#and now I know way too much about RBMK reactors | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

canis-or-cannotis-lycaon · 2 years ago

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TIMING: A Few weeks ago LOCATION: About the Town PARTIES: Alan @alan-duarte & Gael @lithium-argon-wo-l-f SUMMARY: Gael and Alan chance into each other at a bookstore and they explore what similarities they have that connect them. CONTENT WARNINGS: cheating mentions, drugs mentions

“I just … It never quite looks realistic enough. You have no idea how much supplies I have thrown away out of sheer disappointment,” the clerk didn’t seem to know a whole lot about modelism and Alan was submerged with regrets while the other attempted to come up with a solution Alan already had tried. The answer, unsurprisingly, didn't come from that guy, but from a voice behind. “Anyway…” He didn’t like when people were so nosy they interrupted someone’s personal conversation. He frankly hated that. Turning toward the intruder, the realtor frowned, and the more he thought about it, the more his eyebrows furrowed. That could work, actually.

“That’s… smart,” a bit more technical than what he was used to coming up with, quite frankly. “Are you also into dioramas and model making ?” ______________ Why were all these books derivative? Gael was looking for a hobby, not a lullaby, which was all most of these books had to offer him. He rolled his eyes, already having wasted too much time in one area when he could be anywhere else actually reading and just picked one up - it seemed to be about crocheting, of all things. Whatever, maybe he could donate it to the school library. He made his way to wherever the line was and as he approached, he found a man in an active, if one-sided discussion with the beleaguered clerk, though Gael’s unusual hearing could pick up the conversation before he saw them. From what he gathered, there was an attempt to make a simulated fire for a… model or something, he was just guessing and he had half a mind to leave himself out of it but he felt for the clueless employee and he gave a noncommittal shrug, speaking loudly enough to make himself heard behind the duo. “I, uh… recommend a silicon bi-pin lamp with a dominant wavelength of 605nm,” He suggested, leaning slightly and keeping his dark eyes on the back of the stranger who at first seemed to shrug him off before acknowledging what he said. Gael straightened back up as the man turned and asked him about the subject material - so he was right. “I hadn’t really thought about it before,” He admitted casually. “I constructed a model RBMK-1000 Reactor for a presentation on Chernobyl once but I don’t know if that would qualify.” ______________

“Oh you just came up with a solution on the spot then,” there wouldn’t be any awards held for being incredibly responsive, Alan hoped the other was aware of that. His gratitude and respect were, however, worth more than an Oscar. They were rare. “Haven’t meddled with electricity in a bit, though I suppose I’ll have to bring the soldering iron out of the closet again,” the clerk was standing right next to them, and Alan could tell from the held up, weak index , that he was wishing he could vanish or be just anywhere else. “I think I’m good, thank you so much,” for nothing. With a warm smile, he watched the younger man walk off. The werewolf wondered what this guy specialized in, before deciding he didn’t really care. Some people just were useless from start to finish.

“So you do know a thing or two about model making,” this man, however, seemed to know things. That was a lot more valuable. “It wouldn’t be my first pick, but you know, to each their own, right?” A nuclear reactor really wasn’t his idea of a good subject, but the same could have been said about the many planes he had sitting on shelves in his basement. He started out with those, but they were now all in cardboard boxes, getting forgotten. “You said a lamp with… That wavelength, is it a color thing, or …” High school was far away, but he remembered a thing or two from his physics classes. You had to be good at it to be in the air force, although mechanical sciences were more deeply anchored than optical ones. “I’ll need it to flicker. Maybe a transistor could do the job, what do you think?” A pause. “I don’t want to hoard your time, of course. If you have better things to do…” He trailed off. “Yeah, I really don’t want to hold your leg man, you’ve already done your good deed,” he smiled, yet something about his eyes seemed to carry hope and was silently begging him to have no life outside of helping him out. ______________ The stranger was blunt in his response and opinionated to boot but he hadn’t dismissed Gael yet so the latter figured he must’ve done something right. Or at least not wrong. “A transistor might work but I think you’d be better with, like, a diode to give it that flicker effect,” He replied, setting the book down and placing his hands in his pockets and keeping his gaze on the model-maker. He quirked an eyebrow as the other man seemed to give him an impression of wanting to continue this conversation - either that or Gael had gotten worse at reading people. Either way, he got some hint (though whether or not it was the right one was to be determined) and he gave another small half-shrug. “I literally have nothing better to do,” He removed a hand and gestured to the crochet book he picked up out of boredom. “Gael, by the way,” That same hand reached out in an initiation for a handshake from the stranger. ______________ “Mmm, maybe,” crossing his arms over his chest, Alan reflected on his options. There wasn’t much he could do now other than try it out now. His gaze went toward the book in the other man’s hands. Crocheting. Not the most common hobby, but who was he to judge? “Crocheting and electronics isn’t a combo you often see,” he commented with a light smile. Holding out his hand to shake, Alan introduced himself as well. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Alan.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” not that he knew everyone, but having been born here, raised here, and having lived here most of his life gave him the sizable advantage when it came to knowing folks : 6 degrees of separation and whatnot. “Anyhow, I’m… have you played Dark Souls?” He paused, “I’m doing the campfire, hence the need for a flickering fire,” he explained. “I haven’t played in ages, I probably couldn’t beat the first boss these days,” he scoffed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Anyhow, you wanna help me find that diode ? That clerk seemed a bit lost…” ______________ Alan. Gael wondered as he ran the name through in his head a few times if he knew who this guy was in passing but ultimately concluded that he most likely hadn’t, at least not consciously. “Oh yeah, I moved here a few months ago at the start of the semester,” He explained, putting his hand back in his pocket. There was a pause as the model-maker named Alan asked him about Dark Souls and he had to rack his brain for a moment. “I have not played Dark Souls,” He admitted. “BUT I can help you find that diode; that shouldn’t be a problem.” Regardless of the reason, he wasn’t one to turn down a challenge. “You haven’t, like, checked online for it, though, right? There’s a lot of kits that might have what you’re looking for without the hassle of running around trying to find it.” He suggested. ______________ “Semester?” Only two categories of people spoke in semesters: professors and students. If people could go back to college at any moment of their life, he doubted this guy was a student. “You teach at the University? I did a conference there last semester,” a pause. “For the business students. I’m a local business owner,” Alan scratched a spot behind his ear absent-mindedly, feigning humility. He had none, but that was apparently unbecoming.

“Aw, you’re missing out. It’s hard, I’m not gonna lie, but…” He trailed off. He used to play those games with his first husband, though Rafael was always a lot better at them than Alan ever was.

“You’re in electronics? Engineering?” He tried to guess, as he tagged along down the aisle. “I suppose so. I’m not huge on Amazon, but there’s also the hardware store if…” He trailed off. “Yeah, Whitlocks might have it. It’s a 5 minute walk though,” he pursed his lips. “I can offer payment in drinks at the bar, or guided tours of the town,” both would be an introvert’s nightmare, he supposed, but there was a chance the guy was sociable enough if he had the nerve to interrupt a conversation to offer help. ______________ “Oh, yeah. I teach chemistry.” Gael replied, keeping his gaze on Alan with a sense of curiosity in his tired, yet energetic eyes. He put a pin in the part where the other man said that he owned a business; he was sure to mention it later. “And I do suppose there’s no better teacher of business than someone who owns one,” he added. He paused, noting that Alan trailed off and he wondered if the latter had some memory that kept him from finishing what apparently made Dark Souls so great because if they were going off that brief explanation, Gael wasn’t really sold on “you’re missing out, this game is hard”. As far as he was concerned though, it was small talk that sprung from the model thing so he didn’t think too much about it. “I’ll pass on the game and take your word for it but I certainly won’t say no to a drink,” He agreed. “I’m guessing you’re from around here if you’re willing to offer a tour in exchange for a diode.” ______________ A chemistry teacher at UMWC named Gael. Monty’s words echoed in Alan’s memory then. It couldn’t possibly have been anyone else but this guy. He had promised he’d be discreet about it, and Alan liked to think that he was good with people, when he wanted to be. “Pardon me, but I think I might have heard of you through a common friend,” he pointed out. He lowered his voice. “The man from the farm?” It wasn’t the most comfortable conversation to have. Alan had been through this too, and he didn’t like it then. He sure didn’t like it now.

“I’m from around here, yeah,” he nodded along, motioning the other to tag along. “My family has been in the region for three generations already, so I suppose you can say I know the area like the back of my hand,” mostly the real estate market, mostly the woods. He avoided certain areas religiously. Yeah, you could say he knew the town well. “Since you won’t say no, I’ll take this as a yes.” ______________ Alan motioned for Gael to follow so he did, but not before his brain seemed to bounce the words the other man had said around in his head longer than he’d have liked. Common friend, ‘man from the farm’? His mind put two and two together rather quickly; this must’ve been the aforementioned princesa that Monty told him about, the snooty friend who Monty spoke fondly of! His mind buzzed with questions but he didn’t want to make it seem like he wasn’t listening to the rest of what Alan had said. So, he instead brought up the second part of the new conversation first. “Three generations?” Gael repeated. “So you’re part of the old blood of the town.” He wondered why he’d never heard the name before but then again, he didn’t know Alan’s last name so for all he knew he might’ve, just in passing. “That means you have insider knowledge on where to get the best coffee and you won’t take me somewhere soul-crushingly disappointing.” He laughed as the duo walked though it didn’t last long and it tapered into Gael turning his head to look curiously, if a little mournfully, at Alan. “You’re… the one Monty told me about, aren’t you?” It was Gael’s turn to lower his voice. “The uh… the other one who sleepwalks.” The professor knew that sleepwalking wasn’t a new concept but he hadn’t had anyone to talk to about it before aside from Monty, and even then, he couldn’t help but get the idea that Monty had something possibly even worse than him. Possibly. His wasn’t– ______________

“Oh, I suppose you could say that,” there were a lot of families who had been here longer, but the Duartes could pride themselves on being true locals, if that was even something to be proud of. They should have prided themselves on having no one in the family disappear mysteriously, after living in this town for a whole century now. Alan would have been the first to fall this way, he realized. Somehow, he survived. Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to. “Oh you bet, I won’t be taking you to Starbucks, that’s for sure,” he assured him with a pat on his back.

“Well, yes,” he set his hand back in his pocket, offering the other a slight smile at the mention of sleepwalking. Yeah, he had once thought about that too. It made a lot more sense than oh, maybe I turn into a wolf at night and wander off into the forest to meet my people. “I’ve been sleepwalking for about ten years now,” his smile grew, and his expression changed. There was no need to get sappy about this. Alan knew, however, that the wolf attack needed to be mentioned. “It started after I got into the woods, one evening. I was heading back home, figured it would be shorter…” He trailed off. This was, all things considered, quite the intimate thing to share, but maybe it would make things easier in the long term. And maybe he’d make friends with another member of his species too? It had been a while, and he missed having someone around who could properly relate. “Anyhow, I couldn’t see much of a thing, but a wolf attacked me that night,” he paused. “Call it trauma, or… I don’t know,” lycanthropy, “but I’ve had those sleepwalking issues ever since…” ______________ Gael listened intently, keeping his eyes on the businessman as the latter spoke about his experience. He found himself comparing what Alan was saying to his own memories or lack thereof… the night, the woods, the attack, the hospital. The way the other man spoke made it seem like– well, he had been dealing with it for ten years so surely he had a much better grasp on what it was, right? A wolf attacked Alan, but Gael couldn’t remember what had happened to him; he just assumed he was mauled by a bear that night in the woods - the scar that screwed up some of the nerves in his lower back was certainly big enough to feel like a bear. “That’s… interesting,” Gael said slowly, keeping his voice from becoming mournful as Alan didn’t speak of it as something he was still… well, not struggling but it was something he was dealing with. He had a few questions he wanted to ask, suddenly feeling as though maybe he didn’t sound quite so ridiculous to someone who had similar sleepwalking issues and Alan was surely a master of coping mechanisms by now, right? He didn’t seem so alone, and yet… The thoughts got mixed up in the chemist’s head and he frowned to himself for a moment. “Ten years?” He repeated softly. “Have you ever, I don’t know, gone to see someone about it?” He hastily added “Not that there’s anything wrong with– I mean that–” He stuttered and cleared his throat, suddenly gripped by some unfamiliar emotion. “Sorry, I didn’t think… I didn’t mean to be nosey,” He concluded awkwardly. “Uhm… Monty told me about you though,” Gael smothered the unfamiliar emotion with a grin; he wasn’t sure if this was what Alan wanted but then again, he also wasn’t sure if Alan wanted to discuss their shared condition. He wanted to ask about the blood, the bodies, the nightmares but he also didn’t want to turn their pleasant conversation into one of either discomfort or begrudging formalities. Or something. Maybe if Alan wanted to discuss it further, he could bring it up on his own terms, in his own time. But until then… “He speaks highly of you.” ______________

“Is it?” Alan’s eyebrows raised in inquiry. It was uncommon, for certain. People didn’t usually have surviving a wolf attack crossed out on their bucket list. He would have rather it never happened. His life was better when he didn’t know about all this, and yet… Would he have walked this road, met these people, if he hadn’t crossed paths with a werewolf? “Nah,” he shook his head. He had, once, but there wasn’t much the therapist could do other than try to rationalize what happened, and ask Alan all sorts of questions he wasn’t willing to tackle.

Part of him wondered whether the therapist knew. Not once was PTSD mentioned as a cause for his blackouts, and that always seemed weird to him. He didn’t particularly want to find out if the guy knew though. He didn’t want to delve back into that part of his life. This was why he had been hesitant to help Gael out, when Monty asked him, but now that the man stood before him, Alan wondered how he could possibly do anything but that. Still, he didn’t care to elaborate about this, not now.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, Alan’s eyebrows raised. He knew Monty had spoken to Gael about him, and he didn’t really mind it, considering the circumstances. “You’ve barely asked me any questions,” he pointed out. This much was not entirely true, but Alan figured that this was how he would get the other to ask all his questions. “C’mon, you must have questions that need answering, more important than whether I saw someone to cope with it,” he pointed out with a sympathetic smile. It was easier, pushing the attention away from oneself, in vulnerable times, but Alan was one to do that too, and he could easily spot it.

“Monty? Of course he does, and I’ll speak highly of him too,” as it usually did at the mention of the zombie, his face lit up. “He’s a great man, and I doubt you’ll meet someone more selfless than him around town,” he affirmed. He hadn’t met everyone, but he’d stand by that statement either way. ______________ “Yeah, he’s… there’s something about him for sure,” Gael agreed first, his expression softening as he remembered that morning. “He’s…” The man fell silent and simply caught the expression on Alan’s face - the latter, until recently, had this look that wasn’t stern but it was professional but when he brought up the cowboy, sure enough he could tell that the man was affectionate towards Monty. He was starting to wonder who wouldn’t be. Gael also wondered what questions Alan could’ve been referring to. “About… the sleepwalking,” He muttered, glancing down for a moment before his eyes regarded the businessman once more. “I think the questions I have aren’t… I don’t know, it’s–” What, hard to explain? If there was one person he could maybe explain it to, it would be Alan, another man who was found in the woods with nothing but a sleeping bag to protect his manhood. “I guess the biggest one I have is ‘how do I fix it’,” He surmised. “Though I suppose the biggest one should be ‘what’s wrong with me’.” His eyes danced on nothing in particular, as though he were reading something but it was in his head. “But that’s… I don’t know, sometimes people just sleepwalk.” He shrugged. “I got mauled by a bear one night; I remember NONE of it but I assume it just jostled something in my brain.” He glanced down again. “I’m sure I’m just overreacting. I’ve been known to do that,” Gael cast his gaze back to Alan. “You ever think that? That maybe it’s really not a big deal but something in your mind makes you think it might be?” ______________

“How do you fix it?” Yeah, that was precisely why he didn’t want to do this in the first place. He had been there, in denial, trying to figure out what was making him wake up far from his bed, exhausted and lost, wishing it to fucking stop. “You need to learn to control it, those moments where your mind slips,” he eyed him. It was all Alan could do about this : help Gael control it. This was perhaps how he’d make him aware of what he was. What’s wrong with me was a trickier question, somehow. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t be a lie to some extent. “Same thing that’s wrong with me. We got attacked by a wild animal and it changed us,” that wasn’t really the full truth, but it was all he could do right then.

“A bear heh?” That didn’t track. It didn’t track with what Monty told him. “You remember being attacked by a bear though, I assume?” Another day, he would have to show him his scar, and perhaps that would help Gael with coming to terms with it all, but that wouldn’t be today. Alan was unable to do that today. He wasn’t sure he would be able to do that at all, and just thinking about it made his expression tarnish.

“I think it’s as big a deal as you want it to be, like everything,” you could care or choose not to give a shit, but the reality would catch up on you and bite you in the ass. “I think you should deal with it sooner than later. You don’t want someone catching you wandering around like that, huh? Not everyone’s going to react like Monty,” no, someone would try to put a bullet in him. “If you want, I can help you with that, but it’s not going to be easy,” a tiny part of him hoped he would refuse, but the guy seemed like a good man, and with werewolves being a rarity, Alan could have used someone extra to share his struggles with. ______________ Gael paused for a long moment, listening intently to everything Alan was saying though the more he spoke, the more something started to knot up in his throat, making it hard to swallow, literally. He didn’t remember being attacked by a bear - how could he? People told him it was a dog but he wasn’t about to consider that it was a dog. What had to have happened is that the way he and Alan were attacked just… created some neurological damage to them. Short-circuiting in their brain, a psychotic defect that caused them to sleepwalk and kill things in that state. Animals, right? Just animals. He thought he liked it better before this topic of conversation came up. Control it. Control what, the parts where he falls asleep, has terrible nightmares where he prowls through the woods as some… demon, then wakes up God-knew-where, in pain, with no idea where he was. “Those are just dreams,” Gael muttered to himself. Maybe they weren’t as alike as they thought, which was fine but the thought that whatever was happening was something that he could change, something that affected him so deeply, it writhed around inside him like snakes. And then there was the part about someone else finding him and Gael realized that… Monty was the only one who had so far. Every other time this defect flared up, he’d woken up lost, hurt, as though he got pulled apart and put back together but he had also been alone. There HADN’T been a Monty or someone else. The professor, uncharacteristically, remained silent during most of this and he pulled his arms close to his stomach, folding them over each other in thought as his brow knitted. Alan offered to help but he found the connection between the help and what it was for nonexistent. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” was what Gael said first, now avoiding eye contact with the other man. “And it– it sounds like how to fix it is that I check myself into a mental ward.” He added before he could stop himself. “Alan, the way you’re talking makes it seem like we’re… I don’t know, werewolves or something.” He scoffed though he said the word itself almost completely silently. “I can’t tell you how to think or what to feel but this sounds like an issue I need medication for.” He clenched his jaw for a moment before glancing back up at Alan, his expression softening. “Sorry, I’m– sorry. I didn’t mean to… I appreciate the offer for help but…” He faltered. ______________

Alan fell silent. He didn’t really have that sort of patience in him, the sort that would allow him to just smile, shake his head gently and explain once again what he meant. He was terrible at this. Talking people into buying or selling was effortless, but things that directly concerned him? Heh. Pass.

The realtor looked away, hands in his pockets. His gaze fell to the floor. “Just dreams, yeah.” He scoffed. This was fucked up.

How was he supposed to let this guy know that he was never going to have a normal life ever again, that he’d never be normal? How was he supposed to tell someone that they’d been bit by a supernatural creature, and that they were now one too.

He’d been through this before, all by himself, and he remembered just how unpleasant it had all been. Alan would force himself to shift until he could begin to control it, even if that meant forcing his bones to grow and shrink, his guts to shift in his stomach in a matter of seconds. At the same time, because he worried himself to death, wondering if one day he’d not accidentally end up mauling his husband, he’d grown further and further away from him. He’d disappear around full moons on business trips, reappear a few days later, feeling tired, filled with guilt, one that Rafael, all too human, could only associate with the worst kind of treason.

Alan felt like crying. Though he tried not to let it show, and fought the urge to let it pour down, his lip quivered, and as he nibbled on it, he had no other choice but to look away. It was a damn good thing Gael was too damn embarrassed to even look at him. “You’re right,” he snapped. “Maybe we’re both fucking mental,” if his words came from a place of hurt, it certainly didn’t make them fair. “I’m not a damn psychiatrist. I don’t know why Monty thought I’d be able to help you with that.” This was no longer about his failed marriage then, but this creeping feeling that had been steadily rotting inside of him : how much of him had died that night? Was he the same person as before or pretending, like a kid playing house ? He was a monster now, this, he knew for a fact. He could try and save face, claim that nature didn’t build monsters, that nature didn’t care for good or bad, he didn’t feel much like a good person. “But you think I’m batshit for suggesting you could learn to live with it. Maybe you’re right.” ______________ The two were silent, Gael trying to find the right words to smoothly transition out of whatever was happening right now to more pleasant things - ‘how is that game?’ ‘what kind of coffee do you like?’ and ‘what do you do aside from make models’ were all questions that absently floated in his brain space. However, he wasn’t anticipating when Alan suddenly reacted the way he did. Almost immediately, surprise painted Gael’s face, shortly followed by a cocktail of emotions, mixing being taken aback, a measure of anxiety and more guilt than he wanted - he had a feeling that by saying what he said, he was risking implying that Alan was the same, even if Gael didn’t think they were. “N-no, that’s not what I meant,” Gael tried to explain, his tone shifting. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that– I just…” He sighed, his pride taking a backseat. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re not mental. You’ve been dealing with this a hell of a lot longer than I have and it was wrong of me to think or assume that…” He fell silent again before giving a tired shrug. “That I would know anything about anything.” He had to think about what the best course of action would be going forward - Gael had unintentionally created a minefield, he felt, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin this potential connection with Alan or possibly even Monty for insinuating that he was wrong. “I… I don’t understand,” He said slowly, his eyes dancing on his hands that were clenching and unclenching in front of him, trying to work out the stress that suddenly accumulated inside him - a fight or flight response to the animal knowledge that he WOULD be left alone with whatever this was that Alan said. “But…” Lie. “I believe you.” Lie. “I’d like to take you on that offer for help.” He gulped. “I trust your insight.” His gaze rose and he looked at Alan, searching for that connection, the wires he unintentionally frayed in an attempt to gather them back up to salvage this. ______________ “Eleven years. I’ve been dealing with this bullshit, this fucking insane bullshit for eleven years,” he might have not been in his other form then, Alan’s eyes glimmered with a light, with a wrath akin to a dog’s. “But sure, go to the doctor, see what they have to say,” he fell quiet then. Rubbing at his face, if only to rid himself, to wash himself of his annoyance, Alan strode a few steps ahead of Gael. He wouldn’t have faulted him for walking the other way while he could. Most people didn’t particularly stand for this sort of behavior, and they were right not to.

He walked past a bench. He turned around and went to sit there. Where was he even going, striding like that. “I wanted it to go away,” he knew the other could hear him. They had good ears, their kind. Even if he stood meters away now, of course he could hear him. “I thought it would go away, but it won’t go away,” though his words still were spoiled with angered notes, his shoulders no longer seemed so tense, and his eyes didn’t seem to be filled with thunder anymore. “You don’t believe me,” who knew? Maybe he did believe Alan. The wolf sighed, still he turned around to look Gael straight in the eye. “You will have to trust the process. It won’t be an immediate answer to your problems,” but perhaps he’d manage, and maybe through helping Gael how to get a hold of his other self, Alan would finally learn not to detest a whole side of him. ______________ Alan spoke and Gael’s gaze filled with sympathy, knitting in the middle. Eleven years. Gael hadn’t even reached one yet and he didn’t want to anymore but eleven years was sitting on the surface of his mind, simmering, taking its time to sink in and he wasn’t sure when or even if it would. Maybe they were different, maybe Alan really was a… werewolf or whatever but maybe Gael’s problem was something else…? When the other man stormed past him and went to sit on a bench, Gael turned and his gaze followed him though he himself didn’t move at first. Would it be better for him to just… leave? Leave Alan without having to entertain the chemist’s foolish notions anymore? Walk away, tell Monty that he made a mistake, that Alan wasn’t what he needed. Eleven years of sleepwalking, waking up alone, lost, wounded. Was that going to be Gael’s fate? What could Gael possibly do about this, about Alan, about anything? He should turn and walk off as Alan did, return the resentment and the bitterness. Maybe they couldn’t connect. And yet… ‘I wanted it to go away.’ More words in his head. ‘I thought it would go away.’ Alan spoke as though Gael was beside him and yet the other man remained where he was, able to hear him as though they were sitting across from each other at a table. ‘You will have to learn to trust the process’. He clenched one of his fists again, looking down at it. He noted earlier that when Alan spoke about the length of time that he’d suffered, there was this look in his eye, something that reminded Gael of himself. He exhaled and slowly, letting his shoulders droop slightly to make himself seem a little smaller, he made his way to Alan where he turned on the spot once before sitting down next to him, next to the man he didn’t know aside from the things that he felt other people didn’t know. A diode was two parts, sending the flow of energy in the same direction. “Okay.” Gael breathed, somehow knowing that at his lowest that Alan could probably hear him too. Just another side effect of the brain damage, he assumed. “Okay.” He repeated. “If you’re willing to help me then I’m with you.” ______________ There was silence for a moment, and Alan figured Gael was going to do the only sensible thing then and leave his side. He’d tell Monty things didn’t work out, that perhaps Gael wasn’t ready yet. But the professor seemed like a genuinely good guy, and he felt bad, letting him leave without warning him about what could happen if he didn’t manage to get some sort of self control. He wasn’t sure what it was that convinced the other to trust him. Perhaps it was best not to know.

He didn’t look at him, still he nodded. “I think it would be good for you,” a pause. “I think it might do me good too,” having someone like him to talk to would be nice, and it would give him a purpose a bit more noble than what he did for his job (not that he saw himself doing anything else). At last, he tilted his head toward Gael, and though he still bore the traces of his outburst of anger, Alan’s face seemed to have softened, and he uttered an apology he knew the other would be able to hear. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be so bad at this,” ______________ Alan chose to look at him again and Gael saw a new, if somewhat hidden, emotion under the latent anger that creased his features. While the aspect of it benefiting the chemist seemed to lighten part of the weight he felt on his shoulders nowadays, he wasn’t going to admit that the thought that it would help Alan made him much more accepting of the idea; he truly found it easier to do things for other people and as far as he was concerned, this was an issue that Alan had for much longer and it didn’t seem like he had anyone to really talk to these problems about. Then again, maybe the professor was just projecting. “You don’t need to apologize,” Gael assured just as quietly. “I shouldn’t have just… sprang any of this on you, especially when you were just out and about looking for a diode for your model.” He couldn’t help but give a half-laugh that came out as a scoff, as though highlighting the ridiculousness of how they got to be talking about what they were talking about. He cleared his throat. “But, uhm… I really appreciate your willingness to help.” ______________ “You’re still helping me out with that diode,” he gave the other a small smile, unlike his usual near-arrogant one. “No copping out,” with a scoff to match Gael’s, Alan gave the other werewolf a pat on the shoulder as he stood back up. “C’mon, let’s go get that drink, then we can figure out when to start working on that sleep walking nonsense,” he’d never been one for beating around the bush, he didn’t have the patience for that. In the end, all that mattered was that Gael agreed to get some help. Alan was both excited and anxious with the perspective of helping him find out what he was. It would be nice to have someone like him to be around, it would be devastating to see Gael lose his mind as he realized what his life would now be like now. Alan could only hope the latter would never come to be, but in the end, it was yet another aspect of life that he would have no grasp on.

#WR Writing #wickedswriting #Writing: Wolf Like Me #Writing with: Alan #infidelity tw #drugs tw #[both tws mentioned]

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elenatria · 5 years ago

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Anatoly Dyatlov on Valery Legasov

I just ran into Anatoly Dyatlov’s book. For starters, I didn’t even know he had written a book.

Here is the chapter he wrote on Legasov. It’s all google translate of course, and it’s terrible. But it’s also very interesting.

Academician V.A. Legasov. I agree, the rule of the dead is either good or nothing, must be respected. But still I do not see much sin, since the academician himself did not adhere to it. The operators whom he accused of signing the conclusion of the government commission had already died by then. He did the same as the head of the Soviet experts, the IAEA informants.

I do not want to talk about the work of V.A. Legasov to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Recently, there have been statements about the fallacy of some technical decisions adopted at that time. Well, there has never been a lack of strong backward minds, and not now. Sitting in a comfortable office, for several years you can think of something useful. You are in extreme conditions, for a short time, make decisions and then see if they are all optimal. And besides, why is it that Legasov should be credited with incorrect decisions? Was he alone there? Velikhov was. Or is it dangerous to criticize Velikhov? Alive and in power.

V.A. Legasov was not a reactor engineer by profession, he did not know the specific power units, and, I believe, he couldn’t figure out that particular whirl. Because of his character, he trusted others. But this does not in any way justify or explain his signature under the conclusion of the Government Commission and activities in the IAEA. A man of wide erudition, he dealt with issues of industrial safety in general. For all the specifics of chemical, oil or nuclear enterprises, safety issues have much in common.

No, academician V.A. Legasov could not understand that accusing the staff of such an explosion is unlawful. He could not understand that if the reactor exploded in the most ordinary conditions, without any natural disasters, therefore, he had no right to exist. They cannot, must not explode, with the release of huge quantities of radioactive substances into the environment. With this consciousness, and he couldn’t understand it in any way, he had to naturally come to the question - why did the explosion nevertheless happen? Not even understanding and not understanding staff errors.

After such a question, the direct path to the following is: did the reactor meet accepted nuclear safety standards? If so, do these guidelines themselves adequately meet safety criteria? These questions could not arise. Any accident investigation is carried out with the use of operational and design documentation, equipment certificates. There is nothing new here. And the very first efforts in this direction would show obvious discrepancies between the ABY reactor and the OPB. Yes, there was no need to go anywhere for this, they are also in the conclusion of the Government Commission, only there is no reference to the "Rules" there, but they are called shortcomings.

Therefore, I am sure: there is no conscious mention of regulatory documents in the conclusion. And the main responsible person for this is Academician Legasov, along with the chairman of the commission B.E. Shcherbina. Not the Minister of Internal Affairs, he was responsible for his affairs in the commission, and not for equipment. V.A. Legasov does not bear any personal blame for the RBMK reactor; in general, he had no relation to its existence before the accident. With his signatures, he covered up other people's sins, covered up consciously.

And not so unexpectedly is a letter from the Institute’s senior researcher: “Legasov is a vivid representative of the scientific mafia whose politicking instead of leading the science led to the Chernobyl accident ...”, which V. Gubarev writes in Pravda. Apparently, not so unexpectedly the non-election to the Scientific and Technical Council of the Institute: 100 - for, 129 - against. What did the scientist throw his authority on, who put pressure on him? This we will not know.

No, V.A. Legasov did not bring worldwide fame with his report in Vienna at a conference in the IAEA. And he apparently understood this. I would like to think that the academician was mistaken, did not understand the causes of the disaster, because it is painfully sad to think the contrary. What are you living for ?! I can’t, it doesn’t work. Elementary logic does not. And the death of V.A. Legasov on the anniversary of Chernobyl says the same thing. But I do not attribute it to the mafia. This man had a conscience. Under some circumstances, I made a cruel compromise with my conscience and could not stand it. Selection continues. Knocked out one way or another, having human qualities.

So basically Dyatlov felt he was wronged by Legasov who, at the IAEA conference, put the blame only on the reactor staff (and not on design faults) while he acknowledges the fact that maybe “someone” put pressure on Legasov to lie because he was a decent man.

He also tries to justify Legasov’s wrong decisions while he worked at Chernobyl (”he wasn’t an expert on reactors”, “Velikhov was there too”). And seeing that Legasov committed suicide on the Chernobyl anniversary and how his colleagues didn’t vote for him, Dyatlov admits that yes, the academician covered up other people’s sins by putting his signature on the RBMK reactor designs before the accident but the true blame, as he mentions in another chapter, goes to Alexandrov, Legasov’s boss and mentor.

Someone on reddit started translating Dyatlov’s book but the translation is not complete.

#chernobyl #anatoly dyatlov #valery legasov #vienna #IAEA #book #how it was

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chernoblank · 5 years ago

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Some day, tell us about stories incubating in WIPland, like a Neutral Evil version of you

Oh sure! I’ll do it for Chernobyl, since it’s the fandom we share.

WIPs I abandoned (enter at your own risk):

5 times two of Boris, Ulana and Valery almost had sex with each other, and the one time they did

All pairs, Abandoned at 5k

Technically I DID publish the second part of this as my latest Valana (Deer in the headlights), but it was originally divided into 5+1 parts. In each of the first 5, they fantasized very vividly about fucking the other until something made them snap and realize they’d been imagining stuff, which is very very embarrassing, and entirely inappropriate. So all the parts had smut, except some of them were imagined.

Valery fantasizing about Ulana when he asks her to go to Moscow in the bar scene

Ulana fantasizing about Valery when he hosts her in Moscow

Boris fantasizing about Valery one time they got drunk in Pripyat

Boris fantasizing about Ulana after they fight in the abandoned building

Valery fantasizing about Boris in Vienna (this was going to include an actual kiss)

And 1. Ulana and Boris get together, in the depressing aftermath

I mean, in theory I’d still love to write all this (especially especially the Vienna Valoris, possibly going all the way), and it was only abandoned last month, but the lack of feedback in the fandom (plus considering I write het) made it not worth the effort, really. Also, this fic was supposed to use a lot of ideas from the other discarded WIPs in this list.

Boris and Ulana hate sex after the abandoned building

Uloris. Abandoned only at 500 words, but I had it all mapped out until the end, very annoying

After the tense meeting in the abandoned building, they have to stay in Pripyat for one night, and Boris corners Ulana and pushes his way into her room. They fight some more, Ulana goads him into admitting he’s into Valery, it’s very dub-con that turns to very very very con in the middle of it. They are really enjoying themselves but then they notice a movement in the balcony: Valery heard fighting, thought it was maybe the KGB attacking Ulana so he tried to come in the room, saw what was happening, and stayed for the show. He is now calmly smoking a cigarette. It was going to end with B and U very mortified but also wondering what this means for the future. This was abandoned because I found a more satisfying way to write Uloris, I guess, but damn I really liked this idea.

Groundhog day AU

Valana. Abandoned at 900 words because lost motivation

This was a groundhog day AU where Valery relives April 25, 1986 over and over until he figures out what it is he has to do to stop the disaster. He tries many things, like going to Pripyat himself, trying to reach Boris (and getting ignored). Nothing works. One day he decides to just take the train to Minsk on a whim, he buys flowers for Ulana and shows up at her lab. She knows his name but thinks he’s lost his marbles, but Dmitri convinces her to at least listen to the man over coffee. I was going to have him convince her that stuff is going to happen at Chernobyl, and you know her, she jumps on her car, they have a long drive there and manage somehow to stop the stupid test. Over the course of their daytrip, he confesses the groundhog day situation, Ulana doesn’t’ believe him at first but he sure knows a lot about her and there’s a lot of familiarity there, and it was going to end with Ulana asking if they were something, in his alternate universe (they weren’t, but Valery wished they were).

It had lovely things like:

“There’s a man here to see you,” Dmitri says, sounding a little bewildered. “He has flowers.”

“What?” Ulana says, lifting her eyes from the paper she’s reading. This sounds like a joke, but Dmitri has the sense of humor of a dried cod. “Who?”

"Valery Legasov, from the Kurchatov Institute.“

"Professor Legasov?” she repeats, disbelieving.

"That’s what he said. He has flowers. For you.“

"Yes, I got that the first time. But why would he be here? We weren’t told he’d visit.”

"He’s here to see you.“

Alright: she needs to put a stop to this, because Dmitri seems to be developing a belated sense of humor, and yes, it’s true she hasn’t been out with a man in over five years, but she isn’t about to the laughing stock of her equally awkward assistant.

"Send him in,” she says. “And make yourself scarce.”

"Understood,“ Dmitri says, and winks at her.

Let’s Be Alive together, part 3

Valana. Abandoned at 4k, sigh. Loss of motivation, lack of feedback

Well, this one was always meant to exist, as I always meant to do a Valana trilogy. It was going to follow after the other 2. But yeah, almost no one reads Valana, it makes me annoyed to look at the low kudos every time I post one, so I gave up. It was also very difficult to write emotionally? I left them in a very difficult position in Part 2, and Ulana really doesn’t feel like forgiving him. I also did it from Valery’s POV and boy is he a difficult character when he’s a dick (which he was for a large part of this fic). It was all “but she’s so UNFAIR, why does she come to my house and fight with me” etc etc. I was not impressed with him. Anyway I think I was making some progress towards reconciliation, but just… gave up.

The gist of it was this: when Ulana visits Valery in Moscow, after he refuses to lie and they have their awful conversation, she has a plan B: let’s warn the operators of the other power plants about the graphite rods so that at least this mistake is never repeated again.

“Sure,” he says, as petulantly as he can manage, and crosses his arms across his chest. “Let’s hash it out. What are you suggesting, that we drive around the country to every nuclear plant with an RBMK reactor, knock on their door, and tell them, ‘By the way, did you know there’s a deadly flaw in the equipment you handle every day?’”

He has to give it to her: she doesn’t miss a beat as she answers, “Essentially, yes. Are you with me or not?”

“And Charkov and the KGB will just smile and nod as we go on our little crusade?”

“Oh, they’ll notice us. I don’t think this crusade is a return trip, Valery.”

So off they go, and I took painstaking care to map out where the RMBK reactors were and what was the best route for them to go. Essentially a long road trip where they will slowly make up (because boy is Ulana still not fond of him right now). Of course, Charkov notices what they are doing when they are on the way to the last few plants, but they are intercepted by Boris instead (this was close to Ukraine) who yells at them for being stupid and finds a way to smuggle them out of the country, at great risk, so that they aren’t caught by Charkov and co. Valery and Ulana live out a few years together, moderately happy.

The Great OT3, aka the Canadian escape

OT3 for real! Poly. Abandoned at 5k because of serious characterization problems.

Around late 1987, Valery is miserable in Moscow, a Canadian secret agent acoasts him on the street and offers to smuggle him out. He agrees on a whim. Once he arrives in Canada, he finds Ulana there, who explains that Boris arranged for this with some of his contacts (through her, as not to be implicated himself). She decided to join him on a whim too.

I described it to @pottedmusic yesterday so I’m just going to paste what I told her here with some more details.

U and V slept together at least once during the canon. V and B were veeeery close to things but never really got anywhere. V is bi and willing, but B never indicated he was anything other than het so V gave up during the series.

V and U get hitched because of cabin fever while waiting for their refugee paperwork. B was going to try to join V but he was undecided because of his family, so V and U aren’t really expecting him. But he does come, and agreements have to be made.

U isn’t thrilled about V/B but he got them out of the country so of course he has to live with them. And well, B is old and sick (but getting better, all are getting ~magically better~) so it’s not like they’re having vigorous sex every night - never mind his het sexual hang ups. I thought something with a lot of emotions, cuddling in bed, talking a lot etc. V is very patient and knows whatever time together is a gift. V and U, otoh, have much more of a sex life and B hears sometimes and doesn’t like it but also DOES, you know? I stopped a long time before I got there at all, but I was going to use the het sex to lure Boris in and make him more comfortable with the idea of Valery as a sexual being. And U and B didn’t have a sexual element in the past but were going to grow into it.

I was going to have them relocate to Alberta, where there is a nuclear station, it’s suitably snowy. They would all live in the same house. Because paperwork made it easier, Valery and Ulana were a married couple (this was awkward at the beginning and is what precipitated their getting together). When Boris comes, Ulana suggests he could be her father on the paperwork, which everyone hates, but it kinda works. So they all live together.

It was going to be 1. Valery POV, mostly Valana, until Boris arrives, at which point it becomes 2. Boris POV, Valoris + Valana, and finally 3. Ulana POV, Uloris and OT3 happily ever after for 10 years.

I do love this AU a lot. I wish I had managed to find a way not to make them sound OOC. As it is, I hate everything about this and can’t even find anything worth quoting from it.

Drabbles from Discord that I was supposed to develop more, but never got around to:

Minister/Miner, first time

In a scenario similar to the ot3 above, where they are all together and live with each other, Valery and Ulana compare notes on Boris and the way they all have sex with each other

So there you go. For the ones I still like, I wish the fandom was still active (and cared about Ulana in sexual configurations)

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letsriottogether · 6 years ago

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Silence, part 4 (Chernobyl fanfic)

Can also be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868920/chapters/47678032

Pairing: Valana, Ulana Khomyuk/Valery Legasov Characters: Ulana Khomyuk, Valery Legasov, Boris Scherbina, KGB Charkov, Sasha the Cat Warning: Strong language for now, who knows what will be later *hysterical laughter*

Big thank you for all comments and kudos/likes. And one special one to @dank-hp--memes for keeping up with my freaking out, calmly checking my Czech English and not killing me in the process. ________________________________

Moscow, present time He stirs in his sleep, turns from one side to another. Sasha is too annoyed, as she wants her peace for sleeping. She already gave up hours ago and went to the living room, most likely finding a comfortable spot on the sofa.

That's the tricky thing with the human mind. You can keep it occupied during the day as much as you want, push all the unwatned thoughts away as you practiced god knows how many times. But when the night comes, when darkness swallows you and your stupid little barriers you built up to stay sane, you have to face the reality of your own thoughts.a

During the day, there were many things Valery Legasov had to deal with. The agents who did not even bother with hiding themselves, the loneliness, the loss of his name, of normal life, of any possible projects he could ever work on, of his friends and Boris, the loss of...

He forbade himself to speak her name out loud. But his mind and soul are against him, whispering it in quiet moments, bringing the memories back instead of dreams.

Pripyat, Polissya hotel, 2.5. 1986

Boris’ words still echo through him, the realization hitting him hard, that even though they were sent here as the chosen ones to solve this mess, their government didn’t trust them anyway. He felt almost offended for a moment. He was here, here, in the middle of nowhere with bloody reactor melting down, without any chance to say no (he knew that right after Scherbina’s phone call that first day) and most likely with zero chance to make it out of here with higher life expectancy than 5 years.

He’s standing at the edge of the stairs leading to the hotel they’re staying in. Hotel, that just a day ago was bursting with life, just like the city around him. He inhales the crisp spring air, it’s gotten a bit cooler after the sunset. He takes a look around and cannot help but feel almost in a weird dream. The street lamps are shining throughout the whole city, but all the windows in the houses are dark. Cars parked along the streets, at some places there is even laundry on the balconies, simply waiting for anyone to come, fold it and put it back into the wardrobe, where it belongs. Except that no one is ever coming back to these homes. There’s this weird heavy silence, only the wind is whispering in the trees. A chill runs down his spine, so he turns around and enters the hotel lobby.

The carpet swallows every sound of his shoes as he walks further towards the reception. Now he misses the natural sound of the wind because inside, there’s nothing. Only sometimes buzzing of the lights. He passes big glass door and sees Ulana sitting at the empty bar, all by herself, deep in thought, scribbling something on the yellow napkins.

He’s not entirely sure if it’s her or if it’s the urge not to be alone right now. It doesn’t matter, he strides with his long steps until he’s right at her, gingerly leaning against the bar. There’s a bottle of vodka and two glasses right in front of her, which surprises him. Has she been expecting him to come?

He can feel her shift her attention from the scribbles underneath her hands to him, but he doesn’t dare to look her in the eyes, not just yet. She tilts her head down again, pen still in motion. He actually welcomes the possibility of a drink, so he takes one of the glasses and reaches for the bottle, as she gestures with an almost unnoticeable motion for him to go ahead, neither of them saying a word. It feels weird to call her ‘comrade Khomyuk’, and Ulana seems familiar. For some reason, he knows making this woman angry could be fatal, even more than looking into a reactor core.

He pours himself one and notices for the first time that the glasses are bigger than the ones the waitress served him yesterday. Good. He pours himself one, puts the bottle back and turns his body to her, the smell of lilies attracting him much more than he would like to admit. Suddenly she has mercy and is the one to break the silence, never even bothering with his name. Maybe she was contemplating the same, just like him?

“You’ve seen that?” her voice is almost monotonous, pushing a piece of paper with all sorts of readings and numbers to him and focusing on her equations again.

“The fuel is melting faster than we expected,” her voice softens and gives away her exhaustion.

He doesn’t need to see the bloody paper again, he still has all the important numbers in front of his eyes, as he was reading it over and over again since he was handed this report. He turns his back to the white paper as if it would disappear if he would ignore it long enough. But that’s not how the world know. And science? With science, you can do all sorts of estimates and then the reality is different. In this case, much faster.

“I know. I have a plan,” he replies glancing for a moment at her, leaning with his back against the bar. The half-empty glass lays casually in his hand, as if they were just a man and a woman in any normal bar, anywhere else in the world, chatting about things a man and a woman can chat about.

“Heat exchanger, I hope,” He knows this unperturbed tone very well, as he’s using it with his students from time to time, awaiting their solution of the problem that is more than apparent. It irritates him as if she knew the solution all along and impatiently has been waiting for him to pick up the speed with her.

“Yes,” he says, stressing that one word maybe too much. But he cannot help it, this woman is driving him mad. Ever since she first stumbled into the room with Pikalov right back at her, out of his breath, there was something in her that kept him on his toes. She was there, in the back of his mind and he would find his mind curiously wandering to her throughout the day. She was smart, there was no doubt about it. And the way she acted, all sure and confident, it was impossible to dismiss her, and God knows what a shame it would be. She had a mouthful of what to say, it was apparent, and yet she did not waste words, going straight to the point.

He glances over her shoulder, turning his body to her, the sweet light scent of lilies hitting his nostrils again. He doesn’t know it yet, but this smell has already burnt deep into his memory, connecting her presence with it. Yet now he forcefully pushes it aside, concentrating on the formulas and calculations she put together. Why the hell did she not get a notebook? Since when did people stop writing their names and phone numbers on napkins and switched to nuclear physics equations?

One glance and she doesn’t fail the impression she built herself. Oh, she’s good. Already thinking ahead, asking the same question just like him. He feels almost proud, knowing he thinks in the same patterns as she does. A tiny smile appears for a moment on his lips

“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you, comrade, but I see you’re already asking yourself the same question,” his eyes wander back and forth from her face back to the napkins, until she puts her glasses down and finally looks at him. His heart skips a beat, he has no idea why. He’s just glad the vodka has finally started to kick in, as her blue eyes glue themselves to him.

“Why did it explode?” He only nods in response, his gaze curiously exploring her face. The tired eyes that hide the hunger for truth, small wrinkles around her witty mouth (and he wonders what she looks like when she smiles), the dark auburn hair in contrast to her porcelain skin. With these looks, no wonder she’s so cold and hard. Their male colleagues must have been hard on her. She’s a beautiful woman now, he doesn’t even want to know how she looked a few years ago (and yet he knows this thought will occupy his mind in the upcoming days, in order to ease the stress of the task he’s here to do). And her smart brain to make the combination deadly.

“I’ve worked the numbers over and over, presuming the worst possible conditions in an RBMK reactor. And I always get the same answer,” Her eyes don’t leave this, not even for a single moment, as the air gets thicker around them. Not only she has a sharp tongue, these two orbs tell a story of their own.

“Which is?” he whispers, already knowing the answer.

“It’s not possible,”

“And yet…” he shakes his head a bit, his mind going through the possible things that could have gone wrong that fateful night.

“You’re not going to solve this here,” he says and the way she drops her gaze down, he can tell she’s holding her breath, suddenly looking up at him through her eyelashes, ready to fight him if he would want to send her away. He moves closer and her body responses on her own, shifting towards him immediately.

“Not on paper,” she can feel herself relax again. He’s got more to say, but she already knows the most important thing - she’s part of this and he understands that, appreciates that and doesn’t intend to dismiss her help.

“Everyone who was in the control room, Dyatlov, Akimov, Toptunov. They’re all in Moscow, Hospital Nr. 6,” he watches her closely as he speaks, seeing the spark in her eyes setting up a fire, a hunger for the chase to find out the truth. “We need to find out exactly what happened that night. Moment by moment, decision by decision,” and he knows she’s the only person who he can trust, who won’t miss a single hesitation of the personnel. And at the same time wonders how it happened that he trusted this woman so quickly without any doubt.

“Go now, while they’re still alive, talk to them. Because if we don’t find out how this happened, it will happen again,” he gulps down the rest of his vodka, the acrid taste of alcohol spreading in his mouth.

She’s deep in thought, already going through a list of questions she must not skip, of the clothes and protection she mustn’t forget (as if it would make any difference after being here). His voice is hoarse when he speaks again, turned into a whisper:

“And Khomyuk… Be careful,” he says, remembering the whole conversation with Boris earlier. Because as much as Ulana is smart, he cannot help but feel there’s certain naivety in how this world, their world, works. He gives her one last glance and decides it is better to go to his room, the vodka seeping more and more through his system, while her eyes are burning to his soul. He needs her to find the truth, that’s correct, but he also cannot help but feel relieved that she won’t be here, that she might live a bit longer. One life that he might not waste away here, and there’s the small little feeling hiding inside of him, spreading warmth that it’s her life he gets to save. He decides it’s just the alcohol, for the sake of their situation. There’s no place for this, as much as he’d like to know how soft her hair would be under his touch.

He walks briskly to the elevator, suppressing the need to turn around and look at her one more time (what would he say, anyway?) and mutters a silent thank you when the elevator bell rings and the door open at once. When inside, he presses his forehead against the lining of the cabin. So much for his curiosity about Ulana Yuriyevna Khomyuk.

It’s well past midnight when he finally gives up on trying to fall asleep. For the last two hours, he was just restlessly rolling around in his bed, every now and then taking a gulp from the bottle of vodka he placed on his nightstand. It seemed like a good idea, or at least he hoped that the alcohol would cloud his mind enough to help him fall asleep. He sighs and rubs his face in frustration, finally giving up. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, getting up in a swift motion. He turns on the lamp on the bedside table so he’s able to search for his pack of cigarettes, finding it completely empty. Great.

He could talk himself down, wait for the morning and have a cigarette then when he picks up a new pack downstairs. But he simply needed one now.

And it’s definitely not because the smell of cigarettes helps him get the scent of lilies, reminding him of her, out of his mind. Because it’s not working anyway.

He puts on his jacket, not even bothering to change out of his sleeping clothes. The light in the hallway is hurting his eyes, almost blinding him. He makes his way downstairs, determined to get himself a new fresh pack of cigarettes when he sees her. She’s no longer stooping over her notes, she’s just sitting there, with her back to the bar, looking into the distance. She doesn’t even notice the elevator ring. He’s taken aback, he did not expect anyone to be here at this hour, suddenly being aware of the clothes he’s wearing. His gaze fixates on her, she’s sitting straight, almost like in school, but there’s that elegance and greatness shining from her posture. Her right leg is swinging lightly in the air, the rest of her body staying still. He studies her face for a moment, her expression showing she’s lost deep in thought. He’s glad she didn’t notice him yet, as he still remembers the intense look in her blue eyes. He ponders for a moment if he should just go back to his room, but then something breaks in him. He needs to take the step outside of his comfortable bubble. Maybe this might be the first one.

He makes his way over to the bar, just like a few hours ago. She notices him in the corner of her eye, a small smile spreading on her lips. Is this woman ever surprised? He reaches down on the counter, blindly searching before his fingers grasp the familiar box. He pops himself up on the barstool next to her, searching for lighter in his pocket before lighting a cigarette, staring at the sight of the empty city in front of them just like her.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, his voice raspy. She chuckles and looks at her hands, joined in her lap.

“Too many things happening, too many questions inside my hand. Too many things I’m going over and over in my head, reminding myself I mustn’t forget them,”

“Such as?” he puffs out the blue cloud of cigarette smoke. He can feel that the atmosphere between them has changed. He doesn’t know whether it’s the lack of sleep, the late-night hour or something else. But now it’s so much easier just to talk to her, and he can say she feels the same.

“Calling my colleagues that I have no idea when I’m coming back. What safety protection to bring to the hospital with me. What questions to ask the men from the control room. What to tell them if they ask how are the others doing,” she starts naming all the things whirling in her head, her voice trailing off, realising she could never be able to name all of it. She finally turns to him, eyeing him from head to toe.

“Do you always dress so fancy when going out, comrade?” she is amused and for the first time, he sees her smile properly, even though her question is confusing him.

“You think I’m taking a walk outside?” he asks, one of his eyebrows shifting up.

“I don’t know, I thought you would be the type,” she waves her hand in an indefinite gesture. She turns around, pouring both him and herself a shot, pushing the full glass to him.

“You guessed right, but not tonight. Normally when I can’t sleep I do go out, enjoy the empty streets, observing the sleeping city… I’m sorry, I’m babbling, don’t mind me,” he quickly ends his sentence, gulping the rest of his vodka, surprised at how easily the words left his lips.

“No, don’t apologize. It’s actually nice to have a conversation about something else than melting reactors for a moment, as ridiculous as it might seem,” she replies, finishing her glass as well. Blimey, she loves having around someone who can catch up with the thoughts that fly inside her brain at the speed of light. This fact has made the grim circumstances under they’ve met a bit less overwhelming. He would test her every now and then, just like she would do with him, pushing each other for better result. They’ve been doing that ever since the discussion about the bubble poolers.

But now, she simply wanted to talk about life for a moment, not about the dangerous dance to prevent death. Her determination isn’t gone, oh no, but she realizes that if she wants to make it through this hell without going crazy, she will need to talk, to share, not to hold it back inside of her. And somehow she feels he might be able to understand much more than her words.

Today when she visited the site of the blown-up reactor, she had a weak moment, not believing her own eyes. The readings of the result she performed from the dust on her lab’s window back in Minsk were terrifying, of course, but seeing the reactor building torn apart, black smoke coming out of it... Oh god, what have they done. She couldn’t help but notice Legasov watching her that whole time, reading the expression written all over her face. When she turned to look at him, she was expecting to see a sneer, but instead, his eyes were soft, full of understanding. In that very moment, she knew he felt the same when he arrived here. And seeing the same look mirroring in her face calmed him in a strange way.

He turns to her, takes the glass out of her hand, pouring them another shot. He decides to ignore the one is not such a good idea.

“When I can’t sleep, I usually go to the lab and just work, do some experiments, or just clean the beakers. This means I spend at work much more nights than I’m normally willing to admit myself, not even mentioning what about my colleagues,” she chuckles, remembering Dimitri catching her sleeping on Saturday. She takes a sip, the alcohol burning in her throat. She can pretend her skin is burning because of the same reason and dismiss the ridiculous feeling in her stomach after he took her glass from her hands. And she thought that puberty was long gone.

“Well, I’m sorry that there’s no lab here for you to hide in,” he smiles at her, eyes twinkling just a little. Is this how Valery Legasov is with women under regular circumstances or is it the vodka talking? Would he be like that if she met him someplace in Moscow?

“It’s ok, I can make peace with whatever is offered,”

“Even an empty hotel with few guarding soldiers, a grumpy party man and a scientist? Of course, the radiation is just a bonus,” he tries to joke but knows he failed miserably, only reminding them of the reason they’re here in the first place. But her reaction surprises him. She turns to him, places her hand over his wrist in a reassuring gesture, soft smile sprawled on her lips.

“Even that. I like my silence, and if I need to break it, now I know to whom should I go to,” her hand lingers on his for a brief moment longer and he realizes he’s holding his breath. He shifts his gaze from her blue orbs down to where they’re touching and she briskly moves her hand away. It was a simple gesture, and yet it felt like so much more.

She coughs a little, trying to find her voice again. “How is Moscow this time of year, anyway?”

He welcomes the sudden change of topic, as it helps him to focus on something else, needn’t worry what would be his next steps, or if it was even appropriate. Change of subject, how clever, saving them both.

“Typical spring. I would say it’s a bit warmer than here and a bit sunnier. I think you will love it,” he says, in his mind going back his past week in Moscow. Of course, he doesn’t spend much time outside. Usually, he’s in the institute, but he likes to observe and sometimes take a walk in the evening.

“Any places I should visit?” she asks as if she was going there for a vacation, knowing that most of the time she will be locked up in the hospital, listening to the voices of dying man. But she simply needs to pretend, at least in this moment.

“Khomyuk... Ulana… I was serious earlier in the evening,” he whispers urgently, suddenly frustrated and turns to face her. His forehead is wrinkled as he worriedly frowns at her. The use of her first name surprises her and gives her courage.

“I’m not a child Valery, nor a naive person. I know I’m going there to collect as much information as possible about a thing that’s classified and that most likely there will be people who won’t want me to know,” she says, head held high, as if she was already defending herself to some KGB agent. Where does she take so much inner strength and determination from? He tilts his head backwards and exhales.

“If anything should happen, anything, tell them you’re with me. Promise me that,” he keeps on insisting. There is a battle going on in her. It’s been a long time since someone acted so protectively over her she almost forgot how nice it can feel. But on the other hand, it was making her a bit irritated. She’s a grown-up woman for god’s sake, she’s been able to take care of herself up until now. But the look in Valery’s eyes shows how much this small promise means to him, so she decides to grant him this pleasure and nods.

Silence falls upon them again, when a clock somewhere at the reception starts ringing, announcing the late hour.

“I’m gonna go sleep now,” she says, sliding down the barstool and he follows her example. He grabs the napkins with her calculations and hands them to her. She smiles gratefully and puts them into a pocket of her sweater.

Once upstairs before they part ways to enter their rooms, he suddenly stops, walks over to her, leaning at her door frame.

“Will you lend me that pen of yours and one of the napkins?” he asks. She stops and thinks for a moment, not sure where this is heading. Is he going to check her calculations now? He could do it tomorrow morning during breakfast. She really needs to get some sleep, but gives them to him anyway.

He swiftly scribbles something down, napkin pressed up against the wall. And then she realizes - an address, his address. He turns back to her and returns her the napkin and pen.

“Third floor. My neighbour on the same floor, Alina Markina has a spare key. Feel free to stay there if you’d like, I bet it might be more comfortable than a hotel. And hopefully, it won’t be bugged yet. My cat could also use some company,” he knows he’s rambling now, saying too much unnecessary information and forcefully stops himself. She looks curious, interested even, he was expecting her to be dismissive, to be honest. And his hand suddenly lives in its own, softly caressing her cheek. She’s staring at him, those magnificent blue eyes glued to his, her lips slightly parted.

“Stay safe, Ulana,” he whispers and takes his hand back, his palm and fingers burning from where her his skin met hers.

And then just as suddenly as the moment appeared, it is gone just like the tension.

“Thank you, Valery,” she smiles up at him and opens the door to her room, flashing him one last look before disappearing inside. A warm feeling starts spreading through his body, and this time it’s not the alcohol. It’s something much more simple yet complicated at the same time. It’s happiness.

This time sleep finds him almost immediately.

“Goodnight, Ulana,”

Moscow, present

He wakes with her name on his lips, and as if only the act of saying it out loud makes him realize she won't be able to hear him ever again.

Let her be safe, please.

#chernobyl hbo #chernobylhbo #valana #ulana khomyuk #valery legasov #ulana/valery #valery x ulana #fanfiction #writings #my OTP #fanfic #chernobyl fanfic #ao3 #silence fanfic

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badoccultadvice · 3 years ago

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My current theory as to why Putin thinks there's an actual point to this, and why he's doing this, centers around his strange focus on Chernobyl. I think that Russia has a long-term problem with long-term nuclear waste storage and decommissioning of nuclear missiles that they have already marked as "decommissioned" but possibly have had nowhere to move the fissionable (radioactive) material inside that would be proper storage.

And when I say there's nowhere, I mean: the missile housing, the missile launch tube, the whole missile base, is all in some way irradiated by now. This is the problem with "decommissioning" nuclear facilities, whether power facilities or warheads are being taken down. There's no actual way to "clean" this equipment for re-use, no way to "wash away" the radiation. Everything that touches it is going to turn radioactive to some degree. Eventually, it's all going to be irradiated to some extent. Radioactivity doesn't "wipe off", it sinks in over time. Like a sort of creeping horror.

Well, Ukraine as well as a whole coalition of other nations just spent a lot of money on nuclear containment to put a new housing on top of Chernobyl's whole blown reactor building. And a lot of teams and explorers have been going over Chernobyl and Pripyat to investigate what is left to be cleaned, how to possibly clean it, and what the long-term plan should be.

Oh, and also, they keep finding lots of soviet-era projects, left behind equipment, official papers about who-knows-what. The thing is, everything the teams who've been hired to clean up or evaluate or film or whatnot use becomes irradiated as they use it in Chernobyl... so it's all left behind. Including the papers. Because there's no sense in spreading out the radiation even further. So all of that top secret material... a lot of it is still there. Waiting to be photographed or filmed. Or maybe even fully destroyed, when it comes to certain information. And I think Putin is very interested in whatever is in Pripyat. When the New Safe Containment was put on Chernobyl, various nations were allowed to send inspectors, but not Russia. That means Russian nuclear scientists were not able to get information on what exactly the containment is build to, spec-wise... and they may need that information. And also whatever else. The only people who really know their nuclear... they're real old, leftovers from the Cold War themselves. So there's no telling what is in Chernobyl that he's interested in.

But I think the way he took Chernobyl shows that if he's "a madman," he's a madman who knows that Chernobyl's remaining working reactors, plus the reactor still running in a maintenance/standby mode because it's neighbors with the one that blew and thus too irradiated to ever completely decommission, NEED at least two shifts of engineers on hand to run the facility around the clock and keep radiation levels from climbing so high that the biological shield doesn't matter or that there would be another catastrophe. He's made sure it stays running like it should. So he hasn't had a massive enough break from reality to forget all the top secret nuclear engineering facts he learned back in the 80s about how to keep a set of RBMK nuclear reactors going, and he factored that knowledge into his invasion plans.

I'm familiar with the realpolitik lens and it's good to be able to view the world through it to know what calculations war powers are making, because no, they will not think with the same ethics and concerns as us individual people. Looking at Putin's actions through a realpolitik lens is very perplexing because it exposes how much is being blocked from the camera lens's view. It reveals that there is information yet to be discovered that is vital for deducing what the actual facts of the situation are. Or I suppose nowadays we call those the "unknown unknowns that have become known unknowns." It reveals that there are blanks that need filling in, but it still remains to be seen whether Putin is a crossword puzzle or a Mad Lib.

What develops at Chernobyl will be important, if it's not central. It's strange because I've been following YouTubers who have been to Chernobyl as recently as December/January, taking video inside the plant and around Pripyat. I think of those civilian explorers in the videos who were jokingly renovating apartments for themselves in Pripyat and I wonder how they are doing now, and where they are. The majority of them were Ukranians. And my heart goes out to them and the rest of the people in Ukraine.

So now that we've defined realpolitik, let's quickly break down the realpolitik here for the Americans in the room (that is, the pragmatic facts of the situation divorced from their ethical weight). This is a very very high level overview for the young people who are all of a sudden getting a crash course in Eastern European politics. Throughout this post, "we" and "our" is going to refer to Americans.

1. NATO is our military alliance with Western Europe. Ukraine is not a NATO member. That means we actually have no legal, diplomatic responsibility to directly help Ukraine in any way.

2. Why is Ukraine not a NATO member? I mean, a little because they're a young democracy without a great track record vis a vis corruption, but the real reason is that Russia didn't want them to be a member.

3. Why would Russia not want Ukraine to be a NATO member? So that they could threaten to invade them. Yeah, like...it's a military alliance. That's literally why.

4. Did we think they'd do it? No. Was that complacent of us? Oh, yeah.

5. Did they think they'd do it? Probably for most of the past 30 years also no? Having the threat available was a way for Russia to influence Ukraine's politics. They didn't necessarily need to use it...except that Ukraine has steadily moved closer and closer to the Western sphere of influence in spite of that threat.

6. Why does Russia want Ukraine in its sphere of influence? TOO COMPLEX A QUESTION TO GET INTO HERE. I'll make a whole post about this if you want me to. The simplest and largest factor is this:

I mean...where else are you going to invade Russia from? Russia is a country profoundly preoccupied with its own physical security from Europe (for, historically, very good reason).

7. So why are the NATO countries talking about this invasion at all, if Ukraine isn't an alliance member? Remember, this is about realpolitik - obviously we should help, because this war is unjust, and Ukrainians are human beings. But this is strictly a conversation about the pragmatic political reality of the situation.

8. Well, we've just learned that Russia is, in fact, willing to use military force to expand its borders. Take another look at that map. If Russia controls Kaliningrad & Ukraine, & has military outposts all over Belarus (they have military outposts in Belarus btw), the "front" for any potential future Russian aggression is enormous. Defensively, this is a nightmare for Europe.

9. "What's Kaliningrad?" Glad you asked. It's a tiny piece of beautiful Baltic land that contains 95% of the world's amber, for some reason! It's also a massive Russian military installation from which Russia can launch missiles into the rest of Europe. It's essentially impregnable. And it's separated from Russian-friendly Belarus by a tiny, 60 km-wide strip of border between Poland and Lithuania called "the Suwalki Corridor" or "the Suwalki Gap."

10. To put that another way: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - 3 former-SSRs (that's Soviet Socialist Republics, meaning that they are former Soviet states that conservatives within Russia also see as part of its rightful sphere of influence) who are NATO members are only connected to the rest of NATO by the Suwalki Corridor. Meaning that if Russia takes that corridor, there is no longer any way to reinforce the Baltics by land...and any naval reinforcement would have to go past Kaliningrad to reach them.

11. "So we're worried about Ukraine - from a realpolitik perspective obviously, we as in human beings are worried about Ukraine because people live there and this is terrible - we as in NATO are worried about Ukraine because a Russian-occupied Ukraine would allow Russia to turn its attention to closing the Suwalki gap and going after the Baltic states, who are our allies?"

12. Yeah.

13. "I hate to even say this, but we're talking realpolitik right?? like this is a safe space to ask bottom-line questions about the pragmatic political reality of this situation without anyone calling me a monster?? ...why do we care about the Baltics?"

14. Yes, this is a safe space and you are not a monster, and I do not think you don't care about Estonian or Latvian or Lithuanian lives for asking the question. We (Americans) may not care about the Baltics !!from the perspective of strict pragmatism!! in and of themselves. But if we fail to defend the Baltics, that means that NATO, categorically, cannot defend its allies. If Russia can take the Baltics...why not Poland? Why not Greece? Why not France?

15. "That sounds insanely alarmist. Would it ever come to that?" You'd love to say no! You'd love to say that's crazy. But people were saying it was crazy to think Russia would actually physically invade Ukraine until the morning it happened. A military alliance like NATO exists to be paranoid. The best deterrent to violence - the best way to make sure this never happens, if Russia has decided to operate by the principles of realpolitik, rather than moral or ideological principles - is if Russia knows that any military action against NATO would fail. Do I think Russia would ever invade France? Like, no, that's stupid, but also, what the fuck do I know?

16. "But...okay, again, safe space - why do we, Americans, care about any of this? I'm not in Europe." Fair question! And American involvement in NATO is something that was hotly debated at the end of WW2. In fact the first Secretary General of NATO was quoted as saying that the purpose of the NATO alliance was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down" - meaning, NATO needed America more than America needed NATO, then and now. Thanks to our geographic isolation, Americans do not need to worry about wars of territorial expansion. We can worry about nukes, but that's not about territorial expansion. And there's not a lot NATO could do to stop a nuke.

17. What we're really talking about, when we talk about what America gets out of being in NATO, is America's sphere of influence. Western Europe is - sometimes through clenched teeth - pretty much obliged to play nice with America, because they've....uhhh, essentially outsourced a lot of their physical defense to our military? I'm gonna get angry messages for saying that, but a spade's a spade. And European cooperation is great for our economy, our quality of life, and our bargaining power on the world stage with less-friendly actors.

18. "So we care (IN THE REALPOLITIK SENSE) about the invasion of Ukraine...because it proves Russia is willing to engage in wars of territorial expansion...and opens the door to Russia moving on the Baltic states by closing the Suwalki gap...which would weaken (or even cause the collapse of) the NATO alliance...which would lead to an isolated and weakened America, surrounded by more hostile actors which are emboldened to act against it?" look we're oversimplifying a lot, here? But...yeah, that's a solid takeaway.

19. "So why don't we just...directly help Ukraine?" Baby, you want to launch an unprovoked military attack against Russia? Remember: Ukraine is not our ally! Russia has not legally, diplomatically attacked us or one of our allies! We might hate what they're doing, but they have not been aggressive at us.

That's how you get World War 3. Attacking Russia is not gonna help. Everybody calm down.

20. "So that's why we're doing sanctions instead?" Yes. That's why we're doing sanctions instead. As for what's next...we're going to have to wait and see.

#nuclear theorizing #realpolitik #oh good all those times I watched thirteen days #are finally useful #underrated fav movie #peace for ukraine

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