Back To The Stars
Title: Back To The Stars
Author: lalalive23
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Some horror themes, references to human slaughter, blood
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. This never happened. Could happen, tho. Bless the future.
Feedback: I LIVE FOR THE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
Summary: AU: Space (MS Bingo Card Fill) Dominic Howard is a Volus pilot in the distant future. He reflects on the sounds of life through the vacuum of space.
Note: I have genuinely been trying to write FOR MONTHS. Seriously, it's like I've hit a brick wall with a bunch of fics and this makes me sad. Also, I have been stupid busy. I was in Chicago for a few days, and also I work like 900 hours a week, and it's retail so I'm always tired and I'M SO SORRY I'M LITERALLY NEVER IN FANDOM ANYMORE I HATE ADULTHOOD. Anyway, so this came out of nowhere and I kinda love it? It's very very short, but that's what I wanted it to be. Feels so good to write again. Bless amusedinred for being a last minute beta boo <3 Title and opening line from the fic come from the song 2025 by Until The Ribbon Breaks. Also, this fic has a soundtrack (you will need Spotify for this link)!
I was born with my back to the stars.
Turn me over; I’d like to see.
Humans are noisy creatures, afflicted with a natural propensity towards the cacophony of living. The shallow breath of exertion and the rush of blood in the ears reminds me of mortality, reminds me that I am my own constant, cosmic accident. We are thunder and lightning, holding a big bang between our lungs with an atlas of desire mapped into our flesh, yet we still lose ourselves in outward distractions.
I understand these sentiments might be difficult to empathize with, or even understand. I am not as many expect me to be, not as I planned to be. Time and distance relative to nothing has aged me forwards and backwards to an unspecified wh- question.
My childhood was spent in space, rotating in the dark with only the symphony of my body to keep me company. With my fingers pressed to the glass, I felt that I was gathering dust from passing stars to etch deep into my fingerprints. I wanted interstellar DNA, wanted the noise of me to match the roar and rumble of the exosphere.
Two parents, both military giants. One nanny, distant and fragile like a moth. No siblings, no playmates. I had engines and motors as my companions. I saw the wonder and heard the silence, but the danger of my circumstances seemed a dreary myth meant for tragic children and careless adults. The pampered shuttle of my boyhood was no place for such tales, I thought. Yes, I often said to myself, I am safe here in the womb of creation.
At twelve I learned creation has a partner in destruction. I learned, awestruck and dumbfounded, that metal can quietly rip itself apart and bend to impossible angles. My parent’s crash did not resonate with a blast, merely became a feast for flame and shrapnel without a voice to signal their passing. I didn’t shed tears for three weeks.
Reality made noise. Silence rendered death into an illusion. They would come home, the echo of their boots on ceiling and the rustle of their fatigues beneath my fingers. This was when I learned that tears could be silent, too.
In the absence of my parents, I became a highly skilled Volus pilot. An intimate relationship between my hands and the Captain’s deck blossomed; maneuvering through asteroid belts felt like making love. The ship spoke to me, space screamed at me through sonar, and I responded in kind with a kiss from my fingers along buttons and levers.
I was born to live and die among burning constellations.
~~~
And I was on a mission when I found him, huddled in the back of a cargo ship with blood in his hair and dried vomit on his lips. I’d spent so long staring into an endless night, it was easy to find his pale skin in the dimly lit room. He was dehydrated, hungry, terrified, and still he forced himself to speak.
His voice was the sound of iron and steel, cold, torn and scratched, but there was music in the way he asked, ‘Are they gone?’
I asked, ‘Who are they?’ I stepped closer to help, to see, to listen. Kneeling felt appropriate, so I let my knees fall to the ground only to feel something warm soak through my fatigues. It felt thick like blood. I hoped it was piss.
He pressed himself against a broken crate, clutching a shard like a weapon. ‘The ones who wear the faces of the dead.’
~~~
In the medical bay I learned his name, Matthew; his age, twenty; his rank, Io-Clan C442; his mission, to deliver scrap metal and parts to the engineering base on Dalo 9 in the Hygiea belt. Their ship was attacked. No survivors. No bodies. Just Matthew, empty crates, and smeared walls.
We took his shuttle onto ours for investigation, the Volus construction dwarfing his by thousands of meters. There were no signs of break in, merely strands of hair from crew members he had lost and endless bodily fluids. I asked him how he survived and he said he ‘didn’t know.’
‘Honestly,’ he kept repeating, ‘they came from inside, like they had been waiting. I was never trained for battle, only held a gun once and with poor trigger discipline. I had to hide and pray they couldn’t smell me.’
‘But why your ship?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you see them?’
‘They cut the power.’
‘Were they True Human?’
‘They skinned our captain and wore the faces of those they killed like masks. I don’t think humans could do such a thing.’
‘There’s no limit to what humans can do.’
~~~~
Most of humanity hasn’t seen Earth in one thousand years, growing and evolving elsewhere in the solar system. There was no great natural disaster, the planet, as far as we knew, could still sustain life with ease. The problem was ourselves. Population control, war, hunger, poverty. We had reached a threshold as a society, unable to respond without resorting to a primitive sort of barbarism that was detrimental to our development as a species.
So we left, seeking new homes in small groups throughout space. Those who stayed on Earth devolved. We called them Earth-Clan or True Human. They were tribal, sadistic, and cruel. Their genetics were human but their cognitive responses had become other. It was a spectrum left to its own devices.
Early on, I suspected they had breached Matthew’s ship though countless research and investigation proved futile. My suspicion then centered on Matthew himself, only for significant testing to reveal the hormonal balance in his brain towards compassion were higher than normal, proving his allegiance with Io-Clan. We decided it was a political attack, destroying the resources of one base to dismantle the next. It had happened before, were certain it would happen again.
I was reminded of danger, of mortality. I was reminded of the noise of war and how silent the screaming and bleeding of man was in a vacuumous frontier.
Eventually Matthew took to my bed, where he stayed nightly, and the sounds of space I admired so greatly seemed to dim when compared to the sound of his light breathing.
~~~~~
‘I wonder what it’s like to feel the rain,’ Matthew said once, sucking my finger between his lips.
‘Like a shower,’ I offered. He was fanciful with ideas of nature and the Sun, natural atmosphere that neither of us would ever experience.
‘No,’ he hummed. ‘I imagine you get wet in a way that saturates you. It’s not skin deep, like a cleanse, it goes straight to the marrow of your bone. And if you close your eyes, it’s like grief is pouring out of you. When it’s over, you’re weightless in heavy clothes.’
‘A paradox.’
‘A miracle,’ he giggled. ‘At least that’s what I’ve read.’
I decided that day that I loved him, the imagined noise of rain, and creak of his joints.
~~~~~
Humans are noisy creatures, and it’s only with another in our bed that we fully comprehend, without apprehension, the magic of our existence. To find an organic time piece whose rhythm matches our own is the true wonder of the universe.
We create ourselves, again and again, in each other.
Endless microcosms within a unified pulse.
Author: lalalive23
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Some horror themes, references to human slaughter, blood
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. This never happened. Could happen, tho. Bless the future.
Feedback: I LIVE FOR THE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
Summary: AU: Space (MS Bingo Card Fill) Dominic Howard is a Volus pilot in the distant future. He reflects on the sounds of life through the vacuum of space.
Note: I have genuinely been trying to write FOR MONTHS. Seriously, it's like I've hit a brick wall with a bunch of fics and this makes me sad. Also, I have been stupid busy. I was in Chicago for a few days, and also I work like 900 hours a week, and it's retail so I'm always tired and I'M SO SORRY I'M LITERALLY NEVER IN FANDOM ANYMORE I HATE ADULTHOOD. Anyway, so this came out of nowhere and I kinda love it? It's very very short, but that's what I wanted it to be. Feels so good to write again. Bless amusedinred for being a last minute beta boo <3 Title and opening line from the fic come from the song 2025 by Until The Ribbon Breaks. Also, this fic has a soundtrack (you will need Spotify for this link)!
I was born with my back to the stars.
Turn me over; I’d like to see.
Humans are noisy creatures, afflicted with a natural propensity towards the cacophony of living. The shallow breath of exertion and the rush of blood in the ears reminds me of mortality, reminds me that I am my own constant, cosmic accident. We are thunder and lightning, holding a big bang between our lungs with an atlas of desire mapped into our flesh, yet we still lose ourselves in outward distractions.
I understand these sentiments might be difficult to empathize with, or even understand. I am not as many expect me to be, not as I planned to be. Time and distance relative to nothing has aged me forwards and backwards to an unspecified wh- question.
My childhood was spent in space, rotating in the dark with only the symphony of my body to keep me company. With my fingers pressed to the glass, I felt that I was gathering dust from passing stars to etch deep into my fingerprints. I wanted interstellar DNA, wanted the noise of me to match the roar and rumble of the exosphere.
Two parents, both military giants. One nanny, distant and fragile like a moth. No siblings, no playmates. I had engines and motors as my companions. I saw the wonder and heard the silence, but the danger of my circumstances seemed a dreary myth meant for tragic children and careless adults. The pampered shuttle of my boyhood was no place for such tales, I thought. Yes, I often said to myself, I am safe here in the womb of creation.
At twelve I learned creation has a partner in destruction. I learned, awestruck and dumbfounded, that metal can quietly rip itself apart and bend to impossible angles. My parent’s crash did not resonate with a blast, merely became a feast for flame and shrapnel without a voice to signal their passing. I didn’t shed tears for three weeks.
Reality made noise. Silence rendered death into an illusion. They would come home, the echo of their boots on ceiling and the rustle of their fatigues beneath my fingers. This was when I learned that tears could be silent, too.
In the absence of my parents, I became a highly skilled Volus pilot. An intimate relationship between my hands and the Captain’s deck blossomed; maneuvering through asteroid belts felt like making love. The ship spoke to me, space screamed at me through sonar, and I responded in kind with a kiss from my fingers along buttons and levers.
I was born to live and die among burning constellations.
~~~
And I was on a mission when I found him, huddled in the back of a cargo ship with blood in his hair and dried vomit on his lips. I’d spent so long staring into an endless night, it was easy to find his pale skin in the dimly lit room. He was dehydrated, hungry, terrified, and still he forced himself to speak.
His voice was the sound of iron and steel, cold, torn and scratched, but there was music in the way he asked, ‘Are they gone?’
I asked, ‘Who are they?’ I stepped closer to help, to see, to listen. Kneeling felt appropriate, so I let my knees fall to the ground only to feel something warm soak through my fatigues. It felt thick like blood. I hoped it was piss.
He pressed himself against a broken crate, clutching a shard like a weapon. ‘The ones who wear the faces of the dead.’
~~~
In the medical bay I learned his name, Matthew; his age, twenty; his rank, Io-Clan C442; his mission, to deliver scrap metal and parts to the engineering base on Dalo 9 in the Hygiea belt. Their ship was attacked. No survivors. No bodies. Just Matthew, empty crates, and smeared walls.
We took his shuttle onto ours for investigation, the Volus construction dwarfing his by thousands of meters. There were no signs of break in, merely strands of hair from crew members he had lost and endless bodily fluids. I asked him how he survived and he said he ‘didn’t know.’
‘Honestly,’ he kept repeating, ‘they came from inside, like they had been waiting. I was never trained for battle, only held a gun once and with poor trigger discipline. I had to hide and pray they couldn’t smell me.’
‘But why your ship?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you see them?’
‘They cut the power.’
‘Were they True Human?’
‘They skinned our captain and wore the faces of those they killed like masks. I don’t think humans could do such a thing.’
‘There’s no limit to what humans can do.’
~~~~
Most of humanity hasn’t seen Earth in one thousand years, growing and evolving elsewhere in the solar system. There was no great natural disaster, the planet, as far as we knew, could still sustain life with ease. The problem was ourselves. Population control, war, hunger, poverty. We had reached a threshold as a society, unable to respond without resorting to a primitive sort of barbarism that was detrimental to our development as a species.
So we left, seeking new homes in small groups throughout space. Those who stayed on Earth devolved. We called them Earth-Clan or True Human. They were tribal, sadistic, and cruel. Their genetics were human but their cognitive responses had become other. It was a spectrum left to its own devices.
Early on, I suspected they had breached Matthew’s ship though countless research and investigation proved futile. My suspicion then centered on Matthew himself, only for significant testing to reveal the hormonal balance in his brain towards compassion were higher than normal, proving his allegiance with Io-Clan. We decided it was a political attack, destroying the resources of one base to dismantle the next. It had happened before, were certain it would happen again.
I was reminded of danger, of mortality. I was reminded of the noise of war and how silent the screaming and bleeding of man was in a vacuumous frontier.
Eventually Matthew took to my bed, where he stayed nightly, and the sounds of space I admired so greatly seemed to dim when compared to the sound of his light breathing.
~~~~~
‘I wonder what it’s like to feel the rain,’ Matthew said once, sucking my finger between his lips.
‘Like a shower,’ I offered. He was fanciful with ideas of nature and the Sun, natural atmosphere that neither of us would ever experience.
‘No,’ he hummed. ‘I imagine you get wet in a way that saturates you. It’s not skin deep, like a cleanse, it goes straight to the marrow of your bone. And if you close your eyes, it’s like grief is pouring out of you. When it’s over, you’re weightless in heavy clothes.’
‘A paradox.’
‘A miracle,’ he giggled. ‘At least that’s what I’ve read.’
I decided that day that I loved him, the imagined noise of rain, and creak of his joints.
~~~~~
Humans are noisy creatures, and it’s only with another in our bed that we fully comprehend, without apprehension, the magic of our existence. To find an organic time piece whose rhythm matches our own is the true wonder of the universe.
We create ourselves, again and again, in each other.
Endless microcosms within a unified pulse.