Drabbles
By spheeris1
Pairings: Various
Warnings/notes: See first part…
---
[Angel]
Utena blamed alcohol the first time.
She was not used to the affects a drink could have on one's mind.
Her stomach was swimming and her vision was blurry and her memory kept crying out: I know this girl somehow and she was a bitch...
But the second time, who could Utena blame but herself?
For following this girl home, for listening to her go on and on about herself, for watching her undress with practiced scorn, for watching her fall asleep like a child...
I knew this girl and she is a bitch...
But then, Utena recalled, she used to be really annoying in her naivete. Her sunny disposition--when seen through these new eyes--bothered her.
Foolishness is so unattractive.
Nanami mumbles for Utena to 'never come back here again'.
So Utena won't.
--
[Meltdown]
When they met up again, some of those things that should remain unchanged...had changed.
Like Anthy dressed all different. And she said things she never would have said back at Ohtori.
Utena was happy, but a part of her was nervous. Nervous that it might all be an act or that it was all a dream.
Each time Utena thought those things, Anthy would smile over at her.
It was not placid. It was like a tidal wave of warmth.
Utena had changed as well.
She no longer believed in fairy tales. And she did not care too much for other people anymore.
Not like she did before and certainly not like she did for Anthy...Utena's trapped 'princess' was always put before the rest.
And all the others that Utena might have noticed had she not been staring at Anthy? Well, they just slipped through the cracks.
Something lurked under the surface when they talked or when they got close to each other or as night fell around them.
Something far more drastic had metamorphosed over the time they had been parted, something had taken root and grown into a wild thing.
It was desire.
No doomed love affairs or castle romance, no flowers opening to the air, no hands held under moonlight.
It was sexual tension. Pure and simple and overwhelming.
Under every compliment was a suggestion and beneath every grin was a fantasy.
Utena was no prince now. She was just a young woman who wanted to take Anthy's clothes off, to lay her down and ease this burning fire within her own body.
So, when it was another one of their moments to see one another, Anthy asked her in.
And Utena tried to make small talk or just be silent or to just leave. In the end, Utena did none of those things.
She did what she wanted to do.
Anthy against the wall, eyes shut and mouth open...until it is filled with my tongue, until I am underneath her clothing and touching her skin, until I am all over her and we slide to the floor, floor so cold to this heat and I cannot get enough of this feeling, this pulsing pushing grinding feeling...
'I love you...' Anthy whispered.
And Utena did not know if the other woman noticed or not that she did not say it in return.
--
[Getting Through]
Slave to all and a Master to none
And Anthy carved that into one of the desks at Ohtori with a dull knife.
A sharp edge was not allowed to her.
But she preferred it dull anyway. Then she must press down harder and use more force.
It felt good to take her anger out on these shiny and new wooden desks.
Then she would know which seat would be hers, for when she must pretend to listen in class and pretend to takes tests and pretend that grades were important somehow.
It was all part of the game. Akio's game. The Rose Bride game.
She is a misshapen puzzle piece.
She is a shiny black pawn.
She is a silver ball shot into flashing lights.
Anthy threw the knife against the wall and slammed her fists onto the surface.
But all her mind could utter was a miserable 'game over'...
--
[God Likes To Dance]
'It is always the same here, you know...' Saionji muttered as his lips wrapped around the bottle top.
And though I pretended to laugh at him, not with him, my eyes were trained on his mouth.
A perfect 'o' of ruby red, sucking down his...fourth beer of the night.
Lips like those are better for other things..., a little voice in my head whispered with a decidedly perverted leer.
But I pushed away from the bar and danced into the crowd, which--much like a dark wave--sucked me under. Then you can either sink or swim.
Or the ocean of sweaty bodies just parts for you, which is what they do for me.
More hands touch me. More nameless and faceless people press against me.
Here, tonight, right now--I am not just a god, I am God.
And Saionji, my school buddy from years ago, he just does not get it. Music does nothing for him, nor does fashion or ambiguous sexuality.
Saionji likes beer. And girls, lots of delicate girls you can take home to your mother and eat off of like precious china.
So why do I bring him here? And why does he follow me in?
And then I figure it out, like one of those lightbulbs flashing up above my head.
His eyes are watching me. Only me. And he is here for me. Only me.
I am his God.
--
[Hanging]
Saionji thought that maybe it was all a dream anyway. A weird and wonderful and frightening dream--a dream pretending to be reality, a reality trapped in a nightmare.
Touga, on the other-hand, knew more. He always had to know more about everything...power, women, fashion. And if he did not know, then he found ways to gain the knowledge.
Akio felt like an emperor. A throne of shiny red, sitting at the top of the world...like a girl upon millions of mattresses.
But his long hair always got tangled in his crown of gilded leaves...
Quick flashes of the camera disengaged individual thoughts, bringing the three of them back to the present...or what was left of it...whatever time meant up here in thin air...
They were hanging on the clock-hands, they were suspended by a notion of eternity.
And those up on high do not think about the long walk down.
--
[Not Another Chance]
I let her in the door and shut it tight.
That was okay--the gnawing doubt and surge of fear could be contained.
For the moment.
But I could not help it...seeing her face, seeing that face of that girl I tried to save, seeing her brown hands--those hands that held the sword that pierced my skin and left me to die...
I cannot help how I feel.
My mind tried to forget, tried to absolve a hidden betrayal.
'I've searched for you for so long...' She tells me and I try to hear her.
To hear the princess who is now free, who wants to be with me, who wishes to give me the world in return for my shattered nobility...for my persistence to her cause...
And the words come out without my consent.
Not this time...no more chances...I cannot, I just cannot...'
Her tender and wounded eyes crack beneath my gaze, her future and reason for living taken away...and I wish I could take it all back...
...but I cannot...
--
[Birds & Bees]
Touga sat the folder down in front of each member of the Student Council. As the President, it was his job to bring forth any matters for voting...or approval...or to implement any new rules at Ohtori.
Miki--well, he blushed several dangerous shades of red. Then stuttered nonsensical words, eyes wide...before he shut the folder and looked away. He actually muttered a curse word or two.
Juri--always composed, seemed to freeze for a moment...as if she was not already a chilled personality to begin with. She shut the folder and crossed her arms, fixing Touga with a brief look of disdain.
Saionji--now his reaction was priceless! A minute of pure shock that soon melted away to his usual seething anger...something Saionji rarely kept contained.
"You get to teach Himemiya Anthy WHAT??!!" Saionji burst out, standing up quickly and his chair flying back to the ground.
Touga just smiled before clearing his throat.
"Not just her, Saionji...the whole campus is to be taught sexual education, to give them a better knowledge of their bodies and to know the dangers of promiscuity--like pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. It is purely education."
"Sure it is..." Juri chuckled lightly.
--
[To Scatter the Shore]
Saionji wrote it down on his calender.
He marked the date with a fat red circle of permanent marker.
Friday of July.
The 11th.
Red to match his hair, red to match the heat, red to match some faraway horizon that would wilt over the ocean like...
...a rose, somehow, growing despite no water and no sun still just a weed among compost and still just a boy in the world of adult worries...
They met by chance.
Saionji's dog ran away and a call came two days later.
A man rode up the coast with Saionji's dog, talking into a cell-phone with too much wind in the background.
And the dog was home, safe again. And a beer was offered and declined. And it was quiet, but Saionji just knew that it would not stay that way.
Something about this man was loud, was disruptive, was like...
...like a playboy playing silly games with silly girls in a silly world, running along with gods and goddesses, pretending to be a prince when he was anything but, anything but that...
They had sex.
And it was not transcendent. It was normal. And maybe a little more hectic than it should have been...considering how little they knew of each other.
It was not passion. It was not lustful fire. Not really.
Saionji felt like a shell, shattered by the sea and spread out over the sand...and Touga was the footprints of a million dancing girls...Touga was so smooth to touch.
Saionji thought Touga might break.
Touga thought, out loud in fact, that Saionji was too inexperienced.
They did not sleep.
They showered and Touga drove away and Saionji threw a bottle of amber-brown out onto the trash.
The dog ran away again.
Like dogs do...disappearing somewhere men cannot follow...to some land far far away, like Oz or like...
...over the rainbow and under cotton-candy skies is that place, that place that molded us this way and who remembers it now? who can see such deadly sweetness now in this darkened world of realness?
--
[Untitled]
When I awoke, a vast ocean churned by my ears. Tiny daggers of white dipping in and out of dark waters, rolling waves crashing against an iron hull. A man sat and watched me, looking very much like a sailor. His hair was as black as night and his skin a pale olive, with a faint scar under one eye--a smooth ivory cut.
from here you're haunting me
I think I murmured a name. I think I said it over and over until he clamped a warm hand over my lips. I do not know what he said to me...roughly sewn words thrust into my delicate brain, getting caught in a whirlpool of other voices, distant images...to advance or not to advance-I hear you laughing
The sun rose over the world and I covered my eyes. The man left me there, retching into a bucket. With only the clothes on my back. On a tiny cot of dirty green. And, for moment, I think I see someone watching me from the shadows of this cabin.
Watching. Waiting. Wondering.
A flash of violet and I am sick once more.
only not to be of use-impossible
--
[Underneath]
At school, the words Kanae said seemed all too real. The plans for Summer, the idle chatter of boys and beauty swimming along with the knowledge that none of them--blonde, brunette, petite or tall--would fail a class.
At school, the days at home became blurry. Kanae could not see them so well. They faded like the shore from the sea.
But one touch...a hand on her shoulder in jest, a whisper against her ear from a friend...and her Mother came into sharp focus.
It was as if she was there, standing in front of Kanae.
Standing. Then stalking.
Kanae would have to dig her nails into her wrist, to draw a bit of blood to shake the vision from her eyes.
At night, Kanae dreamed of being carried away by a blizzard of the coldest snow. A wall of frozen white to shield her and to literally chill her insides.
Then she could not feel her skin crawl. Or her heart begin to beat a little too quickly. Or her body tremble in pitiful dread of what might lay outside her bedroom door this night.
Every night. All nights.
--
[Recklessly Beautiful]
she's convinced
At night, her dreams wander toward him.
Standing like a tree. Over-shadowing her down below.
And he is too magnificent. Too perfect. Too much for one body to contain. And she wants him, wants his power and his coolness and his angry passion.
she could hold back
His hair, a dark forest. His eyes, indigo stars. His skin, apple-white. How many evenings must she lay here--alone--and think upon him? How many memories must she create? To a life not even possible to live?
a glacier
--
[Tomorrow For Her]
When he thought about it, if he decided that it was a worthy thing to do with his time, Mitsuru would sit all day long at his office window.
Staring at nothing.
Not the gleaming skyscrapers. Not the rain clouds shoving away the sun. Not the rush of ant-like people down below.
Mitsuru knew what he was looking at.
The years gone by--almost like a physical scar that would never heal--lingered out of this room.
They hovered in the air, they swam in the rivers, they slept in bed with him every night.
White gashes. Red wounds. Burning lines across his chest.
Of youth. Of loss. Of desperation. Of lust.
"I told her I would give up anything for her to love me. I would forget my past, leave my present behind...I would give up tomorrow for her."
She did not need his days. She did not need him.
Mitsuru stares on until his phone rings.
--
[Always Kept]
Like a package.
All the corners smooth, all the edges sharp.
Juri uncovered it one day, laying quiet in the attic of her mind. She brushed away the dust. She tore the paper in a cautious way.
This was no holiday. This was no holiday.
Her Mother's old locket, still shining gold.
And her Father's shaving knife, the blade still able to cut.
Juri knicked her finger.
Her blood rose to the surface, a red dot slowly working into the grooves of her fingertip.
She pulled out a photo. She saw herself cut out a circle. She saw herself open the locket and put something almost invisible in there.
Juri shook, her arms wrapping around her body. Juri ran away from the dangerous gift in her soul.
And she awoke, the next day, to a snow-drift outside her window. No school today. No way out of here today.
A locket dangled from her doorknob.
--
[As Usual]
It was June.
And the streets were crowded, due to the heat. Everyone wanted out of their stuffy apartments or homes. Some ate ice cream. Some stood with their faces in front of a hose, cold water hitting waiting skin. Some waited for the day to end and for night to close in around them.
It didn't matter.
Days, hot or cold, did not matter much to Saionji. He smoked and leaned against a blank wall. Touga was outside, walking the edge of a stained sidewalk. You could hear the cars hum out there like large insects.
Watching a meal crawl across the ground. Ready to feast.
Touga brought them in. It was his face, his eyes--it sucked them all in. Then their faces would fall in bitter disappointment as he would push away their sticky fingers. Push them toward Saionji.
And Saionji would fuck them. He did not know their names. Or hear their breathing. In his mind, Saionji was fucking Touga. Because Saionji hates him. Because Saionji loves him. Just because.
--
[A Choice]
She thinks that it does not really matter what forces enter your life and make you decide to take the steps you do.
Whether it is an illusionary world or limitless grief, lost love or familial agony...Once the ball is in your court, it is your decision alone.
She made a choice, knowing it would not work. She moved her feet like a dead man walking. The end would not be a fairy tale.
But it would be real. And to gain reality, she was ready to pick the less than perfect way to go.
--
[Drifter]
A magazine flutters restlessly in the cool wind of the desert at night. She does not know why she keeps on buying them in the first place. It is a waste of money.
Paris fashion, tiny waists and lipstick-shine upon heroin models.
Kanae knew those girls. Once.
She was one of them--a brief and dull memory of her tongue wrapping around a slice of something delicious, something tart. The taste lingered long after the food was consumed.
It could have been a drug. Could have been a dream. Could have been a lot of things. She sleeps during the day, baking in the hot sun of some little town and beside a pool. The smell of chlorine fills her senses, lulling her back to another time and to a million other people.
Of her mother. Of her dead father. Of a long-legged man.
Kanae drives at night, using the stars to guide her. She does not know where she learned how to do that...but it works, it works all the time.
Her map is in pieces. Her gas-tank is running low. Her simple dress is now forever dusty, carrying every place she has been in its folds.
And she keeps on going. She cannot stop. Kanae never stops moving. Never stops.
--
[The Price of Beauty]
The keys hit the floor with a rattle.
And no lamp turned on tonight, as she walked into her bathroom and took out the slender knife.
Monogrammed with a 'K' and a 'N'.
She had cut her hair. She had trimmed her nails.
She had removed the fat. She had poisoned the blemishes.
And now, with Touga married...with all the other boys of her youth married or gay or long gone...Nanami decided that being alive was just a bore.
--
[Who We Settle For]
The room smelled so stale.
But then, it always did...on this side of the street, in this section of the city. Like clothes packed away. Like memories stored in boxes. Like dust and molecules of the dead.
And here is how it happened--Miki was reading one day, outside in a crisp Spring morning, drinking coffee. He was wearing a black coat that hit below his knees. He was turning the pages of a novel with numb fingers.
And then someone sat down. And it was Saionji.
Looking tired. Looking worn down. Looking older.
Miki knew that his own image had not faded so much as grown wild.
The hair longer. The eyes had lowered. The eyes of seduction instead of blissful innocence...they grazed over the man opposite in brief appraisal. It made Saionji uncomfortable.
For a while.
Not for long.
Until they were talking about nothing, all the time just slipping information in-between the words spoken.
It was all Touga Touga Touga from Saionji's mouth, though the name was never really said.
And Miki's eyes, those blue blue eyes, they told the story to the man...we met again we have slept together we are not a couple but we are more of one than you could ever dream to be with him
Miki never made a choice with his lovers.
He just let them do as they please and then got up in the morning, drew them upon stiff white paper and went home. But this time...Miki was the one in charge.
Saionji wanted Touga.
Miki wanted to play.
So, in a stale room, they go. So, in a stale room, they consummate something that is not real.
Miki has never been a top.
It feels kind of good.
--
[Holding On]
1387.
1645.
1902.
I've seen you all over the world. I've walked by you on every street. I've felt your body next to me every night.
The years have flown by and I am still holding on.
1429.
1766.
2056.
I see our future merge with our past. I see your smile on the lips of children. I hear your voice in a crowded subway. You are everywhere and nowhere.
And I am holding on, just telling myself that one day I will catch up to you.
--
[Red-Stemmed Dogwoods]
Dreams never happened to her, not since she was a child...a million years ago, at least. But tonight, with a pitiful excuse for a savior in slumber beside her, Anthy walked down the hallways of that illusionary Sandman.
She could feel the very grains of time dig into her bare feet.
And along the walls, dying wisteria.
And like fingers threaded, sunburned ivy on the ceiling.
And red-stemmed dogwoods, the limbs thin and pulsing like veins, one by one...cut down...like gorgeous whips...
Anthy wondered, for a moment, if this was a sign of the pain to come.
--
[The Instincts of a Child]
No one can claim to have become an adult.
Chasing the long and tall shadows of their parents, into the blinding white light of the world.
The world of being older.
The world of knowledge that went beyond books.
But Mikage cannot remember his mother--whiteasafeathersoftaspetalsvaguelikeaghostrunningfalling
And he cannot remember his father--statueofstonepiercingeyescoarsecoatcoldskinlockedawaylockedaway
Mikage stands on the top of this tower.
And down below, way down below, buried in ground...is his coffin.
It is rotten with sweet and sickly dreams of youth.
The core is hollow with candy-coated notions.
And all the flowers are black, the colors washed away with childish naivete.
----
TBC