Category: Uncategorized

Tooru has no chance. He closes the door behind himself and is one second into the flat, kicking off his shoes with the feeble hope of somehow making it upstairs. Should’ve known better. As soon as he bends down to tear his sneaker off, laces still tied because hurry, hurry, someone comes out of the kitchen.

“Sweetheart,” his mother says. She smiles. There’s an apron around her hips, the house phone peeking out of a pocket.

“Hey,” Tooru says, stretching the y-sound like a rubber band. “I’m home. Really tired, coach extended the spiking practice again – ”

“We’re having dinner,” his father calls from inside the kitchen. Tooru risks a look inside. The table is all set up with the best cutlery that his mother usually uses when grandma is coming over and has to be impressed with an immaculate house and manners so precise that Tooru feels like royalty for days after. The only other time that his mother makes that kind of effort is when there’ll be a family talk.

Tooru considers panicking, but then decides against it. He’s already in this situation and if this is about what he thinks it’s about, then he can’t escape anyways and getting it over with could make a lot of things easier.

He drops his sports bag and obediently walks into the kitchen.

The smile on his mother’s lips turns into a grin. “Fantastic.” Oh god. Tooru swallows. He sits down next to his father, hands in his lap, and then his glance catches on the big pot in the middle of the table. His favourite stew is simmering lazily, and next to it sits a bowl with milk bread for dessert.

“Mom, am I adopted?”

His father snorts. “You definitely didn’t inherit our sharp perception. You did get your mother’s obsession over your hair though.”

“Very funny. You’re my son through and through, we’ve been over this. Our son, I mean. You’ve got your father’s calves. Careful.” His mother fills their bowls with stew and hands the rice to his father, and everything is quiet and peaceful with the clatter of spoons and forks full of rice. Tooru bears with it for exactly four minutes. Then he can’t take it anymore.

“Training wasn’t extended. I was at Hajime’s place – ”

His mother puts her spoon down. “You know that we love you, honey. We really do. So it’s important to us that Hajime and you are using condoms when you’re together.”

Tooru doesn’t put his spoon down. He drops it into his stew instead, splashing pieces of carrot and leek everywhere. His father sighs. “Watch it, will you. Your mother tried very hard with the stew and I made you a double batch of milk bread. The least you could do is promise us – ”

“Oh my god.”

“ – that you two are going to be safe – ”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“We’re worried about you, sweetheart. We want you to have fun and get as intimate with dear Hajime as you’d like – ”

“ – when the big first is going to happen and all the times after as well, of course, and if you have any kind of question… well, I’m not an expert on the whole male on male thing, but from father to son, I could – ”

“I’m a good person,” Tooru desperately whispers. “I did my homework all school year. I tutored Kindaichi for his math test. I made Hajime soup when he was sick.”

“ – and as long as our dear Hajime is always wearing a – well, not that I’m assuming that he’ll be the one to, you know, that’s not our business,” his mother contemplates and pushes another bite of stew between her lips.

“None of this is your business!” Tooru raises his hands and voice, throwing both into his parents’ faces. “How did you even know? I’ve been going to his place for years, and we’ve only been together for – I mean. We’re not…”

His father stops chewing. His brows sink low, forming a dark line over bright eyes. “Is he not serious about your relationship?” He looks at Tooru’s mother. “That’s not what Miko told you.”

Tooru can’t believe this. “You called his mother?” He puts his face into his hands. “This isn’t supposed to happen. I was going to come out at some point, introduce him – ”

“Nonsense.” His mother’s hand touches Tooru’s shoulder, squeezes it gently. “We knew about your feelings, sweetheart, you’re not that good at hiding things from us. From him, maybe, but not when you’re in your room and swooning your soul out after a phone call from him. Miko and your father and I knew it was bound to happen. I hope she’s making sure that Hajime knows about protection as well.” She giggles and softly tugs at Tooru’s ear. “And if you two ever need the house for yourselves over a weekend, when you’re both ready, just ask.”

Tooru’s entire face is burning. He opens his mouth to say something. His brain is short-circuiting pretty impressively though, and nothing makes its way out. His parents seem to understand and damn it, why do they have to be like this, of course he knows how to do all of this. (They’re annoying and embarrassing and any other reaction would have terrified him to the bone. He loves them, he loves them.)

“Uh. Thanks then. Can we never talk about sex again from now on?”

“Sure, sweetheart. Do you want some more stew?”

He does. He also calls Hajime after dinner. It turns out that Hajime’s had a similar conversation with his mother and sister and his voice hitches a little bit around the word condom when he confesses that his mother had bought him some. Tooru buries his face in the pillow, smiling from ear to ear. “They’re so embarrassing,” he says.

“Totally,” Hajime says, and then whispers: “We have time though. Right?”

“Yeah.” Tooru closes his eyes, touches his mouth where Hajime had kissed him goodbye earlier. “We do.”

The ring is silver. It sits on a bed of velvet, its counterpart plain and simple where the first wears a small bright diamond. It must have taken hours to choose.

Hajime cradles the box in his fingers. He’s trembling a little bit, has ran his hand through his hair so much that it sticks in all directions, fluffed excitement.

“Do you like it?”

Tooru blinks. The tears don’t come. He has none left. “Yes. Of course I do. It’s perfect.”

Hajime’s smile is radiant. “Good. God, that’s – thank you. I needed this.”

He nods, fakes the grin on his lips with ease. Has practiced it for this moment. “Everything will be fine. You’ll be okay.”

Before he leaves, Hajime hugs Tooru so tight that all air hisses out of Tooru’s lungs. He lets it be. “Are you happy?” The only question that matters.

Hajime pulls back and beams. “I will be when she says yes.”

“Goddamn it, Jim!” Dr. McCoy shouts, storming off the bridge, and Spock can’t help but wonder a little bit. He considers the situation, comes up with a question, and turns around.

He waits until the crew has finished laughing and Kirk is sprawling in his beloved chair again. His recently injured leg is propped up on a stool. The doctor is correct, technically, when he feels anger towards their captain for not resting and instead coming to the bridge to look over everything as if everything was in its usual order.

Spock approaches smoothly. He stands by Kirk’s side, hands behind his back. “Captain?”

Kirk glances at him. There’s a tiny smile on his lips. “Are you going to yell at me as well?”

“No. I would merely like to know why Dr. McCoy keeps insulting you despite both of you claiming to be friends. I have not encountered this behaviour before.”

“Oh, that.” Kirk waves a hand around, dismissive, and looks back at the galaxy before them. “It’s our way of saying that we love each other. Some human males aren’t that good with expressing love, platonic or otherwise, so he yells at me and I give him nicknames.”

“I see,” Spock says. He doesn’t ask another question. After his shift is over, he goes to have dinner and makes a decision.

—

When Kirk comes limping onto the bridge at 0700 the next morning, Spock is already next to his chair. He gives Kirk time to sit down, clears his throat then. Kirk lifts a brow. “Yes?”

“Goddamn it, captain,” Spock says.

The silence is stunning. Nobody moves. Kirk is staring at him, mouth open, fingers tight around the rests of his chair. Spock shifts lightly. When nothing happens, he inclines his head, turns, and walks back to his station.

It’s another minute before the bridge breaks out into confused whispers, and James Tiberius Kirk starts laughing. “Damn you too, Spock,” he says over the whistles from Sulu and Uhura’s muffled giggle. “All of you be damned.”

The universe couldn’t have expanded into a more brilliant world of simple complexity than the one we have, and it’s incredible to just think about it.

Everything we have is so wide that our minds can’t comprehend it. 

An ocean is deeper than we can fathom by multiplying our own body length, how many of us to stack until we touch the dark bottom, how many to span endless water from land to land, we can’t imagine. A brain has more connections than we can take breaths, more impulses than notes we sing or words we could ever speak in three lifetimes. And even a murmuration of starlings encompasses the entire sky over our head, horizon to horizon across the field we stand on to let the rustle of millions of feathers drown out our own blood.

All of it is big and seems different, and then we learn it’s not.

We learn that the shift of water molecules is the electric jolt between neurons is the wing beat of a starling, that all roll like a wave of atoms that make us and the universe, that everything is infinitely complex and so simple.

Our world isn’t complex because its parts are. The single molecule of water, the small neuron, the lone starling – they’re simple.

It’s the chaos and the entropy of the tiniest elements, the infinite possibilities of their touches, that turn order into life and brilliance.

They’re washing blood off their space suits when Keith rips off his helmet, thrashes it against the wall and puts his forehead to the mirror.

“I’m not okay,” he says.

Lance rubs at a spot that’s so stained it looks black. The species has red blood like them. Had. He shifts from one foot to the other. Keith twitches. His fists clench, loosen. The bathroom carries all their quiet motions into terrible sound with its echo. Keith’s face reflects from the mirror, and Lance watches his wide eyes for a moment. Black pupils, iris drowned out. Keith is waiting. Something, anything.

“I know,” Lance replies then. He wipes off the last stain from his wrist.

“Sorry.”

“Why?”

Keith turns his head away. There’s only black hair in the mirror now. “I’m supposed to be fine.”

It’s stupid, but Lance still laughs. “Not really, no. Look, just.” He reaches, taps Keith’s shoulder as gently as he can, barely a touch, but Keith yields and swirls around to him, stands chest to chest and his fingers cup around Lance’s jaw.

“None of us is. Sometimes we may be okay, but not in general. Don’t think anybody could be with how things are. We’re alive though, right?” Lance closes his eyes, humming when Keith’s breath falls over his cheeks, warm fingers so nervous against his collarbone. They’re both still new to this and Lance has been a bit better at faking confidence until now when his heart is really thundering a thousand miles a minute.

Keith’s kiss is a tiny, whole thing, and his voice isn’t shivering anymore when he grabs Lances’s hand to pull him out of the after-mission bathroom.
“Yes, we are. Good enough for me.”

i’ll never understand why movies and literature try to make me afraid of a villain who has nothing left to lose. one who has no fear of dying anymore is terrifying, one who has looked pain in the face and suffered enough for a hundred people can make your breath freeze in your lungs, that’s true.

but that villain is nothing compared to one who has something beloved left.

nothing creates a warrior more easily than resting a blade where his heart is.

thank you so much for pointing out that my accent in your native language is heavy, horrible or strong. i understand why you’d say that. an accent is a strange thing to anyone who has never bothered to get one for themselves. 

He’s back, Mycroft had whispered, only a sliver too cheerful to hide the crumbling terror underneath. The East wind, John had said, soldier’s fists curled and chin up, eyes forward and staring through his cerebrum. 

Wrong. Wrong, both of them. 

Not he. No wind alone drunk enough on ash and slick smiles to carry all of this.

Careful what you wish for, they had told him over and over again, because one day you’ll be begging on your knees for boredom.

It could be him, the high ones in England say. Stupid, fools, narrow-minded with fear.

Something is coming, says the war drum beat of his heart. A thing. Not a man.

Oh, of course, it’s so clear now. Moriarty had never been a man, never he and of course he didn’t return, how could he when he never left? The television was only the beginning, one strand of a million of a billion of more connections than brain cells thrumming in Sherlock’s head.

“A net,” Sherlock says, watching John stare at him like he thought he’d never do again. “Moriarty, that is. Everywhere, everyone, anyone could be it. How can we know if there’s no way to know, if he’s within all of them?”

John’s mouth is soft, fallen open. “Sherlock, I don’t – I don’t understand. Right, a net, so he’s the spider. We track down the one who wove the net – “

“He’s not the spider.” Anyone, any time, from all four cardinal directions and they will never, never know. 

“Moriarty is the net. The net is him. And we’re sitting in the middle of it, and I can’t see who his cobwebs are.”