(no subject)
Fandom: Read or Die/ROD the TV
Pairing: Nenene Sumiregawa/Maggie Mui
Theme Set: Beta
Rating: Hmm, about PG-13
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#01 - Walking
Part of Nenene wishes that Maggie wouldn’t hunch over like that when she walks; even though it’s cute and purely Maggie to do it, it can’t be good for her back, and her height is a blessing anyway - Nenene knows that she’s not the only one that looks admiringly at Maggie’s long, slender shape and dark hair and amazing eyes.
#02 - Waltz
It’s hard to say which of the girls is more astonished to find that the other knows how to waltz when Nenene jokingly asks Maggie at that Christmas party - the only problem is, both of them can lead like a dream, but neither of them is good at following.
#03 - Wishes
Maggie can’t help but think that, if she had three wishes, she knows what they would be: to make Michelle, Anita, and Nenene all happy for the rest of their lives, and she would use one wish for each of the people she cares about most, just to make sure.
#04 - Wonder
Nenene knows that Maggie’s seen a lot, and read a lot, and her memory is almost scary; and anyway, it makes a good excuse to spend more time talking to her, checking up on details before she puts them in her books, and getting Maggie to tell her some stories if she’s really lucky.
#05 - Worry
Over the time they’ve spent together, Nenene has learned that, even though you’d never know it to look at her, Maggie has made worrying about anything and everything into an art form.
#06 - Whimsy
Even though Nenene tried to pass it off as the smart thing to do, the idea of all of them - Nenene and Michelle and Maggie and Anita and Yomiko and Nancy and Junior - living peaceably together in one house was never more than a silly flight of fancy, and the more she thinks about it, the more she’s glad (even when she has to try really hard to smile unconcernedly at Yomiko and Nancy holding hands behind a severely embarrassed Junior’s back), because she knows that lots of people around all the time gives Maggie a headache.
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
Nenene’s starting to understand a little better why Maggie likes sleeping in a storage closet filled with books - anywhere else probably seems like a barren, bookless wasteland; but all the same, she doesn’t go to join Maggie in there very often, because her back hurts for days when she does.
#08 - Whisky and Rum
It always startles Maggie to find out again just how light Nenene is, almost as much as it startles her just how few of their favourite drink it takes for Nenene to forget her own name, because she has a way of seeming much bigger than she is.
#09 - War
When she thinks back to everything that happened with the British Library, Maggie wonders if any of them would have come through it if Nenene hadn’t been there, forgetting everything that was bothering her to focus on making plans for all the other people who couldn’t put aside their own problems.
#10 - Weddings
Nenene’s always hated going to weddings, and that’s why she brings Maggie with her now when she gets roped into one - because Maggie likes them, and seeing Maggie smile puts Nenene in a good mood.
#11 - Birthday
She wants to do something really special for Maggie’s birthday this year, but Anita and Michelle are no help - Short Stuff just snorted and said to buy her a big box to hide in, and Michelle giggled and said she could always jump out of the box, wearing confetti and streamers, and give Maggie a real surprise.
#12 - Blessing
Whenever Nenene looks at Maggie - and Anita and Michelle too, she adds grudgingly - and remembers all the times she wished desperately that she could trade all three of them to have Yomiko back, she shivers, thinking, thank God all wishes don’t come true.
#13 - Bias
Nenene has said often that there’s no such thing as a completely unbiased position, that everything you believe comes with some kind of values; and it always confuses Maggie, because why would you want your ideas to have no value?
#14 - Burning
Maggie doesn’t make excuses for thinking the things that she does; so she didn’t even try to explain away the sensation that something at the back of her mind had burst into flame when she accidentally caught Nenene stumbling dripping wet and naked out of the shower, muttering about the lack of clean towels.
#15 - Breathing
It started out with kissing, but that was hours ago; now they’re just lying here, drifting in and out of sleep, lips still brushing, breath mingling.
#16 - Breaking
“If you ever hurt Maggie,” Anita tells her darkly, “I’ll break your fingers so you can’t write,” and Nenene laughs a bit, but not as much as when she overhears Anita talking to Maggie: “If you ever hurt Nenene, I’ll break your fingers so you can’t read.”
#17 - Belief
Nenene admires and sometimes envies Maggie’s ability to see and believe in what makes her happy even when she doesn’t always understand the details; Maggie admires and often envies Nenene’s ability to see the details so clearly, and to fit them into what makes her happy.
#18 - Balloon
Maggie doesn’t know whether to be hurt or amused when she makes Nenene a paper balloon after they pass about two dozen kids in the park with red ones and blue ones and yellow ones and green ones tied to their wrists with ribbons, and the first thing Nenene does is try to pop it.
#19 - Balcony
Ever since she read about it in a book, she’s wanted to try it, and even if Nenene’s half-asleep because she’s been hauled out of bed seven hours earlier than usual and Michelle is whimpering and Anita’s yelling at them to get out, there’s something about watching the sunrise from a balcony over early-morning coffee that Maggie can’t wait to do again sometime.
#20 - Bane
They both hate large crowds, even if there’s a big difference from being uncomfortable and being just irritated by them.
#21 - Quiet
No one would ever believe it to spend time with her, but one of Nenene’s favourite things about Maggie is how easy it is to just be quiet together.
#22 - Quirks
“I think her quirks are cute,” Maggie admits blushing, and Anita makes a face; “Sure, if you call being a grump all the time a quirk.”
#23 - Question
It took a long time, but Nenene has finally stopped trying to answer when Maggie comes up with some bizarre, unanswerable question about something weird.
#24 - Quarrel
Anita noted disapprovingly once that Nenene and Maggie never fight, and that’s a bad sign, because you have to fight every now and again if the relationship is going to work; when Nenene tells her that it’s hard to argue with someone who just won’t, Anita thinks she might know what Nenene means, because Hisami doesn’t argue either.
#25 - Quitting
Maggie just smiles when Nenene blusters into the kitchen to proclaim her new resolution - it’s the fifth time in three months she’s tried to go off coffee.
#26 - Jump
The first time she ever heard Maggie swear, after a splash of scalding water over her wrist, Nenene jumped a foot in the air, and then laughed, and then helped Maggie find the salve and gauze.
#27 - Jester
Both of them agree wholeheartedly, glowering darkly at that stupid commercial, that clowns are not funny.
#28 - Jousting
“I wanna try that sometime,” Nenene proclaims loudly while they’re watching this ridiculous movie, lifting her head from Maggie’s knee and miming horseback riding and then swinging her imaginary spear, and Maggie has to try not to laugh as she proclaims quietly, “I think you should go back on coffee and give up drinking instead.”
#29 - Jewel
There’s something about seeing Maggie carefully and reverently examining the manuscript she plans to send to her editor tomorrow as though it was something infinitely rare and precious that sends a sharp ache through her chest at the familiarity of a shy, sweet, dark-haired girl making far more of her writing than it probably deserves.
#30 - Just
Maggie knows that it’s one of the hardest things in the world to be completely fair to people, and she wonders sometimes how Nenene got so good at it.
#31 - Smirk
“Stop looking at me like that, Nenene; Michelle made me buy it to take to the beach.”
#32 - Sorrow
Nenene knows that Maggie is genuinely happier, knowing nothing about who she was before she was Maggie, and she can’t get over how brave that is, because she also knows that that kind of mystery would eat her alive; Maggie thinks Nenene’s totally missing the point, because it’s cowardice, not courage, that wants her past to stay a mystery, because who knows what she might find there?
#33 - Stupidity
They make a concentrated effort to spend enough time with everyone else, but neither Michelle nor Anita thanks them much for it - Michelle just frowns worriedly that they don’t make enough time for just the two of them, and Anita just snorts and tells them to stop being stupid.
#34 - Serenade
“I don’t think she’d like that,” Maggie says doubtfully, trying to find the most diplomatic way to respond to this particularly silly suggestion of Michelle’s with a no way in Hell.
#35 - Sarcasm
“And I guess you’re never sarcastic,” Maggie smiles when Nenene stops ranting about that jerk she calls her editor long enough to take a breath.
#36 - Sordid
“Come on, readers like a little sleaze every now and again,” Nenene protests when Maggie suggests dubiously that she take this section out because it really doesn’t read like her at all, but she’s arguing mostly for show, because a part of her hoped that Maggie would pick that out when she wrote it.
#37 - Soliloquy
“I think the word soliloquy must have been invented for you,” Maggie says with that wonderful slow smile as Nenene’s angry tale comes to a close; and after a startled, sheepish moment, Nenene smirks: “Nah, that would be more like solilo-rant.”
#38 - Sojourn
Maggie thinks that they must not be doing a very good job, spending time just the two of them like they promised Michelle they would, because there’s no way that she’s really too tired to go to a book fair.
#39 - Share
“You know, you’re one hell of a writer yourself,” Nenene tells her, giving the dark-haired girl back her journal, not without some reluctance.
#40 - Solitary
They have a system now: when Maggie leaves the closet door open a crack, that means that Nenene is allowed to crawl in with her; but when it’s all the way closed, that means that Maggie is starting to find all these people around her all the time a little stifling, and needs some time by herself.
#41 - Nowhere
It’s terrifying when she thinks about it, exactly what the possibility of losing another past must have meant to her three freeloading bodyguards who mean almost everything to her now - they knew they’d already lost one that they’ll never get back, and the idea of who and what they are now completely disappearing like it never happened must have been agony.
#42 - Neutral
Maggie’s as good at not taking any side in an argument as Nenene is at taking both sides at once; maybe that’s why they can’t work up a really good fight of their own.
#43 - Nuance
Nenene’s been saying for years that people are simple until you get to know them, and now she thinks that she’s met the epitome of that phrase in Maggie.
#44 - Near
It seemed like back when it was all happening, no matter what was going on, how much Maggie was drowned out of Nenene's mind with thoughts of Yomiko and where she had been and what happens now, or how much Nenene was pushed aside from Maggie's mind to focus on helping her sisters desperately build the illusion that everything's fine now, they still somehow always managed to end up walking, or standing, or sitting, or sleeping, very close together.
#45 - Natural
Maybe they didn’t notice it because it just felt natural to gravitate to each other like this.
#46 - Horizon
She’s been driving all night, staring at a spot off in the distance for most of it, and Maggie feels like she’s going to fall asleep any moment; but she declines the offer to let someone else drive, because Nenene’s been telling her stories to keep her awake.
#47 - Valiant
She makes a heroic attempt, but Nenene can’t quite manage to stop a tiny bit of vindictive satisfaction from arrowing through her when she sees Yomiko’s expression, a little bit lost and hurt, upon finding out that her Nenene has moved on and found someone else, too.
#48 - Virtuous
She’s really trying not to let herself think things like that anymore, because Maggie never has petty, selfish, bitchy thoughts like that, and the last thing she needs is to be haunted by the sensation that she’s stopping Maggie from finding someone who deserves her.
#49 - Victory
Nevertheless, eventually Nenene’s conscience gets the better of her - hey, there’s a first time for everything - and she tells Maggie what she’s been thinking: You know, I’m not a very good person; you could do better.
#50 - Defeat
And apparently, Nenene thinks as wryly as an overwhelming desire to laugh or cry or hug something will let her when she finds herself pinned to the couch by her lover’s hands, slim and pale and like iron at her shoulders and by her lover’s eyes, deep red and intense and amazing and just now a little panicked, Maggie doesn’t think much of this idea.
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Pairing: Nenene Sumiregawa/Maggie Mui
Theme Set: Beta
Rating: Hmm, about PG-13
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#01 - Walking
Part of Nenene wishes that Maggie wouldn’t hunch over like that when she walks; even though it’s cute and purely Maggie to do it, it can’t be good for her back, and her height is a blessing anyway - Nenene knows that she’s not the only one that looks admiringly at Maggie’s long, slender shape and dark hair and amazing eyes.
#02 - Waltz
It’s hard to say which of the girls is more astonished to find that the other knows how to waltz when Nenene jokingly asks Maggie at that Christmas party - the only problem is, both of them can lead like a dream, but neither of them is good at following.
#03 - Wishes
Maggie can’t help but think that, if she had three wishes, she knows what they would be: to make Michelle, Anita, and Nenene all happy for the rest of their lives, and she would use one wish for each of the people she cares about most, just to make sure.
#04 - Wonder
Nenene knows that Maggie’s seen a lot, and read a lot, and her memory is almost scary; and anyway, it makes a good excuse to spend more time talking to her, checking up on details before she puts them in her books, and getting Maggie to tell her some stories if she’s really lucky.
#05 - Worry
Over the time they’ve spent together, Nenene has learned that, even though you’d never know it to look at her, Maggie has made worrying about anything and everything into an art form.
#06 - Whimsy
Even though Nenene tried to pass it off as the smart thing to do, the idea of all of them - Nenene and Michelle and Maggie and Anita and Yomiko and Nancy and Junior - living peaceably together in one house was never more than a silly flight of fancy, and the more she thinks about it, the more she’s glad (even when she has to try really hard to smile unconcernedly at Yomiko and Nancy holding hands behind a severely embarrassed Junior’s back), because she knows that lots of people around all the time gives Maggie a headache.
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
Nenene’s starting to understand a little better why Maggie likes sleeping in a storage closet filled with books - anywhere else probably seems like a barren, bookless wasteland; but all the same, she doesn’t go to join Maggie in there very often, because her back hurts for days when she does.
#08 - Whisky and Rum
It always startles Maggie to find out again just how light Nenene is, almost as much as it startles her just how few of their favourite drink it takes for Nenene to forget her own name, because she has a way of seeming much bigger than she is.
#09 - War
When she thinks back to everything that happened with the British Library, Maggie wonders if any of them would have come through it if Nenene hadn’t been there, forgetting everything that was bothering her to focus on making plans for all the other people who couldn’t put aside their own problems.
#10 - Weddings
Nenene’s always hated going to weddings, and that’s why she brings Maggie with her now when she gets roped into one - because Maggie likes them, and seeing Maggie smile puts Nenene in a good mood.
#11 - Birthday
She wants to do something really special for Maggie’s birthday this year, but Anita and Michelle are no help - Short Stuff just snorted and said to buy her a big box to hide in, and Michelle giggled and said she could always jump out of the box, wearing confetti and streamers, and give Maggie a real surprise.
#12 - Blessing
Whenever Nenene looks at Maggie - and Anita and Michelle too, she adds grudgingly - and remembers all the times she wished desperately that she could trade all three of them to have Yomiko back, she shivers, thinking, thank God all wishes don’t come true.
#13 - Bias
Nenene has said often that there’s no such thing as a completely unbiased position, that everything you believe comes with some kind of values; and it always confuses Maggie, because why would you want your ideas to have no value?
#14 - Burning
Maggie doesn’t make excuses for thinking the things that she does; so she didn’t even try to explain away the sensation that something at the back of her mind had burst into flame when she accidentally caught Nenene stumbling dripping wet and naked out of the shower, muttering about the lack of clean towels.
#15 - Breathing
It started out with kissing, but that was hours ago; now they’re just lying here, drifting in and out of sleep, lips still brushing, breath mingling.
#16 - Breaking
“If you ever hurt Maggie,” Anita tells her darkly, “I’ll break your fingers so you can’t write,” and Nenene laughs a bit, but not as much as when she overhears Anita talking to Maggie: “If you ever hurt Nenene, I’ll break your fingers so you can’t read.”
#17 - Belief
Nenene admires and sometimes envies Maggie’s ability to see and believe in what makes her happy even when she doesn’t always understand the details; Maggie admires and often envies Nenene’s ability to see the details so clearly, and to fit them into what makes her happy.
#18 - Balloon
Maggie doesn’t know whether to be hurt or amused when she makes Nenene a paper balloon after they pass about two dozen kids in the park with red ones and blue ones and yellow ones and green ones tied to their wrists with ribbons, and the first thing Nenene does is try to pop it.
#19 - Balcony
Ever since she read about it in a book, she’s wanted to try it, and even if Nenene’s half-asleep because she’s been hauled out of bed seven hours earlier than usual and Michelle is whimpering and Anita’s yelling at them to get out, there’s something about watching the sunrise from a balcony over early-morning coffee that Maggie can’t wait to do again sometime.
#20 - Bane
They both hate large crowds, even if there’s a big difference from being uncomfortable and being just irritated by them.
#21 - Quiet
No one would ever believe it to spend time with her, but one of Nenene’s favourite things about Maggie is how easy it is to just be quiet together.
#22 - Quirks
“I think her quirks are cute,” Maggie admits blushing, and Anita makes a face; “Sure, if you call being a grump all the time a quirk.”
#23 - Question
It took a long time, but Nenene has finally stopped trying to answer when Maggie comes up with some bizarre, unanswerable question about something weird.
#24 - Quarrel
Anita noted disapprovingly once that Nenene and Maggie never fight, and that’s a bad sign, because you have to fight every now and again if the relationship is going to work; when Nenene tells her that it’s hard to argue with someone who just won’t, Anita thinks she might know what Nenene means, because Hisami doesn’t argue either.
#25 - Quitting
Maggie just smiles when Nenene blusters into the kitchen to proclaim her new resolution - it’s the fifth time in three months she’s tried to go off coffee.
#26 - Jump
The first time she ever heard Maggie swear, after a splash of scalding water over her wrist, Nenene jumped a foot in the air, and then laughed, and then helped Maggie find the salve and gauze.
#27 - Jester
Both of them agree wholeheartedly, glowering darkly at that stupid commercial, that clowns are not funny.
#28 - Jousting
“I wanna try that sometime,” Nenene proclaims loudly while they’re watching this ridiculous movie, lifting her head from Maggie’s knee and miming horseback riding and then swinging her imaginary spear, and Maggie has to try not to laugh as she proclaims quietly, “I think you should go back on coffee and give up drinking instead.”
#29 - Jewel
There’s something about seeing Maggie carefully and reverently examining the manuscript she plans to send to her editor tomorrow as though it was something infinitely rare and precious that sends a sharp ache through her chest at the familiarity of a shy, sweet, dark-haired girl making far more of her writing than it probably deserves.
#30 - Just
Maggie knows that it’s one of the hardest things in the world to be completely fair to people, and she wonders sometimes how Nenene got so good at it.
#31 - Smirk
“Stop looking at me like that, Nenene; Michelle made me buy it to take to the beach.”
#32 - Sorrow
Nenene knows that Maggie is genuinely happier, knowing nothing about who she was before she was Maggie, and she can’t get over how brave that is, because she also knows that that kind of mystery would eat her alive; Maggie thinks Nenene’s totally missing the point, because it’s cowardice, not courage, that wants her past to stay a mystery, because who knows what she might find there?
#33 - Stupidity
They make a concentrated effort to spend enough time with everyone else, but neither Michelle nor Anita thanks them much for it - Michelle just frowns worriedly that they don’t make enough time for just the two of them, and Anita just snorts and tells them to stop being stupid.
#34 - Serenade
“I don’t think she’d like that,” Maggie says doubtfully, trying to find the most diplomatic way to respond to this particularly silly suggestion of Michelle’s with a no way in Hell.
#35 - Sarcasm
“And I guess you’re never sarcastic,” Maggie smiles when Nenene stops ranting about that jerk she calls her editor long enough to take a breath.
#36 - Sordid
“Come on, readers like a little sleaze every now and again,” Nenene protests when Maggie suggests dubiously that she take this section out because it really doesn’t read like her at all, but she’s arguing mostly for show, because a part of her hoped that Maggie would pick that out when she wrote it.
#37 - Soliloquy
“I think the word soliloquy must have been invented for you,” Maggie says with that wonderful slow smile as Nenene’s angry tale comes to a close; and after a startled, sheepish moment, Nenene smirks: “Nah, that would be more like solilo-rant.”
#38 - Sojourn
Maggie thinks that they must not be doing a very good job, spending time just the two of them like they promised Michelle they would, because there’s no way that she’s really too tired to go to a book fair.
#39 - Share
“You know, you’re one hell of a writer yourself,” Nenene tells her, giving the dark-haired girl back her journal, not without some reluctance.
#40 - Solitary
They have a system now: when Maggie leaves the closet door open a crack, that means that Nenene is allowed to crawl in with her; but when it’s all the way closed, that means that Maggie is starting to find all these people around her all the time a little stifling, and needs some time by herself.
#41 - Nowhere
It’s terrifying when she thinks about it, exactly what the possibility of losing another past must have meant to her three freeloading bodyguards who mean almost everything to her now - they knew they’d already lost one that they’ll never get back, and the idea of who and what they are now completely disappearing like it never happened must have been agony.
#42 - Neutral
Maggie’s as good at not taking any side in an argument as Nenene is at taking both sides at once; maybe that’s why they can’t work up a really good fight of their own.
#43 - Nuance
Nenene’s been saying for years that people are simple until you get to know them, and now she thinks that she’s met the epitome of that phrase in Maggie.
#44 - Near
It seemed like back when it was all happening, no matter what was going on, how much Maggie was drowned out of Nenene's mind with thoughts of Yomiko and where she had been and what happens now, or how much Nenene was pushed aside from Maggie's mind to focus on helping her sisters desperately build the illusion that everything's fine now, they still somehow always managed to end up walking, or standing, or sitting, or sleeping, very close together.
#45 - Natural
Maybe they didn’t notice it because it just felt natural to gravitate to each other like this.
#46 - Horizon
She’s been driving all night, staring at a spot off in the distance for most of it, and Maggie feels like she’s going to fall asleep any moment; but she declines the offer to let someone else drive, because Nenene’s been telling her stories to keep her awake.
#47 - Valiant
She makes a heroic attempt, but Nenene can’t quite manage to stop a tiny bit of vindictive satisfaction from arrowing through her when she sees Yomiko’s expression, a little bit lost and hurt, upon finding out that her Nenene has moved on and found someone else, too.
#48 - Virtuous
She’s really trying not to let herself think things like that anymore, because Maggie never has petty, selfish, bitchy thoughts like that, and the last thing she needs is to be haunted by the sensation that she’s stopping Maggie from finding someone who deserves her.
#49 - Victory
Nevertheless, eventually Nenene’s conscience gets the better of her - hey, there’s a first time for everything - and she tells Maggie what she’s been thinking: You know, I’m not a very good person; you could do better.
#50 - Defeat
And apparently, Nenene thinks as wryly as an overwhelming desire to laugh or cry or hug something will let her when she finds herself pinned to the couch by her lover’s hands, slim and pale and like iron at her shoulders and by her lover’s eyes, deep red and intense and amazing and just now a little panicked, Maggie doesn’t think much of this idea.
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