10 drabbles (4/10)
HEY Y'ALL. I haven't written anything fanfic in a while but I had some plots I wanted to give a chance to at some point of my fandom life, so I'll just dump them here. They're all inspired by songs I shuffled on iTunes, and with several different OTPs and genres. They're all unfinished drabbles, so they might not make any sense. SORRY!
1. Ed Sheeran / All of the Stars
Kili/Tauriel. Kili falls in love in Mirkwood.
2. Bastille / Remains
Jaejoong/Nana. Last vampires on Earth.
3. Ingrid Michaelson / Blood Brothers
Sunggyu/Myungsoo. War!AU. Myungsoo is dying.
4. Delta Rae / Dance in the Graveyards
Myungsoo/Suzy. Suzy meets a ghost at the graveyard next to her house.
5. We The Kings / The View From Here
Bellamy/Clarke. Bellamy is injured and they're away from camp.
6. Delta Rae / Bottom of the River
Jaejoong/Nana. Jaejoong doesn't believe in mermaid tales.
7. Taylor Swift / Safe & Sound
Myungsoo/Suzy. Post-apocalyptic, inspired by Nevil Shute's On the Beach.
8. Lana Del Rey / West Coast Lana Del Rey - Born To Die
Jaejoong/Jessica. She's a celeb in crisis, he's a subway singer.
9. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts / I Love Rock N'Roll
Myungsoo/Suzy. It's 1989. It's prom night. Suzy has a lousy date.
10. Nicki Minaj / Buy A Heart
Jaejoong/Jessica/Changmin. In a future dystopian world, Jessica tries to sell her heart.
#9: i love rock n'roll
I looked at myself in the mirror, analyzing. I’d tried (and didn’t really accomplish anything) crimping my hair. It looked like a sad mess on top of my head then, so far away from Cyndi Lauper’s style it was actually pitiful. A Dolly magazine sat in front of me, with the instructions I failed to follow, mocking. There wasn’t much time left - make a bun, put a bow, get it done with. I chose a shocking pink color to match my outfit, the bow as puffy as my dark hair. A soft sigh escaped my lips. That had to be it. I looked ok. Not rad, but ok. Sighs.
It was 1989 outside, everything smelled like summer, the last days of high school quickly approaching. It’ll be odd, I thought to myself as Blitzkrieg Bop started to play on the stereo, to end something like school. I hadn’t gotten any acceptance letters. I wanted to be a singer like Debbie Harry and there was absolutely no college that could teach me that. But in a family of lawyers and doctors, that decision was believed to be purely an act of rebel youth. I had been listening to a lot of punk rock for the past few months, anyway. The doorbell rang downstairs, and a minute later my mother’s raspy voice called out from the hallway. “Your date is here, Suzy.”
My date was Sungyeol, a friend-of-a-friend, a fellow Korean (my mother nodded in approvement). He had asked me to the prom a few weeks before. I said yes, even though it never crossed my mind to go with him - he looked less like The Clash and more like New Kids On The Block, yuck. I’ll just ditch him at some point of the night, I told my reflection, narrowing my eyes. No one else asked me anyway.
-
Sungyeol was wearing a light-blue shirt and pants, nothing too fancy. His hair was tossed all over his head much like mine, and we looked more like siblings than actually a pair (the thought of it terrifying, of course). At the crowded dancefloor set on our school’s gymnasium, he’d shake his skinny body slightly, a terrible dancer altogether, too tall, his limbs all over the place. I tried my best not to laugh at him, trying to follow Dolly’s 10-things-not-to-do-on-your-prom-night chart - however, much like the hair, I was already failing the Don’t Laugh At Your Sweetheart one.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked, noticing my utter lack of amusent at his captivating dancing skills (he wish).
“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged, looking around for a place to sit already.
“I’ll be back.”
I let out a relieved sigh once he was out of my sight, much for Dolly’s chart contempt. I ended up sitting on a lonesome, empty table at the corner of the gymnasium, so hidden I almost wished Sungyeol wouldn’t find his way back. Plus, they were playing Olivia Newton-John and there was no way I’d be dancing to Physical at all. Especially when half the school had a coreography for it. So I sat there and waited, waited, waited - until I spotted Sungyeol again. At that point five whole songs had passed us by (including Flashdance, thank you, Lord), and I could try to dance to something before that night was over (it was prom night, I mean!). But Sungyeol didn’t seem to have the same plans as me, since he was happily dancing with another girl on the other side of the dancefloor.
See, I wasn’t too heartbroken to be left by a date I didn’t care about, but it did hurt a little, and it was totally bogus. Like, gag me with a spoon kind of bogus. And he gave her my drink, too, apparently. She wasn’t even Korean!
“You don’t seem happy, Little Suzy,” a voice made me jump a little on my seat, but I already knew who it belonged to before I could see him. I had loathed Myungsoo for most part of my life, until we became unlikely friends around sixth grade, and then I realized my hatred was turning into on a huge, sad, horrifying crush. He was the only one to still call me Little Suzy, a nickname I’d gotten through elementary school and disliked as much as I dislike pickles on a cheeseburger (I was taller than most girls and boys my age - genetics, so gross). But Myungsoo still towered over me, with his pretty naive face and awkwardness, even then.
He wasn’t awkward anymore. He was bad.
Well, kinda. On the outside, at least.
“I was going to ditch Sungyeol, but it turns out he outsmarted me,” I replied, looking at Sungyeol flail his long arms all around the girl as a 70s hit played above us. Then I looked back at dateless Myungsoo (he was always solo at dances, said to be waiting for someone, totally weird), with his leather jacket and studded jeans. He was so The Clash. Even though I knew he’d go home after prom and play his Atari 2600’s joystick and ruin my entire Joe Strummer fantasy.
“He kinda outsmarts everyone,” Myungsoo smiled at Sungyeol’s dancing techniques.
“Not regarding his dance skills,” I laughed, but by then my former date had grabbed his newfound sweetheart by the hand and they had vanished beyond sight. A profoundly disturbing image of Sungyeol and new-girl doing the nasty crossed my mind for a bit, but I managed to lock away in my little box of irksome thoughts before I ended up barfing. At least one of us would end up doing something instead of sitting at a corner drinking stale soda all night. With Myungsoo.
Which, I realized, startled, I didn’t mind that much.
“What - are you saying you’re the better dancer?”
“No- no!” He was challenging me to dance, of course. In no time he was standing in front of me, offering me his hand. His ridiculously pretty hand.
“Come and dance with me, Little Suzy.”
I needed a sign. A sign that it was okay to dance to good-looking-but-slightly-lame-o-rama Myungsoo. I wanted to, but I knew I’d be stepping into dangerous lands - unrequited love is way worse than superficial crushes on boys. Yeah, sure, we sneaked out of Mad Max a couple of years ago to try some weed together. He made me sing the entire chorus of We Don’t Need Another Hero, too, while we were high to the max. And sometimes I’d walk down to his house and he’d play his guitar for me and sing Proud Mary. Myungsoo gave me his AC/DC discs, even the one autographed by Brian Johnson himself.
His hand was still there, for me to take.
It had always been there, since we became friends, actually.
You Shook Me All Night Long started to play, and that was clearly the sign I needed.
“I need to tell you something first,” I told him, holding his hand, while the song went she was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean, she was the best damn woman that I ever seen. “I like you. A lot.”
Myungsoo seemed surprised for a moment. Just a tiny, almost-nothing moment.
“Good. Because I feel the same.”
“Choice,” I laughed, body filling up with all the tingles in the world.
We might have kissed, but I ain’t no ditz to tell.
* bad and choice, in the 80s, meant something or someone cool (or so google told me) (haha)
#1: all of the stars
It was the sixth moon they passed in Mirkwood. It shone from between the grassy tree branches, pale and hiding, shy against the darkness in the woods. Kili enjoyed getting a glimpse of the outside, it filled his heart with unchanging hope. Yet, they were still in cages made of iron in elf lands. He could hear Ori’s soft voice as he sang the song of Durin’s Awakening somewhere down east. There lies his crown in water deep, till Durin wakes again from sleep.
“Tell me about Durin, dwarf.”
The she-elf had returned, Tauriel was her name, he knew, he heard the Prince-Elf say. She was possibly the most beautiful living being his eyes had gazed upon - and she was different, he thought. An elf, yes, as tall as one could be, rather snobbish. But different in a way he couldn’t yet fathom. She liked listening to stories of dwarves, to his stories, she was curious. Tauriel would look at him with seeing eyes, distant, but warm. And when she wasn’t watching him talk, he was watching her guard. She stood tall, unflinching in her military garb, her flame-like hair often floating all around her shoulders with a rush of warm wind, like melted fire. Tauriel watched, but not the prisioners. She watched the sky. The stars, she bathed in their soft light, as much as he did on the sun he much adored. Sometimes Kili imagined her walking in starlight, dressed in lights he didn’t know how to name. Elven names, beautiful names.
“Which one?” he smirked, looking up to her face.
“What do you mean?”
“Durin the Deathless, Durin II, though I don’t know anything about him, Durin III-”
“You speak too fast, dwarf.”
She looked remotely annoyed, but not enough to leave him. Kili rejoiced in her presence, his eyes shimmering with shameless joy. He smiled at her through the iron bars of his cell, his fingers close to hers, but not close enough to touch. Tauriel’s annoyed expression faded, gradually, as she stared in between the iron bars, searching, a small smile curling her lips. “Well - aren’t you going to tell me?”
-
When she left, later that night, leaving behind the faintest wooden smell, he closed his eyes and let out a depressed sigh. In all his life, seventy-seven years lived among his kin, he never once thought of elves. Or she-elves. His heartbeat never flickered like candle light upon seeing one, his breath never faltered, not once. He felt an uneasy grip on his chest, a terrifying fear that there was something inside his ribcage that did not belong there. Something was rooting there like a common ash tree, and it hurt.
Tauriel was impossible. Her life was evergreen, a blur in time, constant and certain. Her body would be preserved for a thousand years more than his, her beauty relentless against the blistering effects of time. Kili, on the other hand, would age. Age and grow and rot and die, whether in battle or as an old dwarf, probably with a long beard and a nice, fat belly (which a dwarf-woman would approve, of course). Time would twist his face, would color his hair white, would take away his health. But Tauriel spoke of memories and pureness and lights, her voice was like singing, and her eyes reflected the constellations she most loved.
He clenched his runestone in his hands and tried to sleep.
-
“Would you like to see the world?”
The inquire surprised her. It was the thirteenth moon in Mirkwood, being held by Thranduil. Most of the silvan elves had already forgotten about their existence, returning to their arts and crafts and singing, glorifying their starlight, enjoying their immortality. The dwarves were obviously left to rot. Tauriel kept coming back, sitting close to the iron bars, confiding secrets into the air, her words filling his body with fluttering; he kept on telling her stories, offering parts of himself to her everything. If Kili was certain of one thing, or maybe two, was that they were going to get out of Mirkwood - and that he wanted nothing more than to take Tauriel with him. He wanted to show her everything he told her, the firemoon, the frozen rivers around Erebor, or the dusk at the Iron Hills.
Tauriel looked at him differently this time. There were so many feelings revolving inside her pupils, violet and gray. It was beautiful.
“I can’t leave Mirkwood,” she stated, though, the look on her face disguised by a sudden rigid, detached expression. "You can't leave Mirkwood."
“You can,” he whispered. “We can. You can come with us. With me.”
Her gaze fell upon his token - the one he had showed her. She had held up against the light and read its word silently, failing to pronounce the syllables correctly. He taught her; innikh dê. Kili never told her what it meant, that word. She bit her lips, probably daring to think about life outside the forest, daring to turn against her King. He watched her with so much intensity she blushed, averting his eyes.
“I can’t go, Kili,” she finally said, voice very low and careful, and his heart cracked open. She said his name for the first time. It sounded beautiful on her lips. “And you won't leave while I'm on duty.” They smiled, hers playful, his broken. Tauriel whispered something else, then, close to his face, her breath brushing against his skin, like the shadow of a kiss. Êl síla erin lû e-govaned vîn, Kili.
* Êl síla erin lû e-govaned vîn means “a star shines over the time of our meeting”, it’s a greeting in Sindarin.
#7: safe & sound
The world didn’t end suddenly, with light and fire and painless glory. The world was slowly consumed by darkness instead, darkness thick as oil, feeding on everything it could touch. Continents sank into its mouth, dragged down to the pits of hell in silent, self-imposed death. Suzy couldn’t see it yet - the darkness - but she could feel it in her lungs, the air around her poisoned with radiation. There was no use wearing a mask anymore.
She stood idly on a devastated shore a few miles away from Seoul, stepping on pieces of other people’s lives. Death had left a foul smell on the beach, putrid and raw. Death had stripped the lands bare. It had been two months since the last bomb. The war is over, they said, the living, with pointless cheerful smiles, a lingering hope that darkness wouldn’t eat them alive. The United States no longer existed. Half of Europe was gone. The Middle East could easily be a burnt hole in the middle of a world map. There were no more communications, no more power, no more governments - only words whispered through the apocalypse, and the last remains of humanity. All hopeful, hungry, scared, scared, scared -
“Are you scared?”
The voice belonged to Myungsoo. They had been friends before the war started. He was a little taller, a little clumsier, his cheeks burnt from the blistering ultraviolet, his lips dry from thirst. He stood next to her, protecting his eyes from the severe wind. The ocean lied dark in front of them, heavy with corpses, toxic and cruel. They made an odd pair, Suzy and Myungsoo. They wandered alone, alone together, and waited, waited, waited. There was no one else anymore, only on the other side. Those people waited, too.
“I’m not scared,” she said, voice weak. “Let’s go. It’s almost time.”
Myungsoo nodded and they walked steadily to one of the few constructions that still had its walls standing. There was no more roof, and half of the second floor was gone. A tacky-looking sofa looked out of place in the middle of all that destruction. They sat together, Suzy took off her shoes, pulling her legs up. In front of them there was a window, and then the ocean, some feet away. The harsh wind came to a stop. It was coming. The walls around them were barely any protection. Anything was barely any protection. Darkness was going to swallow them, like lava from a volcano, scorching hot, and debris and skin and hair and fabric - everything would burn. Myungsoo threw up at their feet, suddenly. Suzy let herself touch his back. He was crying.
“I’m scared,” he whispered, then, softly, eyes looking down at his feet.
I’m scared too, she thought, looking at the horizon. The sun, shimmery and tangerine gold, leaving beyond reach. Their last sunset. She admired the beauty of it, trying not to blink, eyes burning. “Look at the sun,” she told him, voice brave, courageous, dripping with sadness. “Look at the sun, Myungsoo, quick!”
He did, and he didn’t see the sun. He missed it. The darkness had eaten it already, dragging the star away from their eyes. The black cloud was silent, everything was silent, the air smelled of coal and despair. Suzy searched for Myungsoo’s hand. They held each other with sweaty palms and empty souls. And then a strange, comforting wave of peacefulness hit her body. She watched the horizon, head resting on Myungsoo’s shoulder, through a broken window on a house without a roof. On the horizon, the radioactive cloud burned in bright shades of violet. It looked like magic.
“Can you sing for me?” Myungsoo asked, his breath slow, his body calm. His dark eyes reflected the insiduous sky, and Suzy thought they looked like galaxies.
“Close your eyes,” she said, and he did so.
Suzy started to sing.
#8: born to die
3a.m. The next train should be here in fifteen minutes.
I take a few deep breaths, reassuring myself that I won’t feel any pain. It’ll be quick. It might even make it to the morning news.
It’s cold in Los Angeles, for some unearthly reason. Mid-April, it should be warming up already.
I should’ve brought another jacket.
Nevermind, now.
There’s a stale smell underground, and it’s dirtier than I’d remembered. Last time I’ve been in the subway was for a photoshoot, roughly ten years ago. I drive a Range Rover, I don’t need the trains. I just - I just need them now, to be sure. Everybody’s dying of overdose these days, I need to be certain I’ll make the headlines. I hope pictures are taken, ugly ones. Like the ones they took of them.
I light a cigarette. I didn’t brush my teeth earlier. I haven’t eaten for a whole day.
Little rebel acts, little rebel acts. I could devour an entire cake right now, with my shaking hands.
I don’t know why they’re shaking so much.
I sit down, legs hovering the deathly rails.
I’m tired.
“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas-” the singing tune dies out as the voice probably sees me sitting there. Fucker, fucker, fucker, I curse between my teeth. I should be alone for this. I can’t wait another thirty minutes for another train. I need to go. “You know it’s not safe to sit there, right?”
“It’s none of your business,” I look over my shoulder, but I don’t see the hobo I’m expecting. I see a young man, sure, he could be better dressed perhaps, and his guitar case looks like it’s falling apart already, and he’s got eerie eyes, he’s odd. I throw a hundred dollar bill at him from where I’m standing. It sits idly between us. He doesn’t move. “Leave.”
He walks lazily towards the bill, analyzing my face. I don’t like the way he stares, so I just turn my eyes back to the rails. To the grave. I hear his footsteps all behind me until it’s silent again - but then he’s right there, sitting next to me. He offers me the money back, I don’t take it. He leaves it on the ground. “So - I’m Jaejoong.”
“I really don’t care,” I reply. Jaejoong scoffs, shaking his head. His hair is all shades of gold, except for his roots - those are black, just like his eyes. He lights a cigarette himself, an unknown brand, probably the cheapest one he could find.
I blow smoke through my nose, pretending for a moment to be a dragon, burning his presence away.
My fantasy lasts a second, maybe less. He breathes, it’s a reminder he’s there.
“They’ll frame you if you stay,” I say casually, voice starting to get hoarse from smoking and the ghostly chill that has fallen over the city. “They’ll say you pushed me.”
“I didn’t know you were going to jump, that’s new information for me,” he smiles and it’s not the sarcastic smile I expected, but a rather softhearted, nice smile. Ridiculous. “But by all means, I can just leave when you’re ready.”
3:07a.m. We sit there in silence. Jaejoong breathes, and his breathing annoys me. He’ll breathe and breathe and breathe and I’ll be put together by funeral artists and they’ll make my face look pretty enough for one last photograph and Jaejoong will be somewhere breathing. He’ll see my face on the news and he’ll see me then, fuck, why doesn’t he recognizes me now?
I’m still here.
I’m still A-listed, aren’t I? No?
I’m still-
“I’m Jessica,” I say then, my own name bursting out of my throat, starving for that glimpse of spotlight. It’s a disease, really. It’s filthy. “Jessica.”
“Ah-,” he looks at me for some time, with such intensity it’s like he’s trying to remember every inch of my face for a future drawing. He’s not, though. That’s just sheer recognition. It’s beautiful, really, to me. “Ah. You’re that Jessica.”
Soft wave of relief. I’m still it.
“Car accident Jessica,” he continues, shattering the glistening relief zone I had been in a second ago.
Yes. That’s right. I killed people. I killed my friends.
I wasn’t drunk like they say. I was just - just too tired.
Maybe tired of life, I don’t know.
I fell asleep.
I don’t say any of those things.
That’s weakness.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I throw my cigarette butt on the rails I’ll meet soon and watch them sparkle away, wishing the train would take me right then. Be tough. Look up. Don’t let the haters grind you down. Those were my manager’s words after the accident, shallow, empty, desperate. I broke three ribs and injured my face so badly I couldn’t go out for months. And then the guilt came, and the paparazzi and the she had a fight with her friends not even a week before the accident, she knew they didn’t have their seatbelts on, Jessica should just kill herself, it’s the end of her career anyway.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jaejoong nods, and I’m surprised to realize I believe him. His voice comes out bearing raw honesty and it scares me. I’m mostly surrounded by liars, by secrets - honesty, that’s so weird. It makes me want to cry. “You shouldn’t blame it on yourself.”
I stare at him, in bewilderment.
It’s 3:11a.m when I start to cry.
Jaejoong smiles and awkwardly pats my shoulder, careful for his touch not to linger, and he has dirty nails.
I’m still staring at him, staring and crying.
It wasn’t my fault.
It wasn't.
It wasn't.
It wasn't-
“Thank you,” I try my best to smile, it comes out ugly. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Jaejoong stands up, then, stretching his arms.
“Good luck,” he says, and I look up at him. Suddenly I’m so scared I can’t breathe. He's leaving.
The air shifts around us and I hear him shuffle around. The train is coming.
A loud thump takes my breath away for a moment, I even shut my eyes, but it’s only Jaejoong behind me.
His guitar bag - that absolutely wretched thing - had actually decided to collapse. I can say I saw it coming from the moment he walked in the subway station. He looks at me with apologetic eyes.
I get up to help him, stepping further away from the rails.
The train comes, its deafening metallic sounds hurting my ears.
I blink, amazed.
I’m still here.
It’s not until the train is gone that I find myself breathing again.
Jaejoong tugs on my jacket’s sleeve.
“Say, let’s get you a coffee,” he gives me a nice smile, nicer than the ones I can ever deliver.
“That-” I’m at loss of words. “The train.”
“Yeah, you’ve missed it. There’s another one at a quarter to four, if you want to catch it,” he carries his guitar on his back now, while the lopside case is under his arm. They keep clashing as he keeps talking. “I can wait with you again.”
“3:45,” I nod, breathing. I’m breathing, just like him. “Sure.”
“Sure,” Jaejoong smiles again, all teeth and goodness.
“Sure.”