Holy crap I can't believe I'm doing this. 'Kay, this is a shuffle/drabble challenge I decided to do after seeing themagician666's attempts at it over on dA, with fun Mello/Matt action from Death Note. My turn now, but with Pepito and Todd from the horrible works of Jhonen Vasquez!
Rules
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
Drabble One: Sadly Beautiful – The Replacements - 3:16 (Oh fuck.)
Their friendship had lasted an eternity, and still it seemed to Pepito as if they had scarcely known each other at all. Such a short time, really.
He could remember soft brown hair, and shining, naïve eyes that still knew entirely too much. Little scars, a thousand white lines criscrossing across sun kissed skin. So many details. So many memories.
All gone in an instant.
(JESUS CHRIST THIS IS FUCKING HARD. DX)
Drabble Two: Porch – Pearl Jam - 3:30 (Um...)
He ran like fuck and still it wasn't enough. Fire and brimstone, the end of the world. A dream, right? A dream. He punched himself in the face hard enough to bruise and still he stayed asleep.
So shit.
The whole city had been wiped out in less than a day. The dead had lain everywhere, until they all decided to get up again. Great. Zombies. Just great.
Oh sure, he sounded resentful, he should have been pissed. But he wasn't. In truth... well, maybe he liked it. Maybe today was the day he admitted the truth to himself. That he knew what Pepito meant about it all, about all of them, the stupid humans.
But then again, he never ran very fast, did he.
(WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT OH GOD)
(Skipped Dane Cook, 'cause no way in fuck am I drabbling to Comedy Central.)
Drabble Three: You Make Me Smile – Blue October – 4:27 (Ahaha who's the chick that's what I'd like to know.)
They touched at last, carefully, briefly, trembling fingerprints left on the very edge of skin.
That had been the first time, nervous and awkward, silly. Now every touch was easy, every conversation natural. There were no tremors, there was no terror. They were friends. More than that.
They were best friends.
Or so Pepito liked to think. If he was honest with himself, it was all manipulation. Todd like him a fair bit, but Pepito exaggerated it with every touch. When their sweat mingled Todd became his a little bit more. No, Todd would never sell his soul, but he gave it easily. It was like sipping innocence, if he could sound cliché a moment.
Todd was a sweet boy who had a lot of terrible things happen to him. Pepito knew he only exacerbated the human's traumas. If he was honest, Todd's life would be much better without him in it at all.
But he was selfish. He couldn't help it.
Nothing else, no one else, could make him smile like Todd could.
(Aw, nobody died in this one!)
Drabble Four: One X – Three Days Grace – 4:46 (This'll be interesting.)
Pepito idly wondered, years later in the midst of the War, if Todd ever regretted his decisions. If he had only done what he had done out of fear, or out of debt, or out of, perhaps, love.
Whatever the reasons, Todd stayed, and did more than that. They fought side by side against the opposition, be it human, heavenly, or paranormal. Making a new world order was much more difficult than he had ever planned.
And when either of them was wounded in battle, the other knew, instantly. Like magic, like telepathy, like love. They were one.
And because they were one, Pepito knew that Todd stayed, yes, but he resented the fuck out of it. There were affections, there was sex, there was friendship, but there was resentment.
But Todd acted as if it didn't exist. They were one in this fight. No one else could withstand the opposition like Todd, no one else would take a stand and fucking win.
But there was resentment nonetheless.
(I went in circles in that one. WOO.)
Drabble Five: I Have a Need – Black Light Burns – 4:24 (AW GAWD.)
Todd, in later years, went out of his way to be terrified. He knew it, knew he had an addiction to fear, and didn't care. He loved the feel of it ripping through his insides, and would keep scaring himself even if it dug him into his grave even faster.
Pepito worried about him, he knew, but Pepito was on Earth, and Todd was several thousand lightyears away living the nightmare and loving every second of it. It burned through him like a black fever, eating through what may or may not have been his soul, and though it probably damaged him exponentially, he couldn't stop.
Fear made him feel alive even as it killed him.
One day he would go home and see those red eyes staring at him, and he knew what he would see inside, reflected. Fear. Pepito would be afraid of him. And didn't he deserve it?
The tables would be turned, and Todd would love every second of it.
(Wow. What the fuck.)
Drabble Six: Is It Real? - The Seatbelts – 4:39 (OH GOD NUUUUUUU)
The Defective Head Mean Institute was a nice place, once you got used to it all. And if you acted crazy enough but still did what they wanted, you got what you wanted. Privacy. Soft padded walls to dream on.
No one visited him, and he liked it that way. He'd seen enough of people, and just wanted to sleep, to dream and not be woken violently by aliens, explosions, or even the Antichrist.
Pepito...
No, no. What was he thinking? That's right. He didn't want to think. He wanted to sleep, to dream without words.
He dreamt of the sky, but he fell to the burning ground.
He dreamt of the future, but machines chewed him up and spit him out.
He dreamt of pretty statures that came to life and chopped him to pieces.
Shit, this wasn't what he wanted.
He wanted incoherency, he wanted madness, he wanted lucidity, he wanted to be crazy and alone. But he couldn't.
He just couldn't do it.
He opened his eyes and saw that someone was looking in through the tiny window in his door. Red eyes in a sickly face.
"Pepito?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been there?"
"For as long as it took."
(Wut.)
Drabble Seven: Boytronic-Living Without You – VNV Nation – 6:36 (There weren't any words until like 2:30 argh)
He didn't like that he liked it. But he liked it, and they both liked it, and they did it from dusk until dawn. When the pale morning light struck through the window they stopped immediately, as if afraid the sun's face would reflect their actions out across the world.
They were ashamed. But they did it anyway.
Pounding music drowned out any sounds that could escape them, humming through the walls, curling in soft vibrations through the mattress springs. Soft creaking, slow then fast then slow again. Their minds filled with the wonders of the world, natural and manmade. All the power of the oceans thrummed between them, the magnitude of the strongest earthquake, the frenzy of the wildest thunderstorm, the suffocating weight of snow.
They were ashamed. But they did it anyway.
So soft. Skin breathing against skin.
Pillows.
Touch.
Shame.
(WHAT)
Drabble Eight: Told You So – Barenaked Ladies – 4:21 (Hi I like hick music sometimes.)
Todd didn't know how to swim. Pepito was aghast and immediately dragged him to the nearest public pool and threw him in.
Literally.
That was the best way to learn after all.
However, when the boy didn't come up for air after five minutes of flailing like a seizing puppy and then suddenly sank, Pepito became slightly worried. But he didn't jump in. He couldn't. That wasn't how one learned how to swim. One fought to the surface or died trying.
That was how Father had taught him, and Pepito was a fantastic swimmer.
Another five minutes passed. There were too many wriggling human bodies blocking his view. Pepito couldn't see how Todd was faring. He became more than worried. But he didn't follow after.
Half an hour passed.
Pepito was frantic. But now he'd paralyzed himself. He couldn't go in at all.
"A-amigo?" Softly, then louder, piercing across the thrashing and the screaming and the laughter.
"Behind you."
And Todd pushed him in, soaking wet and grinning.
(I don't understand.)
(Skipped a classical song, 'cause I refuse to be that abstract.)
(Skipped a VNV Nation song 'cause it likewise has no lyrics.)
Drabble Nine: What If – Plain White T's – 2:51 (Hiiiiiick music.)
Sometimes Pepito realized everything about him was a lie. His face, his clothes, his personality, his life, all of it forged for maximum popularity. It made him sick.
Only Todd knew the real him, the mismatched eyes and the spidery hair and the teeth and the love of cheap, old movies. Todd loved him for all of his realness, when he let it show, at home, under the covers, with all the lights off. At school, in public, anywhere else, he was some popular kid with the nice family and the perfect hair and the great smile and the good grades.
And Todd was some loser in shabby clothes, too weird, too smart, too fucking crazy.
No one believed either of them when they spoke the truth about the other.
(HUH)
Drabble Ten: Down – The Dambuilders – 5:15 (If you've heard of this band than holy shit HAVE MY BABIES.)
The fire was warm, and struck bright motes of light high into the night sky with every pop and sizzle. The air smelled of burning pine and a faint whiff of sulfer.
Todd had no idea where he was, but he didn't really care. Not yet. He would, once his brain caught up with the whole "being conscious" thing. Until then, he just let himself shiver and sweat beneath what felt to be like five sleeping blankets. The fire burned streams of light across the insides of his eyelids.
"You awake?"
Pepito? Yes, that was Pepito's voice.
"Mmrghtikitikatik?"
Apparently he couldn't talk just yet. His teeth chattered too much.
"You fell through the ice. I managed to get you out quickly enough, though you shouldn't move much yet."
Ice? Ice? What were they doing, camping?
He rolled over, looked up high into the stars. Prickly black and green broke the constellations, but the view still gave him vertigo. A sensation of flying backwards, a loop-de-loop, and his stomach lurched spectacularly.
Well that's what you got for trying to walk on ice, he supposed.
A/N: That was fun. SO MUCH FUN. Everyone should do this. And you feel great 'cause you crank 'em out so fast!