Drabbles

By spheeris1

Pairings: Multiple…

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[Glass Slippers Shatter]

slice off the fingers...
And she was lost, but on purpose, deep inside the forest--that place forbidden to her, yet she wanted to enter into its folds--long fingers trailing over the apple skin...rich red and enticing, like all things under the shade of these trees--all things held hidden treasures.
...and slice off the toes...
Distant horses clatter, coming to carry her away from hay-stuffed beds and dusty table-tops, away from that grove beyond that she so held dear...but whispers in the wood speak of her, they talk of her present journey to Hell and of how easily angels are seduced from the sky.
...and let your eyes begin to bleed...
She thought she was dancing, but it was really an illusion--this party, held in arms unknown, music like the sound of cannon-fire--is she dreaming or is there a war outside? Is she merely dizzy or did her Prince put something in that punch?
Did she forsake her thorn-covered womb for the delights of a marble tomb?
...and watch those glass slippers shatter...

-

[Love]

she is neither pink nor pale,
and she never will be all mine;
she learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
and her mouth on a valentine.

All those pictures on the wall do not begin to capture you, standing before me and unraveling before me, letting the true form behind that shadow show and gently taking my hand in yours....you show me the realness of your skin, the reality of your curves and your slopes....and the enormity of this moment could swallow me up, spit me out and leave me for dead--if not for your eyes on mine, beckoning me forward and to your mouth...how many do you kiss at night? Many more than I ever have, surely---but as sure of this as I am, I am even more aware of you against me now, of your heart--your heart, so very alive--beating in time with mine...
and I rush to keep you with me, to save us both from the turntable of time and the swell of ancient waters--you are as unreal as you seem and still more real than I can ever hope to be....will you depart with me?
Will you be mine?

-

[Babylon]

She was standing at the intersection, waiting for the light to change and the tiny red unisex person to motion for 'walking' not 'stopping'.
She was dangling her purse from her fingertips.
She had no umbrella even though the sky was a dark grey and distant thunder played like timpani drums above.
She breathed out once---then held the air inside of her, air of smoke and sticky candy and red nail polish--air of a little slip of a girl, two blocks away and lounging on a bed, two blocks away and walking in plain view with no clothing, two blocks away...too far away...too damn far away...
///
Kanae met her three weeks ago.
And she didn't know her impish face from Adam. But this girl knew her...or claimed to anyway. And she brought up things that Kanae didn't want to hear or remember or feel.
This 'Kozue'. This 'girl'.
But Kanae met up with her again. And again. And again.
Until the straw was laid down and the camel crumbled to the desert--Kanae snapped with the memories Kozue was forcing, the images of agony stored in Kanae's mind and that Kozue laughed at--and Kanae slammed her into a wall.
'Do it...' Kozue whispered.
'I want to kill you, I want to kill *all* of you...' Kanae hissed. And Kozue smiled slowly, so slow and soft that Kanae felt some part of her insides suddenly break open and spread wide once more. That's when Kozue decided to kiss her. And that is when Kanae decided to kiss her back

///
She didn't think she was like this.
Selfish. Demanding. Needy. Kinky.
But she is...they are...the whole stupid world is...
Kozue insists on being as cold as possible and she wants her picture of a boy who looks just like her to sit on the bedside table, to watch them under the freezer sheets of Kozue's chambers.
And Kanae should feel something other than the hot spinning of lust in her gut at this....but she does not.

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[Stopping]

She didn't know when she started to feel like this.
Like the world she knew was hollow and the time spent there was meaningless.
And if she asked herself honestly, didn't she just want to die?
Didn't she want those swords of hate that she so richly deserved to cut her open and let her bleed out?
Each point was driven in by her words, each cut was that more painful due to her actions.
So, in essence, her eternal punishment is to not die, but to feel so completely dead.
No...no, she does not know when she began to feel this way about her life--her life of being a corpse in the hands of her own self-hatred.
"Are you ready, Anthy?" Akio asks.
"Of course, dear brother." Anthy replies.

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[The World Is Not Enough]

They sometimes talked.
It could be daytime outside of that silent place where the true prince slept...Akio didn't know.
Akio was always living in the night anyway. He could never adjust to the sunlight.
But when they talked, only Akio's lips moved.
Dios said a lot of things...just without words. All the things he needed to get across came from his shadowed eyes--hollow and dark places on his skull, blind like fish in a cave.
Akio brushed aside the boy's hair and kissed his forehead, feeling Dios press against his lips...
"If only you would understand me. We could have the world if we were together once again." Akio whispered.
Dios tightened his hold on Akio's arm, but said nothing.
He did not have to.

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[Special]

At the end of the day, they just had one thing in common---and it was the very thing that kept them apart.
Shiori used to look at Juri, in her youth, and see someone beyond her vision. Too good, too perfect, too much of everything Shiori could never be.
Juri used to look at Shiori, in her locket, and see someone beyond her heart. Too innocent, too pure, too much of everything Juri did not deserve.
But the roses no longer tint the gaze and the past does not die, it grows into a beast of burden--standing in the room like a bull in a china shop.
Juri falls from the pedestal and Shiori wallows in the mud.

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[Undone]

Saionji can hear the wheels on the ground and feel each breath Touga inhales, pushing against Touga's ribs and into Saionji's back. And he watches the sun die over the horizon, knowing everything is changing--for better or worse, Saionji does not know--but by tomorrow morning, the whole world will be different for the two of them.
Saionji knows that is why they ride now, back to back on a bicycle not built for two--not like years ago, when they perhaps fit together well....Touga's hair gets tangled in Saionji's hair one last time, before they must let go and grow up.

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[Swept Away]

Utena awoke from a reoccurring nightmare, her body trembling and her skin covered in sweat.
Three in the morning.
She had slept two hours.
And she could hear the paper slipping through her mail-slot on her front door, letter after letter after letter...all addressed to her...
But Utena had no idea who they came from.
Where they came from.
If Utena was being truthful, she was not even sure where *she* came from.
Birth certificate says the place, the time, the day--but Utena isn't sure if that is all or not.
First letter says 'come and find me'
Second letter says 'I am waiting'
And so on and so forth--all from a place called Ohtori, always smelling of roses. Utena crushes them without thinking, pain pricking along her arms--then she sweeps them away, into the trash.
But they keep coming--begging, pleading, nagging.
'Who are you?' Utena asks the mirror, staring into her own eyes and holding the last note of the day in her fingers--the paper shrinks down, forming to her finger and becomes a ring.

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[A Time For All Things]

No one saw what she saw that day, walking home from school. A crisp Autumn day, the leaves covering the road and crunching under her feet.
Kanae carried her books in her arms.
Kanae thought about equations and romantic literature.
Kanae saw the sky grow dark with impending night.
And then, quick as a flash, someone darted around the corner--a little girl of brown skin--Kanae swore for years and years to come that something...or someone...was chasing that little girl.
Kanae dropped the books and ran after the girl, a wild impulsive force taking over her body, turning her normally weak bones into steel.
But the little girl was gone, the street empty as always at this time of the evening.
Kanae looked to the ground and saw, hidden within a sea of dust, bright red rose petals. They made a trail, a trail Kanae followed--forgetting her books or going home--and led her to see something no one else saw that day.
A girl up in the air, skewered by swords and a mournful prince in white.
'One day...you will have your chance...' The prince said.
Kanae ended up home once more, not knowing how she got there. And a rose laid on her bed, but she did not know where it came from. And a ring lingered on her vanity table that she had never seen, never worn...
Kanae was sure she was forgetting something vastly important.

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[Lipstick Boy]

After the first six years or so, the mirror in the hall did not record his face aging--it kept track of his hair, those locks of the deepest blue--down to his shoulders now.
It was not messy on purpose, it just laid that way.
It fell into his eyes as he wrote.
And that mirror, as night came and became the dusk of morning, while all others slept or continued to mingle....he caught a glimpse of his lips in the light, reflected onto one-way glass.
The prettiest shade of red, glimmering with alcohol sheen and full with stolen drunk kisses.
He had become a beautiful boy, no need for make-up on his cheekbones or lipstick upon his mouth.
He was gorgeous in the hours before and the time after.

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[You, Me And Venus]

And the even darker, accurate, rose of sex....that he now knows of her, peeled back and revealed. And she remembers the cold metal, smooth against her naked skin and the licks of fire from his touch. She can still see the stars above, his name twinkling in the sky--but she forgot her own name laying upon the ground, as carelessly discarded as her dress...that name fades away with his kiss.

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[First & Last]

You are kissing me and I am kissing you.
Something so simple, so much a part of some world we do not yet know of. I want to memorize the flavor of you, just in case this is the end, just in case we are going to go up in flames instead of break free. I want my last touch to be upon your skin, my last vision of your eyes. I want the final sensation to be love overwhelming, love overpowering, love all-consuming in my veins. You are kissing me and it might as well be the first time I've ever been breached this way---and if it is all over for you and I, then it might as well be the last.

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[Don't Ask]

Nanami thought by the light coming in through the window that it must be midday. All of a Sunday spent in bed was bad for muscle-tone. She normally did not think this way, but then she had been around Juri too much these days.
Five a.m. work-outs. Healthy meals.
Of course, Juri was asleep now. Her hair surrounding her face like a curtain, her skin hot to the touch under the sheets, her ample amounts of energy now spent. Nanami smiled to herself--one bad habit installed, fifty more to go.
And once awake, Juri will surely wonder why Nanami did not roust her from a slumber so deep.
'Don't ask.' Nanami will whisper against her lips.

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[What Makes Her]

All her photographs from that time in school make her look like some sort of sexual Charles Manson--unkempt and wild-eyed, ready to attack no matter who looks on in fear...only with touchable edges, not so rough.
A challenge was thrown down when she was but a child, the sharp point of a dagger going through her hand and making her stay to the ground--trapped and bleeding by a need so strong, stronger than even her own mortality.
Now, torn loose like Christ from the cross, she is free--never-mind the realities, never-mind the illusions.
Pictures taken with flash catch her smile, slow and sly and knowing...they capture what makes her rise and fall, what makes her whole after so long of being part of two.

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[Cottonmouth]

Easy to be remembered as a dream...but not to be really forgotten as truth...
So, in hazy light and soft hues, afternoon burns away as one room--piano, cold floor--becomes another room--pink walls, breeze through sheets. And one boy--aching and needy--becomes a body on a bed--gasping, grasping--for the most seductive of princes.
That melody of some distant garden is never as loud as when heard from beneath warm skin, Miki thinks before slipping away and back to black-and-white keys.

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[Johnny Ace Is Dead]

Planets and stars will soon die, like all things must. Anthy knows this and is glad for this. It is right for life to be like this. Flowers wilt, animals stop breathing, skin wrinkles and rots.
And so, as if a tiny black-hole opens its mouth, Akio is sucked back through time--away from endless searching for his better half sitting on that concrete world, away from his storybook land of fools gold, away from the anger and sadness that made him a man.
Anthy can watch his light go out up in the heavens and no longer feels that quiet kind of malice she used to feel.
He has passed on and she is at peace with that, knowing one day she too will go where he goes, dancing with the atoms of creation once more.

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END [for now…]