A/N: So I got in a stupid row over on YouTube, and got out pissed and wishing I hadn't bothered at all. And because being pissed does that to me, I went and wrote fic. The whole 50-sentences thing has been winking at me for quite a while…
And a little contest for ya, because I feel like it:
Entry #1: some of the sentences below are based off ten of my AUs (One For Sorrow, Educated Dumbass, So I Can Breathe, Broadcast 02, Falling Down With London Bridge, nekomata!Kaito, Sands and Sands, Of Moving Castles, and that blind!Aoko!AU and teachers!AU from Faint Glimmerings). Find at least three, I dare you.
Entry #2: five of the sentences below are based off five of my upcoming fics (three AUs, two post-canon). Find at least two. I dare you. Again.
Entry #3: find out where the last theme comes from.
Prizes: anyone who fulfils at least one entry can request a oneshot with anything in it, and I mean anything – any pairing (except HakubaAoko, because… ugh), any situation, any time, any rating (yes, you read that right. butterfly-chan, shut up.), AU, canon, pre-canon, post-canon… give me inspiration, peoplez.
Disclaimer–I don't own a thing. I just play. See below for the themes.
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Rhetorical Blessings
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1. Everything is Extraordinary (at the right place, at the right time)
It was fireworks lighting up a night sky, luring tricks and opening traps, fantastical deeds; it was blood and sweat and hazardous acrobatics, shouting and swearing, rooftops-chasing; it was youthful, maniacal laughter, and angry eyes in a crowd.
It was KID.
2. Furisode (Traditional woman wedding-wear)
(Beautiful, his treacherous mind said.) "That won't be easy to flip," he laughed, and leaned in to kiss her, a particular gleam in his eyes–that spoke of mischief and wedding nights so tangled together that she didn't know whether she should slap him, or kiss him back.
3. Asymptote
He thinks of lives that get close and closer, but can never completely touch, will never absolutely merge.
4. Highlight
She breathed a gasp as her mischievous colleague-Task Force member-phantom thief grinned, stole a kiss from her lips, and locked the closet door in her face.
5. Fan
… much as the performance of those two students was interesting, the spectators of Ekoda High's annual school play were fairly certain that Sleeping Beauty did not include the prince flapping the princess' skirt instead of kissing her awake–nor the subsequent mop chase around the stage, really.
6. Dilatory
Tomorrow, he thought, as Venice's, Paris', London's lights trickled by the windows, tomorrow I'll call her… tomorrow… tomorrow…
7. We All Fall Down
What they have is this: a goodbye, a half-smile, and the taste of blood in each other's mouths before something unfurls and then fades out. (And that's an end.)
8. Hindsight
There was a saying, she knew, that went thus: You never know a good thing 'till it's gone. (–She had never really understood it till now.)
9. Labyrinth (of passages)
She felt alongside the wall, immensely aware of the parapet under her bare feet, and the wide corridor; she took one careful step forward and nearly pitched head-first in the staircase, hastily catching herself back, raspy and scared, lost, lost, lost–
–and then fingers on her hand, and Kaito's alarmed voice in her ear.
10. Blessings
In the end, what really did matter were the hushed shadows of blue on the windows and whispering fingers on skin; small, small blessings, but oh how immensely grateful they were for them.
11. my shadow pinned against a sweating wall
"Ka–Kaito," she panted, gasping and breathless and feeling his raspy laughter against her mouth as he pressed into her, quickly and sweetly and skilfully.
12. How terribly strange to be seventy
At times she considered telling the grinning magician that she was the girl he had helped on May Day–and then she randomly hit him over the head with her mop, scowling, and set off in the moving castle in a fury of spring-cleaning.
13. Medea
Here is a lie, little one: Kaito will come back; Kaito is not gone; Kaito will be here and will laugh and give you a flower and flip your skirt; it's alright; it's alright; it's alright.
And here is a truth: it will be better soon.
(It won't.)
14. Shellshock
After a few weeks spent under his roof, after fights and laughs and night talks and dances and lemon pies, she couldn't quite remember whether she hated or loved the husband that her father had forced down on her.
15. Heartbreak Town
Some secrets are never meant to remain so (and some hearts are just meant to break).
16. Prelude
And– finally, finally, they think, relieved and dishevelled and out of breath, fingers locking, and here's, here's to new beginnings.
17. Evensong
Her life is good, her job fine, her friends great–if it weren't for the great blank in her mind, covering the first twenty years of her life, and the occasional headaches that arise, she would really have nothing to ask. (At the bakery, this blue-eyed man keeps showing up and watching expectantly, but Aoko doesn't make the connection.)
18. Ambsace
She presses fast together in the crowd, wincing a little as elbows jostle her, and looks at him, and decides that looking away is not an option. "Aoko-san," the blue-eyed man says, stops. Stumbles. "Aoko–"
"I know you," almost-sobs the blue-eyed man, "I know you."
19. Lust
It was like wildfire spreading down, down, pooling and flaming, and he quickly had to look away, lest he should break down and claim the lips she was worrying so.
20. Noon
One sat on a stone bench, hands in his pockets, gazing nostalgically at the ticking hands; one walked rapidly on the sun-drenched cobbles, hurried to get away from the place and the unwanted memories it arose. Neither looked on the other side of the square, unmindful of faces in the faceless crowd.
The clock tower struck the twelfth hour.
21. and light becomes what it touches
He's living in a world that might just fold in on itself any night–but wherever he turns he sees Aoko, sun-fine and clear, brighter than any second of truth.
22. Love is.
Love is this: a blooming rose in nimble fingers, marvelling eyes and a cheeky, young grin– Love is: lying and lying and lying, eyes that darken as two break down to one, and mouthed kisses–
Love is–
Well.
23. Mundane
And when Kaito caught her hands and danced them both around the cell –this instead of answering questions for a trial that was only three weeks away now– she shook her head, but laughed, and accepted the dance.
24. Sliver
She watched him peel the apple, fingers nimble and experienced, knowingly curling and shifting around the knife and fruit, and blue eyes grinning up at her–and wondered how those incredibly clever fingers would feel, pressing and twitching on her skin.
25. Twisted
"I hate you." "I love you." "I love you." "I hate you." (Here is a truth: one of them lies.)
26. Landscape
Some nights, the panorama condensed all but to the marble floor of the dimly-lit throne room, the pinched, airy notes of desert instruments, and the sandgirl, dancing, bright shimmering veils and scarves flying high like searing flames.
27. Cigarette
The cigarette butt reddened dully in the grey, drunken, rain-damp alley; it flicked up on Kaito's face, catching a glimpse of sunken blue, before the lid lowered and the dim light died out.
28. you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed
And so you're mine, she thought, scratching Kaito's twitching ears absently as they mulled in front of TV, and laughed a little as a velvet-soft tail coiled around her leg, a rough tongue licking her jawline, and so I'm yours.
29. eveningland
"What I want–" Kaito whispers, and Aoko thinks it's almost a whimper, too, "What I–" and she reaches out and presses his head against her chest and cradles him and "It matters," she breathes, "It matters."
The streetlamps go out above their heads.
30. Clandestine
"Try not to get killed," the spy says, amusedly, and even as Aoko makes her way to the door, ever mindful of the Task Force and tonight's outing, she cannot help but think briefly that the voice is vaguely familiar.
31. and a sky so blue
One day he wakes and looks outside the window; and watches a blue he once found a thousand times truer.
32. Pillows
She came home after a harassing day to find him sprawled on the cushions of her bedroom, not engaged on reading her books at all, and only caught a wisp of blue and the half-whisper of her name, before the threw herself in his outstretched arms, causing them both to topple over among the cushions. (She thanked him, later, staring guiltily at the damp patches on his t-shirt, and he laughed and nuzzled her hair and asked what she thought best friends were for.)
33. October Skies
She thought it was like a white bird falling down.
34. a thousand sunsets in a box
And it's been a thousand nights (three years, three years, three years already chasing him); and it's been as many roads and as many suns that set, flaring up the sky in soft blues and searing reds and pinked oranges.
35. Somebody's Else Story
(This is how his mornings do not go:) He wakes first, and presses a kiss to Aoko's temple, or Aoko's cheek, and then goes to take a shower. When he steps out, hair messy and damp, the smell of coffee seeps out of the kitchen, and Aoko is huddled in a white bathrobe, their hands shifting and brushing as they exchange unimportant words over breakfast. (He tries not to think that it might have happened.)
36. Rhetorical
Words and words have kept their limits so far–books and tales, cheesy romances and thou shalt nots–but no more words tonight, no more. (It might be just a little easier than they said, in a completely different way.)
37. Desideratum
He first saw her at the local library, stumbling under the weight of a pile of books, breathless and studious; when, two years later, he found she was a teacher at the school that had just hired him, he thought it was going to get fun.
38. Suffocating
"I–" (Because I just can't breathe without you.)
39. Creative Interpretation
Aoko, he reflected fondly, dodging her mop as she shouted after him, was definitely growing to be her father's daughter, swearing included.
40. faerie tale
The man flounders in the train compartment with blue eyes and a grin that speak keep me, keep me, and you'll find me far away and a flourish of French words like a bouquet of roses he never gives her. (–and I'm still looking for my happily ever after–)
41. a low moon caught in your tangles
"Good evening," said KID pleasantly.
42. prison and palace and reverberation
–and she felt like she had been running in circles between his tricks and masks, sent from mirror to mirror to mirror, in that beautiful, beautiful golden cage; it seemed that he had cushioned her in gentle, cruel hands, her birdlike, beating, breathless laughter.
43. Codfish
Kaito was off of the table, over the couch, and all the way up the row of shelves in .4 seconds. Aoko rolled over laughing.
44. Styrofoam
And when she arrived to her desk, drenched by the pouring rain outside and in one hell of a bad mood, there was a steaming cup of Styrofoam waiting sagely on it, and whistling wafting out of Kuroba-sensei's cubicle.
45. Grapevines
"Aoko… Aoko," he shivered, hands climbing her back like grapevines, quietly clutching, as he sobbed in the crook of her neck.
46. Pomegranate
Behind the bars, the blue-eyed boy with the black cap grins and speaks mindlessly and holds out a hand, and Aoko thinks about blue uniforms and oh, this is wrong, but the keys are already dangling in his fingers, and she is already dragged forward into the dark.
47. Rose, oh pure contradiction
'And I will shower your room with roses until you choose to listen to me…'
48. breadth
Some other day they cross the gap, end of story.
49. booze
Some nights, it felt as though the whole town was concentrated in the smoky air of the not-really-speakeasy, in the tinkling moonshine, in grinning eyes and the touchy-breezy-edgy, chattery rhythm of the jazz.
50. To listen to the stories. (do you know why swallows build in the eaves of the houses?)
And then, at night, stories are told in hushed, laughing whispers of a boy who knew how to fly, and of the girl who loved him just enough, and of windows left open as the children's eyes widen and marvel with glee.
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And there you go. 50 sentences for the two of them. (This was fun.) Some are more like mini-drabbles, but, hey. It was a nice challenge to do.
As for the themes, I wanted to use something a bit different than what you usually see around–so I picked up prompts from pretty much everywhere, from books, songs, quotes, dictionaries, LJ threads… if you recognise anything, it's very likely not mine.
Thanks for reading! *curtseys*