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daily writing (bits and bobbins)
Updating from a Best Western in Montana because I cannot stay away from the internet. *sobs*
Here are the last several days worth of Daily Writing. Alchemy and Other Lies, archived on AO3
1183 words of Roy/The Hughes, just for me. My OT3 has a) far more angst than I can reasonably account for (WTF, Roy? Seriously, boyo, WTF?) and b) spawn.
Spawn.
*pats Alicia on the head*
It was around midnight when Roy found his way to the Hughes's front door, which wasn't all that late for Roy, but he supposed it was for a family with a young child. That, he mused, must be why all the lights were out. He stood there in the rain for a while, debating whether or not to knock and wake the house, or just leave them be and go somewhere else. His office, maybe. He didn't feel like going home.
Eventually, the decision was taken away from him, because Maes caught him loitering and dragged him in, telling him, "You look like a drowned rat."
Maes took his jacket and tails, sat him down on the couch, and knelt down in front of him to pull his boots off. A towel fell on his head; Roy pushed it back and looked up. Gracie gave him a concerned smile and started rubbing his hair dry. Roy closed his eyes and let himself drift under their care, Gracie's massaging fingers on his scalp and Maes's warm hands on his ankles.
Maes got up to put Roy's boots by the door and went off somewhere in the house--Roy wasn't up to keeping track. In a few moments, Maes returned with a blanket, and Roy leaned forward enough for Maes to drape it around his shoulders.
"You want to talk about it?" Maes asked.
Roy shook his head. It wasn't as if it were anything new.
Gracie was towelling off his neck. She said softly, "Whatever it is, it'll be all right."
Roy didn't think so. It was something he'd been battling since Ishbal, and it hadn't turned out "all right" yet. It was the simple conclusion that if alchemists were incapable of creating life, then all they were good for was death.
Sometimes Roy just existed with that fact, went about his daily activities as if he weren't a bomb waiting to go off. Sometimes he had bad days, slow, melancholy days, which he usually treated by finding some anonymous woman to make love to, to seek that fleeting feeling of being alive in the motion and rhythm of sex. And sometimes, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Sometimes, when Roy had to deal with the Elrics, he had to stop himself from screaming that Alphonse was as dead as their mother, and hadn't they learned their lesson yet, and why didn't Fullmetal just give up?
The only thing that drove it home harder than seeing the Elrics, bearing their damage in metal limbs and bodies, was when Roy had to toast somebody. In days of denial, Roy might tell himself that his particular alchemical affinity made things seem worse than they were; that just because flame destroyed, just because he was a killer, didn't mean all alchemy was fatal.
On days like this, Roy fought the urge to snap his fingers and immolate himself. Standing in the rain was another kind of extinguishment--it kept him from harm, but it swallowed up all his power, as well.
He wondered if Maes ever felt this way about his knives, or Hawkeye about her guns, but those were tools, things they could put down if they wanted to. Roy knew that alchemy was part of his soul. There was no escaping it, no putting it down.
Maes put an arm around Roy's neck and pressed their foreheads together. "Stop brooding," he said. "You think too much, you know that?"
Maes kissed him, and Gracie stroked his damp hair. Roy always felt like an interloper in their marriage, but Maes had been with him from the very first realization of the wrongness of his ability, and Gracie--
Roy sometimes thought he would never understand Gracie. Jealousy, he would have expected; tolerance, he might have believed; but her acceptance and welcome? These things baffled him, as much as he appreciated them. He felt unworthy.
"What's Uncle Roy doing here?"
Maes pulled away, smiling. "Hey, Pumpkin," he said, lifting Alicia and her stuffed animal onto his lap. "What are you doing up so late?"
"Everybody else is up," Alicia pointed out. Gracie laughed gently. Alicia regarded Roy with a serious expression. "Did you skin your knee?" she asked.
Roy was startled into saying, "I--ah--"
Gracie petted him. "Alicia fell off her tricycle today, chasing a lizard," Gracie explained. "She skinned her knee a little bit. It wasn't too bad, was it, honey? She got right back on and off she went," she told Roy.
Alicia pulled up her nightgown to show Roy the bandage on her knee. "Mommy had to put alcohol on it," Alicia confided. "That hurt as much as when I fell."
"I'm sorry," Roy said gravely.
Maes kissed his daughter's hair and said, "Roy's not hurt on the outside. He's hurting on the inside."
Alicia bit her lip, and held out her stuffed white bunny to Roy. Instead of taking it, Roy opened his arms, blanket like a cape, and said, "Come here." Alicia climbed onto his lap and hugged him, the stuffed bunny flung over his shoulder.
Gracie said gently, "Alicia, honey, we all need to get back to bed, now. It's late for little girls and their mommies and daddies."
"Is Uncle Roy staying?" Alicia asked hopefully.
Maes said, "Yes. He's going to sleep with Mommy and me." Roy looked over Alicia's head at Maes, startled and curious at what Maes would tell his young daughter. Maes looked vaguely embarrassed and added, "You know how when you have a nightmare, we let you come sleep in the big bed with us? Like that."
Roy frowned. He glared at Maes to convey that there should be no comparison between Alicia sleeping with her parents and Roy sleeping with her parents. Maes shrugged helplessly.
"Can I sleep in the big bed, too?" Alicia asked. "For Uncle Roy."
"Ah," said Maes. "I think Roy was hoping to sleep with us like grown-ups do."
Roy stared at Maes in dismay, but Alicia seemed unperturbed, if a bit disappointed. "Maybe we could have cocoa before we go to bed," she suggested. "Cocoa would make you feel better," she told Roy seriously.
Gracie said, "I don't know, baby. I think it might keep you up."
"It won't, either," Alicia declared. "It's warm milk to make you sleepy, but with chocolate so it tastes good."
Roy startled himself by saying, "I--I think I would. Like some cocoa." Holding Alicia in his arms felt... nice. She was a big, squirmy, happy bundle, and all she wanted was for him to be happy, too. And possibly to get to stay up late. Roy snuck a kiss on her temple as she beamed up at her mother over having her cocoa request seconded.
Gracie and Maes communicated silently for a moment before Maes decreed, "Only half a mug for little half-pints."
Alicia blew a raspberry, but was smiling immediately after.
Maes pushed himself off the couch and headed to the kitchen. He kissed Gracie on his way. "You want some, too?" he asked her.
"If you are," Gracie said.
---
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shrift asked for Roy and Ed arguing, or Ginji and Ban finally getting enough food.
Wave a red crossover flag at me, why don't you. *G*
Also archived at AO3.
241 words.
Ed said, "I'm pretty sure they're not alchemists."
Roy frowned at him and asked, "Then how do you explain their--" He waved his hand.
Ginji, in an attempt to wrest a bread roll from Ban, shot sparks from his fingers, burning air. Ban howled, more from losing the bread roll than from the electricity, and lept on Ginji, grabbing his head. Ginji stuffed the bread roll in his mouth and said something unintelligible to Ban. The entire restaurant was watching them.
Roy said, "--powers?"
Ed said, "Right, and where are they keeping their arrays, huh?"
Roy said, "They could have tattoos."
"I think they're chimeras, actually," Ed said. "The one with an electric eel, and the other with a snake, I think he said."
"He said?" Roy frowned. "They look awfully human. And it's very difficult to combine mammals with reptiles or fish and get living results, let alone thriving ones."
"Then you explain it," Ed snapped. Ginji and Ban were now squabbling over Ed's steak. Ed clapped and transmuted his auto-mail arm into a blade, shredding his glove and the cuff of his sleeve. He stabbed the steak and hefted it, glaring at his finds. "My steak," he told them very distinctly, as if speaking to animals.
"B-b-ban-chan," said Ginji, clinging to his partner, "he's scarier than Akabane-san. I didn't think anyone was scarier than Akabane-san."
Roy asked curiously, "Is this Akabane person the one who made you into chimerae?"
---
thawrecka asked for young Kazuki, kissing boys. 369 words. Also archived at AO3.
Most of the children Kazuki played with when he was young were students at his mother's school, so all of them knew he was a boy under his girl's clothing, and they didn't really treat him like a girl. They couldn't exactly treat him as a boy, either, because he was supposed to be learning grace and poise and was therefore forbidden to play the rowdy boys' games, but the boys didn't treat him like they did girls, pulling hair and offering flowers by turns, and the girls wouldn't treat him as one of their own.
Mostly, Kazuki played on his own when he was young.
The day that changed was the day one of the boys tried to kiss one of the girls when he gave her a fistful of flowers from the fields, and she ran away yelling about boy cooties.
Kazuki said, as if it didn't really matter to him one way or the other, "You can kiss me if you want to."
"Wouldn't you rather kiss a girl?" the boy asked. "Or aren't you really a boy after all?"
Kazuki said, "Why would they kiss me if they won't kiss you?"
And so the boy kissed him. It was clumsy, puckered lips bumping against each other for just moments before pulling apart. It left Kazuki feeling flushed and confused at how easy it had been, and how frightening.
One of other boys started singing about kissing pretend-girls, until Kazuki said, "I'll kiss you, too."
The boy went white. The other boys jeered him on, saying, "You'll never get a real girl, you might as well kiss a pretend-girl, too."
And so Kazuki kissed him. The boy wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and ran away after that, like the girl whose refusal had started the whole kissing business.
Kazuki, feeling powerful, said, "Who else wants a kiss?" The boys shrieked, some in glee, some in fear, and crowded around him, pushing each other forward.
Kazuki had given out eight kisses when his mother found out, broke up the knot of boys around him, and made him come in the house.
She said, "It may be time I found you a bodyguard, Kazuki-chan."
---
And 332 words of Dragaera ficathon outline.
Here are the last several days worth of Daily Writing. Alchemy and Other Lies, archived on AO3
1183 words of Roy/The Hughes, just for me. My OT3 has a) far more angst than I can reasonably account for (WTF, Roy? Seriously, boyo, WTF?) and b) spawn.
Spawn.
*pats Alicia on the head*
It was around midnight when Roy found his way to the Hughes's front door, which wasn't all that late for Roy, but he supposed it was for a family with a young child. That, he mused, must be why all the lights were out. He stood there in the rain for a while, debating whether or not to knock and wake the house, or just leave them be and go somewhere else. His office, maybe. He didn't feel like going home.
Eventually, the decision was taken away from him, because Maes caught him loitering and dragged him in, telling him, "You look like a drowned rat."
Maes took his jacket and tails, sat him down on the couch, and knelt down in front of him to pull his boots off. A towel fell on his head; Roy pushed it back and looked up. Gracie gave him a concerned smile and started rubbing his hair dry. Roy closed his eyes and let himself drift under their care, Gracie's massaging fingers on his scalp and Maes's warm hands on his ankles.
Maes got up to put Roy's boots by the door and went off somewhere in the house--Roy wasn't up to keeping track. In a few moments, Maes returned with a blanket, and Roy leaned forward enough for Maes to drape it around his shoulders.
"You want to talk about it?" Maes asked.
Roy shook his head. It wasn't as if it were anything new.
Gracie was towelling off his neck. She said softly, "Whatever it is, it'll be all right."
Roy didn't think so. It was something he'd been battling since Ishbal, and it hadn't turned out "all right" yet. It was the simple conclusion that if alchemists were incapable of creating life, then all they were good for was death.
Sometimes Roy just existed with that fact, went about his daily activities as if he weren't a bomb waiting to go off. Sometimes he had bad days, slow, melancholy days, which he usually treated by finding some anonymous woman to make love to, to seek that fleeting feeling of being alive in the motion and rhythm of sex. And sometimes, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Sometimes, when Roy had to deal with the Elrics, he had to stop himself from screaming that Alphonse was as dead as their mother, and hadn't they learned their lesson yet, and why didn't Fullmetal just give up?
The only thing that drove it home harder than seeing the Elrics, bearing their damage in metal limbs and bodies, was when Roy had to toast somebody. In days of denial, Roy might tell himself that his particular alchemical affinity made things seem worse than they were; that just because flame destroyed, just because he was a killer, didn't mean all alchemy was fatal.
On days like this, Roy fought the urge to snap his fingers and immolate himself. Standing in the rain was another kind of extinguishment--it kept him from harm, but it swallowed up all his power, as well.
He wondered if Maes ever felt this way about his knives, or Hawkeye about her guns, but those were tools, things they could put down if they wanted to. Roy knew that alchemy was part of his soul. There was no escaping it, no putting it down.
Maes put an arm around Roy's neck and pressed their foreheads together. "Stop brooding," he said. "You think too much, you know that?"
Maes kissed him, and Gracie stroked his damp hair. Roy always felt like an interloper in their marriage, but Maes had been with him from the very first realization of the wrongness of his ability, and Gracie--
Roy sometimes thought he would never understand Gracie. Jealousy, he would have expected; tolerance, he might have believed; but her acceptance and welcome? These things baffled him, as much as he appreciated them. He felt unworthy.
"What's Uncle Roy doing here?"
Maes pulled away, smiling. "Hey, Pumpkin," he said, lifting Alicia and her stuffed animal onto his lap. "What are you doing up so late?"
"Everybody else is up," Alicia pointed out. Gracie laughed gently. Alicia regarded Roy with a serious expression. "Did you skin your knee?" she asked.
Roy was startled into saying, "I--ah--"
Gracie petted him. "Alicia fell off her tricycle today, chasing a lizard," Gracie explained. "She skinned her knee a little bit. It wasn't too bad, was it, honey? She got right back on and off she went," she told Roy.
Alicia pulled up her nightgown to show Roy the bandage on her knee. "Mommy had to put alcohol on it," Alicia confided. "That hurt as much as when I fell."
"I'm sorry," Roy said gravely.
Maes kissed his daughter's hair and said, "Roy's not hurt on the outside. He's hurting on the inside."
Alicia bit her lip, and held out her stuffed white bunny to Roy. Instead of taking it, Roy opened his arms, blanket like a cape, and said, "Come here." Alicia climbed onto his lap and hugged him, the stuffed bunny flung over his shoulder.
Gracie said gently, "Alicia, honey, we all need to get back to bed, now. It's late for little girls and their mommies and daddies."
"Is Uncle Roy staying?" Alicia asked hopefully.
Maes said, "Yes. He's going to sleep with Mommy and me." Roy looked over Alicia's head at Maes, startled and curious at what Maes would tell his young daughter. Maes looked vaguely embarrassed and added, "You know how when you have a nightmare, we let you come sleep in the big bed with us? Like that."
Roy frowned. He glared at Maes to convey that there should be no comparison between Alicia sleeping with her parents and Roy sleeping with her parents. Maes shrugged helplessly.
"Can I sleep in the big bed, too?" Alicia asked. "For Uncle Roy."
"Ah," said Maes. "I think Roy was hoping to sleep with us like grown-ups do."
Roy stared at Maes in dismay, but Alicia seemed unperturbed, if a bit disappointed. "Maybe we could have cocoa before we go to bed," she suggested. "Cocoa would make you feel better," she told Roy seriously.
Gracie said, "I don't know, baby. I think it might keep you up."
"It won't, either," Alicia declared. "It's warm milk to make you sleepy, but with chocolate so it tastes good."
Roy startled himself by saying, "I--I think I would. Like some cocoa." Holding Alicia in his arms felt... nice. She was a big, squirmy, happy bundle, and all she wanted was for him to be happy, too. And possibly to get to stay up late. Roy snuck a kiss on her temple as she beamed up at her mother over having her cocoa request seconded.
Gracie and Maes communicated silently for a moment before Maes decreed, "Only half a mug for little half-pints."
Alicia blew a raspberry, but was smiling immediately after.
Maes pushed himself off the couch and headed to the kitchen. He kissed Gracie on his way. "You want some, too?" he asked her.
"If you are," Gracie said.
---
shrift asked for Roy and Ed arguing, or Ginji and Ban finally getting enough food.Wave a red crossover flag at me, why don't you. *G*
Also archived at AO3.
241 words.
Ed said, "I'm pretty sure they're not alchemists."
Roy frowned at him and asked, "Then how do you explain their--" He waved his hand.
Ginji, in an attempt to wrest a bread roll from Ban, shot sparks from his fingers, burning air. Ban howled, more from losing the bread roll than from the electricity, and lept on Ginji, grabbing his head. Ginji stuffed the bread roll in his mouth and said something unintelligible to Ban. The entire restaurant was watching them.
Roy said, "--powers?"
Ed said, "Right, and where are they keeping their arrays, huh?"
Roy said, "They could have tattoos."
"I think they're chimeras, actually," Ed said. "The one with an electric eel, and the other with a snake, I think he said."
"He said?" Roy frowned. "They look awfully human. And it's very difficult to combine mammals with reptiles or fish and get living results, let alone thriving ones."
"Then you explain it," Ed snapped. Ginji and Ban were now squabbling over Ed's steak. Ed clapped and transmuted his auto-mail arm into a blade, shredding his glove and the cuff of his sleeve. He stabbed the steak and hefted it, glaring at his finds. "My steak," he told them very distinctly, as if speaking to animals.
"B-b-ban-chan," said Ginji, clinging to his partner, "he's scarier than Akabane-san. I didn't think anyone was scarier than Akabane-san."
Roy asked curiously, "Is this Akabane person the one who made you into chimerae?"
---
thawrecka asked for young Kazuki, kissing boys. 369 words. Also archived at AO3.Most of the children Kazuki played with when he was young were students at his mother's school, so all of them knew he was a boy under his girl's clothing, and they didn't really treat him like a girl. They couldn't exactly treat him as a boy, either, because he was supposed to be learning grace and poise and was therefore forbidden to play the rowdy boys' games, but the boys didn't treat him like they did girls, pulling hair and offering flowers by turns, and the girls wouldn't treat him as one of their own.
Mostly, Kazuki played on his own when he was young.
The day that changed was the day one of the boys tried to kiss one of the girls when he gave her a fistful of flowers from the fields, and she ran away yelling about boy cooties.
Kazuki said, as if it didn't really matter to him one way or the other, "You can kiss me if you want to."
"Wouldn't you rather kiss a girl?" the boy asked. "Or aren't you really a boy after all?"
Kazuki said, "Why would they kiss me if they won't kiss you?"
And so the boy kissed him. It was clumsy, puckered lips bumping against each other for just moments before pulling apart. It left Kazuki feeling flushed and confused at how easy it had been, and how frightening.
One of other boys started singing about kissing pretend-girls, until Kazuki said, "I'll kiss you, too."
The boy went white. The other boys jeered him on, saying, "You'll never get a real girl, you might as well kiss a pretend-girl, too."
And so Kazuki kissed him. The boy wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and ran away after that, like the girl whose refusal had started the whole kissing business.
Kazuki, feeling powerful, said, "Who else wants a kiss?" The boys shrieked, some in glee, some in fear, and crowded around him, pushing each other forward.
Kazuki had given out eight kisses when his mother found out, broke up the knot of boys around him, and made him come in the house.
She said, "It may be time I found you a bodyguard, Kazuki-chan."
---
And 332 words of Dragaera ficathon outline.
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They went to Yellowstone through the Wyoming gate since Beartooth Pass decided to slide down the mountain.
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Tonight, I'm in Spokane.
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*running tackle and full-body glomp*
Muh sweetie!! I knew you wouldn't stay away from teh internets for long! ;p
How's the nudist family roadtrip going?
*goes back to peruse fic*
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Day 2: Despite using our laptops only for word-processing, our batteries have at length given out. Thankfully the Discman still works. Brother and I are wrestling over Elvis Costello or Vivaldi.
Day 3: We are beyond the range of cell towers. We are truly in the wilderness now. If anything happens to us, there will be no hope of rescue.
Day 4: I have finally figured out how to get out of the van without knocking my water bottle out of the cup-holder on my seat. Go, me!
Day 5: We have run out of Raspberry Milano cookies. We found a small store to replenish our rations at, but they refused American Express and asked if we had glass beads instead. Even worse, our choices were limited to imitation oreos, DIY smores sets, and Auntie Mae's Homemade GORP.
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That is the Best Travel Journal EVER. ;D
I can just see it:
Day 6: Our supply of trading beads, shells, and other small shiny objects has run out. Brother and I take turns making faces in the reflective surfaces of our powerless technology to amuse each other.
Day 7: All signs of humanity gone. The road has transformed from pavement to chip & oil to a narrrow dust trail through the forest. GORP bag empty. We have been reduced to licking my nailpolish for sweet sustenance.
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My version has cannibalism.
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it means I liked it a lot but it's past my
coherencybedtimeno subject
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2: ... You break my brain. In a good way.
3: *snerk* I like your Kazuki. He's so sweet. Sort of.
And so very gay. In both senses.
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2. *grins* I win at life!
All Getbackers crossovers shall be accomplished by inserting them into other universes and totally ignoring how they got there.
3. Kazuki just wants to play with the boys :-D
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2: It's weird how well this works considering how setting-dependant Ginji's past is. I suppose it's just because you're not taking anything but the main characters.
3: ^_^
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2. At its uppermost level, Mugenjou holds a portal to many and various universes.
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The Roy/The Hughes piece is just so sweet, with lovely depth and lots of really cool lines. Totally awesome, generally.
The GB/FMA crossover is delightfully silly.
I love the Kazuki piece - it's so fabulous. It's so Kazuki! And I'm ridiculously amused by the last line.
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Bwee. Seriously?
I love the Kazuki piece - it's so fabulous. It's so Kazuki! And I'm ridiculously amused by the last line.
I'm glad you liked it!
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Hee! Thank you! My favorite part:
Ed clapped and transmuted his auto-mail arm into a blade, shredding his glove and the cuff of his sleeve. He stabbed the steak and hefted it, glaring at his finds. "My steak," he told them very distinctly, as if speaking to animals.
Also, I seem to share your Roy/The Hughes OT3 love, so your first story? LOVE! Huge amounts of love.
And:
She said, "It may be time I found you a bodyguard, Kazuki-chan."
*dies*
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Also, I seem to share your Roy/The Hughes OT3 love, so your first story? LOVE! Huge amounts of love.
You'll love me less when it turns into a soap opera. *G*