Bonus Round 4: Quotes

[referees]

A shipping olympics favorite, this round uses quotes of all sorts to fuel your creative endeavors.


This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on July 21 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

• Submit prompts by commenting to this post with a quote attributed to a specific person or character, along with any ship/ot3/etc. from one of our nominated fandoms.
  • Example: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Gandhi
  • The quote can come from anywhere. Famous people, poetry, songs, books, movies, your neighbor, etc.
  • Your prompt MUST include some kind of relationship. (This is not the sports anime gen olympics.) Platonic relationships are indicated by an "&" between the names (e.g., Makoto & Rin). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Makoto/Rin). Please don't say "Any pairing," either!
• Fill prompts by replying to the prompt with your quote-inspired fanwork.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
• 400px by 400px (art)
• 14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Format your comment in one of the following ways:

If PROMPTING:	If FILLING:	If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to, including Grandstand or Sports Teams Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Place the prompt's relationship in the first bolded line of the comment. Including the canon isn't required, but it's nice. Below that, place applicable major content tags (when applicable; otherwise write "no tags" or "none") Visual example	FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E) Place applicable major content tags and word count before your fill (when applicable) NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of the fill in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" alt="DESCRIPTION OF YOUR IMAGE"/> Visual example	FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING] Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of your work in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many prompts/fills as you want!

For prompts: 5 points each (maximum of 50 prompt points per team per round)

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Comments

PROMPT: TEAM AZUMANE ASAHI/NISHINOYA YUU

[onewiththestarcult]

Ennoshita Chikara/Tanaka Ryuusokue; Haikyuu

tags: none

"He passed with flying frickin' carpets"
-Ricky, Trailer Park Boyx

Re: PROMPT: TEAM AZUMANE ASAHI/NISHINOYA YUU

[prillalar]

I love you for quoting Trailer Park Boys.

PROMPT: Team Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka

[hakari]

Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru
cannibalism, gore, go wild (DDS AU)

'Remember, the rules haven't changed. Things have only gotten more relentless, more merciless, that's all. And that's how I like it. Deep down, so do you. So go and fight. Eat. It'll be fun.'

'You've certainly eaten more than your share of people who couldn't fight back.'

'Oodles.'

-Digital Devil Saga

PROMPT: TEAM AZUMANE ASAHI/NISHINOYA YUU

[onewiththestarcult]

Wakatoshi Ushijima/Hinata Shouyo; Haikyuu

tags: none

"Life's not about the breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away."
-George Strait

FILL: Team Chihayafuru, G

[horchata]

poetry, 58 lines
no tags applicable

PROMPT: Team Grandstand

[snowysatoru]

Kuramochi Youichi/Miyuki Kazuya (daiya no ace)

“I really don't know what "I love you" means.
I think it means "Don't leave me here alone.”

― Neil Gaiman

Re: PROMPT: Team Grandstand

[kazuyas]

thanks hannah :') (i can say this genuinely for once, wow)

PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kazuyas]

yuki tetsuya/isashiki jun - daiya no ace
no tags

when two people fall in love, they do so at the same speed.

— shane koyczan, "tomatoes"

Re: PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kitaiichis]

honestly i don't even have anything to say anymore

PROMPT: Team Grandstand

[snowysatoru]

Kanemaru Shinji/Toujou Hideaki (daiya no ace)

"Lucky I'm in love with my best friend"

- Lucky, Jason Mraz (ft. Colbie Caillat)

Re: PROMPT: Team Grandstand

[kazuyas]

get out of here with this sappy goopy nonsense

PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kazuyas]

oikawa tooru / & miyuki kazuya - hq!! and daiya no ace
violence mentioned

"Stop enjoying yourself. We’re going to be killed at any minute."

- from prince's gambit by c.s. pacat

FILL: Team Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, T

[sotongsotong]

poetry fill, T, death imagery, ambiguous relationsips

something stupid
(28 lines)


When he laughs
it is with a finger gun pointed to
his cheek
and
my heart wavering, always just
so weak, because
where’s the fun in love if
none of us bleed, and
what’s the point of running
if I’m the only one who
trips?


So
if I’m to go down,
shedding fears, bone, and crown
I’m doing it with you
and if you find yourself following
eyes laughing
fingers crooking in search for something to be
our new ground
don’t cry for me, cry for
your own damned self
because
I kiss your knuckles to be your trouble
but your grief will never sing for me.


(We weren’t always a thing
but we also weren’t regrets
and that’s something stupid enough
to protect, I think.)

PROMPT: TEAM KANZAKI MIKI/TACHIBANA AYA

[lysithea]

Ayase Eli/Sonoda Umi (Love Live!)

A summer of wanting to see you; This year's summer
I feel like I'm going to melt, 'cause of you
My whole body's calling out, calling out to you
Don't leave me; You are my love

A summer of wanting to see you; This year's summer
is a story between you and me
So don't run, don't be afraid
When we gaze into each other's eyes, storm in lover

- Storm in Lover

feel free to add/substitute any other verses from this song the whole thing is gay

PROMPT: Team Tennis no Ouji-sama

[karahashi]

Abe Takaya/Mihashi Ren, Ookiku Furikabutte
no tags

人は人らしくキズツキ
人は人らしくガンバリ
人は人らしくダキアイ
ヨクバッテ生きていきましょう

People hurt like people do
People try like people do
People touch like people do
Let's live life with a thirst for more
— スムルース / ヒマワリサン (Thmlues / Miss Sunflower)

optional extra from same song: 君のその行き先には / そのうち向日葵が咲くのでしょう (surely sunflowers must bloom where you walk)
sorry for the poor translations

FILL: Team Kuramochi Youichi/Miyuki Kazuya, G

[kitaiichis]

major content tags: no tags, everything about this is almost unbelievably soft

where light gathers
665 words, AO3


Mihashi’s good with flowers. Not necessarily in the sense that he’s good at caring for them — though he’s still better at that than Takaya is, for what little that’s worth — but in the sense that Mihashi’s always breathed easier around them, more present in his own skin surrounded by flowers than he’s ever been surrounded by people. And in a strange, almost whimsical way, the flowers feel livelier when Mihashi’s around, too, buoyed up alongside Mihashi’s soft laughter, carried by the wind up into the sky.

Or maybe Takaya just notices them more whenever Mihashi’s around. He notices everything more where Mihashi’s involved.

“ — Abe-kun.”

“Hm?” Takaya blinks. Mihashi’s still right in front of him even after he does, hands half reaching for Takaya, half hovering over his chest. Takaya can’t remember when Mihashi first picked up that habit, only that he had; as if holding his hands out in front of him would make things any easier to carry, any lighter on his chest, in his heart.

“Mihashi,” Takaya says when Mihashi doesn’t respond, less nudging after an answer as he is filling in the gaps, slipping words where only silent space punctuates Mihashi’s thoughts. “Ren?”

“Y-Yes,” Mihashi nods, too sudden and too fast, the nods shifting into a shake of his head. “No — Abe-kun — Is Abe-kun? Okay?”

Takaya pauses before answering. “Yeah. Should I…not be?”

“Oh. Oh, no, just. Quiet? You’re really quiet.”

“Should I not be?” Takaya echoes, warmer. It makes Mihashi look warmer, too, relief curving his features gentler than concern ever could.

“Depends.” Mihashi keeps watching Takaya’s face. Takaya watches Mihashi, too. “If Abe-kun wants to be.”

“I’m fine. Really,” Takaya insists.

A beat or two passes, and then: “— Okay!”

Still facing Takaya, Mihashi starts walking again, and Takaya makes it almost five steps before he remembers why they had stopped in the first place. “Hey, wait.”

Mihashi stops immediately, hands curled in front of him, a breath away from Takaya.

“It’s nothing bad — I really am fine,” Takaya says. “But weren’t you looking at them?” He jerks a thumb behind him, back at the flowers.

Mihashi’s head tilts. “Nn. I can still see, from here. Since they’re tall.”

“Tall?”

“The sunflowers,” Mihashi explains. Oh. So he’d only been looking at the sunflowers specifically. Takaya looks back, and there they are, standing tall over every other flower, yellow and yellow and yellow above every crimson, pink, white. He doesn’t stop walking, though, which is why he ends up bumping into Mihashi, who had.

“Ah, sorry,” they say simultaneously, staring at each other in surprise, breaking off into stilted laughter together.

“Did Abe-kun want to look, too…?” Mihashi starts, at the same time Takaya begins: “We can stay longer, if you wanted.”

When Mihashi shakes his head this time it’s slow, trailing after his words like afterthought. “No, it’s. Late, and I can still see, and.”

“And?” Takaya prompts.

Mihashi’s shoulders lift, hands uncurling in front of Takaya, open palm, pink fingers under the sun.

“And I wanted to check,” Mihashi adds. He doesn’t add anything else. Takaya must still look confused, though, because Mihashi’s hands wave, searching for the words. “If they do. In the sun — they grow in the sun! The sunflowers.”

“Like, under sunlight?”

“Nn, a little? Not really. Like, like facing the sun.” Mihashi looks up, maybe for emphasis, then back at Takaya. Then again: sun, Takaya, sun, Takaya.

Finally he says: “… They like to face the light best.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Takaya says, but he thinks he can feel himself smiling, can see Mihashi start to smile too, hands curling up before falling to his sides, at ease again.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Mihashi agrees. When they start walking again he faces forward, following the course of the road but every now and again Takaya would look back until he could only catch the smallest, softest splash of yellow before they turn at a bend in the road, Mihashi reminding him to be Careful, Abe-kun, almost there, almost home…

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Miyuki Kazuya/Sawamura Eijun, Daiya no A
tags: breakup, death mention pls no

If it makes you less sad
I will die by your hand
I hope you find out what you want
Already know what I am

And if it makes you less sad
We'll start talking again
You can tell me how vile
Already know that I am

-The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot by Brand New

FILL: TEAM Miyuki Kazuya/Sawamura Eijun, M

[sawakise]

character death, breakup
667 words.

“Oi, Sawamura,” Miyuki calls out as he jumps down behind the other, pressing his gun into the other’s back and fires an energy blast, sending the other into the ground, “pay more attention when you’re fighting to the death, hm?”

On the ground, Sawamura sprawls out, his hips twitching forward in the ground in a way that suggests that he’s desperately trying to get up but the electricity is still coursing through his veins, and Miyuki wonders how fucked up he is when this makes his throat go dry.

“Shame that our relationship wasn’t much, hm? Looks like our house is going to have one less,” Miyuki pretends like this doesn’t hurt him in the way that he knows best, underneath layer after layer of false bluster and comedy that he doesn’t actually feel.

“Shame that you lied to me,” Sawamura replies instead, his tongue heavy so his words slur but Miyuki still understands the message without meaning to.

“Lots of regrets,” Miyuki laughs and saunters over, pointing his gun against his temple, reaching a hand underneath Sawamura’s chin to tilt the other’s head up. “Guess I’ll just have to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”

Slowly, Miyuki trails his gun from Sawamura’s forehead down the bridge of his nose to those full lips, pushing slightly to see them give in, and then pulling the gun away when Sawamura hisses.

“Fuck you,” Sawamura spits and then lunges, feeling returned into his body. Miyuki blinks—Miyuki was sure he had at least ten more minutes, but Sawamura never fails to surprise, to impress, to make time go fast when he’s around and slow when he’s not—and allows himself to be toppled back by the force, his gun flying from his hand without him meaning to.

Sawamura smiles, his teeth bared, feral, and wraps his hands around Miyuki’s neck and squeezes. Miyuki feels his pulse stutter underneath the other’s hands.

“Miyuki,” Sawamura says and his eyes go through several emotions—disbelief, as if he couldn’t believe that he bested Miyuki, like Miyuki has to have another trick underneath his sleeve; anger, teeth still bared as he seethes through them; confusion, as if there’s a way for them to get out of the mess that they’ve made, that they can still return to what they were before, living the cozy domestic life that seemed so dull yet so perfect now; sadness, as if he remembered the reason why his hands are wrapped around Miyuki’s throat; acceptance.

“Huh,” Miyuki says, “all five stages of grief in one go, hm?”

“What are you talking about,” Sawamura hisses and his thumbs dig a bit harder into Miyuki’s adam’s apple, making him choke on air.

“Kübler-Ross,” Miyuki says and he knows that they’ve had this argument in the past, where Miyuki would tease Sawamura about the pronunciation and how Sawamura would stutter and tumble over every syllable and Miyuki would use this as an excuse to French kiss him in lieu of showing him with the tongue would go and how the lips would work. It was sickly gross in the way that neither of them knew if couples really did that but it might have been a new thing that they made work for them. It was messy in the way that the two of them worked the best.

“I hate you,” Sawamura sobs and the tears fall onto Miyuki’s glasses, turning his own vision watery. “I hate you.”

Miyuki hums in response, in agreement.

“This is all your fault,” Sawamura says and squeezes harder, digging his nails into small crescents on the sides of Miyuki’s neck as pain prickles—he switches to just squeezing with the intent to kill and Miyuki struggles, his own hands coming up to claw at Sawamura’s wrists.

“Wait,” Miyuki rasps between desperate gulps of air and Sawamura lets up briefly—he laughs, because holy shit, even when Sawamura has to kill him, he still has a bleeding heart. “I hate you too.”

Sawamura crushes his windpipe.

Prompt: Team Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou

[miyukitty]

Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, Haikyuu!
implied violence/murder

"Nice work you did
You’re gonna go far, kid

With a thousand lies
And a good disguise
Hit ‘em right between the eyes
Hit ‘em right between the eyes

When you walk away
Nothing more to say
See the lightning in your eyes
See ‘em running for their lives!"

-"You're Gonna Go Far, Kid", The Offspring

_{mafia?? durarara?? hitmen?? hit meeee}

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Miyuki Kazuya/Narumiya Mei, Daiya no A
angst

I'll grow old
Start acting my age
I'll be a brand new day
In a life that you hate

A crown of gold
A heart that's harder than stone
And it hurts a whole lot
But it's missed when it's gone

-The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot by Brand New

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Kuramochi Youichi/Miyuki Kazuya, Daiya no A
angst, possible nsfw

It's cold as a tomb
And it's dark in your room
When I sneak to your bed
To pour salt in your wounds

- The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot by Brand New

Prompt: Team Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou

[miyukitty]

Aoyagi Hajime/Teshima Junta, Yowapeda
death mention

"Kill me if you want, but... do it as yourself."

-Azura, Fire Emblem: Fates

Re: Prompt: Team Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou

[onewiththestarcult]

Oh god that quote. Fucking rude. *cries in a corner*

PROMPT: Team Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru

[phantomwised]

Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru (Haikyuu!!)
No Tags

"All I have is one last chance
I won't turn my back on you
Take my hand, drag me down
If you fall then I will too
And I can't save what's left of you"

-Breaking Benjamin, "Without You"

doesn't have to be but Final Haikyuu Quest would be awesome here!

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya, Daiya no A
no tags

You are the smell before rain
You are the blood in my veins

- The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot by Brand New

PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kazuyas]

bokuto koutarou/kuroo tetsurou - hq!!
no tags but go wild

"Can this be one of those nights where we get sloshed and forget we work together?"

— cj cregg, the west wing

PROMPT: Team Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru

[phantomwised]

Kasamatsu Yukio/Kise Ryouta (Kuroko no Basuke)
Tags: possible violence

"It only hurts just once.
They're only broken bones."

-Breaking Benjamin, "Unknown Soldier"

PROMPT: TEAM AZUMANE ASAHI/NISHINOYA YUU

[onewiththestarcult]

Oikawa Tooru/Iwaizumi Hajime; Haikyuu

tags: angst

"And all my life, I've been told
Follow your dreams but the trail went cold
And the heart don't lie
And that's a good luck charm
But I'm watching it tear out of my arms"
-Brandon Flowers, Between Me And You

PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kazuyas]

kuroko tetsuya/kagami taiga - kuroko no basuke
possible injury

"If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

— josh lyman, the west wing

PROMPT: TEAM AZUMANE ASAHI/NISHINOYA YUU

[onewiththestarcult]

Daichi Sawamura/Sugawara Koushi; Haikyuu

tags: none

"The first time that I saw your face
Time stood still
I found my place"
-Brandon Flowers, Between Me And You

FILL: TEAM IMAIZUMI SHUNSUKE/NARUKO SHOUKICHI, G

[dynamite]

daisuga, 470 words
no tags

"daichi" means earth. it's not a good word play at all haha

--



It's the spring of their third year and Daichi feels intoxicated with it.

There's something about the sunlight scattered through the branches of the sakura trees in full bloom; the air is suffused with the quality of it, everything lit with the fleeting promise that a new year brings, and time feels suspended in that moment, like Daichi’s heartbeat is in his mouth, like he's forgetting to breathe.

Suga’s head is crowned in wayward petals, stuck there from where they floated down, and more are gathering atop his head from the wind that shakes them gently from the branches; Daichi has to physically stop himself from reaching out and brushing them through the ashen strands of Suga’s hair.

Because that's weird, right? Daichi thinks, as Suga snorts at a petal that lands directly onto his nose. Suga grins with the full of his mouth, all his teeth, and the way his eyes scrunch up is what Daichi thinks perfection must feel like. You don't run fingers through your best friend’s hair. You don't want to tuck the wayward strand behind their ear. You don't want to see if they laugh or slap you in the gut if you try to smooth down that silly tuft that sticks out of the top of their--

“Daichi…! Earth to Daichi!” They're supposed to be walking to Daichi’s place to review for their English final, but it seems that Suga has already started. Both their pronunciations have always been off the mark, but when has that ever stopped them.

Daichi snorts. “That's terrible, Sugar.”

Oh. Daichi can feel the heat spreading across his face; he can feel his chest grow hot with it. “I--”

“Oh, so you do think I'm sweet. That's very kind of you,” Suga teases as he sidesteps completely. Daichi feels a little faint. “Especially after you called me a monster for adding more chilli oil to my noodles. It's not my fault you're a weakling, Daichi.” Suga shakes his head ruefully, as if reliving that dark moment of disappointment in the long history of their friendship; the petals all slide off in that instance, and Suga’s hair is impossibly lovely in the gold of the afternoon light. Suga is impossibly lovely, and that’s when Daichi thinks, 365 days of this, I could do 365 days of this, even when everything has changed, because nothing will have really changed at all.

Daichi clears his throat; or he tries to, but his bravery is stuck in there between the space of his lungs and the passage of his mouth, and all he gets is a thump on the back from Suga and a slightly worried look.

Petals continue to fall and Daichi swallows his bravery back down; it’s early yet in spring, and time will take him where he needs to be.

PROMPT: TEAM KURAMOCHI YOUICHI/MIYUKI KAZUYA

[kazuyas]

tsukishima kei / & kuroo tetsurou - hq!!
no tags

"you musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

— eames in inception

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Miyuki Kazuya/Takigawa Chris Yuu, Daiya no A
sexual content

every thursday I'd brave those mountain passes
and you'd skip your early classes
and we'd learn how our bodies worked

- We Looked Like Giants, Death Cab For Cutie

FILL: TEAM MIYUKI KAZUYA/MIYUKI KAZUYA, M

[catlarks]

tags: asphyxiation (fill is mildly suggestive but not sexual so I'm posting it here)
Word Count: 1,999

This isn't even your thing but I got like 200% too excited for breathplay, at least there's... like... heaps of banter around it. I hope you can enjoy it. ;;;

-

"Did you give up on those old goals of yours?" Chris asks, head lifting from where it's been bowed above papers spread across his desk. "That doesn't seem very like you."

They're in Chris' study, an austere room dominated by the desk stationed in its farthest corner. When Chris brings work home from the office, he does it there, and always there — never in bed, or at the kitchen table, or seated at the couch in the sitting room downstairs. He prefers to keep his life compartmentalized that way. He might bring work home, but on his terms, at his dictates.

Miyuki sprawls across the sofa opposite Chris' desk, leaning back against its arm and idly tossing an old stress ball he'd found in the back of a drawer into the air, again and again. His eyes follow the rhythmical arc of its motion, up and then down, up and then down, catching it before it hits the lowest point of its parabola every time.

He feigns unconcern, but he knows exactly what Chris is asking him.

"No," he says, at some length. "I've changed them."

Chris' gaze has lowered again to the work before him, but his eyebrows raise, and he makes a noncommittal hum that rises in his throat. Though his attention is split, he never fails to divide it fairly — half for the task before him, half for Miyuki, in equal shares. His words will come again in due time.

"What are your new goals, Kazuya?" Chris asks.

It weighs on Miyuki's ears, whenever Chris says his name like that. There's a roundness to it, Chris' tongue curving carefully around each syllable, tasting the way it feels in his mouth. He makes a point of this personal gesture, of subtly highlighting whatever relationship it is they have between them, the one where Miyuki pretends he doesn't have a key but comes in at all hours, the one where they sit in shared space and talk around work, then over work, then through it, sharing in the stress of what passes for ordinary within their lives.

Chris isn't looking at him. Chris' eyes are on his papers, his hand curled around the thick barrel of a nibbed pen, the sort that requires filling from an ink bottle with a dropper. Its details glint gold in the low office light, and Miyuki knows it's genuine, an expensive gift from a business colleague. The gold grabs his eyes but it's Chris' fingers that hold his gaze, as he lingers over Chris' deft touch with the pen. He's gentle with the delicate metal nib and his handwriting spools out beautifully before the motion of its tip.

"Kazuya?" Chris repeats.

Miyuki shakes his head, squeezes the stress ball tight inside his hand. "They're a work in progress."

"I know a thing or two about working toward a goal, I'd think," Chris says. "Why don't you tell me a little bit more."

"I thought you told me once not to reveal my goals so easily," Miyuki says, slice of a smile cutting across his face. "I thought you told me that if I did, you might have to deliver on them."

His brows tilt up, the curve of his mouth a challenge. Chris looks back at him, his lips pressing into a thin, considering line. Miyuki never has been able to run a game on Chris worth anything, he's tried, he's never been able to stop himself from trying, but they're too much two of the same. They think the same way, play by the same rules. When Chris weighs him in judgment, Miyuki knows he'll divine the substance of Kazuya down to the ounce.

There's something terrifying about being seen through so easily. There's something exciting about it, too.

"I did say something like that once," Chris allows. "And I would not want to go back on my word."

Miyuki's hand squeezes again, compressing the stress ball down to a tense lump of putty clenched in his palm. Then, slowly, he lets his fingers release.

"Heads up," he says, to get Chris' attention, and then: "Catch!"

He throws the ball, a gentle, underhand arc which Chris fields easily for the warning. For a long moment Chris stares down at what he holds in his hand, so that Miyuki knows he sees the even, creased lines from where Miyuki's fingers pressed into the worn-out flesh of the ball. His eyes lift, and there's a new question in them.

Miyuki's throat feels tight, but the words come out even. "Do that," he says. "Do that to me."

"I could crush your windpipe," Chris says, voice coming out gentle, soft. "I know exactly how much pressure it would take."

Miyuki swallows, and his stomach drops, a lurching feeling like he's about to be sick. He swallows and it feels like swallowing down bile, like gulping down his own heart from where it's lodged in his throat. His gut churns and rolls but his nerves sing, sparking with an excitement that courses beneath his skin.

"I know," he says. He's speaking more softly, too. "But that's why you won't. You know when to stop."

Chris looks at him, and Miyuki looks back, with as bland a gaze as he can manage. There's no fear on his face, no uncertainty, he can feel it in the way his features sag into a resting pose before he flashes Chris the crooked edge of a grin. There's a tension in Chris' face that eases when he sees it, though he doesn't relax; his spine remains perfectly straight and his eyes are cool amber chips of stone.

Chris stands up from behind the desk, pushing his chair back so the legs don't even scrape the floor.

Miyuki doesn't think to move. He knows that Chris isn't as gentle as he looks, behind the calm facade and the mild looks. He knows that there's a ruthlessness beneath that, knows that with Chris' intimate, studied knowledge of the human body there comes a danger more deadly than any uncontrolled violence. He knows this, but he's never known when to be scared, his fear feeding into excitement feeding into eager, thrumming anticipation.

He's breathless with that expectation, sitting up straight on the couch as Chris closes the distance between them with slow, measured steps. He stands over Miyuki, face cast in shadow with the sole light in the office centered at his back. Miyuki wouldn't know how to read those features in the best of light, smoothed into the thoughtful mask Chris wears on the job, his face a facade to keep him out of reach.

"I believe I also told you once," Chris says, "that if you regret the things you've asked for, it will be at a point too late for us to turn around."

His hand reaches out, curls its fingers around Miyuki's jaw and smooths its thumb across his cheek. It isn't what he's expecting; it's alarmingly tender in the face of what he's asked for. He pushes his face into Chris' palm, hard enough to maintain his resolve, stubborn at the sight of Chris' sneaky attempt to gentle him.

"Are you sure?" Chris asks.

"I don't make wrong choices," Miyuki tells him.

Those, too, are familiar words. There's a flicker of something across Chris' face, lost to the half-light before Miyuki knows how to place it. His hand shifts, sliding from Miyuki's face to instead follow the line of his neck to the dip where it meets his shoulder, squeezing as if in reassurance before he centers it instead around the column of Miyuki's throat.

His touch is light, his hand nothing more than a gentle weight with no pressure behind it. Miyuki swallows, and light as the touch is, he can feel his throat bob past Chris' fingers, and back up again.

Chris is watching him, that familiar appraising stare, that look like he's weighing Miyuki down to the finest of Miyuki's own brain's calculations. Miyuki stares back, waiting, encouraging. Chris' fingers close, squeezing until Miyuki starts to feel it.

Chris has large hands. He has square palms, broad and solid, but his fingers are clever. They're fingers that know how to spin a pen, how to wield a knife, hands that manage perfectly julienning carrots in the kitchen and flawlessly shaving with only a straight razor in the bath. He's capable of a light touch, or a firm hand.

With Miyuki, he uses both. Always has, ever since they met. He knows just how far to tighten his hand, so that Miyuki can feel every breath in, shallow and slow, snuck past the constricted passage of his throat with the utmost of care. His hands come up, hooking into the belt loops of Chris' pants and curling into the fabric like claws. Miyuki holds on, and he breathes, and he watches Chris' face, composed like he's making the finest study of Miyuki's struggle.

If he pulls, if he taps out, he thinks Chris will let go. Or he hopes. Or he chooses to believe.

But it's a challenge, in the purest form, and that Miyuki will grasp with both eager, shaking hands. He breathes. It becomes harder, tighter, a struggle to suck in the smallest gulps of air, a challenge he loses by inches as his head becomes light, euphoric, as his thoughts float above him and hover on the air. There are no other considerations — only the couch where he kneels, the fabric beneath his hands, the pressure of Chris' palm as his fingers squeeze tight, and the oxygen Miyuki's brain can only progressively lose.

It's a four-step puzzle, deceptively simple, near-impossible to solve. He breathes. It sticks, shallow in his throat, too little and he's dizzy. His hands are looser where they fist into Chris' pants; his pants are tighter in the front. He breathes. There's a prickle up the back of his neck and a sizzle beneath his skin, a strange tingling across his face and down his arms and something is numb, but it isn't alarming. It's exciting. He breathes. Or he tries, but he doesn't succeed.

He can't see Chris' face any more, can't make out what his expression is doing. His vision swims, and his head feels so light it's verging on floating away. He can feel every one of Chris' fingers, a line around his throat.

Chris lets go. Miyuki breathes, a big gasp in all at once that his body takes without warning, without his bidding. His body jerks, a fish hooked on the line and flopping to the deck, flops himself limply back against the arm of the couch.

"I should have stopped a moment earlier," Chris says.

Miyuki is light-headed; his brain is catching up to his lungs and he wouldn't trust himself to judge on anything. Nevertheless, he thinks Chris sounds a little shaken. He thinks, mysterious wonder of wonders, Chris sounds concerned.

"It's fine," Miyuki says, because it is. "I'm fine."

Chris is watching him, but Miyuki's strings are cut. He cannot yet puppet himself into a performance of normalcy, cannot prove that he is no worse for wear. He breathes, and is increasingly aware that the adrenaline is still there, the thrill of danger hot along his veins and sparking off his nerves. He pretends, badly, that he isn't hard. Chris pretends along with him.

Miyuki licks his lips, the thank you heavy in his mouth but unwilling to roll off his tongue. He feels the weight of Chris' appraisal, hedges that it's Chris' own position he's feeling out, as much as he's testing Miyuki's response to his actions. Miyuki chooses to make it easy for him.

"I'm taking a shower," he says, as he pushes up from the couch. "Make us some tea?"

His feet are unsteady. He doesn't want to know what Chris decides, what he divines from the smallest telltale twitches out of Miyuki's body. He's out of the room before he can hear the response.

Prompt: Team Grandstand

[babster]

Hiyama Chinatsu &/ Fujita Tatara, Ballroom e Youkuso
no tags

"The general advice is always to be yourself, be yourself, which only makes sense if you haven't got an attitude problem."
Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

PROMPT: Team Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya

[kazuyaloveseijun]

Furuya Satoru/Miyuki Kazuya, Daiya no A
optional sexual content

And together there
In a shroud of frost, the mountain air
Began to pass from every pane of weathered glass
And I held you closer than anyone would ever get

- We Looked Like Giants, Death Cab For Cutie