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edenfallingHere, one day late, is chapter 2 of "Lemonade," the crackfic crossover designed for the express purpose of getting Faith, Duo, and Sasuke into bed (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) together. Chapter 1 can be found here. Also, this contains a fair amount of swearing -- Duo and Faith are not the world's most polite people -- and we're moving toward the sex part. Slowly.
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Lemonade
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Part II: In which plans are laid
"So what's it say?" Faith asked impatiently as she lounged against a handy chunk of stone. She was hot and tired and horny as hell, but this wasn't a good time to jump anyone's bones, no matter how good Duo looked or how fun it might be to shake Sasuke up and see if he bit. Information first. Sooner or later Mister Robin 'I-Know-Best' Wood would send someone to check up on her, and then her baby Slayers would kick his ass into gear on the investigation, but if this scroll gave her a shortcut home...
Duo waved his hand absently in her direction and continued puzzling through the scroll. "Nothing useful so far," he said. "It looks like a letter -- lots of fancy salutations and shit, and then asking about how the Plan is shaping up." He frowned. "Oh, this ain't good."
"What?"
Duo fixed her with a cheerfully murderous stare. "So, you mind telling me why these demons think they need to kill some red witch and all her allies? And why they called 'those dedicated to darkness, death, and vengeance' to do the job for them, and planned to scrub our brains clean as glass before turning us into magic suicide bombs?"
"Fuck. Willow." She knew activating the baby Slayers was going to bite them in the ass someday. Not that she didn't like the girls, and damn straight she liked the backup, but messing with cosmic forces was a great way to paint a giant bull's-eye on your back. That hadn't been a lesson Dick meant to teach her, but she'd learned that one by heart after he died.
Duo cocked his head. "They wanna kill people because of a tacky movie?"
Faith set aside the weird coincidence of George Lucas and his fantasy flicks existing in worlds as different as hers and Duo's, and shook her head. "Nah. Willow's a person, a witch. She's good people, mostly. Beats me why they didn't just try themselves, or why they went dimension-shopping instead of just grabbing a few neighbors, but I don't do mojo -- I just knock heads when other people start messing around."
Duo opened his mouth -- Faith braced for another pointed question -- and then he rocked back on his heels, tapping the scroll against the ground. "Fuck. We are goddamned idiots, you know that? We should've left someone alive for interrogation." A dark smile flickered across his face. "I know all about interrogation."
From both ends, probably, Faith thought. She knew that expression from her own mirror, back in the day. Torture left some interesting scars on the soul. "Right." She stood up and slapped her hands on her thighs. "Obviously we aren't going to learn much here, and I'd rather not stay and wait for anything to come along and play scavenger. Willow can track me by that earring, so we might as well go find a better place to wait. I'm thinking water would be nice."
Water, and a little bit of privacy to take care of things. She wanted a bath so bad she could taste it.
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"We're going to find a better campsite, someplace with spiffier decoration," Duo said to Sasuke. Sasuke frowned minutely; Duo restrained himself from reaching over and messing up the kid's hair. Too much risk of losing his hand, and that wouldn't do at all, no matter how much Sasuke needed to pry that stick out of his ass.
"Faith is going the wrong way," Sasuke said.
Duo raised his eyebrows. "Reeeeally? You been here before, Sasuke-kun? 'Cause if you've been holding out on us, that would throw a big wrench into our developing relationship."
Sasuke clenched his hands, and Duo grinned. Before Faith's friends pulled them out of this place, he was gonna get through that so-superior mask, oh yes. Yanking assholes out of their shells was about the best fun around, short of flirting, fucking, or fighting. It was good for them, too -- nobody could last long under high-gee pressure without going completely bugnuts.
He knew. He'd tried it.
Besides, who ever said getting reactions couldn't involve some flirting, fighting, etcetera? Not Duo Maxwell, that's for sure!
"I am trained in wilderness survival and tracking," Sasuke said, spitting each word out like a tiny, carefully aimed bullet. "We're most likely to find water in that direction." He pointed toward a smudgy rise of ground off near the purple horizon, in the opposite direction of the low hills toward which Faith was walking. "The outlines of the terrain are unnaturally sharp here, except in that direction. That implies plant growth, which implies water."
Duo leaned on his staff and squinted along the line of Sasuke's arm. "Yeah, point taken. Damn, it's been too long since I did groundside work." And he'd only done desert missions twice, anyway; Quatre would be a lot more use in this place. Then again, Quatre wouldn't have gotten caught by that spell -- sure, he'd gone on a little vengeance kick, but he'd never really dedicated himself to it, per se. And Quatre would've tried to negotiate with the Sarguls. Yeah, he'd have switched to fighting in about three seconds, once he realized what was up, but if Duo hadn't felt something wrong looming a split second ahead and come through the blue circle already swinging his scythe, he didn't think even Faith and Sasuke would've been able to reach him before some demon lopped his head off.
Man, he was drifting on weird trajectories today. Get it together, dumbass, Duo ordered himself. You can hyperventilate after you've got a hidey-hole.
"Hey, Faith!" Duo called, switching back to English. She spun around, deadly grace in every movement, and then relaxed when no demons popped out of thin air. "Sasuke here knows about wilderness survival -- he says we should go the other way."
Faith looked at them, looked at the distant rise to which Duo helpfully pointed, looked back at the hills she'd been headed for, and threw up her hands. "Oh, what the fuck. I'm from Boston -- what do I know about this shit? Tell the kid to get moving and we'll follow."
"She says okay," Duo told Sasuke. "Guide us, oh fearless leader." He swept an ironic bow, twirled the staff of his thermal scythe, and then collapsed the metal and electronics into a foot-long rod that he clipped to his belt.
Sasuke glared, but Duo was immune to that sort of thing. (Heero did it better anyhow. And Lady Une, back before she got on her meds.) He grinned at the kid and fell in behind him -- really, any one of them could lead the way now that they had a direction, but it couldn't hurt to let the guy feel useful. Besides, he had a nice ass.
Faith ambled up beside Duo and followed his gaze. "Aha. You thinking what I'm thinking?" she murmured.
"He's a little young," Duo said noncommittally. And Sasuke hadn't shown any interest in either one of them, so there was no telling which way he swung. Jumping him seemed a slightly drastic way to find out.
Faith laughed. "He's old enough to kill -- he might as well get some of the other side while he's at it." She slid Duo a wry smile. "Think we could sell it to him as tension relief?"
"Maaaaaaybe," Duo drawled in his flattest L2 accent, "but save it 'til we're in a defensible place, with some water. I'd hate to try washing up with gravel." He kicked the stony ground for emphasis.
Faith sighed and her eyes went distant for a moment, probably imagining a bath or other fun things to do in a pool of water. "Yeah, you got a point. Sand is not of the good, and getting killed doing the nasty would be seriously embarrassing." She looked at Sasuke's ass again and grinned. "Tell him to walk a little faster."
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They were watching him. Sasuke hadn't managed to catch them at it yet, but he could feel intent prickling on the back of his neck and whenever he turned around, either Faith or Duo smiled at him in an overly innocent way. He wasn't used to feeling like prey. He didn't like it. The constant urge to turn and watch his supposed allies made it difficult to keep watch on the surrounding desert. He didn't need this stress -- the unfamiliar light of this world, and the sharp-edged shadows that swallowed the black rocks with barely a trace, caused enough trouble unless he drained his chakra to keep the Sharingan constantly active.
By the time the tiny white sun had dropped to a point halfway between its zenith and the horizon, he decided his pride wasn't worth this much aggravation and slowed until his companions caught up with him. They were talking in their awkward-sounding language, and laughing. Sasuke gritted his teeth.
"Duo-san. I have spent the last three hours on watch. Please ask Faith to take over so I can relax for a while."
"Finally he sees the light!" Duo said, and then turned to Faith and presumably explained, along with some illustrative gestures. Faith raised her eyebrows at Sasuke. When he scowled, she grinned, touched her fingers carelessly to her forehead, and strode on ahead.
"It occurs to me," Duo drawled, slinging his arm over Sasuke's shoulders so deftly that Sasuke didn't have time to protest, "that if I go down, you and Faith are gonna be in a lot of trouble. How good are you at learning codes and handsigns?"
"Excellent," Sasuke said. He shoved Duo's arm off and moved a half step away. Duo raised his arm again, and his eyes danced with amusement when Sasuke twitched slightly.
"Great! I'm gonna teach you a little bit of English, okay?" Duo lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Just between you and me, Faith's one tough lady, but I don't think talking is really her thing. She's all about hands-on contact."
Sasuke had not studied under Kakashi for one year and Orochimaru for three without learning to spot subtext and innuendo. So that was why Faith and Duo had been watching him. They were... less objectionable... than any others who had tried to distract him over the years, but this was no time for idiocy like that!
"Faith is a strong fighter," he said blandly. "So. How do you say 'stop' in English?"
Duo blinked. A slow grin spread across his face, and he flung his arms out wide, barely missing Sasuke's shoulder. "Oh, that was slick. Futile, but slick. You know, Sasuke-kun, I think I like you."
Sasuke's stomach lurched. Shimatta. Now how was he supposed to get out of this mess?
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End Part Two
Back to part I
Continue to part III
See the original crack pairings meme and the scene that attacked me and became the first section of part I
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
I did not actually work on "Apartment Manager" yesterday, but spent a few hours plotting stuff for "The Sum of Things," my original novel. Such as Ranna and Talin's first meeting, and a conversation later on about the ethics of some of Ranna's plans, which detours into a discussion on the nature of property, taxes, and theft, with some theological dimensions. Quite fun, really -- Talin's all quietly outraged, and Ranna is having way too much fun talking rings around him, and bringing him to her point of view by making it seem much less objectionable in comparison to things she might have done instead, and in comparison to her enemies.
On good days, writing is the best thing in the world.
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Lemonade
---------------------------------------------
Part II: In which plans are laid
"So what's it say?" Faith asked impatiently as she lounged against a handy chunk of stone. She was hot and tired and horny as hell, but this wasn't a good time to jump anyone's bones, no matter how good Duo looked or how fun it might be to shake Sasuke up and see if he bit. Information first. Sooner or later Mister Robin 'I-Know-Best' Wood would send someone to check up on her, and then her baby Slayers would kick his ass into gear on the investigation, but if this scroll gave her a shortcut home...
Duo waved his hand absently in her direction and continued puzzling through the scroll. "Nothing useful so far," he said. "It looks like a letter -- lots of fancy salutations and shit, and then asking about how the Plan is shaping up." He frowned. "Oh, this ain't good."
"What?"
Duo fixed her with a cheerfully murderous stare. "So, you mind telling me why these demons think they need to kill some red witch and all her allies? And why they called 'those dedicated to darkness, death, and vengeance' to do the job for them, and planned to scrub our brains clean as glass before turning us into magic suicide bombs?"
"Fuck. Willow." She knew activating the baby Slayers was going to bite them in the ass someday. Not that she didn't like the girls, and damn straight she liked the backup, but messing with cosmic forces was a great way to paint a giant bull's-eye on your back. That hadn't been a lesson Dick meant to teach her, but she'd learned that one by heart after he died.
Duo cocked his head. "They wanna kill people because of a tacky movie?"
Faith set aside the weird coincidence of George Lucas and his fantasy flicks existing in worlds as different as hers and Duo's, and shook her head. "Nah. Willow's a person, a witch. She's good people, mostly. Beats me why they didn't just try themselves, or why they went dimension-shopping instead of just grabbing a few neighbors, but I don't do mojo -- I just knock heads when other people start messing around."
Duo opened his mouth -- Faith braced for another pointed question -- and then he rocked back on his heels, tapping the scroll against the ground. "Fuck. We are goddamned idiots, you know that? We should've left someone alive for interrogation." A dark smile flickered across his face. "I know all about interrogation."
From both ends, probably, Faith thought. She knew that expression from her own mirror, back in the day. Torture left some interesting scars on the soul. "Right." She stood up and slapped her hands on her thighs. "Obviously we aren't going to learn much here, and I'd rather not stay and wait for anything to come along and play scavenger. Willow can track me by that earring, so we might as well go find a better place to wait. I'm thinking water would be nice."
Water, and a little bit of privacy to take care of things. She wanted a bath so bad she could taste it.
---------------------------------------------
"We're going to find a better campsite, someplace with spiffier decoration," Duo said to Sasuke. Sasuke frowned minutely; Duo restrained himself from reaching over and messing up the kid's hair. Too much risk of losing his hand, and that wouldn't do at all, no matter how much Sasuke needed to pry that stick out of his ass.
"Faith is going the wrong way," Sasuke said.
Duo raised his eyebrows. "Reeeeally? You been here before, Sasuke-kun? 'Cause if you've been holding out on us, that would throw a big wrench into our developing relationship."
Sasuke clenched his hands, and Duo grinned. Before Faith's friends pulled them out of this place, he was gonna get through that so-superior mask, oh yes. Yanking assholes out of their shells was about the best fun around, short of flirting, fucking, or fighting. It was good for them, too -- nobody could last long under high-gee pressure without going completely bugnuts.
He knew. He'd tried it.
Besides, who ever said getting reactions couldn't involve some flirting, fighting, etcetera? Not Duo Maxwell, that's for sure!
"I am trained in wilderness survival and tracking," Sasuke said, spitting each word out like a tiny, carefully aimed bullet. "We're most likely to find water in that direction." He pointed toward a smudgy rise of ground off near the purple horizon, in the opposite direction of the low hills toward which Faith was walking. "The outlines of the terrain are unnaturally sharp here, except in that direction. That implies plant growth, which implies water."
Duo leaned on his staff and squinted along the line of Sasuke's arm. "Yeah, point taken. Damn, it's been too long since I did groundside work." And he'd only done desert missions twice, anyway; Quatre would be a lot more use in this place. Then again, Quatre wouldn't have gotten caught by that spell -- sure, he'd gone on a little vengeance kick, but he'd never really dedicated himself to it, per se. And Quatre would've tried to negotiate with the Sarguls. Yeah, he'd have switched to fighting in about three seconds, once he realized what was up, but if Duo hadn't felt something wrong looming a split second ahead and come through the blue circle already swinging his scythe, he didn't think even Faith and Sasuke would've been able to reach him before some demon lopped his head off.
Man, he was drifting on weird trajectories today. Get it together, dumbass, Duo ordered himself. You can hyperventilate after you've got a hidey-hole.
"Hey, Faith!" Duo called, switching back to English. She spun around, deadly grace in every movement, and then relaxed when no demons popped out of thin air. "Sasuke here knows about wilderness survival -- he says we should go the other way."
Faith looked at them, looked at the distant rise to which Duo helpfully pointed, looked back at the hills she'd been headed for, and threw up her hands. "Oh, what the fuck. I'm from Boston -- what do I know about this shit? Tell the kid to get moving and we'll follow."
"She says okay," Duo told Sasuke. "Guide us, oh fearless leader." He swept an ironic bow, twirled the staff of his thermal scythe, and then collapsed the metal and electronics into a foot-long rod that he clipped to his belt.
Sasuke glared, but Duo was immune to that sort of thing. (Heero did it better anyhow. And Lady Une, back before she got on her meds.) He grinned at the kid and fell in behind him -- really, any one of them could lead the way now that they had a direction, but it couldn't hurt to let the guy feel useful. Besides, he had a nice ass.
Faith ambled up beside Duo and followed his gaze. "Aha. You thinking what I'm thinking?" she murmured.
"He's a little young," Duo said noncommittally. And Sasuke hadn't shown any interest in either one of them, so there was no telling which way he swung. Jumping him seemed a slightly drastic way to find out.
Faith laughed. "He's old enough to kill -- he might as well get some of the other side while he's at it." She slid Duo a wry smile. "Think we could sell it to him as tension relief?"
"Maaaaaaybe," Duo drawled in his flattest L2 accent, "but save it 'til we're in a defensible place, with some water. I'd hate to try washing up with gravel." He kicked the stony ground for emphasis.
Faith sighed and her eyes went distant for a moment, probably imagining a bath or other fun things to do in a pool of water. "Yeah, you got a point. Sand is not of the good, and getting killed doing the nasty would be seriously embarrassing." She looked at Sasuke's ass again and grinned. "Tell him to walk a little faster."
---------------------------------------------
They were watching him. Sasuke hadn't managed to catch them at it yet, but he could feel intent prickling on the back of his neck and whenever he turned around, either Faith or Duo smiled at him in an overly innocent way. He wasn't used to feeling like prey. He didn't like it. The constant urge to turn and watch his supposed allies made it difficult to keep watch on the surrounding desert. He didn't need this stress -- the unfamiliar light of this world, and the sharp-edged shadows that swallowed the black rocks with barely a trace, caused enough trouble unless he drained his chakra to keep the Sharingan constantly active.
By the time the tiny white sun had dropped to a point halfway between its zenith and the horizon, he decided his pride wasn't worth this much aggravation and slowed until his companions caught up with him. They were talking in their awkward-sounding language, and laughing. Sasuke gritted his teeth.
"Duo-san. I have spent the last three hours on watch. Please ask Faith to take over so I can relax for a while."
"Finally he sees the light!" Duo said, and then turned to Faith and presumably explained, along with some illustrative gestures. Faith raised her eyebrows at Sasuke. When he scowled, she grinned, touched her fingers carelessly to her forehead, and strode on ahead.
"It occurs to me," Duo drawled, slinging his arm over Sasuke's shoulders so deftly that Sasuke didn't have time to protest, "that if I go down, you and Faith are gonna be in a lot of trouble. How good are you at learning codes and handsigns?"
"Excellent," Sasuke said. He shoved Duo's arm off and moved a half step away. Duo raised his arm again, and his eyes danced with amusement when Sasuke twitched slightly.
"Great! I'm gonna teach you a little bit of English, okay?" Duo lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Just between you and me, Faith's one tough lady, but I don't think talking is really her thing. She's all about hands-on contact."
Sasuke had not studied under Kakashi for one year and Orochimaru for three without learning to spot subtext and innuendo. So that was why Faith and Duo had been watching him. They were... less objectionable... than any others who had tried to distract him over the years, but this was no time for idiocy like that!
"Faith is a strong fighter," he said blandly. "So. How do you say 'stop' in English?"
Duo blinked. A slow grin spread across his face, and he flung his arms out wide, barely missing Sasuke's shoulder. "Oh, that was slick. Futile, but slick. You know, Sasuke-kun, I think I like you."
Sasuke's stomach lurched. Shimatta. Now how was he supposed to get out of this mess?
---------------------------------------------
End Part Two
Back to part I
Continue to part III
See the original crack pairings meme and the scene that attacked me and became the first section of part I
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
I did not actually work on "Apartment Manager" yesterday, but spent a few hours plotting stuff for "The Sum of Things," my original novel. Such as Ranna and Talin's first meeting, and a conversation later on about the ethics of some of Ranna's plans, which detours into a discussion on the nature of property, taxes, and theft, with some theological dimensions. Quite fun, really -- Talin's all quietly outraged, and Ranna is having way too much fun talking rings around him, and bringing him to her point of view by making it seem much less objectionable in comparison to things she might have done instead, and in comparison to her enemies.
On good days, writing is the best thing in the world.
