Drabbles

By spheeris1

Pairings: multiple

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[And Modesty Turns A Blind Eye]

On the pages and in the words little girls use, it can be candy-coated. That doesn't bother them really.
It can be pink like Utena's hair against a white tile floor.
It can be white like Utena's skin uncovered at night.
The tales told can be as pure as the love Utena has for Anthy.
But Anthy knows better, she remembers well and never forgets and she plays with the red rose most times---that delicate flesh blooms, humid as a hothouse and envelopes her, devours her like a venus fly-trap--but they keep that part silent.
Little girls, tiny princesses-in-waiting, rarely understand the desires of a prince...at least not like a witch can.

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[Itch To Scratch]

She had not yet met that devil on her shoulder, that plum-haired princess of destruction. She had not yet entered Ohtori and the games inside of the gate.
Her pale fingers, still strong and sure, were already pushing the coffin open...showing the way for her feet to follow, the branches pushed back and allowing her to pass unscathed.
There was something for her, out there in the world, something only for her and made for her and that needed her as she needed it--her destiny called like a foghorn, catching her vision and drawing it to the sea of unknown possibilities.

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[Tender As Ivy]

The thing he liked most about Winter was the fact that he could wear that long overcoat--he bought it in a second hand store, needing something heavy for the cold months.
It had rabbit fur around the lapels, which he did not approve of, but really had no choice in the matter. And the outer shell was dark brown corduroy, slippery satin lining on the inside.
The buttons were chubby, better to grasp with cold fingers.
So, now that snow lingered on the ground--waiting for more, some said--and the wind was bitter, Miki could wear his coat.
He could walk down the sidewalk and let his eyes catch on the multi-colored bags of shoppers.
Miki had people to shop for, of course.
A gold watch for his father. A nice dress for his mother.
There were perks to living in Paris most of the year...they loved his gifts when he came home.
Kozue was hard to buy gifts for. Too expensive and she would look at you like a nun might, scolding you for trying to be impressive. Too cheap and she would toss it aside like a child, making you feel utterly miserable.
Miki could never find the middle ground it seemed, even now...even away from Ohtori, duels and deception...he could not seem to find that 'happy place' everyone of them was looking for.
Kozue says she has found it. She is living life as she pleases, college and boyfriends and what-not.
Miki hasn't found it yet, though he believes it is there--waiting for him somewhere. Behind the lights along the lampposts or under the ivy weaved into wreaths...Miki pulls the coat tighter around him, stepping past the people.
He is trying not to run away from them and to his hotel room, to the sweet confines of a silent place where even his self-doubts and his tiny agonies cannot badger him.

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[Just Like]

No one told her the words to say or the ways to hurt others.
She just knew. Others, when growing up, would talk to imaginary friends with silly names. She talked to herself, that voice inside of her, that girl under her own skin who begged to take over--
youarenothingtheyhateyouihateyoutheydonotlikeyounoonelovesyouyouarenothingyouarenothingyouarenothing
--and one day she just let go of trying to be better, to be someone she was not. She is cruel. She is painful. Just like an open wound, just like a thief, just like a thousand tiny needles driven under fingernails.

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[Pillow Talk]

You could say it just happened, but then, that would not be the whole truth.
Girls loved Touga even as a child. Loved his long hair and his pale skin and his azure eyes. They treated him like some porcelain doll--until he grew older. Then they treated him like candy....to be licked, nibbled and eaten....
But that is not all the story, not really.
Boys liked Touga as well. Loved his attitude, his charm, his physical prowess--some liked more than that, looking at his nakedness in quick glances--why can't I be him? why can't I have him? why?
Still, that is not all to this...because Touga loved himself.
Loved to see his body move, loved to hear his own voice speak, loved to feel the clothes slide against his own skin.
Some times, he would stand in front of his mirror--completely nude--and study the dips and hollows, the flesh all hands wanted to travel along. And he let his hands caress, let his eyes close and let his body revel in his own self-wonder.
After all, Touga knew he was his own best lover.

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[Conversations With A Dead Girl]

'I do not know
who I was when I did those things...'
She says, fiddling with her cup, with her spoon, with her sugar packets of white and pink. She hopes her words make sense now and that this person opposite will believe her, will understand her.
'...or who I said I was or whether I willed to feel what I had read about...'
This person sitting across from her still owns those books, still turns those pages with a child's grace. Can this person hear her now? Can this person realize how hard it was to feel yourself split apart like a shell?
'...or who in fact was there with me or whether I knew, even then that there was doubt about these things...'
Utena reaches out and grasps cold arms, tugging a lifeless form to her warm body, crying and not comprehending why things must be this way. Are the answers still as foggy as years ago? Can the past never truly sleep? And does this child, this fragile girl that Utena used to be, does she understand any better than who she grew to be?

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[It Felt Like]

If you breathe, it will shatter like glass...just right now, time stopping and the world is not spinning...how fitting, how dramatic for our fairy-tale to end like this.
A prince reaches for the princess--does not matter that it be a coffin and not a tower, does not matter that there is no hair for a ladder--and air is their only barrier to joining once again.
But no, not this time. Swords are eager lovers and they want to kiss you. The past below needs you and so pulls you under.
And time kicks in once more, sounding like a hurricane of hate, like the static of lost chances.
I can tell you it felt just like that.

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[It Isn't, But It Is]

'Tell me about the past then, say the words and I'll try to believe they are true.' Kozue grinned, knowing that the girl sitting beside her and clutching shopping bags like the edge of a cliff, would not answer.
'Some of us grow, some of us do not--which are you now I wonder?' Kozue mused out loud, sliding her gaze like a knife to Shiori's Snow White face--a weird sort of innocence to retain after living among short little strangers for so long--Kozue laughed out loud.
'You've not changed at all.' Shiori said coldly, abruptly standing up and facing Kozue, blocking out the winter sun with her shadow.
'You have not changed. I have not changed. Nothing has changed...or have you not realized it?' Shiori finished before striding away. Kozue stayed seated, still smiling to herself and liking the strength in Shiori's retreating spine.
'Everything has changed, dear Shiori...and yet, as you say, nothing has changed at all...' Kozue whispered, watching the birds take off into flight.

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[Fade, Faded]

She could not compare it to anything, the feeling of slipping and sliding and drifting away from the awareness of her mind--plummeting off a precipice of sanity and into the ocean of turbulent emotions--it was the rush of the wind against her skin, billowing her dress out and open--like a parachute--icy fingers of wind running up her body and into the deepest recesses of her soul.
Once she surfaced again, the salt falling from her curves, a new person was born, emerging from a shell and walking upon the wet sand.
She dreams of dry heat and of claiming land like a demented conquistador.

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[The Actions of the Wounded]

So many times has that question tumbled along his mind, when he was sleeping or entering a dream--dreams of a highway to nowhere, of intentions of golden good--yet he never reached an answer, not in all that time, never a suitable answer was found. And perhaps, when all the lights go out and the shade of night is permanent, no answer is the only answer for his battered heart and noble chin. No answers become the foundation of his moss-covered castle hanging in the sky like a weeping-willow of stone.

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[Concrete Fantasies]

Those lines we have set up are becoming so blurred.
You above and me below, you wise and bitter--me naive and hopeful. Do you see some shadow of who you used to be in me, is that why you touch my face? Are you seeing something in my eyes beyond the mixture of shock and arousal confused with admiration?
I didn't know you dressed that way, in your nightgown of finely woven silk. I didn't know that there are sides to you that no one sees.
Except perhaps me, tonight, with your lips so close to mine.

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[Wounded]

The reasons for her malice became so unclear to her
own ears and to her own mind, the path she chose
to walk down merged with darkness and longing--it turned into
a maze within her own emotions, a trap of her own making--did she understand her heart then? As her fingers gripped a golden locket and the breeze from a beautiful sunny day cut into her room...those soul-deep wounds began to bleed once more.
How dare anyone love the completely unlovable.

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[A Shattering Wind]

Anthy did not place too much importance on clocks.
It could be a minute or hour or day.
Years tend to blend together, mixing the colors of the days and nights, creating a masterpiece of never-ending misunderstandings.
Clocks brush stroke onto the canvas, stark white and black.
Numbers become lives and lives become as meaningless as numbers. Anthy took the clocks from the walls.
She left the windows open so time could fly free and so the wind could pick them up, pick her up, pick up the very world.
Anthy knows she might shatter against the air, but those are chances that numbers must take if they do not want to be trapped by that murderer called time.

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[Between You and Me]

It is not so simple as a secret.
Secrets can be kept for as long as your life, taken to the grave and buried underground. Secrets can slip out, though you say by accident, and lie on the floor.
Ready to trip you, ready to catch you.
It is not so simple as that for you and I. Because, between you and me, our type of love is no better than a beautiful killer.
Both our hands hold the knife handle, both of our fingers are stained with gunpowder.
We've always done things together and why should this one matter so much?

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[Dancers On the Edge of Forever]

What was once habit is now a feeling, a clutching and strangling emotion deep inside. Fingers as brittle as dried mud, stretching out from below and reaching upward...this is not Egypt, we are not mummies...but it feels like we've been under rock and dust for ages now.
Kanae gave her a poisonous flower. She watched their purple petals fold and embrace one delicate hand. She could have trembled with happiness as Anthy fell forward and hit the floor.
Anthy dreamed of a blonde prince wrapped in thorns.
Funny that...Anthy didn't see her past a blaze of pink, all those years ago...

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END [for now…]