sincere | Attack of the unfinished fics! Meme sheep goes baa!

When you see this, post an excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y

Ganked from

okroginator. WARNING: There's like way too much writing under the cut.

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Lavi/Allen
(to the prompt: "Year [faces that stay with you forever]")

There was no doubt that it was him. He was tall and thin, that red mop of hair familiar even after years apart, and both of his eyes were a clear, soft green, focused single-mindedly on a stout older woman. He was Lavi, shed of his old black leather and clad in modest daywear and a brown frock coat and a smile that could win over the oldest of souls.

And he wasn't dead.

"Impossible," Allen murmured, turning fully to see him, and then, louder, "Lavi!"

The man's head lifted slightly at the call. The nostalgic gesture of one hearing something he'd almost forgotten about, thinking back to different times. Not a gesture of recognition.

You bloody son of a bitch, Allen thought, and he couldn't have said if he was amused or relieved or excited or bitter, or maybe he was all of those things and he simply couldn't have said which one he was most. "Lavi!"

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Allen
(Cross is a strange man with some strange opinion of what's appropriate. especially regarding coming-of-age)

"Allen," Cross said, pulling the cigarette from his lips and blowing smoke into the room ahead of him, a Luciferian shroud. "This is Usha."

Cross indicated a girl under his arm; she seemed so small and slim held close against his long body. She lifted a hand, her arm trailing fabric and little whimsical tassels, to wave at Allen.

He did not wave back. Allen said dourly, "You don't have to introduce us." Just take her to your room and I'll pretend I don't hear you, like I always do. His gaze lingered on the girl all the same. She was young -- her face rounded and her eyes dark and sweet. The idea that Cross would touch her was enough to make his apprentice ill.

"Fine. She's for you." Cross pushed her forward so that she stumbled a step, and suddenly the room seemed to shrink, and the girl -- Usha -- was much closer than Allen would have liked.

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Lenalee & Emilia [/Kanda]
(because there's something they need to get past before they can be friends)

Lenalee shoved her way through the crowd up to them and offered them a smile. "Welcome back, Kanda," she said warmly.

"Yeah," was his uninspired response, still not looking at her.

She nodded to the blonde girl also. "Are you here with Timothy? I'm Lenalee. It's nice to meet you," she said, smiling, and extended a hand to the other girl, although not without a quick darting glance at the arm holding Kanda captive and wondering if she would dare to risk him fleeing long enough to shake hands.

She did not. "You should dress more like a lady, you know," the young woman said flatly in heavily accented English, after a long look. "Gentlemen will get the wrong idea about you."

Lenalee stared, bewildered, and glanced down at her clothing. M, maybe she should've worn her coat...? Kanda made a half-choked, half-growled sound and tried to snatch his arm away from her, but the blonde woman was not to be shaken off.

That was Lenalee's introduction to Emilia Galmar.

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Lavi/Allen, Marie/Miranda
(because Miranda is going to adopt, and Allen is going to see himself in her foster son)

He was a raggedy, worn-looking kid in a coat one size too small for him; she didn't even see him when she first entered the grocer's, or notice him until she was paying for her food (she loved that someone was willing to cook for her at HQ, but every now and then she had the niggling suspicion that she was going to be a terrible wife if she didn't learn how to cook, so she had to at least try, even if she failed horribly a few (dozen) times) and a man charged up, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him off the floor behind her.

"Here now, little thief, I saw you sneaking off with her things!" the man roared.

"I wasn't sneaking off with it! I was just picking it up!" the boy protested, trying to shake off his much bigger arm. "It's just a piece of junk she dropped, I was gonna give it back to her!"

Miranda looked around, baffled, wondering if they were talking about something else, until she spotted-- ohgoditwasherInnocence, just lying there on the floor by their feet like a piece of trash. Miranda dove to the ground and scooped it up, cradling it to her chest. Another of her all too frequent disasters... averted! Miranda realized, stunned.

How strange, she thought, vaguely. I didn't even know it could fall out of the carrying case. I suppose if anyone could manage that, it'd be me. She fumbled with one hand for the messenger bag at her side. Are you okay, Innocence...?

The boy said to her, "I hope your junk's okay, miss."

And then she looked up and met the boy's eyes, and she knew.

"Who," she stammered at the clerk as the man hauled him out the door. "Who is that boy?"

The grocer counted her change, and scarcely glanced up. "Eh? Simon. He's one of the street kids as lives 'round here. Can't pay for nothing, since his folks're dead."

Lost, she thought. Useless. Broken. Nobody wants him.

Miranda's fingers tightened on the rounded edges of her Innocence. Just like we used to be.

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Lavi/Allen
(smallish thing for a

springkink prompt)

They avoided each other in public. Lavi was supposed to be keeping his distance from the others, he'd confessed, and Allen didn't want Link suspecting that he had anyone to sneak away and see. But that first night after Komui and Leverrier had addressed the Exorcists, Lavi had asked if there was anything he could do, and Allen had confessed his real fear.

When they look at me, it's like they don't see me anymore. I get to thinking maybe they're right -- maybe I'm not me at all. I just need... something to hold onto.

He was holding onto Lavi.

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Lavi/Allen
(smallish thing for a

springkink prompt)

"It's like you've never seen breasts before," Lavi said with great amusement.

"I'm aware of them," Allen countered with reflexive dryness, but his gaze didn't -- lift, terribly, so it might not have been the most believable sarcasm. "I'm just not used to them on... you."

Not that it wasn't a good look for Lavi. They were certainly very nice breasts, full and round, and they suited his (her?) new more willowy frame. He (she?) was unfortunately still quite tall -- Lavi's hems still fit neatly, although the shirt fell awkwardly over her (damnit) new... assets.

"Yeah, well," Lavi said, lifting a hand to rake through her loose hair. "This actually isn't the first time this has happened to me, you know? Sometimes Komui just -- puts weird stuff in the baths."

Allen spared a moment to be very grateful he hadn't gotten a chance to bathe yet today, and then another moment to wonder uneasily which other men of the Order had suffered the same fate. Then he managed politely, "This isn't the first time, and you still trust his bathing facilities?"

=====

D. GRAY-MAN: Allen + everyone
(born from one theory about how Allen is going to kill the people he loves)

"Play," they said.

He had glumly reconciled himself to the fact that he had a terrible fear of music and would never be able to show himself in civilized company again, but that one little command was like a switch had been flipped. As easily as that, his fingers moved to strike the notes and he had lost track of why they might be upsetting.

He just played. It was what he did.

Until his hand crashed over the keys, creating such a horrible dissonance that his first thought was Damn these stupid clumsy fingers before he realized that his left hand was convulsing, twitching spasmodically and unresponsive below the elbow. Horrified, he clutched at his wrist, calling out to the Innocence in his heart, What's wrong, what is it, there's no demon, is there?

And then, as suddenly as they came, the convulsions stopped.

=====

THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU: Neku/Joshua
(Lover's Song III that will probably never be finished)

Everyone is on hand for the reveal of the newest Gatito clothing line; the spotlight is on young upcoming designers Shiki and Eri, who will probably need some sort of trendy name any day now for their little two-man dream team. They are the belles of the ball, and Neku is unnoticed, slipping through the crowd -- just some nameless guy who gets an autograph from Jupiter of the Monkey's lead designer and then hangs out in his small group, drinking wine and hardly mingling.

Joshua likes it. He has never liked it, before, when Neku spent time with his friends; in Neku's crowd of admirers and trusted companions, he has always felt like the odd man out. The one admirer whose admiration Neku found obnoxious, the one trusted companion that Neku wished he didn't have to trust.

But now he feels like Neku is a secret that only he and a select few know about. And even those select few don't see the delicate latticework wings on Neku's back.

After the show, Neku returns to his apartment and he doesn't seem to notice Joshua there, although he can never have that little protection ever again, now that Neku's vibe is transcendent. Joshua curls his legs up to his chest and watches him move, slow and tired-seeming.

"I don't know if anyone noticed," Neku says to the air, "I kept tuning out during the events."

"No one noticed," Joshua assures him. "So if you were trying to get attention from pretty little Shiki, you'll have to try harder." It is still an effort for Neku to keep his vibe under control, but they are forgiving mistakes; even if a man sees it head-on, it is only human to assume some trick of the eyes or subconscious rather than wonder if someone just flickered in and out of reality.

Neku rolls his eyes as he shrugs out of his coat, and indulges in exhaustion for one moment: his frame shifts, turns gray and white and distorted like an impressionist's paint brush, Imagination so strong that the vibe alone holds physical presence. When he moves it's static, a motion-capture study dropping a coat that becomes only a coat the moment it leaves his hand.

This part makes him nervous, the idea that Neku is transcendent. It isn't only the fact that he is so powerful that Joshua himself is at risk; it is also partly the inescapable thought that Neku will soon know all there is to know, and then when there is no longer that mystery, he will lose interest in Joshua.

"Come on, I'm tired," Neku says. "You were stalking me all evening, you must be pretty worn out too."

And he isn't, but this is another new thing that Joshua likes.

=====

TALES OF THE ABYSS: Luke/Natalia
(insecurities threaten the wedding that should have been)

"Luke," said Natalia, calmly. "I'm going to call off the wedding."

Luke stopped fussing with his cufflinks and looked up, his green eyes wide. The attendant who was braiding his hair froze stock-still. Both of them stared at her as if she had abruptly turned into a riding raptor: a riding raptor who was calling off her wedding a week before the momentous day, to which hundreds of guests would be invited, and which would be celebrated by most of the hundreds of thousands of people who lived in Baticul.

"What?" he said, raising his voice already. "Natalia, are you crazy?! Did something happen? Are you all right?"

What a strange thing to ask, she thought, and folded her arms over her chest. "I'm feeling fine. I've simply decided that this marriage is not what's right for us."

"But you didn't think of consulting me about what I think is right for us?" Luke demanded. "You just decided you know what's best?"

Well, when he put it like that it didn't sound so terribly noble. "I'm only trying to make it easier on the both of us," Natalia said calmly. "You're marrying me out of duty, so I didn't want to put you in a position where you had to decide between hurting my feelings or lying to me at your own expense."

"I-- What?"

He just wouldn't take a clue. Impatient, Natalia snapped, "Luke, I know about Tear!"

He stared at her blankly, and then glanced away, a slight flush coming into his face. "Oh, that," he mumbled, nearly inaudibly.

It should've been easy to take, because she was expecting it, but for some reason it still hit Natalia like a physical blow. Her fingers curled around her arms, digging into the skin through cloth, and she had to steel herself, straightening her back and lifting her chin. She was strong. She didn't need anyone's pity. She especially didn't need anyone marrying her out of pity.

=====

TALES OF THE ABYSS: Peony + Jade
(because Peony is the one who convinced Jade that fomicry was wrong)

The destruction of Hod was a tragedy, but a tragedy of only cold facts: a catastrophe measurable in numbers (the scale of the explosion, the height of the tidal waves, the number of the dead, the binary digits of the fomicry data -- safe in his laboratory). Jade did not see ghosts when he slept, and he didn't feel regret or grief.

This had always been true. Even in the terrible aftermath of Professor Nebilim's death -- when he and that poor fool Saphir had dragged her tortured form out into the snow and reformed the fonic elements of her body into a monster -- when he had thought that every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life he would see and smell and feel the horrors that he had created -- still, that night when he slept, he had melted into dark sleep, and he had not dreamed, and in the morning he had awoken with only cold facts on his mind.

Do it again. Improve the process. Identify what went wrong and fix it. If Professor Nebilim comes back, then the end sum is zero, and what you have done will be balanced out. This ache-- he didn't understand it, not then and not now; a thin, dull thing in his chest --will be gone.

So Jade was annoyed by the destruction of his laboratory on Hod: he was inconvenienced by the deaths of hundreds, thousands, but in the end it amounted only to a delay. This, too, could zero out. The Emperor and Baron Curtiss had made it clear to him that they believed that once fomicry was perfected, Kimlasca could never again threaten Malkuth.

Jade really didn't care for Kimlasca, or for Malkuth, but once fomicry was perfected the Professor would be back, and he would be free. It would be a pleasant bonus to be considered a hero for it.

But -- and this too had always been true -- Peony often served as a link to the human race for his wandering intellect, and when Peony came to his laboratory with his jaw set and his eyes underlined with dark circles, Jade knew that this was how other people dealt with tragedy.

"You look unwell, Your Highness," said Jade, shuffling his paperwork. "Have you been sleeping?"

"This has gone too far now," Peony said. "We need to talk."

Ah, he's finally come to argue morals with me. It was hardly the first time anyone had questioned the ethics of organic fomicry. Jade had grown accustomed to their complaints without ever hearing them: the officers and authorities that he spoke to had nothing but approval for the idea, but always in the background there were quiet murmurs from his fellow researchers and military colleagues. Maybe a weapon, or a plant or a chicken, but a human? Is it right to replicate a human?

Humans were so ridiculous -- laboring under the delusion that they were special or unique. The difference between replicating a plant (surprisingly delicate, on a fonic level) and a chicken were not significant, and the difference between replicating a chicken and a human... solely a matter of scale.

Peony, himself, had never complained. He had seemed doubtful, perhaps even displeased, but he had asked no questions that would try Jade's patience: the good little newly-made heir, respectful of the wishes of his father and his father's advisers, forming his own opinions and keeping them tucked away where they wouldn't bother anyone until he had the right to make them law.

"All right," Jade said, and turned away from the fonic containment tubes with a sigh. "If you must avail yourself of my ears, please, do have a seat."

=====

TALES OF THE ABYSS: Van + Asch
(...I got nothing. I wanted to write them arguing over the Score?)

"Do you not understand what I'm trying to do, Asch?" Van was saying, sitting down at the desk across from him. Years of familiarity gave Asch the ability to see agitation in the fold of his arms, frustration over what Asch had wrought in his careful plans. "The Score would have had you die at Akzeriuth. Sending that idiot replica in your place saved your life. Did you want to die?"

"Of course I don't want to die," Asch snapped.

Van demanded in return, "You seemed determined enough at the passage ring! Did you want the Score to come true? The Score is the reason Akzeriuth was destroyed!"

Asch felt his fingers curl into fists without his conscious acting; he wanted so badly to say, Don't act like there was no other way! If you hadn't been more concerned with secrecy than saving lives...

Instead he growled, "If you'd seen fit to share your plans with me, I wouldn't have been forced to come to my own conclusions!"

Van laid his palms flat against the surface of the desk, and he said, more reasonably, "If you had trusted me, you would have been welcome to ask questions after."

Which, of course, was the root of the problem; Asch didn't trust him, couldn't trust him. It wasn't even because the man had kidnapped and tortured him, then stolen everything from him -- his family, his friends, his life... Suspicion was just so deeply ingrained into him now that he doubted he could trust anyone except himself.

=====

BLEACH: Orihime-Ichigo-Rukia
(for the

fanfic100 prompt "she")

Orihime wanders restlessly up and down the aisles of the grocery store, picking out this and that without real attention to the ingredients. Although she very often shops this way, today she's distracted with particular thoughts. Rukia has been practicing with her of late in the Soul Society, teaching her how to improve her fighting skills and her attitude about combat. It's been wonderful spending so much time with her, and Rukia is a caring and talented teacher, but that doesn't help the worries that Orihime still hides in her heart.

She'd make a good mother, Orihime thinks, and,

She is so much more than I could ever be.

"Inoue, how about--" Rukia swings into the aisle and pauses, glancing down at the taller girl's basket and frowning. "What are you planning to make with that?"

Orihime glances down at the basket self-consciously. Breadcrumbs, seaweed, a package of curry mix, eggs -- she laughs a little, rubbing the back of her neck. "Maybe I'll try making crunchy curry-flavored egg roll-ups!"

Rukia says, "Ah," and then, "Why don't we get you some potatoes and beef. Just in case you decide to make curry instead."

She's so thoughtful!

=====

BLEACH: Yoruichi/Byakuya
(because she's a professional assassin)

"Did you want something, little lord Byakuya?" she asked him lightly.

"I told you not to fight my battles for me," Byakuya told her with as much cold dignity as he could muster.

Yoruichi leaned forward on her hand. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Did something--"

"I'm not interested in your games. You killed Yamashita."

As easily as that, she changed tactics, a verbal flash step so quick as to blind the unwary. "It wasn't personal. It's my job."

Byakuya's eyes narrowed. "It's your job to kill who you are told to kill by the Central 46 Chambers," he said. "Traitors and criminals--"

"It was on their orders," Yoruichi said, and he knew that she was lying, could see it in the casual way she waved the statement away, to avoid drawing attention to it. "He'd broken the law."

"What law?"

She shrugged. "Some law about privacy or another, it doesn't really matter."

Byakuya's fingers curled into fists. Did she think that he couldn't take care of himself; that because he was not impossibly fast, impossibly able to catch the God of Flash, he needed her protection? Did she think that she had to bend and break the rules in order for him to succeed?

"You murder him and then slander his name?" Byakuya sneered. "Yamashita was far from an admirable man, but he was not a law-breaker."

"Let me tell you something, little lord Byakuya," she said softly. "We are all law-breakers. Somehow, in some way--"

He shook his head, once, curt. "I am not," he said. "Don't put me on your level."

Yoruichi tilted her head back, looking up at him from where she reclined in her seat, and she said simply, "Maybe not yet."

======

BLEACH: Kira/Kiyone
(because I still fucking think they would be a good couple)

They weren't close, and had never been close; in all honesty, they rarely even saw one another. Seireitei was a very large place, and there were a very large number of shinigami there.

But two or three decades ago, Kiyone had gotten very tired of chastity, and he had been there, handsome and clever and just a little exotic -- around the eyes -- he had such beautiful, strange eyes. So she had approached him and laid down the facts: she liked someone else, he liked someone else, and neither of them wanted to be clumsy for their respective someone elses; but unfortunately, she was a virgin, and he was a virgin. They could remedy these problems together. (So long as he swore on his life and his continued masculinity that no one would ever, ever know.) Both had been satisfied enough by the experience, and gone away to live their comfortable, familiar lives apart.

And now he was lying in her bed again, with his head pillowed on her folded legs and her fingers stroking his hair; Kiyone was a little mystified by it. Part of her thought that maybe someone else had let him into her bedroom in the darkest hours of the night, and she'd only watched helplessly, because she had no idea why she'd done it.

Kiyone asked, in a gentle tone that would have made Sentarou laugh at her, "Why are you here, Izuru?"

He shifted, pressing his face against her thighs as if to hide from her gaze. "I'm sorry, I know -- I know I'm intruding, I didn't mean to, I promise. I just... didn't want to go back to my room."

She was going to have to pry it out of him, but it was hard to feel annoyed about the effort when he was so obviously miserable. "Yeah, sometimes drinking makes a lonely bed unappealing," Kiyone agreed. His hair was fine and soft against her fingers, but too long. It had flattered him more when it was shorter. "...but is that why?"

Before the words even fell from his lips, she knew what he was going to say: a desolate, "To get to my room, I-- I have to go past the infirmary."

It was her. Something eased up in Kiyone's heart, a tautness finally unraveling. Poor Izuru. "What happened to Lieutenant Hinamori isn't your fault. Don't let it upset you--"

"They didn't tell you?"

Kiyone paused. "Tell me what?"

There was silence.

======

FFXII: Ashe/Al-Cid, Ashe/others etc
(for the prompt "Waiting [learned helplessness]")

In her previous wedding, Ashe had been a girl, little more than a child, and details had been seen to by her father and a battalion of planners. The most troublesome thing she had been asked to do was stand still while others fitted her dress and brushed her hair. She was finding that as the queen, she needed to be far more involved in its minutiae.

There had been debate over whether or not white would be appropriate for a second marriage, and whether or not a queen's wedding deserved it regardless of her previous marital state, and the gown that had finally been commissioned was blue, in part to banish the memories that she needed to put to rest. She would not wear her crown and neither of them would wear rings, and a Kiltias from Mt. Bur-Omisace would preside, although Rozarria's traditions were slightly different than the norm.

The banquet would require a table for the women who always seemed to accompany Al-Cid, after which time Ashe would never see any of them again -- ("They can go," Al-Cid had said dismissively. "My little birds, they are the entertainment of a very rich, very bored bachelor. I will have no need for their company in married life." His very approach, as though it were too trivial to give much thought to, was more reassurance than the words.) -- save for Janira, his assistant, without whom he swore he would never be on time to anything.

Invitations were to go out to Emperor Larsa and to his knight, whose face she had dearly missed, and to Vaan and Penelo, although Ashe had only the vaguest of ideas where they might be at any given point in time. So, too, did she write invitations for Balthier and Fran, but it took long hours to sign those simple sheafs of paper, and then she did not know how to reach them, and the invitations in their gold-embossed envelopes were consigned to the corner of her desk, where they sat, a reminder.

And Ashe had thought, again and again, about taking off her ring, setting it aside, for the wedding ceremony or perhaps forever. She had already been parted with it once and spent the whole time consumed with endless fear that Balthier might pawn it or use it as bribery. It was hard to say, now that he had returned it to her with no bargains and no tricks, whether it was Rasler's or Balthier's face she thought of when she looked on it.

It was getting harder and harder to think of Rasler.

======

KINGDOM HEARTS: Marluxia/Larxene, Auralim
(for the prompt "Waiting [learned helplessness]")

He had bit and clawed and fucked his way to one of those injections and this was his reward. Taken off his covert missions, one of the Emperor's best spies!, and assigned to this... nameless facility at the end of the stupid continent, to listen to an idiot Esper -- convinced that he was like her because of the Esper blood in his veins -- repeat prophecies of doom in his ears ad nauseam.

Auralim was so restless he was beginning to think the traitor general might have the right idea; running off to join the damn fool rebels might be more interesting at this point.

"Please," the Esper whispered, "you must listen. The World of Magic is breaking apart, turning into darkness, and when it does, the World of Balance will be broken, too..."

"I'm working," he said, bored.

"No. It's like you're waiting," she whispered. "Waiting for the world to end."

Marluxia ran his fingers restlessly along his scythe, discontent as he watched the denizens of the world scream, desperately attempting to flee the rain of lightning that struck with lethal accuracy. He was watching so intently, standing still, that Larxene drew up beside him with a hand cocked on her hip and eyebrows raised.

"Do I entertain you?" she said, with a smooth purr.

He turned his attention to her without any hint that he might be startled, smiling as a root curled out of the ground and tripped one particularly sweet-looking victim. "Always," he said pleasantly.

"That's good. Although you don't seem very entertained."

"Don't I?"

"You seem like you're waiting for something," she said, circling him like prey. The victim made a high-pitched sound as her frame crackled with electricity, boiling her blood. "I wonder what it could be."

For a fleeting moment -- every now and then -- he wondered if somehow she knew, could see his weaknesses and press in to exploit them with that predator's unintelligent accuracy.

=====

KINGDOM HEARS: Another Side, Another Story
(it'll be out in two days! hold your horses)

Attack of the unfinished fics! Meme sheep goes baa!

no subject

no subject