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dragongoddess13 · 2 years ago

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It is 10:14 pm EST and there is a lot going on in my head so I’m going to ignore all of it and write a bunch of Drabbles. As always I will accept prompts but I will not promise to fill them in a timely manner.

XXX

The Truth Can Be Daring

Sasusaku, Past-Nejisaku

Little angst with happy ending.

XXX

“Truth or Dare Forehead.” Ino says, returning to her seat, her own dare complete. It’s Saturday night and like most Saturday nights, various members of their graduating class have found themselves gathered in the back room of the Watchfire Lounge, a bar establishment in the heart of Konoha’s nightlight district.

“Truth.” Sakura replies, stifling a yawn. It’s getting late and she’s considering calling it a night soon. As much as she loves these get togethers with her former classmates now comrades, she’s too used to early nights and even earlier mornings to be spending her nights drinking and staying up late with her friends, even as infrequent as it is these days.

Ino seems to consider it for a moment before a smirk darkens her alcohol dulled eyes. “Who was your first?”

Sakura squints at her. “First what?”

“Don’t play dumb Sakura, you know what I mean.”

Sakura sighs, mentally debating if she wants to answer or take the penalty.

The penalty if you refused a dare or to answer a truth was to take a shot of some gross mix of whatever alcohol is left in any of the bottles, all mixed together in a punchbowl and distributed between shot glasses, but given Sakura’s ability to sober herself up with a quick burn of her chakra, the penalty didn’t really hold the same weight for her. So far none of the dares or questions had warranted her refusal and while the penalty wasn’t that big a deal other than the nasty taste, she was kind of proud of herself for going head to head with Ino the entire night.

“Neji.” She eventually replies taking only mild comfort in the fact that team Gai is out on a mission and Neji isn’t here to bear any brunt of the ensuing embarrassment.

There’s a split second as her reply is processed before;

“I knew it!” Kiba explains shooting up from his place on the floor. He reaches over, shoving Shino’s shoulder. His movements are inhibited by the large amount of alcohol he’s already imbibed and every other word is slurred. “Didn’t I say it? I fucking called it!” He does a drunken little dance before falling back on the floor and promptly starting to snore.

“Huh.” Temari says, looking to her soon to be husband. “I would have thought it would have been you.”

Shikamaru looks horrified and Sakura might have been insulted if her own expression didn’t mirror his.

“No way.” They reply in unintentional unison.

“We would have driven each other nuts.” Shikamaru adds as Sakura nods in agreement.

“I honestly don’t know how you put up with him, but more power to you.” Sakura continues, this time to Shikamaru’s nods of agreement. They share a fist bump in solidarity.

“Neji?” Naruto questions, the syllable slow to leave his lips. Hinata, wrapped in his arms, her head leaning on his shoulder doesn’t react at all and closer inspection reveals the reason; she’s out cold.

Naruto grimaces, shooting a none too subtle look at Sasuke across the sitting area. Sakura catches it, but chooses to ignore it. She doesn’t want to think about him right now, or the feelings she’s been fighting for months.

“What’s that look for?” Ino asks, squinting at their future Hokage.

“Nothing.” Naruto replies, eyes a little glassy from his own night of drinking. “It’s just… Neji? Really?” He looks at Sakura skeptically. She simply shrugs.

“I think it makes sense honestly.” Ino replies. “Neji is smart, a lot nicer than he was when we were kids and a much better conversationalist if you know what he likes to talk about.”

“And he’s fit.” Temari adds abruptly, leaning into Shikamaru’s side.

“So fit.” Ino agrees.

Sakura steps out of the Watchlight Lounge and makes her way west toward her apartment, burning her chakra through her system to rid herself of the effects of the numerous drinks she’d imbibed.

Not long after her revelation everyone started trickling out one by one and in some cases two by two. She had waited long enough for Kiba to come to and stagger home before heading out herself.

As Sakura leaves the nightlight district, traversing into the more residential areas of the city, her mind wanders to the various reactions of her friends. She and Neji had decided after their first time together to continue seeing each other for a while longer. They were both under a lot of pressure, and had been through enough similar experiences in life to understand whatever either of them was going through at the time, but it hadn’t lasted long. As Sasuke and Naruto returned from their two year training mission outside the village with Jiraya and Kakashi and chaos and conflict piled up one incident after the other, they had found less and less time to blow off steam together and eventually jointly decided to end things for good.

Sakura didn’t regret her time with Neji, despite what most people thought of him, he could be rather sweet and kind and he never failed to listen when she needed to vent or she shared her concerns. Neji had been a friend and confidant when she felt like she couldn’t rely on anyone else and she would always appreciate him for that.

Sakura unlocks her apartment door and steps in, dropping her keys in the basket by the door and toeing off her shoes before walking further in. She doesn’t bother turning on a light, confident that she knows her living space well enough by now to traverse it in the dark.

She pulls off her sweater at the threshold of her bedroom, tossing it in the direction of the hamper as she turns for the bathroom. She doesn’t make it though, finding herself yanked back against a hard body. Years of training and experience is the only thing that stops her from lashing out at her attacker, even as his teeth sink into the junction of her neck and shoulder.

“Sasuke.” She breathes.

His grip on her tightens as his teeth release her, tongue soothing the love bite before he proceeds to suck a mark into the same place. His hands wander as he attends to her neck, trailing the lines of her abs, cupping her breasts through her bra and eventually digging into the dips of her hips.

When he pulls away, he turns her to face him and she looks up at him, tracing the outline of his face, highlighted by the moonlight through her window. He pulls her against him, kissing her until she’s a panting mess in his arms, his hands still moving to feel every inch of her.

Sasuke eventually lifts her off her feet, moving her to the bed where he spends several hours driving her mad, pushing her body to the limit of pleasure over and over and over again.

She wants to laugh as he collapses beside her sometime later, a sheen of sweat on his skin, his breathing slowly returning to normal. He’s so predictable, she thinks, mirth coloring the emerald of her eyes. Sasuke Uchiha, like all Uchiha’s are an emotional sort. They can’t help it really, not with their greatest power influenced so much by their love.

They had agreed to keep whatever was happening between them a secret, though judging by the way Naruto looked at Sasuke earlier he had at least confided in his best friend. Which was fine, she had confided in Temari about him, too sure that Ino wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret for very long. But despite their agreement, Sakura had found the arrangement wearing on her lately. At first she had thought it was just a remnant of her childhood crush on her friend turned teammate, but the more she considered her feelings the more she realized that his insistence on keeping whatever this was a secret was proof that what they were doing was no more to him than what she had with Neji when they were teenagers.

That thought hurt more than she was comfortable admitting. Because no matter how much she had grown, no matter how much she had achieved, Sakura’s silly crush had never truly gone away. It may have gone dormant in his time away from the village, when he wasn’t there everyday to remind her of why she liked him so much, but several years later, she saw him near daily. Weekly dinners with the combined families of Uzumaki and Uchiha, training with their team, random lunches on her days off and even days when she was working in the lab. Was it any wonder she couldn’t let her feelings go.

But Sasuke didn’t share her feelings, how could he. No matter how much he respected her, no matter how much he cared about her as a friend and teammate, they could never really be together beyond this. He was Clan royalty and she was a nobody. A nameless Shinobi who worked hard enough to make it to the top of the class, to the top of her year, to the upper echelons of the village hierarchy. Her name only meant something because she put the work in and that was not the same as being born to a clan.

“Neji huh?” Sasuke’s voice pulls her from her thoughts and she tries not to laugh at the audible pout in his voice. Predictable indeed. She hums her response. “… that’s over for sure though, right?” He asks, words hesitantly whispered into the dark.

“Yes Sasuke-Kun, it ended not long after that whole thing with the Akatski and Suna.”

When he doesn’t immediately reply, she assumes the conversation is over and settles down to sleep, taking advantage of these few hours alone with him, knowing he’ll be gone by the time she wakes up.

Except… he’s not.

He’s still there in the morning, and she does her best not to think too much of it. But it’s hard not to, he’s never stayed the whole night before, sneaking back to the Uchiha district before anyone could realize he hadn’t slept in his own bed that night.

They share the shower, Sasuke taking full advantage of the shower seat and then they make breakfast together. She ends up walking him to the door, still in a daze of confusion and tamping down the nigglings of hope even as he kisses her goodbye at the threshold, door open for the whole world to see… well maybe just old lady Tsuma across the hall, but she’s every bit the gossip that Ino is so it might as well be the whole world.

Sakura goes about her day trying not to think about the morning, but by the time she’s leaving for the weekly family dinner, that bastard seed of hope has sprouted in her chest and she knows she’s absolutely fucked.

Mikoto wraps her up in a hug before passing her off to Kushina. She’s missed the last three dinners because of work and they make sure she knows how much they missed her. It doesn’t matter that she had tea with both of them at some point in the last three weeks. It's “Not the same as family dinner, Sakura.”

When they wave off her offers to help with dinner she retreats to the garden where everyone else has gathered. She’s greeted by everyone and she in turn greets them before taking a seat at the edge of the Engawa to look out over the garden as conversation resumes around her.

She’s studying Mikoto’s new flowerbeds when she feels someone slip into the place beside her. She turns her head to find Sasuke there and she smiles at him instinctively. He smiles back, bumping his shoulder against her’s gently, like he did when they were Genin and he thought she needed cheering up. Apparently she was doing a terrible job of hiding the turmoil in her mind.

“Glad you could make it this week. We missed you around here… I missed you.” He replies, voice low as he speaks. She tries not to think too much of the admission, but it's difficult not to when he’s leaning in to kiss her right here where everyone can see.

A throat clears behind them and she can feel the heat blooming on her cheeks as they turn to find everyone watching them, expressions in varying degrees of pleased or smug.

“Well it’s about damn time.” Shisui says, narrowly avoiding being hit by whatever Sasuke chucks at his head.

She’s almost positive her face is as red as her sweater.

#sasusaku #Sakura x sasuke #no massacre at #dragongoddess13

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v-thinks-on · 2 years ago

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“You’re right, Holmes, I believe I can make out some silhouettes against the blinds,” I whispered, pressing close to him against the cold, but still my voice cut through the quiet night. “What do you believe they’re doing?”

“Nothing of interest, I’m afraid,” Holmes replied, bent toward me so that his breath tickled against the nape of my neck. “It appears to be a game of cards.”

“How can you tell they’re playing cards?” I asked in astonishment. “A few individuals seated around a table, I can see, but how do you know they’re not eating?”

“As it is nearing midnight, it is an unlikely hour for dinner, so they must be occupying themselves in another way. The cards are mere conjecture, but given their station and positions, I expect I am right.”

“Marvellous,” I said and I could see his pleasure at the compliment, though he pressed his thin lips together in a reflexive attempt to stifle his smile.

“To the contrary, Watson, I fear their game of cards will provide us with little insight. If you would not object to staying out a few more hours, I believe we have a better chance of finding our answers with Lestrade and his men on the docks.”

I could but assent, and his eager, alert expression, like the hound put on the scent, was all the gratification I needed. My heartbeat accelerated in kind with the anticipation of what was to come and I had some impulse to press my lips to his, though that would hardly do on a public street, no matter how late or quiet.

He urged me on, still arm in arm, leading us down the winding streets, between flickering pools of orange gaslight, which threw stark shadows across the old stone and brick facades, like cobbled canyon walls. As we went, it became less stone and more brick as the mediaeval city gave way to a more modern one, and the dark shadows of ancient peaks, which we glimpsed between the rowhouses, faded into the distance.

Now, ahead, I could see the flickering watchlights of the industrial port, the billowing smoke stacks pouring out orange-lit smoke into the sky even at the latest hour. But even there, the echo of machinery and the endless grunt of labour only filtered out onto the hazy streets; what traffic there was passed quickly and then was gone.

At last we came to the docks which jutted out into the North Sea. I breathed deeply of the fresh, salty air.

“There,” Holmes whispered suddenly, drawing my eye to a handful of seafaring men, loitering on the dock, waiting for dawn. “If I am not mistaken, those are Lestrade’s men—and that is our dear Inspector Lestrade.”

We sauntered over to them like fellow idlers merely biding the time. The inspector tipped his hat to us and returned his attention to the officers’ game of cards. There was little else to do but wait.

#v writes #Sherlock Holmes #ACD Holmes #ACD Johnlock #H/W #John Watson #December Calendar Challenge of Awesomeness #prompt: card game

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nonsenseclothing1 · 3 years ago

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selkiescheherazade · 5 years ago

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watchlight

they say

that in days of old

if a watchlight was lit

people would come to your aid.

my hands feel like they aren’t a part of me anymore

and this night is just one of many

where i don’t know if one of my friends will be alive in the morning

because out of my 3 closest friends and i

i’m the only one who hasn’t had an eating disorder.

and every one of us has considered suicide

and there’s only one of us who’s never had scars cutting across their wrist.

i’m not an idiot.

i know that suicide rates for lgbtq teens are high

and that by the time i’m 18 one of my friends is almost certainly going to be dead

i hope it’s me, if we’re being honest here.

so many people depend on them all.

a chain reaction.

i’m an island.

if i fall, there’s nobody to drag down with me.

i know it probably won’t be me

i’m little miss perfect outside the world i’ve built.

but god, if someone has to go, it should be me.

i wish nobody was destined to die

that we all could be kids

because we are.

why does it have to be this way?

it does.

i should have stopped asking why a long time ago.

god, if only someone could throw me a watchlight

but there’s nobody to save us now.

who would the watchlight even bring?

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squidpro-quo · 6 years ago

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A/N: Here’s your gift for the @dcmkkaishinexchange @icarusdg! I tried to do some angst so I hope it turned out okay. After seeing the trailer for the new movie 23, I felt like Kaito was due for a banging up :P

With twelve hours left, Shinichi’s head is throbbing. The puzzle and intrigue of it is maddening and every thought that finds a clue or a track to go down inevitably ends up derailed. Twenty-four hours ago, when it all started with a simple calling card embossed with a black logo it had been a chance, a trail for them to follow at the very least and if he had anything to say about it he’d have given anything to be further along it than he was now. The seconds tick by, drumming against his mind, a reminder of how he’s getting nowhere. He wants it all to be over, the mystery solved and the one responsible in custody somewhere far away from him. Most of all, he wants Kaito back.

~*~

At eleven hours left, an officer steps into the precinct’s chaotic mess of a reception area and Shinichi immediately sees the way her eyes shift across the room to Inspector Nakamori. He tails the woman as she heads into the foray of bustling task force agents and perpetually ringing phones. The scowl on Nakamori’s face twitches up a notch when he sees Shinichi standing at his shoulder again, but the brief moment before he’s ordered back to the mandatory rest area affords him a look at what the officer brought. Another calling card, this time with a note scrawled in neat letters across the back: It’s time to pay the pipers.

~*~

Shinichi’s halfway across town when melodious bells chime throughout the city, leaving him with ten scant hours before the deed is to be done. He doesn’t bear thinking about the other deed, the one that might already be done, and whether he’ll be too late even if he beats time in the end. How much time has he wasted trying to think through the details of the case without knowing the full picture?

For now, he’ll have to settle for simply doing something. The streets are washed with neon lights half a block away from his destination while the entrance is flooded with flashing signs and the glitter of jewels on the visitors’ every limb. Shinichi adjusts his bowtie, sidestepping the attendant at the front with a haughty wave, and enters the Leaping Lord’s Casino.

It aches to see a place where Kaito would have loved to come. Certainly not for a traditional visit, losing at the tables or flushing money down the cards, but rather to put his tricks to use, put on a performance in the most dazzling place for a mile just to see what he could pull out of his sleeves. Instead, Shinichi sees his absence in every dealer’s flick of the wrist.

~*~

It’s a few minutes into the ninth hour when he manages to slip past the guards outside a gilded pair of double doors. Closing his watchface, he doesn’t flinch at the blade pressed to his neck by a slim girl of fifteen. The only reason he’s still alive is because the Lady is sitting forward in her mink fur coat and regarding him with shrewd jade green eyes while the smoke from her Sobranie drifts between her lips.

“What do you want, boy?”

“Information. On where the Pipers have their base.”

“And why would I ever bother to give you that?” The Lady leans back in her chair, face set in a manner of one who likes to watch the faces of those who gamble their lives.

“I will leave without saying a word of what you do.” Shinichi’s heart doesn’t hammer any faster knowing of the threat that sits in the Lady’s gaze, it’s already heavy with the absence of what he’s trying to find.

“Very well.” She knows he’s put his chips on a losing number anyway. Anything she’ll try to do to him later is an afterthought, all that matters to him is how much closer he is to finding Kaito now.

~*~

He checks his watch for the fiftieth time and watches as the precious minutes of his eighth hour dwindle away. Taking a taxi had been the fastest way here, but it had still been far too long a ride for his taste. The cold bricks of the Milkmaid warehouse scrape his arms as he climbs the side to peek in through the shattered pane of a window. Tarry blackness stares back.

The door creaks with his entrance, but there’s no one to hear it in between the rows of stacked crates and rubbish piles building in the corners.

~*~

Just as the first seconds of his seventh hour beat a cruel, relentless march, he finds it under a pile of rubble, the corner peaking out still as white as a swan’s wing. Marred by streaks of ugly dark brown bleeding along the hem, the rest of the cape is torn and dirty, but none of it matters when his fingers poke through ragged holes around its center.

It was the illusion, as it always was with Kaito, that ended up blinding him to what was going on behind the trick and the glamour. The heists had been for some purpose, he’d figured that out early on, but the real reason —the real threat— that drove Kaito to keep pulling everyone’s gaze with his dazzling white was only made known when he’d seen the flash of a muzzle and the familiar shadowy shapes that he knew dogged his own footsteps.

Death and blood didn’t fit onto Kaito’s stage and with it pushed to the wings, that was where it struck from instead.

~*~

His sixth hour feels like a fruitless wild goose chase. Calling in the police was the right move, he knows it though it’s hard to believe when watching the squads of officers filling the warehouse with bright lights and incoherent shouting. He thinks of the cape buried in the dumpster a few blocks away, heavy with secrets and blood.

He leaves, avoiding Nakamori’s haggard figure at the epicenter of the bustling. The thought of what he’s missing, what fragment he lacks that makes the puzzle whole, drives him to keep moving, keeping still only makes him sink down. He’s solved so many cases before with a clear head and a sharp mind, but this one brings with it a cloudy haste that blankets his every action and idea.

~*~

The fifth hour rings out unexpectedly as he crosses the street, the tolling reverberating down from above him. He doesn’t know how or why he ended up here, but the rush of memories is a bittersweet tide as he tilts his head back to look at the clocktower. It had been a lot of firsts, the first time he’d seen KID, challenged him, crossed him, and, he knows it began then, admired him. It was the start of coming to see what Kaito did, really did, and why, because as much frustration and awe as he produced in everyone watching, because you couldn’t watch without being pulled into the energy of it all, there was always more to see behind every trick and smile.

Shinichi stands frozen on the sidewalk in the dead streets in the ethereal hour before dawn, considering the past, both distant and recent. All the events of the last day run through his mind again in disjointed fragments held together with barely a thread. He’d started spiraling as soon as he discovered Kaito gone and it has been pulling him apart ever since.

If he wants to find him, he needs to do his job.

Setting a faint hunch as his destination, Shinichi steps off the curb and starts to think. There had been small explosions set off in the subway stations of the outskirts of the city for the past few weeks. They had all been classified as the work of pipe bombs; each site was littered with small charred pieces of confetti: the remains of wrapping paper.

There were plenty of places to set the bomb that the Pipers had heralded as the finale the night before, but how would they decide where to put it?

Hit by a thought, Shinichi starts to run.

~*~

At the last minute of his fourth hour, he looks up to see the black shapes of the morning’s first birds circling in the sky above. The streets start to fill, commuters appearing from every apartment building and side alley in a growing rush towards the station entrance ahead.

~*~

The third hour’s first minute sees him come close to tripping down the steps of the colloquially known ‘French Hen’ Station, so named for the comically puffed up bird statue that sits atop the gate leading down. It’s a struggle to reach the platform without bowling anyone over, but as soon as he climbs down into the tunnel he shuts out any shouts of warning and delves into the dark.

A train speeds by after ten minutes, shrieking over the rails in dizzying flashes of light too close for comfort. It becomes a pattern, searching the enclosing darkness for any signs and waiting for the cold wind that blows as warning. It’s not long before the blackness reaching in on every side starts to swim before his eyes, playing with the shapes of things and creeping behind him. He doesn’t notice as he looks over his shoulder for the fifth time, but he rubs the bridge of his nose to ease the headache spreading behind his temples. He spent the entire time running from place to place, thinking he’d thought of something that would bring Kaito back but what he’s gained for his efforts is simply desperation and a sleepless night.

~*~

He walks into yet another sharp wire, feels the prick of it against his ankle, and moves to step over it without glancing down.

It pricks him again, this time on the other ankle, and lets out a soft coo. The meager beam of his watchlight falls on two pairs of beady black eyes, watching him with heads tilted and feathers fluffed.

Seeing his stillness, the two doves take flight in a rustle of wings and dive into a dark alcove set back from the track. Shinichi stumbles after them heedless of the gravel sliding under his feet as long as he can keep the birds in sight.

It’s soft cursing he hears first. The huddled shape that materializes out of the darkness is what finally makes Shinichi’s knees give out, dropping to Kaito’s side with hands already pulling him forward. Something hard shifts between them, poking into his shoulder.

“Shinichi, I’m great at many things but diffusing a bomb is not one of them.” Kaito buries his nose in Shinichi’s hair, letting out a ragged breath. “Not to mention two of them.”

“I know some people who can help,” Shinichi admits, not letting go until he’s run his hand along Kaito’s back. “You weren’t shot?” The thought alleviates a worry.

“They did their best, but only scored with more… short-range options.”

Shinichi finally pulls back, looking at Kaito’s haggard, if smiling face, and takes in the bruise blooming along his temple underneath the fringe of his hair. The vest he’s wearing is flashing red, the silent countdown inching lower and lower.

Shinichi doesn’t let go of Kaito until they’re safely above ground, policemen thronging the scene for the third time that day. Kaito’s doves nest on their shoulders, slumbering in the blanket covering them both. Their last hour never came, leaving them with all the time in the world instead.

#dcmkkaishinexchange #kaishin #dcmk #kaito kid #Kuroba Kaito #shinichi kudo #My writing #icarusdg #magic kaito #detective conan

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