#red tarpaulin

[mizgnomer]

Behind the Scenes of The Star Beast - Part One

Excerpt from Benjamin Cook's Star Beast Set Visit in DWM 597:

There’s a buzz in the air in Camden Town tonight as the market vendors shut up shop. Businessmen wait on the bridge by the lock. Students rush from the Starbucks, buskers busk. Tourists jostle for a selfie spot, next to the bronze statue of Amy. At the northernmost point of Camden High Street, a man with a mohawk folds away his cardboard placard (‘HELP A PUNK TO GET DRUNK’) and heads across the road to buy a Red Bull from the 24/7. Three men in North Face jackets, one on a stepladder, yank a tarpaulin sheet off a police box. Security guards change shifts. On Gin Alley, people are still queuing for meat and noodles. A woman in a Kermit tee leaves Oddballs carrying a unicycle. Rose Noble buys a bagful of eyes. Outside Cyberdog, two silver robots, three times the height of the average human, stand vigil. A different crowd is gathered here too, dripping in scarves, bowties, and pinstripes. A dog barks. A neon sign flickers. David Tennant arrives. Some people cheer. Others clap. A boy in a beanie hat drops his falafel. An ambulance siren wails in the distance. Two-hundred phones are held aloft. “What a rock star,” says Doctor Who’s executive producer, Phil Collinson. “I still can’t quite believe David is back on the Doctor Who set.” Neither can he. “It’s mental,” says David, grinning. “We’ve got three more months of this.” It’s mid-May 2022, and he’s donned the vintage Converse once more to play the Doctor, alongside Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, in three hour-long 60th Anniversary Specials. They began filming in Cardiff last week. A few days ago, he recorded his half of the regeneration from Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor.

I’ll post additional parts in the coming months with the  #whoBtsBeast tag. The full episode list is [ here ]

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

Behold, a bracket!

Text form below the cut because trying to copy all the 256 into the alt text sounded.... horrifying. Warning for 128 matchups, seriously, this list is long, and so I've avoided adding the artists until the polls.

a note: the pinned post has started misbehaving, so only open polls will be directly linked. closed polls instead have the results page linked in the set header, all the polls are linked from there

Set 1

The Lament for Icarus (Miao He) vs The Lament for Icarus (Herbert Draper)

The angel came to me in a fever hallucination, perched upon my bed as I returned from the bathroom. vs Sweet Brown Snail

Figures vs A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery

Happy Shoppers vs Hubble Deep Field

Lovers Painting vs Bath Curtain

Dr. Helen Taussig vs Une Martyre

Orangoutang étranglant un sauvage de Bornéo (Orangutan strangling a Borneo savage) vs Can’t Help Myself

Rape vs Technicolor Hiroshima

Set 2

A Walk at Dusk vs Based on “Autoportrait with the Model” by Maria-Rayevska Ivanova

Diary Page vs Les Jours Gigantesques (The Titanic Days)

Dead of Night vs You Won't

Christina's World vs Bobby

Untitled (I’m Turning Into A Specter Before Your Very Eyes And I’m Going To Haunt You) vs Two Sisters (On the Terrace)

Sharecropper vs Lustmord

The Parca and the Angel of Death vs Untitled (Zdzisław Beksiński)

Stress vs The Fallen Angel

Set 3

Device to Root Out Evil vs Travelling Light

Diana vs Fifty Days at Iliam: The Fire that Consumes All before It

The Plains, from Memory vs Exotic Bodies

Doubting Thomas vs Self-Portrait in the Bathroom Mirror

Empty Nest vs Somebody Fell From Aloft

Anguish vs If I Died

Cat in Obsolete Bath vs You're Not Boring Anymore

Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) vs Untitled (billboard of an empty unmade bed)

Set 4

There Will Be No Miracles Here vs Symphony of the Sixth Blast Furnace

Fox Hunt vs Tarpaulin

Khajuraho Group of Monuments vs Ranakpur Jain Temple

ปราสาทสัจธรรม (The Sanctuary of Truth) vs Grande Panorama de Lisboa

Heroic Head of Pierre de Wissant, One of the Burghers of Calais vs The Weather

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit vs If this is art

Statue of Vincent and Theo van Gogh vs Jeanne d’Arc écoutant les voix (Joan of Arc listening to the Voices)

Fountain vs Judith Slaying Holofernes

Set 5

Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands) vs Cave of El Castillo

Chauvet Cave Bear vs Uffington White Horse

Laocoön and His Sons vs Winged Victory of Samothrace

Crouching Aphrodite vs Statue of Taweret

Guardian Figure vs Kūya-Shonin (Saint Kuya)

Ancient Greek doll vs Arena #7 (Bears)

Enbu (炎舞) (Dancing in the Flames) vs Yearning Shadows

Belfast to Byzantium vs Freedom

Set 6

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayan vs Portraits

The Blood Mirror vs Nighthawks

Electric Fan (Feel it Motherfuckers): Only Unclaimed Item from the Stephen Earabino Estate vs "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw vs Forgotten Dreams

Saint Bride vs Pixeles (a group of 9 works)

War Pieta vs The Sunset

The Handmaidens of Sivawara Preparing the Sacred Bull at Tanjore for a Festival vs Ajax and Cassandra

Nāve (Death) vs Abstraction

Set 7

Yes vs Meeting on the Turret Stair

Hacked to Death II vs Stańczyk

Closeness Lines Over Time vs Voice of Fire

The Maple Trees at Mama, the Tekona Shrine and Tsugihashi Bridge vs Portrait of Sir Thomas More

Survival Series: In a Dream You Saw a Way vs Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre

Death blowing bubbles vs The Kitchen Table Series

Painting 1946 vs In the Grip of Winter

Untitled (Black and Gray) vs NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

Set 8

Blue Plate Special vs Red Cedar

Palace of Fine Arts vs Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba

Le Château des Pyrénées (The Castle of the Pyrenees) vs Susanna and the Elders, Restored - X-Ray

Moby Dick vs Viva la Vida, Watermelons

Venus Envy Chapter One (Of the First Holy Communion Moments Before the End) vs how to look at art

St. Sebastian vs Untitled #12

Carroña vs The invincible one

Untitled (Two Dogs) vs The Dog

SECOND HALF

Set 9

David (Donatello) vs David (Michelangelo)

The Other Side vs The Temptation of St. Jerome

Seated Woman with Bent Knees vs Starry Night

Headdress - Shadae vs Untitled for the Image Flow's Queer Conscience exhibit

Woman with Dead Child (Frau mit totem Kind) vs Les Amants (The Lovers)

Siroče na majčinom grobu (Orphan on Mother's Grave) vs You Make My World a Better Place to Find

Fighting Against SARS Memorial Architectural Scene (弘揚抗疫精神建築景觀) vs Fallingwater

Resting vs The Hull

Set 10

Olive Trees vs Worship

Glow vs Wheatfield with Crows

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X vs Untitled (He Plays Very Badly)

D.I.Y. by John Wiswell vs The Tragedy

Judith and the Head of Holofernes vs Beethovenfries (Beethoven Frieze)

The Memory of Me (How Could I Forget) vs oh god i had a really big epiphany about love and personhood but i’m too drunk for words

I am happy because everyone loves me vs 瀕危形態 (Endangered Forms)

Three Scaffolders vs Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan

Set 11

San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk vs Water-Lilies, Reflection of a Weeping Willow

The Grief of the Pasha vs Monolith in Vigeland Sculpture Park

Passion vs Space Diner

Hamlet and Ophelia vs Two Earthlings

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth vs Seer Bonnets

Photograph from "SNAP OSAKA" Collection vs Clytemnestra after the Murder

“Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) vs The Lovers (TIE)

Kedai Ubat Jenun vs Orange Store Front

Set 12

The Apotheosis of War vs Portrait of the Dancer Aleksandr Sakharov

Julie Manet vs Mouth

The Icebergs vs Kaleidoscope Cats III

Maman vs Caza Nocturna (Night Hunt)

The Book of Kells Folio 188r: Luke carpet page vs Ardagh Chalice

Yusuf and Zulaikha vs Dome of the Rock mosaics

Rowan Leaves and Hole vs Untitled (prisonhannibal)

Le Désespéré (The Desperate Man) vs The Dedication

Set 13

Deimos vs Dog and Bridge

The Mocking of Christ vs Prudence

The Broken Column vs Siberian Ice Maiden shoulder tattoo

Transi de René de Chalon (Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon) vs Head of Christ

The Day vs Spirit of Haida Gwaii

Eleanor Boathouse at Park 571 vs Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban জাতীয় সংসদ ভবন (National Parliament House)

Juventud de Baco (Bacchus Youth) vs Barges on the Seine

Oath of the Horattii closeup vs Visit hos Excentrisk Dam (Visit to an eccentric lady)

Set 14

Christ Crucified (With Donor) vs St. Francis

Thunder Raining Poison vs Piazza d'Italia

The Grove vs Among the Waves

Pintura Mural de Alarcón vs Sagrada Família stained-glass windows

Noonday Heat vs La Dame à la licorne (The Lady and The Unicorn)

Matroser i Gröna Lund (Sailors in Gröna Lund) vs Gielda Plakatu

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks vs The Garden of Earthly Delights

Kuoleman puutarha (The Garden of Death) vs Haavoittunut enkeli (The Wounded Angel)

Set 15

i've wasted a lifetime pretending to be me vs da oracle

minus #37 vs Panel from Fun Home

Excerpt from illustrated edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner vs La Mort de Marat (The Death of Marat)

The Veil vs Düsseldorf 4 (Museum Kunst Palast)

Capriccio vs Zodiac calendar for La Plume

The official imperial portrait of empress dowager Cixi vs José y Maria

Blooming Lilacs vs Lágrimas De Sangre (Tears of Blood)

An Interlude vs Boy Staring at an Apparition

Set 16

Mermer Waiskeder: Stories of the Moving Tide vs The Gran Hotel Ciudad de México Art Nouveau interior

Unfinished Painting vs To Arms!

Memorial to a Marriage vs The Island

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn vs A Few Small Nips

Saturn Devouring His Son vs Guernica

Fairy Princesses vs Lamentation over the Dead Christ

Mummy with An Inserted Panel Portrait of a Youth vs Little Girl Looking Downstairs at Christmas Party

Agnus vs The Cup Of His Murders Is Flowing Over And In His Coat Shall Be Many Curses

[unhonestlymirror]

This Thursday, Lithuania celebrates Freedom Day - 30 years ago, the last units of the occupying Soviet army were withdrawn from the country. On this occasion, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said that Lithuania had gone through a difficult and painful path to independence.

"No aggressor has the right to veto the self-determination of free people, no regime can stifle the desire to create their own future, even if it is done with the use of weapons and violence - cruel and physical or silent and prolonged, inspiring fear, destroying faith and trust. In the long run, this is doomed to failure because the will to resist evil is something that can not be disarmed or taken away," the head of government is quoted in the message.

The prime minister also notes that in 30 years Lithuania has become a member of the most important unions, and she believes that the day will come when Ukraine, which is now fighting the occupier, will join them.

Speaker of the Seimas Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen said that exactly 30 years ago, the last Soviet tarpaulin boot left Lithuania only thanks to the decisive will of the country's citizens and the strength of diplomacy. “For 30 years, we have been building our state the way the free people wanted it. We have become much stronger than when heavy Soviet weapons and columns of invaders moved along the streets of our cities outside Lithuania."

"Now we are making the history of a free state and do not give anyone the opportunity to doubt it. And this year's Freedom Day slogan is "Red Army Go Home!" We are also chanting for the victory of Ukraine!” - V. Čmilytė-Nielsen congratulated Ukrainians.

[bullet-prooflove]

Taken!Series Part Four: Meth Mountain - Angel Reyes x Reader

Tagging: @crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @withakindheartx @wakeama @witches-unruly-heart @keyweegirlie @trhett21 @annetje @infinity-mars @emily2003alzaga @danzer8705 @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @thatonesexycancerian @expir3dl0v3  @appreciatelove @the-wandering-lunatic @weiwei0210 @anime-weeb-4-life @multifandomloversworld @harperdoodle @cheyrenee @fanfic-n-tabulous @stressed-chas @@daydreaming-belle @est1887 @prettyinpunk85 @adaydreamaway08 @thanossexual @briefpersonenemy @creativitybeware @crimeshowjunkie @librarian1002 @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @spookyboogyuniverse @spaghettificationandpretzels @nu1freakshow @thebaileybugle @legally-a-bastard @bonsaijoons @sclitvdes @justreblogginfics

Taken!Series:

Part One: Mother - Tragedy strikes when Angel leaves you and Valeria alone for the evening.

Part Two: Bleeding Out - Angel returns home to discover what happened at the house.

Part Three: Touch & Go - Angel discovers where Valeria was taken.

It’s a clusterfuck.

Almost the worst-case scenario that Angel can think of because Meth Mountain, it’s a law unto itself. It’s a self-sustainable settlement, hosted and frequented by addicts and people on the fringes of society. It’s wild and unpredictable.

Bishop has managed to reach an accord with the local authorities. The police won't go up there but the M.C can, they won’t interfere with that so long as the M.C don’t bring trouble down the mountain. Nobody wants an infant on Meth Mountain, they all know it won’t end well.

The thought of Valeria being raised with a bunch of meth heads destroys Angel; he can’t imagine what Skye was thinking but then that’s the point isn’t it? Everything she has done up to this point has been impulsive, Skye doesn’t think ahead.

They split into two men teams, it’s easier to cover more ground that way, especially amongst the ramshackle dwellings. This early in the morning most of the addicts are out of it, too high to question why armed men in hoodies are slipping in and out of their dwellings.

Angel and EZ have just cleared their first assigned section when Angel hears the cries of his daughter. He would know that sound anywhere, it’s different this time though, rawer, more agonising. He knows every single one of the noises his child makes and this, this sounds anguished. It tears at him deep inside, clawing through his heart so the blood leaks out into his chest.

He looks to EZ, who tilts his head towards the next structure along. It’s barely more than a piece of corrugated iron with flowers painted on it and tarpaulin. EZ goes first, his gun peeking through the plastic sheeting that acts as a door, Angel follows up the rear, the sound of Valeria’s cries intensifying as he steps inside.

His gaze comes to rest upon the baby, his tiny daughter wrapped up in several bath towels, squared away in blue and white cardboard box that used to contain oranges. The diaper bag that Hank’s mom made has been left untouched alongside of it.

Angel lowers his weapon, tucking it into the waistband of his trousers before he steps into the mess, his boots crunching over the fast food wrappers. He reaches for Valeria, her face screwed up and red, tears leaking down her cheeks. Her nappy is heavy, and her tiny stomach rumbles loudly, he remembers you feeding Valeria before he left, he guesses she hasn’t eaten since then, almost six hours ago.

“Hey, hey.” He whispers as he clasps his daughter close, his lips brushing over her featherlight hair. “I got you, Daddy’s got you.”

He slings the diaper bag over his shoulder, before turning to face EZ. His brother indicates towards the bundle of clothes on the sofa. It takes him a second to realise it’s a person, slumped across the couch.

Skye…

She’s pale, her skin white with a blueish tinge, there’s a needle sticking out of her arm, a tourniquet tied just above it.

“She’s in rigour. She’s been dead for hours, looks like an OD. She probably put the needle in as soon as she got here.” EZ tells him, shaking his head before meeting Angel’s gaze. “What do you wanna do with her?”

Valeria’s already starting to settle, her sobs turning to whimpers as Angel sways gently, shushing her.

“Nothing.” He says, his palm smoothing over the baby’s back. “Let the natives have her.”

Love Angel? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Interested in supporting me? Join my Patreon for Bonus Content!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[viiixs]

Hi bbg do you write for Requiem WuChang?👉👈

What if,,Their s/o got ambushed and then Requiem came to the rescue..

«🥼» MODELING ISSUE I

PART 1 OF 2 PARTS. (PART 2 LINK SOON!)

. . . RQ!XIE BI’AN & RQ!FAN WUJIU X READER … – warnings: heavily implied violence, mentions of alcohol, blood.

! — Note at the end of post! + scenario only.

«🥼» SCENARIO

……………………………

“This car ride is rather long, don’t you think?”

Bi’an mumurs as He looks out the window, crimson eyes soon falling to the Chauffeur driving upfront.

“Are we almost there?” Bi’an asks as the Chauffer’s eyes look at Requiem through the front windscreen.

The said man looking now at the Location app upon hearing Requiem’s question, He gazes back at the steering wheel.

“Just a little bit more, Sir Xie.”

Bi’an hums in acknowledgement as His gaze darts towards you in a questioning manner.

“Are you doing alright?”

He pats your head, looking at you with a soft gaze. He and Wujiu decided to bring you to one of their photoshoots for a campaign hosted by the Agency They recently signed up for. They were currently heading to the destined location as You and Requiem sat comfortably at the backseat.

This only happened since You were curious about what They do behind the scenes when they were modeling, since most of the time you usually get left alone in your shared Apartment.

The Curiosity Blossomed overtime as you started seeing your Two Lovers in Advertisements, Tarpaulins and even in Magazines more frequently, They were also trending online at one point! you just had to ask the Two what They usually do or whats up with Their sudden spike of popularity. You told them that you wish you can see them doing actual modeling. Fortunately, Requiem invited you to their next– now current shoot They’ll be doing. This is great, Considering how You’ll see them both at their full potential as models!

You nod in reply to His Question. a smile graces his lips.

“Thats good.”

His red eyes gazes at you before it moves to Fan Wujiu, Who is currently resting his head on the window next to your side.

“How about you, Wujiu. you okay?”

He looks at Wujiu who’s currently resting his head on his palm, staring mindlessly at the window.

“Mhm.”

Wujiu mumbled in reply.

Bi’an smiles at Him before sitting back on His seat. Humming Comfortably, satisfied with both your replies.

“Ah, I have a question.”

Bi’an and Wujiu’s eyes are now on you, curious gazes while Their eyebrows are raised.

“What is it?”

“How long have you guys been yknow… doing modeling? just curious.”

He thinks for awhile.

“Oh. quite awhile now actually... some agency asked us if we wanted the opportunity to star in Their upcoming Advertisement… We didn’t really have anything to do. never knew it would be such a hit.”

“So much so Wujiu had to mute His phone with How much Emails We’d get from the different agencies..”

Bi’an chuckles.

“so why not?”

Wujiu gives him a small glare.

“They’re annoying, okay?”

“I didn’t say they weren’t now… did I..?”

you and Bi’an share a small laugh as Wujiu looks away playfully rolling his eyes while facing the window.

.

.

.

The Car soon pulls over.

“We’re Here.”

Wujiu’s Cerulean eyes examine the Building from His window and raises an eyebrow suspiciously. It looked too empty to be deemed as the “Popular Agency.” in this city. but brushed it off as you Three got off the Car, although the suspicion still lies.

The Car soon drives away as you both were now left alone standing infront of the building.

Bi’an examines the building with an expectant look.

“Not what i was expecting… it looks different than it did with the Email they sent.”

“Looks bland as Hell.”

“Can’t disagree with you there…”

“well, whatever.” Bi’an shrugged as He looked at you with a smile

“Are you excited, ___?”

you smile back at him before nodding.

“Lets go now, yes?”

“Okay.”

You three walked inside the building… it was… quite desolate, in a way. there stood one employee at the front desk, Her gaze immediately going to you Three, almost… panicked.

“Hello. we are here for the campaign shoot.”

The Employee looks at Bi’an before nodding.

“Ah… yes, Requiem… correct?”

“Thats right.”

“and… who?”

She points at you expectantly as Bi’an looks at your direction.

“Ah, a special guest. no worries.”

Bi’an smiled as Wujiu stares at the Employee with a harsh glare. this feels… a little too off. It’s quite… desolate. in this place. There weren’t any people apart from the Front desk Herself, not too mention, it feels like someone is watching them.

it doesn’t feel too right.

“I-I see… alright then… i’ll just call our campaign manager to come down and we’ll get started.”

She reaches towards the telephone.

“They’re here.”

Suddenly, a group of men appeared out of nowhere and tackled Both Bi’an and Wujiu.

“What the…?!”

Wujiu and Bi’an tries to fight off the sudden group of men tackling them as you stare in shock and back away a little.

“what the hell…?!”

You kept backing in fear as your arm suddenly gets roughly grabbed by the perpetrators, trying to drag you away from Requiem.

You look in shock as you attempt to fight back to struggle out— albeit it wasn’t fruitless as you managed to kick one of the men, who only snarled in return. giving you a harsh glare.

“Agh- you-!”

He drags you now harshly as Wujiu and Bi’an look at you almost panicked.

“Wujiu- Bi’an-“

“___!”

They both called out to you while still trying to hold back the men. It was difficult as the group had blunt objects while Bi’an had the Umbrella. He was using it as some sort of shield while trying His best to not get hit across the face with the objects the men were using against them. Wujiu was in the middle of punching some of them in the face, barely almost evading their hits.

In a Fortune, Wujiu saw the vase from the counter and grabbed it.

“Duck!”

immediately throwing it to the man Bi’an was currently trying to hold back, Hissing from pain from the shards of glass that came from the impact of the throw, Bi’an managed to successfully shove the man off as He assisted Wujiu with the men that were surrounding Him.

while….

The Men that were dragging you away had enough of your struggling and eventually hit you across the head by swinging you across the head with a blunt- you hisses in pain as your consciousness slowly started to fade- as much as you wanted to fight back your vision darkening, it was useless as your vision faded to black. as you slumped back on the floor now unconscious.

The two men that were dragging you sighed exhaustingly, almost in relief.

“God… thank god. so damn stubborn. what do we even do with Them…? Don’t we only need to deal with Requiem?”

The man near him only shrugged.

“Can’t we just let them go? This isn’t even what the boss told us to do!”

“We can’t just release them. idiot. They can snitch on us and i’m not in the mood to deal with the authorities right now.”

He looks at you and scrutinizes your face.

��Besides. Requiem wouldn’t just bring some random person. Who knows, Judging by His concerned yell for this person earlier, we can use it to our advantage…”

………………

“Shit…”

Wujiu breathes out as He and Bi’an finally finished fighting off the other men. bloody traces stained throughout the entire Lobby, unconscious bodies along with shattered glass and more unpleasantries as They both slump back on the floor, using the wall as a support.

Bi’an stares at Wujiu with an almost relieved smile.

“.. Nice Aim earlier.”

Wujiu stares back at Him.

“It was Tough luck… Thank god we managed to fight them off.” He breathes out.

It was a moment of silence as Bi’an opens His eyes for a second, before it suddenly widens.

“…wait.”

“..Wujiu”

Bi’an nudges Him

“Wh-?”

Requiem suddenly becomes more alert at the sudden realization.

They checked their surroundings and then suddenly remembered.

“wait…”

“____!” They shouted your name as They searched throughout the entire Lobby and when they saw nothing, staring at the Direction the culprits took you while They were occupied with the men- they immediately went there.

They searched throughout the entire building for any sign of you. Despite the Exhaustion that came along the fight– They couldn’t just leave you! They searched frantically, no traces of you throughout the building. checking every crevice for no answer.

after a little while of searching. They came to the conclusion that You were brought along by them.

as much as They didn’t like it, but it was their only choice.

They grit their teeth at the conclusion and hope those damn bastards don’t do anything bad to you. They need trace your current location… and They know who They could rely on for this type of situation.

Nitre.

“Bi’an, call the Chauffeur, Immediately!”

……………

(hideout of true proof)

“Seems like i finally won against you.” True Proof smiles at the Female infront of Her as She stares at Bloodfan, dangling the Queen piece infront of Her as she smiles in reply of her defeat, putting Her fan down on Her lap as she claps.

“Well played, Demi. you’ve certainly gotten better at chess since we last played.” The woman only grins in response of Bloodfan’s words.

“Of course… its a great way to pass the time.”

True Proof walks to one of Her cabinets in Her office.

“Missions have been a pain in the ass haven’t they? why not treat this to a glass of wine? you need to loosen up more.” She pops open a wine cork and starts pouring on Her glass. “My treat.”

Bloodfan shakes her head. “Thank you, but I Don’t Drink.”

True proof chuckles

“Still the Teetotaler, huh..?”

Bloodfan nods. “Perhaps a certain… member of ours would like this.”

True proof raises an eyebrow.

“Ah.. let me guess?”

“Wujiu!”

“Bi’an.”

“…”

They both share a hearty laugh at their contrasting response, the four of them were very close friends ever since from Highschool to starting an entire Group. They remained close since.

“They’re really different with the effects of Alcohol… huh..?” The said hearty laugh soon dies down into small giggles as Bloodfan nods.

“Wujiu’s drunken state can almost rival yours.”

“Hey… I’m not that bad when I get tips-“

“Wheres Nitre?!”

True Proof flinches at the harsh swing of Their office door, Turning around immediately revealing two yet familiar disheveled men clearly in a raging state of anger despite one’s nonchalant expression.

“speak of the devil…” Bloodfan mutters as she opens Her Fan to conceal Her half of her face.

It was no more than Requiem Themselves.

“Nitre… Nitre! where is She?!” Wujiu yelled angrily. gripping the door with such frequency that it looked like He can break it if He wished. He looks around the room before hitting the door.

“Where is She damn it!”

“Woa, woa, woa! calm down! what’s going on with you both? what happened?” True Proof asks in concern as She steps closer.

“Ambush. They took ____ with them.” Bi’an grips the umbrella harshly.

“Turns out that the said ‘Model Agency’ was just a phony to Lure us to their plan.”

“damn bastards.”

Their anger was conspicuous in every way possible, Damn it… Wujiu already knew something was wrong; yet His intuition was correct. They shouldn’t have left their guard down– even if the Invitation sounded harmless, looks can be deceiving, and Requiem learnt it the second time.

“We need Nitre, We need to track down those asses.”

Note: OH MY, OH MY GOD. (bite me reference)

this request made me so happy, it made me jump in excitement, made me drop my phone and made my jawdrop. i love rq wu chang sm this request was so YUMMY. i loved writing it (sorry it took awhile i keep procrastinating on my requests)

theres more coming up btw part 2 will be posted tomorrow. … its 12 am im so tired and my wrist is hurting and this is… not proofread

AND I CAN FINALLY VALIDATE MY REQUIEM MODELING HC TEEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHQUFAQOVQPQ (<- stupid) AGH. but i just wanna thank u anon ily and yes bbg i do write for requiem.

🧍 hope i did this request with justice because i’m currently going through 82728 (more or less) second hand embarrassment from my writing ESPECIALLY THE FIGHT SCENE. THIS IS MY FIRST TIME WRITING FIGHT SCENe so llease …spare me.

update: part 2 will be delayed. i need to rewrite some stuff💥💥

[kendrene]

For your mini fic: Ava and Beatrice, things you said in the grass and under the stars

Beatrice leaves Europe all-together, after.

She tries not to. Lingers for a while. Drifts from city to city, country to country, but the sun shines too brightly over Venice's canals and Paris - which Ava had said they should visit together after the war - well, Paris is a haunting.

An ocean later, another landmass crossing, Beatrice hits the West Coast, slowly working her way north where pliant sand gives way to a jagged coastline. Basalt cliffs against which the waves rage. Incessant. Hungry. The sea a low roar in her ears, never too far. Persevering even when she wanders inland, past jasper-studded beaches, and into the woods beyond.

The forests themselves are old, teeming with life both new and rotting. Fog never quite lifts off of the trees, a layer of it, gossamer-thin, persevering even on hotter days.

Beatrice settles down, and grief settles alongside her, the one companion she can tolerate in newfound solitude. It's a worn blanket. A beloved jacket she cannot bear to leave the house without. She grows new habits, easy when all of her days look the same.

She spends a lot of time hiking, getting a feel for the land. Brings books down to the beach to read; in the sun when she can, under a piece of tarpaulin hastily erected in between two trees if it rains.

It nearly always does.

Sometimes Beatrice reads aloud. Imagines it is Ava she is reading to, all the stories and facts about the cosmos Ava didn't have the chance to discover for herself. She reads until her throat is dry and sore. Reads until her voice is drenched in loss, and her heart bleeds for all the things she's lost.

Reads until daylight gives way to the first smattering of stars and the words on the page are blurred by lack of light, perhaps by tears, into a smudge.

The air is wet and salty, whips like the edge of a sharp knife against the soft skin of her cheek. Beatrice packs her book, rolls up the tarpaulin. Picks the now familiar way back in total dark.

She stumbles. Trips over something yielding. Something that snags at her ankles and brings her down to her knees, a rock catching the heel of the hand she throws out to steady herself, cutting open her palm.

It's debris, Beatrice thinks. A large piece of wood. Maybe seaweed.

It is not.

It's a body.

It's Ava. And she's not breathing.

"No. No. No.' Beatrice has prayed, she has begged for Ava to come back but not like this. Not to lose her right away again. "You can't die, please." A sob rips from her, unchecked, even as she turns her over. "I can't lose you again." Beatrice will not think of her as a corpse.

Ava's skin, her lips tinged blue by the frigid waters of the ocean and not divinium. Beatrice's mouth seeking. Ava's tasting of saltwater and the abyssal things that cannot stand to be brought into the light. Ocean waves crashing around them and over. The tide coming in - a bitter, a cold a cruel baptism. Her hands red with the cold and hurting flat to Ava's chest, pushing, pushing while her mind falls into mechanical routines.

"Breathe, goddammit." Bea's own lungs burning, alight with the effort of wrangling life back into another being. "Please Ava don't go."

"Not...going." A cough. Water sputtering down Ava's chin. Her own hand rises weakly, slick around the curve of Beatrice's cheek. Light, molten gold, shearing through the night to wash over them both. "Not going anywhere." Ava's other hand grips Beatrice by a shoulder, tugs her down to sprawl rather inelegantly over her chest. She's not exactly warm, but she's not cold anymore. The Halo brightens to a shine that makes a mockery of dawn. "I'm home."

[rockethorse]

Day eight: A random object recolour/mesh edit dump!

First up is a mesh edit of this wheelchair ramp by beosboxboy. I really liked the concept of this, but originally it had a huge “wheelchair access” sign standing off to the side, which made it difficult to place and, ironically, less accessible. So I got rid of it in Milkshape.

Then, as it had always bugged me that it didn’t align properly with foundations even though it so easily could... I learned how to tweak that, too.

If you have the original by beosboxboy you’ll have to delete it to use this one. You can find it in Deco > Sculptures for §2,500.

Next up - I always loved this tarpaulin/canvas “rug” converted from TS3 by Misty-fluff, especially for placing under yard sale items. Unfortunately, it was a bit too high off the ground, and it clipped really noticeably with any objects on top of it. So again, I lowered it a tiny bit, and figured I’d share.

The recolours are NOT included - you can get them over at misty-fluff’s original download post. Let my file override hers.

Now onto the Maxis object recolours!

Here are some first-aid kit recolours for the non-reflective medicine cabinet that came with Apartment Life (original in the bottom right for comparison) and one “hazardous materials” recolour I thought would work well for medical labs or hospitals.

You’ve got the typical red cross, and then - if you would like your game to comply with the Geneva convention - a green cross, then a white cross on a blue background taken from the hospital in The Sims 3. Finally you have a few made using the TS2 icon for the Medicine career, the white-on-red version of which turned out to be my favourite overall, surprisingly.

These are extremely simple recolours of the H&M wall banner (original on the left) to use as a green (or blue) screen for your aspiring influencer/gamer/streamer Sims.

And finally - some practical, everyday recolours of the “Mystic Dust” craftable reagent from Apartment Life (last swatch), because normal people own mortars and pestles too. You get black stone, a coppery sort of thing, grey and brown granite, cherry wood, marble, green stone, white porcelain, and then five cute retro colours.

They’re all grinding the same thing - probably sesame seeds.

You don’t need any mesh, but remember that you’ll need a buyable reagents mod to get it from the catalogue if you don’t want to have a witch craft one.

Download all mesh edits & recolours @ SFS

[calcitration]

@geopfert / Pieck: "Just take her, please."

Picture the mother defeated. Pieck sits on the cot, her fingers laced into her hair unwashed hair. It falls in dry strands, obscures where she is pressing hard into her eyes, where the headache screws holes into her brain. She has been sitting there for too long, sunken into herself, a discarded doll with pointed shoulders. While the makeshift crib bears the miserable wails of a child.

Pieck doesn't look. Is too ashamed, too tired to look. She hides in the palms of her hands and lets her mind leak out of her ears, liquified by sleep deprivation and migraines. Her shirt is dirtied, swollen and raw teats soaking it with wasted milk. She's cried already and is now too dried up to attempt it a second time. Her eyes are red-rimmed, punched black and blue by sleepless nights. Colic, said the one doctor she could find who'd give her and the crying little creature writhing in her arms the time of day. She doesn't know what that means. She was sent away, told to give it time. But the child keeps screaming and Pieck can't bear her weight anymore.

"I can't do it, Annie. I can't. I don't know how. I don't know what to do." She rasps out, a confession she flicks at her like a pebble. She chokes on a half-swallowed breath. Such helplessness leaves her so cruel, so resentful. It's not the child's fault. It can't be. How could it be? And yet, every scream balls up in her stomach like a hateful fist.

"Just... Take her away."

A tarpaulin-domed den, drenched in a scent Annie associated with burrows or caves – primal places, floors lined with fur and bones. Dirt and piss. The intimate, viscera-tang of a mother’s innards. Blood and milk. The lattermost bloomed in wet, sticky flowers on Pieck’s chest, her body reduced to a leaking, deflated thing. Some small, bruised part of Annie died of second-hand shame and was grateful for the distraction of those piercing wails. Such a wretched sound must hit Pieck like a bullet, like a train that kept on coming.

“What a racket you’re making…”

Annie murmured darkly, peering at the bundle lying at the heart of the cobbled-together crib. It heaved and writhed with unpractised misery. Through it all, Pieck sat with a faraway and feral look on her face, fingers twisting in the stiff, dirty hair that cloaked her like a burial shroud. Two people were drowning, which one to choose?

“You just need sleep.”

This isn’t you, she wanted to emphasise. Years apart had left them almost strangers, but still she knew enough of Pieck to understand such overwhelm was uncharacteristic.

As always, Annie chose obedience. Taking the desperate order between her teeth she lifted the infant – Zofia – and held her gingerly, scooped against the bird bones of her own brittle chest. Annie was the colour of a fish belly, all mean features and hard angles sharpened by hunger, ringing hollow at her roots. She was not built to coddle something so soft, so new. Still she tried, swaying faintly where she stood, gazing dubiously into the stiff nest of blankets. Zofia arched and raged against her with surprising strength, hands clenched into tiny pink fists. How had her father ever weathered such inconsolable crying? How he had resisted the urge to smother her, to drown her in the same pail as the miller’s kittens?

Attention returned to Pieck, who sat shell-shocked, defeated by the squall of her unhappy baby.

“You need to rest. When you’ve done that, get cleaned up. Wash your face. Drag your fingers through your hair. Pull yourself together – because it isn’t just you anymore, is it?”

Annie meant it kindly, meant only that Pieck couldn’t afford to unravel, not even in these impossible circumstances.

“I can take Zofia. For a while, anyway. Then I’ll bring you something to eat.”

[syncopein3d]

Left Alone 7: Riddles

Tropes/content warnings: M for mature themes overall. Vampire whumpee/caretaker, male whumpee/caretaker, non-binary whumpee/caretaker, general morbidity. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. There will be angst. Vampire biting can be painful, platonic, or NSFW and I'm not sure what direction that will take, but Tolly will definitely continue to fantasize about subtextually or literally sex-murdering Arden, as vampires often do.

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know!

Part 6: Regeneration

Tolly drank.

The taste of cold pig’s blood only got worse as his senses grew more acute, but more years rolled away. His face began to gently fill out, flesh and muscle building over the bones under his questing fingers. By the time he had consumed the full gallon, eight to sixteen ounces at a time in between washing with body wipes, he looked to be in his mid-thirties. He held up the lantern to look at his reflection in the metallic surface. He had a high-boned, angular face, but it was the face a living man would have, a face he knew. He was still unnaturally pale, but he might pass for someone alive and very ill. His lips, unfortunately, were still fuller than he felt was masculine, but it couldn’t be helped.

Now his irises were pale green, if he tilted the lamp so light could reach into the deep sockets under a heavy brow. Flecks of amber showed, if one were to look very closely. The hand that shoved the empty gallon jug into the bag in front of him was a big man's hand, bony, with old scars across the knuckles. The talons were still not human. They were yellowish now, at least, but it needed a special grooming kit to trim them.

It took almost the entire box of body wipes to remove the accumulated grime, scrubbing himself until his new skin felt raw, but at last he was satisfied that his flesh matched his new hair. He used the last few on his chair and table, naked in the cold air that he could actually feel now, before he put the books and lantern there. Only then did he dress. The clothes were loose and there were no shoes – he imagined Arden furtively hurrying through a thrift and forgetting, as if anyone would care they were buying things too big for them – but the sensation of clean, intact fabric against his body was so overwhelming that he had to pause and just stand for several minutes, unbreathing, as the tears flowed.

He staunched them with his sleeve at last. There was no one to see his weakness, something that Nicholas would have rolled his eyes at. Come now, Bard. Are we not men?

There was a blue tarpaulin folded in the bottom of the shopping bag. Arden had forgotten to mention this, or Tolly had upset them before they got to it. He stood staring at the eye-searingly bright color for a while before he opened the package and smoothed it out over his rug. Now there was a clean place to roll out the mummy bag. That was black, with a dark red flannel lining.

Tolly shamefacedly considered bringing Marguerite de Valois into the bag with him. It was the 1969 Limited Editions Printing, probably worth less than $60 in this decade, but that was a lot of money to Arden. It wasn’t as if he tossed and turned in that sleep of death, but he should treat his savior’s belongings with respect.

Your savior. The one you are planning to deliciously murder the moment you are free from this cell?

Yes, but they brought me books. Soft things.

Perhaps there is a way to let them live. Perhaps there is a way to have just a taste.

But I WILL have a taste. Even if I have to wait. Nicholas will not win, damn his eyes. I need it. I need it!

In the end, gratitude and guilt momentarily won out and he sat at the table with the lantern, carefully smoothing each page as he read. When he began to grow heavy, he lined it up carefully with the others, all arranged on the table. Then he nudged the trash bag as close to the barrier as he could and crept into the sleeping bag. He had debated if he was allowed to keep the shopping bag, but ultimately decided Arden would have said if they needed it back. He left it sitting carefully folded under The Collected Sherlock Holmes.

With the sleeping bag zipped, and the hood up, there was soft flannel around him on every side. Tolly turned on his side and buried his face in it, sternly abjuring himself not to shed further tears that might dampen the fabric.

Perhaps because he had fed so much, he did not dream that day. When he woke, even the taste had perished from his mouth and throat, burnt up. His teeth were clean. He realized, as he looked at them in the distorted curve of the lantern, that with a little effort he could retract his canines again. They withdrew politely to a length that even a mortal would find ordinary. They were still sharp, but most people wouldn’t notice that.

He combed his talons through his hair as beat he could. He wasn’t happy with it, but it would have to do. He wasn’t sure he would even see Arden that night. He still forced down the lingering fear that they would not come back at all. He had mismanaged their last conversation, but –

The basement door opened. Tolly’s head came up, nostrils dilated. To his immense shame, the canines he had just retracted betrayed him immediately as the scent of human blood wafted down ahead of Arden’s footsteps. His sense of smell had fully recovered. He could identify the brands of their deodorant, shampoo, makeup – cheap except for the eyeliner.

As they drew nearer, he could hear their heart beating, too: light, slightly fast. In another day he would be able to tell it apart from the sound of every other heart on earth.

He brought the chair back in front of his rug, turned it around so he could sit with his arms resting on the back, and turned the lamp on, moving slowly and deliberately. It had been so long since he’d heard a heart beating.

Descending footsteps paused at the click and at the light washing out into the basement, but Arden eventually resumed. They stopped in front of the barrier, one hand resting on the outside doorpost. Today they had a gray cotton hoodie on over their baggy shirt and jeans. They looked at him from heavy, puffy eyes, taking in the changes.

“You’re different now,” Arden said. There was a note of uncertainty. They had begun by talking with a dusty, withered corpse. Now they were faced with someone who looked barely older than themselves, bigger, broader, so very male when they so very much did not want to be that, Tolly thought. He had been right to present himself below their eye level. His present form was more threatening than the old one.

Tolly inclined his head, trying not to be distracted by a living thing exhaling into his space. Coffee. Water with electrolytes and a little artificial sweetener. Nothing else recently.

“I am substantially better. I will always be in your debt for that,” he said.

“I told you, you paid me much more than it was worth.” Arden looked at Tolly’s hands, eyes roving over his scarred knuckles, his talons. He watched color rise into their face as their heart accelerated just a little.

“Not to me,” Black Tolly said.

“What ring were you talking about?” Arden asked abruptly. “The first time I saw you, you said something about a ring, too.” They were paler than usual. He was certain it wasn’t just the light.

“The Eye of Rule, Nicholas called it,” Tolly said. “You’ll know it if you see it. The star ruby is ten carats. I’m certain he would have wanted you to have it, if he left you this house.”

“He left me a message,” Arden said. “In the piano. He used to hide messages for me there when I was a kid. If I could guess which key he’d give me a star sticker, and if I got enough stars he’d give me something. It might be candy, or a book or – for a while I thought he was working up to something creepy.” They turned away abruptly, and then swayed, grabbing at the post of the door. Tolly was acutely aware of the vein pulsing in the back of their hand.

“You’re not well,” he said gently. “How long since you’ve slept? Since you’ve eaten?”

“The whole thing is just too weird. I can’t - that’s not what I came down here for,” Arden said. Tolly was still, debating with himself. One stumble and they were both done for. But he didn’t want to scare them away again, either.

“He wouldn’t have hurt you,” Tolly said. “I wouldn’t call him a good man, but he wouldn’t have interfered with a relation or a child. I’m sure he had plans for you, but not like that.”

“I think so, too. But I don’t know what this means. I hoped, since you knew him – “ They made an awkward gesture, reluctantly turning back to face him.

“Of course,” Tolly said. “Read me the message.”

They dug into a pocket for a folded piece of paper and opened it up with shaking hands.

“If you want to earn a star,

The key to a greater gift,

You’ll have to risk a red one

And abandon all your thrift.”

“For someone who considered himself so clever, he never did learn proper meter, but he always loved riddles and tricks.” In spite of everything, he couldn’t keep a reminiscent tone from his voice. “I’m not sure what ‘risk a red one’ would mean, but Nicholas liked coins. Did he ever give you one?”

“More than one. But he probably knew I would still be carrying around the two aegina drachmas,” Arden said. A smile twitched onto their lips and away, there and gone like lightning. Tolly found himself momentarily stunned, not quite hearing part of the next sentence.

“- Not real, they’re replicas, but I loved them as a kid because they have a turtle and you can feel it with your fingers.” They dug in another pocket and came out with two irregular round coins, each with a turtle so thick it was almost three dimensional molded into one side.

“Is there anything in this house you can fit one of those into?” Tolly asked.

“Sure, this place is incredibly cluttered. But the red thing means something dangerous or not allowed. He’d give me red stars for touching the stove or getting into his room, things like that, and if I got five red stars, he said I wouldn’t be allowed to visit for a week. I never did,” they added, eyes blankly focused on the middle distance.

“If I were you, I would start in his closet or bath, then,” Tolly said.

They nodded, the very dark eyes flickering back to his face. “Thanks. I, uh. I ordered you a phone. It’s pay-as-you-go, so it’ll work until you can pick a carrier. It’s supposed to get here tomorrow.” Their eyes darted to his socks. “Shit. I should get you some shoes, too.”

“When I have a phone, I can order my own things to this address, if you don’t mind the annoyance of deliveries,” Tolly said.

“Not a big deal, Tolly. Like I said, it’s the least I can - ”

“Not a safe thing to continue saying to the monster in your basement,” Tolly said.

“But I’m out here. And you’re still stuck in there,” Arden said. “Are you thirsty? How often do you need a drink?”

Tolly caught himself looking at Arden’s throat and politely redirected his gaze to their face again. “Oh, I’ll always be thirsty,” Tolly said dryly. “It is the nature of the beast. But I can maintain in my current health on about sixteen ounces of animal blood or four ounces of human blood per week. The other gallon should last me eight weeks in sedentary conditions, if you wouldn’t mind bringing me a glass in a few days. Go on. Find the ring. Eat and sleep, please.”

“Yeah, yeah.” They waved him off, looking away, but they were blushing again.

Part 8: Faint

@fleur-a-whump, @bitchaknso

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

POLICEMAN CLOAK - The tarpaulin cloak is still hanging on the railing. The white rectangle of the Revachol Citizens Militia is clearly visible on its back.

Grab the cloak. [Leave.]

POLICEMAN CLOAK - As your fingers touch the tarpaulin it almost feels like the cloak wants to deliver a message of comfort through your fingertips...

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - *I will shield you from the elements and give my life for yours* -- that's what the cloak is relaying.

RCM PATROL CLOAK

+1 Esprit de Corps: Taking back the streets +1 Shivers: Know thy neighbourhood

A police cloak made from heavy tarpaulin. It would be nigh wind- and waterproof if there weren't three bullet holes scattered on the surface. The signature white rectangle of the RCM covers the garment's back.

Pretty good, although I'm not sure it's better than the Lounge Jacket at the moment.

Collecting rainwater.

All around you, great machines in quiescence.

White pine trees are printed onto the screen covering. Looks like a forest under snow.

Numerous empty bottles of *Commodore Red* and *Potent Pilsner*.

At least three packs worth of cigarette butts.

NIGHTWATCHMAN'S BOOTH - This is the nightwatchman's booth. The name on the door reads *René Arnoux*.

"So this is where René works. I'm gonna look around." (Search the booth.)

[Leave.]

KIM KITSURAGI - "If you must." The lieutenant looks around. "But please hurry -- we're pretty easy to spot up here."

NIGHTWATCHMAN'S BOOTH - Nothing incriminating catches your eye. The cabinets are clean and their sparse contents meticulously organized. There's a framed photograph on the table.

Take the picture.

Leave the picture alone.

NIGHTWATCHMAN'S BOOTH - It's a black and white photo of a young couple out in a street fair. The man -- René -- is dressed in a Royal Carabineer uniform. The girl is young and very pretty. She is smiling playfully at the camera.

Item gained: Photo of a Happy Couple

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - René looks like he's about to smile. This photo must be tied to some good memories.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Why did you take that picture of René?" the lieutenant asks, glancing at the photo.

[inaris-mage-of-storms]

Okay, I'm still not making much headway on chapter four of HYH, but I needed to write something or I was going to explode. So have a little bonus scene for the first story instead. :D It takes place somewhere after the mineshaft adventure but before the meteor shower.

}{

"And that one's the Gilded Goose," said Scott, pointing up at the sky with one hand while the other entwined with Jimmy's. "She's only visible at the height of summer. Then she moves on, and when winter approaches its peak the Red Wolf takes her place."

Jimmy gazed up at the pattern Scott pointed out in the stars, his thumb absently moving over the back of Scott's hand. "I can't believe how many there are," he said. "I bet if you combined every story from every place, there wouldn't be a single star left that wasn't part of something bigger."

"No, probably not," agreed Scott. It was one of the many things he liked about traveling; every region he visited saw the same stars in a different way, and every story he collected made the tapestry above that much richer. "Are there any that you know?"

"Just that one," said Jimmy, pointing in another direction. "I don't know any stories, but it's called the King. There's his sash, and over there is his crown."

"Oh, wow," said Scott, recognizing part of the constellation. "He overlaps with the Ocean Queen. You can't see the full pattern from here, but she's the most recognizable thing in the sky if you're near the Shallow Sea. They share a crown, I guess."

Jimmy laughed. "Maybe they were in love. Be a strange pair, though, a king of the mesa and a queen of the ocean."

Scott smiled. "Maybe they were." He lay his head on Jimmy's shoulder. "And now they get to dance together for eternity."

"Sounds kinda nice," said Jimmy, and pressed a kiss to Scott's hair. "Speaking of dancing, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to when we went to town."

"Eh, it's alright," said Scott, then smirked. "I enjoyed what we did get to do much better." He didn't raise his head to see if Jimmy's ears were turning red, but he assumed they were from the squeak Jimmy made, and he laughed softly.

"Still," said Jimmy, "you said you like dancing. I just think it's a shame you didn't get to do something you – oh!" He sat straight up, the movement dislodging Scott from his comfortable position. "Wait, I forgot! There should be - " He jumped to his feet and darted over to the barn. Scott followed, curious, and watched as Jimmy dug around a corner where it seemed a variety of objects had been stored out of the way.

"Here it is!" Jimmy lifted a tarpaulin to reveal an old phonograph, then opened a chest below it and took out a record. "Let's see, how did this work again?" he muttered to himself, and after a moment of fidgeting with it, music filled the barn and spilled out into the night air as he successfully got the disc in place and spinning.

Jimmy grinned triumphantly, then went to where Scott stood in the doorway and offered his hand. "I, uh, don't actually know how to dance," he said as his grin turned sheepish. "But would you do me the honor of being my partner?"

Scott laughed, delighted by the music and Jimmy's eagerness. "I would love to," he said, and took Jimmy's hand. "Come on, I'll teach you."

He guided Jimmy through the steps of a simple waltz, and it didn't take long before they were swaying together in a comfortable rhythm. Once Jimmy had an idea of what was expected, his hold on Scott was confident and strong, but never lost its gentleness. Scott watched the moonlight slide across his face as they turned, and the way Jimmy gazed at him made him feel like his heart would drift away to dwell with the stars above if it got any lighter.

Scott's smile dimmed as a realization settled against his ribs. I can't do this to him.

Jimmy was not the first person to look at Scott like they were holding the entire world in their arms. It was another of the things he liked about traveling; sometimes when he found someplace to stay for a while, he got lucky and also found a pretty boy to have a little fun with. He would spend a few weeks pretending to be swept away by flattery and attention, until his admirer conveniently revealed the location of a hidden stash of gold or gems, and Scott's visit conveniently came to an end.

It should have been as simple as it always was. Jimmy should have been just like every other lover swept away by Scott's charm. Scott never dreamed anyone would be able to sweep him away in turn.

The record ended, and Scott and Jimmy drifted to a stop. "How was that?" asked Jimmy with a grin. "Was I okay?"

Scott smiled, feeling a pang in his chest at how easily his arms slipped around Jimmy's neck and Jimmy's arms slipped around his waist. "You were wonderful," he said softly.

Jimmy's grin brightened at the praise, and he pulled Scott into a kiss. Scott leaned into him, fingers caressing the nape of his neck, and he never wanted to let go.

He needed to let go.

In the end, Jimmy made the decision for them. "It's getting late," he said as he pulled away. "Let me get that back where it goes, and we'll go to bed."

Scott stepped back and watched Jimmy disappear into the barn again. "Thank you for the dance," he said when Jimmy returned, and their hands found each other again as they headed back to the house.

"You're welcome," said Jimmy, and pulled Scott's hand up to his lips. "I'll be your dance partner whenever you want. I can't imagine ever wanting to dance with anyone else."

Scott laughed, and he blamed the weakness of it on the late hour. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of dance partners in the future, and better ones than I am."

Jimmy's laugh was far warmer. "Impossible," he said, dropping to a near whisper as they entered the quiet house. "You're everything I could ever want."

series masterpost

[volivolition]

I think it's Wednesday somewhere... how... are your wips doing?

I am glaring at Meet the Parts rn, but any wip update is a win in my book

:D hello red!! <33 ive been more in a drawing mood than writing mood lately, but i will never turn down a little story sharing hkjhg <33 may i offer you a little shivers from Meet the Parts?

YOU – "Thanks for waiting, Shivers. I wanted to dress up to meet you."

SHIVERS [Formidable: Success] – On a small balcony, from an apartment just a five minute jog from the 41st Precinct, two men stand side by side. The cold nips at what skin it can get to as Revachol begins its descent into winter. One wears the stiff tarpaulin of a dark patrol cloak, while the other wears a borrowed fur-lined white jacket. Night and day, hand-in-hand. The breeze rustles through your hair like a mother would smooth back her son’s. It slips under your collar, cold and crisp and welcoming.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] – You shiver, and see Kim does too. His exhale releases like smoke, and the wind swirls the vapor away, dispersing it into the city.

SHIVERS – MY TWO BIRDS. I WOULD WAIT FOR YOU, HOWEVER LONG YOU MAY TAKE.

[heliossecretdeskdrawer]

I... actually have a WIP Wednesday snippet for this blog this week.

A preview of that Solar Flare!MegaRod breeding kink request for the two anons. This fic isn't going to be canonical with Solar Flare, but uses that setting.

Warnings for the snippet: mentions of plug-n-play, nudity, alien (to the characters) anatomy

Megatron had known, of course, that one day Rodimus would likely want to actually make use of his spousal privileges beyond merely stealing his warmth at night.

Rodimus had even once mentioned to him after their union ceremony that he hadn’t had the opportunity to “enjoy the company” of any of his previous protectors, as they had all died beforehand. Once it had become obvious that Megatron was not going to drop dead, fling himself fatally into harm’s way, or jump to his death from a window like the others, naturally Rodimus would probably have started to get ideas.

One night, after several months of passively letting himself be used as a personal heater, he had little reason to be surprised when hands started to roam across his plating long after dark, long after Rodimus was supposed to have been asleep.

A hand planted itself on the middle of his chest.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Not that Megatron was opposed to linking up. Rodimus was pleasant to look at and, with his high energy frame, could probably take and receive a high amount of charge at unimaginable speeds. His defiant and independent nature would also ensure a unique experience.

“Nothing,” Rodimus said, as if on reflex.

An obvious lie, given that Rodimus was now using that hand to hoist himself up and… kick off the tarpaulins?

Cold night air rushed in to replace the liberated warm air formerly trapped by the covers. In the caldera of an active volcano, the nights were still “brisk” this many miles above the lava lakes. The tangle of the city below captured much of that radiant heat.

Rodimus clearly wasn’t trying to trade charge then, a relatively stationary interaction.

Megatron just sighed.

“Why are you making a mess of the berth?”

“What’s it look like? Getting stuff out of the way. Obviously.”

“Out of the way for what exactly?”

Megatron finally bothered onlining his optics to watch as Rodimus continued kicking away the bedding. In short order, he had managed to clear the entire recharge slab of anything that wasn’t the padding underneath them.

“Fucking, duh. Why are you so dense? I thought you were supposed to be smart, Megs.”

Well, he had had an inkling that that was what Rodimus had been after, but once he started destroying the usual nest of tarpaulins and cushions, Megatron had discounted the possibility.

Megatron pushed himself up on his elbows.

If Rodimus had wanted to interface, there would have been no need to move anything. They would only need to simply unspool a few cables from their chest compartments and link up to corresponding ports. Despite their different sizes, they probably weren’t different enough to require adapter attachments.

Or at least, that was the most basic method. Everyone had their preferences.

“I fail to see how that requires you to throw everything to the floor.”

Rodimus paused, putting his hand to his chin in thought as he sat on his knees. He looked off to the side like he had forgotten something.

“… Oh, that’s right. You don’t know yet.” He clapped his hands together and gestured condescendingly towards Megatron with them. “So… Primes do things a little differently. One of the better kept secrets, I guess. Probably easier to show you. Hold on a sec.”

Click. Hiss.

Megatron looked down to see a strange appendage pressuring in the middle of where Rodimus’s pelvic armor usually was.

“What in the void is that?”

“A spike.”

Megatron tilted his head to the side, not really following.

Red and rounded at the top, it looked a bit more like a toy version of a police officer’s baton than anything… spiky. What a weird looking thing. What was it for?

“Which is… what exactly?”

“So, you know how cables go into ports?”

Megatron nodded.

“This whole thing is like a very special cable.” A mod then, perhaps? “And I’m going to put it in your special port.”

“My what?”

[aarghhaaaarrrghhh]

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

Chapter Eight. Red Konev's Bath

His slumber during the fishing trip did not solve Yurka’s problem: he dreadfully wanted to sleep. He planned to make up for the hours of sleep that he had not gotten at night during the day, in quiet hour. But, by the dormitories, Volodya was waiting for him. Having noticed his tall figure from a distance, Yurka decided that the counsellor was probably going to suggest going to make revisions to the lines in the script again, and he wanted to refuse.

“Hello.” Broadly yawning to make his point, Yurka covered his mouth with his fist. “I want to sleep – I’m dying.”

“There’s no time to sleep!” Volodya smiled shrewdly, pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket and jingled them. “You said that you know where to find the bas-relief from your horror story, while I have the keys to the boat station. Information from you, a rowboat from me. Shall we get rowing?”

His sleepiness disappeared as if by magic. Yurka clapped his hands in impatience as he joked:

“Oh! Friendship with a counsellor has its benefits!”

Volodya heartily laughed and nodded to Yurka as he descended the steps of the porch for him to follow.

“It’s not going to be a problem for you at all, is it, that you took the keys?” asked Yurka ten minutes later, while Volodya was bent over the keyhole in the gate to the station, picking out the right key from the bunch.

“What could be the problem? It’s not like I stole them. I signed myself into the register and so it went. In the administrative office, we have keys hanging up that the counsellors can take when they please.”

“Even for no reason?”

“Surely you don’t think that the counsellors are non-humans who don’t like to get out of quiet hour?” Volodya winked.

Behind the gate and the storage facility stretched a long pier, laid from concrete slabs. In the water, bumping against the tyre fenders, a dozen rowboats rocked, each one moored to the low iron pilings by its number with heavy chains.

“Do you know how to get on with oars?” Volodya turned as he stepped towards the far edge of the pier.

 “Duh! I earn a little money on the side as an oarsman every summer when we’re allowed to go sailing. Take this one,” he indicated the penultimate boat, which was freshly painted in light blue, “it has comfortable oars.”

Yurka kept command from then on. They took off the tarpaulin that covered the boat from rain and climbed down into it. Yurka demonstrated how best to sit in order to maintain balance and only then took the keys off Volodya to unlock and undo the chain. It loudly clattered against the concrete, while Yurka pushed the boat off from the pier and sat down, guiding towards the middle of the river.

“The current is strong here,” he warned. “I’ll take it halfway on oars, then you’ll do the way back, otherwise my arms will fall off.”

“You do know where we’re going, right?” asked Volodya doubtfully.

“Of course I know! Straight! There aren’t any crossroads or traffic lights here!”

“And in seriousness?”

“As I said, straight the whole time up until the river bends. By the way, there is this one place…” Yurka looked at Volodya delightedly as he remembered it. “I’m sure you’ll like it. It takes some real back-and-forth rowing to get there!”

“What is this place?”

“Well… the counsellors forbid us from rowing there – they say it’s dangerous. That’s a load of rubbish! I dropped by there once; of course, I got a hiding for it afterwards but… So should we go? It’s so cool there!”

Volodya reflected on it with his habitual gesture – correcting his glasses, loftily, by the sides.

“Yur, you know I’m a counsellor…” he began.

“No matter! Just say ‘I allow it’ and there’s no problem.”

“I don’t know…” the other drawled.

“Come on, Volodya!” exclaimed Yurka cheerfully. “Come on, don’t be such a… such a Vo-load-a’-rubbish![1] It’s not dangerous there, so long as you don’t jump out of the boat. Honest!”

“And if you jump out? Sharks? Crocodiles?”

“Pirates! In reality, it’s just algae. A lot of it!”

“And does it take a long time to row there?”

Yurka shrugged:

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen….”

“In heat like this?” frowned Volodya. In the cloudless sky, the sun really was beating down mercilessly, while they had to row down the shallow but wide, shadeless river. “Alright then. But it’s your responsibility!” he gave in anyway.

“Responsibility is my second name,” smirked Yurka.

The current in that part of the river really was quick and strong, and he had to row against it. Yurka huffed and puffed and being out of habit, it took him a long time to adjust to the required tempo – the last time he had practised rowing had been a year ago.

They rowed for some time in complete silence, save for the splash of the oars in the water and the rustling of the reeds. On the right, the gently rolling bank stretched long and far, like a yellow-green canvas receding into the distance, towards the boundary of the pioneer camp. On the left, the tall bank, sprinkled with swallow[2] nests, was frightening, with steep precipices, tree roots sticking out of the sandy walls, waterlogged shoals and the forest looming above all. But the height of the trees was not enough to cast a proper shade upon the river, and Yurka, who was rowing the oars on top of everything else, was growing terribly hot.

“Yur, I’d like to ask you something,” Volodya broke the silence unsurely. “May I?”

“Go on, ask, since you’ve already started.”

“I’ve heard some things about last year’s events. Olga Leonidovna said that you were treated badly. Broadly speaking, that’s why they decided to take you back on this season – they regretted it. Before, I thought that I just didn’t know everything about what had happened, but when I got to know you better, I realised that really, I don’t know anything about it. Could you tell me what happened and why?”

Yurka breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled.

“You know, we had this, ah, um … weirdo staying with us last year. That one, whose old man was in the nomenklatura,[3] ah, who… Hmm, here, we’ll have to start from the beginning. I used to go to a music school at a conservatoire, I dreamt of become a pianist–” Noticing how Volodya’s eyes were widening with surprise, Yurka jumped in ahead of his questions: “–and I didn’t tell you because I don’t like to even remember any of this. Understand… I really loved the piano, I couldn’t live without it. No, ‘really’ isn’t the right word, I loved it fanatically. I’ve always been drawn to the keys, ever since I was a little kid.”

Yurka took a big pause while he searched for the right words. He thought long and hard how to explain and show to Volodya how important music was for him. That he could not imagine his life without it, that he could not imagine himself without it. From early childhood, it had always been with him, it accompanied him in his thoughts, consoled him, calmed him, made him happy, he dreamt of it every night and played every minute that he was awake. Yurka never got tired of it. On the contrary, in moments of silence, he grew anxious, clumsy, he could not concentrate. At times, feeling like a fanatic – nothing besides the piano could excite or move him – Yurka feared for his alienation from the majority of people. It was as though he existed in another dimension as he tried to understand whether the music lived in him, or whether he lived in the music. Was it shining inside him like a tiny, yet bright little star, or was he inside a vast universe, perceptible only to him alone?

But how to explain all this to Volodya? To a friend, but at the same time, to a different person, and one foreign to music? On top of this, Yurka had never spoken aloud about this. Music was his personal, inner experience, subtle and fragile, and in no way did he want to formulate it in primitive words.

“I didn’t go to a general comprehensive, but to a specialised middle school for music. Do you know about those?” Volodya shrugged, and Yurka explained, “Besides the normal school subjects, they teach musical ones there. You need to study at one for ten years and then, without any college, you go straight on into a conservatoire. Now, I did excellently in the first exams in fourth grade, but things started to go downhill in eighth grade. At the end of eighth grade, there’s always an exam, where instead of our normal teachers, instructors from the conservatoire – the school worked as part of it – come and watch to pick out in advance the musicians that they’ll take on to the conservatoire after their graduation…” Yurka fell silent midsentence.

Volodya was looking searchingly at him, his head slightly atilt, neither blinking nor breathing:

“Well?”

Yurka stopped, wiped his forehead and averted his gaze:

“I failed. I was told I was ‘average’.”

“And what? The main thing is that it wasn’t an F!”

“This is music, Volod! Everything’s serious there; either you’re a genius or you’re nothing, they don’t put up with ‘average’ in music! So, they advised me to leave because, since I’d failed the exam, I’d no longer see a place in the conservatoire. But I’m stubborn, I stayed. I stayed for nothing. For half a year, they dragged me through the mud, gave me bottom grades, said horrible things. And once they’d finally driven it into my head that I was nothing, I left. Myself. I threw away everything. Since then, I’ve not touched an instrument.”

Volodya kept silent, while Yurka, as though bewitched, looked at the river, thinking about how hard, almost impossible it had been, after his disgraceful flight from the school, to force the music to shut up, and then learn to live in silence. Up to then, he still had not overcome his reflexes and beat himself on the arms and squeezed his fingers until they hurt, if only to break his habit of drumming his favourite compositions, and his own compositions on any available surface. Even then, he was unconsciously tapping on the oar without recognising, even trying not to recognise, the melody.

“But why did they only reveal this in eighth grade?” inquired Volodya cautiously. “Why not earlier?”

“Because it had nothing to do with me or my talent at all!” snorted Yurka.

Volodya’s mouth hung open:

“How’s that?”

“In the most direct way! The son of the head of the city executive committee studied with us. A complete mediocrity and he played hooky the whole time, but he wanted to get into the conservatoire. So they promoted him in my place.” Yurka gripped the oars tightly and smirked scornfully. “So, this is your hand: Konev lives for music, but is an underachiever academically – ‘average’, even, while Vishnevsky blows off school, but he can, he’s what – a talent? He wasn’t any kind of talent! What kind, huh?”

“Yeah, wow…” Volodya trailed off, clearly not knowing how to respond, and looked away, effacing himself.

Yurka diligently but unsuccessfully tried to suffocate the anger inside him, which was tearing its way up to the surface, appearing in the red spots on his cheeks, being heard in the bile in his voice, shining in the feverish glint in his eyes. Bringing Yurka to reason when he was so wound up – even his oar strokes were so sharp that the boat rocked – was useless which was probably why Volodya was silent. Yurka found his words and he began in a strained voice:

“And what was it like for me when, the next summer, I got into Lastochka with that nomenklatura creature in the same season, in the same troop? And that bastard, that asshole–”

“Hey, cool it with the language,” Volodya checked him, but Yurka, gripped by rage and hurt, did not pay any attention to him. He set himself to rowing and did so in a frenzy, dripping in sweat, but he had completely forgotten about the heat.

“It’s all because of him, because of him that they kicked me out! He ruined my life! As if my humiliation at school wasn’t good enough for him! He decided to drag me through the muck here as well – in front of the entire camp, he called me a little kike! At the same time, I didn’t hold back, I gave him a real good blow across his ugly mug, also in front of everyone. A real good hit, his nose smashed, blood gushing… I’ve never hit anything or anyone so hard,” Yurka laughed proudly, “I minded my hands. Ever since I was little, my grandma has harped on, ‘Yura, mind your hands. Yura, mind your hands’. Mind them from what? Why mind them?”

“Hang on, but why ‘kike’? You’re Jewish?” asked Volodya, trying to lead him away from the painful topic.

“Through my mother,” nodded Yurka without looking.

“But how did Vishnevsky find out about that? It’s not obvious looking at you, you’re like any other Russian: name, surname, face, hair – there’s nothing Jewish about you.”

“I don’t know, he probably saw in the shower…”

“How’s that?” Volodya did not understand.

Yurka smirked and shrugged flippantly:

“Family tradition.”

And then Volodya understood. He raised an eyebrow and stretched, inconsiderately looking Yurka up and down from head to toe.

“O-o-oh… So that’s how it is… Interesting…”

Yurka almost blurted out ‘Shall I show you?’ But under his excessively curious, piercing gaze, he was bewildered: What’s he imagining there?! Because of Volodya’s brazenness, he began to feel coy. He smiled fitfully, blushed, and began to feel the heat again.

Volodya was looking at him full in the face with eyes full of some kind of sacred awe – the penny had apparently dropped, apparently, he was imagining himself in his skin. He made a face and, dumbstruck, he whispered with a whistle:

“Holy moly, what a nightmare!”

That angered and outraged and insulted Yurka so much that he began to chew himself out for his excessive candour in response to such sensitive questions. Because of his big mouth, Volodya had unwittingly gotten into his intimacy, and, judging by his intrigued look, he was not in a hurry to get back out again. So Volodya forbids me from talking about those magazines, but he’s perfectly pleased to think about my privates?! Yurka railed in his mind. Volodya had still hurt him badly by his reaction. And still his inner voice cajolingly reminded him about the crisis at exercise the day before and his goosebump-ridden dream and on top of the external heat, he was gripped by an inner heat, so much that his lungs felt twisted.

“I didn’t want it!” Yurka repented aloud, and, looking at Volodya’s dumbfounded eyes, he came back to his senses and began to babble along on the topic of conversation: “Firstly, no-one asked me. Secondly, I was little and don’t remember anything about it. And third of all… it’s… stop imagining it! It’s not anyone’s business! And it’s not a nightmare at all!”

“Hey, hey, what’s with you? I– Nothing of the sort!” Volodya shook his head, blushing all the way up to the roots of his hair. “And anyway, there’s nothing really strange about this, it’s an old tradition, a few thousand years old, it’s normal… at the end of the day… Are you religious?”

“Are you an idiot?”

“All the more so, then…”

 Yurka snorted and took a look around, if only to deflect from himself. There was no sign of civilisation around: neither huts amongst the undergrowth, nor rooves on the horizon. They had not yet rowed the first kilometre. The camp and the station had long ago disappeared behind the wide bend in the river, and now the guys were surrounded by a beautiful, but boring landscape – identical, sparse forests and fields, shimmering in the heat haze. Nothing caught the eye, apart from perhaps the tall hill visible in the distance and the tiny gazebo on top of it. But that was not where their way laid. Yurka judged that they would very soon arrive at the place he had proposed.

Volodya’s quiet voice tore him away from his reflections:

“All the same, I’m very glad that you told me about this. I mean, about the music. It turns out I don’t know you at all.”

“Nor I you,” shrugged Yurka. “I told you about my music, not because you asked… It’s more like, of course you asked, but I could have kept quiet or avoided the question somehow. But I decided to trust you.”

Volodya looked at him with gratitude.

“You know…” he said quietly, “I could also tell you my most terrible secret, but no-one must ever find out, no matter what. Promise?”

Yurka nodded, bewildered – how could he have managed to leave room for mistrust? Of course he would not tell, no matter what Volodya confessed to.

“Take you for example, Yura, you refuse to live the way they tell you,” Volodya leant closer to him and lowered his voice completely, even though nobody was going to overhear them in the middle of the river, in the noise of the reeds. “You say that you have relatives in the GDR… Have you yourself never wanted to leave the country?”

This question seemed rhetorical, but Yurka replied:

“Well… My grandma tried to return to Germany, since it’s her historical homeland. But she wasn’t allowed. I have a cousin there, but once-removed, so it’s not like–”

“Well, I want to leave,” interrupted Volodya. “More accurately, I don’t just want to, it’s my main goal!”

Yurka’s jaw dropped.

“But you’re in Komsomol, you’re so… proper, Party-minded, you’re, you’re–”

“That’s precisely why I’m like you say, ‘proper’ and ‘Party-minded’ – to achieve my goal! Yur, the logic is actually simple – they only let Communists freely out of the USSR, ‘verified’ Communists, even more freely and, it stands to reason, ‘verified’ Communist diplomats on a diplomatic mission.”

“And in order to become a diplomat, you got into MGIMO…” Yurka finished for him. Volodya nodded.

Even though there was not another soul for a few kilometres in all directions, because of his quiet voice, his agitated tone and because of how he kept taking cautious looks from side to side, a shiver ran across Yurka’s skin and his hair stood on end. If someone heard Volodya, he would be kicked out of Komsomol immediately, in disgrace. His whole life and goals, gone to ruin! And he had told Yurka about it. It was not because he did not trust him that he asked him to keep quiet, it was just that the truth was too dangerous.

“And where do you want to go?” asked Yurka.

“To America.”

“Riding a mustang out on the prairies?” he laughed nervously.

“A motorbike. A Harley Davidson – have you heard about those?”

Yurka did not respond. He had not heard of such a motorcycle, and he did not know anything about the work of diplomats, but he began to feel anxious for Volodya. His ‘we’re not living under Stalin’ came suddenly back to him, but that was not much of an excuse.

Still in a state of light shock, Yurka almost missed the necessary turn.

“Oh, there it is! Over there,” he exclaimed and pointed at the wall of reeds.

The oar struck against the bottom – it was not very deep there. Yurka swung the boat about and directed it straight into the reeds.

“What are you doing?” asked Volodya in surprise.

“It’s alright. Help me out, spread the reeds in front of the bow, just don’t cut yourself.”

The boat ran up against the shallows, passed through the undergrowth and before the guys’ eyes, a little backwater, covered in duckweed and waterlilies, opened up. The current did not reach there, and the water stagnated, giving the aquatic flora a chance to grow. The oars got stuck and now and then, Yurka had to reach out to wipe off the bits slimy algae clinging to them. But he knew this place and knew why he had brought Volodya there. It was worth it, even in spite of the particular odour of marshy water and clouds of buzzing midges.

Pond-skaters skittered over the surface of the water, strained croaking rang out from the reeds, while some particularly bold frogs sat directly on the waxy leaves of the waterlilies as the observed the boat floating by. The waterlilies there were yellow, like you find anywhere, and Yurka carefully peered off into the distance, scouring the backwater with a gaze.

“Look, a heron!” he cried, waving his hand in the direction of the bank, overgrown with reeds.

“Where?” Volodya prodded at the bridge of his nose and squinted in the indicated direction.

“It’s right there,” Yurka pointed at the reeds, but then figured that no matter how hard he strained, Volodya could not see it. “It’s hidden itself well, the jerk, you can barely tell it apart from the reeds,” Yurka took his hand and moved it in the direction of the wall of dark-brown plants, from which a long beak was poking out, and commanded: “Point your finger!”

Volodya obediently extended his finger and once done, Yurka corrected his direction.

“Ah… There, I see it!” exclaimed Yurka joyfully. “Wow!”

“What, you’ve never seen one before?”

He shook his head:

“Nuh-uh. What a funny little thing, it’s standing on one leg! It’s pretending that it’s not there at all.”

Volodya followed the heron, while Yurka caught himself thinking that he was still holding his hand and did not at all want to let it go… Moreover, Volodya was not letting his hand go… But all the same, he had to break off their contact in order to take up the oars again and lead the boat closer to the shore.

“Let’s go,” he announced. “Look how beautiful it is here.”

Volodya looked around, and then at Yurka, not understanding, while the latter nodded at the water. He swung the boat around across the backwater, threw down the oars and relaxed, rolling his shoulders.

Everywhere, no matter where one looked, white flowers were floating on the water. Dozens of huge, snow-white waterlilies with deep yellow, egglike cores floated among dark-green burdock leaves, on top of which pearlescent blue dragonflies now froze, then darted about at a clip.

Volodya feasted his eyes upon the backwater, his glaze now fixed upon the flowers, then rushing after the insects, then searching amongst the leaves for frogs. Yurka feasted his eyes upon him. As he watched as though bewitched the tender smile that wandered his lips, Yurka was ready to row here against the current and endure the biting midges a hundred times if only to see even once such delight in his look.

“River lilies! How fantastic!” Volodya leant over the edge and touched the white petals with his fingers – so delicately and timidly, as though he were handling something fragile and valuable. “There’s so many of them… They’re wonderful. Like something out of the fairy tales about Thumbelina.”

Yurka leapt up from his spot, the boat dangerously rocking beneath him.

“Shall we pick one?” he suggested. He reached out towards the flower, took it by the cluster and was about to give it a tug when Volodya slapped him on the wrist.

“Hey, stop that! Did you know that these flowers are in the Red Book?”

Yurka blinked in fright and stared him in the face.

“That’s why you’ve been looking for them for so long,” continued Volodya didactically. “They float by, get picked and then turn out to be an endangered species! And there’s no point to it, by the way! They’re lilies – water plants, take them out of water and they’ll wither straight away. They shrink and die right in your hand. They don’t hold up well in flowerpots or vases, like some kind of rose.”

“Alright, alright,” Yurka held his hands out in front of him apologetically, as though to show that they were empty, that he had not picked or killed anything. “I just wanted to give to you, as a keepsake.”

“I’ll remember them. Thank you. It was actually worth the row here.”

Admiring the flowers, they sat around for a while longer. Yurka listened to the croaking of the frogs and the buzzing of the pearlescent dragonflies and thought about how terribly tired he was of living in silence. Not an external silence, naturally, but an inner one. But, despite his sad thoughts, he felt so peaceful and at ease there that he would have liked to have stayed there until evening, but Volodya looked at his watch and began to fret:

“An hour has already gone by; will we be able to get to the bas-relief today?”

“We can get the rowing done, but from the riverbank to the bas-relief there’s still a good hike…”

“A shame…” he sighed sadly. “Then what, should we go straight back?”

“As you like, we still have half an hour before the horn.”

“Then should we sit for a little while in the shade, even for ten minutes? Over there, there’s some on the bank, do you see it?”

“I see it,” nodded Yurka morosely. He himself would have liked to cool off, his whole body was burning from within from the heat. “But if we row there, we’ll damage the lilies…”

Yurka expected Volodya to be resigned to fate, or to the heat, more like, and to order him to row back, but he suddenly perked up and exclaimed, his blazing eyes shining:

“Yur, what if we went bathing? Is there somewhere for it around here? It’s a river, there must be…”

Yurka reflected. As it happened, there was a little spot over there, past the bend. ‘Beach’ was overstating it, but they could moor the boat there. One problem – he did not have any swimming trunks with him.

“I don’t have anything for it, Volod. My trunks are back at my troop, while my shorts–” Yurka faltered. His underwear… Getting them wet meant getting his shorts soaked through. “Well… not if I go commando afterwards.”

“Why go commando afterwards when you can just be naked in the river?” winked Volodya as he unbuttoned his shirt  in anticipation, even though the guys had not yet moved from their spot. “What? There’s no girls for a kilometre around, no-one will see.”

“Fair enough,” recognised Yurka and turned the boat in the direction of the little beach.

But all the same, he felt ill at ease. Getting undressed… No, in actuality, there was nothing strange about it, they were both boys. Yurka bathed naked a hundred times. And not only bathed, but gone in the shower and the changing rooms, and never once had he felt ashamed doing so in front of his comrades. But those were comrades, and this was Volodya, it was completely different. For the first time in his life, it was different.

But no, he was not by any means ashamed. Despite all that talk about religious traditions and Volodya’s seemingly indecent interest, he was not ashamed, he was worried to the point of being struck dumb. But refusing? No way!

Yurka nodded. But, remembering the muddle from the day before, he turned away when Volodya started to undress and himself only took off his clothes once the other had dived.

After plunging headfirst and resurfacing, Yurka barely managed to rub his eyes before Volodya had almost reached the other bank as he tore off for it. He struck the water so strongly that droplets flew like a fountain from under his hands and, as the sun’s rays filtered through them, little rainbows appeared and disappeared in the same moment. Now that’s breaststroke! Vigorous, brisk, if only I could be so good! Envied Yurka, and his gaze fell upon Volodya’s shoulders. A thought full of sincere admiration arose of its own accord – he seemed thin, but what shiny and strong shoulders he had!

Yurka stood thus in the water as warm as fresh milk. Unmoving as he admired how Volodya swam, how gracious and natural he appeared – so free, so liberated. He watched Volodya pause, take off his glasses and hold them tight in his fist, then dive, and for a second, there appeared over the water, uncovered by cloth that which Yurka had stared at admiringly the morning before. Just one moment, he did not manage to make anything out, but a lump crept up into his throat and his body lit up with a pleasant cramp, unlike anything he had ever experienced. Yurka went numb.

And then the realisation of everything that was happening with him came crashing into his head and nailed him to the spot. The realisation was so pure and simple that it flabbergasted Yurka – how could he have not guessed before and why was it only then that he found the sole answer to a million questions all at once? It was all so simple! Who was Volodya to him? A friend. Of course, a friend. The kind of whom the thought makes you fall asleep sweetly and wake up cheerfully. The kind whom it is so pleasant to look at, the kind from whom you did not look away, you feast your eyes upon him and he upon you. The most beautiful person in the world, the most kind and the most intelligent, in all things, the most. The kind with whom it is interesting even to just be silent – that was the kind of friend Volodya was to him. A friend that he liked in that strange, silly, all-encompassing way.

No, it can’t be that! Yurka did not believe it. That was not something that happened in nature, he had never heard anything about it from anybody. Even the guys from the yard never joked about that, and they knew and joked about everything. Yurka simply could not believe that a friend could crave so strongly for a friend that…

He thought he had been afraid before. For example, after the exercise, but in reality, that had just been anxiety, and now true fear had appeared. Why had this happened and what was it? Was there a name for it? Was Yurka alone; had it happened to anyone else? No, whatever it was and whatever it was called, it was unnatural, it did not happen and must not happen with him! Perhaps it was some kind of psychological disorder? Or simply exhaustion? Over the course of that season, Yurka had jumped through so many hoops, gotten so worn out and played out that clearly his brain had packed up. He would go home, knock on wood and he would be all alright again. He wanted to be home already, he just did not at all want to part ways with Volodya.

He wanted something else – to share his fear and his revelation with his best friend. He wanted to tell him his big secret: I like you, I’m happy that you’re here. But even simply imagining how Yurka would say that to him was scarier than jumping from a thirty-metre tower into icy water, worse than diving into an abyss. But what if he made up his mind anyway? What if he plunged headfirst into the whirlpool and said it how it was – what then? In the depths of his soul, Yurka knew precisely: Volodya would burst out laughing, thinking that he was laughing with him – but in reality, he would be laughing at him. That’s how it would be.

And even if the gift of eloquence was revealed to Yurka and he could explain what he truly meant by ‘like’ and ‘happy’ and that he was not asking anything of Volodya, just telling him out of joy, just so that he would know… Volodya still would not be able to understand it. He would do everything he could to understand, but he would not grasp it, would not get it into his head. Of course he could not, for even Yurka still could not.

How could he explain it to Volodya and have him understand? So far, only one thing was clear – now Yurka definitely would not forsake him, nor cast him aside, nor forget him. Kilometres would be no barrier; Yurka would remain his loyal friend, forever and always, wherever life sent them each, whether to another continent, whether to the Moon, whether to asteroid B-612. Now Yurka would begin to need Volodya even more, and even more sharply feel the loneliness and emptiness when he was not around. Further, he would certainly come to know woe. It would catch him when Volodya also came to experience this feeling, but it would not be addressed to the difficult Yurka, but to an understandable other.

Yurka stood as though embedded. Afraid to move even slightly, he watched Volodya and thought, thought, thought. His head spun, his eyes went blind – the droplets of water, like sparks, were ablaze in the sun, the splashing was a noise in his ears. Dumbstruck, Yurka watched how his best and most special friend puffed and panted and laughed, while he himself could not take a step. He froze with his whole body waist-deep in the water, arms by his sides.

Volodya quickly noticed his strange behaviour and swam up to him. Yurka stared him in the face, frightened and did something completely stupid – he covered his groin with his hands. Why had he covered up? What was he covering himself from? It was instinctive and out of shame – he was naked, after all. But only in body, still?

Volodya frowned:

“Yur, is everything alright?” he touched his shoulder, cold even in the sun. “Something up with your leg?”

Should he lie? Cut himself? No. Volodya would ask to see and not see anything. Dizzy? Then he would send him to the shade and how would that be better? What could make him feel better now?

“Nothing. I’m fine,” grumbled Yurka listlessly.

“You’re all white… Cramps? Let me help…” Volodya came up close to him and stuck his hand under the water.

“No, there’s no need, it’ll go away by itself. It’s not cramp, it’s just… I’m just… tired and everything’s all gone wrong. We didn’t make it to the bas-relief, for instance.” Yurka blushed. He definitely blushed, his cheeks seared as though a hot-water bottle had been held against them.

“There’s something to worry about,” Volodya drew out, unconvincedly.

A few minutes later, once they had both dressed and sat down in the boat, Volodya, having never gotten the truth out of Yurka, tried to calm him down:

“We’ll make it there another time. Give me the oars.” Yurka, if listlessly, smiled at that.

They rowed quicker on the way back, since the current really did carry their boat forward. Volodya quietly sang some song, Yurka did not recognise it. He did not try to pay attention and recognise it, he just looked at the water and thought about ‘liking’.

“Now that’s a willow!” suddenly exclaimed Volodya, pointing towards the tall bank. “You see it? That one, big as a marquee– no, like a whole house! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

At the spot that he pointed out, the bank smoothly descended down to the very river. A small sand bank with a good approach to the water half-hid itself in the thick branches of a weeping willow, which bent its crown towards the river itself.

“Let’s stop here, Yur,” asked Volodya.

“Then we won’t make it to climbing, you said it yourself,” hurried Yurka to respond, but, seeing the enthusiasm in Volodya’s eyes, he suggested, “Maybe tomorrow?”

“But what if I don’t manage to get a boat tomorrow?”

“Then I’ll try to memorise how to get there along the bank.” Yurka studied the bluff and its top part. “I know that there must be a path there, leading straight to the bank. It begins at the ford that was by our beach, I walked there at some point… The counsellors don’t let kids go there, but that’s understandable, it’s dangerous. The bank is sandy, it falls out from beneath your feet and to come crashing down from a cliff like that would really be something.”

“Shall we try and get there tomorrow?” proposed Volodya impatiently.

Yurka was taken aback:

“Since when were you such an adventurer?”

Volodya shrugged:

“I don’t know. Perhaps I’m taking after your example.”

***

In the evening, Yurka set out to find the willow. Trying to get rid of his intrusive, frightening thoughts about ‘liking’, he memorised every turn of the path, every rise and descent, every little mound and stone, and spent not a small amount of time in search of the way.

He returned to the theatre a full hour after the rehearsal began. The actors were playing out their roles satisfactorily, Volodya was thoroughly absorbed in the rehearsal, while Yurka, bored, roamed around the theatre.

The piano was silent for once. Clearly, Volodya had asked Masha for a little quiet and now, frowning, she sat in the theatre, not far from the stage.

Yurka kept stealing glances at the instrument and regretting that he had remembered that story. Now he very much wanted to approach the piano, open the lid and touch the keyboard, even for a second. Not even to make a sound, just to feel the cool lacquered wood beneath his fingers. While everybody was occupied with the action taking place on the left half of the stage, Yurka dared to approach the instrument on the right. He opened the lid. A bright glint ran across the keys and Yurka was suddenly gripped by a panicky horror. In a matter of seconds, he found himself a couple of metres away from the piano.

Biting his lips, he looked at it like prey; by old habit, he ‘drew’ his fingers. Suddenly, an inner voice broke into his head, only a foreign one, not Yurka’s – it was the examiner’s, the old fat auntie with a perm. Yurka was surprised that he could even remember her. He tried to deflect or ignore the voice, but he could not. He did not want to listen, but he listened, and was in pain because of it: Draw your hands and touch the instrument, for all it’s worth. Play what you want and as much as you want, it’ll all be pointless. No matter what, you are ungifted and mediocre, and you do not have a musical future. Playing is just pouring salt in the wound. Of course, she had never said exactly those words. Yurka had said them to himself.

“Oh, alright, hello, schizophrenia,” he whispered venomously to himself and hid himself backstage.

Until the rehearsal ended, Yurka aimlessly wandered around the theatre, bored. He dreamed of getting into the mechanic’s cabin, but it was locked, as usual. In the vast building, he found all of one single more or less interesting place – the storeroom behind the stage. He crept in there and found a box with film slides and a projector, and after the rehearsal, he presented his find to Volodya.

Despite the panic aroused by Yurka’s frightening discovery, and his bad mood, having been in anguish the whole day following it, after bedtime, he, of course, headed to Volodya and his kids. Instead of horror stories, film slides were chosen by the whole fifth squad. The boys voted for The Adventures of Cipollino, while the girls really wanted Sleeping Beauty. After four hours of fiery arguments, the young gentlemen reached a resolute decision: to leave it to the ladies.

As soon as the children had laid down and made out as though they were asleep, Yurka and Volodya returned to ‘their’ place. Yurka was gloomy like never before. He had neither the strength nor the will to even chat about whatever, much less to rewrite a script. Volodya again tried to find out the truth, but Yurka was firm and silent like a partisan. After several fruitless attempts by Volodya to improve his mood, for the rest of the evening up to the general lights out, he did nothing but mumble, and rather falsely at that, a waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet, and rocked the carousel to the beat. Yurka was silent at first. Then he complained, “Too slow. And there, it’s more ‘m-m'. And slower there…” And then he thawed out and began to teach Volodya to properly hum the waltz. He hummed so much that for the whole following night, he dreamt of ballerinas and for the first time in half a year, music began to sound in his head rather than words. Such difficult days and sweet dreams, he had not had in a very long time.

[1] In Russian, Yurka makes a pun on Volodya’s name and the word for an Aquarius, Vodolej. I’ve tried to preserve the presence of a pun here.

[2] In Russian, lastochka

[3] I.e., high-ranking in the Soviet bureaucracy