Drabbles, drabbles, drabbles galore! Ha ha! Yeah, seriously, drabbles are good for the soul…some are directly influenced by episodes, others are not and none of them are arranged in any particular order! Go figure…
Oh, there will be more...so this 'fic' will be in a chaptered format. All my old ones available on the forum will be present as well as some new ones said forum members will have never viewed before. Stay tuned...
Sometime in season 3...after Savage Lands…
A rattling gasp. Paintballs of blood. And the stench of metallic pain.
A cough.
"Hang on Chiro."
The calm steady voice of Antauri, breaking on the edges of his words. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around the teenager's, minus three digits on his right one. The grey fingers were scattered over the battlefield, their metal gleam lost under the haze of mud.
"Where are you Gibson? Gibson! Chiro needs you!"
But Gibson did not reply. Otto was flitting between him and Sprx, the red monkey's head lying solemnly on the lap of Nova who was crying her heart out. Her pained eyes leaked tears in a rusty storm as she stared at his blank face. His body was lying 20 yards away in a mangled heap beyond repair. Gibson didn't move. Not once.
Otto was shouting something but Antauri wasn't listening. He craned Chiro's neck upwards, mindful of the possible damage the boy had sustained.
"I'm right here Chiro."
Another cough. Antauri's heart bled.
"I'm scared Antauri…"
A pale hand flopped as life slipped away. And then the world stopped.
Post Chiro's Girl
When I was younger I went to school, lived in an ordinary house and thought the moon was made out of cheese. I squished play dough between my chubby hands and loved the way it became ensnared under my fingernails. I made Mother's Day cards out of red paper and glue, carefully sticking sequins down onto the surface, pressing down so hard that the card nearly tore. I had a princess tiara in my dressing up box and I wanted a pony when I was older. In my dreams there was only ever sugar.
I was addicted to my imagery glucose.
Nobody ever told me I was special. I was just a girl. An ordinary little girl. Someone with a home and family and a lot of love. Someone who hung around with gaggles of giggling girls.
Except that never really happened. They were just dreams, things implanted inside me by someone evil, bitter, twisted and cruel.
I've never been to school. I've never touched a jar of play dough. There are no cards proudly displaced on the fireplace. There is not even a house for the fireplace to exist in. Nor was there anyone to put the cards up on display in the first place. No trace of a loving mother anywhere.
I never played princesses and I never invited Matilda round for tea. There never was a pony and there never will be. And now I hate sugar.
I don't have a home. I don't have a family. But I am special.
I just wish I wasn't.
Post A Man Named Knickle
It was stupid. Stupid and distracting.
Antauri fidgeted as he heard another rustle of paper meeting hand. The sound of a soft sigh blew into his ear as he determinedly tried to mediate.
Honestly, why couldn't Chiro do that somewhere else?
His eyes opened in surprise a moment later as part of a former page whizzed past his ear in the form of a crumpled up projectile.
"Chiro! Why are you ripping up a perfectly good book?"
Chiro pouted at him.
"Actually that was part of Gibson's equation sheet that he threw away yesterday."
Antauri stared at him before his eyes travelled down to the book resting in the boy's lap.
"Is that-"
"Yes."
Antauri looked at him evenly.
"Why are you reading it here?"
Chiro grinned.
"I was trying to get your attention. I want you to come down to the museum with me. They're got this new exhibition in of a real zombie claw!"
Antauri floated over to him and opened the door, wishing he had bought a smaller book of Philosophy for Chiro's birthday. Really there were too many pages for him to effectively block out that large a rustle.
Chiro grinned as he followed Antauri out of the room.
"Works every time…"
Post Sun Riders
She had spent her whole life being told that she was beautiful. Oh how nice her eyes were, what flawless skin she had and oh, that hair! It was smooth, soft, just the right texture for petting on a Sunday afternoon and it framed her face in a manner that most girls spend hours trying to achieve.
But then she saw the disgust in his face and that broken, betrayed look in his eyes as she turned on him with genuine conviction in her voice. She saw the hate and confusion in front of her, mirroring the way she had felt her whole life. She felt ugly.
And Aurora Six was glad.
Post Whenever
Yellow. It always catches his eye.
Yellow. The colour of a grandmother's curtains. The itch of sand slithering between your toes. The clash of a leaf caught between the hues of red and orange. That's the part of the colour that annoys him.
But there's another side to yellow as well. There's the yellow of sunshine that gives life and takes it away in the baking heat. There's the vibrant scent in the twitch of a daffodil's petals, peaceful and tangy at the same instance of time. There's even a burnt yellow in a dead wheat stalk.
So whichever way you look at it, yellow's a pretty eye-catching colour. He can feel the tingle it brings whenever it enters his vision and he's forced to turn his head.
'look over here.'
Only the yellow voice has yet to say those words. But when she does, he's betting that their first kiss will be golden.
Post Whenever
Peck. Fatso. Peck. Nerd.
Okay so he's not that fat and he likes to stick his A Grade cards up on the fridge. He super glued the magnets onto their slender backs of whipped white and teeth-worn corners…but that was only because he needs something to state as his own.
People are cruel and they hurt. Don't they know it.
Chiro was always a cuckoo though. A little brown, muddied around the edges but shining with a greed that laps up the attention of a clawing public who need to have something to believe in and hope for, something that stands on this same rock and pewter as them all. God is too far away to be worshipped.
And him? A mere starling who got pushed out of the nest from birth. And yet still he imagines pecking and gnawing for the bacon rinds Chiro throws off with his public smile and the confident image slashing off rounds of bread and butter that all the girls lap up. And he ashamed to be drawn into the same folly as everyone else.
He wonders what sort of bird Jinmay would make.
So yes, he might well get a diploma of natural history and maybe even biology one day, merging in with the blackbirds in their whickering capes and fancy graduation caps…he's always wanted to play with the tassels. But it's still not enough to get off this rock.
Don't let the candy pink of the shops and walls fool you. Every city has it's interior. And this centre is a bitter one with its millions of BTs and Glennys urging their way through blistered crowds that smack into revels of adoration. They need a hero.
He needs a hero. He wonders if his mum will ever look at those flimsy grade cards whittled down to a core of grey that regardless, still stubbornly resounds against the fridge door. She still hasn't moved from the sofa since yesterday. And her skin is cold.
Ice cube eyes of cotton blue. He wonders what else he hasn't inherited from her.
Does Chiro ever think of his parents? Who had black hair and white shins?
He clutches his last reminder of personality left. Soft, downy smoothness that rubs against his fingers and gets inside his nails. He loves it so…the scent of the penguin doll still blurred but clears as a memory of fairgrounds and a stiff-necked father who laughs, laughs…grows quiet and paddles away from his life.
Where do the ripples go? He catches them in his hands.
Post 'Belly Of The Beast'
Otto likes potatoes. I was always more of a tutti-fruit girl myself.
But then I've always had odd tastes compared to the others. Antauri has a weakness for mint chocolates while Gibson hides a stack of candy bars in his lab. And Sprx…well, he varies. One minute he's running around, screeching his lungs out with a sugar cane stuck in his mouth, the next he'll be chewing thoughtfully on an apple core, not realising that there's hardly anything left. I've never been able to figure that boy out.
Maybe it's because I'm a girl. I like it hot, spicy, with just a dash of sugar. Chiro-sweet sugar.
That's just the reason I don't count him. He's still a kid…and a nice, sweet, geeky one at that with a head that his shoulders can barely support. But he's still…mine.
They're all mine. Mine to love, cherish, protect, the whole mushy deal, yadda yadda. It's like a badly drawn anime I suppose. Except I've got the style to pull it off. Except I almost failed one time.
Heh. At least Antauri chose to die. I wanted to live, greedily snatching up that lifeline of hope Sprx stretched out to me. Would I have done the same as him? Undoubtly. But still…I wonder…
They wanted me back. I still can't get other how good that felt. Still does. To feel wanted, needed, loved by the people you call family. A family thrown together by forces beyond our understanding but that's only made us stronger. Made me stronger.
I'll shoulder the world for them…I've seen things they will never see and I know, better than Antauri does, that's there's worse out there. I know what's coming. But I won't spoil their dreams yet.
Fate's a real pickle isn't it? Sometimes I think they forget I'm a girl. I'm strong and reliable but sometimes…they just lump me as one of them. The guys. And they really shouldn't. For we can never truly connect on that level.
Except Sprx. That guy's got a flippin' girl radar built into his hormones. And I've seen that look in his eyes…that look that claims that I'm his girl. After what's just happened, I feel we've become closer. Yet what I've just experienced…may have driven us further apart that he even realises. Forgive me Sprx. I'm not sure if we'll ever make a connection…we can strike up a spark but it might just be all we can ignite. A single spark.
Urgh. Someone's bad habit of punning is beginning to rub off on me.
But don't count me out yet. Anyone tries to hurt my team…they'll pay the price. I'm not that same little yellow monkey who shivers at the sight of a snowflake anymore. I've outgrown the others more than they can ever guess. But they're still mine you see.
They're my boys. They're all my boys.
.