Send me 🫦 to have a New year's kiss at midnight. || @barebcnes || not accepting.
He'd never cared much for tradition. Whatever had been taught to him by his mother had been washed away in sand and soot, reminding him that rituals had little use. Life would not halt for repetition or custom, ever apathetic in a constant, churning galaxy. Thus the way he remained impartial, a silent and immutable shadow in the corner of the room that observed with quiet, passive eyes, was largely ignored.
Still, he'd been permitted a momentary freedom from his prison.
McCoy had convinced the captain that socialization would be beneficial for his rehabilitation, a forced integration the perfect tool of healing. Perhaps not in those words-- not really, not when he'd been incapable of the feat lest it concerned his body. Inside his skull, the darkness a perpetual companion. Earth had changed, yet he had remained the same.
How harrowing, the thought flitted through his mind like a moth yearning for the decimation of flame, ever the brooding shadow in the corner of the room.
A wonder that few spared him a glance as the festivities continued. That was how it ought to remain. If he planned on allowing weakness, he would never say so. Leonard was not his world, but he was close enough to occupy Khan’s mind that it made him wonder, made him doubt that pride-woven sense of self. Comfort became a weakness that seeped from the pores of his teeth and the pink of the tongue that wet his bottom lip.
McCoy brought him tea. It’d become something of a habit by now. Such a thought: it was easy to get ensnared, but he would never admit there are other reasons. Maybe he was selfish. Maybe he was insane. Maybe he was not ready to tell the good doctor that he was ready to flay himself open-- reveal himself as a poet instead of a warlord. A man instead of a monster.
Maybe he was weak. Maybe he was no better than the chemistry and firing synapses in his skull after all.
It was that, the swell of foreign emotions; the culprit, overtaking him, continuing the chain of cruel, thoughtless decisions. Leonard is near, leaning into him to say something above the cacophany of laughter, music, and downward count of time. If there was a protest, Khan pointedly ignored it, backing the other against the wall. The augment was not as subtle, no, not when he was made of jagged edges and frayed wire. Khan’s lips found McCoy's, quick and magnetic, and he could not break away before he realized his error. He lingered, too long. Always too long.
A new year, a new vulnerability.
