#376 words

[sheithfromvoltron]

It’s Good to Have You Back

“I don’t know if I can be who you expect me to be anymore” -@bluuenvy​ [also available on ao3]

The man was clearly exhausted and looked as if he’d made the trip to Hell and back a dozen times over the last year. Keith had reluctantly allowed Hunk to carry Shiro in for him since he was still out cold, but not he’d chased everyone out and had been sitting by Shiro’s side waiting for him to wake up and now that he had, Keith didn’t like the way the conversation seemed to be heading.

“I don’t know if I can be who you expect me to be anymore,” Shiro wouldn’t meet his eyes as he spoke; instead he glared at his replaced arm, flexing the fingers over and over again.

“What?” That caught him off guard. “I don’t expect you to be anyone, just yourself.”

Shiro laughed darkly, looking at Keith now, but not seeming to see him. “That’s just it; I’m not myself. I don’t even know that man anymore, Keith.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he hissed, always quick to defend when Shiro was the topic. “You’re still you. No matter what happened up there, that doesn’t change who you are, alright?” He went to run a hand through his friend’s now white forelock and in return got his wrist grabbed just as his fingers breached the pale strands.

“Don’t,” Shiro’s voice was a growl and his eyes had grown distant. Keith closed his hand to show he wasn’t going to continue. “You’re afraid of me.” A comment, not a question.

“No,” it didn’t sound as convincing as he’d hoped. “No,” Keith tried again, “I’m not afraid of you. But we don’t need to talk about this right now. You need to rest.”

Shiro’s jaw clenched and he glared unseeingly at Keith. “Fine,” his voice went deadpan before rolling away to stare at the wall, ending their conversation Sighing, Keith ran a frustrated hand through his own hair and stood up. This was fine. He doesn’t mean this. He just needs time. Swallowing, he decided just to let his friend have some breathing room.

“Goodnight, Shiro,” he flipped off the light, assuming he wouldn’t get a response, but just as Keith stepped through the doorway the sound of sheets rustling made him pause in time to hear, “You used to call me Takashi.”

{send me line/song prompts}

[orlando-gloryflower]

By Black Ink and Vellum Bound || Prompt 7: Book

They have many things; as is expected of the scions of power and wealth.

The light has his smile, his boisterous laugh and easy demeanor. The shadow has his words; the ones that lie heavy and unspoken on his tongue and the ones he hordes like a dragon atop a mountain of glittering gold, the black letters on creamy pages, the currency by which he buys his solitude.

So he has his words, an entire room wallpapered in words that have touched him, molded him, fired his imagination and cooled his fevered mind. He sleeps cradled in the warm embrace of Rimbaud and Forster, wakes to stare up at a ceiling covered in Merwin and Wilde. They are the constellations he navigates his life by and the shackles with which he binds himself to a way of life, an ideal. Words are the religion and vellum pages the Eucharist by which he feeds his soul.

But for all the silence and solitude his sublimated words buy him, there is still one book set aside, that makes him the most human. No first edition or leather bound tome, merely a one Galleon find at a used bookstore; coffee-stained and water-wrinkled. But like all the books the shadow owns it is the words on the inside that matter. These words whisper softly in the night, cast a spell of a kind not taught at school. These words brought to mind a future of a sort made impossible by his solitude, a future that could happen only if the shadow steps into the light and reaches out for someone to hold.

Be near me when my light is low,      (a hand threading its fingers through his own) When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick      (arms wrapped tight around his waist, pulling him in) and tingle, and the Heart is sick,      (lips against his own, promising that he'll never be alone again) And all the wheels of Being slow.      (a heartbeat that mirrors his own, strong and steady, a new cadence for his words to follow)

Words and knowledge give shadow form and substance; one day he hopes they will guide him to someone to love with a fervor he's only see on the pages he shields himself with.