shati - Rukia and Crowley, pursued by ducks

"Foolish, foolish mortal," snarled Rukia, strewing blood and feathers as she ran: "Wrong on both counts," Crowley was going to say, but he was a basically honest demon, and there were a lot of ducks -- "One out of two isn't bad," he said guiltily.

daegaer - Rukia/Crowley, avec chocolat!

"Can I tempt you with some chocolate?" said Crowley. The girl looked at him -- or rather, right through him. Crowley squirmed.

"Do I have to pay for it?" she said.

"Well -- "

"Will sexual favours do?" the girl said briskly. "I need to keep my soul for professional purposes."

His second mistake, Crowley thought much, much later, was saying yes.

random_prophet - Ikkaku/Yumichika, scumble.

"What did that devil woman say was in this stuff?" slurred Ikkaku.

"Apples," said Yumichika, who was feeling decidedly unbeautiful.

"Apples?"

"Well," said Yumichika. "Mostly ap -- " But that was when he bent over the railing and, very gracefully, threw up.

jamjar - Tonino, Cat, Rukia, Ichigo, plus his sisters and/or Renji and co, homework.

"I did not know there were so many enchanters in other worlds," said Tonino happily. The castle tilted, and Cat and Tonino clung onto the sofa as it slid down the floor to the end of the room.

Cat wished he still hadn't known. He was beginning to feel a little green.

"Do you think they'll be done any time soon?" he said, without much hope. Maybe they should have stuck to doing their homework instead.

Tonino considered.

"The orange-haired one did not seem so angry as the one with the bells -- " A yell rippled through the foundations of the castle, and a window shattered.

"But maybe that has changed," Tonino admitted.

Cat felt put-upon. The place on his forehead where the little pink one had hit him was beginning to hurt.

"I'm going to get killed when everyone comes back," he said.

"So will they," said Tonino comfortingly.

"Yes, but they're already dead," said Cat. "So it won't make any difference to them."

"At least we learnt new things," said Tonino. "Their magic is very interesting, I think."

"Purr, Fiddle," said Cat glumly. Fiddle informed him that he had no intention of coming out from under the table until sanity had been returned to the universe. The castle tilted again, this time in the opposite direction.

"Call that useful, do you?" said Cat, as the walls rushed past them. "'Cos I don't."

("Weirdest fucking zanpakutou I've ever seen," Renji said to Rukia.

"Yeah, this is all fascinating, but could you stop that psycho before somebody comes after us for destroying their universe?" shouted Ichigo.

"A cat," said Rukia musingly. "I wonder if they come in other animals?"

"Bastards have sake!" whooped Ikkaku in the distance.

"Kill me," said Ichigo. "Kill me now.")

random_prophet - Byakuya and Hisana; Matrix.

"There is one thing I would ask," said Byakuya. "Why a white rabbit?"

"Ah," said Hisana. "Hisana had forgotten you had not met her yet."

"Who?"

"Hisana's honoured sister," said the woman. "Rukia! Come and meet the One who, it is most humbly hoped, will condescend to save us."

Byakuya eyed her.

"Are all your associates this impudent?"

"Most are infinitely worse," said Hisana serenely. "Abarai-san. May Hisana introduce you to the One?"

Byakuya was beginning to think he was going to regret choosing the red pill.

phoenikoi - Rukia and Bagheera! Roaming through the jungle!

They walked to the village together, the girl and the panther, her hand on his sleek hide.

"Man goes to Man at last," said Bagheera. "It is the Law. But O Little Sister, the taste lies bitter -- it is bitter -- "

"Bagheera," she whispered, "dost thou love me?"

"Surely do I love thee, Little Rabbit. Did I not buy thee with my kill? Do I not release thee now to your kind?"

"Then leave me here," said the girl. She stepped out of the concealing crops, alone and fearless.

"Remember, the Jungle is thine at call."

"I will not call," said the girl. "Believe me to be dead to thee now, and to all my kin. O my brother, I will not call ye again."

The panther crouched low in the grass, and the girl wept.

"Then go," said Bagheera, "go, dearest of all, and good hunting!"

* * *

He was at the door of the hut when she came. His hair was bright as no other thing was in the drab brown of the village. He stood up and looked at her.

"So you have come," he said. She wiped the tears from her face.

"I have come," she said, and she took his hand when he held it out to her.

daegaer - Discworld!Death and Rukia discussing work

Rukia glared at her bowl of curry. It appeared to have raisins in it.

"If you're the only shinigami in this universe, shouldn't you be working?"

I FIND A LITTLE TIME OFF IMPROVES MORALE, said Death.

Rukia looked sour.

"You don't have glands," she said. "How do you even have morale?"

BELIEF GOES A LONG WAY IN THIS WORLD, said Death. POPPADOM?

jamjar - Oh, How about the one in which Johnny has a near-death experience, which leads to him being near Death, near several shades of Death, and none of them know what to do with him because he's very strange and some of them don't even speak the same language. Also, some of them get very snooty about people going around calling themselves "Death" when they're not even a death-god. And then there are the epic training scenes in which Methos teaches Ichigo how to fight and, more than that, how to survive, and freaks him out with a couple of his suggestions, which may or may not be jokes.

Meanwhile, there are several fights going on over Johnny since no-one can figure out what exactly he does, but they're pretty sure the enemy should have possession of him, and then his friends turn up and there is shock over the lack of resemblence to that countries media representation of foreigners.

And only one person entity seems to know what's going on, and all he says is, "NO COMMENT." and "HAVE YOU SEEN MY HORSE?"

Crossover epic of doom, baby!

Methos knelt by Ichigo's head.

"See, kid, you're fighting at a disadvantage," he said conversationally.

"Yeah, strangely enough? I noticed that," said Ichigo. "The, you know. Fucking huge hole in my chest. Making things kinda difficult."

Methos ignored this.

"If I kill you, that just makes you better," he said. He prodded Ichigo in the chest. This, in light of the circumstances, was somewhat more painful than it sounded. "It makes you reckless."

"Things like, oh I don't know, breathing."

Methos's face was suddenly very close. Ichigo smothered an unmanly eep.

"Let's make a deal. I can make a couple more holes in you, or I can go on with the lesson," said Methos. "Your call."

"I'm not even an Immortal," grated Ichigo desperately.

"You could be," said Methos.

"Well, I don't want to -- what? I thought you said I wasn't like you!"

"You don't understand," said Methos. He leaned close. "Me, Mac, Amanda, we're just Immortal. But you. You could live forever."

* * *

"Um," tried Johnny. "But I don't think I really -- "

"Silence!" Rukia wheeled on the new arrival, furious. "And I suppose you're going to say you have some right to this soul, too?"

ACTUALLY, I WAS JUST GOING TO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS TO THE NEAREST CURRY HOUSE. BUT, AH, IF YOU ARE BUSY --

"Yes," snapped Rukia. "We are."

"Never even knew I spoke Japanese," said Wobbler happily.

"Is this that speaking in tongues thing your mum's always on about, Yo-less?" said Bigmac.

"This is all very heretical, and we're probably all going to hell," said Yo-less severely.

"Do they ever shut up?" said Renji to Johnny.

"Um."

I WILL NOT DETAIN YOU, BUT IF YOU COULD DIRECT ME TO A DISCREET BLACKSMITH ...

"I should have known you're too stupid to even die properly," said Kirsty.

"Sorry," said Johnny.

memlu - Kuchiki Rukia and Hester Shaw!

A Hester who has lost Tom has nothing to live for. Still, she can kill. It gives her a fierce dark satisfaction to be good at her job, and nobody asks an assassin to lift her veil.

She tells herself she doesn't care anymore, not for anything or anyone, but it surprises her how afraid she is when once on a mission she miscalculates, leaves it too late, and the bomb goes off almost beneath her hands. She only has the time to realise that she doesn't want to die, even now, then the world is blasted through with sound: then silence.

It's Rukia who saved her life, Hester realises first. Then she realises her veil is gone. She panics, gropes around for it, feeling the flush creep up her destroyed face. It shouldn't matter whether anyone sees her, Hester who is as good as dead, but like the man they both work for, Rukia is beautiful: white skin, dark eyes, dark hair, like a picture or a fairy-tale.

Rukia hands her the veil. Hester could punch her, but Rukia says, "You don't need it." The only thing that stops Hester from hurting her is the off-hand way she says it, as if it's true.

"What would you know about ... " says Hester.

"Being ugly?" says Rukia. "Well -- but you wouldn't believe me. What would you believe?" She seems to really be thinking. Before Hester can reply, she says, almost to herself, as if she's testing the words out:

"We are the dead. We have lost our names.

"Burn the veil," says Rukia.

Hester draws it up over her face.

"Then you're still alive," says Rukia.

"So are you," says Hester. That connects.

"More fool us," says Rukia tiredly, but even though Hester wants to, she can't disagree.

lisa_bee - Haruhi (Ouran) and Rukia (Bleach)

The new girl was perched on the edge of her chair. Like so many of the girls at Ouran, she was polished almost to the point of being enamelled, trained elegance gilding every move. But she was so uncomfortable Haruhi wondered how the twins could have made those marked comments on Kuchiki arrogance. It always surprised her how much the Host Club seemed to miss.

"Are you all right?" said Haruhi. She smiled at the girl. "Don't mind Tamaki-senpai. You get used to him after a while."

"I'm fine," snapped the girl. She curled in on herself like an irritated hedgehog.

"It's a nice day," said Haruhi, ignoring her. She sat down. "Do you have any plans for this summer, Kuchiki-san?"

"My brother is going to Switzerland," said the girl.

"That sounds like fun," said Haruhi. "It's nice to travel with family, isn't it? I don't have any brothers or sisters, but I went to Hokkaido once with my mom and dad. We bought a mug. It's cracked now, but it's in my room. I keep my pens in it. I didn't like to throw it away. It's good to have reminders of happy times around you, don't you think?"

"How can you stand to be so boring?" said Rukia. She seemed inexplicably furious. Haruhi saw that she was close to tears. She decided Kuchiki-san was not the kind of person who would want that to be noticed.

"It seems a lot less stressful than being interesting," said Haruhi calmly. "Would you like more tea?"

* * *

"You do realise why Kuchiki-san keeps coming here, even though she never requests anyone," said Kyouya later.

"She's lonely, isn't she?" said Haruhi. "Her brother must be a busy person."

"Doubtless that's part of it," said Kyouya, looking at Haruhi. But she showed no sign of being aware that Kuchiki Rukia, like so many blown by the winds of fate into the scholarship kid's path, had fallen desperately in love with her.

"She's had an exciting life," ventured Kyouya, out of a sort of scientific interest. "Abandoned by her sister at a young age, numerous escapes from the various orphanages where she stayed, finally discovered by her wealthy brother-in-law. It's quite the fairy tale. It's no surprise if after all that, Kuchiki-san were attracted to peace -- even boredom -- wouldn't you agree?"

"I think," said Haruhi, "Kuchiki-san is the kind of person who would never be able to escape excitement."

She was, of course, right; she had, of course, missed the point entirely.

"True," murmured Kyouya, noting it down. He didn't even smile.

ruthi - Ichigo and Superman

When Ichigo first meets Superman, he goes reluctantly, mulishly, deliberately-obliviously through every single stage of -- well, but more on that later. Superman teaches him how to be a hero. Learn to juggle responsibilities like a circus performer, he tells Ichigo. Preserve a part of your life for yourself and those who love you. Remember, he says, digging through rubble for live people while Ichigo takes care of the dead, that this is as important as ray guns and death-bringing aliens -- picking people up and dusting them off, one by one.

The point being, one night Clark's in the kitchen and Ichigo is awkwardly perched on his sofa, rolling a sweating can of Coke in his hands.

"I didn't know you cooked," says Ichigo.

Clark says, "Ma taught me. You can't live on take-out."

Ichigo realises his mother died before he could learn how to cook from her. He drinks the Coke. At some point it should have stopped hurting, he thinks. That's what they say, they tell you that you get over it. And even so when Clark brings out dinner and sets it down and says, "Itadakimasu," Ichigo says, "Could your accent be any more American?" just to make him smile. Clark does smile. It hurts less.

So you see.

For dhio, because she promised awesome fanart: Renji and Rukia as gargoyles

He lands with scarcely a rustle in the brush. He's learnt to move almost silently in a quiet-winged clan. The gargoyles in his clan can move through a forest without disturbing a single small creature's sleep.

Still, not as silent as the female -- Rukia -- can be. That's part of why the others don't like her. It's not a silence learnt from listening to the noises of the world and diving under them. Rukia somehow shuts out the world, wraps herself in a cocoon of protection, drawing invisible coils of power around her.

Tension -- not quite pain -- gathers in his temples. It smells like sunrise, at the uncertain floating moment right before you go to stone. He says aloud,

"I can smell you, you know."

And just like that, Rukia's in the tree above him. She wasn't there before. Her face through the branches is white and woebegone. He feels his chest constrict. It makes him speak more roughly than he might otherwise have done.

"You idiot, why the hell did you do that?"

"Are the others very angry?"

"Furious." He sighs. "The wound will be gone by tomorrow night. They aren't that angr -- well. We'll work it out. Come down?"

She hesitates a moment, but then she leans out of the tree, wraps her wings around herself and drops like a stone. He knows a moment of panic before Rukia's unfolding herself on the ground, completely unharmed.

His head aches.

"Do you have to do that?"

Rukia brushes herself off with little dainty movements. In the night she almost glows, her skin moon-white.

"You're the only one who notices," she says.

"What is it?"

Rukia looks up. The pupils of her eyes are dilated. It is a curious fact that his clan never had a need for the word 'crazy' before they took her in.

"Loneliness," she whispers. "Don't you miss having a name?"

"I never had one," he says.

"I call you Renji, to myself," she says. "I've given you all names. But you wouldn't take them from me, would you?"

He touches her face, because it feels like the right thing to do. She twitches, but then he can feel her calming under his hand, the sharp unfamiliar fizz of her power dissipating.

"Idiot," he says. He doesn't need a name to know her. "You can call me that. If you want."

Rukia isn't really listening. She might not actually be there. He wonders where she comes from, why she's here. If there's anything he can do to keep her.

"Why don't the others like me?"

"... you're a freak and you attack them for no reason. We've discussed this before."

"Why do you like me?"

"Hell if I know," he grumbles, meaning it.

* * *

This, of course, being the scene he remembers when they're taking cover in a ditch somewhere from the attack, the forest stinking of magic and Rukia madder than he's ever seen her. The magic in the air's getting to her -- she looks barely gargoyle, features slipping into those of a creature much older and much less sane.

"Let me go," she hisses, "my brother will leave once he has me."

"Shut up shut up shut up," he says. He's only managing to hold her back because she doesn't want to hurt him. Knowing this only makes him angrier. "Who's going to call me Renji if you leave?"

"You told me gargoyles don't need names!"

"It's not the name I need, you idiot!"

Which is as clear a confession as anyone could ask for. But who knows if Rukia's listening?