Shiro, Championed.

Shiro, championed.

He is a tale, he knows. But he doesn't feel like one, he is way too roomless, way too thoughtless, only a tablespoonful of a something.

The tale should be fractured, he thinks. It shouldn't be about victory, it should avoid being this spurious. It should have stones. Bricks. Maximal damage. Minimal effort. He wonders if pain should bring him clarity. Yes; the tale can have this too. How creaturely he feels when in pain.

He is on his stomach, the cheek on the table half closing his eye. They have taken his spinal fluid again.

''Don't you have this already?'' he asks, voice unsmooth, the heavy door creak of it. ''You've taken it yesterday.''

They look surprised. They say something in a language he doesn't know, and don't do anything. Not anything in response to what he said.

He looks at the suited figures, feeling himself hazing. He wonders if he has missed some essence of their subjectivity – he has only been thinking of them in a plural way. Do they hesitate? Do they worry? Feel individual things? Maybe pluralising them is unjust. But then his mind clears up one more time: he will wake up in one of the small square rooms, where he has been waking up lately. Roomlessly, thoughtlessly, creaturely.

*

He has been having recurring daydreams. And wanting, recurringly, in a compromising way, in the way of wanting being his single antibody.

*

Four years from now, Shiro will watch coffee grounds swish around his french press. He will feel content at the uneventfulness of it, and call it laziness, call it something slow and nice, like a sleepy cat.

''That's fine,'' Someone will say, ''more attention to a french press than to me. That's fine.''

Shiro will walk around the counter and plop down into the couch. He will move uncaringly. He will move caringly in the right way.

''My cushion balance,'' Someone will complain. ''You disbalanced me.''

''It doesn't bother you,'' Shiro will say.

''It doesn't,'' they will admit immediately. Then, tone joking: ''I just think it's funny that—'' They will smile, with mouth corners turned downwards.

Shiro will nod a little at the joke, then scoot closer, with one leg over their legs. He will cover their eyes with his palms. Then breathe. Get close. Hover close. Breathe into their jaw.

A hand will tangle in his hair. It will make him feel wild with possibility; some tangled nerves pulled separate into their fitting paths, re-sparking. He will feel lightheaded, but not in a dizzying way. In a love way, perhaps.

''I was joking. It wasn't funny,'' Someone will murmur to clarify, opening the palm in Shiro's hair, then closing it again, tugging at Shiro's content. Shiro will make a mhm sound, the vibration of it, and place his closed lips to the corner of their mouth. He will wonder if it's expectation alone that sustains him, feeling both their breaths do billowy things on his eyelids. It would be understandable, he will think, consistent: sometimes he takes a single sip of coffee and it makes him feel much better immediately. He shakes hands with placebo.

''My heart,'' Someone will say, whispery and squealy – good, like dying for a good cause. Moving lips to talk will make them kiss; make them kissed, make them the passive subjects of kissing.

*

They don’t talk back to him.

''You don’t talk back to me,'' he says, and thinks he sounds pleasantly non-accusatory. They talk to each other, he knows. He wonders if this is his humble sacrifice for humanity, if humanity, thanks to him, knows about aliens, if it has gone father than ever before. If that guy whose video he watched got to walk on Europa, if the icy surface really did creak underneath his feet, if he really could hear it cracking, tidally stretching, when he placed his head to the surface.

Maybe he should be living mindfully, now. Maybe this will uncatastrophise his life.

He thinks about his perceptions. He feels thirsty. Maybe dehydration will hit the pacemaking cells of his heart and he will die. He focuses. He watches things that glisten. His knuckles are cold and his heart feels warm. A warm creature that bites. He thinks he shouldn't call himself warm-hearted. It's wrong. This is wrong.

*

Four years from now, Shiro will place his hand over Someone's chest.

''Your heart. My eyes, if only you could see what I'm seeing. My heart. My lungs. My spleen'' Shiro will say, and Someone will hook their arms under Shiro's, fingers pressing onto the muscle on his shoulders, and it will feel nice, and Shiro won't mind leaving his thoughts somewhat unfinished. Now his lips will be pressed on their cheek under the uncovered eye.

He will remain motionless, to see is something will boil. To explore the peculiar properties of the two of them. Eyes closed, he will feel their breathing faster than it was. He will feel good about that.

''I could start hiccupping from the emotional stress,'' Someone will whisper, hooking arms around Shiro's body, hooking and not snaking, expressing some crushing liking. Their flirting won't snake, serpent-like.

''No stress allowed,'' Shiro will whisper back.

*

Maybe he is wrong and he'd rather be less present. Daydream more. He has been having a recurring daydream.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387220