Tohma is around more. There is something about Tohma that brings Eiri back to life, that makes him secure in his own skin.

“Hey!” Eiri takes a moment to get the joke, but his eyes widen as he does. He starts to say more, but Yuki puts a hand on his neck and tightens it slightly.

In the moments before sex, Yuki thinks that their guise of normalcy is almost perfect.

As they lie together on the bed, he is glad that most of the visible bruises are gone, although he scorns that he cannot put them back tonight.

***

As the plane rises to cruising altitude, Yuki leans over to see what Eiri is reading. “A magazine about bands?” he asks incredulously, taking it and flipping blankly through the pages.

Eiri nods, already disappearing back into himself. “Tohma gave it to me. He thought that I might be interested in reading about Bad Luck and ASK – NG’s – his – latest conquests. He thought that I could base a novel off of it – love on the road. That’s been done to death, but…” His eyes stare out of the window at the clouds, and it seems that the further away that he gets from Japan, the more that he fades.

A picture has caught Yuki’s eye and he pauses at a photo of a boy in a ridiculously skimpy outfit, his pink hair and violet eyes reflecting the lights of the stage. He’s smiling openly, holding his microphone like it’s a part of him. Behind him stands a black-haired man, slightly older, with dropping eyes and a vicious glare.

Eiri glances at the magazine again. “You’re staring, Yuki,” he criticizes, and then says, “The droopy-eyed one has the same vibe that you and Tohma give off when you’re angry.”

Yuki forces himself to smile, wrapping an arm just a little to tightly around Eiri’s shoulders as he closes the magazine. He doesn’t say anything, but he hopes that Eiri falls asleep soon so that he can order a glass – or two, or an entire bottle – of wine.

The boy with the purple eyes has the same smile as Eiri, and it scares the shit out of him. He leans back and hopes that the miles pass by quickly and that Japan will return to being just a dreamland.

Later, when he’s back and safe in New York, he will burn the magazine and pretend that he’s always been blind and that everything is – that everything has always been – all right.

Comments/critques/advice? They will be greatly appreciated <3 .

Casual Luncheon (Gravitation fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:14:58 GMT

It is *a* Gravi fic! Not *the* Gravi fic, but a Gravi fic! Yay!

Heavily inspired by Ed Harcourt's "Metaphorically Yours" (but doesn't really follow it, hence it is not a song-fic) and written while listening to his CD "From Every Sphere" over and over again. (Although I don't really recommend this CD. No, I don't get it either O.o .)

Tohma's POV. I really dislike Tohma, you know? But my brain insisted.

1.

In Tohma’s mind, love is more than a chemical reaction when it comes to Eiri. Perhaps because of this, he has mastered the skill of ignoring the angel on his shoulder (the one with terrible fashion sense) who insists that love, perhaps, isn’t the right word.

Seguchi Tohma doesn’t have a devil on his shoulder because he doesn’t need one, or so the angel says. He has no illusions to flatter himself with when others call him a devil – the negative connotations are the only ones that ever come to mind, anyway. Besides, he’s always thought of himself as an animal – a panther, or (more fittingly) a Cheshire Cat.

He has a smile that’s been known to kill songbirds, but there’s only one at the moment that he’d like to give that honor to.

Tohma has categorized his life carefully – work, Mika, Eiri – although the order has been known to change without warning. He’s never known what the proper reaction to his situation is, and he isn’t sure that he would want to feel it if he did.

Love, the angel whispers, is what Eiri has with Shuichi, not with Tohma. It’s sickening in a way – one can tell it by just looking at them (or at least at Shuichi – Eiri is much more private about that sort of thing). Tohma hates emotions like that – uncontrolled, brutish. Love is an insidious thing, he notes, staring down at Bad Luck’s tour schedule. It creeps up on people, sliding silently under doorways to rip out people’s hearts and choke out the lives that it finds inside. The difference between Eiri’s imminent death by Shuichi and his death by Tohma is that Tohma’s is older and more carefully thought-out. When Shuichi threw himself in front of Eiri’s car, Tohma had already been planning for so long that he can’t quite remember when it started.

Sometimes, Tohma feels like he’s always been plotting.

The line between actual love and obsession is more crossable than one might originally think, and he is no stranger to this theory. It’s just a theory, he thinks as he sits alone in his office, thinking about how many days, hours, minutes he has left before Shuichi returns.

When he picks up the phone and dials his brother-in-law’s number from memory, Tohma wonders if he should be feeling regret for this. He doesn’t need any more guilt in his life – he is already unredeemable.

And, after all, isn’t the devil already damned?

2.

At the restaurant, Eiri gazes boredly at him across the table, his fingers fumbling slightly as he attempts to light a cigarette. When the waitress protests, he signs a napkin for her and she is immediately silenced and slightly starry-eyed. Tohma watches with vague amusement and affection as Eiri finally succeeds and then inhales. The younger man’s shoulders relax slightly with the first lungful, the golden eyes half-closing. He turns his face to the side as he exhales, then looks at his dining companion again.

Tohma has no doubt that Eiri would prefer to lean over the table, rest on his elbows, and blow a mouthful of smoke into his brother-in-law’s face. Maybe he thinks that, if he were to do so, Tohma’s facade will dissipate with the smoke and force him away forever.

The angel on his shoulder murmurs that he’s flattering himself again, playing the devil’s advocate for Eiri’s character in order to indulge his masochistic tendencies. And, it proceeds, everyone knows that angels don’t lie.

This is the love that he and Eiri share.

“Get to the point,” Eiri says, playing with his burning cigarette. He’s lost weight, Tohma observes, watching as the pale lips part to once again capture the stick between them. He loves that about the other man – not that he’s a smoker, not even his lips exactly (although they aren’t without their virtues), but that he’s so upfront about his upcoming suicide. Sometimes Tohma feels like he’s fighting not only Shuichi, but also the cigarettes for the permission to kill the man that he loves. He is convinced that he will win in the end.

Sometimes, he wonders how it all came down this strange excuse for a game.

Because he knows that Eiri won’t do it, Tohma moves closer. “I just wanted to see how you were holding up, Eiri-san,” he says and smiles. When Eiri takes a moment before responding, he can’t keep his mind off of those lips and sweet smoke.

Hot air wafts across his face as Eiri exhales, despite his care to turn away. “You’re not my sister,” he says after a moment. Tohma can see that he’s annoyed, and there’s a kind of sadistic joy in knowing that he’s the cause of such a strong emotion. “Did Mika ask you to talk to me?”

They both know that this question is just a formality, that Tohma is almost always quicker than Mika when it comes to things like this, but he replies anyway.

“Does it matter?” He keeps the smile in place all the while.

Eiri pauses and then, “... No.”

Tohma isn’t surprised by this response. He would be more surprised if Eiri had said something different. This has been the situation for years now, and although it took them a while to learn the rules, they have become experts at a game created in New York out of necessity and then continued because, somewhere along the way, it’s become a lifestyle.

The angel tickles his neck when Eiri’s free fist clenches. Tohma isn’t afraid of Eiri; he’s never been afraid of Eiri. The next question hangs physically in the air between them. Tohma knows that he doesn’t have to ask it to get an answer (actions speak louder than words, after all) but he asks it anyway, torturing himself for the sake of conversation.

“Have you heard from Shindou-san recently?” Voicing it makes his toes curl inside the toes of his expensive leather boots, but the smile is plastered almost permanently on his face.

Eiri shifts in his seat as his cigarette burns down. He takes a final, quick puff before stubbing it out uncomfortably on the windowsill. “Yes,” he admits. “Shuichi called me last night.” He looks up and meets Tohma’s eyes, his face hard to read. “Lost track of your own star already?” Almost anyone else would think that he didn’t care.

“Of course not!” Tohma protests quickly. The comment about his work burns, although he would never admit it. Eiri does that to him quite a bit, and it’s usually on purpose. Eiri’s care for Shuichi is also painful, but for a much different reason. “I wanted to know how you were doing,” he reiterates, resigned to repetition in order to get an actual answer.

Even that won’t be enough, the angel supplies, but he squishes the thought. If he has to do this every day until they die, he will do it – if that is how long it takes to make Eiri his, it will be worth it. He will deal with the consequences at the very end of this game, and not a second before.

Sometimes Tohma wishes that that would happen soon, because playing is tiring and takes up a great deal of his time. However, he enjoys the game and he could never die without Eiri. That would be losing completely, and that’s not an option. It’s never been an option.

When the angel tells him that he’s insane, he can’t exactly disagree, although he still believes that his intentions towards Eiri are nothing but the best.

Almost immediately after he finishes speaking, the look on his companion’s face becomes more annoyed. “I sometimes think – no, I *know* - that you keep better tabs on my life than I do,” he says. Tohma can tell that his hands are trembling beneath the table, searching and wanting, although not for what Tohma wants them to desire.

He turns his head to see that it’s started to rain outside, the water slowly pooling in the gutters. He gauges his friend’s reaction from the corner of his eye. “And if I do?” he asks vaguely, trying to keep his tone light.

Eiri just shrugs. “It’s none of my business if you want to be arrested for stalking.”

Tohma can see the reflection of both their faces in the window, and he can feel the outline of the angel growing softer by the moment. He hopes that it will dissolve as the water continues to fall and take all of his guilt with it. When he realizes that its voice has taken up residence in his head, murmuring dully about how he has already gone too far, it is already too late. The angel believes that this is no longer a game, if it was ever really a game to start with.

It takes him another minute to realize that he’s been quiet for too long to be considered polite. He turns back to Eiri, still smiling, but his heard twinges at the other man’s continued silence. “Then I suppose that it’s none of your business if I’m arrested for other crimes, either.”

Neither the angel nor Eiri has to tell him that his other crimes cannot be proven, although he sometimes wishes that they could. Validation, Tohma sincerely believes, is the greatest form of flattery (next to pain). If he has these either of things, the game is not yet over for him.

“No,” Eiri replies after a moment of consideration, “I guess not.” He stands up and searches his pockets, eventually pulling out his wallet and half of a pack of cigarettes. Dropping some money onto the table, he puts his wallet back and pulls out a lighter. “Thanks for the invitation,” he says, and Tohma tries to imagine that he’s sincere. “Have a good afternoon, Tohma.”

“You too, Eiri-san,” he returns, his brightness hampered because the afterglow is quickly coming to an end. He remains seated as Eiri turns to go, but calls out to him before he reaches the door. “I’ll see you at the airport when his flight arrives, won’t I?” he asks, sounding as though he doesn’t particularly care. “It will break Shindou-san’s heart if you aren’t there.”

He knows what you’re doing, the angel warns, and none of them are surprised when Eiri pauses by the door before lifting a hand in farewell – almost as though he had just been having no more than a casual luncheon with an old, dear friend.

“Knowing you, you’ll find an excuse to see me sooner,” Eiri says, and then the door clangs shut behind him. Tohma watches through the window as he lights up, breathes in deeply, and then unlocks his car. The rain taunts Tohma as it falls, acting like a convenient excuse to forget what has happened that afternoon.

Eiri doesn’t look back before he drives away, and eventually Tohma leaves too.

3.

A few weeks later, when the tour is over and he’s talking with K about new security measures while they wait at the baggage claim, Tohma has a sinking feeling. Eiri didn’t show up at the airport and Shuichi is as inconsolably happy as ever. His lover must have warned him that he wasn’t coming, Tohma realizes. Anger makes his gloved hands tense, but he forces them to stay still and smiles as he answers K’s questions instead.

When everyone’s bags have been collected and they’re heading to the hired van, Tohma realizes that Shuichi has slipped away – how, he doesn’t know, because the boy tends to be so loud – and that no one else appears to be surprised. A few quick questions reveal that they all knew that he was being picked up separately, and Tohma has to congratulate Eiri on his plan – in one quick, clean twist of the rules, he has attempted to sever one of their basest ties. Whether he has been successful or not has yet to be seen, they both know now. Winning cannot be *that* easy, or the game would have ended a long time ago.

As the band climbs into the van, Tohma is almost blinded by a flash of headlights and he hears another car purr to life. He blinks rapidly to clear his vision and then wishes that he could have remained blinded.

Eiri grips the wheel of the car in one hand as Shuichi kisses him, his other hand in the boy’s hair. Tohma can’t help but imagine that his lips are parted more sweetly than they have ever been for a cigarette, and although his eyes are half-closed, he knows one thing immediately – Yuki Eiri knows that he’s watching.

He’s staged it just for him.

When the kiss is over, Tohma holds back a rush of bile as Shuichi curls up against the other man’s shoulder. Eiri doesn’t acknowledge either of them as he puts the car in gear and then drives towards the exit, but he and Tohma both know.

As he enters the van, Tohma wonders if the score will ever be even again. He even wonders exactly how long he’s been losing, but he can’t find an answer and, for once, the angel stays mercifully silent.

Comments and critiques (especially on characterization and tense) are always welcome!

(Man... you can really see my motifs in this O.o . And I'm on break this next week! Yay!)

Good Dog (HP fanfic)

fates_recorder@hotmail.com — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 22:05:56 GMT

Sirius/Remus for my darling Kyraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. *nods happily*

I think that I should point out that, in this piece, I totally disreguarded any kind of timeline from the HP universe so that I could replace it with fluff. And, darn, has it really been 7 months since I wrote/edited/posted fanfic? O.o Wow.

It's not like this after every full moon -- just the ones that are 'good', the ones that leave Remus exhausted but not badly injured. Good, Sirius thinks as he watches over the other boy, is relative. Tonight, he drowses beside him with a human body and a dog-like mind.

He isn't quite sure what it is -- it could be the reality that they can't go back to Hogwarts any longer, or knowledge of the quiet war that’s starting to rage around them -- but lately he's found it harder and harder to let go of being Padfoot. It's simply so much easier to be a dog than to be a man.

As he rests his head on his arm and watches the slow rise and fall of his lover's bruised chest, he wonders how he can feel so peaceful when nothing outside of this room is peaceful at all. Lily and James are scared, no one knows what's happened to Peter, and the wizard world’s in turmoil -- and yet, tonight they’re lying together like Muggles, and he’s thinking of nothing but sleep and tomorrows. In some ways, they *are* Muggles -- they live in a Muggle flat, they cook and clean and live (for the most part) like normal people, and, he thinks with a smile, they're amazingly terrible at it. Or, at least, he is.

*“We have absolutely no idea what we're doing,” Remus had told him that afternoon, resting on the couch with a blanket over his legs and a book on his lap. “None at all.”

“What do you mean?” Sirius honestly couldn't see anything wrong with the flat. Sure, it was a bit rundown, but what else could they have expected at that price?

And Remus just raised an eyebrow at him, like he knew that Sirius’ reaction was the infamous Black pride at work, that Sirius simply couldn’t admit that maybe he wasn’t as handy around the house as he was with a wand in his hand.

“The ceiling's leaking,” he said simply, taking the cup of tea that the other boy handed him before returning to his book. Sirius was sure that it must be an awfully boring book (most books, he believed, were), and so he promptly took it away and knelt beside the couch. Ignoring Remus’ protests, he ran a hand down the pronounced bumps of the other boy’s spine – they’d always felt so fragile, but he knew that they'd never fall apart. They're just so... “Remus,” he said, and Remus laughed like it wasn't just the full moon and they didn’t have a growing puddle on the living room floor. He laughed like everything was like it had been when they were still at school.

“Sirius,” he said, just like Sirius knew that he was going to, “Sometimes I think that you're the biggest, shallowest idiot that I've ever met.”

He knew that Remus didn’t mean it in a bad way, and when lips met lips, he wondered why he shouldn't think that it was a compliment. Anyone could have said that he was a great lover, but when Remus said that he was an idiot, he knew that it was because Remus has been paying attention to something more than the sensation of skin against skin.

And knowing that made the Padfoot in Sirius practically wiggle with joy.

He thought that he must act doggier when it happened, because then Remus always smiled and told him that he was also an egocentric troublemaker.

As they laid together on the couch, drinking tea and pulling the blanket up around their shoulders, Sirius could hardly believe that he had been blessed with someone so wonderful, even if he was a bit strange and fuzzy and unnaturally scholarly.

Finally, though, he had to move and cover the hole with a towel and duct-tape – “Wonderful stuff,” Sirius said, “The best invention that the Muggles ever came up with,” and Remus grinned at him -- and then wait to go back to bed, which, he though, is where he and Remus really belonged.*

Tonight, lying as still as possible and listening to the shallow breathing of the one he loves, Sirius wonders if this can really not be heaven. It doesn't seem to matter if no one will employ Remus because they only see the monster, not the Moony who can be pacified by and played with by Padfoot, and he wonders why there are curses going off in the dark and people trembling in fear as he stays, warm and comforted, with Remus.

James was right, he thinks -- I am a good dog.

He isn't elegant and royal like the stag -- he isn't like James, majestic and hopeful, and he isn't like Lily, with all of her fire and her sweetness. He isn't even like the baby that they love so much but haven’t met. Nor is he skittish and petty like the rat, like Peter who has wandered gone so far away that they can barely even recognize him anymore.

Most of all, he's not like the wolf, deadly and pedigreed. He’s wild, but he’s not like Remus. As long as Remus loves him for who he is, he doesn't think that it matters very much. Either way, he's a good dog, and a good man, if his animal form shows his true self.

But when it comes down to who's the better person, Remus is the pure-blood and he's the mud-blood, and he can't find it in him to be upset about it when he’s just thinking about them. It's something that he's known since the first day that he saw Remus, and his impression hasn’t changed.

Gently, he shakes Remus, and immediately regrets it when the other boy opens sleepy eyes -- it's still too close to the full moon, it's still too close to when he was last Padfoot, and maybe that's why he's thinking his way. Maybe he'll act like more of a man and less of a dog later, but he thinks that it really must be said *now*, even if it is after midnight. He knows that he’s never been much of a long-term planner, anyway, and so he thinks that it’s all right.

“I love you,” he says, smoothing Remus' light hair away from his face. “I really, really love you, no matter what happens.”

Yes, he thinks as the other boy's eyes shine with pleasure, I am a good dog, and almost as good of a man. Please, God, never let me lose him.

“Oh... Sirius,” Remus says it like it’s nothing at all and holds back a yawn, smiling gently, “I know that. I love you, too.”

And then Sirius simply has to squirm with joy and kiss Remus square on the mouth at one in the morning because there is simply no feeling as wonderful as that of being young and adored.

Some days, he wishes that he could remain a dog forever, guarding the side of the most wonderful boy in the world, but then he remembers that tomorrow he has to fix the roof. Suddenly, thumbs seem like the second most important thing that to have besides love, and, anyway, there are a lot more uses for thumbs than just fixing things.

He drowses in the weary glow of the bathroom night-light, waiting for sleep to return as he holds Remus against his chest. Someday, Sirius prays, dream might become reality and the war will burn out – someday, he wishes, everything everywhere will be the way that it is in this room tonight. And as waking dreams meld seamlessly into sleep, he realizes that he's never been quite this happy before -- and, somehow, he knows that when they’re together, Remus feels the same way.

Comments and critiques - *especially* on my characterization (this isn't usually how I think of them...) and tenses - are very welcome.