#48 Christmas Drabbles 2010 - batch 1
And the posting begins! I had loads of fun with these prompts; a couple of them exploded slightly past the 1000-word mark, and I went off-topic for a few others, but thank you for requesting, you guys. I filled one prompt per person but may head back and fill out some more of them in future. ♥♥♥ Enjoy!
For forochel: J&XWMAZM - anything
“This movie will be a turning point in the history of Singaporean film,” pronounced Jolene, her eyes gleaming with something that was either excitement or madness.
With great care, Victoria affixed a blue post-it on the corner of the page she was reading before closing her medical textbook. Attempting to multi-task while conversing with Jolene was never a good plan. Gayatri’s last attempt had resulted in her being at the receiving end of Jolene’s Flying Ninja Bear Gorilla Attack. The nurses at the A&E ward had not been impressed.
“A turning point,” Victoria repeated.
“Yes, yes,” said Jolene, scrambling up onto the nearest elevated surface to maximise the effect of her Declamatory Voice. “There will be aliens! Satire! Political commentary! Song and dance numbers! Things blowing up! Transvestites!”
Madness. It was definitely madness, Victoria thought. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stand on my textbooks,” she told Jolene.
“Would you rather I stood on your desk?” Jolene demanded, leaping off the stack of hardcover tomes like a crazy monkey and sending Victoria’s pristine edition of Gray’s Anatomy flying to the ground with a thud.
“No, I would rather you went away and never came back,” said Victoria, but Jolene was already pulling a crumpled storyboard from her fanny pack.
“What is this?” asked Victoria, peering critically at the title page.
“ESCAPE TO MARINA BAY SANDS,” read Jolene. “In which a calamity befalls the nation, and a group of intrepid survivors devise a way to escape.”
Victoria frowned. “How is that different from Sorry No Cure?”
“I’ll tell you how it’s different,” said Jolene, gesticulating wildly. “Think larger scale. Think CGI. Think alien robots. Think Sky Park launching off Marina Bay Sands like an escape shuttle to space.”
“Oh dear,” said Victoria faintly.
Somewhere in Singapore, Gayatri was probably already crying her eyes out.
----
For aegistheia: Electric Sheep (And Other Dreamscapes) Cyberpunk AU - sixty-five days after Scurry ends
Aiba is the only one who doesn’t make Nino feel more than slightly uncomfortable.
Nino still remembers Ohno from when he had come to do the readings and measurements with Toma all those years back. Ohno has forgotten all of that, though. Some days Nino catches Ohno looking at him like he’s the missing piece to some great puzzle. It disconcerts him somewhat.
Whenever Sakurai encounters Nino, on the other hand, he always appears as if he’s seen a ghost. He tries to mask that by attempting inane conversation about the weather, but even then there’s always something deeply uncomfortable in his voice. Nino tries not to resent him for that.
Matsumoto doesn’t speak to him much, and the handful of conversations they have had since the time Matsumoto visited Nino at his house have been almost painfully formal. It’s a bit of a pity, really, because Nino likes Matsumoto. He likes the way Matsumoto talks; respects his resourcefulness. He doesn’t understand why Matsumoto has rebuffed all his early attempts at conversation, but he supposes that every man has his secrets.
It’s Aiba he ends up conversing with, in the times when he’s not plugged in to the Space. Aiba doesn’t treat him like he’s the shadow of somebody else; an imperfect wraith come back to haunt the spaces of their ship. Aiba’s a pilot and so is Nino, and that’s all that matters.
“What was he like?” asks Nino one morning, when they’re en route to Aoyama and Aiba is done with configuring their course. Nino has been helping him keep track of the coordinates because even Aiba himself admits that he sometimes gets careless with them.
“Who?” asks Aiba absently, flipping the switch to run the routine engine checks.
“Other Nino.”
“Oh,” says Aiba. He seems stunned by this question.
“Sorry,” Nino says quickly, “I shouldn’t have asked-”
“He was like you, and not like you,” says someone else from the entrance of the cockpit. It is Matsumoto. His expression is unreadable. “He looked like you and talked like you.”
Nino expects that to be almost accusatory, but nothing about Matsumoto’s tone seems to suggest that. There is an element of regret, perhaps; an unspoken but you are not him.
In that moment Nino is struck by the sense of yearning in Matsumoto’s words that he has never noticed before. And for just a fraction of a second, Nino wonders what it would be like to have been that Nino. To have someone look like that when they were thinking about you.
“But that’s neither here nor there,” finishes Matsumoto, all business again. “Ninomiya-kun, Ohno’s ready with your leg.”
----
For laiqualaurelote: Office AU - Say anywhere a month down the road. Somebody gets promoted.
The first thing Aiba Masaki did, upon becoming Head of Design, was to throw an open-invitation party in celebration.
“It’s a promotion, not a windfall,” Sakurai informed him, but ever since the holographic cellphone had been announced they had all seen a significant hike in their salaries. Even Jun was smiling a lot more, now. Though that might have mostly been because Nino was currently on a business trip to Los Angeles.
“Everyone is welcome,” Aiba announced to Jun and Ohno, “and the theme is animals.”
“Masaki-kun,” said Jun wearily, “the theme of every party you’ve ever thrown since the age of ten has been animals.”
“Is that so?” asked Ohno, curious.
“No,” said Aiba. “There was definitely one year when it was Transvestites and Transformers.”
“...that was Toma’s party,” said Jun.
Ohno looked puzzled. “How do you dress like a transformer?”
“Well,” said Jun, “nobody was very sure, so most of us went in drag instead.”
“I went as a transformer,” said Aiba.
“You went as a grey cylinder with electric cables sticking out of your torso,” Jun told him.
“Actually,” said Ohno. “That’s a valid interpretation.”
“Well, Matsujun-kun arrived in a cocktail dress,” said Aiba. “And I have photos!”
----
For yuui1010: Interesting Times, anything
“Kuroki Meisa,” says Nino.
“No,” Jun replies.
“She likes guns and being badass,” Nino says, attempting his most persuasive voice. “I can’t think of anyone who could be more perfect.”
“Shimura Ken?” Ohno suggests, in a half-hearted effort to back Nino up.
“Noooo,” says Aiba, while in the background Jun buries his face in his hands.
“For the last time,” says Sho, “we do not need a villainous archnemesis.”
“But you’re superheroes-” Nino begins.
“We are Arashi,” says Jun. “With added powers. That’s all.”
They do not discuss it further, but anyone can tell from the look on Nino’s face that the matter is far from over.
“I don’t understand,” says Chinen into the walkie-talkie. “What am I supposed to be doing, exactly?”
“Uprooting that baby sapling,” says Nino. The way the static goes makes him sound as if he’s cackling a little bit.
“Ninomiya-san,” Yamada says, tentatively. “What exactly do you mean by ‘unleash the flamethrower’?”
“Yes,” adds Nakajima. “I’m really confused. Why are we wearing rubber boots?”
“Look,” snaps Nino, “do you want me to teach you how to get laid, or not?”
For forochel: J&XWMAZM - anything
“This movie will be a turning point in the history of Singaporean film,” pronounced Jolene, her eyes gleaming with something that was either excitement or madness.
With great care, Victoria affixed a blue post-it on the corner of the page she was reading before closing her medical textbook. Attempting to multi-task while conversing with Jolene was never a good plan. Gayatri’s last attempt had resulted in her being at the receiving end of Jolene’s Flying Ninja Bear Gorilla Attack. The nurses at the A&E ward had not been impressed.
“A turning point,” Victoria repeated.
“Yes, yes,” said Jolene, scrambling up onto the nearest elevated surface to maximise the effect of her Declamatory Voice. “There will be aliens! Satire! Political commentary! Song and dance numbers! Things blowing up! Transvestites!”
Madness. It was definitely madness, Victoria thought. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stand on my textbooks,” she told Jolene.
“Would you rather I stood on your desk?” Jolene demanded, leaping off the stack of hardcover tomes like a crazy monkey and sending Victoria’s pristine edition of Gray’s Anatomy flying to the ground with a thud.
“No, I would rather you went away and never came back,” said Victoria, but Jolene was already pulling a crumpled storyboard from her fanny pack.
“What is this?” asked Victoria, peering critically at the title page.
“ESCAPE TO MARINA BAY SANDS,” read Jolene. “In which a calamity befalls the nation, and a group of intrepid survivors devise a way to escape.”
Victoria frowned. “How is that different from Sorry No Cure?”
“I’ll tell you how it’s different,” said Jolene, gesticulating wildly. “Think larger scale. Think CGI. Think alien robots. Think Sky Park launching off Marina Bay Sands like an escape shuttle to space.”
“Oh dear,” said Victoria faintly.
Somewhere in Singapore, Gayatri was probably already crying her eyes out.
----
For aegistheia: Electric Sheep (And Other Dreamscapes) Cyberpunk AU - sixty-five days after Scurry ends
Aiba is the only one who doesn’t make Nino feel more than slightly uncomfortable.
Nino still remembers Ohno from when he had come to do the readings and measurements with Toma all those years back. Ohno has forgotten all of that, though. Some days Nino catches Ohno looking at him like he’s the missing piece to some great puzzle. It disconcerts him somewhat.
Whenever Sakurai encounters Nino, on the other hand, he always appears as if he’s seen a ghost. He tries to mask that by attempting inane conversation about the weather, but even then there’s always something deeply uncomfortable in his voice. Nino tries not to resent him for that.
Matsumoto doesn’t speak to him much, and the handful of conversations they have had since the time Matsumoto visited Nino at his house have been almost painfully formal. It’s a bit of a pity, really, because Nino likes Matsumoto. He likes the way Matsumoto talks; respects his resourcefulness. He doesn’t understand why Matsumoto has rebuffed all his early attempts at conversation, but he supposes that every man has his secrets.
It’s Aiba he ends up conversing with, in the times when he’s not plugged in to the Space. Aiba doesn’t treat him like he’s the shadow of somebody else; an imperfect wraith come back to haunt the spaces of their ship. Aiba’s a pilot and so is Nino, and that’s all that matters.
“What was he like?” asks Nino one morning, when they’re en route to Aoyama and Aiba is done with configuring their course. Nino has been helping him keep track of the coordinates because even Aiba himself admits that he sometimes gets careless with them.
“Who?” asks Aiba absently, flipping the switch to run the routine engine checks.
“Other Nino.”
“Oh,” says Aiba. He seems stunned by this question.
“Sorry,” Nino says quickly, “I shouldn’t have asked-”
“He was like you, and not like you,” says someone else from the entrance of the cockpit. It is Matsumoto. His expression is unreadable. “He looked like you and talked like you.”
Nino expects that to be almost accusatory, but nothing about Matsumoto’s tone seems to suggest that. There is an element of regret, perhaps; an unspoken but you are not him.
In that moment Nino is struck by the sense of yearning in Matsumoto’s words that he has never noticed before. And for just a fraction of a second, Nino wonders what it would be like to have been that Nino. To have someone look like that when they were thinking about you.
“But that’s neither here nor there,” finishes Matsumoto, all business again. “Ninomiya-kun, Ohno’s ready with your leg.”
----
For laiqualaurelote: Office AU - Say anywhere a month down the road. Somebody gets promoted.
The first thing Aiba Masaki did, upon becoming Head of Design, was to throw an open-invitation party in celebration.
“It’s a promotion, not a windfall,” Sakurai informed him, but ever since the holographic cellphone had been announced they had all seen a significant hike in their salaries. Even Jun was smiling a lot more, now. Though that might have mostly been because Nino was currently on a business trip to Los Angeles.
“Everyone is welcome,” Aiba announced to Jun and Ohno, “and the theme is animals.”
“Masaki-kun,” said Jun wearily, “the theme of every party you’ve ever thrown since the age of ten has been animals.”
“Is that so?” asked Ohno, curious.
“No,” said Aiba. “There was definitely one year when it was Transvestites and Transformers.”
“...that was Toma’s party,” said Jun.
Ohno looked puzzled. “How do you dress like a transformer?”
“Well,” said Jun, “nobody was very sure, so most of us went in drag instead.”
“I went as a transformer,” said Aiba.
“You went as a grey cylinder with electric cables sticking out of your torso,” Jun told him.
“Actually,” said Ohno. “That’s a valid interpretation.”
“Well, Matsujun-kun arrived in a cocktail dress,” said Aiba. “And I have photos!”
----
For yuui1010: Interesting Times, anything
“Kuroki Meisa,” says Nino.
“No,” Jun replies.
“She likes guns and being badass,” Nino says, attempting his most persuasive voice. “I can’t think of anyone who could be more perfect.”
“Shimura Ken?” Ohno suggests, in a half-hearted effort to back Nino up.
“Noooo,” says Aiba, while in the background Jun buries his face in his hands.
“For the last time,” says Sho, “we do not need a villainous archnemesis.”
“But you’re superheroes-” Nino begins.
“We are Arashi,” says Jun. “With added powers. That’s all.”
They do not discuss it further, but anyone can tell from the look on Nino’s face that the matter is far from over.
“I don’t understand,” says Chinen into the walkie-talkie. “What am I supposed to be doing, exactly?”
“Uprooting that baby sapling,” says Nino. The way the static goes makes him sound as if he’s cackling a little bit.
“Ninomiya-san,” Yamada says, tentatively. “What exactly do you mean by ‘unleash the flamethrower’?”
“Yes,” adds Nakajima. “I’m really confused. Why are we wearing rubber boots?”
“Look,” snaps Nino, “do you want me to teach you how to get laid, or not?”