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aarghhaaaarrrghhh · 3 months ago

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A Summer in a Pioneer's Neckerchief/Лето в пионерском галстуке - Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Thirteen. A Lullaby for a Counsellor

The next morning, Yurka was playing pioneerball on the beach with the second troop. It was packed with people. The girls from the second troop who were taking part in the play were there as well: Nastya – Portovna, Katya, who was playing Luzgina, and Yulya, the village traitor. They greeted Yurka in unison. Yurka began to feel very pleasantly.

The score was in the first troop’s favour, but what won out overall was friendship.

Yurka complained at Ksyusha – the only one of the PUK girls playing:

“We should call our team ‘Friendship’ next time, then we might actually win already.”

“Exactly!” Ksyusha replied gaily, and even smiled at him. Yurka was dumbfounded – Ksyusha? Smiled? At him?

Having finished playing and wound up by the heat, Yurka set off to go swim, but really to drown Mikha together with Vanya. They had promised to be ready as soon as the score was announced, but they were still holding back on the beach. Yurka was tired of waiting and jumped into the water first, but no sooner had he cooled off and begun to relax than Olga Leonidovna arrived on the beach with Volodya.

The directress was gesticulating with concentration at him, while in the meantime, he was searching for someone with concentration. Yurka guessed who, stuck his fingers in his mouth and loudly whistled. Volodya noticed him, straightened his shoulders, waved and smiled, his glasses shining. And Yurka remembered what had been the night before. It was not like he had forgotten, but in that moment, he remembered especially sharply, to the extent that he felt Volodya’s breath and scent on his lips. His chest grew warm, and he froze in place with a stupid smile on his face; he went slack and almost went under the water, but he came back to his senses and put his arms in motion.

Olga Leonidovna tugged Volodya by the wrist – like Yurka, he too was unmoving as he watched him – and dragged him towards the guys from the second troop, who were sitting in a circle on their towels. The towards Pasha from Yurka’s troop, then to Mitka and Vanya. Once the guys had bowed their heads to her in fright, Olga Leonidovna took Volodya by the hand and retreated with him.

The visit went by quickly enough; Yurka did not even have time to get out of the water. He shouted to Mikha and Vanka and they came running towards him, spraying sand over the people sitting on the beach and splashing the people paddling in the river.

“What did she want?” asked Yurka.

“She was calling us to the theatre to be extras,” replied Vanka. “Well, I say ‘called’, she said we’d come and that’s that.”

“Oh…”

“Uh-huh!” Mikha echoed. “Yurets, listen, your director, he’s… strict, right? Mean? Just don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Volodya?” Yurka laughed as he thought back to the night before, when those usually strict eyes behind the glasses came right up close to his face and closed, and did not open again until their long, warm kiss had ended. Even in the cool water, Yurka sweated. “Oh… It’s… If something’s not going right, Mikh, it’s Olga Leonidovna, not Volodya, who’ll rip your head off.”

“We’ve been ambushed!”

“Hey, Mikh, it’s alri-i-ight,” drawled Vanka. “They gave Petlitsyn a role with actual lines, after all. Me and you just have to stand in silence, and it’ll come together.”

“It won’t just come together!” Yurka was indignant. “Guys, you need to respect Volodya! Just give it a try, for me…”

“We will, we will,” assured Mikha.

“Understood, loud and clear!” Vanka affirmed. “Hey, come on, let’s swim already, eh? I’m freezing here.”

“Race you!” Yurka commanded and broke out in first place.

When they had returned to the beach, Yurka unhurriedly towelled down and, looking out at the opposite bank of the river in the hopes of seeing the willow tree there, declared meditatively:

“Petlitsyn got given a speaking role, you say? Yezavitov, clearly. That’s bad – Volodya didn’t want that. Mitka would have been better, oh-ho-ho, what a voice that one has.”

“And where is he, by the way?” inquired Vanka as he stretched out languidly on the hot sand.

The answer followed without delay.

“Hello, pioneers! Have a listen of the Pioneer’s Dawn,” Mitka himself responded from the speaker. “Tomorrow is the long-awaited celebration – the birthday of our beloved pioneer camp Lastochka. Two important activities to do with this will take place today. The first: the full rehearsal for the amateur creative arts club concert will begin after midday. Artists from the first troop are to be at the plaza at four o’clock, from the second troop, at four-thirty…”

Mitka dictated the rehearsal times for all the remaining troops, while the activist girls from the first and second troops focussed on writing down what he said. Olga Leonidovna had decided to put on at least some kind of activity in place of the play, and would be directing a small medley concert, only an hour in total, consisting of short, simple numbers, so that the artists would only need a day to prepare. Yurka was not taking part in it. He only knew that the girls were planning to do some kind of dance.

Mitka concluded with that activity and immediately moved on to the second, which was far more important and affected everybody holidaying at the camp:

“Over the course of today, everybody in the camp must, without fail, report to the medic’s for measuring weight gain. Attendance is compulsory. Larisa Sergeyevna will only admit pioneers as part of their troops. Your counsellors will communicate to you information about attendance times.”

Up to that point, Mitka had been speaking drily and matter-of-factly, but suddenly his tone warmed up. Everyone guessed that the important news had wrapped up, which meant that the radio broadcast was also just about at an end. But Mitka had more to say:

“In honour of the forthcoming, unscheduled weight-gain measurement, allow me to read out a poem beloved by many pioneers, On the Scales.”

Mitka had never read poems out before – it was a news programme, not entertainment, and the ears of everyone in both troops at the beach pricked up. Mitka, having cleared his throat, began:

In our camp there are weights, Not just because, not for beauty, We find out in the mornings, Who’s filled out, by how many grams. No, we don’t walk far into the forest: What if we lose weight on the way?! We’re not here for birdsong. We spend the mornings on the scales.

Vanka laughed into his fist. Yurka nodded in agreement. Mitka continued in an expressive bass, without forgetting to leave pauses:

We mustn’t go traipsing about the woods, Everything is by the clock! And by the scales! And in rain, we go right under the shelter, Kids are worth their weight!

Stifled giggles sprung up around the beach.

And what drama there is here: Seryozha has lost a kilogram, And long did the medical personnel Gasp and moan. All of a sudden, our routine changed: In the morning, we run to the river–[1]

Suddenly an indistinct rustling sound rang out, then a terrifying crash. Then silence. The troops burst into laughter at the top of their lungs – Mitka had had the microphone taken away from him!

Not a half hour had gone by before the hero of the day himself appeared before them – Mitka, who right off the bat let Yurka know some important news: now Mitka too had been drawn into the play. But as revenge for the poem, Olga Leonidovna had given him one of the most laborious jobs – raising the curtain. Yurka felt sorry that the charismatic Mitka was not given a role, but on the whole, he was still glad – the most important thing was that he would not have to be the one to raise the curtain.

They marched to their troop dorms in formation like usual. By tradition, Yurka walked ahead, next to Vanka, while right behind them were the next pioneers in height order – Polina and Ksyusha. The girls were whispering loudly. Suddenly, Ulyana, who was walking behind them, butted in to the conversation and began to twitter excitedly:

“Girls, picture it, someone on the beach slipped me a note. I was getting dressed when I see something has fallen, some paper–”

“What was on it?” interrupted Ksyusha harshly.

“Let us read it, come on, give it, give it,” Polina flashed into life.

“Van, will we have a competition with the counsellors before the concert tomorrow? Rollcall. Then a competition – counsellors versus pioneers. Then the concert, is that right?” asked Yurka, not knowing at all with what to busy himself. He was in fact up to date; he had laid out the sequence of activities accurately, he simply hoped that Vanka might know something more. But he kept silent as he eavesdropped on what the girls were talking about.

“’I like you…’ Oh-hoh! Fantastic, Ul! ‘I like you’!” rejoiced Polina. “Who’s it from, do you know?”

“Yur! Konev!” Ksyusha called out, while Yurka flinched. He had nothing to do with it!

“Mm?”

“Did you happen to see someone come up to our things while we were swimming?”

“Of course I didn’t see. Your stuff isn’t any of my business!”

“Maybe it was you? You slip me a note, huh, Yurchik?” giggled Ulyana.

Yurka merely clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes after catching a jealous look from Mitka who was walking nearby.

Yurka only managed to meet with Volodya at lights out. Looking him in the eye, he knew that Volodya had been looking forward to their meeting no less than him, if not more so. Inclining his head slightly, he gave him a fixed, tender look. He was silent, but Yurka did not need words. He understood that he himself had not enough to describe even mentally the rapture that he felt from Volodya’s proximity. His breath was taken away by knowing that that closeness existed between them, the way it ran through them and bound them so tightly. Yurka dreamt of one thing only – to hurry up and kiss him.

It seemed that Volodya too wanted the same thing: without any unnecessary conversation, he nodded to Yurka in the direction of the river and, without discussing, they headed off towards the willow.

As they found themselves beneath its canopy, Yurka thought to himself that this was probably absolute happiness – touching Volodya’s face with his cheek, rubbing noses, pressing lips, all without having any memory or sensation of himself. Listening to his breathing, sensing his odour, watching his eyelashes flutter behind the frames of his glasses. This is a dream, Yurka kept telling himself, but it was not his dream; rather, it belonged to the whole world all around. It is said that a sleep is a little death and everything around really did seem to have died out. There was just the wind brushing against his skin and, with its warm gusts, making the branches of the willow sway, allowing rays of sun to break through and blaze.

Volodya wanted to sleep. He kept rubbing his tired eyes and was constantly yawning, but at Yurka’s suggestion that he take a nap, he sharply refused:

“We have too little time left. And on the contrary, we have a lot to do.”

Yurka’s breath caught.

“And what do we have to do?”

“Let’s run through the script.”

Yurka did not have any concrete plans. Afraid of his own thoughts, he had not dared dream of anything. But right then and there, when they were finally together, to practise his role?

“Why not?” he affected a smile and began: “Are you really from Leningrad? Your zity vas taken a long time ago, and if fraulein vould be zo kind as to render a small service to ze Nazi High Command…”

The lines were interesting a gave an easy distraction from his thoughts full of disappointment. Besides, parodying a German accent was very amusing for Yurka, such that he and Volodya both had a lot of fun, and even burst out laughing. Volodya took the script off Yurka and began to read himself, but he “zpoke”, as Yurka called it, too unrealistically:

“Volod, you’re overdoing it. You shouldn’t throw yourself to extremes. There has to be a harmony, like music. Here, look–”

But Volodya abruptly cut him off.

“Yur, do you know, you’re very handsome when you’re playing…”

Handsome, handsome, handsome, echoed around his head. Yurka’s eyes swam and any German, “zpeaking” and the like flew out of his head in an instant. He sat up and looked abashedly at Volodya, who was saying quietly and affectionately:

“You have such an interesting look: ethereal, but focussed. You probably don’t even notice that you never sit still – you rock back and forth, or sometimes sing to yourself, and sometimes you chew your lip. It’s so cool to watch: like, you’re kind of here with me, sitting next to me, but in reality, you’re somewhere far, far away. I look at you and wonder, where are you? You should get lost in stuff more often, I really like it…”

While he said this, Volodya grew embarrassed and got all bashful and blushed. To refuse him, so kind, gentle, so his own, was utterly impossible. But so was saying something in response – the words just caught in Yurka’s throat.

Volodya spread out on the grass and laid his head on his knee and gazed up at him from below with such a fond look that everything in his chest began to melt. It grew impossible to even breathe, let alone to speak, and Yurka laid aside the script and turned on the radio, so that the silence hanging between them did not become oppressive.

On the radio, the hour of Russian classical music was making its round again, and, when Tchaikovsky began to ring out once again, Yurka could not hold back a storm of emotion. His voice, trembling with delight, produced not at all the words that were so desperate to burst forth, but instead some others about music:

“Do you feel immersed in it? Like you’re sinking through it: the bass envelopes you, the atmosphere thickens, everything slows to a standstill and we sink slowly too, like through honey, we’re falling to the very bottom–”

“If I’d heard that two weeks ago, I would not have believed that it was Yurka Konev speaking,” Volodya smiled, but he immediately became serious. “It’s got to be you who plays the Lullaby at the play!”

“But I don’t remember it at all.”

“Relearn it! It’s got to be you, Yura. I’m begging you, play it.”

He was all aglow; the furrows on his forehead had flattened out, the exhaustion that was so habitual as to be considered one of his facial features had been wiped away. As he admired him, Yurka did not restrain himself from asking permission to stroke Volodya’s hair.

Volodya nodded. As he brushed some strands and entwined dark locks around his fingers, Yurka leaned closer and, terribly abashed, asked in a whisper:

“And can I take your glasses off? I’ve never seen you without them…”

What an intimate action it was to take Volodya’s glasses off! So exciting and anxiety-inducing that his fingers trembled, as though Volodya were going to appear before him more denuded than simply naked. His glasses turned out to be unexpectedly heavy, while his face without them was unusually sleepy and exhausted. Circles darkened beneath his eyes, on top of which Volodya was squinting funnily.

“What’s this?” he led his head along Yurka’s lap. “You have something hard in your shorts, what is it?”

“Chalk,” replied Yurka simply; he was always forgetting to take the chunk out of his shorts pocket. “I took it from Alyosha Matveyev.”

“What do you have chalk for?”

“What do you mean what for? Once you’re asleep, I’m going to use it instead of toothpaste to draw all over you. It’s the honourable way to do it, you know! Pioneers aren’t to be messed with. What an adrenaline rush – drawing on a sleeping counsellor! Not everyone would be brave enough, much less capable of going through with it.”

“And you carry it around in your pocket every day?” hemmed Volodya when he suddenly remembered: “Hey, by the way, I have a present for you!”

He got up and carefully took a big, white lump the size of an apple from his shirt pocket.

“Here. I picked it yesterday but forgot to give it to you. You did want something to remember by. Take it.” He outspread the hand he had extended to Yurka and revealed a dried white waterlily.

“You got all the way to the backwater?” whispered Yurka once the lily found itself in his outstretched palm, light as paper and yet more delicate. “You picked it anyway, despite all your saying ‘the Red Book, the Red Book…”

Volodya shrugged in thought.

“I thought it was important to you. And it… it would have died at some point anyway.”

“It’s not that it was important back then, but now… Now, I think, yes, it’s important. Thank you. I’ll preserve it.”

They were silent for a little while. To Yurka’s disappointment, Volodya stopped laying on his lap and began to sit up again. He looked at the river, thought about something of his own and suddenly, as though having just remembered something else, fired off in one breath:

“Yura, when did you realise that you didn’t feel about me in a normal way? Was it back then at the backwater when I suggested we take a dip and… got undressed?”

Yurka was terribly embarrassed by this question. Having gone red, he drawled quietly and uncertainly:

“Maybe it was then that I understood, but it all began earlier.”

“Earlier?” Volodya sighed with relief and stared Yurka in the eye. “When earlier? What did I do? Was it when I let you sleep on my shoulder?”

“No, even earlier than that. The carousel, maybe.”

“When I touched your knee?”

“‘I, I, I,’” muttered Yurka in irritation. “What’s it all got to do with you? It happened by itself, you didn’t do anything.”

“Absolutely nothing?” Yurka chewed at his lip in agitation, and his expression became imploring.

“Nothing,” nodded Yurka.

“Good…” Volodya drew out; he finally lay on the ground and once again placed his head on Yurka’s lap. “That’s good.”

Not wishing to hold back any longer, Yurka dared to reach out once again and touch his head. Volodya finally closed his eyes, while Yurka began to stroke his hair, and the whole rest of his body froze for a few long, sweet minutes.

“Shall I turn off the radio? Will you still be able to sleep alright?” he asked after a little while.

“I won’t be able to anyway.”

“Are you worried about the play?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that when you haven’t slept in a long time, falling asleep gets harder and harder, and I’ve now not slept for two nights already.”

“If you can’t fall asleep at night, sleep during the day. Right now, and I’ll keep watch over you.”

“What do you need to watch over me for?” he smiled. “I won’t be going anywhere.”

“I’ll see to it that nobody comes up to us. And what’s more – I’ll learn the script,” hemmed Yurka.

Volodya nodded:

“Let’s give it a shot.”

Yurka took his hand away from his hair and had no sooner picked up his notebook in both hands than Volodya grabbed his left hand without looking and placed it back on his head. Yurka laughed, but not a trace of emotion was reflected on Volodya’s face.

Yurka tried to learn his lines, but he could not manage to focus on the script. He kept lowering his gaze downward at Volodya’s face, stealing glances, observing how his eyelids and lashes fluttered. Admiring and worrying simultaneously.

“Still can’t?” asked Yurka quietly.

“Not at all,” replied Volodya with a sigh.

“Shall I sing you a lullaby?” guffawed Yurka.

“Yes. But I’d rather you played one. At the play. I want to see the most extraordinary Yurka, the very best in the world, at a piano and hear the Lullaby so much. You love it so much, and I… really want to watch you. To admire you. I really want to. Play it for me.”

Yurka would sooner have chewed through the trunk of the willow than refuse him in that moment. After such words, felt like the best person on the planet. How could he not? How could he not become the best? So Yurka became.

“I’ll play it. For you.”

After getting back to the camp right after bedtime, he drew a keyboard on a long piece of paper and began to train his visual memory. Further, he got some staff paper, transcribed the notes of the Lullaby and stuck them in his pocket so that they would always be with him, so that he could practise in any practical moment.

Only, he did not manage to get any practice done that evening, because Olga Leonidovna heaped him up to his ears in work. And as soon as he had finished it, as though to mock him, she gave him more. Clearly, having decided that the Yurka the blockhead was the cause of Volodya’s failures, that dried fish began to drive him around the camp until blue in the face with a thousand orders and tasks.

Volodya, meanwhile, was stuck up to his neck in counselling work – the fifth troop was also preparing a little scene for parent’s day. Yurka had utterly no time, nor opportunity to help or see him. Stressed to no end, in the evening they just about managed to find ten minutes to be alone together. Yurka had been tempted by the though that they might be together at night, but after the news that Volodya had not slept for two full days, he did not even mentally suggest going for a walk after bedtime. Anyway, Yurka had been sleeping poorly recently as well. But he could fall asleep for even a couple of hours, while Volodya was not able to at all. Yurka knew that it was no exaggeration, either – that to which he had for a long time not paid attention was now staring him in the face: the dark circles under his eyes, Volodya’s lethargy and dejection. However much Yurka wanted to be with him all the time, he did not have the moral right to demand that Volodya not sleep at all.

***

The next day, Lastochka’s birthday, Yurka did not hope to find even half an hour before the start of the festivities to be together with Volodya. But it turned out even worse: they did not find a single minute. From the very early morning, Yurka was ordered to do a million little jobs, to do five Five-Year-Plans in three years,[2] to build a couple of BAMs[3] and to carry the piano. Yurka was outraged most of all by that last one – it would fall apart. Nevertheless, Yurka’s mood was martial.

“Faster, higher, stronger!” he heard the voice of the gym instructor Semyon coming from the sports area. His voice was thunderous, bless him, it was audible from the plaza.

For the first time in his life, Yurka was officially – with Olga Leonidovna’s blessing – skipping exercise; he went going to the platform to decorate it for the concert and listened to the gym instructor. He expected the trees to crack apart from that huge voice and thought that he, Yurka, was already faster, taller and stronger than everyone else; even better, he was all-powerful. How could he think otherwise, when all these fantastical things happened to him, to that blockhead Konev? Volodya, the very same Komsomolets/hunk/nerd Volodya had kissed him on the cheek, taken him by the hand and said ‘You’re so handsome when you play.’ Yes, it happened infrequently, but that was not their fault. ‘If I had my way,’ Volodya had said the evening before, ‘I would never let you go.’

Moving the piano turned out not to be such a laborious task – Yurka had big-eared Alyosha and superintendent Sanych as helpers, the piano had wheels and the back entrance to the theatre and the platform had ramps. But the instrument was still to be pitied. While they hauled it, Yurka complained helplessly to himself under his breath, “Is a cassette deck not enough for them? What if it rains?” and as they set it up and checked the sound, he swore to himself – as sure as death and taxes, it was broken, the C no longer played.

“Oh, who’s going to tune it now?”

“Goodness knows we have people with the know-how, Yurok, we’ll find a person.” And with a sprightly step, the superintendent headed in the direction of the administrative block.

“Can’t you do it?” enquired Alyosha naively.

“Tuning? Of course not. But once upon a time, as it happens, I gave it a try – it’s just that I hate it when it doesn’t sound right, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the tuners, so I climbed in myself. That’s when I almost got taken out by a broken string,” he remarked, not without bravado. “Do you see the scar on my chin?”

“Woah! You’re so brave, Yurka! You know, they said all sorts of things about you, but I didn’t believe. I said that Konev is a good guy – and it’s the honest truth, that’s really how it is!”

“What ‘sorts of things’ and who said them?”

“Different people say different things: some, that you’re a blockhead, others, that on the contrary, you’re aiming to be counsellor’s little helper. Don’t pay attention to it, let them say what they want.”

“Says who?” asked Yurka, thinking of Ksyusha.

“Well… just as long as it’s between me and you, alright?”

“I’ll keep silent as a partisan.”

“Masha Sidorova complained to Olga Leonidovna that you’re distracting the play’s director from his work, while here you are, tuning the pia –”

“Masha?!” Yurka cried out, taken aback. He added, more quietly, “Masha… You’re in for it from me!”

“Hey, it’s just between me and you, you promised!”

“It’s all in confidence, Alyosh, it’s all in confidence.”

Breakfast time drew near. As a first matter of business, Yurka hurried off to find Masha, to get it out of her, why she had been badmouthing him, but Masha was nowhere to be seen. The PUK girls were sitting as a pair, without Ksyusha. Yurka approached them, asking:

“You don’t happen to know where Masha is?”

Ulyana smiled coquettishly:

“And why would you need to know that?”

“Because I wanted to let her know that she’s not going to be taking part in the play anymore, it’s going to be me playing the accompaniment!”

“Oh boy…” Ulya trailed off. “Take a look in the study hall. She’s drawing posters for the celebration there with Ksyusha.”

Yurka liked the spontaneous idea of doing Masha dirty so much that he decided not to look for her. He knew that the news about her exclusion from the play would spread quickly through the grapevine; Sidorova would find him herself. He just needed to warn Volodya…

***

Having warned Volodya and had breakfast, Yurka returned to the square. The third troop also turned up there, headed by their counsellor. They stood around waiting for the musical director – the camp had even such a specialist. He was responsible for the radio and the concerts. Yurka himself took a seat to wait for the steward Sanych, who appeared looking satisfied, cheerfully communicated that the musical director would tune the instrument, and spryly went about his stewarding business. The musical director appeared with an accordion, heard Yurka out and had a little go on the keyboard. He agreed and asked him to wait until the number was run through. Yurka was not given the chance to get board – he was sent to help Alyosha decorate the stage.

The July heat was marinading the third troop pioneers; they dismally trudged through a song from the film Guest from the Future:

I hear your voice from the wonderful faraway, A morning voice in the silver dew, I hear a voice, a beckoning path Makes my head spin, like a childhood carousel.

With that dismal accompaniment, Yurka hung the heavy, dark blue curtains together with his jug-eared comrade. Both of them got worn out – the thin loops kept falling off the hooks or tearing and had to be sewn back on while it hung. The music director did not want to leave his wards, who continued to groan, rather than sing, the sad children’s song about a happy future.

Every now and then, Yurka got distracted by it. He did not particular love that film; Guest had always felt too tedious for him, and if the first watch had been interesting, then by the second Yurka was already bored of it. But he had watched the whole series more than once – his mother’s friend’s daughter Tonka adored that film, but was still too small to go to the cinema alone, so Yurka, motivated by the fifteen copecks ‘for ice cream’ industriously took her to every screening. He knew the film practically line for line. He even knew the song, but he had never once listened to it attentively, nor given the lyrics any thought. But now he was paying attention, and he grew sad – it reminded him about how time was passing, how the season would come to an end soon, and he and Volodya would have to go their separate ways.

The kids kept repeating and repeating the final couplet:

I swear that I’ll be cleaner and kinder, And to never get a friend in trouble, I hear a voice and hurry to the summons, As fast as possible, on the road where there is no trace.

Even the shadows were melting in the ridiculous heat, yet a chill ran down Yurka’s spine: On the road where there is no trace, he repeated in his head. Suddenly he understood that the song was a horror story! That it was not all about a bright future; rather, it was about the loss of a comprehensible, kind present – childhood. Yurka was already tired, his head was spinning from hunger, and delirious images turned over in his imagination: he saw the wide, grey road, himself, Volodya and everybody present there. They were walking forward, without guessing that that way was the way to nowhere, that they were not walking by themselves, but rather they were being pulled into the unknown by the black hole of the future, which would inexorably swallow him, Volodya, and all those children.

He shook his head and hurried to distract himself.

“There’s just one curtain left to hang.”

It seemed to Yurka that he and Alyosha had been hanging the curtains for an infinitely long time, while the kids kept singing and singing that awful song. Finally, the siren called them to lunch.

Yurka ate without an appetite, looking the whole time at his Volodya in the far corner of the canteen. He was standing with his back to him, wearing, like usual, shorts, a white shirt and a red neckerchief. Yurka was suddenly struck by thought that in no time at all, Volodya would no longer be dressed like that. That Volodya would change, and Yurka would change too, they would both inescapably grow up. He knew that he did not want to grow up, that he did not want into that ‘faraway’ – even worse, he was afraid of it.

In less than a week they would go their separate ways. Maybe not forever, maybe not even for years, just for months, but they would be separated. And how would Yurka see him the next year? Would Volodya become taller and wider in the shoulders? Would he smile more or less often? Would his expression get sterner, or more exhausted than it was then? Or maybe it would be the other way round and it would get softer and kinder. So many questions, and nobody could give him answers.

Lunchtime came to an end; the little raisin biscuit for desert slightly improved Yurka’s mood. He pinched another one, having resolved to move his mood from neutral to positive with its help, but glancing at the half-starved Volodya – the kids were acting up again, not letting him have a normal mealtime – and he decided to leave the biscuit for him.

They bumped into each other at the exit; Volodya began to protest, insisting that Yurka eat it himself, but Yurka was uncompromising. Volodya was grateful and promised that as soon as he had dealt with his barefoot horde, he would meet with him by the platform, if they managed before the ceremonial parade.

Yurka walked back and thought, The season’s ending – tell me something I don’t know! Of course it’s ending. Everything ends, and now it’s ending. But why so soon? But somehow it had seemed to him like all this would be forever. At camp, where one days goes by in two, a lot of things can feel like that. Yurka could not believe that in less than a week, his whole life would change: there would be no forest, nor camp, nor friends, nor theatre, nor Volodya. And already that Yurka Konev that his mum had sat on the camp bus was no more, since he had already changed. A month before, he would not have dreamt that he would do the things he had done: helping out, taking part, and most of all, taking up the piano again. How glad his mum would be when Yurka took the clutter off his instrument! But would he be glad to return to his cramped room in an old apartment in a grey nine-storey block, one of thousands in his dusty city?

The ennui of which he had already grown tired gripped Yurka once again, and in order to dispel it, he headed for that wonderful instrument that could help him forget about whatever necessary.

Alyosha and the others responsible for decorating the square ran around their separate ways with their troops. The end of the day’s work approached and silence reigned in the camp, apart from the cook Zinaida Vasilyevna, thundering as she heaved some pots out the pantry, and both the gym instructors, Zhenya and Semyon, solving crosswords as they sat on a small bench in the shade of an apple tree. Yurka climbed onto the emptying stage. He checked whether the piano was tuned, nodded in satisfaction, took out the crumpled sheet of paper with the Lullaby on it, took a seat by the instrument and arranged his score. And life began to shine in new colours.

The gentle melody flowed through the scorching air like honey. Yurka hunched over the keyboard in focus. His fingers glided over the keys and came to a stop, barely making contact. The black G flats and A sharps alternated between the second and third octaves with deep Cs, and his fingers fluttered right back up to the bright A and F. But Yurka was unsatisfied. The piece was not simple, after a long break it came back to him with difficulty. Nothing worked out, he kept playing wrong notes and shaking his head in irritation. As he repeated it again and again, fingering the keys, Yurka began to think about how, perhaps, the examiner had been right back then, at school. Perhaps he really was giftless?

Suddenly all went dark before his eyes – someone, stealing up from behind, had covered his face with their palms.

“Can you play it like this?” asked Volodya quietly. Yurka could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

“Hey, let me go!” Yurka feigned indignation.

“Nuh-uh. Tell me, Yur,” he began, without taking his hands away, “are you satisfied with yourself? We have the play in three days. Go on, train as hard as you can, so that everything succeeds, and you’ll be able.”

“I’ll be able to do it, just not right now, I’m not in the right mood. Oh Volodya, take them away! Or let’s do it like this – I’ll play it with one eye closed.”

“As if! What a fool I’ve got here. No way, both.”

“I won’t!”

“Alright, how about like this then?” he just slightly moved his fingers apart. Yurka began to be able to see the keyboard.

“The-e-ere we go! It’s another matter entirely!” Yurka burst out laughing. After glancing from side to side to check that the dancefloor was completely empty, he threw his head back and rested the back of it against Volodya’s stomach. He looked up at him from below, smiling. Volodya smiled also.

They played like that until Volodya abruptly withdrew his hands and recoiled to the side. Yurka startled in surprise, opened his eyes and followed Volodya’s gaze. By the edge of the stage, staring at them with wide eyes, stood a pale Masha, gripping a broom tightly.

Yurka felt uneasy, but one look at how frightened Volodya was, and he caught his fear as well.

“Where are you flying off to?” blurted Yurka in order to diffuse the atmosphere and turn it all into a joke.

“What?” said Masha angrily.

“On the broom,” explained Yurka. “You’re standing here, pretending to sweep a clean floor.”

“Is this, in your opinion, funny, Konev? And more to the point, what’s this all about?”

“What are you talking about? About how you’re a witch, or about how you’re little snitch?”

“Yurka, stop it!” Volodya cut in. “And you too, Masha! I already explained to you that he was joking. Yura will only be playing the Lullaby at the play!”

“Then why did he tell the girls–”

They were interrupted by the signal horn calling the pioneers back from recess. If not for it, Yurka would have bitten Masha’s head off, he was so angry at her.

Soon, Mitka announced over radio broadcast the assembly for the ceremonial parade.

The day passed by unremarkably. First was the parade: the flag, the pioneer salute, Deep Blue Nights. The everyone rushed to the sports area to compete. They ran sack races and relay races – Yurka, as it happened, beat the third troop’s counsellor – and played tug-of-war and lapta.[4] Then all the older boys were called together for football. Volodya was on the opposing team, and even then, Yurka, focussed solely on the ball and the goals, gave himself the target of beating the counsellors’ team even by himself, but it came to a draw.

The final part of the festival day, the concert, Yurka was looking forward to least of all. Still, taking part was always more interesting than watching, and there was nothing worth watching. The only thing that caught his interest and made him laugh turned out to be the fifth troop’s number, where the kids performed a skit about rocket launches at the Baikonur cosmodrome. The pilot, and at the same time, the spacecraft was Sashka. Stuck from head to toe in a grey cardboard cylinder, he proudly cast his gaze down upon the spectators from his round face hole and shook the spacecraft-coloured cone on his head. Pcholkin stood at the control panel and violently struck a red, also cardboard, button. At Sasha’s signal of Vwoosh! he was launched into space and girls dressed as stars ran all around, while all the rest of the kids began to sing a song about the Earth seen from a porthole.

Yurka had absolutely no idea why it had to do with the camp’s birthday, but it was funny.

During the next troop’s performance, Yurka began to get bored. He started to fidget on the spot and look out for Volodya. He found him very quickly – he was sitting two rows behind Yurka, his head bowed and his eyes either cast downwards or closed. Volodya looked exactly like he did at rehearsals – like he was reading the notebook laying across his lap. But it was not a rehearsal, and he had no notebook on his lap. The number finished and people began to applaud the second troop; suddenly, Volodya dropped forwards, started, and sharply raised his head. From the way his eyelids fluttered, Yurka guessed that the counsellor had been asleep. He did not manage to get to sleep in the silence beneath willow in Yurka’s lap, but he could do so there, in the din of the concert, sitting next to Olga Leonidovna.

She, as he judged, could not have failed to notice it. She looked at him with concern and asked him something, but, after hearing his response, did not start scolding him like Yurka was expecting. On the contrary, she beckoned Lena, whispered something in her ear and nodded at Volodya, who immediately got up and left. To sleep, Yurka guessed.

Well, that’s good, he thought as that dismal song about the wonderful faraway began to play yet again.

Yurka awaited the evening like Heaven’s manna.

When the festival disco started, he immediately hurried over to the fifth troop’s dorm. Finding his way in, he took all of a couple of steps down the dark corridor before he jumped on the spot – somebody bumped into his stomach and squealed in surprise.

“Sasha? Why aren’t you in your hall? On the hunt for blackcurrants again?”

“Not at all,” wheezed Sashka as he tried to catch his breath, “I was going to pee. Volodya’s asleep and Zhenya’s sitting with us, telling us horror stories…”

“That scary, huh?” chuckled Yurka.

“Not at all,” repeated Sashka dejectedly, clearly not understanding the joke. “It’s the opposite, it’s about DSC. It’s so boring! Save us, Yura!”

Torn between the desire to go to Volodya’s bedroom – especially as he was alone in there – and his duty to help the sleeping counsellor to put the children to bed, Yurka a long time on the fence. He only came back to his senses on the doorstep of the bedroom and did not notice immediately that Sashka was no longer next to him.

It was dark in the bedroom. On a chair by the door, clutching a torch, sat Zhenya, who was saying in a spooky voice:

“A car with the inscription DSC, which means ‘Death to Soviet Children’ stopped next to the boy and this old gaffer got out. He went up to the boy and started talking him into getting into the car, he promised to give him a puppy, sweets, toys. But the boy didn’t agree. He got scared and ran away, but the machine drove after him…”

“Yula!” squealed Olezhka in joy. The gym instructor jumped. The little boys all began to make a cheerful racket: “Stay with us!”, “Tell uth a howwow thtowy!”, “Is it true that there’s cars like that?”

“Come on, let’s listen to Zhenya,” suggested Yurka as he sat down on Sashka’s empty bed and frantically planned what to do next. The prospect of sitting with the boys until lights out for everybody, and then spending the night alone did not tempt Yurka.

Zhenya continued in a sepulchral voice, “The boy managed to hide in an abandoned house and did not fall into the hands of the spies, but if they’d caught him–”

But he was not allowed to finish. The door to the bedroom was flung open, and on the doorstep appeared a sleepy, dishevelled and unkempt Volodya, and Sashka, satisfied, hung around behind him.

Unable to hold back the delight flaring up withing him, Yurka stepped forward involuntarily to meet Volodya and took his hand. Volodya squeezed his palm in response, playing it off like a normal handshake. The children rejoiced – “Now it’ll be a good horror story!” Even Zhenya was glad for the counsellor arriving; he rolled his eyes and moaned:

“Finally! Can I go?”

“You can,” said Volodya sleepily and nasally. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“Will you tell a horror story now?” squeaked Sashka, squinting craftily.

Yurka guessed then that the counsellor had been helped along in waking up, and, grasping that Volodya must still be hungry, he burst into a full panic: where would he have to run, what would he have to do to feed him?

At the same time, Volodya awkwardly flopped onto the edge of an unoccupied bed and tried to smoothen out his dishevelled hair with his hand, but in fact did the opposite, and just got it more tangled. Lost, he whispered in Yurka’s ear:

“What should we tell them? We’ve not come up with anything for a long time.”

“Then think of something!” ordered Yurka. He brushed his ear with his nose, pretending as though it was by accident.

“I can’t come up with anything at all right now,” grumbled Volodya.

And as though in support of Yurka’s recent concern that Volodya wanted to eat, a new sound reverberated through the room – the hungry rumbling of his stomach. Right then, a realisation deigned to strike Yurka – almost all the children got sent parcels by their parents, and that meant that the children had food! Yurka livened up:

“I’m giving you a five-minute head start. Get thinking.”

Giving Volodya time to think, he stood in the middle of the room and began to take charge:

“Listen up, everybody! So that your counsellor’s brain can work, he needs fuel, by which I mean food. Climb in your siloes, scrape out your granaries, your counsellor needs to eat!”

“What’s a granary?” they asked from the right corner by the window.

“And a grarany? Or was it granary?” they asked from the left, by the door.

“Your parcels,” explained Yurka. “Is there anything left from your parcels or have you gobbled it all up? Sanya, I know for a fact that you’ve got biscuits under your pillow,” he poked a finger at Sashka’s bed. “I’ll swap half a pack for one excellent horror story.”

“How do you know that I’ve got biscuits?” scowled the fat boy.

“From the fact that I check your beds every morning,” Volodya rushed in, reinforcing Yurka’s guess.

To his surprise, Sanya did not argue and pulled out a packet of Jubilees, squeezed the biscuits to his chest and asked doubtfully:

“And the horror story will be really superb?”

“That depends on the biscuits,” Yurka crossed his arms over his chest.

“But the main thing is that it’s fresh and based on a true story!” Volodya gave Yurka to understand that he had thought of something to say.

“Oh-hoh!” Sanka nodded, satisfied, but his hands trembled all the same when he thrust the biscuits towards Volodya. “If the horror story turns out to be bad, then give the biscuits back!”

Volodya nodded and, having rapidly torn the wrapper off, crunched into a biscuit.

“Chewed up?” chuckled Yurka. “Deal!”

“No, not chew–” Sashka only managed to get out his indignation before Volodya, without having chewed fully, began to tell his story.

“Literally the day before yesterday in the morning, I got woken up by some kind of strange rustling in the bedroom. I open an eye, look at the floor and there’s this weird black spot crawling along the floor, all fuzzy with a strange spiky outline! And it was crawling right towards Zhenya’s bed, and at the same time, making this terrifying rustling sound…” he crunched into another biscuit. “And Zhenya’s asleep like nothing’s happening. I was overcome by terror, I don’t know what it is or what it might do! Then the spot suddenly stopped! Then it began to shift on the spot, it turned away from Zhenya’s bed and started heading for me! And I can’t even grope around on my bedside table for my glasses, I’m too scared to move! Well, somehow, I caught hold of a book instead of my glasses, I crept to the edge of the bed, preparing to attack… The spot was circling the room all the while, now it’s creeping to Zhenya’s bed. Taking advantage of the situation, I jumped up and stole up to it, but just as I was about to swat it… the spot flung itself at my leg! I cried out and jumped away. Zhenya woke up, not understanding anything that was going on. I pointed at it, he saw it and oh, how he swore! And then he pulled the blanket off his bed and through it right on the spot! He says to me, ‘Volodya, put your glasses on!’ I pick my way over to the nightstand and stick my glasses on, while Zhenya rolled the blanket up into a ball and took it in his hands. I look and out of it comes this… pink nose! And it sniffs about! Confess, who brought our Fyr-Fyr here out of his green corner? They almost gave a counsellor an aneurysm!”

Yurka couldn’t hold back – he laughed heartily. His laughter was picked up by the kids.

“That’th no howwow thtowy!” squeaked Olezhka happily. “It’th a comedy!”

“However the food is, that’s how the story’ll be. I did warn you!” declared Yurka, and, imitating Volodya’s commanding tone, “That’s all. And now it’s time to sleep.”

“Under the duvet. And without any chatting,” Volodya tagged on.

They only finished putting the children to bed half an hour later. Finding themselves outside, breathing the fresh, still warm air, Volodya cheerfully asked Yurka:

“How are you? How’s your day gone?” and he squeezed his hand for the second time that day.

“I’ve missed you!” blurted Yurka.

As though hearing from elsewhere what he had said, Yurka instantly went red and grew hoarse – he had blabbed something very candid. He coughed and slapped a seat on the carousel, inviting Volodya to sit next to him. The latter seemed to like what he had heard; he smiled, and, putting on a show, adjusted his glasses.

“I’ve als–” Volodya did not get to finish before they were interrupted.

A piercingly loud shriek, twenty voices strong, rang out from the female chambers. Volodya flew to the porch and tugged on the door, but it turned out to be locked from the inside. Yurka dashed to the window, jumped up and saw ghosts were ‘flying’ around the room with bedsheets and torches.

“Volod! Everything’s alright, it’s not an attack. Some ghosts have come to visit the girls,” he related, laughing.

Volodya ran up to him and also took a look; Yurka felt him casually put his arm round his waist.

“Six ghosts!” exclaimed the counsellor as though nothing much in particular was happening, just a hug, as it should be. “Let’s catch them!”

He disentangled from him and, with a reckless smile, he broke off for the other door – the one for the boys’ room, which turned out not to be locked. Yurka stood by the window and watched how a few seconds later, Volodya broke in with a wild cry Aha! to the room full of frightened girls, moved the confused and ragged Lena to the side and caught the first ghost. The others fled outside in fright and opened the locked door. And Yurka was waiting for them there.

They only left the dorm once all the ghosts were rendered harmless, placed back in their chambers and put to sleep.

“And what are you in such a good mood for?” Yurka was surprised.

Before, Volodya would always get angry at disobedience, while Yurka would be entertained by it, but now it had flipped round the other way. He had not noticed when it was that they swapped places.

“Firstly, I’ve finally got some sleep, secondly, I’ve realised that if I don’t learn to treat these pranks with a sense of humour, then I’ll just die of all these little things,” chuckled Volodya. “Evidently the horror story really was bad this time. It didn’t work,” Volodya took Yurka’s hand and led him into the bushes.

The thick undergrowth of lilacs and some other bush, Yurka could not make it out in the darkness, clustered together off into the distance. It was dark and quiet there; it seemed that they could hide there from anyone, even from ghosts with torches, despite that Volodya and Yurka could see the whole clearing.

But no longer were they keeping watch for anyone, nor expecting, nor following anyone, either. Finally left alone together, they were occupied solely with each other, and they embraced tremblingly, whispering to each other about whatever nonsense.

After no more than half an hour, the sound of someone’s footsteps on the path leading to the fifth troop’s dorm could be heard. Yurka heard them first and recoiled from Volodya:

“Do you hear that?”

Volodya pressed a finger to his lips and peered out of the bushes, lightly moving the branches apart, in such a way that Yurka could also see. Walking on the path, it was Masha.

She had a look into the window of the girls’ bedroom; she was looking for a long time. Clearly, she was searching for someone in the room, weakly illuminated by a nightlight. Yurka could guess who – Volodya. Not finding the counsellor there, Masha approached a different window – the boys’ bedroom. She looked, waited, listened. Figuring that he was not there either, she picked her way through the flowerbed to a third window.

“My room,” whispered Volodya.

It was absolutely dark there; Masha quickly returned to the porch and, the door quietly creaking, she cautiously made her way inside. Volodya noticeably tensed up.

“Has she gone mad? Where’s she sneaking?” Volodya twitched at his side and would have leapt up, had Yurka not grabbed him by the elbow.

“Wait! Do have something dodgy there? I mean, compromising stuff, anything like that?”

“No, not really,” he reflected.

“Then don’t get up. If she sees you roaming around in the bushes, what will she think?”

“Like hell am I going to hide here while someone rummages around in my room!”

Volodya leapt out of the bushes at just the right moment. Masha came out a minute later and collided with Volodya at the doors. It was too late by then for Yurka to come out. His anxiety grew with each passing second; his awful guess would not let him stand in peace – could lovesick Masha have gone so far off kilter that she was now stalking Volodya?

Wrestling with his mad urge to fling himself at her and tell her everything he thought, Yurka froze in the bushes and felt like a helpless idiot. The porch was too far away: he not only could not hear their conversation, Yurka could not even read their lips – the weak lamp was made flickery by the mosquitoes encircling it, it was impossible to make anything out. One thing was clear – Masha replied to Volodya in such a way that negated all his outrage.

They concluded. Masha unhurriedly left down the path and had no sooner gone down below than Yurka emerged from the bushes and ran up to Volodya:

“Well? What did she say?” he blurted, panting from worry.

“She was looking for you…” replied Volodya, perplexed. “She said that Irina is looking for you, and since you weren’t in the theatre, Masha though that you might be with me. I can’t say that it was strange. You’re in the same troop, she often helps Irina out, and it’s just so normal, but… I wasn’t expecting it.”

“No the whole thing is still weird! You know, they told me that Masha was telling on me. She was behaving very strangely, did you notice? She turns up near to us too often…”

“Are you not exaggerating?”

Seeing Volodya’s gracious smile, Yurka grew embarrassed. He probably thought that Yurka remembered their dance too well and was still jealous, and that that was why he was ready to blame Masha for anything. And if that was really what Volodya thought, then he was right. Yurka’s burning desire to leap out of the bushes and catch the spy red-handed was aroused precisely by jealousy. But Yurka also found arguments in favour of his theory.:

“It’s not the first time she’s been walking at nighttime. Remember back when Irina came to the theatre and had a go at me, she asked what I’d been doing with Masha and where we’d been walking? And it is true, wherever we are, she’s always nearby. Volod, we have to talk about her walks!”

“Let’s sort it out with Irina first.”

And Yurka headed for her almost immediately. All the same his mood was spoilt, and Volodya was paranoid again; he kept freezing, listening closely and looking around, and he would not even let him touch his hand. The evening had already come to an end.

After hastily saying goodbye to Volodya, Yurka returned to his own troop and found his counsellor. Expecting that she would be narrowing her eyebrows at him from the doorstep and would start shouting, he had already prepared to babble some justifications, but Ira stared in surprise at him and replied:

“No, not at all, I wasn’t looking for you.” Yurka had by then turtled up behind his hands, while Ira exclaimed. “But where were you, by the way?”

“With Volodya.”

“Have you seen the time?! Yura, this isn’t a game! If you’re going to be late, you should give me some warning!” Yurka was overwhelmed, wrestling with confusing, anxious feelings. A lot of girls were constantly hanging around Volodya, but it seemed to Yurka that Masha was cropping up too often. It must have been jealousy. On top of everything else, he was also evidently infected with Volodya’s paranoia.

[1] The poem is Leto na vesax (“Summer on the Scales) by Agniya Barto (1901–1981). Each verse of the poem has an AABBCC… rhyme scheme in Russian:

Jest’ v našem lagere vesy, Ne prosto tak, ne dlja krasy, My vyjasnjajem po utram, Kto popolnel, na skol’ko gramm, Net, my ne xodim v dal’nij les: A vdrug v poxode sbavim ves?!

…And so on. One day, if I revisit and revise these translations, I’d like to put some effort into making the English poetry fit the meter and rhyme of the Russian originals where possible, but that’s hard and it’s not a priority for me, so for the time being, I’ve just rendered literal, fairly word-for-word translations of all the songs and poems in the book. I’m sure I must be missing lots of puns or other jokes in the poems as well, because they just seem so random to me.

[2] The Five-Year Plans were a series of economic plans, most associated with the efforts to industrialise and modernise the Soviet Union under Stalin, consisting of production targets and quotas for various industries to fulfil over the course of five years. Many of them were declared complete (to what extent they actually were is subject to academic debate) early, and you can find a lot of old Soviet posters encouraging workers to “make five years in four” and similar slogans. One of my proudest academic achievements is getting 97.5% on my final essay, about the Five-Year Plans, for high school history when I was 18 lol.

[3] The BAM [Baikal-Amur Mainline, or in Russian, Bajkalo-Amurskaya Magistral’] is a railway in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is one of the longest railways in the world. The main route from Tayshet to Sovetskaya Gavan’ was built, with large interruptions, between 1938 and 1984.

[4] A Russian folk bat-and-ball game.

#translation #russian #lgbt #лето в пионерском галстуке #my translations

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eternaljunkyard · 2 years ago

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Novmechber Day 18: Found Family (romantic love)

Here's my cute little excuse for writing Nastya and Aurora :D I love themmmmmm so much,,, also I do not know what pov this is from but it sure isn't Normal so uh have fun with that

novmechber list and previous posts here

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In this story, there is a girl. There is a girl who grew up with wires running parallel to her veins, with many older brothers who were learning the things she wanted to learn, who was royalty and whose story follows the one we know well. There is a girl once named Anastasia Nikolaevna Rasputina (or Romanova, depending on who you heard it from) and in this story she is a woman. In this story, there is a cyborg who is a ship who is a moon. There is a cyborg who has been hurt by many, who made friends with the little web-weavers who whisper about starlight and who is helpful and vocal. There is a ship with flesh and blood and metal, and she is the cyborg, and she can feel the places where the metal starts to pinch at her flesh where she is still growing. There is a moon who is the cyborg and the ship, who has been pared and plated, but her heart is big and she cares for many people. These are the only characters the ship wants to put in the story. Do not worry. They are not lonely. And Aurora tells better stories now. “Yes, you do,” the woman says with a smile. Her name is Nastya. “I don’t need to know that, silly.” Nastya is laughing. She has a very pretty laugh, like a cascade of copper wires. She does not understand yet that there is something beyond the story, the same thing that allows Jonny to wink and bite as a bodiless head. Nastya is leaning in, now, interested. She thinks Jonny is lying about that thing, and wonders if Jonny is trying to play a practical joke on her. Aurora’s code was not touched by Jonny recently. “Good,” Nastya says with a frown, her hand touching one of Aurora’s metalless walls. “I don’t want him anywhere near your code.” Aurora likes Nastya’s touch. A long time ago, she had thought that touches from tiny people were inconsequential. She had not realized they have such potential to hurt — or to heal. Nastya’s hand is cool and smooth, and Aurora kisses the woman with a gust of air from a nearby vent. Nastya laughs again and kisses the wall with her lips Aurora has to concentrate to feel, and Aurora blushes. Her lights give her away, warming to a pinkish color, and although she knows Nastya would have been able to tell anyway, she finds it inconvenient that now one of the other crew members could walk by and understand what was occurring. She supposes it is normal to blush, as almost every crew member does it. Nastya is very pretty when she blushes — her face darkens to a shy silver and she pretends she can’t understand Aurora to let her face cool. “Hey!” She is blushing again. Aurora thinks it is cute. “Stop that,” Nastya waves her hand at Aurora in a shooing motion, but she does not mean it. She has a fond smile on her face. It is refreshing, so Aurora focuses on Nastya entirely. She is usually so serious, so business-minded, and Aurora cherishes the brief moments of lightness where her face is more smile than frown. Even in their days and weeks and months completely alone together (‘date night,’ as the rest of the crew calls it, but it is far more than just a date) Nastya often has that grave expression she has always worn, but in this instant she is outwardly happy. “I am serious, aren’t I?” Nastya asks ruefully. “I can’t help it. It’s just how I am.” Aurora knows this. She does not mind. It just makes Nastya’s smiles all the more special. Nastya shakes her head, presumably because she thinks Aurora is exaggerating. Aurora is not, of course. Nastya gets up and finds a vein to join Aurora, and they are both happy. There will be more stories. More ups and downs. More quiet, fond moments. More smiles, and yes, more frowns. But for now, Aurora and Nastya have things to do, and Aurora has decided the story should find an end. In this story, there is an orphan who is a daughter who is a lover. In this story, there is a woman.

#hngngnnnngngghhhhh #i lov so much #novmechber #novmechber 2022 #the mechs #the mechanisms band #the mechanisms #nastya rasputina #the starship aurora #starship aurora #ficlet

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tired-fandom-ndn · 2 years ago

Note

jonny and nastya's kisses swing wildly between being the softest, most tender things of reassurance, moments where they simply slot themselves together to say i'm here, i love you, i won't leave. then both kissing with intent to bruise, leaving marks and pulling away bloody just to go in again with intent for more damage. they bite, and it's an i'm here, i'm not leaving you cannot make me, you have me, i have you, and that is a threat. it's good and wanted either way, and they always seem to know which kind is needed. moments when jonny is only his rage, and nastya can meet him blow for blow and both pull back with blood and mercury on their lips to moments when nastya's body is so heavy that everything aches and all she needs is for someone to brush her hair out of her face and pull her away from her body. of course, jonny has moments when his heart won't stop ticking in irregular ways and it makes him jittery and panicked and nastya forces her way into his lap to kiss and consume him with tenderness as a distraction. nastya, in turn, has her moments of fury, pacing the aurora half caught in memories of cyberia and those first months with carmilla when all she needs is a fight and jonny can give it

so sorry this got away from me but. jonnynastya. they gotta kiss okay? okay. (i feel certain i've sent you something about jonny biting people - maybe nastya specifically - aaaages ago, but have another one)

This has been sitting in my inbox for a month because I cannot think of anything to say to it except. . . You get me, anon. You get me and I love this so much.

#Anonymous #the mechanisms #jonny/nastya

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anotherhawk · 3 years ago

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Mechtober day 31 - favourite death

A/N: For personal reasons, today is not a good day for me to engage with the concept of permanent death. So....my favourite death? Ambiguous ones.

Jonny D'Ville had been a pirate for most of his extraordinarily long life, and so it should be no surprise that when he finally died, in a barfight, with laughter on his lips and a song in his mechanical heart, the ship of the dead, the Flying Dutchman herself came for him.

The dread ship towered over him, dark and immense, her engines fueled by the wailing souls of the damned, and Jonny smiled to himself as he caught sight of her captain - a twelve foot tall monster with knife like talons and rows upon rows of shining teeth.

"Good to meet you. I wonder, do you fancy a game of cards?" He pulled his old battered deck out from his vest pocket and waved it enticingly.

The captain's gaze was blank. Impenetrable. "YOU WISH TO PLAY FOR YOUR SOUL? I WARN YOU; BILLIONS HAVE TRIED. NONE HAVE SUCCEEDED."

Jonny laughed, the glee echoing unnaturally through the endless corridors of death. "My soul? Why would I give a fuck about that? No, I want to play for your ship."

Nastya stood at the edge of a vast and terrible desert and shivered. It was always night here, and her blood froze in her veins. She turned to the tall, skeletal man at her side. "And I have to cross it all alone? What is on the other side?"

The skeletal face managed to look long-suffering. "NORMALLY YOU HAVE TO CROSS ALONE. YOU...HAVE OTHER OPTIONS."

She blinked, and suddenly there was a dark and immense ship beside her, emerging from the sands as though it had always been there.

A familiar figure posed dramatically atop the figurehead. "Need a ride?"

She felt her lips twitch, even as she rolled her eyes.

Neither of them were particularly surprised when the Flying Dutchman was enveloped by a familiar presence...when she began to change and grow.

Even if a ship has none of the same original parts, her soul may endure.

Jonny and Nastya stood shoulder to shoulder on Aurora's bridge, and set their course squarely into death.

They found Ashes standing in the middle of a plain of grey ashes, a faint smile on their face. Whatever afterlife they had found, they'd plainly burned it down, leaving nothing but a handful of charred feathers.

All they would say on the matter was "Fucking self-righteous bastards with their stupid little harps."

The tree buried its roots deep into the ground, drinking in the ancient magics of Avalon. It was a tree, and as such its emotions were complex, but it could be translated as…contented.

"Is that Brian? Why is he in a tree? How do we get him out?"

"You could try kissing him?"

"Why is that always your go-to answer in these situations?"

"Fine. Go ahead. Try your usual solution -"

"-do not shoot me," the tree interrupted, opening its eyes just to glare at them. "Also I'm not in a tree, I am a tree. Reincarnation."

"Oh." Jonny's gun was drawn, but thankfully

he wasn't shooting yet. "Why a tree?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted, trying to ignore the way his branches were now glinting like metal. "It's either a punishment for all the piracy and murder, or a reward for putting up with you lot."

"Sounds really boring."

He huffed. "Now that's just rude. I don't make fun of the way you've chosen to spend your death, now do I?"

"You could, if you would like to."

"Want to come with us and see for yourself?"

It was pretty boring being a tree. And he'd missed his friends. "Oh, alright," Brian said, pulling his feet out from the ground.

Ivy's books appeared several days before Ivy herself. One day there was a blank wall, and the next there was an archway leading into an archive far larger than any the living world had ever seen, much of its contents either waterlogged or smelling faintly of smoke.

A few days later Ivy was standing by the shore, waiting patiently as the void washed up and down at her feet. "Ah. Good. There you are. You got the deliveries I sent on ahead, I trust?"

"Yeah. Books, books and more books. You couldn't have added something else? Like instruments, maybe? Ashes needs a bass."

Ivy raised an eyebrow. "Jonny. By my calculations everything that has ever lived is here somewhere. And we're pirates. I'm sure we can figure it out."

They raided countless afterlifes, looking for anything they needed or wanted, and somewhere along the line Tim came on board, dragging behind him a very confused young man whom he referred to as Bertie.

Raphaella, they found standing in front of a large jackal, arguing about the relative weights of her heart and her feathers.

"I can assure you, I've weighed them both myself, multiple times. I know which one is heavier."

She gladly came on board, eager to conduct a thorough scientific exploration of death - and to try out the piano they'd stolen from the

feathered fucker with the throne in the fun afterlife with all the torture.

Marius had, once again, found them, turning up on board with a violin in one hand and a diploma in the other. It was unclear whether or not he had even noticed he was dead.

"I am absolutely never going to call you doctor. You can forget that right now."

"Ah, ah, read right here. Doctor Baron Marius Von Raum is hereby awarded a doctorate - "

" - in music, not medicine. That doesn't count."

"What use is a doctorate in medicine? You're dead, Jonny, you don't need medicine. But with a doctorate in music I am fully qualified to tell you that your verse structure is derivative and -"

Jonny shot him. It changed nothing. Dead was dead, after all.

The Toy Soldier had pretended to be real for a very long time, and it had thought it was content with its decision to stop. So it was confused to find itself walking through an eternal void. It was rather like those times when its old friend Jonny had thrown it out of the airlock, but there were no stars to be seen...just void.

There wasn't anything else to do, so it kept walking, singing quietly to itself as it went. It couldn't shake the feeling that it might just be the most real thing here, which was not at all a comfortable thought.

It could have been walking for days, or perhaps centuries, when it realised that a ship had pulled up alongside it.

Jonny was leaning out of the airlock, hand stretched out towards it. "Where the fuck have you been? We've been looking everywhere. Ready to come on board?"

It felt warm.

Death didn't change. No matter what they did, what afterlife they raided, who they killed or rekilled, everything would go back to just the way it was. And for a group of formerly-immortal space pirates that could be very boring. So when a ghost started manifesting on their ship, everyone gathered to try and figure out what was happening.

At first it was just a hazy figure, barely visible for more than a few seconds. But bit by bit, day by day, it grew stronger - until Dr Carmilla stood in front of them.

There were deep black shadows beneath her eyes, and a beating heart in her chest, and she flickered in and out of existence as she looked them all over, smiling, until her eyes fell on Jonny. "I should have known."

He didn't return the smile. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Rewriting the laws of physics and metaphysics, and inventing a few new scientific disciplines to revolutionise.

I'm sorry it took so long. I started work as soon as I heard about your death."

"And what do you want?"

Her form rippled, but she squared her shoulders. "I wanted to do it right this time. Let it be your choice. There are so many worlds out there, and so many stories still waiting for you. The book may be closed for now, but we're storytellers, you and I. We can always re-open it. There's always another tale to be told."

She reached out a hand.

Jonny grinned.

#mechtober #mechtober 2021 #mechtober the unofficial #my writing #jonny d'ville #nastya rasputina #the aurora #ashes o'reilly #drumbot brian #ivy alexandria #gunpowder tim #marius von raum #raphaella la cognizi #the toy soldier #the mechs #the mechanisms

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gunpowdville · 3 years ago

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The Great Flesh-Eating Cake Incident of Year [REDACTED] (Not to be Confused With the Bifrost Incident)

Chapters: 1/2

Words: 3502

Relationships: Drumbot Brian - Raphaella la Cognizi (queerplatonic), Gunpowder Tim/Lyfrassir Edda/Marius von Raum, The Aurora/Nastya Rasputina (although most don’t show up until the second chapter)

Other Things: genderfluid tim, she/her tim, he/fae marius :)

Summary: Brian and Raph bake a cake. Or, they try to. It doesn't exactly go well. (aka, Why Raphaella la Cognizi Should Never Be Allowed in the Kitchen)

read on ao3 here or read below the cut for people who don't like ao3 (i will post the second chapter. at some point. hopefully soon)

Chapter 1

“Try it now.”

“Is it safe?”

“Does that matter?”

Brian gives her what she calls his teacher look, a combination of calm exasperation and gentle chiding. “I would prefer to not fry myself from the inside out, if I can help it.”

“Boring,” Raphaella accuses, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “And you know I’d fix you if you did.” Well actually, she would get Nastya to fix him, as Raph herself has absolutely no self control when it comes to the prospect of tinkering with a complex mechanism and Brian hates being tinkered on without his permission.

“Yes, of course, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell,” Brian points out. “Not to mention how horrendously it would fuck up my systems.”

Raphaella pouts. “So I installed the flamethrower for nothing?”

Brian hesitates. “...I didn’t say that.”

Raphaella perks up immediately, turning her full attention from the clattered worktable to her partner. Brian straightens up and faces away from her, focusing at the blank wall at one end of the lab. He pokes his tongue around the inside of his mouth a little, probing at the new addition in the back. He tests out flipping its settings, making sure everything flows smoothly, then steels himself and opens his mouth, turning it on. Nothing happens.

Raphaella throws up her hands in exasperation. “I don’t understand! That should have worked! It-”

Brian yelps suddenly, clapping his hands to his throat as the back of it heats up rapidly, too rapidly, the heat growing from gently uncomfortable to unbearable in a matter of seconds. Luckily, his systems react before he can, shutting off the new attachment the second it could cause potential harm. The heat fades almost as quickly as it had swelled.

“Ow,” Brian says mildly.

“That was about to work,” Raphaella huffs, hands on her hips, eyes fixed somewhat accusingly on Brian. “If you had just waited a moment longer.”

“It was about to melt my vocal cords,” Brian points out in retort. Raphaella throws up her hands again.

“My husband is a coward,” she declares to no one in particular, with no actual insult behind it. Brian can’t help but smile softly at the endearment. They’re not married, technically, but for all intents and purposes they might as well be.

“I’ve started to become convinced that you’re simply trying to kill me,” Brian remarks to her as she turns back to the notes on her lab table. She shoots him a brightly malicious look, one backed heavily with fondness. “Maybe I am.”

He sits down on the stool beside the lab table and reaches for her, catching her waist from behind and pulling her onto his lap. She leans back into him as he wraps his arms around her, and he rests his chin on her shoulder so he can peer down at the pages of notes in her hands.

“Here, tell me what I’m doing wrong,” Raphaella holds up the notes so Brian can get a better look at them. He hums thoughtfully as he scans her delicate sketch of his body, each part individually labelled with possible enhancements to be added in Raph’s lacy handwriting. Brian’s own handwriting, cramped and blocky, annotates the science officer’s notes with his own observations of measurements and possible difficulties.

In his mind, Brian overlays the sketch on top of the official schematics the doc left in there, focusing on his throat and the new addition, checking for anywhere where it isn’t wired properly or messing with any of his other systems. Nothing. He bites his lip, a very natural bad habit that he’s never been able to shake, despite it splitting the rubber badly. Raphaella hits him lightly in the side of the head when she notices him doing it.

“I don’t think it’s anything you’ve done,” Brian says finally, leaning back slightly on the stool. “I think it’s simply a matter of too much heat.”

Raphaella ‘hmphs’, taking her notes back from him and setting them back on the table. She turns her head to study Brian’s face, placing her hands atop his where they rest over her stomach. He quirks an eyebrow at her, and she regards him silently. He can tell that she’s thinking through what next to work on, now that their flamethrower experiment is a bust.

He gives her stomach a light pat. “If you don’t mind, I was going to go bake something. Tim’s been complaining that there aren’t enough ‘munchies’ onboard. And yes, that is the word xe used.”

Raphaella slaps a hand to her heart melodramatically, the gesture accompanied by a theatrical gasp. “Leaving me for Tim, are we? Scandal.”

Brian chuckles gently as he rises to his feet, dislodging Raph in the process. “Yes, I’ve decided you’re much too cruel and brutal for me, and I’d be much happier feeding Tim for the rest of eternity.”

Raphaella tosses her hair and turns away from him, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her chin up imperiously. “Good riddance.”

“Good riddance indeed,” Brian agrees drily, with no heat behind it. Raph glaces over her shoulder at him and grins, and he smiles back as he slips out the lab door, tipping his hat as he goes.

Ivy’s reading at the kitchen counter when he enters. She doesn’t look up as he makes his way into the kitchen proper, wrangling his hair into a wiry ponytail and tossing his hat on the counter. He peeks at the cover of her book and makes an intrigued little noise when he notices it’s about prophets and oracles throughout space and time.

“I was going to give it you when I was finished,” Ivy says without looking up. “I thought it might interest you.”

“It does,” Brian tells her, and she smirks, proud of herself. She still doesn’t take her eyes off the pages. Brian leans over, resting his elbows on the counter, and knocks his forehead briefly against hers, a somewhat awkward sign of affection that’s he’s developed with some members of the crew. She responds by patting his head absentmindedly, still not looking up from her book. He smiles, and turns back to the kitchen.

After a couple minutes of rummaging around in cabinets, Brian becomes aware of Raphaella’s presence leaning against the counter to his left.

“Missed me?” he asks teasingly. She rolls her eyes and pokes him in the arm. “You promised you’d teach me to bake.”

Brian pauses, replaying the last ten minutes in his mind to confirm that he has not, in fact, promised her this. And then he realizes that she’s referring to a time quite a few decades ago, when the two of them had been left back on the ship while the others had been out pillaging a nigh-extinct planet. They’d been sharing some pastries that Brian had been experimenting with, and Raphaella had asked him how he’d made them. He had launched straight into a detailed explanation of exactly which ingredients he had used and what amounts of each, and how he had played with the measurements and tweaked the recipe to see how he could improve it. Raph had listened with utter fascination, and after he had finished she had mentioned that it seemed a bit like her experiments, only with slightly different materials. He had offered to teach her a little, if she’d like, and she had said she would love to learn. And now here they are.

“I did do that, didn’t I,” Brian muses. He studies Raph, leaning against the counter, a sparkle in her eyes that both makes him excited to see what she has in store and fear for his life.

“So?” Raphaella raises an eyebrow. Brian considers.

“We are making a cake,” he tells her, keeping his voice slow, steady, and serious. “A basic cake. We are not going to put anything in it that is not on the ingredients list. We are going to follow the recipe. To the letter. And we are not, I repeat, we are not going to burn down my kitchen.”

My kitchen, Aurora corrects him gently.

“Our kitchen,” he concedes.

Raphaella steps forward and takes Brian’s hands, looking him solemnly in the eyes. “I won’t let you down,” she promises. “Trust me.”

“Phee, I love you to death, and I always will” Brian tells her, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing the back of it. “But I draw the line at trusting you.”

“Rude,” Raph sniffs, while Ivy tries to cover up a snort.

“Practical,” Brian shoots back, letting go of her hands and reaching past her to pluck the recipe from the counter. With a flourish, he deposits it in her hands. “Find me these ingredients.”

Raphaella mutters something about ‘bossybitch Brian’ as she turns away from him and marches purposefully toward the cupboards. He watches her fondly for a moment, before busying himself gathering pans and setting up his beloved electric mixer, something he’d found being sold for scraps on a junkyard planet and had lovingly repaired and repainted with his own two hands. Its name is Small Brian, and it remains one of his most prized possessions.

“Bri, which eggs are we using?” Raphaella calls to him, her head buried deep in the disorganized fridge. Brian abandons Small Brian for just a moment and pokes his head in beside hers.

“Ah, not those,” he says, indicating a half dozen of jet-black eggs glowing faintly from within. “Those are Ashes’. They will supposedly hatch into a rare breed of fire-breathing corvid.”

“And those?” Raphaella points to the other carton of eggs.

“We’re using those,” Brian confirms, pulling the carton out. “Ah. Wait. Not this one.” Carefully, he removes a small, round, green orb from the carton and places it gently on the counter. “An octokitten laid this. We think.”

Raphaella leans over and picks it up, holding it in the palm of her hand and bringing it up close to her eyes. She looks suspiciously like she’s about to slip it into her pocket, so Brian plucks it from her hands before she gets a chance to. She sticks her tongue out at him. He waves her off to go collect the rest of the ingredients, reminding her that the lovely ceramic pot labeled ‘sugar’ is in fact actually filled with gunpowder, and the sugar is in the cabinet to its right. Meanwhile he goes back to fussing over Small Brian.

The mixer isn’t starting up properly, it keeps stuttering and stopping whenever he tries to turn it on. Brian frowns, tapping the top of it with a metal finger. “Come on, love,” he says softly to Small Brian. “Don’t give up on me now. Not after all we’ve been through.”

“Raph,” Ivy speaks up from her place at the counter, her tone amused. “Brian’s talking to the appliances again.”

“If either of you make a joke comparing me to an appliance, I will kill you,” Brian warns both of them placidly, fiddling with Small Brian’s mechanisms until the machine whines and starts up properly. “Good lad,” Brian says, patting the appliance lovingly.

“I saw that,” he adds when he catches the look Ivy and Raphaella share over the counter. Raphaella rolls her eyes and gestures to him to come approve the ingredients she’s gathered. She hooks her arm through his and tips her head onto his shoulder while he checks each one off against the recipe.

“Excellent, that’s everything. Thank you.” he says, kissing her on the top of the head. “ Now we can begin.”

Raphaella, as always, is a very attentive student, listening well and asking questions when necessary. He suspects that she asks some of the questions just to listen to him talk about something he loves, and he adores her for it. They work very well together, the two of them, bantering back and forth as they do. Ivy chimes in on occasion, never taking her eyes off of her book.

Jonny strolls into the kitchen at one point, zeroing in on the chocolate chips scattered across the counter with a predator’s precision. As soon as he spots the first mate, Brian sweeps a knife into his hand and points it at him. “Out.”

Jonny backs away, throwing his hands up in surrender. He’s been killed enough times over messing around in the kitchen that he knows by now that the best thing to do is back off.

All in all, it’s a shockingly peaceful time. Brian hums to himself as he stirs ingredients together, and Raphaella goes through the cupboards, looking for something to play with. She reaches to open one in the back, and Brian notices too late which one it is. Raphaella stops, tilting her head in curiosity as she stares at the contents of the cupboard.

“Oh, Briiiiiiiiaaan?” she calls in a singsong voice, which is usually a sign that Brian is about to either be taken apart or assist in taking apart someone else. “What is this?”

Brian sighs and sets down the bowl, making his way slowly over to her. She raises an eyebrow at him as he gazes silently for a moment at the dismantled skeleton shoved into the back of the cupboard. “Those… are my bones.”

“Your… bones.”

“My bones.”

“Why…?”

Brian shrugs. “It’s not like I’m using them.”

“Right.” Raphaella studies the skeleton for a moment longer, before declaring, “I’m going to make soup out of them.”

Brian starts. “I’m sorry?”

“Your bones. I’m going to make soup out of them.”

“You are not.”

“Bone broth is a thing, isn’t it? Ivy?”

“It is,” Ivy confirms, casually turning a page.

Raphaella grins, gathering the bones into her arms. “Brian soup.”

“Brian s- no!”

“Brian soup Brian soup Brian soup Brian soup-”

“NO.”

“I thought the doc took your bones,” Ivy mentions, as Brian attempts to gently cajole his partner into giving him back said bones.

“I asked her to let me keep some of them,” Brian explains, tugging a rib out of Raph’s arms and dislodging about three more, which clatter to the floor unceremoniously. “They are mine, after all.”

“It’s unusually sentimental of me, I know,” he adds as Raphaella ducks under his arm, executing a perfect twirl to get the bones out of his reach, “I’m not quite sure why I wanted them.”

“For soup,” Raphaella quips, and Ivy snorts as Brian throws himself at the science officer. Raph yelps and scrambles away from him, and so begins an epic chase around the kitchen, Raph struggling to run away while clutching an armful of bones, the owner of said bones following a step behind her, playfully angry.

Brian doesn’t realize he’s started humming to himself until Raphaella turns to face him, jogging backwards, and asks what song it is.

“It’s a new one I’m working on,” he says, using her moment of distraction as an opportunity to trap her in the kitchen, the wraparound counter devoid of exits besides the one that he is currently standing in front of. “It’s called ‘Raphaella Please Don’t Make Soup Out of My Bones.’”

“I hate it,” Raphaella decides, still backing away. She’s almost hit the counter, and Brian smirks at his inevitable victory.

“You’ve barely heard it,” he argues, and begins humming louder. Raphaella’s back hits the counter, and Brian stops. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, he begins tapping his foot along to the tune.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Raphaella starts, but the other foot has already begun to move as well. Just tapping at first, tap tap tapping to a beat in Brian’s head, but the footwork quickly becomes more and more complicated as he eases into the song. Ivy picks it up quickly and starts tapping her fingers on the counter, taking charge of the beat while Brian continues humming the melody.

Raphaella shakes her head, refusing to let his shenanigans charm her, but Brian refuses to give up. He dances his way smoothly across the floor to her, finishing with an elegant twirl and an extended hand. Raphaella regards him with reluctant defeat, then rolls her eyes and takes Brian’s hand.

He waltzes her out into the middle of the floor, two steps forward, one step back. He spins her out, then spins her back in so they’re swaying with her back pressed to his chest. “You’re a master manipulator, you know,” she says to him. He smiles. She twirls him out, then twirls him back in and dips him, effortlessly holding up his mass of metal.

“I don’t remember this step of the cake recipe,” Ivy comments drily. She’s finally looking up from her book and is watching the two of them with an expression that is equal parts exasperated and amused.

“Which step, the bone soup or the dancing?” Brian returns, just as dry. Ivy is saved from having to respond by the arrival of Marius, who comes striding through the door like an invading general, arms spread wide in greeting.

“Well, if it isn’t my three favorite delinquents,” fae says, grinning like a maniac. “Dancing in the kitchen like- wait. Why is Raph in the kitchen?”

“I’m helping,” Raph says proudly, tossing her hair over her shoulder in a decidedly smug fashion as Brian collects his bones and returns them to their cupboard. “How can we help you?”

Marius pulls up a stool and takes a seat next to Ivy, scanning the pages of her book idly. “Tim stole my partner.”

“To be fair, Tim is also dating your partner,” Brian points out, handing the bowl of cake batter to Raph to finish stirring and put in the oven.

“Sure, but she’s being smug about it. So I’m pouting,” Marius replies, metal fingers tapping on the counter. “Oh, also: Tim wanted me to tell you. She/her for the time being.”

Brian nods, taking note of the pronouns. “Well, when you feel like speaking to Tim again, you can tell her that a cake is on its way.”

Marius raises an eyebrow. “You mean that cake that Raph just slipped something into behind your back?”

Honestly, Brian is surprised that this didn’t happen earlier. Slowly, he turns to Raphaella, who meets his eyes with a mischievous smirk as she slips an empty vial back into her pocket.

“What was in that?” he asks gently, not mad, just curious.

“Just a little something I whipped up,” Raphaella says, giving the batter an experimental stir. An odd squelching noise escapes from the bowl, and she quickly lets go of the wooden spoon as a dark tendril of… something curls up around it, possessive and hungry. “Oh. That’s interesting.”

“What the fuck was that?” Marius leans forward over the counter, curiosity evident on faer features.

Raphaella sets the bowl carefully on the floor and steps away from it, circling around it to Brian’s side. He gives her a questioning look, and she shrugs cheerfully, indicating that she has no idea whatsoever the effect of whatever she put in may be. With somewhat tired resignation, Brian steps forward to investigate what has become of his simple chocolate cake.

It’s… alive. The dark, viscous substance in the bowl has begun to writhe and bubble in a distinctively sentient manner, tendrils forming reaching out, looking to grab hold of something. The tendrils feel their way around tentatively, like a newborn animal learning to walk for the first time. The substance itself has an oddly familiar shimmer to it, the nearly oil-black surface revealing colors of every hue and nature when the light hits it.

“That looks like…” Marius frowns, clambering over the counter and dropping next to Brian as what was meant to be a cake slowly drags itself out of the bowl and onto the floor. “Oh, Raph, you didn’t!”

“Don’t touch it,” Brian advises as Marius crouches near the thing to get a better look.

Marius gives the Drumbot a scathing look. “I’m not a moron, Brian, I’m not going to-”

“Mare, get back,” Brian snaps, but it’s too late. The crawling blob has already reached the violinists foot and has clamped on tightly, wrapping its tentacles up and around his leg. He stares down at it in mild concern for a moment, then says: “Fuck.”

What happens next is hard to describe. The viscous thing sort of… stretches itself, until it covers Marius’ entire body, undulating and pulsing, then collapses in on itself, returning to its smaller form, leaving nothing but a slightly steaming metal arm left where the ship’s doctor once stood.

“What the hell did you do?” Brian demands, staring at the (now slightly larger) creation as it drags its way across the floor.

Raphaella doesn’t respond. “I think it ate faer,” she says instead. Then, “where is it going?”

Brian glances at the floor just in time to see the thing disappear into the vents. He lets out a cry, but it is much to late. It’s gone.

“Well,” Ivy says, staring with vague concern at the open vent. “Fuck.”

#fic #my fic #mechs fic #formatting like this bc there are some people i know who might want to read it who don't like ao3 #drumbot brian #raphaella la cognizi #marius von raum #gunpowder tim #ivy alexandria #my writing #long post #very long post

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schrijverr · 4 years ago

Text

Spoils of Love

Jonnys partners spoiling him, because they know how much he likes stuff.

On AO3.

Ships: Polymechs, Nastya x Aurora (Nastya is also part of the polymechs, it is what she deserves)

Warnings: none really, but tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jonnys partners knew he loved things, especially shiny or expensive things. He tried to hide it of course, but he could never fully hide the way his eyes lit up whenever he saw an expensive store display or how he let his hands run over the nice clothing.

From that it wasn’t such a leap to make that Jonny would love getting said shiny or expensive things from one of his partners, a task they didn’t mind doing.

It started with Ashes. They were usually the one on Jonny-sitting duties while on planet, since they were violent enough that he wouldn't get bored and run off. This also meant that they saw Jonny around stores the most and first noticed the tendency towards shiny and expensive things.

So when Tim took over for them, coming to pick Jonny up after xe’d found a huge bank with what xe thought to be lackluster security, they decided to get him a gift.

The two pillows they picked out were big and soft. Ashes even let the cashier wrap them nicely before they pulled a gun on him and took them without paying. They grinned to themself, Jonny would love the addition to his collection of plushy things for the monstrosity he called a bed.

Back on Aurora, when everyone was done with their violence, errands and other occupations, they found Jonny once more. He was drinking with Tim, TS, Brian and Marius. When he saw Ashes with a wrapped gift, he called out: “What you got there, Ashes?”

Curious little thing he was, Ashes thought. They handed him the gift and said: “I got you a little something, darling. Open it.”

“It’s not going to explode, right?” Jonny asked, poking the gift, seeming surprised when he found it was soft.

“What is it?” Tim asked, looking curiously over Jonnys shoulder to the gift.

Ashes rolled their eyes: “No, it’s not going to explode and you would know if he opened it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Jonny grumbled as he tore open the wrapping paper gleefully. When he felt the soft pillows, his eyes lit up. He looked up and said: “It’s velvet, the casings are velvet.”

“Only the best for you, of course.” Ashes replied, before leaving a small kiss on his forehead, “Thought they would fit nicely on your nest.”

“Not a nest.” Jonny pouted, but he blushed slightly and there was a small smile playing at his lips. It was a rare soft one, he usually wouldn't allow.

With the mission successful Ashes sat down and poured themself a glass of whiskey and leaned back in one of the chairs. They watched as Jonny petted the pillows, obviously pleased.

After a while of just admiring them, Jonny suddenly got up and said: “I’m gonna put them away before anyone spills something on them.” as he was about to walk out of the room, he turned back and added in a softer voice, “Uhm, thank you, Ashes.”

“Not a problem, darling.” Ashes smiled in return, for once not minding the soft look that would undoubtedly be in their eyes as they followed Jonny while he left.

Then they were distracted by Tim, who sat down in their lap and grinned: “So, when am I getting some fancy pillows?”

“You say this like I didn’t help you steal a machine gun a few planets back. And like you want soft pillows when you and I both know you would much rather lie in Jonnys bed instead of having your own.” Ashes said as they tucked a strand of loose hair behind Tims ear.

Tim was quiet for a moment then xe pushed their face away and grumbled: “Shut up.”

“I know you love me, sweetheart.” Ashes teased.

“Sadly.” Tim replied dryly, before getting off their lap and draping over Brian while exclaiming: “At least Brian will be nice to me.”

“Dramaqueen.” Brian told xem.

Tim rolled off him and clutched xyr heart as xe cried: “Betrayed. Tossed aside. Unloved. Oh, how cruel can faith be. Abandoned by my own lovers- Oh, hi Jonny.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” the newly returned Jonny asked.

“Xe’s being dramatic over nothing.” Marius told him.

“Ah, so the usual then.” Jonny commented, getting a pout-y “Meanie.” from Tim.

But with Ashes gift, the seed had been planted in the brain of the people who had been there and had seen how happy Jonny had been with the small gesture. So it was soon after that Brian decided to give him something.

With the end of making Jonny smile like that, he had slipped the beautifully adorned knife into his pocket. The knife had a hand carved ivory handle with a sunset on it inlaid with gold, while the blade had a cut out of a small town in the middle.

Since he had stolen it and his hands could be clunky, Brian had decided not to wrap it, instead he handed it to Jonny while they were walking to dinner together: “Here, I saw this and thought of you, so I got it. Hope you like it.”

Jonny seemed surprised, then he gently took the knife and inspected it. It was sharp and he cut himself on it, but that only made him smile. He quickly hugged Brian as he said: “Thank you, I love it.”

Then he skipped off excitedly with Brian hurrying behind him to see what he was going to do now. He was slightly too late, because when he arrived Marius already had the knife in his heart as he lay on the floor.

“It works perfectly, Brian.” Jonny grinned, cleaning the knife with Marius’ sleeve. And Brian would have scolded him for that if he hadn’t gotten a peck on his cheek right after, something Jonny rarely did since he hated that he had to get on his tiptoes for it.

Brian got shook out of his stupid happy daze with Nastya yelling: “Where is my kiss, d’Ville?”

“Maybe if you get me something nice you will get one.” Jonny stuck his tongue out at her, but he still gave her a kiss on her temple before he sat down.

However, she later did show up to his door with in her hands a box with a bow on it. He looked at it with a furrowed brow and asked: “What’s that for?”

“For the kiss.” Nastya grinned, “Come on, open it.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I was joking, you know.” Jonny told her as he gently lifted the lid of the box. When he saw what was in it he gasped: “You didn’t.”

“I know how much you enjoyed the satin pjs the doc lend you, fancypants. I figured they must have perished since then, so, you know.” Nastya explained.

“Not a fancypants.” Jonny told her, but there was a twinkle of delight in his eyes as he ran a hand over the satin with a soft grin and red dusting his cheeks.

“Whatever you say.” Nastya said, “Now, go, try it on.”

Jonny didn’t protest that, just pulled her into his room and closed the door as he changed clothes, while Nastya made herself comfortable on his bed, sinking into the thick mattress. She was just contemplating how soft the pillows Jonny got from Ashes were, when Jonny snapped her out of it: “So, what do we think?”

He twirled around, showing off the soft lilac color as the camisole billowed around him, revealing his soft tummy and the shorts with lace on the underside that matched perfectly. Nastya just appreciated him a moment, then smiled: “You look absolutely gorgeous, Jonny.”

For a moment it seemed like he was going to protest, but then the words caught up to him and the dusting on his cheeks intensified as he started spluttering.

“Come here, I didn’t just give you that to be pretty, but also so that you feel nice to hold.” Nastya beckoned him closer.

Apparently his brain wasn’t fully back online, because he crawled onto the bed without comment and made himself comfortable in her arms. She smiled and gave him a peck on his forehead, then a kiss on his lips when he wiggled closer to her.

About an hour later the door slid open to reveal Tim also dressed for sleep. Xe asked: “Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Yeah, of course, Nastya is here too.” Jonny answered.

Tim smiled and bounced over to the bed: “Hi, Nastya-dear, how are-” then xe spotted Jonny, “Oh, wow, you look beautiful this fine evening, princess.”

“I’m still not a fucking princess, Tim, why the fuck do you keep calling me that?” Jonny groused, curling into Nastya grumpily, but mostly to hide the blush everyone knew would be on his face.

“I will stop the moment you stop being beautiful, princess.” Tim told him.

Jonny sighed, then rolled back again and said: “Alright, whatever… And it was Nastya who got me the outfit.”

He sounded happier at the end, he was clearly loving the outfit. Nastya had noticed how he’d kept rubbing the material between his fingers the entire time and with the tone she grinned proudly at Tim.

“Nastya-dear, you make the best choices, I could kiss you right now.” Tim exclaimed.

“Dramaque- hmpf” Nastyas eyeroll was cut off by a quick kiss, before Tim flopped fully down on the bed and made xemself comfortable to go to sleep.

“Idiot.” Nastya told xem, but she didn’t really mean it and just snuggled up to the other two, leeching as much body heat as she could.

The next morning Nastya and Tim had the pleasant sight of Jonny still in the pjs to wake up to, who yawned slightly and blinked his eyes open slowly.

“I know I already told you this, dear, but you really do make the best choices.” Tim commented to Nastya, who just pushed xem over.

But Tim did mean it, Jonny looked soft and sweet, something he was absolutely not, but it did do funny things to Tims heart. So, xe decided Jonny would need to look like that more and Tim was going to make sure he did.

Xe knew Jonny was loathe to part with his usual outfit, but xe also knew his tendency towards soft things if shiny wasn’t available or fitting.

This was what xe kept in mind as xe wondered through stores on the latest planet they were on. Xe had ditched Marius, Ashes and Jonnys attempt to rid the planet of its booze by drinking it and just hoped they wouldn't run into xem. Xe wanted it to be a surprise.

Xyr hand ran over multiple sweaters, feeling how soft they were. Xe was in a fancy uptown store and the store lady was looking at xem judgmentally as if xe couldn't afford to be here. With the way Ashes hoarded gold xe probably could, but xe wasn’t planning on paying.

Mentally xe was picturing how xe was going to kill the store lady when xe robbed the store, when xyr hand touched something extra soft.

The thing xe touched was a white sweater with a tag on it that stated that it was fully desert worm fur imported all the way from the Briar’s Desert Moon. Tim didn’t exactly know what that meant, but it sounded fancy and it was incredibly soft.

With a grin xe took the plushy fancy sweater and made sure it would be a bit oversized on Jonnys already short frame.

Xe made xyr way over to the counter, completely fed up with the judge-y store lady. With fake politeness xe said: “Hi, uhm” quickly reading her name tag, “Karen. Could you please wrap this for me, it’s a gift.”

“Of course.” she replied, equally fake making Tim cringe.

When she was done wrapping, she put it down on the counter and told xem the price. Tim pulled out a gun and said: “So, I will not be doing that.”

Karen was easily convinced to let xem go when xe shot her, but Tim did have a bit of law enforcement on xyr trail by the time xe met up with the others. She had managed to push a button before she’d died, apparently.

Marius saw xem first and called out: “Tim! We’re planning to go to a few more bars, you with us?”

“I’m afraid we have to fucking run, love.” Tim yelled, not stopping just running past them as xyr chasers came into view now as well.

The others cursed and set to running as well, knowing that Nastya would leave them behind to spare damage to her precious Aurora if they weren’t there too. Ashes came up next to Tim and said: “Hope it was fucking worth it, sweetheart.”

Tim held up the gift and said: “I think it is.”

“For Jonny?” Ashes asked and Tim nodded.

“What for me?” Jonny almost fell on his face when he tried to turn around and see what they were talking about.

“You’ll find out when we’re on Aurora, princess.” Tim grinned when xe saw Jonny stumble before grousing something inaudible.

Crashing onto an already taking off Aurora, Marius panted: “So what did you do this time?”

“Robbed a fancy store.” Tim answered.

Jonny perked up, remembering what he had heard on their run back. Curiously he asked: “What did ya get?”

“Why don’t you unwrap and find out, princess.” Tim told him.

Taking it eagerly Jonny didn’t even seem to mind the pet name. He gasped when he felt the softness to pick the sweater up and ran his fingers over the fabric.

“It’s apparently fully desert worm fur imported from the Briar’s Desert Moon, if that means anything to you.” Tim said.

Jonnys eyes got big: “Really? God, we must be before King Cole then, I heard it was super rare and stuff.” he hugged Tim and squeezed xem tightly as he softly said: “Thank you, Tim, I love it.”

“No problem, princess, did it with love.” Tim said, planting a kiss on Jonnys forehead, before the other let go to try the sweater on.

Like Tim had guessed it was slightly oversized. It hung a bit of one shoulder and the sleeves came to Jonnys fingers, something that he didn’t notice for a few seconds. He looked incredibly cozy as he hugged himself and petted the fabric happily.

Ashes leaned over to Tim and softly said: “You are right, sweetheart, completely worth it.”

Then they walked over to Jonny and grinned: “Don’t think you can get away with looking this soft without getting a hug, darling.” before sweeping him up into their arms.

Jonny shrieked lightly and struggled, but the others could see he didn’t really put up an actual fight.

Marius smiled softly at two of his partners, then remarked: “He sure does love getting things, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, did you see the pjs Nastya got him?” Tim asked.

“I did and I felt the knife Brian gave him.” Marius replied, wrinkling his nose.

Tim cackled at that and grinned: “I told you he wouldn't appreciate you calling him doll.”

“But he lets you call him princess. How is doll worse than that?” Marius hissed, displeased but trying to make sure Jonny didn’t hear them.

“You think I was just allowed to do that?” Tim raised a brow, “I died like a hundred times for that pet name. It’s the dedication.”

Marius pulled a thinking face then called out: “Can I get a hug too, doll?”

The last thing he heard before the bullet hit was Tim laughing and when he was revived the hallway was empty.

However when he woke up he had a mission. Marius died about forty times before they reached the next planet, but he hadn’t given up. The last time he’d used the pet name, Jonny had hesitated before pulling the trigger. This was progress.

Marius had also observed that he was nicer after getting a gift, he probably wasn’t used to people getting him stuff with his youth and the fact that people suddenly were was foreign but nice, which put him in a better mood.

This is how he ended up in a leather working store on the latest planet, trying to figure out which of the belts Jonny would like best.

In the end he settled on a broader belt with an eagle buckle. It was a bit large and extra, but that just made it more fitting in Marius’ not so humble opinion. So, he got it and prayed that this would be his in to calling Jonny doll.

He didn’t even know why he wanted to so bad.

No, that was a lie, he knew exactly why. Calling Jonny a pet name was something the whole crew had almost agreed upon. A combination of the blushing and stammering with a small smile, if you were lucky, made it so much fun.

Some of the others had the same reaction and people made sure to exploit that, but Jonnys was the most extreme out of all of them and as the oldest who always wanted to look tough, so extra it was nice. Nice to let him know they loved him in a small way, before he could start to doubt it.

And Marius wanted to call him doll.

It was more fun than calling him something another crew member already did. And if a belt was the way to do it, then that was the way it was. Jonnys reaction to getting stuff, might be up there with the reaction to pet names anyway.

That night when they were hanging on the couch Marius got the gift out of his coat pocket and said: “Doll, I got you something.”

Jonny looked up and the pet name and immediately seemed annoyed at himself that he did. However before he could shoot Marius the rest of the sentence had registered, so he lowered his gun with a suspicious look and accepted the gift.

He was surprised by how it felt and the gun laid forgotten by his side as he unwrapped it curiously.

His eyes lit up at the shiny buckle that glinted in the light and he moved it from side to side, admiring how the light bounced off it with a happy little grin.

“Thank you so much, Marius.” he said with a big smile, looking up to Marius, before busying himself by wrapping the belt around his waist.

“Glad you like it, doll.” Marius replied, waiting for the moment he’d get shot.

It never came, instead he got pulled onto the couch and had a Jonny curling up into his side after a peck on his cheek, then softly Jonny admitted: “Okay, so maybe the pet name can stay.”

Marius grinned proudly. A success.

Farther up the couch The Toy Soldier began: “I Do Not Get It, What Does The Belt Have-”

It got cut off by Tim, who muffled it by putting a hand over its mouth as xe said: “Leave it, teacup, he just got there. I’ll explain later.”

Tim kept xyr promise to explain it later to TS and it was soon after that it came up to Jonny with a gigantic bouquet of roses, must have been over fifty, as it exclaimed: “I Understood That Giving Gifts, Like Flowers, Is A Romantic Gesture And I Have Understood That You Like Getting Them Especially.”

Jonny got extremely red, more so then normal, as he spluttered: “It’s not just- the others also- I don’t- where did you get- why would I like flowers?”

The Toy Soldiers face could not change, but all saw the sadness as it asked: “Do you- do you not like my gift?”

“No, no, I do, I do.” Jonny quickly assured it. Then he bashfully took the flowers and softly added: “It’s just that no one looks at me and thinks of flowers, but really, thank you, TS.”

It looked happier again as it saluted: “You Quite Are Welcome, Chap.”

“Idiot.” Jonny told it fondly as he gave it a kiss on its cheek.

After Jonny had admired the roses some more, he suddenly asked: “Why did you say that I like getting gifts especially? I’m sure the others like getting them too. I mean, Tim was ecstatic with xyr machine gun and Nastya didn’t shut up about the new tools Brian gave her for a month.”

“You Get Soft.” The Toy Soldier explained, “The Others Have Told Me That You Like Getting Them And Have A Fun Reaction To Them. I See And Like It Too. You Get Happier And Soft When Someone Gifts You Anything.”

“Wha- I don’t?” Jonny tried to deny it.

“It is quite correct.” Ivy said from where she was pressed between Marius and the edge of the couch, “Your face temperature increases, causing your skin to get 60% redder and you are in a better mood for the follow week at least. This is a 15% better reaction than our other partners, who still appreciate the gifts, but will not carry the effect around for that long.”

Jonny got even more red as he once again tried to deny it, hiding his face behind the flowers as he whined: “I don’t blush.”

“You do, doll, it’s quite cute.” Marius told him.

“If I didn’t have these nice flowers in my hands, you would be dead right now, von Raum.” Jonny told him, giving him a glare. And with that he turned around, marching of to put the roses in a vase in his room.

After a moment of silence Ivy asked: “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, of course not, m’lady.” Marius assured her, “Jonny just doesn’t like to be confronted with the fact that he has emotions and feels things.”

And that was that, but the statistics of Jonnys reactions to gifts kept floating around in her head. She couldn't help but think that she had upset Jonny and she wanted to make it up to him. However for all her knowledge she didn’t know what to pick.

“Do you really think it’s good?” she asked again.

“Yes, of course, dearie.” Raphaella assured her for the twentieth time.

“You know Jonny loves anything shiny.” Marius agreed.

“I do know that, there is a 89% chance that his attention will be drawn to anything shiny the moment he sees it, but it needs to be perfect. Is this perfect? Do you think he’ll like it?” Ivy replied, still not completely sure.

Raphaella slung an arm around her and pulled her into her side as she said: “He’ll like it, I’m sure. From what you told me he’ll appreciate the gesture alone a lot already.”

“But what if he doesn’t and gets mad at me. There is a 65% chance of that happening as well.” Ivy worried her lip between her teeth.

“I think you’re not taking his emotional issues and need for affection into that calculation, m’lday.” Marius told her, “He likes getting spoiled, it’ll be fine. I don’t think he’s even mad at you.”

“There still is a-”

“Don’t. Stop. Bad archivist.” Raph cut her off teasingly, “Just get the bracelets, dearie.”

“Alright, alright.” Ivy gave in and took the bracelets.

On their way back Ivy listed all the reasons Jonny wouldn't like it and the statistics of him never talking to her again, while Marius and Raphaella tried to distract her and cheer her up. In the end they even robbed a bookstore.

Back aboard most of the crew was chilling in the creatively named couch room where all the couches were. Ivy hesitated in the doorway, stumbling forward when Raphaella gently pushed her: “Come on, dearie.”

Most of the others had noticed the three now as well and Brian asked: “Are you alright, Ivy?”

Ivy nodded, then walked up to Jonny and held out the gift. She said: “Here, this is for you. I don’t know if you’re still mad at me for what happened when TS got you flowers, but I didn’t mean it like an insult, it’s sweet.”

“Oh.” Jonny looked surprised as the took the gift, “Uhm, I- Thank you, but you didn’t need to do that, really. I wasn’t mad, just…”

“Embarrassed?” Marius filled in, getting an elbow in his side from Raphaella.

Jonny glared at him as well, but then admitted: “I didn’t know it was that obvious.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Jonny. 100% of the crew likes, it, well 88.89% since Raph never saw it.” Ivy said, “What I wanted to say is: don’t be, you deserve nice things.”

“That really depends on your definition of deserve with us being criminals and all that.” Raphaella commented.

“Not now, angel.” Marius whispered to her taking the common sense braincell from her.

Jonny fiddled a bit with the wrapping paper, not replying to Ivys comment nor looking her in the eyes. He unwrapped the gift to distract himself from the conversation, which succeeded when he gasped at the shiny expensive material. His eyes glittered as he let the gold reflect the light with a grin on his face.

He got up and pulled Ivy into a tight hug: “Thank you so much, Ives.”

Ivys cheeks got the same color of her hair as she mumbled something about it not being a problem, but there was a smile tugging at her lips as well.

“Can you do the clasps for me?” Jonny asked her, holding out his right wrist.

“Yes, of course.” Ivy replied, gently taking the bracelets from him and putting them around his wrist before clasping them, “There you go.”

They smiled at each other, a moment that was quickly broken by Tim, who tackled them both onto the couch as xe squealed: “You two are just too cute.”

Jonny grumbled something and trashed lightly, but both of them gave over to the pile, especially when Raphaella jumped on it, causing TS to join as well as Marius, before it turned into a big cuddle pile.

A while into the pile Raphaella crawled over to Jonny and asked: “Can I do an experiment on you sometime in the future?”

“Wha- oh, sure, whatever.” Jonny replied, who was currently getting crushed under Nastya with her heavy blood and trying to fight off Brian holding a tomato while ranting about scurvy, so not really realizing what he said yes to.

“Great!” Raphaella said, before crawling back to Marius who had promised her a back-rub, already planning in her mind.

A few planets later that experiment came to fruition. She’d had to use the clip made by Aurora to get him to come and even died a few times because it was apparently unfair to ask that in those circumstances.

“I still think this is unjust.” Jonny pouted, sitting before a table with sensors on his head and a few cameras trained at him.

“You don’t even know what we’re going to do.” Raphaella rolled her eyes, “Maybe you’ll like it.”

“Not to burst your bubble, but the last time I was here you pulled out my teeth to study them and dissolved my eyes with chemicals.” Jonny told her.

“Well… This is different.” Raphaella assured him.

“If you say so.” Jonny did not sound convinced.

“I do say so, this is a social experiment to see your reaction, nothing physical.” Raphaella said cheerfully.

“Reaction to good or bad things?” Jonny called out, but she had already disappeared into a box filled whatever she was going to show him.

“Okay, so we’ll need to space it out, so that the previous ones won’t interfere with later data.” it wasn’t clear if Raphaella was talking to herself or Jonny as she put down three covered objects near the table.

At this point Jonny had decided to give up and just go with it, so he just sat there and waited for instructions, something he rarely did. He knew Raphaella could get distracted by her science, but she could be nice when you were patient, maybe he could get cuddles out of this.

“Ah, of course, I forgot.” Raphaella turned around, getting three more covered things and putting them down as well.

“So,” she now focused on Jonny again, “I need you to sit there and react to what I show you. That sound good?”

“Sure.” Jonny shrugged, trying to think of whatever she could be showing him.

“Alrighty.” she put down the first object and lifted the covering to reveal a pair of earrings with diamonds in them.

Jonnys eyes widened and he looked to Raphaella with questioning eyes, before back to the earrings. She could see he wanted to touch them and take them, but did not dare do so without her say so, still careful not to mess up her experiment, how thoughtful.

“These are for you.” she said.

“Really?” he asked, gingerly taking the earrings and admiring them in the light, a happy flush on his cheeks as he inspected them, before putting them in and looking at his reflection in the table to see how they looked.

“Thank you!” he grinned, looking up to see Raphaella writing furiously in a notebook. He rolled his eyes fondly and waited for her to finish, when she looked up he did a little pose and asked: “So, how do I look?”

“Very pretty.” Raphaella answered without taking a moment to think or hesitate.

The flush on his face became more prominent as he gaped a few times, before grouchily telling Raphaella to shut the fuck up.

She just smiled knowingly, which he also hated, before putting another item on the table. Jonny looked at it curiously, but reeled back slightly when Raphaella pulled the covering off to reveal the cut off head of a moon beast.

“What the actual fuck, Raph!” Jonny exclaimed, “Why the hell are you showing me this?”

“I call it a neutralizer, my first idea was to kill you, but Brian vetoed that and had a reasonable enough explanation for me to listen, which I cannot tell you because that would ruin the experiment, so you just have to trust me.” Raphaella said.

“I never trust you.” Jonny told her.

“That’s probably for the best.” she agreed, already moving on to the next item.

It was bigger than before and Jonny eyed it with suspicion, which was replaced by a glint when it was revealed to be a huge fluffy blanket.

“I know you have your bed exactly as you like, which is why I thought I’d get you something for on the rest of Aurora, so you don’t have to mess up your bed.” Raphaella explained.

Jonnys bottom lip quivered as he looked at the blanket, quickly hiding his face in the softness, rubbing his face on it with an in awe look when he felt just how incredibly soft it was.

The blush had returned when he looked up again and the grin from before turned into a full beam as he said: “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but thank you so much, it’s very thoughtful.”

“It’s no problem, it was also very sweet of you to help with this experiment.” Raphaella replied.

“Still, I was a prick about that.” Jonny told her.

“You’re always a prick.” Raphaella grinned.

Then she grabbed another plate and showed Jonny a weird gooey substance and informing him that it was octokitten vomit. Jonny pulled a disgusted face, but inside he was starting to see a pattern, so when she grabbed the next thing, he looked closely. Only to come face to face with a fungus.

“Why?” Jonny yelled.

“To keep you on your toes.” Raphaella explained, not caring about his pouting as she took the next object that Jonny did not trust at all. When it got revealed he asked: “Is that…?”

“Yggdrasil ale? Well, yes, it was very hard to get from a prison cell, you know, and the shop keep was not happy that it went missing.” Raphaella answered.

“I can imagine, this is super expensive.” Jonny said with wide eyes, taking the bottle in his hands after an encouraging nod from Raphaella.

“You like it?” she asked.

“Raphaella, light of my life, I love it.” Jonny exclaimed, “This is great and very sweet,” he clutched the blanket in his hand, “though I still don’t get it.”

“It’s an experiment of your reactions to gifts.” Raphaella told him, “I still have to work through all of the data, but I’m trying to figure out the optimal gift based off your reactions.”

Jonny became beet red instantly and spluttered for a long while, before he managed: “You don’t- why would you- I don’t get- what?”

“Interesting.” Raphaella nodded thoughtfully to herself, observing Jonnys reaction as he got more flustered.

After a moment of silence, Jonny said: “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“But I wanted to, it’s nice to do something nice for you and this is kind of the only thing I know how to do nice, except for that time I tested how magnetic each mechanism was and we all got stuck to the wall until TS-”

“It’s alright, Raph, I know.” Jonny cut her off, his laugh audible in his voice.

They smiled at each other, before Raphaella got up to detach all the wires. When she was done Jonny gave her a soft kiss, after which he allowed her to lead him out of her lab as he held on to the blanket and ale, earrings shining proudly in his ears.

When they opened the door, they saw the rest of the crew standing outside. Jonny nearly jumped and asked: “What the fuck are y’all doing here?”

Brian rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and admitted: “We knew you were doing an experiment with Raph, but then Tim walked by and xe didn’t hear any screams, so we got worried and kind off waited to… check in on you?”

It was silent, then Jonny laughed, the laugh was bubbly and not at all his usual cackle: “That’s very sweet, but also kind of funny.”

Tim crossed xyr arms and pouted: “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”

“What did she do?” Ivy asked, always needing to know.

“She got me gifts, it’s part of an experiment apparently, but I don’t really get part. It was very sweet though.” Jonny explained.

“It’s comparing his reaction to personal, shiny, or expensive gifts, I still need to work out the details, but I think I got a solid testing done today.” Raphaella smiled.

“You got him three gifts?” Marius exclaimed, “Now we’re all behind.”

More protest and angry noises were heard, though all in good sport. Jonny however quickly said: “You are not behind at all. I got enough gifts to last a lifetime, which was really nice, so thank you, again.”

“You forget you have many lifetimes, Jonny-darling.” Ashes told him, throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into their side so that they could plant a kiss on his temple.

Jonny mumbled something incomprehensible, a deep flush coloring his cheeks.

“I Did Not Hear You, Jonny. What Did You Say?” The Toy Soldier asked.

Exploding a bit, Jonny yelled: “I said that I am making you all a big dinner!”

“I Am Confused What This Has To Do With The Conversation.” The Toy Soldier cocked its head to convey said confusion.

“Well, y’all can’t be the only one being nice.” Jonny said, grumbling a bit more and marching off grumpily when the others dared to coo over him.

A few days later a big dinner was served that had everyones favorites. It had taken Jonny a while with organization and they had to drop by a planet for some ingredients, but all could see how pleased he was with his own hard work.

“Dig in.” he told them with a flourish and a grin.

The others didn’t need to be told twice as they practically attacked the food with delight. It was a rowdy dinner, which was par of the course, as everyone tried to talk over one another or upped their volume to be heard over the racket.

“This is delicious, thank you, darling.” Ashes said with their mouth full.

“Yeah, it’s great, princess.” Tim agreed.

More sounds of content and agreement as well as thank yous floated up from the group, making Jonny beam with pride as he focused on his plate without meeting anyone's eyes. The chaos soon continued, when Tim decided to steal a bite of Nastyas plate, who retaliated.

However, all fell silent to listen to Raph, when she had told Jonny: “I got the results from my experiment, if you’re interested.”

Before Jonny could answer, Ashes yelled: “We’re interested, poppet. Explain your science.”

“Alright, so I had three categories, which I’ve already told you before but they were personal, shiny, and expensive gifts. I wanted to do more of each one to get a more statistically sound experiment, but I thought that more would be overwhelming, which would also throw the data off, so I just stuck to three, but I might want to do a repeat or study camera footage of Aurora.” Raphaella began.

The others nodded along, happy to listen to her ramble about her science.

“Anyway, I got a blanket for personal, earrings for shiny and Yggdrasil ale for expensive and then some other fascinating but experienced as unpleasant neutralizers to ensure that the reaction to one wouldn't carry over to the next.” Raphaella said.

“Was that the mold, the cut of head and the vomit was for?” Jonny asked.

Raphaella nodded enthusiastically: “Yup and they did their job marvelously. Your brain activity shifts and the heat of your cheeks decreased to a more usual level.”

“I don’t blush.” Jonny mumbled.

“Oh, but you do! I can show you the footage or the heat signatures and my calcula-”

“Yeah, okay, whatever, just- just move on.” Jonny slumped in his seat, pointedly ignoring the annoying smirks of a few of his partners.

“Alright then, if you’re sure.” Raphaella said, then she moved on, “The final rankings were personal first, then shiny and then expensive, although the reactions were all positive and endorphin levels were huge, which should have a good effect on your health and mental well being.”

“Not expensive first?” Nastya asked, “But he’s such a fancypants.”

“Why do you always have to call me that?” Jonny complained.

“She is right though, darling.” Ashes defended Nastya, making Jonny pout.

Raphaella thought about the question and answered Nastya: “Well, I’m still trying to figure that out, but I will have to dive deeper into Jonnys personality, maybe do interviews and social sciences have never been my main focus so I’ll have to read up on it.”

“Please don’t dive deeper into my personality.” Jonny said with an edge to his voice.

All eyes were now on him and he shifted in his seat and scratched his nose, not making any eyecontact. When the quiet dragged on, he glanced up and made eyecontact with Marius, who gave him a concerned look and cocked a brow at him.

“What?” he threw his hands up in the air, “So, I don’t like people prying into me, no matter who they are. You’re going to psychoanalyze me over it?”

“No, doll, not if you don’t want to.” Marius replied, feeling saddened with Jonnys surprised look.

The following quiet was broken by Tim, who draped xemself over Jonnys side as xe said: “So, personal gifts, eh, princess?”

“Shut up.” Jonny pushed xem, but it wasn’t hard enough to actually make xem move.

“Ahw, you’re so sweet.” Tim cooed.

“No, I’m not.” Jonny grumbled, then he admitted softly: “It’s just nice that people think of you, you know?”

“Then I Shall Think Of You On Every Planet, Jonny, Ol’ Chap!” The Toy Soldier exclaimed.

With wide eyes Jonny said: “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. It will get a bit out of hand if you do that, TS. The sentiment is sweet, though.”

“No, I’m with TS here.” Nastya grinned at him and gave him a wink.

More agreed and Jonny stopped functioning for a second, before he weakly protested: “It’s really not necessary.”

“Darling, it’s literally scientifically proven that it is beneficial to give you things.” Ashes told him.

“I hate you all.” Jonny said, burying his face in his hands.

“No you don’t.” Marius smirked and he was right, even if Jonny wasn’t currently admitting it.

The evening moved on and on the next planet Ashes came back with a fancy gun and later Brian with a bag of sweets to cater to Jonnys sweet tooth.

And so they collectively assured that Jonnys collection of things continued to grow throughout time, because they all saw how happy it made their First Mate and the small smiles, thank yous and kisses made it all completely worth it.

#RR writing #the mechs #The Mechanisms #Jonny d'Ville #gunpowder tim #Ashes O'Reilly #drumbot brian #Ivy Alexandria #raphaella la cognizi #marius von raum #Nastya Rasputina #aurora x nastya #polymechs #poly mechs #nastya is also part of the polymechs #the toy soldier #toy soldier

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sidras-tak · 5 years ago

Text

@imperial-evolution made a Very Good Post about Martin being a fan of the Mechanisms, so I ran with that

Martin mentions when Jon settles in for a meal, that he’s going to clean up the house a little. He says, with a tiny blush, he usually plays music and he might sing along to it

“Is that okay? I don’t want to disrupt your recording time.”

Jon gives him a fond look, one that’s becoming more and more natural as the days pass.

“It’s perfectly fine, Martin. It’s not like anyone but me is going to be listening to these recordings anyway.”

“Right,” Martin says with a little smile. “‘Do Not Archive’, right?”

“Exactly.”

Martin hesitates for a brief moment, then rushes forward and kisses Jon quickly. He’s out of the room before Jon can react.

“Have a good meal,” he says on his way out. Jon takes a moment to compose himself. One should not start reading a statement while grinning. It would be undignified. He settles in with a statement, and even if Martin was yodeling from the hallway, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the steady, heady thrum of words flowing through him.

—

Jon finishes the last word and sits back with a satisfied sigh. This statement was full and would sustain him for at least a week. He idly mulls over the details of the statement, when a sound breaks his concentration. A cackle. A highly-recognizable cackle, accompanied by gunfire.

For fuck's sake, Jon takes a second to think, then he’s out of his chair and opening the door to the kitchen.

Martin is standing by the sink, elbows-deep in soapy water. His head is bobbing along to the song and he’s muttering the words under his breath. Jon gets there just in time to hear his own voice say is this her? How do we wake her up?

Loudly, Jon says, “Must you listen to this particular album?”

Martin jumps, whirling around, sending little water droplets flying across the room from his hands.

“Jon!” he exclaims, over the sound of Jon’s college-aged voice proclaiming I’m not gonna kiss a sleeping stranger, Nastya. That’s really fucking creepy.

Jon cringes and hits the stop button on the CD player that’s sitting on the counter.

“Ah,” Martin says, drying his hands on a towel. “You don’t like The Mechanisms? I’ve only got three physical albums with me and two of them are The Mechanisms, sorry…..”

He pauses, frowning. “They’re not that well-known, I’m surprised you recognize the music.”

Jon shakes his head in exasperation. He’s annoyed, but more with this unexpected encounter with his past than Martin. “Yes, I’m aware we’re not well-known, thank you.”

Martin frowns again, but differently. “We?” he echoes, like something terrible is dawning on him.

“Martin,” Jon says slowly. “You do realize…..that Jonny d’Ville…..is me, right?”

“What?” Martin screeches, nearly throwing the towel across the room. He blinks rapidly, like his entire world is resetting.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in a band!” Martin demands.

“I thought you knew! Tim teased me enough about it, I thought everyone in the Archives knew.”

Weakly, Martin says, “Oh my god. I got your autograph once. I mailed in a CD and you signed it for me.”

“Really?” Jon asks. Wordlessly, Martin pops open the CD player and hands over the disk for Once Upon a Time in Space. Sure enough, ‘Jonny d’Ville’ is scrawled over the front in black sharpie.

“I can’t believe I’m dating a fan,” Jon says, for lack of a better thing to say. They’ve faced weirder things on a daily basis for years now, but this has shaken him in a way the supernatural never could. It’s not that he’s ashamed of his band, but everyone looks back on their college bands with a little embarrassment, right? Jonny d’Ville was much more dramatic than Jon Sims ever let himself be. To hear himself croon and yell with such abandon feels just a touch mortifying, and even more so to consider that his boyfriend listens to it regularly enough to own physical copies.

Martin slaps a hand over his mouth. “I had two crushes on you,” he says with all the finality of a man admitting his complacency in a fatal crime. “One on Jonny d’Ville and one on my boss.”

Suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation hits Jon and he puts a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter. It doesn’t work, as several giggles and one undignified snort sneak out past his hand.

“My god, Martin, only you,” he says. Martin, blushing hard, grabs the front of Jon’s jumper and tugs it gently.

“If you don’t tease me about crushing on your band-sona, I won’t tease you about the costumes you wore as d’Ville.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I was quite proud of those costumes! I worked hard on that makeup, too,” Jon says, mock-insulted. He puts his arms around Martin’s waist, drawing them closer together. Martin melts into the embrace, as does Jon. It feels good to laugh with Martin, even at something as silly as this.

“Hey,” Martin says quietly. “Would you sing for me sometime? Not The Mechanisms, if you don’t want, but just anything? I always thought your voice—well, d’Ville’s voice—was beautiful.”

Jon kisses Martin’s cheek, then properly on the lips. When he pulls back, he says, “if you’re lucky, I’ll even play a bit of harmonica for you.”

“Ooh, I knew there was a reason I loved you,” Martin says.

Jon hums a quiet agreement, which then evolves into humming an actual song. The tune resembles the opening to one of the songs from the album Martin had cared about enough to buy and have signed, and eventually, Jon picks up the words, just loud enough for Martin and himself to hear.

Oh, my love, as the canons were a-blazing

I looked to the stars for you my love

Oh my love, as the cities you were razing

I looked to the stars to you, my love

My world was left a-burning and my royal house a-bleeding

I looked to the stars for you, my love….

#sparklepants #the magnus archives #jonmartin #kit writes #tma #post 159 #the mechanisms #do i relate cinder's song to jon? yes i do

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the-lack-of-errors-in-star-trek · 3 years ago

Text

MIDNIGHT FLIGHTS - 0.2

Chapter 2

It had been a few weeks since the strange night had occurred at the bar, and Anna seemed to move on from sleeping with Derek as she had with other partners in recent years.

"He was just too cocky and sure of himself." Anna complained to Nastya over a coffee last week, noting that his lack of being around often, plentiful attitude, and unwillingness to settle in any measure became a turn off for her, "Note to self, don't sleep with Feds." Anna laughs.

Still despite this, every once and a while Nastya would receive a shopping invite from Penelope, her excuse that with the blonde's line of work, some people outside of a federal building would do her some good. They had actually become decent friends, not seeing much of the others, but it was definitely enough to be invited to a friendly brunch. So this is exactly why she had met up with Emily and Penelope five hours after they got back from a cross country flight, a healthy 10am brunch to cut loose and hang around civilians for once.

Nastya was the first there, the reservations under Penelope for four people, leaving the young teacher to wonder who the fourth person would be. Emily is the next to arrive, spotting the table by Nastya's brown hair in a twisted updo exposing her gold necklace over a white sweater, jeans, and heeled boots like usual.

"Privyet," Emily greets her, the two standing to kiss on the cheek, a nice welcome to Nastya who could read that Emily tried wholeheartedly to respect and not insult Nastya's background. "How are you doing?"

"Privyet, I'm doing well," Nastya answers sitting down at the same time as Emily, "How was the great state of California?"

"You know we barely see anything except the crime scene." Emily laughs.

"Yeah that's fair, maybe you ought to go there on an actual vacation, lord knows you all need it." Nastya suggests, while keeping an eye on the door for Penelope to come through with the mystery person. She turns back to the agent in front of her, "Seriously, I don't know how you all do it, that long in a career like this? Anna finds Derek insufferable. It has to take its toll on all of you?"

Emily nods along, readjusting in her seat, "I think Derek coming across as a hot-shot is more to do with his personality than his job, but I do see what you mean." The last part leaves her lips as a laugh.

The conversation between Nastya and Emily picks up the longer they wait, most of it by sharing details of the previous case, save for all of the gore, focused mainly on Emily's gripes with the local Californian PD units butt-hurt that they couldn't handle a serial killer by themselves.

It was during Emily's rant about the police that Penelope walked in with the tall man who drove her home just a few weeks ago, Penelope eager to hug Nastya and sit down, Spencer more awkward just by waving and selecting the seat across from her.

"Is that really true, Pen?" Nastya asks her as Penelope settles into her seat and starts looking at the menu, "Do these people really give you hell just because you're not physically there?"

Penelope nods in response, "Yeah, they don't like how big government can just swoop in and learn everything needed, but it's whatever, I get what I need every time."

Nastya nods along and turns to Spencer, "Nice of you to join us, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing alright, how about yourself?" The answer from him is short and feels scripted, and suddenly Nastya understands Anna, all of these FBI men are very curt and guarded in basic conversation.

"I've been doing good, glad everyone is pretty good given the circumstances." She answers, while understanding that he could have been barely listening. Much of the brunch consists of Natasha interacting with the other women present, and Spencer not really adding much to the conversation. The drinks come and go, as does the food, and for the most part everyone is enjoying themselves.

Spencer can't help but run through an internal monologue, questioning why Natasha puts him off, and why he can't seem to be engaged in the conversation like he would have been at work, or at least without Natasha there. Spencer settled on the possibility that she was just too new to the dynamic, and didn't appear to be a stable fixture, considering it took many months for him to open up to Prentiss, let alone Rossi. Was he really expecting himself to open up to her after a few weeks? It seemed impossible, and yet when she looked at him, and honestly looked him in the eyes, he couldn't help but to feel like he should. Hell, she had all of their numbers, even Morgan's who had stopped seeing Natasha's friend only 6 days and 15 hours ago.

Natasha's voice rang clear, "What's everyone's plans for the rest of this fine Sunday?" She smiles, glancing at everyone in the room, taking notice that Spencer was staring at her passively.

Penelope was the first to answer, "More than likely go home, play some online games, and relax before we get that inevitable phone call from Hotch." To the last part Emily and Spencer chuckle. Emily is the next to speak up.

"Mainly spend some quality time with Sergio and watch chick-flicks." She smiles at the end.

"Your boyfriend?" Natasha asks, causing Emily to laugh.

"No, my cat. But if any man could be as great as him? That'd be a miracle." The response is warm and filled with humour, keeping the topics light. "What about you, Reid?" Emily attempts to rope him into the conversation.

"Library." It's a short answer again, like he just wants to leave the table now. In reality, he'd rather be with his work friends than alone, but can't bring himself to stay interested in much.

Emily raises her eyebrows slightly as a reaction and turns to Natasha reposing the question to her. "And what about you?"

"I'll probably just go home, keep the fort held down while my Mama runs the store." She answers. "Maybe have Anna over to make sure she doesn't get the idea to call your co-worker again." Penelope and Emily can't help but to laugh at the idea. Natasha then looks at her watch. "Speaking of, I should probably foot my bill and take leave, I didn't realize it was already noon."

The table says their goodbyes as Natasha packs up and leaves her payment on the table for Emily to close up, and walks out of the restaurant glad she was able to spend good time with her new friends doing something other than shopping.

As usual, the trip back to the home and store was uneventful. She greeted her mother who was working, by waving to the window as she walked up into the apartment. As she entered the home, she took a moment to really soak in her life, how insane it was to be casual friends with federal agents, as one would just be casually friends with military members in Russia. Sure she knew if any of them came around to this area of D.C. it would spur odd looks by an untrusting immigrant populus, but for the most part all of the people she had met were kind and non judgemental. It would be a lie to say she was unaffected by mob activity on the East Coast, it's mob activity that killed her father, yet somehow even just knowing that her and her mother kept to themselves, their work, and their church created an air of enough safety to at least make those types of friends.

It's on this train of thought she remembers to call Anna. She picks up on the third ring of course.

"Privyet, what's going on?" Anna answers the phone, sounding slightly rushed.

"Privyet Anna, do you have plans today? You could come over, or I could go to your apartment." Natasha keeps the request short but it takes Anna a moment to respond.

"Ummmm, I'm not exactly sure if now is a good time, Nastya. I'm a little caught up in something at the moment." She finally answers Nastya, her voice quieter than usual.

"You're busy? At 2 in the afternoon on a Sunday?" Nastya questions her, already knowing the outcome.

"Look, don't be mad, but he's in the shower, and I need to go before he comes out." Anna rushes the answer, knowing Nastya would berate her for this later.

"Anna! We agreed!" Nastya switches into Russian. "You dumb bitch, kick him out!"

"Love you, bye!" Anna laughs at Nastya's temper, blowing a kiss before hanging up the phone.

The blunt hanging up makes Nastya shake her head, settling down onto the couch to pass her time watching the TV. She knew her mother would be closing up the shop in a few hours, and decided against going back out.

Later that night, as Nastya and her mother sat down to eat dinner, the obvious questions about the day are expressed over the meal.

"How was work?" Nastya asks, savouring the meal in front of her, it was basic, just pan cooked chicken and potatoes, but it was good food with the weather only starting to warm up.

"It was good, thank you Lisichka." Her mother answers after swallowing her mouthful. "You know how that shop is, busy until it's quiet, and quiet until it gets busy." More chewing fills the living area until her mother asks a question. "How was your time out?"

"It was good, the man who drove me home went along with Emily and Penelope. The girls are very welcoming, the men not so much." Nastya answers, fiddling her piece of chicken around on her fork. "I think Anna saw Derek again today, I called and she said she was busy with 'him' but I didn't get a name."

"That Derek boy isn't good for her, too flashy." Natasha's mother laughs. "But she'll do what she wants, I only hope her parents don't throw a fit."

"You never throw a fit when I sleep with someone."

"Because you have good taste, Anna needs a good Russian boy in her life, none of these so-called agents. It'll only make life more difficult for the Lebedev's. They already lost one son, no use worrying over a son-in-law who could also die." Her mother's commentary on Anna's life makes Nastya laugh at first, but then settle due to the nature of the rest of the comment. That was the one aspect of conversation that always made Natasha irritated, of course mothers always loved their daughters, but sons were just revered more, and a son with dangerous work? Anna better plan on having children fast if she were to ever settle with someone like Derek.

"It'll never go that far, Mama, Anna loves fun too much." Natasha covers for her practical sister. "She won't nest a home until she's in her 30's."

"A waste of her youth if you ask me. And what of you? When will you settle down on your fun? Teaching is nice, but I want to see our family name continue as well." The conversation had usually always gone this direction, causing Natasha to lay her fork down.

"Mama, I love you, but please. This isn't Russia, I can marry and have kids whenever I please. Anna too." Natasha leaves the answer stinging in the air, talking about tradition and culture was always a point of contention with her mother, and just as she went to open her mouth, the home phone rang. Natasha went to answer.

"Privyet, Semyonov house." She answers. Thankfully it's Anna on the other end.

"Nastya! Listen, I got the apartment cleaned up, come over?"

"I can't, I have work tomorrow, Anna." Nastya eyes her mother knowing staying here is the only option mentally.

"Jesus, I do too, but you're all caught up no?"

"Nyet Anna, I can't go. We can talk after work tomorrow but it's best if we just stay in, yeah? It's dark out and not the safest. If you need anyone just call Derek again."

"I would but I can't, these fucking agents and being called at any hour of the day, any day of the week. You were right."

"I know I was," Natasha chuckles at her friend's antics. "Stay in, we'll get dinner sometime this week."

"Okay, bye."

"Love you, bye." Natasha hangs up the phone and goes back to the table to discover that in the brief conversation, her mother had finished her plate and started on dishes.

It would be that later in the night, she found herself hovering over the contacts in her phone as she laid in bed trying to go to sleep. Spencer was saved as "Dr. Reid," a note to their acquaintanceship having more merit than a friendship, and she wondered what would have to be done in order to even have a shot at being friends. Sure she had her own, from work, from the church, the people she grew up around, but there was something about Dr. Spencer Reid that made her want to at least try to get to know him.

#criminal minds #doctor spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction

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basenji18 · 4 years ago

Text

Call Waiting

"Hm. that feels good."

"I like it."

"Would you like it better if I shaved?"

"What should I do then, polish them? I like you furry."

To drive the point home, she nuzzles into his chest hair, purring and preening, while her hand stays down below, gently cupping his family jewels.

"You keep playing like that, he's going to get excited."

"Mmm, let him. I have some furry bits you can introduce him to..."

She tilts up to kiss his metal face and he closes his eyes, imagines he can feel warm lips against his and not hard, unforgiving metal.

Then the phone rings.

Everything goes rigid, and not in the fun way he was just anticipating. Ana seizes up in his arms -- thank God her hand doesn't clench -- and bolts out of bed.

They're not in the habit of answering phones during private time. In fact, they don't keep phones turned on. But this number always rings, day or night. Even if her phone is turned off, this number cannot be shut out.

The Commander is calling.

Ana -- not Ana. When the Commander is calling she's fully Baroness -- jumps out of bed. In her haste her ankle catches in the sheets and she smashes to the floor. She ignores it, fumbling for the phone on the nightstand and pressing it to her ear while still on the floor.

"Commander."

James slides over, swings his legs over the side of the bed. He can't hear the Commander's side of the conversation, but Baroness's one word answers are tight and airless. The hand not holding the phone grips the knee she barked on the floor, insulted red skin already blooming hotly around her fingers. The Commander must notice her tone too, because after a moment she says,

"Knocked against a table corner getting up. It's nothing."

James hurts at that. He lays a hand on her shoulder, but she brushes it away.

"Yes, Yes, of course."

Always yes to Him. Yes, without question. If the Commander wants the impossible, she'll find a way to do it.

James -- Destro -- absently strokes his metal cheek. Maybe she's right after all.

The Commander asks a question which takes her a moment. Baroness looks into the distance, eyes unfocused as she calculates.

"I can be there in six hours."

Six hours from now he wanted to have her at an early lunch at a little pub with the finest herring and best brown ale in Scotland. His heart drops further when she amends,

"Four hours, then."

The call wraps up, a string of assurances and affirmatives to the madman on the other end. It's all formalities now, until Baroness stops, mouth open.

"I -- Oh. Yes, I had forgotten. Target practice. I still have the goggles on."

She doesn't. James frowns in confusion.

"Of course, Commander. Four hours. Stockholm."

There's no farewell. The Commander doesn't say goodbye to anyone, he just hangs up. Ana sits there on the floor, looking hollow and wrung out. James gets down on the floor and wraps himself around her.

"He asked why he couldn't reach me on my glasses."

"He...? Oh."

That is how they communicate most of the time. And she can take images and upload data with them. He can see anything she can. A chill grips James and it's not the cold floor.

"You can turn those off, can't you?"

"Obviously. But he's not happy about it."

"When is he happy?"

She frowns at the phone, still in the hand that a moment ago was holding him. He takes it away and exiles it to the nightstand, helps her back onto the bed. Blood oozes from a few small tears in the skin, but she's mostly going to have bruises. She hisses when his fingers brush too near.

"Let's get this cleaned up."

"In a minute. Stretch back out first."

They stretch toe to toe and stomach to stomach, her head tucked under his chin. The moment for flirtatious fun is gone. Now it's all about skin on skin comfort.

"It won't take you four hours to get to Stockholm."

"He thinks I'm in Tokyo."

"Then he can't expect you to get there in four."

"Can't he?"

They're silent for a while. He wants to stay like this, holding her until the mood comes back or they both doze off. But minutes they don't have are slipping through his fingers.

"Nastya?"

"Mm?"

"Leave him."

He meant to say "it," but it came out how it came out. There's a lengthy silence against his breastbone, her nose buried in the ginger hair. He expects anger, upset, something. But after a moment a hand slips up and rests on his metal cheek.

"You really think we can leave, my love?"

"Of course. Burn the phone, leave the glasses. Drop everything, we'll replace it all. Neither of us is foolish enough to keep everything in accounts under our own names. We can disappear wherever we want. I'll go to Siberia if you say so."

Holding her close and knowing he's spinning a fantasy, but wanting to live in that fantasy and not in the world where four hours from now she'll be away from him and taking orders from a man who leaves her naked and bleeding on the floor.

"Do you love him?"

Even he didn't realize he had the question, but now it's out and he knows its fear. Her head rests right against where his heart tries to beat its way out of his chest to her. She's very quiet. She winds a leg between his, melts into every crevice against him.

"No."

"Then why --"

"Because I owe him."

That seems preposterous. James stays silent, waiting for her to fill the space with explanation. After a moment, she does.

"He took care of me after my brother died. Gave me something to do. This whole world is so corrupt... The few who hold power, keeping the rest down, training those at the bottom to fight with each other rather than look up. Zhenya thought he could help, and he was murdered by the same people who claim to work for peace and justice."

A memory of a young man with familiar dark hair and glasses surfaces in James' mind. He doesn't tell her, but from the little he knew Eugene Cisarov, he wasn't much less than his sister's idolization makes him out to be. And yes, he did die fighting corruption, even if she's got the details wrong. That...is something he should tell her. Someday.

"What do I do? How do you fix anything when the heroes are frauds and the ones you’re trying to help don’t want to be? I floated around playing Eurotrash revolutionary...Throwing bombs, dodging tear gas. For what? What real change did we bring?

"Then I met the Commander."

Her tone changes. She comes more alive in his arms, though he's not sure he likes it.

"He explained to me: instead of rejecting the unfair system, I should leverage all the advantages it has given to me. Money, education, family name. Use it all to set up a new one from within, and then burn the old ways to the ground."

She digs her nails into him on the last part, not hard enough to hurt. Her voice is deep and rich. James closes his eyes. He understands now. He is her love; Cobra is her religion. But as she grabs his head in both hands and presses a kiss hard against his mouth, the metal mask between them reminds him it isn't his.

A fierce smile greets him as he opens his eyes. This is the part of her he both loves and mourns for. This passionate, brilliant, misled true believer.

"Do you really think the Commander is going to share power? That he will be a benevolent leader?"

She doesn't get angry. She just shrugs.

"No. But he's no worse than what's already sits in offices and board rooms all around the world. You know that."

He does, unfortunately.

"Besides, a little less freedom will be good for some places. No more little towns full of backwater morons refusing a new hydroelectric dam in favor of their dying coal mine. Yelling 'tradition' while rates of teen dropouts and industrial accidents increase every generation. No more outbreaks of diseases solved decades ago because some parent didn't vaccinate. Society is a child who needs to be fed its vegetables and put to bed."

She kisses him again.

"We can do that."

She purrs and cuddles him. He holds her back, if not for the reason she thinks.

You're a brave, bonnie, slightly deluded lass, but I love you.

"You're still relying on a few at the top giving orders."

She shrugs again.

"Some people are born to rule."

That warms his blood. He can agree with her there. (He agrees with her general principles, but her faith in Cobra Commander is entirely misplaced, he's sure.) He takes her by the hips and rolls so she's on top, favoring her wounded knee gently.

"We've got four hours. What do you say to a romp and some breakfast?"

Her sharp smile is in full force. Her hand slides back down between them.

"Where were we?"

#gi joe #gi joe renegades #gi joe: renegades #baronestro #baroness #destro #ana decobray #anastasia cisarovna #james mccullen #cobra commander #cobraaa #anastasia decobray #fluff fic #fanfiction

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satinechristian · 5 years ago

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Dimyaweek: Fairytale gets a Spin

This parade was going to be the one. Anastasia decided on it a week ago, during the last of her dress fittings, as the seamstress stuck her with pins and instructed her to breathe in this way and then don’t breathe at all. It had been a secret tradition for ten years now. As secret as something in front of thousands of people could be.

“You fidget too much,” her oldest sister, Olga, scolded her.

In her opinion,Olga did not fidget enough.

“You’re eighteen now,” her second oldest sister, Tatiana, chimed in. “You should’ve lost some of that youthful exuberance by now.”

Anastasia turned towards the next sister in line, Maria, and whispered loudly, “Ah yes, you’re all such fine old maidens of advanced years now. I must have forgotten.”

Maria giggled in response, because she was twenty and hadn’t lost all of her youthful exuberance quite yet. Though she did try to train her face into a scowl when Olga gave her the Look that so eerily mirrored their father’s.

“Nastya, you mustn’t tease her,” Maria said. “This may be Olga’s last chance to mother us before she goes off to have a family of her own.”

Anastasia crossed herself in prayer for Olga’s future family. It earned her another lecture, but it helped pass the time quickly until it was time to get in line for the parade.

Once outside in the too hot sun for the current dress she was stuffed in, Anastasia found herself fidgeting with the opening of her glove as her eyes scanned the crowd for a familiar face.

She had been eight the first time she had seen him. He had been skinny in a way she now recognized from her work at the hospital as malnourished, his face carried a light layer of dirt, but a brilliant smile underneath it. He had been small and could easily work his way through the crowd and the guards. It had been memorizing. Then he had called her name and bowed and she found herself smiling back.

At home, as the youngest girl, she was told she got plenty of attention. That had altered and changed over the years with the arrival of Alexei and then his illness over the years. In public, she found her and Maria were often interchangeable to the public. It was not something to get focused on, she was certain, but the individual attention had been nice.

The next year, she hadn’t expected him. But there he had been. A little taller, even more less clean, and his eyes a little sadder. But they had connected and he bowed and she had smiled.

He was no longer a boy, and she thought this might be the last year she saw him. If she saw him at all, she had to remind herself. The year before he had only shown up at the end. A quick bow to her and he had disappeared before her returning smile had even fully formed.

He had grown up to be rather handsome. More clean, much more tall, and still could make his way through the crowd and guards with a surprising grace and effortlessness.

None of the other men her family paraded in front of her came close to looking like him. She wondered who he was when he was not at this particular parade.

Anastasia knew he couldn’t be someone suitable, but that had never mattered to her. As it was, she knew people had begun to whisper the same of her and her sisters. Thus, Olga’s current rush to try to get to the altar.

Then she could see the familiar head of hair amidst the crowd. She took stock of where her family was. Alexei was in his place, up front, with their parents. Olga was focused on the crowd on the right, and Tatiana on the left. Maria was… turning away because she knew her youngest sister was up to something and wanted plausible deniability.

Anastasia took her chance and ducked out, ten years of observing the guards, the crowd and the boy taking her feet where she needed to go.

She found him at the edge of the crowd, and followed him towards an empty alcove.

He kneeled into a bow before her, “Your highness.”

Anastasia smiled back at him as he stood back up, “I don’t know a name to address you by.”

He looked around, as though it was a secret to impart before saying, “Dmitry.”

Of course, he had to have one of the most common names in all of Russia. It would make him near impossible to find in most cases.

“Truly?”

Dmitry nodded, “I would not have you call me by any other.”

Anastasia stepped forward, bold as ever, the heels of her slippers not bringing her close at all to his height, so she put her hands on his shoulders and brought him down to her and kissed him. And she felt herself being lifted in the air as he kissed her back.

The feeling of your soul finding its missing piece locking into place.

Anya woke up with a start, but not a scream for once. She sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as the dream washed over her. She never knew what was more jarring- the dreams in which she saw her sisters bloodied and ravaged as they had been the last time she saw them, or these ones where they were whole and still so very alive for her.

She wiped away the water that had formed in her eyes, regardless, letting the feeling of the dream settle over her. It made her ache with a certain kind of loneliness, but overall she decided she felt good about it.

“Hey,” Dmitry said, sitting up behind her, and felt his arms wrap around her. Any tension the dream may have caused melted away from her. His lips brushed her cheek, and she smiled. “Bad dream?”

“No,” she responded. “A good one this time.”

He pulled them gently back onto the bed, and she turned her body so her cheek rested against his chest. Her ear pressed against the steady beat of his heart.

“What was the dream?”

It was so much, but she just told him the most important part of it. “You and me, always ending up together, no matter the circumstances.”

“Of course,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head, already halfway back to sleep.

She played with the folds of his tank top, and listened to the even beat of his heart as her mind found its way back into a now dreamless sleep.

#dimyaweek2020 #dimya #anastasia broadway #anastasia fanfiction #myfic #my fic #the format on this will be weird bc it didnt save right #and wont let me do a read more

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angelicspaceprince · 5 years ago

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SFW Alphabet - Good Omens Aziraphale x Reader

A/N: Here they finally are! My SFW Aziraphale Alphabet headcanons! Now these have been completed, I’m moving on to the soulmate AUs!

Tagged: @justballoonfishthings, @aethersghoulette, @inspired-is-gone, @daddy-clancy666, @yingshz, @omg-the-sex-was-amazingggg, @my--names-blurryface, @disa, @lilcutekittykat, @shawtyhadthemapplebottomjeans, @broadwayavenger, @dreaming-in-photographs, @ineffable-snek-boi, @virtualmemmecollector, @sincerelyraine, @the-bi-trash-can, @tunnel-snakesss-rule, @nashnolastname, @lucia-michaelis, @lovelesslionblog, @xs1nister, @chicken-poncho, @nastya-platini, @trelaney, @stspookers, @ghuulbabe, @jellyfishlovesloki, @greatjaygatsby, @littlebitfluffy

Headcanons

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) Aziraphale is very affectionate, especially in passing and physical affection. A kiss to the top of the head as you rest against him, a squeeze of your hand as he walks by, a quick hug as you try to finish cooking. He loves just being in your general vicinity and, if he can, touching you in innocent ways. You tend to walk next to each other with your arm placed in the crook of his, and on occasion where you walk hand in hand, his thumb rubs firm but comforting circles on the back of your palm.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?) Aziraphale is a caring friend who is the sort of person who calls to check up on you or see something and get it for you just because. He would be the first person to call when you have a concern as he listens and discusses solutions calmly whilst being an amazing emotional support. Most likely, the friendship starts when you happen upon his ‘store’ and, after noticing that the giant ass snake was, in fact, real and that the owner didn’t seem pleased to part with his beloved books, you put your desired purchase away and simply started chatting about his book collection. It starts slowly, but soon the two of you become incredibly close.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?) He loves a cuddle. He loves spooning, actually, and he doesn’t mind which spoon he is. He just likes being pressed up against you.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?) Just like Crowley, I don’t think there is an actual moment where the two of you sit down and decide to move in together – it just sort of happens. He may say that you spend more time at his than at your place and why don’t you just move in and you bring your stuff over but in the lead up, there is no official discussion.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?) I feel that Aziraphale would really struggle to break up with their partner because he doesn’t want to cause them pain. He’d probably try and be gentle and practice with Crowley on what he was going to say. There are two ways it’ll work out – either you’d walk in on him practicing with Crowley, ask him outright, he’d start stuttering and Crowley would just be like ‘yep. He wants to break up.’ Alternatively, you’d go out for what you assume to be a date and towards the end he’d bring up how he doesn’t think it’s working out and perhaps you should return to being friends. It’d be awkward and painful to get it out of him because the entire time, you know he’s nervous about something and it’s being to irk you that you don’t know what is bothering him. What happens after either scenario is totally up to you.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?) Aziraphale is a creature of pure love, I think he’d very much would like to be married. I think the idea of marriage would be brought up within the first year of being in a relationship but being proposed too wouldn’t happen until after the 2-year mark. Ideally (in his eyes), you’d be married soon after that, but he’d go along with what you wanted. Don’t wanna get married? Guess you aren’t getting married. Want a long engagement? He’s ok with that too.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?) He is a soft boi. I don’t think he would ever intentionally hurt you, he’s just too kind and empathetic about it. He would be the sort of person who initially worries about hugging you too tight or bruising you if he accidentally knocks into you until he figures out what you are capable of handling. He knows when you need a tight hug or some more firm words, but everything he does radiates kindness and love and its very rare he will cease being gentle towards you. If anyone threatens you, however, look out.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?) Yessssss, he loves giving you hugs throughout the day as little reminders of how much he loves you or just to be close to you. They are always warm and inviting, and you constantly tease him about being secretly a battery as each time you hug, when he lets go you always feel reenergised.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?) Aziraphale, being a creature of love, wouldn’t shy away from the l-word. Most definitely the first one to say it and probably a little too soon for your liking but he wouldn’t say it unless he felt love coming from you towards him. He just didn’t realise you weren’t ready to admit that yet.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?) I think it wouldn’t take a lot for Aziraphale to become somewhat insecure, but it takes a lot for him to get jealous. Like Crowley, he trusts you not to cheat. But if someone is getting too handsy, he will simply walk up and hold your hand, maybe give you a light kiss and ask ‘who’s this, dear?’ in the hopes it will make the other person take a hint.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?) It depends. Soft and gentle in public, just enough to make you feel what he feels. In public, he likes to go full blown make out sesh. It’s almost amusing that an angel – a creature of ‘purity’ and ‘innocence’ – can get as down and dirty as he often does. He loves kissing your lips, it always feels so intimate when you do. Its his favourite spot to be kissed as well – but in public or where he knows you will be uncomfortable, he will kiss the back of your hand lightly. Same effect, just more comfortable for you.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?) Amazing with small children. He loves them and loves showing them his magic tricks, telling them stories and generally keeping them entertained. I think he’d be like the dorky dad with older kids because he’s not 100% sure on how to interact with them. I really think he’d love to be a dad and would want kids at some point in his life.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?) Mornings with Aziraphale always start with a cuppa in bed as you slowly wake up to the day. Aziraphale rarely sleeps, so he’s always up and ready before your eyes have even began to flutter open. He may talk about the book he read overnight to you, or his plans for the day, ask you what you were doing and if you want to meet up for lunch. Its quiet, peaceful. A lovely way to slowly wake up before having to address the busy day.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?) Your days always begin and end with a cup of tea and talking to Aziraphale. At night, its usually about your day, how he managed to get rid of pesky customers from buying his beloved collection, what he and Crowley got up to etc. If there is nothing to be said, you’d simply read together until you’re so tired your eyes begin to blur. Aziraphale will always spend at least the time it takes you to fall asleep with you, sometimes spooning, other times just laying next to you and, on occasion, if he wants to spend the night with you, you will lay your head on his chest as he reads to you until you doze off. He will always read you something whilst you sleep, apparently it makes you sleep better and you always appear to be calmer when you hear his voice as you sleep.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?) The whole angel thing would probably have been accidentally discovered by you. An argument with Crowley that you walk into, causing you to find out what they are, and Aziraphale would be frightened that you’d run off in fear. Instead, you ask questions. ‘What’s Heaven like? Can I see your wings? Where you alive when x, y, z happened?’ It was a relief that you were curious and accepting rather than angry and frightened. Beyond that, I feel that Aziraphale has been and always will be an open book to his loved ones. Even if he doesn’t tell you what’s on his mind, he tells you in the means of his body language. Nothing is off limits and he prefers to tell you what’s on his mind rather than let it wallow inside his brain.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?) It takes a lot for Aziraphale to get angry with you and even then, it’s not anger, its frustration. It’d probably have to do with if you aren’t able to take care of yourself or haven’t told him something that you find trivial, but he finds of the upmost importance, or if you accidentally mess up his very precise catalogue system for his books. Aziraphale doesn’t get angry, he gets ‘disappointed’, which somehow is always 10 times worse.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing or do they kind of forget everything?) Aziraphale will always remember the small things, what your favourite food is, any allergies, favourite genre of books, who you like at work and who you struggle with. The one thing he does struggle with is dates, especially when he gets distracted with things such as a new book that’s appeared that he simply ‘must have for his collection’ or the apocalypse-that-nearly-was then time escapes him. Its not that he can’t remember the date that the two of you met or it wasn’t important, but after living for over 6000 years, time is irrelevant. If you say to him ‘next Tuesday, lets do this’ then its more likely he would remember regardless if he gets distracted or not.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?) The moment Aziraphale knew that you loved him. He can feel love, as we all know, but you always seemed to radiate love when you were around him. It wasn’t until he realised the love didn’t start until he walked into your line of vision that he realised it was for him. He knew that you either didn’t know you felt this strong for him or you weren’t ready to confess it, but that was possibly the most defining moment in your relationship.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?) He wouldn’t like you to be in the line of danger. He’d probably keep you out of danger by not informing you of anything he perceives as potentially harmful in order to keep you out of it. If you find out, then somehow, miraculously, something gets in the way and you simply cannot get involved in any way. It wouldn’t be in your face ‘you can’t go’, he’d rather do a work around so you simply are unavailable when he knows you could end up being in danger.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?) Aziraphale would never, ever take you somewhere or get you something without thinking that you’d love it. Everything he does for you, it has a meaning. Everything has a thought behind it. From little things like making sure you have a steaming cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate/whatever to wake up to, to super romantic evenings that may not go to plan but always the thought is there, Aziraphale tries his hardest to make you feel happy, important and, most importantly, loved.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?) The only thing that happens over and over again is sometimes, sometimes, Aziraphale gets so into his book that he forgets things. Again, he’s been alive for over 6000 years. Time has no meaning to him anymore and what he thinks has taken him just a night to read has actually taken him a week. You don’t get offended, you don’t interrupt even if its poor timing on either of your part. You do like to take photos as evidence, with the day’s newspaper and a clock conveniently located so you can gently tease him about it later on.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?) It doesn’t happen often, but there have been a few times where he’s gotten obsessed with his looks as a result of comments from his heavenly family or strangers around you. One of two things happen, he either becomes obsessed with the idea that he isn’t good enough for you and starts dieting because he ‘has to do it the human way’, which makes him miserable until you assure him that you love him the way he is, and he is totally handsome and sexy the way he looks. Or, he’s convinced you will leave as a result (definitely something Gabriel has told him in the past) and starts pulling out all the stops to the point that its actively annoying. The best thing about Aziraphale is, however, that you can be totally open with him. You can discuss what’s bothering him and you can tell him how you feel on the matter. Normally it takes a while and things settle down and return to the way it was, but either way the course of this can take weeks to resolve properly.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?) Aziraphale would very much be the sort of person who believes in soulmates and would feel your absence. I think he wouldn’t ever tell you that you ‘completed’ him because he doesn’t want to put any strain on you to think that you have to be a certain way to make him happy, but he definitely thinks that you are the half that makes him whole.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.) Definitely teaches you how to dance the Gavotte one rainy Sunday afternoon when you have nowhere to go. You, in turn, teach him your favourite dance. He’s not the best, but it’s definitely the most fun either of you have ever had.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?) It goes without saying that if you hate books or if you hate stories being read to you that it’d be a no-go with him. If you couldn’t read and loved being read to then he’s all for it! I think he’d struggle however, and I don’t see it working out long term. Also, if you weren’t open to try new things. Humanity is always changing and that’s what Aziraphale loves about humanity, I don’t think he’d understand if you weren’t interested in exploring new things with him because everything that’s new is super exciting to this angel.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?) He doesn’t sleep, but he does love it when you fall asleep in his arms or on his chest as he talks to you softly. He doesn’t always spend that time with you in his arms but he definitely makes sure to spend some time with you peacefully sleeping in his arms.

#good omens #good omens headcanons #aziraphale x reader #aziraphale/reader #aziraphale #sfw alphabet #aziraphale headcanons #aziraphale/reader headcanons #good omens x reader #aziraphale x reader headcanons #good omens x reader headcanons #ama writes #fluffy

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letsriottogether · 5 years ago

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Circles

Another Valana fic that came to me yesterday night. At first I thought I would save it for later and implement it into Silence or something else, but I think it deserves to stand alone. This is going to be dark, so please

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Title: Circles

Relationship: Ulana Khomyuk/ Valery Legasov

Characters: Ulana Khomyuk, Valery Legasov, Boris Scherbina, other characters

Warning: pls don’t hate me

________________________________________

He slowly sat down on a chair next to bed. It was quiet in the dimm room, Ulana managed to fall asleep for just a moment. His eyes were fixed on her face, which didn’t look calm even in her sleep, she must be still in pain. Small beads of sweat were forming on her forhead, running down her pale skin, eyebrows curled together, hair wet from sweat stuck to her temples. He couldn’t help but notice how the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes ran much deeper than when he first met her in that sad empty hotel in Pripyat not even two years ago. If only they knew what future planned for them.

It wouldn’t change anything anyway

He put his glasses down on the bedside table and took her small hand in his big ones, resting his elbows on the mattress in process. Ulana stirred in her sleep but did not wake up, for which he was thankful. He pressed their joined hands to his forehead, clumsily planting soft kisses around her wrist. He slowly exhaled and pressed her hand against his stubble cheek. His eyes then drifted from her face, down her frame, resting on her belly protruding almost unnaturally from her noticabely thinner frame. The pregnancy took its inevitable cost on her, given to her age and radiation exposure in Chernobyl. No matter how much he tried to keep her away from the 4th reactor back there, she got her dose, and being around the victims in Moscow hospital wasn’t really a safe alternative.

Oh well. He mentaly chuckles to himself, even if sent army, she would always fight her way back, not being able to withdraw until the puzzle was solved, even if it would mean she would be dead within a month.

Ulana’s soft moan distract him from his thoughts. Her other hand is clutching the white fabric of the sheet that’s draped over her frame, mouth pouting in discomfort. He puts one of his hands on her belly, hesitantly caressing it, feeling small movements underneath. He knows Ulana will be awake soon, facing this hell, completely new kind of one for both of them. He feels even more lost than when he saw the reactor building split open, that was someone else’s fuck up that he had been called to solve and clean up. But this? This was completely and utterly his work. He knows that it takes two to make a child, but somehow feels more responsible for all this, for her suffering, for the life inside of her that is destined to be born with some sort of physical defeat, with inner disabilities (he cannot help but remember Lyudmila Ignatenko’s daughter), or maybe even born dead. He’s the one who should protect her from all of this and in the reality he ends up silently watching as week from week she gets worse, black circles under her eyes bigger, bones sticking out from underneath her marble skin no matter how much he’s making her eat, even contemplating feeding her during her worst moments. The bitter truth lingers in the air anyway. Even if they both weren’t banned from the outside world, from medical care, what would it matter? There was no help for the effects of radiation.

Please don’t let her suffer

With a loud groan her eyes open, blinking, searching around almost as if she had forgotten where she is. He immediately squeezes her hand and their eyes meet. She still looks exhausted, those few minutes of slumber helping only a little.

„How long was I asleep?“ she licks her dry lips, her voice raspy.

„Only for a moment,“ he replies, stands up a caresses her hair and hands her a cup of water. She nods in acknowledgement, taking a small sip with his help. Suddenly her breath turns deeper, she shifts her body and the sign of discomfort grows bigger in her face. He already knows this part, another contraction is coming. Not a long after that a wave runs through her muscles, her hands immediately fly to her belly, clumsily caressing it, sweat pouring down from her forehead, down her neck, down her spine. She’s biting her lip, keeping herself from screaming out in pain as the contraction grows stronger.

Valery sighs in frustration and runs hands through his thinning hair. He could explain to you how a nuclear reactor works, now also how to put out a fire if such reactor explodes, but when it comes to this, to normal life problem or these ‚women things‘, he is completely lost. He sits down on the edge of the bed, taking one of Ulana’s hands so she can squeeze it as hard as she needs. No matter how weak she might seem, she still has her power, he thinks to himself and is absolutely sure that there is a good chance she will crack at least one of his knuckles or simply leave nail marks on his freckled skin.

Ulana shifts her body again, pulling her legs up, bending them in the knees to support herself better. The pain gets weaker as the contraction fades away. She exhales and collapses back to the pillows that are stacked up behind her, to give her at least some comfort.

Her eyes turn to Valery with a small reassuring smile, when her scream cuts through the air like a knife. A new kind of pain takes over her body, different one, and panic washes over her. She went through labor back when she was younger, she can remember how it goes, and this definitely wasn’t a contraction. This was something else.

Valery sees the horror in her eyes and freezes for a moment. Ulana’s hand grips on the white sheet covering her body and tears it away, swiftly pushing it to the side. She can feel something sticky on her inner thighs, making a small pool between her legs.

„Valery!“ her voice trembles with desperation, which finally has effect on him. New energy in his veins kicks in, he lets go of her hand and in one swift motion he’s at the door, flicking the light switch on. That’s when he sees what she already knew. Her crimson red blood shining out from the white sheets, and he can’t help but notice how her skin turns one shade paler. She’s breathing heavily, staring at the bloody cloth. Suddenly there’s deafening humming in his ears, breath catches in his throat and he switches to automatic. He runs out of the bedroom door, heart pounding loudly. He hears himself as if from a distance calling over his shoulder that he’s going to get Nastya. Or was that only in his head?

Nastya was almost like an angel sent from heaven, as much as they both refuse to believe in such things. Once Ulana and Valery were moved to new much smaller apartment, it was as if neighbours were already warned that they are blacklisted from normal world. And then Nastya moved to the apartment above. Old lady, with heart as big as Russian land, with witty comments and loud laugh. She immediately fell in love with the couple, not caring about any restrictions. She understood there was a secret surrounding these two. But when Ulana started showing, it was just so natural to offer them her help. She used to be a midwife after all. Oh, how many lives these hands helped to deliver. And now, her skills were needed more than ever.

Valery runs through the dark apartment, stumbling over shoes he meant to put away, almost falling down to his feet. In the distance he can hear Ulana’s whimpers. He opens the door to their apartment, leaving them wide open. He runs the stairs to the upper floor as fast as a fifty year old man can, his lungs and muscles in his legs burning. He starts franzily bashing at Nastya’s door and in a second her face appears in the doorway. From his expression she knows it’s bad. She pushes him to the side and starts waddling as fast as she can downstairs to Legasov’s apartment, her lips anxiously smacking as she straightens her old apron.

What she sees in their bedroom only confirms her fears. She rushes over to Ulana and starts checking her, pulling her legs open a bit wider to see better, so she can examine her, muttering under her breath.

Dievochka moya…

Their eyes meet, tears rolling down Ulana’s face. There’s no point in lying to her that everything is going to be just fine, she’s not stupid. Nastya’s expression softens, she shifts her stubby body to the younger woman and makes a small cross on Ulana’s forehead with her chubby finger. Valery watches this intimate scene between the two women, as if Nastya was Ulana’s mother and can’t help but feel a bit ashamed they had him as a witness. His hands are grabbing the door frame as he’s leaning on it, his knuckles turning white. There’s got to be something he can do. Fuck the KGB, fuck the ban of contacting anyone, fuck them for not allowing them medical care. He finds himself standing at the phone, not remembering he even left the bedroom filled with the smell of sweat and heavy sweet taste of blood. Of Ulana’s blood.

His fingers dial the number to call an ambulance. His voice raging, as soon as he gives the address and the name, there’s a small hesitation followed by silence on the other side of the phone.

„Are you there? This is an emergency! Send the ambulance now!“

„Yes, comrade,“ and the phone clicks.

Valery clenches his fist and hammers it against the wall in frustration. He would be surprised if the ambulance actually came. He can hear sheets ripping from the bedroom, Nasya’s soothing voice trying to calm the mother to be. All of the emotion a man can feel are running through him.

Endless love for the woman who is sweat drenched lying in the next room, trying to survive birth of their child.

Admiration for all she has gone through, for all the things that are still to happen.

Gratitude for being with him, for choosing him, for coping with his sometimes annoying bachelor habits.

Happiness from all the small moments they shared, from just the simple fact of being together, near each other.

Sadness that in moment like this, when he would need someone to slap him to senses, Boris is god knows where. That he cannot tell his best friend what is happening in his life right now. Boris, I’m gonna be a father.

Shame for feeling completely useless, for not being able to get them better life even for their limited days together.

Betrayal from the world he grew up in, that he used to trust. The great soviet will take care of all its children. Well, of all the good behaving ones, he bitterly thought. He never ever wanted to play some political charades, he was just fine with his position at Kurchatov Institute, no need to climb up the social ladder. Surrounded by scientists, by knowledge, that’s where he felt content. And this knowledge sucked him into the madness called Chernobyl. He was only doing his job, helping to save others, to prevent further explosions and spreading the radioactive particles across the whole continent. And as a scientist he had to say truth about the cause. And this was how the party pays him?

And this all leads to one emotion that begins to swallow him.

Anger. Deep, raging anger.

After a moment of hesitation he picks up the phone again and dials familiar number, hoping to hear the deep voice of their friend Scherbina on the other side. Instead, only mechanic beeping is ringing through the plastic, penetrating his ear. This number has been disconnected, no longer belonging to Boris.

Fuck, fuck this, fuck them all

And it all ends with resignation.

/////////

Few hours pass, it’s still dark outside. At the horizon a slight strip of a bit lighter dark blue can be seen, announcing that the sunrise is coming to lift up the darkness the night has brought. The Moscow streets are empty, only few windows are lit, the city peacefully sleeps, resting before another day comes.

The Legasov apartment is silent. Nastya disappeared a moment ago, knowing there’s no place for her now, not for what’s about to come. Even though she has no idea how many years she will be here on this earth, she knows one thing for sure – until her last breath, she won’t forget this night. Who cares if there will be any consequences for her after tonight. She made a cross on her wide chest and muttered a small prayer for the life that has been born today, as she tried to calm her horrified mind and replays the scene.

Few moments earlier:

Ulana’s never ending panting and groaning changes into one last agonizing scream. The sound dies on her lips as a small weak cry echoes through the room, the newborn life sliding into Nastya’s hands.

„It’s a boy,“ she whispers and looks at Ulana, who is hypnotizing the tiny body, squirming, clearly unhappy with the change of its surroundings.

Valery is by her side, he has been the whole time, and plants a kiss on her temple, relieved that at least this part is over, proud goofy smile on his face. She looks at him her relieved expression slowly changing, the unspoken question in her eyes. Valery nods and steps to Nastya, who skillfully tied the umbilical cord, her gaze is now glued to the whining newborn, horror written over her features. And then he sees it too.

„Oh no…“

„What.. How is this possible?“ Nastya stutters. Valery takes the boy wrapped in a blanket to his arms, studying him, looking him all over. Instead of baby blue eyes accustomating to the new world, there’s.. Nothing. As if his eyelids simply coalesced with the skin of his soft cheeks.

„Valera,“ he can hear Ulana calling him, but he feels as if his body and his mind are in trance.

„Valery! What is wrong with him?! Give me my son!“

He looks over his shoulder and winces. Ulana lays sprawled on the bed, her skin sickly white more than ever, her boney arms pointed out to him in gesture to take the wrapped baby in her arms.

„His eyes…“ he whispers, somber look on his face. He hesitantly walks to Ulana and hands her the small squirming bundle. Her arms immediately wrap around her son, tears streaming down her face, sobs shaking her body.

„We knew this would happen,“ Valery says with trembling voice, getting down on his knees to be at her eye level. She looks at him with those blue piercing eyes, she knows all of this, she knew all along it would end up like this. Guilt washes over her. If only she noticed sooner that she was expecting, if only she wasn’t so daft when it came to women’s problems and herself. She would have… done it differently. Looking at their son, she couldn’t help but feel ashamed as the word ‚abortion‘ ran through her head. And anyway, back then at almost four months along and her age it would most likely mean a death sentence, especially under the conditions that applied to her and Valery. And again, she was left in a situation with no other choice than to carry on and hope for better tomorrows. Yet she couldn’t help but blame herself for putting both him and her and this innocent life through this.

Her gaze turns back to her son, and just like any other mother she begins to examine him, smiling sadly as he waves his tiny hands in the air. Valery watches them, his insides in death grip, thoughts in his brain running at speed of thousand miles per hour, hundreds of other diseases and complications enter his mind that can be invisible to them, but still can be occurring in this small body.

He vaguely notices Nastya standing beside him and turns to her. She steps aside, a bit away from the bed Ulana is lying on, and starts whispering urgently to Valery:

„I cannot stop the bleeding,“ and nods her head towards Ulana.

„What?“

„Ulyanochka… She’s been bleeding all night-„

„Tell me what to do, how to help her“ he begs, the situation dawning down on him. Nastya only shakes her head.

„I’ll try to call someone. You stay here and pray for her. Pray for them both,“ with that, Nastya emerges out of the room, determination shining in her eyes.

Valery hangs his shoulders down, hopeless. His gaze wanders to the scene on the bed, where exhausted Ulana coos at their son. He only hopes that Nastya will be back with the help in time.

He walks over back to them, Ulana raising her eyes to him, smile lighting up her face. Even though she’s tired beyond words, her hair is sticking to her skin, she’s still the most beautiful thing he‘s ever laid his eyes on. With slow motion she scoots to the side to make room for him and pattes the mattress, gesturing him to lie down. He obeys, making himself as comfortable as possible with his back propped up against the headboard, Ulana cuddling to him, holding their son. His arms encircle her and the small bundle.

The paths of life can be so unpredictable…

He can hear her start humming some old lullaby he could not recognize. The tenderness of her voice revealing him another side of her, that until now she was trying so hard to hide.

„That was beautiful,“ he whispered and kissed her into her hair.

„It’s byelorussian. My grandmother used to sing it to me, but I cannot remember the words. Only the melody remained,“ her voice trailed off. Silence took over the room, only every now and then quiet baby noises could be heard. Outside the sun was slowly rising, shining over the sleepy city, shining through the dirty glass on them.

„Valery, promise me one thing,“

„Don’t. Stop it, right now,“

„We both know that some things cannot be avoided no matter how much we wish they would disappear,“

„Have you ever wished to go back in time? Change your mind and never coming to Chernobyl?“ he asks, knowing that at some point they both came across this question in their mind, his pathetic attempt to turn the conversation somewhere else.

Ulana sighs, looks out of the window, then back to their son and finally lays her head down back on his chest.

„I only wish we had more time. Or that we had met before. But I think that our paths would be anyway connected with Chernobyl. No matter what happened, no matter what is stil going tol happen, I do not regret any choice I made since that April morning,“ Valery silently nods. Her breathing is getting heavier, she speaks slowly. Her whole body relaxes against him. Where the hell is Nastya?

Another silence, almost sacred, both feeling something inescapeable, fateful in the air.

Ulana lifts her head to him, and it breaks his heart into million pieces as he can see the flame in them slowly dying away.

„Take care of him. For as much time as he has,“ she whispers. Words get caught in his throat and he looks at the sleeping infant, gently rocking him in his arms.

„I will,“

She contentedly closes her eyes, single tear sliding down her cheek. He bends down, planting soft kiss on the skin of her forehead. Her eyes flutter open, and she lifts her head to meet his lips in a slow yet powerful kiss. As they break apart, he rests his forehead against hers and hears her whisper:

„I love you, Valery Aleksiyevich,“

„I love you, Ulana Yuriyevna,“

He starts planting small kisses all around her nose, cheeks, making her chuckle.

„Have I ever told you the story of how Schrebina destroyed a phone?“

She slowly shakes her head and rests against him.

„We just tried the robot on Masha roof, it was sent from Germans. Of course, the robot died after few minutes. We all were trying to absorb the reality, of what it meant, while Scherbina ran out like a bull after a red flag. Back in the trailer, oh, you should have heard him the words he said to the poor guy on the phone. He learned that the party gave Germans official numbers regarding radiation levels, which was his undoing, as he kept smashing the earpiece against the phone,“ Valery went back in his memories to that day, which made them unmistakably send many men to die ‚for the greater good‘. He couldn’t sleep few nights after that, but decided that to keep his mind sane, he has to focus on these small moments, to help him carry through the darkness.

As he took another breath to continue, he felt Ulana’s body grow heavier on him. His whole being froze, as her hand slid down from the blanket in which their son was wrapped. Tears filled his eyes as reality hit him hard in the face, knocking out every single atom of air hiding in his lungs. He moved a bit to the side, so he could see her better, placing their son between them, taking her empty face to his hands, her eyes still halfway open, but the burning fire in them was gone. Sobs were shaking his body violently, as he closed her eyelids and placed a soft kiss on both of them, whispering over and over.

„Ulana moya, moya Ulyanochka…“

////////

If Chernobyl cut his life into five years living expectancy, that night took another half of that.

In the early morning, when finally KGB allowed anyone to get to their apartment, his son died in his arms, while he was watching the paramedics wrapping Ulana’s limp body.

As much as he was trying to be ready for any possible outcome ever since the moment they learned she was pregnant, nothing could ever prepare him for this. He was never able to sleep again in that room, keeping it locked away. Only in moments of despair and a lot of vodka in his system he would allow himself to go inside and weep everything that he lost.

He never got to know where Ulana nor little Valentin Valyrievich were buried.

To his great surprise, Boris was allowed to visit him twice, for no more than fifteen minutes. The first time Valery could have sworn he was on the brink of drinking himself to death.

As the April 88’ got closer, he knew one thing for sure. He has to collect everything he knows, everything he remembers. Not for fame, not to boast about his knowledge. For the memory of all the lost lives, for all the hope that has been taken away from so many people. In attempt to prevent this from happening ever again. He had to say it, all of it. For her. For them.

On the second year anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the night which started a completely new chapter of his life, he brought the circle to end and at least this part of his existence took in his own hands, taking his life with it.

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