Lucid Dreamer (2/2)
part 1
Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.
It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.
But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.
There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.
Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.
Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.
Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.
Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.
Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.
He doesn't dream.
One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.
And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.
And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.
He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.
But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.
The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.
Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.
The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.
"I'll be home in one week."
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mmm older childe carrying a lil extra weight on his waistline bc he finally settles down with zhongli, who loves nothing more than taking care of him. always a dragon at heart, gift giving is a major love language of his, and doting on childe feels like a behaviour intrinsically written into his DNA.
childe who's a little insecure when his clothes become a bit snug - not necessarily about his body, but because it means he's gone soft - and zhongli who shows him why soft is good. shows him just how much there is to love, how much more of him there is to grab and sink his teeth into. zhongli who kisses and praises his little stretch marks and worships every change in his body, any small difference that may have planted seeds of doubt in childe's mind.
worrying he and his insecurities are burdensome, zhongli assures childe that there's nothing more he loves to do than bring him to his favorite bakeries and restaurants and ply him with all of his favorite foods. watching his eyes light up, his tongue lick the crumbs from his fingers, his lips stain red from wine as he relishes every delicious bite, savors every rich taste.
zhongli is even happier seeing him enjoy his food; seeing him enjoy and settle into life, now that he has the time for it. the proof of this joy, manifesting in a soft, gently curving arc of a wider middle, in plumped thighs and rounded cheeks and a heavier frame when he sits in zhongli's lap, is only something to treasure. the archon more often that not finds himself touching childe with such affection; in public, in private, wherever they are, he cherishes the life they have together. he slides his hands over the gentle slope of his middle, pressing his fingers into the pillowy softness. he cups his face when he kisses him and brushes his thumbs across the apples of his cheeks, admiring the new gilded freckles. glides his hands over his thicker arms, widened hips, the tender flesh of his thighs, soaking in how beautiful he looks and how utterly divine he feels.
his stomach, in particular, zhongli admires. somewhere a little healthier to rest his head when sleepiness washes over the two and they snuggle close in bed, childe's fingers absently twirling his dark hair around his fingers. somewhere a little more nourished to settle his hands when he wakes up and the redhead is already making two coffees through a haze of sleep, smiling crookedly with hooded eyes and a gruff good morning when zhongli hugs him from behind. he nuzzles his own cheek against childe's. slips his hands over his inviting middle, palms fitting perfectly over the gentle swell of his warm belly. pressing innocent kisses to his neck, he slips his hands up his shirt to appreciatively sink his fingertips into the yielding softness, calming the small growls of morning hunger.
childe with little bite marks on his tummy chub. with finger print bruises on his thighs and pliant hips. with stretch marks and a plush cushioning to his body, built from the delight zhongli takes in providing him the life of luxury he deserves. signs of comfort, of care, of love, instead of just wounds and scars from a life of violence. zhongli finds himself warmed by the changes in his body and how comfortable he's gotten. looking after him is something he once feared the battle-addicted harbinger would not be able to live long enough to let him do; and now, both in retirement, he doesn't waste a single minute passing up the privilege to do so.
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Andrew Garfield at the Ischia Global Fest
"I think it’s so hard for young people right now to focus on what’s real and what’s meaningful. I think we get given lots of opportunities to follow what’s not meaningful. And for me, where I find meaning is beyond - beyond myself. Beyond Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and all those things, that’s not where real life lives. Cinema is where real life lives, theatre is where real life lives; art, music, creativity, community, love, nature."
"This is why this has been one of the most remarkable weeks that I’ve had in recent memory, because this island and this festival - combined with these men here who organized it - bring together maybe all the most meaningful aspects of life, for me. Which is art, cinema, theatre, music, friendship, community, food, culture, history."
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