tallulahgs

my true love sent to me

twelve traditions

[Title] Childhood Beliefs
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] From

lycoris, "Raito/Matsuda, eggshells"
[Notes/Summary] Some superstitions carry over from childhood.

Matsuda finishes the remnants of boiled egg and is automatically turning the empty shell upside down and stabbing the end of the spoon through it before he remembers he's not alone. Sure enough, Raito is watching him with an indulgent smile and saying, "You enjoy breaking things, then?"

"No, I just... it's just habit, you know? Like, when I was a kid my mum used to tell me to put a hole in the bottom of the shell so the witches couldn't use it as a boat..." Matsuda's voice trails off and he wonders why he doesn't just go and jump off the balcony right now. Raito Yagami came home with him last night and did things to him Matsuda feels dizzy remembering and is now sitting at his kitchen table, drinking his coffee, wearing his spare pyjamas and being told that one of the men who works with his father still believes in witches.

"It's just a childhood tradition!" he says, and hastily smashes the eggshell to pieces, the little shards crunching under his spoon. Raito leans across the table, puts a hand over his, amusement still in his face but not mean, you know? Because Raito could never be mean.

"It's okay," he says. "Hey... we spend all our time looking for someone who kills people with a magic notebook they got from a death god. We of all people should be better at believing things that sound ridiculous." His thumb caresses the back of Matsuda's hand, softly, carefully, and Matsuda swallows and almost drops the spoon. This is an actual romantic moment, something he can trot out to make single friends jealous, even if he might have to change the gender of the other person involved. He almost doesn't care that it involves him looking stupid. And so he manages to joke back, "Yeah, well... you sure you don't want to smash yours too?" Raito, of course, only smiles, and says, "It's a little late for me to start now. Maybe I will if I survive tracking down Kira." And Matsuda hangs his head and is all, "Oh yeah..." because they're supposed to be being serious, but Raito squeezes his hand and for that, Matsuda will happily look like the stupid one a million times over.

[Title] Irritations
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] From

lycoris, "Matsuda/Aizawa, hair-ruffling"
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda is curious.

Matsuda thinks Aizawa is still asleep, otherwise he would never have dared attempt this. But just as his fingers are about to make contact with the other man's hair, Aizawa shifts, rolls over, pulling the covers over his head, and growls, "Don't ruffle my hair."

Matsuda considers denying it, but Aizawa has a nasty habit of always being able to see through his lies, so he simply slumps back and says, "Why not? You've been sleeping on it anyway."

"Because I'm not a dog or something," Aizawa says. "Now for god's sake, are you going to lie around asking stupid questions or are you going to make coffee, it's too damn early to be awake without it."

Matsuda figures he should've remembered Aizawa is always grumpy (well, grumpier) in the mornings, but he's curious now, and so, when he's presented his colleague with a mug of coffee and let him take a few mouthfuls of it, he decides to risk it and he says, "So you don't let your wife do it either?"

A flicker of a glare over the rim of the coffee cup, but Aizawa only says, "She got away with it when we were in college. Now..."

"Now you don't have enough to make it worthwhile?"

"Shut up, Matsuda." Another gulp of coffee, and then, finally, "Now I rarely see her awake, and if she does it while I'm asleep, I really don't care. And don't get any ideas, all right? You do plenty of other things that piss me off, don't add this one to the list."

"I do plenty of things that don't piss you off, too," Matsuda says, and grins, and Aizawa must agree because he only mutters something and carries on drinking coffee.

[Title] Recordings
[Fandom] Battle Royale; AU in that Class B never entered the Program
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] Another one from

anbyrobanby's "people's lives, twenty years later"
[Notes/Summary] Noriko regularly catches up with old friends.

Noriko has evolved traditions for Thursday afternoons. After school finishes, she walks into town to do the weekly shopping, but, whether the pavement is warm under her sandals or she's constantly almost slipping on patches of ice, she starts by going to the cafe where Yoshitoki works.

It's nearly the end of the week, he said, the first time she stood at the counter staring at the array of beautiful cakes. You deserve something, right? He didn't sound joky when he said it, though. He sounded like he wanted her to be nice to herself. If his shift has just finished, he'll change back into street clothes and sit with her while she sips a cappucino and nibbles at one of the fruit confections with whipped cream. He always asks how her day's been. Any composing of resignation letters in your head today? And when she tells him no, or how this or that student she's mentioned before finally seemed to understand what the poem they're studying was trying to do or for once didn't interrupt with any filthy comments, he seems genuinely pleased for her.

I could never be a teacher, he said once. Sooner or later one of them would do something really despicable and I'd just - lose it.

They're only teenagers. We were that young once, remember?

Yoshitoki only shrugged. By this age, they're old enough to know how to be bastards. Besides, your lot will be old enough for the Program soon enough, won't they?

Noriko told him to stop, that she didn't want to talk about it. Yoshitoki had looked at her like she'd let him down, but he'd changed the subject, and they've never gone back to it.

She finishes her snack and moves on to the shops - Yoshitoki always says to her, sure you don't need a hand with all the bags this time, Nakagawa? and she laughs, One of the students would see us, and by tomorrow the whole class would know I'd eloped with you during the night. Or something equally joky.

After she's finished the shopping and returned home, she finds herself walking outside again and standing outside the children's home, with the sun setting behind it, or the lights warm in the windows against a chilly night. Shuuya always leans out of a window and waves to her and then calls down to her, you eaten yet? Because I can tell you, Ms Anno's cooking's surpassed itself this time, so you'll be missing out if not... Of course she always says yes. Why would she be here, otherwise? (Not just to try and spot the ghosts of herself and Shuuya and Yoshitoki and Mimura, that summer of seventh grade, sprawling around in the dried-out garden.) The building has changed by now, of course - new paint job, new furniture, window frames replaced, climbing frame long-gone - but underneath it all it's still made of her memories. She and Shuuya sit and eat and talk; Shuuya likes hearing about school too, about kids making good, about the ones he knows having life work out for them. And of course he's always got his battered guitar with him and on occasion, he'll give her a cassette, tell her he's been after this album for months, or she needs to listen to this one at the end of a long day. She always takes them, always hides them at the bottom of her handbag. He'll be sentenced to hard labour, or shipped off to the colonies, or just disappear like Mimura did, if he gets caught; at the very least, she'll lose her job for condoning his crimes. It feels, in a way, like she should have grown out of it by now - that listening to illegal music is fine when you're in school, you're just a stupid teenager, but now you're grown-up - But she knows it isn't just for the music, or the rebellion, that she accepts these gifts.

[Title] Strange Goings-on at Malory Towers
[Fandom] Torchwood/Malory Towers
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Sequel to the first of my nine tall tales. The girls get caught up further in the mysterious happenings; can Torchwood save them?

Extra prep with Miss Sato has become something of a tradition, Irene is embarrassed to admit. Not because she is doing poorly in class and needs extra help - that's not why she goes, they just talk more about the theorems they looked at in lessons and Miss Sato will go and fetch one of her books and show how that theorem leads onto another one and Irene feels like she's being told stuff that part of her already knew, just like when she composes a tune it feels like it was in the air waiting to be found. No, she's not embarrassed because she's a dunce, and not because the other girls think she is (at first they accused her of having a secret because her needing extra maths prep was such an obvious lie).

It's because she knows she's acting like a first-former with a crush. She tries to bring the right books along and not have untied shoelaces or falling-down stockings. (It rarely works, but she tries at least.) And Miss Sato talks to her like she's a grown-up - warm and friendly and excited about a particular concept or proof - and Irene finds herself trying to be grown-up back, but letting the act slip when the mistress seems tired or shy, ending up instead trying to make her laugh. She knows that if the other girls saw her acting like this, they would never let her live it down. Even Belinda would immortalise it in a drawing, probably of her with hearts floating round her head or something. (Belinda could do without her best friend constantly disappearing for extra maths lessons, but she'll just have to put up with it.)

Besides, she always makes it back to the dormy before dark.

Except that tonight they've got onto a really interesting discussion about differential equations, and as the sky darkens Miss Sato just switches on her desk lamp and carries on talking, and Irene is listening and jotting down notes (and fragments of music when they occur) and chewing the end of her pencil and the air smells of autumn bonfires and coffee and Irene stops noticing time pass, just follows the thread of logic through the different combinations of symbols and the music in her head and Miss Sato's shy smile at her when she gasps "That is amazing."

And then the clock strikes eight.

Miss Sato jumps, and glances out at the black sky, and her eyes widen. She doesn't look annoyed or even embarrassed - she looks scared.

"You should have gone," she says. "You can't still be here."

"It's all right, I don't have to be back until eight-thirty -"

"No, it's not all right." Miss Sato bites her lip. "I would say that you must leave right now, but I don't know if there's enough time..."

"Are you all right?" Irene says. She can feel a smile dancing on her lips but it's a silly, awkward smile, because she doesn't know what else to do. She'll be late, that's all, she's always late. And she isn't a baby too scared to walk along dark corridors! Why is Miss Sato acting as though she should be?

Her mind chooses to remind her at that point of the missing first-years, and she wished it hadn't.

"Irene," Miss Sato says, and her face is calm and serious suddenly. "Would you believe me if I told you that there's something in this school which is dangerous? Something that's responsible for the disappearances so far?"

Normally Irene would snort with laughter and ask if this is a ghost story, but - perhaps it's the trying-to-seem-grown-up thing. And besides, Miss Sato wouldn't play a joke on her like this. She just - wouldn't.

"Yes," she says. "What sort of thing is it?"

"We don't need to discuss that. I just need you to understand why I'm going to walk you back to your dormitory... and why I have this."

And she opens up her desk drawer and takes out a gun.

"I hope I won't have to use it," she says. "Walk next to me, keep your voice down, and if something touches your shoulder, don't look round. All right?"

And maybe it's because she's acting so differently and wants to appear like someone other than careless, untidy Irene, that she just nods, and says, "All right."

Bridget's got her own traditions. The other girls may not invite her to their midnight feasts - unless she scares them into doing so - or they might avoid her eyes and cluster into little groups when she walks into the common room - but she creeps around the school at night, sometimes meeting other people in other forms, sometimes just enjoying being in this other school which is dark and carpeted with moonlight and seems to exist just for her to wander through. The head-girl of her form lectured her for this - oh, she pretended it was because of the missing girls, that Bridget needed to be careful, but it was obvious she was just worried about the rest of the form looking bad. And Bridget had never seen anything odd going on. Well, not the kind of odd that would explain where someone had disappeared to.

She isn't seeing anything odd right now, even. She is walking down a corridor, empty classrooms on either side of her with desks and chairs sunk in shadow. She has been walking for fifteen minutes and all that time, someone has been following her.

Oh, it's definite that that's what they're doing. She's been changing direction, retracing her steps, pausing sometimes as if to gather her thoughts. Her pursuer has stuck with her all that time. And she can't swear to this, but she is pretty sure they've got closer. But never close enough that she can see their reflection, or knows if she turns round she'll catch them out. Besides, she doesn't want to turn round, or to call out, or start running. She is almost certain that this will be someone from her form wanting to teach her a lesson and put her off her late-night walks. So why should she give them the satisfaction of showing she's unsettled?

She is speeding up without realising it. Her hands curl into fists and she makes herself saunter, almost bored; the footsteps are nearer now. A door up ahead to the staircase. No reflection, no shadow in the painted surface. Don't you dare start telling yourself a ghost story. Don't you dare! Her heart is hammering under her tunic and it's faster than her footsteps. Through the door - a sssh as it slides across the floor - down the stairs. They go down in a square shape, making her constantly turn corners, but she resists the temptation to look at her opponent. She keeps her eyes straight ahead. No one is going to see Bridget Linton glancing around like some timid little first-former.

(What did happen to all those missing girls?)

The footsteps are very close now. They can't be more than a few steps behind her; just enough that they're not quite walking on the same flight of stairs. She is considering how to irritate the follower - lead them on a merry dance all over the school, or perhaps to somewhere out-of-bounds everyone else thinks is spooky, like the attics - or maybe outside, through the muddiest, most nettle-strewn ground she can find - these plans should be making her smile, but - but -

(She didn't hear the door open. When her pursuer started following her down the stairs. The door didn't open, and its shadow on the bare wall stayed perfectly still.)

The bottom of the staircase. A stone corridor leading outdoors. Her footsteps and her ghost's, bouncing off the cold walls. Just a few more steps and she will be out on the grass under the moonlight - just a few more -

A footstep right behind her left heel. Someone taps her on the shoulder.

She nearly screams and then she is furious that she nearly screamed and, instead, she takes a step backwards and brings her foot down hard on her opponent's -

There is nothing there.

"Don't look round! Hit the floor!"

A man's voice - a third pair of footsteps, running, and Bridget drops to her knees - (is she going mad? Is she -) and the next second there's a loud bang and something skims through the air above her head and - then someone is running over to her, one of the gardeners, the short monkey-faced man, and he is grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet and yelling, "You lot are supposed to stay indoors at night! Why do you find this so bloody hard to understand?"

"I - I fancied a walk." Bridget's knees are shaking, and even though she tries not to let the man hear how shocked she is, it comes through in her voice anyway. "Why do you have a gun? Were you trying to kill me?"

"God save me from schoolgirls." The man scowls at her - he's not that much taller than her. "No, I wasn't trying to kill you, you stupid - I was getting rid of what was. Which I wouldn't have to do if you didn't all keep wandering about trying to find yourselves or whatever!"

"All right, what was it that was following me? I thought it was one of the girls in my form." Bridget swallows. "Do... do tell me, what would have happened if I looked round?"

"You'd have a lot more to worry about than midnight feasts. A rough draft of you would've been walking the corridors tomorrow night, stalking some other idiot, and the big bad would be chowing down on your consciousness."

"You're awfully entertaining for a gardener," Bridget says. "Do you do magic tricks too?"

"Don't believe me? Go on alone." The man glances round the corridor. "See what happens next time something taps you on the shoulder. If you do believe me, you're coming back with me to the dorms and I'll just hope like hell none of your teachers catch us."

He starts walking back the way they've come, and Bridget is hurrying to follow him before she can make any decisions in the matter.

"Don't worry," she says. "I doubt anyone would think I was... sweet on you."

The man rolls his eyes, mutters something about why does life hate him. Bridget can still feel herself shaking, but she's smiling as well. Irritating people is another tradition of hers.

June has evolved quite a tradition of irritating her cousin. She'd be the first to admit that she followed Alicia when the latter went to return lemonade jugs (illicitly provided by the kitchen for a midnight feast) solely to cause her annoyance.

But the events of the next half an hour have left her feeling like her desire to make Alicia cross is rather small beer.

She and Alicia, and Irene from Alicia's class, and Bridget Linton, are standing at the foot of the steps to the attic. The door at the top is half-open, and inside, June knows, are Miss Sato who teaches maths, one of the gardeners, and the maid called Gwen. They've all got guns, and they say they're hunting some kind of monster which has been sucking the life force out of the first-formers who disappeared.

June would almost put this down to an extremely elaborate trick on her cousin's part except for the involvement of Bridget (who no one would willingly involve in anything) and Irene (who will always give the game away by laughing). Neither of them are looking at all like laughing. Bridget is very pale and has her arms wrapped round herself; Irene is twitching, picking at a seam on her skirt. Even Alicia looks a little less sure of herself than usual.

"So this... thing," she says at last. "If - if those three up there aren't actually mad, then it - it's what took those missing girls."

"And then enchanted them to follow people around, just as it does," Bridget says. "Only... it's not really them. It's like their ghosts."

"And you're safe as long as you don't look at them in the face when they tap you on the shoulder." Irene shivers.

"Which makes me wonder what Miss Sato and the others intend to do if they find the queen bee," June says. "Fight with their eyes shut?"

"Oh, shut up," Irene snaps. "Miss Sato said they'll use its shadow, in the torchlight. They just need to - to shoot at it. And then... all the missing girls, they'll... they'll come back..."

"Did she actually say that?" Bridget says. "Or is she just hoping that's what will happen?"

Irene doesn't answer. June can feel the cold air tickling the back of her neck. The corridor is low-ceilinged and empty, the walls scruffily painted. Below them, the school is very quiet. ,Everyone else must be asleep. Perhaps she's asleep too and dreaming all of this. It certainly feels ridiculous enough. Ridiculous. Stupid and babyish. Not scary. Not scary at all.

"I've got another question," she says. "If these creep up on you, why aren't we standing with our backs to the wall?"

"Because then they'll walk up to us and look us in the face," Bridget snaps. "Idiot."

"Oh, and you know all about them now?"

"If you don't look them in the face," Irene says again, "you'll be all right."

"We think, Gwen said." A wry smile flickers on Alicia's face. "She said that if they get powerful enough, just your awareness of their presence is enough; the looking isn't needed any more."

"Well done," Bridget says. "Do you want me to give you a gold star?"

From the other end of the corridor, there is the sound of faint, slow footsteps. No one says anything, but it's obvious they've all heard. Everyone breathes in, and then seems to go very still. Ridiculous, June thinks again, but her heart is pounding.

"There's... more than one set of footsteps, isn't there," Bridget says at last.

June makes her mouth move, makes herself say, "That's what it sounds like."

"Perhaps it's some of the mistresses, or Matron," Irene says, voice shaking. "Coming to tell us off for - for coming up here at night."

"Then why haven't they started yelling at us yet?" Bridget says. "They're just walking."

"We'll be all right if we just don't look round."

"Probably," June says, because if she's going to be this terrified everyone else is.

"Shut up, June!" her cousin says.

The footsteps are about halfway to them now. The back of June's neck aches. They can't get you if you just don't look round. But there are more footsteps now, it sounds like a whole crowd of girls walking in step. How powerful do these things need to get, to be able to grab you even if you don't look? Don't ask that question. Closer and closer. June digs her nails into her palms, fighting the urge to run. Someone is standing behind her.

Tap tap on her shoulder, and at the same time the other three girls all gasp.

"They're here," Irene whispers.

"Just don't look at them." Alicia sounds more serious than June has ever heard her. "Don't even think about them."

"That's a little difficult right now!" Bridget. "Why won't those idiots up there hurry and do something?"

Tap tap. It's harder this time.

"What if it's not up there?" June says.

No one answers.

"What if it's down here instead?"

Alicia opens her mouth and starts singing. It's the hymn from assembly that morning, when the sun was out and things were normal and the missing first years had probably just run away, and that's probably why June finds herself joining in. Irene, of course, has chimed in, and after a few more seconds even Bridget adds her not-particularly tuneful voice to the chorus. That's actually pretty clever, June allows, we think about something else, we don't think about -

- it

She realises her mistake too late and - it's like someone is dragging her by the hair and like she has really bad pins and needles all over her and like she's been crying for hours and almost fallen asleep and like nothing else she's ever felt before and she screams -

Alicia grabs her by the hand, and, still facing forward, shouts at her, "You're going to be a coward now? I always knew you were all talk!"

June tries to retort but her hand is being dragged out of Alicia's -

"You're just like my sister!" Bridget grabs her other hand. "Fine when nothing much matters and letting everyone down at the last second!"

Darkening air and her eyes hurt and she's so cold -

"Think about us!" Irene says, her voice urgent and far away. "Bridget Linton can't talk like that to you. You know what she's like. She's even more unsquashable than you are!"

"And Irene's one to talk about thinking," Bridget says. "She's famous throughout the school for her disorganisation. We laugh about it. You do as well, don't you?"

Yes, June tries to say, yes, all the time...

"And I'm sure you could keep on forever if you listed everything you hate about me," Alicia says. "Try it? I can certainly think of enough I dislike about you. You're sly and deceitful - you're arrogant and you have no respect for anyone -"

I could say the same about you. She's still so cold but at the tips of her fingers there is a little warmth, a little irritation.

"You've told more lies than anyone I know -"

You're so revoltingly proud of yourself! You get your brothers to pick on me because you think it's funny!

"You don't care who you hurt -"

"You are the most self-righteous person I've ever met in my whole life, Alicia Johns!" The words burst out of June's mouth and as they do she is falling back into herself, achy and dizzy but real again, gripping Bridget and Alicia's hands so hard they hurt. And as she yells, there are more running footsteps from behind her, and from the other end of the corridor Gwen yells, "Duck!"

And as they do, a hail of bullets fly over their heads, and something that they still don't know the face of explodes behind them.

And then Gwen and Alicia are pulling June to her feet, Gwen saying, "It's all right. Severing the link has got rid of all the rest. It's over -" But June doesn't care about that. Her eyes meet Alicia's, and she manages a shaky smile. How typical of her cousin to save her life by insulting her. But after all, they do have a tradition of spitefulness.

[Title] Unromance
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] From

lycoris, "Ide/Matsuda, cuddling"
[Notes/Summary] Ide isn't quite sure he likes this relationship situation.

Ide still isn't at all sure, sometimes, that he wouldn't prefer spending his free time alone. Matsuda leaves coffee cups on every surface, and taps running, and has the TV on even when he's not watching it. And he talks about them having sex like he would talk about them catching the same train, like it's just something that happens, something normal people do. (Matsuda pointed out that normal people do, but Ide countered that with the fact that normal people like them don't, at least not with each other, and that Matsuda probably doesn't deserve the accolade of normal anyway.) He should be at least a little awkward, a little embarrassed, that his libido's making him behave like this with someone like Ide who surely can't be his idea of the perfect romantic partner. And if not, he should at least behave as if it's only about mutual satisfaction. He shouldn't lean against Ide when they are both watching the TV, or curl up next to him like he enjoys sharing a bed, or, in general, cuddle him.

But it's not like Ide can explain this in words - and if he does, Matsuda will only laugh and say it's because he's so unromantic. And Ide can't shake off the idea that Matsuda really is only doing this as part of some elaborate practical joke, and that makes him feel more angry than he should, considering this isn't about anything more than sex. so he goes along with the friendliness. It passes the time, and perhaps it is slightly preferable to solitude, when everything's taken into account.

[Title] To Comfort Me
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Rester, Hal and Gevanni may not believe in a God, but when the rest of their team has been killed off, spiritual comfort means something.

Rester hadn't read the Bible for years, before now. Probably not since his twenties, when he'd had a few years of curiosity and set out to investigate. Sometimes he thought he'd found something; other times it had seemed so obvious that you could project what you like onto it that the whole thing had seemed pointless.

He hadn't brought a Bible on the Kira case; that would have seemed far too much like either he thought he was going to die, or that he thought he was dealing with something like a vampire that could only be repelled by the light of God. But he'd found one of those Gideon Bibles in a hotel room he'd passed through and somehow it had found its way into his luggage, and reading it had found its way into his day. After the others died. There were themed readings. Where to find help when afraid. Feeling lost. Facing death. Distressed or troubled. He only read them through curiosity. To see what the indexer had thought would help. If I happened to be afraid, what would you say? But there is a difference. When he's with Gevanni and Hal, the three of them talk about how it won't happen to them; how Mello has kept them alive for a reason; how Near knows the way Kira thinks. When Rester is on his own, he can ask this plastic-covered little book, well, if. Let's just say if and reading some verse which is sometimes well-meaning and sometimes frustrating and sometimes irrelevant and sometimes uncannily true...

Well. Irritation at his own credulity and agnosticism stops him thinking about a lot of other things.

Hal and her mother had argued over church for years. Hal's view was that she knew her mother didn't believe in God and only went to church to gossip about other people and she, Hal, had better things to do with her Sunday mornings (okay, often this thing was sleeping, but still). Hal's mother's view was that everyone else went to church and Hal would get to decide for herself when she turned eighteen/was no longer living under their roof/went off to college. By the time Hal was fifteen, the arguments had stopped being about wanting or not wanting and turned into a battle of wills. Her first year in college, Hal refused to do anything on Sunday mornings, just to make a point. Even after she'd graduated, Sundays were still days for catching up on work, or cleaning the house. Or, of course, calling her mother, who would be out at church, and then saying later that she did try and get in contact, but there'd been no reply.

The next Sunday after the rest of the SPK are killed, she finds herself walking a few blocks to the small, square church she saw on the corner; sitting at the back; not praying, not asking for forgiveness or for the souls of the dead to be treated kindly. But bowing her head and closing her eyes when she's meant to, and seeing the bullet explode out of Ratt's skull, and a hail of dice clattering to the floor. Even now, they still find stray dice in corners, and Hal's always stupidly unnerved if they happen to be displaying low numbers.

She doesn't know why she sits quietly and gazes at the barred stained glass and the flickering candles. Superstition; no better than wanting the dice to come up as sixes all the time. Fear; hoping to get a supernatural force on her side before the one Kira and Mello have access to kills her. The comforts of home. Guilt; putting her spiritual house in order, or making amends to her mother, who she knows is worried for her even without knowing what case she's embroiled in. Or even just getting out of the headquarters; or no longer wanting to spend every waking hour working. Church is as dull as ever, but it's a special kind of boredom; beautiful, old, and God at least, if He existed, would still call her by her real name.

Gevanni prayed when he was a kid, of course, but that was just in the please God, please let me pass this test/not screw up the game in front of everybody/not get beaten up on the way home kind of way, like how you would whine to your parents if you weren't too old to do that/knew they couldn't do anything/weren't going to tell tales. By the time he was fourteen, he'd worked out that talking to yourself was something only little kids did, and admitting to prayer was not something you did unless you were part of a certain segment of high school that he didn't intend to be involved with.

That was the last time he thought about it for years, until the Kira case. There were tricky situations in between that, of course, and with a few of them he realised afterwards that he'd been shaking with terror the whole way through and with quite a lot of them he couldn't sleep the night before or after, but he generally knew he had a way out of them, or had done his best to prepare, or didn't need to waste time on pleading with some supernatural force because he was frantically trying to think of the next move to make.

Then he stood in a room with fifteen other people and within the space of five minutes, all but him and three others were dead.

When it was actually happening his thoughts were just oh god. Oh God, oh Jesus, oh fuck, oh holy shit which probably doesn't count as prayer although if prayer is strong emotion coupled with evoking a deity's name, it definitely qualifies. It was afterwards, that night when he found himself unable to sleep because of the not-so-irrational terror that he'd die, that he found himself saying that bit about though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because You are with me. He didn't know who the You was and he was pretty sure that there wasn't anyone who could stop it if Mello did decide to off him after all and that line had been parodied and quoted so many times it seemed stupid to be drawing comfort from it, but he was, using it as a charm to ward off the dark, and he figured with what he had to deal with, a little talking to yourself (or someone else) was permissible.

[Title] Missing
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From

anbyrobanby, "the first Christmas without ____"
[Notes/Summary] Donna's sure something's not right.

It's the first Christmas without something, but Donna has no idea what that something is. Everything seems in place. Christmas do at work with cheap wine and paper hats. Tinsels round the computer screens. Night out on Christmas Eve with some of the girls, dancing to Slade while wearing Santa hats. Gramps retreating to the news stand while Mum goes into overdrive. Waking up too early because she feels she should, because when she was a kid she was often up at three a.m. clutching her stocking. Dry turkey and too many sprouts, and no Yorkshire pudding because Mum can't make it, she has to buy the old Aunt Bessie's from Iceland and Donna mentioned this once too often last year. Present from Mum designed to convey to Donna who she should be (this year, it's a Filofax in beige leather); a big box of chocolates from Gramps, who likes her as she is. Falling asleep on the sofa with a glass of wine in one hand while watching Poirot. Everything's there, and yet something's missing. But by the time Boxing Day rolls round, the food and drink have made her too sleepy to have any hope of remembering what.

[Title] It's Called the Plot
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Gum wants to know why her life isn't like other people's.

"Beat," Gum said, as the giant demonic rhino unfolded itself from the rooftop and roared, sending a jet of fire into the air, "why does this kind of shit always happen to us?"

"I don't think this ever happened before."

"Yeah, but... in like the last few weeks, our hideout's been filled with frogs, our dog's been turned into a cyborg, we've been attacked by corporate-sponsored winged snipers, pyromaniacs, mad bombers and genetically modified gorillas, and our rivals got kidnapped and mind-controlled with magic helmets. What happened to scribbling on walls, getting chased by the cops, and then going home for pizza? Why all the weird?"

Beat shook up a paint can, and readied himself to end the grind they were on and jump onto the main roof. The flames were hot, and the rhino's foot was big enough to pancake them both without any body parts being left uncovered. "Um. Tradition?"