Every Pairing Under the Sun

Author's Note: Waha – I wrote this about a day after I finished the RenxAnna piece, as I got bored of working on my other projects. Not too fond of this one, as Nichrome reminds me awfully of Hao. (Wah! I cannot write canon properly!)

This is like… Ren week. All of my next pairings appear to involve Ren. And after that is Hao week… again.

Seriously, people appear to be obsessed with Hao, Ren, and Yoh pairings. Or HaoxRenxYoh pairings. But they are awfully cute bishies… -snugs them-

You're Mine Chapter Ten is having problems. –prods it- Mainly to do with the fact that I want to skip ahead; I'm already pre-writing a bonus chapter that ought to be, by all rights, posted in May. Unfortunately, my excitement over it is so total that I want to post it now. -.-

And I'm also working on 100 drabbles, all HaoxAnna. Great Spirits, I'm going to die... I can't go for that long being productive! I'll have... a cramp, or a seizure! Or, horror of horrors, my mind might actually grow!

..Erm. Enough rambling on my part. Enjoy the fic. :)

List: (AnnaTamao? Inserted either here or somewhere else) RenxTamao, Ren x Lyserg, RenxChocolove, LysergxTamao, KororoxManta, HaoxSquirrel, HaoxLyserg, HaoxAmidamaru (YohxSpirit of Fire bonus. :P), HaoxManta, Yoh x Lyserg, ChocolovexPirika (still liable to be moved), YohxRen, YohxOC, HorohoroxManta, YohxHoro, HoroxRen, HaoxAnna, YohxTamao, YohxAnna.

Disclaimer: If I owned Shaman King, the following scene would have most probably been in canon. Which would have sorely depressed all the fangirls who are convinced that Ren is straight, I'm sure.


Drabble Eight: Regret, and What Comes After

His kisses were rough, clumsy – deliberately so, with a careful calculation behind each movement that made him shiver instinctively.

The sandy-haired boy smiled at him, sleepy eyes cuttingly alert. Brushing his fingers over the light bone structure of his companion in a possessive caress, he whispered, "Hold still," and pressed against him gently, though there was no gentleness in the sharpness of his smile.

Golden eyes crashed shut as the other boy left off his ministrations and bent his attentions lower, tracing with lips and tongue the line of the violet-haired shaman's jaw, the taut muscle beneath the skin that twisted and writhed beneath his touch.

The younger hesitated only a moment as he traced his path across familiar territory, pausing as his lips grazed the Chinese shaman's throat.

"You're not enjoying this at all, are you?" The Patch officiant asked softly, and Ren felt the boy's lips curl.

"What do you think." The words dropped flatly from his tongue. He glanced away, and hardly even acknowledged it as tiny ivory teeth bit into his shoulder, marking him with crimson and white.

Nichrome smiled.

"Good." He said briefly, and continued, trailing his lips in a deceptively careless gesture across his shoulder, tongue flickering out from between his lips occasionally to trace delicate, shining lines that marked out the wiry muscles that he had already acquired.

Ren watched him impassively. Whatever emotions – pleasure, pain – he might have felt were hidden behind an opaque swirl of gold. "You look like a lizard when you do that." He said, with cool scorn.

"And you take it like a girl." Nichrome retorted equably from between his ministrations. The shaman felt him chuckle, a soft outburst of breath that swept across his skin and evoked another shiver.

"Who'd have thought." The boy mused as Ren staved off his reaction. "That you would fall prey to regret and apologies and would give yourself over to me."

From between gritted teeth, he ground out, "I should have just let you kill me."

"Oh, but I would have never let you." He was still smiling, and his teeth were sharp as he made another tiny splotch of crimson against the diluted gold of the Chinese boy's skin. "This way," he added, "is so much more fun. You suffer."

Turning his head away to expose his throat, Ren wondered, a little bleakly, if Nichrome would have been reduced to this if he had left Chrom alive.

He still remembered the corpse

That laughing, personable young man who had smiled at him genuinely, though with the businesslike inflection that all officiants possessed. He thought still that sometimes he could see Chrom's expression – that curious twist of shock and… pity? – as he lanced the finishing blow against his judge. There had been no smiles, towards the end; only a determination to exist and to go on existing. And he had been pleased with himself, seeing the blood drain away into the soil.

There was no pleasure now.

Biting down sharply, Nichrome watched as consciousness drained into Ren's eyes once more.

"That's right." He whispered approvingly, though there was contempt in the way that he said it, too. "You don't get off so easily. Stay awake. I want you to remember everything. I want," he continued, and his hands were moving in place of his mouth now, dipping and twisting in elegant movements that made it all the more difficult for him not to cry out. "for you to keep these to your heart for the rest of your life. If you ever find someone who will take you for who you are, you'll never have them, because you will always be filled with these moments, so full and filthy that you won't be able to bear the thought of dirtying others with your grime."

Ren laughed, a gritty sound. "Do you think me some sort of sentimental idiot?" He whispered. "I do not regret things. Anything."

And Nichrome smiled too. "But you do." He said.

"You do."

(666 words)


Author's Note: This came of a train of thought; if Ren, in his regret and guilt, had offered himself over to Nichrome to do whatever he liked with. To kill. To injure. If Nichrome had been more vicious than Ren had thought. If he had wanted to ruin Ren's life, and then leave him to live it out, knowing that it would never get any better.

There was going to be an extra scene (and in fact, I think I still have it saved around here somewhere) where this was merely a flashback, and years later, eighteen-year-old Ren is going out with HoroHoro. Old Blue-Hair tries to kiss him, and Ren ducks away, because he'll never be clean enough to touch HoroHoro the way that he wants to; unhaunted by the memories of Nichrome.

However, I realized that this scene was exactly 666 words (ahar! The devil's number!), and I decided to leave it this way, because there seemed an appropriateness (to me, at least) in where I stopped.

I know; it's a little shorter than usual. Hope you enjoyed it nevertheless. :)

Review Replies:

Kawaii Koneko92: No; at least for the moment, I have tired of my AU Yoh's, and the canon Yoh would never dream of being paired with anyone else. Anna is Anna, and Yoh is Yoh, and they fit together naturally, except for the tiny fissure that is Hao that can and does worm between them. (That, to me, is canon romance.) It's only a feeling of this second, this minute, this hour, but it's a feeling nevertheless. Although thank you, all the same, for the compliment. :)

SquirrelFraulein: I've never been good at writing illogical things. Douglas Adams (have you read him? You'd like him, I think) writes illogical humor, but that is Douglas-Adams-styled, and I cannot mimic it. So… that is my roundabout way of saying, No alien drivers today. ;)

Squirrel, though.

PrismaticMage: I've glimpsed it a few times here and there; Misai, I believe, has one or two chapters out on a RenxAnna fic, although I haven't brought myself to read it yet, life's been that busy. And – are you certain? I was quite sure that I mucked up Manta; I understand him only superficially, and I can't really grasp at what he thinks and pretend that I know what I'm doing.

Well, as far as I know, you're the most experienced MarcoLys fanfic-author on Though if you aren't, forgive my ignorance; I've yet to really get into the older section of Shaman King fanfiction.

Yes, you should post that HaoLys drabble. It would be a nice change from my constant rote of dark romances. Half of these pairings – have you noticed? – the characters have to be forced and/or blackmailed into liking each other.

Alas, I am not good at creating happier circumstances with which to shove them together. –guilt- Though it has its fun.

Nekoian: I'm glad that you feel better. :) And thank you! Allow my opinion to differ, however, for as I have dedicated more time (I think) to the craft of it, I see the flaws that much more. And Ren is Chinese – as such, I feel a natural obligation to support him, pointy hair and all.

Although that does not hold me against happily sound-mutilating the nasal English voice who plays him in the dub.

Inulover4eva: I feel honoured that you think I made Yoh's death come off right, even with the fact that it was played off-screen. ;) No, I know what you mean; I'm joking.

Hao in this version is scary. No one to take him down a peg or two, he has the world in the palm of his hand. And believe me, that world is trembling.

carefully patches up holes, inserts self in chainmail, and inflates again-

Emic192: I know! Why keep Yoh (who has marijuana leaves on his bedspread) as he is, and then give Hao (whose name means king) the name 'Zeke'? And you know fangirls; they never consider the risks.

neoKOS-MOS: Thank you. :) And your AnnaTamao proposal has intrigued me; it may or may not come next. I know it'll be rather soon, as I have a peculiar inspiration for it floating around within the depths of my theoretical brain.

Sai: -considers this-

Nah. Tamao's too red to be a watermelon. Strawberry, perhaps. And although the pairing's a bit… soft for my taste, I'll give it a try.