YURI SHIPPING OLYMPICS 2024 - BONUS ROUND 4

[a1c0bb]

for this bonus round, the theme is historical fiction! prompts inspired by specific moments in (real or fictional) history.

this round will end on july 15th

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

POINTS - BONUS ROUNDS
For prompts: 10 points each (maximum of 150 prompt points per team per round)
For fills:
First 4 fills by any member of your team: 100 points each
Fills 5-10: 50 points each
Fills 11-20: 40 points each
Fills 21-50: 30 points each
Fills 51+: 25 points each

Comments

PROMPT: TEAM CATRADORA

[asaphida]

COVID Lockdown

FILL: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

[ghostvines]

Haori always looked exhausted in their Zoom classes.

It wasn’t Susato’s fault that she was paying such close attention. If they were back in school she would be taking notes at faster than light speed, locked wholly into the lesson, so focused everyone else’s faces faded into a blur — but Susato was quickly discovering that such was not to be when they were online. The professor had opened class with an apology for being twenty minutes late, his toddler kept interrupting every few minutes, and only five people were even in the call in the first place. She was almost considering turning her camera off so she could read Herlock Sholmes instead. Almost.

Instead she glanced at Haori. Her best friend was a slightly-pixellated face in a small square in a stack of similar squares on her screen, but nevertheless Susato would know her anywhere.

Haori looked wan. She had pressed her knuckles to her mouth for the third time in the past five minutes to suppress a yawn, and the bags beneath her eyes looked darker than ever. Even her white ribbon was drooping.

Susato felt her heart twist. She glanced back at the professor. He was petting his (quite adorable, to be fair) calico cat.

Surely one text couldn’t count as being distracted…

She switched tabs and typed, Are you alright?, then switched right back.

Haori visibly startled, then looked down, her eyebrows creased in the way they did when she was writing.

Susato’s tab pinged.

H: yeah im fine :0!!
H: didnt sleep well thats all

Susato almost frowned to herself before remembering she was still on camera.

S: I was worried you might be sick

H: oh god i HOPE not
H: dont worry i test every single day after getting back from the lab

S: Oh! That’s a relief
S: Father makes you do that too, does he?

H: yea its basic procedure but it stays annoying
H: ah yes just what the doctor ordered after a long hard morning at the mines (laboratory)
H: stabbing my nose with miniature sword
H: i love my job

Susato snorted out loud. Then she covered her mouth guiltily.

S: You aren’t allowed to be funny while I have my camera on

H: you think im funny!!!!!!!!

S: But really are you okay?
S: If you work yourself to death I WILL throw you

H: youd never
H: also im still not over the fact that im apparently funny now
H: but yea really im fine!!! vaccine dev is worth it anyway
H: if there was ever a worthy cause to die for that would be it

God, Susato thought, Haori is so cool.

But still:

S: I would rather you not die under any circumstances!!!
S: Nothing is worth dying for. Nothing could replace you

Haori was silent for so long, then, that Susato switched back to her actual lesson to check if Haori had lost internet. It happened sometimes, where she lived…

No, there was her square, just as pixellated as always and no more.

…Her best friend, as it happened, was beet red.

Susato felt her heart twist again, this time for entirely different reasons.

H: oh my god you cant just SAY things like that

S: Like what?

H: im convinced youre doing this on purpose
H: aughthhghhfhrh
H: thank you su i promise i will not die

S: Yippee ^_^
S: Then I will cheer you on as you and Father save the world!

H: what would i do without you
H: ANYWAY THAT REMINDS ME do you want to hear our Progress Report!!

(No, the question was: what would Susato do without Haori?)

S: Always

Haori Murasame is typing…

-—-

in this AU haori and yuujin beat pfizer-biontech to the vaccine by like 3 days

Re: FILL: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

[asaphida]

they're so cute, this is great! of course COVID would stand no chance

FILL: Team Anime/Manga

[hopelessgemini]

word count: 1264

pairing: winter schnee/cinder fall with room for winter/cinder/robyn if you squint really hard

fandom: RWBY

//

“I can’t believe I’m stuck here with you,” Cinder mutters.

Not that she looks particularly upset about it. Winter eyes her as she drapes herself across the couch, wine glass in hand, and resumes dusting all their shelves for something like the fifteenth time today. Trying not to sound too annoyed, she says, “Well, you could always quarantine yourself in your room,” and pointedly ignores the glare Cinder throws her way.

“Like I give a shit.” She sets the glass down on the coffee table; Winter winces at her bookshelves and tries to forget what it felt like to be sixteen. “Did Robyn really have to leave?”

“She wanted to be home,” Winter says blandly. As annoyed as she is that Robyn left her alone with the roommate she doesn’t like, she supposes some things can’t be helped — she has a job, after all, unlike the rest of them, and she’s determined to clean up Winter’s father’s messes. And it’s not like she hates Cinder; she really wouldn’t have agreed to live with her if she cared all that much.

Cinder huffs. “Well, good for her.”

“Good for her,” Winter agrees. “Have you thought about calling your coworkers?”

“Ex-coworkers,” she says snippily. “Why should I? What am I going to do, contribute to the collective air of misery?”

And to that, she doesn’t have a response. Winter was never all that close with her coworkers, either; she’s convinced most of them hate her, after all.

//

“What are you doing?”

Cinder gestures to the TV, pointedly avoiding looking Winter in the eye. “Watching anything but the news. Why?”

Winter runs a hand through her hair — still slightly damp, annoyingly. “Can I join you?”

That gets her to look — and oh, Winter thinks, that’s why they avoid looking at each other so much; Cinder has beautiful eyes — “Why?”

“Nothing better to do.”

It’s true. Cinder eyes her like it isn’t.

“I’m sick of sitting around in my bedroom,” Winter supplies, “and you know I don’t use social media, so.” She waves a hand in the air.

She nods, once, like that’s good enough, and shuffles sideways.

Winter sits down next to her on the shitty couch she’s pretty sure Robyn stole from a tip somewhere and curls up as far away from her as possible. It’s — weird; she feels awkward, displaced. Cinder has always had that effect on her, really.

She stops paying attention to the movie they’re supposed to be watching after about fifteen minutes. It’s old, and one of Weiss’s favourites; she’s probably seen it a million times in the past decade. Besides, her mind is too occupied with Cinder’s presence on the other end of the couch — the way her fingers curl around her chin, her thumb nestled against her pulse point, the arrangement of her legs on the couch cushions, the slow movement of her hands as she tucks her hair behind her ear.

Winter has been telling herself for over a year that it’s stupid, that it’s superficial anxiety; that she isn’t nervous around pretty girls and she’s instead trying to predict when Cinder will look at her next, whether she’ll try to touch her. It’s natural to be alert around people you don’t know all that well — at least, it’s natural for Winter, it has been ever since she was small — and it’s not like they’ve ever made any effort to get comfortable with each other, anyway.

The thing is, though: Cinder is gorgeous. The thing is, she’s not so sure it’s anxiety any more.

She watches her watch a movie from a thousand miles away, feeling distinctly untethered — and she’s always felt untethered, so this is nothing new.

//

It becomes a thing, she thinks.

At least, it’s a pattern: most days they sit on the couch before dinner and watch a movie together, or sometimes Cinder puts on a series on Netflix or pirates something Winter hasn’t seen before. She suspects it’s because she’s noticed the staring — which she’s been doing less and less, thank you very much — and is trying to get her to stop it.

Whatever the case, it’s nice. Robyn calls them about two weeks into official lockdown and Winter gives her a long list of the things she’s seen because of Cinder’s efforts.

“Sounds like she’s been holding you hostage,” Robyn says, smirking, and the two of them exchange a look that feels all too familiar for their state of relative unfamiliarity. “Winter Schnee watching horror movies?”

Winter raises an eyebrow at her. Cinder laughs. “She’s weird as fuck,” she says — not an explanation, Winter thinks; fuck you — “I couldn’t have her watching nature documentaries all day.”

“You know, not that I’m complaining, but we really need to get you an Instagram or something,” Robyn grins.

“That’s my sister’s job,” Winter mutters, sinking onto her folded arms. “And I’ve seen horror movies before, you know.”

Cinder drums her fingers against the tabletop. She’s dropped the weird prickly act, which is a relief; Robyn said it was how she made friends when Winter first moved in and after about a year of knowing her, she’s inclined to disagree. The Cinder left behind in the wake is different, quieter, and she seems to dislike Winter a lot less. “We’ll catch you up, don’t worry. Tomorrow: ATLA.”

Robyn’s jaw drops. “You haven’t seen ATLA?”

Winter sucks her bottom lip between her teeth reflexively, avoiding both of their gazes. “You know how I grew up.”

“But still,” Cinder says emphatically, “come on, we have to fix that, right?”

“I mean, I’m not protesting —”

“You know she hasn’t played any video games either, right?”

“Not true,” Winter mutters, looking away from the screen. Robyn’s expression has gradually sloped into something more and more teasing, and she doesn’t want to have to bear witness. “You forget I have a seventeen year-old brother. I’ve played video games.”

Cinder snorts. “Yeah, like what?”

“First person shooters, mostly,” she lies — it was Minecraft, and only once, and only because Whitley begged her to help him do some calculations. Both Robyn and Cinder seem to sense the lie, judging by the matching half-smirks they’re wearing, and she groans and covers her face with her hands. She really does need to get better at lying.

//

Cinder, true to her word, makes her play games, too. They start out small — “Animal Crossing? Really? Come on, I was raised in a shithole and even I’ve played Animal Crossing,” — and graduate to stealing the VR headset someone got Robyn for Christmas from her bedroom.

“If they knew Robyn they’d know she fucking hates VR,” Cinder says blithely when Winter flat-out refuses to take anything from her roommate, “it makes her feel sick. She’s not even taken it out of the box, look.”

“Still,” Winter protests. Cinder levels a Look at her, and suddenly she can’t think of a convenient way to end the sentence.

Being locked in a house with Cinder doesn’t seem like so much of a chore anymore.

//

“So how’re you getting along?”

Winter bites her lip, glancing between the door to her bedroom (closed) and Robyn on her phone, propped up against her bed’s headboard. “Much better than we were. Why?”

Her smile grows sly. It’s annoying. “No reason. I just, like — I know you didn’t really get along beforehand. It’s good to see you talking.”

“We got along just fine,” she protests — categorically untrue, but she can dream — “and we’re getting along better now. Don’t look at me like that.”

“I know you think she’s hot,” Robyn sing-songs.

Winter groans and hangs up on her.