“Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you’ve caught me and have demanded to come with me to make sure the ‘girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft’ and I’m trying to figure out how to break it to you that we’re on our way to a graveyard” AU
source: awful-aus (I’m pretty sure)
I REALLY want to write this AU (I found it on Instagram) but I am having a dilemma... Steve or Tony??? Who’s who? I can’t decide and it could, unfortunately, work for both of them?? Help!
This isn’t one of my proudest works. It’s just something I thought to start off my new series with, even though I have about three more ideas for a series in my Evernote.
I’ll get around to those, I swear. I just need to... finish them.
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Category: M/M
Fandom: Naruto
Relationships: Deidara/Uchiha Obito or Deidara/Tobi (Naruto)
Summary:
Obito doesn’t like traveling.
Based on this awful-aus prompt.
Read on AO3 or FFN.
Excerpt:
England doesn’t get something like this in nearly a decade or so and the moment he has to fly back home to Japan, the sky decides to open up and dump at least ten inches of snow on to the ground, or whatever.
He just thinks that it is totally unfair. He has a home to go to and he also promised his landlord he would pay his bills tomorrow.
‘I run a blog with ridiculous au prompts, and one day an anon points me out to another blog of the same kind that is just my kind of funny, and we both start posting increasingly amounts of hilarious aus to impress each other and fall in love along the way’ au
hey im just curious is this blog based off of the awful aus blog? but like beautiful aus instead
It isn’t, I didn’t know the blog until you made me google it, and thanks for showing it to me!
I don’t have a habit of following au prompt blogs ever since I started this one (I don’t want to accidentally steal their ideas) but awful-aus are hilarious, and all of you should check it out!
All the jokes are from the Bad Science Joke twitter. You can bet I followed them when I was done with this story.
Meara rushed in the back door of the little café, panting, his guitar slung over his shoulders. The woman taking the trash out that way started and said,
“Sir, you can’t come back here --”
“Sorry,” Meara panted. “I’m here for the open mic? The manager told me to come in the back door. Annie, I think it was?”
“Ann,” the woman said. “Are you Meara?”
Meara looked up, crouched over with his hands on his knees. “Yeah?”
“You’d better hurry up and get yourself together, because the guy in front of you only has so many songs. He’s been keeping the crowd busy while you --”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry,” Meara finally caught his breath and straightened up. “Not that it matters, but my bus was late.”
The woman’s face softened and she smiled gently. “I’ve got you. I take the bus, too. Now go, go!”
Meara saluted and made his way through the little hallway. To the left was the kitchen. A little farther ahead and to the right was the little stage area. It wasn’t raised, just set back a little, but it was nice, and the lighting was good.
Meara caught the eyes of the man onstage and pointed to himself, then the seat the man was in. I’m following you. The man nodded slightly and finished up his song. He stood, took a short bow, and waved to the audience with a “Thank you so much, you’ve been great,” in the microphone.
Thank you, Meara mouthed, and the man gave him a thumbs up as they passed in the hallway. Meara took the chair and leaned forward to adjust the microphone.
“Unfortunately, you’re all going to have to listen to me tune. I was running a little late tonight. Another round of applause for the previous act to say thanks for stalling for me!”
The room applauded, with a couple of hoots and hollers Meara assumed were from the man’s friends. Meara swallowed, eyes darting over the audience. Nobody he knew was here tonight, despite all of his Facebook invites. They were probably just busy, or working.
Meara tuned his guitar as quickly as he could, but he hadn’t even gotten past the A string when it snapped, slicing across his hand in a mess of noise and blood.
“Oh --” Meara grit his teeth to stop himself from swearing. “Just… sorry, guys, just give me a second to… fuck,” he whispered, away from the microphone.
Then another man, with long black hair, jumped up onto the stage and grinned. “So, everyone, while our, uh, friend here gets his guitar together, I’m going to tell you some jokes! You’re the first group to hear my stand up in person!”
An unsure murmuring rippled through the crowed and Meara watched the man’s back, open-mouthed. The man turned around and grabbed the mic, and whispered, “Get your stuff together as fast as you can, I’m terrible at this kind of thing. I’m Josselin, by the way.”
Before Meara could introduce himself, Josselin had turned back around again, this time, speaking into the microphone.
“So, a logician’s wife has a baby.”
Meara closed his eyes. This was already not off to a good start.
“The doctor hands the newborn to him,” Josselin continued. “The mother asks, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ He replies, ‘Yes.’”
Josselin paused, obviously expecting polite applause, but it never came. He got a couple of half-hearted chuckles, but that was it. He cleared his throat and continued.
“Well, sorry that joke was so terrible,” he said. “It was written by an atom. And you can’t trust an atom. They make up everything.”
Meara couldn’t help but groan as he fished his spare strings out of his backpack, but he caught himself. Josselin was doing him a favor. He needed to be nice. Meara started to remove the old string as Josselin went on,
“There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Meara groaned.
“You suck!” shouted someone in the audience.
But Josselin didn’t lose his cool, he just kept rattling off shitty science jokes, one by one, while Meara restrung his guitar and patched up his hand. Meara couldn’t help but groan louder and louder at each of them, and the audience was starting to boo and hiss Josselin in a way that said they weren’t going to take much more of this. After a particularly bad mitosis joke, Josselin turned around with his hand over the mic and said, “I don’t think I can hold them much longer. Are you ready?”
“That’s because you’re terrible,” Meara said. Josselin wilted, but Meara smiled. “But thank you. You saved me just now. Now put the mic back and get off the stage before they start throwing tomatoes at you.”
Danny was on his way past the train station when he saw the other man: tall, too-thin, made entirely of the kinds of sharp angles that meant he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a while. His wavy brown hair was scruffy and his face a little dirty. He hadn’t shaved in a while, but clearly made it a point to try to keep it up as often as he could, with how short his facial hair was.
But what Danny really noticed was the guitar in the other man’s hands: beat up and scuffed up and loved up in a way only an instrument belonging to someone with a lot of love but only a little money could be. The neck had been broken and repaired by someone with less than adequate skill, but the music coming from the man’s dusty fingers was more heartfelt, more soulful, more beautiful than most of the professionals Danny had listened to recently. Maybe ever.
Danny stood across the way, on his side of the street, watching. In the busy, rainy London morning, people shoved past him without so much as a “How’s your father” or even an “excuse me,” but despite being buffeted by the crowds more than his umbrella was being buffeted by the damp winds, Danny couldn’t rip his eyes away. Give the bloke a shower and a haircut and Danny could picture him playing at any coffee shop in the Square Mile.
He sat below the overhang of the train station on the ground, his guitar case opened for the occasional note or handful of coins someone could spare. Danny tried to peer in from his place across the street, standing on his toes and leaning forward. What he could see looked meager. Much less than this man deserved.
Maybe it was because of the music itself. It was melancholy, a little dreary, but a little hopeful, too, like the sunshine hiding just behind the clouds, waiting to be coaxed out. It wrapped itself around Danny like a warm blanket in the chill weather, but other people might not like the reminder of the melancholy rain.
The song ended and a few people who had been standing around on his side of the street clapped politely. A few threw a note or two into his guitar case. They all moved on. The man looked up and caught Danny’s eyes. Danny smiled. The man gave him a small smile back, then glanced over into his case to see what he’d made.
While the man wasn’t looking, Danny slipped into the Indian restaurant behind him.
***
Meara sighed when he looked back up to see that the bloke who’d been watching him from across the street had gone. But he wasn’t surprised: how many people would watch from afar so they wouldn’t feel pressured to give him a pound or two? Too many. Too many here.
Maybe Paris wouldn’t be any better. Maybe it would be worse. But if he was going to be homeless wherever he went, he’d prefer the City of Lights. Ever since a childhood trip there, he’d been in love with the city. He only wished he were going back under better circumstances.
He started up another tune, a little more cheerful this time. Meara preferred the melancholy tunes, but the cheerful ones made him more money. Maybe one day he’d be able to play what he wanted. Maybe. But he’d be happy selling toasters at a megamart. Anything to get him off the street.
He started when someone placed a cardboard takeaway container and a set of plastic utensils in front of him. When he looked up, that same man from across the street was standing there, all smiles.
“This is for you,” he said. “I hope you like daal. Guess I probably should have asked first.”
“Thank you,” Meara whispered. He dug the change and notes and bottle caps out of his case and pocketed it, then gently laid his guitar down and closed it up.
Meara went at the food like a wolf, scoffing down huge bites and barely pausing to chew.
“Slow down!” Danny laughed. “Don’t want you to choke, now.”
Meara flushed bright red, but did as Danny asked him to. “Sorry,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hot meal.”
And then Danny did something Meara never would have expected. He sat down next to him.
“You don’t have to do that,” Meara said softly, putting his fork down in his food. “You’ll get your nice clothes all --”
“It’s just clothes,” Danny scoffed. “I’ll wash them later.” He held out his hand. “I’m Danny,” he said. Meara took the offered hand. Danny’s skin was a warm, dark brown, and his hands were a worker’s hands, covered in scrapes and calluses, despite his nice clothes.
“Meara.”
Danny smiled. His white teeth were bright as sunshine, his smile just as warm. It had been so long since someone had looked at Meara like that, like he was a person. “Nice to meet you.”
Meara smiled back.
“Where were you on your way to?” he asked.
Danny shrugged and looked away, wrapping a hand around his upper arm. Meara frowned. Danny’s eyes darted over, and he just caught it before Meara’s face went back to normal.
“Job interview,” he said. “But I don’t really want to.”
Meara frowned again, deeper, and this time it didn’t fade. “Why’s that?”
“Because a job means I’m stuck here. A job means I’m tied down.”
“A job means you have a roof over your head and a plate on your table.”
Danny chuckled a little and nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I guess so, yeah. It’s not the fact of having a job, really. It’s the one my parents picked out for me.”
“What’s so bad about it?”
“It’s a banker’s position.”
Meara flinched, but covered it up by stuffing another bite of food in his mouth.
“Did you eat?” he asked. “Do you want some?”
Danny bit his lip even as he smiled. Meara literally had nothing but the clothes on his back, his guitar next to him, and whatever was in his pockets, and Danny had everything in the world but was too spoiled to see it, and Meara was still offering to share his food. Danny didn’t want to take anything from him, but he didn’t want to turn Meara’s kind offer down, either.
Danny picked up the fork and took a small bite. He could always buy Meara another one.
The two shared the rest of the meal in companionable conversation, talking about this and that and nothing in particular. The train station clock inside chimed three as Meara finished off the last bite. He shuffled the notes out of his pocket and grabbed his wallet from another, counting out what he had and muttering to himself. When he looked up again, his face was bright and beaming.
“Thank you for lunch,” he said. “But I have to get going. My train comes in fifteen.” He stood and shouldered his guitar case and helped Danny to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Danny asked.
“Paris. I went there once as a young lad. Always wanted to go back. I’m going to be homeless no matter where I am, so I might as well be in a city that makes me happy.” He gave Danny a mock salute and took two steps backwards, then seemed to reconsider.
“Do you want to come with me?”
“What?” Danny asked. He couldn’t have heard that right.
“Do you want to come to Paris with me? Rich guy like you has to have enough for a ticket, right?”
Danny hiked an eyebrow.
“I guess you could stay here and be a banker.”
Danny grinned.
check out my longer works on Wattpad and Fictionpress!
This one’s a little different, today! No Sheraton characters, this time, instead, we have Skylar and Audrey from Since Feeling Is First, which I am going to start posting to fictionpress and wattpad, eventually. I took some liberties with the prompt to make it match canon (an amputated arm instead of leg).
“I’m sorry, Miss, but there’s just nothing we can do without the paperwork from your doctor.”
Skylar had stopped trying to get them to call zir Mx. back at the first meeting. It was more trouble than it was worth. Truly, zie probably could work, and zie wanted to, but nobody would hire zir with zir missing an arm and zir ambiguous gender presentation, and zie had to make rent somehow. Zie figured zie was a shoo-in for disability. What was more obvious than a missing limb? Even if it could only make half the rent for the month, Vince and Micah would be willing to pick up the rest. But it wasn’t fair to make them pay for everything, and Skylar just wanted to pitch in, to be useful while zie tried to find somewhere, anywhere that would hire zir with enough hours to make it worthwhile.
“Are you kidding me right now,” Skylar said. The woman behind the desk was clearly getting frustrated: her brow was drawn tight and her voice was terse. “You can physically look at my prosthetic right now. It’s right here.” Zie knocked on it with a loosely curled fist, trying to ignore the jarring tingle that always shot through zir shoulder when it was jostled.
“We need the paperwork from your doctor, Miss Jyung, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Skylar growled softly to herself and the woman’s eyes darted behind zir. With one last huff, zie twisted and pulled off the prosthetic, slamming it down in front of the woman. “Just look!” zie cried. Zie gestured at the blank space where zir prosthetic had been. “I am missing an arm. How do I make this any more obvious!? That should be at least enough to get the paperwork started!”
“Audrey!” the woman behind the desk called. A wide palm and long fingers curled around Skylar’s arm, and zie spun around, red-faced and furious.
“I’m sorry, Miss…?”
“Mx. Skylar,” zie said.
“Mx.,” she corrected herself. Some of the anger faded out of Skylar’s muscles, but not much. “If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The woman was tall, with long red hair and adorable freckles and a nose a little too sharp. She was smiling sympathetically, in a way that said, I know it’s frustrating, but she’s just doing her job, and I have to do mine. Skylar had never seen such an attractive security guard before. Usually they were all squat, middle-aged men.
“If you don’t stop being so pretty, I’m going to have to ask you on a date.” Skylar said it without thinking. Zir eyes went wide and zie slapped zir hand over zir mouth, turning even redder. The back of zir neck burned with embarrassment. How the hell could zie think it was okay to say something like that?
The woman’s green eyes went wide and she pursed her lips. She looked almost like a startled bird, and it was adorable. But Skylar knew if zie didn’t get zir shit together and go, zie was going to get kicked out, and then wouldn’t have the opportunity to apply at all. Zie turned around and grabbed zir prosthetic, sticking it back in place.
“I’ll go,” zie said. “And, uh, I’ll bring the paperwork next time. Sorry to cause you trouble.”
Zie twisted zir arm out of the security guard’s grasp and plodded toward the door. Half through the doorway, the woman’s hand landed on zir shoulder again. Skylar turned around. She was smiling.
“Here,” she said. She handed Skylar a business card with a ten digit number scribbled on the bottom. The original name was crossed out and she’d written above it, Audrey.
“Wait,” Skylar asked. Zie looked up at her, eyes wide. “Really? That worked?”
“We’ll see if you’re still as charming tomorrow night, yeah?” Audrey smirked. She nodded at the elevator and said, “Bring the paperwork next time, okay? They need it for their files so everything’s legal.”
Skylar sighed and closed zir eyes. “It would have been a lot easier if she’d just said that.”
check out my longer works on Wattpad and Fictionpress!
