#i used to sit in my room and unselfconsciously sing at the top of my lungs - BELT like musical theatre belting

[90stvqueen]

i understand why this isn't the case, but i think everyone should be able to play an instrument. the same way i think everyone should speak multiple languages. the craft of music is a language in and of itself

[vaguely-concerned]

TF x Graves, 2500 words, complete and utter fluff

Stifling another yawn against the back of my hand I glance over at the window, which shows only the flat dark of a moonless night outside, before turning my eyes back to the line of T.F.’s naked back.

I’m already undressed and perched on the side of the bed, watching as T.F. is still in the middle of his nightly ritual of hanging or folding his fine clothes up all properly and neatly, lest they, I don’t know, unduly crease somewhere they ain’t meant to or somethin’. Listen, I keep my clothes in a pile on the floor by the side of the bed, right next to the shotgun, both within easy reach in the case of a middle-of-the-night emergency skipping of town. Our priorities in these matters don’t really intersect much, but to each his own and so on.

I don’t know why I’m waiting for him to come to bed to lie down myself, exactly — my eyes are already making a spirited attempt at staying shut on me whenever I blink, I’m pretty sure I’d be out and snoring in about three seconds once I got settled — but my skin has that thin restless thrum all through it that I know from experience won’t be satisfied until he’s settled into place against me and besides, the view is nothin’ to sneeze at in the meantime. He stands there shirtless, belt unbuckled and hanging loose around his narrow hips, though the fastenings of his trousers are still done up. In the light of the oil lamp across the room he’s in a rare state of relaxed unselfconscious disarray, his hair grown out long enough again that it spills over his shoulders and down his back while he fastidiously fastens the cufflinks back into place on the empty shirt so they’ll be easy to find in the morning. As he finishes up with the cufflinks he sings to himself under his breath, a good-natured jaunty little tune I vaguely remember the Brick would sometimes break out once you got a couple of drinks in him.

The hum under my skin grows higher and keener.

Stretching an arm out I hook my fingers into one of his belt loops and gently pull him in by it towards the side of the bed, until he’s standing between my legs. It prompts a half-bemused noise from him, but he goes along easily — when I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my forehead against his belly he seems to catch on, though, a sound of amusement vibrating through his chest.

He slides his hand to the back of my neck, twining his fingers into the short hair there, thumb trailing back and forth along the hairline.

T.F.’s too damned scrawny to have much in the way of padding anywhere, but there’s the warm body softness to him here nevertheless, the sweet yield and shift of a living thing whose pliancy belies the supple strength beneath. I rest my cheek against the flat of his stomach and sigh, moving my hand at the small of his back in slow caressing circles.

“Come to bed already,” I murmur, too sleep-softened along the edges to worry overmuch about makin’ sense.

He chuckles, fingers stroking through my hair. “Well, I was on my way, but then I was waylaid by some deplorable fellow in the process. Hell of a thing.”

I grin and turn my face up to him, so that my chin is resting against his belly and my lips brush his skin when I talk. “Huh. Sounds like a real shady character. You want a trustworthy sorta guy to escort you safely the rest of the way?”

“With such dangerous reprobates skulking around in the area, that’s probably for the best,” T.F. nods somberly, fond amusement deepening his voice. He runs his thumb down the bridge of my nose. “Could I afford to hire the services of a strapping upstanding gentleman like yourself, though?”

I make a nonchalant sound in my nose, squeezing him closer against me for a moment. “Eh, don’t worry ‘bout it, this one’s on the house.”

His thumb drifts down to rest at the upturned corner of my mouth as he grins back at me. “Hey, looks like it’s my lucky day.”

I kiss his stomach and lean back enough so I can start in on the fastenings of his trousers — not with any sort of heat behind it, there’s no hint of sex in the air, but in a weird way this is equally satisfying, the everyday-textured contentment of being close without any particular purpose, being the one to slowly render him naked in front of me for no other reason than that he lets me, his hands still smoothing patiently through my hair while I work.

Once I’ve got all the buttons sorted I run my thumb along the sharp edge of his hip bone until I can tuck it into the waist of his trousers and use it to tug them down. We get them about half-way down his thighs like that before we have to pause for him to shimmy out of them the rest of the way on his own, his hand resting on my shoulder for balance as he does the traditional one-legged hop to extricate his foot. Serves him right for only ever wearing pants that might as well have been painted onto him. I mean, not that I’m complainin’, mind.

“Whoa!” he says, laughing as he almost overbalances at the last hurdle, but my hand shoots out to steady him by the hip before too much disaster can be wrought. “Well, not the smoothest strip tease I’ve ever pulled off, sorry about the inconvenience.”

I nose at the newly revealed crease of his hip over the edge of his underwear. “Eh, that’s okay, if I actually wanted a proper show I’d just suggest a round of strip poker again and sit back and watch while you lose.”

“Oh, that’s a strange yet beautiful dream world you’ve made up for yourself there, Malcolm. It’s touching, really, the things the mind will do to protect itself from the truth. Positively — aah!”

T.F. jumps as I draw some of the skin of his hip between my lips and use them to nip sharply at it. His startled yelp turns into a snigger as I let go, possibly ruining the castigating effects somewhat when I brush my lips soothingly over that spot right after.

“Let that be a lesson to ya,” I say sternly.

“A lesson on what, that your mom was apparently half turtle?”

I grunt, still trailing soft kisses over his skin. “That judge in Piltover was right back then, you are an incorrigible menace to all decent and right-thinking people everywhere.”

“First of all, that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Malcolm, thank you. Two, including yourself among the ‘decent and right-thinking’ feels like the invention of some fresh new form of fraud by way of imposture unfolding before my eyes, and it’s an honour. And third, that seems to me to be some very selective memory you have there, considering His Honour Judge Highton had some even more colourful words for you after you blew up the entire north wall of the court building breakin’ me out.”

“He might’ve been given to wearing a damn silly mop on his head, but you couldn’t fault him on his vocabulary,” I concede. Before that whole incident I’d honestly thought the wigs were some sort of practical joke the Pilties would play on gullible outsiders, but as it turns out no, if you get sent to jail in the twin cities they add the indignity of makin’ someone wearing a dead badger on their head break the bad news to you. It’s a strange ol’ world out there, alright. In Bilgewater, where people are much more sensible, the justice system basically boils down to the bounty board, or — if you’ve really managed to make a nuisance of yourself — a bunch of captains may call a temporary ceasefire with each other and go get your ass together. I’ve found that the risk of getting on the bad end of an unfair trial is about the same in both places, though of course the Bilgewater one tends to be harder to come back from if carried out to its fullest. I consider myself a bit of an expert in these things.

T.F. makes a thoughtful sound. “To be fair I don’t think anyone had ever given him cause or inspiration for profanity like you did.”

“Aw. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He leans down and kisses the top of my head before he straightens for long enough to work his second foot free as well, standing there in just the sleek silky underpants he somehow seems to have an endless fresh supply of wherever we go. (My money’s on some sinister underground ring of lingerie-oriented tailors across south-eastern Valoran, for the record; when it comes to secret societies the Noxians just can’t help themselves.)

“I do my best. Hang on just one moment, I’ll be right back,” he says and ruffles my hair before he turns around, which I would complain about except that the view is, as previously mentioned, impeccable, and I’m sleepy enough to be magnanimous.

After meticulously folding his trousers and leaving them with the rest of his clothes, T.F. moves over to the table across the room and extinguishes the oil lamp, then whistles under his breath as he produces a card from somewhere — he does this, seemingly from thin air and no matter how little he’s wearing; I prefer not to speculate too much about how, exactly — and lets a little magic into it so it gives off a low glow, only enough to light his way the short walk back across the room, ‘cause in T.F.’s world the stubbing of toes and smacking of shins against unexpected furniture in the dark is somethin’ that happens to other people. That probably says some things about him I’m not ready to go puzzlin’ out at this time of night, and that he wouldn’t want to have anyone go puzzlin’ about too hard in the first place anyway.

When I hold out my hand for him in the dark he smiles and takes it, twining our fingers together, and I use the hold to tug him in and deposit him, in a neat controlled wrestler’s roll held close against me as I lay down, to his side of the bed. He laughs again at that, a surprised delighted sound that edges dangerously close to a giggle but hey, I ain’t no snitch, so who’s gonna testify against him, huh?

The card ends up on the far side of his pillow after the tumble, still giving off a glow, enough to illuminate the bed and lend the shadows around it some warmth. It makes the bed seem a small cozy island, the rest of the world rendered a not-unfriendly ocean of darkness around it.

T.F. looks at me like the world’s most contented castaway, bourgeoning crow’s feet punctuating his smile on either side and fingers still linked with mine. His hair is mussed from the meandering fall onto the bed. If I were only fractionally less about five seconds away from fallin’ asleep, my body might start to get ideas about it. Well, tomorrow is always another day.

With the back of my free hand I brush some of his hair away from his brow, and he cranes into it like a well-pleased cat. Even with the blankets tangled around our feet and the not-quite-right positions we’ve ended up in, having tumbled into place rather than settled ourselves with purpose, everything feels warm and loose and comfortable, like I could fall asleep like this even with the decidedly odd angle my arm is at.

As if sensing that the drowsiness is about to claim me for real, T.F. brings our linked hands up to his face so he can press his lips to my scarred knuckles before he lets go, then reaches to pull the covers over us, taking a moment to tuck the blanket around my shoulder properly before snuggling under it himself, hooking his leg over my thigh as he settles into place. I shift until we fit together, the familiarity of how to rest against each other just right comfortable like an old and well-loved piece of clothing. On a sigh he rests our foreheads together, craning forward the tiny amount needed to brush our mouths together and humming contentedly when I meet him there. It’s a slow kiss, but it lingers, a dry sweet press of lips like one last spark sending the day off down into the gently drifting murk of sleep that’s about to claim me for a few hours.

When it ends — I don’t think either of us was really the first to pull back, at some point the kiss simply, in the way of snowflakes on tongues, melted into something different and less defined with the warmth — there’s a moment when my eyes can still fight against slipping shut. It’s weird, the way you can look at someone every day for years and still not feel like you’ve had your fill. T.F.’s sharp narrow face, his high pointy little cheekbones and mouth still curved with a smile as he watches me back — there’s something to knowing I’m gonna see all that again tomorrow morning that all the damn money on Runeterra couldn’t get you. And take it from me, from what I’ve seen of the world there ain’t a lot of things in this life enough money won’t buy. Stumbling across one of them long before we even knew what we had, by a stroke of little more’n dumb fucking luck… sometimes it feels like the biggest heist we ever pulled.

“Hey, Tobias?” I say, brushing the tip of my nose against his as my eyelids finally give up both the battle and the war and slide closed.

“Hmmm?” he says, cheerfully drowsy as well.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I murmur, because I can’t think of any damn happier thing in the world to say to him.

He wraps his arms around me, his hand stroking meanderingly up and down the scar-crossed span of my back, fingers trailing over my skin with the perfect amount of firmness because he’s taken the time to learn exactly how much pressure it takes to make it comforting. As sleep starts pulling me under to calmer depths I tuck my head under his chin, so my face is pressed to the line of his throat and to his chest. He smells so nice, all warmly real and well-known like my own breathing.

“Tomorrow,” he agrees on a yawn, nuzzling at the top of my head and tightening his arms around me, just for a moment.

I've been trying to write stuff -- literally just anything, no matter how meandering and nonsensical -- to try to break out of a writer's block; it's not really working so far but at least I've got SOMETHING tangible to show for it at the end of the day, so, you know, uh... partial success I guess?? haha

The idea of T.F. having a judge somewhere out there who considers him the One True Nemesis of his career, J. Jonah Jameson style, even though T.F. barely even remembers his name, came from a wonderful conversation with @inversway, and the idea makes me laugh so hard every time I think about it.

ETA: Also put this on AO3, so I have somewhere to put these ficlets that isn't just tumblr! I'm grimly clinging on to this blue hellsite like a obstinate barnacle to the hull of the Titanic, but I do realize it's not the best place to archive uh anything lol

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Leverage Models

Leverage Models started as the latest project from Shannon Fields (late of the much-missed New York collective Stars Like Fleas, and who’s also worked with everyone from Helado Negro to Rhys Chatham, JOBS to The Silent League). After 2013’s highly-praised self-titled debut on Hometapes, Fields wound up assembling a touring band that would wind up making Leverage Models’ newly-released sophomore record Whites(which, for reasons both personal and political, was made in 2015 but is being released now, partly as a fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center). Joined by singer Alena Spanger (of Tiny Hazard) and all three members of the very powerful trio JOBS, among others, in their own words "Leverage Models makes pop songs about transubstantiation, ritual abuse, political apathy, divorce, white collar criminals, poverty, white liberal guilt, anxiety, & self-harm. With roto-toms." In his review, Dusted’s Ian Mathers says about Whites, "Musically, this album would be just as impressive if it had come out in early 2016, but back then maybe more people would assume the high-stakes intensity of the songs here were worrying too much. Sadly, the subsequent time has only shown again and again how appropriate that aspect of Leverage Models’ work really is." For Listed, Fields and Spanger provided a list of current inspirations and overlooked art pop.

Alena’s Current Inspirations

Life Without Buildings—"The Leanover"

The way that this singer, Sue Tompkins, approaches melody and lyric is hypnotizing to me. I love how she continues to repeat words—almost slogans—and alter their pronunciation until they seem to lose their original meanings and become more about the sound of the words. I typically wouldn't love the 90's alt rock aesthetic, but the steady, unobtrusive accompaniment provides the space needed for her vocals to live in.

Francis Bebey—"Pygmy Love Song"

I've been incessantly listening to Francis Bebey for months now. He seems to lean into the rawness and outer edges of what the voice can do. I love the way he mimics the bamboo flute with his voice on this song.

Lizzy Mercier Decloux—"No Golden Throat"

I sometimes feel like I need to shake off everything I learned from years of studying music and get to back to a more fundamental, raw approach. Lizzy is one of those untrained inspirations for me. She barely knew how to play the guitar and started singing not long before this album came out. This resulted in such adventurous, unselfconscious music. She is at once playful, unbridled, and searingly direct. She wasn't really respected in the NY scene when this record came out, and was by some seen as an imposter, reliant on her male collaborators to hoist her up. After digging deeper into her music, it's obvious that she possessed great artistic autonomy and vision and her lack of recognition was a result of unfortunate industry circumstances and sexism. The lyrics in this song are her response to the pressures that's she experienced to sing more conventionally.

Lonnie Holley—"Here I Stand Knocking at Your Door"

I saw Lonnie Holley play in NY recently and was so moved by the freedom with which he sings and the purity and untouched quality of his music. Every aspect of his performance- down to the smallest movements of his body were connected to the sound and channeling into one cohesive and beautiful statement. He is one of those rare, singular artists, who seems to make art out of everything he touches.

Brigitte Fontaine—"Moi Aussi"

She is such a badass. I love the simplicity of using just a drum as accompaniment. In this song, she's singing with her partner at the time, a French/Algerian musician, Areski Belkacem who brought some traditional folkloric sensibilities to their music. The effortless blending of theater and music is something I really strive for in my own work.

Shannon

I needed to give myself a theme so I decided to select some of what I think are overlooked vintage art-pop coming out of the post-punk 80s into the and slick new-agey, ‘world music’ appropriating 90s. I’m completely taken in by that era of experimentation and production right now, though I can’t say why. I find myself drawn most to the songs that effortlessly stumble into choices I don’t always understand. They don’t seem like they’re out to destroy any genre conventions so much as they seem blissfully ignorant of them. Certain moments shock me as to how much more relevant and contemporary the MIDI/electronic, experimental and arty music is as compared to the 60s & 70s guitar-based music that’s ruled for so long (and which has nothing at all to offer a lot of younger musicians I talk to these days). I could have easily made this list 20. This was hard.

Che—I ‎(Narcotic, 1987)

What a confusing record. Half of it is very eccentric, slightly woozy funk. With the subtlety-obliterating rhythm section of Art of Noise or later New Jack rhythms, cock-rock guitars, and these drunken almost a-melodic passages. The ending of Scream Like A Swiftcould be a codeine-fuelled pass at Jensen Sportag’s contemporary hyper-MIDI, vapor-wave smooth-jazz. Moving The Silencesounds like The Blue Nile but with the kind of ironic detachment (think Arto Lindsay & Ambitious Lovers) that leaves you creeped out and confused rather than crying in your drink. And while I’m a bit black-hearted and prefercrying in my drink, I’m also completely transfixed by this. This song, Jerusalem,just kind of takes my breath away with something entirely unfamiliar: built from slabs of goth and pure Peter-Gabriel world-cheese, it somehow alchemizes into something I have never heard. A whole album of this and I’d have it on repeat with Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter(which also belongs on this list and is one of the best ‘confuse-core’ records ever made).

Akira Inoue—サファリ・オスティナート (Splash, 1983)

I’ve seen this song title translated as "Safari Ostinato". I know very little about this person or this album. Somebody help me. It’s the kind of album that repels and compels alternately. It gives you whiplash in the gentlest, most covert way. It’s a sort of adult contemporary, New Wave, jazz fusion MIDI album and this song is both beautiful and bonkers. The whole album is. I wonder if Dutch Uncles have heard this album. I could draw a line from here to there.

Andréa Daltro—Kiuá (Kiuá, 1988)

Released by the amazing Dutch reissue label Music From Memory. Originally released on Estudio De Invencoes in 1988. Andre Daltro was a singer and the song was, I believe, originally recorded with the band Brazilian "spiritual jazz band" Sexteto do Beco in 1980. But this version trades organicism and chops for drum machine, keys, MIDI sounds, and rattling ambient chatter, both acoustic and synthetic, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard…it rivals Arca’s new s/t album for this kind of strange, winsome cyber bel canto transmission from an alien jungle, though far less brooding, no less arresting.

Jane Siberry—Lena is a White Table (The Walking, 1987)

I knew Jane Siberry later hits and didn’t much care for them. I knew she worked with both Hector Zazou and Barney the Purple Dinosaur. I was not prepared when I first heard this album, The Walking. I believe when she was first signed the industry thought of her as the "new Kate Bush" and wanted to cash in on the mass tolerance for ‘art-rock’ a-la Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. But The Walkingis to Hounds of Loveas The Blue Nile’s Walk Across The Rooftops is to Laughing Stock’s Spirit of Eden. I love all of the above, but what Siberry and The Blue Nile share in this example is the same kind of epic freedom and reach but a sort of fragility and limitation and ramshackle, almost amateurish quality that make them really humane and relatable to me. The first time I heard this song I confess that my first thought was how much it reminded me of Alena’s old band, Tiny Hazard, who were one of my favorite bands in Brooklyn. I know it seems silly to say it, but somehow this track feels so much less ‘theatrical’ then the same era of Kate Bush…more interior. It feels like a very intimate experience to listen, to the point that I find myself feeling embarrassed for listening in.

Gary Numan—Cry, The Clock Said (Dance, 1981)

I hesitated to use one of my choices on an artist I feel like everybody knows. But I almost never meet anyone who really knows THIS album (and I know because I push it on everyone). If you only know the playful, cold cyber-punk of the first couple of Gary Numan/Tubeway Army records (which are, to be clear, brilliant, and a big influence on me) you really need to hear this album. At its most extreme corners (of which this song is one) I don’t know anything like it. Gary Numan’s great magic trick, the one I endlessly faun over, is how his disaffected, conventionally ugly, robot voice transforms into something heartbreaking and relatable by the time it reaches my heart (especially on Telekon’s piano-based tracks). I know that’s a cheesy thing to say but fuck you, I need sentiment these days. Anyway, nowhere is it more the case than in this songs arrangement. Musically, it feels entirely alien and also entirely familiar, with Japan’s Mick Karn barely there alongside what sound like Casiotone boss nova beats and the most heartbreaking little chiming synth arpeggio that come and go like a kitten that wakes up momentarily from its drug-induced nap. It’s 10 minutes long. I’ve had it on loop for hours without getting tired of it. I’ve wanted to make something like this for a long time now. Some day I’ll have this kind of restraint.

#11 Bonus Track!

Né Ladeiras—Cruz (Corsária, 1988)

I also know next to nothing about this Brazilian album, dedicated to Greta Garbo. I read that it was produced and arranged by Luís Cília ,who wrote a song that became a sort of second anthem for the Portuguese Communist Party. The MIDI harps sitting matter-of-factly on top of those plate-reverbed guiro, clave, bells…I want to live inside the room they build. And it’s a lovely, airy progression that never grows tiresome as it modulates in a drifting-down-the-stream sort of way. The ending lifts so high with barely a shrug’s worth of effort. Gorgeous.

[himbowelsh]

i’ll be seeing you (AO3)

AN: for @ruinsrebuilt, in your quest for more babe/julian - i hope you like it! 

When Babe opens his eyes to the sound of a soft vibration close to his ear, he startles awake immediately. In Bastogne, sleep is a commodity, and you're never too tired to be scared wide awake by the sound of artillery. If Babe has learned one thing for certain in this past week of hell, it's that humming means incoming, and incoming means get to your foxholes before you're blown to hell. It takes his muddled, exhausted mind a few seconds to recognize his surroundings. He is in his foxhole already, and that noise is too gentle, too melodic to be any type of shell.

Julian is peering across the foxhole at Babe's sudden reaction; he hasn't gone quiet. Soft humming still echoes through the still night air, and it takes Babe's face a second to settle into a scowl. "Dammit, Julian, what are you doing?" "What's it look like I'm doing?" Julian shoots back, huffing. The humming noise cuts itself off when he speaks, so there's no doubt where it came from. "I'm watching the line while you nap. What's got you jumping up like someone lit a firecracker under your ass?" Babe looks down at himself self-consciously -- he definitely hadn't jumped, and he hadn't been scared by Julian's humming, of all things. That would be stupid. It's not like he's some green replacement anymore, afraid of his own shadow -- now he's one of the ones considered a veteran of Easy, looked up to by the newer guys. It's something Babe's conscious of, and his new battle-worn reputation leaves no room for jumpiness. He draws himself up with all the self-respect he can muster, pulling his knees closer into his chest. "Just knock it off," he mutters. "Someone's liable to hear ya." "I'm not being that loud," retorts Julian defensively. "It's too quiet out here. What else am I supposed to do, listen to the wind?" "Listen for shells. Watch the line, huh?" Julian rolls his eyes before fixing them forward again. "I was," he mutters. "Ain't my fault you're so jumpy." There's a hint of a pout on Julian's lips, red and flushed from the cold. It makes him look even younger than he actually is. Babe is reminded once again that Julian is really just a kid. He talks a lot about the last birthday spent with his family back home, just before he enlisted. Christ, he's not even twenty yet, and he's still stuck in this hellhole like all the rest of them.

A tiny jolt hits Babe, something he's not quite willing to call guilt. Poking his foot from the minimal sanctuary of his blanket, he nudges his friend’s thigh.

“Hey, sing if you want. Just not too loud.”

Julian doesn't glance at him. “I was humming, not singing.”

“And it still sounded that bad?” Babe raises his eyebrows. “That's a talent.”

The bait is there and Julian takes it, just like Babe knew he would. “The hell are you talkin’ about? I'm a great singer.”

“Oh, so you were trying to be off key?”

Julian aims a swat at him. There's no room to dodge, so Babe lets his hand deflect harmlessly off his shoulder before smirking. “Come on then. Sing something.”

For a moment, there is silence. Julian’s brow furrows as he glances between Babe and the line, apparently deep in thought. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then grinds his teeth. Babe snorts.

“I can think of something, gimme a minute.”

“What were you humming before?”

Julian doesn't answer. It's hard to see in the dark, added to Bastogne’s uncanny ability to siphon every drop of color from their bodies, but when Babe leans closer he's almost sure that Julian is blushing. He elbows his friend for a reply, and the other boy turns his head away.

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”

Babe tosses back his head with a raspy laugh. “You're kidding me!”

“It's a great movie,” Julian shoots back. Babe isn't about to argue, but that doesn't keep him from giggling into his fist.

Julian remains stubbornly quiet for a few moments more, allowing Babe to have a laugh at his expense, before his lips start moving again. His voice is quiet enough that Babe he's to go dead silent to hear what his friend sings.

“Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. With our one motor gone, we can still carry on --”

“Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer…”  Babe chimes in on the last verse. His singing voice isn't much to brag about to begin with, but it's worse here -- roughened by the wind and cold, it sound almost eerie in the silence around them. Still, as it meshes with Julian’s lighter voice the other boy shoots him a smile, and Babe feels a little bit lighter.

“Okay, then. What else you got?”

Julian thinks for a moment before starting to sing again.

“Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me -- anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”

“No, don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, till I come marching home!”

Babe grins now, open and unselfconscious. Julian mirrors it with a smile of his own, looking more carefree than Babe has seen him since before they rode into the Ardennes. There's something about seeing genuine happiness on his friend’s face that makes the bite of Cold a bit more tolerable, the darkness less uncertain.

(For one second, Babe wishes he had a camera; to snap a picture of Julian, of this genuine happiness where it seems so out of place, to keep with him forever.)

“You got it,” he says instead. “I mean, you sound like a dyin’ cat, but you got it!”

Julian raises his eyebrows. “The hell d’you think you sound like?”

"I'm a fantastic singer!" Julian lets out an ugly snort. "What're you laughing at?" "You calling yourself a singer." In response, Babe aims another kick at his shoulder. Julian, the ball of winter clothing and thin blankets that he is, nearly toppled over. He only catches himself at the last moment, and shoots Babe a glower before planting his hand on the top of Babe’s head and shoving him right back. Babe is too comfortable against the wall of the foxhole to be moved, but even Julian’s brief touch is warm.

“How are your hands warm? It's freezing!”

Julian shrugs, but without Babe saying anything he shuffles closer. Babe hadn't realized how cold he was until he feels Julian’s arms wrap around him. Gloved hands press to his cheeks, and he nestles against Julian’s body to conserve what little heat there is between them. It's not the first time they've huddled together for warmth; things like this have become the normal in these woods, where the cold brings numbness and another body holds warmth much better than a blanket. Babe curls up against Julian’s side, leaning his head against his chest as the other boy rests his chin in the crown of his hair.

Babe can feel Julian’s breath, not-quite-warm against his bare face; he can see it in the air, crystallized clouds hanging for just a second before vanishing. Breath is good -- breath means that, in this moment, they're both alive.

“I used to sing,” Julian says, voice taking on that thoughtful, melancholic tone that Babe has come to know well. It's the way a soldier’s voice goes whenever he speaks of home. A life before, of a childhood he used to have; people and places and memories that are no longer real, only ghosts that persist in haunting the lonelier corners of his mind. Babe has his own phantoms; he doesn't talk about them. Julian is more open, as much as he tries to pretend he's as tough as any of them.

“In church,” he continues. “I was a choir boy. My Ma -- she used to tell me I had the voice of an angel. She sings like a screeching duck, so I don't know what she's talking about. I guess it's just that parent thing, ya know? When you have a kid, everything they do’s a miracle. Everything they touch turns to gold.”

Babe chuckles at this. His mom used to smack him and his brothers upside the head anytime they were being too loud. If his parents were ever head-over-heels for their kids’ dumb antics, it was before his time. “Lemme guess, you're the baby of the family?”

“Only child,” Julian replies, a grin in his voice that tells Babe he knows just how sweet he's had it.

“Lucky son-of-a-gun.”

“They just called you Babe for no reason? Or did you cry a lot as a kid?”

“Actually, its for my stunning good looks,” Babe retorts, and tries not to react when Julian snorts into his hair. It sends chills down his spine; Babe tries to convince himself it's just from the heat, and not the proximity of the other man next to him.

After that, Julian goes quiet, so Babe does too. He isn't sure what time it is (time in Bastogne doesn't have a lot of meaning) but the sky isn't light and no one else is running around, so he suspects it's either late at night or early in the morning. Whichever it is, he finds that he isn't tired anymore. By now his body is trained to go off of as little sleep as possible; with the threat of closing your eyes and never getting to open them again, Babe tries to keep awake as much as possible. His last memory is of it being a bit after dinner, though, so he suspects Julian has been up through most of the night watching the line while he rests.

He opens his mouth, about to tell Julian to get some sleep, when he hears that same soft voice pick up once more.

“I'll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places… that this heart of mine embraces, all day and through…”

Babe knows this song. One of those ghosts drifts through his mind: his mother stirring a pot in the kitchen, sunlight glinting off the copper of her hair as her hips swayed to the gentle melody. His mother’s low voice, filling the house with music; Babe, at the kitchen table, closing his eyes and allowing the song to wash over him. He does the same thing now, both desperate to escape the memory and unwilling to let it go. Julian’s voice is soothing in its cadence, soft as a lullaby. For a few moments, Babe allows it to wrap him up and seep warmth into his chilled body.

“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new…”

Julian’s body is pressed close, voice holding him fast; and for just a moment Babe remembers what it feels like to be warm.

What really gets Babe after they leave Julian out there isn't the fact that he's dead (people die everyday, even people who were just right next to him, breathing and whole and so alive) but that he's gone.

There's nothing left of him. They don't get his body; Babe can't collect his things and fulfill the one promise they made to each other. Babe doesn't have anything of Julian’s to hold on to. There is no photograph, no rosary, not even the memory of a last exchange of words. Babe has no clue what the last thing Julian said to him was; all he remembers is the way Julian tried to speak while lying in that snow, choking on blood but still trying to make it. Julian was a fighter. Julian wanted to live.

In the end, it didn't matter. He's just gone.

Babe gets back to his foxhole and sees Julian’s blanket, tucked up in the corner to keep it safe. He remembers Julian folding it that morning, and something in him crumpled. Nothing else is left behind, but Babe can't stay there. He leaves the foxhole without looking back.

Somehow he finds himself in the medic’s foxhole. Memories are hazy, disjointed and twisted by grief. He doesn't know how he winds up with Spina’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, Roe tucked up against his side. He doesn't know whether they speak, or if he replies. He doesn't remember much at all, except quiet.

There is no humming, no melody, no whisper of a song. There is nothing left of Julian, and Babe has nothing of him to hold on to except memories.

He imagined it's Julian’s voice lulling him to sleep, instead of just another ghost whispering out of the darkness of his mind.

“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new… I'll be looking at the moon but I'll be seeing you.”