Every Pairing Under the Sun
Author's Note: I seem to have lost my pairings list, so I don't have an organized one to follow right now. No worries, though, I'll find it. Eventually.
Sorry for not updating for so long! This one's a true drabble of sorts, and followed by three extra drabbles to make up for my lateness.
Random note: I drew a picture of Hao. When I saved it, it was exactly 666 KB. –snickers because she finds this amusing-
Disclaimer: Be glad I don't own Shaman King, because… Wait. Nevermind. Be sad I don't own Shaman King. That'll make two of us. :D
Drabble Four: Obsession
Overlarge head bent over a paper too small for his eyes, too small for his world, he smiled, content after a fashion. It wasn't as good as being with Yoh (and it never was – one of the few illogical things that fit into his mind as perfectly as piece to puzzle-piece) but he liked it in its own way, in its own place. He had thought, at first, that he would not be controlled – that it would wreak havoc upon his life and he would be lost in the drowning seas that was the shaman boy, but then Yoh had changed and become, not part of his life, but his life in its entirety.
It made things so much simpler to know that it was only that he couldn't breathe without Yoh than anything like the fact that he couldn't live without him. (Genius, brilliant Manta knew that there was technology to push air in and out of your lungs without effort; and so he could live without breathing of his own accord.)
But then he felt the thumping, the light pulsing of a skittering heartbeat.
He frowned.
-
Hands.
Reaching so far inside of him that it reached a new plateau of pain, hands that were both dexterous-deft and clumsy, too, like a boy with his first kiss, trying to be gentle and adept but too clumsy to know that the only thing that hurt was his utter gracelessness, beautiful but aching, and he ached all over now from screaming so much, from staring into purple that went on for eons and an infinity that would not die…
He lay momentarily upon the grassy knoll, injured and spent of all his energy. Past his vision, he thought he could see a Yoh-blur shouting angrily at a Mad-Doctor-blur, but then his hearing went and he could no longer dream of that, either.
The doctor, he thought, had whispered something to him, or perhaps to the beautiful blonde skeleton to his side; lovingly, tenderly.
"It won't be long now."
He was the first person to have touched Manta, not with careless friendship, nor with the cavalier scorn and admiration that was available to him everywhere he went, nor with the cold assessing ambition that his father expected of him, but with intensity strong enough to burn him, warm him until even the nerves with which he feels have been scorched away.
-
The present Manta shuddered a little, though not with revulsion, at the memory of those hands on him. The pain had been a terrible thing, and so had the fact that his internals were spilling into the external, but there had been an odd gentleness in the surgery.
Almost a kindness that had nothing to do with scorn, ambition, or friendship.
He shuddered again, though for different reasons now. I'm not obsessed. I don't need love. He told himself irritably, and went back to writing his essay, only to discover that he had filled sixty-six lines with a single name.
Faust.
Author's Note: This one was a real drabble. (500 words – better than my usual 2000.) I've finally written something short and coherent! Hurrah for me!
..Okay, maybe not coherent. But I thought that this was pretty decent, considering.
Next up is Anna and Lyserg, as I've already written it and, despite its 2000-word length, am fairly proud of the dialogue, though not of the characterizations. In the meantime, here's a true drabble – 300 words and present tense, which I now appear to be addicted to. Figure out the pairing yourself.
Extra: (300-word drabble)
"Here."
She offers it to him, slightly beyond the reach of her tiny fingertips, eyes tentative and waiting. He holds it momentarily, grasping it, opening it, shuffling aside the tissue coverings to reveal the cheap things beneath.
They are mortal things; he sees that without looking, knows it without thinking. But he grasps it anyway, confident to the marrows of his bones.
He has no idea from where she has come, and doesn't care. He does not ask questions, and never has.
"I-I thought you might like something. For your birthday." She says shyly, quietly. He looks to her with a smile and eyes like scattered ashes. And in a moment, the package becomes that as well.
He drops the remainder to the floor, careful, calm, cold. She does not say a word more.
There is silence.
"Why?" He asks at last. The dark, shadowed smile is gone, replaced by the first hint of confusion. "I don't even know you."
She shrugs helplessly, and reminds him of his brother very much in that moment. "Because I do not know any better." She replies.
"Try again."
"Because…" She pauses a moment, savoring the word, helpless and helpful at once. "Because you've never had a birthday present before, and I wanted you to have one."
She smiles timidly once, a widely adoring grin, and it is that smile that he sees, burning behind his eyes, as he incinerates her too.
He shakes away the flecks of cinders as he dips a gloved hand in, brings the burnt parcel to the surface. A CD.
In time, some dark evening when the skies are clear, Yoh will find his headphones missing. And in some distant region, a wrathful mind will be soothed to sleep by the sharp tunes of a rock 'n' roll lullaby.
Extra Numbah Two: (Ten-minute drabble; Tamao ficlet.)
Anna has come home.
Tamao knows this detachedly, with a strange emptiness where her heart usually pounds. Anna has come home (Izumo; her home, never Anna's, but the itako usurps a place that might have been hers all the same) for the winter holiday, and will not be budged to leave, probably, until Yoh has given up.
-
She sees him bruised and battered sometimes, thrown against the wall like a discarded doll. These things are not uncommon when Anna is home.
She tries, a little, to alleviate it. Tugging timidly at Master Yohmei's sleeve, a quiet whisper escaping her throat before she can hastily pull it back.
The Master only laughs. To him there needs be only a trick of the shadows, and little Tamao will jump and squeak. To him, Tamao is squeaking at shadows again - and there is nothing to fear in shadows.
He smiles and pats her head and says the words that deepens her fears, her thoughts, her nightmares.
"Anna loves Yoh."
No. She wants to say. Anna hates Yoh. There is no such cruelty in love.
But her throat is blocked, a prison. The words do not escape into the world today.
-
Long after the dark dances throughout the world, she creeps out from beneath the snuggling warmth of her futon, shivering a little in her thin shift, this tiny six-year-old girl with the snaggletoothed smile and the soothing, cooling bruise-paste clasped tightly between her delicate palms.
Starlight fills his room.
For a moment, she shivers, pulls back. But then, remembering what she endeavors, she goes forth again, straightbacked but wary.
He is beautiful under moonlight; more beautiful than in daytime, when the harshness of the sun bleaches the fine daintiness of his bones and ravages their color until there seems none at all. And he is more beautiful still under the summer stars.
She wishes it were summer; winter never fails to bring him bruises. There is one under his cheek now, tribute to a bumbling fall in the midst of his training. (Anna hates it when he stumbles, and deals him reminders in stinging blows that fade from the flesh sooner than they do from memory.)
He sighs in his sleep and she whirls, eyes darting frantically for a place to duck and cover. But only his fingers rise; a casual, tender brush against the bruises before he delves into slumber again.
Twelve minutes later, she is still flattened against his door, a child's trembling shadow that is too afraid to creep into and past the corridor.
Eventually, before the sun rises, she goes away, bruise-paste unopened, still clutched tightly in a child's fist.
She remembers what the Master said: Anna loves Yoh.
But, she thinks, it does not matter if Anna loves Yoh. Not anymore.
For Yoh loves Anna.
Extra Numbah Three: (Drabble: If Hao knew about fangirls and was summoned to our world, bound for the duration of a lifetime to one of them.)
She loves the seeing of him, the knowledge that he is there, irredeemable, unchangeable, eternal. She loves his smiles, and the fact that they will not be kind. She has seen too many of them to expect kindness from him.
They reflect back to her the bitterness of truths she will not swallow - but for him, gladly.
She is mortal, and will age along with him, but he will go on when he dies, while she remains in a soupy nothingness.
She does not know that to him, she is a kind of penance, a reminder of all his failures in the life he led in the previous world.
She does not know that each moment he spends beside her filthy-tainted-human-mortal body is agony, for all that he smiles.
She does not know, because he does not want her to.
He's lost, but still strong.
Review Replies:
soccer-cutie67: It could have been a full-fic (or even a semi-series), but I was just way too lazy. xD When I get time, though, it may become a three-part story. Watch for it.
Inulover4eva: I already wrote the Anna-Lyserg. It's already sitting somewhere on the Internet, and only I know the address… :) You know I love to torture. Or at least, you do now.
asn water: Eh, I admit it was a bit confusing, my style. I'll probably revamp it when I have time. RenxAnna will probably be sometime after AnnaxLyserg.
SquirrelFraulein: Ooh.. scary. And tough. I'll try! xD
Tlad: He's not stupid! –hugs him adoringly- And manliness (Spirits, what a funny word) aside, I like the original Japanese better. Everything flows there, whereas in the dub it's choppy/choppy/choppy. And perhaps the reason it sounds like a girl is because it's played by a girl…? –snigger- And I like Len's deep voice; there's something very cute about it. Although there's also something to be said about that nasal British accent. –snickers again-
And Zeke in the English version is too blunt. The Japanese version makes him more subtle, and it's the Japanese version I play when I write the fanfics.
There; don't cry. If it makes you feel any better, I'm planning a side-series, Hao-centric, where he breaks his stony little heart.
