Behold the deviance

back from the dead

2005-12-30T07:44:41Z

At the moment, mine is a miserable existence. But, somehow, fanfiction (both writing it and reading it) makes it a little better . . .

Title: Water Soothe Stone

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. If he did, I wouldn't need to write fanfiction about him.

Rating: PG-13 for implied naughtiness

It was startling, to say the least, and as unexpected as a streak of lightning ripping across a cloudless gray sky. One moment they were fighting with all they had, play turned into fury, the next—oh, the next.

Sasuke leapt away, graceless in his bewilderment, and skidded to a stop. Digging his dirty nails into the concrete, Sasuke hid behind a fall of hair and did not dare to look at the panting, prone Naruto. It skittered through him still, flickering golden and crazy through his stomach like renegade chakra.

He shuddered and shook, tossed his dark head and writhed, trying to exorcise the thing that now sat in his stomach like a hot coal, waiting to be lit.

It refused to be moved.

He lifted a shaking hand to wipe away the sweat stinging its way into his eyes. After taking a few more deep breaths, Sasuke decided that perhaps it would not be safe to continue. At the moment, he was not sure if it was even safe to stand up.

There was a groan, then scrapings and rustlings with many pauses in between as Naruto slowly forced himself into a sitting position.

No. No. Stay down, for once. Just this once. Please.

“Izzat something that snake-pervert taught you, huh? Bastard? You think you can distract me with something like that? Huh?”

More scrapings as Naruto dragged himself to his feet, grunting. Sasuke prepared to flee—but there was a rush of air and an impression of glorious, golden fury,

So fast, dead last. When did you get so fast?

and Sasuke found himself slammed against the unforgiving metal leg of the water tower. And before he could even register the pain, Naruto was there, whispering hot into his ear: “Oh, no, you don’t, you bastard. You don’t get to run away this time.”

And it was exactly like when Orochimaru’s infection had first began to spread across his body. The coal in his stomach flared, but the flames did not dance with hesitation this time. They seeped and dripped like melted chocolate, like honey, like an assured hand stroking with slow deliberation down his legs, weakening them, and up into his throat, closing it. He clutched at the dark material of Naruto’s jacket, trying to somehow throw him away, but his fingers only trembled and stroked at Naruto minutely.

“This time, you finish what you started.”

Sasuke wanted to rage at Naruto, claw his throat out, scream at him How can I? When I’ve only just discovered what it was that I started?

Because, really, how could he be expected to do anything right now? When the slow, knowing flames had robbed his legs and his hands of their strength, and the voice from his throat? When the electric brother of those flames still chittered across his loins, making him jerk and shudder and moan silently against Naruto’s neck?

Sasuke looked up then, certain that the hurt of his epiphany was written all across his face, and felt frozen and speared and revealed by the cloudless blue eyes so close to his own. Frozen by the self-same hurt that was reflected there. Reflected, and yet—and yet Sasuke could see that it was a hurt that had been refined and smoothed by time, like a brittle stone whose edges have been made acceptable by years and years of water flowing over it.

The fury seemed to melt from Naruto, and Sasuke understood that he was understood.

“You finish what you started all those years ago.”

Fourth time's the charm?

2005-03-14T16:44:44Z

*glances around warily, looking for possible LJ error-mongers.

Ok, so now the FOURTH time I've tried to post this story. Well, much of that was my fault (not editing the story before I tried posting it, cuz it was so horrible I had to delete the entry and start over; my incompetence with making proper lj-cuts; my inability to write html code--this would have saved me the effort of deleting this entry three times and reposting this story.) Argh, I really loathe my lack of computer skills sometimes.

BUT TA-DA! Here it is! An original story!!!

P.S. I was going for surrealism in this story, kinda Dali-esque. Success? No? Lemme know :-)

Nathan found her in the garbage can next to the kitchen counter. She seemed only a play of light at first, nestled as she was between saran wrap and crumpled soda cans. But he took a chance and pulled her out, vaguely horrified by how the accordion pleats of her body unfolded into five and a half feet of pale, dank flesh. Trash scattered to the floor as he snatched his hand away, leaving her to flop to the floor like a wet rag.

“What the—Who the hell are you and what were you doing in my trash can?” Nathan wiped at his hand with a soapy dishcloth, trying to clean off the filmy residue she’d left behind. He succeeded only in replacing girl-slime for soap-slime.

The girl-shaped thing on the floor writhed around for a bit until she finally succeeded in propping herself up against the dishwasher. “Don’t you remember? You put me there.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I think I’d remember throwing a girl away.”

The girl-thing smiled. It looked bitter, like old coffee. “Would you, really?” Her smile had edges that cut at his eyes. “Well, anyway, I’m not a girl. I’m a nymph. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“Something to do with what?” Nathan’s mind still snagged on her comment that he himself had placed her in the garbage can. He found it impossibly rude how she gave him no opportunity to resolve that ambiguity in their conversation before introducing even more unsettling ambiguities. “With why you were in my trash can?”

“No. With you not remembering that you put me there.”

Nathan held up a hand, winning himself several moments to mentally work through the situation. He sometimes found it necessary to do this when dealing with deluded individuals. It was often difficult to immediately acclimate himself to the reality they lived in.

“All right. I need you to answer some questions for me. Let’s set my first question aside for the moment. Is that okay?” A respectful manner was best for any situation, but particularly with mentally unstable individuals. “Okay. Have we met before today?”

“I’ve seen you many times, but you’ve never met me.”

“I see. Well, then, what is your name?”

The nymph idly trailed a hand up her naked torso. “Mortal, your questions disappoint me. We could be engaged in far more interesting activities.”

Nathan watched the traveling hand for a moment. The flesh it caressed was—he remembered—slippery with viscous fluid and redolent of fetid water. Altogether about as attractive as leeches. And yet—Nathan shook his head, disgusted by his id. None of the images flitting through his head would improve the current situation. And currently, it was rapidly becoming clear that answering a logically ordered set of questions was outside the scope of this—thing’s—intellectual capabilities. And yet—his eyes strayed back to her busy hand. “What--what activities might those be?”

The nymph beamed a gratified smile at him. “Finally, a question you need to know the answer to. Just look out your window. Then tell me what we might be doing.”

* * * * *

The silence came in endless waves. Within the space of an hour, it had become a tangible entity. An ocean that worked at him like erosion, smoothing down his hopes of finding anyone. Fading him. Breaking him with a vague comprehension of its omniscience.

And with each inexorable wave that pushed at him, it felt just a little bit less necessary to stand up straight, a little less important to button that top button, or to even button anything at all.

* * * * *

Nathan stumbled and nearly fell for the fourth time since leaving the house.

“Dammit, can’t you walk?” It wasn’t that the nymph was heavy, per say, but she just kept lurching wildly from one side to the other from her position on his back at each step he took. It was like she had no skeletal system inside of her.

“I’m a water nymph. These legs are merely decorative.” Nathan supposed there was some validity to this. The nymph’s legs had about as much muscle tone as jellyfish tentacles. “We didn’t have to leave the house. Everyone’s gone.”

“No. Maybe—maybe everyone’s just inside. Sleeping or something. Maybe it’s a national holiday or something.”

The nymph was silent for a long while. Nathan readjusted his grip on her water-balloon legs and continued to trudge down the middle of the empty highway. It began to drizzle.

“Then again, it’s probably good that we’re leaving behind anything that might remind you of who you’re supposed to be.”

* * * * *

He felt her nuzzle the back of his head. His stomach roiled at the thought of the trail of goop she was most likely leaving behind. “Stop that.”

“Why don’t you just let go? I’m here now, just like I’m supposed to be. Just like you asked.”

A knot of pain made its presence known in his right temple. “What are you talking about?”

The nymph sighed. “Tell me about your ideal woman.”

The knot of pain decided to procreate and spawn thousands of little baby knots. “My ideal woman.” He felt the nymph nuzzle into the nape of his neck. “My—ah—my ideal woman is someone who is intelligent, funny, beautiful. Someone who can cook. Someone who appreciates sports. Independent. I hate clingy women.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying. I really don’t like clingy women.”

“No. About what your ideal woman is like.”

Nathan hesitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.”

Nathan felt something unwind, just a little, deep inside of him. He shivered.

“I—No, I don’t know what you mean.”

“We won’t be able to begin until you can say it out loud.”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Nathan gasped as the nymph jabbed bony fingers into his unflexed stomach.

“I want you to tell the truth,” she hissed into his ear. “I want you to tell me how your dreams play out at night. I want you to do the things you’d do if there were no eyes to watch you.” She jabbed at him again.

“Ow! Jesus! Fine! I want a woman who—I want a slut, okay? I want a slut who gives great head and is wet and ready for me whenever I want to fuck, okay? You happy?”

Air puffed with rapid tempo into his ear with each ragged breath the nymph took. Nathan felt her legs clench tighter around his waist. “No. That’s only a little bit of what you want. Any whore could give that to you. That’s not why I’m here. There’s a reason why I’m here.” She bit at his shoulder. “Tell me. Tell me why I’m here.”

Something unwound faster inside him. Like gauze bandages being unraveled. Nathan staggered, caught himself and propped himself up against the highway median. It was the silence. The silence was making him say these things, for silence possesses a quality that compels speech. Wild speech. Regrettable speech.

“I—oh, God!—I want a woman I can hurt. I want a woman who’ll like it. I want a woman who likes being choked. I want her to die. I want to be able to kill her again and again.” His legs could no longer hold him. “Oh, God! I want a woman who can handle me.”

“Yessss.”

“I want—“ He swore. He was unbelievably hard. The nymph sloughed like water off his back and trickled around until her head was on his lap. She blinked up at him with dull silvery eyes.

“Yes. That’s why I’m here. Because you want me so badly.”

Nathan curled his lip. One look at the nymph’s cadaverous body was enough to squelch the excitement that had gripped him a moment ago.

“I don’t want you. You’re disgusting.” He sneered. “Besides, you’re a nymph. A mythical creature. You’re not real.”

“That’s right. I’m a non-entity. That’s precisely what you asked for.”

Unable to stand the sight of the nymph’s eyes a second longer, Nathan grabbed a fistful of her hair and threw her head off his lap. She lay where she landed, with her top and bottom halves twisted into opposite directions, like a pretzel. “Quit saying stuff like that. I didn’t ask for you.”

“Fine, then. I asked for you.”

“Why? Why me?”

“Do you think that human morals are independent of God and society?”

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

The nymph twisted her neck until she was looking directly at Nathan. He shuddered when he saw that his earlier assumptions about her lack of a skeletal structure were correct. “Do you think you are a good person?”

“Y—yeah.”

“You’re not.”

Nathan bristled. “Who are you to judge me?”

“I’m not here to judge you. In fact, no one is here to judge you. And I’m telling you that you’ll soon find that you are not, and never were, a good person. And that’s why I chose you.”

He couldn’t speak. The insult she’d just dealt him was enormous. And yet he couldn’t argue, couldn’t defend himself. These last few hours, what had been unraveling? What lay beneath?

“Most humans possess a sense of morality that survives long after the eyes of man and God have been taken away. But you.” The nymph nearly thrummed with delight. “Once you let yourself realize that no one’s watching, we’ll be able to make each other very very happy.”

“No one’s . . .watching?” Nathan tried to focus on breathing. It was too much to take in. He needed to state the facts. “There’s no one left. Okay. There’s no one watching. Okay. You’re a non . . .entity.” Suddenly it wasn’t hard to breathe. Not at all. “You’re a non-entity.” Suddenly he was hard again. “I can—oh God, I can do anything I want with you, can’t I? Anything at all and no one would ever know?” he panted. His fingers dug into his thighs, every muscle in his arms and back taut.

Nathan gave a short, barking laugh. He was a man on the verge of a delicious and soaring climax. Happy in a way he’d never been before. He laughed again.

The nymph locked eyes with him. He felt nearly seared by the phosphorescent intensity of her joy. “Yes. Exactly. Now. What would you like to do with me?”

swan lake re-told

2005-02-27T09:10:16Z

For all you shounen-ai/yaoi fans out there: Holla!

I was inspired to write this short story after watching a version of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" ballet that was choreographed by Matthew Bourne where male dancers were cast as the swans, though it's traditionally a female role. It was one of the most beautiful dance performances I've ever seen.

The gray of the snow-heralding sky complemented his weeping much better than the red velvet of his blankets, the Prince decided. Or so it had seemed to him in those first few minutes when a hurting heart clouds the sensible mind. But now he was wind-whipped and contrite, and thinking of meat pastries hot from the oven.

The Prince took a final step, legs shaking from fatigue, and collapsed. There would be no meat pastries for him if he could not find his way out of the high grasses. He looked around with tear-blurred gaze, hope sinking as swiftly as the sun. The vast emptiness of the marshland stretched on further than his young eyes could see. And soon he would be able to see only night.

The thought was enough to give him his legs again. Which way should he go? Which way had he already gone? As he hesitated, the last of the light died away. The Prince began to feel the full chill of a winter’s night as heat borrowed from exertion seeped out of his body. He knew that he must not remain still, but then again, moving might make him more lost than he already was.

Even without his being conscious of it, his legs had begun to move. The Prince kept his eyes fixed on the ground, afraid of what unfamiliar night-painted scene he might see if he lifted his head. On and on his feet walked, until an inhuman groan made the Prince snap his gaze up.

It was the unhappy sound made by water when it cannot flow anymore. He hardly recognized the lake that he used to come visit as a child. But then, the day had always been bright when he would come with his little leather satchel filled with sweet cakes and skipping stones. It had been easy to believe in happiness in those days, when it seemed that all of Nature gentled itself for his pleasure alone. None of this hissing, icy wind in that amber-hued memory of childhood springtime. No, nor any ugly ridges frozen on the lake’s surface where once diamond-tipped wavelets had rippled free. Had this brittle, stony scene once inspired laughter and thoughts of a loving God? There was no life here now.

The coldness of the scene before him bled the last of his warmth away. The Prince began to think that he might die here and be found the next morning, a crackling huddle of ice-encrusted flesh that the sun remembered too late. Tears slid out of his eyes, spinning themselves into solidity before they even reached his chin.

And then it began to seem as though his tears crystallized even within his eyes, for the world took on a new opacity. The Prince blinked and blinked, but the glass wall refused to shatter. The more he looked, the more the world began to shift and blur, until everything around him became as white shadows, or the silhouettes of smoke-fairies.

The scene of ice became a scene of mist. And from the mist seemed to rise seven strange shadows. They loomed at first, shapeless and horrifying. And for one long dreadful second, the Prince remembered the nightmare that had driven him out here in the first place. But as they drifted closer, the Prince could see through his new eyes that these were no monsters, but swans come to envelope him in feathered warmth.

And because the world kept shifting, it seemed at times that these were no swans, but men with long, pale arms that could be mistaken for wings. Their black eyes held a blank coldness that reminded the Prince of his mother, but their caresses warmed him in a way that hers never did.

They stroked him everywhere, his face, his chest, and one even pulled him close and breathed warmth onto his throat. The Prince arched and pressed his throat closer to the mouth until he felt the swan smile against his skin. He looked down into dark eyes and placed his cold hand on the swan’s fever-hot cheek. The paleness of its skin fascinated him, as did the black mark that ran down the length of its nose. The Prince traced it with a finger and tried to memorize its shape.

Cool lips pressed against his own, urging his mouth to open and receive the warm air that was being given to him. It seemed that the air passed straight into his blood, sparking it, traveling down to his fingers and toes, filling his whole body with orange warmth. The Prince moaned in gratitude, and lifted his head for another kiss.

But the Swan King drew back, as did his servants, in a confusing mass of pale flesh, black marks, and white feathers. They stilled for a moment, and listened to the warning footsteps that the wind carried to their ears. Lanterns glowed fuzzily in the misty distance, moving fast. The Prince’s rescuers would be there soon. </span>

The Swan King and the Prince looked at each other. Do you want to come with me? The Prince heard the voice as clearly as if the swan had spoken directly into his ear. He shivered, both from the hungry roughness of the voice and from thoughts of what it would mean to go with the Swan King. </span>

The rescuers were within shouting distance now. We must hurry, the Swan King whispered as he caressed the Prince’s rosy lips with his thumb. The Prince nodded and swept the tip of his tongue over the pad of the thumb. The swan’s dark eyes narrowed and suddenly the Prince found himself being held in a close embrace as they lifted off from the frozen earth.

And when the sharp-eyed rescuers reached the spot where the two had been, they lifted their hunting rifles up and took aim at the center of the mass of white, knowing that the Swan King would be there, protected by his servants. But they were all so paralyzed by the shock of seeing the Prince kissing his kidnapper that they missed the opportunity to shoot, and the swans flew away to safety.

jump start

2005-02-25T07:07:10Z

Thought I'd kick this off with a drabble I wrote recently to remind myself to write more. I just picked two random words and started writing. It's sad how sometimes I have to force myself to write.

Cinnamon . . .

In my mind is red: as deep and clear and far from blood as red can be. This is red I could swim in and be purified by. It is unashamed in its richness--the glimpses of amber are modestly muted.

I feel the teasing roar of cinnamon in my ears, burning on my tongue and in the scandalized hollows of my nose. It tastes like silk across my skin and coals beneath my feet. Wary, I hold my arms open, but do not step forward to embrace—I refuse to make myself vulnerable. And it is not even as though I’ve seen blood arcing across my field of vision in a slow-moving montage of liquid violence.

Long ago, I might have been seduced by this sleepy hue, but now I admire blue. Now I look for something to cool this fevered mind with the velvet weight of mist. To bring alive a banked soul with the sharp, eye-pricking brightness of aqua. I feel it already, rushing like needle-tipped waves through my startled nostrils. I see it already, cutting a menthol swath from nose to esophagus and into the dark, pulsing beyond.

I will soon be made of mint.

. . .and oranges

My mother taught me long ago a trick of rubbing orange peels against my wrist and in the shadowy hollow beneath my ears. I was fourteen at the time and enamored of antiquated things like feather quills and dresses with skirts an arms length wide. Using orange peels as perfume seemed so romantic, and it made me see my mother in a different light. When I asked her to teach me some other tricks, she told me about how she used to bathe in milk to soften her skin, or how she drank a spoonful of vinegar every day to make her bones more flexible.

Neither of those seemed like attractive options.

But the orange peels . . .something about the act of rubbing it against my wrist made me slow down. It made me feel graceful, and I would envision myself as a lovely Japanese woman in traditional garb who bathed in milk and pressed sakura petals to her lips.

I wanted so much for things to be like they were in “the old days”. I wanted candles instead of light bulbs, parchment instead of notebook paper, candied molasses instead of Starburst.

I guess what I really wanted—and still want, really—was a reason to slow down, to really touch things and focus on the sensations. And for some reason, I thought that in “the old days” people appreciated things more, felt more, lived more—I don’t know.

Of course now I’ve learned about how hard a life it really was, the daily worries that aged people before their time—and yet. And yet that little-girl part of my brain still insists on pining after that time period when I should really be making more an effort to be part of mine.

That’s why I try to stay away from things like orange peels and birch trees and gardens and koi ponds and willow trees and sunrises and sunny days and newborn kittens and fresh milk with chocolate chip cookies and all the thousand and one things that distract me from focusing on the things I ought to.