http://tunasaladsonnet.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] tunasaladsonnet.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] kh_drabble2008-12-07 01:23 am
Entry tags:

[02] Here's Looking at You, Kid

Challenge: [169] Protection
Title: Here's Looking at You, Kid
Word Count: 446
Notes/Fun Fact: My canon-parental-replacement-ship strikes again! In regards to the title: "Rick's remark to Ilsa... is not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to something Bogart said to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes." ~ Casablanca Wikipedia article

She sits in a chair next to his bed in the Infirmary of Damage Done. She’s uncomfortable because she knows that Vexen and Zexion are talking behind the glass and watching them.

She finishes the inside reverse fold needed for the head and looks up at him with those worried blue eyes.

“Eight hundred and twenty two, love,” he says. Keeping count is his specialty.

She puts the crane in the wicker basket she brought down from her room. All its sisters rest there, in matching copies of their mistress’s white dress. The angles and lines are perfect, pressed into the paper by her anxious fingers.

“Can you please tell me what you were fighting about?” she asks again.

Marluxia is fast, but timing is his specialty too. The swing of the scythe is like the swing of a grandfather’s pendulum. It is almost too easy.

Until the pendulum stops mid-swing and goes backwards, catching him in the shoulder blade and dragging him forward, until the Assassin can whisper in his ear.

It’s just intimidation he’s lying no one could do such a thing to her, his mind reels and screams at him in exactly 2.3 seconds.

Marluxia’s never been a very creative liar, his mind retorts in another 1.1 seconds.

Gold light slips through the black leather sleeves and rises up off his arms. Little triangles of hard gold light. Little shards shifting and changing in time.

And then he’s clutching the control, and he wants to let go more than anything. It isn’t logical, part of him thinks. He doesn’t have a heart, he can’t possibly be
this upset.

Someone is restraining him because when he moves forward, toward the Assassin’s horrified face, his boots slide backward and his knees hit the ground.
“I’ll kill you if you touch her again! If you even think of coming near her again - I’ll kill you!”

Nobody was allowed to hurt her like that. Not while he was around.

The Assassin’s hourglass had been turned over.


She is crying.

His head still buzzed from his close encounter with the time stream and his shoulder still ached from his close encounter with the Assassin’s scythe. He had told her once, ‘no boys until your married or over thirty’. And Marluxia… Marluxia…

“I was trying to protect you, Naminé. Although we can both see how well that went.”

She takes a deep breath. Sobbing would alert the two watching.

He looks toward the basket at the foot of his bed. One hundred and seventy-eight more would make one thousand.

“Are you trying to save my soul?”

She sniffs and wipes an eye with her wrist and smiles. “Hm.”

[identity profile] oreo-81369-17.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww this was cool~!!!! like woah~ poor Namine~ like the time stuff~ with the 1.1 seconds and stuff~ cool like hella~ aahhahaha

[identity profile] misskass.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
I've always loved the thousand paper cranes story, and you worked it so well in with the description of the fight and the rest of the piece. Poor Naminé. ♥

[identity profile] fated-bliss.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 11:27 am (UTC)(link)
I agree, the paper cranes story worked wonderfully. I love this! I must admit that I had a little trouble figuring on who 'he' was (I was guessing everyone from Axel to Replica to Luxord - is it Luxord?) and... gah. You could make me 'ship them as a COUPLE, even.

And my favourite lines: She finishes the inside reverse fold needed for the head and looks up at him with those worried blue eyes (it's so skilfully not-in-your-face and “Are you trying to save my soul?”

<33

[identity profile] kawaiigami.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
This is made of so much win~ XD Are you the one who wrote that other fic for these two where Luxord nicknamed her "pigeon"? 'Cause that and this have kind of sold me on seeing these two this way. Luxord needs more good!fic for him. And ships like this (along with the buddybuddy and sibling-like) ships need more love. &hearts

[identity profile] euphonious-glow.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Took me two reads to really understand the meaning, but now that I get it it's really powerful. Never really thought of a Luxord-Namine parental kind of relationship, but you made it work. Luxord's time-skippiness is always fun to see in fics, and you did a great job of including it here.

[identity profile] dreamer1789.livejournal.com 2008-12-07 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
This works like a charm (one I wouldn't have thought possible.) ^^ Beautiful and powerful! ♥

[identity profile] kaiyabeck.livejournal.com 2008-12-08 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
Gah. Gah. ♥ Once again, you completely blow me away with how moving you make your pieces. I think I've fallen in love with this friendship and it's all your fault. Great job once again.