SASO Referees (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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sportsanime2016-07-21 08:53 pm
referees) wrote in sportsanime2016-07-21 08:53 pm
Entry tags:
Bonus Round 5: Myth & Lore
This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on August 4 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.
RULES
- This round does not have prompts. Instead, we ask you to draw inspiration from the wide pool of mythology, fantasy, folklore, and fable. An urban fantasy or supernatural AU? A re-imagining of your favorite folk tale? Characters swapping ghost stories or playing D&D? As long as your fill in some way incorporates the fantastical and/or supernatural, it's welcome here.
- Your fill still has to be about a ship from one of our nominated fandoms. What ships you create work for is up to you, though.
- To submit your fill, simply leave it as a comment as a reply to this post.
- 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)
Remember, this is a NO-PROMPT round. Format your fill comment in one of the following ways:
| If FILLING: | If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant: |
FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING]
| FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING]
|
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 fills as you want!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!
FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [3/3]
Tanaka is absent for the rest of the week, but then he comes over to hammer out pricing. They talk business, Ennoshita laying out how time figures into cost because some people in the world don’t respect the cost of labor when it’s in the form of art, but Tanaka doesn’t gripe about it even though he tilts his head skyward and fake cries by the time the sum is tentatively settled and laid out before him. He seems impressed by Ennoshita’s flexibility.
Tanaka seems impressed by a lot of the things that Ennoshita does.
Ennoshita isn’t very used to being marveled at. Doesn’t really get it, if he’s telling the truth. But Tanaka doesn’t put on airs or fake amazement. He’s honest and genuine, rowdy, galvanizing. And attractive.
No, Ennoshita’s mind won’t let him forget that detail.
*
There are impromptu visits. More caretaking meals, Tanaka clicking his tongue every time Ennoshita opens his palm for the receipt and adds it to the rest.
Ennoshita even lets him into the backroom again. Just once, because this time Ennoshita’s awareness of Tanaka sitting quietly there on a stool in the corner doesn’t fade away into intensive focus on his spellcraftmanship. Just when he comes close to pure concentration, Ennoshita will remember his guest and then feel or imagine Tanaka watching him or his hands or the room that’s so personal to him - or a mix of all of the above. Ennoshita then goes on to prick his finger once on his needle and gets a floaty feeling in his hand ten minutes later, which at least means that the buoyancy in his enchantment is working properly, but does not bode well for his overall productivity.
No. The backroom is his oasis. The storefront a more acceptable meeting place.
Tanaka talks about his friends and family first and foremost. Not always without complaint, but always with care and respect and fiery loyalty. He has his fair share of ridiculous stories featuring people who sound like characters for how brightly he paints them. His mother, his older sister. Always just the three of them for as long as it really mattered. But an aunt and grandmother too. So many strong ass women. Yeah, I suffered a lot.
Nishinoya, commonly known as ‘Noya-san’, worshipfully known as ‘The Guardian Diety.’ Capital T-G-D.
Yamamoto and his little sister Akane. Hinata and Kageyama. Some pair, those two. Kiyoko-san. Yachi.
(“Yachi?” Ennoshita exclaims. “You know her?” “She’s… Well, she’s a witch. The one who made my werelights?” A silence, Tanaka gaping. “No shit. Wouldn’t’ve guessed it. Small fucking world.”)
It’s these sorts of conversations more than anything else that has Ennoshita’s mind wandering late at night or early in the morning after he’s let himself into the backroom again instead of into bed.
Attractive is the first one, still there in every tossed smile and raucous laugh. His slim waist. The fitness suggested beneath his clothes.
But greater than that, encapsulating it all, two words nearly embarrassing in their simplicity: Good man.
*
Not days, not weeks, but nearly two months later does Ennoshita finish Tanaka’s commission, grasping for the finishing line like a runner at the end of a marathon. Accomplished and utterly done. Muscles aching. His fingers especially.
Thank god.
Against all the professionalism which Ennoshita has continuously tried and failed to maintain around the other man, Tanaka doesn’t come to receive his flying carpet during business hours, but after them.
He breezes in and swings the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, then approaches the counter with a pep in his step and seeking eyes as if expecting a gift puppy to come plodding out into his arms.
“It’s in the back,” Ennoshita laughs.
“Lead the way. I am so hype for this.”
“I can tell,” Ennoshita says, opening the backroom. Only the third time that Tanaka has been back here, the lights low and blue-purple as usual.
Ennoshita doesn’t know how to draw the reveal out, so he simply steps aside to let Tanaka see his rug.
“Oh my god,” Tanaka whispers, softer than ever. It doesn’t last very long. “Oh my god, Ennoshita-san! Holy shit! It’s in the air!”
“It’s a flying carpet,” Ennoshita points out, amused at Tanaka’s astonishment at receiving exactly what he paid for. “Well, a hovering one. But it will move once you learn how to ride it.”
“Holy shit,” Tanaka repeats, stepping one reverent foot up onto the rug. “Fucking beautiful. I can’t believe it. I know I’ve seen you work on this thing but, you know, I can’t believe this right now!”
Feeling that half self-satisfied, half validation seeking side of an artist, Ennoshita asks, “Is it to your satisfaction?”
“Shit, is it? I could kiss you right now.”
Ignore that swoop in your stomach. Just laugh. “Ha ha,” Ennoshita says woodenly.
Tanaka’s too marveled to notice the poor acting. He has both feet planted firmly on the rug now, coasting back and forth like a beginning slipping on a snowboard. Grinning like mad. The rug’s four tassels dangling charmingly.
He looks up, catching Ennoshita’s eyes.
“Have you tried this baby out yet?”
“Of course.”
“For fun, I mean.”
“No. I’ve only made sure that it would as it should and will keep on working for as long as possible. It’s yours, after all.”
“Well I say come on up and join me. This is awesome. You’re fucking amazing, man. Two months and this?”
“No,” he gasps around the praise, raising a hand in refusal.
“C’mon.”
“Oh. No, no.”
“Please?” Tanaka tries. It shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t. He’s still smiling, completely unrepentant.
“How would we even… Begin to… I didn’t enchant this with the combined weight of two people in mind. Perhaps two children. Us? There’s no guarantee that it will lift off the ground anymore. It’s better to err on the side of caution with these things. It would need another layer of… of something. The rush grass took surprisingly well to buoyancy, more so than the cotton. I think that really saved the entire enchantment. We’ve been talking about it in our circle now. I guess grasses really like to fly on the wind too.”
“Hey,” Tanaka says, easy, but there’s a tinge of pink in his ears as he offers a hand. Palm up. Ennoshita knows he was beginning to ramble. “I got a thing to show you.”
‘What’ Ennoshita mouths, breathless. Tanaka simply wiggles his fingers until Ennoshita grasps them, and then he’s stepping up onto the rug too.
There is no unbalancing. The rug doesn’t wobble or buckle or even descend closer to the ground, remaining faithfully steady. It’s just Tanaka, guiding him gently closer, the two of them standing face to face. Good god. His heart is racing. A mixture of success and proximity beating his blood.
Tanaka clears his throat. Ennoshita remembers the thing he’s to be shown and tries to pay attention. Hopefully it’s not Tanaka’s eyes, because he’s certainly noticing them now.
“So, tell me,” Tanaka starts. “When did you last let your heart decide?”
“What?” Ennoshita breathes again, managing to get some volume behind the word this time.
“I can open your eyes. Take you wonder by wonder.” - Ennoshita freezes, open-mouthed. No. And then. He sounds good. Turning more sing-song on the first wonder yet holding the notes just fine. Oh, god no. – “Over, sideways, and under on a magic carpet ride.”
Tanaka inhales.
The rug begins to rise up.
“A WHOLE NEW-”
“Not in here, not in here!” Ennoshita yells, aghast at all the potential damage as the rug seems to want to obey Tanaka’s mood and fly.
“Outside then!” Tanaka laughs, ebullient and way too loud. “There’s a park right over on-”
“Not in public,” Ennoshita insists, because he’s still mentally bracing against Tanaka’s everything and that’s what his mind leads him to. The two of them pressed close together. Outside. In public. Riding a flying carpet. Tanaka trying to pop an incredulous wheelie off the façade of a building, people gasping and pointing below.
“My place then?” Tanaka suggests, suddenly quieter. He’s holding both of Ennoshita’s hands in both of his. Ennoshita isn’t sure when that happened but he doesn’t want to pull away, and when Tanaka’s grip momentarily tightens in entreaty, his face certainly blushed pink now, open and eager, Ennoshita fervently doesn’t want the contact to stop.
The question still begs off his tongue though, the one that’s been burning there since the very beginning. “Why?”
“Ma’ll wanna thank the person who made her little girl dreams come true and gave her a flying carpet,” Tanaka rushes. All for his mother, this whole thing. Good man. But then Tanaka continues, like he’s been waiting for it. “Thought you looked good from the first moment I saw you. Watchin’ you work was like… Shit, I don’t know. Like watching anyone do what they really love doin’. Couldn’t stop looking.”
“That’s it? That’s anyone.”
“And then I got to know you.” Tanaka smirks. “Check yourself in a mirror sometime too, maybe.”
Ennoshita exhales a disbelieving laugh, shakes his head, gathers up courage. Thinks with resolve, Not my client anymore.
“You first,” he says.
Not the best attempt at flirtation by a long shot, but that smirk softens into a smile, both expressions unfair and heart hammering. “A fantastic point of view,” Tanaka mutters agreeably.
Ennoshita groans and reclaims his hands to stick his face into his palms and then tuck all of that against Tanaka’s shoulder. He leans there, reeling and bemused when Tanaka puts his arms around him with a laugh and then a sigh.
“Fuckin’ pinch me right now though.”
Digging through his memories, Ennoshita decides to do one better and dusts off old, fantastic words.
“Or say we’re only dreaming.”
Tanaka hears despite the muffle and gives a delighted, too hard squeeze. “There you go! God, what a perfect one!”
That he could be referring to the lyric or he could be referring to Ennoshita isn’t lost on him. And for once that pressing Why? isn’t clamoring in the back of his throat.
He thinks he has his answer right here.
Re: FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [3/3]
Re: FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [3/3]
Re: FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [3/3]
Re: FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [3/3]