terajk: Ryoga, grabbing Ranma by his pajama-top and shouting: "Do you remember where my house is?!" (ranma & ryoga)
[personal profile] terajk
Maybe if I give these guys 1150 words, they'll go away so I can write the [community profile] white_lotus  fic, because DAMN. (Also, wow, this got idtastic)

Title: Stars
Fandom: Ranma 1/2
Rating: T, cartoon violence, ableism
Characters: Ryoga, Ranma, Akane
Word count: 1150
Summary: The one where Ranma and Ryoga talk disability. Awkwardly. (Although Ranma cheats.)
Also at AO3

Ryoga lay on the roof of the Tendo dojo looking at stars; it was sort of like going on a journey without actually leaving. He counted them in the direction of a manga page, and had to start over when Ranma stepped over him. When he got to one-hundred-and-fifty, Ranma said, “Akane’d be upset if you got pneumonia or somethin’ and died.”

He looked over at him in his nightshirt (and lost his place again, dammit). “Speak for yourself,” he said.

“No, I mean, it’s gettin’ cold.”

“You’re the one half-naked, you pervert.”

“Ryoga, you jerk,” said Ranma. Then he let him brood in peace.

He thought of Akane, of course, walking past as he sat on top of Ranma and bent his leg all the way back (”Say ‘surrender!’” “Moron!”); rolling her eyes while Ranma jumped up and down on his spine. “Oh, she’s just bein’ a macho chick,” Ranma’d said when he’d asked. “Besides, she’s more mad at you, anyway.”

He’d yanked Ranma’s pigtail then, but it was so obvious now. She said words to Ranma (not sentences, but words), while she greeted him with silence or, on good days, noises like “Mm.” Then there was that time he offered to show Ranma the Steel Dragon Fist, which he’d learned from a zookeeper in Hokkaido, and she slammed the dojo door as she left.

Oh, Akane! How could he have been so thoughtless? (What had he even done?) It would shatter his heart into stardust, but he had to leave her so he didn’t hurt her any more. He had to--

“Freeze to death, then,” said Ranma suddenly.

“What?” said Ryoga.

Ranma sighed. “It’s just....you can’t go wandering around Japan in the dead of winter. It’s stupid.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Ryoga said. “I do it all the time.”

“Because you’re stupid.”

“What do you care what I do?”

“Because I don’t want your corpse on my conscience,” said Ranma. “And you already sorta live here. Why even...go wherever you think you’re going?”

“I like it,” Ryoga said.

“You like bein’ lost all the time?”

“No, fool. I...” And then he ran out of words. There were panic and terror and bugs and bears and cold (yes, cold) and exhaustion and not eating for days and loneliness, the crushing loneliness most of all (people gaping in horror when he asked for directions--what are you? a tourist attraction, maybe, but you don’t belong here otherwise, with us). But there was also the Shishi Hokodan and martial arts gymnastics and everything else he’d learned from teachers on his travels, all the things Ranma was excited to see. There was using so much of his brain to figure out where he was that he couldn’t even feel the loneliness. And there was mastery, too--the Having Finally Found the Damned Place, the doing things on his own. What Ryoga said was, “I...can’t explain.”

After a while, Ranma said, “I mean, it’s not like I go lookin’ for cats on purpose.”

“I suppose not,” was all Ryoga could think to say.

“Akane misses ya when you’re gone.”

“Akane hates me,” Ryoga said.

“She doesn’t hate you, she just...I don’t know what’s wrong with Akane,” said Ranma. He paused. Then: “And you make me have to fight Kuno, and he sucks. Also, his head is shaped funny. I always feel like I’m gonna fall off.”

“You could fight Mousse instead,” Ryoga offered.

“Enh, Shampoo’s better.”

“Fight her, then.”

“She cheats.”

“You would know,” Ryoga said.

“I dunno why you don’t stay at the dojo,” Ranma said. “Akane’s old man doesn’t mind ya. You do the dishes. And it’s not like you’re a bad teacher or nothin’--an asshole, maybe, but not bad.”

“I don’t need your charity,” Ryoga said.

“Weren’t you listenin,’ jackass?” asked Ranma. “Kuno is annoying--and not in the ‘still sort of okay’ way you are. I’m askin’ this for me.”

Ryoga did have sympathy for the awfulness that was Kuno, so he thought. “And what does Akane think?” he asked.

“Didn’t I tell ya? She asks about you all the time when you’re gone. Idiot.”

Ryoga settled back, looked at the sky. But what if--? he thought, but didn’t ask; he couldn’t ask that because this was Ranma and anyway he didn’t think he could put it into words. But he would try. “What if (you see more of me and make faces and decide I don’t belong with you after all) my sense of direction is worse than you think it is?”

Ranma laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. “Ryoga,” he said, “half your challenge letters tell me to meet you at, like, ‘the blue car by the mailbox’ and I have to write you back just to work out a real place. Then there was that time when we were playin’ baseball and you ran the bases backwards and knocked Mousse over and broke all his glasses and Shampoo was so shocked, to this day she refuses to translate the stuff he called you. And Nabiki still talks about when--”

“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Ryoga said.

“It’s not like we care,” Ranma said. “I mean, Ucchan probably does--she never got over the three-legged race thing--but you’re just...however you are.”

“But you make fun of me all the time,” Ryoga said.

“Oh, please,” said Ranma. “You’re the one who keeps tellin’ me to act like a man. Akane always says I’m a dummy. You once asked Mousse how many fingers you were holding up and punched him in the face. And everyone thinks Kuno’s an idiot.”

“Kuno is an idiot,” said Ryoga.

“See?” said Ranma. Then: “Come live with us, Ryoga. If you want.”

And he did. He did want to, very much, but-- “I like to do things myself,” he said. “Can...can I pick a place and have you show me where it is? A place we’d go all the time? Like, the Cat Cafe?”

“Why not? We could challenge Mousse and Shampoo.”

“And by you,” Ryoga said, “I mean you. Not Akane.”

“Of course not,” said Akane suddenly. “No one ever means me.”

“How’d you get up here?” Ranma asked.

“The same way you did, dummy.” Then she said, “What is this? A martial artists’ stargazing convention?”

“Uh,” said Ryoga.

“Because it if is,” Akane said, “I’m sitting here. It’s my family dojo. Move over, Ranma.” Ranma did. When she sat between them she said, “If you’re going to challenge Shampoo, take me with you. She actually fights me, unlike some people I could name.”

They watched the stars together for a while, saying nothing, and even though Akane was angry Ryoga felt...safe. It was strange and scary in itself. And just when he couldn’t stand this new feeling anymore, Ranma said, “Damn, it’s cold out here!”

Date: 2011-12-22 09:15 am (UTC)
jeshyr: Blessed are the broken. Harry Potter. (Default)
From: [personal profile] jeshyr
I have no idea about this fandom but I am reallyreally LOVING your fics about these characters!!

Date: 2011-12-22 11:27 pm (UTC)
jeshyr: Blessed are the broken. Harry Potter. (Default)
From: [personal profile] jeshyr
I actually don't like manga much, I have a hard time making sense of it. I prefer text for reading, so I'll stick to the fiction for now! I just love your exploration of disability I think :)

Date: 2011-12-22 11:58 pm (UTC)
jeshyr: Blessed are the broken. Harry Potter. (Default)
From: [personal profile] jeshyr
Actually I wondered a whole bunch over my use of the word "disability" but I couldn't think of a different one that said what I meant. I love your writing of him and I love how it doesn't take away from his obvious strengths and that he's not pitied or seen as weak and helpless.

I read some of your descriptions of how your own impairment works and it's really interesting to me. I really enjoy finding out how the inside of other people's heads work, especially when they are very different to mine.

Anyway, thanks again for such cool writing :)

Date: 2012-01-01 11:18 pm (UTC)
marginaliana: Buddy the dog carries Bobo the toy (Default)
From: [personal profile] marginaliana
Came across this via the snowflake challenge and wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I didn't get very far into Ranma but I like the way you show the different personalities interacting with each other - that's sort of what I remember from reading it was the way each of the characters had their own thing, that those things were individual and not necessarily about each other, but which were evoked by their interactions with each other.

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