(no subject)

[rui]

dusting off my long-unused journal for a fic meme, because why not?

give me characters at least, and a prompt or picture is bonus! you'll get...something! a drabble or short fic. cause i'm bored and i need a thing to do.

Comments

[daddyissues]

rui and eiri bonding over being stuck back in camp?

connor and sophie training, skipping ahead a bit to when he's gained some strength back.

i may have taken a slightly broad interpretation of this request.

[hollowchild]

Eiri was finally allowed to smoke in his own cabin, and in the absence of Tsukasa's wrinkled-nosed faces and Makino's disapproving looks, Rui found he was more and more inclined to the habit. It was relaxing, it took him farther from home, and he'd found he enjoyed Eiri's company. After the cake he brought over for Christmas disappeared in record time, Rui would occasionally bring the other man some kind of sweet he had no intention of eating himself. In return, he'd steal a cigarette, Eiri would grumble, and they would smoke and drink herbal tea and Eiri would pick at his dessert like he was doing Rui a favor by eating it.

Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't. Gradually, over the course of several packs of cigarettes, the stories came out, filling in the gaps that they'd missed in each other's lives. Rui started coming by to make use of the kitchen, cleaning it by inches until it was fully functional. He would stand barefoot in front of the stove, a cigarette between his lips as he sauteed vegetables and boiled pasta, tossed them together with oil and cheese and set a plate expectantly in front of Eiri. This cooking he ate as well, silently and affably bullying the writer into more frequent meals. In general, he made a nuisance of himself and ignored the other man's complaining about it with all the grace of someone who regularly dealt with Domyoji Tsukasa.

It did, as Eiri frequently pointed out, suck to be stuck in camp again. But, Rui had to admit, a lot of the company wasn't half bad.

would you believe me if i said that this wasn't where i'd intended this ficlet to go.

[hollowchild]

Training with Sophie was rarely boring. Drills and repetition were plentiful in the swordsmanship lessons at the Citadel, and while that had its place, it wasn't particularly fun.

Of course, it hadn't been that fun at first. Sophie dragged him out of bed before dawn, when the city was dim and sleeping and only the bakers and milkmen were even considering being awake. At the beginning, they just ran. Sophie was more fit than Connor, and she didn't have to say anything about it. She was neither too harsh nor too soft, just there, matching his pace.

Then, one morning, when their run had become easy, she slapped his shoulder with the flat of her palm, grinned, and said 'tag'. He didn't catch her that morning, or the next, or the one after. But on the fourth day, his fingers brushed the back of her shirt, then caught it, yanking as she turned a corner. Then they both went careening into a snowbank as physics took over. Connor had apologized profusely, but Sophie had merely laughed and rolled to her feet, extending her gloved hands to pull him up. After that it was always tag, alternating between chaser and chased until they were both too winded to continue.

As the snow melted and spring came, even tag posed less of a challenge. They had to give each other head-starts after each tag, or it was altogether too easy. Or, at least it was until one day just as Connor was closing in, Sophie jumped up, fingers catching on a wall so that she could haul herself up and out of reach. Connor had skinned his hands and knees trying to follow her, and she had waited on the wall until he got up before racing off again, running along the ledge before leaping down on the other side. He didn't catch her that day, but once he found her she did show him how to climb with leverage instead of depending on brute strength. It was just plain fact that there was more of Connor to lift than there was of Sophie, but Arthur's tireless weapons practice had strengthened his arms for the task. Once he mastered walls, she shimmied up a drainpipe, waiting patiently on the roof as he tried to follow her, and once that was simple too she made him chase her all the way up to the roof of the Welcome Hall, where he found her sitting, waiting to be tagged.

Connor didn't, sitting down beside her instead. The horizon was stained and paling, and they watched the sunrise in silence. Sophie's shoulder leaned against his, but Connor kept his hands on the tiles of the roof.

"You didn't tag me," she commented, once the whole orb of the sun had lifted over the horizon.

Connor made a face. "It's not really winning if you stop and wait for me."

"Isn't it?" There was that twist to her mouth, the one that meant she was asking more than one question. He blinked in confusion, and she blushed. Eyes averted and cheeks burning, she lifted the closer of his hands from the tiles, placed his palm flat against hers, their fingers aligned. Her fingers were just as hard-callused as his, for all her hand was smaller. "You're it," she said, a peculiar and unsmiling inflection to the words, raw and sweet as blood.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Beyond the wind stirring their hair, it was utterly still.

"Oh," Connor said. "Oh."