Ficcage from France!

[whiterabbit1613]

Well. Yes. I am insane.
So, my lovely school trip to France made most of my writer's block go away. (And chapters 50 thru 107 of Death Note took care of the rest.)
I bring you... the aiplane fics! Inspired by 10 days in France, riding many many trains and eating strange food!
Also - these are a bit of a mixed bag. Some is Death Note, some is FMA, some is original. I hope the labels help you!

General Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, Light or L, FMA, Ed or Al, and, I dunno... whatever else is in here. Except I do own Riley, Saint, and Mala.

Nice / Derniere Maison / Rated G / Humor

     As Saint watched, her reluctant friend sighed, slumped in his seat. Of course, him being a priest and all, she couldn't exactly understand what he was moping about, but it seemed bad all the same.
     "They'll hate me forever, now," Riley groaned. Saint patted him on the back awkwardly.
     She tried to smile. "Let's go to the beach."
     And though the car ride in between was silent, she had to admit it was worth it, to see Riley blush at her bikini.
        "Nice"  -fin-

Glasgow / Fullmetal Alchemist / Rated PG / Character introspection, angst

     Once, it was terribly easy to talk to Al. They would sit in the clanking train, and Al would clank right along, somehow eternally cheerful, while Ed froze to death near an open window, trying to fight back the sick feeling in his stomach.
     "You don't look great," Al would say, his voice if not his face betraying his concern.
     Ed would sigh, "Thanks, Al," effectively avoiding the question.
     If the train ride was long enough (the comfort of the seat didn't matter any more) then he would fall asleep, lulled by the clacking whoosh of tracks, steady as a heart beat. His dreams were fast, people and places rushing past like trees and telephone poles. They wouldn't slow down until something about food occured. Which it did, sometimes.
     Al would pace once in a while, to the cars in front or behind, to "stretch his legs", and while he was gone Ed would look out the window and mutter to the curtains.
     "I'll fix it, right?" It was always so quiet, lost in the burn of the engine and the air blowing in his face. Sometimes the whistle would blow, then. Ed always took that as a yes.
     He thinks, "Sometimes the train knows me better than Al does," but then feels bad for associating his brother with an inanimate piece of metal.
        "Glasgow"  -fin-

Clisson / Fullmetal Alchemist / Rated PG / Character introspection, drama / hinted EdxAl

     They finally got out of Germany, their three prized belongings sewed into their winter coats, and the rest in Ed's single suitcase.
     Al coughed harder and harder each day, which terrified Ed. It had already happened to one person he loved.
     He wasn't going to let it happen again.
     So they ran as fast as they could, on metal caterpillars of legs, Al wrapped in every extra blanket they could scavenge from the thrown-open, abandoned houses. No one gave them trouble, because of their fair skin and blond hair. Ed just didn't look anyone in the eyes.
     "Where in France?" asked the conductor who stamped their ticket.
     "The coast," Ed replied, "for my brother's health."
     Al coughed, loud and rattling. A shadow crossed the conductor's face as he let them pass.
     The first train was direct to Paris, a city which Al found fascinating, even as it panicked on the brink of war. Ed deemed it too dirty, though, so bought a ticket south, to Nantes, and helped his brother climb aboard yet another clanking, clacking train.
     "Où fait-il chaud?" Ed asked in his scrappy French.
     The man looked at him for a moment through squinted eyes. "A Nice, au sud," he replied. Al coughed. "Ou peut-être Pornic. Il fait beau à Pornic."
     Al managed a smile and a "merci" as his brother took out a train schedule and began to read.
     In Nantes they transferred to the scenic route, which was the only place where people still laughed, smiled, vacationed. The eventual destination was Pornic, on the Atlantic coast, which was hopefully warm and pleasant, and not full of factory smoke.
     "It's beautiful," Al smiled as they stepped off the train. The station was brick and stucco and cheerful. Beyond the ancient neighborhoods the blue ocean twinkled. They walked down the narrow streets, avoiding whizzing bicycles with baguettes sticking out of baskets. Al said something about paradise. Ed was mute, but knew what was meant.
        "Clisson"  -fin-

Halifax / Derniere Maison / Rated PG / Humor / hinted EdxAl, SaintRiley

     Al couldn't believe it - just his luck to have to deal with this.
     "Are you drunk?" he asked the tottering blonde in front of him.
     The amazing thing was how she managed to totter while seated. "Whayathin?" she slurred.
     Her companion giggled, a very unusual sound for the large man. "Ithinyare," was his unintelligible reply.
     Al sighed frustratedly. "Honestly, two grown-ups like you should know better."
     Then he left, which was good, because he probably didn't want to see what happened next, though he may or may not have done the same thing with his brother three times a week.
         "Halifax"  -fin-

Sydney / Death Note / Rated G / Humor / Hinted LxLight

     "It's just a cupcake," Light said boredly.
     L ignored him, or seemed to, continuing to examine the spongy, frosting-soaked form. It was minutes later that he said, "Nothing is just a cupcake, Light-san. Everything is more than it seems. I thought you were a detective?"
      Light felt thoroughly chastized.
        "Sydney"  -fin-

Chicoutimi / Derniere Maison / Rated PG-13 / Humor, Drama / hinted possible RileySaint, SaintMala

     Riley was disturbed, upon waking, to find that he had no pants. Also, it was not immediately obvious where he was.
     He staggered to his feet, realized eventually that he was in Saint's "basement viewing room", and that they had spent half the night (until they passed out) watching Saint's extensive collection of gay porn.
     "Oh God," Riley muttered. "I'm sure it's impossible, but please forgive this terrible sinner."
     A moment later he found Saint - and his pants. She was drooling all over them as she clutched them in her sleep. The television was all static, clearly long at the end of the tape they had been watching. Riley turned bright red as he remembered what it was. He would never look at those poor boys the same way again.
     He shook Saint and she rolled over, her blue eyes blinking open slowly. "It didn't work, then," she said, and sat up. "Here're your pants."
     "What didn't work?"
     "My aphro." She walked to the bookcase, pulled out Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which turned out to be a secret switch, so the wall swung open.
     They walked into the chemistry lab. "Your what?"
     "My aphrodesiac. I'm making one for Silicon, special order."
     "Oh."
     "I mean, I know how to make them - they were Mala's specialty. But this one has to be tasteless and have no unwanted side effects." She opened a small phial, sniffed it, and let a few drops fall into a beaker of liquid sitting before her.
     "What are you doing?"
     "Modifying the formula. It obviously didn't work."
     Riley's mind finally clicked into gear. "Y-you mean you tried it on me?!"
     "Both of us actually," was her calm response. "Evidently it had some small effect on me, but it just made us horribly drunk." She paused. "Did I really show you soediv enadiz cihpargonrop?"
     Riley cringed. "And tsecni toh, atohs... don't remind me."
     "Oh god. Sorry, Riley." Amazingly, she really meant it. "Please don't think too badly of me. I never meant to watch them. They're for blackmail, mostly."
     "That's n-not much better!" Riley sputtered.
     "Well," Saint said with an embarrassed smile, "at least we didn't have sex."
          "Chicoutimi"  -fin-

Godthab / Fullmetal Alchemist / Rated PG-13 / Character Introspection, Drama, Romance / EdxAl

     Al was wide awake - likely the only one in all of Munich to be so. The streets were unusually mute - no soldier convoys, no air raid sirens. Just a few city-brave crickets and the rare owl.
     Ed, naked, was sleeping next to him. It was wonderfully warm for April, and after their exertions earlier in the evening, the single blanket was actually sufficient coverage for the night.
     Al liked the feel of it against his bare skin, kept rubbing his foot against it and the cheap cotton sheet below. Occasionally it would find a particular heat source; Ed, though the smaller of the the two, was certainly more masculine, and showed it in the way he slept. He always took up more than his half of the bed, spread-eagled and limbs wildly akimbo. If he ended up on his back he would snore, which didn't bother Al because it somehow made him more attractive, his chest rising and falling, golden hairs catching wandering light from outside. The noise was so regular and human that Al could never deny his brother of all the sleep he wanted. Ed was like a furnace, too, so pleasant to sleep with in winter when they couldn't afford the coal.
     Al found the wet spot he'd made earlier in the evening, decided he needed to wash the bed linens soon. Once it warmed up outside he could just go to the river and wash for free. Ed, glorious at twenty-three, taught at the university by day, avoiding the Nazification as much as possible by teaching mathematics and physics. They had promised to get out of the country as soon as possible, which likely wouldn't be soon enough. Al cooked, cleaned, stood in bread lines, egg lines, milk lines - so Ed had finally stopped complaining when he saw the work required to get anything into his stomach. Al never got angry, exactly, but got close a couple times. Now Ed just swallowed the milk and looked forward to the reward he would always receive after the meal.
     It was weird being so madly in love, Al reflected, because it didn't really feel like much at times. Other times they really felt close, electric. Ed lit him on fire some nights, with teasing touches that left Al gasping and pleading for more, grabbing fingers and encouraging them to touch more interesting places. Now, when Al looked at Ed conquering the bed beside him, he felt simply that he was magnificently beautiful and lion-like.
     It was their romance - the sheets, the milk - and it was deservedly, understandably strange. Al shook his head sometimes, but awake at two a.m. in Munich, he could only smile.
     "Godthab"  -fin-

Gander / Derniere Maison / Rated PG-13 / Humor / Mild Language

     The next two weeks were strained, between Saint and Riley. First, Riley said something rather uncharitable about the blonde's choice of leisure activity, and then launched into a lecture on morals, which violated the second rule of the contract. So Saint kicked him out of her house and made him walk home by himself. Ed took pity, though, and drove him back to town.
     But Saint did feel sorry about the whole "aphro incident", and said as much in a letter she sent by snail mail. She even used a nice stamp which Riley didn't yet have in his collection. To be equitable, Riley sent her a reply by email, which was badly typed but sincere all the same. He even tried his hand at emoticons, but somehow all the smiley faces looked constipated.
     It made Saint laugh. "How can you possibly mess up the most basic emoticon ever invented?" she asked him over the phone.
     "Hey," he protested, "I hadn't learned about the shift key yet. That was this week."
     On Saturday, Saint lurked in the back of church, lying in wait as Riley delivered his sermon on Brotherly Love. He was a little red in the face for the duration; several parishioners asked him afterwards if he had a fever.
     "I can hardly look some of them in the face," he moaned later when they were seated in a diner and waiting to be served.
     Saint shrugged. "They object to me, you know. In their minds they live on higher moral ground."
     "You've killed people, Saint." He took a sip of coffee, added more sugar. "And you drink, and you own - well. Those videos."
     "Porn, Riley, they're called porn videos," she said. "We all have skeletons in our closets. I've tried to clean them out but I'm not perfect. All I can do is try. Anyway, I'd like to see one of your precious parishioners go through my life and not need some kind of release."
     He sighed. "That's fair, I guess."
     "Nothing's really fair, Riley. Some things just make more sense than others."
     Saint paid the bill, earning a bemused glance from the waiter. They walked out together, and to the park, where they took day-old bread from their pockets to feed the ducks.
        "Gander"  -fin-

Abiline / Jafard is Real Estate / Rated G / Character Introspection

     Zeek tended to stare out the window of the diner when she had no customers waiting for her at the counter. She wanted nothing more than to get out of her small apartment in a back alley and go somewhere else.
     Syrie would poke her shoulder eventually, or the door would open and some eternal city denizen would enter. Then Zeek went back to work with all the diligence she could muster, because not wanting her job was not reason enough to do it badly.
        "Abiline"  -fin-

Greendale / Derniere Maison / Rated G / Humor, General / Possible RileySaint

     When Riley stepped out of his tiny car (he is a man of God, after all), the first thing he saw was Saint, sprawled on her lawn and quite possibly dead.
     "Is this a bad time?" he asked mildly.
     She beckoned him lazily, and, puzzled, he shuffled over to her. "Lie down," she said. He narrowed his eyes at her.
     "For your sake, I hope you aren't trying anything funny again."
     She sighed. "No more aphrodesiacs, I promise." So he stretched out awkwardly alongside his reluctant friend, and let his mind wander a little.
     "What are we doing here?" he asked after a while, biting back a yawn. Saint shrugged. "Oh."
      "Just seemed like a nice day, is all."
     They watched patiently as the sun flirted with the horizon, then sank below it. The stars came up shortly thereafter, followed by a thinly grinning moon.
     Riley was dozing by the time Saint spoke again. "What do you want for dinner?"
     "I get to choose?" he asked, surprised.
     She sat up abruptly, grabbing a basket of vegetables and sorting through them. "It's your birthday, Riley, of course you get to choose."
     "Oh. Right." She helped him to his feet, and together they made their way inside. Lights turned on strategically as Saint pulled him to the kitchen, and Sweetie greeted him with a cheerful "happy birthday!"
     Saint pushed him into a seat, then started pulling pots and pans out of the cupboards. "Have you decided?"
     He wasn't suicidal - at the moment - so he knew better than to ask for anything with meat in it. Saint wasn't exactly known for her cooking ability. Not in a good way, at least.
    "You'll make anything?" She nodded. "Then, can you make carrot cake?"
     Saint arched an eyebrow, looked at the vegetables just in from her garden. Sure enough, there were carrots aplenty. "If you want," was her skeptical reply.
     Riley smiled. "It's my favorite. I haven't had it since I left home for the seminary - it was my mom's best recipe."
     Rolling up her sleeves, Saint grabbed a bunch of carrots and started cleaning them. "I haven't made it in years, so you'll have to help."
     "It would be my pleasure," Riley said with a grin.
     Afterwards, Riley was sure it was the best meal he'd ever eaten (and certainly the most unhealthy).
        "Greendale"  -fin-

Courting / Death Note / Rated PG-13 / Humor, Romance / LightxL

     Well, they had been playing tennis. Initially.
     It was certainly their favorite - and Light's best - game. Where L's talent for it had originated remained a mystery, but Light couldn't shake the odd suspicion that it was Watari's fault, somehow. (Because he was the unknown, honestly.)
     And L had been winning, for once, which disturbed Light because part of him saw all these physical matches as some forshadowing of his eventual victory. Still, one loss out of all these games couldn't negate all the wins, right?
     Racket connected with ball in a resounding, satisfying crack, and Light watched joyfully as it whizzed over the net and just beyond the reach of his nemesis.
     "Your serve," was L's sole response. He grabbed the ball and threw it back with a lanky arm.
     Light caught it, and then years of trained instinct took over. "15 serving 45," he called not-quite-mildly, then sent it for L's head.
     It was a while before they deemed themselves finished, and that's when it all happened. Light's come-back victory had left him in high spirits, so as L stood up, racket in its bag, he found he blond's arm slung around his shoulder and blinked slowly in veiled surprise.
     "Nice game," Light said with a grin. "Nice game, my friend."
     And maybe it was something about Light's slightly wheezing breath across L's cheek, but the next moment they found their mouths pressed together firmly, warm and a little dry after hours of sweaty exertion on the field of battle.
     So they had been playing tennis, which is how he explained his flushed and rumpled appearance to his concerned mother a little while later.
        "Courting"  -fin-

Comments

[xebo.livejournal.com]

This is Jeff from Case--
Hope france was Spectacular, in the very least
Where did you decide to go to school?
Best to ya,
JZ

[aluminum2mr.livejournal.com]

You are awesome.