moamiswriting – Page 26

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.”

It’s not the lions.

Zarkon learns it after seeing them together, the brilliant formation of colour, when he watches their ferocious battle flight through the universe that belongs to him. It has never been the lions, at no point. Oh, he’d been a blind fool, but now he knows. He’d been one of them once, after all.

And then it’s so brutally easy to turn red into violet and violent.

All it takes is bleeding the crimson out of blue.

ask your questions. don’t back down. there are answers, there’s a whole universe full of them and it’s waiting for you to come. demand the knowledge you are owed and bring new questions for answers to discover.

and if someone asks why you do it, ask them why they stopped.

“A multiverse?” He scoffed. “Ridiculous. There has never been and will never be such a thing. There is only one universe and we are in it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a book to finish reading and I don’t appreciate you interrupting my story.”

“Shut up.”

“You keep telling me that – “

“No, shut the fuck up.”

“ – but I don’t think you actually mean that.”

“I can’t believe this. I don’t believe this.”

“On the other hand,” Keith says, pulling off his helmet so he can pump some naturally oxygenated air into his lungs, “you probably do. Not that I care. Because I don’t.” He clears his throat and watches Lance scamper into the corridor behind the airlock. The door hums shut behind them. “Anyways, I’m starving, how long were we even up there? Allura can fix the tower next time, take Shiro with her and spend all day poking alien roof tiles that ooze all over you.”

Lance kicks his boots off. The frown on his face is a bit dirty because he’d insisted to take off his helmet and lick the tile slime. Keith hadn’t dared him. He didn’t have to, which is sad enough on its own but not surprising at all. Lance would lick anything that – he’s experimental with his body is what Keith means, but he doesn’t think about Lance that much anyways. Except he does.

“We’re eating in my room,” Lance says. He’s by Keith’s side, bare toes wiggling on the floor. Has to be cold. Maybe his spare pair of fluffy socks could help.

“Can’t, gotta change clothes. Scratched myself, it’s bleeding.”

“Then your room. You’re not getting out of this.” Lance is up in his face, pressing one long finger against Keith’s nose. “I’ll introduce you to the masterful work of The Princess Diaries, and you won’t be an uneducated heathen anymore. Well, less of one. Can’t believe it, honestly.” He pulls back, running a hand through his hair until it sticks up a bit because it’s gotten longer and Keith wants to know if it’s as soft as it looks now.

But this is a chance if he’s ever seen one. “Fine. You’re getting the food though. And this won’t become a – “

“It’s a date.”

Fuck. Keith stares, mouth dry and warmth in his chest, watches Lance flash him the fraction of a grin before he shoots off in a whirl of limbs and blue.

Maybe he should go clean his room. Or patch up the scratch on his leg that’s still bleeding, damn it. No day without trouble here. Keith picks up his helmet, and tries to remember whether he did use fabric softener on the socks when he last washed them.

Keith tries to believe that they don’t care. His team tells him every day how the purple glint in his hair doesn’t make him an enemy, that the golden ring flaring around his iris when he’s in battle couldn’t ever make them fear him.

And still, it’s only when Lance takes him aside by slamming him against the wall of his own room, pressing a finger on Keith’s mouth to shut him up, and staring at him like he could shatter with just too rough of a touch that Keith let’s go, and allows his mind a whispered ‘okay’.

“Nobody cares,” Lance says, voice so raw and soft that it cracks at the edge, “what you were born as. I don’t give a fuck if you’re human or Galra or something in between, and I don’t need to know. Voltron is all of us. Red chose you. She let you in, that ancient powerful thing let you into her everything because you have the mind of a paladin. Voltron found all of us and chose every inch of you, every goddamn string of dna. It wants you here.”

He takes a deep breath. “And so do I.”

Keith closes his eyes when Lance presses his first kiss to the corner of his mouth. He’s pretty sure that his eyes are golden right now, and his skin has to be a radiant violet all over his cheeks.

But Lance still wraps both arms around him when Keith slides their lips together once more, and Keith forgets the meaning of colour, time, or fear.

To strive for perfection sounds utterly boring to me. It implies that you’ll be finished with your journey at some point.

I’d much rather strive for improvement and interesting travels. After all, you’ll have lots of opportunity to make mistakes along the way and learn from them.

And to become remarkable, one has to earn some marks on themselves.

my softness is earned and fought for. the fur of my head is silk when you have my trust. the claws of my hands are calm and protective for you if only i know that you deserve it. my voice calls out for you and your touch when your worth of my closeness is without danger, when the thunder outside is nothing more but light’s celebration of our connection in all of the world’s colours for i am safe in our home and you with me and i with us.

you never domesticated me. you couldn’t, could try and fail and i would laugh through white-sharp teeth at your desperation, so we do it another way and no, you weren’t asked, this way or not at all.

there is no obedience in the rumble of my heart and no screams no anger no cooing will bend me into the shape you want. i do not adjust to you. i make you mine and let you run for me. i am not yours or one of yours and neither do i belong just because you are somewhere; i simply am, and we exist together in the same space and my soul’s purr may light up your horizon, but you are not the beacon of my life. and your dominance is an illusion because we flow in a symbiosis where you believe to have the upper hand.

but never, never forget who I am.

that i came to you out of the wilderness with golden sunflecks on my fur and nature’s war at the tips of my paws. that i showed you the cool hope of water that kept you alive and that you climbed for us and i hunted and we grew together, stronger with the burn for adventure and the wideness of our lands, ours and not just yours.

know that you will only hear my purr if you know of the roar that lies awake in the bottom of my lungs.

don’t you dare forget who i am. i am the apex and have been and will be, and you are only here with me because i let you.

Vulcans, as is known around the discovered universe with absolute certainty, do not gossip.

Their language famously lacks a word to so much as describe the unnecessary activity, and a true Vulcan will reject any other species’ attempts at engaging in such behavior with them. That of course includes the decimated population of New Vulcan in the same way as it did everyone on the former home planet.

Even though the aforementioned facts are without a doubt and undeniably true, the arrival of a certain Captain Kirk with the Enterprise crew and his First Officer of Vulcan descent, a now well-known Spock on planet New Vulcan seems to have triggered some phenomenon similar to the Humans’ slang of gossip.

Strangely enough, the phenomenon only began towards the end of the welcome ceremony and after Kirk had greeted every member of the newly established high council with surprising politeness and respect towards traditions, his First Officer only ever a few steps away, giving the ta’al when required.

But just as the Captain and Commander were in the process of striding towards Spock’s father, waiting for them at the entrance to the high council’s new residence, it happened.

Spock reached for Kirk’s hand.

The Vulcan crowd held their breath. Everything went absolutely silent.

Kirk greeted Sarek with a simple nod, and showed no sign of surprise when Spock’s ring finger curled around his Captain’s thumb in a clearly familiar gesture. Not even Sarek seemed fazed by such public indecency. Before anyone could inquire the meaning of this, the Captain and Commander vanished inside the building. Sarek followed, but gave a last look over his shoulder towards the stunned crowd, raising an eyebrow.

“I assume that the customs of appropriate public displays of affection towards one’s t’hy’la have not changed with our new planet.”

Then the door slid close behind him.

Vulcans do most definitely not gossip, but even Spock struggled, albeit with an amused smile, to find a fitting term for the enthusiasm with which a touch of two hands and the story of a logically illogical bond were discussed among the population of New Vulcan for two months after the Enterprise’s departure.