Title: The Words Are The Thing
Rating: G
Characters: Mycroft
Notes: Possibly the start of a larger verse, I'm not entirely certain yet.
Disclaimer: I own the concept of the Word Eaters but that's it.
Summary: Mycroft Holmes is a glutton, just not for what you think.
Yes, he is a glutton. Yes, he craves the sweets and decedent things the world has to offer.
But they've got it wrong, those who think they know him. What he craves? it's not sweets, it's not the cakes or chocolate or pastries that look so tempting against store windows.
It's something more, something older. Older than any wine, older than any recipe.
Mycroft Holmes eats words.
He sits at his desk, looking over the bland words of documents and finds himself bored. They aren't the words he craves, the ones that make his mouth water and his fingers twitch. He craves sweet nothings, he craves words of desperation, he craves last words and first words and words uttered in sleep.
he craves poetry and literature, words that have ripened with age. He craves the taste of adoration, the sharp tang of words yelled in anger.
He craves it all.
Some of his kind grow picky over time. They have their favorite kids of words and go hunting for them but not him, he wants it all, wants to stalk the world, looking for ripened words, just waiting to be snatched up. He will eat them all, try every one in every language and at the end, after there's nothing left, he will lay back and revel in the deliciousness of it all.
Not that he expects to ever be done. The beauty of this world with it's humans, it's strange little creatures, always shifting, always changing, is that they can never leave their languages alone. There's always something new on the menu, always something different to try. There will forever be new words to harvest because language is ever growing, ever shifting and changing and blossoming into something new and strange and beautiful.
Sherlock teases him, mocks him for his love, his addiction, but he doesn't care. There's a whole world to tear through, a world of words, of phrases of emotions tied into language and he plans to try al of it.