lullabies to paralyze. [yaoi!]

[izkariote]

X-posted to stitchedophelia. Normally I'd just keep this on the fic journal, but I'll make a special exception in this case as I DID promise boysex over here.

Here's the first piece of fiction that I've come up with for a new project between ezraelandvari and I that we have dubbed Citrus Avenue. Basically, it's a project involving stuffing our best characters from our stories in a college setting and watching them go at school and at each other. XD

This piece you're about to read is a "short story" (of 18 pages =_=) that is meant to take place before the main story of Citrus (whatever that's going to end up being, anyway @_@). The titles are taken from the latest album from the Queens of the Stone Age and all the songs on it. Reverse numbering is intentional.




Lullabies to Paralyze.
Mikhail and Hikaru in Fourteen Parts.
[1/2]


Fourteen. “You Got a Killer Scene There, Man…”

It didn’t look like there was anyone around when he came to #2041, Citrus Avenue. This wasn’t surprising: it was the beginning of the hottest summer the country had seen, and the heat was at an all-time high; everyone woke up to the sun burning holes through their eyelids. That evening was relatively cooler than the rest, but it was small comfort. The crickets singing in the tall grass blocked out the sound of the river and did little else beyond annoying him.

Mikhail Kaledin stood in the narrow corridor by the entrance of the boys’ boarding house, reaching deep into the pockets of his coat for those Sobranies he was sure he had bought a day ago, at the train station. Blake Jerevinan — the MA student that had been sent as his guide — had already moved off to inform 2041’s other residents of the new arrival. Mikhail was not expecting anyone to bother with helping him, and it didn’t really matter; most of his belongings had already gone to the house ahead of him, and were probably waiting in his new room. All he had on him at the moment was a suitcase and a metal attaché that he preferred to handle himself.

…Definitely not at par with what I can actually afford, but that’s a good thing in its own way, I suppose.

Mikhail was not at the boarding house for the lack of better options; the city was full of choice apartment units and higher-class residences, in fact, all within the generous amount of money he had at his disposal. #2041 was, however, the closest to Isherwood University, and Mikhail had always considered himself to be a creature of practicality. So he had come to this humble compound of three nearly identical boarding houses, aligned to face each other across a common garden. Two levels excluding provisions for an attic and basement, white walls, steel and dark wood accents, and wide windows; the minimalist design for each house appealed to him. Given the compound’s surroundings in the wide-ended cul-de-sac that Citrus Avenue bled into, he could only wonder how young the place was compared to everything else.

“Excuse me,” he murmured to the boy he spotted cutting across the hall ahead of him. “I just got here… I’d like to know where my room is.”

“Where were you assigned?”

“302.”

“What do you know? That’s near mine!” The boy grinned; he looked like the type who smiled easy. Mouse brown hair, steady eyes. Almost cute, in a sun-bronzed sort of way. “Third floor. Go for the door that has a small set of steps at front… its right in front of the stairwell. Not hard to miss. The name’s Adam, by the way. Adam Morrison.”

“Mikhail Kaledin. You a freshman?”

“I wish!”

Mikhail exchanged a few more niceties with Adam before he went for the iron-wrought spiral staircase at the end of the hall and Adam went to get some milk in the kitchen. He encountered no one else on the way to his room, even though he purposefully took time out to absorb his surroundings. He heard music in the distance, but he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. When he reached the third floor and spotted the door Adam had talked about, he briefly wondered if he should have asked whether he was alone or had a roommate. Then he figured as he opened the black door that it didn’t really matter.

The first thing that he noticed was how radically different the temperature in the room was compared to what he had encountered outside; the second were the walls. Painted in black and midnight blue, and covered inch by inch with collages from magazine clippings, newspaper articles, black and white photographs, and random junk. Third came the carpets (striped gray and midnight blue), fourth were the shelves upon shelves of books. Fifth was the fact that all furniture in the place was black, made of metal, made of leather, made of glass, or a combination of all of the above. The air-conditioner hummed merrily away from its place high up near the ceiling.

Light was scattered between pockets of shadow by candles floating in small coiled pottery bowls and small studio lights in odd corners or rows hanging from the ceiling. There were two steel-framed beds with black pillows, black sheets and head and foot boards that looked like collections of horizontal straps and buckles rather than anything solid. One was by the window on the north wall that slanted inward; the other was at the far corner of the room, which would have looked like a lonely place if it wasn’t for a reading corner fashioned from a circular rug surrounded by large throw pillows and bean bags, another metal closet, a small fridge and two empty shelves. The cardboard boxes labeled with his last name were huddled beside it.

Strangely, it was the boy he noticed last. What Mikhail could only infer as his new roommate was coiled up rather tastefully in a leather seat, typing away at his Mac with lightning speed. There was the small hollow and sketched defining of muscles in that lithe build, beneath the folds of the loose sweater the boy was wearing. Moonlit skin, tousled black hair, features soft to attract and sharp enough to be gothic poetry in line art. Probably the irresponsible rocker kind, the libertine, the sin pooled in a woman’s wildest dream, or maybe a man’s.

Gorgeous.

Tori Amos was singing to them about things that had never been said through the speakers, and there was a black cigarette smoldering away on its perch by the black ashtray shaped like a hollowed-out trunk of some dead tree. Mikhail couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He was glad his mother had always taught him to appraise and appreciate beauty at its best.

“Mikhail Kaledin, right? About twenty-five, taking an MA in Business Administration.”

“The one and only. Blake told you?”

“Blake told me.” Long, tapered fingers plucked the fag up, kissed them to curved, supple lips, and then continued their dance across the keyboard. “Hikaru Shinta. About nineteen, taking History with a minor in Literature. I’m your new roommate and this is your new room, whether you like it or not.”

“I like what I see.”

“Good on you then.” In most of the conversations Mikhail had with people, by this point they’d be smiling at him, pressing skin on his skin in the kind of silent message that pointed all arrows towards one bed and no clothes. He got none of this from Hikaru, and that only served to intrigue him further. “Hope you don’t mind if you help yourself for a bit. This poem demands every ounce of brain power I’ve got left in me.”

Mikhail murmured assent and walked further into the room, heading for what was now, admittedly, his space in the room to make his own. As he passed the shelves he counted as much comics and books of close to all genres worth reading in his eyes as much as he saw history texts.

“Check the fridge, if you’re thirsty. Dry snacks are in the cabinet above it.”

Man follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows Nature, said the words on the white postcard magnetized to the door of the fridge. Vodka, Cervesa Negra, Irish Cream, Japanese miscellany and, strangely, a bottle of lube and a collection of drugs that didn’t look like the medicinal kind. Mikhail tried not to smile again and wondered, briefly, where the condoms were kept. He picked out a Cruiser.

“Want anything?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

There might have been another meaning to that statement if they weren’t delivered so neutrally. He came up behind Hikaru, handing the bottle over his companion’s shoulder and scanning what lines he could from the younger student’s work.

“Looks like you’re a man after my own heart so far. I approve.”

“I’m absolutely tickled to hear that.” Finally, a smile and a turn in his direction. Those violet eyes, however, held unto his for longer than they should have. They held for dear life.

“What?”

“…N, nothing.” Hikaru looked away from him as though he was stung. He took a few generous swigs from his bottle, and only spoke again after he was halfway done with it. “Our bathroom’s near your end… it’s the door with the poster of gibberish on it. Prepare yourself for odd hours. I think I’ve lost track of what sleep is supposed to be.”

Mikhail didn’t know how to answer, and it wasn’t for the lack of wit. That moment had been more than weird; Hikaru had looked at him as though he was seeing someone else. He might have asked, but his new roommate had lapsed into silence, and the typing had picked up an even faster speed than it had been when he had come in. When he had finished unpacking his things, freshening, dressing down and carefully tucking the attaché case away under his bed where no one had to see it until he meant them to, Hikaru was still typing. He was listening to Queens of the Stone Age now. He fell asleep to a lullaby.


Thirteen. I Never Came.

“…And that’s about all there is to see on campus. I think we can stop here.”

Mikhail made an acquiescent sound, looking off to the near invisible line between the rooftops of Isherwood University and the sky. Rethe Kyriff stood beside him with hands in pockets and blue-gray eyes beyond serene. A sophomore majoring in Literature with a minor in Philosophy, and another addition to 2041 Citrus Avenue. They ran into each other a few times already in the hallway over the past two days since Mikhail’s arrival, but they had only talked now, with Rethe giving Mikhail a tour on Blake’s suggestion.

It was hardly a week after the end of the school year and not even the beginning of the summer semester. They were probably alone on campus, alone with the maintenance and the stray cats that seemed to be everywhere Mikhail looked. He decided he liked this place, with its quaint scenery and over abundance of trees. And there was the boarding house too. One of the boys he now lived with, was amusing enough, with the signals he kept sending with his eyes. Nikolai, was it? The name had a nice roll on his tongue.

“Let’s head back.”

“Mm.”

The trip back to #2041 was made in silence, with Mikhail driving and Rethe sitting silent in the passenger’s seat beside him, arm pillowed against the ledge of the window and staring off apathetically at the trees as they zipped by.

“There’s a river behind the compound. It’s that time of the year, so the fireflies always come out at night. Have you been there already?”

“No.”

“Ah. Lots of the other boarders go there to talk and drink when the nights are too warm for them to stay inside. I think you’d like it.”

Odd of this boy to be talking to him. Then Mikhail remembered walking into his room to find Rethe on Hikaru’s bed and Hikaru picking out stuff to read from the shelves, waxing New Criticism between each other through words. When he had asked Hikaru, his roommate had affirmed that they were friends, and that he shouldn’t be too alarmed if Rethe just stared at him or did other ‘weird things,’ because Rethe didn’t talk much. Mikhail guessed that talking at all must have been one of those ‘weird things.’

Some of the boarders were gathered on at the bottom curve of the cul-de-sac, watching two skateboarders — one a boy with violently orange hair and the other a girl in patchwork fashion that seemed to fit with all its accents — see who could do the most number of aerial flipsides at a time. Rethe murmured a request to be let off at the small supermarket that was more of a convenience store and liquor vendor than anything else on the pretense of picking up the groceries. It was his turn this week. Mikhail complied. He parked his Benz in the garage, slipping it beside Hiroshi Fukazawa’s f150. He walked inside, stepping out into the common garden hugged on all sides by the rest of the compound.

“Don’t turn from me this time. Damn it all, you’ve run away from me enough!”

“I’m not running away.”

“Then why haven’t you answered me?”

The sound of voices stopped him just within the shadows of the garage’s rooftop and the tool shed. He dared to look up, and he spotted the source in Hikaru standing indignant on the porch of the teacher’s boarding house, glaring up at a man Mikhail figured was one of the professors. He had longish gray hair and an impossibly tall frame, and his face looked like a collection of hard and beautiful angles. He looked like he was having a hard time meeting Hikaru’s gaze.

“We’ve been through this before, Hikaru. I don’t want to lose a job, and I doubt you’d want to lose a brother.”

“I keep telling you, we’re not going to lose anything. Why won’t you believe me?”

“I know you. You take risks. You bleed yourself dry, and I don’t want that to happen.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

The professor made as if to leave. Hikaru grabbed his arm and didn’t let him.

“You don’t know… more like, you can’t know, what I’ve given up for this. Please.”

It was an odd plea, carried on the air as the barest whisper. For a moment, Mikhail almost thought that things would go well from that point. He knew it would have if it had been him, at least. But then the professor removed himself from Hikaru’s grasp and turned away for real.

“You shouldn’t have had to give up anything.”

The garage door opened behind him, and Mikhail turned to see Rethe coming in with two bags full of groceries. He offered to help the boy as soon as the latter was close enough. By the time they stepped out into the common garden, Hikaru had retreated into the boys’ boarding house and the professor was nowhere in sight.

It was only after he was done unpacking the groceries with Rethe in the kitchen that Mikhail realized that the professor had gray eyes exactly like his own.


Twelve. Medication.

Hikaru was not really around for the next week both in body and in spirit. When he was there he was absorbed in writing whatever he was writing on his computer. When he wasn’t there he was out clubbing with some of the other boarders, and came back smelling like sex, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, even though a part of Mikhail was almost confident that his roommate hadn’t had much of the first option by choice and not for the lack of charisma.

Mikhail did, however, see the professor often. More like, he saw him a lot. The man was part of the History department from what he gathered. He was often by the river with some cans and similar targets propped at various heights, practicing with his guns in the company of a colleague, the Irish workaholic from the Science and Engineering Department. When he had asked Blake about it, the blond had said that the gray-haired one was Alistair Mordechai. “Cool guy, if I do say so myself,” the computer science major had added. “The kind with the license to kill, if he was ever in a gang or something.” Mikhail had already figured that he must have been, to merit such devotion from the sensual creature that was his roommate. He asked no more of the issue, and Hikaru continued coming home late and locking himself away from everything to the middle of the following week.

That strangeness led to weird of another sort with Friday. It started with Mikhail smoking Mohammed’s Glory at the reading corner as he mulled over the monthly report of his company. He stared off at the poster of gibberish on the bathroom with the words ‘I’, ‘never’, ‘liked’, ‘your’ and ‘Poetry’ in five pastel shades as one often does to understand something better, and then the bathroom door opened to let Hikaru into the room, naked but for a towel.

“Let’s go out.”

“Okay then.” Mikhail marked the last paragraph he had read and set the papers aside, squaring gray eyes up to Hikaru’s pale violet ones. Idly and only for a moment, he wondered if his roommate intended to go out exactly as he was. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere but here, I guess.”

“Fair enough.”

Hikaru nodded like they had come to some sort of agreement, and crossed over to his closet, dropping the towel and letting it pool at his feet as he searched for clothes. Mikhail might have been so prude as to assume that Hikaru had done that innocently, but he had fucked around enough and loved well enough to know when nakedness was an accident and when it was intentional. Perhaps, to his credit, Hikaru simply didn’t care that he was there. That was better, in more ways than one. Mikhail made it a point to enjoy every second of the free show, memorizing what he could of that ripped frame too perfect to suit the historian and bookworm that the course of his roommate professed him to be.

Hikaru was dressed in five, and they were out of the dorm in fifteen. It was midnight by the time they hit the city’s bar scene, and the clubs were now anemones of arms and gyrating bodies under laser light shows fluorescent shades. They did not dance this time, but knocked back a few side-by-side instead at the bar, where the bartender was flipping bottles and sliding glasses across the tabletop in a merry show of movement that mildly amused the sober and highly amused the drunk. Mikhail was more interested in the deliberate silence of his companion to participate as a member of either group. He did not know exactly when his patience was finally rewarded, only that it was.

“I used to have a girl. She was a sweet one. Believed in tantric sex.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We broke up after finals week. Good thing it wasn’t a messy break-up. She said she understood, so it was fine.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah. And that was the problem. Nothing happened, but it ended anyway. But maybe that might have been my fault.”

Hikaru ended on that note and looked into Mikhail’s eyes only to flinch away again and retreat into his drink. The arch of his back and the way he lifted the glass to his lips made Mikhail wonder just how long it had been since somebody had touched the boy, kissed him, or had him. He stopped himself from asking the question out loud by downing another shot.

Mikhail hadn’t thought it possible, much less considered the possibility, but regardless Hikaru was very drunk by the time they left their tenth and last bar. He caught the younger man before he could take a header into the street. Hikaru smelled fantastic to Mikhail at that point, with the night air and the alcohol, his body a warm and generally limp weight against him from knees up.

“Come on. Let’s go back.”

A soft, lazy chuckle. It grated down Mikhail’s spine like a serrated blade, twanging every single end of every single nerve in his body. The city passed him by in a blur with lights swimming in it after that.
Music, laughter and the sounds of common insomnia filled the boarding house at their return, but no one who saw Mikhail and Hikaru come in questioned on where they had been and why the normally sober Hikaru was completely smashed. The trek back to their room was generally uninterrupted. Mikhail dumped Hikaru into his own bed and stripped him of everything save his pants and undershirt before moving off to make himself coffee. He listened to Hikaru giggle at nothing as he prepared it. By the time he was done, the boy had passed out. Mikhail finished his coffee before going off to shower. When he came back, Hikaru was curled on his side, whispering Alistair’s name and other sad nothings in his sleep. Mikhail did not bother to wake him. When he slept himself, it was his first night with dreams in years.


Eleven. In My Head.

When Hikaru woke up to shadows beyond the window panes and a buzzing hangover, he couldn’t help but feel as though time had betrayed him. He lurched to his feet and went straight for his computer, trying to be as silent as he could even though he doubted his own ability to walk straight, or even think straight. He was off-balance. Losing control and drinking to oblivion could do that to people like him. He turned the computer on and wrote and wrote until the digital clock went from 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM. With fingers still tingling from typing too much and a head full of grammatical nuances and literary embellishments that he no longer had a use for, Hikaru attempted to pull out a cigarette and light up. It hadn’t felt like three hours. He checked every source of time that he had in his room (they totaled at six) more out of habit than to actually verify that he was correct.

Obsessive-compulsiveness. A sign of a person who desires control for he has been granted little of it himself. He could practically hear Satsuki’s voice in his head, feeding him with that kind of psychobabble. Hikaru let the cigarette drop from his fingers and into the trashcan as he wandered into the bathroom, peeling off his sweat-drenched clothes. He hadn’t realized how hot it was all of a sudden, in spite of the air-conditioner.

White porcelain tiles and stainless steel, all of it hard, unforgiving and frigid to the touch as though chilled for the very purpose of isolating what was human. It was one half of two extremes, the other being the near scalding water of the shower that he flicked on the moment he slipped into the stall. Nothing like the warmth of human skin, but it would do. There were times that he would have liked to think that the one he really wanted wasn’t human at all.

How many times had it been like this, he wondered idly as the water seemed to burn everything that was written on his skin away. To let the steam and heat of the shower hide his flushes as he stroked himself with soapy hands, pretending it was someone else’s touch and not his own. There was no relief in it. Maybe the only time he’d be able to run away from it all was if he finally managed to get himself killed.

You shouldn’t have had to give up anything. There had been nothing after that, only a strange light in Alistair’s eyes before he had turned and walked away, leaving him behind. Alistair said anything, did anything. No hints, no promises, only an arm holding him away from what he was sure both of them wanted somehow. But there was the other one in the equation, a factor called family that neither of them could get rid of.

Hikaru could hear his own breath quicken over the relentless pound of water against taut body and solid shower stall floor, harsh and uncontrolled despite the steadiness of his hand. The years hadn’t changed anything, only made him more afraid of dreams that continued to leave him flushed and breathless. It wasn’t enough anymore, gaining what pleasure he could from something like this, but it would be enough to sustain him through another day and give him the ability to walk forward and face the other boarders with a smile that revealed nothing to them and eyes that would reveal even less. Maybe it would keep Mikhail from noticing too, for that was the last thing he needed. Another soul who knew.

From that point onward, only the walls’ deaf ears could hear the name he whispered into the steam.


Ten. Little Brother.

“It’s not what you think it is.”

Ping. Mikhail brandished the tongs in his hand and lifted the Pop Tarts from the toaster’s mouth. He plopped them unto a plate then turned to check on the black boiling away on the coffeemaker, knowing full well that Rethe was in the doorway looking at him but not caring a smidgen for it.

“And what is it that you think that I think I know?”

“You think it’s a doomed relationship. You think it’s not going to work.”

So Rethe had caught the exchange in the common garden as he had, and then how he had come home with Hikaru draped on him, too perfectly and beautifully drunk for it all to have been an accident. Mikhail flipped a black mug off the whole rack of them tacked above the counter. He forked off a bit of Pop Tart from the biscuit and popped it into his mouth.

“You must be psychic. Want some? It’s good.”

Rethe merely blinked at him.

“Hikaru broke up with Satsuki because his brother had said that it was all right if he went with Alistair. Alistair doesn’t want to believe him, and he doesn’t want to ask Hikaru’s brother for himself either. He thinks the subject shouldn’t even be discussed.”

“I don’t know who the bigger idiot between them is.”

“Alistair feels that there are better men than him, and that the only thing he’ll manage to do to Hikaru is hurt him.”

“There are better men, and if that’s what he believes than he is succeeding.”

“You’re not one of the better ones.”

Mikhail grinned.

“I beg to differ.”

The coffeemaker’s whisper built up into a keening wail. Mikhail went to get himself a mug while he chewed on more Pop Tarts. He was unto his second biscuit.

“I’m only going to let this slip if you’re going to make him happy.”

When Mikhail looked up, Rethe was already gone.


Nine. Everybody Knows That You Are Insane.

Some later day. Mikhail came home to the boarding house and his room to find Hikaru lying down in the middle of the floor, staring up at the ceiling and smoking. Violent Femmes sang a ballad of coloring once and coloring twice from the computer speakers as the Mac sat in the corner, merrily downloading away.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush. You’re disturbing the experimental specimens.”

“The what?”

“Nicodioxidetology. New course. I made it.”

“And what is it?”

“The study of smoke rings.”

Mikhail crossed the room, shaking his head in amusement. He opened the window and turned the fan on to blow out the smoke. When he spoke, he took pains to make his voice sound rough enough to be exasperated, and smooth enough to make somebody think he cared. No mention had been made of Hikaru’s first drunken night in Mikhail’s company, and he still had to pretend that he didn’t know anything.

“I’d invite you out, if you weren’t so busy drowning in contemplation.”

“I’m not drowning.”

“Dog-paddling, then?”

“No, no. Freestyle.”

Mikhail threw himself down unto one of the beanbags, sinking into its cool folds. He looked for a pack of cigarettes for himself. They were always lost in his pockets somehow.

“A boy like you shouldn’t waste away like this. It’s a sin to save yourself for someone who won’t notice you.”

Hikaru sat up. In the sunlight streaming through the windows, every detail of his person was carefully etched and burned unto Mikhail’s eyes. When the boy spoke, he heard every careful enunciation, tasted the depth of their brevity.

“If I don’t do it this way, I’d probably break apart.”

The smoked the rest of the afternoon away in silence, together yet completely apart in their own thoughts.

Some later day. Mikhail followed Hikaru to the University dojo, where the boy made it a habit to keep himself in shape. The nation-wide promotional tournaments for all martial arts were coming soon, and Isherwood’s teams were going to participate in each one. In the building and field just beside the dojo, the archery team was having their own set of exercises. Mikhail fancied that he could hear each arrow let loose in as much as he could follow the singing whoosh of his roommate’s sword cutting through air.

“How long have you studied the art?”

“For as long as I can remember. My father is a Nine-Dan kendo master. I’ve always wanted to reach his level.”

“How close are you now?”

“About four or five Dan away.”

“Devotion seems to be a finer quality of yours.”

“It hasn’t gotten me very far in life.”

“Maybe you’re measuring it with the wrong kind of scale.”

Watching Hikaru lash out at nothing in perfect serenity was like watching a tiger in a zoo pacing about in its cage. Somehow he knew that if he measured each step and movement they would come off even, perfectly proportional, exacting, and cold.

“Ever considered being with someone else while you’re waiting?”

“I have been.”

“And?”

“I’d rather be alone. Being satisfied just deepens the hurt sometimes.”

Mikhail wondered on how anyone could be that harsh on one’s self because he knew that he wasn’t capable of it.

“Your girlfriend must have been a saint.”

“She was. When I told her we were off, she just looked me straight in the eye and made me promise to let her watch if I finally had the chance to get done in by the guy I really want.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I said yes.”

Mikhail said nothing to this; instead, he leaned back against the wall and ran the chain of a necklace some girl had given to him through his fingers. Now would have been an excellent time for a cigarette, but he had left his pack at home. Nicotine was always around when he actually needed it the least, and when he wanted it beyond the sake of simply wanting it, nicotine was never there.

“What if I was the one who offered you?”

The wooden sword froze, poised over the head of some invisible enemy. It curved downward, tentatively, as though sliding across the skin of a neck. And then Hikaru lowered it and walked out of the dojo.

“I’ll see you at home.”

There were other conversations, some involving literature and history and politics while others involved sexual conquests of all sizes or ages and the principles of bondage and stories of sucking off or getting sucked off in back alleys to clubs while gloriously high, but none of them were as conclusive.


Eight. Someone’s in the Wolf.

Some later day. Mikhail found that he decided upon taking Hikaru for himself.



Please note that most of this is generally unedited, and the parts underneath the LJ-cut constitute only half of the whole story. Do enjoy. I'll post the other half after the hope of receiving feedback. :3

Comments

[choffman.livejournal.com]

Whoa. This is just NOT the time of night for me to be reading something this long- but what I did read looked intriguing. Spotted a few mistakes but I'm far too fucked up on caffiene and insomnia to be coherent enough to point them out right now. Woo.

But I still give a thumbs up.

[izkariote.livejournal.com]

Thanks~~ I know there's a lot of editing work to be done on it. I'm going over all of it with my friend right now. :3

[izkariote.livejournal.com]

Final version is up (http://www.livejournal.com/users/izkariote/74472.html) if you haven't been able to catch it. Feedback appreciated, as always.

[mushroomhunterd.livejournal.com]

You have a fic journal? Why didn't you tell me? >=[

I can see it's unedited,as there are some clumsy bits, but you have some wonderful discriptions in there. It's pretty late, so I can't give great details - but I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to the next half :)

-[)

[izkariote.livejournal.com]

Thanks~ I'm in the process of finishing it now. I'll probably put up an edited version somewhere later, or just offer to send it to whoever wants it.

Fic journal's over here (http://stitched-o.phigen.org), and the RSS feed for it is at stitched_o. :3

[mushroomhunterd.livejournal.com]

Bookmarked. You know, this is really weird - I was considering making a post earlier in the hope that people would rec me yaoi and then this shows up XD

-[)

[kye-kestrel.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't comment on the few mistakes I spotted, because I know the final version will be perfect anyway. And... I don't know anyone except Rethe... and maybe Alistair, from Yukitsu's pimping of his character, but what you have here so far's quite interesting. You have lovely descriptions - Eleven's exceptionally poetic. Looking forward to reading the next half. ^_^

[izkariote.livejournal.com]

Thanks~~ and thanks for tolerating the typos. I'm bad with typos. Damned fingers. x_X

I'm still brushing up the second half. Will post later this week, along with a link to the properly edited first half.