Christmas Fics!

Right then. Computer's network is up. Computer is, for once, actually working because Symantec AntiVirus is letting me on-line without a fight. I can breathe.

Whew.

So. Christmas fics before I start catching up on the other livejournal posts of my friends. The length and quality of the fic doesn't relate to how I think about you, by the way-- I'm just not good enough to churn out a continous reel of same-length, all-fantastic stuff. x_x But I love you all! Honestly!

Merry Late Late Christmas. :) *hugs*

Fandom: FullMetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Warning: Angst, Spoilers for Episode 25
Summary: Roy spends Christmas drowning his sorrows and memories. Gift for Droston. :)



Brass Buttons, Silver Bells

By Kay

For: Droston! *hugs* You've always been such a sweetheart to me. Merry Christmas! I give you tortured!Drunken Roy and holiday angst. Because you truly deserve the best.


“Christmas is often the most joyous time of year—or the most lonely.” —A Shot in the Dark



Roy stared down into an empty glass.

“Just remember that the party begins at eight o’clock—is that fine? Come whenever you like, of course, but dinner will be served around that time. Alicia’s looking forward to seeing you again,” she murmured over the phone line, weary but with a soft edge of satisfaction that came from successfully planning a holiday alone. “She misses you horribly.”

“She’s getting older,” he commented dully when it seemed as though she expected him to speak. Slumping further down in the kitchen chair, he let his eyes flutter shut. “I’ll be there, of course. At eight.”

“I’m sorry, I know you’re busy—”

He cut her off. The sound of her apologetic voice was a little too much for him; it sounded too near to grief, and that was a sound he hated to catch in her tone. “Of course I’m not. The military isn’t so cruel as to make us do anything on Christmas Eve, Gracia. I would be delighted to come for dinner,” which wasn’t exactly true, “and I’m grateful you invited me,” which was true, though it didn’t make him happy.

“Alright then.” She sounded happy. That was good. She always spoke fondly to Roy, even knowing the dangers he’d put her husband in—the danger he sent him to, Roy reminded himself bitterly, clutching the plastic phone in his hand until his knuckles turned white. “Thank you, Roy.”

“Of course. I look forward to it.” Another lie. It had become so easy. Was it always this easy?

“Merry Christmas,” she said, and the dial tone rose in his ear. It was just as well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he would have said in return.

Maybe she knew that, too, Maes’ darling Gracia.

Maes. Maes was the one who usually made this call. He sat there for a moment, collapsed in the straight-back chair with the phone still pressed to his ear, trying to capture the sound of a voice long vanished. Part of him could still hear it, of course, muffled yet still vibrant in the dusty corners of his mind.

‘Get over here, Gracia’s made a Christmas turkey! She’s such a beautiful cook—you need to get a wife, too, Roy, otherwise you’ll starve! I mean, if it weren’t for us—’

He lowered the phone. Opened his dark eyes blurrily, and stared down at the empty glass on the kitchen table. In the dim lights, it glimmered a transparent sort of orange, fog from the imprint of his mouth still lingering on the rim. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it’d been empty. Since before Gracia? Yes.

He picked it up with one hand, the phone in the other, and stumbled to his feet. His bare feet hit the cold linoleum of the kitchen with a shock—he swore heavily under his breath, toes curling up, and hobbled over to the yellow counter. Placed the phone on its cradle—fumbled with it a bit, untangling the spiraling cord from his left arm—and slammed the glass beside the sink. Opened the cupboard. Grabbed a bottle of something clear and unopened yet, but probably was at least slightly toxic.

He could still hear the voice in his head.

‘You should see Alicia, she decorated the entire tree herself. Even put the angel on! Oh, but she’s my little angel, you know, but I couldn’t very well put her on top of a tree, but if only you could see her in the little dress we bought—’

Sloshing, more of the alcohol made it to the counter than in the glass, but he didn’t care. He placed the bottle in the sink carefully and scooped up the drink, clinging to the counter as he gulped a good portion of the contents down. It burnt a trail of acid down his throat.

That was good. Had to burn away the lump there.

He made his way back to the kitchen chair. Sat in it, sliding down until his legs were sprawled out in front of him, his head leaning against the oak back, staring up at the ceiling with an unreadable expression. Taking another sip, he reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose, dark eyes shutting tightly in something that was a little exhaustion, a little distress, and—more importantly—a desperate attempt to keep his eyes from watering.

‘I’m so pathetic,’ a voice said, and at least this time it wasn’t Maes’.

He’d made himself promise not to do this. When he woke up this morning and saw the date, and even though he knew it had been coming, he still flinched a bit and wanted to hide under the blankets again. Wanted to bury himself and never come back until the holiday had passed. It had seemed like such a good idea—but Hawkeye would’ve never let him.

The headquarters’ had sent them all home early in the evening, causing a general glow of slacking happiness to fill the office. Only Hawkeye kept them from doing no work at all—and even she relented a bit when Fury tied a red ribbon around Black Hayate’s neck. The men had left for drinks (“C’mon, Colonel, it’s the time for celebration! The girls love the holidays; we’re sure to pick up some honeys at the bars,” Havoc said cheerfully, leaving Roy to raise a doubtful yet smug eyebrow at him that he didn’t really feel like giving at all.) The poinsettias and red-and-green trimmings had been bunched up as the office closed, thrown away before they were forgotten, leaving nothing behind but a wastebasket of colorful paper and blooming plants.

When they’d all left, he walked himself home. Had insisted. It wasn’t fair to keep Havoc from ‘the girls.’

He’d arrived home quickly, boots damp and heavy from the snow, gentle white flakes caught in between the dark locks of his hair and all over his overcoat, fingers numb at the tips and barely tingling. Put up his coat in the hallway and stamped out his boots, feeling the warmth of the carpet with some distant degree of relief. Rubbed his fingers. The gloves had been shoved away in his pocket, forgotten, unneeded, but always present. He had shaken the dampness from his hair, feeling the wet ringlets curl up under his ears and grimacing.

Here, alone in his house at last, he allowed himself to ‘celebrate.’

“Good times,” he found himself saying aloud. He raised his glass mockingly, a taunting sort of smile curving his lips as he toasted to thin air. “Good times, Maes. Merry Christmas.”

That hurt just a little. He took another quick gulp of alcohol to forget it.

This was ridiculous, of course. He had some small measure of disgust and hatred for the creature he saw sitting in the kitchen—only halfway to being drunk, clearly out of his senses, rumpled white shirt and trousers hitting his bare ankles, and a bitter, caustic look on his face. That wasn’t supposed to be him. He would have to go to Gracia’s in less than an hour, he reminded himself, and that’s why he couldn’t do this. Couldn’t show up on her doorstep with sour breath, blurry eyes and a tilt to his walk. Definitely not with his buttons all undone down the front, two missing near the bottom—and he had no idea how that had happened, nor when—and damp snow sliding down the back of his neck. Ridiculous. She’d slam the door on him.

Of course, maybe he wanted that. And unfortunately, she probably wouldn’t. Knowing Gracia, she’d take him in for tea and set him to bed with soothing words. Unfathomable. Too good of a woman, that woman.

Maes’ wife. He owed her too much for that.

‘Let us take care of you, Roy,’ his friend had crowed triumphantly in the past holidays, ‘We’ll fix you up good. Dinner and music! Gracia has planned the most—’

He was still thinking too much. He emptied the glass. Coughed.

The Elrics would probably be there. He knew they were in Central this Christmas; probably were nabbed by Gracia as soon as they came into town. Maybe others. People to fill the void. He wouldn’t stay long, Roy told himself dully, because too long would mean more memories for both him and Gracia Hughes, and he didn’t doubt that neither of them could handle that.

It was bad enough as it was. Christmas, with all of its decorations and bright joy, was still the season of ghosts.

‘Merry Christmas, Roy,’ and a man with green eyes looking over a glass at the bar smiled at him, white teeth flashing. The collar had been opened messily on his uniform, his wedding band a spark of gold in the festive lighting. It outshone his brass buttons. ‘Best time of the year, eh?’

Ghosts and memories, that’s what made up this time of year. Roy stared dimly into the empty glass before him, charcoal eyes fading and falling, closing them with a resigned and tired sigh. Best time of the year for memories, and that was why he didn’t like it.

He wondered how he would do it. How he could go to his dead best friend’s home and invade it like a parasite, bringing a brimming edge of pain to Gracia’s smile, or a slightly lost look to Alicia’s childish joy. How he could hide himself, bring the old smirk and assured emotion to his face. How he could look the Elrics in the eye and not flinch, remembering the guilts that buried him under into the floorboards, the memories of this beautiful home, lit with warmth and tenderness, now hollow without its brightest star.

He didn’t think he was strong enough. Not for something like this.

Shuddering, he slid down in the chair further, his hands coming up to grasp handfuls of the slips of dark hair falling in his eyes. Pressed those fists tight, rough against the ache of his face, setting his jaw sharply so that it wouldn’t open and let loose the raw, choked sound gurgling in his throat. Tried to breathe. Tried not to.

It still hurt, like a wound rubbed with salt and vinegar. It wasn’t supposed to—he’d killed off enough of himself in order to stop the insignificant pains, but it never worked. He just lost more and more.

‘I’m so pathetic,’ he whispered in his mind again, and this was the only truth that wouldn’t sting this holiday season.

He could still see Maes in his mind, turning to him as he’d done last year, gifts piled in his arms and snow in his scarf. His serious, affectionate features when he said, gently, ‘You’re always welcome home, remember. It isn’t Christmas without you, Roy. I couldn’t have it without you,’ and he wanted so badly sometimes to say those words back to him, tell him of how lonely and cold it would be without him, without this moment’s warmth, and this of all things is what hurts the most, scours the deepest.

Because he wouldn’t ever be able to, and that thought keeps him up with the children of the city this night, during the loneliest time of the year, waiting for a miracle that would never happen.


The End



Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Warning: H/D SLASH implications
Summary: Crazy!Draco experimentation for opiumcoffeebean. Ashes and ashes, they all will fall down.



Capricho 43

By Kay

For: Opiumcoffeebean. *hugs* You've always been nothing but kind and good to me. I know you go through a lot of shit in your life, but I'm honored that you're my friend. Merry Late Christmas! Sorry it was gory and not-that-good. ^^;;;


“The sleep of reason produces monsters.” -- Francisco Goya’s words on the 43rd Capricho depicting owl-bat hybrids attacking a slumbering human.




i.

Draco yearns for daylight. It has become his saving grace from the terrors of the night, but always so far away.

He keeps an extraordinary amount of candles in his bedroom; they are always lit after twilight fades, with trembling fingers and a battered wand from long ago. They are scattered across his plush carpet, carefully placed away from the oak furniture, and over his desk and dressers, until all the little flames dazzle away any hidden shadows in the corners of the room. They flicker with the wind, so the window is tightly bound shut and locked, though sometimes he has trouble moving the rusting locking mechanism. It is very close to breaking, though he can’t imagine why.

When the darkness comes, he curls up, surrounded by towers of soft glowing and white cathedrals of wick. He stays that way for hours sometimes, staring with stricken eyes at the empty room, wondering what will come for him, until finally-- through exhaustion or a moment of terrifying calm-- he succumbs to the lure of sleep. When he falls, he is unconscious until morning tips its rays through the glass panes of his window, and he tries not to shudder at the candles that have already gone out in the night. Whatever may have happened has not. Not yet.

But it cannot be dark. It absolutely cannot.


ii.


He fancies sometimes that he can still see himself in the mirror. At times, it almost seems as though he can capture glimpses of white and gold in the glass, tiny glimmers that wink out as soon as he whirls his head around to capture them. But all he sees, staring dead-on into the abyss, is the room behind him.

He still keeps them, however; there are things he remembers about them, from times that have passed through his mind long ago. Flashes of memory from when he was small enough to quietly slip through the halls of his home, to peek in his mother’s master bedroom and catch her doing herself up at her dresser. He recalls the heady scent of her perfume and the darkness of the blush powder spread over her pale cheeks, and brushes his fingertips against his own face. It feels sharp and unnatural now. He does not have her softness or sweetness, even in his hands, which had once been as slim and elegant as her own, but now are shaking and jerky things.

He remembers watching her stare at the mirror as though it could give her the answers to the world. But whatever she saw only made her purse her lips bitterly and turn away.

He does not feel upset to see the mirrors. They are beautiful in a way-- silver and sharp, always catching and reflecting the light, and he lives for the light. He likes to stroke their smoothness and, in fascination, wonder if his own gray eyes would disappear in their brilliance even if they accepted his reflection once again.

Sometimes he thinks they are laughing at him. But he loves laughter so much in these empty halls that it is impossible to be mad.


iii.


“Will you be okay if I go out today?” Harry always asks him in the mornings, staring at him intently over their tea.

Draco waves his hand every time in the exact same fashion, uncaringly, as though dismissing an annoyance. In a way, he is. He doesn’t say anything, however, being so focused on the curving blue line that whirls around the china cup in his hands. He studies it in wonderment. It never ends. It is immortal. Gods and demons bow to the simple force of it, the clear linear power-- a line, greater than divine intervention and the haunting nightmares of evil.

He winds it around his finger and tugs until the line breaks in half.

Harry still waits for an answer. But he doesn’t even know if Draco understands the question.


iv.


He spends most of his days wading through a golden syrup of sunlight, slowly walking throughout the titanic expanse of the Malfoy Manor. Sometimes he thinks he will never find an end to the winding corridors that twist deep into the house, because no matter how long and patiently he paces, the halls are always changing. They curve in separate directions, leaving shadows cast long and wispy across their walls, and the chandeliers all meld together until the ceiling becomes the floor, and he dares not to tread on it for fear of falling through the rich, delicately thin wallpapers.

He looks in the rooms, sometimes, if the large doors are unlocked. Some are abandoned and ridden with old furniture, books, and years of dust. Others are simply empty and barren. Sometimes they have other doors inside, and Draco is much too frightened to open those, knowing that what waits on the other side has been left there alone to rot. He is not so haughty as to trespass on a grave. When you’re on your bony knees praying in the soil, the dead will pull you down and keep you.

He doesn’t know how he finds his way back to his room at night. Sometimes he suspects he never left it.


v.


He doesn’t listen to music very much anymore. Once upon a time, he would play the records down in Father’s study, enjoying the painted brilliance that the songs would toss gently to the air. There were beautiful sounds and echoing bells, and sometimes tiny voices that would caress his ears as if to reassure him that he was not, in fact, utterly alone. He liked knowing that.

He doesn’t go near them anymore. He has learned how every word is poison and lies, shattering his hopes and leaving them in scratchy trails across the floor.

One day he goes to the study to destroy them, but they are gone. He thinks his father has eaten them, but then remembers that he doesn’t have a mouth anymore.


vi.


The house elves tiptoe around him, but he knows they are there. He sees them out of the corner of his eye sometimes, though they rarely appear but for a direct order.

It’s curious. He used to despise them once, he can recall that feeling with numb clarity-- but now all he feels is a hollow curiosity about the creatures that flinch when they see him. Sometimes he is angry with them, of course, but that is only when they move things around that should not be touched. He hates it when he finds his wand neatly laying on the dresser instead of in the drawer, or the candlesticks buried in the back of the closet instead of neatly bundled across the fireplace mantel in preparation. They once stole his father away, though he got him back.

He imagined once they stole his fingernails, but now he wonders if that wasn’t perhaps the gremlins.


vii.


Harry comes and goes like the darkness, always seeping into rooms where he shouldn’t be, but Draco has long grown accustomed to that nature.

“You should be resting,” he says sometimes, sounding vague and very far away, but he never does anything. Just watches Draco for a little bit, who is sometimes trailing fingers along the bookcases, or folding paper into tiny stars and throwing them on the carpet, or staring forlornly at the doorway as though it would swallow him. Just stares at him, hands folded across his chin like leaves, green in his eyes and exhaustion in his fallen frown. Sometimes Draco feels pity for him.

“There’s something behind that,” he will say, nodding to indicate the doorway. He folds his hands in his lap after realizing they have nothing to do.

“The dining room,” Harry responds, but he is like music, so black, and utterly lies. Yet Draco has yet to hold it against him.


viii.


The days are so slow. He wanders around the Manor, and there is always sunlight piercing through the transparent blinds, and that keeps him safe. He likes it this way. Everything is simple and lovely. If Harry appears in doorways less, so much the better, because he loves the emptiness of them more than the fullness.

The hallways are always morphing to keep him entertained. He finds important little things like the silver mirror his mother once used, covered in engraved rosebuds and birds, but its glass is gone and nothing remains but an empty back. Just the same, he feels as though he can see her through it, like a two-way portal to another time, when she was frowning at it.

He tries to make the face back at it.

He finds his father’s cane, saved perhaps by one of the house elves, and has a great deal of fun by screaming and throwing it through the windows.


ix.


He likes it when Harry joins him for dinner, which happens more often than not, but not always. They sit at the table like they are proper gentlemen and sip at crystallized water in pretty wine glasses, pretending they are great and noble people. He’s better at it than Harry, who sometimes seems lost in the shoes of a rich and highly honorable being, but at least the man tries.

He doesn’t really remember what he’s eating, but he likes to think it was good. Either way, he tells Harry so, and the green-eyed man faintly smiles.

“Would you like me to stay with you tonight?”

He asks this every evening, but Draco always hesitates and shakes his head. As terrifying as it is to be alone, it is far worse than the alternative-- to be locked in a room with Harry Potter, who oozes of darkness and the grasp of mortality, and would drown him in the shadows.


x.


Sometimes he dreams of a hand dressed in white.

The glove trails its touch down his face, but he cannot stop it. It is firm and unyielding, and he cannot move an inch, for he is trapped and frozen in place like a glass monument. His eyes do not blink. His breath is caught and held in his chest. It moves to his neck and gently presses against the tender points of his skin.

“Really, Draco… I would have thought better of you,” it purrs, echoing in the blackness. And he wants to scream, but there is nothing left in his voice box but a choked whimper, and he’s afraid of this hand because it can crush him into dust and throw him to a wind that will carry him to the sea, down into a plummeting ink that will never release him once it has tasted his tears.

It is bathed in red sometimes. Black ashes and the hot, pulsing scarlet of blood, still fresh from the torn flesh of a faceless man. Someone has taken its lips and eyes, and there is nothing but a reflection he can never see.

When he wakes up, screaming silently in his head and wondering what the dreadful, bloodcurdling screech in the air is from, there is always someone holding him down to the bed. No matter how hard he twists and cries, scratching with nails and howling in pleasured defiance when they rip at exposed skin, they never let him run away. They just hold on, tight but not painfully so, until he quiets and lies in still terror in the dim lighting of the candles, until he can finally see past the shadows of his dreams.

“It’s okay,” Harry’s voice is saying in the sudden quiet usually, “it’s gone… it’s done. God, Draco… Draco… he’s gone…”

But it’s really a lie. The face he sees in the candlelight is anguished and grotesquely damp with tears, a wrecked man, not Harry but an absolute stranger holding him down in the night.


xi.


Sometimes Draco feels like the world is passing through his fingers like fine white sand, trickling through the sensitive joints of his forefinger and thumb, falling into an endless abyss at his feet. He wonders when he will fall along with it, if ever, or if he should always be kept here at the edge, waiting for the inevitable that would never come. It is a troubling thought.

The balconies feel like that; he wonders if it’s the same sensation, to lean over a railing that falls to the earth, and that giant precipice in his mind. If he would plummet as quickly in each. If he would hit the bottom just as painfully.

Sometimes he thinks, secretly and wistful, that perhaps he would fly. Just fly away from everything on the wings of the light he reveres. To do that would be wonderful.


xii.


“We can’t live like this forever,” Harry says one day, dully watching him play the piano against the surface of the dining table. His hands are quivering, but still dancing, and it feels a bit like being free.

“No,” Draco agrees, and it’s the truth.

It only occurs to him later, looking numbly at the broken body laying below his bedroom balcony that night, its wide and impossibly green eyes looking back into his own, that he thought forever would last much longer than this. That he truly believed the game would play for eternity, dancing out of the corners of his life like a bird he could never catch and keep still; flitting about into glass panes it couldn’t see.

He leaves the house for the first time in years. The damp soil is wet and cold against his bare toes, covering them like slippers of dirt, and he kneels next to the twisted and fragmented body imbedded into the earth. Its lips are open as though trying to call out-- the words are caught in the ripped flesh of his throat, however, leaking over the ground in hot crimson rivers that cool in the grass.

Harry turns his head, glassy eyes slipping uselessly to the left. He frowns at Draco, considering, sticky trails of gore still trailing from his ear. “You left me alone, Draco.”

Draco takes his hand. It is cold. “You left me alone, Harry,” he says.



The End


... ewwww.



Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Angst
Summary: [Drabble] We all carry our brands, each more indestructible than the first. Gift for paz. (Sorry it's not slashy. ^^;;)


Marked

By Kay

For: Paz. *huuuugs* Because you're always so nice and fun to talk to! And you want Severus and Draco lurve! Sorry it's not slashy. But I'll work my way up to it eventually. XD Merry Late Christmas, hon.




The muffled sounds of sobbing are audible all the way down the hall.

For a moment, Severus Snape pauses, the black hem of his cloak brushing against the stones of the floor as he stops and tilts his head to listen. The soft strains fade for a while, but he stands, silently, his dark eyes gleaming in the dark shadows of the dungeons, listening to the empty classrooms on either side of him and the chilled wind that whistles hoarsely down the corridor.

It comes again-- choked, low. Crying. Furious crying.

His feet are moving towards the sound before he even begins to think about it. Had it been a foolish student-- perhaps stolen away to mourn the loss of a lover, or a insipid first year suffering from the dredges of homesickness-- he would have left it alone. Or, more to the point, would have dragged the idiotic and presumptuous child back to the dorms by their collar. Had it been any of these, he would have never hesitated to listen.

This is a voice he recognizes in the inky blackness, however; without a word, he pushes the door open to a room and soundlessly steps inside.

"Mr. Malfoy," he says, face unreadable.

Draco moves as though he has lost all feeling in his nerves. His head comes up sluggishly, strands of hair in disarray and sticking in patches of sweat to his neck. The gray mirrors of his eyes are dull, red-rimmed, staring emotionlessly at his professor as though not entirely seeing him. The long sleeves of his robes are pushed up messily to his bony shoulders, skinny arms dropping like pale lines of dead flesh into a sink used for potion mixing.

The entire sink is filled with hot, soapy water. The suds are all over Draco's fingers and skin. They stare at each other.

Blinking slowly, Draco drops his head back down and bites his lip to hold back another sob. It tears out of his throat anyway, gasping. "It won't come off..." in a voice that is afraid and angry, tiny and childlike, he repeats, "It won't come o-off..."

And he hadn't expected this in any way, but neither would he have expected the fierce desperation lining every movement in the boy's limbs. He could have made every excuse in the world for the boy, but he hadn't ever truly expected to find a scene like this, a horrifying template that shoots his brain into the withering, wounded serpent of his memories.

His eyes flicker to the black blemish on Draco's upper arm. It is stark against the white, slippery flesh. Charred. Ashen.

"Soap and water won't help you anymore," he says quietly.

Draco glares wildly at him at that-- his hands clench into fists of sharp nails and raw, bright red fingers. The sponge he has been using is almost worn down to the last strings, the imprint left on the delicate pads of his palms, wearing away at the smoothness that belonged there once before.

Snape closes the door carefully. He steps forward, reaching out to touch Draco's shoulder. The boy flinches, moves back; he lets his hand hang in mid-air, feeling awkward and sick at the same time. In this same moment, he smoothes the planes of his face into a white and black mask, apathetic and unfeeling. "I am sorry. It was not my place to intrude."

Draco sniffles a bit; it sounds hopeless and broken, but there‘s a grim line that speaks of strength along the set of his lips. Glaring up through his wet bangs, slitting his eyes, he opens his mouth to speak. Closes it. Makes another raspy, strangled sound that could be a cry or a word.

"It is meant to stay forever, you fool," Snape says flatly, but his harsh words are betrayed by the gentle manner in which he takes the sponge from Draco's numb fingers. He puts it back on the sink's faucet, pulling up the switch to unplug the drain. The sucking, swirling sound of water fills the air as it disappears, leaving Draco's damp and soapy limbs dripping into the empty tub.

The boy doesn't say a word.

He hands him a white towel, placing it firmly in his hand so he won't drop it. Allows his eyes to drift momentarily to the sore, flaring red skin surrounding the brand, scrubbed to the point of bleeding and ripped upper skin, and looks away. He wants to say many things in this moment. Wants to say that he knows. He knows how much its aching, how much it hurts, how much he wants to rip it off with a dull blade and burn it to ashes in the hearth, because he knows. He knows. Knows that no potion will remove it-- no soapy water, no acid, nothing will rid them of the Mark, not any spell or curse, not the Scouring Potion or Flesh Eating Slug Repellent, because nothing, absolutely nothing, will wear it away.

Not even time.

He wants to say that a mark doesn't brand a person. But he knows it does.

He wants to say all of this and more, but instead he purses his lips into thin lines and waits for the boy to dry himself. And then, when Draco is desperately trying to put himself together, he only says, "I'll walk you back to your dormitory. Do not make these late night walks a habit, Mr. Malfoy."

"... yes, Professor." It is a whisper, but a start.

When they walk back, he puts his hand softly on Draco's unmarked shoulder and guides him through the darkness.


The End


Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warning: H/R SLASH
Summary: Sometimes in the darkness, all you need is a little match. Sappy and silly ficcie for darkillusion.



Spark

By Kay

For: Darkillusion. *tackles* I hope it's an okay Harry/Ron! ^^;; Actually, this isn't my usual style, but it's what came out... hope it's decent. Merry Christmas! Feel the sap!




The night had enveloped the camp in inky blackness, an opaque sort of dark that made actual visibility horrifying.

Harry peered through the woods around them in irritation, squinting at the subtle shadows that moved beyond their borders. Behind him, in the protective circle of tents and sputtering campfires, the tentative murmurs of celebration and almost-hidden concern was a low din against his ears. The people weren’t sure of whether it was safe to feel festive, he thought grimly with detached pity. None of them were.

He rubbed his ear. Scratched it a bit, still staring intently into the night.

A rustle—but from behind him, and they were familiar footsteps against the crunching pine needles and dead leaves. Ron crouched next to him hesitantly, nothing more than a barely visible smear of bright red and dark green against his backgrounds. He carried the scent of fire, scorched ashes and wood burnt to the shell, and still felt warm from sitting near it in the camp circle.

“Hullo,” he whispered. Harry nodded in distraction, eyes moving back to the borders. It was his night to keep watch, at least for another few hours. They weren’t supposed to use magic unless of dire emergencies, and that left them open and nearly defenseless. His fingers itched to touch his wand at his waist again. He wanted to light the entire camp up again. Bring the day back.

“Thought you were back at the fire, celebrating with ‘Mione.”

“Was,” Ron mumbled awkwardly, “but it isn’t the same. She’s too worried ‘bout other things.”

Privately, Harry agreed with her, but he didn’t say anything.

“So I was jus’ going to go to bed, but then… well, I didn’t know if I’d see you after that, because I might fall asleep, and—”

“Shh,” Harry hissed, raising a warning hand. The redhead fell silent immediately, petrified, as his friend cocked his head and listened to the soft fumbling sounds in the bushes. They stared at the spot; very slowly, Harry raised his wand with a deadly light in his eyes.

A rabbit leapt out. They both let out huge exhales of air.

“Cor, I thought I was goin’ to faint,” Ron groaned, clutching Harry’s shirt sleeves with tight fingers—he didn’t know when it happened, but it didn’t seem as though he would let go now. “Scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” his friend said absently, still scanning the shrubs. He wasn’t entirely sorry, because it could have been anything, but he said it, anyway. “What was it you were wanting?” Hesitating, Ron said something softly. Harry glanced at him, surprised, feeling a little out of place. “What? Here?”

“Well, we’re packing up tomorrow and heading on,” Ron said defensively. “I didn’t know if I’d get a chance to, you know.”

“Oh. Uh, alright.”

Fumbling in the blackness, Ron cleared off a small space on the rock in front of them, brushing away the dirt and moss. “Close your eyes,” he instructed firmly—when Harry began to protest, his job was to watch, he only reached out and covered the young man’s glasses. “Jus’ a moment, Harry.”

There were some sounds. Harry, wired up and tense, obediently closed his eyes and told Ron so in irritation. The hand was removed with, “I need both hands, anyway,” in a sullen sort of tone.

Then, a snap in the dark.

Harry’s eyes flew open without prompting, alarmed and already searching for the sound—except he didn’t need to; it was right in front of him. Blinking, he stared down at the used match and little, nearly-burnt out candle on the rock, nothing more than a stub of red wax and string. The small flicker of light spread out across the rock, barely hitting the forests’ edge beyond them, but illuminating the dirty smudges all over Ron’s face. His eyes, an unnaturally blue shade against the mud, seemed to glow, searing as the brilliant shades of his hair, still flaring even under the grit of several days of travel and hardship.

He was smiling, white teeth flashing. “Merry Christmas, Harry.”

Harry looked at him, mouth open but unspeaking. Incredulous.

A flush spread over his friend’s features. “Well… It wasn’t like there were any shops to be doin’ holiday gift-getting in, you know… an’ I don’t have any money right now, but… well, I just thought… took it off of Seamus, he keeps plenty stowed under his blanket, the brat, but I thought you might want a little light to sit by tonight, ‘cause I know it’s kind of weird out here when—”

He was stopped—abruptly, suddenly, because then Harry had him caught up and was kissing him, hard and beautifully, his fingers digging into Ron’s shoulders until the flesh protested, but he wasn’t going to say a word. Not when Harry’s mouth was warm and smiling against his own, warmer than the fire, close enough to get into the caverns of his soul, chapped lips and weathered skin and dirty hair and all.

They were filthy. Tired. In that moment, Harry felt his heart in his throat and all he wanted to do was stay like that forever.

When they’d broken apart, and Ron was shaking a bit and leaning his head against his shoulder, draped slightly over his back as Harry enjoyed the press of his body, he finally spoke. “Thanks for the present. Merry Christmas to you, too, Ron,” he added, smiling and grabbing Ron’s dirty hand. The fingernails were chewed and gnawed at, but he ignored it. “It’s fantastic.”

Ron grinned a bit into his shoulder. “Knew you’d like it,” he said loudly, brushing his nose along the back of Harry’s neck. He laughed, lowly, when the man shivered.

“Weren’t you going to bed?”

There was silence for a moment, and Harry let his eyes relax in the glow of the candle. He stared out into the stillness, feeling better about the situation than he had in ages. Then Ron said, “Not really. Think I’ll stay here… jus’ a bit longer, though. Only for a while.”

“It’s fine,” Harry whispered, and he meant it.

Hours later into the night, as the camp behind them rose into a hesitant, softly frightened verse of Let There be Peace on Earth, the candle finally went out. As they plunged into darkness again, Ron’s hand had not slipped from his own; only tightened and held.



The End



Fandom: FullMetal Alchemist
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Maybe small Hughes/Roy implications; Episode 25/30 Spoilers
Summary: Roy needs a haircut. Hughes always knows what's best.



Shorn

By Kay



These little pieces of me fall away
Like so many shattered pinpoints in time
Scattered on pavement, all my life
Before me is lost in the dirt



When Maes Hughes knocks on the door, there is no answer.

He only bothers to wait for a few minutes of silence, in which no footsteps come to greet him from the other side, and tests the brass knob. It twists slightly and jerks in his hand; sighing, the man stretches up with one arm and brushes his fingers along the top of the doorframe. He squeezes his green eyes shut for a moment-- ‘he couldn’t have moved it since Tuesday’-- and lets out a breathless sound of triumph when he touches a small silver key hidden there.

He brings it down and fits it in the lock. Then, carefully, he opens the door and steps into the apartment.

It is completely dark except for the yellow streams of lazy light drifting through the window blinds, falling across the floorboards and streaking across the furniture. Maes stands there for a moment in the doorway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He can almost taste the dust lingering in the air, his tongue curling with the heaviness of it. He lets out a slow, rough breath, and then, stepping forward, begins to scan the apartment for movement.

“Roy?”

This is a dance they have moved to many times-- when there is no answer, he merely makes his way to the kitchen, pausing for a moment to place a book teetering on the edge of the coffee table onto the sofa.

“Roy,” he says, and this time it isn’t a question. The kitchen is a complete mess that smells of charred linoleum and stale air that’s been cooked too long. The yellow countertop has been completely hidden under piles of papers and books, scrawled diagrams pasted recklessly against the walls, and he almost steps into a pot of cold coffee that sloshes when its jostled. Barely glancing down, he moves around it.

The dark, slumped figure in the kitchen chair shifts a little. Maes bites his lip harshly when he sees how stiffly it moves, but the sharp bite of relief at seeing his friend dulls the words that come immediately to his lips. He is almost gentle when he murmurs, “You should answer your telephone calls. Or at least your door. Gracia is worried about you.”

Wrapped in a blackened quilt that looks frayed at the edges, Roy raises his head dully. His dark eyes gleam in the dim kitchen’s lights, almost inhumane in the way they widen at him-- they are slightly red around the edges, sore from too many days of staying open. “Maes.”

“Yeah.” He carefully pulls up another kitchen chair so that he can face the man, gingerly sitting down and reaching out. He touches Roy’s face first; the pallor and strain ingrained into it worries him, and he smoothes out the harassed wrinkles patiently. Roy’s dark eyes continue to watch him silently. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m here.”

His lips are chapped. Roy licks them momentarily. “Oh. Really?”

Maes nods soundlessly. His face is grave, but his fingers are infinitely soft when they push messy black bangs out of his friend’s face. “Really, really.”

Beneath the blanket wrapped around him, Roy is wearing nothing but his work shirt-- stained across the shoulder and wrinkled to the point of ruin-- and boxers that are two days old. He wraps the cloth around him tighter, his fingers clenching until the knuckles are dead-white, and shudders for a while. Maes waits, until the shaking dies down again and Roy’s inhales are deep and even, before touching him again.

His fingers play across the curve of his ear. “Look at you. You’re such a mess.”

A tiny, strangled laugh escapes Roy’s throat. It sounds dry and hoarse, and incredibly loud in the stillness. “You don’t sound surprised, though.”

Maes sniffs somewhat indignantly. “It takes a lot to surprise me, remember?”

The crack of his bones makes Roy wince as he sits up straight, a flash of pain working over his gaunt features. “Ugh. I feel like hell, Maes.”

“You look like it, too,” his friend tells him, affectionately. He flicks at the curve of his ear again, smiling indulgently when Roy glares at him for the gesture.

“I thought I locked the door.”

“You never move the key,” Maes tells him, knowing he won’t move it even if he hears it. “Anyone would know how to get in your apartment. It’s a little dangerous, don’t you think? Lt. Hawkeye wouldn’t be pleased.”

“No, I suppose not,” Roy answers dully, rubbing a sore spot on his elbow. He glances at his friend through his tousled mess of hair. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“You never hear anyone knock.” At this, his friend closes his eyes and sighs softly. “Roy… are you okay?”

“No. Why are you here?”

He ignores the question. It is a soft, painful thing, anyhow, and Maes doesn’t want to think about wounds he can’t heal-- not yet, anyway. Instead he glances down at the table’s wooden surface, taking in the carved symbols and alien figures etched into the grains with trepidation. “What’s all of this?”

Shame scatters across Roy’s face, but he quickly shutters it away. “It’s nothing,” he says with an unreadable expression. Only the half-starved desperation in his eyes gives him away. “Just… doodles.”

The entire kitchen has turned into a warehouse for arrays. Not ones he’s seen before-- they are not the circles sketched onto Roy’s gloves, though there are elements, curves, that are similar. They are nothing he’s seen the Elrics draw before, but there is an innate sense of danger that also surrounds the brothers when he looks at them. Feeling that he already knows what they are, Maes sighs and pushes a pile of the papers onto the floor. They fall into a messy heap at Roy’s bare feet and his boots.

“You can’t do this to yourself,” he says quietly. Roy doesn’t answer. “You can’t do this to me, Roy.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything. I thought…” The words trail off, an ugly grimace crossing his mouth as though he’d chewed something unpleasant. “I just thought. I would have never done anything. I’m not strong enough.”

“Strength has nothing to do with it.”

Roy shrinks in on himself uncharacteristically. “But it does. I’m not like the Elric brothers. I can’t chase after what I want to fix. I don’t have… I’m not strong like that. I can’t even strike back at the one who--”

“I don’t want you to do it,” Maes murmurs, and suddenly he is there, holding Roy’s face in his hands and forcing the man to stare at him. “Maniac. This is why I can’t leave you to yourself, you know; you end up getting all sorts of twisted ideas.”

“No. You can’t leave me to myself,” Roy whispers, stricken. Maes silently tries to wipe the anguish from his face, but it only struggles forward again. “What the hell am I supposed to do now? There’s no one behind me to watch my back anymore. I don’t trust anyone else to do it, Maes.”

“You’ll have to. There are more people out there who would do anything for you, Roy. It’s not just me anymore.”

“But it is,” the man insists, reaching forward as if to clutch his hand. He draws back abruptly, stiffening, as though realizing what he were doing at the last moment. “I mean…”

Maes soothes him quiet again, making sounds he used to make for Alicia when she was having her first nightmares. It is an instinctive thing; there is a lost, confused and haunted look on the man’s face that reminds him fiercely of his daughter and her night terrors. He says, albeit somewhat falteringly, “It’s been… almost a week, Roy.”

“That means nothing.”

“You have things to do. Stuff to take care of.”

“I take care of everything,” Roy protests warily, eyeing his friend tiredly. “This is my weekend, Hughes. Let it go.”

“It isn’t healthy. What you’re doing isn’t healthy at all, not to yourself or anyone else. There are things to think about still, you know. Things to do.” He pauses, gesturing towards the wildly drawn arrays covering the table. “Not this. Not… promises that mean nothing. I don’t want you to do this, Roy.”

“It won’t leave my head. It keeps circling there,” the dark-eyed man whispers, rasping, clutching at his long slips of hair. “What if…? You know? I know it’s foolish. I won’t do it anymore, Maes. I’ll stop.”

He touches the curve of his ear again, unable to resist the flesh peeking out of the strands of black. “You need to cut your hair, too.”

At this, Roy throws his head back and laughs.

When he finally quiets, his shoulders still quivering with the force of it, he peeks at Maes through his bangs with a shy, almost mischievous smile. It wasn’t a face he saw on his friend often, but the odd edge of upset in it is what worries him. “You’re not even supposed to be here. I don’t supposed you’d cut my hair, would you? Since you’re not around to do anything else. Since you‘re not real.”

It is a thinly-veiled barb that sails past Maes and far away. He does not hear the words, but concentrates on the underlying pain. Aching to peel it away, he nods slowly. “Do you have scissors?”

That stops Roy’s smile. He pales; flushes and then pales again. “You can’t be serious.”

“You won’t be able to see where you’re going if you can’t look past your hair,” Maes says. And he means much more than what he says.

Five minutes later, Roy is trembling at the table-- elbows up on the surface, face buried in his hands-- and he tenses when he feels Maes’ presence at his back. His best friend just soundlessly reaches forward and pulls his head up, ignoring the way Roy’s breath hitches and whimpers, and brushes the hair out gently. The comb is old and generally unused, but it serves its purpose.

“You’re a mess,” Maes says again, a smile ghosting across his face.

Roy’s fingers slowly relax from their tight grip on the table. He leans back into the touch, sucking in air sharply when the man runs his fingers through his matted hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect company.”

“You’ll never pick up any more women if you look like this.”

Roy’s hand curls hesitantly over his shoulder, as though stretching towards Maes’ form behind him. “Not too short… I hate having the sun on my neck.”

“I know.”

They are silent then, except for the soft snip of the scissors every few moments. Maes starts at the bottom, sluggishly moving his way around the ears and slicing a few strands here and there away. If the man beneath him twitches once, or swallows heavily as though under a terrible burden every other minute, he says nothing. Just continues cutting away until the charcoal black hair litters the floor like ash, brushing against the bare skin of Roy’s heels.

He leaves it a little long in the front. To hide his hollowed eyes.

When he is done, he makes no move or sound. Only sets down the scissors on the table with a heavy clunk-- and there his hand stays, clutched abruptly by Roy’s desperate fingers. They encircle his palm, long and slender, and he can almost feel the pounding rhythm of his friend’s heart through the skin.

“Roy,” he says gently, as he has always done. “You have to let go.”

Roy doesn’t answer. Instead, hesitantly-- fearfully-- he brings Maes’ arm to his chest, pressing it tightly below his neck. Now the frantic thudding of his heart is most obviously felt. With his other hand, he slowly reaches out behind him, blindly fumbling for the limb he feels must be there.

Maes gives it to him.

They sit there like that in the darkness for a while, his arms wrapped tightly around Roy’s shoulders, the man clutching him tightly with an iron grip. He lets it be like that, just like that, holding tightly in the illusion of the shadows where no one can see the harsh, dry wracking of the dark-haired man’s body, or hear his muted and guttural pleas.

“Don’t leave me,” he begs brokenly.

And Maes lets his chin rest on Roy’s head, very carefully, and smiles a bit, though his green eyes are glassy and disheartened. “You’re such a mess… of course I won’t.”

“Don’t leave me, Maes.”

“Stop crying.”

“I’m not crying,” Roy rasps, stubbornly, squeezing his swollen eyelids shut tightly. “I’m…”

“I won’t leave you, Roy. Not right now.”

This is all he needs to hear-- giving a last, violent gasp, his body completely stills in Maes’ grasp, limp and unresisting. He leans back, eyes going strangely blank until he closes them fully, and breathes in deeply, his shoulders rising and falling. Finally smiling widely, the green-eyed man behind him presses a fleeting, affectionate kiss against the crown of his hair.

“Don’t bring me back, Roy,” he whispers against it. “Catch up to me when you can. Until then, I’ll be around.”

With that, he strokes the curve of his ear again, laughing, and pulls away. In his absence, Roy falls back against the chair and frowns, half-deep into sleep from exhaustion. For a moment, his sloe-eyed blink sleepily up, but they flutter shut and stay that way as he slips into slumber.

Maes watches him for what seems like forever. Then, as the night brings a total and all-encompassing darkness, he fades into the shadows that plunge the kitchen into nothingness, erasing them both from existence to the worldly eye. It takes away the human transmutation arrays, the sheared ink-black hair, and the fragile quality of a soldier’s breath, leaving nothing behind but a dream and scattered recollections.

In the morning, he is gone, but Roy remains behind. He needs a drink. He needs a haircut.



The End

Hmmm... a little OOC... okay, big time OOC, but... yeah.


Okay, that's all for now. I've still got to post about five other things, but I've got a meeting and I'm going to try and catch up with livejournals while I'm putting italics on the rest. ^^;;; Probably later tonight it'll be up. Sorry for the long posts.

*tackles everyone* It'll be good to be back. :D

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