Author's Note: The game goes like this.
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.
Borrowed from The Finesseful X. Enjoy them. Also, a forewarning: I have many classical and celtic songs on my playlist. So, you may not know a few of them.
Oh, since I'm a bigger fan of the number 'thirteen', I did thirteen of these instead. Pairings are randomized, so sorry if you don't like some of them.
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Desirous, Disastrous
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"Sparks" by Coldplay – 03:46
JadeCrystallineShipping; Green & Crystal
Words: 165
Crystal has the heart of a butterfly when she sees him. The stomach as well. He is beautiful and so, so far from her. He's far from everyone, she knows. It hurts her to see him so aloof, so distant emotionally.
Every day, she works in the lab his grandfather built with his sweat and tears. Every day, she sighs on her way home, wishing for something other than monotony that would usher her into bed. Even Gold would have been better than this nothingness that surrounded her empty bed, pristinely made up each morning.
Every day, she watches him walk home early. She waits for a smile that never comes.
If he felt the same way, he might have said something. Maybe not, though. That is the problem with boys of his nature, she decides.
She will never know what exactly he thinks.
She rustles her eyelashes like the butterfly that she is and hopes that maybe, someday soon, he will notice her beauty.
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"She's So High Above Me" by Everclear – 03:47
HaughtyShipping; Pearl & Platina
Words: 122
The problem with falling in love with a princess is that you can never do anything about it.
Pearl knows this, and so does Dia. So neither of them say anything. Pearl, however, is better at hiding this fact, and so he knows how Dia feels – infatuated; how he feels – head-over-heels; and how she feels – apathetic.
What a shame. For any other girl, he would have been a total catch.
He does realize that there are rules about this sort of thing; even if she felt differently, it would have been impossible. After all, he's just a boring boy from a middle class family.
And she's a princess.
And she's so high above him that he can barely even see her silhouette.
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"Cedars of Lebanon" by U2 – 04:14
ChosenShipping; Silver & Blue
Words: 195
At the age of fifteen, he already feels like a war veteran.
It's hard to believe that he's already helped defeat two criminal organizations and become a criminal himself. But the perspective of both sides of the coin gives him enough perspective to realize exactly how blessed he is.
After all, he does have her.
Sometimes, he gets so lost in his own thoughts, though. He takes a old, beaten-up mask out of his footlocker (the one that holds all of his meager possessions) and just stares at the bottom half, the one that was suppose to be where his face was. She has one just like it, he has to remember. She has moved beyond the past, though.
He still hasn't.
He never calls her anymore, even though her voice is preserved in the inbox of his messages, a thousand times over. He will never delete those. He thinks he probably should let her know.
But there is too much out there to hurt him, and so he hardens his heart. Better to die of war than of love, and better to leave well enough alone then get out there and hurt someone yourself.
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"Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick – 05:08
FeelingShipping; Green & Yellow
Words: 299
Yellow does not like making mistakes, but she realizes on a lonely November night that perhaps that's exactly what the last seven years of her life have been.
He's not coming back, she realizes in dismay.
She doesn't cry. Not yet, at least. She's still numb.
But hours later, her breath is catching in her throat, and she trembles under cotton sheets. It is late, and moonlight is her only friend on nights like this.
She can't go back. She can't just pretend it never happened, either. And she feels, absurdly, like there is no one she can turn to. After all, the one person that she would trust with something so important to her is exactly the one twisting the knife obliviously in her heart.
She opens the window and runs out into the night, ignoring the biting cold and just running. Running away from her thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, they follow her down the Viridian City streets like a ghost.
So she ends up standing on a hill at the edge of town, looking dumbly down on her forest.
She feels that there is nothing she can do.
There is movement in the line of trees, and she startles for a moment, until she realizes it is just Green, and Green's as unchanging as the old trees for which his family is named.
He catches her eyes and holds her gaze. Then he disappears down one of the little valleyways, probably headed home under the thin layer of stars.
He doesn't care, she tells herself hopelessly. No one will know about this, then. I'll just move on. Somehow.
She thinks this until he puts a hand on her shoulder and asks the question that she's been hoping for so long that someone would ask. "What's the matter?"
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"Wunderkind" by Alanis Morissette – 05:22
FranticShipping; Ruby & Sapphire
Words: 208
Of all the traits Ruby admires about Sapphire, his favorite has to be her self-confidence. Unlike every other girl he's ever met, she doesn't rely on anyone or anything.
She is herself, always. And so he wants to make her his.
There's more to it than that, of course. She is rich in history, intelligent, honorable… there's more to them than a simple obsession, though that is there as well. She is perfect in her powerful, fear-striking way.
And so he notices the strength in every step.
Of course, not everyone else feels the same way. And so when he discovers a group of girls teasingly pointing out nonexistent flaws, he does not hesitate to rip them apart in his head and in a Pokemon battle. She is different; she is unique; she is a princess on the way to overthrow her enemies. And no one should have the words to destroy that beauty.
Afterwards, Ruby finds her in the woods, curled up and crying about her self-conscious, he gives her a look, one that reminds her exactly who she is and what she fights for.
And one that also reminds her who he is, and that he fights for her.
So she knows she is never alone.
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"Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)" by Enrique Iglesias – 05:00
MangaQuestShipping; Gold & Crystal
Words: 188
(warning; this is the reason that this fic is rated 'T'.)
Gold struggles with two emotions.
First is respect. He respects Crystal. He fears her and those striking legs of hers.
And the other is the gut-wrenching, overwhelming desire to just take her already.
Every time he sees her walking towards him, he finds himself at a loss for words. Well, intelligent ones. He falls back on the old nicknames, or maybe a stupid joke. But really, he's sweating under that stupid old cap of his, and he worries absolutely that she thinks it's such a last year fashion statement.
And then she walks away in that skirt from four years before, and he wonders why, of all things, he was worried about fashion.
When he starts waking up thinking about her, he begins to get a bit worried. After all, how can he concentrate on his 'work' of breeding Pokemon if he'd like to… well…
He wishes he could simply tell her this. Just walk up and say what he wants and what he needs and what he feels.
When he answers the PokeGear, though, he says none of this. All he says is, "Hey there. What's up?"
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"Horror of Our Love" by Ludo – 04:32
PanderShipping; Green & Misty
Words: 173
Misty's eyes widen when she realizes exactly how close Green is to her ear.
"Dinner?" is his casual statement, but the smell of peppermints in his warm breath is intoxicating, and the air next to her cheeks heats. It's as though sparks fill the air between their bodies, and desires that she didn't even know she has suddenly appear in the air just before her eyes.
"You scared me," she says so normally that she wonders why she doesn't get a job on Broadway. "Don't do that."
She tells herself at the same time that it would be a bad idea to encourage that sort of behavior in the future.
She imagines his cut figure through the polo shirt he always wears to work; then she turns to him and makes sure to meet his emerald eyes with her turquoise. "Where?" she asks, mouth not quite forming a smile.
"You know where," he says, turning and walking away. "Let's go."
That dominance over the situation doesn't exactly help her stop blushing in time.
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"My Lagan Love" by Roisin O'Reilly – 04:17
SpecialShipping; Red & Yellow
Words: 205
On the third day of the second year he is gone, she sits down with her head in her hands and cries. The forest is a good place for crying, so it turns out.
She is only ten, of course, and so the tears pass quickly. There is no reason why a ten-year-old girl better known as Amarillo the boy should feel heartsick.
Then Blue arrives, and Blue needs help. Blue tells the little girl that her love, her love from far away and long ago, is in grave danger and is missing.
You wouldn't think that a girl that hates conflict would willingly stand up from the base of her crying tree and leave. You wouldn't think that she would willingly put a hat on her head, making her unrecognizable.
But she does. She goes. She succeeds, and once more he returns, though not to her arms.
Year later, she tells him nonchalantly about her revelation in the clearing in the woods, that she will fight for him any time. That she would risk her life for him.
His hug (because he understands exactly what this statement means from such a girl) is long and speaks legions about what he would do for her.
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"Hyperchondriac Music" by Muse – 05:32
CrystalShipping; Eusine & Crystal
Words: 202
The kind of pain he feels when he sees her is like eating cotton candy laced with cyanide.
After all, Crystal is so happy, so full of pure life, that it seems such a shame to want to rip all that away from her for selfish reasons.
And it does seem so selfish to want to be with her, when he is aging fast and she's at the dawn of her existence.
Plus, she's not for him. She's for Gold, or Silver, or Green, or maybe even that little boy named Emerald who always seems so attached to her at the hip. They're like counterparts.
Meanwhile, he's just some weirdo who collects Suicune merchandise.
Why? he asks himself sometimes. Why is the one girl who ever dared rival my passion for a Pokemon also the one girl I can't get out of my head?
He howls at the moon on nights like this. After all, he's never been good at keeping his feelings to himself. He's not like some people who bottle emotions and then drink them with their vodka later that year.
Some day, he swears he will get over her. Some day.
But for now, he is hopelessly, inexplicably, heartstriken.
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"Danzon No. 2" by Arturo Marquez – 09:52
AmberShipping; Gold & Yellow
Words: 342
Yellow hadn't realized that Gold knew how to dance.
The starts with a basic clave rhythm, and he holds out a graceful hand to the little blond girl. She in her lovely dress accepts his hand tentatively, uncertain. After all, what is she supposed to do?
It isn't difficult, since he knows exactly what to do.
As they step onto the dance floor, the heavy bass flows around them, and his feet become more frantic and before she knows it, she is lost in the movement of a rapid-fire tango that outstrips the motion of the fastest runner.
They sway like reeds when the music calms slightly, and for the first time since the evening began, he watches a small smile grace her perfect lips.
Her eyes grow as wide as the moon when he plants a fast one on those lips then falls neatly into a slow romantic section in the middle.
Yellow grows quickly crimson as the younger boy spins her gracefully around the room. That actually just happened! Though she will never tell anyone, she has never had such a kiss in her life. It had been as exhilarating as the dance.
The music calms into a quiet lull, and they slow with the decrescendo.
She is not expecting the schizophrenic time of the next part, and she loses herself.
"How do you know this?" she gasps over the music, nearly losing her footing. Gold sets her upright and they are a speeding train again, racing down the tracks toward what Yellow couldn't help but fear was a collision.
Faster faster, and, with another lull, Yellow tenses and knows what is ahead. And she's guessed it perfectly, because they begin spinning like out of control wheels on a runaway train.
And the music falls away and the dance is over.
She doesn't realize until the applause begins that they have starred the dancefloor, that his lips are an inch from her ear, and that she is as brightly colored as the deep-toned curtains on the dark banquet room walls.
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"The Only Exception" by Paramore – 04:28
OldRivalShipping; Green & Blue
Words: 221
He has always sworn that love is a bad choice. It's a mistake.
And so now he is twenty-five and his only bedmate is an overlarge Arcanine.
He's unchanging, unmoving. He watches the others move around him like a rock in the stream in flurries of romance and attraction. He stays out of it. Says he's asexual and walks away before they can ask him what the word means.
For some reason, it's Blue who's the odd one out. She's the one that ends up alone, the bridesmaid at three weddings of younger girls and the designer of four honeymoons.
He wonders if it's lonely up there, being the queen of romance.
He also wonders why it's that way. Countless men still lust over her.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out why she doesn't have her pick, or just date them all at the same time (since she's the one girl that could get away with that).
"Who is it?" he asks one day over the phone when the topic comes up. After all, they are friends now, and it's hard not to notice that she tears up whenever someone mentions a new love affair between others that they both know.
The answer is obvious to anyone but the stoic boy with brown hair and green eyes.
"It's you."
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"Dark Waltz" by Hayley Westenra – 04:21
RedemptionShipping; Silver & Crystal
Words: 214
It is with great regret that Silver attends the wedding between his 'best friend' and the girl he loves.
It is a secret, hidden love, of course; he would be mortified if anyone were to discover his affection for the girl who still had an untainted heart.
But, then again, if he loves a girl with an untainted heart, he supposes Yellow would be that girl, not Crystal. So her purity is not the cause for his attraction.
Is it attraction, though? He has learned before that love and lust are sometimes opposites.
So, no, it is not lust.
As he glumly picks at the salmon that is catered, he ignores the laughter and considers the single rose in the vase in the center of the table. It is like love, he thinks. Beautiful from afar, and yet it stings so much if one draws too close. Like Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun.
Later, she asks him to dance, and he realizes that his love for her is simply because. There is no logic to it. But now, inextricably, she is like a bright light far in the distance.
As they glide over the floor, he knows that he should just go back to the darkness from whence he came.
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"Hate This and I'll Love You" by Muse – 05:09
GrantedShipping; Lance & Yellow
Words: 222
He stares at the stars very often. They remind him of angry, fierce, determined eyes.
Yellow was a girl, he had realized long ago. A girl, and a good one at that. Fiercely loyal to the one boy who had ever shown her kindness, and to the only friends she had ever known – her Pokemon.
Seen from that perspective, they aren't so different.
Then he remembers that he was supposed to destroy her. And he'd almost succeeded, too.
Despite himself, he smiles at that memory. She sure had some spunk, to be able to survive like that, under those conditions.
It is a dangerous thing, love. It had carried both of them to the battlefield, on opposite sides. Under different conditions, they could easily be rivals or friends or lovers.
If only. If only she turned her back on the world and joined him on a quest to madness.
If that were to occur, of course, then the entire world would shift on a paradigm.
If she were to prove humanity to be blameless in such a fashion, then maybe he wouldn't need to destroy it.
'One day,' he tells himself. 'One day, I'll show her how I've changed. Show her that I can be a good person.'
Then, maybe he won't be the only one staring at the stars at midnight.